“You shouldn’t have done that,” Savannah told Spencer Davies, as the echoes of the gunshot still reverberated around the room. She’d been determined to remain cool and collected at all costs, but her heartbeat had rocketed when the gun went off. Then she reminded herself Davies was only trying to intimidate her by firing over her head, and she drew a calming breath. “I merely said—”
He backhanded her across the cheek. “Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do, you bitch,” he spat. “You’ll do as you’re told, or the next time...”
She pitched her tone to be reasonable, despite the pain that made her want to lash out at him. “I merely said I’ll do my best, but I can’t give you a time frame.”
“You have one month. One month, you hear me? Our stock price is plummeting, and Wall Street won’t wait.” He clenched his teeth. “This is all your fault to begin with. If you’d accepted my job offer a year ago, I wouldn’t have been forced to these extremes. Do you know how much you’ve cost me? Do you?”
He waved wildly at the room around them. “This alone set me back millions. Not to mention what I had to pay for your kidnapping. But all that’s a drop in the bucket to what I’ll lose if DMFC has to declare bankruptcy.”
Savannah saw movement behind Davies out of the corner of her eye, but by sheer will forced herself not to look directly. “Okay,” she said, placating the furious man in front of her. “One month.” She stood slowly, keeping a watchful on Davies’s gun hand, and moved toward the classified computer setup, deliberately diverting his attention. “I think I have everything I nee—”
A guided missile in the form of her warrior lover hit Davies from behind. The gun flew across the room, and Davies was knocked sprawling, a hundred eighty pounds of solid muscle and bone atop him.
Savannah raced for the gun, then turned toward the two men wrestling on the ground. It was an uneven match. Niall had Davies pinned in seconds, one arm twisted behind his back. Niall wasn’t even breathing hard when he said, “I’ll break it if I have to,” in a voice that begged Davies to give him a reason.
Davies’s cries of excruciating pain were music to Savannah’s ears for a few seconds, payback for the blow he’d given her—her cheek was already swelling up and she knew there’d be a heck of a bruise. But then she came to her senses. “Don’t, Niall. He’s not worth it.”
He tightened his hold and looked up, running his worried gaze over her. “You’re okay? I heard a gunshot, and I—”
“I’m fine. He was just trying to intimidate me.” A soft smile spread over her face. “Niall to the rescue again. I knew I could count on you.”
* * *
Everything seemed to move swiftly after that. Davies was arrested and taken away in handcuffs. All three suspects were isolated from each other in the back seats of separate vehicles, per standard procedure, and the FBI special agents draped crime scene tape over the entrance, pending a search warrant. “Might not be necessary under the circumstances,” one of them said, “but no point taking a chance any evidence we collect will be tossed on a technicality.”
“Speaking of evidence,” Savannah said with a rueful grimace, “it’s too bad you weren’t able to record the conversations in the bomb shelter. Not only did Davies admit to everything, but Martin pretty much confessed, too.” She thought back. “He said something to the effect that alive I’m worth money to him, but he’d kill me if he had to.”
“Yeah,” Niall agreed. “That would have been explosive evidence, if we had it.”
One of the special agents from the agency spoke then. “Actually, we do.”
Savannah blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Belt and suspenders,” the special agent said obscurely. “That’s the agency’s unofficial motto, didn’t you know?” He reached for the electronic device Savannah was wearing, which was disguised as a necklace. “May I?” When she nodded, he unhooked the chain, then cradled the locket in his hand. “State-of-the-art,” he reminded them. “This serves three purposes. Electronic beacon. Audio transmitter. And audio recorder.”
“What?” Niall and Savannah both said almost simultaneously.
The agent climbed into the van and fit the locket into a piece of equipment, then hit a button that converted the electronic recording to a computer audio file. He opened the file, fast-forwarded to nearly the end, then hit Play.
“Belt and suspenders,” said the recorded voice. “That’s the agency’s unofficial motto, didn’t you know?” A pause was followed by, “May I?”
Every word clear as a bell.
“I’ll be damned,” Niall said. Then his brow darkened. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us this up front?”
A sheepish expression crossed the agent’s face. “Need to know. You know?”
Savannah couldn’t help it—she started laughing. Niall’s face was a thundercloud, the FBI agents were obviously miffed and the Defense Security Service agents looked intrigued.
“‘Need to know,’” she chortled. She caught Niall’s eye, willing him to see the humor in this. “Oh yes, if there’s one thing I understand, it’s the concept of ‘need to know.’”
