Honor Bound

“Nothing is wrong with her. I was just resting for a minute.” He’d never been a good liar. “Okay, maybe since the sheriff is worried about election night,” he sighed, “well, then, I guess maybe I should be, too.”

Jerrod shook his head. “Your sheriff has called in the National Guard as well as local law enforcement and Secret Service agents. The only way to make you safer is to move the venue. You want to do that?”

His campaign manager knew he didn’t. “No. Like I said, everything is fine.” He worked up a smile. “If anything, it’s the realization that this is almost over, and a whole other lifetime of dramas is about to begin.”

The younger man laughed. “That’s more like it, Mr. President.”

“Not yet. Don’t jinx it.”

Jerrod made a mocking face. “You got this one. It isn’t even going to be a close race. So relax. A few more days. You up to it?”

Buck straightened, fixed his tie and nodded as Jerrod began to go over his schedule for the last hours up until the election. He half listened, the rest of his mind back on Sarah.

The sheriff was convinced that something was going to happen election night. Buck tried to reassure himself. At least he didn’t have to wonder much longer if his wife would try to kill him.

* * *

SARAH JOHNSON HAMILTON found herself wandering around the huge rambling two-story house feeling empty. Her phone call to her daughter Ainsley had left her feeling a little better. But ultimately her children didn’t know her. She’d lost them, just as she’d lost those missing twenty-two years from her memory.

Since her return from the dead, she had wanted desperately to be back here in this home that she’d shared with Buck and her children. But it felt...strange after all the years she’d been gone. It also felt...temporary since after Buck won the election, they would be living in the White House.

But she knew that wasn’t the only reason she felt out of sorts. During the twenty-two years she’d been presumed dead, her children had all grown up. Now they were all busy with their own lives—lives that had little to do with her. She couldn’t blame them. The younger ones had no memory of her. Her six beautiful daughters had turned out fine without her. Probably better than if she had been here, she thought miserably.

Worse, her secret would be coming out soon—unless she did something. Exhausted and anxious after being on the campaign trail for months, she had begged off Buck’s one last swing through the worrisome states, and returned home.

Buck had been disappointed, but his campaign manager, Jerrod Williston, had said it was exactly what she should do.

“I think it would be smart for you to do some charity events back in Montana these last few weeks before the election,” Jerrod had said. “In fact, I’ve already scheduled one for you.”

She’d started to argue that she didn’t want to do any more of them right now since she knew they had nothing to do with Buck being elected. She suspected that Jerrod just wanted to keep her busy and out of trouble.

“Just one, I promise,” he said. “You need to rest up. Things will get crazy by election night.”

She had laughed at that, fearing how crazy it could get. That and her secret were what kept her awake in the wee hours of the morning. For so long she’d felt trapped, unable to change what she feared was coming until she got all of her memory back. She’d been waiting now for weeks to hear from the one man who could give her the final piece of her memory, Dr. Ralph Venable.

As she moved restlessly through the huge house, she was terrified. Terrified he wouldn’t call. Terrified he would. Dr. Venable had been experimenting with brain-wiping for years. Until recently, she wasn’t sure she believed he had wiped her mind of Buck and the kids all those years ago.

But then she’d seen what he could do. Now she lived in fear of the day he would show up and give her back the rest of her memories—including the one she didn’t want.

After disappearing for twenty-two years and not being able to remember any of it, she’d been petrified of what she’d done those missing years. But as it turned out, it wasn’t those years that she had to worry about. It was her college ones and what she’d done that had now come back to haunt her. How had she gotten involved with an anarchist group that thought they could change the world by bombing buildings and killing innocent people? The answer was love. Or was it lust?

A charismatic handsome young man named Joe Landon must have seen how vulnerable the bright-eyed, innocent Sarah Johnson had been. She’d fallen for him—and his cause, becoming a co-leader of the group for a while. Worse, she’d been told that she had been the true leader of the group, The Prophecy. Since then, though, Joe had taken back over, and, as her scorned former lover, he was determined to pull Sarah in again or die trying.

