They breathed through the moment together, lips parted, as Yasmine’s mind dashed from sensation to sensation. The gentleness of his touch and the comfort of his fingers entwined in her hair. The rough skin of his lips that spoke to weeks spent in training, in learning how to seek justice and protect others in the very way he protected her right now. She felt none of the urgency behind his kiss that she’d sensed every time she and Marc had shared a tender moment. It was as though Noel wanted to show her that things could be different—that love didn’t make demands, that it wasn’t self-seeking.
Wait, love? No, that couldn’t be it. Not yet. Maybe not at all, not with Noel. But then his nose gently brushed against her cheek as they drew apart, and she realized she didn’t want the moment to end.
How had this happened?
Hadn’t she wanted it to?
His demeanor shifted as he sat back in his seat. Had he ended it? Had she? She wanted him to pull her back to him, but the sudden frown on his face shattered any illusion that he could have possibly felt the same. Her heart felt heavy as he started the vehicle, refusing to look at her.
“Noel? What’s wrong?”
He cleared his throat and steered onto the road. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
It felt like he’d punched a hole clear through her chest. “What are you talking about? If you weren’t driving, I’d pull you right back over here so you could do it again.”
He sighed and glanced at her. “I’m not the right guy for you, Mina. You deserve better. Someone who can always be there for you. Who won’t break any more promises.”
“And you’re saying you would break promises?” The image of Marc’s smirking face sprang to mind, mocking her. Telling her that she’d never do better than him.
Noel slumped in his seat. “Not on purpose. Never on purpose. But right now, I don’t even know if I have a job after this. If I do, but Crais has actually turned on us, I could very well end up working in an FBI office clear across the country. You have your bakery, and you’ve made a life for yourself in Newherst. I mean, even if I am able to stay at the Buffalo office, the life of an FBI special agent is highly unpredictable. I can’t promise that I wouldn’t break any promises.”
“You’d never be unfaithful.” She posed it as a statement, not a question. She felt the truth of it in their kiss, how much he cared for her. Despite his words, that kiss had revealed how much he wanted to be with her, and until that moment, she hadn’t been willing to admit to herself how much she wanted to be with him, too. Life had given them this second chance, and Noel was going to throw it away? “So, you’re worried you might miss out on a few date nights? Noel, I can handle unpredictable. I was in the military, remember? I’m not a fragile flower. And as long as business keeps up, I’m sure I can hire someone at the bakery to run it when I can’t be there.”
He shook his head, and each movement felt like another spike driven into her heart. “You deserve better. You’re an amazing woman, Mina. You’ll find the right man or he’ll find you, and it’ll be the best thing that ever happened to him.” She saw him swallow, blinking too rapidly for the facade of calm displayed on the rest of his face. “I only hope he realizes it before it’s too late.”
The finality of his tone made her wish she could find someplace to hide by herself for a little while. She closed her eyes, trying to think of anything but the pain, which had worsened at Noel’s declaration and had started to creep back through her limbs and her ribcage. At least the graze on her knee from the apartment shooting seemed like a tiny scratch compared to everything else.
They drove in silence with nothing but the hum of the SUV to keep them company. At one point, Noel turned on the radio to listen to the news, only to slam the off button the moment the news reporter started to mention the FBI alert out for “person of interest Yasmine Browder.”
She blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. She’d lost everything. She truly had. The man she’d thought she loved, her brother, her apartment and many of her belongings. Noel had rejected her and she’d become a wanted woman.
If they didn’t pull this off, if Noel’s plan went south—the plan she hoped was currently taking up his thoughts, hence his pervasive silence—she’d be arrested, charged for assaulting an FBI agent and who knew what else. She’d go to jail. Her bakery would fail, and then she really, truly would have nothing.
She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her temples to ease the mounting pressure.
“I think we can do this,” Noel murmured, rousing Yasmine. Her eyelids fluttered open. Had she fallen asleep? She blinked at the bright light that filtered into the vehicle, rays of morning sunlight glinting off the road signs they passed by.
She yawned, but the movement sent a fresh flood of pain to her injuries. She didn’t feel as bad as the day before, but it’d still be difficult to manage without the prescription painkillers. She opened the glove box and pulled out the container of ibuprofen.
