Out of Uniform

“What?”



“Jacob?” Emily sidled toward Chase. “You can’t really think—”



“Now, Chase.” A cool core of certainty congealed in him. “If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize. But I’m going to get her side of the story as soon as she calms down.”



Chase eyed the door again.



Emily gripped the arm of Chase’s jacket. “Prove him wrong. Please.”



Chase shrugged free. He jammed his hand into his pocket and whipped out a stack of folded twenty-dollar bills. He didn’t even bother making excuses.



“No, Chase.” Emily’s chin quivered as the nursery monitor hummed in her hand.



“Fine.” Chase slammed the wad of cash on the counter. “I didn’t walk out of here with it, so there’s not a damned thing you can do to me.”



Jacob stared at the money and focused on the feel of Dee’s hair beneath his hand. When would the anger hit him? Logic told him that’s how he should feel. Instead he’d gone numb. Probably for the best, since he had to take care of the mess with Chase and deal with Dee. “Sit down, Chase.”



“No way, I’m—”



“Sit,” Jacob snapped.



Chase dropped onto the sofa. What had Emily seen in this guy? An escape from Clyde? Or more likely choosing Chase because he was surely the sort who would tweak the old man’s nose at every turn.



Jacob relaxed his jaw, lowered his tensed shoulders and regained control. He needed to distance himself from everything, all of them. Emotions clouded judgment.



He turned his attention back to Dee and cupped her face in his hands without allowing himself to savor the softness of her skin. “Snap out of it, Dee. You need to talk to me, or we’re heading to the hospital.”



Her eyes widened, then cleared. “Jacob?”



“Yeah, Dee.” Relief taunted him, so close. “Are you okay? Are you…hurt?”



“I remember everything.” Her eyes deepened, darkened, assumed a different quality.



The look of a different woman. The real Dee.



Dee? Hell, he didn’t even know her name.



But she’d remembered. He should be happy. He’d worked with her for this moment, yet somehow wasn’t ready. Maybe because he knew this was it. Now she would leave.



His hands slid from her face as he let her go. “Tell me.”



“I remember my child…and my husband. He took my son, Jacob. He stole my baby.”



Deirdre fingered her “Dee” necklace as she waited for the county police. She’d never so much as logged a speeding ticket in her life, yet lately she’d talked to the cops on a regular basis like some criminal. Like her husband. Thanks to her husband.



The metal chilled in her hand. Her son had given her the necklace for Christmas. He’d bought it at a preschool Santa’s Gift Shop for students to choose gifts for parents.



Memories she’d chased so vigilantly hurt. Even the beautiful ones stung because of all she’d lost.



Jacob stepped into the lobby, leaving Emily and Chase in the next room—silent—with the door open, waiting to make their statements when the police arrived. Dee didn’t care if Jacob pressed charges for her sake, but she didn’t blame him for drawing the line at stealing. Chase had been trusted here.



He tossed her a blue Air Force sweatshirt.



“Thank you.” At least she could quit worrying about clutching her buttonless blouse closed. Still she mourned the loss of her pretty flowered shirt, her first gift from Jacob.



As she tugged the sweatshirt over her head, Jacob’s scent, his warmth, enveloped her, tempting her to seek the real thing. She had to face the world on her own sometime. Dee whipped her hair free of neckline and took what consolation she could from the generous folds of cotton fleece.



Why wouldn’t he step away from the counter and sit by her, comfort her in that sturdy way of his? In a flash of insight she understood. Because he didn’t know her anymore. While she didn’t feel any different, Jacob saw a stranger.



It was a night full of losses. So she introduced herself to this man she’d known just under two weeks, a lifetime in itself for Dee Smith.



“My name is Deirdre Lambert. I’m from Reno, Nevada.” How strange to say that after not knowing so long. How could she ever have forgotten? She hadn’t. It had been stolen from her as surely as Chase had taken that money. As the man she’d married had stolen her child.



Humiliation swamped her as she forced herself to tell Jacob the rest. “The Mr. Smith who checked me in was my husband—”



Jacob’s fists clenched, the first visible reaction she’d seen from him since Chase had slapped the money on the counter. Could it be jealousy? What should have given her a tiny rush merely saddened her. They’d found the attraction tough enough before, and now her life had snarled into a bigger tangle.



“My ex-husband.” She threaded her fingers through her hair and mashed the heels of her hands against her temples. “Maybe I’d better back up. There are just so many images crowding my brain, so many thoughts and memories and moments to relive. I feel like I’m in sensory overload.”



Dee slumped back on the sofa. Still Jacob stood, unmoving. Maybe it was better they didn’t touch. She might shatter like a brittle icicle.



“Blane, my ex-husband, worked for a company that manufactured airplane parts.” She tucked her knees up under the overlong sweatshirt as if to insulate herself with Jacob’s innate strength. “His partner was convicted of knowingly selling substandard parts to companies under contract to build military aircraft. After coming across some papers in our old files, I started to suspect Blane might have been involved, too.”



Now she understood why she winced every time anything military crossed her path. She feared for the people who could be in danger. She couldn’t shake the shame over not having somehow known and stopped her husband.



