My Spy: Last Spy Standing (14 page)

She could barely concentrate on the food. She was too distracted by the man at her table. He had a presence that filled up her kitchen. But while he filled Bree with awareness that tingled across her skin, Katie was acting as if he was a member of the family and his eating dinner with them happened every day. For some reason, maybe because of the great unicorn rescue, she had accepted him fully and unconditionally.

“Excellent dinner. I appreciate the invitation,” he said over his plate. And ate like he meant every word.

He probably didn’t get many home-cooked meals, she supposed, liking that he appreciated her cooking.

“He’s making the happy face,” Katie put in.

“Yes, he is.” Bree put a happy face of her own into play.

Her awareness passed after a while, and she began enjoying their dinner together. There was such a warm, homey feeling, such a normalcy to them sharing a meal. Maybe because of his nap, maybe because of the meal, the harsh lines on Jamie’s face relaxed for once and stayed that way.

She liked this. She liked it a lot.

Not smart. She sighed.
Heartbreak ahead.
Her head sounded the warning.

Too late. She was enough of a realist to know that there was nothing she could do to stop herself from falling for him.

* * *

W
HAT
THE
HELL
was he doing here? Jamie thought as he lay on the couch in Bree’s living room in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling.

She didn’t need him. She was a good cop. She could take care of herself. Jason Tanner was in jail. And as she’d said, she lived in a pretty good neighborhood.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d asked to stay for his own piece of mind. Bree mattered. And so did Katie. She was a sweet kid. Quick, too. She’d put together a puzzle of Klimt’s
The Kiss
before he finished a small corner.

Of course, the painting the puzzle created put kissing into his mind. And Bree. And he hadn’t been able to clear those images out of his head since. His emotions and thoughts were in a jumble. He didn’t like that. He was used to always having a clear battle plan.

Except, this was no battle.

So why was he fighting his own feelings?

He rolled to his feet. He hadn’t taken his prosthetics off. While it was unlikely that anyone would break in, he wanted to be ready if there was trouble.

He walked across the room then stopped, thought some more about what he was doing. He was very likely making a mistake. He walked up the stairs, anyway.

He knocked as quietly as he could, prepared to go back down if there was no answer.

“Come in.”

He pushed the door in slowly, not entirely sure he should.

She sat up in bed, the worn police academy T-shirt she wore as a nightgown covering most of her, except for her amazing legs. He could have stood there staring at her forever.

She swung her feet to the ground as if to stand up, but then she didn’t.

He moved to her without words and sank to his knees in front of her, pulled her closer, her legs on either side of him as he rested his forehead against her collarbone.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said against her T-shirt, breathing in her soapy scent. He liked the way she smelled, the way she felt, the way she fit against him.

Her head lowered, her lips coming to rest in his hair. “Me, neither.”

He looked up into her face, which was illuminated by the moonlight. Time for the naked truth. “I want you.”

For a nerve-racking moment, she didn’t say anything, but then she smiled.

Oh, man. Maybe it would have been better if she sent him away. “I don’t know how it’s going to work.”

Her smile turned into a wicked grin. “A virgin? Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”

And he couldn’t help but smile back. She could make him smile like nobody else. It was a miracle. He really had been a grouchy bastard over the past couple of years.

To be honest, he almost did feel like a virgin. She was like no other. He didn’t want to mess this up. He didn’t want to repulse her.

“Step one would be to lock the door,” she advised him.

And he got up to do that. When he came back to her, he sat next to her on the bed.

“Okay, so the first part is called foreplay.” She shifted onto his lap. “Tell me if I’m going too fast and you don’t understand something. We’ll go back and repeat whatever step you’re having trouble with.”

“You’re a good instructor,” he said as his arms went around her.

“I train rookies at the station all the time.”

He threw her a questioning look.

She smothered a laugh. “Not in this!”

“I hope not,” he said with a sudden shot of jealousy, as he pulled her head down to his for a kiss.

