The Agent's Redemption. Lisa Childs

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       Chapter Four

      Jared’s heart pounded fast and furiously as he waited for her answer. Or maybe because he’d touched her. He shouldn’t have touched her. Because now he wanted to touch her again.

      But if her son was his and she had never told him...

      Could he ever forgive her? She had stolen almost six years of her son’s life from him—years he couldn’t get back. But her son couldn’t be almost six years old. He was too small.

      Like Jared had been for his age...

      No. He shook his head in silent denial of his own thoughts and suspicions.

      “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no business asking you that. I must’ve let Kyle Smith get inside my head.” And of course the reporter had just been trying to get a reaction out of him—some scandalous footage to run over and over on his broadcast.

      She blinked as her blue eyes widened with confusion. “Kyle Smith?”

      “The reporter.” Jared chuckled. “That egomaniac would hate that you don’t know his name.”

      She glanced toward the black screen of her TV. “I try not to pay much attention to the news.”

      But since she’d known about Amy Wilcox’s disappearance, he doubted that she was any more successful at ignoring the media than he was.

      “I’ve been working on that myself.” In his job, he had to know how to handle the media or he could tip off a suspect or undermine his own investigation. He lifted a hand toward his throbbing head. “Maybe I only let him get to me because of the concussion.”

      He wished he could blame the head injury. But he suspected that maybe it was wishful thinking instead...that Becca’s son was his. He wanted a connection to her—something more than Lexi’s unsolved murder to bind them together.

      “How did you get the concussion?” she asked, her voice soft with concern.

      After the way he’d treated her, how could she care about him at all? But that was just her nature, the reason she’d wanted to become a doctor, because she cared about people. All people. It was nothing personal. She’d had six years to realize that, although he hadn’t been sensitive about her feelings, he’d been right. She hadn’t really been in love with him.

      “How did you get hurt?” she asked again, and now the concern was in her beautiful eyes as she studied his face, maybe trying to medically determine if he’d checked himself out too soon.

      He shrugged off her concern and his own stupidity. “I didn’t stick to just profiling.”

      “Do you ever?” she asked, and a twinkle flashed briefly in her blue eyes as if she was teasing him. Maybe she’d forgiven him for how he’d treated her.

      “As a profiler, I do have to spend a lot of time out in the field,” he said, “analyzing the crime scenes, the evidence, interviewing suspects, hopefully following leads to more suspects...”

      “I know what you do,” she reminded him.

      Six years ago he’d kept her apprised of his investigation—probably too apprised. He’d told her when he’d interviewed her sister’s fiancé. But she hadn’t agreed with his findings. Even if the guy hadn’t had an alibi, Jared truly hadn’t felt like the man had killed his fiancée. Harris Mowery’s shock and anger over Lexi’s disappearance had seemed very genuine. But maybe Jared had been so cocky and overconfident back then that he hadn’t read Harris as well as he’d thought he had.

      “So what were you doing this time?” she asked. “That wasn’t just profiling?”

      “Protection duty.”

      She laughed. “You were playing bodyguard?”

      He should have been offended. After all he wasn’t the too-small-for-his-age child that he had once been. He was tall and muscular now, but he was no bodyguard. He’d learned all the skills of being a field agent, but protecting someone wasn’t something he had done often enough to get good at it. Usually he came on the scene when it was too late for protection—when the victim had already gone missing or been found dead.

      He rubbed his head where he’d taken the blow from the butt of a gun. He was lucky he hadn’t been shot instead, but the killer hadn’t wanted to forewarn his victim and have her get away again.

      “I’m not a very good bodyguard,” he admitted.

      Her eyes widened with alarm. “Did whoever you were protecting get hurt?”

      He breathed СКАЧАТЬ