Jack knelt beside the elderly woman, who stared at him out of confused brown eyes and gazed around at her own small apartment, seemingly not recognizing any of it.

“Ma’am?” he said. “We’re going to check your blood sugar, okay?”

It was the second diabetic call that day. Dylan brought out the glucometer and read the results to Jack, who entered it on the tablet. They administered dextrose, which had an immediate normalizing effect on the patient’s blood sugar, but she would still need to go to the hospital.

As they waited for the ambulance to arrive, Jack’s radio squawked with tones and the dispatcher’s voice. It was a call for Engine Three to respond to an assault, and at first, Jack was glad his crew was already on a call so they wouldn’t have to take it. Then he heard the address.

Elizabeth’s home address.

Not Elizabeth. Please, not Elizabeth. Jack frantically thought back to the text messages they’d exchanged earlier that day. Where was she right now? At work. At the brewery.

So who had been assaulted at her house?

The answer came over the radio a few seconds later. The assault victim was an adult male, mid-sixties. Nate Armstrong?

“Ambo is here,” Sean said to Jack.

“Right,” he said, reluctantly turning down the radio and focusing his attention on the patient. He was quick as he could be about getting her loaded onto the gurney and into the ambulance and out of his hands.

“Turned and burned that one,” Sean said.

“Yeah,” Jack said. He climbed into the fire truck, cleared the call, and was about to get on the computer to find out more about what was going on at the Armstrong house, but just then his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket.

“Hey, Josh.”

“Hey. It’s about Dad. I got a call from the Engine Three captain, they just ran on him.”

“Wait—what?”

“Yeah, he got the crap beat out of him,” Josh said. “He’s on his way to the ER right now.”

Jack was silent for a moment. Nate found out. Competing feelings clamored through him. Concern for his dad mingled with a sense of serves-him-right righteousness. Mystification as to how Bruce had been discovered mixed with curiosity at how the scene must have unfolded. Most of all, he felt panic knowing that Elizabeth must have also discovered Bruce’s guilt, and regret and shame that Jack hadn’t been the one to tell her.

“Who beat him up?” Jack asked Josh.

“Elizabeth Armstrong, apparently.”

“What?” He thought maybe he hadn’t heard correctly. “That’s impossible, Josh. Completely impossible. Have you seen her? She couldn’t beat the crap out of anybody, and she wouldn’t beat the crap out of anyone—least of all Dad.”

“Look, I have no idea what’s going on, but we’re on our way back to the station and Tom’s letting me leave on family emergency,” Josh said. “I’m going to head over to the hospital now.”

“Where’s Elizabeth right now?”

“Probably at the police station downtown.”

“They arrested her?”

“I’d imagine so,” Josh said.

Jack imagined her in handcuffs, being shoved none-too-gently into the back of a patrol car, under arrest for assaulting the popular former chief of police. His heart broke; she must feel so alone. So scared. So furious.

She didn’t do it, Jack thought. He knew Elizabeth, and just like when they’d first met, she was obviously covering for someone else in her family. Who? Emmett again? Or more likely, her father, who would be back to prison in a flash if he’d assaulted somebody less than a week after being released.

“I’m going to see Elizabeth,” Jack told Josh. “You go be with Dad. I’ll meet you at the hospital after.”

It seemed like Josh was about to say something, but then he just said, “Okay. See you there.”

Without being asked, Sean drove them code three, lights and sirens, back to Station One. “What’s going on?” he asked Jack.

“My dad’s been assaulted. I have to leave.”

“Holy crap,” Sean said, echoed by both Dylan and the other firefighter in the back who was working in Cody’s place while Cody was skiing in Vail. “And they arrested Elizabeth?”

“They better not have,” Jack said.  

Once they returned to Station One, Jack ran inside to call the battalion chief and let him know he had a family emergency and that Sean would be acting captain of his crew. Then he got in his own truck and drove the three blocks to the downtown police station.

He burst through the doors. The uniformed desk clerk looked up and greeted him in the cheerful manner of professional courtesy between police and firefighters.

“Elizabeth Armstrong,” Jack said, skipping the niceties. “Is she here?”

“Um—let me see. One moment, please, sir.”

