“My keys?”
“Don’t think I don’t know that you’ll take off without me, the minute my back is turned. So, either walk with me to my car or give me the keys.”
“You don’t trust me.” He was surprised at the pain he heard in his own voice.
“Should I?”
“Yes, of course. Just because we broke up doesn’t mean I’ve changed who I am.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “Maybe the Quinn Stone who bails when the going gets tough is the real you.”
“Come on, Nina.” He took a step closer. “You know me and you have to know that’s not true. You can trust me.”
She kept her hand out, her expression now unreadable.
“Or not,” he said, the discomfort from her assessment hitting hard. He knew he’d done a number on her when they’d broken up, but this?
She jutted out her hip at an angle. Her comments still stung, but he loved when she got all hot and bothered like this. Her fiery temper kicked his pulse up.
“Time’s a wasting.” She wiggled her fingers. “Keys, or I go alone.”
He hated to give up the keys. It was like an admission that she couldn’t trust him, but she was right. They needed to get moving. He dug them out and slapped them on her palm.
She spun, and despite the need to depart, he watched her walk away. She had this way of swaying her hips that he would never get tired of looking at. Not only him. He’d seen other guys watching her, too.
A jolt of jealousy hit him. They talked six months ago when he’d helped on an FBI investigation and she’d said she wasn’t dating anyone, but she could be with someone now. He tried to ignore the unsettled feeling in his gut and moved his E&E bag to the back to free up the front seat.
When he’d stopped home to change into the suit, he’d had no idea he’d be heading into rugged terrain, but he’d grabbed his bag anyway. It was a typical escape-and-evasion bag, smaller and meant for a shorter period of time than this one that he kept at his parents’ house. Though Nina would bring her Go bag that all law enforcement officers stowed in their trunks, his was geared more for survival, while hers was for self-protection and first aid.
He settled his stuff, including the confounded suit in the back, then saw her marching toward him. A large tote hung from her shoulder, and a pair of worn sneakers dangled from her fingers. He took the bag, his fingers brushing her shoulder.
She shot him a look as sharp as his KA-BAR. He got it. Loud and clear. She didn’t want him touching her. Even by accident.
He signaled his understanding by holding his hand up and taking a step back. She jerked her eyes away before sitting down to change her shoes. He tried not to stare at her long legs, bare to the hem of her skirt riding up her thigh. She may be mad at him for leaving, but he could still feel the chemistry sizzling between them. She had to feel it, too. He suspected that was the real reason she didn’t want him to touch her.
She slipped on a sneaker and tied it. “So what happened to the suit?”
“I couldn’t take it for another second.”
She swiveled her legs inside the car. “Then why wear it to begin with?”
“We have this saying in BUD/S.” He climbed behind the wheel, tugged his jacket off, and tossed it in the back for the drive. “To survive training with the least amount of turmoil, you want to become the gray man.”
“Gray man.” She handed over his keys. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that doesn’t mean wearing an ill-fitting gray suit.”
“You’re so on the ball.” He laughed and started the engine.
“What does it really mean, then?”
“In BUD/S, it’s the instructors’ job to push you mentally to the end of your reserves. Over and over again, until you’re as tough as you need to be to withstand the rigors of the job. Or they break you, you finally give up, and ring the brass bell of defeat. Then you leave your helmet with all the other quitters’ helmets for the entire class to see.”
“Sound’s humiliating.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. But we all know going in that it could happen.”
“But not to this mysterious gray man?”
“Exactly. From day one of training, the instructors latch onto soldiers who can’t cut muster and ride them unmercifully to get them to quit. No one wants to be that guy. You want to do everything so well, so perfectly, that the instructors never notice you. That’s the gray man.”
“You wore the suit so no one would notice you?” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Not sure you accomplished that, but I can see where a suit is less out of place than your usual attire.”
“You’re just skeptical because you didn’t know the suit was part of my cover. I was a door-to-door salesman.” Hoping to lighten the mood, he grinned at her. “Want to hear my pitch?”
After rolling her eyes, a slight smile puckered her lips. “What were you selling?”
“Without a demonstration model, vacuum cleaners were out of the picture. As were encyclopedias, for obvious reasons. So I went for the next best thing.”
“Which is?” she said, her smile growing.
“Replacement windows.”
“What do you know about that?”
“Besides how to break in to them,” he said, winking at her. “Not much, but I can wing it long enough not to blow my cover.”
She laughed lightly. Her gaze locked on his again, this time lingering with a far different message. His heart took that funny little tumble only she could cause.
Gone was the animosity between them, mutual interest replacing it for the moment. Pure and simple, she was still attracted to him, as he’d suspected. But he also saw the longing behind her look and instantly sobered. She didn’t want an uncomplicated relationship like they’d once had. She still wanted it all. Marriage, a family. A man who wasn’t deployed most of the time.
Relationships. Impossible. At least for him. For them. He was the very thing she couldn’t tolerate, someone carefree and reckless. He’d always been that way, and he didn’t know how to be anything else. Even for her.
