Chapter Six

Colton couldn’t believe Angel was here, in person, standing in his kitchen.

“How did you even know where I lived? You left before I was assigned,” he said as he tucked his weapon back in his pants. How many times had he thought of her since moving here?

Most of the time his thoughts still contained a certain level of irritation. He’d gotten over his anger—mostly. Some thoughts were of a sexual nature—that part of their relationship had been amazing. A few thoughts were just normal ones about where she might be, and if she was happy.

Her hair was dyed black instead of the white-blond it normally was. This color suited her better. It made those icy blue eyes seem a little softer.

“I may or may not have hacked into your file to see where they were moving you,” she admitted.

“And why would you have done such a thing?” A hint of a smile played at his lips. Had she looked him up back then so she could find him for more than just a place to hide?

When she didn’t answer right away, he didn’t push. Pushing her would just make her defensive. Besides, he preferred to keep his fantasy alive—the one where she comes to him and begs for his forgiveness, and admits she made a terrible mistake in leaving him.

“This is the perfect place for me to hide,” she explained, “because no one knows I know where you were moved. This is the last place anyone would look for me.”

So much for fantasies.

“How long do you plan to stay?” He didn’t mind her being here, but it might become inconvenient if she couldn’t ever leave the house because she was a wanted criminal.

And it would be nice to know how long he had with her this time.

“Not that long. I just need to figure out who set me up, get the prototype back, and clear my name.”

He chuckled. “Sounds like a piece of cake.” Fortunately he was still allowed to have sarcasm in WITSEC. “Any leads?”

The familiar surge of excitement rushed through his veins. A puzzle to be solved. Someone to help. He felt alive again. Useful.

“No. Not yet. Can I use your computer?”

He knew from the months she spent with him she was happiest when her fingers were on a keyboard with information scrolling on the screen in front of her. He was surprised she didn’t have one with her, or had already fabricated one from a transistor radio and a coconut.

But computers definitely weren’t his thing.

“Don’t worry, no one will track me back to your IP address,” she assured him.

Not that he had a clue what that meant.

He pointed down the hall. “It’s in the spare room. First door on the left.”

She hurried into the room, Pudge following behind her like a love-struck puppy. Which was exactly what he was.

“What the hell is this?” she said, stopping dead in her tracks.

“What?” he asked, stepping in behind her.

She stared at his computer in disgust, her nose scrunched up in a way that made her look adorable instead of fierce. “This is a desktop.”

“Um…yeah?” He’d heard that term before. They had desktops in the computer lab at the high school.

“The CPU is gray, Colton.”

It had been so long since anyone had called him by his real name, he physically flinched. As if someone would overhear and find out who he really was.

“What’s wrong with gray?”

“Gray means it’s old.” She sat down at his desk and turned it on. The computer hummed to life.

Sort of.

Normally when he used it, he turned it on before he went to make dinner so it would be up and running by the time he was finished eating.

“Thirty-two bit?” she squeaked after clicking on a few things. “Are you messing with me?”

“I only use it to keep track of my students’ grades. I have a spreadsheet I fill out.” He’d thought he was a regular tech genius when he’d figured out how to create a formula so it calculated the grade point average automatically.

She picked up the phone line where it connected into the back of the big square thing and her shoulders fell. “Dial-up? You have dial-up?” Her blue eyes begged him to tell her he had some other alternative.

Unfortunately he didn’t. He wasn’t 100 percent sure what other alternatives there even were.

He frowned and crossed his arms. He hadn’t used computers when he was a DEA agent. At six feet four inches, he’d almost always been assigned undercover gigs as a bodyguard or a fighter. Criminals didn’t hire someone his size for their computer skills.

“I’m sorry it’s not up to your standards,” he said as she popped the case off his computer and pulled out something that looked pretty important. He hadn’t had a computer in the safe house they’d shared. Not that she would have needed it, since she’d brought three laptops with her.

Back then, she’d told him about some of her assignments where she’d taken a temp job at a company and downloaded evidence off their own computers. Half the time, he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. But intelligent women turned him on and Angel was whip smart.

“I have a chain of IP addresses linking back to an untraceable proxy server,” she said, “but I need to be on a net—”

He put up a hand to stop her. “I see your mouth moving, but I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

He wasn’t an idiot. He was actually pretty smart, especially in math—old school—thus the teaching job. He’d just never had an interest in spending all his free time sitting at a desk staring at a screen. He’d always needed to be moving. Doing something. Not sitting.

“Fine. Put the thingy-what’s-it back in my computer and log on.” He could throw the fancy lingo around, too. “Go online and pick out whatever computer you want.”

“Okay. I need to check in with my boss. And I want to see the news footage they’ve been showing.” She looked at him and brightened. “You have a smart phone, right?”

“Yes.” He pulled it from his back pocket and handed it over after unlocking it.

Her thumbs flew over the screen and she looked up at him. “You’ve never launched Safari before?”

“Again, I have no idea what you’re saying.” Was she just stringing random words together to frustrate him?

She laughed and pointed at an icon.

“Ah.” He shook his head. “I liked the black compass better than the blue one.”

When she pressed her lips together, he knew he’d said something funny without meaning to. Before he had a chance to defend himself—yet again—she gasped.

“Oh, no.” She let out a breath. “My cover’s been blown. They have my real identity.”

The worry on her face broke something loose in his chest. Instincts he’d thought were gone kicked in, and he wrapped his arms around her to pull her close.

“It’s okay, Angel. I’ll protect you,” he promised blindly.

A year ago, she’d said the same thing to him. He knew without a doubt she’d meant those words as much as he meant them now. She’d seen him through the hardest thing he’d ever done—leaving behind everything he knew and loved. He’d still been recovering from six gunshot wounds that should have ended his life.

Correction: they had ended his life.