In the Line of Fire: Hot Desert Heroes, Book 1 (19 page)

Her eyes went unfocused slightly; then she shook her head. “That’s sweet. But don’t call me baby when we’re at work.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“Because it’s not professional.”

“It’s just us,” he reminded her, looking pointedly around the empty office.

“But if you get in the habit of it, you might slip up.”

“I’m still gonna call you baby when we’re not at work,” he said. “So I could slip up anyway.”

“Oh, right.” With a grimace she gave a shrug. “What can I say? I’m a dork.”

“You’re my dork, baby, and I think it’s cute.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “See you later. We’ll have lunch together, yeah?”

She nodded.

He smiled at her then went into the conference room. Ty, Gabe, Rafe, and Quincy were already there. Quincy glanced at the wall clock. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Was takin’ care of something for Laney.” Beck sat down and booted up the laptop someone, probably Ty, had set out for him. He heard the phone in the outer office ring but ignored it to say, “We were going to talk about the potential cybersecurity job, right?”

Ty nodded. “It’s with a company one of our former commanders started when he got out of the military. It’s a lucrative contract. I mean, lucrative as in several millions of dollars’ worth of lucre.”

“Rafe? You think we can handle it?”

He nodded. “I looked over the contract last night. There are some tweaks I’d make to it, fewer loopholes for them to find so it’s more in our favor, and the changes aren’t any that I don’t think they’d agree to.” He started to say more but the door swung wide and Delaney stood in the opening, her face pale, and even from where he sat, he could see her fingers trembling.

He shot to his feet. “Baby, what is it?” he asked as he hurried over to her.

Her gaze came up to his face. “My mechanic just called.”

Damn it. He’d meant to call the guy first thing this morning, but he’d gotten distracted by having to go deal with her ex and then there’d been no time. “And?”

“H-he s-said one of the brake lines w-was cut.”

That brought the other men out of their chairs.

Beck pulled her into his arms as the guys gathered around. “Looks like I will need to have another come-to-Jesus meeting with your ex,” he muttered darkly.

She shook her head, her cheek rubbing against his chest. “No, Beck. If Frank’s the one who did it, let the police handle him.”

He looked up and caught Gabe’s eye. “On it,” the other man said.

“You’ll find his full name and home and workplace addresses written on a pad on my desk.” Beck watched as Gabe walked out of the room, then closed his eyes and rested his temple against the top of Delaney’s head. She trembled against him and he wrapped her up in his arms tighter, feeling so fucking helpless he wanted to howl. “You want to go upstairs for a bit?” he asked her softly.

Again she shook her head. With a deep breath she straightened and pulled out of his arms. “I was shocked by what he said, that’s all. But I’ll be all right.” She gave a tremulous smile.

“Backbone,” he murmured and grinned at her frown.

“You say that like it’s bad.”

“Baby, I never did any such thing. I think it’s—”

“Don’t you dare say it’s cute.” She scowled and looked around at the others in the room. “If you all think it’s cute and cuddly when a woman stands up for herself or when she gets mad, well, it’s no wonder you’re still single.”

Ty and Rafe laughed while Quincy winked. “Sorry, darlin’. Can’t say the man is wrong.”

She huffed a sigh and looked at the ceiling. “Why didn’t I realize what it was going to be like to be surrounded by so much testosterone? Why?”

“Babe.”

Her gaze came back to Beck. “Don’t call me that in the office,” she hissed with a darted glance at the others. Cheeks glowing pink, she muttered, “I’m going back to work.”

Gabe came into the room just after she left and closed the door behind him. “The police will want to talk to Laney before they send someone out to speak with Frank West,” he said. “But talk to him they will. It’s good to have friends on the force. They’ll exert a little more pressure than they might have ordinarily.”

Beck had to trust Delaney when she said she was all right. So with reluctance he returned to his chair. As he rolled it up to the table he said, “All right then, let’s get back to work.” He waited ’til the other men had once again taken their seats before he went on, “Rafe, you were saying?”

Rafe opened his mouth. There was a knock at the door; then it opened and there once again stood Delaney. Rafe closed his mouth and looked at Beck with the beginnings of irritation.

