Книга - Tall, Dark and Daring: The Admiral’s Bride

Tall, Dark and Daring: The Admiral's Bride
Suzanne Brockmann


New York Times Bestselling Author Suzanne Brockmann thrills readers with tall, dark heroes who face the most daring adventure of all –falling in love.When a deadly consignment of biological weapons is stolen from military testing lab, it’s Admiral Jake Robinson’s job to recover them by any means necessary. Which means relying on Dr. Zoe Lang’s help - and denying the simmering attraction they share…Waking up with only an address, a .22 calibre pistol and no memory of who he is, Navy SEAL Mitchell Shaw is in trouble. Until the address leads him to beautiful Becca Keyes, who can help him solve the mystery of his past. And help him to believe in his future - with her.










Praise for the novels of

New York Timesbestselling author

SUZANNE BROCKMANN

“Zingy dialogue, a great sense of drama, and a pair of lovers who generate enough steam heat to power a whole city.”

—RT Book Reviews on Hero Under Cover

“Brockmann deftly delivers another testosterone-drenched, adrenaline-fuelled tale of danger and desire that brilliantly combines superbly crafted, realistically complex characters with white-knuckle plotting.”

—Booklist on Force of Nature

“Readers will be on the edge of their seats.”

—Library Journal on Breaking Point

“Another excellently paced, action-filled read. Brockmann delivers yet again!”

—RT Book Reviews on Into the Storm

“Funny, sexy, suspenseful, and superb.”

—Booklist on Hot Target

“Sizzling with military intrigue and sexual tension, with characters so vivid they leap right off the page, Gone Too Far is a bold, brassy read with a momentum that just doesn’t quit.”

—New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen

“An unusual and compelling romance.”

—Affaire de Coeur on No Ordinary Man

“Sensational sizzle, powerful emotion and sheer fun.”

—RT Book Reviews on Body Language




Tall, Dark and Daring

The Admiral’s Bride

Identity: Unknown

Suzanne Brockmann







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)



The Admiral’s Bride


For Nancy Peeler.

We miss you guys!




PROLOGUE


Vietnam, 1969

SERGEANT MATTHEW LANGE had been left to die.

His leg was badly broken and he had shrapnel embedded in his entire right side. It hadn’t hit anything vital. He knew, because he’d been hit hours ago and he wasn’t dead yet. And that was almost a shame.

His morphine wasn’t working. He not only hurt like hell but he was still alert enough to know what was coming.

The soldier next to him knew, too. He lay there, crying softly. Jim was his name. Jimmy D’Angelo. He was just a kid, really—barely eighteen—and he wasn’t going to get any older.

None of them were.

There were a dozen of them there, United States Marines, hiding and bleeding in the jungle of a country too small to have been mentioned in fifth-grade geography class. They were too badly injured to walk out, but most of ‘em were still conscious, still alive enough to know that sometime within the next few hours, they were going to die.

Charlie was coming.

Probably right before dawn.

The Vietcong had launched a major offensive yesterday morning, and Matt’s platoon had been one of several trapped by the attack. They were now God knows how many clicks behind enemy lines, with no chance of rescue.

Hours ago, Captain Tyler had radioed for help, but help wasn’t coming. There were no chopper pilots insane enough to fly into this hot spot. They were on their own.

But then the bomb dropped—close to literally. Well, at least it would be dropping literally, come morning. The captain had been ordered out of the area. He was told that in an attempt to halt the Vietcong, the Americans would be napalming this very mountain in less than twelve hours.

There had been twenty injured men. They’d outnumbered the uninjured by more than two to one.

Captain Tyler had played God, choosing the eight least wounded to drag out of there. He’d looked at Matt, looked at his leg, and he’d shaken his head. No. He’d had tears in his eyes, not that that helped much now.

Father O’Brien had been the only one to stay behind.

Matt could hear his quiet voice, murmuring words of comfort to the dying men.

If Charlie found them, he’d use bayonets to kill them. He wouldn’t want to waste bullets on men who couldn’t fight back. And Matt couldn’t fight back. His right arm was useless, his left too weak to shoulder his weapon. Most of the other guys were worse than he was. And he couldn’t picture Father O’Brien picking up someone’s machine gun and giving Charlie a mouthful of lead.

No, bayonets or burning. That’s what their future had come down to.

Matt felt like weeping along with Jimmy.

“Sarge?”

“Yeah, Jim. I’m still here.” Like Matt might’ve walked away.

“You have a family, don’t you?”

Matt closed his eyes, picturing Lisa’s sweet face. “Yeah,” he said. “I do. Back in New Haven. Connecticut.” He might as well have said Mars, it seemed as far away. “I got two boys. Matt, Jr., and Mikey.” Lisa had wanted a little girl. A daughter. He’d always thought there’d be plenty of time for that later.

He’d been wrong.

“You’re lucky.” Jimmy’s voice shook. “I don’t have anyone besides my ma who’s gonna remember me. My poor ma.” He started to cry again. “Oh, God, I want my ma….”

Father O’Brien came over, but his calm voice didn’t cover Jimmy’s sobbing. The poor bastard wanted his ma.

Matt wanted Lisa. It was the stupidest thing. When he’d been there, back in that stifling little crummy two-bedroom apartment in one of the worst neighborhoods in New Haven, he’d thought he’d go absolutely mad. He hated working as a mechanic, hated the way his money was already spent on groceries and rent before he even brought home his paycheck. So he’d re-upped. He’d told Lisa he’d reenlisted for the money, but the real truth was he’d wanted to get the hell out of there before he suffocated. And he’d left, even though she’d cried.

He’d married too young—not that he’d had a real choice about it. And he’d liked it, at first. Lisa, in his bed every night. No need to worry about getting her pregnant, since he’d already done that. He’d loved the way she’d grown heavy with child, with his child. It made him feel like a man, even though at twenty-two, fresh out of the service, he’d been little more than a child himself. But when the second baby had come right after the first, the weight of his responsibilities had scared him to death.

So he’d left. He’d come here, to Nam.

It was much different from his first tour, when he’d been stationed in Germany.

And right now all he wanted was to be back in Lisa’s arms. He was the stupidest fool in the world—he didn’t realize how much he had, how much he truly loved that girl, his wife, until he was hours away from dying.

Bayonets or burning. “Dear God.”

Father O’Brien’s soft voice had quieted Jimmy, and he now turned to Matt. “Sergeant—Matthew. Would you like to pray?”

“No, Father,” he said.

Not even prayer could help them now.

“THEIR CAPTAIN JUST LEFT them there?” Lieutenant Jake Robinson kept his voice even, kept his voice low, even though he absolutely could not believe what his chief had just told him. Wounded marines, left behind by their CO in the jungle to die. “And now the good guys are going to finish them off with friendly fire?”

Ham nodded, his headphones still plugged into the radio, his dark eyes grim. “It’s not as heartless as you’re thinkin’, Admiral. There’s only a dozen or so of them. If Charlie isn’t stopped before he gets to the river, we’ll have casualties in the thousands. You know that.” He spoke in a barely audible voice, too.

The enemy was all around them tonight. And well they should know. Jake’s team of Men with Green Faces, U.S. Navy SEALs, had spent the past twenty-four hours marking the Vietcongs’ location in this target area. They’d radioed the info in and now had exactly four hours to get out before the bombing raid began.

“Only a dozen men,” Jake said. “Or so. Any chance of giving me an exact number, Chief?”

“Twelve wounded, one priest.”

Fred and Chuck materialized from the jungle. “Only nine wounded now,” Fred corrected him in his soft Southern drawl. “We found ‘em, Admiral. Near a clearing, like they hoped a chopper would be able to come in and grab ‘em. Didn’t approach—didn’t want to get their hopes up if we didn’t think we could help. What we could see, three of ‘em are already KIA.”

KIA. Killed in action. It was one of Jake’s least favorite acronyms. Along with POW and MIA. But he didn’t let his aversion show on his face. He never let anything like that show. His men didn’t need to know when he was shaken. And this one had shaken him, hard. The commanders-in-chief knew those men were there. U.S. Marines. Good men. Brave men. And those commanders had given the order to proceed with the bombing regardless.

He met Ham’s eyes and read the skepticism there.

“We’ve pulled off some tough missions before,” Jake said. His words were as much to convince himself.

Ham shook his head. “Nine wounded men and seven SEALs,” he said. “Against thirty-five-hundred Vietcong? Come on, Lieutenant.” The chief didn’t need to say what he was thinking. This wasn’t just a tough mission, it was insanity.

And the chief had called Jake by his true rank, a sign of his disapproval. It was funny how accustomed he’d become to the nickname this team of SEALs had given him—Admiral. It was the ultimate expression of respect from this motley crew, particularly since he’d gone through BUD/S cursed with the label Pretty Boy, PB for short. Yeah, he liked Admiral much better.

Fred and Chuck were watching him. So were Scooter and the Preacher and Ricky. Waiting for his command. At age twenty-two, Jake was one of the two old men of the team—a full lieutenant having served three back-to-back tours of duty in this hell on earth. Ham, his chief, had been there with him for the last two. Steady as a rock and, at twenty-seven years of age, as gnarled and ancient as the hills. But he’d never questioned Jake’s authority.

Until now.

Jake smiled. “Nine wounded men, seven SEALs and one priest,” he pointed out lightly. “Don’t forget the priest, Ham. Always good to have one of them on our side.”

Fred snickered, but Ham’s expression didn’t change.

“I wouldn’t leave you to die,” Jake quietly told the man who was the closest thing to a friend he had in this armpit of a jungle. “I will not leave those men out there.”

Jake didn’t wait for Ham’s response, because frankly, Ham’s response didn’t matter. He didn’t need his chief’s approval. This wasn’t a democracy. Jake and Jake alone was in command.

He met Fred’s eyes, then Scooter’s and Preacher’s and Ricky’s and Chuck’s, infusing them all with his confidence, letting them see his complete faith in their ability as a SEAL team to pull off this impossible task.

Leaving those poor bastards to die was not an option. Jake couldn’t do it. Jake wouldn’t do it.

He turned to Ham. “Get on the radio, Chief, and find Crazy Ruben. If anyone’ll fly a chopper in this deep, it’ll be him. Pull in all those favors he owes me, promise him air support, and then get on the wire and get it for him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jake turned to Fred. “Go back there and get their hopes up. Get them ready to move, then get your ass back here on the double.” He smiled again, his best picnic-in-the-park smile. The one that made men under command believe they’d live to see another sunrise. “The rest of you gentlemen get ready to cut some very long fuses. Because I’ve got one hell of a plan.”

“THEY MUSTA PARACHUTED IN!” Jimmy had real excitement in his voice. “Listen to that, Sarge! How many of ‘em do you think are out there?”

Matt painfully pulled himself up, trying to see something, anything in the darkness of the jungle. But all he could see were the flashes in the sky from an enormous battle just off to the west. Deep in VC territory. “God, there must be hundreds.”

Even as he said the words he couldn’t believe it. Hundreds of American soldiers, appearing out of nowhere?

“They had to’ve dropped ‘em in,” Jimmy said again.

It seemed impossible, but it must have been true—because there came the air support, then, big planes screaming overhead, dropping all kinds of nasty surprises on Charlie.

Two hours ago a big, dark-skinned man had appeared, rising out of the jungle like an apparition, his face savagely painted with green and brown, a cammy-print bandanna tied neatly around the top of his head. He’d ID’d himself as Seaman Fred Baxter of the U.S. Navy SEALs.

Matt had highest rank among the men left behind, and had asked what the hell a sailor was doing this far inland?

Apparently there was a whole group of sailors out there in the jungle. A team, Baxter had said. Jake’s team, he’d called them, as if that meant something—whoever the hell Jake was. And they were going to get Matt and Jimmy and the rest of ‘em out of there. Stand ready for extraction, Baxter had said, and he’d disappeared.

Matt had been left wondering if the entire conversation hadn’t been some weird morphine hallucination. Seals. Who would name a special forces group after a circus animal? And how the hell was an entire team of them going to get out of the jungle with nine wounded men?

“I’ve heard of the SEALs,” Jimmy said, as if he’d somehow been able to follow Matt’s drug-hazed thoughts. “They’re some kind of demolitions experts. Even underwater, if you can believe that. And they’re kinda like ninjas—they can move right past Charlie—within feet of Charlie—without being seen. They go miles behind the line in teams of six or seven men and blow stuff up. And I don’t know what kind of voodoo they use, but they always come back alive. Always.”

Six or seven men. Matt looked up at the flashes of explosions lighting the sky. Demolitions experts … No. Couldn’t be.

Could it?

“Chopper!” Father O’Brien shouted. “Praise our Lord God Almighty!”

The roar was unmistakable. The hurricane-force wind from the blades felt like a miracle. Holy Jesus, they actually had a chance.

Tears were running down the padre’s round face as he helped the medics lift the wounded men up and into the chopper. Matt couldn’t hear him over the roar, over the sound of weapons discharging as the men with green faces suddenly appeared, keeping Charlie back, away from the clearing. Matt didn’t need to hear O’Brien to know that his mouth was moving in a continuous prayer of thanks.

But Matt wasn’t Catholic, and they hadn’t made it out yet.

Someone lifted him up and the sudden knifelike pain in his leg made him scream.

“Sorry, Sergeant.” The voice held the quiet confidence of a seasoned officer. “No time to ask where it hurts.”

And then the pain was worth it, because he was inside, his cheek pressed against the olive-drab U.S.-made riveted metal of the chopper floor. And then they were lifting up and away, on an express flight out of hell.

But fear cut through his waves of relief. Dear God, don’t let them have left anyone behind!

He forced himself over, onto his back, and the pain nearly made him retch. “Head count!” he somehow managed to shout.

“We got all of you, Sarge.” It was the steady voice of the man who’d carried him aboard. He was crouched by the open doorway, a grenade launcher in his arms, aiming and firing even as he spoke. He was younger than Matt had imagined from his voice. He wore no insignia, no rank, no markings on his camouflage gear at all. Like the other SEALs, his face was streaked with green and brown, but as he turned to glance over his shoulder at the wounded men, Matt could see his eyes. They were an almost startling shade of blue. And as he met Matt’s gaze, he smiled.

It wasn’t a tense, tight grimace laced with fear. And it wasn’t a wolfish expression of adrenaline-induced high. It was a calm, relaxed, “let’s get together and play softball sometime” kind of smile.

“We got everyone,” he shouted again, no room for doubt in his voice. “Hold on, Sergeant, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, but we will get you out, and we will get you home.”

When he said it like that, as if it were an absolute truth, even Matt could believe him.

THE HOSPITAL WAS THE PITS, filled with pain and stink and death, but Matt knew he was only going to be there a little while longer.

He’d been given his orders, his medical discharge. He was going home to Lisa.

He was going to walk with a limp, probably for the rest of his life, but the doctors had managed to save his leg. Not bad for a guy who’d been left for dead.

“You’re looking much better today.” The nurse that stopped by his bed and checked his leg was a pretty brunette with two deep dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. “I’m Constance. You can call me Connie for short.”

He hadn’t seen her before, but he’d only been here about forty-eight hours. He’d spent most of that time in surgery and recovery.

“Oh, you’re one of Jake’s Boys,” Connie said as she checked his chart, her Georgia peaches-and-cream accent suddenly hushed with respect.

“No,” he said, “I’m not a SEAL. I’m a sergeant with—”

“I know you’re not a SEAL, silly.” She dimpled up again. “Jake’s SEALs don’t turn up in our hospital beds. We sometimes have to give them extra penicillin, but perhaps I shouldn’t mention that in mixed company.” She winked.

Matt was confused. “But you said—”

“Jake’s Boys,” she repeated. “That’s what we call you—the wounded men that Lieutenant Jake Robinson brings in. Someone started keeping count here at the hospital about eight months ago.”

At his blank look, she tried to explain. “Jake has developed the habit of resurrecting U.S. soldiers from the dead, Sergeant. Last month, his team liberated an entire prisoner-of-war camp. Don’t ask me how, but Jake and his team came out of that jungle with seventy-five POWs, each one looking worse than the last. I swear, I cried for a week when I saw those poor souls.” She shook her head. “I think there were ten of you this time, weren’t there? Jake’s up to … let’s see … I think it’s four hundred and twenty-seven now.” She dimpled again. “Although if you ask me, he should get extra points for the priest.”

“Four hundred and …”

“Twenty-seven.” Connie nodded, taking his blood pressure, her touch businesslike, impersonal. “All of whom owe their lives to him. Of course, we only started counting eight months ago. He’s been in-country much longer.”

“A lieutenant, huh?” Matt mused. “My captain couldn’t get even get one single chopper to fly in to pull us out.”

Connie bristled. “Your captain is a word I will not use because I am a lady. Shame on him for leaving you boys that way. He better not come to this hospital for his annual checkup. There are a dozen doctors and nurses who are dying to get a chance to tell him to turn his head and cough.”

Matt laughed, but then winced. “Captain Tyler tried,” he said. “I was there. I know he tried. That’s what I don’t understand. How could this lieutenant make things happen when a captain couldn’t?”

“Well, you know Jake’s nickname.” Connie looked up from her gentle but methodical checking of his shrapnel wounds. “Or maybe you don’t. His teammates call him Admiral. And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he made it to that rank someday. He’s got something about him. Oh, yes, there’s something very special in those blue eyes.”

Blue eyes. “I think I met him,” Matt said.

“Sergeant, you wouldn’t just think it if you’d met him. You’d know it. He has a face like a movie star and a smile that makes you want to follow him just about anywhere.” She sighed, then smiled again. “Oh, my. I am getting myself worked up over that young man, aren’t I?”

Matt had to know. “So how did a lieutenant manage to get all those soldiers dropped into the area? There must’ve been hundreds of them, and—”

Connie laughed but then stopped, her eyes widening as she looked at him. “My goodness,” she said. “You don’t know, do you? When I heard about it, I didn’t quite believe it, but if they managed to fool you, too …”

Matt just waited for her to explain.

“It was a ruse,” she said. “Jake and his SEALs rigged a chain of explosives to fool the VC into thinking we’d launched a counteroffensive. It was just a distraction so he could get Captain Ruben’s chopper in to pull you out. There weren’t hundreds of soldiers in that jungle, Sergeant. What you saw and heard was solely the handiwork of seven U.S. Navy SEALs, led by one Lieutenant Jake Robinson.”

Matt was floored. Seven SEALs had made him believe there was a huge army out there in the darkness.

Connie’s dimples deepened. “Gracious, that man might be more than an admiral someday. He just might go all the way and become our president.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively. “I’d give him my vote, that’s for sure.”

She made a note on Matt’s chart, about to move on to the next bed.

“Connie?”

She turned back patiently. “Sergeant, I can’t give you anything for the pain for another few hours.”

“No, that’s not … I was just wondering. Does he ever come around here? Lieutenant Robinson, I mean. I’d like to thank him.”

“First off,” she said. “As one of Jake’s Boys, you and he are on a first-name basis. And secondly, no. You won’t see him around here. He’s already back out there, Sergeant. He’s sleeping in the jungle tonight—that is, if he’s sleeping at all.”




CHAPTER ONE


Washington, D.C., today

THE PENTAGON.

