Protector (23 page)

Chuck set the gun aside and looped his arms around her waist, kissing her hard and fast and hoping that the taste of her, the scent of her, the feel of her body would calm the roaring in his head.

He gave himself only a moment to feel her, to reassure himself before he pulled back, uncomfortable with the intensity. “I need to check outside, just to make sure everything is still secure.” He cupped her hips and pulled her against him. “Then we can finish this.”

She lifted the pastry box and ran it under his nose. “Food first. I’m starving.”

“Go ahead and start without me. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” Chuck unfolded a pair of jean shorts and a T-shirt to wear. When he tugged his head free through the cotton shirt, he found her gaze searing over him.

Jolynn washed down her breakfast with a large swallow of juice. She flicked her tongue across her top lip. He almost flung his clothes off again.

“Chuck?”

“What?” He sat on the edge of the bed to lace his new tennis shoes. He needed to distance himself from her and regain his concentration. Chuck mentally reviewed the series of warning devices placed around the cabin.

“Won’t someone come looking for us here?”

“Eventually.”

“And that will be a good thing or bad thing?”

“Good.” That would mean Livia had figured out he must
have gone to her cabin. Sending a message through to her would have been too risky, especially when he didn’t know if he could trust lines going onto the ship.

She twisted her hand in his T-shirt, yanking him toward her. “You’re doing it again.”

“Huh?”

“Slipping away from me with cryptic answers.”

“Sorry.” He scrubbed a hand along his jaw and tried to decide how much she needed to know. “Truly, I have this under control.”

For now.

He checked his clip and headed for the door.

Jolynn fanned her face with a paper plate. How much longer would Chuck need for his security check? She stood by the window and watched him bob and weave from sight, threading around trees. She knew their time at the cottage was temporary. He would have to reconnect with the outside world soon.

She wandered across the room, wondering again how he’d known about this place. Her fingers trailed across the back of the leather sofa, skimmed over the ivory keys of the old upright piano. The notes came through surprisingly clear for such an antique. She tested the run of the keyboard, settling into a few measures of “Ave Maria.” She wasn’t a gifted musician by any stretch, but she’d taken and passed the requisite music classes at boarding school. The nuns at her place had been a little less generous with their warm fuzzies than Chuck’s nuns.

But then she’d excelled at pushing the envelope by her teenage years.

Yet with all the experience she logged along the way, nothing had come close to touching her the way Chuck had. Through the night, she’d held him close while he’d slept with his head pillowed on her breasts, their bodies uncovered in the muggy heat. She’d memorized his face, the tiny creases that dented into dimples when he smiled. Something he rarely did.

She’d studied his scars more closely, figuring out which ones must have come from his time as a prisoner and which appeared surgical. Looking at his legs, she’d cried, realizing he must have steel rods in place. Even his toes were a little crooked. How many bones had been broken?

How much was still broken inside? Because there was no way a person could go through something like that and returned unaffected.

Still, he’d put his life back together, gone back to the same job that had nearly killed him. The cut of his muscles had broadcast strength, even relaxed in sleep. Those same powerful arms had cradled her tenderly against his chest.

He thought himself cool, unemotional, her logical scholar and agent. But she saw beyond the shield to a strong man, honorable, possessing a touch that had skimmed over her body with a gentleness she’d never imagined existed in a man.

His hands renewed, rather than destroyed.

While she saw the emotional depths in Chuck, would he make his way through the tangle to find peace for him-self?

Tugging the hem of his cabana shirt, she wondered what would happen next. The thoughts crowded in her brain, too much to consider all at once. She settled onto the piano bench. Thumbing through the sheet music stacked neatly on top, she looked for something to play to pass the time until Chuck returned.

Some of the pieces had been marked up with directions and personal messages. Curious, she pulled the whole stack from the top and fanned through for more hints about the owner of this place Chuck knew so well.

At the very bottom, she found a music score book with what appeared to be original compositions. The pages had yellowed with age, some of the notes penciled on the bar graphs having faded. She rested her right hand on the keys and starting plucking out the core tune… a ballad, given the tempo instructions.

Slowly, the song took shape, coming faster from her fingers as she recognized the familiar melody. Shock raised the hair on her arms. She yanked her hand back and searched the book frantically for the end of the song where the composer had signed…
Livia Cicero
.

*  *  *

“How do you know Livia Cicero?”

Jolynn’s question blindsided Chuck as he walked through the cottage door. He closed the door carefully, weighing her words and wondering what the hell had tipped her off. Could he have been talking in his sleep? Details of this op were top secret and he wasn’t at liberty to satisfy her curiosity.

Reaching for the small bottled orange juice, he stalled for time to gather his thoughts. The question was so out of the blue, she must know something, but how much of the operation had she figured out?

“Why do you ask?” He knocked back a swig of the OJ, eyeing her reaction.

Her arms were crossed over her chest defensively. Closed off and angry. “This place must belong to Livia Cicero. A
studio of some sort. Her name is signed all over the sheet music.” She jabbed a thumb toward the upright piano. “Are you and she having an affair?”

“God, no!” he blurted out, shocked— and relieved. Here he’d been pinging off the walls thinking she’d uncovered his whole reason for being in Europe and she was just jealous.

Slumping onto the arm of the leather sofa, she scratched behind her ear, her body language opening somewhat, but not much. Her green eyes were still wary. “That sounded sincere enough.”

“Because it’s the truth.” He set aside his drink and reached for her, squeezing her shoulders. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re all the woman I can handle right now.”

