Killer Focus Page 25

  There would be a funeral service with full military honors back in Shreveport, a postmortem presentation of medals and an official apology. The record would finally be set straight, but as far as Steve was concerned it was over, here. Todd Fischer had already found his rest.

  Chest tight, he crouched down and picked up a handful of the damp, crumbly soil. Rising to his feet, he let the soil slide between his fingers and remembered Todd Fischer as he had been, not as a soldier but as his father…and finally let go.

  White rose petals and delicate sprays of jasmine blew across the muddy ground as Taylor slipped her fingers through Steve’s. She was unwilling to intrude on his grief, but at the same time she was determined to pull him back from the solitary place he’d retreated to.

  Steve had found his father and, against the odds, she had found hers. Her relationship with Jack wasn’t perfect, but she no longer expected it to be. He was in the picture, despite his past, and was determined to stay for her sake and for Dana’s. Dana hadn’t said anything, but she didn’t have to. The glow in her expression was all Taylor needed to see. Somehow, despite the passage of years and the twists and turns their lives had taken, she and Jack still fit together. More than that, they were happy.

  Steve’s fingers tightened on hers as he pulled her away from the lingering grief and sadness of the now-empty grave. His arm came around her waist as they picked their way through the expanding press of humanity that had sprung up around the site, his palm cupping her abdomen. Her stomach was still flat and there was no visible evidence of the small life growing inside her, but the baby was there, and already the center of the new life they were planning, courtesy of WITSEC.

  They all had a chance at a new beginning, and they were taking it. Wedding arrangements were under way, although Taylor had stipulated that the ceremony had to take place after the memorial services. When Steve walked down the aisle, she wanted his focus firmly on the future, not the past.

  His gaze met hers as they reached the mud encrusted four-wheel-drive truck they had rented in Cartagena. He dug the keys out of his pocket and tossed them in one hand, and the grimness of the past few days dissolved, replaced by warmth and a piercing sweetness. “Time to go home.”

  And in that moment she knew he was finally free.

  Wrapping her arms around his waist, she held him tight.

  Freedom felt good.

  Love felt even better.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-0451-8

  KILLER FOCUS

  Copyright © 2007 by Fiona Walker.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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