Secret Agent Seduction (A Completed Novella)

CHAPTER 7

Jude couldn't keep his attention on the big old house with a stone wall lining its perimeter. There was no gate at the driveway. Few lights shone from the many windows. Nothing appeared amiss here. That was a relief because every detail of Evie occupied his thoughts. Someone could show up with a gun and he wouldn't be ready. He'd had hot sex before, but Evie redefined the term. Her responses had triggered his.

Which made no sense. He'd always thought a woman from his type of work would be a better fit. It wasn't easy finding women like that. He'd dated a test pilot once. And an adventure tour guide. He'd gotten the closest to a real relationship with her. But she'd wanted a family, and told him she didn't think he'd be around enough for her or their potential kids. That was probably true. He wouldn't be home for dinner a lot of the time. He'd be home for blocks of time and gone the rest.

"You never told me why you do what you do."

He looked over at her from across the SUV. She was still wearing her black dress. Why did she keep asking him about that?

He'd rather not talk about the past. It never brought him good feelings. And it was even more troubling how part of him felt he could tell her. Everything. She was someone he could trust.

"What did you do before you went black?" she persisted.

"I was an FBI agent."

"An FBI agent? So you still have friends there and that's why they use you?"

"No. This has nothing to do with my time at the Bureau." She wasn't going to let up on him so he continued. "You want to know why I left? I needed more latitude, freedom to do what's necessary to get the job done."

Her brow tightened with confusion. "You needed to work underground? Why? Does it give you a power trip or something? You get off operating above the law?"

She was fishing for an ego problem. Was she trying to find flaws? "Once my sister's murder was finally solved, it was time to move on."

"Your sister…" Her face showed she was sufficiently appalled with her earlier judgment. Ego hadn't driven him to join TES.

"She was murdered by a serial killer. He'd targeted young women who jogged at dinnertime. He abducted them in parks and bike trails. No one ever saw him."

"Until you caught him?"

"We finally found a witness. Evidence at the killer's house gave us all the DNA we needed to pin him with several of the other murders. My sister's being one of them."

"That's so terrible."

He waited for her to say she was sorry. Why did people say they were sorry when others lost their loved ones? Why did sorry have to be the word everyone used?

"You joined the FBI because of her?"

"Yes."

"Once her murder was solved, why didn't you stay? You could have still helped people. You didn't have to go black to do that."

"I could have stopped her killer a lot sooner if I hadn't had to follow the law. I knew who her killer was two victims before I was able to have him arrested." It still made him so angry. How many times had he taken his pistol and gone after him. Watched him. Almost killed him…

Evie stared at Jude as his statement sank in. He was lawless and he preferred it that way. It was the reason he'd walked from the crime scene at the restaurant. Staying would have been a waste of time.

He felt the sorry word coming. The way she looked at him clued him in. The sympathy. The helplessness. Sorry was all people had to offer in the face of loss.

"At some point you're going to have to let her go, you know."

Her comment, so full of ballsy attitude, so on the mark, took him aback. Rarely did anyone surprise him. Evie surprised him. Her slap-in-the-face, brutally honest statement had been meant to jar him. Well, it had.

"What did you do before you were an agent? An FBI agent, not a black-ops agent."

Had he ever met an ordinary woman who had such an attitude before? The test pilot had, and so had the adventure guide. But Evie was an HR executive. She was ruining his theory.

"I was in college when she was killed. My first year."

"And your degree was going to be in…?"

He saw where she was headed with this.

"Geology."

"Geology." She nodded with a cynical frown on her mouth. "Quite a bit different than black ops."

She made him grin, and then laugh a little. "Are you always this direct?"

"Always. Yes."

She had left her date in the middle of dinner.

"I don't aspire to be a geologist deep inside. I'm doing what I'm meant to do."

"Okay, but you still haven't let your sister go. I wonder what you'll do with your life once you do."

She turned as a car drove up to the house. He was glad for the interruption.

"Looks like it's time to see who's home," Evie said, obliterating his concept of her as a woman who wasn't his type. She had courage.

Independent. Secure.

He couldn't say she was trusting yet. "You should wait here." He got out of the SUV.

Evie did the same and met his reproach defiantly. "I'm in just as much danger out here as I am with you."

He wasn't quite sure how to take that and didn't have time to argue. He let her come with him. She wouldn't be the first woman he'd protected on a mission.

They approached the home of Nichols's associate. He jogged with her among the trees and other landscaping around to the back. There was no security.

This may be a dead end.

"There are lights on in the basement. Look." Evie pointed.

Jude saw that several small windows were lit. If there was any action going on here, that's where it was. He led her closer. No one was in sight. Crouching near one of the windows, they both saw an unfinished basement that was filled with a dozen men. Some sat at tables. There were televisions set up all over. In corners, on tables.

Evie elbowed him.

He looked to the far right of the room. Five men in suits were bound to chairs.

"They're still alive."

Were they going to demand money? Terrorists were often takers that way. "I can't take you in there." He couldn't risk her life.

"We have to do something."

He took out his phone. "Wait for help." She'd know what kind of agency he worked for by the time this was over. Cullen would send his best.

Just as he finished with Odie, someone aimed a rifle at his head. "Put your hands up."