My Spy: Last Spy Standing

by Dana Marton

  He stood up and headed for the door, caught himself at the last second and glanced down, wincing at the state of his clothing. Brooding home alone all week didn’t do much for a person’s image. The colonel would chew him out if he saw him like this.

  He padded up the stairs. He could afford enough time for a shower. He added a shave, too. If the Colonel thought something was wrong with him, the man would get on his case and insist on answers. Mitch didn’t have any of those.

  All he knew was that he was in love with Megan Cassidy and a relationship between them was impossible. A solution was brewing in the back of his head. But it was probably too drastic. He needed to speak to her before he made any big life changes. Leaving the SDDU wasn’t a move he entertained lightly. But he would do it for her, if she thought she could accept him.

  He reached the base an hour and a half later. The colonel’s secretary announced his arrival.

  “Colonel.” He stopped in his tracks when he realized the Colonel already had a visitor. A man about Mitch’s age sat in a wheelchair. He had amber eyes and blondish hair in a familiar shade.

  “Jamie Cassidy. Mitch Mendoza.” The colonel made the introductions. “Jamie stopped in to discuss something with me this morning. He wanted to see you, too.”

  They sized each other up. Jamie’s handshake had plenty of steel in it.

  “You were there when my brother died,” he said in a tone void of emotion. But his eyes held tempered steel.

  Oh, hell. If Jamie Cassidy blamed him for Billy’s death, then Megan probably did, too. “Billy was too far gone to make it out. He died a hero’s death.”

  “That’s what my sister says,” Jamie allowed, but his countenance didn’t soften any.

  Mitch’s heart drummed faster. “Is she here?”

  The colonel answered that. “She’s in the next room, going over your report of the op to see if she can add anything. I asked for her help. The materials you two brought back are of some significance. Further ops are being planned.”

  The words I want in were on the tip of Mitch’s tongue, but he couldn’t say them, not until he talked to Megan, not until his future was decided.

  “Sir?” He glanced toward the door.

  The colonel nodded. “Go ahead, soldier.”

  Jamie scowled at him. He wasn’t as sure about what had gone down at Don Pedro’s as Megan was, apparently. Either that, or he resented Mitch asking about his sister. The man knew the life, what the unit meant, the kind of work they did. He probably would have been happier if none of his teammates met Megan at all.

  Mitch understood that, even agreed. But he couldn’t help himself when it came to Megan Cassidy.

  He walked down the hall and knocked on the door the secretary pointed to.

  “Come in.”

  Just hearing her voice made his heart beat faster.

  She looked exactly the same as the first time they’d met. The no-nonsense ponytail was gone, and long, blond waves tumbled down to cover the scar on her neck. She had on a smattering of makeup she didn’t need. Her flirty dress ended an inch above her knees. He swallowed as he stared. He’d never seen her in a dress.

  Wow. All right. Okay.

  She looked elegant and poised, too beautiful to behold. Way out of his league. What had he been thinking? If she blamed him... Hell, he blamed himself half the time. He’d spent a couple of sleepless nights thinking about what he could have done differently.

  Almost as many nights as he’d spent thinking of her with him and nothing else but tangled sheets.

  She glanced up from the stack of papers she’d been reading.

  “Mitch!” She flew to him and wrapped her arms around him.

  She smelled like some exotic jungle flower.

  He’d thought she’d give him a cool reception, so he was stunned by the entirely different welcome. For a second, he couldn’t respond.

  She pulled away, a shadow coming into her eyes. She took a step back, a more businesslike look settling onto her face. “They’re putting together an op to go back in the jungle. Are you going?”

  “No.”

  She looked disappointed. “I am.”

  “A joint mission with the CIA?”

  “I begged the Colonel to put me on the team. With Jamie’s help.”

  His head was spinning. “I’m quitting the team.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I want to marry you and I never want to see you in the kind of pain I saw when you lost your brother.”

  Her amber eyes went wide. “You’re trying to guarantee that you won’t die on me?”

  Now that she put it that way, it sure sounded stupid.

  “I’m buying a house. A condo, actually.” Maybe that would help. “I’m trying to—”

  “You want to marry me?” Her eyes narrowed. “When we were in the chopper and I said I loved you, you didn’t say anything back.”

  “I needed a little time to recover. I needed to figure out a way I could make our relationship work.”

  “And your way is to quit?”

  That did sound bad. He wasn’t a quitter. A woman like Megan wouldn’t want a quitter for a husband.

  “Do you want to quit?” she asked.

  “No. But I can live with it,” he tried to explain. “I can’t live without you.”

  “You won’t have to. I’m going with you.”

  “Where?”

  She looked at him as if he was slow in the head. “Back to the jungle. I’m coming over to Colonel Wilson’s team in six months.”

  “You can’t.” He wasn’t sure he could handle seeing her getting shot again.

  “Watch me.” She was all cold steel on the inside. And all hot curves on the outside. A combination that would keep him fascinated for the rest of his life. Then a thought popped into his head and stole his breath. “Why wait six months?”

