The Marshal's Witness

Her heart twisted painfully in her chest and she shook her head in denial. She immediately stilled when the throbbing in her head worsened. “What happened?” she whispered, gritting her teeth against the pain.

“Someone, presumably one of DeGaullo’s men, blew up the van using a damn toy, a remote-control car. I saw the car a few seconds before the blast.” His jaw tightened. “My warning came too late. Except for you. Ironic, isn’t it? A woman who dedicated her life to cooking the books for the mob survives, while four decent, honorable men die.”

She jerked back from the raw fury and accusation in his voice. The sudden movement caused a wave of nausea. She sucked in a deep breath and bit back the sharp retort hovering on her tongue. Ryan Jackson didn’t know her, or why she’d made the choices she’d made. He’d just seen his colleagues die, and he obviously blamed her, at least partially. She could understand that. She’d probably feel the same way.

“When are the funerals?” She struggled for a calmness she was far from feeling. “I want to go.”

“You can’t go to their funerals.” He spoke in short, clipped tones.

Anger flared inside her, overriding her sympathy for him, overriding her horror over what had happened. “I don’t care what you think of me, but I have to go to their funerals. I owe them that.”

He reached toward her arm. Before she could move away, he gently lifted her wrist and unwound the IV tubing that had become tangled around one of her bandages.

“Whether I would have allowed you to go to their funerals is a moot point. In spite of your miraculous survival, you didn’t come away unscathed in the blast. You’ve already been here for quite some time, and the doctor said you’ll be here several more weeks, maybe longer. The funerals were held a few days after the explosion.”

She clasped her hands on the railing beside her, hatred for DeGaullo filling her like a living thing. He’d hurt so many people, including the one person she’d opened up to about her past—Natalie—and now he’d stolen her right to pay her respects to the men who’d died protecting her. “How long has it been since the explosion?”

He pulled up her covers and arranged the call button so she could easily reach it. He tugged at the wrinkles in her blanket, smoothing them out.

She frowned at his actions. It dawned on her, from the faraway look in his eyes, and the way his expression had softened, that he probably didn’t realize what he was doing. His movements seemed automatic, like he was operating on autopilot.

The lines around his eyes were deeper than before. He looked tired, almost haggard. Silver threads shone in his dark hair, as if he’d aged several years since she’d met him at the courthouse.

His hands stilled. He straightened, his eyes frosting over, his cold mask back in place. “Two weeks. The funerals were two weeks ago.”

He yanked his hand back and crossed to the window. A moment later, he squared his shoulders and turned around to face her. “I’m the lead field agent on your case now. When you leave here, I’ll take you to a new location, settle you into another new identity.”

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him. She shook her head in denial, no longer caring that it made the pain worse. “No. I won’t agree to that. You’re too angry. You obviously blame me for what happened. I’ll tell the Justice Department that I won’t—”

“You think I want to be assigned to this case?” His jaw went rigid as he stepped back to her side. “You’re not an innocent bystander who happened to witness a crime. You chose to cover up your boss’s crimes for five years. The only reason you went to the Feds was because DeGaullo killed your friend, and you knew you were next. As far as I’m concerned, you’re almost as bad as he is.”

Her body flushed hot beneath his scalding words.

“But,” he continued, before she could speak, “since I’m a former army ranger, and people are trying to kill you, the government has decided I’m their most qualified marshal to keep you alive. Against my wishes, they’ve assigned me as your temporary guardian.”

His eyes flashed as he held her gaze. “Four men gave their lives for you. I’m not going to allow their sacrifices to be meaningless. When I became a marshal, I made a vow that I’m honor bound to keep. I will keep you safe, whatever it takes, whether you want me to or not.”

RYAN FIRMLY SHUT the door to Jessica’s hospital room and slumped back against the wall in the hallway. He scrubbed his hands across his face and rubbed his tired eyes. For two weeks he’d sat in that uncomfortable plastic chair in the corner of Jessica’s room, watching over her. He’d slept in the cramped window seat, listening to the machines hooked up to her beeping along with her vital signs, calling the nurses when she cried out in pain. He’d held her hand when she twisted against the sheets in the throes of a nightmare.

And the minute she woke up, he’d been a complete jerk, blaming her for his friends’ deaths. Did he blame her? Yes, partly, but that didn’t excuse his actions. His mother would be appalled if she’d seen her son treat a woman that way, any woman, regardless of what she’d done.

