Let Me In

by Donna Kauffman

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

In this clunky romantic thriller from RITA-finalist Kauffman (The Great Scot), Tate Winslow, a former operative for a covert U.S. government agency, goes into a witness protection program and becomes, somewhat improbably, Tara Wingate, a successful novelist living in Virginia's Hebron Valley. Then one night her former boss, rogue agent Derek Cole, knocks on her door and announces that Tate's former agency partner, CJ, whom Tate saw shot before her eyes three years earlier, is alive and needs their help in being extracted from an undercover operation gone bad. Before Tate and Derek can rescue CJ, they have to wonder-could CJ be a double agent? And given their growing mutual attraction, can they keep their hands off each other long enough to effectively deal with the villains? Romance pro Kauffman has much to learn about creating suspense, as shown by the slow, dialogue-driven plot, which begs for more action and more believable agency backstory. (Mar.)

Release date: December 17, 2009

Publisher: Kensington Trade

Print pages: 384

Sample

He was the last person she ever wanted to see again. She’d done her time, she was out now. For good. Free. Free to be whatever she wanted to be, and what she wanted to be was alone.

It had been three years since they’d parted ways, and not under the best of circumstances. Derek Cole had been her boss then; the man who decided where she went, what she did, and how long she stayed. To say he hadn’t been happy with her decision to resign would be putting it mildly. Too damn bad, had been her feeling at the time. The intervening years had done nothing to change that sentiment.

Tate Winslow didn’t just like her newfound solitude, she reveled in it. Home used to be wherever she laid her hat. And her gun. Now home was the stunning vistas and peaceful beauty of the Hebron Valley, framed by the gently rolling Blue Ridge Mountains in Madison County, Virginia. She’d been Agent Winslow in her previous life. She went by Tara Wingate now. Not a stunning change, she’d tried to keep some sense of herself, but change enough to start fresh, leaving no tracks. Hers was a privately designed protection program created by someone who knew firsthand how to make a person disappear. Her former boss hadn’t been pleased with her choice, but he’d respected it and her request for help in creating a new life for herself. She’d made certain no one here knew of her past…and he’d made certain no one from her past knew she was here. There had been no contact since and there would be no contact. Ever.

She’d come here battered in both body and soul, desperately in need of healing. She’d expected it to take time, and was willing to give herself whatever it was she needed to feel whole again. She’d given enough to others. It was time to take a little back for herself. Not that she’d really had a choice. There hadn’t been anything left to give.

Surprisingly, adjusting to the quiet life in the valley had come easily, and the healing had followed more swiftly than she’d imagined possible. She’d found her rhythm quite naturally here, the slower pace of life calling to her in more ways than she’d known were possible. She’d only wanted a break, an escape, a place to lick her wounds and heal in private. She hadn’t known the true depths of solace there was to be found in such a new way of life, but was profoundly grateful for every scrap of it. She hadn’t realized how much faith and trust—two commodities she’d never had in large supply—that she’d put into it always being there for her. Until the instant it all changed.

The adrenaline pumping into her system right now was the exact opposite of everything she’d come here for, everything she’d become. It made her physically nauseous. Worse was the ease with which her training kicked right back in. That she’d ever need for it to, ever again, made her emotionally sick. And mad as hell.

It was a brutal revelation, discovering her peaceful existence could be so easily and swiftly shattered by something as simple as a rattling doorknob. Three years in the valley had healed wounds, soothed scars, and introduced her to a world where joy was found in morning blooms and evening bird calls. But apparently no amount of soul-soothing would ever erase the training ingrained into her from her previous life. A life where distinguishing between, and identifying, even the tiniest of sounds could mean the difference between life and death.

So when the rattling sound came, she knew it wasn’t the wind whistling over the shaker roof and vibrating the frame of her log cabin home. She had made casual friends of a few neighbors since moving here, but not a single one of them would have come calling after midnight without advance notice…even in an emergency. She had no family, no relatives. No one who would simply enter, or try to, without knocking first.

