Читать книгу Soldier For Hire - Kimberly Van Meter - Страница 15

Xander knew concussion protocol would require Scarlett go through bureaucratic hoops to ensure her brain was okay after he’d knocked her out, which meant he had a finite amount of time to put some distance between them.

He had to get to Tulsa, back to the scene of the crime, to see if anything jogged his memory about that day. Thank God, he had a duffel of cash; otherwise, he’d be driving nineteen hours instead of taking a four-hour flight.

Admittedly, he was taking a risk flying, even with a fake ID, mostly because Scarlett knew his aliases and once she was cleared for duty she’d find his destination pretty quick, but he didn’t have the luxury of taking things safe.

He had to hope that Scarlett didn’t tell those bureaucrats to shove it and hop back on his tail like the maniac she was.

God, that woman... If she weren’t so damn hot, he’d say she was crazier than him.

Not his kind of crazy—no, Scarlett was more controlled—but still, you couldn’t lead a Red Wolf team without being a little left of center. None of them were right in the head, which was how they were able to do the jobs they were assigned without batting an eye.

But it also made believing that he could blow up a bunch of civilians to get to one politician totally plausible.

Hell, no one was looking twice at that story.

Messed up vet with a checkered past and a previously unknown prescription drug addiction—yeah, he knew just how perfect he was for this frame job but it pissed him off that Scarlett was playing into the game.

She knew him.

She, of all people, should’ve been able to see through that smoke screen and then he wouldn’t have had to knock her lights out.

Although, if he managed to clear his name and get his job back, he was totally going to rub Scarlett’s nose in the fact that he’d gotten the jump on her. Actually, that thought gave him the warm fuzzies. Lord knew he had precious little of those to pass around.

He grabbed an Uber to the airport, made quick work of buying a ticket on the first flight out of Virginia and settled into his seat, prepared to sleep through the four-hour plane ride. With any luck, his resting asshole face would deter any eager Chatty Kathys from striking up a convo. He wanted to shut his eyes, slip into dreamland and wake up in the dreary nothingness that was Oklahoma.

His lids had only just closed when he heard a familiar voice.

“You’re getting sloppy, Scott.”

His eyes opened slowly to find Scarlett standing in the aisle, looking pissed and deadly as hell. He wanted to say she wouldn’t shoot him in front of all these passengers but he was willing to guess her trigger finger was damn itchy after what he’d done.

Damn it. He should’ve rented a car. “You going to stand there all day? You’re gumming up traffic.”

Scarlett smirked as she swung into the seat beside him, flashing her ticket at him. “Looks like we’re travel buddies.”

He eyed her warily. “Yeah? And how do you figure that?”

Scarlett leaned toward him, her voice lowered to a sexy rumble. “Well, it seems this is your lucky day, Scott. I’m going to see for myself if your story is total bullshit. If it turns out you’re innocent, I get a valuable member of my team back. If it turns out you’re a damn liar, I get to put you away. Either way, it’s a win for me. So yeah, buckle up, baby, you’ve got yourself a travel buddy.”

Awww hell. He didn’t want Scarlett riding shotgun with him on this adventure but the way he saw it, he didn’t have much of a choice. Either he accepted Scarlett’s dubious help or he tried to ditch her again and spend the entire time looking over his shoulder for one angry TL who was a crack shot.

Yeah, seemed better to play nice.

Xander chuckled and shrugged. “Guess it is my lucky day. The team on board with this?”

“I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.”

He didn’t want to seem like a sap but it meant something that the team was willing to take a chance on him. He jerked a nod and sent his gaze out the small window, needing a minute to collect himself. He wasn’t usually a crier but this hit all the feels in all the tender spots.

“You going to cry?” Scarlett asked, frowning. “Pull yourself together or I’ll put a bullet in your kneecap.”

He laughed, not entirely sure that she was joking. “How’s that head of yours?”

“Pounding like a mother. You clocked me good and don’t think for a second that I’m not going to pay you back for that one.”

“Oh, I know you will.”

“Good.”

Maybe he was an asshole but he took a certain amount of pride for getting the jump on Scarlett. She was TL for a reason—shrewd, smart and always on target—Scarlett didn’t mess around. “Admit it... I got you good,” Xander couldn’t resist teasing, even though he knew poking at Scarlett was like poking at an angry bear.

