Off the Grid

by Monica McCarty

  Something is going on here, Colt thought. The wily bastard knew more than he was saying. Not that Colt blamed him. He wouldn’t share more than he had to with the general—or anyone, for that matter.

  “If Morrison didn’t do it, then who did?” Colt asked him.

  “I don’t know.”

  Colt kept him pinned with his gaze. “But you suspect someone.”

  The general shrugged. “It’s nothing I can prove.”

  He had their attention.

  “But . . . ?” Kate prompted.

  “But when I was going through the list of people who might have had access to the classified information, one name stuck out.”

  “Why?” Colt asked.

  “Because she was killed in a car crash right after the platoon went missing.” Colt didn’t want to turn his eyes from the general, but Kate seemed to have gone rigid beside him. “I knew her and liked her. She worked for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, but he relied on her as if it were the other way around. I wondered whether they were having an affair. She was an extremely beautiful woman.”

  Colt looked at Kate, who’d gone strangely mute. He frowned. She also looked a little pale.

  “You are talking about Natalie Andersson,” he said to the general. Colt had met her a few times. Murray was right. She’d been a stunning woman. He’d heard about her death.

  “Yes, but that wasn’t the name she was born with.” The general paused. “Her real name was Natalya Petrova.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Kate felt ill. What her godfather was insinuating couldn’t be right.

  Was it possible that the woman Scott had secretly been dating, who’d warned the platoon of the danger, was a Russian spy? Why would she have warned Scott if she’d been spying on him?

  According to her godfather, Natalie had been adopted from Russia when she was a child. Her adoptive parents—from Minnesota—had given her their last name and changed her name to the more American-friendly Natalie. But other than the accident and her Russian birth, the general hadn’t been able to find anything incriminating. Nothing to support that she was some kind of a twenty-plus-year Russian sleeper agent.

  It was ludicrous. That kind of stuff only happened in movies and novels. Russian birth didn’t make someone a spy. There were presumably thousands of kids adopted from Russia—were they all suspect? Of course not. But Kate had been CIA too long. Coincidences were never good. And there was no question that Natalie had had access to sensitive information about the mission. She’d warned the platoon, after all.

  Kate couldn’t wait to get home to see what she could find out. But first she needed to talk to Scott. As much as she would prefer to tell him after she’d cleared Natalie of any wrongdoing, Kate needed to know everything she could about the woman he’d been seeing in secret.

  But she already knew that he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

  Kate didn’t realize how much her thoughts were showing on her face—or how closely Colt was watching her.

  The moment they got into the car, he turned to her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She looked at him. “Can you just take me home?”

  “I would, but I don’t have the keys. You drove.”

  Her face heated as she realized she’d sat in the passenger seat. He’d always driven when they were married, and she’d unconsciously slipped into their old roles. But as they’d met close to his hotel, they’d taken her car from the coffee shop.

  “It’s keyless,” she said. “The engine will start as long as the keys are in my purse.”

  Of course, she knew he wouldn’t make it that easy. He didn’t make any move to start the car. “Tell me why the mention of Natalie made you so upset.” He paused. “Did you know her, too?”

  She heard the note of sarcasm and understood the reference. Clearly he hadn’t bought her explanation for how she’d come upon the information for Brittany Blake’s source. She should have known better than to try to lie to him, but he’d caught her off guard. She should have just told him what she told him now. “It’s none of your business.”

  “If you want me to help you figure this out, you need to tell me everything.”

  “Just like you tell me everything? What about the woman in Iowa? Seems as if you forgot to mention her.”

  “I just found out about that, and I didn’t think it was important.”

  “Right,” she said. Did he think she would believe that? “You’ve never trusted me, Colt. Why would you start now?”

  “Did I have reason to?”

  It was hard to believe anyone’s eyes could get that hard and glittery. But she met the icy accusation unblinkingly. She knew it wasn’t really a question, but she answered anyway. “Yes, you actually did.”

  Colt had always hidden his emotions well, but she could detect the signs of his anger in the tightening of his mouth and the flare of his eyes. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard she thought he might pull it off. “You would say that even now? After what you fucking did?”

  She didn’t say anything. She just stared at him. Stared at the darkly handsome features of the man she’d thought she would love forever. And just for an instant, all the feelings, all the longing, came rushing back in a hot tidal wave of emotion.

  Why? She wanted to scream at him. Why had he done this to them? Why had he pushed her away? Why had he been so ready to believe the worst?

  She would never have been with another man. Colt had laid claim to her body as thoroughly as he had her heart. She’d never been so fiercely attracted to anyone. Just looking at him or standing close to him used to turn her into a syrupy mess.

  Even now the effects of being so close to him in the car were making themselves felt. The unwelcome prickle of awareness that sent a buzz of warmth along her skin and a pulse quickening through her heart. One gasp of air and she could breathe him in. The spicy masculine scent that had been as familiar to her as her own perfume. She could almost taste the mint of his toothpaste. Feel the grit of his stubble on her skin as he kissed her. Ravished her like some marauding medieval knight.

