Missing at Full Moon Mine by Cindi Myers

Author:Cindi Myers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-11-25T01:32:04+00:00

* * *

REBECCA WOKE TO dim light, aware of movement on the bed beside her. Wes was sitting up on the side of the bed, reaching for his pants. “Do you have to go?” she asked, then immediately regretted the question. She would not be a clinging woman. And he had a life apart from her, and a job that made demands on him at all hours.

“I don’t have to go,” he said. “But I thought I might fix us something to eat.”

They made sandwiches, her in her robe, him clad only in his uniform trousers, a very pleasant sight across the kitchen table from her. He had messy hair and a five-o’clock shadow and looking at him, she couldn’t stop smiling.

“I want to tell you why I left St. Louis,” he said when all that was left of their meal was a few crumbs and some crumpled napkins.

Her first instinct was to protest that he didn’t have to, but that wasn’t right. If he wanted to tell her, she wanted to know. “All right.”

He stared down at his hands, flat on the table in front of him. “I had a case. A tough one. I was working Vice and we were trying to track down the head of a pedophile ring. We had caught some of the people he was peddling kiddie porn to, but we needed to locate the man making the films. I thought we had a good lead, and I followed it for months—but I was wrong. And in the time I wasted, that many more kids were abused by that scum.”

“I’m sure you did your best,” she said, wishing she could find better words to lessen the pain behind his words.

“But my best wasn’t good enough. When that happens—it makes you start questioning your job. Maybe you’re not the right person to do this, if your best falls so short.”

She waited, forcing herself to remain silent. To give him time. He looked older, the light over the table deepening the grooves on either side of his mouth, hooding his eyes so she could no longer read his expression. She felt privileged, seeing him like this—a strong man allowing himself to be vulnerable.

“We were working the case of a missing child,” he said after a moment. “When we spotted the girl in one of the films, we tracked down her mother. That’s how she and I got involved.” He shook his head.

When he said nothing more, she couldn’t bear it. “What happened?” she asked.

“We finally caught the guy. It took too long and too many people were hurt before it was over.”

“What happened to the daughter?”

“She died. She killed herself.”

“Oh.” She put one hand to her mouth, trying to stifle the cry, and another over her heart, where pain stabbed for this child and this woman she didn’t even know. And for Wes, carrying all of this with him.

“The mother blamed me for not saving her.”

“Wes—”

“Yeah, well, I blamed myself, too.”

“It’s a terrible thing to happen.”

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