Heavy Artillery Husband Read Online Free PDF Page A

off. Please,” he added, softening the order to a request. “There’s no such thing as safe if they can track you.”
    She’d deactivated the GPS signal, but he didn’t need to know that. Until she could trust him, she wouldn’t give him any more advantages. Let him worry that she could turn on her phone at any time and get help immediately. “Give me a good reason to trust anything coming out of your mouth.”
    â€œI’m your husband,” he stated. “You’ve always been my top priority.”
    She laughed. “I might believe such a statement if you were still officially alive .” Headlights flashed in the side mirror, and her heart rate kicked up. She hoped it was just a speeder and not more trouble.
    â€œThen how about this?” He spared her a quick glance. “I’m the only living person who understands what we’re up against.”
    The “we’re” stood out to her, a beacon slicing through the fog of his words. Reluctantly, she cooperated, turning off her phone and dropping it into her purse again.
    â€œYou’re angry.” He checked his mirrors. “You should be. And I’m more sorry than any words can accurately convey.”
    â€œThat sounds like a cop-out.” She ignored the little voice in her head that wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Faking a suicide fell into the category of drastic measures. Frank wasn’t the sort to take such a step without good cause. She fisted her hands in her lap, her fingernails digging into her palms. If she left her hands loose, she would no doubt reach out to him just to see if he was real.
    â€œAt the time, it was necessary,” he said as if he knew what she was thinking. “I knew you’d be okay, better off without me dragging you down.”
    What did that mean? She heard the bitterness underscoring his words. If she was so much better off, why storm back into her life? Why were she and Frankie in danger? “Being a widow hasn’t been peaches and cream, Frank.” Her emotions leaped wildly with every heartbeat, unable to settle between joy that he was alive and outrage that he’d chosen a fake death rather than trust her with his secrets. How dare he!
    â€œYeah, well, being dead isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either.”
    â€œYou’ve put Frankie and me through terrible heartache. She needed you.” I needed you. She kept the admission to herself, unwilling to let him have that much of her again. Not before she understood how this had happened.
    â€œYou both need me right now.” He sighed and in the light of oncoming headlights she caught the tic in his jaw.
    â€œArrogant as ever.” She couldn’t resist baiting him. That supreme confidence had been simultaneously one of his most attractive and most frustrating traits when they were young and eager to get out and conquer the world. Together. So much for that philosophy serving as the cornerstone of their marriage and family.
    False or not, death had parted them, and he’d left her alone to find her own way through the consequences of his mistakes. “You know I can keep a secret,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice. “You had no right to keep the truth from me.”
    â€œI know.” He stretched a hand toward her as he used to do on road trips. “I’m so sorry, dolcezza .”
    She didn’t take that hand, though refusing it cost her. She wanted to touch him so badly. “You’re going to tell me the whole story.” He’d never been a fan of her using an inflection that carried the same gravity and certainty of his general’s tone of command, but if any situation required it, this was the one.
    â€œI am,” he replied, with both hands on the steering wheel once more. “You’re not going to like it.”
    â€œI already don’t like it, Frank.”
    He’d saved her life tonight.