She had an identity to protect. He had to make sure it wasn’t exposed.

Since leaving the CIA under questionable circumstances, Amanda Caldwell has been living a quiet, uneventful life in a sleepy mountain town. But when Rick Cooper, her former partner—and former lover—makes an unexpected reappearance, she senses things are about to get a lot more interesting....

Rick’s mission is to protect Amanda and her identity from an assassin who’s picked up her trail. It isn’t long before working together stirs up all the passion and energy they’d once shared on the job. And in Rick’s bed. Still, there’s more to Rick’s assignment than he can share with his “partner.” Revealing the truth wouldn’t be smart. But keeping his secret could be deadly.

“Maybe I should check to see if someone’s outside.” She sat up on her knees, preparing to stand.

“Where are you going?” He caught her arm, holding her in place. She bit back a soft gasp as his fingers tightened on a sore place on her arm. Had she injured herself during her mad dash through the woods?

His fingers loosened and fell away. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she said, but the burning in her arm hadn’t subsided. She lifted her fingers, pressing the sore area. She felt a rip in her jacket and a sticky wetness. “I think I cut myself—”

She heard a rustling noise, then a snick. Light cut through the gloom, making her squint.

“Let me see.” Rick pointed his flashlight at her arm.

Looking down, she saw a ragged furrow in the arm of her olive-drab jacket, just above the elbow. The edges were singed and damp with drying blood. She knew exactly what it was, even before Rick spoke.

“You’ve been shot.”

Secret Identity
Paula Graves

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alabama native Paula Graves wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.

Paula invites readers to visit her website, www.paulagraves.com.

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Amanda Caldwell—After suffering torture at the hands of a brutal injury, the former CIA agent has gone into hiding. But a ruthless foe has found her, and she’s forced to put her life in the hands of a man she never thought she’d see again.

Rick Cooper—The former security contractor knew the consequences of falling for a spy, but that hadn’t made walking away from her any easier. Now his lover is in danger, and he’s willing to risk his life to save her. But is he willing to risk his heart?

Alexander Quinn—The CIA master spy was instrumental in tearing Rick and Amanda apart three years ago. Why is he working so hard to bring them back together?

Jesse Cooper—Rick’s brother owns a security agency and hired his brother after Rick’s former employer, MacLear, collapsed under the weight of an international scandal. But does he have an ulterior motive for helping Rick protect Amanda?

The Tiger—The man who tortured Amanda during her spy days has never been identified, much less captured. Is he behind the attempts on her life?

Security Services Unit (SSU)—MacLear Security’s secret unit scattered after allegations that the unit acted as a private army for a corrupt State Department official. But are some of the agents still selling their services to the highest bidder?

Damon North—An undercover agent who’d once infiltrated the SSU, he’s been trying to work his way back into their trust. How far is he willing to go—and who is he willing to risk—to get what he wants?

Maddox Heller—The wealthy former marine seems to be working his own angle in his attempts to help Amanda. Can she and Rick trust his motives?

For my wonderful editor, Allison.

Thank you for your invaluable input and your belief in me. I hope I live up to it.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Prologue

Gazing across the bleak gray waters of the Tidal Basin at the Jefferson Memorial, Barton Reid tugged the lapels of his coat up to cover his exposed neck. Snow fell in halfhearted showers that mostly melted as they hit the concrete walkway extending along the bank to accommodate the tourists.

Strange to think in a few short weeks, the cherry blossoms would be in bloom. And if he played his cards right, he’d be here to watch them bloom for years to come.

Footsteps thudded toward him, too swift and determined to be a tourist’s. He didn’t turn right away. He didn’t want to look desperate. Play it cool. Stay in control. That’s how a kid from the streets of Philly had made it into the highest echelon at the Department of State. It would take those skills, and every favor he could call in, to stay out of prison.

The footsteps slowed to a stop a few feet from him. Only then did he glance down the railing to see the stocky, dark-haired man he’d contacted a day earlier.

“You’re taking a chance calling me here.” Salvatore Beckett had changed his look in the past couple of years, letting his dark hair grow out until it curled around the collar of his turtleneck sweater. He’d bulked up, and the definition of his muscles was obvious even through the layers of clothing he wore to ward off the mid-March cold snap.

“You know they’re looking for you, yet here you are.”

“I was led to understand there was a great deal of money involved.”

“There is. And a favor to an old associate who may be in a position to help us in the future.” He waited for Beckett to ask the obvious question, but the man just shrugged.

“You’ll pay what was offered?”

“Absolutely.” More accurately, his associate would come up with the exorbitant fee. Reid was merely a middleman.

“Anybody sees you with me, it’s going to blow your defense.”

Reid didn’t have to be reminded of that troubling fact. But he had to weigh the potential for discovery against the certainty that his associate meant every word of his threat. He would connect Reid to the uprising in Kaziristan in a way that could put him in prison for the rest of his life, if he wasn’t executed for treason first.

“Then let’s waste no more time,” Reid said aloud. “How do you feel about a trip to Tennessee?”

“Is it warmer than here?”

“I believe so.”

Beckett smiled. “I’m in.”

“You’ll need men.”

“I have them.” Beckett’s voice rang with confidence.

“Then here are your orders.” Reid reached into the inner pocket of his coat and handed Beckett a single sheet of paper. On it were terse instructions for carrying out the job he’d just agreed to do.

Beckett’s eyebrows rose slightly. “I play this my way?”

“Get it done, and you can play it any way you want.”

Beckett nodded. “Nice talking to you again, Mr. Reid.”

Reid turned his gaze back to the water. Along the path from the Jefferson Memorial, a young woman approached, her dark hair whipped by the icy wind into a silken halo. One hand was wrapped firmly around the hand of a little girl of three, who was laughing happily as she gazed up at the falling snow.

“Your daughter?” Beckett murmured.

Reid didn’t answer.

“I’ll be in touch.” Beckett turned and walked slowly away.

Reid watched Meredith’s approach, saw her smile as she spotted him across the distance. Anyone watching would assume he’d been waiting here for his daughter and his granddaughter.

It was mostly true.

Adrianna spotted him as they neared. Her face spread in a smile of delight that made Reid’s heart crack and bleed. “Papi! Papi!” She tugged hard at her mother’s hand, and Meredith let her go. Adrianna’s chubby little legs churned as they ate up the distance between her and her grandfather.

He caught the little girl as she flew at him and lifted her high in the air, delighting in her giggles.

“Hello, Addie my love!” He kissed her cold cheeks and smiled at his daughter as she approached at a more leisurely pace. She was still smiling at him, but he could see the worry in her green eyes.

His life was still in flux, and unless Salvatore Beckett and his friends were able to accomplish the task he’d given them, his life was about to get more complicated still.

But he still had cards to play, even if Beckett and his men failed. He just hoped he’d never have to play them.

Chapter One

Her name wasn’t really Amanda Caldwell.

