Payback (19 page)

She threw her hands up in the air. “It’s archaic, that’s what it is. As if I can’t make up my own damn mind.”

This time as she neared Mark, he stepped into her path and took gentle hold of her upper arms. “Faith, what’s really bothering you? I’ve never seen you so anxious before.”

“Ha. That’s because you were off rescuing Toby and nearly
dying
and so you missed my near panic attack when I received the news that you’d been hurt.”

Mark winced.

“I’m sorry,” she added hastily. “That was uncalled for.”

“But true.”

“Well—”

He shook his head. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

She managed a weak smile. “Probably not.”

Mark brushed a kiss across her lips. “Tell me what’s wrong, Faith.”

She sighed and stepped into his embrace. “I’m scared that Toby won’t like you.”

Mark gave her a gentle squeeze. “You already told him of my involvement with Jamieson and Kerberos and he hasn’t told you to stop seeing me, right?”

“Right.”

“So quit worrying. If we don’t get along, we’ll deal with the tension the best we can. I’ll say it again, I’m marrying you with or without his consent. But given what he’s been through, I thought he deserved the respect of having me ask for your hand in marriage.”

“You’re so old-fashioned, you know that?”

She felt a kiss on her hair. “Yes. But you love me anyway.”

He sounded so smug, it would do him good for her to deny it. Keep his ego in check. But she couldn’t lie to him. “Yeah,” she said, snuggling against him. “I do.”

“I—”

The doorbell rang.

Faith pushed away from Mark. “Oh, God, he’s here. How do I look?” She reached up and touched her hair.

“Shh. You look beautiful as always.” He gave her a smile warm with love and reassurance. “Faith, he’s your brother. He’s seen you at your worst and Lord knows you’ve seen him at his worst.”

“I know. But it will tear me apart if you two don’t get along. I want you both in my life.” She fiddled with Mark’s perfectly aligned necktie.

The bell rang again and Faith could picture her brother’s annoyed face. “Coming!” She raced to the door and flung it open.

“Toby!” Her brother looked years younger than when she’d last seen him. He would always carry a bit of extra muscle because of Kaufmann’s designer steroids, but overall Toby appeared the same fit, dark haired older brother she loved.

He grinned at her and the skin around his dark blue eyes crinkled. “Hey, Faith.” Then he pulled her into a bear hug and swung her around.

“Toby, put me down or I’m gonna puke!”

He nearly dropped her. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” His eyes widened. “Shit, Tonelli hasn’t gotten you pregnant already, has he?”

“No.” She laughed shrilly, silently cursing the nerves that had turned her into a ninny. “Of course not. I just…” She glanced back over her shoulder and saw Mark standing patiently by the sofa. Turning back around, she met Toby’s worried eyes. “I just really, really want you two to like each other.”

“She’s been a nervous wreck,” Mark added, coming up beside her and putting one arm around her waist. He held out his hand. “Mark Tonelli. I’m pleased to meet you again under better circumstances.”

Toby sized Mark up before shaking hands. “Toby Andrews. I remember you. You played me a tape of Faith singing.”

“That’s right.”

“Thanks for coming to get me, and for keeping Faith safe from Jamieson and his men.”

Mark shook his head. “Your sister was doing an excellent job of evasion without me, something I understand is mostly due to the extensive training you gave her. Which means I should be thanking you.” He stepped back. “Please, come in.”

Toby nodded at Mark, then gave Faith a wink as he passed by. “He’ll do,” her brother murmured.

All the tension that had been riding her these past weeks seeped right out of Faith, leaving her legs wobbly.

“Easy there,” Mark whispered, tightening his arm around her as they followed Toby into the living room. “I’ve got you.”

She grinned up at him, finally accepting that everything was going to be okay. “I know. Now and for always.”

***

Keep reading for an excerpt from
Aftermath
, Ryker’s story!

Excerpt from
Aftermath

by Vanessa Kier

D
ammit, she was late again. Two days after the FBI raid, Siobahn re-clipped her press pass to her blouse’s front pocket, picked up her purse from the metal detector’s scanner, and waved good-bye to the guard as she slung the heavy bag over her shoulder.

