Her sarcasm and his anger at his own thoughts brought him up sharply. What the hell was he doing? How could he have forgotten even for a moment? “This isn’t a James Bond movie, Natalya. Eight of my men were killed because of what you did.”
She immediately sobered, the Academy Award–winning portrayal of heartfelt sorrow back in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Scott. You have to believe me. I never meant for any of this to happen. I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I lov—”
“You’re right,” he said before she could get the word out, every muscle in his body taut with anger. “I don’t want to hear it. Ever.”
How could she say that to him now? Before he’d gone on that damned mission, it would have made him the happiest man in the world. But not now. Now it just brought home how much of a lie it had all been.
None of that mattered anymore, and he had to focus on what did: getting her back to DC to clear his name and face her punishment. She could explain herself to a court. He didn’t care about her feelings or her reasons. This supposed baby was just a temporary hiccup.
And if God forbid by some hideous twist of fate she actually was pregnant?
He wouldn’t even think about it. She wasn’t. But he’d give her the night to prove it.
* * *
• • •
Natalie feared her plan wasn’t going to work. She’d gone to bed without a shower, unable to bear the idea of undressing near him even with the half-closed door partially blocking his view.
Considering how fast he’d divested her of her clothes that first night, it would have been funny if it wasn’t so painful.
Due to the nice, oversized window in the bathroom, he’d refused to let her close the door even to pee. She’d forced him to take her to the downstairs half bath—without a window—to do that. Some indignities were too much to bear without objection.
He’d waited for her in the kitchen, blocking the exit to the back door, and helped himself to one of the blueberry muffins she’d made the day before.
“Hungry?” she’d asked. “I can make you some more with some nice almond flavoring.”
His mouth twitched. He’d almost smiled before catching himself. “I think I prefer them arsenic-free.”
She gave a small, indifferent shrug of her shoulders. “Let me know if you change your mind. I could also make you an omelet—without the poison. I’m assuming you didn’t have dinner.”
“The muffin is fine.” He took another bite. “These are really good. You made them?”
“You don’t need to sound so surprised.”
“You never cooked for me.”
She shrugged again. “It didn’t fit the ambitious, hardworking-businesswoman-by-day, sex-siren-by-night image you wanted to believe.”
“You mean that you wanted me to believe.”
“Don’t blame me for your unrealistic fantasies. Do you think women like that really exist other than in porn movies?”
He tossed the rest of the muffin in the sink. His gaze was as hard as onyx. “You faked it well. You could make millions on the Internet when you get out.”
She flushed, ignoring the jab at prison—and at porn. Of course he missed the point. “That wasn’t what I was faking.”
No one could fake that kind of passion. But just thinking about what they’d had—what they’d shared—made her feel like crying. The cold, professional way he’d touched her earlier had been horrible. It reminded her of all that she’d lost.
Her cheeks still heated when she thought of the humiliating way her body had responded. He was patting her down like a prisoner, but she was so desperate for his touch that her body had jumped into full sex mode.
She’d gotten Scott back, but he wasn’t her Scott. He was essentially a stranger. A stranger who didn’t smile, joke, or look at her lovingly. A stranger with ice-cold eyes and an unyielding, granite-hard expression. A stranger who hated her.
Ironically, it wasn’t until she’d seen the hatred that she realized how much he must have cared for her. Scott was so good at hiding his emotions—at keeping his thoughts to himself—that she’d never been sure.
Their eyes held for one long heartbeat. She thought he wanted to say something, but he let the subject go.
She was too exhausted to try to press. It was clear he wasn’t going to believe anything she said. She knew it would be like this, but it still hurt.
She fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow with him sitting in the chair opposite her bed, watching her like a hawk. A giant hawk who filled the whole room with his presence.
Scott’s size had been something she’d had to get used to. She didn’t like overwhelming men, and he certainly fit the bill—big-time. He was six feet three inches of solid muscle. Broad shoulders, washboard stomach, powerful arms. Basically the type of physically imposing guy she avoided.
But rather than threaten her there was something about his size and strength that made her feel safe and protected. He’d become her rock in a world that had been turned upside down by Mick. A world that had become dark, tumultuous, and scary. Scott was something solid and steady to hold on to. When they were together it felt as if nothing could harm her. Lying on his chest and wrapped in his arms, she could forget Mick and the nightmare her life had become.
And after months of running, having him here watching over her—even in these horrible circumstances—allowed her to relax enough to sleep solidly for the first time since Jennifer had been killed.
She’d let him wake her up twice before putting her plan into action. She was counting on the glass of water he had next to him to do its job.
After he’d woken her up the second time, she didn’t go back to sleep. She only pretended to while she waited. And waited. While trying to ignore the pressure in her head that seemed to be getting worse.
She’d almost given up hope. Had he changed biorhythms in three months and gone earlier while she’d been sleeping? He always got up to go to the bathroom when the sun came up.
