Defender for Hire

She almost told him that she did, but he’d gone out of his way to help her and she couldn’t bring herself to send him away. “Whatever you want to do is fine.”

She moved past him and sat across from Logan. “My husband was murdered five years ago today.”

Logan stiffened, but he didn’t speak.

Tessa knew he was waiting for her to continue, but she didn’t know what else to say—how much to reveal, how much to keep hidden.

“I’m sorry, Tessa.” Seth broke the silence, his tone gentle, his eyes the color of the sky at dusk—deep azure blue, and almost glowing in his tan face. There was something in those eyes, something that she’d lost so long ago she’d stopped believing she’d ever find it again.

She blinked, and whatever she thought she’d seen was gone.

“We were missionaries to Kenya,” she said. “An insurgent group attacked the village we were ministering to. Twenty people were killed or wounded. Daniel was one of casualties. So was his brother, Andrew.” Five years of recounting the tale had given her practice saying what needed to be said, but the words still made her throat raw and her chest tight.

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Logan jotted something in a small notebook.

“I didn’t think it mattered.” Didn’t want to think it mattered, anyway. She pulled her hair from its ponytail and gathered it back in, keeping her hands busy so she didn’t give herself away.

“Everything matters,” Logan said, jotting something else in his notebook.

She needed to tell him everything.

She knew she did, but the words were stuck.

She cleared her throat. “Then I guess I should tell you that the guy who attacked me asked if I remembered.”

Logan stilled, his face tight with irritation. “That’s a big piece of information to leave out.”

“She didn’t leave it out,” Seth responded before Tessa could. “She’s telling you now.”

Tessa didn’t need his support, and she should have told him that. But the truth was, it had been years since anyone had stood in her corner, and even though she didn’t want to admit it to herself, it felt good to have Seth there.

Plus, there were too many other things to worry about. Like trying to explain why she hadn’t immediately told Logan about the whispered words.

“Everything happened so quickly,” she murmured.

“I understand, but I need to know that I have all the details. Is there anything else I should know?” Logan looked up from the notebook.

Could she tell him about the roses?

Probably—the roses weren’t part of her secret.

“Every year someone brings me a black rose on the anniversary of the massacre. It’s been happening for five years, but there’s never been anything else.”

“Until today,” Seth reminded her.

“Until today,” she agreed.

“Did you get a rose today?” Logan asked, his expression grim and hard.

“I did. It was left on the hood of my car.”

“Do you still have it?”

She shook her head, her eyes hot and gritty. She was saying too much, but she didn’t know what else to do. “I threw it into the yard this morning.”

“Left or right of the driveway?”

“Left.”

“I’m going to see if I can find it, then I’m heading out onto the trail. Hopefully, I’ll be able to collect some evidence. Stay put until I come back.”

He strode from the room, his boots tapping on the hardwood floor. The front door opened, then closed.

Tessa went to the stove and lifted the kettle, pouring hot water into a mug and dunking a tea bag in it—and avoiding Seth’s eyes. He leaned against the counter, his arms crossed, his hair a little windblown. He looked good, and that wasn’t something she wanted to notice.

She yanked sugar from the cupboard and scooped two large spoonsful into her tea. “I appreciate your help tonight, Seth, but I don’t want to take up more of your time.”

“Is that a subtle dismissal?”

“I didn’t think I was being subtle, but you’re welcome to call it that.”

“Touché.” He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “But before I go, how about you tell me the rest of the story? I know you’re holding back.”

An image flashed through her mind—blood pouring over her hands as she tried to staunch the flow. Daniel’s pale face and pale lips and dark, dark eyes. It was worth it, he’d whispered, and then he’d told her to go.

She closed her eyes, her head spinning.

Seth caught Tessa by the shoulders as she seemed to stumble forward. “You’d better sit down, Tessa.”

“I’m okay,” she said, but she didn’t look okay to him. “I told Logan everything. There’s nothing more to say.”

