"And when did he die?"
She put the chicken down on the napkin and wiped her fingers. "Two days ago."
McKay's jaw flexed. He'd gotten his marching orders two days ago and had headed out from D.C. She bit her lip, uncertain maybe if she'd admitted too much.
The woman needed reassurance. Comforting. And he itched to provide it but instead forced his hand to keep away from her. He needed to keep his paws off her. It was frustrating.
Think about work. "Do you know what the cipher's for?"
"Yes, do you?" Her hesitant eyes said she told the truth. No abnormal pupil dilation, no increase in her respirations.
"No."
"Well, that's probably why you haven't put me out of my misery and dumped the body." There wasn't a hint of sarcasm.
"You're having a hard time seeing me as one of the good guys, huh?"
"You don't look like a good guy. You look like someone who could hurt me. You look like you enjoyed that whole thing back at the motel."
"I'm going to take that as a compliment, doll." He drew up a half-smile in an attempt to lighten her mood. "And truth be told, it was fun."
The window cracked. The wiz and thud of a bullet smacking the back wall took him by surprise, only inches away from Tessa's head. He dove on her, shoving her to the side of the bed.
"Get down!"
CHAPTER FIVE
McKay rolled across the bed, drawing his weapon from his back holster. He fired off two rounds, holstered it, and snagged his M4 assault rifle perched against the wall. He drew it up to his shoulder. The smooth metal and stable weight in his hands was grounding and washed away the awkward, apologetic mess he was earlier. He scanned through the scope, giving off short bursts of semi-automatic fire into the parking lot, in the direction the bullets came from.
Whoever was out there was messy. They should have been able to take both of them out with a clean shot. They should have gone after him first.
McKay fired his weapon, and before a full-fledged gunfight battled, they scrambled into an old Lincoln and screeched out onto the main drag.
McKay lowered the rifle down but held it close. Without the assistance of the scope, he scanned the parking lot again. Nothing else seemed out of place. Someone shouted from an adjoining room. The scent of burning gunpowder singed the air.
"Dinner's over. Come on. We need to roll out of here." He yanked Tessa's arm, pulling her off the glass-covered carpet. She stood on shaking knees and nodded but remained frozen like a statue.
"Let's go, Tessa." He reloaded his handgun with a quick slam of the magazine, threw the rifle over his shoulder, and tucked a combat knife into his boot. She still hadn't moved. He wrapped his arm around her waist and carried her out the door.
He took one more look around, crossed to his truck, and put her in the passenger seat. She clutched the bag of clothes he'd bought for her. When did she grab that? He rushed to his door, shoved the keys in the ignition, and squealed tires.
"Glad to see you appreciate my shopping." She slowly turned toward him. "Time to give it up. What's with the cipher?"
She shook and stared numbly out the vehicle's tinted window. Her teeth chattered as if an arctic breeze blew from the vents. White knuckled, her fingers splayed, and nails dug into the seat.
He snapped his fingers twice in a row. "Tessa, you can't go into shock on me now. Come on."
That got her attention. She scooted closer to him, appearing thankful for the pickup's bench seat and leaned against his arm. "They're trying to kill me. I'm going to die."
"And we're not going to let that happen. But you have to let me know what's going on. You have to trust me. Can you do that?" He checked his mirror to change lanes but also inspected her for chattering teeth and white knuckles. Both had disappeared. Progress.
She felt good against his arm. She locked eyes with him, and for a moment, he forgot where they were and what they were doing. It was her dark, soulful eyes. How did he miss those earlier? He pulled his gaze back and didn't notice the sweater or the dirt or terror. Just…her.
Where was his mind? Sure as anything, not paying attention to his surroundings. He'd been concerned about getting her fresh clothes and some food. He should have known they'd be tracking him. Or her.
"Tessa, tell me what you know, and I'll figure out the rest." Her warmth pressed against his arm.