Dr. Zoe Lange gazed out the window of the limo as the driver pulled up to the Pentagon.

Damn.

She was way underdressed.

Her boss, Patrick Sullivan, had told her only that she was a candidate for an important and potentially long-term assignment. Zoe had figured that appropriate dress for such a meeting meant comfortable—blue jeans, running shoes, a T-shirt with a little blue flower print, and hardly any makeup. She was who she was, after all. If she were going to join a long-term mission, everyone might as well know exactly what to expect right from the start.

She didn’t dress up unless she had to.

Unless she were going someplace like, oh, say, the Pentagon.

If she’d known she was coming to the Pentagon, she would have put on her skintight black cat suit, her three-inch heels, dark red lipstick and worn her long blond hair in some kind of fancy French braid, rather than this high-school cheerleader ponytail she was wearing. Because men in the military tended to think female agents who looked like Emma Peel or one of James Bond’s babes could hold their own when the going got tough. But little blue flowers, nuh-uh. Little blue flowers meant they’d have to hand her hankies to mop her frightened tears. Never mind the fact that little blue flowers didn’t compromise her ability to run hard and fast, the way three-inch heels did.

Well, okay. She was here now. The little blue flowers were going to have to do.

She put on her sunglasses and picked up her oversize handbag that doubled as a briefcase and let herself be escorted by the guards into the building, through all the security checkpoints and into a waiting elevator.

Down. They headed down, further even than the B that marked the basement floor. Even though no more letters or numbers flashed on the display over the door, they kept sinking. What could possibly be this far down besides hell?

Zoe smiled tightly at the idea of being summoned for a meeting with the devil himself. In her line of business, it was entirely possible. She just hadn’t expected to meet him here in D.C.

Finally the elevator stopped and the doors opened with a subdued chime.

The hallway was a clean off-white and very bright, not the dimly lit, smoky magentas and red-oranges of hell. The guards waiting for her outside didn’t carry pitchforks. Instead they wore naval uniforms. Navy, huh? Hmm, wasn’t that interesting?

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Clones One and Two led her down that nondescript corridor, through countless doors that opened and closed automatically. Maxwell Smart would’ve been right at home.

“Where are we heading, boys?” Zoe asked. “To the Cone of Silence?”

One of the lieutenants looked back at her blankly, either too young or too serious to have seen all those late-night Get Smart reruns she’d watched as a kid.

But as they stopped at an unmarked doorway, Zoe realized her joking question had been right on the mark. The door was ridiculously thick, reinforced with steel, layered with everything else—lead included, no doubt—that would render the room within completely spy-proof. No infrared satellites could look through these walls and see who was inside. No high-powered microphones could listen in. Nothing that was said inside could be recorded or overheard.

It was, indeed, the equivalent of Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence.

The outer door—and it was only the first of three she passed through—closed with a thunk, followed by the second. The third door was like a hatch on a ship—she had to step over a rim to get inside. It, too, was sealed tightly behind her.

Apparently, she was the last to arrive.

The inner chamber was not a big room. It was barely sixteen by thirteen, and it was filled with men. Big men, wearing gleaming white naval dress uniforms. The glare was intense. Zoe resisted the urge to pull her sunglasses down from where she’d pushed them atop her head as they all turned to look at her, as they all rose to their feet in a unison display of chivalry.

She looked at them, scanning their faces, looking for someone, anyone familiar. The best she could do was count heads—fourteen—and sort through the various ranks on their uniforms.

“Please,” she said, with her best professional smile. “Gentlemen. No need to stand on my account.”

There were two enlisted men, four lieutenants, one senior chief, two commanders, a captain, a rear admiral lower grade and three—count ‘em, three—full-grade admirals, complete with scrambled eggs on the hats that were on the table in front of them.

Seven of the men were active-duty SEALs. Two of the admirals wore budweisers, as well—the SEAL pin with an anchor and an eagle in flight gripping Poseidon’s pitchfork in one talon and a stylized gun in the other—which meant they’d been SEALs at one time during their long military careers.

One of the SEALs—a blond lieutenant with an even, white-toothed smile and a much too handsome face, who looked as if he might’ve come straight from the set of Baywatch—pulled out a chair for her. Nodding her thanks, she sat next to him.

“Name’s Luke O’Donlon,” he whispered, holding out his hand.

She shook it quickly, absently, smiling briefly at both O’Donlon and the SEAL on her other side, an enormous African-American man with a shaved head, a diamond stud in his left ear and a wide gold wedding band on his ring finger. As she set her bag down in front of her, her attention was held by the men on the other side of the big table.

Three admirals. Holy Mike. Whatever this assignment was, it required this spy-proof room and three full-grade admirals to launch it.

The admiral without the budweiser had snow-white hair and a face set in a permanent expression of disgust—as if he carried bad fish in his inside jacket pocket. Stonegate, that was his name. Zoe recognized him from his newspaper picture. He was always showing up in the Washington Post. He was part politician, something she didn’t quite approve of in a man of his rank and standing.

Beside her, O’Donlon cleared his throat and gave her his most winsome smile. He was just too cute, and he knew it, too. “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m afraid that info’s need-to-know,” she whispered back, “and probably beyond your security clearance level. Sorry, sailor.”

The senior chief next to her overheard and deftly covered his laughter with a cough.

The admiral who had reclaimed his seat next to Stonegate had a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair. Admiral Mac Forrest. Definitely a cool guy. She’d met him at least twice in the Middle East, the last time just a few months ago. He nodded and smiled as she met his eyes.

The admiral on Mac’s left—the man directly across the table from her—was still standing, his face hidden as he quickly rifled through a file. “Now that we’re all here,” he said, “why don’t we get started.”

He looked up then, and Zoe found herself looking into eyes that were amazingly, impossibly blue, into a face she would’ve recognized anywhere.

Jake Robinson.

The one and only Admiral Jake Robinson.

Zoe knew he was in his early fifties—he had to be unless he’d performed his heroics in Vietnam as a twelve-year-old. Still, his hair was thick and dark, and the lines around his eyes and mouth only served to give his handsome face strength and maturity.

And handsome was a complete understatement. Jake Robinson was way beyond handsome. He needed a completely new word invented to describe the sheer beauty of his face. His mouth was elegant, gracefully shaped and ready to quirk up into a smile. His nose was masculine perfection, his cheekbones exquisite, his forehead strong. His chin was just the right amount of stubborn, his jawline still sharp.

Lieutenant Cutie-Pie sitting next to her—now he was merely handsome. Jake Robinson, on the other hand, was the Real Deal.

He was looking around the table, quickly making introductions that Zoe knew were mostly for her benefit. Everyone else here knew each other. She tried to listen. The two enlisted SEALs were Skelly and Taylor. One was built like a pro football linebacker, the other looked like Popeye the sailor man. Which was which, she didn’t have a clue. The African-American senior chief was named Becker. She’d met O’Donlon. Hawken, Shaw, Jones. Try as she might to memorize names, to attach them permanently to faces, she couldn’t do it.

She was too busy flashing hot and cold.

Jake Robinson.

Great glorious God, she was being given a chance to work a long-term assignment under the command of a living legend. His exploits in Vietnam were legendary—along with his more recent creation of the Gray Group. Robinson’s Gray Group was so highly classified, so top secret, she could only guess the type of assignments he handed out. But she could guess. Dangerous. Covert. Intensely important to national security.

And she was going to be part of one.

Zoe’s heart was pounding as if she had just run five miles. She took a deep breath, calming herself as the admiral introduced her to the rest of the room. By the time fourteen pairs of very male eyes focused on her, she was completely back in control. Calm. Cool. Collected. Positively serene.

Except thirteen of those fourteen pairs of very male eyes didn’t seem to notice how absolutely serene she was. Instead, they all focused on her ponytail and her little blue flowers. She could read their speculation quite clearly. She was the secretary, right? Sent in to take notes while the big strong men talked.

Guess again, boys.

“Dr. Zoe Lange is one of the top experts in the country—possibly in the world—in biological and chemical weapons,” Jake Robinson told them in his husky baritone voice.

Around the room, eyebrows went up. Zoe could almost smell the skepticism. Across the table, the admiral’s eyes were sparkling with amusement. Clearly, the skepticism’s stench was strong enough for him to smell it, as well.

“Dr. Lange works for Pat Sullivan,” he added matter-of-factly, and the mood in the room instantly changed. The Agency. He didn’t even need to say the name of the organization. They all knew what it was—and what she did for a living. Admiral Robinson had known exactly what to say to make them all sit up and take notice of her, little blue flowers or not. She sent him a smile of thanks.

“I truly appreciate your being able to join us here today, Doctor.” The admiral smiled at her, and it was all Zoe could do not to melt at his feet.

It was true. Everything she’d ever read or heard about Jake Robinson’s smile was absolutely true. It was warm and genuine. It was completely inclusive. It lit him from within, made his eyes even more blue. It made her want to follow him anywhere. Anywhere.

“It’s my pleasure, Admiral,” she murmured. “I’m honored that you invited me. I hope I can be of assistance.”

“Actually—” his face sobered “—it’s unfortunate that we need your assistance.” He looked around the table, all amusement gone from his eyes. “Two weeks ago, there was a break-in at the Arches military testing lab just outside of Boulder, Colorado.”

Zoe stopped watching the man’s eyes and started paying attention to his words. A break-in. At Arches. Holy Mike.

She wasn’t the only one shifting uneasily in her seat. Beside her, Senior Chief Becker was downright uncomfortable, as were most of the other SEALs. Like Zoe, they all knew what was tested at Arches. They all knew what was stored there, as well. Anthrax. Botulinum toxin. Sarin. The lethal nerve gas VX. And the newest manmade tool of death and chemical destruction, Triple X.

The last time Zoe had been in Arches, she’d written a hundred-and-fifty-page report on the weaknesses in their security system. She wondered now if anyone at all had bothered to read it.

“The break-in was done without force, without forced entry, even,” the admiral continued. “Six canisters of a deadly nerve agent were removed and replaced—it was only by dumb luck we discovered the switch.”

Zoe couldn’t stand it a minute longer. “Admiral, what exactly was taken?”

Stonegate and several of the other high-ranking officers were looking at her as if she deserved to get her mouth washed for speaking out of order. But she didn’t give a damn. She needed to know. And Jake Robinson didn’t seem to mind.

He met her gaze steadily, and she saw the answer in his eyes even before he opened his mouth to speak. It was the worst possible scenario she could imagine.

Trip X. Six canisters? Oh, God.

She realized she’d said the words aloud as he nodded. “Oh, God is right,” he agreed with rather grim humor.

“Dr. Lange, perhaps I could impose upon you to explain exactly what Triple X is, as well as our options for dealing with this little problem.”

Little problem? Holy Mike, this was no little problem. “Our options for dealing with it are extremely simple, sir,” she said. “We have only one option—there are no choices here. We need to find and regain possession of the missing canisters. Believe me, gentlemen, Triple X is not something we want floating around out there. And particularly not six canisters’ worth.” She looked at the admiral. “How in God’s name did this happen?”

“How’s not important right now,” he told her almost gently. “Right now we need to focus on what. Please continue, Doctor.”

Zoe nodded. The thought of six canisters of Triple X set loose on the unsuspecting world made her blood feel like ice water as it flowed through her veins. It was terrifying. And she wasn’t used to feeling terrified, even though her job was a frightening one most of the time. She spent hours upon hours learning the awful details of all the different weapons of mass destruction that were out there, ready to wreak havoc on the planet. But she’d learned to sleep dreamlessly at night, untouched by nightmares. She’d learned to sit impassively while reading reports of countries that tested chemical weapons on prisoners and the infirm. Women and children.

But six missing canisters of Trip X …

That scared her to death.

Still, she took a deep breath and stood up, because she’d also learned how to give tight, to-the-point, emotionless information even when she was badly shaken.

“Triple X is currently the nastiest chemical weapon in the world,” she reported. “It’s twenty times more potent than the nerve agent VX, and like VX, it kills by paralysis. Get a noseful of Triple X, gentlemen, and you choke to death, because your lungs, like the other muscles in your body, slowly seize up. Trip X or Tri X or T-X. It’s all the same thing—airborne death.”

Zoe moved around the table to the whiteboard that was on the wall behind Admiral Robinson. She picked up a marker and scribbled the two chemical components on the board, labeling them A and B.

“Trip X is a triple compound, which makes it far more stable to store and transport. It also makes it far more adaptable as a weapon.” She pointed to the board. “These two compounds are stored dry, in powder forms that are, on their own, relatively harmless. But just like Betty Crocker’s dromedary gingerbread mix, just add water. And then it’s time to put your gas mask on. Instant poison. It’s that easy, boys. You get me two balloons, about a teaspoonful each of Trip X compounds A and B, both harmless in dried form, remember, and a little H


O laced with some acid or lye, and I can make a weapon that will take out this entire building—the entire Pentagon—as well as a good number of people on the street. Water sealed in one balloon, which is tucked inside of the other, which is also filled with air and that little bit of compounds A and B. A little acid or lye in the water eats through the rubber. Balloon springs a leak, water hits old A and B. It causes a chemical reaction that creates both a liquid and a gaseous form of Triple X, sending it out into the air, and eventually through the building’s ventilation system, killing everyone who comes into contact with it.”

The room was dead silent as she put the marker down.

Jake Robinson had taken his seat as she’d started her little lecture, turning to face her as she’d stood in front of the whiteboard. She was directly in front of him now. He was close enough to reach out and touch. And smell. He wore a subtle amount of Polo Sport—just enough to smell completely delicious.

She drew in a deep breath to steady herself—and to remind herself that although her world was fraught with evil, there was good in it, too. It held men like Jake Robinson.

“That’s what two teaspoons of Trip X can do, gentlemen,” she said. “As for six canisters …” She shook her head.

“I know it’s hard to imagine a disaster of this magnitude,” the admiral said quietly, “but in your opinion, how many thermos-size canisters would it take to wipe out this city?”

“Washington, D.C.?” Zoe chewed her lower lip. “Rough guess? Four? Depending on which way the wind was blowing.”

He nodded. Clearly he’d already known that. And six were missing.

She looked around the room. “Any other questions?”

Senior Chief Becker lifted his hand. “You said our only option was to find the Triple X and regain possession of it. Is there any way to destroy it?”

“The two powders can be burned,” she told him with a tight smile. “Just don’t put the fire out with water.”

Lieutenant O’Donlon raised his hand. “I have a question for Admiral Robinson. After two weeks, sir, you must have some idea who was behind the theft.”

The admiral stood up. He towered over her by a solid six inches. She started toward her seat, but he caught her elbow, his fingers warm against her bare skin. “Stay,” he commanded softly.

She nodded. “Of course, sir.”

“We have identified the terrorist group that stole the Trip X,” Jake told them, “and we also believe we’ve found the location of the missing canisters.”

Everyone started talking at once.

“That’s great,” Zoe said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not as great as it sounds,” the admiral told her in a low voice. “Nothing’s ever that easy.”

“When do we ship out?” she asked just as quietly. “I’m guessing our destination is somewhere in the Middle East.”

“Guess again, Doctor. And maybe you should wait for all the facts and details before you agree to sign on. I’ve got a feeling you’re not going to like this assignment very much.”

Zoe met his steady gaze with an equal air of calm. “I don’t need to know the details. I’m all yours—if you’ll have me.”

It wasn’t until the words left her mouth that she realized how dreadfully suggestive they were.

But then she thought, why not? She was attracted to this man on virtually every level. Why not let him know it?

But something shifted in his eyes, something unidentifiable flitted across his face, and she realized in another flash that he wore a wedding band on his left hand.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said swiftly. “I didn’t mean for that to sound—”

His smile was crooked. “It’s okay, I know what you meant. It’s a juicy assignment. But you won’t be going to the Middle East.” He turned and knocked on the table to regain the room’s attention. “The terrorists who took the Triple X live right here in the United States. We’ve traced the canisters to their stronghold in Montana. They’re U.S. citizens, although they’re trying hard to secede from the union. They’re led by a man named Christopher Vincent, and they call themselves the CRO, or the Chosen Race Organization.”

The CRO.

The admiral glanced at her, and Zoe nodded. She knew all about the CRO. And this was what he’d meant about waiting to find out the details. The CRO was mysogynistic as well as being neo-Nazi, antigovernment and downright vicious. If Jake Robinson’s plan was to send her into the CRO fortress as part of an undercover team assigned to retrieve the Trip X, it wasn’t going to be fun. Women were treated little better than slaves in the CRO. They served, silently, tirelessly, unquestioningly. They were treated as possessions by their husbands and fathers. And they frequently were physically abused.

Jake was passing around satellite photos of the CRO headquarters—a former factory nestled in the hills about two miles outside of the tiny town of Belle, Montana. Zoe was familiar with the pictures, and with the extensive high-tech security the independently wealthy CRO leader, Christopher Vincent, had set up around the place.

If the lab in Arches had had even half the security of the CRO headquarters, this wouldn’t have happened.

“We don’t want to get in by force,” the admiral was saying. “That’s not even an option worth considering at this point.”

Admiral Stonegate spoke up. “Why not simply evacuate the surrounding towns and bomb the hell out of the bastards?”

Admiral Forrest rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Jake,” he said. “That worked so well at Waco.”

“Surround ‘em, then,” Stonegate suggested, unthwarted and possibly even unaware of Mac Forrest’s sarcasm. “Give our soldiers gas masks and let the CRO use the Triple X to wipe themselves out.”

Admiral Robinson turned to Zoe as if he’d sensed her desire to respond.

“There are a number of reasons we wouldn’t want to risk that,” Zoe explained. “For one, if they waited for the right weather conditions—strong winds or even rain—the amount of Trip X they’ve got could take out more than just the immediately surrounding area. And then there’s the matter of runoff. We don’t know what would happen if that much Trip X got into the groundwater. We don’t have enough data to know the dilution point—or, to be perfectly honest, if there even is a dilution point.” The room was silent, and Zoe knew they were all imagining a lethal poison spreading through the groundwater of the country, making its way down to the Colorado River…. She took a deep breath. “I’ll say it again, gentlemen, our sole option in this situation is to retrieve—or destroy—the six canisters of Triple X in its powder form.”

“My plan is to continue surveillance,” Admiral Robinson said. “I’ve already got teams in place, watching the CRO fort, trailing everyone who goes outside of their gates. We’ll continue to do that, but we’ll also be sending someone inside to track down the exact whereabouts of the Triple X. That’s not going to be easy. Only CRO members are allowed in.”

Senior Chief Becker lifted his hand. “Permission to speak, sir?”

“Please. If we’re going to work together as a team, let’s not stand on formality.”

Becker nodded, but when he spoke, it was clear he chose his words carefully. “I think it’s obvious that I’m not likely to be accepted as a member of the CRO any time in the near future. Seaman Taylor, here, either. And as for Crash—Lieutenant Hawken—his face may be the right shade of pale, but it’s only been a year since he was on the national news. He’s got to be too well-known. And while my intent is not to suggest that lieutenants O’Donlon, Jones and Shaw aren’t capable of a mission of this magnitude, sir, it seems to me we might want to have a team leader with more experience. I’m sure either Captain Catalanotto or Lieutenant Commander McCoy of Alpha Squad would appreciate the chance to be included in this op.”

