Tall, Dark and Lethal (10 page)

She smiled weakly at the man who held all the cards.

“Don’t insult either of us.” The color of his eyes seemed to deepen.

Heat rushed to her face. Was she that obvious? She was both embarrassed and relieved. “So what next?” She clenched her hands in her lap.
Please don’t leave.
He wouldn’t do that to her, would he? He had kissed her.

As part of his cover.

She held her breath, waiting for his answer, which didn’t come immediately. So he was thinking about staying. That was good. If she was lucky, he was thinking that after the rocky start they’d gotten, he was really starting to like her.

That kiss in the lake had to mean something. She offered a tentative smile, trusting that he wouldn’t misinterpret it. She meant nothing crazy by it this time.

“You sit tight. I’m going home,” he said.

She’d thought he was going to leave her. Just like that. Man, that ticked him off. Cade kept checking his rearview mirror as he headed back to Chadds Ford. What kind of jerk did she think he was? He had
never
left a man or woman behind, not when they’d been under heavy fire, not when land mines had been exploding around them.

Never.

The look on her face when he’d said he was going home was insulting. Bailey Preston had a unique ability to get under his skin. In more ways than one.

He turned the car he’d boosted from a rental complex and got off Route 1, taking side streets.

Bailey Preston. He tapped on the steering wheel.

She was hot, but so were a million other women out there. He liked the fighting spirit in her, even if most of the time it annoyed him. He liked that she cared about her family. She was pretty strong, too—she’d taken the events of the past twenty-four hours in stride. She hadn’t thrown a fit, hadn’t freaked out, hadn’t fallen apart.

But she had interfered with his thought processes, and that had to stop. He couldn’t be thinking about the way her clothes hugged her curves when he was going into a night op. He pushed Bailey from his mind and tried to focus on his mission.

By the time he pulled onto their street, it was nearly dawn. He scanned the neighborhood for any sign that someone was waiting for him here, driving right by the mess that had been their duplex, police tape waving in the breeze around it. Her garden art lay scattered around the front yard, and he had an odd impulse to salvage a kooky sunflower or two, which was a really bad idea. He shouldn’t go near the house.

So he was attracted to Bailey. Had kissed her. Twice. They were consenting adults.

Maybe that had been the source of the frustration between them all along: denied attraction. Easy enough to fix.

He turned down the next cul-de-sac and pulled up to the first house on the left. The driveway stood empty. No lights on inside. He rolled up the driveway into the cover of the garage, safe from the windows. Then he let the engine idle while he got out and stole to the shed that stood halfway between his house and the neighbor’s. Nothing looked disturbed around his hiding place. Good. He eased out a carefully sawed section of a railroad tie that supported the shed and then pulled out the lockbox he’d hid inside a month ago.

He carefully fitted the chunk of wood back in place. Thirty more seconds and he was out of there. He was heading back to the car with the box under his arm when he spotted movement in the ruins of his house. Could be the wind playing with a piece of rubble. Could be a cat. He pulled into the shadows and stopped to watch.

But it was neither. Someone emerged and glanced around before taking off across the lawns. Cade got into the car and followed, hoping to catch another glimpse. Maybe it was just a looting teenager from the neighborhood.

He was passing the entrance to his own street when he heard a car start up somewhere down the lane. He pulled over, turned the car off and ducked down. Less than a minute passed before a dark pickup rolled by him, heading in the other direction. He gave it some lead before he followed.

Four in the morning was the absolute worst time to tail a man. There was no traffic on the roads. He had to stay way back, then run red lights to catch up. Which worked until he came upon a police cruiser by the side of the road and was forced to sit out a light. He was wanted by the FBI, driving a stolen car and in possession of an unregistered firearm. Better not give the cops an excuse to pull him over.

By the time the light turned, the guy had disappeared onto one of the side streets heading toward a shopping complex. Cade drove around in that area for another hour, but he didn’t spot the pickup again.

So the guy wasn’t just a neighborhood teen rummaging through the ruins out of curiosity. Nor would he be from the FBI or the police. They could—and certainly had—searched the house during daylight hours. That left the bastards who’d blown up his home.

