Mommy Under Cover

by Delores Fossen

  “On the count of three,” he said. “One…”

  Still staying low, Tessa shifted so she could spring to her feet and start running.

  “Two.” But she didn’t actually hear him say the word because of another round of deafening gunfire.

  “Three.”

  Riley launched himself through the window, landing on his feet on the grassy area outside. With his weapon ready, he stopped. Aimed. Looked around to make sure it was safe and then motioned for her to follow.

  Tessa did, and the moment her feet touched the ground, they began to run. Following the building and using it for cover, Riley led her behind a row of hedges until they reached the last unit in the complex. He didn’t pause. Didn’t waste even a second of time.

  “Go!” he ordered in a hoarse whisper.

  They raced out into the darkness, toward the side street. And away from her home. Away from the one place that she’d thought of as her sanctuary.

  But no longer.

  There was no sanctuary. No real place to hide. Because as long as Fletcher was alive, he would continue to come after them.

  And that meant he would continue to put their child in harm’s way.

  WHILE HE TRIED to keep a close watch behind them, Riley led Tessa out of the alley and zigzagged around several more buildings until he came to another street.

  Things didn’t look good.

  After a thirty-minute jog that he’d kept semilight for Tessa’s sake, they’d made it away from her neighborhood and from the gunman. But now they were no longer in one of the best sections of the city.

  And there wasn’t a taxi in sight.

  Not that it surprised Riley, but it was more than a mild inconvenience. It was too dangerous to try to get back to his car, which he’d parked a block from Tessa’s condo, and he didn’t want to risk breaking into one of the vehicles parked along the street. Still, he couldn’t just stand here with Tessa. Those gunmen could be in pursuit.

  Keeping in the shadows as much as they could, they made their way up the sidewalk. Riley continued to study the street and the buildings. And he continued to think, to assess their situation, the gunmen and the attack itself.

  He didn’t care much for the conclusions he came to from that assessment.

  “Fletcher would have insisted his henchmen surround your condo,” he mumbled.

  “Yes.” No hesitation, which meant Tessa had come to the same conclusion. “But if that was a ploy to follow us, I haven’t seen anyone.”

  Neither had he. So the ploy could have failed.

  Could have.

  Or maybe Fletcher’s men were just very good at tracking. Maybe they were using sophisticated equipment instead of a pursuit on foot. Or maybe they’d been overly confident of their abilities to gain access through the French doors and kill Tessa and him on the spot.

  Since Riley wasn’t sure he’d have answers to that anytime soon and because it was stupid to keep Tessa out in the open any longer, he headed for the small two-story hotel that he saw a block ahead. He thanked his lucky stars that no one passed them along the way.

  “Where are we going?” she whispered.

  Riley didn’t answer. Instead he gave her a warning glance to stay quiet and stepped inside the hotel. The burly desk clerk barely glanced up from his wrestling magazine, and there was no interest whatsoever in his dull raisin-colored eyes. Riley took some cash from his pocket, slapped it on the counter and requested a room on the second floor. He had the key card for Room 212 within seconds.

  Which he didn’t use.

  Instead Tessa and he made their way down the hall and he tapped on the door of Room 214. No answer, just as he’d hoped. But then, it didn’t look like a place that got a lot of business on a late Thursday evening.

  He used one of the small tools he always carried to jimmy the lock and got them inside. Hopefully, being in the room meant some degree of safety, but he didn’t intend to rely on the rickety door and the desk clerk to keep out any pursuing gunmen. No, he’d have to do that himself.

  Thankfully, the interior wasn’t quite as bad as the outside of the building. Still, it was basically a site he couldn’t secure, a realization that made him silently curse both the surroundings and the situation that had put them here.

  How the devil had he let this happen?

  With Tessa’s help, Riley dragged the dresser in front of the door, blocking it, then he lifted a corner of the curtains to look out at the sidewalk below. No one either walking or driving by.

