The Spy Who Saved Christmas (11 page)

“In high school, I got a job at the local bakery to save up for college. When I got kicked out of Penn State for fighting and went into the army, I enlisted as a cook. Then I left the army and did other things.” He left that topic alone. “Anyway, when I had to go undercover in Hopeville, we looked at a couple of covers. There was the empty bakery right in the same strip mall where Jimmy had his gun shop. Seemed like a good fit. Perfect to keep an eye on him and whoever was coming and going.”

“You know that crusty roll recipe you showed me?” she asked quietly.

He nodded.

“I still make it.”

Something turned over in his chest, the same funny feeling he’d had when she’d told him that she still visited his grave. The pull he felt toward her, both physical and emotional, was getting more and more difficult to resist. Good thing he’d made up his mind early on that nothing was going to happen between them this time. What he could give her—precious little—was not what she needed. He’d broken the rules with her once. To break them again would be unforgivably selfish.

“So tell me about this boyfriend of yours. Allen,” he said, then winced when her eyes grew somber.

“Do you think he’s okay?” She bit her lower lip. “If anything happens to him… He has nothing to do with anything. I couldn’t forgive myself if—” She swallowed hard and looked away.

Damn. With everything that was going on, he’d forgotten to tell her the news.

“He’s fine. I got a call just before I came back to the safe house and found the boys gone and Ben shot. I forgot to tell you. Sorry.” He rolled his shoulders. “So this guy, he matters to you?”

“He’s okay? Oh, thank God.” She slumped back, squeezing her eyes shut for a second, drawing a deep breath. “He’s nice. We were just getting to know each other.”

He wasn’t sure how he would have felt if she’d said she was in love with the man. When he tried to picture Allen by her side, as her lover, as stepfather to the twins, the hot rage that flooded through him left him unbalanced.

“Well, he’s right as rain,” he said. She needed to hear something positive, even if he wasn’t nearly as relieved by the news as she seemed to be.

She was lost in her thoughts for the rest of the ride, and he let her be, most topics of conversation suddenly seeming a minefield between them. Once they got to the cabin, he left her in the car while he walked the cooler over to a waiting Hummer.

“I appreciate this,” he told Cade as they made the exchange.

“You better. I don’t risk court-martial for just anyone.”

“You’re not risking it for me either. You’re retired from the team.”

“True.” Cade grinned. “Cabin is open. Use it if you need a rest before you move on. There’s a car for you a hundred feet or so up the north trail. Tank filled. Couldn’t get bulletproof on this short notice.”

“That’s fine. Thanks, man.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously. Bailey would skin me if she knew that I’m back dabbling in the business. She still hasn’t forgiven me for the hunting trip. She’s trying to talk me into doing catch-and-release next year.”

He took a second to sort that out. “Like what? Give first aid to the deer? Catch-and-release only works for fish.”

“Women. They are a mystery.” Cade rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

He couldn’t agree more. But although the guys always played the tough macho male in front of each other, Reid could see the undisguised love in his friend’s eyes. A look that said not only would he be willing to give up hunting for the woman he loved, he would gladly give up breathing, laying down his life for her if there was a need.

“You helping me out doesn’t mean you’re back in the business. It’s a one-time deal,” Reid told him. Theirs was a dangerous occupation, and he had no intention of dragging Cade back into it.

“Damn straight. Pregnancy hormones are scary. I tell you, that kid cannot come out fast enough.”

Reid glanced toward his car where Lara sat, her head leaning against the headrest, her eyes closed. He’d missed the whole pregnancy thing with her.

Well, that was an enormous relief. He didn’t understand where that heavy feeling in his chest had come from.

“Although, when you consider what a miracle it is, everything else seems like a small price to pay,” Cade added.

“I’m only personally involved as long as it takes to get the boys back. After that, it’ll be a long-distance thing. I wouldn’t be good for them. The best thing for everyone is if we go our separate ways.”

Cade flashed him a doubtful look, but didn’t say anything.

I
F SHE THOUGHT
they were going to spend the day sitting around, she was mistaken. Reid had the cabin transformed into command headquarters in no time. Calls were coming in from his friends one after the other.

