by Katie Knight
“But am I average?” Hanna asked as she dropped a heaping handful of cheese into the bowl with the eggs.
Jake stepped behind her and kissed her neck, ever so softly. “No,” he murmured. “You are definitely not average.”
It took all the willpower he had not to wrap his arms around her waist and bury his lips into the ridge of her collarbone. How she could look so stunning, so tempting standing in the kitchen making breakfast, he had no idea. But he wanted to finish what they had started. After breakfast, he told himself. He knew she—and the baby—had to eat.
“Can you get a skillet going?” Hanna asked as she added some cheese to the bowl of eggs.
Jake found a large frying pan in one of the cabinets and set it atop the burner. After turning on the stove, he reached for the package of turkey sausage and opened it.
“We should brown some sausage before putting it in the eggs,” he said. He dumped some in the pan, and it sizzled, filling the tiny kitchen with a mouthwatering aroma. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had sausage or bacon.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cooked breakfast with a woman, either. He always made sure his dates left as soon as he woke up, so it wouldn’t disrupt his workout routine.
Clearly, Hanna was going to impact more than just his diet the more time they spent together. He wondered how she would feel if she knew just how much he was willing to change for her. If she knew just how much he wanted to be enough for her, and how much he wanted to check off all the “boxes” on her list.
Jake shook his head. It was easy to get caught up in the fantasy of what might happen between the two of them. As long as they were holed away in the secluded safe house, they could shut out the rest of the world. He had to remind himself that it wouldn’t always be like this, though. He was, after all, still an operator. He was merely on leave, and she simply needed his help for the time being. They wouldn’t always get to spend this much time together. This was purely a fluke.
After the sausage had browned, he spooned it onto a paper towel and dumped half the egg and cheese mixture over it. He let it cook for a moment before sprinkling on half the sausage.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asked. “I bet they have a French press or something here.”
“Nah. You don’t have to make coffee just for me. I think I saw some juice in the fridge, though. Why don’t you pour two glasses of that?”
He turned back to the omelet and folded it in half while she poured two tall glasses of orange juice. When the food had finished cooking, he slid it on a plate and handed it to her.
“Please start,” he said. “While it’s still warm.”
She took the plate to the table and sat down while he started on the second omelet.
“Oh my god,” she mumbled, her mouth full. “This is seriously the best omelet I’ve ever had.”
Jake laughed. “If you say so. I still think you would have enjoyed my egg white version.”
“Wait until you try this,” she said before taking another bite.
After finishing the second omelet, Jake slid it onto a plate and joined her at the table. Half of her breakfast was already gone.
He picked up his fork and she looked at him expectantly.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just waiting for you to tell me that’s the best omelet you’ve ever had.”
Jake was doubtful it would be, but he humored her by cutting off a heaping bite.
The eggs were rich with yolk and butter, the cheese was warm and melted, and the sausage added a hearty texture. “Damn,” he said, his mouth full. “You’re right.”
She nodded, smiling, before taking a bite of her own omelet.
They ate in happy silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the good food and better company.
“I may have to add cooking to my checklist,” Hanna said after savoring the last bite.
Jake laughed. “In that case, I’d say I’m still in the running,” he said. “You should see what I can do with a turkey at Thanksgiving.”
He had a few more bites left, but just then, his phone started going off. Jake looked at the screen. It was one of the contacts who had helped arrange the safe house. Suddenly, he found himself crashing back down to reality. Breakfast was officially over. It was time to get back to business. And to stop straying from his routine or getting distracted from the mission at hand.
“I’ve gotta take this,” he said. He got up and headed to the living room before answering. He didn’t want Hanna to hear his end of the conversation until he knew exactly why his contact was calling. There was no need to worry her.
“This is Jake.”
“Hey, Jake. We’ve been working on decrypting the flash drive. It’s got some serious security measures on it, but we’re getting through. Slowly but surely.”
“Were you able to listen to any of the other audio files? Or open the jpegs? What have you learned so far?”
“We’ve opened a few. Tell me, what do you know about the guy who owned the flash drive?”
“He was an art dealer,” Jake explained. “Hanna said he often dealt with items worth millions of dollars. But she doesn’t know the specifics as far as the trouble he got himself into. Have you figured out what kind of merchandise the men were referring to in that unlocked file?”
“It was too vague to give us much to go on—and aside from that, we’ve only been able to open a few files so far,” the man on the other end of the line said. “But our language expert has picked up traces of Russian accents in their dialogue.”
“So this is likely a global operation,” Jake said.
“Our thoughts exactly.”
Jake’s stomach dropped. He knew they were facing a life-threatening situation, but he had been hoping the extent of the danger was limited to the coast of California. If Hanna’s client really had gotten tied up in some kind of global operation, that might mean hundreds of people wanted her dead. The bigger the operation, the more people who were involved—and the more danger that lurked at every corner of the globe.
