Page 67 of It's Always Been You

The way he said the words was so beautiful, Caitlin could feel the burn behind her eyes. “Thank you, thank you for waiting for me,” her voice choked with emotion.

Arms tightened around her. “It’s always been you, Cat.”

And instinct told her that it had always been him as well.

The doorbell chimed.

Travis cracked open his eyes and looked at the clock.Sunday at six a.m. What the fuck?

Caitlin stirred beside him. His arm had fallen asleep. That was the only disadvantage of spooning. Still, he wouldn’t change a single thing if it meant she was in his arms all night long.

Maybe whoever was at the door would just go away. He wanted to make love to her again this morning. But luck was not on his side. The bell rang incessantly once more.

Someone better be dead or dying. Travis extracted himself from Caitlin’s warmth.

“Travis?”

“Someone’s at the door. Stay here.” He walked to the bathroom to quickly freshen up; then realized he didn’t have any clothes in her bedroom. Damn it, when would she move all her stuff into his room? He quickly returned to the master bedroom. While pulling on a pair of jeans, he checked the CCTV console on the wall for the front door.

The detectives.

Travis was annoyed, but figured if they had to come here early this morning, something was up. Shit.

He passed by Caitlin’s bedroom and heard some movement there. Shaking his head, he made his way to the first floor. The woman just wouldn’t listen. He realized he still hadn’t confronted her regarding her actions last night when they had that shootout. He gritted his teeth at the memory. He thought a good spanking on that beautiful ass of hers was in order.

He opened the door to disheveled, sleep-deprived detectives.

“A little bit early for a house call, don’t you think?” Travisasked with no small amount of candor, however, a level of unease slithered up his back. “What’s going on?”

“Pavlo Milekhin has disappeared.”

“What do you mean he disappeared?”

“Shall we do this inside?” Moore asked wearily.

11

“How couldthe Loudoun County PD and MPD let this happen?”

“It wasn’t our jurisdiction,” Smithers whined.

Travis narrowed his eyes at the two detectives. “Are you guys seriously going to play this jurisdiction bullshit? The first men you captured killed themselves on your watch. Now, you let their leader disappear?”

“It would have helped if your wife had been forthcoming with information,” Moore shot back. “We didn’t know what we were up against.”

Fuck. He had a point. But as far as Travis was concerned, this was above their pay grade and even he didn’t know the extent of the whole operation. Who was clean and who was on the take.

“I can’t help you,” Travis said finally.

“Oh, is this what you folks call classified?” Moore sneered.

Travis kept silent.

“How about the other guys who survived?” Caitlin walked into the study, stopping just short of the entrance.

“Ms. Kincaid, wonderful of you to join us.”

Caitlin nodded stiffly to the detectives. She met Travis’sdispleased gaze with a wince.Yes, woman. Keep disobeying me, and I’m really going to give it to you.Her eyes widened, and then looked away. Travis smiled inwardly. They had always communicated well with their eyes. It looked like they would have no trouble picking that back up.

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