“Just wait,” he added in that same hoarse whisper. “If Denton comes this way, I’ll see him.” He paused so long that it drew Lynette’s gaze up to his. “I’d prefer him alive so he can tell me the name of the scumbag who hired him.”
Yes. Lynette hadn’t considered that, but it was something she needed to know. That was the first step in stopping this and keeping her baby safe.
But would Denton tell them?
Maybe if this man pressed him, and Lynette didn’t care how hard he pressed. She didn’t care if he beat Denton to within an inch of his life. She had to know what had brought all of this down on her.
So, they sat and waited. With her breath racing. Her heart pounding. And the fear, overwhelming. She had to get out of this alive.
Because the hackberry trees were choked together, they actually created an umbrella of sorts, and they got a reprieve from the rain. His Stetson helped, too, because she was tucked partly beneath its brim. Still, despite the trees and her trenchcoat, she was soaked to the bone because she hadn’t taken the time to button up. Maybe it was the chill and the adrenaline, but Lynette’s teeth started to chatter.
“Shh,” the man warned.
When the chattering only got worse, he hooked his left arm around her and pulled her inside his leather jacket and against his body.
Instant warmth. And comfort. Something she hadn’t expected from this stranger.
Lynette drew her knees up to her chest and buried her face into the heat from his chest and shoulder. It didn’t calm her exactly, but it helped. So did the fact that he had those diligent eyes trained on the area around them.
The rain made it hard to hear anything, but she listened for any sound that might alert them that Denton was near.
And she heard it.
The snap.
As if someone had stepped on a twig.
The man no doubt heard it, as well, because she felt the muscles in his arm tense just slightly. Barely a reaction and a drop in the bucket compared to hers. He eased away from her, probably to get ready to fire, and Lynette readied herself, as well. She pulled in her breath.
Taking in the man’s scent.
Not the rain-slick leather jacket or even the T-shirt beneath.
She took in his scent.
Despite hearing that twig snap, Lynette looked up at the man. It was too dark to see his face, but she tried to recall every detail of it when she’d seen him in her bedroom. The wrinkles around his eyes, the gray in his beard and hair. None of those things was familiar.
But his scent was.
It stirred through her, warming her in a different kind of way than his body had. But then, Lynette shook her head.
No.
It couldn’t be.
She stared at him, trying to see something in his face that would match the scent, but the sound had her attention snapping away from him. There was rustling movement in the underbrush to their right.
Just a split second of sound.
Before Denton came crashing through.
Denton pivoted, turning that rifle right on them. Her heart stopped. Her breath froze in her lungs. But the man with the familiar scent didn’t freeze. He bracketed his right wrist with his left hand. Took aim.
And he fired.
He pulled the trigger twice, and even though Lynette couldn’t see exactly where the shots had gone, a few moments later, she had her answer. She saw Denton crumple into a heap on the ground.
“Hell,” the man grumbled.
He kept his gun aimed at Denton, stood and cautiously went closer to the hit man. He bent down, touched his fingers to Denton’s neck and added another hell. “He’s dead.”
Dead. Not exactly good news, because he wouldn’t be able to tell them who’d hired him. As bad as that was, Lynette still didn’t wish him alive.
But she did want something else.
She had to know.
Lynette stood and stepped from the cover of the hackberries. The rain immediately slapped at her, just as it was doing to the man in the black leather jacket and Stetson. She walked closer and drew in his scent again.
Oh, God.
She hadn’t said that aloud, but he must have sensed some change in her body language.
“What?” he snapped, staring down at her.
Lynette shook her head and stared back. She was terrified to speak. But there was no chance she could stay silent and not ask the question.
“Gage?”
Chapter Four
Oh, hell.
This rescue had just gotten a lot more complicated.
Gage shook his head and tried to cut off the complication at its proverbial knees. But Lynette only shook her head, too, and she reached up and touched his face. Or rather she touched the thin sheet of prosthetic makeup that had created the wrinkles around his eyes and the fake beard.
“Gage,” she repeated on a rise of breath.
And it definitely wasn’t a question.
Since she looked ready to rip the rest of the makeup off his face, Gage took Lynette’s arm and practically dragged her to the SUV. He had a lot to do now, more than he’d originally planned, and he doubted he could dodge her question for long. Especially since she seemed so darn sure of who he was.
But how the devil had she known?
This disguise had fooled enemy agents. Heck, it could have probably fooled his brothers. So, how did Lynette figure it out while running for her life from a hit man?
“Gage,” she repeated when he stuffed her into the passenger’s seat.
Gage groaned and hurried, getting behind the steering wheel as fast as he could. He had to put some distance between them and the hit man in case the guy had brought backup with him.
“You’re alive.” Lynette’s breath broke, and a hoarse sob tore from her throat. She clawed at the prosthetics, ripping them off.
“Hold that thought,” Gage told her. He wasn’t completely immune to the emotion, or the fallout that would happen from this, but he had to make a call. Then, he’d figure out a way to deal with Lynette.
It wasn’t going to be pretty.