Chapter Nine
“DO YOU MIND putting the GPS coordinates into the car’s navigational system while I get us on the highway?” Quinn asked, interrupting the awkward silence that had settled around them.
“Sure,” Nina replied, though that required her to lean closer to him and only made her more acutely aware of him when she was already fighting being pulled toward him. Physically and emotionally. She wanted to feel nothing. Willed herself to feel nothing. But it was still there.
A simple smile from him and that familiar warmth started firing in her belly. She was helpless to stop it and that made her mad. Not at Quinn, but at herself for forgetting everything she’d learned, the lessons that taught her to stay in charge. Keep control. Not to let things, people, put her at risk.
Once on the road, he casually dropped his hand to the gearshift. She studied the raised scars crawling over his skin. She couldn’t take her eyes away and wanted to put a protective hand over his. She imagined the accident that happened nearly a year ago. Accident, right. The enemy had tried to blow up his SEAL team. Blow him up. The explosion had taken them all down. His arm had been covered with flames. Twisted, torn metal, and concrete rubble had engulfed him.
At least, that’s the way she’d imagined it whenever she thought about it. Which she did often, ever since she’d learned of his injury. And then, even though they weren’t together, the wondering had started.
Where was he? Was he safe? Injured again? A prisoner?
Some women could handle the uncertainty, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know why she’d ever thought she could. He wanted excitement. Adventure. He risked his life to prove he wasn’t his straight-laced father, who was as much of a control freak as she was. She needed order in her life. Things she could plan. Coun
t on. Not a man who ran into danger at the drop of the hat.
The warmth she’d shared with him froze over.
“Is there something you want to ask me?” he asked, his tone deep and intimidating.
“What?” She looked up.
A scowl turned down his mouth. “You’re staring at my scars. If you want to ask about them, then ask.”
“I’m sorry, I know it’s rude to stare.”
He shrugged. “You’re no different than everyone else.”
No different. Right. Except I was once in love with you.
“People stare all the time,” he continued. “Especially when I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt, which I try not to do in public anymore.” He shook his head. “It was a whole lot easier when I had to wear the compression bandages. Covered everything up.”
“How . . . ?” She let her voice fall off.
“How, what?”
She wanted to hear about the incident and erase what she’d imagined, but she suspected the reality was far worse. She wasn’t prepared to hear details of his pain and suffering. He’d come home injured from whatever war-torn part of the world he’d been sent to, wounded and suffering, and she hadn’t been there for him. She hadn’t even known about it until a few months ago.
That hurt just as badly. They might not be a couple anymore, but she’d have been there for him if he’d needed her. But he hadn’t. As usual. All he needed was his team. Something she’d do well to remember.
The accident was none of her business. He was none of her business. Nothing had changed between them. He still lived on the edge. Still disappeared to parts of the world he couldn’t discuss. Still made her pulse race.
Stop it.
“You have a question or not?” he asked, sounding irritated with her.
“No,” she replied, her tangled emotions making the word sharper than she intended.
“Okay, then.” He lifted his hand to the wheel and gripped it tight.
Silence stretched out between them again, and worry about the upcoming climb took over her thoughts. At least thinking about Quinn had served to keep her fears at bay, but they were overwhelming her now.
Hoping to relax, she rested her head against the soft leather seat, closed her eyes, and listened to a freight train rumbling on the tracks running parallel to the scenic highway. The rhythmic click-clack, click-clack, click-clack eased some of her concern and lulled her into a drowsy state.
Her phone blared out her mother’s ring tone, ending it all.
“She still call you every day?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, and I put her off this morning, so I need to take this.” Forcing herself to sound cheerful, she answered, “Mama.”
“You didn’t call.” The accusation came flying out, and Nina was right back in Mobile, coming home late from school, her mother mad and relieved all at once.
Nina’s heart grieved for her mother who’d become so terrified of everything that Nina’s dad had walked out on her, on both of them, and her mother could no longer leave the house. She’d tried to let Garrett’s death go and move on, bless her heart, but she couldn’t do it. Each morning, she lectured Nina about safety before she was allowed to step foot out the door. About stranger danger. About never going anywhere without permission. About never being alone anywhere but at home. To watch her surroundings. Stay alert. Always. Every moment. On and on, she went. Grandmother Hale tried to temper her paranoia, and they often argued.
Nina couldn’t wait to escape to college. But even then, her mother’s watch continued. Multiple phone calls per day. Calls to the RA and Nina’s roommate if Nina didn’t answer her phone or return a call within five minutes. Once Nina graduated and started working as a network administrator for a local company, her mother backed off to a daily phone call.
Then the company’s network was hacked, and Nina felt even more exposed and vulnerable. The agent she worked with to find the hacker said she should join the FBI to help stop hackers like the one they were looking for from violating other people. She wanted to help, but she worried about the danger in the job. He assured her that those agents mostly sat behind a desk. So she’d gone for it and the day she reported for her first assignment, her mother’s calls increased.
