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PART IV

HEATHER

How?

That’s what Heather was wondering.

How had Mark walked right back into her life after years apart and brought out a voice in her music that she’d never heard before? Years of suffering when she longed for his voice. For his touch. It was all some kind of surreal dream that she was in.

That was it.

She must be sleeping.

And in a moment or another she was going to wake up in the dark, in that cold unfamiliar apartment in New Mexico, and cry herself back to sleep.

“I had no idea.”

Her eyes closed tight as she walked the knife edge of hope and dread.

She wanted him to be there.

She wanted their kiss to be real.

How long had she gone on wishing that she could have the chance to see him again?

“You talked about wanting to play music like your mother. I just… I didn’t know you would be…”

His words drifted off and she felt something inside her tighten.

She put her hands on the tabletop, one on either side of the violin case that she’d carted through three continents. The only thing that she could swear was real was the violin.

She’d just held it in her hands and felt the give and take of friction as she worked the bow over the strings.

The words that she was waiting for might never come.

Or the words might eviscerate her, she wouldn’t know until-

“I didn’t know that you had this kind of talent inside of you.”

Talent?

Heather’s hands balled into fists, and she rocked her knuckles across the hard surface of the antique table at the center of the room.

She’d heard the words before, from hundreds of people, maybe more, but she’d never heard them from Mark.

From this man who’d been such a large part of her hope for the future.

She’d longed to talk to him and share this experience with him, but until the moment that he’d appeared at her door, she’d considered him lost to her. The best and brightest light in her world had been snuffed out on that night in the Hamptons.

Before she realized what she was doing, she lifted her left hand and settled it high on the right side of her chest, her fingers nearly touching her back.

Even with her blouse and bra on, she could still feel the raised scar tissue from her wound under her palm.

“Heather-”

He choked off the sound of her name and she wished that she hadn’t insisted that he shouldn’t call her by her given name. It had been so long since she heard it on anyone’s lips that it felt like a ghost moving through walls of time and space.

“I feel like there’s this wall between us, and I understand you’re upset that I’m here. How long have you been in hiding?” She could hear the slight lift in his tone and part of her felt like every shift in his voice, no matter how subtle, sounded like a cry in the darkness. “What happened the night of the bonfire?”

There was no easy or short answer to his line of questioning.

She hesitated, worried that if she told him the truth she’d be spirited away again.

Why had Bart thrown her into the deep end of this pool?

He knew as well as she did what kind of danger could come if someone from her old life spotted her and raised the alarm.

Bart had to know what kind of hornet’s nest he might stir up. He’d seen her file from WITSEC. Not that he should have seen it in the first place, but Bart was a man who got what he wanted. A WITSEC file was child’s play for a man like him.

She didn’t really blame him when he ran the background check on her and dug deeper than the background that the feds had created for her.

Oh, god.

When her handler found out that she’d met someone from her past…

“It was a mistake,” she told him even though she couldn’t face him. “I never should have let you in.”

She felt his presence behind her before she heard him speak.

“Let me in the door? Or let me in your heart? Because you couldn’t stop me from coming in the door. I was going to come in whether you let me or not. And your heart?”

He put his hands on her.

His gentle touch against her back nearly had her in tears.

And when his fingers brushed against her own at the crest of her shoulder, she lost the ability to breathe.

“Well, I remember when you said you loved me years ago. I heard the way your voice trembled, as if you weren’t sure that you should admit it out loud. That was a precious gift back then. And if you ever see fit to give me that gift again, I will treat it as the treasure it has always been.

“When you disappeared, I went looking for you. I went all the way to New York City and camped outside of your house hoping to see you until I ended up behind bars for trespassing.”

She couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

“You were in prison?”

He moved his hands down over her shoulders until they settled on her upper arms. “It was a holding cell, and the District Attorney didn’t want to press charges at first. He seemed to understand that I was looking for you. Then he was removed from the case and someone new came in and gave me an offer.”

His words were harsh and bitter.

She covered one of his hands with hers.

