by Sabrina York
After her father’s death, and after the insurance company had refused to pay out—suicide, they’d claimed, the bastards—she and her mom had been homeless for a while. Hell, this ratty cabin was like a palace compared to some of the places they’d had to stay.
It hadn’t gotten much better by the time Mom met Jimmy, her second husband, because by then, Mom had turned to the needle to ease her despair. From upstanding military wife to junkie in less than a year. And once she was with Jimmy, there was no hope for her. That slime bag had used Mom’s weakness, and the drugs, to control her. To drag her down with him into a hell of his own making.
And Sam?
Jimmy had used Sam too.
She dropped on the bed and hugged her knees and forced herself to remember the happier times. A strong, handsome, smiling father who seemed like a valiant knight. A laughing mother who adored her ranger husband. A daughter who was cossetted and loved.
It didn’t take much for a dream to go to shit, did it?
She’d stepped from the enchanted castle right into the terrifying, dark and clawing woods that fairy tales were infamous for. Her new life had been filled with ogres and trolls and evil witches, with nary a Prince Charming to be found.
It was wrong to fill young girls’ heads full of such fancies. True love and white knights were just as farfetched as magical spells and dragons. At some point, that poor deluded waif was going to learn the truth about the world and if she wasn’t lucky—or cynical—the truth would destroy her.
Sam hadn’t been a hardened soul then. Hadn’t been prepared to handle such an ugly world filled with junkies and whores and desperate people who would do anything for oblivion. It had nearly consumed her.
Thank heaven for Jon. God only know where she’d have ended up if not for him. In a gutter somewhere with a needle in her arm, probably.
But even Jon hadn’t saved her. He’d simply given her the opportunity to save herself. And she’d taken it. It had required courage she hadn’t known she had to confront Jimmy. To face him in a court of law. To lift her hand and point her finger and send that soulless fuck to prison for fifty consecutive life sentences. Only one of the myriad charges had mattered to her.
Jimmy had beaten her mother to death one night. Right in front of her eyes.
Though she could never have her poor mother back, it had given her a blinding satisfaction to see Jimmy led off in shackles.
After that, the witness relocation program had been a breeze. She’d stepped into yet another unfamiliar world. Adopted a new identity. Become someone else.
By now, it was an old habit, reinventing herself. Playing parts. Lying to everyone. Even herself.
Her battlements were so high and so impregnable, no one could break through.
Which was why she was so angry that Matt had. He’d just sashayed in and cut through her stony barricades as though they were forged of butter and he had a hot knife.
Damn him anyway.
How dare he challenge her fortitude?
How dare he kiss her?
New fury rose, and twined with it was a shard of pain.
Had he kissed her because he thought she was a hooker and therefore would suffer his attentions without complaint? Or had he kissed her because he’d wanted to?
Before that tendril of idiotic hope could sprout, she squashed it beneath an indomitable boot. It didn’t matter why he’d kissed her. It really didn’t.
It sure as shit wasn’t going to happen again.
The sound of car doors slamming roused her, but only as far as the door to her room. She stood there and peered out into the ratty living area as Ace and Cooper tromped into the cabin. Though she hadn’t had a chance to talk to either of them, she’d already pegged them. Grey had helped with some of their background information—though a lot of their files had been classified. Matt’s too. It didn’t matter. Sam was good at what she did, and reading men was something at which she excelled.
Cooper seemed, on the surface, to be your typical gung-ho grunt from the Midwest, full of yes ma’ams and affected manners. He was a handsome guy with an outgoing manner, but Sam had no doubt that there, under that dimpled smile, was a hard-ass.
Ace was a different story altogether. He was a hard-ass on the surface and a total bastard beneath. He wasn’t as pretty as his two brothers in arms, with harsh, sharp features and a coarse demeanor. Of the three, he was the one she trusted least. Something in his eyes warned her that he was like a snake who could strike with no warning.
And then there was Matt.
Her gaze flicked to him and her gut clenched.
Though Grey had told these men they were here to protect her from Don Reymundo, that hadn’t precisely been the truth.
Okay, it had been a complete lie. The complete opposite.
She was here to protect them.
The fact was, Grey suspected one of these three men was working for the drug kingpin, and had provided intelligence that had fucked up their last mission. It had cost one of Grey’s elite warriors his life. If Grey was right, one of these men, these men he had handpicked for his Omega Team, was a traitor.
And daham. Had Grey been furious about that.
In response, he had turned to his friend Jon Rudnick, Sam’s boss and the commander of the elite Guardian Angels Protective Services. The two had devised a plan to flush out the traitor.
It was Sam’s job to pose as a decoy hooker, to see if she could identify the mole and, if necessary, protect the other members of the team against any treachery. Grey didn’t want to lose any more of his men, especially not to a traitor’s bullet. As for the real Vixen LaFleur, she was safely ensconced in the Omega Team headquarters, posing as a secretary.
And what a charming creature she was.
It sucked that Matt was one of the men she was supposed to be evaluating, because her feelings about him were so muddled.
She didn’t think the Matt she’d known could be so despicable, but she couldn’t deny the fact that when she’d reached out to him—in utter desperation—he’d turned his back on her. Could he be a heartless turncoat, collaborating with one of the wickedest men on the planet?
