CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO

Savage River
Maggie Lyons

Maggie got Jen a glass of water and took her back to the bedroom to tuck her in. They were sharing a double bed—an inflatable air mattress. The boys were out cold on the floor in their sleeping bags. It always amazed her how hard they slept. Of course, they played hard, too, and, since they’d been up here with Xander, worked hard, as well.

This room was Xander’s armory, and playroom. Weapons in various forms lined the walls, guns and bows and artillery, a variety wide enough the ATF would probably freak if they ever saw. He’d pushed a table out of the way that contained all of his fishing lures, tackle and numerous other things Maggie didn’t recognize.

It was nice, having guy friends who could do some of the fathering Roy was incapable of providing. Noah and Bobby had both been up here before. To them, visiting Xander’s was like a really elaborate camping trip. She wondered if they’d remember the fun times they had up here when all was said and done.

Now that she’d finally listened to Jen, who’d been trying to tell her about the scary man across the street for three days, now that they knew for sure who had killed Croswell and, of course, Donovan, Maggie had no illusions about what was going to happen.

She and Xander were next. And once they were gone, the whole situation went far, far away.

She didn’t want to die. She’d already been through hell, and come out the other side. Not unscathed, never unscathed, but whole enough to get her life back on track.

She had made mistakes. Big mistakes. Getting involved with Perry Fisher—that had been a whopper. She’d always hated women who cheated, but once Roy started drinking more and more, treating her like she was a piece of dirt trapped under the sole of his shoe, after he punched her when she was home on leave and she had to return to her unit with a black eye and lie about how she got it, something in her changed. Her allegiance to Roy was shattered. She met Perry, and was lost. Perry was a gentleman, a soft-spoken soldier with intensely blue eyes that to Maggie seemed like staring into a perfect summer sky. He was married, as well, which made her feel doubly bad, but he’d filed for an official separation before they got involved, so she supposed it wasn’t as much of a sin as it would have been if he was just getting his rocks off.

He loved her. And she loved him.

When it became apparent to both of them that their feelings went deeper than just a simple physical affair, she’d gone online and found the makings necessary to file for divorce from Roy. Separation wasn’t even on the drawing board. Roy would have to be a clean split, or else he’d never let her go. Not all the way.

But she had to tell him in person. She owed it to him. So they were waiting for her to get back to the States to file.

She and Perry snatched time together whenever they could, which wasn’t a lot. War doesn’t leave a lot of downtime. But they’d managed to finagle leave together, back at Kandahar Airfield. Compared to being out on the roads, the Kaf was the Four Seasons.

And that’s when it all went south.

The fight they’d had after the “incident,” as she called it, was epic. She’d come out an emotional wreck. Perry died three days later, and nine days after that, while she was still in the grips of horror, she found out she was pregnant with Jen.

She went straight to the doctor, determined to have an abortion, but couldn’t go through with it. The doctors who treated her wrote her a medical discharge, and she was out of Dodge before you could shake a stick. She wasn’t even going to pretend she wanted to stay. She just wanted, no, needed, to lick her wounds at home, away from prying eyes.

There was no way to play Roy, though. She was three months gone before the dust settled and she was back in Georgetown, applying to law schools. One look at him, drunk and weaving, the fire of anger boiling in his eyes, and she blurted out the truth, told him she wanted a divorce and threatened to kill him if he touched her again.

She didn’t tell him the name of Jen’s father, though.

She didn’t tell anyone.

She kept her head down, worked hard, loved her kids, all three of them, and tried to forget. Until three days ago, when Hal Croswell was murdered across the street from her house, and all she knew to do was bug out. She ran straight for Xander and told him the whole story, start to finish. Not the party line. She’d told him what really happened. He’d gotten her set up with the boys and immediately headed south, to Billy, to bring him to the safety of Xander’s home. But he was too late. Billy had caved under the pressure.

They were all dead. And the man who killed them was still out there. Haunting her. Hunting her. Trying to make sure the secrets never came out.

She put her head in the pillow and let the tears come.