Still, she didn’t smile, just stared at him, waiting, her eyes demanding more of an explanation.

He circled past and sat on the sofa, elbows on his knees. “Livia and I met when I was recovering from my injuries. She’d been wounded in an explosion during a USO tour. She paid some goodwill visits to recovering troops while she herself was recovering and deciding what to do about her career.”

“I remember her accident. A couple of years ago, in Turkey.” Her eyes widened with shock as she turned toward him. “And you were there? That was tied into your capture?”

While the details weren’t out there in the news, parts of the mission weren’t classified any longer. “My unit launched a rescue operation to locate me. They used the cover of the USO tour to slip into the country. I’m alive today because of that undercover. And later, in part because of Livia, too. Yes, we became friends. Close friends when I needed one.
She let me use this place once when I needed to get away, sort some things out in my head.” He held up his hand before she could even ask. “But I was here alone. I care about her, but not that way. And she’s in love with someone else.”

Jolynn’s forehead furrowed as she put all the pieces together. “The military colonel with her on the cruise…” She clapped a hand over her eyes. “He’s not there as just her boyfriend, is he? You’re all a part of the operation to investigate my father.”

He scrubbed a hand along his jaw, knowing there wasn’t anything he could say to reassure her. “Well, Jolynn—”

She shook her head. “Never mind. You probably couldn’t tell me anyway, but I know I’m right. Whatever you’re investigating must be something huge to involve so many people. You need to go back.”

“No. I don’t.” He linked his fingers with hers and tugged her until she tumbled from the arm of the sofa into his lap. “As you said, there are lots of people handling this. They’ll do fine without me while I keep you tucked away here.”

“While you keep me from blabbing, you mean.” She shoved at his chest. “Screw me silly so I’m too lovesick to ask questions. I should have known better.”

His arms tightened around her. “That’s not true and you know it.”

“Chuck, people have been lying to me my whole life. You seem to forget who my father is. I saw my first murder when I was twelve years old.”

Everything went still inside him. A murder? “Do you want to run that by me again?”

She sat stiffly in his arms, but at least she wasn’t running away. “I was home on break from school, waiting for my dad. Two of his henchmen shot my uncle behind the ear. Execution style. My father may not have been holding the
gun. Hell, he wasn’t even there, but that wouldn’t have happened on his property without his say-so.”

His hands fisted until the circulation slowed. No adult should witness something like that, much less a child. He wanted to pull her in tighter and wipe away the images from her mind.

However, he knew from experience, nothing could stamp out the horror. The best he could do was share it, let her talk and maybe dull the sharper edges in the process. “Did you confront anyone about what you saw?”

“I was labeled a hysterical teenager.” She gathered her hair over her shoulder, looping it into a loose knot that trailed down her chest. “My nanny and my father threatened a lot worse than boarding school. Since I wasn’t interested in a stint in a psychiatric ward, I opted to keep my mouth shut. As a reward, they sent my cousin Lucy to join me in boarding school.”

“The director of operations on the
Fortuna
.”

“That’s the one.” She sagged back against his chest, caught in her memories. “We had one helluva good old time. Since we both knew Dad didn’t want us back home, that made us pretty much invincible at school. When we got in trouble, Dad greased some palms, bribed my way back in. So I stuck it to his checkbook every chance I could with drinking and men.” She stared up at him as if defying him to judge her. “And I do mean
men
.”

All too clearly he could envision the disillusioned teen lashing out at the world, lashing out at a crook of a father who’d shattered her innocence. Chuck couldn’t change the past, but he could be here now, listening, accepting.

When he didn’t speak, she looked away, fidgeting with her hair draped over her shoulder. “One Christmas break from college when I was particularly pissed over his lack of attention, I chose Dad’s accountant. He’d eyed me often enough. There’s
no need to dwell on the gory details. He possessed the finesse of a Mack truck. Things got rough.”

His muscles tensed and a black fog of anger threatened the edges of his concentration as he saw where this was headed.

“Lucy heard me… call out just in time. She persuaded him to leave— pulled a gun on him actually, told him she knew how to use it.” A small smile chased away some of the shadows in her eyes. “After that, I decided I didn’t much care about having my father’s attention and went my own way.”

Chuck forced his breathing to stay steady, not to let his own simmering rage show through. “Well, Red, for what it’s worth, you have my attention and it has nothing to do with your father.”

Her hand slid up to his neck. Did she realize she was rubbing along the kink he never quite seemed to get rid of? “I’m a big fan of your attention.”

He dipped his head, skimming his mouth over hers. This didn’t seem the time for a big clench, but he needed to connect with her, let her know men—
he
—wasn’t like those other guys who’d let her down.

And in order to prove that, to keep her safe, he would have to return to civilization and take down her father, once and for all.

*  *  *

Building a dirty nuke wasn’t simple, but it was lucrative. And the
Fortuna
offered the perfect setup to transfer the bomb’s blueprint into the appropriate hands.

Hands behind his back, he wandered through the casino’s main floor. The roulette wheel spun and clicked like a clock
counting down the time until he pulled everything together. Chimes and bells, shouts and groans filled the air as thickly as the perfume from the overscented, overprivileged women littering this place. Cleavage spilled out of low-cut designer dresses that probably cost as much as the high-roller chips they wagered and lost without a thought. Diamonds and other precious stones flashed in the lights that stayed on round the clock to keep bettors from realizing just how long they’d been throwing money away.