Walking beside the serene water, Meg drew a deep breath, desperately digging for some of the lake’s calm for herself. She was going to stick this time. So what she needed to do was figure out what Josh wanted, and then get rid of him.
Josh stared through his truck’s windshield, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Meg’s phone was still just a few feet away, according to his software. The gate was shut, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hop the wall and walk down there. All he wanted was a chance to talk to her. To convince her he wasn’t the jerk she thought he was. Unfortunately that would require another lie, but it’d be the last lie he’d ever tell her.
He wished he could tell her the truth about why he’d left. That he’d had to leave for their safety, not because he’d wanted to. Especially because they’d just found out Meg was pregnant. It had been the happiest day of his life. He looked forward to being part of a family, something he’d always longed for after growing up without parents. But then a week later he’d had to make up a new lie and leave Meg. He still hated himself and the FBI for that.
They hadn’t found anything to make charges stick in the online gambling investigation against Meg’s father three years ago. Hopefully, for Meg’s sake, the FBI wouldn’t find any new ones. The truth would come out soon, but not until the agency finished tying up loose ends by reinvestigating some of the smaller players in the scheme.
What would Meg’s reaction be when she found out he’d been investigating her and her father when they’d first met? And would it make a difference to her once he explained how he’d opted out of the case as soon as it had become clear she hadn’t had any clue about her father’s activities, so they could pursue a relationship? Hopefully she’d be able to understand that even though he lied about his identity for his job, he hadn’t lied about loving her.
He’d turned in his badge yesterday and now he was ready to do whatever it took to get Meg and Haley back. But when all the facts were finally revealed, would Meg be able to get past the betrayal of being spied on and lied to?
Josh studied the locked gate again, debating if he should wait some more or just jump the damn wall. Meg surely knew he was in town by now. What if she tried to run during the night? Now was the best time to make his move.
He pulled himself up, swung his legs over the stucco wall, and landed softly on the other side. He’d stick to the trees on the side of the gravel drive.
The cop had said his grandmother lived here. Would an older woman really shoot him? They were probably just trying to warn him off.
He hoped.
After a few feet, a break in the pine trees revealed a huge, stunning lake. The lowering sun sent long streaks across the water’s smooth surface, producing prisms of color. A few Jet Skis and a speedboat bobbed serenely alongside a long dock.
Why hadn’t Meg ever mentioned how great her hometown was? Such a contrast to where he’d spent his childhood after he became an orphan at six. That damned boys’ ranch in New Mexico. To think he and Meg had been living only a few hours away from each other all that time when they were kids. It was probably a karma thing that his case had caused their paths to cross . . . if he could shake off the cynic he’d become and convince himself to believe in that kind of stuff.
The FBI had recruited him out of college, promoting the organization as a pseudo-family of men and women all focused on doing good for the world. And it could be at times. It didn’t hurt that orphans made the best agents—no one to miss them if they didn’t come back from a mission.
To live somewhere like Anderson Butte might have made all the crappy things he’d had to do for his job worth it if he’d been able to come home after an assignment to someplace as beautiful as this. And to someone as beautiful as Meg.
What had made her leave? If he’d grown up here, he’d have put down deep roots. Never joined the FBI to move past his unfortunate childhood.
Hopefully he’d be able to stay.
As he moved closer to the lake, a house with a big wraparound porch and a short, yellow picket fence surrounding a garden came into view, but the glint of sunshine off mostly rusty metal made Josh change course. Megan’s car stood beside a shed not too far from a smaller building with its own little front porch.
She was still driving that piece of junk? That would be the first thing he’d do. Buy them a safer car.
Glancing around to be sure the coast was clear, he jogged behind the little house and cupped his hands against a window. There were couches, a couple of stuffed chairs, and a pile of brightly colored books scattered on the floor. A cell phone lay on the coffee table. But no Meg and Haley.