Out of Time Read online

  Relieved as much by his reaction as by the fact that he was wearing a polo and shorts, she shook her head. “I still have to put on my makeup. You go ahead, and I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  He gave her a sharp frown, as if suspecting she was trying to manipulate him into something—which she wasn’t. Really.

  “You look gorgeous the way you are. I don’t know why you women wear that crap.”

  “Because we women like it. And believe it or not, Scott, not everything we do is to make ourselves more attractive to men.”

  He grinned. “It’s not? Then who are you trying to impress?”

  She thought about it a minute. “Other women.”

  He laughed. “All right, but don’t take too long.”

  There might have been a little bit of a plea in there.

  This time she was the one to lift a brow speculatively. “Don’t tell me the big bad SEAL is scared?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Out of my mind,” he said as he left the room.

  That he admitted it so readily made her heart go out to him. She wished there was some way to make this easier on him. But other than be there for him, this was something he had to work out on his own.

  Natalie knew it was going to be awkward, but when she was shown into the dining room by the ever-ready Dalton, who’d been waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, the silence was cringeworthy. Scott, holding a cut-crystal lowball glass that appeared to have been drained, was standing by a huge window overlooking the side garden, and the senator, clearly struggling with what to say, was seated in a chair next to the unlit fireplace.

  Small talk had obviously been exhausted.

  Natalie spent most of the evening serving as a bridge between the two men, who barely said anything to each other directly. Although the senator was charming and easy to talk to, Scott wasn’t. He’d clammed up. Every time she tried to lure him into the conversation, it stopped, and she’d have to think of something else to say.

  It was exhausting. And frustrating.

  By the time they went to bed, she was angry enough at Scott for being so stubborn that she told him to get some rest and she would see him at breakfast.

  He was angry enough not to protest.

  She knew it wasn’t at her, but she was still stewing when he crawled into the bed next to her. He didn’t say anything, but just pulled her into his arms and fell asleep. It wasn’t exactly an apology, but she took it as one.

  She slept later than she intended, and Scott had already gone down when she woke. The senator had told them breakfast was served buffet style after eight on the patio—they could of course order hot food whenever they liked (of course)—but it was closer to nine by the time Natalie made her way outside. It was like a fancy county club, with a glass-topped wrought-iron table, chairs with thick cushions in a floral pattern, umbrellas, silver, china, and fresh flowers everywhere.

  Scott was already halfway through an omelet when she walked outside.

  “Where’s the senator?” she asked.

  “Done.” The way he said it made it clear that departure had been welcome. “He left a few minutes ago.”

  Natalie didn’t say anything until her egg order had been taken by Dalton, and she’d sat down at the table with the fresh fruit, croissant, and coffee that had been set up for them on the side table buffet.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Scott looked up from the paper he’d been reading intently—or appeared to be reading intently. “Nothing. He finished eating and left. He said if we needed anything to let him know, and that I could use his office if I wanted. He has a secure telephone in there that I can use to call Kate.”

  From his tense, pained expression, Natalie knew there was more to it than that. “Scott . . .”

  He looked up at her with a fierceness on his face that made her heart break for him. “What?”

  “You have to try to talk to him.”

  “I don’t have to do anything, and it isn’t your place to interfere.”

  Ouch. Natalie flushed with a sharp pang of hurt. Nothing like the harsh truth. If she’d ever had a place in his life to interfere, it was clear she didn’t now.

  She was obviously putting too much store in him climbing into her bed. Twice. For different kinds of comfort.

  Seeing her reaction, Scott swore and grabbed her hand across the table. “Shit. I didn’t mean it like that. You have every right to interfere.” The sting began to ebb when she realized he’d been lashing out, and she’d just stepped in the way. “I know what you want, but we aren’t going to be one big happy family, okay? Whether I talk to him or not.”

  “If that’s true, then what’s stopping you from talking to him?” She paused, looking at the tight, shuttered expression that couldn’t quite hide the pain. “I just don’t want you to regret anything. You need closure, and he’s not going to be around long for you to get it.”

  He held her gaze just long enough for her to know that her words had penetrated. Whether he agreed, she didn’t know as he changed the subject.

  “There are other, more important things we need to talk about right now.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like figuring out what the hell is going on and why someone wants you dead so badly. I want you to tell me everything again. Slowly, and from the beginning.”

  For the next hour, while she ate and savored a few cups of the delicious (even decaffeinated and without almond milk) coffee, Natalie did as he asked. Going over every inch of what had happened with the proverbial fine-toothed comb.

  He asked her dozens of questions, particularly about the program she’d installed on the deputy secretary’s computer, the password change, and the e-mail she’d sent to her boss afterward in an attempt to call off the mission.

  “Too bad we don’t have access to the deputy secretary’s laptop.” He paused thoughtfully. “Where did you send your e-mail to him from?”

  She thought back. She’d been at home hanging out with Jennifer when Mick had called to tell her that thanks to her, her boyfriend was going to have a nice surprise waiting for him in Russia.

  Natalie hadn’t had any idea what he meant. But when he explained, she realized that not only had something gone wrong with her plan to sabotage the program on her boss’s computer, but Scott and Team Nine were in the middle of it.

  She’d been shocked and horrified. Jennifer had thought she was going to faint.

  But it had taken Natalie only a few minutes to realize what she had to do. Even if it blew her cover, she had to try to get the mission called off. She’d sent the e-mail to her boss from her laptop immediately.

  “What time was that?” Scott asked.

  “I don’t know. Evening. It was before dinner. Maybe five o’clock.”

  He nodded. “We were already on our way. When did you leave the text on my sat phone?”

  She flushed, thinking he might be mad at her for that. She wasn’t supposed to contact him on that phone. “I knew it was a risk to text you like that—which is why I didn’t do it right away—but when I didn’t hear back from my boss and no one showed up to arrest me, I tried calling him but wasn’t able to get ahold of him. I didn’t know the timing of the mission, but I didn’t want to risk that you didn’t get the message in time. It was probably only a couple hours later.”

  “Good thing,” Scott said. “We couldn’t get a signal so I turned on my phone and your text was waiting for me.”

  She nodded. “I should have realized that Mick would be monitoring my computer and e-mail. He told me later, when he called to tell me you’d been killed, that he intercepted the message to my boss before it reached him.”

  “Where is your laptop now? It will help if we can prove that you sent that message.”

  She sighed. “I have no idea. It was in my apartment when I left after Jennifer was