by Gayle Wilson
And it had been pleasant, he acknowledged. Too pleasant, and maybe not so harmless, because it might already have affected his judgment. Hawk couldn’t afford that. He didn’t have time for diversions or distractions. So he had told himself that the kiss hadn’t had anything to do with bringing her with him. That his decision had nothing to do with the sexuality that had flared, so strong and unexpected, between them.
His reasons had been strictly self-interest. Self-preservation. Just covering my ass, he reiterated, arguing against his inherent honesty. Nothing else. If there was the remotest possibility he could use her to clear himself with the agency, then he couldn’t let some nutcases take her out.
Nutcases. The word rang sourly through his guilt, a strange choice for someone like him. Ninety-five percent of the population of this country would probably think that term applied pretty well to Hawk himself.
The good citizens of this country didn’t want to acknowledge that occasionally their government needed to eliminate someone whose potential for human destruction, or whose developing taste for it, negated his right to coexist on the planet among sane people. They wouldn’t want to admit that such eliminations had been carried out in the past or to think about the possibility that, human nature being what it was, there might be a need for something like that to be done again in the future.
That wouldn’t be up to Hawk, of course. Deciding when such a scenario had occurred was the job of men like Griff Cabot. Had been Griff’s job, Hawk amended. Past tense.
“Apparently it isn’t easy for you to accept thanks for what you do,” Tyler said, interrupting that introspection.
He realized he hadn’t answered her. She had taken his prolonged silence for modesty, and her voice was touched with amusement.
“Sorry if I embarrassed you,” she continued, “but... without you, I would have been in a whole lot of trouble back there.”
Hawk fought the urge to look at her again, keeping his eyes on the road, as if its few curves and rises demanded his full attention. She was still in a lot of trouble. They both were. More trouble than she could probably imagine.
However, if being with him gave her comfort, some sense of safety, then he wasn’t about to destroy that pleasant little fantasy. She was better off with him. Because he was better off with her alive, so he’d try very hard to keep her that way.
That’s all it was, he told himself. Just a matter of practicality. Just good old cold-blooded pragmatism. Even if Tyler Stewart had looked like somebody’s grandmother, he’d have taken her with him.
Of course, he admitted, if she’d looked like somebody’s grandmother, they wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t have been able to get away with wearing his clothes yesterday. Somehow, the remembrance of the way his jeans had looked, worn denim stretched over her slim derriere and down that incredible length of leg, sneaked back into his head. Sneaked in right past the need to think about where they were going to hole up.
“We’re still in a lot of trouble,” he warned.
That was the truth, and it was only fair she understand it. They might get into another situation where she needed to do exactly what she was told and do it quickly. She needed to understand that he was in charge. And he supposed she needed to keep believing his primary objective in all this was to keep her safe until she could make an identification of the assassins.
Ace in the hole, he thought. That’s all she was. No more Good Samaritan. That was a lesson he had learned, and Hawk never allowed himself to forget any of the lessons life taught him.
“So where are we going?” she asked again.
“Somewhere nice and quiet where I can think,” Hawk said.
“Not back to New York?”
“Not yet,” he said, trying to think of a reason she’d buy. “I need to be sure it’s safe to bring you in. And since there are foreign nationals involved, we may need to wait a couple of days to see what shakes out. We’ll hole up somewhere.”
Hawk needed to know whether his picture was being splashed across the front pages. It wouldn’t be the photo from his security file. They wouldn’t use that one, of course. If any pictures had been released, they would have been the grainy shots from the hotel security cameras Jordan had told him about.
And if those pictures were in the papers, then Hawk would know that the manhunt was on. And he understood too well what kind of hunt it would be. After all, they couldn’t afford to let him come to trial. He knew too many things they wouldn’t want anyone to know. Hawk would never be allowed on any witness stand.
If they went public with the search for him, then it would mean a shoot-to-kill had been issued. One of those “suspect is armed and dangerous” deals. In his case, he acknowledged grimly, they’d be right.
Hawk had been more than willing to take his punishment for the unauthorized kill he’d made in Iraq. For taking down Griff’s murderer. He had thought he knew what that punishment would involve. But forced retirement and a lot of unpleasantness was a long way from being the scapegoat for someone else’s assassination. He remembered the pictures of Oswald being gunned down in Dallas. Those were black and whites also. Just as the grainy shots the hotel cameras produced would be.
Hawk didn’t intend to be this generation’s Lee Harvey Oswald. Not if he could help it, he decided. Not if there was anything at all he could do to protect himself. And in order to do that, he knew, he also had to protect the woman beside him.
“WHERE ARE WE?” Tyler asked.
Hawk glanced at her, again feeling the impact of those remarkable eyes, despite the fact that they now reflected all she had been through the last two days. The midnight black hair was disordered, the smooth skin of her cheeks nearly devoid of color, and she was still incredibly beautiful.
At least she was awake, Hawk thought, and asking questions. Far more normal than just accepting his decisions, more normal than that implicit trust in him she’d exhibited so far.
