“You are?” Lara looked at Tate, confused.
He nodded. “You’re a damn good shot. And you carry a gun. Why?”
They were the questions Lara wanted to avoid. “Because I—I’m…”
Tate covered her lips with his fingers. “Don’t lie to me. I know you want to, or you feel you need to, but don’t. You don’t need to.” His brows drew together as he studied her carefully. “You’re Special Agent Lara Bailey from the FBI. You’re assigned to the counter-terrorism division, which makes a lot of sense to me now that I know how you lost your parents. My question isn’t who you are, Lara. My question is what in the hell are you doing here in Rocky Springs, Colorado?”
She stepped back until his hands fell from her body, completely in shock that her status as an agent had been discovered so easily. “How did you know?” She wasn’t going to deny it. There was obviously no point.
He smirked knowingly. “I’ve got connections you wouldn’t believe. All it took was a phone call. What I couldn’t discover was your mission. You aren’t a stressed-out employee on vacation. You’re here for reason.”
She folded her arms in front of her. “How do you know that? Being a field agent is a stressful job. And we do get vacation.” Lara just couldn’t remember ever taking one. She took a deep breath before she continued. “And how is it possible for you to find out my status that easily? I know that you were a Navy SEAL, but it wasn’t on your military records. Why? And how is it that you still have such powerful contacts?”
Tate folded his arms in front of him and mimicked her stance. “Maybe I wasn’t a SEAL,” he suggested calmly. “If it’s not in my records, it didn’t happen.”#p#分页标题#e#
“Bullshit.” She glared back at him. “You went through BUD/s training, SQT and you got your SEAL Trident. After that, it’s like you disappeared, except for the notations that you were a Special Forces officer with an exemplary record. You left because you were injured in the line of duty, but the mission was highly classified. What kind of mission is classified for an FBI agent?”
“The kind that doesn’t exist to almost anybody in the government,” he explained casually. “And I never claimed to be a SEAL. Although I’ll admit that I let anyone who thought so continue to assume that I was. I didn’t have a choice.”
Lara gaped at him. “You were in a top-secret Special Forces team? They recruited you from the SEAL team, didn’t they?”
She’d heard occasional rumors about a kick-ass special operations team that was known to almost no one, even the upper echelon of the FBI. But she’d blown off the continual rumors. His military record made sense to her. It was the only thing that did make sense. If he’d continued on as a Navy SEAL, his record would have reflected it. SEALs weren’t hidden from the FBI. None of the known Special Forces were hidden from the FBI. The only answer was a top-secret team, a team so elite that nobody knew about them except the very top of the food chain in the government. She’d never seen a military file like Tate’s, but it made perfect sense now.
She raised her brow when he didn’t answer, and he just shrugged. “I’d rather hear about you, Special Agent Bailey. Like what in the hell are you doing here? And don’t try to feed me the vacation bullshit. It won’t fly. The only thing I haven’t been able to put together is why you’re here when you’re a counter-terrorist agent. Is there a terrorist hiding out way out here in Rocky Springs?”
“It’s possible,” she hedged.
“Who?”
“I can’t give you that information, Colter. You of all people should understand keeping secrets.”
Tate moved forward and pinned her body against the kitchen cupboard. “Not from me. I grew up here. I live here. And I’m damn sure I have a higher security clearance than you do. You have no reason not to tell me. This is my turf. My brother is a goddamn US Senator. What if he’s a target?” he growled. The fierceness in his eyes glared at her terrifyingly.
“He’s not,” she told him sharply. She could share that much. The last thing she wanted was for him to think his brother Blake was in danger. “And if you’re out of the military, you no longer have clearance.”
Tate looked at her, and spoke as though he picked his words carefully. “I still do. We’ll just say I’m a consultant of sorts now.”
“To who?” There wasn’t a damn thing in his background check to indicate that, but there was never a file like his either. For some reason, most information on Tate Colter was hidden, buried beneath superficial bullshit.