Live and Let Love

by Gina Robinson

  She’d never be able to drug Shane then. And she wouldn’t forgive herself for accidentally hurting Buddy.

  Shane grabbed Buddy’s collar, called to Duke to follow him, and led them out of the room, returning shaking his head.

  He sat down right next to her on the sofa. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, deep, dark-chocolate–covered caramels.” He picked up his caramel, grinned at Willow, and put it into his mouth whole.

  That was easy.

  He rolled his eyes back in pleasure as he sucked on the caramel. “Heavenly.”

  Play the game. Never give yourself away or you’re dead.

  She heard Jack’s warning in her mind almost as clearly as if it were audible.

  She held the candy box out to Shane again. “Have another.”

  * * *

  Jack stood at the edge of the Rooster’s apple orchards at the top of the path of flowers just outside the apple barn. He wore black camo, his typical sneaking out and spying at night garb. He was nothing more than a shadow. Death coming in little army combat–booted feet. Kennett’s dogs hadn’t even picked him up.

  He stared at Willow’s car in the driveway, frowning. What the hell is Willow’s doing here?

  Yes, he’d been tracking her. When her car headed for Kennett’s, he had to follow. Happily, her visit coincided with his mission to infiltrate Kennett’s, so he could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Although he intended to kill only one bird, a great big cocky one.

  His heart stopped for just a minute before kicking back into gear with an unreasonable stab of jealousy. And a pang of denial—maybe she was just hanging with the dogs. Yeah, everyone in there was a dog, including Kennett. But Jack was thinking of Buddy and Duke, who were a higher class of animal altogether than the Rooster.

  Jack bit back a long string of curses in Portuguese that Kyle had taught him years ago. There was nothing quite as impressive as Portuguese cursing. Jack had an irrational urge to ram Kennett’s door in.

  Which, of course, was not covert at all. That didn’t stop Jack from wanting to charge in, take back his wife, and carry her caveman-style the hell out of there. Kennett anywhere around Willow gave Jack barbarian urges.

  Was she taking pity on a poor invalid? Just being friendly? Or something more dangerous? Had she finally made the connection between Kennett and Con? He hoped not.

  Jack’s pulse pounded out of control at a time when he needed calm and clear thinking.

  The woman was stubborn. She wouldn’t rest until she found out for sure whether he was himself or not. None of which explained exactly what she was doing here. Or why he was so damn jealous and distracted. He forced his attention back on his mission.

  The apple barn beckoned before him, locked tightly with an alarmed padlock. Breaking through it was not a problem for Jack.

  The curtained, warmly lit living room window before him, however, was a huge temptation. There was just the tiniest of cracks between the bottom of the curtain and the window ledge. Enough for a spy camera to peep through.

  Jack just hoped the Rooster hadn’t armed any devices to jam Jack’s night-vision goggles or spy cams. Jack slunk to the side of the house with his bag of spy gear slung over his shoulder, tiptoed through the fall asters and mums, insinuated himself between Kennett’s siding and his bushes, and inconspicuously put his high-def, night-vision spy cam key chain on the outside window ledge so it could focus through the tiny slit beneath the curtain. After activating it, of course. This wasn’t the cheap kind with a flashing red light to give it away. This was the real-deal CIA-grade device.

  Jack wore night-vision goggles with spy cam receptor video. He hunkered down in the bushes and turned on the video receiver. Almost instantaneously he was watching Kennett cuddle up next to Willow.

  Nope, Kennett hadn’t set up a jammer.

  There’s jealousy and then there’s soul-baring, blinding, raging, protective jealousy, the kind that makes a guy want to kill. Jack experienced a high-voltage jolt of the second kind. He did not want that killer touching Willow, not even to shake her hand. Before Jack could master his emotions, he rammed his shoulder against the outer wall of Kennett’s house.

  It was a foolish thing to do.

  Calm down, idiot in love, before you blow things.

