Her Secret Agent Man (10 page)

A
quiet knock on the door in the wee hours of the morning swung Dutch out of bed and into a defensive crouch, gun in hand. Julia quickly rolled out of bed on the other side and onto the floor. A voice outside said low in Spanish, “I brought your car.”

“Anyone see you?” Dutch asked through the door.

“No. The INS, they left a couple hours ago.”

The Immigration and Naturalization Service? And then Dutch remembered their cover story about Immigration agents chasing Julia. He didn’t hear any stress vibrations in the guy’s voice to indicate someone had put him up to knocking on the door or was watching him from afar.

Dutch left the chain on—not that the flimsy thing would do a damn bit of good, but it might buy him a couple of seconds in a pinch—and opened the door a crack. A young Hispanic man nodded and smiled at him.

The kid held the SUV keys to the crack. “Sweet set of wheels. It’s parked around back.”

“Thanks,” Dutch replied. “What do I owe you for your trouble?”

“
Nada.
My brother’s share of the money you paid will feed his kids for a month. You be careful, dude. Those men, they were really hot to find your lady.”

“Thanks.” Dutch watched the young man through the window as he disappeared into the night. All was still outside. The kid wasn’t followed, as far as Dutch could see. He eased the curtain back into place and slid into bed beside Julia, who also crawled back under the covers.

Her breathing was shallow and rapid. As much as he’d like to think it was because he turned her on, he knew it to be nothing more than abject terror.

He rolled on his side and opened his arms. “Come here,” he murmured.

He gathered her cold, board-stiff body close, sharing his heat with her until she began to thaw out and relax. God, she felt good in his arms. Like she belonged there.

This was bad. Very, very bad.
He’d watched half the guys on his team go down this road before. It was always a nightmare to get involved with a woman on an op. Maybe they got their girl when it was all said and done, but they paid in blood in the meantime.

And here he was, rolling around in the sack with Julia Ferrare. Worse, she made no secret of the fact that she wanted him. They were headed for some seriously hot and sweaty sex in the near future if he didn’t put on the brakes. And the situation couldn’t get much messier than that.

All he had to do was unwrap his arms, roll over and go to sleep.
Go ahead. Do it.
His arms didn’t budge.
Sever the link,
you coward! Put this op back on track where it belongs.
Nothing. His body flatly refused to cooperate.

Dammit.

Distance. Emotional distance. Think detached. She was just an informant. He should work her over for information and then bring her in. He should do it now and walk away from this. Walk away from her. But there he lay, berating himself up one side and down the other. And he didn’t move a damn muscle.

Julia drifted off to sleep and turned to soft silk in his arms, but he lay there, ramrod stiff for hours, watching the clock tick away the minutes until he had to get up. Until he had to unwrap his arms and let her go. One minute before the alarm was set to go off, he kissed Julia awake. She stretched like a sleek kitten in his arms, and his heart clenched.

“Time to go, sleepyhead,” he murmured.

“Ugh,” she groaned. He tickled her neck and she laughed up at him. “No fair. I’m still half-asleep. Do we have to go so early?”

He sighed. “Yup. Roads are deserted at this hour. Nobody’ll follow us without me seeing them.”

With nothing to pack but the laptop and some cold pizza, they were out the door in a matter of minutes.

Julia headed for the passenger door of his SUV, but he murmured, “Change of plans. Help me get our bags.”

She frowned, but came around back and picked up her suitcases.

He looked around the parking lot, scoping out a decent target. Over there. A heavy-duty Jeep. It would handle the mountain roads and the snow that was in today’s forecast.

“This way,” he murmured.

Julia followed him, a perplexed look on her face. He dug out a pouch of tools, lay down underneath the front end of the Jeep and disabled the vehicle’s alarm system. It was a bit
of a trick to reach, but he managed to snip the necessary wires.

He shimmied out from under the car. Using a Slim Jim, a flat metal tool that unlocked car doors from the outside, and a pocket reference book on how to jimmy different models of cars, he popped the Jeep’s locks.

