LITMIR.BIZ

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memory. At least there had been no sound the night those bullets had been fired into her home. At first she hadn’t understood why the windows had shattered, why the pictures had fallen off the walls. She’d figured it might have been an earthquake; there had been a couple of small ones in the area around that time. But then she’d heard the car drive away, tires squealing, and when she’d stepped outside, she’d seen the shells on the ground.

      “We’re fine,” Milek said. And he must have accepted that she was, too, because he set her on her feet. She hadn’t realized how badly her legs were shaking until they nearly buckled beneath her.

      He caught her, wrapping his arm around her to hold her up. His other hand touched her face, his fingers skimming from her temple over her cheek. Just as it always had, her skin tingled from his touch. “You’re bleeding.”

      He turned away from her and spoke to someone else. “Rus, we better take her to the emergency room.”

      Special Agent Nicholas Rus stepped forward, her son in one arm while the other was against his side, his gun grasped tightly in his hand.

      Fear slammed her heart against her ribs. But Michael was blissfully unafraid. Because he recognized the man who had helped them hide, he trusted him.

      Amber couldn’t do that anymore. She pulled away from Milek and reached for her son. “Give him to me,” she said, her tone sharp. “Let go of my son!”

      Michael’s silvery-gray eyes widened with shock. He looked so much like his father. Did he see it? Did he see how much he looked like the man who’d originally lifted him from the van? Why had Milek handed him over to the FBI agent?

      To help her from the van? Or because he still didn’t want their son?

      But before she could take the boy from Rus’s arms, Milek reached for him. He easily clasped their son against his chest. “He’s fine,” he assured her.

      Michael didn’t look fine, though. His little brow was furrowed as he stared up at his father. Maybe he saw it now—the similarities between them. “You look like somebody,” Michael said and confirmed her suspicion.

      “Aunt Stacy,” Amber quickly answered. “Milek is Aunt Stacy’s brother.”

      Their little boy’s eyes narrowed as he continued to study his father’s handsome face. Was it possible Milek had gotten even better looking the past year? His already chiseled features were even more defined—his cheekbones sharper, his jaw squarer—harder. But his lips looked soft, kissable...

      She had kissed them so many times, but that had been years ago. Would he kiss the same now? Would his kiss—his touch—affect her the way it once had?

      Maybe she’d hit her head when the van had rolled. Why else would she be having such inane thoughts? Such desires? She didn’t want Milek Kozminski anymore.

      She wanted only her son.

      “Does that make you my uncle?” her little boy asked.

      Milek coughed. “No. I’m not your uncle. I’m your—”

      Whatever he’d been about to say was lost—swallowed by the sound of sirens. Had he been about to admit he was their son’s father?

      “We need to get out of here,” Rus said. “Now!”

      Milek pointed toward her forehead. “She needs to go to the hospital,” he said, “and have someone check her out and make sure she doesn’t have a concussion. And she’s going to need stitches.”

      She lifted her trembling fingers to her head. The blood was just trickling now. “No...”

      “Mommy,” Michael exclaimed, his bottom lip beginning to quiver. “You’re bleeding.”

      “I’m fine,” Amber assured her son and his father. Despite her ridiculous thoughts about Milek, she didn’t think she had a concussion. She had never lost consciousness, and she had no pain. “I didn’t hit my head. It’s just a scratch.” Which could have been caused by broken glass or crumpled metal or maybe even one of those flying bullets...

      “We need to get out of here,” Rus said, “before anyone else sees you and knows you’re alive.”

      Amber pointed toward the wreckage that had once been her minivan. “Obviously someone already knows.”

      And didn’t want her to stay alive. Rus hadn’t put away his gun yet; it was still clasped tightly in his hand. For protection? Or as a threat?

      Instead of being intimidated, she was angry. Her life, and more important her son’s, had already been threatened. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Agent Rus. “How do they know? Who did you tell?”

      “Me,” Milek said. “He told me.”

      Had telling Milek put her and Michael in danger?

      * * *

      Her breath feathered across his ear as Amber leaned close to him and whispered, “He could have told someone else.”

      Despite the warmth of her breath, he shivered slightly. It was cold outside—where they’d gone onto the hotel balcony to talk. Through the partially open sliding door, they could see their son—sleeping in one of the twin beds in the hotel. He’d seen her suspicion of the FBI agent. If Rus hadn’t left the room, she probably wouldn’t have left their son’s side. Milek hadn’t wanted to leave it, either. And they’d left the door open, so they could hear if he cried out or if someone tried to come through the door to the hall.

      “He didn’t need to tell anyone else.”

      “But he must’ve,” she insisted. “For the whole past year, nobody bothered Michael and me...until those photos showed up today.”

      She looked at him then—with that same narrow-eyed stare she’d given Rus—as though she was interrogating him on a witness stand. She must have missed that—the cross-examination; she wouldn’t have had much chance of doing it over the past year.

      “I have no reason to want you dead,” he said. And every reason to want her alive.

      She kept that stare on him, unblinking. She looked so different—with the dark hair and contacts. But yet she was so familiar, too. “You haven’t asked me why...”

      “Rus told me,” he said, “about the shooting.” About her and their son nearly being killed in their own home.

      “You haven’t asked me why I didn’t go to you after the shooting happened.”

      He shook his head. “I didn’t need to ask you why. I knew...” He had already let her down.

      But she told him anyway. “I didn’t think you’d care...”

      He flinched. But she wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was only stating what he’d made her believe. That he didn’t care about her or their son.

      “So why did you come here with Agent Rus?” she asked.

      They were just on the outskirts of the little town where Nick Rus had helped her hide. Rus had gone back into town to talk to the authorities, who were no doubt trying to figure out just what the hell had happened on her block. A traffic accident or a drive-by shooting.

      Both.

      Things like that happened all the time in River City. He suspected that wasn’t the case in this scenic little town. Why had it happened here? Why did someone want Amber dead?

      “He told me you and Michael were alive.”

      “So?” she asked. “You didn’t want to see me all the years before I died. Why did you want to see me now?”

      He wanted to tell her how her death had affected him—how it had devastated him. How he’d realized when he’d lost her and their son that he had lost his reason for living. But after how he’d treated her, how he’d rejected her and Michael, he had no right to those feelings.

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