Reg took a few bites of omelet as he tried out and discarded ways to paint his family of origin and early years with a more palatable veneer.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Were you in my head?” he asked softly.

“No, but I recognize stalling tactics. I won’t judge. Hell, I don’t know enough about normal human ethics to even form an opinion.”

He raked a hand through his hair. The more time he spent with Faith, the more attracted he was. What if his background disgusted her? Or worse, made her pity him?

Reg set his fork down. This wouldn’t get any easier with procrastinating. “I was born in Chicago in one of the bad parts of town.”

“What makes a part of town bad?” Faith leaned toward him, clearly interested in his answer.

“Poverty, but lots more than that. Families can be poor and provide a loving, supportive environment for their children. My father was a habitual drunk, which meant he didn’t last long at any job that hired him. Mom tried. She took in laundry and sewing, but often as not we didn’t have electricity or gas, so there wasn’t hot water to do wash or light for her seamstress work. I watched her withdraw into herself, doing her damnedest to avoid Dad when he was drunk, which was most of the time.”

He drank more coffee. Faith was a good listener, and the pity he’d feared wasn’t reflected in her expressive eyes. Interest, concern, but not pity.

“Go on,” Faith urged. “This isn’t any worse than lots of shows I watched on television.”

At least on TV, you can shut the damn thing off.

Reg kept that thought to himself, but she might be in his mind. Normally, something like that would’ve irritated him, felt intrusive, but he wanted the woman sitting across from him to know everything.

No secrets.

Except maybe my role in the breeding farms.

Reg set his cup down and refilled it from the pot on the table before going on. “One of the things I never could figure out was why my folks kept having kids. Hell, they didn’t even like each other. There wasn’t enough to go around when there were only four of us. By the time we were twelve—”

Faith’s eyes widened. “Twelve? Your parents had ten children?”

He nodded. “Yup. I was the oldest. I hated it at home. Cockroaches. Rats. Feeling responsible for my brothers and sisters, who were always crying because they were hungry.

“I stopped going to school regularly around sixth grade and fell in with bad company. Gangs and drugs—except I never cared much for booze or chemicals. Probably a good thing. At least I had pocket money from selling drugs and stealing, which meant I could eat.”

Concern flowed from Faith’s green eyes. “That’s awful, but it made you strong.”

Reg screwed his face into a frown. “Not that strong. I got picked up by the juvenile authorities when I was thirteen for selling pot and cocaine. While I was in juvie, one of the—”

“What’s juvie?”

“Juvenile Hall. Jail for those who aren’t yet eighteen.”

“Got it. Go on.”

“Anyway, there was an onsite school at juvenile hall. The teacher must’ve seen something in me because he encouraged me, challenged me, and just kept pushing.” Reg looked away from Faith’s intense gaze. Now wasn’t the time to leave things out, but the next part wasn’t easy to own up to.

“I did everything I could to make him leave me alone. Yelled, cursed, told him he was wasting his time, but he never gave up.”

“Awww.” Faith’s expression melted his heart. “He saw the same things that make me care about you.”

Faith’s words flustered him, but he forged ahead. “Long story short, when my sentence in juvie was up, I went home with Mr. Thomas. He had a wonderful, funny, warm wife who was a nurse. It’s because of her that I picked medicine for a career. They’d never had kids of their own, and they welcomed me.”

“It’s like a storybook tale.”

Reg rolled his eyes. “Not exactly. I gave them plenty of grief before I settled down. They never gave up on me, though. Never even got angry.” He leveled his gaze at her. “Let me tell you, facing disappointment is way harder than someone being angry. You can fight anger with anger, but disappointment makes you feel like a pile of warmed over shit.”

A soft, slow smile lit Faith’s face, starting in her eyes and moving to her mouth. “You took his name. That says a whole lot. What was your original family’s name?”

“Leary. Irish as they come. It explains all the kids. Irish are good Catholics and don’t believe in birth control.”

“It’s still like a storybook because Mr. and Mrs. Thomas gave you a happy ending.”

“What they gave me was my life. They helped me believe in myself and encouraged me to excel in school. Even helped with my medical school tuition—the part the Air Force didn’t underwrite—but I paid back every penny.”

