Too Hot to Hold (19 page)

“They chose to stay alive any way they could,” Nick said. “This is why people have secrets, Kaylee. It’s easier that way.” He looked around to see where Clutch and Sarah were. “Get into the car—backseat.”

Clutch had already pulled his own car close to Sarah’s, circling the wagons as he’d mentioned earlier, and now Kaylee climbed into the backseat of Sarah’s car, with Nick right behind her. He shut the door, and even though the windows by the front seats were open, she felt safe and private. Finally.

“You can let it go, Kaylee. You’re allowed to have a freak-out now.”

The way he said it made her laugh, like he could command her freak-outs—and so she laughed and he laughed and then, just as suddenly, the tears were rolling down her face.

He simply held her, told her that it would all be okay.

In his arms, she believed him. And they remained that way for long minutes, until he pulled back. “I have to make a quick call.”

He quickly spoke in numbers—she guessed longitude and latitude, and then gave a condensed version of what they themselves had just found out. “That was for Chris—the brother you met,” he told her when he’d hung up.

“You’re sure he’s coming here?”

“Yeah, he left me a message earlier. He shouldn’t be, but I can’t stop him.”

“Nick, Clutch told us a lot of things… how do we know he’s telling the truth?”

“You want to try to fact-check his intel? Because I’m thinking having the CIA try to kill you is pretty good evidence that you’re on to something dangerous.”

She pressed her hands to her cheeks for a second and then let them fall to her lap in loose fists. “I’m on to something dangerous and Aaron’s really dead. I don’t know why this feels like mourning him all over again.”

“You really wanted to see him. You counted on it. Maybe even thought you had a second chance.”

“I wanted a chance to end things the right way. A chance to part friends instead of holding on to unnecessary anger.”

“You loved Aaron, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“What was that like?”

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah, I am. I want to know what it felt like.”

She frowned a little, as she tried to figure out how to explain it. “At first it was wonderful. I couldn’t be with him enough, you know? Then … I told you that he loved the military more than me—and that was true. But he also loved other women too. Lots of them,” she said softly. “That betrayal nearly killed me. I knew we weren’t compatible, that the passion wasn’t there between us the way it should’ve been. But maybe our friendship could’ve been salvaged if he’d been honest with me. By the time I found out about the cheating, it was too late for me to forgive him.”

“Relationships take a lot of commitment,” he said.

“Yes. They also take a lot of trust. And after Aaron, I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t think I ever would.”

He didn’t say anything to that. At some point, he’d wrapped his head in a green bandanna—it made his eyes stand out even more, made his cheekbones look sharper, made him look deadlier.

“What’s going to happen to me if I don’t do this article? I know you’re trying to protect me, that you don’t want me to know the full reality of this situation … but I need to know.”

“Kaylee, fuck… let’s just get out of this jungle first.”

“Please.”

He shook his head slowly, like her knowing was a bad idea, and he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “You know about Aaron. About GOST. And the men behind GOST know about you,” he said bluntly.

Yes, she’d known that from the moment Clutch informed her about GOST—but she’d needed to hear it spoken out loud, because knowing and hearing it said out loud were two different things entirely. She could quite possibly lose everything, depending on how this shook out. And while she’d told Nick that there was no one who would worry about her… that just served to make her chest ache even more. “I have no one.”

“You have me, Kaylee. I told you before, we’re in this together. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She willed herself to believe him. She also knew they were working on borrowed time—she had to make her decision fast. Her heart already told her what she needed to do, she just had to make sure her head was ready to follow. And in order for that to happen, she needed answers. “I need to speak with Clutch—the sooner I get this started, the better off we’ll all be.”

Her decision was made.

“Let’s go, then—we don’t have a lot of time.” He opened the door and helped her back outside.

Nick called Clutch over—he and Sarah came toward the car as Kaylee pulled herself up onto the hood and pulled a pad out of her bag to take notes on. Nick leaned against the side of the car, far enough away to give her space, close enough to make her feel comfortable.

Sarah, however, stayed close to Clutch, like she refused to let him out of her sight. Still, both of them looked like they were guarding against some invisible but all too real threat.

Clutch was Nick’s height, maybe a little broader, and his eyes … even in the dim light, she could tell he’d seen far too much.

“You have questions.”

