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Cole.
She glanced at the wire-covered clock, eyes bleary with sweat. Eleven o’clock. He’d be waiting. He’d had a meeting this evening—something to do with his security consulting job. It was a position he’d once called laughably easy, by which she knew he’d soon be bored. But he’d taken it so they could stay together—so for once they could both be at work in the same country. In the same city. Even in the same temporary housing. Talking about children and family life and not particularly getting anywhere with either.
Selena cursed and thudded her fist into the workout bag—this time without any force behind it, and she used the motion to push herself away and head for the locker room. She pulled on the sweat suit she had stored there, transferring her badge, her knife, and her ID to the kangaroo pockets of the hoodie. She slammed the locker closed on the remainder of her things, twisting the token lock in place. The students might ply their newly learned skills on the neat row of locks, but they knew better than to actually take anything. Another time, she might have left a booby trap for them. Something involving a paint ball.
But not this time. This time she hesitated at the barn’s big sliding door, squinting into precipitation now too hard to call mist. Moderate rain. Not enough to deter her.
She felt someone’s eyes on her and turned to discover a figure by the corner of the barn. He stood in the shelter from the rain, just close enough to identify as the male trainee from earlier in the evening—the one who’d been lucky, and come away intact. He stood hunched, his hands in his pockets, his posture straightening as he realized she’d seen him. But he hesitated, his mouth just barely open—on apology rather than accusation, Selena thought, but she was in a mood to hear neither.
She turned away and ran into the dark rain.
Cole Jones dropped for a few push-ups, just enough to get his blood moving. Then he returned to the paperwork spread over the kitchen counter and pondered whether this particular client needed the super-duper countersurveillance electronics, or the super-duper-whooper version.
He thought the super-duper would do. But these people had money and they seemed to like to spend it. He shook his head at the papers and contemplated letting a game of darts make the choice. The countersurveillance protection, he could provide. The security, he could provide. Dealing with the people? Another mind-set altogether. He found himself constantly fighting the urge to sell them some Florida swampland just to see if he could. Not that they were stupid people. By no means.
Just not possessed of much imagination.
Cole’s own imagination was getting lonely. Time for a Selena Sanity Fix.
He perked up at the sound of the key in the town-house door. A two-story town house, every bit as big as their own apartment in D.C.—bigger, even. But it had a closed-in feel; more rooms, but smaller ones. Not as airy. Didn’t feel like home at all.
On the other hand, it felt like they were getting away with something just being here together. Cole left his papers and headed for the door, hesitating at the kitchen entry just in time to find Selena standing in the entry hall. Dripping, bedraggled, cheeks flushed and breath still coming fast. He didn’t even have to ask. She’d tried to out-batter and outrun her demons again.
She hadn’t yet acknowledged that it didn’t really work. Like a drug, the effect wore off. Like a drug, it seemed to take more and more out of her each time.
He didn’t have to ask what had triggered her this time. He’d known since receiving her phone call from town that she’d have a hard night. He held out a hand. Wordlessly, she removed wet shoes, then stripped off her soaked sweats and gave them over to him. Given his own personal clothes management, he would have tossed them on the floor of the small laundry closet—but for Selena, he hung them in the bathroom. Passing the thermostat on the way back, he turned it up a degree or two.
He found her at the darkened living room’s picture window, staring out rain-smeared glass into the darkness. Still in her workout shorts and sports bra top, all long, lean muscle and more angles than most women. Unless, from this view, you looked at her ass.
Cole always looked at her ass.
He adjusted his jeans to allow for the predictable response, and went to join her. He knew enough to make noise as he entered the room, and to wait for the slight shift of her head that meant she’d heard him, lost in thought as she was. Cole had enough of his own nightmares to respect hers…and he’d seen her in action. He respected that, too.
He came up behind her, snaking an arm around her long waist to flatten his hand against her stomach. Hard abdominals met his touch, as tense as the rest of her. He kissed her bare shoulder next to the black strap and rested his chin there, as glad for her height as ever.
It made for a good fit.
