The Omega Team: Keeping Karen (Kindle Worlds Novella) (3 page)

“Really?” Too busy enjoying the change in her demeanor to argue, he reached over to rest a hand on her bent knee. “Is predictable good or bad?”

“It’s Ethan.” She glided her hand over his. “Right now it’s great.”

“Only right now?” He didn’t want to just be her convenience.

“Don’t be offended,” she said, rubbing the back of his hand. Every electric contact of her skin on his sent pulses to race through his system. “You’re Ethan. You’re the guy who never let me down.”

The words eased the fist in his gut.

“You’re the guy who always knew what to say and what to do. I had no idea you were going to walk into that room today and I don’t even know how to tell you how happy I am it was you.” She blew out a breath and rested her head back against the seat. “My whole world has gone upside down. I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought I was going to help someone.”

The need to comfort her overrode everything else. The past didn’t matter. His wounded pride didn’t matter. Only Karen. “You helped several someones.” He gave her knee a squeeze. “If all of your data shuts down the assassins and the people they are working for, you may have helped so many more.”

“I hope so…and I got to see you again.”

“Get.”

“What?”

“You said got as in past tense. You’re going to be seeing a lot of me until this is over.”

Nothing, then she let her leg lower as she straightened in the seat. Despite the change of position, she didn’t release his hand. He tried not to make it mean more than it did. “What about after?”

“One day at a time, darlin’…one day at a time.” He couldn’t think about after. Not yet. Not when he was already halfway in love with her all over again.
Admit it, dumbass, you’ve never not loved her.

E
than only made
a handful of stops along the way. He filled the gas tank once, another to pick up some fast food to eat and later when she’d needed a bathroom break. He paid with cash at the first two stops, and insisted they wait till they got to a rest area on an isolated area before he let her out of the car. As it was, he walked her to the bathroom and glanced inside, then held the door open while she was in there.

Yeah, that wasn’t embarrassing at all.
Hey, Ethan. Long time no see. Just stand there and listen to me pee.
Somehow, she managed but only by closing her eyes and counting to a hundred as she tried to forget he was out there. Fortunately, he said nothing when she came out or when she washed her hands. If he used the restroom, he didn’t say and she decided against asking.

Day gave way to night as he continued on the route. She’d imagined the drive wouldn’t take so long, but Ethan didn’t follow a direct route and he seemed to navigate onto and off highways, choosing instead longer stretches of back country roads where they encountered traffic lights here and there.

Despite her best attempts, she nodded off somewhere in Georgia. At least she thought it was Georgia. At some point, he stopped the car and told her to stay put. She had a jacket over her, and it smelled like him. Burrowing into it, she squinted at the light outside. They were at another gas station. Ethan disappeared into the building then returned.

Luthor let out the most pathetic little sound that was more ‘ow’ than ‘meow’ and she twisted to look back at him. Two minutes later, Ethan opened the back door and then nudged open the door to the carrier. He slid in a can of food and a small dish of water.

“Poor guy’s been stuck in here all day and he hasn’t made a mess yet but I figured he was hungry.” To her shock, Luthor let Ethan run a hand over his head and released a rumbling purr. He clicked the door shut again, then glanced at her. “Do you need anything to drink?”

They were at a gas station of some kind. “Water would be nice.”

“Okay, stay here.” He shut the door and the locks engaged. He put gas in the tank then he walked back inside. When he returned, he had a litter box, a small bag of litter, and some bottles of water. He put the first bits in the back, then finished up with refueling the car before sliding into the driver’s seat. Half-expecting him to be exhausted, she found his lack of coffee surprising. “Water.” The bottle was ice cold, and she twisted it open to gulp it down.

“Thank you. Where are we?”

“Almost to the house.” He started the engine, and they were on their way before she could really register the little shop. Her eyes were gritty and her mouth tasted off. Even her back ached.

“How long have we been on the road?” Maybe she should have offered to drive. Though, after seeing her car go up in a flaming pile of rubble and smoke, she wasn’t sure she’d ever willingly get behind the wheel again.

“Long enough.”

Okay, so he wanted to keep it vague.

“You do know I’m not trying to kill myself, right?” She rubbed at the corner of her eye. At least she’d never been one to wear a lot of makeup. If she had indulged in cosmetics, she’d likely have wiped it all away by now.

“Karen.” Patience stretched out the two syllables of her name. “Trust me?”

“I do trust you.” Surprisingly, it wasn’t a lie. Ethan never let her down. He had always been that guy, even when they were in school. If he said he would do something, he did it. If someone was being bullied, he stood up for them. If someone needed help? He’d always been the first guy to offer. “I’m not used to not being in charge of my own fate.”