“Was the military involved in any of this, beyond what happened to Aaron on that mission with his CO?” she asked.

Clutch shook his head. “As far as the military is concerned, we simply disappeared. Most of us were listed as AWOL for a while and then dead—we assumed that the men who ran GOST took care of all of that. But people searched for us, I know that. The military doesn’t take kindly to its elite soldiers just disappearing. They put a lot of money and training into me. I was the best of the best.”

Nick’s voice floated quietly over them. “Still are.”

Clutch didn’t say anything, just ducked his head and stared at the ground for a few minutes.

Kaylee waited until he looked back up. “So what happened to you … you don’t blame the military?”

Clutch shook his head. “Not in my case. The military—the Army—saved me, took me in and trained me to protect myself. I was finally able to stop looking over my shoulder in fear, I had confidence that I could handle anything anyone threw at me. And I can. So no, this wasn’t the military’s fault—this is a government plan gone bad. Because while I understand their theory, I wouldn’t have done this to my worst enemy.”

She nodded. “Normally, I’d have to meet the rest of the group. Interview them.”

“That’s not possible now, not until I figure out which member is setting us up,” Clutch said.

“I need some kind of proof, my paper’s going to ask for it. You’ve got to give me something else,” she told him.

“I’d expect nothing less.” His eyes took on the green color of his camouflage jacket, and he stared at her as if he was weighing something heavily in his mind. And then he pulled out his phone and dialed. “Here’s the last order I received.”

She put the phone to her ear and listened—the voice was deep and dark, the kind she supposed could be sexy under other circumstances, but since it spoke of killing, it definitely sent chills down her spine in a not-so-good way. “I don’t understand all of it, but I think… if I’m hearing right, this is an assassination order.”

Nick took the phone out of her hand and replayed the message so he could listen. He nodded in confirmation to her words and tossed the phone back to Clutch.

“The order isn’t sanctioned by our government,” Clutch said. “John Caspar started selling us out to the highest bidders. The last order from the U.S. government was to get rid of a head of state who refused to shut down a known terrorist cell. This order’s much different—and it could cause political unrest in an already unstable country.”

She stared down at her hands, rubbed the third finger of her left hand where she’d worn Aaron’s ring for so long—even after the marriage dissolved, because she couldn’t let go of the loss of what she’d considered to be her family.

Clutch spoke quietly. “Aaron wasn’t perfect, but he did love you.”

“Aaron loved me the best way he knew how, that’s what I believe. He gave up his life for me. I have to make sure that he gets what he deserves. I want to stop whatever dishonor the government’s trying to put on his record. He would’ve wanted that,” she said, with another glance over at Nick, and then she turned to Sarah. “Sarah will be in danger now that she’s with you again, won’t she?”

“Yes. The men who wanted me for GOST have used my love for two different women against me. They killed Fay—raped and killed her and told me all about it. I refused to take the same chance with Sarah; I complied with John Caspar’s orders. I know now that was a mistake, but I haven’t stopped thinking of a way to get her back for a single second since I left her.”

Her head ached at the thought of the sacrifice this man had made, of the one Aaron had made as well.

“You have no idea what it’s been like, living like this.” Clutch was speaking to her, but it was almost as if he was talking about someone else. “I haven’t been
me
for so long, I don’t know who I am. Or I didn’t until last year.”

“I can’t imagine,” she said softly, the image of Nick as Cutter still enough in the forefront of her mind to understand.

Kaylee needed space to process everything—Nick could see that easily as she remained seated on the hood of the car, sounds of gunfire occasionally marring the quiet.

She’d stopped reacting to those. He knew that wasn’t a good sign. She was off in her own head—her own world—dealing with everything she’d learned and trying to make sense of it all. For the article … for herself.

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep? You’ve got a big job ahead of you,” he said quietly.

“I could try, but I’m sure I’d end up just tossing and turning,” she said, her fingers playing along the bottoms of her rolled-up BDUs.

“Did you get what you were looking for from Clutch?”

“It helps to know that whatever Aaron did in the end wasn’t his choice. It’s horrifying to know, though, that there are groups out there like this one, forced to do things they don’t want to do,” she told him, and he understood what she meant.

Aaron had made the choice to keep Kaylee safe at the cost of his own life, and Nick would be forever grateful for that.

