Midwife Cover - Cassie Miles

by Intrigue Romance

  “Is that another one of your lines?”

  “Do I need one?”

  Not really. When she looked into the faceted gray of his eyes, she was mesmerized—anxious to fall into his arms and not really sure why she was holding back. Oh, yeah, because she was terrified. She was afraid to tell him her deepest secrets. It was probably for the best. He wasn’t planning to stay in Colorado, anyway.

  She asked, “What did Cole say?”

  “He’ll go to Durango tomorrow. While Mancuso has his appointment with Francine, Cole will be undercover at his offices.”

  “One less problem we have to deal with.”

  He nodded. “Now, for the safety drill.”

  “Do we really have to do this? I know what to do if somebody attacks me.”

  “Fine,” he said, “you tell me. Somebody busts in the door or sneaks upstairs while you’re sleeping, what do you do?”

  Her training on surprise attacks came not only from sessions at Quantico. Her brother and sister liked to play commando. They were always hiding and jumping out at each other and at her.

  “The first objective is escape,” she said. “If somebody comes after us at the house, they won’t be alone and they won’t be gentle. I won’t engage in combat unless there’s no other alternative.”

  “Good answer,” he said. “Suppose you’re upstairs, how do you make your exit?”

  “Easy.” Mug in hand, she left the studio. As soon as she walked through his bedroom door, her gaze went to the bedspread which was still messy from where they’d been lying together. Sensuality hung in the air; she could almost smell the pheromones.

  She opened a door with a glass window that led onto the balcony that stretched across the front of the house. The cedar flooring was about five-feet deep and there were a couple of lawn chairs shoved up against the wall of the house. The balcony faced west and would be a perfect place for sunning in the afternoon.

  Turning to him, she said, “I’d climb over the railing and drop to the ground.”

  “What if the attacker is watching the front of the house?”

  “I’d have to open one of the windows in the studio and pull the same maneuver. A longer drop but still doable.” She frowned. “In this scenario, where are you?”

  “Gone.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Gone?” As in dead? She didn’t want to participate in an exercise where they were pretending the worst had happened. “No negative energy. I’m going to imagine you’ve gone out to get a cappuccino. This is my cappuccino defense.”

  “Whatever.”

  He moved to the railing where he stood watching the colors of sunset paint the skies above the treetops. A breeze blew his hair back from his high, intelligent forehead, and sunlight burnished his face and shoulders. He looked almost too good to be true. Sipping her tea, she kept her hands busy so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch him.

  “I wish,” she said, “I wish we had more time.”

  “We’re cramming a lot of action into just a few hours. That’s for damn sure.”

  “Your accent just got heavy. When you said ‘for damn sure,’ you really sounded like Texas.”

  “It’s where I’m from.” He shrugged. “My grandpa used to say that you can change where you’re going, but you can’t change where you’ve been.”

  There was a lot of truth in those homespun sayings. She could never erase her past; those scars were permanent. But a future relationship with Brady could lead in directions she hadn’t even imagined.

  Leaning against the railing beside him, she asked, “Did I pass the test for escaping an attack?”

  “I suppose.” He grinned at her and his dimple appeared. “Let me show you the weapons I’ve got hidden around and about.”

  “More guns?”

  “The only firearms are in the studio, but there are plenty of other ways to defend yourself.”

  He took her on a tour, and she was surprised to discover that virtually every room held a concealed arsenal. In the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, there were containers with innocuous labels that actually held pepper spray. Knives were tucked between the cushions of the chairs and sofa. Several blunt instruments—ranging from a hammer to a golf club—were placed strategically. No matter where she was in the house, she was only a few steps away from a potentially lethal weapon.

  She looked up at him. “This is amazing.”

  “Planning ahead, it’s what I do.” He took out his car keys. “It’s almost dark. Let’s go follow Smith’s GPS track.”

  “I’ll be ready in a flash.”

  Rifling through the clothes in her closet, she tried to plan for what the rest of the evening might bring. They might be chasing bad guys, which meant she’d need a decent pair of shoes. And they might be sneaking around in the dark, so her outfit needed to be black. Quickly, she dressed in dark jeans and a black sweatshirt.

  She was halfway down the stairs before she remembered another essential. They needed luck. She zipped back to her room and grabbed a necklace with an amethyst stone.

  * * *

  BRADY HAD PROGRAMMED the route taken by Dr. Smith into a handheld GPS device that gave precise directions. With Petra behind the wheel of the truck, he was free to visually scan as they drove through the unfamiliar territory. Not that he could see much beyond the beam of their headlights.

  The ITEP task force had already pinpointed this area—known as Four Corners because it was where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico met—as a good distribution hub. From here, the human cargo could be shipped in a variety of directions that crossed borders and law enforcement jurisdictions. In addition to the four different states, the Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations were nearby.

  No wonder the task force had spent months and uncovered very little. Even a small lead, like the tracker on Smith’s car, represented forward progress. Brady hoped that he and Petra would uncover evidence that would lead to the top men. Or the top woman, he reminded himself. Francine couldn’t be discounted.

