Hot Ice (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 7) (24 page)

But this wasn’t the time or the place. He stepped back, his heart thudding in his chest. Her mouth was open, her lips moist and pink, and it took everything he had not to kiss her again.

“That makes two of us, cupcake. Now get in the car so we can go.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

HE TOOK BACK ROADS AND SIDE ROADS, avoiding the highway as much as possible. There was no sun to indicate which direction they were headed, but the occasional highway signs told Grace they were traveling south. Eventually, he stopped at a diner where he pulled out the phone he’d bought and sent a text as they were walking inside. Another text came back almost immediately.
 

Grace was curious, but she needed the restroom entirely too much to hang around and find out who he was talking to. When she came back, he was standing at the counter and ordering cheeseburgers to go. She loved that he knew what she’d want without asking.
 

The cheeseburgers came out within minutes, smelling heavenly in the takeout containers, and then they were on their way again.

Grace took a bite of her burger as soon as they were moving. It was good in all the right ways. It had that fresh taste of a mom-and-pop diner, not the cardboard taste of a fast-food joint. The bun was greasy and the cheese dripped off the meat and fell onto her fries.

It was just the way she liked it.

“Did you call your guys?”

Garrett ate with one hand while driving. Ordinarily she didn’t approve of eating and driving—or driving and anything that
wasn’t
driving, come to think of it—but they were on a country road with no one else in sight. And then there was that whole evading-pursuers thing. He didn’t have time to pull over for a leisurely lunch.

He set the burger in the container and picked up a fry. “Yeah.”

“What did they say?”

“Not much.”

That sounded entirely too cryptic. “So no one’s coming to help us?”

“Nope.”

She sighed. “Could you be a little more forthcoming? I have a talk to give in four days and no idea who wants to stop me.”

“I don’t either.”

She blew out a breath. “There’s every chance I’m not going to Rome, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know that yet.” He sighed. “We’re taking this a day at a time, Grace. I didn’t tell them where we are because I don’t want them to know just yet. When we get closer, that will change.” He glanced over at her. “Will it be all that terrible if you don’t get to Rome this time?”

She shrugged. Would it? Probably not… but she still wanted to be there.

“I hate crowds, which you already know. But this research is important, and it’s mine, so I want to be the one to talk about it. I don’t want Tim Fitzgerald doing it, or the director—or anyone but me.”

“Don’t you think this is the kind of thing you shouldn’t tell others how to do?”

“I’m not going to tell them how to do it—but they’ll figure it out eventually. It’s only a matter of time. That’s why we need to be prepared.”

He swore. “It’s fucking insane what you people do with test tubes and shit.”

She tried not to let his words hurt. “I’m a researcher. I’m not trying to hurt anyone.”

“Why don’t you focus on finding a cure for cancer or something?”

“My work is important. We need to know how viruses replicate and evolve, and we need to be ready to combat them. Look at what’s going on with Ebola—it’s scary as hell, and we need a better response to the virus itself. It’s people like me who figure out how to fight it.”

He didn’t speak for a long moment. “When Ben got leukemia, we were all stunned. He was always healthy, athletic, and strong. And then one day he wasn’t. It seems like there ought to be a response to that.”

Her heart ached. “Childhood leukemia used to have a much higher mortality rate than it does now. Researchers figured out how to combat it with chemotherapy—but it doesn’t have a one hundred percent cure rate. I’m so sorry you lost your brother that way. It’s not fair. I know it’s not.”

“I’m scared that one day Melissa will call and tell me Cammie’s sick. And there’ll be nothing anyone can do about it.” He huffed a breath. “When I think of her going through what Ben went through—it kills me.”

Grace reached out and put her hand on his arm, squeezed. “I imagine there are all kinds of things parents worry about, and I have no right to tell you not to, but just because your brother had leukemia doesn’t mean your daughter will.”

“I know. But when you’ve been through that… My parents survived it, but I don’t know how they did it.”

“They still had you, Garrett. I’m sure that helped.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I was a good kid for the most part. And I had a good childhood until Ben got sick. After that… it wasn’t bad, just different. Ben was missing from our lives, and you never forget that.”

“No, I don’t imagine you do.”

“Life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect.”

She thought of her sisters and their perfect lives—which she knew logically weren’t entirely perfect—and sighed. If she’d followed the Campbell pattern, she’d be married and have at least one child by now. While simultaneously being at the top of her profession, of course.
 

Charity was a highly sought after interior decorator and party planner, Faith was a junior partner in a Charleston law firm, and Hope had designed her own line of signature clothing after a stint working for a top designer in New York City. They were beautiful, married to handsome, successful men, and had cherubic children. Grace was the oddball at family gatherings—quiet, bookish, plain, unmarried. At least when she’d had Jeffrey, she hadn’t felt quite as odd.

And now he was marrying someone else and they would all know it. God.

“Did you always want to join the military?”

“I wanted to play football.”

Grace felt her jaw drop. But then she could see it. He was a big man, and she could see him in a helmet and pads. “What happened to change that?”

“I got a girl pregnant, and I did the right thing. Turns out you need money to take care of a family, so I joined the military.”

“Oh.”

He shrugged. “I’m actually good at what I do, and football doesn’t last forever. No guarantees of making it to the NFL anyway.”

“You sound as if you’re okay with your decision.”

“I wasn’t always. I had a football scholarship, and I had to give it up. But I needed to put food on the table, and the military was the best way to do it.”

