Out of Sight (11 page)

The op depended on her reasoning ability and quick reflexes. He was her partner. Their lives depended on her. He had to be able to predict her behavior in a crisis situation. Hell, they both did. But she wasn't asking him every second of every day if he could do
his
job.

"I understand that the great Kane Wright is infallible, invincible, and damn well perfect. But the rest of us lowly humans make mistakes,
I
made mistakes. I won't make any more. Let's move on."

"You won't be killing this man through a rifle scope. Cooper. It'll be up close and personal. If you don't get him first, he'll sure as shit get you."

"Have I given you the impression," AJ demanded through clenched teeth, "that I'm half-witted? I was shot in the chest, not through my brain."

"You were pronounced dead."

"Yeah, but I didn't stay dead, did I? See? Even almighty God-like beings like doctors screw up. Because here I am, hale, hearty, and rarin' to go. You bet your sweet ass I can't wait to kill the sick son of a bitch. He needs to die, and I have to prove myself to every gun-toting good guy in the free world that I'm just as good as they are. Not perfect. Just good at what I do. I've waited my whole life to prove I'm more than two boobs and a pair of long legs. I'm not going to blow this. Is that enough damn confidence for you, Mr. Always Right?"

Heat shimmered ahead of them on the dirt road. Behind them was a dust cloud containing their enormous band of followers. Somewhere out there, their prey was unaware of just where his dinner invitation would lead.

"You'll have your chance," he said calmly. "And believe me, Cooper, I'm not anywhere close to being perfect." He steered the car down the middle of the road to avoid the line of people on either side, waving as if they were a parade. "Tell me what happened that day."

"What day?" AJ said offhandedly.

"The day you died."

Crap. She'd known he would dig away. "It was hotter than the hobs of hell that morning." AJ leaned forward, damp palms clamped between her knees. Her heart raced. She stared with scratchy dry eyes at the sandy road ahead, seeing instead sagebrush and scrub. Different sand. "A hundred and eight. No shade. Five-day field trip where we had to find food. Water. Survive on our wits." She snorted a laugh. "We'd gone up there unarmed."

The sun had beat down on them fiercely. "It was day four. None of us knew what a five-day field trip with Curtner could possibly be like. He was a sadistic son of a bitch, and proud of it. We'd had target practice the day before, six hundred yards. Not all the rookies had a good eye. Some of us didn't get 100 percent of our targets. Curtner was going to make us stay up all night until all eight of us got it picture perfect—100 percent bull's-eyes, 100 percent of the time.

"I'd never been that tired in my life. The heat. The flies. The ass yelling and screaming at us nonstop—We were all hungry and dying of thirst. He wouldn't let us sleep, eat, or drink until we did it as a team. We were up on that ridge for fourteen hours."

"No water for fourteen hours?"

"Not a drop. Forrest eventually passed out from heatstroke. Curtner went ballistic. Went for him with those big, bad-ass boots of his. The kid didn't stand a chance. The screaming and yelling were bad enough. But Forrest was down and out. He couldn't defend himself—I saw red, and went for Curtner. Took him down." AJ squeezed her eyes shut.

"It happened so fast. The others were still blindly trying to hit those targets. I had Curtner in a headlock and was so angry I couldn't see straight—"

"You were in the line of fire."

She shuddered. "Oh, yeah. Worse, Stillwell and Evans charged in to the rescue—"

"Whose?" Kane asked dryly.

"Mine," AJ told him tightly. "Mine." Curtner was disciplining her in the only way he knew how. With his fists and feet. But at least he'd left Forrest alone while he concentrated on her. "They were both killed by friendly fire. Both of them. Jesus God."

Kane frowned. "I read the report. That wasn't it."

"I know." Curtner, with nothing more than a bloody nose, had claimed she hadn't liked being out of her comfort zone. Then told everyone she'd gone apeshit, tried to beat the crap out of him, and pulled him into the line of fire so he would be shot. The other two men had come in to pull her off, and gotten shot for their pains.