  Jack hunkered down, squatting and resting on the balls of his feet. He slammed one fist into his other palm, imagining it was Kennett’s face he was hitting. Bad idea. His hand hurt like hell and he needed it for his mission. Love made a guy do stupid things and Jack was behaving like the world’s dumbest spy. He could take that bastard out with one well-placed sniper shot. And throw his entire career away with that one bullet.

  I’m going to kill that SOB. And he meant it.

  Jack took a deep breath and counted to three the way the Agency psychiatrist had taught him to do when he felt his anger raging out of control. He separated himself into two separate beings—Jack the professional spy who never got riled and Jack the jealous husband. He let Jack the spy push Jack the husband into the background and take over. He’d been using this kind of compartmentalization to survive his entire life. It kept him sane doing what he did for a living and had saved his sanity more than once when he was a bullied kid.

  Somewhat under control, he glanced at the apple-shed door. He had to get into that bunker. Watching Willow schmoozing with the enemy wasn’t going to help him accomplish his mission. But he couldn’t leave her unprotected.

  Jack left the key-chain cam where it was and headed to the shed. If she needed him, and he planned on keeping an eye on her, he was only seconds away.

  * * *

  Shane turned toward the window. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” Willow hadn’t heard a thing.

  “I heard a noise outside. By the window.”

  Willow shook her head. “You must have supersonic hearing. I didn’t hear a thing.”

  Shane cocked an ear, acting more nervous than she’d ever seen him. Yes, he was always cautious, and maybe the tiniest bit paranoid about his privacy, but this went beyond normal. Which made the case that he was Jack’s target. An enemy spy would be extremely conscious of his surroundings and always on guard. Jack always was.

  “I heard something.” Shane stared at the curtained window, frowning. His chest rose and fell in a pattern that indicated he was getting worked up and was afraid of something or someone. “I’d better check it out.”

  “Now?” Willow couldn’t let him go outside. Any minute now that allergy med would blend with the wine and kick in and Shane would go down like a bull moose. Even hitching him to Buddy and Duke she’d never be able to drag him back inside. At least, not without a lot of bruising and unexplainable bondage burns. She did not need the rumors those would cause.

  She was trying to keep this visit clandestine and below the radar, particularly Jack’s.

  How could she ever explain to the neighbors why Shane was outside and passed out cold, under the influence of antihistamines?

  “I’ll be right back.” He rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  It’s kicking in already.

  She grabbed his hand to stop him. “It’s probably nothing,” she said. “Just a mouse or rabbit. Maybe one of those pesky raccoons. Didn’t you tell me you’ve seen several in your maple tree?” She gave him a warm smile. “Can’t we just ignore it? We were having such a nice … time.”

  Shane squeezed her hand, gave it a pat, and pulled his hand free from hers. “I won’t be gone long.”

  Darn, she wasn’t quite convincing enough.

  Shane stood up and immediately swayed on his feet. “Whoa. Stood up too fast.”

  She was in big trouble now. The drugs were kicking in.

  She sprang to her feet and threw her arm around him, bracing him against her to steady him. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. You don’t look well. What’s wrong?”

  “I feel dizzy.” He blinked. “And suddenly very tired.”

  “The concussion,” she said. “You�
�re still suffering from the concussion.”

  In Jack’s line of work, he’d suffered many concussions. He usually bounced back quickly, but a couple of times he’d suffered Post-Concussion Syndrome, PCS. She knew enough of the symptoms to try to pawn these off on the effects of the antihistamines she’d dosed Shane with kicking in.

  “But it’s been days. I’ve never—” He stopped short.

  Never what? Had one before? There were a million ways to bang his head working on a farm in an orchard. Something like falling off a ladder, for example.

  He rested his weight more heavily against her. She shifted him around until he was facing her. “Hang on to me.” She put his arms around her waist. “We need to get you to bed. Now. Then I’ll call the doctor—”

  “No doctor. I’ll be fine.” He swayed in her arms. “I’ve had concussions before.”

  She shot him an uncertain look. “Shane—”

  “I’ll be okay. No doctor. I don’t like strangers in my place.”

  “I’ll drive you to Emergency.”

  “Just get me to bed.” He swayed.