She leveled a short look his way and changed the subject. All business. “What’s your plan?” she asked.

“My plan? Well, presently, I plan to sleep. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been on the run for the past week and a half and it hasn’t exactly been a vacation filled with rest and relaxation.”

“Boo-hoo. You shouldn’t have run in the first place.” She had zero sympathy. “If you would’ve trusted your team, we could’ve handled this the right way. Now we have to do things the wrong way and that means it’s going to be ten times harder than it needs to be.”

“Yeah? So turning myself in would’ve been the right way? What makes you think that I wouldn’t have met an untimely end while in custody? Something tells me that whoever is framing me isn’t real keen on having me around for long. Dead men tell no tales and all that.”

She conceded his point. “Still, you made it worse by running. You could’ve at least told me.”

There was something behind her curt response that tugged at his conscience. Did Scarlet have feelings? And if so, had he inadvertently stepped on them? To be real, that was more disconcerting than the idea of being framed. “Yeah well, hindsight and all that. Kinda hard to think rationally when you’re being framed for a crime you didn’t commit.”

“Copy that,” Scarlett acknowledged with a solemn nod, then added, “But you have to believe in your team. You know that without the strength of your team behind you, a mission is bound to fail. You panicked—and that’s exactly what a rookie would do.”

He disagreed. “You call it panic—I call it calculated self-defense. I wasn’t about to give up my control and walk into a potential ambush like a lamb to slaughter. Sorry, it is what it is, but that ain’t happening.”

The idea of walking meekly into anything remotely close to what Scarlett had been suggesting made his balls shrivel up.

Scarlett could tell he wasn’t going to budge and she wasn’t going to waste the energy, which was good because he was done talking about it anyway. Pulling his ball cap down low, he folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes.

“You’re really going to sleep?”

“Mmmhhmmm.”

“Damn it, Xander. We need a strategy.”

“No, I need sleep. It’s two and a half hours to Oklahoma. Cool your jets until we land. Read a magazine or something.”

Scarlett exhaled in irritation, muttering under her breath, “You’re making it real hard to remember why I’m putting my ass on the line for you.”

He smirked from beneath his ball cap. Because I’m the best dick you’ve ever had, baby. In the interest of self-preservation...he kept that comment to himself.

Scarlett was fuming.

She narrowed her gaze at Xander—who, by the way, was already lightly snoring as if he were sacked out in the Hilton and not folded into an economy seat two sizes too small for his solid frame—and wanted to shove him out the plug door.

And if she took a moment to enjoy the image of Xander flailing from the plane at thirty-thousand feet elevation, she didn’t feel an ounce of guilt, mostly because her head hurt and that was squarely Xander’s fault.

She’d purposely purchased the seat next to her so that no one else would be sitting in close quarters to them; the last thing she needed was some yahoo eavesdropping on their conversation.

But as it turned out, the extra seat was unnecessary. Well, Xander was going to pay her back for that extra seat, seeing as she’d purchased it with her own money.

Almost three hours to kill and Xander was off to la-la land, sleeping like the dead. Scarlett grabbed the in-flight magazine and thumbed through it, not really looking at anything in particular, just using it as a distraction.

But her mind was difficult to distract.

Part of the reason she suffered from insomnia.

Her brain didn’t recognize the “off” switch.

And one of the memories her brain liked to chew on was that night with Xander.

First, it had been an epic mistake. Let’s just get that out of the way right now.

Second, it had been the best sex of her life.

Third, she had been pretty drunk so it was possible her recollection of the event couldn’t be trusted.

Yet, knowing that she’d been sauced didn’t seem to water down what she did remember.

Xander, his body crisscrossed with scars and tattoos—she was a sucker for both—with muscle cording that solid frame like he’d been carved from stone and his hands, calloused and rough like a real man’s should be, touching her bare skin with urgency.

Yeah, that kind of loving was hard to forget.

It didn’t help that she’d been in a bit of a drought, either—did three years qualify as a drought or a cry for help?—and she’d been about ready to hump the table leg.

The liquor had only made that need for human contact worse.

Most people didn’t understand their job, how ending an assignment successfully is an adrenaline rush unlike any drug and if that adrenaline wasn’t channeled, it turned restless, which with their demons, was dangerous.

