“With a code.” If she’d known the code, she would’ve chased him down to give it to him already. “The chip holds a receiver. You need the right transmitter, hooked up to the right computer, with the correct code typed in. A wireless signal goes out, and the chip dies. The technology is light-years beyond anything our military has… Just the small size of the chips would seem impossible to most experts.”
“What’s the code?”
“I don’t know.” She bit her lip at the instant fury that leaped into his eyes. “I promise.”
His mouth twitched in barely a snarl.
Okay. So her promises lacked depth with him. An apology would probably send him over the edge, so she kept quiet.
His phone buzzed, and he lifted it to his ear. “What?” He listened and then nodded. “Interesting. I may need to use that later. For now, I have the surgeon—her name was Eleanor Roberts before. She probably purchased the new identification in Philly. Trace back what you can, and we’ll check her story with your research later. Oh—she’ll tell me the truth. Bye.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket, not having moved his gaze once.
“Use what later?” God. What had he found?
“Your friend the coroner has a false background because she fled from an abusive husband.” Matt’s smile failed to brighten his face. “Unlike you.”
How odd. Maybe Laney wasn’t the only person who’d seen small-town Charmed and found it was a good place to hide. “I spent half the money I borrowed from Joe-Joe on a new background,” she said. There was no reason to lie now.
“You paid him back?”
“Yes.”
“Why lie?”
She tried to keep her hands from trembling. “The lie kept Smitty from asking too many questions about my past, and it gave me an excuse to stay out of the limelight and away from the law.”
“What about the fake photographs of your brother?” Matt’s voice hardened at the end.
She lifted her chin. “Unlike you, I’ve never had family, which would’ve been in my employment file that you certainly dug up. I created a family with pictures from a free sharing site on the Internet. And no, I don’t know who the guy was.”
“Employment file?” Matt’s chair creaked when he sat back, as if he had to distance himself from her. “Killing us was merely a job to you.”
“No.” Heat rushed up her throat. “Not at all. I didn’t know—”
“Stop.” He held up a hand. “I don’t want explanations, and I don’t want apologies. I don’t give a shit what your reasons were, or how badly you want to live now. All I want to hear is how to defuse the chips.”
“I told you how.” She barely understood how the terrible things worked and had never seen the code. “I can’t help you.”
“Oh, you’re going to help me.” He rubbed his chin. “When was the last time you had contact with the commander?”
Just a mention of the man roared terror between her ears until they heated. “Five years ago. When the facility blew up, I fled.” Somehow, she’d gotten away.
“Why?”
“Are you kidding? I was as much a prisoner in that hellhole as you were.” Fatigue swamped her, and she allowed her body to relax. If Matt decided to kill her, he’d be quick, and she probably wouldn’t see death coming. Why tighten her muscles to the point of pain?
“How so?” he asked, his expression betraying nothing.
“That’s a long story.”
“Then I suggest you start talking.”
She scrubbed both hands down her face. “Then stop being so scary.”
One dark eyebrow rose. “I thought you weren’t frightened.”
She met his gaze evenly. “You sound scary, and that’s annoying. I don’t think you’ll kill me.” God, she hoped not.
“Why?” His upper lip twisted. “Because I’ve been inside you? Baby, that doesn’t provide you one bit of safety. That just means I know where you live.”
Anger shoved away the fear. “What you felt was real, jackass.” Ah. There was some emotion from the soldier. Sure, it was anger, but it was something.
His nostrils flared. “You try to manipulate me, and you’ll regret it.” That elusive Southern accent sprang forward in full force.
She glanced at her watch. “You’ve tried to frighten me for a while now, and I’m done. What happened between us? It was fast, unexpected, and real. Like it or not, it was you and me… the real us. So fuck you.”
Fire leaped into his eyes to be quickly squashed. “You’ve pushed enough. Where did you go to medical school?”
“Johns Hopkins.” She’d been so proud when they’d awarded her the scholarship. “Top of my class.”
“But no family?”
She shook her head. “No. Just a couple of friends, too. It’s hard to get As in medical school and have a social life, so I, well, didn’t.” Frankly, she was the perfect recruit for a black-ops military organization. “They offered me a job making a difference to our country and soldiers, and I bit. The second I was on board, they erased my life.”
The idea of how easily her past had been erased made her wonder if her life had mattered at all. Nobody had missed her or come looking. Pain and loneliness echoed through her. Even her feeble attempts to make friends from the safety of her bar mocked her. She’d been fine all alone until Matt Dean had blown into her life and made her wish. Made her want and need. Now she had an idea of what she was missing.
“What else?” he asked.
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Motivations. You had more—I can tell.”
She sighed. He just had to dig into her as deep as he could go, now, didn’t he? “My father was in the military and died in action when my mother was pregnant with me. My, ah, life would’ve been different had my father lived, I’m sure.”
“So you thought helping other soldiers was the solution?” No expression crossed Matt’s face.
She shrugged. “Maybe. If some of the research would keep someone’s father alive, then it was a good cause, right?” She had felt closer to her own father, even though she hadn’t met him, during her time with the military. At least she’d glimpsed how he’d lived.