“I bet they were proud of you.”

Unfamiliar emotion thickened the back of Reg’s throat. “They were. I’m who I am because of them.”

“Is she still alive?”

He shook his head. “No. She never recovered from my adoptive father’s death. When people grieve like that, it weakens their immune system. I tried to spend as much time as I could with her, but she’d shoo me away. Tell me to get back to my own patients and clinic.”

“What happened?”

“She came down with one of those multi-drug resistant bugs at the hospital. Didn’t tell anyone how sick she was until they couldn’t save her.” Pain beat a slow tattoo against his temples. “By the time they called me, I barely made it to Chicago before she died.”

Faith extended a hand, and he clasped it. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not religious, but maybe they’re together now.”

“How about all those brothers and sisters and your original mom and dad?”

Guilt pricked him as it always did when he thought about the family he’d abandoned. Never mind, they’d likely cheered at the specter of one less mouth to feed after he left. “No idea. I never went back. If I had to guess, alcohol killed Dad a long time ago. Malnutrition might’ve gotten some of my siblings before they even grew up.”

He gazed at Faith. “I’m relieved you didn’t run out of here. Langley’s close enough, you scarcely need the car to get back there.”

“Why would I do that? Never mind me. How are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you hadn’t told anyone about your life—except Milton. Was it hard to tell me?”

Reg smiled. “Not hard at all. You’re a wonderful listener.”

She tightened her grip on his hand. “Not always, but I care about you.”

“I—” Words failed him, so he just said, “Thank you.” He glanced at her empty plate. “Did you have enough?”

“Yeah. But part of your omelet is left. Do you want it, or should we take it with us?”

He’d been prepared to walk away from it, but he picked up his fork, chewing and swallowing the last few bites and washing them down with coffee. “There wasn’t much left.”

“I spent seven years being hungry. I cannot waste food.” Faith released his hand and splayed hers flat across the table. “The compounds weren’t that much better than the home you grew up in.”

“Yeah, they were. At least they were new and well-constructed and probably not riddled with vermin.” Words kept flowing, surprising the hell out of him. “And I didn’t grow up in a house. More like a tenement, a slum. It was a rundown apartment building where the hallways stank of onions and urine on a good day. Shit and vomit on bad ones.”

He grimaced. “Sorry. I don’t want to ruin your breakfast, and that was a pretty visceral description.”

“Never apologize to me.”

“How about only if I’ve done something wrong?” He smiled. It was easy to smile around Faith. In a distant corner of his mind, he realized he had years of stern expressions to make up for.

“Fair enough. It’s my turn to share. The compounds were…sterile. Not in a bacterial sense, but emotionally. I lived in a big room with eleven other women and six bunkbeds. The Nameless Ones rationed everything from food to blankets to toilet paper. We couldn’t leave the compound unless they were with us. Ever.”

“Go on.” He wanted to hear everything about what his creations had become outside their protected breeding farms.

“We continued some protocols from the breeding farms.”

“Which ones?”

“Nameless Ones harvested our eggs four times a year. Conception occurred in test tubes, and some of the women were assigned nursery duty.” She hesitated, reluctance clear on her face.

“Whatever it is, I want to know.” They’d traded roles, and it was his turn to encourage her.

Faith nodded, but her eyes glazed with pain. “Some of the children weren’t right. They were misshapen or had vicious temperaments. The Nameless Ones destroyed them. They were quiet about it. We women found out by accident after Glory hacked into the mainframe hunting for something we could use to escape.”

Reg held up a hand. “Wait a minute. What about the women assigned nursery duty? Surely they noticed when some of their charges came up missing.”

Faith twisted her mouth into a bitter moue. “Of course they noticed. Nameless Ones told them they’d transferred the kids to another compound, one that specialized in dealing with children who weren’t perfect.”

“Maybe they did.”

Faith shrugged. “Where’s that compound then?” Sadness pinched the corners of her eyes. “We barely had enough calories to sustain those of us living in our compound. I have no reason to believe any of the other ones fared better than we did. We never quite figured out how to barter services for money. Consequently, we rarely had cash to take to a local grocery store. Even if we had, it would’ve been really expensive to feed a hundred plus people. We tried growing what we needed. Some years were better than others.”