And yet, someone was at her door. A door no one from her previous life should know existed. Or certainly not where it existed. Derek hadn’t been happy she’d left the team, but he’d promised he’d allow her the permanent exile she sought. And though he’d been a tough boss, he’d never expected anything from his team that he hadn’t taken, or couldn’t take, himself. He never shied away from making a blunt observation, and he never made promises because he knew reality didn’t always come with the luxury of keeping them. So, when he gave his word, he backed it up. Without fail.

The return of that sickening, heart-pounding sensation, where every second was crystallized into a completely separate, fully realized moment in time, was something she’d never wanted to experience, ever again. But, in less than five seconds, she had palmed her gun from under the corner of her mattress—a security blanket, she’d told herself, smart for a woman living alone in the middle of nowhere—and had her back flat against the wall next to her bedroom door. She hated this, hated it with a deepening rage that was almost as bone-chilling as the sound that had launched her into it.

Drawing on every shred of training she’d had, fury mounted as she made her way out of her only bedroom, and crept down the short hall to the front room. She paused to peek around the corner, making a slow visual sweep of her small cabin, then moved in along the front wall. Staying low to the ground, she peered cautiously out of the panoramic front window, silently cursing the lack of night vision goggles, hating that she’d even thought of it. She’d bought the cabin mainly for that window, and the view of the valley and the endless rippling vistas of blue mountains that it showcased. The idea that someone was out there, using the very same window to stare in at her, made her even more livid.

She was crawling toward the door, already leaning toward shooting first and asking questions later, when a hushed, gravelly voice whispered, “Tate. It’s me.”

She went stock still, her heart lodged instantly in her throat. Hearing her old name . . knowing only one person could connect the woman living in this cabin to that name, only increased her fury. She knew that voice. Knew it belonged to a man who was quite capable of getting himself into any structure he wanted to. So why was he rattling her door knob? Unless…

She crept closer, and positioned herself on the hinged side of the door. Not smart, but Derek would expect her to do as she’d been trained. Especially considering he’d been the one to do the training. It was the smallest of edges, but with him she’d need every one she had. She didn’t respond.

“Tate. Let me in.” There was a long pause, then a choked, “Please.”

Please? The almighty Derek Cole asking instead of telling?

He had to be in trouble. The most serious kind. And of all the places in the world he could go and drag that trouble with him, he’d chosen her doorstep.

“How dare you,” she hissed, not intending to speak at all, but her rage at his gall robbed her of her better judgment.

“Had no choice.”

“There are always choices.”

“Open the door. I haven’t—I can’t—”

There was a thump against the door, as if his body weight had collapsed against it. Or the body weight of someone else. Holy Mother of—if he’d brought some wounded team member to her door, thinking she would play doctor—

“I will shoot you both if you so much as set foot inside this house. Find somewhere else to bleed to death. Anywhere else.” To anyone else, the comment would seem callous at best, heartless at worst, but they had all been trained to do what they could to right very difficult wrongs in exceedingly impossible situations. Every single time they went to work, they put their lives on the line, knowing every mission could be their last. The risks sucked, and nobody wanted to die, but that was part of the job. And the other part of the job was to accept those risks…and never put innocent bystanders in danger in order to save yourself. You’d inserted yourself willingly into a potentially deadly situation. They hadn’t.

There was a grunt. Then another thump. “Just me, Tate.” Another thump, then a scraping sound. “Just me.”

She leaned against the wall of the cabin, willing her racing heart and even more swiftly racing mind to slow down long enough so she could think and act clearly. “It’s Tara. I don’t work for you any longer, and I sure as hell don’t owe you anything. Get off my property, Derek.”

“Can’t.”

“Won’t.” And that was just it. Short of calling the authorities or putting him out of his misery right there on her front porch, there was going to be no way to get rid of him. She looked at the small table on the other side of the door, and the drawer where she kept a charged cell phone. She’d only gotten it for emergency purposes. Otherwise she didn’t need one. There was no one to call, and no one who would call her. But if anything constituted an emergency it was this. Only without knowing the parameters of the mission that had driven him to her doorstep, even calling the locals to haul an apparent unknown trespasser off her property could unwittingly put others in danger. Which meant she couldn’t make that call, and she hated him even more because he damn well knew it.

