Las Cruces, NM
Monday, 10:30 p.m.
Scott managed not to make a sound as he came in a glorious burst of light, but it was damned hard. He wasn’t holding back a mere moan, or the need to call out Valerie’s name, he wanted to give a fucking victory cry.
He’d tried to hold on, to hold out, but her wicked mouth had sent him rushing headlong into heaven far too fast.
Then again, the faster the better.
Sure, he’d been flying high from getting sucked off by the gorgeous woman he’d been jonesing for all month. Out under the sky in the open air, no less—like something right out of a fantasy—but that had also left both of them unprotected, totally vulnerable, with no one watching their six. Jesus.
Fucking.
Christ.
He tucked himself into his pants and zipped up, still shaky from the mind-blowing release.
He hadn’t let a woman go down on him since… well, since before he left the Marines. Years. And it had never been like that. Not once.
Part of him wanted to go apeshit on Valerie for pushing herself on him, for keeping after him until he let down his guard. Part of him wanted to haul her back to their room, kick out her “old friend” Alan, and make love to her all night. The first option wasn’t fair to her, the second would only make their situation worse.
If she had looked even a little smug, he might have chewed her ass anyway, just to relieve the frustration and confusion building in his chest. Instead, she sported a nervous smile as she wiped her mouth, dusted off her knees, and stood.
He probably should have reached out for her, held her…done something. What exactly was the appropriate post-blow-job-next-to-a-parking-lot response? He hesitated, and her face fell as she turned away without a word. Scott scooped up his crumpled pop can and followed her back to the room, his chest hollow.
An hour later, Valerie and Alan navigated their secret online world while she munched on the candy Scott had finally remembered to give her. He knew how to lie on a rocky hill covered in brush for three days straight watching men come and go from a compound. He knew how to spend a night on a rooftop waiting in silence for someone to present as a target. He knew how to wait years for freedom from a tiny cell.
He did not know how to watch others try to save his ass while he did nothing.
Even more dangerous was that without a distraction, Valerie was all he could think about. The determined look on her face when she’d reached for him. The feel of her cool fingers against his hot, needy skin. Her mouth wrapped around him…
He hadn’t been able to think straight since.
Ignoring him now as if nothing had happened between them, she leaned against the headboard of her bed, hunched over her laptop. Before her shower a little while ago, she had twisted her dark blond hair into a messy bun high on her head that revealed the graceful curve of her shoulder and the soft spot beneath her ear where he wanted to press his mouth—
Stifling a groan, he jumped to his feet. A quick look through his backpack netted him a clean shirt and underwear. “I’m going to take a shower.” It had been a couple days, and while he didn’t smell particularly bad, he definitely didn’t smell like roses.
Alan made a distracted noise of acknowledgement, and Valerie waved without looking up from her screen.
Scott understood that level of focus. Admired it. Was pretty much in awe of the intellectual skill required to do what they did. He was an action kind of guy, even if that action meant not moving for days. A doer. But he had nothing to contribute in a world where all the action played out in bits and bytes.
Pushing down the familiar feelings of inadequacy, he paused on his way to the bathroom to peer through the peephole. All appeared quiet in the motel’s back lot. He double-checked that the extra deadbolt was thrown and entered the tiny bathroom.
And came face to face with Valerie’s green T-shirt and a pair of lacy black underwear dripping dry on a cord pulled across the shower stall that had been installed by the motel owner for just such a purpose.
He took a three-minute shower—something he had lots of practice with—not giving himself enough time to think about her standing naked on the same spot, using the same bar of soap to wash her bare skin…
He turned the dial for a quick blast of cold water and then dried and dressed quickly. Following Valerie’s lead, he soaped and rinsed his dirty shirt and boxers and hung them on the line next to her clothes, shutting a mental door on any sappy metaphors his brain wanted to conjure.
I don’t do relationships.