“Here.” Noel picked up a bottle of water from in between their seats and handed it to her. “I got it at the last quick stop for gas. There’s a plastic-wrapped muffin in a bag on the backseat if you’re hungry. I grabbed it from a basket at the register while paying cash. Mine was a little stale, and you’ll probably declare it a travesty of modern baking, but at this point I don’t want to risk stopping until we’ve reached our destination. We’re almost there.”
She took the water and mumbled her thanks as he took one hand off the wheel and reached between the seats, still keeping his eyes on the road. His fingers hooked the plastic bag, and he dropped it in her lap.
“I could have gotten it,” she said.
“You’re injured and must still hurt. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone for the ibuprofen as soon as you opened your eyes. Take it, but eat so the medicine doesn’t upset your stomach. Let’s not add a stomachache to everything you’re dealing with.”
She wanted to snap at him and tell him she could handle herself—they were adults now, after all—but everything hurt too much and her head felt too fuzzy to do anything other than take the pills and eat, just like he’d suggested. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of having been right, but what else could she do? His words to her last night echoed between her ears, pounding on the insides of her skull. They’d kissed, actually kissed. After all these years!
And he’d rejected her.
It had to be her fault. Something she’d done. Had Marc seen or felt the same thing? Was that why he’d sought love in the arms of another woman?
She couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that Noel had been lying and that there really was something wrong with her.
“So, what’s the plan?” She finished the last bite of dry, barely palatable blueberry muffin and washed it down with the rest of the water. “Are we storming the castle?”
Noel chuckled. “More or less. I’ve decided that either Crais really did betray us, or he’s done us a massive favor and this was part of his plan all along.”
“That’s a pretty big difference.”
“I know. And either way, having you on the wanted list is going to get us into the Pentagon to speak with someone from the Department of Defense.”
Yasmine gaped at him. “You’re kidding, right? You think they’re just going to let us waltz into the Pentagon with me as a federal person of interest?”
He tapped the steering wheel. “No, I don’t. I think they’re going to just let me waltz into the Pentagon, having captured a person of interest on the FBI’s watch list while she was en route to one of the most secure buildings in North America.”
There was no question about it. He’d gone crazy. “And how are you going to do that without someone shooting me?”
“I take you in as a detainee. Cuffed.”
“You’re going to arrest me?”
“Temporarily.”
Yasmine sputtered, completely at a loss for words. Arrest her? Bring her into the Pentagon in handcuffs? That sounded like a massive risk. “Won’t they grab me and put me in a cell? Or drag me off to prison? Shouldn’t we go in as equals so you can explain how I’m under your protection?”
“No. You need to understand that ninety percent of the time, guests are not allowed inside the Pentagon, and those who are go through an extensive, rigorous approval process.”
“Even FBI agents?”
“Even special agents from the FBI. Not to the same extent, of course, but we can’t just pop in and out, unannounced.”
It felt like a vise had clamped onto her insides and begun to squeeze. “But can’t you get permission? You said ninety percent of the time. What about the other ten percent?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to take advantage of. And we’re not going to appear without warning, because there’s literally no way we’d get inside the Pentagon without advance notice. I called ahead and mentioned I’m FBI and told them that I was pursuing Yasmine Browder as she made her way to DC but that I had the situation under control. Put a call in to Captain Simcoe, too, to get any local cops off our tail. He agreed to pass information down the chain of districts to leave our vehicle alone.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Pursuing me on my way to DC? I thought you were doing your best to do the opposite of that.”
He winced and his eyes narrowed as he sighed. “It wasn’t a lie, Yasmine, believe me. I understand why Crais refused to lie, and I agree with him. As an FBI agent, I can’t lie to the people who’re doing their best to protect this country, just like I am.”
Yasmine wanted to push him further, to ask what he meant by that, but the road sign overhead told them that they were only about ten miles away from the Pentagon. Ten miles? Already? Her heart began to pound, and the squeezing in her stomach tightened. The muffin roiled as Noel told her the rest of the plan.
“I called ahead through the emergency line, and the person on the other end was able to verify my credentials. They said it could take up to twelve hours to approve my visitor application since I’ve never been there before, but I figure it’ll be okay if we show up a few hours early. I’ll have a person of interest in custody, after all. And since you’re wanted by the FBI, and I’m FBI, they can’t take you from me. Understand? You’re my case. The local police aren’t going to cart you off to prison. They can’t. They have no reason to unless you hijack a car or something.”
