HOT SEAL Rescue (HOT SEAL Team - Book 3) Page 3

  He shot her that sexy grin again. It melted through her like a flame cutting through wax. “Sunshine, I can manage anything you need.”

  5

  Miranda was as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, as Cody’s grandma always said. She fidgeted in her seat, swiveling her head to look out the rear window of his rented Explorer. He’d taken a chance returning her clip, but he’d felt like it was necessary to get her to trust him. So far, so good.

  Cody navigated the big vehicle through the crowded streets of Las Vegas, heading south. He’d first thought about taking her home to his grandparents’ place up north, but considering the kind of man Victor Conti was, that probably wasn’t the best idea. Cody didn’t know what Miranda was into, or what kind of hell she might call down on them once she made her call back to her handler.

  Fortunately, Cage had called him with directions to a safe house in Arizona. “It’s not much,” he’d said. “But it’ll be a good place to go while we figure things out on this end.”

  He hoped like hell they did figure it out. Someone had betrayed her—that’s what she said, and Cody tended to believe her. He didn’t think she’d been careless with her information, but then again he didn’t know anything about her as an operative. He’d gotten the jump on her, so why couldn’t others?

  So many questions about Miranda Jane Lockwood—and few answers.

  “What about those clothes, cowboy?” Miranda said as they passed yet another shopping center.

  He glanced at her. Funny how everyone in his life called him cowboy even if they didn’t know he’d grown up on a ranch. He’d ridden in more than a few rodeos—bulls, broncs, and roping—but he didn’t do a whole lot of that anymore, unless you counted mechanical bulls at honky-tonk bars. There just wasn’t any time for it.

  He rode horses when he was back home for a visit, and he worked the ranch even though his grandfather had enough hired help. After being on a dangerous mission, it was relaxing to spend hours in the saddle moving cattle from one pasture to another.

  “Why do you call me cowboy?”

  She shrugged and turned to look out the window again. Her profile was so pretty. Her lips pressed forward in a pout before she spoke, as if she was thinking.

  “You’re wearing boots that look broken in, rather than a shiny new pair, and faded jeans.” She shrugged. “Stick a cowboy hat on you and there you go. You look like you could really live that life. Tourists always stand out, but you look like the real deal.”

  He laughed. “Fair enough, I guess. I grew up on a ranch, though the Navy is my home now.”

  “So the boots are authentic then.”

  “They are indeed. Been wearing them since I was about eighteen, I think. Nothing like a good pair of broken-in boots.”

  “About those clothes,” she said.

  He laid on the horn when some asshole in an exotic car cut him off. “I thought it was safer to get away from the city before stopping.”

  She didn’t respond, and he knew she was fuming.

  “How long you been an agent, Miranda Jane?”

  Her head whipped around, two whiskey-colored eyes staring back at him. “Long enough. Too long maybe.”

  “Too long?” He glanced at her. “You don’t look like you’ve been out of high school for very long.”

  “I’m twenty-six.”

  “Me too.”

  “So how long have you been a SEAL?”

  “Five years. And don’t think I didn’t notice how you changed the subject just now.”

  He could tell she didn’t want to do it, but she couldn’t stop herself. One corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. “You’re on to me.”

  He’d like to be on her all right. On her, in her, with her all the way to the end of an explosive orgasm. His dick started to throb with arousal, and he called up the most unattractive images he could think of to get it to stop.

  “Yeah, well, don’t change the subject,” he said gruffly.

  “I’m not telling you anything. I’ve already said too much, in fact.”

  “If I’d let you go back there, you wouldn’t be any better off than you are right now. Conti has spies everywhere. Guarantee you he knows we went to the Rio by now. He probably knows the room we entered and when we left. He also knows we’re in a rental, and he probably knows the plate number—”

  “Which means we have to ditch this thing,” she said very coolly.

  He admired the way she didn’t unravel under pressure. “Yes, ma’am, we do. I’ve got my guys working on getting us another car.”

  “You’ve thought of everything,” she murmured.

  “It’s my job.” It was, but he hadn’t expected to be doing it for another few days. Visit the grandparents, try to find Maggie, go to Cage’s wedding to Christina—the sister of the Alpha Squad commander, no less, and one seriously sexy lady, though saying that to Cage’s face would get him pummeled—and then back to DC and whatever new assignment awaited.

  Life as he expected it to be, even if the bit about going on missions and risking his life was unpredictable from one operation to the other.

  “Good thing for me, I guess.”

  “Yes.” He glanced at her. “Where’s your backup? Why were you on this op alone?”

  She didn’t look at him. “I don’t work with a team the way you do,” she said. “Some things require a lot of preparation and delicacy.”

  “So if things went wrong, which they did, you had to get yourself out? Sounds like a shitty op to me.”

  “I don’t question the work. I just do it.”

  It didn’t make a lot of sense to him, but then he wasn’t CIA. Still, she couldn’t have been operating entirely alone—unless what she was doing was off the books. Now that was possible, sure. And it was mighty intriguing.

  She let out a breath and turned to look at him. “I need to call my contact as soon as possible—which means I’d appreciate a burner and some clothing.”

