Drew nodded and chewed, then swallowed some coffee. He took his time looking at her and rolling that over before pushing the conversation again. “Kevin didn’t talk about your dad a lot.”
She quirked her lips to the side. That didn’t surprise her. “They didn’t get along, really. My father worried Kevin wasn’t interested in academia. Kevin didn’t like that Dad questioned the government’s use of military action from time to time.”
Drew snorted. “What an asshole.”
“Hey!”
“Not your dad. Kevin. He probably shared the exact same opinions. We just don’t have the luxury of voicing them.”
Annie picked up her coffee, buying herself a second to think. “Kev? Critical of…anything?”
“Hell ya. Between you, me and the toast, most of us get frustrated when we’re sent in like an expensive Band-Aid when the real solutions are longer, more complicated—”
“And probably even more expensive.” She sighed. “Wow.”
“Hey, it’s okay.”
She curled a small smile for his sake. “Sure, I know. It’s just… you knew him better than me.”
“While you’re here, I’ll share what I know, okay?” She nodded and he grinned. “But first, tell me about the boring research they’re making you do while you jump through hoops to do your own.” He took a huge bite of his steak and chewed.
“How did you know?” This time, the smile was bigger, and very real. “Uhm, let’s see. I get to tag along on some interesting research trips. We’re going to Washington next month to interview a few senators. Muriel Castillo, Lawrence Lassiter and Rob Harris.”
Drew’s fork clattered on his plate. He finished chewing, slowly, while his eyes burned a hole in her head.
“What?”
“Rob Harris?”
“Do you know him?”
“Do you?”
“What? No. I know he’s on the Senate Committee on Armed Service. Is he one of the ones you and Kevin aren’t fans of?”
“First, I said that Kevin had opinions. Lots of guys do. I don’t. Not really. I do what my commanding officer orders me to do, because I trust he’s thinking about that shit so I don’t have to. Second, when these interviews were set up, who made the arrangements?”
“I did. Being an RA is a lot like being a lackey.”
“You called Rob Harris’s office and set up an appointment? What did you say the interview was about?”
“Civilian leadership, military connections, rise to power…that’s the scope of my advisor’s research.” His probing gaze was completely freaking her out. “Drew, are you thinking that has something to do with the message?”
It definitely did, but how much could he tell her? A little bit of knowledge was a dangerous thing, and she was already on the verge of panic.
Now wasn’t the time for talking anyway. He slid a glance at her cell phone, sitting quietly on the table beside their mostly empty plates. A rapid-fire burst of curse words slid through his mind as he realized they’d probably said too much. He couldn’t tell her everything he knew about the dark underbelly of Washington, even if there wasn’t a probable bug in front of them. Frustration rolled through his gut that he was operating on the fly. He was a team player. Sure, he was trained to deal with any variability, but his operations were analysed, planned and executed based on a lot more intel than an ugly gut feeling.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop was an option, but not one that sat well with him. An alternate plan started to crystalize in his mind. He grabbed his backpack, threw some money on the table, and without another word reached across and tugged Annie out of her seat. With a yelp, she snatched her stuff with her free hand and stumbled along in his wake as he tugged her out of the diner.
“Drew, what the hell is going on?” She slammed her hand on the car door as he moved to open it. “Hang on a second!”
“Sugar, we might not have a second. Get in, and I’ll explain as soon as I can.”
He waited just long enough for her to do up her seatbelt then he peeled out of the lot and tore off into the darkness. His destination was just on the other side of the next main thoroughfare. Annie kept glancing at him, and he willed her not to say anything until they got there. He turned again, this time in the dark pre-dawn shadow of a hospital. He quickly navigated around the building branded with a glowing H and pulled into a parking garage.
Annie gave up any pretense of not staring at him as he quickly wound his way up to an upper level and pulled into one of many vacant spots. Her gaze was hot on his skin and a small part of his mind started to process why that didn’t make him uncomfortable.
He grabbed her phone, stuck it in the glove box along with his, and silently indicated for her to get out of the car.
“Why are we here?” she asked as he started walking toward the stairwell, the hollow echo of his footsteps the only sound bouncing off the bare concrete.
“Because if anyone calls asking about you here, they’ll hit a wall of privacy protection. At least temporarily. Let’s go find a bus.”
“This is crazy,” she muttered, but she trundled after him. “We don’t want my phone in case they call again?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Well, that clears that up.” She ducked past him as he held open the door to the stairwell.
He sighed. She was right. She deserved at least a partial explanation.
The blaze in her dark brown eyes told him taking a second to think about what information he could offer was a mistake. “Hey, if this is annoying for you—”
“Annie, this isn’t—” He barked out a short laugh. “Annoying? Hell, no. This is better than a regular day at the office for me. But I’m not used to explaining myself.”
“And I’m not used to ditching my phone in a parking garage and going on the lam!”
He ducked his head and propped his hands firmly on his hips, willing himself not to laugh. When she put it like that…it was a miracle she’d let him drag her out the restaurant.
When he looked up, prepared to defend his wild and crazy and totally random plan, the look on her face surprised him, and not just because the fiery spark had softened. He swallowed hard at the bare trust staring back at him. Jesus. He was on her side and he’d keep her safe but he wasn’t a fucking hero.
