by Nicole Helm
He picked the lock in under ten seconds and was shoving open the gate.
“How—”
“Oh, and there are two operatives who are going to stay at your farm and take care of your animals, so you don’t have to worry about whoever you were going to call to help on that score.”
He was walking into the storage area, and she was rooted to the same spot. “How did you...”
“Come on now. No time to dawdle. We have to be out of here in five minutes or the cameras will come back on.”
She looked up at the security camera. She supposed there’d be plenty of time to ask him how he’d done any of it.
She had to remember she was dealing with a man like her parents. He had contacts and access to all sorts of things she’d never understand. She might be able to hold her own, but he could flip the game. She wouldn’t be able to beat him, but she could keep up. If she kept herself ready to take whatever change, whatever surprise came her way.
So, she led him to her parents’ car. Before she could open the driver’s side door, he did. She scowled at him. “I’m driving. You don’t know where you’re going.”
“Do you?” he countered, holding his hand out, presumably for the keys.
She wanted to drive. She wanted to stay in control. She wanted to run this and have him follow her around and step in only when necessary.
Of course it wouldn’t happen like that. She was the tagalong, help-only-when-necessary part of this partnership. It grated, but for now, she’d just have to swallow her pride a little bit.
It was for her parents. She would do anything to make sure they were safe. Even hand him the keys and then walk around to slide into the passenger seat.
He started the engine immediately and was driving through the rows of RVs and boats to the gate.
She didn’t need to be told to get out and lock it back up behind them when he paused outside the facility. Ideally, no one would ever know they’d been here.
Ideally.
“Are you sure you can get a replacement in? We want to be as under the radar as we can possibly be. If the car is flagged as stolen...”
“I’m sure,” Holden said simply. “Now, which way?”
“Head east for right now. Just stay on this road.”
“We’re going to need to stop and get some gas.”
“There’s a station about ten miles along this road. Just get going.”
He did so, and Willa had to decide if she’d pull out the papers here in the car, or in the bathroom at the gas station.
She’d asked him to trust her. She’d said they had to trust each other. Even while she’d been keeping secrets. Secrets he’d seen through.
She studied his profile as he drove. He was classically handsome. All square jaw and high cheekbones. The stubble that had grown in overnight gave him a rough edge, even with the slight cleft in his chin, but his eyes were so blue he somehow still looked...very close to regal. She could picture him in a suit, or something equally elegant. As easily as she could picture him in jeans and a T-shirt enjoying a drink in a bar.
He was a man who could slide into surroundings and have pretty much anyone eating out of the palm of his hand.
Including you.
She didn’t like that feeling, even being sure just about anyone would fall for it. But she was hardly anyone. She was the daughter of spies.
Spies who needed her help.
She was torn between what they’d want her to do and what she wanted to do. But hadn’t she learned a long time ago she wasn’t them? Couldn’t be them. So, she had to be herself. Trust herself. And against her will, she trusted Holden Parker of some secretive group.
She’d saved his life. He’d attempted to save hers. They had to do this hand in hand, and she couldn’t expect his hand if she didn’t put hers in his.
She dug the papers out of her pocket and spread them over her lap.
“It’s in code.”
She hadn’t even noticed him glance her way, but she was used to that kind of unnoticed split focus. “Of course it’s in code.”
“Do you know how to break it?”
Now she spared him a killing glance. She could stand him underestimating her, but honestly.
“Okay, okay, you can break it,” he muttered, eyes back on the road. “How long?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes. Just keep driving. Stop at the gas station when we get to it. We’ll go from there.”
* * *
HOLDEN DROVE, ONE eye on the road, the other on Willa. She focused on the paper in front of her, and whatever decoding she did was in her head. She was wilting, though, exhaustion beginning to stamp itself across her face.
She’d need a nap once she could tell him where they were going. He opened his mouth to ask her how close she was, then closed it. He had a feeling she’d get that flinty, offended look again, and he...
Well, he wasn’t sure why that affected him, but it did. He didn’t like it. Irritated he was changing the way he did things, demanded things, because of her feelings, he focused fully on the road in front of him. Everything around them was flat, and he could see the gas station sign in the distance.
Summer sunlight shimmered across the concrete and the fields on either side. It was pretty country, he had to admit. Prettier still if you were looking for a kind of peace. He wasn’t, of course, but he understood why Willa would be searching for some.
“Why Nebraska?” he found himself asking, when he should be quiet and let her work.
She lifted her head from the paper, squinted into the sunny morning. “Well, my choices were limited to an extent. It had to be somewhere small, out of the way. A place people wouldn’t happen upon.”
“I’m not saying Nebraska doesn’t make sense for that, but so do a lot of states.”
She slid a glance his way, as if considering to tell him something important. “I know you said your parents are...passed, but you knew them. You knew who you were and where you came from?”
He wanted to evade that question, but it wasn’t fair when he’d asked a personal one of his own. “My parents weren’t close to theirs.”
