Worthy of Trust and Confidence

by Kara A. McLeod

I’d stopped into a bar in the Village one night after a late shift so I could have a quick drink and had been floored to see Hurricane there. She’d been just barely underage at the time, so she shouldn’t have been able to get past the bouncer at the door. But what’d surprised me even more had been that she’d been completely without protection. I probably should’ve figured straight away that’d be the case, as I’d heard the rumors like everyone else. But like I said, knowing facts and seeing them firsthand are two different kettles of fish sometimes.

  Anyway, long story short, I’d sent Hannah a text message on her personal phone telling her where Hurricane was and that I’d keep an eye on her until the cavalry arrived. Then, I’d surreptitiously put myself into a position where I’d be close enough to keep an eye on her so she wouldn’t be able to slip away without me noticing, yet far enough away that hopefully she wouldn’t realize I was watching her.

  What I hadn’t counted on, unfortunately, were the overtly amorous attentions of a man in the bar who apparently couldn’t take no for an answer. He’d become decidedly aggressive with his overtures, despite Hurricane’s repeated insistence that she wasn’t interested. Hurricane had been a lot more polite to the guy than I would’ve been in her position, but the situation had started to draw the notice of several of the bar’s other patrons and had the potential to escalate into quite the scene.

  Not sure what else to do and wanting to avoid a spectacle more than anything else—I’d been fairly certain the more attention the debacle attracted, the more likely it’d be someone would recognize Hurricane, which had the potential to unleash a whole host of problems I’d just as soon avoid—I’d confidently strolled up to the pair and addressed Hurricane as though we were intimately acquainted. I apologized for my lateness, promising to make it up to her, with just the right amount of flirtation coloring my tone, and spirited her away to the other side of the room, shooting the guy my very best death glare to discourage any further attempts to win Hurricane’s affections.

  Hurricane must’ve decided I was her best chance of getting out of the fiasco unscathed, because not only had she gone along with my ploy, but she’d further surprised me by upping the ante.

  And that’s how Hannah had walked in on me kissing one of our protectees. Or, more accurately, Hannah had arrived just in time to see Hurricane kissing me and me not knowing what else to do except go with it and kiss her back. For the record, Zoey Carmichael is an excellent kisser. I’m just saying.

  “I’d like to tell her,” Hannah broke into my reverie.

  Holy shit! “What? Why?”

  “She might be comforted to learn you looked out for Hurricane when none of us was around to do the job,” Hannah said. “I mean, if it weren’t for you, who knows what could’ve happened? It had the potential to be disastrous.”

  Oh. Right. That. Whew. Because my mind had just been swimming in memories of the kiss, I’d automatically assumed she’d been talking about that. That wouldn’t have been good. Claudia Quinn didn’t need to know I’d made out with a protectee. Ever. As far as I was concerned, no one needed to know that. Especially not Allison.

  “Well, it all worked out okay,” I told Hannah, hoping no one noticed the flush I could feel burning in my cheeks.

  “Still, I wish you’d let me say something to her.”

  “Oh, Hannah, come on. That’s not necessary. There’s really no point.”

  “She’s a good person to have in your corner. She’s very well connected, not just in the Service but everywhere.”

  “Why would you think I’d need her in my corner? Or anyone, for that matter?” I waved an impatient hand to cut her off. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Let’s forget it. Here.” I handed her the papers I’d been holding and gave her a moment to peruse them.

  The expression on Hannah’s face was grim as she flipped through the file. She glanced at me without lifting her head. “Is there a particular reason you’re bringing me this?”

  I nodded. “There is. Saint E’s let him out. He’s on his way here.”

  Now Hannah’s head did snap up, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “He’s headed here? As in the Platform, here?”

  “Well, to New York, at the very least. We don’t have any concrete indication he’ll head here, necessarily. But it’s only a matter of time. If he doesn’t come straight from the train station—which, frankly, would be a surprise—he’ll make an appearance here at some point in the not-too-distant future.”

