by Lisa Hughey
Throughout the day, she had been by turns amazed and awestruck at Colin’s ability to put people at ease.
Jess had been a little uncomfortable. The life of sniper demanded that she was more of an observer rather than someone who interacted with people. She’d perfected that role over the years. The outsider looking in. It had begun at age eight when she and her mother went to live in her father’s house with his existing family and continued through her time in the FBI as a female sniper in a male-dominated field.
So six months ago, she’d made the decision to live her life differently. To be engaged. To be present. She’d known going in that adapting to this new life would take her out of her comfort zone. She relished the idea. But old habits were hard to break and she found herself watching rather than participating. But because she was constantly watching, she noticed details that others overlooked.
She’d seen Colin’s conspiratorial smile with the tiny boy who had hidden in his mother’s skirt. Colin’s gentle hug for the woman whose husband had perished. Colin’s grave sympathy and compassion for the grandmother whose daughter was missing. He’d treated the men who stood in line with dignity and gave them the respect the deserved for taking care of their family, without the pity that Jess saw reflected on many of the other workers’ faces. He calmed the fears of the children when the aftershock hit.
And then Colin had stepped in front of her when the crowd waiting for their supplies got a little unruly. Jess had been bemused by the fact that he was trying to protect her. She was the one with the pistol and he’d still shielded her from the crowd and herded her back toward the cab of their truck in case they needed to hop inside to shelter from the crush.
After a full day of handing out supplies, the constant battle between smiles so hard her cheeks hurt and an innate need to release her sorrow with tears had taken a toll. She was exhausted.
Because of the mini-riot, they were behind on their schedule.
“We need to get back before the curfew,” Colin said. They hopped in their truck and headed back to the main seaside town.
The sun was low in the twilight sky, bright yellow at its center bleeding to a deep red on the edges. The sky rippled with waves of blue, purple, and pink, the colors spectacular from the pollution of the quake. Beauty from destruction.
As they rounded a bend in the makeshift road, they almost ran into the truck in front of them which had come to a full stop. A line of relief aid trucks snaked through the debris field. “Checkpoint,” Colin said unnecessarily.
“What time is the reception?” Jess unsnapped her holster and fingered the pistol as she watched the soldiers interrogate the workers two trucks in front of them.
“Keep your mouth shut and don’t argue with anything they say,” Colin commanded.
“What do you mean?”
A soldier, who was more boy than man, tapped his rifle on Colin’s window. “Purpose,” he asked in a sing-songy lilting, almost lyrical, voice. His skin was the color of a mahogany wood bowl polished to a brilliant shine that her mother had purchased years ago when they’d been on vacation. Her mother loved that bowl and it was a permanent decoration on their kitchen table.
“We delivered seed packets and water purification tablets,” Colin replied evenly.
“Tablets?” The soldier raised his eyebrows and the whites of his eyes were ultra-bright in the deep brown of his gaunt face. “They all gone?”
“Just about.”
“Show me.”
Colin got out of the truck cautiously and walked around to the back. He lifted the gate that had covered the transportable boxes of seed bags and the packets of water purification tablets which were like gold in a country with a nearly destroyed infrastructure. The back was mostly empty, and held only the detritus from the packaging, crumpled shrink wrap and flattened boxes.
“How about a little something for me family?”
Colin reached into a pocket on his shorts and handed several seed packets and tablets to the soldier.
As Jess sat tight in the cab of the truck, an unsettling tension gripped her stomach. Colin seemed fine as he joked with the soldier. But somehow she knew that he was concerned. And the fact that she could intuit that he was concerned was a whole other issue. She was completely in tune with him.
Which was kind of freaking her out. She didn’t get in tune with people. If anything, she was mostly out of tune. She never quite fit.
Except she’d felt un undeniable connection with him since London. A preternatural communion that defied logic. She could sense his edginess, even though his smile was loose and easy as he closed the truck bed and sauntered loose-hipped and casual back to the driver’s side of the truck.
The soldier opened Jess’s door and gestured for her to get out. She could practically feel the tension vibrating off Colin but his smile was relaxed and his hands were draped casually over the steering wheel as if he didn’t have a care in the world. The young soldier dug through the glove box and peered under the seat.
She was glad she had listened to Colin and hid the Remington in the compartment in the dash. Otherwise she had a feeling that it would now be the property of the Port-du-Bois military. Or at the very least, the soldier in front of her. Jess tensed as he came close to the hidden compartment, but he seemed to miss the seam in the faded plastic dash. And finally he gestured for her to get back in.
The soldier waved them through.
Colin was silent.
She finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “What’s wrong?”
He tilted his head and cocked a perfectly-sculpted pale brown eyebrow. She was amazed at how well-groomed he appeared. She knew he hadn’t had a real shower in two or three days, only cleaning off with baby wipes. And the heat during the day was not conducive to staying cool or clean. Not to mention sleeping in canvas tents on cots barely a foot off the dirt and debris strewn ground made for a very dusty rest.
“What makes you think something’s wrong?” he asked.
She wasn’t about to admit that she felt connected to him. “Just answer.”
