by Alison Kent
"What makes you so skeptical, Nevada Case?" he responded, hooking her fingers with his.
"Because I've been lied to by too many people in my life." She narrowed her gaze and her mouth. "And don't call me Nevada."
He didn't say anything in response. He didn't release her gaze or her hand. In fact, he seemed to tighten both holds. It was the only explanation for why she couldn't break away, because she wanted to break way. Of course she did; why wouldn't she?
"Then I'm not going to lie to you," he finally admitted. "I'm here on a hunt. And there are some men out there who don't want me to find what I'm looking for."
She didn't know why he'd told her that any more than she knew why she believed him. But she did. And she found herself twining her fingers tighter with his. "What are you looking for?"
"The truth?"
She nodded, unable this time to find her voice.
He smiled softly. "I can't tell you."
"Is that a lie by omission?"
"The lie is only in the lack of details. The truth is that I don't want you to get hurt."
"By you? Or by the men who caught you trespassing?"
"Both," he answered honestly, and she cringed.
"Am I putting myself in danger by having you here?"
"The truth?" he asked again.
And again, she nodded.
"I'm not a very nice man."
She looked down to where their hands were joined, said, "I guess that depends on the judge."
He said nothing, and she feared looking up. Not because he frightened her; he no longer did. And the only thing that had changed was the response of her intuition to the truth he'd told. He wasn't here for her. That much she trusted to be true.
What she didn't trust was the warmth of his skin, the secure hold of his fingers, his claim of not being a very nice man. But more than anything, she didn't trust what she was feeling. And she didn't like at all not trusting that about herself.
In the end, however, she was helpless against the pull of his gaze, and raised her eyes to meet his. The way he looked at her, the way he stared into her eyes searching for . . . she didn't know.
And so she asked, the ache in her chest subduing her voice, "What are you looking for?"
"I think I'm trying to decide if you mean it," he said.
"I don't make a habit of saying what I don't mean."
"What have I done that you would give me that benefit of a doubt?"
"You forget that I'm used to being lied to." Dear Lord, but her chest was aching, her heart hurting. "And I don't see anything but truth in your eyes."
"Even if it's a half truth?"
"If that's all you're able to tell..." She shrugged, looked back at their joined hands, admitting to herself that it wasn't so strange that they both had secrets. What was new here was that they both recognized—and respected—the same in the other.
"Neva?"
At his whisper of her name, she once again found her gaze drawn to his.
"If I could tell you more, I would."
"It doesn't matter." All that mattered was that she wanted to smile for absolutely no reason.
"It matters to me." He pulled one hand from beneath hers, reached up and drew the backs of his fingers along her hairline. "I've been involved in a lot of things no one could ever prove I knew a bloody thing about. Like I said, I'm not a very nice man. But that doesn't mean I'm an unfeeling ass."
"Ass." She paused, continued to fight the smile. "Is this that horse-size thing again, because—"
He cut her off with a kiss. He cupped the back of her head, pulled her forward, and kissed her. For a minute, it didn't even occur to her to close her eyes. She watched his lashes flutter, felt the press of his tongue to the seam of her lips. She didn't give it another thought. She simply opened her mouth.
He tasted like the sandwich she'd made him, like she wanted him when she shouldn't, like a little bit more would never be enough, like he was hers. Hardly fair that he'd give her that after telling her that he wasn't a very nice man. She'd known her share of those, yet none of them had come close to offering her this.
His tongue slid over hers, tangled with hers, boldly stroked in and out of her mouth. She gripped his fingers tighter and slanted her head, giving him back the same. Oh, how she wanted this. How right it felt, he felt. How perfectly he kissed. How perfectly he fit. How soft were his lips. How strong his tongue.
Never in her life had she felt the pull of a man from a contact that was so simple while being so goddamn complex. And then he was gone. He abandoned her mouth, nuzzled his nose to hers, his breath warm as he sighed and said, "Go to bed, Neva. I'll clean up here."