“We’re about thirty minutes from the house.” So they were in Florida.
Good to know
. “It’s an isolated place, no close neighbors…”

“Can we see the beach?” She didn’t count rock and shell shores as real beaches. “Sand and water and everything?”

“Yes, sand and water and everything.” Was that a hint of a chuckle beneath his words? “I didn’t know you liked the beach.”

“I don’t know if I do.” Confession time. “I’ve never been.”

“Didn’t your mom take you to Galveston?”

“Not a real beach. It was rocky and cold…and we couldn’t really swim. Hurricane in the Gulf that year.” Overall, it had been a disappointing trip, not that she and her mother hadn’t managed to have fun. “You know, Mom couldn’t afford to take a lot of time off. She’d wanted us to have a real girl’s weekend, five days on the beach…and I think it rained all of them.”

“What did you two do?” Despite the question, she knew he remembered. Still, it let her think about something other than people trying to kill her.

“Rented movies, read books, and did our hair…it was kind of fun. Like a slumber party at a hotel. Since it kept raining, we splurged on room service a couple of times.” Coiling a lock of hair around her finger, she stared out into the darkness.

The interior of the car smelled like Luthor’s cat food, but he was eating and she heard the tiny laps of him drinking, too. She was a terrible pet owner. She should have considered how long he’d been stuck in the cat carrier. “Someday, I’m going to take my mom to a real beach vacation…”

“She doesn’t have real beaches in California?”

“She does, but we haven’t taken a vacation to one. You know how it is… You live near D.C., but how often do you visit the sites there?” She’d lived in Northern Virginia for close on three years, and she never went into the city no matter how often she considered the idea.

“I work in and around the city, so I see them often enough.” He didn’t add any real details though. The silence stretched out between them, and she took another long drink of water. It helped to moisten her dry mouth. What she really needed was a gallon of coffee and some program to unravel. Both would let her think about other things. She wanted to ask him other things. What was his place like? Was he seeing anyone? Why the marshals?

None of which is my business.
It didn’t stop her from being curious. Over the years, she’d considered searching for him. Usually really late at night, when she couldn’t sleep or was so tired she couldn’t hold the past at bay. Nearly everyone had some kind of social media page. Yet, the closest she’d come was typing his name into a search field.
Not entirely true…
She scoured any death reports for military personnel. Had on and off for years, holding her breath until the latest names released didn’t turn out to be him.

“When did you move to the area?” The question pulled her from her inner musings, and she studied his profile. In the low light from the dashboard, the shadows gave him a mysterious edge.

“Three years ago, when I went freelance full time.” She sucked on her upper lip. How much was too much to share? “I’d done some work in Silicon Valley, but I wasn’t a fan of how corporate the company I worked for went. Tried Austin for a bit.” Too close to home, and he wasn’t there. “Then I took a chance on working contracts. They gave me more freedom and I’ve always loved the cherry blossoms and seasons.”

“Texas has seasons.” Humor punctuated his statement.

“Yes, hot and dead.”

He chuckled. “True. Do you like snow?”

“I’m not going to marry it, but I love how clean it makes everything look right after a storm.” Then, because it was Ethan, she grinned. “Not a fan of shoveling my car out or having to defrost the doors. Autumn is my favorite though—well, autumn and spring. There are so many colors.”

“It was the shades of green for me.” The confession offered her a lifeline. “Deep greens. Bright greens. The shades in between. I didn’t know grass could stay that color all the way through summer.”

“Yellow is not a grass shade anywhere but home.” Then, because he’d offered, she asked, “Do you have to do a lot of work to keep your place up? I mean if you travel.” Did he travel? What did he do exactly?

“I pay a couple of local kids to mow during the summer when I can’t. Beyond that, no, not a lot of maintenance to do.” So, he did have a house of some kind.

“I think that’s why I like my apartment. They do all the sprucing outside and change out the flowers. The landscapers are always doing something pretty.”

“You still kill plants, don’t you?” The drawback of knowing someone so well was they remembered crap like that.

“I don’t kill them.” She tucked the water bottle into the cup holder and folded her arms. “I just…don’t speak green really well.”

“You never met a plant you couldn’t kill.” The teasing note in his voice turned the calendar back. How many times had he driven her home from school? He’d gotten his license early. How many games had they gone to? How many quick trips to the mall?

“I kept a cactus alive.”

“Deserts don’t kill cacti.” Nope, he didn’t let her get away with that. “Remember when you wanted to buy the ivy from the fundraiser?”