  She swayed with him, nearly buckling as he shifted more of his weight to her. “Can you make it up the stairs?”

  He nodded. “I think so. With your help.”

  She tried to get him sideways to her with her arm around his waist and his around her shoulder. But he was so large and unsteady, she couldn’t maneuver him. And she couldn’t carry him on her back.

  The only way that seemed to work was for him to hang on to her as if they were slow dancing and gently glide him toward the stairs in an awkward waltz.

  “I feel like there should be dance music,” she said. “Here. Glide with me.”

  He was fading quickly. She had to get him upstairs. Now.

  “This is fun.” Even his voice was fading away. He nuzzled her neck. “I should take you dancing sometime.”

  “I’d love that,” she said, feeling fully awake and anxious. She had to get Shane to bed, search his room, and get home. “Right now, dance with me up the stairs to bed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Jack disabled the lock and security system for the barn. It wasn’t elaborate. It didn’t need to be. The bomb shelter defense system was another matter.

  Jack set a motion-detecting warning sensor by the barn door and a guard cam. If anyone came in, it would buzz and alert Jack to an intruder. He positioned a portable spy cam toward Kennett’s house, too, aiming it so he got a view of both the living room and master bedroom windows. Every smart spy and assassin covered his back.

  Before attacking the bomb shelter, Jack took a final look at Kennett’s window. Two figures were silhouetted against it, clenched together way too closely for Jack’s comfort, swaying almost as if in time to music.

  Jack the husband broke through his compartment into mission territory. Jack the spy stopped him just in time, before he did something stupid. He watched Kennett and Willow sway as they moved away and out of his range of vision.

  Something was off with their movements. Kennett moved as if he was drunk or drugged. Jack knew drunk and drugged well enough to recognize it even in shadow. Either that or the Rooster had no rhythm and couldn’t dance. But the dance-off had proved otherwise.

  Jack knew the layout of Kennett’s house. He and Willow were heading toward the stairs. Jack stared at the window, scowling and vowing to set an extra charge just to teach Kennett a lesson for leaning on her. Willow was obviously in control and trying to help Kennett.

  Jack should have kept moving and gotten on with his mission, but he was mesmerized by the window. Watching. Waiting for a light to go on upstairs. It took much longer than it should have for a light to come on on the second story. Long enough for Jack to imagine all kinds of horrible scenarios.

  Just as he was about to charge to the house and rescue her, a light came on in Kennett’s bedroom and two silhouettes emerged. It now appeared as if Willow were putting a drunk Kennett to bed.

  What was Willow up to? Jack didn’t have much time to consider. As long as Kennett was out, Willow was safe. And he wouldn’t be surprising Jack as he worked. Jack turned away. Time to get back to spying for the mission at hand.

  * * *

  By the time Willow got Shane to the upstairs hallway he was almost dead on his feet. She hoped not literally. What had she done? She’d never seen anyone react so quickly and so severely to allergy meds. But Shane was fighting to stay awake.

  “Hang on, Shane,” she whispered softly in his ear. “I’ve got you. We’re almost there.”

  She maneuvered Shane through the doorway, accidentally smacking his shoulder on the frame in the process. “Sorry! Sorry.” She winced, hating the thought that she might have hurt him.

  He murmured something back to her. She hoped it was something forgiving like, Don’t worry. Or, No problem. Or, It only hurts when I move. Which was what Jack would have said.

  She limped toward the bed with Shane’s arm looped around her, nearly dragging him. This was turning out to be a bad idea. Very bad. Spying wasn’t as easy as Jack and Drew made it look.

  “Come on, Shane,” she crooned in Shane’s ear. “Just a few more steps.”

  Shane moved like a zombie, but at least he moved.

  “Hang on,” she said. “Let me just pull back the covers.” She balanced him against her, spinning and sticking out her butt with him flopping over her back from behind so she could reach the covers and open the bed for him.

  As she pulled back the comforter and glanced at the disaster area he called a bedroom he copped a feel of her breast and she felt him go hard against her backside.

