Smoky Mountain Setup. Paula Graves
“Let’s sit down, okay? Take a second and breathe.”
He was still handling her, but at least he wasn’t touching her. She returned to the armchair, and he sat on the coffee table in front of her.
So close. So palpable a temptation.
“They managed to get someone inside The Gates—Marty Tucker, I presume—but he was inside before you got there. They don’t assume their limited success with Tucker can be repeated, especially since you’re still there, sniffing out any possible traitors in your midst.”
“How do they know that?”
“They said Quinn’s not trying to hide that information. In fact, he made sure it got out through some of the information channels the BRI already knows are compromised.”
Olivia straightened, alarmed. “Quinn put information about me and my role at The Gates out there for the BRI to hear? Deliberately?”
“You didn’t know?”
She shook her head.
“See why I’m not sure we can trust your boss?” he asked softly.
She pressed her lips to a thin line, not ready to speak ill of Quinn to anyone, especially Cade Landry. But Quinn should have warned her, damn it! He’d deliberately made her a target by putting the information out there about her role at The Gates.
Was her life a bargaining chip in his plan to take down the BRI?
“He set you up as bait.” Landry’s voice was a soft growl.
“If you’re telling me the truth.”
“I am.”
She wished she could say she didn’t believe him. But the truth was, setting her up as bait without warning her was exactly the kind of thing Alexander Quinn would do. He was always, always about the bottom line. Get the job done whatever it took.
Even if what it took was putting one of his employees in the line of fire to set a trap.
“So they’re targeting me? Do they think he won’t find someone else to do what I’m doing?”
“They’re not going to kill you.”
“But you said I was a target.”
“You are. But remember when I said they were going to take you? I really meant take you. They’re looking to take you captive.”
“Why?”
“They seem to think they can use you to break someone.”
She frowned. “Someone? Who?”
Landry dropped his gaze, his expression enigmatic as he silently studied his hands for a long moment. When he finally looked up again, an unspoken question darkened his green eyes. “After listening in to Quinn’s conversation with you this afternoon, I think they’re planning to use you to get to him.”
“Why? Why do they think that would get them anything?”
He held her gaze, the questions in his eyes multiplying. “You tell me. I asked you this before, but you didn’t really answer. Is something going on between you and Quinn? Are you lovers?”
“No,” she answered bluntly. “I mean—”
His eyebrows quirked. “You mean?”
“We’re not lovers. But there have been times—” She swallowed with difficulty, suddenly overcome by the acute awareness that Alexander Quinn might have her cabin wired for sound. She took a bracing breath and continued. “There have been times I thought he wanted to be.”
“He’s in love with you?”
“I don’t think Quinn has ever loved anyone that way,” she said with a soft laugh. “But he’s a man.”
“And you’re a beautiful woman. Who seems very alone.”
She looked up at him. “I choose to be alone.”
“Why?” He shook his head. “You’re not a loner, Livvie. You enjoy being around other people. You like companionship.”
“That was two years ago. My life is very different now. For one thing, I’m too busy for relationships. My job is dangerous and thankless, and I don’t want to inflict that kind of stress on someone else.”
“Even one of your fellow agents at The Gates? They’re working the same stressful job. They understand the long hours, being on call—”
“Why are you pressing this issue? Do you want me to tell you I’ve moved on from you? I have. It was two years ago.” Her voice rose with emotion. “When I left the FBI, I didn’t look back. Are you happy?”
“No.” He stared back at her, his nostrils flaring. “No, I’m not happy.”
She snapped her mouth shut and looked away.
“I know I drove you away. To this day, I don’t know how to trust you again, but I have missed you every single moment. The smell of you haunts my dreams. I can close my eyes and conjure up a vivid memory of the sun glinting off your hair that long weekend we spent on Assateague Island. I can feel the thunder of horse hooves beneath my feet when that wild herd ran past us on the beach. I can remember the way your laugh rang in my ears like music.”
He hadn’t moved an inch closer, hadn’t reached out across the distance between them, but his voice caressed her, seduced her, until she felt a throb of desire pulsing low in her belly.
“I didn’t come here to get you back. Or ask for another chance,” he said in a deep growl that made her think of long, hot summer nights naked in his arms. “But I don’t know if I could keep on living if you weren’t.”
He moved then, rising to his feet and pacing across the room to the window. Outside, the snowfall continued, barely visible in the deepening dusk. Soon night would fall, silent and deep in the snowbound woods.
And she would be alone with the only man she’d ever let herself love.
She couldn’t stop herself from rising to join him at the window. He turned slowly to face her, his face half in shadow.
“They’re wrong,” she said. “The BRI, I mean.”
“About what?”
“Alexander Quinn might very well want to sleep with me. He might even feel some level of affection for me. But he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice my life if he believed it would serve justice in some way. That’s the sort of man he is. So if your friends in the Blue Ridge Infantry believe they can use me to control him in any way, they are sadly mistaken.”
“That won’t stop them from trying.”
She lifted her chin. “Let them try.”
His eyes narrowed as he held her gaze, studying her as if he’d never seen her before. “You’re different,” he murmured finally, reaching up to brush a piece of hair away from her cheek. His fingers lingered a moment, and she felt how work-roughened they’d become since the last time he’d touched her that way.
He dropped his hand to his side. “Do you trust me enough to give me back my weapon?”
Trust might not be the right word, she thought, but she was willing to take the risk. “Yes.”
He moved away from her to the rolltop desk and retrieved his pistol, reloading it with both speed and skill. “Any chance you have more 9 mm ammo around?”
“Of course.”
His gaze lifted to meet hers, a slow smile spreading over his face, carving dimples into his cheeks and taking a decade off his appearance. “Should’ve known.”
As she started toward the hall closet where she kept her extra weapons and ammunition, the lights went off, plunging the cabin into gloom relieved only by the dying fireplace