The admiral listened carefully, waiting courteously until the senior chief had finished, despite the fact that Zoe could tell from his body language that everyone he wanted to be part of this operation was already right here in this room.

“I appreciate your thoughts, Senior Chief. And I’m aware of both Joe Cat and Blue McCoy’s well-deserved reputations.” He paused, glancing around the room before he casually dropped his bomb. “But I’ll be leading this team, hands-on, from out in the field. And I’ll be the one gaining entry into the CRO fort.”




CHAPTER TWO


JAKE LIFTED HIS HANDS, halting the words of outrage, doubt and concern. He was too old to go into the field. He was too out of touch. It had been years since he’d last been in the real world. It was too dangerous. What if he were killed? What if, what if, what if?

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I know Christopher Vincent. I met him about five years ago—he had a book published by the same company who released my wife’s art books. We met at a party in New York, and I talked to him for a very long time. He’s extremely dangerous, a complete megalomaniac. And it just so happens that he liked me. I know with a little help and the right cover story, I can get us inside.”

“Admiral, this is highly irregular and—”

Jake cut Stonegate off. “And six missing canisters of T-X isn’t?” He looked around the room. “I didn’t call you here to ask your permission. I run the Gray Group. I call the shots. And this is a Gray Group mission. The president gave me this assignment with a direct order not to fail. Those of you who haven’t worked for the Gray Group before need to know that I don’t take that order lightly. What I need right now from the SEALs and from Dr. Lange is to know whether or not you want to be part of my team.”

He hadn’t even put the final m on team before Zoe Lange spoke up, her clear alto voice ringing out into the room. “I’m in and I’m behind you one hundred percent, Admiral.”

She was just too cute, standing there in her blue jeans and blue-flowered T-shirt. She looked like a college student, but Jake knew better. She was Pat Sullivan’s top operative. She’d come highly recommended. She was bright, she was beautiful and she was so freshly young it almost hurt to look at her.

Her hair was blond, long and straight. She wore it in classic California-girl style, with no bangs to soften her face. But she had a face that didn’t need softening—it was already soft enough. She had baby-smooth skin, a face that was nearly a perfect oval, and equally perfect, delicately shaped features. From her fair skin and her light coloring, he’d expected her eyes to be blue. But they weren’t. She had brown eyes. Not a light, hazel shade of brown, but deep, dark chocolate brown.

Was it possible for someone with eyes that dark to be a natural blonde? He knew exactly how to find out.

I’m all yours—if you’ll have me.

Don’t go there, pal! She hadn’t meant it that way.

Jake focused his attention on his SEAL team. Harvard Becker. He’d never worked with the African-American senior chief, but when it came to electronic surveillance, he was the best. And right now Jake needed the best.

Seamen First Class Wesley Skelly, short and skinny, and Bobby Taylor, built double-wide, could’ve been any of the enlisted guys he knew back in Nam. Loyal to the bitter end, they drank too much, played too hard and were always right where you needed them, when you needed them. Right now, their loyalty was to Harvard, though, and they waited for their senior chief to nod his acceptance before they, too, agreed to sign on.

Lieutenant Billy Hawken, nicknamed Crash, was Jake’s wife, Daisy’s, cousin. Jake had helped raise him from the time the boy was ten. He thought of him as a son, but there was real reservation in the kid’s eyes as he gazed at Jake across the table. Are you sure you know what you’re doing? He could read the words in Billy’s eyes as clearly as if he’d spoken them aloud.

Jake nodded. Yeah. He knew exactly what he was doing. He’d thought about it long and hard. This was more than just an excuse to get back into the real world. Although—he couldn’t kid himself—he did want to do it just a little too much. Still, the timing was right and he trusted himself, trusted his instincts.

Billy turned to look at Lieutenant Mitchell Shaw, sitting on his right. Mitch and Billy had both worked for Jake’s Gray Group more times than any of them could count. Mitch had been there at the conception of the group. He’d been part of the first mission. At five feet ten, he was shorter than most of the other SEALs, lean and compact, with long, dark hair and hazel eyes that gave nothing away.

Including his doubt.

His silence broadcast that, though, loud and clear.

Jake knew how Mitch thought, and he could practically see the progression that led to the lieutenant’s short nod. He was in—but only because Mitch believed he and the rest of the SEALs would be able to keep Jake out of harm’s way.

Jake was going to have to set him straight, but not here, not now.

“I’m in,” Lieutenant Luke O’Donlon announced, his words echoed by Lieutenant Harlan Jones. Lucky and Cowboy. Both blond and blue-eyed, Jake had chosen them based on their fair-skinned complexions as well as their reputations. Both were hotshots, that title well earned, and both would be accepted into the CRO as easily as possible, if they had to go that way.

And that was that. He had his team. The SEALs had all agreed, if not quite as enthusiastically as Zoe Lange.

“Gather your gear, gentlemen—and Doctor,” Jake said, glancing at the young woman. “And prepare to meet at Andrews in two hours. Bring a sweater or two. We’re going to Montana.”

Senior Chief Harvard Becker was the first to reach the door. He hit the buzzer that signaled the guards in the outer chambers and the hatch swung open. The SEALs cleared out, none of them uttering another word.

They probably knew Admiral Stonegate would handle all the uttering necessary.

“I will be registering my official protest,” he told Jake stiffly. “An admiral’s place is not in the field. You are far too valuable to the U.S. Navy to put yourself into a position of such high risk that—”

“Didn’t you hear anything Dr. Lange said?” Jake asked the older man. “With the magnitude of this kind of potential disaster, we’re all expendable, Ron.”

“It’s been years since you’ve been in the field.”

“I’ve been keeping up,” Jake told him evenly.

“Mentally, perhaps, but physically, there’s just no way—”

Since he’d gotten out of the hospital, Jake had put himself into the best physical shape he’d been in since Vietnam. “I can keep up physically, too. Ron, you know, fifty-three’s just not that old—”

“Dammit, this is all John Glenn’s fault.”

Jake had to laugh. “Excuse me for laughing in your face, pal, but that’s ridiculous.”

Stonegate was offended. “I will be registering a protest.”

“You do that, Admiral,” Jake said, tired of the noise. “But not until this mission is over. Everything you’ve heard today in this room is top secret. You leak any of it—even in the form of a protest, and I will throw your narrow-minded, pointy ass in jail.”

Well, that did it.

Stonegate stormed out.

Mac Forrest followed. “And I’ll help,” he murmured to Jake with a wink. “Anything I can do, Jake, you just let me know.”

The room was finally empty.

Jake drew in a deep breath and let it all out in a rush as he collected and organized his notes and papers.

That had gone far better than he’d hoped. He’d been sure his age was going to be an insurmountable issue, that none of his first choice of SEALs would accept the assignment. He’d gone so far as to have his hair colored for the occasion, covering the silver at his temples with his regular shade of dark brown. He’d figured looking as young as possible couldn’t hurt.

And it had made him look younger, there was no doubt about it.

He’d liked the way his colored hair looked more than he cared to admit. But he had admitted it. He’d forced himself to confront the issue. He hated the thought of growing old. He’d fought it ever since he’d turned thirty with every breath he took, cutting red meat and high-cholesterol-inducing foods out of his diet. Eating health foods and seaweeds and exercising religiously every day. Aerobics. Weights. Running.

He hadn’t lied to Ron Stonegate. He was in top-notch, near-perfect shape, even for a man fifteen years his junior.

There was only one type of exercise he no longer participated in regularly and that was—

Jake closed his briefcase with a snap and turned around and found himself staring directly into Zoe Lange’s eyes.

Sex.

Yes, it had definitely been nearly three years since he’d last had sex.

Jake swallowed and forced a smile. “God, I’m sorry,” he said. “How long have you been standing there? I didn’t realize you were still in the room.”

She shifted her briefcase to her other hand, and Jake realized that she was nervous. He made Pat Sullivan’s top operative nervous.

The feeling was extremely mutual—but for what had to be an entirely different reason. He found her attractive, college-girl getup and all. Much too attractive.

“I just wanted to thank you again for including me in this assignment,” she said, all but stammering. She was trying so hard to be cool, but he knew otherwise.

“Let’s see if you’re still thanking me after you get an up-close look at the CRO compound.” Jake headed for the door to get away from her subtle, freshly sweet scent. She wasn’t wearing perfume. He had to guess it was her hair. Hair that would slip between his fingers like silk. If he were close enough to touch it. Which he wasn’t.

“I’ve spent years in the Middle East. At least I won’t have to walk around wearing a veil in Montana.” She followed, almost tripping over her own feet to keep up. “I’m just … I’m thrilled to be working with you, sir.”

He stopped in the corridor just outside the third door. There was no doubt about it. “You’ve read Scooter’s damn book.”

For seventeen years, that book had been coming back to haunt him. Scoot had written his memoirs about his time in Nam. Who knew the monosyllabic, conversationally challenged SEAL was a budding Hemingway? But he’d written Laughing in the Face of Fire both eloquently and gracefully. It was one of the few books on Nam that Jake had actually almost liked—except for the fact that Scooter had made Jake out to be some kind of demigod.

Zoe Lange had probably read the damn thing when she was twelve or thirteen—or at some other god-awful impressionable age—and no doubt had been carrying around some crazy idea of Lieutenant Jake Robinson, superhero, ever since.

“Well, yeah, I’ve read it,” she told him. “Of course I’ve read it.” She was looking at him the way a ten-year-old boy would look at Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa.

He hated it. Hero worship without a modicum of lust. What the hell had happened to him?

He’d turned fifty, that’s what. And children like Zoe Lange—who hadn’t even been born during his first few tours in Vietnam—thought of him as someone’s grandpa.

“Scooter exaggerated,” he said shortly, starting down the hall toward the elevators. He was mad at himself for giving a damn. So what if this girl didn’t see him as a man? It was better that way, considering they were going to be working together, considering he was not interested in getting involved with her. “Extensively.”

“Even if only ten percent of the stories he told were true, you would still be a hero.”

“There’s no such thing as a Vietnam war hero.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“Yeah? You can’t be a hero alone in a room. You need the crowd. The ticker-tape parade. The gorgeous blonde rushing the convertible to kiss you silly. I know—I’ve seen pictures of U.S. soldiers coming home after the Second World War. They sure as hell didn’t get egged by college students.”

“The Vietnam era was a confusing time in history.”

Jake winced. “History. Jeez, it wasn’t that long ago. Make me feel old, why don’t you?”

“I don’t think you’re old, Admiral.”

“Okay, then start by calling me Jake. You’re on my team, we’re going to get to know each other pretty well by the time this is over.” Jake stopped at the elevators and punched his security code into the keypad. “And I am old. I’ve been around a half a century, and I’ve seen more than my share of terrible, violent, monstrous acts. The things people do to each other appalls me. But I’m going to use that in my favor. Everything I’ve seen and learned is going to help me keep Chris Vincent and the CRO from doing some awful, permanent damage to this country that I love.”

She laughed. Her teeth were white and straight. “And you claim you’re not a hero.” The elevator doors slid open and she followed him inside. “I think you’re wrong. I think you can be a hero alone in a room. I think you would’ve shied away from the ticker-tape parade anyway.”

“Are you kidding? I would’ve eaten it up with a spoon.” He punched in the code that would take them to the ground floor. “Look, Doc, I appreciate your support, I do. Just … don’t believe everything you read in Scooter’s book.”

“Four hundred and twenty-seven.”

“Four hundred and twenty-seven what?”

“Men.”

His first thought was surely a sign that he’d had sex on his mind far too frequently of late. But there was no innuendo in Zoe Lange’s face, no hint of a suggestion in her eyes that she wanted Jake to be number four hundred and twenty-eight in a very, very long line. In fact, such a long line, it was preposterous. He tried not to laugh and failed. “I cannot begin to guess what you’re talking about. I mean, I’m trying, but …” He laughed again at his own cluelessness. “You’ve lost me, Doctor.”

“My father was number four hundred and twenty-seven,” she said quietly. “He’s one of Jake’s Boys.”

Jake didn’t know what to say.

It happened sometimes. Someone would come up to him with emotion brimming in their eyes and shake his hand, whispering that their husband or son or father was one of Jake’s Boys. As if he still had some kind of hold over them. Or as if, upon saving their lives, he’d somehow become responsible for them until the end of time.

He’d learned to be courteous and brief. He’d shake their hand, touch their shoulder, smile into their eyes and pretend he remembered Private This or Corporal That. The truth was, he didn’t remember any of them. The faces stuck in his mind were only of the men he hadn’t been able to save. The men who died, who were already dead. Empty eyes. All those awful, empty eyes …

“Sergeant Matthew Lange,” she told him. “He was with the forty-fifth—”

“I don’t remember him.” He couldn’t lie to this woman. Not if she was going to be on his team.

She didn’t even blink. “I didn’t expect you to, sir. He was only one out of hundreds.” She smiled and reached out to take his hand, to squeeze his fingers. “You know, I owe my life to you, as well. I wasn’t born until a year after he came home.”

Which meant her father was probably younger than Jake was.

Perfect.

His one completely loyal ally, the one person on his team who honestly didn’t have any reservations about his age or ability, had just managed to make him feel undeniably old.

And not just old, but nasty and old. Like some kind of complete degenerate.

As he gazed into her perfect brown eyes, as she held on to his hand and he felt the warmth and strength of her fingers, the smoothness of her skin against his palm, he forced himself to admit that for the first time in the two and a half years since Daisy had died, he’d finally met a woman he could imagine himself making love to.

And he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to imagine himself capable of wanting anyone but the only woman he’d ever loved, the woman he still loved. But he couldn’t deny that he missed sex, that he wanted sex. And he didn’t know how to reconcile his physical needs with the indisputable fact that Daisy was forever gone.

Forever, permanently gone. And she wasn’t coming back.

For just a second, he let himself really look at Zoe Lange. She was brilliant, she was brave, she was tough, yet her beauty held a sweetness to which he was powerfully drawn. Her eyes were alight with intelligent wit, her mouth quick to smile. Her laughter was contagious, and her body …

Jake let himself look, for just a second, at Dr. Zoe Lange’s near-perfect body. Her legs were long, her jeans slightly loose on her hips and thighs. She was not particularly tall, not particularly short, but average wasn’t a word that could ever be used to describe her. Her arms were well toned, lithe. She was trim in all the right places, and, God, all right, yes, he was a breast man, and she had a body that pushed all his buttons in a very big way. Her T-shirt clung to her full figure enticingly, making her demure little flowered print look decadent and sexy.

In a flash, in his mind’s eye, Jake saw her, tumbled back on his bed with him, her T-shirt and jeans gone, his mouth locked on hers, her perfect breasts filling his palms, his body buried deeply inside her as they moved together and …

Oh God, oh God, oh God. Sheer wanting slammed into him so hard he nearly gasped aloud. But that wanting was followed just as quickly by guilt and shame.

He still loved Daisy. How could he still love Daisy and want someone else so badly?

Sweet Lord, he missed her so much.

The hole in his gut that he’d been trying to heal for nearly three years tore wide open.

And he released Zoe’s hand and took a step backward, bumping awkwardly against the elevator wall. He realized almost instantly that he was well on his way to becoming completely aroused. Ah, jeez, terrific. Just what he needed—a souvenir from his little guilt trip.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

So he did neither, casually holding his briefcase in front of him.

Zoe kept her eyes carefully on the numbers above the elevator door, and he knew she’d seen something in his eyes that embarrassed her. No wonder—he’d been eyeing her like the hungry old fox checking out the gingerbread girl. Good job, Robinson. Way to feel even older and nastier. And somehow it was even worse since his attraction was clearly one-sided.

But when she turned toward him, she was the one who apologized. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. You must get approached by people all the time and—”

“I like it when they’ve done something really right with their lives—the way your father obviously did. He must be very proud of you. God knows I’d be proud as hell if you were my kid.” He tried his best to sound fatherly. But all he sounded was pathetic.

She smiled tentatively. “Well, thanks.”

The elevator opened, and this time Jake stood back, courteously letting her out first. She looked both ways, up and down the deserted corridor as the elevator doors closed behind them.

“Exit to the street’s down that way.” Jake pointed. “Take the—”

“First right,” she said. “I know, thanks. Listen, Admiral—”

“Jake,” he said. “Please.”

“Actually, Admiral works a little better for me.”

“All right,” he said quickly. “That’s fine. It’s not like I’m ordering you to call me Jake or anything. It’s not like—”

“I know.” She tried to meet his gaze, but couldn’t hold it this time. She was nervous again. “I was just … I can’t help but wonder about your willingness to put yourself at risk. I mean, you’ve earned the right to sit back and command safely from behind a desk, sir. And I can’t imagine your, um, wife is very happy about your decision to go back into the field. Particularly after that assassination attempt a few years ago. You were in the hospital for months.”

Jake had been around long enough to recognize a fishing expedition when he heard one. But what information exactly was Zoe Lange fishing for? Was she looking to find his motivation for taking the mission or his reason for looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive?

He had no need to hide anything from her—well, except for the extremely unprofessional fact that nearly every time he looked at her, he pictured her naked. And even if thoughts of Daisy didn’t stop that, all he really had to do was think about those missing canisters of T-X. That cooled him down pretty damn instantly.

“I know that’s an extremely personal question,” she continued quickly, “and you can tell me it’s none of my business if you want and—”

“Daisy, my wife, died of cancer,” he told her quietly. “It’ll be three years ago this Christmas.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“And I think you’re probably right. If she were still alive, I’d be thinking long and hard about the risks of this mission. But even if she were still alive, I wouldn’t be able to avoid the fact that I’ve got a connection to Christopher Vincent. I know I can get into the CRO’s inner sanctions. It’s just, this way, it makes the choice a complete no-brainer.”

She was looking at him with compassion in her eyes, and he glanced away, unable to bear the thought of looking closer and seeing her pity.

“You better go pack,” he said brusquely. “We go wheels up in ninety-eight minutes. If you make us wait for you, trust me, the team will never let you live it down.”

“Don’t worry, Jake,” she said. “I’ll be the first one on the plane.”

He watched her walk away, and before she took that right corner, she looked back and gave him a smile and a little wave.

And it wasn’t until he was in his office, changing out of his ice-cream suit and into black BDUs, that he realized she’d called him Jake.




CHAPTER THREE


ZOE ITCHED TO CALL PETER.

Five months ago, she would have. She would have called on a secured line and she would have said, “What does it mean—a man’s been a widower for nearly three years, and he still wears his wedding ring?”

Peter would’ve said, “That’s obvious. He uses the ring to keep women from coming too close.”

And she would have said, “I think he still loves her.”

And Peter would’ve snorted and said, “Love’s a myth. He just hasn’t met anyone who could replace his dead wife. But you better believe when he does, that ring will come off faster than you can spit. The hell with him. What do you say you and I meet in Boston next weekend and set the Ritz-Carlton aflame?”

But that’s what Peter would’ve said five months ago. Before he’d discovered that love was indeed not a myth.

Her name was Marita and she was a TV news anchor based in Miami. She was of Cuban descent and lovely, but Zoe wasn’t even remotely jealous. Well, maybe she was a little jealous—but only of the fact that Peter, restless, hungry, insatiable, cynical superagent Peter McBride had finally found complete inner peace.

