“Yes, she’s tough. You might almost be tough enough to handle her.”
That made him smile, mainly because it was true. “Think she’ll come back to New York with me?”
“I think you’re the first and only guy who’s got a shot, from what you told me.”
“What about you and your shot with Justin?”
She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I had my chance. I let it go.”
“How come?”
She paused. “It was the right thing to do.”
“Right for whom?”
“Both of us.”
“So you’re happy with the decision, then?”
“I tried to change my mind…I did change my mind. But by that point, it was too late. Justin said he’s done. That he doesn’t want this to linger on and on without resolution. That obviously the barrier between us was too high to climb.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Justin I know. Not at all. And he also knows how you are once you’ve made up your mind about something.”
“I have made my mind up.”
“So why are you sitting here with me instead of being with him? Because he told you you’d never be ready?”
“Yes.”
“But you just told me he’s wrong about that.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Leo.”
“Is it working?”
“Yes,” she said, and they both laughed. “Go get Callie. Stop her from running all the time. She’s been in so many places and helped so many women. She deserves to be happy.”
“We all deserve that.”
JUSTIN MADE IT to base and his CO’s office with only minutes to spare. His team wasn’t moving out that day, but sometime within the next forty-eight hours.
Hollywood barely glanced up from the pile of papers on his desk. “This is for you.”
A thick file, with classified intel for Justin to memorize in a hurry. He flipped through the folder as he stood in front of Hollywood, glancing through page after page of maps and coordinates, which he’d need to plan.
“When?” he asked.
“Immediate. Do that before you hit training. And get cleared by medical.”
Yes, Justin could do that. All of that was ten times easier than thinking about leaving Ava behind.
WHERE DO I go from here?
Ava had been thinking these words for hours, since Justin had left, but hadn’t realized she’d actually spoken them out loud until Karen had answered her. They were in Karen’s car, driving to the new hotel Ava would be housed in, and, as Karen promised, guarded by her personally.
And now, Ava had that conversation repeating inside her head. Karen told Ava in one breath that they didn’t know where Leo was at the moment, but they assumed he was safe, and in the next, that the DEA wanted to hire her.
Ava thought something was up when she insisted that she would be the one in the courtroom when Susie Mercer took the stand, and Karen didn’t argue.
“We’re going to need someone who’s already familiar with the case,” Karen explained. “I assumed you still wanted in. But there’s one catch.”
“There always is.”
“We want you to come work for us.”
Ava sat there, mouth open.
“Don’t look so surprised, Ava. We’ve been trying to recruit you since you graduated law school.”
“I figured it was just because of my father,” she said.
“We’ve had someone from our law department contacting you every few months. The DEA doesn’t often do things like that out of kindness. You’re good, Ava. On top of your game. You’ve got a lot of your dad in you. You’d be perfect here.”
“So I’d be a member of the DEA?”
“If you pass the tests,” Karen said, smiling. “Even though you’d be working in a different capacity than a field agent, we’d still require you to go through the training.”
“Would I still be under protection?”
“In a sense. You’d be bringing down O’Rourke from behind the scenes. Him, and others like him. It might not put you out in the public eye, but you’d be doing what you’d always wanted to do. At least, that’s the way Leo sees it.”
She’d have the force of the DEA backing her, with top-secret databases and resources at her fingertips.
It would mean helping people on a much different level, and a different kind of help than what she was used to giving as she fought for victims in the courtroom. While the job would be less personal, it would mean doing something good on a much larger scale.
So many exciting things were happening, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around any of them. Not until she sorted out Justin, once and for all.
“I can’t give you an answer yet,” she told Karen. “I have a matter I need to attend to.”
“You’re a strong woman, Ava. There aren’t a lot of men who can handle that.” Karen tapped her fingers along the wheel.
“Yes, well, I know someone strong enough. I just have to figure out if I can put my money where my big mouth is,” she muttered. But, for the first time since all of this began, she felt that strength return, the kind that got her through law school and beyond, through some of her toughest cases.
The same strength that was going to pull her through this with Justin.
20
LEO PARKED THE CAR just off of the main road and made the rest of the trip on foot.“It’s about a mile off the bend,” the man at the gas station had told him. The only cabin that has plants growing in the yard.
Now he stood by the gate and wondered what it was about this woman that had him traveling fourteen-plus hours in hopes of just seeing her again.
He’d broken in to her apartment with more ease than the typical criminal. It was a skill every good agent learned. In order to beat the bad guys, you had to be able to do what they did, and do it better. But he had to figure out where she’d gone.
There wasn’t much to help him. By the looks of things, she’d probably lived here a couple of years, but hadn’t bothered to personalize much of the place. All the walls were white. Plain white blinds, as well, the ones that came with the rental, accented the windows. The scent of lilac caught his nose. The plants rested on the kitchen windowsill along with a small vase of sad-looking daisies.
