by Geri Krotow
They worked side by side in the cramped area for the next half hour, heating up the food.
“If you go in the cooler, there’s some dressing and sweet potatoes.” Luther was opening a can of cranberry sauce.
“Is there nothing you didn’t do for this meal?” She’d never experienced a sense of holiday festivity since she’d left Ukraine. Memories of working around the lumbering stove in her babushka’s dacha flooded her mind, and she sank onto her haunches, her hand on the cooler lid.
“You okay?”
“I’m good. Just reminiscing about my childhood.” She had to stop letting her thoughts roll off her tongue around Luther. But again, she didn’t experience the feeling of vulnerability or shame she would have with another stranger. It wasn’t just because she’d taken the time to heal from her ordeal.
Luther was different.
“It’s natural to do that on a holiday, even when you’re working.” He moved pans around on the woodstove. “Have you ever seen your family again?”
“Oh, yes, of course! I even got to bring them over after I married Vadim. He allowed me to do that, at least. Of course he threatened to kill me if I ever told them I hadn’t married him willingly. Plus I was afraid he’d hurt them. He said he’d kill all of us if I ever tried to run.”
“Is that why you didn’t you try to escape, tell the authorities, go back to Ukraine?”
“Partly. It’s the paradox of being in an abusive relationship. I feared Vadim, and I also got into the victim mentality that was as much my bond as was his abuse.”
“I’m sorry, Kit.”
She walked the two steps to him and handed him the foil-covered sweet potatoes. “About what? It’s not your fault.”
“I’m sorry you ever had to go through that. That any woman has to.” Regret and frustration mingled on his expression.
“That’s why you, I, we do what we do. Right?” She looked from the hands that had taken the sweet potatoes from her to his eyes and immediately took a half step back. Being this close to his rugged face, the eyes that told her so much more than his words, was as dangerous as the piping hot woodstove. More so.
“I suppose.” He looked away, and when he lifted the foil off the potatoes, she saw the marshmallow topping. “I didn’t get pumpkin pie. Time ran short and I forgot. These sweet potatoes will be our dessert.” He sounded as if he’d failed her immeasurably, and she couldn’t help but giggle.
“Oh, please. Stop being so glum. I brought pie.”
His turned to her, eyes widened. “You did? Pumpkin pie?”
“I did. Of course I thought I was being so clever, slipping in a Thanksgiving treat to enjoy between our canned soup and beans. I had no idea you were such a homemaker.”
His smile was tempered by seriousness. Did he ever let go and chill? “Not a homemaker. I’m a decent cook and I enjoy it. But a home—that’s not something I’ve had for the last decade. Nothing permanent, anyway.”
“Aren’t you tired of the constant moving?”
“Sometimes. Actually I never felt the need to settle down. It seemed like a boring choice, something that would interfere with my career.”
“It sounds as if you’re reconsidering?”
Luther stilled, as if she’d told him something life changing. “Not on a conscious level.”
Kit let his statement stand, naked and honest, without reply. She understood needing to figure out what was best for herself. How many times had her therapist or Annie discovered a part of her changing before she was ready to acknowledge it?
Luther lifted a fork to his mouth and tasted the mashed potatoes. Without missing a beat he added salt and pepper and stirred with the single large wooden spoon.
“You even brought over-the-top cooking supplies.”
He shrugged. “One spoon can do a lot of things.”
“I don’t believe you, you know.”
Blue eyes directed at her, wariness in their depths. “About what?”
“Not wanting to settle down. Sure, I get that you like being on the go, and traveling is probably in your blood since you do it so much. But you don’t get as far as you have in life and not find someone special. Have you ever been married?”
“You don’t mince words, do you?” The frosty overtones returned to his voice. She’d overstepped.
Just when Luther was showing his human self.
Chapter 12
Luther hoped that by puttering at the stove he’d hide how much Kit’s query shook him.
Puttering? For freckles sake, he didn’t putter. Ever.
“I’m sorry, Luther. Forget I asked that. It’s absolutely none of my business. It has to be the long hours and isolation that’s bringing out our inquisitive natures. Let’s stop and focus on our Thanksgiving feast.” She was at his side, but left a foot between them, enough room to demonstrate she posed no threat.
A strangled laugh lodged in his throat. How had this woman, Kit, turned him upside down in the space of a day or two?
“It’s a fair question.” He moved back to the small propane stove, the door to the cabin open a crack to facilitate ventilation. It gave him a bit more space, keeping the temptation to hug her to him at a minimum. Funny how just a bit ago it would have been him comforting Kit, but now he needed, wanted, her comfort.
You can’t entertain the thought.
No, he couldn’t. Like cookies, that one kiss had him craving a dozen more. He’d never stop at a kiss with her again. He leaned against the doorjamb and faced her.
“I’ve had a few fairly serious relationships, but only one that made me think I was going to seek a different kind of job with TH. Not so much undercover work, maybe do intelligence analysis or training for them. I’d always thought that if I ever met someone I wanted more than a night or a couple of months with, I’d get out of this part of the business.”
“Why? What if you met someone who also worked undercover?” Zing. She’d hit eerily close to the truth.
