Free Fall (Elite Force #4)(66)
Author: Catherine Mann

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “As if I have any choices these days.”

Neither of them did. He opened the door and gestured her through into the sparsely populated corridor. His hand rested over his weapon, his eyes tracking the length of the hallway. Transfers were always the most dangerous, even in a locked-down-tight facility. Four doors down, her room waited. Uniformed and armed military guards were stationed at every corner.

Those few steps seemed like miles as he escorted her past framed posters about touring historic Mogadishu. Her steps against tile seemed so dainty, so vulnerable. He understood she had training and could protect herself. During past missions, he had trusted female agents. But Annie wasn’t just any agent. After listening to her talk about her capture and what she’d endured, hearing her voice give life to facts he’d read…

He couldn’t let her out of his sight now. Maybe ever. Which made that emotional wall she had put up between them cursedly inconvenient.

A dozen steps later, he finally had her in the new room, one he’d chosen just for her to make this lockdown more bearable. During the past year, he’d made it his mission to learn everything about this fascinating woman. He knew she liked wide open spaces. Even at the school, she taught outdoors whenever possible.

So he’d picked this office with care. A wall of windows—bulletproof and tinted—overlooked the runway, but more importantly a distant view of the Indian Ocean.

She raced across the room and pressed her palms to the glass. Airport lights created a bubble of light in the dark night. Fireworks split the sky, just a few, more like amateur stuff before the big show at the end of the ceremonies later.

Her back rose and fell with deep breaths. “Thank you for bringing me here. I was about to scream from being stuck in that claustrophobic room.” She glanced over her shoulder. “But I’m guessing you knew that.”

He wanted to know more about her, everything and anything he needed to keep her safe. “I take it things did not go well with your daughter.”

“Not as I would have hoped, but as I predicted,” she said with a deep sadness in her eyes. “She forgives me but she’s upset, hurt, distrusting, and that’s completely her right. I didn’t expect hugs and tears.”

Pain, loss, and regret all radiated off her in waves. He walked past the covered meal to stand beside her, crossing his arms behind his back as he stared out at planes taxiing. “Seems to me since she is also an agent she might have a little understanding for the difficult decision you had to make. You sacrificed a lot to keep her safe.”

“Don’t make excuses for me.” She pressed a hand to her throat. “You don’t have to pretend to be nice anymore.”

“You think I was pretending?”

“It was your job to get close to me, to do whatever it took, to be whomever you needed to be to get under my skin so you could watch me. I get it. Now the need to playact is over.”

Playact? She thought he was pretending to care about her? He couldn’t let her go on believing that, but he wasn’t sure how much she was ready to hear.

So he just touched her arm lightly, but even that brought back memories of their kiss and how much more he wanted from her. “Not everything is an act. You should also know the best covers for agents are the ones that blend the truth in with the fiction. That makes it easier not to trip up.”

Her chin tipped proudly, but he could have sworn her eyes held a tentative hope that fired him to clasp both her hands and continue.

“If I had just wanted to get close to you, the simplest way would have been to pretend I was in love with someone else, perhaps a heartbroken widower who could never love again.” He’d played that role before on a prior mission in Cairo. “I would have created a backstory to keep you at arm’s length romantically while still staying close to you.”

“Instead, you chose to be my friend for a whole year?” She glanced down at his hands holding her. “Friends don’t kiss.”

Why was she making this difficult? Perhaps because she did not want the same thing? Or he had missed his chance by being too cautious? Too honorable? Frustration chewed at his already overtaxed self-control. “That’s because I do not want to be your friend, damn it, and this may not be the best time to tell you, given all you have been through today.” His hands slid up her arms to hold her shoulders. Finally, he allowed himself to vocalize his deepest wish since he’d first seen her. “But I want to be with you, romantically. I always have.”

“Oh.” Her eyebrows shot upward as quickly as the plane outside climbed into the night sky.

“Oh? That is all you have to say?” He had bared his pride to her, and she could only say… “Oh?”

“It’s the always part that I’m stuck on.” More light powered on outside, casting beams across her incredulity. “Always?”

The power of that first meeting with her surged over him again, the sense that he had been waiting for her his whole life. “From the moment I met you. You were sitting in your classroom putting together some kind of project for a bulletin board. You had the saddest look on your face. All I wanted in that moment was to make you smile.”

He still did.

“I remember the day you arrived, that moment you introduced yourself.” She angled her head to the side, her beautiful face so dear to him, every freckle imprinted on his memory. “I was thinking about my daughter and how we used to make art projects together when I came home—things to hang on the wall or even use as a doorstop. I needed to know that I’d left a part of myself with her whenever I left.”

Guilt creased deep grooves into her face, weighting down her words. More of that pain swelled from her and he realized that was the wall between them. She couldn’t allow herself to be happy. “Annie, I know you and I am certain you tried your best.”

Tears welled in her dark green eyes. “All of that doesn’t matter. The reality is, I let her down. I let my boys down… my husband too.” She looked at him with those sad eyes again, just like she had the first day he met her. She blinked and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I failed again.”

“Annie…” His voice came out strangled and hoarse. He gathered her against his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of the hand lotion. So many times he’d walked by that bottle she kept on her desk and resisted the urge to lift it to his nose. “I meant what I said. My feelings for you have never been an act.”