Beck had no trouble reading that look. It was clearly an is-your-girlfriend-going-to-be-needy-and-cause-trouble-at-work? look. He narrowed his eyes at Rafe before turning toward Delaney. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry to bother you again, but you have a visitor.” Her fists were clenched at her sides, her body held stiffly. “It’s Marisol Everhard.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Hadn’t he gotten through to her over the phone? “She doesn’t have an appointment,” he said.

“No, she doesn’t. I know that because I asked and she admitted she doesn’t.” Her gaze heated and not in the good way. “But she said that Beck Townsend and she were close, and she used air quotes when she said this, and that she was sure he’d see her. And she used air quotes then too, as if the word
see
…” and here Delaney brought up her hands and crooked her fingers into an air quote of her own, “…meant something else entirely.”

“Laney, it doesn’t mean something else,” Beck said. “I’ve already told her I’m not interested.” He blew out a breath. This was just what he did not need right now. Delaney was already uncertain of their relationship, and now Mari rolled in pulling her shit? No, he did not need this. “I’ll talk to her,” he muttered and left the room.

Delaney trailed after him. As soon as Beck reached the lobby, the pop and rock star ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck. She pulled his head down and laid a big kiss on his lips.

Delaney clenched her jaw and took a seat behind her desk as calmly as she could, because all she really wanted to do was wrench the other woman out of Beck’s arms and then yank every single freaking strand of hair from her head.

Beck finally pushed the woman away with an expletive that made Delaney’s eyebrows shoot up, and she’d heard him cuss. A lot. “Ms. Everhard, stop it,” he snarled. “I don’t know how else to get it through to you, but I’m not interested.”

“Oh, come on, lover, you don’t have to pretend in front of the hired help.” She slid her arms around his neck again.

He put her aside so forcefully that she tottered on her stilettos. He wasn’t mean enough, though, to not keep his hands around her biceps until he was certain she was steady. Then he let go of her and said, “Unless you have business here, Ms. Everhard, you should go.”

Her face hardened, taking it from pretty to something not so pretty. “And if I want to hire you again as my personal bodyguard?”

He shook his head. “I told you, when you called, we’re out of the personal-security business. You proved right now with this stunt that you wouldn’t want me to keep my mind on business. And if you pull that with me, I have to wonder if you’d pull it with one of the other guys. So the answer is no. REG is no longer available for bodyguard services for you.”

She pressed her lips together. “If you think I won’t tell people not to use your services, you are wrong.”

He shrugged. “If that’s the best you got, go ahead. Personal security isn’t our most lucrative income stream. Won’t take a huge hit if we stop doing it altogether.” His eyes turned flinty. “You think to dig into our reputation any other way, though, well, you’d better rethink that strategy.”

She paled. She stared at him then lifted her chin, equilibrium restored. “I wouldn’t waste my time.” She glared at Delaney as if all of this was her fault. “I hope he’s dynamite in bed, sweetheart, ’cause he’s a bastard.” She turned on a spiked heel and stomped out the door.

Delaney watched her go, amazed by the amount of flounce the other woman could get on such high heels. “Wow. That’s impressive.” She looked at Beck. “Did you tell her you and I are together?”

“Hell no. Apparently she thinks I’ll sleep with whatever woman is nearby. I won’t,” he added with warning in his tone, as if he was afraid she might also believe it.

She bit her lip to hold back a smile. When Beck just stood there staring at her, she said, “What?”

“We okay?”

She frowned. “Why wouldn’t we be? Just because some rich and famous ho put her hands on you uninvited?” When he looked startled, she asked, “Did you think I wouldn’t be able to see she was coming on to you and you didn’t like it? Plus, I do remember what you said to me when you and I got started.”

He moved toward her, close enough she could feel the heat from his large frame.

The clearing of a throat brought them apart. He turned and she leaned to one side to see Quincy standing there. When he saw he had their attention, he drawled, “Now that y’all have kissed and made up, maybe we can get some work done around here? I mean, I’m all for workplace nookie, as much as the next fella, but a boy’s gotta earn his paycheck too.”

“Does it hurt?” she asked him.

He frowned and cocked his head to one side. “Does what hurt?”

“Being that full of crap.”