She was in his arms, her lips pressed against his, her arms wound around his shoulders. His entire body was alive and hardening with desire within seconds.

He deepened the kiss and took what he needed. She didn’t protest. When she dug her fingers into the short hair at his nape, desire rippled down his spine.

He wanted her. She was the only woman he’d wanted in a very long time. This was not something spur of the moment; this was not trivial. The two of them in this room meant something, something he wasn’t sure he was ready for.

But he couldn’t walk away from her.

He shifted them until they were lying side by side on the bed.

Okay, that was smoother, so far, than he’d expected. He was up on one elbow next to her, their lips still connected. He had a free hand. He was a soldier, trained to take advantage of every tactical advantage.

“I don’t know what you’re doing. Here with me. You’re perfect. I’m...” He was going to say messed up, but she cut him off.

“Stubborn?”

“No way.”

“Surly?”

“When warranted.”

Then he forgot what they were talking about as he tugged up her T-shirt and put his hand, fingers stretched out, on her flat stomach. Her skin was warm and smooth and begged to be explored. He moved his fingers upward.

She gave a soft groan and lifted her chest.

He wanted to be inside her so badly it hurt.

His hand cupped her breast; there was no bra, just warm skin and a pebbled nipple that he was ready to taste. He pulled up the soft material and lowered his lips to the tight bud.

Her hands kneaded his shoulders, her head tilted back.

“Take it back. I’m not perfect,” she said in a whisper.

“What?” His mind was in a haze. He lifted his head.

She shifted to look at him. “I’m not perfect.”

“A whole state begs to differ. You were Miss Texas. Don’t you miss the beauty-queen days?”

She looked away.

“What is it?”

“My mom wanted that.” She turned back to him. “She wanted me to be extraperfect, maybe because Katie wasn’t.... I didn’t really like the beauty-pageant thing.”

He watched her, the emotions crossing her face.

“When my parents died in the fire, I was devastated. Then a few days later, when we were picking through the ashes, I came across some of my pageant wardrobe, all charred. And I thought, with Mom gone, I’d never have to go up on stage again. And I had never before felt such relief in my life.” Her voice broke.

He held her closer. “And you felt guilty.”

“I wasn’t relieved that my mother was dead.”

He kissed her. “You were relieved that you didn’t have to live a life you never chose. It’s not like you shirk responsibility. You take care of Katie.”

“That’s different. I want to. I love being with her.”

He kissed her again, amazed that she would share this with him, that she trusted him enough to open up. This was about more than sex, a warning voice said in his head. For the both of them.

He ignored the voice. His body wanted what it wanted. He went back to kissing her soft skin.

His mouth made the trip back to hers, lingering on her delicious neck in between, then back down to the other nipple. He wanted to keep kissing her for hours, but the urgency building in his body pushed him to take things to the next level.

He rolled her under him, pulled up her knees, one then the other on either side of him, pressed his hardness against her soft core and groaned with the sharp pleasure of the contact. He rocked into her, kissed her over and over, and that was enough for a few more minutes. Then it wasn’t.

He shifted them again and pulled her shirt over her head, while she did the same with his, their arms tangling. She was down to her skimpy underwear, her soft skin glowing in the moonlight, bared for him.

She reached for his belt buckle. Because there was no hesitation in her, he didn’t feel any, either. He helped her.

She tugged down his pants. He reached for his prosthetic leg on one side. She watched what he did and helped him on the other side, her fingers frenetic and impatient.

Because she wanted him.

With everything he was and he wasn’t.

Then the metal was gone, then her underwear, then his. She whisked out a foil wrapper from her nightstand and helped him with that, too.

He loved the feel of her hands on him.

He moved to cover her amazing body with his. Then his erection was poised at her opening for a second before he sank into her moist, tight heat. His mind exploded first, then his heart.

The distance, the walls he’d built, the darkness he’d carried, they all fell away.

There was only Bree.