She hadn’t gone by her real name since she was twenty-two, fresh out of college and looking for adventure. She’d found her adventure in a very covert section of the CIA and had become a different person.

A lot of different persons.

Over the years, she’d learned never to trust a stranger—or a friend. Never sit with her back to the door. Never take the same route home twice in a row.

In a place like Thurlow Gap, Tennessee, population 224, that last rule was hard to live by. Bypassed by the major state highways, the picture-postcard mountain hamlet had never become a tourist trap like other towns bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, much to the chagrin of the town’s tiny chamber of commerce.

But the seclusion suited Amanda’s needs very well.

Today she’d chosen a scenic route through Bridal Veil Woods behind the town’s water tower. It added a few minutes to the normal ten-minute walk from town to her cottage in the foothills, but the sense of control was worth the extra time.

From the woods she emerged onto Dewberry Road two hundred yards north of the small cottage she’d bought two and a half years ago. As she headed up the road, a warbly voice called out her name. “Hey there, Miz Caldwell, did you get the job?”

Amanda turned to smile at the curly-topped little girl wobbling up to her on a bright pink bike. She’d grown up in a small town, but all the years and experiences since then had erased the memory of just how little privacy there could be in a town the size of Thurlow Gap. Everybody knew your business, even six-year-olds with scabby knees and gap-toothed grins.

“Hey there your own self, Lizzie Jean.” She fell easily into the Southern accent she’d spent a couple of years losing when she joined the agency. “I did get the job.”

Starting Monday, she’d be putting together the fall print ads for Gruver Hardware. It was freelance, like all the rest of the jobs she took these days, but it would pay a few months’ worth of bills, sparing her from having to dip into her emergency funds.

Lizzie Hawkins slid off the bike and started walking next to Amanda. “Hey, some fella come lookin’ for you earlier. He left a box on your porch. Is it your birthday or somethin’?”

Amanda kept smiling, but inside, her heart rate ratcheted up just a notch. She hadn’t ordered anything, and it wasn’t likely anyone in town had sent her something when they could have easily dropped it by in person.

These days, she didn’t much like mysteries.

“What did the fella look like?” she asked.

“He had on a brown shirt and shorts, and he smelled sweaty.” Lizzie wrinkled her nose. “He looked a little like Mr. Fielding, only a lot younger.”

John Fielding was a Cherokee of indeterminate age who ran a produce stand on the edge of town. So the man who’d dropped off the package was dark-skinned and dark-haired. Maybe American Indian. Maybe…not.

Amanda’s muscles tensed. Just a little. “What about his voice—anything strange about it?”

Lizzie’s forehead wrinkled. “No, ma’am.”

So no accent, foreign or otherwise. Maybe a local hired to deliver the package. “Did you see what he was driving?”

“A big brown truck.”

Could be legit, she thought, letting herself relax a little more. Maybe someone in town had ordered her a book or something as a thank-you for a freelance design job well done.

“Thank you, Lizzie, for lettin’ me know. Now you run along home, okay? I’ll see you later.” Amanda stayed still, watching the little girl ride away. When Lizzie was at a safe distance, Amanda turned up the gravel drive to her house. Towering pines in the front sheltered the house from the road, but as she reached the cobblestone walk to her front porch, she caught sight of the box lying on the welcome mat in front of her door.

She took the steps to the porch with care, watching for any sign of a booby trap. Not that she really thought there would be. Not after all this time.

But old habits die hard.

Official-looking labels plastered the front of the package, printed with her name and address. It was about the size of a shoe box, maybe a bit wider, with the logo of an online bookstore on the sides.

Amanda considered her options. Opening the box out here was out of the question. On the off chance it was a bomb, she’d want to limit the blast radius by putting an extra layer of protection—like walls and floors—in the way. While moving the box might be enough to set a bomb off, such a hair-trigger detonator would have made delivering the bomb dangerous. And if the detonator were remotely controlled, it probably would have gone off the minute she stepped up on the wood porch.

One thing was certain: calling the cops was out. Besides Thurlow Gap being miles from any town boasting a decent bomb squad, calling the cops because a deliveryman left a package on her porch would look nuts. She didn’t need the scrutiny.

She took a deep breath and picked up the box. It was remarkably light, ruling out books. Probably ruled out a shrapnel bomb, as well, unless the shrapnel was made of something lighter than metal. Taking a quick look behind her to be sure nobody was lurking among the trees, she unlocked her front door and entered. She set the box on the hall table and locked the pair of dead bolts behind her.

The basement was the best place to open the box, she decided. It was mostly underground, with cinder-block walls that would force any explosion up rather than out toward surrounding homes.

She detoured to her bedroom and pulled a battered footlocker from her closet. Inside were some of the trappings from her former life, including body armor and a flak helmet. She strapped on the gear, grimacing at the added weight.

The sight of her reflection in the dresser mirror gave her pause. She stared at the wide-eyed woman, girded like a gladiator, and gave a soft bark of laughter. Once a paranoid secret agent, always one.

But she didn’t take off the body armor.

Downstairs, she set the box on the floor beneath a steel worktable that had been left in the house by its former owners. She grabbed a box cutter from her jumble of a tool chest and crouched by the package, slicing a square in the side of the box and pulling out the cardboard plug.

Nothing happened.

She sat back on her heels, staring at the wad of cushioned plastic wrap poking through the hole she’d just cut. A self-conscious chuckle escaped her lips.

She sliced a bigger hole and pulled the cushioned wrap through the opening. It unfolded as it came out, revealing a small box of matches.

She set it aside and shined a flashlight through the hole in the box, checking the interior. It was just a plain box. No wires, no detonator, no C4 strapped to the cardboard anywhere.

Puzzled, she picked up the matchbox and gave it a light shake. Whatever rattled inside didn’t sound like matches. She opened it slowly, waiting for something to burst free from the box, but nothing jumped out at her.

It took a second for her to realize what lay inside the box. As it registered, the box fell from her suddenly numb fingers, spilling its contents on the floor.

Artificial fingernails, painted bloodred.

Amanda flexed her hands, phantom pain skittering along the nerve endings at the tips of her fingers. She pushed back the unwanted memory and picked up the now-empty matchbox, examining it. A ten-digit number was scrawled in black ink across the inside of the box. 2565550153.

Ten digits could be a phone number, she thought. A north Alabama area code. Did she even know anyone in Alabama?

She pushed to her feet and carried the matchbox upstairs, her mind racing through all the possibilities. The fake nails she understood—whoever had sent her the box had known her in her former life, known what happened in Kaziristan. It was a calling card.

The number, though—what did the number mean?

She stopped in her room to shed the body armor and helmet, shoving them back into their closet hiding place. Dropping on the side of her bed, she contemplated the phone on her bedside table. If the number on the matchbox was a phone number, should she call it? What if it was someone trying to confirm who she really was?

She flipped the matchbox over to the blue-and-white imprint on the front. She had the same brand in her kitchen right now. Anyone could have sent it.