“The checkpoint going back into the city is unusual.”
“How so?”
“If the government is worried about intelligence gathering visitors, the checks are conducted in the morning as the relief trucks are going into the distribution area. Not after everything has been handed out.” He glanced into the rearview mirror and frowned. “It’s almost as if they are looking for someone. Or something.”
“Do you think they somehow got wind of what you, we, have planned?”
Colin drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and shot another look in the rearview mirror. “I hope not.”
They drove back toward the coastal city, the interior silent as Jess contemplated the implications of the sentry.
Twilight gently bathed the woods on their right in a soft, romantic light. Driving along the pretty scenery, it would be easy to forget that the entire island was in complete disarray. Jess propped her chin on her fist and gazed out the window appreciating the beauty.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking about how pretty the sky is.”
Colin glanced over at Jess. What the hell was it about her?
All day he’d been distracted by little things. The way she found the beauty in an ugly situation. The curve of her smile as she’d handed out seed packets. Her pert breasts when she’d arched her back looking for relief from standing most of the day. Remembering the sweet wet heat of her as he’d slid home last night. The greedy pull of their attraction was nearly incandescent. The compulsion to find a secluded place and press up against her until no space existed between their bodies was strong. The urge to hold her tight in his arms and refuse to let her go. A thousand times today he’d found himself staring at her and thinking thoughts that were not going to endear him to her brother.
Shite. Those thoughts were going to lose him a friend.
He’d been doing this job as a favor to Jack but after the last
few days, Colin realized he liked this work. Sure he was compiling a report that detailed information that could be sold to the both his government and the U.S. but primarily he was engaged in helping people. And he had gotten a surprising thrill from the good deeds of the last few days.
As they rounded the bend in the mostly decimated road, Colin jammed the brakes on, and the truck slid to a complete stop. “Shite,” he muttered.
Jess straightened in her seat.
“Another checkpoint,” Colin said. This was not good. And this close to both curfew and the city limits, the inspection of their truck was going to be a lot more thorough. Colin needed to get ready for the reception at the President’s mansion. “We need to distract them.”
Jess didn’t hesitate. “How?”
Colin assessed the soldiers at this checkpoint. More attentive, more intense than the last guy who only wanted a few seed packets for his family. These guys meant business. He and Jess needed to be as non-threatening as possible. “Unbuckle and slide over.”
Jess scooted next to him but left a few inches between their bodies.
“You need to plaster yourself to my side.” Colin slung his arm around her shoulder, and yanked her snug against his body. His hand dangled above her breast.
With disconcerting predictability, his cock sat up and took notice. “How good an actress are you?”
Her breath caught and Colin couldn’t help notice when the side of her breast brushed his chest. Shite. Maybe this was a bad idea.
“Pretty good.” She nuzzled behind his ear. “I’ll make it work. Don’t worry.”
Colin kept his left hand on the wheel and with his right arm he pulled her closer. While they were stopped behind another truck, he pressed his nose into her thick braid. She smelled of lemons and freshness. How did she do that? Bathing consisted of baby wipes, unless someone was crazy enough to go in the ocean. The amount of debris on the shore right now was insane which likely meant that bathing in the ocean would lead to disease or infection.
Colin didn’t want touch her. Actually that was the exact opposite of the truth. He wanted to touch her so badly he ached with it. Based on the tension in her body, she felt the same. Colin had figured out from experience that if he put his hands on her, he’d go up in flames. And right now they really couldn’t afford the distraction.
Colin had adeptly been ignoring their attraction when she had been all the way across the bench seat leaning on the door. But the warmth from her body suddenly heated him up as she pretended to melt against him, and raised his awareness to an excruciating level. His heart thudded in his chest, and overtook his awareness of their surroundings and bang, banging until he realized that someone was tapping on the window.
“Out of the car, mon.”
Colin started and blinked down at the young soldier. He murmured to Jess, “Slide out of the cab on my side after me.”
“‘Kay.”
Thank God she was savvy enough to obey orders when it mattered.
Colin pushed open the truck’s door, wincing at the squeal of metal hinges. “What were ya doin’ inland?” The guard held the AK 47 loosely in his hand, strap strung around his neck in what appeared to be a casual manner, but Colin knew that with one quick jerk, he could have the weapon locked, loaded and firing.
“We delivered seed packets and water purification tablets,” Colin said calmly.
“We want to see da inside.”
“Sure thing.” Colin feigned a casualness he definitely didn’t feel. “Go ahead.”
He held Jess’s hand and as she exited the truck, then he casually twirled so that his back rested against the truck bed, hips canted out while Jess draped over his relaxed body. She figured out exactly what he wanted and wrapped her arms loosely around his waist, and burrowed into the curve of his neck, so that she was mostly only visible from the back, her face hidden by his arms and shoulders.
The soldier leered at Colin’s hand on Jess’s nicely rounded ass, which was exactly what Colin wanted, to divert the guy’s attention from her face.
The military commander shouted and the harder, older soldier lost his grin and crawled into the cab of the truck. Colin ran his hands up and down Jess’s back and prayed that the more experienced soldier didn’t find the panel in the dash that hid the backpack with the sniper rifle.
