Her Last Defense

by Vickie Taylor

  “Of course, these results are preliminary. We have a lot more work to do and the facilities in Malaysia made it impossible to get complete data. We need a Level Four lab—the highest level of biohazard protection—to run the tests that will tell us for sure. But some of the genetic markers that a naturally occurring filovirus should carry are missing.”

  No one seemed to know what to make of that.

  “Meaning?” Clint finally asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Meaning that I don’t think ARFIS is a naturally occurring virus. I think someone genetically engineered it.”

  By noon the next day, the CDC base camp was gone. Generators carted off, tents folded and packed, garbage burned. The quarantined workers had been sent back to their families with a strict warning about national security—as if that was going to do any good. By two o’clock half the county would have heard tales about their brush with ARFIS. Maybe half the state. A road had been bulldozed in for removal of the larger pieces of the wrecked jet. Clint thought he saw one of the security guards pocket a dial from the control panel, probably as a souvenir. The monkey, José, had been crated and sent to a holding facility in Lufkin until he could be shipped back to Atlanta.

  On the slim chance that Ty Jeffries had succumbed to injuries suffered in the plane crash out in the woods somewhere, cadaver dogs from the state search and rescue task force had deployed that morning looking for his remains, and state guardsmen were lined up in shoulder-to-shoulder lines searching fallow fields and farmland, hoping to stumble over a body.

  They should all be so lucky.

  No one was saying so, but everyone knew Ty was out there somewhere in what searchers described as the ROW—the rest of the world.

  God knew where.

  Bull, Clint and Del had been on the phone all morning with law-enforcement agencies from the Sabine County Sheriff’s Department to the CIA, with no leads on Jeffries’s whereabouts. He’d disappeared, and now the Rangers were gearing up for a full-fledged manhunt.

  Which meant it was time for Clint to let go of the silver circle and star that had been the center of his life for the last few years, and his only goal during the required eleven years as a Texas State Trooper before that. He wasn’t quarantined any longer. And this had become a case with global implications.

  The world deserved the best on this job, and he wasn’t the best any longer. To pretend he was fit for duty put everyone around him at risk.

  But he didn’t turn in his badge. Didn’t say a word to his teammates about his inability to handle a gun.

  He might have blamed it on foolish pride. He might have blamed the stubborn nature he’d inherited from his Grandpop and his father.

  The truth was, he stayed because of Macy. As soon as he’d learned she wasn’t going back to Atlanta with the rest of her CDC team, he’d known he couldn’t walk away. She’d uncovered what might be the biggest terrorist plot since 9/11, and now she was working with authorities to figure out how to foil it. As far as he was concerned, that made her a terrorist target.

  No way he was leaving her.

  Standing on the tarmac at Lufkin Airfield, he watched her through reflective sunglasses as she said goodbye to her team. Even from a distance he could see the sorrow on her face, the moisture in her eyes as she hugged Susan and they whispered some girl talk in each others’ ears, throwing furtive glances at him all the while, before they parted.

  She would miss them, her team. Her friends. Seeing how open she was with people, how easily she connected with them, it was hard to imagine her locked in a sterile laboratory day after day. Hard to imagine that she routinely handled deadly pathogens in that laboratory.

  She was tougher than she looked, he reminded himself. She’d handled herself in the forest. She’d handled herself in the hospital with her ex-fiancé. If things went south with this virus, she’d handle herself again.

  He just hoped she didn’t have to.

  An attendant closed the hatch on the CDC jet and the plane rolled down the runway, gaining speed. Macy watched until it disappeared on the horizon, then came to Clint.

  “I already miss them,” she said. “I feel so alone without them.”

  He took her hand, walked her toward the parking area. “You’re not alone.”

  They headed east on Highway 10 in a rented SUV, and in minutes, walls of trees appeared on both sides of the road.

  “So what now?” she asked. “You want to know how to find a sneaky virus by fluorescing tissue samples, I’m your gal. But I’m afraid I don’t have a clue where to start looking for a man who could be anywhere by now.”