Especially since the reason he’d behaved that way had nothing to do with the explosion, and everything to do with the way she affected him. When he’d looked into her soft brown eyes and that shock of attraction rippled through him, just like when he’d first met her, he’d been so disgusted at himself that he’d lashed out. How could he want her so much, knowing about her past, the choices she’d made that went against everything he believed in?

Physically, she was exactly his type—petite and curvy. Even with her stitches and bandages, she made his blood run hot. He could understand that. She was a beautiful woman, and he was still young enough to appreciate that. What he couldn’t understand was why her appeal went far beyond her outward appearance.

When he looked in her eyes he saw the pain she didn’t acknowledge, the kind of pain that went far deeper than cuts and bruises. He knew what caused that pain in him—the lives he’d taken while performing his duties, the betrayal by someone he’d trusted, the men under his command who’d lost their lives as a result of that betrayal.

But why was she suffering? What had happened to put those shadows in her eyes?

And why did he care?

He rubbed his neck to work out the stiffness. He didn’t know what it was about Jessica Delaney that drove him so crazy. All he knew for sure was that he needed to put some distance between the two of them. The only way to do that was to finalize her new identity and get her new location set up.

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and texted the message that would set everything into motion…Sleeping Beauty is awake.

Chapter Three

In the three weeks since she’d awakened in the hospital to find Ryan Jackson in her room, Jessica had learned a few things. One was that he had a bit of the devil in him. So, as she stood beside him on the front lawn that had already turned brown in the cool fall air, she did everything she could to hide her disappointment. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d won this round, because the house he’d brought her to was the ugliest she’d ever seen.

And it was hers.

She glanced over at the three marshals leaning against the SUV in the gravel driveway. Judging by the looks on their faces, they agreed with her.

The house boasted rotting wood siding in a sickly mustard-yellow with patches of gray, as if someone had thought about changing the color but had changed their mind. The shutters on the two narrow front windows were missing half their slats. Weeds grew wild and tall, choking what once must have been a concrete walkway that led to the sagging porch.

“I suppose you would have rather gone to New Orleans.” Ryan studied the dilapidated cabin in front of them as if weighing its merits. “Probably more appealing to a city girl like you.”

Jessica pursed her lips, determined not to let his latest city girl comment goad her. He flung the mantra around as if it were the worst insult he could think of. It made her want to ask him why he didn’t consider himself a city boy since he lived in New York, but that would require an actual conversation, and he wasn’t open to that—not about anything personal, anyway.

Her shoulders slumped. He was right. Living in the gatorfilled bayous of Louisiana would have been infinitely preferable to living in rural Tennessee.

Emphasis on rural.

He’d scrapped the original location, reasoning that her notoriety after the bombing would put her at risk in a big city. She was more inclined to believe he just wanted to punish her, especially since her new last name so clearly demonstrated his opinion of her.

Benedict.

As in Benedict Arnold.

“You’ll have plenty of privacy on this dead-end road.” He sounded like a Realtor trying to convince his client a house was cozy instead of cramped.

She glanced over at the only other house close enough to see, a cabin next to hers with about thirty feet separating the two. Its yard was well kept. Its porch had a collection of bleached-white rocking chairs and terra-cotta pots with purple cold-weather flowers spilling over the edge.

In the twenty-minute ride up the mountain, bumping and jarring over every pothole and rock on the gravel road, Jessica had only seen a handful of other houses. What were the odds that whoever lived next door would be her age, someone with the same likes and dislikes, someone she could be friends with? Knowing that Ryan had helped his boss choose this location for her, she figured the odds were just about zero. Ryan wouldn’t want to reward the woman he held responsible for his friends’ deaths.

“Who lives in the cabin next door?” she asked, bracing herself for the worst.

“Me.”

“What?” Her mouth dropped open in shock. When she’d braced herself for the worst, having Ryan living next door wasn’t even on the list of possibilities.

He opened the neon blue front door and rolled her suitcase inside. “For the next few weeks, I’ll be your neighbor. Just until you’re settled in.”

“Oh, sugar.”

The corner of Ryan’s mouth lifted into a grin. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Jessica wasn’t about to admit that she’d grown up swearing worse than most boys, and that her last foster mom had gone on a personal crusade to clean up Jessica’s language. She’d made Jessica say sugar instead of cussing, a habit that had become so ingrained, it had stuck with her. Ryan would jump all over that and tease her mercilessly.