His throat bobbed. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”
She let go of the phone and stood. “Yeah, well, show you’re sorry then. Don’t press charges. And thank the universe that you’re so freaking clueless and have no idea what we’ve been through.”
He looked up, eyes haunted, and gave a quick nod. “I will. I really didn’t mean it like… I didn’t think.”
“Everything okay over here?” the female officer asked, stepping up behind Liv.
Liv tilted her head, her gaze still on him.
Adam cleared his throat and looked to the cop. “Yes, ma’am, everything’s fine. It was all just a dumb misunderstanding. I provoked him.”
Liv gave him a tight smile and then turned to the officer. “Can I give my statement at the station?”
“Sure, you can head over. I’m going to wait for the medic to show up to make sure he doesn’t need to go to the hospital.”
Liv nodded, gathered the luggage, and headed toward the parking lot without looking back. One issue down, another much bigger one to go. Because Finn had been provoked. But his reaction had been over the top and…scary.
He’d helped her last night, but maybe she wasn’t the only one who needed it.
chapter
EIGHT
Finn stepped out of the holding room at the police station to find Liv sitting in an orange plastic chair, her foot bouncing with impatience or nerves and her attention on her phone.
He let out a breath. Olivia Arias—forever hardheaded. Of course she hadn’t listened to him and had let his dumb-ass behavior ruin her morning with her friends. Frustration filled him. But when she looked up and he saw the wariness in her face, it broke something inside him. She was here. But not the same version he’d kissed last night. She’d seen who he was. Now she was guarded. Scared of him.
As she should be. He’d acted like a goddamned lunatic. This was exactly why he’d planned to keep to himself while he was here. But seeing that look on her face was like watching a shiny thing rust before his eyes—the only shiny thing he’d been allowed to touch, and he’d tarnished it.
“You didn’t have to come here,” he said, trying to keep his voice quiet despite the ringing phones and noise of the station.
“I know.” She stood and gripped her elbows like she was cold. “You left your keys, so I drove your SUV here. I figured you’d need it. The officer said I could get a ride back to the hotel with him, but I wanted to wait to make sure you were okay.”
Finn glanced at the officer manning the front desk. “Do you want to ride with one of them?”
She gave him a once-over, a wrinkle between her brows. “I don’t know.”
“I understand if you do. I know I scared you.”
“You didn’t—” She bit the inside of her lip and glanced at the desk. “Are you free to go?”
“Yeah.” He cocked his head to the side. “Come on. Let’s talk outside. If you decide not to ride with me, you can come back in.”
“All right.” She grabbed her purse to join him but kept enough distance between them that he felt like they were miles apart.
He pushed the door open and let her walk out into the bright sunshine first. She pulled a pair of sunglasses from her purse and slipped them on, hiding her eyes from him. When they were out in the parking lot, away from the controlled chaos of the station, he stopped and faced her. “You okay?”
She frowned. “Are you?”
“Yeah. The guy isn’t pressing charges. Not sure why, but he gave a statement saying he provoked me.”
Her lips lifted at one corner, the effect more grim than amused. “I had a little heart-to-heart with him. Glad he listened.”
Finn blew out a breath and squeezed the back of his neck. “You didn’t have to do that. I deserved whatever they were going to charge me with. I…” He squinted at the road behind them before looking at her again. “I lost it.”
She crossed her arms, tough in stance but worry creasing the corners of her mouth. “You did. You were…scary.”
He wanted to reach out to her, take that troubled look off her face, but he hooked his thumbs in his pockets to keep his hands to himself. “I know. I’m sorry. I could tell you reasons why it set me off, but that doesn’t excuse how I acted, so it doesn’t matter. I should have more control than that.”
She rubbed her arms, even though the temperature was probably already in the nineties. He hated that he’d put that chill in her. “Can you drive me to my car? The girls moved breakfast to brunch, so I’m going to try to meet up with them.”
He shouldn’t have felt so much relief, hearing that she was willing to ride with him, but it untwisted something tight inside his chest. He took the keys she offered. “Of course.”
They climbed into his black SUV, the interior baking in the heat even with the tinted windows, and he put the air conditioning on high. Liv had tossed his bags into the back seat, along with her laptop case, and had set his cell phone in the cup holder. She’d taken care of him even when he’d scared her.
He turned out of the station. “I’m really sorry you’re going to be late to your breakfast. I could’ve gotten a cab back to the hotel.”
She clicked her seat belt closed and pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head. “I doubt Long Acre has a cab company. You’d have to wait for a car from Austin, and that’d take forever. Plus, if the guy didn’t retract his statement, I was going to give one of my own. He was in the wrong, too.”
“I should’ve handled it better.”
“You think?” she said.
The tension in his shoulders eased a bit, her sarcasm comforting him somehow.
“And you’re right, it doesn’t change what you did to know why, but maybe you should clue me in. You went after that guy like you could kill him.” She turned to him, her gaze full of questions. “What happened?”
