by Alison Kent
"I don't believe for a minute that you've given up thinking, Wick," she said, more sharply than she'd intended. "But I do understand missing the conversations. I have never known two men more capable of talking two women under a table than you and my father."
He lifted a brow behind his gold frames. "Disparaging your own sex, Natasha?"
She shook her head. "Just playing to the stereotype."
"And here I thought Michael and I taught you better."
"You did, actually. You taught me everything that makes me who I am. It was like growing up with two male parents." And this wasn't the first time she'd thought as much. "Mom did little more than to make sure I knew that babies were not found under cabbage leaves."
"That's more than many mothers do." He canted his head to the side and considered her. "Do you talk to your mother often?"
Natasha both loved and hated how easily they slipped into the familiar comfort of their shared history. Loved it because Wick was the only father she had left. Hated it for the obvious reasons.
She returned to the bed, double-checked her overnighter, and folded it for storage. "We talked every week after the funeral, but that only lasted for a couple of months."
"I thought I might invite her out to visit for a few days. I know she and I have never been close—"
"Close? Try continents apart," she called before stepping back out of the closet. "Why would you want her to visit?"
"The visit wouldn't be for me, Natasha."
She paused for a moment halfway between the closet and the desk where she had Wick's university e-mail to check. "What's going on, Wick? You know my mother and I are both fine with things as they are. There's no animosity, but we never have been close at all."
"And, for that, I often fear I may be at fault."
Once her laptop had finished booting up, she turned to him, torn completely in half by her feelings. She wanted to rail at him, to demand answers for his involvement with a syndicate like Spectra IT. Yet she wanted just as much to hug him and set whatever fears he was suffering at ease.
"My mother's envy of the closeness you shared with my father is her problem. Not yours and not mine. She is the only one at fault here." She pulled out her desk chair and sat, gripping the arms to keep herself grounded when the ache in her chest and the burning lump at the base of her throat had her wanting to sit at his feet again, to listen to his words of wisdom, to find the same assurance he and her father had always offered that all would be right with her world.
Her world, which was now so very, very wrong. "You know that. We both know that."
Wick wheeled his chair further into her room. His gaze, usually so clear and so sharp, was fuzzy, unfocused, even uncertain, which despite all her intentions to harden her heart caused her no small amount of alarm. "We both know, as well, that had Michael and I not been closer than brothers, he and Gail might have never divorced."
"That's possible, yes, but again, their divorce wasn't your fault any more than it was mine." Why did it feel as if she was the one consoling a child at the heart of the parents' split?
"Perhaps not. But it would please me to know that there remain no hard feelings. Which is why I thought I would phone her and suggest a visit."
This sounded as if he was making amends. Or settling his affairs, putting things in order. The lump in her throat rose until she was no longer able to speak. Anger or not, she had no wish to lose him to his disease.
"Do you think if I telephoned her today, she might make arrangements to fly out for this weekend's ball?"
The ball. Natasha had been so caught up these last few days with Christian, she hadn't checked in yet with Mrs. Courtney on the preparations for this sudden party Wick had recently insisted on. And now with this trip down her old family lane, it was almost as if he were saying good-bye.
This time she did get up and go to him, kneeling at the foot of his chair, the carpet a soft comfort beneath her. "Wick, have you had news from the doctors you haven't shared with me? This talk of my mother and father, this party"—a party to which he had invited every longtime friend she'd ever known him to have—"you're starting to worry me here."
He frowned for a moment, then his eyes cleared and brightened almost immediately. And his smile spread over his face until she swore the only thing from which he was suffering was an overdose of joy.
He reached out and playfully tugged on a lock of her hair. "I'm fine, Natasha. Perhaps a bit melancholy at times, which I believe is my right as an old man. But there is absolutely nothing for you to worry about."
"Promise?" she asked, though she knew exactly the full extent of what she had to worry about, what she had to fear.
"I promise," he said with a simple nod. "I admit the idea of having stolen away years you might have spent with your mother has haunted me, but I will do my best not to give it another thought. As long as you promise me that you are truly happy."
She pushed to her feet then, patted his knee, putting the distance she needed between them again. "I am happy," she said, mixing truth with lies. "Why wouldn't I be? I lead an incredible life here." For one more week anyway. Who knew where she'd be once Christian's SG-5 group put her godfather away?
"And Mr. Deacon?"
She settled back down at her desk, swallowed the butterflies turning her stomach into a mess of fluttering, tickling nerves. "What about Mr. Deacon?"
Wick's chair whirred as he approached. "You spoke earlier of your good fortune. May I assume he is a part of that?"
Natasha smiled for her godfather's benefit but also for her own. "Yes. You may assume."
"Well, that is excellent news. I quite like the man myself."
"Too bad he's not going to be around much longer. He might turn out to be that good conversationalist you've been missing," she said, laughing at the idea of Christian ever saying more than he had to. Or volunteering information without prodding from a pitchfork.
"Yes, you're right. Too bad indeed. Too very bad indeed."