Jason had been picked up. Apparently, the FBI had been tipped off to his little arrangement at the clinic and was out there right now collecting evidence. Carly was calling in with explanations on every new file she cracked on the CD. Another friend was apparently driving by that railroad bridge in question and sending in photos. There were even aerial photos from some satellite. Reid had grinned pretty wide when he’d gotten that one, and muttered something like, “Thank you, Colonel.”

In between fielding calls, he was going over his maps. Over and over. And checking his weapons.

“I want one,” she said at last, coming to a decision. “I want you to teach me how to use it.”

He looked up from his work. “Are you sure?”

She expected some resistance. His immediate agreement, his faith in her, was gratifying. Yet she felt wary of it. She didn’t want to like him. He was the reason why she was in this mess, the reason her babies were in danger. But it was becoming more and more difficult to maintain that edge of anger toward Reid when she saw how hard he was working to get Zak and Nate back.

And yet, she had to keep the wall up. So maybe she could forgive him—he hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. But she couldn’t go beyond that. No liking him, no needing him. Definitely no wanting him. He would leave as soon as she had the twins back. He’d been clear about that. And, of course, that was exactly what she wanted. Definitely.

Who needed all this danger, upheaval and excitement? Not her. She craved safe and steady.

He pulled a small handgun from his bag. “All right. Watch this. This is how you load it.” He popped bullets into the magazine. “This is how you take off the safety.”

Didn’t look too complicated. And just because she wanted to learn how to use a gun, since she might need that skill in the very near future, didn’t mean that she was getting drawn into his kind of life.

He handed her the loaded gun and stood. “Let’s see if you can hit anything.”

They went behind the cabin. He picked up a stone and put it on top of a woodpile. Then he came and stood next to her as she lifted the weapon.

“Line up the sight. Lock your knees, lock your elbows. Don’t wait too long. The longer you wait, the more your arms will shake. Lift, aim, shoot.”

She lowered her arms, then lifted the gun again, looked at the stone and imagined the masked man who’d grabbed her babies while the other was tying her up. She squeezed the trigger. The stone flew up in the air.

Reid capped her on the shoulder. “Pretty impressive. You’re a natural.” He grinned at her with genuine admiration.

She grinned back, feeling better, feeling as if she might have some sort of control for the first time. She could and would fight for her sons. She was pretty sure Reid wouldn’t ask her to stay behind this time.

She liked the small surge of confidence that came from her newfound competency. Although, part of her wouldn’t have minded some learning curve. He didn’t even have a chance to put his arms around her to show how to properly line up the sight.

Surprise at the thought made her blink hard. Since when had she wanted Reid Graham to put his arms around her? “I better shoot a few more rounds,” she said to yank her thoughts back from that track.

He lined up a dozen stones this time.

She missed the first, got the next four right, missed another one, then finished the row.

“You have seriously good aim.”

“Exactly why I still have ten fingers. You can’t have bad aim and wield a cleaver for a living.”

“I didn’t think about that,” he admitted, then smiled even wider, revealing strong, white teeth. “Hand-eye coordination is a beautiful thing.” He lifted a hand and brushed his thumb across her jaw.

Their gazes locked. She couldn’t move as he lowered his head to hers.

“And so is lip-to-lip coordination,” he said before he kissed her. Deeply. With military thoroughness.

Her brain was as foggy as a Scottish Highland meadow on a cold fall morning. “Oh,” she stammered when he pulled away. “But why?”

“You don’t know what it does to a guy when he sees a hot woman shoot like Dirty Harry.”

The only word that registered with her was
dirty.

She drew a shaky breath, gathered her thoughts. Okay, so there was some leftover attraction, but they didn’t need to act on it. Falling back in lust with him again would be the stupidest thing she could do.

“Pretty reckless, aren’t you?” She shot a pointed glance at the gun in her hand. “What if I didn’t like it?”

“I counted the bullets, just in case,” he said.

And kissed her again.

Damn the man, he had an answer for everything.