  “I’m aware of that, sunshine. You’ve told me a couple of times now.”

  “Yes, but you don’t seem to be doing anything about it.”

  Irritation was beginning to creep around the edges of his cool. “I’m telling you it’s not safe yet. Or didn’t they teach you anything in spy school?”

  The corners of her mouth tightened. “You can’t think of any alternatives? Like I’ll hide in the backseat and you can go in without me?”

  Cody snorted. “And come back outside to find you gone? No, thanks.”

  She only stared at him for a long moment. “Why do you even care? You don’t know me. After this is over, you won’t ever see me again. What’s it matter what happens to me?”

  He shot her a look. “It matters because my job is saving people from harm. I don’t put them in the path of it and then walk away.”

  “I didn’t ask you to save me. I’m capable of saving myself.”

  “Maybe so, sunshine—but I’m with you until we reach your people, so you might as well get used to it.”

  6

  Until they reached her people.

  She wasn’t sure who it was safe to reach out to anymore, quite honestly.

  Miranda turned away and looked at the buildings beginning to slip by faster and faster as they eased out of central Las Vegas and its jammed traffic. There was a store for artificial lawns that made her do a double take. But yeah, if you couldn’t afford to water a lawn out here—and how many people really could?—fake seemed to be the way to go if you wanted greenery.

  Fake lawns. So foreign to her. She’d grown up in rural Alabama where the grass was greener than emeralds and the dirt was red clay. She shuddered as she thought about the dilapidated trailer where she’d lived with her parents and five sisters. Her father was a chain-smoking coal miner who worked long hours and then took out his anger on his wife and kids.

  Her mother was an alcoholic who spent her days hiding the whiskey she drank and pretending she was fine when she really wasn’t. Miranda had known how to
shoot a gun by the time she was five. She’d learned how to cook by age six. She’d spent long days outside, wandering wherever she pleased while her mother lay in a stupor inside the dimly lit trailer with the anemic air conditioner turned up full blast. She and her sisters missed more school than they attended. If not for Mark, she’d have never gotten her GED or gone to college.

  A wave of loneliness washed over her at the thought of Mark. She’d loved him. It had been a comfortable love born of familiarity and gratitude, not a deep, romantic love that ate her up from the inside out. He’d been her friend, the one person who knew what she came from and what she refused to go back to.

  And now he was gone. His body had been unidentifiable, and for a long time she’d thought maybe he’d survived the bomb blast, maybe there’d been a mistake.

  But Mark would have contacted her somehow. As the months went by and he didn’t get in touch, she accepted what she’d known was true and gave up on irrational hope. Mark Reed was dead, killed on a mission to infiltrate Conti’s operations and get to the heart of the organization.

  Miranda leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Her heart hurt and she was tired. Cody wasn’t stopping to get her new clothing anytime soon, and she had no way to call Badger just yet. It was two hours since she’d gone to meet with Conti, but Badger wouldn’t be expecting contact for a while because he had no idea anything was wrong.

  He’d warned her when he’d given her this assignment that she’d be alone for much of it, but she’d still jumped at the chance. And now it was over and she’d gotten nothing.

  She didn’t sleep, but she dozed in fits, snapping awake every few minutes or so it seemed. It was dark now, and the road had less traffic than it had earlier. She peered into the blackness. The lack of dwellings told her they were in the desert, and her belly twisted. What if this was all an elaborate setup? What if Cody the SEAL was really something else altogether?

  It took her a moment to disabuse herself of that notion. The man was military, no doubt about it, and he’d said he was with HOT. Yeah, that could be a lie, but how would he have known that she’d ever even heard of HOT, let alone had personal experience with them?

  He wouldn’t—and still didn’t know about the personal experience part.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Almost to the drop point for this vehicle.”

  A few minutes later, he pulled into a gas station. He eased the Explorer over to where a Dodge Ram sat. “That’s our ride,” he said, putting the SUV into park and turning off the ignition.

  Miranda looked longingly at the convenience store attached to the gas station. “I don’t suppose you could go in there and get me a burner?”

  “No need,” Cody said, opening the door and climbing out. “Everything’s in the Ram.”

  Miranda got out of the SUV. She’d put the heels back on since she had nothing else, but she hoped like hell there were some tennis shoes in that Ram. Cody got his bag and they went and climbed into the Dodge. It was a big four-door truck, gray, with comfortable seats and four-wheel drive. In the back seat, there was a shopping bag. Miranda rifled through it, grabbing the package with the phone first.

  She glanced at Cody, hesitating. She didn’t want to call Badger with him sitting right there, but what choice did she have?

  She ripped the plastic packaging apart, powered up the phone, and plugged it into the battery backup that was also inside the bag. After she set the phone to block the number she was calling from, she dialed the number imprinted on her brain.

  Badger picked up on the second ring. “Yes?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Mandy? How did it go? You okay?”

  She blew out a breath and ran a hand through her hair, tossing the long blond strands over her shoulders. What she wouldn’t give for a ponytail holder right about now.

  “I’m okay. But the mission is a bust. He knew my identity.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. And then Badger swore long and hard. “Where are you? I’ll send help.”

