by Lori Wilde
She had to get out of here. Before someone recognized her and called the police. In a futile attempt at a disguise, Marlie snatched off her glasses and stuck them in her pocket.
Turning on her heel, she fled the emergency waiting room. It was only when she got back out to the SUV that she remembered Joel.
What to do? What to do?
She stood beside the Durango, frozen, indecisive. If she went back into the hospital with Joel, she was bound to be recognized after that news broadcast. And anyway, weren’t all gunshot wounds automatically reported to the police?
“Come on, Angelina, take over. I can’t handle this one on my own,” Marlie mumbled.
Dump Joel out on the curb and let him fend for himself, Angelina advised.
“I can’t do that,” Marlie said, shocked that her alter ego would even consider such a heartless solution. “He saved my life. I’m not leaving him.”
Suit yourself.
“You need some help, lady?”
Marlie jerked her head around to see a man smoking a cigarette off to one side of the door. She’d been so distressed she hadn’t even noticed him standing there.
“No, thank you,” she muttered. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look so fine. Talking to yourself is nothing to be ashamed of,” the guy said. “We all hear voices now and then.”
Marlie didn’t answer. She jumped back into the SUV and glanced over at Joel. Actually, he looked slightly better. The bloodstain didn’t appear to be much bigger, and his color had improved. Then she saw the flask of whiskey in his lap and realized he’d been dosing himself.
He eyed her. “What’s up? You look like you’ve seen Casper the Ghost and he wasn’t nearly as friendly as his PR rep would have us believe.”
“We can’t go in there. Or I can’t go in there. You can go in if you want,” she said.
“You got an aversion to hospitals?”
She shook her head. “That’s not it.”
“You gonna tell me what it is? Please don’t make me play twenty questions. I’m not in the mood.”
“They found a dead guy in my mother’s garage, and the police think I killed him and started the fire to cover it up. I saw it on the TV news while I was in there.”
“But that’s idiotic. I was with you when the fire started.”
“Tell me about it. But I have a feeling if I try to explain, they’ll arrest me first and ask questions later,” she said.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
“What?”
“Start the car. Let’s motor.”
“But you’ve got to have that gunshot wound looked at. Go on in.”
“I’m not budging.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not leaving you on your own. This killer that’s after you means serious business, and I’m the only thing standing between you and him,” Joel said.
“Excuse me, Mr. Ego, but who appointed you my guardian?”
“You did, when you burst through my back door.”
“Get over yourself.” Marlie snorted.
“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re driving my vehicle. You have to take me with you.”
Oh, yeah.
Marlie shot a look over at him. His gaze was lazy, almost sensual. How could he be feeling horny when he’d just taken a bullet?
Hell, how could he be feeling horny over her in the first place? He was major-league beefcake, and she was a farm-team rookie. Their pairing would be like mating a thoroughbred Triple Crown winner to a Shetland pony.
Who cared? It wasn’t like she was looking for romance. Love was the last thing on her mind. She wasn’t tough enough to handle the inevitability of heartbreak, and this guy had heartbreaker stamped all over him.
“You honestly think I’d be better off dragging your wounded butt around with me than just getting out of town on my own?”
“Running away won’t solve your problems. We have to figure out who wants you dead and why. And you need a bodyguard.”
“A guy with blood running out of his side doesn’t make a convincing bodyguard applicant.”
“I’ll be fine. We’ll find a place to lie low and you can patch me up.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly Florence Nightingale.”
“I have a first-aid kit in the back of the SUV, and I’ve had first-aid training. I’ll walk you through it. Now, let’s motor out of the ambulance bay before an ambulance shows up and runs over us.”
“Why would you even want to help me?” She eyed him suspiciously.
“You mean besides the fact the guy made it personal when he shot me? That’s not reason enough for you?”
“No, it’s not. You could just go to the police.”
“So could you.”
“You saw the way Officer Kemp treated me.”
“How’s this? I’m pissed off that someone locked us in your mother’s house and tried to burn us to death. Much as you might be attached to your loner status, like it or not, we’re in this together.”
“No, we aren’t. You’re shot. I’m not. Get out of the car and let the doctors take care of you.”
“Okay. Try this one on for size. I’ve been expunged from the SEALs for eighteen months and I was bored out of my skull until you came crashing into my life. Suddenly that old adrenaline rush is back and I feel alive again. You’ve given me the opportunity to dust off old skills. You’re doing me a favor.”
He meant what he was saying. Marlie saw the truth of it in the way his eyes lit up.
“Why do you have this macho need to protect me? You don’t even know me.”
He got a faraway look in his eyes, peered right through her, staring hard at something from his past. “You want me to tell you my biggest regret?”
If he gave up a secret, then she would feel better about the situation. More in control. She needed something to hold over him before she could trust him. “Okay.”
“I once knew another woman like you. Independent. Headstrong.”
Obviously, he’d mixed her up with Angelina. She was timid and reclusive, not headstrong and independent, but never mind. “Is this the woman you were once in love with?”
“Yes. It was my duty to protect her, but she didn’t want my protection.”
