Undercover Lovers (33 page)

Spread all over her, he
finally broke the kiss, levering up on his elbows. “You really
think I’m going to believe you came to me because you were setting
me up? I was there when we met, Tee. You were as blown away as I
was. This? Us? It was inevitable. If you want to tell yourself you
used me to protect your cover, fine, but don’t expect me to let you
feel guilty about it. You wanted me, the same way I wanted you. It
might not have been the best timing in the world, but we’re here
now and we’ll work the rest out.” He kissed her again, slower,
softer. “Don’t think for one second that you’re getting away from
me now.”

His kisses drew out longer,
as if he were drinking from her. His fingers caressed her cheek
with softly drawn designs that traveled into her
hairline.

“
What I will insist on is
you getting this idea out of your head that I need you to protect
me.”

She could only blink at the
nearly feral tension on his face. How could he be so careful, so
gentle with her and still be that obviously pissed off?

“
You may be a federal agent
but last I checked, I was still a Marine under my cop
uniform.”

“
Retired,” she corrected,
however unwisely.

“
Sweetheart, I’ll be a
Marine ‘til they bury my cold, dead, decrepit ass in the ground a
good fifty or sixty years from now.”

She laughed, she couldn’t
help it. “Ooh-rah?”

“
Semper Fi, baby.”
Always Faithful.
She knew,
though, he wasn’t talking about the Corps. “I know you can take
care of yourself, but you don’t have to take care of me. Even at my
worst, I can still protect us, you got that? Especially now that I
finally have something worth living for.”

“
Semper Fi,” she whispered,
brushing her fingers over his cheek as he’d done to hers. An
agreement. One that was easier to give than it should have been. A
lot of things should have been more difficult with Cade, but they
weren’t. Trust and love just flowed naturally. The only thing hard
to do was shut him out.

He rolled onto his back,
bringing her with him like his favorite toy. Which was fine,
really.

Because the glass above
their heads shattered in a hail of bullets and automatic
weaponry.

Cade kept rolling, spinning
them both to the floor. They hit hard, but Trina barely felt it.
She glanced at him, not even able to register shock as he yanked
two guns from beneath the bed and handed one to her without
hesitation.

She simply took it and
grimly stated the obvious. “They found us.”

***

Keeping low to the floor,
Cade crawled quickly to the other side of the bed, heading for the
corner of the cabin. Once there, he popped a panel near the floor
with the side of his fist. The panel flipped, revealing a small
screen and a directional toggle with four buttons beneath it. The
screen came on instantly, revealing a view from the tall trees
above the cabin.

Rotating the tip on the
toggle, he zoomed in on one of the three trucks he saw just a few
yards from his front door. Two were empty, but this one was
definitely occupied. Two men stood at different ends, each with
rifles too big to be anything but fully automatic, one driver and
something curled up in the middle of the truck bed. Something
big.

Not willing to take too much
time on it, he used the buttons beneath the toggle to check all
four sides of the cabin. The east and south sides had three armed
men each, while the western wall of the cabin was tucked close to
the granite mountainside. Close, but not flush. The escape route
there was still open.

He went back to the north
view, where the trucks waited, his gaze locking on the shape under
what looked to be a tarp. Tightening the focus as far as it could
go, he saw definite movement and clear bloodstains. Fresh
stains.

“
How did you say my place
burned?” he asked, dread pooling in his gut because he knew the
answer already.

“
Explosion,” she whispered,
peering over his shoulder at the view screen.

“
Let me guess, none of the
buildings around mine were touched, right?” He turned to look at
her, but like before, he knew before the words were out of her
mouth.

“
No, actually. Hell, your
lawn wasn’t even burning.”

“
Fuck.” No question what was
under that tarp now. He checked the safety on the handgun before
shoving it in his back waistband. “You ever wonder how someone as
young as Rick ended up in my unit?”

Trina shook her head. “I
didn’t realize he was that much younger than you.”

