“Do you want this upstairs?” Cam rolled the suitcase to the foot of a curved staircase.
“You can leave it for now.” She held out the two grocery bags. “Let’s put you to work in the kitchen.”
Cam widened his eyes as he stepped into the kitchen, the copper pots hanging above a center island catching the light and reflecting off the shiny granite counters, lined with enough appliances and gadgets to stock a cooking show. “This is way beyond my capabilities.”
“If it’s beyond yours, you can imagine how I feel walking in here and pouring my cereal in a bowl.” She placed the groceries on the island and then rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. “Tell me what to do.”
He held up a finger. “You always wash your hands first. That’s what my mama taught me.”
“Did your mother teach you how to cook, or did she and your sister baby you and you had to learn on your own later?”
“My mom baby me?” He snorted. “She was a single parent, worked nights a lot so I had to fend for myself.”
“Oh.” She paused, hugging the carton of eggs to her chest. “What happened to your father?”
He bumped her hip so he could wash his hands at the sink. “My dad took off when my sister Lexie was a baby and I wasn’t much older. We never saw him again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. From all accounts he was a bastard, and we were better off without him.”
“Funny, I thought...” She shook her head. “Bowls are in that cupboard. I’ll leave the egg mixing to you, and I’ll start cutting some veggies and grating the cheese.”
He lodged his tongue in the corner of his mouth as he cracked several eggs into a bowl. What had she thought about him? At least she’d given him some thought.
“Milk?”
She opened the fridge and pulled out the carton she’d just put away. Looking over his shoulder, she asked, “Do you want me to pour it in? Just tell me when to stop.”
He continued whisking. “Okay, pour, little more, little more. Stop.”
She put away the milk and tipped her head back to survey the pots swinging above them. “I don’t even know which one would work for an omelet.”
He reached over her head to grab a pan. “This one will do.”
“Is this enough for the filling?” She held up the cutting board for his inspection.
“I’ve never heard omelet ingredients called filling before, but that’ll work.”
“I told you I didn’t know my way around a kitchen.”
“Let me guess. You had a cook.”
“We did.” Her mouth tightened. “All bought and paid for with ill-gotten gains, but my mother liked to cook. She must’ve been thrilled when she had a daughter because Mom enjoyed all those typically feminine pursuits, but I was interested in...other things.”
“Boating?” The butter sizzled in the pan as Cam swirled it around and up the sides. “I figured you must’ve spent most of your time holed up with books and studying.”
“Oh, the boating.” She shrugged. “I did that because he liked it.”
“Your father.”
“Uh-huh.” She sniffled. “Too much onion, I think.”
“It’s fine.” Her sniffling had nothing to do with onions. She’d acted like she hated her father before, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
He finished off the first omelet and tipped it onto a plate. Then he constructed the second, messing up the corner when he flipped up the one side.
“I’ll take the defective one.”
She twisted off the cap of the orange juice bottle and poured two glasses. “They both look perfect to me.”
“We didn’t get coffee.” He slid the damaged omelet onto the second plate with a flourish.
“I’m okay without it.”
She carried the glasses to the center island and placed them at the corner of the place mats. He followed her with the plates and centered them on the mats, trying to match her perfection.
“I don’t need coffee. I think I’m too wired as it is.” She pointed to her laptop case on the coffee table. “I haven’t even checked my messages today. What if my friend has some news for me?”
“Unless he can tell you he’s going to leave you alone or tell you what he wants from you, his news is worthless.” He shook out the cloth napkin next to his plate and draped it over one knee. Martha had brought them back to reality, so he might as well jump in with both feet. “Are you going to call Tony’s workplace later to see if he’s on tonight?”
“Yes, but I wonder what he knows. Why wouldn’t he tell the police or why wouldn’t Casey have warned him to call the cops if anything happened to her?”
“Maybe she didn’t want to involve him.” He cut off a corner of his omelet and waved it at Martha. “She warned you instead because you’re already involved.”
“Great.” She poked at her eggs. “This looks really good. I’m sorry I brought up the other stuff. I don’t want to ruin your appetite.”
“Mine?” He stabbed a mushroom. “Not possible.”
They continued chatting, avoiding the issues front and center, and Martha told him about growing up in the Chesapeake Bay area. Her upbringing couldn’t have been more different from his on the hardscrabble streets of Atlanta, but the most glaring difference involved father issues. He had no desire to even find out where his was, and Martha had clearly idolized hers—until he’d disappointed her.
No wonder she didn’t have a boyfriend on the scene. She must’ve set her standards high after the fiasco with her father.
They finished breakfast, and Martha insisted on cleaning up since he’d done the cooking.
“You can do the dishes, but I have to help. My mom ingrained that into me, and she’d smack me upside the head if she found out I let someone else do all the cleaning.”
“Your mother still lives in Georgia?”
