by Rachel Grant
The demos he’d seen of the AI was amazing, and he wondered if Leah was the brains behind the programming. If so, it wasn’t surprising the military had wanted to test the technology. Drones that worked seamlessly in tandem, sharing data and navigating with minimal human interface, could be a wartime game changer.
The drones had been for sale for about a month now, but only a few had come out to play—making friends and appearing in Facebook and Instagram videos. The vast majority were hidden in closets, under beds, or already wrapped and under the tree. Whether the drone was already out and making peace with the neighbors or would be opened on Christmas Day, the company had found a way to keep the excitement going.
Nate grabbed his phone and opened the HH website to scan the list of parks where there would be a friendship festival at noon Pacific, three o’clock Eastern time on Christmas Day. If the turnout was anything close to what was expected, it would live up to its billing as the world’s largest aeronautical show.
The whole thing was fueled by kids who’d begged their parents for an HH Peacemaker drone so they could show up at a park and watch it perform in the show. Sure, kids without drones could watch, but wouldn’t it be more fun if they were participants?
If the Christmas Day events were successful, other drone Peace Gatherings would be scheduled, but in the meantime, given the massive sales, any time a kid showed up at the park with a drone, there was a good chance it would find a friend and make peace with the neighbors.
It was brilliant marketing, but also a little weird in that the kids wouldn’t actually fly the drones in the Christmas Day show. The drones would fly themselves.
And Nate had to admit, he’d kind of like to see a hundred drones perform a spontaneous, synchronized dance. Apparently, the dance of the drones would be determined by the number of drones at the event, and releasing a new one partway through the routine would have a kaleidoscope effect, making the choreography shift and mirror and change the dance.
Was the woman he’d just made love to the brains behind the drone AI?
He should maybe feel intimidated at that thought, but mostly he was turned on. Literally, considering his cock was thickening as he remembered her body, how she’d responded to his touch. How she’d screamed her release, unable to contain her reaction to the power of the orgasm he’d given her.
Hands down the best sex of his life. And, he hoped, they were just getting started.
Leah woke with a start and checked the clock. Five a.m. Nate lay sleeping in the bed beside her. She had a fuzzy memory of him crawling into bed sometime in the dead of night, but maybe she’d imagined it.
The room was pitch-dark, but she could feel him next to her, hear his breathing, and wanted to savor this quiet hour with the man who’d started off as a driver but somehow become her rescuer and protector. Was this thing between them real or nothing more than timing and lust?
She liked him for real. She wanted this to be something. Even suspected he felt the same way. It was crazy. They hadn’t even known each other twenty-four hours yet.
But she trusted her instincts. She was forty-three years old and single. She knew the game. She knew who was worth one night, who was worth dating, and when to bolt before the appetizers were delivered.
Nate Sifuentes was an order-dessert-and-take-him-home-and-eat-it-off-his-chest sort of guy.
Right now, she wanted to curl up against him and go back to sleep, but her subconscious had yanked her awake, demanding she start looking for reasons she’d been fired.
She slipped from the bed, moving carefully so as not to disturb Nate, and grabbed the Target bag from the floor. She’d slept in the nude and hadn’t taken time to unpack last night.
In the living room, she sorted through the clothes and yanked off tags, then donned underwear, yoga pants, and a sweatshirt. She then dug through the bag and found one of the three prepaid phones they’d purchased along with cards to load up on data. They hadn’t been sure which provider would have the best coverage in the area, so Nate had bought them all. Odds were coverage would still be lousy this close to Shenandoah, but at least they had slow Wi-Fi to work with.
She plugged in the phone and powered it on, entering the code from a data refill card. It took several minutes, but finally she had internet and went straight to a DC-area news site and looked for reports of a house fire in Arlington.
The story topped the headlines. Her stomach dropped at reading the lede. A woman of unknown age and identity had been found in the burned wreckage of the HH townhouse.
6
Nate woke to the sound of the car alarm. Not the loud kind that indicated someone had walked too close to a vehicle and annoyed everyone in a five-block radius. No, this was the alarm on his phone that let him know someone—who definitely wasn’t him—was trying to drive his Raptor SUV without permission.
Bless Raptor and the company’s ever-present paranoia that had them commission prox keys with thumbprint authorization. Leah hadn’t seen him press his thumb to the back of the key last night when she drove, because the key had been in his pocket.
He slid from the bed and pulled sweatpants on over his boxer briefs and jammed his phone into a pocket, then crossed to the front door. He stepped onto the porch, barefoot and shirtless on the cold morning.
The soft light of predawn painted the snow in shades of dark gray. The sky had clouded over and threatened to snow. Cold wind ripped at his skin, but he barely noticed as he crossed his arms and stared at the woman he’d made love to just hours ago. She was behind the wheel of the SUV, desperately trying to put the engine in Drive so she could strand him on a mountain twenty miles from nowhere.
Leah pounded on the dashboard in a panic. Why wouldn’t the damn car move? She needed to get the hell away from here. Away from Nate. Before her nightmare became his.