Something dark and possessive clenched hard in his chest. He wanted to be her hero, probably for all the wrong reasons. How could he know that he was making the right call here?
She stepped forward and pressed her hand to his arm. Her touch, cool and smooth, slithered under his skin and took root. He stared down at her, wanting more of her touch. A lot more, and as if she sensed his desire, she stroked her palm up to his shoulder. “Drew, I appreciate all of your assistance. But if you think this is truly some sort of spy-game, then we need to go to the authorities.”
It was time to share. His heart thudded in his chest. The uncommon reaction bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
“Senator Rob Harris, senior ranking Democrat on the Armed Forces Committee,” he said quietly, his muscles shifting with each word as he chose them carefully. “He’s a good friend of the Director of the CIA. There are other connections that I’m not sure I can tell you about right now, but let’s just say I’m aware of him and his colleagues.” Harris had never meddled directly in any operation Drew had been involved in, but others had. “The senator also has a 9 year old son and a beautiful wife.”
Chapter Three
‡
Drew said the last sentence slowly and carefully, his eyes tracking over her face as the words sank in, but his measured delivery didn’t stop the point from knocking her for a loop. She gasped out loud, then slapped one hand over her mouth to keep the sobs inside and pressed the other hard against his chest. Oh my god.
Even as the pieces slid together, she didn’t want to believe it. “You can’t know—”
“Not for sure.” He held her gaze, his own s
trong and confident, and she blinked hard to keep the tears at bay. “All I’m saying right now is I’m not sure going to the authorities is a good idea. I have a friend I can call, who was in Washington at the same time as your brother, but I can’t do it from the phones we had. The main bus lines will start running soon, and we’ll head back downtown. Then we’ll get some more information and make a new plan.”
“You think that Kevin…and Senator Harris’s wife…”
“I think someone knows Kevin’s secret, and misunderstood your request for a meeting.” He glanced down at her hand, still pressed against his chest, and groaned under his breath. He tugged her hard against him and ran one large hand over the back of her head. “You okay?”
“No?” She let out a watery groan of her own. This was crazy. “Then what was the phone call about?”
“Testing the water? Hell if I know. But we can’t…fuck. We can’t just walk onto the base and open a can of worms without knowing more.”
He made a good point. She sagged against him, letting his strength seep into her bones. It felt…right, and she didn’t pull away until he reminded her they needed to keep moving. They found the bus stop, noted the next arrival time, and waited.
Drew didn’t know if he was anywhere in the vicinity of making the right decision. Frankly, other than getting as far as possible away from what was guaranteed to be a tracking device, he hadn’t made any decisions. And for the first time in seventeen years, he didn’t have orders or a plan. Sure, he’d run into unexpected situations. He had to make snap decisions all the time, with lives on the line.
But this time, the situation had knocked on his front door, and he didn’t have any back up. No team. Just his gut instincts warning him that Annie had accidentally wandered into something ugly.
Drew paid cash to the driver of the first bus to come along, and Annie led the way to seats in the very back. Under the hum of the fan overhead and the dull noise of the engine, Annie asked him the question he was just asking himself. “Where are we going?”
“I have no idea,” he answered honestly, looking out the window. “We’re heading downtown. Might as well loop back to my place and grab some stuff, then…” He trailed off. He needed a new phone. There was a convenience store two blocks east of his apartment, and he could have Annie wait there while he dodged home for supplies. “Will you be offended if I hide you somewhere while I do that?”
Her eyes got really wide and her lips parted. Dark pink lips, soft pillows on an otherwise lean face. Fuck. She was scared and he was lusting after her. Asshole.
“Uhm, I guess not. Do you think that’s necessary?”
“The odds of you actually being in danger are pretty low. But if you are, for whatever reason, the odds that they’ve tracked you to me are pretty high.”
“With my phone?” She closed her eyes and rubbed the tiny crease between her eyebrows. “Damnit. I should have just gone to the police in L.A.”
“And let me miss all this fun?” He rubbed a knuckle against her jaw. “Annie, you can put the weight of the world on my shoulders, okay?”
She let him lift her face, and she blinked up at him, but doubt and confusion still warred in her eyes. “Why?”
Because it was his job.
But this didn’t feel like work. For the first time in ages, he felt that tug from the inside out, a sense of right and wrong and he knew what side he was on. But it was more than that. It was personal, too, and not just because of Kevin.
Dude…
Sorry, bro. Just being honest with myself. And he’d keep it to himself, too. No good could come of admitting he was motivated by her pretty face and pouting lips. Focus. “Because it’s my job. I mean, you aren’t a job, but this is what I’m trained to do.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re going to tell me that a lot?”
“It’s the only answer I’ve got, sugar.” The only one he could voice out loud, anyway.
She stretched her legs out in front of her, rotating her ankles left and then right, then lifted her chin and pinned him with another look. “Do you call everyone that?”
“No.” She wasn’t mad, but he couldn’t read her expression. “It just slips out. I’ll stop.”
