Page 16 of Operation Heartbeat

By the time he walked out, bag in hand, he knew they didn’t have much time left to catch that plane.

He found Sophie emerging from the bathroom in a pair of loose pants and a casual sweater. Her hair wasn’t wet, but the strands were smooth and glossy. Her cheeks had a rosy glow, probably from the heat of the shower.

He was not getting onthattrain of thought again.

They eyed each other.

To make this work, they needed to find some common ground and getmuchmore comfortable with each other. Good thing they had an entire flight across the Atlantic.

He reached for the bag she gripped in front of her body like a shield. “Ready?”

She let him take the bag. “As I’ll ever be.”

He huffed a laugh. “Funny—you were much more eager to dig into a cryptogram than to go to Turkey.” He took off toward the back door of the house where Mason would be waiting with the SUV.

“The devil I know and the devil I don’t, I guess you could say.”

“That is the saying.” He slowed his quick pace to allow her to keep up. He’d do well to remember that husbands didn’t walk ahead of their wives, at least not in this country.

“You’ll have time on the plane to memorize the information on the sheet I gave you.”

“Oh, I already did that.”

His steps slowed. He cast a glance at her. “You memorized it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay then.” He shouldn’t be surprised to learn her mind worked like a computer. He could see it in the depths of her eyes whenever he gave her a new scrap of information to process.

They reached a heavy metal door.

“This isn’t original to the house,” she remarked with a shake of her head.

“No.” He pushed through it into the cool night. The bushes planted around the walkway released the scent of earth and the spice of green things. Through the screen of small evergreens, the pool glimmered, reflecting the moon in the sky.

The hum of the SUV drew him forward. Mason had the headlights cut, plunging the black vehicle into complete darkness where it was parked in the shadows.

Con opened the back door for Sophie.

“Shouldn’t we blindfold her?” Mason’s voice projected from the shadows of the front seat.

“No. She already knows where we are, remember?”

Mason gave a grunt, and Con gestured for Sophie to get in.

She did, and he placed the bags in the rear before climbing into the passenger seat. Mason zoomed out into the night. No words were exchanged, but Con could feel the tension coming off Sophie in thick waves.

He floundered for a way to put her at ease, and fast. Discussing the op with her and Mason wouldn’t calm her down. Small talk about her job would only remind her that she wouldn’t be returning to the classroom until her job with Blackout was completed.

He glanced down at his hand where it rested on his knee. His left hand bore the very unfamiliar gold band that would be his constant reminder of what they were doing, and why.

He’d been in this game long enough to know the cryptogram was the key to saving lives. They needed that guy.

And they needed Sophie.

FOUR

Sophie prided herself on being a levelheaded human being. Over her years at the university, she’d learned how to go with the flow, to change and adapt as her students needed.

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