He pressed the button on the secure phone on the dash, and his handler, Sherman Hendricks, answered on the first ring.
“Lock on to my coordinates,” Gage instructed. “I just left a dead body in the woods, and I need the area to be sanitized. There’s also an overnight bag near the residence, and it’ll have to be moved.”
In other words, a full cleanup of the dead assassin and the overnight bag in case his prints were on it. No one could know Gage had been there.
Well, no one except Lynette.
Gage didn’t see a way around this big discussion that Lynette and he were about to have, so he ended the call to start some damage control.
“How did you know?” Gage was unable to stop himself from asking. He was good at his job. Damn good. And it was a little insulting that a civilian had figured it out in under a half hour.
“Your scent,” she said in a breathy whisper.
Gage gave his armpit a quick smell but clearly didn’t detect what Lynette had.
“No one else has that scent,” she clarified, which of course, didn’t clarify it much. She bolted across the seat and threw her arms around him. “It’s you. It’s really you.”
Well, that wasn’t the reaction Gage had expected.
Nor was the hungry kiss she planted on his mouth.
Her lips tasted of the rain and the salt from her tears. And of Lynette. Yeah, after all this time, he remembered exactly how she tasted. So, maybe it wasn’t too much of a stretch for her to remember his scent.
Considering though that they hated each other, it was still a puzzling memory to latch onto.
The kiss continued, punctuated with her sobs and mumbles, and Gage finally had no choice but to pull over. Not a good time for it, with the body of a hit man only a mile away, but he didn’t want to wreck.
Without thinking it through, Gage kissed her right back, that taste coiling through him
. Oh, man. He’d missed her almost as much as he hated her.
Almost.
However, he was having a hard time remembering the hatred part while playing lip-lock with his ex. He kissed her far harder and deeper than he should have, but then considering he shouldn’t be kissing her at all, he was getting his money’s worth from this particular mistake.
Thankfully, the kiss didn’t last much longer. Just seconds. Before Lynette stopped and pushed away from him.
“You let me think you were dead!” she shouted. And she planted both her hands against his chest and gave him a hard shove. “How could you do something like that to me? How?”
It took Gage a moment to recover from the scalding kiss, the shove and the quick change in Lynette’s mood. “I had no choice.”
“No choice?” she howled. The tears streamed down her cheeks. And she gave him another shove. “Everyone has a choice, Gage, and you let me and your family believe you were dead.”
She stopped cold, stared at him. “Or does your family know the truth?”
He shook his head. “They don’t. There are only two people who know—you and the man I just called.” And for some very dangerous reasons, it had to stay that way.
Lynette cursed. Shoved him again. “You jerk!” And then she called him something worse. Much worse. “How could you do that to us?”
“How? I did it to save all of your lives!” And he immediately hated the outburst. Hated that he felt bad for the lies that had been necessary. “You think it was easy for me to give up my life? My family?”
He didn’t add Lynette’s name to that little tirade, felt a little guilty about it, and then Gage reminded himself that she was pregnant with another man’s child.
Hell.
He’d only been fake dead for eleven months. Of course, Lynette and he hadn’t been anything close to a couple for years. Ten years to be exact. But Gage was still riled even if he didn’t have a right to be.
For that matter, Lynette didn’t have a right to be riled, either. He reminded himself of that, too, and put some steel back in his attitude. Except he didn’t have time to put that attitude into a mind-your-own-business snarl because she spoke before he could.
“Why did you do this?” she demanded. Now, she was the one with attitude.
Gage debated mentioning that part about her not having riling rights for anything related to him, but he didn’t want this to launch into a long argument. He had to give her a quick, sterile explanation, so he could get her to the airport for the trip to safety. Then, he’d be out of her life.
Again.
And he didn’t want to know why that suddenly didn’t feel like the perfect solution that it had been just thirty minutes ago.
Oh, wait. He did know.
It was because of that blasted kiss.
Sheesh. When the heck would he learn to quit thinking with any other organ that wasn’t his brain? Because the rest of his body, especially parts of him that were still affected by Lynette, wasn’t prone to making good decisions.
“Well?” she pressed. “I deserve an answer.”
No, she didn’t deserve anything from him, but he’d give her one anyway.
Mostly, it would be the truth.
“When I was on assignment last year, I killed a notorious international drug dealer, Rodney Dalvetti.”
While he thought about how to continue, how to word this, Gage put the SUV in gear and started driving. He also picked off the rest of his now worthless disguise.
“Since Rodney had murdered a hundred people or more,” he explained, “I didn’t take his death too hard. But his brother, Sampson, did. Turns out Sampson’s plenty upset about losing his rabid sibling, and he blames me for the shoot-out that his brother started.”
Lynette used the heels of her hands to swipe away the tears. “This Sampson Dalvetti is after you?”
“Was. And when he couldn’t find me, he swore that he’d come after my family. You, too, since he had his minions dig around and find out that we’d once been married.” He shot her a glance. “I guess he figured he’d use anyone and everyone to draw me out so he could kill me.”
“Oh, God,” Lynette mumbled.
“Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction, but I added a lot more words when I heard what was going down.”
