Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,20

anything the guy who’d run out on you said. Which she wasn’t.

“Fuck you,” Persia hissed at the only man she’d ever allowed inside her bungalow and her heart. She didn’t need Hotrod or anyone else. She had a job to do. Good riddance!

Chapter Seven

Walker didn’t go far, just to the other side of the island, where he could get his head straight and plan his next move. He dropped his tired ass to the beach. The long stretch of Florida Keys lay across the narrow channel in front of him. They were so close, he could make out the cars on Interstate One, the highway that kept the Keys connected to the mainland.

He felt like crap. Sneaking out from under Persia’s warm embrace before sunrise, without waking her, had been one of the worst things he’d done to a woman in years. Not because he hadn’t wanted to disturb her, but because he’d felt something in her arms last night, something rare and unique that had thrown him off balance.

The sensation of all he’d run from, that he was the biggest loser, lingered still. Like a sucker punch square in his solar plexus. A rogue wave on the ocean. He couldn’t shake it—or her. Yeah, he should’ve stayed, at least left a better note than that scribbled ‘Later.’ But there’d been no choice. She didn’t need his kind of trouble, and he wasn’t going to Leavenworth.

But mostly? He couldn’t stand to be betrayed by a woman he finally cared about. Persia was no uneducated SEAL wife-wannabe, no flirty bar fly, and no loser. She was smart enough to figure him out. And when she did, she’d be mad as hell that he’d used her like he had. She might even shoot him on sight the next time she saw him, and he wouldn’t blame her. He had used her. She’d used him too, but women tended to forget that part of the equation, when a man walked away from them.

Walker rubbed his sternum, not sure why it ached. Maybe the long swim from Cuba to the mainland had been too much, even for a disciplined swimmer like him. Even competitive swimmers tore tendons and muscles during exhausting forty-eight-hour marathons.

Or it could be the bag drag from Cuba to Florida. The weight of Walker’s gear had fought him every forward thrust and through every wave. He knew no shark had gotten close enough to have bumped his chest with its sandpaper snout, so the ache wasn’t from that. Even if one had, his suit would’ve prevented any abrasions. No box jellyfish stings, either. He’d checked. Yet the center of his chest throbbed with a hollowness he’d never felt before and couldn’t explain.

That ache was all about Persia. They’d connected at some elemental level and leaving her just plain hurt. Yet, it was for the best. He’d been on the run too long, and with every step, every backward glance, he hadn’t been able to work out why he’d been targeted, convicted, and condemned. He needed time to think and to plan. To dig into his own case. Jesus, he just needed a quiet place for a change. This last year had been nothing but looking over his shoulder and trying to stay hidden.

While he sat staring at the bustling southern shoreline of Key West, he forced down his last protein bar, then sucked his final bottled water dry. He needed to leave, yet at the same time, he needed to stay. This morning, he was far from fit. Yes, he’d eaten and rested last night, but he hadn’t armed himself against Persia Coltrane, had he? While in her home, he hadn’t felt the need to carry, even after he’d seen the pistol coyly trapped against her thigh.

Leave it to a clever woman to know how to seduce a man. But that lush, tanned thigh…

Most likely he’d decided to linger just because of it. The woman was well-endowed, soft in all the right places. But every FBI agent on earth had been trained at Quantico, and that training could get him killed. Which made staying with her another day or two impossible.

When she realized who she’d invited into her home, then slept with, there’d be hell to pay. This time around, he was the betrayer. The deceiver. He knew damned well she never would’ve slept with him if she’d known who and what he was.

Disgusted with himself for running out on her, Walker lifted to his feet, grabbed his bag up from