  Hannah’s expression darkened, and her eyes took on a faraway cast, as though she were mulling over the situation. “How concerned do I need to be?”

  “As concerned as you’d be for any other threat subject with an interest toward your protectee, I suppose.”

  Hannah reflected on that scenario for a long moment. “Do you have a plan of action in place?”

  “Come on, Hannah. Really? I’m offended.”

  Hannah cracked a tiny smile. “What’ve you got?”

  “The on-duty response team is waiting for him at Penn Station. They can’t detain him because he hasn’t technically done anything wrong yet, but they’ll be following him once he leaves the station. Which”—I consulted my watch—“has probably actually already happened. I’ll call them when we’re done here to verify. The midnight shift is on the street outside keeping an eye out for him, and I plan to be his personal welcoming committee when he arrives.”

  Hannah frowned again. “I don’t like this. Knowing a threat is on its way here and just sitting here waiting, doing nothing. It feels…wrong.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. She was so type-A and proactive. Not moving to either address the threat or flee from it had to be killing her. “You may not be doing anything, but we are. This is a team effort, remember? I know you’re used to calling the plays, but just let us have the ball. It won’t kill you to sit this one out.” Clichéd sports metaphors again. I couldn’t get away from them.

  “I know,” she said. But she clearly wasn’t convinced.

  I put a hand on her arm. “Hey, relax. This is what we do, okay? All day, every day. Don’t worry. He won’t even make it into the lobby. I promise. Just keep Hurricane in the apartment, and everything will be fine. I’ll call you later with an update.”

  Hannah took a slow breath and rolled the papers into a tube. “Do you want any of our guys to back you up?”

  I tried not to let my smile morph into a full-fledged, shit-eating grin. Apparently, my clichéd sports metaphor had gone completely over her head.

  “You don’t need to. Between the five of us,” I glanced at Allison, “well, technically six, I think we’ve got it covered. And we’re the ones that’re going to have to report this to DC and handle the follow-up paperwork. But it’s your sandbox. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t play in it.”

  “Okay.” She tapped the tube of papers against the palm of her free hand. “Just brief Tuck and Marissa downstairs so they can watch your backs. And call me when everything’s settled.”

  “Will do.”

  The door to Hurricane’s apartment opened abruptly, and my body went cold. Then my stomach folded in on itself when I realized Hurricane herself was at the door. Normally, being around our protectees didn’t faze me—I was generally too focused on my job to leave room for emotions of any kind—but encountering her so soon after recalling our kiss from a few years ago admittedly threw me. And having Allison standing right next to me and looking back and forth between us with a shrewd gaze only made things exponentially worse.

  “Hey, Hannah, did you—” She broke off when she saw me and studied me a little too closely for my liking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we had company.”

  The previously dampened fire in my cheeks roared back to life, and I hastily pressed the button to call the elevator. “I’ll give the key card back to the guy in the lobby,” I muttered to Hannah out of the side of my mouth, turning so my attention was completely focused on my escape route.

  “Ooh, more Secret Serv
ice.”

  I may not’ve been looking at Hurricane, but I didn’t need to see her expression to know something about this situation amused her. The intonation of her words was evident.

  I looked to Allison for help, but she just raised her eyebrows. I sighed softly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I can always tell. There’s just something about you guys that gives it away. Even when you’re in down clothes.”

  I found her statement intriguing. It either meant she’d known I was an agent when she’d kissed me all those years ago and had done it anyway, or she wasn’t quite as adept at picking us out as she liked to think she was. Which was it?

  “Are you joining my detail?” Hurricane asked.

  “No, ma’am. I’m not.”

  “Hmm. Pity.”

  I didn’t have any idea what she meant by that, but Hannah must have because she chastised her with a soft, “Miss Carmichael.”

  “What? Noah likes to look. And he’d definitely love looking at her. Do you want to transfer to my detail? I can make a call.”