Sure as shit, he could be. They all could be.
This mission was too dangerous for her to make assumptions, especially about him. According to Grey, she was to be prepared for an attack at any moment. And she was the target. She had her weapons of choice—a SIG Sauer and a KA-BAR—strapped to her thighs. But a month was a long time to be on constant alert.
Damn, it would be nice to have one person here she knew she could trust beyond all doubt.
As the thought registered, she swallowed a derisive laugh.
Yeah. Wasn’t that just the truth? Not just here, in this tense situation, but in life.
Another freaking fairy tale.
“Where the hell have you two been?” Matt snapped. His expression, as he glared at Ace and Coop, was feral. “You were supposed to be here first and do the recon.”
Ace threw himself into one of the rickety chairs at the rickety table. “Coop wanted to call his mommy.”
Coop smacked Ace on his bald head. “She’s my girlfriend. And I had to cancel a date.”
“Such a fucking ladies’ man,” Ace snorted. “We also stopped to get some beer. Grey never sends beer with the rations.”
Matt’s expression darkened even more. “He never sends beer because we’re on duty.”
“Rotating shifts,” Ace said with a smirk. “I’ll only drink when I’m off duty.”
“Really?” Matt set his fists on his hips. “I’m sure the bad guys will be obliging enough to only attack when you’re sober.”
“Don’t be such a Boy Scout, Devereaux. Besides, how would the cartel find us here? No one knows where we are.”
“Grey knows,” Coop said.
Ace closed one eye and glared at Coop through the other. “Grey doesn’t count. He’d die before he told anyone.”
Matt frowned. “Grey’s not the only person w
ho knows about this safe house. The OT has support staff. Someone made these arrangements for us. Someone services the cars we drove in. Reymundo could have broken our encryption. Anything could happen. We can’t make any assumptions.”
Both men gaped at him, openmouthed. Ace shook his head. “You’re paranoid.”
“Am I? The cartel knew we were coming last month. Someone had to leak the word.”
“That was just a Charlie Foxtrot. A fucking heinous coincidence.”
“Was it?” Matt’s gaze drilled into Ace’s like a laser. Ace looked away.
“Sure it was,” Coop said, but he didn’t sound like he believed it.
“Doesn’t matter if it was or not. We need to be on point all the time if we want to keep that girl safe.”
“Girl?” Ace’s laugh was a cackle that sent prickles up Sam’s spine. “She’s a whore.”
Funny, how Matt’s face went all red, as though he was angry. “She’s our target. Her life is in our hands. And, for that matter, so is Don Reymundo’s son’s. If she doesn’t testify, he walks. Do you want that?”
“Nobody wants that,” Ace muttered. He glanced around the room. “So where is she, this girl we’re supposed to be protecting at every waking moment?”
“She’s in her room.”
“Her room?” Ace frowned. “Does that mean the three of us have to share?”
Coop laughed. “Only two of us. One of us will be on duty, remember.”
“I do.” Ace sighed. “I hate these things. Almost as bad as stakeouts.”
“I brought some games,” Coop said and Ace grimaced.
“Not those stupid draw shit games again. I hate those.”
“Cards Against Humanity,” Coop said with a waggle of his brows. At that moment, Sam decided she liked him. She liked irreverence in a man. And thank God there would be something to do, some mechanism to allow her to interact with them as she got to know them. Sitting around on the flea-bitten sofa and staring at each other would be as much fun as a colonoscopy.
“We should bring everything in from the cars,” Matt said.
“You didn’t already do that?” Ace asked.
“Of course not. I had to secure the cabin. Besides, I’m not your mom. You can carry in the groceries. Oh, and we still need to do a perimeter check.”
“Didn’t you do anything?” Coop asked, but it was in a teasing tone.
“I got her here.”
“Yeah, and about that… How the hell did you pull that plum duty?”
Matt glowered at Coop. “Plum duty? She cracked her gum all the way here.”
A chorus of hoots rose. Apparently they both knew how much Matt liked gum chewing. Sam filed the knowledge away. Annoying him might be the only entertainment she got for the next month or two. And she’d brought a lot of gum.
Chapter Four
As nights went, this was a long one.
Sam tossed and turned, torn between watching the door—which she’d locked—and drifting into tantalizing memories of days gone by. She wished she could take a pill that made her forget anything that had to do with Matt Devereaux, because all those remembrances were wrapped in painful emotions, like a rumaki made with barbed bacon.
And they were sneaky brain farts. They waited until she was almost asleep, and then slithered in, wrapping themselves around her, coiling tight and squeezing the breath from her lungs.
The day they’d met.
A first kiss.
The fireworks on the Fourth of July bursting over the water.
The time they spent all night out on the battlements.
She’d given her virginity to him, and he to her. Neither had really known what they were doing, but they’d figured it out, exploring passion together.
There were some not so awesome memories too, like the time he’d taken her to meet his dad—a full bird colonel—and his mother, who had looked down that long hawklike nose at the NCO’s daughter and expressed her disappointment that her son was not courting a girl of his station.
