Karen Whiddon - Bulletproof Marriage

With that, she handed the phone back to Sean. She had nothing further to say to the man she’d once trusted. She’d decipher his code, because more than anything she wanted the Hungarian taken down. After that, they were through. As through as she was with her once-dead husband.

Understanding without her telling him anything, Auggie moved closer and squeezed her shoulder with his big hand. Grateful, she reached up and covered his hand with hers. Over the past year, they’d become good friends. Auggie, like Dr. Pachla, had hinted he was willing to become more, though she’d been careful not to encourage any closer relationship.

Sean had been the love of her life. Her marriage to him had ruined her for any other man.

As she closed his cell phone, Sean met her gaze, his own sable eyes clear. Though she knew he’d heard her tell Corbett about the stolen CD, he didn’t mention it. “We’ll need a car.”

Auggie removed his hand from Natalie’s shoulder. “There’s a car-rental agency a few miles from here. I can drive you,” Auggie offered.

“Excellent.” Sean nodded. “I have a new identity.” He gave Natalie another long look. “Corbett created it for me after I ‘died.’”

She kept her face expressionless. “What name?”

“Roark McKee.”

Another pang stabbed her heart. Roark had been the name they’d planned to call their son, whenever she conceived.

“Can you drive?” Natalie regarded his walking cast with skepticism.

“It’s my other foot, luv.” The familiar endearment seemed to slip casually from his lips. She stiffened, unwilling to comment, to let him know how much he had hurt her.

“Fine. You rent the car. No one is looking for you.”

When they reached the car-rental agency, Natalie waited in the car with Auggie while Sean went in.

“Take it easy, lass.” Auggie spoke in a soft voice, his burr becoming more pronounced. “You still love him, don’t you?”

Miserable, Natalie stared at the spot where Sean had disappeared inside the doors. “I don’t know how I feel anymore. Aug, I should just hate him for what he put me through.”

“But you can’t?”

Her halfhearted shrug was the best she could do. Her throat was too clogged with emotion to allow her to speak.

“You’re a damn fine operative, Natalie Major. You’ve moved on with your life. Don’t let this get you down.”

“You talk as if his returning from the dead is a small thing.”

“I’d say that depends on your perspective.”

She crossed her arms. “There’s no excuse for what he did.”

Auggie shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. You won’t know for sure until you talk to him and find out why.”

“I’d rather forget him.” Even as she said the words, she knew she was lying. Already, even when separated from Sean by a matter of minutes, she craved him.

A horn honked. “There he is.” Auggie pointed. “He’s gotten a nice Mini, now hasn’t he?”

Though she’d seen the tiny cars out and about, Natalie had never wanted to ride in one. They were too small, for one thing, and Natalie was a tall woman. She couldn’t imagine her six-foot-three inch husband crammed into one.

This would make the term close quarters no exaggeration.

Both Auggie and she exited his car at the same time, walking over to the Mini. Auggie circled the blue vehicle, a gleam of admiration in his eyes.

Sean rolled down the driver’s-side window. “Best I could do,” he said, before she could even comment. “We didn’t have reservations and they’re a bit low on cars.”

Auggie chuckled as he walked up beside her. “One thing about it, no one will suspect you’re a spy in this tin can.”

Natalie glared at him.

“You’d better get in,” Sean said, not smiling. “Before someone recognizes you.”

He was right, damn it. She gave Auggie a quick hug, then yanked open the passenger door and wedged herself into the seat.

“See, it’s not so bad.” Reassuring? Sean? She wondered what else had changed about him in the two years he’d been dead.

He handed her a well-creased map, then started to pull away from the curb. “I’ve marked the location of the abbey where we’re to meet Corbett’s man.”

Not sure how she felt about his automatic assumption that he would be leader, she opened her mouth to dispute him.

The back window shattered.

“What the—?”

“Get down,” Sean yanked the wheel to the right, heading into a narrow alley between buildings. “Someone’s shooting at us.”

She was already down, head on her knees, or as best as she could in the tiny car. “They must have identified me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

He took another sharp turn and they shot out into the street. Horns blared and a lorry narrowly missed smashing into their side.

“We’re going to have to ditch this car.”

“Not now. We’ve got to meet our contact in—” she glanced at her watch “—forty-five minutes.”

“I don’t care. If they keep shooting, we’ll have no choice.”

“Yes, we will.” Natalie sat up straight, smoothing down her hair. “You’re not in charge here, you know.”

The narrow-eyed look he shot her would have lit a cigarette. “Don’t start this. Not now.”

After a moment of surprise, Natalie threw back her head and laughed. “We already sound like an old married couple, bickering.”

“We are an old married couple.” His expression softened. “Last month was our sixth anniversary.”

“Would have been,” she corrected, her chest aching. “If you hadn’t died.”

The tightening of his jaw was his only response.

As they entered downtown Glasgow, traffic increased.

They were sitting ducks at a complete stop, especially if a shooter had a high-powered rifle.

But no gunshots shattered any windows, and they reached the other side of town without incident.

“Too weird,” Natalie said.

“I agree. There’s no reason why they’d simply give up. Unless…”

“They knew where we’re going.”

“Impossible.”

Natalie shook her head. “Is it? You and I both know better.”

“So we’ll be extra careful.” The tight set of his mouth told her he wasn’t happy with the situation. “Get in, meet Corbett’s man, grab the code, and get out.”

When they arrived at the abbey, the parking lot was curiously devoid of the normal crowd of tourists’ vehicles. Only one other car had been parked in one of the marked spaces.

“They’re closed on Thursday,” Sean told her. He chose a spot on the other side of the lot, as far from the lone car as he could get.

Natalie understood his reasoning. One never knew where a car bomb might be planted.

Silent, they got out of the car.

The weather had changed and a light mist still fell, shrouding the air in a blanket of damp. The slate-colored sky exactly matched the weathered stone of the ancient building. As abbeys went, this particular one wasn’t much to look at. Part of the exterior had crumbled, and it was more of a ruin now than an actual building.

But the sense of age…

Natalie wasn’t a mystical-minded person, not in the slightest. But the energy of this place, the eerie invocation of timeless power, made her hesitate. She felt as though she were actually intruding, as though her very practical feet should not tread on this hallowed ground.

If Sean sensed the same, he gave no sign.

Keeping close to the crumbling wall, they moved toward the old cemetery on the hill. They were to meet their contact near an ancient crypt hidden behind several immense oaks.

A tingle on her left hand had her glancing down. The wedding ring Sean had given her—the woven band of silver she’d never taken off or switched to her right hand as widows were supposed to do—had grown hot. The ring was old; it had once belonged to Sean’s grandmother. Sean had always called the Celtic design “fairy metal.” He’d teased Natalie, telling her his grandmother claimed to have found the ring in an enchanted circle, left for her by her fey lover.