"It was a little difficult putting a stop to the rumor while I was unconscious in the hospital. By the time I was released, the story had morphed into something else entirely."

She glanced at Kane to see how he was taking this. Probably thinking the same thing many other T-FLAC operatives had thought. Hotheaded, temperamental,
female
operative.

Even though the incident had happened over three months ago, she was still fighting to maintain her place and dignity with the others. Still trying to overcome flinching every time she heard a gun discharge, for God's sake.

"Why didn't the men report what'd really happened?"

Her eyebrows rose. Man, he didn't get it. She'd tried to set the record straight. Rookie. Twenty-two-year veteran. Yeah, right. "Against Curtner? The trainer who held their future in his hands? Surely you jest."

"Shit happens. Cooper. The deaths of those young men was a tragedy waiting to happen. But not your fault. And as for you being shot—hazard of the job. Brace yourself. Everybody knows Curtner's an asshole. They might have believed you if you'd stood up as a team. But it'll happen again. And again. And a-fucking-gain. Until you move faster, and think more clearly."

Two men were dead because of her. Dead. Never going home to their young wives. Never completing basic training and going out in the field to eliminate terrorists. Never coming home to a pot roast dinner on a Sunday night with their moms… Never doing
anything.
Because they were stone-cold dead.

So it didn't matter what the hell anyone said. She knew it was her fault.

And as for getting shot… she'd never experienced all-consuming pain like that. Never been hurt, or beat up, or attacked in her life. She'd pranced across runways and looked pretty. She'd bitched to her mother for years about how much she hated the beauty-pageant circuit. She'd hated it. But she'd never been physically hurt wearing a swimsuit and a smile.

When she'd come out of the coma her entire body and mind had gone into shock from the experience.

"You're right," she bit out. "Absolutely right. I'm working on it." AJ wanted to hit him. While her temper bubbled and boiled like the contents of a witch's cauldron, Kane sat there calm and collected and matter-of-fact. The man drove her absolutely nuts, he was so controlled. "Have you ever been shot?"

"Of course."

"Of course," she mimicked. "I presume you got over it fast? What'd you do? Chew the bullet out of your own shoulder with your teeth, then stitch it up yourself, with your own little emergency sewing kit? "

He quirked an eyebrow. "Sorry. If you feel that strongly about it, you can do the honors after you
off
Raazaq, and I promise, I won't gnaw it out of my body for days."

Oh, do
not
tempt me, Wright!

The car was small and confining. She needed room to move about. Room to release the churning activity squiggling around inside her. Beating him up because he was convenient was vastly appealing.

"Do you kickbox?" she asked with relish, imagining beating the crap out of him and getting rid of some of this energy.

"Yeah, I do. But I'm not taking you on in that mood."

"Mood?" AJ asked dangerously through clenched teeth. "What mood?"

"The I'm-lookin'-to-kick-some-ass mood."

"Scared?"

"Please." Kane narrowly missed two kids on a camel. "There's a tennis court back at the hotel," he told her casually.

"Is there?" She smiled, and her eyes sparkled with challenge. She'd never played, but she suddenly had all sorts of ideas of what to do with a racket and a couple of nice hard balls. "You're on, partner."

Wearing baggy shorts and one of Kane's black T-shirts, AJ's tanned skin gleamed with perspiration. Her gaze blazed with determination as she shifted from foot to foot, dancing in anticipation of the next serve. This was a lady who thrived on competition, and who aimed to win.

She had an amazing eye. Kane had never seen anything like it. It was almost as though she saw the ball coming, read its trajectory, seconds before he even hit it to her.

One of his personal heroes, football great Joe Montana, had a similar spatial instinct. Capable of seeing the ball's direction before anyone else could do so.

He knew it was something Cooper's trainers couldn't fully understand, but certainly appreciated. And it was one of the main reasons she'd been admitted into sniper school months ahead of schedule. They'd never seen anyone like her. She had the uncanny capability of seeing farther, better, and more accurately than anyone else on the T-FLAC teams. Given a bit of seasoning, AJ Cooper's sniping skills would be in high demand.

