by Webb, Debra
There was only one sleeping bag. A flashlight, a couple of bottles of water and some granola bars.
He hadn’t expected company.
With a firm thud he closed the trunk and headed to the back door of the rickety old house. He rifled through the keys on the ring until he found the right one. When he had the door open, he switched on the flashlight. No electricity. No running water. No bathroom. Not much of anything. Just a roof, such as it was, and a floor for the night.
One stop in the morning and he was out of here.
He turned back to Sutton, stepped inside and held the door for her.
Maybe she would come in handy after all.
He couldn’t afford to show his face around town.
But she could pull it off without a hitch.
He’d never been one to believe that anything happened for a reason. A man made his way in life, the good and the bad.
But maybe he’d been wrong.
Maybe Jane Sutton had shown up for a reason.
Chapter Seven
Victoria Colby-Camp’s Home, 9:00 p.m.
The telephone rang.
Victoria froze.
What if Jim and Tasha had run into trouble? They could have been detained. Injured.
Or worse.
Fear slithered up her spine.
“Victoria.”
She turned to Merri Walters, the agency investigator assigned to Victoria and Jamie’s interior security. Deep breath. Don’t let the worry turn to paranoia. “Yes, Merri.”
“Slade just informed me that a sedan headed for this address has passed through the property gate.”
Slade Conroy was another new member of the Colby Agency staff. How many new recruits had Ian and Simon hired the beginning of the year, five? No, six. “Thank you, Merri.” Victoria hesitated a moment before moving toward the phone. “Have you been able to reach Jane yet?”
“No, ma’am. Riley Porter is on his way to Plano to see if he can locate her.”
This was troubling. Losing touch with an investigator was never indicative of anything good. But Jane Sutton, former army intelligence officer, was as highly trained as anyone.
The phone rang for the fifth time.
“Would you like me to get that?”
Victoria shook her head. This was her home. She had to pull herself together. “Please get the door when Slade clears our visitor.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Merri moved to the foyer as Victoria crossed the room and picked up the phone. “Hello.” Her voice sounded strained.
“Victoria.”
Lucas. Thank God. “I was hoping to hear from you tonight.” She cradled the receiver as if she could touch the voice of her husband coming across the line.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you.”
Victoria’s brow lined with confusion. She looked at the phone. It sounded as if…he were right here in the room with her.
She turned around. Lucas stood in the doorway, Merri right behind him. He closed his cell phone and opened his arms.
Victoria dropped the phone and ran into her husband’s arms.
“I’ll check on Jamie,” Merri said as she backed out of the room after picking up the phone Victoria had dropped.
Everything would be fine now. Victoria needn’t worry anymore.
Lucas was home.
Her husband drew back and smiled at her. “How’s our girl?”
The relief was so enormous that Victoria found drawing in her next breath difficult. “She’s sleeping. This is all a big game to her. Jamie thinks Merri is her new best friend.”
Lucas smiled. Those gray eyes shimmered with the love that took Victoria’s breath all over again. How she had missed this man.
“I’m so glad you’re home.” She pulled him close again, held on tightly. “I’ve been so afraid.” Lucas was the one person to whom she could admit her deepest fears.
Lucas cupped her face, kissed her lips. “Come,” he murmured. “Let’s have a glass of wine and sit before the fire.”
She laughed as he took her hand in his. “But it’s July.”
Lucas winked. “I don’t think we’ll notice.”
Victoria watched as her husband meticulously selected a bottle of wine. She gathered two stemmed glasses and the corkscrew, then followed him to the den.
As he closed the double doors, she arranged their glasses on the table before the sofa. He strolled toward her, his trademark limp only making him look stronger, sexier. Leaning down, he picked up the remote on the table next to the sofa and set the flames of the gas logs to low, just enough of a dancing flicker to lend the desired ambiance.
Then he removed his jacket. She folded it neatly, held it close and breathed deeply of his scent before placing it on the arm of the sofa. She loved the way he smelled, the subtle, earthy essence of his cologne. When he’d loosened his tie, he skillfully opened the bottle of wine. Victoria picked up one glass for him to fill, then the other. He set the bottle aside and accepted one of the glasses.
“To us.” He touched his glass to hers. “No one is going to harm us or those we love.”
Victoria sipped her wine, fought back the uncertainty. Lucas had never, ever let her down. She had never before allowed herself to feel so…afraid. She’d always been strong, stood tall…refused to be intimidated.
Perhaps age was to blame.
“I can read your mind, Victoria.”
Those gray eyes searched hers. “Can you, Lucas? I knew your skills were vast and noteworthy, but mind reading? I believe you’ll need to convince me of that one.”
He smiled, and the sheer charisma of it prompted her heart into a faster rhythm.
“You’re doubting yourself.” He leaned down, placed his glass next to the wine bottle on the coffee table. “You’ve worked so hard for so very long to protect everyone around you that you’re feeling weary…uncertain if you can protect those who need you most at this juncture.”
Her lips slid into a smile. “I see. You do, indeed, read minds.”
