“You got it.” Mayhew wasn’t one to waste time when he didn’t have to. “Some reason you’re not taking this to your AIC?”
His agent in charge would be Crittenden. And no, Danny didn’t feel like he could take this to him. Like Sanders, Crittenden would consider Sam and Tyler as not critical to the mission.
“I want them completely out of this,” he said. “And I want them kept safe.”
“Any way I can get in touch with you? I don’t suppose you want me to call you back at this number.”
“No.”
“I’ll set it up. Operation Romeo. You’ll be hearing from me shortly.”
Mayhew hung up before Danny could say thanks.
The name Mayhew had chosen for the operation, Romeo, registered as Danny removed the battery from the cell phone again, and wrung a wry smile from him as he considered it. One thing was for sure, it hadn’t been chosen at random. Mayhew never did anything at random. Restoring the phone to its hiding place, reassembling the crutch, he thought back over what he had said. He’d given the associate deputy director only the briefest of thumbnail sketches of who Sam and Tyler were, so how Mayhew had divined his romantic interest in Sam he had no clue. Except the operation name told him that he had; it was Mayhew’s way of taking a dig at him. The only explanation was that there must have been something in his tone as he’d talked about her. Plus, Mayhew knew him pretty well.
Whatever, just as soon as Mayhew got Sam and Tyler out of there, he’d sleep a whole lot better.
The clock was running down. The word on the street would be that Marco was going to be playing show-and-tell any day now, and the Zetas, with their wide-flung contacts, would have picked that up. By now the cartel would be getting desperate, and since the purpose of the assignment was for him to provide a decoy while the real Rick Marco gave chapter and verse to the government, the path that led to this safe house would be followable. It wouldn’t be easy to find, but it would be there, because it was supposed to be there. All he had to do was stay one step ahead of Veith and/or any other cartel enforcers until Marco was done, and then Marco would go into witness protection and he, Danny, would be finished with one more assignment and free to live his life until the next one. In St. Louis, however, staying one step ahead of the hit squad on Marco’s tail had not worked out so well, and the more Danny thought about it the more that bothered him. The key was for him to get out of this alive, and that almost hadn’t happened. Either somebody had fucked up big time, or . . . or what? He didn’t know. What he did know was that here, although the marshals had him under round-the-clock protection and Crittenden and his team were supposed to be set up somewhere nearby monitoring the house as well as keeping tabs on any suspicious movements on the part of any known cartel associates such as Veith, he was starting to feel uneasy.
He’d been doing this job long enough to know to trust his gut, and his gut was telling him that something wasn’t right.
The first order of business had to be to get Sam and Tyler out of harm’s way.
The second? Well, that would depend on what came up.
Tightening up the head of the crutch, Danny was pondering the possibilities when he heard a kind of strangled sounding cry. At first he had trouble placing it. Then he realized: Tyler.
Even as Danny shot to his feet and, balancing on one leg, grabbed for the nearest crutch, he remembered Tyler had nightmares and told himself to calm down.
A nightmare. That was all it was.
Still, he hurried to the boy’s room just to make sure.
Just as he reached Tyler’s doorway, the kid let loose with a shriek that made Danny wince. The room was dark, but not totally. He could see Tyler sitting bolt upright in the middle of the bed, his eyes closed, his arms stiff as boards at his sides, screaming like someone was cutting his throat with Sam nowhere in sight.
Jesus.
“Tyler.” Danny swung over to the bed. “Tyler.”
Then, because he didn’t know what else to do, he sat down on the side of the bed. Tyler’s eyes opened as he felt the mattress give, and for a moment he stared at Danny like he wasn’t sure who he was.
“It’s okay, Tyler, it’s me,” Danny said hastily, bracing himself for another of those eardrum-shattering screams.
“Trey.” Tyler launched himself at him, throwing his arms around him, burying his face in his chest. Danny could feel his small body shaking. “The bad men were here, Trey. They were after me.”
