Deceptions

  His hand fell. “I think Melinda Chafer is a good cop, and I won’t believe otherwise unless someone can show me concrete proof. Hell, that woman was being wheeled back to surgery, and she was still trying to make sure Elizabeth Snow was okay. That’s a good cop. She was telling the docs that the guy who took her called himself the Fixer and—”

  Sullivan stepped toward him. “Did she say anything else?”

  Ben shook his head. “No, just that. Over and over again until the anesthesia kicked in, she was saying the Fixer had taken her.”

  “And do you know of a hit man who goes by that moniker?”

  “I don’t, but you can bet I’m checking every connection I’ve got.” Ben hesitated. “You McGuires have some pretty handy connections, too.”

  They did. Legal and not-so-legal. “I’m on it.” And he might turn up a result long before the cops did.

  There was one person in particular who might be able to help him, but... Sullivan hadn’t spoken to her in years. Not since he’d turned his back and walked away.

  The hardest damn thing I’ve ever done. And the one act that haunted him the most. But he’d had a choice to make back then. His family or—

  “I want to talk to that guy,” Sullivan said abruptly. He knew that Mac would be wanting an up-close-and-personal talk, too.

  “I’m going to finish talking to him first,” Ben told him. “I get my questions answered and then...maybe we’ll see if the McGuire family can get a run at him.”

  Sullivan lifted a brow. “Playing hardball, are you?”

  “You’re a civilian. You’re not supposed to be in there and—”

  “Ben.” Sullivan’s voice was flat. “Don’t play games. You know what I am and what I’m not.” He kept his gaze on the other man. Ben had connections to Uncle Sam, too. Connections that not everyone understood. Some jobs just weren’t ever passed along to the rest of the world. “Mac and I are going to want some time with the Fixer.”

  “I thought it might be personal,” Ben murmured, “when I saw the way Mac tore after Elizabeth Snow.”

  Sullivan knew his brother had lost any objectivity where Elizabeth was concerned. The case was definitely personal for Mac, and that could prove to be a very dangerous thing.

  * * *

  THEY’D MADE IT to the bed. Darkness surrounded them, but Elizabeth didn’t mind the dark—not then. Not when she was with Mac.

  Her whole body ached, but in a good way. She wasn’t afraid of anything. And even her past didn’t make her tense.

  There was more to the world than blood and death. And there was a whole lot more to living than just careful control.

  “Is it time for your secrets?” Mac’s voice rumbled in the darkness.

  Her hand was on his chest, right over his slowly drumming heartbeat. That steady beat reassured her. “What do you want to know?” Elizabeth asked him.

  “You grew up in North Dakota...”

  Ah, she was sure he’d already dug up this information, but she told him, “Yes, in a small town called Gibson.” Such a small place. Not a lot of money. Not a lot of hope.

  “How did you meet Nate?”

  She smiled at the memory. “I met him at a bookstore. I was staring through the window, and he came up behind me. At first I thought he was looking at the books in the display. Then I realized he was looking at me.” Her fingers slid along his warm skin. “With Nate, I felt like that was the first time someone had actually seen me. Me. I was trouble to the others, a bother, so I just got by on my own. I stole.” She admitted this with no emotion. “I took when I was desperate. And I got caught.” More than a few times. “I didn’t like juvie, but when I was hungry and there wasn’t any food nearby, what was I supposed to do?” It was the painful truth. There had been nothing for her. “Nate was driving through town. He never meant to stay, he told me that. But we clicked.”

  His body seemed to have tensed beneath her touch. “You loved him.”

  “The way that only an eighteen-year-old girl can.” She laughed at herself, thinking of that girl, of the desperate hope that had filled her. “I wasn’t alone with Nate. He didn’t look at me...” Say it. “He didn’t look at me as if I were trash. He didn’t judge me. He looked at me—even that first moment—like I was the thing he’d always been searching for.”

  Just saying the words sounded silly, but they were true. When she’d caught Nate’s gaze in that glass...

