Out of Time

by Monica McCarty

  He grabbed the hand by the wrist that started to move toward the bandage. Not because he didn’t want her to see the wound but because the feel of her hands on him was leaving very little to the imagination. “It’s fine. I just need to change the bandage.”

  “I can help you.”

  “No,” he said more harshly than he intended. But the thought of her standing near him like this in a small bathroom, where the citrus scent of her shampoo—seemingly designed to make him want to bury his head in it—would be even more pungent, putting her hands on him . . . no thanks. He was already jumping out of his skin. But seeing the wounded look in her eyes, he added, “Thanks, but it isn’t necessary. Really, Nat.” He stared intently into her eyes. “It’s almost healed.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment and nodded, but then a look of pure horror came over her. “Did Mick do it?”

  He shook his head. “It was one of the men he hired.”

  She bit her lip again, the distress returning. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  He nodded. “But let me get some clothes on and clean up a little, all right?” Suddenly it was his turn to frown, taking note of the open window. “What are you doing up here? I thought you weren’t going to climb out of any more windows.”

  She blushed. “I’m not. I’m just getting ready to sand before painting.”

  “You’ve been fixing up the place?” He’d seen all the tools and equipment lying around, but he’d thought they’d belonged to workers.

  She put her hands on her hips, with an expression on her face that made him think about minefields and being careful where to step next. “And why do you sound so surprised? Don’t tell me you are one of those guys.”

  He hesitated to ask. “What guys?”

  “The kind that thinks that just because I don’t have a Y chromosome I can’t hold a hammer.”

  He caught himself from saying something about her holding his hammer anytime. That was something he would have said in the old days. Not now.

  But it was getting harder and harder to keep his mind from slipping back into the way it used to be. To keep the distance and the wall he’d put up between them. To remind himself that she’d betrayed him in a way that was unforgivable.

  Their conversation from last night had kept him up most of the night. He didn’t want to believe anything she told him. But he did. If not all of it then most of it. Some of it was too implausible not to be true. And the rest of it was consistent with what he knew.

  But if she wasn’t lying then he’d have to concede that she might have been in a horrible catch-22 situation where what to do might not be as straightforward as he wanted to make it. Her accusation last night had struck a chord. She wasn’t in his position and hadn’t had his resources. Could he fault her for not trusting others to protect her and those she cared about, when he was doing the same thing right now with the team?

  He also couldn’t ignore that she’d risked her life—and her friend had lost hers—to warn him. That warning had saved him and five of his men.

  He didn’t know what to think, which was part of the problem. Scott always knew what to do. It was his greatest strength and why he had been put in charge of America’s most elite special operations unit. Spies went to prison. It should be as simple as that. But her guilt no longer seemed so clear-cut, and Scott was having a hard time invoking the anger and hatred that gave him the emotional detachment and headspace to think straight.

  His feelings for her had blinded him once. He wouldn’t let that happen again.

  But instead of commenting about the hammer, he said, “I think I’ll take the Fifth on that.”

  “Smart guy.”

  “I’ll get changed and give you some help.”

  She arched one brow. “Lots of manual labor experience from those long summers playing golf at the country club?”

  He’d always loved how she teased him about his wealth as if it didn’t matter to her. It honestly seemed not to matter to her. Unfortunately, in this case, the teasing was kind of true. He didn’t have much renovation experience. Okay, any. “Yeah, well, I’m a quick study.”

  Over the next two days, while they waited for the doctor to call with the blood test results, Natalie put Scott to work, challenging that assessment. He was definitely out of his element with stripping wallpaper, sanding, cutting trim, fixing loose floorboards, and painting, but she was right at home. He couldn’t believe how handy she was—or that she’d already tackled much of the plumbing work.

  He was glad of something to do to keep busy, but he hadn’t anticipated the difficulty of close daily contact. Nor of the intimacy of working side by side. It was stretching his control to the limit. The sexual attraction between them had always been red-hot and trying to tamp that down wasn’t easy.

  He was just as attracted to her as he’d ever been. Maybe even more so. DIY, cutoff shorts, and ponytail Natalie was just as erotic as sexy, businesswoman Natalie—maybe more so. He felt like he’d been dropped into a home show porno. Who knew sanding could be sexy? He’d forced her off the ladder not just because of the baby but because it put the soft curve of her butt cheek beneath the edge of her shorts perfectly in view, and it was driving him crazy not to touch that soft velvety skin.

  In addition to sexual frustration, the forced proximity was taking a sledgehammer to the wall he was trying to keep between them. More than once he’d found himself lapsing back into their old pattern. Into the easy—sometimes teasing—conversations that had made him realize early on that what was between them wasn’t just incredible sex.

