Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (47 page)

He’d made a huge tactical error in kissing her, consuming her. Putting his rough hands and hungry mouth all over her. God, he’d been a brute. Not one sweet word. Not one tender touch. It had been all about need. Even the knowledge that she’d initiated that embrace didn’t ease his conscience. He’d left beard marks around her mouth in a paler shade of her new auburn hair. He’d wanted her so badly. His body craved her. His soul needed her.

His brain had kicked in too late to warn him of disaster. If he didn’t hurt her, he sure as hell would get hurt himself. And he’d endangered them both by allowing that seed of sexual attraction to be acknowledged. His enemies, her enemies—their enemies—would jump all over that kind of vulnerability. And the unaffordable distraction it presented would bias his strategy, compromise his objectivity.

He needed help if he was going to pull this off now.

And that meant swallowing his pride and going back to the man who had put his old warhorse butt out to pasture in the first place.

Faith thrashed her pillow off the bed and moaned in her sleep. Jonas squeezed his fist around his cell phone and breathed through the urge to go to her. He’d held her once already, and what had started out as a healing reprieve for them both had transformed into combustible passion.

She was bold, yet innocent. Soft to the touch, yet strong. She’d tasted like the fresh mint of her toothpaste, yet there’d been something much more potent in that luscious mouth that he hadn’t had the strength to resist.

So let her moan in her sleep. The best thing he could do for her right now was keep his distance. He’d sworn, long ago, that he would never get involved with an innocent woman. And he’d never broken that vow. Not once. The world wouldn’t let him. Not since…

Jonas grunted a sigh. He wouldn’t go back there again. He was preoccupied enough already on this unofficial mission he’d assigned himself, without thinking back to that fateful night when he’d first been made to understand his curse. To keep Faith safe, he definitely needed help.

He punched in a number he knew by heart.

It rang only once before a voice from his past answered.

“Murphy.”

The voice was as sharp and clear and authoritative as Jonas remembered. And even though it was 2:00 a.m. on the East Coast and George Murphy had probably been sleeping, there was no doubt that his former boss had awakened with every keen sense and his considerable intellect on full alert.

“Beck here. I need to know if there was ever any resolution to the Frye investigation.”

The other man laughed. He’d always been able to make nice, even when the chips were heavily stacked against them. Probably why he’d been put in charge of The Watchers project. “What? No ‘Hello’?” asked George. “No ‘How’s the wife and kids?’”

Jonas shook his head. “You’re divorced and no sane woman would have me.” He paused only long enough for a breath and went on. “I know the program was put out of commission, but you managed to come out in the thick of things. I also know you still have your connections at the Bureau. Did anyone ever get a conviction or DOA on Frye?”

There was a thoughtful pause at the end of the line before George answered. “I’ll call you back on a secure line.”

Damn. That meant the Frye case was still active.

Jonas relayed the information and hung up. He swiped his palm across his beard-roughened jaw and rested his chin there. The tension within him was humming at the same frequency of dread and anticipation that he’d feel knowing the enemy was right on the other side of that door.

Darien Frye had stirred up someone else’s attention besides his own.

When his cell phone rang a few minutes later, it woke Faith. Startled from her fitful sleep, she sat up in bed, shoving her russet hair off her face and hugging herself around the neck and waist in that self-protective stance of hers.

“What is it? What?” she whispered.

Silhouetted against the light from the bathroom sink, he could see she was shaking. Though whether it was from alarm at the late-night call or remnants of her nightmare still working through her system, he couldn’t tell.

Steeling himself against the urge to tuck her back into bed and promise her sweet dreams, he punched the button on his phone and put it to his ear.

“Beck.”

When she swung her long, bare legs to the floor from beneath the twist of sheets, Jonas raised his hand, indicating everything was okay and that she should lie back down. She didn’t, of course. He could count sweet, soft and innocent among her many attributes, but stubborn was right in there with them. She picked up the fallen pillow, hugged it in her lap and listened in.