“It’s okay.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t mind…” She held his gaze for a minute, her eyes crinkling at the corners before a smile split across her face. “Brotherly affection is better than nothing, I guess.”
If that’s how she read it, he wasn’t going to correct her. He looped his arm around her shoulder and tugged her close. “You’re not alone, Annie. I can’t give you much, but I can give you this.”
“Wow, an early morning escape from a deadly cell phone, by city bus no less. It’s the stuff of action movies.” She snickered and tossed her head back, letting it rock against his bicep, and he fought an urge to pull her even closer, until there was no space left between their bodies, and his hand could slip off her shoulder and down to the delicate curve of her high, round breast. He’d just graze it with his fingertips, the barest of touches, and she’d tip her face toward his. The laughter in her eyes would fade, replaced with heat and then they’d kiss…
Instead, she slapped his thigh and stood up. The bus was waiting at a red light, and Annie pointed out the window at a twenty-four hour discount store. There was a bin of baseball hats in the entrance, and a rack of sweatshirts. He nodded. Smart girl. He tapped the signal strip, indicating to the driver they wanted off, and ten minutes later he was paying cash for a burner phone, two hats, two hooded sweatshirts, and a spare outfit for Annie, who’d apparently leapt in her car without packing an overnight bag.
While they waited for the next bus, he sent an international text to one of the few numbers he had memorized. Rik, it’s Drew. When you’ve got a chance, call this number. Soon, if possible. Have some questions about your time in DC with KM.
The phone rang three minutes later, his friend’s slight accent barely noticeable in the three short words he spit out. “What is it?”
“Kevin’s sister came to visit me last night.” He spelled out the details of the message, and what he’d learned over breakfast. He could hear Rik’s smirk as he described their current mode of transit, but it didn’t last long.
“You’re such a law-abiding citizen, Drew. It didn’t occur to you to steal a car?”
“Some of us still work within the law. I know it’s a novel concept.”
“Your mistake is working, period.” Rik had gotten married the year before, and was officially retired from the Norwegian FSK. Unofficially…well, Drew didn’t want to know how his friend could afford to live on a private Caribbean island. “Give me her phone number.”
Drew realized he didn’t have that information. He covered the handset and turned his attention back to Annie, who was staring at him with unabashed curiosity. “What’s your number?”
He relayed the information to Rik, who said he’d call back in a few minutes. “And Castle…you know enough to stay clear of security cameras, right?”
“We’ve got baseball hats and a plan to get back into my building underground, yes.”
When he disconnected, it took Annie all of five seconds to let the questions fly. “Underground? Within the law? Who did you just tell my life story to?”
“Rik Amundson, a total son of a bitch and the only other person in the world who might know about your brother’s child. He was stationed at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington when Kevin was at the Pentagon. They got pretty tight, and two years later, we spent time with him overseas. We’ve kept in touch.” He paused before sharing the next piece of information. “Kevin saved his life once.”
“In Afghanistan?” Big eyes, small voice. Annie’s knowledge of what they did was probably limited to whatever was on TV.
“No…”
“Never mind, I know about operational security, I shouldn’t have asked.” She waved her hand and turned around, looking down the increasingly busy street for their bus. Her long brown hair
swung loose to the middle of her back, and he swallowed against the temptation to gather it into a handful and tug her back against him. He shoved his hands into his pockets, not trusting his will power, and once again wondered where this attraction was coming from. She was pretty, but she’d been pretty before. He’d noticed her beauty when he’d visited with Kevin on their way to Hawaii, and the three of them stayed up late in her kitchen, but it didn’t affect him then like it was now. It should have… she’d made them cookies and teased him about being a bikini snob, and now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been attracted to her then. But there’d been some sort of block. Even last night…it wasn’t like he opened the door and saw her as a woman for the first time.
So what had shifted? Was it having her in his bed, even if he’d been on the other side of the wall? He must have conflated her with some fantasy and if he wasn’t careful he might act on it. Which would be stupid, because easy come, easy go. He’d wake up tomorrow and she’d just be Annie again. For today…he needed to spend more time talking about Kevin and less time wondering if she’d tremble when he kissed her neck.
If, not when, asshole.
“It was in the Artic,” he blurted out. “Rik got on the wrong side of a polar bear and Kevin took the beast out at five hundred meters.”
Her head lifted, paused, and then started bobbing with silent laughter. She slowly turned back, her hands held up in disbelief. “Please tell me it wasn’t a cute little one like on the Coke commercials.”
“Nah. Although that would have made for excellent ribbing, this was a big motherfucker, definitely scary and planning to tear Rik limb from limb.”
“A bear!” She took a deep, steadying breath and let out one more giggle. “I didn’t realize SEALs operated in the Arctic.”
He shrugged. “Training exercise.”
“Mmm-hmm.” They both heard the hiss of bus brakes at the same time, and the conversation faded as they stepped onto the next bus. Forty-five minutes made a huge difference, and this time they weren’t alone. They stood near the back door, holding onto opposite sides of the same pole, and before he knew it they were disembarking a few blocks east of his apartment.
SEALs of Summer: Military Romance Superbundle - Navy SEAL Style Page 52