Winter Hawk

by Rachel Grant

  “Nah, this is a freebie. Sounds fun. It should take me…twenty minutes to get in place. Head into Alexandria. I’ll ping you when it’s time to get on GW Parkway.”

  Nate turned on the GPS screen in anticipation of seeing Josh Warner’s vehicle light up on the map. All Raptor vehicles were linked and could track each other, which would allow Josh to find Nate without the need for verbal directions.

  Over the headpiece, Josh informed Nate that Chase Johnston had asked to join the game. “Hope you don’t mind, Hawk,” Chase said, joining the now three-way call. “I’m going to ride shotgun for Josh.”

  “No problem. The more the merrier.”

  Once they were in place, Nate took the on-ramp to the parkway and drove direct to George Washington’s estate. They reached the parking area and found a spot in the overflow lot, which was only half full. He faced the woman in the backseat. “We can wait here or go inside. Warner and Johnston will get intel on whoever was following you.”

  She pulled on her coat, then plucked a piece of paper from the FedEx box on the seat next to her. “I’m early for the candlelight tour, but they’ll probably let me explore the museum and grounds.” She opened her door and dropped to the pavement.

  That was it? They’d been followed and she didn’t even give a damn?

  Did he give a damn?

  He could drive off right now and collect an easy grand for his brother. He didn’t even need to pass Go.

  But something about this didn’t sit right with him.

  He wrenched open his door and slipped out, catching her before she could walk away. “Wait. You left your box. And I don’t even know your name.”

  She smiled and leaned into him, pressing her hand to his chest where his coat was open. “You work for Raptor and haven’t tracked down my name yet?”

  “Sloppy. I know.”

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” Her voice was a husky whisper as she played with a button on his shirt.

  He placed a hand over her thick coat, on the small of her back, enjoying this game. She’d gone from attractive and stunning to blazing hot. “Nate. Nate Sifuentes.”

  “You aren’t even going to make me work for it?”

  “No. Are you?”

  “I think…yes.” She rose on her toes and brushed her lips over his. “Thanks for the ride, Nate Sifuentes.”

  His mind had blanked out at the feel of her in his arms, but the brush of her lips triggered a different reaction.

  She slipped from his arms as darkness gathered. The sun was getting ready to set, telling him he’d wasted more time than he’d planned in getting Josh and Chase on board.

  “You sure this is where you want to go?” he asked as she walked away. “My brother said you can have me for two hours.”

  She turned and walked backward. “Two whole hours? We could cover a lot of ground in that time.” Her gaze raked him from head to toe. “What’s the going rate for two hours with a mercenary?” She glanced at the paper in her hand. “But my ticket is for tonight only. Bummer.”

  She turned and swayed her hips as she walked into the shadows.

  Damn. Well, if nothing else, the job had been interesting. He turned to climb back in the vehicle, when he heard Chase’s voice in his headset. “Fifty bucks says she swiped his wallet.”

  “No way,” Josh said. “Nate’s a professional. He’d never be taken in by a woman like that.”

  Nate patted his pocket and felt the blood drain from his face.

  Motherfucker.

  3

  Leah kept her pace steady as she headed for the visitors’ entrance. Don’t look back. Don’t act nervous. She was ninety percent certain he wouldn’t cause a scene if she made it inside the building, and with her prepaid ticket, she could cut through the line and disappear onto the plantation grounds. He’d have to buy a ticket—without his wallet.

  She was almost home free.

  But damn, something about Nate Sifuentes revved her engine.

  Now she just had to hope he was the kind of guy who carried cash. Lots of it. Because she needed money to see her through the next few days. She gave thanks for office hijinks at tech companies that taught her the skill of lifting wallets. It had been two decades since she’d tried it, but apparently, it was like riding a bicycle—when you were desperate enough.

  She followed the path that cut through the trees and reached the brick sidewalk that fronted the restaurant. Escape was in sight.

  The roar of an engine made her stop in her tracks. She turned toward the sound, and headlights flared, blinding her.

