Rory (In the Company of Snipers Book 6)

by Irish Winters

  “I can’t take much more of this, Rory. I mean it. Every time I turn around she comes up with some amazingly bizarre stuff that rips my heart out and—”

  The premonition swept through her with a blast of fire and smoke so real she could smell the acrid stench of fuel burning, the sting of smoke in her eyes. And through the cloud of destruction came—Death. Alex cried. Harley smiled, but Rory lay belly to the earth, his face covered in blood and sweat. He would die.

  She choked, the scene more than she could absorb or understand. A kaleidoscope of oranges, reds, and thick dark blacks defined and redefined the strongest prison ever. Hers. The vision ended with the peaceful flutter of white doves that in no way eased the prickly terror climbing up her throat.

  Rory clutched her elbow, asking for the words Nima wouldn’t share. “Ember, talk to me. Look at me.”

  The world passed in such slow motion she could’ve counted his incredibly long eyelashes if she’d wanted to. The deep blues beneath them were fierce. Angry. And scared. But for what? A smile blossomed slowly across her face. It tugged the corner of her lips first, then her cheeks as she came back to reality in the blast of his anger.

  “Ember! For the love of—”

  “Rory.”

  He calmed the second she cupped his cheek. “Ember. Honey. Tell me what she told you.”

  Honey. Hmm. Not Junior Agent?

  She sat dazed and disconnected from reality. “Death. And Alex. And life, I think.” The words dripping off her tongue sounded distant in her ears, as if someone else was speaking from far away.

  “What do you mean?” he asked earnestly, his fingers feeling gently over her cheeks and through her hair as if she’d been injured.

  Reality shifted again. Truth glistening in his eyes, Rory was just a man trying to hold this insane operation together. And he did care; he just could not speak it. And that scared her as much as the vision. Unrequited love never brought peace. Only pain to last for years.

  “What did she tell you?” he asked again.

  Ember leaned into the luxurious feel of his touch, her eyes closed as she soaked up the comforting strength of this tender warrior. “She told me to use tragedy as a source of strength. That’s all.”

  “But what does that mean? You saw something else, didn’t you?” He traced his fingertips over her cheek. “What did you see? Come on, Ember. You can tell me.”

  “I saw these things. I saw Alex crying, but then I saw Harley smiling. Then....” She stopped cold. How could she tell him she’d seen the day Tyler would become an orphan like Nima? “And then I saw smoke and fire. That’s all.”

  Suspicion shifted over his face. She should have known better than to deceive a covert operator. These guys were good at their jobs. Rory was no exception.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  There was no way she’d ever tell. Never. “That’s all there was, right, Nima? You saw it, too, didn’t you?” she asked.

  The wise little girl only smiled and continued to hold Ember’s hand as calmly as if she were an eighty-year-old monk.

  Rory gathered them both against him and they sat for the longest time on the floor. He didn’t seem able to get close enough, continually running his hands up her arms and over her shoulder to cup her cheek. His breath came in short hard pants. He was close enough to kiss again, but he was scared.

  And so was she. She closed her eyes to block it out, but the vision came back with crystal clarity, the details crisp enough to touch. Rory lay belly to the ground, his SIG clutched in his outstretched right hand. Blood and dirt obscured his features, but his eyes were wide open. Orange flame reflected back from the black of his lifeless gaze. No tender look of love radiated within.

  An icy fingertip slithered across her shoulder, its nail tapping the message home. Death meant to visit her again. It would come to rob. To crush. She bit her lip and shivered. Why me? Why can’t one person, please, just stay in my life? Is that too much to ask of the universe? Why—me?

  He held her tighter. “You’re as cold as ice. Are you sure that’s all you saw?”

  She turned her tearful face away from him, exposing the back of her neck to his heated breath, the feel of it too exquisite to bear—or to lose. He leaned in, his chin warm at the back of her neck. Ripples of wanton desire coursed through her from this simple contact, desire that would never find release. She bowed her head at the injustice of fate, willing to accept that this might be as close as she’d ever get to the man she was fairly sure loved her.