His mouth quirked while the rest of the guys, who were apparently hiding around the corner, burst out laughing. They came into the lobby and Gabe pounded Quincy on one shoulder.

“I guess she’s got your number, bud,” Beck said.

As the men headed back into the conference room, Delaney smiled and settled behind her desk again. Gabe had given her a contract to review so she could become familiar with the types of documents she’d be seeing on a routine basis. It was time to do her homework.

Chapter Sixteen

A week later Delaney had her car back and Morgan was gone, headed to Rome for her next modeling assignment. Delaney missed her like crazy but because she and Beck were still getting to know each other she didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it.

After another few weeks she’d settled into her job to a point where it seemed like she’d worked there for years. She was comfortable around the guys, now that she’d gotten to know them, though she did have her moments of dorkiness that made her blush and made them laugh. The last incident had left her with a big splotch of shrimp sauce in the middle of her forehead and a vow from the men that no one would speak of it ever again. Ever.

Of course she wasn’t nearly as embarrassed by it as she maybe should have been, and it was gratifying to see them working so hard to keep her from lapsing back into being so painfully bashful around them. Quincy told her the shy thing worked for her but he’d like her to feel that she could be free to be herself around them. Beck had frowned at that and later, when she asked him about it, he’d cut her off and told her it wasn’t a big deal.

One afternoon she had some questions on several invoices, and Gabe or Ty answered her questions readily. The ones she had to refer to Beck, he was evasive, as if he didn’t want her to know anything about his job, at all. Which made her wonder why he’d even talked her into working there. She’d understood going into it that there would still be things she wouldn’t be told. She wasn’t stupid, she realized with confidentiality clauses in contracts there were jobs she wouldn’t get details on. But when those weren’t in place, she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell her anything.

She was still trying to get used to him having secrets. Those about the job she could deal with. Those he kept about himself she wasn’t so sure.

Now she stared down at a file for their latest client, a government contractor, and geared herself up to try to get some information from him. She walked back to his office and knocked on the open door to get his attention. He looked up from the computer and smiled. “Hey, babe.”

She frowned. “You really shouldn’t call me that in the office.”

“Not gonna fly,” he said. “Gabe calls you sweetheart and Quince calls you darlin’.” His face darkened briefly. “Not that I’m crazy about it.”

“Gabe is like a brother to me, you know that. And Quincy…” she shook her head, “…he’s an overgrown boy. Half the time I don’t even take him seriously.”

“I know. That’s the only reason I haven’t had a word with him.”

“Oh, you mean had a word like you did with Frank?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking as he shifted his weight. “He took my advice and moved to Phoenix, though I think the visit from the police and their suspicion that he carried his ill will toward you so far as to cut your brake line helped.”

“But he didn’t do it. The police told me he wasn’t even in town that day.” She bit her lip. There was still that worry that whoever had tampered with her car would do it again, and she’d found a lot of excuses not to drive her car. Living and working in the same building was a particular bonus right now. “Do you think we’ll ever know who did?”

“Probably not. But we changed the locks and the ignition switch, so if someone did steal your keys, they don’t work anymore. You shouldn’t worry.” She could tell from his tone, though, that
he
was worried. Worried enough that when she did drive, he or one of the other guys would go out and check her car, and even showed her where to look to make sure the brake lines were secure. She felt as safe as she probably ever would until the memory of that wild drive down the mountain had a chance to fade.

He dipped his chin toward the file in her hand. “Did you need me for something?”

“Oh yeah.” She held up the folder. “This is for the new job.” Which did not have a confidentiality clause written into the contract. “I’m adding them to the database but I don’t know if I should classify them as government or military. Or should I put them under both?”

“Just put ’em in both places.”

“What will you be doing?” This was something that only Beck was going to be involved in, and she was curious about what exactly he did. She knew Ty had been a reconnoiter specialist in the marines and was now a licensed fugitive retrieval expert—that sounded so much grander than calling him a bounty hunter. Rafe was their information technology and cyberspace expert. Gabe had been a sniper in his active duty life, and finding that out had shocked the crap out of her. Quincy was a pilot, able to fly just about anything that motored through the air. But she still didn’t have a handle on Beck’s specialty, and she wanted to know.