The memory flashed through her mind with alacrity. They’d gone to the fair, and afterward they stopped at the 4H tent to see the animals. She loved to pet them. Her mom had never let her have pets growing up—too much work and she wanted to make sure Karen could eat. Sometimes that was a trade off. They’d even had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for months as their only meal. To the current day, she didn’t like peanut butter for that reason.

“I remember.” She gritted the words out between her teeth. His laughter caught her off guard. Deep, masculine and very baritone. It began in his chest and rumbled out to fill the vehicle. She had to grip her hands into fists to keep from reaching out to touch him and enjoy the visceral nature of his amusement. “You told them they owed you one.”

He laughed harder. “Well you spent twenty minutes trying to talk yourself into buying one.”

And he’d talked her out of it, pointing out little things about each plant until she’d agreed, none of them were what she wanted. As they walked away, he’d taken her hand and glanced back at the plants while saying, “You’re welcome guys. You get to live another day.”

“I still don’t have any plants.” She hadn’t meant to confess it, but he tapped his hand against the wheel and laughed harder. After a minute, she relented trying to feign annoyance and giggled. “But I do have a cat.”

“Yes,” Ethan agreed, giving her an enigmatic look. “You do.”

T
he house
in Destin had begun as an investment, but after a couple of weeks spent there on renovations, Ethan hadn’t been able to part with the property. It became his escape hatch. Long weekends, vacation days, or whenever he could—he went south. It sat on a little sliver of private land. Resorts located east and west of him maintained their private beaches but never invaded his space. It was well past one in the morning when he pulled the car through the gated drive.

He used the security app on his phone to access the house’s alarms. It took fifteen minutes to unload his guests into the house via the secure garage. Though the house wasn’t visible from the road, he wanted to take no chances. Not even the deputy director knew where he was taking Karen. Compartmentalizing the information reduced the chance for leaks. Procedure called for at least one other marshal to be on the assignment to spell him should he need a break. Unwilling to entrust her safety to anyone else, he’d declined to pick another marshal.

Chances were, by morning his boss would find out, but he’d already deactivated the GPS on his work phone. The private line wasn’t listed in his name, and he’d picked up a couple of burners at one of his stops. He’d given the number to Grey and the Omega Team only. They were investigating the attempts on Karen’s life and trying to track her would-be assassins.

Karen paced the living room as he set up the cat box in the downstairs bathroom. The house had three bedrooms, living room, kitchen, laundry room and a dining room he’d converted into an office. A veranda surrounded the ground floor while the second had a balcony running along the length of the house facing the ocean. Karen twisted her hair back into a ponytail then tied it away from her face.

The furniture was all rustic restores he’d picked up at flea markets and half-price shops. If he liked it, he brought it home and sanded it. He’d worked on every piece in the cottage—except the beds. The master bedroom set he’d purchased for comfort and the guest bedrooms were sets designed to fit the cottage chic or so his mother told him when she selected them.

His parents hadn’t visited the house in Destin, though his mom knew he had a project there. Like most people, she thought he’d bought it, rehabbed it and sold it. Keeping it had not been a fact he shared—not with anyone. He stored some the supplies away and checked the fridge. He had a service which came by to stock it when he called ahead—a call he’d made the previous afternoon when he’d decided to bring Karen here.

Fresh vegetables, milk, and juice were in the fridge with meats and more as well as some easy to heat meals in the freezer. “Do you want some coffee?” They should probably get some sleep, but he needed to stretch. Normally, he’d go for a run on the beach, but he wouldn’t leave Karen unattended.

“I should say no,” she answered, trailing into the kitchen. “But I’d kill for a cup and a shower.” Nose wrinkled, she plucked at her shirt. “And clean clothes.”

“There’s stuff upstairs in the bathrooms. Help yourself.” He swung around the island and grabbed his duffel. “I need to get you some clothes, but you can borrow anything of mine that will fit.”

She didn’t reply immediately, and he glanced over to find her staring at him, the corner of her mouth twitching.

“What?”

“Nothing.” It was a lie, but she looked so amused he didn’t press her.

“Uh huh.” He led the way towards the stairs.

“This is a really nice house.” She slowed on the steps. “It seems almost too nice for a safe house.”

“Hmmm.” Keeping it noncommittal seemed like a good plan. It was his house. Having Karen there filled it with an entirely different vibe. One, he’d never realized it had been missing. At the top of the stairs, he diverted toward the master suite. He’d already decided Karen would take that room. The glass windows overlooked the ocean, but he had steel shutters and bulletproof glass. Overkill, but after years in the service and years of shielding witnesses, he liked being able to sleep knowing he wasn’t one long rifle away from a dirt nap.