Rock winced. “Mac was right. This is definitely fubar.”
And she had dropped it right in his lap.
…
As Ken Blake took the exit for Highway 29 south off Interstate 66, he checked his mirror again to make sure he hadn’t been followed. He saw nothing, but it didn’t help ease his nerves. He had been in some tight spots before, but this was the worst thing he had ever been through. He’d spent over thirty years in the military, going from one mess to another, coming up in the ranks of the Special Forces, and fighting against racism to be named one of the few African American generals in his day. In all those years, Ken had never met such a nasty bastard as Walter George.
He scanned the area as he stopped at the first red light. It was early yet, well before rush hour, and there were only a few cars on the street. In D.C., this would be considered deserted. In this area of Northern Virginia, it was normal. The area was growing, but it still had a small-town atmosphere.
Since he was stopped, he tried Millie’s number once more. Voicemail—again. Something was wrong. His gut told him that Millie was in trouble, but what kind of trouble? It had been over twenty-four hours since he’d first tried to reach her, right after someone had taken a shot at him. Of course, he hadn’t spoken to her in days, so she might have been missing much longer.
The light turned green, and he hit the gas. Not speeding, because getting stopped was not an option. He had to find a place to hide, to regroup, and to figure out just what the hell had happened. And maybe, just maybe, he might be able to locate Millie. He made it to the railroad tracks just in time for the barrier to go down as the lights flashed. Damn. He came to a stop and called Millie again. He didn’t care if he was being obsessive. He had been the one to hire Millie, and the fact that she was missing weighed heavily on him. He always took care of his troops, even if they didn’t wear uniforms.
Again, no answer. He barely paid attention as the lights flashed in his mirror as another car pulled up behind him.
Just as the train approached, the other driver pulled forward, tapping his back bumper. Ken looked up in the mirror but could not make out the driver’s face. What the hell. He tapped Ken’s car again, then slowly started to move forward onto the tracks, breaking the barrier. Before Ken could hit the gas to speed across, the bright light of the approaching train blinded him. He knew then there was no escaping the bad decisions he had made.
Chapter Four
Always beware of any man you come across, but be doubly worried about the women. They are much more treacherous.
—Mac Donovan
Mac awakened with a rush, fear and anger pulsing as she turned to face her attacker. Adrenaline flashed through her blood. She jackknifed up, ready to fight, but found herself flattened against the mattress with a hunky man on top of her. Panic surged through her, along with a healthy dose of anger as she struggled against the big, hard body pressing against her. Wrath quickly gave way to irritation, and then arousal, when she realized Vic was her assailant.
His mouth turned down in that sexy little frown that always made her want to corrupt him in so many ways.
“You could have lost your head there, Vic.”
He shook his head. “Nothing changes. Always on the attack when you wake up.”
She smiled. “You rarely complained, except for that time in Thailand.”
His mouth twitched as his expression lightened. There he was, the old Vic. Her heart warmed at the sight. They had always been like this. Banter, fighting, sex. They were really good at all three.
“Yes, but then you had a knife to my throat.”
She remembered that night as if it had just happened. They had both been after the same target. She’d broken into his room with the thought of gathering intel on him and what he had on the little start-up cult guru who had disappeared a few people. She was good at breaking and entering, but he had heard her, thrown her on the bed, and found himself with a knife to his throat. It had been kismet since the start.
“Who would have known the man I tried to kill would become my lover?”
His smile faded, and his eyes grew distant. The pit of her stomach hollowed out.
“Yeah, there is that,” he said, his voice flat.
He rolled off her and then sat up, but stayed on the bed. Cold air filtered over her flesh, and she fought off a shiver. She wanted to call him back. Bloody hell, she wanted to beg him. Because she felt that familiar twinge, the need that always seemed to tug at her heart when he was around, she changed the subject so she didn’t embarrass herself.
“So, why are you trying to wake me up?”
“I wasn’t trying to wake you up. I wanted to grab a few minutes of sleep.”
He did look tired. The dark circles beneath his eyes had grown more prominent in the last few hours. Add in the insane Duck Dynasty beard and long hair, and he just didn’t look like himself.
“I can go, if you want me to.” But he didn’t want to. Even if she couldn’t see it with her own eyes, she could hear it in his voice. He was exhausted. At that thought, she felt the weakening. She wanted to make him feel better, soothe his worries. It had always amazed her—this need to make his life easier. Never before or since had she wanted to do that for a person. She knew everyone had a weakness, and hers just happened to hate her. Granted, she had never told him she loved him—no matter how much she’d wanted to. Mac had learned that life wasn’t about gaining your heart’s desire. It was about surviving. Still, she wanted him to want to stay, to be with her. She refused to admit she needed him for more than just the job. She couldn’t go through the pain of his rejection again.
“And there isn’t another bed?”
He shook his head. “Actually, no. Millie has one room, and my brother and his issues are in the other free bed.”