“He told me to walk away and never look for you again. Not in New York City or in the Hamptons. He added a special incentive. He said your father was going to have them throw the book at me. He made it very clear that my only option was to put you out of my head and walk away.”

Heather shook her head. “I can’t believe they did that.”

“They?”

Heather felt a cold chill move through her body. “They didn’t tell me that you’d come looking for me. I wasn’t allowed to contact you, but they didn’t tell me that you’d come looking either.”

“Who?”

She slid out of his grasp and moved toward one of the house phones on a side table by the sofa. “I need to make a call before I tell you anything else.”

She looked back at Mark and saw that he hadn’t moved toward her. It was a good thing. She needed the physical distance to keep her thoughts in line.

Picking up the phone she dialed a number that she knew by heart.

She hadn’t called it since she’d struck up the agreement with Bart. She hadn’t needed it. Bart, strangely enough, had fallen into the category of people who had a high security clearance. She didn’t know why, nor did she ever think to ask.

Bart had given her an outlet of beauty in her otherwise monotonous and dull life.

The last thing she wanted to do was question it and threaten her pseudo-freedom.

While she waited for the call to be picked up, she looked back at Mark and saw him looking back at her. There was an element of pain and hurt in his gaze.

He probably didn’t know that she could see it, but she was sure that she could see it because the man in the room with her still had a little bit of the young man that he was when they’d known each other in the Hamptons.

She could see him in Mark’s new hardened gaze.

At least that’s what she was telling herself.

What she wanted to believe.

The phone stopped halfway through a ringtone.

“Hello?”

“Alex?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mark’s gaze narrow on her.

“Heather,” he was smiling, and she could hear it clearly, “it’s good to hear from you.”

“I’m calling bullshit, Alex. What do you know?”

She heard his soft exhale, and a dull pain flared in her head, the beginnings of one of her hellish migraines.

“I need you to be specific with your questions, Heather. You can’t just ask me a blanket question-”

“I can and I have, Alex. Tell me what you know!”

“I’m trying to fix some of the problems that I created.”

“OH MY GOD. You knew! You knew that he came looking for me?”

“I knew, Heather. Please, let me explain-”

“Let you explain? No. How about I tell you the fuck off, Alex? That sounds like a better idea.” Heather felt her eyes fill up with tears, but she blinked them away. “You knew how I felt! I told you how I felt, and you just patted me on the back like a fucking child?”

The other end of the call was silent, and she stood there, emotions building up inside of her like a tornado, ready to tear the roof off of her sanity.

“What did you mean you’re trying to fix the problems you created?”

“Mark works for me, Heather. I’ve kept tabs on him since he came looking for you in New York. I knew that he went into the military and followed his career. I offered him the job with Big Sky Bodyguards and when I got the call from Bart-”

“He knew! Both of you… I can’t…” Heather lifted her hand and flattened it against her heart, trying desperately not to scream and smash the telephone handset on the table. She saw Mark moving toward her, but she held out her hand to stop him, shaking her head. Don’t.

Turning her attention back to the phone, she used both hands to hold the handset to her head. She lowered her voice and cupped her hands around the mouthpiece so she could keep her words for Alex alone.

“I’m trying hard not to hate you right now, Alex. For years I fooled myself, thinking that you cared about me, thinking that I was more than just an assignment. That we had somehow become friends. Now I’m questioning if you cared about me at all.”

He started to speak but she cut him off.

“I don’t know how I’m ever going to think about you and not feel like I want to kick you in the shins for keeping me in the dark.”

“Heather-”

She dropped the handset and walked way, stalking toward her bedroom. She didn’t turn back to explain her actions, she didn’t think she could utter a word and not dissolve into tears.

One moment she was standing there, thinking that she had another chance with Mark and how she could in some small way put her past to rest, but then she’d found out that her life wasn’t just a construct of WITSEC, it had been a total lie.

Mark picked up the phone from the carpet and lifted it to his ear. “Alex?”

“Mark. I bet you have some questions.”

“One question, Alex.”

“One?” Alex sounded like he was relieved, but he was still hesitant. “What question is that?”

“What part did you play in her disappearance?”