She looked at the dash. The engine was on but wouldn’t shift into Drive, no matter how many times she moved the lever.
She glanced up—the windshield clear of frost because the air-flow system worked—and saw Nate cross his arms over his bare chest as he stared at her, his handsome face a hard mask of anger.
He stood in the gray light wearing only the sweatpants he’d purchased last night. He had to be freezing, but he didn’t shiver or twitch. His stance showed just how huge he was, those muscular arms and thick pecs. The hawk tattoo was visible on his ribs, wrapping around his side, and her heart stuttered at the beauty of him while squeezing at the utter coldness of his expression.
She had to get out of here. Away from him. This thing between them couldn’t go anywhere anyway. Best to leave while he was furious. Let him see this as betrayal. Let him believe the worst.
She hit the door lock button. Maybe that was the trick to getting the car into Drive or Reverse. Any direction that moved the wheels. Anything that could get her off this damn mountain.
But nothing happened, and now she felt tears forming. Worse, Nate stepped off the porch and stalked toward her, anger in each step.
She wiped at her eyes, willing the damn tears away as he came ever closer.
No. No. No. No!
Nate wouldn’t be stranded. He had food and a phone, and Chase knew where he was and would arrive tomorrow night, if not sooner once Nate reached out to him. He’d get his SUV back. She’d leave it parked in front of her bank in Philly. Hell, she’d leave a suitcase full of cash in the front seat, payment for services rendered.
She didn’t know what the hell was going on, but she was certain it wasn’t about the military contract anymore. Not after seeing the headline. Not after reading the email.
She kept her gaze straight forward as Nate planted himself beside the driver’s window. She wouldn’t look at him. She’d figure out the secret to getting the car to move and drive away.
“Unlock the damn door, Leah.”
Hoo boy. His tone was even angrier than his expression. She closed her eyes and felt the tears burn.
Why couldn’t she have met Nate a week ago, bef
ore her life went to hell?
He was everything she hadn’t known she wanted. Her relationship résumé included over twenty years of dating experience. She’d done the club scene in her early twenties and had tried online dating before any of the major sites were a household name. She’d dated coworkers—before establishing a personal rule never to date a coworker again—and had swiped in every direction imaginable.
In all those years, she’d had good dates and awful ones. Good sex and awful sex. She’d kissed a lot of toads and even a few princes, but she couldn’t remember ever feeling about a man the way she did about Nate after just a few hours. Hell, she’d had this fluttery feeling even before they’d had sex.
And after sex?
Her feelings only burned stronger.
But the timing was wrong and she couldn’t have him, couldn’t have any kind of fantasy that ended with her life not being utterly destroyed. She’d worried about being set up for treason, but now it looked like she could face murder charges.
And Nate could be the next victim.
7
Nate pounded on the window again. “Unlock. The goddamn. Door.” His anger was reaching new levels as she continued to avoid his gaze, and he had to take a deep breath to steady himself. He didn’t want to scare her. But he was livid.
How could she do this after last night?
She tried again to put the car in Reverse, then slammed her hand on the steering wheel.
“Leah. It won’t go into Drive. The engine is locked. You aren’t going anywhere, so open the damn door.”
He stood barefoot in the snow, too angry to feel the pain in his feet. Part of him, somewhere, suspected it wasn’t anger he was feeling, but he didn’t want to face the real emotion her attempt to flee had triggered.
Her forehead hit the steering wheel and her body shook. He locked down his emotions tight. He couldn’t be swayed by tears. He needed answers, dammit.
He’d protected her and risked his job for her. He’d given her his body. His friend had given her a safe place to stay.
And she was trying to steal his company car and run away.
“You realize stealing the SUV would get me fired, right? My standing with the company is on thin ice as it is, and you’d screw me over this way?”
She raised her head and looked at him, tears streaking down her face. She swiped at them, but more fell.
It was the unstoppable tears and devastation on her face that shattered the shell of anger he’d wrapped himself in when the phone woke him with the alarm. He could see the terror in her eyes just as he had last night at Mt. Vernon.
Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been planning to screw him and run. Which meant something must have happened.
With his anger obliterated, he felt the burn of cold against his feet. The wind on his skin caused him to shiver, and it took him a moment to realize the flakes that swirled in the air hadn’t been blown off tree branches with each cold gust. Snow was beginning to fall.
He couldn’t stand out here arguing with her much longer. He’d wanted to give her a chance to open the door on her own, but she’d given him no choice. He pulled out his phone and unlocked the car, then yanked open the door before she realized what was happening.
“Dammit, Leah. Don’t force me to be the asshole here. Get in the cabin now.”
Her eyes had gone wide with shock. He reached across her, unbuckled her seat belt, and grabbed the SUV’s prox key from the center console—careful not to touch his thumb to the reader on the back. He hit the button to turn off the engine and grabbed the shopping bag full of clothes from the passenger seat, then stepped back so she could descend from the seat under her own power.
He wouldn’t touch her or in any way physically force her to do anything.
He turned and marched for the cabin door, pebbles of ice biting into his feet with each step. Behind him, he heard the car door close and footsteps crunch in the snow.
