Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(9)
“I hear you, sir.” She shivered at the thought of floating out in the middle of the endless blue ocean, surrounded by members of the offshoot al-Qaeda faction. “But don’t worry. You can count on me.” And Leo Anderson. Because if it came to holding off a group of militants at sea, she could do a lot worse than the big SEAL nicknamed “the Lion.” But she probably couldn’t do much better.
“I know I can,” Morales said. “Now, the question is, do you want me to have the A-Team meet you in Key West?”
Olivia thought about arriving on Leo’s doorstep with a group of private contractors in tow and grimaced. “I think, given all parties involved, it would be better if I go it alone. But I wouldn’t be opposed to the apprehension team joining us out at the package.”
“Done,” Morales agreed. “See you at the airport.” As was typical, the line went dead without her supervisor first signing off.
Typing in the number for her asset at Reagan, she quickly made arrangements for the private jet. Then she opened the top drawer of her bedside table and pulled out her trusty Sig P228. When she first joined the CIA, she’d come to terms with the unsavory idea that at some point during her career, she would probably be forced to use her sidearm for more than simple dissuasion. But as the years dragged on, and the occasion for violence never presented itself, she’d begun to think perhaps Fate had thrown her a bone, kept her out of harm’s way so she would never have the weight of a lost life anchoring down her conscience.
Of course, Fate wasn’t known to be a fickle bitch for nothing. True to form, all Olivia’s good fortune had ended in the most inconceivable way that day in the high desert when somehow, someway—she’d since come to suspect the mysterious CIA leaker’s involvement—her cover had been blown, and she was forced to end a man. It had been awful. Worse than she’d imagined. Particularly since that death had resulted in a blowback that claimed the life of one courageous American warrior.
Not for the first time since that disastrous mission, she questioned whether she wanted to continue working for The Company. The stress she could handle. The danger and the intrigue? Piece of cake. But the killing and the death… Those were whole other ball games, weren’t they?
“Sonofabitch,” she cursed, shaking her head at herself. “Get it together, Mortier.” Forcing some steel into her spine, she straightened her shoulders and took a quick look around the tiny loft she kept in Washington, DC.
A full-sized bed with a drab, gray coverlet took up most of the space. It was flanked by two nondescript bedside tables she’d purchased five years earlier from IKEA. Not one piece of art graced the brick walls. Not one photo sat on a shelf. And rounding out the whole antithesis of Better Homes and Gardens decor was the uninspiring desk and chair she used on those rare occasions when she was home and needed to work on her laptop.
As she turned toward the kitchen, the yellow wash of the overhead light revealed that the ivy plant she’d impulse-purchased a month ago—or had it been two months ago now?—had shriveled up and died in its pot on the windowsill. Its once-glossy leaves were brown and brittle. They seemed to mock her in death. Apparently she couldn’t even keep one hardy little vine alive. And that was just…something. Sad, maybe? Pathetic? More like typical.
“Not leaving much behind, are you, old girl?” The words seemed to echo around the cramped space, circling back to slap her in the face.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when she would have laughed at the melancholy turn of her thoughts. After all, the only thing she’d wanted since she was fourteen, sitting under the big oak tree in the orphanage yard and reading Tom Clancy novels, was to be a spy. Aloof. Unattached. Indifferent.
But something had changed in the last several months. Something was…missing.
A place to really call home? People to care about? People who cared about her?
Sh’yeaaah, as if. She’d never had that. Never needed that. Never wanted that.
But maybe it was recently reaching the milestone of her thirtieth birthday, or perhaps it was some sort of sadistically ticking biological clock thing, because the words sounded hollow even though they were banging around inside her own head.
Okay, so if she wanted to be completely honest, the truth was that ever since Syria, ever since meeting Leo, ever since that kiss…
Holy hell! That kiss!
Even now, anytime she thought about it, she got all soft and gooey inside. All estrogen-y and womanly and not at all CIA agent-y, which was…not exactly something she was proud of, but there you go.
“Sheesh, Mortier. You’re a sad piece of work. You can’t let one little smooch—” Wait…little? That kiss hadn’t come anywhere close to being little. In fact, in the Guinness World Records, you could probably find it under the title “Deepest and Hottest Lip Lock of the Century.” Because it’d been a long time coming. Three months to be exact, ever since they first locked eyes on each other. And just when she was beginning to think the man would never make a move, he did.
They’d been standing in front of a weapons locker checking their inventory, of all things, when he suddenly turned to her, placed a warm, callused hand beneath her jaw, and lowered his head. His hot breath had whispered across her lips the second before his mouth landed atop hers. And when his tongue slowly, languidly pushed inside? Well, like a pin pulled from a grenade, her passion had exploded and her knees had buckled beneath her. Actually buckled. Which she’d thought only happened in sappy rom-coms and cheesy romance novels, but she’d learned that afternoon that fiction really did mirror fact.