LITMIR.BIZ

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and then a female voice, and I recognized it. But I didn’t dare hope. I thought it was the painkillers. I couldn’t let myself believe. Couldn’t let myself hope … You’re alive …”

      “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, her body shaking with sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

      It was a poignant moment, but one that was short-lived as police officers and hospital security burst into the room. It was nearly an hour later before the men had been arrested and the explanations made.

      Finally Stanley Jessup could have a moment alone with his daughter and grandson, so Brendan stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him. He walked over to his mother, who had insisted on coming along in the helicopter with him and the other agents.

      “I’m going to get some coffee and food,” Roma said. “I’m sure my grandson is hungry. He’s had a long day.” She rose on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to Brendan’s cheek. “So has my son.”

      “It’s not over yet,” he said.

      Her brow furrowed slightly. “Isn’t it all over? All the bad people arrested?”

      “There’s still something I need to do,” Brendan said. For him it wasn’t all over. It was just beginning.

      She nodded as if she understood. She probably did; his mother had always known what was in his heart.

      Josie didn’t, but he intended to tell her.

      After patting his cheek with her palm, his mother headed down the hall and disappeared into the elevator, leaving him alone. He had spent so much of his life alone—those years before he’d joined his mother in witness protection. Then all the years he’d gone undercover—deep undercover—for the Bureau. He’d been young when he’d started working for the FBI, since his last name had given him an easy entrance to any criminal organization the Bureau had wanted to investigate. And take down.

      He had taken down several of the most violent gangs and dangerous alliances. But none of them had realized he was the one responsible.

      If the truth about him came out now, his family could be in danger of retaliation—revenge like that the marshal had wanted against the Jessups because of the loss of his son.

      Pain clutched Brendan’s heart as he thought of how close he had come to losing his son. CJ had told him how he’d tried to “p’tect” his mommy as he’d promised. The brave little three-year-old had kicked the man with the gun.

      He shuddered at what could have happened had Josie obviously not taken the blow meant for their boy. She’d had a fresh mark on her face.

      As she stepped out of her father’s room and joined him in the hall, he studied her face. The red mark was already darkening. He found himself reaching up and touching her cheek as he murmured, “I should have kicked him, too.”

      She flinched. “I used to worry that CJ was too timid,” she said, “but now I worry that he might be too brave.”

      “Are you surprised?” he asked. “You’ve always been fearless.”

      “Careless,” she corrected him. “I didn’t care about the consequences. I didn’t realize what could happen to me.”

      He’d thought that was because she’d been spoiled, that she’d been her father’s princess and believed he would never let anything happen to her. Now Brendan realized that she’d cared more about others than herself.

      “You’re the brave one,” she said. “You’ve put yourself in danger to protect others. To protect me. Thank you.”

      He shook his head. He didn’t want her gratitude. He wanted her love.

      “I thought you might have left with the others,” she said, glancing around the empty hall. “With your mom …”

      “She’s still here,” he said. “She’s getting food and coming back up.” The woman had made a life of feeding hungry kids—food and love.

      “I’m glad she’s coming back,” she said. “CJ has been asking about her. He wants his grampa to meet his gramma. I think he thinks they should be married like other kids’ grandparents are.”

      A millionaire and a mobster’s widow? Brendan chuckled.

      “I’m really glad that you’re still here,” she said.

      His heart warmed, filling with hope. Did she have the same feelings he had?

      “I owe you an apology,” Josie said. “It was all my fault—all of it. And my mistakes cost you three years with your son.” Her voice cracked. “And I am so sorry ….”

      He closed his arms around her and pulled her against his chest—against his heart. She trembled, probably with exhaustion and shock. She had been through so much. She clutched at his back and laid her head on his shoulder.

      “My father knew who you were,” she remarked. “What you were. From his sources within the FBI, he knew you were an agent. If I’d told him what story I was working on when the attempts started on my life, he would have told me to drop it—that there was no way you could be responsible. I should have known….”

      “He knew?” Brendan had really underestimated the media mogul in resources and respect. He could be trusted with the truth, so Brendan should have trusted his daughter, too.

      “He’s a powerful man with a lot of connections,” she said, “but still he didn’t know that I wasn’t dead. I hate that I did that to him. I hate what I did to you. I understand why you can’t trust me.”

      “Josie …”

      She leaned back and pressed her fingers over his lips. “It’s okay,” she said. “I understand now that sometimes it’s better to leave secrets secret. There will be no stories about you or your mother in any Jessup publications or broadcasts. And there will never be another story by me.”

      “Never?”

      Tears glistened in her smoky-green eyes, and she shook her head. “I should have never …”

      “Revealed the truth?” he asked.

      “Look what the consequences were,” she reminded him with a shudder.

      “Yes,” he agreed, and finally he looked at the full picture, at what she’d really done. “You got justice for your friend—the girl that kid assaulted. If you hadn’t written that article, it never would have happened. And I know from experience that it’s damn hard to move on if you never get justice.”

      “That’s why you went after all those crime organizations,” she said, “to get justice for what your dad did to your mom.”

      “She gave up her justice for me,” he said.

      “So you got it for her and for so many others.”

      He shook his head. “No, Margaret got it for her. Go figure. But you helped your friend when no one else would. You can’t blame yourself for what the boy did. And neither should his father.”

      “He needs someone to blame,” she said.

      Just as the people in her new town had blamed her for her student’s death. Someone always needed someone else to blame.

      “And so did I,” she added. “I shouldn’t have blamed you.”

      “You shouldn’t have,” he agreed. “Because I would have never hurt you, then or now.” He dragged in a deep breath to say what he’d waited around to tell her, what he’d waited four years to tell her. “Because I love you, Josie.”

      “You love me?” She asked the question as if it had never occurred to her, as if she had never dared to hope. Until now. Her eyes widened with hope and revealed her own feelings.

      “Yes,” he said, “I love your passion and your intelligence and—”

      She

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