by Dana Marton
Cade flashed him a doubtful look, but didn’t say anything.
IF SHE THOUGHT they were going to spend the day sitting around, she was mistaken. Reid had the cabin transformed into command headquarters in no time. Calls were coming in from his friends one after the other.
Jason had been picked up. Apparently, the FBI had been tipped off to his little arrangement at the clinic and was out there right now collecting evidence. Carly was calling in with explanations on every new file she cracked on the CD. Another friend was apparently driving by that railroad bridge in question and sending in photos. There were even aerial photos from some satellite. Reid had grinned pretty wide when he’d gotten that one, and muttered something like, “Thank you, Colonel.”
In between fielding calls, he was going over his maps. Over and over. And checking his weapons.
“I want one,” she said at last, coming to a decision. “I want you to teach me how to use it.”
He looked up from his work. “Are you sure?”
She expected some resistance. His immediate agreement, his faith in her, was gratifying. Yet she felt wary of it. She didn’t want to like him. He was the reason why she was in this mess, the reason her babies were in danger. But it was becoming more and more difficult to maintain that edge of anger toward Reid when she saw how hard he was working to get Zak and Nate back.
And yet, she had to keep the wall up. So maybe she could forgive him—he hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. But she couldn’t go beyond that. No liking him, no needing him. Definitely no wanting him. He would leave as soon as she had the twins back. He’d been clear about that. And, of course, that was exactly what she wanted. Definitely.
Who needed all this danger, upheaval and excitement? Not her. She craved safe and steady.
He pulled a small handgun from his bag. “All right. Watch this. This is how you load it.” He popped bullets into the magazine. “This is how you take off the safety.”
Didn’t look too complicated. And just because she wanted to learn how to use a gun, since she might need that skill in the very near future, didn’t mean that she was getting drawn into his kind of life.
He handed her the loaded gun and stood. “Let’s see if you can hit anything.”
They went behind the cabin. He picked up a stone and put it on top of a woodpile. Then he came and stood next to her as she lifted the weapon.
“Line up the sight. Lock your knees, lock your elbows. Don’t wait too long. The longer you wait, the more your arms will shake. Lift, aim, shoot.”
She lowered her arms, then lifted the gun again, looked at the stone and imagined the masked man who’d grabbed her babies while the other was tying her up. She squeezed the trigger. The stone flew up in the air.
Reid capped her on the shoulder. “Pretty impressive. You’re a natural.” He grinned at her with genuine admiration.
She grinned back, feeling better, feeling as if she might have some sort of control for the first time. She could and would fight for her sons. She was pretty sure Reid wouldn’t ask her to stay behind this time.
She liked the small surge of confidence that came from her newfound competency. Although, part of her wouldn’t have minded some learning curve. He didn’t even have a chance to put his arms around her to show how to properly line up the sight.
Surprise at the thought made her blink hard. Since when had she wanted Reid Graham to put his arms around her? “I better shoot a few more rounds,” she said to yank her thoughts back from that track.
He lined up a dozen stones this time.
She missed the first, got the next four right, missed another one, then finished the row.
“You have seriously good aim.”
“Exactly why I still have ten fingers. You can’t have bad aim and wield a cleaver for a living.”
“I didn’t think about that,” he admitted, then smiled even wider, revealing strong, white teeth. “Hand-eye coordination is a beautiful thing.” He lifted a hand and brushed his thumb across her jaw.
Their gazes locked. She couldn’t move as he lowered his head to hers.
“And so is lip-to-lip coordination,” he said before he kissed her. Deeply. With military thoroughness.
Her brain was as foggy as a Scottish Highland meadow on a cold fall morning. “Oh,” she stammered when he pulled away. “But why?”
“You don’t know what it does to a guy when he sees a hot woman shoot like Dirty Harry.”
The only word that registered with her was dirty.
She drew a shaky breath, gathered her thoughts. Okay, so there was some leftover attraction, but they didn’t need to act on it. Falling back in lust with him again would be the stupidest thing she could do.
“Pretty reckless, aren’t you?” She shot a pointed glance at the gun in her hand. “What if I didn’t like it?”
“I counted the bullets, just in case,” he said.
And kissed her again.
Damn the man, he had an answer for everything.
SHE’D LET HIM KISS HER. More than once, so neither could claim that it had been an accident. Damn if he knew what that meant.
What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he have to kiss her?
Lara had asked him that same question, more politely worded. Reid had given her a glib answer, one that disguised how much the kiss had shaken him. He’d written off that one runaway kiss at the safe house to surprise. After Hopeville, he hadn’t expected to ever see her again. She’d taken him off guard by being even more beautiful than he remembered, having turned into an amazing woman.
One small judgment error. That was supposed to be the end of it.
He wasn’t supposed to be kissing her again. He was going to walk away when this was over. He tried to remind himself of that as he went through the latest file Carly had sent him, while Lara warmed up the food Cade had left for them.
“You have some pretty good friends. Part of your team?”
