York blinked at him. “That’s all the way across the country. And it’s not like she can hop a plane—”
“You’ll take the Trans-Siberian Railway.”
The railroad. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s…that’s a seven-day trip.”
“Seven more days for this thing to cool down and for us to find the general’s shooter. The real one.” He cast a look at RJ. “No offense.”
“Sorry. I’m just not as inept as York thinks I am.”
“York thinks everyone is inept.” David smirked.
York glared at him.
David stood up. “Listen. Get her back to your flat. Lie low. We’ll get you fresh passports and tickets.”
York noticed the plural and glanced at RJ, back to David. I just don’t want you to depend on me, okay? Start thinking I’m going to come to your rescue. I’m not that guy.
“York doesn’t have to go with me,” RJ said. “I’ll be fine by myself.”
And his mouth opened without his permission. “Two tickets will work. I’ll fly back to Moscow when we get to Vladivostok.”
But it felt right.
After all, she’d done everything he’d told her to do.
David nodded, glanced at RJ. “If it matters, I think you did a very brave thing.” He reached out for York’s hand. “Come back anytime. We miss you.” Then he let himself out the gated door.
RJ sat there, saying nothing.
“Sorry,” York said, suddenly wanting to do something crazy, like maybe put his arms around her.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said, getting on her feet. “I’m sorry I’m causing you so much trouble. Let’s just get back to your place so I can take a shower and get out of these clothes.”
He followed her out, and she ducked her head as they headed down the dusky street. She didn’t take his hand as they descended to the metro or as they stood on the platform, and as she got into the car, she walked over to a molded seat and sat down. Kept her face away from the passengers.
He didn’t want to get rid of her that badly.
In fact—“I know where you can get a pizza in this town, if you’re interested.”
She glanced up at him, and the faintest smile appeared. “Sweeter words were never spoken.”
So maybe having her around for a few more days wouldn’t kill him.
As long as he could keep her alive.
He brought her to a place off Kropotkinskaya, a modern café with pizza on foil, and they shared it over a couple dark beers. “There’s a place in Geraldine, near my family’s ranch, called Ravioli’s, and they serve a crazy good pizza.”
“Your family has a ranch?”
“In Montana. About nine thousand acres. My brother breeds bucking bulls for the rodeo too.”
“Just the two of you?”
“No—I have five brothers. I’m the youngest. And I have a twin. He’s a Navy SEAL.”
A SEAL, huh? “I’m an only.”
She took a drink, then ran her thumb over the lip of her bottle. “I felt like an only, being the only girl. My brothers would try and ditch me, but my father made them take me along. I learned how to ride and rope and shoot and I’m not as helpless as you think.”
“I don’t think you’re helpless. But you…you’re a little green to be an agent.”
“Analyst.”
“Analyst,” he said. “Just like Sydney Bristow.” He winked.
She laughed, and it was sweet and light and slipped under his skin. “I used to watch that show. I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life—my mother was so happy on the ranch, and I thought maybe I’d find a cowboy, live happily ever after. But…I don’t know. I was a reader, and I loved spy stories, and when I went to college, I already knew Russian because of Coco, so I minored in it, majored in international relations. The CIA called before I even graduated.”
She folded her pizza like a sandwich as she ate it. “I only told my family a couple months ago. They completely freaked out.”
“I can’t imagine what they might be doing right now. Probably forming a posse to rescue you.”
She put her pizza down. “Naw. They don’t know, I’m sure.”
“I mentioned the international news part. Your Navy SEAL brother isn’t going to show up in Russia, is he?”
“No. Listen. The last thing my brother Ford is going to do is rescue me. Believe me—we’ve been there, done that, and it didn’t turn out well.” She paused. “We haven’t really spoken in years. I mean, we’re friendly, and he calls when he’s back on US soil, but…” She lifted a shoulder. “Actually, Ford doesn’t know what I do. I knew that conversation wouldn’t go well and I didn’t know how to tell him. He’s always been a little over-protective. They all are, really.”
York really wanted to follow her down that rabbit trail, but she shook her head, kept talking.
“My mother barely turns on the television, and Knox and Reuben are busy in Montana. I never know where Tate is half the time, and Ford is off saving the world. Wyatt has his hockey life and hasn’t really lived at home since he was thirteen. I doubt any of them have an inclination of what’s happening.”
He finished off his pizza. “Then let’s get you back home before they find out.”
She was smiling again, and that, for some reason, was what mattered right now.
They boxed up the rest of the pizza. The air was balmy, fragranced with the night smells, the sky littered with sparkle as they walked back to the flat. They climbed the three flights in the dark, and he opened the outer metal door, then the inner door, and held it open for her.
Flicked on the light.
The man moved so fast York nearly didn’t see him until it was too late. He acted more out of reflex and from RJ’s scream. From out of the corner of his eye he saw her slam her palm into her assailant’s face, but he was too busy deflecting the fist swinging his direction. He dodged it, returned in kind, and met bone on bone, his fist against a man’s jaw.
