Return to Me (31 page)

“You want to tell me why the hell you’re here instead of doing your job?”

“Hello to you, too.”

“Don’t push it, Ethan.”

Ethan held back a grin that tickled at his mouth. A good way to get a fist down his throat. Not that he wasn’t up for a good fight. God knew the last few weeks had been boring. Maybe later. First, he had a few things to tell Noah about his ladylove.

Sauntering past Noah, he sprawled out on the sofa and waited.

“I spoke with Samara,” Noah said.

Now that was a surprise. “What’d she say?”

“She told me she sent you home.”

“That’s true.”

“That’s not her place. It’s mine. You shouldn’t have left her. She said she had some trouble last night.”

“Did she tell you that she took down a man twice her size?”

“Dammit, that’s why you were there … so she didn’t have to do that. She’s not capable—”

Ethan stood and pulled an envelope from the inside of his jacket. “Gotta disagree with you there.” Leaning forward, he threw some photos on the desk. “Take a look at her moves, Noah. The woman can definitely defend herself.”

Noah barely glanced at them before he turned back to Ethan. “She got lucky.”

“No. She’s strong. She got herself trained. She’d make a damn good operative.”

Turning his back to Ethan, he growled, “I’m not going to argue with you. Go back and do your job.”

“No.”

When Noah whirled back around, Ethan knew that fight might be coming sooner than he expected.

“What?”

“I said no. The woman doesn’t need my protection.”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

“Noah, when I hired on with LCR, you told me my number-one priority was rescuing victims. This woman is no victim and sure as hell doesn’t need rescuing.”

Noah’s next words surprised him.

“I read the file on the Blackburn case.”

Ah yes, the op he’d handled two weeks after getting his best friend killed. It had worked out fine, but not to LCR’s exacting standards. Trust Noah to come at him from a different direction. “It turned messy … still got the job done.”

“You almost got yourself killed, too.”

“So?”

“So, I’ve already been to the funeral of one of my operatives this year. I don’t want to go to another.”

“Like I said … I got the job done.”

“You truly don’t care if you die, do you, Ethan?”

Since Ethan had no answer for that, he didn’t bother. He did what he had to do. If he took a bullet someday, big fucking deal.

Noah glared at the one man he probably had more in common with than any other person he knew. Ethan Bishop had experienced hell on earth. Their experiences in prison made them brothers of a sort. They’d survived unspeakable brutality.

Like Noah, Ethan carried a soul riddled with guilt and self-condemnation. In some respects, it had made him one of LCR’s best operatives. Most people took one look at Ethan Bishop and quickly changed to his way of thinking. Few people could stand up to that cold, hard stare. But Ethan’s guilt also had a negative, self-destructive impact. He had a death wish. No, he wouldn’t admit it. For a man of Ethan’s Bishop’s hardened heart, admitting weakness was synonymous with giving up. Something Bishop would never do.

He’d hoped giving Ethan the job of protecting Samara would give him some thinking time. He should have known the lack of action would be more than he could handle. Not putting his life on the line at least once a week was probably tantamount to a slow death for Ethan.

It didn’t, however, negate the fact that Ethan had to be reeled in. The last thing LCR needed was a loose cannon. Too many lives were at risk.

“You want to get killed, do it on your own time. Not LCR’s.”

Bishop lifted a mountainous shoulder in a careless shrug. “I said I got the job done.”

“You almost blew the entire operation. Not only did you almost get killed, you took out three men who could possibly have given us information on Blackburn’s whereabouts.”

“They wouldn’t have talked.”

“That wasn’t your decision to make. Your job is to rescue. An added benefit is to capture as many people as you can and get information from them. Killing is and always should be a last resort.”

“They needed killing. What’s your gripe?”

A red haze swamped Noah. After having Samara tell him to let her go, pure adrenaline and strong denial shot like a geyser through his body. The knowledge that the one connection he’d had with her might now be lost had wound him tighter than a drum. This was not a good time to piss Noah McCall off.

He slammed Ethan back against the window, wrapped his hand around the other man’s neck and pressed hard. “I told you when I brought you in—egos have no place in LCR. You went against direct orders. Almost got yourself killed. And in the process fucked up an ongoing investigation. That’s my fucking gripe.”

