London Calling

by Veronica Forand

  “Keep an eye on Ms. Ross for me. I don’t want her snooping around anything she doesn’t have authorization to know.” He opened the door, and Fleming crept inside. A faint glow fell on the corner of the bed, and one long, slender arm stuck out of the red duvet.

  He couldn’t help himself—he walked in behind the dog to check on his assignment. She had stripped down to a T-shirt and whatever was under the covers. Her hair was still a mess but tousled all over the pillow. He distrusted her yet found himself staring at how perfect she appeared in the moonlight. He shook his head. Emma Ross was an assignment. A temporary one.

  She wore a gold band on her right ring finger. From the information he’d received, she was single. Maybe married to her job, or she had a relationship that stayed under the radar.

  Not that he was interested or seriously attracted to her. He didn’t want a relationship, an infatuation, or even a passing admiration for any woman. He only had so much care he could give in his life, and most of the people he’d cared about were dead. Besides, this woman had a rotting family tree.

  After shutting Fleming inside the room, he went to bed himself to close his eyes for a few hours before she woke.

  Chapter Eight

  Emma woke up to Fleming in her bed, licking her face. She was a sweetie. Most dogs were. At first, the charm of the situation and the amazing comfort of the soft down bed scrambled her thoughts. As she rubbed the dog’s neck, the events of the past twenty-four hours played back in her head like a scene from Mission Impossible. Only it wasn’t a fictional character who was missing, it was her father. The hole that had lodged inside her when she’d heard of his disappearance widened as she woke to this strange reality.

  Fleming hopped to the floor and stared at her. Someone had to have let her in, since the door had been shut when she’d gone to sleep. Not locked, because there were no locks on the door, but closed. An open prison.

  “Good morning, buddy? Were you sent to spy on me?”

  Her tail wagged in reply.

  Emma’s stomach grumbled, more from nerves and impatience than hunger. People had been after their car the night before. People who had died in their attempt to stop them. But were they after Macknight or her? She’d been locked away with no explanation, her phone taken from her, her location unknown, while her father remained out of reach.

  The uncertainty did nothing to ease the tension snaking through her body.

  She stretched and twisted her torso to limber up from her sleep. She hadn’t been this physically and mentally exhausted since attending Elliot’s funeral. The only shooting in Essex, New Hampshire in forty years. She and her partner had arrived to stop a man who had turned a gun on his young son, Elliot. Her partner had the shot to take out the father but didn’t make it. Just as she didn’t make the shot the night before. She’d hated him for being hesitant and letting the man kill his own son, but maybe her partner had been as conflicted as she’d been.

  She challenged herself to solve her current crisis, to be smarter, to not over- nor under-think her situation. Her mental state had been pressed to the brink the night before, but this was a new day, and she was getting the hell out of there. MI6 didn’t have the right to protect her against her will.

  A chill raced through her. Her father was in trouble, she felt sure of it, which made being tucked away in this weird English countryside camp more than a hardship. Despite fences all around, cameras and armed guards observing the comings and goings of the imprisoned, the compound had a Martha Stewart kind of feel. She might be safe and comfortable as long as she remained behind the walls, her father wouldn’t be. She had to locate him.

  The sky remained dark while she dressed for a possible escape. Jeans and a pale green sweater from her suitcase were generic enough to blend in as a tourist in an English village somewhere, or maybe hide in the woods. Before she finished, Fleming pawed at the door. Emma opened it and watched the dog flee to other parts of the house. Hopefully, she remained quiet.

  With everyone asleep, Emma had a flicker of hope. Right now, that was all she had but pure determination and maybe the element of surprise.

  A dim path lit by a few night-lights led her through the hallway and an assortment of rooms on the first floor, enough of a glow to allow her to move around without slamming into anything. The first room she searched was a small sitting room with floral wallpaper and antique cherry furniture. A large oil painting of hunting dogs hung on the wall over a brick fireplace. She searched every nook in every wall for cameras, movement detectors, and, most importantly, a phone.

  There were no phones on any of the tables. She dropped to her hands and knees and traced the cords from the table lamps to the wall, but there were no phone jacks anywhere. She couldn’t find any access to the outside world. An empty bedroom down the hall from hers didn’t have a phone line, either. Which meant they were serious about keeping the outside world from contacting the visitors here and vice versa.

  She slipped in and out of five rooms without locating anything helpful. In the kitchen, a locked door provided Emma hope. She located a narrow boning knife in one of the drawers. Sliding the knife on top of the lock bolt, she pressed down while trying to open and close the doorknob with her other hand. After a minute, the bolt slid open.

  The door opened to a closet-size office near the pantry. A few of the drawers in the desk were locked. She used the knife again to open each one. The bottom drawer contained exactly what Emma needed to get home.

  A simple black phone, the kind her father had used in his home office. No frills, just buttons and a receiver. The cord went through a hole in the wall. Hard-wired.

  She dialed her father’s number, hoping he’d respond. If he answered, everything would be okay. If he didn’t, she’d call the Essex police station. Someone was always at the desk there. As the phone buzzed, she held her breath. When someone picked up, her spirits jumped.

