COOL UNDER FIRE

by Justine Davis

  "You don't understand," he said, low and harsh.

  "I don't? Well, why don't you tell me where I went wrong? You're on the run, and I presume I'm supposed to believe that you're the man in the white hat. You don't want the police or any other official agency involved, so either they couldn't or wouldn't help, or you're operating too far over their lines. How am I doing so far?"

  He didn't speak, but the tightness of his jaw gave her his answer.

  "And whoever you're working for, something is wrong there, or you'd just have them bring you in." He still said nothing. "As I said, stubborn."

  He let out a harsh breath and let his head drop back wearily. "If you know that much, you know I can't tell you anything."

  "I don't want 'anything.' All I want to know is, did Linc send you here?"

  He lifted his head and met her gaze levelly. "You know he wouldn't. He didn't. He's … not involved in this. Besides, he's out of the country."

  She watched him steadily as she absorbed all the implications of what he'd said. If she'd had any doubts that he truly knew Linc, they would be gone now. Linc had left for the Middle East only three days ago, but Con already knew. So he must have tried to contact him. Even though he "wasn't involved."

  "You really are on your own, aren't you?" she whispered.

  He let out a short, rueful chuckle. He'd never felt so alone as when he'd made himself walk away from that vision in green silk lying in the morning sun. But all he said was, "I work better that way."

  "As long as you don't get sick."

  He couldn't deny it. "Yeah."

  She became suddenly brisk, businesslike. "Do you think they followed you?"

  "I don't know. I was … pretty out of it." An odd look of entreaty came into his blue eyes, as if he were pleading with her to believe him. "I really didn't mean to come here. I remember that. Telling myself not to."

  "Forget it. It doesn't matter now. What does matter is whether they know where you are."

  "I … don't know."

  She studied him for a moment. "You got in here even though you were too far gone to know what you were doing. I'd say it's a good bet you did whatever else you had to do, as well, including losing whoever was after you."

  "I can't take that chance. I can't let you take it."

  For the moment she ignored his assumption of control over her. "Look at the possibilities. One, you lost them, in which case you can only do damage by going back out there and leaving a trail for them to find. Two, you didn't lose them, and they're waiting to see what you do. I presume whoever's dogging you is not the decision maker?"

  He stared at her in wonder. "Just how much did Linc tell you about this business?"

  She shrugged. "Enough so I'd see it coming if it doubled back on me because of him. So, how much time do you have?"

  He shook his head slowly, then let out a long breath. "I don't know. If I lost them, maybe a while, unless I left a trail they'll eventually find. If I didn't, then just until they contact their boss." His glance was an acknowledgment of the accuracy of her guess.

  "They'd stay, wouldn't they? One, at least, to make sure you don't slip through their fingers?" He nodded, looking at her uneasily as he discerned some specific intent in her question. "Did you get a look at them?"

  He nodded again, reluctantly. "Why?"

  "So I'll know them if I find them."

  "Find them?" It took a moment for her meaning to penetrate a mind still struggling to absorb how smoothly she was taking all this. He straightened up abruptly. "Oh, no. You're not going looking for them."

  "Why not? They don't know me or what I look like."

  "What if they saw you last night, when you got here?" Why are you even discussing this, McQuade?

  "They couldn't have gotten a good look. I pulled right into the garage and closed the door before I got out."

  "No."

  "Look, I can even do better. There's a gate in the fence between here and my neighbor's house. I can go through it and come out of their yard on the far side. If they are out there, they'll never know, and I doubt if they want to call any attention to themselves by making the whole neighborhood suspicious."

  "No."

  She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You've got to know—"

  "You're not going out there."

  "Stubborn," she muttered.

  "Damn it, I'm not dragging you into this!"

  "You're right, you're not. I'm in under my own steam."

  "No!"

  He took a swift step toward her, as if to grab her, then stopped, swaying. Sweat popped out on his forehead, and he blinked rapidly against the grayness that was back on the periphery of his vision.