With absolutely no emotion, Ethan stared at him and in that moment, Noah knew he’d lost him. Ethan no longer cared about anything or anyone. Whatever had happened with Shea and Cole on the op several months back had been the last straw.

No, dammit, I have to try one more time
.

Backing away, Noah blew out a long breath. “Take some time off. I’ll get someone else to watch Samara. Get your head back on straight. Purge those demons that keep you from being able to do your job. Don’t come back until you do.”

“No.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You don’t like the way I handle an op … that’s just too damn bad.”

“You’re quitting?”

“Hell no. I don’t quit … at anything.”

Noah could only shake his head. “Ethan, you quit living a long time ago. I thought having Shea in your life would give that back to you. I don’t know what happened between you or how she ended up with Cole. I don’t need to know.”

Noah waited to see if mentioning Shea and Cole would produce some sort of reaction. Other than an infinitesimal flicker in his eyes, there was nothing.

“You’re not responsible for Cole’s death. I read the report. He got himself killed.”

“Tell that to his widow.”

“Shea knows the truth, whether she wants to admit it or not.” Noah blew out a sigh as he slumped into his chair behind his desk. “The burden you’ve carried on your shoulder for years has just grown instead of easing. Most people filled with that kind of regret are empowered by helping others and that grief seems to lessen. That hasn’t happened for you, has it?”

Still no response.

Noah closed his eyes at Ethan’s granite expression. Giving up on this man was not something he took lightly. But he’d been given an ultimatum and both of them knew exactly where it would lead … exactly where Ethan wanted it to go. “Fine, Ethan. You got what you wanted. If you’re not quitting … then you’re fired.”

A small, humorless smile lifted Ethan’s mouth. “Told you years ago, when you hired me, you’d regret it.”

“I never, for a second, regretted hiring you. You’ve saved a lot of people and done some fine things with your life. The only thing I regret is not being able to help you see your worth.”

“Maybe that wasn’t your job.” With those enigmatic words, Ethan started toward the door. When he stopped and turned, Noah knew a moment of hope. “For what it’s worth. Thanks for saving my life … and giving me a chance.”

“Dammit, man. It doesn’t have to end this way.”

“Yes it does.” Ethan closed the door behind him.
Shit. Shit. Shit
. Could this day get any worse? He looked down at the photos Ethan had left. Pride filled him. Though the pictures were still shots, they revealed the precision and grace she’d used to take down the creep. Ethan was right. He didn’t give Samara enough credit.

Another photo showed a tall, blond man standing beside her. They were both laughing. Pain speared deep. He knew who he was … Kyle Macklin. Smart, successful, and single. Exactly what a woman like Samara needed. The kind of man who would be happy to help her get over a broken heart. The kind of man who could share his life with her, give her a family.

Noah knew he should be happy she was seeing someone. Samara deserved only the best.

The photo crumpled in his hand.

  Running his hands up and down his legs, Mitch smoothed the wrinkles in the cheap polyester pants. He’d told the corrections officer helping him to provide something average and common. The idiot had brought in clothes so cheap they’d probably fall apart before he got to Birmingham. No matter. With the money he had stashed away, he’d be looking like a
GQ
model soon enough. Just like the wealthy businessman he’d become.

Lifting his foot, Mitch reared back and gave the jerk on the floor a glancing blow to the ribs. “Make it look good” was what Boyd Lemming had told him. Then he’d turned his back so Mitchell could knock him out. Mitch gladly obliged. He’d clubbed the prick with his own nightstick. Damn, that’d felt good. Boyd wasn’t dead, but he’d have a nice concussion and a hell of a headache that’d keep him out of it for several days. Who knows, it might even teach him a lesson about helping criminals escape. World was getting too damned dangerous. Couldn’t trust anybody anymore. Mitch grinned at the thought.

Rubbing the smudges from his visitor’s card, he clipped it to his shirt pocket. Yep, just another slub visiting one of the misguided and unfortunate residents of the Blount County Jail. Slicking his hair back, he checked the wall mirror in the small bathroom once more. The beard stubble gave him a somewhat rakish appearance. With his looks, he’d never had a problem attracting women, but he had to admit, the beard made him even sexier. Once his business was taken care of, first thing he’d do was get him some nice duds, then he’d go find a couple of high-priced whores who could appreciate a well-hung and handsome stud.