Seth pulled the envelope from his pocket and handed it to Tessa. “You didn’t tell him about this,” he said.

He didn’t think she’d look inside it. He probably wouldn’t have if he were in her shoes. Not in front of someone else. And not if he knew it was somehow connected to his past.

She smoothed her fingers over the flap, her eyes dark and troubled. “This I really did forget about.”

“Do you want to look inside before I give it to Randal?”

“I’d rather it just stay sealed.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve spent five years trying to escape the past, and whatever is in here will probably just tie me to it.”

“Only you can do that, Tessa.”

Tessa shrugged, a silky strand of hair escaping her ponytail. His fingers itched to brush it away.

He clenched his fists, surprised by the longing.

In the six years since Julia’s death, he’d dated a few women, trying to fill the aching loneliness that losing her had left. It hadn’t worked, and eventually he’d given up on the idea. He’d been happy with the decision, never doubting it even once.

Lately, though, he’d been yearning for the kind of connection that came from loving someone completely, from trusting her with every part of who he was.

“I guess I can’t put this off forever,” Tessa muttered.

Seth covered her hand before she could open the envelope. “Put these on first. We don’t want to contaminate any evidence.” He pulled leather gloves from his pocket and handed them to her.

“You’ve been carrying the envelope around all day. Do you really think there’s going to be any evidence on it?” she asked, but she slid her hands into the gloves.

“I’m not worried about the outside. I want to protect what’s inside.”

She nodded, sliding her finger under the flap and carefully opening the envelope. She pulled out a photograph, stared at it for a moment, her expression unreadable. “What is it?” Seth asked, leaning over to get a look.

She shook her head and shoved the photo back into the envelope before he could get more than a glimpse of three people standing near a mud hut.

“Just another reminder of things I wish I could forget. Can you bring it to Logan?” she asked, taking off the gloves and sliding them across the table. He shoved them back into his pocket.

“Sure,” he replied, taking the envelope she held out to him, his fingers brushing hers. A jolt of heat shot up his arm, that one touch reminding him of what he’d lost. What he’d told himself he’d never look for again.

Tessa’s eyes widened and she pulled back, brushing her fingertips against her jeans as if that could somehow change what they’d both felt. “You should probably wait outside for Logan.”

This time, he didn’t ignore her dismissal.

He needed a little space, a little time to think about the reaction that he’d had to that simple touch.

He pulled a business card from his wallet and dropped it on the table. “I’ll see you next week. If you need anything before then, give me a call.”

“Thanks.” She offered a half smile, flashing the dimple in her cheek. She was a beautiful woman. There was no doubt about that. But she had a boatload of baggage.

Not that Seth could point fingers—he had his fair share of baggage, too.

He walked outside, needing the cold night air to clear his head. Randal was nowhere in sight. Seth leaned against the porch railing to wait for him, the envelope and photo heavy in his hand.

It was none of his business.

He knew that.

But something in Tessa’s eyes made him want to make it his business. Not the fear or the sadness, but the raw strength that he sensed had carried her through something terrible.

He slid the photo out of the envelope, careful to touch only the edges.

Tessa standing between two men. She looked young and carefree, a long blue dress covering her slim figure and a baseball hat shielding her eyes. Her hair was longer, the deep-red braid falling over her shoulder nearly to her waist. Behind her, a mud hut blocked the landscape, but it was obvious the picture had been taken in Africa.

Both men had black hair and tan skin. Both were tall and thin, but Tessa’s gaze was on the older of the two, her smile only for him. He had to be her husband.

Seth flipped the photo over. No note, date or label.

He slid it back into the envelope, anxious to hear Randal’s take on it. The photo had obviously been taken during the mission trip to Kenya. Whoever had taken it might also have put it in the box with the tarantula.

The wind knifed through his jacket as he went down the porch steps and around the side of the house. A light flashed in the woods at the back of Tessa’s property—Randal, searching for evidence.