“Henry, tell your brother he still owes me twenty bucks!” she called to the guard standing by the elevators. Henry gave her a grin and a thumbs up as she hurried past on her way to the staircase. His wolf whistle and “Nice legs, Murphy” made her roll her eyes, but secretly she was pleased. Hey, call her vain, but she had to admit that at forty-eight, she liked knowing her body was still considered attractive.

“Don’t let your wife hear you say that, Henry,” she called back as she hit the stairs at a pace dangerous to one less skilled in running in four-inch heels. Aware that her pace had hiked up her skirt to nearly indecent levels, she tried tugging it down once she was out of sight of the guards.
Damn you, Farsil. You owe me one.

She hated covering Congress. Unfortunately, Farsil, another senior reporter at the newspaper, had finally taken a long overdue vacation with his family this week. Leaving Siobahn filling in on the Capitol beat. She’d done six months of legislative and White House reporting during her early years and hadn’t been able to get out of the political morass fast enough. She’d rather be embedded with a military unit in a hot zone than forced to listen in on hours of boring testimony just to extract one interesting tidbit.

Of course, because Siobahn didn’t want to be here, she’d left the office with little time to spare to get to the congressional hearing on climate change. Thanks to nearby construction detours, she was now late for the hearing.

She barreled across the first landing, took a deep breath—damn, even with the amount of aerobic exercise she got every week she still didn’t have the cardio stamina of her twenty-year-old self—and hurtled up the next flight. She hadn’t quite reached the top when she ran into a man coming down the stairs.

Her momentum caused her to bounce back. One narrow heel slipped off the edge of the marble stairs, throwing her off balance. She gave a little squeak of shock.

Strong hands caught her arms, steadying her and keeping her from falling down the stairs. Siobahn gasped and grabbed onto the man’s forearms to anchor herself as he twisted slightly to the side, enough so that her body had room to shift forward without the two of them ending up pressed chest-to-chest.

The man had moved so quickly, and held her with such strength, that Siobahn just blinked at him. Not many men—hell, none at all that came immediately to mind—would have gone out of their way to avoid plastering themselves against a female. Yet this man kept a polite distance between them, and his fingers didn’t make any inappropriate side trips when he slowly released her.

For a moment she just stared in confusion at the suit covering what appeared to be a lean, runner’s body. In her towering heels, she still came a few inches short of looking him in the eyes, which put him at slightly over six feet.

Six feet plus of considerate male who’d just backed up another couple of inches to give her space on their shared step.

She looked up into his face, wondering who the hell had such good manners.

Whoa. The man’s narrow, aristocratic face had the kind of enduring good looks that made women do double takes no matter what age group they fell into. His nutmeg brown hair showed silver at the temples. She’d heard other women say natural gray made a man more distinguished. Siobahn just found this man sexy. His mouth was a bit on the thin side, but she could work with that. She had the feeling that when he set his sights on a woman, he knew how to give her what she needed. Her nipples tightened just thinking about the possibilities.

Most striking of all, his eyes were a pure, light gray. Almost silver. They gazed at her with an intensity that made her squirm and want to reveal all her secrets. Which would be totally embarrassing, given the way he made her think of hot, sweaty sex.

Hold on. What? Sex? Was she really thinking about sex
now
? In the middle of the freaking Capitol? She choked back a laugh. Well, at least her libido was alive and healthy. Given the recent drought in her love life, she’d been beginning to wonder.

Forcing her thoughts back onto the straight and narrow, Siobahn said, “Sorry. I should have been watching where I was go—” Remembering the committee hearing, she checked her watch and swore under her breath. “Thanks for keeping me from falling.”

She flashed him a smile, took a firm grip on her purse, and hurried up the stairs at a slightly more sedate pace.
Damn, damn, damn. The first interesting man I’ve met in months and I can’t stay to flirt.

“Siobahn, girl, you’re still racing around like your tail is on fire. You nearly bowled poor Ryker right over.”

