The Cinderella Mission (Family Secrets #1)(36)
Author: Catherine Mann

The woman hadn’t joined ARIES to see the world. She’d done it out of self-preservation. They had more in common than he could have ever guessed. “You’re an amazing woman, Kelly Taylor.”

She laughed. “Who me? I’m just a farm girl from Nebraska who knows what she wants from life and finally has decided to go after it.”

Left unspoken were the words now understood.

She wanted him.

And he knew.

He couldn’t be with this woman because it would mean something. If he let himself crawl into her bed and slide into her body, he might well want to stay. The thought of giving anyone that much control over his emotions again sent his heart pounding so hard she must hear it.

A hum started. Flickerings in front of his eyes with a second’s warning before light flooded their hellhole of a cavern.

The power had returned.

And in the middle of hell, a halo of light streamed across Kelly’s dirt-smudged face. Hair straggled over her eyes, chocolate-warm eyes that called to a man when shining from the face of this so-damned-pretty woman. A woman he didn’t dare claim, because he knew something she didn’t.

He could stand down a renegade drug runner packing heat without wincing. But when it came to giving his heart, Ethan Williams was a coward.

Wrapped in an Aztec-patterned blanket, Kelly pumped her canewood rocker into motion in the back room of Clyde’s store while the last rays of the day filtered through the frost-speckled window. What thoughts churned behind Ethan’s stark face, the hard lines illuminated by tauntingly romantic firelight? Her own emotions still swirled with a mix of passion and the adrenaline buzz of having survived death.

Clyde had started searching after a couple of hours, quickly discovering the blown generator. A tampered-with generator. And a missing handyman. The aging agent had immediately alerted headquarters, then charged ahead to the rescue on his own.

Those lights coming back on had illuminated more than their way out once Clyde had tossed down a rope and reassurance. They’d cast a spotlight on the harsh reality of Ethan’s panicked expression.

She wasn’t naive enough to think he didn’t want her. She could tell she turned him on, could see it in his eyes even now. And he hadn’t been repulsed by the attack, just predictably protective.

But any tenderness from her? Forget it. He didn’t want it.

She should be happy, right? She didn’t want anything long-term from Ethan Williams anyway. She wanted to focus on her career. And when her days in the field ended, she would find some scholarly guy to converse with in French for the rest of her life. She wanted a nice, reasonable man who would let her control her own world.

She was through having people tell her what she wanted. She wanted an affair with Ethan. She’d walked away from that casino all those years ago with nothing more than a tattoo to show for her efforts. This time, she wouldn’t stop until she’d tattooed herself on that man’s memory.

A man who looked like more than an avalanche of dirt and boards had crashed onto his shoulders. Waiting around like delinquent children for their boss to arrive obviously didn’t sit well with Ethan. By the time Clyde had pulled them from the mine and they’d checked in with ARIES, Hatch had already been airborne.

Ethan rolled a stoneware mug of coffee between his hands. “About last night in the greenhouse, about what happened a couple of hours ago.”

Kelly halted her rocker. “Ethan—”

“Let me talk.” He set the steaming mug aside. “I want to apologize for taking advantage of the situation.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. There were two of us down there.” Even the memory sent fresh shivers through her, and more than a tinge of embarrassment. “Even if only one of us finished.”

A smile picked at the corner of his mouth. “Still, I know you haven’t spent time undercover. When you’re working a deep cover 24/7, it’s easy to get caught up in the act.”

He thought she was that gullible? That she didn’t even recognize her own feelings? “Pretense becomes reality?”

“Something like that.”

Maybe he spoke from experience, a thought that stung more than the scrapes from falling down a hundred-foot slope. “So you always roll around on greenhouse floors and abandoned mines with your partners, James Bond style, and I shouldn’t let myself get carried away.”

Irritation stamped his lean face. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“Just that I know it happens.”

“To you?”

He stared at his hands, hands that had brought her such an incredible release. Silence echoed in the paneled room. The fire crackled in the grate, a log popped, snapping in two to release a shower of sparks. “We’re already friends. I think that makes us both more susceptible.”

A blaze of renewed hope glowed to life in her with more warming power than the heater vent pumping underneath the dormant potbelly stove. “So you haven’t—rolled around with your partners before.”

His head jerked up until he pinned her with a laser-blue stare. “No. You’re special, damn it. Is that what you wanted to hear? Well, there it is. I tell myself I’m too old for you and an honorable man would leave you alone. But damned if being honorable has ever been my strong suit.”

He flung his head back, eyes closed. “Judas-freaking-priest, woman, you’ve blown my concentration to hell and back with no more than your voice for two years.”

Two years? Those words opened the door on a possibility she hadn’t considered, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to ponder because it rocked her. Scared her.

His eyes iced into the determined agent who never gave ground. “But does that mean I plan to do anything about it? No. No. And hell no. Because you are my friend, and I know a relationship with me is the last thing you need. If I were even a relationship kind of guy. Which I’m not.”

She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why would that be?”

He plowed his hands through his hair. “For some damned reason I can’t fathom, women seem to think when a man says he isn’t the marrying sort, that becomes an invitation to prove him wrong.”

With a few words he had slammed that door shut again and she refused to acknowledge a sting of loss. She had her personal and professional wishes clearly lined up in her mind, and she wouldn’t let Ethan Williams distract her from any of them.

“Marrying sort? You actually think I’m expecting you to whip some princess-cut diamond out of your pocket?” She let her snort of disbelief roll free and reveled in being the one to surprise him for a change. “Believe me, if I go fishing in your pocket, it won’t be for a wedding ring.”