She had slept during a lot of the long drive, and Hawk had been surprised to find himself worrying about her. In the course of the day, she had made a couple of offers to share the driving, but despite his fatigue and lack of sleep, Hawk had refused.
After what had happened in Mississippi, that unexpected barrage of gunfire in the quiet dawn, he had been expecting a state trooper to appear in his rearview mirror at any moment. He had been expecting somebody to show up behind them through the half-dozen states they had crossed in the course of the long day.
Hawk didn’t understand why he was so edgy. It wasn’t like him. He knew, at least intellectually, that there was no way they could have traced him through the ID he’d used to rent this car. Griff had supplied those identification papers, part of the kit Hawk had picked up in Alexandria. There would be no record of them with any government agency, no way in hell to trace the name on them back to the man called Hawk.
The emergency kits were something no one on the team had ever expected to have to use, but Griff had insisted they each have one. Just in case, Cabot had said, with that enigmatic half smile. In case of something like this, Hawk guessed.
He knew the agency would pick up his trail eventually, but it would take them a while. And the fact that no one had shown the least interest in the rental car so far was reassuring.
The last time they stopped for gas, Hawk had bought all the newspapers available at the small convenience store. He had tossed them into the back seat without taking time to read them, nothing beyond a quick scan of the headlines.
Yesterday’s assassination was no longer front page headlines, not in the locals. There would be information about it inside, however, and he wanted to read everything carefully. That could wait a little longer, he had decided, knowing how close they were to the destination they had just reached.
“We’re at a friend’s house,” Hawk explained, bringing the car to a stop at the end of the familiar road. No explanation beyond that. After all, there wasn’t much more to say.
The roughness of the ride down the pri
vate road had probably awakened her. At the best of times, this was little better than a trail. Now it was potholed with washouts from the spring rains. This year, of course, no one had issued the orders for the needed repairs.
“It doesn’t look as if anyone’s home,” she said.
Her eyes were examining the house that loomed above them. There was exhaustion in her voice. Maybe disappointment. She must have been expecting to be somewhere sanctioned and official by now. And she probably felt almost as wasted as he did, Hawk realized, in spite of the fact that she’d had some sleep. After all, she’d been shot, she had finally had to come to grips with the fact that someone was trying to kill her, and she had watched three men die. Then she’d been dragged halfway across the country by a total stranger.
By a stalwart federal agent hot on the trail of the assassins. By a hero who was supposed to be taking her somewhere she’d be safe. Where she would help him catch the bad guys. While knight, Hawk thought. Again the image rankled.
She turned to face him, probably because he had been simply watching her instead of answering her question. The fragile skin around her eyes was slightly discolored, yellowed like old bruises. The eyes themselves, however, were clear and bright.
And maybe a little too bright. Fever? Hawk wondered. Not this soon, he reasoned, reassuring himself. It might not happen at all, if she’d done what he’d told her and cleaned the wound with antiseptic. Even if she hadn’t, it probably wouldn’t make much difference. After all, the furrow the bullet had cut in her arm was little more than a deep scratch.
“No one’s home,” he acknowledged.
His reluctance to answer had nothing to do with her question. It was just a reality he preferred not to think about. Now, he realized, he would be forced to. He hadn’t been planning on coming here when they left Mississippi. He had simply headed east, homing instinct. But when he had remembered Griff’s place a few hours ago, it seemed perfect. An answer to their every need. For a few days, anyway.
This old house was what people like the Cabots called a summer home. Its irregular collection of towers and jutting roof lines perched above an isolated stretch of rockstrewn Virginia beach, looking as if it might tumble into the green chum of the Atlantic below with the first storm. It hadn’t, of course. Not in the hundred years or so since it had been built.
Hawk had come here occasionally with Griff. Once or twice with the others—the members of the team. They had come to plan. Or to debrief. To celebrate.
Once Griff had brought him here after a mission that had gone wrong. Brought him here to recuperate. That time was something else Hawk didn’t want to remember, so with the ease of long practice, he pushed the thought out of his head, closing and locking mental doors that shouldn’t have been opened.
The house had a modern security system, of course, the best money could buy, but Hawk knew all the codes. He was good with numbers, good at remembering them. So unless someone had taken the trouble to change things, he could get them in. And once inside, they’d be safe. It would be the perfect hideout, at least until Hawk could get a handle on what was going down.
“Come on,” he ordered softly.
Without waiting for her to obey, he opened the door and climbed out of the car, legs stiff from long hours behind the wheel. He opened the back door and retrieved the suitcase she’d brought and then led the way up the steep path to the steps.
He was conscious that she was climbing slowly, lagging behind him, but he didn’t look back. While she slept during the drive, Hawk had acknowledged something pretty damn disturbing. He liked looking at Tyler Stewart. Liked it a lot. And that was dangerous. Just like the kiss that never should have happened, his attraction to this woman had no place in what was going on.
This was no different than a mission. He had never allowed himself to indulge physical appetites while on assignment. That was simply another form of discipline, and Hawk understood all about discipline. It was something else, like death and danger, with which he had a long and intimate acquaintance. Abstinence was simply another aspect of that.