  "Come on." Shiloh slipped his arm over her shoulders and led him to the nearest chair in the living room. She would have tried for the bed again, but she knew he would fight her; he was trying to now. "Sit down before you fall down."

  He sat. His head fell back against the cushions of the comfortably stuffed chair, and he let his eyes drift closed for a moment. He looked pale and strained, and she was suddenly determined to make sure he had the chance to get well.

  She walked to her bedroom, slipped off the green robe and dressed quickly in jeans and a sweatshirt. She slid her small, narrow feet into a worn pair of deck shoes, pulled her hair up into a short, bouncy ponytail, then tugged a faded denim cap with a wide bill down over her head. She studied the effect in the mirror, then hurried to the bathroom to wash away all traces of the makeup she hadn't thought to remove last night. Then she looked again and nodded in satisfaction. For once, she thought, her freckles might come in handy.

  He hadn't moved when she returned to the living room, and she thought perhaps he'd fallen asleep. But he lifted his head as she began to rustle around in the big, rolltop desk that nearly filled the one windowless wall in the room. When she'd found what she wanted and turned around, she saw his jaw drop in shock.

  I know the feeling, she thought with a grin she couldn't quite keep from tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  That smothered smile completed the image. "My God," he breathed. Here was the girl in the picture, all grown up. Now he could see the traces of that fourteen-year-old imp in the freshly scrubbed face, in the slender body in tight but worn jeans, her curves hidden by the loose sweatshirt. The hat was the crowning touch; she was every inch the adult version of the sassy tomboy he'd seen in that photo.

  "Just sit tight and rest. I have a letter to mail." She held up the envelope she'd gotten from the desk. "There's a box two blocks down. Good excuse for a walk."

  "Shiloh, please."

  The "please" was much more sincere this time, although she sensed it hadn't come any easier for him.

  "Don't worry. Even if they did see me last night, they won't recognize me now."

  He couldn't argue with that. From what he remembered of last night, before she had donned that damned green robe, she'd been in a sleek, tailored suit, refined and chic, with her thick, auburn hair swept up into a smooth twist at the back of her head. She'd looked sophisticated and elegant, utterly unflappable, and about a million miles from the girl-next-door he was looking at now.

  She could see he hadn't surrendered, and she was tired of fighting it. "I'm going," she said quietly. "Whether you tell me what to look for or I just guess is up to you."

  He sat up in the chair, and she could almost see him wondering if he had the strength to stop her.

  "It's only fair to warn you, I ran a pretty fair hundred-yard dash in high school."

  His mouth twisted into a wry grin. "What? No black belt in karate to threaten me with?"

  "Actually," she said, with a wider grin this time, one that sped up his pulse, "I was saving that. But it's judo."

  Of course. It would be. Linc had been national champion. "That won't help against these guys. They're desperate."

  "I got the idea you were, too," she returned softly. "Or you would never have come here."

  No, he wouldn't have. If he hadn't
been half out of his head with fever… He shook his head sharply, as if he could shake off the effects of that fever. God, he wished he wasn't so damned weak, too weak to stop her. He wished he'd never come here. He wished she didn't do these crazy things to him. And most of all he wished he'd never learned that wishing got you absolutely nowhere.

  "Shiloh, you can't."

  Her chin came up. "Oh?"

  "This isn't some damned game," he snapped.

  "Oh, I know that," she said in a voice gone cold. "You couldn't grow up in my family and not know that."

  The memory came, but too late to call back the words. "I'm sorry. I forgot … what happened to your father. But it doesn't change anything. These guys mean business."

  "And exactly what is that a professional euphemism for?"

  He smiled tightly. "They ran my car off an embankment. Day before yester—no, I mean Wednesday."

  Her eyebrows rose. "On the Ortega?"

  He nodded, and she suppressed a shudder. She'd heard about that wreck on the news, the latest in a long line of messy crashes on the Ortega Highway

  that ran from the historic town of San Juan Capistrano, famous for its mission and its swallows, through the rugged Cleveland National Forest to Lake Elsinore. One car, no body. And the highway patrol had made it clear that if anyone had been in that car on that ride, it definitely would have been a body after the impact.

