Cinderella's Secret Agent

by Ingrid Weaver

  But right now he wasn’t hurting her. He was making her feel…cherished.

  Del lifted his hands to frame her face, cradling her cheeks as he slowly increased the pressure of his mouth. She sighed and arched her back, fitting her body to his, and warmth unfurled deep inside her. For the moment she didn’t think about being a mother, she thought about being a woman.

  It had been so long since she’d allowed herself any pleasure. Could this be wrong?

  His tongue traced the seam of her lips with a gentleness that had her opening her mouth before she could even think about it. The pleasure expanded, spreading through her veins like hot syrup. No, this couldn’t be wrong. It felt right. Perfect. As if she had been waiting all along just for the sensation of his lips molding to hers. He slid his tongue deeper, the moist abrasion sending ripples of delight all the way down to her toes.

  She squeezed herself closer. Her breasts, so sensitive and so recently emptied, flattened against his chest. The nipples tingled. It was similar to the tingles she felt just before Delilah latched on, but so much more. There was nothing maternal about the sensation, nothing at all.

  It had only been three weeks since she had given birth, but Maggie felt her body slowly awaken as parts that had lain dormant for more than nine months stretched and stirred. She knew it was too soon to consider sharing anything more than a kiss, and yet she couldn’t stop the sound of need that rose in her throat.

  Del slid his hands to her back, his palms burning through her blouse. She could feel his body tightening. A tremor shook his frame. And yet he didn’t deepen the kiss. He eased back gradually until all she could feel was his breath on her lips. “Maggie,” he whispered.

  She opened her eyes. When had she closed them? “Mmm?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, Del, please don’t apologize. That was…nice.”

  “I’m not apologizing for the kiss, Maggie,” he said, rubbing his thumb across the moisture that clung to her lower lip. “I’m sorry because I have to get that.”

  Only then did she hear the ringing. It was his cell phone.

  He reached up to grasp her wrists and eased her hands apart, unlocking the grip she had on the back of his neck. He held her gaze, his eyes filled with regret, as he brushed a kiss over each palm.

  The tender gesture made her feel like melting. But then he released her hands, pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned away. He listened, said a few words in response, then walked to the door.

  “Del?” she asked.

  He paused, his hand on the knob. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I’ll call you as soon as I get a chance, okay?”

  It was just like the other times, Maggie thought numbly as the door closed behind him. And as it had happened so often before, the warmth she was feeling gave way to uneasiness.

  How could he have walked away like that, with barely a word? Where was he going? Whom was he meeting? Why was he so darn…secretive?

  “Oh, hell,” she muttered, collapsing onto the couch. She couldn’t very well follow him again, could she? Maybe she should try trusting him.

  After all, hadn’t that apology she had made to him minutes ago meant anything to her?

  But how could he simply leave after kissing her so sweetly? Had she been the only one whose world had just shifted? Hadn’t he felt anything?

  Sure, he had. Unless her judgment when it came to something even that basic couldn’t be trusted, either.

  “Oh, hell,” she repeated on a sigh. It was just as well they had been interrupted. The kiss couldn’t have gone any further, anyway.

  Besides, she needed some time to think about this. She wasn’t going to look for problems, but there was no point rushing into anything. She had done that with Alan, and it had led to disaster.

  Of course, Del wasn’t at all like Alan.

  If the right man has already happened to come along…

  Joanne’s words teased at Maggie’s mind. So did all the reasons Maggie had given her that Del wasn’t the right man.

  But, oh, it would be easy to fall the rest of the way in love with a man like Del Rogers.

  Much, much too easy.

  Chapter 8

  The scent of early morning rose from the ground, the tang of grass still heavy with dew, the dark aroma of soil just starting to warm in the sun. Del stretched out on his stomach on the top of the rise. Dampness seeped through his clothes as a flock of crows squawked from the trees behind him. The sounds and smells were so familiar, he could have been back home, watching the sunrise from the hill behind the barn. Except back home, he didn’t generally greet the sunrise with a high-powered rifle.

  An indoor firing range couldn’t accommodate the distances Del required to practice, so SPEAR had found a deserted quarry an hour out of the city. Del slipped on his hearing protection, fitted the rifle butt to his shoulder and focused on the target.

  Without the telescopic sight Del peered through, the white square with the concentric black circles would be no more than a speck on the distant hillside. At a thousand yards it was at the limit of the range for the .308 caliber weapon he held, but for him it was no problem. His index finger squeezed the trigger.

  Even though the rifle’s stock was steadied by the two-legged support stand, the recoil had the kick of a mule. Del rolled with the blow and brought the muzzle down to keep the target in his sights. There was a new shadow in the center, a sharp-edged circle the bullet had punched.

  He felt no elation that he’d made what some would consider an impossible shot. He regarded his accuracy as a given. This was what he did, who he was. He loaded another round into the chamber and aimed an inch above the first hole.

  Squeeze the trigger, check the target, reload. The rhythm was a familiar one. To insure his skills stayed honed, for every one shot he fired on an assignment, he took at least a hundred in practice. He kept going until a new ring of evenly spaced holes surrounded the bull’s-eye, then pulled off his hearing protection, secured the rifle, retrieved the spent shell casings and targets and recorded each shot in his logbook.

