Page 74 of Shane

“I’m fine, ladies, really,” Shane assured them both. Taking another deep breath, he let it out between his pursed lips, and Everlee believed him.

“Yes, you are. You’re fine. I mean, not fine, like fine,fine, but more like better fine because you had the guts to share something that must’ve been horribly hard to live through.”And I won’t. I can’t. I’m not that brave.

Struggling for composure, she pulled herself together, wiped her face, eased away from Shane’s embrace, then turned back to Tuesday. “I guess we’re all broken somehow, and I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for you to go back into Freddie’s condo all by yourself after that. But you’ve already proven you’re a fighter. Look at you, Tuesday Smart, a wildlife photographer who braves the Arctic and polar bears and killer walruses, and who’s going to be famous someday.”

Tuesday snorted. “I’m already famous, well, infamous. Just ask the national news.”

“And we’re going to set that shit straight.” The words were no more than out of Shane’s mouth when the phone in his hand buzzed with an incoming call. He answered with, “Hey, Mom. Knew you’d call back. What else do we need to know?”

With a crooked smile at Everlee and Tuesday, he’d flicked the phone on speaker just as Mother blurted, “You were driving the delivery truck that day that” —Shane slammed his palm over his phone. But by then, Everlee and Tuesday had heard everything— “Alex’s wife and daughter were killed. Sara and Abby. You’re that guy.”

Everlee’s breath caught in her windpipe.Jiminy Christmas!Sara and Abby? The tattoo on his chest? That was who they were? Shane killed Sara and Abby Stewart?

Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod! He was the unnamed man behind the wheel. Because he’d legally been a juvenile, not yet eighteen years, his name hadn’t been released to the press. He was that man. The guy who’d destroyed Alex’s life. And yet Alex hired him? Did he know who Shane was?

Not one iota of emotion shone in his eyes as he told Mother, “Yes, ma’am. That was me. I did it.” Shane’s face turned to stone when he looked down at Everlee and saw the shock on her face.

A tortured, “My God, Shane!” breathed over the distance between Virginia. And Arkansas.

His entire body cringed as if Mother had just slapped him. And just that fast, Everlee tipped back against his chest, trusting this man with all of her crazy heart. There had to be more to the story. He’d never purposefully kill any innocent, especially not a mother and child.

But Mother wasn’t done. “Your poor mom hadn’t even been dead twelve hours!” she nearly yelled.

A breath sniffed out of him. “You think I don’t know that?”

“That had to have been so hard for you. Losing her to cancer, watching her die, being there with her until the end, then involved in an accident the morning after.”

“It was.” His reply was softly spoken. Everlee put her hand on his chest and spread her fingers wide, sending him strength instead of shoving him away.

Mother kept going. “Trust me, Shane, I know what prolonged illness does to your soul, honey. You poor, poor kid! But there you were, back to work, trying to make enough money to pay for your mom’s funeral and your college tuition, and for food and rent and” —her voice cracked— “You were just a kid! I wish I’d known you then. I would’ve paid for everything for you! I would’ve given you anything you needed!”

He cleared his throat, his gaze still fastened on Everlee despite Mother’s emotional declaration of support.

Everlee looked him in the eye. She was right. Mother made it sound as if he were a victim too. He’d been old enough to have been held responsible, maybe tried for vehicular homicide as an adult despite his age. But he wasn’t. Why not? What were the extenuating circumstances? He wasn’t anything like her father, who believed in bribes and lies and dodging the truth when things didn’t go his way. Shane was the exact opposite. And any man who prayed over a meal like he had at the Stewarts’ shindig couldn’t be a murderer. He just couldn’t.

She knew he’d enlisted in the Corps right out of high school. Or had he? No, Mother said something about him trying to pay for college tuition. So he’d given up college to join the Corps after his mother died? By then he’d been a man by most standards. Not able to vote or buy alcohol or cigarettes, but he’d been legally bound to register for the draft, able to enlist in any armed forces, old enough to die for his country. Also old enough he could’ve been tried as an adult, and—

“Your mother died, then you were in an accident the very next day?Thataccident?” Everlee asked, her heart breaking for the tense warrior beneath her.

His head dipped, just once. Quick and sharp, as if he had no idea what she’d say next. As if he didn’t care. There wasn’t a part of Shane that wasn’t shut down and closed off. Mother had just outed him in the worst possible way, at the most inconvenient time. To his companion agent during a failed mission. In front of the woman who was supposed to be their prisoner. Just when Shane had mostly recovered from a migraine he’d obviously been seeing a doctor for. Just when the three of them had become that undefinablemore…

Everlee brushed aside these new, tragic facts and relied on what she knew and believed about this man. What he’d done and what little she knew. He was like most guys coming back from the sandbox, traumatized and suffering from PTSD.

Yet Alex trusted him enough to send him on this mission with me.

That Mother had revealed this new information about Shane told Everlee that Alex already knew, yet hadn’t shared Shane’s secret with anyone, except probably with Mark because Mark hired Shane. He’d been there that first day when Shane flipped out. Which meant Alex and Mark knew.

But Alex still trusted Shane.

Everlee stretched her palm to Shane’s face and cradled his bristly jaw, resting her thumb on his chin, now darkened with one helluva five o’clock shadow. Despite the questions whirling through her disorganized brain, she knew this man was as honorable as Alex. She also knew what it was like to be judged by assholes who didn’t care about facts or truth. Who jumped to conclusions and lied behind your back. Well, she wasn’t one of them.

“You poor thing,” she whispered, as impulsively, she tugged his mouth down to her level and kissed him like she’d never let him go. Just cracked that stern, but so damned vulnerable mask he was hiding behind and poured everything she had into him. Her trust, her heart, maybe even her soul. Through his mouth, damn it, down his throat and into his broken heart. Because who could survive the loss of their mother and not have a broken heart? She hadn’t. Well, neither had Shane, damn it.

It took a second, but at last, his rigid demeanor softened and he let her in. With their teeth clashing and their tongues melting together, Everlee showed Shane exactly what those secrets meant to her. Nothing. Were they important? Sure, maybe, yeah. Okay. Details considered within the context of truth were always important. But Alex was no dummy. He’d known precisely who Shane was when he’d hired him. That explained why Shane had been so stressed the first day in TEAM HQ. He’d faced Alex down, hadn’t he? He’d confessed to murdering Sara and Abby. Everlee didn’t have to ask; she knew to her soul that was what happened. Shane wouldn’t have kept his true identity from Alex. In fact—

“That’s why you collapsed in the lobby the day we met, isn’t it?” she whispered into his mouth. “You’d just had the mother of all shitty mornings. You told Alex who you were, didn’t you?”

He eased back from her far enough to gently bump his forehead to hers. “Yeah, shitty. But it had to be done. I owed him that much, maybe more.”