COOL UNDER FIRE

by Justine Davis

  Con was gasping for breath, fighting to understand. The ringing in his ears ebbed, and the flashing lights faded. Gradually his vision cleared, and he saw that the .45 he'd heard was there all right, but instead of being aimed at him, it was pressed with deadly intent just behind the right ear of the man atop him. And it was held in a hand that was rock steady for all its delicate slenderness.

  Shiloh.

  His breath stopped in his battered throat. It was breath he couldn't afford to lose, and he had to gulp it in as things began to whirl again.

  "Reverse the gun. Hand it over, butt first."

  The burly man obeyed and Shiloh backed up a step. "Put your hands on your head and get off him."

  His eyes trained uneasily on the chrome-finished pistol, he obeyed. Shiloh reached over and flipped on the lamp beside the couch, tilting the shade so that no sudden flare of light would blind her or Con and give the man now on his knees a chance.

  Slowly, one hand rubbing at his throat, Con sat up. He was torn between staring at her in shock and keeping a wary eye on the man who had come a hair's breadth away from killing him.

  When Shiloh saw that Con was fairly steady once more, she tossed him the gun that had nearly choked the life out of him. Automatically he checked the load, then leveled it on the huge man who was sitting rather awkwardly back on his heels, eyeing Con angrily and Shiloh with nothing short of astonishment.

  Con waited. He let the life pulse back through him, waiting for the relief to subside. He had to think now, not about what she had done, but about finding out what he needed to know from this man. He swallowed, wondering if he would be able to talk.

  The ham-fisted man shifted uncomfortably, and without a word Con thumbed the hammer back on the revolver, cocking it. The man froze. Only then did Shiloh lower the automatic, although she didn't set it down. Instead, she sat on the edge of the coffee table, watching Con. She saw the change come over him, the speed with which he regained control. She saw his breathing even out, his hand leave his bruised throat, his muscles tense slightly, as if awaiting any hint of movement from the man before him.

  And she saw the cold come back into those blue eyes, chilling them to an iceberg hue. This was the man who had stared down at her in those first seconds after he had pinned her to the bed, the eyes that had sent a shiver rippling down her spine.

  With an effort Shiloh controlled the shudder that wanted to break loose. She would not fall apart now, she told herself severely.

  "Is he dead?" she asked, nodding toward the other man, collapsed near the doorway to the bedroom. As if in answer, a low moan rose from the huddled shape.

  "I guess not," Con said, his voice raspy but strong enough. "But that can be remedied."

  On the surface, Shiloh never blinked; inside, her stomach knotted. Would he really do it? Killing a man in a fight was one thing, but afterward, when the immediate danger was past? It's his job, she reminded herself. Just like it was Linc's job. But would her brother so cold-bloodedly murder an already helpless man?

  "For both of them," Con added harshly, his eyes fastened on the man whose muscles were beginning to tremble with the effort of maintaining his awkward position.

  "You wouldn't dare," the man spat out. "You can't afford the cops asking—"

  "Why I shot a burglar? And an armed one at that?" Con smiled, a chilling curve of his lips that matched the icy blue of his eyes. "We caught you in the act, for all the police need to know. As long as our side of the story is the only one that gets told…" He saw fear flash for a moment in the flat, muddy brown eyes.

  "I am a little curious, though," he said in a deceptively casual tone, "about how you found me so fast. Maybe even curious enough to let you live long enough to tell me."

  The man swore, low and ugly; Con shrugged and shifted the hand that held the gun, his finger visibly tightening.

  "All right, damn it! Ease off that thing. It's got a touchy trigger."

  Con tilted the weapon slightly, one eyebrow raised in interest as he inspected it. "Oh? How touchy?" he asked, giving every indication as he leveled it again that he was about to find out for himself.

  "Too touchy!" the man yelped, then rushed on. "Look, they just gave us this address, told us to check it out. That's all I know!"

  Con eased the hammer down, looking at the man reflectively, not at all as if the words had been another hammer blow to his aching gut.