  Before she could blink, a body slammed into her, pushing her away from the road, toward the trees. She slammed to the ground, landing on bricks with a heavy body on top of her. With her peripheral vision, she saw a blur of a car jump the curb and race along the brick walkway where she’d just been standing. Tires screeched as the car lurched back to the road, disappearing as it sped into the darkness.

  She turned her face back to the bricks, her cheek pressed against the cold hard clay, a man’s body pressed to hers in the gathering darkness as other pedestrians shouted and screamed.

  Her heart raced as she breathed in the scent of dirt and mortar and brick and burnt rubber.

  What the hell had just happened?

  From the shouts, she gathered that no one else had been in the path of the vehicle. She’d been alone on that stretch of sidewalk and had been saved by the shove that pushed her to the tree line.

  She nudged the man who protected her body with his own. The man who’d just saved her life. His weight shifted, and she turned to face him, panting, her heart racing, even though she’d exerted nothing.

  She met Nate Sifuentes’s gaze. Her heart squeezed at the look in his beautiful brown eyes. “Thank you.”

  “You going to tell me your name now?”

  “Leah. Leah Ellis.”

  “Maybe—and I’m just spitballing here—you’d have been better off if you worried more about the guy tailing us instead of stealing my wallet.”

  Her mind was a jumble of adrenaline and fear. He was right, of course, but who was to say Nate wasn’t working with the guy who’d tried to run her down? All she could do was nod.

  “You two okay?” a man asked from several feet away.

  She pushed at Nate’s chest.

  He shifted his weight and stood, then offered her a hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

  To the Good Samaritan, she said, “I think so. Just rattled.” She glanced around the sidewalk. The car was long gone. “What happened?”

  “It looked like some idiot ran the stop sign, then swerved to avoid an oncoming car,” the man said.

  An accident? Nothing but freakish timing? Did she really believe that?

  “Did you get the license plate?” Nate asked.

  “It all happened too fast,” the man said. He turned back to the restaurant. “Glad you’re okay. You should check with security. Maybe they have a camera and got the plate.”

  “Will do,” Nate said. “Thanks.”

  Alone again on the sidewalk, Nate turned to her. “We’ll report this, but first I want some answers. What are you involved in? Why were we followed?”

  “I don’t know.” She gazed at the road where the car had disappeared. She realized she still clutched her candlelight tour ticket in her hand and shoved it into the inside pocket of her coat, next to Nate’s wallet. The extra QR code printed on the ticket could be more valuable than she realized.

  “Why did you rob me, Leah?”

  She decided to give him the truth. “Because I’m scared. And I didn’t know if I could trust you.”

  His mouth flattened, but he didn’t argue her point. “Why?” he asked.

  She glanced down, unwilling to look at his face, not wanting to be swayed by his handsome features. Just because he was hot didn’t mean he was trustworthy. Instead, she inspected her skirt, noting a small split at the side seam. That was the problem with pencil skirts. No
room to run.

  She’d have worn jeans today if she’d known it was firing day. Instead, she’d dressed for the candlelight tour in an outfit that made her feel pretty and feminine and maybe a bit sexy. Because she never had plans. Never did anything for herself, and on this, the first night of Hanukkah, she wanted to feel like she was part of the world. To be a tourist, then go home and light the menorah and think about her mom and miraculous light that vanquished the darkness.

  Ten days from her New Year’s resolution to work less and enjoy life more and dammit, her life had imploded.

  “Why, Leah?” Nate repeated, his voice soft. Concerned. Forcing her to face the nightmare instead of focusing on the rip in her skirt.

  She met his gaze. “Why? You’re working for HH. I don’t know you. You’re a mercenary. And by your own admission, you proudly worked for a traitor.”

  He cocked his head at her and raised a brow. “What?”

  “Your boss is a bad, bad man.”

  “For the record, I work for Raptor, not HH. And Keith Hatcher might play favorites, but he’s a good man.”

