Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Nichole Severn

  Was this someone from the DTRA? Was her team swooping in to help her out? Something about the man’s being there, even if he was someone from the DTRA, didn’t quite sit right with Mike. Why wouldn’t they have told Summer that they were coming? Why would they just roll up on her door in the middle of the night, especially knowing all that she had recently gone through?

  “We need to get a bead on her. Use your resources,” the man said, clicking off his phone and stuffing it back into his pocket.

  The man moved as if about to turn around, but before he could, Mike grabbed him by the neck, effectively pinning his head in a choke hold as he pushed his Glock’s cold steel barrel against the guy’s temple. “Who the hell are you? And what the hell are you doing here?”

  The man gave a slight yelp, moving for what Mike was sure was a weapon at his waist.

  He pressed the Glock harder against the man’s temple, no doubt leaving a nice little ring on his flesh. “That’s a bad idea. Just tell me who you are.”

  “My name’s Kevin. Kevin Warble. I work with Summer. I’m here to help.” The man spoke fast, brusquely.

  “Help her with what?” Mike could give the man nothing, no clues he had any idea about what was going on or why.

  “She is in danger. I can’t tell you anything else.” Kevin looked at him as Mike tightened his hold around the man’s neck.

  “Did they use the code? Are they coming for her?” Mike asked, giving the guy just enough information to make it clear that he wasn’t completely in the dark.

  Kevin said nothing but scowled and then moved to break out. Mike pulled tighter. “Dude, I don’t want to hurt you. I just need to get some damned answers. Why are you making this harder on yourself than it needs to be?”

  The man sighed. “I wasn’t expecting Summer to have a security detail.”

  “You thought you could just come here and get the drop on her?” Mike countered.

  “What?” Kevin stopped moving. “Why in the hell would I want to hurt Summer? She is a tremendous asset to our team.”

  Mike kept his gun firmly pointed at the man’s head as he let go of his neck and allowed him to stand straight. “You can’t expect me to believe you are standing out here and banging on her door in the middle of the night for her own good. So why are you here? Are they coming for her?” he asked again.

  “We have reason to believe so, yes. They ran the code.” Kevin scowled. “I have to admit I’m disappointed you have any knowledge of what is happening here.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t left Summer with her ass hanging out then maybe she wouldn’t have had to come to me for help. If you are pissed, you need to look to yourself. As you said, Summer is a tremendous member of your team, and she has always been the same to me.”

  Kevin glanced away, like he, too, had known the DTRA had made a mistake when it came to the safety of one of their team members. “It wasn’t our intention for anything to happen as it has. We didn’t believe Rockwood had any knowledge as to what she had gained access to and had managed to send to us. If we had, you have to know we would have done everything in our power to keep her safe.”

  “You should have gotten out in front of this,” Mike said.

  “And you should lower that gun, but it seems like we are both a little bit jumpy when it comes to this situation.”

  This situation? The man talked about Summer’s life like it was an afterthought. No wonder she had run to Mike for help.

  He didn’t like this man, not at all. But he lowered his weapon. For now, the only person who could find a way out of this muddied circumstance was the one person who Mike wanted to keep safe.

  Hopefully he wasn’t making a mistake in letting this man come close to the woman he loved.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Summer stared at Kevin like he had lost his mind. “You want me to do what?” she repeated.

  Kevin smiled, the action saturated with remorse. “Your friend, Mike, was right in what he said out there. It was wrong of us to put you in this kind of situation. And I know that this solution is the best. It will keep you out of the line of fire for a while.”

  They stood in her living room, arguing. As soon as Mike had let Kevin in, he’d started to explain his plan. It was simple, straightforward, and unattractive. Be carted off to a safe spot. Alone.

  “And what about Joe and Mike? Do you really expect me to just pack my bags and disappear? Leave my child behind?” She looked over at Mike. She didn’t want to leave him; he seemed like the only person in her life who really had her best interests and her safety in mind. And she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Joe, who now slept peacefully in his crib in the back bedroom.

  “I know that you are probably thinking this sounds crazy, but you need to keep your son safe. Mike can take him until we get a hold on these Rockwood people and can guarantee your safety. Then you can come back.” Kevin paused. “You knew when you took this job that things weren’t always going to be ideal when it came to having this career and a child. I’m sorry, but now it is time to follow through on your oath.”

  Her entire body clenched with resentment and anger. She had fallen into the “it won’t happen to me” trap when she’d agreed to work for the DTRA. She had told herself that she was putting Joe first by taking the job with its financial security and eventual stability. She would only be a field agent for a short period of time and yet, here she was, paying the reaper for her hubris in thinking she had the world on a string.

  It seemed like she would never be able to do the right thing.

  She had promised that she wouldn’t leave Joe again and here she was...

  If she took Joe with her, he would be in danger—even on a military base. And what would she do with him while she went to work? They wouldn’t let her take him into the field office, and she’d be damned if she’d leave him in the hands of a stranger. So that left her at odds again. Mike was her only option, but it still meant leaving Joe.

