Express Male (25 page)

It
would
be okay. She could do this. She would do this. Because it was the only way she could go back to living her life the way she’d lived it before. Before Adrian Padgett and Philosopher and Noah Tennant and OPUS had entered it.

She should be happy about that. She
was
happy about that. That was what she wanted, right? That was why she’d offered to help. So she could get her life back to normal. What was strange was that what had been normal in her life before didn’t seem normal anymore. What seemed normal now was the life she’d been living for the past three weeks—which was nothing like the life she’d led before.

“You okay, Marnie?”

Noah’s voice seemed to be coming from a million miles away, but she nodded her head in reply. “Yeah. I’m okay. I think it’s just finally hitting me, what I have to do.”

He hesitated a moment, his blue eyes fixed on her face. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he told her.

Marnie hesitated, too, before replying, unable to look away. “You said I’m your best chance.”

“You are,” he agreed.

“Then you need me.”

“Yeah.”

Though somehow, it suddenly seemed as if they were talking about something other than the assignment.

“I can do this, Noah.”

“I know you can, Marnie. I’m just not sure—”

“What?”

He blew out an exasperated sound. “Nothing. It’s not up to me.”

That was what he thought. It was entirely up to him. Maybe not about whether or not Marnie should agree to take on the assignment. But it was definitely up to him what happened when she returned.

If she returned.

She closed her eyes and forced herself not to think about that. She would return. Sorcerer wasn’t a killer. Then again, there were things he could do to her that might make her wish she was dead….

She opened her eyes again and met Noah’s gaze levelly. “When do I leave?”

“We’ll be fine-tuning the details tomorrow,” he said.

“Be ready to be on a plane to D.C. in thirty-six hours.”

Thirty-six hours, she echoed to herself. She had a day and a half to prepare herself for travel to an unknown final destination and complete a job she’d never done before among strangers she wasn’t even sure she could trust. And she’d be doing it without Noah.

“Where will I be going to look for Padgett?” she asked softly.

He studied her silently for a moment, his face completely lacking expression, and she would have given anything to know what he was thinking just then. But all he told her was, “You’ll find out in D.C.”

N
OAH STUDIED
Marnie on the other side of the desk, trying to gauge her emotions by the way she looked at him. But he could detect nothing of what she was feeling or thinking in that moment. He told himself that was good. That meant she’d been paying attention in spy school. She was probably at least panicky after everything he’d just told her—and was quite possibly terrified—but she didn’t look anything other than mildly interested in what he’d just said.

Of course, it wasn’t only her reaction to what he’d just said that he was really hoping to gauge. But he could detect nothing of what she might be feeling for him at the moment, either.

He told himself that was good, too, that he didn’t want her to feel anything for him other than what she would feel for anyone with whom she happened to work. Going to her house had been a huge mistake. Their sexual liaison never should have happened. He should have known better. He was, in essence, her boss, at least temporarily. He should have realized anything else that might happen between them would be temporary, too. He should have controlled himself better. Should have stayed in charge. Should have played by the rules.

Yada. Yada. Yada.

It was the same pile of platitudes he’d been shoveling all week. And it still sounded like a heaping, reeking pile of—

Now Marnie was about to actually embark on the assignment for which they’d spent two weeks preparing her. An assignment that would have commanded at least six months of training for any other agent. And even then, OPUS would have been damned wary, putting a newbie on such a dangerous quest. Sorcerer had eluded their best people for years. Even Lila hadn’t been able to bring him in. He was responsible for at least one death. He was ruthless. He was unpredictable. He was amoral. He didn’t care about anyone but himself. And he would do anything—anything—to make sure he wasn’t caught.

Sorcerer could crush Marnie. Either literally or figuratively. He could crush her. Noah knew that. And the knowledge was almost more than he could bear.

“I should go,” she said, bringing him back to the matter at hand.

Already? he wanted to reply. He suddenly found himself making plans for the next thirty-six hours that had nothing to do with preparing Marnie for her assignment and everything to do with trying to talk her out of it, most of which, ironically—or something—was in no way verbal.

“I mean, if you don’t need me for anything else,” she added.

But he did need her. Just not in any capacity sanctioned by OPUS. And for something that had nothing to do with her assignment. Suddenly, Noah felt his own panic starting to rise. He hadn’t let himself think about Marnie this week, except in terms of how that night at her house never should have happened. Because that was easy to think about, so obvious a mistake was it. Seeing her now, looking so beautiful, and remembering so many of their encounters before they’d had sex, he started thinking about other things, too. About her bravery that first night standing up to Sorcerer and to him. About her strength in remaining calm and steady in light of so many assaults on her secure life. About how she could joke about even the most serious things. About how she liked Game Boy, too. About the profoundly erotic way she made love. About how he’d felt…different since meeting her. Better. More human. Or something.

It was all too much to think about now. It might be too much to think about for a long time. But it occurred to Noah then that maybe he should think about it. Because maybe all that was way more important than anything else he had to think about right now.

“I’ll get going,” she said, smudging Noah’s otherwise perfect mental paint job into a corner. “I have a lot to do before I leave, not the least of which is pack.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth, adding, “I know. Only take what I’ll absolutely need. I learned that in one of my training sessions. Top of my class, remember?”

Actually, Noah had wanted to ask her if she had room in her suitcase for him. Good thing she’d interrupted.

“And I need to call my cat-sitter.”

He could feed her cats.

“And stop the mail and paper.”

