The fifth man—the one with the thick blonde hair and startling green eyes that had jokingly teased about kissing Sleeping Beauty—was the unknown entity. Because of that, she was a little wary of him, more so than the others. Or maybe it was because of the tension hidden just below that calm exterior, the threat of danger she sensed beneath his cover-model good looks. What was his name?
She frowned, recalling the hasty introductions. Something odd, unusual, a little old-fashioned. It had briefly reminded her of a favorite book she had read when she was younger—
Sebastian. That was it. Sebastian Wolf. No—Wolf was his nickname, not his last name. His last name was close, though...Wood. Sebastian Wood. She could see how he got his nickname though, with the way he sat back and watched, studied, sized up his prey—
TR rolled her eyes and muttered a silent oath. More avoidance? Or nothing more than an overactive imagination? Probably a combination of both.
"Are you sure you don't want more to eat?" Mac's gravelly voice cut through her thoughts, snapping her back to the here-and-now. She glanced up, surprised to see him hovering beside her, his mouth turned down in a scowl as he stared at the half-empty bowl of chili.
"No, thank you."
He frowned at her then took the bowl away and carried it over to the double sink. She expected him to just leave it there, or maybe dump it in the dishwasher then come back to join the interrogation she sensed was coming. He did neither. Instead, he carefully washed it and rinsed it, then placed it on the small rack to dry.
Sebastian—Wolf—nudged her elbow and offered a bright smile. "Mac's a bit of a neat freak."
TR slid just the tiniest bit away from him then looked around the room and nodded. Yes, she could see that—had noticed it even with the lack of clutter in his room. The kitchen was just as neat, despite its rustic feel. It took up nearly the entire width of the house, with worn plank floors polished to a soft glow and exposed natural wood beams overhead. The exterior wall was fashioned of brick—and looked to be original to the house instead of some fabricated design meant to look old. The cabinets looked as if they had recently been restored but the appliances were relatively new. The center island was a butcher block table, large and heavy and probably fifty-years-old, at least. Copper pots hung from a rack suspended from the ceiling. Shiny, but worn enough to testify to the fact that they were more than simple decoration.
A large trestle table with a long bench on either side filled the other half of the spacious room. A few placemats sat on the table, along with five glasses filled with different drinks. Other than that, the table was empty. No basket of trinkets, no vase of flowers—not that she thought Mac was a flowers kind of guy—no decoration of any kind.
Neat. Tidy. Homey-feeling despite the lack of knick-knacks.
TR nodded again. "I can see that."
Mac dried his hands on a kitchen towel, folded it and placed it on the granite counter, then returned to the large table and sat down across from her. "Nothing wrong with being a neat-freak. Control the chaos before it controls you."
"Then I guess you were doing your best not to hyperventilate when you were at my apartment the other night, huh?"
The silence in the room changed as soon as she said the words. Heat filled her face and she shook her head, ready to tell the four men staring at her that it wasn't like what they were thinking. Mac spoke first, covering her stammering efforts.
"I wasn't there to grade your housekeeping skills. I told you, I was just checking to make sure everything was safe."
"And it was. Nothing more dangerous than those killer dust bunnies hiding under the—" She stopped, swallowed, forced a smile to her face and quickly chose another word besides bed. "—the sofa." Yes, he had been in her bedroom, but not like that. Would the other men think otherwise? She started to look around, to see if they were studying her or if it was just her imagination, when Mac spoke up.
"Never underestimate the lethal ferocity of a dust bunny."
Mac deadpanned the words, his voice totally flat and monotone. TR's eyes widened a second before she started laughing, only to choke it back seconds later because nobody else was. In fact, the other four men looked like they were in shock as they sent curious gazes first in her direction, then in Mac's.
She wanted to ask what was wrong—surely they had heard Mac joke before—but stopped herself before saying anything. At least, anything about that.
"Speaking of dust bunnies—when can I go home?"
The air in the room shifted, became a little heavier. A little thicker. A little more tension-filled. Or maybe that was just another figment of her overworked imagination, brought on by the odd look Mac and Daryl exchanged. And it wasn't just the two of them—Jon and Ryder both shifted on the bench, suddenly preoccupied with studying the grain of the wooden table. Even Wolf...Wood...whatever his name was...looked away.
TR ran her gaze over all five men, finally stopping at Mac. He sat across from her, his mouth tight, his jaw clenched. He looked directly at her, his eyes deeply intense. Foreboding.
Forbidding.
TR clenched her own jaw and sat up a little straighter. "Don't tell me I can't go home. I feel fine. No ill effects at all."
"You nearly drowned."
"Nearly. I'm still alive." She waved both hands around her head, wondering if she looked as crazy as she suddenly felt, talking about nearly dying like it was no big deal. Like feeling the cold water wash over her and steal her breath away was an everyday thing. "See? Perfectly fine. There's no reason I can't go home."
"There could still be complications."
"No." TR shook her head, silently swore when her eyes started burning. She blinked several times, knowing it wouldn't help hide anything because Mac was still watching her, noticing everything. "No complications. I'm fine. You said I could go home."
