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“Isn’t there everywhere?” Frank Jr. asked as he glanced over his shoulder at them.
“Then it’s good I’m living here now. With Lindsey.” Holt’s voice rang out.
He didn’t yell, but he might as well have. It felt as if even the breeze stopped blowing. He sure had her attention.
The deputy turned the full way around and faced them. Kept his focus on Holt as an atta-boy grin crept across his lips. “Is that right?”
She had the opposite reaction. Shock rolled over her. Pretending to be her boyfriend was one thing, and she hadn’t even agreed to that yet. Being her live-in sounded much bigger. To the people in town and everyone at the camp, it would be bigger. But she guessed that was the point.
She hadn’t worked it all out in her head when Holt’s fingers tightened against her back. Ready or not, it seemed he wanted her support. She coughed it up. “Uh, yeah.”
The deputy just stared. Stood on the bottom step and looked them both up and down, never bothering to close his mouth or hide his delight at being the first to dig up this small-town gossip. “Then you have even less reason for worry.”
“That’s how I look at it.” Holt nodded in what came off as a dismissal.
The deputy must have gotten the hint, because he walked the rest of the way down the steps and to his car. Didn’t say anything about the attack in the house or give her any warning or advice. It was as if Holt had spoken and that resolved everything.
While she liked not having to answer questions, the way the whole scene rolled out had her feeling twitchy. Someone broke into her house and went after her, and only Holt mattered to the deputy.
She knew who—New Foundations—and why, but she doubted the deputy did. She’d done everything to keep her past and true identity hidden. Revealing it now out of frustration was not the right answer, so she let the whole thing drop.
Well, not all of it. There was still the small bit of gloating she planned to do. “That was a waste of time. I’ll refrain from saying ‘told you so’ a few hundred times.”
Holt took one step down. The move put them close to eye-to-eye. “Again, the point of that exercise was to send a message. We accomplished that.”
“You want people to think we’re not looking at New Foundations as the culprit.” She got it. The more she thought about the long term, the more she appreciated Holt stepping in with a rational head.
She wasn’t the type to run on emotions, but facing down men with a gun threw off her emotional balance. She still fought to regain a sense of normalcy...or what passed for normalcy for her.
“That and to establish me as the guy they have to get through before they can touch you,” Holt said.
That part didn’t quite fit together in her head. “Speaking of which—”
Holt leaned against the beam holding up this side of the porch. “When they think I live here it becomes less likely they come back.”
“You think they’ll just leave me alone?”
“No.”
Not exactly the answer she’d expected. The guy could use a lesson or two in tact. “That’s not very comforting.”
“I was going for honest.”
And she had to appreciate that. She’d spent a lot of her life trying to ferret out emotions and counteract the games people played. Holt appeared to be a straight shooter. She knew on one level she should love that, but when it came to being dragged out of her own house, she needed a little reassurance.
She also needed to set some ground rules.
“Then, honestly, you should know you’re not living here.” The last thing she needed was a walking, talking fantasy sleeping on her couch. Dreaming about him already messed with her sleep. Having him nearby, hearing him, smelling him, being able to look at him all the time, might just break her control.
Instead of commenting on her point, Holt crossed his arms over that impressive chest. “You danced around it before. Now tell me exactly why they want you. While you’re at it, you can finally tell me what you meant an hour ago with that talk about your identity. Maybe start with how many you have.”
Yeah, she could play this game, too. He stood on her turf. That should count for something. As far as she was concerned, he should go first. “Only if you tell me exactly what you’re really doing here and why. You can also throw in who sent you. Maybe give me a list of what you’ve found out so far.”
Standing there in the quiet he didn’t say touché, but she sensed it.
“Impressive.” He smiled. “I think we’re at an impasse.”
The twinkle in his dark eyes and that dimple in his cheek...oh, so tempting. She had to marshal all her resources to push back and fight off the energy zipping around inside her. “That still doesn’t get you a bed for the night.”
“I’ll take the couch.”