She’d laughed in his face when he dropped that line, but he’d made the rule for a reason, and he needed to stick to it. All marriages were a lie anyway. Those people who played happy and posted glowing testimonials about their spouse on Facebook to celebrate their wedding anniversary were either straight-up liars or deluded. Every relationship was one lie, one hit, one cheat away from unraveling.
Who knew what might push Scott over the edge someday? Between his dad’s genes and example, and the ease with which Scott could already take out a target, weren’t his barriers even lower than the average working stiff’s? It took a special kind of person to be a scout sniper. He’d been made for it. His dad had turned him into a keen observer out of necessity. The Marines had turned him into someone who could sight a human being through a scope—know color of the man’s eyes, understand his humanity, feel his emotion—and still pull the trigger. No hesitation, no second-guessing.
Good for his job. Bad for a normal life.
The closest he came to normal was when he had a camera in his hand.
“You have a message from Kurt,” Valerie said when Scott came out of the bathroom.
Finally. They had used another online telegram to send Kurt a temporary email address where messages only stayed in the inbox for an hour. Scott shook his head. The things that people came up with to maintain their privacy were amazing and kind of scary. Good when he was the one on the run, though.
He sat next to her on the bed and was immediately assaulted by her fresh, clean scent. “What does he say?”
She angled the computer in his direction and pointed at the screen. “It’s just his burner phone number.”
“Perfect.”
A minute later, he had his boss on the line using Valerie’s disposable phone. “I didn’t do it,” he said.
“I know.” Kurt almost sounded offended.
The surge of relief took Scott by surprise. He hadn’t even realized he was waiting for his boss’s vote of confidence. “Any word on my mom?”
“Todd and Jason have been covering her since last night. Looks like they got there just in time.”
Scott forced himself to breathe slowly. In. Out. Repeat. “Why’s that?”
“Someone tried to break into her house early this morning. Jason ran him off, but couldn’t catch the guy without abandoning her.”
“Shit.” He hadn’t really expected Hollowell to go after his mother. Somehow the man had known that she was the only person who could lure Scott out in the open. “Tell the guys thanks.” As if that was enough.
“I’m probably being monitored, but there must be some way I can help you. Unless you prove you were set up, you’ll never be able to stop running,” Kurt said.
Scott glanced at Alan. The hacker had been great so far, but Scott would rather not rely on a third party he didn’t know well. Then again, Valerie might feel the same about Scott’s friends. “We need to get to D.C. Valerie and her friend are working the data side of things, but I need to be on the ground there to see what I can find on this guy. The sooner the better.”
“I’ll see if Caitlyn can help.” Kurt sighed as if he dreaded calling the pilot. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Scott checked the clock. It was nearing midnight in New Mexico, two in Virginia. He couldn’t reasonably expect Kurt to work a miracle before sunrise.
“Thank you…” He managed to drop the instinctive “sir” at the last minute. Kurt hadn’t been an officer, and the formal address made him uncomfortable.
“Get some sleep. Might be your last chance for a while.”
Early Tuesday morning, Valerie stifled a whoop of triumph and glanced around the quiet motel room. Alan had moved to the bed at some point in the night and was now slumped against the headboard with his laptop tipping from his legs onto the faded blue bedspread. Scott had stretched out on the couch with his legs over the armrest and finally dozed off around two a.m.
She’d spent the first half of the night trying ignore his presence, trying to pretend his reaction—or complete lack thereof—to their parking lot tryst didn’t cut deep. Was he angry? Embarrassed? Indifferent?
She didn’t know how to feel. Maybe their encounter had been nothing special for him. Maybe women gave him blow jobs in random places all the time.
Her mind had gone round and round until she finally, blessedly, got pulled into her online world and everything around her ceased to exist. Her butt had gone numb hours ago, but once she had a door into Aggressor, she couldn’t stop digging. The email she’d sent to Duncan’s admin from the bookstore in San Diego had paid off. Meseret had opened the attachment and even overridden the antivirus software to let the macro run—the power of using a trusted sender’s address—giving Valerie a trap door into the woman’s computer.
