by Debra Webb
She lifted her gaze, taking his measure over the rim of her reading glasses, her brown eyes clear and emotionless. “I know.”
“Everything I did, every choice good or bad...” He didn’t bother finishing when her attention returned to her laptop. “Sophia,” he said, not above begging at this point. He desperately needed to clear the air.
“I’m listening.”
She wasn’t—her eyes were skimming through whatever she’d found on the display. A rosy glow lit her cheeks, and her lips parted with excitement. “Good Lord.”
“What now?”
“Farrell and Paul.” She glanced up at him again, her eyes lit with excitement. “I’ve been thinking about his quip about clients and the cybersecurity program.”
“He pretty much confirmed Farrell is part of the import-export team.”
“Right.” She pursed her lips for a second. “He said Farrell once worked at World Bridge Shipping.”
“I assumed he just mixed up the name.”
“He did.” She leaned back in the chair, pointing at the screen. “Look.”
Frank squinted, didn’t see what had her so excited. “Help me out. What am I looking for?”
“It’s been right under my nose, to quote Paul again,” she muttered. “He had a private client list and kept World Crossing, Incorporated, listed under a different name. The phone numbers and website addresses match.”
“Holy crap.” He stood. “This is good news, right?”
“This puts us in the driver’s seat.” She opened another window and started typing again. “Frank, how had you been tracking incoming shipments?”
“I followed a hunch. Halloran spent some time with a transportation unit early in his career. Torres had started digging through the shipping reports on military gear coming back to the States. Some of the weights didn’t add up.” As he spoke, she made notes, and he knew she was locked on to every word. “After the verdict, I started staking out East Coast ports according to a pattern Torres suspected. I never thought about the import-export broker, but I noticed the same freight line at every destination and went from there.”
“Makes sense,” she said.
“You remember the next shipment is due any day.”
“And we can be sure Halloran is there to meet it,” she announced.
The brilliant smile she aimed at him might as well have been a hot dagger through his heart. The idea of his enemy within his grasp was almost too much good news. “What do you mean?”
“I think I can access the World Crossing computers in Seattle.”
“Remotely?” he asked, praying she’d say yes.
“No.” She bit her lip. “Once we’re on-site, it shouldn’t be a problem. We can download files and give CID the info they need to move on Halloran and Hellfire.”
“Besides the fact that it’s illegal, it could get you killed trying. We don’t know where Engle and Farrell are.” He felt miserable watching how his response—his logical response—dulled the happiness on her face.
“If we can link Halloran to this company, if we can show abuse of the contract or find evidence of drugs on-site, CID can take it from there.” She frowned at him. “You’ve wanted to intercept that shipment from the start.”
“I want to force him to do something incriminating, yes,” Frank hedged. He didn’t want her there when things got ugly. He pulled up a chair. “Teach me what to do and I’ll go in.”
She shook her head. “I’ll probably have to finesse things a bit.” Her smile was back in an instant. “I’ve booked us a plane to Seattle early in the morning so we’ll be ahead of the shipment. We can fine-tune how to get into the office at the port once we see what we’re dealing with.”
“I’ve been on shipping piers and docks, Sophie.” He’d met their enemy firsthand and hated the danger he’d be escorting her into. “There are so many risk factors. Are you sure remote access isn’t an option?”
She removed her glasses and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “All right. Let me see if I can find another path.”
He waited while her fingers moved swiftly and quietly over her keyboard. Whatever she was doing, she muttered and grumbled here and there as she poked at the system software. It was his last respite. When she was done with this attempt, he had to come clean about the rest of it. He had to unburden himself and give her a chance to forgive him, just in case the worst happened when they finally caught up with Halloran.
“Oh, good,” she said without much enthusiasm. “My laptop is connected with the Leo Solutions network. I can fiddle with a few things.” Her teeth nibbled on her lower lip as she continued. “We’ll see if that causes a stir. I want to make them sweat.”
“What next?”
“Not much until we’re on-site.” She closed her laptop and set it aside. “Then I suggest we kick ass.”
He nodded, knowing what he had to do now. It could very well be his last night alone with her. “Sophia?” he began, dredging up the courage to continue.
“Yes?”
This would be so much easier if he’d never left her out of his professional decisions. Better to just spit it out and let her start hating him now. “You mentioned how things changed before our last move.” The abrupt wariness in her eyes didn’t make this easier. His heart pounded. “Things changed because that’s when I first met Torres,” he confessed. “CID wanted help with a soldier in my command who’d flipped out and joined the local resistance.”
He could practically see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she rewound reports and news footage to that time.
“The Penderson case?” She sat back in the chair, pulling her knees up to her chest.
He wasn’t surprised she’d figured it out immediately. While situations such as the Penderson case were rare, very few people had access to the full facts and circumstances. Sophia would’ve been one of a handful of analysts cleared for the details and, still, she didn’t know the worst of it.
