by Jodie Bailey
Tate swallowed hard, riding a wave of adrenaline, dangerously close to getting sucked into a place he’d never want to leave. “What makes you sure there is one?” His voice cracked from the strain of not looking at Meghan. What he might see if he did was more terrifying than a bullet shattering his shoulder. He couldn’t trust emotions born out of a near-death experience, no matter how much he wanted to.
She laughed, the sound loud in the small truck. “Walker, there’s always a first aid kit. You’re like the guy in the old TV show who could fix a gas leak with chewing gum and chocolate. Always prepared.”
No arguing that. “It’s under the seat.” There was always a contingency to think about, and he made sure he covered every base, but he’d missed one. He’d never counted on feeling anything even close to this at Meghan’s touch.
He tightened his focus on the road. Think, Walker. You cannot ever pull this truck over and kiss her the way you’re thinking about kissing her. Ever. “How did they find us?” He had his suspicions, but he wanted to hear her theory first.
“Were you followed last night?” Her voice stretched as she leaned over and felt for the first aid kit.
“No.” She should know better than to ask. He’d never bring danger to her, not if he could prevent it.
“Your phone?”
“It links to the team through a secure network and pings a half a dozen different satellites before it connects. It would take weeks to track.” And he’d have to use it to call Ethan soon, let the team leader know he was on the run with their last known link to the hacker. “Yours?”
“Battery is out and it’s in the safe at the house. Any other tech on you?”
“No.”
“Then I have no idea.”
“I think you do.” She was smarter than that. The Meghan he’d known investigated every possibility without mercy. There was no way she was missing the biggest one of all.
“Not Phoebe.” The conviction in her voice bordered on anger. “I’ve known her too long. The Snyder Foundation is clean. Her father’s company is clean. I checked.”
“You can’t ignore the fact she’s known you since college.” Tate rotated his hands on the steering wheel, the smooth plastic warming in his palms. “She links what happened in your past to today. Does she know about your hacking? Your military experience?”
“Not about the hacking. Nobody knows about it but you. I was in ROTC, so she knows I was an officer. She thinks I was an IT specialist. There’s no reason for her to believe otherwise. She’s not a suspect.”
“Somebody she knows might be. Follow the chain. Who else might Phoebe have told?”
“No one.” The assertion held a finality Tate knew better than to argue with.
“And Yvonne?” The woman’s behavior today still didn’t sit right with Tate. For someone who was one of Meghan’s closest confidants, the woman had been anything but friendly.
Meghan laughed, but it was a harsh, bitter sound. “She’s a tech zero. She can barely check her email.”
He tried to relax and not give away the tension pushing into his muscles. Meghan was too close to the situation. When he called in his suspicions to Ethan, he’d have to do it outside her hearing. “Anyone else?” They were missing something, but he couldn’t pin his thoughts to what.
She ran the zipper along the canvas first aid bag, the sound grating. “My circle is small. I don’t have a lot of friends.”
The pain she didn’t reveal in the words pulsed through him. Her circle was small because she purposely kept it small, afraid of more abandonment. And he’d pretended to be dead, leaving her even more adrift.
Tate glanced at the rearview again, the heaviness in his chest having nothing to do with exertion or adrenaline. Meghan McGuire—his partner, his friend, the woman who’d thrown his life sideways when she left—had been living in fear for years. Fear she’d never shared with him. Fear she’d carried by herself. She kept a bag packed for the day she’d have to escape and walked around forever looking behind her, unable to grasp a future where she was free.
The same way he’d done.
He released the wheel with his right hand, joints protesting the strain of the past few minutes, and laid his fingers over hers, stilling her fidgeting.
She stiffened, and Tate thought she was going to pull away, so he tightened his fingers around hers, not giving her the opportunity. “You’re not alone now, Meg. If you’d told me about being blackmailed earlier, you never would have been.”
She stared at their hands, then turned toward the side window, the hum of the truck tires the only sound in the cab.
The trees grew denser as they drove east, the thick woods pressing in, darkening the day and cooling the air in the cab with heavy shadows, helping the ancient air conditioner make things more comfortable. Tate had no idea where he was, not physically and not emotionally, not with Meg’s hand in his and not with killers somewhere behind them. Like the day he’d nearly died, like the night a group of thugs kicked in his door and ran him out of his home, the world had changed and left him without a map.
Finally, Meghan swallowed so hard it was audible. “I didn’t know what would happen.” She pulled away from him and opened the bag, the zipper grating across Tate’s nerves. “I still don’t.”
“I told you—”
“Don’t.” She tore the paper from a large bandage. “I hacked a university’s donor database. I turned over stolen identities to a terrorist. There’s no excusing the crime, no matter what I did to fix it.” She pressed the bandage gently over his arm, not lingering this time. “When we stop, I’ll clean it, but at least you won’t leak blood on yourself for the time being.”
She’d shut the door on the conversation, but Tate still had his foot in the opening, and he wasn’t about to let her stop without fighting for her future. “You were blackmailed. You tried to make it right. I think your service record—”
“Was built on a lie.”