"I'm a therapist at a military base outside DC. I'd been seeing a patient who recently returned from a covert op in South America. Mostly routine stuff. But overnight, he became…" Her voice cracked. "I can't tell you."
"You can. I promise. Just trust me."
She took a deep breath. "He became paranoid and wouldn't stop discussing a secret file."
"A file?"
"Yes. He hid it at the airport. A human trafficker was after him. He said if he turned up dead, I needed to get that file to a contact in DC."
McKay saw a cop ahead and slowed down to the speed limit. "Why didn't he just pass on the file himself?"
"I don't know." She leaned against his arm.
"Okay, then what happened?"
"Military police showed up at my office to ask questions. They said he jumped off his apartment balcony. He lived on the 14th floor." Tears brimmed, and she blinked rapid-fire. "That's not possible. He wouldn't have."
McKay looked down at her in the crook of his arm. "Do you know what's on that file?"
She shrugged silently.
Oh, she knows.
"Is it worth killing for?" He accelerated through traffic again, growing more anxious with what she might say.
Tessa nodded. "If you're the South American human trafficker, warlord type, then yes. It'd be worth killing for."
"Which you know I'm not, so tell me what's in the file." He tried to give her his most trustworthy face. It wasn't a well-practiced look for him.
Seconds ticked by. Her eyes narrowed, her fingers fretted, and she sucked in a long breath. "He said it was a list of covert agents in deep cover in South America. Names, faces, identities of those infiltrating the cartels."
"Whoa. We're talking spies and undercover agents? A nonofficial cover list? You pursued a cipher? On your own?" She obviously had no idea how dangerous that was. A death wish for the untrained, and this woman was definitely inexperienced. Determined, yes, but that wouldn't keep a bullet from stopping her dead.
"He bought it off some local tribe leader who was more interested in cash than outing a US agency."
"And now someone traced the file back to the States and wants it. I need to figure out how my client plays into this. And how they knew where the cipher was. How the other guys did, too."
"I had notes." She grimaced.
His fingers drummed on the steering wheel, and he waited for more.
"I made notes in my file on him. I didn't think there was any merit to what he said. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget about it, in case I needed to reference it in our sessions. I honestly thought he had delusions."
McKay pressed a button on his phone and connected to Joseph. After he recapped everything, nodded, and hung up. "The other team must have learned the location after reading your notes."
"They have my client notes?" Tessa grasped his forearm. Emotion ran visibly across her cheeks. He couldn't tell if it was anger or embarrassment. She needed him to say something, anything. He had no idea what, though.
Fine. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, hugging her. It was some form of comfort. One he hadn't much practice at, but she needed at least that much and, though he had no idea how to ease pain, her sigh seemed to say he made an okay first attempt. Well, second if he counted the last motel room.
"Thompson," she whispered.
"What's that?" He held her, punctuating the question with a slight squeeze.
"My last name. Tessa Thompson."
He smiled at her. It was a genuine smile—not used to elicit information or coerce a mark. Not all that uncomfortable but alien to him. He could get used to it, though. "P
leasure to meet you, Tessa Thompson."
"How'd your guys find out about my notes if you didn't know my last name?"
"That's how an ops team works. My job was to get that cipher. But I picked you up along the way. The team at home watches my back, feeds me intel, et cetera. So they probably picked your headshot up from the security surveillance at the airport and compared it against a few databases. Since you work on a base, I'm sure your picture hit as a match with one quick search. From your civilian employee badge."
"Oh."
She smelled like vanilla and sugar, even after she'd been through that day. Her soft hair brushed up against his bare bicep. His throat tightened.
"Tessa…" His heart pounded loud in his chest, fighting for his attention. With each flutter of her eyelashes, his tension spiked. He had never allowed himself to be distracted on the job. Losing control was unheard of. But, his arm was cemented around her shoulder, and he wasn't moving it. He stared as the broken white lines on the highway passed in quick revolutions, one right after another. The hum of the truck's engine poked at his concentration.
