“This is about your brothers, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. “About your family?”
She drew a sharp breath and turned away from him, and Cody knew he’d hit the bull’s-eye on the first try. He walked over to her and slid his arms around her from behind. She resisted at first, standing stiffly in his embrace, but when he didn’t do anything but hold her, she relaxed her guard just the slightest bit.
“I never told you what I said to Callahan when I was trying to convince him you could be trusted, did I?” he asked conversationally, breathing in the scent of her but refusing to succumb to the temptation.
“You told him how we met,” she said gruffly. “And you told him I reminded you of his wife.”
“Yes, but that’s not all I told him.”
“Something about guts and brains?” she asked. “He mentioned you’d said that, too.”
“Yeah, but that’s still not all of it.” Cody thought for a moment, trying to remember his exact words. “I told him that physically you’re no match for a man, but you’ve got guts and brains. I said you’d fight to the death, if that’s what it takes, and he couldn’t ask for much more than that.”
She turned in the circle of his arms, facing him, her eyes betraying her emotional uncertainty. “You didn’t even know me then,” she whispered. “How could you know that about me?”
Cody gazed down at her. “I knew that about you in the first five minutes,” he said simply, his eyes forcing her to remember that first night and the way she’d fought not only him, but her kidnappers.
When she continued to stare at him in disbelief, he added, “And when I told Callahan you reminded me a lot of Mandy, I also said you’d shoot me if you had to. That was the clincher. And it was the truth, too.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners, in the way he was coming to know meant she was emotionally hurt. “Not now,” he clarified with a faint smile. “I don’t think you’d shoot me now...unless I completely misheard you earlier.”
She laughed a little at that, as he had intended her to do. He pulled her closer. “Being a woman doesn’t have anything to do with the kind of agent you are. Everyone who knows your work thinks the world of you, including me.”
His voice dropped a notch. “But, Keira, you’re a woman,” he told her. “Don’t be ashamed of that.” He took a deep breath, letting his pain creep into his voice. “And don’t be ashamed of what you feel for me.”
“I’m not ashamed of loving you,” she said fiercely, her hands gripping his arms.
“Then don’t be ashamed of being a woman. My woman.”
She drew a sharp breath. “I’m not. It’s just—”
He never got to hear what she was going to say, because a buzzer sounded just then. Keira pulled out of his arms abruptly and together they went to the view monitor. Two men stood in the vestibule below. They had that watchful look of agents, but neither Keira nor Cody was going to let them in without identification.
“Yes?” Keira said into the speaker.
Both men held identification badges up to the camera. “Special Agents Sabbatino and Moran. Baker Street sent us.”
Calling D’Arcy Baker Street was even more convincing than their ID cards, and Cody nodded at Keira as her hand hovered over the buzzer that would let the two men in.
Chapter 15
The hands of the clock stood at 12:17 a.m., and Keira was curled up in the armchair almost asleep, when the phone call came on Cody’s cell. He listened intently, and jotted down a couple of things on the notepad he pulled from his pocket. “Thanks,” he said at the end. “I owe you guys.”
Keira blinked owlishly at him. “What was it?”
“Gelignite,” he said. “Beloved of terrorists the world over.”
She caught her breath. “How?”
“Rigged to the accelerator. Turn the key, step on the gas and boom,” he said lightly, although part of him was still shaken at how narrowly he’d cheated death. If he hadn’t noticed the dust missing from the hood...
Keira squeezed her eyes shut for an instant, as if she didn’t want to think about what might have happened. Cody glanced at Sabbatino and Moran, sitting quietly in the little dining area, hoping for her sake they hadn’t seen Keira’s reaction. For himself, he didn’t care if the whole world knew—except for the terrorists who were gunning for him.