by Regan Black
His loud groan of pain tensed her muscles. Now she was feeling his pain. This wasn’t how to work an apprehension.
“Hang on and I’ll get us off this as soon as I can. It sounds like we may have lost them.” Not that the loud roar of the ATV was any way to elude detection. She only had to get them near her vehicle and they’d have the upper hand.
If her mind would stop playing tricks on her.
CHAPTER 3
“You’re awfully quiet. Hang on, we’re almost there. Don’t even think about jumping—it’ll make it hurt more.” The vibration of her voice felt comforting under Rob’s uninjured arm as he continued to hang on to her.
It was as if Trina had read his mind. That gave him pause, made his heart lurch at the possibility they still shared their unforgettable connection. As steely and official as her tone was, she couldn’t shake the seductive edge of it. When she’d been a pilot helping him in support of SEAL missions he’d heard it, looked up from his tablet to pinpoint who was speaking in such rich notes. Her voice had been what initially drew him to her, how he’d learned there was so much more to the accomplished Navy pilot than met the eye.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Not this time. Not until he leveled with her, told her he’d survived. And wished her well to her face. She had to know, or suspect strongly, that it was him. Trina was too smart not to see the similarities. She had to be at least comparing him to the man he’d once been. A man she’d thought dead for the past five years.
“Damn right you’re not going anywhere.” Her words weren’t directed at him as she didn’t shout over the engine or wind, but he felt her breath, heard her words as his ear rested on her back. He wondered if she could feel how well they still fit together.
“Ugh.” His grunt came out louder than he’d planned, but the ATV rode like a truck without the shock absorbers. Holy hell but Trina knew how to maneuver it, as well as she’d flown the P-8 they’d met in. More importantly, how to evade a pursuer. Within minutes they passed through a copse of birch, pine and fir trees and drove up onto a paved road. A real highway.
It was pure bliss to his bruised ass and kidneys, as well as his sore crotch.
With no fanfare, she stopped the ATV and dismounted, indicating he do the same. She took the puppy from him as he stiffly executed a controlled fall off his seat. At least he was on two feet.
Trina’s gaze assessed him, but if she thought it was the man she’d once loved, her expression revealed nothing. She’d had the time she needed to regain her composure.
“We have to move quickly. Can you still run?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Her cool gray eyes met his. Awareness, tight and immediate, thrummed between them. He held his breath, waiting for her to acknowledge she recognized him.
“Damn right. Let’s go.” She tucked the damned dog under one arm and grabbed his upper arm with the other. She propelled him forward, leading them back into the deeper part of the woods, away from the highway. For someone with such a lean body she was remarkably strong. And fast. Just as he remembered.
His breath hitched, and the air felt like fire as it entered and exited his lungs, scraping as it went. The raspy sound would have alarmed him if he weren’t afraid they were both about to get shot to pieces by one of Vasin’s men. He was pretty sure Vasin was down for the count, with a shelving unit and tear gas to fight through. He’d caught the other thugs unawares, too, but at least one if not two of them had escaped and shot at them. He had no doubt they were close behind on the remaining ATVs. His ears strained to hear their roar. He was afraid that they’d alerted Ivanov to the breach of their inner sanctum. The ROC would unleash hell on earth to stop Rob and anyone who threatened their dominion.
“Come on! Don’t slow down now.” No compassion laced Trina’s urgent order.
“Going. Fast. As. I. Can.” He gritted his teeth, but his swollen cheeks didn’t make it the pain-relieving experience it should have been as his jaw screamed in protest.
The roar of an ATV reached his ears just fine, however. Cold sweat would have broken out on his neck if he weren’t already overheated from the physical demands of the run and his pain non-management.
Trina heard the engine as well. She kept moving, kept up their forward momentum as she half pushed, half dragged him by his good arm. “Come on, buddy. Pretend you’re in shape and have to score the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. You’re a wide receiver, running with the ball toward the goalpost.”
