“That’s real high-action stuff there, Sydney.”
“Maybe I’m not…well, Sydney Bristow. Have you ever thought of that?”
He finished off the cupcake. “Of course you’re not. She’s a made-up television character. You’re a real kick-butt heroine who did something scary and noble and nearly got killed doing it. You’re allowed to…bake. But the fact is you can’t cook…or binge-watch…away your fears. You have to get it in your head that you’re safe now, and no one is going to show up in the backyard and try and kill you.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I hardly think this Russian is going to hop the pond and track you down in the middle of our ranch.”
“Why not? Glo nearly got killed here.”
Tate’s mouth tightened into a dark line. “Points to you. But—”
“You’re probably right. It’s just an excuse to hide out and get my feet under me. But I’ve called my boss a dozen times and she’s not answering me. And I’ve been shut out of my access to my computer, my files, and any research I could get done. I’m just twiddling my thumbs here, and it’s driving me crazy. As soon as Wyatt gets here with the information from Coco, I’m going to DC. I’m going to slap it on her desk and…”
“Maybe you don’t.” Tate got up and went to the fridge, opening it. He grabbed the milk. “Maybe you give the information to Reba Jackson.”
“The VP candidate?”
He took out a glass from the cupboard. “And Glo’s mother. She has connections—she’s on the Armed Services Committee. She could get you cleared.”
He filled his glass with milk and turned. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and a pair of very faded jeans hanging low on his hips, and in the light, with the dark window behind him, he looked very much like the off-duty bodyguard, former spec ops soldier he was. Even with his tousled brown hair and haze of brown whiskers.
He and Glo had arrived just a few hours ago, surprising them. Apparently, Glo and the country band she played with—the Yankee Belles—had a few days off from their tour with NBR-X, a professional bull-riding show. Knox and Kelsey had stayed on the tour, thanks to Knox’s job as the livestock supervisor.
Tate took a drink, and it left a white mustache. “Come with us to Seattle.” He wiped his upper lip with his sleeve.
“What—why?”
“Glo’s mom is having a political rally there. You can see Wyatt—I think the Blue Ox have a pre-season exhibition game with one of their junior teams—the Thunderbirds.”
She hadn’t heard from Wyatt for a couple days—not that she was worried but…oh, fine! Yes, she was worried.
“Listen, don’t you want to…stop baking and—”
“I don’t know what I want, okay?” She was transferring the cupcakes she’d just pulled from the oven onto a baking rack. The heat bled through to her fingers, and she yanked one away and put it into her mouth.
“I’m thinking maybe it’s just as dangerous for you to be here.”
“Go to bed.”
“I can’t sleep.” He set down his glass and sighed.
Tate sighing never boded well. “Why not?”
He made a face. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny velvet box. “Because of this.”
She reached for it, but he yanked it away. “Promise not to say anything?”
“Hello. CIA. I can keep a secret.”
“Wash your hands. This cost me three months’ pay.”
She grinned at him and washed her hands. Then she opened the box. “Oh, Tate.”
“Think she’ll like it?”
“White gold or platinum?”
“White gold. It’s called a halo center, it’s got like eighteen tiny stones around the outside, and that’s a one-point-two caret diamond—”
“It’s impressive.”
He grinned like a ten-year-old, and her heart wanted to burst for him.
“She’ll love it. When are you asking her?” She handed him back the ring box, and he looked at it one more time before he closed the box and stuck it back into his pocket.
“I don’t know yet. I thought…here, but…now I’m not—”
“Don’t be such a pansy. Take her out to the waterfall and propose. Tomorrow. At sunset.”
“Really, you think—”
“Yes. Because that thing is burning a hole in your pocket, and if you just keep carrying it around, she’s going to notice and then the surprise will be wrecked.” She walked over to him and took his handsome face in her hands. “No one deserves a happy ending more than you, Tater. Make it happen.” She kissed his cheek, painfully aware of the burning in her chest.
She was happy for him. But…
But wow, she missed York. And they barely knew each other.
Tate drew her close in a hug. “You’re going to bounce back, kiddo.” He let her go. “But you stop baking. You’re getting squishy around the hips.”
She hit his chest. He grinned as he stepped past her and swiped another cupcake on his way upstairs.
Maybe she should go to Seattle. It seemed like a good idea. She couldn’t keep hiding forever. And really, Tate was right. She might totally be overreacting to the threat of Damien Gustov. After all, he was all the way over in Russia.
She was frosting the last of her cupcakes when her cell phone buzzed on the counter. Please let it be Wyatt, except she didn’t recognize the number.
Wiping her hands, she grabbed it. “Hello?”
A breath, then. “Oh. Wow. I was worried.”
Not Wyatt. The voice was low, deep, soft. Powerful. Accented. And it hit her entire body like a wave of heat washing over her, settling into her core. “York?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Sorry. I guess we’ve never talked on the phone, but…hey.” A deep sigh came over the phone, and for some reason she imagined him in some dark corridor or on a train or even in his safe house, dressed in a pair of black jeans, a black shirt, his dark blond hair rucked up thanks to the stress that layered his voice.
