by Jodie Bailey
He did. As much as the job he did now kept the adrenaline pumping, as much as he found satisfaction in keeping his country safe, he missed stability.
But this was what he did. When his buddies called on him, he stepped in, the guy who always had their backs, the one who could get the job done when no one else could.
Right now, standing here with Meghan, protecting others was more important than it had ever been before.
* * *
Dust danced in the sunlight that left a puddle on the hardwood in the large downstairs office in the farmhouse. Meghan stopped in the center of the room to watch the particles dip and whirl, trying her hardest to be still long enough to sort out everything the past day had wrought. Tate’s attack. Jacob’s death. Tortured. Traitor.
Married. The word had almost dragged Meghan to her knees. Even an hour later, it still made her want to pull herself into a ball and huddle against the thought. He’d planned a life with someone else. Sought comfort with someone else. Shared his life with someone else. While she’d grieved until it felt as if her body would splinter, he’d held another woman.
Meghan crossed her arms over her stomach, trying to press back a rising nausea. He wasn’t hers. Was never hers. They’d been partners, friends. Never anything more because he’d never thought of her as anything else and she’d been too afraid to tell him she loved him. Tate had been free to do whatever he wanted, but that didn’t stop the past from clawing at her skin.
She dug her fingers into her biceps and forced herself back to reality. Tate had a past. So did she. Tate had been hurt, had lost more than Meghan had ever possessed. This wasn’t about her, no matter how much her mind wanted it to be. If ever there was a time to set her emotions aside and deal in rationality, this was it.
She pulled her attention from the window to glance toward the door. Tate was supposedly coming in to crash on the couch after he grabbed a shower upstairs. She was guessing he wouldn’t actually sleep. Both of them were riding on adrenaline, wound too tight to stay still for long.
As much as Meghan tried, she couldn’t picture him in a routine life running a bed-and-breakfast, making pancakes and lounging in front of the TV in the evenings.
She definitely couldn’t picture him doing any of those things with someone else.
Maybe that was it. Marriage to Tate Walker wouldn’t be pancakes and TV. It would be long hikes and rock climbing. Those were the things he’d always loved, the things they’d done together on downtime after several missions. When her dreams for the future had turned to include Tate, those had been the things she’d pictured, along with him beside her in a foster home, teaching broken children the truth there was more to the world than four walls and video games. She’d seen him with kids in other countries, handing out piggyback rides, playing soccer and taking time to connect. He’d be perfect in this place, healing broken children.
She’d once thought of all those things. Yes, he’d been married, but the truth was, when it came to a marriage, Meghan had never had anything to give. She’d never even been a part of a real family, had never seen how a marriage partnership really worked. Her father had vanished before she was born, while her mother had shuffled Meghan from house to house with each new boyfriend before abandoning her entirely when Meghan was fourteen.
Her history guaranteed she had no idea how to relate to a man, how to give him a home he could call his castle. She’d left the army and Tate because the dream hurt too much...
And because Ethan Kincaid had warned her. He’d fallen for his own partner when he was a military policeman, and he’d watched Ashley Colson almost die in his arms because he’d let his love for her get in the way of his training. In the end, he’d walked away rather than see her hurt again, and he’d cautioned Meghan to do the same. On his advice, she’d put a bullet in her dreams and walked into a new life without Tate.
Meghan threw aside the memories. There was too much to do to be taking a swim in regrets. She pulled a rectangular box from beneath the false floor in the closet and sat at the desk she’d built from the repurposed wood of one of the property’s old outbuildings. She flipped through the combination on the front of the cool metal box and hefted out her laptop, setting the box on the hardwood floor.
After keying in the lock code on the machine, she loaded the computer she’d built from scratch from her own design, cobbled together from years of field experience. It was as unhackable and untraceable as the skills she’d taught herself in high school and later learned in the army could build it.
From the hallway, a series of small creaks leaked into the room.
Meghan pursed her lips to hold in a grin. His restlessness had driven him to search for her, the same as it always had when he couldn’t sleep. He’d always had a thing for watching her work. “Thought you were going to sleep.”
“You know that’s not happening.” Tate dragged a dining room chair from the corner and slid it next to Meghan. He flipped it backward and straddled it, his arms crossed on the curved back, his jeans pulling tight against the muscles in his thighs.
Pretending not to notice how good whatever training he was doing had been to him, Meghan slipped an external hard drive from her backpack and connected it to the machine, conscious of Tate watching her every move. She focused hard on her fingers, willing them not to tremble under the scrutiny as she started the process of downloading her program to the external drive.
“What are we working on? In layman’s terms.” Tate slid the chair closer, invading her personal space to watch the screen.
She sucked in a quick breath, the lightning bolt of him crackling out to her toes. His hair was damp and long enough to hint at the curl that might be there if he ever let it have its way. He smelled like shampoo and...and something that would always be him alone. He overwhelmed her and brought out every single emotion she’d believed had been buried with him. Resurrected emotions had more power than she’d ever imagined. If he listened too close, he might hear her heartbeat betray her.