  That was him: medieval. Dangerous, merciless, and utterly unforgiving. Maybe a little primitive in his emotions, but also sexy as hell in a fiercely masculine way.

  Humiliated, she wanted to turn away. But she couldn’t. Because in that moment of awareness, she could see that he felt it, too. That the draw was just as powerful and overwhelming for him. It had always been like that between them—passion that was every bit as fierce, explosive, and dangerous as he was, coming out of nowhere to hit her with the force of a . . . hurricane.

  She could also see that he didn’t like it any better than she did.

  But he was going to act on it.

  His hand slipped around to grip the back of her neck and pull her toward him. Every hair prickled, and she shuddered at the rough but achingly familiar feel of his workingman hand on her skin. How could she remember after so long? How could her body flood and pulse with yearning with one touch?

  Three years of hatred—of telling herself she was over him—dissolved in an instant.

  But only for an instant. When his mouth dipped to hers, when he was only seconds away from touching his lips to hers, the memories returned. The pain of heartbreak. The feeling that she would never know another moment of happiness. The deep depression of losing a child, nearly dying, and having the man she’d given her heart to turn to her not with compassion and love but with cruelty and abandonment.

  She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let Hurricane Colt back into her life.

  “No!” She put her hand on his chest and pushed him— or herself—away. “I’m engaged to someone else, for God’s sake!”

  She didn’t know whether she was reminding him or herself. She hadn’
t thought of Percy until that moment. It was self-preservation and not her fiancé that had kept her from falling into her ex-husband’s arms again.

  What that said, she didn’t want to think about right now.

  He smirked as if the rejection didn’t mean anything to him—which it probably didn’t. She wasn’t fool enough to think this was about anything other than physical attraction for him. He saw opportunity and homed in for the kill. Just like any predator.

  But he wouldn’t just let it go. “Still like slumming it, eh, Kiki?”

  The nickname was like a jolt of pain applied directly under her skin. She hated that he would use it now—like this. When he was being cruel, not holding her in his arms as if he would love her forever.

  “Not anymore,” she said softly. “I outgrew mean and ugly.” She looked back up into those razor-sharp eyes that could be so blind. “Right after you left me in the hospital to mourn the death of our daughter alone.”

  He barely flinched. But she could see the tiny lines of witness around his mouth as his jaw tensed. “How do you know it was a girl? You were only a few months pregnant.”

  She hadn’t meant to say “daughter.” She didn’t owe him the explanation that he’d never asked for. He’d just assumed the worst and reacted in his scorched-earth way, which left no room for mistakes or regrets.

  She looked away, staring out the car window at the circular flagstone driveway of Blairhaven. She wanted to lie, knowing it would be easier. But maybe her ex-husband deserved to suffer a few pangs of regret. “I was almost five months pregnant.”

  When his eyes flickered, she knew he’d done the math. Scott had been in Hawaii during that time, and Colt had been with her in DC.

  He might have paled a little. It was hard to tell in the car. “The nurse said you were only a few months along.”

  “I have no idea what the nurse said, but if you had asked me or the doctor rather than storming in there, threatening to kill Scott, you would have seen that I was in my nineteenth week.” She already regretted saying anything. She didn’t want to talk about this now. Ever. “Can we go now?”

  “God, Kate . . . I . . .”

  The buzz of her cellphone cut off whatever he was going to say. She reached down to pull it out of her bag. Seeing the “unknown caller” on the screen, she felt a wave of relief.

  Not only did she want to talk to him, but Scott’s was exactly the calming voice she needed to hear right now. She opened the car door and got out as she answered, closing it behind her to prevent Colt from overhearing anything.

  But she wasn’t outside for long. The call was short and sweet.

  “I’m here,” Scott said. “How soon can I see you?”

  He was here? Kate’s excitement to see him in person was only tempered by the information she would have to impart. “Give me an hour. Tell me where you are.”

  Thankfully, Colt didn’t argue when she got back in the car and told him that something had come up at work and she needed to get to Langley. He tried to bring up her pregnancy again, but she cut him off. “What does it matter, Colt? It’s dead and buried.”

  Just like the child he’d never wanted.

  Eighteen

  Brittany was still half-asleep when the door closed. The click, and the resounding jolt of her heart with it, brought her to full awareness. John had left her alone in bed, and it was too reminiscent of a bad one-night stand where the guy can’t wait to slink away for her not to feel a pang of uncertainty.

  She sat up and looked around. Her heart fell again when she didn’t see any kind of note.

  She told herself not to be ridiculous. He wasn’t running away.

  At least she didn’t think he was. But had last night freaked him out even more than she thought?

  God, she wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to overreact or make too much out of everything he did, including what had happened last night. It was just sex.

  The most incredible, tender, passionate, sweet, romantic sex she’d ever had in her life, but still just sex.

