by Paula Graves
“I know. I want that for you.”
“I’ve been thinking about how to do that. To get this over with faster.”
He heard reluctance in her voice, as if she knew he wouldn’t like what she was about to say. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.
“I think we should set a trap for both Landry and Boyle. I can contact each of them, tell them I want to come in from the cold and set a meeting time. Ask them to bring backup. Then we see which one of them brings backup and which one comes alone. The one who shows up alone isn’t playing by the rules.”
“What if they both bring backup? They’ll take you in.”
“At least we’ll know neither of them is the mole in the FBI.”
Darcy shook his head. “I don’t want you putting yourself up as bait. Too much can go wrong.”
“I’m tired of waiting around for us to stumble onto a break in this case. We need to make things happen or it’s possible they never will.”
As she made a move to get up off the bed, he caught her arm, stilling her movement. She gazed back at him, her eyes going dark. The air between them crackled with a sudden burst of heat, and even as he let go of her bare arm, he couldn’t keep himself from letting his fingers trail down to the delicate skin of her slender wrist.
Her lips trembled apart. “Darcy—”
He tightened his grip on her wrist, tugging her to him until she stood between his legs, gazing down at him with a mixture of desire and consternation.
“Don’t put yourself in danger, Rigsby.” He wrapped his free arm around her waist, pulling her closer until her hips pressed against his belly.
“Are you going to try to seduce me out of it?” Her voice was warm velvet.
“Will it work?” he asked, pressing his mouth against the collarbone peeking out of her T-shirt collar.
“Worth a try,” she said as she pushed him back onto the bed.
Chapter Fourteen
She felt reckless. Impulsive. Completely out of control. All the things she’d struggled with her whole life, that wild hare scampering inside her soul, yearning for wide-open spaces and spectacular adventures.
Her mother had warned her early about letting her feral side take control. Wild hares got eaten by predators. Run over by cars. They lived short, adrenaline-fueled lives. They never won the race.
But oh, the feel of flying along at breakneck speed, your heart galloping in your breast like a Thoroughbred going for the win—it was an intoxicating sensation. Darcy’s arms around her were strong and solid, holding her so tightly as he kissed her that she thought she might break.
But she was stronger than his passion. Stronger than her own fierce response. She twined her fingers with his and kissed him deeply, with abandon, needing this freedom, this moment of surrender and demand.
But she couldn’t let herself lose all control. She couldn’t. Walking away from her friendship with Darcy had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
How much harder would it be to leave him behind if they gave in to this wicked fire burning between them?
Darcy dragged his mouth away from her jaw and looked up at her. “What’s wrong?”
“This thing between us here—it can’t go anywhere, can it?”
His chest rose and fell beneath her. “You are possibly the most confounding woman I’ve ever known.”
He dropped his hands and she rolled away, lying on her back beside him. She stared up at the cheap light fixture overhead and wished her mother’s voice had stayed silent a few minutes longer.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“I don’t know if what’s going on between us here can go anywhere. My life at the moment is nothing but a question mark. And you’re wanted by the FBI.” He reached across the narrow space between them and took her hand. “I just know that when I made it stateside after the siege, I felt utterly gutted because you weren’t there. And I also know what we were about to do here was reckless and ill-advised.”
“I’m sorry.” She turned her head, taking in his handsome profile, the way his brow furrowed as he gazed up at the ceiling. “I know you think I’m a rule-breaking wild card compared to you, but I’m not the incautious type, really. I just—I missed you, Darcy. Every damn day.”
He turned his head, his dark eyes meeting hers. “I missed you, too. You were an island of sanity in Kaziristan. Bloody levelheaded hillbilly. Nothing fazed you.”
“Not a hillbilly.”
“Yes, you are.” He turned his body toward hers, reaching out to touch her face. “In the very best sense of the word. You’re as solid as the mountains. As brave as the settlers who built a life on this rocky soil. As practical and unsentimental as any hardy mountaineer who’s ever roamed these hills. I depended on every bit of that strength, McKenna, all those years ago in Kaziristan. I’m depending on it now.”
His words brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them back. “So much for unsentimental.”
He smiled and leaned forward to press his lips against her forehead. “I know you want this over with. But the thought of putting you out there like a piece of bear bait—”
“We can set it up so that it’s safe.” At his skeptical look, she added, “Or as safe as we can make it.”
“If you insist on doing this, we need to bring Quinn in on the plan.”
She shook her head, remembering Quinn’s earlier visit to the cabin. “He’s working his own agenda, Darcy. You know he is. It’s what he does.”
“Yes, but it so happens that his agenda coincides with ours.”
“Until it doesn’t.” She sat up, letting go of his hand. “And there’s the problem of the mole in your agency, too. I know it’s not you. But there’s someone leaking information from there, right?”
“Yes.”
“Who else is under suspicion?”