Chapter Thirteen

Bree woke alone, and after a second, she could vaguely remember Jamie kissing her goodbye before he went into work at dawn.

Her body felt like...cotton candy—a big fluff of happiness. She couldn’t stop grinning. Even the toothpaste ran down her chin while she brushed her teeth.

She dropped Katie off at work, went into the office and did some more paperwork regarding the incident at the bank the day before. She wanted to talk to Jason Tanner, still in lockup, but thought better of it. She didn’t want to mess up this case. She didn’t want him to get off on a technicality.

He needed to be held responsible for what he’d done, be locked up and get help for his mental problems. As he was now, he was a danger to society.

Instead of going back to his holding cell with her questions, she called around to see when she could go over to the prison to talk to Angel Rivera’s younger brother. She wasn’t looking forward to having to tell him about his father’s death at the bank. Angel would have to be told, too, so she sent off a quick email to Agent Herrera about that.

Since she couldn’t talk to the younger Rivera without his lawyer present, she tracked that information down first.

“You gotta be kidding me,” she murmured as she took in the screen. Steven Swenson. Or Slimeball Swenson, as he was known in law-enforcement circles.

He had very little regard for the law, and none whatsoever for the police. He’d sued probably every police department in the county at one point or another. Everything the cops did was an “overreach of power” in his book, and he was happy to cause as much trouble as humanly possible.

He was famous for his utter lack of cooperation. She so did not look forward to having to talk to him. She made the call, anyway. When he didn’t pick up, she was almost relieved, even if she knew she’d have to try again. She left him a message.

She went through some more paperwork, handled some walk-ins then braced herself and called Swenson again. Still nothing. The guy didn’t call her back, either. He wouldn’t. The word “helpful” was completely missing from his dictionary.

The next time her phone rang, it was Jamie on the other end.

“Hi. Sorry I left so early.”

Her heart leaped at the sound of his voice, images from the night before flashing across her brain. Parts that had no business tingling when she was on duty came awake. “You had work.”

“I just don’t want you to think I was doing the ‘guy runs away in the morning’ thing. I wanted to stay.”

The quiet admission made her heart swell. “I can’t see you running away from anything. You’re not the type.”

“Neither are you.”

“No,” she agreed.

He hesitated for a moment. “So what are we going to do about this?”

“We figure it out as we go,” she said tentatively, expecting him to come up with ten reasons why a relationship between them couldn’t work. Heck, she could have come up with twenty on her own.

But instead, he said, “Okay.” Then he said, “Lunch? I can probably get away for half an hour. I’m on office duty today.”

“I’m going to take a working lunch. I need to see a guy’s lawyer.”

“Have fun.”

“Not with this one. It’s Slimeball Swenson.” She was going to drive by and see if she could catch him in person.

“Hostages are suing already?”

“No. Nothing to do with the bank. It’s about the counterfeiting case. I’m tying up a loose end for the CIA agent in charge.”

“I’ll see you tonight?”

Her heart leaped again. “Like you ever asked permission before for barging into my life without notice?”

He chuckled on the other end.

She’d wondered once what it would take to see him smile. And now that she’d seen him smile... She was rapidly falling for him.

Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t get your heart broken. It was one night.
Neither of them wanted anything permanent. They both had their lives set up in a way that worked for them.

“I’ll see you tonight, then,” he said. “Especially if you have leftover chicken steaks.”

And even if it was something temporary, whatever they had between them, she felt a thrill at the prospect of spending another night with him. “You only like me for my cooking.”

“I pretty much like everything about you, Bree.”

Her heart gave a hard thud. “Now you’re just angling for dessert.” She made a joke of it, even though she was ridiculously pleased.

After they hung up, she called Swenson again. Maybe he was with a client and that was why he wasn’t answering. She left him another message, telling him she was coming over.

But before she could get away, a couple of teenagers were brought in: a drug bust. She handled that; one set of parents was belligerent, blaming everyone but their offspring, the other apologetic.

