by Fiona Brand
Chapter 1
Gray Lombard was asleep, his muscular form sprawled the length of a narrow bunk, long powerful legs clad in close-fitting fatigues, the coppery skin of his torso sheened with the moisture that hung hot and heavy in the air.
"Damn," the young NCO muttered to himself. He didn't want to disturb or surprise the man in any way. Lombard was fresh in from some long range reconnaissance mission and, like the rest of the close-mouthed, half wild band of Special Air Service troops inhabiting the base, was bound to be touchy. Just the thought of laying a hand on one of those massive shoulders made him break out in a cold sweat; he didn't have a death wish. He'd seen the way the man moved; despite his size and build, he was cat-quick and just as remorseless.
The soldier nudged the door open a little wider, wincing at the tortured whine of unoiled hinges. A slatted window shafted sunlight into the cramped prefab room that served as officers' quarters, tiger-striping the sleeping man with hot gold and inky shadow, making him seem even more savage, more untamed, and lending credence to some of the improbable stories flying around the camp.
Yet in repose, with those cold, dark eyes shut and all the grimness smoothed from his features, he looked almost approachable. Almost.
"What do you want?"
The soldier jumped at the soft demand. Lombard's eyes were open, surveying him with a slitted coolness that made him glad he hadn't advanced more than a couple of feet into the room. Even with the door wide-open at his back he felt cornered. "The Commander said – uh, he's got something you should see."
Dispassionately, Gray considered the soldier backing out of the room; he hadn't been able to conceal his fear, and Gray wondered, with a rare flash of humour, if he looked that bad. He had showered before he'd let himself sleep, and he'd shaved, but after weeks in the jungle he'd got used to feeling … disconnected, and definitely uncivilised.
With a grunt, he rolled to his feet, gritting his teeth against the stiffness in his shoulders, the tiredness that dragged at his muscles and made him long for a real bed, an ice-cold beer and a pizza.
Oh, baby, yeah. A pizza.
Instantly his mouth flooded with saliva, and he almost groaned aloud. After weeks of reconstituted food that tasted about as appetising as it looked, he should have known better than to think about pizza. Snagging his shirt off the end of the narrow, too-short excuse for a bed, he shrugged into it and stretched, finally allowing himself the luxury of that groan.
Ah, damn, he was getting too old for this. He was thirty-five, almost thirty-six, and if he had one lick of sense, he would leave this equatorial hellhole, and Egan Harper, to young pups like the fresh-faced soldier who had just bolted across the compound as if all the hounds of hell were after him.
Harper. The last remnants of sleep dissolved in a familiar rush of fury. Sense didn't come into the hunt for the murderous jackal. Not now, when they were this close, so close he could almost smell Egan's expensive cologne, feel the sinuous ripple of the killer's wiry, street-smart muscles twisting beneath his fingers.
No. He wouldn't be leaving Harper to fresh-faced recruits with blank innocence in their eyes. This job was his to finish, no matter the cost.
Egan Harper was his.
Raking cursory fingers through his rough inane of hair, Gray made his way toward the shabby cluster of huts that housed the makeshift briefing room, communications centre and cafeteria of the covert and very temporary base. As he stepped through the door, he wondered what his brother, Blade, wanted that was important enough to disturb the first real sleep he'd had in almost four weeks.
Blade acknowledged him with a lift of his head. "Sorry to pull you out of the sack. Hate to interrupt your beauty sleep."
Gray's mouth twitched as he stepped over to the map table, where the documentation retrieved from their night raid was spread out. If he looked like hell, Blade came a close second. But then, Blade wanted Harper almost as badly as he did. "What have you got?"
Blade stabbed a finger at the series of black-and-white photos portraying a hi-tech office crammed with cutting-edge computer technology. "You were right, the cocaine processing plant was only a cover. The second team in found an underground facility outside the main compound. Harper is plying his terrorist trade from there – military hardware and intelligence, personnel training, aviation and ship comms. SAS Command is going to be ticked. They've been operating right beneath our noses for months."