“I got you. It was just a bad dream.” A little awkwardly, Danny patted his back; then as the kid snuggled closer, shuddering, he hugged him because it just felt like the thing to do. “You hear me, Tyler? It was only a bad dream. I’m here, and I’ve got you safe.”
“Tyler!” Still in her jeans and tank, Sam flew through the door, then pulled up short when she saw Danny. For a moment she paused, seeming to practically vibrate on the balls of her feet, and then she came toward the bed, giving Danny an impossible to interpret look even as she sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. “Baby, I’m here.”
“Mom.” Tyler let go of Danny to throw himself into his mother’s outstretched arms. “I had another bad dream.”
“I know,” Sam said soothingly, rocking him a little. “I know.”
“We used the monster spray. But it didn’t matter, because I dreamed about the bad men.”
“Oh, Tyler.” Sam kissed the top of his head. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Danny looked at the clean, elegant lines of her profile as her cheek rested against her son’s tousled black hair. Her hair was still in that single braid, slightly messy, sexy as hell. Her body—well, he didn’t need to be looking at her body.
Their eyes met.
Danny felt as if every solid thing around him was slipping away.
“Can you sleep in here, Mom?” Tyler asked. Sam’s attention reverted instantly to her son.
“Sure, baby,” she replied.
Danny picked up his crutch from where it had dropped to the carpet at his feet, and stood up.
Still rocking Tyler, Sam watched him as he got the crutch in place beneath his arm.
“Do you need me for anything?” he asked her quietly.
She shook her head.
“Just sing out if you do.”
She nodded.
Danny swung out of the room. Glancing back as he reached the hall, he saw Sam gently easing her son back down onto his pillow.
The sight had a weird effect on his insides. They felt kind of tight and achy, almost like he’d just taken a sucker punch to the gut.
It took Danny a moment to figure out what was going on. Then he realized with a sense of dismay that what he was feeling was Sam and her kid starting to twine themselves around his heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Trey, Trey, Trey: that was all Sam had heard out of Tyler all day. Earlier, Tyler had looked on with fascination as “Trey” worked out in the backyard, starting with a series of pull-ups on a branch that showcased his brawny arms and shoulders, and that Sam, aside from a couple of sneak peeks, resolutely refused to watch. He followed that up with other exercises that she was surprised that, injured as he was, he was physically able to perform. She remembered him saying that he needed to get up to speed again ASAP, and supposed that this was his way of doing it. His overall level of fitness and the hard-muscled body it showcased were truly impressive: once again she thought, the man is strong. But what took the cake was that Tyler earnestly tried to imitate everything he did; it underlined to Sam how much her son wanted a father figure in his life, and how much he was missing out on by not having one. The sad thing was, as right as their growing interconnectedness with Marco might feel to her on some internal, cellular level, by any objective measurement Marco was absolutely the wrong guy, both for Tyler and for her, to develop any kind of connection to. In an attempt to disrupt it, she tried everything—calling Tyler in for a brownie, playing cars, reading to him, turning on the Disney Channel on TV—and still Tyler
ended up wherever “Trey” was. What made it even sadder was that Marco was absolutely sweet to Tyler. Where many men—Tyler’s own father included—might act like an endlessly inquisitive and talkative four-year-old was a pain in the rear, Marco did not. He treated Tyler like an interesting and valued companion. And Tyler basked in his attention. There was no future in it, which Sam knew perfectly well. But about the third time Tyler sneaked away from her to “see what Trey is doing,” Sam gave it up.
Right now, at shortly after five o’clock, “Trey” and Tyler were once again out in the backyard, where a glance through the sliding glass door showed her that “Trey” was teaching Tyler the finer points of dribbling a basketball. Given that “Trey” was leaning on a crutch as he bounced the ball up and down, his efforts were surprisingly dexterous. The other crutch lay discarded in the grass just beyond the patio. Beside it, in a lawn chair looking bored out of his mind, sat Groves, who was on guard duty.
