Cody Walker's Woman (19 page)

The smile on Cody’s face spread at her revelation. “I’m glad,” he said, holding her gaze before turning his attention back to his boots. He tugged them on and slid the knife sheath neatly in place before he answered her original question. “Doesn’t do me any good if I’m not wearing it when I need it,” he explained, and she knew he was remembering that first night, and the use he’d put the knife to in their escape.

“Doesn’t it bother you, though, wearing it in your boot?”

He shook his head. “I’m used to it. If I didn’t wear boots it might be difficult, but as it is...” He shrugged.

“How...?” She wasn’t quite sure what she was asking, but he seemed to know.

“I’ve been fascinated with knives ever since I was a kid,” he said. “My father gave me a shotgun for my twelfth birthday, but long before that I was teaching myself to throw knives. I know it’s an arcane skill, like archery, but there’s something satisfying about it I can’t explain, so I don’t even try.”

He smiled faintly, and—not bragging, just stating a fact—said, “It might even be that I saved Mandy’s life that way six years ago, and Callahan’s, too. No way to know for sure—Callahan’s pretty sharp with his .45, and he fired almost at the same time I threw my knife. But a knife has one thing a gun can’t match, even with a silencer—it’s whisper-quiet. And just as deadly.”

“In the right hands,” Keira qualified.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and Keira knew even without him saying it that his hands were the right ones...and she wasn’t just talking about knives.

He leaned over and kissed her, a long, lingering kiss that made her heart kick into overdrive. He gently tugged the sheet down, his gaze sliding down, too, and Keira’s nipples tightened automatically. His lips brushed first one nipple, then the other, and he said, “No bruises. Good.” His hand followed his lips, and as she watched, his expression changed from possessive satisfaction to intense desire.

Keira felt herself flushing, hating the way her complexion betrayed her at times. But she didn’t try to tug the sheet back into place. What would be the point? And besides, a very female part of her reveled in the enjoyment he derived from her body. It was a powerful feeling, even if it took her by surprise. She knew she was softening, melting, her womanhood responding to the firm, masculine hand caressing her. And she loved the way Cody made her feel almost as much as she loved him.

“I have to go,” he said finally, regret coloring his words; she knew they were aimed at himself even more than they were aimed at her.

“I wish...” she began, but then stopped herself.

“Me, too.” He smiled at her, a soft, intimate, and very male smile that held more than a touch of possessiveness. “But not tonight.” He pulled himself away and stood up. He slid his shoulder holster in place and buckled it before shrugging on his jacket to cover it. “Come, lock the door behind me,” he said.

Keira slipped out of the bed and snagged the khaki-colored T-shirt she always wore in place of a nightgown from where it hung on a hook in her closet. The U.S. Marine Corps logo was on the back, and
Semper Fi
was emblazoned across the front. She scrambled into it as Cody watched.

“Not bad,” he teased, tracing the lettering across her chest with one finger. “I like the way you think.”

“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” she answered promptly.

“Yeah, but none of my marine buddies looked like this in a T-shirt.” His hands slid beneath the hem, curving around her bare bottom and pulling her closer. “Damn!” he whispered before his mouth descended for a long, drugging kiss.

“No more,” he said when he finally raised his head. Keira knew he was fighting himself...and she knew why. He wasn’t going to make love to her again until they addressed the birth control issue, and she resolved to make an appointment with her doctor tomorrow. In the meantime, there was a drugstore just down the street....

* * *

Cody whistled tunelessly to himself as he rode down in the elevator. He couldn’t help but feel good about his life, despite Keira’s revelations earlier that day about the connection between the New World Militia and the Russian Brotherhood. The agency had a long, tough job ahead of it putting together a prosecutable case. And the ever-present threat of danger to anyone who had been involved in bringing down the militia six years ago still lurked.

But somehow those things didn’t matter right now. All he cared about in this instant was Keira. Life couldn’t be anything but good for a man when Keira loved him.