  “Basic detective work.” Clint spied a diner called Mama Joe’s ahead and eased off the gas. “How do you feel about apple pie?”

  “So-so. Why?”

  He turned into the gravel parking lot under Mama Joe’s blinking neon sign and cut the engine. “Because it’s the one thing you count on to get a country waitress talking. And we need to talk to a lot of waitresses.”

  After an afternoon full of waitresses and apple pies, Macy was glad to settle into her room at the Lonesome Pines that evening. When knuckles rapped on her door, she set down the glass of water she was drinking, tugged at the hem of her thigh-length nightshirt and turned the knob to see who it was.

  All she saw was the big sole of a big boot plant itself on the wood with a whump, and the door burst open like it’d been hit with a ramrod. Her hand flew to her mouth. Ten years flew off her life.

  Clint stepped over the threshold, frowning at her furiously.

  “What the hell was that?” she managed to gasp.

  “A demonstration of why you should always hook the safety chain when you answer your door. Especially when you’re staying at a two-bit hotel in Nowhere, Texas, chasing terrorists.”

  Subtly, she reached for the water she’d put down, then jerked her hand up, sloshing the water in his face. While he was blinded, she hooked a foot behind his calf and shoved his chest, knocking him on his butt.

  Wearing a smug grin, she turned around and walked to the bed, where she sat cross-legged on the faded paisley spread.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked, picking himself up.

  “A demonstration of why it’s not good to mess with me after you’ve dragged me to every greasy spoon in southeast Texas.” She lifted her chin. “I get irritable when I overeat.”

  “Hey, I didn’t force you to eat at those last three places. I told you we could just get coffee.”

  “But did you taste that banana cream? Or the caramel apple? It was worth a little irritability.”

  “So says you,” he said, still drying his face with his sleeve.

  He turned around to close and lock the door. For the first time, she noticed the pillow and blanket he carried under his arm. “What are you doing here?”

  “Moving in.”

  “So says you.”

  When he turned around, she could see he was through joking. “Look, I meant what I said about chasing terrorists. We don’t have a real good handle on this thing yet. They could be in Afghanistan or in the room next door.”

  “Kat is in the room next door.”

  “Then you can bet Bull is in the room beyond that.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Never mind. I’d just feel better if I stuck close to you until this is over.”

  She started to argue out of habit and pride, but stopped herself. “To tell the truth, so would I. There’s only one bed.” Which sagged in the middle like an overloaded clothesline.

  He looked down. “And a perfectly good floor.”

  “If you call two-tone green shag carpet perfect.” The Lonesome Pines Motel—all twelve rooms of it—out on the highway between Hempaxe and Johnson City, Texas, looked as if it hadn’t had its decor updated since it was built in the early sixties. Add to that, the rooms were about twelve feet square with painted cement block walls growing mold cultures in the corners and no padding she could detect beneath the carpet, an
d she wasn’t going to let him sleep on the floor. She couldn’t.

  Sighing, she got up, pulled a pair of sweatpants out of her suitcase and yanked them on as if they were a chastity belt, then sat again and patted the pillow beside hers.

  “Not a good idea,” he said.

  “You stay on your side, I’ll stay on mine.”

  He climbed onto the bed as warily as a rabbit might poke its head out of its den with the scent of fox nearby. She snapped off the light and settled beneath the covers, trying not to think about the hard planes of the body lying next to her. Trying to ignore the slow spread of his body heat, the mingled scents of soap and leather and pine drifting from his side of the bed to hers.

  Trying not to imagine how easy it would be to roll over into his arms. To let him hold the dreams of terrorists and snakelike viruses and corpses and trees, always the towering, dark trees overhead, at bay.

  Macy had always been impulsive. Since childhood she’d been swayed by her emotions, led by her heart, not her head. She’d made a mistake with the man who had taken her virginity and her innocence in every other sense, the married visiting doctor. She’d made a mistake with David.

