Close to Home Part 15

Johnny frowned. "Since before we got married."

The ground shifted beneath Tessa's bare feet, her entire life and everything she thought she knew rearranging itself around her. "You haven't ... you never slept with anyone else while we were married? I a.s.sumed you did."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Johnny said, "No way. We made vows, Tessa. That means something to me. It means a d.a.m.n sight more than getting my rocks off, I can tell you that."

"But ... it wouldn't have been a betrayal." Tessa was still reeling. She couldn't wrap her mind around it. "Not really. Our marriage was in name only. I would have understood."

She would've hated it, but she would have understood. And on some level, she'd been glad to think that even if Johnny wouldn't touch her, he could be happy with someone else even briefly.

But apparently not.

Johnny's jaw looked as hard and uncompromising as the marble of her favorite pastry board. "What, you think I couldn't keep it in my pants? I'm so ruled by my d.i.c.k that I'd break our vows, betray your trust, abandon my family..."

He choked off the words, but Tessa made the connection. "Your father was long gone by the time you lost Angie," she said slowly. "You told me that earlier, but I didn't put together what you meant. I was too focused on the tragedy of your sister's death. But that wasn't the first tragedy your family suffered, was it?"

Johnny's lip curled in something like a sneer. "A tragedy is a horrible accident, a loss that haunts you every day. My father leaving my mother for the woman he was cheating on her with wasn't a tragedy. It was just your average, everyday garden-variety faithless loser running out on his family. Happens all the time. We were better off without him."

Thinking back to the details of Johnny's story about his past, the things Tessa had missed in the first flush of horror and sympathy, she remembered that the pond where Angie drowned had been a favorite fishing hole of Johnny's. Stocked with fish by Johnny's long-gone father. Who had been thrilled when Angie, their "miracle baby," was born.

At some point, the Alexander family had been whole and happy. Johnny could deny those memories all he wanted, but on some level, he was still grieving the loss of that unbroken family as much as he was the loss of his sister.

"A man doesn't cheat." Johnny met her gaze, direct and serious. "A man keeps his word and he stands by his family. To do anything else..."

He shook his head, disgust twisting his mouth down, and for the first time Tessa got an inkling of what she'd been asking when she asked Johnny for a divorce.

To Johnny, who had learned the pain of his father's abandonment down to his bones, their "marriage in name only" was sacred. Something to be protected and cherished, even if it wasn't exactly the kind of marriage most people had.

She understood him so much better now than she ever had before. He might not be driven to stay with her out of love, but as far as Johnny was concerned, love was irrelevant.

He would stay because that was what a man did-the kind of man he wanted to be. The kind of man his father wasn't.

To be asked to break those vows must have felt like a blow against everything Johnny had worked to become. And he'd fought back, heroically, by following her to Sanctuary Island, by agreeing to couples therapy in spite of his discomfort, by kissing her ... and now that he was finally willing to admit defeat, Tessa didn't know if she could bear to let him go.

"You're a good man, John Alexander."

The words weren't enough. They were too small to encompa.s.s the way she felt about Johnny, the awe and fierce love and desperate longing that filled Tessa at the thought of the life she could have with this man.

They were so close. Closer and more connected than they'd ever been, and so heartbreakingly close to being a real married couple.

Maybe a night of pa.s.sion would help them move forward together; maybe it wouldn't. Tessa wouldn't know unless she tried.

"I'm only a man," Johnny said, every atom of his attention focused on Tessa. "Better than some, worse than others. But I'll make you this promise, Theresa Mulligan Alexander. No man has ever wanted to touch any woman more than I want to touch you at this moment."

With a silent prayer for the night to come and a vow to spend the morning begging Johnny to stay and try, Tessa threw herself into his arms. He stumbled back before taking her weight, kicking aside his packed duffel bag to lay her down on the soft, faded white sheets of his bed.

Tessa opened her heart and her body to the man she loved, reveling in the closeness, the almost unbearable intimacy of sliding skin to skin, mouth to mouth.