Seth could sit in his car and wait for him to return, but he didn’t believe in standing still when he could be moving forward. Something in Tessa’s past had come for her. The sooner Randal figured out what it was, the safer she would be.

And that’s the way Seth wanted her to be. Safe.

The word ricocheted through him, a grim reminder of his failures.

He hadn’t been able to keep Julia safe.

He’d been in Afghanistan when she’d been killed by a drunk driver. He’d flown home to arrange her funeral, to comfort her parents and his, to try to come to terms with the fact that his best friend—his childhood sweetheart, the woman he’d married straight out of college—was gone, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

He’d thrown himself into military life after that, making a career out of working covert operations deep in enemy territory. He’d planned to keep doing that until retirement, because work numbed the loss.

But God had had other plans, and Seth had been forced to leave the military much earlier than he’d expected. He couldn’t complain. He’d survived his injuries, had found a new career, created a life that kept him content and happy.

But guilt about Julia tormented him every day. And there was no getting around that.

He tucked the envelope into his pocket and headed across the dark yard. There was no way he would leave Tessa alone until he made sure that everything was in place to protect her.

FOUR

Tessa hated silence—her mind filled it with voices from the past. Daniel’s. Andrew’s. The dozen children she’d been teaching the night of the attack.

If she hadn’t been at the church with them, she’d have died in the tiny hut that she and Daniel shared. The one they had been standing in front of in the photograph.

She shuddered.

She vividly remembered the day the photo had been taken. They’d been in Kenya for three days and had two years of work stretching out ahead of them. A villager had taken the photo. Tessa hadn’t seen it since the massacre.

She flicked on the small radio that sat on the kitchen counter, letting classical music drift into the silence. Better, but not the same as having Bentley following behind her as she paced to the window that looked out over the backyard.

Amy should be calling with an update soon. If she didn’t, Tessa would call her. Bentley was the closest thing to family that she had, and she wanted to know that he was going to be okay.

She frowned, tucking Seth’s business card into the junk drawer beside the fridge. She had no intention of calling him. He was too much of everything that she didn’t want in her life. Confident, decisive and driven, he was probably the kind of person who devoted time and attention and complete commitment to whatever cause he was championing. Right now, he seemed to be championing her, and that felt too good, the temptation to lean on him and let him take care of things for her almost overwhelming her common sense.

Almost?

Completely.

She’d given him the photo and asked him to bring it to Logan. As if getting it out of the house could change the fact that she’d received it.

A light bobbed on the hill, appearing and disappearing as someone moved through the trees. Probably Logan. If Tessa had been brave enough, she’d have joined him. It would have been easy to pinpoint the place where she’d been attacked, show him the direction the attacker had come from.

She turned away from the backyard, her chest tight, her eyes hot. She’d dreamed big when she was in college, imagining a life that was exactly the opposite of the one she’d had growing up. Security and routine, love and happiness. She thought she’d have it all with Daniel, and she almost had.

Instead, she’d come full circle, ending up right back where she’d been when her parents had died and she’d been shipped off to foster care.

Alone and terrified.

She shoved the thought away. She was alone by choice, because relationships were too complicated and too risky. She liked her old Victorian house and her job, and loved the serenity and slow pace of Pine Bluff, Washington.

The bruises on her throat throbbed.

She didn’t want to leave Pine Bluff, but she wasn’t sure she could stay.

Walking up the curved staircase, she ran her hand over the smooth mahogany banister. She’d spent days stripping paint off the hand-carved wood and polishing the intricate spindles, imagining the generations of people who had walked up and down the stairs, trailing their hands along the railing. She’d planned to become part of the house’s history.

Her plans were changing.

She might not want deep connections and all the complications that went with them, but she wanted a life lived in peace without the past making constant appearances.

Maybe that meant doing what she’d considered doing dozens of times since the first rose had arrived—changing her name, becoming someone completely new. People went into hiding all the time, created wonderful new lives out of the ashes of their old ones.

