Witness Pursuit (18 page)

“I can't give her what she needs,” he said softly.

“Is that what you said to her?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Of course not, because you know she'd talk you out of such nonsense. What do you think she needs, Nate, huh?”

“To get out of town and travel, live her dream. She's earned that right.”

“She's also earned the right to fall in love and be loved in return. Are you seriously telling me you don't love that adorable woman?”

“I never said that.”

“Then you
do
love her?”

“Can I have my muffins?”

“Answer the question.”

“Yes, I love her. That's why I'm letting her go.”

“You mean, you didn't tell her the truth, that you love her?”

“I didn't want to confuse her.”

“She's a grown woman. Don't you think it's up to her to decide? No, of course not, because you're Nate the great, the police chief, the guy who's going to make everything right for everyone.” She turned to leave.

“Catherine—”

“Stop.” She whirled on him. “You've always challenged me to speak my truth, yet you can't tell Cassie how you feel because you're afraid she'll make the wrong decision. Wrong in whose eyes? Yours?”

“You don't understand.”

“Sure I do. You don't think you're a good enough reason for her to stay in town. Well, guess what, that's her decision to make. Stop trying to control everything, and stop hurting the love of your life out of some warped sense of sacrifice.” With a shake of her head, his sister marched toward the door. “If you love and respect her you'll be honest instead of treating her like a child.”

“I'm not treating her like—”

“Swallow your pride and apologize for being a blockhead. ‘I'm sorry.' It's two words. And she's earned them.”

Catherine left and slammed the door.

He tipped back his office chair, considering Catherine's lecture. Had he been treating Cassie like a child, making decisions for her like her own family had over the past twenty-five years?

Or was this something more?

You don't think you're a good enough reason for her to stay in town.

Deep down he felt Cassie deserved better than what Nate could offer. Was that a good enough reason to keep the truth from her, the truth that he loved her with all his heart?

Here he'd been challenging her to speak her truth to her family, yet he'd refused to be truthful with Cassie. What a hypocrite. That certainly wasn't what an honorable man would do, or a man searching for grace.

He sighed.
Lord, I love her.
Please show me the way.

* * *

Her family and friends wanted to throw Cassie a party at Healthy Eats Restaurant, a combination “celebrate life” and “bon voyage” party.

She wasn't in a celebratory mood. It had been only a few days since they'd closed the smuggling case, a few tense days of keeping herself busy and trying to ignite enthusiasm about her future travels.

For the first time in her life, her heart wasn't in it.

“I guess that's what heartbreak does to ya,” she said to Dasher, who snoozed in a doggy bed in the corner of her apartment.

Sure, she'd shopped flights to London, but she hadn't done much else, nor had she officially booked anything.

The party was meant to be a celebration of life, of making it through dangerous waters and coming out safely on shore.

Which she couldn't have done without Nate's help.

A part of her wanted to get a cab, catch a flight out of Sea-Tac and disappear. No, that was childish. But she wasn't sure what to expect at the party tonight and didn't want to show up in a sour mood when the guests were cheering her on and wishing her safe travels.

“I'd better not be late for my own party,” she said to Dasher. The dog didn't stir, his little paws twitching as if he was having a very good dream, probably about racing through an open field.

Cassie slipped into nice black pants and a colorful top. She grabbed her purple shoulder bag and headed to the restaurant.

* * *

There were only three cars in the parking lot, and the blinds were closed. Did she get the date wrong? Was she late? Catherine had said eight o'clock.

She got out of her car and approached the restaurant. A sign was taped to the door: “Come in and celebrate!”

Cassie stepped inside. The lights were low, and soft music drifted across the restaurant.

An empty restaurant.

“Catherine?” Cassie said.

Instead, Nate stepped out of the kitchen. Dressed in a suit jacket, white shirt and jeans, he gripped a bouquet of flowers.

Cassie's breath caught in her throat.

“It's just you and me tonight,” he said. “I hope that's okay.”

“Sure, okay.”

He closed the distance between them and offered her the flowers.

“They're beautiful,” she said, loving the bright purples and pinks.

He motioned to a table covered in a white linen cloth, with delicate china plates and tulip-shaped water glasses.

Nate pulled out a chair and she sat down, still clinging to the flowers.

He joined her at the table and smiled. “Like the music?”

She nodded that she did, still trying to make sense of what was happening.

“Oh, and I got you something else.” He opened a small white box and slid it across the table. “A charm to add to your key chain.”

“It's the Swiss flag,” she said, breathless. He remembered she wanted a charm to represent Switzerland.

“How about a drink?” he offered.

She nodded, unable to speak coherently.

“Hey, sis?” he called.

Catherine came into the dining room carrying a pitcher. “Fresh apple-carrot-kale juice with a hint of ginger.” She filled their glasses.

