FOUR

      Mace sifted through impressions of his client. Strong. Stubborn. Full of secrets. Everyone was entitled to secrets. Including him. Especially him. He wouldn’t hold having secrets against Laurel, unless those secrets put him and her in danger.

      The truck’s interior was too small to contain the tension that shimmered through the air. Granted, he and Laurel had just fought off yet another attack, but it was more than that. There was a coiled anticipation in her that made him want to stop the truck here and now and demand that she tell him what was going on. He pulled at his collar to rid himself of the cramped sensation, but to no avail.

      Laurel must have found a safe place for her thoughts to inhabit as she didn’t attempt to break the silence that pulsed between them. Which was fine with him. He wasn’t ready to give voice to the maelstrom of thoughts that swarmed through his mind. He was still coming down from an adrenaline high, as he suspected she was doing, too. Taking on two tangos spiked the senses, then came the crash.

      With an effort, he focused on the present. He had a job to do. Deliver Laurel to Atlanta and keep her safe.

      After several attacks on her life in the last few hours, it was quickly becoming clear that keeping her safe meant stopping the Collective. From what he knew of the organization, it would hunt her relentlessly and then exact a price of retribution.

      He could ask Shelley to assign another operative as Laurel’s bodyguard while he worked the investigative end of things. If that meant taking down more goons like the last ones, well, that was all right by him. His lips tightened at the idea of men hunting her as though she were an animal.

      Laurel would demand that she work with him. Though they’d known each other for only a few short hours, he already understood that she wasn’t one to stand on the sidelines. What had he expected? She was a Ranger, after all.

      A frown worked its way across his face. The Collective wouldn’t go down easy. The members would fight with their last breaths, and they’d fight dirty. Did she know what they were capable of?

      As soon as he posed the question, he had his answer. Of course she knew. She’d fought in Afghanistan, saw firsthand the inhumanity that hatred spawned. In the Stand, fear and cruelty ruled.

      There were instances of exceptional courage, both on the part of American personnel and that of the Afghani people, who were, by and large, honorable and devoted to their families. It was the warlords and insurgents who had corrupted the country with ever-growing intimidation and terror. Their thirst to inflict their extremist beliefs upon others was unquenchable.

      He’d put the horrors of that war away, only to sign on with S&J and take on a different kind of war—protecting innocents from those who would prey on them.

      He had to convince Laurel to let him do the investigating while she remained in a safe house. Knowing that she’d undoubtedly raise a ruckus over that didn’t solve his problem. He worked best alone. Always had. He’d tell her, let her down easy. Maybe now would be the right time.

      Before he could explain to her why she couldn’t work with him, she said, “You’re trying to figure out how to tell me that you’re going to cut me loose when we get to Atlanta and investigate on your own. Right?”

      Caught, he nodded. “Something like that.”

      “No way, Ransom. I’m in. All the way. It’s my life on the line.”

      “S&J doesn’t let clients work with operatives.”

      Even as Mace said the words, he knew he wasn’t being completely truthful. Other S&J operatives had worked with their clients, and four of those operatives were now married to those same clients.

      Not that he had anything to worry about on that score.

      “It’s a safety thing,” he said, wincing at the lame-sounding words. “Shelley Judd will assign another operative to act as your bodyguard, and I’ll start investigating. We’ll keep you safe and put an end to the Collective at the same time.”

      “You really think S&J can stop the Collective?”

      “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But we can put a big dent in the organization.” Of that, he had no doubt.

      He’d seen S&J’s operatives bring down some pretty big fish, including corrupt federal prosecutors, greedy union bosses, and dishonest newspaper publishers. When it came down to it, they were all the same: predators who stepped on others to get what they wanted.

      “Why should you do the investigating?” Laurel asked, returning to the subject he preferred to leave behind. “Why not leave it to someone else?”

      He had his answer ready. “I was with military police before I made Rangers.” That was weak, but he couldn’t tell her the real reason: he was attracted to her, so much so that he feared he’d lose his objectivity. The sooner he handed her over to another operative, the better.

      For both of them.

      “And I’ve had CID training,” she said. She didn’t add “so there,” but she might as well have.

      The Criminal Investigation Department of the Army was among the best-trained law enforcement in the armed services. “When?”

      “Before I made Ranger. I wanted to get as much experience under my belt as I could.”

      “You must have started young.”

      “I enlisted when I was eighteen.” A small shrug. “Seemed the right thing to do.”

      She’d managed to surprise him. Again.

      “We’ll be in Atlanta in another hour. You can tell your story to Shelley and Jake and we’ll take it from there.”

      “Thanks for all you’ve done.”

      Mace shrugged that off. “Save it for when I’ve actually done something.”

      “You saved me from those lowlifes the Collective sent after me.”

      “You and Sammy did a pretty good job of saving yourselves.”

      Her gaze touched his, but for only a moment, before it darted away and a blush stole up her cheeks.

      He’d spoken the truth. He had no doubt that Laurel could have taken on the teams of men by herself with Sammy as backup and come out on top. She had grit to spare. He liked that about her. In fact, he liked a lot of things about the lady.

      The direction of his thoughts startled him. As though to negate them, he shook his head, refusing to go down that rabbit hole. As they said, Been there, done that.

      * * *

      Laurel wanted to do a happy dance in her excitement about meeting Jake and Shelley. At the same time, she wanted to weep for the years she had lost with them. Her brother and sister. She felt it. There would have to be tests, but her gut told her she was right.

      She and Mace had made the rest of the trip to Atlanta with scarcely a word spoken between them. She was too wrapped up in anticipation, and Mace had lapsed into a brooding silence, the edge of a frown putting the beginning of furrows on his brow.

      At her request, he had taken her to a hotel and, after checking in, she’d cleaned up, fed Sammy and then taken him for a walk.

      Now, as she sat in Shelley’s office at S&J headquarters, she absorbed impressions of Shelley and Jake. They had an easy kind of give-and-take relationship that made her think of the families she’d dreamed of when she’d been a little girl.

      Jake was tall and rangy while Shelley was petite, a bundle of energy that made her seem larger than her five-foot-nothing frame. Jake took his time making up his mind and spoke with slow deliberation; Shelley made snap decisions and didn’t