"So that was the bad guys calling in their surrender?" She laughed softly.
"You're cute when you say bad guys, but no dice. I have to be at the office early in the morning."
"Okay."
"Since I'll be on my way to Safehouse earlier than I wanted, I'll be back sooner too. But, when you wake up in the morning, you'll be alone. Sorry about that."
She snuggled and sighed. Their time together had become more comfortable with every interaction. They'd been on the couch for hours, and she could only guess what time it was. "Maybe we should go to bed soon?"
"Guess so. But there's an upside to staying here as compared to an hourly motel."
Tessa snickered. "What's that?"
"I can vouch for the sheets. They're soft and clean. The room probably smells better than that dingy motel room." He pulled her off the couch and let her linger in his arms. "Time for some zzz's." He gave her a squeeze. "I need my beauty sleep."
She laughed. "Oh yeah?"
"Yup." His eyebrows pulled as he nodded, setting her down. "I have a hot date tomorrow."
Tessa felt the blush heat her cheeks and travel to the back of her neck. "Oh, me too."
Drake winked. "The man taking you out must be one lucky guy." He guided her upstairs, stopping short of a guest bedroom. "Sweet dreams, Tessa. Sleep well tonight."
Tessa stared at Drake and realized that if she's written down her most spectacular hopes and dreams, this situation wouldn't have crossed her mind. She couldn't think of possibilities as amazing as what was unfolding between them. He was a battle-tried hero offering her a fantasy date and, tonight, delivering her door side with wishes for a sweet dream.
Tessa didn't know that man could look at her the way Drake did now.
But he did, and this was really happening. Drake McKay was fulfilling her unknown dreams and making them come true.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The road noise from the highway didn't dull McKay's thoughts. Nope. No luck for that, as they roared and complained along with the whirl of his speeding tires. McKay drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel and picked up his burner phone a hundred times, wanting to call Tessa.
It was still dark out, and with dawn yet to break, what was the point of disturbing her? He cursed at blameless drivers observing the speed limit as he maneuvered his way to Safehouse headquarters.
He woke up knowing that a woman who made him happy slept under his roof. Her sweet smell from her hug goodbye clung to him in his truck, and the last thing he had wanted to do was slip away from her arms. If this job didn't revolve around Tessa, he might have told Joseph he was taking a vacation. Vacation time had to accumulate, and McKay must have weeks available.
When he walked into headquarters, his first question would have to be, Where's the company handbook?
Surely something like that existed. Right? Safehouse had plans for everything. But would it have a section entitled Don't Mix Business and Pleasure on the Job? He had a date with the job tonight — a very sweet, beautiful date. No corporate set of rules would change that.
He pulled into Safehouse's secure parking. Before facing the guys, he had to lose the whole just-woke-up-with-a-woman glow. It was too early in the morning for a razzing, and he hadn't had nearly enough coffee or Twizzlers to ease into his day.
He squeezed his eyes tight, took a deep breath, and walked to the first door. Code entered. Locking mechanism disengaging. Another door. Retina scan. Another door and another, jumping through whatever hoops Talon had going right now. Security measures. Good thing McKay appreciated them.
McKay blew through the ops nerve center, straight into the kitchenette, hoping someone had brewed a pot already. Nope. No luck. Not even a leftover box of candy in his stash. He felt like a chick. Mood swings. Candy cravings. He needed to cut that out.
"What's your problem, McKay?" Talon eyed him when he stalked back into the computer hub. Despite the heat pouring off hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of electronics, the room was icy cold. "You blew out of here yesterday like you were avoiding enemy fire, and today, it's like you have the shakes."
"I had places to be." Guess clearing his mind didn't work. "Where is everyone? I thought this was an ops meeting or was I wrong?"
"When did you start wearing a watch?" Talon spun round in his chair, regarding him with even more curiosity.
Should he wear a sign that said hook, line, and sinker, or fess up that there was a special woman at his home that he wasn't fond of leaving? He rubbed a hand over his face.