“Cassie, can I put the flowers in water for you?” she offered.

Cassie handed her the bouquet, still speechless. Catherine disappeared into the kitchen.

“I'll bet you're wondering what all this is about,” Nate said, studying her.

Cassie nodded that she was, in fact, wondering.

He smiled. “Wow, you're actually speechless.”

“I don't want to ruin it,” she blurted out.

“No.” He sighed. “But I almost did.” He pinned her with loving green eyes. “I'm sorry.”

“For...?”

“For not being truthful, for trying to protect you and ending up making decisions for you.”

“I'm confused.”

“I love you.”

Her jaw dropped.

“You had to see that coming,” Nate said.

“Yes, but no...but yes?”

He reached across the table for her hand. She offered it, never wanting to let go.

“I love you so much I didn't want to ruin your dream of traveling, of going on your adventures.”

“Being with you is an adventure.”

“I'm not sure if that's a compliment or—”

“It is. You've made me forget my need to escape. You've taught me to speak my truth. I thought that's what love looked like.”

“You were right. And I was a jerk, a bossy jerk, according to my sister.”

“You've never been bossy with me,” Cassie said. “You've been kind and encouraging and supportive. We are good together.”

“What about your travels?”

“Traveling would be more fun if I had an adventurous travel buddy.”

“I might know just the guy.”

“Oh, really?” She smiled.

“If you can wait a year. I'll have earned more vacation time by then.”

Cassie got up and went to Nate. “My love,” she said, “take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere.”

She leaned in for a gentle kiss.

And in that moment, all her dreams had come true.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
BREACH OF TRUST
by Jodie Bailey

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Dear Reader,

I'm so very excited to present to you the fifth book in my Echo Mountain series, featuring Cassie McBride and Police Chief Nate Walsh. What a great couple!

Cassie is an optimist with a lighthearted nature who's paired with Nate, the strong silent type who intimidates people just by looking at them. Yet somehow, as Nate plays bodyguard for Cassie in the rugged Cascade Mountains, they help each other work through their personal struggles, and Cassie opens Nate's heart to the concept of “grace.”

The emotionally guarded chief of police even challenges Cassie to speak her truth with love to her family, something she's been unable to do. She'd rather escape her hometown and travel indefinitely than tell her mom, brother and sister that their smothering style is driving her away. But before she can speak her truth, Cassie must elude mob guys who think she has taken something of theirs. As Cassie and Nate spend time together, he feels saddened by the thought of losing her once the case is solved and she leaves town. But if he loves her, he won't hold her back from her dream of traveling.

The theme of speaking your truth with love is woven throughout the pages of this book because I feel it's essential for healthy relationships. I hope you enjoyed Cassie and Nate's journey as they learned to come together and embrace truth and faith.

Peace,

Hope White

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Breach of Trust

by Jodie Bailey

ONE

M
eghan McGuire dragged her fingers through her short dark hair and scanned the computer screen, fighting an uncharacteristic cold sweat at the message swimming in blue on the display.

It's time for round two.

He'd returned. The short series of numbers he used as a signature followed the message, leaving no room for doubt. More than a decade of silence, enough time to stop looking over her shoulder...and still he'd returned. Here. On her last day as technology director at a tiny private school on the outskirts of Flint, Michigan.

If she'd left yesterday, her official last day... If she'd denied principal Yvonne Craft's request to run through the system one more time... If she'd left at seven, the way she'd planned... Any of those things, and she'd be at the farmhouse, painting window casings with Phoebe instead of sitting here, her life crumbling right as she was about to step into her dreams coming true. Right as she was about to start a whole new season.

At thirty-one, she'd had plenty of those already. But when it came to this one? Aside from the day she'd joined the army, this had been the first she'd really been excited about. Working with her friend Phoebe Snyder's charitable foundation, Meghan was putting the finishing touches on a foster home for the most desperate of lost children.

And she wasn't going to let the past steal it. Not without a fight. Rolling her neck to the side to stretch out the tension, she reached for her backpack and an external drive. She could download an image of the system and—

A sudden series of thuds bounced along the hallway and the alarm panel by the front door started its incessant beeping, demanding someone feed it the correct code before it called the police.

“We've got about two minutes before the cops start this way.” The voice, coarse and unfamiliar, scraped into the office and grated against Meghan's ears.

Her fingers tightened around the straps of the backpack. No one she knew was supposed to be in the building this late.

And no one she knew would worry about the police, either.

Meghan slipped to the closed office door and pressed her back tight against the wall to listen, recalling long-unused training to keep her breathing even. The church housing the school wasn't in the best of neighborhoods, and they'd suffered one other break-in, when vandals nearly destroyed the school. Her car parked under the awning by the front door should have been a clue to any aspiring burglar trying for an easy score that the building was occupied.