Yasmine laughed, thinking of the vehicle they were driving in. “You sure Crais hasn’t called this one in? Because they very well could nab me for that.”
“It’s still an FBI vehicle, Mina.” The Suburban slowed as Noel took the next exit. “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. I promise.”
His words scraped at her last bit of patience. “You promise?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her tone, feeling bad for snapping even as the words left her mouth.
He responded without hesitation. “I do. This is a promise I intend to keep, no matter what.”
* * *
It was going to work. It had to work. He had to believe that Crais had looked at the bigger picture and had called in Yasmine as a wanted person for exactly this reason. Crais had said he would do what he could to help, but seeing Yasmine’s picture up on the TV screen sure hadn’t felt like help. Not with all those people around, eager to cash in on the posted reward.
But if Crais really had changed his mind and turned against them, at least the alert for Yasmine would get both of them inside the Pentagon. The truth was, Noel had no idea what would happen once they passed through the front doors. Would they be detained in a visitor area until his pass got approved? He was banking on the fact that the United States government wouldn’t be keen on a cuffed person of interest spending time in the visitor area of what was supposed to be a ridiculously secure military command post. Journalists, reporters and foreign heads of state moved through the visitor area. The potential for Yasmine to make a scene and cause the Department of Defense to lose face was too great to let them linger in the waiting area.
That was Noel’s grand plan, anyway.
About a half mile from the parking area, Noel pulled over and withdrew a pair of handcuffs. The look on Yasmine’s face brought back the tension tenfold.
“It’s just for show,” he said, trying to keep his voice low and calm. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You keep saying that.” She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “If I didn’t believe God was in control even now, I’d be freaking out. I’d have already leaped out of this car and been halfway back to Newherst.”
“Except for the injuries, too, right?”
“Yeah. That.”
He kept his mouth shut as she closed her eyes as if in prayer. With all the things that had happened to her—with everything she’d lost so far—she still trusted God to carry her through this? Why couldn’t she just trust him?
It had been a long time since Noel cracked open his Bible, but something from those days of overhearing his mom at Bible study at Yasmine’s place must have stuck with him, because a verse popped into his head. “I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee.” He couldn’t remember what part of the Bible it came from, but he did remember that the verse was a promise.
Was it a promise from God to the people who loved and trusted Him? That sounded right. Yasmine appeared still to love and trust God even after all she’d been through. She deserved to have a promise kept. God, keep your promise to her, he prayed, the first time he’d done so in a long time. Would God even listen after so many years without him speaking to Him? A quiet voice inside his heart told him that He would. She needs someone to prove to her that she’s loved. That she’s worth it. And I don’t think I can be that person.
“Are we going to do this or what?” Yasmine held her wrists toward him. She looked straight at him, her gaze a challenge. He’d have to rise to meet it, because there was no way he’d let her go to jail for something she didn’t do, and neither would he sit back and wait for an assassin’s bullet to find its mark.
Noel wanted answers about the soldier killed in action who’d been very much alive and taken a shot at them, and he needed to know what kind of monster would be desperate enough to make multiple assassination attempts on the sister of the man who’d found them out. These people wanted to cover their tracks and tie up any loose ends, to remove any possibility of exposure, no matter how vague.
The time had come to put an end to the madness. He clicked the cuffs into place around Yasmine’s wrists and met her gaze. “Are you ready?”
She nodded, and once again he saw the soldier inside her. The strong woman who’d joined the military to be with the man she’d loved. That kind of sacrifice took guts, strength and determination. If Yasmine had been willing to endure compulsory military service for the sake of love, no wonder she seemed furious with him for backing down over a little bit of distance. Over a potential broken date night or two, she’d said.
But it could be more than that. She’d risk losing her bakery. And she didn’t deserve any broken date nights, none whatsoever, even if she claimed she understood the nature of his job.
But are the truth of her feelings and what she deserves to endure really my call to make if she says she can handle them?
He shook it off. Checked the cuffs to make sure they weren’t too tight.
He watched as she clenched her jaw and rolled back her shoulders, a steel mask settling over her features as they approached the first parking barrier. “Let’s do this.”