  “Dad? Where are you?” she asked, crouching against a wall.

  His breathing sounded low and heavy. She pictured him waking from a sound sleep somewhere. Hopefully, somewhere safe.

  Yet he didn’t answer her.

  “Dad? It’s me. Emma. Please answer me,” she said as loud as possible without making too much noise. “I’m somewhere in the English countryside, miles out of London, I think. Maybe you can trace this call?”

  “Emma?” he asked, his voice deeper than she recognized.

  She winced. Not her father, at all.

  “Who are you?” Maybe this person could give her a clue as to the location of her father.

  “How did you find Grace’s phone?” the voice asked.

  Crap.

  This was not a faraway stranger; this was someone on the inside of the prison.

  The pounding of her heart pressed into her chest. She hung up, slipped out of the pantry, and down the hall toward her bedroom. Before reaching it, she slammed into a Macknight roadblock. He wasn’t asleep at all. Fully alert and dressed in jeans and a white shirt, unbuttoned and revealing a killer set of abs, the man smelled like expensive cologne, woodsy with a hint of orange and cinnamon. She smelled like she’d spent the past two nights rummaging through alleyways.

  Fleming stood behind him, wagging her tail and glancing up at Macknight with adoration.

  “Where’s my father?” If he hurt her father, she’d hurt him. She shouldn’t have left the knife at the desk. Any weapon was better than none.

  He gripped her without showing a drop of fear, as if she were a toddler run amok. She’d never been easy to intimidate, but nose to nose with this guy, she had knots in her stomach the size of boulders. Her eyes focused on his, blue with a hint of glacier. She held his stare—men staring her down in her job was a daily occurrence. Her concentration almost cracked when he came close enough for his lips to touch her cheek. His breath smelled minty, because perfect men like him woke with perfect breath.

  “I don’t know where your father is, nor do I have his phone,” he said, his voice as deep as t
he hell she was in. “While I’m here, every phone call comes through my mobile to be approved.”

  His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm. Emma, on the other hand, had been so freaked out by running into him in the hallway, she couldn’t catch her breath. She struggled. His fingers dug into her arms. Being captive in this little cottage was one thing, but being physically held against her will by a man seriously pissed her off. She aimed her knee right at his balls, then tried an aikido move she’d learned in a martial arts class. Worthless attempts with Macknight. He shifted lightning fast, his thigh blocked her knee, and he wasn’t budging enough for her to use his body weight against him.

  He anticipated every one of her moves, except a fairly decent headbutt. Seeing him wince gave her some satisfaction, but instead of releasing her when the top of her forehead smashed into the area right above his nose, he tightened his grip and held her a few inches back from him, glaring now through watery eyes. She should have braced herself for retaliation, but there was something about him that made her think he wouldn’t harm her. Her instincts rarely gave her the wrong impression of someone, but in this circumstance, the odd trust she had in him unnerved her.

  “You’re gonna wake Grace, and she’s too old to be bothered at this hour,” he growled. The morning stubble in his chin darkened his appearance from intimidating to menacing.

  Her efforts to free herself ended when he literally lifted her off the floor and looked at her. Despite her attempts to gain some solid footing against him, she dangled off the ground.

  “We seem to be at a stalemate.” His calm scared her more than his biceps. “You can fight me, but I’ll win. There are six guards stationed here. You won’t get around them all. If you do manage to escape, you’ll face greater danger than being forced to sit around a wee cottage for a few days.”

  “Why am I here? Can you at least tell me that?”

  “I’m not authorized.”

  “Bullshit.”

  When he placed her on her feet again, his breathing was heavy, rough, and intense. He closed his eyes for a moment, his grip still tight on one of her arms. Then he released her and backed away. For a split second, one she would have missed had she not been staring at his reaction, his eyebrows squeezed together, and he shook his head. Then his posture stiffened, and his frown returned.

  “The phone is for Grace. Not you.” He turned toward the kitchen and left her. Fleming followed at his heels.

  Chapter Nine

  Emma remained in a daze. Macknight could have ripped her head off without any effort or remorse. Had her knee connected, he might have. Despite her father raising her to be capable, strong, and clever, Macknight had her in height, weight, and psychological warfare. His actions weren’t aggressive toward her, though—they were strangely protective.

  She trailed him and Fleming to the kitchen. He turned on the light over the stove, enough to see clearly without blinding them. Everything was silent except for the sound of his movements and the clicking of Fleming’s nails on the wood floor.

  “This doesn’t make sense. Why are you holding me hostage?” she asked.

  He paused, made a melodramatic sigh, and leaned against the counter. “You’re not a hostage. You’re here for your own safety.”

  That was news to her. “You drugged me, took my phone, and practically wrestled me to the ground for my own safety? Wouldn’t it have been easier to ask me to go with you?”

  His eyes glittered with a hint of amusement, although the rest of him remained at attention. “Would you have come with me?”

  Probably not.

  “Tell me, then, what’s the big danger threatening me?” she asked. Never in a million years had she thought she’d need protection from anyone or anything.

  “It’s classified. If I had the authority, I’d explain everything, but I don’t.” He grabbed two mugs from the cabinet. “Coffee?”

