Wash her.
It was then he heard it. The sound of a motor—a low rumble, way in the background.
In a flash, Decker dropped the soap and shut off the water, pushing Tracy back against the wall, one hand up and over her mouth. “Shhh,” he warned her as she clung to him to keep her balance, as he used his body to trap her more securely against the tile wall.
She was soft, she was slick, and his leg was pressed tightly between her thighs, and Jesus, he was right—the sound that he'd heard was that of the electric garage door going up.
Tracy's eyes were wide as she stared at him over the top of his hand as she heard it, too.
He scrambled out of the shower and grabbed his sidearm, yanking it free from its holster. He had no pants—although he probably wouldn't have taken the time to pull them on, even if he had a pair.
He turned off the bathroom light, listening at the door before throwing it open, and checking the hall in both directions.
It was empty. He sensed Tracy behind him—she'd wrapped herself in a towel. There was silence, but it was brief before the rumble started again—this time no doubt the door was going back down.
“Get your clothes and follow me,” he told Tracy nearly silently, and she swiftly gathered them up before following him down the stairs. “Get ready to run. I'm going to—”
“I'm not going anywhere without you!”
“Yes, you are,” he countered. “It's my turn to give the orders. You're going out the back door—”
“Tracy?” A female voice called from the kitchen.
“Oh, my God,” Tracy said. “Linds?”
And yes, it was indeed Troubleshooters operative Lindsey Jenkins who came around the corner, her weapon drawn. She immediately raised her hands at the sight of Decker's.
“Whoops,” Lindsey said, her eyes widening even more as she realized he was naked. “Holy shit! Sorry. Sorry!” She started to laugh—and disguised it as a cough as she respectfully averted her eyes, and then turned around. “I'm guessing you didn't get the message that we were on our way over… ?”
“Obviously not,” Tracy said. “Shoot, Deck, you're bleeding again.” Apparently she'd missed Lindsey's use of the plural pronoun, because she whipped off her towel and tried to use it to stanch the flow.
And, damnit, blood was dripping from his elbow onto the carpet runner on the stairs. Starrett was going to be pissed. Still, it wasn't as bad as it had been.
“Why don't you get some clothes from the truck and throw your jeans into the dryer,” Tracy told him. “I'll see if there are any bandages in the bathroom. If not, we'll improvise. I'm going to finish getting cleaned up and—”
She gasped as she caught sight of the man standing in the shadows, just behind Lindsey. It wasn't Mark Jenkins, but rather one of his SEAL friends. The quiet one. Jay Lopez.
“Oh, good. Hi, Jay,” Tracy said, holding her clothes up in an attempt to cover herself. It didn't work. Deck tried to hand the towel back to her, but she didn't take it. She turned and ran upstairs.
“Hey, Tracy. I'll, uh, do another perimeter check of the house,” Lopez said.
“Good plan,” Lindsey said briskly. “I'll make a quick sweep of the second floor and—”
Deck tucked the towel around his waist, because his arm really wasn't bleeding all that much, and … Jesus, this looked bad—because it looked like exactly what it was.
“Help Tracy,” he ordered Lindsey. “Lopez, don't go far. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. Meet me in the garage.”
Lopez nodded and vanished.
Lindsey paused as she passed him on the stairs, stopping two steps up from him, so that they were eye level. “I really am sorry. But for the record? Tracy's a friend of mine. If you're taking advantage of her? I will kick your ass.”
“Help. Tracy.” He said it again, more clearly this time.
She nodded. “I'm going to say the same thing to her, because you're my friend, too. But for what it's worth, Chief?” She smiled, and her eyes sparkled, not just with amusement but with genuine approval. “Hoo-yah.”
Sophia was pregnant.
Dave stared at her, and she stared back at him as she sat on the bed in the hotel suite, chin held high and defiant. She was crying, but she was wiping her tears away as fast as they fell.
“I'm not sorry,” she said. “You're looking at me as if I should say that I'm sorry, but I'm not.”
