He was right. Shame had her face hot. “Bloody hell, Adam, only a moron wouldn’t be terrified. I know the law, okay? I don’t know how to perform covert missions that could end up getting me and you and a hell of a lot of other people killed. The responsibility terrifies me. Damn right, I’m scared. I’m scared stiff.” Feeling better for having unloaded, she shifted her shoulders, trying to slough off some tension. Her insides felt as if a swarm of bees were having a field day in them.
“You think getting Intel training keeps you from feeling fear? It doesn’t, Tracy. You just function anyway. In spite of it.”
He made sense. You’d have to be inhuman. “Okay, but you’re trained, and you can rely on your training. On honed instincts. My instincts are honed to the intricacies of the law.”
“Maybe when you get down to it there isn’t a lot of difference.”
“Maybe. I’ll have to think about that.” She glanced at Adam. “You said there was one way to determine which side of the fence Nestler sat on. What is it?”
Adam looked her right in the eye. “Retrieve the canister I buried in Area Fourteen.”
Tracy didn’t like this. Not at all. “We’d have to break even more laws.”
And this time, she’d be a participant. She’d be an accessory.
“Yes, but we need the canister to analyze its contents. If it has retrosarin in it we’ve got a direct link between Paul Keener and Gus O’Dell, and General Nestler.
Laurel’s god would bury them both without even breaking a sweat. “I can’t just waltz into Area Fourteen, and neither can you. Technically, you’re dead, but I’m not. I’m AWOL, Adam.” Being absent without leave left her open for courtmartial, for demotion and dishonorable discharge, for God’s sake. “And facts are facts. I may believe you, but I’m still your hostage.”
Hurt clouded his eyes. “Have I treated you like a hostage? Have I harmed you in any way? Didn’t I explain that you were about to be killed, counselor? And didn’t I tell you that you stopped being a hostage when you didn’t turn me in at City Drugs?”
Tracy squeezed her eyes shut. He had been good to her. Hell, he’d saved her life. And she’d been looking for a way out. A safety net that would absolve her from wrongdoing. Human of her, but oh, so wrong. She who prided herself on doing the right thing had done him yet another grave injustice. And she had hurt him. She cared for him, and she still had hurt him, trying to protect herself. Her eyes burned. “I’m sorry, Adam. It’s the fear. I was wimping out.”
He didn’t look at her. “Do you still doubt me?” His voice sounded deceptively soft.
Be honest. She lowered her gaze to his hand, gripping the steering wheel. His knuckle had blanched white. “I’ want to, because not doubting you forces me to accept that we have traitors in uniform, and I can’t stand the idea of that. But I don’t doubt you,” she confessed.
“Deep down, I know you wouldn’t kill, sacrifice, or abandon your men.”
“Thank you.” Adam breathed again. He hadn’t realized that he had stopped breathing, waiting for her answer, but he had. Covertly glancing her way, he saw tension lining her face. She didn’t like what she had just done-wimping out-and she had realized that her feelings for him had strengthened, deepened. From all signs, she didn’t know what to make of that, Neither did he. A part of him, the stupid part willing to open himself up to being hurt again, was elated. He loved her, and she was the first woman since Lisa that he’d cared enough about to make him consider trusting again. And yet another part of him, the wise part, knew the odds ran high that her caring for him could ruin her life. That part of him hated knowing her feelings for him had strengthened. He wanted her safe, not in danger, and anyone who went to this much trouble to build a conspiracy wouldn’t let it just fall apart. They would do whatever it took to protect their interests.
He could have left Tracy out of this and she never would have known him, much less come to care for him, but she had refused to stay out of it. In her babblings, she claimed she wasn’t an adventuress, that she was a coward. She wasn’t. When no one else in the world had cared that he’d “died” falsely accused and had been tagged as guilty without a trial, she had cared. Enough to put her job and her peace of mind on the line. Maybe she hadn’t known then she would be risking her life, but she had realized it long before Adam had kidnapped her, and she’d still persisted, rattling cages, looking for the truth. A coward?
No. She was one of the bravest women he’d ever known. And-he glanced down at her slippers-one of the most vulnerable. But pointing out that vulnerability would be a tactical error; she wouldn’t appreciate it. At least, not yet. “I need your help, Tracy.”