“Yeah, and I can’t get her to leave the old neighborhood.” He shook his head. “I keep trying to get her to find another job and move, but she claims she doesn’t do the physical work like she used to.”
“What does she do?”
“For years she worked as a maid at a hotel. She’s still at the same damned place, but now she’s the housekeeping supervisor.” He shrugged. “She won’t give up that job.”
Martha dried the plate in her hands and then folded her arms around it, clutching it to her chest. “She worked hard to support you and your sister.”
“That she did.”
“She must be proud of you now.”
“She says she is.”
As she stacked the plate in the cupboard, Martha twisted around to stare at him. “She says she is. You don’t believe her?”
A knot twisted in Cam’s gut. “She didn’t go to college, so she really wanted me to go. I had a football scholarship to pay for it and everything, but I just couldn’t hack it. Couldn’t get through those classes.”
She turned away from the cupboard and leaned her back against the counter. “Ah, the good-looking jock couldn’t find someone to do his homework for him?”
His gaze darted to her face and she flinched, blinking her eyes behind her glasses. Was that what she thought of him? Easy for her to make judgments with all this privilege and the brains to go with it.
“I wouldn’t know.” He slammed the dishwasher door. “I never tried to get someone to do my work for me. Just tried to do it myself—and failed miserably.”
Curling her fingers around the edge of the counter behind her, she said, “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”
“Sure you did.” He ground out a laugh. “Girls like you, so superior.”
She shoved off the counter and grabbed his hand with both of hers. “It’s not even about you, Cam. It’s all about me and my shortcomings.”
“Your shortcomi
ngs.” He rolled his eyes, but her hands, warm and soft from washing the dishes, squeezed his, and his tight jaw started to relax.
“It’s just that you reminded me of all the hot guys in high school and college who used me to do their homework and write their papers, and then completely ignored me in every social setting. Guys I’d studied with all semester would look right through me at the next frat party, and I kept telling myself I wouldn’t help them anymore, but I always did. It was one small way to fit in, and I desperately wanted to fit in.”
He licked his lips and searched her face for any sign of deception. Her incredible eyes shimmered with tears, and he saw a woman who trusted him enough to be honest and open.
“Those guys were idiots, but even if I’d had a girl like you helping me every night, I still would’ve flunked out of school.”
“I don’t know about that. I was a pretty mean tutor back in the day.”
“I’m sure you were, but I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate with you sitting across from me.”
Her eyebrows shot up, and now it seemed to be her turn to study his face. “You’re serious.”
“Damn straight.”
Red flags flew in her cheeks, and she wrinkled her nose. “I’m still sure I could’ve gotten you through.”
“Naw, and it’s no reflection on your talents.” He twisted his hands out of her grasp and placed them on her shoulders. “I couldn’t handle school because I’m dyslexic. I thought you’d noticed before. I can barely read.”
Chapter Eight
Martha put a hand to her heart, which Cam’s words had just pierced. “I’m the idiot.”
He rubbed his thumbs against her collarbone. “You didn’t know.”
“Yes, but the assumptions I made about you.” Her hand crept to her throat. “I feel like such a fool, and I’m so sorry for stereotyping you as the dumb jock. Like I said, I’d been humiliated by plenty of them. And honestly? It probably wasn’t even their fault. They didn’t twist my arm to help them. I gladly did it to bask in their...hotness.”
Cam tipped back his head and laughed at the ceiling, breaking the tension between them although she wasn’t sure she wanted it broken. That tension had been building for a while, and she’d assumed it was all one-sided...hers, but he’d called her a distraction. She’d never been someone’s distraction before.
“Take it from the dumb jock. You intimidated those dudes. They’re used to admiration not admonitions.”
“When you say things like that, you don’t sound dumb at all. You need to stop calling yourself that.” She pressed both hands against his chest. “You have to know that you wouldn’t be a member of one of the most elite special ops teams in the military if you were all brawn and no brain.”
“I’ll make you a deal.”
Her fingers curled against his shirt. If she could keep standing this close to him forever, she’d be willing to make a deal with the devil himself. “What kind of deal?”
“I’ll stop referring to myself as a dumb jock if you stop referring to yourself as a geek, especially with that tone of voice you use when you do it.”
“Do I?” She dropped her eyelashes. “Have a tone of voice when I call myself a geek?”
“You do.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “And I don’t like it.”
“Should we shake on it?” She made no move to remove her hands from his chest, and he hadn’t released her shoulder yet.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, and a pulse throbbed in her lower lip. So much better to seal it with a kiss.
Her phone went off, and she almost sobbed with frustration when Cam jerked his head to the side.
“You’d better see who that is. Whoever used Casey’s phone to text you yesterday now has your number, and I’m sure he’s going to take advantage of that.”
She broke away from the already broken spell and lunged for her phone, ready to scream at the person on the other end. She drew her brows over her nose when she recognized Gage’s number from the office. “My boss is calling me on a Sunday?”
“Do you mind if I listen in? It might have something to do with the emails.”