Something small and black in one corner caught her eye. It looked like little more than a tiny smudge, as if the ink on the box label had spattered during printing. But Amanda had seen something like it before.

She took the box to the kitchen and found a magnifying glass in the utility drawer. Under the magnifying lens, the smudge became a couple of tiny letters: A. Q.

Alexander Quinn.

Part of her wanted to pack up and leave Thurlow Gap before sunset. But the same part knew there was nowhere she could go that Quinn couldn’t find her. The master spy who’d trained her in covert ops had come by the nickname “Warlock” honestly.

She might as well dial the bloody number. He already knew where she was.

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE, basked under an unseasonably warm late-March sun, humidity making Rick Cooper’s shirt stick to his back beneath his suit jacket. He would take the jacket off but he was armed—legally, of course; over the years, he’d learned to strictly adhere to any law that didn’t absolutely have to be broken. Still, no need to draw unwanted attention by sitting in an open-air bistro wearing a Walther P99 in a shoulder holster.

He checked his watch. He’d been waiting for almost an hour, but so far no one had approached his table besides the flop-haired teenage boy who kept refreshing his water glass and asking if he was ready for a menu yet. Derrick Lambert, the prospective client who’d emailed him with directions to the meeting, was apparently a no-show.

As he reached for his wallet to pay the waiter for his time, his cell phone rang. He checked the display—the call was from an unfamiliar number with a local area code. Was it his prospective client, explaining his late arrival?

He answered. “Hello?”

He heard a faint inhalation, then silence.

“Hello?” he repeated, loudly enough to draw a look from patrons at the next table.

The phone clicked dead. Rick took out his frustration on the off button and jammed his phone in his suit pocket.

“It wasn’t a wrong number.” The smooth voice behind Rick sent adrenaline jolting through him. He turned and gazed up into the hard hazel eyes of Alexander Quinn.

“Derrick Lambert, I presume?” Rick turned his back on the CIA spook, anger flooding his chest.

Quinn took a seat across from Rick and waved off the approaching waiter. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No, you’re not.”

Quinn inclined his head. “Was the number blocked?”

“No.”

“Good. Now, remember this. Sigurd.” Quinn rose and started walking away.

Rick tossed a ten on the table and followed, falling into step as they neared the traffic light at the corner. “That’s it? I wait an hour in the sun for ‘Sigurd’?”

Quinn stopped and turned so quickly that Rick almost knocked into him. “Just follow the number, Cooper.” The CIA agent walked away, cool and unhurried in the warm sunshine.

Bitterness rose in Rick’s throat as he reversed course, striding toward the Dodge Charger parked at the curb near the bistro. Screw the phone number. Alexander Quinn had mucked up his life enough already.

He unlocked the door and slid into the hot interior of the car. The jacket went to the passenger seat, followed by his tie. Starting the car, he cranked the air up a notch, struck, not for the first time, by how good people in this country had it. Clean water. Beautiful homes. Big, shiny cars with air conditioning. He’d been in places where those luxuries would have been as out of reach as a trip to the moon.

The Charger’s engine growled to life under him as he pulled out into the moderate midday traffic on Summer Street. Stopping at a red light, he pulled out his phone and punched in his brother’s direct line. Jesse Cooper answered on the first ring.

“Meeting was a bust,” Rick said. “I’m headed back. I’ll be in the office first thing in the morning.”

“Guy was a no-show?”

“He showed. But it’s nothing we want to handle.”

“Are you sure?” Jesse asked.

Rick’s mouth tightened. “You said my experience would be an asset to Cooper Security. Do you trust it or not?”

“I trust it. You know I do. I’ve got to go. Isabel’s back with a prospective client.” Jesse hung up.

Rick looked at the cell-phone display. Pressing the back button, he took a look at the previous caller’s number. It would be easy to hit Redial and see who answered, just to satisfy his curiosity.

“Sigurd,” he muttered.

The traffic light turned green, forcing the issue. He laid the phone atop his jacket and accelerated through the intersection, forcing his focus back on navigating the unfamiliar Knoxville streets.

He’d been back stateside only a year now, after almost a decade in a dozen different trouble spots in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. Kaziristan hadn’t been the first, nor the last, but it had been the one that made him start thinking long and hard about his choice of occupations.

He was what some people would call a mercenary, though he didn’t think of himself that way. He had been a private-security contractor, working for a company called MacLear Enterprises, until MacLear had gone belly up in a scandal last year—a scandal exposed by his own cousin Luke Cooper, who’d been protecting a woman being terrorized by MacLear’s corrupt secret army-for-hire.

Learning the company he’d given a decade of his life to was corrupt to the bone had been a pretty hard hit for Rick’s confidence. Why hadn’t he seen the truth?

Had he turned a blind eye because he was too in love with the adrenaline and adventure of his job?

After the exciting life he’d led, going home to Chickasaw County again had been a daunting proposition. He’d fielded offers from other security agencies, had considered taking a few of them, but in the end, the call of home and family had proved a stronger pull than he’d anticipated.

Not that there weren’t problems. A guy didn’t leave his family behind and turn into a virtual ghost for ten years without creating a little interfamily tension. And he knew his brother Jesse, in particular, resented that Rick had gone with a civilian security unit rather than serving his country the way Jesse had.

Fat bit of irony, that, given that Jesse’s first act upon leaving the Marines was to open his own security agency. And even Jesse couldn’t deny that Rick had skills the security agency needed. He hoped in time they’d work through the old resentments and come out stronger for it.

Plus, he admired the hell out of his brother for the kind of company he was building. Cooper Security was a for-profit company, but profit wasn’t the bottom line with Jesse. He was in this work to do the kinds of jobs the government couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do.

Few who drove past the low-slung stucco office building on Jones Street in Maybridge knew what went on inside, what sort of men and women staffed the agency’s headquarters. Most of the operatives formerly worked for an alphabet soup of U.S. government agencies—CIA, FBI, DSS, ATF, DEA, military special forces.

Most of the Cooper Security agents—even Rick—shared one thing in common: a connection to Kaziristan, a former Soviet satellite located in the midst of some of the world’s hottest hot spots. Some had worked embassy security or run covert operations. Others had tracked Kaziri terrorists worldwide or interdicted their funding. His sister Megan had lost her husband in combat in Kaziristan.

For Rick, the Kaziristan connection had started with a blonde bombshell from the CIA.

IT HADN’T BEEN RICK. The voice was similar—deep and smooth, with a Southern drawl—but it couldn’t belong to Rick Cooper. He was probably half a world away, tracking down suicide bombers in Karachi or running a scam on Russian mobsters—anywhere but Alabama, answering a number Alexander Quinn had put a lot of effort into sending to her. Quinn wouldn’t have gone to such trouble to reunite two people he’d worked so hard to separate.

We don’t fraternize with mercs. Ever.