“You need to be anywhere else but here,” she informed him.

“It’s about CJ.”

Tate’s heart stopped all together. A split second later, she was yanking the door open, and dragging a half-hunched, half-crumpled Derek into her living room. He grunted when she left him to lie where she’d dragged him, stepping over his prone body to close the door, unable to tell, in the pitch darkness, whether he’d left any telltale signs of his presence on her porch. Like a backpack. Or a pool of blood.

She rolled him to his side, not particularly caring what injuries he’d sustained—and it was clear he wasn’t healthy at the moment—or how much worse she might be making them by her rough handling. She gripped the collar of his black, Kevlar-lined jacket and yanked up so his face turned up toward hers. “CJ is dead. I saw her.”

“You were wrong,” he choked out.

“Wrong?” She shook him, stunned, beyond even fury now, unable to process the whole of what was happening. Her training might never wane, but she wasn’t as mentally sharp as she used to be. In any other instance, she’d be happy—proud, even—to know that about herself. It wasn’t healthy to have your brain wired to register, analyze, and process life-or-death information in an instant, and do so as if it were as natural as breathing. “Wrong how? I saw her. I know I’m not wrong. She’s dead, Derek. Has been since three days before they pulled me out of that godforsaken village.”

“No,” was all he managed.

“How could that be? Is this some kind of sick hoax? How dare you come here and—” She made herself stop, and swallowed hard, jaw so tight it ached. “Tell me, all of it, right now, or so help me, God—”

“They still had her. After you…she was still there. Is still.”

Tate’s grip loosened. “No,” she said, the whisper sounding like it had been tortured out of her. “That’s impossible. Not after what we—oh God.” Her fingers went completely slack. His head thumping against the floor barely registered as wave upon wave of unwanted memories flooded her mind. “It’s been three years,” she said, her voice toneless now, hollow, as she fought against the swiftly resurfacing past and the wave of nausea that accompanied it. The fury that had built up inside her fled so quickly it left her feeling lightheaded.

Think about CJ. Not…not what had happened back then.

Back there.

CJ. Alive. She simply couldn’t put that together. Not in any rational way.

She looked at Derek, who hadn’t moved. Her eyes had adjusted to the low light, but it was still too dark to make out much. He was in significant pain, that much was certain. Tough shit, she thought, resisting with all her might the avalanche of nightmares that were piled up behind a mental door she’d very carefully, and very thoroughly, closed the day she’d left Washington. “How?” she choked out. “How do you know this?”

“Not…now,” Derek ground out. “Not yet. I’m—I’ve been…” He grunted as he struggled to lift his head on his own, scan his surroundings.

“I’m not bugged,” she retorted sharply, thankful for the sudden resurgence of fury. “No one has been here.”

“I have.”

Her throat closed over as the new reality she was trying to stave off battered its way through her carefully constructed walls.

He’d been here. In her space.

Her world here, her life, was truly compromised, then. She wanted to shake him, hard, wanted to scream and shout and inflict pain, the likes of which he was inflicting on her. “How dare you!” she half-sobbed, half-growled.

“Better me,” he managed, his voice, what there was of it, wavering badly as he let his head loll back to the floor. She could barely make out his features, but it looked like he had his eyes squeezed shut.

Interrogation and detainment rule number one: never shut your eyes. Never.

“Derek—”

“Than them,” he finished, then his head rolled to the side and his jaw went slack.

“Derek?” She leaned over him again. Despite her earlier threats, her heart tripped. “Don’t you go dying right in my foyer, dammit. You’ve already brought enough trouble to my door. You’re not about to leave me to figure out what to do about it by myself.” She pressed her palm to his cheek, turning his face to hers, trying to catch what little moonlight there was so she could better assess his condition. She didn’t dare turn on so much as a flashlight until she learned more about what she was up against. The muscles in his face had gone slack, but his eyes were closed, and she could feel the warmth of his breath. He was still alive. “Good,” she breathed, relaxing a little. She turned his face a bit more toward the spare wash of moonlight coming in through the front window. “Don’t think that means I won’t personally strangle you, though,” she warned, leaning closer to get a better look.

