by M J Adams
“We like small town so much better than big city,” Luke said. “It gives you a chance to become part of a society, something you haven’t had for a long time. You need it, Cora. The story will be perfect, like Isaac said, and Max will research everything to death, so you’ll know your neighbors before you even move in. It’s the best strategy.”
Cora looked at Max again, and he gazed steadily back, remembering what it felt like to have the weight of her arm in his. The softness of her skin touching his. He looked down, and she said, “Fine. Help me pick a place in Texas then.”
“Max,” Luke said, and Max moved over to the filing cabinet and rummaged around until he found the state map of Texas. Luke would have it memorized, but they each had a role to play. If there was anything Max knew about his team—and himself—it was that they played their roles perfectly.
They had to, or men died. Missions failed. Wives mourned and children grew up fatherless.
And so they would mind their mission here, too.
But suddenly, Max’s mind was moving in all kinds of new directions about the type of role he could have in Cora’s life.
And the strangest thing? He saw Luke and Isaac there too, all of them playing a vital part in Cora’s life.
Maybe he was just so used to having them around that he couldn’t imagine life without them. Or maybe it was time to start thinking about having a girl in his life in a whole new way.
Chapter 7
Cora
The night surrounding me feels serene, but I know it’s not. I felt this way on my wedding night too. I thought the restraints were for foreplay, something fun. But when Rich didn’t take them off, a new kind of horror washed through me.
Once home from our honeymoon cruise, he takes me on a tour of the house. I’d been here hundreds of times while we dated and throughout our engagement.
But things are different now. Cupboards have locks. The fridge has a code on it.
“And this will be your suite,” he tells me, all smiles, like he’s the greatest husband in the world. Once, I thought he would be. Once, I’d been so happy.
I go inside the suite, and it’s huge, stretching in both directions with a wall of windows in front of me. There’s a bed, some couches, a bathroom.
I turn to him. “It’s great,” I say.
“I’m glad you like it.” The smile slips from his face. “When you’re not dog-walking, you’ll be here.”
There’s no TV. No computer. He took my phone the moment we boarded the plane for Mexico, and I still don’t have it back. I miss my mother. My two sisters.
He hands me a phone, and my heart leaps. But it’s a new one, and I swipe to unlock it but don’t have the required code.
He puts it in for me, and says, “It has my number and your clients. We’re the only ones you need to talk to.” With that, he turns and walks out the door we came in.
A lock clicks—on the other side of the door.
Startled, I hurry after him and try the doorknob.
I’m locked in this suite.
Cora stared uselessly at the map in front of her. Texas was a huge state, and if she couldn’t have one of the bigger cities, did it really matter where she lived?
Annoyance swept through her as Max continued to sit there, his eyes down as if the tabletop was the most fascinating thing in the world. She’d almost asked him to stay with her last night. She wanted to hear his breathing while he slept, wake up to his face in the morning.
All of which was a bit unsettling for her. She’d managed to convince herself that she felt things for him—and Luke and Isaac—because they were her rescuers. She’d heard of that before. Victims falling for those who’d helped them.
“So my choice for you would be somewhere out here in Hill Country,” Luke said, and Cora blinked at the map.
“There are so many towns,” she said.
“Some are bigger than others,” Luke said, glancing at Isaac. “Isaac knows more about this region.”
“You’re the one who lived in Texas,” Isaac said, and Cora watched as the two of them had a silent conversation. She wondered what that would be like—to have someone who knew her so well, someone who could predict what she’d do before she did it.
Jealousy streamed through her now, which made absolutely no sense. But these three men, while the looked like they could snap her in half with only one hand, they had a dozen other sides. And she wanted to know each one of them. Hear their stories.
Spend more than two weeks with them.
“Hill Country is nice,” Luke said, finally looking away from Isaac. “Tons of Texas charm. Good food. Good people. There are dozens of little towns.”
“How little are we talking?” Cora asked, her voice a little scratchy in her throat. She felt six eyes on her, and she knew they’d all heard the change in her tone. She glanced at Max, and sure enough, he watched her, those dark, deep eyes calling to her. Looking away, her eyes hooked into Isaac’s, and his bright blue ones didn’t miss a single thing.
Her heart pumped harder now, and she wasn’t sure if she liked that they could hear everything, see everything, know everything.
“Some are as small as a few hundred,” Luke said. “Some a few thousand. Some bigger.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “And Austin and San Antonio are only an hour or two away. This would be the region I’d pick for you.”
“Then pick,” Cora said, letting the annoyance seep into her voice.
“You get to pick,” Isaac said.
Cora glared at him now, laying everything on the table. “Obviously not.”
To her surprise, he smiled at her. Actually smiled. He turned to Max and said, “She’ll be fine anywhere.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded, further infuriated when Max nodded. “I’m sitting right here.”
Luke’s hand covered her, stealing away some of the tension in her body. “It means you’re not beaten down,” he said. “The fire in you is good.” He looked at the other two men. “I think Silver Lake.”
