by Rachel Lee
“So why did you stop doing that and go to the Pacific Northwest?”
“Because,” he said wryly, understanding that she was padding out his cover for him, “for most of the summer, portions of that trail are nearly as well traveled as a highway. I wanted more isolation. More rugged hikes.”
“Okay.” She smiled. “You know enough to be a guide.”
“Stories?” he prompted her.
“Only one that sticks out when I was with the guide. We were off trail, off the lumber roads, which isn’t easy to do. Climbing up toward a peak through complete wilderness. Then I saw some footprints. Huge footprints.”
He felt a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth. “Sasquatch?”
She laughed and shrugged. “Who knows for sure? My guide studied them. He was troubled by how separated they were but kept reminding me that when a bear walks it puts its hind foot almost exactly where its front paw landed. That leads to slightly overlapping prints that can often be mistaken for a single huge, human-type print. He pretty much decided that a bear had left them. So I told my friends about it because it was fun and kind of funny. That was the only story they might have remembered. The rest were pretty ordinary, off-trail kinds of things. I got to do some rock climbing belayed by my guide. I’m pretty sure he took me to some views I couldn’t have seen otherwise. And the main thing that impressed me was how much wilderness there still is out there.”
He nodded. “That leaves the question of what I’m doing here.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” she said, waving her hand as if it were of no importance. “I kept in touch with you by email. I was attracted to you, but you were professional and never crossed any lines. Then when you mentioned you’d hurt your arm in a fall, I was just brazen enough to invite you to visit. They’ll believe the brazen part.”
His gaze met and held hers. “Lo and behold, I was feeling that attraction, too.”
He saw her full breasts rise as she drew a quick breath. It would be so easy, he thought, to reach out and touch her. To take this moment to places he had no right to go. She had visibly softened at his remark, and she had leaned ever so slightly toward him, inviting.
And only the vestige of a conscience yanked him back. Hell, he didn’t even know who he really was anymore. A chameleon? She ought to be thinking about that, because it could become ultimately important to her if he were here more than a few days. He could become whatever she wanted, whatever she needed, and then leave her feeling used and tossed away.
Absolutely not. Playing those games because it was his job was a very different thing from playing them with a woman who had been drawn into his net inadvertently. He didn’t want to cultivate her like some asset.
It suddenly seemed so important to him that whatever happened between them be true.
“Julie?”
“Yeah?” she breathed.
“I’m a chameleon. Remember that.” Then he slid off the desk chair and went back to the bar stool. Maybe he ought to take enough of those pills to knock him out. It would at least make her safe from him.
* * *
Julie pretended to focus on her lesson planning, even though it was complete, because it gave her an opportunity to stare in a direction that didn’t include Trace.
A chameleon. That had been a warning she couldn’t mistake, and she’d be a fool to ignore it. Except that she didn’t believe Trace was being a chameleon with her. When he hadn’t been able to speak the truth, he’d as good as told her with an obvious statement or omission.
So he wasn’t trying to mislead her in some way. Why, then, had he felt the warning necessary? Because sometimes he didn’t feel like he really knew himself? Because instinctively adapting to situations was something he did without thinking?
But wasn’t that what most people did? The Julie she presented in the classroom wasn’t at all like the one her friends saw. That her family saw. Marisa, whom she’d known her whole life, was different around Ryker. Everyone did that kind of thing to some extent.
So she wondered if he was in fact warning himself. That was possible. Whatever deceptions life had forced on him, she sensed a straight arrow inside him. Maybe that missionary upbringing.
She almost laughed as she stared down at her book without seeing it. No, she never would have guessed that two medical missionaries had raised a man who did the kind of job she suspected Trace had done. Yet his motives had been good, she gathered. He had served his country in important, essential ways. She wasn’t so naive as to think spying was for other people. Everyone spied on everyone else. Intelligence gathering was important in order to know what was really going on in the world behind all the carefully orchestrated speeches and diplomacy. Lives could depend on it.
The fact that he’d had to become different for each person he dealt with seemed only marginally different from what everyone did without thinking. Maybe his changes were bigger, his omissions bigger, even his lies as necessary. But at heart, really no different.
Heck, she thought, she lied often enough when someone asked casually how she was doing. Imagine the shocked responses from some if she’d actually said, “I’m having a rotten day and right now I’d like to gag and bind twenty-two kindergartners.” A short, muffled laugh escaped her.
Maybe she spoke her mind more often than most, but white lies, as people called them, were part of the social grease that kept society moving. And white lies were still lies. The world couldn’t stand unvarnished truth all the time.
What if she’d told Martha Beringer exactly what she really thought of that hideous new dress she’d worn last week? Oh, man, the repercussions!
No, something was troubling Trace beyond the fact that he was a hunted man and had been betrayed by his employer. Something that had him questioning himself.
That ticked her off. Whatever he’d done, he’d done it in the service of his country. Treating him like this was the real crime here, and a far worse crime if it made him see his past as wasted, as a lie, as an ugly thing.