Sarah stopped in front of a mirror and stared at her reflection. Often she didn’t recognize herself. When you thought you were twenty-two years younger than you were, it messed with your mind.

In the mirror, a blonde, blue-eyed fifty-nine-year-old woman stared back at her. She was still in good shape, still felt no more than thirty-seven, still believed she could do anything. Just as she had in college, she reminded herself with a tremor.

Her fear was that Joe Landon had something big planned for election night. She imagined a huge explosion that would kill them all once the polls were in and Buck had won.

She’d once believed that killing herself would save her family from ever knowing about The Prophecy and her part in it. Failing that, she’d disappeared for twenty-two years only to return with no memory of The Prophecy or the missing years.

But slowly, it was all coming back, thanks to Dr. Venable and Joe’s determination that she would be the woman she’d once been—an anarchist who went by the name of Red. She’d even dyed her hair red, according to the photographs Dr. Venable, or Doc as he was known back then, had shown her of the group.

When she’d realized that Joe and The Prophecy were using her to get to Buck and the presidency, she’d decided to stop them by confessing all to Buck and the sheriff. But Joe, knowing her...intimately, had seen that coming and threatened her daughters to stop her.

Joe had also put a man she loved in the hospital in a coma. Russell Murdock had befriended her when she’d returned to find the life she’d left gone. Buck had remarried, her children didn’t know her, and she didn’t even know this older version of herself.

Russell had been the only one she could trust, the only one she could lean on. He’d also been the one who’d found out the truth about her memory loss and its tie-in to the anarchist group pulling her strings like a puppeteer.

And look what The Prophecy had done to him. Even if he came out of his coma after he’d been attacked, the doctor didn’t have much hope that Russell would ever recover.

No wonder she was terrified. Election night loomed. Her six daughters would be coming home, so they could all be together when their father gave his acceptance speech. When she’d called Ainsley, she’d hoped she would say she couldn’t make it home for election night. But of course all six of Buck’s daughters planned to be there.

Sarah felt as if she was on a runaway train, and ahead there was nothing but an open abyss. She desperately needed to stop The Prophecy. Stop her former lover Joe Landon. But how, without Joe finding out and retaliating against one of her daughters or her grandchildren?

Her cell phone rang, startling her out of her thoughts. She checked caller ID. The hospital was calling. Her heart dropped like a stone. No! Please God, don’t let it be bad news about Russell.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Hamilton, you asked to be called if there was any change in Russell Murdock’s condition...”

Tears burned her eyes. “Yes?”

“He has come out of his coma. The doctor is with him now.”

Sarah hardly remembered thanking the nurse for phoning. She disconnected and burst into tears.

For months since Russell had been attacked she’d prayed for him to come out of the coma. But as more time went on, she knew that his chances worsened. She’d almost given up hope.

Now hope flared. If Russell could testify against the men who’d attacked him, then maybe it would all come out about The Prophecy. She didn’t care if she went to prison as long as Joe was stopped. Russell would know what to do. He had loved her, asked her to marry him, stayed around because he was worried about her. Together they could stop Joe. She prayed The Prophecy was like a house of cards. Once you began removing a few of the cards... Grabbing her purse, she headed for the door.

* * *

AINSLEY KNEW SHE was bound to cross paths with Sawyer at some point. This was a small video production company. Somehow, she’d avoided him almost all morning. But as she was leading her horse out of the stables, her luck ran out.

He walked up leading his horse, and she remembered belatedly that he’d had an early shoot. “I was just thinking about you,” Sawyer said.

“Yes, me, too.” The words were out before she could call them back. She’d been thinking how embarrassed she was, how lucky she’d been to avoid him and half hoping that he’d already done his scene and had left for good. “I mean...I...”

He laughed. “You don’t need to explain.”

She looked away for a moment before turning to face him with a sigh. “About last night—”

“No explanation needed for that either.” He grinned at her, and she was struck by how completely charming he was. “I heard that the landslide yesterday ruined plans to film there. Are you riding out to look for another location?”

She nodded.

“Would you mind if I rode with you? I haven’t seen much of this country around here. I’d love to tag along.” His gaze met hers. “That’s if you don’t mind.”