In shape? Couldn’t she see he was freaking injured, not out of shape?
“We’re headed to that spot over there, by the way.” He looked at her out of his good eye, which made him turn his head, and he tripped. Sharp rocks and hard dirt raced up toward him, filling his limited vision, before a hard yank on his shirt collar had him upright. His neck howled in pain.
“Aggggh.” He stifled the scream, and it sounded like a damned frog. This was definitely an example of how not to run into a former lover.
“Stay with me.” Trina’s voice strained as she dug in with the heels of her work boots and kept him from falling face-first onto the forest floor for a second time. She held on to his collar as she pulled him up next to her, her silver eyes steady on him again. “You okay?”
He grunted.
“Then get in this car, back seat, now.” She’d led them to what he’d thought was a huge shrub but she pulled the branches off to reveal a small hatchback—a Ford Fiesta. If he had the breath he’d whoop and hug the tight-assed marshal. She was his ticket out of hell. Until he told her he was, had been, Justin. That he was still alive. Would she even care?
“Okay, get in.” He bit his lip as he held on to the small car’s roof with his arm, holding his injured arm against his middle. After he got into the seat, Trina put his seat belt around him, and he caught a whiff of her scent. When he breathed in sharply she stilled and stared at him, her expression wary. Frightened.
Yeah, she’d noticed the resemblance.
The buckle clicked into place and Trina straightened outside the car. “Keep an eye on the dog.” The mangy pup was placed on the seat next to him, where it immediately curled up and went to sleep. Rob envied the dog’s ability to give in to basic instinct.
He’d be fighting his the entire time he was with Trina.
* * *
The shooters had come so close to them but never noticed the car under the branches, between two full bushes.
Only minutes earlier, getting killed by fugitives had been her biggest worry. Not whether or not she was sane, thinking the man behind her was Justin. Justin was dead. But if he’d lived, if this was him, she’d have to tell him about her Justin Berger, his son, Jake.
No, you don’t.
Yes, she did. Protecting Jake from strangers was one thing, but from his father another. Although the man in the back seat was virtually a stranger. He couldn’t be Justin.
It’s improbable but still possible.
As she cleared the remaining branches off the car, she used the small space from Rob Bristol to get it together. She refused to look back as she took off her cowboy hat, threw it across to the passenger seat, and slid into the driver’s seat. Trina waited as the sound of the Russians’ ATV engines faded, making certain they were gone before she started the car.
The man remained silent as she drove up onto the highway. After a few miles on flat pavement, she checked him out in the rearview mirror. His head was tilted back as if he’d fallen asleep. Or unconscious. Panic gripped her chest.
“Hey! You still with me?”
Nothing.
He could be messing with her. But then he lifted his head, and she saw the tortured expression on his face. Compassion pierced her defenses.
“Are you all right? I’ve got pain meds in the first aid kit.”
“A-okay, baby cakes.”
Realization slammed t
hrough her, blowing away her cobwebs of disbelief and denial. Unless this was a ghost, and she’d imagined the entire time between seeing him stumble out of the building that was housing Vasin and now, this had to be Justin. He was the only one who’d ever called her “baby cakes.”
Justin was still alive.
She headed east, called her boss and refused to look her passenger in the eye. She gripped the wheel, waiting for Corey to pick up.
“Trina, why the freak haven’t you checked in?” Corey Blumenthal’s voice rumbled in her earpiece. She couldn’t use the speakerphone, not with an unknown in the back seat, no matter that he was probably a fellow LEA agent or officer.
And he wasn’t unknown, but a freaking practical ghost.
“Handling things. I’m safe. I should be in Harrisburg in about two hours or so. I’ve got Rob Bristol with me.”
“Thank God! We’ve got reports that the warehouse you went to had an event. Where are you?” Her boss’s voice remained professional, but she heard the concern in it.
She gave him her coordinates so that he could confirm her GPS unit was working. “I’m within two and a half hours of base. Unless you tell me to go elsewhere.” The puppy chose that time to bark. Of course.
