Page 113 of One Last Promise

“Could be . . . or . . .” Axel said, a brow raised.

“Maybe he was looking for Pearl. But he didn’t know Pearl had died, and by getting the judge to issue awarrant on her—and you—for noncustodial kidnapping, and because you’d taken her across state lines, he could make it nationwide. . . .”

“And find me.”

“And find you,” Moose said, chilled. “And that’s why he wants Hazel—because he knows you’ll follow her, wherever he takes her.”

“All the way back to Florida,” said Flynn. “Where your dad is working undercover. And then Julian flushes out the person he’s really looking for.”

“And takes his revenge.” Tillie sat back. She was blinking hard, and Moose kneeled down next to her chair. “But how did my dad end up in Miami?”

“If I was gone for five years and my children were missing, I’d cross the country to find them. And keep looking in the last place they were seen,” Moose said, his jaw tight.

“Miami,” she said.

Moose lifted a shoulder. Then, as she put her hands over her face, he put his arms around her and pulled her softly, but firmly, to himself.

So much for brakes. Moose didn’t have a hope of holding on to his heart.

And she was supposed to sleep?

Tillie studied the wood-paneled ceiling of the lower-level bedroom, Flynn’s soft breathing rhythmic in the other twin bed, and tried to ground herself in Flynn’s words.

Her dad, Declan Young,alive.

Alive and searching for her? Maybe, because Moose’s words kept rounding back to her.“If I was gone for five years and my children were missing, I’d cross the country to find them. And keep looking in the last placethey were seen.”

More, why hadn’t the military informed her of his return? Maybe they had discharged him and left him to do that.

So. Many. Questions. She rolled over, her gaze at the window, the darkness still deep, still obscuring the mountains, even the stars.

Blackness—outside and in her brain.

She’d rather think about Moose and the way he’d pulled up a chair as they’d searched the Facebook pages of Amaia and Luca and others. The way he’d put his arm over the back of her chair, protective even if he didn’t realize it.

Sadly, she’d found no more pictures. Her father was a ghost, so maybe, in fact, it hadn’t been him. But even as the others went to bed, as she lay in bed tracing her father’s profile in her brain, she knew.

She could almost hear his laughter, the sometimes-Irish brogue he’d brought out from his parents that made her giggle. The way he’d read stories to her and Pearl, sitting on her bed. The smell of him, an aftershave she’d never nailed down.

Alive.The thought simply took everything out of her.

Especially if she let herself imagine what he’d gone through or how he’d survived all those years. But if her dad was the hero she knew he was, he’d still be fighting for the safety of his children. Of his country.

Against men like Rigger, who fought for no one but himself.

Thank God—and yes, that was the answer—she’d left town with Pearl and Hazel.

And that thought sat her up.

She’d never thought of her desperate actions being . . . good.

Or simplyusedfor good, like Moose had said.

“Faith that God knows what he’s doing. Faith that everything, for someone who trusts God, works together for good.”

What if it wasn’t a platitude?

Her throat was parched, probably from allthe crying. She got up, pulled off the coverlet, wrapped it around herself, and headed out into the main room, shutting the door softly behind herself.

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