He’d either taken a hell of a fall, or a hell of a beating. She was betting on the latter. There was a gash over his left eyebrow. A black and blue contusion swelling over his right cheekbone. The corner of his mouth was dried with caked blood, and his chin was all scraped to hell. And that’s just what she could make out in next-to-no-lighting. It was also a bitch of a time to notice how thick and dark his eyelashes were.

She lowered his head back to the floor and rocked back on her heels to look over the rest of him. He was five years her senior, which put him at thirty-eight now. And while her past and what she’d gone through had left an indelible stamp on her, aging her in body, mind, and soul, whatever he’d been through in the past three-plus years—or hell, even in the past three days—hadn’t diminished one iota of his natural, God-given beauty. Of which he’d always had an abundance. Didn’t change the fact that he was a hard-ass, son-of-a-bitch who’d just compromised her whole world. And, quite probably, her life.

“Derek,” she repeated, sharply this time. “Don’t fade on me now. I need to know why you’re here, all of it, and what the hell happened to you.” She leaned over him again, and debated on doing a quick once-over with her hands to see if he was bleeding. He was lying in an awkward position, and she wished she had more light so she could get a better idea if he was suffering from any obvious fractures or dislocations. She refused to feel bad for her rough treatment of him earlier, but though she was still furious with him, it wasn’t in her to totally disregard his condition. Besides, she needed him to be alert so she could get information out of him. He’d sounded pretty out of it, which made her worry that he’d suffered something more than just a good ass-kicking.

She tried not to think about how he’d let himself even get in that position. He was better than that. But then, she’d been better than that, too. Sometimes, even the best weren’t good enough.

She started to slowly move his arm, hoping she could ease him over to his back, when she realized that the reason he was lying so awkwardly was because his wrists were bound behind his back. Shit.

She scooted around behind him, staying low to the floor, well below the line of view through the window. The cords wrapping his wrists together had been tied off neatly and thoroughly. A professional job. Her gut squeezed as a dozen new questions formed. He’d managed to loosen the bonds slightly, but from what she could feel of the skin around the cords, he’d paid a price for that, too.

She shifted her gaze to the rest of him, but had to run her hands down his hips and legs to get a true read on the rest. Her hands didn’t come away sticky, so no bullet holes, but his ankles had been bound as well. Which meant he’d made it to her house and up onto her porch in his current condition. That explained the weight of his body thudding against the door, and why he’d rattled the knob rather than simply entering the cabin using the skills they all possessed.

It also made her wonder where the hell the beating had occurred. It couldn’t have been that far away. She fought the sick dread that realization brought. Had he escaped? Or been left for dead? And just how imminent was the threat to her?

There was no way he could have been remotely stealthy getting from wherever he’d come from, to her door, in his current condition. Which meant anyone could easily follow his trail, literally to her door.

She glared at him, wanting to beat the ever-loving shit out of him, all over again.

“I have.” His confession ran through her mind. He’d been here, either in the area observing her, or physically in her home. Why? They didn’t work on home soil. Obviously it had something to do with CJ, if a semi-lucid statement made by someone in his condition could be believed. Maybe he wasn’t in his right mind. From the beating, or who the hell knew why. But, for whatever reason, he was on American soil, in the middle of nowhere, bound, beaten…and presently unconscious on her living room floor. So she’d better figure it the hell out, and fast.

How long had he been watching her? Could he have really been here, inside her cabin? He was a highly trained agent, but so was she. She’d like to think that she’d have noticed, either way. Hell, she should have felt it. She had truly gone completely soft. She’d wanted to distance herself from that hyper-aware, excruciatingly cognizant world she’d been a part of for far, far too long. And, apparently, she’d been even more successful at it than she’d known. At the moment, she didn’t feel all that victorious.