He tossed their bags in the back and held the passenger door for Julia. Her eyebrows hovered in the vicinity of her hairline as she slid into the vehicle silently.

Hot-wiring the Jeep was kid stuff, and he had it running in about thirty seconds. He pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the highway, keeping a close eye on the rearview mirror for tails.

“And we just stole a car why?” she finally asked, nearly a half hour later.

“Keeping our tail clean,” he replied.

She looked over at him in dismay. “Don’t you feel any twinge of conscience over stealing somebody’s car?”

He glanced over at her, surprised. “I’m doing my job. The owner of this vehicle will get compensated by Uncle Sam when this is all over.”

She didn’t look convinced. And for some reason, he actually gave a damn about what she thought of him. He sighed and explained, “If it comes down to a choice between you and me staying alive or taking some guy’s car temporarily, which would you choose?”

Her gaze wavered and slid away.

He shrugged. “It’s not pretty or clean, but that’s how it goes in my line of work.”

Her dark gaze swiveled back to him. “That’s why I’m glad I found you. I could never do what it takes to stay alive on my own.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You were doing okay when I found you.”

She laughed shortly. “I was at my wit’s end and would’ve been caught and perhaps killed within a few hours if you hadn’t come along when you did.”

He tensed when she reached over, put her hand on his arm and squeezed it gratefully. Sparks leaped between them, and the temperature in the Jeep went up noticeably. Good thing there wasn’t a rest area just ahead, or he’d pull off and make love to her right this very minute. By main force, he dragged his attention back to his driving.

Sometime later, Julia asked around a yawn, “Where are we going?”

“Montana.”

“As in where you’re from?”

“Yup. To my home turf. Let’s see if those bastards can move around unseen in a place where every single person knows everyone else, and a rancher would rather shoot you himself than bother calling the cops.”

“Sounds like the Wild Wild West.”

He nodded, “It’s isolated country. Folks up there look out for each other. I can’t think of a safer place to take you.”

Dutch kept one eye peeled on the rearview mirror as he put New Mexico behind them. Nobody followed them. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He drove until the sun rose, and now and then he saw a frown flicker across Julia’s face. Finally, he asked, “What’s got you looking so worried?”

“Are you taking me to your family’s house?” she asked hesitantly.

“No!” he answered in sharp alarm. He would never insult his parents by introducing them to the girl who’d set up Simon.

Julia replied fervently, “Thank goodness. I couldn’t live
with myself if they were endangered on my account.” She paused and then added miserably, “I’ve hurt your family enough already.”

His gaze snapped to her. She sounded genuinely remorseful. Was that all part of her act? He wanted to believe her. Wanted to think she wasn’t an unfeeling monster.

He said quietly, “My dad has a hunting cabin in the mountains above our ranch, and I’m heading for it. I know the area around it like the back of my hand. We’ll be safe there.”

Silence fell between them. The morning was gray. Low, heavy clouds scudded along the mountain peaks as they made their way higher into the Rockies. He eyed the sky warily. Those were snow clouds packing in. The kind that dropped truckloads of white stuff hard and fast.

He stopped for gas at midmorning and loaded up on emergency provisions: food, candles, matches, blankets, batteries and a portable radio.

They started out again and the wind began to pick up. By noon, it howled around the Jeep and he was forced to slow down lest they be blown clean off the narrow, winding mountain road. If they could’ve hopped onto an interstate highway without being spotted, they’d be crossing into Montana by now. But by traveling these anonymous back roads and taking a circuitous route, they were still hours away from their destination in the high Rockies, near the Canadian border.

The snow started around two o’clock. At first a few sparse crystals fell and then they thickened rapidly into big fat flakes. The snow, driven against the windshield by the developing blizzard, all but blinded him. He was forced to slow down even more.

Because of the rotten visibility, the dark blue, full-size sedan was almost in his back seat by the time he finally caught sight of it. His internal alarm system went wild. Almost as fast
as the car had run up on their rear fender, it slowed down and disappeared from sight. Oh yeah. Definitely Ferrare’s men. The bastards got close enough to make his license plate, but the second they knew it was him and Julia, they backed off to wait for reinforcements.

