Agent U7: Keegan (The D.I.R.E. Agency Series Book 7) by Joni Hahn

of light cologne and starch wafted around him, drawing her near. Her hand moved to rest on his shoulder, before she snatched it back.
    She cursed herself mentally. This attraction to Clint was pure madness. Despite his actions, she felt sure—well, kind of sure—he’d been feeding intel to Cyrus and The Madam. Otherwise, how would they have gotten Jim’s DNA?
    He spat an expletive at the screen, startling her. He turned to Austin. “I need to tell Tristan.”
    With an arm around Monica’s shoulders, Austin shook his head. “He gave a direct order, Robinson. We wait it out.”
    “Where’s he going?” Monica said, as she studied the screens. Her mouth dropped open before she turned to Austin. “He’s not going to the farm alone, is he?”
    Austin gave her a crooked grin. “I’m not the only idiot that does solitary ops.”
    “Yes, but Mitchell has experience,” Monica countered, with a timid shove against the inexperienced, D.I.R.E. agent’s chest.
    Clint leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “He hasn’t been in the field in decades.”
    For a fifty-something, former Navy SEAL, Mitchell Jacobs still looked fit and intimidating enough to run an op. However, in this case, that op was personal. Too personal, to go it alone.
    “Maybe I need to offer myself for the women,” Clint blurted aloud. “My mother wouldn’t hurt me.”
    “Your mother?” Keegan and Monica said in unison.
    With a wary glance over his shoulder, Clint nodded at Keegan. “Yes. It looks like Cyrus and I share the same mother.”
    With a step back, Keegan stared at Clint, her mind reeling. Not once had Cyrus ever mentioned his mother. Over the years, he’d talked about his grandfather often and in admiration, but never his mother—or father. How could it be that of all the people in the world, Clint and Cyrus shared the same mother? It seemed too coincidental.
    Which made his guilt all the more likely.
    She tried to erase the scowl on her face but it wouldn’t seem to clear. “And, you knew nothing?”
    He matched her scowl for scowl. “No. My mother and father weren’t…shy when it came to taking various bed partners.”
    Striking, stylish Cyrus Matheson was the product of an affair? It would explain why he never talked about them.
    It also explained Clint’s unyielding stance on her recent one-night stands. He held an old and buried belief that carried back to childhood and had taken root. With news that Cyrus was a result of one of those liaisons, his attitude would never change.
    “Perhaps, he was sent to live with his grandfather for that reason,” Keegan said. “Your mother was trying to hide him.”
    Clint started shaking his head before she finished her statement. “They didn’t hide their affairs from each other. They didn’t care enough.”
    It explained so much about Clint. His research on love in college, his drive to find the right wife and raise a family the way he thought it should be done. He needed fidelity, honor, to be a part of something he could believe in. D.I.R.E. had become the family he’d never had.
    Or had it?
    It all seemed too perfect, too coincidental. Something just wasn’t right.
    Until she figured it out, she’d have to stick close to him. With the others gone, it was up to her to keep an eye on him. Even the most intelligent slipped up.
    A dawning light shown in his eyes. His mouth dropped open, his face turning a milky white. Reaching for the wastebasket, he bent over the can, the contents of his stomach spilling into it with an alarming rush. Holding her breath, she brushed back the hair from his face, her other hand rubbing his back. She crooned incoherent words, her only thought to help him through the awful experience.
    Coughing, he swiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tears resting at the corners of his eyes. His other arm fell across his middle before he bent over the can again to finish the job.
    “Damn, Robinson,” Austin said, “are you