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S he was the best-dressed fugitive ever, Summer thought, standing on the steps of Isabel’s new home. She and Jack were going to stay in Isabel’s fiancé’s house, next door. Joe and Isabel had been next door neighbors but apparently Joe had all but moved in with Isabel. Joe gave Jack the keys, said, “Don’t burn it down, otherwise do what you want,” and disappeared into Isabel’s home.

They were invited over to dinner so they both showered and changed. Jack changed into something that looked exactly like what he’d been wearing before, only clean. She on the other hand had ordered a green cashmere sweater with matching cashmere bolero, heavy silk trousers and soft Gucci boots. She had five bags of this stuff.

Isabel opened the door and rushed into Summer’s arms, hugging her tightly. Summer hugged her back, incredibly moved. Isabel had been so nice to her the summer she’d first returned to the US.

Isabel pulled back, smiling and crying. She swiped impatiently at her face. “Summer, it’s so good to see you and so good to know you’re safe.” She turned to her brother and reached up to hug him, too. Like Summer, she had to stand on tiptoe to do it. “And you too, you big lug. You’re definitely too mean to kill.” The tears were falling freely now and Jack didn’t answer, just hugged her tightly, rocking them back and forth.

They’d been through the wringer. Their family lost, Isabel grievously wounded, Jack forced into hiding for six months. They deserved every moment of happiness they could wring out of life.

Isabel pulled away from Jack, smiling through her tears. “I’m really glad you ditched the homeless look.” She wrinkled her nose. “You smelled .”

“Good old stink of piss.” Jack’s voice was light, but Summer could tell he was moved at seeing his sister again. “Don’t knock it, it saved my life. No one gave me a second glance. Otherwise I’d probably be a floater in the Potomac.”

Isabel shuddered.

Joe ambled up behind Isabel, put an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, Jack. Good to see you again. Summer, nice to meet you in person. Honey, is the pork roast supposed to be black?”

Isabel’s eyes rounded and she rushed into the kitchen with a cry.

Joe shrugged. “Be prepared to be amazed at the food,” he said to Summer. “I’m responsible for the drinks, though, so we’ll start with cocktails. Scotch or Prosecco?”

“Prosecco, definitely.”

“Great. More Scotch for me and Jack.” He poured two scotches in whiskey glasses and some Prosecco in a flute for her.

The guys started discussing something to do with security and Summer wandered into the kitchen. It was well-organized with amazing smells coming from it. Several platters were on a counter, the contents looking incredibly tempting. Summer reached out a hand then pulled it back.

Isabel pulled some meat out of the oven—no traces of black at all—and put it on the stove top. “Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t mind previews. And Joe and Jack will demolish everything as soon as it’s on the table, so go ahead and grab your share.”

Summer used a small fork to pick up something and put it in her mouth. It was small, round, fried. And delicious.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Olive ascolane,” Isabel replied. “Homemade, not the frozen variety. Meat-filled fried olives. An old recipe from Abruzzo. Try the special bruschetta.” She held out a thin slice of roasted bread with a white cream on top and Summer nearly moaned. “Oh, God.”

Isabel smiled smugly. “Yep. Homemade sourdough bread and a ricotta mousse with truffle on top.” She bit into her own slice, placed her elbows on the island countertop and leaned toward Summer. “So. You and Jack.”

Summer fought a blush and coughed as the sip of Prosecco went down the wrong way. “Well, uh…”

A dollop of the incredible mousse had dropped onto the counter and Isabel scooped it up with her finger which she put in her mouth. “You know, Mom and I were just delighted when we got word that Jack was dating you in college.”

Well, Summer had a response for that. “We dated for a week, Isabel. Then Jack dumped me.”

Isabel sighed, lifted her eyes to Summer’s. “Yeah. Because that’s what Jack did back in the day. But that’s not Jack anymore. Trust me, Jack is an entirely different person now.”

Summer nodded. She didn’t know what to say.