Cora liked the idea of a lake, and she wondered if these three would let her out of the house to enjoy it. She startled, realizing she’d just thought of herself living in this Silver Lake town with them.
With all three of them.
But of course that wouldn’t happen. None of them would be coming with her permanently to Silver Lake. Her mind buzzed while Luke went through the details of the town. Almost ten thousand people. Friendly. Lots of tourists, so people coming and going and good jobs.
“What kind of job would you like?” Max asked next, and Cora blinked her way out of her own thoughts.
“Job?”
“You’ll have to work,” he said. “And it can’t be dog walking.”
“The Academy gives you some seed money,” Luke continued, easily slipping into the rehearsal voice he used for the memorized speeches.
“Why do you do that?” she asked, and he cocked his head.
“Do what?”
She glared at him, Max, and finally Isaac. “I feel like you guys are robots.” She reached over and pinched Luke’s arm. He didn’t pull away immediately but took a few seconds. Surprise crossed his face, and Cora could at least use that to determine he was human.
“I don’t like getting the memorized lectures,” she said, folding her arms. “This is my life.”
“And this is what we do,” Max said. “We’re very good at it.”
“We’re the top A-team,” Isaac added, a challenging glare in his own eyes. Cora wished it didn’t burn through her so hotly, make her wonder what it would be like to be kissed by someone like him.
Kissed. She wanted Isaac to kiss her. It seemed impossible for her to even think about that, and yet, she was.
She shook her head, hot tears springing to the backs of her eyes. She was still married, but questions started streaming through her mind.
“I don’t care if you’re the President of the United States,” she said, leaning into the table. “I don’t see why I
need to make a list of jobs. You’ll just tell me no. Why don’t you just give me the sheet with the jobs on it you already approve of?”
“There is no sheet,” Max said quietly. Frustration ran through her that he could remain so calm while she felt so out of control.
“Luke?” She looked at him.
“Something that gets you up and out of the house,” he said.
“Luke,” Max growled.
“What?” he asked. “She asked. And we do have suggestions for her.” He glared at Max and then looked back at Cora.
“Thank you,” she said, a rush of appreciation for him driving out some of the irritation with the whole situation. “Something that gets me up and out of the house…” She glanced around the room as if her new future job would appear on one of the walls.
“Bakery?” she asked.
“That was Isaac’s,” Luke said.
“You’re joking.” Cora looked from Luke to Isaac and back, and neither of them flinched, smiled, nothing. “You’re not joking.”
Isaac chuckled, the sound worming its way under her skin and sticking. “He’s not joking. But it doesn’t have to be a bakery. It could be a coffee shop. A cupcakery. A little mom-and-pop diner. But something that gets you interacting with other people and establishes you as a leader. Something you can enjoy and make money doing.”
Cora had never imagined herself to own and operate a coffee shop or a cupcakery. She wasn’t even sure she knew what a cupcakery was.
She turned to Max, feeling a little robotic herself. “And what did you pick for me?”
He stared back, his jaw hard and his eyes unyielding. She’d seen this look too many times on her husband’s face, and she dropped her eyes to her lap. If she didn’t look at him, he might not hit her.
She blinked, realizing Max wasn’t Rich, and she wasn’t going to get slugged or slapped.
“I don’t know how to bake,” she said. “And I know I like coffee, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge.” Did they expect her to learn a whole new trade in only two weeks? Didn’t people use family recipes for cupcake and doughnut shops?
Could she go out with one of them? Could she date in her new life? How did that all work with her marriage still on the books in California?
“And you don’t have a college degree,” Luke said.
“Factory?” she asked, and the way Isaac drew his eyebrows down meant nope. Guess again.
She almost rolled her eyes. It really would be easier if they just laid her options out for her. Exhaustion swept through her, both mentally and physically. She just wanted to go to a big city and disappear. Get a waitressing job somewhere no one knew her and slip from everyone’s memory.
Opening a bakery felt like a big deal. Like there would be ribbon cuttings and stories in the newspaper. Wasn’t she supposed to avoid all of that?
Max’s phone chimed, and he looked down at it. Cora missed having her phone, and she wondered when they’d let her get another one. Instant anger flared through her, and she stood up. “I need to take a break.”
Luke stood too. “I’ll go with you.”
She stared up at him, wondering what it would be like to see him get angry. “I swear,” she said. “You guys are almost as bad as Rich. I have no phone. None of my own clothes. I can’t decide where I’m going to live or what I’m going to do. It really would be easier if you just told me what to do. It would save so much time.” She tossed a glare at Isaac and Max and started for the door. “And I don’t need a babysitter.”
She wrenched open the door and marched out, glad when she didn’t hear any boots following her.
Behind her, Max said something, but his voice was too low for her to make out the words. She didn’t care. Her room didn’t have any doors that locked, and Luke had told her she could go anywhere on the property.