He looked back to the road, picking through what he could and couldn’t tell her. But before he could get anything out, his cell phone rang. Private Number flashed on the screen and he cursed, knowing who it was. The cops had made him get his boss on the line to confirm he was FBI. Billings had been brief and all business with them, but Finn had known that wouldn’t be the end of it. Billings’s response had been the equivalent of Finn’s mother saying, Just wait ’til we get home, when he’d acted up in public. If he didn’t pick up the call, he’d make it worse.
“I need to answer this,” he said, reaching for the phone, but the car’s Bluetooth picked up the call first, responding to the answer command.
Before he could switch the phone off Bluetooth, Billings’s voice boomed through the speakers. “Goddammit, Dorsey, you just started your break, and you’re already getting yourself arrested?”
Liv reared back at the yelling and looked Finn’s way.
“Sir, just give me one second—” Finn tried to get the call onto the cell so Liv wouldn’t hear all of it, but his boss was already on a roll.
“I am not giving you a damn thing. I trust you to keep a low profile and acclimate back to society, and a few hours after our talk, you’re beating some guy for looking at you the wrong way?”
“It was a photo—”
“I don’t care if it was a goddamned film crew. You could’ve handled it by flashing your badge and confiscating the phone. Think, Dorsey.” Billings sighed heavily. “This just tells me I should’ve trusted my instincts. You were under for too long. I want you back in Virginia. We’ve got people here that can help you reset. I don’t need you accidentally killing someone because they tick you off.”
Liv’s eyes had gone wide, and Finn gave up on trying to make the call private. Too late.
“I’m not… I don’t need to come back, sir. It was a momentary lapse in judgment. I wouldn’t have taken it any further than I did. It was just a little scuffle.”
Liv’s brows went up,
silently calling him out on his lie.
“That’s not what the witness said. He said you looked like you wanted to kill the guy. He said—”
“He was protecting me, Mister… Uh, sir,” Liv said, boldly jumping in.
Finn stiffened.
“Hello? Who’s that?” Billings barked.
“Olivia Arias. I’m”—she glanced at Finn—“an old friend of Finn’s. We were having coffee together, and I freaked out when I saw the guy taking pictures. Finn was…protecting me. It wasn’t as bad as the police made it sound.”
Billings went dead silent on the phone. “You have a woman in the car?”
Finn winced, slightly horrified that Liv had talked to Billings, but smart enough to capitalize on the obvious opportunity. “Yes, sir. Liv picked me up from the police station. Like she said, we were having coffee together before we were supposed to meet some high school friends for breakfast.”
Billings was quiet again and Finn glanced at Liv, unsure why she was helping him.
“Miss?” Billings asked finally. “I need your honesty. Did you see Agent Dorsey as a genuine threat to anyone this morning?”
Liv gave Finn a tense, questioning look but then wet her lips. “Well, sir, no, not exactly. I mean, he’s a cop, so always capable of being a threat, but this was just a minor dustup. That guy was being an absolute douche canoe. I wanted to hit him myself.”
Billings was silent for a long moment and then made a noise that might’ve been a chuckle if it had escaped his throat. “I see.”
He doubted Billings had ever heard the term douche canoe, but something unlocked in Finn’s chest, and he was able to take a breath. “It won’t happen again,” Finn assured him. “My plan for the rest of the summer is very low key, like I told you. Staying at a lake house, reconnecting with old friends, and tackling a few minor projects. If anything else happens, you have my word that I’ll return to Virginia. But this was just a one-off, an unfortunate incident.”
Billings didn’t rush with his answer, leaving Finn worried that he was about to get yanked back to headquarters anyway. But when Billings finally spoke again, he was as direct as usual. “Okay. I’ll take your word, Dorsey. For now. But I want yours, too, Miss…”
“Arias,” she filled in.
“Ms. Arias. Dorsey is under strict orders to take a vacation and be around friends and family to recuperate after his last assignment. If you know him at all, I’m guessing you know he’s got a head made of brick.”
Liv sent Finn a wry smile. “I’m aware.”
Finn sniffed as he rolled to a stoplight. Takes one to know one, Arias.
“So if you really are an old friend, keep an eye on him and make sure he does that. He doesn’t just deserve a break. It’s a requirement that he takes one.”
Liv gave Finn a questioning look. “Of course.”
“And Finn, any other screwup, and I’m ordering you back. No questions asked.”
The fact that Billings used his first name only amplified the order, like a parent invoking a middle name. It didn’t mean Finn was in trouble. It meant Billings was worried. He probably should be, but Finn wasn’t going back to spend months being observed in a fishbowl. And he’d be damned if he’d mess this up and end up a desk jockey back at headquarters. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” The phone cut off without a goodbye, and Finn pressed the gas, rocketing forward and feeling the burn of Liv’s gaze on the side of his face.
He cleared the knot from his throat and focused on the road. “Thank you for that. Billings can be…intense.”
He didn’t dare hope that Liv wouldn’t ask questions. She’d never been one to not poke the bear, so he wasn’t surprised when she immediately started firing them off.
“Agent Dorsey?” she asked. “So not a regular cop.”
“No. FBI.”
Silence.
