Paula Graves - Secret Identity

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Amanda said from her position behind the steering wheel. She was keeping to the speed limit—not too fast, not too slow—although Rick could see a frenetic glow in her smoky-blue eyes that suggested it was taking all of her willpower to keep from gunning the Charger up the highway.

“I need to clean it out before infection sets in.” There were pieces of singed shirt and probably pieces of bullet shrapnel embedded in the groove of flesh, rendering the wound a fertile environment for bacteria.

“As soon as you drop me off in Chattanooga, you can go find a doctor.”

He shot her a look. Drop her off? Did she really think that was going to happen? “Doctors have to report gunshot wounds. You know that.”

She shrugged. “Tell him you gouged it on a nail.”

“There’s not a nail in the world big enough to make this kind of wound.”

“Then tell him it was a railroad spike.”

He clenched his jaw, pain from the gunshot wound exacerbating his growing frustration. “How about this instead? We find somewhere outside Chattanooga to hunker down for the night, and you help me bandage up the gunshot wound I got trying to help you while we figure out what to do next.”

She slowed the Charger as they came up to a traffic light, taking advantage of the wait to look at him. The fiery determination evident in the set of her square jaw was so familiar it made his chest ache. She had always been the most stubborn creature he’d ever known.

“There’s no we, Rick. You never should have come here. We’re going to pretend that you didn’t.”

“You were always better at pretending than I was.”

The look she gave him held a hint of hurt. Just a hint, as if the life she’d lived since they’d last said goodbye had mostly cauterized whatever wound had remained from their breakup.

He wished he’d been able to rid himself of the painful memories as efficiently as she had. She still haunted him, usually deep in the night when he was alone and pondering the mess his life had become since that day when he walked away from her for what he thought would be forever.

“It’s one night, Tara—”

“Amanda,” she said sharply. “Tara Brady’s dead. She’s not coming back.”

He clamped his mouth shut, then started again. “Amanda. Just one night.”

“I never did tell you my real name, did I?”

He shook his head.

“I guess it won’t hurt now. It was Audrey. Audrey Scott.”

“From somewhere in south Mississippi,” he murmured.

She slanted another look at him. “What makes you think that, hotshot?”

“In Kaziristan, you had your accent almost completely contained,” he said, pleased that he’d managed to surprise her. “But you’ve been living in Tennessee for a while now, surrounded by people who talk a lot like the people from where you grew up. Your accent has come out to play again.”

She pressed her lips into a tight line. When she spoke again, that subtle hint of Mississippi had been ruthlessly stripped away. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I like the accent,” he admitted. He’d heard it now and then, back when they were sneaking moments of passion in a Kaziristan hotel. When she’d started to lose control, her Mississippi accent had slipped out more than once. “It’s sexy.”

The look she shot his way would have been lethal if it had been a bullet.

Before he got a chance to enjoy his small victory, Amanda released a soft curse.

“What?”

“There’s a police cruiser about a quarter mile back. Coming up fast.” She spoke in a flat, grim tone.

Rick’s gut tightened, but he’d been trained by MacLear to keep his head in a threatening situation. He imagined her CIA training had been even better preparation.

“Let’s determine one thing right now,” he said, fighting to keep the punch of adrenaline out of his voice. “No cops get shot, no matter what happens. If we have to talk our way through the truth, it’s better than killing a cop.”

She grimaced at him. “What do you think I am?”

“A burned CIA agent without much to lose.”

“Technically, I wasn’t burned. I was relieved of duty. They didn’t cut me off completely.” Her voice didn’t hold a lot of conviction, Rick noticed.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing. Stay in the right lane and keep to the speed limit.” He pulled his jacket back on, hoping the bloody rip in the dark leather wouldn’t catch the policeman’s eye if he pulled them over.

The cruiser approached in the side mirror, moving at a clip. Rick resisted the urge to turn and look out the back windshield. Talk about drawing attention to them—

“He’s passing us,” Amanda murmured.

Rick kept his gaze straight ahead, ignoring the police cruiser until it passed. He allowed himself to breathe again.

“One threat averted,” Amanda said. “It won’t be the last.”

“You really have no idea who’d be gunning for you?”

“I have no idea who’d think I’m significant enough to pay for a hit.”

Rick leaned his head back against the headrest, trying to think his way through the chaotic mess of the past three hours. It had started, for him, with the phone call to Cooper Security from Alexander Quinn claiming to be Derrick Lambert and wanting a meeting in Knoxville. Clearly, he’d wanted Rick to be in the area when Amanda called.

He’d known Rick would recognize the voice. He’d known he couldn’t walk away without trying to see her.

“You called me. Where did you get the number?” he asked aloud, rolling his head to the side so he could look at her.

She slanted a quick look his way. “Someone left a package on my front steps. Your number was inside the package.”

“Just my number?”

“Mostly. You know me. Curious as a cat.”

Cautious as a mouse was more like it, he thought. At least these days. “So Quinn sent you my number, and he arranged for me to be within an hour’s drive from where you lived.”

“Looks that way,” she said carefully.

“And he pretty much put me in a position to deliver a warning to you. But why me? Why didn’t he give it to you himself?”

Her lips curved a little, making his breath catch. Time had given her a lean, feral look she hadn’t possessed when he’d known her three years ago, but when she smiled, he saw the ghost of the vibrant, fearless woman he’d spent a few glorious months loving in the heart of a war zone.

“Why does Alexander Quinn do anything he does?” She shook her head. “Foreign services around the globe have written books trying to answer that question.”

Rick gazed through the windshield, wincing at the growing ache in his arm where the bullet had grazed him. According to the highway sign they’d just passed, they were near Athens, Tennessee, about an hour outside Chattanooga. Once they reached the city, they could find some nondescript little no-tell motel off the highway and hunker down for a night. Clean up his wound and maybe plot their next move.

“When we get to Chattanooga, I should call my brother.”

She shot him a look of disbelief. “We’re not contacting anyone, Rick. We have no way of knowing whether or not Quinn sent that gunman after me. And since he’s the one who sent you, he probably has your family’s phones tapped.”

Her level of paranoia was off the charts. “But why would Quinn send me to Thurlow Gap to warn you if he was in on the assassination attempt?”

“I don’t know!” Her voice rose, tinged with fear. He stared at her, barely recognizing her as the woman he’d last seen on a street in Tablis, Kaziristan, walking away with long, confident strides, each click of her high heels against the cobblestone street ripping another shred in his heart.