A full hour passed before she could drive off to see Swenson over in Hullett, her mind wandering to how incredibly good Jamie and she had been together and what she was going to do about that. A complicated question, so she drove the back roads, giving herself a few extra minutes to think.

She was so preoccupied that she was at the reservoir by the time she noticed that a dark van was following her. All the windows were tinted, so she couldn’t make out the faces in the front, only two menacing dark shapes.

They were the only two vehicles on the abandoned road. She sped up. So did the van. It kept gathering speed, closing the distance between them.

* * *

“J
UST
WANTED
TO
see how you were doing,” Jamie told his sister, Megan, over the phone as he sat behind his desk at the office. “How is baby Bella?”

“As grouchy as you are. She’s teething.” His sister made some nonsensical baby noises on the other end.

You couldn’t tell now that she was a tough undercover operative. In fact, she’d met her husband on a South American op where they’d nearly killed each other before they’d fallen in love.

“Oh,” she said. “You should see her. You wouldn’t believe how fast she’s growing. She’s a little champion at breastfeeding. Aren’t you, my little moochy-woochy?” She cooed.

He winced.

He’d only seen the baby once, in the middle of a screaming fest. He had no idea why people had babies. Forget mortal combat, babies were scarier.

“Are you calling to volunteer to babysit?” his sister wanted to know.

Right. Maybe in an alternate universe. “Sorry, too busy saving civilization as we know it.”

“Sure, use that old excuse,” Megan said in a droll tone, but then she laughed. “How are you? Is working stateside strange? How are the guys? God, they’re hot. Don’t tell Mitch I said that. How is the job?”

“Good.”

She waited.

“Everything’s okay.”

“Well, no sense singing a whole ode about it. You know how I hate when you talk my ear off. Sheesh, what are we, like girlfriends?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m known for my sense of humor. And loved for it.” She cooed to the baby again before returning to him. “So you’re calling to tell me what, exactly?”

“Just to see how you all are doing.”

A moment of silence passed. “Is there a woman?”

“What? On earth? Over three billion and counting. Some of them are pretty annoying.”

“I know for sure you’re not talking about me.” She paused for a second. “I think there’s a woman. You’re softening. Is she the type to babysit?”

Probably.
“There’s no woman.”

“Well, she’s obviously good for you,” Megan went on, ignoring his declaration. “When do we get to meet her?”

Family. A synonym for people who stick their noses into your business and enjoy it.
“Oh, look. I better go. Terrorists are attacking. They’re coming out from all over the jungle—”

“Yeah, whatever. You’re calling from your office phone. I can see the number on my display and—” The baby cried in the background. “All right. But we’ll talk about this mystery woman later. Take care of yourself. We all love you, Jamie.”

His throat closed up suddenly. “I love you, sis. Give a kiss to my favorite niece for me.”

He hung up and thought about his family, the rest of them. He really should be in touch more often. He thought about the baby. He should send her a gift. He would have to ask Bree what would be appropriate. She would know. She was good with family. She was good with pretty much everything. He would ask her for some advice tonight.

With that resolution made, he turned back to his computer, to the task he’d interrupted to make the spur-of-the-moment call.

He so wasn’t the spur-of-the-moment, check-on-family kind of guy. Maybe Megan was right and he
was
softening. Great. Just what he didn’t need.

He looked through the secondary list from the prison where Jimenez had been recently incarcerated, scanned pages the warden’s office had emailed him and checked the list of attorneys visiting clients on the day the kill order had been passed to Jimenez. A name jumped out at him: Steven Swenson. Might be Slimeball Swenson, the attorney Bree had just mentioned on the phone.

He tapped his finger on his desk as he stared at the screen, bad premonitions sneaking up on him.

So the same lawyer was representing the guy she was investigating for counterfeit money, and the guy Jamie was investigating for doing a hit for the Coyote. If Slimeball Swenson was the one who’d carried the hit order to Jimenez from the Coyote, then he was one of the Coyote’s men, too. From what they knew about him, the Coyote worked with some of the most ruthless killers in the business.