“How … ?” he breathed.
She tilted her head slightly and gave him a look, and he laughed—he couldn't help it. Sophia was pregnant.
“Okay,” Dave said. “Yeah. I know that how, but… you're on the pill.” Even as he said the words, he remembered their first time, that first night. “But you skipped a day.”
She nodded. “I didn't think it would matter. And even if it did … I thought…”
Dave nodded, too. That very first night, at the bar in the hotel in Sacramento, they'd talked about the fact that they both wanted children.
Someday.
Of course that was before Anise Turiano roared back to life, like an apparition from hell. That was back when he'd foolishly believed he had a future.
He'd found his own little piece of heaven that night, in Sophia's arms, in her kisses, in her touch. She'd pulled him back onto a hotel room bed very much like this one, where they'd made love for that very first time.
He'd been so careful about making sure he didn't pin her down, even though he was on top. He'd been careful to pay attention to everything she said and did, every sound she made. He'd been careful—except for the part where he completely forgot to put on a condom.
“I remember,” Sophia whispered now, “that night so clearly.”
Dave remembered, too. Time had seemed to stand still as he'd kissed her, touched her, loved her. He'd moved almost excruciatingly slowly, with long, deep thrusts and equally languorous withdrawals. He could close his eyes and still see, burned into his brain, an image of Sophia's beautiful face, her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted in ecstasy. He'd kissed her throat and the smooth softness of the underside of her chin, tasting her with his tongue as she spread her legs wider to take more of him, all of him.
He'd redefined pleasure that night as she'd come around him, clinging to him and kissing him, her mouth so hungry, so sweet, as her release seemed to shake her to her soul. He'd come, too, practically in unison with her, in a powerful rush, in slow motion as the entire world as he knew it was torn in half, as colors flashed behind his eyelids, as a full freaking choir of angels sang their hearts out.
He'd told her that he loved her, the words damn near ripped from his throat, as he crashed into her, inside of her—no barriers between them.
And then? After the fireworks were over, as he'd tried to gather up and re-form his brain from the shards that had exploded across the universe, Sophia had sighed and breathed his name. “Oh, Dave …”
And any lingering doubts that he may have had about entering a relationship wherein he knew, up-front, that he was his lover's second choice … ?
Completely obliterated.
He'd had no idea at the time that he and Sophia would have such a lasting souvenir from that evening. But it seemed somehow fitting and, yes, even perfect and sweet that they had.
And okay, maybe he had had an idea—when he'd realized that he'd failed to protect her. His panic had lasted about two seconds, before she'd reassured him that she was taking birth control pills to regulate her periods. She'd missed a day, yes—hard to keep up with a prescription regimen while being held hostage by crazed neo-Nazis—but it would be, she'd told him, no big deal.
Oops.
“And it's not bad for the …” He couldn't say the word baby—he was afraid he might burst into tears. “For everyone's health? That you've kept taking the pills even though you're pregnant?”
She shook her head. “The insert—the information—that comes with the prescription recommends testing for pregnancy if you don't get your period whe
n you're supposed to and … We should probably get one of those home tests to be absolutely sure but… Dave, I'm pretty convinced.”
Dave nodded. “I'll get one. There's a drugstore across the street.”
“I've been pregnant before,” she reminded him. “The morning sickness started at about eight weeks then, too. And it's really morning, noon, and night sickness.”
Morning sickness. Holy shit. For some reason, the mention of morning sickness drove home the fact that Sophia was, right this very moment, carrying a little piece of him around inside of her. It seemed so surreal.
“What can I get for you?” he asked her. “How can I make you feel better?”
She shook her head. “You can't, and … I'm fine.”
“Don't pregnant women eat a lot of crackers?” he asked.
She smiled, but it was wan. “Crackers would be good. For later. Right now, I'm … But, thank you.”
And there they sat.
Dave broke the silence. “It was really great sex,” he said. “I feel good about the fact that it was really, really great sex. I don't know why I should feel so good about that, but I do.”
