Dark Knight: A Loveswept Romance Classic (2 page)

“Does Senator Gladiston know about this yet?”

“No. And I plan on keeping it that way. It’s bad enough I have to deal with the DEA on this.” His tone made it clear she wasn’t the only one upset by how the whole thing had been handled. “There will be a full brief waiting for you in the plane. There isn’t much to brief you on. Sorry.”

Sorry? She could kiss the man. He’d given her the perfect Christmas present: no Christmas. “No apologies. You just saved my life.” Again.

“Giardi?”

She heard the bare trace of concern in his voice and felt her throat tighten. Del was the closest thing to a real father she’d ever had. Not that she’d ever told him. And now was not the time either. “I can be on the field in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll let them know. I appreciate this, Scottie.” If there was something more than brisk efficiency in his tone, neither of them commented on it. “You’ll have
questions for me. I’ll arrange a meeting when you’re done with this assignment.”

“I’m counting on it. Who’ll mind the store while I’m away?”

“It’ll be taken care of.”

She paused briefly. Despite her relief at this unexpected reprieve, having her authority usurped so easily, even if it was by the man who had bestowed it on her in the first place, didn’t sit well with her. “You’d better schedule a long meeting, Del.”

She thought she actually heard him chuckle. Must have been static on the line. “Handle this one,” he said. “I’ll answer all your questions after.”

“Yes, you will,” she replied, but the line was already dead.

The small jet touched down in Montana on the landing strip under a clear sky and a full moon. It was just past midnight. “Merry Christmas to me,” Scottie murmured, then turned back to the tiny glowing screen of her specially designed Personal Digital Assistant. Del hadn’t been kidding about the brevity of the report. She knew little more now than when Del had disconnected their call.

She knew that Logan Blackstone was indeed Lucas’s identical twin. They had apparently been separated by their never-married parents shortly after their birth, the father taking Logan, the mother taking Lucas. Both children were raised with the name Blackstone, each believing the other parent had died, and with no knowledge they had a sibling, much less an identical twin.

The team already had documentation that Lucas’s
mother died when he was four. No family member had stepped forward as guardian, so Lucas had been raised in the foster care system. He’d entered the military at age eighteen and had eventually become a Green Beret. A loner, he’d never married, had few friends outside the other Berets. He’d gone on to do Special Forces work until Del had recruited him ten years earlier at age twenty-seven. The documentation of his birth and his mother’s background hadn’t revealed the existence of any living relatives. They had been sufficiently assured that Lucas Blackstone was a viable recruit for the team. But Scottie knew all this. She’d read Lucas’s file when she’d taken on the job of directing the team.

There was no information on how Logan had discovered Lucas’s existence, but there was documentation that their father had passed away two months earlier. Had he made a deathbed confession perhaps?

However Logan had discovered the information, the fact remained that he had made it his mission in life to track down his twin brother. And for a former Detroit street cop who’d spent the last five years as co-owner and operator of his late father’s pub—his father also having been a retired cop—he’d been remarkably successful. Not to mention disturbingly resourceful.

A cop. A second-generation cop. Just like her. Just what she didn’t need. Scottie sighed in disgust as she programmed the handheld machine to encrypt the information. She stood and stretched as best she could in the small confines of the jet cabin, then snagged her backpack, shoved the PDA into an inner pocket, and zipped it up tight.

The report didn’t tell her the one thing she wanted
to know: How in the hell had a cop-turned-bartender managed to get so close?

“All clear, Ms. Giardi.” The pilot turned in his seat. “Just got a message that your vehicle is waiting for you about fifty yards straight out. Report’s in the usual place.” He stood, opened the hatch, and lowered the steps.

“Thanks, Tom.” She hugged her pack over her shoulder, balancing the weight on her back. “You heading back tonight?”

“Yep, gotta beat Santa home.”

