by Cindy Gerard
A minute passed. Then two.
He continued to sit there, the sedan idling, the windows up.
At this point B.J. would almost have welcomed some action. Any action. Her chest ached from the hyper adrenaline rush. Her arms started to tremble. Her grip on the Glock lost some of its steadiness.
“What is he waiting for?” Stephanie’s tone relayed all the frustration B.J. felt.
“He’s playing with us. He knows he has superior firepower and he’s banking on me doing something stupid.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Something stupid,” she said, deciding that two could play this game, only she was going to up the ante.
She was accurate on still targets at up to one hundred yards with her Glock. This joker sat less than twenty yards away.
She drew a deep breath.
Held it.
Took careful aim… and on the exhale squeezed off a single round.
B.J.’s ears rang from the blast as the report of her pistol and the crack of shattering glass echoed through the park and the rear driver’s-side window of the sedan exploded.
“Next one goes through the driver’s window!” she shouted, and without hesitation started counting. “In five, four, three, two—”
The sedan rolled slowly backward and away from them.
Holy crap. She’d figured he’d come barreling out of the driver’s seat, blasting a spray of fire from an AK or an AR-15 assault rifle. Her only hope would have been a head shot—provided he hadn’t gotten her first.
She let out a breath that had been stacked up in her lungs since she’d fired off that round.
He was actually leaving… or not.
The sedan stopped abruptly. The motor revved.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion then, although in reality only seconds passed. The driver’s-side window of the sedan slowly slid down. B.J. dove for the dirt when she saw the muzzle flash from a rifle barrel and a barrage of shots hit the ground all around her. She covered her head with her hands and rolled clear of the Jeep as the shooter slammed the sedan in drive and hit the gas.
“He’s going to ram the Jeep!” she yelled to Stephanie, who had popped up in the seat again to see what was happening. “Brace yourself!”
Above the report of rifle fire, B.J. was peripherally aware of the sound of a second vehicle. Coming fast. She couldn’t deal with it now. She had to stop this guy and stop him now.
She still had eight rounds in the magazine and another full clip in her pocket. She scrambled back to her feet, braced them a shoulder’s width apart, and with a two-handed grip on her Glock, fired straight at the approaching sedan, popping hole after hole in the windshield as time slowed even further—so slow she could see each bullet hit.
The sedan kept coming as all around her the air exploded with the sound of gunfire. The concussion of noise, of time, of space became completely distorted as she fired and fired and fired until the clip ran dry.
As she’d practiced hundreds of times, she rapid-released the empty magazine, shoved the second clip home, and started firing again, placing round after round into the driver’s-side windshield.
And the bastard kept coming!
“Hang on!” she yelled to Stephanie as the sedan slammed into her Jeep, smashing it hard into the steel guardrail. Steam hissed out from under the sedan’s crumpled hood as she raced headlong toward the driver’s door, firing as she ran.
The sedan was still running. When she reached it and jammed her Glock inside the open window, she understood why.
The driver was dead. He lay slumped over the steering wheel; blood oozed from a hit to his jugular and from a hole beneath his left eye. The engine screamed. The shooter’s foot was jammed down on the gas pedal.
She leaned inside, struggled with the key, then turned off the ignition. Finally there was silence, except for the pinging of the cooling motor and her labored breathing. Before she could check on Stephanie, she realized she had another problem.
She jerked her head around to see a big, blue SUV skid into the lot. Dust billowed and gravel flew as it screeched to a stop not five yards away. B.J. took aim as both front doors of the SUV flew open. Two men stepped out, used the open doors as shields, and trained assault rifles dead center on her head.
8
“Drop the gun!”
B.J. dropped to a crouch, using the wrecked sedan as cover. Then she racked the slide on her Glock and chambered another round.
“Drop it now! Then let us see your hands.”
B.J. held her ground, then damn near swallowed her tongue when Stephanie popped up in the front seat of the Jeep again.
“For God’s sake, stay down!” B.J. shouted.
“But I know that voice!” Stephanie insisted. “Raphael? Raphael, is that you?” she yelled.
“Stay down, Steph!” the guy on the passenger side of the SUV shouted. “Just keep your cool and we’ll get you out of this.”
“Gabe! Oh, my God. B.J., it’s okay. Don’t shoot them.”
B.J. glanced at Stephanie, then at the SUV. “You know these guys?”
“For the last time, drop your weapon!” the driver ordered right about the time Stephanie shoved open the passenger door, flew out of the Jeep, and ran toward the SUV.
A big guy—a very big guy—grabbed her as she reached the passenger side and shoved her into the SUV.
“Last chance,” the driver warned her.
“B.J., please, lower your gun!” Stephanie yelled from inside the vehicle. “I won’t let them shoot you.”