She went downstairs as quickly as her legs would carry her and out the side door near the recreation room. The air already held heat, but she drew in breath after breath, trying to fight the panic threatening to overtake her.
A moment or a minute later, she wasn’t sure which, the door opened again, and Luke came out. He took her hand in his, once again grounding her in a very real way, and said, “Come on. Let’s walk to the fence and back.”
Cora went with him, because she liked the way her hand fit in his. She appreciated that he was passive while she was aggressive. And she simply wanted to. That scared her more than choosing a new occupation, but maybe Luke would answer some of her questions during their stroll.
Chapter 8
Luke
Luke told himself to simply wait for Cora. He knew she had whole conversations inside her, and he could employ his patience until they came out. They’d gone down the path and past the stables, and still, she hadn’t said a word.
Out of the thirteen women he’d worked with, only two others had come to Parkwood as fired up as Cora. Yes, it was true he, Isaac, and Max collaborated about what would be best for a particular charge. They each had ideas for the location, the occupation, the new name, all of it.
But Cora was different, even from Georgia and Valerie, both of whom had also been upset when they’d learned they couldn’t really do whatever they wanted.
Cora spoke to Luke’s soul, and he once again reminded himself that she wasn’t June. She wasn’t. She wasn’t.
“In my new life,” she finally said, her voice small and seemingly calm. “Can I pick my own friends? My own…boyfriends?”
Luke looked at her, the question bringing with it weight and tension. “We make sure you’re in a neighborhood and a job where you can find friends easily,” he said. “That’s why we make the lists we do.” He wanted to apologize, but the words didn’t come. Max had spoken true. They were very good at what they did, and they had a hundred percent success rate doing things this way.
It definitely came off rehearsed, and Cora didn’t like that. So Luke could work on his acting game.
“And the boyfriend?” she asked.
He may have imagined it, but Luke thought she’d squeezed his hand. “Max is working on that part,” he said evasively.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we usually find a way to make sure the people in your past life think you’re truly dead and gone. That way, you’re free to live, which yes, includes new boyfriends.” He focused on the pine trees up ahead. When they arrived at them, he said, “I’m surprised you want a new boyfriend. Your last one didn’t turn out so well.”
“Is that abnormal in your charges?” she asked, her voice icy. “Most people want to share their lives with someone, even after bad things happen.” Her hand slipped from his, and Luke mourned the loss of it.
“I know that,” he said. “Better than most.”
“Exactly,” she said. “You lost your wife, and you banded together with your Army buddies. You have someone. Two people.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But it’s different than what you’re talking about.”
“It is?”
He looked at her, found her genuine confusion. “Of course. You’re talking about a romantic relationship. Isaac and Max, we’re companions, sure. Friends. But we’re not lovers.”
Cora watched him with those pretty eyes. “Do you want another lover?”
Luke swallowed and looked away. “Sometimes yes,” he said. “Sometimes no.”
They walked side-by-side, and Luke wanted to ask her what she was thinking. June used to do that to him when he fell quiet during a serious discussion.
“The other guys are thinking this might be our last mission,” he said, immediately wanting to suck the words right back into his mouth.
“Really?” she asked, stepping in front of him and making him pause. “Why?”
“It’s a tough job,” he said honestly. “We’re sequestered here almost all the time. We see the horrible things our women go through. We get attached to them, and then they leave. It’s not like everything we’re doing is amazing.” Luke couldn�
�t believe he’d said so much. But in that moment, he realized he wanted to be done with this job too.
“The average lifespan of a team is four years,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for three. And Isaac wasn’t kidding when he said we’re the best team here.”
Cora searched his face. For what, he didn’t know. He thought he saw hope in her eyes, but he didn’t understand it. “You guys could come to Silver Lake with me,” she said, and Luke’s heart skipped all over inside his chest.
He opened his mouth to protest—because they most certainly could not go to Silver Lake with her—but no sound came out.
“Right?” she prompted.
“I don’t know, Cora,” he said. “I doubt it.” He wasn’t exactly sure what happened to teams when they broke up. He just assumed he, Max, and Isaac would split up. Go their separate ways and find their own jobs out there in the world—which was why the thought of quitting this job made him cringe.
He had the maps memorized. He could research towns and jobs as easily as breathing. But he didn’t want to make new friends or make a new life for himself. He liked the one he had.
She put her hand in his again, and they resumed their walk to the back fence. She didn’t ask him what he was thinking, and he was grateful for that. He didn’t want to tell her what thoughts streamed through his mind, because they were filled with hopeful fantasies about relocating to Silver Lake and being Cora’s boyfriend.
And there was no way Parkwood Academy would allow that.
“How is she?” Max asked when Luke returned to their suite to find him and Isaac at the table, the chess board in front of them. Isaac studied the pieces for a few extra seconds before looking up at Luke.
“Annoyed with us,” he said. “I was too rehearsed in there.”
“We all were,” Max said, abandoning the chess game to open the mini fridge behind him. “She’s…smart. Not like the others.”