“Meghan?” He eased away to look at her. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Meghan dug her toes into her shoes and focused all her attention on the laptop. She needed to stand down, or she’d give herself permission to charge. “Thinking. Trying to figure out what to do next.” It wasn’t the full truth, but it didn’t qualify as a lie, either.
“What’s the plan? And what are you about to unleash on our unsuspecting hacker?”
Okay, her work. Talking about the program she’d spent years perfecting should be easy. As long as she didn’t look at him while she talked. “It builds on some of the software we used when I was working on the inside. In layman’s terms—” she grinned at his request “—it will ferret out a hack and run a trace to the offending computer. Not only the network the computer was on but to the computer itself, then latch on to follow the machine wherever it goes, whether it’s on or off. I’ve never tested it, but now seems to be the best time to put it to use.”
She had to watch what she said, or Tate would realize how personal this was. Meghan scanned the image of the hacker’s message in her mind. It’s time for round two. His signature was clearer than the message, the unique series of numbers and letters as familiar as Meghan’s own name. Every mission she’d run with Tate, every hacked system she’d investigated, she’d sought the sequence, praying she’d never see it again, yet hoping to track the man who had driven her to go against every moral fiber she possessed.
Round two. Meghan pressed her palms against her eyes. Somehow she’d always known he’d return to haunt her. He wanted her to hack for him again. This time he’d gone to great lengths to make sure he had her attention, trying to steal her from the school where she’d found peace. If he was willing to step into the real world and physically bring Meghan to him, he really needed something she could provide. Problem was, she couldn’t even begin to guess what
that was.
“How’s it work?”
Forcing a chuckle, Meghan opened her eyes to check the status bar. “Explaining would go beyond layman’s terms.” Their teams had been carefully put together, one partner with the muscle, one with the skills. As much as he often liked to pretend otherwise, though, Tate was no dummy. He’d helped her trace more than one hacker, whether tech was his specialty or not.
“Why’s he after you, Meg? This isn’t random.” Tate turned the chair slightly so he was facing her. “He watched you for a long time.”
Meghan busied herself with the laptop, scrambling for a way to shove off the question without lying. She’d never been successful at getting one over on him.
Invisible fingers crawled across her skin, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Tate had said earlier Phoenix had been surveilling her for a year. It was possible she’d spoken to him, stood next to him...
Of all the dangers she’d faced in her entire life, this one chilled her more than any other.
Fear wasn’t an adversary she battled often, but it leaped on her with all the fury of a silent stalker, digging into her shoulders and stiffening her muscles. This hacker knew where she was, could even be watching her right now, and she didn’t have the first clue what he looked like, sounded like, walked like...
Meghan slid away from the desk and paced to the window to stare at the trees bordering the horse pasture. Breathe. “I’d need more information. You probably know more about him than I do. But I know this...” She gathered herself and turned toward Tate. “We drop the curtain on him. Now. We can’t let him kill the power and send us to the Stone Age. It would be chaos.”
The hacker might think he had her by the throat and could force her to work with him again, but the truth was he’d made a fatal error coming after her now that she knew how to defend herself. In college, Meghan had been forced to fight alone. Now she had Tate and an entire team of military experts on her side.
But if she trusted them with her past, the truth could cost her the future.
SIX
Traffic on 475 heading into Flint was fairly light, but Meghan checked her mirrors again, alert for any sign they’d picked up an unwanted guest. Driving the huge pickup the Snyder Foundation had purchased for the farm had proven a smart move, camouflaging them from anyone trying to find her car or Tate’s truck.
They were more likely to gain company the closer she got to the school, the most obvious place anyone would be watching for her. Afraid the dream of her own foster home would go away if she talked too much about it, Meghan had kept details close, even from her principal. Only Phoebe Snyder, who ran the foundation that owned the farm, knew Meghan was connected with the place, so no one would be searching for her there.
With everything going on, she ought to call Phoebe and wave her off. One of her closest friends since college, Phoebe would be at the house in a few hours to work on hanging the front door and painting the living room. Problem was, Meghan needed the physical labor. And Phoebe was nosy. Telling her not to come would only bring her faster.
Meghan grinned and glanced at Tate, who was racked out with his head against the passenger window. He wouldn’t be a fan of having Phoebe around for the afternoon, but Meghan needed the distraction. She needed to focus on her new dream at the foster home, not on her old dreams with Tate, even if her future at the farm was now in jeopardy.
The foster home was her original dream, anyway. Meghan had joined the army so she could obtain the education she needed, then tucked away every dime she’d earned in the military and at the school in order to fund a future home. When Phoebe had approached her with the opportunity to work for her family’s foundation, Meghan had jumped at it. This was the work that gave her life meaning.
When it came to the kids, she could pour out her whole self. Meghan had walked in their footsteps. This was her calling, to lift those kids out of their pasts.
The truck hit a pothole and Tate shifted, but he didn’t wake. Further proof soldiers were conditioned to sleep anywhere.