There were no personal papers here, although he guessed she was the type to keep all of that locked in a safe-deposit box somewhere.
Her bag with her wallet was also here. Checkbook. Bills. Cell phone. If she’d been back here recently, she’d left again in a hurry.
Would she really just leave all this behind and disappear? He had enough trouble doing that when he went under, and he’d known there was a beginning and an end. She’d been doing this indefinitely.
The night was humid. And as he stood outside what was surely her house, he stuck his hands in his pockets and foolishly felt as if he was back in high school. Why was he more nervous about approaching Callie now than he’d ever been about anyone? He had the urge to grab some of the flowers and present them to her when he knocked on the door.
But that would mean destroying the lilac bushes she’d obviously planted with care. It meant disrupting her life.
Callie was in there, and she most certainly did not want to be found. Especially not by him. Before he lost his nerve, he shoved the envelope that he’d been holding into the mailbox by the side of the door. Then as much as it killed him to do so, he turned tail and walked away from the small house surrounded by lilac bushes.
TO THIS DAY, Justin hated to be awakened by a ringing phone. His job necessitated that, but he thought that over time the memory would fade. Yet every single ring jolted him out of sleep and he’d have that same, awful feeling of picking up the phone and receiving that terrible news….
Monday morning. He had been sleeping off the weekend, had planned to skip most of his morning classes. By that point, his parents had pretty much given up on his graduating on time, which he did to spite them. So he yanked the covers up
over his head as the light began to stream in through his window.
He barely slept in his room anymore and he’d forgotten how easily the morning light came through if he forgot to close the shades.
Mainly he kept them open because it gave him the feeling of freedom, let him know that he could escape from his big stuffy house. Anytime he wanted to, he could reach out the window to grab the branch of the old oak tree and shimmy down to the ground.
And he’d prepared to drift off into peaceful sleep, but the phone kept ringing and ringing. His phone. The line his parents kept just for him, although he was certain they monitored his conversations, so he barely used it.
“Dammit. What?” he mumbled into the receiver.
“Justin.” It was Turk. And the way his friend said his name made Justin’s blood run cold. He’d gotten out of bed before he’d realized it, was yanking on clothes and a baseball hat and would have been out the door if Turk hadn’t been crying on the other end. So Justin sat there, on his bed, and listened, even as Justin felt his own world begin to crumble.
Turk’s father, Steven, had been mentoring Justin for the past year. He hadn’t been around all that much, but whenever he was, Justin felt as if he finally had a father who got him, who understood where his passions, his drive, really lay.
Steve had regaled him and Turk with stories from his Delta days and his current job. He’d given both of the boys, who were nearly, but not quite, men yet, some sound advice on getting the kinds of careers they wished for.
He’d spoken to Justin in private about his own failed marriage. Told him how Turk’s mother had been pregnant with Turk when they’d married, that maybe, if that hadn’t happened, he would’ve remained single.
“My job’s meant for a single man,” Steve told him, his voice quiet and without arrogance. “But I’d always hoped that maybe there was a woman out there willing to deal with it all.”
“Justin, are you there?” It was Cash. Justin clutched the phone receiver hard and let the haze clear from his mind. He’d picked up the phone but hadn’t said a word into the receiver.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he replied.
IT’S FOR the best.
Justin held on to those words as he finished the O-course and let the doc examine him so he could be cleared for the next mission—all SOP.
When Ava’s dad had been killed while working undercover and Turk had finally calmed down enough for Justin to hang up the phone and book him a ticket home, Justin had gone straight to Ava.
He’d promised Turk he’d stay with her until Turk came home from UCal where he was halfway through his first year of college.
Ava had been so strong. She’d held him while he’d cried for her dad. And then she’d made him dinner and made all the plans as he sat there feeling as if his life had bottomed out as much as hers and Turk’s had. And finally, he’d refused Turk’s room and the couch in favor of the floor by Ava’s bed.
Sometime during the night she’d ended up curled next to him on the floor for comfort, and only then, in the dark, had she cried for her father.
Now, after a quick shower and a change of clothes, Justin went into the meeting room and found Rev there already. For an hour, the two men silently worked through a stack of paperwork, until Justin passed Rev a file and said, “It’s over. I don’t think I want to talk about it.”
Rev pushed back in his chair in his usual attempt at balancing on two back legs, always a fifty-fifty proposition and always funny when he tipped over. “I hear you’re moving out.”
“I’m ready,” Justin said, if only to try to convince himself. He’d been training hard for the past forty-eight hours, training that kept him almost too busy to think. He’d just have to go on like that. Take it one day at a time until the dull ache went away completely.
“Yes, I know. We’re always ready. So, are you going to call Ava before we go?”
“I thought we weren’t going to talk about that.”
“I never agreed to that, boo.” Rev slipped into his Cajun-speak whenever he was trying to charm someone into doing something they didn’t want to do. And Justin definitely did not want to do this.