He took her glass and placed it next to his. Then he cradled her face in both hands. “Not really. I just know my wife.”
“This has been difficult,” she confessed. “I keep remembering those final days before Jim was taken. Jamie’s almost the same age he was. I keep analyzing my every step then and now. Wondering if I could have done anything differently then. If I’ll make the same mistakes this time.” Saying the words aloud was like lifting a boulder from her chest.
“You—” he peered into her eyes, his urging her to trust his words “—did nothing wrong, Victoria. The past is over. Don’t keep revisiting that horror. Focus on the present. On the future. We will protect Jamie and we’ll get this son of a bitch, no matter what it takes.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I just hope Jim and Tasha don’t take too many risks trying to get home.”
The pad of his thumb stroked her cheek. “I sent two of my specialists in to help with their exodus. I received word just before I arrived that contact has been made. Jim and Tasha should be on a plane headed home in a few hours.”
“Thank you, Lucas.” Relief made her weak. Lucas was right, with the specialists involved, she had no reason to worry. The specialists were an elite team, operated under the CIA’s shadow unit, Mission Recovery. They could get in and out of anywhere with little or no incident.
“Jamie is safely tucked in her bed under the watchful eye of Merri,” Lucas went on. “And you and I have this exquisite bottle of wine and that lovely fire all to ourselves.”
Lucas pulled her down to the sofa, handed her the glass of wine, then retrieved his own. They drank it slowly, stealing kisses between each sweet sip. She felt safe…whole with Lucas home. With each touch of his lips she felt her strength and courage fortifying.
Soon they set the glasses aside. Lucas locked the door, took his time crossing back to her. She watched as he unbuttoned his shirt. Desire sang through her veins. Too many days had passed since she’
d been in this man’s arms…her body pressed against his.
She needed him.
Together they would get through this.
Chapter Eight
Outside Plano, Illinois, 10:15 p.m.
Benson stepped back and surveyed his work with the flashlight. He’d spread the sleeping bag in the middle of the floor. “You can have the sleeping bag.”
“Where will you sleep?” It wasn’t cold by any means, but sleeping on the bare floor at this place wouldn’t be an option. Not only was the house falling in, but years of dust, dirt and decay layered every square inch.
“I’ll sleep in the car.”
Jane knew how that would go. She would wake up and he’d be gone. “I’ll take the backseat.” No way was she letting him out of her sight.
He turned the flashlight’s beam on her face. She blinked at the brightness.
“It’s too dangerous,” he argued. “They could track us to this place. If they find me out there, they won’t bother looking for you in here. It’s me they want.”
She set her hands on her hips. “Who is they, Benson? Considering we’re sort of in this together, I think I have a right to know what’s going on.”
Fury tightened his features. Though the light’s beam was focused on her, his face was lit plenty well enough for her to see that her lack of cooperation wasn’t making him happy in the least.
“The less you know the better off you’ll be.”
Now, there was an original line. “They know who I am, Benson. If they don’t catch up with you, they’re going to hunt me down and demand to know what I know. I don’t think it’ll be pretty.”
He turned his back on her then.
“And even if they have their way with you, I’m a witness. A loose end. Getting rid of me would be in their best interest.” She walked up behind him. “The Colby Agency can help you. All you have to do is let us in. What’s your story?”
He faced her once more, this time the flashlight directed at the floor, leaving them in a spotlight of sorts. “If I tell you who I am and the Colby Agency starts digging around in my past, the situation will only escalate. This isn’t as simple as the good guys versus the bad guys. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure, in this instance, there are no good guys.”
“There’re always good guys, Benson. All you have to do is determine who they are. Lucky for you—” she folded her arms over her chest “—you’re looking at one.”
He stared at her for a long moment without responding. “I’ll sleep on it.”
Jane threw her hands up. “Do you have that luxury?” She really, really needed to check in with the agency to see if anything had come back on the print check. Victoria and the others would be worried that she hadn’t called in, and if they’d been trying to reach her, as she suspected they had, the worry would increase with each passing hour she was out of touch. “I would think time would be your enemy under the circumstances.”
The stare-off continued. “Time, Ms. Sutton, is all I have, and all I ever have is the moment.”
The regret or maybe the sadness that etched across his face with that statement tugged at her. Living for the moment was a great line when selling vacations and leisure items such as boats and beer, but it was no way to live on a daily basis.
“If nothing else,” she prodded, “talk to me. Tell me about yourself. Your real name, where you came from. We’re in this together, Benson,” she added quickly when he literally took a step back. “Neither of us may have the luxury of tomorrow. Talk to me.”
There was a long, long pause. Jane had just about given up on an answer when he finally spoke.
“You tell me about you and I’ll tell you as much as I can about me.”
Fair enough. “I can do that.” The weariness hit her all at once. As if the kick to her ribs and the whop to the side of her head, along with the run-for-your-life sprint, had waited until now to take their toll. She took a seat on the sleeping bag. “I was born in a suburb of Chicago. Went off to Brown University to pursue my parents’ hope that I would become the greatest lawyer Chicago has ever seen.”