RJ was shouting, grunting, clearly fighting someone, and York pushed his assailant into the kitchen, against the table, sending his fist into the bigger man’s gut.
Bigger, beefier, and yeah, now he was making out the all black uniform.
FSB.
Shoot—he grabbed the man around the back of the neck and brought his head down, his knee up, but not before the man got a fist into his ribs.
Something jabbed into his back— “No!” He braced himself as darts fired into his back and the electricity hit him with 50,000 volts.
His entire body seized, paralyzed by the fire that buzzed through him, contracting his muscles in one giant fist. He let out a shout, and somewhere in the long tunnel, away from where his brain was running, he heard RJ screaming.
The buzzing stopped abruptly, and he fell, his body still shaking. Pain shot through the top of his head.
“What did you do?” RJ was at his side, her hands on his chest. “York!”
His vision grayed, fogged, splotches of black against the light, and his chest turned to a vise, his breathing cutting out.
Then FSB was hauling her up and slamming her against the counter, turning her to cuff her.
“York!”
But he couldn’t breathe. And everything went dark.
Ford needed to send Scarlett home.
He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been thinking—had probably been acting on adrenaline or panic or just pure desperation when he showed up on her doorstep with the bright and not-thought-through idea of having her be his backup.
Backup that put her face-to-face with an assassin, apparently.
Her little escapade in the café had Ford in a knot, one that, hours later, he still hadn’t unsnarled.
By the looks of it, she was simply delighted with herself.
Perfect.
It was one thing to stand beside his brothers in a firefight, completely another to sit helplessly ten feet away as a woman he cared about played charades with a killer.
An
assassin. Because Ford knew exactly what services “Roy” provided for the government. He’d heard about guys like him—former operators who, for some reason or another, left the teams but still wanted to use their government-honed skills.
Roy definitely had spec ops written all over him, from the way he watched Scarlett as she returned to her table to the way he moved his chair next to hers to watch the room.
He’d seen Ford too. Their gazes connected, and something about his grim expression raised a familiar alert inside him.
I don’t know why Randall keeps sending the rookies. She’s going to get you all killed.
Those words sat like a burr under his skin.
He knew it wasn’t fair, but truth was he’d trained with his SEAL mates, knew their strengths, their weaknesses, knew that they could handle themselves. He watched their backs; they watched his.
Watching Scarlett’s back evoked a terror he hadn’t quite counted on.
Yeah, he needed to send her home before they got in over their heads.
Problem was, other than the few minutes of sheer panic watching her engage with a killer, he liked having her around. Like today, after they’d landed, they’d walked the city, and he’d been briefly wooed by the old-world essence of Prague. He’d spent so much time in the dry, recently bombed Middle East that being in a city lush with green trees, quaint cobbled streets, a flowing river, and charm felt like he’d stepped into the pages of a storybook.
Living in Never-Never land, and walking with him, Tinker Bell. Petite but strong, fierce, brave. And most importantly, clueless of the danger that awaited when they turned the next page.
Now she’s on the run, and she’s not going to make it out of Russia alive.
“Stop.”
Ford looked up from where he sat at a café table near the window overlooking the Vltava River, now black and dazzling with the sprinkle of the overhead stars. Scarlett sat across from him, having finished her own cup of late-night cappuccino, firelight from the votive candles playing in her eyes.
“You’re one giant knot, Ford. Breathe.” She ran her finger between her brows, then pointed to him. “You’re all scrunched up.”
“Ham is hours late,” Ford said. “What if he’s not going to show?”
“He’ll be here.”
“And every hour he’s late is an hour my sister is probably getting tortured—”
“Okay. Let’s go.” She got up and held out her hand.
He’d already paid the bill, and the hurry up and wait and wait and wait was gnawing a hole through him, so, okay.
He accepted her hand and followed her out of the café, onto the street. Tourist traffic had thinned this late at night, although the city was still abuzz with activity, lights from lamps dappling the river, pooling magic onto the meandering cobblestone walkways. In any other situation, it might be romantic.
Okay, even in this situation it felt romantic, the way Scarlett’s hand fit, however briefly, so perfectly in his. She let go, though, and shoved her hands into her pockets.
Yeah, that was probably for the best.
“Ford, I need to tell you something,” she said, glancing at him. “I’m…I’m leaving the Navy.”
He stopped. Stared at her. “What?”
She stepped up on a curb, rising to nearly his eye level. Sighed. “My mother and Axel were in a fatal car accident. That’s why…well, that’s where I was. Burying my mother.”
What? “Oh, Red. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you call me? I would have—”
“Gone with me? Taken leave? No. You know my mother and I weren’t close, so it’s sad, but I knew that someday I’d get a call that she’d overdosed or caused a head-on collision. I’m just grateful they didn’t hurt anyone else. Crashed into a tree. No one found them until morning. They’d left Gunnar home, alone. Poor kid.”
“That’s terrible. Still, I could have gone with you.”
“I appreciate your friendship, Ford, but I learned long ago that I have to solve my problems on my own.”
