SPY IN THE SADDLE (17 page)

Then Ray said, “Got him.”

Okay. The grenade launcher was out of the equation.

And not a minute too soon, since the next second the lock turned and the double back doors of the van swung open to the night.

Keith was smart enough to lunge to the left, tuck and roll and disappear behind the cover of some rocks as everyone opened fire and all hell broke loose.

A bullet grazed Shep’s ear. He ducked behind the barricade then up again to squeeze off another round of shots.

Two men fell. Jamie was knocked back when a bullet hit his shoulder.

Shep charged forward, vaulting over the barricade to take the heat off him.

Keith stopped shooting from the side to avoid accidentally hitting his teammates.

Three of the enemy were still standing, the rest badly injured or dead. Shep shot another one as he landed, then pivoted to the left to shoot after one who’d decided to flee.

He caught sight of Keith on the ground, holding both hands over his neck, blood gushing through his fingers.

Shep rushed toward him, firing into the night, providing him with cover. There were plenty of shots coming out of the darkness. He felt a bullet rip into his thigh just as he reached Keith, jarring him, knocking him sideways. He flattened himself to the ground next to Keith.

Then Jamie was there, laying down cover.

More shots in the distance. Probably Mo and Ray coming in. There couldn’t have been more than a man or two left of the tangos, but the gunfight still went on.

Shep saw movement behind some brush, caught a glimpse of a face he didn’t recognize. He shot the bastard without thinking.

And that was the last one. No more bullets came after that.

“You always want them all to yourself. One of these days you’re going to have to learn how to share,” Jamie groused next to him.

“Watch for more.” He bit out the words as he kneeled next to Keith and grabbed his radio unit. “Man down. We need a chopper ASAP.”

“Who is it?” Ryder asked.

“Keith. What’s going on at your end?”

“I got one. Running up. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Got two,” Mo said. “How bad is Keith?”

“Pretty bad.”

“Sounds like we have our twelve,” Jamie remarked, but kept alert, still scanning their surroundings.

Chapter Fourteen

Lilly sat alone in her home office in D.C. as she finished her report and saved it on her laptop. She’d made her official recommendation. The SDDU’s Texas team had to stay where they were. She made it clear that in her opinion, their presence was a matter of national security.

The op had been a complete success, and all the loose ends had been tied up in the two weeks since. The chemical weapons had been destroyed, the surviving terrorists interrogated.

She hadn’t gone back to Pebble Creek. She had the hotel mail her things to D.C. She figured she’d caused enough grief in Shep’s life already. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want anything to do with her. He didn’t need her hanging around with her confused and conflicted feelings. So she’d given him a clean break.

But when her phone rang, just as she shut her computer down, and his name came up on the display screen, her heart thrilled.

“I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said without preamble.

His voice filled her with longing, but she tried to keep things light. “Next time I’m in town?”

“Actually, I’m in D.C. I could pick you up tonight. Or when you’re free.”

“Tonight is good,” she said, suddenly breathless.

“Address?”

She smiled at that. “You didn’t run a full background check on me? I’d have thought you would have all my personal details.” His team had access to databases that were better than the FBI’s.

“That would have been stalking. This is...”

Part of her hoped he would finish with
a date.

But he said something so much better. “This is a man asking the woman he loves to have dinner with him.”

Now, could anyone have said no to that? Not likely. Her heart was melting on the spot. Yet she wasn’t sure what to stay in response, the words stuck inside her chest. At the end, she simply gave him her address.

“When can I pick you up?”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “Half an hour?” Best if she didn’t have too much time to obsess.

“I’ll be there.”

She showered and dressed, brushed some makeup on with nervous fingers. She’d barely finished with her hair when the doorbell rang.

She lived in a secure condo building, so she pushed the button to let him in downstairs, then waited for him at her door.

“Hey.” His voice was even better in person than over the phone.

God, she’d missed him. For the longest time, all she wanted was to be an independent woman. She wanted to be someone who could take care of herself, someone who didn’t need anyone. It was a hell of a thing to realize now that she needed Shep.

She swallowed. “Hey.”

He pulled a bouquet of lilies from behind his back with the hottest smile she’d ever seen.

Lilies were her favorite, her namesake flower. When she was a little girl, being named after a flower made her feel special. She liked to be associated with something beautiful when her life was anything but. She’d told him that once, long ago.

“Thank you.” She took the flowers. “I can’t believe you remembered.”

She moved back, which turned out to be a mistake. If she’d moved forward instead, out into the hallway, ready to go, they might have made it to the restaurant.

As it was, Shep followed her in.

She pulled a vase from under the sink, filled it with water and set the flowers in it, then placed them on the kitchen table. “How’s the team?”

“Good. Keith will be reinstated to full duty next week. Brian and Tank are in jail.” He stood in the middle of her living room, watching her. “Nice place,” he said without really looking around. He kept his eyes on her.

“I spend most of my time at work. I’m barely here,” she said inanely, when all she wanted to do was scream
You said you loved me!

“Working on anything exciting?”

Good grief, if the tension was any thicker in the room, it would have been visible.

“Can’t really talk about that.” She took a step toward him, but then stopped. Maybe she’d misunderstood him on the phone. Maybe she heard what she wanted to hear. “You?”

