Page 74 of Protecting You
Her breath fanned his cheek, her nearness making his body react in a way that had nothing to do with his concussion. “Thank you, doctor.” He worked hard for a lighthearted tone. “Did you get your MD while I was in the service?”
“My uncle’s a physician. My cousins were always getting knocked in the head or spraining ankles or breaking bones.” A slight smile graced her lips as if her cousins’ injuries brought fond memories. “I was curious, and Uncle Roger was always patient, explaining what he was doing and why.” She blinked and stepped back. “Anyway, for all I know, you could be dying.”
“I’m fine. Well enough to drive, if you don’t want to.”
Grinning, she slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
He could argue, but Malcolm wanted a report, and the sooner, the better.
When he settled beside her, she asked, “Where to?”
He directed her for the couple of miles to the garage near his apartment, where they left the Agency sedan, then headed for his cherry-red Mustang.
The poor man’s sports car. Maybe it wasn’t a Porsche, but when he hit the gas, it flew.
“This is your car? It’s a little ostentatious for a CIA agent, isn’t it?”
“I’m an analyst." Before she could question him about that, he said, "Long story. Anyway, Caleb-the-salesman can be as ostentatious as he wants.”
They climbed in, and while she headed for the expressway, he pulled up directions to Portland on his phone, then connected it to Bluetooth so they showed on the navigation screen.
He sat back and closed his eyes, breathing in, blowing out.
They were safe, thank God. Much as he hated to need help…
Thank You for sending it.
Thank You that Alyssa wasn’t captured again tonight.
Thank You that my daughter isn’t an orphan.
Not that Peri needed him, or even wanted him.
He’d fallen in love with her the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
But that first day, she’d regarded him through squinted eyes, seeing him as a father who’d never cared about her enough to be in her life. A father who’d abandoned her and her mother to fend for themselves.
Lies. All lies.
But how did one defend himself against the accusations of a dead woman?
It had made sense for Callan to pass off Peri’s care to his parents. They were competent to raise her, whereas he didn’t have a clue. He’d still been in the field then, working overseas. His higher-ups had not been pleased when he’d asked for a transfer to Boston. And out of field work. They’d spent a lot of money training him, and he was throwing it away. His career, his future. To sit at a desk.
But he’d done it, for Peri. Thinking he’d figure out how to be a father. But by the time he’d moved back, Peri had gotten comfortable with his parents. She liked living in that old house in Maine, and he couldn’t blame her. It had been the perfect place to grow up.
How could he take her away from that? Especially when he had no idea how to be father to a grief-stricken eight-year-old who didn’t trust him?
With Peri, Callan was so far out of his depth he needed scuba gear.
At work, Callan knew what he was doing. As long as he could control everything, nothing would go wrong.
Or so he’d always told himself.
Tonight had shown him he was wrong about that, too. If not for Malcolm, Peri would be an orphan.
In those moments during his fight with Benson, one thing had become very clear.
He did not want to die. He did not want to leave his daughter fatherless.