She didn’t resist as he snugged her back against his chest. He said, “You’re not one of the bad guys. It wouldn’t upset you like this if you were.” And he didn’t know why she snorted softly in true amusement, but it didn’t really matter because she relaxed slightly under his hand, fitting in more securely against his chest and making him regret the old collared polo he had on. He kissed the side of her neck, lingering there.
She said, “If only I hadn’t—”
He snorted back, right against the soft skin of her neck, and then nipped that skin lightly in apology. But his voice held no sign of doubt. “And what if some guy on the street had grabbed you like that? Do you think he’d be in it for fun and games? You reacted just right, darlin’.”
“Then I should have stopped sooner. I should have known the guy was with the two I’d already exposed.”
He shrugged; he knew she’d feel it. “Lena, they train us. They send us out into the field, and they make us who we are. They want us because of who we are. Dobry is the one who put his trainees at risk. Dobry is the one who’s ripe for a lawsuit—from you as much as from that poor dumb kid.” Not so much younger than either of them, that trainee hadn’t been. Not physically. Emotionally…psychologically…just an infant.
Selena released a pent-up huff of air, amusement at the thought of bringing suit against Dobry. “Well, I am a lawyer.”
“See?” he said, speaking the words into the satin skin below her earlobe. “He’d never know what hit him. You always have that effect on me, too.” He slid his hand lower, over skintight spandex, and tugged her bottom back into his growing erection. He managed to lose half of her next words, his eyes closing, his breath catching.
“—miss it?”
“Um,” he said. “What?”
Not that she was immune to his touch; she tilted her head slightly so he could nuzzle aside her wet hair, tasting salt and rain. “Being in the field.”
Ah. Guilt of another sort, also on her shoulders. He’d been a contract operative for the CIA before the incident at the Berzhaan capital—before he’d been caught on film and tape and digital media, tangled up in crutches and an air cast and heading to meet his equally battered wife at the steps of the capitol.
He had one of those pictures, an eight-by-ten glossy, tucked away. It captured everything about their marriage worth saving—the intensity of their feelings, fierce and devoted and out there on their faces for the world to see. It captured Selena’s grit, her triumphant emergence from the smoking, battered building—bruised and bloodied, beaten and shot and nonetheless coming down those steps on her own two feet.
Of course, it also captured his scruffy blond hair and charming all-American features, devoid of the disguise he’d worn on his way into the situation. He had, at that moment, become a liability to the very agency that found his operational flexibility to be such an asset. No more laid-back, come-what-may exfiltrations, no more flying by the seat of his spy pants.
They hadn’t even picked up the bill for his broken leg. He’d come after Selena in spite of the CIA, not because of it.
So now he played at security consulting, appeasing paranoid companies and individuals whose imagined problems far outstripped their reality.
Good money, though.
And it would do, for now.
Selena tensed in his arms; he blew gently against her neck. “Relax,” he said, and used all his breaking and entering skills to dip his fingers inside the waistband of that darned spandex. “Just thinking. Of course I miss it. But the leg’s just now getting back to where it’ll hold up to real stress.” He pushed against her without thinking and nearly lost his train of thought again. It wasn’t just the touching, the contact, the delicious pressure…
It was knowing what she’d do to him if she ever turned around and took him on.
He cleared his throat. “And anyway,” he managed, “this is great timing. Being in the same country as each other for more than a week at a time is definitely an asset when it comes to the whole family thing.”
Oops. That had been a mistake. The whole family thing hadn’t gone so well. A for effort, not so great for results. They’d checked; they’d learned that Selena’s erratic cycles were more than just inconvenient. That getting pregnant would take a lot more than what happened naturally every time they got their hands on each other. And then it came…her words soft, a little sad. “And look how well that’s turning out.”
“Ah,” he said, regret making his throat hum. “Darlin’, that’s turning out just perfect.” And it always did. Perfect moments of intimacy, pillow talk cementing the bond that had once been fracturing.
Not to mention the marriage counseling.