  “Yes,” she whispered softly. “It’s all I saw.”

  He planted the lightest kiss beneath her ear lobe, his arms and legs all but encompassing hers. “I believe you.”

  She held her breath, wanting so much more, but letting all of her foolish hopes go at the same time. This single stolen moment needed to last as long as possible. She didn’t even hint at turning in his arms to offer her heart or body. More was never meant to be. Not with this man. Not for her. She should’ve known.

  Life was cruel. Death more so.

  Fourteen

  Rory eyed Ember suspiciously. For a woman who’d wanted to go for a walk bad enough to risk insubordination earlier, she was determined to stay indoors now. They didn’t go to breakfast or lunch. Instead, they ordered room service and clung to the seclusion of their room.

  She made paper dolls out of the daily newspaper delivered to their door, and together she and Nima dressed them in cut-out tissues. Rory disappeared for two minutes to dump their old clothes in the hotel garbage bins. When he came back, he brought a handful of orange and red autumn leaves, which they promptly cut up into designer shoes and purses for their dolls with fingernail scissors from the front desk. The floor was a mess, but he didn’t care. As long as his girls were happy, he was, too.

  Only he was pretty sure Ember wasn’t happy. She’d changed since her vision. Her bright smile had faded. She was holding something back.

  “What are you two giggling about?” he asked.

  “We made a Rory doll,” Ember replied while Nima held up a paper doll with curly black inked hair. For a prognosticating, eighty-year-old child, her eyes held the cutest sparkle of mischief.

  Rory shook his head in mock dismay. “You girls always stick together. You’ll make a great mother someday, Ember.”

  She shook her head. “No. I won’t.”

  The way she said it stabbed his heart. She was so sure and so sad at the same time, but the scene he watched now betrayed her. She and Nima acted like mother and daughter. There were no other words for it. Maybe she couldn’t see it, but he could.

  Rory went back to reading what was left of the newspaper, but his mind was zeroed in on the woman on the floor. Invisible strings pulsated between them with every movement she made and every whispered word to Nima. The tension quivered like a spider’s web when she bit her lip or smoothed her hair out of her face. Every breath of hers resonated with his. Even the air transmitted her essence to him. Whether she knew it or not, he still held her in his arms, close and warm—and his.

  The distance between them right now seemed too far. He ached for her. The laugh bubbling out of her throat as she played with Nima felt like tinkling bells on the stretched tight cords of his heart. How had it happened? How had this woman gotten under his skin in less than a week?

  He forced his mind back to the dilemma at hand. The other dilemma. They couldn’t remain incommunicado forever. He needed to know what The TEAM was doing to help them as much as Alex needed to hear from him. But how could they do that without raising the attention of the assassins? And who could they trust? Until he was certain who’d rigged the dress with transmitters, he couldn’t trust anyone, not even the FBI. Even the gentle Buddhist monks at the temple were suspect.

  Ember’s email to Kelsey might ease Alex’s mind for about two seconds, but Alex was a man of action. It wasn’t enough. Plus, Ember was holding back. Nima’s latest words didn’t speak to Rory the way they had to Ember. He was missing p
art of the picture and he didn’t like it.

  Remember to use tragedy as a source of strength? What did that mean?

  He’d been doing that all his life; Ember, too, by the sounds of it. He watched them play with their paper dolls for a while longer. “When you girls are finished playing, would you help me with something on your computer?”

  “You? On the computer? Sure.” She ruffled Nima’s hair and stood up. “Be back in a jiffy, baby girl.” She turned to Rory. “What do you need?”

  “I’d like to record Nima’s words before I forget them.”

  Ember sat at the desk with the laptop and opened a new document. “Fire away.”

  He sat cross-legged on the floor beside Ember. Nima instantly tired of the paper dolls and climbed up on his lap. “You said you got a calming feeling from Nima in David’s car, right? Did she say anything?”