“I’ll skip the amenities myself.” George Murphy sounded like a man on a mission. “Darien Frye’s been underground for two years now. Once we exposed his operation, the FBI signed back on, but had about as much luck as we did bringing him in. Of course, the market for the kind of armaments he could put his hands on declined there for a few years. Maybe he made enough and retired to some sunny country without an extradition agreement with the U.S.”

Jonas might have been discharged from the game, but he read enough to keep up with the times. “The illegal arms market is booming right now. The Bureau hasn’t picked up anything on him?”

Faith watched intently, as if she could understand the details of George’s answer by watching Jonas’s steely expression.

“He’s officially listed as MIA with the Bureau,” Murphy reported. “Of course, they’ll deny that. It’s embarrassing for one of your own to sell out and get away with it. But I haven’t heard talk of any recent activity attributed to him. I think the Feds are hoping he had a heart attack, or died of natural causes. They’d love some information so they can close the case.”

Jonas stared right back at Faith, revealing nothing of the edgy turbulence inside him. “You know I’d love to stick it to Frye. Look him in the eye and see his reaction when he knows he’s finally been caught.”

“You and me both, buddy. But you’re out of commission now. You can’t go after him. Not legally.”

“What if he comes after me?”

George’s succinct curse would have earned a reprimand from Faith. “You’ve heard from him recently?”

Jonas looked across the room, drawn to the luminescent sheen of Faith’s skin in the dim light. Her trembling had stopped, and if he could judge anything simply from the stillness of her silhouetted posture, she understood this phone call was, ultimately, about her. “A friend of mine has.”

He could hear George up and moving now. “I don’t know if I can give you backup.”

He might as well give him the rest of it. “A local sheriff was murdered in my cabin. It looks like Copperhead is back in business, too, and that he’s working for Frye.”

George said every foul word Jonas was thinking. He took a deep, calming breath. “What do you need from me?”

“Can you call off the Feds?” Jonas asked. Reducing the number of parties pursuing them would make this a whole lot easier. And eliminate the potential crossfire that could prove deadly for Faith—and himself. “Give me a chance to work this on my own?”

“Let me make some calls and get up to speed on this. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Keep me posted.”

Things would be stirred up in Washington by sunrise if George Murphy was planning to
do
something. “Is your friend safe?”

“She’s with me.”

She.
That word should give Murphy pause. A beat of silence passed before he responded. “Then she’s safe. Beck?”

“Yeah?”

“If you bring in Darien Frye, maybe we could get The Watchers back.” The top secret organization had been Murphy’s baby from the start. He’d created the concept. He’d recruited the manpower. And he’d treated the odd assortment of misfits under his command like family until the project had been taken out of his hands. “Maybe
you
can come back.”

It was the best form of
good luck
Jonas could hear.

“Find out what you can and call me.”

There were no goodbyes. That wasn’t how their relationship worked. He turned off the phone, stretched his long legs in front of him and processed the conversation in silence.

In his long career, there was only one man who’d ever gotten away from him. One mastermind who’d changed his identity so many times that The Watchers couldn’t track him down. He’d murdered and swindled and taken what he wanted without anyone to question his actions until Jonas had been assigned to investigate him.

He’d nailed every other case in his career. Kept the witnesses alive. Eliminated the traitors. Found the evidence to prove when men belonged behind bars. Every case but one.

The one who got away.

Darien Frye.

Now was his chance to make it right. But the idea of going back to complete his career with a perfect record wasn’t giving him the satisfaction he would have expected, even a few days ago.

“Was that…The Watchers?” Faith’s soft voice hung still in the air, reminding him very plainly why the opportunity to catch Frye wasn’t as appealing as it once might have been.

“The Watchers don’t exist anymore.” He squeezed his shoulders into the back of the chair, trying to find a comfortable position.

“But the friends you worked with do. They think Darien Frye’s a dangerous man, too, don’t they?”

“Yeah.”

She couldn’t let a thing rest, could she. “He sells illegal weapons?”

He shifted again, crossing his legs at the ankles. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but, yes.”

“Will your friends help us?”

“They’ll do what they can from their end.” George Murphy would be more than thorough. “We still have our work cut out for us.”