Yeah, the streaks of white
in Rick’s hair did age him to anyone who didn’t know they were from
shock. “Almost eight years. My team was designed for covert ops,
usually slash and grabs. The little shit is a goddamned genius with
C-4. He could demolish a mountain or blow the seal on an envelope
if he wanted.

“
I knew there was something
you told me that I wasn’t registering. You said it was blind luck
that I left town yesterday. It wasn’t. Rick’s been after me to get
out of town for weeks. The reason I came up here was because he’d
insisted I take my vacation time and get away for awhile. Refused
to take no for an answer.”

“
You’re saying—”

“
I’m saying Rick is no
traitor. He set it up to make it look like I was dead only after he
got me out of the way.”

“
He knew Frank was on to
you.”

“
Dumbass was playing both
ends against the middle and he got caught.” And if he could manage
to save the moron’s life, Cade was going to throttle him for
it.

“
We know you’re in there,
Evigan,” Carter’s gravelly voice boomed through the cabin walls.
That feedback at the end meant he was on a bullhorn. Great. “You
got two minutes to come on out here or things are going to get ugly
for your Army buddy out here.”

Squelching the urge to tell
Carter to go fuck himself if he couldn’t tell the difference
between military branches, Cade took a quick mental inventory. He
didn’t have any automatic weapons here, but his rifles were nothing
to piss at either. “How good are you with heavier
artillery?”

“
With my right hand or with
my left?” Even now, she had to be cheeky.

“
We’ll have three seconds to
get away from this wall after I push this button. Floorboard in
front of the couch, there’s a twin gauge and an ammo belt
pre-loaded. Count of two, you get it, I’ll cover the window. One,
two!” He hit it and they raced toward the middle of the cabin, Cade
using his body to shield hers from the three men he knew were on
the other side of shattered window. Bullets streamed in. Cade
dropped practically on top of her. A loud boom stopped that,
shaking the cabin and sending dirt flying in past the broken glass.
Trina, God love her, didn’t miss a beat. Her hands found the loose
floorboard and yanked it up. Another few seconds scrambling and
they were back in the corner, one rifle and ammo belt
heavier.

“
You have
land mines
out there?” she
snapped.

“
Yeah, probably should have
mentioned that when I told you about the place, huh?”

“
Oh, ya think? Who the hell
do you think you are?
First-Blood
?”

“
Please. That guy was a
Green Beret.” Cade cracked open another panel above the
surveillance viewer and pulled out the wireless walkie-talkie.
“Still sure you want to be here, Carter? There’s ten more of those
buried all over my property. That one looks like it cost you at
least two men.” He heard his own voice echo on the loudspeakers
outside.

Apparently, so did Trina,
because she looked at him incredulously as she checked the
rifle.

The bastard had the temerity
to chuckle in response. “I had a feeling you were going to make
this interesting, Evigan. Never bought that post-traumatic stress
bullshit people said about you. Hope you had a good night with KK.
My men tell me she’s a hell of a fuck. Consider her my gift to
you.”

Trina rolled her eyes,
mouthing words he hadn’t heard since he’d left the service. He’d
have laughed, but she did have a loaded twin-barrel in her hands.
Perverse, maybe, but if their lives weren’t in danger, this would
probably rate as his best date ever.

He brought the radio back
up. “Well, since you’re staying awhile, why not tell us how you
found us?”

“
Pretty easy, really. I keep
tabs on all my bitches. She’s got a beacon in that jacket she likes
so much.”

They both shot a glance to
the pile of her clothes still in front of the couch.

“
I’m trapped in hell with
the fucking techno-twins,” she growled, probably to herself.
Hopefully to herself.

“
So what happens when I come
to the door?” Better to stay on point or he might find himself
agreeing with her.

“
Simple trade. You come out
and tell me where Shana is, I’ll give you back your piece of shit
best friend.”

Yeah,
right
. “He alive?”