Jack caught sight of Tara Guzman down the hall, a now-lieutenant who’d graduated in the same police academy class as him. He considered her a friend; he’d been a guest at her wedding ten years ago, and whenever they saw each other on calls, they always took a moment to catch up.

“Tara!” He strode past the front desk. “Hey. Elizabeth Armstrong. I’m looking for her.”

Tara tilted her head. “Hi, Jack. Why are you looking for Elizabeth Armstrong?”

“I just need to see her. Is she here?”

“Yeah. I arrested her. And listen, I know what she did to Chief Barnes—to your dad—and it’s inexcusable, but I can’t have you going vigilante on her. Sorry. I understand how angry you must be.”

Jack shook his head, sick at the thought of Elizabeth, his lovely, dainty, tough, innocent Elizabeth, sitting in a jail cell. “No. That’s not it at all. Elizabeth didn’t do anything. I’m here to help her.”

“What? Jack, she broke your dad’s nose! I know you two are don’t get along, but—”

“It’s got nothing to do with that,” Jack said. “Just look at her—all hundred-and-ten pounds of her. There’s no way she did it.”

Tara narrowed her eyes. “What’s your connection to her?”

She’s my soulmate, Jack thought. The love of my life.

And she must hate me.

He could say none of that, of course.

“Can you just tell me what happened?” he said.

“We got a call about a disturbance at the Armstrong residence,” Tara said. “When we arrived, your dad was sitting there, his face all bashed in, and Elizabeth was the only other one present. She wouldn’t say a word, but without any other suspects, I had no choice but to arrest her. And of course, the first thing she does is call her lawyer.” Tara made a noise of disgust. “That family.”

“What about my dad? Did he say she did it?” He better not have, or I’ll break his nose a second time for him.

Tara shook her head. “No. He won’t give us any information. I have no idea why. I’m heading over to the hospital now to try again.”

“Maybe he deserved to get beaten up.”

Tara looked at him, aghast. “You can’t really believe that. In my book, he was the best police chief this city’s ever had. He has a lot of loyal friends here.”

“That may be, but there’s more to this story.”

“Enlighten me.”

Jack had a feeling his dad’s loyal friends in the police department would change their minds about him soon enough. Right now, it was Elizabeth that needed him. “Listen, can you just let me see Elizabeth? For the sake of our old friendship?”

She peered at him. “Are you in love with her or something?”

Jack almost shook his head. Almost denied it. But then he straightened.

“Yes. I am,” he said definitively. “I’m totally, completely, madly in love with her.”

“Aw, geez.” Tara gave him a softer, almost pitying, look. “Okay, I’ll let you see her, but only because we’re friends, and I trust you. But if you want some advice? Be careful. The Armstrong family’s bad news.”

“No.” Jack thought his heart might break apart. This was what Elizabeth had lived with for years. “They’re not.”

* * *

Jack paced the small interrogation room while he waited for Elizabeth. He didn’t know what to do, other than tell her how sorry he was and how he’d never forgive himself. He expected the look on her face when she saw him to be one of betrayal, but when the door opened and she entered the room, he found a look of love instead.

Which made it all somehow worse.

“Jack!” She rushed to him and threw her arms around him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

He clutched her petite body against his own as his mind raced.

Tara stuck her head in the room and interrupted their embrace. “Jack, I’m leaving an officer posted outside the door. Don’t make me regret this.”

“Of course. Thanks, Tara.”

The door closed, and he moved Elizabeth to arm’s length. “Elizabeth … we need to talk.”

“I know. Let’s sit.” She led him to the table, gently pressing him to sit. She took the chair next to him and then grasped his hands, hanging on as if for dear life. “I have an awful thing to tell you, but before I say it, I want you to know that it doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” She held his hands tenderly and looked deep into his eyes. “Somehow, it’s going to be okay, but I have to tell you something about your dad.”

He swallowed hard. “I know about my dad.”

Confusion crossed her face. “Oh, right. You know he’s in the hospital, but that’s not what I meant.” Her blue eyes darkened. “This is about the past, and I don’t know how to say it to make it any less bad, so I’m just going to say it—he’s the reason why my dad went to prison. He stole the money, Jack. Your dad stole the money.”

“He … he told you?”

Elizabeth nodded. “He did. He admitted it, and I know you had nothing to do with it, Jack. He said you had no idea, and I’m so, so sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but—”

“Stop, Elizabeth.” He couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t allow her to believe that he was better than he was. “I already know what my dad did.”

