LITMIR.BIZ

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Alexandra gets pulled into things. A short job turns into another and then another. She’ll go missing for another ten years.”

      “It’s the one job and nothing else,” Hyde said. She pressed a hand over her stomach.

      “That’s right,” Finn said, picking up on Hyde’s anxiety and wanting to reassure her.

      “I’m sure you have other associates who can assist you. Alexandra needs to be here,” Lydia said. Anger colored the edges of her words.

      Hyde tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Lydia, I’ll talk with you about it later.”

      Lydia pinned her sister with a harsh stare. “Okay, Alex. Whatever you say.” She looked over her shoulder. “Excuse me. My daughter is awake and fussing.”

      Lydia rushed off and Finn captured Hyde in the circle of his arms. He resumed dancing with her. She moved on the dance floor like she did in the field, sleek and smooth.

      “She seems protective,” Finn said.

      Hyde swallowed hard. “They all are. They want me around. They were excited when I told them I planned to stay.”

      “Then your family is the reason you quit.” He wouldn’t stop pressing until he had the details. He needed to know what was going on in her life. She was logical and rational, and quitting abruptly didn’t fit with what he knew of her. But then again, he might not know her as well as he thought he did. Spies lied. It had crossed his mind that he would arrive in Bearcreek and discover she had a husband and family of her own she had never told him about. Learning that wasn’t the case, he was relieved.

      “Part of the reason. I want to help Lydia. She deserves better than she’s been handed. Thea is great, but being a single parent has been hard on Lydia. She’s asked me about Simon on more than one occasion and I wrestle with what to tell her.”

      “What did you tell her happened?” Finn asked.

      Hyde’s shoulders tensed. “I told her that he quit and he stopped coming to work.”

      Finn saw the flaw in that explanation. “Not much closure for her.”

      “I should have thought it through. When she asked me about him, I was still reeling from the news of Simon’s death and I wasn’t sure what I was allowed to tell her. I couldn’t believe he had been taken out. He was one of the best. He was careful. How did Barnett get him?”

      Finn had been told parts of the story. He hadn’t been directly involved with Simon’s mission, and the details were classified. “I’ve asked questions and I didn’t receive any answers.”

      Hyde looked over at her sister. “That’s the main reason I’ll do this. For her. For Thea. To give them answers and a way to move forward without being haunted.”

      * * *

      Boots hit Hyde’s second-story balcony. Finn was outside her sliding glass doors. No surprise, really. She had expected him, and Finn intended for her to hear his approach. Sneaking up on a spy was a quick way to catch a bullet in the head and the chest. Hyde still slept with a gun in her bedside table. And in her kitchen. And her living room. A woman couldn’t be too careful about protecting herself.

      She’d rented this place because of the many exit points. One day she would select a house because it made her feel at home. She would hang pictures on the walls and decorate it. It would take longer than a few months for her to stop thinking like a spy and return to being a civilian.

      Hyde counted to five. The lock clicked open. Finn was fast with a lock pick. She was faster. She hadn’t laid the jimmy bar in the door, anticipating his visit. He entered her room, closing the door behind him. Her heart raced and her fingers itched to reach for him. She counted his footsteps as he approached the bed. He dropped his suit jacket on the floor and loosened his tie from around his neck. Desire fluttered in her belly. Finn sat on the mattress, removed his shoes and lifted the sheet, sliding into the bed beside her. Heat spiraled through her. He gathered her against him. He smelled of laundry detergent and soap. “I couldn’t sleep knowing you were here alone. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed holding you in my arms.”

      Tears sprang to her eyes and she curled her body against his. The tenderness he showed her was gentler than she had experienced with any another man. It struck her as odd because he was also one of the most brutal men she had met. “How did you know I was alone?”

      His arm was slung over her waist. “I know you and I knew your date to the wedding meant nothing to you. You wouldn’t take him home no matter how lonely you were. But you seemed sad. I couldn’t leave you that way. I want you to tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”

      She was sad. Hurting. Lost. Confused. Now that she knew about Reed Barnett, she felt pulled back into the world she swore was dead to her, but she also felt good having a purpose and a meaningful task. Given her skill set, fulfilling work had been hard to come by in Bearcreek. “I have a lot on my mind.”

      She couldn’t tell Finn that she wanted a husband and a family and a life that involved footed pajamas, car pools and little league. A year ago Hyde believed a life of children and domestic duties was a prison sentence. She felt sorry for friends who organized playdates and spent their days playing cars and dolls. Now she wished she had considered her options sooner.

      Telling Finn she wanted those things would be ice water on his libido and his feelings for her. And while it would have been a quick way to end the relationship, she wanted him to think fondly of her and remember her in a certain way.

      Finn nuzzled the back of her neck. “I didn’t believe Connor when he told me you weren’t available for hire.”

      Connor, the leader of the West Company, had contacted her about a job while she was in Munich. She had impulsively told him she was retired, and after speaking the words, she knew they were what she needed. Thinking over the experiences she had lived through as a spy, she counted herself lucky she was alive and relatively unscathed. Running, hiding and lying were exhausting, but losing her baby had broken her. “I spoke to his wife about it.” She could trust Connor and Kate not to spread it around. It was better for her enemies to believe she was in the game and not sitting around with her feet up, like a target with a big red bull’s-eye on her chest.

      Finn touched her hip, rolling her to face him. “You should have called me when things changed. You should have called me when you decided you didn’t want to work as an agent anymore.”

      Her skin prickled where his hand rested. She couldn’t get enough of him, but her desire was at war with her heart. “You would have pressed me for reasons why.”

      He shifted close, sliding his hips against her. “You’re one of the best in the business. Why quit?”

      She’d give the simple answer and leave out the stuff about love and marriage and a baby. “This isn’t the life I want.”

      He tapped his finger against her leg. “Are you planning to stay in Montana and raise cattle with your family?”

      He sounded sincere and she appreciated that he was trying to understand. He wouldn’t understand this. What she wanted now was so over the invisible line of where their relationship ended, she couldn’t voice it without feeling silly.

      “I haven’t decided what I will do.” She had saved enough money to grant her the luxury of time to decide.

      “What about your operatives and contacts?” Finn asked.

      Hyde had turned away jobs over the last several months. She didn’t have employees who relied on her, not in the traditional sense. She had referred operatives with special skills to jobs that warranted them and vetted agents in the field. When she’d quit, she’d washed her hands of it and had been comfortable with that decision.

      Finn was the one open item on the past. She couldn’t have Finn and a family. “Operatives I’ve worked with will work for someone else.” It was how the game was played. The network she had painstakingly built from influential contacts

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