  “I don’t want to use normal channels to contact headquarters,” he insisted.

  “I know. There might be a leak in communication.”

  Riley confirmed that with a nod. “Fletcher found us. Fast. If his goons had tracked us through the woods the day the clinic exploded, then they would have hit sooner. Much sooner.”

  “I see your point.” She sank down onto the edge of the bed. “So you think the leak is someone in SIU?”

  “Possibly. Money can be a powerful incentive. And the betrayal wouldn’t have necessarily come from an agent. In fact, I suspect it didn’t. Fletcher wouldn’t have wanted to take that kind of risk. Instead he probably went after a clerk, someone with just enough info for him to be able to put the pieces together to find you.”

  Since the gunmen went to Tessa’s condo, Fletcher might have intended to question her so they could then find him. Or maybe, just maybe, the gunmen had followed him and waited until after he’d broken in and Tessa had arrived.

  A thought that sickened Riley.

  Because he could have been the one to lead the gunmen right to Tessa.

  The pregnancy put her in a weak position, which was especially true because he knew how much having a baby meant to her. Despite the shock of it all, this child was her miracle, and somehow, some way, he had to get her out of Fletcher’s path so her miracle wouldn’t turn into another nightmare.

  He knew Tessa wouldn’t appreciate his intervention. Well, not at first anyway. She wouldn’t want him taking the brunt of the danger so he could keep her safe. But the pregnancy wasn’t just a vulnerability. Riley could use it for leverage. Leverage to make her stay hidden safely away while he went after Fletcher.

  And that was exactly what he would do.

  What he had to do.

  This wasn’t a Boy Scout outing where playing by the rules counted. Nothing counted except saving Tessa and making Fletcher pay for all the things he’d done.

  Tessa blew out a long breath. “How does all of this affect the trip to the art gallery in Houston?”

  Good question. While they were running for their lives, it had actually crossed Riley’s mind. “That painting is the only direct link I have to Fletcher. It’s my key to finding him.”

  “It’s also his key to finding you,” she pointed out. “Think this through, Riley. Fletcher might suspect we’re coming. He’ll know the art was mentioned on the tape. Heck, he might have even used it to set us up. Our only advantage is that he doesn’t actually know we have the tape.”

  All logical points. But she’d missed the most important point of all. “There’s no we in this, Tessa. There can’t be. I can’t take you with me.”

  And just in case she didn’t grasp the point he was making, he placed his hand against her stomach.

  Riley had intended the gesture to be an exclamation point to his demand. For some strange reason, it seemed a lot more than that. One touch, one brief brush of his fingers on her stomach, and it became his own exclamation point.

  A reminder that this pregnancy affected both of them on many levels.

  Her mouth tightened and Tessa moved his hand away. “What are you saying, that it’s safer for me to stay here while you’re out there trying to track Fletcher down by yourself?”

  Riley skipped right over that last part—especially since there was a very good chance he’d have to do it alone. Because of that possible breach in security, he couldn’t trust SIU with this, and it was too dangerous to take Tessa with him.
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  “You won’t be here by yourself,” he let her know. “I’ll call your father so he can stay with you.”

  She groaned. “And what about the leak? Some one at SIU headquarters could listen in on your conversation.”

  “I’ll contact him at home so I won’t have to go through SIU channels.” Riley leaned closer and got right in her face so she could hopefully see the determination in his eyes. “Now, you think it through. I need someone we can trust. Someone that Fletcher can’t buy off with his millions. And just as important, I need someone to watch out for you in case Fletcher finds this place.”

  Because he was staring into her own determined eyes, he saw that register. By degrees. A fraction at a time. Until a frustrated sigh left her mouth. “This isn’t fair to you. We’re in danger because of our mission, because of what happened in that clinic. Yet, you’ll have to face the danger alone.”

  Riley silently disagreed with that fair part of her argument. In the grand cosmic scheme of things, this was as fair as it got. It was exactly what he deserved. He hadn’t been there to save Colette. She’d died while he was tucked safely away in a surveillance van.