“And I can tell he’s in love with you.”

Summer really didn’t know what to say to that. No words were possible. Though her heart gave a treacherous thump in her chest.

“Honey?” Joe’s plaintive voice came from the living room. He stuck his head in the kitchen. He was a remarkably tough-looking man. Thin—he was still recovering from battle wounds that had nearly taken his life—but very muscular, he was one of those men who looked like he could withstand more or less anything short of a nuclear bomb. So it was a miracle that he somehow also managed to look like a starving homeless waif. He even batted his brown eyes at them. “We’re starving out here. Any hope of sustenance soon?”

Isabel’s face lit up when she saw him. It was amazing to Summer. Isabel had been very kind to Summer but she was an upper class woman through and through. Summer had never seen her unnerved or embarrassed. She’d never seen Isabel taken with any particular man, either. Isabel had always been cool and collected and even a bit unemotional.

It was astonishing to see her so open and affectionate with Joe. He walked into the kitchen, kissed her when she lifted her face to his, and stroked her cheek.

Summer looked away. Nobody should intrude on their private happiness. Isabel so deserved this. She’d lost her entire family except for Jack in the Washington Massacre. She’d been so wounded she’d been in a coma. It was hard to think of what she’d been through.

But it had brought Joe into her life. He loved her. And she had not only Joe but a whole group of incredible people around her.

Summer was only tangential to the group yet even to her it felt like warming cold hands at a big bonfire. She could only imagine what it was like inside the circle.

Jack stuck his head in. “Hey, you two, stop locking lips and start taking care of us. We need food!”

Isabel broke away from Joe, falling back down on her heels. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Jack.

“Food, glorious food!” Isabel sang and she started ferrying out platters of the stuff. Summer helped and soon the dining table was groaning with food.

Thin slices of roasted pork with a strawberry reduction glaze. Grilled zucchini with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Roasted pepper couscous. Slices of cheese with pear jam. Greek salad. Baked chard with cheese.

A reverent silence descended as they started eating. Everything was amazing. Peak experience after peak experience.

“I can’t believe you get to eat like this every day,” Summer said to Joe.

“I know.” He smiled smugly and cut himself a slice of gratinéed chard. “I’m even eating greens now. And liking them.” He turned to Isabel. “I will never leave you,” he intoned solemnly. “You can lose your hair and your teeth and gain three hundred pounds and I will never, ever leave you.”

Isabel cleared her throat, ran the tines of her dessert fork over the tablecloth. “Speaking of eating like this every day…” She looked at Summer then at Jack. Her heart was in her eyes. “There’s a house for sale just down the block.” Her voice was hoarse. She waited a moment, sipped her wine. “It’s really nice. The moment you’re declared living, Jack, what’s left of the sale of the family home is yours. I could—I could never bring myself to take what would have been your share. I simply couldn’t do it. It’s still in the bank and it’s yours. And it would cover more or less the cost of this house I’m talking about. A really nice family lived there, it’s got to have good vibes. Portland is a great place to live. We could be a family again.”

Isabel’s voice broke as tears fell down her face.

Joe put his hand on Jack’s arm. “Much as it pains me to say this, I actually look forward to having a lunk like you as my brother-in-law. And if you lived close by—” He looked away for a second, jaw muscles clenching. Joe looked so amazingly rough, the kind of guy who wouldn’t show emotion, but now he was clearly moved. “If you lived close by, we really could be a family. I’ve never had much of a family myself, so I wouldn’t mind trying it out. Can always toss you away if it doesn’t work.” His eyes were suspiciously moist. “And Midnight and the Senior have said several times they’d like you to come work for them. They have too many hard-working former SEALs, they said. They need some sneaky slacker former CIA pukes.”

Jack was frozen. Why wasn’t he saying anything?

Isabel glanced at Summer. “And Summer can run Area 8 from anywhere, right? I mean, I know she reports on a lot of DC stuff but that’s why God invented airlines and the internet, right? And she’s going to write a book about this anyway, might as well write it here in Portland.”

