“He didn’t,” Adam insisted. “He had no choice.”
“I know,” she said. “In my head, I know. But my heart says he should have fought harder to live. I felt …” She let her voice trail off. The words sounded too ridiculous to speak.
“Abandoned? Adam suggested.
Surprised at his insight, she looked up at him.
“Do you still love him, honey?”
Her answer mattered to Adam; she could see it in his taut expression, feel it in his whipcord tension. “Love lives on.” She cocked her head. “Funny, I hadn’t really understood that until now. But I have accepted his death, and I’m not in love with him anymore. I haven’t been since the night of the accident.”
“So why do you keep his photo in your locket?”
Adam nodded to the chain at her neck.
“I don’t. It’s Abby’s.” She blinked hard, then looked at him. “You had it all that time and didn’t look inside?”
“It was private.”
–.Now Honorable. She smiled at him. “I can’t tell you what it means to me to have this back. It’s the only photograph I have of her.”
Adam felt a tight hitch in his chest. A child born and died in less than a day, but not forgotten. Never forgotten. He would have loved Tracy for that alone. She would have made a wonderful mother. Devoted. Caring. She wouldn’t have demanded respect, she would have earned it by example, giving it to her daughter and nurturing her.
“Adam, where did you find my locket?”
He blinked away memories of his own mother. “In the memory, after my funeral.” That, is where Janet and I thought I lost i’ll Thank you for giving it back to me.”
“I debated long and hard,” he confessed. “I thought, it was Matthew’s photo.” He touched a sweet kiss to her lips to apologize.
Pressing a hand flat against his chest, she frowned are you jealous of Matthew?” :“Should I be?” Adam asked, his hands tensing.
“No. my heart’s big enough to love both of you providing one day you’ll let me into yours.” Tracy already had let him into her heart, but she feared admitting it, except to herself. What would happen to her after this was over? If they survived and Adam realized what he felt for her was gratitude, not love? Her heart couldn’t bear one more good-bye, one more tear. Worse, one more lie. Not in the name of love. Matthew had promised her forever. He’d given her ten months and one day, and a lifetime of regret because she had let him drive that night. Knowing Adam feared the pain of family, why was she opening herself up to heartache again? He had promised her nothing at all.
“Tracy?”
She opened her eyes, met his gaze, and saw his desire and passion, his unspoken promises of caring and devotion, of- *
“I care about you, honey.”
Her heart wrenched, leaped, urged her to admit that she loved him. But her head refused, reminding her that he was an intense man in an intense situation. A man likely transposing one emotion for another. “Oh, Adam.”
He kissed her; tiny pecks of kisses, long and luxurious ones, and she returned them, imparting her own, wanting him in every way a woman wants a man when he’s touched her heart. Nestling into the curve of his arms, languishing in the heat stirring between them, she felt the fire inside her ignite and flame and spread until it consumed her.
By silent accord, they undressed, eager to touch skin as they had touched hearts, and when they stood naked, Tracy openly admired him, loving the look and smell of his lean body, the quiver of his muscles responding to her slightest touch, the feel of him wanting her, the tremor in his hands on her body, as unsteady as her own.
Facing her beside the bed, he laced their fingers, their heated bodies close, brushing with each indrawn breath. “You’re sure about this?”
She nodded. “More sure than I’ve been about anything in a long time. I adore you, Adam. And I love how you make me feel.”
With pure male relief, he groaned, and fell back on the bed, bringing her with him. And there, he adored her, lovingly caressing her skin, whispering all the tender words she ached to hear, and when she thought she’d die from the heat he created in her with his hands, mouth, and tongue, he came to her, joining their flesh, their spirits, their hearts.
Tracy had made love in the innocence of youth, in the blush of first love, but that had been before she had known the costs of loving. This was different. She feared it because, this time, she knew those costs. She knew the pain and suffering, the ache and loneliness and emptiness, of loss, and she had to choose to willingly risk that pain for this joy. She didn’t want to do it. It had hurt so much. But this was Adam. Adam who had risked his life, and now his heart. For her. For her. He might not have given her the words, but he’d proven his feelings through his actions and deeds. He loved her.
And she loved him. Opening herself to the possibility of pain, to the joy, she opened her soul to him, terrified and soon elated at setting her emotions free. He whispered her name on a shuddering sigh, and she loved him, meeting him stroke for stroke, touch for touch, kiss for kiss; heart, body, and soul.