Where was this all coming from? In the years they’d worked together, she’d shown no chinks in her armor, no insecurities. Not the way she did now. “You’d be fine if Phoenix hadn’t come back.”
“I’d be fine if you hadn’t come back.”
Tate winced. Well, at least he knew where he stood.
“Tate, I...I’d grieved you. I’d let you go. I’d managed to somehow forget the way I used to feel—” She stopped, then huffed through pursed lips. “It’s not you—it’s all of this. There’s a new normal. One that might include me running for my life forever.”
ELEVEN
“Hotel.”
Meghan jerked away from the window and blinked twice, the world a muted wash outside her sunglasses. She shoved her fingers between the lenses and her face, scrubbing her eyes. “What time is it?”
“A little after nine.” Tate pulled the sunglasses from her face, giving her a clearer view of the little hotel sprawling across a parking lot in front of them. Weeds grew around the brick building, and the siding could use a good power wash, but it certainly wasn’t the worst place they’d ever taken refuge in. “We’re in middle of nowhere Ohio, in case you’re wondering.”
Meghan pulled her neck from side to side, trying to stretch the effects of sleeping against a bouncing truck window out of her neck. “We don’t have to stop. I can drive for a while.”
“Probably better if we both put in some quality sleep in actual beds.” He popped the door open and slid out, leaning in with laughter dancing in his green eyes. “You’re cute when you snore.” He flashed her a grin and was gone before her sleep-fogged mind could devise a retort.
Cute. Not a word anyone had ever applied to her before. The sentiment danced across Meghan’s skin as Tate walked toward the small hotel office, the deep shadows of late evening making him look like a dream in more ways than one. He was defin
itely easy to watch, even more so since he carried himself with his typical confidence.
He made her want to chase him across the parking lot and dump her heart on the pavement, but acting like a teenager was decidedly out of bounds.
Even if he had called her cute.
She checked her holster, then sat watching the parking lot until Tate returned, refusing to let her mind wander to why he’d chosen the sentiment, even in a jab. She scrubbed at her cheeks. Man, she definitely needed sleep if she was going to read this much into one little word.
Tate slid into the truck and passed her a key. She held it in front of her and let the dull metal catch the glow of a streetlight. “You’re kidding. They use real keys here?” Surely every hotel in the world had gone to cards by now.
“And they take cash.” Tate cranked the protesting truck and drove it around to the rear of the building out of sight from the road. “We’ll have to think about other transportation soon. I’ll make a quick check of the area in the morning, see if I can’t find a used car lot.”
“Be hard to trade with the exterior sporting ventilation à la bullet.”
“The right amount of money can silence even the nosiest of questions.”
He was right. Another experience they’d shared many times.
Meghan patted the dashboard before she snagged the first aid kit and got out, reaching for her backpack in the truck bed. She’d miss the old clunker. It had, after all, gotten them out of a shoot-out. Seemed mean to put her out to pasture in some backwoods used car lot.
If she was nostalgic for a truck, then Tate was right. She needed real sleep. She’d already slipped about her feelings for him once, on the edge of an adrenaline high, and she didn’t need to make her slip a complete fall on her face.
She followed Tate along a surprisingly clean hallway. It exuded the smell every other hotel in the world had, the scent no one could identify other than to call it “hotel smell.”
Meghan let herself relax a little. At least the place didn’t reek of stale food and cigarette smoke. Hopefully the bed was clean.
Not that it mattered. She’d slept on foreign dirt with camel spiders. She could take on pretty much anything at this point.
No longer trusting herself to speak, she threw a wave to Tate and shoved open the door to the room next to his, dropping her bag to the floor and herself to the edge of the bed, collapsing flat on her back before she realized she was still holding the first aid kit.
Tate’s arm. It still needed real attention. Attention she’d have to give it as soon as he finished his phone conversation. Through the thin wall, she could hear his voice rising and falling, probably calling in their day to Ethan. The low rumble of him doing his job—the job they’d once shared—ran from her stomach to her heart in tiny shivers she was too tired to fight. She’d felt it all the way up her arm and into her soul earlier when he touched her hand. She was still full-fledged in love with the man who’d stolen her heart years ago.
There would never be a good time to tell him. He had a life she no longer wanted, a plan she couldn’t fit into her life. She wouldn’t ask him to stay any more than she’d pack her things and go run all over the world with him.
No. She’d grieved for him once and was certain she couldn’t survive grieving for him again. Distance was best.
A knock dragged her straight to her feet. No way she’d fallen asleep, but the proof was in her grogginess and the fact she was still clutching the canvas first aid bag as if it were a teddy bear.
This nightmare would never end.
Another knock, softer this time, on a door she hadn’t noticed before, standing between the two rooms. She tucked the kit under her arm and pulled herself taller, steeling herself against the attraction she was too tired to fight as she pulled open the door.
Tate looked as weary as she felt. He’d had a shower while she slept, and now he smelled like soap and shampoo, his hair damp and towel tousled. But something in his expression wasn’t lit the way it usually was.