“But you know who they were. You knew if your ancestors were immigrants or Revolutionary War heroes or what have you.”
Holden didn’t. Not because he hadn’t been able to, just because it hadn’t been a topic they’d discussed. Holden’s parents had moved away from their own parents, and the contact had been limited and tense. He’d never wondered about history. He’d only been concerned with his mother living.
Then she hadn’t.
“I wasn’t allowed to know,” Willa was saying. “I’m not supposed to know. The names my parents use aren’t the names they were given by theirs.”
Holden’s eyebrows raised. “That sounds like you know.”
“I figured it out. When I still thought I might follow in their footsteps and be a spy. I was about twelve, and we’d settled in a place in Indiana where I went to middle school for seventh and eighth grade. My classmates were doing projects about their grandparents. I had nothing. So I set out to find something.”
“Without your parents knowing?”
Willa nodded. “Sometimes I have to wonder, because of what they do and who they are, if they let me find out what I wanted to know. If it was...a cookie crumb of sorts. Regardless, I found it. I traced my ancestors as best I could. Civil War heroes and revolutionaries. You name it, they did it, and then for some reason, in the 1870s, they moved from Maine to Nebraska. Became farmers and lived quiet lives. My grandfather didn’t even fight in World War II. I could never find out why they moved, why they changed. Maybe even if my father hadn’t cut ties with his family for whatever reasons he did, I’d know. Or maybe I wouldn’t. But I found a place not too far from where they settled and started to farm.”
Holden tried to absorb all that and
file it away as information about her, and her parents. No feeling. Just facts.
But it painted such a...picture. A young woman who wanted roots.
He’d lost all contact with his sisters and brothers. First because of the state, and then because he’d been labeled bad because of his connections to the Sons. He’d lost due to fate, and then he’d lost due to his own dumb decisions.
He thought about Sabrina, and a few other people he’d stumbled upon and brought into the North Star fold. Because they’d reminded him of himself.
Because they’d felt like a way to make up for his past mistakes.
Willa wasn’t trying to do that, but it had a similar impetus behind it. Reaching out for connection. For some tie...since they couldn’t have ties of their own.
Willa rubbed her eyes. “This code is particularly difficult. I guess it makes sense. It’d have to be a real emergency for me to want to pound my head against this.” She yawned and looked out at the upcoming gas station. “Coffee. I definitely need some coffee. But we’ll keep heading east until I can figure this out.”
“You’re tired.”
“I’ll muddle through.” She shrugged as they pulled into the gas station. “Gotta figure this out before we rest.”
He stopped in front of a gas pump. She studied him and frowned. “You need a hat to cover up that bandage. People will remember that. Some people might even ask questions. You want to blend in.”
She was right about that. He had a lot of things in his pack, but he didn’t think he had a hat.
She reached into the back seat and picked up a hat with a mesh back that read Haines Feed Store.
She plopped it on his head, gently pulling it down and over the bandage. She studied him with serious green eyes. “There.” Her mouth curved. “You almost fit in.”
“Almost?”
“I’m not sure you could ever look like a farmer, Holden. But the hat helps you look less...lethal.” She patted his shoulder and moved to get out of the car, but she was holding on to that piece of paper with the code.
He narrowed his eyes, grabbing her arm before she could slide out. When she looked back at him, frowning, he refused to let himself feel guilty about being suspicious.
“You can’t run,” he said sternly.
She met his gaze, all open innocence. “I’m not going to run.” She dropped the piece of paper in the console between them as if it hadn’t been her plan to take it with her in the first place. Then she got out of the car and walked into the convenience store.
He believed her, though he probably shouldn’t.
But that didn’t mean he trusted her yet.
Chapter Twelve
Willa couldn’t stop yawning. There was a sign on the door about not using the bathroom without buying something, so she stared at the cooler full of caffeinated drinks. She wanted coffee, but the gas station fare left a lot to be desired, so she’d have to settle for a soft drink.
If she could engage her mind enough to pick one.
She had to stay awake long enough to crack the code. She was usually really adept at it, but this one was tough. Or she was that tired.
Or she was that afraid, knowing her parents had purposefully made it a challenge because they didn’t want her coming after them half-cocked. Maybe they’d made it impossible. Maybe it was a lie.
She wanted to lean her forehead against the cool glass and have a good cry. And then sleep for twelve hours straight. At least. Then she wanted to wake up and have this all be a dream.
The door she’d been all but leaning against opened, and she had to step back. Holden pulled out a variety of soft drink bottles. “There. That should do it. Come on. You’re dead on your feet.”
She wanted to argue with him, but of course he was right. “How come you aren’t?”
“Practice,” he returned simply.
She wanted to grumble and pout, but they got up to the checkout counter and she forced a polite smile at the cashier.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
The woman eyed her then pulled out a big pipe from underneath the counter. A tiny key dangled off it. “Round back,” she said with a smoker’s rasp as she began to ring up Holden’s purchases.