He needed to get out of this truck and breathe cool, fresh air. How else could he get his disciplined mind back to what it did best—analyze, act, accomplish?
McKay made a sharp exit off the highway onto an unlit ramp. He jammed on the brakes. Gravel spit from under the truck. The back end skidded of the truck fishtailed. His heart thumped.
As fast as he pulled off the road, he turned to face Tessa. She gasped, but she wasn't the only one surprised. Though he could now see his attraction, what he hadn't anticipated was a need to be close to her. Tessa was unlike any woman he'd ever met.
McKay could smell the faint scent of his sweat and the tear gas that had plagued them. But he also breathed in her gentle, feminine scent.
They didn't move, and their connection was more than enough to prove that it wasn't just him who felt the attraction.
But what would their next move be? …Nothing.
There couldn't be a next move. They couldn't inch closer. No matter what they felt. She was delicate and perfect. Sweet and soft. Caring. And he was just himself. Hard. Tough. Possessive.
Sharp lights flooded the interior of their pickup truck, bright, like a warning beacon. He jerked back, heart pounding, sighting the car that raced up the exit ramp. McKay's senses tingled. The new vehicle sped too fast, nearing them too quick.
With one deft move, McKay dropped Tessa below his chest, under the exterior line of sight. He heard the harsh intake of her unsuspecting gasp. She went rigid under his protective guard.
"What's happening?" she asked.
He didn't know and held her in place. "Give me a minute."
McKay narrowed his eyes to study the car as it passed. Nothing suspicious. Just a speeding driver.
That was it, but what if there had been trouble? Here he was drawing too close to the woman he should protect and ignoring the cipher that he was responsible for securing. McKay ran his hands from the heavy stubble on his face into his shaggy hair. Danger had never affected him like this before. Why was it driving him to the edge now?
For the first time since he burst through the motel room door with tear gas, she didn't appear to be scared or angry. Instead, her face reflected, most likely, a mirror image of him. Losing focus would get them both in harm's way.
She tilted her head away from him, laughed to herself, and pushed off the seat. "Deal with stress like that, huh?"
What did she just say?
"Stress? I don't get stressed out, doll." He scowled.
"So that was just…?" Tessa fingered stray strands of her dark hair.
"C'mon, Tessa. Don't psychoanalyze me with your therapy stuff. That was what it was. An intense… moment."
"That was quite a moment," she admitted.
He needed to release the anxious energy trapped in his chest, preferably by working out, pounding pavement, or engaging in a spar. Any type that didn't come in the form of flirting with Tessa Thompson. Instead, he threw an argumentative glance her way, pushed the truck into gear, slammed his foot on the gas pedal, and burned rubber as they ate pavement.
CHAPTER SIX
Tessa studied McKay at the wheel as he drove. He acted relaxed with one hand thrown over the steering wheel like they hadn't been someone's target practice all day long, just as he had the moment before pulling her close. She never saw their embrace coming. Maybe she had wished for him to be close, but certainly never anticipated it actually happening.
Her stomach flipped. His raw masculinity rolled through her like a bulldozer. Their closeness lasted only moments, but it felt like a blissful eternity. She had been lost in him. And when he drew away, a coldness stroked its frosty fingers across her skin.
She hadn't been thinking and wanted to move closer to him again, but heck if she'd let him see that. He was calm, collected, and focused on the road.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Oh well, she could at least pretend to be like him, disinterested and bored, and she decided that her interest was purely subjective awareness of him as a virile man. That awareness and the danger apparently resulted in enough adrenaline to stun an elephant, so she needed to be very careful about what she might feel.
His arm, no longer slung over her, rested close as they drove in silence. The long hours ahead of them would've been awkward if he acted like he cared, but he obviously didn't.
She pouted, chewing on her bottom lip, and then he coughed, interrupting her self-diagnosing pity-party.
"You're right," he said.
"About?"
"That was more than a moment."
