The Protector of Ambra (Mercenaries of Fortune, #5) by Lyn Brittan

grasp again. “I’m offering you what you came for.”
    “I came for justice.”
    “I thought you came for your family and before you say it, Melody, they’re not the same thing.”
    “They are for me.”
    He opened his mouth to set her straight, but a phone rang. His, specifically and it was Ambra’s home base. “Well, all this is moot anyway. I’m toast.”

Chapter Nine
    P ierce sucked his lower lip with a loud pop and slid down the side of the car with a very weak, “Hello?” Phone pressed to his ear, for the first time he looked truly fearful. “I’m here. Uh-huh. Late night.”
    His lies were as smooth as freshly whipped buttercream.
    “What do you mean, she’s pregnant?” he screamed into the phone. Pierce waved away her gasp and pointed to his chest. “Not mine,” he mouthed and shot up to finish the call in privacy.
    Was he lying about that too? She didn’t think so. But the whole thing led to more questions. Who really was this guy? The doctor thing, she believed full out. She’d seen evidence of it since they met. Even now, the last she heard before he limped out of earshot was about safe levels of some drug in the second trimester.
    So doctor? Fact.
    Government agent? Possibility. He had unusual tools and the skills to use them. Or not use them. His hand-to-hand combat was nothing to laugh at either.
    He rubbed his knee as he walked. Proof of some previous injury? Did the CIA let guys with a limp hang around? That was suspect. And if not the CIA, then what – the FBI or something more nefarious?
    That last question didn’t hold much water. He didn’t abandon her, though she deserved it. If he’d meant to hurt her, that would have happened already too. The only thing he’d done to her, was help and smoothly insert that he thought she was running on a tank full of stupid. Maybe she was. She’d been so focused on the injustice she had to make right, that she’d hauled off with a stranger in the Mexican jungle. Dumb or determined? The lines were starting to blur.  
    As far as she was concerned, truth, love, justice and honesty were one in the same. She’d promised her mother she’d put Noah’s butt in jail and that’s what she was going to do. That’s where liars and deceivers belonged. That’s also what made Pierce such a puzzling man. He’d offered her his time, his neck and now his money.
    He wasn’t fitting into any of her cookie cutters. Orders and rules made society run, yet here he was saving her butt. The only thing missing was the cape.
    He was still a thief and a liar. A man who lied once, would lie again. Her mother had told her that and she’d seen it with her own eyes.
    Then again, it was heartwarmingly satisfying to see a man who loved his work as much as she loved hers. He got it. That drive to wake up every morning and deliver the best of yourself.
    Not once, not even for a second, had she ever considered giving up her job. It didn’t compute that the work was too hard or that she could do something that took up less of her life. Her job was her life.
    And Pierce got that.
    It was why he was helping her. Everything came back to one solid truth, though. He was a liar.
    He came back a few minutes later, tapping his phone against his chin. “I shouldn’t be here.”
    “We can’t leave,” she said, with a small amount of fear beating against her chest. “We’ve come so far—”
    His hands dropped to his sides and his back thunked against the side of the jeep. “No, you stuck with me through mine, I’m following through on yours. I just shouldn’t have been here. When they needed me, I’m here obsessed with a damned clay figurine.”
    “Not you. You forgot your primary objective?”
    He looked up and shook his head. “Cute.”
    “No, it’s just sometimes small-minded people need to be reminded of the big picture.”
    He pivoted away and held open the door. “Funny. Now get in. We’ve got a bad guy to catch in the act.”
    They drove for minutes in