Page 2 of Hunted in Hope Town

Some days, he considered ignoring the doctor and the psychiatrist’s recommendations and just telling her.

Your name is Kirsten Sutton. I am your husband. You suffered a traumatic brain injury thanks to my job. We’re both still targets, but Hope Town seems to be okay.

He never did.

Obviously.

What he did do was spend way too much time at the bakery drinking coffee and eating pastries anytime he knew she might stop by. He volunteered his time at the bookstore—building shelves, cleaning, running errands, whatever Faith needed him to do—whenever Jessica was working. Any remaining time he spent doing some freelance security work, exercising to work off said pastries and all that frustration, or keeping careful tabs on the mob boss who no doubt wanted him dead—and would like to take anyone he loved out along the way.

Ellis might not be an FBI agent any longer, but he was determined to keep his body ready for whatever might come their way if that threat ever came to be. So research, exercise, and otherwise acting like an FBI agent even though he wasn’t one any longer all went with the territory.

He wouldn’t fail Kirsten a second time.

He could still remember the first time he’d seen her. She’d been on campus at their alma mater, sitting on the edge of the student union’s fountain. She’d had her head bent toward a friend’s she was sitting next to. They’d looked like they were sharing juicy secrets, and then she’d grinned—at her friend, not him—the sun glinting off her blond hair just right.

Ellis had been a different man then. Determined. Certain. Always so damn certain. And in that moment, he’d been certain that he was going to marry that woman.

It was silly. He could see that now, but in the moment, twenty and filled with purpose, he’d been sure. He’d gone right up to her and asked for her number.

She’d laughed at him. But she’d also given him her number.

It hadn’t been smooth sailing from there, though there’d been a lot more smooth than storms. They’d never broken up in all those years, though they’d fought or had rough patches. When he’d been in Quantico, they’d both been a little miserable and maybe nearing the end of their proverbial ropes with each other.

But then he’d survived it, gotten his first FBI assignment, and he’d proposed. She’d said yes, and that she’d be willing to go wherever he did. Marriage had been pretty good, even with his demanding undercover schedule.

At first.

Toward the end there, they’d been heading toward miserable. Well, she had been. She’d been ready to start a family, like they’d always planned, and he’d wanted to chase glory. One last time.

Now here they were with neither the kids nor the glory. Technically, Kirsten Sutton was dead and Ellis Sutton allegedly worked at an FBI office in Anchorage on a desk assignment, so he wasn’t sure where that left them legally in terms of being married.

But to Ellis, they were married. To Ellis, he’d learned the hard way just how little he cared about glory without Kirsten.

Jessica, he reminded himself.

He couldn’t even let himself think of her as Kirsten Sutton, because he might slip up if he did. She had to be Jessica Smith, even in his memories.

Because Ellis Sutton knew all about how to survive undercover work. Some days, he figured it was the only thing he knew.

Frustrated with the circular thinking, Ellis glanced up from his book only to find Jessica walking out the door, which hadn’t been the plan for this morning. Rolling his eyes at himself, he tucked the book under his arm and hopped up and put his used dishes in their receptacle. He’d meant to have this conversation with her in the bakery. Now he’d have to have it with her on the street.

He glanced up at the counter to find a pair of blue eyes studying him suspiciously. Sammy, the teen who helped Lia out on weekends, must be on Thanksgiving break if she was working on a weekday.

And clocking him for being a creep. He needed to be more subtle. So he smiled kindly at her, and when he left the bakery, he went in the opposite direction Jessica had gone.

Even though it was cold and snowy, he took a long walk down Main Street, cut over behind the storefronts on the other side of the street, and didn’t cut back until he was past the bakery—just in case Sammy Fairhurst was still watching him.

Everyone in Hope Town knew him as Ellis Sutton, but on every legal document he had—rental agreement, driver’s license, et cetera—his name was Mark Jones. If he went out into the broader world of Bent County—rare—he went by Mark. But here in Hope Town he’d gone by his real name in the hopes someday it might…jog some piece of Jessica’s memory.

So he couldn’t raise any suspicion where he might need to explain two identities, even with a random teenager, because things would get…complicated. Even more complicated than they already were, and that was saying something.

Jessica was walking at a quick clip down Main, coffee in hand, honeyed-blond hair dancing in the wind. Just like that day almost twenty years ago, something about her just struck him, tightened his heart in a vise.

And every time he felt it now, he wondered how he’d gotten so deep, so lost, he’d been willing to risk their marriage for a job.

There was no good reason to be wondering that right now. It was irrelevant. She didn’t know who he really was, and until her brain clued her in—if it ever did—he had to pretend he didn’t know her either. Psychiatrist’s orders.

He caught up with her just as she made it to the bookstore front door. She was turning the key in the lock, so once she pulled the key out, he reached forward to open the door for her.