Sophia laughed. “You're not going to be one of those guys who parades me around going look what I did, are you?” Her laughter faded, and she added, “I mean, depending on whether or not we decide to stay together.”
Ah, yes. That. Also depending upon whether or not Dave survived these next few days or even weeks.
Dear God. He'd been resolute before, but now it was beyond imperative to keep Sophia safe. If he'd been afraid that she was a target as his so-called fiancée, she was now, literally, twice the target.
He took a deep breath. “Please don't take this the wrong way, but it's important that you don't tell anyone about… the baby.”
He felt himself laugh as he said the word, even as he felt a rush of tears to his eyes. Everything he was feeling, including the hurt from finding out that she'd wanted him only because she thought he was normal, i.e., boring— it was all tangled up in a ball of chaos and confusion, with one fact front and center: that there were people out there looking for him, who wanted him to suffer before they ended his life.
And he could not—he would not—let them get anywhere near Sophia and their child.
“God, I want this,” he whispered. “So much. But I don't know how—”
Sophia kissed him.
She kissed him the way she always did—with a sweetness that turned almost instantly to fire. Which was probably his fault. He couldn't get enough of her and could never keep himself from revving it up, instantly, whether they were out in public or in the privacy of a hotel room.
She pulled back, breathless. “Please don't sleep on the couch.”
Dave reached to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, as he continued to fight the urge to cry. “I don't know,” he said. “Lumpy couch versus king-sized bed. Alone versus the woman of my dreams in my arms …” He put his hand on her stomach. “With our baby right here, handily nearby—in case I need to start her in utero calculus classes.”
Sophia laughed. “Calculus. At seven and a half weeks? I don't think she has more than a brain stem yet, although I could be wrong.” She started to cry again. “Dave, I'm so sorry about—”
“Hey, it's all right,” he said, pulling her close and kissing her. His throat felt unnaturally tight. “She'll grow a real brain. Give her time.”
“How can you be so okay with all of this?” she asked.
He sighed. “Because life's not perfect, Soph. You do the best you can with the cards you're dealt. And my hand is pretty freaking great. I've loved you for forever, and now you're having my baby. God, I finally understand that terrible, terrible song, because right now I just want to sing it to you. I won't, though, because, you know. Like I said, I love you, and don't want to subject you to that torture.”
She laughed, but it didn't slow her tears.
“There's also a part of me,” Dave continued, “that's too scared to sing. It's that part of me that's trying to figure out how I'm going to protect you— and our incredible, brilliant, beautiful baby. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I am. And I'm sorry if that sounds too James Bond, but it's only temporary, okay? I'm going to take care of this problem, and then I'm going to come back, and I'm going to marry you, and I'm going to retire from Troubleshooters and get a job in an auto repair shop, only fixing dents in left front fenders of Subarus—or something equally boring.”
“Dave, I don't want you to—”
“Shhh,” he told her, silencing her with a kiss. “That's for the future, okay? Right now, let's just show our baby how much her daddy loves her mommy.”
And with that, Dave kissed her again—because when he was kissing Sophia, he allowed himself to believe not only that she loved him, but that everything was going to work out. And that they were going to live, perhaps not happily, but contentedly ever after—which absolutely was good enough for him.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Decker didn't want her to ride with him.
Tracy sat in the backseat of Navy SEAL Jay Lopez's unassuming little hybrid car and tried to be invisible as they followed Decker through a vaguely industrial part of the city, where he was intending to ditch his poor battered truck.
He'd told Lindsey and Lopez that he didn't want to leave it in Sam and Alyssa's garage. It was entirely possible, even though they'd swept the vehicle carefully, that Jo Heissman had left behind some kind of tracking device.