Kane whacked another ball over the net, enjoying watching her long legs as she raced across the clay court. Those legs others had probably won her a lot of the beauty pageants she refused to talk about. Her beauty queen status wasn't a secret—he'd heard about the rifle-toting beauty queen long before he'd met her. And while most men were well aware of what she'd done before coming to T-FLAC, it was also common knowledge that she didn't talk about it much. Preferably not at all. She was uniquely refreshing in that regard. In his experience, women usually managed to work bits of flattering information like that into a conversation.

Right now, as he kept his eye on the tennis ball, he was more interested in the colorful reports of Cooper's temper. He'd been curious in the car to see just how explosive it was. He'd felt the heat, but she'd pulled it back to a simmer. And that was good. It hadn't always been the case. He'd heard her temper was loud, vocal, and she had the habit of leaving broken china in her wake.

"Fire in the hole. Tiiiimberrr!" AJ yelled a second after her ball hit him,
smack,
between the eyes. "Concentration," she said wryly, "is the secret to any form of combat."

The fuzzy ball smarted like hell, but God only knew his eye
hadn't
been on the ball, in any sense of the word.

Kane stopped the roll of the ball with his foot, then bent to scoop it up. He straightened, tossing the tennis ball in one hand. "Competitive" was his middle name. "Another set?"

"Pass, thanks," AJ said cheerfully, swiping her face with a small towel as she left the court. "You've whipped my butt. This time. Now I want a shower and food."

Kane dropped his racket to his side. Thank God. He'd thought she'd keep playing forever. "You're on."

The phone started ringing the moment they opened the door to the suite. Their eyes met.

Kane nodded, and AJ walked over and picked up the old-fashioned black receiver, saying a cool, "Hello?"

"Ah, Miss Cooper. I am Fazur Raazaq. I noticed you at the pyramid this afternoon, and your beauty compelled me to seek you out. I apologize for sending an emissary earlier."

"You're the guy behind the tinted windows?" she asked, hoping she sounded charming, interested, and sexy. The latter made easier by the fact that Kane was next to her, sharing the receiver. Heat sizzled from his large frame.

"If you would permit, I offer you dinner this evening, here at the hotel we share. The food at La Brasserie is excellent."

"Tonight?" she echoed.

AJ ignored Kane's hand signals telling her to accept Raazaq's invitation. Like she was going to turn him down.

She turned her back with a scowl, so she wouldn't have to watch Kane miming and gesturing to her while she tried to think. "Thank you, Mr. Rabbit—Oh, Raazaq? Excuse me." She glared at Kane as he stalked a circle around her, trying to get her to pay attention to him.

"Please, call me Fazur," her caller said in unaccented but slightly… off English. "It would please me."

"Fazur, then. I'm really sorry, but I'm busy tonight. Perhaps another time?" Still ignoring Kane, she tossed the rented racket on one chair and flopped down on another, then bent to untie the laces of her tennis shoes, the phone tucked against her shoulder.

Kane crossed the room, mumbling to himself. His hair clung damply to his neck and throat, and he wore khaki shorts and a red ribbed tank, and looked ready to pop. But he'd just have to trust her.

He opened the minibar and held up a bottle of water. AJ nodded.

"Tomorrow evening, then," Raazaq said in her ear, the faintest tinge of displeasure in his voice. "You must not disappoint me again, my dear. I will think I have done something to offend you."

"Oh, Fazur, honey, how could that be? We haven't even met yet."

Kane rolled his eyes and glugged the cold water. "I feel as if I know you already, just from watching you this afternoon," Raazaq said.

Oh, please.
God, the man was so oily, he practically oozed through the line. "That's so sweet of you to say, Fazur."

