Page 76 of Lacey's Fight

The why was everything.

It either meant his woman had been murdered while believing he cared nothing for her, or they still stood a chance at finding her and bringing her home.

Ben knew he had no one to blame but himself for the fact that Lacey had no idea he cared deeply for her. Might even fall in love with her one day. She just thought he was a cold, angry jerk who was so stuck in the past that he was incapable of moving forward.

A week ago he would have agreed with that assessment.

Now he was trying to do better. To be better.

Because of her.

For her.

And she didn’t even know it.

“We get it, man, we really do,” Keane “Ghost” Bryson told him. Since he’d heard the story of how close Ghost had come to losing the woman he had wound up falling in love with during a hostage situation in Egypt, he believed the man when he said that.

“It’s why we came as soon as we heard,” Beckett “Coach” Ralston added. Olivia had filled him in on the backgrounds of the Delta Team when he got to Prey’s West Coast office, so he was aware that they had helped rescue both Ivory and Pearl earlier in the year. Apparently, Coach in particular had bonded with both the women and Lacey and Opal as well.

“I appreciate that,” he said, hating that the wary and borderline hostile looks he’d been getting when he first showed up had morphed into pitying ones. Ben got the feeling that it wasn’t just having the women they cared about in danger that the Delta Team could empathize with, but messing things up with them too.

One chance.

That was all he was asking God for.

A single chance to make things right with the woman who had shined a light into his dark world.

“I … she … Lacey doesn’t … I messed up,” he admitted. “I assume you all know that my wife was murdered three years ago. I was stuck. Trapped in that grief and guilt. Didn’t even want to find a way out. Then Lacey came storming into my life and she’s so bright, so brave, so strong, I don’t know how she did it, but she changed … me. I need her back, need a chance to make things right.”

“Lacey will fight,” Opal assured him, reaching across to brush her fingertips across the top of his clenched fist which was resting on the table.

“She’s strong and smart and sweet, she cares more about making everyone else happy than finding her own happiness. She needs someone who’ll take care of her, put her first, make her smile because she wants to not because she thinks she has to.” Ivory’s words held a clear warning, one he intended to heed.

“She has that,” he promised.

He would spend the rest of his life making sure Lacey never doubted for a second that she was loved and protected, the center of someone’s world. He would do whatever it took to make sure she knew he could be her safe place, her place of rest, where she never had to pretend anything.

“I think I got something.”

At Olivia’s announcement, all attention snapped to her.

“What did you find, sweetheart?” Eagle asked, leaning over his wife’s shoulder to get a look at her screen.

Since Ben was on the other side of Olivia’s chair, he did the same. “There she is,” he said a horrible mixture of relief at seeing Lacey mixed with fear over what they were about to watch.

“I picked her up arriving around six thirty,” Olivia told them. “She parked, walked down toward the beach and I lost her. I kept fast-forwarding until I picked her up again.”

Security cameras were a godsend and possibly the only shot they had at finding Lacey alive.

“She’s with an older woman,” he said, disappointment washing away any of the hope that had just been brewing. An old woman wouldn’t have the strength, timing, or skill to take down someone with Lacey’s training.

“No way an old lady takes down Lacey,” Cormac “Fletch” Fletcher said confidently.

“Agreed,” Eagle said. “She’s too well trained.”

“Doesn’t look like she thinks the old lady is a threat,” Olivia added, watching the footage. “Maybe whatever happened to her happened afterward.”

“Lacey has her arm around the woman’s waist like she’s supporting her,” Dane “Fish” Munroe noted. “Like maybe the woman was hurt.”

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