Jameson (In the Company of Snipers #22) - Irish Winters Page 0,59
meek, demure Protocol Officer. “You shot Pops Delaney? The godfather of all Irish gangs on the East Coast?”
Her blonde locks bobbed as she nodded, and he’d made her nervous again. “Y-y-yes, I…” Her fingers twisted in her lap. “He… His guys were big and ugly, and he was going to kill Jameson, and I… He made me mad, Boss.” She ended that rambling, timid rant with a definite note of anger. “I couldn’t miss. There were so many of them, and he acted like he was God, but he isn’t! Err, wasn’t.”
Alex had to smile. The untouchable goon from Ireland had been brought down by a five-foot-nothing woman he’d pissed off. “Good job, Maddie. Sounds like Jameson finished what you started.”
“Yeah. I guess.” And she’d fallen back into whatever trap in her past that made her afraid to be the woman she was. Yup. Maddie was Kelsey all over again.
Something cold and sinister crept up the back of Alex’s neck. “Where’s Shade?”
“She wasn’t onsite when we arrived at the farmhouse,” Adam answered.
“Didn’t see any sign she was ever there,” Hunter added.
“Except for Vlad and her limo,” Maddie breathed.
“How about you two?” Alex asked Maddie and Jameson. “Did either of you actually see her?” The instant the question rolled off his tongue, he knew better.
“Umm, Boss,” Maddie piped up. “I never heard or saw her, but Jameson can’t see and—”
“You know what I meant.”
“I heard her though,” Jameson answered. “Like I said, Miss Shade argued with Delaney about how it was his fault her plans went wrong. She slapped him. He slapped her back. They said a lot of hateful things to each other.”
“Find her,” Alex growled.
“Will do,” Adam and Hunter answered at the same time.
“And you two…”
“Yes, Boss?” It was uncanny how Jameson Tenney could aim those unseeing eyes at Alex and look right through him.
“Forget the R&R. You’re going into protective custody until we locate Shade. Eric, once you release Agent Morozov to the EMTs, get Maddie and Jameson to a safe house.”
“Will do.”
“But Boss…” Jameson protested.
Alex ended the discussion with a steely glare that, oddly, worked on Jameson as much as it did his sighted agents. “Shade’s behind this, and I don’t take chances. If all she wanted was publicity, she’s damned sure going to get it. But if something else is going on here, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
Jameson’s whole damned face lit up, like the sunrise creeping over the East horizon. Maddie’s chin lifted. She’d changed. It was easy to see. The poor woman was in love.
“But no foolishness,” Alex scolded.
“Who, me?” Jameson answered, the sly dog.
“We’d never. Promise, Boss,” Maddie said more seriously. Just like Kelsey. So serious and no doubt as honest as Kelsey, too. Damn. Did she have any idea what she was getting herself into with a spec operator like Jameson? Probably not.
Alex turned on his heel, pissed that he couldn’t control his agents, and just as pissed that, a few years back, his wife had looked at him the exact same way Maddie had just looked at Jameson. That Kelsey still looked at him that way today. And he understood, he truly did. Son of a bitch! He’d even hugged Mother tonight, and he’d only done that because he’d recognized himself in her pain. Because that broken something inside of him was suddenly fixed, and it had to do with the little boy he’d been able to give Kelsey, and the little girl she’d given him. When the hell had he gotten so damned sensitive?
His world was changing. Alex just hadn’t expected to change with it.
Chapter Sixteen
By the time Jameson hit the front steps of the safe house in Arlington, Virginia, he was dog-tired, without glasses or cane. It was nearly time to go to work—if he’d been allowed to. Which he wasn’t. Maddie had stuck by his side, so he’d kept one hand on her shoulder as she’d led him inside to the kitchen, where she left him sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar. Then, she hurried down the hall and returned with his jacket on her fingertips. “I’ll get this dry-cleaned for you, but I changed into a clean shirt and—”
He reached out and fumbled for the jacket. “No, you won’t,” he answered as he folded it over his arm. “I might never wash this thing. Why erase a perfectly good memory?”
“Ah… err… Omelet?” she asked amidst a clatter of pans and lids, an obvious attempt to change the subject.