  Oh, dear God. I had to fight not to give in to the urge to put my head into my hands. And if body language was anything to go on, Allison wasn’t thrilled with the comment either. I didn’t know why the president’s daughter was actively recruiting agents to her detail as eye candy for her fiancé, and I wasn’t about to ask any follow-up questions. I did cast my eyes heavenward and silently lament that this was obviously the slowest elevator in all of human history.

  “Miss Carmichael!” Hannah’s tone now was aghast.

  “Come on. I was kidding. Mostly. What did we say about that stick, Hannah?” Hurricane was teasing her.

  I snorted, unable to rein in my laughter at the good-natured barb. It appeared Hurricane and I had something in common. I silently wished her luck on getting Hannah to lighten up and wondered if she had any clue what a massive undertaking that was. I’d known Hannah for years and was still struggling with it. I hoped Hurricane enjoyed the challenge as much as I did.

  “Do I know you?” Hurricane asked me as she moved closer. Her hands were on her hips, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see her intensely searching expression. “You seem very familiar.”

  I looked to Allison again, silently pleading with her to jump in. She shook her head almost imperceptibly and shoved her hands into her pockets. I took a deep breath and reluctantly faced Hurricane’s curiosity. I didn’t really want to converse with her, but it probably would’ve been rude of me to ignore her outright or to answer her while staring a hole in the elevator doors.

  “This is Agent Reynolds,” I said finally, elbowing Allison hard in the side. “She’s on your dad’s detail.”

  Hurricane spared her a cursory glance. “Hmm. That makes sense. But I was actually talking about you. Where have I seen you before?”

  “Probably just at one of your events, ma’am. I’m from NYFO.”

  Hurricane’s brow furrowed. “What’s nigh foe?” she wanted to know, stumbling over the pronunciation as though if she only said it slowly enough, she’d be able to decipher what I was telling her.

  My face flushed even hotter. “My apologies, ma’am. It stands for the New York Field Office. N-Y-F-O. We just say it like it’s a word.”

  A sort of mischievous little smile pulled at the corners of Hurricane’s lips. “Huh. You agents and your acronyms and code words. It’s like your own little language.”

  “Yes, ma’am. It is.”

  Hurricane’s smile faded, and that pensive look trickled back into her eyes. I could practically see her mind working as she tried to figure out how she knew me. Feeling unbelievably self-conscious, I pressed the button for the elevator again because it’s common knowledge that pressing the elevator call button repeatedly makes it come faster.

  “It isn’t that,” Hurricane murmured, almost to herself. Her expression now was deeply thoughtful. “It’s from someplace else.”

  Thankfully, the elevator chimed its arrival, and the relief that rushed through me actually made me a little tingly. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.” I shot Hannah a warning glare. “I’ll call you later.”

  The elevator doors closed on Hurricane looking frustrated and Hannah looking horrified. I breathed in relief, but my respite was short lived because I could feel Allison’s gaze burrowing into me. I slowly turned my head to meet her eyes, a little afraid of what I’d see.

  “Something you want to tell me?” she asked as she leaned against the opposite wall and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Such as?”

  “Such as what the hell that was back there with Hurricane?”

  Okay, this was definitely not a conversation I wanted to have. And while I was completely on board with implementing a policy of complete honesty between us, now really wasn’t the time to get into this. I still had a paranoid schizophrenic to deal with. “Can we maybe add this to the list of things we need to talk about later?”

  Allison’s eyes got wide and her jaw dropped as she gaped at me. “Oh, my God. You slept with her, didn’t you?”

  “Seriously?” I demanded.

  “I’ve gotten pretty good at reading you, Ryan. You were definitely uncomfortable up there. Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush that hard.”

  “Believe me, if I’d slept with her, she’d remember it.” I paused. “Or is this your way of telling me I’m not that great in bed?”

  Allison seemed chagrined. “Definitely not. You know I think you’re amazing. And you’re right. She’d remember that.”

  “Thank you.” My BlackBerry went off just then, and I shifted my focus back to more pressing matters. “He’s almost here,” I told Allison after reading the email.

  “Don’t think I’m going to forget about this.”

