Shadow of Doubt

by Linda Poitevin

  He rolled to the side, and anticipation curled through Kate as he peeled off his jeans, tossed them aside, and turned his efforts to her own clothing. Hoodie and sports bra followed in the wake of the jeans. His fingers slipped beneath the elastic waistband of her sweatpants. They stilled.

  "Bloody hell," he muttered against her shoulder.

  Kate thought she might scream. "What?" she asked, fighting to keep the frustration from her voice—and from adding now to the question.

  "Protection," he said. "I don't have—"

  "Hoodie pocket," she interrupted. Jonas pulled back to stare at her. Heat scorched her cheeks, and she waited for his comment. Waited for the questions. Wondered how she would phrase her intent to seduce him tonight, because she’d known it would be her one and only chance to be with him.

  Even if he survived tomorrow.

  But Jonas said nothing. Instead, with a speed that would have left her breathless if his touch hadn't already done so, he tugged the sweatpants from her ankles, reached for the hoodie, sheathed himself, and enveloped her in his arms.

  And then he was bearing her back onto the carpet, and his body was covering hers, and his mouth and hands were everywhere at once, touching, teasing, stroking, trailing liquid fire in their wake. Kate tried to reciprocate, but blind need stripped her of any capacity to do more than rise to meet him. To take him into her. To clutch frantically at his shoulders as she tried to draw him ever deeper.

  They moved as one. Her body became molten, merging with his as he abandoned any attempt at control. Heat swept through her, carrying her to dizzying, spiraling heights, until the entire world fell away into nothing but her and Jonas and all the exquisite sensations flowing between them, over them, around them. From far away she heard Jonas's hoarse voice, but words meant nothing now. She teetered for an instant on a precipice, somewhere between reality and eternity.

  Then Jonas's voice came again, clear this time, calling out her name, and she toppled, free-falling through a kaleidoscope of timeless, whirling colors, her own cry mingling distantly with his.

  Chapter 42

  Jonas set the mug of coffee on the nightstand beside Kate. Her eyes opened and she stared first at it, then at him. He pushed away the memory of how the amber gaze had clouded with desire the night before. Passion. Need.

  He cleared his throat. "Douglas and the others will be here in half an hour," he said. "I thought I should wake you."

  Kate's eyebrows twitched together. "Good morning to you, too."

  Jonas shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He looked away from the tousled hair and intriguingly bared shoulders. His lips pressed together.

  After a long moment, Kate said quietly, "I see. So last night—"

  "Last night should never have happened," he said. "I shouldn't have let it."

  Not the first, desperate coupling on the living room floor, and sure as hell not the slow exploration and discovery that had followed here in his own bed.

  He turned to leave. "I'm sorry," he added gruffly.

  Kate's voice stopped him at the door. "You're kidding me, right?"

  His hand rested on the knob, every muscle in his body screaming at him to go back to her. To take her in his arms again and—

  "Last time I checked, what we did last night required two parties," she said. "I'm pretty sure I was a willing partner, so I don't see where you get to claim full responsibility."

  The sheets rustled, and he wondered if she'd sat up. If she held the covers against her, or—

  Feet thudded to the floor behind him, and the air left his lungs. She'd been naked under those sheets. If he turned around...

  His fingers tightened around the doorknob.

  "Damn it, Jonas." Frustration laced Kate's tone. "I wasn't expecting an undying declaration of love from you this morning. I get that last night doesn't change anything. I didn't expect it to. But I'm damned if I'll let you regret it."

  He closed his eyes. She hadn't thought it would change things? That was just bloody ironic, because it sure as hell had. Long after Kate had fallen into a deep, sated sleep, he'd stayed awake, watching her in the semi-darkness of the streetlamp-lit room. Imagining her in ten years, thirty years. Imagining the house, the kids, the dog, the camping trips. Thinking that maybe, just maybe, his life had finally turned around. But he'd been wrong.