Blowing off steam was a necessity, not a luxury. Usually, she went off on her own but that night she’d needed companionship.

She’d known better than to drink with the guys, especially Xander, but she’d been weak. There was no way to pretty that up and she hated that she’d succumbed to her baser needs with barely a fight.

But there’d always been something between her and Xander, that tiny spark that was hard to ignore. The way his eyes sparkled with mischief most days made her stomach tremble and when that intensity swiveled her way, she about melted in the most feminine way imaginable.

And it freaked her out.

Scarlett was more comfortable with the prospect of shooting people than opening up to another human being. Being vulnerable—no, thanks.

So why’d she let down her guard with Xander? Hell, she wished she knew. Maybe if she’d gone home that night, she would’ve spent some quality time with her vibrator and then gone to bed alone. Maybe if that’d been her course of action, she wouldn’t be threatening her career for a man who may or may not be guilty.

She glanced over at him. He seemed pretty chill for a guy who was on the run but that was Xander’s gift. He never crumbled under pressure—a quality she admired—but would it kill him to show just a smidge of human emotion. His life was on the line, for crying out loud.

Not even a thank-you for risking her ass for his. Typical Xander, but she couldn’t complain too much. He hadn’t asked for her help or for her involvement. She bought tickets to this shit show all on her own.

Scarlett blew out a short breath, shaking her head as she replaced the magazine in the mesh compartment on the backside of the seat in front of her.

The thing about alcohol, it did more than drop panties... It dropped walls.

Walls that were there for a reason.

Scarlett shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with her memories.

How much had she told him about her past? The night was an erotic blur for the most part but she remembered lying in his arms afterward, a feeling of safety overriding her usual need for distance.

It had left her with a vague sense of disquiet, wondering if she was missing out on something potentially great. But by morning, all that had remained was the intense need to forget any of it had happened.

Shaking off the memory, Scarlett returned to her present situation.

She didn’t have access to the internet or her notes on the Tulsa case. Maybe she ought to follow Xander’s lead and take a short snooze.

Right after she downed some whiskey and a few aspirin for her pounding headache. She rubbed at her temples, casting a dark look at her snoozing travel companion. How was it even possible that Xander slept like the dead as if nothing were troubling him?

She’d need a horse tranquilizer to achieve that level of relaxation.

Signaling the flight attendant, she ordered her whiskey, tossed a few aspirin to the back of her throat and settled in for a quick catnap.

When she opened her eyes again, Xander was already bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, preparing for the landing. Damn, had she really slept hours in a blink? Scarlett wiped at her eyes and tried to get her bearings.

“Hey there, sleeping beauty,” Xander teased. “I thought you were going to sleep through the landing.”

“It must be the head injury,” she groused, sending him a dark look. “How close are we to landing?”

“About ten minutes.”

Scarlett checked her watch to confirm. “A few minutes off schedule but not bad.”

“We hit some turbulence and wind resistance.”

She nodded, secretly glad she’d slept through that. As many times as she’s flown and jumped from an airplane on missions, she wasn’t a fan of flying and always white-knuckled the bumpy spots.

Whenever Scarlett felt out of her element, she clung to training. “When we land, we’ll rent a car and get a hotel off the main path. Somewhere without a lot of traffic.”

Xander leveled his gaze her way. “Look, I appreciate you willing to come and see this thing through with me but you’re off the clock.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, you’re not my TL right now. This is my detail and I call the shots. If you can’t do that, you might as well take the next flight back to McClean.”

“So you’re saying you’re in charge,” Scarlett summed up, amused and a little wary. “You’re the boss.”

“Exactly.”

Scarlett wasn’t on company time, so technically Xander was right. Although on the flip side, she was doing him a favor by not clapping him in iron bracelets, so a little respect wasn’t out of order.

She supposed it was better to work side by side than against one another, especially if they had the same goal, so she conceded with a nod. However, she didn’t hesitate to add, “If it turns out you’re guilty, I’m going to take you down.”

“I would expect nothing less, but I’m not guilty so I’m not worried.”

“I guess that’s what we’ll find out.”

Xander shrugged. “Yep.”

As the plane began its descent, Scarlett wondered if she was putting her faith in a really good conman or a man who had demons but was ultimately innocent.

The clock was ticking.

Please be innocent. I don’t want to have to arrest or kill you.