S
HE’D LET HIM KISS HER.
More than once, so neither could claim that it had been an accident. Damn if he knew what that meant.

What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he have to kiss her?

Lara had asked him that same question, more politely worded. Reid had given her a glib answer, one that disguised how much the kiss had shaken him. He’d written off that one runaway kiss at the safe house to surprise. After Hopeville, he hadn’t expected to ever see her again. She’d taken him off guard by being even more beautiful than he remembered, having turned into an amazing woman.

One small judgment error. That was supposed to be the end of it.

He wasn’t supposed to be kissing her again. He was going to walk away when this was over. He tried to remind himself of that as he went through the latest file Carly had sent him, while Lara warmed up the food Cade had left for them.

“You have some pretty good friends. Part of your team?”

“We don’t really work as a team.” SDDU soldiers mostly worked lone-wolf operations. All information on missions was disseminated on a need-to-know basis. He didn’t even know all the team members, aside from the ones he’d met in training, or at the colonel’s office, or on the rare joint mission.

Yet, he had to admit, Cade and Carly had come through for him. Long-held beliefs were reorganizing themselves in his head. Lara and the kids were making him look at things in a new way. He’d always thought of himself as a lone soldier, which worked for him just fine. He preferred things that way.

But Lara was right. The SDDU was more than a unit of independently operating commando guys who went on undercover missions all over the world. There
was
something that held them all together. A link that was much stronger than he’d realized.

He hated links. Links were a good way to hurt someone or get yourself hurt, messing up some critical mission. Soldiers like him ought to be able to stand on their own two feet. Except that he
had
reached out this time. And aid had been given to him unconditionally. And it had really helped. At the moment, having Cade and Carly and even Lara on his side, he felt stronger, not weaker.

“Reid?”

He looked up from the laptop, stashing away that last thought.

“I appreciate you helping me.”

“They’re my boys, too.” And, man, was that weird to say. “But I’d help even if they weren’t.”

“We’ll get them back tonight, right? And then this will be all over and everything will go back to the way it was before.” She was slightly bent forward over the stove, a few curls of her silky hair falling in front of her face, her amazing body outlined by the firelight.

The way it was before… She and the boys in Hopeville. He in a fake life somewhere far away from her, deep undercover. Damned if that picture didn’t burn his stomach like acid. But he said, “Sure, honey.”

She smiled at him, a smile that warmed his heart. “We make a good team, don’t we?” There was something in her eyes….

He knew without a doubt that danger lay that way for the both of them. They couldn’t fall back into some sentimental memory. They couldn’t pretend that if they gave into temptation, it would lead somewhere this time.

“What we have here…” He paused. “Don’t overestimate it, okay?” A warning that he should heed himself. “To get those boys back, you would have teamed up with the devil.” He was warning her off, even as he wanted nothing more than a kiss.

She looked at him for a good, long time, understanding what he was saying, the smile slipping off her face, a thoughtful look replacing it as she whispered, “Maybe I did.”

He swore under his breath. The sane part of him knew he needed to keep her at arm’s length. The rest of him wanted to gather her in his arms, demanding to know what a few more kisses could hurt. At least he’d have some memories to take with him when the time came to walk away.

The woodstove was going full blast in the one-room cabin, thanks to Cade, who had a considerable woodpile out back. A small kitchen took up the front, the same stove used for heating and cooking. One bed was pushed against the back wall. There was enough room in between for the five or six camping beds that she’d seen folded up in a shed out back.

Next to the shed stood an old-fashioned outhouse, which due to winter temperatures was a lot less spider-infested than she had expected. Thank God for small mercies. Blood and gore she was fine with, but bugs seriously scared her, a weakness she covered up in front of the boys as much as she could.

She didn’t want Zak and Nate to be afraid of anything. Which meant she would have to set a good example.

And what kind of an example would their father set if he took part in their lives? That was the thought she was chewing over as she headed out to the facilities while it was still light enough outside to see what she was doing. When she was done, she went back in to wash up. A basin of water waited on the kitchen table. She’d already used some of it to wash the dishes.