When he heard shuffling, he darted around a parked car so he’d be out of the view of the ambulance’s mirrors.

“Here,” Eve said. “Why don’t you sit down? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m . . . I’m fine,” the EMT replied. “Wow. That was weird. I don’t remember anything except getting out of the vehicle.”

“You could have low blood pressure. You might want to get that checked.”

Zane found it mildly ironic that Eve was giving the EMT medical advice, but then, Eve had always been confident in everything she did. The woman could fake it with the best of them. His lips turned to a frown when he thought about how she’d used those incredible acting skills to play him from the start. And that only reminded him of just why they were here in the first place.

He waited while Eve helped the EMT around the back of the ambulance so she could sit. From his position, he couldn’t see much of the EMT except her boots perched on the bumper. But he could see Eve, standing next to the open back doors, looking concerned and . . . stunning in that ridiculous outfit and wild blonde hair.

Blondes had never really been his type, but at the moment he wouldn’t mind taking that one for a test drive.

Dammit. He ground his teeth when he realized where his fucked-up thoughts were going. She still got to him, after all this time. Even after everything she’d done. But he wasn’t a moron. People had died because of her. He’d almost died because of her. And he wasn’t about to forget that.

I loved you, you son of a bitch! Why would I try to get you killed?

She hadn’t been telling the truth. She couldn’t have been. A person like Eve didn’t know how to love. And he wasn’t falling for her fiction even if she was helping him right now.

“Do you want me to get someone?” Eve asked the EMT. “Do you have a partner deckside?”

“No.” The EMT lifted a hand toward her head. “No, I’m fine. I—wait. Didn’t you say your friend was hurt?”

“He is, but you’re in no shape to help him right now. Though if you have some bandages or gauze so I could cover his wound until we dock, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure. Yeah. I can do that for you. Um, bandages are in here.”

Eve disappeared into the back of the ambulance with the EMT, and Zane used that as his chance to get away. Staying low, he maneuvered back around cars until he came to the RV. Quietly, he opened the door and slid inside. Dropping the materials on the small table, he pulled the needle guard from the shot, tugged down his pants, and injected the solution into his hip.

Relief would come slowly, but faster than with his pills. And maybe it made him a wuss, but he didn’t care. Between the pain in his arm from that gunshot wound and the perpetual burn in his leg from all the scar tissue, he needed some relief right now.

He dropped onto the bench, leaned his head back against the wall, and closed his eyes while the drug began to work. Minutes later, Eve tapped on the door and pulled it open. The scent of peaches reached him, and he drew it in, remembering the hundreds of other times he’d taken that scent in with his eyes closed. Just before she’d touched him, or kissed him, or straddled his lap and ridden him to oblivion.

“Looks like my plan worked.” Paper rustled as she dropped supplies on the table. “The EMT gave me extra bandages. Now take off your shirt so I can get at that wound. We don’t have a lot of time.”

He grunted as he tugged his shirt up and off. Eve’s soft fingers landed against his skin, helping him, sending tiny shivers of awareness all through his body. He leaned his head back against the wall again and closed his eyes while she knelt next to his seat and cleaned the wound, afraid that if he looked, he might not be able to look away. And if he saw her on her knees in front of him . . . forget it.

“This isn’t as bad as I thought.” She packed the wound with gauze, then began wrapping his arm in bandages. “You were lucky.”

Zane huffed. “Luck and I are not good friends. You’re proof of that.”

Eve’s hand stilled against his arm, and when he opened his eyes, curious as to why she’d stopped, he faltered because he couldn’t read the emotion lurking in her amber gaze.

Guilt? Remorse? Regret? He couldn’t be sure which. But something was there. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted to see.

“I know you don’t believe me, Archer,” she said in a quiet voice, “but I wasn’t lying to you earlier.”

Quietly, she went back to wrapping his arm, and as Zane stared at her, he took in the stubborn set of her jaw, the lock of white-blonde hair that fell across her creamy cheek, the way her long eyelashes curled outward from her deep amber eyes. He’d been with a lot of women in his life, but she was the only one who’d stuck with him, and he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t just because of her beauty—though she had that hands down over all the others he’d dated. No, she was forever engrained in his mind because of her brains and wit, and because during one of his most miserable assignments, she’d been his shining ray of light. Until she’d been his darkness.