Valerie had spent the last five hours going through every file she could get her hands on, but it had been Meseret’s access to Duncan’s calendar that proved most valuable.
Ready to burst with the need to tell someone, but reluctant to wake either of her companions at five a.m.—they both needed the sleep—she took a potty break, washed her face, and did some quick yoga stretches to ease her tight muscles.
Across the room, Scott sat up and rubbed his face, pushing his sleep-mussed hair out of his eyes. Without a word, he beelined for the toilet and emerged from the tiny room with a scrubbed pink face and damp hair, scratching the whiskers on his jaw.
“You look happy,” he said in a low, deep voice that stroked her like the gentlest caress. His breath smelled like peppermint toothpaste.
They hadn’t touched—had hardly spoken—since last night, and even though she didn’t regret her actions, she hated the strain between them. “I have access to Duncan’s business calendar,” she said, instead.
He blinked. “Really? When we get to D.C., that could be a game changer.” A faint smile crossed his face. “Nice job.”
She couldn’t resist smiling back. “Thanks.”
His brow furrowed. “Did you get any sleep?”
“I look that bad, huh?”
“You’re always beautiful.”
Her heart yo-yoed, and she couldn’t look away. Kiss me.
A shrill ring obliterated the moment. Scott stepped aside and pulled the burner phone from his hip pocket, moving past her into the room without a backward glance. “Yeah?”
Business before pleasure. She sighed. Their survival was at stake here. She didn’t have time for romance.
Alan sat up and rubbed his eyes, and then gave her a quick “Morning” on his way to the bathroom.
“How soon?” Scott said into the phone. Looking her way, he asked, “Can we be in Fort Worth by seven p.m.?”
She opened a map site on her browser and checked the routes, ignoring the boulder in the pit of her stomach. If not for a sign on the side of the road, she could cross into Texas without ever realizing it. There was nothing to differentiate it from New Mexico or Oklahoma, nothing specifically sinister about its air or soil. And yet dread took up residence in her gut at the thought of entering the Lone Star State. Half the reason she’d suggested they stop in Las Cruces overnight instead of El Paso was to delay the inevitable.
“Looks like about nine or ten hours, plus stops… So, yeah. It’ll be a long day, but it’s definitely doable. If we leave soon, we could probably get there by five.”
“We’ll be there,” he said, turning away, listening for a few seconds. “What’s the address?” He bent over the desk and scribbled on a notepad with the hotel pen. “Thanks.”
“Your boss?” she asked when he returned the phone to his pocket.
“Yes. A charter pilot is going to pick us up at a private airfield outside the city. We’ll be in Virginia early tomorrow, and he’ll have someone waiting.”
Home. And more importantly, close to Duncan. “Perfect. But do we have enough cash to pay for that?”
“I’ve got it.”
“But—”
“I can handle it.”
She hadn’t meant to question his solvency. “It’s not that. I just don’t like to be in debt.” Of course, there were all kinds of debt. She’d never be able to repay Scott for protecting her.
“Let’s get through this first, and then we can square up, okay?”
“What’s going on?” Alan asked with a yawn as he approached from the restroom and moved past her toward his bed.
Scott hesitated.
She understood, but silently encouraged him to trust Alan as she did. If nothing else, they needed him.
“We have a flight out of Fort Worth tonight,” Scott said, finally. “Can you still take us that far?”
“Of course.”
They hit the road an hour later, getting breakfast from a drive-through in El Paso, their last chance for a major town until Odessa.
Valerie told Alan about getting access to Meseret’s computer. “How’d you do?” she asked him.
“I put out a bunch of feelers. I’ll let you know if I get anything useful.”
She did her best to ignore the growing tightness in her chest and her prickling skin and let the monotony of bleached earth and sage-colored scrub passing outside her window put her to sleep.
As the bright sun passed overhead, the three of them took turns driving and napping, and made it to the outskirts of Fort Worth just after five. Alan was at the wheel, and he pulled into a busy, brightly lit gas station off Interstate 20 as the sun dipped toward the horizon.
