Out of Time Read online

  He grabbed the hand by the wrist that started to move toward the bandage. Not because he didn’t want her to see the wound but because the feel of her hands on him was leaving very little to the imagination. “It’s fine. I just need to change the bandage.”

  “I can help you.”

  “No,” he said more harshly than he intended. But the thought of her standing near him like this in a small bathroom, where the citrus scent of her shampoo—seemingly designed to make him want to bury his head in it—would be even more pungent, putting her hands on him . . . no thanks. He was already jumping out of his skin. But seeing the wounded look in her eyes, he added, “Thanks, but it isn’t necessary. Really, Nat.” He stared intently into her eyes. “It’s almost healed.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment and nodded, but then a look of pure horror came over her. “Did Mick do it?”

  He shook his head. “It was one of the men he hired.”

  She bit her lip again, the distress returning. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  He nodded. “But let me get some clothes on and clean up a little, all right?” Suddenly it was his turn to frown, taking note of the open window. “What are you doing up here? I thought you weren’t going to climb out of any more windows.”

  She blushed. “I’m not. I’m just getting ready to sand before painting.”

  “You’ve been fixing up the place?” He’d seen all the tools and equipment lying around, but he’d thought they’d belonged to workers.

  She put her hands on her hips, with an expression on her face that made him think about minefields and being careful where to step next. “And why do you sound so surprised? Don’t tell me you are one of those guys.”

  He hesitated to ask. “What guys?”

  “The kind that thinks that just because I don’t have a Y chromosome I can’t hold a hammer.”

  He caught himself from saying something about her holding his hammer anytime. That was something he would have said in the old days. Not now.

  But it was getting harder and harder to keep his mind from slipping back into the way it used to be. To keep the distance and the wall he’d put up between them. To remind himself that she’d betrayed him in a way that was unforgivable.

  Their conversation from last night had kept him up most of the night. He didn’t want to believe anything she told him. But he did. If not all of it then most of it. Some of it was too implausible not to be true. And the rest of it was consistent with what he knew.

  But if she wasn’t lying then he’d have to concede that she might have been in a horrible catch-22 situation where what to do might not be as straightforward as he wanted to make it. Her accusation last night had struck a chord. She wasn’t in his position and hadn’t had his resources. Could he fault her for not trusting others to protect her and those she cared about, when he was doing the same thing right now with the team?

  He also couldn’t ignore that she’d risked her life—and her friend had lost hers—to warn him. That warning had saved him and five of his men.

  He didn’t know what to think, which was part of the problem. Scott always knew what to do. It was his greatest strength and why he had been put in charge of America’s most elite special operations unit. Spies went to prison. It should be as simple as that. But her guilt no longer seemed so clear-cut, and Scott was having a hard time invoking the anger and hatred that gave him the emotional detachment and headspace to think straight.

  His feelings for her had blinded him once. He wouldn’t let that happen again.

  But instead of commenting about the hammer, he said, “I think I’ll take the Fifth on that.”

  “Smart guy.”

  “I’ll get changed and give you some help.”

  She arched one brow. “Lots of manual labor experience from those long summers playing golf at the country club?”

  He’d always loved how she teased him about his wealth as if it didn’t matter to her. It honestly seemed not to matter to her. Unfortunately, in this case, the teasing was kind of true. He didn’t have much renovation experience. Okay, any. “Yeah, well, I’m a quick study.”

  Over the next two days, while they waited for the doctor to call with the blood test results, Natalie put Scott to work, challenging that assessment. He was definitely out of his element with stripping wallpaper, sanding, cutting trim, fixing loose floorboards, and painting, but she was right at home. He couldn’t believe how handy she was—or that she’d already tackled much of the plumbing work.

  He was glad of something to do to keep busy, but he hadn’t anticipated the difficulty of close daily contact. Nor of the intimacy of working side by side. It was stretching his control to the limit. The sexual attraction between them had always been red-hot and trying to tamp that down wasn’t easy.

  He was just as attracted to her as he’d ever been. Maybe even more so. DIY, cutoff shorts, and ponytail Natalie was just as erotic as sexy, businesswoman Natalie—maybe more so. He felt like he’d been dropped into a home show porno. Who knew sanding could be sexy? He’d forced her off the ladder not just because of the baby but because it put the soft curve of her butt cheek beneath the edge of her shorts perfectly in view, and it was driving him crazy not to touch that soft velvety skin.

  In addition to sexual frustration, the forced proximity was taking a sledgehammer to the wall he was trying to keep between them. More than once he’d found himself lapsing back into their old pattern. Into the easy—sometimes teasing—conversations that had made him realize early on that what was between them wasn’t just incredible sex.

  Except now the conversations weren’t so one-sided. With the truth out, her wall had come down, and she seemed eager—almost anxious—to share her background with him. Subjects that had been so deftly turned in the past that he hadn’t even realized she’d done so were now wide-open. It was hard holding back his curiosity, and although he knew he shouldn’t if he wanted to keep thinking of her as the coldhearted Russian spy who’d betrayed him, he found himself asking questions.

  Yesterday, while they’d been picking up her car, she’d told him how she’d ended up in DC. He was surprised to hear that Mick had nothing to do with it. He hadn’t appeared on the scene until a couple of years later. She’d explained how when Big Dairy moved into their town her family lost their dairy farm, including the burgeoning artisanal cheese business she’d started with her sister to make the farm more profitable. It was hard enough to picture her growing up on a farm let alone starting a cheese business. But reading between the lines, he realized she’d done it just as much for her sister as for herself. “It’s so hard for special-needs adults to find jobs, and something like this was perfect for her. She loved it. It gave her such a sense of pride.”

  His heart would have really had to have been made of stone not to feel a pinch at that. The Russian spy with the heart of gold—great.

  Later he learned how she’d gone to Washington to work for a congressman who shared her interest in sustainability and was trying to protect small farms. Scott never would have guessed that beneath the polished, glossy exterior beat the heart of a crusader. But maybe with what he’d seen here so far it made sense. She had a strong sense of service and wasn’t the type to walk away from a problem.

  Which were both things he could get behind.

  She’d thought about law school and had applied for the job at the Pentagon to save money to go, when Mick came into her life.

  The reminder of Mick was enough to stop his questions for the day. But today he found himself handing her tools as she took apart a toilet to try to fix a slow leak, and couldn’t resist asking, “How did you learn so much about fixing toilets?”

  She’d tried the rubber flapper first, but when that hadn’t worked she’d had to replace the entire fill valve. He wasn’t sure he’d ever removed the top part of the toilet—the tank lid, she’d called it—before, let a