by Vicki Tharp
She turned in the doorway, and Gil almost bumped into her. To Bradley, she said, “I would like to be the one to pick Jack up from camp today.”
“Sloan will be the one picking him up on camp days.” Bradley had settled behind his desk, his phone already in his hand. “You’re no longer on the approved pick up list.”
Of course, she wasn’t. But before she could argue, Bradley said, “But he’s not at camp today anyway.”
“Why not?”
“He’s sick.”
“He was perfectly healthy when I dropped him off last night.”
“Go get settled.” Bradley looked away and started dialing, then held the receiver to his ear. “It’s nothing. Really. I’ll tell you all about it over lunch.”
The Blue room was… blue. Slate blue curtains, matching the bedspread on the four-poster mahogany bed, and the fabric on the armless chair in the corner. Even the towels, and the dish of soap Gil saw in the attached bathroom matched.
Everything sparkled. The scent of lemon furniture polish hung in the air. Nothing out of place or askew, all of it staged like a movie set as if none of it was real.
Gil laid Tessa’s suitcase on the padded bench at the foot of the bed and turned toward her. “Close the door.”
Tessa took a step back, the latch clicking as she leaned against the door. In three long strides, he was in front of her, one hand braced on the door beside her head, the other caressed her cheek. He rubbed his thumb over the light bruise that had popped up on her jaw.
If this weren’t an assignment, if there weren’t so many lives depending on them to stop a weapons shipment, there would have been little that could have kept him from breaking Bradley over his knee like a broomstick.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded, tucking a finger through his belt loop and tugging him closer. He ducked his head and pressed his lips to hers. That one touch, that one taste. He knew he would never get enough of this woman. His chest felt heavy, and his heart felt light.
“Jesus,” he said. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
He kissed her again. Instead of her usual ponytail, she had her hair down around her shoulders. He fisted the luxurious strands in his hand, as her arms went around his neck, deepening the kiss. She ground against his erection, and he had to bring his hands to her hips and stop her before he took her against the door in a house that wasn’t his, during an operation they couldn’t blow.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead on hers as they caught their breath.
“I missed you,” Tessa said.
He leaned away enough to see her face. She didn’t look thrilled with her admission, but there was a look in her eyes that told him he was more than a fling or a mercy fuck on the back deck of a helo after an op gone wrong.
This could get very complicated.
He didn’t need any more complications in his life.
But he’d be damned if he wanted to make it any simpler. “I missed you, too.”
“How’s Jack?”
He took her hands and led her to the bed where they could sit. How the hell do you tell the woman you love that her kid almost died?
Love?
No.
But even as he denied it, he knew it was true. The one thing being deployed and then undercover all that time had taught him, it was life was way too short. That if you found something good, something remarkable, something that stopped your heart and at the same time started it again, you held on tight and never let go.
She would want to know all of it, not want to be coddled. Gil loved that about her. She was so tenacious, so resilient, so… “First, I’m going to tell you that he’s okay. All right?”
She nodded. If she was breathing, Gil couldn’t tell.
He squeezed her hand and told her the truth. Detail, by brutal detail. He left nothing out. From the panic that had shot through him when he found Jack at the bottom of the pool, to the deep dive that seemed to take hours, to the terror of seeing Jack suck in the water. He told her about the faint pulse on the pool deck, the mouth to mouth, the paramedics, the oxygen, to the first smile and the moment Gil’s heart started beating in his chest again.
“Oh, God.” Her breath hitched, and she took in several heaving lungsful of air as the tears gathered in her eyes. His went misty, and he blinked them away.
“But he’s okay? You’ve seen him?”
“I saw him this morning. He seemed good. Had a bit of a cough, but otherwise okay. Missing you, I think.”
“I don’t even know how to thank you. If… if—”
“No ifs,” he said, and he certainly didn’t need her thanks or gratitude. This wasn’t the type of thing where the accolades made you feel any better. This was the type of thing where the positive outcome was the reward.
He kissed the moisture from her cheek. “Better get cleaned up and down to lunch before Martin sends Sloan up to find you.”
She traced a finger down his beard-free face. “You look different.”
“Good different or bad different?”
“Just different.”
Her thoughts turned inward. She was still touching his face, but she was no longer seeing him. He knew what he’d told her was a lot to take in. He caught her hand and pressed a kiss on her palm. “What is it?”
“How do you do it?” Her eyes searched his, though he knew she wouldn’t find the answers there because the hell of it was, he didn’t know. “How do you pretend and lie and live this double life? How am I supposed to go down there and look at the father of my child and pretend Jack didn’t almost die? How do I not take your gun and end all this with one bullet?”
“It’s not easy, but we do it because we have to. Innocent lives are at stake, and as much as we’d like to, we can’t take the law into our own hands. We pretend. We bury the hurt and the anger and the sometimes-overwhelming desire to pull the trigger, so we can do our jobs and do what’s right. They’re the monsters. Not us.”
“Mom!” Jack jumped up from his seat at the long table in the dining room and ran to her, his grip around her waist fierce. He coughed, sounding like that time he’d had the croup.