She pulled her hands away from his. He immediately missed their warmth.

“What are you talking about?” Her voice was low, toneless. “He said you didn’t know.”

Jack put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, staring at the floor, preparing himself to look into Elizabeth’s striking eyes and tell her the truth. This was it. Time to say the words that would make her hate him forever. He glanced up at her and flashed back to the night they’d spent together. How it had felt to hold her after all the times he’d resisted. How soft her skin had been. How perfectly she fit with him. How it felt like the most beautiful dream he’d ever had.

“I couldn’t prove it,” Jack said. “But I confronted him about it. Asked him if he’d taken that money, and he didn’t deny it. So yes. I knew.”

Elizabeth paled and seemed to shrink into herself. Already so slight, she looked like she might blow away. “When did you know?”

Jack’s stomach clenched. “After your dad had been arrested, but before he was convicted.”

She gasped and catapulted out of her chair. “You wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t have known and not said something.” Her eyes were so blue. So true. “I know you, Jack. You’re a man of honor.”

She still believed in him. It broke his heart, knowing he was losing her forever.

* * *

Elizabeth searched the depths of Jack’s brown eyes, looking for a sign that he didn’t mean what he’d said … but all she found there was guilt.

 “I made the wrong choice back then,” he said, his voice choked. “I thought it was for a good reason, but I’ve been ashamed of my silence ever since. And after meeting you and falling for you, I—damn it, I was going to tell you. It’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I understand if you don’t. I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I let you down, then and now. I’m sorry you’ve had such a hard road in life, and it’s my fault as much as it is my dad’s because I could have spoken up.”

She pulled her chair away from Jack and sat back down.

“You made love to me,” she said, betrayed, and what had felt like forever turned out to be a cruel joke. It was only the scars that would last forever.

“I love you,” he said. “That’s my only defense.”

She saw it then in his eyes, love mixed with guilt and agony. And it made her angry because here was the stupid destiny she’d foreseen, and she didn’t want it anymore. Couldn’t trust it.

“I thought you were the one good man in the world.” She knew she was going to cry eventually, but for now, her emotion was a hard, cold knot in her stomach. “I thought maybe I could have faith in love and marriage and men—faith in you, Jack!—but it turns out you were lying to me all along. What an idiot I am. Were you mocking me the whole time?”

Jack’s face fell into lines of devastation. “I tried to resist you,” he whispered. “This is why I stepped back from you. You see now that I really didn’t deserve you.”

“Damned right you don’t,” she said. “I thought it was my family that was the black mark, but it turns out it’s the other way around.”

It gave her no satisfaction to say it.

“I know—believe me,” he said. “I’ve barely spoken to my dad in the years since, and now you know why. Breaking with him wasn’t enough. I see that now, but it was only when I met you that it became real in a concrete way.” His voice choked with emotion. “You were standing alone on that snowy highway with your car in the ditch, and you seemed so damned alone. I’ve thought of that moment so often since. I feel like I put you there. That everything awful you’ve ever experienced is because I stayed silent.”

Elizabeth had a flash of new anger that Jack had thought her weak. “And, what? You were going to be my savior? You were going to help me out, spend time with me, stick up for me, just to clear your own guilty conscience? You forget that I’m a survivor. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done on my own. I don’t want your pity. You might have more money than me, and a better job, and, yeah, a better reputation, but you’re not better than me. At least I’m honest.”

She saw the effect her words had on Jack. He turned his ashen face away from her.

“You are better than me, Elizabeth. You’re resilient as hell, and the more I’ve gotten to know you, the more I see just how strong you are. You even found the strength to remain loyal to your dad, loving him for all these years, even when you thought he stole that money. Even now, you’ve gotten yourself arrested to protect him!”

When he turned back to face her, his rich brown eyes were firm and direct. “I don’t love you out of pity. I love you because of your strength. I know I don’t deserve your love in return.”

But I do love you, she thought. Even now.

“If you’d just said something—” She sighed, feeling almost too weary to go on. “If you’d just spoken up all those years ago. Don’t you see how much has been lost?”

“I see it every day,” Jack said. “I’ve lived it every day, and I know you have, too. And I know it won’t matter to you, but I kept quiet because of my mom.”

“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.