"Tomorrow night, then, Miss Cooper? Nine o'clock?" AJ paused, drawing out the silence as she toed off her shoes, and accepted an icy bottle from Kane. She listened with satisfaction as Raazaq's impatience hummed clearly across the telephone lines.

"Hmmm, I don't usually like eating that late." She took a swig of water. "How about eight tomorrow evening instead? Down in the lobby? Lovely. See you then." She put down the phone and smiled. "Tomorrow."

"I heard." Kane rubbed his cold bottle across his chest and dragged his attention away from the rapid pulse throbbing at the base of her throat. The suite wasn't large enough to pace and get rid of the pent-up energy he hadn't used up playing tennis for a couple of hours. "I'm going out."

"Got a little stress to walk off?" She spread her arms across the back of the chair and smiled at him sweetly. "The kickboxing offer is still open."

"I already whipped your butt once today, Cooper, I'm trying to leave you with a little ego intact."

She pushed out of the chair with a laugh. "Oh, you dreamer you. I didn't want you to overtax your heart. You are, after all, an older man, so I gave you a break, Mr. Perfect." Still smiling, she wandered toward her room. "I'm off to shower. Hungry?"

Hell, yeah. But not for food. The thought of Cooper standing naked under running water was enough to make him able to jump buildings in a single bound. "Order me something from room service. I'll be back."

"See you, Andre," she said with a laugh. "Enjoy your walk, don't take candy from strangers."

Kane shook his head as she closed her bedroom door.

As much as she smiled and seemed at ease, he could see that the closer she came to endgame, the tenser AJ became. There were some highly efficient ways he could use to get her to relax. Sex being only one of them.

Honesty was another.

She wasn't as adept as he was at hiding what she was thinking. And she thought everything he did was right? Jesus. He let out a short bark of laughter. Was she way off.
Perfect, my ass.
He was no fucking hero. He'd spent the last two years diligently and tirelessly working his nuts off to make up for the stupid mistake that had changed the lives of too many people.

He'd had ample opportunity to fell her how similar their experiences were. He
should
tell her, and ease a little of her guilt and fear. But instead he'd let each of those moments pass.

God only knew, he'd talked about it to the shrinks enough. Just words. But the heat of guilt, the fire of his shame, sorrow, and anguish were kept tightly inside himself to deal with. He was coming to terms with what he had done. Hell, he was doing fine. Just fine.

Other than the inability to sleep. The estrangement of everyone he'd ever cared for, and a feeling of watching the world go by through a thick piece of plate glass. Yeah, he was doing great now.

And asshole that he was, he hadn't wanted to see the light of hero worship dim from her beautiful eyes.

And while he kept telling himself the nightmares would eventually stop, that the guilt would eventually fade, he knew he was lying. His life had changed irrevocably two years ago. And nothing had ever been the same again.

Kane returned to the room an hour later, meeting up with the room-service waiter wheeling a covered cart. AJ was dependable as far as food was concerned. Whatever it was smelled damned good, and made his stomach grumble in appreciation. He preceded the man into the room, told him he'd take care of the setup, tipped him, and saw him out.

AJ was nowhere in sight and he didn't hear the sound of water running, so she wasn't still in the shower.

He suddenly had a vision of a sleepy AJ spread, naked and still wet from her shower, across the wide bed, fast asleep.

A twist of something hot and needy speared through him, but he put it away. Like his brothers, and men in general, Kane had always enjoyed sex. Recreational, and, on a couple of occasions, something fairly long-term. But it had been a while—two years? Jesus.
Two years?—
since he'd wanted sex. No wonder Cooper had him hot and bothered! Christ Almighty,
two years
since he'd been laid! Where the hell had the time gone?

He stopped to listen to the silence in the suite. There might not be any sound coming from his partner's room, but there was a faint, furtive noise coming from his own. What the hell?

All right! He was in just the mood to beat the crap out of somebody. Maybe Raazaq had sent one of his trained apes on a scouting mission. Christ, he hoped so. He pulled his Sig from the shoulder holster under his loose cotton jacket. Weapon raised, Kane nudged his bedroom door open with his foot.

