Swallow (Kindred Book 2) (27 page)

Turning her body toward the covered wall, she did her best to scan it with her pendant, though she had no confirmation if her effort was useful. “Do you remember I told you that Sutcliffe wanted a device built by the company I work for?” she asked and Ben nodded. “I told you that its purpose is to spread disease. It’s meant to kill people. Doesn’t that concern you? You’ve dedicated your life to medicine, to making people better. How can you be a part of something that intends to do harm?”

“Stop trying to recruit him,” Brodie grumbled in her ear.

“He’ll be reporting back to Sutcliffe and he can’t think that you have doubts,” Tuck added.

Both men were right, so she moved closer to Ben again and took his hand. “I just want to know that you’re in all the way before I join the cause. You’re my friend. I’m going to need your support. Albert and I have a rocky history and Grant is my superior. I’ll need someone to hold my hand if I’m to be a part of this.”

His eyes became drowsy and he slid his free hand across her shoulder toward her face, she didn’t like it but she couldn’t scream and run away. For one thing, Brodie would want to know where the dude’s other hand was and he’d spill all the blood he had to in order to find out. So while still smiling, she caught his hand before it could get to her jaw and glanced away. Playing it coy, she made brief eye contact, then looked away again.

“We shouldn’t… you know,” she said. “Get too close. Not until we’ve spoken to Sutcliffe about it.” Nodding, she blinked up, fluttering her lashes, she waited expectantly for him to concur and with a sigh he did.

“You’re right,” Ben said.

Brodie’s mood soured. “You’ve got sixty seconds to get out of there before I come in.” And blow the whole op, though Brodie didn’t say that.

The deep growl in his voice betrayed his anger and she wasn’t going to test how long he could hold on to his restraint because she’d never known him to maintain any reserve.

“I should go,” she said. “I wanted to come here, to see the place again, but… I feel like I’m trespassing on something private, you know? I don’t want Sutcliffe to think that I’m going behind his back.”

“He knows you’re here,” Ben said.

Zara had figured that, from the arranged set to the influence he had over his people, Sutcliffe controlled everything. “Did he ask you to report back?”

“Yes,” Ben said with a deprecating laugh. “But I think he asked the wrong man. I don’t think I could say a bad word about you.” That was a nice thing to say, even if this guy was a sociopath, which he would have to be to subscribe to Sutcliffe’s ideology.

“Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight,” Brodie said into her ear, making the hair on her body spring up.

Urgency made her want to run, but she had to keep her cool if she wanted to prevent suspicion. “Thanks for tonight,” she said and edged past Ben. “After tomorrow night, everything in my life will change.”

“It’s worth it,” he said, moving with her as she left the kitchen to walk up the hall.

There wasn’t a second to spare. She took Brodie at his word. He and Tuck could get in here, but if they did it would destroy everything they were working towards. The only thing they’d achieve was killing the guy that was pissing Brodie off and that did nothing for their long-term goal.

“I’ll take you home,” Ben said, opening the front door for her.

“It’s a beautiful night,” she said, looking at the sky as she descended the stairs. Her statement was as much for Brodie as it was for Ben. Telling him she could see the sky would hopefully halt his countdown. “I think I’ll enjoy the walk.”

“I brought you, I have to take you home,” Ben said, putting an arm around her shoulders to direct her back into the truck.

It might be a gentlemanly thing to do, though it would probably have been more chivalrous to offer to walk with her than to coerce her into a vehicle. But the lights she’d seen on the land coming in might belong to something she wasn’t supposed to see. They wouldn’t want her wandering around and possibly getting lost, or claiming to be lost, and stumbling onto something Sutcliffe would declare as classified.

She wanted to walk so that she could try to see the things she wasn’t supposed to and because she didn’t want Ben taking her back to her motel. But she caught a break when he agreed to drop her off at the taxi stand near their bar. He put up no fight and was preoccupied, so she figured he was keen to get back to report to Sutcliffe.

A man so eager to please a superior had something to prove. A man who resisted intimacy with a woman until he had the say so from another man had an inferiority complex. Leaving Ben’s truck, she compared her date with her love and knew her tastes could only be satisfied by a man motivated by his own will.

The first cab pulled into the taxi stand less than thirty seconds after Ben disappeared around the corner. But she chose instead to walk the route back to the motel because it was a nice night and she didn’t want to be sitting in the motel room alone waiting for Brodie and Tuck to return. Walking killed time.

Tonight she’d accomplished the mission she’d been assigned and despite spikes of anxiety, she’d succeeded. Now her thoughts turned to the following night. Sutcliffe wouldn’t be as easily fooled. Grant wanted Game Time back so he could hand it over to Sutcliffe and she was to stand up and declare her allegiance to their cause.

Zara wasn’t so confident about succeeding, but Brodie would be with her, he’d have Maverick trained to protect her. Even if she messed up big time, her love would be there to catch her if she fell.

“What’s the matter with you?”

