Conard County Spy (17 page)

Then the man walked out of the shop, leaving the clerk in shock so profound he couldn't move. All he wanted to do was vomit.

Chapter 10

T
race studied Julie as she sat staring at the screen saver on her computer. Remembering the woman he had first met, he felt just awful. Right now her shoulders seemed a little slumped and she was so silent it didn't feel right. Not that she constantly chattered, but rarely was she this still, as if she'd crossed a bridge too far tonight.

It was all his fault and too late now to fix it. He'd wandered into this town, basically blind to the real danger he was in, thinking of looking up an old friend. After all, they'd told him they weren't sure anyone was after him. He certainly hadn't suspected his own people were involved in hunting him down.

But regardless of what he had known or not, it remained that he'd allowed apparent voices of reason to persuade him to stay, that everyone would be safer if he did. He didn't question Ryker's motives, or the sheriff's. They had made a lot of sense.

But Julie in the middle of this made no sense at all. Ryker had honestly thought that if they told Julie this was dangerous, she'd just back off. It turned out the sheriff had known her far better, as he'd said. Julie wouldn't take no for an answer.

Now here she was, in it up to her neck. Tonight had given her an education on the seamier side of the world. She looked as if she had been sideswiped.

He could never restore to her what she had lost since meeting him. Somehow she needed to knit it into her world and make peace with it. Life was like that sometimes. He just wished he hadn't been the one to bring the changes.

The phone rang unexpectedly, and he saw her jump. God, he'd made her react that way. A phone call could make her leap out of her skin. Of all the things he'd done in his life of which he wasn't very proud, this ranked near the very top on his list of shame.

She hesitated visibly before answering. No sooner had she said hello than she turned to hand him the phone. She looked pale. “Ryker.”

Of course it was Ryker. What now? He doubted there'd be much useful.

“Yo,” he said into the phone.

Ryker's voice answered him. “A friend called. He apparently made a contact with someone very low level that he thinks is involved. He's hoping the guy will want a way out. He's going to make himself available to the contact tomorrow.”

“So should I hold off?”

“Your decision. My thinking is, you don't want all of your eggs in one basket.”

“I read you.” He passed the receiver back to Julie, who replaced it in the cradle.

“I suppose that wasn't good news?” she asked quietly.

“Maybe, maybe not. We'll see how it pans out tomorrow.”

“Okay.” She turned back to her screen.

Trace hadn't known Julie for long, but she didn't strike him as the type to pull into her shell. He wouldn't have thought she had one at all. Disturbed, he rose and went to stand behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders.

She astonished him. “Don't touch me unless you mean it.”

He dropped his hands immediately, wondering how to interpret that. He'd thought his situation, the danger she was in, was eating at her. Was it something else? “Julie?”

She didn't look at him, but continued to stare at the screen saver making its endless ribbons of color. “I can't figure you, Trace. You slip your arm around me, you hug me, and then you back away as if I smell bad. You're really good at creating distances, aren't you? Well, just keep your distance. You live in some kind of bubble. I haven't seen you anywhere else, but you turned to Ryker, and I gather you don't know him all that well, either. So, do you ever let anyone close?”

Ouch.
That question hurt, because even as she asked it, he realized it was true. Painfully true. In his world, connections and relationships could be dangerous to everyone involved. They needed to be controlled, kept superficial, ready to discard if the need arose. The less he cared personally or allowed others to care about him, the safer they were, the safer he was.

He gave no one a lever to use against him.

He perched on the end of the couch and studied her profile. “What is it you want of me?” he asked quietly.

“Apparently something you're incapable of giving.”

“Which is?”

“Just about anything real aside from your job.”

“Meaning?”

Now she turned to face him. “You're using me. I agreed to be used because of Marisa. But somewhere in the last two days I started caring about what might happen to you. Maddening as you can be, much as you're the chameleon you claim, I still care what happens to you. I get that you don't care about me, except that I not become collateral damage, but that's all you care about. I'm willing to be used to protect you and my friends, but that doesn't mean I have to like the way you shut me out.”

He nodded because he didn't know what to say. She was right. He was using her. And he was trying like mad to keep her as safe as he could, but he wasn't allowing himself to feel one other thing. Feelings were dangerous.

“You live in an awfully cold, ugly world, Trace Archer. Now you're about to escape it, but will you ever change? I doubt you can. I doubt you can cut the job out of you enough to ever be like the rest of us.”

“I haven't been off the job long enough to know what I can become. Hell, I'm still
on
the job.”

“Obviously. Well, I want you to think about what this job has cost
you
. How much it has stolen from you. You might have been doing important work. Well, clearly you were. But not important enough that the people you work for aren't as willing to see you physically dead as they've made you become emotionally.”

He tried to tell himself she was just reacting to all the strain of the last couple of days, but there was truth in what she said. Enough truth that it hit him like a gut punch. “I made my choices. Now I live with them.”

“Each little choice added up, apparently. And you never counted the cost.”

It was true, but now he was getting angry. “This is no time to pick apart my life. Here we are. Unfortunately you're involved. If you want, I'll leave right now. But what I can't do is change what's already done. The past is fixed.”

“But the future doesn't have to be,” she said quietly. “Right now you have two friends who really care about you. Try caring back, just a little. I know I'll feel better.”

“You think I haven't been sweating your involvement? You think I haven't been worrying about you? I care more about what happens to you than what happens to me. From the minute I saw you putting smiley faces and stars on those papers in the diner, I've thought you were a beautiful human being. The world would be a poorer place without you, and I never wanted to drag you into the middle of this.”

“I'm sure.” She didn't sound sarcastic, merely weary.

