Off the Grid Read online

  Her tone was lighthearted, and he responded similarly. “Yes, that particular skill has some positive uses at times.”

  She laughed. “I’ll say. I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel when you started digging in about the online poker, his kids’ tuition bills, and Mrs. Morrison’s ‘anonymous’ posts on social media. But when you started insinuating a possible connection to Retiarius . . .” She shivered. “I was glad he didn’t have a gun.”

  “I was too. He was pissed off.”

  “Pissed-off-you-offended-my-honor or pissed-off- guilty?”

  Colt shrugged. “I don’t know. As much as I’m not a fan of Morrison’s, I’m not sure I could see him selling out a platoon of men like that to cover his ass.”

  “Even if he is being threatened by the people who lent him money?”

  “We’ll see. He’s been poked. Now we have to see how he reacts. I assume you have everything in place?”

  She nodded. He suspected Kate hadn’t asked permission to hack into the rear admiral’s computers and phone lines, but she’d done it anyway. Being CIA had its advantages. Although he suspected she wouldn’t be CIA much longer if they found out what she was doing. He was pretty sure she was on her own on this.

  If he needed more proof of how much Taylor had meant to her, the fact that she was willing to risk the job that was so important to her—the job that she hadn’t been willing to sacrifice for him—was it. Which shouldn’t still burn so much.

  School must have just gotten out because there were all kinds of kids waiting to cross the main street as they approached. Most of them seemed to have a parent or nanny attached. He was tempted to steer clear of the kid chaos, which definitely wasn’t his thing, by crossing at the next block, but Kate had already worked her way into the crowd and was smiling down at a young girl.

  He felt something sharp stab him between the ribs and turned away. She used to do the same thing when they were married, and it had always made him uncomfortable. Guilty, maybe because he knew how much she wanted a baby. But he’d told her straight out before they married that he never wanted kids. She’d said it didn’t matter.

  But it had.

  He noticed an older teenage girl talking on her phone with one hand while pushing a stroller with the other. He assumed there was a kid in there, although he couldn’t see around the front. A little boy of about five or six—presumably the one she’d just picked up from school—was standing on the curb next to her. He looked like he wanted attention, but she was too busy talking to give it to him.

  As this wasn’t exactly the neighborhood for teenage mothers, Colt assumed she was the babysitter or nanny.

  He didn’t know why he noticed the kid, much less why he was still watching him when the light turned. Maybe he knew what it was like to want someone to pay attention to him. Or maybe he sensed the disaster that was about to come.

  The light change from “don’t walk” to “walk” acted as a trigger. The kid stepped off the curb into the street without a pause, and if Colt’s reflexes had been any slower, the little boy would have been run over by the SUV that went blowing through the light.

  Colt heard Kate scream as he lurched forward and grabbed the kid to pull him out of the way. But the SUV was so close that one of the side mirrors caught Colt and sent both him and the little boy headfirst into the asphalt.

  He felt the pavement connect with the skin of his arm as he tried to turn the kid away from the ground.

  They seemed to slide for a while, or at least the burning down his side seemed to last for a while. When they finally came to a stop, he heard more than a few screams as chaos turned to pandemonium.

  Kate was already beside him when he looked up. “Oh my God, are you all right?”

  She looked so upset—so concerned—it somehow made him angry. It was too late to pretend she cared now.

  “I’m fine,” he snapped. Then, realizing the kid in his arms was squirming and starting to bawl, he held him out to her. “Here, take him and make sure he’s okay.”

  The babysitter (or nanny) suddenly made her appearance—phone no longer attached to her ear—and was clearly on the verge of hysteria, saying “Oh my God” over and over and “It wasn’t my fault” to anyone who would listen.

  “Someone call nine-one-one,” Colt said, trying to unpeel himself from the pavement.

  Apparently, someone already had. He could hear the sirens blaring. In the neighborhoods he’d grown up in, they’d have been waiting hours for an ambulance or for the police to show up for something like this. There were too many shootings and stabbings to take precedence.

  Colt temporarily lost sight of Kate after the police arrived. He gave his statement—using his real name, which would show an honorable discharge from the SEALs three years ago—and was letting the paramedics patch him up a little when he looked over and saw Kate standing by the ambulance rocking a baby in her arms.

  She was smiling and cooing and looked so fucking happy it made his lungs burn with pain that was infinitely worse than the one that had torn a good portion of the flesh from his arm and lower leg.

  Kate was obviously taking care of the baby while the babysitter/nanny was in hysterics and the little boy was being tended to. According to the paramedics, the kid only had a few scrapes. Colt had taken the brunt of it. He was a real hero. Right. It would have made him laugh if he wasn’t so pissed off at the sight of Kate and a baby.

  It sent him into a cold rage that he didn’t understand. It was born of guilt and jealousy and maybe, in a very dark, hidden place that he would never acknowledge, hurt.

  The anger got worse when a young couple wearing scrubs came bursting through the temporary barricade that had been erected for the investigation in an obvious panic.

  Colt didn’t need to ask who they were. The woman doc practically ripped the baby out of Kate’s arms before bursting into tears as they ran toward the ambulance that held the little boy.

  Colt made the mistake of looking at Kate’s face. The look of heartbreak and pure longing drove that knife of rage deeper into his gut.

  He knew just how badly she wanted a baby and how much she’d mourned the one she’d lost. The baby that hadn’t belonged to him. She’d been hit by a drunk driver when she was a few months pregnant and had been inches away from dying.

  The baby hadn’t been so lucky. He’d never forget racing into that hospital thinking that he might lose her—calling himself every kind of fool for trying to push her away—and seeing her and Scott together. He’d wanted to kill them both.

  Almost as if she sensed him watching her, she looked over and caught his gaze. She gave him a small bereft smile and came walking toward the back of the fire truck—yes, a fire truck for a small accident—where one of the paramedics was giving him instructions on changing the bandages. Colt didn’t bother explaining that he’d had more experience with blood and gore and patching up wounds than the woman would see in a lifetime.

  Kate waited patiently until he was done, which gave him a little time to settle down before she spoke. “That nanny owes you big-time. I think she just had the scare of her life.”

  “She’ll forget about it tomorrow.”

  Kate smiled. “Still a wild-eyed optimist, I see.”

  “She’s a teenager. They are missing the consequences-and-perspective chip.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew so much about child psychology.”

  He didn’t. But he’d been that age once. “We should go if we are going to make our flight.”

  “The boy’s father said he would call a limo. I suspect it’s going to be filled with champagne for the hero.” She didn’t give him a chance to say “hell no.” “Don’t worry. I knew you wouldn’t want a fuss. I told him I’d already called the cab company. But what you did back there, Colt.” Her voice got all thick and her eyes teary. “It was amazing.”