Exception to the Rule. Doranna Durgin

to let out her breath in a big sigh; he knew her that well. Close family, tightly knit from his grandmother on down…they looked after one another. Took on the obligations of debt and need—and in this case, fear. Obligations he’d once embraced for his CIA assets as much as for his family.

      The sigh came. “Of course,” she said, tugging back the sleeve of the too-large sweatshirt she wore. “You’re the expert…that’s why I called you.”

      “But no one else,” he prompted. “No one else knows you’re leaving, or why.”

      She stood poised in the doorway to her office, the charger in hand, and seemed to lose herself a moment. When she shook herself out of it she said firmly, “Scott knows I’m going. He doesn’t know why. That’s hard for him.”

      “Trouble in paradise?” He couldn’t help it, even though he knew the Big Brother Effect would only make her scowl.

      Yep, she scowled, tugged on the sweatshirt. He didn’t know why she bought the things so damn large. “Watch your interpellation.”

      Damn. Turnabout was fair play—and he’d have to look that one up. Still, he got the message. With effort, he closed his mouth on his opinions and questions. It didn’t matter that Carolyne had the brains, the pleasant features and sweet disposition that made him feel so protective even as he resented the failure of the male population as a whole to appreciate her. It didn’t matter that she was easily hurt, and that he never wanted to see that happen. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t ever quite approved of Scott’s failure to worship Carolyne properly, because really, what man could live up to his standards?

      What mattered was that yesterday his cousin had called him from a pay phone, terrified because she’d heard rumors of a leak at work the same day she’d discovered a vulnerability in the new crop of laser-guided missiles. And she intended to fix it, but until then anyone who knew the weak point could exploit it. As soon as word got out that she could provide that information, she’d be a walking target. There would be international players desperate to exploit the problem before it was fixed, and there would be players trying to delay—or stop—her from fixing it at all.

      Her teeth had been chattering.

      So Rio had walked away from the Butterfly sailboat he’d been readying for early storage off Lake Michigan, and dusted off his retired secret-agent-man hat. He’d caught the first flight to Albany, grabbed a rental and driven up near Troy to find Watervliet and Carolyne’s charming, dormer-ridden home, surrounded by an astonishing display of fall color on the rolling hills around it.

      Tomorrow they’d be on their way to a picturesque B&B in Mill Springs, Pennsylvania, where Caro intended to hide, working feverishly to patch the weapon’s weakness—after which said weakness would be a moot point.

      Rio simply had to get her through the night. Or the packing. He wasn’t quite sure which was worse.

      He leaned back in the chair, legs stretched out, and scratched the heel of one sport-sock-encased foot with the toe from the other. No shoes in the house, not with his grandmother’s influence still strong. “You know,” he said—and quite reasonably, he thought—” there’ll be shopping in Mill Springs. You can pick up anything you might forget.”

      “Not anything,” she said tightly, having disappeared into her home office again. This time she came out with her laptop and unceremoniously dumped it in his lap.

      He made an exaggerated grunt at the impact and hefted the thing. “I thought these things were supposed to be lightweight,” he said. “You know, portable?” But he’d heard her wax eloquent over the machine before, and knew it was loaded, the latest in RAM, CD/DVD r/rw drive, screen size and interfaces.

      She said, “You’re such a Luddite. That machine has everything I need for this work and then some.” She tossed a black cordura case at him, one festooned with pockets he predicted would soon be bulging with peripherals of this and that sort. “Here, be useful, pack that up.”

      “I am useful,” he said, dignity wounded.

      A scuffing sound outside the door caught his instant attention. Swiftly putting laptop and case aside, he rose to his silent sock feet. Carolyne stood stiffly right in the middle of floor, so he put his hands on her arms and gently moved her aside, nudging her toward the office.

      “Do you have a gun?” she whispered, the words barely squeaking out.

      “I don’t carry anymore,” he reminded her, his voice as low as hers but more deliberately so. “Now find yourself a hidey-hole.” Dammit. He hadn’t expected trouble this soon.

      Rio flipped off the floor lamp beside the chair he’d been in, and found the light switch to the hall. He padded through the dark house into the kitchen, easing up next to the half-glass door as he snagged a nice roll of quarters from the kitchen counter to weight his fist.

      But no one came through the door. After a long moment during which Rio heard nothing but a screech owl off in the distant woods, he flipped the dead bolt lock and let the door drift open half an inch.

      Nothing. Rio waited, breathing shallowly to concentrate on the sounds of the night, alerting to the faintest of noises near the end of the driveway. It bore checking…

      But inside, Carolyne screamed, pure fear and panic. Rio bolted indoors to find the lights of the back hall blazing and Scott Boyle standing there looking annoyed and befuddled and sheepish all at the same time. Rio pushed past Scott to reach Caro where she curled up to fit in the bottom of the linen closet, shaking. “I’m okay.”

      Not convincing.

      “You’ve had a fright. Take a moment.” And then Rio raised an eyebrow at Scott, a silent demand for an explanation as he set aside the quarters.

      “I’ve got a key.” Scott put his hands on his hips, shoving back a cheap suit jacket, and looked at Rio in clear guy-speak that meant And you? “Carolyne told me she had an emergency business trip. I just came by to say goodbye and wish her a good trip. I damn sure wasn’t expecting to find all the lights out and Carolyne hiding in the linen closet.” Scott looked at Carolyne, who quickly looked away.

      Rio broke the awkwardness of the moment by helping his cousin to her feet. “It’s my fault,” he said, ushering Carolyne back into the living room, where she chose a corner of her boxy, stylish, color-on-color-patterned couch and sank into it, hugging her arms. “I’m on the road, needed a place to stay. I didn’t realize it would be so inconvenient for her.”

      “Ex-spy,” Carolyne mumbled. “Hear a noise, find a closet.”

      Scott gave Caro a troubled look—and Rio understood why. Caro was shy and quiet and hadn’t dated seriously before meeting Scott. He’d filled the holes in her life—and he was used to being the one who watched over her. Scott himself seemed to need the stability of the relationship; Caro’s gentleness reached past his rough street-kid experience, giving him the unconditional acceptance he’d never had—not to mention that his relationship with Caro gave him a certain status. But then again, that last bit of internal commentary came from the biased proud-cousin viewpoint.

      And now wasn’t the time to let it show. Rio lifted his shoulder in a slightly sheepish shrug. “Occupational hazard,” he admitted. “I’ll give you a moment to sort it out.”

      Rio found his shoes and slipped out; they didn’t seem to notice. Scott said something that sounded conciliatory, and there were a few moments of conspicuous silence that, up a little closer, would probably sound like kissing noises.

      Rio escaped to prowl the yard and driveway until the cold bit through his sweater, making him clumsy. The small of his back tightened, threatening pain…threatening memories of a night he was still trying to put behind himself. The night that had left him with a CIA disability pension and a part-time job at his brother’s dock—and left him free to come cover his cousin’s back.

      He clenched down on the memories as relentlessly as his back reacted to this cold, sweeping one last glance across the woods