“A man named Anson Daughtry. He, Quinn and I were the only three people who knew the real identity of an undercover operative working for The Gates. Someone got wind of that information, as well as what she was doing. She was lucky to survive. But she had to leave Tennessee.”
“Is she in WitSec?” McKenna asked, her stomach aching. She’d dealt with a handful of people over the years who ended up in Witness Security, their names, their whole identities erased and replaced with new lives. Not all of them were innocent victims, of course, but there had been a few whose lives were shattered entirely through no fault of their own.
“No. And I don’t know where she is now, because I could be the mole.” His voice was tight with anger. “I need this to be over, but I don’t know how to defend myself. All I have is my good name, my reputation, and that means nothing to Quinn.”
“I think it means something,” she disagreed, reaching for his hand and twining her fingers through his. “Quinn knows you’re innocent. I could tell by the way he spoke to you. He respects you, and he doesn’t respect traitors.”
“Then why am I still on leave?”
“I think maybe because you’re serving his purposes where you are. Such as your propensity for taking in wayward FBI agents in need.”
He squeezed her fingers. “I’m a complete sucker for a wayward FBI agent in need.”
“He trusts you.” She looked down at their entwined hands. “The problem is, I don’t trust him. Right now, I don’t trust anyone but you.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “You know that question you asked me earlier? About whether I thought things between us could go anywhere?”
She nodded, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“I want it to. I do.” He grasped her hand between his, holding it to his chest. “I have spent a very long time believing I would always be alone in life. And the thought never bothered me that much. I was an only child, raised by parents who loved me but
never really enjoyed my company. They had their own lives to live, and they believed that coddling me too much would do me more harm than good.”
Her heart contracted at the picture he was painting of his childhood. Her own had been nearly the opposite, she thought, a life spent under the watchful but loving eye of a mother who had made McKenna her whole world. “That must have been a lonely life.”
He shook his head. “It didn’t feel that lonely, really. The staff was kind. And my father’s sister enjoyed my company a great deal when she visited. But she was so far away in America.” He smiled. “It’s one of the reasons I went to college in America instead of at Oxford as my father had hoped. Aunt Vivian was a graduate of the University of Virginia, and she talked me into going there.”
“Sounds like you enjoyed it.”
“Immensely.” His smile faded. “But Aunt Viv died my senior year at UVA. Car accident. All very sudden.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So, I became accustomed to my own company.” He slanted a look at her. “Until I went to Kaziristan to protect the ambassador and stumbled upon a wild-haired water nymph in the embassy pool.”
She laughed. “Now you’re just making things up. Water nymph?”
“Flitting through the water, all hair and fair skin and big green eyes. I was mesmerized.”
“Darcy, you ordered me out of the pool.”
“That’s not the way I remember it.”
“You told me I didn’t have authorization to be there.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You were imperious and aggravating. You sounded like a snotty butler in a bad British movie.”
He smiled more broadly. “Not a Brit.”
“Yes, you are. The very best kind of Brit—smart, capable, steeped in traditions worth keeping and endowed with a dry wit that kept me sane in the middle of hell.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, then. It seems we’re both paragons.”
She laughed. “We are. We really are.”
His lips curled in a smile that didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “I know you want this to be over. I do, too. But if we just throw you out there to the wolves without a plan—”
“Who says we aren’t going to have a plan?”
* * *
DARCY’S BURGER HAD gone cold by the time he pulled out their dinner from the take-out bags, but he ate it anyway, listening to McKenna work her way through their options between bites of her partially wilted salad.
“We’re looking for somewhere that has public Wi-Fi and a decent video-surveillance system,” she said after washing down a bite of salad with the sweet tea she’d ordered. “The more angles of approach we can cover the better. And we need to get our hands on another laptop computer so that we can cover both places we set up as the rendezvous points.”
“I have a credit card, but if people are looking for me now—”
“You wanted to bring Quinn in on this plan, right?”
“But you said—”
“I don’t trust him with the details. But if he can arrange for you to get your hands on a computer, I won’t object.”
Darcy set his burger on the bedside table and grabbed his duffel bag. He’d purchased a disposable phone shortly after going on administrative leave, aware that in his line of business, stealth might become a necessity before his ordeal was over.
Especially if someone in The Gates was setting both him and Anson Daughtry up for a fall.
He turned on the phone and checked the battery. Still had over 60 percent power. He’d need to charge it soon. But it would do what he needed for now.
He dialed a number only a handful of people knew. Even most of the agents at The Gates didn’t have Quinn’s personal number.
Quinn answered on the second ring. “Bradford Building Supply,” he answered in a broad mountain drawl that made Darcy smile.
“It’s your wayward son,” Darcy replied.
“Is something wrong?” Quinn dropped the accent.
“I need a laptop computer. Performance oriented, with wireless and the means to monitor a video feed.”
