Defenseless Read online

  “They did,” Stella confirmed. “But Jun and Sabina spoke to us yesterday and asked for the change. As you know, we initially asked Sabina to take on the role of the West Coast cyber lead. We were willing to accommodate the switch and send Jun so long as they were both happy about where they landed. Now that Sabina wants to go and Jun wants to stay, we’re back on track with the original plan.”

  Chad fought hard to keep his carefully curious frown from turning into a real one. It wasn’t that he thought Sabina O’Malley wouldn’t be good at the job. The things that woman could do and find baffled the mind. There was zero doubt she was one of the smartest people he knew, if not the smartest person he knew.

  But in the two years he’d known her, it had become obvious to him that she was hiding something. He was confident that whatever it was, it wasn’t nefarious or a threat to the company. The background checks on all employees took months. They were so deep that he suspected Stella and Hunter knew everything from the age each employee lost their first tooth to their preferred color of underwear.

  All the same, the muscles between his shoulder blades twitched every time Sabina was near. Kind of like they had each time he’d known one of his military ops wasn’t going to go as planned. Or when, as an FBI agent, he’d known a suspect was lying to him. Not a particularly comfortable feeling. Then again, neither was the unwanted attraction he felt toward her. Or the self-loathing that came with wanting a woman he was sure was keeping something from him.

  “I assume you don’t have a problem with this?” Hunter asked. “We know it’s last-minute, but as the office isn’t set up yet and we’re not running any business from it, it shouldn’t be an issue.”

  In his mind, Chad translated Hunter’s statement into what the man meant. The decision had already been made. If Chad had a problem with it, he needed to get over it. Fast.

  Very fast. After six months of planning, their private flight to California was scheduled to take off in four hours.

  In retrospect, he should have expected something like this to happen. From the day Stella and Hunter had approached him to lead the opening and operation of their new West Coast office, everything had fallen into place. Like well-positioned dominoes.

  The unique opportunity they’d offered him had turned into a once-in-a-lifetime one when they’d agreed that Mystery Lake, Chad’s hometown, would be the right spot to make their home base. Within days of reaching that decision, they’d found a 1,200-acre piece of property that suited their needs. Located high in the Sierra foothills 150 miles east of San Francisco, the varied terrain was perfect for the operatives to train on. The parcel even had a few usable outbuildings, so they hadn’t needed to start the build-out from scratch.

  But the property hadn’t been the only deciding factor. Mystery Lake had already been in the process of upgrading and enlarging the local airfield to better serve the skiing and hiking tourist seasons. Those upgrades had finished three weeks earlier, and the new airport was now big enough to land any of the planes in the fleet owned by HICC. In addition, while housing wasn’t plentiful, what could be found was generally affordable.

  Best of all, though, at least for Chad, was that he was going home. As a young man, he’d needed to leave his small town and spread his wings. But now, at the age of forty-two, going home to Mystery Lake felt more right than anything had in a long while.

  Yeah, everything had gone so smoothly that he’d gotten cocky and a little too comfortable. And now he was paying the price. Having Sabina switch places with Jun wasn’t something he would have anticipated, but if he’d expected something to go wrong, maybe Stella’s announcement wouldn’t have been quite such a shock.

  He forced himself to give a casual shrug. “Of course it’s not a problem. A little bit of a surprise, but not a problem.” He wanted to ask if Sabina had given them a reason for the sudden change but thought it might make him sound like a schoolyard gossip. If he wanted to know—which he did—he needed to ask her himself. And he would. The flight to Mystery Lake was six hours, and it was just the two of them. Plenty of time to poke and prod for answers.

  Then again, if Sabina didn’t want to tell him, it wouldn’t matter if the flight was six or twenty-six hours. For someone who chattered a lot, she had a knack for not saying anything at all when she didn’t want to. Not that she was vapid—she was too smart for that. Ask her about any current event and she had an informed opinion. Ask her about what was happening in a remote corner of any country and, if she didn’t know off the top of her head, she’d find the answers within hours. Sometimes minutes. Ask her to opine on movies, art, and culture and she’d happily engage. But ask her about herself? Well, that was a different beast altogether.

  After two years, he still had no idea where she grew up, if she had any siblings, if she was close to her parents, or where—or even if—she went to college. No one could dodge a personal question better than Sabina. Which, back to his twitching shoulder blades, made him suspicious. And wary.

  “Did she need to make any changes to what we’d already agreed with Jun in terms of the equipment or setup?” Chad asked, moving the conversation to the more comfortable topic of logistics.

  Stella bobbed her head. “A few minor additions to the equipment inventory, but she was happy with the setup.” Sabina and Jun had been working together since before Chad had joined HICC. It came as no surprise that the two cyber experts had similar requirements. Unfortunately, the setup he and Jun had agreed to—having the cyber labs in the main building—now meant that he’d be seeing Sabina every day.

  Even worse, the main building wouldn’t be ready for them to occupy for another two months, and he’d offered up his own home as their base of operation. He’d now have the dubious pleasure of welcoming Sabina into his space as they—along with Colton Manning, the logistics lead—oversaw the final updating and retrofitting of the new compound.

