The Icy Airfield Held the Husband She Had Buried Five Years Ago

A Ghost in the Flesh

Joanna stumbled backward, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a scream. The face on the monitor, pale and slick with cold sweat, belonged to David. The same sharp jawline, the same scar across his brow—the husband she had wept over, buried, and mourned for five agonizing years. He was alive, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged gasps as the heart monitor beeped erratically.

"David?" Joanna gasped, tears instantly freezing on her cheeks. "No, this is impossible. He died... I saw the wreckage. I held his funeral!"

Arthur stepped into the helicopter bay, his expression softening with a sliver of pity. "His death had to be faked, Dr. Vance. David was a deep-cover federal asset investigating a highly dangerous international syndicate. They found out who he was. To keep you and your daughter safe, we had to make him vanish. If they knew he was alive, they would have targeted you to get to him."

Joanna felt a toxic wave of betrayal crash over her. For five years, she had cried herself to sleep, struggling to raise their daughter alone, believing she was a widow. "You lied to me," she whispered, her voice cracking with fury and pain. "He let me believe he was dead!"

"He had no choice," Arthur insisted, pointing to the monitor. "But right now, he has a ruptured thoracic aneurysm. The local hospitals are compromised, and you are the only surgeon within five hundred miles capable of performing this delicate procedure. He is dying, Joanna. If you don't operate on him right here, right now, he won't survive the hour."

Looking down at the man who had shattered her life, Joanna saw the violent tremor in his chest. Despite the anger raging in her veins, her medical vows and the lingering embers of her love took over. She grabbed a sterile pair of gloves. She would save his life—if only to demand the answers she deserved.