She peeled him off her and felt his forehead. He wasn’t hot, and he was alive, and… and… you can do this. You. Can. Do. This.
It took her swallowing twice before the stricture in her throat eased. “That’s some cough, you got there, buddy.” Taking his hand, she walked him back to the table.
“Yeah, I—”
“Come back to your seat, Jack,” Bradley commanded, indicating the chair directly on Bradley’s left with a half-eaten PB and J.
There was another plate on Bradley’s right. With a bowl of soup and a salad and some sort of fancy sandwich with a toothpick holding it together.
As Jack took his seat, Bradley stood and held out the chair for her. She sat and laid the cloth napkin on her lap. She half expected a waitress to ask for her drink order, but Bradley reached for the carafe of water on the table and filled her glass before retaking his seat.
“You were going to tell me why Jack’s not at camp today.”
Bradley forked some fresh spinach leaves and a grape tomato. “Like I said. It was nothing really. Jack decided to go for a swim. A little bit of water got in his lungs. Gave him a bit of a cough is all.”
Jack had that look on his face he always got when he had a lot to say, and everyone was going to hear about it. He opened his mouth, but Bradley put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and gave it squeeze.
“Ouuch.” His mouth went mulish, and he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Bradley.”
“Finish your lunch, son.” To Tessa he said. “About time the boy learned some manners at the table. You’re too soft on him. If he wants to be a man—”
“He’s seven.”
“You can’t coddle him.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. She wouldn’t get anywhere with Bradley if she antagonized him. The sooner she got on his good side, the soon
er they discovered the truth about him, the sooner she and Jack could get far, far away. “But with a cough like that, he should see a doctor.”
“All taken care of.” Bradley tucked the bite of sandwich into his cheek. “I had Sloan call a doctor in. He should be here by two.”
“What if he needs X-rays?”
“Don’t go buying trouble.”
“Answer my question.”
“Then we will get him X-rays. But I’m sure he’s fine. The whole thing is being blown out of proportion.” He turned his attention back to his son. “Finish your meal.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Bradley pulled Jack’s chair away from the table. “Go to your room then. Your mother and I have things to discuss.”
As much as Tessa wanted to protest, what she had to discuss with Bradley shouldn’t be overhead by little ears.
Behind Bradley was an open door leading to the kitchen, and she caught a glimpse of Gil as he walked in and started pulling food from the fridge, but knowing Gil he was there to eavesdrop, not to make a sandwich.
Bradley contemplated her over the top of his water glass. “Despite what you might think, I really would like this to work.”
“This?”
“Us.”
Man, he was a piece of work. Tessa kept the anger out of her voice. It wasn’t easy. “By taking my son?”
“It got your attention.”
“Am I supposed to fall into your bed? Pretend like the last six years never happened?” She knew she had a role to play and sucking up to her ex was part of it, but she wouldn’t be believable if she gave in from the start.
“Not yet, but eventually, yes. But first…” He leaned forward. “Who was he?”
There was no need to pretend she didn’t know who ‘he’ was. In the kitchen, Gil stilled, a knife loaded with mayo halfway between the jar and a slice of bread.
“He was a nobody.” Bradley leaned back and gave her the eye, and she added a huff and a disdainful laugh, “It was sex, Bradley. It scratched an itch. You know? A warm body. A big cock. Nothing more.”
Gil lathered the mayo on his bread and slapped it on top of his meat. He turned, his eyes boring into her as he tore a bite from his sandwich. Even though he had to know she was playing a part, what gave her words the jagged teeth, was that they had been true. At least in the beginning.
“You’ve always had a big mouth on you.”
“You never complained about the size of my mouth before.”
The double entendre wasn’t lost on either man. Bradley uncrossed his legs as if his slacks were suddenly too tight. Gil stopped chewing and tossed the rest of his sandwich in the trash. Tessa almost smiled. Jealousy looked good on him.
While Bradley suffered from a rare loss of words, she asked, “What kind of business brought you to Wyoming?”
“Personal business. As in you. The rest…” With his fork, he rolled a grape tomato around on his plate and shrugged one shoulder feigning nonchalance. “Professionally, the business could be done anywhere.”
“Which is?”
“Financier and expediter of humanitarian efforts.”
Tessa laughed, but Bradley didn’t crack a smile. “You find that funny?”
“You? A humanitarian? Yes. That’s hysterical.”
“Being a financier puts me in contact with people with bottomless pockets. The humanitarian side gives them a way to donate and feel good about themselves as they stuff their Swiss bank accounts.”
Time to do her job and dig for a little intel. “I can’t even begin to guess what and where.”
“Would you believe feminine hygiene products to Syria?”
Her interest perked at the mention of Syria. She snuck a glance at the kitchen, but Gil was no longer there. It sounded like a load of bull, but Bradley wasn’t lying, she would bet her wings on it. “You mean to tell me, the guy who was too embarrassed to buy me pads at the pharmacy is now supplying the third would with tampons?”