He let out a soft groan just then, and moved his head slightly. She shifted back around to the front of him. “What happened to you?” She leaned closer, close enough to see his eyelashes flutter and his throat work. “Derek. I need to know what was done to you. Who beat you? Why? Come on, you got yourself here, so you can’t be too bad off.”

She, of all people, knew that for the colossal lie that it was. Adrenaline and the will to survive could give a person near superhuman abilities, but even those wore off at some point. “You’re not safe yet,” she told him, trying to keep desperation from entering into her tone. If she let so much as a speck of panic filter through the anger right now, the past would barrel right through all of the mental barriers she’d worked so hard to build and refurbish. She simply couldn’t let that happen. Her life—her soul—depended on it. “And, thanks to you dragging your body onto my front porch, leaving God knows what kind of trail, neither am I.”

He worked his jaw, making a guttural noise, then followed with what sounded like a hoarse whisper. She was forced to lean closer still, and push her hair back so she could put her ear right next to his lips. She was furious and sick to her stomach with fear, and far and away yet from coping with even the first shred of what all this was going to do to her. So it was a damned inconvenient time to look at those lips and remember the thoughts she’d once had about them. Private thoughts—intensely private—that she’d shared with no one, ever. Not even CJ, who’d routinely made up fantasy scenarios about what they could do with and to their gorgeous, tough-as-nails boss as a way to pass the time during the more stultifying moments of whatever case they were on. And there were always plenty of those moments. She’d blamed her partner for her own vivid, highly erotic daydreams. But, truth be told, she’d done quite well with those long before CJ had started her frivolous game.

Thoughts of her former partner definitely weren’t helping her maintain, so she blanked out the fantasy scenarios, CJ, her own past life, and what had led her to leave it—as well as the man who had run it, and her—then did her damndest to look at that same man, now lying half-comatose on her cabin floor, as if he were nothing more than another problem to be solved, another mission to deal with.

And the only way she had a hope in hell of doing that was to revert to who she’d been before, or who she’d been trained to be, and completely disassociate her newfound inner self from the proceedings. It was the only way she could focus, so she could think, so she could analyze, so she could solve. It had been second nature to her once. It was the only thing that had kept her alive three years ago.

And it was how she’d stay alive now.

She willed the calm to come over her, a chilling calm that did little to soothe her raw nerves, or ease the acid eating her gut, but she knew that was merely a matter of time. They would smooth eventually. She couldn’t stay angry, couldn’t feel betrayed. Emotions of any kind clouded critical thinking. Critical thinking was paramount if she wanted to solve this problem, and live long enough to solve another.

When he didn’t speak again, she turned her own lips to his ear. “Only for CJ,” she whispered, curling her fingers into two tight fists. For a brief moment, she let the deep-seated anger, the hatred, the bitter fury and resentment flood through her. She’d never once allowed herself to feel anything so powerful as that toward anyone. Not even her captors. Especially her captors.

It should have rattled her more than it did. It exposed an alarming weakness. Hatred was a toxic poison that always did more damage to the one experiencing it than to the one it was directed at. In her line of work, that damage was often lethal. But, in that one instant, it felt good, so damn good, to channel all the horror, the fear, and the terror, into one black, twisting funnel of venomous fury and aim it directly at him.

Captivity had taught her the true nature of the precious gift of life. Her life. She, better than anyone, understood just how mighty a gift that was. One that she had a right to enjoy for herself. So, how dare he? How dare he take from her the one and only thing she’d ever asked for, or wanted, strictly for herself?

She shouldn’t have given in to the temptation, even for that one, blinding moment, knowing it could consume her whole if she let it. But, for the length of that instant, she didn’t regret it.

She rocked back on her heels and slowly uncurled her fists, feeling each finger as it relaxed and steadied.

