Page 57 of Ford
“Copy. Thanks, bro.”
Wyatt hung up.
Ford looked at Scarlett, then Ham. “So. How are we getting to Moscow?”
Ham glanced at his watch. “By train. Get your gear—it leaves in an hour.”
Scarlett watched the Polish countryside travel past as Hamilton—Ham—Jones’s voice lifted from where he sat on the bottom bunk of their train compartment, explaining his grand plan to get them into Russia. A map of Eastern Europe and Russia was draped over the tiny train table between the bunk beds of the private compartment.
“They don’t check passports and visas at the border of Ukraine and Russia the same way they do on flights coming in, especially from the West.” He was drawing his finger along the train route he’d suggested they take into Russia.
“Even flights from Warsaw?” Ford said. “It’s going to take us two extra days to get to Russia.”
“Two more days for officials to think she’s left the country already. Two more days for them to find the real shooter—”
“Or two more days for the FSB—or the assassin—to find her.” Ford’s tone turned clipped and hard. “Or the CIA. For all we know, they’ll ship her out of the country before we even get there.”
“No. According to my contact, she’s lying low at a safe house,” Ham said. “He’s going to get a message to them and tell them to wait for us. We’ll take her out of the country the same way we come in, through Ukraine. I have contacts there—we’ll be able to secret her out of Ukraine to America.”
Ford leaned back, his head on the worn vinyl of the seat-slash-bunk bed of the private compartment, his expression clearly pained.
And she hurt down to her bones for him.
Ham had hustled them into the station last night, bought their tickets, and clearly, they were in good hands. Ham spoke enough Polish to get them across the border last night, showing their new passports—her name had suddenly become Marcie Billings—without a hiccup.
Yes, she was definitely chin-deep in a spy novel.
And she’d nearly kissed 007.
Nearly turned into a Bond girl.
Wow. She lay on the top bunk, feeling useless, watching from above as the two spec ops guys planned their mission, wondering exactly why Ford had thought he’d needed her.
“We just need to stay together and keep a low profile, and we’ll get over the border without any trouble.” Ham was a handsome man, mid-thirties, dark blond hair, blue eyes, a grim slash to his mouth. He was built like a warrior and exhibited the sparing conversation, so far, of all business, no room for trouble.
Let’s keep the kissy-face until after we get your sister home.
Scarlett wanted to wince every time her own words replayed in her head.Who’s gonna know? It’s not like we’re on duty, right?
Although, in her defense, Ford had looked at her with a very thirsty look in his eyes.
Maybe they were both intoxicated by the romance of Prague.
When his voice had turned low, and he’d admitted that he wanted to kiss her—okay, she was already there, deeply, dangerously stuck in the memory of kissing him in Montana. Could still feel the way he’d wrapped his fingers into her short hair, had kissed her with a sort of abandon that felt very rare, very unleashed.
Until,I’m not that guy, Red.
Of course he wasn’t. Because, sure, he put himself all out there for the people he cared about—his family, his teammates—but he’d found his common sense in time to walk them back from danger, both emotionally and physically.
Ford knew how to keep his emotions tightly wrapped.
Not her, apparently. This is how women lost their common sense and ended up in over their heads—they gave in to the dark needs of their heart.
In short, she’d wanted him.
But he hadn’t wanted her, at least not enough. Or not in that way. She hadn’t really acknowledged how his words in Montana had made her feel until Ham walked up and Ford let her go—again—as if she might be toxic.
She’d wanted to run in full-out mortification.