Men-of-Action-Seres-03 -The McGregor Affair

by Capri Montgomery

  Maybe she should have been in a hurry too because after this stop they would hit the Keys and after that they wouldn’t have need for Gavin anymore, which meant she wouldn’t have to see him again—ever. The thought of not seeing him hit her harder than she expected it would, maybe even harder than it should have given the circumstances.

  “Be careful,” she told him. Angry or not, she wanted him safe.

  She would be lying to herself if she said otherwise.

  “You too.” He looked her over. “London…I—”

  “I’ll see you at the top.” She interrupted him before setting off on her own climbing endeavor. He clearly had something to say. She clearly wasn’t sure she could handle whatever it was.

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  She was half way up the side of the cliff when her rope started to snap. She reached for the picks she had brought with her. Despite protest from the crew she insisted on safety. Using the picks even on the rocks had been a trick she had learned from Jimmy. But she knew, even that wouldn’t hold her for long. It didn’t matter, she just needed to get one in, just long enough to stabilize herself, and then she would free climb to the next safe spot.

  It didn’t take long from the initial rip for the rest of the rope to snap. She had barely been able to get the pick out of the holding spot on her pack before she felt herself falling, felt the fear take over her.

  She had tried to stake in her pick, but despite her efforts she still felt herself rapidly declining. She tried clinging to rock and dirt with her bare hand while trying to secure the only lifeline she had. And then she got lucky, she hit a patch of rocks that managed to stay her fall. She knew it wouldn’t hold for long. Her hands were bloody which meant she couldn’t get a grip sturdy enough to hold on, and she had lost the pick when her body made impact with the rocks.

  She was going to die. She knew she was going to die. Just when she felt herself slipping a hard, firm grip tightened around her wrist.

  “Gavin!”

  “I’ve got you!” He tightened his grip.

  “Gavin, please don’t let me fall!” This must have been what Jimmy had felt, knowing he was going to die, clinging to earth and rock trying to pull himself to something safe.

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  “I’m not going to let you fall, now just hold on!”

  “Gavin; I’m slipping!” She didn’t want to die, and certainly not like this. “Oh God, please Gavin. Please don’t let me fall!” She wasn’t sure he could hold on to her, and she couldn’t get a solid grip with her footing to push herself up even a fraction of an inch.

  “Stop moving damn it!”

  She felt panic setting in…in fact it was fully entrenched in her body, in her mind, in her bones; she was terrified and that fear was making her panic. Gavin’s words snapped her to some sense of awareness. She wasn’t helping matters by trying to gain ground. She was in essence making it harder for him to hold on to her.

  When she calmed down enough to take note of the situation she noticed her hands weren’t the only thing bleeding. Her arm was bloody too which meant she had scratched herself up considerably while trying to keep herself from hitting bottom. She didn’t know how he was able to hold on to her, but he had.

  It felt like hours, but couldn’t have been more than a minute; Gavin finally gained the upper hand, pulling her up to meet him. once he got her there he pulled her onto his lap and she immediately hooked her legs around his waist and buried her face against his neck. She was shaking so violently she thought she might come undone.

  He smoothed one big hand over her head. “Shush now,” he mumbled. “It’s going to be all right. I’m going to take you back down now.”

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  No way in hell was she going back up there. Warren could fire her. In fact, she just might quit. This was the second time she had almost died doing this show. She wasn’t at all tempted to see if the third time would be the charm. She wanted out. No, she wanted down, and then she wanted out.

  By the time Gavin propelled down to the ground and managed to pry her off his body so he could remove his own harness she was shaking and crying. She tried not to cry in front of the crew. Crying showed weakness and she refused to let any of them know that something had broken her—but this time she couldn’t stop the tears from coming. She couldn’t even stand on her own two feet her legs were shaking so badly.

  Gavin pulled her up into his arms and carried her off the set.

  She didn’t have the strength to resist his embrace. She didn’t have the strength to do much of anything, but she did have enough strength to hear Warren and Jerry insist she was fine and that the shoot must go on.

  She didn’t miss the sudden burst of expletives Gavin unleashed either.

  A hospital visit and a silent car ride back to the lodge they were staying at and she was too exhausted—mentally and physically, to care that Gavin didn’t seem to be willing to leave her side.

  “If you hadn’t been there,” she nearly whispered. “I wouldn’t be here right now.” She felt her body tremble again. She hadn’t been able to stop it. The doctors assured her she was okay. They cleaned up the The McGregor Affair

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  scrapes, promised there would be bruises and sore muscles in the morning, and they let her go.

  She had never fallen during a climb, not like that. Sure she had miss stepped before and had a small slide down, but her gear had never ripped apart. She had never come that close to death during a climb. It terrified her. She knew she would have to get up there and climb again.

  She couldn’t let fear keep her away from it or she might not ever do another climb; but right now, at this moment, she didn’t want to go back up there.

