by Cindy Dees
Eventually, the poor clerk intruded. “Lady, I don’t know what you’re doing online, but I think you ought to stop it now.”
“Yeah,” she managed to gasp. “I think you’re right.”
It seemed like a bad joke to pull into the parking lot of a paint store and buy the brand of floor stain Gray had sent her for today. Thankfully, he’d written it down and she only had to shove the paper at an employee to get what she needed.
She pointed the Ladybug south and drove numbly. The beautiful day outside seemed like a terrible insult to the memory of Gray’s family. Didn’t Nature know what an atrocity had been committed? How could life go on as if nothing had ever happened? As if Emily and the children had never existed?
Sam caught herself looking down at her chest at one point. Surely, her heart was physically bleeding. It hurt so bad she could hardly stand it.
A small, green sign along the road announced that she was entering the NRQZ. On cue, her radio died. She didn’t bother tuning in the oldies station. Who could listen to music when such senseless violence existed in the world?
As she neared Spruce Hollow, another serious problem presented itself to Sam. How was she supposed to look at Gray and not fall completely to pieces? She couldn’t possibly pretend not to know what had happened to his family. But what other choice did she have? It had been none of her business, and Jeff had explicitly warned her away from Gray’s past.
A need to wrap Gray in her arms, to hold him and comfort him, made her empty arms ache. But something in her gut told her he wouldn’t appreciate the gesture. His brittle control made perfect sense to her now. If she made a show of sympathy, he might very well shatter.
If Gray ever chose to share his loss with her, he needed to do it on his own terms and in his own time. She owed that to him. No matter how hard it was going to be for her to hold in her horror and grief, it couldn’t be a fraction as hard as it was for Gray. And if he could do it, she darned well could, too.
She pulled into the driveway and he came outside to greet her, tall and straight and unbowed. How did he do it? How did he survive? The strength it must have taken overwhelmed her with admiration for this courageous man.
“Everything okay?” he asked lightly. “You look strange.”
“Just thinking how handsome you are.”
He smiled and lifted the heavy cans of stain out of the backseat. “Let’s see if you’re thinking kind thoughts about me after you’ve been staining floors for a few hours.”
She let him steer the conversation into mundane instruction on how to properly stain and seal a hardwood floor. She knew now how he was proficient at such things. She’d seen the pictures of a gracious, beautifully restored Craftsman home, its hardwood floors stained obscenely with the blood of his children.
“Look, Gray. If you don’t want to mess around with this house anymore, we don’t have to. We’ve probably established our cover enough to keep Miss Maddie talking freely to us.”
He shrugged and glanced up at her from where he was brushing stain onto a floorboard. “I don’t mind. It gives me something to do to pass the time.”
So very brave, this man. It had to kill him to work on this house with her. She couldn’t imagine the memories it must conjure. She said lightly, “You could always watch a bunch of TV with me, instead. I’ll be happy to fill in your woeful education of American pop culture.”
“Gee, thanks. If I get desperate, I’ll let you know.”
“A rerun of The Andy Griffith Show is going to be on tonight. You have to watch it at least once, or be accused of being un-American.”
“Fine. It’s a date.” He smiled, but the expression didn’t warm his eyes.
Ah, God. And now she understood why. It broke her heart. “You don’t have to try with me,” she blurted.
“I beg your pardon?” His eyes had gone dark and alert.
Crap, crap, crap. Her and her big mouth! She stammered, “You seem like a mostly serious guy. And that’s okay with me. I just meant that you don’t have to pretend to be all cheerful and perky with me all the time.”
He frowned slightly. “Umm, okay. Although I doubt I could even pretend to be perky. You’re the one who’s got that wired.”
“Believe me, perky’s not particularly in my nature, either.”
That caused him to stand up straight and stare at her. “You had me fooled.”
She shrugged. “In my experience, life pretty much sucks. You can go through it with your lower lip dragging on the ground, or you can get up in the morning and try to at least act happy you’re alive. And that’s what I do. Maybe I try too hard sometimes, but I figure faking happy is better than acting suicidal.”
Dammit. She’d spoken without thinking again.
“I guess I’m not as good an actor as you,” he murmured.
“I don’t know about that,” she replied. “It was just the flannel shirt that messed you up. I think you could’ve pulled off the jeans and hiking boots. Maybe even a leather jacket.”
“Me? A leather jacket? No way,” he scoffed.
“Way,” she retorted. “You could do it.”
“I draw the line at motorcycles, though. Those are death machines.”
They smiled at each other in mutual agreement. It was a warm moment. Natural. Normal, even. Yet again, she was staggered that he’d made some sort of peace with the world and could experience a simple moment like that.
“Sam, I’ve got to run out and pick up the lawn mower we ordered. The guy at the home-improvement store said it would be ready this afternoon. And I can’t look at that weed patch out front one more day.”
She nodded. “Now that I’ve got my own wheels, I’ll hit the grocery store. If you’re up for living dangerously, I’ll make supper tonight.”
His eyes twinkled as he considered her. “I’m feeling brave.”
