Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (top fiction books of all time txt) 📗

“We’ll be watching for anybody that shouldn’t be there,” Caleb agreed grimly.

It wasn’t until she’d finally gotten back into her bed that it occurred to her to wonder if Caleb’s comment was merely to reassure her or if he was suggesting … a little possessiveness?

She wasn’t naive enough to think that it necessarily meant anything at all that he’d had sex with her—beyond the fact that he found her attractive—but that by itself was enough to make her feel wonderful. It eased her spirits enough that she was able to fall asleep despite the niggling anxiety that someone was watching.

* * * *

Caleb didn’t seem happy to see them, Simon thought wryly when he and Ian surfaced between the two men he’d sent to watch Anna and the house they’d been heading toward—hers. “Going somewhere?” he asked grimly.

Caleb eyed him angrily for a moment. “We just decided to take a quick swim to get rid of some of the kinks from being cooped up so long.”

“Is that what you two were doing out here instead of inside the sub?”

Joshua studied him uncomfortably. “Like he said ….”

“Well, you can stretch all the way back to New Atlanta. Ian and I came to spell you.”

Caleb looked for several moments as if he would argue. Finally, after flicking a last glance toward Anna’s place, he turned and headed back to the sub. “It’s been quiet,”

he reported when everyone had climbed aboard. “Were you able to trace the signals coming from her place?”

Simon shook his head in disgust. “No luck with that. Someone’s bouncing it off of a satellite.”

“Any luck on anything?”

“We identified the mansion Anna described,” Ian said dryly.

“Let me guess, it belongs to a company that belongs to another company, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Something like that. His name isn’t tied directly to it.”

“I spoke privately to the governor regarding our suspicions about the new councilman. He was inclined to dismiss it, but he didn’t tell me to back off.”

“That’s helpful,” Caleb said in disgust.

“This little operation is backdoor, by the way. That’s why I didn’t send anyone else.”

Caleb studied him for a long moment, wondering if the comment was merely a warning not to mention it or if he was trying to make excuses for sitting in on the stakeout. Not that he had to. He was High Guardian. He could pretty well do any damned thing he wanted to.

“You think he suspects?” Joshua asked uneasily when they left and headed back to the city.

Caleb uttered a snort. “You bet your ass he suspects. I wouldn’t put it past the bastard to have come himself specifically to throw a wrench in our plans!”

* * * *

Ian glanced at Simon, who was standing at the starboard viewport, watching the two men head back toward New Atlanta. “You think they broke protocol?”

“As soon as they got here,” Simon said tightly.

Ian was studying him when he finally turned away from the porthole. He shrugged. “It isn’t the typical stakeout or I’d suspend both of them.”

Ian lifted his dark brows. “It’s just a hunch anyway,” he pointed out. “You don’t know that they did.”

Simon didn’t argue with him. Instead he moved to one of the chairs that had been swiveled to face their target site and settled in it. He was bone deep tired, a hell of a way to feel starting surveillance, but Joshua and Caleb had been overdue for a relief. It wasn’t just out of consideration for them, however, that he’d come. A few days and nights of staring at nothing, cramped quarters, bad food, and very little sleep dulled reflexes and if a situation arose the watchers might or might not be able to respond as fast or effectively as they should.

He wasn’t entirely sure of his own motives for keeping the stakeout under wraps.

No one would have quibbled with his decision to initiate one since it could easily be put down to the ongoing investigation into the HFH organization. It actually wasn’t logical not to watch Anna when she’d been contacted by Cavendish so recently, particularly when it was clear he was trying to enlist her.

Doing so would have painted cross-hairs on her as a person of interest in connection with one of the most heinous terrorist acts in a decade, though, maybe permanently, and it didn’t take much searching to realize why he didn’t want to risk that.

Partly, it was because he believed she was a complete innocent in this mess and he didn’t want to be responsible for ruining her life. Partly, though, his motives were purely selfish. He wanted her as badly as the others did. Painting her as a terrorist or even a sympathizer wasn’t going to make it any easier for any of them to try to form a marriage pod with her. It wouldn’t make her life any easier to adjust to in the territory, if it came to that, assuming Caleb could convince her.

He was pretty damned sure about all he could manage to convince her of was to run the other way. He’d considered it long and hard after the conversation he’d had with Caleb and decided the best he could do was keep a low profile since he seemed to have a knack for rubbing her the wrong way.

Aside from that, and as bad as he hated to admit it, even to himself, Caleb was right about Roxanne. She hadn’t just cleaned him out. She’d undermined his self-confidence where women were concerned to a degree that he couldn’t bring himself to relax his guard. He