“We need to open all those files,” Jake said. “And soon.”
“Like I said, we’re working on it. It’s a process, man.”
“What about passcodes related to art? Famous paintings, maybe?” He strode into the kitchen to see if Hanna had any recommendations—she had certainly done a great job remembering the elephant painting—but she was no longer in the room. “Do you think her client was involved in the criminal side of things?” he asked. “Maybe he was smuggling valuable artifacts and got in over his head?”
“Unfortunately, there’s no way to be sure until we’ve decrypted all these files. We’re going to keep working on them, though.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’ll call you with an update this afternoon.”
“Thanks.”
“Bye.”
Jake hung up the phone feeling frustrated. The call had left him with more questions than answers. And the answers he had—about the seriousness of the criminal operation and its massive, international reach—just made him feel worse.
He knew once smugglers hit a global scale, they had the resources to take out virtually anyone who got in their way.
In other words, Hanna had a target on her back and it was only a matter of time before the people after them would find the safe house.
Jake put his phone on the counter and grabbed the dishes from breakfast. He dumped the rest of his omelet in the trash—as good as it was, it had been the richest meal he’d had in years, and he could only eat so much of it—and then set out to find Hanna. Since he hadn’t seen her walk back through the living room, he reasoned she must have gone outside through the kitchen door. He really wished she would stop walking off like that. They might have been in a safe house, but judging from the phone call he’d just had, they were anything but safe.
Jake glanced out the window over the sink, and sure enough, Hanna was striding toward the
water, wearing nothing but a bathing suit. The sun was already beating down, and her soft brown waves glistened.
He watched as she walked out to the end of the dock. Even from here, he could appreciate her soft curves. She hadn’t started showing any unmistakable signs of pregnancy yet, but her breasts were certainly fuller. Jake felt that familiar sense of longing rising up, and he wished she would jump in the water already. It was as if she knew he was watching her, and she just wanted to tease him.
Finally, she dived into the lake in a single, fluid motion. He watched for a moment, waiting for her to rise to the surface, but he didn’t see her. Then, seconds later, he saw her arms splashing and flailing just a few feet from where she had jumped in.
“Hanna!”
Jake darted out of the cabin and ran down to the water. He didn’t see her head emerge once as he sprinted toward the dock—just her hands and arms flailing above the surface.
Nineteen
Jake got to the end of the dock in record time, but just before diving in, he froze. His chest was tight, and his heart started racing. Seeing Hanna flailing about in the water reminded him of his sister’s near-drowning incident—an incident for which he was to blame.
He tried to shake off the childhood trauma as he kicked off his shoes. Now was not the time to focus on anything but Hanna. He had to save her. And their baby.
He jumped in, still fully clothed except for his shoes, and swam out to where she was struggling. Ducking underwater, he wrapped his arms around her waist and tried to pull her to the surface, but something was keeping her down.
The water was murky, but Jake could see muddled shapes beneath the surface. He realized some of the overgrown weeds snaking up from the bottom of the lake had wrapped around Hanna’s ankles when she had jumped in. He reached into his pocket, grateful that one aspect of his life that she would never disrupt was his preparedness. He always had a pocketknife on him, whether he was working out, cooking breakfast, or pumping gas. He popped open the blade and then ran his hand down Hanna’s calf, letting her know it was going to be okay. He needed her to calm down enough that she stopped flailing, so he could cut away the weeds without risking hurting her.
She seemed to understand because she stopped kicking. Jake went to work, cutting away at the rough weeds as he could feel his oxygen supply running out. Fortunately, his SEAL training had prepared him for these kinds of scenarios, and he knew not to panic. That would only deplete his oxygen supply even faster. Unfortunately, he couldn’t say the same for Hanna. So he worked fast.
Finally, he had cut away the last of the weeds. Hanna kicked free as he swam to the surface. When his head broke free of the water, he took a deep breath, then wrapped his arms around her waist again.
“I’m okay,” she said, still out of breath. “I can swim back to the dock on my own.”
“Don’t fight me on this,” he grunted, gripping her even tighter and pulling her toward the ladder.
Jake was getting impatient with her. While he appreciated her stoicism in the face of danger, he was getting tired of her recklessness. First, wandering off at the gas station to help the couple with their tire, and now, jumping into the lake without making sure it was safe first.
They sat on the dock for a moment, coughing and sputtering. He reached out and started rubbing her back as she caught her breath. When they finally both stopped panting, she turned to him.
“Thank you,” she said. “I know you’re probably mad at me, but I swear I had no idea there were weeds like that at the bottom of the lake. I must have disturbed them when I first jumped in.”
Jake didn’t say anything. He honestly wasn’t sure what to say without coming off like an asshole, so he thought it best to just keep his mouth shut for the time being. He did stop rubbing her back, though, now that she had caught her breath.
