There’s nothing wrong with wanting to love someone, Emily.
She touched her fingers to Tyler’s image as she remembered his words. He’d made it sound simple. Before her experience with Christopher, she might have thought so. Not any longer. Too bad she hadn’t met Tyler first.
Yet if it hadn’t been for Christopher, she wouldn’t have come to Rocama and met Tyler.
Christopher had never told her she was strong. She suspected he wouldn’t have considered strength in a woman to be attractive. He’d liked treating her as if she were precious and delicate. That had been a novelty for Emily, and it had lulled her into dropping her guard. He’d treated her gently in the bedroom, too. The sex had been satisfying, not spectacular, but she’d never known spectacular so it hadn’t mattered. She had planned on building a life with him. There were far more important aspects to a marriage than sex.
Sure. So she’d told herself. Nevertheless, she’d been hoping to heat things up with her groom. That’s why she’d chosen to buy a suitcase full of sexy clothes for their honeymoon.
I’ve seen you naked. No amount of sexy underwear could improve on that.
Her lips curved. Tyler could say the most provocative things and make them sound like fact. Then again, if the kiss they’d shared was anything to go by, sex with him would be spectacular.
Yet how much of what she was feeling was only a rebound from Christopher? She had to be careful. Her emotions were still too raw for her to trust them. And she couldn’t forget that her association with Tyler would end along with the mission. It was pointless to feel anything toward him.
Emily switched off her camera, turned her face toward the window and took a deep breath of the muggy air. The gardeners who had been weeding the flowerbeds had finished their task and were heading out of the courtyard. It must be later than she’d realized. She slid her feet to the floor, deciding she’d better put on some clothes before Tyler got here, when movement near the fountain caught her attention. One of the gardeners hadn’t left with the others. He was leaning over the basin at the foot of the fountain, his arm dipped into the water to his elbow.
That was odd, she thought. He glanced around in a way that seemed almost furtive. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be muddying the fountain by washing his hands in it, but if he were washing, wouldn’t he be putting both hands in the water?
The man straightened up quickly and looked toward the second-floor windows. Something metallic gleamed in his hand. And for a split second, Emily felt the impact of his dead black gaze.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, scrambling to her feet. She knew that face. She knew that expression, too. It was as flat and indifferent as a snake’s.
There was no room for doubt. Instinct bypassed her conscious thought and she was across the room before she knew it. She yanked open the door and skidded barefoot into the hall.
Jack and Duncan were at the far end of the corridor, already in position outside the envoy’s suite. They looked toward her, their mouths slightly open.
Belatedly she realized she hadn’t fastened her robe. “El Gato,” she yelled, clutching the edges together. “He’s in the courtyard.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Jack asked.
“Yes. One hundred percent positive.”
Both men took guns from beneath their suit jackets, but only Duncan ran forward. He pointed at Emily. “Stay with Sergeant Norton,” he ordered as he passed by.
“He’s dressed like one of the gardeners,” she called after him. “Dark green coveralls.”
He repeated what she’d told him into his radio, bypassed the main staircase and went to the door that led to the servants’ stairs.
Emily had fastened her belt and had taken an involuntary step after Duncan when she was stopped by Jack’s voice. “Don’t even think about it this time, ma’am. You know the drill. For all our sakes, you need to stay here.”
She whirled. “Then you warn him. I saw El Gato take something from the fountain. It could have been a knife.”
Jack relayed the information through his radio immediately. Before he had finished, Emily ran back into her room and across the floor to the window.
The courtyard was empty. There was no sign of El Gato or any of the gardeners. She pushed aside her notes, grabbed her camera and climbed to stand on the window seat. Bracing one hand on the window frame, she peered straight down so that she could see the base of the wall. No one was there, either.
The wooden door at the bottom of the servants’ stairs slammed open. Duncan burst into the courtyard, his pistol gripped in both hands. Seconds later, a pair of Palace Guards came through the doors from the first-floor portrait gallery. Several more came through the arched carriageway that led to the gates. The calm of the morning was shattered by the tread of boots and the crackle of radios.
“Emily, get down from there!”
She turned her head and saw Tyler striding through the open door to her room. She returned her gaze to the window. “I can’t see him. I don’t know how he could have gotten away so fast.”
“Now!” he said, clamping his hands on her hips. He lifted her off the window seat and swung her to the floor. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You’ve got no reason to yell at me! I stayed put this time, just like Duncan and Jack said. I wasn’t—”
“You were standing in the window. You were making yourself a target.”
“I was trying to get a picture of him. I wish I’d thought of doing that before I ran out to warn— Hey!”
He took her camera and lobbed it on the window seat, then pulled her farther into the room. “Your story’s not worth your life.”
“It wasn’t for my story. Having a photo of El Gato would help your mission.”
“Leave that to us.”
“Why are you still shouting?”
“Your door was wide open. You had your back to it.”
“Duncan had just gone down those stairs. No one could have gotten past him already.”
“If El Gato got past palace security, he could be anywhere.”
“Oh, there’s no ‘if’ about it. I saw him. Right outside my window.”