  “Your son will be safer not being with you until we get this sorted. If you want, I can have him placed in a foster home if you don’t feel good leaving him alone with him.” Kevin motioned toward Mike.

  “Oh hell no.” She shook her head violently, nauseated by the mere thought of someone she didn’t even know having physical custody of her baby after she had just gotten him back to safety. “Mike can take him. I will go with you.”

  “Perfect,” Kevin said, his remorseful smile growing. “We have a private plane waiting on the tarmac just outside the air base. They will take us to Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. You can hole up while we gain control over the situation.”

  Summer couldn’t believe that this was what it had come down to: to save the people she loved, she had to leave them alone.

  “Don’t worry,” Mike said, reaching over and touching her on the shoulder like she was nothing more than a friend. “I will take great care of Joe. If I need any help, I can always turn to Jess. You don’t need to worry about us, you just need to get to a safe location before something else happens.”

  She just couldn’t wrap her mind around this. She had made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t leave Joe again; not when there were people out there who were willing and able to get their hands on him and put him in the ground to get to her.

  Why did she have to make the choice between two men who had promised her the world, one out of love and the other with her career—but both central to her past, present and future? Mike had hurt her, deeply. Yet, there was no doubt in her mind that she could trust him with Joe. There were no safer hands.

  Kevin’s phone pinged with some kind of message. “I’ll be right back,” he said, turning away from them and stepping outside to answer.

  “Are you really sure you can trust this man?” Mike murmured quietly, a look of total disgust marring his handsome face.

  “Why do you ask?” Summer d
idn’t want to tell Mike she didn’t know if she could or she couldn’t; she didn’t know what to do or what the right answer was.

  “Everything about him makes me want to tell you to run. I can keep you safe. I can keep both you and Joe safe.”

  “I have a feeling that you would say that about any man I have in my life. Ben as evidence.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like Ben and I don’t like Kevin. And to my credit, I ended up being right about Ben.” He gave her a long, studying look. “What are you not telling me about Kevin?”

  There were many things she could have told Mike about Kevin, from how he took his coffee to how he had an odd penchant for liking to use Helvetica font in his emails. On the variety of field exercises and cases she had worked with him, she had started to pick up on some of his quirks. When he was nervous, Kevin always tapped his fingertips on his left thigh. He was rarely nervous, but when he was, it normally led to more trouble than she could handle.

  “What do you want to know?”

  The door opened and Kevin strode back into the apartment. “Our plane got delayed. There are heavy winds coming out of the north. Winter storm warnings tonight, and they are projecting at least a foot of snow in the overnight hours. Looks like we won’t be traveling anywhere. However, the pilot says he thinks we can get out midmorning tomorrow.”

  Summer let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. From the back room came the soft cries of Joe as he began to wake up. “I need to go take care of him. Just let me know what time you want me to meet up in the morning. In the meantime, I will make some arrangements for the night...anywhere but here.”

  Mike smirked. “Why don’t you just go ahead and track her like you did earlier.”

  She twitched. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your boss tracked you down thanks to your phone.” Mike started to say something else but was cut off when Kevin moved between them.

  “How else was I going to find you? You haven’t been answering your phone. I needed to find you.”

  She felt violated. Sure, Kevin had the right and the permission to look into her whereabouts, but she couldn’t remember actually ignoring any phone calls from him. Then again, she had been putting her phone in and out of the Faraday bag all day. Maybe she had missed some.

  “I thought you were hurt. That Rockwood may have already gotten to you after the handoff,” Kevin continued, “And I feel that it’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to explain myself to you, Mike, or anyone else. You work for me.”

  Mike tried to say something, but Kevin shut him down with a backhanded wave. “Before things get even more out of hand here, I am going to leave. If you need help finding accommodations for the night, or if you want me to get you additional security, all you have to do is let me know. We are here for you.” He walked out without another look in Mike’s direction, closing the door behind him with a thump.

  Joe let out a piercing wail from the bedroom and Summer rushed out of the room. What was she going to do? Should she just hit the road with Joe and not look back? And what about Mike? Should she take him with them? Or should she follow the rules and honor the oaths she had made to her job? She could just quit and hand over everything she had been working on. There were plenty of people who could do what she could do.

  But Kevin really did seem to care. Sure, her boss had made mistakes in his handling of this situation, but he had personally come down to see her. He had set up a private jet to fly them somewhere he felt she could be safe. He had offered to be her escort to safety.

  And so had Mike.

  She ran her hands over her face as she walked into the bedroom. Joe was sitting up in his crib, looking out at her as tears welled in his eyes. “Baby...” she cooed. “Did we wake you up, sweetheart? Mama is so sorry.” She reached in and scooped him up into her arms, pressing his warm, pudgy body against her chest like he was her security blanket and not the other way around.