  Shiloh had been watching with a rather grim interest, but the man's words made her stomach knot again. They'd been given her address?

  "When?" Con snapped out.

  "This afternoon. We'd been on ice ever since the boss found out you weren't in that car." A touch of confusion came over the heavy, broken-nosed face. "How'd you pull that off?"

  Con ignored him. "When are you supposed to report back?"

  "As soon as you're…" The man stopped, eyeing the deadly little tunnel of the gun's barrel, then added hastily, "Or by daylight, if something went wrong."

  For a split second Con's eyes flicked to Shiloh, the blue depths holding a silent tribute to the fact that she had been that something.

  "What else did he tell you?"

  "Nothing. Just that you might be here." The man glanced at Shiloh, a leering smile pulling at his pudgy mouth, then looked back at Con. "I'll give you one thing, Miller—no, it's McQuade, isn't it?—you've got taste. Is she any good?"

  "Another crack like that and you won't like what you'll be tasting," Con bit out, aware of the sudden color that had risen to Shiloh's cheeks at the man's insinuation.

  Shiloh felt it too, that unaccustomed flush that heated her cheeks again, but unlike Con, she knew the real cause. Until now she had been so wrapped up in the tension, the drama of what was unfolding so unexpectedly in her living room, that she hadn't really focused on the rather obvious fact that the man now holding the gun on the unwanted guest in her house was stark naked.

  It wasn't the bulky intruder's innuendo that had caused her blush; it was the realization that she had, on some level, been aware of Con's nudity since the moment she had stepped into the room. In the dim light it had been the flash of bare skin and taut, flexing muscles as he had tried to fight off the man who outweighed him by a good fifty pounds; now, in the lamplight, it was the sculptured perfection of his leanly muscled body, the scars that marked the sleek skin somehow only emphasizing the beauty of it.

  Oh, yes, she had been very aware of it, and that awareness sent her blood racing through her veins in a way she didn't understand. She felt a little tremor go through her, and she bit the inside of her lip to control it. Control. She'd worked at it all her life, had thought she'd mastered it, but now she wasn't so sure. She tried again; and was rewarded with a steady tone when she spoke.

  "Now what?"

  Con shrugged. "Don't need him anymore. Just them showing up here tells me what I needed to know." He cocked the gun again; the man paled.

  "Hey, take it easy! I was just doin' what I was told, you know?"

  "I know." He leveled the gun once more.

  "Look, maybe we can make a deal, okay?" Desperation lit the muddy brown eyes. "I know some things, some people."

  "I told you, you already proved what I needed to know. I was right about your boss, or he wouldn't be so eager to get rid of me before I can blow the whistle on him."

  "But you don't have any proof. How can you turn him in without proof?"

  "What makes you think I intend to turn him in?" Con's deceptively calm tone completed the freeze in his eyes and that cold smile had begun. Shiloh felt as if she were looking at someone she'd never seen before.

  "You … have to. You're FBI, aren't you? Like that guy we had to—" He broke off, going white as he realized what he'd said.

  "Thanks," Con said with that awful smile. "You just iced the cake for me. I never believed that accident story. His boss will be very interested to hear that."

  "His boss? You mean you're not—"

  "FBI? No. Or from any other government agency t
hat has its hands tied by rules and regulations. And your boss is going to find that out."

  The beefy man let out a low whistle. "You're crazy, man! You'll never get close to him again. He knows you were a plant, and he'll never stop coming after you."

  An oddly speculative light came into Con's frosty blue eyes. That chilling, terrible smile widened. "You just bought your miserable life, Moose. Because you're going to go back to that crooked, murdering boss of yours and tell him to come on ahead. I'll be waiting."

  "What?" The man gaped at him.

  "I'd much rather deal with him myself. My boss has a tendency to be too … civilized." He lowered the gun, easing down the hammer once more.

  Shiloh let out a breath she hadn't been aware of holding. At least she wasn't going to have a bloodbath in her living room. Con lifted his head to look at her, and the thaw she saw when those blue eyes met hers amazed her.

