tangled with his, her bodacious breasts pressed against his chest, her beautiful, wondrous face so close he could have kissed her.
And in another world, some alternate reality in a galaxy far, far away, he might have kissed her, but not here, with the Denver skyline falling away above them and twilight descending, sending shadows streaking across her face. They were jammed into a corner of Steele Street’s gothic freight cage with a red 1970 Chevelle with black racing stripes taking up most of the space and a good damn bit of the breathable air.
He still had his arm around Scout’s waist from their drop over the side, and he was painfully aware of exactly how careful he was being to keep his touch impersonal, to keep from holding her the way he wanted to hold her, the way he needed to hold her.
A hundred feet—that’s how much rappelling line he’d brought to the party, enough for them to drop six floors to the old freight elevator. There was no top to the cage, so he and Scout had landed right on the lift’s platform, where he’d planned to spend a couple of seconds unhooking the rope from his harness before they climbed down to the street. But two seconds had proven to be a second and a half too long. They’d no sooner landed than the garage door into the building had opened up and the Chevelle had roared in and come to a sudden, screeching halt.
He and Scout had melted back into the shadows so fast, the guy in the car hadn’t noticed. He knew this because the guy in the car hadn’t gotten out and tried to shoot his ass. It was dark. They’d been on the near side of the lift, where none of the interior light reached, and they were now laminated together, squeezed behind a support beam in the corner off the car’s rear bumper, both of them being as damned invisible as they could get.
They were good at it, with him mostly in black and gray and Scout about the same in a two-tone olive drab/charcoal gray T-shirt and a pair of gusseted dark cargo pants. Stillness, that was the key, and they’d both gone mannequin.
Except Scout’s heart was racing, her breath coming fast and shallow, and she was shaking, a low-level trembling she couldn’t seem to control—but man, she’d nailed the escape without missing a beat.
“Jack,” she whispered his name, and he gave a short nod, letting her know he’d heard her and was ready to receive whatever information she was ready to give.
“Jack …” A short sob escaped her, and every cell in his body went on instant alert. This wasn’t about intel.
When she sobbed again and her hand tightened on his waist, he instantly went into caveman mode, protecting what was his, pulling her in close, lamination-level close, and holding her tight. Scout crying?
Fuck. What had those bastards done to her?
They would die for it. He knew that damn much.
“Scout? What happened?” He was thinking the worst, so help him God. “Whatever they did, baby, you’re safe now,” he whispered a promise he could keep. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
And she whacked him, a solid torso hit. “You’re never here. That’s the damn problem.”
True, but geezus. He’d just blown up a building and thrown himself over the side of it for her.
She hit him again, but it was halfhearted at best, and then she crumpled against him, holding him like she wasn’t ever going to let him go.
Which would be damn fine by him. He’d been ready for her for a long time.
Too ready.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Sorry I wasn’t with you in Paraguay. You and Con needed me, and I was—”
“His name isn’t Con,” she broke in, her words harsh in his ear, her hands tightening on his waist.
The news set Jack back on his heels—not that he hadn’t been expecting it for years. Hell, he’d been looking for the boss’s real name since the day they’d met.
“What do you know?” he asked. If she had a name, everything changed.
“He has a brother, here, at Steele Street, and a whole family, a father, aunts, uncles, cousins,” she said through her tears. “He has a past, Jack, and it’s here, in Denver.”
Okay, that was great, really great, if it was true. All over the world, no matter the job at hand, the three of them had always been looking for clues to Con’s past, and maybe Scout had fallen into the