“Kelso said eight,” Levi protested.
“I might have to go over things with you guys before the briefing.”
“Fine,” Bristow replied and the two started whispering between themselves about being glad they were contractors so they could abandon his ass at any time.
John followed them to the door. In reality, he was having cold feet about confronting the woman in the dining room. “Bitch all you want. You guys love working for me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Grumbling voices faded up the driveway.
He still had his back to Nadia as he slowly shut the door, but what had been left unsaid since he packed her into the SUV hammered at the back of his skull.
Exhaling a deep breath because it could be his last, he turned to the woman in the room whose hands had flown to her hips, her eyes shooting sparks of fury at him.
“What the fuck, John?” Nadia yelled. “Why did you wait to tell me about the broken condom?”
“If you would have just answered your phone—”
“Your paranoid ass couldn’t have made that exception?”
He shot her an incredulous stare.
She started pacing. “I can’t believe it. I could’ve taken a morning-after pill if you just told me, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Just imagine how I felt.”
She spun around, invaded his space, and poked him in the chest. “You could have sent word.” Her lips twisted in a sneer. “Oh, wait, your job is too important, so you didn’t give a rat’s ass that our carelessness could change my life.”
“And you think it won’t change mine?” he shot back. “You think I’m going to let you do this alone?” He scrubbed a hand over his face and raised his arm in her direction. “We’re jumping the gun, don’t you think? Can we just calm down?” He huffed a breath. “You’re on birth control, right?”
Nadia glanced away briefly before returning to meet his stare, mouth twisting. “I haven’t been consistent since that time after Mexico. Since I found out you were threatening to expose Dad to the people after him.”
John regretted using that as leverage against Nadia, but he needed her to help him run the Mexican op to rescue Ariana and retrieve the bioweapon. “You should’ve called my bluff and kicked me in the gonads.”
“I’m still debating the latter suggestion.”
“You did threaten to make me sing in falsetto earlier,” he reminded her.
Nadia smiled weakly, lowering her arms to her sides, and sinking into the chair behind her.
John approached and took the seat at the head of the table which was directly adjacent to hers. “How soon can we use those pee sticks?”
“I don’t know … I think after a missed period. And no, I haven’t gotten it. It’s due any day.” She blew out a breath. “Tomorrow, I think.”
He tried to keep a straight face. This whole thing was … foreign … but it was turning out he didn’t mind it very much. It was a novelty, talking about a woman’s monthly cycle instead of laying out the groundwork to a covert operation. This was why he welcomed his phone chats with Fiona Mason, it was his link to a life when he was normal, when he could be a son who cared deeply for his mother. What he’d not had since he became a Delta Force operator was have a woman he could plan a future with. Not that he was thinking it was a sure thing with Nadia. But this was as close to a normal relationship as he’d had in decades.
“You’re right.” She rubbed a finger across her brow. “I’m probably overreacting. We really might be fine.”
“I’m clean, in case you’re wondering,” he shared.
“I am too.” She stopped worrying her brow and started tracing the lines on the wooden table.
John scrambled for something to say and ended up with, “Are you hungry?”
“Now that you’ve mentioned it, I’m starving. And thirsty.” Nadia got up when he did, but it wasn’t to follow him to the kitchen but rather head into the living room, hooking the backpack on her shoulder.
Maxim’s men wanted her and the backpack. If John were to guess, since the Argonayts couldn’t fully hack into Huxley’s code repository, they planted malware that would notify them if someone had been successful. If Morris was involved, why wasn’t he with Maxim in the assault?
He checked his freezer for frozen dinners. If he were by himself, he’d probably grab an MRE from the pantry and nuke it. When living the life of the spy, one had to be flexible. He could tough it out in a rainforest and hope the water or the wildlife wouldn’t kill him, or don a tux and dine on caviar and fine wine. When they were rescued, the first thing he and Bristow requested were big juicy burgers and fries. Surprisingly, they didn’t lose too much weight since their diet of oatmeal and beef jerky sustained whatever muscle mass they had. Plus, they were mostly sedentary. At the moment, his craving was for home-cooked meals. The agency had a housekeeper who maintained a couple of the homes on Assassin’s Hill, and she regularly stocked up their freezers with food.
“Chicken pot pie okay for you?” He hollered from the kitchen.
Nadia had already booted up her laptop and simply gave him a thumbs-up without looking at him. He set the food in the toaster oven. It would take forty-five minutes. He strode over to the pantry to find some snacks to feed her. Christ, was he this way with Nadia before? Was he treating her as if she were already pregnant?
Fuck. He shoved that thought aside, but it kept nagging at him because he’d turned the idea over and over in his head in the past two weeks. It would be better if she wasn’t pregnant. Then he could resume his original plan of treading carefully into a possible relationship. Weigh the pros and cons. Consider how it would affect his job. Could he stand being away from her for months on end and stay focused? If she wasn’t pregnant, John would feel both disappointment and relief.
He wondered if he was losing his mind.
He rarely felt conflicted.
Nadia. She was the source of these damning feelings.