“Don’t ask for a lot, do you?”
“Can you supply it?” Darcy asked, trying to keep his impatience from bleeding into his voice.
He could tell by the tone of Quinn’s voice that he hadn’t been entirely successful. “Would you like to tell me why I should?”
“Because you asked me to protect someone and I’m doing my best to accomplish that task. But I need a computer.”
“What are you two up to?”
“Do you trust me to do this job or not?”
“Technically—”
“I’m on administrative leave. I know that. Believe me.” Darcy glanced across the motel room at the other bed, where McKenna was conducting a web search for potential sites where they could set up rendezvous points with access to security-video feeds. “But you know as well as I do that you’ve given me a job to do. Do you trust me to do it or don’t you?”
“I don’t give jobs to people I don’t trust.”
Darcy felt the bunched muscles in his shoulders relax. “How quickly can you have the laptop ready for me?”
“Do you have twenty-four hours?”
“If need be.”
“I’ll try to make it faster. I don’t have your phone number—”
“I know,” Darcy said and hung up.
McKenna glanced up at him. “You’re actually very sexy when you’re being imperious and aggravating.”
He smiled. “How’s the search coming?”
“I have a list of six potential places. We’ll have to check them out to make sure I can tap into the feeds. Some places may have heavier encryption than this motel. Some places won’t. How long before Quinn can deliver a second laptop?”
“Twenty-four hours.”
She nodded. “That will give us time. I think we should try to get some sleep this afternoon and plan to go site hunting late in the evening. These sites I’ve picked out probably aren’t going to shut down their Wi-Fi connections at night. If they do, they’re probably heavily encrypted anyway and of little use to us.”
He crossed to her side, looking over her shoulder at the list. There were two fast-food restaurants, a handful of motels, hotels or lodges, a campground and a coffee shop, all in or around the Poe Creek area. “The campground may be too remote. And I’m not sure what kind of security cameras they’d have available to tap into.”
“We’ll find out when we drive there tonight,” she said with a shrug, handing over the laptop. “You figure out a plan of attack. I need a nap.” She stretched out on her back, closing her eyes.
“We haven’t treated your wounds since after your shower last night,” he said. “I know you’re feeling better, but we can’t assume they’re all healed up.”
With a groan, she turned onto her side, lifting up the edge of her T-shirt. “Go for it, Marquis de Sade.”
Forcing his gaze away from the curve of her slender waist, he grabbed the first-aid kit from his duffel bag and gathered his supplies. They were getting low on several, including gauze and other bandaging materials. “You didn’t notice a drugstore near any of those places we need to go tonight, did you?”
“I think there’s one not far from the burger place on Greenbrier Road.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “How are we standing on money?”
“Good for now.” He’d withdrawn five thousand dollars on his last trip to Purgatory, so with a little judicious budgeting, they wouldn’t run out of cash anytime soon.
He eased the bandage away from her wounds, wincing a little as the tape pulled at her skin. She sucked in a quick breath but had no other reaction.
The wounds were healing. The redness of infection was all b
ut gone, only the ragged edges of the wounds themselves still red with inflammation. And even they were starting to close up and scab over.
“How’s it look?” she asked.
“Hideous,” he said lightly. “But we’ve fought back the infection.”
“Hideous, huh?” She shot him a wry grin. “You always know how to make me feel pretty.”
Smiling back, he used a couple of his dwindling supply of antiseptic wipes to clean up the wounds. “Your wounds are dry and healing. You want to try going without a bandage awhile?”
She shot him an eager look. “I would love that. The tape pulls and itches like hell.”
He tugged her T-shirt hem down to cover the wounds, his hands remarkably steady given how hard his heart was pounding. Even doing something as mundane and unsexy as cleaning her wounds was enough to get his pulse racing and his skin prickling.
He was so much more vulnerable to her now than he ever remembered being. Was it the proximity? The constant threat of discovery?
Or was it the fact that he’d finally allowed himself to touch her, to kiss her and hold her the way he’d wanted to that very first night at the embassy in Tablis? One taste and he was a helpless addict?
“Darcy?”
He made himself look at her. She was gazing back at him with a quizzical look on her face. “What?” he asked, his voice coming out low and hoarse.
“Is something wrong?” She touched his hand, the mere brush of her fingers sparking his nerves until they jangled.
He moved away from her, needing the distance. “Everything’s fine.”
He heard the mattress creak, then her footsteps as she walked up behind him. He looked up at the dresser mirror and saw her standing behind him, her gaze soft and worried.
“Darcy—”
He closed his eyes. “I should take the Land Rover down the road and fill up the gas tank if we’re going to be driving around all evening.”
Her hand closed over his shoulder, her grip gentle. “Are you running away, Darcy?”
He opened his eyes and met her knowing gaze. He couldn’t quite stop a wry smile from quirking his lips. “Yes,” he admitted.