  “I’m talking about Robert Beck. You said you worked for him.”

  “Years ago.”

  “Yeah. But still. You specifically mentioned him.”

  His eyes flattened. “He signed my paycheck. That’s all.”

  “Fine. But I still don’t know you.” She again looked toward where the car had sped away. “And I’m scared.”

  An SUV stopped in the roadway in front of them. “Sifuentes,” a man shouted, “Need a ride to your car?”

  Nate met her gaze. “That’s Josh. He’s on my team. Will you get in the car with us so we can figure out what’s going on?”

  She held his gaze. She had nowhere else to turn. She gave him a sharp nod. “But I keep your wallet. Until I feel safe.”

  The woman had ovaries, he’d give her that. He had the upper hand, but she was cutting deals. He figured he could handle losing forty bucks cash, and there was no avoiding Josh and Chase sharing the tale of how he’d let a woman pick his pocket using the oldest trick in the book.

  He wanted answers, so he agreed to her terms.

  They climbed into the back of the SUV. “Did you get the license plate?” he asked as they pulled away from the curb.

  “No. Too many cars between us, and the glimpses we got showed it was mud splattered. If you’d stayed in the overflow lot instead of walking out to the road, we might have been able to move closer.”

  Leah leaned back in the seat and glared at Josh’s back. She didn’t like his mild reprimand.

  “Why’d you bolt?” Chase asked her.

  She met Chase’s gaze, and her face softened. He had that effect on women. It was like they could sense how he’d suffered, and given his boyish face, they wanted to protect him.

  She dropped her gaze to her hands, which were on her lap, fingers intertwined. Knuckles white. “I was in a car with a complete stranger. I didn’t know if he was bullshitting about someone following us. For all I know, he made it up so he could bring you guys in and I’d blindly play along.”

  “Why would he do that?” Chase asked, a genuine question in his tone.

  She cocked her head. “Do you guys know what I do for a living?”

  “Up until an hour or so ago, you were a contractor at the Navy Yard,” Josh said as the SUV parked next to Nate’s vehicle. “Your official employer is HH, the toy drone company.”

  “I was writing code for military drones at the Navy Yard. That’s all I’m allowed to say—the contract is public knowledge—and with that information alone, there are reasons people might think it beneficial to kidnap me.”

  She met Chase’s gaze again. “The MPs confiscated my company phone, my company car, and the NSA is locking down my company-provided home. I have no money. No ID. No place to sleep, and no one to call in the DC area. I’m utterly vulnerable and shouldn’t even be telling you guys this because you could be kidnapping me right now.”

  “Holy shit,” Nate muttered. He’d had no idea. He forgave her for stealing his wallet.

  “You think that’s why you were given the boot?” Chase asked. “So someone could grab you when you’re vulnerable like this?”

  “The car that nearly ran her down wasn’t trying to abduct her,” Nate said. “It was trying to kill her.”

  “Or maybe just scare me.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “So I’d get in the car with you.” Her voice held alarm. In a flash, she yanked on the door handle and tumbled out of the SUV. She hit the ground running, heading toward the lights and people in the main lot.

  Nate scrambled across the seat and followed through the open door. He couldn’t let her take off like this, and not because she had his wallet. She needed help.

  She couldn’t run in the pencil skirt, and he caught her easily. She fought him, shoving at his arms and trying to scratch him. He trapped her by wrapping his arms around her, imprisoning her in an embrace that wouldn’t hurt her or allow her to hurt him. But he felt like an ass for doing it when she was so clearly panicked.

  “Shhhh,” he whispered, as if he were calming a feral cat. Not that any feral cat was ever calmed by being shushed. But he didn’t know what else to do. To say.

  Josh and Chase had wisely stayed in the car. Thank God. If all three of them had come after her, he had no doubt she’d be even more terrified.