“I’m in this now,” she said, her voice low, toneless, dead, as she cleansed herself of the last of the dark rush. “You’ve left me no choice.” She ran her gaze over him and mentally prepared herself to do a systematic, thorough check of his clothing, then every inch of his body. Just as she would with any person she encountered in his condition during a mission. She needed answers and she needed them fast. He might not be able to speak, but there were other ways to gather information.

First, however, she found herself leaning over him once more. She turned his face toward hers, then lowered her own until her lips were a breath away from his. “But understand one thing, Derek Cole. This time, you will answer to me.”

Derek fought the haze. He was in a fairly significant amount of pain, but that was secondary. That he could compartmentalize. It was just basic mechanics. What worked, what didn’t, and how long it would take to repair. The haze…that was different. He couldn’t divorce himself from it, he couldn’t ignore it, he couldn’t bend it to his will. Which was why drugs were often so much more effective than physical torture.

Controlling his thoughts was still a slippery endeavor. Staying focused could last several minutes, or mere seconds, before his mind would wander off down some path that could be fact, could be hallucination, or some devilish combination of the two. In the past twelve hours, he’d gotten better at distinguishing which was which, but he still couldn’t control the slide in and out. He didn’t know what they’d pumped into him, or how long the effects would last.

Worse, he had no idea what he’d told them. Had his years-long, intense training, which included subliminal subterfuge, even under duress and drug induced confessionals, held up? Or did they know everything he knew? Which was admittedly damn little, but more than anyone else knew at the moment.

He didn’t even know who the hell “they” were.

“Derek?”

Her voice. Tate’s voice. He felt his thoughts begin to slip away from him again and fought like hell to keep them in check, under his control. He’d missed that voice. Always so crisp, so businesslike, so succinct. He’d fantasized about that voice, about making it break, making it tremble. No…no, that was the drug talking. He’d never allowed himself to think of his best agent as anything more than just that. Only she wasn’t his anymore. In any capacity. Never would be. More’s the pity. But what other choice did he have? What other choice would someone like him ever have?

“Derek! Do you hear me?”

Yes. And he wanted it to stop. It was torture, that voice. So close, and yet so far. He’d watched her. For days now. So close, and yet farther away than ever. Torture, indeed.

“Don’t slip out on me,” she commanded. “You need to hold on. Wake up. Tell me what you’ve done.”

Done. What had he done? Bits of the past two days floated in and out of the pain-fogged haze that was his brain. He’d failed, that’s what he’d done.

He grimaced, trying to separate the pain from the haze. Focus past the haze, latch on to something, anything, that was real and solid, then build on that. But all he heard was Tate’s voice. All he saw was her cabin. With her safely in it. And him, forever on the outside, looking in. Keep her safe. But how? How to do his job, and keep her safe? He had to. He’d given his word. He never made promises. Yet, he’d made one to her.

And then darkness. And pain. And…limbo. No boundaries, infuriatingly elastic limbo. If this was purgatory, he’d rather just go to hell.

“Derek.”

“Right.” His voice…had that croak been his voice? Had he spoken, or just wished he had?

“Stay with me,” Tate’s voice implored.

“Want to,” he managed. Hadn’t that been the fantasy he’d never allowed himself to indulge in? Striding up to her door, announcing he was out, and would she please, for the love of God, take him in? Fantasy. Hallucination. He would never do that. Never ask that. He had a job to do. Always a job. Always…something.

“You can’t just come in here and die on my cabin floor without telling me what the hell you’ve dragged me into.”

Cabin floor. Tate’s voice. The drug, he was hallucinating again. He’d come inside. She’d let him in. Sanctuary. Hers. Now his.

Someone gripped his chin, shook his head a little. It had the effect of tossing his thoughts like mental salad with a side of pain, and it took him another moment to sort through the jumble. “Don’t,” he grunted. It was hard enough, fighting this battle.

“What did they do? Is it just physical? Mental? Internal? I don’t want to call anyone in, but if you need extreme medical care—”

“No.” It was an automatic response, one that was as much an intrinsic response due to his training, as it was an actual accurate assessment of his current situation.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what I’m up against.”