“Hey,” she said. “You okay?”
Another sigh.
“York. What’s going on?”
“I think Gustov is on his way to you.”
She reached out and flicked off the lights to the house. Silly, and just a gut reaction, but…
She might be overreacting. She probably didn’t need to scoot down in the corner of the kitchen or better yet, sneak over to the pantry and close herself inside it.
“Ruby Jane?”
“I’m good. I’m just…um…” Oh, her voice wavered. And now she sighed. “I miss you.”
She winced. Really? She had to go there? They’d exchanged a few emails, all business, and frankly, maybe she should stop dreaming of something romantic blossoming between them—
“I miss you too.”
He did?
“You do?”
“Of course. You’re not here to annoy me or get me into more trouble. It’s downright boring.”
She grinned, unable to account for the crazy tears that edged her eyes. “You got yourself into trouble, double-o-seven.”
He laughed too, and the rumble of it slid under her skin, simmered there. “Where are you?”
“Still in Montana. Specifically, I’m sitting in the darkened pantry, but it’s not usually where I spend the night.”
“Right. Me either. I prefer a grimy alleyway myself.”
“Now you’re just bragging.”
“I wish. But really…are you okay?”
She closed her eyes, leaning her phone against her shoulder. “I am. I can’t wait for Wyatt to get here with Coco’s information. It’s time I come out of hiding.”
“About that—he’s still here.”
Oh. “I thought he was traveling with his team.”
“Things got a little complicated. He’ll fill you in, but I’ll try and get him on a flight out of town tomorrow. Um…I don’t like you being in Montana. I think…well, the short of it is that Gustov attacked Wyatt in his hotel room—”
“What—?”
“And he got the jump drive.”
“Oh no—”
“But Kat was able to restore the information. So he has a duplicate. But…we think that maybe Gustov hacked into my emails and…well, he knows where you are.”
He knows… “Is my family in danger?”
“I don’t know. You, for sure, but—”
“Tate wants me to go to Seattle and give the information to Senator Reba Jackson. She’s running for VP, but she has contacts that could clear my name.”
“I don’t hate that idea.”
Silence.
“I wish you were going to be there.” More silence, and a hand gripped her chest, started to squeeze. “York?”
“Yeah, uh. So…Ruby Jane. I…”
A pause and she closed her eyes. Please, don’t—
“I know we had something—and I know what I said, but…you don’t really know me or the guy I’ve been—am—and…”
“Stop.”
He drew in a long breath.
“I don’t know your past, but I do know enough about the guy you are to tell you that you’re wrong about what you’re going to say.”
“Which is—”
“That I should just let you go. That you have a promise to keep to yourself, which means doing some things that…well, that you don’t want to talk about.”
“I killed someone yesterday.”
Oh, York.
“She was an assassin, after Kat, but…and then today…the fact is, I didn’t really take a good look at my life until you walked into it, and it’s not…it’s not one that is conducive to a happy ending, Ruby. I’m not a…good person.”
“York. You’re not a bad person. A bad person wouldn’t be running his hand around the tight muscle behind his neck, wishing he hadn’t had to hurt anyone.”
His breaths came out tremulously.
“York, listen to me. I don’t know what the future holds. And yeah, I do…I care for you. But the only promise you have to make to me is to not let go of the guy who saved my life. Who risked his to get me out of the country. Who is on the side of right.”
His voice dropped. “I wish I’d met you…well, years ago. I wish I was on your postcard ranch right now, in the closet with you. I’d have you in my arms, and…well…that’s probably all I need to imagine right now.”
She could probably imagine more, but yeah, he was right. “And I wish I hadn’t thought I was some sort of superspy saving the world.”
“Except then General Stanislov would be dead, and the world would be in upheaval.”
“There’s that.”
“Yeah. There’s that.”
She imagined him grinning.
“You know, I haven’t been stateside for nearly a decade.”
“I think it’s time.”
He made a noise, she hoped of assent. “Please stay alive, Syd.”
“You too, James.”
She waited for an I’ll find you, but the line clicked off. She held the phone to her heart.
And said it for him.
8
Wyatt just needed a game plan. Something to wrap his mind, his emotions around, something to center him.
Something to keep him sane. Because every cell in his body wanted to let out a scream.
Hit something, again and again.
Or maybe just field a thousand shots on goal, one after another, letting them hit his pads, slapping them away with vengeance.
Anything but stand with his back to the wall in the crowded living room, listening to the blonde American doc tell him that his son was going to die.
He might be over-reacting because she didn’t have a firm diagnosis yet, but the fact was, she wouldn’t suggest further tests if he wasn’t sick.
Coco sat on the sofa, her face bone white as Sarai explained.
“He has elevated white blood cells in the sample we took, but we need to run a complete blood count and a panel of other tests. It has me worried enough, however, that he needs to be hospitalized for those tests ASAP.”
Sarai had arrived home thirty minutes ago, not long after Roman, who had returned with their daughter, Zia, and son, Vitya. Cute kids.