“Did you see the risks with the experiments?” Matt asked.
Her shoulders hunched. “I did. I mean, I saw the possibilities of our research and findings being used to harm instead of heal. But I pushed through anyway, sure the people I worked with would do the right thing.”
“You were wrong.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“Did you plant the device in my spine that’s going to kill me?” Matt asked.
“No.” She sighed and stifled a yawn. The adrenaline had disappeared, leaving exhaustion.
Matt’s phone buzzed, and he lifted the device to his ear with a growl. He stood and glanced down. “My bike is visible through the clouds? Okay. I’ll find a better hiding spot.” He slid the phone back into his pocket before digging into his bag. Shiny cuffs glowed in the firelight.
She tried to scramble away, but he grasped her wrist and secured the cuff to the wooden portion of the armrest. “Asshole.”
“My bike is a couple of miles away, so this might take a little while. Stay here.” He turned and stomped from the cabin.
Like she had a choice. Through the clouds? Somebody had access to high-level satellites, apparently. So that’s how they’d found her. She snuggled down and watched the fire. Sure, Matt was mad at her, but he didn’t understand the entire story. Against all rational thought, she had feelings for the guy. Even more so now that she knew who he was and what he’d endured.
Guilt spiraled through her. She shouldn’t have run. Yes, she’d panicked. Had she had time to think, she would’ve realized that staying in town and facing Matt, telling him the truth, was the only solution for her. She’d worked for the commander, she had training as a surgeon, and she’d do whatever she could to help make things right for Matt and his brothers.
The fire
crackled inside while the storm continued to rage outside. She shut her eyes and practiced deep breathing to calm herself.
She didn’t know what to do, but she knew without question she wanted back into his realm of trust. The shield provided by Matt had been strong and sure, and she wanted that again. She needed him to look at her the way he had, as if he cared. As if she mattered.
She’d never truly mattered.
Now she’d give anything to feel that again with him. But even if he never trusted her again, she’d help him. How, she didn’t know. But she’d figure out something to save his life.
Even if she lost hers.
Chapter 16
Matt strode back into the cabin and stopped short. The woman was sound asleep on the couch. Out cold. Her lips were pursed in sleep, and heat from the fire had pinkened her smooth skin.
Yeah, she was scared of him. Not.
If she’d been truly frightened, she’d be wide-awake.
A warmth he didn’t appreciate unfolded in his chest. On some level, she trusted him. That fact shouldn’t matter to him—at all.
Yet it did.
She’d been correct in that his feelings had been real. Sure, they were fast and inexplicable. But he’d cared for her in the short time they’d both pretended to be someone else.
But now he knew the truth. He had no doubt the commander and his scientists had tricked her into working for them by using patriotism. But once she’d discovered the truth, she’d stayed. While he didn’t want to wake her, he had to uncover the extent of her involvement in the program. Something in her memories might help him save his brothers.
She was a damn good liar, and he should’ve seen through her from the start. The fact that he’d missed signals proved beyond any doubt his emotions were fucking with his instincts. Laney had him all twisted up, and he needed to get himself centered before he went at her again. So he allowed her to sleep and turned instead to his laptop. Now that they’d figured out who’d she’d become, Shane was able to trace back her old identity. Her name had been Eleanor Roberts—and she’d made a mistake choosing Laney as her new name. It could’ve easily caught up with her, and she was plain lucky it hadn’t.
Shane was sending through more information on her, and Matt would need all the facts he could get. Her transcripts and IQ tests came first.
The woman was a fucking genius with steady hands that often held a scalpel. A surgeon whose skills were praised up and down by experts in the school.
He liked her better as a hardworking bar owner. A hell of a lot better.
Her psychological reports arrived next. Matt read them by firelight, memorizing her past. Laney had been all alone. She’d told him the truth about her childhood and that her mother had been an alcoholic. She’d survived her childhood by throwing herself into photography—another truth she’d shared with him. Her first job was babysitting when she turned eleven, and it looked like she’d taken care of herself from that time.
The drunk mother died before Laney’s seventeenth birthday, and by the time the courts got around to supplying her with a guardian, she’d turned eighteen. Full rides to college and then medical school.
She was an easy target for the commander, to be sure.
Matt tried to stifle any sympathy he had for the little girl Laney must’ve been at one time, his gaze often straying to the sleeping woman. Asleep, at peace, she appeared fragile and innocent. For the briefest of moments, he allowed himself to be confused. What if she was innocent? It was entirely possible.
Or, what if his dick and heart were messing with him?
His past colored his view, but he’d never met a doctor who had a heart. All they did was experiment on him… which often involved some type of pain. Rationally, he understood there were probably good doctors out there who wanted to help people.
He’d never met one.
She breathed out and twitched on the couch.
He straightened up, his senses going on alert.
A low moan filtered up from her throat. Shit. She was having another nightmare. He pushed the laptop away and approached the couch, touching her shoulder. “Laney?”