And then without another word, Wick turned and left the room, leaving Natasha to wonder what had just happened, what their conversation had really been about, and if Christian needed to know.
Twenty
Later that afternoon found Christian in the basement lab, on edge like he hadn't been in almost a week, rolling his chair up to Woodrow Jinks's workstation just as the other man rolled away. Jinks grabbed a CD from a spindle on the table behind him and wheeled back, gearing up to demonstrate a beta test of his model before taking it live.
The live part was what had Christian itchy. Going live was the endgame, that much was obvious, and he had to keep Jinks from getting that far. First, however, he had to know what the hell it was he'd come here to stop. If any other scenario had ever come so close to burning a hole in his ulcerated gut, he thankfully couldn't remember.
"You gotta know this whole business of cracking encryption isn't as simple as busting DVDs or hacking the Federal Reserve's wire system." Jinks loaded the CD and pulled up a DOS window of code Christian couldn't have read with a gun to his head—though he sure as hell didn't need any such encouragement to latch onto Jinks's remark about cracking encryption.
That one Christian filed front and center.
"Are you warning me to watch my step or bragging about what you can do?" he asked, watching Jinks's hand begin to tremble over his mouse.
"Not bragging. No way. Just letting you know this is serious stuff. Life sentence stuff. Traitorous, terrorist stuff." Realization dawned on the young scientist's face and he smirked. "But then I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, am I?"
"You're not, no." Christian's gaze drilled into the other man's, which interestingly enough never wavered. The kid had grown some balls. "And I assume you know you're risking the rest of your life here, as well."
"Oh yeah." Jinks cocked back in his chair, hands laced behind his head, and swiveled side to side. "But winning is like gaming. It's all abou
t risks. Accepting challenges. Kicking ass. Biting the bullet and all that."
Balls and then some, unless the kid was so full of shit he'd actually convinced himself he could pull this off. Christian couldn't help but admit his curiosity. "You sure you can get your mouth around this one?"
"Are you kidding? For the money you're paying Bow?"
"And he is paying you."
"Oh yeah." Jinks blew out a heavy breath and shook his head. "Keeping my mouth shut about this has been the hardest thing I've ever done."
Interesting segue. Christian raised a brow. "But you have kept your mouth shut."
The shaking hands again as Jinks sat up and stared at the white cursor blinking on the black screen. "Not a peep to anyone."
Christian wondered who it was Jinks wanted to tell. "And what do you do when this is over?"
"Since I can hardly show up back in Seattle, you mean?"
Seattle. Hmm. "Right. You going to buy yourself a new identity?"
"Got it picked out already." Jinks smiled, rubbed his palms together gleefully, his momentary case of nerves long gone. "A nice beach in Bora Bora. John Smith from New York City."
"What about your family? Your friends?" Christian pressed.
"I don't have much of a social life. I pretty much hang out on-line," Jinks said, frowning as he typed another series of commands. "And on-line I can be anyone I want to be."
"You're right about that." The kid didn't seem the least bit fazed, Christian mused. Too bad he was going to have to sacrifice his brilliant mind because he was so stupid. And too bad none of what he was saying or showing off made a goddamn dent in Christian's need to know.
Jinks shoved his keyboard away. "Man, I think we're going to have to do this another time. I can't get a connection to hold."
Christian nodded. A connection. Cracking encrypt-ion. But nothing about the who or the how or the why. "Tomorrow then?"
"Yeah. It's been hinky all day. Too much line noise. And I'm betting that's not sitting well considering the money this so-called secure network must be costing taxpayers—not to mention the Agency."
They met in the kitchen at dawn the next morning, Christian ridiculously distracted by Natasha wearing Spandex when his mind should've been on the fact that Jinks and Bow were fucking with the CIA—a fact he'd passed along late last night in a phone call made from the woods beyond the terrace to the SG-5 ops center and Kelly John Beach.
But now frustration was eating at Christian's head, messing with his mind, and Natasha was screwing up his focus. It was like he'd never seen her body before. Like he'd never realized she had legs. Or that ass.
He didn't know why she couldn't run in sweats, or why he was in such a foul mood except for the fact that he didn't have enough of a grasp on the case to move forward, even while what he knew was enough to make him break out in cold hives when he considered the implications.
And considered Jinks's use of the word terrorist.
Christian squeezed the hell out of his water bottle as he grabbed it off the countertop, pushed open the door out of the kitchen, and headed down the walkway alongside the water garden, leaving Natasha midstretch.
Bracing a foot on the seat of the closest bench, he continued his warm-up, breathing in the cool air's sharp tang and watching the sluggish Koi swim in place. He could think better out here without the distraction of the woman he wanted to strip bare.
Christian Bane, the SG-5 operative least likely to mix business and pleasure. And this was one of the biggest reasons why. He needed to concentrate. He didn't need to have to watch more than his own back.
He didn't need the burden of having to protect the innocent because he couldn't guarantee he'd come through. Natasha deserved better than that. She was a good woman. One he didn't want to see hurt more than she'd been hurt already.