"TR—"
"No. I want to go home. I need my things. My clothes. My shampoo. My laptop. My files—"
"There's a bag for you in the other room." Jonathan interrupted her, his voice a little rushed, as if he couldn't get the words out fast enough. Afraid she'd totally break down and really start crying? Maybe. He looked over at her, shrugged, then just as quickly looked away as a faint blush filled his face. "I didn't go through your things, Sammie did. I mean, she didn't go through them, she just picked out what she thought you might want and need—"
"I knew what you meant."
"Your laptop is in there, too. I grabbed that."
TR didn't say anything, not even a simple thank you. She couldn't, not when she was too busy trying to control her emotions.
Anger. Impatience. Disbelief. And, under it all, fear. Fear that she was missing something. Fear that she was standing just outside a door leading to the unknown, ready to be pushed through it—
Certain that once that happened, nothing would ever be the same again.
She wrapped her arms around her to ward off the sudden chill and turned back to Mac, not bothering to hide the pleading in her voice. "You said I could go home."
It wasn't Mac who answered—it was Daryl. And there was no mistaking the edge in his voice, the power and command.
"Not yet. Not until we're sure you're safe."
Chapter Seven
Mac stood off to the side, his arms folded across his chest as he leaned against the butcher block table. Daryl sat across from TR, his gaze focused on her with laser intensity. Reigs and Boomer sat at the end of one bench, Wolf at the other. Nobody said anything—nobody but Daryl, as he threw one question after another at TR.
How long had they been sitting like that? How long had this interrogation been going on? Because that's exactly what it was: an interrogation. There was no shouting, no threat of violence, nothing like that, just one question after another. Sometimes the same question, phrased differently, meant to gather as much information as possible.
If they had been anywhere else—if it had been anyone else besides TR—the questions would have been phrased in ways to tri
p her up, to poke and prod until cracks appeared, until inconsistencies made themselves known. That wasn't what Daryl was trying to do, though.
That didn't mean Mac felt any better about it.
He glanced at his watch, frowned and tapped it with the blunt tip of one finger, certain it had stopped. No, the second hand continued with its smooth sweep, the minute and hour hands marching around the face as they should.
Not quite ninety minutes, but it felt like days.
TR seemed to be holding steady. Her face was a little pale and her shoulders were hunched under the blanket Mac had brought in from the den earlier because she had been shivering. He wasn't even sure she noticed when he draped it around her shoulders because she hadn't looked at him, hadn't moved except to fist her hands around the edges of the fleece throw and pull it tighter.
He fisted his own hands around his arms, the move the only outward sign of his frustration. TR needed to be upstairs, in bed, curled under the heavy covers and sound asleep. She was still recovering from her near-drowning, she needed rest and quiet. She was tired—he could see the exhaustion in the pinched lines of her mouth, in the shadows under those clear pale blue eyes that always caught him off-guard with the way they lit up and danced whenever she smiled or laughed.
She wasn't smiling now. Her brows were pulled low over her eyes, her mouth pursed in a frown as she considered Daryl's last question. She finally shook her head then reached up and impatiently brushed at the thick, black hair that had fallen across her cheek.
"I'm not sure. It just..." Her voice trailed off and she shifted on the bench, tossing a quick glance in his direction before turning back to Daryl with a shrug. "It just seemed like the smart thing to do."
What the hell? Mac frowned, wondering what he had missed. What had Daryl asked her? He pushed away from the island only to stop at the brief shake of Daryl's head.
"You asked Mac to take you to the party because of a gut feeling." Daryl phrased it as a comment, not a question, but TR still nodded.
"Yeah. I guess."
Mac stiffened, opened his mouth then closed it again. There was more to her reason than what she had just told Daryl but he couldn't speak up. Not yet. Not until he gave her a chance to elaborate and explain exactly what she had been thinking.
Silence filled the room, tense with anticipation. Could TR feel it? Did she know that every single one of them knew there was something more to her answer? Not because Mac had told them but because of the way she fidgeted on the bench. Because of the way her hands twisted around the edges of the throw and the way her gaze dropped to the table.
She finally sighed and looked back at him once more before facing Daryl again. "I—I thought Mac could keep an eye out so I could look around the Senator's house. See if I could find...I don't know. Something."
Daryl blinked, the only sign of surprise to cross his face. Wolf choked back a laugh, the sound ending sharply when Boomer kicked him under the table. Even Reigs hastily turned his head to the side and covered his mouth with one hand, no doubt to hide a quick smile.
"You were going to snoop around a senator's house?" Surprise laced Daryl's voice but Mac doubted if TR noticed it—just like she didn't notice the odd noises and subtle shifting from the other men in the room.
"I—well...not really snoop. Just, you know, look around."
"A senator's house."
"Yeah."
"While Mac kept an eye out."
"Um, yeah."
"And you didn't think anyone would notice?"
"I wasn't—" TR stopped, cleared her throat, tossed another glance at Mac over her shoulder. "I guess I didn't think it through all the way. Until Mac pointed out what a stupid idea it was."
"That's not exactly what I said." No, he hadn't said that at all, not even close. He'd been angry, had accused her of using him as a distraction. What had he said to her?