But maybe that was the point. If they were hoping to find someone in the building...well, that was more than she wanted to think about. And she'd be sure to give them a fight they never anticipated.

It had been a long time since she'd been involved in a physical altercation, but she'd been trained well. Meghan stiffened her stance, charged by the prospect of action. Anybody who broke into this building had no idea what they were in for.

“Her car's out front. She's here. Find her.” The rough masculine voice echoed from the hallway. “Get her into the van. I'll take care of the alarm.”

Meghan's stomach tightened, and she balled her fists, automatically preparing for combat. This wasn't a burglary. This was a targeted plan, and she was at the center of it. She should have anticipated this. If she'd been smart, she would have headed for the door the second the horrible message popped onto the screen, but she'd been too shocked he'd appeared again after this much time had passed.

There had to be a way out of this. Even with her military training, a fight against someone who knew her and her background would be a lot more difficult than an altercation with a neighborhood punk. There was no way to know how many intruders were in the building or how heavily armed they were. No intel meant an unfair fight.

The beeping of the alarm panel gained speed, demanding a code before the whole system went off. All she had to do was hang tight and stay hidden for another five minutes. The police tended to arrive quickly once the alarm notified them. After last year's vandalism, they didn't play when it came to this school.

“We should have waited till it was dark.” Another voice followed, deeper than the first, twanging the edges of something familiar. Somehow, somewhere she'd heard that voice before. Meghan dug for a memory, for a face, but came up empty save the bizarre feeling she shouldn't be afraid.

A lie if her mind had ever told her one.

“If we'd waited till dark, she'd have been gone. We have one shot at this. And unless you want to be the one facing the pain if we blow this job, you'll grab her before she figures out we're here.” A string of curses stampeded from the hallway. “Stupid alarm. There's no way she's not hearing it. You go that way. And make it quick. If I don't have the right code, we've got about fifteen seconds before the stinking alarm goes off and triggers the cops.”

They had the alarm code. Meghan's muscles tightened with readiness as she searched her windowless office for a way out. Help wasn't coming. She was on her own.

And she was defenseless. The cell phone in her hip pocket had never gotten a signal in her small office deep inside the first floor of the steel-and-concrete building. Her gun was locked in the safe at the house. She hadn't carried a weapon for personal defense since she left the army four years ago. All she had was herself, her training and a backpack full of books and random technology. While she'd been trained well, that wouldn't get her far against no less than two men determined to haul her out of here. Into a van.

Such a cliché.

Dropping the bag silently beside her feet, she slid closer to the door, keeping tight to the wall, listening for footsteps, watching for shadows as an early Michigan evening cast weak light into the hallway.

The alarm stopped beeping, severing any hope of the cavalry's arrival. A small number of people were privy to the code, and none of them sounded anything like the men stalking the building now. None of them would want to shove her into a van or be worried about police presence.

She had to get out. Fast.

Meghan walked the familiar building in her memory. From the front lobby, the building branched off into three directions. From the muffled sounds of footsteps and distant murmuring, the men hadn't headed in her direction yet, which meant she had about one minute to figure this out and save her skin. Easing around the door, she peeked into the hallway.

The front door was out. Even though it was about a hundred feet away, it was part of the central hub in the main lobby. Whoever was hunting her would have to pass it again soon, and if she got caught dead to rights in the middle of the hallway, there was nowhere to run.

She glanced left. The fire exit was half the length of the building away, opening to the back school yard and a small wooded area on the other side. If Meghan could hit the door running, she might make it to the highway on the other side of the trees before they caught her, though the blaring door alarm wouldn't allow her much of a head start.

There was a lot of open ground to cover in the hallway, then between the building and the woods. Once she was out, the door would lock behind her. She had her keys, but unlocking the door to get back into the building would cost her valuable seconds if she burst outside into the face of a waiting kidnapper. Worst-case scenario, the exit would bring her out on the opposite side of the building from the front parking lot and, if they caught her, they'd have to drag her all the way around in full sight of anyone driving by on the busy road in front of the school.

The fire exit wasn't perfect, but it was all she had.

Closing her eyes tight, Meghan tried to listen over the pounding in her ears. The only sounds were the thumps of doors opening and closing on the far side of the building. She exhaled and hit the hallway at a dead run, bursting through the door to the earsplitting shriek of the fire alarm.

She stumbled on her flip-flops, kicked them off and kept running over soft grass, freshly sprouted after the long winter.

A shout echoed behind her. If she could make the woods and get through to the highway, surely they'd leave her alone in such a public venue.

They had to.

Dry mulch from the nearby playground dug into her feet as she pressed faster, bruising skin accustomed to winter shoes.

