Packing Heat (18 page)

All she could do was brace herself, overloaded with sensation, barely able to breathe as her body wound tighter and tighter. The pleasure became so impossibly intense she heard herself begging and didn’t know what for until his hand slipped between them and rasped over her flesh, and she exploded even as he drove himself deep one last time, the clenching of her body easing enough to feel the echo of his climax from deep inside her.

He slipped away and collapsed onto the ground, and Harmony slid off the car, her muscles lax and her body limp, to lie beside him. Her breasts were still bare, the warm sun and soft breeze playing over her skin, but she didn’t care.

“You really know how to concentrate,” she said to Cole.

He laughed, still a little out of breath. “Those car magazines are going to have a whole different meaning for me from now on.”

“What meaning did they have before?”

“Touché,” he said with a little chuckle, his breath coming more easily. “Let’s just say the attraction is gone, because the fantasy could never live up to the reality.”

“An old lady with cats, and a mall security guard with a nose for trouble,” he finally said.

“Mall?”

“Food court. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Harmony grinned, but she decided to leave it at that. Maybe it had something to do with what had just happened in a stranger’s wheat field, maybe it didn’t. Whatever the reason, they were on pretty good terms at the moment, and she was enjoying the peace too much to ruin it. She already knew it wasn’t going to last.

If anyone had asked her a week ago if she really thought they’d make it this far, she’d have said no. Richard was the only family she had; she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if she hadn’t gone after him. But she really hadn’t thought she could pull this off. Then. Seven days down the road she was beginning to believe she might succeed. Because of Cole.

And it wasn’t just the mission that was better. She’d been lonely a long time. True, she was always surrounded by people—coworkers, friends—but she’d never connected with any of them the way she had with Cole. Really connected, in all the ways that counted. They could practically read each other’s minds. Of course it wasn’t that hard to do when your life was on the line.

And that was all Cole was thinking about, she reminded herself. His life, his future, his freedom—complete freedom, including from her. Sure, he was enjoying her company now, but he was sex-starved, not lovelorn. His heart wasn’t involved, and she’d better put hers on ice before it got any foolish ideas about long-term commitments with a man whose trust she was about to destroy. If he couldn’t trust her, he couldn’t love her. Not the way she wanted to be loved. Unconditionally.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Mike Kovaleski,” she said, putting her head back in the present, which was all she and Cole would ever share. “He was keeping an eye out for activity involving either one of us. When I called to fill him in on your history with Treacher, he told me you’d been arrested. Mike did a little digging and found out where Victor had sent his stooges. We both knew they’d get there before me, but—”

“He called and pissed off the sheriff so he wouldn’t hand me over,” Cole finished from firsthand knowledge. “I only have one question, did you have a plan when you walked into the sheriff’s office?”

“Yep, get you out and don’t get caught.”

“That was it?”

“I called just before I got there.”

“So that was you on the phone.”

“Posing as a reporter,” she confirmed. “I needed to know whether or not you were still there, and I was lucky enough to hear Treacher’s agents come in and get turned away. When I got to town, I did a quick reconnoiter, so I knew the sheriff and at least one deputy were there, and I knew Treacher’s guys were somewhere in the vicinity. When I saw the sheriff leave with that kid wearing a security guard’s shirt . . . Hey—”

“I was hungry. Get over it,” Cole said. No point in revisiting his humiliation.

She grinned again. “I always said your stomach was going to get you into trouble.”

He glanced over at her, unamused. “You were filling me in, remember?”

“Right. After they left I knew there was still at least one guy in there aside from you, but it was the best odds I was going to get.”

“That deputy was outnumbered,” Cole said. “One poor guy against you and the girls.”

“It’s not my fault he was so easy to distract.”

Cole didn’t say anything, just stared out the windshield. She had a feeling that steering onto the highway wasn’t what he was so focused on. “What?”

He bumped up a shoulder. “I was wondering what Mike said when you told him about Treacher.”

“He didn’t say anything, really. He didn’t seem all that surprised, either, and I know he’s checking into it.”

“There won’t be anything for him to find.”

“No crime is foolproof,” Harmony said. “There must be some truth to what you’re saying—”

“Some truth,” Cole repeated, shaking his head.

“Look at it from our viewpoint, Cole. All we have to go on is Victor Treacher’s suspicious behavior. He wouldn’t be so hot to get his hands on you if he wasn’t afraid of who you’d talk to and what you’d say.”

He did his silent routine, but she knew his brain was worrying over the facts of the matter, so it was no surprise when he said, “You’re right, but he doesn’t want to get his hands on me. He wants me dead.”