  “It sounds like he was a smart boy,” Mac’s voice rumbled. “Sometimes you see the one thing you know that you need.” There was a tension in his voice that she didn’t fully understand.

  Elizabeth cleared her throat and continued, “He asked me to leave North Dakota. He said there wasn’t anything there for us. We’d only been dating a few weeks, and I—”

  “You what?”

  “I didn’t even hesitate. I gave up that place in an instant. Back then I lived in the moment. People called me wild, and I was. I was taking my chance at happiness, and I wasn’t going to be the girl everyone pitied any longer. I was going to be different. Nate and I—we were going to be different. We made plans. We had dreams...” Her voice trailed away. “Then all of that was gone. I’d given up my home...whatever that was worth...and I was in a strange place. The cops suspected me. The reporters harassed me. I had nothing. No one.”

  His fingers curled around her chin. He kissed her. A fast, hard kiss. “You have me now.”

  For how long? She pushed the thought away. “I became stronger after that...determined. I knew I could break. I could shatter and fall away. I could die, just like Nate had, and no one would even notice.” That was what had hurt the most. She’d grieved over Nate but...who would have grieved over her? “I decided to change. I worked any job I could. I saved every penny, and I made a life for myself.” A life surrounded by the books that had given her solace—books that had always been her escape.

  After Nate’s death, she wouldn’t have survived without them. How many sleepless nights had she spent, curled up with a book? She hadn’t been able to bear the nightmares, so she’d slipped into another world. And slowly, so slowly, she’d recovered.

  “Why’d you settle in Texas?” Mac asked her.

  “I like to travel. I move, every few years. Always looking for something new.” Looking for a place that feels like home. “But...Nate told me that he’d been born in Texas. So maybe I came here because of that. He’d told me that he loved this area, and when a position opened up, I thought—why not? He was from Dallas, not Austin, but it still just seemed, I don’t know—right.” But that had been before a killer came calling.

  “I’m glad you came here.”

  “Even with the trouble I brought you?”

  His arm curled around her. “I’m glad,” he said again, simply.

  In the dark, she smiled.

  “I was too good...” Mac said slowly. “At what I did.”

  Her head turned on the pillow, moving automatically toward his voice.

  “I realized that just a few months after basic training. So did my superiors. It all came easy to me, and I was pushed up the ranks. Given the harder missions. Missions that were the most dangerous, and I loved them.”

  She waited.

  “I’ve killed, yes. And when I did, I didn’t hesitate.” His voice held no emotion. “What does that say about me?”

  “Mac...”

  “When I got word that my parents had been murdered, I was on a black-ops mission. By the time I got back home, they were already buried. There was nothing of them left for me, and my sister—she wouldn’t even look at me. Ava had been a happy, smiling girl when I left. One of the best things in my world. When I came back, she was a stranger. And hell, so was I.”

  It had been easier for her to confess her past in the darkness. As he talked, she realized the darkn
ess made it easier for Mac to confess, too.

  “I’d only been back in the US for a few weeks when the CIA contacted me.”

  The CIA?

  “Me and Sullivan. We were both picked for their Special Activities Division.”

  “I—I haven’t heard of that division.”

  “SAD exists. Most people just don’t talk about it. Sullivan and I were both made offers. They wanted us to work for them. Hell, I wanted to escape the pain. My home was gone, and it looked like the perfect option for me.”

  She knew where this was going. “You signed up.”

  “No.”

  Elizabeth blinked in surprise.

  “Ava needed me too much. So did Grant. We were trying to figure out who’d taken our parents. I’d already told Grant he could count on me. What I didn’t know...” His breath expelled. “I didn’t know that Sullivan had agreed to join, before our parents died. He’d already committed, and he didn’t tell the rest of us.”

  She thought of Sullivan. Of the deep shadows in his gaze. A shiver slid over her.