And Bree was on her way to Swenson.

He dialed her number, a thousand fears cutting through him while he waited for her to pick up.

“Jamie!”

The sickening crunch of metal that followed the single word had him on his feet. “Where are you?”

“On the old mining road by the reservoir. There’s a van behind me.”

“Steven Swenson,” he called to Shep as he ran for the door. “Local attorney. Find him. He’s the Coyote’s man. Send someone to pick him up.” Then he was through the door, clutching the cell phone to his ear. “Are you okay?” he asked Bree.

“They’re trying to push me into the water. I don’t think—”

Another sickening crunch came.

“Bree?” He ran for his car and shot out of the parking lot, heading for her.

She didn’t respond. Maybe she’d dropped the phone. She probably needed both hands on the steering wheel.

The way he was driving, so did he, so he switched to Bluetooth and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. He could hear her yelling on the other end, car tires squealing.

His heart pounded.

“I’m coming,” he said, in case she could somehow hear him. “Hang in there. I’m on my way.”

Thank God the back roads were clear. He made the half-hour drive in fifteen minutes, the longest fifteen minutes of his life. He got there just in time to see Bree’s cruiser tumble into the dark water of the reservoir, pushed by the van behind her.

He rolled down his window and shot at the van with his left hand. He had no hope of hitting anyone, but if he could scare them off, it would be enough.

He kept shooting, emptying his clip, slammed a second one into place and shattered the van’s back window at last. He could see two men in the front, hunched over the dashboard to avoid his bullets. One of them shot back, but then they finally decided they wanted to stay alive and the van sped away.

Then he was at the water’s edge, jumping from his car, kicking off his pants, taking off the metal that would have dragged him down, and dove in, sinking.

He’d learned how to swim without legs, but not well enough. He’d focused too much on the other aspects of his physical therapy, like regaining his balance on dry land and how to adjust his hand-to-hand combat skills so his moves would still work with the new reality of his body.

Now he wished he’d spent more time in the pool.

He used his arms to maneuver himself forward in the murky water toward the spot where he’d seen Bree’s cruiser sink. If all he could do was help her out of her car and somehow push her up, even if he stayed on the bottom, he’d be happy.

* * *

B
REE
FREED
HERSELF
from the car just to get tangled in a giant ball of wire someone had dumped into the reservoir. Probably illegal dumping from the wire mill. She was so going to issue a ticket for that. If she lived.

She struggled to swim, dragging the heavy ball of metal behind her. She bumped up to the surface for one quick gulp of air before the weight dragged her back down.

She doubled her efforts and made it up to the air again. But with the tangle of metal hanging from her left foot, she couldn’t stay afloat. She went back down again.

She could go up a few times, she realized, but when she got tired, the wire would permanently anchor her to the bottom. She gritted her teeth and went down instead of up this time, trying to untangle herself from her anchor.

The inch-wide wire was slimy with rust and algae. Her fingers kept slipping without being able to find a good grip.

When her lungs began to burn, she abandoned her efforts and swam up for another gulp of air, dragging the weight with her. She could only stay up for seconds before the wire pulled her down again. Her arms and legs were tiring.

How many times could she do this? One more time? Twice? Certainly no more than that.

Desperation squeezed her chest.

The wire cut into her ankle, into her fingers as she tore at it. This time, when she went up for air, she had to struggle harder to make it.

Chances were she was going to die here, she thought on her way down again. There were only two things she regretted. That she would leave Katie alone, and that she hadn’t told Jamie Cassidy that she cared about him.

But even as she thought about Jamie, he appeared in the murky water next to her. He scared her half to death for a split second before she recognized him and sharp relief washed through her.

He helped her with the wire, shoved her up even as he sank a little. She got hold of his arm, then kicked away toward the surface.