Broken Wings

by Terri Schaefer

  How long had he been following her every move? When had he stopped trusting her? And how could she possibly take over the company now?

  “I always thought, after Cord died, that you didn’t trust me. That you thought he died because I’d compromised him.” He started to interrupt her, but she bowled right over him. “He didn’t. It was bad intel, coming from you, that got him killed. And now, you’ve put Ethan’s life and reputation at risk. For what? At least tell us that much, before I take off this necklace, drop this phone and walk away from you. Maybe forever.”

  The silence on the end of the line was thunderous. “Can’t have Petra connected to the business,” he finally said. And that was all she needed.

  “Goodbye, Greg.” She powered down the phone, stepped out of the Jeep and took off her locket. Placed it on top of the phone, tucked it into the bottom of a drainpipe. It wouldn’t do for some unsuspecting homeless person to get jacked up because her father had more power than good sense. Than plain decency.

  She bit back a sob as she climbed back into the Jeep.

  “Drive.” She grabbed the oh-shit handle as Ethan punched it, and pushed back the tears. They had no place in the here and now. Maybe not even in the future.

  Ethan wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he knew he was getting out of Roswell, and damned soon. First they needed another phone, and they needed to switch license plates.

  So he veered into a residential neighborhood, drove until he found a Jeep a year or two older than the one he was driving. The two vehicles were almost identical, right down to the faded red color. The neighborhood was starting to bed down on a Wednesday night, so he continued around the corner, and then left Natalie staring sightlessly out the passenger window as he crept back with a screwdriver.

  Six minutes later and the plates were switched. It probably would give them a day or two before the owner or a neighbor noticed the vehicle had Texas plates now, but by then they’d either have finished this or would be so deep under it wouldn’t matter.

  He slid back into the driver’s seat. “Done. Now we need a new phone.”

  She turned to look at him. Her eyes were clear and dry, but haunted looking, like she’d lost something in the conversation with her father. Or maybe in the locket. Either way, it sucked, and they could talk about it later.

  “Just like with the ATM,” she said. “I’ll do it. Drive north, hug the main drag but don’t go directly on it. There’ll be a convenience store that sells burners, guaranteed. And the kind of store I’m looking for doesn’t ask questions.”

  He nodded, pulled back into the street, looped around until they were paralleling the main drag. He knew she was a trained bodyguard, but how and why she knew stuff like this was yet another mystery. The mystery of Natalie.

  “There,” she pointed, and sure enough, a semi-rough looking gas station was tucked against the main road. “Hang tight for a second.”

  She withdrew eighty dollars from their stash and slipped from the Jeep, her stride sure, almost at odds with the vacation vibe of her clothes.

  Ethan relaxed in the seat, his senses still alert as he scanned the area. His weapon was still in his knapsack. He wasn’t looking to get shot if the feds found them. He could maybe talk his way out of a jail cell. Maybe. But he couldn’t talk his way out of a bullet to the head.

  And as he waited, he ran through the last few minutes in his mind.

  By his calculations, the Marshals were likely just hitting the campsite. It had to be part of the Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force, it was the only group that’d make sense given his background. And Natalie’s. Because they were both known to be armed, and had the training to be dangerous. After all, it was the Task Force’s specialty, and they had offices all around the country.

  Shit.

  The betrayal he’d heard in Natalie’s voice had ripped at his heart. How long had she suspected her father of tracking her? Of distrusting her?

  He couldn’t imagine having that kind of relationship with his kid.

  He and Aimee had talked about having children, but it seemed like he was always deployed, and then one day he’d come home from downrange and she’d been gone. So not having kids had seemed like a pretty capital idea at the time.

  Natalie slid back into the seat. “Head west. The cashier said there’s a bunch of off-road trails over near Capitan. We can hole up there until we come up with a plan.”

  Ethan considered her for a long moment. “And he just told you that?”

  She stared back. “I might have given her the impression you were helping me hide from an abusive husband. And that’s why we needed the phone. And to hide.”

  As plans went, it was a damned good one.

  So he put the Jeep into drive and headed west.

  Natalie didn’t think she’d ever been more tired. More heartsick.

  She thought she’d felt every emotion possible when Cord died, but betrayal? Nope, that one hadn’t been on her ticket then. Now it totally was.

  They drove the hour west in silence, and she was grateful Ethan gave her that mental space.

  She wasn’t sure she even had the energy to break it all down, not right now, and more than anything she wanted to talk to her best friend Rebecca. But she couldn’t, because Becca worked for Arrow Security just like she did. She wouldn’t put her friend in the position where she’d have to lie to her boss if asked her if Natalie had called.

  But she really could have used Becca’s advice. Both on the situation at hand and the explosive kiss she and Ethan had shared. That still made her body ache and was a damned pleasant diversion from everything else.

  What she wanted was a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed, but she was ninety-nine percent sure that wasn’t going to happen. Not if her brain kept skipping down the kissing path.

  They began to pass signs pointing to the off-road area, but drove past the first, then the second, before Ethan settled on turning up the rutted path of the third.

