Hot Ice (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 7) Page 19

  Grace blinked. She was stunned, but she was also pissed. Because she was more than a body, and more than a potential mother. And she was damned sure not the kind of woman he’d just accused her of being.

  “You are one arrogant son of a bitch, you know that? Who said anything about a baby? I don’t want a baby. Or at least not at this moment, for God’s sake. Who knows what I might want in the future? But you’ve made it clear I’m just a body—a warm, wet hole where you can stick your dick, right? I’m not allowed to have any feelings for you beyond how I feel when we’re fucking, is that it? And you know what else? I’m not even touching the implication that I would be so cruel and stupid as to poison a child against its father just because the relationship went sour. It’s an insult, by the way, but I’ll give you a pass because it’s all you know. Though I’m not precisely happy about it.”

  He was quiet and still. And then he sighed. “I’m sorry, Grace. I shouldn’t have said that. You aren’t anything like my ex-wife, and I know that. She’s fucked me up for other women. I told you that before.”

  Grace swallowed the lump in her throat. “That’s bullshit. It’s an excuse. Nothing but an excuse. I hate crowds, I’m an introvert who prefers her lab and alone time to other people, but I go out and do the other stuff—the appearances, the crowds, the socializing—because I have to if I want to function in society. It’s a fear, but I’ve learned to control it. So don’t you tell me you are ruined for other women. That’s nothing but a convenient excuse you’ve used to give yourself permission to be a manwhore. News flash, Einstein: you can be a manwhore if you want to be. No need to tell yourself it’s because you can’t commit.”

  “You know, you’re kinda hot when you’re mad.”

  She wanted to reach out and strangle him. “You’re trying to change the subject because the truth hurts. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

  “Really hot,” he said, lowering his voice to a sexy rumble.

  “It’s not working. I know what you’re up to.” Though her body ached and her sex responded with answering wetness. It was crazy to want a man so much, but she did. She’d have never considered herself a particularly sensual woman, but Garrett was proving her wrong on that score.

  “You’re a hard woman to derail, though I bet I know at least one way.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Don’t you dare, Garrett. You aren’t using sex to stop this conversation.”

  He stood then, and she tilted her head back to look up at him. It was too dark to read his face. “I’m going to start a fire. Roast some of those hot dogs we bought earlier. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  He’d told her to go to sleep not that long ago, and now he wanted to know if she was hungry. She sighed in defeat. He wasn’t going to talk to her about anything of substance, not right now. Maybe not ever.

  “Sure, I could eat.”

  He unzipped the tent flap and went out into the darkness. Grace punched the pillow beneath her head and tried not to scream.

  *

  Early the next morning, Garrett broke down the campsite and loaded everything into the Jeep. For good measure, he’d switched license plates in the night with one of the other cars. It belonged to a hipster couple who looked like they were here to stay for a while. They had a stack of firewood covered in tarp, and a campsite that had the look of home, complete with lines for hanging washing and a row of potted plants. A ragged dog was tied to a rope and sat scratching itself in the early-morning light.

  It had stopped raining, but the air was crisp and cool. Garrett wanted to be on their way before it started to rain again.

  Grace helped stash their belongings in the Jeep before climbing in and fastening her seat belt. She didn’t look as tired this morning, but she did look somewhat self-contained and melancholy. A current of unease slid through him. He hated that they’d fought, but he couldn’t give her false hope.

  When he’d thought he’d come inside her body, a cold chill had spread through him, sobering him. He liked Grace. He’d broken all kinds of rules with her—his own and Mendez’s. But he didn’t want to marry her because she was pregnant. He never wanted to go through that again.

  It was too hard, and when the relationship broke down, it was devastating. She’d accused him of using Melissa as an excuse. Well, goddammit, until she’d had a nasty divorce and a constant battle over a kid, she just didn’t know.

  They didn’t speak as they exited the campground and turned onto the highway. Grace kept her head turned and her gaze fixed out the window. After the heated passion of the night before, it was disconcerting to be ignored. He’d built a fire and roasted hot dogs, and she’d come outside fully dressed to sit beside the fire and warm herself.

  When her eyelids drooped and she jerked herself awake for the tenth time, he’d ordered her to go to bed. She did, and when he finally went in to join her, she was fully clothed beneath the blankets and sound asleep. She didn’t wake as he climbed in beside her. Even when he pulled her into his embrace, she didn’t stir.

  He lay there for a long while with Grace in his arms, thinking about the mission and about how he was going to deliver her to HOT HQ. He might even accompany her to Rome, but then what? This mission had an end date, and she would go on without him.

  That idea made him unaccountably angry, so he stopped thinking about it and instead focused on how soft and warm she was in his arms. His dick hardened, but that was nothing new with her. Still, he finally fell asleep and then jerked awake sometime after first light.

  That’s when he’d roused a sleepy Grace and started packing up to leave. She’d said nothing to him, and he realized she was waiting for him to be first to speak. It annoyed him, got beneath his skin. She’d said she wasn’t like his ex, but here she was playing the silence game with him.

  “Is there a reason you aren’t speaking to me?” he finally said after a few miles, unwilling to let it go on any longer.