When he dared a look her way, her expression was unreadable, her eyes revealing nothing. “The FBI. And your boss is worried you’re some sort of live wire—which, from what I saw, you might be, and I just covered for you. I lied to a federal agent.”
He didn’t like the flat sound of her voice. Liv had always been free with her thoughts and emotions. It was one of the things that had drawn him to her. Big brown eyes that weren’t afraid to convey You’re an idiot when he was being one, or I’m into you when he wasn’t. He’d rather she was yelling at him.
“Yes, but it’s okay. I’m not going to do anything like that again. I just need to get to the lake house to clear my head. It’s too early for me to be around people.”
“Why? That’s not what your boss said. He thinks being around people is exactly what you need.” She gave him a pointed look.
“Being around people got me into this position in the first place.”
She scoffed. “And by that, I’m guessing you mean being around me. I didn’t ask you to go all Die Hard on that guy.”
“My reaction had nothing to do with you. It was a reaction to having my picture taken.” He squinted at the road, trying to choose his words carefully. “I’ve hated being photographed since all the Long Acre stuff, but it’s more than that now. My picture can’t be released in the press. It’s why I wouldn’t be on film for the documentary and checked in under a different name at the hotel. I’ve been working undercover with some dangerous people—people who would not react so well to finding out I’m not dead like they think I am.”
“Hold up. You have dangerous people after you?” She peeked out the back window as if expecting bad guys to roll up behind them. “What the hell?”
“No, like I said, they think I’m dead. As far as they know, I was going on a trip to get my girlfriend out of jail, and I got killed along with another guy in a car wreck along the way. As long as they think that, I’m good. But my picture can’t be out there. Even though we arrested the major players and I’ve changed my appearance, there are still people who could recognize me.”
Liv sagged against the seat. “Jesus, Finn.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it. “I’m not trying to scare you.”
“Well, you are.” She gave him an exasperated look. “You were out of control this morning. You didn’t hear me calling you or feel me grabbing at you. It was like you were some other person. A dangerous person.”
“I’m sorry.” His teeth pressed against each other, memories of the things he’d witnessed over the last few years flashing through his mind. The torture. The beatings. The killings. He’d been instructed not to break cover unless he needed to protect an innocent. But bearing witness to some of the things he’d seen had left its mark, had taken a piece of him. To survive ruthless people, you had to learn how to be ruthless yourself. “It’s only been a couple of weeks since I got out. I haven’t had time to decompress yet.”
She was quiet for a moment after that, but he could almost hear the wheels grinding in her head as she parsed everything. “Are you still at risk? Shouldn’t you be holed away in some safe house or something?”
The sign directing them to the main highway came up on the left, and he hit his blinker to merge. “I’m not under direct threat at this point. They don’t know who I really am or where I’m from. I was wearing my hair long, had contacts and a full beard. Different accent. And the only person who figured out who I really was is dead. I’ve covered my tracks, and I’m hundreds of miles from where I was based.”
“So you’re on leave. That’s what your boss was talking about.”
“Yeah. I’ve rented a lake house in Wilder to take a few months off before I go on assignment again. I only came into Long Acre for the documentary interview. I never planned…”
“To speak to anyone. Make out with me. Get in a fight. Get arrested.”
A smile fought its way through his sour mood. “Right. Though I only regret three of those.”
“Don’t fli
rt. You don’t get to flirt right now.” She jabbed a finger his way. “I’m worried about you.”
“Duly noted.” He reached out and gently lowered her hand, giving it a squeeze before letting go. “But you don’t need to waste worry on me. I’ll handle it.”
“Uh-huh. Sure you will.”
Another five minutes passed, Liv staring out the window, her fingers lightly drumming on the seat. Thinking. Or brooding. He couldn’t tell.
But finally she looked his way again. “So you met your demise picking up your old lady from jail, huh? Hell of a way to go.”
Her unexpected teasing lifted the weight pressing down on his mind. He put his hand over his heart. “Yes, I’d been waiting years for my one true love to get out after serving time for the assault of an ex-boyfriend. Bridget didn’t deal well with men who stray.”
“Nice. You like ’em feisty.”
He smirked. “Feisty’s good. Violent, not so much. But it was a necessary cover. I needed a girlfriend who I had good reason not to cheat on. There were expectations otherwise.”
“Expectations?”
He peeked at her out of the corner of his eye, her attention on him like the heat of a spotlight. “Their cover for the gun-and-drug smuggling was a strip club chain, so there were women in the group who provided services to the guys. If I had turned that down just because, it would’ve been suspicious. So I acted like I’d made a promise to a woman and planned to keep it. Got me a lot of ribbing from the others but saved me all kinds of fun venereal diseases.”
Liv let out a sharp puff of breath, the humor draining from her face. “God. I can’t even imagine. How long did you have to live like that? I thought I was living a double life just changing my last name and not telling people about Long Acre, but you took it to the next level.”
“Just part of the job. I was under for a little over two years this time.”
“Two years?” She shifted on the seat to face him fully. “Did you get any breaks? To see your family? Friends?”