He straightened, stretched his arms overhead, switched to his other leg. He was really in a world of trouble here, caught between wanting to send her back to the city and out of harm's way, yet knowing such a move would arouse Bow's suspicions.
Especially with the older man so obviously pleased by and encouraging of Natasha's relationship with Peter.
There had to be something there. Something Bow wanted to happen between them. Not the obvious physical relationship but a tie he could bind them with. Christian had nothing to go on here but gut instinct, but he'd learned the hard way to listen to his gut.
"You prefer doing your warm-ups alone?"
At the sound of her voice behind him, he dropped his foot to the sidewalk and turned. "Pm not much for the buddy system."
Her smile was just short of a smirk. "I can't say that comes as a shock."
"It shouldn't."
She shook her head, lifted her water bottle. "Ah, but a buddy can keep you from getting yourself into trouble."
"Remind me to tell you how I ended up in that Thai cage one day," he said before thinking better of it.
She froze, water bottle halfway between waist and mouth. "I'm listening."
"Remind me some other time to tell you about that Thai cage one day."
"Why not now?"
"Do we know who's listening?"
She glanced side to side, up down and around, lifted a brow and answered, "The Koi?"
He bit down on a grin. "What do you know about the estate's surveillance system?"
"Security system, you mean."
He held her gaze and repeated, "Surveillance."
When her eyes widened and she started to once again look around, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, giving her a quick shake of his head and taking the water bottle from her hand. He raised it to his lips and talked from behind it.
He doubted anyone was listening, but he didn't know who might be reading lips. "Two feet above the back door. Beneath the awning."
"The bird's nest? Wick won't let Mrs. Courtney touch it."
"How long has it been there?"
"I don't know, why? Awhile."
"Ever see any birds?"
"Making sense would be nice here."
"It's not a bird's nest. The darker twigs are filament. It's a fiber-optic camera."
He handed her back the water. They turned together, heading down the drive for their run. Natasha cast a brief glance where he'd indicated, never breaking stride,' never looking back.
He wanted to give her a big high five for being such a trooper. He wanted to pull her close and tell her everything would be over soon and life would get back to normal, but he knew that wasn't the case.
And so he fell into step at her side, neither of them speaking until she made a turn off the long private road onto a dirt trail that led into the heart of the estate's wooded acreage.
She waited a hundred yards before speaking. "Are there cameras like that throughout the house?"
"I've seen several."
"Can you tell if they've been there long?"
"They don't appear to be particularly new."
She let that sink in, her feet thudding on the hard-packed surface in sync with his. Another few steps and she faltered to a stop. "Please don't tell me there's a camera on your balcony."
Her eyes were wide. Her lips trembled. On this, at least, he could set her at ease. "The foyer, the kitchen, the dining room. The other common areas. It seems to be more of an internal system than anything external."
He spared her the knowledge of the one he'd found in the corner of the guest room's armoire. Fortunately, the evening he'd arrived, he'd tossed Deacon's workout duffle on top of it, where it had stayed until this morning.
The dangling strap had obscured the camera—a discovery he'd made when finally pulling down the bag.
"Surveillance. Is that visual only? I'm assuming this is Wick's doing, but can he hear what he sees?"
"No. It's strictly visual. At least this version. He's got quite the bank of monitors in that basement corner of his. I'm going to assume that's where he receives the feed."
Hands on her hips, she sta
red down the trail in the direction from which they'd come. Her breath swirled and vanished in tendrils of wispy fog, and a moment later she turned and began to run.
"I wish I could help you but I've never had reason to work at his desk in the lab. I do know there's nothing obvious in his office. And no evidence of secret panels or sliding walls where he'd have installed any equipment."
Christian couldn't help but smile at the picture her imagination painted. "Been watching a lot of James Bond lately?"
She cast him a sharp glance. "That's not funny."
"I know. I'm kidding." He looked over to see her stick out her tongue. He winked in response. It was tough to keep things light, but if it helped . . . "I'm sure the lab is where I'll find the broadcast."
"You're going to look for it?"
"I'd like to know when he had it installed. I can get a date from the capture software's registry."
"I can't imagine any reason he would've needed it before now. I can't imagine why he would need it at all. Then again, the whole idea of what he's done . . ."
She let the sentence trail and they continued to run in silence for several minutes. When they reached a small clearing, he slowed, catching her elbow and insisting she stop. "How has he seemed since we've been back? Have you gotten anything from him?"
"Anything like what?"
"Any strange vibes? Has he questioned you about me? About anything I might have said?"
"No. Nothing about you. He's mostly talked about my father." She dropped her gaze to the ground, lowered her voice. "And my mother, of all things."
Christian's radar blipped. "Why do you say that? About your mother?"
"Her relationship with Wick was never more than amiable. They were on speaking terms, of course, but if my father hadn't been in the picture they never would have been friends. They had little in common besides their affection for him."
"What was the context of him talking about her? Why bring her up?"
She paced a few steps away, pulled in a breath that caused her whole body to shudder. "I hate to say this or even think it, but it's almost as if he's gathering the people who've been important in his life for a final good-bye."