“The men you saw with Aaron, the ones he’d…” She stopped, couldn’t bring herself to say the word
killed
. “Do you think that was part of his job with GOST?”

He nodded, had been trying to not think about that or how badly Aaron had probably wanted to get on that helo with him. Aaron had wanted a way back but knew there was none.

There was nothing Nick could’ve done for him then. What he could do right now was a different story.

“This must be hard for you to hear too,” she murmured. “All these good men, forced into something like this.”

“I meant what I told Clutch. They
were
good men, still are.”

To have that kind of control taken from him would’ve been unbearable. How Clutch stood it for so long was a testament to how strong he was. How much he loved his mother—and Sarah.

And then Kaylee asked, “How do you do this? Day after day, not knowing what’s coming, where you’re going to be… whether you’re going to live or die?”

He shrugged, but knew she wouldn’t take that for an answer. “I do it because I don’t know any other way. I do it because it’s my job. It’s not like you don’t take risks.”

“None as big as this one,” she said.

“You don’t have to do this, Kaylee. I mean that. Clutch will find another way. He’s resourceful. And he’s got Sarah by his side now.”

“They look like they can do anything together,” she murmured, and yeah, they did. “I made a promise. I’m going to do the article. I’ve got to get in touch with my boss.”

“Service is going to be spotty out here—I’ll walk you to more of a clearing,” he said and she slid off the car and walked with him, holding her cell phone in front of her until she got a decent number of bars.

Roger answered on the third ring, sounding sleepy. “This better be good, Smith—do you know what time it is?”

She didn’t—not back home anyway—and she didn’t care. “I’ve got the story of a lifetime for you, Roger.”

15

You’re sure this is safe?” Jamie asked him for the billionth time as the small plane started with a rumble, nearly shaking her off the seat.

The pilot was a former SAS agent who’d relocated to Africa under circumstances beyond his control, or at least that’s what he’d told Chris. The guy was nearing sixty, wore an eye patch and he’d had his plane up and running the fastest.

No, Chris wasn’t sure of safety at all, but their options were few and far between. “We’ll be fine.”

He’d checked his cell the second their plane landed, had been relieved to hear Nick’s message that he was all right and that Chris should stay on track and head to the coordinates. That he’d met up with Clutch.

Chris didn’t think that was a very good thing at all—Jamie had reserved judgment when he’d told her, but the frown on her face said otherwise. If Clutch was a member of this group, he was on his own side—or whatever—and that made Chris’s gut churn.

He’d tried to speak with Nick directly, but service had been for shit. Still was, but that didn’t stop him from trying as the plane taxied down the small runway.

When he still couldn’t get through, he fought the urge to throw the phone on the floor. It would be the fifth one he’d broken that year. He and electronics never did mix all that well—everything from phones to computers to cars seemed to break down around him. But motorcycles—well, he did just fine with those.

There hadn’t been any Harleys to be seen, though. And so he’d paid through the nose to get them on this plane so they could reach Nick’s last destination fast.

“Is that noise normal?” Jamie had a vice grip on his arm. He could feel the tension bouncing off her.

It had taken three hours for them to find this pilot, another hour to get the clearance to take off, and still, this would save them more time than driving.

And no, that sound wasn’t normal. But the plane shuddered into the air and leveled out and so he told her, “Totally normal.”

She shot him a sideways glance. “Yeah, sure.”

He settled in as best he could—he’d practically had to fold himself in half to get on this damned thing. After watching her white-knuckle it for a while, her face practically glued to the window, he went for a distraction. “What’s your deal?”

She turned from the window reluctantly, her hand still gripping the armrest. “My
deal?”

He could see underneath her shield so clearly. He wasn’t sure if it was
the sight
, as Dad called it, but when he looked at Jamie, he didn’t see the buttoned-down suit or the sleek, sophisticated ponytail. No, he saw her running in a field of flowers, hair down, wearing a flowing dress. He saw her smiling.

And he saw himself wanting more. That hadn’t happened to him in forever, beyond a few purely physical bump and grinds.

All right, more than a few. He had needs—lots of them—and there were always women who were willing to spend time helping him fulfill them. But unlike Nick, he’d always been wide open and ready for a relationship.

