by Dee Davis
She nodded, her vision growing even more fuzzy as she reached up to pull him close. “It’s a… good… thing… that I… love you,” she whispered, the words coming out thick like molasses. “Because… that was definitely… worse… than the waterfall.”
EPILOGUE
U.S. Military Hospital, Eloy Afaro Air Base, Marto, Ecuador
Madeline fought against the urge to wake. She’d been having a wonderful dream, although for the life of her she couldn’t remember what it was. Still, she sighed, sorry for it to go, certain that it had been lovely.
Her eyes flickered open and she stared at the acoustic tiles above her head, trying to remember where she was. Her last memory was sort of vague, the wind, a ladder, a helicopter.
Drake.
“Hey, there, sweetheart.” His voice filled her ears and she turned her head, his face swimming into focus. “I was wondering when you were going to come back to me.” He was sitting beside her hospital bed, holding her hand, his eyes narrowed with concern.
“Where am I?” she asked, her voice cracking, her throat dry.
“In Ecuador. In the hospital. You lost a lot of blood. But the doctors say you’re going to be just fine.”
“Ortiz?” she asked, the name hanging in the air between them.
“He can’t hurt you anymore. He’s dead.” He squeezed her hand, his fingers warm against her skin.
“I killed him,” she sighed, the memory returning.
“And you saved me,” he said, his eyes full of tenderness. “And Tucker.”
“Where is he?” she frowned. “Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. Doctors said with a couple weeks’ rest and some sound nutrition he’ll be good as new. Me, I figure some beer, hot dogs, and baseball ought to fix him right up.”
“Not to mention give him some serious indigestion. But really,” she said, her mind still a little groggy, “he’s okay?”
“Yeah. He’d be in here himself if the doctors would let him, but they’re still running tests.”
“What about the rest of the team?” she asked. “Did everyone get out okay? Nash and Annie?” She had a vague memory of Annie helping her in the helicopter, but it could have just been part of her dream.
“Everyone’s great. Hannah’s helicopter saved the day. So there’ll be no living with her for a good long while. And Nash and Annie made it to the original rendezvous without any trouble. So everything turned out fine.”
“What about me? Does Langley still want me in protective custody?” She shook her head, wincing as she shifted her leg.
“No. Avery had some serious one-on-one time with the people behind the original D-5 operation. Considering the fact that they left people on the ground, and then tried to cover it up, they’re more interested in saving their asses than frying yours. They’ll still want the information you collected about di Silva’s operations, and of course about Ortiz. But Tucker’s really the expert when it comes to Ortiz and what happened to D-5.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to help any way that I can,” she said, surprised to find that she really meant it. “But what about the Colombians? Ortiz told me that they believed I was still incarcerated in San Mateo. Now that they know I’m not, they’re sure to want me back there. Because of the man I shot. Not to mention my part in the prison break.”
“Actually, that’s where the CIA coverup works to our advantage. They’re obviously not interested in the Colombian government finding out who Tucker really was. So they’re arranging for the whole thing to be laid at di Silva’s feet. And as part of that package, they’ve produced evidence that clears you of the shooting as well.”
“But there were witnesses,” she protested, overwhelmed by how quickly things had turned around.
“Who saw the man attacking your sister. Believe me, no one wants to pursue the issue. You’re safe now. It’s over. All of it. I swear.”
“Another debt I owe Avery,” she said. “But what about the leak? Ortiz said he had a source.”
“We’re still working on that one. The men behind D-5, the ones Avery talked to, are claiming innocence, but there’s no guarantee that they’re not lying. Which means it’ll take time to dig out the truth. But don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”
“Even if it’s one of the team?”
“As much as I hate the idea,” he said, a shadow passing across his face, “if someone from inside A-Tac is behind any of this, he or she has got to be stopped. But not today. Today, I just want to concentrate on you.”
“And Tucker.” She nodded. “How’s he taking all of this? I can’t imagine any of it’s sitting very well with him. I got the feeling that this Lena woman was someone important to him. Ortiz killed her. Not to mention betraying the rest of their unit. If Tucker feels anything like you do about his colleagues, he’s going to have a difficult road ahead of him.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice grim. “But we’ll be there to help him.”
“It’s all so sad,” she whispered, “but at least he’s out of San Mateo.”
“Thanks to you.” Drake reached over to smooth back her hair. “You saved my brother.”
“You did most of the heavy lifting.” She smiled. “So when do I get out of here?”
“Another day or so. The doctors want to keep an eye on you. But your leg will be fine.”
“And you?” she asked, a little tremor of fear washing through her. “When do you have to be back at Sunderland?”
“I don’t,” he said. “Avery gave me a leave of absence. I’m going to California. We still own the house where we grew up. I figured it’d be a good place for Tucker and me to reconnect. You know?”
She nodded, her eyes welling with unwanted tears. “That’ll be great,” she said, her voice taking on the perky falsetto of a college cheerleader. “I’m glad you’re going to be together.”
“Well, we could kind of use the feminine touch,” he said, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Someone to keep us away from the bratwurst and beer.”