She had to turn away fast not to burst into tears. How did she stand a chance of helping this man—with this investigation or personally—if she couldn’t stop crying all the time? Truth be told, she wasn’t at all sure she was strong enough do it. She was too broken herself to ever begin to heal his hurts. But darned if something deep in her heart wasn’t determined to try. Thing was, if she failed, if she caused more damage to him than he’d already experienced, neither one of them might walk away from it alive.
Did she dare try?
Chapter 7
Gray pushed his empty plate back, relieved that Sam had confined herself to making a chopped Cobb salad for supper. “That was tasty. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She had been unusually subdued ever since she’d gotten back from Charleston earlier. But he didn’t pretend to understand women’s moods. As far as he knew, weepy wasn’t atypical for her. Although he’d initially pegged her for a more cheerful person overall.
Looking for something natural to say that wouldn’t send her into another fit of sniffles, he commented, “How will we get past Miss Maddie undetected tonight to stake out Proctor’s compound?”
“Why not tell her we’re going camping? We can ask her to keep an eye on the house for us.”
Their gazes met, and yet again, the mere act of looking at him seemed to send her into a fit of weepy emotion. “Are you okay?” he asked, thoroughly confused.
“Don’t mind me. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? You’ve seemed a little...” Damn. What word could he use and not make her mad or hurt her overly sensitive feelings? He finished lamely,
“...off.”
Oddly, she threw her arms around him and gave him a hard hug.
He tensed involuntarily. It wasn’t being touched that arrested him. It was the notion of a female giving him affection like this. He didn’t do female anything. And certainly not affection. His window in life for that had come and gone. And it was all his fault....
“Thank you for caring, Gray.”
Caring about what? Her? Well, of course he cared about her. She was his partner. And if she was upset about s
omething, it affected him. “Uhh, yeah. Sure,” he mumbled. Thing was, he hadn’t the slightest idea what had upset her. “What’s wrong?” he ventured to ask.
“Nothing.” She sniffed against the front of his shirt.
It was official: he had no clue what made women tick. Thankfully, Sam seemed to pull herself together and they packed the Bronco for a night surveillance op in the woods. Miss Maddie showed up on her porch about ten seconds into the car-packing process and declared herself delighted to watch their house for them while they were gone.
Shaking his head, he backed out of the driveway. He’d forgotten just how nosy neighbors could be. Truth be told, he’d forgotten a lot of the details of normal suburban life. But Sam was teaching him anew. And it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. She was so different from—
His brain stumbled as a familiar, beloved face leaped into his awareness. He forced himself to complete the thought. From Emily.
He tensed as memory of her washed over him. But the usual wave of agony didn’t accompany the visual image of her sweet face. Gradually, he relaxed his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. Okay, then. That hadn’t gone so badly.
“Where are we going?” Sam asked, distracting him.
“I did a little poking around today. Found out the Proctor compound isn’t too far from here.” It was damned close to the NSA facility, though. Suspiciously so.
“Coolio.” She was temporarily back to her usual perky self, apparently.
He reflected on how entirely different from Emily Sam was. Emily had been reserved. Sweet. Quiet. Sam...well, she was a force of nature.
Gray turned onto a narrow dirt road that followed a ridge north for several miles. He’d found this track on the satellite images, too. The ridge itself paralleled a long valley, and Proctor’s compound sat on the other side of it. The valley was nearly a mile across. Tonight would be the real test of Sam’s vision.
He stopped the vehicle. “From here on out, we’ll be on foot.”
They’d been hiking rough terrain for about a half hour when she panted, “You know, as dates go, this one’s not scoring you many points.”
A date? The notion stopped him in his tracks. That was something he never expected to do again. He’d had his shot at dating and falling in love and the whole settling down, happily-ever-after thing.
He spun to face her. Of course, she saw him perfectly well and could’ve stopped before she slammed into him. But she obviously chose to pretend otherwise. His arms came up around her as her body impacted his. “What’d you do that for?” he demanded.
“Getting your attention. You’re distracted, and we’re supposed to be working.”
Sassy wench. “All right, lady. You’ve got my attention. Now what are you planning to do with it?”
Shock rolled through him. Was he actually flirting with her? Apparently, he was. He hung on to her until it felt like neither one of them would stumble, but whose balance he was trying to right, he wasn’t sure. She rose up on tiptoe and leaned in toward him, and God help him, he didn’t stop her. He wanted her to kiss him.
Ahh, Emily. I’m so sorry, baby.
Sam’s lips touched his, warm and eager and curving in laughter against his. Her vibrant joy flowed into him and he fed on it like a baby bird opening its hungry throat to food. Maybe not the most romantic notion in the world, he allowed, but he did indeed feel like she was waking parts of him that he’d thought were permanently dead.
Startled, he drew back from her to stare down at her. “What are you doing to me?”
“Kissing you?”
“Now who’s distracted from the job?”
“Point taken. You want me to go first? It’s pretty dark out here.”
“Nah, I’m good. I got myself a pair of night-vision goggles today.” And speaking of which, he pulled them out of his rucksack and donned them.