“No, I don’t believe you.” He tore his gaze away from her mesmerizing face and looked back at the bandages on the table, only mildly concerned they were blurring against the fake wood. More than anything, he hated that feeling in his chest, those pinpricks of doubt that were growing sharper. She was a traitor, and he needed to remember that fact. Not get lost in her all over again like she obviously wanted him to do. “And this isn’t the time to get into it. The ferry’s about to dock, and we need to get out of this RV before Boy Wonder and his dad come back.”

Sighing, she finished wrapping his arm, then pushed to her feet. “You’ve changed, you know that?”

His gaze shot to her. “I’ve changed? That’s rich, sweetheart. I’m still the same guy I was in Beirut. I just wised up to your game.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared down at him. “Not everything’s black-and-white, Zane. Sometimes there are shades of gray. But you’re too bullheaded to see them.”

“The only gray I see is you trying to color the situation so I’ll drop my guard around you.” He pushed to his feet, needing his height advantage so he could intimidate her. Which was a lame idea because Evelyn Wolfe was never intimidated by anyone.

He swayed on his bad leg and caught himself with a hand on the back of the bench seat before he went down.

“Zane—”

He pulled away from her reach, knowing if she touched him he might forget what was at stake here. The RV swirled in front of him. Son of a bitch. Either that dose of Dilaudid was too strong, or he was seriously weak from the loss of blood.

Gripping the back of the bench seat, he said, “Once we get off this boat, I’m calling Carter, and you’re turning yourself in.”

Her face drained of all color, and she dropped her arms. “The hell I am.”

“The hell you aren’t.”

“Archer—Zane,” she said more softly, “I wasn’t responsible for that bombing in Seattle.”

He pushed past her and peered through the curtain toward the car deck beyond. “My gut says otherwise.”

“Your gut is as bullheaded as your brain.”

“It might be, but it’s not falling for your shit anymore.” He pushed the door open. “Come on. People are starting to come back down. We need to go topside.”

She didn’t move, and as he stepped outside the RV, he realized if she wanted to kick his ass and run, she could do it now, no problem. He was weak, in pain, and not operating on all cylinders, and she was clearly none of the above.

He glanced over his shoulder. She stood in the doorway of the RV, staring at him, that white-blonde hair like a halo around her head, and those emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge reflecting deeply in her rich amber eyes again. But there was also something else lurking in her gaze now. Something that tightened his chest like a drum and made him wish he’d never looked back.

Something that seemed a lot like fear.

“Archer,” she said quietly, “if you were smart, you’d let this go. You’d let me go. You left the CIA for a reason. You don’t want to be involved in this.”

He steeled himself against the sudden burst of tenderness he felt in his chest and reminded himself that retribution was all that mattered. “You made me a part of this the day you sabotaged my mission in Guatemala. Sorry, sweetheart, but you’re not going anywhere but where I say.”

6

Eve looked over the display of fish antibiotics toward Archer on the other side of the small pet store where he was tinkering with his waterlogged cell phone.

The ferry had docked on Bainbridge Island, and they’d stepped off without anyone looking twice at them. She’d been a little nervous about the deck cameras, but the Mariners cap and oversized sweatshirt she’d snagged from the back of the RV hid her from view. And the fact that Zane’s phone was dead put a little of her anxiety to rest, knowing he couldn’t call anyone this minute. But right now she was focused on making sure that wound in his shoulder didn’t get any worse. The light jacket he’d found in the RV’s closet covered the bandages on his upper arm, but she was worried about infection setting in, even if he wasn’t.

She looked back at the choices in front of her and wished—again—that she wasn’t so damn gullible. Yeah, she could have gotten away from Archer at any time, but the way he kept swaying on his feet wouldn’t let her. It was because of her he’d been shot. Because of her he was now weak and pale. She was still pissed at him for the way he’d treated her in that warehouse, but before she ditched him for good, she needed to make sure he didn’t pass out or—God forbid—die because of her.