It would have to be something cutting-edge, that didn't yet register on standard bug-sweeping equipment. But technology frequently played leap frog. Tracy had learned about that when, as Troubleshooters’ field equipment supervisor, she'd come across a purchase order for new equipment— a mere two weeks after they'd received brand-new state-of-the-art bug sweepers. She'd thought it was an error, and had brought it to the boss's attention. But Tom had explained that, over those scant few weeks, there'd been a technology bump in which their new equipment had become instantly obsolete.
The tech world moved at lightning speed. Someone would invent a new, undetectable tracking device, Tom had explained, and everyone else would work feverishly on a way to detect it. Once they did, it wouldn't be long before someone else invented a newer, undetectable device—and on and on it went.
So, yes, it was not just possible but entirely likely that Dr. Heissman had slipped a tracking device into Deck's truck. How else could they have been followed to the Seaside Heights Motor Lodge?
Except something wasn't right about that. The timing. It seemed wrong. If the bad guys had followed Deck and Tracy to the motel, when exactly did they have time to plant that bomb?
She and Decker had sat in his truck in the parking lot for several minutes, it was true. But she for one hadn't seen any movement in the motel courtyard.
Although, it was possible that whoever planted the bomb had gone around the back. It was possible the bomb could have been planted outside of the building. Surely forensics or explosion experts could tell that sort of thing.
Tracy wished Decker were there so she could ask him about that.
Yeah. That was why she wished Decker were there. Right.
Except the backseat of this little car was not designed for people who were more than three and a half feet tall. She was sharing it, too, with a pizza box. Apparently Jay Lopez had been sitting down to dinner when Lindsey had called, looking for backup. The box was, alas, empty. Her stomach growled, and she dug through her handbag for a PowerBar and came up empty-handed.
“Mark's OCONUS again,” Lindsey said from the front seat.
Tracy realized that she wasn't talking to Lopez, who of course, would have already been aware of the fact that Lindsey's SEAL husband was out of the country.
“He was supposed to be back tomorrow,” Lindsey continued, “but… Looks like they're keeping 'em around awhile longer.”
“Iraq?” Tracy asked, focusing on her friend. It was a good way t
o avoid obsessing over the way Decker hadn't been able to look at her when she'd come—showered and fully dressed—into the garage. He'd given her zero eye contact as he'd briskly announced that she should go with Lindsey and Lopez, and that he was taking his truck.
“Nope. Afghanistan,” Lindsey reported.
“I was hoping you'd say Germany,” Tracy said.
“I wish.” Lindsey sighed. “It's bad over there.”
“He's going to be okay,” Tracy told her friend. “Mark's good at what he does.”
Lindsey shifted in her seat to better face Tracy. “So … You want to tell me what's going on with the bomb at the motel and the back window of Deck's truck shot out?”
Tracy sighed. “I can't. Not without Decker's permission.” And okay. The word made her blush, even though Lindsey and Lopez couldn't possibly know what had gone on in that bathroom before they'd arrived.
Did I say you could talk? Here in the quiet of Lopez's car it seemed absurd not only that those words had come out of her mouth, but that Decker had been on board enough to obey her.
Holy crap, he was one nicely put together man. No doubt about it, Lawrence Decker was the reason God had invented nakedness. And even though Tracy's experience with living, breathing, in-the-flesh naked men was seriously limited, she'd seen a statue or two in her time, as well as more than a few male bodies on film—that is, if you could call the adult-cable-channel porn Lyle used to watch “film.” Deck put them all to shame, with the kind of hard muscles that a man couldn't get from merely going to the gym.
“Then … you want to tell me what's going on with you and Deck?” Lindsey asked.
“Nothing's going on,” Tracy started to say, but changed it to a simple, “No.” Lindsey, after all, wasn't an idiot. Naked plus naked equaled something, not nothing. “Not in front of Lopez. No offense, Jay.”
“I'm not listening,” he said.
“And you didn't see me naked either, right?” Tracy asked.
“Sorry, no,” he said. “I definitely saw you naked.” He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “I have an appreciation of fine art, and I recognize what an honor it was to be one of a rare few who've been granted a private viewing of one of God's own masterpieces.”
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