  The elevator door opened on the lobby, and I started making my way over to Isaac so I could return the key card to him before I forgot. “I wouldn’t expect you to, although I’m concerned we’re going to lose track of all the things we need to discuss. Maybe we should be writing them down.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m keeping a mental note.”

  I smiled. “Why am I not surprised? You ready?”

  Allison smiled back, and my chest constricted in the most wonderful way. “Let’s go get him. The sooner we take care of this, the sooner we can attend to our own business.”

  I took a second to shake off my regular demeanor in favor of the game face I wore when I was working. I stood up a little straighter and squared my shoulders as I headed for the door. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Though I’d been all fired up and eager to get the party started a second ago, I couldn’t help hesitating just inside the outer door. Panic slammed into me, leaving me slightly breathless. My pulse jumped, and my grip on the door handle became viselike. Not only was I worried about someone trying to splatter my brains all over the front of Hurricane’s building, but now I was also terrified that whoever was gunning for me would miss and hit Allison. Fuck. I needed to get her away from me ASAP.

  Gathering the courage necessary to walk back outside—and into the open where any would-be assassin would have a relatively clear shot at me—was a lot like trying to pick up several pounds of cooked spaghetti with my bare hands. I’d probably have stood there longer trying to manage it if I hadn’t felt Allison’s presence behind me. Not wanting to either let her see my fear or risk having to engage in a conversation about why I’d stopped, I hastily flung open the door.

  “Elvis has left the building,” Rico’s best—and far-too-often practiced—announcer voice informed me via the earpiece nestled in my left ear as I stepped back out onto the street.

  Despite my clattering nerves, I rolled my eyes, shooting a dark glare down the street in the direction of his car, where he and Eric had positioned themselves at the end of the block I couldn’t see very well from my vantage point. Leave it to him to distract me from my fears of impending death with utter ridiculous
ness.

  I ambled several paces from the front entrance of Hurricane’s building toward the corner Austin had told me Walker would likely be approaching from, given his direction of travel, and leaned against a wrought-iron fence. I rested a casual elbow against the top of it to help disguise the motion of lifting my microphone to my lips. “Really, Rico? Elvis? Do I look like the kind of girl to wear a rhinestone jumpsuit?”

  “I really wish I had a radio,” Allison muttered out of the side of her mouth.

  “Sorry,” I whispered back.

  “Ha. Right. Elvira, then? I know you’ve got some dresses that would put that outfit of hers to shame.” I could hear his grin, and I shook my head.

  “Two words for you, buddy: leather pants.”

  “That was a low blow.”

  “Agreed. But you’re too far away for me to smack you, so I went with what I had. Remind me to retaliate physically later.”

  “Roger that. Oh, and the eagle has landed.”

  “What?” I was back to scrutinizing every square inch of the street for threats. Even though I was positive I’d never see the bullet with my name on it coming, I still couldn’t help but look.

  “The fox is in the henhouse.” When I didn’t respond, he tried again. “The cheese stands alone.”

  “Oh, good grief. You couldn’t just be a normal person and say you’ve spotted him on the northwest corner of Sixth or something?”

  “Nah. That’s no fun.”

  “You’re an ass.” But we didn’t have much time to get involved in a really good bickering match because, as I said that, my target lumbered into view.

  Adam Royce Walker was a very big man. I’d known that, of course, but time had muted my memory, and I’d apparently forgotten exactly how big he was. Even if I’d been wearing heels, I’d have barely cleared his shoulders, and I doubted I’d have been able to touch my fingers together should I ever be seized by the urge to wrap my arms around him. However, that wasn’t a theory I planned to test any time soon.

  He was dressed in baggy jeans and an oversized zippered hooded sweatshirt over what appeared to be a grungy tee. His white sneakers made a faint scrape-slap noise as he wandered down the street, and his head was canted slightly toward the ground, as though he were looking at the pavement in front of him as he walked. From what I could see of his expression through the darkness, broken only by the occasional streetlamp, he appeared to be very deep in thought. He didn’t seem to notice anyone was even sharing the street with him at all, let alone that it was me.