Dark Knight: A Loveswept Romance Classic (20 page)

“Would you like to make it a Merry Christmas again?” she asked, her slow smile fueled by her decision. She didn’t see the point in wasting what little time she would have.

Logan apparently understood this too. He grinned
and leaned to whisper in her ear. “Does Santa Claus wear red?” Just as he kissed her earlobe, a warm hum vibrated the soft skin. Logan shifted his head, a questioning smile on his face. “I’d like to think it’s my electric personality, but if I’m not mistaken, your earring is buzzing.”

Del. Her once-in-a-lifetime interlude evaporated like an ephemeral mist.

ELEVEN

It wasn’t until Logan asked, “Who’s Del?” that Scottie realized she’d spoken out loud. She was already climbing off of him. A strong hand stopped her in midscramble.

“Who is Del?”

She looked at him. The implacable mask was back on his face. “He was—is—my boss. I have to contact him.” She looked at his hand on her arm, then back at him. “Now.”

“Interesting pager you wear.”

“Yeah well, the standard-issue beeper just doesn’t work in all cases. But I suspect you’re familiar with spy toys.”

“Can’t say as I’ve ever worn an earring pager, but it could happen. Yes.”

Scottie smiled a bit distractedly, worrying about what Del had to report. There was still so much about Logan she hadn’t had time to find out, so many questions she wanted to ask him. A lifetime of questions. She
shut down that train of thought with a firm slap. “I’m sure you also understand how important it is to respond to incoming calls in a situation like this.”

As soon as she’d said the words, she wished she could have taken them back. Sarah. She knew from the sudden steel in his eyes he thought she was making a not-so-veiled comment about his episode with Sarah.

“Logan, I didn’t mean it like—”

“No, I understand,” he cut her off. He sounded hard, distant, not at all the man she had just made love with. The man she was falling in love with. No, she commanded herself. Don’t even go there.

“You’re right,” he said. “Playtime is over. Guess I should go back to being a captive ‘under your protection’ like a good little boy, huh?”

Scottie’s heart felt as if a nail had been driven into it. It’s not like that, she wanted to yell at him. But wasn’t it exactly like that? She’d known this little interlude was temporary and that it would end too soon, but she hadn’t expected it to be jerked out from under her. She didn’t want to focus on the crushing sense of loss she was feeling. He was right too. Her job had to come first. Maybe it was just as well it had ended before she fell the rest of the way in love with him. Dammit. “You don’t need to do anything except let me go.”

“Then you’re saying that when you’re done contacting your boss, we can resume our … celebration?” His expression made it clear he expected no such thing.

Scottie let out a sigh and relaxed against his hold, which he then immediately dropped. “I can’t promise you anything right at the moment,” she said wearily. “We both know why I’m here. I’d think you’d be as
interested in whatever Del has to report as I am. It’s your brother out there.”

“I am very interested in Del, my brother, and everything that is happening in that compound. I am also interested in making sure you don’t run back to the safe shelter of your career.”

Stung, she said, “Who’s running? I have work to do, and all I’m asking is that you let me do it.”

“And then what?”

“And then what
what?
”

“After you talk to Del and save the planet, then what?” He took her face in his hands. “Let me make it even clearer for you. You aren’t just a roll on the couch, okay? I want more. Do you? Or are we done now that the job beckons?”

Scottie stilled, stunned by his admission. “More?”

“Much more.”

She’d been so intent on capturing even a small scrap of time with him, she hadn’t really thought of what came after. She hadn’t allowed herself to. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might want more too. The very idea dazzled her with possibilities. “I—” Her earlobe was buzzing almost continuously now. Not a good sign. “I really have to contact Del,” she said. “Can we talk about this when I get done?”

He studied her for a moment.

“I
want
to discuss this, Logan. I want … more too. But Del wouldn’t be buzzing me if it weren’t important.”

“Go.” He released her instantly, his expression unreadable. He helped her off of him, and stood along with her, his touch impersonal despite their nakedness. She should have wanted to snatch her clothes and yank
them on, but despite the current tension between them, she felt at ease with him, as if they’d argued and loved for so many years, their state of dress was irrelevant.

Then she turned and caught him staring at her, the dark hunger open and there for her to see … and understand. And she did understand it now. Thoroughly. Intimately.

The tension intensified, layered.

“Go make your call.” Logan turned away, bent down to snag his jeans, and crossed to the bedroom. The door closed with a quiet snick.

Scottie’s first inclination was to go pound on the door, demand they discuss this now and to hell with Del. There was a very real fear that if she didn’t, that door would remain closed to her, at least figuratively, forever. Her earring buzzed like an angry bee. “Oh, shut up.”

She cast one more glance at the bedroom, then swore under her breath. She’d been foolish to think it was her turn to have something—someone—all for herself. Throat tight, her heart feeling as if it were slowly being chiseled in two, she turned away and went in search of her digital phone.

Del answered immediately. He didn’t bother with the code. “What in the hell is going on up there?”

His uncustomary gruffness reminded her of her father, and of Jim. She squared her shoulders and her jaw. She’d taken enough of a beating for one lifetime. No more. “Merry Christmas to you too. What’s up?”

There was a telling pause, but when he spoke again, his tone had regained its customary implacable control. “We’ve lost Blackstone.”

Scottie’s gaze flew to the closed bedroom door. “
What?
”

“Still no contact. He’s missed every check-in.”

Then he wasn’t dead. Not for certain anyway. The knot that had risen from her heart to her throat abided. “Don’t scare me like that, dammit! Things are getting close. He might not have been able to make the calls.”

“If we don’t hear from him within twelve hours, we’re going to go in.”