His offer was so sweetly made and so welcome that she accepted. She left the kitchen, took his kiss with her to bed, and slept like she was somebody's baby.
Eight
There wasn't a doubt in Mick's mind that the boy involved with Liberty Mitchell had run into a spate of bad luck at the hands of Spectra IT. He wasn't sure he could do anything toward finding Jase Bremmer without giving himself away. But he knew exactly who to call.
He cleaned up the kitchen as promised. It wasn't hard, it didn't take long, and it shouldn't have, considering he knew what he was doing. After all, he'd spent plenty of time on kitchen detail, working his way around the world so as not to appear he was living on Uncle Sam's dime. Taxpayers wouldn't like the idea that they financed murder along with Medicare.
The undeniable thing of it was that there were individuals in need of elimination, and the government called on men trained at their expense by their military to perform these tasks for the greater good. Somewhere along the line, however, what was good for the goose, the gander, and the world as a whole ended up turning the man into a monster.
That's where Mick had been, growing horns and fangs, claws and scales, when Hank Smithson had found him and saved him from an abominably ugly fate that would've been worse than death. Since then, Mick had leaned on the SG-5 team anytime he felt himself sinking into that same bloody pit, drowning, dying, losing everything that had once made him human, that reminded him there was a value to life.
At the moment, however, his imperative need to get to Hank or to one of his partners wasn't about the muck rising up and threatening to suck him back down. Right now what he needed was to relay what he suspected about Spectra's money train pulling out, and to do so without sharing information on what he'd been through, where he was staying, or the woman who'd so selflessly taken him in.
He didn't have time to examine why keeping Neva's existence to himself was so vital. He only knew that it was. Knew that since meeting her, since knowing her, since spending the night on her porch talking about fudge, since kissing her sweet coffee-cake-flavored mouth, the muck hadn't stirred once beneath his feet. He felt warm and safe and cared for, none of which he understood, all of which he was enjoying way too bloody much for his own bloody good.
After a stop in the guest room for his blue jeans and boots and to pop another pill, and a half second taken to listen for her Footsteps in the room above, he headed out the back door of Neva's kitchen and around the side of the house where earlier he'd parked his Rover next to her truck. FM, who'd been dozing under the vehicle's front fender, got to his feet, shook off loose fur and dust, and the rest of his sleep.
"We're not going anywhere, dog," Mick said in a low voice, using the bright light of the full moon to navigate by. "So don't be smiling and tripping over yourself like you think we are." FM's only response was to smile wider, trip over himself even more, at which Mick couldn't help but grin and murmur, "Stupid mutt."
After digging into his pocket for his key fob, he hit the remote lock, opened the rear cargo door, and pulled back a square of carpet—a square custom-fitted to cover the panel hiding his electronically secured storage space. He punched the code into the miniature keypad, and the lock released with a soft vacuum whoosh.
Losing his satellite phone to the Spectra goons had been a pain in the ass, thou
gh not the end of the world. The equipment inside the Rover's compartment would also put him in contact with the ops center. Unfortunately, he mused, locking the hinges of the panel to view the monitor on the underside, he was a whole lot better at talking than typing.
He unfolded the keyboard, boosted one hip up to sit on the edge of the cargo area, grimacing as he jarred his very sore bones. Once he'd booted up the battery-powered computer, positioned the antenna, and made contact with the satellite, he pulled up a prompt screen and typed the command that would connect him to the only place in the world he ever thought of as home.
This time of night he expected Christian Bane to be manning the communications desk. One of the Smithson Group operatives always did, providing a necessary pipeline for those in the field. But it wasn't Christian that responded. It was Harry van Zandt.
>Rabbit here.
>Savin checking in.
>You good?
>Yep.
>Coming home?
>Not yet. Indisposed.
That much was true enough. He was still aching like he'd lost his best friend along with half of his body hair. He glanced back at Rabbit's response, white letters on a black screen.
>Want reinforcements?
>No. Satellite surveillance.