The door moved soundlessly on its hinges.

He tapped it again with the toe of his shoe until it opened wide. Ran a glance across the queen-size bed; a crease in the faux satin cover where he'd sat putting on his shoes earlier. The local paper, unread, on the bedside table. He scanned the rest of the room. Didn't take long. Wasn't that big.

Empty.

The noise came from the bathroom. A scrape. Kane frowned, trying to decipher the noise. Hell, he was wasting time.

He kicked open the bathroom door, weapon raised.

The door slammed against the wall. In the ready position, Kane aimed the Sig into the small, steamy room.

And found himself eye to eye with a fully loaded Walther PPK. And a very naked AJ Cooper sitting in his tub.

For a long moment the two of them just stared at each other. Kane's blood pressure throbbed behind his eyeballs. He reholstered his weapon, and glared at her. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

She slid the gun onto the small table she'd set up beside the tub. The table held a nickering candle, a bottle of water, and now a fully loaded weapon.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" She sounded just as irritated as Kane felt. "Changing the oil in a car? I'm taking a bath."

"Take a bath in your own bathroom. Jesus, Angina, I almost shot you." And almost gave himself a coronary in the process. It was a testament to his self-control that he didn't storm over there, yank her, dripping naked, out of the tub, and take her right there on the bath mat. A shudder of want ripped through him.

"Excuse me?" AJ stiffened indignantly. "The stupid handle broke off the faucet in my tub. They can't come and fix it until tomorrow. Maybe." She waved a bubble-covered hand. "I left you a note out there."

A pulse throbbed at the base of her throat. He wanted to put his mouth there. Among other places. She was playing with fire. Tossing a live grenade from hand to hand, waiting to see just how many tosses it would take for the damn thing to explode. If she had a clue just how damn short his fuse was, she'd've stayed the hell out of his way. "Where?" he demanded about the note.

"On the table by the doo—Are you going to just stand there staring?"

He leaned against the doorjamb and gave her an appraising look. Hell, he owed her one for scaring ten years off his life. "It's a hell of a view."

She crossed dripping arms on the rim of the tub. The tub wasn't that big, and the bubbles were obligingly disappearing as if by magic. He could now see the shiny wet curve of her hip, and the gentle slope of a truly spectacular ass accented by the faint, creamy paleness of the outline of a bikini bottom. Kane wanted to put his mouth on that pale swath of skin, too. "It's not the damn pyramids, Kane. No tourists."

"Too bad. You could make a fortune charging a fee."

"I'll keep it in mind." Her eyes narrowed, pale-green slits surrounded by spiky dark lashes. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to finish my bath."

"I don't mind a bit."

"Go… do something."

"I am doing something," Kane said, his voice silky as he made himself comfortable against the door frame, arms folded across his chest, at ease, relaxed. Steam curled her red hair into corkscrew ringlets around her clean-scrubbed face. She'd stuck that glorious mane up on top of her head and tied it with—what the hell was that? A sock?

He was lusting after a woman who wore a sock in her hair?

Christ
.

The sensible thing, the
professional
thing to do was turn around, close the door gently behind him, and remember that they were here to do a job.

Which would be a hell of a lot easier to do if AJ was nothing more than her looks. Unfortunately, she had levels and depths that intrigued Kane on a far more dangerous plane. Pretty women were a dime a dozen. Even women as stunning as AJ Cooper were relatively easy to find.

Kane had never been that interested in attractive outer trappings. The inside ticking fascinated him. The whirl and twist of a woman's mind intrigued him, and he'd found over the years that a beautiful woman counted on no one digging any deeper than skin deep.

But AJ Cooper presented a challenge. A puzzle. A package with layers and layers of interesting, convoluted depths that he was dangerously tempted to unveil.

She was the most arousing, the most tantalizing sight he'd seen in years.

Still…

I can do this.
He would show
both
of them control. Prove to both of them that he was seduction-proof.