Willa took the ridiculous “key fob” and walked out of the gas station. It was mostly empty. There was an old man in overalls—no shirt—walking his dog down the scraggly sidewalk in front of the gas station, but that was it. No cars drove by.
Willa let out a breath and tried to roll away some of the tension in her shoulders. No one was following them. She just had to figure out the code and they could get to her parents. If they didn’t stop anymore, surely she could get to them before they were hurt.
This wasn’t about killing. Whoever had shot at them hadn’t killed her, and if they wanted her it was to threaten her parents. To get something out of them.
She rounded the corner of the station to the back. There were two cars parked here. She’d only seen one worker in the gas station, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t been in the back. Both cars were unremarkable, aging sedans that fit the means of the workers.
Willa studied the two doors on the back side of the building—rusting and sun worn—the signs between men and women so faded she could barely make them out. Still, she’d spent enough time on the road to know that she wanted the women’s bathroom—they were cleaner. Always.
Of course, cleaner didn’t mean clean. Willa wrinkled her nose as she stepped inside the dark, dank bathroom. There was one lone lightbulb to flick on—no windows to let in the sunlight.
The floor was sticky, the sink rusted, the soap dispenser empty. On a sigh, she did what she had to do and then attempted to wash her hands the best she could. She hoped she could get a shower soon. Maybe scrub herself with bleach.
On another yawn, she grabbed the pipe and opened the door back into the bright day. She squinted against the sun before stepping forward.
The blast of pain was so sudden, so fierce she stumbled back. Which gave her a second to gather her wits before the man stepped in the doorway of the bathroom. She hadn’t dropped the pipe, so she used it.
She didn’t know what he’d done to her head. Punched her or hit her with something, but she knew if he got her in here and closed the door, she would be in some serious trouble. She was having trouble seeing with it being so bright outside and so dark in the small bathroom, so she could only swing the pipe wildly and try to use it as the worst weapon she could muster as she pressed forward.
She would not be pushed back into this bathroom. She would not go down that easily. She could fight. She wouldn’t panic. The circumstances weren’t comfortable, but self-protecting wasn’t supposed to be. If she could just get him out into the sunlight, her eyes could adjust and she’d stop feeling like she was fighting blind.
She pushed. She whacked the pipe against the man. He grunted but got one meaty, sweaty hand wrapped around her arm and jerked her backward. She slid a bit, but immediately charged. No, no, she would not be stuck in this gross room to die.
She pushed. She hit. At one point, she bit. That had the man howling out in shocked pain, and it gave her the chance to push past him and out into the bright light of day. She knew he’d followed, was on her heels. But she was at least free from the horrible-smelling room.
Now she could really fight.
Finally.
“Now you’re going to regret it.” Something hot and sticky dripped into her eye, but she blinked it away and held her fists up. She realized then he had a gun strapped to his hip. But he wasn’t using it.
He wanted her alive. It was both relief and irritation. Oh, he was sure as hell not getting her alive.
She advanced. Her first kick wasn’t meant to hurt, but to knock the gun off the holster on his side. It didn’t work, but it had him thinking about the gun. He grappled for it, and as he
did she slammed a fist into his face as hard as she could.
The gun toppled to the ground as he brought his hands up to his face. Clearly, he didn’t think she could fight. He hadn’t anticipated this. They never did.
So, she didn’t let up. She punched, she kicked, she shoved, until he was back in the bathroom and she was outside. She slammed the door shut as he tried to reach out and stop her. The scream of pain echoed across the quiet morning, though it was muffled almost immediately as she managed this time to get the door completely shut. She shoved the pipe into the handle of the door so that he wouldn’t be able to push out. “You messed with the wrong spy’s daughter,” she muttered, leaning against the door as she tried to catch her breath and fight off the dizziness stealing over her.
She flipped around and leaned her back against the door. She needed to get away from here, but her energy seemed to drain from her body all at once.
Holden skidded around the corner, gun drawn and murder in his gaze. She might have been afraid if her head didn’t hurt so much. “About time,” she muttered.
Something flickered in his gaze, but then it was gone. “You’re bleeding,” he said flatly.
“Yeah, you should see the other guy.” She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d last on her own two feet, so she didn’t reach up and touch the spot on her head that hurt like hell. That would likely send her into a full-fledged faint, and she wasn’t going to do that in front of Holden.
“He’s in the bathroom,” she managed, breathing through the weird haze around her vision.
“Move aside,” he said in that same cold, flat tone of voice.
She moved out of his way, didn’t even think about questioning him. She was too busy trying to remain upright.
* * *
THERE WAS RAGE. There was guilt. So many familiar feelings piling up in his chest, but at the center was something worse.
Fear.
There was a trickle of blood down Willa’s face, and she was pale. If he had to guess, she was barely managing not to pass out.