  Protecting Tessa wouldn’t undo that.

  It couldn’t.

  But it could go a long way to making him feel as if there’d been some retribution. Some justice. Some healing. Of course, the retribution and justice would be complete only if he brought down Fletcher in the process.

  Riley moved away from her and went back to the window so he could keep watch. And so he wouldn’t let the haunting look in Tessa’s eyes distract him. In a few hours, before John Abbot left for work, he’d call and ask the man to come and stay with Tessa. Once that was in place, then Riley would leave for Houston. A journey that would eventually make things safe for Tessa.

  And for the child that she carried.

  His child.

  Because no matter how hard he fought to keep Tessa and the baby from causing him to lose focus, they did. They were both right there, piercing his thoughts and tearing into his concentration.

  And that made both their situations all the more dangerous.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sound of someone talking woke Tessa.

  It was Riley. He was whispering, his voice barely audible. That captured her attention almost as quickly as if he’d been shouting.

  She sat up in bed, suddenly frustrated that she’d fallen asleep.

  And even more frustrated that he obviously hadn’t.

  Tessa glanced at the clock next to the bed. It was nearly 3:00 a.m. Riley was still by the window, keeping watch. Probably the only time he’d left that sentry position was to pull the covers over her. Strange that she hadn’t recalled him doing that. Normally a movement of any kind would have brought her out of a deep sleep.

  He glanced at her and continued the conversation on his cell phone. His responses were brief and clipped. No. Yes. Another yes. It was only after he added a sir, that Tessa confirmed he was talking to her father.

  “She’s awake,” Riley told him. And with that, he passed the phone to her. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Tessa,” her father said when she answered. “Riley just gave me a situation report on the shooting. We have an evidence response team at your place now. If the gunmen left anything behind, we’ll find it.”

  Tessa was positive the only evidence would be shell casings, and Fletcher would have made sure those couldn’t be traced.

  “I’ll have another team en route to your specified location within ten minutes,” her father continued. “They won’t be told that Riley and you are there, only that it’s an area that needs to be purged and secured. I anticipate that’ll be completed by 0500.”

  Soon. Very soon. A little over two hours. Not much time, and in some ways, it seemed an eternity.

  “Are you…all right?” her father asked.

  She opened her mouth. Closed it. And briefly wondered why that question seemed so awkward. Then she realized it was a first. In the seven years she’d been an SIU agent, he’d never asked that. Never.

  “I’m fine,” she lied.

  “Good.” She heard no breath of relief. No relief of any kind, but she thought maybe it was there just beneath the surface. “I’ll contact you after the area is secure.”

  Tessa clicked off the phone and handed it to Riley. “What made you decide to ask for a security team?”

  “I didn’t.” He slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket. “I didn’t tell your father the truth.”

  Her head whipped up. “But he said he was sending a team to the specified location.”

  “It’s the specified part that isn’t true. I gave him a false location on the west side of the city.”

  Certain that her mouth was gaping a bit, she stared at him. “What, now you don’t trust him?”

  “I trust him. I don’t trust a team, any team. One of them could be the leak. Or else Fletcher could be monitoring SIU headquarters to tail any personnel who comes out of the building. This way, if Fletcher has the place under surveillance, your father’s team won’t lead them right to us.”

  Okay. She saw his point and was more than mildly annoyed that he’d had to explain it to her. Mercy, she should have already anticipated a contingency like that.

  “So where does that leave us?” she asked. “Certainly we aren’t just going to sit here and wait.”

  “In an hour I’ll call your father again. Once he’s sure no one is following him, he’ll come here to stay with you.”

  It was a good plan, and probably would have seemed even better if she’d had a more active part in it. “And you’ll leave for Houston.”

  “I’ll leave for Houston,” he verified.

  So they didn’t have much time. A couple of hours at the most.

