Page 10 of Toxic Vengeance

Outside Eden’s studio apartment window, the New Jersey skyline was just beginning to glow with a faint line of peach along the eastern horizon. She’d been up for hours already, prepping for this last-minute trip.

At the kitchen counter she poured herself another cup of coffee before stopping in front of her laptop. Dawn was coming fast, and she needed to get moving if she was going to make it to the meeting in time.

After weeks of Eden trying to establish contact, Chris had finally responded to her five hours ago and set a meeting up, apologizing for the lapse as she’d been visiting family on the West Coast. Whatever she wanted to say, it must be important, because Chris wanted a face-to-face meeting. But in spite of the tight timeline with the long drive ahead, Eden couldn’t make herself leave without doing just a little more checking on Zack first.

He was dangerous to her in so many ways. She’d tried to move on and put him behind her, but failed, and seeing him the other night made that painfully clear. Looking back, Eden wasn’t even sure exactly when she’d started getting too attached to him. She’d started out using him as a vehicle to gain entry into the social circle her target was part of.

But after finishing that mission, everything that had come afterward between them had been real. Too real, and since Sevastopol she’d constantly struggled to put him out of her mind long enough to focus on one task to the next.

None of her rigorous training had prepared her for this, because she’d been trained never to let it happen in the first place. She’d broken all her rules for him, had risked too much and was still paying the price. Look at her, sitting here searching for articles about him on her laptop instead of getting in her car for the long drive to Vermont.

Just five more minutes, then I’ll go.

She opened an article from an online military newspaper talking about a mission he’d undertaken as a security contractor in Afghanistan four years earlier. It showed a candid picture of him wearing a snug black T-shirt and khaki cargo pants, dark shades covering his eyes. Amidst his short, dark beard, his teeth flashed white as he grinned at a teammate standing off to the side.

Something flipped low in her belly as she remembered that same smile aimed at her, and how it had made her pulse race. That same short beard as it had rubbed against her naked skin, those sexy lips skimming their way down to the throbbing flesh between her thighs.

Shit. I have to stop this.He’d turned her into a junkie, and he was her drug of choice. She craved him, even now. Even in the face of the threat he posed.

Chilled by that sobering thought, she shut the laptop, put it in its hiding spot, then grabbed her small bag and took the stairs down to her car parked in the underground lot beneath the building. She left the city long before rush hour, heading north.

It took just shy of five hours to reach Brattleboro, Vermont, a small town ten miles north of the Massachusetts border. She arrived at the specified diner almost twenty minutes early, but as soon as she was seated in a booth near the back of the restaurant, bells chimed as the door swung open and Chris walked in.

The fifty-three-year-old retired CIA officer strode in like she owned the place, wearing skin-tight jeans, a black leather jacket, riding boots, carrying a helmet in one hand. Her iron-gray curls were like a helmet of their own, cropped close to her head, and her medium-brown skin was still without a single wrinkle. The no-frills hairstyle suited Chris’s anti-bullshit personality perfectly.

“You made good time,” she said curtly as she slid into the opposite side of the booth from Eden and removed her sunglasses to expose laser-like amber eyes fringed by dark lashes.

Eden grinned. “You rode your bike here?”

Chris shrugged and turned to flag down the waitress. “It’s perfect weather for a ride, I couldn’t resist.” She pushed both coffee mugs to the end of the table for the waitress to fill, then dismissed her with, “We’ll let you know when we’re ready to order.”

The woman left. Eden shook her head as Chris poured the first of two plastic cup creamers into her coffee. “I ever tell you how much I admire your people skills?”

“You might have mentioned it one time or another.” Chris took a big sip of coffee, lowered her mug and reached inside her leather jacket, withdrawing her wallet. “My treat this time,” she said, taking out a fifty.

“No argument from me. We eating first?”

Chris raised her eyebrows and gave her a look. “Uh, yeah. At least I’ll know you’ve put something in your stomach today.”

“I love how you mother me.”

Chris snorted and picked up the menu. “Shut up. Now figure out what you want to eat. I want to take the scenic route back and I need to be home by dark before all the assholes get on the road with me.”

“Okay, then.” Damn, she’d missed Chris and her bluntness.

“So,” Chris said after they’d ordered, eyeing her critically. “You good?”

“Yeah.”

“You look good.”

“Thanks.” A beat passed, and Chris was still watching her intently. “What?”

“You tell me.”

Nope. Not here, with possible eavesdroppers around. “Nothing to tell.” She sipped at her coffee and redirected the conversation. “How was your visit with your dad and sister?” Chris had been in Washington State while Eden had been reaching out to her.

Chris grimaced. “Old man needs to just die already.”

---