Chapter Fifteen
RAYNE TURNED AWAY from Grant, embarrassed and angry over her mother’s tirade. The last thing she’d wanted was to expose Grant to the ugliness of her past. Yet that’s exactly what happened.
Strong arms came around her waist and tugged Rayne against a rock-hard chest.
“Don’t be nice to me,” she warned. “I’m teetering on the edge of a serious crying jag.
” Why wouldn’t these emotions stay buried?
Years had passed and still her mother hated her and lived in a fantasy world where her husband was a prince among men when in reality he’d been a snake in the grass, striking when you least expected.
Grant’s arms tightened around her middle.
“If crying will help, do it. I can handle a few tears.” He paused.
“Maybe,” he muttered. Another pause, then, “Okay, let’s not test the theory now.
Other women’s tears don’t bug me, but the thought of you crying tears me up inside.
We should wait until I’m in a better frame of mind to try the crying thing.
I’ll have to patch up the cracks in my armor first or you’ll kill me with your tears. ”
Rayne burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. “You’re safe. The tears are gone for the moment.”
“Thank God. I’d hate to turn in my man card.”
She turned in his arms. “Keep the card.” Rayne kissed him. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Defending me.”
“Did little good. She wouldn’t listen.”
“I didn’t expect Mom to change her mind. What I appreciated the most is putting yourself between me and her.”
He sighed. “I didn’t make a great first impression.”
“You won’t have to deal with her from now on. Mom meant what she said. She doesn’t want contact from me or my friends.”
“Think she’ll change her mind?”
She shook her head. “Her mind hasn’t changed in over a decade, Grant.
Instead of seeing my actions at sixteen years old as an attempt to protect her and myself, she sees those actions as the ultimate betrayal.
I’m the villain in her recounting of what happened that night so long ago, and nothing will change that, including the passage of more time.
What about your family? How did they take the news? ”
“Not well,” he admitted. “Honestly, I thought they’d roll with it, accept the protection Fortress offered, and get on with their everyday activities.” He rubbed his jaw. “Instead, they want all of us to come for dinner to talk about the problem.”
Grant stepped away from Rayne to pace. “What’s to discuss? They need the protection.”
“We know how dangerous the people we encounter are. Your family doesn’t. When are we eating with them?”
“Tomorrow night. We need a chance to recuperate after our last 48 hours. I would have set up a breakfast meeting, but tomorrow is a workday for my brother and sister and their spouses. I don’t want to create more problems than necessary.”
But what about their bodyguards? They needed Fortress to watch their backs, whether or not they liked the necessity. “They need protection.”
“They’ll have it. I messaged Maddox to arrange it.”
Rayne could just imagine how her mother would react if she noticed a bodyguard watching over her.
Her hand fisted. Maddox would have to assign someone skilled with the ability to blend into the surroundings without calling attention to himself.
Like Grant, despite her mother’s insistence on being left alone and her obvious hatred for her daughter, Rayne still loved her mother and would do whatever she could to safeguard her.
Grant led her back to the living room, where Riley was typing feverishly on her laptop with Andre looking over her shoulder.
Rayne studied her friend and teammate. “Riley must be onto something,” she murmured to Grant. “I recognize that look of intense concentration she gets when she’s on the trail of something big.”
Andre waved them into the suite’s small kitchen area. “She’s hacking the Army’s database to see if she can track who has been poking around in our mission files,” he said, voice low.
Grant frowned. “Was she able to contact her family?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
Rayne rested her hand on his forearm. “She doesn’t have a family to warn. Like Teagan, Riley grew up in the foster care system and was never adopted.”
Andre flinched. “That’s rough.”
“What about your family?”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “My father and brothers live on a 2,000-acre ranch in Wyoming. They raise Black Angus cattle. They’re always armed to the teeth, so they don’t think they need anyone to watch their backs.”
“Are they right?”
“I hope so,” he muttered. “Besides, their schedules aren’t predictable, and they’re never in one place for long.
Fences always need mending as the cattle move from one pasture to another.
It’s not like they have desk jobs where anyone would know their schedules.
The family is going to inform the ranch hands about what’s going on so they can keep watch as well.
If I was there, I would only be another pair of eyes watching for trouble. I think they’re pretty well covered.”