Meghan bit back a smile. He’d battled her about making the drive. It wasn’t the first time they’d butted heads because “sleep was for the weak.” It had taken all of her patience not to remind him he was human and she was as well trained in evasive driving as he was, something his male ego had clearly forgotten. He’d eventually stood down, asleep before they reached the end of the half-mile driveway, leaving Meghan nothing to do but watch her mirrors and think too much about Tate’s life while they’d been apart.
She had to let that go.
There had never been anything between the two of them. Meghan had kept her feelings to herself, and he’d been free to do whatever he wanted. The fact that his marriage had ended despite his best efforts made her heart ache for him.
Meghan wrapped her fingers tighter around the steering wheel. Whoever this Stephanie woman was, she’d better hope she never met Meghan. It took some nerve to betray Tate. Even though he seemed to have healed, there was no excuse for the other woman’s selfishness.
Checking her mirrors one last time before turning into the parking lot of the school, Meghan allowed herself to relax.
Tate sat up, instantly awake. “Everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“You let me sleep the whole ride?”
“I did.” Surveilling the surrounding area to make sure no one lurked in the shadows was better for her sanity than getting a view of a just-awake Tate Walker. From experience trading sleep time on ops, she knew he’d wear a rumpled little-boy look that totally undid his strong soldier image, the look that had first caught the attention of the decidedly non-soldier part of her. “We’ve walked this road before, Walker. Sleep is good.”
“I think I’m the one who taught you the sleep lecture.”
“Possibly.” Meghan allowed herself a small smile as she shoved open the door and slid out of the truck. The temperature of the asphalt made the late morning steam like a sauna. Meghan swiped her short bangs away from her face and pulled the key from her pocket while Tate covered the rear to make sure no one surprised them. “We should be safe for a couple of hours. The principal may be in after lunch to wrap up a few things, but we’ll be long gone by then.”
When Meghan unlocked the door, Tate edged in front of her, his pistol at the ready. He slipped into the building ahead of her as though she had no idea how to defend herself if someone came at her. Digging her teeth into her lip to keep from saying something she might regret later, Meghan headed for the alarm, following it by sound in the darkened interior hallway.
There was something about watching him in his element that stopped her, made her forget why they were there. He carried himself with the kind of confidence that said he was comfortable in his skin and in his role as protector. He never hesitated, never drew back. For the only time since she’d left his side four years ago, Meghan felt the kind of safe she’d never been able to find anywhere else.
Leaving the army had been her wisest decision ever if her skin could still flush this hot whenever he was around. She felt a little bit like some of the middle schoolers gushing over whatever boy band was hot on any given day. He made her stomach flutter, as though little dancing chipmunks had taken up residence there.
Chipmunks? She should bang her head against the wall. A concussion would go a long way toward explaining the insanity rising inside her. Fighting a tremor, she flipped the cover on the alarm and keyed in her code, silencing the insistent call of the tiny device.
Like yesterday.
Meghan froze, the cover light as she held it halfway closed, all thoughts of Tate and what might have been blown to shreds. “Who gave you the alarm code?”
“What?” Tate was closer than she’d thought; his question came from over her left shoulder.
“Isaac had the alarm code.” In the same way s
he’d done in the past, Meghan ignored the way he churned inside her, tangling her emotions and stealing her professional coldness. “Where did he get it?”
The silence stretched long, and Tate took a step back, allowing Meghan to gather her composure. She slipped sideways and turned to face him. The dim light played shadows on his face, making him seem almost menacing. He could easily intimidate anyone who got in his way...or be the man whose quiet strength had long ago let him work his way into her heart.
“I’m assuming from Phoenix,” Tate said, oblivious to her thoughts. “He could have hacked in or—”
“The alarm is a closed system, and it’s hardwired. Once the alarm company installed it, I plugged any holes. The system is controlled by a dedicated computer in my office, and it has no off-site network capabilities. Passwords are individual to the user. Six of us have one. Unless he was physically in the building to see someone key their code or to gain access to the computer...” The idea he’d physically walked the halls around her and she’d missed it made her skin burn. She turned on her heel and headed for her office. If she never did anything else, she was eliminating this hacker.
Tate was at her side. “Why the tight security? You training future operatives in the computer lab?”
“Ha-ha.” Meghan pushed all the sarcasm she had into the words. “We had a break-in last year. Vandals trashed the building. Holes in the drywall, razors to the carpets, spray paint everywhere.” The epithets dripping down the walls had been horrific, invectives too hideous to say out loud. “The kids never saw it, but I’d hate to think how scared they’d have been if they had. We lost a couple of families in the aftermath. The police upped patrols, and we strengthened the alarm system. I’m the sole nonadministrator with access because I run network security.” Yvonne, the principal and a friend since high school, had had to convince the board Meghan’s credentials made her more capable than any security company.
Meghan shouldered her office door open. On humid days, it always stuck, the heavy wood screeching a protest against the metal frame. “Isaac had a key, too.”