They rocked together, limbs entwined and heartbeats synced, on the too narrow bed in the corner of the studio. Tessa could see the moon through the window over Johnny's shoulder. It silvered his silky-hot skin, limning his shoulders with a white glow. He moved inside her, gently at first but then with more urgency, and the moon blurred and spangled into a thousand pinp.r.i.c.ks of light as Tessa gasped and shot into the stars.

Johnny's breath was harsh in her ear. He sank atop her, his warm, heavily muscled frame so welcome even as she struggled to draw a deep breath. Breathing was overrated, Tessa decided, delirious with the pleasure still sending aftershocks through her newly awakened body.

"I thought I would feel different," she whispered. "When I wasn't a virgin anymore. I thought it would change me. But I feel more myself-the person I'm meant to be, deep down-than I ever have in my life."

Johnny slid to the side, taking most of his weight off her but keeping her tucked close against his chest. He was silent for so long that Tessa's eyelids began to slip closed, weighted with exhaustion.

"I know exactly what you mean."

Johnny's low voice reached into Tessa's sleepy, sated half-dream. She woke up just long enough to smile at the kiss Johnny pressed to her temple-the same good-night kiss he'd given her every night they were together, and it did feel different now-before sinking happily into sleep wrapped in her husband's strong, steadfast arms.

Chapter 18.

Tessa blinked awake, disoriented for a moment by the unfamiliar slanted ceiling over her head. Her body ached pleasantly in places she'd never been aware of before.

The night before spilled back into her mind on a cascade of hopeful joy. She and Johnny had connected like never before. She knew things about him now, things she'd never known. Not only the taste of his skin and the sound he made when he came deep inside her, but the pain of his past and the scars on his soul.

She was finally getting to know Johnny, in every sense of the word. And Tessa would do anything to hold on to this second chance at happiness.

Turning over in bed to tell him so, Tessa's reaching hand encountered only emptiness. Her heart spasmed.

She sat up, clutching the sheets to her naked chest, and stared around the apartment. But it was only one room. There was nowhere else for Johnny to be. He was gone. And when she searched the floor with desperate eyes, she saw that the duffel bag they'd nearly tripped over the night before was gone, too.

When she sank back against the pillows, defeated and winded, something crackled. Tessa was up like a shot to grope among the pillows. Her hands shook as she drew a folded piece of paper out from between Johnny's pillow and the headboard.

A sense of dej vu-or was it karma?-settled over her as she opened it and began to read.

Dear Tessa, Thank you for last night. You gave me a gift I'll never forget, and I will cherish the memories. I'm sorry you're waking up alone, but I had to leave. Partly because I wasn't sure I'd be able to if I waited until morning-and partly because I got a call back from Brad, finally. One of the men who was arrested as a result of my undercover op escaped from custody. There is no reason to think he can track me, or that he knows anything about you or where you live now. I've never been so grateful that you picked up and left without a trace. You should be safe, and I'm heading back to D.C. to make sure of it.

Tessa's stomach cramped with fear for him. She wasn't an idiot. She knew he was leaving to draw the danger away, whatever danger there was. But she also knew that it wasn't easy for him to leave her unprotected when any danger threatened.

This note was truly a message to her, one that she had to be smart enough to read.

You'll be fine, Johnny wrote. You are a survivor. I believe you would have landed on your feet all those years ago, with or without my help. And if that's true, then we never needed to be married at all.

Tessa's breath caught in her chest as her eyes devoured the rest of the note.

You were right about me hanging on to our marriage because, selfishly, I didn't want to be like my father. Maybe you were even right that I'm too protective, because of what happened to my sister. You were right about everything except this: I'm not a good man, Tessa. Because I would do all of it again, everything the same, just to be able to end up where we were last night.

Take your independence and your brave new life, and be happy. No one deserves it more. And maybe one day soon, you'll let me come visit you and see how you're doing. Not because I think you'll need my help by then-but because I can't wait to see what you accomplish on your own.

Your husband, for a little longer, Johnny Tessa leaped out of bed, her hands shaking as she dropped her very own "Dear John" letter on the nightstand. It landed on a stack of paper she didn't remember seeing there the night before-and when she moved the letter aside, the top page looked horribly familiar.