  Wind conditions, temperature, time of day, distance from the target. All the information was relevant, enabling him to keep track of not only his performance but that of his weapon. He had a record of every bullet that had been fired through this barrel so he would know when it would be necessary to replace it.

  Yes, this was what he was good at. This was his job, his life. For eight years, this had been his world.

  But as Del loaded his rifle into the car he had requisitioned for the day, he wasn’t thinking about his job. He was thinking about Maggie.

  She would have enjoyed coming out here today. She could have spread a blanket over the grass and watched the clouds roll by, or tickled Delilah’s toes with some clover, or laughed at the antics of the crows.

  They would have had a picnic, and then they would have put Delilah in her infant chair for a nap. And then Del would have stretched out beside Maggie on the blanket and kissed her in the sunshine and slowly peeled the clothes away from her ripe, ripe body….

  And Maggie’s soft whimpers of pleasure would turn to horror when she saw the targets and the bullets and the gun.

  The fantasy dissolved like a puff of smoke from the muzzle of a hot barrel. Del leaned his elbows on the steering wheel and raked his hands through his hair. After a minute, he started the engine and drove back to the city.

  Bill was waiting for him in the alley that flanked the surveillance site. He motioned him over with a jerk of his head. “Are you alone?” he asked.

  Del did a quick check of the perimeter. “Yes.”

  “You’re sure you weren’t followed? Maybe by a little old lady with a guide dog this time?”

  “Bill…”

  “Or perhaps a fellow wearing a fluorescent orange jumpsuit and a clown nose? I know that would be rather difficult to spot in a crowd.”

  Del swore under his breath and turned to go.

  Bill snagged his arm to stop him. “Head
s up,” he said, his voice turning serious. “Two o’clock.”

  Del melted into the shadows of the alley and moved his gaze across the courtyard to his right. “Who?”

  “Not who. What. At ten o’clock now.”

  Bill’s statement had nothing to do with the time. It was noon. Del scanned the area in front of him and to the left but couldn’t see anything unusual. The traffic in the area, both vehicular and pedestrian, was doing its usual crawl. He squinted into the gleam of sunlight that reflected from a car windshield. A red spot winked from the hood of a taxi. “Laser?”

  “Right.”

  “Ours?”

  “Nope. It belongs to our friend with the tattoo who visited before.”

  Del searched again but couldn’t spot the source of the laser beam. “Where is he?”

  “In the subject apartment.”

  That explained why Bill had been waiting for him here, Del thought. This alley was out of the direct line of sight of that apartment.

  “He’s been there for the past twenty minutes,” Bill continued. “He checked for bugs again, then went to the window with what appeared to be a scope. By the way, intelligence figured out who he is. Herbert Hull. Ex Marine.”

  Unfortunately, that in itself wasn’t so unusual, Del thought. Many former servicemen who were disaffected with the military for some reason or another ended up hiring out their skills to the highest bidder. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “He got a dishonorable discharge after the Gulf War. It seems he liberated more cash than he did Kuwaitis.”

  “That sounds like the kind of scum Simon would hire.”

  “There’s more, and you’re going to love this part. He was a Marine scout. A sniper.”

  A red dot appeared fifty yards away, on the plaza across First Avenue. It steadied for a second on a tourist who was taking a picture of the approach to the UN headquarters, then tracked along the ground and disappeared into the distance. Although it was no longer visible to the naked eye, Del had no doubt that it was still there.

  Del felt a hunter’s tingle of anticipation. Most people wouldn’t notice those laser spots, and even if they did, they wouldn’t realize their significance. Only someone trained in the one shot, one kill method of sniping would know what those flashes of light indicated.

  In order to make every shot count, a marksman needed to know the range with pinpoint accuracy. Ideally, the distance to each strategic point—each possible target location in an area—would be determined ahead of time. “He’s using a laser range finder to index the shots,” Del said.

  “That would be my guess.”

  “We suspected it, but now we know for sure why Simon wants that apartment.”

  “Exactly.”

  “An overt assassination,” Del said, his gaze going to the row of flagpoles. The colors of every country represented at the United Nations fluttered bravely in the sun. “That’s not Simon’s style.”

  “He’s getting desperate. We’ve backed him into a corner,” Bill said. “Too bad we still don’t know the intended target.”

  “Who would Simon want dead that badly?” Del asked.

  “Good question. Perhaps a diplomat? Do you think he’s attempting to extort money that way?”

  “Possibly. Again, though, that’s not his style. So far, everything he’s done seems to have been targeting SPEAR.”

  “Intelligence is working on it.”

  “Whatever it is, we’ve got to stop Simon this time, Bill.”

  “We will. You’re the best there is.” Bill stated it as a fact, not a compliment. “You never miss.”

  Del thought about the perfect circles in the targets he’d retrieved that morning, the logbook of perfect scores, and he nodded. Yes, this is what he did, who he was, what he was good at.

  And when he met his prey, he would be ready.