He realized he’d introduced a rhythm to his movement against her, and that the blood was fast draining from his brain as she accepted his words and matched his movement. He was doomed if he kept talking, because he would soon be babbling nonsense. “We’ll find a way, but in the meantime…just…” That last word turned into a strangled noise as she offered up a little twist of her hips, her stomach muscles tensing beneath his hand. When had his other hand crept up to cradle her breast? He had no idea. He pulled her tighter, but it didn’t keep her from turning in his arms and wrapping one long leg around his hips so they met properly, all the right spots in all the right ways. While he was still gasping from that, she somehow shucked out of that spandex.
“Oh, thank goodness,” he said fervently. And he wasn’t sure how he ended up on the floor on his back, or when she’d gotten his jeans off, or how she’d so quickly positioned herself to take him in, but it didn’t matter. He gasped, and he rocked his head back, and he said, “Oh…thank—”
And she laughed, and she took him on.
Chapter 2
Selena rustled in sleek aquamarine silk and pretended the opulence of the faux ballroom didn’t strike chords of the Berzhaani capitol building; she ignored the czar-like splendor, the chandelier and filigree and rich wallpaper. She smiled at the trainee beside her, stuffed into a tux one size too small and pretending it didn’t matter, and she rattled off a final, emphatic Russian phrase. He frowned in concentration.
“Bzzt!” she said, imitating the Jeopardy buzzer. “That was a joke. The daughter of the Russian diplomat sees that you aren’t charmed by her, and goes to look for better company.” She turned her back on him, spotted Cole on the other side of the room wearing a tux that fit him very well indeed, and gave him a slow wink. He hiked his eyebrow just enough to let her know the dress did indeed perfectly match her eyes and turned a bored look to the young lady who was so earnestly trying to impress him.
Young. They were so young. But they were good, or they wouldn’t be here. They’d learn.
Behind her, the desperate young man said, “But it wasn’t funny.”
She had pity. She turned back to him, champagne flute elegantly balanced in hand, the ambience of the staged diplomatic reception surrounding them both. “It is if you’re Russian.”
As this student should have done—but probably hadn’t—Selena had already memorized the exact layout of the room. She knew who stood where, and which student had slyly disappeared from public view to attempt her assignment of bugging a small reception room—nothing too challenging, this first time out. She knew which of the instructors circulated, relaxed and enjoying their role-playing for the evening. She knew the location of the special guests—such as Cole—who added extra flair and a sense of unknown for the students. She’d spotted one of the other students on special assignment simply by his withdrawn nature, and knew there was a third, someone good enough to keep her or himself unnoticed so far.
The injured trainee wasn’t the only one conspicuous by his absence. Others had left the Farm—dismissed, or dropped out. Those remaining were halfway through their training, and tomorrow Selena would take up the counterterrorism classes with intent. Until now the instructors had bled counterterrorism work into the other classes—token introductions to favored weapons, to profiling, to interrogation. She’d assisted them as needed, but she hadn’t put her own program into full bore. Not yet.
It hadn’t worried her. Her entire career consisted of educating the right people in the right way so they could best work with the United States to prevent terrorist actions, sometimes even when those people had no intention of learning at all. These trainees, on the other hand…they could only be called motivated.
And now the young man who had been flirting with the daughter of a Russian diplomat lifted his head and said, “I get that! The joke! ‘Czechs sitting in Red Square eating matzo with chopsticks’!” And as she inclined her head at him, his eyes widened slightly in a way that had nothing to do with their conversation. Just enough to get her attention, not quite enough to tell her anything.
Until someone slammed into her from behind, hard enough to knock her off balance. Never so off balance she couldn’t recover, though her champagne splashed across several surprised faces as she lost her glass. Never so off balance she couldn’t whirl in response, heeding the flare of fierce reaction that immediately sparked deep within her chest.
But no. This wasn’t the Berzhaan capitol building it resembled. It was a group of people in a fake embassy playing fake roles with the earnestness of those who understood their lives might one day depend on it. So Selena clamped down on the fierce impulse to do fierce harm and drew herself up into her most offended huff, spewing Russian invective even as she turned around.
And came face-to-face with Steven Dobry.
She knew in an instant that this had been no accident at all. That Dobry had known just what he’d been doing— this venue, this moment—and that he’d meant for her to turn on him. To prove she’d overreacted several days earlier when his trainee had gone down at her hands. To prove that she’d do it again.
