by Terry Spear
“Don’t I know it. I just hope I can convince her to stay in Yuma Town with us. With me.”
“We’ll all help in whatever way we can.” Chase smiled then. “Stryker was grumbling about missing all the action, and he swears the mystery woman you’ve hooked up with is the mystery woman who intrigued him when he was playing Santa for charity last Christmas.”
“Not this woman. She only wanted me.” Then Dan frowned, realizing that she said she’d checked out Chase, Hal, and Stryker also when looking into Dan’s background. That was way before he began working with her and before Chase and Hal had mates even. She definitely had not been the woman who’d been checking Stryker out last winter when he was playing Santa Claus for a charity event.
“I can’t believe you slipped out of the Hamburger Spot with her before we could see her, and hassle you a bit.”
Dan smiled. “I knew that was coming. I’m getting some coffee. Want some?”
“Sure. We thought we’d take shifts getting breakfast, and then pick up lunch on the return home.”
“Sounds good to me.” Dan went to the breakroom, fixed a couple of coffees, one with extra milk and sugar for Chase, and returned to where he was sitting.
“The two of you must have some real chemistry between you. You’d never take off work for pleasure. Ever. What did the colonel say when you returned to work the next day?”
Dan took a seat next to him. “He only smiled at me and said he hoped I had a nice break. You know me, I never took breaks. I wanted to tell you guys about her in the worst way. Once I signed a contract, that was part of the agreement, to keep all this secret from family and friends.”
“I understand. She’s beautiful. I guess the business where someone’s trying to kill her negated the contract.”
“Hell, yeah. If I have to ask my friends to help me to protect her when the FBI can’t be trusted, the deal is off. And she’s mine, if I can swing it with her.”
4
As soon as Addie woke that morning, she saw Dan sitting beside her bed, sipping coffee. She was glad they were alone in the room for the moment.
“Did you get some sleep?” She was afraid he’d sat up all night, watching over her.
“Hey, honey,” Dan said, reaching over to hold her hand. “Yeah, I did. We’ve been taking turns. How are you feeling?”
“Better. I still feel like I could sleep some more.”
“We have a nine-hour drive still after you’re released at noon. Everyone’s taking turns to get breakfast and pulling guard duty. The cat’s out of the bag, by the way. Everyone knows you’re my wife. I hope you’re not mad about it.”
She cast him an elusive smile. She was certain he wanted to make it happen for real, but she had a job to do. Maybe not the one the Bureau would assign her, but the one she had to do if she was ever to feel safe. Learn who, on the team, wanted her dead, and why.
“I assumed it was inevitable. But I also told you, because of the circumstances, I’m an open book. Thanks to everyone who came out to help us. No one’s had any trouble yet?”
“No. The people after you might have lost us. We wonder if they might know we’ve got reinforcements. It’s hard to say. They may assume we’re going to my home.”
“They wouldn’t have expected half the town to come to my aid.”
“No, they won’t. We have the advantage there.”
“So, your place wouldn’t be safe.”
“We’ve been discussing that. Staying at my place, having reinforcements protecting you, or staying with another family or couple who could help with keeping you protected.”
“Family? No. Way too dangerous.”
“Children would be removed from the premises. If we go to one of the other homes, they wouldn’t know where we ended up, most likely. If we stay at home, we might be able to set a trap.”
“They would suspect that.”
“You think we should make them work for it? If they think they had to work really hard to learn where we are, they won’t believe it’s a trap?” Dan asked. “Then again, they’d probably know Stryker, Hal, and Chase are my good friends. I’d be afraid they’d go after them to learn where we are, if we’re not home.”
“Okay, so we go to your house and tough it out. Set up a trap. Hope to draw them in.” Her stomach grumbled. She might be tired, but she was hungry too. “I’m hungry. Can we have breakfast?”
“Do you want me to have someone bring you some?”
“Yeah, not the hospital food.”
“Get right on it. What would you like?”
“Whatever you want to eat. I’ll have the same as you.”
He smiled and squeezed her hand. “You got it.”
When he left the room, Bridget came in to speak with her. “Hi, I don’t know if you remember who I am from last night—“
“Bridget McKay, married to Travis, and you both work for the same Cougar Special Forces Agency.”
“Right. I want to mention something I haven’t told very many people because not everyone can deal with it. I’m telepathic.”
“As in…?”
“I can read minds. Not everyone’s. I couldn’t read Travis’s and I think that was some of the appeal for me.”
“Omigod, that’s wonderful. That could be so useful in your line of work.”
“It can be, when I can do it. I try to stay out of everyone’s thoughts as much as possible. And like I said, I can’t always read everyone’s thoughts. Do you know how muddled people think sometimes? About all kinds of things. What they had to do, what they were doing, what they wanted to do, all mixed up into a jumble of thoughts. It’s when a thought is intensified—a feeling toward another, for instance, like lust, or love, then the thoughts are clearer.”
“Or if someone is targeting someone to take them down.”
“Right, because then the thought is completely focused. Some people are easier to read—simple thoughts, direct. Others are really complicated, disjointed. If I think someone’s in trouble, I might eavesdrop.”