And still the rifles stayed trained on her.
“Them first.” She wanted to trust what she was hearing but wasn’t quite ready to give up her weapon.
“Oh, for God’s sake. We’ll go together on the count of three, okay?” the driver grumbled, and B.J. finally nodded.
“One, two, three,” he said slowly.
The sun rode the lip of the horizon now and glinted off the chrome of the SUV as the black barrels of the rifles went nose toward the ground.
B.J. cautiously lowered her pistol, stood up straight, then squinted into that blasted setting sun as the driver moved out from behind the open door. He walked slowly toward her, his rifle clutched loosely in one hand, clearly not a threat. He wore faded jeans and a white short-sleeved T-shirt that hugged a broad chest and a lot of lean muscle.
The sun had dropped so low and created such a glare that she couldn’t clearly make out his features. She could see that he wasn’t a big man. That his hair was dark, his face clean shaven. And as he grew closer she could see that his skin was… oh God… a soft caramel tone.
Her rapidly beating heart hitched once, then again when she made out a small scar hugging the corner of his mouth. A mouth she’d seen before. A face she would never forget.
Holy God. It was him, she realized when she finally came to terms with the truth. The Latino—Choirboy. The thorn in her side from Caracas.
“Sonofabitch.” He stopped several feet in front of her, making the connection at the same time she did. A smile that wasn’t really a smile tipped up one corner of his mouth. “Well, if it isn’t Miss USDA. What in the hell are you doing here?”
Relief wrapped around anger and came out as sarcasm. “Right now? Wondering why I didn’t shoot you when I had the chance.”
“Buen Dios, cara, you wound a man without firing a shot,” he said with a laugh that lacked any real amusement.
“She was protecting me.” Stephanie joined them with the big guy at her side. She nodded toward the steaming sedan. “From him.”
B.J. watched, still stunned, as the Choirboy stuck his head inside the sedan and checked the driver for a pulse. His gold cross fell out of the neck of his white T-shirt when he leaned over, catching her eye when he stood back up straight.
“You did that?” he asked with a look that hovered somewhere between surprise, awe, and disbelief.
“He wrecked my new ride,” she said, not feeling nearly as tough a
s she wanted him to think she was now that her adrenaline rush was letting down. “Seemed like the thing to do.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” She shot his question back at him.
“You two know each other?” Stephanie cut a look between them.
“Yeah, you could say we’ve met.” Choirboy glanced at the other man, then back at B.J. “Remember that fiasco in Caracas three months ago?” he asked without taking his eyes off her. “Meet the pain in the ass.”
The big guy blinked, looked her over with renewed interest and maybe a little respect. “Caracas? Really? You did that?”
B.J. looked from one man to the other. “What, you guys reading from the same script?”
“Look, not that I wouldn’t just love to stand here and chat about old times, but there’s a good chance this joker has friends.” The Choirboy nodded toward the wrecked sedan. “Sorry to have to ask you to do this, Steph, but I need you to take a look at him before we go.” He gave her an apologetic look. “Tell us if you’ve ever seen him before.”
“No. Never.” Stephanie’s face was ashen after looking inside the bloody vehicle.
“Then let’s boogie on out of here,” the big guy said.
“Fine by me,” B.J. agreed.
“Me, too,” Stephanie said. “I think maybe… maybe my wrist might be broken.”
That’s when B.J. noticed how pale she was. “She’s going down!” she yelled just as Stephanie’s knees buckled.
Bad luck and trouble, Rafe thought as he sat in the ER waiting room while the doc, a friend of Gabe’s at Bethesda, tended to Stephanie’s wrist, no questions asked. Yup. B. J. Chase—they’d finally gotten around to trading names—was definitely bad luck and trouble.
Although he had to give her credit. If it hadn’t been for her, Stephanie would probably have been dead by now instead of suffering from a broken wrist.
What he couldn’t figure was why the DIA agent was with Stephanie in the first place. And what really bugged him was why, in spite of worrying about Stephanie for the past two hours, Rafe hadn’t been able to keep his attention off the restless Miss Chase as she’d practically emptied the vending machines of chocolate, then paced the white tile floor.
At the moment, she had a cell phone pressed to her ear as she walked and talked, her voice so low no one could hear, her expression never changing. Intense. Exact. Professional. Those were three words that absolutely described her.
But then, so did acerbic, sarcastic, and cold.
He shivered as he watched her. Now there was a major incongruity for you. Yeah, she was one cold chick, but he remembered his first impression of her that sultry Caracas night: hot babe. Pain-in-the-ass hot babe, but hot just the same. Cute curvy figure, soft in all the right places, lean and muscular where it counted. Wild Goldilocks curls, a wide sensual mouth, an energetic vitality that made a man wonder if it translated to bedroom action. There was an innate sexuality about her, all the more intriguing because she didn’t do a damn thing to flaunt it.