She closed her eyes, tucking her knees to her chin. She’d always known Quinn was a manipulative bastard, but he generally had a good reason. What was his reason this time?

She looked down at the matchbox beside her on the front porch. It lay partly open, the fake nails peeking from inside, a vivid reminder of a past she wanted to bury.

Quinn knew what happened in Tablis. He’d been the first agent to reach her after she’d escaped the rat hole where the al Adar militants had kept her for almost two weeks. He’d seen the full picture of her ordeal, painted in the rainbow hues of bruises, welts and slashes all over her body. In the bloody nubs where her fingernails had been.

She’d been overjoyed to see him that day. She’d thought the nightmare was over.

She’d been so wrong.

Tears burned her eyes like acid. She dashed them away, angry at herself for the show of weakness. Her time would be better spent trying to figure out just what Quinn was trying to tell her with the matchbox and the mysterious voice on the other end of the phone number he’d given her.

To make her earlier call, she’d used the pay phone at the gas station down the road, hoping it would offer her a semblance of anonymity. Maybe she should go back there and call the number again. Say something this time, rather than hanging up like a scared teenager too chicken to finish a prank call.

She tucked the matchbox in her pocket and started the half-mile walk to the gas station down Dewberry Road. Heat rose in shimmery waves off the blacktop, fragrant with the odor of gasoline and melting tar. The afternoon sun stung her bare arms, bringing with it a sense of déjà vu that caught her by surprise. She hadn’t thought of home in a long time, of the lazy Southern summers of her childhood, when the sun couldn’t get too hot or the day too long.

She’d taken a risk by choosing another tiny Southern town to escape to, but after Kaziristan and the aftermath, she’d needed that sense of familiarity. Small Southern towns were all alike in fundamental ways. Ways that made it a little easier to sleep at night.

She reached the gas station within ten minutes and pulled the matchbox from her pocket, although by now she had the number memorized, having stared at it so long before she got up the nerve to call the first time. She crossed to the phone set into the station’s brick facade, sparing a glance at the lanky attendant teetering on the back legs of a metal folding chair and fanning himself with a folded piece of cardboard with a motor-oil logo peeking out of one end.

“Sure is hot for March,” he muttered halfheartedly and closed his eyes, showing no signs of wanting to start a conversation.

She murmured agreement and reached for the pay phone. But before her fingers touched the receiver, it began to ring. She grabbed it on instinct. “Hello?”

There was no answer, just the sound of a car’s engine. The caller must be in a car.

“Hello?” she repeated.

“Who’s speaking?” a familiar voice asked.

The voice that sounded like Rick Cooper’s.

Her hand trembled. “Who’s calling?”

After a pause, the caller said, “Sigurd.”

Amanda slammed the receiver back on the hook, the tremor in her hand spreading like wildfire to the rest of her body.

The gas station attendant looked her way, his expression mildly curious.

“Wrong number,” she managed to rasp out. She wheeled and started walking away, her stride fast and purposeful.

The man’s last word echoed in her head. Sigurd.

The phone behind her started ringing again.

“Hey, it’s ringing again,” the attendant called out.

She ignored him, walking faster. She heard the scrape of the attendant’s chair against the cement, and a moment later, the phone stopped ringing.

She kept going, her mind racing.

If the call was a message from Quinn, it made no sense. The CIA cut her off almost three years ago. She had no operational value to anyone, friend or foe.

Surely she’d misunderstood the caller. He’d said something else. Anything but “Sigurd.”

After all, who would send an assassin after her?

Chapter Two

As Rick passed through Maryville, heading east, he checked his phone to make sure it was still working. He’d left a message earlier to let Jesse know about his change in plans, but so far, his brother hadn’t called back for any details.

Not that Rick had any details to give him.

Thurlow Gap didn’t even show up on the map he’d looked up on his phone, but the drawling local who’d answered the phone the second time gave him directions from Knoxville. He’d also shared what he knew about the woman who’d answered Rick’s earlier call. She was a freelance artist named Amanda Caldwell. At least, that was the name she was going by now. But after hearing her voice on the phone, Rick knew better.

She was the woman he’d known as Tara Brady.

Tara had been a dry-witted, leggy blonde working out of the U.S. embassy in Tablis, Kaziristan. He’d been in the Kaziristan capital supporting a joint force investigating allegations of American citizens of Kaziri descent fighting with anti-government rebels north of Tablis.

Tara had never told him she was CIA, but he knew it, and she knew he knew it. It should have kept their interactions limited and circumspect—mercs and spooks didn’t get involved.

But he and Tara had.

Their affair had been brief but torrid. Lingering glances led to stolen moments of intimacy, then a few nights of frantic, amazing sex in a flea-bitten hotel on the outskirts of the city. He’d never fallen for a woman so fast or so hard in his life.

But of course, it had to come to an end.

He put the memories out of his mind and concentrated on the winding drive east through the rolling foothills of the Appalachian chain. Ahead, the expansive cloud-tipped peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park spread before him in hues of jade, turquoise and sapphire.

Tara loved mountains. She’d hoped one day to cross the Timrhan Mountains, the craggy, unforgiving border between Kaziristan and Russia to the north. He’d laughed at her bravado. She’d told him not to underestimate her.

That had been their last night together.

He reached the Thurlow Gap city limits around four-thirty. Though the sun was still high in the sky, nightfall hours away, the town already looked buttoned up for the evening. The gas station was still open, but the only person around was a buxom woman behind the cashier’s counter near the front window.

Rick refilled the Charger’s tank before approaching the woman—people often responded more openly to nosy questions if you asked them while handing them money. He added a package of cinnamon breath mints to the tab and asked her if she knew Amanda Caldwell.

“Who wants to know?” the woman asked in a whiskeyed rasp, eyeing him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.

“I’m an old friend. Rick Cooper.”

The woman’s brow creased further. “Can’t say she ever mentioned you.”

“She called me earlier today, but I didn’t ask for her address. I was in the area so I thought I’d drop by to visit.”

“She don’t get many visitors.”

Not surprising, Rick thought. “No significant other?”

The woman gave a loud snort. “Hell, the girl don’t even have a dog keepin’ her company.”

He couldn’t quell a glimmer of satisfaction at the woman’s words, though shame followed fast on its heels. What right did he have to wish her a life of solitude? When his hand was forced, he’d chosen a mission over her. She’d made a similar choice. Things between them ended abruptly, and apparently she’d never looked back. He hadn’t, either.

At least not that he’d ever let anyone see.

His coming here to talk to Tara—Amanda—wasn’t personal, even now. He just wanted to know why a CIA master spy like Alexander Quinn was pulling his strings where she was concerned.

The clerk inclined her head. “Come to think of it, I reckon maybe she’d like seein’ an old friend, at that. Especially a good-lookin’ fella like you.” Her lips quirking, she lifted a sun-leathered arm and pointed down the road. “She lives in a house a few blocks down Dewberry Road. On the left. The house is set back a bit, but you really can’t miss it—she has a big black mailbox with the number 212 on it.” She winked at him. “Tell her she can thank me later.”