“Why you? What could you possibly have known about some morally conflicted private?”
He sank onto the edge of the bed. Her reaction to this could break him, but he couldn’t be a coward any longer. “I didn’t know the soldier as well as I knew the family he killed.”
That warm brown gaze turned chilly. “Knew them how?”
He could see she was already willing to believe the worst—that he’d turned into one of those men with no self-control who took up with women to scratch an itch during deployments. “I was trying to grease the wheels to get one of their sons to the States. I called a few friends in DC looking for a favor.”
“You didn’t call me.”
“No.”
She took a deep breath, studying him. “What really happened, Frank? It’s not unprecedented to help locals who go above and beyond while we’re working in their country. Nothing like that was worth hiding.”
And yet he had hidden things from her and all his reasons seemed flawed as he tried to explain. “Penderson shot up a village. He went after that particular family because of me. I’d sought them out to thank them for their service and to grieve with them. The father and son lost their lives in an action that saved my men. It was a gruesome act. I’ll never understand why Penderson murdered the rest of them.”
“Oh, Frank.” She moved to sit beside him on the bed, tucking her feet under her. She rubbed slow circles over his back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
For a moment, he reveled in the miracle of having her close. “The army needed me out there to keep things from falling apart while they investigated Penderson’s motives and influences.”
“You had the authority to be respected by both sides,” she said with a comprehending nod.
“We found Penderson’s body about ten days later.” The butchered remains of the errant soldier had
been laid out on the side of a hill, in full view of the main road into the base. The army cleaned it up swiftly, managing to smother all pictures, but Frank had been carrying that grisly image and the guilt ever since.
She took one of his hands in both of hers, smoothing the flesh over and over until his fist relaxed. “I remember. None of that was your fault.”
“Maybe not directly. Penderson wasn’t the only soldier on that base who’d become a sympathizer. Rooting them out was like kicking a nest of rattlesnakes.”
“I didn’t hear anything about that.”
“The army prosecution focused on other charges. Sex trafficking in particular,” he said pointedly. “Halloran’s son was among those arrested.”
“Mike? No way.”
“Yes. He dodged the worst of it, thanks to his dad. Torres and I always suspected he was actually the ringleader.”
“Things get very strange out there.”
“They do,” he agreed. Her touch soothed him as nothing had in years. He was ready to beg, borrow or steal more than the basic comfort she was offering. “Sophia, you have to know I wasn’t one of those guys out there.”
Her palm soft on his cheek, she turned his face toward hers, blessed him with a sweet kiss. “I know. I know you, Frank.” Her lips were delicate as rose petals against his. “I trusted you implicitly.”
“Until I shut you out.”
“Even then I trusted you,” she countered in a voice as gentle as her touch. “It hurt me when you pulled away, but I trusted you to come around.”
“And I let you down.” He shouldn’t let her close, couldn’t force himself to be honorable and pull away. “It wasn’t supposed to go that way. The sex operation sting, connecting with the drug lord, Hellfire was supposed to welcome me with open arms, not pin me down with treason charges.”
“It’s okay,” she crooned. “We’ll get out of this. Together.”
He scooted away from her warm body, and those few inches felt like miles. “Torres and I were sure Halloran would have me killed. Coming clean at that point would’ve given Hellfire room to escape with their money and no consequences. I wouldn’t have left you if we’d thought there was a better option. I swear it. They’d already made one attempt during a transport to see if I’d flip on him.”
“You passed.”
“Of course.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he rubbed his temples. “It was weak and obvious, but it was enough to convince me Halloran had spies everywhere.”
“Still does, apparently,” Sophia agreed. “Is that everything?”
“Yes.” He felt clean, almost weightless now that she knew. “I’m so sorry, dolcezza.”
“You did what you had to do.”
“You have my word,” he promised, “I will never let you and Frankie down again and, if you will allow me in your lives, I will spend the rest of my life being there for you and proving in everything I do how very much you both mean to me.”
“You are all I’ve ever wanted, my love.”
The phrase caught his full attention. “You...” He was afraid to ask her to repeat the sentiment.
“I’ve never stopped loving you, despite how infuriating you’ve been recently.”
“But—”
“Hush. Don’t ruin the moment,” she warned, pressing a finger to his lips. “Just accept it and count your blessings.”
“You. You are my blessing.”
“Promise to remember that from this day forward?”
“Yes.” He stole a kiss from her smiling mouth. “Promise not to take it back?”
She laughed. “I promise.”
He kissed her soundly, letting all his hope and passion and need pour out, pour into her. He felt whole at last as she accepted him, her heart pounding against his. The sun could rise tomorrow or fall into the ocean—he had the most important element in his world in his arms at last.
* * *
SOPHIA GAVE HERSELF up to the irresistible desire Frank’s touch invariably ignited. His reticence and distance were at last well and truly gone. Under her hands her husband felt like himself again. There was tension, a by-product of their mutual excitement, but the secrets and guilt that had been lurking beneath the surface had disappeared.
