It's Always Been You (7 page)

“Caitlin, I was approached by the CIA early this morning.”

She nearly choked on a piece of bread. Travis cursed and patted her back while she took a gulp of water.

“Sorry for dropping that on you,” Travis said. “There’s no other way to segue into it except—”

“That’s okay,” Caitlin laughed. “I was just unprepared for the sudden shift in topic. What did they want?”

“They believe that Komarov is after you.”

“I don’t have what he needs. If he thinks I can get his money for him, I can’t. I don’t remember how to access it.”

“Benjamin Porter is a good friend of mine,” Travis said. “I’ve known him since I was in the SEALs. What I didn’t know then was his involvement with CIA covert ops. You were CIA.”

For some reason, Caitlin didn’t even feel surprised.

But Travis did, and his displeasure showed in the way his lips formed a thin line. “You knew?”

“I suspected,” Caitlin qualified. “I suspected Jase and I were part of a disavowed group of the U.S. government, and we were being terminated.”

“I still can’t wrap my head around the whole scenario.” Travis’s nostrils flared. “How you managed to keep it from me? As your husband, I should have been aware.” His voice hardened. “As a SEAL, not even suspecting was inexcusable.”

There was no accusation in his voice, only frustration. “I must have been trained well,” Caitlin whispered, almost apologetically. Jase said they had been recruited as teenagers, which meant deception had been ingrained in her from an early age. “In some way, I hope it tore me up to keep that part of my life a secret from you.”

His eyes softened. “Tough times ahead, sunshine. I’m committed to work this through. I hope you feel the same way.”

“Can you get over that I was with Jase?”

Travis’s face shuttered into a mask. The question hung between them thick and uncomfortable, but Caitlin didn’t want to pretend that her having been with another man didn’t matter. To her, that was the biggest hurdle to overcome if their relationship was to stand a chance. Meeting Travis that first time had etched in her mind the kind of man he was. He didn’t share. He was possessive, possibly to a psychotic degree.

Long moments passed before Travis spoke up. “I said I was committed to this, Caitlin. What happened wasn’t your fault—”

“We’re not sure of that,” Caitlin pointed out. “I could have gone with him willingly and—”

Travis’s chair scraped across the floor so fast, it toppled over. He turned away from her, probably to hide his expression, but the rise and fall of his shoulders hinted of his struggle to stay in control.

“I can’t let you go again.” His voice was flat and emotionless. He turned around, his face appearing to have been hewn from granite. “And this time, I’ll personally kill anyone who will try to take you away from me. That I promise.”

He left her at the table and disappeared into his study.

CHAPTER FOUR

Travis shut himself in his study. Her question had caught him off-guard and an unwitting jealousy burned within him that threatened to snap his temper. He needed to fucking get over it. But damn Caitlin for suggesting she might have chosen to follow John Cooper willingly. Why was she throwing that in his face?

Because Sarah had always been a straight shooter. All cards on the table.
 

Well, he was playing to win.

So calm the fuck down, asshole
.

He tried to remember the last time with Sarah.

He’d been home for two weeks and they had spent every single day together, just lazing on their property in Virginia Beach. That was where his DEVGRU unit, formerly known as SEAL Team Six, was stationed. The bastard Cooper had dropped in the day before Travis was to deploy. When he answered the door, Cooper asked to speak to Sarah privately. He’d always thought Cooper had been asking Sarah for money. Sarah had one of those work-from-home type gigs transcribing medical files. He’d logged on a couple of times to their joint account and he’d seen the deposits. It wasn’t much, but it kept her busy. He was feeling so guilty about being deployed all the time; he didn’t want to poke his nose around her job. How he wished he did because that agency she worked for turned out to be bogus when he backtracked their accounts after he had gotten BSI up and running. The money came from a shell company that dissolved the minute Sarah disappeared.