“Everything okay?”
He seemed to come back from somewhere else. “Yeah. I just...” He pointed at the first aid kit. “Arm’s killing me, and you’re holding the painkillers.”
Without caring about consequences, she lifted his shirtsleeve to check the bandage she’d slapped into place earlier. Blood seeped through. “It might need a couple of stitches.”
He grimaced and stepped into the room, sinking into a chair by the small wooden table. “Make it quick. I need sleep.” He’d hit the proverbial wall. It wasn’t hard to miss the change in attitude.
She saluted and dug through the bag, confident in her abilities, if not in her emotions. “Cranky when you’re in pain, aren’t you?”
“Nope. I’ve been on the other end of your needle before. You sew crooked stitches. I want pretty scars.”
Meghan rolled her eyes, swallowing a retort. She was crashing fast, and her filter was crumbling even faster. The less she said and the less she touched him, the better. Careful to keep her touch off his skin as much as possible, she peeled away the bandage for a closer inspection.
It definitely qualified as a graze, which meant even less touching. “Well, you don’t have to worry about my needle skills.” She made quick work of cleaning the wound, ignoring him when he winced, and had a proper bandage in place before she could think twice about lingering. “All done. You can sleep now.” It was abrupt, but she knew her limits. Much longer in the same space and she’d kick apart every wall inside just to have Tate Walker’s arms around her.
“Wow.” Tate stood and walked to the door between their rooms. “You have a good evening, too.”
She followed, wanting him to leave and wanting to follow him when he did. “I’m tired, and you know what happens when we both get tired.”
“We fight like an old married couple.” Maybe the sentiment was supposed to be funny, but it sounded tender, an unexpected brush on Meghan’s heart.
Tears pricked the back of her nose, further evidence she was skating the edge.
Tate didn’t make a move to shut the door. Instead, he swiped an errant tear from her cheek, his touch fiery. “Why did you leave?” The rough edges of his voice strummed across her heart.
She wanted to lean into him, to give in and quit fighting. She backed off. “Partners shouldn’t work together too long. They get too close.” Meghan stepped sideways to skirt Tate, but he grabbed her bicep.
“What do you mean by ‘too close’?” His voice was husky, and he watched her, looking for something she couldn’t begin to calculate.
Those words may have been the worst she’d ever chosen. Meghan pulled, but his grasp tightened. He wouldn’t let her go until she gave him an answer.
It had better be a good one, or they’d stand here forever while the bad guys drew closer. Meghan swallowed hard, determined not to be the first to back down, even though he had a wonder about him, as though he was seeing something he’d never seen before. Her blood pressure drove into orbit as heat washed across her skin and stole readiness from her muscles.
She wouldn’t retreat, but he was welcome to back away anytime.
He didn’t. Tate pulled her closer, until his warmth filtered through her shirt. His eyes dropped to her lips before sliding to hers again. “What’s ‘too close,’ Meg?”
“This.” The word came out in a harsh whisper, forced to squeeze past the lump lodged in her throat.
Here it was, right in front of her. The whole reason she’d bucked the army and left him in the first place. The undeniable reality that this man simply standing beside her would never be enough, that his touch on her arm wasn’t what she wanted.
She didn’t want a partner. She wanted Tate Walker to love her. To look at her exactly the way he was looking at her right now, with an incomprehensible expression she’d never seen be
fore but had always believed would feel exactly this way.
Noting else mattered. Not the fact that an assassin had them in the crosshairs. Not the fact that there was a mission demanding their attention. Not the fact that a hacker had his finger poised over a panic button they had yet to identify.
The outside world meant nothing in this space between them. The space rapidly shrinking as Tate leaned closer and drew her toward him at the same time.
He swallowed hard, his breath tightening, too close. His searching never wavered.
Meghan moved to push him away, but her palm landed on his chest, right over this heart; the pace of his matched the pace of her own. Too fast, the rhythm drawing her in.
He slipped his arm around her waist, closing the distance between them, letting his hand on her bicep slide to her neck, where his thumb brushed her pulse. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and stayed there, not moving, letting something pass between them that defied words but pulsed against her heart like a whole new way of living.
Meghan let go of the tension she’d been holding for years, balling her fists into his shirt, her toes curling into her shoes. She tilted her head, breaking his touch against her forehead, but only long enough to meet again, her lips brushing his once before he kissed her without hesitation, without reserve, kicking through the walls she’d built between them for years.
In one moment, she lost herself, her past, her fears...and this man was all that mattered.
* * *
Tate Walker was a goner.
He was a planner. A thinker. A man who found the best of himself working from the inside out.
Kissing Meghan McGuire was a body blow that slammed him from the outside in. There had always been something about her, but he’d never dreamed her something was the missing piece meant to fill every remaining empty place inside.
When mist had covered her eyes, Tate had cracked, every feeling he’d never admitted to himself seeping through. Meghan overtook his well-disciplined rationality.
He’d needed to know why she’d left him, and the shades of truth behind her answer had completely undone him. The cracks blew open like a dam breaking, and he was swept away in the current.