He swore under his breath. How did those jerks find them way out here in the middle of blessed nowhere? They must have heard about a stolen vehicle in the parking lot of the hotel where his SUV was parked. Definite police contacts, then. Dammit. He pressed down on the accelerator on the assumption that this Jeep had more guts than that sedan.

He drove in grim silence for nearly half an hour. He didn’t see the blue car again, but he had no doubt it was back there somewhere. He jolted when a cell phone rang shrilly. That wasn’t his…

He frowned as Julia lurched and dug her cell phone out of a coat pocket hastily. She put it to her ear and said a nervous hello. She listened in silence for several seconds, then mumbled a couple yeses and noes. As the call progressed, the color drained out of her face, leaving it a sickly beige shade. She disconnected the phone silently. He watched without comment as, with shaking hands, she stowed the instrument in her pocket.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Nobody,” she answered quickly. Too quickly.

He swore under his breath. He’d lay odds that had been her father. What had they been talking about? Had the guy been threatening her? Demanding that she give back his financial records? Or perhaps, were they working out the details of an ambush to finish off what they’d started ten years ago?

Why in the hell couldn’t she just be straight with him and not put him in this blasted position of
not knowing?

He braked hard just beyond a big curve and crawled along
until the blue car careened around the hairpin turn, skidding behind them and barely missing rear-ending the Jeep.

He said tersely, “Don’t turn around. Use the mirror in your sun visor to look back at the car behind us. Can you get a look at the people inside it?”

She peered into the mirror for a moment and then visibly jumped. “It’s them!” she gasped. “Two of the guys from the ski resort! How did they find us out here? Oh God. What are we going to do?”

How did they find her, indeed? Hell of a good question. Especially in light of that phone call. How much to believe? Had that call actually scared the hell out of her?

He cut across her building panic, real or otherwise, by stating mildly, “The first thing we’re going to do is stay calm.”

She sat back in her seat.

“The next thing we’re going to do is use the power of this Jeep to put some distance between us and them.” To that end, he leaned on the accelerator and picked up the vehicle’s speed significantly, even though the roads were starting to get slick. The blue car was already dropping back. He’d bet the driver had to clean out his pants after that near miss back there.

Over the next few minutes, he gradually sped up until the Jeep was going near the speed limit once more. Fortunately, its four-wheel drive and snow tires held the road. He pushed the speed some more.

“Don’t you think we should slow down a little?” Julia suggested nervously.

He glanced over at her grimly. “Nope. I’ve got to get far enough ahead of these guys so I can lay a trap for them.”

“A trap?” she asked in surprise. “What kind?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.” He didn’t say more because the car was really becoming a handful. The wind buffeted them, and the road was a strip of featureless white. Worse,
dark was falling prematurely, and these roads weren’t anywhere near adequately enough marked to be safe at night in a snowstorm. The good news was they’d climbed up into the high elevations where the Jeep’s robust engine could really show its superiority to that of the car following them.

On the downhill slopes, he punched the accelerator, putting on extra bursts of speed to keep their pursuers from making up lost ground. They were flying down one such hill at a suicidal pace when Dutch nearly lost control of the Jeep. It began to slide toward the empty space of a drop-off, and there was no guardrail to stop them. Praying hard, he yanked his foot off the accelerator and stopped his impulse to go for the brakes. That would’ve done them in for sure. Thankfully, the antiskid system kicked in and the tires caught traction once more. He straightened out the car carefully and steered back onto his own side of the road.

Surely he’d bought them a few minutes’ lead by now. He began to keep his eye out for a good spot to ambush the blue car, and in the meantime, kept the pedal to the metal. He’d need every second he could buy to pull off the plan taking shape in his mind.

It took about five minutes and two more hair-raising rises and falls of the road before he found what he was looking for. A switchback turn on a steep downhill part of the road in a heavily forested area. Hell, he’d barely made the turn himself. He stopped carefully and backed up the couple hundred feet to the curve.