Page 19 of Covert Temptation

“You seem tense.”

“I’m always tense around people who talk to their shoes.”

She laughed—a genuine laugh.

The sound startled the hell out of her. How long had it been since she laughed? Today, of all days, it was so…unexpected.

“Maybe my shoes are just better listeners than you. You are, after all, a man.”

He didn’t respond, but his mouth twitched—just a fraction. Like he was holding back a smile. Or maybe one of his infamous groans.

As they turned down another snow-covered road, she realized something. She didn’t know where this was all going. She didn’t know who or what she could trust.

The only thing she truly knew without a singular doubt? Dante King was the most maddening man she’d ever met.

He was also solid…and safe.

And if she had to disappear, there were worse places to land than under the watchful gaze of this growly…very hot…SEAL.

FOUR

The safe house in the country was small—nothing like the high-end sprawl of the Blackout base, but it had the essentials. A cramped living room with just enough space for a desk in the corner, where Dante set up his laptop. A kitchen straight out of the early 1990s was all scuffed linoleum and humming appliances, basic but functional.

But the real win? Two bedrooms.

That discovery lifted a heavy weight off Dante’s shoulders. Sharing close quarters with Kennedy was a complication he didn’t need.

The house sat on a few overgrown acres off a backcountry road in the Hudson Valley, the kind of road where every passing car felt like a novelty. And though it was tucked away, they weren’t very far from a small town where they could get supplies.

Beyond the house, snow blanketed the fields in downy softness, soft and unbroken under the faint moon. The window by the desk overlooked what must be an apple orchard in the summertime. Now the trees looked like skeletons braced against the wind.

He sat at the shabby desk, surrounded by a worn but clean-looking couch with a coffee table that was probably dragged out of someone’s basement. In the corner loomed a blackened woodstove he had no intention of using for fear of blocked vents.

The laptop cast a weak blue light across his hands poised over the keys and made his eyes burn. This had been one hell of a long day, and he still had hours before he could fall into bed, but he couldn’t sleep if he tried.

Upon their arrival, Kennedy went straight into the bedroom and shut the door while he reinforced the front and back doors with extra locks and secured all the windows. As an extra measure, he set up a motion sensor camera on her bedroom door and connected it to his phone and laptop.

He wasn’t taking any chances that she might run again.

So far, all was quiet. No rattling doorknobs or attempts to escape out a window. Just calm silence.

Except he didn’t buy it. She was probably just biding her time.

He tried to ignore what Kennedy was—or wasn’t—doing and dragged his attention to the files on his screen.

At the top of his priority list was a deep dive into the life—and death—of the Red Cross worker in Syria named Miriam Sheen. A bomb had been smuggled in with a supply shipment, planted by a resistance group, but they knew little else.

More pressing was finding information about her son, Daniel. Another Red Cross worker gave him a tip about the bomb, and he tried to warn his mother. He even called the embassy for backup.

In the end, all parties failed to stop the bombing. The Blackout Echo team was on watch during a hostage situation, and the local US military base failed to respond as well.

Miriam died. Then after about a year of grieving, a witness saw Daniel jump off a bridge into the Hudson River.

His body was never found. Not surprising—the river was teeming with undiscovered bodies. But something about it didn’t sit right with Dante.

He opened a new document and began laying out the facts so he could pick apart every single one.

Miriam Sheen—possible involvement with terrorist group or extremists?

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