"Never mind. I'd just like to wrap this job already. Parts of it have been a headache."
"Dude, you are a headache. Since when did you care about complications? I thought you fed off pandemonium."
There were men who'd messed with him and Tessa. He could forgive someone going after him, but they'd earned a place in his crosshairs when they went after her.
McKay flashed Talon a shut-the-heck-up glare when Joseph walked into the room, filled to his eyebrows with the usual silliness. He was an Army Ranger and had been trained by the best to be the best. The military got all they could get out of him before he took his Head-Honcho-in-Charge attitude and turned it into a very tidy profit for all involved.
"He has a point, McKay." Joseph studied a topography map on the table.
"What? That I don't wear a watch? Or that first one in didn't turn on the coffee?" McKay glared at Talon.
A few other men shuffled into the room, and they all took seats around a large table, complaining about the ungodly time of day. Talon spread out a handful of glossy papers, and everyone shuffled through the pile. Joseph nodded to Talon, signaling for him to begin.
"I retrieved shots from the traffic cameras, toll booths, and security footage at the places McKay stopped." Talon took some photos from the men and arranged them in chronological order. "Airport. First motel."
Everything looked legit. Talon could pull any picture anywhere there was a camera. That was for sure.
He pointed to additional shots on the table. "These two men followed McKay from the Nation's Capital to Derby City. They're employed by Mateo Valencia. A Colombian cartel. They trade mostly women and drugs."
Joseph growled. "I'm sick of cartel kingpins trafficking girls."
Aren't we all?
Talon tossed out another photo. "This ugly dude is Alonso Rojas, reportedly one of Valencia's top men. He was behind the grab at the airport. Probably panicked after you dismembered his team and hired a couple of street punks to fill ranks. He also came after you at the second motel."
The guys were shuffling through the eight by ten glossies. McKay didn't need to see them. He lived it. He caught a smirk from Talon.
Talon laid out another photograph, very deliberate, and tapped it. "Here's the karaoke bar where McKay engaged them. Police records indicate Rojas and another man were found dead in a car trunk."
Like a donkey kick to his gut, McKay saw a shot from a security camera, Tessa pinning him to the wall. Thanks a lot, Talon. The man was going down.
Someone in the room made kissing noises. Someone else laughed. They were all going to get a beating.
McKay looked at the glossy again. It was defendable. A variation of a honey pot scheme: the operative must act otherwise engaged in luring in the enemy. The maneuver worked every time and was in all their book of tricks. But it wasn't a move that needed a Polaroid. He would deal with Talon later.
Every man in the room focused on that photo—with Tessa's hair loose and wild around her shoulders, her lips very much pressed against his neck, and his face was showing just how pleased he might be. McKay would never live this photo down. "Real classy, Talon."
Talon laughed and rolled his head back. "I only report what's out there."
"Huh," he grunted, deciding he might need to takeout everyone in the room. He tried to move their discussion away from the picture. "What's happening now? More of Valencia's men are on their way?"
"Chatter on the wires says that Mateo Valen
cia is furious."
McKay rubbed his chin. "Do they think the cipher's still in play?"
"Valencia wants the cipher and the girl. He's offering her up as an incentive to his men."
An incentive? His hands fisted as rage punched into his veins.
Joseph cleared his throat. The silent order was clear. Stay calm. Sit still. McKay wasn't sure if that was possible.
Talon pointed toward a large flat screen. "We believe Valencia's men have shown up here, here, and here."
McKay tensed, ready to end this, now.
Talon pulled up a new map on the big screen. Bright white dots blinked along his path from Kentucky to Virginia. "Everything shows that the Valencia teams followed you back to DC. They're likely already here again and have searched Tessa Thompson's office and home."
"Which safe house did you stash her at?" Joseph asked.
"She's not at a Safehouse safe house." McKay tried to add an uninterested inflection and focus on the screen of illuminating dots.
He could hear the wheels grinding in each head around the table. All stilled. Every set of eyes narrowed on him.
