As much as Kate had been dreading spending time with Colt, the morning flew by with remarkable speed. After all they’d been through, she was surprised at how easy it was to be around him again and how well they worked together.
They hadn’t exactly gotten off to the best start the first and only time they’d worked together in Afghanistan. She probably would never have gone out with the darkly sexy SEAL chief at all after that CIA Barbie comment if he hadn’t saved her life.
Not long after she’d arrived at the “safe” (relatively speaking) base, local insurgents had sent a suicide bomber in a car to ram the gates and detonate as soon as he was inside, hoping to take out the guardhouse. She’d been standing too close and probably would have been killed if Colt hadn’t jumped on top of her. He still bore scars from the shrapnel he’d taken for her that day.
Even the “this isn’t the way I had planned to get you under me” line that he said when he was still bleeding on top of her hadn’t turned her off. The bluntness had actually made her laugh. Her willingness to go out with him might have also had something to do with her not being completely unaffected by having a really good-looking guy with a body as hard as a rock on top of her. The physical appeal had always been there. The saving-her-life part hadn’t hurt either.
But once they’d become involved, they’d been carefulto avoid any appearance of conflict or fraternization by making sure their ops didn’t overlap. If she worked with Team Nine, it was through Scott. That was how she’d gotten to know him so well.
She’d forgotten how insightful and smart Colt was. Not book smart like Percy but savvy—especially about human nature. Street smart, she supposed they’d call it. But he also had an almost photographic memory and was good with numbers. He went through the spreadsheets she’d put together of the rear admiral’s complicated finances and found the discrepancies far quicker than she had—and she had an accounting background. Before she’d been recruited for the CIA she’d thought she wanted to be a CPA.
He could have made a fortune on Wall Street. But he’d put his skills to good use in the military. He was one of the best—and not just because of his mental quickness, his physical strengths, or his skill with weapons. He was also cold, methodical, ruthless, detached, secretive, and at times deceitful. The problem for her was that those qualities might make him a great covert operator, but they made him a horrible husband.
By the time they arrived at the rear admiral’s home—she’d stressed that it was better not to meet at the base when she’d called last night to set this up—and were shown into his office by his wife, Kate was wondering if this might be more than a wild-goose chase to stop him from going to Russia as she’d first thought. Could Rear Admiral Morrison be responsible for what had happened to Scott and his men? She had thought it was a long shot, but after going through everything with Colt, she couldn’t deny the motive.
She watched as Colt tossed the file on the desk in front of the rear admiral and leaned over with just the right amount of anger and threat to start questioning him. She was about to find out.
•••
Colt had spent enough time in San Diego to be familiar with the ritzy Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood, where the rear admiral lived, so when they were shown out about an hour after they’d been shown in—with a decidedly less friendly slam of the door from the rear admiral’s wife that made him wonder whether she’d been listening—he suggested they walk to a coffee shop that was near the golf course on which Morrison lived.
It was a typical San Diego day. In other words, a perfect seventy degrees, slightly breezy, and sunny blue skies. Since they had time before returning to the airport to catch their flight back, Colt needed to burn off some energy.
He wanted to think his agitation was from the meeting that had just taken place, but he knew that wasn’t all of it.
Having been pent up with his ex all day was having more of an effect on him than it should. He’d forgotten how much he used to like her. The attraction hadn’t been all of it. Not by half.
Despite her heels, Kate didn’t object, and they walked along the treelined street of mostly Mediterranean “residences” (apparently calling them homes wasn’t distinguished enough) toward the shopping center that was just outside the gates.
Kate was quiet and thoughtful. Probably, like him, processing the meeting that had just taken place. She was playing with the single strand of pearls at her neck, as she tended to do when she was lost in thought.
He’d never seen another woman under seventy or who wasn’t named Barbara Bush wear pearls, but on Kate they looked right. “Chic” is what he’d heard someone say about her once—which about covered it.
“What did you think?” he asked.
Despite the sun beating down on her fair head, shelooked as cool and crisp as she had when he’d sat down on the plane seat beside her in one of those linen sheath dresses she wore when she wanted something more casual than a suit.
He had on his typical T-shirt and khaki cargo shorts. That was his dressy.
Even their clothes had never fit right together. What the hell had he been thinking? They’d never been in the same league.
She glanced over at him to answer, a wry smile on her face. “I think that if the goal was to push the rear admiral’s buttons, I couldn’t have picked anyone better to go with me. You really know how to go for blood, don’t you?”
Her tone was lighthearted, and he responded similarly. “Yes, that particular skill has some positive uses at times.”
She laughed. “I’ll say. I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel when you started digging in about the online poker, his kids’ tuition bills, and Mrs. Morrison’s ‘anonymous’ posts on social media. But when you started insinuating a possible connection to Retiarius...” She shivered. “I was glad he didn’t have a gun.”
“I was too. He was pissed off.”
“Pissed-off-you-offended-my-honor or pissed-off- guilty?”
Colt shrugged. “I don’t know. As much as I’m not a fan of Morrison’s, I’m not sure I could see him selling out a platoon of men like that to cover his ass.”
“Even if he is being threatened by the people who lent him money?”
“We’ll see. He’s been poked. Now we have to see how he reacts. I assume you have everything in place?”
She nodded. He suspected Kate hadn’t asked permission to hack into the rear admiral’s computers and phone lines, but she’d done it anyway. Being CIA had itsadvantages. Although he suspected she wouldn’t be CIA much longer if they found out what she was doing. He was pretty sure she was on her own on this.
