Hard Target

Sweat trickled in an incessant line down Alexandra Valentine’s spine. Sap coated her suit jacket, sticking it to the tree behind, and a mosquito’s high drone tested her patience. Forcing herself to remain as still as the nonexistent breeze, she focused on the canopied entrance to the Central Park Boathouse and waited. Sounds of revelry, distant and muffled, blended with the chirp of crickets and rush of cars to form a nighttime symphony that might have been soothing had this been any other night. Or any other mission.

“Target moving north.” Special Agent Ryan Dare’s warning sounded in her earpiece.

Gravel crunched under a shoe, the only warning of their target’s approach. Hands jammed in the pockets of his tuxedo trousers, he rounded the corner and paused to take in the night sky. Hair deliberately mussed into unruly spikes, the dimple in his right cheek visible even from this distance, he appeared, as ever, part bad boy, part boy next door.

The scent of Grey Flannel drifted to Alex on the night breeze. She inhaled deep and intimate memories rushed to the fore. A kiss to her cheek. A sigh in her ear. The thrill of deft fingers tracing a line from her collarbone to her upper arm. When a phantom hand cupped her breast and brushed a thumb over her too-taut nipple she nearly moaned aloud.

“As good as you remembered?” Ryan’s question made her start.

He sat in the air-conditioned surveillance van at the far end of the parking lot while Alex waited, ready to take Simon Jakes down at a moment’s notice. Of all the nights to draw the short straw…

Jamming her arousal into its Pandora’s Box, Alex caught Simon’s frown. Ever vigilant, he scanned the small copse of trees where she hid. She pressed harder into the tree, willing its fully leafed branches to conceal her from the scraps of moonlight. She and Ryan should’ve secured more cover, but Alex needed to be able to close in quickly.

“Günter?” Their target cocked his head. “Did you get any radio interference around the north side?”

Alex dug her fingernails into the tree bark. Of course an ex-CIA operative and his ex-MI-5 partner would use a band similar to that of the FBI. Even on a routine security job.

“I’m not paranoid,” Jakes said into his mic. “The last time the press crashed one of David’s events he threatened my favorite body part.” Dress shoes scuffing against pea gravel, he walked a few paces farther west and shook his head. “No, that’s
your
favorite.” He laughed, and the music of the sound twined through Alex’s middle to give a good, hard tug. “Of course it’s my brain. What good are balls without brains?”

Tuning out the one-sided banter, Alex blinked her relief at the implications of what she’d heard. As long as he suspected the press merely pursued his high-profile musician client David Tallis she and Ryan remained safe from discovery. She hoped.

“We’re on a clear channel now,” Ryan said.

Alex pressed her lips together and kept her attention on Jakes. If he was expecting any company, their target showed no sign as he toed the gravel and whistled a spritely tune.

Had he grown that complacent? So laissez faire he’d conduct the handoff in the open air? If the dead drops they’d discovered in the past were any indication, this meeting was not only unorthodox but unprecedented.

A beat passed before Ryan asked, “Hanging in there, Valentine?”

Despite seven layers of emotional armor, forged and honed over the last year of this operation and another four years without Simon in her life, Alex knew she wouldn’t have been able to answer that question had she been able to speak freely. Was she doing okay seeing the love of her life for the first time since their very messy breakup? If her sweaty palms and dry mouth were anything to go by, then no.

A car turned down the drive. Alex’s awareness of her weapon resting in its holster and the weight of the cuffs at her waist heightened. She steeled herself. Past attachment or no, she’d promised she could do this when the time came, and she would.

“Plates trace to Max Gibbons,” Ryan said, his tone now all business. “A/V signals clear. We’ll get the footage.”

A purring red sports car, top down, rounded the curve of the drive and pulled alongside the entrance. Simon looked to his left and right before stepping up to the vehicle.

“This is a private party, sir,” Simon said.

Gibbons, a man more round than tall, raked a hand through hair so black it reflected the lamplight like an oil slick.

“We had a deal.” Gibbons kept his voice low, but the mic they’d planted in a potted frond picked up the conversation.

“The event is
closed
, sir,” Simon said, jaw clenched.