“What the hell is that?”
“A dog. He wouldn’t stop following me.”
“You’re a US Marshal, Lopez, not a dogcatcher.”
“Yes, sir.” She and Corey were on first-name basis, but she liked to rankle him by reminding him he was two decades older.
“So, you have Bristol. Well done. Just to be safe, describe him to me.”
What the hell? He never questioned her like this.
She looked in the rearview mirror as she drove, catching quick looks at Justin—God, it was Justin—but not enough to get them in an accident.
“Shaved crew cut, blondish, graying scruff on his chin, dark eyes, well, eye—one of them is swollen shut—about six feet, maybe two hundred, two-twenty.” And all of it hard muscle, if he was anything like he’d been when they’d made love under the desert stars, making the baby she’d raised on her own.
“Lopez. What about ID?” Corey’s impatience bristled more than usual because she got it—she was annoyed, too.
“Not possible. I asked. No ID, no papers on him. Not saying who he’s with.” Her fingers betrayed her as she spoke, burning with the memory of patting him down—there’d been nothing under his clothing except hard, sinewy male body. Justin’s body.
“Ask him.” Her boss’s voice shook her from her lust.
“He claims he’s an agent of some type. I trusted my gut. He’s been beat to hell by the ROC members.”
“Robert Bristol. TH.” Her fugitive croaked out his name again but this time added the “TH.” Trina locked gazes with him in the rearview mirror, fighting the urge to slam the car to a stop, get out and pull him out to get to the bottom of his identity.
“He says his name is Robert Bristol, TH, whatever the hell that means.”
Was that a sparkle of glee, amusement or demonic intention in his good eye?
“That’s all the identification we need. You’ve got the right man, Trina. Bring him in.” Corey paused, the line crackling in her earbud. “Well done, Trina.”
“Yes, sir.” She finished her conversation with Corey and turned her attention to her passenger.
“That’s not your name and we both know it. Where the hell have you been?” Trina wasn’t playing his game any longer. The initial shock was wearing thin and she had to know whom she was transporting back to headquarters, at least, whoever he used to be. Before he called himself Robert Bristol.
“Please keep your eyes on the road, Marshal Lopez.”
“Shut the hell up.” Backed into an emotional corner, she relied on good old sailor-speak.
“Trina, what the hell is going on out there? Are you okay?” Corey’s concerned voice filled her ear. She’d neglected to disconnect. Just great.
“I’m okay, boss. We’re having a little ‘whose LEA is bigger’ contest, that’s all.”
This time she made sure to disconnect.
* * *
“Damn it!” Trina slammed her palms on the steering wheel of the small economy car. A cheap rental, judging from the clean smell of the upholstery and lack of air-conditioning. At least she’d opened the windows and let the clean air stream in. “Want to explain why your name is Rob Bristol these days?”
“Self-preservation.”
He liked the way her gray eyes looked almost black each time she glanced at him in the rearview mirror. Her hair was escaping the ponytail holder, and long, wavy wisps floated around her as the air blew in through the front two windows she’d lowered halfway.
He couldn’t help it; he laughed. And then groaned.
“Are you in pain?” Her tough countenance fled. Did she care if he suffered? It could be a good sign if she did.
He shook his head. Nope, couldn’t go there. Trina was married, and he had to gain closure with her for their time in the desert. Nothing more. Achieve point A, move to B.
“Stop.” He choked out the word.
“I can’t stop—we have to make it to Harrisburg.” Same tiny lines between her brows when she frowned, if a bit deeper and definite. The years had been tough on each of them, it appeared.
“No, I mean, stop making me laugh. It hurts my ribs.”
“It’s going to hurt a lot more if you don’t start talking. What were you doing in that warehouse? Did you lie to me about working for the government? Do you work for ROC?”
“Hell no. I was trying to take Vasin out.” The words escaped and he realized he had to reel them back in, but couldn’t. He’d never let classified information spill before, no matter how much pain he was in.