  Ember typed the first encounter into the computer. “No. She didn’t say anything, but it was the first time I really looked into her eyes. We were making our getaway and all of a sudden I’m looking into light blue eyes. It kind of spooked me, but I also felt like everything would turn out fine, like we were already safe. Weird, huh?”

  “Not now that we’ve gotten more messages. The next time she spoke was at Jed McCormack’s place. She told me, ‘If you keep hiding, no one can find you.’”

  Ember typed the second event. “How’d you feel when you heard it?”

  “My knee-jerk reaction was hell, yeah, it’s the only way we’ll be safe, but that’s not what she meant. She was telling me personally to stop hiding my son. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I wanted to tell someone about Tyler. And that person should be you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I trust you. What did our little girl say next?”

  “It happened at Jed McCormack’s. You’d just told me everything you went through with Tyler and.... Anyway, Nima said, ‘If you seek to heal your own sadness, seek first to heal the sadness of another.’”

  “How did that make you feel?” Rory watched her tough girl façade crumble. He couldn’t look away.

  She gulped, her attention on the keyboard, the pads of her fingers barely making a sound as she translated feelings into words. “It made me feel like I wanted to help you and Tyler somehow, maybe by just understanding what you guys were going through because I didn’t know any of this until you told me. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care, umm, about you.”

  Every muscle yearned to pull her into his arms, but he didn’t. “Nima gave you another one of her pearls of wisdom at the motel, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.” She scrutinized the words at her fingertips. “Her exact words were, ‘Sometimes what you want is not what you need.’”

  “Wow.” He hijacked Ember’s usual comeback. “What is it you need, Ember?”

  “I need... I need to get this operation over and this baby girl safely home.” Her words tumbled out too fast. “Then I need to feed my cat and make sure I get the debrief done and ready for Alex. You know how he is.”

  “I’ll help with your report,” he said calmly. Somehow he had to let her know he cared without igniting the world between them on fire. “The next message was for Dr. Choden, but it was also meant for me. ‘Remember not what you could not do, but what you did do. You did not leave.’”

  “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know what it meant to Dr. Choden, but it told me loud and clear that my worries about not being a good enough father and agent were groundless. Alex has never complained, but I’ve beaten myself up for months. Guess it’s that old be-all-you-can-be mindset drilled into us Marines. I wasn’t measuring up to my own standards. And that little piece of paper called a divorce decree doesn’t end the ugly feelings that go with it. But enough of me. Are we missing anything?” Of course we are.

  “Only what she said today.”

  “You mean when she told you to use tragedy as a source of strength?”

  Now is the moment. Either she’ll tell me the truth or she’ll lie. Again.

  Ember turned away from the keyboard, but still wouldn’t face him. “At first I was mad because she says these incredibly gut wrenching things, then she smiles with those scary blue eyes of hers, and I’m always off balance when she’s around. Like at Arlington the first day. Didn’t you feel it? It was like the earth stopped spinning or something.”

  “I did,” he stated calmly.

  She stopped talking, her clenched knuckles to her mouth. “Only this time....”

  He held his breath while she crumbled. It took all of his will power not to pull her onto his lap. “Life is scary sometimes, but we will get through this,” he said gently.

  She wouldn’t answer, but her eyes shouted what her mouth wouldn’t whisper. No! We’re not going to be okay! Up off her chair she came and into the bathroom. The door locked. The sink faucets turned on. Then the shower.

  “I think I hurt Mama Ember’s feelings,” he whispered to Nima. “I don’t know how, but we are going to be fine. I promise. You’ll see. When she comes out of the bathroom, she’ll be herself again.”

  Nima wiggled off his lap and went to the closed door. With hands too small to be heard over the running water from the other side, she smacked it a couple times before turning back to him with tears in her eyes. “Want Mama.”

  “I don’t think she wants to talk to us right now, little girl, but sure. I’ll help.” He joined Nima and rapped three times. No answer. He knocked again.

  Still no answer.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to us right now. I’m sorry.”

