Chapter 4 — Touch Her and Find Out

I knocked the gun away from the window and drove the man against the side of the SUV.

Charlotte pulled Summer out through the opposite door. I heard her tell the child to close her eyes.

The second man started around the hood. I shoved his partner into his path, took the weapon from the pavement, and held it low beside my thigh.

"Both of you stay where you are."

The first man looked at my face. Whatever he saw there finally frightened him.

Miles's pickup stopped at the entrance. He stepped out with two men, who immediately moved between Charlotte's car and the second vehicle.

"Connor," he said. "I've got them."

I kept watching the men until his people had taken control. Then I turned.

Charlotte crouched beside Summer behind the open passenger door. The child had both hands over her eyes.

"Can I look now?" she whispered.

I knelt in front of her.

"Yes. Look at me."

Her fingers separated. Then she took them away.

"Was he bad?"

"He did something bad. He's not coming near you again."

She looked at my hands.

I had given the gun to Miles. I opened both palms.

Summer reached for me.

I lifted her carefully. She pressed her face into my neck, and all the anger that had kept me steady changed into something much harder to bear.

Charlotte stood. Her mouth trembled once before she controlled it.

"Who were they?"

"People who work for a man I used to know."

"Why did they know your name?"

"Charlotte, let me get you somewhere safe. Then I'll answer what I can."

"What you can?"

I looked at her.

"There are things I need to verify first. Owen is one of them. I didn't tell him to turn you away."

She searched my face.

"You gave me a number and then disappeared. I thought—"

Her voice broke. She stopped before Summer could notice.

I shifted the little girl against my chest.

"I was hurt. Badly. I thought you had moved to London and become engaged."

Charlotte stared at me.

"I never lived in London. And I have never been engaged."

Miles came toward us. I could tell from his expression he'd heard enough.

"Owen handled those reports," he said.

"Find him," I told him. "Don't warn him."

He nodded.

Charlotte looked from him to me, noticing how quickly the order had been accepted.

"I need a minute with Connor," she said.

Miles stepped away without arguing.

She pointed to Summer's bag.

"Give me that. She needs her rabbit."

I did exactly as she asked.

Summer accepted Beans and loosened her hold on my shirt.

"Are we still having lunch?"

Charlotte closed her eyes briefly.

"Yes, sweetheart. We're still having lunch."

We went to a house Miles arranged through a friend of Charlotte's security company. She insisted on speaking to the person herself before we left.

I welcomed it. Every question she asked exposed another part of the life I hadn't invited her into.

In the car, she sat beside Summer. Nora followed in a separate vehicle.

"You don't have to tell her everything," Charlotte said quietly. "But you do have to tell me enough to protect her."

"I will."

"And if you leave now, I won't spend another four years looking."

I met her eyes in the mirror.

"I'm not leaving her."

"I said you. Don't use her to avoid answering about us."

There it was. Under the anger, the question neither of us had been willing to ask in the garage.

"I'm not leaving you either."

She looked down before I could see what that answer did to her.

At the house, Summer fell asleep on my shoulder before we reached the sitting room. I carried her upstairs, lowered her onto a bed, and spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to extract my shirt from her hand.

Charlotte helped.

"She grips things when she's frightened," she whispered.

"I noticed."

"So do you."

I looked down. I was still holding the little girl's other hand.

I let it go carefully.

Downstairs, Nora gave Charlotte a tablet containing the email from Owen. It said I considered the encounter private and did not wish to renew contact.

The date was three weeks after the explosion. I had been unconscious.

I read it twice.

"I didn't write this."

"I know that now," Charlotte said. "I didn't know it while I was pregnant."

I sat beside her. She didn't move away.

"Tell me."

"What?"

"What happened after I left."

She stared at the email.

"I called because I wanted dinner. Then I called because I was late. Then I called because I was scared. By the time that message arrived, I couldn't make myself try again."

I had no answer that could reach backward and change it.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize for being unconscious. Apologize for believing a report instead of asking me."

"I do. I should have found a way to speak to you."

She nodded, accepting the truth without offering forgiveness I hadn't earned.

The lab appointment took place the following morning with security outside. Summer watched me give a sample, then allowed hers.

While we waited for the result, I stayed. Not in the garage, not at a distant property. Across the hall from my daughter, where she could knock on the door and find me.

When the result arrived, Charlotte brought it to my room.

"You can read it yourself."

I did.

Summer was mine.

Charlotte watched as I sat on the bed, the paper shaking slightly in my hand.

"You knew," she said.

"Knowing and seeing it aren't the same."

She sat beside me.

"What are you going to do now?"

I looked toward the hallway, where Summer was singing to her rabbit.

"Learn everything I missed. Keep every promise I make from here. And find the man who stole four years from us."

Charlotte put her hand over mine.

"Start with breakfast. She wants you downstairs."

My phone lit up beside the bed.

Miles had found Owen.

He was at Charlotte's company, asking to see her.