“The same.” He stepped toward her and held her gaze. “I missed you. I want us to be together.”

Her heart banged so hard against her rib cage she thought she was going to pass out.

“We’d make a terrible couple. We couldn’t talk about anything.” Stuff was just coming out of her mouth and she couldn’t stop it. “Everything we do is confidential.”

“We’ll find something else to fill our time with.”

“Why did you change your mind?”

“I went to the hospital with Keith when they took him in. A bullet just about ripped his throat out. We didn’t think he was going to make it. The only thing he said was he wished he asked you out while he had the chance.”

She watched him, not entirely understanding his point.

He reached out, took her hand and pulled her slowly against him. “All I could think was that if I was lying there on my deathbed, that would be my biggest regret, too. Letting you go.”

He gave her time to pull away, but she had no intention of protesting. When he lowered his lips to hers, relief flooded her. At least if he kissed her, she wouldn’t be able to say anything else stupid.

Nothing in this world felt half as good as being held in Shep’s arms and being kissed by him.

But too soon, he pulled away. “So how is this going to work?”

“Tonight?” she asked, dazed.

He gave a wicked grin. “I’m pretty sure I can figure tonight out.”

Her core temperature shot up a few degrees.

He rested his forehead against hers. “I meant the future. Together.”

Right. With her in D.C. and him in Texas. “We could meet in the middle. Spend the weekends together.”

“Not enough,” he protested immediately. “I could leave the team.”

She pulled back to stare at him. “You would?” That was mind-boggling. She considered it for a long second before she shook her head. “You already lost a job because of me. This one is right for you. It matters.” She paused. “I could come to Texas.”

He watched her carefully. “You’re building a career here.”

“Career isn’t everything. There’s something else I always wanted to do.” She paused for a second. “I told you I’ve been thinking about working with kids in the system. Kids in foster care who get in trouble with the law. I’d love to put together some kind of program to turn them in another direction. If I could get government funding...”

A smile spread on his face. “You’d be perfect for the job.”

His vote of confidence felt good. “I hope so. I really think there’s a need.” She paused. “I always thought I might be good with something like that. While I might not be good at, you know, kids in a family setting.”

There. One of her deepest secrets. She’d never seen how mothering worked, not up close and personal. She didn’t have those experiences. She hadn’t planned on giving that a try, didn’t want to mess up some poor little kid.

“I don’t agree, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” He kissed her again. “I do like your idea of helping foster kids, though. You could start in Texas, maybe even build something that goes nationwide. You have government contacts. I have a few of my own. If we have downtime, the team and I could offer some boot-camp training. Grace Cordero, Ryder’s girlfriend, is looking for ways to use her ranch. She had corporate boot camps there before. And she has animals there, too. Juvenile rehab with kids working with rescue animals is a big thing—”

She put a finger over his lips, enormously gratified how excited he was about her idea, how supportive. But for now... “We’ll brainstorm in the morning. For now I just want you to kiss me.”

Normally, he didn’t take orders well, but at the moment he looked happy to obey.

He kissed her and then some, making her head spin. But just as she was about to drown in his touch, his familiar, masculine scent, in the feel of his mouth over hers, he pulled back again, with a pained expression on his face.

“What is it?”

He blew some air from his lungs. “Since the first time...I practically attacked you. We just fell in bed and...I wanted this to be sweet and long and more romantic. I don’t want to rush it.”

“You want to go to dinner?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Me, neither.”

His face lit up.

“You’re a commando. I’m an FBI agent. We don’t do slow,” she reminded him. “I want fast.”

“You don’t always get what you want in a relationship. There’s the whole compromise thing.” He lifted her and walked toward the bedroom.

“How is this a compromise?”

“I wanted to take you on the carpet.”

H
IS
BODY
WAS
READY
,
poised at her opening as she straddled him on the bed.

“I love you, too,” she said.

His heart was about to burst.

She smiled. “I think we should get our own ranch.”

Okay. He inched his fingers up her naked thigh.

“And I want horses. If we live in Texas, you’re going to have to learn how to ride well.”

She was going to discuss livestock?

He grabbed her hips and pulled her down on him, sheathed himself in her wet heat to the hilt. His eyes rolled back in his head from the pleasure.

Her breath caught and she gave a quick little moan that nearly sent him over the edge.

But then she seemed to recover. “And I think we should—”

“All right, that’s it.” He flipped her in a lightning-quick move so she was sprawled under him the next second.

Her eyes widened. “You’re still very bossy. I have to say, you didn’t mellow much with age.”

He raised an eyebrow as he withdrew and then pushed in again. “You want me mellow?”

She arched her back. “On second thought, not really.”

“We’re doing this all the way. I want it all. There’ll be no casual dating, no seeing other people. When I commit to something, it’s 100 percent.”

She ran her slim fingers up his chest and brushed the pads over his nipples. “I like that about you.”

His entire body tightened. “Then you won’t object to marrying me right away?”

“For Mitch’s sake?”

“Because I love you so much I can’t see straight.”

“What if I wreck your life again?”

He looked deep into her eyes. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to make it.” He dipped his head for a kiss as he made her his.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from CATCH, RELEASE by Carol Ericson.

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