Exception to the Rule Page 20

  On second thought she grabbed her sleeping bag, jamming it under her arm in a big awkward bundle. She intended to stuff painkillers and anti-inflammatories down Rio, but if they had several hours of driving before them, he’d no doubt stiffen up anyway. The sleeping bag, unzipped to blanket size, might keep him more comfortable.

  God, he’d kissed her.

  What was she supposed to do now? She’d watched him for days, building up an interest she’d tried to hide even from herself, seeing moment after moment where he surprised her with his empathy for his cousin. She’d tried to squelch the surprising notion that maybe, just maybe, this was a man to whom she could trust herself.

  And then he’d kissed her, unlocking that Pandora’s box of wishful thinking and foolishness. Trampling right over her rules.

  Get over it. Close the lid, lock the box and go back to being the best damn close-quarters, scrappy-minded operative that Hunter ever had.

  Or not…

  Kimmer found herself halfway back to the nurse’s station, and stopped short. If she didn’t keep her wits about her, she was going to lose. She’d watch someone die, or she’d be forced to stop the goonboys no matter the cost. She didn’t have room for error. She had to pull herself together—whether it meant pretending that kiss hadn’t happened or determining to throw herself at Rio at the very first opportunity. She had to find her balance—wherever it might put her.

  Such thoughts accompanied her the rest of the way back to the nurse’s station, where she found Rio on his feet, swaying slightly and not apparently the least bit aware of it, frowning at a badly crumpled piece of lined yellow paper. As she dumped the gear on the floor he looked up, gesturing with the paper. “This is it,” he said both relieved and somehow proud. “Caro got a start on the fix, and she hid it from our unfriendlies.”

  Kimmer started. “She did what? When?” She took the paper, made nothing out of the scribbled code and arrows and diagrams. “How did she tell you? She never had the—” But her mind’s eye filled with hysterical Carolyne, on her knees beside Rio—covering him with his discarded shirt, murmuring to him. Carefully, Kimmer folded the paper. “She’s lucky you remembered.”

  “She counted on me,” he said, as if that explained it all. He didn’t seem to notice she didn’t return the paper, but she figured he’d realized it just fine. He’d just let it pass.

  After all, he could have hidden it from her. She never would have known.

  Kimmer pulled the first-aid bag o’goodies from the pile and withdrew several small plastic bottles. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll get some water, you can take these, and then I’ll go get the car—I can bring it up just past the office, I think.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Optimistic,” she told him.

  His response came sharply. “If I can’t get that far, I’ve got no business coming with you at all.”

  She looked at him just long enough so he’d know she thought there might be something to that, and then she shook out the pills. “These are dosed for me,” she reminded him when he looked askance at her. “Nothing fancy, just run-of-the-mill stuff. If you want to be any good to me—or Carolyne—you’d better take them.”

  That got his attention. He held out his hand and she dumped the pills into it, stashing the bottles in her vest. When she came back to hand him the water, she said, “Those notes…”

  He gulped back the pills, raising an eyebrow as he looked at her from over the glass. He hadn’t, she noticed, responded to her strongly worded suggestion that he sit. She shook her head, a helpless gesture in the wake of forces quickly spiraling out of her control. “I’ve got to get them to Hunter.”

  Gently—so gently she knew it was just self-control—he said, “I believe you were hired by Scott to keep Carolyne safe. And she’s not, is she? Very safe, that is.”

  Far from it.

  “No one will be safe until that system is fixed.” She took advantage of the moment to return to the kitchen, nab a towel and wet it down before she returned to the conversation.

  He wanted to shout at her; she could see the tension of it. But he swallowed and worked his jaw a few times and kept his voice to a strained but moderate tone. “And how would you propose to get the code to Hunter?”

  “Fax.” Except on Sunday, heading for afternoon—late afternoon by the time they made any distance—the nearest open copy-fax center was probably in Pittsburgh.

