Great, now the safe house wasn't safe. Sara pushed herself away from Joe and headed straight for the guestroom. Even though Joe followed her and even though he was watching while he continued his phone conversation with Sawyer, she started to get dressed anyway.
"What do you think you're doing?" Joe asked her the moment he finished the call.
"Leaving. I'll ask the sheriff to escort me to the airport so I can get out of here for a while." Judging from his huff, her plan didn't make sense. It didn't make sense to her, either, but she had to do something, anything, or she would explode.
"How was the safe house compromised?" she asked.
"Sawyer thinks someone tapped his phone line or maybe saw the request in the FBI files."
It didn't take much to figure out what that meant. "Someone like a marshal could have done that," she mumbled, and Joe eventually gave a hesitant but confirming nod.
Wonderful. She yanked on her jeans, tossed off the T-shirt and grabbed her own flannel one. Thank goodness Joe didn't touch her when she was half naked. He waited until she had on her shirt before he crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. She fought it. Would have fought everything at that point including a lifeline while drowning, but the fight drained her in just a few seconds.
Then, the tears came.
"I hate this," she mumbled. "Christmas already had enough bad memories without adding this."
"Yeah." He brushed a kiss on her forehead.
Ironically, her wedding to Joe was supposed to help with the first set of bad memories over losing her parents in that car crash. "I didn't want Christmas to be all doom and gloom," he said. "I wanted it to be a happy time for you again."
She pulled back, looked up at him. "Did you ever even love me?" she asked.
The anger came in a flash, rifling through his eyes. "Did you ever even love me?" he fired back.
Sara wanted to jump to say yes, but too much had happened for her to lie to herself. She'd had plenty of feelings for Joe, plenty, but maybe she'd used him to numb the pain. And he'd been so good to her in the hospital while she'd recovered from her brain injury. Helping her learn to talk again, all the while tending her ranch. He'd been her protector then. Her keeper. Eventually, her lover.
"I'm so sorry," she said. Or rather that's what she tried to say. But Joe kissed her.