“This isn’t personal, Diane.” Lawe’s expression was tormented as he watched her, and he probably did sense how much his lack of faith hurt.
“Fine, Lawe.” She was too tired to argue with him, too disillusioned to attempt to justify or explain her own intentions. “I need to pack . . .”
“I’d prefer to wait to leave, Diane.”
She turned back to him slowly, suspicion rising inside her. “Why?
His lips thinned. “I sent Rule and Malachi to Window Rock to request permission from the Navajo Council to conduct the search for a rogue Breed in their territory,” he revealed. “That doesn’t happen overnight.”
How stupid did he believe she was?
“Bullshit, Lawe,” she said wearily. “You sent a team to Window Rock to find Gideon or to lay a trap, didn’t you?”
“No, I did not.” Anger tightened his expression as he came out of the bed, his blue eyes icy as he pushed himself from the bed. “I did exactly as I said I did. I sent a team into Window Rock when I realized where you were headed and what you were doing.”
“When I told you where I was headed you sent a team ahead of us to capture Gideon,” she accused him knowingly. Hell, she wasn’t even surprised. “Is that what this is going to be, Lawe? A series of games you play to keep me one step behind you and always under your thumb?”
She should be angry. She should be raging. But, surprisingly, she was more amused. Too amused to really be hurt, though she was certain that would come soon. The very fact that he thought he had to notify the Navajo Nation Council astounded her.
“Had I thought I wouldn’t irreparably damage the mating relationship I want to build with you, then that’s exactly what I would have done,” he snapped back at her. “Instead, I’m trying to clear the way for you. It wasn’t that hard to trace the calls on your sat phone to the reservation. Especially after you made your reservations with the Navajo Suites just before I arrived here. You didn’t have to tell me where you were going, I knew. How you had tracked the Roberts girl to this area was what I was unaware of.”
“And that was all you did—you just tracked my phone?” She was highly suspicious.
“That’s all I did.” There went the hand over the face again.
“And you thought you would achieve what by waylaying me here?” Pulling her jeans and shirt from the floor, Diane dressed quickly, aware of the feeling of being at a distinct disadvantage with him by standing before him naked. “How did delaying me benefit you, Lawe?”
It was hard to attempt to make him see that she was more than able to complete her mission, hell, to get him to even give her the chance to prove she could complete it, without the feeling of vulnerability that being naked gave her. Besides, he was still hard, his cock still very interested in a little mating sex.
It was impossible to deny her own renewed interest in the sexual pleasure found in his arms as well. Fortunately, the interest was tempered, the mating heat sated for now, leaving only the natural desire they shared between them, which was strong enough without adding a hormonal, pheromonal, biological and whatever else it was reaction to each other.
“I wasn’t trying to achieve anything, Diane.” He sighed as he pulled his pants over his hips and zipped them casually. “I was trying to give us a bit of time together as Rule cleared the way for our investigation in the area. The Breeds count the Navajo as one of our greatest proponents and supporters. We can’t do anything to jeopardize that. Conducting a secret investigation in their territory could only piss them off and I’m not enough of an optimist to think we can do it and get away with it.”
“And I don’t need your damned help,” she told him. “I already had permission to be in the territory from the Bureau’s base office in the Nation. That’s all I needed.”
The base office was manned by three Breeds and a member of the Navajo Nation Law Enforcement. “As long as I had permission from base, I was fine.”
“Base can’t give you permission to investigate Breeds or Genetics,” he gritted out.
“No, they can give me permission to investigate other areas though. Areas such as the peaceful resolution of the casino conflict outside Window Rock. For God’s sake, Lawe, didn’t you even consider the fact that I had laid my own fucking ground work? Once I was here, I could have used that to explain to anyone and everyone I spoke to. And then I could fall back on it to explain how I may have stumbled upon the identities of the girls. I’m good like that.” Frustration roughened and colored her voice as complete disbelief flooded her senses. “You took the confrontational route, I took the effective one. One of the differences between me and you.”
Here they went again, arguing over whether or not she knew how to do her job. She had known eventually he would go behind her back and when he did, she had known it would be in a way that would completely drive her crazy.
At this point, there wasn’t even any sense in getting angry. Pulling her own hair out was an option though. Or his.
She wasn’t arguing over it any longer. She was tired of pointing it out, tired of begging him to give her a chance to prove it. She didn’t have to prove a damned thing, she had already proven it with five years of command and the fact that she had survived this world since before she had graduated high school.
“I’m heading to Window Rock,” she informed him as she tucked her shirt into the band of her jeans before sitting down to pull on her socks. “You can stay or you can go, I really don’t give a damn which.”
She could feel his gaze narrowing on her as she pushed the last few items into her bag and zipped it with a furious jerk of her wrist.
“Diane, we’re a government agency of sorts,” he stated with obvious forced patience. “We don’t just waltz in on their land and begin conducting an investigation, especially against a Breed that could possibly carry the genetics of one of their own. Even Jonas doesn’t fuck with the Navajo Nation, for good reason.”
“And it could have nothing to do with the fact that you’re desperate to make certain I’m wrapped in cotton batting and protected from a fresh breeze,” she retorted.
“You make it sound as though the bastard hadn’t just finished taking potshots at you and your men last week,” Lawe bit out angrily. “I was there, I know what was going on¸ Diane, and that bastard could have killed you as easily as he wounded your men. There’s more on his agenda than giving you a helping hand.”
Duh. No kidding. This wasn’t her moron week, no matter what he wanted to think.
She shrugged again as she continued to gather her things together. There was no point in staying any longer, just as there was no point in attempting to convince him that she was trained well enough, that she was intelligent enough to do what had to be done.
“Would you listen to me.” He grabbed her arm as she turned to move her bags to the door. “You don’t have to do this.”
Diane stared back at him, seeing the worry in his gaze but also seeing the fact that her future would be as bleak as hell if she gave him what he wanted, if she left with him and returned to the safety of Sanctuary.
“I do have to do this, Lawe,” she stated softly, the growing anger dropping away in the face of his concern and the conflicting emotions she could see darkening his gaze. “I don’t have to do it for you or even for myself. It’s for Honor Roberts. It’s for Fawn and for Judd and the other Breeds that were tortured in those labs. I’m doing this, Lawe, because no one else cared enough or knew enough to protect them when they needed it. I do this for my niece.” Tears filled her eyes at the thought of Amber. “For the consequences she may pay for Breed research after that bastard injected her. I do it for what they did to you, to the others and for what they’ll continue to do. God, Lawe, I do this because it’s who I am.”