“Someone to take care of you?” she asked, hardly daring to hope.
“Someone to love us,” he said, framing her face with his hands. “Did you mean what you said up there?”
She struggled to remember, her mind still full of drug-induced cotton wool. And then she smiled. “Well, it was worse than the waterfall.”
“Not that part, Madeline,” he said, his icy gaze going meltingly warm. “The part about you loving me. Did you mean it?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her chest tightening. “I did—I do. Although I’m not sure that’s any great thing. I mean, I’m not exactly the girl next door. I—”
He covered her lips with a finger. “I’ve never been much on sweet and simple. I prefer a woman who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.”
She nodded, waiting, afraid that he wouldn’t say the words, that somehow she was reading the moment all wrong.
“What I’m trying to say,” he continued, “is that you mean more than anything to me. I almost lost you out there. And I realized that if I had, my world would have ended.”
“But you didn’t lose me,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “I’m right here.”
“And if I have my way, you’re going to stay here—with me. Forever.” Her heart stuttered as he caught and held her gaze. “I want to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much I love you.”
“I think that can be arranged,” she said, smiling up at him though her tears. “What do you say we get a jump on that? No time like the present, right?”
“Your wish is my command,” he murmured with a slow, sexy grin. And then he closed the distance between them, his mouth taking possession of hers, his kiss a covenant. She twined her hands in the soft silk of his hair, her heart beating in tandem with his, and sighed, realizing that after a lifetime of searching, she’d finally found her way home.
Tyler Hanson lives by the motto “duty first” and doesn’t have time for personal attachments—until she meets Br
itish agent Owen Wakefield…
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DESPERATE DEEDS
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Ambassador Hotel, Colorado Springs
I’m okay, Avery. I’ve got bruises on my bruises but nothing seriously wrong. I swear.” Tyler sank down on the bed in her hotel room, cradling her cell phone while she tried to make herself more comfortable. Avery Solomon was A-Tac’s commander and one of Tyler’s oldest friends. The two had met when she was in the army. It was Avery who’d recruited her to the CIA.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.” Even with the distance she could hear Avery’s regret. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”
“It’s part of the job.” She shrugged, the gesture hurting more than she was willing to admit. “Missions go bad.”
“I’m not buying any of this, Tyler. I saw you, remember?” Avery had insisted on being present for her debriefing, and since there was no way for him to be there physically, he’d settled for videoconferencing. “I know how much this cost you.”
“I shouldn’t have lost them. I should have seen the signs and gotten us the hell out of there.”
“But you didn’t,” Avery said, his tone probing. “Which tells me that something else happened. Something you omitted from the debrief.”
Tyler sighed. Avery knew her too damn well. “There was something. But I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Not even a secure one.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overreacting. But it seemed like someone was playing us—or more specifically, playing me. Anyway, I’ll tell you everything when I get there. Thanks for clearing me to come home.”
“There wasn’t anything more you could tell them. I can understand Fisher’s need to probe. I’d feel the same if it was my people that had been lost. But he was pushing too hard. Barking up the wrong damn tree.”
Tyler smiled. “Thanks for that. It’s nice to know someone has my back. Have you got any leads on who might have stolen the detonators?”
“Nothing concrete. It’s too early. Hannah is working on it as we speak.” Hannah Marshall handled intel for A-Tac. If there was anything to provide insight into who’d stolen the detonators, she’d find it.
“So does everyone know what happened?” It’s not like she wanted to keep it a secret, but there was part of her that hated having her failure paraded about, even among her friends.
“As you know, word travels fast in our circles,” Avery said. “So the whole team knows that the detonators were stolen and that you almost died in the process. But beyond that I figured it was best to keep the details need-to-know. So Hannah’s up to speed. And Nash, of course. He threatened to fly to Colorado if I didn’t tell him everything.” Nash Brennon was the unit’s second in command.
“And if he knows, then Annie knows,” Tyler said. Annie was Nash’s wife, and there were no secrets between them.
Avery laughed. “Sometimes I wonder how they made it all those years apart. It’s like they’re two halves of a whole. Anyway, I knew you wouldn’t mind if I filled them in.”
“Of course not.” Nash and Tyler were close. And she and Annie had hit it off almost from the beginning—except for the part where Tyler had thought Annie was a traitor. But that was water long under the bridge.
“So you’re sure you don’t want one of us to fly up there?” Avery asked.
“No. Honestly. I’ve got a flight out first thing in the morning. So I’ll be home for dinner. And we’ll talk then. Right now I just want a stiff drink.” She sighed, realizing that it was going to take more than one.
“It wasn’t your fault, Tyler.”
“Intellectually, I know you’re right”—she closed her eyes, seeing Gerardi’s body on the roadside—“but emotionally I just keep replaying it, trying to figure out what I could have done differently.”
“Hindsight and all that,” Avery said, his pragmatism calming her in a way nothing else could have. “And you can rest assured that we’re going to hunt down the bastards that did this.”
