Out of Time

by Monica McCarty

  Natalie thought about correcting him but realized it didn’t matter. “I’m lucky both of you were here.”

  Brock turned back to Scott. “I assume there is a good reason why the military says you are dead?”

  Scott nodded grimly. “Thanks for not calling it in right away.”

  “I’m going to have to do it now. They’ll wonder about the APB.”

  Scott returned the nod.

  “I’ll look around a little to see what I can find while I wait for them to arrive,” the sheriff said. “If you want to wait in here, I’ll have someone come in to take your statement later.”

  “Thanks,” Scott said, extending him his hand. “I appreciate it.”

  The two men shook and Natalie realized what was happening. The sheriff was giving them time to get away.

  Brock turned to her and gave her a nod. “Miz Wilson.”

  But Natalie couldn’t let it go at that. She rushed forward and gave him a hug. A hug, which after an initial stiffening of surprise, was returned with warmth.

  “Thank you,” she said, not understanding the rush of emotion and tears. But maybe it had been a long time since someone had done something so nice for her—although she suspected it was more for Scott, the opportunity to get away was still more than she could have hoped for.

  “Keep her safe,” the sheriff said to Scott, who must have moved up behind her. He sounded amused when he looked down to meet her gaze, holding on to her as she started to pull back to add, “And I still owe you dinner next time you are in town.”

  Natalie grinned. “You’re on.”

  The sheriff stepped back, tipped his hat, and left the barn. A moment later, she and Scott followed after him.

  Fifteen

  Scott gave Natalie about two minutes to gather her belongings from the farmhouse. They’d just turned onto the main road in the car that he’d stashed behind one of the farm outbuildings when the stream of flashing lights and sirens appeared ahead of them.

  He didn’t think either of them breathed until the lights and sounds had disappeared into the distance in the rearview mirror. But his pulse didn’t come back to a normal pace until they hit the interstate that would take them south. Only then did his fingers lighten their death grip on the steering wheel.

  Scott hadn’t said much since they left. It wasn’t just the concentrating on driving and trying to get away.

  Dinner? Over his dead body.

  He knew it was stupid and he had no right, but he was pissed. He hadn’t liked seeing Natalie in another man’s arms—no matter how grateful she was or how in debt they were to him.

  She’d been surprised that someone would do something like that for her, which made it worse. Scott suspected that the sheriff was just as by the book as he was, yet he’d put that aside and let them go. In other words, Brouchard had done what she’d thought Scott wouldn’t—look the other way—and he was keenly aware that she might have had good cause for that doubt. Scott should have been the one she could turn to.

  Was he too rigid? Too uncompromising? He had to concede that maybe the qualities that made him a good SEAL officer weren’t necessarily good for a boyfriend. Or a son. His teeth gritted, his mouth in a tight angry line, not wanting to think about that.

  He didn’t want to think about any of it, but after what had happened, he could no longer pretend that he didn’t care. He still had feelings for her. Intense feelings. Possessive feelings.

  He knew the sheriff had seen just how much that hug bothered him and not only understood why but also enjoyed Scott’s reaction. He’d been jealous. Which, as he’d admitted, was stupid. But it didn’t stop the feeling.

  From the way Natalie was eyeing him warily, he figured she’d guessed his mood if not the source.

  He sighed and forced himself to relax. It wasn’t her fault he was a caveman. “You okay?”

  She nodded, looking far from okay. She looked scared and close to tears. “I can’t believe they found me. I thought . . .” Her voice broke. “I thought I’d found a way out of it. But even with Mick dead there is no way out of this nightmare. They’re never going to leave me alone, are they?”

  Scott’s mouth tightened with anger. He wished he wasn’t driving so he could hold her. She sounded so fucking alone.

  But she wasn’t. He didn’t know what it meant, but he wanted her to count on him. Even if it meant he had to move his line in the sand a little and compromise on his beliefs, he was going to help her. His goal to clear his name hadn’t changed, but he wasn’t going to throw her to the wolves to do it.

  He reached over and covered her hand with his. It was like ice under his palm. “I’m not going to let them get to you, Nat,” he said with a squeeze of reassurance. He’d been caught unprepared, but he wouldn’t be again. “Damn it, it’s probably my fault. I must have led them to you somehow.”

  The timing was too much of a coincidence for him not to be responsible.

  “You think they followed you?” she asked.

  He shook his head. The men wouldn’t have waited three days. “I don’t think so. But something in my investigation must have alerted them and enabled them to track me to you.”

  “Who knows you were looking for me?”

  “I wasn’t looking for you; I was looking for Jennifer. And the only people who knew about that are the people who know I’m alive—and that isn’t very many.”

  As far as he was aware there were the five—now four—other survivors, Annie Henderson (Baylor’s fiancé), Brittany Blake, Kate, Colt, and the general. Mick could have warned someone before he’d been killed that some of the SEALs had survived the blast, but whoever he worked for wouldn’t have known about Scott specifically.

  “And no one knows you found me?”

  He shifted his gaze from the road for a moment to look at her. “I told my sister and her ex-husband.”

