Secret Identity by Paula Graves Read Free Book Online Page B

certainly not going to know to tap the phone of a no-tell motel room in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee. And they won’t know my brother Jesse from Adam.”
“We don’t know how that guy found me in the first place,” she argued. “Or how the men on the highway tracked us down.”
“I checked my car for a tracker back at the gas station outside Athens,” Rick assured her. “And we looked at our bags, too, just in case—”
“You don’t survive in this business if you take stupid chances,” she said flatly. “Calling someone—at this stage of the game, at least—would be very stupid.”
“It’s not a game, Tara.” He clamped his mouth to a tight line before correcting himself. “Amanda. You’re not on a mission. Your life is in danger, and you don’t have to worry about breaking cover this time.”
“Oh, but I do,” she answered, realizing in that moment just how much she hated the truth. It hadn’t taken very long after she’d stepped into the spy game to realize there would be only two ways out when she was done. She could quit the CIA and make a concerted effort to be so famous an expert on the agency that killing her would be more trouble than it was worth—or she could live the rest of her life under the radar. As a covert operative who’d crossed a lot of dangerous people, she didn’t have any other viable options if she wanted to survive.
She’d chosen the latter, especially after the ordeal in Kaziristan. All she wanted to do was hide from the world as long as she could afford to.
“Why aren’t you using your real name?” Rick asked carefully, as if he knew what a volatile question he was asking.
“Because I haven’t been Audrey Scott for so long, I don’t know how to be her anymore.” She knew the reply seemed flippant and nonsensical, but it was true. The little girl from Mississippi had lived a long, hard life before she escaped on a scholarship to college and met the CIA recruiter who’d changed her life. Even if it were safe to return to her old life, she wouldn’t want to do it.
Some things were worse than living a lie.
His watchful gaze felt intrusive, forcing her to look away. She knew he had questions about her past. He’d always had questions, though he’d never asked them again after her light rebuff of his first queries so long ago. Still, she’d seen the curiosity in his eyes, even in the throes of passion. He wanted to know who she was. All of who she was.
She just couldn’t share that much of herself with Rick.
Not with anyone.
“Okay,” he said finally, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them like a wall. “No phone calls.”
She looked up, grateful for his concession. But she saw determination lurking in his eyes.
“Yet,” he added.
She held his gaze, an idea forming at the back of her mind, driven into hiding by Rick’s relentless scrutiny. “I am hungry,” she admitted quietly, careful to keep her voice or expression from revealing even a hint of what she was planning. “That protein bar didn’t do the trick. You know, I saw a burger joint down the road, just before we reached here. Could you run back there and pick up some food for us while I take a shower?”
He seemed surprised by the sudden change of topic. “Sure. What would you like?”
“A burger and some fries will be great.” Her mouth watered at the thought of the meal she wouldn’t get to eat.
Because she didn’t plan to be around when he got back.
     
     
IT TOOK A MOMENT, upon scanning the empty interior of the motel room, for Rick to realize he’d been well and truly had.
A faint flutter of hope propelled him into the bathroom to make sure she wasn’t there, but the bathroom was just as he’d left it, towels still damp from his shower, lying on the sink where he’d put them. There was no sign that she’d taken a shower of her own.
She’d ditched him. Probably why she’d sent him out for food in the first place—even as he’d obeyed his growling