“Dammit, Emily. You’ve got to be more careful.”
Her sharp retort died on her lips. The worry on his face was unmistakable. She understood how he felt; they’d been through this before. She put her palm on his cheek. “Tyler…”
He steadied her face between his hands and kissed her.
It knocked her breathless. It wasn’t anything like their first kiss. He wasn’t concerned about finding the right angle or being gentle this time. Without any preliminaries, he gave her one bold thrust of his tongue, filling her mouth with his warmth and his taste.
Her pulse leaped in response. She parted her lips in an instinctive welcome, drew him in hard, then gave back as good as she got.
He groaned and lifted his head. “Dammit, Emily.”
It was the same thing he’d said before the kiss, but his voice had become a hoarse whisper.
She ran her tongue along her upper lip. It felt numb and tingly at the same time. Absolutely wonderful.
He pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry. This isn’t why I came here.”
“Then why did you?”
“I wanted to make sure you were safe. We’re locking down the palace while we do a room-by-room search.”
“And I suppose you thought it would be a good idea if you started by searching my throat?”
He exhaled on another curse. “Frankly, I wasn’t thinking.”
“That pesky adrenaline again?”
“Something like that. Did I hurt you?”
“If you had, you wouldn’t need to ask. I’d have bitten you.”
“I might have enjoyed that.”
She thought about closing her mouth around his tongue, and feeling its firm length rasp between her teeth as he pushed in deeper… Her pulse went to a whole different level and she swayed.
He cupped her shoulders. �
�Are you sure you’re okay?”
She locked her knees to keep herself steady. “Of course, I’m okay. I’m not some weak-kneed, hothouse flower who wilts from a little tongue. But I’d appreciate it if you try to stop this habit you have of grabbing me and flinging me around whenever you want to. This isn’t the first time you’ve done that and it’s getting irritating. Nobody flings me around. Haven’t you noticed how tall I am?”
“Emily…”
“And you need to work on this take-charge attitude of yours. I realize it’s probably part of the whole soldier mystique but it would help if you take a few seconds to explain things instead of issuing orders and rushing out like—”
He kissed her again. This time it was a mere brush of his mouth over hers before he released her and stepped back. “I’m on your side, Emily. You don’t have to keep fighting me.”
He was wrong. She did have to fight him. Otherwise, she was liable to lose herself in these feelings that were swirling around them. She raked her hair off her face, then grabbed for her collar as her robe slid off her shoulder.
Tyler’s gaze followed her movement. His jaw twitched. He seemed about to say something else when footsteps sounded in the corridor. Several men in palace guard uniforms strode past her room. One paused in the doorway, spoke briefly to Tyler in Spanish, then returned the way he had come.
Tyler moved toward the door. “Promise me you won’t leave this floor, Emily. Don’t wander around. Don’t go near the windows. If you need something, ask Jack or one of the palace guards.”
“Tyler…”
“And if you want an explanation,” he said, taking his gun from beneath his jacket, “I’m asking you to do those things because I can concentrate on my job better if I know you’ll be safe.”
Emily watched him go, then hugged her arms over her chest. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it swish in her ears. “You be safe, too,” she whispered.
It was pointless to feel anything for Tyler, she reminded herself. The attraction between them was probably just an illusion, or a product of their circumstances. She shouldn’t trust her emotions any more than she should trust a man.
Because only a fool didn’t learn from their mistakes.
They found the body at dusk. It had been wedged behind a stack of oil drums at the back of the garage that housed the official government vehicles. The middle-aged man had been hired on the landscaping crew two months earlier. Before that, he’d worked at a small florist shop until the owner’s son-in-law had been given his job. He’d had no criminal record or known criminal associates. Like the young construction worker who had been killed the day the envoy had arrived, he simply appeared to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And like the other man, he’d been strangled and stripped. The big difference was that this time, the body had been found within the palace grounds.
Tyler stood at the entrance to the garage and watched the taillights of the unmarked van bearing the remains move toward the rear gates. President Gorrell wanted to keep the incident under wraps, at least until the envoy’s visit was concluded. He understood the gravity of the situation. El Gato had gained entry to the palace before he’d disguised himself as a gardener. From what Emily had witnessed, he’d also had a weapon stashed in the fountain. The only way he could have accomplished either of those things was if he’d had inside help.
“The last team checked in.” Esposito’s voice came over the radio. “They drew a blank.”
The chief had been overseeing the communications during the search. He’d used the floor plans of the palace to chart the sweep pattern so that all the nooks and hidden corners were covered in order. Eagle Squadron had joined forces with every available member of the palace guards, moving methodically from east to west in a way that would prevent their quarry from doubling back to an area that had already been cleared.
Despite all the precautions, it appeared that El Gato had slipped out of their grasp again.
“I don’t like the smell of this,” Duncan said, falling in beside Tyler as he left the garage.
“I know what you mean. We need to take a closer look at the palace staff.”
“I’m already on it. I’ve got Intelligence running another check on everyone who does business here. They’ve got to dig deeper.”