Not as cute as Mikka. The second Coco had returned to the train car after York told him the news, the moment Mikka looked at him, grinning, Wyatt was a goner.
Sheesh, he should have seen it right off. That tousled brown hair, those big eyes. He looked exactly like Wyatt had as a kid, and York was right. You are so freakin’ blind.
Apparently.
Or just so wiped out by the very notion that Coco would have had a child—his child—and not told him.
But he’d swallowed back any words and focused on his son.
Mikka. Short for Michael, probably. Or, in Russian, Misha.
For an almost five-year-old, he had good reflexes and decent eye-hand coordination. He could catch a ball, got back up after he fell down, and his laughter when Wyatt tickled him had embedded his pores.
Wyatt wasn’t leaving Russia without his son.
His. Son.
Why didn’t you tell me?
He’d vowed to himself on the train to keep it calm. And he had—oh, he had, all the way to Khabarovsk, through the ordeal of holding down Mikka when the doc drew blood, and even as he tried to cheer him up with a pile of Matchbox cars.
He’d even held it together when Coco came into the room and confessed the truth, finally.
But the words, secrets, lies, and even heartlessness shook free as he held her, and he couldn’t seem to tuck them back inside.
Breathe. He’d practically screamed it in his head. And then…yeah, Wyatt had completely fallen apart, like some pansy.
He also didn’t blame himself for pushing her away. For the rough scrape of his voice as he’d tried to pull himself together.
“You should have told me.” He’d kept his voice at a whisper, still fighting to close his mouth, to keep the cascade at bay. “Four years of his life, Coco—and I missed all of it. I’ll never get that back.”
She’d stepped away from him, her eyes lifting to his. Swallowed, and right then he had a flashback of the look she’d worn so many years ago when he’d arrived back on the ranch after being recently picked up by the Blue Ox.
Cute photographer trailing him like she might be his girlfriend. Yes, he’d been a bit of a jerk that weekend. But it didn’t mean Coco had to lie to him about the most important thing in his entire life.
He had a child.
“I wanted to tell you,” she whispered, a glance at Mikka, an unspoken request to take this conversation outside the room.
Fine, they’d have this conversation in the hallway. York was still outside of the apartment, in the corridor, and Sarai had left, so—
Wyatt closed the bedroom door behind him and turned to her.
Coco looked so small, despite the way she folded her arms and tightened her jaw, a tiny hand grenade.
He didn’t care. “Really? And how hard would that have been?” Emotion still shook his voice, the residue of letting it crest over him. But he was quickly balling it back up, finding his game face.
He wanted answers, and he wasn’t going to let his hurt get in the way.
“Pretty hard, as it turns out,” she snapped. “I planned to tell you when I came back to Montana, but you had moved on.”
Moved on? “That wasn’t my fault. You left first.”
“Then I came back. I wasn’t the one who was snuggled up with some chick on the sofa—”
“So you were jealous. That’s the reason you kept my son from me?”
She went a little white, as if he’d slapped her. “No. I…you were just starting your pro career, and I thought, well, I was worried—”
“That I wouldn’t have room for him in my life.” He drew in a breath as she lifted a shoulder.
And shoot. For a moment he got a good look at the person he’d been back then. Arrogant and driven and…
Okay, so,
“What about two years ago, in Moscow? When we…” He lowered his voice. “There was no one in the way then.”
“That’s why I went to the hotel. To tell you.”
Silence, and finally, “But…?” His voice hovered just above a whisper.
“But…” She swallowed. “I…” Her eyes welled up. “I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t? Or didn’t want to?”
Her silence left him to fill in the blanks.
I didn’t trust you. I didn’t want you to be his father. I…didn’t want you.
Yeah, so he pretty much was figuring that part out.
“It was dangerous.”
He just stared at her. “For whom?”
“For Mikka! If someone had found him—”
“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not good enough, Coco. He could have come home with me, with—”
And there it was again. Us. Except, maybe she didn’t want an us.
Just forget about me.
Her jaw tightened.
“Wow, you’re right. I must have been hit in the head too many times, because it’s taken me until right now to get it. You really don’t want me, do you?”
She looked away.
“Well, that’s just perfect. And tough luck, because whether you want me around or not, here I am. And like I said, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Her eyes flashed and she turned back to him, and he was hunkering down for a response when Sarai’s husband came through the door.
Roman. The FSB agent.
They stared at each other, Roman blinking, one hand on his son’s shoulder, his daughter balanced on his hip. He let the little girl slide to the floor as his gaze went to Coco. “Are you okay?”
The man said it in Russian, but Wyatt figured it out.
She nodded. Glanced at Wyatt. And said something in Russian he couldn’t figure out. But by the look on Roman’s face, his pinched mouth, it had to be something along the lines of Why did you tell him where I was?
Well, Wyatt had questions too. “I thought you said you were going to find her. You promised me.” He took a step toward Roman, who pushed his daughter behind him.
“Are we going to have trouble?” Roman said quietly.
“Hey, hey—” York had come in behind them and now pushed past all of them. “Step back. We’re all friends here.”
Wyatt Page 14