Addie thought Bridget was trying to tell her something personally about Dan and her, not just anything random. “You mean about Dan and the woman, me, who went to his house, after being injured six months ago.”
“He was visibly upset, not caring about what was going on in town, despite how wild things had become. We knew something was wrong. And we knew it had to do with the woman, you. We’d hoped you would return, but you didn’t, and Dan got back into his work. We knew he was still bothered by whatever was going on between you and him. He was in emotional pain. I wanted to know if there was any way I could help. Everyone had sidestepped the business, because he wasn’t opening up with anyone. Leyton was the only one who didn’t act shocked about you. I figured it was because he was new to town so he didn’t know Dan that well, just like Travis and I didn’t. But then there was something about the way Leyton was acting that made me think he knew something about you. And if he did, I wanted to also. At some point, Leyton thought about Dan’s wife, and I was shocked since no one seemed to know he had one.
”I don’t just try to read someone’s thoughts continually. I’d never get anywhere with that. I have to say something to them that might trigger the thought, if I really want to know something.”
“Like a polygraph test, to get reactions.”
“Right. I didn’t straight out ask Dan anything about having a wife, but I just mentioned that he should get a wife sometime, and that’s when he thought of you. I still didn’t know if it meant Dan was considering taking a wife, proposing, or if you were already his wife. I didn’t want to pry, so I asked Leyton if he thought Dan had a mystery wife, and he said he didn’t know anything about it, but I read his thoughts and he did know Dan had a wife. Of course, why you were a mystery wife, and that you truly weren’t married, that neither Leyton nor I knew. I never said anything to anyone. Not even Travis, because I knew there wasn’t anything any of us could do to help the two of you out. Until now.”
“I�
��ve never known anyone who has psychic abilities. Can you read my mind?”
Bridget smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know why I can’t with some people. Like they have natural barricades.”
“Or are more evolved.”
Bridget laughed.
“Does Dan know about your abilities?”
“Yes. So, don’t worry about talking to him about it. I don’t know if Dan has spoken to you about this, but we’re hoping you will stay in Yuma Town, and find a home with us. Leyton Hill, the one we work for, wants to hire you as one of his agents. I know Dan wants you to be his deputy sheriff, but we wanted to make sure to let you know he’s not the only one offering you a job. We all heard about how you took out those guys chasing after your vehicle.”
Smiling, Addie hadn’t known that everyone was lining up jobs for her in Yuma Town. “He hasn’t discussed it with me, but that’s probably because he knows I have a job to do.”
“Find the mole? We’ll all help you with that. We can’t have, whoever this is, trying to gun you down.”
“Thanks. And I want to thank everyone who came to our rescue.”
“That’s what we do. We take care of our own kind. This is a case right up our alley.”
“The person who’s responsible is a federal agent.”
“And we have two retired federal agents who are helping with this. We’ll do it.”
“If I’m on the job, I’ll have a better chance to learn who is responsible.”
Bridget didn’t agree, and Addie knew the agent didn’t believe she would. Addie wondered if the others felt the same way as Bridget. They probably wouldn’t want her to return to the job and this time be taken down by an assailant permanently.
She assumed whoever came for her in Yuma Town, if they did, they would be only the henchmen, not the one who hired the hit on her.
“I’ll stay there for as long as it takes for me to recuperate.”
Bridget smiled. “Good. We’ll find the mole before you take off then.”
That could be only a couple of days, if Addie’s nerves weren’t shot and she was perfectly healed physically. She’d love nothing more than to spend lots of time loving on Dan, which made her rethink where she’d be even in a couple of years from now.
“What makes anyone think I want to be in any dangerous line of work any longer? Maybe I just want to be a librarian.”
Bridget laughed. “Somehow, I can’t see you working with books in a library. Reading tactical maneuvers, how to take down your opponent, that’s what I can see. I hope you decide to work with us. You’d probably get to see enough of Dan anyway—“
The door opened and Dan stepped into the room. “She will never get enough of seeing me.”
The ladies laughed.
“I offered her a job. Don’t convince her to work for you. I’ll give you some privacy.” Bridget left the room and closed the door.
“I hope Bridget wasn’t making you feel as though you have no choice about what happens next. Food’s on the way. Chase and Travis are picking it up for us.”
“Two of them?”
“We’ve been trying to work in pairs on this mission, especially after everyone has gotten some rest. Leyton and Bridget are pulling guard duty right now. We don’t want anyone going out on their own in case the bad guys realize where we are and who all is with you. Will you stay for a while with us? Recuperate fully first?”
“Yes. You know I will.”
Dan didn’t know anything of the sort. She was unpredictable, and maybe he liked that about her too. His work was just as unpredictable. He wanted her to work where she wanted to, yet he hoped she would work with him, and he’d know where she was, what she was doing, and maybe he’d be with her on the assignment. If she was working for Leyton, she could be just about anywhere, and gone for long periods of time, trying to track down the bad guys. He wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with that. Especially since for ten and a half years they’d already had that kind of an arrangement.
“Bridget told me what she could do—with mental telepathy.”
“You’re okay with it?”