  The bounced along what appeared to be a road for about ten minutes before he pulled into a grove of trees. Pulled further in, so they couldn’t be seen from even the sorta-road, unless you were really looking.

  He killed the lights, turned to her. “If you want me to drop you off in Capitan in the morning, I will.”

  “I know you will, but it’s not going to happen, at least not yet, okay?” She unbuckled her seatbelt. “Now can we set up? I’m tired and getting cranky.”

  He freed himself as well and gave her a finger salute. “Yes ma’am.”

  Chapter 8

  Ethan pulled out the cooler and the stuff they’d been able to grab before fleeing the RV park, then dropped the passenger seats to make room in the back.

  It wasn’t going to be comfortable, but at this point they both needed sleep, so when they started again in the morning, it’d be with clear heads.

  Natalie was in the bushes, taking a bathroom break, and he thanked whatever deity was watching over them that she’d thought to grab the toilet paper from the RV.

  He still didn’t quite know what to do with the fact Natalie had stayed with him, rather than waiting for the Marshals. He knew she was pissed at Flynn, and while he understood that anger, it wasn’t in proportion to the potential danger of staying with him.

  He suspected it had something to do with whoever the mysterious Cord was and how he’d died.

  Regardless, it was closing in on midnight now and the temperature was starting to plummet, even at the end of June.

  He eyeballed the two sleeping bags, wondered how he was going to broach the concept of combining the bags to amplify their body heat. They needed a good night’s sleep and with the summer clothes they were wearing, it would be wiser to go with the double bag.

  He wasn’t sure how happy he was about the concept of spending the night next to her. His body was plenty enthused, but his brain remembered this evening’s kiss and how easy it would have been to spin out of control if they hadn’t been in public.

&nbs
p; And they sure as hell weren’t in public now.

  Natalie returned, stood beside him looking at the bedrolls. Sighed.

  “We both know what has to be done. Let’s zip ‘em together.”

  Knowing she was just as leery about putting them together was a comfort, somehow. They made quick work of it, balling up extra clothes as pillows, and scrunched themselves into the back of the Jeep.

  “Thank everything holy this is a four-door,” Natalie said in the darkness. “We’d be on the ground if it’d been the smaller version.”

  She wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t what kept Ethan from answering.

  It was the heat of her next to him, the scent of her that went straight to his head, reminded him of their kiss, of the sparks they’d been throwing since this morning.

  So he grunted in response and thought of baseball scores and murderous but delicate-looking assassins.

  And fell asleep.

  Ethan snored. Not much, but just enough to keep Natalie awake for a few minutes longer than him.

  Just long enough to think freely for the first time today, undistracted by Petra or Ethan.

  The heat coming off of him was amazing, and she snuggled closer, reveling in the safety of the cocoon they’d created, even if it was only for a few hours. Realized she’d trusted him implicitly with her safety, trusted him not to take advantage of her. Hell, he’d even given her pepper spray to fend him off.

  He’d shown himself to be an honorable man in so many different ways over the course of this long day. A day that seemed like it had lasted a week. A month.

  She’d run the gamut of emotions… from satisfaction in getting Petra out of Ward’s hands to mortification that the woman had played her. Wary confusion on meeting Mandy, who her father obviously knew, to his betrayal of Ethan. His betrayal of her.

  And as much as those things made her want to curl up inside, the thing keeping her ready to face the next morning was the man beside her.

  His steady, unassuming support. His drugging kisses. The solidity of him next to her now.

  She’d always been the one to take care of things, of people, but Ethan, whether he realized it or not, had stepped into that role with her in only one day.

  And it scared her. She was running on empty, didn’t have a soul to talk to except him. Didn’t want tunnel vision to make him out to be more than he was.

  But the feeling in her gut that said he was exactly what he portrayed hadn’t abated, just grown stronger.

  In a few short hours she’d need to decide what to do. To analyze whether she’d knee-jerked in her reaction to her father, or if she wanted to have Ethan drive her in to Capitan in the morning, make a call, and start working on clearing Ethan’s name from the inside.

  The idea had a lot of merit. She couldn’t do much from the road besides endanger both herself and Ethan. Because she could quite easily see Greg spinning this as a potential kidnapping, or Stockholm syndrome at the very least.

  And more than anything, she didn’t want to see Ethan hurt.

  With that thought drifting through her consciousness, she fell asleep.

  Ethan woke the next morning, back sore from the minimal padding of the cargo area, but with a warm, delicious smelling woman wrapped around him. He savored the contact after so very long without. Inhaled the essence of her, all woman and curves and fiery intelligence before he regretfully began to untangle himself.

  He didn’t want to wake her up with his morning wood pressing against her, but of course that’s what happened as soon as he started to shift away.

  She murmured something unintelligible, snuggled even closer, then let out a satisfied sigh and rubbed up against him like a cat.

  He held himself stiffly (ha ha) and did baseball stats in his mind again.

  Three, two, one… she came awake enough to realize exactly what she was feeling, probably figured out who she was pressed up against, and pushed away to the far confines of the bag.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, her voice embarrassed.

