by Paula Graves
“I’m telling you, I looked. No milk or eggs. Just a few frozen things and nonperishables.” She sat at the table and watched while he poked through the cabinets and refrigerator for a few moments before having to concede she was right.
“I could run into town later for supplies,” he said.
She looked up sharply. “What if you’re followed back here?”
“Would you rather starve?” His words came out more sharply than he’d intended, thanks to his edgy nerves.
She slumped in her chair. “I shouldn’t have gone to your cabin in the first place. I knew it might put you in danger.”
He felt a sharp stab of guilt as he closed the refrigerator door. “I’m glad you did. You couldn’t have gone on much longer with those wounds untreated.”
“But you would be back at your cabin, not breaking and entering and avoiding your colleagues.”
He crossed to her, crouching in front of her chair. “Stop, Rigsby. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I’d still be fuming about my suspension and feeling sorry for myself. I needed the distraction.”
One corner of her lips curved. “I live to be a distraction.”
He barely kept himself from pushing back the auburn curls that had fallen to frame her face. “You’re quite good at it, you know.” He pushed to his feet. “Waffles?”
“With peanut butter and syrup,” she said, her tone brighter.
He grimaced again. “Hillbilly.”
“Not a hillbilly,” she retorted with a grin.
As he struggled against an answering smile, heat coiled low in his abdomen, reminding him that friendship with McKenna Rigsby might be more dangerous than conflict.
He found a jar of strawberry preserves in the refrigerator and spread the treacly berries over his toasted waffle, while McKenna slathered peanut butter and syrup over her own. She ate with a gusto that made him feel hopeful that they’d managed to turn the tide of her infection.
She seemed stronger and clearer-eyed, as well, when she helped him wash and dry their plates and put them away. “You weren’t lying about feeling better, were you?” he asked as he took the dishrag from her hands and folded it.
Taking a step closer, she took the dishrag from his hands and set it on the counter. Heat from her body swept over him like a wave, setting off tremors low in his abdomen. “Maybe you missed your calling, Darcy. Although your bedside manner could use a little help.”
He took a step back before realizing he was trapped against the counter.
McKenna’s eyebrows arched a notch. “Last night, you said we’d talk this morning. Well, it’s morning, Darcy. So talk.”
“I could ask the same of you, Rigsby.” He pushed away from the counter, closing the space between them to inches. “You told me a little about what you’ve been doing, but you know what you haven’t told me? What you did to make the FBI put out an APB on you.”
She sighed and took a step backward, bumping into one of the kitchen chairs. She reached back to steady herself before lifting her chin and meeting his gaze. “I ignored a direct order from my SAC.”
He frowned. Special Agents in Charge, or SACs, were direct superiors in the FBI chain of command. If her SAC had given her an order, disobeying it was a big violation of the rules. “Why?”
“Because he told me to meet another agent at a staging point for extraction.”
“He wanted you to bug out.”
“He wanted me to meet someone I had reason to believe might want me dead.” Her clear green eyes met his steadily. “I overheard a discussion between a man named Calvin Hopkins and an anarchist who goes by the name Komodo. Don’t ask—I have no idea why he goes by that name. But Hopkins told Komodo that he’d gotten a tip from the Fibber.”
He frowned. “Komodo and the Fibber? Sounds like a comic book.”
She took a step toward him again, and the fierce look in her eyes sent him backward again until his hips hit the edge of the counter. “It may sound comical to you, but the Fibber, as they called him, is apparently someone in the FBI, because he blew my cover completely. I barely got off the BRI compound without being caught. Then I got the call from my boss to meet an agent named Cade Landry for extraction.”
“And you don’t trust Landry?”
“I don’t trust anyone!” Her voice rose with frustration. “Not a damned person in the FBI or anywhere else.” She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “I want to trust you, Darcy. I need to trust you.”
“You can,” he said.
Her gaze searched his, looking for God only knew what. Some secret sign that he was worthy of her faith, he supposed. He didn’t know how to reassure her. Either she believed in him or she didn’t.
“Okay. I believe you.” Her lips curved and she took a step closer, placing her hands on his shoulders. She smelled good, the scent of green-apple bubble bath lingering on her skin. “Thank you. For the way you’ve taken care of me. And for believing me.”
His pulse ratcheted up as she rose to her toes and pressed a soft, lingering kiss against his cheek. Desire tore through him like a bullet, and he took a quick, deep breath.
McKenna’s fingers tightened over his shoulders, but she didn’t move away. Her lips brushed against his jawline.
He pressed his hand against the small of her back, tugging her closer. She moved fluidly toward him, her hips sliding against his, the friction delicious and hot. One slender hand curled around the back of his neck, tangling in his hair.
“You’ve let your hair grow,” she murmured against his chin.
“I told you. I’m not the man you knew.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.” She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Maybe it’s a good thing neither of us is the same person we were eight years ago.”