And when they came and she rested against him on the tangled sheets, she stroked his chest, amazed and humbled at what they had shared, awed and inspired at the wealth and depth of feelings for him still in her heart. The fire between them had been satiated for now, yet the flame burned on. And deep inside her most secret self, she knew it would burn forever.
Chapter 27.
Tracy ‘munched down on a potato chip.
Stretched out on the bed and scrunching his pillow, Adam smiled at her. “Do you always eat potato chips after making love?”
Sitting back against the headboard, her knees bent, her feet flat on the bed, she drew the sheet up over her breasts, tucked the bag of chips between her knees, and then swiped at the tip of his nose. “Only when I’m thinking.”
The lamp on the bedside table slanted warm amber light over the side of his face. His eyes clouded. “Tracy, tell me you don’t regret loving me.”
“No, no regrets.” Understanding his need for reassurance, she licked the salt from her lips. “Actually, I was thinking about the conspiracy,”
“Oh.” Disappointment flooded his tone.
Pleased at hearing it, she let the hint of a smile curve her mouth. “I was thinking the sooner we get this cleared UP, the sooner we can go on with our lives.”
“Good point.” He raised up on an elbow to take a chip from the bag nestled between her knees. “Hackett, O’Dell, and Moxley are definitely on the wrong side of this. It appears grim on that front for Keener, too. But Nestler still troubles me.”
“Mmm,” Tracy mumbled, then swallowed. “Because of Sergeant Phelps, we know Janet is more deeply involved than we believed, too.”
“All she’s done is to let me know you needed help.”
“Not true,” Tracy countered, wishing when she’d gotten up to get the chips she had snagged a soda from the fridge. “Janet arranged the meeting between me and Sergeant Phelps at the hospital. She also talked with Dr. Kane before I did. And she found out about the chemical gear being sent for repairs by O’Dell coinciding with the war-readiness exercise that killed your men.” Tracy didn’t feel disloyal to Janet. Not at all. Every word was true.
Adam rolled out of bed and walked nude to the fridge. Admiring his body, Tracy watched him get a soda and then come back and crawl back into bed beside her. It felt right, him being there. She liked it. A lot. “Are you reading my mind?” She nodded toward the soda.
“Yeah,” He slid her a wicked smile, and popped the top on the can. “It’s scary.”
Sliding him a disgruntled look, she snitched the can and then took a long drink. “Janet’s actions don’t point to her doing anything wrong, though. Just doing. She’s definitely more involved than we first thought.”
“True.” Adam took the can, downed a swallow., “We’d be wise to remember she’s Intel.”
Hearing that remark from him hit Tracy with the force of a thunderbolt. She’d surmised it. He’d confirmed it. Once in Intel, you never get out. Janet had been planted in Tracy’s office. “Adam, she is Intel. What if, after the incident with your men, General Nestler learned the truth about it?”
“He’s Laurel’s god, honey. I know you need to believe he’s not corrupt, but nothing goes on around here without him knowing it.”
Sees all, knows all. “Okay, that’s supposedly true. But what if he didn’t know it until after it happened? What if he only found out after your men had been killed?”
Adam frowned. “It’s possible, I guess.”
“What if Hackett, O’Dell, Moxley, and maybe Paul perpetrated the conspiracy and conducted the exercise without Nestler’s knowledge?”
“And when he later found out, Nestler opposed,” Adam interrupted, Picking up on her line of thought. “We’ve discussed this possibility before. Nestler could be running interference for us via Carver, trying to help us unearth the truth. But if Nestler knew, he’d have to launch a formal investigation. That’s the bottom line.”
“But he couldn’t, not without jeopardizing his pet project,” Tracy juxtaposed. “Dr. Kane said something that’s got me thinking Nestler could be a good guy in this.
“Honey, that’s looking less likely all the time.” On his Side, facing her, Adam pecked a kiss to her shoulder to soften the blow. “But what did Dr. Kane say?”
“We need a new antidote for this sarin derivative. The one for sarin won’t work.”
Adam narrowed his eyes. “We wouldn’t have the money to look for one unless the entire project was funded-not without announcing to the world that retrosarin exists and we don’t have an antidote.”