She bolted upright and screamed, her eyes flipping open. Then she winced as the cuffs pulled. Tears gathered in her eyes and spilled over as she looked at him. Vulnerable and wounded—defenseless.
He hurried to unlock the cuffs. Against all reason, he lifted her to sit on his lap. “You’re all right. It was a dream.”
“You hurt my shoulder,” she murmured, her gaze going to his neck.
“I’m sorry.” He rubbed her shoulder and tucked her into his chest. Damn it. This was no way to interrogate somebody. “We need to get a move on, anyway. Do you want to talk about your dream?”
“No.” She sniffled into his neck, sounding like a petulant teenager.
He couldn’t help but smile. “Then we have work to do.”
She lifted her head, tears clinging to her eyelashes. In the dim light, her eyes took on the hue of a meadow after a storm… soft and green. “I’ve been so scared.”
His heart thumped, and the need to protect roared through him. His brain was short-circuiting, and he had to get a grip on himself. He wanted to trust her—too much. Way too much. “Laney—”
“No. You need to understand. I never implanted those devices. Sure, I worked for the organization, and I helped concoct the steroids and drug regimen—”
Matt’s shoulders shot back as a rare temper flared at the base of his neck. His feelings for Laney still lived, and the thought that she’d harm one of his brothers cut deep. Deep enough to take his breath. “Those fucking steroids and drugs almost killed my brother Jory. I had to put him in a headlock once, just to keep him from tearing off his own head.” As a doctor, she should’ve known better. Plus, she was a good liar. If she had planted devices, she wasn’t stupid enough to admit the truth to him.
“We didn’t know. We thought we were helping.”
His low chuckle even felt ominous. “Helping? Right. Experimenting on us like lab rats helped a lot.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The apology pissed him off more. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is finding the code to deactivate these things.”
“I don’t know the code.”
“No, but you probably know more than you think. So here’s the plan. We’re going to wait until dawn breaks, and then we’re going back to the bar as if nothing has happened. Got it?” He’d cuff her if he had to.
“I figured you’d want to run.”
“Oh, we’re running. The second I get my picture off the sheriff’s phone, we’re out of town.” He figured it’d take a day at the most to erase any evidence of his existence in town.
She frowned. “Why care about a picture? The people after you know what you look like, and if you leave town, who cares?”
“None of your business.” The sheriff hadn’t been bluffing about plastering Matt’s face all over the news if he left town. He looked too much like his brothers, and they’d all be vulnerable. Especially considering they couldn’t just hide out… They needed the freedom to infiltrate whatever organizations were standing in their way in finding that code. He lowered his face toward hers. “Have I made myself clear?”
She rolled her eyes.
The breath caught in his gut. The woman had dared to roll her eyes at him. “You understand what I’m capable of, right?”
“Sure. But I don’t think you’re going to hurt me.” Confidence now shined in her pretty eyes. “I mean, I know you’re dangerous and well trained. Your reflexes and strength are enhanced, and you probably know a hundred ways to kill somebody.”
He tried to focus. “Okay.”
“But you won’t kill me.”
He frowned. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “I just do.” She wiggled a little on his lap. “Finding out the truth probably ruined anything we might have had, and I’m sure you’re no longer interested, but I don’t see you strangl
ing me.”
His balls leaped to life from her sweet butt on his groin. She was wrong. He didn’t trust her… but damn, he still wanted her. Shit, he’d slept with plenty of women he didn’t even like. In spite of everything, he wanted to like Laney. But he was losing control of the situation, and that wouldn’t do. He needed her help.
So he clasped her waist and turned her to straddle him.
She caught her breath, and her eyes widened.
His palms slid down, and he cupped her ass. “You’ve misread me.” He allowed the natural dominance he’d been born with to echo in his voice.
Her face flushed, and her pupils dilated. While her voice could lie, those eyes spoke the truth every time. She wanted him. “Stop.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, tugging her closer into his erection. He’d been trained by the best in sexual manipulation, and he could seduce her to orgasm within a minute. But as his hands tightened on her fragile bones, he couldn’t do it. “Here’s the deal. I do want you—that hasn’t changed. No, I don’t trust you, and frankly, I’m still pissed.”
“I know.” She flattened her hands on his chest.
“I love my brothers, Laney. From the time I realized they were mine, I’ve done whatever I had to do to keep them safe.” He needed her to understand the truth. “You will help me save them.”
She dropped her hands. “What are you saying?”
“If you run, I’ll find you. Do you believe me?”
She studied him for a moment. “Yes.”
“Good. Besides, if I’ve found you, the commander will find you, too. I’m your best bet for surviving the next six weeks.” He’d keep her safe while they found the truth. “Do you know who the commander is?”
“Yes.” Fear filled her voice.
Irritation slammed into him. He didn’t like her afraid. “How did you get away?”
“I transferred from the base in Colorado to the one in Tennessee right before the whole place exploded.”
He stilled. “What base in Colorado?”
“Headquarters for the organization was actually in Colorado. I was only in Tennessee for a week to replace a doctor who’d had his hand broken.”