Stone Cold Undercover Agent

by Nicole Helm

  “Agent Alessandro, would you be able to escort Gabby and my family home while I see to this?”

  Gabby whipped her head to her sister, whose expression was...angry, Gabby thought. She thought she recognized that stubborn anger on her sister’s face.

  “I’d love to be of service,” Jaime said. “But I doubt your sister...”

  He was trying to beg off because of her? Oh, no. Hell, no. “Oh, no, please escort us, Mr. Alessandro. I don’t have a problem with it in the least,” Gabby replied, linking arms with Mama and Grandma.

  He didn’t get to run away anymore.

  Gabby saw the uncertainty on Natalie’s face, but Gabby wanted to be done. Done with law enforcement and the past eight years. “Tie up loose ends, sissy. I want this over, once and for all,” she said, not bothering to even look at Jaime.

  “It will be,” Natalie promised before she stalked past Jaime.

  When Gabby finally looked at Jaime, his eyebrows were drawn together, some emotion shuttered in his expression. She couldn’t read it. She didn’t want to.

  He didn’t want anything to do with her now. Couldn’t even stand to be in her presence? Well, she’d prove that she didn’t care about him at all, no matter that it was a lie.

  * * *

  DRIVING GABBY AND her mother and grandmother home was very much not on Jaime’s list of things to do today. It, in fact, went against everything he was trying to do.

  The FBI psychiatrist he’d been forced to talk to had insisted that any relationship with Gabby had been born of the situation and not actual feeling.

  Jaime didn’t buy it. He was too seasoned an officer, had been in too many horrible situations. He knew for a fact Gabby was just different.

  But the problem was that Gabby wasn’t a seasoned officer. She was a woman who’d been a kidnapping victim for eight years, and no matter what he felt or what he was sure of, she had a whole slew of things to work through that had nothing to do with him.

  He’d only meant to relay the message from Ranger Cooper to Natalie. Not...see Gabby. With her family. The same woman he’d shared a bed with only a few days ago, before the strange world they’d been living in imploded.

  She’d been crying, it was clear. He’d had to stand there, forcing himself not to take another step, for fear he would grab her away from all of them.

  He glanced over at her sitting in his passenger seat. She was in his car. His car. In the daylight. Real and breathing next to him.

  Her eyes were on the road, her profile to him, chin raised as though the road before them was a sea of admirers she was deigning to acknowledge.

  He wanted to stop the car and demand she tell him everything, forget the fact her mother and grandmother were in the back.

  But those women remained a good reminder of what had knocked him out of the raging idiot who’d nearly gotten himself fired and ruined the rest of his life. Women who’d truly suffered, nearly as much as Gabby, in the loss of her.

  She deserved the time and space to rebuild with her family first. He didn’t have any place in that. He would drive her home and...

  He had to grip the wheel tighter because if he thought about leaving her at her house and just driving away...

  But he’d made his decision. He’d made the right choice. He would keep his distance. He would give her time to heal. If she... Well, if she eventually came to him... He had to give her the space to make the first move.

  You know that’s stupid.

  He ground his teeth together. No matter how stupid he thought it was, he was trying to do the right thing for Gabby. That’s what was important.

  “Natalie tells us you were undercover with the evil man?” Gabby’s grandmother asked from the back seat.

  “Yes.” He turned onto the street Gabby’s mother had named when they’d started. He didn’t realize he’d slowed down to almost a crawl until someone honked from behind.

  “It’s the blue one on the corner,” the grandmother supplied.

  Jaime nodded and hit the accelerator. No matter that he didn’t want to let Gabby out of the car, it was his duty. More, it was what she needed. Her family. Her life.

  It would be a difficult transition for her, and he didn’t need to make that any more complicated for her. It was the right thing to do.

  No matter how completely wrong it felt.

  He pulled his car into the driveway of a small, squat, one-story home. It looked well kept, if a little sagging around the edges.

  Gabby blinked at it and it took every last ounce of control he had not to reach over and brush his mouth across the soft curve of her cheek. Not to touch her and comfort her.

  She looked young and lost, and he wanted to protect her from all that swamp of emotion she’d be struggling with.

  “I got written up,” he blurted into the silence of the car.

  What the hell are you doing?

  He didn’t know. He needed to stop.

  “You...” Gabby blinked at him, cocking her head.

  “I think they gave me a little leeway what with just being out of undercover and all, but they don’t take kindly to ignoring orders.”

  Shut your mouth and let her go, idiot.

  “You...ignored orders,” she repeated, as though she didn’t quite believe it.