This guy had a ready response for everything. “Hank...Holt...” She actually didn’t know which was right, let alone who he really was and if he could be trusted. Her instincts told her yes, but even letting him plant the seed about being in a relationship with her amounted to a big risk. “Okay, I give up. What do I call you?”
“In public, Hank. If it makes it easier and helps you remember not to slip up, always call me that.”
She preferred Holt. The name fit him. It felt big and secure and special. Not that she could let him know any of that. “I don’t know you.”
He winked at her. “Right back at ya.”
Maybe it was the voice, all rough and husky. Maybe it was the fact he could have hurt her a dozen times, dragged her right up to the compound or let the two goons who broke into her house do it. For whatever reason, a sense of calm washed over her when he came around.
She wished she knew why. “Why should I trust you?”
“You don’t have a choice.”
Wrong. That was the one thing—possibly the only helpful thing—she’d learned from her father. “People always have a choice.”
Holt shrugged. “Fine. Leave town until it’s safe.”
He gave her the out and she should have grabbed it. The words sat right there on her tongue. She could leave, take a few days away and get her bearings. But the idea of leaving him, of running, made her stomach fall. “When will that be?”
“I don’t know.”
The guy did do honesty well. It didn’t always serve his case, yet he stuck with it. She liked that about him. That and those shoulders...and the face...and the hair that looked so soft. “I have work to do.”
“Which is what exactly?”
She couldn’t exactly say: rescuing people from the camp. That would open a whole new line of questioning, and she was not ready to go there with him. Or with anyone. “We’re spinning in circles.”
His arms dropped to his sides and he moved in closer. “Look, I get that you’re afraid and wary and don’t know me. Up until a few hours ago I only knew you as the woman in town who looked so hot in dark jeans.”
Wait... “What?”
He just kept talking. “Now I know you’re messed up in New Foundations, which is a crappy thing to be. Some of the people up there are dangerous, possibly delusional.”
They were all those things and more. She knew because she’d lived there, fought them. Escaped and hadn’t stopped emotionally running since. “I need to stop them.”
“You need to stay away and let me take care of them.” His eyebrow lifted. “You just have to trust me.”
She wanted to believe. She’d been in this battle so long exhaustion had crept into her bones. The idea of turning over the reins and walking away sounded like sweet relief. But she knew things that he didn’t, and not seeing this through would slowly pick away at her.
No, she needed to bring down New Foundations on her own. Every cabin. Every workshop. Send every person home.
If only Holt didn’t look so sincere. His laser-like gaze never slipped. He watched her until she started to squirm in her skin. She knew what he wanted and she couldn’t give it to him. “You’re asking a lot.”
“I know.”
His ready acceptance chipped away at her defenses, just as so much of him did. “You seem to take for granted I’ll look at that face and those shoulders and fall in line.”
He cleared his throat. “You like my shoulders?”
He stood very close now. Right there until only a few feet separated their bodies. His ego just might kill her.
Time to bring him back down to earth. “You’re missing the point.”
“I am here to assess what’s happening at the compound, determine the danger level and, if necessary, get people out before things blow up. Literally.”
That sounded so promising. She’d been stymied by her limited resources and inability to safely infiltrate the fence surrounding the place. To divulge everything to him might help her case against the camp, but it would put her identity at risk. The constant balancing act got old.
Still, if he really could help, really was willing to step in, she couldn’t ignore that offer. “But you’re not FBI.”
He shook his head. “Not FBI or ATF.”
“I want to believe you’re one of the good guys.” But that left a lot of other possibilities, both legitimate and not.
He held up three fingers. “Give me three days to prove it to you.”
That icy reserve melted inside her. She felt that resistance give way and her need to say yes overwhelm her. With him she might make progress. He wasn’t promising the impossible. He was offering protection, and right now it looked as if she needed it. Maybe together they could work through what the people at the camp knew and what they wanted.
At least that was her assessment. She still needed to know his. “And during those three days?”
His gaze bounced up and down her body, heating a trail as it went. “You get a pretend boyfriend with good shoulders.”