In her room overlooking the backyard, she pulled back the gauzy curtains and stared up at the hill behind the house. The light was gone. Either Logan had finished his search, or he’d crested the rise and was heading down toward the river.

He’d want to talk to her when he returned, but for now, she needed keep her mind occupied and her hands busy. She lifted the phone that sat on the nightstand and dialed Amy’s number. She’d check on Bentley, and then she’d go up to the attic and grab the suitcase she’d put there when she’d moved in.

Never again, she’d told herself. No more packing and unpacking and packing again. This is it forever.

She should have known things wouldn’t work out that way. Should have kept the suitcase under her bed like she had for the first four years she’d been back in the States.

She left a message on Amy’s voicemail and walked down the hall to the attic door. The old-fashioned glass doorknob gleamed in the overhead light, the skeleton key that was usually in the small nook on the wall beside the door already in the keyhole.

Had she left the key there the last time she’d gone in the attic? When had that been? A week ago? More?

Wouldn’t she have already noticed the key in keyhole if it had been there since the last time she used it?

Of course she would have. She’d spent the past five years noticing everything, constantly on the alert, tracking changes in her environment and looking for any sign that danger was closing in.

She hadn’t left the key in the hole. Someone else had.

Her heart jumped, her throat dry with fear. Someone could be in the house. Her attacker could be waiting in the attic for her to settle down and go to sleep.

She backed away from the door, her pulse pounding frantically.

The doorbell rang and she screamed, whirling away from the attic, then turning back, afraid if she wasn’t watching the doorknob, it would start to turn.

The doorbell rang again and the front door opened, cold air gusting in.

“Tessa?” Seth called from the foyer.

“Upstairs,” she responded, her voice gritty with fear. Footsteps pounded on the stairs and Seth appeared on the landing, his hair mussed from the wind, his eyes glowing deep blue.

“I thought you’d left,” she said, more relieved than she wanted to be that he hadn’t.

“I gave Randal the picture and I thought I’d check in with you one more time before I went home,” he responded. “What’s wrong?”

She gestured to the doorknob and key. “Someone has been in the attic.”

“You’re sure?” He moved past her, the comforting scent of pine needles and winter air filling the wide hall.

Was she? With Seth there, she suddenly wasn’t sure that she was in danger. Did she really know that she hadn’t left the key in the lock?

“Tessa?” he prodded in a gentle voice that didn’t match his sharp gaze.

“I usually leave the key in that little nook beside the door. I don’t remember leaving it in the keyhole.”

“Okay.” He nodded, took her arm and led her to the stairs. “Randal is on the porch. I want you to open the door and tell him what’s going on. Don’t go outside, though, okay?”

She hesitated. As much as she wanted Seth to take care of the problem, she knew that she shouldn’t let him. Relying on other people usually led to heartache. She’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. “What are you going to do?”

“Check the attic, but I don’t want you anywhere nearby when I do it.”

“That’s not necessary. I can just—”

“Do what I asked, okay, Tessa? It’s the safest thing for both of us.” He turned away, pulling gloves from his coat pocket and sliding them on.

“What if there is someone up there?”

“I can handle him. But not if you’re in my way. Go tell Randal. It’ll be good to have him around if I find someone.”

“Okay. Fine,” she mumbled, feeling like a coward as she fled down the stairs. She heard the key turn in the lock and Seth’s footsteps on the attic stairs.

“Where is Seth?” Logan asked as soon as she opened the door.

“The attic.” She explained what she’d found, and Logan frowned.

“So, Seth went to check things out?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Just what I need. A loose cannon,” Logan responded with a sigh. “Go in the kitchen. Stay there until I give you the all-clear.”

Logan was up the stairs before Tessa could move from her spot near the door.

A faint creak. The soft groan of old wood giving beneath heavy feet. She knew the sounds of the attic floorboards, could picture Seth and Logan moving through the cavernous room. All the boxes left behind by the people who’d come before her would make easy hiding places for anyone who might be lurking up there.