Riley glanced up at that moment. “Does the name Red Dawn mean anything to you?”
Grant and Andre looked at each other, their expressions grim. “Red Dawn was the mission that was leaked?” Grant asked.
“All of your missions were locked down tight except for this one. Red Dawn was accessed two weeks ago by someone not allowed to see the file.”
Andre retraced his steps to her side. “Can you tell who it was?”
“Not yet. I’m tracking them now.” Her fingers flew over the laptop’s keyboard again. “He’s a tricky guy. I’ll give him that.”
“What do you need to fuel your energy?” Rayne asked. She’d witnessed her friend tracking an unseen enemy over the Internet several times since their team had formed. The process always fascinated and confounded her. She didn’t know how Riley knew what to do or where to look for the hackers.
“Coffee and chocolate.” Without taking her gaze from the computer, she said, “Is there any chance I could have a chocolate shake? I think that would hit the spot.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Andre grabbed the room service menu. “If room service doesn’t have what you want, I’ll either buy you a shake or buy the ingredients to make one.”
Riley’s hands hovered over the keyboard as she glanced at Andre. “Don’t go to extra trouble, Andre. Just a regular shake would do it.”
“If you’re going to be up all night, you need more than just sugar to fuel your body.
Besides, I don’t mind.” He studied the menu for a moment, then picked up the suite’s phone to call the front desk.
After a quick conversation, he turned back to Riley.
“You’re all set. Delivery in twenty minutes.
I ordered enough protein shakes and coffee for everyone. ”
Rayne wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think my stomach can handle coffee this late at night.”
“I ordered four different protein shakes. Chocolate for Riley, and banana, vanilla, and strawberry for the rest of us.”
The knot in her stomach unraveled. “That’s perfect. Thanks, Andre.”
He gave a slight nod, then shifted his attention to Riley. “Is there anything else I can do to help? I’m not bad on a computer if you have grunt work I can do.”
Riley paused again. “Make a list of people involved in Red Dawn.”
“You got it.” Andre left the living for a minute, then returned with his laptop and Grant’s. “Here. Two of us creating a list will help ensure we don’t miss anyone.”
“There are many people involved in every mission.”
“But only a handful directly involved. Those are the ones we need to focus on, not the peripheral people in Washington, D.C. who didn’t leave their desks.”
“What can I do to help?” Rayne asked. Riley would do most of the heavy lifting on this task, but any lead chased by the rest of the team was one less for the computer whiz to tackle.
“The mission is still classified,” Grant said. “Otherwise, I’d ask you to get your computer as well.”
“You need to make a list. I can make the list of names for you while you and Andre scour the file.”
“That would work. Thanks.”
After returning to the living room with her own laptop, Rayne dropped onto the couch next to Grant and clicked on the word processing program Fortress installed on all laptops for their employees. She brought up a blank document. “Ready.”
Fifteen minutes into the task, someone knocked on the suite door.
“I’ve got it.” Andre set aside his computer, checked the peephole, then opened the door.
A bellhop stood in the hall with a cloth-draped serving cart. A large carafe of coffee sat on the flat surface of the cart along with four tall glasses designed for ice cream floats.
“I’ll take it from here.” Andre tipped the bellhop, then pushed the cart into the suite. He gave Riley the chocolate protein shake. “Take a break and drink this.”
She frowned. “I can work and guzzle a shake at the same time.”
“Step back for a few minutes. Give your brain time to rest while you refuel your body,” he insisted. “If you don’t take care of yourself, you could miss something vital.”
“I hate it when you’re right.”
He laughed. “I’m marking this down on my calendar. I don’t remember the last time someone told me I was right about anything.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Riley said.
“No worries. I’m sure you’ll take me down a notch or two if I get out of line.”
“Count on it.”
He winked. “Always knew you liked me.”
Riley rolled her eyes, but her lips curved.
After drinking the protein shakes, the operatives resumed their tasks with coffee in hand.
Andre and Grant continued scouring the Red Dawn file for people involved in their mission.
As they worked through the lengthy document, Rayne wrote the names they found.
Later, she and the others would help Riley run the names.
From the looks of the list, this endeavor would be large and tedious.