Intentions did matter. She firmly believed that. A person might not always get the desired outcome, but if the intentions were good...well, that really wasn’t a bad thing.
Giving up, realizing that she wasn’t going to solve the puzzle of Trace Archer any faster than she had solved the Rubik’s Cube—and she’d never completed that—she rose.
Looking out her back window, she froze. “Trace?”
He was sitting in the armchair again, his eyes closed, but as soon as she spoke, he opened them.
“What?”
“There’s someone out back moving in the storm. What should I do?”
He jumped to his feet. “Get away from the window. Damn, they couldn’t have found me this fast.” But still he was yanking on his jacket, apparently ignoring the pain that brought an immediate sweat to his forehead. “Lock the door behind me.”
“But...”
“Just do as I say, okay?”
She pulled back into the hallway, watching him shove his feet into his boots, her heart beating so fast she felt she could barely breathe. “I should call someone.”
“I’m faster.”
God, she hated this. As soon as he hurried out the door, she locked it as ordered. Then she stood there, wishing she could watch out the window, but knew he was right. Even though all she could see through the whiteout was the dark shape of a person out there, anyone looking toward her window could see as much if she stood there. She shuddered, facing the reality of guns and bullets. And Trace was out there alone.
She’d felt fear occasionally in her life, but never before like this. Trace could get hurt, killed. Someone was out there in this deadly weather. A waking nightmare with no escape.
She stared at the phone, thinking of calling the sheriff, but it was probably already too late and they’d be really slow in this stor
m. No one had even attempted to plow the streets yet.
And then she remembered what Ryker had said earlier about the cordless phones broadcasting. Had that given them away?
Her nerves stretched as if they were on a rack, and she paced the hallway, unable to hold still. Time couldn’t have moved any slower if it had completely stopped. She was ready to scream by the time someone knocked on the door.
Her heart climbed into her throat. Slowly she walked over to it and peered out the peephole. Trace.
Relief turned her knees to spaghetti, and she fumbled at the lock before she was able to open it. He stepped inside immediately, bringing a blast of blowing snow with him.
“Your neighbor,” he said. “Frank Willis. His dog got out. We found him.”
She sagged against the wall, watching him struggle with his boots and jacket. “Really? He was looking for his dog?”
“Given what it’s like out there, what choice did he have?”
As relief washed through her, she began to feel angry. “You should have let me call someone!”
“Sure. They might get here by tonight sometime.”
“My God, Trace! It could have been a killer out there.”
“Then I’d have dealt with it.”
His calm infuriated her, but even as it did, she realized she was being unreasonable. Why be mad at him for doing what he considered necessary? It made as much sense as being mad at Frank for hunting for his dog. Trace, she reminded herself, had experience with this. He knew what he was doing. Not that it made her feel a whole lot better.
She paced the hallway a couple of more times, trying to shake the adrenaline that had roared through her. It felt like a lifetime before her anxiety began to ease. She might enjoy adventure, but not this kind.
“You okay?” she asked when she recovered her ability to speak. He had flopped onto the chair.
“Considering more pain meds. It’s been a while.”
“If you need them, take them. I think you just proved that even Santa Claus with a GPS would have trouble getting here today. I’m making some more coffee. Interested?” Anything to feel useful. After that little scare, she felt purposeless. What could she possibly do except give this man a roof? Little enough.
“Yeah, it’ll keep the pills from overwhelming me.”
She came to stand in front of him, then asked a question she’d thought might be impolite. That didn’t seem to matter anymore. “Will it get better? The pain?”
“The doc said it might. He said the nerves are trying to heal. They’re raising a ruckus, but eventually they could make the right connections again. Or just give up.”
“How long since you were shot?”
“Almost five months.”
She shook her head and rounded the bar into the kitchen. “Regular or espresso?”
“Regular. Strong but regular.”
So she threw an extra scoop of coffee into the basket and started the brew cycle. When she returned to sit on the couch, he was pouring a single pill into his gloved hand. He took it with what was left of his coffee. “Can you use it at all?”
“The hand? Some. Hey, Teach, here’s a question for you. I’ve always been a leftie for writing, but I always shoot with my right hand. Why?”
She recognized that he was trying to restore normalcy after the scare. “Do I look like a neurologist? At best, I can guess. Cross-dominance, maybe. Or...that’s just the way you learned.”
He was giving her a little smile, almost as if he were teasing her. But about what? Then what he’d said struck her. “Um, do you have to shoot often?”
A chuckle escaped him. “Never. I know how, but my job is persuasion, not assassination. In my position, I’m usually armed with my wits...which seemed to have slowed down quite a bit since I was shot.”
So he had been teasing her. “Who shot you? Could it be this same guy?”
“I wondered about that, but I don’t think so. It’s more likely I got caught in some cross fire than that I was a target.”