“Do you already know my past?” Claudia and Colt had given him a brief rundown of what Kit had dealt with, leaving out the more intimate details that she’d later filled in, of course. He couldn’t expect them to not let her know a little about who she was assigned to spend time with, alone, in the woods.
She blinked and shook her head as if he was silly to even consider she knew his past. It made the weight of his need to protect her heavier. Claudia wouldn’t have mentioned Kit’s past if she didn’t expect him to look out for his new colleague.
“Not at all. Why would they tell me anything so personal?” The tiny lines between her brows appeared, and he swore he saw her wheels turning, the cogs of her mind falling into place. “Wait—they told you about me, didn’t they? And Vadim?”
He went to her then and led her to the sofa, where he tugged her down next to him. This wasn’t a conversation to have standing up, as if they were talking about the weather. “They didn’t say a lot, just enough to let me know that you weren’t a rookie when it came to ROC.”
“I feel so stupid. Why didn’t you tell me when we talked about it?” Even in the dim light he saw the red on her cheekbones and keenly felt her embarrassment for the second time.
“Please don’t look at it that way. I wanted to hear your part of it, whatever you were willing to tell me. I still do. But I don’t want to pry, or stir up parts of your past that you’ve put to rest.”
“They didn’t tell me anything about you.” She bit her lower lip.
“Colt might not know. Claudia does.” He looked at her eyes, luminous in the lamplight. Even after all she’d seen and been through, he felt the waves of innocence coming off her, as if she’d somehow, through her fathomless strength, saved a precious part of herself. The part that Vadim’s abuse could never touch. A deep, honest part of himself wanted to be the one she shared that with.
“What does C
laudia know, Luther?”
“That I was in love with a woman I never should have looked at twice. The wife of one of the ROC targets I went undercover to take out.”
“Did you get him?”
“Yes. But she was killed in the firefight that ended the mission.”
Kit gasped and compassion immediately flooded her eyes.
“I’m so, so sorry, Luther.”
“Don’t be. The heartbreak isn’t that she died. We were over before that. I found out that she was playing me, and it almost cost me my life, and my team’s. We were imbedded with the gang in New York for the better part of a year. There were four of us. I thought she was the real deal, and maybe, for a brief time, she was. But she’d been a mob wife for too long. Unlike you, she’d known what she married into, had searched it out, in fact. Some people like the thrill of the power and status that money brings no matter where it comes from. She had learned to lie out of both sides of her mouth, too easily. When push came to shove, she didn’t trust me to get her out of there, and in the end, she didn’t want to leave. She died next to her husband of twenty years.”
“She was older than you.”
“By only six years. As you know too well, ROC thugs like to marry younger women, girls.”
“They do.” Her agreement came out on a breath. He looked at her, but the pity he expected was nonexistent. Kit watched him with the understanding only a woman who’d been involved with ROC could have. “It’s not your fault, you know. That you loved her. We don’t get to pick who we love or don’t.”
“You sound like you’ve loved and lost, Kit.”
“I’ve felt the loss of my childhood dreams, and it was a heartbreak a day living with Vadim. But unlike you, I’ve never met that one person who made me think there was no one else for me.” She let out a harsh laugh. “I have to admit I don’t believe in one person for everyone. Not after what I lived through.”
It was the first time he detected any regret from her about what she’d survived. “That might change with time. You’re still so young.”
“I’ve lived more lives in my years than most do in fifty.” She stood and brushed her hands along her thighs as if trying to sweep away the intimacy that continued to grow between them. “Let me check the comms before we sit down to eat.”
“You’ve got the alerts set, right?” He’d used the same equipment before, although he didn’t have the depth of expertise Kit did with it.
“Yes.” Her face glowed from the blue-green screen. “I always keep an eye on it when I’m in the middle of an op, though. You’re right—we’re probably not going to get anything useful until Ivanov’s comfortable that there are enough hunters in the area to cover his conversations. But we can always hope. He might think he needs to talk to someone at any time.”
“True.” He stood. “I do want to say one more thing, Kit. While I’ve figured out that my future doesn’t include settling down and finding that special someone, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it’s not possible for others. Look at Colt and Claudia. Their relationship is legendary.”
Her lips moved into a soft smile. “They met later in life. Long after the time most folks fall in love, or think that romance is even a remote possibility.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You think you’re done with finding someone, Luther, but maybe you just have to wait another twenty years.”
A sense of uneasiness shot through him. Followed by a strong jolt of lust.
Luther didn’t want to wait twenty years to find a woman who made him feel this strongly after only knowing one another such a short time. He turned to the woodstove, removing the heated ceramic dishes from the surface to the tiny tray table and rickety kitchen counter. It would be disastrous if Kit saw his expression, as he was certain his regret glowed like a neon sign.
He’d regret not having more with Kit than a shared mission in this tiny cabin.
* * *
“Do you think that’s such a good idea, Dima?” Markova hated playing the good little Russian woman, but it was her greatest tool against Ivanov at this point. He’d grown moody and petulant as the hours went by, and his boredom had reached a peak as he pulled out yet another one of the burner phones from the black plastic bag.
