Page 28 of Baby Take Me Home

“We can’t stop you.”

My hopes soared.

“But we can’t protect you and your family, either. I can’t promise you’ll be safe until we take down Kovac.” He stared down at our hands. “I’m not going to lie to you, Ashlee. Getting to his phone is step one of possibly ten or twenty or one hundred. It’s going to take a while. In the meantime, everyone you love could be in danger.”

I was back to the same place I’d been a few hours ago, but this time I didn’t give into the panic. What would be the use? I wanted to find a way to go home, to see my family again, to see TJ again outside the walls of this building. To do all of that, I needed to keep my wits about me. I needed to be smart about my next step. I needed a plan. And I needed to remain as focused as possible for as long as it took to formulate one.

CHAPTER 11

TJ

I stoodin a cold shower and washed away the stress of the long day. I’d gone from invested observer to almost lover to bearer of bad news to bearer of worse news in Ashlee Armand’s life, all in under eight hours.

I climbed out of the shower, dried off, and pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants. I needed a good stiff drink and a better night’s sleep. Maybe then I could think more clearly and come up with a way to return Ashlee to her life. I tried to ignore the suspicion that my motives weren’t entirely altruistic. If I could keep her out of the grasp of both Kovac and HEAT, I wouldn’t have to send her away.

A knock on the door made me groan. But my team didn’t bother me in my private space unless it was important, so I called, “Just a minute,” and grabbed a tee shirt from my bedroom. A minute later, I pulled open the door to find Ashlee in her own sweats and tee shirt. A very tight, pale green tee shirt. I tried to ignore it, then found myself staring at the spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks and her unruly hair spilling down past her shoulders.

She rolled forward on the balls of her toes, full of energy for someone who’d had such a tough day. “You should invite me in,” she said with a grin.

I started to grin back but stopped myself. That opening had led us down a forbidden path once already today. “It’s late. You should get some sleep.” Jesus, I sounded like my own grandfather.

She didn’t seem to notice my decrepitude or my lack of an invitation. She peered past my shoulder. “Are you having a drink?”

Well hell, I could hardly add bad manners to my list of poor behavior. “Please, come in. May I pour you a whiskey?”

She was across the threshold before I even finished speaking. “Yes, please. Do you have ice?”

“I do.” I crossed to the kitchenette, which was part of the open living area, and pulled another rocks glass out of the cupboard. I fetched one large ice cube from the freezer, poured a finger of whiskey over it, and handed it to her.

She held up her glass and waited.

I picked up my drink. “What are we toasting?” I asked.

Her gorgeous grin widened and she clinked her glass against mine. “A plan. A beautiful, excellent, heartbreaking plan.”

I took a sip of my drink along with her, then motioned to the living room. “Now I’m intrigued.” We sat on either end of the sofa with a few feet of space between us. It wasn’t where I wanted to be in relation to her, but it was necessary. “What, exactly, are you planning?”

“My return from the dead.”

I nearly choked on my second sip of whiskey. “I don’t follow.”

“More like my return from imminent death.” She tossed back the rest of her drink and set her glass on the coffee table, then turned to me with wide, shining eyes. “You said I won’t be safe if Luka thinks I’m a threat, so all we have to do is assure him I’m not.”

“Okay, I’m on board with thewhat, but now we need thehow.”

“Which I have. Were you not paying attention to my speech about the beautiful and excellent plan?”

I set down my half-empty glass and angled myself to face her. “I was. And I also heard the word heartbreaking.”

Her smile faded. “We’ll get to that. We’ll get to all of it. Let me start at the beginning.”

“Please.”

I settled back against the arm of the sofa. I held out little hope that she’d really masterminded a solution to our problem, but I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I was intrigued, and I didn’t hate watching her full lips and expressive eyes as she told me a story.

“Eight years ago, I was fresh out of college and had just started working at the Sun. That’s when I met Aiden Brooks.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “We’re going way back for this. Based on our intel, the Carbonados didn’t even exist eight years ago. How is this relevant to your plan?”