Except he’d lost this chance. She’d done only exactly as she should have. She saw in his eyes that he knew it, too—but he didn’t have the wherewithal to stammer an apology in character. She spit a few more Russian words at him and turned her back to stalk away.
No one in the room was stupid. They’d all know he’d acted deliberately, even the students who had no real clue about her days with the Kemenis. She’d be lucky if there wasn’t speculation…if someone didn’t sort through rumor to find truth so they’d all know.
It’s what they were training these young men and women to do.
As Selena huffed toward the exit of the grand ball-room—stairs that led to a richly appointed hallway and then out the door to the very ordinary eastern Virginia countryside—a dashing figure cut her off. Deliberately dashing, with that very charming, that so irresistible look on his face. Extreme self-confidence—cockiness, even— and a lick of bashful charm. He offered his elbow and said, “May I find you conveyance?”
She said, “That would be most kind.”
“And may I kick yon gentleman’s balls up into his throat on your behalf?”
Selena pretended to consider. “Why, yes,” she said. “Yes, you may.” And then she glanced at Cole and said, “Just don’t get me fired.”
Cole cast a regretful look back into the theater of the evening, finding Dobry in discussion with someone by a side exit. “Maybe not, then,” he said, and led her up the short, wide tier of steps. “Maybe another time, when my perfectly justified response might be less easily traced to my perfectly reasonable self. I do like that dress, by the way.”
“I wore it for the poor young man who received most of my flying champagne. Easily distracted, I’m afraid.” But as they turned into the hallway, Selena hesitated, her hand still on Cole’s arm. Hmm, a nice welcoming committee, the Director of T&E himself. And coming out a more discreet exit into that same hallway, Dobry and the supervising instructor. A third man, unknown to Selena, seemed to mean something to Cole. Tension hardened the muscle of Cole’s arm under her fingers, and she gave a little squeeze.
The director looked at Dobry and said, “Are you done with this?”
“For the record—” Dobry started.
“No,” said the director. “I mean, are you done with this? Because I am. These scenarios are to train our incoming employees. They are not springboards for your own clumsy whistleblowing. If I have a concern, I’ll handle it. If you have a concern, then you tell me and I’ll handle it.”
Selena listened with remote respect, showing no sign of the surprise she felt; Cole’s arm relaxed under her touch. “Sir,” she said, when the director turned to her after receiving immediate assent from Dobry.
“And you? Are you done with this?”
“I was never part of it.” Simple words, sincerely said.
The director considered them a moment, then nodded. “Good. Now, I’m expected inside. I believe we’re just about to reveal one of our evening’s operatives. Always a dramatic moment. In the meantime, I believe you two—” and he indicated Cole and the unknown man “—have something to talk about.” He nodded at them all and walked briskly down the hall. After a hesitation, Dobry followed.
“Walk with me,” the remaining man said, the only one of them not dressed for an evening of high entertainment. Not even in a suit, but khaki pants and a thick sweater and warm ankle-high hikers. He cut his gaze toward Selena, and Cole laughed as he ran his hand along the neatly hung coats on the hall rack, stopping at Selena’s.
“Nope,” he said. “She comes with me. We’ll walk together.”
And that’s how Selena learned the CIA was pulling him back into the fold, back to black ops and back to the intense risks they’d both so recently left behind.
Away from everything they’d been trying to build.
Chapter 3
Thousands of miles and several weeks away from that CIA training exercise, Selena hit the three-mile marker of Goat Camp Trail and stopped to tip her head back and slug a generous amount of water. With the late October dry heat and three thousand feet of altitude in the stark, majestic White Tank Mountains of the Arizona desert, she knew better than to short herself on water.
One of her first lessons at Athena Academy, as it happened.
