Free In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite) by Virginia Kelly Page B

fucking mess. “He was a good friend.” Who may not have traded his white hat for black, after all… Jesus .
    She looked up at him, her gaze plaintive. “Tell me the truth. Did he do anything wrong?”
    The question hung between them. JP wanted to make it easier for her. He didn’t want to lie. But he didn’t know anything for sure anymore, and a possible lie was all he could manage. “Not Wade.” The same words he’d used to try to convince himself when he’d first found himself out in the cold.
    She rubbed her tears away with a quick swipe of her fingers. She needed reassurance. Needed to have faith in her late husband if she was going to be of any help to JP. So he played the game, even though he’d told her he wouldn’t. But there was this new possibility that he could be wrong about his friend’s betrayal. He’d keep an open mind. He wanted the truth , whatever it may be.
    “Wade was a good man,” he assured her. Even though Wade hadn’t told her the truth about himself. But in that lack of knowledge, in Abby’s faith in her husband—however shaken it may be—he might find the answers. Without telling her the worst. Without the need for her to know the whole truth about what they did for a living.
    “Wade wouldn’t do anything wrong. He couldn’t.” Her voice wobbled the tiniest bit. Enough to betray her uncertainty.
    “If I’m going to prove he was a hero, Abby, I have to know everything you know. You must answer my questions.”
    “And you have to answer mine,” she returned, her voice firm. No wilting flower, no mousy housewife. She hadn’t known what to do, but she’d shown courage.
    “What is it you want to know?”
    “I know you’re hiding from Brooks, from the Agency. Do they think you did something wrong, too?”
    Asked so directly, so honestly, JP faltered. God, how he hated lying to her, but there was no choice.
    “You said no games,” she reminded. “You promised.”
    “They think I…was a bit loose with some CIA secrets.” There, that sounded reasonable, and was far enough away from what happened that she would never know.
    “A bit loose with what secrets?”
    “I don’t think revealing the secrets now would help prove that I wasn’t guilty then, do you?” He smiled.
    “Then that must be what they thought Wade did,” she said, as if finally understanding. “Betray secrets.”
    He wouldn’t acknowledge or deny. Couldn’t— wouldn’t —keep lying to her.
    “You believed it, didn’t you?” she asked.
    “I didn’t know he was dead.” He hoped she wouldn’t see the total disconnect.
    “Did anyone else die?”
    She was boxing him into a corner. “As I said, I’ve been out of touch.”
    She didn’t say anything for a moment, just studied him.
    “Mommy, Petunia is coming,” Cole said from behind, startling them both.
    Damn . He’d totally forgotten about the kid…and the damn bull.
    “Throw the rest of the carrots on the ground and go on into the barn,” Abby said, calling to her son.
    The big bull trotted closer as Cole ran ahead of them as they walked toward the barn.
    She stopped JP with a touch to his arm. “You want to find something you think Wade had,” she said, “but Brooks searched the house, the entire property, the bank accounts, the safety deposit box. Everything.”
    As they walked, something shiny flashed in the trees between the barn and her house. He slowed to stare at it.
    “What do you see?” she asked, her gaze following his.
    JP kept his gaze fixed on the trees. “Let’s get inside the barn.”
    Petunia bellowed, the sound echoing around them. Buck pranced and snorted as the black bull bent to crunch on the carrots Cole had thrown for him.
    JP hurried Abby back into the barn. The interior smelled hot but the darkness felt cool compared to the outside heat. Cole saw the calico cat and followed her up a bale of hay.
    “Do you think someone’s watching us?” she asked.
    A bad feeling was niggling in his gut. He’d let his