  Her eyes widened. Scott forgot that she knew about Colt.

  “The same ex-husband who hates you and threatened to kill you?”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Scott admitted. “But Colt has changed his tune a little since he found out the truth. My former teammate is, uh”—how to sum up Colt?—“complicated. It’s hard to explain, but even before he found out Kate and I were related I would have trusted him with my life—and yours. He would never betray a fellow SEAL.”

  The team had been Colt’s family; his loyalty to it—to them—was unwavering. Scott would have been dead otherwise.

  She seemed puzzled but willing to take his word for it. “Then how did they find me?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

  But he was going to have to be a hell of a lot more careful, especially if, as he suspected, someone had been monitoring Kate’s computers. Did the Russians have moles that deep? How else could they have tracked him?

  He didn’t know, but clearly someone wanted Natalie dead—and maybe him, too. The question was why. The Russians knew Natalie’s role as a spy had been compromised. She was no use to them anymore and already dead and quiet so why go to all the trouble to kill her again and risk exposure? Mick, her only contact, was dead. It could be punishment for betraying them or was there another reason? Did Natalie know something that she wasn’t telling him? Something she wasn’t supposed to know?

  Whatever it was, Scott was beginning to think that there was more to this than there seemed. Travis’s death—like the attempt on Natalie’s life—proved that the Russians weren’t going to quietly let it go. They were eliminating anyone who knew the truth. So what else was he missing?

  “What aren’t you telling me, Nat?”

  He was watching her out of the corner of his eye and saw her stiffen. “What do you mean?”

  “They sent five professional hit men after you. Why do they want you dead so badly?”

  She looked at him as if he was accusing her o
f something. Maybe he was, although he wasn’t sure what.

  “I thought . . .” Her voice dropped off and she turned away, staring out the black windows.

  “You thought what?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment before looking back at him. Her eyes were big, luminous, and filled with disappointment and unshed tears in the semidarkness of the car’s interior. “I thought you believed me.”

  “I want to,” Scott said, steeling himself against the misery in her voice. “I do. But you have to tell me everything.”

  “I am,” she cried out in frustration and obvious distress. “I have told you everything I can think of. I have no idea why they want me dead so badly. And frankly right now I don’t care! All I can think about are my parents and sister.” The tears that had been threatening started to slide down her cheeks. “If the people Mick was working for know I’m alive, that means my family isn’t safe anymore. They could go after them to punish me.” Her eyes widened and she covered the gasp that came from her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God, what if they are after them now? What if they decide to kill my family because they couldn’t kill me?” He didn’t need to glance over to see her escalating panic; he could hear it in her voice. She sat up and put a hand on his arm. “Please, Scott, I have to warn them. I have to do something to try to protect them. If anything happens to them . . .” Her voice broke and her hand squeezed. “Please.”

  Scott would have truly had to have had ice in his veins not to be moved by her pleas and terror for her family. He didn’t think they were in danger, but he wasn’t going to take the chance and be wrong. He was going to do what he could to help her, and protecting her family was a big part of it. He held the wheel with one hand and pulled his phone out of his pocket with the other.

  The number he wanted was programmed into the first speed dial slot. Scott and Dean Baylor might butt heads every now and then—or most of the time—but Scott knew he could count on his senior chief for anything. “It’s me,” Scott said when Baylor answered. “I need you to do something for me.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Natalie’s emotions were all over the place. She’d gone back and forth between terror and relief too many times tonight. But the panic over her family gradually subsided as she listened to Scott’s calm, authoritative, take-command-of-the-situation conversation with—she assumed—one of his men. She had to fill in information a few times, such as names and addresses, but it was clear, he was sending in a team to watch over them.

  He was helping her. She’d been right to put her trust in him.

  When he hung up, she didn’t know what to say. “Thank you” in no way captured the enormity of the gratitude she felt for him right now. He believed her. At least enough to help her protect her family, and that was all that mattered. It mattered a lot.

  It might not be enough, but she gave him her thanks anyway.

  He glanced over at her and accepted it with a nod. “There will be a team in place within a few hours, and they will stay there as long as we need them.”

  Natalie hadn’t been expecting something so quick. Whatever residual panic she’d been feeling slipped away and her emotions seemed a little less frazzled. “Do you have a private jet you didn’t tell me about?”

  He shot her a sideways glance, obviously not sure whether she was joking. She wasn’t sure, either. With Mr. Understated, Never Talk about Money, you never knew.

  “No, but one of my men’s soon-to-be father-in-law is the head of one of the biggest private security contractors in the US. He has the jets and the ability to mobilize an army in a couple hours. His men are mostly former Teamguys so they are used to operating on a short string.” She knew Scott had operated on a four-hour string, meaning he would be ready to go on a mission in four hours. His eyes held hers. “They’ll be safe, Nat. But you probably should give your parents a heads-up about what’s happening.” He nodded to the phone that he’d put in the tray between the two seats. “You can use it when you are ready.”

  She swallowed, feeling the emotion catching in her throat again. “What do I say?”