>Coordinates?
Mick typed in the location of the Spectra bunker. He needed an eye and an ear up above to finish gathering the intel he'd started pulling down in New Mexico while he concentrated on the Spectra connection to the duo of Bremmer and Mitchell and the stolen two hundred thou.
>Done. What else?
>Upload. Ready?
>Go.
Mick plugged the first flash card from FM's collar into the USB reader and typed the command that would send the data to Rabbit. Cards two and three followed, and then he stored away all three.
>That's it.
>Got it. Anything more?
>A lead on the ground. Possible sighting. Ezra Moore.
>Christ. Dude gets around.
Mick gave a wry shake of his head. He and Harry had run into the Spectra assassin in Mexico. Julian Samms had taken on Moore in Miami. And Kelly John Beach's clash with the man had gone down in Manhattan.
Everything on Moore's sheet said he should be hurting and hindering the Smithson Group's efforts to annihilate Spectra IT. Weirdly enough, he wasn't. And now he'd released Liberty Mitchell. . .
>Mick? You there?
>Yeah. What's the deal with Moore?
>A mystery. Another day.
>Check in tomorrow, mate.
>Right. Rabbit out.
Mick signed off and shut down the machine, then secured the equipment in its compartment before locking up. FM, on full alert, sat at the corner of the Rover's rear bumper. Mick reached down and scratched the dog's ears. "I told you, dog. No rides tonight."
Now that he'd touched base with Rabbit, the only thing on tonight's schedule was sleep. That and trying to make sense of what he was feeling for Neva. Groaning, he pushed out of the Rover to his feet, realizing he hadn't even known her a full twenty-four hours.
He wanted to blame some of what was going on with him, the anomaly of an instant attraction he hadn't jumped to gratify, on the drugs. That excuse didn't work since he hadn't taken but half the dosage prescribed, or been on the meds any real length of time.
And since the drugs weren't the cause, he was at a loss. He couldn't even remember the last woman he'd wanted the way he wanted Neva, yet had done no more than talk to. Or kiss. That kiss had left him hurting. The way it had reached out, grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, cut off his breath, seized him like the wrong end of a vise.
He reached up for the cargo hatch, used his good arm to pull it down, and quietly latched it. He wanted to know what made Neva tick, why a woman with her intelligence, her snap and her wit was hiding out in Bumfuck.
He didn't care what half-truths she told him. The full truth was obvious. She was running from something. He recognized the kindred spirit. And because he was soul-sick weary of ball-and-chain secrets, he suspected that she was, too. Coincidence ... or fate? What if somehow, some improbable way, they each held the key to setting the other free?
"I want to know everything," Candy said the next morning at the breakfast table while she and Neva drank coffee as they did every day at dawn. "And I mean everything. Do not leave out a single gory detail."
"No gore involved, Candy, my sweet," Neva teased as the other woman rolled her big dark eyes. A half second after walking through the back door, Candy had drilled Neva about Mick's Range Rover, still parked outside. "Unless you count the mess I almost made with the fudge."
"Don't tell me." Candy collapsed back, her chair legs scraping the floor. "He brought you Patsy Cline's. I can't believe it. Ed never even brought you Patsy Cline's."
Neva set cream, sugar, mugs, and a fresh-brewed, filled-to-the-brim carafe on the table, then added a plate of toasted bagels. "That's because Ed didn't want to tempt me with anything that might not be good for me."
Candy took over and poured. "And he wonders why you broke things off. Lord save us from clueless men. Good thing they're not all like that."
"Yeah? Since when?"
"Don't smirk at me, girl. Just yesterday you rescued one from the side of the road and he's already fulfilling all your heart's desires."
Not exactly, Neva wanted to say. She liked the way Mick Savin looked, just not the way he looked at her. And then there was the way his fingers had felt on her wrist, the way his mouth had felt on hers. She hadn't liked that at all. The way her pulse had pounded. The way her skin had been warmed by his. The way he'd pushed her hair away from her face as if wanting to see her better.