  Except that it wasn’t. She knew that, and if the concerned look on John’s face afterward was any indication, he knew it, too. Last night had meant something.

  What, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure of her own feelings, let alone his. But this time she wasn’t going to make the mistake of trying to pin him down and force something from him that he wasn’t ready to admit—to her or to himself.

  She could do “take it as it goes.” She would hone her inner dude and not make too much out of the fact that he was opening up to her in a way that she was pretty damned sure he’d never opened up to anyone before, that he’d wanted to hook up with someone else but couldn’t, and that when she’d had her little freak-out—okay, major freak-out—he’d handled her so sweetly and gently before and after making love to her.

  Yes, making love. It wasn’t just sex or the fucking he’d declared he’d wanted. You didn’t stare into someone’s eyes with that kind of intensity—with that kind of emotion—while slowly bringing them to the height of passion (twice!), conveying importance and significance with every stroke . . . did you?

  Oh my God, Brittany, put up the mental stop sign already! Clearly, she was going way overboard on the analysis. With the vow she’d made only seconds ago to take it as it goes already in jeopardy, Brittany forced herself to get up—ignoring the soreness in places she shouldn’t be thinking about—and gathered all her stuff before slipping into the bathroom.

  She’d take advantage of John’s morning-after abandonment—absence—and try to get a little work done before taking a shower. She wanted a bath but knew that soaking in the warm water would be too relaxing and her mind would likely wander back to last night, where she didn’t want it to go.

  No, better to focus on work and the job she needed to keep. Aside from finding out what happened to her brother—which was a big aside—she didn’t want to blow the opportunity she wasn’t sure she’d ever get again to be an investigative journalist. She was desperate and not too proud to admit it.

  She tried working on her article but didn’t get very far—she didn’t have much to add. She was tempted to turn on the Wi-Fi on her computer for a minute to send an e-mail to Mac, letting her know what was going on and asking if she’d found out anything, but John’s paranoia had spread to her.

  She’d go the Internet café route just to be safe. After quickly showering, Brittany put on her clothes and makeup and was sitting on the bed tying her shoes when the door opened and John walked back into the room, sucking all the air right out of her lungs along with the room.

  He took in her clothes, shoes, and messenger bag, which was beside her on the bed, with a glance and frowned. “Going somewhere?”

  With her own quick glance at him, she took in the coffee carrier with two drinks in his left hand and the bag of food tucked under the same arm. She felt an unmistakable surge in her chest. He hadn’t run away; he’d left to get breakfast. A heap of Danish pastries if the size and heavenly smell emanating from the bag was any indication.

  “I have a few things I need to get done for work,” she said, trying not to feel as if she had been the one running away.

  His frown deepened as he set down the food on the hotel room bureau. Pulling one of the drinks from the holder and handing it to her, he said, “Work can wait. You need to eat.”

  Feeling guilty for thinking he was trying to get away from her when all he’d done was go get them breakfast, which was actually really sweet, Brittany took the latte and the pastry that followed.

  She took one bite of the tender cinnamon-flavored concoction with sugary icing and tried not to groan. “God, these are delicious. I guess the Danes are famous for their pastry for a reason. I’d be eight hundred pounds if I lived here.”

  He grinned. “I doubt it. With the amount of crap you and your teenage-boy metabolism demolish, I
think you’d be just fine.” He gave her one of those long, hot looks that made her insides quiver. “Very fine.”

  She tried not to blush at the reminder of how much he liked her body. She shrugged. “I don’t like to cook, and not all of us need to be a finely honed weapon of war.”

  “Finely honed, huh?” He popped the last of the second pastry into his mouth. “Guess you’ll have to finish the last one. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

  He said it jokingly, but there was something in his eye that made her wonder if he might be thinking about last night. But how could he need any reassurance about that?

  Right. As if John Donovan needed reassurance about anything.

  Still, their eyes met, and she found herself saying, “‘Disappointment’ is the last word I would use.”

  The slow, broad smile that spread across his obscenely good-looking face made her wonder if she’d been right. He looked happy. Really happy.

  “Finish your breakfast,” he said. “I have a surprise for you.”

  She almost said “What?” before remembering her plans. “It will have to hold until I get back. There are some things I need to take care of first.”

  “I’m sure they can wait a day or two.”

  She didn’t like his dismissiveness; but telling herself not to be oversensitive, she smiled. “Not if I want to have a job when I get back. I need to get in touch with my editor and tell him what’s been going on.”

  And what progress she’d made on her article, as well as get in touch with Mac. But she wasn’t going to tell John about either of those, so he couldn’t object.

  He did anyway. “I don’t think that’s a good idea—not without knowing how sophisticated these guys are and how they were tracking you. Let’s wait a few days, and—”

  “No,” she said, mentally putting her foot down for the first time since they’d arrived. “I’m not going to let you distract me. Whatever risk there is to someone tracking all the e-mails at work has to be small and . . .”

  Her voice fell off. Distract me. Suspicion flooded through her in a horrifying deluge.