Derek gritted his teeth, and worked hard to open his eyes, to swallow against the gritty sandpaper that was his throat, to find some way to surface long enough to figure out where he was. Who was prodding him. Separate fact from drug-induced fantasy. He’d already gotten himself in this much trouble, no need to extend the streak any further.

He thought he’d managed to blink his eyes open briefly, but it was just as dark as before. Blind? No. No, he’d seen her face. Felt her touch. Not a dream. Not a hallucination. Which meant…“Tate?”

“Right here,” she said, matter-of-factly. “What did they do to you?”

She was here. He wasn’t going to make contact unless absolutely necessary. He groaned as she began working on the cords binding his wrists. Pain shot up through his elbows, then screamed when his shoulder moved.

The pain had a clarifying effect that was costly, but one he hung on to. He was with Tate. She was here. Talking to him. So, he’d made contact. He’d…fuck.

“I’m going to cut the cords on your wrists, but I don’t want you to move until we figure out if anything is broken.”

“Not,” he managed. Dislocated, but not broken. “Fine.”

She laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. And it made him want to smile. Which was proof right there how fucked up he really was.

“Hardly. But maybe you won’t die. Maybe you’ll live long enough so I can have the pleasure of killing you myself.”

He closed his eyes and stopped trying to roll his head so he could see her. “Please…do.” Then he could blessedly stop worrying. He hated worrying. It was a completely foreign concept to him. Worry was a luxury he simply did not allow himself. Focused, emotionless clarity. That was how he functioned. It was the only way someone in their profession could function and be successful. And survive.

No worries. Only the job. And how to get it done. Sometimes you won. Sometimes you lost. Sometimes people died either way. Cost of doing business. It wasn’t something you could lose sleep over.

But tell that to the sap of a conscience he’d suddenly developed. At least where Tate Winslow was concerned. Or Tara Wingate. Shit.

He’d apparently blown that all to hell anyway, considering his current location.

He’d never been good at that sort of thing anyway, having a conscience. It’s what made him good at what he did. Now he had to pray that Tate was still good at what she did. It was the only hope either of them had. For him, to get the job done. For her…to stay alive.

A long groan escaped him without his consent when the bonds slid free and gravity pulled at his arms as his hands relaxed against the floor. He wanted to move, to blessedly find a different position, one that would allow him at least a shred of control. But he wasn’t truly capable of assessing his injuries and, for Tate’s sake, if not for his own, he needed to at least relay to her what it was he’d dragged her into. Why he’d come.

“Don’t move.”

“Don’t worry.”

He felt her hands at his ankles, and then the pressure there eased as the cords slid away from them, too. He wanted, so badly, to just flex his legs, get the blood flowing back to the muscles, feel what the damage was. Pain was an incredible clarifier. It was excruciating, but this was the longest he’d held any real thought pattern in what felt like an eternity.

“Let me do a check.”

“Check,” he repeated, moving just enough to jolt himself alert, as the haze began to seep in around the fringes again.

“Don’t,” she warned, holding his legs still.

“Have to.”

“You have to do what I tell you to do. And only what I tell you to do.”

He smiled, then grimaced as the action pulled at abused, blood encrusted skin on his face and mouth. “Bossy.”

“I’m about to be your worst nightmare if you don’t lie still.”

“Can’t.” He’d already spent the past two days doing that.

“Will,” she said. “Since you can’t string more than two words together, let me do triage and try to catalogue the numerous sources of the pain you’re presently in.”

The haze was battling valiantly for a return, but while he was reasonably sure of his situation, he managed to tell her one critical detail. “Drugged.”

Her hands paused on their journey up his thigh. A journey that actually made him glad he was in the diminished physical capacity that he was at the moment. Because the drugs in his system wanted to have a field day with the hallucinatory scenarios her mere touch brought to mind. At least, he was going to blame it on the drugs. Easier than admitting he was human.

“How long ago?”

“Days. Think…two.”

“Two days?” She moved back up near his head, then gently prodded his e. . .