Wild Ways. Naomi Horton

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      “Bobby was the most grounded, real person I’ve ever known. He was not imagining things!”

      “Meg, I don’t know what happened to Bobby that night, but it was no double cross. No one blew his cover. I’m sorry he’s dead—he was a good agent and a friend of mine. But O’Dell’s closed the case down because there’s no evidence to keep it open. Good men die stupid deaths, Meg. I’m sorry, but it happens.”

      “Not to my brother, it didn’t,” she said with quiet intensity.

      Engler started to say something, then thought better of it and subsided, frowning.

      “He was double-crossed,” Meg said savagely. “By one of our agents. Then he was murdered to keep him quiet. O’Dell won’t investigate because he doesn’t believe me, but I darn well intend to find out who killed Bobby if it’s the last thing I ever do. And if O’Dell won’t make me a full field agent, then I’ll quit and do it on my own!”

      Engler exchanged a quick look with Carlson, and Meg bit back an angry oath, knowing they were thinking the same thing everyone else at the Agency thought. Word had it that Bobby had slipped up and gotten himself and another agent killed, and that she couldn’t accept the truth. That she’d come up with this preposterous idea that it had been another agent who had double-crossed and ambushed Bobby and his partner. Conspiracy plot, they called it behind her back, smiling knowingly amongst themselves. Even O’Dell was tired of listening to her.

      She shook her head angrily and stalked across to the bed, starting to shove her things willy-nilly into her small suitcase. “Reg, saddle up! We’re leaving.” She shot Engler a cool look. “I presume you two are here to escort Reg and me back to Washington.”

      “Well, actually, Matt’s going to take Reg to Washington.” Engler managed to look mildly embarrassed. “My orders are to escort you back to Virginia ASAP. From this room to O’Dell’s office, no stops between.”

      “I’m not going back to Virginia until I know Reg is safe. I gave my word.”

      “No problem. There’s an Agency jet sitting on the tarmac out at the airport with its engines hot and two more agents aboard for backup. I’ll let you walk on and buckle him in, if you like.”

      “How are you and I getting back?”

      “Military chopper.” Engler smiled slightly. “O’Dell’s private stock. You’re getting the royal treatment.”

      “O’Dell’s little joke, giving me the royal treatment to my own firing squad.” Meg mustered up a rough smile. She looked at Rafe for a moment, then walked across and held out her hand. “Well, Mr. Blackhorse, it’s been…instructional. I won’t say it’s been a pleasure, exactly, but I appreciate your help. And I’m sorry about your…arrangement with the other party. Give him my regrets, will you?”

      To her surprise, Rafe actually smiled. His hand folded around hers, warm and incredibly gentle. “It has been a pleasure, Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh. Like I said, you’re one of a kind.”

      “CIR Specialist Mary Margaret Kavanagh,” Meg said with a sigh. “And I meant what I said about appreciating your help, even if it wasn’t exactly what you intended. I’ll keep all your advice in mind. In case I ever need it again. You ought to think about billing O’Dell for your in-field training services.”

      His fingers tightened slightly, encasing hers in gentle warmth. “You take care of yourself, Agent Kavanagh.”

      Then he drew his hand from hers slowly, letting his fingers linger on hers for a moment before releasing them completely.

      She nodded again, then just smiled and gathered up her suitcase, glancing around the room to make sure she had everything. Carlson was helping Reggie get his things together in the other room, and she could hear them squabbling already.

      She walked outside with Engler, taking a deep breath of night air.

      “Hey. You. Engler.”

      Rafe’s voice caught Engler just as he was opening the door of his rental car for Meg. He stiffened and Meg saw his hand move fractionally toward his weapon.

      She looked around sharply. Rafe was just standing there, tall and calm-eyed in the moonlight, hands loose at his sides.

      Engler turned slowly. “What?”

      “Tell O’Dell she did just fine out here. Handled herself better than most men I’ve seen with twice the training.”

      Engler looked as surprised as Meg felt. She stared at Rafe in amazement.

      “She stayed one step ahead of me for almost a week, and when I did catch up to her, she drew down on me like an old-timer, cool as water. Tell him that.”

      “Yeah, okay.” Engler looked at Meg with renewed respect. “I’ll tell him that.”

      Rafe nodded, then touched his forehead in a lazy salute, his eyes holding Meg’s. “S’long, Irish.”

      “I…yeah…” she stammered, feeling suddenly flustered for no reason. His gaze was as warmly intimate as a caress, as though they’d been sharing a lot more than barbed threats half the night, and she sensed more than saw Engler look at her curiously. “I, um…so…long.”

      “Well, if that doesn’t beat everything.” Carlson had joined them in time to hear the whole exchange and was standing there with his mouth open, watching Rafe stride away. “Meg, you just got a five-star recommendation from a legend! Man, wait’ll O’Dell hears about this!”

      Chapter 4

      Mary Margaret Kavanagh was still on his mind three weeks later.

      And Rafe was not happy about it.

      It was irritating as hell to be thinking about her at all, for a start. But to have her on his mind here, up on Bear Mountain, really ticked him off.

      Until now, he’d managed to keep the outside world from intruding up here. His fortress from reality, his sister had called it. She’d used a lot of phrases like that once, shouting them at him as though trying to pierce armorplate with words. But it wasn’t a fortress, just a quiet retreat from the clamor and clang of a world that seemed increasingly irrelevant.

      Up here there was nothing but him and the sky and the wind and the mountain itself, its granite roots planted deep in the planet’s heart. It was silent, save for the moan of the wind and the occasional scream of an eagle, and as clean as bone, scoured by that ever-present wind.

      Everything was reduced to its simplest form, all softness and artifice and weakness gone until only the core remained. Even the stunted trees had been stripped of nonessentials until they were more like polished stone than living things, gray and hard and elemental, all but unkillable. Tree-thing at its most fundamental level, like the rock and the sky.

      Like him.

      It had saved him, this mountain. Like the rocks and the twisted trees, he’d been scoured down to his most elemental self until all that was left was hard and pure. He’d come up here almost two years ago intending to kill himself. Eight months before, he’d drunk himself into a stupor and had stayed СКАЧАТЬ