Broken Wings

by Terri Schaefer

  Rob continued his briefing. “She said you’d never do something like this and her father agreed, after looking at your service record. After that it was just a matter of contacting the right people to find out what was going down.”

  Well hell, having a state senator in your corner was damned nice. Especially when he was pretty sure the man would become governor in the next election. But neither O’Connor knew what had happened in the desert three years ago. What he’d done there had put him in league with Flynn and Ward.

  He was one hundred percent sure that he didn’t deserve the elder O’Connor’s support, but he’d take it.

  A weight lifted off his chest. Flynn and Ward might have power, but both operated in the shadowy realms, just as he had. Christian O’Conner would shame them both publicly, take away major sources of revenue, and never break a sweat.

  Rob went on, oblivious to Ethan’s ongoing inner turmoil.

  “This is going to sound totally counterintuitive,” Rob warned, “but head back to Roswell. Find a place you can hide your wheels and stay out of sight until the feds find this Petra chick. She’s not on the news, like you two are, but right now that coverage is mostly regional.”

  “We could lay a false trail,” Natalie mused. “Make them think we’re still heading to Vegas, despite the dustup between my father and I. It’s a safehouse and I’m still a shareholder in the company. They couldn’t turn me away.”

  Ethan found himself nodding. “Shouldn’t be overly hard to roll into Capitan and drop a few nuggets. But it’s going to be tough getting a room. You said yourself the rooms were all booked up.”

  Natalie was on her phone, typing furiously as she searched for something. Her head shot up in triumph. “Got it. Found a vacation home that still has a vacancy. Close to downtown, so we can get lost in the crowd if need be, but still far enough away for privacy. It’s on the other side of town from where we left the RV, so unlikely we’ll run into anyone from there that might recognize us.”

  Ethan considered her words for a long moment, weighed plusses and minuses. “They’ll be looking on the roads right outside of town for anyone leaving,” he mused.

  “But not for anyone coming back in,” Natalie finished. “I think your boss is right. It’s counterintuitive, which is why it might just work.”

  Ethan nodded. “Okay. But we’ll need to do something to disguise ourselves just a bit. I have the perfect idea.”

  “I did not, in a million years, picture this,” Natalie said, as she piloted the Jeep away from Capitan. She wore a green wig, complete with alien antennae and had made up her face with basic over the counter makeup. She was almost positive even her father wouldn’t recognize her in this get-up.

  Beside her in the passenger seat, Ethan was similarly disguised. He’d slicked his hair back with Vaseline, making it look at least two shades darker and wore Geordi Laforge glasses and a silver track suit.

  It was all they’d had in the little Capitan general store, and the store owners had laughed when they said they wanted to surprise their friends in Vegas after spending the last few days in Roswell as they traveled the country. It was a perfect false trail if anyone showed in Capitan looking for them, and if they didn’t, well, no harm, no foul.

  They rolled into town as lunch approached and headed straight to the vacation home. As advertised, the casita was cute, tiny, and away from everything else, even though it was only a mile from the center of town.

  Their host met them at the front door of the main house with a good-natured smile that said she’d seen it all, gave them the keys and told them where to park the Jeep to get it out of the sun. Which happened to be beneath an old willow that hid the vehicle almost entirely.

  The pond behind the dwelling was stocked with fish, she informed them, but they needed to supply their own poles. Then she was gone.

  Ethan pulled the Jeep beneath the willow while she waited, scrutinizing their surroundings. They were three streets away from the main drag and she could hear the distant hum of traffic and the crackle of a loudspeaker from the festival.

  The main house was at least fifty feet away, giving them privacy and shielding them from the residential street. It was a perfect place to sit tight for a bit.

  When they opened the door, Natalie realized that the little house wasn’t much bigger than the RV or a standard hotel room with kitchenette. In other words, small. And very, very seventies themed, which was probably why it was one of the few places left vacant during the fest. But it was clean, and safe for the time being.