  Except now the conversations weren’t so one-sided. With the truth out, her wall had come down, and she seemed eager—almost anxious—to share her background with him. Subjects that had been so deftly turned in the past that he hadn’t even realized she’d done so were now wide-open. It was hard holding back his curiosity, and although he knew he shouldn’t if he wanted to keep thinking of her as the coldhearted Russian spy who’d betrayed him, he found himself asking questions.

  Yesterday, while they’d been picking up her car, she’d told him how she’d ended up in DC. He was surprised to hear that Mick had nothing to do with it. He hadn’t appeared on the scene until a couple of years later. She’d explained how when Big Dairy moved into their town her family lost their dairy farm, including the burgeoning artisanal cheese business she’d started with her sister to make the farm more profitable. It was hard enough to picture her growing up on a farm let alone starting a cheese business. But reading between the lines, he realized she’d done it just as much for her sister as for herself. “It’s so hard for special-needs adults to find jobs, and something like this was perfect for her. She loved it. It gave her such a sense of pride.”

  His heart would have really had to have been made of stone not to feel a pinch at that. The Russian spy with the heart of gold—great.

  Later he learned how she’d gone to Washington to work for a congressman who shared her interest in sustainability and was trying to protect small farms. Scott never would have guessed that beneath the polished, glossy exterior beat the heart of a crusader. But maybe with what he’d seen here so far it made sense. She had a strong sense of service and wasn’t the type to walk away from a problem.

  Which were both things he could get behind.

  She’d thought about law school and had applied for the job at the Pentagon to save money to go, when Mick came into her life.

  The reminder of Mick was enough to stop his questions for the day. But today he found himself handing her tools as she took apart a toilet to try to fix a slow leak, and couldn’t resist asking, “How did you learn so much about fixing toilets?”

  She’d tried the rubber flapper first, but when that hadn’t worked she’d had to replace the entire fill valve. He wasn’t sure he’d ever removed the top part of the toilet—the tank lid, she’d called it—before, let a
lone tried to fix one.

  She blew a wisp of hair that had come loose from her ponytail out of her face as she leaned down to finish screwing something in place before answering. “My dad was handy, and I liked to follow him around to help when I was little.” She looked over at him and smiled. He tried to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest, but how could someone fixing a toilet look so freaking adorable? “I pretty much did what you are doing. Sitting there and handing him tools and watching. Eventually he started to let me really help.”

  Scott lifted one eyebrow. “Are you suggesting that I’m not really helping?”

  She laughed. “Pretty much. But you are good at lifting heavy stuff—and you’re pretty mean with a hammer.”

  “Good to know I’m not completely useless,” he said dryly.

  Nothing like having the holes in his skill set pointed out. It had been a long time since he’d been humbled.

  Well, maybe he wasn’t Mr. Fixit, but he could take out terrorist cells, rescue hostages, and lead cover operations deep behind enemy lines with some of the most highly trained operators in the world. Shouldn’t that count for something?

  She grinned as if she knew exactly what he was thinking—she probably did. Not many people could read him as well as Natalie could. Apparently he wasn’t as opaque as the guys on the team thought.

  She shrugged unrepentantly. “We didn’t have a lot of money and my father didn’t believe in picking up the phone to pay someone for something you could do yourself.”

  “I like to think of it as adding to the economy.”

  She laughed, knowing he was joking. “You don’t know Herb Andersson.”

  No, Scott didn’t. But he wished he did. From what Natalie had said the past couple of days, her father sounded like a tough, hardworking family man who loved his wife and adopted daughters more than anything in the world. “Any other hidden talents I should know about? Like fixing carburetors?”

  “I’m not as good with cars as my father is, but I can fix farm equipment.”

  Jesus. “I was joking.”

  She grinned. “I know.”

  “But you weren’t?”

  She just smiled and went back to the toilet.

  * * *

  • • •

  Something had changed. It wasn’t like the way it had been before, but it wasn’t like a few days ago when Scott had first showed up, either. The wariness and distance was still there, but the biting layer of ice had cracked.

  Natalie knew not to put much hope in the temporary lull while they waited for the doctor to call, but it was hard not to think that Scott had softened toward her. He wasn’t looking at her as if he hated her anymore, which was definitely an improvement. Once or twice she’d actually caught him looking at her with something else entirely in his gaze. Lust . . . desire . . . I want to rip your clothes off and push you up against the closest door—whatever you wanted to call it. He was trying to hide it, but it was clear that Scott still wanted her.

  It was a crack, but not one she wanted to press. No matter how difficult it was not to respond to those heated looks. There never had been a lot of holding back between them; it was hard to get used to not touching him when she wanted to. All the time.

  She was tempted to put in air-conditioning with how hot all this working-together time was making her. The rooms in this house were generously proportioned, but he made it feel like a dollhouse. He dominated the space and sucked up all the air. Every time she moved around she seemed to be bumping into that big, too-hard-and-muscular body. And not much had changed since that first time at the bar. Her nerve endings still flared with awareness. Heated awareness that was worse because she knew exactly how incredible it was to make love with him.