  His gaze fell to her midriff. How much could a man trust an old condom he found on the bottom of a drug dealer’s duffel bag?

  Her belly was flat, but you could never tell. His heart jumped up into his throat. Spots swum in front of his eyes.

  She pulled a folder from her bag on the floor and handed it to him.

  His hands shook as he opened it, expecting ultrasound pictures. He blinked hard when he saw the photo of a familiar one-year-old instead. Cindy. The world spun with him.

  “What are you doing with my sister’s file?”

  “Finding her.”

  He couldn’t allow his hopes to rise. That part of his heart was dead, even if Megan had awakened the rest. “I spent years chasing down every lead. I searched hard. There was nothing to find.”

  “But have you ever searched with all the tools of the CIA at your full disposal?” she asked.

  “And you’re giving them to me for the next six months?” Hell, with something like that, he could do miracles.

  “For the next six months. That’s when the Colonel is shipping a team back to the jungle. He’ll need that long to process all the information we brought in and devise a strategy.”

  Of course she would. But she wasn’t going without him. No way.

  “We’ll do this together.” Because when the chips were down, the truth was he’d rather have her at his back than anyone else he knew. “And when we come back, we get married?”

  “Jeez, don’t be so pushy.” But she grinned. “Maybe.”

  His heart leaped.

  “And while we’re waiting for that deployment, we’ll find your sister. I’m going to do everything in my power to help.” She smiled at him.

  He stepped closer. “I love you, you know that?”

  When she stepped into his arms, he wrapped himself around her. Kissed her with all the need of the three long months they’d been apart. He was never going to let her go again. There wasn’t another like her on the planet.

  She pressed against him, smiled against his lips as she brushed against his hardness. His body was more than ready for her.

  “
And what might that be?” she teased him, between kisses.

  “I’m very happy to see you.”

  “It’s either that or you had a run in with a banana spider.” She laughed at him, then jumped and wrapped her legs around his waist.

  He caught her, got lost in her. She was his. He didn’t deserve her, but as long as God saw it fit in His generosity to bring the two of them together, he would do whatever it took to make her happy and keep her safe.

  He didn’t know how long they’d been kissing when someone cleared his throat behind them. They jumped apart, suddenly mindful of where they were.

  “There are rules about fraternization in the SDDU rule book, soldiers,” the Colonel said with a hard voice. But his eyes were dancing with mirth.

  “The SDDU has no rule book, sir,” Mitch retorted as the tips of his ears turned red.

  “Impertinent, the lot of them.” The colonel turned to Jamie, who was right behind him. “Are you sure you want to rejoin a team like this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Jamie, you can’t be serious.” Megan ran to him, crouching next to the wheelchair and searching her brother’s face.

  “This man has more experience than any ten others put together,” the Colonel told them in a no-nonsense tone. “He’ll be an operations coordinator at our Texas office.”

  Mitch wrinkled his forehead. “We don’t have a Texas office.”

  “It’s on a need-to-know basis. We started up operations in South Texas six months ago. Too many of our international ops uncover terror plots with links to sleeper cells and the like in the U.S. We needed to add another office here. Texas Headquarters will investigate drug and gun smuggling as well as human trafficking from Central and South America as it relates to suspected terror activity.”

  “If it’s top secret...” The puzzle pieces were falling into place in Mitch’s mind.

  “You’re being transferred there effective immediately. Megan will begin working there when she starts with us in six months,” the Colonel responded. “You are both experts on South American ops.”

  “Jamie?” Megan still sounded unsure, but a change was slowly coming over her. It seemed she was beginning to understand that this was exactly what her brother needed to get his life back on track.

  The colonel knew, Mitch thought. The colonel knew and he saw to it. No wonder his men would walk through fire for him.

  “There are still things I can contribute.” The harsh lines softened on Jamie’s face. “I can coordinate missions and play wedding coordinator at the same time. I’m good at multitasking. From the looks of you two when we walked in, the sooner we hold that wedding, the better.”

  “She hasn’t said yes, yet,” Mitch put in, just to make sure Jamie knew he’d asked. Jamie Cassidy wasn’t a man he wanted to tangle with, wheelchair or no wheelchair.

  All eyes moved to her.

  The colonel raised an eyebrow. “My soldiers are not known for being wishy-washy.”

  “Megan?” Jamie watched her closely.

  “Oh, please. I’m too old for peer pressure.”

  Nobody blinked.

  “Seriously.” She patted an errant lock of hair into place at her temple, looking flustered suddenly. “He doesn’t need me for anything. He made that plenty clear, every day we were together.”

  Was she serious? Mitch stared at her.

  Did he want to say this with two other guys in the room? He didn’t have a choice.

  He went down on one knee. “Megan Cassidy. I need you more than air. Please help end my misery by staying in my life. Because without you it’s not worth living.”

  She cocked her head, and looked like she was struggling to suppress a grin. “So you’re asking for my help? Just to be clear.”

  “I’m asking.”

  “And you will let me save your life if the occasion should arise, and will admit you need such assistance freely?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  A smile of pure joy broke loose all over her face as she plowed into him and nearly knocked him over, locking her arms around his neck and kissing him. “Yes.” Then she kept on with the kissing.