  "You call that an embankment?" The radio had said it was a thirty-five-foot drop.

  He shrugged. "I bailed out before it hit bottom."

  She looked at him thoughtfully. "Then it's not something you have that they want, is it?"

  "No."

  "They just want you dead. Before you can do them any damage."

  "Yes." He said it flatly, watching her. Her expression never changed; there was only the assessing look of someone filing away information so she would know what she was dealing with. She was incredible, he thought.

  Damn, this was crazy. He shouldn't even be considering this insanity. And yet she just might be able to do it. She'd thought of a way around his every objection, and he had to admit it was a good plan. Simple, which was always the best. And Lord knows she had the cool to pull it off. God, Linc would kill him. And be right to do it.

  "So are you going to tell me what I'm looking for?"

  "Damn it, Shiloh," he pleaded softly, "didn't you hear what I said?"

  "I heard," she said briefly. "Now, do you know if they're in the same car?"

  "Why?" It burst from him involuntarily. "I've done everything you said. I broke in here, I threw you around, I've sworn at you—"

  "And argued endlessly," she interrupted. "What do they look like?"

  "But you don't even know me!"

  She looked at him steadily for a moment before she said softly, "Tell me something, Mr.—" She stopped, realizing he'd never told her his last name.

  She was about to go on without it when he unexpectedly supplied it. "—Mr. McQuade."

  "Well, Mr. McQuade, if it was the other way around, if I'd come to you and given you Linc's name, what would you do?"

  He sucked in a breath, and she read the answer in his eyes before he mumbled unconvincingly, "That's different."

  "No. And you know it. So, are you going to help, or am I on my own?"

  A look he knew had come into those green eyes, an echo of a look he'd seen in Linc's, a mix of steadfast spirit and quiet, unwavering determination. He knew then that what he'd guessed at was true; the same spun-steel core that had made Linc his one true friend in this crazy, sometimes ugly world he moved in was here as well, just less obvious beneath the beautiful and fragile-appearing exterior.

  "They were in a blue sedan," he said, surrendering to that look. "A Ford, I think, full-size, four doors. I couldn't get the number, but it was a California plate. And only a rear plate. But they might have dumped it by now. It's probably kind of banged up."

  "You have something to do with that?"

  "I didn't exactly go over that drop voluntarily."

  "Okay, scratch the car." She winced. "No pun intended."

  He stared at her in awe. She was planning on going out to see if the men who had tried to kill him were waiting in ambush, and still she found humor amid the chaos.

  "You are really something, Shiloh Reese."

  "What I am," she said, the warmth that appeared in her eyes belying her brusque words, "is waiting. Still. So talk. What do they look like?"

  Moments later, ponytail bouncing with her long, leggy strides, Shiloh disappeared out the back door to sidle through the narrow gate in the wood fence. If he'd had the strength, Con would have been pacing; as it was, he had to settle for dropping onto the sofa that faced the front windows. He could see through the lacy curtains, yet was far enough back to be invisible from the outside unless someone was standing in the front yard.

  He tried to avoid the horrible images of what could be happening even now by concentrating on that yard. It was full of rich, riotous color, making the small, older, bluff-top house stand out in the crowd of similar stuccoed houses. The same way she stood out, he mused.

  The yard wasn't working as a distraction, so he switched his gaze to the inside of the house, still alert for any movement from outside. The vibrant colors of the garden were echoed in the deep, jewel tones she'd used inside. She had made the house, which boasted a tiny view of the Pacific through the trees, a haven, a comfortable, cozy lair that reached out to welcome you. It was as if all the emotion she kept so battened down in herself was allowed to run free in her surroundings. He wondered if she ever let go of that unflappable control.