Have the scarred monster scare everyone so they wouldn't notice you slinking around where you don't belong.
Ugly words that exposed his own fucked-up fears and insecurities and hit too close to home, even if he had been the one to say them. Except TR had knocked him off-balance with her response. With the way she had raised her hand and traced the network of scars covering his lower face, telling him she didn't care about the scars, that she never had.
Then she had lowered her hand, dragged it down the crisp edges of his shirt until her palm rested in the middle of his chest, right above his heart. Her beautiful pale blue eyes never left his, her gaze intense and powerful, hiding nothing when she spoke.
This is what I care about.
Mac shifted, lowered his gaze to the floor and wondered if everyone could see his sudden discomfort. Christ, it had only been twenty-four hours since she'd said that. Twenty-four fucking hours and so much had happened since then—none of it even close to what he had expected.
Daryl's voice cut through the amused tension. "Whatever the reason, be glad you didn't. We'd be having this conversation somewhere else if you had."
Boomer braced his elbows on the table and leaned closer. "What were you hoping to find? If you had snooped around, I mean."
"I'm not sure. Something to explain why the Senator had acted so weird. Something—"
"What do you mean, acting weird?"
TR tossed another glance at Mac, this one so full of helplessness that he finally moved from his perch and straddled the bench next to her. He started to reach for then stopped. "Tell them what you told me."
TR took a deep breath and slowly released it, as if preparing herself for battle. "Just...weird. I had a meeting with him, the night my car was broken into. I almost left because his assistant kept making excuses for him, saying he was running late or that something else came up. When he finally showed up, he was so late that I figured I'd only have ten minutes at the most to interview him."
"And you thought that was weird?"
TR looked over at Wolf, her brows pulled low as she shook her head. "No. Not really. What was weird was the way he was acting. Like he was confused. Disoriented. He kept repeating himself and half of what he said didn't even make sense." She paused, lowered her gaze to the empty cup of coffee in front of her. "I got the feeling that he wasn't even sure who I was or what I was doing there."
Mac looked at Daryl, saw the same bewildered expression on his face that he saw on Jon's and Boomer's and Wolf's. Hell, maybe it was even on his own face. None of what TR was saying amounted to anything suspicious. Odd, yes—especially for the Senator. But suspicious? No.
And it sure as hell didn't explain why someone would try to kill her.
Had Mac overreacted? Had he allowed his own hatred for the Senator to cloud his judgment?
No. His instinct was still sounding alarms in his head, loud and clear. Something was going on—they just needed to find out what.
He exchanged a silent glance with Daryl then leaned forward and gently rubbed TR's back. Nothing more than a quick touch, meant to reassure her. He hadn't expected her to lean toward him, hadn't expected to see her lashes sweep across her pale skin as her eyes fluttered closed.
He dropped his hand, told himself he only imagined the flash of disappointment that crossed her face when he stopped touching her.
"Why don't you back up and start from the beginning? Tell us more about this story you were working on."
TR sighed, the loud sound filled with frustration and impatience. Her head tilted back, her gaze focused on one of the rough beams overhead. Her voice, when she spoke, was flat. Emotionless. Like she was reciting something by heart with the same enthusiasm of a sixteen-year-old repeating dry poetry.
"I was told to look into any possible historical significance attached to the tract of land that's going to be used for that facility outside of Frederick."
"The defense complex."
TR's gaze snapped to Wolf's, her frustration evident. "Yes. I already said that. Twice."
Wolf held both hands up, palm out, in silent apology then motioned for h
er to continue.
"The purchase went through so fast that nobody had time to do a study on it. Any kind of study, not even an environmental one. My editor thought it might make an interesting story—you know, typical bureaucracy once again obliterating a historical site. Government breaking the rules they set up for everyone else. Something like that. He was thinking a few column inches at the most. Not a big deal."
"And?"
"And the Senator is—was—the driving force behind it. Everything was a done deal before anyone got wind of it. All I was going to do was ask him a few questions about it, put the article together and list some pros and cons, and that was it." She hesitated, once more lowering her gaze. "Until I got the email."
"The one that said to look deeper."
"Yeah." She closed her eyes. "To look deeper. To follow the money. To follow my instinct."
"And what was your instinct saying?"
TR's eyes snapped open and a wry smile briefly curled the corners of her mouth. "Up until that point, nothing. Even after I got the email, I thought maybe someone on staff was pranking me. You know, playing a joke on the new kid, making her think she really had something newsworthy. Sit back and laugh as she chased nonexistent leads before tossing out the punchline."
"What changed your mind?"
"My response to the email bounced back. And then things just started feeling...off somehow. How fast the whole deal went through. The way the Senator kept blowing off my attempts to interview him but all of a sudden, he's sending me an invitation to his New Year's Eve party. Just...I don't know. Little things that didn't add up." TR finished with a shrug then reached for the empty coffee cup. She stared into it for a second then sat it back down with a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "I still think there should be better oversight on purchases like that because no way do I think that property was worth that much. Not unless it has a gold mine hidden on it somewhere."
The Protector: MAC: A Cover Six Security Novel Page 5