That year with the SEALs had been challenging for his team. They’d been after several Al Qaeda leaders, hunting them down in the valleys of Pakistan. And here he was newly married, watching several of his buddies receive their Dear John letters. It freaked him out that the novelty of being married to a SEAL would wear off, and Sarah would go looking for someone more stable who would always be there for her. SEALs were the strongest elite warriors, but when it came to their women, some of them were pussies—like he was. So every time he came home, he spoiled Sarah. Because his time with her was so limited, he didn’t want to spend it arguing. That had happened once, earlier in their marriage. One of the SEALs from another unit saw Sarah on the back of a tattooed biker’s motorcycle who Travis knew without a doubt was John Cooper. He confronted Sarah the moment he returned from his mission—right when he got his foot across the door of their home. He could never forget her face—radiance suddenly dimming into disappointment.

“I don’t see you for six weeks and your first words are accusations of me cheating on you?” Sarah told him in a voice so distant; he wished she had yelled at him instead. “I’ve told you about John. I consider him family. My blood. You said you understood. I’ve never hid what John means to me, and I’m not about to explain it all over again.”

And she walked out. She fucking grabbed her purse and walked out. Travis wouldn’t have had a clue where she had gone if her phone didn’t have a tracking app. She checked into a motel. He let himself calm down for a day before going after her. He apologized. But the whole homecoming was ruined. And he had to leave again in a week. It sucked. That was the last time he listened to gossip. He ignored what some of his SEAL buddies told him. He knew they meant well, but being deployed so often, he had to trust her. Little did Travis know that an affair was the least of his worries.
 

That very last day spent with her was everything he could ever savor. They stayed in bed all morning, making love. He never could get enough of her. And that evening, they sat on a swing on their front porch, looking up at the stars, planning their future. It would have been his last year with the SEALs. They would sell the house, move to DC near his parents, and he would find a job in the private security sector. He departed at zero-dark-thirty the next morning. Travis was always quiet when he left, not wanting to wake his wife. He’d made love to her one last time the night before. He looked at her, bathed in moonlight, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed with her. But just another nine months, and he could have that dream—stay in bed with her for as long as he wanted.

The mission that time was brutal. They were dropped into Hindu Kush—the unfriendly mountain ranges between Afghanistan and northern Pakistan—to raid a village that harbored Taliban and Al Qaeda. It was a 20-man JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) team against 150 Islamist militants indoctrinated with their hatred against Americans. They lost three men; five were badly injured. But they got their target. One of the dead was a SEAL, a close friend of his. Travis wanted nothing more than to head back to base, talk to Sarah over Skype, and remember what the fuck he was fighting for—a future with her.
 

His Commanding Officer was waiting with two other SEALs when their Black Hawk returned from the mission. Travis thought they were welcoming the team home, which was not unusual given the gravity of their op. They were there for
him
. His immediate thought was his mom, who had been struck down with a bug the previous week, but Travis knew it wasn’t serious so that couldn’t be it. But the grimness on his CO’s face tightened the knot in his stomach.

When they escorted him to a small briefing room, Travis thought for a moment that he had violated some stupid rule of engagement, and he was being reprimanded. Hell, he hoped it wasn’t enough to warrant a court-martial.

“What’s this all about, Sir?” Travis asked tersely. Fuck the suspense. Just spit it out.

“Lieutenant,” his CO began. “We regret to inform you that we’ve received news of your wife’s death.”

Your wife’s death . . . your wife’s death . . .

Those words echoed over and over in his head, making him certain that one of the explosions from the op had fucked up his hearing, or worse, his brain.
 

“There must be some mistake,” Travis said hoarsely. “I talked to her not six days ago.”

“The cable came in at oh-four hundred yesterday—”

“H-how?” His questions were mechanical now. His legs were feeling numb, and it was a struggle to remain upright.

“Vehicular accident. We don’t have the details. But there’s a C-130 heading out . . .”

Travis heard no more. He found himself on the floor, on his ass, looking up at his CO and his fellow SEALs; his cheeks were wet.

That was how his nightmare began. Weeks that started with grief and anger finally ending in numbness. Because if he didn’t numb his pain, he couldn’t function.