His eyes perused the chips and jars of different salsas. Then he glanced over at the woman in the living room, shaking his head as the surrealness of the situation. John walked over to the center island and did something as mundane as putting chips on a plate and the salsa in a bowl. He retrieved their drinks and set them on the tray with the snacks and headed to the living room.
Nadia and John might be heading into unknown territories, but he’d be damned if awkwardness was going to be part of the problem.
10
“Hope this will hold you over until dinner is ready.”
Nadia glanced up from the screen, not quite sure what she was seeing. John was serving her chips and salsa. As far as she remembered, the guys were nothing this civilized. They always ate out of Styrofoam containers. Mostly it was Bristow who liked eating chips, and he usually had one of those single-serve packs you see out of a vending machine.
Chips and salsa? Her mind repeated. That was something she would expect at Gabby and Declan’s house. Although, from what she had heard, Gabby had joined Kelso in his shredding phase. So, no carbs.
She cleared her throat. “Thank you.” Her eyes returned to the screen but doubted if she could get any work done because John perched on the slope of the armchair she was sitting in.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“I’m trying to see if there was an attack launched on our servers,” she said. “So far all looks good.” Right now, her brain wasn’t fully processing the case. She was still annoyed at John for not finding a way to leave her a message. She closed her laptop and set it on the table. Then she picked a tortilla chip, dipped it in salsa, and popped it into her mouth, chewing very slowly. John got off his perch by her side and sat on the coffee table.
“You’re pissed at me.”
“Geez, John, I wonder why that is.”
“You shouldn’t have wrecked the agency phone I gave you.”
“So sue me for not wanting to be at your beck and call … and stop looking at me like
that.” He studied her as if she was a delicate puzzle he was trying to solve.
His brows shot to his hairline. “Like what?”
“Like you don’t want to hurt my feelings.” Her eyes slitted. “Wait. Are you assuming I’m already pregnant and I’m acting hormonal?”
He shrugged. “Just covering my bases.”
Hmm … she could milk this situation to get answers.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “I don’t trust that look in your eyes.”
“Like what?” And John saying ‘uh-oh’? Nadia was wondering if she was living in an alternate universe. Or could this be John in domesticated mode? Or was he using one of his practiced covers? Paranoid much, Powell?
“Like you discovered a way to flay me alive,” he continued, his expression wary.
“Just covering my bases.” She crunched away on more chips. “Why don’t you answer this? I’m curious why you don’t leave voice messages.”
His face shuttered. “It’s discouraged in our tradecraft.”
“But under extenuating circumstances, it’s not against any rulebook.”
“It’s bad practice and a habit I haven’t broken in thirteen—” John caught himself and cursed.
“Thirteen what? Months? Years?”
“Years,” he clipped.
“Did something happen?”
“Classified. Let’s just say a recording of my voice exposed my cover and nearly got my entire team killed.”
“I’m sorry, John.”
“In this job, you learn fast.”
“Okay. But I don’t see how leaving a message saying ‘the condom broke’ would constitute a national security threat.”
The mask cracked. Frustration mingled with humor in his eyes. “I would disagree,” he said.
“Oh? Explain.”
“Say someone is trying to break me, but me being me, that’s close to impossible.”
Nadia emitted a pfft sound. “Everyone has a breaking point.”
“You know what I noticed,” John said. “You don’t roll your eyes.”
“Uh … and that’s relevant, how?”
John shook his head and chuckled. “This getting to know you stage.”
“We were talking about a breaking point.” But Nadia was already seeing where John was going with this.
“If someone got a hold of my message to you. They would know that I deemed it important enough to leave such a message. If they held me prisoner, unable to torture any information out of me, they could say that they’d also captured you and that you’re pregnant with my child.”
“Leverage.”
“Exactly. What we think is inconsequential, the enemy has a way of twisting it to have big enough consequences that could be used against me. I may not care about myself, but I’d definitely care about the mother of my child and my unborn baby. You just don’t see it from my point of view …” His mouth hitched in one corner. “And now you’re staring at me like I’ve grown two heads.”
Nadia realized she was indeed squinting. “Wow, that’s some paranoia.”
“Life in the fast lane, babe.”
“Maybe you need to slow down.”
“Maybe I should get off the train,” John returned mildly.
She regarded him doubtfully. “You’ll never quit.”
He gave her a brief smile. “I’m going to check on dinner.”
Ha! Deflection again. She had his number now. If she didn’t know what he was capable of, she would think they’d entered a twilight zone. She didn’t know how to handle this John. She was used to bluntness from him. Not this treading-on-eggshells guy. But … she glanced behind her. He wasn’t in the kitchen. She exhaled an irritated breath. He said he was going to check on dinner. Where the hell did he go? Okay, this was more of the Garrison she knew. There was relief in knowing that. Nadia would hate it if a torn condom was the downfall of this badass CIA operative.
He came down the stairs with something in his hand.
Shit.
He approached her and held out a phone. “Since you insist I leave you voice messages, I thought you’d want another one.”