She'd have preferred none of that had happened. That he'd done what he said he was going to do, gather his things and go. And damn but if she hadn't become an expert at lying to herself because she'd loved every last bit of last night. "It was a thank-you. That's all. For hauling him out of the ditch to the doctor."
"Honey, I'm not buying it. And I've got enough cash that I could if anything about it was real." Candy rambled on, looking at her coffee while she doctored it up. "I was there last night when he drove up like some badass Lone Ranger. His arm might be in a sling, and he might be walking like a duck, but that man is like no man I've ever seen before. And when he climbed down from his ride"—she shook her head, clicked her tongue—"you could see Holden and Yancey trembling in their boots."
Oh, yes. A moment worth reliving. Neva had done so at least two dozen times. "Holden doesn't wear boots, Candy. What have you been smoking?"
Candy pointed over her shoulder towards the hall. "Obviously not the good stuff because for the life of me, I can't figure why you had that sexy thing spend the night in your guest room with no one but you in the house. You don't even know the man."
"He wasn't in any shape to drive. Like you said, he can barely walk." Though she wouldn't have compared his hobble to a duck's, the "sexy thing" tag fit. Boy, did it fit, Neva thought, and sighed.
"He could've bunked in the Barn."
"With you?"
"No, Neva. Upstairs. In one of the dorm rooms."
Neva narrowed her eyes. "No one knows about the dorm rooms, Candy. You know that. Having a stranger staying there hardly makes sense."
"Yeah, but still. You should've had me come up and sleep on the sofa. Make sure that locked door of yours stayed locked." Cradling her mug in both hands, Candy raised a questioning brow. "Though with all the lady's protesting, I'm beginning to wonder if your guest was the only one sleeping in the guest room."
"Yes. He was. Unless you count the dog."
At Mick's voice, Neva cringed, glared at Candy, then turned. This morning he wore a black T-shirt and loose khaki fatigues. That was it. His bare feet made her smile. "Good morning. Did we wake you?"
He shook his head. "The dog did. He needed out. Plus, I thought I smelled coffee."
Candy got to her feet. "There. Sit." She pointed to her empty chair.
"I'll pour you a cup. Black, right?"
Mick was still rubbing at his eyes. "How'd you know?"
"You look like a man who likes it black."
Neva buried her face in her hands, peeking at Mick from between spread fingers, and taking hold of her coffee again at his grin. "You'll have to excuse Candy. As the token black woman in town, she takes her role seriously. Thinks it's her duty to embarrass us ignorant pasty types."
"Only the ugly ones," Candy said amiably, setting Mick's coffee in front of him. "You, I was flirting with."
Mick's deep laugh rumbled straight through Neva, more effective at waking her up than the caffeine. From the appreciative gleam in Candy's eyes, she wasn't immune to the jolting thrill, either.
Neva glared up at her best friend. "Don't you have work to do?"
Candy blinked, then returned the carafe to the burner. "Sure I do. We both do. But all work and no play makes for one cranky bitch." On her way out of the kitchen, she paused at the doorway with a final word for Mick. "Think you can do something about that, mate?"
I'll kill her, Neva thought, her face heating.
Once Candy was gone, Mick glanced over. "I don't want to keep you from your work." He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "I've got plenty of daylight and time to find a motel or campground. Say the word and I'll hit the road."
If he'd said one word about playing, she would've booted him out on his ass. But his expression was carefully blank. And she didn't want him to go. She'd examine why later. "You could do that. Or you could stay in bed and catch up on the rest your body needs."
"I won't be in your way?"
"As long as you stay out of my office, I don't see how you could be. Unless ..." She sipped at her coffee.
He sipped at his. "Unless what?"
She threaded the fingers of one hand back through her hair, pushing it away from her forehead. "If you felt up to it, I could use a hand finishing up the packing and shipping Liberty never got done. They're small boxes, nothing you'd have to lift."