“They’re not going to expect we’re here, and if they do, good luck finding us because this place is about to be loaded with hunters from all over the state.”
“The majority of who will arrive beginning tomorrow through Sunday. Not tonight.”
“I can wait until tomorrow morning to make my next call, but that’s it.”
“We’re closer to the meeting, then?”
His dark, deep set eyes landed on her as if he, too, were beyond tired of being with her. “Da. No more than a week away, at most two. We’ll have it all back to how it was.”
“Finally. As it should be.” Markova’s jaw hurt from clenching her teeth against what she wanted to say, what she wished she could do. Kill Ivanov and head for the hills. But she’d still have the entire ROC after her if she did that. No, her escape had to be when it was best for her, after Ivanov was taken out by his own. She’d be in charge for only as long as it took to be able to disappear for good.
Until then, she waited.
* * *
Never the outdoors type, Mishka surprised himself with how much fun driving into the wilder part of Central Pennsylvania was. At night, on Thanksgiving. Most people were sleeping off turkey and vodka on the sofa. He was on his way to his destiny.
It was too easy. He’d had to make three calls, promise fifty percent of the payout for the heroin and fentanyl shipments due in next week to his contact, but he’d found out where Kit was. His contact gave him the GPS location of a Jeep and texted him a photo of the vehicle taken when it was parked near Kit’s apartment building.
Stupid SVPD and the FBI. They thought they had the ROC nailed down and driven out of Silver Valley. Just wait until he had Kit at his side, and they picked up Vadim’s pieces.
LEA had caught his father, sure, but Vadim wasn’t the brightest candle in the window. Even though he’d never met his mother, Mishka credited his intelligence and ability to stay calm under any circumstance to her. It sure wasn’t from Vadim.
He parked his car in the pullout marked for hikers and backpacking campers. There were few vehicles tonight, but he knew the deer hunting season began Monday. This lot would be full by tomorrow morning, but he and Kit would be long gone by then.
Kit and that bastard were supposed to be no more than three miles from here, according to his contact. He snorted in the darkness. Thanks to him, SVPD had a mole who had no problem taking Mishka’s money in exchange for information on who the cops were watching, and for information like where Kit was holed up with some strange man. She’d have to pay for her disloyalty to him, of course, but after he captured her.
Mishka tightened the backpack’s straps over his bulky frame and began walking, a headlamp guiding him through the dark forest. He’d have to go all dark once he found their campsite. Supposedly it was a broken-down hunting cabin that SVPD gained when the DEA finished using it for a safe house. His contact told him to leave no trace of being there, and he’d assured him that he only wanted to check it out.
What he wanted to do was scare Kit and make her realize she still needed him. He’d promise to keep her from Vadim—easy since his father was locked up for life, basically. She might be upset with him, and he’d reassure her that he forgave her for all she’d done. It’d all be worth it if they were together in the end, wouldn’t it?
Mishka heard a rustle off to his right and froze.
“Who’s there?” Crap, his voice was shaking and had the edge of the Russian accent he’d learned as a child from Vadim. This was crazy. He had a rifle slung over his back, a pistol and a knife strapped to his calf. He’d bought the best money co
uld buy at the outdoor store. All except the firearms—those he already had, from the stash the authorities hadn’t ever found, hidden in the storage facility they didn’t know about.
A groundhog lumbered across the leaf-strewn path, and Mishka grabbed his handgun, ready to fire. Then he became aware of the silence and how far the gunshot would travel.
No, no. He couldn’t. Not until he reached Kit.
* * *
“You look tired, honey.” Claudia’s blue eyes pierced through Colt as effectively as they had the first day he’d met her, all those years ago when she’d moved to Silver Valley. They’d met as a matter of course, as he was the Chief of Police and she’d been assigned to be the Director of a new government shadow agency that was headquartered in Silver Valley. The location, at the time, seemed the perfect cover. Why would there be a state-of-the-art undercover agent training and intelligence center in one of the most bucolic places in Pennsylvania?
“I’m good.” He shoved the seared salmon around on his plate. Claudia had insisted on them eating together, be it at home or in one of their favorite restaurants, every night that a mission or police work didn’t keep them apart.
“Colt.”
He sighed and sat straighter in his chair. “I’m losing it, Claudia. I think it might be time to retire.”
“That’s not news. We’re both looking at a change in the next year or so. We spent last vacation talking about it.”
“I know. That’s not what I meant.” He fiddled with his napkin before meeting her calm gaze. “How can you stay so grounded when you’re in the middle of the ROC case?”
“It’s not easy, but all I have to do is remember why I do this. We’re getting these bottom suckers out of our community, and if we’re lucky, wiping out their East Coast operations. Just think of all the people we’ll be saving. You know that better than I do, Colt.”
He did. Hadn’t SVPD seen the brunt of the opioid and heroin epidemic in Central Pennsylvania? They were finally turning the tide, only to have ROC’s heroin shipments find another way into the area. But if they were able to take down Ivanov, and along with him Markova, ROC would be brought to a standstill for at least several months. Enough time to clean them out of the entire Cumberland Valley, as well as New York and Florida and in between.