It was just after dawn when her patience and faking-asleep abilities were rewarded. He quietly stood from the chair and slipped out of the room into the hallway. She waited until the light went on in the bathroom to make her move.
If she’d ever held out any hope that she could turn to him, she didn’t anymore. From the first moment she’d seen his face, she’d known that leaving was her only option. Any feelings he’d once had for her were gone. She’d betrayed him, and he wasn’t going to forgive, forget, or even try to understand. He didn’t even want to hear her explanation—or that she loved him.
None of which surprised her. It was why she hadn’t gone to him for help in the first place. She knew him too well. Scott held himself and those around him to a very strict code. It was one of the things that made him such a good leader, and one of the reasons she loved him so much. His moral compass only went in one direction. He wouldn’t understand her betrayal no matter how well motivated. To Scott, honor and integrity would always win out over treachery.
Doing the right thing always seemed so easy for him. Scott pushed himself and those around him to be their best, like the old army “be all you can be” slogan. Rules, honor, personal integrity, discipline, loyalty . . . as long as you adhered to those principles you were fine, but he had no use for people who didn’t. For proof of that, all she needed to do was think about his biological father.
Ironically, Natalie had been thinking about confiding in Scott until he told her about his fathers—both the man who’d raised him and the man he’d refused to meet even though he was dying of cancer. Scott was intractable on the subject, no matter how much prodding from her or his sister, Kate, whom he’d confided in her about. He had no use for cheaters, and he would never forgive the man who’d cuckolded the man whom he admired above all others.
As overjoyed and relieved as Natalie was to learn that Sco
tt was alive—and having some of her prayers answered—his finding her had put everything she’d done to protect her family in jeopardy. She couldn’t let him take her in. If anyone learned that she was alive, they would come after her again, or worse, punish her by going after her family.
Her love for him had to take a backseat. She had to get away and disappear—this time for good. Staying here and taking her chances with him was not an option. Not when the stakes were so high. Natalie wasn’t going to gamble with her parents’ and sister’s lives, and the only way to keep them safe was for her to stay dead.
Scott wasn’t going to let her do that. Her pregnancy may have made him hesitate, but he believed in the system. He’d take her in and assume he could protect them. But she couldn’t take that chance. Not with her life. Not with their child’s life. And not with her family’s lives.
A tear slipped passed the reins she held on her emotions, and she hastily wiped it away. The raw ache in her chest was not so easily dismissed. It ripped her heart out to leave him, but what other choice did she have? If she’d felt alone before, it was nothing to how she felt now. The worst part was that she couldn’t blame him. He had every right to turn away from her. They were never going to be a happy family, no matter how much she dreamed about it.
Scott hadn’t closed the bedroom or bathroom doors completely so she knew she would have to be silent and quick. Fighting a moment of dizziness and a blast of pain, she slid from the bed. She didn’t bother to put on shoes and went straight for the window, which was partially open due to the heat.
She lifted it a few more inches to slip outside onto the porch roof. She hoped Scott would think she’d gone down the stairs and out the front door.
How much time did she have? Minutes? Seconds? Did she imagine the flush of the toilet and running of the water? There was so much ringing in her ears it was hard to tell.
She tried not to think about how much her head hurt or the long slide down the roof onto the ground if she lost her balance, and carefully crept along the rough asphalt shingles to a corner at the far side of the front porch.
Now came the hard part: getting off the roof. It was a good fifteen feet to the ground. She peered into the semidarkness below and the ground seemed to sway. Or maybe that was her. The dizziness was getting worse, and she was fighting to keep the meager contents of her stomach where it belonged. Taking a deep breath, she used the vines of a long-dead plant that were wrapped round a gutter and the wooden slats of the house to work her way down.
As she didn’t have a car, her plan was to hide in the cellar—the house had the kind that could be accessed from the outside—until Scott left. She’d then retrieve her purse and keys before making her way back into the town through the countryside.
It all hinged on Scott assuming that she’d run into the fields or to the road and going after her.
Somehow she made it to the bottom. Or what she thought was the bottom. The dirt ground was dark below her feet and she misjudged the distance when she jumped the last couple of feet.
Her body jolted with the unexpected pressure of the extra distance, turning her legs into jelly. Under normal circumstances she might have been able to keep her balance, but her equilibrium was off and she fell on her backside.
The force of it took the wind from her lungs—and her sails. What was she doing? She wasn’t Spider-Woman or a trained operative; she was a farm girl from Minnesota. She was lucky she hadn’t killed herself with her little jaunt across the roof.
Her head was pounding, and she could barely see straight. She didn’t need to be a doctor to realize that she must have a concussion.
Where did she think she was going to go anyway? Relentlessness was in the Navy SEAL DNA. Scott was just going to keep coming after her. He was one of the most highly trained warriors in the world, skilled not just in physical strength and toughness but in intelligence, tactics, escape, survival, and clandestine operations. She was a reluctant spy thrown into a situation way over her head who only knew the basics of self-defense. How long did she think she could stay ahead of him?
