Smoky Mountain Setup (19 page)

“It’s fine,” Olivia assured her, already out the back door to the employee parking lot.

* * *

T
HE
BICYCLE
WAS
still where Olivia had put it, in the small storage shed behind her cabin. The metal was icy cold but dry, protected from the snow by the sturdy shed’s tin roof.

Landry ran his hand over the cold steel handlebars and remembered the ride up the mountain to this place, the snowfall increasing with every mile. He’d been terrified he was making the worst decision of his life.

He should have known better. Being with Olivia was always the right choice. How could he have ever thought anything different?

For a moment the sound of a car engine approaching up the mountain road sent a little ripple of alarm darting through him. But he made himself remain calm, though he didn’t entirely relax his guard. He might not be stuck in fight-or-flight mode anymore, but there were still dangerous people out there who might be willing to take another shot at bringing him down.

The FBI hadn’t given him back the Kimber or the Kel-Tec P-11 he’d had on him when they’d taken him in. He supposed they wanted to hold them as evidence until they fully settled his case.

That was fine. He had nothing to hide now.

Fortunately, he’d stashed his extra weapon in the locked cabinet in the shed, along with some ammo. He located the key in the hidden spot Olivia had shown him and unlocked the cabinet to retrieve the compact Ruger and its holster. He clipped the holster to his belt and loaded the magazine into the grip as the approaching vehicle came to a stop nearby. The engine cut, and he heard a door open, then close with a slam.

Olivia’s voice rang out in the cold afternoon air. “Landry!”

He shoved the Ruger into the holster and edged through the shed door.

“Landry, are you here? Please say you’re here!” The anxiety in Olivia’s voice caught him by surprise, making him hurry as he rounded the side of the house toward her voice.

She was halfway up the porch steps when he reached the front yard.

“I’m here,” he said.

She whirled around to look at him, her blue eyes wide. “Landry.”

As he started to cross the yard, she came back down the porch steps and met him at the bottom. “Livvie.”

She reached out and touched the front of his jacket, her gaze settling somewhere around the middle of his throat. “I thought you’d gone.”

He put his hand over hers. Her fingers were cold and trembled a little beneath his touch. “You think I’d go without saying goodbye?”

She tugged her hand away and stepped back, her expression shuttering. “Is that why you’re here? To say goodbye?”

“Let’s go inside. Get a fire started and get warm.” He put his hand under her elbow and nudged her toward the steps. She seemed to resist for a second, then gave in and went upstairs and unlocked her front door.

She went straight to the wood bin by the fireplace and went about the job of building a fire in the hearth, her movements quick and efficient, like everything she did.

She was radically competent, brilliantly resourceful and marvelously self-sufficient. She was, in short, a magnificent woman, and he could spend the rest of his life trying to be worthy of her without getting anywhere near his goal.

But he had to try. Because the alternative was walking away from her again. And he knew now, with utter certainty, that he didn’t have it in him to do that again.

“I’m not sure my trouble with the FBI is over,” he said, breaking the tense silence that had risen between them.

She gave the fire one last poke and turned around to look at him. “I really didn’t expect them to let you go on your own recognizance, given that you’ve been a fugitive for so many months.”

“I’ve offered to testify in front of a Senate subcommittee on domestic terrorism, which seemed to mollify my interrogators a bit.” He moved closer, holding out his hands to warm them in front of the fire. “There was a new guy, Cooper—seemed to think I won’t be charged with anything given the circumstances of my disappearance.”

“That’s good.”

She still hadn’t looked at him since they’d entered the cabin. Her shoulders were tense, her chin set and a little on the belligerent side.

“Livvie, I’m not leaving.”

Slowly, she looked up at him. “You say that now...”

“I will never leave you again. Not if I have a choice. As long as you want me to hang around, I’m in. No doubts.”

She raised one of her eyebrows a notch. “You? With no doubts?”

He caught her hands, tugged her around to look at him. In the firelight, she was a golden goddess, as beautiful and luminous a creature as he’d ever seen. His heart seemed to swell near bursting, so full of gratitude and love that he didn’t know what to do with all the emotion.

“I lost you because I was a stupid idiot. But somehow, when everything seemed hopeless, I closed my eyes and looked for an answer, and there you were. Like a light in my darkness. So I found you. Because you were my hope. You’re my home.”

Her eyes glowed like jewels as she met and held his gaze. “Landry.”

“I love you. I have loved you since almost the first day we met. There was never a point in time after that when I didn’t love you, and there never will be.” He touched her face, his thumb brushing against a sparkling tear that slid from one of her eyes. “So you tell me what you want.”

“You.” She slid her hand around his neck and pulled him to her. “I want you.”

He kissed her then, a long, slow, intimate exploration that left them both breathless. Olivia finally broke away just enough to whisper against his mouth, “Say it again.”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “I love you.”

Her answering smile was bright enough to light up the Eastern Seaboard. “Do you realize in all the time we were together, we never said those words to each other?”

He brushed her hair away from her cheek. “Technically, one of us still hasn’t said them.”

“I love you, idiot. If I didn’t love you, I’d have probably shot you that first day you showed up in my front yard with that stupid bike.”

“So let’s do it, then.”

She shot him a wicked look. “Do it? Here? Now?”

He laughed. “Well, yes, but I was actually thinking about getting hitched.”

She took a step back, looking surprised. “Hitched?”

“Yeah. You know, married. Blissfully wed. Fitted with the old ball and chain.”

“You were doing so well there for a minute.”