Nadia grabbed the device from him. “This doesn’t mean anything.”
“Huh, if someone has commitment issues, it certainly isn’t me.”
Speechless, she wondered who was this John that returned from two weeks away. Squinting, she realized he look more weary than she’d ever seen him. Thinner? His cheekbones sharper? It was hard to tell with his beard.
John chuckled. “If you could see your face.”
She stepped into his space, reached up, pinched his cheek, and then pulled at the flesh. Had the CIA perfected the full facial disguises common in Hollywood espionage films?
“Hey,” he protested.
“Who are you and what have you done to John Garrison?”
“Come here.” He reeled her into his arms. “It’s still me.” An emotion flashed through his eyes. “Just did a bit of reprioritizing, that’s all.”
“While you were on the trail of the Argonayts?”
John released her and headed toward the kitchen. “That pot pie smells good.”
Nadia didn’t press, assuming that his mission was classified.
“It’s been barely in there for ten minutes.”
He peeked into the oven.
“Stop opening that. You’re going to let the heat out,” Nadia grumbled. She was hungry and she didn’t want chips; she wanted that pot pie. She yanked him away from the oven and their bodies collided. He gripped her elbows, steadying her.
Their eyes locked. His grew heated. Okay, Nadia was feeling warm too, and she was feeling it between her legs. Damn him. Would she always want to jump him?
“I can think of a way to pass the time,” he murmured, his head lowering to kiss her.
Nadia pushed away and stalked back to the living room. “No, John.”
“We could be pregnant,” he called behind her back.
She pointed at him with the hand holding the phone he gave her. “Why are you being so … so”—ugh, with John, she couldn’t even find the right words—“so unconcerned about this?”
“You said it’s an unlikely possibility, so why can’t we make a joke about it?”
“It’s not something to joke about.” She paused. “Wait, is this your way of coping? Are you afraid to become a father?” It certainly didn’t fit his lifestyle.
John chuckled. “Now you’re projecting. Stop psychoanalyzing.”
“Psychoanalyze you?” she scoffed. “I’d be terrified of what I might find in that brain of yours.”
John muttered something like ‘compartments.’
“Compartments?”
His eyes flashed with annoyance. “You’re right. You wouldn’t want to see what’s inside my brain.”
“That scary, huh?”
“Very,” he said gravely, and even when there was mirth in his eyes, Nadia wasn’t sure if it was dark humor. Spies had morbid ways of seeing things.
She moved closer, and his expression grew wary. “Have you ever been to see a CIA shrink?”
“Many times.”
“Oh.”
“What? You think I’d deny it?”
“That’s good,” she said faintly. “You must see a lot of shitty things in your job.”
He glanced in the direction of the kitchen. “It’s going to take another half hour. Why don’t you go freshen up?”
“I have no clothes.”
“You can borrow mine.”
Christ. The urge to kiss Nadia was excruciating to resist, so John had to send her elsewhere. There was no denying that he missed her. Craved her. There was something to be said about knowing what mattered most when you were faced with your own mortality. He’d long made peace that his mother might never find out the truth in case he was killed in an op. It depended on how the agency would cover it up. He left a letter with Kade just in case something did happen to him.
Was he ready to make the same provisions for Nadia?
No, because he wanted to pursue a life with her. It was the biggest mission of his life right now, except there was real fear of the unknown. The unknown being these weird emotions rattling inside him.
He certainly didn’t want to make excuses as to why he didn’t return that Monday. He should have known better than to make that promise given what he did for a living. Although getting captured by the Ukrainian mob and thrown into their dark dungeon was certainly reason enough to miss the date.
He’d been gritting his teeth all night, trying not to wince when his bruised ribs screamed. John had been through worse and was just glad that he survived with all his limbs and appendages intact.
The mob hated to be put in the spotlight. The bioweapon plot that had been linked to the Ukrainian Brotherhood was still too fresh in people’s minds, and the death of CIA operatives wasn’t good for business. However, nabbing John and Bristow and stowing them away meant the agency was getting close to the truth. There was something bigger at play that the Order was planning. Or maybe the Argonayts were planning something below the Order’s radar. A side job.
And it had everything to do with the Crown-Key.
As for Garrison, it served his purpose. His plans for Nadia were singular. There was something about her that had him coming back for more. And, in a few days, they might be tied together forever.
Or maybe not.
The timer dinged. The pot pie was finally done.
He reached into the oven, the aroma of buttery crust assailed his nose. An odd nostalgia pricked at his chest. A time when he’d come home from football practice and his mother would have a whole tray of this just out of the oven.
Shuffling behind him made him turn.
“That smells good,” Nadia said.
He’d momentarily forgotten about dinner. She was standing in his shirt and nothing else. Her hair was piled up in a towel, her feet bare.
He cursed and strode past her and double-timed it up the staircase to the hallway closet that held emergency supplies. Usually, he’d just point the operatives where to look, but hell, apparently with Nadia he felt compelled to do this.
Her Covert Protector (Rogue Protectors Book 4) Page 10
