Paula Graves - Secret Identity

Tara Brady had been brazen in her sense of control and self-reliance. She’d needed nobody.

Not even him.

Amanda Caldwell, on the other hand, might share Tara’s honey-blond hair and smoky-blue eyes, but the confidence came and went. Back at the house, with the gunman breathing down their necks, she’d been all business, her training taking over with a vengeance. But now that the adrenaline rush had faded, and they were driving into an unknown future, the fear he’d seen lurking earlier behind her eyes had crept to the surface.

She was terrified, and seeing her that way was more frightening to Rick than being shot at, back at her cabin.

“Why did you leave the CIA?” he asked. She hadn’t yet given him a satisfying answer to that question, had she?

He saw her jaw set like concrete. “Got tired of it.”

“Just like that?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I asked questions about you. Back in Kaziristan.” After the debacle that had been the beginning of the end of his career with MacLear.

Losing Amahl Dubrov to the terrorists had been the worst error he’d ever made on the job. God only knew what the al Adar rebels had done to Dubrov once they got their hands on him.

Rick never should have listened to Salvatore Beckett. He should have trusted his instincts and bugged out of Tablis with Dubrov before al Adar found them.

“Asked questions?” Amanda said when he didn’t continue.

He’d wanted to see her one more time before he headed back stateside, he remembered. He had been due back in Atlanta the next evening to attend a debriefing with Jackson Melville, MacLear’s CEO. Melville wouldn’t be pleased. Rick had known losing Dubrov might cost him his job. “It was a few weeks after we last met. I was heading back to the States. I just wanted to see you one more time before I went.”

Her expression closed like a door. “I wasn’t in Tablis anymore. You wouldn’t have been able to find me.”

“Nobody had any answers for me. So I left.”

Her gaze focused on the road ahead. She said nothing else.

He sank back against the seat, resting his head against the window. In the side mirror, traffic behind him was as light as it was on the road in front of them. They’d hit the road at just the right time—

In the mirror, a vehicle that had been just a dot on the road behind them had grown several sizes larger in the span of the few seconds his gaze had settled on the mirror.

Next to him, Amanda uttered another low oath. He looked up to find her staring at the rearview mirror, her brow furrowed. “Vehicle, coming up fast.”

“I know.” He checked the side mirror again and saw the black dot was a large black SUV bearing down on them, moving at alarming speed. It looked familiar. “I think that’s the Toyota Land Cruiser I saw at the gas station back in Thurlow Gap.”

“Great,” she muttered tersely.

He pulled his Walther from the holster at his waist and checked the clip. He’d transferred a couple of boxes of ammunition for the Walther from the trunk of the Charger to his glove compartment before they hit the road, and he’d seen extra guns and rounds in Amanda’s duffel bag, as well. But if the person in the fast-approaching SUV had backup and bigger weapons, all their firepower might not be enough.

“If they’re up to no good, I don’t think we can shoot this thing out,” Amanda said.

“How are your defensive-driving skills?”

“Rusty,” she admitted, “but I still remember a few things.”

Rick checked the back window. The SUV was about four car lengths back. “This Charger will do 140 miles an hour. I bet we can outgun that land boat back there. If they try to run us off the road or start shooting, just floor it.”

She gave a brisk nod, her gaze flicking back and forth between the light traffic ahead and the rearview window. He saw her shoulders tighten. “Weapon!” she barked.

He turned and saw a large-caliber handgun extending from the passenger window of the Toyota. “Duck and gun it!”

Dropping low in his seat, he held on as the Charger bolted forward, the engine singing with the power surge, and sent up a quick prayer of thanks that his sister Shannon had talked him into buying the muscle car instead of a less expensive, more practical sedan.

Amanda weaved the Charger through traffic, the SUV staying with her for about a mile before it started to fall back.

“I love this car,” she declared, sounding like the Tara Brady he remembered. A rush of pure male hunger surged through him, badly timed but strangely welcome. For the first time in a long time, he felt like the Rick Cooper who’d fallen hard for the sexy American spook.

It was about damn time.

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