Carol Ericson - Under Fire

Her fingers curled around the door handle, and she tensed her muscles.

Her movement broke his trancelike stare out the windshield. Blinking, he peeled one hand from the steering wheel and ran it through his dark hair.

“I—I won’t hurt you, Dr. Whitman.”

She whispered, “Ava.”

He cranked his head to the side, and the stark lines on his face softened. “Where can I take you...Ava?”

She jerked forward in her seat. She couldn’t go home, as if she’d ever called that small bungalow teetering at the edge of the desert home.

But if Max thought he could launch a bombshell at her like that and then blithely drop her off somewhere, he needed to reprogram himself.

Had he really just blamed her for Simon’s breakdown?

“Before you take me anywhere—” she pressed her palms against her bouncing knees “—you’re going to explain yourself. How is any of this my fault?”

He squeezed his eyes closed briefly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t have yelled, but I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“Me?” She jabbed an index finger at her chest. “You don’t know if you can trust me? You’re the one who whisked me away from the lab, led me into an ambush and then threatened to kill me.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “That wasn’t a threat. I don’t make threats.”

His words hung in the space between them, their meaning clear. This man would strike without warning and without mercy. The fact that she still sat beside him, living and breathing, attested to the fact that despite his misgivings he must trust her at least a little bit.

“You warned me that you were a killer, like Simon.”

“What exactly do you think the agents of...Prospero do if not kill?”

“You kill when it’s necessary. You kill to protect the country. You kill in self-defense.”

“Is that what you think Simon was doing?”

She stuffed her hands beneath her thighs. “No, but that’s what you were doing when you took him out.”

He nodded once and his jaw hardened again. “I won’t hurt you, Ava.”

She swallowed. His repetition of the phrase sent a spiral of fear down her spine. Was he trying to convince her or convince himself?

“Tell me where I can drop you off, and you’ll be fine. Friends? Family?”

“I told you, I don’t have any friends or family in this area.” She pushed the hair from her face in a sharp gesture, suddenly angry at him for forcing her to admit that pathetic truth.

“I can take you to an airport and get you on a plane to anywhere.”

“No.” She shook her head and her hair whipped across her face again. “Before I get on a plane to anywhere, I want you to explain yourself. What happened to Simon? Why did you blame me? Why did Simon attack the lab?”

“If you don’t know, it’s not safe for me to tell you.”

“Bull.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Those two men were waiting for me at my house. I wasn’t safe back there, and I’m not safe now. What you tell is not going to make it any worse than it already is. And you know that.”

Lights twinkled ahead, and she realized they’d circled back into the city after a detour on a desert highway so that he could make sure they hadn’t been followed.

He pointed to a sign with an airplane on it. “I can take you straight to the airport and buy you a ticket back home to your family. You can contact the CIA and tell them what happened. The agency will help you.”

“But the agency is not going to tell me what’s going on. I want to know. I deserve to know after you accused me of being complicit in Simon’s breakdown.”

“You were.”

She smacked her hands on the dashboard. “Stop saying that. This is what I mean. You can’t throw around accusations like that without backing them up.”

He aimed the car for the next exit and left the highway. “It’s going to be morning soon. Let’s get off the road, get some rest. I’ll tell you everything, and then you’re getting on that plane.”

She sat quietly as Max followed the signs to the airport. He turned onto a boulevard lined with airport hotels and rolled into the parking lot of a midrange highrise, anonymous and nondescript.

He dragged a bag from the trunk of the car and left the keys with the valet parking attendant.

She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until they walked through the empty lobby of the hotel.

A front desk clerk jumped up from behind the counter. “Do you need a room?”

“Yeah.” Max reached for the back pocket of his camouflage pants. Without the bulletproof vest, the black jacket and the ski mask, he looked almost normal. Could the hotel clerk feel the waves of tension vibrating off Max’s body? Did he notice the tight set of Max’s jaw? The way his dark eyes seemed to take in everything around him with a single glance? Normal was not a word she’d use to describe Max Duvall.

“Credit card?”

“We don’t use one. Filed for bankruptcy not too long ago.” Max offered up a tight smile along with a stack of bills. “We’ll pay cash for one night.”

The clerk’s brow furrowed. “The problem is if you use anything from the minibar or watch a movie in the room, we have no way to charge you.”

Max thumbed through the money and shoved it across the counter. “Add an extra hundred for incidentals.”

The clerk’s frown never left his face, but he seemed compelled to acquiesce to Max. She didn’t blame him. Max was the type of man others obeyed.

Five minutes later, Max pushed open the door of their hotel room, holding it open for her.

She eyed the two double beds in the room and placed her purse on the floor next to one of them. If the clerk downstairs had found the request for two beds odd, he’d put on his best poker face. Maybe he’d figured their bankruptcy had put a strain on the marriage.

She perched on the edge of the bed, knees and feet primly together, watching Max pace the room like a jungle cat.

He stopped at the window and shifted to the side, leaning one shoulder against the glass.

“Do you want something from the minibar? Water, soft drink, something harder?”

She narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t expected him to play host. Despite rescuing her from mortal danger, he hadn’t seemed too concerned with her well-being. He’d gone through the motions and had acknowledged her shock and fear, but he’d done next to nothing to comfort her. Because he still didn’t trust her.

“I’ll have some water.” She pushed up from the bed and hovered over the fridge on the console. “Do you want something?”

“Soda, something with caffeine.”

The man didn’t need caffeine. He needed a stiff drink, something to take off the hard edges.

She swung open the door of the pint-size fridge and plucked a bottle of water from the shelf. She pinched the neck of a wine bottle and held it up. “You sure you don’t want some wine?”

“Just the soda, but I don’t mind if you want to imbibe. You could probably use something to relax you.”

“That’s funny.” She placed the wine on the credenza and grabbed a can of cola from the inside door of the fridge. “I was just thinking you needed something to relax you .”

“Relax?”

He blinked his eyes and looked momentarily lost, as if the idea of relaxation had never occurred to him.

“Never mind.” She crossed the room and held out the can to him.

When he took it, his fingers brushed hers and she almost dropped the drink. That was the first time he’d touched her without grabbing, gripping and yanking. Although she’d touched him before, plenty of times.

Like all of the agents, his body was in prime condition—his muscles hard, his belly flat, barely concealed power humming beneath the smooth skin. As a medical professional, she’d always maintained her distance but she couldn’t deny she’d looked forward to Max Duvall’s appointment times.