  “Two months later I got a call from Sully in the middle of the night. He was in trouble. Off the grid. He had no one to trust, and the mission he was on...it was hard to tell the good guys from the bad.”

  She wondered where he was going with this story. Why—

  “I didn’t just kill when I was Delta Force. My brother was in danger, Elizabeth. He needed my help, and I would have done anything to bring Sully back home.” His voice had deepened. “I had to fight to get him back. By the time I found him, it was almost too late. Men on his own team had betrayed him. He thought that everyone had betrayed him. He was being held in a pit, more dead than alive, and I—” Mac drew a ragged breath. “I made sure to get him out. I killed, to get him out.”

  “You protected your family.”

  “I killed.” Flat. “When it comes to the ones I care about, nothing stops me. No one gets in my way. I do anything necessary.”

  It sounded as if he was warning her. Did he think she was a threat to his family? Oh, jeez, after what had happened to Grant, how could he think any differently? “I’m so sorry about Grant,” Elizabeth said quickly, sitting up and pulling the sheet with her. “I never meant for him—”

  “You shot to protect my brother. I’ll never forget that,” he said. She felt the bed dip as he sat up, too. “But you need to always remember, I’m not some easygoing guy. The stories you’ve heard about me are true. I’m dangerous, Elizabeth. And when I hunt, when I’m pushed too far, I am a perfect weapon.”

  He wasn’t a weapon. He was a man.

  In the darkness, her hand rose. She touched his cheek, feeling the stubble that lined his jaw. “You are more than that.”

  “Don’t be too sure.” But his head turned, and he pressed a hot kiss to her palm. “You don’t know the measures I’d go to...you don’t know what I’d do...” His voice trailed off.

  “Mac?”

  “You don’t know what I’d do...to save you.”

  * * *

  ELIZABETH SNOW WASN’T DEAD.

  The confirmation hadn’t come in. The Fixer had screwed up. Again. He’d been paid far too much money for this sort of mistake.

  A kill confirmation had been scheduled for five hours ago. With every single moment that passed, rage built. This should never have happened. The whole mess should have been taken care of years ago. When Nate had been put in the ground, the girl should have been buried, too.

  Both eliminated, no more problems.

  The years had passed so swiftly. Everything had been moving along just perfectly and then...that damn reporter had started poking around. He’d made connections that he shouldn’t have discovered. He’d followed a trail that should have never existed.

  And he’d learned the truth about Nate.

  Elizabeth Snow had been working with the reporter. When Steve Yeldon had first called, he’d mentioned the girl.

  Not a girl now. A woman who is out to destroy me.

  But that couldn’t happen. Too many sacrifices had been made. Too much power was at stake. No, Elizabeth Snow couldn’t be allowed to expose what she knew.

  And if no one else was around to do the job and eliminate Snow...then I’ll just have to do it myself.

  Elizabeth would never see the threat coming.

  * * *

  “I WANT YOU to come and meet my family.” As soon as he said the words, Mac saw Elizabeth stiffen.

  Dawn had come, and he’d been awake as the sun rose. He’d watched it lift over the lake, a sight he hadn’t seen at the ranch in years. When he’d gone back to the guesthouse, he’d found Elizabeth waiting on the porch for him. Fully dressed, her cheeks rosy and her eyes shining, she’d been a gorgeous sight to see.

  Her smile had stretched slowly when she saw him approach. A warm welcome, a look that said she’d been waiting just for him.

  When has anyone else ever looked at me that way?

  “Um, your family?” She pushed back her hair. He’d noticed that she did that when she was nervous. The quick tuck of her hair behind her left ear was a dead giveaway. “But...they know what happened to Grant, right? They know I got him shot.”

  She seemed to be stuck on that. It had only been a flesh wound, and Grant was recovering just fine. “They know everything that went down, Elizabeth, and trust me, no one blames you for anything.”

  Her expression said she didn’t believe him.

  “Brodie and Davis—my brothers—are up at the big house. Jamie and Jennifer are both up there, too.”