  The cold light of dawn had brought an even colder realization with it. A realization that, in every single one of his visions, one thing had been consistently missing. Him. No matter how hard he'd tried, he hadn't been able put himself into any of the pictures he painted of Kate's future. Because no matter how much he wanted it, he didn't belong.

  Not with the kids, not with the dog, not with Kate. Just as he hadn't belonged in any of those homes when he was growing up, or, ultimately, with his sister. He was meant to be alone, and people were better off without him. Time, circumstances, fate—call it what he liked—had proved that to him again and again.

  "You're right," he said now, without turning. Without looking at her. "It doesn't change anything."

  He opened the door, stepped out, and closed it again behind him. Then, with grim determination underlined by desperation, he headed for the phone on the kitchen counter. Nothing had changed, and nothing would change, because he wouldn't let it. Kate might think she was willing to take a chance on him, but he knew better than to let her.

  And he'd do whatever it took to hold onto his determination.

  Before he could think better of the idea, he punched in a number on the phone’s keypad and then leaned a shoulder against the wall as he listened to the ring at the other end of the line.

  * * *

  In the wake of Jonas's departure, Kate tugged a rumpled sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself. She dreaded the trek to her own room, but with her clothes still scattered across the floor by the front door, she had little choice. Not that she needed to worry about Jonas's reaction to her unclothed state, after that little exchange.

  Freaking hell. Had there ever been a more stubborn man? She compressed her lips, holding the sheet in place with one hand as she reached for the knob with the other. She pulled open the door. What the hell did you do with a man who admitted he could fall in love with you and yet refused to do so? And who went out of his way to—

  "Valerie? It's Jonas Burke."

  Valerie? Kate stopped in her tracks as the man with his back to her gave a low, rumbling chuckle. A sound of intimacy he'd never shared with Kate.

  "Yeah, I know. It's been a while," he said.

  He pitched his voice low...to keep from being heard in another room? Kate put out a hand and curled fingers around the painted wood of the doorframe. She should go back into the bedroom and wait. Or say something. Do something to let him know she was here. Listening.

  But she did none of those things, because she couldn't. Couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak.

  "I've been away a lot," Jonas continued. "Business stuff. Anyway, I was hoping you were still unattached, and maybe free this weekend?"

  A date. He was making a date. Pain lanced through Kate, so sharp it sucked the remaining air from her lungs. Her grip on the doorframe tightened, and she held herself upright through sheer force of will.

  "Dinner? Show? You name it," Jonas continued. He straightened up from the wall he'd been leaning against. "That's great. I'll pick you up on Saturday night at seven."

  Kate watched him turn toward her as if she viewed a slow-motion sequence—or an unavoidable car wreck she couldn't stop. His gaze met hers. Widened. Turned hard. A handful of seconds ticked by.

  Then he said to the phone, "Val, I have to go. I'll see you Saturday. Yeah, you have a good rest of the week, too." He replaced the receiver in its cradle and cleared his throat. He looked away from her.

  "I didn't mean for you to hear that," he said.

  She almost laughed at that. Might have done, if there hadn't been so much pain in the way. She lifted her chin.

  "Y
es, you did," she said. "You wanted me to hear it. It was your way of proving that last night changed nothing." She knew the truth of her words even as they left her lips, even as the brilliant blue gaze flashed back to hers, guilt and denial visible in equal measure in its depths.

  "That's not—" Jonas began, but a knock at the door interrupted him. Neither of them moved to answer it. Jonas raked both his hands through his hair. "Kate—"

  Another knock, louder this time. Jonas muttered something under his breath and stalked across the room. He threw open the door, then turned his back on Grant Douglas and the suit standing beside him without so much as a hello.

  "Damn it, Kate," he began again, quiet desperation in his voice.

  She waited, but he didn't continue, and after a moment, her gaze slid past him to their expected guests and settled on Grant Douglas's tie clip. "I'm running late," she said. "Sorry."

  Her ex-fiancé cleared his throat. "Bad timing?"