  She didn’t want to make another mistake. She’d told him she needed time, and she meant it. She knew it was the right thing to do, for both of them.

  But that didn’t make it any easier, and what her mind wouldn’t allow when she was awake, her body took out of her hands while she slept. She woke to the feel of the sun streaming through the window and warming her back, crisp male chest hairs under her cheek and a hard male erection pressed against her abdomen.

  She opened one eye to find herself curled against Clint like a kitten to its mama.

  “Before you throw another glass of water at me,” he droned. “I want you to know I am not responsible for this. You are clearly on my side of the bed.”

  She shifted back to get a better look at him, and found to her dismay that one of her legs was wedged securely between his denim-covered thighs and her arms were locked around his back. Under his shirt.

  No wonder she’d slept so soundly.

  “I’m sorry.” She wrenched herself away, pulled the covers up to her chin even though she was still wearing her sweatpants and sleep shirt. Maybe that way he wouldn’t see that her nipples were as hard as he was or smell the arousal on her.

  “Yeah,” he said, rolling out of bed on the opposite side. “I figured you would be.”

  She wished she hadn’t heard the hint of wry disappointment behind the words. What had happened to her unreadable Ranger?

  “I’m going to take a shower,” he said in that same tone. “Don’t worry, though. There’ll be plenty of hot water left for you when I’m done.”

  What was she supposed to say? “I’m sorry” again wasn’t going to cut it, so she let him go without saying anything and busied herself packing up her things. She didn’t know if they’d be checking out today or not, but she figured she’d better be prepared. Besides, having something to occupy her mind kept her from dwelling on Clint.

  In the shower.

  Naked.

  Wet.

  Aching.

  Stop it! She made herself smooth out the shirt she’d wrung in her hands like an old dishrag while she’d been imagining, pressing it with her hands against the bedspread. It was her last clean shirt, dang it, and now she was going to look like a wrinkled mess.

  Maybe she was crazy, denying them both what they so clearly wanted, but she’d lost her confidence in herself, and in her ability to know what was right.

  She straightened when the bathroom door creaked open and Clint strode out. He had yesterday’s jeans on, but his feet were bare and his shirt was slung over his right shoulder. The play of lean muscles across his back mesmerized her. The narrow waist. The corded strength of his forearms as he filled a glass at the sink and swished water in his mouth. The—

  Gradually she noticed something else. The water in the half-full glass he still held sloshed against the sides. His hand was shaking. A tremor moved visibly up his arm to his shoulder. A few drops of water splashed onto the counter in front of him.

  Just then he glanced up and met her eyes in the mirror. Caught her watching him.

  She cocked her head, confused. “Clint?”

  “Jesus.” The glass slipped out of his hand, shattered on the linoleum floor. He bent to scoop up the shards.

  Her moment of shock passing, she hurried to help. He took a step back to pick up a large piece and she warned him. “Careful! Don’t cut your feet.”

  “I can take care of my own goddamn feet!” He swiped at the glass fragment like a bear yanking a trout from a stream, then tossed it into the sink. Left-handed.

  His cheeks were ruddy. His eyes hard, flat discs. She just stared at him, trying to figure out why he was so angry. In her hand, she held a piece of the broken glass. He grabbed it from her and threw it into the sink with the others, this time too hard. The piece broke into smaller fragments, several of which bounced back out onto the floor.

  “Let me see your hand,” she said.

  “Forget it.”

  She ignored him, knowing she was risking his wrath, and reached for his hand, turned it over in hers, gently curling his fingers in and stretching them out. He stood stock still, and she wondered if it was of his own free will, or if there was simply too much glass on the floor for him to walk away.

  “How long have you been having the spasms?”

  His jaw went hard. “Long enough to know it isn’t a temporary problem.”