Tracy stilled, stared at him. Such a simple statement, but the feelings it carried would blast mountains, or melt hearts.
“Not because you’re a hostage, but because you want to help me stop them from unleashing retrosarin on the country and because you believe it’s the right thing to do.”
Any words but those and she might have been able to refuse him. But still stinging from the shame of her cowardice at wanting to hide behind his kidnapping-an act of mercy, not violence-she couldn’t. She had to choose. Should she trust him? Or not?
It was that simple. That simple, and that complex.
She shoved her hair back from her face and met his gaze. “All right, Adam. I’ll help you.”
Chapter 22.
Grandsen ? Trady stared at Adam, certain the man had lost his mind. “We can’t go back to Grandsen.”
A hot, phantom wind ruffled over her face, through her hair. Sitting on the hood of the car, she shifted her weight and rolled her gaze to the blue “Rest Area” sign. “In case it hasn’t occurred to you, we have no place safe to go there. We can’t go to my house, we certainly can’t go to yours, and the VOQ isn’t likely to send out a welcome wagon to greet us.” The visiting officers’ quarters were definitely off-limits.
“Just drink your drink and stop worrying.” He leaned against the front fender and toed the sandy red dirt. It clumped on the toe of his sneaker. “I’ve got things under control.”
“Sure you do.” Tracy plunked down the drink can and slid up, letting her legs dangle over the fender. “That’s why you’re up on all these charges, and you’re doing your damnedest to add new ones to the list every time I blink.”
Adam propped a hand next to her thigh and glared at her. “I didn’t expect my own team to screw me, counselor. Would you?”
She wouldn’t. “No, but that doesn’t mean we can just drive out to Area Fourteen and dig up the canister. It’s a sealed area, Adam.”
“Bombing ranges are always sealed areas. But Four teen isn’t locked in a vault, it’s surrounded by a fence. Just a fence.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll bet my bars it’s guarded.”
“Maybe.” Squinting against the sun, he stared at her lips. “I’d give it fifty-fifty odds.”
“More like a hundred percent.” She grunted and swatted at a mosquito buzzing near his ear. “If that canister has retrosarin in it, whoever put it there is going to be looking for it.”
I’m sure they’ve searched extensively for the canister.
“Which means they’ve either found it, or they’re still looking for it.”
“Maybe they can’t find it and that’s why Carver warned us O’Dell was coming to the Lucky Pines,” Adam said, the side of his hand brushing against her thigh. ,Maybe Carver thinks we’ll lead him to the canister r.”
“Then why let us fall behind? Wouldn’t he have glued himself to us on the road?”
“Not if he felt confident we’d retrieve the canister. He’d give us the space to do it.”
Logical. Carver had no need to interfere. “So Nestler still could be working with Hackett or against him.”
Tracy couldn’t resist. She looped her arms around Adam’s neck, buried her forehead against his chest, and sighed. ,I really want Nestler to be on the right side in this. I really do, Adam.”
“He might be.” Adam lifted her chin, stared down at her. “We’ll have to keep playing the cards we’re dealt and see.” Pain flickered through his eyes. “But we won’t give up on him until we know for sure.”
Like everyone, including her, had given up on Adam. She nodded solemnly, wishing he would kiss her, calling herself forty kinds of fool because she really wanted his kiss. “No, we won’t give up on him. Not until we know for certain.”
Satisfaction burned in Adam’s eyes. He let the backs of his fingers brush against her cheek, hooked her chin and bent toward her, then touched his lips to hers, kissing her as if she were fragile and he feared she would break. In his arms, she felt many things, but fragile wasn’t among them. She felt afraid, offended at the wrongs done to them both, angry and confused at all the deceit, and ticked at Adam for pushing her off the roof. And she felt desire. It had been so long since she’d truly desired a man. Since she’d hungered to touch and be touched. Not since Matthew. And yet with Adam it was all so … different. With Matthew, she had been young and caught up in the wonders of first love. She’d wanted all of the things most women want. The magic. The romance. The passion. But that was before she had experienced the agony of loving and losing. Before she’d learned that loving unconditionally can devastate and destroy. That love is joyous, but nothing in the world could cause a woman more pain and suffering.