Zoe was jealous of that. She’d liked Peter—she’d even loved him more than a little, but she knew just from one conversation with him after he’d met Marita that he finally had a shot at true happiness.

And Peter deserved that.

Zoe had liked talking to him, liked the way he could always make her laugh. And she had liked making love with him the few times a year that their work for the Agency brought them into each other’s presence.

But she’d known from the start there could be no permanence in their relationship. She was too like him. Too restless, too hungry, too damned insatiable, too jaded by a world bent on destroying itself.

She hadn’t spoken to Peter in five months, assuming his new bride wouldn’t appreciate his getting phone calls from a former lover. But she missed his friendship. She missed talking to him.

She missed the sex, too. It had been safe. She’d never once been in danger of completely losing her heart.

“So,” she said to Peter, even though he wasn’t there, “what does it mean that I’m packing my sexiest underwear and this little black nightgown?”

“To wear in Montana in September?” he would have mused, lifting one elegant eyebrow. “You’re in trouble, Lange.”

“You wouldn’t believe the way he looked at me in that elevator.” Zoe closed her eyes, momentarily melting just from the heat of the memory. “Dear God, I am in trouble.”

“Doing your boss is bad office politics,” Peter would have reminded her. “But on the other hand, he’s not really your boss, is he? Pat Sullivan is. So, go for him. You’ve been fantasizing about the guy for years—how could you not go for him? And if he’s looking at you like that … I’m surprised you didn’t make a move right then and there. It wouldn’t’ve taken much to disable the security cams in the elevator and …”

“He’d been giving me go-away signals from the moment we met.” She pulled her warmest sweaters from her closet shelf. Her warmest sweaters—and her skimpiest tank tops. Shorts. Her bathing suit even. It was a bikini—Rio cut. Not quite a thong, but not quite demure, either. Maybe she’d get lucky and they’d have Indian summer. “Besides, at the time I thought he was still married.”

“Ooh, there are those upright, golden, Girl Scout morals, shining through again.” When Peter said it like that, it was as if it were something she should be ashamed of.

“He seemed so embarrassed by the fact that he finds me attractive. As if it made him feel, you know, guilty.” She’d come full circle. “He definitely still loves her. In his mind, he is still married.”

“So what are you going to do?” Peter would’ve asked.

Zoe zipped and shouldered her bag. “He’s a really good guy, Pete. I’m going to try to be his friend.”

He’d always hated it when she called him Pete. “And for that you definitely need all that underwear from Victoria’s Secret?”

“Six missing canisters of Trip X,” she said, and Peter’s evil spirit was instantly exorcised, instantly gone.

She had a job to do. A very, very important, life-or-death job.

Zoe grabbed her briefcase, grabbed her laptop and locked her apartment door without looking back.

DAY TWO. OH-THREE-HUNDRED.

Jake had been out most of the night, silently creeping along the perimeter of the CRO compound with Cowboy Jones. Lieutenant Jones’s father was a rear admiral. Jake had figured that out of everyone on the team, Jones would be most at ease with buddying up with a man of his rank.

He’d been wrong.

Ever since they’d inserted in Montana, his entire team had been treating him with kid gloves. Let me carry that for you, Admiral. I’ll take care of that, Admiral. Why don’t you just stand aside and let me handle that, Admiral. Sit down, Admiral. You’re getting in the way.

Well, okay. No one had said that last bit, but Jake knew they’d been thinking it.

Even Billy Hawken, the closest thing to a son Jake had ever been blessed with, had pulled Jake aside to tell him in a low voice that the technological advances in the surveillance gear in just the past few years had changed both the hardware and the software completely. If Jake needed any help understanding the readouts or if he needed any assistance with the equipment, Billy was standing by.

And no doubt if Jake needed helped cutting his food, Billy would do that for him, too.

What, was he suddenly ninety years old? And hell, even if he was ninety years old, that didn’t automatically mean his brain had turned to oatmeal.

As they’d done the sneak and peek, Jones kept asking him if he’d seen enough, if he’d wanted to turn around and head back to camp.

The night had been crisply cold, but Jake had wanted to examine every square inch of the CRO compound he could see from the outer fence. He’d squinted through his night-vision glasses until his head had ached, and then he’d squinted some more. He’d done a complete circuit, and he’d lingered longer than he otherwise might have at the main gate, simply to show Jones he was capable of doing a complete, thorough job.

Except Lucky and Wes had been sent after them, to see what was holding them up. Jake and Cowboy had run into the pair on the trail. It was obvious that his team had sent them out as a search-and-rescue party to drag the old admiral in from wherever he’d gotten himself entangled in barbed wire.

It was discouraging, to say the least.

Jake needed these men to trust him. He needed their support, one hundred percent.

Because he was going in there. He’d figured out a plan—and Zoe Lange’s somewhat different surveillance tonight had given him cause to believe it would work.

She sat across from him now, in the main trailer.

Bobby and Wes had gotten hold of four beat-up old recreational vehicles that afternoon, and the SEALs had already outfitted them with enough surveillance equipment to make a destroyer sit low in the water. They were parked in a KOA campground fifteen miles south of Belle—just a group of happy campers, in town to do some hunting.

Zoe stood up and opened the refrigerator, helping herself to a can of soda. Something without caffeine. She didn’t look tired despite the late hour, but then again, he hadn’t expected her to.

Jake had been taking care to keep his distance from her from the moment he’d stepped on the plane at Andrews. He hadn’t gotten too close, had barely let himself look at her. But he allowed himself to watch her now as she spoke.

“The name of the bar is Mel’s, and it’s owned by Hal—Harold—Francke, spelled with a c-k-e. I didn’t meet him. Apparently he doesn’t come in often on Wednesday nights. The waitress I did meet was named Cindy Allora. She said Hal’s always looking for new hired help.” She smiled. “I guess he’s a dirty old man with a wandering pair of hands, and the turnover rate of waitresses at Mel’s is high.”

A dirty old man. Jake tried not to wince visibly as she sat at the table.

Zoe looked different tonight. The flower-print T-shirt was gone. She was dressed all in black. Slim black flares, black boots, black hooded sweatshirt that slipped off one shoulder to reveal her smooth tanned skin and a body-hugging black tank top, its thin straps unable to hide the straps of her black bra.

She was wearing quite a bit of makeup, too. Dark liner around her eyes, thick mascara, deep red on her lips. She wore her hair down, loose and windswept around her shoulders.

She looked dangerous. Wild. Completely capable. And sexy as hell. Hal Francke would hire her on the spot. And then he’d be all over her.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Jake said. “Maybe you could get a job working checkout at the supermarket.”

She lifted an eyebrow lazily. “And I could communicate with you by semaphore flags when you came into town?” She leaned forward slightly. “You know as well as I do the CRO men come to town and go to the bar. Only the women go into the supermarket.”

Jake refused to let himself look down her shirt. He kept his gaze staunchly focused on her dark brown eyes. “It just … it seems unfair. A scientist of your knowledge and ability. I’m not only asking you to wait tables, but virtually guaranteeing you’re going to get groped as well.”

She laughed. “You haven’t worked with women much, have you, sir?”

“Not as team leader, no.”

“Let’s just say if it happens, it won’t be the first time I’ve been groped while on assignment. And if letting Hal Francke cop a feel in the back alley helps keep me where I’ll be of most assistance to you …” She spread her hands in a shrug.

Jake laughed in dismay. “God. You’re serious.”

“It’s no big deal.” She took a sip of her soda. “You know, Jake, I just don’t take sex as seriously as I think you do.”

Sex. God. How did their conversation get onto that topic? She was more than just dressed differently tonight, she was looking at him differently, too. Just a few days ago he’d felt bad because there hadn’t been a bit of attraction in her eyes. Now she was holding his gaze rather pointedly. Now she was smiling just a little bit too warmly.

It made him nervous as hell.

And they were talking about sex. But he couldn’t steer the conversation in a safer direction. Not yet. First he had to ask. “Are you telling me you’d sleep with this guy?”

“I think of my body as just another of my assets,” she told him, a small smile playing about the corners of her lips. “I don’t mind showing it off if it gets me closer to my goal. It’s amusing, actually, to see the way men can be manipulated—” she leaned closer again and lowered her voice “—just by the whispered suggestion of sex.” She laughed, and her eyes seemed to sparkle. “Look at you. Even you aren’t immune.”

“Me? I’m … I’m …” His face was heating in a blush, as if he were fourteen again. How did she know? He’d been purposely playing it super cool. Mr. Extra Laid Back. It had required superhuman effort, but he hadn’t looked down her shirt. His gaze slid there now, and he quickly shut his eyes. “I’m only human.” Damn, and he’d been trying so hard not to be.

“Try human male,” she said, laughter in her voice. “I swear, men fall into one of two categories. You have the men who are totally controlled by sex, and you have the men—like you—who spend all their time trying to protect women from the men who are totally controlled by sex. Either way, it’s a complete manipulation.”

She stood up, peeling off her sweatshirt. “I walk into Mel’s bar dressed in my little tank top. You’re sitting at the bar, and maybe you’re not controlled by sex per se. Maybe you don’t catch sight of me in the mirror and try to imagine me naked.”

Jake did his best not to react. How could she know? There was no way she could have read his mind.

She sat next to him, sliding onto the bench beside him. “Maybe I sit down next to you and you glance over, and you think, gee, what’s that nice woman doing in here alone? Maybe you don’t notice what I’m wearing, maybe it has no effect on you, and you think, gee, she has pretty eyes.” Her smile clearly said, yeah, right. “And you look up, and you notice about five big drunk guys getting ready to approach me, and you think, she’s not going to like it when those clowns put their hands all over her. And you stand up, you move closer. You’re ready to save the day.”

She smiled. “Like it or not, notice ‘em or not, babe, you’ve just been manipulated by my breasts.”

Jake had to laugh. He put his head in his hands.

“God, the awful thing is that you’re absolutely right. I just never thought of it that way.” He looked at her from between his fingers. “Look, we need to focus on how you’re going to get that waitressing job at Mel’s, and what’s going to happen after you’re established there.”

She stood up, slipping her sweatshirt over her shoulders. “Cindy invited me to a party at her friend Monica’s house on Saturday afternoon. Hal Francke is going to be there. I thought it would be smart to manipulate him into approaching and asking me to work for him. That way if anyone in the CRO gets suspicious and starts checking into me, they’ll find out I’m just another girl Hal found at some party. It’s a little less suspect than if I go into Mel’s and fill out a job application.”

“It’s also a little less certain,” Jake pointed out. “I mean, you don’t know for sure he’s going to offer you the job.”

Zoe gave him a look. “It’s a hot tub party, Jake. He’ll offer me the job.”

Hot tub. Jake cleared his throat. Hot tub.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my bathing suit on,” she assured him with a smile.

Somehow that didn’t make him feel any better.

“So after I get this job waitressing at Mel’s, what then?” she asked. “I mean, obviously, I’ll be in place to act as a go-between for any communication between you and the rest of the team.”

He nodded. “It might be a while before I can come into town. I know the CRO rules are pretty complicated—I might have to pass some sort of loyalty test before I have free run of the place. But once I do come into the bar, I’ll, um …” He managed a weak smile. “Well, I’ll hit on you. I’m sorry—but I think that’s the cleanest way to explain why we’re going to spend so much time whispering into each other’s ears. If you could set it up—tell people you’re a little older than you really are, they might believe there could be something between us.”

Zoe’s heartbeat tripled in time. Jake Robinson was going to hit on her. They were going to spend time cozied up together. True, it was only to pass information, but she could go far on a fantasy like that. She kept her voice low and controlled. “I think we can make them believe we’re attracted to each other. Our difference in ages is not that big a deal.”

“I’m old enough to be your father.”

“So what? You can pretend you’re going through some kind of midlife crisis, and I’ll let everyone know I prefer more mature men. Experienced men.” Gorgeous, incredibly buff, blue-eyed, heroic men …

“I just don’t want it to come off as such an obvious setup. You know, the first time I come into the bar … A beautiful young woman like you …”

“Jake, the first time you go into that bar, the women are going to be lining up to meet you. I’ll have to fight to get to the front of that line.” She laughed in disbelief at the look on his face. “You’d think after fifty-three years of looking into the bathroom mirror every morning, you might’ve noticed you’re the most handsome man on the planet.”

His laughter was tinged with embarrassment. God, he really didn’t know what he looked like, did he?

“Well, thanks for your vote of confidence, but—”

Zoe wanted to reach for his hand to squeeze it, to reassure him that this would work, but she didn’t dare touch him.

“I’ll set everything up,” she said. “I’ll set up the fact that I’m looking to have a fling, too.”

“Not just a fling,” he corrected her almost apologetically. “I’m going to need a way to get you into the CRO compound. I’ll need your expertise in there to help me find the missing canisters of T-X. And the only way for a woman to get inside is …”

“Through marriage.”

Her laughter sounded almost giddy to her ears. This assignment was a dream assignment to start with, Hal Francke’s anticipated groping aside. She was working with Jake Robinson, the man who had always been her own personal poster model for the word hero. Whenever she’d imagined her perfect man, he’d always had Jake’s steely nerve, his long list of achievements, and, yes, his deep blue eyes.

And now this dream assignment was going to have her pretend she was marrying her hero. He was going to have to kiss her, hold her in his arms. To marry her. Could it possibly get any better?

Yes, he could kiss her, and mean it. And maybe, just maybe she could make that happen.

“It won’t be real,” he told her hastily, misreading her laughter. “The way I understand it, Christopher Vincent performs any wedding ceremonies among his followers. There’s no paperwork or licenses filled out. They don’t believe in state intervention when it comes to marriage.”

He looked at his hands, at the wedding ring he wore.

“It won’t be real,” he said again, as if he were trying to convince himself of that fact.

Zoe sat across from him, her elation instantly subdued. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked him quietly. “You’ll have to take off your wedding ring.”

Jake looked at his left hand again. “I know.” He fingered it with his thumb. “That’s okay. It doesn’t really mean anything anyway. We were only married a few days before she died.”

Wait a minute … “Crash told me you and Daisy were together for just short of forever.”

“Daisy didn’t believe in marriage,” he told her simply. “She only married me at the end, because it was the only thing she had left to give me.” He took off the ring, letting it spin on the table in front of him.

“You must really miss her.”

“Yeah. She was pretty incredible.” He caught the ring deftly, midspin, and slipped it into his pants pocket. “I should probably get used to not wearing this.”

He looked so sad, Zoe ached for him. “You know, Jake—we could think of another way to do this.”

He met her eyes. “I suppose I could call Pat Sullivan and see if Gregor Winston’s available to take over for you.”

Zoe reacted. “Gregor’s not half as qualified as—”

Jake was smiling at her. “As you are,” he finished for her. “Yeah, that’s why I requested you.”

“But he’s a man,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “He could get into the CRO without having to marry you.”

“Thank goodness.” Jake’s smile faded as he gazed at her. “Look, I’m all right with this, Zoe. But if it makes you feel uncomfortable …”

She looked at his hands, now ringless. He had big hands, with neat nails and broad, strong fingers. She even found his hands outrageously attractive.

Uncomfortable was not the word to describe the way she felt about this assignment.

She tried to make a joke. “Are you kidding? I have no problem letting Hal Francke grope me. Why should it bother me if I have to let you do the same?”

It wasn’t true. The part about Hal. Despite what she’d told Jake, she hated it when men touched her, when she had to use her body in any way while on the job. But there were times when dressing seductively got her further. And as for letting men touch her …

She’d learned to pretend it was nothing, to be flip about it. She was a tough, professional Agency operative. She shouldn’t give a damn about something as meaningless as that. And although she also pretended her casualness extended all the way to the act of sex, she’d always drawn the line well before that. Always.

“Are you telling me you’d sleep with this guy?” Jake had asked about Hal Francke.

She’d purposely sidestepped his question, avoiding a direct answer. It wouldn’t do her a bit of good to make her team leader believe she needed to be protected. As nice as it might be in some fantasy to have Jake ready to rush to her side, to protect her from the Hal Franckes of the world, this was reality.

And if he thought she was weak—in any way—she’d spend this entire mission inside the safety of the surveillance van.

“I’m going to have to make it look real,” he told her. “You know, when I come into the bar.”

“I will, too,” she told him. “So don’t freak out when I grab your butt, all right?”

He laughed, but it was decidedly halfhearted, and she knew what he was thinking. The last woman to grab his butt had been his wife.

Zoe pushed herself up and out of the booth, tossing her empty soda can into the recycling bin. “Do you want …” She stopped. It seemed so forward of her to ask—and that wasn’t even considering her suggestion implied a lack of ability on the admiral’s part.

But he could read her mind. “You’re afraid I’m going to get stiff,” he said, then winced realizing his poor word choice. “Tense up,” he quickly corrected himself. “You’re afraid I’m going to tense up.”

Zoe couldn’t keep from laughing, and Jake joined in, shaking his head. “Jeez,” he said. “This is awkward, isn’t it?”

She held out her hand to him. “Come here.”

He hesitated, just looking at her, a curious mix of emotions in his eyes. He shook his head. “Zoe, I don’t think …”

“Just come here.”

With a sigh, he slid from the booth, the powerful muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief as he pushed himself up. Dressed the way he was in a body-hugging black T-shirt and black BDU pants, she could see he was in better shape than most men half his age. He looked like some kind of dream come true. Why couldn’t he see that?

“I don’t need to, you know, practice this,” he said, even as he took her hand. “It’s not like it’s something I’ve forgotten how to do.”

“But this way, the mystery’s gone,” she told him. “This way you don’t have to spend any time in the bar thinking about the fact that Daisy was the last woman you held in your arms. This way you’ll be able to concentrate on making it look real, on getting the job done.”

She slipped her arms around him, but he just stood there, arms at his side, swearing very, very softly.

“Come on, Jake,” she said. “This is just make-believe.” She said it as much to remind herself of that fact.

He smelled too good. He felt too good. His body fit too perfectly with hers.

And slowly, very slowly, he put his arms around her.

Zoe rested her head on his shoulder, aware of the solidness of his chest against her breasts, the tautness of his thighs against hers, the complete warmth of his arms.

He slowly rested his cheek against her head, and she felt him sigh.

“You all right?” she whispered.

“Yeah.” He pulled back, away from her, forcing a smile. “Thank you. This was a … smart idea. Because I am a little tense, aren’t I?”

“You should probably kiss me.”

He looked as if she’d suggested he use the neighbor’s cat for target practice. “Oh, I don’t think—”

“Jake, I’m sorry, but you are not a little tense, you are so tense. If you come into that bar and hold me so politely like that, as if I’m your grandmother …”

He couldn’t argue, because he knew it was true. “I’m not sure I’m ready to—”

“Then maybe we better come up with another plan. Maybe we should be trying to figure out a way to get Cowboy or Lucky into the CRO compound. If you can’t handle this—”

Something sparked in his eyes. “I didn’t say I couldn’t handle this. I meant that I wasn’t ready to deal with this right now.”

“If you can’t do it now, how’re you going to do it in a week or two?” she asked. “Come on, Jake. Try again. And this time hold me like you want to be inside me.”

The something that had sparked in his eyes flared into fire. “Well, hell, that shouldn’t be too hard to do.”

