Chapter 5 #2
The word contact scraped against something raw inside her chest. Liam wasn’t some operative’s asset, and she’d make a lousy Black Swan. Emberly had mastered the art of surgical detachment, but Nimue’s defenses crumbled every time those blue eyes locked on hers. She checked her phone: 5:57 a.m.
Three minutes till showtime. Her pulse hammered against her ribs—not from the promised run, but from the thought of seeing him again.
She shoved the flutter down, buried it under layers of justification.
This was about keeping him breathing, not about the way his shoulders filled out that ranger uniform.
Right. And she was the Queen of England.
Her hands fumbled with her shoelaces, yanking them tight before she dropped into a lunge. Then another. Her shoes scraped against the gravel as she paced, dawn air sharp in her lungs. The canyon’s rim blazed amber in the climbing sun, but her attention stayed glued to the empty road.
Dust plumed before she heard the engine. Liam’s truck rumbled into the clearing with thirty seconds to spare, kicking up a cloud that made her step back. Her chest loosened—a reaction she tried to ignore.
He unfolded from the driver’s seat, all long limbs and easy confidence. His running gear clung to a frame carved by years of vertical living, dark hair mussed just enough to make her fingers itch.
Trouble with a capital T.
“Morning.” His voice carried the rasp of someone who’d rather still be horizontal. Those blue eyes swept over her with a mix of wariness and warmth that set her off-balance.
“Morning to you too, sunshine.” She kept her tone light, breezy. Safe territory.
Silence stretched between them. He knew nothing about her.
Whereas a basic search had told her he’d been raised in a suburb of Chicago, was the youngest of four, had a fraternal twin brother who had just been exposed as the well-known author Victor Holt, and had spent the past two years taking extreme-adventure jobs in Europe.
She’d pulled those details from databases he’d never know she’d cracked.
None of it sat right. She knew his secrets. He didn’t know hers. But it was the best way to keep him safe, maybe.
“Ready?”
“Try to keep up, Superman,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
And why had she said that? Oh brother. Clearly she’d read too many of the Instagram posts before deleting them. They’d slivered into her brain and stayed there.
“After you,” he said, his smile wry.
She practically fled to the trail, him a few steps behind.
They fell into a rhythm that felt easy, almost natural. Sagebrush and shale blurred past, the canyon’s edge yawning to their left. Dust and pine filled her nostrils. Sun warmed her back through the tank top. Their strides matched, synchronized, and she scrambled for neutral ground.
“So.” She kept her breathing even. “Any luck tracking down the kids?”
His mouth twitched—not quite a smile. “We’ve got names. Too bad their parents think we’re making it up.”
His gaze skittered away from hers then, and of course every instinct screamed at her to dig deeper, to crack whatever haunted that expression.
She clamped down on the urge. Connection meant exposure. Exposure meant death.
He was a contact. Nothing more.
The word—contact—suddenly tasted like a lie. Bitter.
Twenty minutes in, the silence grew teeth. Her throat worked against the words fighting to escape. “Always dream of being a ranger?”
She’d turned slightly when she asked, and right then, her foot caught loose rocks. Arms windmilling, she pitched forward—
Liam’s hand shot out, seizing her arm and yanking her against his chest. His heartbeat slammed against her ear, his arms locked around her like steel bands, and when she tilted her head up, his face had drained white. His eyes stared through her, seeing ghosts.
He glanced past her, at the gorge that dropped below.
Oh. Yeah.
Whoops.
She held perfectly still, her own pulse racing. She wanted to pull away, but something in his expression nailed her feet to the ground.
He wasn’t here. He was somewhere…else. Somewhere haunted and broken and terrible.
“Liam?”
His chest shuddered. Once. Twice. Then he blinked, and it seemed he crashed back from wherever he’d gone. Color flooded his cheeks as he released her, stumbling backward.
“Sorry.” The word scraped out rough, broken. His hand raked through his hair. “Thought you were—”
“You okay?” Her voice came out softer than she’d intended, even despite the tremor racing up her spine. Her arm burned where he’d grabbed her. Every cell in her body wanted to close the gap he’d just created, to wrap him in the kind of embrace that chased away nightmares.
Clearly she hadn’t outgrown hating to see people in pain and do nothing.
“Yeah,” he said and took off.
So maybe not.
But the rest of the run passed in loaded silence, just their footfalls, breathing, and the sound of her own pounding heart.
They finally returned to her campsite, and Liam veered toward his truck, pausing with his hand on the door handle, breathing hard.
“Monday work for you?”
She blinked. “You don’t have to—”
“No.” His eyes pinned hers, fierce and final. “Don’t run alone.” He exhaled and ran a hand over his face. Then met her eyes and his voice cracked, just a little. “Please.”
The please turned her a little weak, but she managed to nod. “Monday it is. Why not tomorrow?”
“Bungee jumping Saturday. Church Sunday, and I take the day off.”
Bungee jumping she could picture. Church blindsided her. She’d pegged him for the type who worshipped weekend adventures, not Sunday sermons.
“Try not to break anything important.” She fumbled her water bottle between her hands. “Thanks for, um…” She met his eyes. “…as much as I’d like, I can’t seem to get my wings to work.” She smiled.
He didn’t move. Just stood there, silhouetted against the canyon’s golden glow like some kind of North Face hiking brochure. Yeah, sign her up for the next trip—
Oh, please, Nimue. She probably just felt his grip on her arms, um, saving her life.
Which he did for a living.
Trouble indeed. “Um, that was a joke,” she said lamely.
Now maybe she did want to leap off the cliff.
“Watch yourself out here. And I don’t just mean the trails.”
Huh?
But he climbed into his truck and drove off, dust swirling as he disappeared down the road.
Nimue dove into her camper, door slamming behind her. Sitting down in front of her setup, she booted up her system, the servers’ hum a lifeline in the chaos of her thoughts. Maybe she hadn’t dug deep enough on this man.
Something haunted him and she was going to figure out what.
She grabbed some ice water, then plunged into the web’s underbelly, hunting for the ghost she’d glimpsed in Liam’s eyes. His name hadn’t turned up anything, but maybe facial recognition would.
She fed in the image of him that she’d taken from her surveillance camera.
Facial recognition took three hours to deliver the answer.
Oh, Liam.
A Swiss newspaper photo showed Liam in climbing gear, expression shattered by grief. She fed the article through translation software. Team of climbers. Fatal accident on treacherous ridge. A girl named Christiana, lost. Liam, her climbing partner.
Haunted, indeed.
Her chest squeezed. She’d found his pressure point, all right—the perfect lever for gaining his trust. Act as if she needed his help.
Emberly would applaud her field work. Locate weakness. Exploit connection. Mission accomplished.
Her stomach lurched.
Maybe she wasn’t cut out for the operative life. Maybe she was really beginning to like this guy. The guy who didn’t just pull her from the edge but also made her want to stay.
Attachment spelled death in her world. The Bratva didn’t forgive, and they didn’t relent. And worst of all, they turned loved ones into weapons. The thought of them using Liam against her turned her cold.
And now, vice versa. If she let him get close and if something happened to her…
Although, assuming he might grow to care for her was presuming a lot, maybe.
Maybe this Christiana hadn’t been just a climbing partner…
She slammed the laptop shut, hands trembling.
The Bratva’s pursuit she could handle. This sudden free fall into something possibly, well, real with Liam Kingsley? That terrified her more than any Russian assassin ever could.