  Miranda glanced at Cody. He’d eased the truck onto the highway, but of course he was listening. “I have help.”

  “You do?” Badger sounded shocked.

  “Yes. For now.”

  “You need to come in,” he said, his voice sounding a little strained. “It’s critical we get you into protection.”

  She knew it was, and yet there was something holding her back. Something not quite right about the entire situation. How had Conti known who she was? How?

  Until she figured that out, she wasn’t safe.

  “I’m not ready to come in,” she said, shocking herself and Badger too if the way he sucked in a breath was any indication. Until that moment, she hadn’t really known she wouldn’t obey protocol and go in.

  “Mandy—”

  “No. Listen. I’ve been compromised. The mission has been compromised. There’s a leak. How else could he have found out who I was?”

  “You’re right,” Badger said very quietly. “Of course you’re right. I should have never sent you. We should have found another way.”

  Because they’d both wanted to find Mark’s killer and bring him—or her—to justice.

  “There wasn’t another way. Besides, if I’d found the information we wanted, it would have been worth it.”

  “Yes, it would have.”

  She glanced at Cody. The light from the dash illuminated a strong, chiseled jaw and sculpted nose. How was it possible to look that good and not be a movie star?

  “I’ll call you again in a couple of hours.”

  “Tell me where you are at least. Still in Nevada?”

  “’Bye, Badger.” She clicked off the line before he could chastise her.

  “Badger wasn’t happy with you, I take it.”

  It wasn’t a question. She tried not to be annoyed that Cody used Badger’s name so casually, but then she’d said the name in his hearing. It didn’t matter though, because Badger was a code name, not a real name. She knew Badger’s real name. But that was irrelevant right now.

  “Not really.” She ran a hand over her head, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I don’t think either one of us can quite believe I’m not going in.”

  “Something doesn’t feel right or you would. Am I right?”

  Miranda let out a shaky sigh and turned to look at his profile. His ridiculously handsome profile. “Yes.”

  “Care to talk about it?”

  She closed her eyes and wished she had a cigarette. But she’d given those up years ago. Sometimes she missed the nicotine filling her lungs and sending calming vapors throughout her body. Poisonous vapors, but still.

  She shouldn’t talk, and yet what did she have to lose? She no longer trusted the agency. She had no one to turn to. She was out in the cold, and it felt very, very odd. She just wanted to rewind the clock, have her meeting with Conti, and get the information she needed.

  “He shouldn’t have known who I was. This mission… it’s off the books. Small scale, tightly controlled. Few people know anything about it.”

  “Then you need to decide which one of them betrayed you.”

  Her heart thumped. Yes, that was the only explanation. But why? Money?

  Probably. Conti was wealthy, and this wouldn’t be the first time he’d bought his way out of an investigation. Grease some palms, pay off an agent or two.

  God, it was disgusting to think about.

  “I don’t know everyone involved. There’s Badger, of course. A couple of others in the chain—beyond that, I don’t know.”

  “Could it be personal? Or is it more that someone doesn’t want Conti taken down?”

  Miranda bit her lip. She’d been thinking about that—and the truth was she didn’t know the answer.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Piss anyone off lately?”

  Miranda snorted. “All the time. But trying to get me killed for it is a bit extreme.”

  Cody looked thoughtf
ul for a moment. “Depends on who you pissed off.”

  She shivered. Yeah, that was certainly true. She’d pushed hard for justice for Mark, and she hadn’t made friends over that. Not that anyone wanted an agent’s death to go unpunished, but sometimes there was more at stake than immediate arrests.

  She knew that, and she was fine with it. But it was time to bring down Conti’s organization. Past time. He was a cancer that needed cutting out before it was too late.

  “You hungry?” Cody asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.

  She blinked at him. Her stomach answered on cue with a growl. “I could eat.”

  “There should be energy bars in the console—but if you want something more substantial, I know of a diner not too far from here. I can get us some takeout.”

  She processed everything he said, looking for the angle—and then she cursed silently. There was no angle. He was helping her. Taking care of her. Because he was HOT, and a SEAL. She wasn’t used to it, didn’t know how to act.

  “Sure. Sounds good.”

  Fifteen minutes later, he pulled up in front of a diner and switched off the ignition. She watched with interest—and a touch of disappointment—as he pocketed the keys. But really, what would she accomplish by ditching him here? She’d be alone, and there was no one she could call. She didn’t think Badger was out to hurt her, but if she called him for help, he’d have to get other agents involved—and that’s where the uncertainty lay.

  “What do you want? Burger? Chicken sandwich?”

  “Club sandwich if they’ve got it.”

  “Fries?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Something to drink?”

  “Sweet tea, but since I know they don’t have it because nobody understands how to make it outside of the South, I’ll take water.”

  He snorted a laugh. “Was that actually humor? Are you softening toward me?”

  Warmth suffused her for some silly reason. “You’re turning me into a puddle, Cody McCormick. I’m as soft as a stick of butter in a cast-iron skillet.”

  This time his laugh was more pronounced. “Careful, Miranda. You might actually like me before this is over if you aren’t.”