  As they drove through Kirkland, he pointed out the partly burned sign for Royal Burger. It read, Roya urge. “The food is okay but not exactly fit for a king. Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat. We can grab something in Durango.”

  He liked that she wasn’t picky about her food. Like him, Petra seemed to eat as an afterthought in spite of her childhood experiences in the kitchen of a Greek restaurant. “Do you know how to make baklava?”

  “Of course.” She shot him a questioning glance. “Where did that question come from?”

  “Just getting to know you.”

  “Do you have a cooking specialty?”

  “I’m from Texas, lady. My three-alarm barbecue can’t be beat. Even my twin admits that mine is the best.”

  “Your twin,” she said, “I’d like to meet her.”

  As a general rule, Brady avoided bringing women to meet his sister. Barbara was so anxious for him to settle down that she tended to pounce. “If I brought you two ladies together, you’d conspire to drive me crazy. I’d have to go hide in the doghouse with my four-year-old nephew.”

  “A good place for you,” she teased. “Needless to say, my father would love you.”

  He flopped back in the passenger seat as if he’d been punched in the chest. “That’s the kiss of death.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In my experience, women aren’t interested in being with men their fathers approve of.”

  “You sound like this has happened to you before.” She chuckled. “Well, of course it has. Not only are you a clean, decent guy but you’re special agent. And you know how to fix cars. Dads have got to love you.”

  “And that’s not what their daughters are looking for.”

  “I’ve already done my rebellious phase,” she said. “I’d be happy for my dad to like you.”

  He watched her as she drove. Sketching her had calmed his crazy id-driven passion, and he was attracted in a different, more purposeful way. When he
’d told her that he wanted more than a fling, he hadn’t been lying. She was someone special. He hadn’t been looking for a woman like her. With her yoga and crystals and positive energy, Petra didn’t seem like she’d fit into his life. Somehow, she did. They meshed. He hadn’t been looking, but he’d found her just the same.

  In Durango, they drove the same route as Dr. Smith. It appeared that he was just taking care of errands, making stops at a hardware store and a grocery store. After they grabbed a couple of chicken sandwiches at a drive-through, they returned on the same road they drove into town.

  About five miles from Kirkland, they exited onto a two-lane road into a pine forest. Studying the GPS map, Brady noted there were few turnoffs on the road. He considered getting out of the truck and walking closer to where Smith made his stop but decided to see where they were headed first.

  “At the next fork in the road, go right. Smith stopped at one-point-three miles, but we’re going to drive past.” He remembered what happened when he attempted the same maneuver at the Lost Lamb. “No stopping. I doubt Smith would recognize our truck, but it’s better if we’re not seen.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Tell me when we’ve gone a mile.”

  She nodded and sat up a little straighter behind the steering wheel. A sweeping curve in the road led to a more rugged area where the trees blended with jagged rock formations.

  “It’s a mile,” she said. “One-point-one.”

  In the flash of their headlights, he saw the multilevel house with a deck that jutted into the forest like the prow of a boat. The modern architecture and redwood color seemed to grow organically from the forested surroundings. As they got closer, moonlight illuminated a very large house. Smith’s SUV was parked in front.

  It wasn’t exactly clear what Dr. Smith did for the human trafficking organization, but he was obviously well-paid.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dodging on foot through the moonlit forest, Petra was glad she’d taken the time to dress appropriately. Her sweatshirt protected her from low-hanging branches, and her hiking boots allowed her to move quickly, keeping pace with Brady’s longer stride.

  They’d parked the truck in the driveway of a vacant house that was about a mile and a half down the road from Smith’s sprawling home. She’d gotten only a glimpse of the place as she drove past, but she was impressed.

  Brady turned to check on her progress. Even though they were still quite a distance from Smith’s house, he kept his voice low. “Are you doing all right?”

  “Yoga isn’t my only exercise. I jog a couple of miles, twice a week.” Her heart was pumping harder than usual, but it wasn’t because of the exercise. She was excited. Brady might go chasing after bad guys all the time, but she didn’t. “What do you expect to find here?”

  “I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know for sure that this is Smith’s house. The mailbox had numbers but no name.”

  “We don’t even know for sure that Smith is his name. The first time he introduced himself, I almost laughed. Smith is such an obvious alias.”

  Brady leaned his back against a tree trunk. In his dark cargo pants and black jacket with his Beretta clipped to his hip, he looked like he could handle anything. “Finding this place is a break for us. There’s a lot we can learn if we don’t get caught.”

  “We won’t.” She pumped up her positive thinking to counteract his negative attitude. “We’re going to get close to the house and observe. We will find evidence. Then, we’ll go back to the truck.”

  He rubbed his hand across his T-shirt. “I should be wearing my bulletproof vest. And I should have brought one for you, too.”

  “When you’re undercover, you can’t be prepared for everything.”

  “Risky,” he muttered.

  “Stop it.” She grabbed his arm and gave a little shake. “No negative vibes. This is going to turn out well. I promise you it will.”