She accepted his judgment because she was in no position to evaluate it. He was the expert. Hearing the coffeepot finish percolating, she went to get them both mugs.
When she returned, his eyes had again narrowed, and he seemed far away. “Am I bothering you?”
His eyes opened fully. “Hell, no. My brain seems determined to run in circles. I haven’t gotten anywhere yet except to narrow down the possibilities. There are still too many.”
The phone rang. For an instant Julie didn’t want to answer it, but then it occurred to her that Ryker might be calling with some useful information. Instead it turned out to be her friend Ashley.
“What’s up?” Ashley asked. “I’m bored with this storm already.”
“Not me,” Julie said honestly. “I had a friend arrive in town last night.”
“Who?” Ashley sounded surprised.
“Remember I had a guide when I went hiking two summers ago?”
“The Pacific Northwest trip. I remember. But you didn’t say much about him.”
Julie turned and saw that Trace was listening attentively. “Well, he was cute, but not interested back then. Anyway, we kept in touch by email. When he told me he was recuperating with an injured arm, I invited him to come visit.”
“Ooh,” Ashley remarked, the smile in her voice coming over the phone. “Still cute? Any more interested?”
Julie laughed. “I don’t know. He hasn’t even been here a full day yet.”
“Well, I want to meet him as soon as we can dig out of our snow caves.”
“Sure. So other than boredom, how are you?”
The conversation continued in a more ordinary vein. Ashley had resorted to watching DVDs to pass the time and admitted she was kind of hoping that school would be closed on Monday. She taught fourth grade.
“Don’t count on it,” Julie answered. “We never have snow days.”
“Hardly ever.” Ashley sighed. “Well, I won’t keep you. Enjoy your company.”
“I am,” Julie assured her before hanging up. She found Trace watching her with a faint smile.
“Cute?” he said.
She cast her mind back, then laughed. “Girl talk. Would you have preferred being referred to as gorgeous?”
“That would have been over the top.”
Julie didn’t think so, but didn’t argue with him. Trace was a man making unimaginable mental and physical adjustments, and she just couldn’t see giving him a hard time.
“You shouldn’t have mentioned me,” he said, the smile gone.
She sank back onto the couch and stared at him. “It’s the cover story!”
“I know, but cover stories should be used only when it can’t be avoided. The fewer people who know I’m here with you, the safer for everyone.”
Everything inside Julie clenched as a new concern crept along her nerves. “Are you telling me I just put Ashley in danger?”
“Probably not,” he said. “But how many others is she going to pass this to? New guy in town visiting you. It might have been possible to clear this whole thing up before anybody else knew about me at all.”
“Well, excuse me, but I never had any training in this!”
His voice changed, growing almost gentle. “I know. I’m not criticizing. It’s just a caution.”
“I don’t live in your world,” she said irritably. “It would have been even weirder if I hadn’t mentioned you to a friend and then she ran into us somehow. She’d start wondering why I hadn’t mentioned you. We’re talking small-town here, not grand schemes in big cities.”
“I know.” Lifting his hand to his forehead, almost as if he were shielding his eyes from bright light, he simply sighed. “I’m not good at this.”
“Good at what?”
; “Helping someone learn how to handle these situations.”
“But surely you had to teach your...what did you call them? Assets?”
“That was easier. I wasn’t living with them.”
“How did that make it easier?”
“Because we always met for a reason, and a cover was provided. This is different.”
“Well, I don’t see it, Mr. Secret Agent Man. This is my world, and if I don’t act the way I normally would, people will notice and wonder what’s wrong. So live with it.”
She flounced off to the bathroom, irritated, and never realized that smiling eyes followed her.
* * *
Far away, on the other side of the continent, a phone call was taking place. The clerk was still sweating bullets, even though he stood outside in a chilly wind that made the early cherry blossoms around the Reflecting Pool seem crazy. They had just begun to bloom; the crowds were small, probably kept smaller by the cold weather. Next weekend...
The thought trailed away as his superior spoke. “I’m told we don’t want the asset leaving town just yet.”
Relief washed through the clerk. “I said flights were already getting delayed and diverted.”
“They will be very shortly. This storm is going to hit Denver hard. So much for global warming.”
The clerk kept his opinion to himself. He had trouble with some of his superior’s political views, but arguing him about whether one storm disproved or proved anything would be pointless. He needed to skate through this thankless job as safely and easily as possible. “The man is furious.”
“Of course he’s furious. He’s one great big stinking pile of elephant dung because he’s furious. But I guess we need him. I wish I knew what all this was about.”
The clerk wavered on that. Sometimes he really wanted to understand, and sometimes he was sure that the less he knew, the better for him.
“Anyway,” his superior said, “go home for the weekend. I guess we’re going to send him some diversions and try to keep him in place for a few more days. Apparently, having him run around on his own is the only thing that gives certain people nightmares. We have to find the target and make sure the general is properly directed.”