Coming back to the manor had been a short-lived relief. There had been no time to relax and enjoy being home. The Kindred were preparing for her meeting with Sutcliffe, and the plans made her nervous. But as distracted as she’d been, she had noticed Brodie’s perpetual frown. Initially, she’d discounted it as his determination. He wanted to have a clear head, to be in the zone for the mission. But it had stayed etched on his features even through dinner.

Tuck was downstairs in the control room, he’d made his departure after they’d eaten and she wasn’t surprised he was uncomfortable, Brodie had become increasingly surly throughout the day.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said in response to Brodie’s question as she gathered up the dinner plates and took them to the dishwasher. “You’ve been snapping all day.”

“Not at you,” he snapped. She discarded the dishes to turn around and look at him. He was sitting at the kitchen island where they always ate when they were doing it as a group and still his frown cast a shadow over him.

“Is it Art?” she asked. “Are you thinking about the last time we did this?”

The Grand had been the venue of her first unofficial Kindred mission. It was the hotel Grant had used to demonstrate the capabilities of Game Time. Raven had kept her in his gunsights, but had Swift and the chief to back him up. Now he was running the op alone with only Swift at his side.

“No,” he said and didn’t offer anything else.

“It’s ok, you know,” she said, tiptoeing back toward him. “Art was with you through every mission. He’s always been with you. It can’t be easy not to have his voice guiding you.”

“That’s not it,” Brodie said, gulping the last of the water from his glass. Pushing it away, he left his stool and came over to pick her up and sit her on the island they’d just eaten at. “It’s you.”

Pleased that he wasn’t just shutting her out, she remained open to what he might say. “What about me?” she asked, caressing the width of his arms. “You think I’m going to screw up?”

“I think you rely on me and I think that last night I let it go too far.”

He was holding her neck, but scrutinizing her chest. He had too much intimate experience with her chest for her to believe he was genuinely distracted by her bosom, so she had to assume he was resisting looking her in the eye. “You mean with Ben. Nothing would’ve happened. I didn’t let him touch me.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “I would’ve come in there. I would’ve razed the lot if I had to get to you. If you needed me.”

Smiling, she knew she’d been right not to doubt his assertions. “I know that. I heard you and I know you mean what you say. I got out. We were fine.”

His eyes drifted to hers in time with his hand sliding through her hair past her ear. “We weren’t fine,” he said, tracing his fingertips on one cheekbone, his other arm came around to squeeze her close to him. “I underestimated what it was to have my girl in the field… You went into that compound and all I could do was watch.”

Brodie had never trusted a woman enough to bring her to the manor. In fairness, he hadn’t brought her here, Art had been the one to let her in and with that concession, she’d slipped into the Kindred ranks and into Brodie’s heart.

“If I’d been uncomfortable, I wouldn’t have gone,” she said.

But he wasn’t appeased. As he squinted, his lips parted. “You think that you’re hiding your nerves, but you’re not. You’ve got balls, baby. But I see it when you’re freaking.”

She hadn’t been expecting that revelation. It was natural to be nervous when facing danger, but she tried to stay as focused as the men in the group. Brodie was usually so in his own head that she didn’t think he noticed her mood.

Tracing her fingernails back and forth on his neck, Zara relented honesty because denials would only reinforce the truth he’d discovered. “You’ve never said anything.”

“Because what do I know about comforting a chick?” he asked.

“If you’re that worried about me holding my nerve, why do you let me go into the field?”

They considered each other. The longer she sat here without an answer, the more tempted she was to fill the silence. But she’d bet that’s what Brodie was counting on, her need to speculate, so she sealed her lips, curling them around her teeth. Her brows slid up and with that subtle sign of expectation, he dropped his thumb to her chin and pushed it down enough to tempt her into letting her lower lip pop out from her mouth.

“After this,” he said. “I’m leaving the country.”

Alarm and terror made her tense. “What?” she said and grabbed his wrist to remove his hand from her face. “Why? Where are you going?”

Shaking his head, he was frowning again. “I’m too in my head here,” he said. “Cabin fever, I guess.”

Brodie and Art spent the majority of their lives overseas, and it had taken a trip abroad to help Brodie get over the grief of losing his parents. So she could understand why he thought a vacation was a good idea. But Brodie didn’t leave the country just to relax, he went to work.

Dampening her selfish objections, she took a breath. “Do you have a job?” she asked, trying her best to be understanding. It had taken her all this time to get Brodie to look at her again, and just when she thought they were making progress, he was declaring his intention to leave her.

Art had told her about their excursions and how often Brodie wasn’t home. At the time, she’d been smart enough to see that the chief was trying to explain that sometimes she’d have to live without Brodie at her side and she’d thought she could do it. But worrying for him, and for their relationship, was a difficult habit to break.

“No,” he said, taking hold of her hair. “But I’ll find one.”

That she didn’t doubt, but as her attention moved to his chest, she wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to respond. Should she wish him luck? Encourage him to leave when she would never be able to pin him down on when he’d be back.