Rick smiled and thanked her, heading out to his car. As he slid behind the wheel of the Charger, his cell phone rang. It was Jesse. He considered not answering but finally thumbed the connector. “Hey, Jesse.”

“Why the hell are you heading north?”

“I can’t tell you that yet.”

“You can’t tell me?” Irritation edged his brother’s drawl.

“Not yet. But it’s important or I’d be on my way back to the office.” Rick started the Charger.

The pause on Jesse’s end was thick with annoyance. “You may be family, but that doesn’t mean you can keep pushing the envelope quite so hard, Rick.”

“And you know as well as I do that some things happen we have to deal with on the q.t., Jess. This is one of them. I’ll explain everything later, okay?”

Jesse sighed. “Stay in touch.” He hung up.

Rick checked to see if he was safe to pull out. A black Toyota Land Cruiser turned into the gas station and pulled up at the pump behind him, leaving him in the clear.

As he waited for traffic to open up enough for him to take a left onto Dewberry Road, his gaze drifted back to the pumps, where a sandy-haired man wearing a black T-shirt and black trousers unfolded himself from the Land Cruiser and reached for the pump handle. He met Rick’s glance briefly before his gaze settled on the gas pump’s fuel gauge as it rang up his purchase.

Something about the sandy-haired man dinged Rick’s internal radar. He didn’t recognize him; Rick had a good memory for faces, and he’d never seen the man in the Toyota before. But something about him just didn’t fit here in Thurlow Gap. There was a foreignness to him. As if he didn’t belong.

Heading east on Dewberry Road as the clerk had directed, Rick met his own gaze in the rearview mirror. Brown eyes stared back at him under dark, quirked brows.

There’s a foreignness to you, too, Rick Cooper.

He’d been away from home entirely too long.

AMANDA SCRABBLED THROUGH the closest box, cursing herself for falling into willful complacency. There was nowhere safe in the world, not even Thurlow Gap, Tennessee. No paradise was safe from murderous rage.

She should have prepared better for this moment from the second she set foot in this town.

Her former life came with baggage, but stupidly, she’d shoved that baggage into a bunch of boxes stacked haphazardly on metal shelves in her basement and told herself that she was safe enough with two dead bolts on the front door and a cheap alarm system she’d installed herself.

She’d thought the danger was over in this paradise of mountains and forests and friendly neighbors. Three years of mind-numbing normalcy had lulled her into a false sense of peace now shattered by a phone number on a matchbox and a single word spoken by a man she’d once thought she might love.

She should have had a disaster kit handy. Forget her past with the CIA; she lived within fifty miles of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for God’s sake. She should already have been stockpiling food and water and batteries.

At least she had her savings. She’d driven to Maryville an hour ago and withdrawn all but a hundred dollars from the savings account. She had twelve grand in cash to work with. She could buy a lot of peanut butter and bottled water with money like that.

Buying a brand-new identity would be pricier, but at least she knew how to make that happen. She just had to make it to a big-enough city.

By four forty-five, she’d packed two duffel bags full of survival provisions, including two of her three handguns—the Walther P99 and the SIG Sauer P238—and nine boxes of ammo. Upstairs, her Smith & Wesson M&P 9 mm was already loaded, with an extra round in the chamber.

She’d also packed a gym bag full of underwear, jeans, T-shirts and a denim jacket. All that was left now was packing a box of nonperishable foods and she’d be ready to go.

To where, she wasn’t sure.

She looped the canvas straps of the duffel bags over her arms, grunting at the weight as she started up the stairs. As she hauled the bags through the door into the kitchen, a high-pitched beeping sound started echoing through the house. It took a second to realize what it was.

Someone had tripped her perimeter alarm.

She dropped the bags on the kitchen floor and raced down the short hallway to her bedroom. A red light on the alarm system’s control panel was blinking with each beep.

She hit the code and stopped the alarm from sounding before a call went out to the local police. Whatever happened next would have to happen without putting anyone else in danger, including the local law. The good old boys who wore the uniform of Thurlow Gap’s police department wouldn’t be prepared for what they’d find here.

She grabbed her Smith & Wesson from the nightstand. The heft of it in her hand gave her a renewed sense of control, easing the rapid-fire cadence of her pulse. She crept down the hall to the front of the house and moved to one of the windows looking out on the shaded front yard. Sliding the curtain aside an inch, she peered out at her driveway but saw nothing.

Still, something had tripped the perimeter. Might have been an animal.

Might not.

She took a couple of deep breaths to brace herself and scooted through the doorway into the kitchen to check out the side window. But when she peeked through a space in the curtains, all she saw was movement to her right, a flash of charcoal disappearing around the side of her house, heading toward the front.

She started toward the front door, then froze when three loud raps rang through the silent house.

An assassin who knocked first?

She moved away from the door, her footfalls whisper-soft against the hardwood floor. It might be a ruse to bring her to the doorway. Even peering through the fish-eye security lens was too dangerous; any large-caliber ammunition would penetrate the wood door. Should’ve replaced it with a steel-reinforced one, she thought.

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. Too late now.

Knocks sounded on the door again, louder this time. She backpedaled, old instincts kicking in. She ran to the kitchen and grabbed a box of ammunition for the Smith & Wesson. Tucking the box in her waistband, she headed out the back door, hoping her visitor would keep knocking long enough for her to reach the woods behind her house. She could set up a defensive position there, her familiarity with the terrain an advantage.

She had barely reached the carport, however, when she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the flagstone walk toward the corner of the house. She raced around the back of her car and crouched behind the front fender.

The footsteps continued a moment, then fell silent. Amanda’s pulse thundered in her ears. She tightened her grip on the 9 mm and held her breath, waiting for his next move.

“Tara?”

The voice, deep and familiar, sent a shiver down her spine.

“Sorry, it’s Amanda now, isn’t it?” Rick Cooper asked.

She remained silent.

“I know you’re out here. I can feel you.”

Her stomach knotted, inconvenient tears stinging her eyes.

His footsteps made a scraping sound on the concrete as he walked slowly toward her car. “I saw Alexander Quinn not two hours ago. Have you spoken with him?”

“Stop there,” she commanded, pleased at the steadiness of her voice, considering how hard her heart was pounding.

He stopped.

She dared a quick peek over the hood of her car. Rick stood about ten feet away. His coffee-brown eyes met hers, his lips parting.

“You called me earlier,” she said.

His mouth quirked. “Technically, you called first.”

“Did Quinn tell you what to say?”

“Not exactly. You know how damned inscrutable he is.”

“But he did tell you to say ‘Sigurd’?”

“He told me to remember the word. I chose to say it.”

As Quinn had known he would. Manipulative bastard. “What have you been doing since MacLear went down?”

“Working.”

She sat back on her heels. “Doing what?”