Chris believed fully in fate. Destiny. Jamie was now tangled up in his life—and in Nick’s—and no matter what, he had no choice but to follow her and see where that led him.

“Yeah, your deal. Have you been with the FBI long?”

“I don’t want to talk about me, Chris.”

He leaned in close, put a hand on her arm and felt the soft zing again, the way he’d felt it back at the house and again on the flight in. She felt it too—he was sure of it. “I’m not asking you about your past, I just want to know more about
you
. Do you understand?”

She got it, because she finally answered, “I’ve been with the FBI for eight years.”

“I’ve been in the Navy for nine.”

“I was recruited right after college.”

“I enlisted to avoid jail,” he said.

“You’re kidding.”

“Why would I do that?”

“What did you do?”

“Borrowed some cars. Which escalated into more than borrowing.”

“If you’re trying to distract me from being nervous about this plane, it’s not going to work.”

“That’s not why I’m doing it. I like you,” he said simply.

“You like me.”

“Yes. As in, I’d like to take you on a date. Like to watch you let your hair down, get drunk and dance on a table or two.”

“I don’t do those things,” she interjected quickly.

“Maybe you should.”

“That’s what you like in a date?”

“No. I’d like you naked in bed with me too. Before or after the table dancing.”

Her mouth opened and he wanted to chuckle at this woman who carried as much firepower as he did blushing at the thought of someone wanting to bed her.

He needed to find out the story behind the wedding band.

“You can’t just say things like that,” she told him finally, a slight blush still staining her cheeks.

“Why not?”

“It’s not… appropriate. Didn’t your mother teach you about polite conversation?”

He gave her a long, cool stare. “My momma taught me a lot of things, sugar.”

“I think we should forget about getting personal.”

He snorted. “You just let me in on a huge secret and you don’t want to get personal? Sugar, you need to check your definition of
personal.”

“I told you everything because of your brother. I’m just as worried as you are and I’m not prepared to let Sophie down.” She paused, and yeah, so much for professional. There was something about Chris that made her want to spill her guts, and that never happened. Not even with Mike, and they’d been together for five years. That was long enough to trust anyone completely and she’d still never let herself go. “Sophie was always pushing my help away even when she gave me anything I needed. When she finally came to me and confided, I felt like we’d finally broken through some invisible barrier. Our relationship has always been complicated.”

He didn’t say anything, just waited for her to continue.

When she did so, it was with a great reluctance. “I don’t like talking about myself—I’ve always had to hold back because of Witness Protection.”

“But there’s more to you than what you went through to put you into protection.”

She shook her head. “You’d think, wouldn’t you?”

Chris wouldn’t let her get away with that, wouldn’t let her shut down the way she normally would have—the way she’d learned to deal with things throughout the years. The only way she knew how to live.

He took her face in his hands—God, those hands—and stroked her cheeks lightly. “I know there’s more to you. I can see it in your eyes.”

“My life is my job. The way it needs to be.”

There had never been much outside the lines for her. As a young girl, she hadn’t really understood that her family had been keeping secrets—not until her parents had been killed and her world changed forever.

Later, the structure was something she’d learned to embrace. Sophie, on the other hand, chose an environment that was as by the book as you could get with the Navy; she’d balanced it by learning to fly F-14s and Tomcats. She’d told Jamie that being aboveground made her feel completely safe, like no one could get to her. And while Jamie envied that approach, she stayed closer to what she knew—the FBI and its own by-the-book approach.

And still, neither woman had been able to successfully escape their worries of the past. “Have you and Nick always been close?”

“Very. I’ve got another brother too.”

“Another SEAL?”

“Actually, yes. He went in first—willingly. We followed in his footsteps.” He ran a hand through his hair—it was longer than most of the military cuts she’d seen, long enough that he could blend in most places without looking particularly military.

He was also visibly upset and didn’t bother to try to hide it. “Nick’s vulnerable,” Chris admitted.

“He’s a SEAL.”

“He’s falling in love with Kaylee. Love makes you vulnerable.”

It did—she knew that. Even though she hadn’t been madly, passionately in love with Mike, she did love him. She’d always told herself that working with him wasn’t a problem, that their outside relationship didn’t affect their professional one.

For her, it hadn’t. For Mike, it had been a different story. The night he’d been shot, he’d been so busy covering her he’d forgotten to watch his own back.