Siobahn slowed to a fast walk and glanced up to see a portly man with a shocking mop of thick gray curls beaming at her. “Hello, Uncle Wallace.” The senior senator from Pennsylvania had grown up with her father and the two had remained close. Their families had spent so much time together when she was a kid that Siobahn and her brothers felt like part of the Wallace family.

“I thought you’d outgrown your recklessness, Siobahn.” Wallace smiled to take the bite out of his words.

Used to his polished censorship of her behavior, Siobahn turned to look down at the man who still stood calmly on the stairs where she’d left him. She had the feeling that it would take more than one reporter in a hurry to unbalance the sexy Mr. Ryker.

She shot a grin at Wallace. “No harm, no foul,” she countered. She moved in, accepted his bussed kiss across her cheek, then tapped her watch. “Climate change hearing. I’m late.”

Wallace nodded. “Of course. But if you’re going to make a habit of gracing our halls again, young lady, then I expect a chance to catch up with you over lunch.”

“I’ll set it up. I want to get a quote from you about the death of President MacAdam.” With a jaunty wave, which she admitted was mostly for Ryker’s benefit, she hurried on down the hall, dodging a group of men filing out of a conference room. Wallace was one of the few congressmen she had any respect for. He might be old-fashioned in his attitudes towards women, but he wasn’t creepy. He just thought women were special creatures who deserved pampering and that it was a man’s privilege to smooth the way for the women in his life. He’d been highly opposed to her career as an investigative journalist, but then none of the males in her family had approved of her dangerous job, either.

Still, Wallace was one of the few men whose word still meant something. She might sometimes disagree with his politics, but he always took time to listen and to examine his opponent’s point of view before reaching a decision.

Forced to keep to a more sedate pace due to the slipperiness of the floor, Siobahn wondered who Ryker was. It had been a while since she’d closely followed the machinations inside the Capitol, but she knew enough to know that he wasn’t a congressman.

Besides, with that well-balanced posture and his quick reflexes, she’d peg him as military. Or, given that he looked to be in his early sixties and had been dressed in a high quality wool suit and not a uniform, more likely he was former military.

Too bad. She’d been married to a military man. Once had been enough.

Hold it right there, girl. Marriage? You just laid eyes on the guy for the first time.

She’d have thought by now she’d have learned her lesson regarding being impulsive in matters of the heart. And, in fact, she hadn’t had a serious relationship in… God, was it two years? Something that was unheard of for her. But then, becoming a team leader at the paper had kept her so busy between her own investigations and editing the team’s pieces that she’d only had a few short-term lovers.

So what was it about Ryker and his penetrating gray eyes that intrigued her so much?

Spotting the door to the hearing up ahead, she buried all thoughts of romance, slipped her notebook and pen out of her oversized purse, and prepared to try and make a congressional hearing interesting for her readers.

The Surgical Strike Unit Series

Undercover
- Prequel

Vengeance
- Book 1

Betrayal
- Book 2

Retribution
- Book 3

Payback
- Book 3.5

Aftermath
- Book 4 (coming January 2014!)

About the Author

V
anessa Kier has been creating stories in her head since childhood. Now she writes romantic thrillers, using her worst-case scenario thinking to put her characters through the emotional wringer. When she’s not writing or listening to music, she works as an accounting manager, writes the occasional Tech Talk column for her local RWA chapter's newsletter, and takes long hikes in the nearby hills.

For more about Vanessa and to sign up for her newsletter, please visit her website
www.vanessakier.com
.

Acknowledgments

A
huge thank you to Stacy Finz at the
San Francisco Chronicle
for making sure that Faith and Siobahn didn’t commit any major journalistic gaffs! Any lingering mistakes are entirely my fault. Thanks also to Virna DePaul, Valerie Susan Hayward and Angela Pike for helping make this a better book. Thanks also to Frauke Spanuth of Croco Designs for creating another awesome cover.

Most of all, a continued and heartfelt thank-you to all the readers who have made this series a success!