Gray inhaled sharply, his hunter's instincts instantly on full alert, wiping out the weariness of weeks of surveillance and miles of heavy slogging through jungle that kept its secrets shrouded in mist and rain, encased in a canopy so dense it smothered the senses, absorbing purpose as hungrily as it soaked up sunlight.
Oh, yeah, they were close. If he didn't miss his guess, they'd hit on Harper's prime residence. They didn't have him yet; somehow, with that uncanny sixth-sense for danger that he seemed to have, he'd evaded capture – again. But this time they had definitely hurt him.
Gray studied the photos, then systematically examined the other material on the table while Blade provided a terse commentary. His gaze skimmed over, then jerked back to a fuzzy photocopied snapshot of a woman.
The satisfaction he'd experienced at finally locating Harper's operational base was abruptly blanked out by the cold fire burning in his gut. It was fear, acrid and unmistakable. And rage. A chilling, coalescing rage that made him even calmer, even colder, than before.
He new knew why Blade had woken him. His younger brother had seen a photo of this particular woman before. Almost seven years ago, to be exact.
They'd expected to find evidence that Harper and the small time but brutally efficient Colombian drug lord who backed him, Delgado, were keeping tabs on Gray and his family. It had happened before, not because he and Blade were SAS, but because of the extremely sensitive weapons research and development business that was his own pet project and an unadvertised arm of the Lombard group of companies.
This was an abrupt escalation, a punch in the dark that brought the whispers and snippets of information Gray had picked up over the past few months into sharp focus. Harper was out for blood, revenge against Gray for the decimation of his gang and the dismantling of his family years ago. Now there could be no doubt. He was positioning himself for a strike. A very personal, very specific strike.
Sweet hell. He hadn't expected Egan to know about her.
She was the one person he'd been successful at hiding from almost everyone.
A shudder moved through Gray, product of the sweat cooling on his skin and another more fiercely primal reaction, an overriding need to shield and protect that which was his.
And Samantha Munro was his.
He considered the knowledge; it sat uneasily with him, yet he didn't question it. Gray knew his own nature. He was intense, single-minded; once he fixed on a goal, he didn't let up until he had achieved it. His mother and his baby sister would say he was bull-headed and probably add another few choice adjectives along the way, but that didn't change the way things were, or the way he was. Somehow, despite the passage of time and the cold fact that he had no room for emotional attachments in the life he'd chosen, he was still linked to Sam.
"It's about time," Blade murmured, as he hooked a chair close with one booted foot and sprawled in it.
"About time, what?" Gray's attention was still locked on the shadowy image. He knew Sam had never married, but now he wondered if she had a lover. The fury that rose in him at the mere thought of her lying naked beneath another man left him in no doubt as to his feelings. He was naturally possessive, and he wanted her, though he'd left her alone for seven years. Seven years. He felt like a sleepwalker just waking up, dazed, only now realising how much time had gone by, the magnitude
of the mistake he'd made.
"About time you went and got her back."
Gray turned a narrowed glance on Blade. "How did you know I want her?"
Blade stretched and yawned, a wide grin splitting his face. "I didn't – until now. You just told me."
"I should have smothered you in the cradle when I had the chance."
"Naw. You were only two then. You couldn't reach."
"Don't bet on it. I was big for my age."
"So," Blade said softly, "why in hell does Harper have a picture of your old girlfriend?"
Gray allowed his fingertips to skim the surface of the cheap copy paper. Sam's steady gaze held him, even through the grainy matrix of the photograph. The print was black-and-white, but he didn't need colour to remind him that her eyes were a blue so clear and pure it was like looking into forever. Her hair was shorter, just past shoulder length, sleek and tailored instead of long, but it looked just as dark, just as soft. He remembered how it had felt sliding against his skin, wrapped around his hands.