“We don’t really work as a team.” SDDU soldiers mostly worked lone-wolf operations. All information on missions was disseminated on a need-to-know basis. He didn’t even know all the team members, aside from the ones he’d met in training, or at the colonel’s office, or on the rare joint mission.
Yet, he had to admit, Cade and Carly had come through for him. Long-held beliefs were reorganizing themselves in his head. Lara and the kids were making him look at things in a new way. He’d always thought of himself as a lone soldier, which worked for him just fine. He preferred things that way.
But Lara was right. The SDDU was more than a unit of independently operating commando guys who went on undercover missions all over the world. There was something that held them all together. A link that was much stronger than he’d realized.
He hated links. Links were a good way to hurt someone or get yourself hurt, messing up some critical mission. Soldiers like him ought to be able to stand on their own two feet. Except that he had reached out this time. And aid had been given to him unconditionally. And it had really helped. At the moment, having Cade and Carly and even Lara on his side, he felt stronger, not weaker.
“Reid?”
He looked up from the laptop, stashing away that last thought.
“I appreciate you helping me.”
“They’re my boys, too.” And, man, was that weird to say. “But I’d help even if they weren’t.”
“We’ll get them back tonight, right? And then this will be all over and everything will go back to the way it was before.” She was slightly bent forward over the stove, a few curls of her silky hair falling in front of her face, her amazing body outlined by the firelight.
The way it was before… She and the boys in Hopeville. He in a fake life somewhere far away from her, deep undercover. Damned if that picture didn’t burn his stomach like acid. But he said, “Sure, honey.”
She smiled at him, a smile that warmed his heart. “We make a good team, don’t we?” There was something in her eyes….
He knew without a
doubt that danger lay that way for the both of them. They couldn’t fall back into some sentimental memory. They couldn’t pretend that if they gave into temptation, it would lead somewhere this time.
“What we have here…” He paused. “Don’t overestimate it, okay?” A warning that he should heed himself. “To get those boys back, you would have teamed up with the devil.” He was warning her off, even as he wanted nothing more than a kiss.
She looked at him for a good, long time, understanding what he was saying, the smile slipping off her face, a thoughtful look replacing it as she whispered, “Maybe I did.”
He swore under his breath. The sane part of him knew he needed to keep her at arm’s length. The rest of him wanted to gather her in his arms, demanding to know what a few more kisses could hurt. At least he’d have some memories to take with him when the time came to walk away.
Chapter Eight
The woodstove was going full blast in the one-room cabin, thanks to Cade, who had a considerable woodpile out back. A small kitchen took up the front, the same stove used for heating and cooking. One bed was pushed against the back wall. There was enough room in between for the five or six camping beds that she’d seen folded up in a shed out back.
Next to the shed stood an old-fashioned outhouse, which due to winter temperatures was a lot less spider-infested than she had expected. Thank God for small mercies. Blood and gore she was fine with, but bugs seriously scared her, a weakness she covered up in front of the boys as much as she could.
She didn’t want Zak and Nate to be afraid of anything. Which meant she would have to set a good example.
And what kind of an example would their father set if he took part in their lives? That was the thought she was chewing over as she headed out to the facilities while it was still light enough outside to see what she was doing. When she was done, she went back in to wash up. A basin of water waited on the kitchen table. She’d already used some of it to wash the dishes.
Reid lay on the bed, fully clothed. “I already washed. That’s clean water for you,” he said, and turned to the wall.
As if that made her feel more comfortable. She stared at his wide back for a second. To take off her clothes or not, that was the question. His presence was impossible to ignore. The awareness of him in the room sent tingles across her skin.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. They had some leftover chemistry, they made a good temporary team, but what they had was nothing special. He’d all but spelled that out for her. Anger that was becoming familiar filled her little by little. Good. At least that was a safe emotion when she was around him.
She took off her coat. Pulled off her bulky sweater. Hesitated on the long-sleeved T-shirt. Then realized she hadn’t had a shower in two days. She yanked the T-shirt off, then her bra, washed as quickly as she could before she dressed again with lightning speed. Then she put the basin on the floor, stripped below the waist and washed the rest of her body, careful not to soak her bandages on her ankles and wrists.
When she was done, she took the water outside, almost dumped it right in front of the door, but realized that it would freeze by morning, so she took it over to the side where nobody would slip on it. When she went back in, she locked the door behind her.
Reid had turned off the generator earlier, but the fire lit the place sufficiently, so she didn’t miss the overhead lights. He still lay with his back to her.
She took a tentative step closer. “Where do I sleep?”
He shifted closer to the wall, leaving a foot-wide space on the bed.
She glanced at the floor. Cold and hard. Then thought of the fold-up beds in the shed. They were freezing cold. And probably the winter residence of all the spiders who’d gone into hiding from the cold weather.
“We’ll rest a couple of hours, then get on the road around eleven. That should get us to the bridge in time,” he said without turning.
She sat on the side of the bed. The mattress was still warm from his body. She ignored the yearning that unfurled low in her belly. “What if we oversleep?”
“I don’t oversleep.”
