Mission: Marriage. Karen Whiddon

force himself to breathe deeply and evenly, fighting to maintain consciousness.

      Struggling not to cry out, he broke out in a sweat. Hot and cold, dizziness and nausea, then, despite his best intentions, everything faded to gray and he passed out.

      By the time she located the bullet, Natalie’s shirt clung to her back, drenched in perspiration. She dropped the bloody piece of metal onto the plastic lid and picked up her small bottle of rubbing alcohol. One thing she’d learned early on in her career—when doing fieldwork, always have a rudimentary first aid kit handy. Luckily, she hadn’t lost hers in the gun battle.

      Bracing herself, she dumped half the bottle into Sean’s open wound.

      “Aaaah!” Sitting bolt upright, Sean cursed. Then, mercifully for both of them, his eyes glazed over and he went back to unconsciousness.

      “Good,” she muttered. Snatching up a needle and thread, she lit another match and sterilized the needle. Then, praying Sean stayed unaware, she began stitching up the wound.

      Later, with the wound dressed and wrapped, Natalie made herself a cup of tea with the tiny electric kettle the B and B provided. Taking a seat in the chair at the side of the bed, she watched her husband sleep, wishing she could sort out her chaotic emotions.

      Previously an optimist, she’d learned the hard way that clouds didn’t always have silver linings. People died, friends lost touch, and previously warm and sunny days were prone to become gray with a simple change in the direction of the wind.

      Life wasn’t fair and if you didn’t like that, there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it.

      Her rose-colored glasses forever broken, she’d grieved heavily over the loss of Sean. Her friends and coworkers had worried about her, finally contacting her father to help them pull her out of the deep, dark depression.

      And she’d realized she had to go on without Sean. Somehow. Burying the ever-present sorrow deep inside her, she’d set about redefining her life, vowing she would live on her own terms now.

      Though she’d always enjoyed her job, she hadn’t become fiercely intent on it until after Sean died. She’d made SIS her entire focus.

      This showed in her work. In the two years she’d lived alone, she’d been promoted twice. Headquarters had even offered her a desk job, a plum most agents would have snatched eagerly.

      Not her. She’d refused, preferring fieldwork. Every new assignment had brought her a fierce kind of happiness—the only happiness she knew these days. She lived for the excitement, the adrenaline rush. After all, danger and her emerging talent for cracking codes had been a working distraction from her pain.

      She’d solved a few solid cases, one of them huge. Her father had been proud of her and Corbett Lazlo had even offered her a job working for him at the elite Lazlo Group. She’d said no, her loyalty to SIS strong. Her anger at Lazlo for the role he’d played in her life was still there, even if she knew it was unreasonable. Then her entire team had been killed and she’d become a target. And once again, the fates had intervened. Emerging from the grave, Sean had reappeared to claim her. Not dead. Not even hurt.

      All along, she’d been living a lie. Her entire life—before and after his so-called death—had been false.

      The turmoil this knowledge caused her felt overwhelming.

      She had no time to deal with it. The mysterious and evil Hungarian they hunted seemed involved with it all—the SIS, the Lazlo Group, destroying her life and her team—and Sean’s, too, if she were honest.

      Sean’s voice startled her.

      “Could I have some water?” He licked his lips, his dark gaze as powerful as always.

      Nodding, she rose and went to the tap, half filling a glass and carrying it to him. She moved the other pillow behind him and helped him sit up before handing him the glass.

      He drank eagerly, gulping so quickly he spilled most of the water on the sheets. When he’d finished, she took it from him and placed it on the nightstand.

      “You’re going to be all right,” she said.

      Though he nodded, something in his gaze as he searched her face made her feel as if he knew what she’d been thinking. Hell, maybe he did. They’d used to joke about being able to read each other’s minds.

      She’d once found this immensely satisfying, proof they were totally compatible. Now, she found it unsettling.

      “What?” she asked, hating the defensive tone to her voice.

      “Do you want to explain to me why you felt the need to go for a walk in the middle of the night, endangering our mission and our lives?”

      A flash of anger warred with guilt. “Only when you feel like explaining to me how your entire family and you died in the same accident. In a car you weren’t even supposed to be in. And since you haven’t mentioned them, I’m going to assume your family really is dead.” She knew her voice was laced with pain and anger, and chose to focus on the anger. “I’ve long known someone had to be responsible, though no one—not Corbett, not my superiors at SIS—claimed to know who. You know, don’t you?”

      For the space of two heartbeats, he simply stared. Finally, he gave a slow nod. “I do.”

      Though she was skirting the edge and moving closer to dangerous territory, she realized she wanted to know, at least this. “Tell me.”

      He breathed a sigh. “The Hungarian.”

      “That’s what I thought. Especially when you said he might be after me because of you. Why?”

      When he looked away, the stab of grief felt fierce.

      “It’s a long story,” he said. “And while you might be ready to hear it, I’m not sure I can tell it.”

      “Don’t you think it’s time I knew the truth?”

      Dragging a hand through his hair, he looked down, up, anywhere but directly at her. “Yes. But you deserve to know everything, all at once, and what I’ve done might make you hate me even worse.”

      About to tell him she could never hate him, she bit back the words. Her chest ached. “After all this, you’re still hiding something from me?”

      “No more than you’re hiding from me.”

      “Quit trying to change the subject.” She shook her head. “I’m not hiding anything. This isn’t about me, it’s about you.”

      His smile mocked her. “See? You can’t go on feeling responsible and guilty.”

      “Easy for you to say. My entire team died. I didn’t. I’ve got to figure out what the hell I know that the Hungarian wants to keep silent or that he wants to discover.”

      “Natalie, listen to me. You need to stop feeling responsible and trying to fix this. It might not all be you.”

      She stared at him, heart in her throat.

      “Some of what’s happened—hell, most of what’s happened—might be because of me.”

      “You keep saying that. But I don’t understand. Tell me.”

      Though he looked reluctant, this time he held her gaze. That was Sean, never one to back down from bad news. “They might have gotten word that I wasn’t really dead. The Hungarian knows if that were true, you would be the one person who could bring me back to life.”

      “The Hungarian used me to get to you? That makes no sense.”

      “You asked about my accident, my family’s accident? There was no car crash, no accident.”

      Bewildered, she put her hand to her throat. “If you’re telling the truth, there was one hell of a massive cover-up. Even SIS has the car crash in their files.”

      “No car. No crash.”

      Briefly,