  She jerked and then turned to him, blinking. “What?”

  “I asked if there was a reason you weren’t talking to me.”

  She yawned. “If you must know, I fell asleep. Before that, you looked grumpy, so I figured it was best to wait for you to speak. Which you have. Good morning, Garrett. How did you sleep?”

  He felt a little chastened. She wasn’t Melissa, and he knew he shouldn’t keep comparing the two. “I slept okay. You?”

  “I don’t remember a damn thing after I crawled in that sleeping bag the second time. So I’m guessing that’s good.”

  “You didn’t wake when I came to bed.”

  “I don’t remember it.” She stretched and he tried not to glance over at her as she arched her back and stuck her chest out. “I’m thinking I like beds better than sleeping bags, by the way. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a camper after all.”

  “You didn’t mind the sleeping bag at first.”

  He thought of all that naked flesh pressed to naked flesh, the wet warmth of her body, and started growing hard.

  “That wasn’t sleeping. And no, I don’t seem to mind where we are when that happens.”

  “Oh, I think you might mind it in some places. An elevator, for instance.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be fun. Stuck between floors with you, nothing to do…”

  “I’d give you something to do,” he said, his voice rough and low.

  Grace laughed. “I know you would.” She shook her head. “My goodness, it’s fun with you, even if we’re in the middle of nowhere and I have no idea where we’re going. I wonder what kind of fun it would be to have a real date. Maybe we could go out to dinner and then watch a dirty movie together after.”

  The erotic images that put in his head were too much for him right now. “Grace.”

  He knew he sounded like he was choking, and she laughed all the harder.

  “You’re too easy,” she said. “Just the mention of sex and you’re ready to go.”

  It was true—but the shocking thing was that it was only true
with her. He usually needed a bit of pump priming, as it were, when he was out with a woman. Not that he didn’t get hard at the thought of sex, but he usually needed some kissing, some heavy petting. Something to get his mind onto the act and not the woman he was with. Because he supposed, on some level, he was always looking for that next psycho who would make his life hell.

  It wasn’t a healthy way to behave, and he knew it.

  “Stop teasing me or I’ll pull over and strip you on the side of the road.”

  “Not before breakfast. I’m starved.”

  “We’ll hit a drive-through.”

  She didn’t say anything for about a mile. “You know, I realize we aren’t having a relationship here—but even if we were, I’m a quiet sort of person. It’s not necessarily the silent treatment if I don’t speak. I’m in my own head, thinking about things. If you want to know what I’m thinking, just ask.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you want to know what I’m thinking right now?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m thinking that being out here alone with you is some of the most fun I’ve had. I’ll hate to see it end, though on the other hand, I’d like to get back to my work and my life.”

  “There’s something to be said for normalcy.”

  She turned to look at him. “What’s your normal, Garrett? What do you do when you aren’t protecting senators’ daughters?”

  He thought of all the top-secret operations in remote corners of the world, the way they bugged out at a moment’s notice, and the way it killed him to go silent with Cammie. But then he thought of how he was protecting her with what he did, keeping the world safe so she could grow up unharmed and unaware of what kind of evil lurked out there.

  Or so he hoped. That was why he did what he did. Because he couldn’t go back now, couldn’t stop and leave the cleaning up to others. If he couldn’t keep Cammie safe from things like cancer, he could damn sure keep her safe from terrorists.

  “It’s complicated,” he said. “And it’s top secret.”

  “Like my lab is top secret?” She’d lifted an eyebrow and was staring at him.

  He snorted. She still hadn’t forgiven him for pulling that badge out. “Something like that. And no, I can’t tell you what I do or why. Nothing has changed since the last time you asked.”

  “Okay, I won’t ask.”

  He shot her a look. “Really? Because you have a curious mind, Dr. Campbell. It’s hard to imagine you not asking questions.”

  She shrugged. “I’m curious, yes. But I’m not going to tell you how to combine flu viruses, no matter how sweetly you ask.”

  He shuddered inside. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Someone does.” She frowned, her brows drawing down. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I think I need to change my research.”

  He whipped his gaze to hers for a second before looking at the road again. Of all the things he’d thought she might say, that hadn’t even made the top ten. “What do you mean by change it?”

  “I mean I’m going to have to disprove what I’ve discovered and pretend it’s not possible.”

  “Grace.” He swallowed as he thought of what that could do to her. “It would be safest for you, but the media would get hold of it. They’d spin it to make you look like a fool. Or, worse, a pretender. Someone whose daddy bought her a job, maybe.”

  “I know.” Her gaze was troubled as it met his. “But I’ll know the difference. And I’ll make sure we work on a vaccine response anyway. Tim Fitzgerald knows my research isn’t a fluke. The director knows it too. So long as we know the truth, what does it matter what the world thinks?”

  He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “You’re an amazing woman, Grace Campbell.”

  “Not all that amazing,” she said softly, her hair dropping down to curtain her face as she lowered her chin.

  But she was. It occurred to him that no matter how many times he retreated behind the walls he’d erected around his emotions, she found him anyway. No matter how many times he made knee-jerk comparisons to Melissa, Grace was nothing at all like his ex-wife.