  Gavin, as if sensing her need to be held, pulled her up into his arms. The firmness of his arms created a recollection of memory that was bitterly painful and she pulled away from him. “This changes nothing.” He had lied to her. She still didn’t know what agency he worked for. He had only said she was no longer a suspect and they could continue seeing each other. As if!

  “Tell me something, Gavin. Do you sleep with all of your female suspects? That’s really taking one for the team.” His brows lowered in anger. “If I had wanted to I could have called in a man to torture the truth out of you. Sleeping with you had nothing to do with anything except love and desire. After today, you still don’t trust me?”

  “It’s not about trust.”

  “Then what is it about?” His tone told her he was annoyed and completely in the dark. How could he not understand? How could it be Capri Montgomery

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  so easy for him to just assume she should forget what he had done? She told him about Robin. He had to know that trust was more important to her than sweet kisses. Trust was more important than sex in her book.

  She had given him her trust, and yet he hadn’t been able to trust her.

  “I trust you, Gavin.” Perhaps that was what hurt the most.

  Despite everything she still trusted him. She turned, unable to face him and he quickly turned her back around to meet his gaze. “Gavin…” His fingers brushed over her cheek and instinctively she leaned into the embrace. “Gavin, I trust you. I just don’t know how much of that trust is pure. Do I trust you because you deserve it? Or do I trust you because I’m so in love with you that I can’t see straight.” She hadn’t meant to profess her love out loud.

  “Oh, darn it.” She huffed. “Gavin I love you. I love you so much, and when I overheard your conversation with Drake and I found out who you were…I guess I just felt betrayed. You didn’t trust me.

  You suspected me of something so unthinkable…and you used me.

  Sleeping with me when you didn’t trust me is just…wrong.” She shook her head. “It just hurt so much I thought I would wither up and die in
side. It was easier to lash out at you, to say things that weren’t nice. I don’t hate you, Gavin. I should have never said that.” He pulled her into his arms again and this time she didn’t resist.

  “I’m sorry, London. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t…”

  “Because I was a suspect.”

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  “Yeah,” his voice barely raised above a whisper. She could tell that admission gave him immeasurable pain. He wasn’t as devoid of emotion when it came to his job as she thought he was.

  “I could have lost you today.” She hugged him tight and he immediately recoiled from her embrace. She thought he would welcome her touch.

  “What now?” Pushing her away wasn’t the response she expected.

  “I think that fall jarred something loose in your noggin lady.

  You’re the one who almost died.”

  She shook her head. “I was using your gear.”

  “You what!”

  “Don’t shout at me McGregor. I’m not in the mood.” She started crying again. She was trying not to do that, but she couldn’t seem to quit.

  “I’m sorry,” he pulled her back into his arms and held her as she cried.

  “A friend of mine died in a climbing fall and he was the king of triple checking equipment.” In fact, she was wondering now, more than before, how that fall happened. Jimmy would have tried to steady himself with the same technique he had taught her to use. It hadn’t been one hundred percent full proof for her, but it had given her some time to at least stop her descent. Jimmy would have done the same thing, and being the expert climber he was he should have been able to save Capri Montgomery

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  himself. But she had seen the report, and there was no mention of the picks he carried on every climb. That seemed so significant now. Of course she could have just been making a mountain out of nothing.

  Nobody would ever really know what happened because Jimmy had gone climbing on his own. Why? The king of safety and he went climbing on his own without all of his gear?

  “I checked my gear last night and didn’t get to yours, so I gave you my gear, except my harness I knew I couldn’t fit yours, and I was going to check the equipment again, but Warren was so adamant that we start right away and I just didn’t get a chance to.” She shivered in his arms and he tightened his embrace. “If you had been using that rope, with your weight…that rope would have snapped quickly, not gradually ripped as it did with me. You wouldn’t have had a chance to try to save yourself. You would have hit the ground.” She knew with Gavin behind her, with his weight, if he had been using that rope there’s no way she would have gotten to him before he hit bottom. He could have died. He would have died.

  “When I saw you fall,” his voice was low and angry. “My heart started racing. The only thing I could think of was getting to you. And if I hadn’t been able to before you slipped…I would have never forgave myself.”

  “You got to me quickly, Gavin. How did you navigate the rocky cliff like that, and so fast?”

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  “You know I was in the military...” she gave him an incredulous look. He laughed the best he could under the circumstances. “Well I had some training there that I added to the skills I already had; and…believe it or not I did spend my summers while in high school leading adventure tours…anyway, I learned a thing or two about climbing.”

  “You learned more than a thing or two. You’re fast.” She didn’t remember much about what went on around her, but she remembered seeing him rapidly swing toward her, as if he were running on the massive rock wall, held up only by his rope.

  “Glad I am.”

  “Me too.” She pulled away from him. “But since that fall wasn’t meant for me it means somebody is trying to kill you. And I want to know who.”