  “I won’t hurt you, Leah,” he whispered. “I’m not after you. I have no loyalty to HH. I am, however, loyal to my country—I served for twelve years in the Army and was a Green Beret—but I know that if the US military thought you were stealing secrets, you’d be in a cell right now, not at Mt. Vernon. So I’m going to trust you and want to help you. Can you trust me?”

  She stopped struggling and met his gaze. Her eyes still held a hint of a feral gleam, but she was calmer. “I don’t know.”

  “What if I let you drive the SUV? Would you feel better then?” Jesus, he could get fired for letting her drive the company car, but right now, he didn’t care.

  “Where would we go?” she asked.

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I…have money. In the bank, I mean. Lots of it. I just can’t access my money until my bank opens tomorrow. And even then, I might not be able to make a withdrawal without ID, but I could transfer money to you online if you let me use your phone. I’ll pay you double your expenses.” She tucked her head against his chest. “This sounds like a con—but it’s not.”

  “I know. And you don’t need to pay me to help you. I’m not doing this for the money.”

  She pushed at his chest. “If not for the money, why did you pick me up? Does Raptor want me for something? I’m not a hacker—white hat or otherwise. I won’t be anyone’s pawn.”

  “No! I didn’t mean it that way. Initially, yeah, picking you up was for the money. My brother is getting a cool grand for what’s supposed to be an hour or two of work. But this, now, helping you—I don’t care about money.”

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  “Because I see a scared woman in a desperate situation. No phone, no money, no home, no car? What kind of asshole does that? And to do it when the weather is freezing, on a Sunday, right before the holidays. It’s just wrong.” He loosened his hold, resisting the urge to cup her cheek, because she’d probably take it the wrong way given his next words. “Where did you plan to sleep tonight?”

  She shrugged. “No clue.”

  “I can’t take you home with me. I live in the Raptor compound, and while they’re lenient on a lot of things, bringing a person with your kind of computer skills—after you’ve been fired by the DoD—into the compound would be seen as a huge security risk. I’m already not employee of the month, so I’d be fired in a heartbeat. But I can get you a hotel room for the night.”

  “Thank you. I’ll pay you back.” Her features were visible in the glow of the streetlamp. The hard edges remained and he could still feel the tension in her body as he held her, but the slig
htly haunted look had disappeared.

  She smiled. It wasn’t a particularly warm or friendly smile, but it was her smile, the one she’d given him before vowing revenge and climbing into his SUV. She was in control again, and as before, something stirred in his chest. He nodded toward his SUV. “Let’s go.”

  “You’ll let me drive?” she asked as she approached the driver’s side.

  “As long as you tell me where we’re going.”

  She climbed in. He circled to the passenger seat and tapped his headphone and told Josh and Chase the plan. “Follow, but hang back, watch our six.”

  “You got it. Where we headed?”

  He looked at Leah. “Where are we going?”

  “I want to drive by the townhouse. See if the NSA is there. Maybe someone will give me my wallet.”

  “That could mean picking up a tail again. The last one tried to run you down.”

  “Then we won’t drive directly to the townhouse. There’s a playground a few blocks away. I’ll park there.” She hit the power button on the dash and the engine came on. “Should I drive straight to the playground?”

  “Might as well. No point in wasting time. Where is the townhouse?”

  “In Arlington.”

  Nate relayed the address she provided to Josh and they set out. The drive would take at least twenty-five minutes. He used the time to study Leah, while also keeping an eye out for a tail.

  “You’re staring at me,” she said.

  “You’re nice to look at.”

  She rolled her eyes even as she smiled and kept her gaze on the road ahead. “I don’t for a second believe that’s why you’re watching me.”

  “Sweetheart, you stole my wallet with the faintest of kisses. I think you know your appeal.”

  “That was kind of fun.”

  He laughed. “Only kind of?”

  She grinned. “Fine. My heart was beating so fast, it was a wild rush.”

  “That’s more like it. You know what else is a wild rush?”

  She snorted, and he let out a sharp laugh. She was relaxing, and that was his goal. He wasn’t fishing for compliments.

  Not really.