Two more soldiers joined the search, one popped the hood over the engine and peered inside. The other opened the gate in the back of the truck.
Colin slid one hand into Jess’s back pocket, the move smooth and familiar. She nipped at his earlobe in warning.
“You smell so good, babe.” Colin pretended to ignore the soldiers and kept a running conversation with Jess. The position of their bodies inflamed him like gasoline on a sputtering fire. “How is that possible?”
He really did want to know.
He was sweating as he waited for the shout of the soldiers to indicate they’d found the backpack. His worry hadn’t affected his erection though. His body was locked and loaded and ready to fire. Jess didn’t say a word at the rod poking her in the stomach. But in retaliation she brushed her breasts against his chest. He should have his entire attention on the soldiers, but the hard points of her nipples diverted him again, splitting his focus between her effect on his body and the search going on beyond them.
“You’re distracted by other things.” She laughed huskily. “Pretty sure I stink.”
She should and yet, she didn’t.
“You are driving me crazy,” he growled truthfully against her neck.
“Back at ‘ya,” she quipped back quickly but the simple duck of her chin and the squeeze of her arms around his neck told him she was telling the truth, feeling their strange and overwhelming attraction as well.
He opened his mouth and gave in to the wholly unexpected need to affirm she felt the same. But before he could speak, the soldier in front dropped the hood of the truck back into place and at the exact same time the soldier in the back pulled the door back down. Jess jumped at the noise and planted her head in his shoulder as if embarrassed.
“You’re free to go.”
And the intimate moment was gone.
Six
Now
Jess huddled in the debris of a church two blocks over from the President’s mansion, and through the rifle scope, tracked both Colin and Keisha.
Colin was inside the mansion. He sat in a delicate brocade chair with his legs crossed and a bone china teacup cradled in his oddly delicate grasp. She shivered at the contrast between his rough fingers and the tiny cup as she recalled his dexterity with his hands.
Oil paintings adorned the walls, high ceilings dripped with ornate mouldings, Persian rugs covered the endangered wood floors. Maids poured tea from bone china pots and served tea sandwiches on etched, sterling silver platters.
About twenty men of varying ages mingled in the ornately furnished room. Not a single guest was a woman. The wait staff, all women, were dressed in formal maid uniforms with starched black skirts, a white apron pinafore, and a white peter pan collar.
“Misogynist,” Jess mumbled.
The plan was to poison LeRoy. No scent, no discernible traces for an autopsy, unless you were specifically looking for the drug, and slow acting enough that Colin and the other relief organization attendees of this little soiree would be long gone when LeRoy died in his sleep.
Keisha who was supposed to deliver the killing salts to the mansion had been trapped in another section of the city. A mob of citizens grew angry when the distributors of first aid kits ran out and so she was late to the servants’ entrance at the back of the mansion.
Keisha had lost her comm device. She’d managed to let them know before the tiny transmitter got ripped from her shirt while she protected the poison. However Keisha could still hear Jess and Colin.
But now Jess tracked Keisha to the back door where she was trying, unsuccessfully it appeared to Jess, to get in. Of course, Jess couldn’t hear her so she wasn’t completely po
sitive. Jess gave Colin a quick update.
Jess followed Keisha’s movements. This was the one part of the plan that Jess had felt was tentative but Keisha had assured both Jess and Colin that she would be able to speak the magic words. Whatever they might be. She hadn’t shared. Damn, three days in her company, and Jess wasn’t any more thrilled with her than she had been in Monterey.
“Two turned away,” Jess updated him softly.
Even as the cook at the back door refused Keisha entrance, a group of women dressed in very short dresses, flat sandals, big party hair and bright red lipstick crowded in the doorway.
“Are my eyes deceiving me or did this asshole get hookers for his party?” Jess snarled in disgust. “Holy crap, he did.”
Her fingers were slick on the stock of the Remington as she contemplated options. Her objections to shooting him had shortened as she lay in the rubble, and the heat seared her skin through her clothes.
Jess observed the reception of the the relief organization officials in LeRoy’s mansion. The tiny tea sandwiches made her stomach roil. The people of this country were starving. Starving. And he was serving sandwiches made with bread with the edges cut off? Where were those remnants?
“You should go for it,” Keisha said angrily.
She had to make a decision.
Did she shoot LeRoy? Keisha had told her to take the shot. They had no other choice. But that wasn’t exactly true. Jess thought about the poison that Keisha had. Now that she’d tried to get in and failed, Keisha was off the table. But no one had seen Jess.
If she took the shot, chaos would reign.
She thought about what her brother had said when he’d convinced her to take this job. He’d spoken passionately about their ability to make a difference in the world. There had been a moment when he’d gotten a far away look in his eyes, and murmured about how differences weren’t always in the expected manner.
She slowed her breath and her heart rate, listened to the steady thud, getting into her Zen space, as her focus narrowed to the Medal for Humanitarian Relief pinned proudly to LeRoy’s chest. An obscene and deceitful display of qualities he didn’t possess. A false front he presented to the world.