“Yeah, sure. I think it’s a great ability to have and maybe she can even use it to help us shed some light on this whole matter if we’re able to take anyone hostage. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t found us already,” she said. “I don’t want to have trouble at the hospital for the other patients or staff, but I’m really surprised they haven’t tried to take me out here.”
“We’re watching the corridors, the fire escapes, and the elevator. No one who shouldn’t be here has been here. We’ve checked everyone here, even family and friends visiting patients to ensure they really belong. The nursing staff, we verify, to make sure they’re truly on staff at the hospital, and not like the nurse who had planned to use a hypodermic on you.”
“I know the driver and one of the shooters in the car behind us were dead, but maybe in the crash, the other shooter was killed. He couldn’t have been wearing a seatbelt because like the other shooter, he was hanging out the window to fire rounds at me, then he might have been flung from the vehicle upon impact with the tree.”
“And been killed. Now that sounds highly likely. That would mean that no one was left behind to report where we’d gone to, or that we had others rendezvousing with us. I’d say it was a good bet they’d try to track us down in Yuma Town then. I’ve called ahead to tell Stryker to have everyone on the lookout for suspicious characters. The perps won’t know we’re such a tightknit community that no matter how they try to blend in, they won’t.”
“Because we’re cougars also.”
“Right.”
“That gives me an idea. I think, when I feel a hundred percent, I’d like to go camping—in the mountains.”
Dan smiled. “Now, that idea, I like. I know a cave next to a waterfall that’s just spectacular. It has a view of more mountains, the golden aspen in all its autumn glory, and the area is cougar-claimed territory.”
“I’d like that.” She sighed. “Whoever they send will probably think I’ll be sitting in a house recovering somewhere. Or the medical clinic. If I were human, I’d never heal that quickly, and I’d probably be in a hospital for a week or more. Camping up in the mountains? No way.”
Dan frowned. “I thought the idea was we could catch them up there unawares.”
“Yep. Anyone they talk to will know just where we went. And the greatest thing about that, is that then a party can be gathered to take them out. I’d do the honors, but”—she shrugged—“I don’t mind letting someone else do the dirty work this time around.”
“You remind me of Tracey, Hal’s wife. She was always in the middle of a shootout.”
“And Bridget?”
“She saved Travis’s life. If she hadn’t come to take him into custody, thinking he was one of the perps who’d had a falling out with his partners in crime, he would have been dead.”
“I like her. I know I’ll like Tracey too.”
“What do you think? Can you work for me as a deputy sheriff?”
She laughed. “You would be my boss. I don’t know if I could handle that.”
“You like being my boss,” he said, smiling, realizing she might not like working for him. He had no trouble working for her in the capacity as her faux husband on an assignment.
Someone knocked on the door and Dan drew his gun.
“Just me,” Travis said, “delivering hot meals.”
Dan went to the door to get the meals and holstered his gun. “Thanks, Travis. See anything suspicious when you left the hospital?”
“No, but we had the idea that your rental vehicle is too conspicuous—shot out back window, fender damage. Chase is having it hauled off by the rental company, and he signed off as you. The insurance company you signed up with will pay all the damages.”
“What about a police report?”
“You can fill out one when you get home, or Stryker can for you if you’re too busy with Addie. It won’t mat
ter if they don’t find the totaled car and the dead suspects in the event the men and other vehicles just vanished. There were rounds in the back of the last seat in the SUV, and that verifies someone tried to gun you down. We would have checked out the other vehicles last night, but figured we might have run into more of these guys and it was better to keep a united force here.”
“Agreed. Okay, thanks for thinking of all this stuff.” Dan set the tray over Addie’s bed and helped her sit up so she could eat.
“You’ve had your mind on other things, and I don’t blame you a bit.”
“Addie’s boss is sure to suspect she’s going to Yuma Town to recover,” Dan said.
“He will,” Addie said, forking up some eggs. “The last time I was wounded, I left the hospital, and no one found me. There were rumors I had died, but, of course, those who had tried to take me out had to know they hadn’t finished the job. My boss, Clinton Briggs, was shocked when I showed up six months later. I claimed amnesia. I don’t imagine he believed me. I keep thinking there’s a mole on the team, but what if it could be him? I’ve always liked Briggs, so I never gave it any thought. He’s rough around the edges, but he’s always made me believe he’s one of the good guys.”
“He’ll wonder what happened to you then. How are we getting home?” Dan asked, figuring the guys had all talked about it and decided how they were going to do it. No one was really in charge in a situation like this. They were from multiple law enforcement agencies, and all that mattered in the end was that they all arrived home safe and sound to see their loved ones again.
“You’ll ride in one of our vehicles. Kate will ride with you and Addie. Leyton will drive, I’ll ride shotgun. Travis and Bridget will be our backup. Hopefully, we’ll have no problem on the road home. Just in case, we have a disguise for the two of you. You’ll stand out too much in your sheriff’s uniform, and we have a change of clothes for Addie. And wigs for you both,” Chase said.
Dan frowned at Chase.
Chase laughed. “It looks real, but it will make you appear like someone else. A blond. Addie will be a blond also.”