  A pullout sofa sat along one wall, but it looked ancient. The queen-sized bed in the next room was by far the better option, and shame on her for thinking of how she’d woken up this morning, tangled in Ethan’s arms, his erection pressed against her belly.

  He walked in behind her, lugging the cooler, and his eyes did the same ping pong hers had. From the sofa sleeper to the bedroom and back. But he didn’t say a word, just popped the cooler down next to the kitchenette and shrugged out of the silver monstrosity he was wearing. “Thank Jesus, this thing is hot as fuck.”

  She laughed, she couldn’t help it, and ripped off the green wig, threw it on the tiny dinette table. “I’ve got to get out of this makeup,” she said, and headed for the bathroom.

  Ten minutes later she emerged and stopped in her tracks.

  Ethan was pulling on a shirt from his backpack, and holy mother, did the man have abs. Abs that made her think of all kinds of illicit things she had no business in thinking.

  So she turned, knowing her face had gone beet red, and headed for the fridge, hoping for something to cool her off.

  This was going to be a very long night.

  Chapter 9

  It turned out laying low when you could hear a street party going on sucked. Didn’t matter that it was for their own safety.

  The little screened in porch off the back of the casita provided respite from the afternoon heat, and while that was nice, it didn’t do much to get rid of Ethan’s case of squirelliness.

  He needed to be doing something, not sitting here waiting for Petra to be found. It gave him way too much time for introspection, and to shoot side glances at Natalie.

  As he did, he realized he’d only known her for just over one day. It seemed like weeks, and the attraction he felt wasn’t something he’d felt in a long, long time. If ever.

  It wasn’t something he could pawn off on the adrenalin or the fact she was quite simply beautiful. Those things he could have dealt with, easily brushed off. But it was more than that. She was more than that.

  Natalie was battle tested. Had made hard decisions. He’d seen one last night when she cut off her father. Chose Ethan and the right thing over family ties.

  No one had chosen him for a long, long time. Which was part of what was making him twitchy.

  Apparently he wasn’t the only one. Natalie stood, began to pace, looking fresh as a daisy despite the fact they were still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Which they needed to find a way to remedy pretty quickly.

  Then again, if it meant that she had to keep wearing shorts that showed off her long legs, he wasn’t going to argue. Which may make him a bit of a prick, but he remembered how she’d felt wrapped around him last night, could easily imagine it without clothes, and in a soft bed instead of a sleeping bag. It was even easier to picture now, when they were in relative safety, restless and waiting for the next thing.

  She turned to him. “I need to make a call to Becca. She’s my best friend, and on one of our teams.”

  He watched her wait for him to object.

  But why would he? While she wasn’t quite as deep into this as he was, it was a close thing. If she could get intel without giving them up, he was all over it.

  He’d call Rob later, give the man some time to deploy his impressive contacts. Having Natalie talk to her friend would give them a different perspective, one they needed. Plus, it would make Natalie feel better. He could see it in her eyes.

 
“Have at it,” he said with a shrug. “The more we know, the better.”

  She flashed him a smile that made him break out in a cold sweat, then dialed her friend from memory, putting it on speaker. He appreciated the concession, even though he would have done the same.

  “This is Rebecca,” a woman’s voice answered, friendly but businesslike.

  “Becca, it’s Nat,” Natalie replied. “I have to keep this short. What can you tell me without compromising yourself?”

  “I’ll call you back in five,” Becca said briskly. “I’m right in the middle of something.”

  “Copy.” The line went dead.

  Natalie looked at Ethan. “So we wait.” She looked a bit anxious, and everything inside him wanted to soothe, to make it better. He was positive it was an emotion he’d never felt before, even with his ex.

  Until everything went south in the desert, he’d been a doer, the first one in line for a job, for an adventure, up for just about anything. He’d been the same way as a kid and even when he got his degree in anthropology. And then he’d fallen into himself and shut everyone away.

