Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  He nodded. "We have to do this smart. But we have to act quick. The longer they have Grayson, the worse it is for everyone."

  "Do you know why they took him?"

  Clint played with his fries, dragging them through a pool of ketchup, but not actually lifting them to his lips.

  "I think this whole thing was about him. I think they have every intention of taking him out, but they need something from him first."

  "What?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know. The Mahoneys... they have a lot of fingers in the world pie right now. They don't just dabble in drugs and weapons. They like to play games with American politics, putting people in positions of power so they can use them. I don't know what they want Grayson for, but with his history, with his family connections, there's almost an infinite number of possibilities."

  That thought made my head spin. But I knew deep in my heart that he was right.

  There was, surprisingly enough, a payphone outside the diner. I called collect and was relieved to hear Kirkland's voice seconds later.

  "Ryan... we've got an issue here at the ranch. Tell me where you are."

  "I don't know. Outside Cheyenne, I think."

  "We'll send someone to pick you up."

  "We have a car—"

  "We're on lockdown here, Ryan. There's been... listen, we have a safe house a couple hours north of your location. Go there. We'll meet you ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

  He hung up before I could ask what the hell was going on.

  I hoped everyone was okay.

  Chapter 16

  At the Ranch

  "It's about Kennedy," Sutherland said breathlessly as she drove too quickly back to MidKnight, racing over the empty roads between Casper and the ranch. She could hear Kirkland breathing on the other end of the line, but—like her—he was mildly speechless.

  How could we have overlooked something so obvious? How could it be so simple?

  "Is that what Kipling said?"

  "He heard them talking during the ambush. He said they took Ash for payback and that they'll be coming after Becky."

  "Then we need to lock the ranch down."

  "That's not all." She hesitated, not sure this part was something she should talk about over the phone. But he needed to know. "A woman approached me in the parking lot. She knew things, new about Kipling."

  "Did she hurt you? Are you okay?"

  "She had information. She said Ryan and that detective were attacked on the road to Denver by an assassin who was following our tracker, who was following the SUV using our technology."

  "That's not possible."

  "We have a mole, Kirkland. We've suspected it, but this seems like proof."

  "But the only people with access to that information are people I would trust with my life."

  "Everyone but me."

  "I didn't say that."

  "But it's the truth. And maybe's it right. Maybe it's someone close to me."

  "Sutherland, no one is moving information out of Gray Wolf's offices. It's impossible. We've taken too many precautions."

  "Maybe I'm doing it somehow."

  "Impossible."

  Sutherland was quiet, her mind working a million miles a minute. She couldn't remember a time when she'd said something to someone outside of Kirkland or Ash about the operation, but what if she had? What if she'd said something in front of someone who passed it on to the wrong person? Or what if... she couldn't imagine how it could be anyone else. Kirkland and Ash went back years, and David was Ash's brother, for God's sakes! They were both fiercely loyal. They would not allow anything to happen to Ash.

  That only left Sutherland. Out of the four of them, she was the only one who could have leaked the information. Not consciously, but...

  "Get back here," Kirkland said. "We'll figure this out."

  She disconnected and tossed the phone onto the front seat of her truck. She retraced her steps over the last few days. She'd worked long hours with David and Lance, planning the logistics of the operation, building teams, moving them around. They'd poured over personnel files, read everything available about the FBI agents and cops who would be helping. There wasn't much. The other organizations were stingy with their information, providing only the basics. They were all happy to allow Gray Wolf the responsibility of planning things, that way if things went wrong they could also take the blame. But offer them the support they needed? That must have been a joke.

  But they did what they could, working until late in the night on it. When it was done and they presented the plan to Ash and Kirkland, they discussed changes, made adjustments. But at the end of the day, they were the only ones who knew everything about the operation. And Lance... he was a pro. The longer Sutherland worked with him—the more she saw him with Becks—the more she liked him. He couldn't be the mole.

  No one could be the mole, yet there appeared to be one.

  How had they gotten Ash? How had they known we were coming? How did they know everyone would be going in the back? That was an idea I'd come up with, changing it up at the last second so if there was a leak, it wouldn't impact the operation. But the Mahoneys knew. They knew before Ash made the change.

  They had to have known before the change because they were already there, waiting. And that meant it was one of them, one of the five of them.

  Lance.

  Kirkland.

  David.

  Ash.

  Sutherland.

  But none of them would have done it.

  Was there a bug in the office? Was there a secretary, a programmer, someone on the support staff? Was it a lover, a friend? A bug on a phone?

  They were careful. Kirkland had the offices swept every day for bugs. There was very little by way of technology that could outsmart David's gadgets. The man and his wife were fucking brilliant! They were always ten steps ahead of the criminals. They had surveillance equipment, bugs, bug sweepers, that were all more advanced than anything the Mahoneys could get their hands on.

  But someone slipped the information to the Mahoneys. Someone breeched their trust.

  Who?