He watched the street carefully, scanning the shadows. Most of what he could see was deserted. A few delivery trucks went about their early morning business, going around a handful of bleary-eyed travelers in a white sedan parked at a fast-food restaurant. Still, something didn’t feel right. He had half a mind to park and do a building by building search. Except that he didn’t want to leave Bailey alone anymore. He’d already been gone longer than he’d planned. He swore and turned his car toward Maryland.

He was crossing the state border just as the first ray of the sun came over the horizon. Frustration hummed in his veins. He’d tagged a tango but lost him. Everything was so much simpler in the jungle or the mountains of Afghanistan. No cops to hold you back when you were going after the enemy. If it weren’t for them, he could have pulled his gun and clipped the guy from the back.

Some days, civilian life was all right. Like when he mowed the lawn and watched Bailey through her open garage door as she painted daisies on weatherproof canvas. But other days, he wouldn’t have minded a little more action.

The miles ticked by, and eventually his mind turned to another kind of action as he thought of Bailey, waiting for him in bed.

B
AILEY WAS SLEEPING
fitfully, alone in the shack. Her mind kept playing the “Hottest Moments with Cade Palmer” video montage in her head. Played, replayed and embellished.

They were in the water again. He kissed her. My, oh my, did he kiss her. His mouth was firm and hot and all-knowing. And he didn’t stop there. He kissed her neck, pulled the T-shirt over her head and trailed his lips over her feverish skin. His arms encircled her, and he lifted her until her legs were wrapped around his waist, their bodies aligned. She moaned.

She didn’t know whether she had woken herself up, or the man who was sitting at the plastic table had done it. Her heart lurched into a panic for a split second before she recognized Cade.

He’d come back. Not that she had doubted that he would, not after he promised to see this to the end. But it had been a long night all alone.

He watched her without saying a word.

Her heart switched to a whole other rhythm.

Could be a good time for the bedclothes to swallow her up. Had she moaned out loud? And if she had, would he know what she’d been dreaming about?

“Sorry I woke you.” His voice was low and rough when he finally spoke.

She suddenly realized that the sheets had slipped off and her T-shirt had ridden up on her torso. Her stomach and the underside of her breasts were showing. She yanked the T-shirt back into place and sat up, making sure the sheet covered her completely.

Didn’t seem to make any difference to him. He was still staring her down.

Oh.
She
had
moaned out loud!

Heat crept to her cheeks. At least he wouldn’t see that. He hadn’t turned on the light, and the early morning sun coming in through the single window only lit the place dimly.

“Did you just get in?” Her voice was scratchy.

He nodded. She took a deep breath.

“Did I talk in my sleep?” Better to know than to drive herself nuts over it.

“Slept like an angel.” He stood and moved toward the bed.

Her mouth went dry. She almost asked what he thought he was doing and then realized that he would be going to sleep. Of course. He’d been up all night. He would need some rest. She scooted to the side, swinging her legs over the edge.

“Stay.” The single word was spoken softly, as a request.

And in truth, she couldn’t have moved for a cash bonus as he dropped to the futon next to her, the mattress dipping under his weight.

“How did it go?”
Keep it businesslike. Nothing personal.

“Got what I went for.” He folded his hands under his head.

His weapon stash. He’d told her that he needed a few things to complement what he was borrowing from Joey.

“The house?” She tried not to be too obvious about staring at his bulging biceps. Even the dim light couldn’t diminish those.

“Pretty much the same as when we left. Plus some police tape. And a visitor.”

She pulled her legs back on the bed and folded them under herself so she could fully turn toward him. “Who?”

“I’m guessing a tango. Terrorist.”

He’d been in danger. On her behalf. While she slept.

On one level, if anyone could take care of himself, it was Cade. He sure didn’t need her watching his back. But it still didn’t feel right.

“Later today I want to go back to the area where I lost him and check around again.” He looked tired and grim. Something else was bothering him, something he wasn’t telling her about.

“Can I come?”

He didn’t respond.

She had a feeling he didn’t particularly want her as backup. Tough. She was all he had right now. “I’d rather not stay here alone again.” Which was the truth. “While you were gone, I kept wondering what would happen if someone found me here.” She played the helpless female card with distaste. But she knew what she wanted, and she was willing to play even dirtier tricks than that.