She ignored the odd pang his words elicited inside her chest. “I appreciate your taking the flight tonight.” She wondered briefly who’d made the call. Who else knew Del had resurfaced?

“No problem, Ms. Giardi. Anytime.”

Scottie heard him taxi around as she crossed the small field. She turned and watched Tom take off, unable to keep from wondering what it must be like to know someone was waiting for your arrival with open arms and a smile. Her laugh was derisive as she turned back to the black Land Rover, tossed her bag to the ground, and flung her arms wide. “Hi honey, I’m home.”

Her smile faded as she ran a quick visual scan of the area before punching in the code to unlock the doors. Pine Lodge, Montana, gave the word “remote” an entirely new meaning. There was no warning prickling sensation tingling her scalp. Whoever had left the truck, and it was likely it had been one of Del’s men, since she didn’t have anyone in place there with the connections to pull it off, was long gone. She was alone.

She finally allowed herself to acknowledge the low
hum of adrenaline that had steadily pumped through her system since the instant the phone had rung. It felt good, she realized. Damn good. God, she had missed being out in the field.

Man, you are losing it, Giardi. You spend the evening sniveling like a whiny yuppie because your eggs are jumping around a bit, and now you’re all mopey because you aren’t playing Jane Bond anymore
. She smiled. “What in the hell
is
wrong with you, Giardi?”

She slid into the driver’s seat, reached under it, and felt around, then depressed a small panel. A tiny diskette slid into her palm, which she tucked into a hidden slot in the side of her PDA. Directions to a rental unit Logan had signed for three days earlier flashed on the tiny screen. He was in a cabin up on the north ridge of the Crazies, a small mountain range less than an hour from the Brethren compound. According to the rest of the information, a high-elevation snowfall had trapped him up there. But the snow was melting off. And Del’s other men were needed at the compound. She had to get to Logan before he got off that mountain.

“Sounds like a fun vacation,” she muttered.
Hey, it beats an evening with Cindy-Lou and the Whos
. Not wanting to think about where her head had been several hours before, she switched off the PDA and pocketed it, then put the disc in the dashboard ashtray and closed it. She heard the crunch, signifying the tiny compactor had done its job and demolished the disc. She smiled with satisfaction and shifted gears.

“Ready or not, Logan Blackstone, here I come.”

Five hours and considerable exhaustion later, Scottie eased into a crouch behind a large pile of stones. The cabin was about fifty yards dead ahead. Obviously built for use by hunters, it was nestled in a clearing on the leeward side of a fairly steep rise. A steady stream of smoke trailed from the single chimney. She sniffed the air. Woodstove. There were no lights on inside and no sign of activity, no tracks outside.

A green truck, up to its oversize tires in snow, was parked in front. A white lump that was the snowmobile was situated out back.

She thought about the snowmobile she’d hidden a mile back down the mountain. A shame their design team hadn’t been able to figure out a way to make those things silent. She was tired and half dead from the two-hour climb up the last section of the mountain. She hoped Mr. Blackstone didn’t mind if she put him out of commission long enough for her to take a hot shower and a brief nap.

Del hadn’t left any instructions on exactly how he expected her to contain Logan Blackstone, other than that simple surveillance would not be enough. Which meant there was only one way to handle this: Take prisoners, apologize later.

She stowed her pack behind the boulders, then ran along the tree line in a half crouch before darting into the truck. She worked quickly to disable it, then moved back around to the snowmobile and did the same there. She checked the house. Still quiet. No lights, no sounds.

“Sleeping like a baby. Let’s see if I can extend your stay in dreamland a bit.” She patted the zippered pocket of her parka and felt the leather case. All set.

She headed quietly to the back corner of the cabin.
Del’s team had been thorough. The bedroom window was on the far side of the cabin. She was currently beneath the kitchen window. There was no security system, so it was a no-brainer B & E. Still, she didn’t take any unnecessary chances. Just by being there Logan had proved he was not to be underestimated.