Gage could protect himself, but he had five brothers, four sisters-in-law and a handful of nieces and nephews. Plus, Lynette. That was a lot of people to try to protect, and he knew that sooner or later, Sampson would get to one or more of them. Gage also figured that Lynette would be at the top or near the top of Sampson’s kill list.
Well, maybe.
Sampson had made it clear with his threats that he would take out Lynette. Gage wasn’t sure why Sampson had locked in on her, especially since Gage had had little communication with her since the annulment. But that was a question for another day. A day when he had Lynette tucked away so that Sampson couldn’t reach her.
“The only way I could keep you all safe was for Sampson to believe I was dead,” Gage spelled out for her.
Still staring at him, she stayed quiet a moment. “You could have told me the truth,” she whispered. “I would have kept your secret.”
He shook his head. “Couldn’t risk it.” Though he had considered it. Well, he’d considered telling his brother Grayson, so he could make sure Sampson stayed away from Silver Creek. But in the end Gage had decided he was best suited to do that. And he had. That’s how he’d learned about Denton targeting Lynette.
Lynette swiped away more tears, and she looked so sad, so distraught, that it had Gage shaking his head.
“I figured it wouldn’t matter to you if I was dead or not,” Gage reminded her. “Especially since I’ve been out of your life a long time now.”
And he glanced at her stomach in case she missed the snarky reference.
Her eyes widened, and she got that deer-in-the-
headlights look before she dodged his gaze completely. “But yet you came back to save me from a hit man.” Another pause. Another headshake. “Why?”
And she didn’t sound appreciative. But cautious. Afraid, even.
What the heck was going on in her mind?
The immediate danger was behind them. He’d gotten her out of there, and he would take the final step to ensure her safety. So, why the feeling that there was something else going on here?
“Why save me?” she repeated.
Again, Gage chose his words carefully. “My handler, the person I just called,” he clarified, “got word from an informant that Freddie Denton had been hired to take you out. I needed to make sure he wasn’t connected to Sampson so I came.”
“And was Denton connected?” she pressed.
Gage shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Of course, that didn’t explain why Gage had come himself to take on this particular assignment. His handler could have sent another agent. But Gage had wanted to do this. One last thing for Lynette. Not because he felt he owed her. No way. However, he’d thought this would finally close those old wounds.
So far, he was batting a big fat zero in that wound-closing department.
“You’re sure Denton’s not connected to Sampson Dalvetti?” Lynette asked.
He got his thoughts back on track and hoped they stayed there. “I can’t be positive, but the money trail for Denton’s payment doesn’t have international origins. Dalvetti usually deals with banks in the Cayman Islands.”
“He could have made an exception to throw you off his scent,” she pointed out.
Gage lifted his shoulder. “Yeah. But I verified that Dalvetti still believes I’m dead. There’d be no reason to come after you unless he’s pretending to believe that I faked my death.”
Now, it was Gage’s turn to pause. “Of course, that leaves your father and his business associates. One of them could have hired Denton.”
She made a sound of agreement, nothing else, and Gage took the turn to the small country airport. Lynette obv
iously noticed the route, knew where it led, but she didn’t say anything. Maybe that meant she wouldn’t give him any lip about getting on the plane that was waiting for her.
“Denton knew where your bedroom was in the house,” he tossed out there. “He didn’t look around. He got out of his vehicle, walked straight to the window and fired.” And he gave her some time to think about that.
“Dalvetti’s never been to your house.”
She shook her head, sucked in her breath. “Maybe he broke in, studied the layout and told Denton?”
Gage copied her headshake. “If Dalvetti had broken in, he would have kidnapped you. As a minimum.” More likely, he would have killed her on the spot. “I doubt Denton got your floor plan from Dalvetti, and I know Denton didn’t arrive any earlier to case the place.”
Lynette stayed quiet a moment. “So, someone told Denton where my bedroom is.”
Oh, yeah. “Someone who knew the floor plan.”
“Someone who knew me,” she corrected. “Someone who’s been to my house.”
Bingo.
“I’ve narrowed it down,” Gage continued when Lynette didn’t say anything about the accusation he’d just tossed out there about her father. “Of course, your dad, Ford, is tops on the list of suspects who could have hired Denton. But I haven’t been able to rule out Patrick or Nicole.”
Another sound of agreement, but like before, that was the only thing Lynette volunteered. Of course, she already knew what these people were capable of. Both Patrick and Nicole were ruthless in business and their personal lives. Ford was a couple of steps past the ruthless part. Except Lynette might disagree with that. She’d certainly jumped to defend her father when he’d torn them apart.
“All three have been to your house?” he asked.
“Yes,” she verified after a huff.
“None of them would approve of you snooping in their dirty dealings. So, why did you?” Gage came right out and asked. Maybe this time, he’d get a real answer and not more of those noncommittal sounds. The woman was nearly as good at dodging the truth as he was.
In addition to that sound, which put his teeth on edge, Lynette shivered, prompting Gage to turn up the heat. And he waited. Waited some more. Then, more. Until time was just ticking away.
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