****
“So how’s the job going?” Trinity asked on the other end of the phone.
Briar DeLuca grunted, glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and ducked into an empty office at MI6 headquarters in London. She didn’t want anyone else wandering by to overhear this conversation.
“Honestly?” she said when the door shut behind her. “I’m bored to freaking tears.” She’d taken this short contract job and come over here as a favor to Alex Rycroft. After only three days, she was already regretting it.
Trin laughed. “Tough being relegated to a desk job, huh?”
“Yes, awful.” She was a sniper. One of the best in the world. She wasn’t cut out for investigative work and all the paperwork that came with it. “I only took this contract because it’s short, and because I like Alex.”
“Bet you’re missing Rosie, huh.”
The mention of her little daughter made her heart twist. Rosie had been on her mind constantly. “God, you have no idea. I don’t know why I thought I was ready to leave her for a few days.” Maybe she’d been testing herself. If so, now she knew the answer. She wanted to be home with her kid.
“I’m sorry about that, and sorrier still, because I’m probably about to make that worse.”
Briar frowned as her friend told her about the meeting the others had just held. She listened intently, remaining silent until Trin finished.
Hell. Someone out there was trying to track them, and might be setting them up with the intel handed to them on a suspicious platter.
She pushed out a long breath, thinking. She’d been counting down the hours she had left here, was due to fly home in three days. Now…
“Listen, none of us will hold it against you if you decide to sit this one out,” Trin added. “You’re a mom now, and that changes everything.”
Briar rubbed the back of her neck. It did change everything. Rosie was the single most important thing in her world. Besides, the team had more than enough operatives to do this without her, and she had Rosie waiting for her at home.
Yet…what if this threat followed her home? What if she sat this one out, and something went wrong? She wasn’t sure she could live with herself.
“What did Brody say?” she finally asked. Trin’s husband was leader of one of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team sniper teams. Briar’s husband Matt was his commander.
“He’s…not thrilled that we’re considering going operational again, but I didn’t expect him to be,” Trinity answered. “I think mostly it’s a timing issue for him.”
“Why, is Blue Team being deployed somewhere?” Matt hadn’t said anything to her.
“No. Anyway, I’ll tell him not to say anything to Matt until after you talk to him. Everyone’s flying to London tonight. Can you pick Chloe, Heath and me up, and take us up to the Hall? Come talk with the others there, then decide.”
It was a reasonable request. “Does Alex know about all this?”
“Some. We’re trying not to involve him any more than we have to.”
In other words, he was still mostly in the dark, and in that case, Briar wasn’t going to say anything to him. But she definitely needed to find out more before she made her decision on being involved farther.
“I’ll pick you guys up tomorrow and take you to the Hall. And I’m going to talk to Matt as soon as I get off the phone with you—but I’m reading him in. I won’t keep a secret like this from him.” Secrets killed a marriage. Secrets like this ended them.
“No, of course not. See you tomorrow.”
A minute later Briar stared down at her phone screen as it rang, waiting for Matt to pick up. It had only been twenty-six hours since their last video call when she’d gotten to see Rosie, but it felt more like twenty-six days. The five-hour time difference between London and Virginia, combined with Rosie’s new sleep schedule was playing hell on Briar’s ability to talk to her daughter while she was awake.
Matt picked up. He was in their kitchen with his phone camera angled to capture his face, and Rosie in her high chair behind him. “Hey, good timing. She just woke up from her nap.”
Briar’s heart swelled at the sight. Her husband was ridiculously hot, yet her gaze went straight past him to their daughter. “Rosie! Hi, stinker. How’s my sweet girl today?”
“Rosie, who’s this?” Matt turned the phone around and held it in front of their daughter.
Rosie stopped eating the cut-up fruit he had put on her tray and stared at the screen.
“Hi, baby,” Briar said brightly, missing her something fierce. She couldn’t believe their daughter was going to be two in a couple more months.
Rosie stared at her for a second, then broke into a big, toothy grin. “Hi, Mama,” she said in her little voice, reaching her dimpled hands out toward the phone.
A giant lump lodged in Briar’s throat. She swallowed, overcome by the rush of emotion. She’d felt things she hadn’t even known she was capable of since Rosie was born. “Are you eating your snack?”
Rosie nodded and shoved a piece of strawberry into her mouth, staring at Briar. “Where are you, Mama?”
“I’m in a big city across the ocean called London. Where Paddington the bear is from.” She’d read Rosie a story about him before the trip. And right now she’d never felt so far away and homesick in her life.
“She didn’t eat much this morning,” Matt said from somewhere behind the phone, keeping Rosie centered in the shot. “Had a bit of a rough night, but grandma handled her like a champ, and half of that molar’s through now.”
Matt’s mom had flown out from California to help with Rosie while Briar was away, taking care of her while Matt was at work. “Oh, those mean old teefers,” Briar said, wishing she was there to pull Rosie out of the high chair and smooch those round, rosy cheeks over and over.
“Our girl’s tough. Right, sweetheart?” he asked Rosie, who grinned at him in adoration. He turned away and focused the camera on him as he crossed to the counter. “Anyway, how are things there?”
“Okay.”
A grin tugged at his mouth, his green eyes twinkling. “Bored stiff already?”
“Mama, miss you,” Rosie said from out of view, and Briar thought her heart would explode. Her daughter was putting more and more words together all the time.
“Miss you too, baby.”
“Just three more sleeps, Rosie cheeks. Then mama will be home again,” Matt said.
She winced. “Yeah, about that… Something’s come up.”
At her serious tone his smile faded. “What’s going on?”
She told him, and by the time she’d finished his face was somber. “I’m going to pick up Trin and a couple others at the airport in the morning and drive them out to Laidlaw Hall. I promised I’d stick around long enough to hear what the plan is, but that’s all.”
Matt held her gaze through the screen, and her chest ached as she stared back at him. Most husbands would have told her to forget it and insisted she come home. Or even tell her she couldn’t take part in the op.
Fortunately for them both, Matt understood that Valkyries didn’t respond well to threats and ultimatums. He trusted her judgment, saw her and treated her as an equal.