Under that scenario Andy could have one brother out there trying to protect her and the other trying to kill her. The idea made him hate the division between Gabe and Rick even more.

“Some powerful people have a lot to lose if she talks about what she knows. Operational details.” Rick kept tapping those fingers.

Rick danced around the topic in general terms, but Andy knew they were really talking about the problem with the mole. The job that cost Natalie her job and almost cost his ex, Elijah Sterling, his life. “I read Natalie’s file. She had intel on everything from black bag jobs to abductions and rendition.”

“It’s more than that. From what I’ve been able to learn, she wasn’t the type to just hang out in the room. She pushed operations in the directions she thought they should go, including the mole hunt everyone else but her saw as a waste of time.”

“You mean, the point where she was right and everyone else was wrong.” Andy agreed with Gabe on this point. Natalie’s smarts and instincts had trumped those of most of the men around her. Could be one or two of those disgruntled lifetime desk jockeys didn’t like her skills or her agreement to leave the agency without trouble. “She should have run that damn place.”

“I agree, but there’s a faction that doesn’t. Others are smart enough to know harming her, going after her, means blowing her extraction agreement and setting in motion whatever contingency plan she and her lawyer—”

“Bast.”

“—worked out.”

“The latter group seems too smart to be working for the agency.” All the pieces came together in Andy’s head. The brewing internal war threatened to spill out and blow back on Natalie and, by extension, Gabe.

“The intelligent group has convinced the more vocal minority to hold off on taking any action for now and send in someone to watch her,” Rick said in a flat voice.

Andy did not like where this was headed. “Which is where you come in, I assume.”

“Gabe can’t kill the guy who is about to start watching him because that person the CIA is sending to check on Natalie works for me.”

It sounded so innocent, but the history between Rick and Gabe came with a load of baggage. If Gabe tipped from frustrated to furious while he was out there with Natalie, he could lose his edge. Gabe had never wavered in his dedication to the job before, but the issues with Rick were personal. They went right to the very heart of who Gabe was and what he believed.

“Goddamn it, Rick.” Andy tried to push down the anger simmering inside him, but it spilled out. Rick’s bombshell would fuck up all of their lives, not just Gabe’s. “Are you looking for a new reason to piss Gabe off?”

“I’m trying to resolve our personal issues separate from this, but I can’t even get there if he kills one of my men. He will touch off a landslide of shit from the CIA.”

As if those two needed one more wall erected between them. That meant Andy had to step in, like it or not. “How close is your person to finding Gabe’s location?”

Rick switched from tapping his fingertips together to drumming them on the armrest. “That depends on how long it takes for you to give it up.”

“Wouldn’t even if I could.” That’s how this worked. They had emergency protocols and ways to track each other down if communication cut out, but the specific details of where a team, or in this case Gabe, took an asset stayed with the team leader. The fewer who knew the safe location, the better.

“You can point me in the right direction and I’ll ferret the rest out.” Typical Rick. He didn’t dig for details because he had to know there were none to give. So, he circled back and ran at the problem another way. “Look, the CIA wants a check-in with Natalie now. That means surveillance and proof she is upholding her end of the deal. I get why she ran, and it was smart, but her being in hiding isn’t helping to smooth over the concerns.”

On one level Andy appreciated what Rick was trying to do—handle the matter on his terms, which made it less likely Gabe would need to take action. But this still amounted to an assignment implosion. Rick might act as though officials only contacted him, but there could be others. Rick could accidentally be leading the real killers right to Natalie.

“Your job sucks.” In that moment, Andy thought they all needed to rethink their chosen career paths. Forget his war hero father. Forget the mother he lost too young. Doing this shit day after day took a toll.

“If my men do the check, we don’t need to worry about the safety of Gabe and Natalie. I can make this happen. Bring Gabe home faster and safe.”

“You owe him,” Andy said, adding the unspoken words he wanted out in the open.

“Like I don’t know that.”

That was something. Andy chalked it up to personal growth or some such shit, but still. “He’s going to fucking hate the idea of you stepping into the middle of his assignment.”

“I’ll send a man. Gabe won’t kill him. We can work together on this without the CIA really knowing.”

Andy almost hated to ask the question. “Then what?”

A shrug. An exhale. Rick worked his way through all the gestures before finally spitting out a sentence. “After the job is done I’ll work on repairing the personal damage.”

That struck Andy as a “too late” issue, but he didn’t say it. “Remind me to take a vacation during those days. Preferably one out of the country.”

“I’ll get him to listen to me.”

“It’s like you don’t know our brother at all.” After all these years, after all the fighting, Andy didn’t understand how that level of ignorance was possible.

But Rick would learn that the hard way, just like he did with everything else. For being the oldest Rick sure did screw up the concept of family loyalty pretty often. Between Rick’s stubbornness and Gabe’s refusal to even listen, Andy had just about had it with being the youngest MacIntosh brother.

“He’ll forgive me.” Rick said the words, but the rock-hard certainty of his voice stumbled on the delivery.

Andy could not imagine a world where that could happen, and he really couldn’t blame Gabe for making any truce difficult. “You know something I don’t?”

Rick shook his head. “He can’t stay mad forever.”

That sick feeling of rawness crept back into Andy’s gut. Yeah, Rick didn’t get Gabe at all.

FIVE

Gabe lifted the handle and swung the maul. The tool looked like a cross between an axe and a sledgehammer. He’d found it in the supply shed along with large pieces of wood, clearly cut by a chainsaw earlier in the season, before the snow started to fall. Cutting them even smaller seemed like the best way to burn off energy without doing it the way he wanted to do it.

He set the head of the maul in the log and lifted. It glided through the air, straight down in a vertical line through a mix of gravity, momentum and strength. He enjoyed the rhythmic thumping as he whacked into the middle of each block. The repetitive motion started a welcome burning in his shoulders.

The snow had stopped falling and the wind died down. The exercise kept him warm in his quilted flannel jacket and thick boots as he worked. So did her stare. He could feel it as the sweat rolled down his back. Natalie, on the porch, watching.

“How do you entertain the other women you bring up here?” she asked, the amusement obvious in her tone.

Just the sound of her voice sent a flush of warmth racing through him. “This is a safe house, not the back of a Chevy.”

He lifted the maul again and brought it down with a heavy thwack. Sending the quarters flying brought a kick of satisfaction. Gave him something to focus on besides her, and God knew he wanted to look at her.

“It was an innocent question,” she said with that soft southern lilt.