by Dana Marton
“A sports team?” he guessed, looking puzzled.
“An organization of women pilots founded by Amelia Earhart.”
“You’re kidding.”
“She was brave and wild and had a life fit for the movies. My mom didn’t like her. Probably because my father idolized her. Mom didn’t get the whole flying high on the wings of freedom concept.”
“But your grandmother was your hero.”
“Right. So Dad died when I was twelve, same year as Granny Jordan, and Mom had even more rules after that. I think she was scared of raising a teenage girl alone. It was like living in a nunnery. Then I went away to college and saw a little freedom for like five minutes before she got sick and I went home to take care of her. Then she died, and I was in a daze for a while. Then my uncle retired to Florida and gave me his butcher shop in Hopeville.”
“Why you?”
“He doesn’t have any kids. He’s too old to do the work. He said he didn’t mind if I sold it, but he didn’t have the heart to. And I wanted to do that, but then I came to Hopeville, and… Even the name. It had starting over written all over it. It was scary. It was something my mother would have never done, and Granny Jordan would have taken on in the blink of an eye.”
He nodded. “So where do I come into the picture?”
“I was going to live a life of excitement like my grandmother. You were my first wild adventure.” She bit her lip. “And then I learned my lesson.”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “I don’t think an adventuring spirit can be silenced that easily.”
Oh, yes it can. “Mine was,” she said to make sure he understood. “Silenced. Dead and buried.”
He shook his head. “Is that why, instead of staying at a safe house under protection, you insisted on coming with me to steal a deadly virus from a bunch of terrorists?” For a second, he took his eyes off the road to look at her.
And what she saw in his gaze confused her. There was warmth there and appreciation and, for a second, a distinct flair of desire.
She swallowed hard and looked away, out the side window at the houses flying by them.
“What if you were born to be wild?” he asked, his voice like a warm, gooey cinnamon roll all of a sudden.
She remembered that voice. It had been her undoing two years ago. She’d had no defenses against it then. She better damn well find some now. And fast.
What did he know about her, anyway?
She was not born to be wild. She wasn’t even attracted to wild. She might have been at one point. But definitely not anymore. Life had cured her of that. She was going with Reid simply because she couldn’t stand staying behind. She needed to be part of the effort to find her babies.
“Remind me again why the FBI can’t go and investigate that virus and this Jason guy?” she asked.
“We don’t have the CD the kidnappers want. We’ll need something else to negotiate with.”
“Is this where the virus comes in?”
“Partially. The virus comes in on many levels. For one, we want to take it out of circulation as soon as possible.”
That was good. Made sense. And she was also glad that whoever had taken her babies wanted to negotiate. There was hope then. And Reid was on her side. As much as she hated the idea of who he was, some undercover agent who made a living by spying and fighting, she did appreciate that she had a warrior on her side just now.
When she’d first spotted him at the restaurant, it was as if her most impossible dreams had come true. She could barely believe her eyes. She couldn’t have been happier. Then she’d realized that he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. That all he’d ever done was lie to her. That she hadn’t meant anything to him, as proven by the fact that he could leave her without a second thought. And then she got mad. Disappointed and hurt, too, but mostly angry as hell.
Now she was just desperate. She was ready to forgive him for abandoning her if he helped her get Zak and Nate back.
The miles whizzed by them. Interminable minutes followed one another.
“They really are yours, you know,” she told him as he took the next exit off the highway and went in the drive-through of a fast-food restaurant. “The boys.” She wasn’t sure why it was important to make him believe—whether it was so he wouldn’t think she was a liar, or maybe some part of her thought that if he truly believed her he would fight harder for them. She didn’t examine her motives too closely.
“I know.”
Good. So he hadn’t changed his mind about that yet again. “How?” she asked.
“I looked into their faces. Burgers okay?”
“Fine. With lots of coffee.” She wasn’t hungry, but she understood that to keep their strength up they needed to eat at regular intervals. “Everyone says the twins look like me.”
“Maybe around the mouth. But my mother could show you some of my baby pictures…” He grinned as he shook his head.
“You have a mother?”
He gave a low grunt. “Are insults really necessary at this stage?” He took their food and got back on the road.
She flashed him a look. “Back when we met, you told me you didn’t have a family.”
“Right. I try to keep her out of my undercover work.” He started on his food.
She started on hers. “Your father?”
“Died in the First Gulf War. He was the same age I am now. We don’t know the circumstances.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“He was MIA for a long time. We kept hoping the Iraqis had him. POW. At least he would have been alive. I was eighteen when he went missing, college freshman. As I said, we kept hoping. The last of the troops came home. July 31, 1991. He didn’t come with them. When the second war came around, I looked for him personally. I was in the army by then.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” she said, but soon her thoughts went in another direction.
He was watching her. “What? You have that look on your face.”
