Only, then he’d pulled through the security gate and seen the open garage, Megan’s car parked and her still in the driver’s seat. A quiet alarm began to sound in the back of his mind as he cut the engine and jumped out. All that jacked-up ready-to-go morphed into protective instinct.
This wasn’t right.
Rounding the car, he came up to her window and stopped short at the sight of tear-streaked cheeks and a bleak stare. And for the first time since they’d met, he saw something other than how strong Megan was. Beneath all that toughness was something fragile. Something she didn’t show to the world but here and now she couldn’t hide from him.
His gut knotted hard as the first question slammed through his head.
Had he done this to her? Pushed her too far? Asked too much? Broken her?
Heart pounding, he forced himself to knock on the glass instead of ripping the door off its hinges to get to her. Find out what happened, if he was to blame. Make sure Megan wasn’t hurt. Physically.
She jumped in her seat as he opened the door, her eyes darting around the interior of the car before landing on him. The arms that had been hanging limply in her lap jerked up, and then she was wiping at her cheeks, mumbling some kind of unintelligible apology as she emerged from her daze.
Resting a staying hand on her shoulder, Connor crouched beside her seat, searching for clues in a face his wife was rapidly trying to clear. Only, with each sweep of her thumbs, another tear slipped free.
“Megan, what’s going on, honey?”
She sucked in a shaky breath, swallowed and then bowed her head. “It’s so stupid. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be like this. I just...saw someone I used to know.”
Connor’s muscles bunched. It wasn’t him, then, making her cry—and the relief he felt over that was immense. But it was nothing compared to the outrage pouring through him that someone else had done this to his wife.
Someone she used to know.
“Barry?” The idiot who’d run off and married another woman when he’d been making plans with Megan. The one he’d believed wasn’t important enough to merit this kind of sorrow. Did the guy have some kind of hold over her heart Connor hadn’t realized?
Was he in California to get Megan back?
She shook her head, valiantly trying to force a smile to lips that couldn’t bear the weight of it. “No. His name is Pete. And for about a year, a very long time ago, he was my dad.”
Her dad.
Connor was at a loss. He knew Megan had been raised by her mother, a serial bride who didn’t have much of a track record when it came to keeping husbands. Megan never talked about any of the guys her mother had married, and he’d gotten the sense they hadn’t been of particular importance in her life. Only, now he was wondering just exactly how off base he’d been.
“What happened?”
“He didn’t remember me.” Megan winced and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was blinking fast. Giving her head one of those thought-jarring shakes. As though she was physically trying to throw off the emotion. She wanted to be strong. And hell, he admired her for it. But as the tears continued to fall, the heartbreak in her eyes was unmistakable. And damn it, he’d seen that kind of pain before. Knew the kind of soul-deep wound it stemmed from. Feared it.
The kind where a person’s whole heart was tied up in the hope of something they understood they couldn’t have. The kind another person couldn’t fix or fill or make up for...could only pray they were strong enough to withstand.
She was strong.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
“It was so long ago. I don’t know how I expected he would remember me, but I was practically ready to throw my arms around—” Her voice broke, and she glanced away.
Damn. Megan looked so lost and vulnerable, he couldn’t stand it. Needed to do something. Ground her in some way.
Taking her hand, he stroked a thumb over her knuckles. “Let’s go inside.”