As a kid she’d been terrified of the dark. Critters or no.
She’d read herself to sleep with a flashlight under the covers every night. She’d been a nerd even then. A tall, skinny adolescent with eyeglasses, braces and pimples. In college she’d spent ninety per cent of her time either in the classroom or the library doing research and studying. No one had noticed her.
It wasn’t until she’d taken the position at NASA that anyone had given her more than a cursory glance. Yet even then the attention hadn’t once been about her as a person . . . it had been about her work.
Three years of hard work. Awards for innovation. All sorts of accolades for her ingenuity. Only to be remembered as a traitor.
When it was the brute behind her who was the real traitor.
Twice in the fifteen minutes that followed she opened her mouth to demand where the hell he was taking her, but she’d changed her mind each time. She hugged herself despite the unseasonable October heat. Fear, she told herself. There was absolutely no chance she would survive whatever was about to happen.
He – or whoever he worked for – wanted the SASS. She had destroyed all traces of the system. Killing her was likely his way of tying up the loose ends. In the event the government ever tracked her down she couldn’t describe him. He would make sure of that.
Whoever the hell he was.
Trace Granger. Like that was his name. Nothing about him was as he’d told her.
And she’d taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.
Strong fingers abruptly wrapped around her right arm. “This way.”
She stumbled as he lugged her off the paved road and on to a rutted dirt path. Couldn’t be called a road. It had once been a driveway . . .
Total recognition flared.
“Why are we going in there?” A new kind of fear ignited inside her.
That he ignored her question sent outrage roaring through her veins. Enough to temporarily burn away the fear. “I’m not going in there.”
He dragged her when she resisted. Her feet scraped the uneven ground. She couldn’t go in there.
Fifteen years and the mere thought of the place scared her to death.
No matter how she resisted, her strength was no match for his. “I can’t go . . .” She shook her head. Tried to jerk free of his hold.
As if she hadn’t just burned her home to the ground. Hadn’t destroyed years of work. All that mattered at this second was not passing through the gates of hell.
He yanked her toward him, chest to chest. “Keep it up and I’ll throw you over my shoulder,” he growled.
As if her realizations, her actions of the past forty-eight hours, suddenly crushed in on her all at once she simply stared at him. She couldn’t speak if her life depended upon it, and clearly it did.
He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder.
She was going to die . . . in Hell.
Three
5.03 a.m.
Trace settled Jill on to her feet.
She ripped away from his hold and spun around in the darkness. “I can’t be here.” Her hands came up to her face to right her glasses.
If he could just get through the next half hour without her freaking out completely she would understand.
She bolted.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and towed her back. “Not yet.”
She whipped around, trembled. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with.”
Jesus. He’d put his weapon away already. Did she really think he was going to kill her? He’d done what he had to do to ensure her cooperation. He hadn’t liked it, but that unpleasant part was behind them now.
“You’re safe with me.”
Jill laughed, the sound dry and filled with derision. “Right. Yeah. That’s why you have a gun, Trace.”
Daybreak wasn’t far off. The sparse light leeching in through the cracks in the walls and roof allowed him to make out the shape of her face but not the expressions. “The weapon is for our protection. Nothing more.”
“You stuck it to the back of my head,” she railed, daring to take a step closer to him. “You. . .” She folded her arms over her chest. “You threatened to kill me. Don’t deny it.”
He’d warned that if she wanted to live she would listen. Very different to a death threat. But he wasn’t going to waste time explaining the subtleties of his line of work. “Trust me, you’re safe.”
Her jaw dropped. That he clearly saw in the faint grey of dawn. “Trust you?” She backed up the step she’d claimed. “I might be naïve but I’m not a total idiot. You cost me everything, Trace Granger – or whoever the hell you are. You’re . . . you’re a traitor. A terrorist!”
Nothing he hadn’t been called before. But . . . somehow it cut deeper coming from her. “I don’t know what you think,” he began, choosing his words carefully, “but I’m here to protect you.”
“You’re insane!” Another step widened between them. “I don’t even know your real name.”
She would bolt again. He braced to make a move. “My name is Trace Granger. Major Trace Granger. I joined your project six weeks ago to ensure you had an exit strategy.”
She shook her head, made a scoffing sound. “An exit strategy? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. But what I do know is that you betrayed me.” She hugged herself tighter. “You wormed your way into my life . . . and . . . and you tried to steal my work.”
“I was sent to protect you and your project.” How had she gotten such a ridiculous idea? He’d been watching her particularly closely the past few days. Her sudden withdrawal had warned that she was on the verge of making some kind of panicked move.
“No way.” Her head was moving side to side again. “You’re just saying that in the hope that I’ll cooperate with you. I know what you did.”
He restrained the frustration mounting in his chest. “What is it you think I did?” That was the place to start. She was upset, angry. He needed to lead her through this one step at a time.
“You,” she stabbed an accusing finger at him, “showed up on my team six weeks ago. Made it a point to get close to me.”
