Page 34 of Hunted in Hope Town

He didn’t think so either, but… “Maybe she’s just a good actress.”

“She cares, Ellis. It’s clear as day. And she was trying to help us, not thwart us. She wants to protect me, but from you.”

That’s why, he supposed, he believed Dr. Leigh’s innocence. “Maybe she should,” he muttered.

Kirsten shook her head. “And she wanted to protect you from me. She wanted us both…okay. She wants us to be okay. So maybe we don’t need protecting right now.”

He stood himself, restless energy pumping through him. “Someone threatened your life.”

“So we should figure out who.”

He pointed at the computer. “That’s what we’re trying to do here. Because if it’s not Dr. Leigh, we have to start over.”

“No, we’re not figuring out anything. We’re hiding. Just like Dr. Leigh said. We can’t hide.”

“I’m pretty sure she meant emotionally.”

“Yes, but she’s right. Universally.”

“What are you suggesting? Not hiding? Because that’s not happening. We’re here until it’s safe.”

“So we’re just going to sit in this cabin for a million years waiting for something to happen?” she demanded, anger filling in all the cracks of whatever softer emotions Dr. Leigh had brought out.

“Yeah, that’s kind of how these things work in cases like this. We have to be careful.”

“I’m not a case,” she said, agitated and angry, even if he didn’t understand why. “And I’m done being careful. I’m done hiding. Two years of being afraid and there was no threat. Just…shadows I didn’t know how to navigate. Well, now there’s a threat and I’m going to fight it, because this isn’t a case. It’s my life. A life that got taken from me, even if I lived. It’s too many blanks. These people stole from me. I want it back. I want my life back, and I’m ready and willing to fight for it back.”

She reminded him so much of the woman she’d been. Worked up about the system failing one of her students, or maybe a parent blaming the system for their spoiled kid’s problems. Always so worked up on everyone else’s behalf.

But now she was worked up on her own, and he was just…proud, even though he had no right to be. Even though this road was starting them down a path that might mean she walked away from him. Knowing who he was and what he’d done and hadn’t done.

Her not remembering was torture, but he was beginning to realize her remembering was going to be as well. The kind of torture that might relegate him completely out of her life, not just shoved to the edges.

Which is what you deserve.

“We can fight back. We will fight back, but we also have to protect ourselves,” Ellis managed to say, trying to keep all the emotions swirling inside of him out of his voice. “And we are back at square one.”

She shook her head. “No, it isn’t square one because there are things I remember. There are things just out of reach.” She straightened her shoulders, took a step toward him. “And I know what I want the next step to be.”

He didn’t trust the look on her face, but he wasn’t about to retreat. He was no coward.

Except when it comes to her.

“What step is that?”

“I think you should kiss me.”

Chapter Twelve

Fear. She saw it clear as day on his face. Just like she saw it clear as day in her fuzzy memories about him leaving on his last mission—running away from the prospect of having a family.

She couldn’t remember if she’d felt fear—when he’d left, when she’d married him, when she’d been attacked.

She didn’t feel it now.

He did, but he was working on putting it away. She could see him start to compartmentalize what she’d said. What she wanted.

“Kirsten.” He said it in that infuriatingly patient tone that wasn’t condescending but somehow felt like she was being condescended to. The poor lady who didn’t remember.