Free The Widow's Secret by Sara Mitchell Page A

as though I were guilty of a crime.” Her mouth flattened. “Or have you and Chief Hazen decided otherwise, and the purpose of this visit is to finally arrest me? Did you bring your handcuffs along with your badge?”
    â€œNo, of course not.” Micah better recognized now the feardriving her barbed questions. It replicated the fear she had manifested from the day they’d met again in Clocks & Watches. Since he and Chief Hazen had decided not to badger her about her relationship with the Bingham family, opting instead to wait to see how things developed, her continued anxieties over being arrested were troubling. In Micah’s experience, only guilt promulgated this level of fear.
    And now—New York? Stalling, he folded his arms across his chest. “Katya, has your mistress always had a penchant for melodrama?”
    â€œShe won’t understand ‘penchant’ or ‘melodrama,’” Jocelyn muttered, flushing. She shot Katya a quick look.
    The maid scowled as she wrote her response. She is afraid ever since a letter. You must help.
    â€œAnd I will, Katya.” A strand of Jocelyn’s hair had slipped free of its chignon and dangled behind her ear, an alluring temptation inches from the reach of his fingers. Above her ruffled collar, the creamy texture of her neck with those irresistible freckles begged to be touched. Micah blinked, then produced what he hoped was a coaxing smile. “Before I can help, first I need to understand how a letter can frighten you enough to want to flee.”
    â€œKatya, I’d like to talk to Oper—to Mr. MacKenzie alone for a few moments, all right?”
    She waited until the maid reluctantly left the parlor. “Mr. MacKenzie…I know our acquaintance has been brief, but from the moment I remembered—” She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again Micah felt as though he’d fallen into a sea churning with despair. “My intention is not to take advantage of your kindness,” she whispered desperately, “but I—There’s no one else. I have no other choice. Chief Hazen obviously thinks highly of you, and I remembered that before you were assigned to Washington,you were the operative in charge, in New York. And…you knew Chadwick.”
    After an awkward pause she resumed speaking, her gaze fixed somewhere over Micah’s right shoulder. “My marriage was not a happy one. I was unable—We never had children. There were expectations. I failed. The Binghams renounced me.”
    She turned her head so that Micah could not see her face, but the toneless manifestation of her pain resonated inside his soul. Some griefs were harder to heal from than others, he thought, tamping more nails onto the lid of his own anguished memories.
    â€œIt’s been five years since he died,” she said. “I’ve neither seen nor heard from anyone in my husband’s family. Until—” her voice wobbled, then steadied “—until I received a letter, the day before yesterday, from Chadwick’s uncle. A-Augustus Brock is Chadwick’s mother’s brother.”
    She might as well have slammed a baseball bat against the side of Micah’s head. “Mrs. Tremayne—Jocelyn. Whatever he said, whatever he wants, it’s all right. Everything will be all right.”
    â€œDon’t try to coddle me as though I were an invalid.”
    Despite his own shock, her reply made Micah want to smile. He resisted the urge; if his lips so much as twitched, she’d either shatter, or hand him his head on a silver plate.
    If he were smart, he’d remove himself from this case—and from Jocelyn—before the sun set.
    But he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t. Jocelyn Tremayne Bingham was in trouble, and for some reason God had seen fit to bring her back into Micah’s life.
    Or to bring Micah into hers.
    Thanks, Lord. I think. “There’s a difference