She shuddered, backing into the kitchen, her gaze on the ceiling, her muscles tense with fear and anticipation.

If they found someone, it would all be over. Bad guy caught and brought to jail—danger gone. Maybe the roses would stop, too. Maybe the past would finally fade into distant memories. She wanted that more than she’d wanted anything in a very long time. To let go. To breathe without the heaviness of secrets and fear pressing on her chest.

She wanted that, and sometimes she thought she could have it if she’d just allow God to give it to her. If she could just forgive Him for offering her everything and then taking it all away.

Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. She hadn’t cried since Daniel’s funeral, and she wouldn’t cry now. She’d trusted God, and He’d failed her. Not just with Daniel, with her parents, too. Twice, she’d lost everything. She wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

Boots pounded on the stairs. The men were returning.

They walked into the kitchen, Logan slightly ahead of Seth, his eyes deeply shadowed, his smile kind. He looked like a guy who’d been through a lot, but who’d come out on top. The kind of person who could be counted on.

She didn’t look at Seth. She knew what she’d see—confidence, strength, conviction. He could be counted on, too. He’d already proven that more than once, but she didn’t want to count on him. Doing so could become a habit. One that she might find very difficult to break. “We didn’t find anything, Tessa, but I’m going to dust the doorknob for fingerprints,” Logan said.

“It could be that I forgot to put the key back the last time I went in the attic. My fingerprints might be the only ones you find.” Now that they’d checked the attic and found it empty, she felt a little foolish. She wasn’t one to overreact, and despite what she’d lived through in Kenya, she didn’t jump at shadows.

“If they are, no problem, but I’d rather err on the side of caution than miss something. I’m going to get my fingerprint kit.” Logan turned and walked out of the kitchen. Which left Tessa alone with Seth.

She couldn’t avoid looking at him forever, so she met his eyes, was surprised by the sudden jolt of awareness that shot through her.

She’d been a widow for five years. In that time, she’d never even been tempted to go on a date. Friends had tried to hook her up with brothers or cousins or coworkers, and she’d always refused, because she hadn’t wanted to feel the kind of longing that made a person vulnerable.

“I have to head out,” he said, his gaze steady, his eyes deep blue. “You still have my card, right?”

“Yes.”

“But, you’re not planning to call even if your life depends on it?”

The comment made her smile. “If my life depends on it, I might call.”

“How about we turn might to will, so I can get out of your hair and you can rest?” he responded, his Southern drawl more pronounced.

“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to rest,” she admitted.

“Give it a try. You’ll heal better if you do.” He touched her cheek, his fingers brushing lightly down her jaw. Such a simple gesture, but longing shot through her, so intense that it filled her heart and her throat. “You’re going to have a bruise there. You’d better put some ice on it.”

She nodded, afraid if she spoke, he’d hear everything she was feeling. He frowned. “Maybe I should stick around until Randal gets back.”

“I’ll be fine.” She forced the words out, because she really needed him to leave.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then, I’ll see you next week.”

“Wait!” she nearly shouted as he turned away.

He swung back around to face her again. “You changed your mind about wanting me to stay?”

“No, I...” What? She couldn’t think of one good reason for calling him back. Except that she was scared and that as soon as left, she’d be alone again. “Just...thanks.”

“Anytime.” He walked down the hall, offering a brief smile as he stepped outside and closed the door. The house felt emptier without him in it, and that wasn’t a good thing.

Tessa had been doing things on her own for so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone around. Seth made her remember.

After Logan finished dusting for prints, she’d face the attic head-on, drag her suitcase to her room and start packing, because she couldn’t stay. Not just because of the danger that seemed to be dogging her, but because of Seth.

He was his own kind of danger.

The kind that could fill a woman’s heart, seep into her soul. Make her want things that she shouldn’t want. Long for things that were out of reach.

Tessa didn’t want to go down that path again.

She didn’t want the heartache it would bring.

Sometimes, though, she wanted more than a big old house and an oversize dog.