The guilt welled up inside of her, the way it always did when she thought about the circumstances surrounding that night. “He’ll protect her. Make sure nothing happens to her.”

“Yes, he will.” Chris stared off into space. “Nick’s good, no doubt about it. Nick against those men trying to get him, well, they don’t stand a chance—especially if they try to get to Kaylee—but man, I want to call in backup.”

“You can’t.”

“If I have to, I will, and there won’t be a thing you can do to stop me.”

“Try me, Chief.”

“Ah, back to that. Guarding yourself against me again, against anything personal. Have it your way.” He put his head back against the seat, hands dangling between his long legs. Then he took his iPod from his pocket and shoved the earbuds in and almost immediately his feet tapped to a beat only he could hear. He began to hum, a deep, melodious sound from the back of his throat.

After a moment, he began to sing. Loud enough to be heard clearly over the engine, which was no mean feat. In tune. Like, if there were a stage around, he would be a rock star.

He was good, really good. He sang like he didn’t have a care in the world. She wished she could be that free … although she knew that, inside, this man wasn’t free at all.

He reminded her of Sophie in that way.

She leaned over and tugged on the wires of the iPod, causing the earbuds to pop out of his ears. He continued singing for a few seconds, as though he hadn’t realized that the music had stopped, and then he turned his gaze to her and the singing ceased.

“I’m guarded, yes. I just can’t hide it as well as you can.” Her eyes met his, held them in a steady grip, and for the first time in his life, he felt as if he was the one who’d been locked and loaded, target on. “You’re so free—I envy that part of you—I know it’s not an act but I also know it covers something. I’m betting a lot of people don’t get that about you, at least not right away. Maybe never.”

“Yet you think you know.” His voice sounded oddly hoarse but he didn’t give any other indication that her words bothered him. And no, he wouldn’t.

But they did. And she opened her mouth to tell him that yes, she did know, but just then, the plane jerked hard and banked right.

“I thought you said this pilot knew what he was doing?” she asked.

“He does. Planes don’t always want to cooperate.”

“What’s happening?”

“Whatever it is doesn’t sound good. What the fuck’s going on?” he yelled to the man piloting the Cessna.

“Engine cut out. I can get us down, but it won’t be pretty.”

“Fuck,” Chris muttered. Jamie was trying to get up but he shoved her back down into her seat, buckled her in even while she attempted to push him away. She knew that’s what panicked people did, knew she was slightly claustrophobic to begin with—and the thought of being strapped down now was making her fight.

But Chris spoke calmly. “Jamie, listen to me, we’re going to crash land. You’ve got to be prepared.” He showed her the position, waited until she did what he wanted, and then he strapped himself into his seat in the same fashion.

“You both ready?” the pilot called.

“Get us on the ground, my man,” Chris called back, right before he started to pray.

After hanging up with Roger, Kaylee went back to the car with Nick. Roger had agreed immediately to run the story—front page. He’d been concerned for her too, she could hear it in his gruff voice even as she assured him she’d be okay.

And then Sarah had insisted that they eat—even though Kaylee’s stomach was in knots, it was also growling, an odd combination. Sarah had packed fried chicken pieces and hard-boiled eggs, plantains and bread she had called
kwanga
. Kaylee had nibbled enough to keep her strength up and drank water to stay hydrated. She’d felt better.

Now, a couple of hours later, she sat in the backseat of Sarah’s Land Rover and wrote out the facts about GOST that Clutch had revealed, to get them straight in her head. To make sure she hadn’t missed anything along the way.

She didn’t want to kill the laptop’s battery with her note-taking—she’d type it all out once she had the skeleton of the story.

Skeleton
was such a perfect term for this story—so many of them pushing out into the open, insisting on it. And yet, she still had so many unanswered questions running through her mind.

If she broke the story open, would the government or whoever was responsible for Aaron’s death still come after her and Nick and Clutch and Sarah? Or would she take the wind out of their sails?

She had to figure out what going public with this piece would actually mean, had to figure out exactly what the end goal was.

She’d broken some stories concerning governmental abuses before, but none as big or far-reaching as this. Typically, she discovered that whatever government agency was responsible for the problem would quickly disavow any involvement and drop the project immediately, which typically corrected any abuses.