Kane turned to me. “You’re sure you extracted all your memories from Betty’s mind?”
I rubbed the ache in my forehead. “I’ll never know for sure. She probably still has a few floating around in her head, but they’ll never connect to anything. And I made sure I got absolutely every classified thing I ever knew.”
Kane’s face eased into a smile, watching Betty’s animated conversation. “And you obviously got all the traumatic ones.”
I blew out a sigh. “Yeah. Thank God. She’ll never know they were ever in her head. Never remember experiencing them at all.”
He sobered. “It’s too bad nobody can do that for you.”
I shrugged, avoiding his gaze.
“Come on,” he said after a moment. “I’ll drive you out to get your truck.”
In Kane’s SUV, I let the tension slowly ease from my body, leaning back in an attempt to avoid abusing my aching ribs any more than necessary.
He glanced over but said nothing, and we rode in comfortable silence until the shattered windbreak of the Knights’ farm made my jaw drop.
“Holy shit.” I craned my neck, surveying the devastation as we drove by. “Was there anything left?”
“No.” Kane’s voice was grim. He pulled in behind my truck and parked. “Thank God you weren’t in it.”
“Yeah.” I reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Aydan.”
Something in his voice sent me into red alert. I turned to face him, my shoulders bunching.
God, please, no. Not another relationship discussion. Not now.
Kane reached over to gently enclose my hand in his. His fingertips stroked lightly across my palm, and he glanced up to meet my eyes with a half-smile.
“Don’t worry, I promise not to corner you or ask for anything you can’t give…”
“Can we please talk about this later?” I pleaded.
His grip tightened on my hand. “No, I need to say this, and you need to hear it. I’ve always demanded honesty in my relationships, and it’s a difficult adjustment to know you have an undercover life that forces you to lie-”
“I’m not a spy, dammit, I’m just a dumb civilian bookkeeper!”
“Shh, let me finish.” He clasped my hand in both of his. “You don’t have to deny or explain anything to me. You’ve never demanded answers from me, and from now on, I’ll do the same for you. I’ll do my best to accept the limitations you place on your relationships-”
“John, I can’t…” I began desperately.
He shook his head. “No, don’t worry. You’re free. No questions. No expectations. Whatever happens or doesn’t happen between us is up to you. And I hope you’ll trust me not to compromise your secret mission, whatever it is.”
I opened my mouth, but he silenced me with a gentle squeeze of my hand. “I still need to ask you one more thing.”
He searched my face. “Now that it’s all over, tell me what threat you were protecting me from.”
As much as I trusted Kane, I couldn’t bring myself to betray my promise to Kasper. And I couldn’t bear to voice the horrible things I’d believed about Robert.
My husband, who’d given his life for me.
“I…” My voice didn’t seem to want to cooperate, and I swallowed hard. “I… can’t.”
“Let me see if I can guess.” His grip tightened on my hand while he held me with his gaze. “Your husband somehow survived my assassination attempt, didn’t he? And last night, you killed him to protect me.”
“N-no…” The shocking accuracy of his deduction made me blink and stammer. “No,” I repeated firmly. “My husband died of a heart attack induced by your undetectable drug. He’s been dead for nearly three years.”
“Yes, your husband died then. A truth.” His clear grey eyes looked through to my soul. “And last night you laid Robert to rest.”
“I…” I stared at him helplessly. A truth. But not the truth he thought it was.
“Aydan, it’s all right.” He gathered me gently into his arms. “Lie to me if you need to. I understand. We’re spies.”
A Request
Thanks for reading!
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Want to know what else is roiling around in the cesspit of my mind? Drop by my blog and website at http://www.dianehenders.com, vote for your favourite character, and don’t forget to leave a comment in the guest book to say hi – I love hearing from you! Or you can connect with me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authordianehenders. See you there!
Books in the NEVER SAY SPY series:
Book 1: Never Say Spy
Book 2: The Spy Is Cast
Book 3: Reach For The Spy
Book 4: Tell Me No Spies
Book 5: How Spy I Am
Book 6: A Spy For A Spy
Book 7: Spy, Spy Away
Book 8: Spy Now, Pay Later
Book 9: Spy High
Book 10: Spy Away Home
Book 11: To be released early 2016
Humour by Diane Henders
Probably Inappropriate
Definitely Inappropriate
Totally Inappropriate
More books coming! For a current list, please visit www.dianehenders.com
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About Me
By profession, I’m a technical writer, computer geek, and ex-interior designer. I’m good at two out of three of these things. I had the sense to quit the one I sucked at.
To deal with my mid-life crisis, I also write adventure novels featuring a middle-aged female protagonist. And I kickbox.
This seemed more productive than indulging in more typical mid-life crisis activities like getting a divorce, buying a Harley Crossbones, and cruising across the country picking up men in sleazy bars. Especially since it’s winter most of the months of the year here.
It’s much more comfortable to sit at my computer. And hell, Harleys are expensive. Come to think of it, so are beer and gasoline.
Oh, and I still love my husband. There’s that. So I’ll stick with the writing.
Diane Henders
Since You Asked…
People frequently ask if my protagonist, Aydan Kelly, is really me.
Yeah, you got me. These novels are an autobiography of my secret life as a government agent, working with highly-classified computer technology… Oh, wait, what’s that? You want the truth? Um, you do realize fiction writers get paid to lie, don’t you?
…well, shit, that’s not nearly as much fun. It’s also a long story.
I swore I’d never write fiction. “Too personal,” I said. “People read novels and automatically assume the author is talking about him/herself.”
Well, apparently I lied about the fiction-writing part. One day a story sprang into my head and wouldn’t leave. The only way to get it out was to write it down. So I did.
But when I wrote that first book, I never intended to show it to anyone, so I created a character that looked like me just to thumb my nose at the stereotype. I’ve always had a defective sense of humour, and this time it turned around and bit me in the ass.
Because after I’d written the third novel, I realized I actually wanted other peopl
e to read my books. And when I went back to change my main character to not look like me, my beta readers wouldn’t let me. They rose up against me and said, “No! Aydan is a tall woman with long red hair and brown eyes. End of discussion!”
Jeez, no wonder readers get the idea that authors write about themselves. So no, I’m not Aydan Kelly. I just look like her.
How Spy I Am Page 38