She quietly jimmied the sliding glass door, then slipped inside. She was standing in the open space between the kitchen and the living area. Furnishings were sparse and utilitarian. She guessed hunters didn’t care much for decor, only a place to eat and sleep between killing things.

She removed her parka and slipped the leather case from the pocket before moving silently toward the door leading to the only bedroom. It surprised her that whoever had built the place had seen a need for interior walls at all. She peeked around the corner … and froze.

She had no idea what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been the naked man sprawled on his back across the double bed.

He was big and dark, with skin that looked tawny even in the predawn light, skin that was wrapped tightly over sinewy muscles. He looked … primitive. Like a jungle predator at rest. The bed was framed with thick poles of rough-hewn oak. It barely contained him. The white linen sheet was twisted around him as if he’d been wrestling alligators in his sleep. The blankets and pillows were flung on the floor, previous victims who’d already lost their battles.

He grumbled something, then wrenched onto his stomach as if some invisible force had shoved him. Her mouth went dry. A coil of white linen between his legs
was all that covered him. Somewhere she found enough spit to swallow. But she couldn’t dredge up a denial. She wanted that sheet gone. In fact, she curled her hands into fists against the temptation to step into the room, grab the sheet, and tug it the rest of the way off of him.

The man was simply too glorious to be covered. He deserved to be naked. He had the kind of sprawled grace that would make artists of any medium salivate.

“Sarah.” The rasp of a name sounded as if it had been dragged over hot coals before escaping from his lips.

All thoughts of artistic appreciation fled. She watched, a visual captive, as he clawed the sides of the mattress, the muscles in his shoulders and back bunching under the intensity of his grip. She could hear a pulsing sound and only absently acknowledged it was her own heartbeat thrumming in her ears.

Then he began to move. Writhe was the word that came to mind. His hips lifted slightly, then pressed deeply into the bed. He groaned in his sleep, turning his head from side to side, a tumble of black hair obscuring his face. He dug his knees and toes into the mattress, then ground his hips down again; the sounds he made were a tumble of dark, guttural need mixed with anguish. “Sarah … no. Don’t! Need … you.”

Scottie felt her nipples tighten in automatic reaction and found herself wondering who in the hell Sarah was … and why she was jealous of a woman she’d never met.

She strangled her libido, which had chosen a highly inconvenient time to come out of hibernation, then quickly unzipped the small leather case. He thrashed again, moaned something unintelligible, then quieted
once more—except for his hips, which slid again and again along the smooth white sheet. Scottie forced herself to concentrate on prepping the syringe. It took a considerable amount of self-control.

The task complete, she depressed the plunger until the contents beaded at the end of the needle, then turned to her quarry. Good Lord but the man was a beautiful creature. She stepped closer to the bed, thinking it was almost a shame she was going to have to dress him later.

She moved the last step, then stopped dead when he suddenly twisted onto his back. His chest was sheened with sweat now, rising and falling rapidly. She darted her gaze to his face. Still dreaming.

“Sarah,” he said with a groan, then reached down and tugged at the sheet between his legs.

Scottie gripped the syringe so hard, she was surprised she didn’t snap the casing. She bent over and aimed the needle at the hard curve of his buttocks. “Sorry I can’t let you finish this,” she said under her breath, “but I have my orders.” There was no escaping watching his continued motions. “Really sorry,” she added silently.

He arched up and yanked hard, a low growl ripped from his throat. The sheet whipped off the bed like a white lash.

She pulled back just in time, then froze. He was gloriously naked … and gloriously erect. Her gaze was riveted to him as his thighs relaxed, then flexed again. His neatly carved abdominal muscles rippled like a wave as he hunched forward. Nothing short of sudden death could have stopped her from watching him. It was an elegant, erotic ballet of sinew and muscle, control
and leashed power. Her hand shook slightly, and she had to lock her knees against the shockingly sudden hot clench of need that gripped the muscles between her thighs in a painful fist.