He exited Keira’s building, his eyes automatically sweeping the street, alert for danger even though part of him dismissed the possibility. He saw nothing to worry about, but when he walked to where his truck was parked, he stopped dead in his tracks even before he clicked the electronic unlock button on the key fob. Something wasn’t right.

He couldn’t have said what it was at first. A cursory inspection under the streetlights indicated his truck didn’t appear to have been tampered with. But then he realized it was too clean. The thin film of dust that should have been on the hood...wasn’t.

He slid his hand inside his jacket for his gun, drew it and backed away, hoping whatever explosive device had been wired inside his truck was ignition or accelerator detonated, and not remotely detonated by someone watching nearby. But nothing happened, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. When he reached the entrance to Keira’s building, he buzzed her condo, his mind racing.

Someone had followed him here.

Someone had followed him, waited for him to enter the building, and rigged his truck with explosives. Someone who had known they’d have enough time to finish the job. Someone who had followed him before...and had seen him with Keira.

“Cody?” Keira’s voice came through the intercom. “What’s wrong?”

He realized then that the building’s entrance was wired for video as well as sound. He glanced up, and sure enough, there was a camera in one corner. “Buzz me in,” he said.

When the buzzer went off, he opened the door and headed for the elevator, holstering his gun at the same time. Then he changed his mind and took the stairs.
Elevators can be death traps,
he reminded himself as he opened the door to the stairwell.

If they’d followed him to Keira’s, she might very well be in danger even though the building seemed to have decent security. But he knew any security could he breached, and his face hardened as he jogged up the eight flights to Keira’s floor. He rang her doorbell, only slightly winded, and when she opened the door to him he hustled her inside and locked the door behind them.

“What is it?” she asked, her eyes wide.

But she wasn’t frightened, Cody saw. Just alert. And her Glock was in her right hand. A thrill of pride shot through him as he remembered his one-time wish for a woman who would kill to protect him, just as he’d kill to protect her. He smiled and kissed her fiercely before moving to the phone in the living room.

His voice was grim. “Somebody tampered with my truck.” He picked up her phone and dialed the agency. It only took a couple of minutes to arrange for an explosives team to come check out his truck, and he gave them his cell phone number to contact him, not wanting to give out Keira’s number.

When he hung up she asked him, “How do you know?”

Cody laughed without humor. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” He looked at her, still clad in nothing but her
Semper Fi
T-shirt; but her hair was damp, so he knew she’d taken a shower after he left. He said, “You’d better get dressed. I’m going to call Baker Street.” He dialed a number from memory he’d already used once this month, and watched as Keira headed for the bedroom.

The phone rang only a few times before it was answered. “D’Arcy.”

“It’s Special Agent Walker, sir. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No. What is it?”

Cody told him, quickly and concisely.

“Let me know when you get confirmation from the explosives team,” the other man said. “I want the specifics.” Cody noted he didn’t even question Cody’s reading of the situation. Any other man might have said “if.” But D’Arcy, who never said what he didn’t mean, who never used one word when he meant another, said “when.” It was a little thing, but that positive assessment of his judgment was something Cody needed right then. Especially since he’d had to tell D’Arcy about....

“I will, sir,” Cody promised.

“And stay where you are for now, unless something happens. I’m going to send a team to protect the two of you until we can talk about this tomorrow morning. I am
not
going to lose an agent if I can help it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you warned Callahan and McKinnon?”

“My next call.”

“Good. Keep me posted.”

Cody hung up when D’Arcy did. He pulled out the disposable cell phone he used exclusively to contact Callahan, and when the phone was answered he didn’t even bother to identify himself.

“Someone tampered with my truck earlier tonight.” Keira came back into the room just then, fully dressed, including the jacket he knew hid her shoulder holster. He mouthed the word “Callahan” to her before continuing. “An explosives team is on their way, but I wanted to warn you.”

“Since you’re calling me, I can safely assume it didn’t go off?” Callahan said dryly.

Cody was surprised into laughing. “Yeah. Go figure.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Dust,” Cody said. “That wasn’t there.”

