Digitalis (32 page)

“Go on.”

She seized the tenuous thread that said he might not hate her for the rest of her life. “The last time I tried to send a relay to my father, the griefer denied me access. Said I had the wrong site.”

“Did you?”

Shaking her head, she gave a caustic laugh. “Trust me—my father’s life depended on me going to the right site. I wasn’t going to make an idiotic mistake typing in the wrong URL.”

Emotion flickered through his face, through his lips, and nearly halted her willingness to tell him any more. But she’d told him once that she would give him the entire truth, and if she was here till midnight, she’d make sure he knew everything.

“I insisted he get a message to my father. That’s when the griefer said I’d been found and to get out.” Massaging her temples didn’t help the throb in her head.

“How’d he know?”

“Either he saw something in the codes—maybe tracing sequences or whatever—or the message was actually from my father, somehow. So I stayed at a hotel that night, then the next day ran home, packed, shut down all my utilities, and was ready to leave town, but …”

“But?” Colton folded his arms. Unfolded them. Folded again. Then planted his hands on his belt. “Lambert sent me in here. Said you have something I need, that the team needs.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “They’re—you’re going to help save my father?”

Ironically, even though she’d spent very little time with the man, she knew him. Knew that right now, he was working very hard to control his emotions—particularly his anger.

“I think,” he continued with a long exhale, gripping the back of a chair. “I think he wants us to kiss and make up.”

Piper’s gaze popped to his.

He straightened, towering over her. “But that’s not going to happen. Got it?”

Regret pushed her into a chair at the opposite end of the table.

“Because the woman I dated, the woman I let into my life is Piper Blum.” His chest heaved. “And she doesn’t exist.”

Disbelief squirreled through her. “Is that …” She couldn’t say it. Though she tried to put the shock into words, she couldn’t. Instead, she planted her hands on the table and pushed to her feet. “If you really think a name is all it takes to wipe me from your life, you’re not half the man I thought you were.”

“And you’re not the woman I thought you were at all.”

“I am still Piper. I am still the woman you kissed, the woman who birthed Firefox’s foal with you.”

“Hershey died in the fire.”

His words smacked her back. “No …”

“Try something else.”

“What is this? A competition?”

“Just trying to figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” She raised her hands. “I’ve told you everything.”

“Have you?” His boots scuffed over the wood as he sidled toward her. “Have you finally told me all your dirty little secrets?”

“Yes!”

His thunderous expression exploded. “Then why in God’s name didn’t you tell me a week ago so my father didn’t have to die?”

Piper lowered her head. “Because I didn’t want my father to die.”

“Well, therein lies the problem.” Colton pivoted and walked to the door. Tried to open it. Banged on it. “Open up!”

Piper flinched each time he banged on the door, tears—the stupid, burning tears—streaking down her cheek. She swatted at them. “Forgive me for fighting for something as trivial as my father’s life.”

Colton rounded on her, slamming her heart into her throat. “Oh, want to try that on me? Try to make me feel guilty to appease your conscience?”

“That’s not … I didn’t … You haven’t exactly been the most forthcoming person either. You aren’t a saint, Colton.”

“Never claimed to be.”

“But you never bothered to tell me who you are, or what exactly you do. You deceived me, allowed me to think you were out of the military, knowing you were still entrenched in military actions.”

He held out a hand to stop her. “Wait.” He patted his chest. “Remember, you love me.” Head cocked, he eyed her. “So tell me, Piper—or whatever your name is—who am I?”

“Kelila,” she muttered.

Unbelievable. “Avoiding the question.” He shook his head. “Well, let me tell you about the man you think you fell in love with. I’m a sniper. I use a long-range scope and place bullets in the gray matter of terrorists all over the globe. I do it with such lethal precision that I haven’t missed yet.” He arched an eyebrow. “Last night, I put a .308 in the skull of the guy who killed my father.”

“And it didn’t help, did it?”

The words hit center mass. “We don’t have time for this.” He turned back to the door.

“I see it in your eyes.” Piper rushed around him and caught his arm. “You’re still livid; you’re still hurting.” She took a step closer.

She wouldn’t have if she realized how close he was to losing it.

“Killing … retribution doesn’t solve it, doesn’t help.”

The rush of his thrumming pulse roared in his ears. “Oh, it helped all right.”

Brows knit, she considered him. Then shook her head. “No, you don’t believe that for one second,” she said quietly. A fierce determination glittered in her caramel eyes. “I may not have known that you were a sniper, I may not have known about this team I’ve met today, but I do know the heart of the man standing before me.”

The storm brewing in his gut shifted. Enough for him to notice, but not enough to wave off the torrent of his anger. He didn’t back down. Towered over her, ready to pounce.

“That’s what I fell in love with, Colton. Your heart. The tender man who’s frantic when his daughter isn’t where she’s supposed to be. The son courteous enough to endure his mother’s nudging to get married and settle down, and the son humble enough to listen to his father even though he’s a grown man.”

Every beat of his heart thundered. He watched, disbelieving the way she faced his fury, the way she entered the eye of the storm without blinking. Her hand raised, clenched, then flattened as she pressed her fingers over his chest. Over his heart.

She raised her eyes to his. “I pray … some day … I can earn your forgiveness.”

The coolness of her touch seeped through the fibers of his button-down. Each breath felt like a thousand-pound weight beneath her fingers.