He supposed that came from having an addict for a mother, one who was living on the road or shacking up with one boyfriend after the next.
But how he hated the thought of her standing alone at her mother’s— “Where is Gunnar in all this?”
“Oh, it’s terrible. Foster care. His coach and his teacher showed up with a social worker and practically dragged him away…”
“Oh geez.” He couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms. Just a friendly hug, but she seemed to hold on to him, to sigh, as if it had been the right thing to do. He let her go before he got into trouble.
“That’s why you’re leaving the Navy.”
“Yeah. He needs a home. I was abandoned enough as a kid to know I can’t leave him in foster care.”
That stunk. She’d worked so hard to pass her PRT, to be accepted into the Rescue Swimmer program. “Are you sure you want to leave the military? It’s a good gig, even for families…”
“But not if I’m his only caregiver. Who would he stay with when I was deployed?”
His brain offered nothing.
“This is pitiful, but that’s why I agreed to come with you. Because I knew that this would probably be the last time…” She sighed. “I’m not going to be the voice in your ear anymore, so, I guess this is our last soiree.”
And he was a jerk because all he could think of at the moment was…
No more complications.
If she wasn’t in the military, then…
No, no… He blew out a breath, looked away.
Don’t say anything. Don’t turn to her and pull her to yourself and kiss her.
Don’t—
“I’m sorry. I let you down, didn’t I?” she said, completely reading him wrong. “After all you did to help me pass, and…I’m sorry, Ford.”
He looked at her. “Seriously? The last person you should be thinking about is me.”
She recoiled, hurt in her eyes, and he realized he’d come in hot. He backed his voice down. “Listen, are you sure you have to separate? Can’t you…I don’t know. Certainly you’re not the only single, um, parent, in the military…”
His brain was telling him to shut up because inside, his Neanderthal self was saying, Hoo-yah, now you can be mine.
Apparently, he hadn’t progressed as far down the socially progressive highway as he’d thought.
But he couldn’t be her friend and just let her dreams spill through her hands.
She turned and started walking along the curb. He kept up with her.
“I don’t know what else to do. Gunnar needs… Listen, I told you about the time my mother left me at the diner, right?”
The story still made him want to go back in time and chase after her stupid mother, give her a good shake. Seven years old, left for three days… He managed to keep his voice cool. “Mmmhmm…”
“I stayed with this waitress named Peggy.”
“She gave you a chocolate shake.”
She nudged him with her shoulder. “Good memory.”
Oh, he had a lot of memories from their drive to Idaho. Especially the one where she told him about Gary, one of her mother’s many boyfriends and the man who had abused her.
So yeah, he understood her desire to protect Gunnar.
“I stayed with Peggy for three days. When my mom came back, with Terry, her boyfriend at the time, she and Peggy had a terrible fight, right there in the yard. Peggy threatened to call family services, then the cops—I think she wanted to keep me.”
Scarlett gave him a wan smile. “And in that moment, I wished for her to keep me. But as soon as I wished it, I felt like I’d betrayed my mother. So I told Peggy that I hated her. Then I ran away from her and got into the car. Only after we drove away did I realize I’d left my belongings behind, including a stuffed dog my biological father had given me. It was all I had of him. Not that it mattered—if he really loved me he would have stuck around, but it was something, you know? From him. A reminder tha
t I was somebody’s daughter. And just like that, it was gone. That sense of belonging to someone, or something. And having something that belonged to me. I’ve learned not to look too far ahead, and I’m okay with that. But I want Gunnar to have someone.”
“You have someone, Red.”
Ford didn’t know why he said that, except, well it was true.
Oh, how he wanted it to be true. And when she glanced at him, a little unmasked hunger in her expression, he wanted to stop, turn to her, and show her that.
Except, in a flash, the hunger was replaced with a distant smile. “I know you want to believe that, Ford. But a SEAL’s life isn’t exactly made for, well…anything beyond right now.”
“That’s not true. The smart guys have someone to come home to…”
She looked away. “I can’t be that girl. Waiting at the window for a man.”
And shoot, but he got that too. It felt too much like her mother.
“Right,” he said and balled his fists in his pockets.
They meandered through darkened cobblestone streets, the shops closed. Ford had gotten them rooms in the hotel Ham had suggested, smack in the middle of Old Town Square, not realizing it overlooked a Gothic cathedral, with black spires and the sense of doom looking down at him. As if God was reminding him to keep his head in the game.
“You can’t give me promises, Ford, and frankly, I wouldn’t expect you to. Life is…unpredictable. You can’t count on anything but right now.” She tossed him a sad smile. “And you’re not a right now guy, are you?”
Oh. Their conversation in Montana. When she’d kissed him, offered him herself.
“I’m not a one-night-stand guy, Red,” he said again, now.
“And I’m not a one-night-stand girl.” She glanced up at him. “Usually.”
“I know,” he said quietly. And he did. Red was too careful, too smart. What she’d offered him had meant something to her.
And because she meant something to him, he wanted to wait.
His voice softened, and he took her hand. “What if you were the girl I came home to every night?”
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