  She probed his elbow, massaged his bicep, then moved his shirt away to get a look at his shoulder. He flinched, and it took only her a moment to realize why. She traced her fingers over the round, puckered scar just beneath his right clavicle. “This looks fresh.”

  “About six weeks.”

  “Nerve damage?”

  He pulled his arm away from her and made one giant leap over the area scattered with broken glass to the safety of the carpeting beyond.

  She followed him across the room. “What did your doctor say? Did he suggest a course of action?”

  He snorted, pulling on his shirt with his back to her. “Sure. He told me start thinking about a new career.”

  The full weight of what he was saying sunk in, and sat in her belly like a lead ball. “You said you were on leave when you saw the plane crash,” she said. “Medical leave?”

  His silence was enough of an answer.

  “You haven’t told them yet, have you? Your teammates don’t know.”

  “No.” He whirled. “And they’re not going to find out. Not yet.”

  “Clint,” she said softly, an ache—for him—settling in deep in her bones. “It isn’t going to get any easier with time.”

  “Funny, coming from the woman who keeps telling me how she needs time.”

  The quick change of subject stunned her. No, the truth of what he said stunned her. Fact was, she was holding a double standard.

  He stepped up close to her, so that her nose was practically brushing his chest, and held her by the elbows. “You’re not going to tell them.”

  Statement? Or question? She wasn’t sure. She could hardly think with his heat seeping through her thin night clothes. His scent enveloping her once again.

  His lips so close.

  To avoid them, she stood on her toes and brushed her mouth across the abominable reminder of what a violent world they lived in at his shoulder. “Clint—”

  A quick knock sounded, then the door swung open, banging when it hit the end of the security chain Clint had so carefully fastened last night. The crack was just wide enough for Del to stick his face through.

  “Uh, sorry to interrupt, kids, but we got a lead on Ty Jeffries. We’re on the road in ten.”

  Chapter 15

  Del Cooper spoke over his shoulder so that Macy could hear as he pushed Baby Blue, his truck, over eighty down the two-lane county highway. “Kat and Bull hit the truck stop on I-10 early, hopin
g to catch the breakfast crowd. They scared up a long-haul trucker on his way back to Shreveport from Austin who said he picked up a guy matching Ty Jeffries’s description two days ago and dropped him off at a farmhouse outside of Hope Springs. They’ve got the house under surveillance now. No sign of life yet, but they’re waiting for backup to go inside.”

  “Who’ve we got coming?” Clint asked from the passenger seat.

  “Who’s not coming? We got local PD, county, FBI, you name it.” Del took a curve and the truck lifted onto two wheels. Neither he nor Clint looked concerned, so Macy grabbed the door handle and gritted her teeth.

  Fifteen hair-raising minutes later, Del skidded to a stop behind a dozen official vehicles parked haphazardly on the shoulder and in the center of the road. A uniformed deputy met them at the bumper. Clint and Del flashed their badges. “Captain Matheson?”

  “Up there.” The deputy pointed to a hilltop. “House is about a quarter mile farther down, around a curve. Good view from the hill.”

  They nodded and strode off. Macy ducked her head and followed, hoping no one would challenge her, but the deputy stepped in her path. “Ma’am?”

  Clint reached back and pulled her around him. “She’s with us.”

  The two men’s legs were a lot longer than hers. She had to jog to keep up. By the time she reached the rise, she was out of breath.

  Clint pushed her head down below the bush they were using as a blind. “Anything yet, Cap?”

  “Still no movement.” He checked his watch. “It’s a farm, there are animals in the barnyard. Someone ought to be out and about.”

  “We going in?”

  “Just waiting for Kat to call and tell me she’s got the paper.”

  “Paper?” Macy looked from one man to the other.

  “Search warrant,” Clint explained. “We go in without one, anything we find will be thrown out in court.”

  She sat quiet and let them strategize after that. Not everything they said about tactical entry and booby trap sweeps made sense to her, but she understood enough to realize that getting a team into the farmhouse was a lot more complicated—and dangerous—than it looked.