“Take Yuri Vasin, second to only Dima Ivanov, out? What’s your definition of ‘out,’ by the way?”
“Actually, it turns out I had to take out Vasin first. And before you get upset, know that he’s under a huge metal shelf sucking in tear gas. He’s as good as caught. The local authorities will have no problem apprehending him. Ivanov remains unseen and at large, but I’d bet my life he’s near the warehouse, if not in it.” She had to know about the basements and concealed structures-within-structures that ROC was famous for. Nothing about that was classified.
“Well, that’s reassuring.” Her sarcasm tore at him, and he reassessed his initial appraisal of US Marshal Trina Lopez. Or rather, added to it. She’d come a long way from the serious but always chipper Navy pilot he’d known. She was still spot-on with her job, but her demeanor was more sober. Wiser. She hadn’t made a misstep when she’d taken him into pseudo custody—she’d hedged her bets, in fact. As a well-trained, intelligent US Marshal would do. The few he’d worked with over the years had been all business, the epitome of professional. Trina proved no exception.
No other US Marshal had been the love of his life, however. And not one of them had thought he was dead for the past five years, come back to life as if in a dream.
More like a nightmare. Yeah, he supposed he was Trina’s worst nightmare, in many ways.
That made him laugh again. Ouch.
Freakin’ ribs.
* * *
Trina’s deep shock at seeing Justin alive wasn’t going to dissipate anytime soon, but she had to take care of what was in front of her nose. She was concerned about his injuries, wondering if he was internally bleeding as they sped across the state.
She sighed and focused on a few deep, calming breaths as she drove, certain they’d left the criminals behind them. She didn’t want to see anyone in pain, and especially not a man who wasn’t a bad guy. Was in fact, the guy she’d fallen for and gotten pregnant by. He was a different kind of guy now, though. He’d been in the vicinity of very, very bad men. And he knew who Vasin and Ivanov were. Not usual LEA targets. More like FBI, ev
en CIA. The Marshals had been called in to nab Vasin only because they hadn’t received the intelligence that he was with other men and protected. Trina wasn’t fazed by running across an agent from another LEA—it happened all the time. But in this instance, and with “Rob” not revealing which agency he worked for, her hackles were at attention. It had nothing to do with the sexual attraction she was imagining between them. Seriously, in the middle of an op?
A quick look at her rearview mirror revealed Rob with his head laid back again, maybe trying to escape the incredible discomfort he was in. She’d call in for a doctor as soon as they were an hour out from the Harrisburg station. Giving him first aid unless he was facing imminent death wasn’t an option, as they had to make time and put road between them and ROC. Rob had said he was fine, that he didn’t need to stop at Lehigh Valley medical center. She chose to believe him. Stopping to clean wounds and place bandages was a luxury when being chased by bad guys.
She should have checked him over for any bleeding wounds. And internal bleeding—it was pretty clear he’d probably snapped a rib or two, either from his escape out of the warehouse or from Vasin and his posse whaling on him. But her mind, her heart, had been vibrating from the effort to assimilate what she witnessed.
The resurrection of her son’s father. A man come back to life.
Her phone buzzed and the ID indicated it was Corey on a secure line.
“Hey, boss.”
“Any more information from Rob Bristol, Trina?”
“Nothing more than what I told you. He says he’s Robert Bristol, that he was working to find Ivanov and Vasin. He’s got a lot of bruises, maybe a cracked rib. But nothing serious, hopefully.”
“He’s telling you the truth, Trina.” Corey never spoke with such a dramatic tone of conciliation unless he thought she was about to lose it from a particularly rough operation, or when he was insistent she take time off.
“Okay, fine, so who does he work for?”
“I’ll fill you in when this is over. All of it’s above my pay grade. Bottom line is that he’s not a suspect or fugitive. He’s one of us, but with a different group. You can trust him. And if you need to, follow his orders.”