She hadn’t had a chance of escape since the first moment he’d seen her.
She wanted to put her face in her hands and cry with frustration, but she was suddenly jerked to her feet.
* * *
• • •
Scott didn’t think he was still capable of being disappointed, but he clearly had a stupid chip when it came to Natalie.
She’d seemed so dazed and groggy the couple of times he’d woken her up that he’d just about convinced himself that she was telling the truth. When he got back from taking a piss, he’d half expected her to be lying there still asleep.
He knew immediately where she’d gone, as the broom from the hall that he’d propped strategically in the bedroom doorjamb hadn’t moved. However, the window—or more precisely the curtain that he’d left tucked in it—had.
He’d been standing on the porch waiting for her as she made her way off the roof and nearly broke her leg by the fall into the dead flower bed. Obviously the Russians had neglected the escape-from-second-floor-of-a-building training. She sure as hell wasn’t going to win any Spy of the Year prizes.
Still, something about the fall pissed him off. Not just that she’d run from him at the first opportunity, or that she could have killed herself on that roof, which from the look of it, didn’t seem all that sturdy. But that she was willing to go to such lengths to get away from him seemed to reinforce just how far apart they were now. The woman he’d thought he loved and had wanted to marry was now climbing out of second-floor windows to get away from him.
It was like a bad dream. Except it wasn’t. It was painfully real.
Her attempt at escape also told him something else. He took her by the arm and hauled her up. “I knew you were lying.”
She blinked, looking a little dazed and confused. “Lying?”
“About the baby.” How the hell could she lie about something like that?
She seemed taken aback. “I’m not lying.”
“Yeah, right. Then why the hell else are you running? And I don’t know a lot of pregnant women stupid enough to climb out of a window when a fall like that could make you lose the baby.”
Suddenly she blanched. “Oh my God,” she said, with wide eyes. “I didn’t think. Do you think . . . ?” Her eyes filled with tears as her hand covered her stomach. “I didn’t mean to hurt it; I was just scared.”
Now he was really angry. She was taking this way too far. “Stop it,” he said. “Just stop it. Enough with the baby . . . oh, shit.”
She swooned in his arms and lost consciousness. If he hadn’t been holding her by the shoulders she would have crumpled to the ground like a rag doll. He knew she wasn’t faking it; she was utterly deadweight in his arms.
At first he thought it was something he’d done. He’d been holding her. But he hadn’t shaken her . . . had he? But then his hand reached around to cradle her head and he felt it—the huge knot at the back of her head.
She hadn’t been lying—not about the fall at least. Why hadn’t she said anything?
She had, he realized. He just hadn’t believed her.
His heart was pounding hard in his chest. He told himself it didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t worried—or panicked. But her face was so still and colorless that for one gut-dropping moment he thought she was dead.
He felt his chest tighten as he gazed down at the pale, lifeless features that had tormented him for months. First in mourning and then in rage.
She was so damned beautiful. The blackness in his chest tightened again. Her delicate features seemed frozen in a waxen, doll-like mask. Her warm velvety ivory skin was as thin and glass-like as alabaster. And the red lips that he’d kissed so passionately—that had enticed him in so many ways—were nearly colorless. But the tiny nose, the high cheeks, the delicately pointed chi
n, and softly arched brows were all the same. He’d traced them all so many times with his fingers, he would know her even if he were blind.
He had been blind. So blind.
How could such fragile beauty hide such treachery? He should want her dead. But the fear that gripped him told him otherwise, and he couldn’t hide the sigh of relief as she fluttered her eyes open as he carried her toward the car he’d hidden behind the barn.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You lost consciousness.”
“I think I have a concussion.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “You think?” he bit back rhetorically. “God damn it, Natalie, what were you thinking? You could have killed yourself up there.”
It made him furious just to think about it. It seemed only more proof of her guilt. She was so determined to escape that she’d rather go out a window with a concussion and risk a fall than face him.
He put her down gently as he fished around in his pocket for the key fob to unlock the door.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Back to the hospital.”
“Urgent care,” she corrected. “And they can’t do anything for a concussion.”
He knew that. He’d treated enough men concussed by explosions to be well versed in concussions. But this was different. This wasn’t one of his guys, it was . . . damn it!
His jaw hardened. “You lost consciousness,” he said, stating the obvious.
In other words, they weren’t talking about this. She seemed to understand his tone and got into the car without any argument.
She directed him back into town to the urgent care—which wasn’t far from where he’d seen her—and a short while later, after a little heated insistence on his part that might have involved a growl or two, she was admitted for another CT scan.
Fortunately there didn’t appear to be any swelling so the doctor who came in the room afterward prescribed rest and acetaminophen for the pain as necessary.
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