  He seemed to understand that she wasn’t just talking about the team who would be descending on her parents and sister. How did you tell the parents who’d loved you and welcomed you into their home that you’d betrayed them by spying on the country that had taken you in? She’d had a good reason and didn’t think she had a choice, but that didn’t prevent all the shame.

  Her parents were as red, white, and blue, apple pie, proud Americans from the heartland as there came.

  “Don’t worry about that right now,” Scott said. “You can explain everything later. Right now, I think they’ll just be happy to hear that you are alive.”

  He was right.

  Natalie’s hand shook as she picked up the phone and dialed the number. It rang five times before her mother picked up.

  The burning in Natalie’s throat had built and built with every ring so that when she finally heard the familiar voice—her mother’s voice—she could barely get the words out before the sobs racked her. “Mom, it’s me. It’s Natalie. I’m okay.”

  And strangely for the first time in a long time—since Mick had walked into that bar—she was.

  She had Scott to thank for that. They might by speeding south down the interstate, fleeing the hit team that was after them, but by protecting her family, Scott had given her the sense of peace and security she’d never thought to have again.

  She couldn’t help but wonder how long it would last.

  * * *

  • • •

  If Natalie was still lying to him, it wasn’t about her family. The emotions Scott heard in her side of the conversation with her mother were too deep and raw to be feigned—Oscar-caliber acting or not.

  But he was beginning to realize Natalie wasn’t much of an actor at all. Maybe that was what had made her so effective. Even behind the glossy mask that Mick had created, the genuine woman had shown through. That was why he’d trusted her and hadn’t guessed what she was up to.

  It was also why he’d never been able to figure her out. She really was two sides of a coin, and that was what made her so fascinating. Confident and driven enough to leave the family that she loved to go to Washington to fight an injustice, strong enough to stand up to and defy the man who’d raped her, smart enough to become the right hand of one of the most powerful men in the US government, and yet not too sophisticated or glamorous to know her way around a kitchen, power tools, and a toilet valve or to start an artisanal cheese business to save the family farm and create a job for her special-needs sister.

  Natalie might have tried, but she hadn’t been able to hide from him. Not completely. Especially when they were in bed or enjoying a leisurely Sunday morning with coffee and a paper—a real paper—on the balcony of his loft. That was when he’d seen the soft, vulnerable side of her that had never made sense.

  It made sense now.

  He listened to her sobs of relief and joy as she gave a truncated, tearful explanation of how she’d been blackmailed into doing something horrible, how Jennifer had been caught in the cross fire, and how she thought the only way out was to let them think she was dead, but that now the men were after her again.

  Scott didn’t need to hear the other side of the conversation to know that her mother was taking her to task for not telling them, but ultimately understanding and—as Scott had predicted—just beyond happy and grateful to know that her daughter was alive.

  Natalie explained how there would be some men arriving to keep them safe until this was over. Apparently her mother tried to protest, but Natalie was insistent. “It is necessary. These men mean business, Mom. They killed Jen, and they sent five men with assault rifles to try to do the same to me. Dad’s shotgun isn’t going to be enough. And what about Lana?”

  Scott sensed her mother’s capitulation. A
pparently Natalie wasn’t the only one who was fiercely protective of her sister.

  There was silence on the phone for a moment. Natalie’s gaze flickered to him uneasily. “Yes, he’s with me.” Another pause, where she seemed to be fighting a smile through the shimmer of tears. “Yes, he still knows how to handle a weapon, Mom. He doesn’t sit behind a desk all the time.”

  Scott shot her a sharp frown. Not because she’d obviously told her mother that he was in the military and an officer but because she’d let her think he wasn’t a ground pounder. He sat behind a desk when rotations demanded that he had to, but he was still operational, still deployed with his team, and still went on every op he could.

  He wouldn’t be ready to sit behind a desk permanently for a long time.

  A very long time.

  Natalie and her mother talked for a few more minutes, and although he got the feeling they were still talking about him, from Natalie’s “uh-huh’s” and “okay’s” he couldn’t figure out what they were saying.

  Just before she hung up, Natalie said, “I’ll call Lana and Dad later, once you have a chance to prepare them, okay?” and then the tearful “I love you, too,” that made him grip the wheel tighter and put all his focus on the road ahead of him.

  He didn’t trust himself to look at her. Hearing those words fall so easily from her mouth . . . it made his chest squeeze with a fierce sense of longing that he didn’t want to acknowledge.

  Natalie was quiet for a while and found some tissues in her bag to wipe her red-rimmed, swollen eyes. She flipped down the mirror, presumably to repair her eye makeup, but it wasn’t necessary—the makeup or the repair job. She was beautiful no matter what she did. The soft skin, the pouty red lips, the long wavy hair, the big baby-doll Slavic eyes . . .

  He cursed, feeling the heat stirring certain parts of his body—hard.

  Focus on the road.

  The focus didn’t last long. He could feel her eyes on him.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You were right; she didn’t care. At least not right now.” She paused, and when she continued her voice was thicker. “It was so good to hear her voice.”