“Ah…” His soft sigh was almost an answer in and of itself. “It’s a long story, Mark. I-”

“Ares.” Mark felt a muscle in his jaw tick. “Calling me Mark makes it sound like we know each other.”

“I understand.”

Mark heard a soft hiss of breath on the other end of the call.

“I’ll do my best to answer you.”

“Quickly,” Mark ground out the word through his clenched jaw. “I need to talk to Heather.”

“I can’t tell you everything over a landline, but in a past life,” Alex’s laugh was dark, “I worked for the feds and the night that everything turned upside down for Heather, I was in the house. I made a promise that night that I’d keep her safe. I didn’t know you back then. I didn’t even know her. When I found out your connection to her in my background check, I thought I’d do what I could to make amends. I thought putting the two of you together might help you two reconnect.”

“Or blow everything apart.” Mark looked off down the hallway toward Heather’s bedroom door which was closed tight. “Why didn’t you give me a heads up at least. Or her?”

“I’m not all that well versed in lasting romantic relationships. I’m a confirmed bachelor myself.”

As angry as Mark was, he thought he heard something in Alex’s voice. “You lost someone?”

“I lost everything.” He took in a breath, barely audible through the phone. “And I know my effort is heavy-handed, but-”

“You put us through etiquette tests. Maybe you need to go through some lessons in having a heart.”

“Well, I’m a bodyguard. Not a married man. Maybe I should have called our group Big Sky Bachelors.”

Mark huffed at the obvious statement. “Maybe. Especially if Heather and I can’t figure out a way past what happened to us.” Mark felt a pain slice through his side as if someone slipped a blade between his ribs into his heart. “More importantly, I have to keep her safe. It doesn’t matter if we can get through to each other if someone harms her.”

“I’ve got Badger working through the stack of notes that she’s received. He’s got a real eye for threat assessment.”

“I want to see them, too.”

Alex hesitated. “I think you should let Badger do this for you.”

“And I think I’m done letting you make decisions about my life, Alex.”

A moment passed before Alex responded. “Point taken.”

“When I see you again, Alex, we’re going to have a real conversation about this.”

“I’ll make sure my dental coverage is up to date.”

Mark felt like laughing, but he just couldn’t. He was still seething with anger under it all. “I want to see the notes and letters, Alex. Don’t hold them back from me.”

“Badger-”

“It’s not about Badger, Alex. I want to see what I’m up against. This isn’t your call right now. You said you lost everything before. If you have any idea what Heather means to me, you won’t dick around with this. Send me the notes.”

“Okay. Okay. Point taken, again . I’ll have Badger send you copies of the notes.”

“I’m going to check on Heather.”

“Ares?”

“Alex?” Mark mimicked his tone and felt some kind of satisfaction at the silence he heard on the other end of the call.

“One day when we’re in the same room, I’ll tell you the whole story. I’ll even let you take the first shot for free.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’ll come to blows,” Mark shook his head. “I need to go.”

Alex had one more thing to say. “For what it’s worth, Mark. I’m sorry.”

Mark nodded and blew out a breath. “Me too.”

The handset of the phone settled on the cradle with a heavy click and Mark started the walk toward the bedrooms in the house. It didn’t take long to walk the distance, but he felt like he was taking a step back in time.

Alex.

Alex was his current boss, but he’d known Heather years before.

He’d been there with her when she’d disappeared. When she was taken out of his life.

When he was threatened with jail to leave her alone.

It was hard not to want to take his frustration out on Alex.

Still, he didn’t know everything that happened.

What a mess.

He stopped just outside Heather’s bedroom door and softly knocked on the surface. “Heather?”

“Go ahead. Come in.”

Mark opened the door and saw her laid out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, her knees bent and her feet flat on the comforter. She had her hands folded over her stomach, breathing in and out in slow deliberate breaths.

It was amazing to just stand there looking at her.

With so many years between the last time he saw her and this very moment, it was amazing to see that the years only made her even more beautiful.

Her lips curved in a slight smile. “You’re staring at me.”