He could collect her mail and paper. And drive by the house occasionally to make sure nothing was amiss. And roll her trash can down to the curb on garbage day. And mow her lawn when the grass got too long. And break into her house from time to time to make sure nothing was wrong…and perhaps go through her underwear drawer. Just to make sure nothing was missing.

“And I’ll have to put my students and Lauderdale’s on notice that I’ll be out of town indefinitely. Looks like my little family situation out of town just got really big.”

Indefinitely,
Noah echoed to himself. Not a word he liked to hear used in a situation like this. Or in any terms that referred to Marnie’s not being around. Indefinitely sounded way too definite. In fact, it sounded like forever. And although that, too, was a word he hadn’t thought he’d ever want to associate with Marnie—or any woman—
forever
suddenly took on an entirely new meaning. An entirely new intention. An entirely new feeling.

Good God, what had gotten into him? He was a senior administrator for a government organization whose business was to protect the country from evildoers. Marnie Lundy had come to work for OPUS—and Noah—voluntarily. She’d been trained to do the job, and she’d been briefed on the potential dangers and risks. She was smart. She was brave. She was resourceful. She was ready.

So why wasn’t Noah?

“So if there’s nothing else?” she asked as she stood.

Oh, yeah, there was something else, Noah thought. There was too damned much else. So much that he couldn’t even get a handle on one thing to make sense of it.

She must have taken his silence as assent, because she threw him one last glance—an expression on her face he couldn’t begin to identify—and made her way to the door.

“Marnie,” he said as she pulled it open.

She turned around and looked at him in silent question.

She was so beautiful. So determined. In that moment, Noah remembered the way she had looked and acted on every occasion he had seen her. No matter what was going on, no matter what she’d been dealing with, no matter how high her emotions had been running, no matter how much danger she had been in, she had always been beautiful. And always brave. And always smart.

She was a remarkable woman. And he might never see her again.

“I almost forgot,” he said. “Once you’re all official, OPUS gives you a new name. And a code name. Both of yours have come through. You’ll receive your new ID and phony credentials once you’re in D.C. After that, you’ll be required to identify yourself by your bogus name in undercover scenarios and by your code name in professional circles.”

She smiled at that. And, impossibly, looked even more beautiful, even more determined. “Really? I get to have a new identity? And a code name?”

Noah nodded and tried not to be so enamored.

“Well don’t keep me in suspense,” she said. “What are they?”

“Your new identity will be Amanda Bellamy.”

She tilted her head to the side, as if she were giving that some thought. Finally, she nodded slowly. “I can be an Amanda. So what’s my code name?”

He grinned. “Chopin.”

She grinned back. “Code name, Chopin. Now that I like very much.”

Noah was glad to hear it, since he was the one who had suggested it. He liked it, too. He liked the woman wearing it even better. In fact…

“So no more Marnie Lundy,” he continued before the thought—or whatever it was—could form. Though the idea of there being no more Marnie Lundy didn’t exactly sit well with him, either. “Undercover, you’ll be Amanda. With OPUS, you’ll be Chopin.”

“Thanks, Noah,” she said. “I mean, thanks, Sinatra.”

“You’re welcome. Chopin.”

She stepped through the door and closed it behind herself with a soft click. And just like that, she was gone.

No more Marnie Lundy,
Noah repeated to himself as he stared at the closed door. But then, he suspected she hadn’t been Marnie Lundy for a while now. Certainly not since her run-in with him. That had to have changed virtually everything for her, shaken her world from top to bottom and inside out. He’d been the one who told her the truth about her parents. He’d been the one to inform her of her sister’s existence. He’d been responsible for her entrée into a world of espionage and danger. And it was he who had put her in the path of Sorcerer again.

It didn’t matter that Marnie was smart and brave and resourceful and ready. It didn’t matter that she had been trained in self-defense and with weaponry. It didn’t matter that she had backup for her assignment. If anything happened to her—anything—it would be on Noah’s shoulders. And if anything happened to her—anything—he would never forgive himself.

It was then that Noah realized he wasn’t himself either, anymore, and hadn’t been for some time. Not since meeting Marnie. She had changed virtually everything for him, too, had shaken
his
world from top to bottom and inside out. He felt things for her he’d never felt for anyone else. He worried about her the way he’d never worried for anyone else. He feared for her loss like he had never feared the loss of anything before. And it was all too new, too strange, too confusing for him to understand any of it.

Noah, too, had changed over the past few weeks. But unlike Marnie, he didn’t have a new code name to mark the transition. No, he only had a heart full of feelings and fears he’d never had before. And he had no idea what to do with any of them.

A
S ALWAYS
, by the time Noah left to go home, the building was virtually deserted save the security staff and cleaning crews. While Ellie was completing her training assignment, he had a temporary secretary, and like most temps—even OPUS temps—she didn’t hang around any longer than she had to. Not that even Ellie worked as late as Noah did. But over the past couple of weeks, with Ellie’s fill-in leaving so much earlier than Ellie did herself, it had been hammered home daily just how much time he spent at work.

Too much time, he’d begun to think. Then he’d remind himself he had the kind of job that demanded a lot of overtime. Not to mention the rest of his co-workers had personal, social and family obligations. Noah had…

He sighed as he pushed through the front door. Work. That was what he had. And more work. And when he wasn’t working, there was always work. And there were working obligations. His life was full, what with work and all. Who needed a personal, social or family life when you had work? Not Noah Tennant. That was for damned sure.