He wasn’t a big believer in fate or signs from the universe, but what had just happened to Hanna was eerily similar to what had happened to his sister two decades prior. He had been in charge of looking after her then, and he was responsible for protecting Hanna now. He had let his guard down both times, though, and both women had nearly drowned.
Enough was enough. If something happened to Hanna, Jake knew he could never forgive himself. He realized he couldn’t get mad at her for being reckless because he had been just as negligent, albeit in a different way.
He might not have wandered off at gas stations or gone swimming in strange lakes alone, but he had let himself get distracted from the mission at hand. It didn’t matter how irresistible he found Hanna or how strong their connection was. He had one job, and one job alone: Keep her—and their baby—safe while they resolved the issue involving her client. Now was not the time to give into urges. He was mad at himself for being as weak as he’d been up to this point, but he resolved not to cave in again.
The sun had done a fairly good job of drying them off as they sat on the dock and caught their breaths, but Hanna still needed a towel or she was going to get cold. He remembered seeing a few beach towels in the cubby at the entrance of the cabin. Without a word, he stood and started walking back toward the house. Hanna followed in silence.
Instead of going back in through the kitchen door, he walked around to the front of the house so he could grab some towels for them. She was still behind him when he reached the cubby, and he still hadn’t said anything. He grabbed a faded green towel and handed it to her before taking the faded blue one for himself.
“Is it lunchtime yet?” she teased, clearly trying to make light of the situation. “Bacon cheeseburgers, French fries, and chocolate milkshakes maybe?”
After what had just happened out on the lake—not to mention the phone call he had received—Jake was not in the mood to be playful. Her life was literally at stake—as was the life of their baby—and he needed to know that she understood just how serious the situation was. He didn’t want to scare her, but he also didn’t want her to keep being so reckless. He reasoned that if she was aware of just how dangerous the situation was, she would try to be more careful. In other words, he had to tell her what he and his contact had discussed.
First, though, he had to address what had happened in the lake.
“Please don’t go out to the lake alone again,” he said. “Neither of us have any idea what’s lurking in that water. We just don’t know how safe it is.”
“Come on, that was a fluke,” Hanna said. “I’m a strong swimmer. I just disturbed the weeds. I won’t dive in like that anymore.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t dive in at all.”
“Here we go,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“What?”
“We were having a perfectly nice time here, but because of some freak accident, you’re back to taking on the overprotective big brother role.”
“I have no choice, Hanna,” he said. “Your life is literally in danger. If I wasn’t here, those guys probably would have gotten to you by now. Why borrow more trouble by taking unnecessary risks?”
“Is this about the gas station?” She put her hands on her hips.
“No. Yes.” He shook his head. “It’s about everything. Do you realize what your client was tied up in? Do you have any idea what’s at stake here? Now is not the time to go flitting off and diving into lakes.”
“Does that mean you know what he was tied up in? Your contact was able to encrypt all of the files?”
“Well… no. Not all of them. But he cracked some of them—and from what he’s learned so far, we have reason to believe it’s a global operation.”
“And?” She looked at him quizzically. “I mean, we knew he was an international art dealer. What does it matter that it’s a global operation? If anything, I figured that was assumed.”
“No, the fact that his business was international didn’t have to mean it was an international crime. Considering how quickly those thugs found us in San Diego, it was reasonable to believe it was a California operation.”
“Okay. So it
’s not just a California operation.” Hanna clearly wasn’t getting the severity of the situation. “What does that mean for us?”
“It means the guys we’re up against have the resources to run a global operation. Which means they also have the resources to track down and kill whoever gets in their way.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this is much bigger than we realized. Those three guys we heard on the first recording? If it was just them, then resolving this would be easy. But we’re not talking about three guys, or even three dozen. There could be three hundred people involved, for all we know. If someone comes after us and we manage to stop him, it won’t matter—they’ll just send another guy to try again. And again. And again. They won’t run out of resources and they won’t run out of patience…which means that sooner or later, we’ll run out of time unless we manage to get to the bottom of this first. So until we do, you need to exercise caution at every turn.”
“So no swimming. Even though I’m an adult who’s fully capable of making my own decisions.”
Jake nodded. “No nothing that could put you in harm’s way. Not without me, at least. Until we know exactly what we’re up against, and what these guys are capable of, it’s too dangerous.”
Hanna sighed, but she apparently didn’t have the energy to fight him on it because she dropped the subject. Instead, she readjusted her towel and headed toward the bedroom.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she called as she walked down the hallway. “Is that allowed?”
Jake was not going to let her rile him up, so he let her comment slide. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little worried about her in the bathroom all alone, though. There was, after all, a window in the bedroom and another in the bathroom. Two prime entry points for anyone who wanted to get to her. He wasn’t about to tell Hanna that, though. He didn’t need her thinking he was being totally unreasonable.
Twenty