“Security-threat analysis. My brother has an agency.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“I have two of them. And three sisters. I didn’t just hatch out of a rock somewhere, you know.” Rick’s gaze focused on the barrel of the Smith & Wesson. “I really don’t like having a weapon pointed at me.”

“Too bad.”

He pressed his lips in a tight line. “Very well. What does ‘Sigurd’ mean?”

“Nothing.” She motioned with the gun. “I need to leave. You’re standing in front of my car.”

“What does ‘Sigurd’ mean?” he repeated.

Before she could answer, something hit her windshield with a loud crack, spider-webbing the glass.

“Get down!” she shouted to Rick.

She heard a soft thud and a low groan.

“Rick?”

Scrabbling sounds came from the other side of the car, moving toward her. She wheeled and aimed the Smith & Wesson at the sound. Rick ducked around the front of the car, tumbling forward onto his hands and knees at the sight of the gun. “May I please hide behind your car?” he gritted between his teeth.

She made room for him. “Are you hit?”

“Grazed my arm, I think. Sigurd, I presume?”

“Sigurd’s a warning, not a person.” She risked a quick peek over the hood of her car. She saw a flash of black move between the pines in her front yard. “There’s someone in the front yard. Dressed in black.”

Rick crouched beside her, looking through the car windows. He took a hissing intake of breath as a black-clad figure slipped one tree nearer.

“Is there a way out of here?”

“We can escape into the woods, but I’m guessing whoever’s out there isn’t alone.”

“I’m not so sure.” Rick told her about a stranger he’d spotted at the gas station. “He was definitely alone, and I’m pretty sure the man in black out there is the same guy.”

“How can you tell? He’s wearing a ski mask.”

“Same body build, same clothes. If you spot a Toyota Land Cruiser nearby—”

Amanda peered over the hood of the car. The man in black was on the move again, slipping out into open. For the hell of it, Amanda fired off a couple of quick shots in his general direction, the gunfire echoing in the surrounding woods.

“Don’t waste the ammo,” Rick warned. “We’ll need it.”

“What we really need is a vehicle. We can’t hike out of these woods.” She looked at Rick, her heart giving a small leap as she realized his face was only inches away.

For a moment, the rest of the world seemed to disappear, and she was back in Tablis, her body tangled with his, hot and straining for more—more pleasure, more closeness, more communion. But the crackle of footsteps on the dry leaves in her yard dragged her back to the present, a sobering reminder that there were damned good reasons not to let herself get wrapped up in anyone again.

“Let me lead him away,” Rick suggested. “You can take the car and get out of here.”

“And leave you to die?” She shook her head. “No way in hell. I don’t leave a man behind.”

He gave her a quizzical look, and she dropped her gaze, hiding the chaos of emotion churning in her chest. He probably had no idea what had happened to her the day after they ended their affair. The CIA never publicized its casualties.

“We can’t wait here for him to reach us.”

“In my kitchen is a duffel bag. I packed it to run. I’m going around the back and out into the woods. I’ll lure him away from here. Where’s your car?”

“Parked down the road.”

“He may have seen it—and if he disabled it—”

“I hid it off the road. Didn’t want it stolen.”

“Take the duffel. Go to your car and drive a mile east. I’ll meet you if I make it.”

There was a pained look in his eyes as his gaze met hers. “No ifs,” he said fiercely. “You make it or else.”

She fought against a sudden flood of weakness. Where had he been when she was rotting in a Kaziri rebel prison, wondering if anyone remembered her at all?

You’re the one who started pushing him away.

But he was the one who’d spoken the final words.

“Wait for me to draw his fire away from here, then go inside. There’s a first-aid kit in the duffel, but I don’t think you’ll have time to waste.”

He moved suddenly, cupping the back of her neck and pulling her to him. “If you can kill him, do.” He kissed her forehead.

Swallowing hard, she scooted backward, losing cover for just a moment. No gunfire came her way, to her relief. She must have caught the attacker changing positions.

She edged her way around the side of the house, straining for any sound ahead. Her house butted up to a bluff, offering little room to maneuver. But if she could get around to the other side of the house, the woods spread for almost three miles to the east. She knew Bridal Veil Woods like the back of her hand. If she could get a head start into the cover of the trees, she could outmaneuver the gunman and get away.

Or get the drop on him.

RICK’S ARM WAS HURTING like a son of a bitch, but the wound was superficial, a bloody graze on his upper left arm that would require some first aid once he had a chance to breathe again but wasn’t likely to cause him any real problems. He found the duffel bag in the kitchen, lying on the floor where she’d left it, probably when he knocked on her door unexpectedly.

He wasn’t sure why Tara—Amanda—was hiding out in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee, but something had gone terribly wrong since the last time he’d seen her. He’d seen it in her haunted blue eyes.

What had the CIA done to her?

He hauled the duffel bag over one shoulder and headed to the back door, waiting for the bark of her Smith & Wesson to the east, his signal to make a run for it.

When the gunfire came, it was a pair of shots. One impossibly close, the other from the woods to the right of the house.

Then silence.

Rick froze in place, not sure what to do next. After a beat, he heard footfalls on the front porch, slow but steady.

He leveled his Walther at the door, his heart pounding a familiar, rapid-fire cadence. He’d been away from war zones a year now, but some things a man never forgot.

“Rick, it’s me.” Amanda’s voice came through the thin wooden door. “I’m unlocking the door and coming in. Please don’t shoot me.”

He kept the Walther steady, aware she could be speaking at the point of a gun.

There was a rattle of the doorknob, the slide of a key into the lock and the scrape of the dead bolt disengaging. The door swung open and Amanda entered alone, looking pale and jittery. “I shot him. He’s dead,” she said. “I need you to see if he’s the man you remember from the gas station.”

He laid a comforting hand on her arm when he reached her side. Her muscles twitched at his touch, as if she was ready to bolt at any second. Probably was—it was hard to control the physiological instinct for fight or flight, even if you were a highly trained intelligence officer.

The body of the shooter lay on the grass in front of her yard, blood still oozing from a chest shot. “Good aim,” he murmured, circling the body to get a look at the man’s face.

What he saw there came as a complete surprise.

“It’s not the guy from the Land Cruiser,” he said aloud, his voice tight and strained.

“But you recognize him?” she asked.

He nodded. “His name is Delman Riggs.” He looked up at her, his heart in his throat. “He used to work for MacLear.”

Chapter Three

“We have to move his body.” Amanda kept her voice low and calm, even though an endless shriek of terror played in a constant loop in her mind, echoing the memories that would never leave her as long as she lived.

But she had to focus on what needed to be done now. She could fall apart later, when she was finally alone again.

Rick’s eyes narrowed. “Move his body where?”

“I don’t care,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. We have about five minutes before the police get here. My neighbors will call in the gunfire. We’ve got to move now.”

“Why don’t we stick around and talk to the cops.” Rick spoke to her in a careful voice, as if he realized how close she was to snapping. “We’ll tell them what happened. I have the wound to prove we were under fire.”