“I’m going to go out and do what I need to do for the mission tonight,” Justin repeated. “I’m going to get on with my life.”
“Without even talking to her?”
“We talked, Rev. We talked and talked and we went around in circles.” Justin saw Cash standing by the doorway. “Don’t you start.”
“I didn’t say a word. That’s your guilty conscience talking,” Cash said.
“I don’t have a guilty conscience.” Cash had moved in closer and Rev didn’t say a word. “Ah, fuck you, Cash. How do you know that?”
“I know that because you love her.”
“You used to tell me it was lust.”
“Well, I know better now,” Cash said.
Justin opened his mouth to shoot it off again, to tell Cash and Rev to leave him the hell alone, but he couldn’t. Not with the look he saw in Cash’s eyes. He’d seen that same look when Cash thought he’d lost his girlfriend, Rina, last year.
Cash got it. Rev did, too. Everyone got it but him.
“Shit.”
“You always were the most stubborn of all of us,” Cash said, as if that was some kind of compliment.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Justin mumbled. “Hunt’s way more stubborn than I am.”
Hunt’s laughter burst into the room. “Yeah, so, even I got over it.”
“Yeah, so, I can’t. Neither can she,” Justin said quietly, and wished he was anywhere but there.
“Leave him alone. He doesn’t need to be distracted right now.” Hollywood’s frame filled the doorway. He was dressed in full battle fatigues and held a file in his hands. “I need to brief you, Justin. Then we’re moving out…0400.”
It would be just the two of them this trip—Hollywood and Justin, plus some support from a team of Deltas in the area around the Horn of Africa. Mainly recon. Hours and hours of watching and waiting, of practicing the patience Justin had carefully cultivated since he’d enlisted. It was what he did best.
“Let’s roll,” he told his CO.
CALLIE HAD FOUND the invitation stuck in her mailbox earlier that morning.
Open if you’d like to come see me.
She’d held the white envelope in her hands for a while, sat outside on the porch and realized that there was no way she could resist.
It contained what she assumed to be Leo’s address and telephone number.
Your turn, was all it said underneath.
He’s got messy handwriting. Bold, strong. He was sure of himself and somehow managed not to be overbearing.
Which was part of the reason why she was at his door that evening, with no idea what to do beyond knocking.
He answered without asking who it was, swung the door wide wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung jeans, and she couldn’t tell if he was surprised to see her or not.
“Come in.” He stepped aside and let her cross the threshold. She hesitated briefly because she knew that going in would be easy, but getting out…
“Okay.” She brushed past him, close enough to smell the soap on his skin, and heat flooded her body, head to toe. She put a hand to her cheek and wondered if it was too late to turn back.
Leo had closed the door, but he didn’t move away from it. No, he wasn’t going to make it easy. Not any easier than he already had, anyway.
“You’re pissed that I left,” she started.
“I was worried,” he said. “And pissed.”
“Okay. Well, I’m all right. So you don’t have to worry anymore.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want from me, Leo? I told you at the house that there’s nothing between us. It was heat-of-the-moment stuff. The danger. All really romantic, sure, but nothing to build on.” She was lying through her teeth.
“Do you make a habit of being completely impossible?” he asked as
he padded on bare feet toward her. “I’m just wondering, so I can start making plans.”
“Plans for what?”
He was right in front of her, and her resolve to steel herself melted when he smiled at her. God, she was easy around him. Easy and free and happy. “Ways to keep you from being impossible.”
“That’s never going to happen,” she said, tried to pretend his hands weren’t trailing lightly down her bare arms. “Your face—it’s healing. I can see both your eyes now.”
“Changing the subject?” One hand splayed along her lower back, as if to stop her from bolting. The other continued its lazy exploration of her arms, her neck…
“Your side looks better too,” she said quickly. The bruise was purple and yellow, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
His hand was playing with her hair. She’d shoved it up into a ponytail for the drive, but he was tugging it down so it tumbled over her shoulders, and when he spoke, his voice was ragged. “Just stay, Callie. Just stay, even if it’s just for tonight.”
Her body had already relented like the traitor it had been the other night. And Leo knew it. “And what happens tomorrow night?”
“I’ll ask you to stay again and you’ll say okay.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You came back to me, didn’t you?” He pulled her close and she didn’t protest. “I know how hard that was for you.”
“I don’t want to know anything about you, Leo.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it. I don’t want to know what your favorite color is…”
“Blue,” he whispered, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
“I don’t want to know your favorite foods…”
“Beef stew. Homemade manicotti. I hope you can cook.”
Dammit. She could. And what was worse, she wanted to, for him. “I know too much—so much.”
“Why don’t you want to know more?”
“Because I already know that you can keep me safe.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
“I don’t know…I’ve never really tried it.”
Beyond His Control Page 15