He pulled her to him almost roughly and held her tightly, his thigh between her legs, her body anchored against him by his hand on her rear end.

She felt almost faint. “Much better,” she said weakly. “Now kiss me.”

He didn’t move. He just gazed at her, that hypnotizing heat smoldering in his eyes.

After several long moments, he still didn’t move, so she kissed him.

It was a small kiss, a delicate caress of his beautiful mouth with her lips. And he still didn’t move.

But he was breathing hard as she pulled back to look at him, as if he’d just run a five-mile race. His eyes were the most brilliant shade of blue she’d ever seen in her life.

She kissed him again, and this time he finally moved.

He lowered his head and caught her mouth with his and then, God, he was kissing her. Really kissing her. Soul kissing her.

She angled her head to kiss him even more deeply, pulling his tongue hard into her mouth, wanting more, more.

He tasted like sweetened coffee, like everything she’d ever wanted, like a lifetime of fantasies finally coming true.

He pressed her even more tightly against him as she clung to him, as still he kissed her, harder, deeper, endlessly, his passion—like hers—skyrocketing completely off the scale, his hands skimming her body as she strained to get closer, closer ….

And then Jake finally tore his mouth away from hers. “My God.” He looked completely shocked, thoroughly stunned.

Zoe still held on to him tightly, her knees too weak to support her weight. “That was … very believable.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, breathing hard. “Very believable.”

“Good to know we can make that seem … so believable.”

He pulled free from her embrace and turned away. “Yeah. That’s good to know.”

She had to lean against the counter.

“Look,” he said, his back to her, “it’s really late and I have some things I need to do before morning, so …”

He wanted her to leave. Zoe moved carefully toward the door. “I hope sleep is on that list.” She tried to sound lighthearted, tried to sound as if her entire world hadn’t just tilted on its axis.

He laughed quietly. “Yeah, well, sleep’s pretty low priority these days. If I don’t get to it tonight, there’s always tomorrow.”

She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Jake, that kiss—it wasn’t real. We just made it look real.”

He turned and gazed at her then, the expression in his eyes completely unreadable.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know that.”




CHAPTER FOUR


“LET’S DO IT!” HARVARD SAID, but stopped short as he caught sight of Jake. “Admiral. You’re joining us for a run this morning, sir?”

“Do you have a problem with that, Senior Chief?”

“Well … no, of course not, sir.” Harvard didn’t say the word but. He didn’t have to. It was implied.

Jake held on to the side of the team’s beat-up station wagon for balance as he stretched the muscles in first one thigh and then the other. He kept his expression pleasant, his voice easygoing. “Say what you’re thinking, H. If we’re going to be a team, we can’t keep secrets from each other.”

“I guess I was thinking, sir, that if I were an Admiral, you wouldn’t find me volunteering for PT at oh-seven-hundred on a morning after I’d been out on a sneak and peek until oh-three-hundred.”

Jake looked at the faces of his men. And woman. Zoe was there, dressed in running gear that might as well have been painted on to her. He looked away from her, refusing to let himself think about last night. Refusing to think about that incredible kiss.

“Cowboy here was out as late as I was,” he pointed out. “Lucky and Wes, too. In fact, who here closed their eyes last night before oh-three-thirty?”

No one.

Jake smiled. “So like you said, Senior, let’s do it. I’m as ready as you are.”

Harvard looked at Cowboy, and Cowboy nodded, very slightly.

The message couldn’t have been more clear if he’d signaled with flags.

Don’t let the old man hurt himself.

Jeez.

Harvard set the pace, taking the road that led in a two-mile loop around the campground at an unchallenging jog.

And no one complained. In fact, they hung way back, letting Jake be way out ahead, up with Harvard.

Not a single one of ‘em thought Jake could keep up with them. Not even Billy or Mitch.

It would have been funny if it weren’t so damned sobering. If his team didn’t think he could keep up with them on a morning run, there wouldn’t be much they’d trust him to do.

But then Zoe broke free from where she’d been blocked in, in the back, kicking her pace until she’d moved up alongside Jake. She didn’t say a word. She just made a face, clearly scornful of the slow and steady pace. And then she lifted one eyebrow, her message again quite clear. Shall we?

Stop thinking of that kiss. God, he had to stop thinking about that kiss. Shall we run? she’d meant. As in run faster.

Jake nodded. Yeah. He turned and gave the senior chief his best-buddy smile. “Hey, H, how many times around this loop do you figure you’ll go?”

Harvard smiled back. He clearly liked Jake. But this wasn’t about being liked. “Oh, I figure twice’ll do it, sir.”

“And at this pace, that’ll take you, what? About forty minutes?”

“A little less, I think.”

“Dr. Lange and I are going to push it a little bit faster,” Jake said, “and a little bit farther. We’re going to do three loops in about two-thirds the time. Just let us know when you get back to camp.”

Zoe was ready, and as Jake jammed it into higher gear, she was right beside him.

“Hey!” he heard Harvard say as they left him in their dust. He put on a burst of speed, hustling to catch up. “Admiral, this isn’t necessary. You don’t need to prove anything here.”

“Obviously, I do.”

“We’re all tired this morning—”

“Speak for yourself. I’m an old man—I don’t need much sleep.”

Harvard looked pained. “I assure you, sir—”

“Save your breath, Senior. You’re going to need it if you want to keep up.” And Jake ran even faster.

ZOE STOOD UNDER THE campground shower and let the water stream onto her head.

She hadn’t run a race like that in a long time. And it had been a race. Three times around the KOA campground driveway. At least six miles. At top speed.

It had been some kind of macho showdown, and Jake had come out on top. He was a good runner—he held something back, something in reserve for the end of the race. While everyone else was working overtime to keep up the pace for that last quarter mile, Jake had pulled a sprint out of his back pocket.

She shut off the shower and toweled herself dry.

The other SEALs had tried valiantly to keep up with the admiral, but Harvard was the only one who’d stayed neck and neck.

And when it was over, Jake had been able to carry on a conversation. Bobby and Wes had been gasping for oxygen like fish on the deck of a boat, yet Jake had calmly given out orders, flashing that incredible smile of his at the pack of them.

At everyone but Zoe.

She slipped on her robe and wrapped her towel around her shoulders, using it to reach up and rub her wet hair as she headed toward the trailers.

The smile he’d sent in her direction had been self-conscious, and she knew he couldn’t so much as look at her without thinking about that kiss they’d shared last night.

He was obviously embarrassed. It was clear he didn’t know what to say to her, obvious that she’d overstepped the boundaries of propriety.

That was just perfect. She’d been trying to help, but all she’d done was make things awkward between them and …

Zoe had to laugh at herself—at her self-righteous attempt to justify what she’d done last night.

The truth was that she’d kissed Jake Robinson because she’d wanted to kiss Jake Robinson. Badly. She’d wanted to kiss him since she’d first found out about kissing, back in seventh grade.

She’d pushed too hard too fast, and now she was paying for it.

As she went up the steps to her private RV, she saw Jake standing with Bobby and Wes at the door to the main trailer.

He was watching her, but instead of holding her gaze, he looked away.

His message couldn’t have been more clear. This assignment was going to be neither easy nor fun for him. He’d prefer to keep whatever it was that had made him kiss her the way he had locked deep inside of him forever.

He was still in love with his wife, and a man like Jake Robinson would never cheat, not even on a memory.

LIEUTENANT LUCKY O’DONLON burst into the surveillance trailer as if his pants were on fire.

He skidded to a stop next to Bob Taylor and furiously whispered into the big enlisted man’s ear. Lucky was gone as quickly as he came in, and now it was Bobby’s turn to stand up.

Moving with the agile speed and grace of a ballet dancer, the six-feet-five-inch-tall, seemingly six-feet-wide SEAL pirouetted elegantly over to his swim buddy, Wes Skelly, and, glancing almost nervously at Jake, he leaned over and whispered something into Wes’s ear.

Another graceful leap and Bobby, too, was out the door.

Wes knocked all the papers from his file onto the floor in his haste to get to his feet. He scooped them up, tossed them on the table in random order and scurried toward Cowboy, Crash and Mitch.

As he spoke to them, his voice was too low for Jake to hear, but he gestured with his thumb toward the door, then scrambled after Bobby.

Jake looked at Harvard, who was fine-tuning the programming for their satellite access computers. The big senior chief frowned as he watched Mitch rise to his feet and saunter out the door. He turned and met Jake’s eyes and shook his head, anticipating the admiral’s question.

“What the hell is going on?” Jake stood up for the first time in what seemed like hours, stretching his legs and heading toward the door.

Cowboy had crossed to the window and stood looking out.

Crash glanced out the door. “Apparently Dr. Lange has returned from her pool party.”

“Yes,” Cowboy said from the window. “She’s definitely wearing a bikini. And she’s definitely … wearing a bikini.”

Jake opened the door, and stepped outside, intending to go out there and kick some ass. The male members of his team had no right to ogle Zoe, bikini or …

No bikini.

What she was wearing was, in fact, almost no bikini.

Two very small triangles of black fabric stretched across her full breasts, attached with a string that tied around her neck and around her back.

Oh, God, he was staring. Just like Lucky and Bobby and Wes and even unflappable Mitch Shaw, Jake was standing there and staring. He forced his eyes from her breasts and encountered her perfect rear end.

She was wearing some kind of a sarong-style cover-up around her hips, but it was white and completely wet and did little in the way of covering her.

In fact, it clung to her, outlining every detail of her black bikini bottoms, which weren’t much in the way of bottoms at all. They were cut high on her legs, high on her rear. Oh, yeah, there was no doubt about it. Zoe Lange had a world-class rear end.

But Jake already knew that. He’d had his hands all over it just a few nights ago.

And he’d been avoiding her ever since.

“Isn’t anyone going to get me a towel?” she asked.

Jake realized with a jolt that her hair was soaking wet. She was carrying a towel, but it was drenched and dripping, as was her bag and a pair of jeans she had over her arm. She still had beads of water on her shoulders and chest and …

The late afternoon air had an autumn chill. It was blatantly obvious that she was freezing.

He quickly lifted his gaze to her face. “What happened?”

“I got pushed into the pool on my way out of the party. Hal didn’t want me to leave. But things were getting a little … too friendly.” She was trying to be flip, trying to be tough and matter-of-fact. “It’s no big deal. I got a little wet.”

Lucky bounded over, a dry white towel in his hands, as Mitch reached to take her wet things.

“I’ll hang these up for you,” Mitch said.

It was amazing. Jake knew that after only three days of working together as a team, Lucky O’Donlon was hot for Zoe. But Mitch? Lieutenant Mitchell Shaw was not human when it came to distractions. He was the only man Jake had ever met who was completely nondistractable. Or so Jake had believed.

Lucky wrapped his towel around Zoe’s shoulders, gently rubbing her arms, but she quickly backed away.

“Don’t touch me!” Zoe’s outburst surprised them all—herself included. She forced a smile. “Whoa. Where’d that come from? Sorry, Luke. I guess my whole afternoon was just a little too intense.”

“Yo,” Harvard said from the trailer door. “How come you guys don’t throw me a welcome home party every time I come back to camp? We’ve got two months of work to do in two days and I see people standing around. Check the pay stubs in your wallets, please, and unless your pay grade is admiral, get your butts back inside.”

“I need a shower, Senior Chief,” Zoe said. “Give me twenty minutes to get cleaned up.” She glanced at Jake as she wrapped her towel more tightly around her. “If that’s okay, Admiral, I’ll give you a full report then.”

Admiral. It was her acknowledgment of his attempt to put a little space, a little formality between them since that night they’d kissed.

Hold me like you want to be inside me.

He wanted. Despite Daisy’s memory, despite his and Zoe’s age difference, despite the fact that she was at least partly under his command, a member of his team, he wanted her.

Keeping his distance seemed the smartest option under the circumstances. They were going to be forced into close quarters soon enough.

“A full report after you shower would be fine, Doctor.”

Jake watched her turn away, watched her head toward the small RV that held her private quarters. But then he saw it. Bright red on the white of the towel.

He caught up with her quickly. “Zoe, you’re bleeding.”

She looked at the towel, pulling it back to reveal a nasty-looking scrape on her right elbow. Jake lifted the towel to reveal a lesser abrasion on her other arm. They were the kind of scrapes a woman might get from being pushed down, hard, onto her back. “Wow,” she said. “I didn’t even realize ….”

“I think I need at least some of that report now,” he said tightly.

She lifted her chin. “It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

He still held her wrist. “And that’s why you’re shaking?”

“I’m freezing,” she lied. He knew she was lying. Whatever had happened had shaken her up.

“‘Too friendly,’” Jake remembered. He gestured to her elbow. “Is this the result of someone being too friendly?”

She gently pulled herself free. “It was Monica’s boyfriend. I think he was coked up. I handled it, Jake. His family jewels are now lodged somewhere between his tonsils and his sinuses.”

“Note to myself,” Jake said. “Don’t ever get Zoe angry.”

She laughed as he’d hoped she would, but then abruptly turned away—but not before he saw the sudden welling of tears in her eyes.

“I’ll tell you everything,” she said, “but after I shower, okay?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, fighting to hide the sudden rush of anger and protectiveness that made him want to seek out and destroy this Monica’s boyfriend. “I’ll get you something hot to drink. And meet you back in your trailer.”

“Thanks, Jake,” she whispered. “That would be very nice.”




CHAPTER FIVE


ZOE KICKED OFF HER SHOWER slippers as she came inside her RV. She’d cranked the heat before she’d left for the bath house, and it was now close to roasting in the small trailer. But that was nice. She hadn’t been truly warm in what felt like hours.

And she felt warmer still when she saw that Jake was, indeed, waiting for her in the small living area. He sat somewhat stiffly on the cheap foam seats of the built-in couch, three mugs of coffee on the table in front of him, and …

Three?

Mitch Shaw was sitting across the room, his medical kit on his lap.

Jake had brought a chaperone. He was probably going to pretend he’d only brought Mitch along as a medic, to make sure Zoe’s elbows were cleaned and bandaged properly, but she knew better. He was afraid to put himself in a position in which he might kiss her again.

She smiled at Jake to make sure he knew that she knew better.

But he was in heavy team-leader mode, frowning slightly and very intense as he handed her one of the mugs and gestured toward Mitch. “I’ve asked Lieutenant Shaw to take a look at your elbows, Doctor.”

Zoe gave the darkly handsome lieutenant a smile as she sat down next to him. “Mitch and I are on a first-name basis, Admiral.”

That one actually got her the ghost of a smile. “Any time you’re ready,” Jake said, “I’m ready to hear your report.”

She took a sip of her coffee and pushed back the sleeves of her robe.

“First things first—I accomplished my mission this afternoon,” she said as Mitch looked closely at her left elbow and then her right. His hands were warm, his touch gentle, almost soothing. “Hal Francke offered me the job.”

“Great,” Jake said. “When do you start?”

“I didn’t take it.”

As she watched, Jake struggled to understand. “Why not? Because of what happened at the party? I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you don’t think it’s safe for you to be there, or—”

“I didn’t take the job because I didn’t want to seem overeager,” she explained. “I told Hal I’d think about it. I’ll go into Mel’s in a day or so and let him ask me again. I’ll make sure a ton of people overhear, and I’ll make him beg. Ouch.” She involuntarily jerked her arm free from Mitch. Holy Mike, that had hurt!

“Sorry,” he murmured, his dark hazel eyes apologetic. “There’re still a few pieces of dirt—something that looks like very fine gravel—that I should remove. I don’t think I can do it without hurting you at least a little. But if I don’t get it out …”

“Just … try to do it quickly.” She gave him her arm, aware that she was perspiring from the anticipated pain, sweat beading on her upper lip. “Admiral, can you do me a favor and shut off the heat?”

“What, you changed your mind? You no longer want to simulate the conditions on Venus?”

“Ha, ha. You try getting dumped into a fifty-degree swimming pool and then driving fifteen miles in some trash heap of a car that doesn’t have a working heater.” She clenched her teeth against the pain.

Jake smiled as he turned down the heat. “Someday we’ll have to tell her about BUD/S Training, huh, Mitch?”

Mitch was completely focused on cleaning her arm. “If you can’t handle cold, don’t become a SEAL.”

“A major portion of Hell Week—the fifth week of SEAL training—is spent freezing your butt off,” Jake told her. “You get wet early on and stay wet for the entire week.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that.” Zoe closed her eyes. Damn, whatever Mitch was doing hurt like hell. “I read in some magazine article about Hell Week that you guys pee on yourselves to stay warm while you’re in the water.”

“Yeah, sure.” Jake snorted. “That’s what reporters find important. That we pee on ourselves. Forget about the hours and hours of training we go through, the endurance tests, the underwater demolition, the HALO training. That’s not half as interesting as peeing on ourselves. Jeez.”

Zoe sensed more than felt Jake sit down beside her. But she opened her eyes when he took her other hand.

“Squeeze,” he told her. “And keep your eyes open. If you close your eyes and shut everything else out, it’s just you and the pain. And that’s never good.”

“I’m really sorry,” Mitch murmured. “You must’ve landed on this arm pretty hard to get this stuff embedded so deeply.”

Zoe took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. Jake’s eyes were so blue and so steady. She held his gaze as if it were a lifeline.

“What happened at this party?” he asked. “Keep talking.”

“I arrived a little after noon,” she told him, gripping his hand more tightly and biting back the urge to shriek as Mitch probed particularly deeply. “Everyone was drinking pretty hard. Mostly just beer. But about five people went into the house, and when they came out, it was pretty obvious they’d done a few lines of cocaine. Hal Francke was one of them. This other guy, Wayne, Monica’s boyfriend—God, what a jerk! He’s one of those former high-school football-star types—he used to be big man on campus, but now he’s just big and fat and mean. He went inside, too. A few different times.”

She squeezed Jake’s hand harder. “Ow. Ow, ow, ow!”

And just like that, the pain let up.

“Got it.” Mitch was done. He was perspiring nearly as much as she was, his eyes filled with apology and an echo of her pain.

“I just have to put some antibacterial ointment on it and bandage it up. The other one looks clean.”

Zoe tried to hide that she was shaking. “Well, that was fun. Thanks so much.”

“So how’d this happen?” Jake asked. She had to give him credit. He was obviously trying really hard not to look as if he wanted to go out and hunt down Monica’s boyfriend, Wayne.

The stupid thing was, she liked it. She liked the idea of this man being her hero. God knows there was a point this afternoon where she would have been plenty thrilled to see Jake parachuting down from the sky, coming to save the day.

She wasn’t used to working in a team, like the SEALs. In her job, she often had herself, and only herself, to rely on.

She gently pulled her hand free from his grasp. “I went further out in the back of the yard,” she told him as Mitch bandaged her arm, “looking for Monica. There was a path that led down to a stream, and some of the party had moved in that direction. I was getting ready to leave—I wanted to tell her I was taking off. But she must’ve been inside the house—everyone else who’d gone down to the stream was gone, too. Except for Wayne, who’d followed me. Like I said, he was on something nasty, and he got a little rough.” It was an understatement, and she could tell from his eyes that he knew it. “But it was no big deal,” she continued. “I handled it, I handled him.”