  Men! Nearly dead to the world and still getting aroused.

  If she ever had any doubts as to whether Shane was the one for her or not, they were now totally disabused. With his member pressed against her butt and his hand on her breast she felt mostly revulsion and nothing more.

  She did a magician’s flip of the comforter, accidentally wiggling her butt against Shane as she did.

  “Oh, baby,” Shane whispered. “I was hoping the night would end like this—with the two of us taking a tumble.”

  He was definitely out of it if he thought he was getting lucky. In a few minutes, maybe seconds, he’d be out cold. Since arriving, she’d been puzzling over why he hadn’t made a move on her. What had all that bragging been about at the store? He must have been waiting for the right moment. Fortunately, he’d waited too long.

  With the bed open, Willow wondered whether she could just step aside and let Shane tumble onto the bed sideways. Then maybe she could swing his legs up. It was worth a try.

  “To bed with you now.” She removed Shane’s hand from her breast and tried to sidestep out of his way.

  Shane grabbed her and spun her around to face him.

  “Willow,” he said as he stared into her eyes with an unfocused gaze and swayed like the apple trees in his orchard under the influence of a stiff breeze.

  “Shane?”

  He fell forward onto her, pushing her back on the bed. She landed beneath him with an oomph, her legs straddling him.

  “Shane!” she yelled.

  But he was out for the count.

  His chest rose and fell—right in her face. She could barely breathe, smothered beneath his chest and weight. He smelled hot, in the sweaty sense. Was that a side effect, too? It was definitely not a turn-on.

  What was she going to do now?

  She stuck both legs in the air, hoping to get some momentum and get her legs beneath her onto the bed. Maybe she could brace them and somehow inch herself and Shane fully on the bed. Then she’d wriggle out from beneath him. Maybe. She hoped. If she could just keep breathing long enough.

  * * *

  Jack plowed through the hay behind the apple-weighing counter in Kennett’s apple shed until he found the trapdoor into the bomb shelter.

  It was equipped with another electronic lock. He grinned. He knew this kind of lock. No problem. He leaned down and go
t to work. Within minutes, the lock released.

  Jack took a deep breath, bracing himself to open the shelter door. For just being in his early thirties Kennett was surprisingly old-school and creative with his methods of defense and killing, as evidenced by the gun in Jack’s oven.

  The magnetic imaging scan Zaran had sent Jack was as detailed as modern technology allowed. From what Jack could read on the scan, the Rooster hadn’t booby-trapped the door. Jack threw it open and jumped back. His heart pounded as he hunkered against the barn wall, ready to flee. All was quiet on the barn front. He’d gambled correctly.

  He went to the entrance and peered in. Just as he suspected, Kennett had armed it with a laser maze. In the movies, spies have to jump and tumble their way through such a maze, hoping they don’t break a beam and end up dead.

  Real spies, like Jack, carried laser-jamming devices. He pulled his from his tool belt and went to work. In just a few minutes, he’d cleared the maze.

  He slid through the bunker trapdoor and climbed down the ladder into the Rooster’s lair. The place was surprisingly low-tech. Just a single laptop, a bed, a TV, a whiteboard, a large easel and pad of paper, a supply of food, a microwave, a freezer—Jack knew what was in there and wasn’t going to look—and fertilizer and bomb-making equipment.

  From the base of the ladder Jack studied the whiteboard, which held drawings that made no sense to the common eye. Jack, however, recognized RIOT code when he saw it. These were the plans for Kennett’s next mission—causing chaos and destruction at the G8 meeting.

  Jack could zoom in on the first page from here, but he needed to be closer to flip the pages and get the rest of the plan. He studied the surrounding floor and walls for booby traps. If Kennett was smart and savvy, which Jack was sure he was, he’d have a way of spotting his own traps.

  Jack pulled a small black light from his pocket and shone it around the room. A maze of fluorescent trip wires just inches off the floor lit up, along with a disgusting number of stains that explained some of the foul odor in the bomb shelter. Kennett had evidently been using a drain in the floor as a urinal.