She tamped down the emotion that even seven years later still formed a lump in her throat when she dwelled on the subject of her father. “After a long battle with cancer, my father died in my senior year. It took every penny of the life insurance he had to settle his medical expenses and pay the mortgage on the family home. My mother had always been a stay-at-home mom and suddenly at fifty she had no way to support herself and no marketable skills. So I went from Brown to the good old U.S. Army and I’ve been taking care of my mother since.”
He took a cautious step in her direction. “That was your mom in the photo with you?”
She nodded.
“Your mom’s a lucky lady to have a daughter like you.”
Jane shrugged. “I’m the lucky one. My mom’s the best.” She looked him directly in the eye. “What about your family?”
He moved the flashlight to a position that worked more like a lamp, providing some light in the room but not nearly enough to read those blue eyes. Then he sat down on the other end of the sleeping bag.
“My parents were killed in a boating accident when I was a kid. But the few memories I have of them are good ones.”
“Who took care of you after your folks died?” She had a soft spot for abandoned kids. Had to be horrifying to be left totally alone and helpless.
“My uncle.”
The change in his tone told her instantly that there was no love lost between him and his uncle. “No brothers and sisters?”
He shook his head.
Jane was an only child, too. It made for bouts of loneliness now and then. But she and her mom had always been close and she’d had plenty of good friends.
“Any cousins?” Surely his uncle had kids.
“Oh yeah.” He looked away. “But none I want to talk about.”
Ah. So the trouble was with the uncle and the cousins. “Where’d you grow up?”
His gaze collided with hers. “There are some things I can’t tell you.”
She nodded. “I understand. Is where you grew up one of them?”
“I suppose not. Silver Springs, Maryland.”
They were moving in the right direction. “College?”
He laughed, but the sound was dry. “Ten years to be exact. Yale.”
She couldn’t help herself, the laugh burst from her chest. “Are you serious?”
He didn’t have to answer and she didn’t have to see the full depth of the tension in his eyes. She could feel it radiating off him.
“So, you’re what, a doctor?”
“Research scientist.”
“What kind of research?”
“Off-limits.”
“Okay, okay.” College for ten years, he had to have worked for a few years. What did that make him? Thirty-something? “Ever been married?”
“Off-limits.”
That was a yes. “Kids?”
“No.”
She started to ask her next question when he asked, “Why did you leave the military? Obviously you didn’t have a problem with the physical challenges.”
Definitely not. “My mother’s health deteriorated and I was all she had. So I took a hardship discharge and moved back home.”
“Not married?”
That one drew a burst of laughter that, like his, held no humor. “Afraid not. I guess I’m just not the type men see as a wife.”
Troy recognized that he’d hit upon a sensitive spot. Though he didn’t see why. “What does that mean? You’re smart, cute.”
“Cute?” She shook her head. “Get real, Benson. I’m not cute.”
So maybe cute was the wrong thing to say. “I mean, you’re attractive. Maybe you’re too liberated to become some guy’s ball and chain.”
“Boy, you know how to sweet-talk a gal, Benson.”
Damn. Had it really been so long since he’d carried on a normal conversation that he no longer knew how? “You seem qu
ite…willful.”
Another of those laughs burst from her lips. He liked the way she laughed. It sounded womanly and honest.
“I am quite willful. Determined. Intelligent. Good at my job.” She shrugged. “And all those other things guys don’t typically like. Despite your very kind compliment, I’m also just plain Jane. No frills. No glam whatsoever.”
He’d noticed she didn’t wear makeup. Now that he considered her manner of dress, she was right. No frills. Just practical. “What’s wrong with being good at what you do and all those other things?” As a guy, he didn’t have a problem with that.
“Absolutely nothing.” She pulled her knee to her chest and propped her elbow there. “It’s the guys who have a problem, not me.”
“The Colby Agency is a private investigations firm?” He resisted the hope that attempted to swell. The best attorney in the D.C. area hadn’t been able to help him. The police hadn’t been able to help him. There was no way in hell some PI agency from Chicago was going to have a shot at clearing up his past.
The past wouldn’t go away until he was dead…again.
“The best in the business,” Jane assured him. “Clients come from all over the country. Victoria Colby-Camp never lets a client down. Whatever their trouble, she finds the resolution.”
Anything that sounded too good to be true generally was. “I think it’s way too late for me.” He pushed up. Didn’t want to talk anymore. Everything he learned about her past just showed him how glaringly screwed up his was. Listening to the hope in her voice when she spoke of the Colby Agency only made him wish for things he couldn’t have. Bad business all the way around. What was, was. He’d gotten used to that…
Until she showed up.
She moved up behind him. “It’s never too late as long as you’re breathing.”
He turned to her, wanted to tell her she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, but he knew a brick wall when he hit one. “Bottom line, Ms. Sutton, trouble showed back up in my life right after you did. I’m not one to believe in coincidences. Maybe your agency is not as good as you believe it is.”
Her head moved side to side with certainty. “No way. The Colby Agency would never put anyone’s life at risk, not even if the person was presumed to be a bad guy. That’s not the way we do business.”