  "Yes!" Jonas snapped. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and scowled. "No. Hell, I don't know. Ask Kate."

  Grant's eyes took in the jumbled pile of clothing discarded on the floor. He raised an eyebrow.

  "Coffee?" Kate asked. "I think there's some left."

  Grant stared at her, then shook his head. "We should get in and set up. Agent Kelvin can set up the tech on his own."

  Kate nodded. She looked at Jonas on the other side of the tiny living room that might as well have been an ocean, it seemed so vast. He stared back at her, tension weaving itself into the fine creases about his mouth, and myriad emotions warring in his eyes.

  Kate recognized his hurt even through her own pain. She just couldn't deal with it. Not right now. Not while her own agony was so fresh, and not while they both needed to focus on the job at hand. Especially Jonas.

  "You're sure you want to go in alone?" she asked.

  He stared at her. "You'd still go in with me? After—"

  Her heart twisted at how very screwed up this man's thinking had to be for him to doubt it even for an instant. She pushed away the knowledge.

  "I came along to watch your back," she said. "I could do a better job if I could actually see your back."

  Measured silence. Then Jonas shook his head. "No. This way's best."

  She nodded acceptance of his decision, her voice failing her as all the foreboding she'd been holding at bay threatened to swamp her. If something went wrong, if he didn't make it back—

  She turned and went into her own room to get dressed. When she rejoined the others, Grant Douglas and the technician were studying a suitcase of equipment they'd opened on the kitchen table, and Jonas was pacing the living room floor. The clothing scattered across the floor had been scooped up and deposited in a pile on the couch.

  Grant looked up at her reappearance. "I'll be with you in a second," he said. "Why don't you call the elevator for us? That thing is as slow as molasses in January."

  Kate hesitated, not wanting to miss anything but knowing she had nothing of value to add. She slid her arms into the hoodie she'd retrieved from the clothing pile. Whether she heard everything now or not wouldn't matter. After all she and Jonas had been through, her part was done. Jonas was on his own. By choice. As he'd always wanted to be.

  She zipped up the hoodie, then hesitated. Jonas had stopped pacing, but he stood with the room between them again. She wrestled with all the things she wanted to say but knew he didn't want to hear, settling in the end for a simple, "Be careful."

  Then, without waiting for his reply, she left their suite. Jonas caught hold of her arm halfway down the hall to the elevator.

  "Kate, wait."

  She stared at the faded paisley-patterned carpet.

  "I don't want us to end like this," he said, his voice tight. "Not after all you've done for me. If I don't—"

  "Don't," she croaked. "Don't you dare say it, Burke. Hell, don't you even think it. You're going to walk out of there when this is done, do you understand? Under your own steam and in one piece."

  She tugged away before he could argue, turned, and continued toward the elevator. Jonas followed.

  "Damn it, Kate, this is exactly what I didn't want," he muttered. "I tried to warn you—"

  Down the hall, the apartment door opened. Grant stepped into the corridor and began striding toward them. Kate punched the elevator call button.

  "You did warn me," she agreed. "And I meant what I said. My problem, not yours."

  Grant joined them at the elevator as the doors slid open. He flicked a glance over Jonas, then turned to Kate. "All good?"

  Kate swallowed a laugh she suspected would have bordered on the hysterical. "All good," she replied.

  She followed him into the elevator and turned to face Jonas as the doors began to rumble closed again. Then, as if of its own volition, her hand shot out. The door bumped into it, resisted for a moment, then reversed. Kate stepped back into the corridor beside a rigid, unmoving Jonas.

  "You know what's so sad about all of this?" she asked softly.

  The muscle in front of Jonas’s ear flickered.

  "It isn't just my heart breaking here," she said. "It's yours, too. And I don't how to help either of us."

  Standing on tiptoe, she reached up to press a kiss to his cheek, then rested her forehead against the powerful chest one last time, absorbing his warmth, feeling the strong beat of his heart against her skin. Finally, throat aching with unshed tears, she stepped back into the elevator.

  "Be safe, Jonas," she said. "Please."