Reg turned the information around in his mind. It made sense. Faith and those like her had been designed as modern day warriors. No one ever thought they’d have to fend for themselves for mundane things like food or supplies. Consequently, their original configuration lacked blueprints for those things. It appeared V3 had picked up some of that slack, or they’d have died out long since.

“You’re quiet,” she observed. “Did what I said bother you?”

“No. Not at all. I was just thinking about it.” He angled his head to one side. “Don’t chalk those lost children up quite yet. They might be alive somewhere.”

“Not likely. The odds are something less than forty percent.”

A smile tugged the edges of his mouth, and he pulled his wallet from a pocket, laying bills on the table. “Ready to leave?”

“No. I’m enjoying talking with you, and I don’t want it to end.”

Delight in her total lack of artifice warmed him. “Don’t ever change. Promise me.”

She smiled broadly. “I’ll do my best.”

He stood and helped her on with the coat she’d draped over the back of her chair. “What time did Roy say you had to be back?”

“Oh, that’s right. We weren’t shielding the telepathy, but you can’t hear it. Noon. He said I’m off until noon.”

“Fantastic news!” His smile mirrored hers. “Focus those kinetics of yours on the weather. If it’s stopped raining, we can go for a nice, long run.”

“Even if it hasn’t, we could spar in the arena.”

He stifled a laugh, but it escaped anyway. “Only if you promise not to beat me every single round. Got to leave a man some pride.”

She laughed with him, and they were still chortling when he opened her door for her, tucking her inside the SUV. Reg came around and got into the driver’s seat. He stuck the keys in the ignition, but didn’t start the car.

“What?” she asked. “Why aren’t we leaving?”

He leaned across the console and held out his arms. She dove into his embrace. It was awkward with the console between them, but he crushed his mouth on hers, thrilled when she kissed him back. Her woodsy scent surrounded him, making him ache for things he’d denied himself forever.

She threaded her fingers into his hair, and the heat from her hands seeped into his scalp. He’d only meant to kiss her, but lust shot from his head to his toes, sharp and urgent, impossible to deny. What was it about Faith? He’d never had this much trouble controlling his desires before.

Maybe because I kicked open the door to who I am, and she didn’t reject me. Being accepted is a hell of an aphrodisiac.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Faith pressed deeper into his embrace, opening her mouth to his questing tongue and sparring with it. He wound his fingers into her thick, curly hair, delighting in how it felt. His cock sprang to a more than full erection and pressed uncomfortably against the front of his pants and the console separating them.

His breathing quickened. So did hers, and the SUV’s windows fogged. Reluctantly, he dragged his mouth from hers. “Much more of this,” he said, “and we’ll end up folding down the backseat.”

“Not a bad idea. But maybe here isn’t the best place.”

He brushed his thumb across her full lower lip. “It’s not. When we make love—and we will—I want to take you somewhere very special.”

“Why can’t we make love now? And then later somewhere special too?”

An unfamiliar feeling coursed through him. He wanted to shield Faith. Protect her from every bad thing in the world. Make up for those seven years she’d suffered in the compound.

“You didn’t answer me,” she prodded.

“Because I didn’t know how.” He tightened his arms around her. “I’m far from an expert on falling in love or relationship building—unless you count my relationships with my patients.” He blew out a breath. “Collective wisdom says you date and do things together before you make love. So far, we’ve had a few conversations and breakfast—”

“How many things does this collective wisdom demand happen before we can be sexual?” She never took her eyes from his face.

“I have no idea.”

“Then how about if we make our own rules?” She grinned impishly. “I did like your idea about a long run, though. We have plenty of time.”

Reg took a deep breath. He hoped they’d have years, an entire lifetime together, but it felt premature to say something that far-reaching. He settled for, “Yes, sweetheart, we have lots of time between now and noon. And we’ve been lucky. My pager hasn’t gone off.”

“That would mean there’s a medical emergency, huh?” At his nod, she went on. “Why are you the only doctor here?”

“Good question. I didn’t use to be, and I probably won’t be forever. There’s a vacant staff position they’ve been recruiting for these past six months. No one wants to sign on with the government anymore. You can make a whole lot more in the private sector—and every new doc has big med school loans to pay off.”