Another rough laugh. “Let’s
put it this way. He sure as hell wishes he wasn’t.”

Shit
. Trina must have been thinking the same thing because she
sent him a worried look.

“
Why do I need to come out
for that when I’m so comfortable in here?”

“
Because I fucking told you
to.” The enraged snarl had Cade’s brows rising.

“
He’s such a control freak,”
Trina whispered, letting her head fall back against the wall. “You
know he just wants you out there so he can shoot you,
right?”

“
No, he’s more hands on than
that. He’ll want to gut me.”

She gave him a sideways
glare. “I told you, he’s not an idiot. You’re almost twice his
size. No way he’d get close enough for you to hurt him.”

But Carter
was
prideful as all
hell…

“
Cade?” Trina turned fully
his way, a note of nervousness in her voice.

“
Let’s make a deal,
Carter.”

“
Cade, no.” Her hiss barely
registered.

“
I’ll come out, but you have
to make it worth my while. Bring Trelane to the porch, then get
your men back to the truck. I’ll talk to you, just you. Then we can
all get out of this safe and sound.”

“
What about your little
friends underground? I’d hate to drop your man somewhere he won’t
come back from.”

“
Consider them disarmed.
Unless someone breaks the rules. Then I’m blowing the shit out of
you
and
your
men.”

Long seconds ticked by while
Carter seemed to consider it.

“
He’s not gonna go for it,”
Trina whispered, shaking her head.

Cade wasn’t sure either. The
odds were fifty-fifty, but then again, Carter was a desperate man.
Normally, his crew was all of forty members. For some reason, he’d
come with less than ten and now was down to seven. This whole thing
stunk of total desperation. Whatever Shana took, she definitely had
the man by his balls.

“
Fine,” Carter barked
suddenly. “Give us a few to drag this sack of shit up
there.”

Trina gaped. “You’re
seriously going to let him just drive away?”

“
First priority is getting
Rick back alive. After that, we’ll see.”

“
We’ll see what?” Damn she
was beautiful when she wanted to throw things at him.

“
I don’t want to count my
chickens before they hatch.” He grasped her chin and pressed a
rough kiss on her lips before snatching the rifle from her hands.
“Watch the viewer, make sure they don’t try anything. If one of
those guys moves or shows up on any view but the north, blow ‘em to
kingdom come.”

“
What about you?” There was
still some worry on her face, the old worry, that he’d been too
scarred by his past. Oddly enough, the painful memories weren’t
blocking his survival instincts. He actually felt somewhat back in
his element. Maybe because he understood what he was protecting.
The lines had blurred too much before, watching friends he
considered brothers die no matter how hard he fought for them. This
time the lines were brutally clear. No one, especially not Frank
Carter, was getting past them.

“
I’m fine, I
swear.”

They both heard the thump
outside, likely Trelane getting dumped like a sack of
potatoes.

Trina eyed him grimly,
blowing out a breath as she turned her face back to the viewer. He
watched her shift from one view to the next before nodding at him.
Field clear.

Slowly, nosing the gun out
first, he opened the cabin door. As expected, Trelane, blood
running down his face and just about everywhere else Cade could
see, lay on the porch.  No blood pools, though, which he
decided to take as a positive sign. Directly in front of him stood
the unlikely mastermind. “Hello, Carter.”

“
Evigan.” Physically, there
wasn’t much to Carter. No taller than five-foot-eight, his body was
wiry and spare. Too much sun had turned his skin to a reddened
leather while his hair was a stringy, dull brown well blended with
errant silver. For a small guy, he was definitely powerful, like a
rabid pit bull, especially in one of his rages. But his strength
wasn’t what made him dangerous. No, that part was visible when you
looked into his vicious, rat-like gaze and saw the mind working
behind it. He had magnetism and just enough bat-shit crazy to scare
without doing a damn thing if he didn’t want to. Like Charles
Manson without the swastika or the straight-jacket. “I thought we
were planning to play nice here.”