Her voice shook on the last. That part was true. He’d set out to seduce her. The operation profile had suggested that might be the only avenue of approach. Jill Mulroney was a loner. No family, no friends to speak of. All work and no play. Lucky for him there had been some immediate chemistry between them so he’d gone with it. He hadn’t felt good . . . especially considering her total innocence. He’d felt like the bastard he was. In his work, deception was often a key tool. An asset he used to his greatest advantage.
But this time he’d miscalculated.
He’d grabbed back control of the operation in the nick of time.
He banished the thought of just how far under his skin she’d gotten. “I can’t deny using that tactic. It was necessary to the success of the mission.”
Her arms went up in frustration. “What mission? My only mission was to complete the system. Prepare it for presentation to the Joint Chiefs. There was no other mission.”
She was totally in the dark. He’d wanted to warn her so many times but that was not part of the strategy. Still wasn’t. And her cooperation was essential. If giving her certain facts would appease her for the moment, then that he could do.
“Forty-four days ago our intelligence group picked up on the rumbling of a plot related to new technology,” he explained. “Within twenty-four hours it was determined that your project, SASS, was the target. Since the source of the threat was unknown but appeared to be on the inside, I was assigned to infiltrate your team and to stay as close as possible to you.”
“You’re suggesting that someone on my team – besides you – intended to steal or duplicate my system?”
The disbelief in her tone signaled loudly and clearly that she wasn’t buying his explanation. Could the time tick past any slower? “That’s correct.”
She made that incredulous sound again that wa
s supposed to be a laugh. “Fat lot of good it did them. I initiated the self-destruct. SASS no longer exists.”
He’d fully anticipated she would take that step when cornered. As close to the vest as she’d kept the intimate details of her much anticipated surveillance system, logic had dictated that she would also take steps to ensure no one attempted to steal it from her. “That changes nothing about the intent of the unknown subject.”
“Unknown subject?” She put her hands up stop-sign fashion. “What are you, FBI?”
Hardly. “I’m afraid that information is classified.”
“Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “This just gets better and better.”
“The latest intelligence suggests that the unknown subject was aware of your fail safe.”
She folded her arms across her chest once more and lifted her chin in defiance. “Then what’re we doing here? If whoever wants SASS possesses this information, then they also know the deed is done. There’s no undoing it. The best engineers and programmers in the business will need years to rebuild the technology.”
That would be a far happier and easier ending. But life in the world of espionage was never that simple. “You’re leaving out one key element, Dr Mulroney.”
“There is no other element,” she challenged. “It’s gone. No one can steal SASS now. It doesn’t exist.”
“But you do.”
Realization widened her eyes behind those clunky glasses. She had the bluest eyes. Long blonde hair that she kept in a meticulous bun. And a body that most women served extensive time at the gym to accomplish. Yet Jill didn’t seem to understand that she was one hell of a looker. She was too busy hiding behind frumpy lab coats and big glasses.
“You’re the target, Jill,” he said aloud when she apparently started to grasp her situation on some level. “If the enemy gets their hands on you, they’ll drug you or torture you until you give them the blueprint you carry around in that pretty head of yours. Then they’ll kill you.”
A sharp breath hissed past her sexy lips. “I . . . can’t . . .” She glanced around the rundown shack, shook her head adamantly. “I can’t stay here. We have to get out of here.”
He’d just told her that she was a target. That he was her only hope of surviving this ordeal. And she was worried about the accommodations? “We won’t be here long.” He surveyed the sagging walls and drooping roof before assessing the cluttered emotions on her face. “What’s so bad about here?”
“It’s the devil’s house.”
Four
If she hadn’t looked dead serious he might have laughed. “It’s an abandoned shack on the rim of a farmer’s property.” When he’d studied the least populated areas near her home, he’d read something about the so-called Hell’s Gates legend. The old shack was used mostly by teenagers into drugs or satanic cults. The local authorities paid numerous visits each weekend to the spot to run off trespassing guests. But this was a weeknight and Trace had opted to stay dark – not using even a flashlight. They would be safe here until their transport arrived.
“You didn’t grow up around here,” she argued, then bit her bottom lip, making his mouth water. “Everyone knows this place is bad.”
He resisted the urge to smile. “You’re an advanced research engineer, surely you don’t believe in all that crap.”
“You wouldn’t understand.” She seemed to draw into herself, hugging her arms around her slim body.
He moved a step closer to her. “Try me.”
She glared up at him, the morning light sifting through the numerous cracks in the shack, allowing him to see as well as feel the full measure of her irritation. “Why am I even talking to you about this?” she demanded. “You lied to me.”
He reached out. She flinched. As hard as he tried he couldn’t help regretting that she did that. Instead of touching her soft cheek as he’d wanted he rubbed her arm reassuringly. “I did. I regret that was necessary. Your safety was top priority.”
She shrugged off his touch. “Was that why you kissed me?” She blinked twice, three times. “Held me in your arms all night more than once?”
