The Agent's Redemption (Special Agents At The Altar 4) Read Free Page B

that he would realize Alex was his son. But he didn’t appear to have made the connection. Alex was small for his age, though. Perhaps Jared hadn’t realized how old the little boy was.
    She really didn’t want to leave them alone while she retrieved the container of Lexi’s pictures and journals. “Alex needs a bath before bedtime,” she said. “He just got back from a playdate. Do you mind waiting?”
    His body tensed with urgency. He probably hated waiting. Amy Wilcox had already been missing for days.
    But Rebecca doubted that there was anything in Lexi’s personal effects that could lead him to the young woman. If the same man who’d taken Lexi had taken Amy, then Rebecca already knew who he was.
    But Jared refused to believe her. He believed an alibi instead. But the alibi could have been faked. Or a killer could have been hired.
    “I’ll wait,” he said. And he was already pulling out his cell phone.
    Of course he had calls to make. When she’d known him before, he had constantly been on his phone—following up leads, checking in with other agents. The man lived and breathed his job. When he had worked her sister’s case, she had mistakenly believed his intensity had been personal.
    But it was just who he was...
    Intense.
    Driven.
    Determined.
    But despite all those characteristics, he had been unable to find Lexi’s body. Or Lexi’s killer.
    She left Jared to his calls and tugged Alex toward the bathroom. Usually after a playdate with Tommy, he was exhausted. When she hosted a playdate with the hyperactive Tommy, she was always exhausted afterward, too.
    But now Alex was too curious to be tired. “Who is Jared Bell?” he asked as he pulled off his clothes and stepped into the bathtub.
    Your father
. The words popped into her head again but stuck in her throat. She couldn’t tell either of them the truth. Not now.
    But guilt settled heavily on her heart. She should tell the truth. She probably would have—had she not been devastated by Jared’s rejection. But he hadn’t just rejected her; he’d rejected what she’d felt for him.
    He’d told her that she didn’t really have any feelings for him. She was only fixated on him because he was investigating her sister’s disappearance—that he had become a surrogate of Lexi to her.
    For such a brilliant man, he’d been incredibly dense and insensitive.
    “Mr. Bell is...” She had no idea what to tell her son. Jared had never really been a friend. And she couldn’t tell Alex that he was an FBI agent. Her little boy would never go to sleep because he would have a million questions for Jared.
    Alex was such a bright and inquisitive boy. His teachers had already moved him up a grade because they couldn’t challenge him. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked like her, but he had his father’s brilliance.
    She’d had to work hard for her grades. That was why she’d been so consumed with studying that she’d lost touch with her sister. Then she’d lost her entirely.
    “He has a gun, Mommy,” the little boy said.
    How had he noticed the weapon holstered beneath Jared’s jacket?
    “Was that why you hid behind my legs?” she asked. “Are you scared of him?”
    Alex shook his head and sent droplets of water flying across the sand-colored tile walls and floor and her T-shirt. “No. He has a badge, too.”
    Jared had always worn his badge clipped to his belt, but his jacket covered it. Of course her observant little boy would have somehow noticed it. He missed nothing. But a father...
    “Mr. Bell is an FBI agent,” she reluctantly admitted.
    As she’d expected, Alex sprang out of the bath, dripping water everywhere. “Can I talk to him? Can I?”
    Before he could head to the door, she caught him up in a towel and dried him off and stalled.
    “Do you think he’ll let me touch his gun?” Alex asked. “Do you think he ever shot somebody with it?”
    She was pretty certain that he had, but not the person she’d wanted him to