Come As You Are. Amy J. Fetzer

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      “We need to get out of sight.” Deep, he thought, thinking like a wanted felon and doing the opposite.

      She tapped him, pointed. “Under there.”

      Logan turned the wheel and slid the car beneath a blue tarp awning sandwiched next to a house. He shut off the engine.

      “It might not start again,” she said.

      “We have to leave it. Come on.” He got out.

      She stood on the other side. “We lost them, we’re okay.”

      He gave her a dry look over the top of the car. “You never were very good at this.”

      “That’s why I left.”

      His expression darkened, and she came around the back of the car. “It was the way you did it.”

      “I had my reasons.”

      “Care to share them?”

      “Not really.” Not if she wanted her life back. She knew all this was a desperate attempt to recapture the moments before that call, and behave as if nothing had changed. But as she stared into his eyes, she knew nothing would be the same. It was cruel, but Logan wasn’t ready to hear it. He’d never believe her. “I did my part, you’re free to do whatever it was you were doing.” She flicked her hand the way they’d come, then turned in the other direction.

      “You’re just all sorts of misbehaving lately, aren’t you?” He swung her around with him in the other direction, walking the alley.

      “Stop talking to me like I’m some kid, Chambliss, and why are we rushing?”

      “To get out of sight.”

      “And why should I come with you? Jeez, Logan, slow down.”

      “Tessa,” he said patiently, though she was practically running beside him. “They’ve chosen to hunt us instead of my team. They won’t stop looking. There was surveillance in the house we didn’t know about.” Not to that extreme, Logan thought. Someone had a voyeuristic fetish. “They know our faces and they were looking for something.”

      Her insides seized.

      “Now, I don’t have a thing from Ramos, but you were already there. So what did he give you?”

      She felt the clamminess of the leather tucked against her stomach and Tessa had two good reasons for not showing it to him. This was her problem, and he’d want to help. He was that kind of guy. Well…except maybe now.

      “They don’t have video of me. He told me where the cameras were located.”

      He scowled. Their pursuers’ interest in her in particular said otherwise.

      “I knew how to get to him, and it was easy. I studied the layout.” She shrugged. “Somewhat. The plans are public record, the press knows his routine.”

      “Clever. You haven’t been working the game?” But he knew the answer.

      “Oh God, no. I’m a National Geographic Society location scout.”

      “No roots.”

      “I couldn’t have any.”

      “Except him.”

      She blinked. “You’re jealous?”

      “Don’t flatter yourself. I could have told you not to trust him. Or didn’t I mention that before?”

      “Now you’re just being sarcastic,” she said.

      “But that doesn’t tell me what he gave you.”

      “We talked.”

      “So then, what did he tell you?” Frustration laced his voice.

      “Do you really want to get into this right now?”

      “Just so you know,” he said, taking her by the arm. “I’m not long on patience anymore.”

      “Yeah, well,” she said. “You’d be surprised how stubborn I’ve gotten over the years.”

      He’d already noticed that difference in her and the irony of this struck him. She’d pretended to die, while Ramos, as Garcia, pretended to live.

      His problem was that eleven years hadn’t lessened her effect on him. He felt choked by it, and when he turned his head to look at her, he got the full impact of her pale, pleading eyes, the rich brown hair streaked with gold flowing wildly past her shoulders. Her skin still looked incredibly smooth, tanned, and his gaze slid to her throat, dove lower as rounded skin disappeared under the clingy neckline, the dark shorts exposing her muscled thighs.

      She was still gorgeous in a kick-your-ass sorta way. More striking than delicate. Everything about her was vibrant, and very different from the woman who was shaking in her boots when she’d passed herself off as a Chechen courier and fast-talked her way around hired guns to access a faction leader. He frowned, dragging his gaze from her and staring at nothing in particular as he remembered her hand on his arm, as if she wanted human contact one last time before she faced the devils with AK-47s and bad attitudes.

      That was then, he thought, and the longer he considered her orchestrated death, the more lies piled up. Her lies. She used him and, worse, Ramos was part of it. Yet Logan was the one who had suffered. Ten feet away was a woman he’d mourned. Jesus, he’d visited a gravesite with no one inside. He felt like a complete and utter fool. And while he wanted to hate her for it, his heart was screaming with joy.

      She’d staged her death and hidden herself from the world to protect herself. Although he planned on getting it out of her, he didn’t think it was a good time to tell her he’d been wearing video equipment that night. A direct relay with no recording, so the Venezuelans didn’t have it, yet even if the Vice President’s security cameras didn’t catch her on film, McGill did.

      It wouldn’t be long before the intelligence community knew she was alive. And for her sake, he hoped the eyes only classification kept her under wraps. Something had scared her into doing that and from the way she was behaving, it wasn’t over.

      As they moved, his hand on her wrist loosened, his fingers sliding to thread with hers. She clutched back and they raced away from the explosion still lighting the night sky.

      Salazar jumped back into the chopper and ordered the pilot to lift off. Yet before they made air, a second explosion tore through the van. He cursed and took the controls, struggling to get the chopper above the heat and flames. The craft bucked in the sky, rocking right, and he stabilized, lifting higher. He called up reinforcements, blanketing the city with officers and closing roads. They would find the black truck while he searched for the couple.

      He flew the helicopter over the city, using heat signatures to locate the green bug of a car. Then he turned over the controls to the pilot, watching between the land and the thermal monitor. He found it, lowering the chopper, and the blades kicked back the tarp. The rusted German car sat like a fat frog in the mist.

      “Send a car right СКАЧАТЬ