“That’s the way I see it-maybe.” Adam looked over at her; their gazes locked. “So Nestler works through Lieutenant Carver to help us get to the truth while staying out of it officially so he doesn’t jeopardize the project getting funded. He avoids a formal investigation that would screw up the works.”
“Carver and, I think, Janet,” Tracy expounded. “She’s been running interference, too. She covered for me at work with Colonel Jackson, telling him I had the flu.”
“No one knows you were AWOL?”
“Only you, me, and Janet.” A pang of regret and uncertainty shot through Tracy.
“And you still came back to me.”
“I promised I would.”
Too tender, he turned the subject. “This makes sense.”
Lifting a hank of her hair, he rubbed it between his fingertips. “Hackett, O’Dell, Moxley, and Keener could be the team.”
“Paul’s involvement in this is still supposition, Adam. We have no concrete evidence tying him to the conspiracy.”
“What about the canister? The unknown derivative of sarin?” Adam shoved up on the bed to sit beside her. The sheet slid down to his waist, exposing his chest.
“What about it?” Tracy braced a pillow behind his back. From his smile, no one had bothered with little things like his comfort. That saddened her. “Do we know Paul’s producing it? That he was a willing participant in the exercise?”
” No, on participation. But Intel rumors are rampant on him producing it. We know it-”
“We know it, but we can’t prove it in a court of law.”
Tracy took out her frustration, biting down on a chip. “Not yet. We need irrefutable proof he can’t squirm out of on both fronts-production and participation.”
“So let’s corner Carver,” Adam suggested. “Janet would be harder to coerce into telling us anything-”
“Sounds like a plan.” Tracy set the chips on the bedside table. “But I don’t think the good lieutenant will be receptive to company at four in the morning.” She rolled over, half covering Adam with her body, and slid a knee between his thighs. “Would the good Captain Burke be receptive to company?” he’d used his She’d used his title. For the first time, his title. He linked his arms around her back, fanned his fingers between her shoulders, and whispered against her mouth. “Yeah, he would.”
“This is crazy, Adam.” Tracy rolled her gaze to the ceiling of the car for the thousandth time. “The Officers’ Club? At a First Friday gathering? Coming here is begging for disaster.”
“Calm down, honey. We’re not going in.” Adam kept his gaze fixed on the white lopsided building. “We’re waiting for Carver to come out.”
“Meanwhile, half of the officers assigned to Laurel are going in and coming out.” First Friday gatherings weren’t mandatory but tradition, and most people attended them. On the first Friday of each month, directly after the end of the duty day, everyone dropped by the club for a couple of hours of socializing. “Someone is going to recognize us.”
“Intel Rule Twenty-Seven: hide in plain sight.” He spared her a quick glance. “We’re in uniform. We blend.”
We blend? “We’ll blend in prison grays, too.”
He winked at her. “You’d look good in anything.”
She rolled her gaze, deliberately holding it so he wouldn’t miss it.
“There he is.” Adam hiked his chin toward the swinging glass door.
Lieutenant Carver walked out, strutting like the brash young man he was. Seeing him for the first time unencumbered by darkness, she guessed him to be about twenty-four. He was blond, ‘thick-muscled, just a tad shorter than Adam-about six feet-and obviously a bodybuilder. He moved fluidly down the left side of the circular-drive entrance to the club, and then headed into the parking lot.
“Let’s go.” Adam opened his door.
They walked over two rows of parked cars, and then toward Carver’s Bronco. At the rear of it, they split up, Adam taking the driver’s side of the car. Heading up the passenger’s side, Tracy called out, “Lieutenant.”
A smile touching his lips, he lifted his gaze across the car’s hood. On recognizing her, his smile faded. “Captain Keener?”
He wasn’t happy about running into her, and on seeing Adam, Carver’s expression turned even more grim. He stopped and backed up a step, then another. “Oh, hell.”
“Indeed.” Adam took Carver’s keys, then unlocked the Bronco’s front door. “Get in.”
Carver folded himself in, behind the Wheel. Tracy slid into the passenger’s seat and Adam into the backseat, behind Carver. “Start talking,” Adam said.
Carver didn’t utter a sound.
Tracy smiled. “That’s an order, Captain.”
His stern expression crumbled. “You’re ordering me to disobey a direct order issued by a superior officer.”