“He must have used a vehicle to get past security. Besides the grounds and household employees, there would be delivery and maintenance trucks.”
“And limos. We can’t forget the politicians. Not everyone in the government supports Gorrell’s policies. That’s the problem with a democracy.”
Tyler considered that for a while. “You might be on the right track. If the Juarez cartel wants to make a comeback, they’d need at least one friend in the legislature.”
“It’s no wonder Gorrell wants our help. This could be why we always seem to be one step behind El Gato. We still don’t know what he’d been intending once he got inside today. That bothers me.”
“The sniffer dogs went over every inch that the search teams did, so we know he didn’t plant another explosive device. I’d bet he planned a direct attack.”
“If we hadn’t thrown off his game with our search, there could have been a few more stripped bodies as he worked his way closer to the envoy.”
Tyler scanned the windows of the palace as they approached. The ones on the ground floor were locked up tight, but many of the upper story ones were open to the night breeze. “He might still be here.”
“Possible, but not probable. Even if he is, he won’t be able to get to the envoy’s quarters. Gonzo said the major put that entire corridor off-limits to the palace staff for the remainder of her visit.”
“Then Emily should be safe, too.”
“It’s incredible that she spotted him in the first place. What were the odds she’d be up at dawn and happened to be looking out her window at the exact time he was in sight?”
Tyler rubbed his face, trying to drive out the image of Emily standing on the window seat with her camera. She truly hadn’t considered the possibility that she could have been placing herself in danger. “We got lucky. It was a close call.”
“Closer than you realize. I hadn’t believed her at first. I thought it would turn out to be a false alarm.”
“Emily isn’t the type who would cry wolf. She wouldn’t have said anything if she hadn’t been certain.”
“Well, she was right this time. That calling card El Gato left in the garage is proof enough.”
“She’s a courageous woman.”
“Uh-huh. She’s got great legs, too.”
Tyler tightened his jaw. Emily did have exceptionally long, shapely legs. That short robe she’d been wearing this morning had displayed them to perfection. That was another reason the image of Emily on the window seat had been haunting him.
“She has interesting taste in underwear,” Duncan continued. “Take that red lace number I saw under her robe—”
“You shouldn’t have noticed,” Tyler cut in.
“It was about as subtle as a fire engine. That made it tough to miss.”
He gave Duncan a stony look. “Try harder.”
Duncan returned his regard without flinching. “You should take your own advice, junior. Seems to me you’ve been doing a lot more than noticing.”
Tyler remained silent.
“Whatever’s going on with you two,” Duncan said, “don’t forget why she’s here.”
He couldn’t take offense at the reminder. The other men had a right to expect him to direct all of his attention to the mission. He’d given similar advice to Jack last fall, when his friend had grown too close to the woman who’d been in his charge. Jack had ignored the warning. Tyler couldn’t. “No chance of that, Dunk. I know exactly why she’s here, even if she doesn’t.”
By the time they reached their top-floor field headquarters, the major had returned, as well. Along with Esposito, he was studying the blueprints that someone had tacked to the walls of their briefing r
oom over the course of the day. While Duncan helped himself to coffee and took a seat in front of his computer, Tyler went straight to Redinger. “Major?”
He rolled his neck wearily as he turned. “What is it, Sergeant?”
“If you have a minute, sir, I’d like to talk to you about Miss Wright.”
“She did well today.”
“That’s for sure,” Esposito interjected, crossing his arms as he leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Not many civilians would have been able to make that identification and then to act on it so quickly.”
“Miss Wright’s only thought was to help us,” Tyler said. “Because of her, we probably derailed another assassination attempt.”
“That’s a given,” the major said. “Ms. Haggerty has already expressed her gratitude. What’s on your mind, Matheson? It’s been a long day.”
“Miss Wright deserves more than our thanks.” He paused. “She also deserves our honesty.”
Redinger used his foot to hook one of the stools that were in front of the communications equipment and dragged it closer, then sat. “You’re referring to the problem of her newspaper article.”
“Yes, sir. She has proven how cooperative she is, and I’m sure she can be trusted to act responsibly. The behavior we saw when she first joined us was only a reaction to a personal problem she’s trying to work through.”
“I recall you suspected some kind of breakup.”
“It was more complicated than that. Before she came to Rocama, she was swindled out of her life savings by a man she’d been engaged to.”
Duncan set his coffee down and swiveled his chair to face them. “Well, that explains her attitude toward men.”
“And her short temper,” Esposito added. He folded the wrapper over the chocolate bar he was eating and put it in his pocket. “The poor kid. Did they ever catch him?”
“He’s awaiting trial.”
“Bummer,” Kurt said, moving into the room. “No wonder she needed a vacation.”
Tyler glanced behind him to see that Jack had also returned and was listening. He’d only intended to talk to the major, yet it was just as well the other men heard the facts, too. All of them were involved in the charade. They should understand the toll it was going to take. “Her fiancé betrayed her trust on every level, which is why she was so cautious about us. The longer we lie to her about her story, the worse it’s going to be for her when she learns that we’re scamming her, too.”
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