He’d hit upon the one thing she could no longer resist. “Deal.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_d6cdd5f5-2a42-522b-83df-2c3a2ba6ccee)
For the first time since throwing in with the Corcoran Team, Holt seriously considered not showing up at the prearranged time for a meeting the next morning. This one took place two towns over. He’d lost his tail easily and doubled back, circled around. Now he stood in the storage room of a hardware store with his men, waiting for them to snap out of their joint stupor.
He’d known the crap storm he’d wade into the second he opened his mouth and filled them in on what had happened last night, including the part where he camped out on Lindsey’s couch. He stuck to the facts and rapid-fired his way through them in his oral report.
Fallout time.
“You did what?” Shane Baker, Holt’s best friend and the man he trusted most in the world, looked as if he couldn’t fight off his smile.
The openmouthed staring had given way to smirks, which meant Holt needed a new topic of conversation. “Let’s move on.”
“When do we get to give you a hard time for picking a woman over the job?”
Holt reassessed his decision to lay out all the facts. He should have skipped right over the Lindsey piece, but Shane was about to walk into town playing the role of an old military buddy. For the fake romantic relationship with Lindsey to work, Shane needed to play along. That meant coming clean...unfortunately.
“Never,” Holt said, wondering how to regain control of the conversation. Taking on two of them made it tough.
The snorting sound came the second before Shane’s response. “Wrong answer.”
Cameron Roth, the team’s flying expert, shook his head. “Sorry, man. It’s happening.”
Holt thought he’d at least have an ally in Cam. The guy had run into a similar situation with a woman and a mess followed by a rescue three months before. “Should we talk about you and Julia and how you had us all racing through an abandoned shipyard to save you?”
“Huh.” Cam made a face. “That’s not how I remember it.”
Shane held up a hand. “Wait, are you comparing your situation with Lindsey to Cam’s sad lovesick whining over Julia?”
Cam shook his head again. “I don’t remember that either.”
“Oh, please.” Shane took a seat on a stack of boxes balanced against a wall. “You fell in love and got stupid.”
Holt felt a punch of relief when Shane and Cam went after each other and jumped over him. Comparing his relationship with Lindsey to the one shared by Cam and Julia, a couple on the verge of getting engaged, did not amount to a good strategy. But he’d dodged that disaster.
Now he needed his men back on track, and fast. “We’re on limited time here.”
Fully engaged now, Shane crossed one ankle over the other and leaned in. “Then let’s get back to your cover.”
Not exactly where Holt wanted to take the next round of conversation. “What about it? It’s intact.”
“Do we know that or are you going to get called in to see the boss at the camp and get shot?” Cam asked.
“The thing with Lindsey makes me more interesting to management.” Being followed ever since he left Lindsey’s house clued Holt in. He’d gone from being one of the many faceless men roaming around the campground handling odd jobs to a person they watched.
Not that the person following him could be called an expert. No, the guy closed in too fast and showed too much interest. He also managed to pick a vehicle Holt recognized as regularly being parked in Simon Falls’s private garage. Not a New Foundations company vehicle but one Holt had already staked out during his late-night recon on the property.
Shane frowned. “Which is the problem, since the point was to blend.”
“This is better.” Every minute Holt became more convinced and he’d get Connor on board in the next hour or so.
Lindsey’s intel placed a target—whatever it was, and he’d get that out of her soon enough—on her forehead. That put Holt in the middle, and if he was going to sit there he might as well use the position.
The system worked like a circle. He wanted the information Lindsey possessed, and now someone at New Foundations would want to know what he knew. Either that or eliminate him, and Holt had no intention of letting that option happen.
Shane’s frown deepened with each question. “How can the impromptu plan you’re using now be better than the one we worked out for a week, taking all contingencies into account?”
All contingencies except Lindsey. Nothing prepared Holt for her, but he didn’t volunteer that piece of information.
“Because under his new plan he gets to sleep at Lindsey’s house.” Cam twisted the top off the water bottle in his hand. “She is the prize here.”
“It’s not like that.” And Holt would work very hard to keep it that way. He was not a dating guy and he never fooled around on a job.
Cam saluted him with the water bottle. “Yet.”
