Along Came a Husband. Helen Brenna
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Delgado?”
“I didn’t have to tell him. His people did.” Mason closed his eyes. “If I go down, I won’t be going alone. Understand?”
“Oh, I understand. Do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re working outside the lines right now, remember? This is no-man’s-land. So don’t give me any more orders. Understand that?”
“Yeah,” Mason muttered. And when all this is over and done with, you’re dead, no matter what.
“Good. ’Cause we got bigger problems on our hands than you think.”
“How could this get any worse?”
“He kept files.”
“Of what?”
“All the evidence he turned over to you over the course of the last four years. He backed up everything on a memory stick.”
Mason broke out in a cold sweat. “You gotta be shitting me.”
“If we don’t find him soon, he could turn everything over and we’re dead anyway.”
“Why didn’t you grab his files while you had the chance?”
“Why didn’t you kill him in the alley? If you had this wouldn’t be a problem. Did you find anything at his apartment?”
“What do you think?” Mason barely held his temper in check. He hadn’t really expected anything to be here, but every base had to be covered. “I have meetings tomorrow in D.C.”
“I can handle things on this end.”
“I’m telling you he’s hiding with someone he knows. Someone he trusts. His father. His wife.”
A loud laugh sounded over the line. “There is no one. Why do you think I suggested him for this assignment in the first place? No one in the world gives a rat’s ass whether Jonas Abel lives or dies.”
CHAPTER THREE
JONAS WOKE TO THE SOUND of a robin warbling loudly and quite happily outside the bedroom window. He glanced through the filmy pale green curtains and located the noisy little bastard perched on the branch of a massive elm tree. Lacking the energy to blow the damned thing to kingdom come, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the sound.
What do you think you’re doing?
Get up. Get it done. Do your job.
Sighing, he tried to sit and pain sizzled through him, knocking him back down. Damn, it felt as though his body had been first tenderized and then run through a man-size meat grinder. Apparently, that’s what first getting jumped by four men, then shot, and then losing half the blood in his body did to a guy. He was in no shape to do anyone any damage.
Rolling over in the hopes of falling back asleep, he buried his head under a pillow. On his next breath the scent of something hauntingly familiar came to him. Something sultry and lush. Something that oddly enough had him feeling at once content and restless.
Screw sleep.
He cracked open his eyes to find a set of pale gold orbs staring back at him. Cat eyes. Short-haired and black, but for a slit of white on its chest and a white sock on one rear paw, the cat sat serenely at the edge of the bed and studied him with curious disinterest. The animal had the muscular build of an outdoor cat and one of its ears was notched, most likely from a fight, ramping up the tough guy look.
“How did you get here?” he murmured.
From what he remembered, Missy had been frightened of cats since as a youngster she’d tried breaking up a couple of toms going at it. A nice long scar on the back of her left hand was all she had to show for her good-natured efforts. He, on the other hand, had absolutely no good reason for his dislike of cats.
The cat, taking his life in his own paws, crouched down and rubbed the side of his black head against Jonas’s hand. Jonas’s instinctive reaction was to flick the thing off the bed, but then the silkiness of the animal’s fur against his calloused hands registered. It’d been a long time since anything that soft had touched his skin.
Unable to resist, Jonas turned his hand and scratched the underside of the cat’s chin. The animal purred and pushed harder against Jonas’s hand. The more he scratched the louder the purr. Before he knew it the damned thing was inching onto Jonas’s chest looking for more.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He lifted the covers, unseating the animal and forcing it to the ground. Instead of being upset, the cat stretched languorously as if it’d been his plan all along to jump to the floor before walking slowly out of the room. “Cocky little shit.”
Jonas chuckled, and another wave of pain moved through him. Considering taking something to make it through the day, he glanced at the bedside table. Clustered together were several small sample containers of prescription medicine and a large cup with a bendy straw that appeared to hold water. Apparently, the good doctor had left some halfway decent painkillers as well as an antibiotic and a sleep aid.
Awfully nice of Missy’s boyfriend. And he was her boyfriend. Jonas was sure of that. The man had looked at her last night with a distinctly protective and proprietary air. How long had they been seeing one another? How much had she told the doctor about Jonas and their past?
Why should he care? He set the bottles down and knocked back a couple of ibuprofen. Movement sounded upstairs, followed closely by the running of a shower. Missy was not only awake, she was also most likely naked and wet. Now there was an image he didn’t need running through his mind. Come to think of it, he was buck naked himself under the covers. How had that happened?
Missy. He had a vague recollection of her hands brushing his skin, her fingers on his stomach as she worked the zipper on his jeans. Think of something else, you idiot. The last thing he needed in his sorry state was a hard-on.
After prepping himself with a slow, measured breath he threw back the green leaf-printed comforter—knowing Missy, it was probably organic cotton—then gingerly rolled onto his good side and slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. Damn, he felt weak. As he waited for the rush of light-headedness to pass, he located his pack on the floor by the door, looking as though it’d been left unopened. Good. That was good.
Still waiting for equilibrium, he glanced around the room. The woodwork was enameled white, but the rich, milk chocolate-brown on the walls seemed to curiously vary in shade from one side to the next. Knowing Missy, and her tendency toward impulsiveness, she’d changed her mind while in the middle of painting.
The furniture was a mishmash of wicker, metal and some kind of natural hardwood. A big, leafy plant hung from the ceiling near the window, and a couple smaller pots sat on the dresser and bedside tables. A collage of different shaped and sized photos covered the wall above the headboard of the bed.
He might’ve thought it a guest bedroom but for the jewelry lying atop the long dresser. Beads, crystals, metal pendants or Chinese coins. It was exactly the kind of stuff Missy would wear—
He’d slept in Missy’s room. In her bed. No wonder the scent on the pillow had felt so familiar. That’s when he noticed something hanging over the arm of the nearby wicker chair next to his jeans. He picked up the pale yellow scrap of fabric and held it out. A nightgown. Flimsy. Lacy. Sexy as hell, especially if he imagined Missy in it with her long curls, her beautiful shoulders, her breasts—
Full-blown hard-on. He swallowed and hung his head. What a loser. After all these years, after the way she’d turned on him and broken his heart, how could he still want her?
The gown felt soft and slippery in his hand. Had she ever worn it for the doctor? Was she sleeping with him?
That’s none of your damned business. She doesn’t want your sorry old ass. She made that more than clear, remember? Besides, you’ve got work to do, so get to it so you can get off this hunk of rock floating in the middle of