In a weird, parallel universe kind of way, given the truth of the situation, the day was unwinding in an almost normal-seeming, mundane fashion. Sam still felt edgy and anxious whenever she thought about practically anything beyond the confines of the town house’s four walls, so she just refused to, because worrying about what she couldn’t control or, alternatively, scaring herself senseless didn’t do any good.
Instead, since she actually enjoyed cooking when she had the time, which she rarely did, and had the necessary ingredients, another rarity, she had nixed the supper suggestion of carry-out KFC and volunteered to make something. As she put the finishing touches on the lasagna she was getting ready to pop into the oven, Sam found herself watching the man and boy playing on the patio with resignation.
Keeping Tyler from growing attached to Marco under these conditions was pretty close to impossible, she decided. Last night had told the tale. She had been in the kitchen, getting a glass of milk in hopes of soothing her frazzled nerves in the wake of that sizzling encounter with Marco. The milk, plus the hot bath that was next on her agenda, should help her sleep, she had hoped. If it didn’t, she had already made up her mind that she was just going to have to lie awake all night, because the alternative—climbing into bed with Marco, which was what she really wanted to do—wasn’t going to happen. No matter how hot just thinking about it made her. But when Tyler had screamed, and she had gone running upstairs to find Marco sitting on the edge of the bed and Tyler clinging to him just like he would have clung to her if she’d been there, she’d been blindsided. Tyler wasn’t a physically demonstrative child with anyone but her; he didn’t throw hugs and kisses around, or cling indiscriminately. But watching him with Marco, she immediately saw that whatever Marco might be or might have done, Tyler had admitted him into the tiny, privileged circle of people he trusted. It was clear as glass that Tyler was getting attached to him. Just like, Sam feared, she was starting to get attached to the damned man, too.
Even if she wanted to stop it, to back away and drag Tyler with her, there was nothing she could do. For now, the three of them were stuck together in this prison of a town house. And she knew already that there was just no way it was going to end well.
So as she made lasagna and watched her son and the guy who was just about the last man in the world they should be playing happy families with bouncing a ball around outside, she felt an ache in her heart. If there was going to be a price to pay for Marco’s intrusion into their lives—and one thing she had learned in a hard school was that everything always came with a price tag attached—she would worry about it later. Right now, Tyler was outside in the late afternoon sunshine laughing and unafraid despite the terrifying things he had been through, and that was all she was going to focus on, because that was the only good news around and there was nothing she could do about anything else.
While the lasagna cooked, she made a salad. Then, when the food was ready, feeling so much like June Cleaver that she made a snarky face at her reflection in the glass as she reached it, she opened the sliding door to call them in to eat.
And was just in time to watch her little boy heave the ball through the warm, late summer air and make a basket. It was a regulation height goal, so that was quite a feat. Certainly it was something that he had never accomplished before.
“Two points! Yes!” Tyler gave a fist pump that made Sam grin.
“Good job! Way to go, Tyler,” Marco exulted. As Sam, clapping, stepped out onto the patio, he exchanged low fives with Tyler.
“Yay, Tyler!” Sam called, then added, “Supper,” to which only Groves responded by starting to rise from his chair.
“Hey,” Marco said to Sam as their eyes met. Tyler, meanwhile, ran across the grass to retrieve the ball. Marco was grinning, eyes sparkling, hair mussed, a little sweaty, looking ridiculously carefree under the circumstances. He had shaved last night sometime after she had last seen him, and in the bright sunlight she saw that his jaw was lean and strong. His nose was almost all the way back to normal, his black eye was fading away, and while the bruises on his face were still there the swelling was gone. Apparently he had been telling the truth when he’d told her that he healed fast, because she was able to see now the clean, hard planes and angles of his face. Good looking was an understatement, she thought unwillingly. He was a gorgeous guy, and somebody like Kendra, for example, would be drooling over him.
Fortunately, Sam thought, she was made of sterner stuff than that: she might notice, but she absolutely did not drool.
“Hey, Mom!” Tyler yelled. The heads-up was followed by the basketball hurtling her way.