“I told her what my dad had done—what I suspected he’d done—and she asked me to promise not to say anything, not to ask questions about where the money for her treatment had come from.” Elizabeth saw the faraway look in his eyes and knew he was back there, listening to his mom’s plea, the plea that put him forever in an impossible position. The plea that tore apart their family. “She said that she couldn’t bear to die knowing that us kids would lose both parents—her to cancer, him to prison. So, I promised her I would say nothing. It came at a cost, though. I stayed quiet for my mom’s sake, but I couldn’t pretend for my dad’s. We haven’t truly been a family ever since.”  

Elizabeth’s heart caved in just a little, but not enough to overcome everything else.

“Don’t talk to me about family. Did you ever once think about mine?”

“I didn’t understand love back then,” Jack said. “I’d never loved someone the way my dad loved my mom. I couldn’t see how desperation could make you cross a line you’d never normally cross. I didn’t understand that kind of love until I met you.”

Before Elizabeth could respond, there was a knock on the door. Through the narrow glass window, she saw it was Theresa Harmon, her lawyer.

Her lifeline.

Her first phone call when trouble came her way.  

She’d been so stupid as to hope Jack might take on that role in her life. That Jack might be the one she called first when trouble came her way.

Jack stood when Theresa entered.

“Hi, Elizabeth,” Theresa said. “Are you okay?”

Elizabeth nodded, grateful as always for Theresa’s steadiness. Her competent tone conveyed the sense that everything would turn out all right. That this was just one more thing to be gotten through in Elizabeth’s ongoing troubled life.

Theresa looked from Elizabeth to Jack. “Shouldn’t you be at the hospital with your father?”

“No,” Jack said. “I’m exactly where I should be.”

“You two know each other?” Elizabeth asked. “Oh, right, from the accident scene.”

“Jack, do you want to tell her?” Theresa asked.

“Tell me what?” Elizabeth asked, fresh dread coming over her.

“I called Theresa last week right after we—” He stopped, but Elizabeth knew what he meant. After they made love for the first time, otherwise known as after he screwed her over yet again.  “When you were down in Oregon picking up your dad. I told her everything, and I had every intention of telling you, too. I was just waiting to see you in person, to tell you face-to-face. I felt I owed you that–-and so much more.”

Elizabeth looked at Theresa. “Is that true?”

Theresa nodded.

Elizabeth began to pace, trying to calm her mind and collect her thoughts. She turned to Jack. “Why did you feel the need to see a lawyer? Why would you come clean to a lawyer before coming clean to me? You’re still protecting yourself! You’re still putting yourself in front of me or my father’s innocence. Whatever we had, Jack—it’s over.”

* * *

Hearing those words from Elizabeth was a physical stab of pain in Jack’s heart. He’d known from the beginning, of course, that their relationship would end when she discovered the truth about the Barnes family. Still, it just about killed him.  

“I understand you’d never want to be with me now,” Jack finally said. “But I’m trying to deal with this as an adult this time around, not the immature nineteen-year-old I was back then. I have property, a business, a life. I’ll admit I don’t want to go to jail if I can avoid it.”

“You deserve jail,” Elizabeth snapped. Then she shook her head. “Not that it would make any of this better.” She turned to Theresa Harmon. “I don’t like the fact that you’re representing both me and him. It doesn’t seem right. I think you need to choose who you’re going to represent.”

“I choose you,” Theresa said. “I’ve already referred Jack to an associate of mine. I choose you, Elizabeth. Don’t ever think twice about that.” She turned to Jack. “You should go. Elizabeth and I have work to do getting this assault charge dropped.”

Jack nodded. He looked at Elizabeth, desperately wanting one last moment with her. He wanted to take her hands and press them to his heart so she could feel it beat for her. He wanted to caress her cheek, run his fingers through her silken hair. He already missed her. Why hadn’t he lingered a moment in this room with her, before he told her the truth about everything? Why hadn’t he memorized the feel of her hands in his?

“I was nineteen,” he said. “I made a deathbed promise to my mom. I gave up a relationship with my brothers and sisters so they could go on thinking my dad was a great guy. I gave things up. I lost my childhood, too. And I’m not making excuses. I just want you to understand. I need you to understand me, Elizabeth.”

“I do understand.” She turned her back to him. “And I want you to leave.”