  He ducked his head and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. “You’re right.”

  The easy intimacy startled her, but she liked it. “We’re going to get these guys.”

  Pushing away from the tree, he started climbing the incline at the side of the road, and she followed. The incline wasn’t steep, but the sliver of a moon gave off very little light. The footing was difficult, and she stumbled more than once.

  At the top of the ridge, Brady found a path that was wide enough to allow them to walk side by side. She hoped he knew where he was going. It was easy to get lost in the mountains in the dark.

  Quietly, she said, “I had the impression that Smith hasn’t been working at Lost Lamb for very long.”

  “Same here. Margaret said something about how things were easier now that they had a doctor.”

  “How is he affording this house? Francine is tight with the purse strings, and she wouldn’t pay him a lot to deliver babies.” She glanced at Brady. The moonlight slanted across his high forehead and strong jaw. “What do you think is going on?”

  “Smith is more than a baby doc. His skill might have something to do with the surrogates.” He turned toward the right. “We’re close. It’s this way.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “My unfailing sense of direction,” he said.

  “You must have been a star in Boy Scouts.”

  He held up an electronic device. “Or it might be this handy-dandy GPS unit. I programmed the address in here.”

  She hadn’t known that the GPS unit could give walking directions. His little gadget was probably a super-FBI version.

  At the top of the hill, he paused and pointed. They were looking down at the multilevel, modern house. The top floor, closest to where they were standing, had one wall that was all windows—perfect for them to peek inside. Unfortunately, the room was dark. The only lights were on the middle floor where there were a lot of windows and a wide deck.

  Brady hunkered down beside a chunky granite rock, and she sat beside him. Excitement rushed through her. This was a real investigation, the kind of thing she’d envisioned herself doing if she’d become an FBI agent. She wished that she had a gun, but Brady was already beating himself up because they didn’t have his-and-hers bulletproof vests, so she decided not to mention the lack. “Should we get closer?”

  “Not unless there’s something to see.”

  That was logical and, at the same time, didn’t make sense. “How do we know if—”

  “Sit quietly and observe. We want to figure out how many people are in that house.”

  “Like guards?”

  “It’s possible, especially if the house belongs to one of the bosses. And it’s likely that the area is protected by motion detectors or mini-cams.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “If we move closer, I can spot the surveillance equipment, but we’ll probably set off the alarms.” He dug into one of the pockets in his cargo pants and took out a set of binoculars that he handed to her. “These are regular and night vision.”

  She held them up to her eyes. Using the infrared vision, she scanned the area. Details became clear. “I can see everything.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “No guards.”

  “Keep looking.” He sat on the ground beside her and draped his arm loosely around her shoulder. “They don’t know we’re here. We’ve got time.”

  Peering through the windows on the middle floor, she wasn’t able to see anyone or anything unusual. There was no one outside. The landscaping and the architecture were, however, spectacular. Even the firewood was stacked artistically. Clear water bubbled through a fountain shaped like a pagoda in a rock garden.

  After a while, she got tired of searching and not finding. She leaned back, fitting herself into a comfortable position against Brady’s chest. Her ear pressed against his T-shirt and she listened to the strong, steady beat of his heart. The cool of the night contrasted the warmth of his body. She should have been relaxed and cozy, but she was too amped about being on what amounted to a
stakeout.

  His embrace felt so very wonderful. Only a few hours ago, she’d been in his bed. And she’d turned him down. Was she crazy? Maybe Brady wasn’t meant for a long-term relationship with her, but there was no way she’d refuse to make love to him again.

  His hand tightened on her arm. “Something’s happening at the house.”

  The lights in the top level went on. Through the windows, they could see into what appeared to be a huge bedroom with an equally huge bed, a giant television and an exercise bike. Using the binoculars, she spotted Smith’s bald, white head. “It’s him. Alone.”

  Instead of a pristine lab coat, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He climbed onto the stationary bike and used a remote to turn on the television news.

  “What do you think?” she asked with a grin. “Should we call out the National Guard?”

  “This is way too normal. He’s not even watching cable.”

  “Even bad guys have their favorite news anchors.”

  “Back to the truck.” He stood and held out a hand to help her up. “There’s one other place that the GPS tracker showed him stopping. It’s between here and Lost Lamb.”

  She bounced to her feet and handed the binoculars to him. “We certainly don’t want to miss one thrill-packed minute of Dr. Smith’s day.”

  “Welcome to the wonderful world of investigation,” he said. “There’s a lot of watching and waiting and being bored to death. Then, blam.”

  “Blam?”

  “Like the night we met, when we found baby Miguel and his mother.”

  She remembered it well, especially the sight of him diving through the air, risking his life to save Miguel and his mom. “That was maybe too much excitement.”

  As they headed back toward the place where they’d left the truck, she kept her eyes down, watching her footing on the rugged terrain. Even though the night was quiet and the road was utterly deserted, she had the feeling that they weren’t alone. She heard nothing but the wind through the tree branches. She saw no one else but felt a prickling between her shoulder blades as though someone was watching.