“Then you’d better get some rest. That chair’s not big enough for you to relax in.” She tossed the pillow onto the bed and stood up. “You said we’d sleep in shifts. When do I take over?”

“Take over what?”

“Watching over you so you can sleep.”

“You don’t.”

She balled her fists at her hips and tried to look all tough. “You can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day.”

“If I have to, I can.”

She turned her face into the curtain of light from the bathroom, giving him a good look at the taut line of her mouth. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that her sleep-tousled hair and shapely legs beneath the hem of
his
oversize shirt that she wore spoiled her tough act.

“Well, aren’t you just the big manly man? I’ve seen you in the morning when you’ve had sleep. I don’t know if I can stand to be around you when you haven’t.” He raised an eyebrow at the obvious taunt, but ignored her. “At least lie down in a comfortable position so you don’t wind up with a crick in your neck. The bed’s big enough for both of us.”

That
he couldn’t ignore. “Faith, that’s hardly appropriate, considering—”

“It’s practical. I want you sharp if you’re watching my back, not dozing because you were too bullheaded to sleep.” Then she seemed to remember that same explosive kiss that was keeping him rooted to the chair. She hugged her arms around her waist, and he expected her to retreat. Instead, she crossed the room and stood beside him. Close up, he could see there was no anger in her expression, no teasing. But she was clearly distressed. “I promise I’ll stay on my side of the bed. And I don’t snore. Much.”

Logic and humor? He weakened in the face of her tentative smile. But he clenched his fists around the arms of the chair and stayed put. “No.”

She brushed her fingertips across the back of his tight, white knuckles, and Jonas jumped in his skin at the gentle touch. “Get some sleep, Jonas. Or neither of us will. I’ll worry about you.”

He grabbed the gun and lurched to his feet, towering over her by a good foot or more. Maybe a little intimidation would remind her that kindness was wasted on him. “I’m not getting in that bed with you.”

“Please?”

Sucker.

Every self-preserving instinct inside him melted at that one word.

“Fine.” He grabbed his knife and stalked to the bed, pointing with the sheathed blade to the far side of the sheet and blanket. “Get in and cover up.”

For once, she quickly did his bidding, sliding across the bed and pulling the blanket up to her chin. He tossed her the pillow, then laid the knife on the bedside table. He propped up the two remaining pillows against the headboard and deposited his gun underneath them.

Still wearing his jeans and unbuttoned shirt, he sat on the edge of the bed. He paused at the protesting creak of springs and waited to verify its strength before turning and leaning back against his pillows. The soft mattress bowed beneath his weight and Faith tumbled down into the valley beside him.

The instant impact of hips and legs pressed against his side made him question the wisdom of giving in to her request.

But in the next breath she was scrambling away with a hasty “Sorry.”

This was only slightly more comfortable than the chair. Here he could stretch out, but once he did, he held himself perfectly still, avoiding another meet-in-the-middle with Faith.

By the time he realized she was clinging to the opposite side to keep from rolling, she spoke again. “Were The Watchers a branch of the FBI or CIA?”

He’d add
curious
to
stubborn
when it came to her more trying personality traits. “Neither.”

“Defense department?”

He’d never really done pillow talk, but he had a feeling this wasn’t how the usual conversations went. Still, talking about work beat thinking about the half-naked woman beside him. “I always thought of ourselves as internal affairs for the legal agencies that protect us.”

“How do you mean?”

He sagged into the pillows, surrendering to a will that seemed stronger than his own tonight. “What do you do when a chief of police is corrupt? He has the means at his disposal to silence anyone who threatens to expose him. When a high-ranking CIA agent’s cover is blown, how do you get him out alive? Whose information do you trust when an FBI agent has turned?”

“You did all those things?” Awestruck by the scope and danger of his former job, she released her grip and tumbled back into him. This time it was a breast that teased the skin at his rib cage. Jonas hissed a breath at the forbidden stirrings inside him. She climbed to the other side, dragging the blanket with her, and held on again. “Sorry.”