of her antagonism seemed to seep out as she dropped her shoulders and sighed. “I...” she began. “Actually, I was hoping you would give me the slug. You know. For marketing and such.” She stuck out her hand like a child asking for a quarter.
“Yeah, right.” He reached into his pocket where he had dropped the spent bullet. With it came his business card.
He stared at the card in his fingers, but before he could think about tucking it back into his pocket, Zoey reached out and took them both.
“I... Uh...” She paused, collecting herself. She pulled out her phone. “I guess I should thank you properly for what you did back there.”
She opened up her phone and punched in his number, then moved to her calendar like she was thinking about finding a time that would work for them to go out. On her schedule he could make out the words Therapy appointment set for tomorrow, and beneath was an address.
He looked up at her as she tapped through her schedule.
Was she really interested in going out with him? And was she really going to a therapist?
Did it have something to do with what had happened to them?
He was glad she was seeing someone, but Zoey had never been the kind to open up. Maybe she had changed since she had left him.
“Hey,” he said. “By the way, I’m sorry to hear about your sister. She was always wonderful to me. If I had it to do all over again, I would happily work by her side.”
Zoey stopped with her phone and looked up at him, staring at him like she was looking for some kind of meaning to what he’d just said. “Are you saying you want to come back to STEALTH?” Her voice was choked.
“No. It’s just... I meant...” Now, he was the one stammering. It wasn’t that he hadn’t missed his old job and the STEALTH family, but she didn’t want him there and they both knew it.
Why was any interaction between them so awkward?
“I meant that I just wish nothing had happened to Trish. We lost a good one with her.”
She nodded, but her gaze stayed locked on his face.
A blonde woman wove through the chairs over toward them, and Zoey finally looked away.
“I have to go, Eli.” She handed him back his card. “But maybe...someday, we could catch up.”
Catching up? Was she for real? They both knew after this moment it was unlikely they would ever see one another again.
And the thought, just like the woman who was walking away from him, threatened to rip out his heart.
The ride back to the Widow Maker Ranch seemed even longer than she had remembered. She had driven through entire countries faster than she had driven across the state of Montana. The conference had gone well, and she was getting texts and alerts about new orders that were coming through the doors, but her mind kept circling back to Eli. Maybe it was his fault that the drive had seemed to take so long.
He had a way of making everything in her life more complicated. It was a good thing that she was putting hundreds of miles between them.
But it had been stupid of her to take his phone number. She had excised him ever so precisely from her life already, and now she had allowed him to slip back in. What was wrong with her?
She’d always stuck to the Band-Aid breakup model—one quick rip and throw it away. She was too old to make such a stupid mistake and let him reappear. His coming back would only open up all those old wounds. Not that everything had been bad between them. Some days had been incredible, while others—especially at the end—had been pure hell.
One time, when they had been in the belly of Italy, they had taken a contract on a set of twins. The brothers they had been hired to kill had been members of a notorious terrorist organization, in so deep that they had helped establish the group’s core documents and constitution. Thanks to their work, the group had grown to over five thousand international members and was responsible for the deaths of over two hundred civilians—men, women and one child.
During the strike, she and Eli had been forced to camp out under the stars while they waited for the brothers to return to their compound. While she had tracked the brothers’ phones, she and Eli had started out talking about throwaway things—the weather, locations and food preferences. After a few hours, however, something changed and they began talking about those things in life that make a person unique—family, beliefs, culture. He had even told her about growing up in rural Idaho, near Boise, where he had learned to shoot a BB gun and take care of his family’s bevy of animals.
The number one rule of their occupation as hit men was that everything was a secret. To open up, even the tiniest bit meant death.
But as they had talked, she forgot that rule. She was surprised to learn that he was such a sucker for animals. Maybe it was the thought of him holding a puppy, but whatever reservations she had about their growing intimacy quickly disappeared.
Everything between them changed. They became a team. And then that team mentality had taken another turn, and taking aim at killers and thieves had turned into taking aim at each other’s hearts.
She had been a fool to get involved with him. When she kissed him she had stripped her life of one of her best friends and one of just a select few that she had trusted.
The only other person she had trusted in the same way had been her sister. When Trish had been alive, Zoey had been able to turn to her, to talk to her a bit about the things that were going on in her life. Their lives were so unique and challenging that it took someone who had the same lifestyle—one of long nights in bunkers and days spent in the mud—to completely understand what it meant to fall in love.
As she pulled down the road that led to the ranch, her headlights bounced as she hit the obstacle course that had been carved into the dirt by the summer winds and fall freezes. The rhythmic back and forth motion of the car comforted her, knowing that the Widow Maker Ranch was protected by the grounds around it. With potholes and ruts this deep, few would venture down their road; the fewer the people, the better.
After Jarrod and Mindy’s run-in with the Gray Wolves’s—and their leader Bayural’s—hit man, they had been trying to stay out of the public eye. That was, until her reentry into society at the trade show. When it came to protecting the innocent, even if it meant coming out of hiding and putting herself in danger, Zoey had been willing to personally take the risk. Their clothing line would make the world a better, safer place. Women like Trish could use their tac line every day and just maybe Zoey could keep someone else from losing a sister.
She checked her rearview mirror one more time. There was a set of headlights behind her, and in the rural Montana countryside they made her nervous. Though she was sure she was overreacting, she pulled her car to the side of the road and let the person behind her pass by. The sedan was blue and had local plates, but she didn’t get a good look at the driver.
Not for the first time during the drive, she wished she hadn’t gone alone. Mindy had offered to come with her by flying over from Sweden, but Anya—Mindy and Jarrod’s adopted