Now that he'd let them in, memories he'd suppressed for years hammered him. He didn't want them, but he accepted their presence, just as he'd had to accept the presence of other memories that had settled and folded themselves darkly around his soul.
Harper had singled Sam out for attention, and there could be only one logical reason: he knew how important Sam was to Gray. Because of their past association, she was going to need protection. He silently cursed himself for not foreseeing this problem when he'd first found out she was now managing one of the Lombard hotels. It had taken him by surprise, but his mind had already been attuned to this operation, and he'd simply blocked the knowledge out. In any case, he'd been inclined to believe the name was a misprint. When Sam had disappeared on him seven years ago, he would have laid odds that she would never set foot inside a Lombard owned building, let alone work for Lombards, ever again. "A few months ago she took over the management of a hotel we recently purchased in Auckland. Jack okayed the appointment. He had no idea who she is."
Blade let out a low whistle. "Harper must be desperate. You haven't been near her since—"
"Since Jake died," Gray finished flatly. "I don't know what Harper is playing at. Maybe he's just compiling information. And maybe not. He knew one of the reasons I went after him seven years ago was that I thought he was holding Sam."
Blade rocked back in his chair, his expression cool and considering. "If you think the lady needs protection, we'll organise protection. Who do you want to send?"
Gray stared out through the slatted opening that served as a window, barely seeing the ragged cluster of huts, the churned mud, the glare of the noonday sun bouncing off a corrugated iron hangar. He touched the ridged scar at his throat, the ungentle reminder of his last contact with Harper, and grief and fury rose blackly in him.
He would be the one to protect Sam. There was no other option. His options had all run out seven years ago when his brother, Jake, had died at the hands of Egan Harper. Because of Gray's negligence. He had been in charge of security, and he had failed to protect his own family.
He had lost Sam then. Somewhere in the middle of that mess, she had walked, and he had let her.
Gray fixed on his brother's gaze, a gaze as dark, as grimly resolute, as his own. His mind was made up, had been the second he had accepted that he wanted Sam back. "The same guy that got her into this mess in the first place," he said in his hoarse, damaged voice. "Me."
Blade's chair landed with a thud, an earthy curse punctuating the sharp sound as he surged to his feet. "Over my dead body."
Gray gripped his brother's shoulder – a gesture meant to reassure and soothe. He could feel the tension thrumming through Blade, the passion so like his own. They were brothers, and more. He owed his life to Blade. If they had shared their mother's womb, their bond couldn't have been stronger.
He released his grip and gestured at the evidence they had collected – endless documents – while the man who had torn their family apart remained free. "I'm through with playing a defensive game," he declared bleakly. "Harper has just pushed the stakes up another notch, only this time we're going to call the shots. The second Harper knows Sam and I are back together, he'll move her to the top of his hit list. He won't be able to resist coming after the both of us. If we engineer the situation, we can control the outcome."
The breath hissed from between Blade's teeth. "You're going to use yourself as bait to draw Harper into a trap? Have you lost your mind?"
A trap. The word had an ugly ring to it. Gray would take an outright confrontation any day, but in seven years, he hadn't been able to achieve that goal. He wasn't comfortable with using Sam, but he didn't see any way to avoid it. "In case you haven't noticed, the bastard seems to be stalking us. If you've got a better idea, I'm listening."
Blade silently mulled over the merits and complications of the plan. If anyone but Gray had suggested this scheme, he would have told them to take a hike, but Gray knew Harper as no one else did – knew the way the man thought, the way he operated. And Gray had carved out a reputation for himself in covert operations under various code names; his instincts were the best in the business. If he thought Samantha Munro was in danger, or that she was the key to capturing Harper, then Blade believed him.
To any other man he would have posed the question, "What makes you think the lady will have anything to do with you when she walked out on you all those years ago?"