Bradley grimaced. So, not as evolved as he pretended to be. “Not everyone has access to what women here take for—”
“Yeah, yeah, cue the tears, the soulful music, and the infomercial sob story. What’s next? Condoms for the Mongolian monasteries?”
Bradley chuckled, and for once the smile reached his eyes. For the briefest of moments, she saw the man she’d fallen in love with. The guy who was always up for a little clean trouble. The guy who’d put her before him, chasing dreams, not dollars.
Where had that man gone?
“I don’t get to choose what goes where. I make it happen. After Syria, it’s school supplies to refugees in Turkey, then water well pumps to Mozambique.”
It didn’t escape her that any of those places would be prime locations for illicit arms shipments as well.
“Great,” she said as she plopped the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth. “How can I help?”
The disbelief on Bradley’s face was genuine.
“What? You really didn’t think I’d sit around here soaking up the sun by the pool and baking cookies all day?”
“I suppose not.”
“Let me help.” When he didn’t look convinced, she added, “If I don’t have a job, I’ll go crazy.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
13
Wednesday morning found Gil unable to decide which circle of hell he was spiraling. Whichever circle it was, it was the one between watching your woman get hit on by her ex and the one where there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
In the two days since Tessa had arrived, there had been a steady parade of luxury cars and briefcases packed with more cash than Gil had made in his lifetime.
In that same time, he’d contacted Spinks twice. Something was happening soon. Through Spinks, the word from Massey was that chatter on the Dark Web indicated an international shipment of weapons was imminent, and from the stuffed briefcases streaming through the door, Gil was convinced more and more they had the right guy.
All that security, all that firepower Burton and his men had, wasn’t to protect a shipment of tampons. But he also didn’t believe all these old codgers knew what their money was buying. Oh, they had to know it was illegal or skirted the line, you didn’t get the kinds of returns Martin promised from investing in savings bonds.
Martin was a financier. A financier funding weapons. Classic buy low, sell high, use someone else’s money to do it, and reap the rewards for himself and his “investors.”
Gil glanced at his watch and rolled his shoulders as one more gray-haired man with a briefcase strode into the office looking frazzled and windswept.
The man tugged on the cuffs of his suit coat as Martin shook the proffered hand. “Cutting it close, Mr…?”
“Smith,” the man said.
Sure, it was. And Gil was Tiny Tim.
“Frank Hanley highly recommended you,” Mr. Smith said. That was the third Mr. Smith that week, but Martin gave him a unique number, and contact details like Martin’s own little version of a Swiss Bank account.
Mr. Smith laid his briefcase on the desk and unlocked the clasps. “Coming up with this amount of cash on such short notice proved more problematic than I’d anticipated, but the projected returns seemed worth the headache.”
“I assure you, you won’t be disappointed,” Martin said.
Unless the task force arrests every last swinging dick. Then the investors will be sorely disappointed.
With practiced ease, Martin counted the banded bundles of hundreds, recording the transaction in his leather-bound journal. Martin swept the money, and the journal into the safe, careful to close the door and spin the dial.
With the transaction finished, Sloan saw Mr. Smith out as Burton walked in. He cut a quick glance to Gil and said to Martin, “The men and I will be leaving within the hour. I want to make sure the area is secure before the shipment arrives.”
“We’ll take Goodman with us.”
“Goodman? Us?”
“I
t’s our biggest shipment to date. I have a lot riding on this. We need all the security we can bring. And yes, us. I’ll be accompanying you.”
Burton raised a brow, but Gil gave the man credit for not voicing the what-the-ever-loving-fuck-are-you-thinking expression that was carved into his face. A face that was as simple to read as a kindergarten primer. “Yes, sir, but…”
Burton glanced at Gil as if he didn’t want to speak in front of him.
Gil kept his face neutral, if not a little bored, while on the inside his interest spiked and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
“Spit it out, Burton. We haven’t got all day.”
“I think Goodman should stay here. He’s new, he’s—”
“I think his reputation speaks for itself, and he proved his loyalty the other night.”
“Just because—”
“Need I remind you we are a man short? If things go like they did ten days ago, we’ll need a man with his skill and training.”
Gil’s attention meter pinged to red. That was the first time he’d heard any reference to something going wrong. Martin could be referring to anything, but Gil had a feeling it had to do with the task force’s gun bust. It almost had to be.
He watched and listened. It would do him no good to argue in his favor. He didn’t want to look too eager, even though this could be a big break for the case, and for the task force.
If Martin went with them, could Tessa find a way to get in the safe, get her hands-on Martin’s journal, and feed that information to Spinks?
“No, sir.” Burton did a decent job keeping the aggravation out of his voice. At least enough that it didn’t register with Martin who was already tidying his desk. “You finished with Goodman then, sir?”
Martin glanced up from shutting down his computer. “For now.”
“You’re with me, Goodman,” Burton said as he turned on his heel.
Gil caught up with him in the hallway. They were alone, but Gil didn’t call Burton on his concerns about him. There was nothing Gil could say to ease Burton’s distrust. Gil’s actions would have to speak for him.