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there.”
    She was a pro at sounding like the queen of mean, one woman he would have hated to count among his enemies.
    “You don’t have kids. So what is this about?” she drilled him.
    “Fourteen-month-old twins, Zak and Nate. Long story.”
    “I bet.” The voice had a smile in it now. “All right, you sly dog. But when this is over, I want to hear all about it. And I do mean details.”
    He could hear clicking on the other end. She was on her laptop already.
    “I’ll call you when I have anything,” she promised.
    He set his phone down, his guts twisting. “I’ll bring them back,” he told Lara, who’d just about gotten free. He pulled her back, onto his lap, against his better judgment, and put his arms around her.
    Normally, he wasn’t the snuggling kind. He couldn’t say he’d ever wanted to just hold a woman. And if emotional upheaval was at hand, he usually ran for the nearest exit. But he needed to be holding her now. Ironic because she didn’t seem to be able to get away from him fast enough.
    He let her go with a sigh after a few unsatisfactory moments.
    “Why did you tell those people that you’re the boys’ father?” she demanded. “I thought you didn’t believe me.”
    “I was an idiot before. I’m sorry.” He hesitated. He wasn’t the type of guy who discussed his past, as a rule, ever. Partially that came from his job, partially from his personality. But as he looked into her eyes, he felt he owed her an explanation.
    “Look, about a million years ago when I was a young pup, I had this older girlfriend. She had a kid already. She wanted another. We gave it a good try. Nothing happened. I figured since she already had a kid—” He shrugged.
    “You thought something was wrong with you.”
    “Then a couple of years back, I had a wife.” He pushed away those dark memories. He didn’t want to think of Leila’s broken body, the grave on the side of that damned mountain in Afghanistan where he’d buried her. “Anyway, nothing happened there either. So I was pretty sure.
    “Plus there was this other thing. I caught some shrapnel to a sensitive area at one point.”
    “Ouch.”
    “You’re telling me. So the doctor said I might have, you know, trouble from that later.”
    Her red-rimmed eyes blinked. “You had a wife?” She stared at him, storm clouds gathering on her face.
    “Long story.” He definitely wasn’t going to talk about that. To anyone. Ever.
    She took a wobbly step back. “While you were in Hopeville?” Another layer of hurt was added to her voice, her violet eyes widening with the pain.
    Okay, so he hadn’t always been truthful with her. Still, it stung that she was so ready to assume the worst about him. “I’m a conscienceless bastard for the most, but not that much of a bastard. A vote of confidence would be nice here.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been lying to me from the get-go. I’m not going to apologize. What happened to her?”
    “She was killed.” Along with two hundred forty-two innocent men, women and children—most of a small Afghan village. Because of him.

    R EID WAS HER ONLY HOPE , and he was the most terrible last resort a desperate woman could have, Lara thought as the drugs wore off. Hours had passed while the two of them waited for a call, some clue they could follow. He wasn’t just bad luck for her, he was bad luck for all women, it seemed. He’d had a wife. And she’d been killed. He hadn’t said that it’d been his fault, but the look on his face told a grim story. His face had been so hard she thought his cheekbones would crack.
    She wondered whether his tragic marriage happened before or after he’d come to Hopeville to mess up her life forever. It didn’t matter. She had little claim on him. And still, when she thought of him walking away from Hopeville, leaving her behind, heartbroken and pregnant, to marry another woman, her heart twisted with pain.
    “Will you tell me about her?” She bit her lip. It