Alex tensed. That was code for
we’re being watched
. Was it the radio interference that had given them away? To have come so far only to screw up now. She resisted the urge to bang her head against the tree.

The motor of the Italian sports car revved as if Gibbons considered driving away. When he remained in the drive, Simon folded his arms across his torso and drew himself up to his full six-foot-one height.

Gibbons strained to lean over, reaching for his glove box. Simon reached inside his own jacket. Hearing a faint popping sound, Alex tensed and prepared to step in if things got ugly. When Gibbons withdrew a silver cigarette case and flipped it open, Simon dropped his hand to his side.

“Crap on a cracker,” Ryan whispered in her ear.

Alex let out a quiet breath.

“Got a light?” Gibbons asked around the cigarette. “Mine’s busted.”

“If I had a match?” Simon placed both hands on top of the door. “You’d be on fire by now.”

Grunting, Gibbons pulled the cigarette from between his lips and returned it to the silver case. “Well, I don’t want to keep you.”

“Yeah, I’m not too fond of you either.” Simon shoved away from the car. “But you’re useful. Like dental floss when I have seeds stuck in my teeth.”

Alex suppressed a snort.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.” Gibbons gunned the motor again, partially drowning out Simon’s curse word.

The car roared away and Simon pressed his fingers to his right ear. “No. It’s nothing, Gun. Just a-a party crasher.”

“We have enough to nail him.” Ryan’s voice, a whispered vibration, tickled her ear.

Really?
Alex resisted the impulse to look toward the parking lot.

As if he heard her question, Ryan answered, “Yes. Really. He’s still got the documents in his pocket. The meeting plus the papers are enough to connect the two of them.”

But they wanted this arrest to be ironclad, didn’t they? Something Jakes couldn’t lawyer up over when the feds tried to use it as leverage to make him play the game their way.

Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she nibbled at the flesh and watched Simon rake a hand through the spiked russet-red strands of his hair. He blew out a breath then pulled his mic from his lapel and dropped it onto the pavement where he ground it beneath his heel. Finished, he looked directly at the copse of trees where Alex hid.

“I know you’re there.” Simon’s hand went to his weapon. “You might as well come out.”

Heart thundering from the starting gate of her chest, Alex flicked a thumb against the snap on her holster. Before she could warn him off, Simon drew his weapon and aimed it in her direction.

“FBI! Drop it! Now!” She unholstered her gun, knowing down to every Quantico-trained fiber of her being that if he hesitated for even a second she had no choice but to shoot him. Probably already should have.

“Alexandra?” Shock evident in the lift of his brow, Simon leaned down to place his gun on the driveway.

“Kick it away!” Cool metal rested heavy and solid in her hands.

Simon kicked his gun toward her. The sleek black weapon spiraled across the drive and onto the lawn.

Alex stepped from the trees. As she neared Simon blinked slowly, calculating. His gaze drifted down to the gun at her feet and he looked up through his lashes. “Of all the gin joints…”

“Save it, Jakes.” Alex kept him fixed in her Glock’s sights as she stepped over his discarded weapon. “You’re no Bogart and this is no accidental reunion.”

His eyes narrowed, expression part ha-ha-very-funny part screw-you. She was not four feet from him now—could detect the moonlight glinting off the gold tips of his lashes and shading fine lines around his eyes.

“I’m afraid you’re too late, Alex.” Simon squared off with her, mirroring her movement. “I burned your love letters a long time ago.”

Her fingers tightened on the weapon and she palmed the grip hard enough her hand ached.

“Turn around,” she said, speaking through clenched teeth. “Hands behind your head.”

A rustle from the trees focused her attention in that direction, but she never took her gaze from Simon’s too-green stare. In the lamplight his eyes shone like sea glass worn smooth and iridescent in the north Irish waves, mesmerizing her. He broke the spell when he glanced over her shoulder at Ryan’s approach from the parking lot.

“Turn around,” Alex repeated.

Simon presented his back and automatically spread his legs. With no place convenient to rest his hands while she frisked him, she’d have to cuff him first. With Ryan nearby, she at least had cover before she holstered her gun.