* * *
Two days later, Niall still hadn’t had a single moment alone with Savannah. Endless rounds of questioning by FBI and Defense Security Service agents who hadn’t been part of the task force, as well as federal prosecutors eager to hear everything that had transpired, had effectively kept him away from Savannah.
Then Niall was urgently recalled to Washington and dispatched on another assignment, to Russia this time, with no opportunity to get a message to Savannah. He’d considered turning the assignment down—how could he possibly be effective when his every thought was focused on Savannah and the case against Davies and the Williamses?
But the US needed someone who spoke fluent Russian who also had the skills to safely extract a long-time deeply embedded spy and his family, a spy whose cover the government feared was about to be blown due to leaked documents that were making their way piecemeal onto the internet. Time was of the essence, and lives were on the line. So Niall went.
* * *
It was very late when Niall walked into his minifortress apartment in DC eight days later, mission accomplished. He turned off the alarm automatically—keying in the code, submitting his thumbprint for identification and announcing his name for the computer.
Not his real one, of course. He’d deliberately used his brother Alec’s middle name when setting up the security alarm. So if someone tried to force him at gunpoint to disable the security system all he had to do was use his real middle name, Aspen, and the silent alarm would be triggered.
Aspen wasn’t too bad as middle names went, he’d always thought, especially compared to his brothers. Their mother had tried to make up for the ordinariness of Jones by giving all her children unusual first names. But she’d taken things a step further, giving them middle names of the places where she’d thought they’d been conceived. Which was why his brothers were named Shane Breckenridge, Alec Loveland and Liam Thermopolis Jones. Even his sister, Keira, wasn’t exempt from this convention, although she’d gotten lucky. Sedona was a pretty middle name for a girl, and a lovely place to be named after.
He dropped his carry-on suitcase by the door and was headed for the kitchen when he heard a sound he wasn’t expecting. He reached for his Beretta M9 in his ankle holster, then made his way on cat feet to the open bedroom door. The shower was running in the master bathroom, and the light was on. Niall crept to the doorway, ready to take out whoever had breached his ultra-sophisticated security system, then froze.
* * *
Savannah whirled around, but her scream never made it past her lips. She turned the water off and reached for the towel hanging from a hook over the shower stall. She wrapped the towel around herself and tucked the edge firmly in place before saying in as calm a voice as she could manage given the way her heart was still jumping, “Hello, Niall.” Then realized although he wasn’t planning to shoot her, he was one pissed off male.
“How the hell did you—how did you know where—who let you in?”
Correctly interpreting the series of unfinished and finished questions, she answered, “I tracked down your sister, Keira, through Nick D’Arcy. He didn’t want to tell me how to reach her, but I played my trump card—I said he owed me for having let myself be used as bait.” Her smile conveyed she was more than a little pleased she’d thought to use that as leverage. “Keira told me a few things about you, then she directed me to your brother, Shane. Shane told me the rest and he’s the one who let me in.”
“Where the hell is the US Marshal who’s supposed to be guarding you?”
“Umm...yes, well. About that...”
“Don’t tell me you gave him the slip.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
“Savannah...” Very pissed off, his mouth a tight line even when he spoke her name.
“I’m just teasing,” she said quickly. “I don’t need protection now that Spencer Davies and the Williamses have been arrested. Oh, and by the way,” she added, “they’re not really the Williamses. In fact, they’re not even married. Tammy took a plea and spilled her guts. After which Davies scrambled to take a plea, too. He confessed everything. And I mean everything, including the false statements he made to the DoD about me, making it appear I was a traitor. Only Martin, or whatever his real name is, is insisting on a trial.”
When Niall just stared at her, she said, “Could you point that thing somewhere other than at me? Just in case, you know, it accidentally discharges?”
He cursed under his breath—he seemed to do that a lot lately, she’d noticed—then bent down and tucked the gun in what she could see was an ankle holster. He radiated cold anger, but all he said when he stood up again was, “You have five minutes to get decent, then you have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. I’ll be in the living room.”
* * *
He was going to kill Shane. No question about it, his brother had a lot of nerve. Niall had given Shane use of his apartment a few months back, when someone had been trying to assassinate Shane and he needed a safe place to stay. Niall had never bothered to remove Shane’s access from the security system, but that didn’t mean his brother had the right to—
Niall whipped out his cell phone and hit speed dial, but the phone rang and rang before going to voice mail. He didn’t waste time leaving a message, but he did send a text. He didn’t bother with the niceties, just typed:
What the hell were you thinking?