  Yes, she was tempted. Very tempted to press her one advantage. But she didn’t want to be accused of trying to seduce him and reinforcing every negative Mata Hari stereotype that he probably thought about her. Whatever he might think, sex had never been her weapon, and she wasn’t going to make it one.

  Besides, she didn’t think it would be effective. Even if she could get him back into bed, she knew better than to think that would translate to anything more. Scott was too compartmentalized. He would never let his personal feelings or emotions impact his duty or what he thought was the right thing. That was why trying to spy on him had been so useless. And why she hadn’t gone to him for help the first time around.

  No, if he was going to help her this time, it wouldn’t be because she gave great head. Although he did love it when she got on her knees. . . .

  Not what she should be thinking about when he was sitting on the edge of the tub and she was on her knees next to the toilet to access the base (the entire assembly unit needed to be replaced). It would be so easy to move around in front of him and . . .

  She shook her head in an attempt to clear the thought. But she could still feel the heat on her cheeks from the erotic images. That eroticism where he was concerned still surprised her. It had never been that way for her even before Mick. “Can you pass the new locknut?”

  Her cheeks fired even hotter at the unfortunate terminology, but thankfully he didn’t seem to notice. “The white plastic thing,” she clarified.

  “I’m not a total idiot,” he said. “I know what a nut looks like. It screws on the bolt.”

  She was clearly going off the deep end because everything was turning dirty in her mind. Instead she put an exaggerated impressed look on her face. “You’ll be fixing toilets around the compound before you know it.”

  He shot her a look. “You know very well that I don’t live on a compound.”

  “Anymore,” she qualified. He had a condo in Honolulu and a loft in DC. But to her knowledge he hadn’t sold the place where he’d grown up in upstate New York not far from the Rockefeller estate.

  He shot her a glare. “It isn’t a compound.”

  She gave him an exaggerated sigh. “Scott, anything that has a main house, a guesthouse, a gatehouse, a playhouse—with a bowling alley—and a boat shed is a compound.”

  “I should never have told you about that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t tell me. I saw the pictures and pried it out of you.”

  She regretted her words instantly. Their eyes held and she knew they were both thinking about other information she’d tried—with much less enthusiasm—to pry out of him.

  She felt her chest pinch uncomfortably and wanted to say she was sorry. But she’d already said that. Instead she asked him for the bucket and went back to changing the valve.

  Once the excess water had drained from the tank, she pulled out the old assembly and asked him to hand her the new unit, adjusting the height to fit the tank before putting it in. Less than five minutes later, the new valve was in place. She flushed the toilet, replaced the tank lid, and sat on the lowered seat. “Good as new,” she said with a smile. “Without the one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar repair bill.”

  “A hundred and fifty? I’ve been ripped off. Last time I had to call in a plumber it was over three hundred bucks.”

  “My father would have had a heart attack,” she said with a laugh.

  But she quickly sobered. Her father had had a heart attack. The stress of losing the farm had been too much for him. Between that and the worsening diabetes, he could barely get up from his favorite recliner anymore. She was so worried about him. The news of her death would have been horrible for him. She’d give anything to hear his voice.

  She sighed and started to get up.

  But Scott stopped her.

  * * *

  • • •

  The need to touch her had been instinctive. But the moment Scott’s hand closed around her wrist he knew it was a mistake. They were sitting too close and it would be too easy to pull her onto his lap and comfort her. Traitor or not, he couldn’t stand seeing her in pain.

 
Scott knew he should drop her wrist and let her go. It was getting late, and no matter how much he’d been putting it off, he needed to check in with Kate. He’d turned his phone back on a little while ago for the first time since yesterday when Natalie had insisted on calling the town manager—who she apparently worked for—to prevent her from showing up, and the message light was on. Colt had probably caught up with Travis by now so she might have news.

  Scott stood from his seat on the edge of the tub. Having every intention of letting her go and walking away. Natalie’s emotional pain wasn’t his problem. He needed to keep a clear head and not cloud it up with sympathy.

  But when it came to Natalie, knowing what to do and actually doing it were two different things—which was better than saying that he was an idiot.

  She’d come to her feet as well, so all his plans to leave had done was to bring them closer together. His hand was still wrapped around her wrist, the soft beat of her pulse reverberating through him like a drum. There was something mesmerizing about it—almost primal in the connection. It had always been like that between them, even with something so small.

  “You’re thinking about your father?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “You said he was in poor health?”

  She nodded again. “He had a heart attack about seven years ago after he lost the farm and never really recovered. He also has ongoing complications from diabetes.” She looked up at him, tears heavy in her eyes. “I just wish I knew that he was okay. The news of my death would have been horrible for him—for all of them. But I feared that if I confided in them, Mick would find out. I thought it was the only way to keep them safe.”

  She was obviously second-guessing herself and looking to him for reassurance.