No, don’t imagine it, don’t. Cassidy’s breath sawed from her lungs.
“Behind Dunlay Street and M-Manchester,” Genevieve finished, tears nearly choking her.
Cassidy heard Gunner softly repeating the instructions to the person on the other end of his phone.
“P-please...be there, Cassidy...”
“I will,” Cassidy vowed.
But Genevieve wasn’t there to hear her.
The line had gone dead.
* * *
THE CLOCK ON Mercer’s desk was ticking far too loudly.
Cale paced back and forth in the small confines of that office, tension and adrenaline pulsing through his veins. Cassidy waited down on the level below him, guarded by Gunner and Lancaster, but—
I need to see her.
Instead, he was being called in for a sit-down with Mercer. Like he needed to deal with office politics right then.
The door opened behind him. Ah, so Mercer had finally joined him. Let the battle begin.
Cale’s shoulders stiffened. “I’m not letting her go to that exchange without me.”
Mercer’s sigh carried easily to him. The sigh and the soft click of the door shutting behind the director.
Cale glanced over his shoulder at Mercer. The lines on the man’s face were even deeper than they’d been before.
Mercer lifted a hand and pointed at Cale. “You’re making a mistake.”
It wouldn’t be the first time.
Or the last.
“You should cover your emotions better.” There sure wasn’t any emotion in Mercer’s voice as he slowly headed around the desk and eased into his chair. The last time they’d been in this office, yes, Cale had been able to read Mercer pretty well. The emotions had cracked beneath his surface. This time...the man was far too controlled.
He was dealing with Mercer, the EOD director, and definitely not the father who’d been frantic.
Cale realized that he’d done that same compartmentalizing with Cassidy. The agent and the lover.
He damn well wouldn’t do it again.
Mercer eased behind his desk. The leather chair groaned as he leaned forward. His watchful stare had never left Cale’s face. “Others will read those emotions of yours. If you’re not careful, your enemies will use them against you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cale grumbled, not about to discuss what was going on personally between him and Cassidy. “But—”
“I’m talking about Cassidy. About the way you look at my daughter.” Mercer flattened his hands on the desk’s surface. “About what others will see unless you start watching yourself a whole lot better.”
Cale’s back teeth clenched. “What happens between me and your daughter—”
“Cassidy looks a lot like her mother.” Mercer’s gaze seemed far away. He looked right through Cale, and at his own past. “Same hair, eyes...even that stubborn chin. Marguerite was so beautiful. The first time I saw her...” He swallowed. “I knew I couldn’t walk away from her.”
Isn’t that the way I feel about Cassidy?
Because he knew that he should step down. Another case waited—plenty of other cases—but he couldn’t leave Cassidy.
Wouldn’t leave her.
“I was undercover, even then. Pretending to be someone I wasn’t.” Mercer stared down at his hands. “Always pretending. But Marguerite seemed to see through that.”
This was a Mercer that Cale didn’t know. So he just stood, watching, waiting to see what Mercer would reveal next.
“I loved her, but I loved my job, too. People counted on me. So many lives. So many...” His lips kicked up into a mocking smile. “But I was young. Foolish. I thought I could have it all. The girl. The job. The danger. All of it. Everything I wanted.” The smile faded. “We married in secret.”
Married...and had Cassidy.
“But I’d made so many enemies. They found my Marguerite. And took her from me.” His hands slapped against the desk. “In an instant, they took everything from me. I wasn’t even there to tell her goodbye.”
Cale felt his muscles turn to stone. This story...the ending...it hit far too close to home for him.
When he’d been a teen, his parents had been taken from him. Not by an enemy, but by a drunk driver. Gone in an instant.
He’d never been able to tell them goodbye. He’d never been able to save them.
So he tried to save others.
Cale’s breath whispered from his lungs. “You didn’t lose everything that day. You still had Cassidy.”
Beautiful, bright Cassidy.
Mercer’s eyes closed for a moment. “Because of who I am...what I am...Marguerite died. Cassidy had to see that terrible moment. Just a child, and she had to watch her mother die.”
And the memory still haunted her. He knew it probably always would.
“What do you think you can give to Cassidy?” Mercer asked him after he opened his eyes.
Cale stared back at him, no ready answer on his lips.
“You’re on the same path that I took. Danger. Enemies.” Mercer shook his head. “One of your enemies framed you for murder just months ago. You don’t have a safe or easy life.”
No, he didn’t.
“What will you give to her? More danger? Maybe even the same death that I gave to my Marguerite?”
Mercer looked very tired and weaker than Cale had ever seen him before. “I want Cassidy to be safe. To have a normal life. But she won’t have that life with you, Agent Lane.”
Because he was EOD. Because he’d learned long ago how to deal quick death to the threats in this world.
“Step back from this case,” Mercer told him. “Step back from Cassidy before you do more damage to her than even I ever could.”
“The last thing I want is to hurt her,” Cale conceded. The words were true, but he hadn’t thought ahead. Hadn’t thought past the moment of being with Cassidy.
He’d just wanted her.
After so long of being in the shadows of life, she’d been a temptation he couldn’t resist. He’d reached out to her.
Taken what he needed so badly.
And hadn’t considered the future.
“There is no future for you two,” Mercer said, seeming to read his thoughts. “Cassidy needs to move away from the EOD, away from the guilt of her past.”
Because of her friend’s death.
“She needs to find someone safe and settle down.”
Another man. Anger had his hands fisting.