If she turned south to Black Canyon, she could close her eyes and imagine the terrain beyond, all the way to the five-hundred-acre tract of private land where the academy tucked in against the base of the White Tanks. The stables snugged up closest to the stark, scrubby wilderness, a place of majestic saguaro cactus and startlingly beautiful flowers, with stunted, scattered paloverde and ironwood the closest things to trees that the area could offer. The saddle of land held more than its share of them, giving shade to students who habitually pushed themselves hard both physically and mentally. Science labs, survival hikes, group bonding exercises, rock climbing, endurance swimming… Athena knew how to turn out a well-rounded young woman. Young women such as Selena, who had started her prelaw work long before she actually hit college, or such as her fellow Pandora group member Kim Valenti, code-breaker extraordinaire before she found her niche with the National Security Agency.
Yep, she could just about see it from here, even if only in her mind’s eye. In fact, if she really wanted, she could easily cut through the rugged terrain and approach Athena from behind.
But today she stayed to the public trail, honoring park rules and moving fast and light for her morning workout—a quick jog along Goat Camp where the terrain allowed, confident climbing where it didn’t. On to Mesquite Canyon, where the steep ground offered up plenty of loose rock to send the unwary tumbling down…no thank you. She’d gotten her quota of cholla spines within her first year at Athena. Not to mention prickly pear, creosote bush and that close call with a bark scorpion. Everything living in this alienesque landscape seemed to sting or stab or prickle.
And yet she loved it here.
Not so surprising she’d heard the call of it even from across the country at the Farm.
Especially not surprising with the conflict now constantly roiling through her head and through her heart. She’d hoped to calm her mind, to let her strong early foundation reemerge, eliminating the self-doubt that had grown since she’d accidentally pulled a man’s arm out of joint.
Accidentally.
“Who does that?” she asked herself out loud, muttering through a nearly closed mouth to keep the sandy grit out of her teeth when a sudden gust of wind hit her hard enough to flap her shirt.
It hadn’t been too bad until Cole had been whisked off to do whatever it was the agency thought only he could do, even after they’d washed their hands of him in Berzhaan. Then she’d had more time to think—more time than she could fill with workouts in the gym and on the running path. More time to worry about what this separation would do to them, and why Cole had agreed to go in the first place. They hadn’t had time to talk before they snatched him away; nothing but a quick good bye kiss and separation right there at the Farm training exercise, the Russian princess left on her own. But she’d made it through the end of the training session and then she’d known just what to do. She’d come here.
She picked up the pace, anticipating the slowdown on the Mesquite Canyon trail. No good came of taking such footing for granted, and she didn’t. Once she hit the ramada at the end of the trail she picked up a jog, finishing off the ten miles when she reached the borrowed bike parked at the Goat Camp trail head.
Four miles back to Athena…long enough for her trail-cleared mind to clutter up again. Full of self-doubt, full of concern. Pedaling was no distraction at all.
When Cole was here, she’d turned to him for her strength. He believed that she’d be able to leave her Berzhaani demons behind, and for a while that made a difference. Several precious months of being in the same house, in the same country, and now he was gone again. They hadn’t started their family; they hadn’t resolved their future.
They’d damned well convinced each other that they had their now. That their now was good.
Selena heard her own harsh breathing and realized she was doing it again. Her legs burned as she sped along the closest thing to a main road in the area and she forced herself to straighten on the bike, one hand lightly keeping it on course as she swooped around a turn, coasting. Even in this dry air she’d worked up a sweat, and she pulled her water bottle free of its clip and squeezed lukewarm water into her mouth.
By the time she reached the school, cruising past the dorms to reach the paved circle through the staff housing, her flushed face was dry of sweat, but her hair under the helmet was still soaked. Selena parked the bike at the little bungalow that principal Christine Evans had offered for the visit. She went straight inside for a shower, then grabbed a protein bar as she combed out her hair, squinting at the length and contemplating a cut. Done, she glared at herself, giving her flat lower belly a resentful poke. Selena was long and lean from head to toe, and it seemed nothing so curvy as pregnancy would ever even temporarily alter that theme.
She wondered if Cole had truly considered that possibility.
She pulled a wide-toothed comb through shoulder-length hair to tame it into order, and clipped it carelessly at the back of her head, up off her long neck. It was a severe look for the strong bones of her face—long and lean like the rest of her—so she pulled a few tendrils loose to soften her jawline and take attention away from the little cleft in her chin.
Cole liked that cleft. But Cole wasn’t here.