“Zak and Nate have a grandmother.” She couldn’t help a small smile. “I always thought they were going to grow up without a father. Always wished that at least they had grandparents. I was always worried that they had nobody but me. What if something happened to me, you know? My uncle is great, but he’s pretty far away. And he has too many health issues to take on two little kids if I was no longer in the picture.” She shrugged. “Once you become a mother, worries come out of the woodwork to keep you up all night.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he said brusquely. “And when my mother spoils them rotten, you might wish she lived in Florida.”
“Where does she live?”
He hesitated.
Was he, even now, unsure how far he was going to let her and the twins into his life?
But then he said, “Easton.”
And she forgot everything else. “That’s not far from Hopeville!” A picture flashed in her mind: herself, the boys, Reid, a smiley grandmother.
She mercilessly squashed the image and the feelings it brought. No sense setting herself up for heartache. She had plenty of hurt on her plate at the moment. She wasn’t looking for extra servings.
When his phone rang, the food got stuck in her throat. She swallowed painfully as she listened.
“Okay,” he was saying. “We can be there in twenty minutes.”
“What is it?”
“The exchange is set at an abandoned gas station sixty miles north of here.” He was already executing a U-turn, tires squealing, traffic rules be damned.
Panic squeezed her throat. “But we don’t have any thing to trade.”
“Look in the glove compartment.”
She did.
“Pick a CD.”
She did. The cover sported lots of chains, leather and makeup—a popular heavy metal band.
“Take out the paper cover. Turn the disc blank side up.”
Her hands were shaking all of a sudden, but she man aged. “They’
re going to know.”
“Eventually. But we can fool them long enough to get close to the babies and grab them.”
Oh, God. She was beginning to hyperventilate.
No. She steadied herself. She wasn’t going to fall apart. If Reid could hold tough, then so could she. She would do anything for her babies.
She rolled her shoulders the way she’d seen him do it. Practiced deep breathing. Counted the miles.
The abandoned gas station was dark and empty when they pulled in. Reid picked a spot so that the whole area was visible, at the far corner of the lot where nobody could park behind them. He laid his gun on his lap, pulled his bag of assorted weapons from the backseat and set it at her feet, opened the zipper.
“Can I have one of those?” She held out a hand, hating that her voice was unsteady.
“Are you a good enough shot not to put the babies at risk?”
Her shoulders slumped as she dropped her hand. She’d never shot a weapon before. But she wanted to do something.
“Biggest help would be if you did what I told you, when I told you. No distractions.”
She nodded.
When a car went by on the road, they both tensed. They were outside the limits of whatever town lay up ahead. Traffic was sparse in the middle of the night. End less, painful minutes ticked by, one after the other.
Soon they were ten minutes past the agreed handover time. Then half an hour. Nothing happened, nobody came. Cars went by from time to time, but none of them as much as slowed.
When they had sat there for a full hour in vain, Reid swore under his breath, then pulled out.
“Where are you going?”
“They aren’t coming.”
“You don’t know that.” She couldn’t bear the thought that the handover wasn’t happening. She’d been counting on having her babies back in her arms. All this time she’d been telling herself that it would be only a matter of minutes now.
They had to come.
“This was just a test. They wanted to make sure we were still alone, that we didn’t call in the law. We have to get to that clinic. Faking it with the disc would have been okay if we had no other choice. But things will go a hell of a lot easier if we have real leverage.”
On some level, his words made sense, but she turned and kept the gas station in sight for as long as she could, hoping until the very last second that someone would show up with her babies.
Reid checked the rearview mirror often as he drove, taking sudden turns, doubling back a couple of times.
“Are we being followed?”
“Might have been. Couldn’t tell for sure. We’re not anymore,” he said with confidence.
She was still shaky with anguish when he pulled into the parking lot of a medical complex and parked in front of a squat, white building.
She reached for the door handle.
“Not yet,” Reid said.
“What are we waiting for?”
“It’s four in the morning. We’re waiting for the clinic to open and for our man to come in.”
“Can’t we just go in and get what we need?” Normally, she was a law-abiding citizen to the extreme. But there was no line she wasn’t willing to cross for Zak and Nate.
“I don’t exactly know what the virus would look like. I’m assuming it’s a vial among trays and trays of vials. I doubt the bastard has it labeled Deadly Virus. And I need to ask him some questions anyway.”
“So we’re just going to sit here for hours, waiting?” She couldn’t stand the thought of that. By the time the clinic opened, she was going to drive herself crazy with worrying. Every minute that passed, her babies were without her, in danger, possibly getting hurt. The thought was killing her.
“We’re going to sleep,” Reid said evenly.
“How can you even think of sleeping at a time like this?” Her nerves short-circuited as she hissed the words at him. “Don’t you care at all? Don’t you know that Zak and Nate are scared right now? Don’t you wonder if their diapers have been changed? If they’ve been fed? Why couldn’t we sleep at the gas station, for heaven’s sake? We could have given them longer to show up.”