  “If Fletcher manages to find us and if he can get the hotel clerk to tell him where we are, we’ll hear his henchmen going into the next room,” Riley assured her. He stood and began to pace. What he didn’t do was take his attention from the window. He continued to volley glances in that direction. “I haven’t seen anyone suspicious on the sidewalk or street. It’s not a guarantee of safety, but it’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”

  Tessa nodded. She also took note of the concern that was all over Riley’s face. The concern was warranted, of course, but during their entire stay with Fletcher, she hadn’t seen him react this way. “Maybe this is a good time to reiterate that pregnancy hormones won’t affect my shooting ability. Or my common sense. If Fletcher gets through, I know how to take care of myself.”

  “Is that your way of telling me not to worry?” He stopped pacing and eased down next to her on the bed. “If so, it won’t do any good. I’ll still worry.”

  Of course, he would. Part of this was the leftover effect of Colette’s murder. Heck, maybe it was totally from that. But then, that would mean Riley didn’t care about her.

  And Tessa didn’t believe that.

  She didn’t want to believe it.

  The kisses they’d shared, the incident in her condo, weren’t all just lust. There was a lot more to what was happening between them.

  He leaned down, pressed his ear to her stomach. Turned. And then brushed a kiss there. It was a strange, intimate gesture that suddenly didn’t feel so strange. It felt…right.

  “Are you going to be part of this?” she asked.

  “I’m already part of this.”

  Not exactly the grand declaration of fatherhood, but she hadn’t expected it from him. Riley was no doubt still coming to terms with the pregnancy.

  As was she.

  He made his way up to her mouth and gave her a quick, almost chaste kiss. “You’re thinking too much.”

  “There’s a lot to think about,” she countered.

  He made a sound of agreement and for a moment Tessa thought they were about to have that heart-to-heart they so desperately needed to have. But then he kissed her again. Not just an ordinary kiss, either. It was one that in
volved some readjusting. Repositioning. And a slick move or two that had her wondering if the world had just tipped on its axis.

  Riley eased her back, until her head landed on the pillow.

  He pulled back, stared into her eyes, and one of those manly troubled groans left his mouth.

  Tessa touched her fingertips to his forehead to massage the muscles that had bunched there. “I thought you said we weren’t the missionary or the bed type.”

  He smiled. Short-lived, though. “I’m flexible. Besides, this isn’t going any further than a kiss. Well, maybe we can stretch it into a French kiss and a few touches. Afterward though, I want you to rest until your father gets here.”

  “You’re the one who needs the rest. I’m not traveling to Houston to pursue a killer. I’ll be stuck in a safe house, and the operative words there are ‘stuck’ and ‘safe.’”

  Something that Riley wouldn’t be.

  That sent a sickening feeling of dread through her. Tessa shifted, maneuvering him until he was the one lying on the bed. She started to climb around him, with the intentions of going to the window to keep watch, but Riley caught her arm.

  “I’ve tried to think of all the scenarios where Fletcher might be able to draw you out into the open,” Riley said, his voice strained. “He’s smart, and the only thing he wants is us dead. You can’t let him draw you out. No matter what.”

  Now it was Tessa’s turn to give him a chaste, reassuring kiss on the cheek. “I know what you’ve been through with Colette—”

  “This has nothing to do with her.” He hesitated a moment. “In some ways it’d be easier if it did. If I could tie all of it up into a neat little package where my feelings are based on revenge and duty.”

  Riley’s gaze came to hers again and Tessa waited. Long, quiet moments. Practically holding her breath to see how much more he would open up to her. But he didn’t speak. He reached up, slid his hand around the back of her neck and eased her down toward him.

  He kissed her.

  Not chaste. Not this. Nor was it exactly a kiss of heated, raw passion. It was filled with so much need, so much emotion, that it poured through her. All through her. Until it seemed as if he’d shared his heart, his body and every nuance of himself with her. This was more intimate, more frightening, than what they’d done in her condo.