She tapped the phone to engage the speaker. “Hello? Gage?”
“Martha, I’m here with the section chief, Rand Proffit.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Hello, Mr. Proffit.”
“How are you, Martha? Pretty rough weekend.”
“Yes, it’s been crazy. I had no idea my roommate was...dating Congressman Wentworth. If I had, I would’ve reported it.”
She drove a fist into her belly. Would she have reported it? Was that any of the Agency’s business? Did she owe them anything?
Proffit’s voice reassured her over the phone, like some creepy, condescending uncle. “I’m sure you would have, Martha. I know we can count on you to always do the right thing, but this whole situation has put us in an interesting and unfortunate position. One of our employees, someone with a questionable past of her own caught up in a sex scandal involving a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Doesn’t look good.”
“Sex scandal?” She ground her back teeth. “I’m not involved in any sex scandal.”
Cam had been moving closer to her and now he hunched over the counter, a scowl marring his handsome features.
“Of course you’re not, but all that was taking place in your town house...under your nose.”
“Hardly under my nose. They were in another room with the door closed.” Heat flared in her cheeks as she recalled eavesdropping on the sounds of their lovemaking through the walls and across the hall.
Proffit clicked his tongue, or was that her moronic boss?
“We’re not blaming you in any way, Martha, nor are we holding you accountable.” He cleared his throat and she held her breath. “However, we’re putting you on a leave of absence for the time being—just until the whole situation dies down—and it will be paid leave. So, think of it as a vacation.”
“I have work to do.”
“Farah can take over.” Gage couldn’t hide the glee in his voice.
“Farah doesn’t speak Russian.”
Gage had a ready answer. “We’ll get someone in the department to handle your work, Martha. Don’t worry about that.”
She gripped the phone so hard she thought the screen would crack. “When this...situation dies down, my job had better be waiting for me when I come back, or you’ll answer to my attorney.”
“Are you going to use your father’s attorney?” Gage snorted.
“Damn straight.” She ended the call and tossed the phone across the counter.
Cam whistled. “That’s the way to handle ’em. They’re so sure of you, aren’t they? I’d like to see the looks on their faces if they ever discovered you took charge of those emails.”
Her anger backtracked to fear, prompting her to worry her bottom lip with her teeth. “They can’t ever find out. I’d lose my job and probably wind up in a cell next to my father’s.”
“They’re not gonna find out from me.” Cam walked around to her side of the counter and patted the stool between them. “Sit down. You look ready to collapse.”
She perched on the stool and folded her hands in front of her. “Gage would like nothing better than to get rid of me.”
“I noticed. What’s that guy’s problem?”
“He’s afraid I’m going to take the job he wants.” She twisted her fingers. “He probably doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“If we can get enough proof that those emails were lies, you’ll be right in line for that promotion.” He patted her back and then strode toward her laptop abandoned on the coffee table. “Are you ready to take a look at your cleaned-up computer?”
“At least my cleaned-up computer won’t be looking at me anymore, although now that the patriot a
nd I are like this—” she crossed her fingers “—he’ll probably feel free to email me. I’m sure he got my home email address, thanks to Casey the unlikely spy.”
“Maybe he’ll be kind enough to tell you what the hell he wants.” Cam slipped her laptop out of its case, brushed a few crumbs from the place mat and set it down in front of her.
She wiggled her fingers before powering up the computer and entering her password. “If he admits to killing Casey or Wentworth, I’m turning him in. I don’t care what the ramifications are for me.”
“Even if he admits it, we don’t know who he is. Is he one person? A group? Is he the same person who pushed you at the Metro station?”
Her shoulders stiff, she launched her email and watched the messages populate on the screen. She eked out a breath with each email she scanned and discarded. “Nothing from him.”
“Maybe he’s done with you. Showed you the reach of his power, got rid of a few loose ends and figures you’ve been adequately warned to let the emails implicating Major Denver drop.”
She shoved the laptop away from her. “We’re still going to see Tony tonight if he’s working, aren’t we?”
“Of course.”
“Then he figured wrong.”
* * *
AS LUCK WOULD have it, Tony Battaglia still worked at the Insider in Georgetown, and he had a shift that night.
Cam insisted on babysitting her at her mom’s house the rest of the day, and she didn’t put up much of a fight. She made sandwiches for lunch, her one culinary accomplishment, and they both worked on their laptops until she took him out back for a walk along the shore of the bay.
She’d had an online conversational Russian class that afternoon, but she couldn’t tell what Cam’s work involved, and she didn’t want to ask. He’d requested a quiet place to listen on some headphones and speak into a mic, so she invited him into her mother’s library, which was really her father’s library since all the books had belonged to him.
She’d shown Cam where to plug in and then had gotten out of there as fast as she could. The sight and the musty smell of her dad’s books served as a reminder of all she’d lost when he decided to play fast and loose with the rules.
Delta Force Defender Page 8