“I wouldn’t call talking in his sleep an issue, especially since he doesn’t do it all the time.”
“First, he does it when he’s exhausted and stressed. Those are two things all of us are right now. And, when he does do it, it’s freaking weird. Last time, I had to listen to him try to talk some imaginary woman into bed. It was just wrong.”
She chuckled. “Okay, so we are stuck sharing a bed here.”
He didn’t smile. “We won’t be here long, hopefully.”
The temporary levity faded. Of course he wanted to leave. He’d ended their relationship before this big mess. She was damned sure that if Jay wasn’t tangled up in it, Vic wouldn’t have come back. He was here to fix the problem and get out. She would be smart to remember that.
“Give me a sec, and I’ll get out of your way.”
He nodded but didn’t move. Seeing that she was naked except for a very small pair of panties, she waited. Mac had never been prudish about nudity, but now that they weren’t an item, it felt odd. If she thought she could talk Vic into bed, she would prance around the room naked all day long. But those days were apparently over. They had too much crap to deal with at the moment anyway. She didn’t need the heartache it would bring. If she repeated that to herself enough times, she might just start accepting it.
“Vic.”
“Hmm?”
He was thinking, working out their problem in his head. She had seen him go through the process hundreds of times. When they had first worked together, it had irritated the bloody hell out of her. She had been a woman of action. Spending her childhood surrounded by diplomats who were always plotting their next move had created a real hatred for that behavior.
Vic, though, had been in the military. In his mind, plans don’t fail. You fail to plan. More than once, she had thought about murdering him when he repeated that saying to her. Then, things had changed. They were two different types of spies, both with their own way of doing things. Somehow, it had started to work. His process of working through a problem in his own head before action, the opposite of her regular way of doing things, became the ultimate turn-on. His mind was a beautiful thing.
And she didn’t need t
o see it in action, because then she would want to have some action.
“I need to get dressed.”
He glanced back over his shoulder at her. “And?”
Swallowing her pride, she said, “And I need some privacy.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really?”
Anger and a fair amount of pain burrowed into her chest. Her heart actually ached from it. Damn him for being him. And damn her for loving him.
“Yes. Really. We’re not a couple anymore.” She said the words from behind clenched teeth. Was he really that obtuse? He could be about things like this. It was why they’d ended up breaking up and fracturing the company. He was completely oblivious to relationship questions that still hung over their heads. Had always hung over their heads. The man could pick a liar out of any crowd, but he couldn’t seem to understand what made her tick. If he had, he might not have hurt her so badly when he left.
“Why?”
She tilted her head to one side and studied him. “You know why. We’re no longer involved.”
“No, why aren’t we a couple anymore?”
She blinked. Talk about thickheaded. He was asking her? With infinite patience, she said, “You walked out.”
He nodded. “How did we get here, to this point?”
He was killing her with these questions. Each one was another gash to the other heart. Did he not realize what this was doing to her? Mac knew if they started arguing again, she might just lose it. She would never do that. Not in front of him, at least.
“Do you really want to rehash that? Right now, in the middle of this mess?” she asked, embarrassed that her voice had risen.
What made the whole situation worse was the fact that this had happened because she had taken a contract with the NSA. Vic’s refusal to work with them had caused more than one fight in their history. When he had turned down a job that would have brought them quite a bit of cash without consulting her, she’d given him an ultimatum: work with the government, or get out.
He sighed. “Yeah, probably not a good idea.”
He sounded so sad, so lost. Mac couldn’t fight the need to comfort. It had come so easily with Vic. He’d known just how to make her feel better from the very beginning. She’d had to learn how to show affection outside of the bedroom. But he’d taught her, through his own actions. She slipped her hand over the covers to rest it on top of his.
He looked down at their hands and then back up at her. For a long moment, the only noise she heard was the tree scraping against the window. There was no deception in his brown gaze, and she didn’t mistake the heat there. Her breath caught as her heartbeat kicked up. Her nipples hardened against the plain white sheet as she felt the low hum of arousal dance through her blood. As he opened his mouth, someone knocked on the door.
She started to move her hand away, but he grabbed it and held on. He locked his gaze with hers, as if challenging her to look away. The man was impossible. He turned their issues into battles of will all the time. And this time, she wanted to give in. The fight she usually thrived on wasn’t that much fun anymore, not when she wanted him too badly. She wanted to melt down onto the bed and just be with him.
“Yeah?” he asked, his voice deeper than before. God, she loved that sound in his voice. It made her want to do all kinds of naughty things to him.
“Family meeting,” Jay said through the door. “We have some news, and we need to talk strategy.”
“Who put him in charge?” Vic asked.
“He’s trying to keep you from making a mistake.”
There was a long pause as he continued to look at her. She knew this was probably some kind of test, but she didn’t exactly know how to win or fail at it.