  “It’s all good,” he replied. “But you’ll probably need to give me a minute or two.”

  “No problem,” she shimmied out of the bag, doing absolutely nothing to make his morning any less delightful. “I’ll see what I can put together for breakfast.”

  The light coming through the pinon bushes was sketchy, so it still had to be early, meaning they were working on only a few hours sleep. Not optimum, but they’d both been in the field before, and sometimes that was just how it worked.

  It took him a few minutes to be presentable, and during that time he thought of cold, hard facts. Like the fact he hadn’t woken up with a woman since his wife left him eight years ago. He’d been all about the post-divorce hookup his last two years in the service, and kept the same pattern when he turned to contract work, mostly with Ward Dynamics.

  When his world fell apart he’d spiraled even further, into the no-names, no questions asked arena. After a while, even that hadn’t seemed to fit the bill, so he’d focused on himself. On getting over his gambling addiction. On paying his debts.

  So waking up this morning with a woman he wanted sexually and respected intellectually was a bit of a strange sensation. One he was trying not to revel in too much. Because it would end.

  They’d figure out a way to make sure Petra paid for offing Ward, and each go about their business. Or Natalie would leave him today, head out with the Marshals and enjoy the rest of her life.

  Women like her didn’t date dudes who had sacrificed their honor under the cover of orders. Didn’t go for men who’d gambled everything away. Literally.

  Those thoughts were more than enough to get him out of the sleeping bags.

  The morning was brisk but not overly cold as he went into the bushes to relieve himself.

  They probably could have done without the whole shared bag concept, but a big part of him was happy they had. It’d been a novel concept to hold her, one he’d tuck away for the future when he was feeling blue.

  When he emerged from the bushes he saw she’d set up a tiny camp stove that must have been in the Jeep since they hadn’t purchased one.

  She looked up as he came closer. “There was a kit in the back seat we didn’t see last night,” she explained. “The coffee is instant, but it’s still caffeine.”

  It was all he needed.

  “There’s MREs as well, but since we have barbeque left from last night…”

  “MREs are always a last resort, even if they’re warm,” he answered with an easy tone. He crouched opposite her, waited for the water to boil. Their silence was companiable, as if both of them realized they needed a stimulant before decisions were made. But he could rustle something up while they waited.

  “Want a sandwich from the leftovers?” he asked. “Probably easier to eat that way, and we need the carbs.”

  She nodded, so he set to work grabbing bread from the cooler, along with basic condiments that were still in their tiny little packets.

  By the time he’d made them both a sandwich—his brisket, hers pulled pork—the coffee was ready.

  They ate quickly, fueling their bodies as the high desert came to life around them.

  Ethan put the Jeep back together, lifting up the back seats and stowing the cooler and all of their gear while Natalie did her morning business.

  And then they were ready to go. Maybe thirty minutes had passed since they’d awoken in the back of the Jeep, and not one word had been spoken of how right their cuddling had felt.

  Ethan wasn’t going to be the one to go there, not when he had no idea what the morning would bring.

  “I need to check in with Rob,” he said, breaking the silence. “See if there’s anything new on his end.”

  Natalie nodded, and he dialed his boss, put the phone on speaker. There was no room for secrets in the here and now. The past was a whole different story.

  Rob answered with his usual brusque tone. “I see you made it through the night.”

&nb
sp; Ethan felt his ears heat a bit, but answered easily. “We did. Bedded down up in the mountains around Capitan. What do you have for us?”

  “You were right to head into the mountains. The feds and Ward’s goons descended on Roswell like the damned aliens everyone’s looking for. Didn’t get a very warm reception, to say the very least. The town froze them out for the most part, claiming all the hotel rooms had been booked for the week. No one had any idea who you were and there were no sightings. How did the feds know you even were there?” Rod’s tone had gone puzzled.

  Ethan pondered for a moment, looked at Natalie, shrugged. So she answered. “My father put a locator on me. It’s probably been there for years.” She paused, cleared her throat, and for a moment Ethan thought he saw a sheen of tears. “It was in a locket I’ve had since I was a teenager, a gift from my mother.”

  “That fucking sucks,” Rob replied emphatically, which told Ethan that he’d already looked into Natalie’s history, knew more about the woman than Ethan did. “I’m sorry about that, it’s a douche move.”

  She laughed, the sound a bit watery, but her chin had firmed up and in a moment she was back to the woman he’d spent the last twenty-four-ish hours getting to know. Sort of.

  Ethan took the conversation back over. “Where we’re at is pretty remote, and I’m not convinced that we can’t be spotted from the air, the scrub here is pretty low to the ground. Any recommendations, since you’ve got your ear to the ground, and obvious connections that I don’t even want to ask about, at least not today?”

  “While I do have my own sources,” Rob’s voice was dry, amused. “It’s actually Cris giving us our intel,” Rob replied, referring to Cris O’Connor Eagan, Ethan’s old partner.

  She’d gone through a hellish experience herself just a month ago and was regrouping. But Ethan doubted she’d ever go back to repo-ing, not after her real name and history as a former Texas Ranger and minor celebrity had come out.