  She was still wrestling with the problem as she slowed the truck to make her way through downtown Midnight. Mr. Brandt was standing outside the general store. Ms. Richards sitting on a bench outside the library. She waved absently, some habits too deeply engrained to ignore. She turned at the end of Main Street, headed down Knight Road toward the ranch. And that's when her passenger side window imploded.

  She cried out, more shocked than anything else. A succession of pings slammed against the side of the truck, one right after another, the sound of a bullet slamming through metal. She hit the accelerator, afraid they would hit the gas tank and the old truck would explode. She couldn't see anything, didn't see a person standing convenient by the side of the road, exposing himself so she could identify him. She wasn't even sure from what angle the shots were coming. She thought behind her, near the storefronts on her right, but she couldn't be sure.

  The sounds stopped once she put the town behind her. Her hands shook.

  It was still four miles to the ranch. Four very long miles.

  This was serious. It was life or death. Her first thought should have been her daughter, should have been the ranch and Mitchell's legacy. But it wasn't.

  Her first thought was... Bodhi.

  Chapter 17

  Clint

  I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to just say it, once and for all, get it all out there in a way I'd never done before. But there was something holding me back, something stopping me. And when she said Gray Wolf was on lockdown...

  "What happened? Did he say?"

  She shook her head. "Just that something was happening and they'd tell us in the morning."

  "It was Kirkland you spoke to?"

  "Yes. Not Sutherland."

  "You don't think she's been injured in some way?"

  "If she had been, he would have said."

  She gave me a funny lo
ok when I asked about Sutherland. But that was something else I couldn't explain right now.

  We drove to the safe house, a little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere outside Casper. We were close enough, we could have just gone to the sad apartment I rented as Detective Clint Barrow, but I didn't say anything. This was what Kirkland wanted, this was what we'd do for now.

  Ryan located the keys in the mailbox where Kirkland had apparently told her they would be. I followed her inside, feeling the weight of the past twenty-four hours as the need to put distance between us and Denver eased. Ryan lifted her shirt over her head as she walked toward the back of the house.

  "I don't know about you, but I need a shower."

  She liked her showers. And I couldn't say that was an issue for me.

  I followed, stripping as I did. My clothes ended up in a pile on the floor in the bedroom, falling somewhere near hers. It was a traditional shower, a narrow stall stuck in the corner of a similarly narrow bathroom. She was already standing under the spray, her arms lifted as she wiggled her hips, dancing with the hot water. I slipped in behind her, preferring to slide my hands over her than my own tired, bruised and battered body. She turned, her fingers moving low over my hip, locating the new stitches in my flesh. She frowned as her fingers recognized the swelling.

  "I knew your body wouldn't like that thread."

  "They say if you hadn't done what you did, I would have lost a quarter of my blood volume. I might have gone into shock."

  "Yeah, well, if they hadn't taken out the thread, you could have had a bad allergic reaction."

  "Double edge swords."

  She looked up at me, a soft smile dancing in her eyes. "My dad used to say that."

  "Yeah?"

  "He left us when I was a kid. But that's something I've always remembered."

  "I'm sorry." I touched the side of her face, pushing her hair back from her eyes so that nothing impeded my ability to stare into them. "He was an idiot."

  "Were you close? You and your dad?"

  I shook my head. "Never knew him."

  "That sucks."

  I pushed her back against the wall, trapping her with the length of my body. "I never had any family except for a sister. And the state, in their infinite wisdom, separated us when she was only two."

  "That really sucks."

  "Yeah. They thought she'd have a better chance of getting adopted that way. No one wanted a bratty eight-year-old, but a two year... she was a shoo in."

  "Where did you go?"

  I shrugged, my hand moving over her face to her throat, working its way down as the other kept her pinned to the wall with a grip on her hip. She was already breathing a little harder, her breasts heaving a little in anticipation of my touch. She wanted me. I liked that.

  "I moved around from foster home to foster home. Ended up in a group home when I was twelve. Ran away when I was seventeen and joined the Army."

  "Then you were recruited into that government agency."

  "Something like that."

  "That's sad. Makes my life seem like a cake walk in comparison."

  "It's not a competition."

  She stroked my jaw with her thumb. "You've been alone for a long time."

  I hadn't thought of it that way. Ever. Hearing her say it made this massive hole open in my chest, a hole that it felt like nothing could ever fill. But then she reached up and kissed me and it was like her touch made it smaller somehow.

  Stupid. Sentimentality.

  I turned her, slapped her ass as I pressed her hard against the shower wall. She cried out in surprise, but that turned into a moan of desire as I began to nibble at her flesh, moving slowly over her body, even falling to my knees to steal tiny tastes of her swollen lips. She opened to me, moans slipping from her lips like it was the only form of communication she'd ever known. And when I nibbled at her clit, I thought she might climb the wall, her movements reckless and unconscious.

  She made me want her just by enjoying my touch.

  I turned her again, lifted her as I impaled her, needing her like I needed food and water. She wrapped her body around me, her legs around my waist, her arms around my head, her lips on mine. Each breath I took was hers, each she took was mine. She tasted like stale hamburger, but there was something so sweet, so perfect underneath that I could get enough.