The plain, unadorned fact was that his brother had women crawling all over him, fascinated by that cold reserve, wanting to touch his big muscles and coo over his scars. Wanting him to whisper sexy things to them in that bad ass voice of his. Gray barely gave them the time of day.
Occasionally he gave in and took one to bed, but only on his own terms. The next day the lady in question would be satisfied but bewildered at the lack of follow-up, sure he couldn't possibly have meant just one night. It wasn't that Gray didn't like women, he simply didn't have time for them.
If he had now found time for Samantha Munro, the lady didn't stand a chance.
Still… "She isn't going to like it."
Gray acknowledged Blade's reservations with a wry twist of his mouth. "Like" was a tame word to describe the way Sam would feel about anything. Her emotions had always run as frustratingly deep and pure as the bottomless blue of her eyes, and her trust had been, to put it mildly, elusive. The only "like" about anything was that she would likely slap his face. "I'll be taking the first transport out. Something about this whole situation gives me a cold itch up my spine. If Harper isn't here, then I want to know where in hell he is."
Gray left the makeshift operations room, stepping out into the brutal heat of the sun, his mind automatically falling into the cold, analytical cadences of problem solving.
Egan had just made a very big mistake. Up until now they had tracked him, isolated all the tendrils of his organisation, content in the knowledge that when they finally shut him down, they would destroy his entire poisonous network at the same time. But now he had threatened not only Gray's family, but his woman.
The gloves were off, figuratively, literally, any damn way you chose to look at it. The hell with finesse, they had the advantage. In his arrogance, Egan hadn't yet realised that the prey was now hunting him.
Now that he had made the decision to go after Sam, Gray was impatient to leave, but a sense of disorientation gripped him. His fierce need to claim Sam directly conflicted with his need to remain focused on bringing Harper to justice. He didn't like the sense of being split in two one little bit. The situation with Egan was both dangerous and intense. Seven years ago, Gray had made the mistake of not being prepared; this time there would be no room for error. Somehow, he would have to keep Sam separate and apart from the operation to net Harper.
Walking back into her life wasn't going to be easy. Sam had always been as remote, as self-contained, as a cat, and sometimes just as prickly. Moving on her now went against every last shred of co
mmon sense or logic – it would be better if she was protected by someone who was uninvolved – but common sense and logic didn't come into Gray's need to get her back. He couldn't explain the urgency to claim her any more than he could explain why he still wanted her after all this time. He simply knew that he wasn't about to compound the mistake he had already made by letting the gulf between them widen any further.
Immediately he began to calculate what he needed to do to get Sam back. Something inside him relaxed at the decision – a tension he hadn't known existed.
Damn. Seven years.
Gray came to an abrupt halt in the centre of the muddy square around which the huts were built, once again stunned, completely oblivious to the heavy black clouds gathering overhead, time impending violence of the deluge. Every hair on his body lifted, as if an electrical charge had just been run through his system, kicking reluctant nerve-endings to pulsing, tingling life. For years he had been shut down, closed off, focussed solely on the hunt for his brother's killer. He'd had no room for relationships beyond the obligatory family ones, and he had been damn tardy with those.
He'd had sex. A raw slaking of his physical needs. But now he wanted more than the bare mechanics of the act.
A shudder moved through him, and his loins flooded with heat, tightening on an unruly throb of anticipation. He could barely remember the last time he had made love, or the woman he had made love to.
He had never forgotten how it had been with Sam.
He wanted her now; wanted to toss her over his shoulder and take her somewhere dim and private and lay claim in the most basic, primitive way there was.
He still couldn't believe he'd let so much time pass. It was a miracle he hadn't lost her completely.
Chapter 2
The phone was ringing as Samantha Munro unlocked the front door of her private quarters. She'd heard the shrill summons all the way from the end of the hallway as she'd exited the elevator, and she was tempted to let it ring. The sheer persistence of the caller meant trouble or work. In a hotel as old-fashioned and dilapidated as the Pacific Royal, it probably meant both.