"Pray tell, McKay. Where might little Miss Tessa Thompson be if she's not at a Safehouse safe house?" Joseph arched his eyebrow.
McKay had heard of a slow clap before, but this was a slow laugh. Each man coughed a chuckle, then another, until it was a full-scale assault.
He glowered. "She's at my place. Leave it alone."
"With Anna?" Talon piped in for good measure.
"And your mother?" Joseph asked, though his rigid tone was the same as always, and lifted an eyebrow.
McKay pressed his lips into a tight line. "What's it to you, anyway?"
Now even Joseph laughed and leaned back in his chair. "Well now, what do you think, gentlemen? Has McKay found himself a woman he wants to go home to?"
They all drum rolled on the table and hollered.
What did he expect? Of course, they'd find out. He wasn't trying to keep her a secret. But the safe house revelation didn't need to come on the heels of the honey pot photo.
"I hate you all." It was the only thing he could think to say when he wasn't cursing them each by name. So he continued to say it, only making the room more loud and rowdy.
Great.
After what Joseph apparently determined was the appropriate amount of misery, he settled into his normal gruff self. "All right, all right. Enough with McKay's love life. Valencia will go after that list again in DC. It's his last chance to get it before our client destroys it. We'll arrange for McKay to do the drop-off. Talon, you and lover boy will ensure Tessa's safe when she matriculates back to the real world."
McKay's phone beeped, and dread sunk to the pit of his stomach, landing hard. Knowing what the sound meant before he looked at the phone screen, he interrupted Joseph. "We've got bigger problems."
"Yeah, your phone is annoying," someone called from the back of the room.
"The perimeter alarm at my house was breached."
He pushed the stored number in his phone, reaching out to Tessa. No answer. He hit redial. C'mon, c'mon. All he wanted was a quick hello. Still no answer. He hung up and punched each number into the phone to make sure the number dialed right. More ringing. Nothing. He pressed the end call button and dropped his head, muttering a prayer and a promise.
"McKay, don't you have an alarm on your gate?" Talon asked. "And sensors on the fences? If those didn't go off, then it's just Tessa triggering it. I mean, if no one has come on to the property—"
"Don't be stupid, man. It can be done. Even with as good a system as I have." He hit the redial button once more. Just to be sure. "Something's wrong. Talon, hack my security system. And don't mess with me. I know you can do it."
Talon looked at Joseph, who nodded, and Talon pushed away from the war room table to a keyboard under the wall of flat screens. McKay checked his phone while anxiety blossomed. It was early, but Tessa would be up by now. She should be answering the burner phone. His fingers jabbed as he dialed his home number. Same result. She wouldn't pick it up anyway.
"Where's the cipher?" Joseph asked.
McKay pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to his boss, ready to hightail back home. "You take it. I've got business to attend to."
"Hold it, Lone Ranger. If there's a problem, we've all got business to attend to."
He wanted to argue. Seriously, all he wanted to do right now was ignore him and walk out.
Joseph could read his mind. "Sit down, McKay."
Talon's fingers flew over his keyboard. Without stopping, he'd occasionally asked McKay a question. With a few flashes of pixelated grains, several of the security cameras in his home now broadcasted on monitors in front of the men. Talon flashed through several feeds and stopped.
Then a clear feed showed on the screen as if he stood in the kitchen. It was empty. A coffee mug shattered on the hardwood floor in the kitchen, coffee splattered. Talon skipped through other camera angles. Nothing was out of the ordinary in the living room or hallways or nursery.
"Talon, I have a camera pointed into the crib. It's in the corner. Get that shot."
Talon clacked on the keyboard. McKay's stomach ached worse with each loud stroke, until one screen blinked, showed snow, then an empty crib.
"No!"
McKay dialed his mother. She picked up on the second ring. Without giving her the chance to say hello, he said, "Do you have Anna?"
"What? No, she's at home with Tessa. You said—"
McKay clicked the phone off. He summoned all of his training, and all but ordered Talon to queue back the footage. Talon worked. McKay paced. The live images halted, then skipped backward in sixty-second increments.