  He kissed her back hard, then remembered the others. But when he looked behind him, the Colonel and Jamie were gone, the door closed.

  His body came alive with need for her. His heart opened fully, for the first time in years. “I love you and I need you.”

  “I love you and I need you, too.” She slid her hand under his shirt.

  He choked back a laugh. “Here?”

  “It’s a lifesaving op.” She backed toward the desk. “Think of it as an emergency.”

  Certainly felt like it. Heat flooded him as he slipped his hands to her hips.

  “So who’s saving who this time?” he asked as he eased her dress up her lean thighs.

  “We’re saving each other,” she said as she kissed him.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from MOUNTAIN HEIRESS by Cassie Miles.

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  Chapter One

  The night was never this dark in Brooklyn. If she’d been back in her home borough, Gabby Rousseau could have counted on a streetlamp or the glow from a sidewalk window or the never-dimmed glare of Manhattan across the river. But here? In the Colorado mountains? She couldn’t see ten feet in front of her, even with her headlights on high beam. Heavy clouds blocked the starlight as sheets of rain pummeled the roof of her poor, tired, little Ford hatchback.

  She considered pulling over until the storm let up but she didn’t dare. What if her tires sank into the mud at the edge of this skinny road that was more pothole than pavement? Then where would she be? Stuck. In the rain. Without a yellow cab for hundreds of miles.

  Dis-as-ter! Her cell phone was out of juice, and the charger didn’t work. She had no GPS. For the past hundred miles, the car had been making a clunk that got louder and louder. The heater didn’t work, which meant the defroster was defunct and she had to crack a window, which let in the rain. She was wet and cold and, just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, the lightning started.

  Zigzag bolts of raw electricity slashed the darkness. In the flash, she saw a stark vision. The clawing branches of a thick forest seemed to grab at her car. Jagged rocks appeared at the edge of the road like evil, ancient sentinels. She glimpsed movement. Something was out there. Probably zombies.

  She’d been driving four days—four long, miserable days—across the country. Finally, she was close to her destination. She couldn’t give up.

  Thunder rumbled like a barrage of cannons. Her fingers tensed on the steering wheel. This morning when she’d started out, the June weather had been hot enough that she’d put on a pair of high-waisted chino shorts and platform sandals—an unfortunate choice of outfit because she was freezing cold. Her legs rippled with goose bumps. Her toes were numb.

  Another bolt of lightning cut through the sky. The thunder roared and rumbled.

  “Enough.” She couldn’t take much more. “Come on, Universe. Give me a break.”

  If it stopped raining, she’d never criticize the weather again. Was the Universe open to a deal like that? “If I find my way, I’ll give up anything. No more chocolate. No more overdrafts in the c
hecking account.”

  She needed something bigger to deal with, something more important, something life-changing. She needed the barely worn, red-soled Christian Louboutin heels she’d picked up secondhand before she left civilization. “That’s right, the Louboutins. Go ahead, Universe. Take my shoes. Just let me find the place I’m looking for.”

  A flash of lightning showed a carved wood sign: Rousseau’s Roost. An arrow pointed left. This is it!

  As the thunder rattled around her, she made the turn. She had asked, and the Universe had answered. She was on her way, nearly there. Survival was within her grasp. Did she really have to give up the shoes?

  The final stretch of road to Rousseau’s Roost was marked by deep ruts. On the plus side, she was moving away from the scary trees, heading across an open space with a barbed wire fence to her left. Things were looking better, much better. The rain seemed to be letting up.

  In another crackle-boom of lightning, she saw the outline of a two-story house with a wraparound porch. In photographs, Rousseau’s Roost had a rustic charm that appealed to Gabby. She couldn’t believe she owned half of this property. She’d been on her own since she was eighteen, and her living space in Brooklyn had been a series of one-room apartments. Now she was a home owner with a house and a barn and acreage.

  Her great-aunt Michelle—who Gabby had met exactly five times in her whole life—had left the property to Gabby and her older brother, Daniel, whom she hadn’t heard from since her twenty-third birthday party three years ago. Every attempt she’d made to find him and tell him about this strange windfall had fallen flat, which made her sad. With Aunt Michelle dead, her jerk of a brother was her only living relative. She wouldn’t really mind splitting the inheritance with him if they could be a family again.

  When she parked in front of the house, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. She turned off the engine. It was entirely possible that the car wouldn’t start up again in the morning, but she’d deal with that problem when it happened.

  The lawyer who’d contacted her had sent the key to the front door, which she had already attached to the key ring that held her car keys, a couple of keys to friends’ apartments that she really ought to mail back to them, a lipstick-sized container of pepper spray and one very special set of rhinestone-embellished keys that she had hoped would unlock her fondest dreams. She remembered the day when she and her three friends had used these keys to open the door to the storefront shop on Myrtle Street. For almost two years, they ran a little boutique where—in addition to seamstress work and fittings—Gabby got to show off her original designs. Then the money ran out.