  Away from Carolyne.

  They both knew it.

  Dammit, he should have hidden them from me.

  She’d meant to wash some of the dried, rusty blood from his face with the towel, but now she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it—to get that close and personal while they struggled with his cousin’s fate. “No one is safe until that missile delivery system is patched. No one in the States, no one outside the States. Anyone who knows how to exploit that weakness can aim one of those missiles anywhere they damn well please.”

  “Then no one’s in trouble until one of those missiles is actually fired,” Rio said evenly.

  The words were on the tip of her tongue—who knew when that would happen, with the current political situation? Peacekeeping activities here, live-fire target practice there, genuine warfare scattered throughout? But she didn’t say it. She saw it on his face, recognized it just in time, and let the silent voice in his head do the talking.

  Rio took the towel and scrubbed his face with it—much less gently than Kimmer had intended. “No one even knows what the weakness is—no one but Caro. We need to get her back. Or do you really think sending that material over an insecure fax is the wisest option?”

  “I don’t know.” Kimmer put her back to him, no longer able to sort it all out. She’d lost her balance, and she didn’t know if she resisted rushing after Carolyne simply because it was the emotional, vulnerable thing to do, or because it was truly the best way to protect this country—and every other—from U.S. missiles. “What if we go for Carolyne and it’s too late? What if she spills everything in the car, and we go down in our attempt to extract her? Then they’ve got what they need and no one has these notes to stop them!” She turned back enough to give him a desperate look, sizing him up—if only she could go one direction and he the other…

  But he’d never make it. Even if she hadn’t just pumped disorienting pain meds into his system, he’d never make it. She still didn’t know how he managed to do so much as stay on his feet. He’d draped the towel behind his neck, not looking much improved; now the bruises merely showed more starkly against the grayish tones of his skin. She turned away from him again, too tangled in herself to make any decision at all, and again ruing her very involvement. Australian beaches, that’s where she should be. Owen Hunter didn’t often make mistakes, but when he did…

  This was a big one. Too big.

  And now that she had these notes, every passing second made it a bigger one. Every moment she didn’t run for that car, every mile the goonboys put between them.

  Rio came up behind her, and though he didn’t take her upper arms in his hands for tight emphasis, he might as well have. His very presence struck her just as hard as a blow, and his voice—so close above behind her head that it seemed to come from within—scraped her raw with its nakedness. “Tell me you’re not going to just set her aside.” No games from Rio. No playing her. This was the core of him, reaching out to her, as agonized on the outside as those feelings she made herself keep inside. “Tell me you wouldn’t do that.”

  And if she did, what would it make her?

  No better than my brothers. Than my father. Using me like something not even human.

  “No,” she whispered. “I can’t do that.”

  She felt him sigh with profound relief, even felt him brush against her as balance failed him. He caught himself. “Thank you.”

  She cleared her throat and spoke quickly, as though she could somehow cover up the exchange. Her weakness. “I’ll call Hunter as soon as we hit a public phone. I don’t
know if they can reach us in time—maybe with the chopper—and let them know we’ve got Caro’s notes. Then if something happens they’ll know to look for—”

  “Kimmer.” His voice was quiet. She wanted to pretend she hadn’t heard him. But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel his hands on her shoulders, fingers gentle on the curve of her collarbone and his injured hand barely resting there at all. “Kimmer,” he said into her ear. His cheek rested against her head; his fingers came up briefly to touch the fringe of hair at her neck.

  She turned; she tried to muster up the remote veneer that had served her so well all these years. Somehow, she kept her voice unaffected—lightly sardonic—as she looked up at him. “You’re going to do it again, aren’t you?”

  He smiled in a way that just about made her stop breathing. “I hope so.”

  “In spite of me,” she said, and this time her voice broke. Just a little. A moment ago I was willing to abandon his cousin….