Valerie twisted in her seat to look at Scott, who sat in the back scanning their surroundings through the windows while Alan set the gas pump and started washing bugs off the windshield with a squeegee.
Scott had been even quieter than usual the entire day, resorting to one-word answers, initiating no unnecessary conversation, and staying out of any discussions between her and Alan.
“Is something bothering you?” she asked, happy to turn her focus outward.
His gaze strayed reluctantly in her direction. “Besides being on the run?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed hard, not sure how to ask her question, not sure she wanted the answer. “Are you mad at me for—”
“No.” His gaze moved beyond her, out the window.
Relief mingled with irritation. She would almost prefer anger to his indifference and complete lack of communication. “Then what?”
His fingers curled into a fist. “Someone went after my mom,” he finally said, his voice low and hard with the leashed fury of a bear in a cage.
“Oh, no.” Fear skittered through Valerie’s stomach. “Is she okay?”
Scott’s head dipped slightly. “So far. Jason—one of Kurt’s guys—was there.”
“I’m sorry she got dragged into this. I’m glad she’s okay.” She tugged at the heavy sweatshirt she still hadn’t returned. “You’re lucky to have such a good boss.”
“Doesn’t take much to top yours.”
“True.” Her half-smile faded. “Why didn’t you tell me about your mom earlier?”
“Because there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s being taken care of, and you have enough to worry about.”
“And you don’t? Talking about it can help, you know.”
He didn’t respond.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, feeling far more petulant than the situation required. “That would imply we have some kind of relationship. God forbid.” She faced the front again and crossed her arms. Why was she letting him get to her like this?
A long sigh emanated from the back seat. “Valerie.” Her name was tired and achy on his lips. A burden. “Last night—”
She whirled to face him, her skin hot. “Last night has nothing to do with it. We don’t have to ever touch again, but if we’re going to work together to take down Duncan, I thought it might be nice if we talked like human beings. Maybe even friends. Or does your ‘killer’s code’ prevent you from having those too?”
His lips compressed and his jaw tightened. She usually rejoiced when she could get him to show any emotion, but the menacing look on his shadowed face made her instinctively shrink away.
The driver’s side door snapped open and Alan slid into his seat with a jangle of keys. “Who’s up for some dinner?” He glanced between her and Scott, frowning. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” they said in unison.
Alan shook his head. “Why don’t you guys just fuck and get it over with already?”
Before he even returned to the car from the Taco Tavern restroom thirty minutes later, Scott could tell something was wrong. Something else. Half of him had expected Alan’s Acura to be gone. The tension after Scott and Valerie’s argument had driven them all to silence for the short ride to get food and relieve themselves.
Under the yellow lamplight that penetrated the windshield, he could see Valerie and Alan talking animatedly. Her eyes were narrowed, her mouth turned down. She crossed her arms and turned away from Alan, her lips compressed. And then she noticed Scott approaching.
Her eyes widened, and she glanced at Alan before exiting the SUV and intercepting Scott on the sidewalk that ran between the drive-thru lane and the side door of the building.
“What’s up?” he asked.
She looked over her shoulder at Alan, who fumed in the front seat, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, mouth stuck in a scowl. “We need to talk.”
A group of young Hispanic men in dusty hoodies and baseball caps entered the restaurant, a thirty-something blonde with a screaming toddler dragged her kid toward a minivan, and two weathered cowboys—either of whom could have auditioned to be the next Marlboro Man—stood next to a dented F-350 shooting the shit. None of them spared a glance for Scott or Valerie.
“In the car,” he said.
“No.” She shook her head, causing the light to throw sparks off her newly blond hair. “Just you and me.”
The thought made him breathless. “Not here.” He took her small, cool hand in his and tugged her across the parking lot to a stand of gnarly trees with low-hanging branches and plenty of shadows. He faced her with a view of Alan over her shoulder. He didn’t trust the guy not to leave them behind, especially if Alan and Valerie were fighting. “What’s wrong?”