“No.” Scottie reached for her clothes, shifting the phone as she quickly pulled them on. “We act before Lucas has it set, and anything could happen. Those kids would be the first to go.”

“If Lucas has been found out, then those children are dead anyway. Twelve hours is already pushing it.”

Scottie knew what the contingency plan was, she’d designed it. They couldn’t have had time to set it up. “His last report gave us no indication that he was in danger of discovery,” Scottie responded. “Unless you know something I don’t know.” She chafed at being forced to ask for information that should have been for her eyes first.

“No, you saw the only report. However—”

“Then I say we hold out for twenty-four hours. Give him a chance. We don’t know for certain he’s been found out. The Brethren’s rationale for timing this on New Year’s Eve isn’t coincidental. I don’t think they will radically change those plans unless Blackstone tells them something. You and I both know he won’t.”

Scottie listened to the silence on the other end of the line. Tension vied with frustration. She shouldn’t be questioning his judgment. Del was her mentor, had
mounted and successfully completed hundreds of missions, but, dammit, this one was hers. Or had been.

She resisted the urge to fill the growing silence with continued arguments. Instead she took a different tack. “It’s not like you to push so soon, Del. Where is the pressure coming from?”

“
Dios
, where isn’t it coming from,” he muttered.

“You’re the champion in deflecting pressure from all sides. I can’t believe they, whoever ‘they’ are, are getting to you.” No response. “Is it that bad?”

A heavy sigh came over the line.

Scottie’s frustration immediately fled. Never had she heard such a defeated sound from her former leader. “Seve?”

“I owe you an apology, Scottie. I don’t even have time for a half decent attempt.”

Alarmed now, Scottie broke in. “Listen, Del—”

“No, you listen!” He stopped long enough to moderate his tone. He spoke rapidly and precisely. “There are things happening here you know nothing about. It’s better for the future of the team that you don’t. That’s the only reason I’m involved in this one. Maybe that was a mistake, and, if so, I’ll take responsibility for it. But for now, you have to trust that I know what I’m doing. Blackstone has been compromised.”

“Caught maybe, but never compromised.” Scottie’s mind was whirling in a dozen different directions, but not even Del’s odd behavior could distract her from defending her team. “No way. You don’t have proof of that.”

“Blackstone’s gotten … close to Martina Gladiston.”

“The senator’s daughter?”

“Apparently he’s set her up to help him.”

“He
what?
He told her who he really is?”

“Apparently she’s not there as some defiant act against her father like we thought. She’s there undercover, doing a story on cults and paramilitary groups, and stumbled across the suicide plans.”

“And Lucas, it appears. I didn’t know she was a journalist.”

“She’s not. Not yet anyway. She’s hoping to use this story as her calling card. According to Lucas, she’s had a hard time breaking into the industry due to her father’s celebrity—”

“Notoriety, you mean,” Scottie said sharply. She paced the length of the couch, then stalked to the kitchen counter. Senator Gladiston had made more headlines with his extracurricular activities than with his congressional ones. But the dashing politician managed time after time to land on his feet. Gladiston disgusted her, and she didn’t hide her derision. “Regardless of Martina’s reasons for being there—and frankly, being a journalist, to me, makes this worse—I have a really hard time believing he’d take that sort of risk with other lives on the line.”

She turned to lean on the counter and found herself facing Logan, who was lounging in the now-open doorway to the bedroom. His raised eyebrow all but tossed her words back in her face. She wanted to tell him this was different. But was it? Heat crept up her neck, but she refused to turn or look away.

“I wasn’t happy either,” Del went on, “but he was dead set on this as the best course. You know I give my agents a great deal of latitude in fulfilling their assignments.”

The heat rose like a flame to her cheeks as she watched Logan while Del’s words branded her ear. Latitude. She had certainly, um, exercised that right. She cleared her throat and forced herself to forge ahead. “Yes, sir, I agree with you. I’ve long believed that our individual approach to each assignment is what makes us so successful.”

There was a brief pause, and Scottie’s heart paused along with it. Del couldn’t suspect … could he? She found her gaze locked with Logan’s. She hadn’t compromised anything, she reminded herself. Liar, her heart responded. If something happened to Logan, could she absolutely promise her responding actions would be based on what was best for the success of the current mission? Or what was best for her personally?

“He knew I couldn’t pull him out of there, not with the recent changes in plans.” Del’s gruff voice yanked her thoughts back to the matter at hand. “I ordered him to contain the situation as best he could without involving Ms. Gladiston.” There was another short sigh, followed by a string of swear words, most of them Spanish.

If she hadn’t been so worried and confused, she might have smiled. This sounded like the Del she’d worked for.

“I guess I should be getting used to losing that battle by now,” he said. “Hearts are dropping like flies out there.”

The team had taken many hits over the decade they’d been in existence, but none so crucial as the most recent changes. In fact, it had been those potential losses that had caused Scottie to take the team in a new direction. She had been given the job of not only running the team, but rebuilding it from the ground up.
With several agents losing their field credibility, she’d begun an interior team as well as an exterior, or field team.

“As much as you’d like us to be otherwise,” Scottie said, “we are human.”

This time the brief pause made her swallow. She’d said too much. “Sounds like you know whereof you speak,” he said.

Wisely, she evaded a direct answer. He’d get his explanation when she got hers. Maybe by then she’d have an explanation to give him. “I know the team was close to being wiped out and that under my management and new direction, we’ll thrive.”

Del knew better than anyone how fragile an agent’s necessarily inviolable status could be. His own past confirmed it. And if that weren’t enough, one of the three agents they’d lost in the last three months, Diego Santerra, had lost his status by falling in love with Del’s daughter, Blue, during an assignment.