“Not sure it would be a mistake.” His tone told her he was serious.
“I think anything like that would be a mistake at this point, Vic.”
One eyebrow rose as he leaned down closer. Her heart was beating so hard, she was sure he could hear it. She tried to pull her hand away, but he held on tight. She looked up at him as he leaned closer. He was within a centimeter when Jay interrupted again.
“Vic?”
He rested his forehead against hers. “Cock blocked by my little brother.”
She smiled. “Not the first time.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Hey, are you two in there?”
Vic shook his head. “Yeah. Be out in a minute.”
They waited, as did Jay. A full five seconds passed before the squeak of the floor told her he had walked away.
“I don’t think I raised that boy right.”
She felt her lips curving. “You did a pretty good job, from where I am sitting.”
“I thought you said he was insane?”
“Doesn’t mean you didn’t raise him right. I got to work with him while you were…gone. He’s dependable, Vic. Like his brother.”
“Yeah, so dependable that I walked out.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m kind of glad you did.”
He let the comment hang in the air for a long moment before asking, “Why is that?”
“I don’t know if we would be able to talk to each other right now if you had stayed. We wouldn’t have been able to work together or be in the same room. We needed space, and you saved us.”
“How is it saving if we’re living apart and miserable?”
Hope sparked. “You were miserable?”
Another long sigh, this time filled with relief. “Every freaking second of every freaking day. You?”
She wanted to tell him she’d been having a grand time, but she could never really lie to him. Not about this.
“Yeah. The same.”
He nodded and brushed his mouth over hers. It was barely a kiss, but she felt it to the soles of her feet. The taste of him, the unique scent she knew as his, everything swept through her as she leaned closer to deepen the kiss. Her head started to spin, and she contemplated ways to entice him beneath the covers with her. Before she was prepared for it to end, he was pulling away.
“I’ll give you a moment,” he said, arousal shimmering his voice.
“Okay.”
He hesitated, then rose from the bed and walked out of the room. The moment the door closed, Mac let loose a breath she had not known she was holding. She closed her eyes and counted backward from ten.
Six months, and he still got to her. It had always been like this—always would be. He had walked into her life, made her fall in love with him, and left her a mess when he disappeared. Six years. Six freaking years, and she still couldn’t get him out of her system. Worse, she was pretty sure the only reason he’d returned was to help out Rock and Jay.
She needed to get downstairs, to go over the plan, but for once, she decided to take a minute for herself. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she rested her forehead on her knees. Mac knew she had done a lot of bad things in her life, but she knew she didn’t deserve this. She knew this was temporary, as their relationship had always been. That on-again, off-again thing had been exciting at first, but now she was a wreck every time he walked out the door. This last time almost had her going back to England and the spider web of her family.
That was just damned desperate.
It had been the finality that had gotten to her. Every other time they’d walked away, Mac had known they both planned on coming back. This last time, she’d sensed something different, something that told her they would not be able to mend their fences. As the days, weeks, and eventually months flew by, her worst fears had come true, and she hadn’t been able to handle it. Worse, it had been her own fault. In all their other fights, she had never given him an ultimatum. This time she had.
By the time they were done with the mission, he would walk out of her life again. And she would be left to pick up the pieces. It had taken everything she had in her to come back to work, to do what she needed to do. This time, if she let him get under her skin, there was a good chance she wouldn’t survive the crash.
Chapter Five
Be prepared for everything to go to hell every minute of the assignment.
—Vic Walker
Vic stood in the hallway for a few minutes and tried to get his head screwed on straight. He had known it would be like this. Known she would get to him. It was why he had stayed hidden in Virginia. It had been cowardly, but he had been trying to save the two of them. Just as Mac had said, he wasn’t sure if the two of them—or even the company—would have survived. No matter how screwed up their relationship was, if they were in a five-mile radius, they would be drawn together. It was embarrassing and a little bit sick the way they couldn’t seem to let go.
After pulling in a deep breath and releasing it, he headed to the kitchen. They hadn’t even started a real investigation, and he was ready for this to be over.
He stepped into the kitchen and found his brother, Rock, and Millie there. Jay eyed him as if he were something lower than life. It seemed he and his brother were going to have to a come-to-Jesus talk soon. Jay showed no emotion—which meant a shit storm was about to hit. Millie’s skin was blotchy and her eyes red. Damn, he hated crying women.
He heard Mac’s soft footsteps behind him right before the light, herbal scent of her reached him. His blood heated, his body responding to the idea that she was nearby. Vic stepped aside to let her through. She glanced at him as she walked by but said nothing as she grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and sat next to Jay.
She looked better than when she had first showed up at his cabin. Her eyes were clear, and she wasn’t as pale as she had been. Vic rolled his shoulders to loosen the knot that had formed there. He settled in the dining room chair—head of the table.
“So, what do you have?” he asked.
The Boss Page 4