“Babe.” His tone of voice was one he’d adopted with her a few times over the past weeks, one of mild irritation and impatience.

She clenched her jaw. “There isn’t a confidentiality clause with this one, Beck.”

His lips thinned. “Until your background check is final, there are still things you’re not allowed to know.”

She put a hand on her hip. “I don’t think asking what you specifically will be doing is top secret here.”

His face went expressionless, even his eyes.

She threw up her hand. “Oh, you make me crazy,” she growled. “Okay, so how’s this then? You tell me something about your childhood. Did you have a dog when you were growing up? What was your mother’s favorite flower? Did you and your dad ever play baseball together? Do you have any brothers or sisters?” She felt like tearing her hair out. “Why did you join the marines? Give me something, Beck. Anything!”

Face. Like. A. Stone.

“Aargh! When will you get it through your stubborn head that I love you? I want all of you, not just bits and pieces. I want the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the sweet and the horrible. I’m not asking for work secrets you can’t divulge or for gruesome details, Beck. I want
you
. What you feel, how you’re able to do what you do and still be the compassionate, caring man I know you to be.”

He’d come to his feet at the first of her rant and now moved toward her so fast she didn’t have time to react. He yanked her into his arms and hugged her, tight, his back bowing, his face buried in her neck.

Knowing this was an important moment, hoping against hope it meant he was finally ready to open up to her, she dropped the folder, letting it fall willy-nilly onto the floor, and wrapped her arms around him, holding on as tightly as she could. “Beck,” she whispered.

“Been waitin’ for you to say it, baby,” he whispered back. “Kept hopin’ you would.” He lifted his head and looked down at her with eyes that glittered with silver fire. Lifting his hands, he cradled her face in his large palms. “Feel the same about you.” He bent his neck and kissed her, his lips moving on hers with gentle pressure. It was a reverent caress, one full of hope.

When he lifted his head, she could see his eyes roiling with emotion. “Beck. Honey.”

“Love you, baby.” He rested his forehead against hers and it was such a sweet gesture her heart melted for him a little bit more. He wrapped her up in his arms again, rocking her back and forth gently. “There’re things about me, things I’ve done, that I don’t ever want you to know about. Can you understand that?”

“I understand,” she whispered. “But I don’t agree. Because that means you don’t trust me to love all of you, only part of you. And if I can’t love all of you, then what kind of love is that?”

“It’s the kind of love I need.”

Delaney didn’t believe that for a minute. Everyone needed the kind of love she had to offer, that she was offering to Beck. He was too scared to reach out for it. And now was not the time to go all gangbusters to try to force him to. She’d take her time and work on him little by little, and pray she had the patience to endure.

She leaned back, putting pressure on his arms, and he let her go. She took a breath to regain some composure and with a downward glance spotted the folder. Before she could squat to get it, Beck bent over and grabbed it. He handed it to her and asked, “We good?”

She knew he was asking about more than work. “Yeah, we’re good.” With a gentle touch of her fingers to the tip of his chin she went back out to the front desk. An hour later she heard the men going into the conference room for their weekly Friday-afternoon debriefing. Ty had been out on a fugitive hunt and had returned, successful, last night. Gabe and Rafe had been working with a local client on a cybersecurity job. Quincy had gone out of town on a job she apparently didn’t have the clearance to know about, and Beck had been on the phone and in meetings lining up more clients.

Fifteen minutes into a meeting she knew would last at least two hours, she heard the front-door buzzer chime. Looking at the small screen on the corner of her desk that showed the view from the camera by the door, she saw Edmond Barras standing there holding a narrow, long, white florist’s box in one hand. With a slight frown, she depressed the button that unlocked the door and watched him walk into the lobby. She blinked, sure she was imagining things. But, no, it was Edmond walking slowly toward her desk, the white box now held in front of his body with both hands.

She got to her feet, surprise robbing her of a professional greeting. “Edmond, what’re you doing here?”

His smile seemed strained and disingenuous. “I heard you lost your job but had the good fortune to begin working here. I had hoped to apologize for my behavior when you introduced me to your sister.”