  Chad sighed inside and gave in. It would be whatever it would be. He liked Jun, but to Chad’s mind, there wasn’t anyone better than Sabina. At least he’d be getting the best cyber expert out of the change. Things could be worse.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “I assume she’s all set with housing and everything, but if not, I’ll help in any way I can. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to run back to my apartment and pick up the last of my bags before heading to the airfield.”

  Stella nodded and rose. He followed suit and started toward the door.

  “Warwick,” Hunter said.

  Chad had been about to grab the doorknob, but he dropped his hand and turned. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you. HICC has been more successful than Stella or I could have ever imagined, and while there have been both bad and good times, we wouldn’t change a thing. But times do change. Life changes, priorities change.” Hunter tilted his head and rested it on his sleeping son’s shoulder. “We don’t want to pull back from the good work we’re doing, but we also want to be able to spend more time as a family. And we want our employees to feel like they can do the same. Opening the California office might seem like an expansion. It might even turn out that way. But what we’re really hoping is that we’ll be able to split responsibility for the jobs between the offices so that neither is overloaded. For more reasons than just the skills you, Sabina, and Colton bring to the company, you all are a dream team to lead that effort. We know you’ll help us continue to build the company we want to build. So, thank you.”

  Chad wasn’t often at a loss for words, but he struggled now. Hunter rarely said more than what was strictly needed. That he’d said what he had told Chad more about the importance of the new venture than anything discussed in the past six months. This office wasn’t just about business, it was about family, too. Despite the unease he felt about Sabina now being part of his team, a sense of rightness settled inside him. He wanted the same thing they did, and he was going to do his best to make it happen.

  Three hours after leaving the DC headquarters of HICC, Chad stood on the tarmac of the priva
te airfield. Workers were loading the final pallets of equipment into the belly of the plane that would take him and Sabina to Northern California while a smaller plane idled behind it. Colton stood beside him watching the same scene, although the man would be flying to LA rather than to Mystery Lake.

  “Who are you taking, Colt?” Sabina asked, coming to stand between the two men, a small aloe plant in one hand.

  Colton nodded to the smaller of the two planes. “Bertha,” he answered.

  Sabina made a little “hmm” noise before hooking an arm in each of theirs, jostling a little dirt from around the aloe. A small shock of desire traveled through Chad as her skin brushed against his. He might believe she was hiding something from him, but that didn’t mean his body had gotten the message that she was hands-off.

  “Good choice,” she said. “Bertha’s small but fast.” Before any plane made its maiden flight for HICC, it was christened with a name other than its official registration numbers. The one he and Sabina were taking was Agatha. No one seemed to recall where the name had come from, but to everyone, even Stella and Hunter, she was just Agatha.

  “You’re bringing that?” Chad asked, nodding to the plant.

  Sabina looked down at the small, slightly sad aloe, then up at him. “I am. Roger, meet Chad,” she said, holding the plant up while keeping her arm looped through his. “Chad, meet Roger. He’s been with me for years,” she added with a grin.

  “He’s a little small for being years old, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “Hush,” she said, curling Roger closer to her belly. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  Chad stared. She stared back. Then she winked and turned to Colton.

  “How long will you be in LA?” she asked. A shop in the City of Angels was customizing several company cars and SUVs for them. Colton was traveling there to oversee the final modifications before bringing them north to the new facility.

  “Three weeks. Maybe a month,” he answered.

  Chad tried to ignore the feel of her body beside his by returning his attention to Agatha and keeping it focused there. But of course, Sabina wasn’t having it. Her hip bumped into his upper thigh, forcing him to turn and look at her again. “What?”

  Wisps of her strawberry blond hair flew into her face thanks to a sudden gust of wind, and he fought the urge to brush them back. A storm was brewing, not unusual for DC in August, and he hoped they’d make it out before it hit. Agatha could take thunder and lighting, but the flight would be much more comfortable if they could avoid it.

  “Surprised to see me?” she asked, her blue-green eyes dancing at the thought of catching him off guard. He wasn’t a fan of surprises, and everyone in the office knew it.

  He shrugged and swung his gaze back to the workers loading what looked like the last pallet. “Stella and Hunter told me you and Jun switched places. I may be old, but I’m not so old as to forget a conversation from three hours ago.” He wasn’t old at all, but he was six years older than Sabina.

  Colton chuckled, and from the corner of his eye, Chad saw Sabina make a face. “Try as you might, Sabina, you aren’t going to get under his skin,” Colton said. If he only knew.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Colt,” Sabina said with so much faux innocence both men snorted. At some point shortly after he’d joined the firm, Sabina had decided he was too serious. She’d been trying for the better part of two years to get him to crack and loosen up. It wasn’t going to happen. She was already under his skin—though not in the way Colton meant—and if he let go of his control even a tiny bit, he wasn’t sure what would happen. And again, back to that not liking surprises thing. Not even—especially even—if he surprised himself.