He entered the cabin without looking back and stalked to the bedroom, tossing the bag of clothes on the bed where he’d made love to her.
He closed his eyes, swamped by memories. He could still feel her hands on his body. Tracing the hawk tattoo. Her mouth on him. He could hear the sounds she’d made as he’d come inside her.
She didn’t owe him anything. Sex was sex. Given and received freely. They’d made no commitments, offered no foolish words of feelings they couldn’t possibly have in such a short acquaintance. But still, her attempt to flee—and rob him and get him fired—was a kick in the balls.
The first woman he’d wanted to bang in two years. He’d learned to ignore the simple sexual itch that needed scratching. What he’d felt for Leah sure as hell hadn’t been that. But damn, he should have stuck with one-night stands, because adding any sort of emotion to the equation was asking for trouble.
Nate should have accepted he was a loner when he stopped wanting sex for sex’s sake. He should have invested in a Fleshlight and called it a day.
Why had he believed that if he moved to the DC area and had more options, he might find someone who could be more than just an itch scratcher? How had he convinced himself that he was not just worthy of love, but also capable of it?
His skin burned from standing in the cold too long. He crossed to the bathroom and locked the door. The lock was flimsy, and she’d easily break in, so he put the phone and car key on the shelf next to the shower. If she entered while he bathed, he’d be able to grab them.
He stepped into the shower, turning his face to the hot spray. His emotions were shot to hell. He wasn’t the operator he’d spent the last eight years training others to be, nor was he the soldier he’d been for the last twenty-plus years.
Somehow, someway, Leah Ellis had managed to rip out his heart in eighteen short hours.
Leah paced the living room, dreading facing Nate but knowing it was inevitable. It was either face him or freeze in the snow.
She’d screwed up, but she wouldn’t compound it by risking her life and trying to hike her way out of this mess, much as she wanted to.
His shower was brief, and he stepped into the living room with damp hair, again wearing only the sweatpants he’d had on earlier.
The hawk tattoo was even more magnificent in full light. His body all the more impressive. And she’d had him. All of him. Her special gift on the first night of Hanukkah.
She’d managed to get her crying under control and washed her face in the kitchen sink. She met his gaze now, dry-eyed and composed. She would not let him know she was hurting. It served no purpose when she needed to push him away. She wouldn’t let him get sucked into this ugly vortex that had nothing to do with him. He would survive and move on.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I appreciate all your help. But now I need to leave.”
“The hell you do. I thought we were in this together.”
“I can’t help what you thought. This is my problem and mine alone.”
“Why are you doing this?”
She gave him a defiant look. “Listen. You were just a screw. A really good one, but just a screw nonetheless. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you. For that, I’m sorry.”
“Bull. Fucking. Shit.”
She couldn’t help herself, she laughed. He wasn’t the most creative at cursing, but he said each word with gusto, infusing them with emotion they might otherwise lack.
Dammit. She was even turned on by the way he cursed.
“I need to go to Philadelphia.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you. Military secret.”
“Bullshit. You’re a crappy liar.”
She happened to be an excellent liar. She just couldn’t lie to him. Which was alarming. How did he learn to read her so well, so quickly?
“Listen, I’m sorry you got wrapped up in this, but that, at least, isn’t my fault. I didn’t hire you. But I can get you out of this. Take me to a train station, buy me a ticket to Philly, and you can be done with me. I’ll pay you back as soon
as I get to my bank and can withdraw money.”
“You don’t have ID.”
“They have my fingerprints on file and they know my face. When your account has enough zeros, bankers pay attention.”
“If you’re so wealthy, why were you living in a house owned by HH?”
“It was a six-month temporary assignment. Why bother finding my own place when I could use the company townhouse?”
“Then why did you sell your place in Philly?”
It shouldn’t surprise her he’d tracked down the real estate transaction. He’d been up in the middle of the night and had Raptor’s access to information. Hell, he probably had her social security number, the name of her first pet, and the name of the street she’d lived on when she was ten years old.
“The house in Philly was my mom’s dream home. I bought it for us to share when she retired. When she died, I didn’t want to live in such a huge space by myself. It was too painful without her. I put it on the market in the summer once I was sure I’d end up relocating to DC for a while. It sold fast, and I ended up living in a short-term rental for a month while waiting for my security clearance to go through.”
“How did your mother die?” His voice was soft. Sympathetic.
“She had a heart attack. I came home from work one day, and she was…gone. She was only sixty-eight. She’d retired a year before and moved in with me to enjoy her golden years. It wasn’t supposed to go that way.” She swiped at the tears that always fell when she faced the suddenness of her mom’s passing. “She was supposed to have at least twenty years to enjoy retirement and nag me for grandchildren.” Given that Leah was in her early forties, it was highly unlikely those grandchildren would ever exist, but still, she touched her belly as she always did at the thought, knowing that if she ever did have a baby or decided to adopt, her child would never know the love of the only person who had ever loved Leah unconditionally. She swiped at another tear. “It was just me and my mom for a lot of years. We were really close.”