He’d wanted to do a whole hell of a lot more than that. The dossier he’d studied had given all the facts. Loner. No family. Few friends. Her life was all about work. But the report hadn’t told him how desperately she wanted to have someone love her. How she remained a virgin at age twenty-nine. Jillian Mulroney was a genius, pure and simple. Her brilliance in the field of surveillance technology was unmatched. But on a social level, as a woman, she was innocent. Untouched. She’d only been kissed by one other man.
She was right. He had held her all night on three occasions. He’d wanted far more than that but he’d refused to take what she no doubt would have given him due to the level of trust he’d built with her. Her feelings for him were all based on lies. Lies to protect her, but lies nonetheless.
“You have no idea how difficult it was to hold you like that,” he confessed. There were some truths he could give her.
The confusion in those big blue eyes warned that she’d taken his statement all wrong. “I thought . . . I was doing something wrong.”
“You did everything right,” he hastened to assure her. “I wanted to do more than hold you, but I wouldn’t. Not with so many untruths standing between us.”
She moistened her lips. His fingers twitched with the need to reach out and touch her again. “Tell me why you’re afraid of this place,” he murmured. Their transport would be there any minute. This might be his last time alone with her. There were things he wanted to say.
“When I was fourteen . . .” She dragged in a deep breath. “Brand new freshman at high school. I didn’t have any friends.” She rolled her eyes. “Big surprise, right?”
His gut tightened at the idea of how lonely those years must have been for her.
“These two girls started being friendly to me. Even invited me to their houses.” She stared at the aged floorboards a moment. “I thought maybe they really liked me, but I was wrong.”
“What happened?” Keeping his voice soft was next to impossible with anger curling inside him.
“It was October. Like now. Closer to Hallowe’en. They talked me into going on a ride with them and some of their older friends.” She shrugged. “You know, toilet-papering houses and other silly teenage stuff.”
His gut tied in knots when he sensed where the story was going.
“They drove here. Told me all the stories, some of which I’d heard around school, about this being the devil’s house. I just thought it was stupid.” She fell silent a moment, her eyes distant. “Then they left me. Just drove away. I didn’t have a cell phone. No one lived on this road.”
“You were afraid of all the stories linked to this place?”
“I was terrified of the dark.” She looked straight into his eyes. “They couldn’t have known that. It was a stupid joke. The old farmer who lives across the woods wouldn’t answer his door. So I walked off this damned mountain. Alone in the dark. Until you brought me here, I’d never been back.”
He couldn’t help himself, he pulled her into his arms. She resisted, but he didn’t back off. He held her against his chest. Held her tight. “I didn’t know,” he whispered against her silky hair.
“In my brain I knew it wasn’t real,” she murmured against his chest. “But in my heart . . . I was terrified.”
He hated like hell that he was yet another deception in her life. She deserved better.
“When I made it home and calmed down, my father explained that the devil was about fear.” She drew back enough to look into Trace’s eyes. “If that’s the case, then the devil was right on my heels all the way off this mountain that night.”
Trace told himself to stop. Didn’t work. He leaned down, brushed his lips across hers. She stiffened, but didn’t pull away. He kissed her softly at first, then more deeply . . . firmly. She tasted of that sweet innocence that made him want to protect her from now until eternity. He wante
d her to know how it felt to have someone she could count on.
He wanted it to be him.
Her hands slid up his chest and went around his neck. She tiptoed, leaned into the kiss, her soft body pressing against his in all the right places. He smoothed one hand up her narrow waist and dared to cup one breast. She whimpered. This was as far as he’d gone on those long nights of holding her. He parted her lips with his tongue, delved into her welcoming mouth.
The world . . . this precarious situation slipped away. He wanted so badly to take her right here on this decaying old floor. What if he never saw her again after this? His work could take him anywhere in the world.
The thought thrust into his chest like a knife.
The distant whop-whop-whop of chopper blades jerked him to attention. He lifted his face to the ramshackle roof.
“What’s that?” she murmured, her voice thick with the same desire raging through his veins.
He wanted to say it was their ride out of here, but that was highly unlikely. He reached into his pocket, checked the beacon, still set on red. The red would have changed to green and the beacon would have vibrated if back-up had arrived. This was the one means of communication they had agreed upon since the enemy was still unknown and they were dealing with technology engineers. No communication technology could be trusted during these final hours.
The sound grew closer. He shoved the beacon deep into his pocket.
This was trouble.
“We have to get out of here.” His gaze collided with Jill’s. “We have to run.”
Five
The sun was peeking above the eastern horizon when they scrambled into the trees behind the Devil’s shack.
Jill held tightly to Trace’s hand.
She couldn’t see the helicopter but she could hear its approach. The blades cutting through the air sent chills racing up and down her spine.
If Trace was worried . . . she should be terrified.
“Hang onto my hand,” he said over his shoulder as he plunged into the woods that surrounded the tiny clearing where the shack stood.
She tightened her fingers around his and stumbled after him.
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