The husky laugh he heard in his head was his daddy’s, who was probably somewhere cheering him on. Easing the door open, he listened … heard nothing. He turned the lock and closed the door, locking poor Boyd inside. By the time he was found, Mitch would be long gone and several hours would have passed before he was discovered missing. They’d been planning this for weeks. No way in hell would there be a screwup. He had important business to handle. One Michael Stoddard to be executed and one Samara Lyons to be screwed until she too begged for death. Damned if he knew which one he looked forward to the most.

  “Go!” On Noah’s command, five LCR operatives slammed through the doors of André Morley and Associates. Sadistic bastards, who for the last two years had been grabbing kids off the streets of Paris and selling them across Europe.

Noah kicked a door open and then whirled to the side.
Bam … bam
… Bullets slammed into the wall behind him. One man squealed. Another man shouted a curse. Three more shots rang out and then silence.

Doors opened and closed. Footsteps stomped around him. Holding his gun at the ready, Noah inched his head around and then jerked back out again as another bullet came flying at him.

He pressed back against the wall and calculated. In that split second, he’d seen two men stooped behind a large desk. Both had guns and though he’d only seen the tops of their heads, he was pretty damn sure they weren’t likely to give up anytime soon. Shit. He didn’t want a standoff. He wanted to get these creeps out of here as peacefully and painlessly as possible.

Barging in on them wasn’t really LCR’s way. However, since the children were being held at a different facility and even now were being rescued by another LCR team, Noah had wanted to go in with a bang and scare the shit out of them. Unfortunately, he’d overestimated his shit-scaring tactics. Was he getting too old for this? Was his mind so distracted by his personal life, his instincts were off? He gave himself a mental kick in the ass. Great. Now he was having a philosophic contemplation while two thugs a few feet away would love to put a bullet in his head. Next thing he knew, he’d be consulting an astrologer before he planned a rescue.

“Noah, you okay?” Jordan’s low growl came into his earphone.

“Yeah, got two holed up in the office. You?”

“Eden and I took care of one up here. There’s another running loose. Dylan’s after him.”

“Tell Eden to stay put and come on down and help me coax these assholes out before I shoot them just for fun.”

Jordan chuckled. “On my way.”

For the hell of it, Noah yelled out, “Hey, assholes, you’re outnumbered! Throw your guns out now before you get hurt!”

“Go to hell!” one man shouted. Another shot fired.

Blowing out a half sigh, half laugh, Noah muttered, “That’s what I thought.”

Jordan came loping toward him. “They changed their tune yet?”

“Nope, still singing the ‘Come in and get me’ song.”

Jordan’s mouth kicked up in a grin. “Hate that song. Much rather hear the ‘I’m coming out and throwing myself at your mercy’ operetta.”

“Don’t think they know that one.”

“Okay. So what do you want to do?”

“Well, we could talk about what you and Eden are getting Angela for her birthday.”

Jordan sank against the wall next to him as if in deep thought. “Yeah. That’s a conundrum. We’re thinking maybe a gift card to that new tattoo parlor on Chavez.”

“Damn. That’s what I was thinking, too.”

“What are you guys doing?” Eden stalked toward them, exasperation and amusement glinting her eyes.

“Talking about Angela’s birthday present.”

“Oh, did you tell him our idea, Jordan?”

Jordan pulled his wife to his side and gave her a quick kiss on her nose. “Yes, but that’s what he was planning, too.”

“Too bad. I bought it before we came over.”

Noah grinned, his gun at high ready. “Gabe, you ready?”

“Yep.”

“Go.”

Glass shattered behind the men as Gabe crashed through the window. Noah, Jordan, and Eden stormed through the door. Noah flew over the desk and landed on top of a man. He only saw a flash of pale flabby skin underneath the giant sweatshirt. He wasn’t sure, but he thought this one was Morley’s favorite henchman. He hoped so. Pressing harder, guttural sobs came from the man beneath him. Eden held a gun on the other man while Jordan wrenched his arms behind his back and cuffed him.