Her gaze strayed to darkness behind him. She took a deep breath and hugged herself. “Alan’s been keeping an eye on the news, and the reporters have dug up some new information.”
“About Hollowell?”
“No.” Her feet shuffled in the dark. “About you.”
Shit. Scott’s heart boomeranged in his chest. The sound of passing cars, the faint voices from the parking lot, the buzz of overhead power lines all faded, overridden by the rush of blood in his ears. “About me.”
Valerie nodded and swallowed hard. “He said you were in jail. Is that true?”
“Yes.” He should have known she’d learn his secrets. His records were protected, his name had been kept out of the papers due to his age back then, but it wasn’t hard for anyone with half a brain to put the story together. The townspeople had figured it out pretty fast. It wouldn’t surprise him at all to find out his old neighbor had contacted the national press when he saw Scott on TV.
“For…” She cleared her throat. “For killing your dad?”
His face turned hot and he fought the urge to flee. Maybe it was better that she knew. Better that she understood why he kept pushing her away. He locked gazes with her in the dark. “Yes.”
Her shoulders trembled but he didn’t dare touch her.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because…” She pressed a fist to her chest. “In my heart, I don’t believe you’re a murderer. And if I’m wrong, how can I trust myself?”
He scoffed. “Valerie, I got paid to shoot people.”
She shook her head. “That’s not the same. That was war.”
“I killed a man in St. Isidore last year.” Probably not info he should give away, but he needed to burst her little bubble of adoration. She wanted to make him out to be some kind of angel. “Guns are illegal there. The local police have no idea who did it.”
“Just for fun?” she asked flippantly. “Another day, another dead man?”
“Of course not.” Goddamn her. Why wasn’t she running back to the car, running far away from him? “There’s nothing fun about it.”
“Then why?”
“He was a threat to my teammates.”
“And your dad?”
“He was a threat to everyone in my house. He nearly killed my mom the last time he beat her.” Scott clamped his mouth shut, and breathed slowly through his nose to regain his control.
“You are a protector.”
Memories of his little sister’s accusing eyes speared him. Not everyone would agree. He shook his head and forced his muscles to stay loose. “I’m a fucking tool, Valerie. A weapon with a brain. It doesn’t matter who’s behind the order, or the reason for it. The fact that I can do it at all should bother you. Maybe even scare you.” Didn’t she understand?
“You don’t scare me,” she said in a soft voice. “I envy you.”
His head tipped back in surprise. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Because you did what I couldn’t.” She stepped closer and flattened her palm over his heart, sending his pulse into overdrive. “You saved your mom.”
Aw, shit. “Don’t—”
“If I’d been braver or stronger or… I don’t know, maybe my dad would be alive now.” Her voice cracked, and he kept his hands safely clenched in his pockets. “If I’d listened to him when he pleaded with me to stop working with Papá, if I’d understood the threat…” A tear slipped down her cheek.
“Hey, no, baby.” Scott had her in his arms before he could think it through. Caressing her hair, her back, pressing her close as she burrowed into him. “Don’t do that to yourself. You were a kid.”
“So were you,” she said, her words muffled against his chest.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever been a child. “You don’t want to be like me.” Holding her in his arms was heaven, and he was an ass for even noticing at a time like this. “I’m sorry about your dad, but what happened to him is on the man who killed him. One hundred percent.”
“Maybe someday I’ll believe that.” She sighed and lifted her head to meet his gaze, her golden-brown eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “You know what does scare me?”
“No,” he said, unable to look away.
“The thought of not having you with me to face down Duncan.”
Scott’s heart twisted, and he swallowed hard. She knew exactly what to say to tap that protective instinct she’d called him on earlier. No doubt she wanted him to stick around, but was her seduction a cold calculation to ensure she had a bodyguard, or did she actually want him?
He searched her eyes for any signs of manipulation, any hint of dishonesty, and found none. Only a look of desire that tightened his chest. But then, she was an expert. He didn’t know whether to run away or to kiss her. But honestly, there was no choice.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, and leaned in to capture her soft mouth.