“I’m not sure you’re right about that,” he murmured, his head dipping toward her. “But I find I don’t care.”
Her hand tightened on his neck, drawing him down to her. Her nose brushed against his as he slanted his head and closed the distance between them.
They had never done this, not once. There had been moments between them in Tablis when the sexual tension had been pure torture, moments when he’d wanted her with a ferocity that he’d never known with any other woman.
But they’d never closed the gap between them, never crossed that line.
Well, here he was. Here was the line, awaiting one more step.
His breath escaping his throat in a trembling sigh, he crossed it.
Chapter Seven
She’d wondered for a long time what it would be like to kiss Nick Darcy. Though she normally tried not to dwell on things that would never happen, she’d sometimes dreamed about kissing Darcy, imagined the feel of his mouth on hers during sleepless nights and even fantasized about what might happen next, whenever she wanted to distract herself from the stresses of her work.
Fantasies had seemed harmless enough, given the years and miles between her and the object of her unfulfilled desires. But mouth to mouth, body to body, drowning in the masculine scent of him, the heat of his hands sliding over the curve of her spine to settle low on her back, tugging her closer—he overwhelmed her utterly.
She felt hot all over. Hot and restless and rapidly losing control. He slid his hand beneath the hem of her T-shirt and up her back, his palms rough against her skin. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed closer, flattening her body against his as he touched his tongue to hers, demanding a deeper response.
He pulled her closer, his arm tightening around her waist. His fingers dug into her side.
Her injured side.
Pain raced through her at his accidental touch, and she couldn’t stop a sharp cry from escaping her lips.
He jerked back, releasing her, a stricken expression on his face. “Oh, God, I’m sor
ry.”
“It’s okay.” Her voice came out a little breathless as she waited for the pain to ease.
“Let me take a look—I might have reopened your wounds.”
“I think they’re okay,” she said as the pain settled down to a moderate ache.
“I am a complete idiot.” His mortified tone tweaked her funny bone and she had to struggle against laughing.
“No, you’re not.” She caught his hand. “I’m fine.”
“I should check to make sure it’s not bleeding.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Admit it, Darcy. You just want to get me naked.”
He looked affronted. “Not at all!”
“Not even a little?” she asked with an exaggerated pout.
His expression softened. “You’re having me on.”
“I was trying to have you on. Me, that is. But then you freaked out like a virgin.” She made a face at him. “Is that why you never put any moves on me all those years ago, Darcy? Performance anxiety?”
He smiled at that. “Now you’re trying to bait me.”
She took a step closer, knowing she was playing with fire. If she were a wise woman, she’d take advantage of this interruption and retreat to her corner. But not when Darcy looked so damned rumpled and sexy.
“Is it working?” she asked, her tone as sultry as she could manage.
“Am I tempted?” He dipped his head toward her, his breath warm and sweet against her cheek. “Absolutely.”
“But?” she prodded, hearing the hesitation in his tone.
“But the last thing we need right now is a distraction. You’re in danger, and we don’t know from whom, exactly.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, gently pushing her backward, putting distance between them. “Are you certain I don’t need to check your wounds?”
“They’re not even hurting anymore,” she assured him, trying to quell her disappointment. He was right. She knew he was. The last thing either of them needed to do right now was drop their guard.
She was safe for the moment. Her wounds seemed to be healing, and so far, their efforts were keeping infection at bay. She was warm, dry, reasonably well rested and no longer completely alone.
It was time to stop running, she realized. Time to hunker down and come up with a plan other than “run as fast and far as you can.”
“What are you thinking?” Darcy asked.
She looked up and found him watching her through narrowed eyes.
“You had a look on your face—” His lips quirked. “I’ve seen that look before. You’ve made a decision about something.”
Her own lips curved in response. “I was just thinking that I’ve grown very weary of running.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“It’s time to stop, don’t you think?”
His eyebrows notched upward. “What do you have in mind?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “it’s time we sat down and devised a plan.”
“A plan?”
She nodded. “I’m sick and tired of being the prey. I think it’s time I became the hunter.”
* * *
“CALVIN HOPKINS TOOK over after the Ridge County Sheriff’s Department arrested Billy Dawson and his crew after they attempted the mass poisoning at the Highland Hotel and Resort.” McKenna sat cross-legged on the sofa across from him, her fingers playing with the fringe of the sofa pillow she held in her lap.
Taking in the rise in her color and the return of strength and steadiness to her limbs, Darcy let himself begin to relax. They would have to remain aggressive with the fight against infection, but he was beginning to believe they might have caught it in time.
“Do I need to recap any of that part of the story?” she asked with a twitch of one eyebrow. “Or are you familiar with it?”
