Husband by Choice

No one loitering in the yards or on the sidewalks or the street.

Nothing suspicious looking at all.

Unless the absence of human life outside was suspicious....

Starting the van, she slowly pulled away from the curb. She was late. She’d told the day care she’d be there to pick Caleb up at three. But technically, based on the agreement she’d made with Max, she was supposed to leave Caleb at Let’s Pal Around until four.

She’d told her husband she’d try to leave him that long but hadn’t expected to succeed. Today, thanks to the new at-home client and the many questions his mother had asked, she just might make it. She just might manage to leave Caleb at day care for the full three hours.

The important thing to do right then was act as if everything was normal. Get Caleb. Go home. Have a normal evening.

And find a way to disappear. Before Max figured out that something was wrong and called in his cop friends to save the day and put himself and Caleb in danger in the process. Before Steve got tired of the little cat-and-mouse game he was playing—had possibly been playing for days if he was the one who’d left that note on her van three days before.

A note with no signature and no number, only a demand to call. She’d tried to convince herself it was a mistake, that it had been meant for some other vehicle. She’d heard Max’s calm voice in her mind, telling her that the past was just that, the past. That Steve hadn’t been around in years and she was letting him win by living in fear.

Keeping a watch behind her as she entered the main thoroughfare on the outskirts of Santa Raquel, Meredith made a mental plan of the route she would take back to her son. A route that wove in and out of various neighborhoods, seemingly going nowhere fast, until she could be certain that no one was following her.

Her rendition of Max’s voice in her head had been telling her to calm down. To stop worrying. To smile.

She’d tried to smile.

And had seen that car following her that afternoon. She couldn’t pretend any longer. The note, this car—they added up to only one thing. Steve knew where she lived. He knew her routine.

Caleb had had a particularly hard time being left at day care. Her sweet little man had probably picked up on her tension. It had gone against every maternal instinct she had to leave him there today.

And yet, she had been grateful to turn him over and walk out that door. He’d be safe there.

Safer than he’d be anywhere with her?

There was a green car behind her. Two cars back. It had been behind her since she’d turned out of Devon’s neighborhood. Staying back in traffic. Not always in the same lane. But there.

The same green car that had been following her earlier. It was a message to say that he was on to her. That if she was driving he knew. That she belonged to him. Was a part of him. Would always be a part of him. They were both parts of the same body. The same soul.

She knew the words. Could hear his voice in her head, too. Louder than Max’s.

Just as she heard her own—telling her to get as far from Caleb’s day care as she could. As quickly as she could.

Her plan wasn’t fully formed yet. She wasn’t ready.

But her time was up.

* * *

HIS JOB WAS not to panic. When he’d married Meredith Smith, alias Cassandra White, alias Lori Wade, alias Pamela Casey, he’d promised not only to love and to cherish, to be faithful and kind until death did them part, but he’d promised to be the keeper of their calm. The one in charge of making certain that fear didn’t rule their lives.

He’d promised her he could live with a woman whose life could possibly someday be in danger.

And in the three years since they’d made those vows, he’d been able to keep every single one of them.

But unlike Jill, the cop who’d made him a widower four years after they’d married, and who’d driven him crazy with worry countless days and nights before that, Meredith’s entire life revolved around keeping herself and her loved ones safe. Not putting herself in danger to keep the world safe.

Jill’s job, and her penchant for leaping into the middle of any situation if she thought she could help, had made living without fear impossible.

Meredith made keeping fear under wraps easy.

The woman was a walking safety course in action.

So she was a few minutes late. Today had been her first private session with Devon Wright, the eight-year-old with Down syndrome. She’d been working with him for more than a year through his school. The at-home session had probably run longer than she’d expected. And that was all.