  "Can you find something to tie this clown up with?"

  "Wait a minute!" Moose squeaked. "I thought you said—"

  "Shut up." He didn't even glance at the man, who immediately shut up.

  Shiloh studied him for a long moment; then, with a nod, she got up. She went to a closet, digging in a large box until she found an old length of nylon line and went back to the living room. She handed it to him wordlessly. She watched as he tied the man up securely, over his whining protests. Now that he was assured of living, Moose's fear had degenerated into shameless begging. With a gesture of irritation, Con grabbed for one huge shoe and yanked it off the man's foot.

  "As they say, put a sock in it," he said, and did so.

  Shiloh had to stifle a giggle. Great, she told herself accusingly, you've fallen into the middle of mayhem. You've got one man trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, another probably bleeding to death all over your floor, and a third running around wearing a gun and nothing else…

  "I'll check on his partner," she said abruptly.

  "I'll do it." Con didn't think he'd hurt the man badly, but he didn't want her to be the one to find out if he had.

  "I'll do it! Just go put something on, will you?"

  To her surprise no more than his own, he blushed. "I … I'm sorry."

  He turned away from her with a jerky little movement, reddening furiously now. He didn't understand it. He'd never been so aware of his own nudity, not since… Not since he'd slid naked into her bed.

  Shiloh couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. Was this the same Connor McQuade she had just seen turn Moose into a squeaking mouse with only an icy stare? Right now he looked totally disconcerted, and, at odds with that solid, completely adult male body, his expression was that of an embarrassed ten-year-old boy.

  "It's not that I don't like the view," she teased, "but you are a bit … distracting."

  His head came up then, his eyes searching her face with an intensity she didn't understand. She met his look questioningly, and he seemed to relax, as if letting out a tensely held breath. With a short, jerky nod that could have meant anything, he got up and strode into the bedroom.

  Shiloh forced herself not to look. It didn't help. She could see the long, muscled legs, the bunching and flexing of his taut buttocks, as if she had watched every lithe stride. It had done her just as little good to look away when he had first gotten out from under Moose's weight. She felt as if she already knew that wide, muscled chest by heart, and hadn't been able to keep her gaze from slipping down that sleek smoothness to the intriguing, narrow path of dark hair that began at his navel and plunged downward to widen into thick curls at the base of his flat belly and beyond.

  She felt her color rise again as her imagination dropped those last strategic inches, supplying all the details with vivid clarity. Good grief, she chastised herself, you're acting like you've never seen a naked man before. Get to work here. She turned back to the man on the floor.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Keeping the .45 close just in case, she knelt beside the moaning man and nudged him over onto his back. His lip and one eye were red and swollen, and he was clutching his right side. He looked up at her, eyes unfocused.

  "Bastard stabbed me," he muttered.

  Her brow furrowed. It didn't look like a stab wound; it was more of a long, deep scratch that had bled only a little. Besides, where would Con have gotten a knife in time to—

  Her thoughts broke off as a silver glint from the floor caught her eye. She reached for it, then stared in shock. Disbelief gave way to amazement, then to rising laughter.

  Then Con was there, kneeling down to look at her a little warily, as if thinking her calm had at last dissolved into hysteria. She held up the narrow silver comb. "You went after two of them with this?"

  He shrugged, then grinned a little crookedly. "It was the best I could do at the time. My gun was in the car."

  A flash as bright and fleeting as the glint off the silver in her hand came and went in her vivid green eyes. It was admiration, and it warmed him to the core in a way he had never known.

  The man on the floor moaned again. "Oh, be quiet," Shiloh said unsympathetically. "You're barely scratched."

  "I've been stabbed!"

  "You've been combed, you idiot!" She looked at Con to ask if they were going to tie up Mr. Tough Guy, but stopped at the look on his face. "What?"

  "I … you're…" He shook his head, at a loss. "Any more of that line left?"

