Nine Lights Over Edinburgh by Harper Fox

Author:Harper Fox [Fox, Harper]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: M/M Holiday Contemporary, Source: AllRomanceEbooks
ISBN: 9781426890949
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2010-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

***

“James.”

It was the first time McBride had heard his given name that morning. He had only just noticed Lila had dropped the unwanted familiarity. He halted in the corridor. It was different when you invited someone.

It was wholly different when it came from Toby Leitner. McBride spun round. He couldn’t be here, of course: McBride’s thumping head was putting out echoes. Leitner was in hospital, unless he’d died in the night and…

But the man leaning in the doorway to the squad room didn’t look much like a ghost. He was dressed with casual flair in an open-necked shirt and a long black coat whose lines emphasised his tall grace. His left arm was in a sling, but even that looked tailored to fit him, and he seemed otherwise healthy, his warm colouring restored. McBride took the breath he needed to reinflate his lungs. “What…what are you doing here?”

“I work here. For today, anyway—your superintendent told me to pick a member of her team to partner me on surveillance. So I picked you.”

“Was it just my imagination? Didn’t you get shot yesterday?”

“Shoulder wound. And not my gun arm. It takes a lot worse for General Sharot to give you a day off.”

McBride thought fast. Business as usual was one thing; he could find time and privacy to make calls, try to figure out some way of activating his underground network without alerting Carlyle. Stuck in a car with a Mossad agent, he was lost. “I’m glad you’re better. Listen—I’m not the best choice of partner for today. There’s some sort of flu going round the department, and…”

“Yes. You look terrible. Come with me, though—it’s easy duty. You won’t have much to do.”

Together they followed the concrete stairwell down into the car park. McBride hadn’t been there since the night of the Christmas party, and his skin crawled with memories. Who the hell had he been back then? He couldn’t even recognise that man, whose biggest concerns in life had been the blow job he’d just got off his partner and where his next lead in the Carlyle case was coming from. He must have been sleepwalking. Well, he was awake now.

He was sharply aware of Toby at his side. The staircase was narrow. Their shoulders touched as they walked. McBride could pick up the tang of antiseptic, hospital soap and under it something very subtle and expensive, like ferns and good leather. Also a trace of blood… “Are you sure you should be out of hospital?”

“General Sharot thinks so. I’m good enough for car duty, anyway. Ah, there she is.”

McBride glanced dully in the direction he indicated. He was almost past reaction, but a flicker of something went through him at the sight of the massive, purring BMW parked alongside the Lothian and Borders squad cars and unmarked Granadas and Mondeos. The old McBride might have given a whistle and run an appreciative hand over her bonnet. “Well,” Toby said, shrugging, taking the keys from the deliveryman, “this will be less conspicuous parked outside the Israeli embassy than a battered Ford.

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