  “So do I,” Drake surfaced from the bathroom.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “He’s been doing some surveillance work for me on your crew.

  I called him from the hospital and asked him to check out your room before we got back to make sure nobody was waiting for you when we did.” That had been when he thought somebody was trying to kill her, she was sure of that. There was no mistaking the frayed rope. When Gavin had done his initial check things were in order. They both knew the moment the rope snapped that somebody had tampered with it. The Capri Montgomery

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  police didn’t think so. The crew didn’t think so. But they knew so, and that was all that mattered.

  “I thought you went back home after Hawaii.”

  “No, just hid in the shadows,” Drake nodded. “I wasn’t trying to listen in, but I didn’t want to interrupt you two.” She shrugged. She was finished trying to understand their world and why they did the things they did. “You can’t hide forever.

  Somebody might see you leave my room…or maybe they saw you come in.”

  “We were all at the hospital, London.” Gavin’s words made sense. They were all either at the hospital or packing up the equipment.

  But they weren’t all there now. They were all back at the lodge which meant somebody might see him leave.

  “It’s late,” Drake admitted. “Trust me; I know how to enter and exit without being seen.

  “You’re going back to the Keys right? Because I’d like for you to check in with her until I arrive if you can, make sure she’s safe.”

  “I can do that. I’ll have to stay at my place with Geneva, but I’ll shadow her once they get there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I could stay here a few more days if you want.”

  “No,” he shook his head. “I don’t think they’ll try anything here—not to her at least. And I’m going to pull out anyway, so she should be fine. It’s just with the change of plan for the Keys I’d like to The McGregor Affair

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  make sure I don’t get there and find out she had a convenient diving accident.”

  She shook her head. “You’re impossible. Really impossibly male. I can take care of myself you know,” she shivered again. “Okay, maybe not always…but that’s not the point. You have to stop worrying about me and start looking out for yourself. If what you think is going on here is actually happening—and after today I’m inclined to believe you’re right—One of them probably murdered Grant.”

  “We think so too. It’s why I was sent in.”

  “That’s it. How do I help?”

  “You don’t.”

  “I do,” she stressed. “Look, I’m not going to stand by and watch you get yourself killed. And your friend here has to get back to his wife eventually or it’s going to look suspect to the others that he’s hanging around. So like it or not, McGregor, I’m your sidekick from here on out.” She didn’t care that he already had a far more apt sidekick—if Drake Daniels could ever be considered a sidekick—she was going to help. She could follow people, do some digging, keep her ears tuned to conversations—whatever he needed she could do it. Since both men would be away from the crew for a little while she could be like their covert agent, gathering intelligence for them while they were in route.

  “That’s it sweet cakes,” he folded his arms across his chest in a classic military at ease stance. “You’ve called me McGregor one too many times.”

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  “Not again…”

  He lifted her over his shoulders. “Drake, if you’ll excuse us.”

  “I have some people to follow anyway,” he laughed. “Have fun you two.”

  “Gavin, put me down.” She barely saw Drake leave her room, but she definitely heard the door close so she knew he had actually left.

  Gavin carried her toward the bed. When he put her down, not so gently, she could tell from the look in his eyes that he planned
to make up for the time they had lost while she was playing angry with him. She was sore—too sore, but she wanted to be connected to him.

  He hadn’t done more than get her shirt over her head when he suddenly stopped, gently eased her back onto her back and leaned over her.

  While he looked down at her body London could see the concern and the anger in his eyes. She knew she had bruises; she felt every one of them. The look in his eyes told her the damage was far worse than she had assumed it would be.

  “I’m okay,” she reached up and softly embraced his cheek with the palm of her hand. “I’m okay.”

  He traced an outline of a bruise with one finger. “Does it hurt?” She wouldn’t lie to him. It did hurt—a lot. “At least I’m alive to feel it,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’ll be much good in bed tonight.” He nodded. “I just need to hold you.” The McGregor Affair

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  “Okay,” she traced his lips with her fingertip. “Help me shower first, please?” She felt the adrenaline rush wearing off and now she was starting to feel every second of that fall.

  The knock on her door jolted them both out of their personal cocoon. She hoped it wasn’t Warren because she didn’t want to face him right now. Today he had shown her just how much he didn’t care about her safety, or any of the crews’ safety for that matter, and she knew she didn’t have the strength tonight to attempt to ignore his actions.

  “Put this on,” Gavin helped her ease into a button down shirt.

  He assured her it would be easier to get off than a pull over. She was well aware of the validity of that statement given how sore moving her arms were starting to become. He made sure her shirt was buttoned before answering the door.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I just needed to make sure she was okay.”

  Gavin looked back to her, as if seeking permission to deny Jack entry. She waved the man on in. She couldn’t isolate herself from all of them otherwise somebody might get suspicious. She hadn’t exactly been the queen of socializing on set, but she had always been cordial, and rarely had she avoided conversations with any of them should they had felt the need to talk with her.