Surviving Ice (Burying Water, #4)(89)

“I can’t.” I pull out, release her legs, and step back, pulling her down with me, sliding her pants back up. “I need to take this.” Bentley will let it ring at least twenty times before hanging up.

“Why? Who is it?” Suspicion screams in her voice. She’s still thinking I’ve got another life. I guess I do; it just doesn’t involve other women.

“It’s work.”

“Oh.” Some of the suspicion eases away.

“I’ll meet you downstairs.”

With reluctance, she walks away, closing the door behind me.

Just in case she’s listening on the other side, I slide the window open, pop out the screen, and slip out onto that shitty old shed in the back that will afford me some privacy as I answer. “Yeah.”

“Ice.”

My stomach instantly tightens. This isn’t just a check-in call. He has another assignment for me, and soon.

“I couldn’t reach you last night.”

“Dead battery,” I answer without missing a beat. That’s a lie. I turned it off, like I’ve been doing every night that I stay with Ivy. I’m not entirely sure how easy it is for his minions to track me down, but I know that if this phone rings and someone answers, he’ll know where I’m staying. In the off chance that he hasn’t already figured it out, there’s no point making it too easy for him.

“I have a job for you,” Bentley says, his voice as smooth as usual. Only I don’t feel the same affection for it anymore, now that I can’t hear it without a rush of distrust. “I need you to come and meet me—”

“No.” Another assignment that involves me meeting directly with Bentley? Hell no.

There’s a long pause. I’ve never refused an assignment before. But just the idea of leaving Ivy right now makes me want to puke.

“I think accepting is in your best interests.”

What the f*ck is that supposed to mean? How is sending me to China or Sudan, or somewhere else far away from Ivy, so Scalero can tie up his loose end, in my best interests? “I’m not leaving her.” I’m not a SEAL anymore, and he can’t order me around.

“What’s this about?”

“The car that was sitting outside the house.” He knows exactly where I am right now. There’s no point pretending. “Was he on her, or on me?”

“Why would I have anyone on you?” Bentley’s friendly tone is gone, but I don’t buy his irritation for a second. Months drag between my assignments. He wants me gone now for a reason. He wants to erase this last question mark—Ivy—for a reason.

I don’t answer him. This conversation has already gone on long enough.

“Don’t forget who’s had your back all these years, son.”

“And don’t forget who has done everything you’ve asked all these years with blind trust.” He must hear the anger in my tone.

Silence hangs over the line.

Have I said too much?

“I need time.” Time to reconcile my guilt over this last assignment, a guilt that seems to grow daily, as I get closer to Ivy. Time to make sure she’s safe.

Time to get to know her.

Time to be sure that this is what I want. That she is what I want. Time to figure out how I’m going to lie to her for the rest of our lives.

“I don’t think you understand what I’m—”

“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I’m saying no. Send your mercenaries. I’m sure between the two of them, they won’t f*ck it up too badly.” I hang up and shut the phone off.

Wondering exactly what refusing him will mean.





THIRTY-FIVE


IVY


I hadn’t intended on eavesdropping. Honestly.

I left Ned’s room and went to the office to collect the debris left after Sebastian patched all the holes. The window was open a crack, letting the cool air in.

The air that carried with it Sebastian’s low voice.

At least I know he wasn’t talking to a girlfriend, or a wife.

But who the hell was he talking to just now? Besides someone he said no to. He kept referring to “her.”

Am I “her”?

And mercenaries?

Jesus Christ. Who the hell is Sebastian?

“You hungry?”

I gasp at the sound of his voice, my mind so preoccupied, I didn’t notice him slip in. He’s in the doorway, his T-shirt back on.

“Maybe in an hour?”

His gaze flickers to the cracked window and then returns to me, screaming with understanding. My heart starts pounding.

He knows I overheard him.

I wonder if this is what Dakota was talking about. His deep, dark secrets.

I wait for him to say something about it, to accuse me of something, to get angry and storm out. But he simply closes the distance and pulls me into his arms, leaning down until our foreheads press together, not saying a word.

“What are you doing?” I finally ask.

After another long moment, he simply says, “I’m staying.”



I drop down to sit on the floor outside the bathroom, my back to the wall. Sebastian is still upstairs, filling the last of the holes, quietly brooding over something I don’t understand. The pre-phone-call windowsill action is clearly not going to pick up where it left off, so I figured I’d let him brood alone.