  “They told me not to come to the hospital. Or try to see you. I may have...” He cleared his throat and turned his attention to the house in front of them. “I may have caused a bit of a scene.”

  “He got kicked out by security guards that first morning you were in the hospital,” Grandma offered from the back. “A little rougher around the edges that day.”

  Jaime flicked a silencing glance in the rearview at the grandma. She smiled sweetly. “Natalie said you must have spent some time together when you were both in that place. Did you take care of our Gabriella?”

  Gabby stiffened.

  “I tried,” Jaime said, perhaps a little too much of his still simmering irritation bleeding through. If she had come with him, she wouldn’t have been in that standoff with Alyssa. They would have had... They could have...

  “Mama, Grandma, will you...give me a few minutes alone with Agent Alessandro?” Gabby asked, her voice soft if commanding.

  “Gabriella...” Her mother reached over the seat and put a hand to Gabby’s shoulder.

  “Gabby, please. Only Gabby from now on,” Gabby whispered, eyes wide and haunted and not looking back at her mother.

  “Come inside, baby. We’ll—”

  “I just need a few minutes alone. I promise. Only a few.” She looked back at her mother and offered a smile.

  But he was supposed to be giving her space. Not...alone time. “You should go—”

  Gabby sent him a glare that would have silenced pretty much anyone, Jaime was pretty sure.

  “Come now, Rosa,” the grandmother said, patting the mother’s arm. “Let’s let these two talk. We’ll go make some tea for our Gabri—Gabby.”

  Gabby’s mother brushed a hand over Gabby’s hair, but reluctantly agreed. The two women slid out of the back of his car and walked up to the house with a few nervous glances back.

  Gabby’s gaze followed them, an unaccountable hurt languishing in her dark brown eyes. He kept his hands on the wheel so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her.

  “So...” Jaime said when Gabby just stared at him for long, ticking seconds. “How are you feeling?”

  She didn’t answer, just kept staring at him with that hauntingly unreadable gaze.

  “Well, I, uh, have things to do,” he forced himself to say, wrenching his gaze from searching her face for signs of things that were none of his business.

  “Take off your sunglasses,” she said in return.

  “Gabby—”

  She reac
hed over and yanked them off his face with absolutely no finesse. “Hey!”

  “You look different,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  “A haircut and a shave will do that to a man,” he returned, still not meeting her shrewd gaze. He had a mission. A job. A duty. Not for him, but for her. For her.

  “You look scared.”

  “Scared?” he scoffed, despite the overhard beating of his heart. “I hardly think—”

  “Then look at me.”

  Scared? No. He wasn’t scared. He was strong and capable of doing his duty. He was a reliable and excellent FBI agent. He could face down a man with guns and evil, he could certainly face a woman—

  Aw, hell, the second he looked at her he had to touch. He had to pull her into his arms despite the console between them. He had to fit his mouth to hers and feel as much as know she was there, she was alive, she was safe.

  He brushed his hands over her hair, her cheeks, her arms, assuring himself she was real. Her fingers traced his clean-shaved jaw, over the bristled ends of his hair, as she kissed him back with a sweetness and fervency he wasn’t supposed to allow.

  “I’m not supposed to be doing this,” he murmured against her lips, managing to take his mouth from hers only to find his lips trailing down her neck.

  “Why not?” she asked breathlessly, her hands smoothing across his back.

  “Space and...healing stuff.”

  “I don’t want space. And if I’m going to go through all the shit of healing, I at least want you.”

  He focused on the edge of the console currently digging into his thigh, because if he focused on that instead of kissing her in daylight, real and free, he might survive.

  He managed to find her shoulders, pull her back enough that her hands rested on his forearms.

  Flushed and tumbled. From him.

  “I’m supposed to give you space,” he said firmly, a reminder to himself far more than a response to her.

  “I don’t want it,” she said, her fingers curling around his arms. “And I think I deserve what I want for a bit.”

  She deserved everything. But he wanted to make sure giving it to her was...right. Safe. “I’ve had to see a psychiatrist, and there’s some...mandatory psychological things I’ll have to do before I’m reinstated to active duty. I’m sure the doctor suggested the same thing to you.”

  “Therapy, yes.”

  “There’s a chance...” He cleared his throat and smoothed his hands down her arms, eventually taking her hands in his.

  That wasn’t fair because how did he say anything he needed to when he was touching her? “You shouldn’t feel obligated to continue what happened in there. You should have the space to find out if it’s what you really want.”

  She cocked her head, some mix of irritation and uncertainty in the move. “Do you feel obligated by what happened?” she asked.