"Keep going."
"Dude, I'm working on it."
The screen skipped backward in two-minute increments. A blur of activity flashed, and Talon hit stop. The image was crystal clear and showed Tessa at the dining table with a cup of coffee in one hand, a sleeping baby in the other arm. A half-empty bottle sat next to her elbow on the table.
"Press play," McKay ordered.
Joseph didn't interfere. No one broke the quiet as McKay's stomach clenched.
Every pair of eyes watched as Tessa turned to the kitchen window. Her face pinched in surprise, and she dropped her coffee mug. It shattered and startled Anna awake. The panicked look on Tessa's face made him ill. Then Tessa grabbed the bottle, stuck it in the baby's mouth, and ran out of the kitchen.
Talon's fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Find them," McKay demanded. "Where did they go?"
"Looking," Talon said.
"Look faster."
The image changed to a dark screen that brightened with motion detector lights. "She's in the garage."
Talon switched the footage to the large flat screen in the center of the room. No one breathed. They watched Tessa finger the keys on the pegboard wall. She selected a set and stretched out her arm. His Hummer's lights flashed as it unlocked, and she ran to the vehicle's backdoor. She jumped in with Anna but came out alone. She ran to the driver's door, cracked the tinted windows, and ran back around to peek in the backseat at the baby.
"What is she doing?" Joseph asked. Tessa swiveled her head, a terrified expression plastered on her face. "Is she leaving Anna?"
No one moved as they watched Tessa run back inside the house, but not before she manually turned off the lights.
"What did she do with Anna?" Joseph was pissed.
"Car seat." McKay mumbled.
"Car seat?"
"Yeah, man. She secured Anna and hid her. Anna's safe in her car seat."
Every guy in the room gave a collective oh.
McKay interrupted the stunned mumblings. "Can you get me a shot of what she saw outside?"
He needed to be there but was too far away. He couldn't get home. Whatever they watched was history by now, and his head spun.
"Working on it," Talon muttered. "Until I find that camera feed, keep watching the oth
er screens."
It played in time and a half. Tessa ran through several of the shots. The kitchen. The hallway. Up the stairs and toward the master bedroom.
"Is she insane?" Joseph asked.
"Look." Talon directed them to a different monitor in the corner. Talon rewound the screen, then hit play. A chopper landed several hundred feet from his house. That explains the perimeter alarm.
Men piled out. They took their own sweet time, knowing no escape was possible. They sauntered past the exterior camera. Talon clicked to the entrance camera feed. McKay's front door exploded and men poured inside while others guarded the exterior.
Every Safehouse man watched and had to wonder where the invaders would go first. McKay had no idea. This was like a nightmare edition of reality television. He didn't know what to do, so he issued orders to Talon. "Fast forward. What happens?"
Talon held up his hand. "Wait. Watch."
Tessa flinched in the upstairs hallway, then went to work slamming every door. She waited until she had their attention. Then she screamed. The men inside McKay's house pivoted toward the sound and ran straight up the stairs. Tessa baited them and had waited. They captured her within seconds.
Only then did she kick and claw. She raked her nails toward their eyes and tried to knees their groins. It didn't matter, and only took seconds to gag and bind her. She fought the men as they struggled down the stairs, before they passed the broken front door, McKay saw a visible look of relief cross over her face. Tessa had protected Anna. McKay could barely breathe.
"Good night." Joseph blew out a telling whistle. "That woman just protected Anna. Talon, what's our elapsed time?"
"They were in and out in three and a half minutes."
McKay's head spun, and he was grateful that Joseph was barking orders because McKay needed to dry heave.
Joseph communicated with another team member, ordering him to go to McKay's place post-haste and commanded the man to secure that baby.
McKay prayed Anna would be sleeping. He didn't know how long it would take for someone to get to his kid. McKay took out his phone and called his mother again.
The SEAL's Promise (Safehouse Security) Page 13