  “Why the last-minute switch?” Colton asked the million-dollar question. Chad didn’t move, but his senses leaped to attention as he waited for her answer. Not that he thought she’d give an honest—or complete—one.

  Sabina lifted a shoulder. “I decided a change of scenery would be good for me.”

  He fought not to slide her a look of disbelief. Sabina was not a woman who acted on whims. She might have decided a change of scenery was good for her, but there would have been a long train of logic behind that decision.

  Even knowing she’d never expose her thought process, a small, masochistic part of him wanted to ask. With a deep breath, he shoved that urge down and stepped away from the pair. Her arm slid from his and he turned to face the two people with whom he’d been entrusted to head this new venture. He intended to get to the bottom of Sabina’s sudden decision, but he needed a plan to break through her considerable defenses. A plan he didn’t yet have, so it would have to wait.

  “Ready, ladies and gentlemen?” he asked with a grin.

  Sabina and Colton smiled back.

  “More than,” Sabina said.

  “Oh yeah,” Colton responded.

  The sound of Agatha’s loading door closing behind him echoed across the tarmac. “Bertha and Agatha aren’t exactly covered wagons, but let’s go forge our way to new adventures out west.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sabina sat on the couch in the private plane, her computer open and perched on her lap, Roger tucked safely at her side. Unusually, the project she was working on wasn’t holding her attention. So many thoughts filled her mind, like bubbles floating in from nowhere only to pop and disappear each time she tried to examine one.

  She knew the source of her distraction. A simple postcard that someone had slid under the door of her apartment three days earlier. Only there wasn’t anything simple about it. The message on the back had been sparse, just two words. But those words had been enough to shake her out of the comfort zone she’d lived in for the past ten years. She’d hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours a day since reading the message.

  And then there was her whirlwind decision to pick up her life and move west. The choice hadn’t really been hers. It was the only way to protect herself and those she loved. But the suddenness of just how quickly her life had changed still had her spinning.

  In short, she was exhausted.

  Chad shifted in his seat across the plane from her, drawing her attention. He sat at the table with his own computer open. Probably working on some spreadsheet or another. Other than a mumbled “excuse me” when he’d bumped into her as he retrieved his backpack, he hadn’t said a word since they’d taken off an hour ago.

  With his focus on his device, she let her gaze drift over his profile. Dark hair curled over the top of his ears. Sharp cheekbones framed a pair of nearly black eyes that she knew well even if she couldn’t see them at the moment. His long, strong fingers hovered over his keyboard. Her mind might be all over the place, but there was one thing she knew for certain. Chad Warwick was a good-looking man.

  He sat back and raised his arms, locking his hands on the top of his head. His biceps flexed under his T-shirt, and she relaxed back in her seat, enjoying the view. On the tarmac, when she’d hooked her arm with his, she’d brushed against those biceps. His skin was warm, and the current that shimmered through her entire body at the contact was achingly familiar. Outwardly, she treated him as a friend—to the extent he’d allow. But each time they touched, something deep inside her lit up and, as much as she hated to admit it, longed for him. Sometimes it didn’t even take his touch for those feelings to make themselves known. Sometimes, all he had to do was walk into the same room.

  Her attention shifted to his profile when his brow furrowed and he frowned. Dropping his hands back to the keyboard, he started typing. It had come as no surprise to anyone when he’d been asked to head this new venture. Chad Warwick was far more than a pretty face. He’d earned every bit of respect that Stella, Hunter, and all the employees of the firm showed him.

  As for her, well, she, too, held him in high regard. He was the consummate professional, embodying everything HICC stood for and was named after—honor, integrity, courage, and compassion. But more than that, over the past two years, the two of
them had meshed so well that it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to anticipate the other’s needs or answer a question before being asked. They communicated seamlessly—even in the most hair-raising of situations—and he was one of her favorite operatives to work with. She understood why he’d taken the new role that would have him sitting behind a desk more often than not. But it was a shame he wouldn’t be in the field anymore.

  No, professionally, she had zero complaints about Chad Warwick, and she was looking forward to seeing him take on this new challenge.

  Personally, well, that was another matter.

  Not that she had complaints, per se. Again, he was always courteous and professional. But that was the crux of her issue. He was always so professional with her. She was a likable person and got on well with all of her colleagues. After-work drinks were a common occurrence, as were barbecues, hikes, and an occasional night out dancing. And while Chad often joined in, very rarely, if ever, did he engage with her during those outings. In fact, she had the sense that in some way, she disappointed him.

  Of course, that could be her own guilt coloring her perspective. In his first few weeks at HICC, he’d tried to get to know her. He’d stopped by her desk to chat more than a few times and had even bought her a beer after work twice. He’d asked all the usual questions about her life, and she’d smiled and given him the same glib answers she always gave. But the answers that seemed to satisfy everyone else hadn’t been enough for him. After those first few weeks, he’d simply stopped talking to her about anything other than work. She’d felt the loss more than she should have, but there was little she could do about it. Even if, at times like these when it was just the two of them, she wished she could change it. She wished she could give him more.