Now, she knew all of that and more, and yet she found herself craving the chance and taking it. Falling in love with Adam Burke wasn’t wise. Risking all that suffering again was insane. She was not an adventuress or brave and he’d never love her, but for now, she was his candle in the window. Yet if she wasn’t careful, when he walked out of her life, he’d be walking out with her heart. Then what would she have left?
He separated their mouths. “Did I do something wrong?”
Already anticipating the pain to come, she gave him a negative nod, and not wanting to delve into this-the man read her emotions far too easily-she turned the subject, sounding too breathless to hope he wouldn’t realize the effect of his kiss. “So what’s the plan?”
He stared at her a long moment. “We go to Area Fourteen and dig up the canister.”
She scooted off the edge of the car’s hood. Her feet on the ground, she swatted at the dust on the seat of her jeans. “Should we wait until dark?”
“I considered it, but I don’t think traipsing around in the woods at night is a good idea.” He slid into the car.
Tracy got in on her side. “The woods in the light of day is godawful enough. But at night? No, thank you.”
“Maybe you are fluff.” His eyes twinkled an appealing contradiction. “How did you ever get through survival school?”
“I’m a lawyer, Burke. My survival schools were on contract negotiations and military law. And at those, darling, I am not fluff.”
“Point made, counselor. You can knock off the killer glare.”
She glared harder. The damn man smiled, and she recalled what he had said about retrosarin. That it didn’t dissipate. “Adam, how are we going to retrieve the canister? If it’s live, then-”
“Exposure risks. Yes, I know.” He shrugged enigmatically. “I’ve got it under control.”
Yet another trust test. Why did it always come back to that with him?
Why couldn’t he just tell her how they would be protected? Why did he have to test her again and again? likely, Because he’d been betrayed? Maybe. He still considered her fluff.
Or maybe because you can’t disclose what you don’t know.
Her heart softened, and it was all she could do not to reach out and caress him. He was protecting her. Again.
They drove another two hours, then Adam turned off at the Laurel Air Force Base exit. Another thirty miles of wooded reservation land lay between them and the base, but they were less than ten minutes from Area
14.
A cold chill arced through her back and fear squeezed her in a death grip. What would they find out there?
Adam pulled off the highway and onto a dirt road. About forty meters in, he turned left on a trail of ruts in the dense undergrowth, and then stopped the car in a clump of pines. “We go in from here on foot.”
Tracy resisted a groan by the skin of her teeth. Another of his “fluff” looks she didn’t need. She felt shaky enough about this already.
They stepped out of the car and Adam went around, got some gear out of the trunk, then began burying the car with fallen branches-and clumps of weeds.
Tracy followed his lead and helped him. When they were done, she cast the lump a critical look. “It’s not going to fool anyone.”
“It’s not supposed to.” Adam wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “It’s supposed to keep anyone driving down the road from spotting the car. No one would bother searching this area on foot. It’s too close to the main road.”
He made sense. And too hot and sweaty to decide whether or not to resent it, Tracy cupped her hand at her brow to block the sun from her eyes and watched him.
He hiked the straps of two black bags over his shoulder. “Ready?”
Dread dragging at her belly, she nodded.
An hour later, she was hot, sweaty, sick of sultry air and the baking sun. She was also tired of dogging Adam’s footsteps, even with the view of his jean-clad backside in motion enticing her. She swatted at yet another bug.- “Damn mosquitoes.”
“They’re sand fleas,” Adam said, not bothering to look back at her.
She tripped over the roots of an oak. “Damn it.”
He glared back at her. “Look, I realize you’re not overly fond of the woods, and you’re not an adventuress, but could you pipe down? If you’re right and there are people out here looking for the canister, I’d prefer not to tell them an hour in advance that we’re here, too.”
“Sorry.” Another bug was doing its best to eat her through her sleeve. She slapped at it. “I’m not used to this covert stuff, you know. I’m-”
“A lawyer,” he interrupted, sounding exasperated. “Yes, I know, Tracy.”
Succinctly reminded to be -quiet again, she hushed and glared at his back. It was different for him. He’d been trained in Intel. He’d been to survival school, and a lot of others, to build specialized skills. He probably liked the woods. She hated them. Give her courtrooms; that was jungle enough for her. And her little backyard garden. Not this sliver of bug-infested. hell.