The Hidden

His love for her was as strong as ever, but she’d needed to leave him, and he’d never stood in the way of her happiness.

She’d gone through a miscarriage alone, while he had been on a case. In his defense, she’d never told him that she was pregnant. She’d been waiting for a special moment, a moment that had never happened, because he’d been so buried in his case. They’d tried to arrange a romantic evening, but somehow it had never happened.

And then it had been too late.

He noticed the attractive older couple who followed her out. He realized they must be Ben and Trisha Kendall.

Scarlet hurried toward the car, and he couldn’t help noticing that her jeans and a blue sweater heightened the color of her eyes, which looked as clear and pristine as the sky.

He stepped out of the car, determined to be calm and professional, to keep his emotional distance and remember that she had only called him because she was in trouble.

She wasn’t really in trouble anymore, he reminded himself; she’d been released. But the expression on her face told him that she was still upset about something, and he wondered what it could be.

To his astonishment, she threw herself into his arms.

For just a minute he allowed himself to pretend it was because she still loved him, and he reveled in the scent and feel of her. She smelled of the same shampoo she’d always loved, mixed with a light perfume. She was warm and soft, and it was the most difficult thing in the world to tell his body that this embrace wasn’t a prelude to more.

He held her tightly. She was trembling almost imperceptibly, but he could tell that she was scared, really scared, and Scarlet didn’t scare easily. In her day she had crawled through Egyptian tombs, excavated Native American burial mounds and explored what many might consider to be the creepiest places on earth.

He held her, wishing he could somehow infuse her with some of his own strength.

Despite himself, he remembered, not just in his mind’s eye but deep in his soul, the way they had somehow known instantly when they’d met that they were meant to be together. The way they had dated and fallen so quickly into one another’s arms, and then into love. He remembered her laughter when she’d greeted him the night of his last birthday, wearing a bow tie, stiletto heels and nothing else. He would never forget the way she moved against him, with him, like a sweet, sensual heat wave.

But marriage was more than desire and even love, and they had somehow allowed it to fall apart.

Her call. But his fault, he knew. He’d been so blind. She had known that his work was important to him, of course, and she had never protested his long absences or said anything about the late hours as he let his career become all-consuming. He hadn’t even realized that she’d slowly stopped talking to him because he never talked back, not about anything important. He didn’t see what he was doing, how much he was gone...and that nights together, no matter how passionate, didn’t make up for the things that went unsaid.

At last she pulled away and he felt her absence like a physical pain.

Brett cleared his throat and Scarlet turned to greet him. They had always gotten along well, and now she smiled, then gave him a big hug, as well.

“Thank you for coming,” she said to Brett, and then she turned to the others, her eyes questioning.

Diego quickly introduced them. “Scarlet, these are Special Agents Matt Bosworth and Meg Murray. We met when they came down to Miami to work a case, and now Brett and I have transferred to their unit.”

She thanked them both for coming, then turned to the older couple and said, “Ben and Trisha Kendall, owners of this fantastic place.”

“Rattled owners, at the moment,” Ben said, shaking Diego’s hand.

“This place is absolutely beautiful,” Meg said.