“At the moment he has no way of accomplishing that. By now his agents are on their way back to Washington, and Treacher is being asked what they were doing and why it wasn’t on the grid. He won’t be able to send anyone after us until this blows over, and he’s not going anywhere.”

“Okay,” Cole said, “so we go get Richard. Tomorrow. Tonight we get a room and a meal, not particularly in that order.”

“Your stomach talking again?”

“I missed lunch, but I was thinking of you. It’s going to be a long, rough night.”

Her mind went in the obvious direction, her body helping by going halfway down that path just at the memory of that wheat field. But she hadn’t forgotten about the phone call she had to make later.

Or the confession.

“Give me the food and I’ll be glad to show you.”

“Oh, sure.” She handed him the bag and took the money he gave her in return, backing into the restaurant, her eyes on him and the GT the entire way.

“This car isn’t exactly low profile,” Harmony said, watching the waitress watch him. “Maybe we should get different transportation.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that waitress too much,” Cole said, handing her the food. “She forgot she was holding a bag full of take-out boxes she picked up five minutes ago.”

“Right after she got a good look at you in this car. And how about the rest of the people who work here? Not to mention the diners.”

Cole took in the faces peering out at them, some from the hostess’s station at the front door, others whose tables overlooked the parking lot. “You might have a point.”

“And it wasn’t inflating your ego.”

“I figured that out a long time ago.”

“We’ve only been together for seven days.”

“Really? It seems longer.”

“Yeah.”

They both went silent, mulling that for a few seconds.

“It hasn’t all been bad,” Cole said, backing out of the parking space and heading out to the I-44 service drive. “I’m not in jail. And I’m still alive. At the moment.”

Harmony smiled over that. “Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“Peachy,” Cole said, his eyes cutting in her direction with a look that matched the sarcastic drawl. “So how about the car? Do we have to ditch it?”

“A black GT with white racing stripes? There are what, five of these things on the road? And I’d be willing to bet none of them are in farm country, Oklahoma.”

“Okay, it’s not exactly a stealth vehicle, but it’s a definite asset if we run into any more cops. And I don’t think we have to worry about the Russians. They might want to keep tabs on us, but they won’t interfere as long as we’re doing what they want us to do.”

Harmony didn’t agree, but she really couldn’t refute his logic, either. They’d finally made it to Tulsa, stopping a little past midway through the city where the neighborhood was working class verging on working poor, and the inhabitants would be used to minding their own business. Cole found a small travel motel not far off the interstate, took a room in the back, and parked the GT where it wouldn’t be easily seen.

They ate in silence, letting the upheaval of the day slough off in quiet and decent food and, at least in Harmony’s case, there appeared to be some dread involved. She was jumpy, barely picking at her meal before she gave up and took to her feet, prowling the room—and watching him, although whenever he glanced her way she was looking elsewhere. Strange—and troubling, considering the change in their personal relationship. She wasn’t exactly a poster child for emotional detachment, and sure, she was the one who’d felt a need to set boundaries, but that was days ago. He had no clue what was going through her mind now, and he didn’t want to find out.

“I think it would be a good idea to put more money in the kidnappers’ account,” he said, because if Richard wasn’t the one on her mind, he should be. “It won’t take me long, and between the virus and the trouble his guys are in, Treacher is probably too busy to bother with me tonight. Why don’t you take a shower and try to relax before you have to call them.”

She kept pacing, and just when he decided she hadn’t heard him, she whipped around and said, “I lied, Cole.” She collapsed into a chair, looking exhausted and miserable as she met his eyes for the first time since they’d walked into the room. “There’s no new evidence. I figured once we rescued Richard the Bureau would be so grateful they’d commute your sentence, but the way this is going—Now that we’re up against Victor Treacher . . .” She shook her head. “He has a lot to loose. And Mike’s not too happy with me. I’m probably out of a job.”

So much for his ego, thinking she was all torn up about him. He ought to be feeling something, anything, but he was just . . . numb. And then it all started to crowd in.

“Say something.”

“
Say something?
What the hell do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, yell at me. Call me names, whatever works for you.”

“Why? It’s not like I actually believed you.” But somewhere along the line he’d come to trust her.

Cole was usually a thinker, but he couldn’t contain this with a moment of silence and the application of logic. He surged to his feet, paced across the room and back again, struggling to contain the swirl of anger and betrayal. And failing. He wanted to shove the confession back down her throat so they could keep going as they had been, working together. Sleeping together. So he didn’t have to walk out that door and leave her on her own.