“Are you taking Tuck?” she asked, because at least if Tuck were with him, she would have some reassurance that he had backup.

“No,” Brodie said. “He has his own issues to work through. Time on his own will be good for him. He needs to get himself neck deep in trouble before he’ll realize he screwed up.”

That was an unusual and ambiguous statement. “Screwed up?” she asked with renewed intrigue. Tuck was the most efficient member of the Kindred, and she’d never seen him make a mistake. He didn’t let his feelings get in the way of the job like the rest of them could be accused of. “I told him to go and get some TLC from Kadie.”

“He broke up with her,” Brodie said, watching her lips again.

Her mouth fell open. She’d spoken of Tuck’s girlfriend and he’d never confessed that. “When?” she asked.

“Right after Art.”

That was months ago and Tuck had let her talk about Kadie as though she was still a part of his life. “Why did he do that?”

“Screws with a guy’s head, losing a member of the team like we lost Art.”

Thinking back over their conversations, she remembered that Tuck had commented on how if he’d taken the bullet Kadie would never have known. “Man,” she exhaled and relaxed her weight onto Brodie. Her arms slid around him until she clasped her own wrist at his lower back. “He broke up with her because he thought it wasn’t fair on her to be waiting for him and because he could be hurt and Kadie would never know what had happened to him.”

“Maybe,” he said. “We’d have taken care of Kadie if anything happened to Tuck.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Kinda,” Brodie said. “He looked after you when I was off the grid, didn’t he?”

“He did,” she said. Tuck and Brodie weren’t the types of men to open their hearts to each other. But Tuck had told Brodie about dumping Kadie, it was a sign they were closer than she had given them credit for.

“I’d have felt better about you going away if you were taking someone with you,” she said, breathing in his scent. “What about Zave?”

“Zave’s not much of a spotter,” Brodie said and the heat of his mouth warmed her hair. “You think you’re up for the job?”

It hadn’t occurred to her that Brodie might ask her to go with him. But as she slid out of his arms to look up at him, she didn’t read any doubt in his features. “You want me to go abroad with you?”

“You’ve always wanted to go, right?”

Her smile spread, but she was speechless. He’d listened, he’d considered, he’d cared, and he’d chosen her. “What happened to not making any plans past tomorrow?”

His scowl was sarcastic. “You doubt the team? You think someone’s gonna fuck up?”

She smiled. “No,” she said, but her faith was stronger than his.

“If you don’t want to,” he said, but from the way he leaned away, she could tell he was teasing her.

Grabbing handfuls of his tee shirt, she hauled him back and climbed up him to steal his mouth. “I’d go anywhere in the world with you,” she said, coiling her arms around his neck and squeezing herself close. “I love you, Brodie McCormack.”

“Yeah,” he said while sucking in a breath. “And that scares the shit out of me.”

Some of her exuberance waned. “Why?”

“Because every time you leave my side you’re in danger. When you were out there at Sutcliffe’s and out of range… I couldn’t cover you and if that fucker had hurt you, I wouldn’t have gotten there quick enough.”

Nothing he’d said so far suggested he was wild about having her in the field again. During this mission, her confidence had grown, and she didn’t want to fade into the background again. Being a part of the Kindred was as humbling as it was invigorating. These men trusted her and she wouldn’t let them down—if Brodie didn’t yank her. Without Art here, Brodie’s word was the one everyone else followed.

The joy from a moment ago cooled to confusion. “You’re saying you can’t work with me?”

“I’m saying…” The way he trailed off and glanced upward intrigued her. She smoothed a hand up his throat, curling her fingers to rasp them through his stubble.

“Beau?”

With a rough exhale and a glare, he confessed. “I’m saying I was jealous.”

“That I was with a man I have no interest in?” she asked.

His stern eyes weren’t playing when they landed on hers. “The jealousy was irrational. But I carry a powerful weapon, sweetheart. I hurt people for a living. Jealousy riles me, which clouds my thinking and I act without thinking when I—“

“No one got hurt.”

He took a few seconds to compose himself. “As long as I can see you, we’re fine,” he said. “We’ll just have to keep that in mind during future missions.”

It would be hard to control his volatility, it was something she hadn’t even tried to do. If she was going to be a part of the Kindred then he would have to learn that he couldn’t always be in control of her. Although, it was flattering that he lost his senses over her. It might be primitive, but these suggestions of his feelings always heightened her own.

“You want to watch me every minute of every day?” she asked and smiled because that might be quite hot, though the idea was probably more alluring than the reality.

“Keep you in my line of sight at all times? Yeah,” he said and his frown finally relaxed. “I think I might do that.”

Having him and Maverick watching over her movements would make her the safest person on the face of the earth. “I have to go shower and change,” she teased, sucking her lower lip into her mouth to moisten it, only to let it slide out again with more ease as her saliva lubricated it. “Do you want to start now?”

“Yeah,” he said and one corner of his mouth rose. “And don’t forget you’ve gotta follow your superior’s orders.”

She couldn’t say no to anything he told her to do, superior or not.