She stared at him. “The Thurlow Gap cops aren’t cut out for a mess like this. Do you honestly think this will be the only attempt on my life?” She checked the Smith & Wesson’s clip to make sure she’d fired only four shots in the chaos. God knew how many more rounds she might need before this nightmare was over. “We’re wasting time talking about this.”

Rick stared at her. She saw the moment he realized she was right, that they couldn’t stay here and wait for the cops. But it was clear from his expression that he didn’t want to bug out. He wanted to handle this mess the normal way—call the cops, make a report, then forget about it and go on with life.

Good for him. She was glad he’d found his own little dose of normal in the world.

But she never would.

Sliding the pistol into the waistband of her jeans, she headed up the porch steps. “If you want to talk to the locals, fine. Stay here and chat it out with them. I have to go.” She went into the house, picked up the duffel bag Rick had left just inside and carried it out to the porch.

“How are you getting out of here? You think they won’t put out an APB for your car?” Rick asked from the bottom of the steps as she descended.

“I’ll walk.” She slung the heavy duffel bag over her shoulder, looping her arm through the canvas strap.

“And get picked up before you reach the next county.” Rick shook his head, falling in step with her as she headed toward the woods. “I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.”

She stopped at the edge of the clearing, taking a good look at him. The past three years had been kinder to him than her. He’d always been good-looking, but the intervening years had added lines of maturity to his face that suited him. His dark eyes looked older, too. Wiser, maybe. A lot more jaded.

She could sympathize with that.

“I don’t know where I want to go,” she admitted. “I just want to get out of here before the people around here end up getting hurt. They don’t deserve this kind of mess. And I’m not ready to offer myself up as a sacrificial lamb.”

“There’s going to be a mess, no matter what we do,” Rick warned. “If you disappear, no warning, no goodbyes, and the cops come here and find bullet holes riddling your carport—”

“All right! You’re right. There’s going to be a mess.” A manic energy bubbled in her chest, driving her relentlessly toward desperation. “So let’s make it a big mess.”

Reversing course, she jogged around to the back of the cabin, where she kept the gasoline generator that had gotten her through one frigid winter when the mountain snowfall had knocked out her electricity. Next to the generator stood the weatherproof bin where she kept a five-gallon container of gasoline. She’d just stocked up a couple of days earlier, in anticipation of next week’s promised thunderstorms.

She didn’t like to be stuck in the dark. Not anymore.

Rick caught up with her. “What are you doing?”

Amanda pulled the gas can from the bin and pulled off the cap. The pungent odor of gasoline fumes wafted around her, fueling her sense that she’d reached a point of no return. She met Rick’s troubled gaze, her lips curving in a ghost of a smile. “Remember Choqori?”

His eyes widened. “You’re not going to—”

“Burn it to the ground?” A ripple of laughter escaped her throat. It sounded like madness. “Oh, yes. Yes, I am.”

WITHIN TEN MINUTES, they’d made it through the woods undetected and headed out of Thurlow Gap, driving south, leaving behind one hell of a bonfire. They’d already heard sirens heading for Amanda’s property, which meant the fire would be put out sooner or later. And, eventually, people would probably be seeking Amanda for questioning about the charred body inside.

But they could worry about that problem another day, Rick thought as he tore off a piece of his shredded shirtsleeve to get a better look at the bloody groove in his upper arm. He grimaced at the sight of the torn and friction-burned skin.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Amanda said from her position behind the steering wheel. She was keeping to the speed limit—not too fast, not too slow—although Rick could see a frenetic glow in her smoky-blue eyes that suggested it was taking all of her willpower to keep from gunning the Charger up the highway.

“I need to clean it out before infection sets in.” There were pieces of singed shirt and probably pieces of bullet shrapnel embedded in the groove of flesh, rendering the wound a fertile environment for bacteria.

“As soon as you drop me off in Chattanooga, you can go find a doctor.”

He shot her a look. Drop her off? Did she really think that was going to happen? “Doctors have to report gunshot wounds. You know that.”

She shrugged. “Tell him you gouged it on a nail.”

“There’s not a nail in the world big enough to make this kind of wound.”

“Then tell him it was a railroad spike.”

He clenched his jaw, pain from the gunshot wound exacerbating his growing frustration. “How about this instead? We find somewhere outside Chattanooga to hunker down for the night, and you help me bandage up the gunshot wound I got trying to help you while we figure out what to do next.”

She slowed the Charger as they came up to a traffic light, taking advantage of the wait to look at him. The fiery determination evident in the set of her square jaw was so familiar it made his chest ache. She had always been the most stubborn creature he’d ever known.

“There’s no we, Rick. You never should have come here. We’re going to pretend that you didn’t.”

“You were always better at pretending than I was.”

The look she gave him held a hint of hurt. Just a hint, as if the life she’d lived since they’d last said goodbye had mostly cauterized whatever wound had remained from their breakup.

He wished he’d been able to rid himself of the painful memories as efficiently as she had. She still haunted him, usually deep in the night when he was alone and pondering the mess his life had become since that day when he walked away from her for what he thought would be forever.

“It’s one night, Tara—”

“Amanda,” she said sharply. “Tara Brady’s dead. She’s not coming back.”

He clamped his mouth shut, then started again. “Amanda. Just one night.”

“I never did tell you my real name, did I?”

He shook his head.

“I guess it won’t hurt now. It was Audrey. Audrey Scott.”

“From somewhere in south Mississippi,” he murmured.

She slanted another look at him. “What makes you think that, hotshot?”

“In Kaziristan, you had your accent almost completely contained,” he said, pleased that he’d managed to surprise her. “But you’ve been living in Tennessee for a while now, surrounded by people who talk a lot like the people from where you grew up. Your accent has come out to play again.”

She pressed her lips into a tight line. When she spoke again, that subtle hint of Mississippi had been ruthlessly stripped away. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I like the accent,” he admitted. He’d heard it now and then, back when they were sneaking moments of passion in a Kaziristan hotel. When she’d started to lose control, her Mississippi accent had slipped out more than once. “It’s sexy.”

The look she shot his way would have been lethal if it had been a bullet.

Before he got a chance to enjoy his small victory, Amanda released a soft curse.

“What?”

“There’s a police cruiser about a quarter mile back. Coming up fast.” She spoke in a flat, grim tone.

Rick’s gut tightened, but he’d been trained by MacLear to keep his head in a threatening situation. He imagined her CIA training had been even better preparation.

“Let’s determine one thing right now,” he said, fighting to keep the punch of adrenaline out of his voice. “No cops get shot, no matter what happens. If we have to talk our way through the truth, it’s better than killing a cop.”

She grimaced at him. “What do you think I am?”

“A burned CIA agent without much to lose.”