  She got it, and when they had Moose's whining compatriot equally immobilized and tucked away in a corner, she sat back on her heels and with quick, sure movements ejected the round she'd chambered into the .45, returned it to the clip and put the safety back on. Con watched every move. He didn't speak until she was done, his words soft, so they couldn't be overheard.

  "Why didn't you pull that on me first thing?"

  "It seemed like overkill," she said with a shrug, in the same quiet voice. "You were already too sick to do much." She got up and crossed to the desk, out of earshot of the two men, and set the weapon down. Con had followed her, smiling wryly.

  "Just how good are you with that?"

  "Adequate." His eyebrows went up. "Okay," she admitted. "Maybe a little better than adequate."

  "Who taught you?" he asked, thinking he knew the answer.

  "My father." She caught his look of surprise. "Just like he taught my brother. His legs may be crippled, but he can still center-punch an ace at fifty yards."

  The love and pride in her voice made his throat tighten. He'd never minded not having that kind of feeling in his life. At least, he hadn't thought so. Linc had made him wonder what it would have been like; Linc's sister made him feel the enormity of what he had missed.

  "Linc gave me the .45 for my eighteenth birthday."

  She had a quiet, reflective look in her eyes, and Con was seized with a wish to have known her then, and at the fourteen in Linc's picture, and at every age before and after, a wish so fierce it left him unable to speak.

  He leaned back against the desk. She made him wish for too damned much, made him wish for things he could never have, would never have.

  "Are you all right?" She was looking at him with a concern that did nothing to halt those wishes.

  "Yeah. Thanks to you." He turned to look at her. "Shiloh, I—"

  "Later. What are we going to do with Tweedledum and Tweedledumber there?"

  A grin sent those unexpected dimples flashing again. "You never give in to it, do you?"

  "Not if I can help it."

  Her voice held an undertone of vehemence that surprised him. Then it was gone as, after looking at him for a moment, she said softly, "There really isn't anyone you can call or go to?"

  His jaw went rigid. "Don't think I haven't been wishing there was. Hell, I'd call Linc, if there was a prayer of getting through to him. But there isn't. And my boss is out of the country. Even if I could reach him, there isn't time."

  After a moment she nodded. He wondered what she thought of a man whose list of frien
ds he could turn to with trust was so very short. But she only repeated her question about what to do with the two would-be assassins.

  "I hate having garbage lying around," he said. "I'll go find their car and load them up."

  Something in his tone warned her. "And then?"

  There was a long moment of silence before, his voice low and full of reluctance, he spoke again. "They know where you live." She waited. His eyes came up to meet hers. "They'll know you helped me. They'll probably think you were in on it all along."

  "And that's what they'll tell their boss, if you let them go."

  He nodded. "I'm sorry, Shiloh, but I can't call the police, either. Not yet."

  "And when they talk to their boss…" His silence was her answer. She glanced at the two men tied up in her dining room alcove. Then her chin came up, and she looked at Con levelly. "Do I have time to pack?"

  His eyes widened, and the knot of apprehension that had been building in him at the thought of having to force her to leave her home vanished. Cool under fire, he thought, just like her brother.

  "Must be in the blood," he muttered.

  "I hope so," she said, that same oddly fervent note in her voice. "I hope I got some of the good side along with the bad." He looked at her quizzically. "Never mind," she said quickly. "How much time do I have?"

  "Not much," he said. "Those two not withstanding, these guys are good." He looked thoughtful. "Maybe we can buy some time, though." His tone became crisp, commanding. "Pack what you need, but keep it light. As fast as you can. Don't forget a jacket, or something warm. Throw together whatever food you've got that's simple, ready to go."

  "Yes, sir." Shiloh snapped off a smart, military salute.

  Con had the grace to look sheepish. "Sorry. Force of habit." He let out a breath. "Look, I don't know when or where we'll be able to stop. Or even if we will, if they—" He stopped as her expression registered.

  "I'm going … with you?"

  He looked perplexed. "What did you think?"

  "Just that you wanted me out of here. I figured I was on my own after that."

  "Is that what you think of me? That I'd leave you to deal with this alone?" He was surprised at how much it stung.