“You like what you do.” It wasn’t a question, because she’d seen him in action. He knew things she didn’t, and he’d remained calm and cool both times someone had come for them. He’d been intense, but sort of ho-hum—like he escaped bad guys in his sleep.

“Mostly, yeah.”

She thought of him on the phone with his daughter, of the way he’d told her with quiet intensity that he loved her, and then she’d watched him put his fist through a wall because of things his ex-wife had said. She hadn’t thought of it before now, but if he wasn’t communicating with his guys, then he also wasn’t communicating with his child. His phone was turned off, which meant Cammie couldn’t get through.

Her belly sank at what that must do to him.

“Did you call Cammie from that phone?”

He shot her a look. “No. She understands that I sometimes have to disappear and that I’ll call her when I can.”

“That’s a lot for a kid to process.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

He shook his head as if he were clearing it. “No, it’s fine. I never, uh, I don’t talk about this. There’s no one to talk about it with.”

“Your guys would understand.”

“They would… but I’ve never told them about Cammie or her mother. The first any of them heard was when you asked me in the limo. Flash, er, Ryan was kinda shocked, I think.”

There was a hard knot in her throat. “I’m sorry I outed you that way.”

“How could you know? And maybe I should have mentioned it. There’ve been times when I wanted to explode, but I had to hide it and pretend all was normal.”

She picked up a fry. “You know, men could learn a thing or two from women. We talk about everything, usually over a bottle of wine, and have a good cry if we need to.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I’m going to have a good cry with the guys. Over wine. Just as soon as we get back, I promise.”

She smacked him lightly on the arm. “Caveman. You should try it before you knock it.”

“Men don’t share feelings, cupcake. We don’t talk over every aspect of a situation while sharing Chardonnay and doing our nails.”

“That is totally sexist. I never paint my nails. It’s messy, it stinks, and it starts to chip within hours. It’s a complete waste of time.”

“Your toenails are painted.”

“That’s different. And I don’t do it; I pay someone to do it. Besides, it lasts much longer than paint on fingernails— Wait a minute, why are we talking about this? It’s not important. You distracted me on purpose.”

“Didn’t quite work, did it?”

“Not really.” She sighed. “Look, you don’t have to tell me about your life—but you should tell someone so you don’t explode. It clearly bothers you a lot. That’s all I’m saying.”

It started to rain again, a soft mist that coated the windshield and forced Garrett to turn on the wipers. They were old and squeaky, and the noise irritated her. Or maybe it was Garrett who irritated her. She’d told him he didn’t have to talk to her, but after everything they’d shared, she wanted him to.

“There’s nothing to tell that I haven’t already said. My ex-wife despises me. We married too young, and I don’t know what she thought, but maybe she thought it was supposed to be more magical than it was. I think she resented being pregnant, and then she resented me for being gone so often. Now she tells Cammie that I don’t love her, and that one day I won’t come back. I’ll just stop calling because I’ll find another family and love them more than I do her.”

Grace’s stomach twisted. “That’s unfair of her.”

“Fuck yes, it is. Doesn’t stop her though. And she’s right—I might stop calling someday. But it won’t be because I find another family. It’ll be because of this job and the fact one of the bad guys got me. Melissa will know the truth, because the Army will tell her, but she won’t tell Cammie.”

“Your parents will.”
 

Yet she couldn’t stop focusing on what he’d said. He might stop calling because he’d been killed in the line of duty. It sent a chill over her—and even more so because he was putting his life on the line for her right now. What if he died because of her? That was a thought she didn’t even want to contemplate.

He nodded, his expression dark and angry. “Yeah, they will. But it might not be enough.”

She wanted to go to him, wanted to put her arms around him and hold him tight, but they were driving down the road, and there was a console between them.
 

“You can’t worry about that,” she said. “All you can do is make sure she knows how much you love her.”

“I try… but it kills me when she cries, when she asks when I’m coming to visit her. I fly down as often as I can, but it’s never enough.”

She didn’t know what to say. There was no way to make it easier on him, no way to fix this.

And she wanted to. With her whole being, she wanted to fix it and make him happy. Because he was a good man, and he’d made her happy in the short time she’d known him. He’d made her believe she was—if not beautiful, at least pretty enough to entice a man like him. Her confidence had gotten a boost over the past couple of days, even if her default setting was still to think she wasn’t appealing enough.
 

But that was hard to believe when Garrett was buried inside her, taking her to new heights of pleasure and losing his control in the process.

“You’re a good man, Garrett. I’m not sure how your ex-wife doesn’t believe that, but I think it’s probably clear to everyone who knows you.”

“That’s sweet of you to say… but maybe you don’t really know me at all. Maybe I
am
a selfish asshole who doesn’t want to settle down and live a normal life.”

Her throat was tight. “What’s a normal life anyway?”

“Beats me,” he said softly.

* * *

Garrett pitched their tent in a campground he’d found along the way. It was small, and there were only six other tents. Not many people went camping in the middle of the week. He’d considered finding a spot other than a campground, but he’d decided they would blend in better this way. One tent among a few didn’t stand out. One tent on its own in the woods, away from a campground, would.

Not that he doubted his ability to hide, but he figured Grace wasn’t precisely a camper and she might appreciate the false security of other people.
 

Grace stood by while he set up the tent, confirming his belief she had no idea how to do it herself. She huddled against the side of the truck, her body encased in a sweatshirt and a jacket they’d found at the thrift shop, her teeth chattering even though she tried not to let him know how cold she was.