Wait a minute. Were they including her in this? Why? This was a Delvaux thing, she wasn’t involved in any way. How could she just up and move to Portland? And she and Jack weren’t—weren’t whatever it was Isabel thought they were.

Summer opened her mouth and Jack’s cell pinged. For a second he didn’t move. Summer was about to answer for him, when he thumbed his screen. He looked—stunned. As if he’d received a huge shock and still wasn’t over it.

“Metal,” he said. “Hey. Is Felicity making any progress?”

Metal’s face appeared on the cell’s screen. “Yeah. Felicity is sending the entire contents to Summer’s laptop and yours. You guys know him better than we do and you might be able to pick up things that won’t ping our radar. But Felicity’s got one important thing. You got a bigger screen?”

“Yeah.” Joe hauled out a big tablet. “Send it to me.”

“Okay. Sending now. While your system is getting it, let me tell you that Nick says a lot of stuff is going on in DC. The Director is about to come out in the open about Marcus Springer. He’s about ready to file for a warrant for Springer’s arrest, but he’s waiting for more evidence. The FBI accusing one of the heads of the CIA of treason is not going to be easy and the Director knows he might lose his job over it. But he says it would be worth it to take Springer down. Okay, I’ll pass you over to Felicity.” The screen changed and Felicity’s pretty, angry face came on.

“This guy had candy-ass security,” Felicity said, frowning. “I take it almost as a personal insult. So I sent the contents to Nick and to the Director of the FBI because there are several interesting bank account numbers and figures and there’s some interesting email correspondence from an anonymous IP. He also talks a lot about an Event, capital E. He doesn’t say when the event will occur or what it will be. We don’t know if by Event he means these fake attacks today plus the real attack on the Hathaway Building. So I’m going to keep going through his files as will the FBI. But I did discover one very interesting thing.” Onscreen, she showed a tablet with a big number on it.

37.8267N 122.4233W

“What’s that?” Summer asked. “Wait! That looks like?—”

“GPS coordinates,” Jack, Joe and Felicity said at the same time.

“What does that correspond to?” Jack asked.

“It corresponds to here.” A Google map came onscreen with a teardrop. “San Francisco. A tiny alleyway off Brannan Street. Not far from the big new Google headquarters.”

Summer traced the teardrop. “Could that be it?” she wondered. “An attack on Google? God knows if we lose it, we’d be in a sad state.”

Felicity cocked her head, considering. “No, it doesn’t compute. Because the building isn’t completed yet and it will be just an admin building. Google’s diffuse, it’s got server farms everywhere. Even blowing the Mission street building up wouldn’t take Google down. It would be a tragedy for the loss of life and there would be a huge loss of property but…it wouldn’t be a devastating blow.”

“So…what?” Summer asked.

Felicity just shrugged.

“Well, we’re going down tomorrow morning, do some recon,” Metal said. “Nick’s alerting a few guys from the SF FBI office. We need intel. The special agents will have to stay on the perimeter until the Director gets warrants but we can get in close. You in, Joe? Jack?”

Before they could answer, she got her voice in. “I’m coming too,” Summer said crisply. Determined. They weren’t going to leave her behind.

“Sweetheart…” Jack said uneasily.

“This story needs to be told. And it needs to be told right. There are a lot of different threads and I have no doubt that Springer and whoever else is working with him have a team that can obfuscate the truth. My job is to get to the bottom of this and explain it to people in a clear fashion. Get the truth in before their lies start. To do that, I need to be with you guys in San Francisco. I’ll stay out of your hair.”

Metal had been talking off screen. “Nick says you can’t go near the infil team.”

“The what?”

“The team that will try to infiltrate the building,” Jack explained. He was still frowning.

That made sense. “That’s fine. I’m not an operator. I’d just be in everyone’s way. But I want the right to debrief the team as soon as they come back.”

