Release. Jo Leigh

parents had thought he was dead. They’d had a funeral for their only son, and he knew that they had died a little themselves to have watched his casket lowered into the ground.

      Now they knew he was alive. Not by hearing the words from their son’s mouth but from watching a U.S. senator denounce him as a traitor to his country. Seth couldn’t even imagine the pain his folks had gone through and the questions they must have.

      It killed him to know he couldn’t just take off for Seattle and talk to them, explain that he wasn’t a criminal and that he hadn’t disgraced them.

      He thought about his little sisters. They weren’t so little anymore, but he’d always see them as the two brats who followed him everywhere, who cried each time he had to leave for assignments that were shrouded in mystery.

      His family, who’d stood behind him no matter what, had gone through hell the last couple of years. What was he going to say on this goddamn public phone that would make things better? Even more of a concern was that Omicron might have his parent’s phone bugged.

      He thought about what had happened to Christie. She’d thought—they’d all thought—that Nate was dead. She was Nate’s only sister, and his death had been hard on her. Of course, she’d never suspected anything like Omicron when someone began stalking her. She’d just gotten frantic as the stalker had gotten closer and closer, and then Boone had gone to help. Together, they’d discovered that it wasn’t just a stalker. It was Omicron, convinced that Nate was alive, sure that if they made Christie desperate enough, she’d reveal Nate’s whereabouts.

      They’d caught the guy directly responsible for stalking her and a few other hit men, but Christie couldn’t go back to her old life. Like him, like all of them, she was on the run—and would be until Omicron was exposed. The only bright spot had been that she and Boone had become a couple. At least Boone had someone who wouldn’t laugh at him.

      Which wasn’t the point. His first concern had to be his family’s welfare. There was no choice, so he turned away from the phone, not willing to take the risk. He’d thought about writing to them, but he wasn’t sure who was watching them. He’d put nothing past Omicron.

      He should go back to the house. Harper would be in bed by now, so he wouldn’t have to face her. He wasn’t nearly as embarrassed about the ham as he was about running out like a five-year-old.

      He shook his head as he headed back down the long street filled with cramped shops. Boyle Heights was an old Los Angeles neighborhood that had gone through a number of transitions. Mary Lee at the clinic had told him that in the forties and fifties it was a haven for Jewish immigrants. Signs of their tenure were still around: an old synagogue converted into an apartment building with the Hebrew letters still outlined on the brick, a secondhand resale shop with a kosher chicken on the window. But now Boyle Heights, like most inner-city neighborhoods, was ruled by the gangs. There was graffiti and tags on every available surface. Bloods, Crips, gangs he’d never heard of—they were all visible in brilliant spray-paint hues.

      No one had bothered him on his walk. He’d passed plenty of guys wearing colors, but they’d caught sight of his stump and steered clear. Guess it was good for something.

      Of course, they might have been avoiding him because it was thirty degrees out here and he was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and no coat.

      His gaze moved to the few feet in front of him as he neared the old house on St. Louis Street. Most of the people who lived in the area knew she was one of the doctors at the free clinic and therefore she was okay. He rode in on her ticket, which probably protected him more than his long hair or his disguise.

      When he got to Harper’s, he thought again about not going in. He hated having to come here, having to do the crap work at the clinic. He hated everything about his life now, not the least of which was being a fugitive. The worst of it was feeling so helpless.

      He wondered what Nate was doing tonight. Whatever it was, he was furthering their cause. Probably with Kate or Vince at his side, watching his back.

      There was nothing for him to do but go on inside. To crawl into the basement and dream of days when he’d been whole. When he hadn’t given Harper a second thought.

      He reached across his body to his left pocket and took out his key. The front light was on, so it wasn’t a problem, but the house was wired with some of the most sophisticated alarms in the world. Luckily he’d been the one who’d installed them when they’d bought the house, so he knew exactly how to get in quietly.

      The moment he stepped inside, he knew Harper was asleep. Yeah, she could have just been in bed, but there was a different energy in the house when she was awake. He’d never say those words out loud, knowing how crazy he sounded. Shit, his unit would have laughed him out of Delta. Even so, he knew what he knew, and Harper was sleeping.

      Another thing he knew how to do was be quiet. He’d had a lot of training in that department. He’d been on a hell of a lot of missions where to fail was to die. So he didn’t make much noise. Not even when he went down the long hallway to Harper’s bedroom, not when he stood in front of her door wondering what in hell he expected to find. He wasn’t about to knock. And he might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t about to go in uninvited. Not that she ever would. Not him. Not ever.

      He turned before he did something stupid, but instead of heading to bed, he went to the bathroom. The chill had gone deep and he needed a good long, hot shower.

      Once there, he stripped, turned on the water and avoided looking at himself in the mirror. With the room steamed sufficiently, he got under the flow, wincing at the heat. But he toughed it out until his whole body felt warm and relaxed. He hadn’t realized just how exhausted he was. The thought of going down to that cold, sterile basement, with the oversized OR lights and hulking machines all around his bed, was enough to make him wish he hadn’t come back at all.

      Like the good soldier he used to be, he grabbed his washcloth off the rod, then picked up the soap with it. That’s how he washed these days. With the soap wrapped in terry. The only thing he hadn’t figured out was how to scrub his right shoulder. A back scrubber helped, but there were just some parts he couldn’t get to.

      Even more disconcerting to him was washing his hair with one hand. He had no problem cleaning his hair, but it felt wrong. Weird how some things felt worse than others. Like those slip-on shoes. He hated those with a vengeance.

      Finally he was as clean as he could get and warm all the way through, so he turned off the shower. He dried as much as possible and picked up his jeans. But he couldn’t put them back on. Instead he wrapped the towel around his waist, using the side of the sink as a hand substitute.

      He shoved his clothes under his arm and headed out into the chilly hallway—and right into Harper.

      She gasped. He dropped his clothes, and the knot of his towel loosened. He caught it about a second too late.

      “Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she said. She didn’t have on her robe. Just a sleep shirt that draped over her breasts, molding her nipples.

      “What the hell are you doing?”

      She stepped back abruptly. “Well, excuse me for worrying.”

      “What, you think now that I’m a cripple, I can’t take care of myself?”

      “No, I don’t—”

      Without picking up his clothes, he walked past her, bumping her shoulder, cutting her off. He couldn’t look at her and he couldn’t stand for her to see him like this. It didn’t matter that she’d seen his stump a thousand times, that she’d given him the goddamn thing. He had to get out of there.

      Halfway down to the basement his eyes started to burn, which made him want to break down the door, destroy everything in his path. Instead he just went to the side of his bed, dropped his towel on the floor and put his hand on his swelling erection.

      

      VINCE HAD A BAD feeling about this. He should have heard from Corky Baker