Footsteps closed in behind her, and then a force caught her lower back, driving her knees into the ground, her upper body pitching forward, dirt and grass pressing into her mouth. She spit and fought the weight pinning her legs as it shifted away.

Hands grasped her arms and hauled her to her feet, turning her to face her pursuer. She hardened her gaze, determined to memorize her captor's face. Struggling to free a fist and throw a punch, Meghan caught a good look at him and went limp, her fight dying.

Green eyes.

Familiar eyes.

The eyes of a dead man.

* * *

Tate Walker's grip loosened, then tightened again. He scanned their target's face, skimming familiar short dark hair and deep brown eyes that no one who saw them could ever forget. He nearly choked on nothing more than air.

Meghan McGuire was their mark? What would a hacker who was threatening national security want with her?

She jerked once, hard, breaking the connection and twisting her arm as she tried to pull away from his grasp. “You're not real.” Her voice was raw, and although the words were low, they carried the force of a shout. “Let me go.”

He couldn't. If he released her and she ran or, worse, stood there and vented the anger burning in her eyes, his cover would blow sky-high and they'd both be dead in the next ten seconds. Glancing over his shoulder, he figured he had about that long to explain before Isaac rushed out of the building, if the other man wasn't watching already. “I'm under cover. Follow along.”

Her nostrils flared and she pulled again, struggling against him. Meghan had always had fight. It had made her a partner other operatives in their small specialized military unit had envied. More than once she'd been offered other teams, other assignments, but she'd always stuck close to their partnership, loyal until the day she walked away without even offering him a goodbye.

Right now, her fight was about something more than self-preservation. She had the wild-eyed, caged-animal fight of someone who thought she was losing her senses. “This isn't real. You're dead. Ethan told me you died. There was a funeral. Everything.” She twisted her body, trying to free herself, but her eyes stayed on his. “You're—”

The fire door crashed open behind him, and Isaac's shout echoed off the trees. “You got her?”

Time was up. Tate winced and fired one last plea at Meghan. “Trust me.” That was a lot to ask of any woman. Especially one who'd believed he was dead for four years.

But she had to trust him. His heart hammered. He'd had his cover compromised one other time, and it had left him close to death in a pool of his own blood under a hot Pennsylvania sun. The moment had changed everything about his life. His chest ached empty even now, his breathlessness a testament to the physical price he'd paid at the hands of a traitor.

He wouldn't land himself there again.

After shooting a warning into Meghan's angry and confused expression, he whipped around, keeping his grip tight and her close, tucked slightly behind him. “Yeah. I got her when she busted out the fire door. Go get the van and bring it around to the back lot.” He pointed toward the corner of the parking lot barely visible on the other side of the low brick building, praying Isaac wouldn't decide to take issue with Tate giving orders. “It'll keep us from dragging her out into the open by the road. Too many chances for somebody to see us if we try to take her out the front. She's a fighter.”

Meghan pulled again, growling low. Whether she was helping to sell his story or truly trying to escape, he couldn't take the chance and ease up. If she ran while Isaac was present, the man would shoot her before she made cover in the wood line. Isaac wasn't a man with a whole lot of patience. Short, stocky and prematurely balding, he covered his perceived inadequacies in front of his small band of ruffians with a lot of bravado and a notoriously hot temper.

Isaac's volatile personality was of the dozen reasons Tate didn't look forward to the consequences of what he was about to do. On a normal day, a man like Isaac wouldn't even make him blink. But when Tate had to keep cover and couldn't defend himself? Things could get ugly. Fast.

Isaac hesitated, assessing the situation. He scratched the back of his head, clearly unwilling to let his prey out of his sight.

Come on. Go.
Tate's muscles tightened. He hadn't been a member of Isaac's ring long enough to gain the man's full trust, and he was severely testing a fragile thread right now.

The pause felt like an eternity, but Isaac turned and tried the door.

Locked.

He tossed a disgusted smirk in Tate's direction and took off at a slow jog around the corner of the building.

Tate nearly sagged in relief. Turning fully toward Meghan, he kept a firm hold on her wrist. After reaching under his T-shirt at his waist, he pulled his clipped holster free, holding the pistol out to her grip-first. “Take this.” He'd count it a blessing if she didn't shoot him with his own weapon.

She stared at him in wide-eyed shock, an expression he'd never seen in all the years they'd worked side by side. Seeing him living and breathing had to make her question everything she thought she knew about reality.

He laid the holstered pistol on her palm. “Stay with me, McGuire. Just get through the next few hours and I'll give you answers.” The ones the government hadn't classified, anyway.

She swallowed hard, the lines around her mouth deepening. At least she was losing the panicked-deer look; her expression morphed into the concentrated stare of a warrior. This was the Meghan McGuire he knew. He'd smile if the situation weren't so desperate. And if she wasn't so uncharacteristically silent.