“Technically, I wasn’t burned. I was relieved of duty. They didn’t cut me off completely.” Her voice didn’t hold a lot of conviction, Rick noticed.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing. Stay in the right lane and keep to the speed limit.” He pulled his jacket back on, hoping the bloody rip in the dark leather wouldn’t catch the policeman’s eye if he pulled them over.

The cruiser approached in the side mirror, moving at a clip. Rick resisted the urge to turn and look out the back windshield. Talk about drawing attention to them—

“He’s passing us,” Amanda murmured.

Rick kept his gaze straight ahead, ignoring the police cruiser until it passed. He allowed himself to breathe again.

“One threat averted,” Amanda said. “It won’t be the last.”

“You really have no idea who’d be gunning for you?”

“I have no idea who’d think I’m significant enough to pay for a hit.”

Rick leaned his head back against the headrest, trying to think his way through the chaotic mess of the past three hours. It had started, for him, with the phone call to Cooper Security from Alexander Quinn claiming to be Derrick Lambert and wanting a meeting in Knoxville. Clearly, he’d wanted Rick to be in the area when Amanda called.

He’d known Rick would recognize the voice. He’d known he couldn’t walk away without trying to see her.

“You called me. Where did you get the number?” he asked aloud, rolling his head to the side so he could look at her.

She slanted a quick look his way. “Someone left a package on my front steps. Your number was inside the package.”

“Just my number?”

“Mostly. You know me. Curious as a cat.”

Cautious as a mouse was more like it, he thought. At least these days. “So Quinn sent you my number, and he arranged for me to be within an hour’s drive from where you lived.”

“Looks that way,” she said carefully.

“And he pretty much put me in a position to deliver a warning to you. But why me? Why didn’t he give it to you himself?”

Her lips curved a little, making his breath catch. Time had given her a lean, feral look she hadn’t possessed when he’d known her three years ago, but when she smiled, he saw the ghost of the vibrant, fearless woman he’d spent a few glorious months loving in the heart of a war zone.

“Why does Alexander Quinn do anything he does?” She shook her head. “Foreign services around the globe have written books trying to answer that question.”

Rick gazed through the windshield, wincing at the growing ache in his arm where the bullet had grazed him. According to the highway sign they’d just passed, they were near Athens, Tennessee, about an hour outside Chattanooga. Once they reached the city, they could find some nondescript little no-tell motel off the highway and hunker down for a night. Clean up his wound and maybe plot their next move.

“When we get to Chattanooga, I should call my brother.”

She shot him a look of disbelief. “We’re not contacting anyone, Rick. We have no way of knowing whether or not Quinn sent that gunman after me. And since he’s the one who sent you, he probably has your family’s phones tapped.”

Her level of paranoia was off the charts. “But why would Quinn send me to Thurlow Gap to warn you if he was in on the assassination attempt?”

“I don’t know!” Her voice rose, tinged with fear. He stared at her, barely recognizing her as the woman he’d last seen on a street in Tablis, Kaziristan, walking away with long, confident strides, each click of her high heels against the cobblestone street ripping another shred in his heart.

Tara Brady had been brazen in her sense of control and self-reliance. She’d needed nobody.

Not even him.

Amanda Caldwell, on the other hand, might share Tara’s honey-blond hair and smoky-blue eyes, but the confidence came and went. Back at the house, with the gunman breathing down their necks, she’d been all business, her training taking over with a vengeance. But now that the adrenaline rush had faded, and they were driving into an unknown future, the fear he’d seen lurking earlier behind her eyes had crept to the surface.

She was terrified, and seeing her that way was more frightening to Rick than being shot at, back at her cabin.

“Why did you leave the CIA?” he asked. She hadn’t yet given him a satisfying answer to that question, had she?

He saw her jaw set like concrete. “Got tired of it.”

“Just like that?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I asked questions about you. Back in Kaziristan.” After the debacle that had been the beginning of the end of his career with MacLear.

Losing Amahl Dubrov to the terrorists had been the worst error he’d ever made on the job. God only knew what the al Adar rebels had done to Dubrov once they got their hands on him.

Rick never should have listened to Salvatore Beckett. He should have trusted his instincts and bugged out of Tablis with Dubrov before al Adar found them.

“Asked questions?” Amanda said when he didn’t continue.

He’d wanted to see her one more time before he headed back stateside, he remembered. He had been due back in Atlanta the next evening to attend a debriefing with Jackson Melville, MacLear’s CEO. Melville wouldn’t be pleased. Rick had known losing Dubrov might cost him his job. “It was a few weeks after we last met. I was heading back to the States. I just wanted to see you one more time before I went.”

Her expression closed like a door. “I wasn’t in Tablis anymore. You wouldn’t have been able to find me.”

“Nobody had any answers for me. So I left.”

Her gaze focused on the road ahead. She said nothing else.

He sank back against the seat, resting his head against the window. In the side mirror, traffic behind him was as light as it was on the road in front of them. They’d hit the road at just the right time—

In the mirror, a vehicle that had been just a dot on the road behind them had grown several sizes larger in the span of the few seconds his gaze had settled on the mirror.

Next to him, Amanda uttered another low oath. He looked up to find her staring at the rearview mirror, her brow furrowed. “Vehicle, coming up fast.”

“I know.” He checked the side mirror again and saw the black dot was a large black SUV bearing down on them, moving at alarming speed. It looked familiar. “I think that’s the Toyota Land Cruiser I saw at the gas station back in Thurlow Gap.”

“Great,” she muttered tersely.

He pulled his Walther from the holster at his waist and checked the clip. He’d transferred a couple of boxes of ammunition for the Walther from the trunk of the Charger to his glove compartment before they hit the road, and he’d seen extra guns and rounds in Amanda’s duffel bag, as well. But if the person in the fast-approaching SUV had backup and bigger weapons, all their firepower might not be enough.

“If they’re up to no good, I don’t think we can shoot this thing out,” Amanda said.

“How are your defensive-driving skills?”

“Rusty,” she admitted, “but I still remember a few things.”

Rick checked the back window. The SUV was about four car lengths back. “This Charger will do 140 miles an hour. I bet we can outgun that land boat back there. If they try to run us off the road or start shooting, just floor it.”

She gave a brisk nod, her gaze flicking back and forth between the light traffic ahead and the rearview window. He saw her shoulders tighten. “Weapon!” she barked.

He turned and saw a large-caliber handgun extending from the passenger window of the Toyota. “Duck and gun it!”

Dropping low in his seat, he held on as the Charger bolted forward, the engine singing with the power surge, and sent up a quick prayer of thanks that his sister Shannon had talked him into buying the muscle car instead of a less expensive, more practical sedan.

Amanda weaved the Charger through traffic, the SUV staying with her for about a mile before it started to fall back.

“I love this car,” she declared, sounding like the Tara Brady he remembered. A rush of pure male hunger surged through him, badly timed but strangely welcome. For the first time in a long time, he felt like the Rick Cooper who’d fallen hard for the sexy American spook.

It was about damn time.

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