Of his station?
She’d been furious, but had hidden her wrath in a vain attempt to win his parents’ approval. A truly wasted effort. She should have responded with something snarky and bold. Like, “Yes’m.” Or maybe a curtsey.
They probably wouldn’t have gotten her sarcasm. But she hadn’t been terribly snarky or bold back then. It had taken life beating the crap out of her for her to grow a spine.
Now she didn’t take shit from anyone.
With a heavy sigh, she kicked off her covers, strapped her weapons to her thighs beneath her flannel PJ bottoms and headed for the living room. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well work. Subtle interviews with each of the men was the first item on her docket, and what better time than the middle of the night, when only one of them would be up?
Her door creaked when she opened it, causing the man seated at the table, scratching notes into a journal, to look up.
Their gazes clashed.
Shit.
Of course it had to be him.
He leaned back and stretched. “Can’t sleep?”
She shrugged. “Strange bed.”
He flicked a look at her. One that said, Oh, and you aren’t used to strange beds?
She ignored it because it was hardly the insult he intended and also because she didn’t want him to think he had any power over her. She wandered over to the fridge and opened it. She wasn’t really hungry, but it gave her something to look at other than his annoying night beard. Honestly, just because they were in a rustic cabin far from civilization didn’t mean he couldn’t freaking shave. The bristles on his strong, square chin made her crazy.
She grabbed some deli meat, cheese, mayo, tomatoes and bread and made herself a sandwich. All the sodas were generic—she hated generic sodas—but she grabbed one anyway and, carrying her plate, made her way to the table. She sat across from him and began to eat, but he watched her so intently she couldn’t swallow.
“Want some?” she asked, picking up half the sandwich and shoving it at him. He stared at it as though she were offering him heart of targ.
“Huh?” His attention locked on her face. Her lips, to be precise. His tongue peeped out, which made her shiver.
“Are you hungry?”
“Oh. Sure.” He took the sandwich and she realized her mistake at once. She should never have allowed him to touch her. Sensation sizzled where their fingers met. He seemed to feel it too. His attention snapped to her eyes and he stared at her.
Surely such intensity was not called for. Not over bologna and cheese.
“You, ah, have something,” he said touching the side of his mouth, “right here.”
She licked at the spot he’d mentioned and, indeed, there was a glob of mayo there. His nostrils flared, but then he deliberately looked away.
“Probably not a good idea to eat so late. It will give you bad dreams.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I can’t sleep when I’m hungry.” It was true. She just wasn’t really hungry.
He nodded and, after a moment, went back to his scribbling.
“What are you writing?”
He stopped immediately and sighed, but didn’t look up. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” How intriguing. But when she reached for the book, he pulled it away and slipped it into his rucksack.
“Just a letter.”
She hadn’t pegged him as a letter writing kind of guy. He hadn’t responded to one of hers. Not one. “To whom?” And who wrote letters in a journal?
A muscle clenched in his cheek. “No one.”
Really? No one?
It hit her then and hit her hard. He had a girlfriend. Maybe a wife. The thought had never occurred to her before and she had no idea why it devastated her the way it did.
She didn’t want him. Didn’t want anything to do with him. When this mission was over they would go their separate ways and she would never see him again. He would certainly never know her true identity. She’d pluck out her
own eyes before she revealed that secret to him.
But, she had to admit, she wanted to know…
“So,” she gusted. “Tell me about yourself, Matt Devereaux.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Tell me about yourself. Come on, Hot Rod. We’re going to spend a lot of time together. We may as well get to know each other.”
There was no call for him to frown like that. “I don’t like talking.”
Really? He’d been a chatterbox as a kid. At least with her. “Try.”
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Army brat.”
“Ah. So all over.”
A grunt. Damn, this conversation was like pulling teeth. But she needed to know who he was now—strictly for the mission’s sake, of course—and to do so, they needed to talk. She ignored that little voice that whispered she also needed to know what had happened all those years ago. And why. And to whom he was writing in the dead of night.
For her mission. No other reason.
“Where was your favorite place to live?”
She didn’t expect his reaction to the question. His expression softened and his eyes closed a little. “Fort Monroe.” He said it like a prayer and shivers danced on her skin.
“Why?”
“You’re nosy.”
“I’m bored. Why Fort Monroe?”
He shrugged. “It was an old Civil War fort with battlements and ghosts and a moat. Very attractive to a kid of fifteen. Plus it was near the water and I loved to sail.”
Ah. She saw it, in her mind’s eye. A girl and a boy in a skipjack, cutting through the waves with the sails billowing in the wind and laughter floating on the air. And kisses that tasted of sweetness and salt.
“Crabbing is good there.”
She shouldn’t have said anything. His gaze snapped to hers and it was no longer dreamy. It was sharp. So sharp it cut. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “Everyone knows that. Virginia is for Crabbers, right?”
“Something like that. Anyway, yeah. Fort Monroe was my favorite.”
“Did you have a girlfriend?” Hell, she shouldn’t have asked. It was stupid to ask.
A veil came down over his eyes and the muscles in his face tightened. “I was fifteen. Of course I had a girlfriend.”