She was stretching the truth pretty thin there. Because it had been a big deal. Zoe could still feel the man’s hands on her breasts, still smell the alcohol on his putrid breath. He’d been a behemoth of a man, and when he’d tackled her, when the weight of his body had crushed her against the grass and gravel, for one awful moment she’d been afraid he’d actually be able to overpower her.

It was an awful feeling, that helplessness.

But he was stoned and stupid, and she’d used her brain and her ability to aim with a solid knee kick and she’d gotten away.

Hal Francke had been with a group of men by the pool, and they, too, had had far too much to drink. Zoe had picked up her towel and her bag, extremely shaken and ready to leave without even saying goodbye to the hostess, when one of the men grabbed her and tossed her into the pool.

Hal had jumped in after her, rescuing her even though she damn well hadn’t wanted or needed it. He’d put his hands all over her as he pulled her to the side of the pool. It had taken every ounce of restraint she had not to kick him in the family jewels, as well.

The water had been freezing. Her towel and clothes had been soaked.

Hal had thought that was funny as hell. He’d invited her to dinner, invited her to stay at his fishing cabin for the rest of the weekend, subtly insinuated that he’d all but pay her to have sex with him. She’d told him she’d consider the waitressing job, thanks, but that she’d have to get back to him.

And then, elbows stinging and dripping wet, Zoe had gotten the hell out of there.

“It was no big deal,” she said again. She was lying.

And Jake knew she was lying. But he didn’t press her for more details.

“As far as what the locals think about the CRO—” she continued with her report “—most of the people at the party don’t know anything about them. All they know is the old Frosty Cakes factory’s finally been sold, and that the people who bought it mostly keep to themselves. They wish it had been bought by someone wanting to get back into production—they’d hoped for more jobs in this area. They know about the electric fence around the compound, but not much about the rest of Vincent’s high-tech security system. And that’s about it.”

“That’s it for me, too,” Mitch said, finishing bandaging her arm. He held on to her hand several moments longer than he had to. “Again, I’m sorry I hurt you, Zoe.”

“It’s all right.” She smiled at him. “I forgive you.”

Mitch’s eyes were warm as he packed up his medical kit. “Good.”

Jake cleared his throat.

Mitch stood up. “If you don’t need me any further, Admiral …”

“Thanks, Mitch. I’ll be along in just a minute.”

Zoe watched the lieutenant let himself out, then glanced at Jake, wondering what he could possibly have to say to her that needed privacy. Why lose the chaperone now?

“Are you really okay?” he asked. He touched her with just one finger beneath her chin, turning her head so that she was forced to meet his eyes.

Silently, she nodded.

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re not being completely honest?” he asked. “Look, let’s make a deal. Right now. You don’t lie to me, and I won’t try to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I won’t make judgments about what might be too dangerous for you because you’re a woman. But in return, you have to be brutally honest with me. You have to be able to pull your own plug, to pull yourself off some assignment that might get too uncomfortable for you for any assortment of reasons. Does that sound fair?”

Zoe nodded. Provided he could really do it. His instincts were to protect—anyone, really, but probably women in particular. He would need to be a truly exceptional leader to overcome his inherent prejudices in that regard.

But if anyone could be that kind of leader, Jake Robinson could.

“You’ve got a deal,” she said.

“So. Honestly. Are you really okay?” His gaze was so intense, she could have sworn he was trying to read her mind. “What really happened, Zoe? Did this guy do more than just push you down?”

“Have you ever had your chute fail—you know, skydiving?” Zoe asked.

He gazed at her for several long moments, but then apparently decided to let her answer his question in her own way. It was a tough question, and if she had to go in circles to answer it, that was okay with him.

“Skydiving, huh?” Jake laughed softly. “Funny you should mention that. Jumping is one of those things I’ve always hated. I mean, I’ve had to do it as a SEAL. It’s part of the package. But some guys’ll jump every chance they get. I’ve always had to force myself to do it.” He paused. “And yes, I’ve had to cut myself free from the main chute more than once. It was pretty damn terrifying.”

“You know that feeling you get right before you pull the backup chute—that sense of complete helplessness? Like, if this doesn’t work, it’s all over?”

Jake nodded. “Oh, yeah. Personally, I like being in control, which is why I probably don’t like jumping.”

“That’s what it felt like today,” she told him. “When Wayne was …” She closed her eyes. “When he was on top of me, tearing at my bathing suit.”

Jake swore softly.

“You want honesty, Jake? For one awful moment, I thought I was going to be raped and that I wasn’t going to be able to do anything to stop it. That kind of helplessness is not a really nice feeling, so you’re right, I’m still a little shaken. But I’ll be fine.”

She opened her eyes to find Jake watching her, a mixture of emotions on his face. Anger. Remorse. Regret. Attraction. The power of his other feelings made him unable to hide his attraction. “Zoe, I’m so sorry this happened.”

“It’s really no biggie. I mean, I was the one who wasn’t being careful. I should have known this particular guy would be trouble. And then I made a second mistake by letting him get too close. I definitely underestimated the situation. If I’m paying the right amount of attention, I’m completely capable of taking care of someone that size. But I messed up. And I almost paid for it.”

“What’s his last name?” Jake asked. “Wayne what?”

“No,” Zoe said. “Sir. No disrespect intended, but I’m not going to tell you.”

“You were sexually assaulted.” His voice broke. “This is not something to just say oh, well about and let go.”

“What are you going to do, Jake? Find him and beat him up? And maybe blow our cover when he recognizes you in a few weeks when you walk into Mel’s bar with Christopher Vincent? Or maybe you think I should press charges? I’m supposed to be a drifter, right? My cover is that I’ve had my share of trouble with the law, that I’m jaded with the system—ready to be enlightened by the CRO’s doctrine. Somehow it doesn’t fit for me to go running to the police and shouting for justice.”

He knew she was right. She could see it all over his face. He had such an expressive, wonderful face.

She leaned closer. “Our job here is to regain possession of that Trip X. That takes priority over everything. Even this.”

Jake exhaled in frustration. “I just … I know. I just hate not being able to do anything.”

She gave him a shaky smile. “You want to do something? You could put your arms around me for a minute.”

He didn’t need more of an invitation than that. He reached for her, and she found herself wrapped in his arms.

He smelled so good and felt so familiar—as if she’d been in his arms far more than just that one other time.

His arms were warm and so solid as he held her tightly, as he stroked her hair. It was funny how much better that made her feel.

It didn’t mean she was weak. It didn’t mean she wasn’t strong. She didn’t need him to hold her, but it sure was nice that he was there.

Zoe closed her eyes, not wanting this minute she’d asked for to end.

She felt him sigh and braced herself, waiting for him to pull away. But he didn’t. And she didn’t.

“God,” he finally said on another sigh, still holding her tightly. “This just feels too good.”

Zoe lifted her head and found herself gazing directly into his eyes. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

He pushed her damp hair from her face. “It feels inappropriate,” he whispered. “Doesn’t it?”

She gazed at the graceful shape of his mouth. “Not to me.”

“I’m not going to kiss you again,” he said hoarsely, pulling away, pushing himself off the built-in couch and all the way across the tiny room. “Not until I have to.”

Zoe tried to smile, tried to make a joke as he slipped on his brown leather flight jacket and prepared to leave. “Gee, I didn’t realize kissing me would be such a negative.”

He turned to give her a long look. “You know damn well that I liked it. I know it wasn’t real, but nevertheless, I liked it too much. I’m leaving tonight,” he added.

Zoe stood up. “Tonight? But …”

“I’m ready as I’ll ever be and this … this is getting crazy. You be careful working at Mel’s,” he ordered. “With luck, I’ll see you in the bar in a few weeks.”

“Jake.”

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and looked back.

Zoe’s heart was in her throat. He’d liked kissing her. Too much. “I liked it, too,” she said, adding, “kissing you.” As if he’d needed her explanation.

Another man might’ve stepped toward her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her until the room spun. But Jake just gave her a crooked smile that was overshadowed by the sadness in his eyes.

“Be safe,” he said, and walked out the door.

JAKE KNEW FROM THE WAY Harvard cleared his throat that the moment of truth had arrived.

It was time for him to leave. So if anyone was going to try to make him change his mind, it was now or never.

Jake had kind of hoped it would be never.

So much for hoping.

“Permission to speak freely, sir.”

Jake looked from Harvard to all four of the lieutenants, and then at the enlisted men. They were all there but Zoe. She wasn’t part of this. Or maybe the men had intentionally excluded her.

“This isn’t a democracy, Senior,” Jake said mildly.

“At least hear us out, Admiral.” Admiral. When Billy called him admiral, it meant he was dead serious.

Jake sighed. “I don’t need to hear you out,” he said. “You don’t think I’m up for this. You think it’s been too long since I’ve seen action, since I’ve been out in the real world. You don’t think I can keep up, despite the fact that every time we’ve run together, you’ve had to fight to keep up with me.”

“This is different than running, and you know it,” Billy said. “Yes, you’re physically fit for—” He broke off.

Jake bristled. “Go on, say it. For an old man. Right?”

“Jake, I love you, and I’m worried about you,” Billy said, cutting through to the bottom line, the way he always did so well. “I don’t know why you’re doing this when any one of us could find a way to get inside the CRO—”

“Because I can walk through those gates in the morning,” Jake told Billy, told them all, “and have dinner at Christopher Vincent’s private dining table by night. If you or Cowboy or Lucky were to go in there, God knows how many months it would take you to work your way up to just being able to stand guard outside the dining room door.”

He looked them all directly in the eyes, one at a time. Billy. Cowboy. Mitch. Lucky. Harvard. Bobby. Wes. “We don’t have months, gentlemen. The CRO could decide to do a test run of the Triple X at any time, in any city.” They all had family, friends living all over the country, and his unspoken message cut through, loud and clear. Until they regained possession of the T-X, no one was safe.

Jake shouldered his bag of gear. “Now, who’s taking Mitch and me to the airport?”

THE AIR FORCE FLIGHT TO South Dakota seemed to take forever.

Mitch slept for most of it, only waking as they began their descent.

Jake was sick and tired of thinking about the way his team had questioned his plan. He’d worked hard over the past week to gain their respect. He’d thought his physical stamina, his ability to run hard and fast, had won them over. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

His team thought of him as an old man.

He wished Billy was with him instead of Mitch. He’d wanted to talk to the kid about Zoe, find out if he was shocked by Jake’s intention to pretend he and the young doctor were romantically involved.

But Jake’s plan had called for one of the SEALs to wind up arrested, thrown into jail for conspiracy and charges of aiding and abetting the escape of a suspected felon. Both Mitch and Billy had volunteered, but Jake knew that playing this role would be hitting a little too close to home for the kid. It hadn’t been that long since Billy had spent time in prison, facing very similar charges for real.

So Jake was here on the plane with Mitchell Shaw. A man he’d always thought of as a friend.

A man who—just a few hours ago—had lined up with the rest of the team and questioned Jake’s command.

Right now, CNN was announcing a late-breaking story of conspiracy and intrigue in the U.S. military. As the story went, Admiral Jake Robinson had escaped from house arrest. He’d been confined to his quarters after being charged with conspiracy, allegedly leaking top secret military information to several extreme right-wing state militia groups. Those militia groups had been lobbying for fewer federal regulations, less control by the federal government. Allegedly there were tapes, and the words Jake had spoken could be interpreted as treasonous.

The military had been attempting to keep the entire affair from the public eye, since as an admiral in the U.S. Navy, Robinson should have been among the staunchest defenders of the federal government. But four days ago, as the story went, Robinson had escaped his guards with the help of three unidentified men, and now the incident was national news.

All four of the men were currently at large.

To help this cover story along, Mitch and Jake were going to be spotted in South Dakota, and Mitch was going to be apprehended while Jake once again made an escape.

Jake was then going to proceed, by car and on foot, to Montana, leaving a trail that the CRO could trace if they tried. And they would try—particularly after he showed up on their doorstep, seeking asylum.

Within a few days, CNN would stop carrying the story—Admiral Mac Forrest would see to that. And after several weeks of hiding in the CRO compound, Jake would be able to leave hiding and venture into town.

And then he’d see Zoe again.

Zoe. Who’d liked the way he’d kissed her.

Mitch shifted his jaw, expertly popping his ears as the plane continued its descent.

“Hey, Mitch,” Jake said.

“Yes, sir?”

“No,” he said, “not sir. I’ve got something I need to discuss, and I need you to talk to me as a friend.”

Mitch nodded, completely serene. “I’ll do my best.”

“It’s about—”

“Zoe.” Mitch nodded. “I figured you were going to say something. I’m sorry if I got in your way. I honestly didn’t think you were interested in her—you’ve been avoiding her all week.” He smiled slightly. “You know, Jake, I’ve found it’s far easier to get a woman into your bed if you actually interact with her.”

“I don’t want to get her into my …” He couldn’t finish the sentence—it wasn’t true. He exhaled noisily in exasperation. “God, she’s too young for me. How could I even be thinking about that?”

“She doesn’t think she’s too young.” Mitch smiled again. “I’ve been hanging out with her. Telling her stories about you. She’s yours if you want her, Admiral. And if you don’t, I’m hoping I might be next in line.”

Jake had to know. “She’s beautiful and she’s smart and she’s very sexy, but … you’ve had the opportunity to meet plenty of beautiful, smart, sexy women, and as far as I’ve seen, you’ve never given any of them a second glance. So why Zoe? What is it about her?”

Mitch gazed thoughtfully out the window at the approaching runway for several long moments. “She’s one of us,” he said simply, turning to look at Jake. “I get the sense that she wants the things I want from a relationship—no strings, no promises, no regrets. Just good, clean, healthy fun. Sex that’s just that—sex. No more, no less.” He laughed softly. “To be painfully honest, Jake, I tend to stay away from most women because I’m afraid of hurting them when I leave. And you know in our line of work, we always leave. We disappear on some assignment, and who knows when we’ll be back. But Zoe …” He laughed again. “Zoe would never expect anything long term. Because she leaves, too. And she’d probably leave first.”

The plane touched down on the runway with a jolt.

“I know you miss Daisy,” Mitch said quietly. “I know how you felt about her. But you’re not dead. And Zoe might be just what you need. It won’t have anything to do with what you and Daisy had. It doesn’t have to go too deep.”

Jake sighed. “Just thinking about it makes me feel unfaithful.”

“To whom, Jake?” Mitch asked gently. “Daisy’s gone.”




CHAPTER SIX


WEEKNIGHTS WERE THE WORST. Weekends were no picnic, but at least on Friday and Saturday nights, Mel’s was crowded and Zoe was kept busy.

But on a Tuesday night like this one, Zoe sat at the bar with old Roy, who sat nursing a beer on the same stool every night and could have been anywhere from eighty to a hundred and eight, and Lonnie, who owned the service station on the corner of Page Street and Hicks Lane and was probably older than old Roy.

On Tuesday nights, Hal Francke had his bowling league, so even he wasn’t around, trying his damnedest to brush up against her.

And Wayne Keating—Monica’s boyfriend, the one who’d nearly overpowered Zoe—had been arrested for DUI. It was his third offense, and he was being held without bail. So there was no chance of him staggering into the bar and livening things up.

No, it was just another deadly boring Tuesday night in Belle, Montana.

Zoe was definitely going to go mad.

Two weeks had come and gone and come and gone and here she was, well into week five in her new career as barmaid, with no sign of Jake.

He’d gotten into the CRO compound. She knew that. She’d seen surveillance tapes of him being let inside. Even taken from a distance, she’d clearly recognized him. The way he walked, the way he stood.

According to the team, he’d been spotted from time to time within the confines of the electric fence.

But he hadn’t come out.

Each time a car or van left the CRO gates and headed toward town, Harvard or Lucky or Cowboy would call, and Zoe’s silent pager would go off. And she would know to be ready.

Maybe Jake would show up this time. Maybe …

But even though Christopher Vincent himself had come into Mel’s a number of times, and always with an entourage, Jake had been nowhere in sight.

Zoe was completely frustrated. And getting a little worried.

Had something gone wrong? She called Harvard every night on the pretense of checking in, but in truth to find out if Jake had been spotted again during the course of the day.

What if he’d gotten sick? Or injured? What if Vincent knew he was only there to find the Triple X? What if Jake were locked in the factory basement, beaten and bleeding and …

Oh, dammit, and the really stupid thing was that beneath her worries and her frustration at this endless inactivity was the unavoidable fact that she missed him.

She missed the man.

She missed his smile, his solid presence, his calm certainty, the sweet sensation of his arms around her.

Zoe groaned, resting her forehead on the bar atop her folded arms. He’d only kissed her once, but she missed that, too. Holy Mike, when had she become such a hopeless romantic? And hopeless was the key word here.

This foolish schoolgirl crush she was experiencing was definitely one-sided.

Yes, the man had kissed her. Once. And afterward, he’d run screaming as hard and as fast as he could in the opposite direction. And when he kissed her again, it was going to be because he had to. He’d told her as much.

“Ya gonna do that singing thing tonight?” Lonnie leaned over and asked.

He was talking about the karaoke. Last Friday, Hal had bought a karaoke system secondhand and very cheap from a guy going out of business over in Butte. Zoe had been the only member of the wait staff brave enough to give it a try. The songs were mostly all retro dance hits, with a bunch of old country songs thrown in.

Zoe lifted her head to look in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. Besides Lonnie, old Roy, Gus the bartender and herself, there were only three other people in the place.

“I don’t think so,” she told Lonnie. “There’s not much of a crowd.”

Old Roy was already leafing through the plastic-covered pages that listed the song titles available on this karaoke system. “I love this old Patsy Cline song.” He blinked at her hopefully. “Will you sing it? Please?”

It was the same song he played over and over on the jukebox at least three times every single night. “The record sounds much better than I do,” she told him. “Here, I’ll even front you a quarter.”

“But we like it when you sing it.” Now Lonnie was giving her his best kicked-puppy look. “I’d like to hear the other songs you did on Saturday night, too.”

Zoe sighed.

“Please?” they said in unison.

She should really clean the bathrooms. God, she hated cleaning the bathrooms.

“Sure. Why not?” She went behind the bar to the stereo system and powered up the karaoke player. “But if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right.” She untied the short apron that held her ordering pad and change. She set it down, picked up the karaoke microphone and switched it on. “Ready for this, boys?”

Both Roy and Lonnie nodded.

She used the remote to turn on the TV behind the bar, setting it to receive the signal from the karaoke system. She put in the right CD and programmed the machine and …

Thunderous strains of pedal steel guitar came pounding out of the speakers. Old Roy and Lonnie both clapped their hands over their ears.

“Sorry!” she shouted, turning the volume down by a full half.

The words on the screen turned color, and she sang them into the mike. “Crazy …”

Old Roy and Lonnie sat paying rapt attention—the president and vice-president of her personal fan club—as Zoe did her best country diva imitation, singing to an imaginary crowd of thousands.

One song became two, then three and four. Each time it ended Roy and Lonnie gave her a standing ovation.

“Sing mine again,” Old Roy requested.

When Zoe looked to the bartender for help, Gus just smiled. “I like that one, too.”

“Last one,” Zoe said. “Last time.”

She didn’t need the words on the screen this time as she sang. “Crazy …”

It was her finale, and she went all out this time, exaggerating all the moves. Roy and Lonnie grinned at her like a couple of two-year-olds.