  Maggie picked up the next diaper from the laundry basket and had just begun to fold it when she was interrupted by a brisk knock at the apartment door. Automatically, she checked to make sure Delilah was safely strapped into her infant chair before she went to answer.

  A young woman in a bright green jumpsuit with the name of a local florist printed on the breast pocket stood in the corridor. In one hand she managed to hold a clipboard while in her other hand she balanced a huge arrangement of flowers.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Maggie said, opening the door.

  “Maggie Rice?” the delivery woman asked.

  Maggie nodded, her eyes widening. The heady scent of hothouse blooms was already wafting through the doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman continued. “I tried buzzing you but I guess you didn’t hear me. Your super said you were here so she let me in.”

  “I must have been on my way back from the laundry room. Those couldn’t be for me, could they?”

  The delivery woman checked her clipboard, then smiled. “They sure are,” she said, handing them over. “Enjoy yourself.”

  “Oh, my.” Maggie struggled to get a good grip on the arrangement as she bumped the door closed with her hip. She carried the flowers to the table, pushing aside a pile of folded diapers to make space for the vase.

  Robbie came running from the bathroom and skidded to a stop beside the table. His red hair was slicked down with water, and the ends of a towel were tucked into the neck of his T-shirt. As he had informed her when Armilda had brought him here after school, today he was a superhero. Evidently he had completed his costume.

  “Did somebody die?” Robbie asked, eyeing the flowers.

  Startled, Maggie squatted in front of him and caught his hands in hers. “Of course not, darling. Why would you ask that?”

  “When Mom and Dad died, everyone sent tons of flowers.”

  “Oh, Robbie,” she said, giving him a hug. “There are all kinds of reasons people send flowers.”

  “I know that.”

  “Flowers are meant to make you feel better because they’re so beautiful.” She reached out to pluck a chrysanthemum blossom from the arrangement. “Here. Take a look. Isn’t it pretty?”

  He looked carefully at the bloom she handed to him. “Yeah, I guess so. You’re sure nobody died?”

  “Positive.”

  “So why do you got flowers?”

  “Why? Well, let’s just see.” She straightened up and looked through the arrangement for a card. The flowers were stuffed into the short vase so thickly that she didn’t find anything immediately. Then she spotted a pink envelope deep inside the greenery. “Aha!” she said, ripping the envelope open and withdrawing the card.

  My dearest Maggie, the note read. Once more I apologize for the way we parted, and I’m counting the hours until I can see you again.

  The note was signed with a scrawled initial that she assumed was a D. Maggie didn’t need to see a name to know who these flowers were from. Only one man would do something this sweet.

  Del must still feel bad about leaving her so quickly after their kiss yesterday. But he obviously didn’t regret what they had done. The wording of this note implied he wanted to change their relationship. He didn’t sound like a friend, he sounded like a lover.

  Or at least a potential lover.

  “The flowers are from Del,” she said finally.

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Uncle Del’s cool,” Robbie said, twirling the blossom she had given him between his fingers. “He made me a fort out of the pillows on the couch.”

  Maggie remembered. Del had been here the last time she had baby-sat Robbie, and they had gotten along so well that as soon as Robbie had learned that Del was Delilah’s honorary uncle, he had decided to make him his, too.

  Poor Robbie. He was so eager to have a family that he wanted everyone to be his relative. Maggie understood that all too well. “Del’s good at using his imagination, isn’t he?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll bet he’d find a way that a superhero could use that flower.”

  Robbie thou
ght for a moment, then thrust out his arm, holding the flower aloft. “Zap!”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s my secret weapon. It shoots power rays.” He brandished the flower and ran off, his towel cape flapping behind him. “Wait till I show Uncle Del!”

  Maggie smiled at the recovery of Robbie’s good humor and at his eagerness to see Del. Even though Del said he hadn’t had much experience with babies or children, he was proving to be a natural with both. He would make a great father. And lover. And maybe even a husband…

  Deliberately, she slammed the door on that direction of her thoughts. She was jumping the gun just a tad here, wasn’t she? For heaven’s sake, all they had done so far was kiss. And these flowers weren’t a proposal. She should take things slow, figure out where this was leading before she risked her heart.

  Nevertheless, when Del arrived that evening, a bag from a Chinese restaurant in each hand, she couldn’t prevent the rush of excitement that tripped her pulse. Yet on the heels of the excitement came a sudden self-consciousness. Had she remembered to comb her hair? Had the spit-up stain come out of this blouse? Were the dark circles under her eyes as repulsive as they had looked the last time she had peeked at a mirror?

  It was so much easier when they had been simply friends.

  Still, even without the note, the bouquet Del had sent her carried a message loud and clear….

  Oh, the heck with analyzing this to death, she thought. They had done fine with honesty before. She might as well try the same thing today. “Del, I think we should talk.”

  He shifted the bags to one arm and locked the door behind him. “What about?”

  “About…what we did yesterday.”

  He looked her square in the eyes. “You mean when I kissed you.”

  Merely hearing him say it made her knees go weak. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Yes. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  He smiled slowly. “You’d be surprised at the ideas I get.”