  He swore softly at himself as an image of exactly how he would like to shake that self-possessed coolness of hers came vividly to mind. Great, McQuade. Linc would just love to read that twisted little mind of yours right now. Then, as the vision of what she'd looked like when she'd left came back to him, he felt so old and jaded it overwhelmed him. Damn, he thought defensively, thirty-four isn't exactly over the bill. It's only ten years' difference. It just felt like a hundred.

  He sat there waiting, watching, for what seemed like hours. The street in front of the small house remained unhelpfully empty. Damn, he shouldn't have let her go. He should have found a way to stop her. His whole godforsaken life was coming down to an endless string of should and shouldn't haves.

  If anything happened to her, Linc wouldn't have to come after him. He would jump off the nearest bridge himself. Linc was one of only two men in the world Con trusted completely, and he knew he couldn't live with the knowledge that, because of him, something had happened to Linc's beloved little sister.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Con struggled to his feet, hoping that having to concentrate on staying upright would occupy his mind and help him forget how frustrated and helpless he was feeling. He walked over to the big, oak rolltop to look at the photographs he'd noticed earlier. He stopped, bracing himself with his hands on the back of the desk chair.

  "What the hell?" he muttered, his eyes going rapidly from picture to picture. No, there was no doubt: the figure in each of those pictures was Shiloh. Encrusted with mud atop a powerful off-road motorcycle, plummeting earthward from a plane with only a small backpack full of parachute between her and certain death, suspended from a colorful, fragile wingspan as her hang glider soared in the sun. Jumping a long-legged horse over a wicked-looking wall, then behind the controls of a small, two-seat helicopter.

  A sound at the rear of the house made him spin around. He swore as that debilitating dizziness overtook him again, and he fell back against the desk. Then she was there. "You should have stayed off your feet," she said, moving to slip his arm over her shoulders once more.

  "I'm … all right."

  "You'll be better in a minute. You're going right back to bed." She felt him tense and met his eyes. "They aren't here. There's not a car on the block that doesn't belong. And no occupied ones for four blocks in any directi
on. There's no one around. I even checked with Mrs. Brody, the neighborhood busybody. If she sees anything, I'll be the first to know."

  "You're all right?" He looked at her as if he didn't quite believe it.

  "Fine. Just a quiet Saturday morning in San Clemente. Everybody's at the beach. Now, come on."

  He closed his eyes and let out a short breath. "I should go now, before they—"

  "You," she cut in sharply, "are pushing stubborn over the line into stupid. Come on."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said meekly, giving in. He even believed all the reasons he gave himself why: he was too sick to think straight, and out there that could get him killed; he needed time to plan, to figure out what to do; she was right—if he didn't move, he didn't leave a trail. All the reasons were true, he told himself, and ignored the little voice that was laughing in his ear.

  Shiloh assented grudgingly when he said he wanted to take a shower first, and got him a towel and a razor. "Don't push it, okay? If you pass out in there, you're on your own."

  "If I pass out in there, I won't care."

  He didn't, but the effort cost him what little stamina he had, and he sat down on the brass bed gratefully. He could hear the muffled sounds of a washing machine and guessed that was where his clothes had disappeared to. A good thing, he thought; they needed it worse than he had.

  He unknotted the towel from his waist and draped it over the footboard, then swung his feet up and grabbed the pillow to prop himself against the heavy brass uprights. He tugged the quilt and sheet over himself and stretched out, a sigh escaping him. He lay there for a moment, aware of a sweet, subtle scent surrounding him. Hers.

  An odd feeling swept through him, a teasing, sensuous sensation mixed with a tinge of unease at being naked in her bed. His body quickly told him which feeling it preferred, and he shifted uncomfortably. Wonderful, McQuade, he thought sourly. You picked a great time to come out of the sexual coma you've been in. Impossible time, impossible circumstances, and, most of all, impossible woman. His body wasn't listening.

  Then she came in, again carrying a tray, and still in that guise that made her look like the all-American girl-next-door. That old, tired feeling came back in a rush, doing what his mental lecturing had failed to do and cooling his body's surging heat. He'd never felt so burned out, so utterly grim about himself and his life.