He’d been thrown in jail twice. Both times for assault. The first time was for threatening the medical examiner with bodily harm—backing the man against the wall. The second, he punched out the detective on the case. The fucker insinuated that Sarah had been having an affair with John Cooper. Their car had exploded before falling into the Atlantic. It took two days to retrieve their bodies. Mutilated by the elements, Travis didn’t really have much of a body to bury.
 

Nightmare.

Travis’s house had been ransacked—had become a crime scene. John Cooper’s blood was found among ripped-out cushions. It became a cold case. Rumor was Cooper owed the Russian Cartel some money for drugs.
 

Travis concluded that Sarah tried to help Cooper and got caught in the crossfire. After a two-week emergency leave, he went back to the mountains of Afghanistan a much-changed man. He became cold, methodical, and robotic on the battlefield. He served out the months required on his enlistment and quit.
 

He lost his purpose, but Benjamin Porter gave it back to him. In some way, his impromptu stint as a bodyguard for a senator gave him insight into the private security business, and the money to be gleaned from it. But the lead that cropped up following the discovery of the tattoo on the assassin, which was similar to Sarah’s, was the biggest boon motivating Travis to get his act together. He needed to get into the game. He sold his house, moved to DC, took out his investments, and started Blake Security Inc.

His buddy, Nate Reece, who had been a paramilitary operative for the CIA Clandestine service, partnered with him to form BSI. And with much input from Porter, BSI had grown into what it was today. Travis couldn’t deny that he had a driving reason to succeed. The more clout he had with the big guys, the more access he had to information. Information he had hoped to use to find out the truth about his wife’s death, and a large part of him believed she was alive. After three long years, his determination finally paid off.

Now he just had to figure out how to recapture the life they had shared. He looked at his closed study door and sighed. Hiding from Caitlin certainly wouldn’t contribute to that goal. Time to get his head out of his ass and man up. He’d be damned before he let John Cooper reach out from his grave to destroy them a second time.
 

*****

“Well, hello.”

“Uh . . . hi,” Caitlin greeted the petite brunette tentatively. The woman gave her a broad smile, and gave her horn-rimmed glasses a push with a finger before entering the house.

“I’m Emily Shephard. You must be Caitlin.”

Emily walked over to the dining table and lowered an armload of files. Turning around, she extended her hand in greeting.
 

Firm handshake and intense scrutiny. Caitlin felt like she was under a microscope. Being on the run meant avoiding people, and right now she was a bit uncomfortable.

“Em.” A firm voice spoke behind them. “Are you trying to intimidate my girl?”

A protest bubbled up Caitlin’s throat at Travis’s proprietary words, but the heated possessive gaze he shot her, well . . . shut her up.

Emily burst out laughing. “Wow, Travis you don’t waste any time.”

“I go after what I want.” Travis stopped right in front of the two women and crossed his arms, not taking his eyes off Caitlin.
 

Caitlin frowned. Travis had some sort of epiphany during the fifteen minutes he had disappeared. She didn’t know whether it bode well for her or not. He seemed to have changed tactics from allowing her some leeway to a full-court press.

“What do you have for me, Emily?”

The brunette jerked her chin over to the files on the table. “Those are new contracts and applicants that may suit the job. Also Ed is suggesting you at least web conference in to the interviews this afternoon for the Kennedy account.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Why can’t you do the interviews?” Caitlin needed to speak up. “I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to babysit me.”

Travis scowled at her. “I’m not leaving you alone in a strange house or dragging you to the office with me on your first day home. Besides, we need to get you some basic stuff.”

“Ah . . . I don’t think I’m up for shopping.”

Travis mistook her hesitation for another problem. “I got you covered.”

“It’s not the money, Travis,” Caitlin said desperately. “I’ll survive a few more days with the clothes I have, and you got me enough toiletries to supply a five-star hotel room for days.”

“Thank you,” Emily piped in, obviously pleased that Caitlin approved of her bedroom. Turning to Travis, his assistant said, “You seem to forget, boss, not everyone’s like you—operating on a few hours of sleep and having no problems adjusting to time zones.”