  He’d lifted her several inches off the ground mere seconds ago. Now he was making her coffee. This whole place was screwed up, right down to the dawn chorus of songbirds outside the window trying their best to lift her spirits. They needed to keep quiet. Cheerfulness was not helping.

  “Coffee would be great.” Maybe a whole pot. She sat and rethought her escape strategy while Macknight transformed into a domestic god.

  From the refrigerator where he found her some cream to the highest cabinets where he pulled down a small pitcher for water, he streamlined every move as though he were saving his energy for something bigger.

  “Will I learn why I’m being held when I attend the meeting this morning?”

  “You aren’t invited to the meeting.” He didn’t bother turning around to give the news.

  “Derek lied to me?”

  At this, he faced her and shrugged. “MI6 lies, all the time, about most things. I’m surprised Parliament approves our budget requests each year without extra scrutiny.”

  “Did Derek lie about my father?” This was one of those circular conversations where she wanted to strangle someone by the end of it.

  “I have no idea, but he steered you astray about the Windfield Hotel. It’s a website we set up years ago for situations such as this. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were tired and easy to manipulate.”

  Lies. She swallowed hard. “I’m not so tired right now. I’m more than capable of protecting myself, and maybe I can help you locate my father.” She was no help to him locked away.

  He shook his head, his lips pinched together. “You’re staying until he’s found, dead or alive.”

  Her heart trembled at the word dead. She couldn’t sit here sipping coffee while her father was out in the world at risk of dying. She had to leave. He was her everything.

  “I’m starved.” He placed his mug on the table. “Grace sleeps in until about six. Want anything?”

  Her response didn’t matter. He’d already lined up vegetables and eggs on the counter and grabbed a bowl. The skillet he placed on the stove was large enough to feed an entire village. He slid the red pepper, some ham, and a large knife across the counter toward her. “Be a love and cut up these veggies.”

  She hadn’t eaten in hours. Food was the last thing on her mind, but she stood up and sliced into the pepper to keep moving. Be a love? Her father was missing, she’d been taken prisoner, and Macknight was calling her love?

  When she finished cutting the pepper, he scraped the pieces off the cutting board into the melted butter in the skillet, stirring them with a wooden spoon to keep them from burning. He returned the cutting board so she could slice the ham.

  His focus was on his mug, drinking his coffee as though he were refueling for a long-haul flight. After he swallowed the last drop, he returned his attention to the stovetop.

  She cut the ham into small pieces.

  When she turned to hand him the cutting board, she tripped over Fleming, who had somehow wedged herself between the counter, Emma, and Macknight. Emma went down, sailing over the dog. She reached out to brace for the impact and sliced through the palm of her hand with the fallen knife.

  “Damn it,” she cried out.

  Blood dripped from her wound onto the floor. She swallowed a string of more strongly worded expletives.

  Macknight stood over her. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The knife remained on the floor, the eggs and vegetables burned, but he ignored them and stared at Emma for an uncomfortably long time. She rested her head on the now dirty floor as her dignity melted away, and the dog scurried around her, eating the ham.

  “I was attempting to kill you. Luckily, your dog stopped me,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Not that she would have killed him even if she’d tried. The guy had fighting instincts that went far beyond what she’d learned in eight years of martial arts training and time at the police academy.

  Macknight’s focus switched to Fleming finishing the last bits of food scattered across the floor. His frown disappeared, and he laughed, a dimple on his right cheek showing itself to her f
or the first time. “She likes to lie at my feet to collect anything that might drop. She hit the jackpot with you.”

  He reached out to her and brought her to her feet. His face came so close to hers, she could smell the coffee on his breath. They remained attached hand-to-hand for a moment. The human contact warmed some of the chill she’d been feeling since coming to England. But that was crazy, so she turned and grabbed a napkin from the counter to hold over the cut. The gushing blood from the wound appeared far worse than it felt.

  “I underestimated Fleming’s skill set. She won’t be so lucky next time.”

  “What about me?” he asked.

  “Anyone who underestimates you is a fool.” As she had been only minutes earlier.

  His expression didn’t brighten at the compliment. Instead, he placed his attention on her cut hand, ignoring the incineration of their breakfast.

  Chapter Ten

  “Let me see.” Macknight took her hand, not waiting for her answer. He’d been in charge of her safety for less than a day, and already he’d led her into a deadly car chase, wrestled her in the hallway, and now she was bleeding from a knife wound. Bloody hell.

  The wound wasn’t deep, but it would get infected if it wasn’t cleaned properly. He turned on the tap and held her hand under the cool water. Not a whimper or a tear from her. He reached for a clean napkin, but she nabbed it before him and pulled her hand from his.

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “You’re my responsibility. I don’t want anyone to think I’m torturing you.”

  “Kidnapping is okay, but torture is over the line?”

  “You’re under my protection.” If he had a task, he’d complete it, even if she was related to Ross. Not that he fully believed Emma was a traitor. The more time he spent with her, the more innocent she seemed. Maybe it was her pretty brown eyes throwing him, or the fearless way she faced him down in the hallway, completely out-matched, but unwilling to concede even an inch.

  “When do my rights come into play?”