“I’m counting on it. And when we find them, I want first crack. But right now, I just need to decompress. You know?”
“I do. So I’ll let you go. But I’ll be here if you need me. Nash and Annie, too. In fact, I’m sure they’ll be calling.”
“Thanks. But I’ll be fine.” She sucked in a calming breath, ignoring the resulting pain that laced through her chest. “I’ll call you when I get to New York.” She terminated the call and then turned off the phone. Avery was right. Nash would call. And tomorrow she’d be glad to hear his voice. But for now, she was tired of talking. She needed quiet. And she needed that drink.
Pushing off the bed, she walked over to the minibar and pulled open the little refrigerator door. Inside, lined up as neatly as soldiers, were a platoon of tiny liquor bottles.
She pulled out two bottles of Wild Turkey and poured them into a glass. When she’d turned eighteen her father had taken her to her first grown-up dinner party. The host, a longtime family friend, had asked her what she wanted to drink. She hadn’t actually had much experience with cocktails, so she’d asked for a strawberry daiquiri, and she’d thought herself very sophisticated drinking the icy pink beverage.
It was only after she got home that she learned that the host had actually left the party to go to a nearby market to get the supplies needed to make the drink. Her father had been furious, and he’d informed her that she was never to ask for something so complicated again.
He’d taken a bottle of scotch and a bottle of bourbon from his liquor cabinet and poured a stiff tot of each. And then he’d told her to pick one. Scotch or bourbon. The scotch had tasted bitter, with a hell of a bite, and the bourbon, by contrast, had been smooth, almost sweet.
She’d drunk bourbon ever since.
She downed the glass in a single swallow, closing her eyes as the heat slid down her throat, expanding through her chest. She could almost feel the tension coiled inside her loosen as the warmth filtered through her body.
But it wasn’t nearly enough.
She opened the refrigerator door again, sorting through the little bottles, but to her dismay, there was no more Wild Turkey. And somehow, in light of the events of the last twelve hours, she didn’t think that a thimbleful of Bailey’s Irish Cream was going to suffice.
She turned to the telephone, searching for the room service number, and then abruptly replaced the receiver, deciding instead to head downstairs for the bar off the lobby. She’d find a dark corner and nurse a couple of really good drinks. Better to be in a crowd. Less likely that she’d let her emotions take over. And besides, misery was supposed to love company.
She grabbed her keycard and headed downstairs via the elevator. The bar was small. Like a thousand other hotel bars. Nondescript in a high-concept, designer kind of way. Huge vases of flowers had been placed strategically throughout, dividing the space into even smaller alcoves. The perfect place to unwind, or to hide.
Ignoring curious stares from a couple of businessmen sitting at the bar, she made her way to the far corner and a table with two large wing chairs. An electric fire flickered behind a glass screen, the lack of warmth and sound only adding to the sterile feeling of the place. After ordering a Maker’s Mark, she settled into the chair facing the room. It would be more peaceful to stare into the pretend fire, but old habits died hard. Better to keep watch.
She had a feeling the theft of the detonators was a first move. And though there was every possibility her part in this affair was over, there was also a chance that she was still very much in the game. Which meant that it wouldn’t pay to turn her back.
One of the men at the bar smiled and lifted his glass. Tyler shifted the chair so that she could more easily avoid his gaze. The waitress brought the bourbon and retreated, leaving Tyler to her thoughts as soft music swelled in the background. Just what she needed—a soundtrack.
Gerardi and Mather
weren’t the first people she’d lost during a mission, but that didn’t change the depth of her regret. And even though Avery was right, and it wasn’t her fault, she still felt as if she should have done something differently. Something that would have kept both men alive.
She blew out a breath and took a sip of bourbon. Usually, when an operation went south she had backup. People to decompress with. This was the first time in years she’d handled an op on her own. But like she’d told Gerardi and Mather, she was the expert in munitions. So the assignment had fallen to her. Deemed a routine operation, there’d been no need to involve more personnel.
But the mission had turned out to be anything but routine, and now, because of her mistakes, two good men were dead.
She tipped the glass and finished the contents.
“Way I’ve always heard it, Maker’s Mark is a sipping bourbon.”
“Didn’t know you Brits ran toward bourbon at all,” Tyler said, looking up into the dark blue eyes of her MI-5 agent, although for the life of her, she couldn’t think why she’d think of him as “hers.”
“We do get shipments from across the pond.” He shrugged, signaling the waitress for more drinks as he slid into the chair next to hers. “I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself before. Owen Wakefield.”
He held out his hand, and Tyler sucked in a breath, not certain that she wanted to touch him. Another irrational thought. Maybe he was right and she should have been sipping. With a tight smile she reached across to take his hand in hers. “Tyler Hanson. But considering the circumstances, I suspect you already know that. You’re MI-5, right?”
His hand tightened for a moment, his grip strong, his fingers engulfing hers. Then he sat back with a crooked smile. “How did you know?”
“The medic at the scene. He told me. And if he hadn’t, the accent would have given you away. I guess I was supposed to be bringing the detonators to you.”