  “Actually, because of you.” But he didn’t move, aside from letting his hands settle on her shoulders again, and the slight caress of his thumb against her shoulder where it emerged from the vest. “I don’t know what made you, Kimmer Reed, but I can see past you into your heart. For all your hardness, you’re desperately trying to do the right thing. For me…for Caro.”

  Had anyone ever done that before? Really seen her?

  The Hunters, Kimmer thought. Owen Hunter, who had caught her when she was fresh on the streets. But until recently he’d given her space to hide from herself.

  Not Rio. He stood quietly, waiting for her to make the decision. All battered from futile efforts to protect his cousin, warm brown eyes slightly glazed—knowing they had but moments, but finding this opportunity anyway and then offering it to her.

  Kimmer closed her eyes and thought of her past—the people in it, the life that had shaped her, the rules that had saved her. But they’re my rules. I get to make them. And the past might have shaped her—but it was her place to shape the future.

  She opened her eyes to look straight at Rio, and held his gaze as she stood on her toes, raising herself just high enough so if she tilted her head, and he obliged by coming down to meet her—

  Their lips met gently—not a passionate rush, but a sweet introduction. Kimmer watched him, saw the smile in his eyes. Then he closed them, leaving her only with the sweep of his dark lashes. His good hand crept up to cup the back of her neck, sending an unexpected tingle down her spine; it flashed over her shoulders to encompass her breasts. Kimmer, too, closed her eyes, giving more of herself but still sweetly, just a flicker of her tongue against his lips, the slightest of nips—and when he returned it, the sudden rush of demand for more. More than just lips—bodies suddenly pressed together, all the hard strength she’d seen and not yet felt. For an instant her hands hovered helplessly, not sure where to land so they might not hurt him. She chose hips, where his pants hung at sculptured bone, and she gave him a little tug.

  His breath hitched; his lips momentarily stilled on hers. But just when she thought she’d hurt him, his hands dropped to the small of her back, proprietary and demanding. He returned to the kiss, the sweetness turning into demand—and just as Kimmer realized this vest was too warm, way too warm, he gave a strangled sort of noise and pulled away, only far enough to rest his cheek against her hair again. “Okay,” he said. “That’s—I can’t—I haven’t—” He took a breath; she felt the depth of it where their bodies touched, brief intersections at hip and chest and his head against hers. He tried again. “I’m more addled than I thought.”

  “Addled?” she said, and moved away to give him her best sardonic brow and finding he’d gotten some color back into his face during these past few moments. “Is your next line by any chance something about this being a mistake?”

  He pulled her back and kissed her forehead, nuzzling her hair. “Only,” he said, and his lips moved against her skin, “because I don’t have any self-control whatsoever. You sure you didn’t give me too many—”

  She snorted gently, but this time didn’t try to move away. “They haven’t hit your system yet.”

  “The stun gun, then,” Rio said. “It’s fuddled me.”

  “You think?” But Kimmer’s words came more lightly. She even thought that the slight tremble she felt in him might not be from pain or weakness at all.

  “Just give a guy a break,” he said rather desperately.

  “Well, then, it must be the stun gun.” She stepped back, kissed him lightly on the mouth—those same, gently receiving lips—and said, “That doesn’t leave me any excuse, though.”

  “You don’t need one.” He gave her a wry look, stepped back, tottered a little and then regained his balance and adjusted his jeans slightly. “You’re the tough one, remember? No one’s going to question you.”

  Kimmer gave a short laugh. “Right.” No one but me…But it didn’t matter. They’d had their moment, and there was no going back. When Rio offered his uninjured hand, she took it, and when he gave it the slightest of squeezes, she squeezed back before dropping the contact, stepping aside and stooping to collect the gear she’d grabbed from the tent. “Can you get the sleeping bag?”

  “It’ll just be my superhero cape.” He eased himself closer to the ground to get it, and Kimmer quickly grabbed it up and handed it to him. “Thanks,” he said. “Long way down for some reason.”