Oh, no.

Heart shriveling like a fig left out in the sun, Tessa picked up the divorce papers she'd had drawn up. She flipped to the last page and had to shut her eyes briefly at the sight of Johnny's black, slashing signature underneath her own lighter script.

He'd signed them. Last night, after the most amazing experience of Tessa's life while Tessa was dreaming of new beginnings ... Johnny was saying good-bye.

As Tessa stood there, alone with the wreckage of her hopes, she realized exactly how far she'd come from the scared girl who'd accepted the first helping hand ever to reach out to her. Because as gutted as she was, her first instinct wasn't to cry or hide or look for someone else to fix this for her.

No, all Tessa wanted to do was find Johnny and tell him exactly how wrong he was. About everything.

Scrambling for her clothes, she hurried into them on her way to the door. She stuffed the signature page from the packet of divorce papers into her pocket as she raced down the stairs. She had to hurry if she was going to find Johnny and tell him if he thought she'd thank him for finally agreeing to this divorce, he could think again.

Not to mention the fact that the stubbornly hopeful part of her heart was shouting that the man who wrote that letter was not incapable of love. He was one of the most incredibly loving, self-sacrificing, dear, darling idiots she'd ever heard of, and she couldn't wait to tell him so.

But first she had to catch up to him. It was the only thought in her mind as she shoved open the back door and rushed out into the alleyway. After the dark interior of the bar, the morning light was bright enough to make her eyes water.

She ran toward the bakery, where her car was parked, but before she'd made it five steps, she felt a hand clamp down on her shoulder.

"Johnny?"

Whirling, she had time for joy to transform into confusion and shock before a dark cloth dropped over her head and she was being dragged, struggling, and thrown into a waiting vehicle. Before she could draw breath to scream, her head hit the side of the door frame and everything went black.

The phone in Johnny's pocket vibrated at the exact instant he was fumbling to find the ticket to hand to the ferry captain.

It was his boss at the ATF, Brad Garner. Johnny's exhausted brain went sharp in an instant, the edges of his vision going overbright.

Stepping aside rather than hold up the line, Johnny tightened his grip on his duffel and held the phone to his ear.

"Alexander," he said tersely. "Tell me you've got a lead on this guy, Brad."

"I've got better than a lead ... I've got the guy."

The quiet satisfaction in his old friend's voice made the tense ball of dread in Johnny's gut dissolve. "You got him. Are you kidding me? That's great news, man."

As Brad recounted the swiftly unfolding series of events that had led to recapturing their fugitive, Johnny staggered down off the gangplank and away from the crush of people waiting to board the ferry.

From the moment he got Brad's middle-of-the-night code red, Johnny's pulse had never jumped once. He'd actually felt himself going into Ice Man mode, switching off and shutting down every part of himself that might get him killed in an armed showdown. And the fact was, he'd almost welcomed the deep freeze because it came with a bona fide enemy to engage and destroy.

Not to mention that it was easier to deal with the deep freeze than with the shocking chaos of emotion he'd felt with his arms and his bed full of a warm, naked, enthusiastically sensual Tessa.

But now, as he thawed, those feelings started coming back. Along with the metallic tang of receding adrenaline came the flood of memories-Tessa's short, silky spikes of hair against his throat, her long thighs clasping his hips, her body gripping him tighter than a fist and twice as sweet.

Johnny "Mm-hmm"-ed into the phone and reached out to grab the dock railing with his free hand before the force of his emotions shoved him right over the edge and into the drink.

Whoever said women were the only ones who got s.e.x and feelings mixed up was a hundred percent wrong. Johnny had never been more mixed up in his life. He didn't know whether he was coming or going.

Did this change anything he'd written in the note he left for Tessa?

"Johnny, are you there?" Brad's voice in his ear was impatient, as if he'd repeated the question already more than once.

Lifting his head, Johnny hesitated at the sight of the ferry captain waving to him with a questioning scowl on his wind-chapped face. "You coming aboard or what, mister?"