  It felt strangely liberating to want to comfort Natalie. Something he’d never really imagined himself having the capacity for.

  “Tell me about your friend, or what you can.”

  She settled into one of the deck chairs, stared out over the water. “We’ve been friends since college. We studied together, partied together, were on the University of Maryland soccer team together. When we graduated, she actually went semi-pro, played for a team in Seattle for a few years. But she got hurt, didn’t bounce back the way she wanted. We’d always kept in touch, so when I heard about her injury, I offered her a job on one of our teams.”

  “Flynn lets you do hiring and firing?” He didn’t mean to sound incredulous, but he hadn’t really thought of the man as anything other than a hardass with an iron grip on the reins of his company. It was how the media portrayed Greg Flynn, and nothing in his experience had led him to believe otherwise.

  “Sure. It’s going to be my company someday, after all.” There was something sad in her voice he was positive she didn’t realize was there. “This was my last job before taking the next rung on the ladder. Corporate Vice President.”

  Well hell. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say, but it wasn’t that.

  Suddenly, ogling Natalie Flynn’s legs seemed like a stupid ass idea. Regardless of her disagreement with her father, she was a rising star, set to take over a multimillion-dollar company. And while Ethan wasn’t on the decline anymore, he’d leveled out so far below her he had to look up to see dirt.

  Not that he’d thought their kiss and cuddle from last night was going anywhere. But it’d been the first time he’d really let his thoughts go in that direction with someone he actually liked in a very long time.

  “Anyway,” she finished, “We’ve been through a lot of things together, and while I don’t think she’d ever betray the company, she was my friend first.”

  Ethan remembered having friends like that, back when he was in the military. Men and women he’d thought of as family. And then, when he’d returned home, they’d really been the only ones to understand him, until they, too, drifted away.

  He shook his head. He was not going to have an internal pity party. He’d made his choices. Some good, some bad. He had to live with them. But for the first time in a while, he thought he might be able to go back to Fort Smith and see his family without feeling like he had to hang his head in shame.

  Natalie answered the phone, putting it on speaker, “Hey, Ethan Masters is here with me. You’re on speaker.”

  “Understood. Once we hang up, destroy this phone,” her friend breathed. “I can’t be able to point back to you if they search our cells.”

  “Okay.” Natalie swallowed hard, her heart thumping. “What have you got?”

  “The hunt just shifted from your friend Ethan to include you, Nat. The feds have footage of you in Ward’s office, tapping into his computer. They’re throwing words around like corporate espionage, and I even heard something about murder for hire.”

  Natalie sat back in her chair, the breath knocked out of her.

  “What’s Dad saying?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. After last night’s call, it wouldn’t surprise her if he’d cut her loose entirely. Not if it would save the company’s reputation. Look what he’d been willing to do to Ethan.

  “That you and Masters are heading for Vegas. He even has the phone recording to prove it. Told them he’d tracked you as far as Roswell, but that you bugged out last night after telling him to go to hell.”

  She saw Ethan looking at her with something that approached sympathy, and rolled her shoulders, sat up straighter in response.

  “Are you safe? I know I’m on speaker, but are you okay?”

  Natalie smiled, and it felt good on her face, despite the knowledge she was being hunted for things that could end her career, shatter her reputation. “I’m fine. Ethan’s a good guy, took me out for chocolate ice cream last night, as a matter of fact.” She shot a look at Ethan, knowing he’d hear the repetition, wondered if he’d already figured out it was a safe phrase.

  “Okay.” Bec said, and Natalie could hear the pure relief in her voice. “I don’t know where you are, and I don’t want to know. Lay low. Everyone and their brother is heading for Vegas right now. Pretty sure Flynn has people on Masters’ repo shop in Oklahoma City, so if you head there, you might have eyes on you.”

