The Welcoming

over.
    Her knees were shaking. Reaction was struggling to set in, but she fought it off. When she was alone, Charity promised herself. When she was finally alone, she would let it all out.
    In her sitting room she turned to face him. She would not, could not, speak to him in the intimacy of her bedroom. “I imagine you have reports to file,” she began. Was that her voice? she wondered. It sounded so thin and cold, so foreign. Deliberately she cleared her throat. “I’ve been told I’ll have to make a statement, but I thought we should get this out of the way first.”
    “Charity.” He started toward her, only to be brought up short when her hands whipped out.
    “Don’t.” Her eyes were as cold as her voice. It wasn’t a dream, she told herself. It was as harsh and as brutal a reality as she had ever known. “Don’t touch me. Not now, not ever again.”
    His hands fell uselessly to his sides. “I’m sorry.”
    “Why? You accomplished exactly what you came to do. From what I’ve been able to gather, Roger and Bob had quite a system going. I’m sure your superiors will be delighted with you.”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    She dug his badge out of her pocket, where she had shoved it. “Yes.” She threw it at him. “Yes, it does.”
    Struggling for calm, he pushed it into his pocket. He noted dispassionately that his hands were bleeding. “I couldn’t tell you.”
    “Didn’t tell me.”
    There was a faint bruise on her cheekbone. For a moment all his guilt and impotent fury centered there. “He hit you.”
    She ran a fingertip lightly across the mark. “I don’t break easily.”
    “I want to explain.”
    “Do you?” She turned away for a moment. She wanted to keep her anger cold. “I think I get the picture.”
    “Listen, baby—”
    “No,
you
listen, baby.” Her composure cracking, she whirled around again. “You lied to me, you used me from the first minute to the last. It was all one huge, incredible lie.”
    “Not all.”
    “No? Let’s see, how can we separate one from the other? A convenient flat.” She saw the anger in his eyes and shoved a chair out of her path. “And George, good old lucky George. I suppose it was worth a few thousand dollars to get him out of the way and leave you an opening. And Bob—you knew all about Bob, didn’t you?”
    “We couldn’t be sure, not at first.”
    “Not at first,” she repeated. As long as she kept her brain cold, she told herself, she could think. She could think and not feel. “I wonder, Roman, were you so sure of me? Or did you think I was part of it?” When he didn’t answer, she spun around again. “You did. Oh, I see. I was under investigation all the time. And there you were, so conveniently on the scene. All you had to do was get close to me, and I made it so easy for you.” With a laugh, she pressed her hands to her face. “My God, I threw myself at you.”
    “I wasn’t supposed to get involved with you.” Fighting desperation, he paced his words carefully. “It just happened. I fell in love with you.”
    “Don’t say that to me.” She lowered her hands. Her face was pale and cool behind them. “You don’t even know what it means.”
    “I didn’t, until you.”
    “You can’t have love without trust, Roman. I trusted you. I didn’t just give you my body. I gave you everything.”
    “I told you everything I could,” he shot back. “Damn it, I couldn’t tell you the rest. The things I told you about myself, about the way I grew up, the way I felt, they were all true.”
    “Do I have your word on that? Agent DeWinter?”
    With an oath, he strode across the room and grabbed her arms. “I didn’t know you when I took the assignment. I was doing a job. When things changed, the most important part of that job became proving your innocence and keeping you safe.”
    “If you had told me I would have proven my own innocence.” She jerked out of his hold. “This is my inn, and these are my people. The only family I have left. Do you think I would risk it all for money?”
    “No. I knew that, I trusted that, after the first twenty-four hours. I had orders, Charity, and my own instincts. If I had told you who I was and what was going on, you would never have been able to keep up a front.”
    “So I’m that stupid?”
    “No. That honest.” Digging deep, he found his control again. “You’ve been through a lot. Let me take you to the hospital.”
    “I’ve been through a lot,” she repeated, and