More than a moment. Tessa didn't expect him to bring up their embrace as he drove down the highway at breakneck speeds, bobbing through traffic like a man with something profound to prove. Tough guys like him don't get stressed? Right. Tessa cleared her throat.
He glanced her way, and his intense scrutiny made her squirm. She stared out the window instead of facing him.
He grumbled. His foot hit the gas pedal, and the engine revved before he maneuvered to a steadier speed along the straightaway.
Tessa glanced back and assessed him, wishing to get under his skin like he'd crawled under hers. "I understand, in your line of work, stress would be considered a fatal flaw—"
"My line of work?" This time, he turned his head to do the once-over. His smile was hitched on one side and made his eye crinkle at the corners. Even at night, in the dimmed cabin of his truck, his steely dark eyes shined bright.
"Yeah. Whatever it is that you do." Tessa flipped her wrist and rolled her eyes to the darkened passing landscape. It was useless when all she wanted to do was watch him.
"What about your line of work? A therapist, huh?" He stretched back in his seat, readjusted his long legs, and rolled his broad shoulders. She wished he wouldn't do that. It was distracting. "You've been psychoanalyzing me?"
"There's always the chance." She sucked on the side of her bottom lip. Did he know his muscles flexed when he stretched?
"And the verdict?"
His timbre was so bottom-of-a-canyon deep that she wanted to slide into his lap, closing the minute space that vibrated between them. That couldn't have been less acceptable. She shook her head to clear away her distraction.
"Tessa?"
Oh, right. Her verdict. Where to begin?
"You're less dangerous than you initially seemed." She tried to sound unaffected. It didn't work.
"That's your professional assessment? I seem less dangerous?" He bunched his forehead. Yup, her softball judgment was a big, fat fail. "That's like saying your trip to the airport was a nuisance. You can do better than that. Come on, girl. Give it to me."
He was trying to tempt her. She was sure of it. She narrowed her eyes. If that's what he wants.
"My professional assessment is… Well, other than your propensity to fight, your behavior doesn't deviate from normal society. Nothing appears to be pervasive or inflexible about you.
That's if you discounted when you kidnapped me." She smirked. "I assume you're former military. You're trained. And despite this save-the-day type action, you aren't narcissistic, avoidant, or paranoid." Tessa took in a deep breath. It all came out so fast, who knew if it even made sense. "How's that work for you? Professionally speaking?"
He gave a curt nod. But Tessa wasn't going to let him off that easy. Not when she wanted a reaction from him as much as she hated needing it.
"But when you pulled me close? I'm not sure if you want me analyzing that."
He grumbled his agreement.
"Maybe it doesn't matter, though," she said. "Since you don't get offended or bothered."
He grimaced, making her smile because the tough guy couldn't stand the metaphoric heat. Then again, she didn't want to think about it either, because she longed to be close to him again. Tessa knew full-well that adrenaline played a factor in their chemistry. That didn't stop her curiosity. "McKay, what's the deal with you anyway?"
"No deal," he grumbled. I never have a deal."
Tessa hummed, wanting to know more. "Who does Mister Save-The-Day Hero work for?"
He concentrated on driving and strummed his fingers across the steering wheel. His hands were rough, fingertips calloused, but they reminded her of the careful touch at the motel when he offered her a bag of ice. It was as though the memory of his touch had stayed on her skin, and she liked it as much as she liked teasing him. Tessa struggled to keep the smile to herself. "Should I revise my professional assessment and add avoidant to my assessment?"
"I'm not avoiding anything. But it's not something I normally share. That's all."
"I'm supposed to trust you. And you haven't shared a single thing." Other than that hug.
"All right, already. I was a SEAL. My last deployment was Afghanistan." McKay's jaw set hard, ending the conversation.
But that wasn't going to happen. She had questions. She needed to know something more about him and wanted to keep the conversation going. "I bet you saw inhumane stuff over there."
The SEAL's Promise Page 4