She tipped her head to one side. He’d only just recently struck her as creepy, and now here he was coming to her place of work. How had he even found out about it? That was the definition of creepy. “You should go,” she said.

“Not until I deliver this,” he told her and slowly held out the box. “As part of my apology.”

Figuring if she took the flowers she’d get him out of there quicker, she accepted the box. She was just about to set it down on the desk when he said in a hard, icy voice, a tone unlike she’d ever heard from him before, “I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

She went still, like a mouse facing a rattlesnake. “W-what?”

He had moved back several paces. Pointing to the box, he said, “That’s a bomb. Motion sensitive. So you shouldn’t even breathe heavily.” He pulled a white handkerchief from the front pocket of his slacks and wiped at a face she now noticed was shiny with sweat.

She stared at him, her heart thudding a dull beat against her ribs. Mouth dry, she whispered, “Is this a joke?”

“No, no joke, ma chérie.” His black eyes glittered like obsidian. “You will wait five minutes after I leave the building before you call your lover, or I will detonate the bomb remotely. I will be close enough to see, and if any of them come out of the building sooner than five minutes from now, the bomb will go off.” His lips curled with a slow, menacing smile. “When Townsend comes to you, you tell him this is a gift from Germano Dujardin. You understand? Germano Dujardin.”

She nodded. In a hoarse voice she said, “Five minutes. Germano Du-Dujardin.” She licked her lips and tried to speak through a voice gone tight with terror. “W-why are you doing this?”

“Ask Townsend.” He walked forward until only a foot separated them. It was all she could do not to move back, to put more distance between them again. “Don’t move,” he cautioned quietly.

She watched in fear as he carefully removed the lid to the white, oblong box. And there, nestled in green florist’s paper, but sans flowers, squatted a gray block of claylike material with little silver posts in it that had wires leading to a black box in which two small glass tubes were suspended. “These are mercury switches,” Edmond, no,
Germano
told her. “Old school, but they work. As you see, they enter the box from different sides. You tilt the box this way and the mercury in one tube hits the contacts and boom! You tilt the box that way and the mercury in the other tube hits the contacts and… Well, you get the picture, I’m sure.” He stepped back and set the lid on top of her desk. “The point, my dear Laney, is to not tilt the box.”

“What did I ever do to you?” she asked.

For the briefest of moments regret shone in his eyes before it was eclipsed by the black rage burning there. “You picked
him
,” he snarled.

She could barely hear him over the sound of her heartbeat crashing in her ears. He was insane!

“I watched you at the coffee shop. You were so pretty and shy, and lovely with your friends. You reminded me of someone else…” He trailed off. “I tried to get you to go out with me and you refused. I tried again, and again you refused. I would not mind your rejection so much, except for whom you did decide to date.” His face darkened. “You could have chosen anyone else on the planet,” he went on, “and we would not be standing here today with you holding a bomb. But since cutting the brake line on your car didn’t work, here we are.”

She caught her breath.
He
was the one who’d cut her brake line? Had he also been the one who… “D-did you take the s-spare set of my car keys and s-steal my quilt?”

He nodded. “I found Townsend and began to follow him. Many, many times I lost him but the one place I did know he frequented was your friend’s little eatery. I saw you, and you reminded me so much of my love.” He shook his head. “The night after I saw the way Townsend looked at you as he sat beside you on the sofa at the confectionery, the way you looked at him, I knew I could not let him have you and live a life full of joy and love, not when it’s because of him that I will not be able to do the same thing. I went inside your house and found your spare car keys. I watched you sleep,” he said, and her heart pounded so hard her chest hurt.

God.
God.
He’d broken into her house and she’d never even known.
He’d watched her sleep.
Her flesh prickled with revulsion. She fought back a shiver, afraid the slightest movement would make the mercury touch the contacts. She swallowed, feeling tears trickle from the outer corners of her eyes.

He seemed unmoved. “I could have had you at any time,” he said in a conversational tone that made his words all the more chilling. “But scaring you by calling your safety into question got to
him
. And I will get at him any way I can, even if that means hurting an innocent like you. For that I am sorry. But know this: If he were not in the building and you were the only one who died from the blast, I would still feel great satisfaction because I would have hurt him. And I will continue to hurt him until one of us is dead.”