He held up one finger in the universal gesture for "hold on a minute," and said into the phone, "I'm here, Brad. Good work. I want to hear more details, but I need to call Tessa and let her know. Not that she was ever afraid."

"Of course not," Brad bragged. "We're the ATF. We always get our man."

Johnny grinned, relief finally distinguishing itself as the strongest emotion currently firing his blood. "d.a.m.n straight. You're one of the good ones, Brad. Talk to you later."

Without pausing to ask himself if he was calling instead of texting because he already missed the sound of Tessa's voice, Johnny dialed her number and let it ring.

And ring. And ring and ring and ring.

Frowning, Johnny stared down at the phone in his hand. He hadn't hit the wrong number. Maybe she was screening his calls, didn't want to talk to him after he'd left her this morning without saying good-bye.

But if he'd said good-bye, he wouldn't have found the strength to leave.

Waving off the impatient ferry captain, Johnny called her again. No one picked up. Then he tried Patty's landline with no response ... but it wasn't until he phoned the bakery and listened to the endless repet.i.tion of the ring that he started to get worried.

It was after six. The bakery would open in less than an hour. Both Tessa and Patty should be there by now, Patty prepping the display counter and Tessa pulling freshly baked scones and m.u.f.fins from the hot oven. Patty would be listening for the phone, ready to take call-in orders for takeout. There was no way they'd just let it ring.

The relief Johnny had been enjoying fizzled out as if an ocean wave had doused a single candle.

Ice began to trickle down his back. He turned to the ferry and yelled, "Go ahead without me. Sorry to keep you waiting."

Something in his voice or expression made the ferry captain squint down at him with concern. "You okay, mister?"

It only took a moment's debate between looking like a paranoid idiot and having backup for Johnny to shake his head. The man in the field had to make the call, and he was calling it. There was something wrong here.

"I'm worried my wife might be hurt or in trouble. Can you call-"

c.r.a.p. Who? The sheriff's department? What could he possibly say that would make them take him seriously? So his wife wasn't picking up her phone after he walked out on her that very morning. Shocker.

Johnny needed someone who knew what he was doing in a fight, someone Johnny could count on to have his back. He paused for a moment, struck by a sudden inspiration.

Might be a crazy idea, but then again, he was low on options.

With a decisive nod, Johnny rattled off a set of instructions to the grim-faced ferry captain, who nodded back. Johnny ran for his car. He tossed his duffel in the backseat and peeled out of the dockside parking lot as if he were on his way to defuse a bomb.

Maybe he was. If anything had happened to Tessa, his life would implode, never to be the same again.

Uncaring of the speed but keeping a sharp eye out for pedestrians and wild horses crossing the road, Johnny drove with controlled aggression and his heart beating at a sluggish, subzero temperature. His brain felt as if it were emitting white noise, a buzzing static where thoughts should be, where he should be making plans and calculating contingencies ... except he had no information yet.

All he knew was that this wasn't something from Marcus Beckett's past, and it had nothing to do with his own most recent bust. Maybe one of his older cases, come back to bite him and deciding to take a tasty chunk out of Tessa instead?

He pushed the c.r.a.ppy little rental car to its limits, pulling up in front of Patty's house on the town square in less than ten minutes. No lights were on that he could see as he ripped himself free of his seat belt and bolted up the front porch steps, taking them two at a time.

Raising his hand to knock on the front door, the hairs on the back of his neck lifted when the first rap nudged the door ajar. The creak of its hinges shuddered down his spine with chill terror, because this door shouldn't be open. He knew Sanctuary Island was a place where people knew their neighbors and felt safe, but that meant leaving doors unlocked-not leaving them unlatched for the wind to blow open.

Johnny had never wished more intensely for the gun and badge he'd left in Brad's office when he went on leave. Forcing himself to breathe slowly and evenly, he slowly cracked the door open further and peered inside. A quick sweep of the corners and blind spots showed no danger, but he was unarmed. It wouldn't help Tessa if he ran shouting into this house and got himself picked off like a trout in a barrel. He was going to go slowly and carefully if it killed him.