  “That’s a lot of family.”

  No, actually, it wasn’t. He had plenty more family members to go around. His sister lived on a nearby ranch with Mark Montgomery. Grant’s wife, Scarlett, was at the hospital with him. And Sullivan—he was down at the police station, gathering intel.

  Sully is always trying to work off a debt that the guy doesn’t even owe me. With family, there was no debt.

  “I’d like you to meet them,” he said, but he wasn’t going to pressure her. If she didn’t want to deal with his family right then, he understood. The woman had been through hell. She could—

  “Now?” Her voice sharpened.

  His brow furrowed.

  “Is that them coming right now?” She pointed behind him.

  Mac spun around. Sure enough, a black pickup truck was turning in the drive that led to the guesthouse. “That’s them,” he said grimly. He shouldn’t have been surprised that his nosy brothers had decided to come out for a visit before he could lure Elizabeth up to the main house. Brodie and Davis—when they were together—could be particularly difficult.

  The pickup braked, and Brodie jumped out first.

  Davis followed suit, slamming his door and tossing a friendly wave to Mac.

  “How can you tell them apart?” Elizabeth whispered.

  Davis and Brodie were identical twins. Davis was the older twin, just by a bit, but he never let Brodie forget that fact. He never let anyone forget that fact. Mac leaned toward Elizabeth and murmured, “Brodie is the one smiling.”

  “That’s a smile?”

  Mac laughed. The sound kind of boomed out of him, but Elizabeth was right. Brodie’s smile wasn’t exactly warm. No one had ever accused the twins of being the life of any party. But then, compared with Mac...they were thought to at least be more easygoing.

  “What in the hell is that sound?” Brodie frowned at Mac. “Is that you? You damn well don’t ever laugh.”

  So he didn’t laugh much. Big deal. Mac shrugged. “I am now.”

  Appearing thoughtful, Brodie glanced at Elizabeth. “Yes, you are.”

  Sighing, Davis hurried forward. He held out his hand to Elizabeth. “I swear, my brothers have manners. They just forget them sometimes, ma’am.??
? He gave her a wide grin. “My name’s Davis. I’m the older and wiser twin.”

  “In your dreams,” Brodie fired back.

  Elizabeth shook Davis’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Hmm...there weren’t many nice things about Davis. At least, most people didn’t think so.

  Brodie elbowed his twin out of the way. Then he flashed Elizabeth a smile. “You’re the reason I keep finding thriller books all over Mac’s place, even though the tech junkie has a half dozen e-readers.”

  Mac actually felt his cheeks burn. Brothers could be such a pain. Maybe meeting the family hadn’t been his best idea ever. “It’s not half a dozen. And I like paperbacks, too,” Mac muttered.

  “Yeah, and you like the librarian.” Brodie backed up a step. “It all makes so much more sense now.”

  Elizabeth glanced at Mac.

  He tried not to glower at his brothers. Did they all know he’d been mooning over her? He’d thought that he actually played things pretty cool.

  “If Mac gives you any trouble,” Brodie said with a hard nod, “you just come to me. I’ll set him straight.”

  Mac had to snort at that. “The day you can set me straight on anything—”

  “Dude, you’re talking to your elder,” Davis tossed out. “Watch yourself.”

  The twins were pushing him. Mac’s eyes narrowed on them. Had he seriously wanted to introduce Elizabeth to them? Had he been having a crazy moment or what?

  “You know you’re safe out here,” Brodie suddenly said. “You don’t have to worry about anything, Ms. Snow. We’ve got great security on the ranch. So while you’re staying here—”

  “I was just staying for the night,” Elizabeth blurted. “Not any longer. I—I’ll be going home soon.”

  Brodie and Davis both turned their steely gazes on Mac.

  “That so?” Davis asked as he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “’Cause Sully told me the guy in custody isn’t talking. The fingerprint checks haven’t turned up anything on his ID. Cops don’t know who he is, and there’s no clue as to who hired him.”