Code Name: Nanny (SEAL and Code Name #5)(70)

Gabe started to argue, but she raised her hand. “A man died because I should have made him go by the book, Gabe. End of story.” She shook her head once. “So I’m going to second-guess every single thing you tell me and everything anyone else tells me, too.

“When do we meet Terence Underhill?”

“Our contact is working on the details right now. I’ll tell you more as soon as I know for sure.”

There was a light tap at the door. “Dinner’s ready, folks.”

“Coming right out.” Gabe held out one arm. “Ready, Mrs. Walker?”

“Just as long as I don’t have to call you Duke,” Summer said dryly.



After two servings of grilled salmon with anchiote peppers and corn salsa, T.J. McCall’s wife, Tess, appeared with a tray of chocolate desserts that left Summer groaning. Sipping strong coffee out on the porch was a strange experience, the air heady with sage and mesquite smoke that seemed to catch in the long hollows of dry arroyos.

When it was time to leave, Summer felt a pang of regret. The sheriff and his wife had been affable hosts, asking no questions, and Tess had loaned Summer a soft blouse to replace the damaged one.

Again with no questions asked.

“Mrs. Walker?”

Standing in the small airport, Summer stiffened, realizing her fictitious name had been called. A smiling staff member directed her to the plane, where Gabe met her a few moments later, after a final conversation with the sheriff. Then the doors were locked and the engines throbbed and they droned down the runway.

Summer turned to study Gabe’s face in the dim cabin lights.

His hand was open on his knee, rubbing idly, and though his face held no expression, Summer sensed he was in pain. Something to do with his knee, she guessed. How had she been so preoccupied that she hadn’t seen it before?

There in the snug, humming darkness, she caught a sense of secrets, closely held things that skated just below the surface of this man she hardly knew. Not that his secrets held any importance for her. She was the job, that was the pure, absolute truth. She could play at being a loving wife all day, but at night, back in the privacy of their room, all warmth and affection would fade until they turned away from each other, strangers once more.

The thought left Summer with a sense of emptiness. Or it would have, if she allowed herself to dwell on what might have been.

But habit had its uses, and habit kept her to the work at hand, whispering that it was better to be cool and unattached. Without distance, people started to matter—and for Summer, the people who mattered always went away and didn’t come back.



“Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

Cara sat up, gripping the sheet tangled beneath her flushed body. “I can feel it.”

Frowning, Tate checked his watch, then grabbed his cell phone.

No questions asked. Cara realized this was one of the reasons she loved him so completely and absolutely. Few men would have understood Cara’s gnawing fear that her professional life would one day cross over to harm her children. Fewer men still would have made no complaint when that fear interrupted them in the middle of sex.

She watched his face, greenish-gold in the LCD from his cell phone. “Bud, it’s Tate. Everything quiet down there with the girls?” The senator listened in silence, then nodded. “That’s just fine. We’ll be down in about forty-five minutes. Save us some peach ice cream.”

“Well?” Cara demanded, still struggling with an odd, drifting certainty that something was wrong.

“They’re safe and bone-deep happy. Elly’s feeding Audra ice cream by the pint and Bud’s showing Sophy how to tie her first fishing lure. No one has seen anything odd anywhere, except for two shooting stars.”

“You’re sure?”

“Bud’s a careful man, honey. He knows what’s at stake—in general terms, at least. Now you really can stop worrying.”

“Let me check my voice mail.” The sharp, discordant sense of danger persisted as she dialed her number back in California.

Three calls. One from the cleaner, one from her chef, and one from the local League of Women Voters, inviting Cara to speak at a fund-raiser in six months.

Nothing else.

She put down the phone and closed her eyes. “Maybe I’m losing it. Maybe it’s one big game and Costello is finally winning. I can’t stop worrying, Tate. I close my eyes and I see the girls at that window, just before the bullet hit.”

“No one said you had to stop worrying, honey. The trick is to have a break now and again. Each time you do that, you take back a piece of life.” His hand skimmed the warm line of her back. “Of course, I could offer to distract you.”

Cara made a husky sound as he leaned down to kiss the spot where her shoulder curved to meet her neck. “If I don’t stop feeling distracted, I may miss something that allows Costello to walk, or my girls to be harmed. I’ll be one of those bad mothers who wasn’t there when her kids needed her.”

“Costello won’t walk,” Tate whispered, pulling away the sheet. “Your girls are safe, and you’re a great mother. But right now, I’d like to do a little more research on some of your other abilities.”

Cara shivered as his hands skimmed her breasts. Need left her throat dry. “As a litigator?”