  The little girl’s lip turned into a pout and she started to wail. Rory smiled, she was so cute about it with her eyes squinted closed and her mouth wide open. He chuckled as he picked her up. “It’s okay. It’s going to be—”

  Ember jerked the door open. If looks could kill, he’d have been skewered at first sight. She held a handful of shredded tissues to her nose. And she was radioactive mad.

  “You’re wrong. It’s not okay. You didn’t see it, and I can’t bear what I saw, so stop telling Nima we’re going to be okay.” She reached for Nima and instantly the little girl switched places. There it was, that mother/daughter thing again.

  “Tell me then. What didn’t I see?”

  “And that was a dirty trick, getting me to record all Nima’s brilliant sayings, Dennison. I’m done helping you on the computer.” Sparks flashed from her eyes, and he stood directly in the blast zone. Rory couldn’t hold back another smile. He’d learned so much about Ember these past few days, even which buttons to push to rile her up.

  “Wipe the smug look off your face while you’re at it!” She strode from the bathroom doorway like a woman on a mission. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re not going back to Alexandria, and we are not putting this baby of mine in harm’s way! Do you hear me?”

  Baby of mine? Ember definitely had that mad mother bear thing going on again. He shook his head, bemused at the fierce dynamics of pure motherhood. As much as he wanted to laugh at the lovely scene, he also wanted to cry. This was exactly what was missing from his marriage—a real, no kidding mother who’d fight for her child.

  He tucked his sentiment back where it belonged and pulled rank on the sweet woman sitting with her arms wrapped defensively around Nima. “Then you need to tell me what’s going on, Agent Davis. We’ve been in hostile territory since this op started. I can’t form solid strategy until I know everything I’m dealing with. And I can’t have my companion agent running around with a tissue stuffed up her nose every time something doesn’t go her way.” He hoped he came across tougher than he felt, because all he heard was, Gosh, I think I’m falling in love.

  Ember blinked. “I....” She snapped her mouth shut.

  “Spill it, Davis. I can pull you off this assignment anytime I think you’re jeopardizing the mission. Do you get that? And you’ve screwed up big time.”

  “I saw you die!” she s
pat, but then her demeanor crumbled. “There! Are you happy now? I saw you die. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  He caught her in his arms before her first teardrop fell. She didn’t resist as they sank to the floor together, and he couldn’t hold back if he wanted to. “It’s okay. Don’t cry,” he whispered into her hair.

  “But it’s not!”

  Nima wailed with her. This mother/daughter tag team was hard on his tender heart. “Shush now. We’ll be fine. I’m not going to die, and neither are you.”

  “And you can’t fire me, because I won’t leave. Knock off the drill sergeant crap. That’s just plain mean.”

  He smiled, thankful she couldn’t see the effect she had on him. Ember was herself again, and he was a smitten man. “Are you better now?”

  She wiped Nima’s face and her own with her sleeve before she looked him in the eye. “No. I’m not.”

  “Tell me everything you saw. Please?”

  “I saw you die. I saw smoke and fire like I told you. And I saw Alex cry, which he would if you were dead, but then I saw Harley smiling one of his goofy smiles. You know the ones I mean. And then I saw you lying there like you were—”

  He placed a finger to her lips. “I’m not going to die. I haven’t felt this good in years.”

  Desolation stared back at him. “But it looked so real, like I was watching a television commercial. Right after Nima said those words, I saw it and... and....”

  “And Nima is bound for certain destiny, but you and me,” his words come out of his mouth like he and Ember belonged together. “We’re two of the toughest agents on The TEAM. The only thing we’re destined for is to keep Nima safe and sound.”

  Her eyes still sparked. She wasn’t convinced, but at least she was talking to him.

  Nima patted Ember’s cheek and asked in her patient way, “’Kay?”

  Ember shook her head and gave Nima another squeeze. “No. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again. But I’m glad I told you, Rory. Now you know.”

  “Well, I know a couple of things. For instance, how about we go to a nice place for dinner? I might even buy you a bottle of champagne and we’ll celebrate our last night in Chicago together. Would you like that?”