  She wished she could get him to her pediatrician for a quick checkup just to make sure those thugs hadn’t done anything to him when they’d had him. She’d have to figure out how to do that soon. He looked healthy and well-fed, though, and she hadn’t seen a bruise or a scratch on him.

  Humming “Two Little Blackbirds,” she rocked back and forth taking comfort in these stolen moments of presumed safety. She pulled the rich odor of baby deep into her lungs. He smelled so good. She would never forget that smell and the feeling in her chest it created.

  This little being...this was her world. What else really mattered?

  Her thoughts moved to Mike, to the day he had left her standing at the altar. In that moment, he had chosen to keep her safe in the only way he’d known how—by leaving her. Now, all of a sudden, standing here with a similar choice to make, she finally understood the level of love and pain he had to have been feeling to have made such a devastating choice.

  Until now, she had thought that his actions had been out of some misguided fear and paranoia; that he had walked away out of cowardice. More, when he had broken her heart, he had dishonored the promises he had made to her.

  She had been wrong.

  Though she didn’t believe he could love her in the same way she loved Joe, Summer could understand what Mike must have been feeling...the conflicting need to honor or to protect.

  In their lines of work, to have the ability to do both was idealistic. They lived in a world of “either-or” but never “and.”

  What she could have was this one night.

  She looked down at Joe, who had drifted off to sleep. Ever so gently, she placed him back in his crib, covering him up with her favorite elephant blanket. If only she could feel as safe and as loved, but also have the ability to forget the fear when he had disappeared.

  Turning from the crib, she found Mike standing in the doorway of the bedroom. “I could watch that every night for the rest of my life.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but Joe won’t stay a baby forever.” She smiled, taking pleasure in this simple moment of them acting as a family, though it was edged with the sadness that came with growing children.

  “What if Joe wasn’t our only baby?” he asked.

  But he had to have been teasing.

  She stayed quiet as she tiptoed out of the room, having him move behind her.

  “I mean, how many kids do you think you would want, if you could...” Mike added.

  Just when she thought her life couldn’t get any more complicated, there he went throwing this kind of talk at her. But maybe Mike was trying to help her take her mind off the danger that could be lurking just outside.

  “I thought we talked about this,” she said with a tired smile. “I always wanted a boy and a girl. If that didn’t happen, I would want to keep trying until I had both sexes.”

  “I know you said that, but you know that isn’t really an answer. According to that answer, we could end up having a dozen boys and still be trying for a girl.”

  “We?” She couldn’t help the smile that spread on her face. “Are you saying you want to have more kids with me?”

  He shrugged, suddenly taken with looking at the floor. “When and if things between us are right, I mean.”

  “Are you saying that you want to start over?” she pressed, excitement coursing through her as she spoke. Mike wasn’t the kind who had been overly talkative when it came to his feelings, his wants, or the future.

  Sure, they’d had a few conversations, but it had been years since the last one like this.

  He finally looked up. “Summer, I told you how sorry I am for what happened.”

  She stopped him as she nodded and took his hand in hers. “Don’t worry. For the first time, I think I understand. Truly. I don’t envy the choices you’ve had to make and I never want you to have to make them again. From here on out, let’s just be honest with one another. If you are afraid
, if you feel like running, then tell me. We can talk about it. If nothing else, we can run away together—as a family.”

  The fear that seemed to have permanently settled on his features lately lifted as he pulled her close. “Babe, I have loved you forever. I will love you forever. Do you remember the first time we met?” he asked, levity in his voice.

  She laughed at the memory. It had been in Las Vegas, at a George Strait concert. For once, it had been raining in the desert city and everyone lined up outside was being drenched by the dust-laden droplets. Jess had been there with her, their annual girl’s trip to the city. They had spent hours getting ready, curling their hair and styling their eyebrows on point. And with each torrent, their hair flattened and their makeup smeared farther and farther down their faces. She could still remember how Jessica’s mascara had run down so far that it had made a black streak on her neck.

  When Mike had first walked up, with his brother AJ, she and Jessica had been laughing about the state of themselves and trying to hide under their purses to no avail.

  “You have always thought of yourself as quite the hero, haven’t you?” she teased, thinking about how Mike had produced—out of seemingly nowhere—two ponchos for the women.

  “I was definitely your hero that day.” He laughed. “Not to mention, your hero when we poured you into the cab later that night.”

  “Oh yeah...” She had forgotten that part.

  In truth, she hadn’t planned on ever seeing Mike and AJ after that, but Jess had, at some point in the night, given the guys their phone numbers.

  “If you hadn’t badgered me,” she continued, “you know I wouldn’t have gone out with you again.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, but I could tell in the way you professed your love to me that night that you were the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”

  Summer covered her face in embarrassment. “Not one of my proudest moments. I told you then, and I think it begs repeating, but you know I’m not usually that kind of girl. I never cut loose like I did that night. I just...”