Callahan grunted his approval. “You know, Walker,” he started, but Cody beat him to the punch line, laughing.

“For an amateur, I’m not half bad. Yeah, I hear that a lot.” Then he turned serious. “Watch your back, okay? Mandy would never forgive me, if...” He didn’t have to finish.

“I’ve got McKinnon,” Callahan said. “He’s enough for now.”

“Just do me a favor and double-check everything, okay?” Cody didn’t wait for Callahan’s response. He disconnected and pocketed the cell phone, then told Keira, “At least he’s warned. He says McKinnon is enough for now, but...”

“What did Baker Street say?” she asked.

“He wants us to sit tight. He’s sending a team to protect us until we can figure out what we need to do. And he wants to see us first thing tomorrow.”

A stricken look came over her face. “You
told
him?” she whispered. “You told him about us?”

Cody stiffened and smothered the slash of pain her words engendered.
Is she ashamed of loving me?
he wondered, before he said, “I didn’t tell him the specifics, but, yes, I told him where I was and how long I was here.” He gazed down at her. “I
had
to, Keira,” he said softly with just a hint of pleading in his voice, willing her to see the necessity. “He needed to know—it’s relevant to the situation.”

“I...” She threw him a wounded look. “I had to tell him about you rescuing me,” she said, and he saw her swallow visibly. “What will he think of me now?”

Cody thought he understood then. “That you’re human, like the rest of us?” he offered.

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand more than you think I do.”

“You can’t. You’re not a woman.”

“Then tell me so I’ll understand.” Cody knew the issue was more than just a lack of understanding; he knew somehow he was fighting for Keira herself. If they were ever to have a future together, if their relationship was ever going to be more than just fantastic sex, he needed to understand where she was coming from...and she needed to understand him, too.

Something McKinnon had said to him weeks ago suddenly came back to him.
She comes from a large family—four brothers, all older, all former marines, too. Maybe that’s why she has a thing about wanting to do her job as well as, or better than, a man could...

“This is about your brothers, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. “About your family?”

She drew a sharp breath and turned away from him, and Cody knew he’d hit the bull’s-eye on the first try. He walked over to her and slid his arms around her from behind. She resisted at first, standing stiffly in his embrace, but when he didn’t do anything but hold her, she relaxed her guard just the slightest bit.

“I never told you what I said to Callahan when I was trying to convince him you could be trusted, did I?” he asked conversationally, breathing in the scent of her but refusing to succumb to the temptation.

“You told him how we met,” she said gruffly. “And you told him I reminded you of his wife.”

“Yes, but that’s not all I told him.”

“Something about guts and brains?” she asked. “He mentioned you’d said that, too.”

“Yeah, but that’s still not all of it.” Cody thought for a moment, trying to remember his exact words. “I told him that physically you’re no match for a man, but you’ve got guts and brains. I said you’d fight to the death, if that’s what it takes, and he couldn’t ask for much more than that.”

She turned in the circle of his arms, facing him, her eyes betraying her emotional uncertainty. “You didn’t even know me then,” she whispered. “How could you know that about me?”

Cody gazed down at her. “I knew that about you in the first five minutes,” he said simply, his eyes forcing her to remember that first night and the way she’d fought not only him, but her kidnappers.

When she continued to stare at him in disbelief, he added, “And when I told Callahan you reminded me a lot of Mandy, I also said you’d shoot me if you had to. That was the clincher. And it was the truth, too.”

Her eyes crinkled at the corners, in the way he was coming to know meant she was emotionally hurt. “Not now,” he clarified with a faint smile. “I don’t think you’d shoot me
now
...unless I completely misheard you earlier.”

She laughed a little at that, as he had intended her to do. He pulled her closer. “Being a woman doesn’t have anything to do with the kind of agent you are. Everyone who knows your work thinks the world of you, including me.”

His voice dropped a notch. “But, Keira, you’re a woman,” he told her. “Don’t be ashamed of that.” He took a deep breath, letting his pain creep into his voice. “And don’t be ashamed of what you feel for me.”