He let her smack him in the shoulder. Then he gently took her hands. His gaze held hers. His voice dropped as he said, “They weren’t coming. And I care. I can’t stand this. But I will, because I have to. I will sleep, be cause it’s the smartest thing to do to keep my body and mind in optimum fighting condition, and I’m planning on fighting to the death if I have to. I will get our boys back.” He placed her hands back into her lap. “Now, sleep.”
Her skin tingled where he touched her. She tried to rub away the sensation. “I really can’t.”
He reached over, undid her seat belt and pulled her toward him until her head was resting on his shoulder, his right arm around her. “Try it anyway. I’ll leave the motor running for heat.”
He laid his head back against his headrest and closed his eyes. His breathing was slowing already.
“I’m sorry I lost it,” she said weakly. “Don’t worry about it. You deal with this whatever way you can.”
A moment of silence passed between them.
She shifted into a more comfortable position. “Do you do this often? Stakeout, I mean. How do you stand it?”
“When you’re undercover, that’s how it goes. You spend ninety-nine percent of your time waiting for something to happen that you can either report back or act on.”
“What happens with the other one percent?”
“Manure hits the fan, and you wish like hell you were still waiting.”
She thought about that, about what his day-to-day life must be like. She had trouble even imagining it. She didn’t fight it when, after a while, comforted by his warm body, she felt herself drift off to sleep.
She was awakened by a kiss to her forehead. “Time to roll, sleeping beauty.” His voice was rusty, as if he’d just woken up a moment ago.
Dawn was lighting up the sky behind the clinic buildings. Men and women were filtering through the revolving doors at the main entrance.
She pulled away from Reid, ran her fingers through her hair, then her gaze focused on the cold coffee in the cup holder. She drank it to the last drop, startled when Reid suddenly lifted his head and shot out of the car, barking a low, “Stay,” as he went.
A scrawny, bald guy was getting out of his car one row ahead of them, midfifties, glasses, long gray coat. Reid maneuvered to get there just as the man put his steaming travel mug on the car’s roof and bent to lock the door.
Lara slid out of the car quietly, and moved closer as Reid trapped the guy against his own vehicle.
“Jason?”
“Who are you?” The man scrambled to the side, but couldn’t get away once Reid had him by the elbow. “What do you want?” He pulled his neck in.
“I’m here early for the pickup.”
Jason’s eyes darted from side to side behind his wire-rim glasses. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. Let’s see what goodies you keep in your freezer.” Reid opened his coat and flashed the gun tucked into his waistband.
Jason turned a shade paler. Reid let his coat drop closed before pushing the man toward the building. He went, but not without argument.
“You can’t do this. There are security cameras here.” His gaze was darting around, but the parking lot was fairly empty since it was still early in the morning. No one to help him.
Reid patted his coat. “One wrong move and you’ll be dead by the time whoever is watching the cameras in the security office gets out here.” He spoke matter-of-factly, almost as if bored that he had to explain something so obvious. Yet an underlying menace was present, made even colder by the fact that his words had been spoken so low key.
This is who he is, she thought as a shiver ran across her skin.
He dominated any environment he was in. He was always scanning his surroundings, alert. She didn’t think a mouse could have crossed t
he parking lot without him noticing. The gap between reality and the fantasy man she’d made of him in her mind over the last two years was enormous. And she still grieved for that fantasy man. But she was glad that the real Reid Graham was who he was, here right now and fighting on her side.
The warmth and pull she felt toward him suddenly caught her off guard. His show of strength and that macho alpha-male stuff were kick-starting her hormones. She bit her bottom lip. No. Absolutely not. Sure, he was still gorgeous. Sure, he had a body to make her go cross-eyed just being next to him. But she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. She’d grown up a lot since lust for him had so thoroughly turned her head. This time, she so wasn’t going to go there.
Would she let him help her get the twins back? Yes. But right after that, they were going their separate ways again.
When some people came toward them, Reid let Jason go. “I’m a very good shot. I wouldn’t try anything stupid if I were you.”
And even if Jason was completely immoral, he wasn’t stupid, apparently, because he kept going without raising a fuss, simply nodding to his colleagues. If they noticed the miserable look on his face, they didn’t comment.
“You stay in the waiting area,” Reid told her as they walked into the spacious lobby with its cheerful colors. He hadn’t looked back at her since he’d left her in the car but, of course, he would know that she was there, a few steps behind him.
She took one look at the blue plastic chairs by the wall and followed him straight to the back, where Jason opened a door marked Staff Only with his ID card.
The lights were on, which meant there were already some people inside, although they couldn’t see anyone as Jason led them to the labs in back. Lara walked in after them, ignoring the deadly glare Reid flashed her.
“I’ll need a cooler,” he told the man.
Jason pulled one from under a stainless steel desk.
“How long is the virus viable after it’s thawed?”
The man shrugged, wouldn’t look at them.
Reid went for his gun, lifted the barrel to the guy’s forehead. “You want to answer that.” His voice was cold enough to compete with the cryogenic freezer.