“Why not?”
“She wanted to perform her mission alone, wanted to prove she was as tough and resilient as any man. And she knew the only way to get rid of me was to hurt me. So she did something cruel to drive me away.” He paused and she heard the pain in his voice. “I turned my back on her. I left her when I should have been watching her.”
“What happened?”
“She was wounded and almost died that night, and it was my fault. If I’d ignored my ego and stayed with her, she would never have gotten injured. With you, I’ve been given a chance to redeem myself. So because of my past failings as a soldier and a man, you’re stuck with me, Marlie Montague, and I don’t care what you have to say about it. From this point on, I’m by your side twenty-four/seven until the killer is caught and your mother is found.”
She shook her head. For Marlie, deception was a matter of self-defense. If she allowed herself to be totally honest with Joel, she’d be placing her life in his hands. She’d never been able to trust anyone to that degree. She had to protect herself, not only from without but from within.
“What’s it gonna take to convince you?” Joel asked, his voice low and lulling.
Their gazes held. One second. Two. Three.
Marlie drew in a shaky breath. “In order for me to trust you, then you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Okay.”
“That means believing in me.”
“I can do that.”
“And by answering a question.”
“What’s that?”
“This other woman. Who was she?”
Joel hesitated a moment and then said, “My wife.”
CHAPTER TEN
I’m i
n,” Cosmo said.
Three hours’ worth of hacking, and Chet Delaney’s personal journal entries popped up on the screen, just waiting for Cosmo to decode them.
“You’re a genius.”
For his reward, Treeni leaned against his shoulder, took his earlobe between her teeth, and nibbled just a little too hard. Cosmo gulped and a groan slipped over his lips. He had to force himself to stay focused on the computer screen.
“Is there a particular date we’re after?” he asked.
“Go back two, two and a half weeks. Say January third.”
Cosmo scrolled down and frowned at the code. It wasn’t any cryptogram that he recognized, but he wouldn’t expect the head of Navy Intelligence to use something easy. The more he studied it, the clearer it became that the code was one of Chet Delaney’s own creation. Cosmo couldn’t believe he had the balls to do this, hacking into the private diaries of the former head of the Office of Navy Intelligence. A man who very easily could become the next President of the United States.
What a high. He felt freakin’ omnipotent.
“What exactly am I looking for?” he asked Treeni.
“References to an NCIS special agent named Joel Hunter. I’m trying to find out where my father assigned him.”
Cosmo knew jealousy was an ugly, trouble-causing emotion, but despite what his rational mind was telling him, he couldn’t leave well enough alone. He had to open his mouth. “Who is this guy?”
Treeni shrugged. “My ex-husband.”
And then jealousy did chomp into him with its sharp, unrelenting teeth. Green and dark and violent. He tasted it. Vile and bitter, instantly eradicating the sweet flavor of cream cheese and chocolate fudge and earthy pecans on his tongue. Treeni had invited him here to help her hack into her father’s private records so she could locate her ex-husband.
She was nibbling on his ear, but thinking of another man.
Obstreperously, Cosmo pushed away from her and got to his feet.
“You want to hunt up your ex-husband, you’ll have to do it on your own.”
Treeni burst out laughing.
Cosmo scowled. He was beginning to understand precisely what Chief Peterson had been warning him about. “What’s so damn funny?”
“You’re jealous.”
“No, I’m not.”
“That’s so hot.”
His initial response was to deny his feelings, but then he thought, Screw that. His next action was totally uncharacteristic, but Treeni had goaded him into it. He grabbed her up from her chair and hauled her to her feet. She was so tall that they were almost the same height. He looked her straight in the eyes.
“Damn straight I’m jealous.”
Treeni’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why, Cosmo, who would have thought behind that computer geek exterior lurked the heart of a lion?”
“I won’t be toyed with.” He had no idea where this unexpected bravado was coming from, but he milked it for all he was worth. “I’ve been watching you for two weeks. Wanting you with every cell of my body. Wanting you as much as I want air. I think you knew that. I think you’re using my attraction to you to your advantage. You’re trying to get me to help you do something illegal. It’s not going to work. I won’t be treated the way you’ve treated other men in the past.”
She gulped.
He watched the column of her throat work and saw the flutter of the pulse at the hollow of her neck.
“I’ve been watching you too, Cosmo. And wanting you as badly as you wanted me,” Treeni whispered.
He ached to believe her, but he did not. “Are you still in love with your ex-husband?”
Treeni met his hard stare and never blinked. “I never loved Joel. At least not the way a wife should love her husband. He and I were more competitors than anything else. We had great sex and got a rush out of our one-upmanship games, sure, but it wasn’t anything more than that.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you marry a man you didn’t love?”
Treeni drew in a deep breath. Cosmo couldn’t stop his gaze from being magnetized to the rise and fall of her scrumptious chest beneath the gauzy silk of lingerie.
“I spent my life trying to prove myself to my father. He wanted a son, not a daughter. I did everything I could to make him love me. Played sports. Joined the Navy. Got into the Secret Service. He always admired Joel. I thought, well, if I can’t be Joel, maybe I can marry him and maybe then Father would be proud of me.”