  She gave him cheerful smile. “The bigger they are—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He arranged it over his shoulders just like a cape and said, “Go. I’ll totter along. Just—”

  She turned back to find he’d grown serious. “What?”

  “Just…” Rio shook his head, failing with his hunt for words. “We’ve got some hard hours ahead of us. Don’t forget what just happened. It wasn’t the damn stun gun, it was you. No matter what—”

  “Don’t say that,” Kimmer snapped at him. Even when she realized how sharp she’d been, she still shook her head. “Just don’t.” Not when Carolyne’s fate still looked so precarious. She wanted no part of herself to hold foolish hopes that he’d still reach for her if Carolyne ended up injured. That he’d still kiss her if Carolyne ended up dead. If she was going to get through this—all the new feelings, this sudden possibility to bypass the rules of her life—she needed the hard confidence she’d ridden so heavily since she’d first escaped her childhood to remake her life.

  Even if she had to fake it.

  Chapter 14

  Glorious idiot. An entire weapons system hanging in the balance, Carolyne’s life at risk, his own self barely functional, and he’d somehow managed to find the time to—

  Knees, knees!

  Rio caught himself at the doorway, took a deep breath to chase away his gray vision, and regathered his thoughts. Idiot, yes…but not a single moment begrudged. Not when they had one or two to spare, no matter the atmosphere of urgency. Needing to do something immediately and being able to do it immediately…two different things. Rio’s days as a case officer should have prepared him for such reality.

  As if anything could, with family involved.

  Rio dropped the sleeping bag on the recliner and did a limping circuit of the nurse’s station—jamming his toothbrush in his back pocket, sweeping Carolyne’s things up into her suitcase and leaving it on the bed for later, and donning his vest. Nothing in this battered body would work quite right for days, but he hoped to fake his way through any impending action. As long as his back held out. His back, where permanently damaged muscle needed constant work to stay strong, and under which he no longer had either a kidney or a spleen—would take longer, and would probably need another round of muscle relaxants before it quit threatening to spasm.

  Then again, Rio had plenty of practice in standing just so.

  He studiously ignored the trussed bubba who’d been his own personal instrument of torture. Rio was quite sure the man had recovered from the stun zap, even though he wisely pretended he hadn’t. He, too, would be part
of the cleanup phase of this little adventure.

  By adding some hustle, Rio made it out to the office just as Kimmer finished cranking the well-used little station wagon around in a tight series of turns. She bounded out to meet him, tight curves highlighted by belted jeans and the tucked flannel shirt; she’d left her vest in the car. Her Ruger rode on her thigh in a military holster, and he was willing to bet she had half a dozen weapons secured in her clothing. Somewhere. Lara Croft in miniature.

  “You look better,” she said, giving him a quick assessment as she opened the passenger door for him.

  “I think your drugs have kicked in.” He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but the pain had receded, leaving mostly the heat of the damaged flesh. “I could wish for a hot tub….”

  She flashed him a wry smile. “Who wouldn’t?”

  He refrained from suggesting they share one at the first opportunity. He’d knocked her off balance back at the nurse’s station, and for everyone’s sake, she needed to be right at the top of her game. It sobered him then to realize how much he was depending on her, and how much trust he’d put in her in spite of hard lessons learned. But he had a feeling…and he trusted that, too.

  She hesitated, arm extended to close the car door. “I wanted to let you know,” she said, and a faint flush rose to cover the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, “I’m sorry I didn’t interrupt the BGs sooner. Before you egged Boots into putting such a beating on you. But Slick was always right by Carolyne, and I didn’t have the angle to take a shot—”

  Of course not. “You’re too short to get an angle through that window,” he realized out loud.

  She nodded. “By the time he moved off from her, you and Boots had gotten into it. And then I should have…I should have—” She shook her head, a helpless expression on her face. “I’m not used to caring. I just didn’t—”