Thunder Horse Heritage. Elle James
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an alien being. Then Tuck stared at the infant girl, who stared back at him, her dark hair and dark eyes so very much like his own.
Then she smiled, the mere quirk of those tiny lips and cherubic cheeks nearly bringing Tuck to his knees.
His hands shook. Rather than drop the baby, he brought her close to his body and cradled her against his chest. “Are you sure?” Tuck glanced up at the woman standing across from him.
Julia’s lips trembled, her eyes glistening with tears. “Never more certain.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She sighed. “I didn’t know I was pregnant until two months after we met…and then it snowballed, all happening so quickly.” She gulped, her head dipping low. “One minute I was a single woman with no cares in the world, the next I was scrambling to find a place big enough for a baby. The school semester started. I was working teaching kids. A lot of things were happening at once.”
“And it just slipped your mind? You never thought for a moment that I had a right to know?”
“Yes, you did.” Her belly twisted with her guilt. “I didn’t know whether or not you’d want to be a part of her life.” It was just an excuse, but it was the one she’d clung to, so that she wouldn’t have to get back in touch with the man she’d married and then run away from. So she’d made the choice for him.
“And you made the decision not to tell me.” He shook his head.
“After what happened between us, I thought it would be unfair to saddle you with a child you might not want.” She sighed. “I was wrong.”
She’d been wrong about so many things.
Marrying Tuck in the first place had been a mistake. Even now, she could hardly believe she’d done it. It was so unlike her to get carried away, swept off her feet. Jillian had always been the spontaneous one—not Julia. Julia was the thinker, the planner, the one who calculated cost and consequence for every decision she made.
If she’d taken the time to stop and think, she never would have gone to that little wedding chapel. She’d have taken the time to get to know her husband first—at least well enough to know what he did for a living. If she’d been aware before saying her vows that he was an FBI agent, then she would have realized that a relationship between them could never work.
Julia knew all too well what being an agent meant. Her father had spent most of her formative years away from home as a member of the bureau. She recalled how her mother had waited by the telephone every time he was on assignment, expecting the call that her husband had been injured or killed in the line of duty. Sadly, she’d gotten that call when Julia and Jillian were twelve years old.
Jillian had followed their father into the FBI.
Julia still couldn’t understand why her sister would do such a thing, knowing the dangers. Hadn’t losing a parent shown her how dangerous it was?
Julia had never considered joining the FBI or having anything to do with it. The job hadn’t just taken her father away from her—it had ruined her mother’s life, as well. Julia had seen the way the stress and anxiety of being an agent’s wife had weighed on her mother. It was a strain Julia refused to bear. Bad enough that she had to worry about her sister on the job. She refused to worry about a husband, too.
When she’d found Tuck’s badge in the hotel room, she’d lost it. Images of her mother trying not to cry as she sat by the phone had flooded her memories, bringing her to her knees on the bedroom floor of the hotel. She couldn’t get away from Tuck fast enough. She refused to be one of those wives who waited night and day for “the call.”
All Julia had wanted was a safe home with someone who would be there to love her. A father who put his family ahead of his work. A man who wasn’t destined to die of gunshot wounds earned in the line of duty.
Just a glimpse of that all-too-familiar badge had been enough to make Julia run. She’d departed the hotel, leaving a note that she was sorry and that their marriage had been a mistake. Annulment papers had been easy to obtain, and within forty-eight hours she wasn’t married.
Of course, there were still consequences she never could have anticipated. Consequences like the precious baby girl cradled for the first time in her father’s arms.
For a long time he stared down at the baby. “I have a daughter.” He shook his head, his eyes widening. “I have a daughter. What did you say her name was?”
“Lily. Lily Amelia.” She looked down at her hands. “You said your mother’s name was Amelia. I thought it was pretty.”
She’d named his daughter after his mother. Tuck touched a finger to the baby’s rounded cheek, marveling at how soft and smooth her skin was. “You had no right,” he whispered. The baby had been born four months ago. Four months he could have been getting to know her. “You had no right to keep her from me.”
“Agreed.”
Anger and regret made a resurgence through him. “Then why?” He glared at her. “Why now? There must be something you want, or you wouldn’t have contacted me.”
Julia stepped forward. “Like I said, we need your help. We’re in trouble.”
“The same trouble that took your sister’s life?”
She flinched, her lips trembling. “Yes.”
“Who was behind the murder?”
“I don’t know. My sister and I had gone to the casino. She was on vacation, visiting me.” Julia swallowed hard before she could continue, her words coming out in a rush. “Jillian was making a video of me on the path outside the casino—the one that leads to the marina. She wanted to get the lake in the background. I was turning to get in a better position when I saw movement by the docks.”
She pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening. “When I looked closer, I could see a man being held at gunpoint and then shot in the chest down by the water. Jillian caught it all on her camera without realizing what was happening. I was too shocked to say anything. It happened so fast.” She stared up at Tuck, all the horror she must have witnessed reflecting in her watery blue eyes. “But then the murderer glanced our way. I don’t think he saw Jillian, but he definitely saw me.”
Tuck’s hands tightened around the baby. “What happened?”
“I told my sister.” Julia’s head moved back and forth as if she were in a daze. “She went after him.”
“Where were you?”
“She made me promise to go home and wait for her. To take care of Lily until Jillian came for me.” She stopped talking, tears dripping down off her chin. “My sister never came back.” Julia’s words thickened. “God, I shouldn’t have let her go.” Her eyes filled with tears and overflowed, rivulets of grief running down her face.
With the baby in his arms, Tuck could do nothing to comfort her. Nor should he want to, given their history together. She’d lied by omission. Something as important as a child of his own wasn’t a fact you kept from a father.
Besides, she hadn’t come to him for comfort—she’d come to him for help. She’d said she was in trouble, and it was up to him to get to the bottom of it. “Did you notify the authorities about your situation?”
“Yes, I called you.”
“No, I mean did you call the sheriff?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
Julia gave him a watery smile. “Because Jillian told me not to. I never saw my sister after I left her in front of the casino, but I did hear from her one more time. I was waiting at home when I got a text message. The attachment was the video Jillian made of the murder. It’s just enough someone with the right equipment might be able to make out the murderer. The message told me to take Lily and run—and not