Nina eventually got her mother to cut back to daily calls, but each one reminded her of Garrett and how, if she’d only tried harder, he might be alive today.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” her mother asked. “Nothing’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Mama.”
The female GPS voice announced their destination ahead.
“I have to get back to work. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Nina hung up before her mother had a chance to argue. Garrett’s loss fresh in her mind, Nina couldn’t bear to think about what was ahead. The falls. The rushing water. She drew in a breath. Blew it out.
“Something wrong with your mother?” Quinn clicked on his blinker.
“No,” she said unconvincingly.
“Your expression says otherwise.”
“I’m not fond of the wilderness. You know that.”
“I knew you had a thing about bugs, but I never saw it give you this deer-in-the-headlights look.”
She shrugged. “Guess it’s the rain and all.”
“Guess, so.” His questioning gaze said he wasn’t buying her story, but he turned his focus back to the road.
The parking area was more of a turnout on the side of the highway than a lot. He maneuvered the SUV around until he’d backed it into a space. Most people would simply pull in, but military types, along with her fellow law enforcement officers, were trained to be ready to take off at a moment’s notice, and that meant backing in for a safer and quicker getaway.
“Place is deserted.” He shifted into park. “Not surprising, at this time of day.”
“Or this time of year,” she added, apprehension knotting her stomach.
As he turned off the engine, he appraised her again. She wouldn’t talk about what was bothering her, so she stepped outside. An icy wind whistled across the lot, sending a shiver over her body. She wished she’d thought to bring her winter jacket hanging on the hook by her front door, but she’d have to settle for the lightweight fleece jacket in her Go bag. As she dug it out, Quinn pawed through his duffel on the other side of the car.
“That your only jacket?” he asked.
She nodded.
“You’ll be an icicle by the time we reach the falls.” He grabbed a fleece-lined waterproof parka and handed it to her. “Wear this.”
“I’m not taking your jacket.”
“I’m not wearing a skimpy blouse and thin blazer.”
At the attitude in his voice, she stared at him. “My blouse isn’t skimpy.”
“Paper thin, then. And don’t bother to deny it. If I looked close enough, I’d be able to see every freckle left from the summer on your chest.” He shoved the jacket at her.
She still didn’t want to take it, but he was the kind of guy who’d refuse to move until she did. She slipped it on over her blazer. The minty smell from his soap clung to the fabric, taking her back to their past. Back to hugs and snuggles. Back to a place she had no business going.
Focus, Nina.
She grabbed her flashlight, a small first-aid kit, and a backup gun, then shoved them all in the jacket pockets. To that, she added additional ammo. It was overkill, but maybe she was hoping the fire power would protect her from the water. Foolish, she knew, but she needed to feel like she had some sort of protection if she was going to make it up to the falls.
“You planning on finding trouble up there?” he asked, his tone joking.
She looked at him as he shoved his KA-BAR in his belt. “No more than you are.”
“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“Exactly.” Too bad she couldn’t find a weapon to protect her heart from him.
She added latex gloves and evidence bags to her stash, then closed her door. He shrugged into his large pack, adjusting the straps on his broad shoulders.
She met him near the trail. “You sure you don’t want your jacket?”
“I’m dressed in layers. I’ll be fine.” He dug out his phone. “I downloaded a geocache app while you were talking with Hamid. Let me get the right screen up, and we’ll be good to go.”
She should have thought to download the app, but she’d let herself be distracted by the thought of the upcoming waterfall and this man standing next to her.
“At a leisurely pace, it’ll take about sixty minutes to reach the falls.” He looked up. “It’ll be dark soon. We need to step up the pace. I’ll take the lead. If I’m moving too fast for you, don’t be stubborn and try to keep up. Just tell me to slow down.”
He had her in the fitness department. She worked out, but she also sat at a desk most days while he jogged and ran drills to keep his body in top shape. Plus, she was as coordinated as a lumbering elephant. She often managed to hurt herself simply by walking. But she wasn’t about to admit that she couldn’t keep up with him. She’d reach the falls with him. Of that he could be sure. Even if thoughts of the running water threatened to freeze her in place.
NO. NO. NO. This couldn’t be happening.
Wiley slammed a fist on the steering wheel of Kip’s old beater as he watched Brandt and her SEAL start for the trail. That brat kid, Hamid, had obviously caved and told them where to find the computer. Now the odd couple was searching for the cache, which meant they’d soon be searching for evidence to send Wiley back to prison. She wanted to keep him locked up. Just like his psychiatrist. Wiley should have expected it. Planned for it. Everyone was out to get him. Had always been out to get him.
So what? His psycho psychiatrist wasn’t keeping anyone locked up any more. Not since Wiley took care of him a couple of days ago. Payback. Winding it all up nicely. Check. Check. His parents. The psychiatrist. After Brandt, he’d be free. Emotionally and physically. She wouldn’t lock him up. No one would.
Web of Shadows Page 9