“Okay.”

“Really?” She had expected to have to fight him on this one.

He closed his eyes.

She lay back down, facing him. “You think we’re going to make it? Find a way out of this?”

“You bet,” he said.

“How?” Try as she might, she could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Not even a pinprick. “If Zak is somehow involved in this…The FBI can’t arrest a teenager, can they?”

“They can and they will. According to them, he established and maintained contact with known terrorists. It’d take a while for him to explain his way out of that one and convince Homeland Security that it was a game or a misunderstanding. They’d be riding him and riding him hard. I’d rather that he didn’t have to go through that. Considering his past.”

Her throat closed up, her chest heavy with the thought that he cared about a boy he’d barely met. “Thank you.” The words came out on a whisper.

He turned toward her then and opened his eyes. Their rich caramel color gave way to burnished gold in the early morning light. “You don’t have to be so surprised every time I do something that doesn’t confirm your notion that I’m a complete bastard.” He sounded tired.

“I don’t…” But the truth was, she had thought him an annoying jerk for the past three months and had cursed the day when he had inherited the other half of the duplex. It was becoming obvious now that she hadn’t really known her new neighbor at all. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He turned his whole body so they were face-to-face, with only a few inches of empty space between them. “I want to know exactly who is after Zak and how he got tricked into whatever he got tricked into. If I get them and hand them over, it would greatly simplify things for us. Not that Zak still won’t catch plenty of flack. I want you to prepare for that. Carly will prep him for questioning—she knows firsthand what he needs to say. But whichever way this goes down, it won’t be a walk in the park.”

Her mind was stuck on
get them.
“We are going to hunt—” how had he put it? “—known terrorists?”

“Hunt and catch the bastards.” He actually grinned. Then slowly, the grin slid off his face as he held her gaze and closed the distance between them.

S
HE LOOKED LIKE SHE WAS
about to freak out over the terrorist thing. He had to distract her somehow. At least that was what he told himself. Mostly he had to slake the hunger he’d worked up for her while he’d been gone, while he’d watched her sleep on that bed, her flat stomach and the tantalizing curves of her breasts calling to him across the dim room.

He’d gone from bone tired to fully aroused in under sixty seconds after walking through the door. He’d parked his ass in the chair farthest from the bed and made himself stay there. But the small moan that had escaped her just before she’d awoken had done him in.

He kissed her with all his built-up need. Her lips were soft and yielding, her body pliant against his. It wasn’t going to be one of those “he meant only to kiss her and then got carried away” moments. He’d meant—from the time he’d walked in the door and seen her tangled in the sheets—to make her fully his. As long as she had no objections. And from the way she was kissing him back, she sure didn’t seem like she had any.

“You drive me crazy,” he murmured against her mouth, and meant it not only in the way of the senses.

“Ditto.”

Being in bed with her like this was beyond strange after they’d spent the first three months of knowing each other bickering endlessly. They were definitely primed for the moment, however. He was reaching for her T-shirt just as she reached for his.

Her skin was warm velvet, waiting to be explored.

“If you don’t want to see this through, you might want to let me know now,” he said, his face pressed against her neck. A screeching halt two inches from the finish line might give him a heart attack.

“I want…” Her words dissolved into a moan that made him want to sprint for that finish line ASAP, but what little sense he had left said the moment should be savored.

“I want, too,” he said, his mouth around a nipple that was tightening into a hard nub.

Good to know that she wasn’t immune to him, either.

Her panties slipped off so fast, it was as if they were running away on their own. He made quick work of his jeans and boxers next.

The sensation of lying skin to skin with her was exquisite torture. He couldn’t stop his roaming hands. He loved the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, the moist heat between her legs.

She moaned again when he slipped a finger in to explore that particular spot. She arched her back, which made her breasts press harder against his chest, her nipples rubbing against him. He bent again to latch on to one, then the other, and held her in place as she writhed on the bed.

She was beautiful and sweet and responsive, and she was driving him wild. He waited until he felt the first tremors build inside her before he pulled away. “Give me a sec.”

He strode to the bathroom—a man on a mission—and dug out Joey’s first-aid kit from under the sink, grabbing one of the foil packs and hurrying back to the bed.