  “No, but—”

  “Then shut up.” Then her mouth was on his again, hot and maybe a little wild. But it didn’t matter, did it?

  He didn’t want it to matter. He wanted her. This strong, resilient woman.

  She pulled back a little, always his warrior, facing whatever hard things were in her way. “I want you. The Jaime I met in there. And I want to get to know this you,” she said, running her finger down the lapel of his suit. “The thing is, awful things happened in there, but it was eight years of my life. I can’t...erase it. It’s there. Forever. An indelible part of me. I don’t need to pretend it never existed to heal. I don’t think that’s how you heal.”

  “But I have this whole life to go back to, Gabby. I know you aren’t starting over, but people knew I was coming back. I’m coming back to a job. It isn’t the same space we’re in. I don’t want you to feel as though you need to make space for me. That...you need to love me or any of it.”

  She studied him for the longest time, and the marvelous thing about Gabby was that she thought about things. Thought them through, and gave everything the kind of weight it deserved.

  Who was he to tell her she needed space? Who was he to tell her much of anything?

  “I will tell you when I need space. You’ll tell me when you need some. It’s not complicated.” She traced a fingertip along his hairline, as though studying this new facet to him. Eventually her eyes met his.

  “And I do love you,” she said quietly, weighted. “If that changes, I’d hardly feel obligated to keep giving you something I didn’t have.”

  “Such a pragmatist,” he managed to say, his voice rusty in the face of her confession. “I was trying to be very noble, you know.”

  Her mouth curved and he wondered how many things he would file away in his memories as first in daylight. The first time he’d kissed her with the sun shining into the car. The first smile under a blue sky.

  He wanted them to outnumber his memories of a cramped room more than he wanted his next breath.

  “I don’t want noble. I want Jaime.” She swallowed. “That is, as long as you want me.”

  “I practically lost my life’s work for wanting you, and I’d do it a million times over, if that’s what you wanted. I’d give up anything. I’d fight anything. I hope you know, I’d do anything.”

  She rubbed her hands up and down his cheeks as if to make sure he was real, and hers, though he undoubtedly was. Always.

  “Come inside. I want to tell my mother and grandmother about the man who saved me.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did. I’d stopped counting the days. I’d stopped hoping. You came in and gave me both.”

  His chest ached, a warm bloom of emotion. Touched that anything he’d done had mattered. Moved beyond measure. “We saved each other.” Because he’d been falling, losing all those pieces of himself, and she’d brought it all back.

  “A mutual saving. I like that.” She smiled that beautiful sun-drenched smile and then she got out of his car, and so did he. They walked up the path to her home with a bright blue sky above them, free and ready for a future.

  Together.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from DARK HORSE by B.J. Daniels.

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  Dark Horse

  by B.J. Daniels

  Chapter One

  Their footfalls echoed among the terrified screams and woeful sobbing as
they moved down the long hallway. The nurse’s aide, a young woman named Tess, stopped at a room in the criminally insane section of the hospital and, with trembling fingers, pulled out a key to unlock the door.

  “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” Tess said, looking around nervously. As the door swung open, she quickly moved back. Nikki St. James felt a gust of air escape the room like an exhaled breath. The light within the interior was dim, but she could hear the sound of a chair creaking rhythmically.

  “I’m going to have to lock the door behind you,” Tess whispered.

  “Not yet.” It took a moment for Nikki’s eyes to adjust to the dim light within the room. She fought back the chill that skittered over her skin like spider legs as her gaze finally lit on the occupant.

  “This is the wrong one,” Nikki said, and tried to step back into the hallway.

  “That’s her,” the nurse’s aide said, keeping her voice down. “That’s Marianne McGraw.”

  Nikki stared at the white-haired, slack-faced woman rocking back and forth, back and forth, her gaze blank as if blind. “That woman is too old. Her hair—”

  “Her hair turned white overnight after...well, after what happened. She’s been like this ever since.” Tess shuddered and hugged herself as if she felt the same chill Nikki did.

  “She hasn’t spoken in all that time?”

  “Not a word. Her husband comes every day to visit her. She never responds.”

  Nikki was surprised that Travers McGraw would come to visit his former wife at all, given what she was suspected of doing. Maybe, like Nikki, he came hoping for answers. “What about her children?”

  “They visit occasionally, the oldest son more than the others, but she doesn’t react as if she knows any of them. That’s all she does, rock like that for hours on end.”

  Cull McGraw, the oldest son, Nikki thought. He’d been seven, a few years older than her, at the time of the kidnapping. His brothers Boone and Ledger were probably too young to remember the kidnapping, maybe even too young to really remember their mother.