Sam caught it just in time to keep from getting whomped in the head, pivoted, made a neat two-pointer, and grinned at her son as he whooped.
“Whoa, swoosh.” Marco grinned at her, too, clapping just as she had done for Tyler. “What other unsuspected talents are you hiding, I wonder?”
A little proud of herself, she flicked a look at him, then found herself caught by something that she saw in his eyes. Suddenly she felt hot all over, and more than a little flustered.
Things were getting out of hand when just looking at him made her think about sex.
“Supper’s ready,” she said in a repressive tone, and with Tyler charging ahead of her went back inside the kitchen.
Groves was happy to eat with them. The conversation centered on sports, particularly basketball and the upcoming NBA championship game. Animosity sometimes darkened Groves’s expression when he looked at Marco, but on the surface at least the atmosphere was friendly enough. Tyler listened intently to everything that was said, and finally piped up with, “My mom used to play on a basketball team when she was in high school, didn’t you, Mom?”
Sam was saved from having to reply by the arrival of Abramowitz to relieve Groves. In the act of putting his plate into the dishwasher with the rest of them, Groves looked so guilty when Abramowitz caught him at it that Sam almost smiled.
If Groves was quietly hostile toward Marco while being perfectly friendly to her and Tyler, Abramowitz was evenhandedly terse with them all. After supper, since Tyler had claimed the couch and the TV remote, he set himself up in the den with a book. After Sam had done everything she could think of to keep busy—which, aside from a little laundry, wasn’t much—she admitted to herself that she had cabin fever. Being cooped up was getting to her. Outside, twilight was deepening into full dark, and clouds were blowing in from the west, bringing with them the promise of rain. Not used to being cooped up, Sam longed to get out of the house—and by out of the house, she wasn’t talking about stepping into the backyard. But remembering how nerve-racking just going to Walmart had been, which then segued into a too-vivid memory of Mrs. Menifee’s fate and the criminals who were still hunting them, she gave up on any hope of even so much as going for a walk down to the end of the street and back. Instead, she headed back into the great room with the idea of joining Tyler in front of the TV. By now, he would be deep into Escape to Witch Mountain, which she had rented for him a few months before and which th
ey had both loved, and which by happy coincidence had been playing on the Disney Channel. She wouldn’t mind watching it again. But when she saw that Marco was sitting on the couch beside Tyler, Sam hesitated and almost turned around again. More happy-family interaction with Marco was something she just did not need.
But Tyler spotted her.
“Have you ever seen Bruce Lee, Mom?” Tyler asked excitedly over his shoulder. Sam’s mouth about dropped open as she realized that the images on the screen weren’t what she had been expecting to see at all. Some kind of martial arts bout was going on, and her gaze shifted to Marco accusingly. “He’s awesome. You want to watch it with us?”
Marco responded to her look by raising both hands in the air and shaking his head, which she interpreted as don’t blame me, which he immediately spoiled by grinning at her.
“What happened to Witch Mountain?” Determined not to overreact, Sam sat down beside Tyler and frowned at the TV.
“There were too many commercials. I found this. Trey told me it’s Bruce Lee.” Tyler sounded distracted, and Sam realized that it was because he was focusing so keenly on the action in front of him. On Tyler’s other side, “Trey” was shaking his head at her and mouthing I had nothing to do with this when Tyler added, “Trey says that some of his nephews take karate. Do you think I could take karate, Mom?”
“Trey” dropped his head in shame.
“We’ll see.” A mom’s stock response, which she followed up with a dirty look shot over Tyler’s head at Marco.
Before Sam could decide whether watching men hack and kick each other into cowering bundles of submission was unsuitable enough for a four-year-old to be worth the howl of protest Tyler would undoubtedly send up if she turned it off, the movie ended. As the credits rolled, Tyler said, “I loved that!” and then leaned over to whisper something in her ear. As Sam nodded, he leaped up and ran from the room.
“He needed to go potty,” Sam explained in response to Marco’s questioning look. Then she gave him a dark look. “Bruce Lee?”
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