He removed her hand. “Forgiveness isn’t earned.”
It’s given
. Something he wouldn’t—couldn’t do.

But the team would be watching. Lambert was watching. He knew what they wanted him to say, what they expected him to do. If he didn’t go into this mission with his head in the game, they’d all back out. Despite harboring this anger against her, he knew the mission was somehow important—a whole country seemed to depend on Nightshade’s covert action.

He would play their game. Do the mission. Get it over with. Go on with his life … without her.

Only then did he feel her eyes assessing him, and it forced him to step away from her. She’d seen into his soul once already. He didn’t

need her figuring this one out.

“Colton?”

“We’ll go in,” he said, bending over the table and harnessing his focus. “Find your father and get him out.” He felt her at his side now. “You can trust the team; they’re the best. If anyone can get your father out alive, it’ll be them.”

Since when had he started referring to Nightshade as
them
?

“What just happened?”

He met her gaze, narrowed with suspicion. Who cared if she read past the false exterior and knew what he was doing? “It’s time to move on.”

T
en rows, more than forty seats … roughly twenty-three feet separated them. But even from back here, Colton heard her laughter. He shifted in the seat, angling his booted foot into the aisle in the hopes of stretching his cramped legs. He glanced past the teen with the mullet and the woman cradling the infant and just beyond the flight attendant to where sandy blond hair barely touched the collar of Midas’s navy blue button-down. They’d chatted nearly the entire umpteen-hour flight.

“How’s your neck?”

Warning his partner to veer off with that stupid smirk, Colton cast a sidelong glance to Max, who sat squished between Colton and the overweight, middle-aged man sawing some serious logs.

“After eighteen hours of straining to see her, you’ve got to have a crick in that thick neck of yours.”

“How would you know? You snored louder than mammoth guy there for two hours.”

“Hey, can I help it if you don’t know how to relax?”

Colton snorted and slumped back against the seat. Pushed his shoulders into the thick cushion as he readjusted. “These stupid seats were designed with short people like you in mind.”

“Cowboy’s gettin’ cranky.”

Another burst of laughter snagged his attention. His gaze shot toward her seat before he realized it. Then started to look at Max and thought better of it. Which made Max laugh again.

“Sounds like they’re having a good time.” Max yawned. “That’ll be interesting. Far as I know, he only does first dates.” This time, he stretched across Colton and peered up the aisle. “Yep, they look pretty cozy.”

Colton glared at him. Curled a fist.

With a nod, Max shrugged, looking guilty—fake guilt, that was. “I’m sure Midas just wants to maintain cover.” When another laugh erupted from Piper, Max grunted. “Hm, never known Midas to be funny. They must be getting along really well.”

“Do you want my fist up your nose?”

Max busted up laughing. “You are such a sap. And you say you don’t care about her anymore?”

“Partner, you’re treadin’ some dangerous ground there.” Head tilted back, Colton closed his eyes and told himself to get some shuteye, but with the anger over Max’s teasing churning his gut and Piper’s voice and laughter plucking at him each time he’d start to drift off, it left him angrier … and exhausted.

By the time the plane landed at Tel Aviv International Airport, Colton had more cricks and aches than he’d care to admit. But it wasn’t the aches and cricks that antagonized his foul mood. It was the way Piper seemed oblivious to the sacrifices the team had made for her, the fact that his father died. That she’d ripped his heart out.

He couldn’t help but eye her when she and Midas crowded the aisle with dozens of passengers. The whole scene reminded him of a herd of cattle trying to wrestle their way out of the line-up pen on auction day.

He and Max waited for more passengers to fill the space, allowing more distance and less cause to be noticed or connected to the supposedly happy honeymooners, before he stepped into the aisle and exited. As he glided through the airport, his gaze roved the crowds, searching for Piper. Just wanted to make sure they were following the mission, that’s all.

As he strolled past the fountain, a brightly lit set of arches snagged his attention. His heart chugged to a stop. Emelie.

“Look, Colton! Mickey-D’s in Israel. Who’da thunk it?”
Her laughter had mingled with the throng of passengers.
“Think a Big Mac will taste as bad here in the Holy Land as it does back home?”
Her infectious giggle drifted through the planes of grief and death right into his chest as he remembered how she’d been so excited, commenting on everything, comparing. Like Christmas morning when she was a kid. So happy.

So much vitality and vibrancy.

Just like Piper.

“You okay?”

He blinked and darted a glance to his partner. “Yeah, sure.” Hitching his pack farther onto his shoulder, he navigated the sea of people.

Already, he felt his decision to come trembling beneath Piper’s betrayal and the all-too-fresh memory of Emelie’s death. It’d been five years. He should be over it by now. Not her death—he’d never be over that—but hearing her voice so clearly. Remembering things as if they were happening in front of him. Right now.

Had all the makings of a bad flashback. A really bad one. He’d all but kicked them since joining Nightshade. At least the big ones that left him feeling as stupid as Guernsey’s hogs.

When he stepped into the arid early morning, he paused at the long line of limos and private drivers loitering nearby.

Emelie had squealed as he pointed her to the sleek black vehicle.
“You got a limo?”

With a shoulder nudge, Max started toward a blue sedan with a T
AXI
sign. “Let’s grab that one.”