When he reached the top of the steps, Hawk walked across the wooden veranda and punched the code into the incongruous security pad by the front door. The doorknob turned under his hand, and relieved, he pushed it inward. Apparently the house hadn’t been sold. At least nobody had changed the codes.
The interior was dark, the air inside hinting at mildew and coastal dampness. The prospect it offered wasn’t inviting, but then he hadn’t expected a welcoming committee. Griff Cabot was dead. No one else was in residence. Which was exactly why they were here.
“Are you sure this is okay?” Tyler asked, her question mirroring his hesitation. She was standing on the porch behind him, looking into the house through the open door.
Hawk realized that he had hesitated on the threshold because he was dreading this confrontation. He was putting off facing his ghosts, he supposed. And she had taken her cue from his reluctance.
“You have a better idea?” he asked sharply, his voice tight and hard with the unexpected force of those emotions. Without waiting for her answer, he stepped inside. The house was exactly as he remembered, except the familiar pieces of furniture were now covered with white cotton holland covers, their massive, indistinct shapes ghostly in the dimness.
Griff’s house. It would be full of reminders. Of him. Of the close-knit team he’d built. Memories of what they had accomplished together. Of friendships. Some of those already destroyed, perhaps, by what Hawk had been accused of. Not the Iraqi assassination, but the other. Going rogue. Operating outside the careful limits Cabot had set.
But worrying about that was something else he didn’t have time for, Hawk told himself. The battle that was coming would demand control and a cold, clear-eyed logic. Not emotion. Not of any kind.
“Your friend’s not been here in a while, I would guess,” Tyler said from behind him.
Again, Hawk explained nothing and offered no information. “I’m going to pull the car into the garage. You can go on upstairs. Pick out a bedroom. I’ll bring your suitcase up when I finish.”
She nodded, her gaze moving slowly around the entry hall and the formal parlor that lay through the opened doors on the right. “You think your friend might have some aspirin?” she asked.
“Probably,” he said. “Headache?”
She turned her head, her eyes meeting his and holding them a moment. She nodded and then looked away again, pretending to examine the shadowed furnishings.
“Your arm?” he said.
She had been holding her left elbow in the palm of her right hand again, so that her arms were crossed over her stomach. She released her hold at his question, but she didn’t straighten the injured arm. “It’s a little sore,” she admitted.
There was pain medication here, he knew. He had been given some the last time he’d come. That time he didn’t want to remember. “There’s probably some kind of painkiller around,” he said. “I’ll find you something when I’ve hidden the car.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She started toward the staircase, its rosewood banisters curving gracefully toward the shadows of the second floor. As she walked, she again cupped her elbow, holding the arm against her body. When she reached the foot of the stairs, she released it to put her right hand on the railing, and began to climb.
Too slowly, Hawk thought. Again he felt that same touch of unease as when she had been sleeping in the car. Especially when he contrasted those careful movements to the way she had moved yesterday. There were all kinds of logical explanations for the anxiety that was stirring unpleasantly in his gut, beginning with the fact that Tyler Stewart was the one person who could clear him of al-Ahmad’s assassination, and the knowledge that the assassins didn’t intend for her to tell anyone what she had seen.
Those were reasons enough to be worried about the effects of her injury. Reasons enough even if he were unwilling to acknowledge the true cause of his apprehension. Hawk had bur
ied that, too. Buried it with the feelings that being back in this house had evoked.
He realized suddenly that she had stopped on the first landing. She was looking down at him. Probably wondering what the hell he was doing standing here watching her. Just watching her, as he had in the car. That was becoming a habit, Hawk thought, angry at himself. At his lack of control.
As he had told her, there were things he needed to do. Priorities, he reminded himself. First things first. Hawk turned away, retracing his steps through the front door.
He brought the newspapers and his bag into the house this time. He spent a few minutes making sure the security system was rearmed, and checking everything out downstairs before he picked them up again, along with Tyler’s suitcase, which was still sitting by the front door, and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
He called her name when he reached the top. The only answer was the slight echo the solid wood walls threw back at him. Finally he started opening doors. He put the papers and his bag in the same suite he’d occupied during those long weeks of convalescence. And he found the pain medication he’d left behind, still in the drawer of the table by the bed. There were at least a half dozen of the big white capsules left.
Taking them with him, he continued to open doors. He found her in the fourth suite. Its bedroom was large and pleasant, decorated in shades of rose. An old-fashioned mahogany four-poster dominated the center of the room.
Tyler was lying across it. She was stretched out on her right side, eyes closed. She hadn’t undressed or turned back the coverlet, and she didn’t move when he opened the door. Hawk walked over the faded Oriental rug and set her suitcase down at the foot of the bed. The rug was thick enough that she might not have heard him, but again Hawk felt an unaccustomed flare of anxiety. She looked exhausted. Sick. Too damn vulnerable.
“Tyler,” he said softly. Slowly, in response to her name, her eyes opened.
“Did you find some aspirin?” she asked. Her tone was calm and rational, completely normal.