He hated to let go of her, but the sooner they got back to Langley, the sooner they could go for the run he’d proposed. It had stopped raining, and a weak sun was doing battle with patchy cloud cover.

She slid back into her seat. “It’s hard to let go of you. You feel right in my arms, like you’ve always been there except I didn’t know it.”

His heart hitched in his chest as he started the engine and nosed the car into traffic. “That might be one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Feedback is good.” She twisted so she faced him.

“Agreed, but you have to say more.”

She pursed her mouth into a thoughtful expression. “I don’t understand most of how normal humans process the world. I’m never sure if what I say is good, bad, neutral, or indifferent. So when you let me know that I said something right, it helps me.”

“Ask for feedback anytime you want, Faith. Keep in mind, my social skills aren’t exactly one for the books.”

“Well, none of you act anything like the people I watched on TV.” She laughed, and it warmed his soul.

“I hope not. They’re caricatures. Not meant to represent real life. They’re there to entertain.” He flashed his creds at the same gate guard, and was waved through the CIA’s main gate. “Do you want me to drop you at your apartment so you can get leggings and running shoes?”

“That would be wonderful. What about your things?”

“Good question. How about this? After I drop you off, I’ll return to my place, get duded up for a run, and jog over to get you. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”

She fielded a saucy smile. “If you had the injections, you’d be able to run faster. Not as fast as me, but faster.”

He pulled the car up in front of her building. “Would you like that?”

“The thing I’d like is being able to share thoughts via telepathy. It’s like having a secret language, where it’s just you and me.”

“And every other freak in a ten mile radius.”

Faith shook her head. “More like five miles, and we can shield our communications so only one person can hear.”

“Maybe you can do that,” he countered. “Milton and Roy and Charlie haven’t been able to fine-tune that part quite yet.”

“It’ll come if they work on it. Especially for Milton and Charlie because of the Cortexiphan.”

“Better living through chemistry, eh?”

“Or applied genetics.” Faith popped her door open. “You don’t have to get out. Hurry. I’ll be waiting for you.”

He started to say he’d been waiting for her all his life, but it sounded contrived and hokey. “Bye. See you very soon.”

Reg backed the car around heading for his lonely apartment. Last time he’d been there was two weeks ago. He had a housekeeper to keep the dust at bay and change the linens, but his home always felt empty. Maybe because most of his things were in storage. Exactly where he’d left them before his last tour in the Middle East.

Would Faith want to live here? Maybe she’d prefer a place in the nearby town of McLean and away from the CIA campus.

Maybe not. She likes being close to Honor, Glory, Hope, and Charity.

He decided the best course would be to ask her what she wanted once they got to that point. He might want to move in tomorrow, but it was a decision for both of them. Not just him.

He reached his underused apartment building and got out of the SUV, intent on a record-breaking wardrobe change when his pager buzzed. Reg dragged it to eye level and groaned.

Milton.

That was never, never good. Nor was it ever something minor.

He switched to his wrist computer in time to see a message flare across it. Also from Milton, this one instructed him to show up at the infirmary, stat.

Cursing all the gods in the universe, Reg slid back into the car. As he drove, he raised Faith on the wrist computer.

“Yes?” She answered immediately, following it with, “Why aren’t you back here yet?”

“Because I got paged. I’m on my way to the clinic.”

“Do you want me to join you?”

He hesitated. Of course he wanted her next to him every waking minute of every day, but this was her off time, and it wasn’t fair of him to intrude.

He probably was silent for too long because she said, “Never mind. Probably one of those questions I shouldn’t have asked. The ones you were supposed to tell me about.”

He opened his mouth to tell her no questions were off limits, but she’d disconnected. He would’ve buzzed her back, but he’d reached the infirmary and long years of discipline roared to the forefront. Seconds could make the difference between survival and death.

Not bothering to take the extra moments to lock the car, he hit the ground running hard for the infirmary’s open side door. Meant someone was in the ER waiting for him.

His heart cried out for Faith. Just a few more seconds to talk with her, reassure her all was well.

Later. I’ll call her just as soon as I see what I’m up against.