“We’re booking rooms at the Marriott on 3 rd Street, which is only a few blocks away and Summer can just stay in the hotel. Unless they’re planning to set off a nuke along the San Andreas Fault, she’ll be safe, Jack.”

It was the exact wrong thing to say. Jack’s face showed extreme alarm.

“That was a joke.” Summer put her hand on Jack’s arm and looked at Metal. “A very bad one, in extremely poor taste. Wasn’t it, Metal?”

Metal’s mouth took on a mulish cast and then Felicity’s face appeared. “My guy sometimes suffers from foot in mouth disease. Pay him no mind. ASI’s jet will take off tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. from the general aviation section. Jacko will swing by at 8:15 and pick Jack, Summer and Joe up. You’ll find all the tac gear you need on the plane. Nick’s guys will be based in a suite at the Marriot from 7:00 a.m. on. They’ll text you their room number en route. You will have four connecting suites—Joe, Jacko and Jack and Summer and the FBI team. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day, so stop stuffing your faces—Isabel, I want boxed leftovers from tonight’s dinner, including dessert—and get some rest.”

Isabel waved at Felicity. “You got it. Are you overnighting at ASI?”

“Yeah. I’m doing all the hard work here, so I’ll need sustenance. You dig?”

“I do. I’ll send Joe over right now with the leftovers and I’ll be over early tomorrow morning with some fresh croissants and a slice of your favorite cheesecake. If you ask nicely.”

“Asking nicely.”

“You got it. Thank you for this, Felicity.”

She looked blank for a second. “Oh. Yeah. Ah.” Felicity blew out a breath. “Don’t thank me, it’s what I do.” Her head cocked again as she listened to something offscreen. “Nick says for everyone to get to bed and sleep comfortably for him. He’s catching the red eye and he’ll be in SF around dawn.”

Isabel rose and shooed Summer and Jack from the table. “I can’t help you guys but I can certainly take care of cleaning up. Go to bed the two of you. You’re going to need to rest.” Isabel stood on tiptoe to kiss her brother goodnight. She whispered something in his ear and he nodded soberly. Then she hugged Summer tightly and whispered in her ear. “Take care of him, Summer. He’s been through so much. Take care of him, bring him back and think about staying here with us. Staying here and being a family.”

Summer hid her face against Isabel’s neck and simply clung to her.

Family.

A powerful surge of emotions she had no idea how to handle pulsed through her.

Family.

Jack.

Family.

She stuffed all those emotions into a tight box and nailed the lid shut. She couldn’t deal with this, not now. They were in the middle of a national emergency. She’d elected herself a chronicler of historic events. Her writing would shape the way people looked and talked and understood what was happening. Maybe, with some luck, her writing would attain historic status.

She couldn’t think about this, about Jack and Isabel and Portland and family, not in any way.

But it was a long time before she could let Isabel go.

Jack was quiet as he opened the front door of Joe’s house and ushered Summer in. Isabel’s words had affected him deeply. Buying a house nearby, settling down here. Seeing Isabel and Joe nearly every day. Working at ASI with men he already considered friends and teammates.

But the thing that made it gel in his mind was doing all this with Summer . Isabel had nailed it when she’d asked Summer to stay here, in Portland. Instinctively, Isabel had understood that Summer was the one for him.

Isabel had always been smart when it came to the human heart.

When he’d felt Summer inhabit a Summer-shaped space in him that he hadn’t known was there, he’d been right. Only that space was permanent.

Jack had had a lot of women but he had never had this sense of partnership that he felt with Summer. Like they were a team, working toward the same goals.

Right now that partnership was centered on unraveling a dangerous conspiracy, but he could feel that that partnership could extend to building a life together, a family together.

A family.

If he was ever to found a family, it could only be with the woman whose back he was touching.

He hadn’t ever really thought about kids, but once the idea was put in his head he couldn’t dislodge it. Kids here, in Portland, with his sister and Joe and the other guys from ASI and their women. Kids who would have cousins nearby because Joe and Isabel were already talking about having children.

