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She was quiet for a ested this “So tell me about them, about your brothers and sister What are they like?”

Liam considered this “Shane—he’s the oldest He was the first to enter the Marine Corps, and stayed the longest He rose through the ranks the hard way, starting out as a buck private and rising to the rank of colonel He’d still be in the Corps if not for a domestic terrorist incident that happened a few years back Shane was home for Christ mall with my sister the day after Christmas when a pipe bomb went off in a bookstore Shane threw himself between the explosion and a wonant at the tih for the Marine Corps to give hi for him—the Corps was his home”

Cate blinked rapidly, and Liam suspected she was moved by the story but didn’t want him to know it He continued “Shane knocked around for a couple of months afterward, unsure what he wanted to do with himself Then he went into politics, heart and soul” He couldn’t repress the pride he felt in his oldest brother when he said, “He’s Senator Shane Jones now”

If Cate was the type to say “,” Liam knew she would have said it Instead she said softly, “You elina”

“Yeah”

“What about the next brother after Shane? Niall, yes?”

“Niall,” he confirmed “I can’t really tell you what he does because none of us know He spent four years in the Corps—same as Alec, uess you could call it black ops, although that’s not really the name for it, and you didn’t hear it from me”

“Black ops?”

“Covert operations on behalf of your governovernment wants the world to know about Deniable Governments do it all the time In fact, Zakhar carried out several covert operations in Colorado a few years back, when I was one of Princess Mara’s bodyguards” Cate turned startled eyes on Liam “Oh yeah,” he told her “I can’t tell you the details, but trustPrincess Mara”

Including a fake kidnapping atte Andre Alexei IV in order to test Trace McKinnon, he thought to hi him by force to Zakhar

But that was all water under the bridge Only a very few people in the government knehat had happened Officially deniable across the board

Cate was silent for a minute, then said, “So what about Alec and Keira? I’ve met your sister—she was very sweet to me And I’ve known your brother for alelina has told me about him But she’s in love with him, so of course”

Liam wanted to ask Cate—really wanted to ask Cate—about her own feelings for Alec But he couldn’t figure out a way to ask that wouldn’t co Instead he examined his conscience and said honestly, “Alec isspecial You probably already know that I grew up both ade, I know, butanyway, I followed him into the Diplomatic Security Service not because I wanted to outdo hiht for me Does that make sense?”

He glanced at Cate and caught her nod “Working with Alec for six e I learned a lot from him—from McKinnon too, of course, but—”

“I’ve met Mr McKinnon”

“Yes, you said that this ”

“He was once your sister’s partner, isn’t that what Mr D’Arcy said?”

“Yeah, funny how these things work out souard Princess Mara because he’d once been a US marshal and because he spoke Zakharan like a native”

“So tell me about Keira I only met her the one time, butas I said, she was very sweet to me And I met her husband, too He caelina last year”

“Keira’s special, too I didn’t realize just how much she meant to me until we almost lost her a few years back That Edward Everett Hale quotation—the ‘I am one’ quote you said Alec told you? It applies to all of us, but in slightly different ways Keira’s interpretation of what it means led her to take a bullet meant for another man, and she almost died as a result As a matter of fact, the man whose life she saved was Ryan Callahan—theyou to”