“But it didn’t work that way.”
“No, and I wound up married to a man as intense and cunning as I was. Not a good combo. No elastic to that kind of relationship. I wanted things my way and he wanted things his way, and neither of us knew how to compromise. It got us into a lot of trouble in Iraq.”
“What happened in Iraq?”
For the briefest moment, Cosmo could have sworn he saw a mist of tears in Treeni’s eyes, but then she blinked and it was gone.
“I did something unconscionable. I violated the very code I’d sworn to uphold, not to mention my marriage vows. I was a total shit to Joel,” Treeni admitted. “I was trying to hurt him, trying to get him to walk away so I could run the mission my own way.”
Cosmo said nothing, but a million conflicting thoughts were tumbling through his mind. What was the appeal of this woman? Why did he want her even more now that she was confessing her darkest sins to him? “Did your husband walk away from you and the mission?”
“Yes. Because I left him with no choice. I drove him away. And as a result of my stupid, stupid decision I almost died,” she said. “Tunnel of white light, floating around the ER, watching the doctors and nurses do their thing on my lifeless body. The works.”
“Seriously?”
“Very seriously.”
“How did you almost die?”
“Fallout from a missile explosion. Head injury. I’ll show you the scar later if you’re still interested.” Her grin was faint and tinged with a hint of melancholy.
Cosmo didn’t answer.
Treeni bit down on her bottom lip before continuing her story. “The mission was a miserable disaster, but Joel—good old heroic Joel—stepped up to the plate and took the blame. He got tossed out of the Navy SEALs because of what I did. He wouldn’t give me a divorce until I recovered from my injuries. But the minute I was able, I filed. It had been a long time coming, and we were both relieved.”
“Why are you trying to find him again?”
Treeni’s face darkened. “I just learned something very disturbing on my last trip to the Middle East. I found out that Joel had been right about our previous mission and I’d been mistaken.” She swallowed hard. “I came back to the States to tell Joel what I’d learned, but when I got here, I found out he’d been sent on a secret mission through his new job with NCIS, and I’m certain my father is involved. I’m really worried it’s related to what’s going on in the Middle East.”
“Terrorists?”
Treeni shook her head. “Worse.”
“What could be worse?”
“I can’t tell you that, but if I can just find Joel I’m certain he can help me shine some light on this. So, can you put your jealousy aside and help me?” She seemed nothing but sincere. “For the good of our country?”
Cosmo wanted to believe her. God, how he wanted to believe. It might turn out to be the single most stupid thing he’d ever done, but he said, “All right. I’ll do it. But only under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to be there when you speak with your ex-husband.”
Joel had to get Marlie someplace safe. He had to tend to his bleeding wound, which was hurting like hot coals were being shoved into it, and then he had to make new plans. He was cutting his ties with NCIS, going out on his own, going out on a limb, but he saw no way around it. Not if he was going to help Marlie. By insisting that he arrest her, Dobbs had left him no alternative.
Marlie sat behind the wheel of the Durango, driving them away from
Spohn Hospital. She was headed back in the direction they’d come from, cruising south on North Shoreline Boulevard. The Bay of Corpus Christi stretched out to their left. Lights from the shrimp boats bobbed on the darkened water.
A fresh stab of pain shot through him. Joel winced and clenched his fists.
“Take another hit off that flask. You’re starting to look sickly again.”
“You trying to get me drunk? And steal my virtue?” Joel tried teasing, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He did take her advice and knocked back another swallow of whiskey.
“You caught me,” she said. “My life won’t be complete until I get you soused and jump your bones.”
“There’s that wicked tongue again. Did I ever tell you that feisty women turn me on?”
“Demure it is then, all the way, from now on.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Please, kind sir, have you any suggestions for where we might take refuge in our time of tribulation?”
Joel groaned from another shooting pain, but he pretended it was from her awful attempt at Regency-era speech patterns.
“I fear,” she said, injecting her voice with a laughable British accent, “the constables will have my abode under surveillance and your residence is too near mine to make a suitable alternative. Furthermore, it is unseemly for a young woman to be unchaperoned at the home of an unmarried gentleman.”
He groaned again, and this time it was from her miserable rendition of nineteenth-century vernacular. “Please, I beg of you. Stop with the Jane Austen.”
“Are you now appropriately turned off?” She grinned mischievously.
“Most assuredly, fair maiden.” Joel looked at her, his heart feeling as if a pro wrestler had grabbed it with an iron claw. Marlie’s levity in the face of adversity snipped his resistance like barber scissors, severing the connection between steely control and red-hot desire. He wanted her even more because she could make him laugh when things looked grim. He didn’t know who was more deranged. He or Marlie.
“Good. Now, any idea where we go from here?”
“Motel.”
“It sounds so seedy.”
“No one said that it had to be a rent-by-the-minute motel.”
“I’m on something of a budget,” she pointed out. “No cash-ola to fund a fancy hotel stay.”