  Yes, he and Grace fought—but she wasn’t emotional about it, wasn’t unreasonable. No, she was chillingly logical, in fact. She didn’t provoke him just to provoke him, and she didn’t grow highly emotional and erratic.

  She was nothing like Melissa, but that didn’t mean attempting a relationship with her was a wise idea. As if he had the time or the willingness it would take not only to build a relationship, but also to maintain one. All his energy was focused on his job and his daughter. It was all he had room for.

  “Fishing for compliments again, cupcake,” he said softly, his throat tight. “What have I told you about that?”

  All she did was squeeze his hand in return.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE GUYS WERE ALL SITTING AROUND the ready room when Matt’s cell phone rang. Every one of them went on instant alert, watching as Matt put the phone to his ear and spoke.

  “Hey, Ice. Good to hear from you again. You still going north?”

  When they’d first heard from Ice yesterday, they’d been ecstatic. But he wouldn’t tell them where he was going just yet. Ryan understood why—they all did—but it made it difficult to plan a rescue op.

  They’d been keeping a running dialogue going that suggested Ice had gone north, into Pennsylvania. It was as good a guess as any, and it had a fifty percent chance of being correct—and now that Ice knew what his team was putting out there, he would have corrected his course if it had been the truth. If there was a leak, whoever was getting the information would be looking in the wrong place now.

  “Copy. See you soon.”

  Matt lowered the phone, the conversation—such as it was—at an end. “Nothing new to report. They’re safe.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Ryan’s gaze—along with everyone else’s—whipped to the door. Mendez had just walked into the room, and everyone who wasn’t already standing shot to his feet. All of them stood at attention until the colonel spoke.

  “At ease.”

  He pulled a folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Matt. “Police reports from three different towns in Virginia. The stolen truck—item one—turned up at a motel, but a Jeep disappeared. Then someone’s plates were stolen. They only noticed because they got pulled over for speeding and the tags didn’t match the registration—but they did match the missing Jeep. It could be anything, sure. It could have nothing to do with Ice and Grace Campbell. But the route is southeast, and the reports dovetail with our timeframe.”

  Matt was studying the paper. “South along the Blue Ridge Mountains and then east toward Richmond—do you think he’s headed for the Delmarva?”

  “It’s a good bet, isn’t it? He’ll come at us from the Bay Bridge, in a direction completely opposite than he left. That route takes time, but it makes sense.”

  It was a perverse kind of sense, but one that was entirely logical to a special operator. It might seem extreme to someone outside this life, a kind of cloak-and-dagger nonsense that bordered on the ridiculous, but they took nothing for granted when survival was the goal. Getting Grace Campbell safely to HOT was the priority. Misdirecting any pursuers, no matter how remote the possibility anyone could manage to follow such a twisted route, was paramount.

  Mendez’s mouth turned down in a frown. “The problem is that if I just got that paper from Intel, someone else might have gotten it too. Ice’s plan, however little of it we understand, can also be intuited by the enemy if they’re paying close enough attention.”

  “And we still don’t know who they are.”

  They had the four men in custody that they’d picked up near the safe house, but so far no one was talking. They were foreign, most likely Russian, but they refused to identify themselves or their organization.

  It was disturbing to think that the Russians had access to high-level intelligence within the US government—but someone must, o
r they wouldn’t have been able to find the safe house so easily.

  “Not yet,” Mendez said. “But give it time. Someone will crack.”

  *

  It was dark when they stopped, and Garrett pitched the tent again. It wasn’t raining, though the air was crisp and cool, and he built a fire where they cooked hot dogs and made s’mores. Grace laughed at that last. He’d stopped at a convenience store earlier that day to resupply, and she’d had no idea he’d bought marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers until he’d pulled them out after dinner.

  “Figured you needed to see the fun side of camping again,” he said as he sandwiched a toasted marshmallow and some chocolate between two graham crackers and then handed it over.

  Grace knew she was grinning like an idiot as she took the treat. But it filled her with a strange kind of quiet joy that he paid enough attention to what she said to know she’d mentioned s’mores—and that he wanted to make this trip fun for her. She’d told him earlier today that it was fun with him, and she hadn’t been kidding.

  For the first time in as long as she could remember, she was at peace with herself and her life. Oh, she was still terrified at the idea someone was chasing her, wanting the knowledge she possessed, but she was… happy in an odd way.

  Life was stripped bare out here. There were no social events to navigate, no one to please but herself and Garrett—who wasn’t hard to please when you got right down to it—no stressful work environments to endure. Out here, she wasn’t expected to be poised and dignified, the senator’s daughter who always had to be on guard.

  She was just Grace Campbell, a woman who hadn’t showered in two days, who wasn’t wearing makeup, and who didn’t quite care so long as the man sitting beside her wasn’t repelled.

  If she could just forget that she was running for her life and that Garrett was only with her because he’d been paid to protect her, everything might be perfect.

  But it wasn’t perfect, because nothing about this journey was real. Except for the hot sex, she amended. That was definitely real. She didn’t think it was possible to fake that kind of explosive chemistry, though what did she know?