Lost in Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

said my input was required; then they picked the one they both agreed on, a fancy raspberry something or other. Never mind I wanted chocolate.” He sat back, his grin growing wider. “We’re having a baby. Who cares what kind of cake we have at our wedding?”
    Jake, Maria’s husband, snorted. “Damn me, Saint. You’re my new hero. My wife decided we’d wait one more year.”
    Ryan tried not to envy his friends. Jake, once known to the team as Romeo, was married to the one woman who had been able to tame him. Kincaid was married to Evan Prescott’s widow and happier than Ryan had ever seen the man in all the years he’d known him. Now Jamie was not only about to get married to one of the hottest women Ryan had ever known, but they were having a baby.
    He envied them all. They had what he’d once thought was his. As it had turned out, none of it was. Not even the baby. Before he did something stupid like upending the table, he stood. “Pit stop. Back in a minute.”
    He walked out and headed down the hall to the bathroom. After dowsing his face in cold water, he lifted his head and stared into the mirror. All he saw was a man who barely made it through each day without returning to Boston and tearing the town apart until he found his wife’s lover.
    Why had she turned to someone else? Why hadn’t she tried to talk to him if she was having doubts? Had she ever loved him? Unanswered questions. They were killing him.
    Not once had he cheated on her. Had never been tempted to. Kathleen had been his one and only from the day he’d first met her. It had never occurred to him he wasn’t hers. Not until he’d read the autopsy report and learned she was two months pregnant. Big problem that. He’d been deployed for eight months. Unless she had been the latest miracle of Immaculate Conception, she’d definitely cheated. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t forgive her.
    Maybe she’d been lonely. Maybe she’d met someone and fallen in love. Maybe—to hell with the maybes, there was no excuse. Nothing that could make him forgive her. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. Taking deep breaths, he formed an image of a lockbox in his mind and willed all thoughts of Kathleen into it, then closed the door and turned the key.
    It wasn’t foolproof. Sometimes she managed to escape, but usually in the deepest hours of the night, bringing back the anger and questions. It was all the talk of pregnant women that had him hanging over the sink gulping air in the middle of the day.
    As his breathing slowed, he splashed more cold water onto his face, then wiped it dry with paper towels. With his rage back under control, he returned to the conference room. As he took his seat, he grabbed the dossier on the targets and began reading.
    “You okay, Doc?”
    Ryan glanced up and met Kincaid’s eyes. “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
    The boss had a sixth sense, a unique one. He could see things others couldn’t. Not in the literal sense, but more like he always knew when something was off. Ryan had learned how to bury his emotions in the past year since Kathleen’s death, however, and he spread his arms, palms up, as if he had nothing to hide.
    “Just thinking about how to get a sick girl and a pregnant woman out of Russia.”
    Kincaid gave him a long stare before returning his attention to his tablet. “Here’s a brief summary of the intel we have so far. Up until a little over a year ago, Demetri Akulov was a highly placed Russian official. Then he did something to displease Putin. What that was, the CIA isn’t saying, and we don’t really care. He was banished back to his home in St. Petersburg where he’s been under guard ever since.”
    “Do we know how many he’s got watching over him?” Ryan asked, glad the attention was off him.
    “Two, around the clock,” Jake answered. “Same two during the day, same ones at night. They trade off at eight in the morning and eight at night.”
    Ryan shook his head. “Stupid not