“But there you were at Ryker's house before we'd sorted everything out. Ryker was hoping once he told you how dangerous this was you'd back away. But you didn't, did you? So here we are, and I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

She looked down, and he thought he heard a small sigh escape her. “I know you will. That scares me, too. I don't want anyone to die, least of all for me.”

Something deep inside him felt as if it were cracking. Feelings better left caged were beginning to bend the bars to get out. All of a sudden the pain in his arm and hand seemed minor compared to what was trying to erupt inside him. Yes, he'd made his choices, and to this day he would stand by them. They'd been his best options at the time. But some...some might follow him to his grave.

He realized that Julie was rising, moving. Going to bed to escape him and all of this? He wouldn't blame her. For the first time he was facing just how much concrete he'd packed himself in, how many times he'd refused to evaluate himself and what he was doing. He'd believed he had a mission, a higher purpose, that he was serving his country. Right now, all of that seemed like so much dross layered over reality. Because the reality, however essential, had often violated him and others. Yes, it was a job that had to be done. But now he was wondering about the people who had given him his missions. What had they intended? Had he merely been a tool for purposes he would have hated had he known them?

How could this not make him wonder?

Julie sat beside him on the couch. “I'm sorry, Trace.”

“For what?”

“For being so... I don't know. You need your head in the game right now and I'm going on about feelings. I have no right to question you or criticize you. I've never walked in your shoes.”

He responded with bitter humor. “Under the circumstances, maybe you have a better right to question me than anyone else. I cast my shadows over your life. I never should have done that.”

“Like you said, the past can't be changed.” She surprised him again, this time by reaching out to rest her hand on his thigh.

At once his thoughts shifted downward, to his groin. She had lit his fuse once again with a single touch. She did that so easily that he wondered if he should be terrified of it. Everything she did seemed to ease past walls he'd built over many years. The throbbing in his loins did
not
make him feel any easier.

“Do you feel safe tonight?” she asked him.

“Pretty much, thanks to the storm.” He figured tomorrow morning would be soon enough to tackle this problem again. A Monday morning, unfortunately, when even the CIA offices at Langley would be in high gear for the start of a new week.

“Then let's look for those files you want to see, if my accounts haven't been shut down.”

Startled once again, he looked at her. She had an odd little smile on her face. “What?”

“Take a look,” she said. “Even if you don't want to backdoor your way into classified files tonight. Make sure my accounts are still good.”

“You know, you're bouncing all over the place.”

“Not really.” Her smile broadened a hair. “I want you as relaxed as you can get tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because, spy man, I want you to be thinking about nothing but me for a few hours. Because I want you to take me to bed.”

Well, he could do that right now, he realized. At her words, every pleasure nerve in his body leaped to life, and he felt his erection begin to throb. That easily, she turned him on like a blast from a furnace. Yeah, he could put it all on hold for a few hours. No reason not to. But as he tried to read her expressive face, he understood that she needed to be able to put it aside for a little while, too. They wanted each other, and right now he didn't want to resist for another instant. She had routed his defenses with a surprising frontal attack.

He was not the only one in this leaky boat. Finally he nodded. “You can check your two accounts and see.”

“I suppose I could, but if you want to go further...”

“I'm not sure I do, not just yet. But I might take a peek at a few things.”

“Then peek away. Something's got to give us a few hours off. I don't know about you, but I think I'm ready to go nuts with wondering.”

* * *

Typing proved painful for Trace, and he was doing this only so she could shove this off her plate. So she would be thinking of nothing else when he gave in to his pounding desire and made love to her. Damn, he wanted her so badly he might as well have had five thumbs. Her honesty had made it impossible to hide from himself any longer, but he kept at it. He didn't want her even wondering about this for the next few hours.

He was essentially operating with one working hand and one finger from the other. Julie waited patiently while he turned off the internet block and selected a city from a menu. He reached it without any trouble. “Okay, so far.”

“You want me to type for you?” It seemed the least she could do. She knew she was pushing him on several fronts, but she was becoming frustrated, and not just sexually. So much she didn't know, so much he wouldn't say, death lurking around some invisible corner... Yeah, the desire to make love with him was only a piece of the picture. Something inside her was pressing to get to know the real Trace, but she'd begun to wonder if there was one, apart from his job. He'd warned her that he was a chameleon, but she didn't think that was what she was seeing.

She was seeing a man who'd pared himself to the bone emotionally to do his job. Maybe he could act any part he thought he needed to, but she was fairly certain he wasn't acting with her. Why would he? He could push her away as easily as he'd pushed away so many people in the past. He wasn't trying to be charming, or persuasive, or to manipulate her in any way she could detect.

So for all he could change and adapt as needed, she figured she was seeing the real Trace Archer. The things he said sometimes made her ache for him. He didn't seem to have a very high self-opinion. Mephistopheles? That was a bit over the top, she thought. But if that's how he thought of himself, he needed to undergo a major renovation. He needed to find the part of him that he was still proud of, the man who had set out on a mission for his country, probably with the highest of ideals.

Considering that she devoted her life to making youngsters feel good about themselves, she knew she was inclined to do that with others as well. But would she even have time? Likely not.

“Trace?”

“Yeah?”

“How did your parents make you feel about yourself?”

“Just a sec. I want to back out of all this and shut your internet down quickly. To be extra safe.”

“Are both accounts working?”

“Believe it. If I can remember how, I may even piggyback them and use them both at once.” He clicked on the kill button, then turned to face her. “You were saying?”

“How did your parents make you feel about yourself? Truthfully.” Her heart pounded a little at her temerity, but she had a great need to know.