  Chapter 43

  It was the longest two hours of Kate's life.

  While Grant had allowed her to be at the FBI's surveillance post, she had no official capacity there, and thus, no role to play. She could do nothing but watch the team set up their equipment in the office they'd taken over for the day, drink way more coffee than was probably wise, and watch her ex-fiancé with new respect.

  The meticulous attention to detail that had once driven her to distraction was evident in spades here, but with Jonas's life hanging in the balance, she had a whole new appreciation for it. Operating on an unbelievably tight timeline, Grant had still managed to secure the perfect vantage point: an office on the fourteenth floor of a building behind the abandoned warehouse where the meet would take place. High enough to offer an unobstructed view of the entire alley between the buildings and reduce the risk of being spotted from below; low enough to give them a clear sightline through the warehouse’s main floor windows.

  According to the sign stenciled on the office's door, an accountant normally occupied the premises, but he was absent for the day, no doubt enjoying his unexpected time off at government expense. Though he'd enjoy it somewhat less if he saw what that same government had done to his workspace, Kate suspected.

  Shelves and filing cabinets had been shifted aside to give access to the windows overlooking the alley, and the desk had been summarily cleared of everything on it, papers and equipment alike dumped into a large cardboard box. Sophisticated listening equipment sat there instead—their sole link to Jonas when he arrived.

  Kate glanced at her watch. Ten minutes. She stared down at the littered passage below. Dumpsters lined the edges on both sides, some overflowing with cardboard boxes and other debris. Dried stalks of plants poked through the broken pavement. Sheets of newspaper drifted randomly, blown by the wind that funneled between the buildings.

  A radio handset hissed and crackled to life.

  "Base, this is Unit One. We have a blue sedan entering the alley. Three occupants, one female."

  The agent manning the equipment picked up the handset and acknowledged, "Ten-four, One."

  Grant joined Kate at the window.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  She nodded. As okay as a stomach tied in knots and a cold sweat would allow, she supposed. She loosened her white-knuckled grip on the window ledge.

  Fourteen floors below, the sedan came into view from the west and stopped at the warehouse's back door. Kate t
ook the binoculars Grant offered. She focused on the emerging occupants. One man had his back to her, but she recognized the driver and female passenger from the gym at her apartment.

  It seemed a lifetime ago, now.

  "It's them," she said. She handed the binoculars back to Grant, fighting the tremble in her hand. "It's Lewis and Ramirez. Jonas identified them to me in Ottawa. I couldn't see the other man."

  Grant nodded confirmation to the other team members over his shoulder. Tension in the room ratcheted up several notches. Kate threaded shaking fingers through her hair.

  "This is insane," she muttered. "They've already tried to kill him once. How do we know he's not walking into an ambush?"

  "We don't."

  Grant's admission buried itself in her gut like a fist, and she sucked for air, every fiber of her being demanding that she stop Jonas from—

  "But we do know Burke," Grant's quiet voice continued. "And if everything I've heard about him is true, he can handle this."

  No, she wanted to deny.

  "He's good at what he does, Kate. You know he is. He wouldn't have survived as long as he has undercover if he wasn't."

  Kate closed her eyes. That's not the point.

  Grant's hands settled on her shoulders and squeezed gently. "Let him do his job," he said. "And you do your job. Here. With us. He needs to know you still have his back."

  Kate drew a deep breath. Through sheer, dogged force of will, she steadied the internal vibration that had plagued her since their arrival. Then she nodded. Grant was right. She needed to do what she could to make sure Jonas came through this alive. She needed to have his back, because he had her heart.

  She took the binoculars from Grant again and turned back to the window.

  * * *

  Jonas paused at the battered metal door and scanned the alley. In a world of dull brick and duller pavement, the blue sedan parked outside the warehouse meeting place was the only splash of color. A chill prickled down his spine and raised the hair on his arms. The last time he'd tangled with Lewis and Ramirez had been a day just like this one. Bleak, cold, gray.