He laughed again. “Marry me, Livvie.” His smile faded as he realized she might not have experienced the same epiphany he had about trust and devotion. “Unless you’re still not sure you can trust me.”

“No, that’s not it.” She brushed her thumb against his lip. “I just never thought I’d marry. I thought I’d be like my mom, always looking but never finding.”

“Is that what you still think?”

She looked up at him, her gaze frank and open. “No, it’s not. I know what I’ve found. I know it’s worth keeping.”

“So is that a yes?”

Her slow, sexy smile warmed him to his core. “Yes,” she said and kissed him again.

Epilogue

The thin gold band on her left ring finger felt right, she decided after sneaking a peek for the sixth time in the past hour. It fit perfectly, neither loose nor constricting, as if it had been forged specifically for her alone.

“It’s just a wedding ring,” Landry murmured from his desk across from hers in the agents’ bull pen on the second floor of The Gates. “It’s not going to come alive and bite you.”

She looked up at him, flashing him a quick, sheepish smile. “I like the way it looks. And the way it fits.”

“I like the way it looks on you.” The grin he shot back at her came with a full display of dimples and a softness in his green eyes that was endearingly shy.

She looked pointedly at the thicker band on his own ring finger. “Right back at ya.”

“Oh, my God. Why didn’t y’all just go on a real honeymoon instead of inflicting all this newlywed bliss on the rest of us?” Seth Hammond perched on the edge of Olivia’s desk, shaking his head. “Have a little mercy on us, will ya?”

Sutton Calhoun thumped Hammond on the back of his head and dropped a file folder on Olivia’s desk blotter. “I seem to remember a couple of months of you on the phone babbling disgusting endearments to your own bride, Hammond. Leave the newlyweds alone.”

Calhoun waited for Hammond to wander back to his desk before he motioned Landry over. “Here’s everything we could find on Dallas Cole. Any chance he’s not a victim? Darryl Boyle hinted to Rigsby that he wasn’t the only one in the FBI who was a true believer, and so far, we’re just not finding any dirt on Philip Crandall.”

“We just don’t know,” Landry admitted. “Given my own recent history, I’m in no position to assume a man’s disappearance is evidence of his complicity in a crime. But Dallas Cole could have been trying to set us up so we wouldn’t go to Crandall for help. It might have been a ploy to slow us down until the BRI could get their assets in place.”

“Well, it’s a place to look,” Olivia pointed out. “If he
is
one of the bad guys, we need to find him.”

Calhoun’s slate blue eyes darkened. “And if he’s not one of the bad guys?”

“Then he’s in trouble and could use our help,” Landry answered. “If he’ll take it.”

Olivia reached out, putting her hand over her husband’s, her wedding band clinking quietly against his. His gaze flicked up to meet hers, and his dimples made a quick appearance.

A hint of amusement tinted Calhoun’s voice. “Either way, Quinn wants us to find Cole and bring him in before the BRI gets their hands on him. He wants you two in charge of the investigation, since you know the most about him.”

“We don’t really know that much,” Landry warned. “We could pick him out of a lineup, maybe, but—”

“We’re investigators,” Olivia reminded him. “It’s our job to find out all we can about him now.”

She picked up the folder Calhoun had placed on her desk blotter and opened it to the first page, a grainy photo of a dark-haired man with brown eyes and a guarded expression on his lean face. He was thirty-four, according to the notes clipped to the photos. Six foot one, approximately one hundred and eighty pounds, no distinguishing features.

“How does a graphic designer get mixed up with a backwoods terror group?” she asked in a murmur.

“That’s what we have to find out,” Landry answered.

Olivia looked at the photo again, trying to see beyond the flat, expressionless surface of the image.

Who was Dallas Cole?

And which side was he really on?

* * * * *

Don’t miss the other books in Paula Graves’s miniseries
The Gates: Most Wanted
!
Look for them wherever Harlequin Intrigue books
and ebooks are sold!

Keep reading for an excerpt from
EXPOSED
by Carla Cassidy
(Part 1 of TOUGH JUSTICE).

Addicted to shows like
Law & Order
and
The Blacklist
?

Can’t get enough of authors like Kendra Elliot & Tess Gerritsen?

You’ll love…

TOUGH JUSTICE

Justice is worth every sacrifice

A brand-new 8-part reading experience!

FBI Agent Lara Grant has finally put her life as an undercover operative behind her and started a new assignment in New York City. But her past and present collide and become ever more twisted as a spate of murders send a message that is cruelly, chillingly personal …

Tough Justice: Exposed
(Part 1 of 8) by
New York Times
bestselling author Carla Cassidy

Tough Justice: Watched
(Part 2 of 8) by Tyler Ann Snell

Tough Justice: Burned
(Part 3 of 8) by Carol Ericson

Tough Justice: Trapped
(Part 4 of 8) by Gail Barrett

Tough Justice: Twisted
(Part 5 of 8) by Gail Barrett

Tough Justice: Ambushed
(Part 6 of 8) by Carol Ericson

Tough Justice: Betrayed
(Part 7 of 8) by Tyler Ann Snell

Tough Justice: Hunted
(Part 8 of 8) by
New York Times
bestselling author Carla Cassidy

Collect all 8!

Visit
www.ToughJusticeSeries.com
for more information.

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Intrigue story.

You crave excitement!
Harlequin Intrigue
stories deal in serious romantic suspense, keeping you on the edge of your seat as resourceful, true-to-life women and strong, fearless men fight for survival.

Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Intrigue every month!

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com