It was what he should do, what he’d learned to do in Lewisburg. Protect your own ass at all costs. It was a decision he’d already made, to walk if this thing went south. And now it was a course he couldn’t take. Because she wasn’t the only one to blame.

He’d lied to himself, too. Not in the beginning. When he’d made his every-man-for-himself game plan, he’d been ready, willing, and able to carry it out. Now he couldn’t, and sacrificing himself to a hopeless cause was the worst kind of self-betrayal.

She came to stand in front of him, her blue eyes, wide and brimming, focused unwaveringly on his face. He banded his hands around her upper arms, lifted her onto her toes.

She bit into her bottom lip, but she kept her eyes on his. “God, Cole, I’m so sorry.”

He let her go so fast she stumbled. He wasn’t ready for mea culpas or explanations, so he turned his back. It wasn’t enough, neither was pacing, but it was all he could do to work off the anger and sort out a million clamoring thoughts.

“Why now?” he finally asked her.

“If we’re not honest with each other, we won’t get through this alive.”

Wrong answer
, was his immediate reaction, but he didn’t know why. Hell, he didn’t know if there was a right answer.

“After you told me about Treacher,” she said, “I was pretty mad.”

“I never lied to you.”

“I know. It didn’t take me long to realize it was all my own fault.”

Just like it was his fault for trusting her
. Not only was she FBI, but he’d watched her lie to just about everyone they’d run across. When had he convinced himself she wouldn’t do the same to him?

“I had no time to plan or prepare,” she was saying. “I read your file, and as far as I could tell, you were just another hacker. You suited my purposes and I didn’t care what you’d done.”

“And now?”

“If I’d known what I was getting into, and what I was getting you into—”

He whipped around. “You’d have done it anyway.”

“Yes,” she blazed up, striding over to face him. “I can’t leave Richard to die,” she said, the rest of her breath sobbing out.

“So you put your own neck on the line. And mine.”

“And that’s another reason you should know the truth. You’re innocent—”

She kept talking, but he lost the rest of what she said. It felt like a cleansing wind blew through him, not strong enough to completely clear the storm, but the clouds thinned enough for him to savor that one word he’d been waiting to hear for eight years. That Harmony was the one who believed in him, though she had little more than his word to go on, gave it even more meaning.

Everybody in the joint claimed to be innocent. Cole actually was, but nobody had believed him, including the lawyer who’d sucked him dry before leaving him to the mercy of the system. The young public defender who’d caught his case knew there was no point in filing an appeal when the accuser was one of the top suits at the FBI and the accused was a kid with no connections and no resources, just parents who, if Cole had let them would have mortgaged everything they owned to try to help him.

Fucking feds
, he thought for the millionth time. But he couldn’t dredge up enough anger to really mean it. The sense of vindication, at least in that moment, was too sweet.

And then reality crashed back in.

“Cole? I’m serious. I think you should take off.”

“You don’t need me anymore, now that I’ve transferred enough money to satisfy the Russians.”

She stared at him, her eyes filled with what he would have sworn was hurt before she shifted her gaze left and said, “You’re right. You’ve done what I wanted, and I don’t need you anymore. Leave me the account numbers and go. I wish . . .” She stopped, shook her head slightly. “I’ll make sure Mike gets your case reopened. If you call him in a couple weeks, he’ll let you know what it’ll take to prove Treacher framed you.”

“Being a martyr now?”

Her gaze shot to his, filled with heat before she banked it. “The Russians are my problem, not yours. I told you that from day one.”

“You also told me you’d get my sentence commuted to time served.”

“I just said Mike—”

“
You
promised, not Mike.”

It took a few seconds, but she finally put the hope in her eyes into words. “Are you saying you want to help me finish this?”

“Do you really think the Russians are going to settle for four million dollars?”

“No.”

“Then you still need me.”

“Yes.”

He walked back over to the table and righted his chair, pulling her laptop in front of him. He didn’t boot it up; he was busy watching her.

She didn’t seem to notice. She sat on the end of the bed, swallowing hard a couple of times, her fingers absently pleating her dress. Cole felt like a heel. She was grateful he hadn’t walked out on her, but the real reason he’d stayed was the money. He’d transferred funds into the kidnappers’ account, but in the fallout of his viral sabotage on the FBI’s computer system, there’d been no chance to set himself up, let alone search for the evidence to clear himself, because Harmony had insisted on leaving.

Since the new evidence didn’t exist, all he had left was diverting some money to fund his disappearance. He could get it on his own, but it was so much easier with her. And the second he’d done it he’d walk away, he told himself. Guilt-free.

“No more lies,” Harmony said into the silence. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Cole said. After all, it was the truth. He’d been keeping this secret all along.