Then he fumed, needing a target for his anger but unable to vent. His phone dinged for an incoming text two minutes later.
Calm down before you blow a gasket. You’ll thank me later.
Like hell he would. He was just about to dash off a scathing response when Savannah entered the room. He didn’t hear her. He didn’t see her. But he sensed she was there, and when he turned around, he was right. How had he known? He was so dumbfounded by the realization he had known, that he was speechless, and Savannah spoke first.
“Before we say things we might regret, would you just answer one question honestly?”
“Question being?”
“Are you glad to see me?”
That stopped him in his tracks. Glad? Of course he was. Then tell her, dipstick. He tamped down his anger, born of exhaustion, guilt and frustration that he’d had to leave the country before he’d been able to confess everything to her, and quietly admitted the truth. “Yes.”
She was in his arms before he knew it, and the minute he touched her, he lost it. Then he was carrying her into the bedroom, stripping her out of the clothes she’d just put on and tearing off his own. He managed two instances of sanity. “I need a shower.” A statement Savannah dismissed with the contempt it deserved. And, “Condom.”
To which she replied, “No, you don’t. I’m on the patch now.”
Niall had never not used a condom. But he’d had himself tested twice a year anyway, just to be on the safe side, because he would never put a woman at risk. So he didn’t hesitate when Savannah made him that offer. And when he was deep inside her with her legs locked tightly around his, he whispered, “I’ve never—”
“I know. You told me before.” She undulated against him in a way designed to drive him insane, snapping every last leash on his restraint. Then he proceeded to make love to her until she joined him in madness.
* * *
They lay locked in each other’s embrace afterward. And though Niall had never imagined making his confession in bed, he couldn’t bear to let her go. “So if you spoke with Keira and Shane, you know my name isn’t Johnson,” he said slowly.
“I know.”
“There’s more.”
She stroked his cheek in soothing fashion. “I know that, too.”
His heartbeat accelerated. “I’ve killed people.”
He thought she’d be shocked, but all she said was, “So have I.”
He raised his head to stare at her, his eyes wide with disbelief, and she explained, “Not directly, no. But indirectly, yes, through the missiles I’ve helped design. I’m realistic enough to accept that as the lesser of two evils. I trust our country and our military to only use the weapons I helped create when it’s absolutely necessary.” She was silent for a moment. “I know you, Niall. You killed for one reason and one reason only—because they were bad people and you had no other choice.”
He digested what she’d said, amazed she understood. But he still hadn’t admitted... “I could have killed you.”
Then came the bombshell. “I know.”
His arms tightened around her as disbelief warred with hope, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
She drew a deep breath. “I figured it out after Davies confessed. I can’t say I understand my feelings on the subject, because I seem to be somewhat conflicted about it. Of course I’m glad you didn’t kill me—I don’t have a death wish. But knowing how much the government trusted me with information only a very few people have access to, I can see why some people might have thought it necessary to kill me to prevent me from betraying our country after the lies Davies spread about me.”
He shook his head. “Killing you was always a last resort. Only if there was no other way. But still...”
“Yes. But still.”
“I very quickly realized those who dispatched me to stop you were way off base,” he rushed to add. “But still...”
Savannah smiled, a brief movement of her lips, and repeated, “But still.” She hesitated for a few seconds before saying, “It wasn’t easy getting past that—don’t ever think it was. I was devastated at first. But then I remembered telling you that if my choice was between having you in my life and knowing your terrible secret, I would choose you.”
Tears slowly filled her eyes, but she blinked several times in an obvious attempt to hold them back. “I gave you the perfect out, Niall, but you refused to take it! That told me the kind of man you are at heart.”
He couldn’t have spoken right then to save his life, but Savannah wasn’t finished.
“Don’t you see, Niall? I fell in love with a man who puts honor and duty above everything, even himself. Even me.”
The tears spilled over, and though he desperately wanted to kiss them away, part of him still felt he no longer had the right despite her words.
But then she smiled through the tears and added, “I fell in love with a man who could make that difficult choice and then tell the truth about it. Even though you thought you were cutting your own throat by being honest with me.”
She kissed him, her face wet with tears, and he kissed her back, putting his entire soul into it. Then he raised his head, his own eyes suspiciously damp. “So...what you’re saying is...you forgive me?” His stern conscience needed the words.
“I love you, Niall Aspen Jones,” she whispered, peppering him with kisses. “I told you before and I meant it—there’s nothing to forgive.”