He’d been half in love with Lily Garrett from the moment he’d laid eyes on her three years ago. She was everything he was not, his polar opposite in every way. While he liked being on the road, bouncing from one city to another, one foreign country to the next, she tended to be a homebody. She preferred routine and familiarity. He thrived on danger and living life by the seat of his pants. She had a level head. He was as reckless as a storm-tossed sea.
He’d always believed those contrasts were one of the reasons they’d been drawn to each other with such power and passion. While that was true in many ways, those stark differences were also what had ultimately torn them apart. The truth of that hurt more than he wanted to admit.
Raised in a series of foster homes since the age of ten, Chase had never known the familiarity and comfort of family. The series of families who’d raised him had been virtual strangers—and they’d treated him as such. He’d grown up alone with a chip on his shoulder and no close ties. Then he met Lily and for the first time in his life he knew what it was like to connect with another human being.
He met her when a mission left him with a broken arm. His brother had taken him to the New England Medical Center emergency room. While Chase sat on the gurney, Lily walked in and began treating him. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. He liked to laugh about it now, but he’d always secretly thought that was the night he’d fallen in love with her.
It took six tries in the following weeks, but he’d finally convinced her to go out with him. Once she did, his fate was sealed. She was the only pure and innocent thing in his life, and he’d always looked upon her with a sort of reverence. She was like a long, deep breath of fresh air after weeks of stagnant city smog. A month into their relationship he’d invited her to his cabin home on the jagged Maine coast. He’d taken her for a ride on his speedboat. She’d asked him to slow down; he’d gone faster. That night, they’d made love for the first time. The experience had rocked his world. That was when Chase realized he was in over his head. Him. Mr. Independent. Mr. Love ’em and Leave ’em. Lily, the levelheaded emergency room nurse who thrived on all that was normal in the world, had become the center of his.
Over the next few months, he saw her as much as he could between missions. But after the first year or so, the injuries he sustained while on missions, his disappearing for weeks at a time without a word, began to take a heavy toll on their relationship. Finally, when he came back from North Africa with a closed head injury, Lily had asked him to choose: her or his work. Instead of listening with his heart, Chase had listened with his ego. In the end she’d walked away, and like the ass he was, he’d let her go.
It was the beginning of the end.
For months, he’d assured himself he’d done the right thing. He didn’t want a woman telling him what to do or how to live his life. During that time, his tactics during missions became increasingly reckless. He volunteered for the most dangerous assignments. Assignments most sane men did their best to steer clear of. It was almost as if he were tempting fate to take a swipe at him. Then a shattered femur laid him up for several weeks. Alone in his cabin with nothing but time to think about his life—about Lily and all he’d lost—he realized how foolish he’d been for letting her go.
With his leg in a cast, he’d driven from Maine to Boston and gone directly to her apartment. There had been no romance or flowers or even a candlelit dinner. One look, one kiss, and he’d taken her down on the floor, where they’d made desperate, passionate love. Afterward, realizing what he’d done, Chase left before daylight. That had been seven and a half months ago, and he hadn’t seen Lily since.
Until tonight.
As he looked at her sleeping form, a yearning for something profound but elusive tugged hard at him. The only time he felt whole was when he’d been with Lily. He’d tried to find fulfillment elsewhere by throwing himself into his work. But he hadn’t succeeded. Now she was in danger, his baby was in danger, and it was his fault.
“Vickers, you’re an idiot,” he muttered into the darkness.
Sighing, Chase pulled the cell phone from his pocket and checked his service. Three bars. Why, then, weren’t Shane or Ty calling him back?
Undeterred, he called the only other person he could think of: Ben Parker, an FBI agent stationed in the Boston area, whom he’d met several months ago through Shane.
Ben picked up on the first ring with a curt utterance of his name.
“Are you the only person in this friggin’ town who answers his phone?” Chase asked.
“Busy night, bro.”
“What’s going on?”
“You mean aside from all hell breaking loose?” Ben’s laugh was strained. “Someone tried to get to Shane tonight.”
Chase closed his eyes. “He okay?”
“Narrow escape, but he’s fine.”
Relief swept through him with such force that for a moment he couldn’t speak.
“You there?” Ben asked.
“Yeah.” But his mind was reeling. That he had been ambushed just an hour ago was no coincidence.
Concern trickled through Chase as dark possibilities rose like a storm inside him. “They tried to get to me, too, Ben.”
The other man’s curse burned through the line. “You in one piece?”
“I’m fine.”