Here was the man she’d loved with her whole heart and spirit. Her body trembled with the need to love him again.
“Frank,” she whispered over and over, kissing every part of him within reach. The rough whiskers at his jaw, his ear, his corded neck. He mirrored her movements, teasing her and reacquainting himself with all the places that elicited her passionate reactions. That tender place behind her ear, the ticklish spot at the base of her throat.
One of his big hands cruised over her hip, holding her tight to him, while the other cupped her breast, teasing her nipple through the fabric of her tank and bra.
She’d known his body since they were young twentysomethings, before he’d filled out and she’d gone softer with motherhood. Fit and able, they’d been blessed with good health and a hefty dose of humor as they’d matured. She didn’t want to be anywhere but here in this precious place they created, just the two of them.
Her hands worked the buttons of his shirt until the panels fell open and she could devour his muscled chest with her hands, eyes and mouth. Amid gasps of anticipation and breathless kisses, they rediscovered and reclaimed all that they’d missed.
Impatient, she tugged off her tank top and bra while he dealt with his boots. When he’d stripped away his pants and her jeans, they fell on the bed together, giddy as teenagers, eager and awkward and in a desperate hurry to make up for lost time.
He settled her with long, sensual strokes and touches, kisses across her collarbone and lower to her breasts. She breathed in his scent, rising to his tantalizing mouth as he suckled on one nipple and then the other. She sifted her fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair, the texture so familiar despite the longer length.
He feathered kisses over her quivering belly to the juncture at her thighs. As he parted her legs with his broad shoulders, she knew he was settling in for a long siege. At the first flick of his tongue on her sensitive flesh, she bucked and tried to squirm away. His heavy hand held her in place and she had to plead with him.
“I need you inside.” She wanted that intimate unity above anything else. “Please, Frank. Now.”
It didn’t take much coaxing. Rising over her, he nudged at her entrance. She was so ready for him. He plunged deep, hard and hot inside her. Joined completely with him, she knew he felt that priceless sense of connection as keenly as she did. Tears of joy blurred her vision and she smiled up at him, savoring the homecoming they’d been denied for so long.
“I missed you, dolcezza.” Braced over her, he rolled his hips, stroking her body inside and out.
He felt amazing in her arms. The laughter bubbled out of her in simple, pure delight of being together, body and soul. Her whole body clutched around him as she ran her hands over every part of him. His powerful arms and shoulders, his wide back, down to his hips.
He knew precisely how to move to heighten and extend their pleasure. It seemed a lifetime of practice hadn’t been lost or forgotten while they were apart. She knew him, too. She kissed his throat, raked her nails gently down his sides while her legs cradled his hips.
When at last he drove her up and over that sensual peak, the climax hit her full force, leaving her gasping for air as stars flashed behind her eyelids. He found his release a moment later, his body shuddering before he collapsed over her in sheer bliss.
A minute or an hour might have passed in that beautiful, euphoric state until at last he rolled away, pulling her back tight to his chest. He snuggled her close and wrapped her in his arms. She’d fallen asleep this way almost every night they’d been together during the course of their marriage. When
his breathing eased, becoming the rusty snore she’d missed so desperately, she let the tears fall once more.
They weren’t done or safe, but she felt confident that together they could conquer any new obstacle Halloran or anyone else placed in their path.
Chapter Eleven
Frank woke before the sun, content and refreshed, with Sophia’s warm, generous curves tucked beside him. It had been over a year since he’d slept so well and she’d been beside him then, too. He pressed a kiss to her silky sable hair, determined to make this the first day of the rest of their lives together.
He was indulging in a daydream of life after Hellfire when her cell phone hummed with an incoming message. It shouldn’t have been enough of a sound to wake her, but her eyes popped open. Her gaze tangled with his and her smile bloomed.
“Good morning.” He kissed her softly, before she could roll away and be distracted by their problems. “I’ll shower while you check on that.”
“Okay.” She seemed almost shy today. “It’s the pilot. The plane is ready when we are.”
He grinned and kissed her again. His body was primed for the upcoming confrontation and he finally felt as though he had his head on straight. They’d get to Seattle and put an end to Halloran’s operation once and for all.
A few minutes later, with a towel wrapped around his hips, he opened the door to let the steam from his shower dissipate and caught her pacing. She wore only his blue button-down shirt from yesterday and he took a moment to admire the excellent view of her shapely legs.
Then she turned and he saw trouble stamped on her face. “What happened?”
“There was a cyber attack on Leo Solutions last night,” she said, brushing by him to take her turn in the bathroom. “You can read the email while I shower. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
He dressed quickly, lacing up his boots by touch as he read the email outlining the situation. According to his future son-in-law, someone had tried to hack into the cloud servers, using administrative codes previously assigned to Paul Sterling.