Sam giggled beside him. “You look like an alien.”
“Thank you, I think?”
“Wow. Those look pretty snazzy. Where’d you get them? Won’t they mess up the telescopes?”
He’d gotten them from the NSA armory. And they were absolutely state of the art. He was curious to see if, with their built-in magnification features, he could keep up with Sam’s vision. And he happened to know that these had been calibrated to a frequency that wouldn’t interfere with either the astronomical radio telescopes or the NSA’s listening post.
“Guy I got them from said they’re approved by the NRQZ guys. He’s moving out of the area and gave me a good deal on them.”
“Everything look lime green to you?” she asked.
“Yup. And speaking of aliens, you don’t look very human yourself at the moment.”
“Next time, I’ll wear my glow-in-the-dark makeup. It cracks up the researchers at Winston Enterprises when they look at me through NVGs.”
“Done. I can always use a good laugh.” And as he said the words, he was stunned to realize they were true. He liked it when she made him laugh. There’d been precious little of that in his life for the past few years. And he’d missed it. The kids, particularly the twins, had been big clowns and their house had been filled with constant laughter. A twinge of guilt hit him as he realized the sound of it was becoming a dim memory. Dammit, if he didn’t remember them, who would?
Abruptly grim, he turned and marched toward the top of the ridge. Sam Jessup was a distraction he couldn’t afford. As much as he might want her for himself, he had responsibilities. To his boss. To the memory of his family.
Sam fell silent behind him as if she sensed his change of mood. She was very good at that. But the way he heard it, children in violent and abusive situations were highly proficient at reading the moods of the adults around them as a matter of self-preservation.
Momentary regret for deleting that file on her passed through his mind. What would it have said about her? Although, truth be told, he probably knew already what it would have described. Sam’s childhood had been pretty bad, bad enough to force her to leave home. And she struck him as someone with enough intelligence to have understood the gravity of that decision.
The good news was she’d gotten out before she was so damaged emotionally that she couldn’t recover. She’d probably made her share of missteps along the way, but she’d eventually gotten an education, found work she enjoyed and knew who she was. Although her taste in men still sucked, apparently.
Too bad she hadn’t met a guy like him along the way who didn’t treat women like crap. Except she had met a guy like him...now. He stumbled and almost went down to his knees before he righted himself.
“You okay?” she murmured.
“Yeah.” He walked on, staring down at the ground. Was he willing to put himself out there, to offer her a relationship if she wanted it? The notion staggered him. He was never going to care about anyone again as long as he lived. He didn’t have the strength to withstand any more losses in his life. Loving another person took more courage than he had left.
“Ahh. Nice view,” she murmured.
The trees opened up and a panoramic view unfolded in front of them, a carpet of forest rising to meet the mountains around them. He murmured, “The Proctor compound should be directly across the valley.”
“Mmm-hmm. I see it.”
He glanced back at her and followed the direction of her stare. He spotted a speck of light through the trees. Zooming his optic gear up to its highest magnification, he made out the white boxes of several buildings. A black stripe in front of one of them was probably the silhouette of a guard. “I see some blobs. What do you see?”
“I count two large buildings and ten smaller, two-story ones.” She continued the inventory, “Four pickup trucks and one SUV. Chevrolet logos but from this angle, I can’t tell you the model. There’s an armed guard sitting on a stump in the middle of the clearing. Looks like an AK-47 he’s carrying. He’s wearing combat boots, jeans and a dark-colored shirt. Beard. Looks to be in his thirties. And he’s dirty.”
/>
“How can you tell that?” Gray sounded like he was in mild shock.
“He has a smudge on his cheek.”
“If I got out a high-powered telescope and pointed it at that clearing, would I see everything you do?”
“If it was high-powered enough, sure. And it would have to have low-light capability, of course.”
“Of course.” A pause. “See anyone else?”
“A half dozen men are seated around a table inside the nearest large building. There’s a kerosene lamp in the middle of the table sitting on top of what looks like a map. And yes, there are limits even to my vision. I can’t see what it’s a map of from here.”
He snorted. “Hell, I can’t even see a window. You win.”
He was able to see the triumphant smile that lit her features, though. She might make light of her special ability, but in that smile he caught a glimpse of the pride she took in it. He opened his mouth to tell her he got it now, but a twig cracked in the woods behind them and he froze.
To his chagrin, Sam stepped out from behind him to peer in the direction of the sound. Without warning she turned, flung herself at him, tore off his night-vision goggles, and laid a big, hot kiss on him, tongue and all. Was she nuts? There was something or someone out there! He tried to peel her off him, but she clung to him stubbornly.
“Guy with a shotgun,” she muttered against his lips.
Then why in the hell was she kissing him and not taking defensive action? Unless she thought it was more important to maintain their cover. As if laying a big wet one on him without warning would...oh, wait. She’d seen the guy well before he could see them. When the hostile spotted them, they would already be making out. Okay, this plan could work.
He was still tense, though, listening for some hint of where the guy was. Who was he?
“Work with me,” Sam mumbled. “We’ve got to sell the act.”