“It’s a pretty picture. No one would blame me.”

“It’s going to give me a complex.”

“You said the same thing years ago.”

Her soft laughter did things to his heart rate. He could feel it beating in his neck.

“I did, didn’t I.”

He wasn’t sure where to go from there, but he didn’t want to walk away. He’d rather take a bullet than move away from her.

Heather reached out the hand closest to him and tapped the space on the bed beside her. “It’ll be easier if you come over here.”

Mark narrowed his eyes and slowly moved over to the bedside. He touched the comforter with his fingertips. “Are you sure?”

She turned her head and met his gaze with her own. “I’m not offering you sex, Mars. I mean, Ares. It’s hard to sit here and relax when I know you’re staring at me. If you lie down then you’ll be looking up at the ceiling, too.

“That, I can handle.”

Ah. Okay.

Smiling, he sat on the bed and lifted his legs up from the floor and laid out on the bed about a foot from Heather.

He folded his fingers together like she had done and turned his gaze up to the ceiling.

“So,” he wasn’t sure what her reaction would be to his humor, “when does the show start?”

She was quiet for a moment and then he heard her chuckle.

They both fell into a kind of companionable silence, and he was about to lose himself in it when she pinched him in the side.

He jumped a little. “Hey!”

“This is my bedroom,” she told him and gave him another little pinch, “I don’t know what your ceiling looks like, but I don’t have a TV on mine.”

Mark had a feeling that she was about to strike again.

He felt a movement in the mattress under him and then turned, his left hand snaking out.

“What?”

He turned on his side and saw Heather staring at him in a bit of shock.

Mark looked down and saw that he’d captured her wrist.

She tugged trying to free her hand, but he held it without much effort.

“Let go.”

“I won’t.” He shook his head and saw her eyes widen. “You know where I’m ticklish.”

She gave it another try, but he held on. “What if I promise not to tickle you?”

“I don’t think I’d believe you.” He grinned and she smiled back at him. “I doubt you’ve changed that much. You always tried one more time before you actually stopped.”

Heather’s expression changed. Her smile faded away and what was left was a melancholy lift at the corner of her mouth. “You remember that?”

“I remember a lot of things.”

She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and bit her teeth into it, worrying it as she looked over his face as if she was searching for something. “I remember a lot about you, too.”

He wanted to know what she was talking about. He wanted to know what memories she had in her head. He just didn’t want to ask just in case it wasn’t a happy memory.

And all of that flew out the window when a tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and down over her cheek.

Mark let go of her wrist and reached toward her face, watching her expression to see if she didn’t want his touch.

She didn’t look away from his face or lean away from his touch.

He brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the tear. “What are you thinking about in that big, amazing brain of yours? Do I have to kick my own ass for something I did to you in the past?”

Heather’s eyes closed and she drew in a deep breath.

When her eyes opened again, she focused right on him.

“I’m thinking about all the time we lost. All the years that passed us by. It’s cruel karma, really. I’m finally close enough to reach out and touch you and all I can think about is that we probably missed our chance years ago.”

“When we were young?”

She sighed and nodded as much as she could, turned on her side on the feather soft mattress. “Before I realized that the world was a cold, cruel place and the people we love weren’t the people we thought they were.”

In her words, her voice, he felt like he could hear the pain she’d felt years ago when they’d been torn apart.

“I’m here, Heather. I never left you.”

Her eyes flickered up to look at him. “No. No, you didn’t.”

Mark could see how exhausted she was. And he could tell that her mind was struggling to put the pieces of her life together.

He knew what that felt like. It was that kind of struggle that had him joining the military, looking for a place to work off all of that angry energy.

Heather just looked… tired.

“Hey, come here.” He urged her closer. “Let me hold you while you sleep.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Are you going to give me payback for poking you in the side?”

He shook his head. “I just want to hold you. Just for a little while.”

When the silence between them stretched on, he wondered if he’d gone too far. Asked for too much.

The last conscious thought he had as she cuddled close to his chest was how she still used the same shampoo after all of these years. If she still liked mint after all of this time, he might still have a chance.