Finally Jacob pushed away from the counter to sit beside her. “And that’s when you left him?”



“Actually we divorced a year ago.” Blane had been cheating on her with a woman at work.



Dee wondered now how she’d missed the signs for so long. She cringed to think of how she, too, had been caught up in the seeming security of materialism in those days. She wanted much simpler things for herself and her son now.



Jacob’s warm body waited inches away, but his gaze stayed focused on the picture of Mount Rainier over the fireplace. Not that she could accept any sympathy from him. He demanded such perfection from himself, how could he ever understand, much less condone how badly she’d screwed up?



“I found out he’d been cheating on me, not some fling even, but a long-term relationship.” So much for pride. Blane had trounced hers like grapes in a wine vat, and the product had been beyond bitter.



“I’m sorry.” Jacob transferred his gaze to his hands clasped loosely between his knees.



“Blane didn’t contest the divorce. I obviously didn’t mean that much to him, but he wanted sole custody of our son.”



Losing Evan was beyond bearing. She certainly understood that all too well. “I fought him and we ended up with shared custody. Once I found out about his illegal dealings, I got scared for Evan. I knew I didn’t have any choice but to go to the police. I was only a day away from turning him in.” She started shaking again. “Somehow he must have figured out—from my expression, or maybe I wasn’t as subtle in probing for information as I thought.”



Jacob’s face hardened. “He decided to shut you up.”



She nodded, still hardly able to grasp that he would hurt her deliberately. Believing he could be capable of stealing had torn a hole in her heart. Discovering he could actually try to kill her…She could still hardly grasp what had happened. The ultimate betrayal by a man she’d once thought she loved. “Blane came by my condo, calm as ever. He had something for Evan in the Suburban, a present for Evan’s fourth birthday since Blane would be traveling for work.”



Her mind flashed with so many kaleidoscope memories. Evan clutching his favorite blanket with quilted airplane squares, the edges now ragged. Blane’s earnest blue eyes, so like Evan’s.



How could the father of her precious baby boy be totally bad? Surely his love for Evan was one pure part left in Blane, a symbol of what had been good in their marriage. “A little voice deep inside me whispered that he was up to something, but Evan wanted his toy and Blane. I needed to believe there was something honest left inside him. Do you know what I mean?”



“Like wanting to believe Chase could be there for Emily.” Jacob’s eyes warmed as he finally seemed to see her. “Yeah, Dee…Deirdre. I understand.”



Deirdre. Not Dee.



Those last four inches might as well have been a mile. She wanted his arms around her as she shared the most painful part, his strong arms, rather than a sweatshirt substitute.



Damn her pride, she couldn’t make herself ask. “He forced me into the Suburban and started driving north, stopping here our first night on the road.” She shuddered to think of the red dress he’d made her wear in one of his twisted mind games. “We left early the next morning before dawn, and I was afraid he might make it to Canada. I tried to plan how to get help from the border patrol—then the snowstorm started and Blane made his move. He tossed me out of the car on an abandoned road.”



I’ll kill him before I let you see him again, Deirdre.



The horror, the fear, the utter helplessness choked her, fresh as if it had happened only moments before. “I hit my head, I think. I must have. Mostly I remember fighting to get to my feet as he drove away with my child.”



Jacob reached to stroke her hair. She ducked, too raw, too vulnerable to accept the comfort that would send her crying into his arms.



She had to hold it together, depend on herself and start the search for her child. The search for a trail nearly two weeks cold. “The next thing I remember is stumbling to my feet, confused. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets to warm them and found the hotel key and a hundred dollars. I could only think of getting back here to my baby. Which doesn’t make sense because they were already leaving.”



“You’d been injured and traumatized. You’re lucky you survived out there.”



“If I hadn’t kept that key, I probably would have died.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach, the chill of that fearful walk washing over her. “Once I got back to the room, I must have slept for an hour or two. Then I woke, unable to remember anything.”



Her every fear had been worse than she’d imagined. She’d been right to question her judgment. She’d trusted and loved a man capable of unspeakable things.



And he had Evan.



How could she even think about baring her heart to anyone again? At the moment, she couldn’t think of anything other than finding her son.



The front door opened. A shaft of frigid air blasted over her as it had that first day she’d woken here. Two uniformed officers stomped snow off their boots. Dee recognized one of them from the day she’d filed her report in Tacoma.



Again, she would have to tell her story, only this time it would be public knowledge. She straightened her spine and squeezed her hands together until they tingled.



Drained to her toes, she didn’t relish baring to the world what a mess she’d made of her life. However, maternal instincts fired her beyond normal endurance. She looked at Jacob and gave a fleeting thought to leaning on him while she talked, but tossed the notion aside. Jacob didn’t need the burden of her troubles, problems even worse than she could have imagined. She would do this the best way for both of them…alone.



“I need to report a kidnapping.”



Two hours later, Jacob watched the cop slam the police cruiser door shut with Chase inside.



The noise jarred all the way through him. The officer planned to scare the spit out of Chase for his own good. Knowing this was the right thing didn’t stop him from wanting to grab Chase by the scruff of the neck and send him home like a kid who’d been caught snitching cookies.