And during the instrumental break and the subsequent key change, she climbed up to sing while standing atop the sturdy wooden bar, and they gave her a two-man wave.

Zoe knew it wasn’t so much her voice that got them going. Her voice was pleasant enough, and she could certainly carry a tune, but she was no Patsy Cline. No, Roy and Lonnie were fans of her tight blue jeans and her low-necked tank tops.

She closed her eyes, threw her head back and struck a pose for the last chorus of the song, letting a very country-sounding cry come into her voice as she sang about being crazy for crying, crazy for trying, crazy for loving you.

As the last strains of music faded away, the room was filled with applause. Way too much applause for just Old Roy and Lonnie.

Zoe opened her eyes.

And looked directly down at Christopher Vincent.

The CRO leader was standing near the door, surrounded by about fifteen of his disciples.

She’d had no warning, no time to prepare, but then again, she’d taken off her apron—and in it, her pager—at least five songs ago.

“That was just beautiful,” Vincent said. “Just beautiful.”

She gave a sweeping bow. “Thank you.”

“Someone want to give her a hand down from there?”

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

Jake.

He pushed his way out of the crowd and stood smiling at her.

She didn’t faint with relief, didn’t gasp, didn’t reveal in any way that she recognized him. Instead she looked at him very deliberately, as if she were checking out the new man, the handsome stranger in town.

He was dressed the same as the rest of the men, in blue jeans and a worn denim work shirt. But the faded jeans hugged his thighs, and the shirt fit perfectly over his very broad shoulders. He was heart-stoppingly, impossibly beautiful, his eyes an incredible shade of molten hot blue.

During the past four and a half weeks, she’d forgotten just how amazingly blue his eyes were.

He’d been looking her over as thoroughly as she had been looking at him, and now he smiled.

Jake Robinson had a vast collection of smiles in his repertoire, but this one was very different from any she’d seen in the past. This one was as confident and self-assured as all the rest, but instead of promising friendship or protection, this smile promised complete, mind-blowing ecstasy. This smile promised heaven.

Damn, he was good. He almost had her believing that she’d lit some kind of fire inside of him.

Christopher Vincent noticed it, too. Noticed it, and recognized it. And wasn’t entirely thrilled by it.

Zoe held Jake’s gaze, lifting an eyebrow in acknowledgment of the attraction that simmered between them and giving him an answering smile that promised maybe. A very definite maybe.

“Zoe.” Gus was completely overwhelmed behind the bar.

Jake reached for her, and she leaned down to give the microphone to Lonnie before bracing her hands on Jake’s shoulders. He held her by the waist and swung her lightly to the floor, making sure that before her feet touched the ground, every possible inch of her that could touch every possible inch of him was, indeed, doing so.

And oh, God, it felt so incredibly good. She wanted to hold him tightly, to close her eyes and press her cheek against his shoulder, hear the steady beating of his heart beneath the soft cotton of his shirt. He was safe, he was whole, he was finally here. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

She wanted to hold on to him for at least an hour. Maybe two. Instead she touched the side of his face and held his gaze for just a second longer, hoping he could read her mind and know how very glad she was to see him.

His arms tightened around her for just a second in an answering embrace before he, too, let her go.

“I’m Jake,” he told her, with another of those killer smiles.

“And I’m Zoe,” she said as she went behind the bar. “Welcome to Mel’s. I’ll be your waitress tonight.” She slipped her apron around her waist, and sure enough—inside the pocket, her pager was silently shaking. She quickly shut it off. “What can I get you?”

He sat on the bar stool directly in front of her. “What kind of beer do you have on tap, Zoe?”

He said her name in a way that called up all kinds of erotic images, in a way that made her mouth go dry.

She leaned toward him, gesturing for him to come closer, and she felt his gaze slip down her shirt, nearly as palpable as a touch. “I recommend bottled beer,” she told him. They had a little problem with roaches. She didn’t know how they got into the tap hoses, but they did, and … yuck.

“Then definitely make it bottled,” Jake said. He was close enough so his breath moved her hair. “Whatever you bring me will be fine.”

As she turned around and reached into the cooler, she could feel him watching her. Make-believe, she told herself. It was all part of an act. Jake Robinson wasn’t really drooling over her rear end. He was just pretending to.

She opened the beer—a Canadian import—and set it down in front of him. “Glass?”

“I don’t need one, no.”

“Zoe, two pitchers, one light, one regular!” Gus called.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Zoe told Jake.

She could feel his eyes on her as she filled both pitchers.

He was still watching as she carried them with a stack of plastic cups to the tables where Christopher Vincent and most of his men were sitting.

“What brings you boys out on a Tuesday night?” she asked.

“My friend Jake’s been going a little stir-crazy,” Christopher told her. “He’s been … keeping a low profile. You don’t recognize him from anywhere, do you?”

Zoe glanced at the bar where Jake was sitting, still watching her. “He looks like a movie star. Is he a movie star?”

“Not exactly.” Chris looked around. “Where’s Carol? I wanted to introduce him to Carol. I thought they would hit it off.”

“She’s off tonight,” Zoe said. “Some kind of program going on over at her daughter’s school.”

“Maybe tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow will definitely be too late,” Zoe told him. “Finders keepers, and all that—because I definitely saw him first. He’s adorable.”

Chris didn’t look happy. But Chris rarely looked happy.

Considering he was the leader of the so-called chosen race, Christopher Vincent was not a particularly attractive man, mostly due to the grim expression he wore on his face nearly all the time, and partly due to his thick, dark eyebrows, which grew almost completely together in the middle. He was tall and beefy with long dark hair, which he wore pulled back into a ponytail. He kept his face hidden behind a thick, graying beard, and he usually wore tinted glasses over his dark brown eyes. He looked over the tops of them as he gazed at Zoe.

They were definitely the eyes of a fanatic—the eyes of a man who wouldn’t hesitate to use the Triple X he’d stolen if he thought it would further his cause.

He was volatile, with a very short fuse.

“I saw you first,” he pointed out.

Oh, brother, this was a complication she hadn’t anticipated. Somehow over the past few weeks, she’d managed to catch Christopher Vincent’s eye. “You’re married,” she told him, trying to sound apologetic and even regretful. “I have a personal rule about married men. I don’t touch ‘em. See, I want to get married myself, and since married men are already married …” She shrugged.

“I’ve been thinking about taking another wife.”

“Another …?”

“The federal government has no right to force us to follow its restrictive rules about marriage and family. A man of power and wealth should take as many wives as he pleases.”

Oh, yeah? “What does your wife think about that?” Zoe asked.

“All three of my wives are kept very satisfied.”

Holy Mike. If they ever got desperate, they could bust this guy for polygamy. “Wow,” she said. “Well. It’s hard enough being a second wife when the first one’s not around. I don’t think I could handle the competition.”

“Think about it.”

“I don’t need to, hon,” she said. “I’m the jealous type. I wouldn’t want to share.”

“You could have my baby.”

And that was supposed to entice her? A baby with a single eyebrow with a complete lunatic for a father? “Well, it’s tempting,” she said. “But I really want to be someone’s number-one wife.”

He gestured for her to lean closer. “We sometimes share wives in the CRO,” he said in a low voice. “You could marry someone like Jake and still have my baby.”

Ooo-kay. “Jake doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d want to, you know, share.”

“He’s very generous,” Christopher Vincent told her. He looked up, past her, and smiled. He had a smile like a wolf—lots of teeth, more vicious than happy. “Hey, buddy, we were just talking about you. Zoe here wants to marry you.”

Zoe held up her hands. “Chris. Wait. I never said that.” She turned to Jake. “He’s just teasing. He’s crazy, you know—”

It was the dead wrong thing to say.

Christopher exploded, reaching out with one hand and grabbing the front of her shirt, pulling her down so that they were nose to nose, so that she was practically lying on the table in front of him, so that her tray clattered onto the floor. “Don’t ever call me crazy!”

“Hey,” Jake said. “Whoa. Take it easy, Chris. Come on, pal, I’m sure she didn’t mean to offend you.”

Zoe felt him right behind her, his arms around her as he tried to pry the other man’s fingers from her shirt.

Vincent released her, pushing her away from him, and she would have fallen over had Jake not been there.

“Dammit, Chris,” Zoe said, refusing to let him see how badly he’d frightened her, how completely he’d freaked her out. “You ruined my shirt.” She had to hold the front against her, he’d stretched it out so badly. He’d bruised her, too, by grabbing more than just her shirt. Way to woo a new wife, baby.

Gus had come out from behind the bar, and he was hovering nearby. “Everything okay over here?”

“I don’t know,” Zoe said. “Chris, are you done grabbing me?”

Jake’s hands tightened on her in warning, but she didn’t give him time to answer. “I’ve got to go change my shirt.” Pulling free from Jake, she picked up her tray and handed it to Gus, then headed for the back room.

She sensed more than saw Jake follow her. And she wasn’t surprised, after she fished a T-shirt from her backpack, to turn around and see him standing there, door tightly shut behind him.

He looked really upset.

Zoe wasn’t sure who moved first, and it didn’t matter. As she reached for him, he lunged for her, and then, God, she was in his arms, just holding him as close as she possibly could.

“Are you all right?” He didn’t release her to ask, he just kept holding her as tightly as she was holding him. “When he grabbed you like that …”

“I’m okay,” she told him. And she was. Despite the bruises Christopher Vincent had just given her, she was more okay than she’d been in a long time. She pulled back to look at him. “Are you?”

“This isn’t going to work.” The tone of Jake’s voice matched the intensity in his eyes. They’d turned into steel—hard and cold, with a razor-sharp edge. “The plan. I’ve got to come up with something else because I’m not letting you go in there.”

“But—”

“He’s dangerous, Zoe. He’s completely unhinged. The whole organization’s seriously off balance. Getting you inside as my wife is no longer an option. I don’t want you anywhere near there. Besides, it’s just not feasible, from what I’ve found out.”

“Dammit, Jake—”

He kissed her. One moment, he was glaring at her, and the next his mouth was hard against hers, his tongue sweeping past her gasp of surprise.

Zoe felt herself sway, caught off balance for the briefest moment, before she clung to him, kissing him back with as much passion, angling her head to grant him deeper access.

He was kissing her. Jake Robinson was kissing her because he wanted to, not because he had to. Tears stung the inside of her eyelids, and for the first time she let herself acknowledge that she wanted Jake Robinson more than she’d ever wanted any man. He was her hero, her commander and in many ways her deity. She worshipped him, on every possible level.

He pushed her back so she bumped against the concrete block of the storage-room wall as still he kissed her. His hands were all over her as he pressed himself hard between her legs, pulling her thigh up along his as he strained to get closer, even closer, playing out her wildest fantasy. But when he cupped her breast far more roughly than she would have expected, she opened her eyes in surprise.

And saw Christopher Vincent standing at the half-open storage-room door, his hand on the knob as he looked in at them.

He pulled the door shut behind him, and when he did, Jake stopped kissing her. He took his hand from her breast but otherwise just stood there, eyes closed, breathing hard, forehead resting against the wall beside her.

She’d been wrong. Jake hadn’t really been kissing her. Somehow he must’ve heard the door open. Somehow he’d known that Christopher was there.

It wasn’t a want-to kiss, after all. It was a had-to kiss.

Zoe drew in a very shaky breath. “Oh, God.”

Jake pulled away from her, his eyes dark with apology. “I’m sorry—did I hurt you?”

She tried to joke. “Are you kidding? That was more fun than I’ve had in weeks.”

He turned slightly away from her, and she realized that her shirt was hanging open in the front where Chris had stretched it, revealing the entire top edge of her very low-cut bra. She picked her T-shirt up from the floor, and turning her back to Jake, she quickly changed.

“We’ve got too much to talk about, too much to decide,” Jake told her. “So I’m going to go home with you tonight.”

She turned to face him, her heart in her throat despite the fact that she knew nothing would happen between them even if he did spend the night in her trailer. He’d had to kiss her. God, she was such a fool for thinking otherwise.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why would you marry me if you can just get some whenever you want? Besides, I’ve set up my cover so that everyone out there in that bar knows that I’m looking to get married. What are they going to think if I just suddenly settle for casual sex?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’ve changed my mind about the whole marriage thing. Zoe, this guy is nuts. The entire organization is screwy. The way they treat women is criminal. I can’t let you do this.”

“Jake, you promised that you’d let me decide—”

“That was before I knew how bad it would be. On top of that, Vincent’s got security cameras everywhere. I found at least three in my bedroom. How the hell can I bring you there? Don’t you think it would look a little suspicious when I don’t make love to my gorgeous young wife?”

“So bring me there and make love to me.” Zoe couldn’t believe she was actually bold enough to say the words aloud.

Jake was silent, looking at her, looking hard into her eyes as if trying to see if she’d really meant what she’d just said.

She held his gaze, pretending she was as flip and blasé about the idea of being intimate with him, pretending she could shrug it off as just another job requirement, pretending it would mean no more to her than a way to find that missing Trip X.

It’s no big deal, she told him with her smile, even as her heart was pounding.

“Even if you would do that,” he finally said, “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.” He turned away. “That’s not an option.”

Zoe felt like crying. He honestly didn’t want her. Even with necessity as a solid excuse, he couldn’t acknowledge that any of the passion that sparked between them when they kissed was genuine. And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he was the best actor she’d ever met, and all of the real passion was her own.

God, she was pathetic.

But that was just too bad. Because she had a job to do and no time to feel sorry for herself.

She took a deep breath. “So you’re just going to do this by yourself—find the Triple X on your own? All alone?”

“I need to get a message to Harvard. I think there’s a way to intercept the images from the security cameras—but I’ll need some equipment from him. If I can do that, you’ll be able to see inside the CRO compound from the safety of the surveillance trailer.”

“What if that’s not enough? Jake, you know it’s going to be easier for me to help you find the Trip X if I’m there with you. I think we’ve got to leave our options open. So I’m not going to let you pretend to come home with me, in case we need to use the marriage thing in the future.” And wouldn’t that be fun? Living with him twenty-four seven, pretending to be lovers, all the while knowing that she was about the farthest thing possible from the woman he truly wanted?

She handed him her ordering pad and pen. “Write Harvard a message,” she continued. “Write down whatever equipment you need. Whatever he needs to know. I’ll see that he gets it.”

There was a knock on the door and old Roy stuck his head in. “Zoe, Gus is looking for you. Hal’s bowling team just showed up.” He frowned at Jake. “Say, young fellow, you’re not supposed to be back here.” He stepped farther into the room. “Everything all right, Zoe?”

Zoe gave the old man a reassuring smile. “Everything’s fine, Roy. Tell Gus I’ll be right there.”

She looked at Jake as the door closed behind Roy. “I better get out there.”

He couldn’t hide his frustration. “There’s more we need to discuss.”

Zoe started for the door. “Load the jukebox with quarters, then buy another round for your friends. As soon as there’s a lull, ask me to dance. Hal doesn’t mind if the waitresses dance with the paying customers. We can talk more on the dance floor. Just make sure the songs you pick are ballads.” She paused, her hand on the door. “I know this is distasteful for you, but I can’t think of any other way for us to have a private conversation.”

“Zoe—”

She closed the door behind her and hurried to the bar.




CHAPTER SEVEN


JAKE MADE A QUICK SWEEP of the room as he headed for the jukebox. The bar wasn’t filled to capacity, but compared to when he’d first come in, it was hopping.

A tall man with long, greasy salt-and-pepper hair and a droopy mustache was behind the bar with Zoe and the bartender. He had to be Hal Francke. Sure enough, he didn’t move past Zoe in the crowded space without touching her in some way.

So bring me there and make love to me.

Jake shook his head to exorcise Zoe’s husky voice. She’d been serious. He’d seen it in her eyes. She would have had sex with him, in front of those cameras, to boot, in order to get this job done.

He stared sightlessly at the listing of songs on the old-fashioned jukebox, wishing he had some of her recklessness, her impetuousness, her careless youth. Wishing he could break away from everything that held him to the past, but knowing that even if he could forget for one night, for one hour, even if he could lose himself completely in this woman’s sweet arms, he’d wake up and be right back where he’d started in the morning.

Or maybe even in a worse place.

I know this is distasteful for you…. Zoe had said that as she walked out the door. He had to set her straight. He couldn’t have her continue to believe that. There was a lot about this assignment that was distasteful, but being with her was not.

Like he’d told her nearly five weeks ago—he liked kissing her. Too much. And even after all this time apart, he still liked it. Still much too much. He’d thought the distance would be good, that it would give him some perspective, some sense of reality. But all those weeks he’d dreamed about her in ways that were outrageously inappropriate.

He’d started out dreaming of Daisy, erotic, sensuous dreams of lovemaking filled with heat and light and such vivid sensations. But his dream would shift and change, the way dreams often do, and then Zoe would become the woman in his arms, her body wrapped around him.

He’d wake up, dizzy and out of breath and achingly, painfully alone.

Jake forced himself to focus and fed the jukebox dollar bills, punching in all the slow romantic ballads he could identify. He’d just picked a LeAnn Rimes song when he saw Christopher Vincent approach, his image shimmery but unmistakable in the curved glass.

He felt himself tense and worked hard to keep the smile on his face a pleasant one. God, when Christopher had grabbed Zoe, Jake had had to physically restrain himself. He’d come damn close to picking the man up and throwing him across the room.

“I guess our new little waitress likes you,” Christopher said.

Jake pushed the buttons for a Garth Brooks song, not even looking up. “Oh, is she new here?”

“She came into town a few weeks ago. Hal met her at some party. Don’t worry. I’ve checked her out. She’s exactly what she says she is.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” Jake smiled at Chris. “But no real surprise. I mean, she doesn’t come across as some kind of rocket scientist or—I don’t know—some kind of biochemical engineer. Can you imagine her in a lab coat?”

Christopher laughed, and Jake laughed, too, knowing that the real joke was on the CRO leader. God, it was going to be so good to nail this guy ….

“Yeah,” Chris said, “I can imagine her wearing only a lab coat.” He laughed again. “She is some hot ticket.”

Jake turned to the jukebox, uncomfortable with Christopher’s openly lascivious appraisal of Zoe, not wanting to be a part of it in any way.

“I’ve seen her counting on her fingers,” Chris continued, “but with a body like that, it’s almost better that she’s not too bright.” He looked at the bar, watching Zoe as she poured another pitcher of beer. “Oh, yeah. She’s choice.”

As if she were a cut of meat. Jake felt his smile turning even more brittle and he stared at the jukebox, reminding himself why he couldn’t simply beat the hell out of Christopher Vincent right here and right now.

“Just so you know not to get your hopes up too high,” Christopher told him before he walked away, “she’s holding out for marriage, our little Zoe is. You’d have better luck with Carol.”

Jake glanced at the bar, but Zoe was gone. He quickly scanned the room, found her making the rounds of tables, double-checking that everyone had all the beer and liquor they needed to get them through the next few minutes.

She looked up, caught him gazing at her, and for a fraction of a second, he saw a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes. Distasteful. Did she honestly think he found this part of the set up distasteful?

But just like that the uncertainty was gone and she smiled.