“Would you set an alarm anyway?”
He pulled out his cell phone and did. “Just so you can rest. Stop worrying.”
Good advice. If only she could take it. She lay down with her back to him, her feet still on the floor. When she felt comfortable with that, she pulled her feet up. They stayed like that, quiet in the darkness, listening to each other breathing. Then she could feel the mattress shift as he turned onto his back behind her.
“Do you realize that we have two kids together and this is the first time we ever shared the same bed?”
That so did not help her relax. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said drily.
He gave a low chuckle. “It wasn’t my hopes that you used to get up, back in the old days.”
She flushed crimson. She was the mother of two. She was a cleaver-wielding, tough-chick butcher, for heaven’s sake. She resented the whole pink-cheeked business. Thank God, he couldn’t see her face.
“I lusted after you pretty much from the get-go,” he admitted with a manly sigh.
And, although her face was still burning, she didn’t stop him from saying more.
“I walked over to see who was next door. You had your back to the door, using that industrial meat grinder, wearing that little red apron of yours, cinched around a narrow waist…plenty of curves above and below. Damn.” He clicked his tongue. “It was like walking into a fantasy. A centerfold operating heavy machinery.”
“Well, if you’re going to mock me—”
“You had your hair up, the sun coming in the window, hitting the sweet curve of your neck where a man would give anything to be able to press his lips against. Hell, I was ready to vault over the counter.”
“You didn’t.”
“You turned.”
“And I was a disappointment?” She braced for hurt feelings.
“Yes.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. What did she care what he’d thought of her anyway?
“Way too young. I told myself I couldn’t come anywhere near you.” He gave a pained laugh. “We both know how long that lasted. I’m sorry, Lara.” He put a warm hand on her arm, just below her shoulder.
“What part did you regret the most, exactly?” she asked, annoyed, because she hadn’t regretted any of it.
To give him credit, he actually thought before he gave his answer. “Hard to say. Not the making love part, for sure. And the leaving part couldn’t be helped.” Then he added in a low voice, “I regret that I wasn’t someone else, the kind of guy who could have stayed and deserved you.”
That about melted her heart. She had to work hard to get to her anger. “Zak and Nate are not mistakes.”
“No.” His lips connected with the sensitive skin at her nape as he grazed her skin. “This is where that sunlight danced when I first saw you,” he whispered, then dragged his lips over the spot again.
She felt that touch all the way down to her toes. And had to realize that, as much as she’d matured and grown up over the last two years, she was still hopelessly out of her depth with this man, even if he didn’t mean anything by what he was doing. At best, he was only trying to comfort her.
“You cut your hair,” he said, his warm breath fanning her skin.
Electric currents ran down her spine. “It beats having to pull it up all the time or wearing hairnets.”
“I always thought you looked hot in a hairnet.”
“You were probably distracted by all that machinery I was operating.” A reluctant smile split her lips. “Hairnets don’t go with anything.”
“Then again, in a sexy hairnet, who needs other clothing?” His voice dropped some, its low tone making her want to melt back into his arms.
Her breath stopped as she caught herself.
Nothing good could come of something like this. Her first instinct was to run. But she had nowhere to go. She had to face him. She turned aro
und slowly, reaching for her anger again, worried that it was becoming more and more difficult to find. “Are you kidding me? We’re flirting now? You’re coming on to me? Haven’t you learned anything?”
“Apparently not.” He drew a slow breath that made his wide chest rise in a most distracting way. Then he gathered her closer and kissed her lips.
She was so going to fight him this time. Tooth and nail.
She fell into the kiss, into his heat and the comfort his body offered. She submerged herself in the oblivion of it all.
She was going to fight it…soon. Any minute now.
But the kissing went on for a good, long time before she slowly gathered herself. “No way.” She pushed him away at last. “This is not going to happen.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.” She raised an indignant eyebrow and hoped he wouldn’t realize that she was faking all the bluster, that another touch, a single finger caressing her heated skin would likely do her in.
“I liked it better when you were all shy and innocent.”
“Is that how you remember me?”
“Yeah.” The flames from the stove reflected in his eyes, which looked dark-chocolate in this light. “But mostly, I just remember how hot you were and how hot and bothered you got me. Thank God for that baker’s apron. It hid a lot of embarrassing moments, if you know what I mean.” He gave a wicked grin.
Her cheeks flared again. At least her face was in the shadows. She needed a second to gather herself. Don’t think tented aprons. Think something responsible. Think family. “I was never shy. I take after Granny Jordan. I do what I have to. That was her motto.”
“The more I hear about her, the more I like her.”
That warmed her heart, since Granny Jordan had meant more to her than just about any other person in her family. “I don’t know what she would have made of you,” she admitted.
“Probably not much.” His face clouded over as he looked beyond her toward the fire. “Having done the things I’ve done. Sometimes you’re on a path, and you don’t realize how steep it is. Before you know it, you’ve rolled so damned far, you can no longer even see any other roads you could have taken. There’s such a thing as having gone too far for a turnaround.”