  “Thank you,” Natalie said, breathing easy for the first time in what seemed like days. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, then disconnected the phone. Pulled the battery. Sat with it in her hands for a minute.

  Looked up at Ethan. “So it looks like our situation has changed.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. But it matters that you chose me instead of safety before this, Natalie.” That warm caramel voice was back again, doing things to her she absolutely couldn’t consider.

  He was right that their situation really hadn’t changed, just that the heat was, theoretically off, at least for the next little bit. The relief it brought was staggering.

  “Any thoughts on what to do next?”

  He looked at her steadily, like nothing in the world could possibly faze him. He was a rock. Had been one throughout this whole ordeal.

  “I think we need to pick up a change of clothes, maybe a secondary disguise, just in case.” She stood, walked to the screen and looked at the pretty little lake, then cast a glance over her shoulder. “Do you think we can chance using the festivities as cover? Or should we make do with what we’ve got?”

  Ethan pushed out of the chair, stood next to her. “As strange as Alien Fest is to me, it’d actually be a normal activity.”

  Natalie turned slightly, looked at his profile as he looked out, seemingly at the lake, but she could tell he was a million miles away.

  “How long has it been since you did something normal, Ethan? Something you didn’t have to think really hard about?”

  He focused that thousand-yard stare on her. “Three years.”

  Even though his voice was careful, distant, she heard the tinge of loneliness in it, heard a yearning that echoed through her.

  Pure instinct had her rising to her toes, doing the unthinkable. She kissed him. Not the full-on tonsil hockey from the night before, but a chaste kiss. A thank you. A comfort.

  He returned the pressure against her lips, but kept it sweet, restrained.

  And suddenly that wasn’t enough. She wanted to see him undone, like he had been last night. It was ill-advised and probably reckless as hell, but she just didn’t care.

  She twined her fingers through his hair, tugged just enough for him to grunt in response. He pulled away, looked at her with a question in his gaze. Then his mouth tipped up in a smile she hadn’t seen yet, and it was wicked. “So that’s how it is, huh?” he said in that voice that made her knees weak. “Then hang on, sunshine.”

 
He dropped his head again, and this time there was nothing nice or quiet or soothing about his kiss. It was seeking, hungry, devouring and swept over her like a storm.

  She surged against him, her body firing in response as she made contact with his hard wall of muscle. Memories of waking twined with him this morning spun through her mind, brought an even headier response. She moaned, tightened her hands in his hair, and reveled when his kiss became hotter, harder.

  Then he was lifting her and her legs wrapped around his waist as her back hit the wall of the casita. It was pure bliss… trapped against the hard wall of the building and the living wall of his body. She should have felt threatened, trapped, but instead all she wanted was more.

  Ethan tried to rein in his response, but dammit, the second those long legs had wrapped around him, the second he’d filled his hands with her ass, he’d lost every bit of self-control. His fingers trailed over her bare, toned thighs, making his thoughts spiral toward the purely carnal.

  He dove into her with long, drugging kisses, squeezing her ass until she purred in response.

  He needed to feel skin. He ran his hand beneath her shirt, marveling in the silk of her body, the pure heat emanating off her body. He wanted to drown in her, in her scent, the texture of her skin, the silk of her hair.

  He cupped one perfect breast, reveled when her nipple tightened beneath his palm, even beneath the lace of her bra.

  Her teeth scored his lip and he thrust against her almost hopelessly in response.

  “Ethan,” she breathed, and he lifted his head, needed to see her eyes, to see if she was drowning too.

  Her pupils were completely blown, her mouth slick and swollen by their greedy kisses. She was fucking gorgeous.

  “Tell me you’ve got a condom,” she said, and he wanted to cry in response. Because he didn’t.

  He blew out a breath, straightened and groaned again as she unlatched her legs from his waist, slid down his body. He stepped back but couldn’t bring himself to let her go, so settled on leaving his hands on her waist, his fingers tracing the satin of her skin with tiny, almost absentminded moves.