It was a very inviting, very warm smile, complete with a very slow, very appreciative up-and-down look that was totally lacking in subtlety. It was a look he might’ve gotten back in high school, and his body responded in a way far more appropriate for a seventeen-year-old than a fifty-something grown man.

Jake moved toward her as surely as she made her way toward him. It was as if they both were magnetized, as if they couldn’t have stayed apart from one another even if they’d tried.

Zoe set her tray on top of an empty table.

He slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, afraid if he didn’t he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from reaching for her.

“I didn’t buy another round yet,” he told her. “When I came out, someone else had just—”

“It’s okay.” She looked away, as if suddenly shy. “You know, if you don’t want to dance, we could try sitting at a table toward the back. But Gus and Hal might—”

He took his hands out of his back pockets, and just like that, he had her by her hand and was pulling her toward the dimly lit dance floor next to the jukebox. Just like that she was in his arms and swaying gently in time to the music.

“You should talk fast,” she told him. “I don’t know how long I’ll have before Gus needs me.”

He pulled her closer. “This is not distasteful,” he murmured into her ear. “Let’s start with that, all right?”

Zoe shook her head. “Jake, you don’t have to—”

“It’s just …” He searched to find the words that would explain. “It’s very … weird for me. I was with only one woman for nearly thirty years—nearly your entire lifetime. Can you even imagine that?”

Silently, she shook her head.

“I’m going to make everyone in this bar believe that I’ve got a major thing for you,” he told her. “And doing that will not be distasteful. I’d be lying if I told you I haven’t spent the past weeks looking forward to this. Looking forward to it, and dreading it, all at the same time. You’re a great kid, Zoe, and a beautiful woman and … And I’m sorry if I can’t be as blasé about any of this as you, and I’m sorry in advance if I somehow make you feel bad. Holding you, even dancing like this, hurts a little bit. But it feels good, too. Really good. Which in turns hurts a little bit more. Does that make any sense at all?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry if I—”

“Let’s not apologize to each other anymore. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do, right?”

She lifted her chin. “I think one of the things I’ve got to do is to get into the CRO compound.”

“Now, that idea is distasteful.”

“Jake, no, I’ve been thinking about it.” She rested her head against his shoulder, and when she spoke, he could feel her breath against his throat. “The best way for me to help you find the Trip X is for me to be in there.” She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “Remember our deal? Remember what you promised?”

“I didn’t know what it would be like in there for a woman. Zoe, whatever you’ve heard about the CRO—”

“I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when I agreed to be a part of your team. I can handle it.”

“But I’m the team leader, and I need you to try it my way first.” And if his way didn’t work … Jake wasn’t sure how they’d handle the cameras in the bedroom. Maybe they could cover some, disable the others. Maybe they could pretend to make love, under the covers ….

He changed the subject, trying to banish the image of Zoe in his bed, her body soft beneath his.

No. He refused to give up on the idea that they could find the Triple X and keep Zoe safely out of harm’s way. And out of his bed.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get here,” he said. “Christopher tends toward delusions of grandeur, and he imagined this terrible altercation the moment I stepped outside of the CRO gate. I think he was a little disappointed when I made it all the way into town without being chased by federal agents.”

The song ended and they stopped for a moment, waiting for the next song to start. It had almost exactly the same slow, pulsating beat. He’d picked the songs well.

As they began dancing again, she shifted her body even closer and rested her head against his shoulder. How could she fit so perfectly in his arms?

“So how did you convince him to let you come to town?” she murmured.

“Well, I, um, I thanked him for his hospitality and sanctuary, but I told him that I wouldn’t be able to stay with him any longer unless I at least had the opportunity to, um …” He laughed, embarrassed. “Well, to, you know ….”

“Ah.”

“And since there are no single women in the CRO over age thirteen …”

She lifted her head. “He didn’t offer you one of his many wives?”

“Are you kidding? The man’s almost obsessively possessive.”

“Hmm. The sharing doesn’t go both ways, huh?”

“Sharing?”

“Just more CRO unpleasantness. Women as chattel. You know, it’s a good thing you made it into town today,” Zoe interrupted herself. “The team was starting to make plans to liberate you. You had us all worried.”

Jake swore softly. “Why can’t they just sit tight and trust me?”

“They care about you.”

“They think I’m too old.”

“You think you’re too old.”

Jake pulled back slightly. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Zoe shook her head. “Nothing. Look, Jake, I’ve been—”

“Nothing, my ass! You wouldn’t’ve said it if it meant nothing.”

“Okay, it meant something, but it’s a personal something, and if we’ve got limited time to talk here, the personal stuff should be the last thing we get to.”

He couldn’t argue with that. Unfortunately it didn’t make him wonder exactly what she’d meant any less. He thought he was too old. Jeez.

“I’ve been thinking about alternatives to this whole setup,” she said. She pulled him close, breathing into his ear as if her words were seductive promises rather than a plan for an alternative operation.

God, he’d forgotten for a moment—he’d been standing there arguing with her. They were supposed to be just short of making out on the dance floor. He held her closer, and she moved toward him willingly, her breasts soft against him. He buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair. Oh, God.

“What’s your take on the hierarchy of power inside the CRO?” she murmured, her breath hot against his ear. “I’ve always gotten the impression that Christopher Vincent’s it. That without him, the organization would fall apart. And if that’s the case, why don’t we just grab Vincent on one of his trips outside of his compound? Hold him hostage in exchange for the Trip X?”

“I’ve thought about that, too,” Jake admitted. He kissed her neck, ran his hands down her back to cup her rear end. Oh, God. Bad mistake. But once his hands were there, it would’ve looked odd for him to move them right away, wouldn’t it? What were they talking about? Hostage. Vincent. Right.

“It’s not an option,” he told her, hoping she wouldn’t notice the huskiness of his voice. He cleared his throat. “Vincent’s got contingency plans for all kinds of disaster scenarios. Everyone in the CRO compound has a battle station to go to if the Feds suddenly launch an attack. He’s stockpiled enough food to withstand a two-year siege. He’s got an escape route charted out of this bar, in case he suddenly finds himself a target while he’s here.”

She slipped her hands into the back pockets of his jeans, pressing his hips tightly against hers. “With or without an escape route, we could get him.”

“I know that. But what I don’t know is what his contingency plan is in regards to the Triple X. His lieutenants might not know what it is they’ve got. His orders might be for them to use it if he’s taken. So, no, we’re not going to grab him. Not without finding out more.”

Jake tried to shift back, extremely aware of the fact that when she pulled him that close, there were no secrets between them—including the secret he’d been trying to keep about the enthusiastic way his body was responding to her nearness.

He tried to make his voice sound casual, conversational. As if he weren’t affected by the sensation of her breasts against his chest, as if he couldn’t feel her heat as she pressed herself against his thigh. “Hey, have you heard from Mitch?”

“Not since he’s been arrested.” Zoe smiled, her hands traveling up his back. “We almost didn’t recognize him when we saw the news report on CNN.”

“Yeah, he’s good with disguises. I looked twice at that little old man sitting at the bar just to be sure it wasn’t him.”

“It’s not. Mitch is still in custody,” Zoe told him. She ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and it felt impossibly, sinfully good. “He’s being held at the same federal penitentiary where Christopher Vincent’s stepbrother is doing ten to twenty for armed robbery.”

Jake laughed. “Well, jeez, that’s pure genius. I mean, I knew Christopher had a stepbrother who’d been in trouble with the law, but … Whose idea was it to send Mitch to the same prison?”

“I’m a fan of doing just that little extra bit of research,” she told him modestly. “We lucked out that the stepbrother was in a federal jail and—”

“It was your idea. Good job, Lange. So you’re the genius, huh?”

“Whoa,” she said, laughing. Her eyes sparkled and danced with amusement. She was so pretty, so full of life. The longing that hit him was so strong, it took his breath away. “Don’t go overboard. Yes, it was a good idea, but—”

She stopped short, her smile fading at the look he knew was in his eyes. He couldn’t hide it, and he prayed she would think it was only part of the game they were playing.

They’d both stopped moving, and they stood on the dance floor just holding each other. She gazed at him, her beautiful lips slightly parted, and when he didn’t move, she stood on her toes and kissed him.

It was the smallest of kisses, light and delicate, a feathery brushing of her lips across his. She searched his eyes again, then stood on her toes once more. This time she kissed him a little bit harder. This time she tasted him, gently touching the curve of his lips with the very tip of her tongue. And this time he kissed her, too, just as delicately, just as softly.

Jake’s heart was pounding, and he was dizzy from wanting more. But he took his cues from her, letting her lead, refusing to push her into harder, deeper, longer kisses, no matter how badly he wanted just that.

She delicately swept her tongue into his mouth and he groaned aloud. She took him right to the point where he knew they were on the verge of crushing their mouths together and positively inhaling each other, but instead, she pulled back.

“We’re both good actors,” she whispered, “but we’re not this good. Part of this is real, Jake, whether we want to believe it or not. That’s what I was trying to say when I told you I’d make love to you. That I also want to make love to you.”

Jake didn’t know what to say.

She kissed him again, hot and sweet and long. “That’s me kissing you, no games, no pretense. We can have it both ways, you know. We can do our jobs and get naked—if you can get past everything you need to get past, if you can come to the conclusion that you’re not too old for this sort of thing.”

“Ah,” Jake said, finally finding his voice as she pulled free from his arms. “We’ve finally come to the personal stuff.”

“I bet you look good naked,” Zoe told him as she picked up her tray and headed to the bar.

Jake wanted both to laugh and cry. He’d never met anyone as completely in-your-face honest as Zoe Lange. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t shy about asking for it.

She wanted him.

And his big problem was that he wanted her, too.

Even though he knew that wanting her was wrong.




CHAPTER EIGHT


“OH, HELL, HE’S NAKED!”

Bobby Taylor thrust his big hands in front of the video monitor. But because there was more than one camera, there was more than one screen to cover. Wes Skelly grabbed Zoe’s chair and spun her so she was facing the other direction.

She just laughed at them. “Oh, come on, you guys. Like I haven’t seen a naked man before? I grew up in a very small house with four brothers. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the male anatomy has just never been a mystery to me.”

“Yeah, but he’s an admiral,” the bigger SEAL told her. Bobby Taylor could have made a fortune playing professional football. At six feet seven inches, he weighed at least two-sixty, maybe even more. When he sat down, he took up two chairs, but very little of his bulk was fat. He was simply enormous. Yet despite that, he was one of the most graceful men Zoe had ever met. He was part Native American—part Navajo, he’d told her. He had the darkest, most serene brown eyes she’d ever seen. “He’s earned the right to towel off after his shower without an audience.”

“Besides,” Wes added, “you don’t want to be looking at him naked. He’s an old man.”

“He is not—”

“Okay,” Bobby said. “He’s got his shorts on. Although it still seems a little disrespectful for us to be staring at an admiral when he’s in his underwear.”

Zoe spun her chair to face the row of video monitors. Jake stood, displayed from three different angles, combing his hair out of his face. One of the cameras must’ve been positioned directly behind the mirror, because he gazed straight into it, his eyes a vivid blue. His arms were over his head, his biceps and triceps flexing.

“I’m sorry, Skelly,” Zoe said, tapping that screen. “But that is not an old man. I don’t know where you get off calling him that. He’s in better shape than you are.”

His stomach was rock solid and his chest was muscular, despite being badly scarred.

“Wow,” Bobby said, subdued by the sight of all those scars. “He’s seen some action, huh?”

“Two years ago he was the target of an assassination attempt,” Zoe said. God, if those scars were any indication, he’d been nearly mortally wounded. It was a miracle he was still alive. He’d miraculously escaped death many times while in Vietnam, too. Some people said he’d led a charmed life. Without a doubt, luck had always been his constant companion.

Zoe hoped that same good fortune was riding copilot with Jake right now. If Christopher Vincent even suspected Jake was there as a spy …

On the screen, Jake threw his comb on top of the dresser. He took his jeans from the closet. Too bad. He had very nice legs. As Zoe watched from three different angles, he pulled on his jeans and covered them up.

His bedroom was a former executive office for the old factory, the walls still covered with cheap, tacky paneling, ancient orange-shag carpeting on the floor, blessedly faded. The furniture was cream-colored, with gold ornamentation—directly from a low-rent motel liquidation sale. She’d have thought a group declaring themselves to be the chosen race would have a little more taste.

“Besides behind the mirror,” Zoe mused, “the other cameras are, where? Over by this window …” She pointed to the screen. “And … here near the door?”

Wes spread the floor plan of the CRO compound—the former Belle Frosty Cakes factory—out on the counter behind her and she swiveled her chair to face him.

“In Admiral Robinson’s quarters, the cameras are here, here and here.” He highlighted the locations in pink.

“Any in Jake’s bathroom?” she asked, leaning over for a closer look.

“At least one,” he told her. “Here.”

“Show me that one,” she said, turning to the video screens.

Bobby keyed a command into the computer, and the image on the far left screen changed.

The camera in the white-tiled bathroom had a clear shot of the door, the sink and the toilet. But not the tub. The tub, with the shower, was off to the side, out of camera range. Interesting.

On the other two video screens, Jake buttoned up his shirt, pocketed his wallet and keys and left the room.

“Can you follow him?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah, as long as he doesn’t go too fast.” Bobby had fingers the size of hot dogs, yet they flew over the computer keyboard. “But even if we do lose him, it won’t take long to find him again. As soon as he speaks, we can use the computer and trace him by his voice.”

On screen, Jake walked purposefully along the corridor. He had a cocky walk, with a spring in his step more befitting a twenty-five-year-old. It was self-confidence, Zoe realized. Jake Robinson walked the way he did because he trusted himself completely. He liked himself, too.

It was powerfully attractive.

It had been two whole days since she’d seen him last, and Zoe felt a sharp tug of longing. She missed him.

They’d been together every evening at the bar for two and a half weeks before that. During that time Zoe had smuggled to Jake the equipment he’d needed to enable the SEALs to tap into the CRO security cameras. And during that time, they’d established a very hot, very high-visibility romance.

Zoe had made it clear to all the patrons of Mel’s Bar that she was holding out for marriage. Despite the sparks she and Jake made on the dance floor, she publicly refused to bring him home with her. And Jake, he’d made it clear that he wasn’t ready for any kind of commitment.

It was kind of funny, actually. In truth, the man was Mr. Commitment. He would still be married to his first wife right now if she hadn’t died. And Zoe didn’t doubt for one nanosecond that he’d still be happily married.

Conversely she, Zoe, had never even imagined herself married. She’d never seen the need, considering that she’d never truly been in love. She’d always purposely sought out and let herself fall halfway in love with men she knew would never be right for her. Halfway in love was all she’d wanted, though. It was safe. She knew exactly what she’d get, knew she’d never be in too deep, never out of control.

She was doing the exact same thing with Jake, too. Even if she could convince him to make their relationship more physical, more intimate, she knew damn well it would never go beyond that. He still loved his wife, and he wasn’t looking to replace her.

Zoe could love Jake—just a little—and still be safe.

So she did. And she used her feelings to bring a certain authenticity to her role. No, she would not sleep with him, not until they were married. Well, okay, pretending that was a stretch. A long stretch.

And at times, when Jake held her in his arms on the dance floor, or when she kissed him goodbye each night, she thought the sheer irony would drive her completely insane. Here Jake always pretended that he wanted to spend the night with her, and Zoe always pushed him away.

She could think of only one thing she wanted more than to spend these long, cold autumn nights with Jake Robinson in her bed. She wanted to find the Trip X. But that was the only thing she wanted more.

Still she sent Jake back to the CRO fort each night. And each night she slept alone.

Each day, she locked herself in the team’s surveillance trailer, using the computers to access the CRO cameras, electronically searching for the missing canisters of Triple X.

She was exhausted, bleary-eyed and completely frustrated on many, many levels. She wasn’t going to find anything this way. She had to get in there, inside that electric fence. She needed to search with more than just her eyes, restricted by the lens of a camera.

She had to get inside Christopher Vincent’s private quarters, into those few rooms where there were no security cameras. The more she came into contact with Vincent, the more she was convinced that he was the type of man who’d get off on keeping a crate of deadly poison—enough to wipe out the capital city of this country—on the sideboard of his private dining room.

She’d had it. She’d played it Jake’s way for long enough. She was going to get inside the CRO walls whether he liked it or not.

On the video monitor, Jake turned a corner, and with a flick of his fingers, Bobby made him appear on a different screen. The enormous SEAL didn’t consult any list, didn’t look at the factory schematic. He just somehow knew the camera codes.

“You’ve already memorized both the layout of this part of the factory and the location of the cameras?” she asked.

“I’ve got the whole factory up here.” He tapped on his forehead. “I’m pretty good with maps.”

Pretty good?

“Morning, John,” Jake said in greeting to a man heading in the same direction. Bobby made another adjustment, and their conversation about the current dreary weather came in crisp and clear over the speakers, fading slightly as they moved away from one microphone, getting louder as they walked past another.

“Tell me about the audio signal,” Zoe said. “Do all the cameras have microphones, or is there a different miking system?”

“There’s a combination,” Wes told her. “The dedicated mikes are higher quality, but they’re also more expensive so there’re fewer of ‘em.”

“Is it possible to speak quietly enough so’s not to be heard?” Zoe asked. “I guess what I need to know is, once I’m in there, is there any way I’ll be able to talk to Jake without the mikes picking up our conversation?”

“Mid to high-range frequency overload will block low-volume conversation,” Bobby said. He typed in a new command, and on the right-hand screen, the CRO kitchen appeared. About a dozen women were in the big room, about half of them washing dishes. “See?”

“Run water,” Wes interpreted. “And speak softly. But don’t whisper. A whisper could cut through.”

Sure enough, in the kitchen, water was running from the faucet, and Zoe could only make out the words of the women who raised their voices significantly when they spoke.

“We also found a spot where the security cameras were set up a little carelessly,” Wes told her. He pointed to the floor plan again, and she stood to get a better look, stretching her legs. “Up here there’s access to the roof. There must’ve been some kind of recreation deck there at some time. And the entire northwest corner of that area is completely out of camera range. It overlooks the millstream—an added bonus, running water. Again, speak softly, and your conversation will be covered by the sound of the water. You won’t be overheard.”

Bobby turned in his chair to face her, his dark eyes very serious. “Zoe, are you sure you want to go in there?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but I’m not sure the admiral’s got this under control.”

“Admirals can lose touch,” Wes agreed. Since Bobby was so tall and broad and always with him, Wes always seemed short and wiry in comparison. But Zoe had to lift her chin to look at him as he straightened up. He had a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his T-shirt sleeve, revealing a stylized barbed-wire tattoo that ran completely around an extremely well-developed bicep. He may have been wiry compared to Bobby, but only compared to Bobby. Wes Skelly was no lightweight, that was for sure.

“Since when did you start smoking again?” she asked him.

“Since I’ve been nervous as hell about this op,” he countered. “Since we’ve been sitting here for weeks, relying only on Robinson, getting no closer to finding that Triple X crap.”

“Human beings slow down,” Bobby pointed out.

“After you hit a certain age, your reaction time really starts to suck,” Wes agreed.

“It’s a fact of life.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Wes said, “the admiral’s a good guy—”

“For an admiral—” added Bobby.

“And we know he used to be a SEAL—”

“A long time ago—”





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