By the end of this assignment, she’d probably hate him, and he’d more than likely be looking for another job. Unless the success of the mission kept him at the HDD, which was certainly possible. While he needed the win to get back in the good graces of the higher-ups, right now, he didn’t give a crap about that. The people who’d murdered Treeson would pay. That was a vow he’d taken over his friend’s grave, and he never failed to keep a vow.
No matter the cost.
But if there was a way to protect Brigid, he’d find that, too. It was the least he could do, even if she wanted him dead.
“When was the last time you talked to your dad?” Raider asked.
She hunched her shoulders forward. “I call him on his birthday and Christmas every year, and I send a card for Father’s Day. He calls on my birthday.” Her voice was low and soft. “It’s awkward.” She settled her head back on the seat rest and shut her eyes. “My mom was a candidate for a drug trial, and I felt like my dad didn’t encourage her enough to try it.”
“Wasn’t it her decision?” Raider asked quietly.
“Yeah, and at the time, I didn’t understand that.” She sighed and opened her eyes. “I should’ve come home years ago and made amends, but first I was breaking the law, and then I was working for the HDD, and time flew by.” She shook her head, and her red curls bounced around. “That’s no excuse.”
“Maybe this will be a good chance to do that,” Raider said, feeling like an ass, considering his motivations.
“Sure. Showing up with a fake boyfriend who wants to put my dad in jail is a great way to make amends.” She turned startling green eyes his way. “Don’t try to act like my friend. We both know what you are.”
Yeah, they did. “Fair enough.” He handed over a small case from his backpack. “It’s a camera that will be recording everything around you. Put it on.”
The necklace was a dainty-looking silver cross. The camera was in a moonstone right in the middle. Though he expected her to object, she didn’t. Sighing, she secured the necklace at the back of her neck. “I’m not wearing this the whole time.”
“Yes, you are—and it’s Agents Rutherford and Fields watching, not Angus Force, so keep that in mind.” Those two were the unit’s official liaisons with the HDD, and they were uptight and a pain in the butt. He didn’t like it any more than she did, no doubt. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Whatever.”
He took her hand this time, holding tight when she tried to pull away. “Remember your role, too. And Brigid? If your dad has knowledge, his best bet is to work with us once everything goes down. I’ll make sure he has a chance to make a deal, somehow. So long as he wasn’t in on Agent Treeson’s killing.” If he had been, which was doubtful, Raider would put him in the ground himself. It was only fair to warn her.
“There’s no record of my dad working with any criminal organization after he left Boston and bought the farm here with my mother,” Brigid snapped.
Was she going to be able to pull this off? Raider had no experience working with civilians, and emotional ones at that. How she channeled that emotion into cracking computer code fascinated the hell out of him, and that was before taking in her stunning eyes and wild curves. He had to think of her as a job and nothing more.
As darkness deepened, he worked it through in his mind.
“How about you trust me to do the right thing?” He surprised himself by asking the question. By how much her answer meant to him.
“Not a chance,” she muttered, turning back to the window.
Humor attacked him, and he barked out a laugh. Man, Miss A would love Brigid. The thought sobered him. There was next to no possibility the two women would ever meet. After this op was over, they’d probably go their separate ways.
A faded red barn came into the circle of the headlights next to what looked like a bunkhouse. Then another barn and a lot of equipment. He kept driving, and soon a white clapboard farmhouse with a wide porch appeared between several trees with a creek running between it and another huge barn. “Wow.” It was his perfect image of a family home. One he hadn’t had until he’d met Miss A.
Brigid nodded. “There used to be a picket fence, but the cows get loose every once in a while and run through it. My mom finally gave up on it and tulips, because the deer eat tulips no matter what they have to jump over to reach the buds.”
The remaining flowers were purple and apparently deer resistant. Wildflowers sprang up on either side of the winding creek.
A tall older man with a barrel of a chest stepped through the screen door to the wooden porch, a shotgun in his hand.
Brigid sighed. “My father.”
Chapter Ten
Brigid couldn’t breathe. She pulled her hand loose from Raider’s, and he let her. She shivered, and nausea tumbled around in her belly. It had been too long. Was her dad still mad at her? Their conversations through the last several years had been short but friendly. Well, not friendly, but not adversarial. Her father had never been much for talking on the phone. Or talking in general. Why did Raider have to be here for this?
He pulled the car to a stop, and she jumped out, striding up the stone path and wooden stairs, her gaze on her father. He’d aged. His hair was gray and still thick, his beard almost all gray, and his eyes the green of an Irish hill. He wore overalls with work boots, and at seeing her, he set the shotgun near the door. “Brigid.”
She moved to him, settling in for a hug. He awkwardly patted her back, smelling like hay, alfalfa, and cigar. The scent of home. Tears pricked her eyes, and she wanted to tell him everything. To blurt it out. But the necklace lay heavy on her chest, and she leaned back. “I’m sorry it took so long.”
“You’re here now.” He’d always been a man of few words, and his gaze had already gone over her shoulder to Raider.