In fact, nothing in her rigid posture, her prickly silence—except when she was stinging him with barbs— and those dark, don’t-mess-with-me scowls translated to sexpot. Hell, she didn’t even wear any makeup.
She was nothing like Stephanie, who was even-tempered, thoughtful, and sweet.
And yet Rafe couldn’t take his eyes off her.
It was the incredulity, he supposed. He was skeptical of what she was, who she was, and why she still hadn’t volunteered any info about why she was with Stephanie in the first place. And Stephanie hadn’t been up for twenty questions as they’d sped to the hospital, where Gabe’s doctor friend had met them at a rear entrance. So Rafe didn’t have any more of a bead on the situation than he’d had when they’d set out after Stephanie—except that the prickly B. J. Chase had not hesitated to empty two full magazines from a sweet little Glock 19 into a man who’d had the poor judgment to challenge her.
He’d sized up the scene and visualized exactly what had happened there. Chase had saved Stephanie’s life at great risk to her own. Woman had guts. He respected her for that, even if he didn’t like her.
Beside him, Gabe talked softly to Ann and then Robert Tompkins on his cell phone, offering assurances that except for the broken wrist, Stephanie was safe.
“They okay?” Rafe asked when Gabe finally hung up.
“Shook up but yeah, I think they’re breathing easier. Or they would be if they knew what was going on.”
“Well, we’re not going to find anything out from that one,” he said with a nod in B.J.’s direction.
“What? You’ve given up on trying to stare the information out of her?”
“I’m not staring.”
Gabe snorted. “Right.”
“Just trying to figure her out,” he said, wishing it hadn’t come out sounding so defensive.
“It’s your story. Tell it any way you want to.”
He was saved from incriminating himself further when the door to the examining room opened and the doctor walked out with Stephanie. Her right hand was in a cast from the base of her fingers to mid forearm.
Rafe jumped up and rushed to her side. “How you doing?” He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. She looked pale and in pain and not entirely with the program. It broke his heart.
“She’s a little groggy, but all set to go.” The doc handed Gabe a prescription bottle. “For the pain,” he said. “See to it she has one every six hours at least for the next couple of days.”
“She’s right here,” Stephanie said as Rafe steadied her, “and she doesn’t want any pain medication.”
“Which is why you need to see to it that she gets it,” the doc said with a smile.
He was young, clean shaven, and dressed in civilian clothes but his bearing was all military.
“Thanks, Lee,” Gabe said. “Appreciate the discretion.”
“It’s gonna cost you, Jones. Double handicap next time we tee up.”
“Yeah, and I’ll still whip your ass.” Gabe grinned and shook his hand. “We’ll get out of your hair now.”
“You think you can walk?” Rafe frowned with concern as Stephanie wove a little on her feet.
“I’m fine,” Stephanie insisted.
He wasn’t convinced. “Just the same, let’s not take any chances.” He scooped her up in his arms and carried her out to the SUV.
“White knights,” B.J. muttered under her breath as Raphael Mendoza and Gabe Jones fussed over getting Stephanie to Gabe’s D.C. apartment. Just like she’d figured, men turned into white knights around Stephanie Tompkins.
She’d never understood it but she’d seen it happen with Stephanie’s type too many times to count.
“You’d think she broke her leg,” she grumbled to herself as she and Jones stood guard and Mendoza helped Stephanie out of the car, picked her up again, and carried her into Jones’s apartment building.
“You say something?” Mendoza asked over his shoulder as they all walked into an elevator.
She shot him a glare that went right over his head because he was so busy fussing over Stephanie. It wasn’t that she cared how big a fool he made of himself. And it wasn’t as if she wondered what would happen if the situation were reversed and it was her sporting the broken arm. Would he want to play white knight with her, too?
Let him try, she thought. See what he got for his efforts.
She could do without the alpha type, thank you very much. Men like Mendoza, and his buddy, Gabe Jones, for that matter, would expect to dominate, take charge, call the shots. Not happening with her. Not in this lifetime.
“Oh, my gosh!” A tall, gorgeous redhead met them when the elevator door opened. Jones had called ahead to let his wife know they were coming. “Steph. Oh, sweetie, look at you. For God’s sake, hurry up, Rafe. Get her into the apartment and onto the sofa.”
Whoa, B.J. thought as the redhead took charge, barking out commands to the alpha dogs, who both hopped-to lik
e she was nipping at their heels.
My kind of woman, B.J. thought as she followed the parade into a spacious and open loft. The large living area opened directly to a generous dining area and hooked left to a large galley kitchen with contemporary cherry cabinets, gleaming stainless steel appliances, and black granite countertops.