“I know about it,” he assured her. He hadn’t been directly on the Billy Dawson case, but everyone at The Gates knew how it had gone down. One of his fellow agents, Hunter Bragg, had infiltrated the Blue Ridge Infantry in time to uncover a plot to poison a convention full of federal, state and local law enforcement officers. Three hundred lives had been in danger before Hunter and the hotel’s events planner, Susannah Marsh, had figured out the plot and found a way to foil it, despite the grave threat to their lives.
The same Susannah Marsh who’d turned out to be McKenna’s cousin.
“Susannah told Quinn you and your mother helped her when she had to leave Boneyard Ridge to escape the Bradburys,” he said.
She grimaced. “Sick bastards. One of those inbred monsters tried to rape a sixteen-year-old and she’s the criminal because she shot him in self-defense?”
“She said she’d have never made it without you.”
“She’s family.” McKenna shrugged.
It must be nice, he thought, to have family upon which to rely without question. In his own family, there had been love, of course, but also inflexible expectations. His father had been displeased by his choice to enter the security side of Foreign Service, dismissing his DSS position as nothing more than “a glorified security guard.”
And his mother had been unhappy he’d chosen Foreign Service at all, hoping instead that he would stay near her in their Yorkshire country estate and help her raise and train racehorses.
“But you’re good with the horses,” she’d protested when he’d told her of his new career. “Do you realize how rare that really is? How many men and women in racing would kill for your natural talent with those beasts?”
He’d left England and his family behind, and most days, he had no regrets. Even now.
But sometimes—
“Hopkins had learned from Billy Dawson’s mistakes. He was very careful who he let into the group. I knew I was never going to get into the inner circle as a woman. They’re sexist pigs to the core.”
“Then how did you propose to do it?”
“All I had to do was get inside once to set up the listening devices.”
“And how did you accomplish that?”
“How does any woman infiltrate a group of men?” She smirked a little. “I showed them a little skin.”
A cold, squirmy sensation jolted through him, settling in a queasy mass in the center of his stomach. “Which means?”
“One of them had a fortieth birthday coming up. So we started spreading flyers around Ridge County advertising private strip parties.”
Another chill darted through him. “You stripped for them?” She let strange men—morally bankrupt reprobates—watch her undress?
Her lips curved in a smart-ass grin. “Oh, you thought I was the one who stripped? Hell, no. You know I’m the shy, retiring type. No, we hired a couple of girls from the go-go bar over in Barrowville, and they only stripped to their bikinis. I supervised the music, which included running wires and setting up the speakers—”
“And planting listening devices all about the room.” Darcy started to relax.
“Yes. We knew the BRI had taken over the old lodge on Killshadow Road as their meeting place. We knew they’d held parties there before, even events like a community fundraiser for one of the BRI members who’d lost a leg in a car accident. We figured if we could get the place wired up, we might be able to find out exactly what they’ve got up their sleeve.”
Darcy nodded. “But something went awry?”
“Not then. But a few days later, they had a couple of their anarchist hacker buddies in for a powwow and the hypervigilant nerd brought along a bug detector. They found the device and it didn’t take long to narrow down the list of suspects to the maintenance crew they’d hired to clean up after the party or—”
“Or you,” he finished for her.
“The maintenance crew was made up of family and friends. They shook them all down, scared the hell out of
them and quickly figured out none of them was smart enough—or stupid enough—to pull off that kind of betrayal.”
“Which left the strippers.”
“And their DJ. The strippers were pretty well-known around town, and neither of them knew a thing about electronics, so it didn’t take long to concentrate on me instead.”
“Did you know your bug had been discovered?”
“The FBI did. I wasn’t part of the listening crew. I was working other angles when it went down.”
“Surely they warned you.”
“They should have.”
“But they didn’t?”
She passed her hand slowly over her face. “There were six people in the FBI who knew what I was doing, but only four count. The director himself and his deputy director signed off on everything, but they’re not really in the day-to-day loop, so I’m not sure I should count them as suspects.”
“Okay, who are the other four?”
“The Knoxville SAC, Glen Robertson, of course, and the SSA in charge of my unit, Darryl Boyle,” she answered, glancing at him as if to gauge whether he knew what the acronyms meant.
He did, of course—working in a federal agency himself, he’d had contact with the FBI on numerous occasions. The SAC was the head of the field office where she’d worked, Knoxville in this case. The SSA was the Supervisory Special Agent directly in charge of her work as a special agent.
“Then there was Pete Chang, head of the Johnson City RA,” she added, referring to the smaller resident agency located in a town northeast of Knoxville. “He assigned another special agent, Cade Landry, to work with me, since the BRI’s territory in Tennessee straddles both jurisdictions.”
He jotted the names down in the notebook app on his cell phone. “Okay, I can do a little digging around on these guys. Who was assigned to contact you about the discovery of your surveillance equipment?”
“SAC Robertson said he contacted both Agent Boyle and Agent Chang. Agent Boyle tried to reach me, but I was in a part of the mountains where cell reception was nil. Chang reached Landry, or so he said. Landry swears he didn’t get any call from Chang about anything.”