Kids with a woman who was strong, with an iron moral core. A woman he desired more than his next breath, but also a woman he could count on, just as his mother had been.

He didn’t need to accompany Summer over a threshold with a hand on her back. She was perfectly capable of that all on her own. She was an amazingly capable woman and didn’t need his help in anything.

But he needed to be touching her right now, had to be touching her or nothing made sense in his life.

Summer looked around with a sad smile on her face. “Isabel wants you to move here.”

What the fuck was up with that sadness? Like he was going to leave her or something?

“She wants you to move here, too.”

The sad smile grew sadder. “That’s because she somehow thinks I would be an incentive for you to move here.”

Fuck yeah, she’d be an incentive.

Jack herded her into the bedroom. He wanted to talk to her but he also needed to touch her naked skin, he needed to be kissing her, he needed to be inside her, because that was where he found peace.

“I wouldn’t think of moving here without you,” he said harshly and when she turned a surprised face to him, he kissed her.

And kissed her.

And kissed her.

He walked her backward into Joe’s bedroom, half carrying her, half breathing for her. She’d gone to town with the clothes shopping. Everything he touched was either cashmere or silk, but it was the silk of her skin he was after.

He undressed himself and then her, very slowly, his present to himself after these past six awful, lonely months. This was his prize.

Slowly. He had to go slowly, because he’d behaved like a starved beast on the plane. Something about the disasters unfolding had been like a burr under the skin. Many were fakes but some were not. Even the fake disasters had shown him—as if he needed to learn that lesson—how fragile life was. You build and you build and then some cruel monster comes along and swats it all away with a careless hand.

Look at his family. The most solid family in the world, they lived in a structure of love, unbreakable and untouchable and in the space of a few minutes, his family was gone.

Bad things were coming and for some reason, Summer seemed to be in the crosshairs, too.

He could lose her. He could hold her lifeless body in his arms and weep his rage to the sky and the sky wouldn’t care. She would still be gone.

He had to bind her to him. He had to make sure she stayed with him, because he would keep her safe. He’d keep her safe because his own life depended on it.

When she stood naked before him, looking up at him, he could see her heart in her eyes. She’d deny it, but he could see it. She was his. And he was hers.

They belonged together. They would have a family together. After all that he’d seen, Jack ached to bring children into the world who would be loved as he and Isabel had been loved. Children who would grow up strong and fight the evil in the world.

Jack reached out to touch Summer. He cupped her breast, warm and heavy in his hand. He turned his hand so his palm ran over her flat belly, where someday a child of theirs would grow.

His dick swelled at the thought.

Summer’s eyes grew round. “Wow. Whatever that thought was, hold it, because it worked.”

He smiled. Oh, yeah.

His hand lay over her womb as he bent to kiss her breast, the breast that would nurse their child. His dick jerked at the thought. His breathing sped up.

Before he lost control again, he stood up, looking at her face.

He’d watch that face age, he’d watch lines of good humor etch themselves into her skin. Lines fan out from those beautiful eyes. But he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would always be beautiful to him, just as his mother had always been beautiful to his father.

Words jostled in his throat. He had so many things to tell her, he had so many things he wanted to learn from her. But there was one thing above all he had to say. More important than anything else.

He eased her on her back and took a moment to look at her. Her legs were slightly parted, a sign of welcome. He felt that welcome in every cell of her body. She opened everything to him. When her arms came up, he smiled and slid his body over hers, slid into her body, saw her close her eyes and smile.

Her body was his.

When he didn’t move, just stayed inside the warm clasp of her sex, she opened her eyes. “Jack?”

He nodded, but made no move to start making love. Summer’s smile faded as she saw his serious expression. “Is something wrong?”

He picked up her hand, looked at it for a long time then looked up at her face.

“Summer Redding, will you marry me?”