  It was too much. She was too much. I was crumbling inside just as my life was crumbling around me. The agency had been my life for so long, I didn't know who I was without it. Running from them was like running from the only family I'd ever known. And I had no idea what I was running toward. But holding her...none of it made sense, yet she made it seem as though it did.

  We were soaking wet when we fell into the bed, but neither of us cared. We moved together slowly, gently, both too exhausted for games, both to desperate to separate. We moved together for a long time before we finally fell asleep. And even in sleep we lay tangled in one another, as though our very limbs were afraid of losing even the slightest bit of contact.

  I'd never connected with anyone the way I connected with Ryan.

  A part of me was afraid of what might happen when this case was over, when this crisis had passed. I wasn't sure I would survive going back to that world I suddenly found myself running from.

  Chapter 18

  Ryan

  I woke long before him, nightmares making it impossible to sleep. Afraid my restlessness would bother him, I pulled on his discarded dress shirt sans the tie and jacket, and went into the living room. The sun was coming up, the sky pink with the new day. I stood in the window, wondering when my life went wrong.

  This was supposed to be so easy. I was supposed to come out here to Wyoming and get lost in the silliness of guarding rich assholes from whatever imagined fears they were running from. Everyone knew this part of the state was seeing the newest growth than any other, the rumors that all of Hollywood was moving out here increasing interest in the area. Bodhi fucking Archer lived next door to MidKnight Ranch, for Christ's sake! It was the posh assignments a Los Angeles firm would have had to offer in the cowboy landscape I understood.

  But this... the Mahoney Cartel was not something I'd signed up for. And the mystery government agency Clint worked for was about as far from my comfort zone we could get. I'd never killed anyone before, in self-defense or otherwise. Not hand to hand. Not where I could look into his eyes. I'd fired my weapon in Afghanistan, but not close enough to see their eyes. And I spent most of my time chasing after the medic, anyway. It was my job to make sure the medic didn't get dead. Shooting to frighten people away was far different from stabbing a man in the chest.

  I didn't even know who I was anymore.

  "You okay?"

  I turned, surprised to hear Clint's voice. He lifted me up without waiting for my answer and settled on the couch, holding me like a child in his arms. I curled up, resting my head on his shoulder, my hand sliding over his jaw, my fingers finding their way into his hair.

  "It's a bad thing, having to kill someone," he said softly. "I know it's tearing you up inside."

  I didn't answer, but I wasn't surprised he knew what was going on in my head. It just felt right, him calling it like that. Like we were living in the same head space, living in symbiosis even though we'd only known each other a short time.

  "I've done it. Working this job, living in this world, it's inevitable. The first time was the hardest, but it doesn't really get any easier."

  "That's great to know."

  "If it didn't bother you, you should be in a hospital somewhere, locked away from humanity." He kissed my shoulder lightly. "If it didn't bother you, you wouldn't be any better than them."

  "Did you know him?" I asked. "Did he have a wife, children?"

  He was quiet for a moment. "I didn't know him well. But I know he was divorced. No children."

  I nodded, trying to make it seem like that made it better. It didn't.

  He ran his hand slowly down the length of my back, his fingers wan
dering inside the shirt that was his, that still smelled of him. His hand moved down over my hip, drawing me so close to him, like we couldn't get close enough but he was determined to keep trying.

  "I wish I could make this better for you."

  "You're here. That's all that matters."

  "I shouldn't have let you get under my skin," he said against my cheek. "You're a distraction at a time when I need one the least. I should have let you walk on, should have kept quiet."

  "And let me go into that building?"

  "It was over by the time you got there."

  "Thanks. I appreciate your concern."

  He chuckled softly, but it wasn't all amusement. He pulled back, pushing my head further back on his shoulder so he could see my eyes.

  "I don't let people close, Ryan. I don't let women get under my skin. I can't even say that there's some love I lost that made me this way. There isn't." He pushed the loose hair out of my face, his eyes softened by emotion. "I don't trust people. That's what makes me good at my job, but it also makes it impossible to have meaningful relationships, you know?"

  "I do."

  "The thing is, I think I want to try with you."

  I raked my fingernails over his jaw, the rasp of the beginning growth of stubble brushing against them the only sound in the room. I think we were both holding our breath, but I don't know why. I kissed him, fear, and joy dancing in my chest all at the same time. It hadn't yet occurred to me that I might face a future without him in it. Funny how my mind just included him in the unseen, how I just assumed there would be a future between us even though we'd just met and we hadn't really shared anything other than a few attempts on our lives.

  What did that woman say in that stupid movie about the speeding bus? Relationships based on stressful situations never work out.

  I hoped she was wrong.

  "I think I can fall in love with you," I said against his lips, too close to see his eyes. "So, if you're not serious, you should probably tell me now."

  "I can't make promises. But I want to try."

  That had to be good enough.

  We kissed for a long little while, our mouths warming to each other, our tongues dancing to a slow, lazy rhythm of their own making. It was sexy and exciting, but it was also all we needed. For now.