by Alison Kent
“And you?” Frost asked. “What part did you play?”
“She made me stay out of it so that I couldn’t be blamed. She brought me my sister and made arrangements for her to come to the U.S. and disappear. That’s when she told me her real name and that she worked for Watchdog. She knew what the score was and that Miyagi would probably come after her. She hired me to protect Allie.” Jason rubbed the back of his neck. His eyes were full of the gratitude he had for Callie Carpenter and the bravery and compassion she’d shown to him.
“So you haven’t seen your sister in all this time?” Thad asked in a low voice.
“No. It’s to protect her. If Miyagi knows where she is, he’ll try to get her back.”
Allie took in a quick, hard breath.
Thad raised his beer bottle. “To Callie.”
Everyone replied and clinked their bottles. “To Callie.”
“Hey, pass the fries, Wizard,” Frost said.
“Wizard? Why did you call him that?”
“That’s his nickname. He’s the Wizard of Oz. We all have them. It’s a military/operative thing,” he said, stuffing a fry in his mouth.
“What is Drew’s?”
“Captain America.”
“That’s why you call him Captain.”
“Yeah.”
“And yours?”
“Dublin.” Frost shrugged.
“What about Leila?”
“Five-O,” Leila said as she sat down, her face flushed from dancing.
“I want a nickname, too.”
“How about Tinkerbelle?” Drew suggested.
“That doesn’t sound dangerous.”
“I don’t know,” Frost said, “she seemed like a vicious little pixie to me. She sure didn’t like Wendy and had no qualms about selling her out to the lost boys.”
“You know Peter Pan?”
“The author was a Scottish bloke, wasn’t he? My ma read it to me in Ireland when I was a wee lad.”
“Oh, I see.” Allie said, warming up to the name. “I like it. Wait, what about Jason? He needs one, too.”
“No, I don’t,” Jason said, leaning back in his chair.
“Kid Kamikaze,” Leila said, looking at him for the first time since he’d told his story.
Jason rolled his eyes.
After about an hour of watching people dance, Allie felt herself begin to fade, even if it wasn’t late. Drew threw down money and took her by the arm. “Time to go, Tinkerbelle, or is it Sleeping Beauty?”
She didn’t protest, just smiled sweetly at him.
At the loft doors, he kissed her. “You know Prince Charming woke Sleeping Beauty with a kiss.” Allie smiled.
“Are you awake?” Drew asked wickedly.
“Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to bed we go?”
He laughed as he pulled her into the loft.
FOR THE NEXT two days, Allie was drilled by all the team members until she fell into bed at night thoroughly exhausted. She would have to make time to talk to Drew about Lily’s house. She must finish that project and do it soon.
When Drew roused her on the third day of her training, she groaned with the muscle aches and the bruises on her body. “Please, no more.”
“Allie, no more physical training, I promise, but we’ve got more to teach you—how to communicate back to the team safely, how to use the transmitting device that will go in your ear, mission codes and procedures. Oh, by the way, Frost called. He was able to trace the car—the one that hit your sister.”
“This is all so surreal.”
“Mark called and said that your sister is doing much better. She wanted to talk to you, but it’s not a good idea to agitate her at this point.”
“When can I see her?”
“In a day or two, once you’ve completed the mission. It’s best to minimize your contact for now.”
Allie nodded, happy that her sister was improving. She wished she could speak to her but knew she didn’t want her sister to worry. Allie rose and got dressed.
When she sat down at the breakfast bar, Drew put down a plate of waffles in front of her. Allie forked up a bite and chewed, and then said, “I don’t think I can stuff any more information into my head. What’s next?”
“You’re going to learn the difference between role-playing and acting.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes. One will get you in. The other will get you killed.”
“Then it’s really important to outline which one I should be doing.”
“Role-play. Undercover work is not at all like acting,” he said. “Undercover officers are taught to role-play. The difference is that while actors can take time to learn their lines, undercover officers have to immerse themselves in a role and be able to respond to constantly changing circumstances.
“Anything that you say or do can compromise your safety, the other people working with you, as well as jeopardize the mission. Actors get a chance to stop, rehearse their lines and call time-out and reshoot if they make a mistake. We don’t get that option. We get dead.”
“Drew, I’d rather go back to kissing you. That was a whole lot more fun.”
“Uh.” He ran his hands through his hair and gave her a don’t-go-there look. “I was trying to not think about that, Allie.”
“Maybe you’d better start calling me Gina. Does that help?”
“No. It doesn’t help, but it’s a good idea.”
“So who is this crazy chick my sister portrays?”
“She doesn’t portray her, Allie. She is her.”
“Okay. Who is she? What does she like to wear?”
“Check out the garment bag and the suitcase Frost dropped off the other day. That’s her stuff.”
Allie went over to the suitcase and opened it. Clothing fell out. Well, scraps of clothing anyway. There were tiny mini skirts in leather and denim, skimpy mesh shirts and tight, tight jeans. Her hands shook as she picked up a black garment and some pink tulle and held them up.
She turned to Drew. “A bustier and a tutu? What is this girl? A cross between a dominatrix and a ballerina?
Drew’s eyes were riveted to the bustier and he didn’t speak for a moment.
“You’re imagining me in it, aren’t you?”
“Hard not to.”
“Let’s focus on the role-playing part and then we’ll practice.”
For the majority of the day, Allie listened diligently to Drew and they practiced. Finally, as night fell, Drew held up the garments and told Allie, “Time to look and be the part.”
Allie grabbed the clothes and headed for the bathroom, but stopped dead and turned around when Drew spoke.
“She’s been known to go without underwear under her miniskirts,” he said with a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face, but Allie turned the tables on him.
“Commando? Oh, damn.” She turned and headed for the bathroom. “It’s a good thing I’ve done all those squats at the gym. If I have to moon anyone, at least my ass will look good.”
Drew groaned as the bathroom door closed.
He swore silently, praying that he would keep a cool head. It wasn’t his head that was hot right now. It seemed his dick had a mind of its own. Being plastered up close and personal to Allie couldn’t possibly be smart. Damn karma when you needed it. It could go from good to bad in sixty seconds.
She was a contradiction of sweet and tough. When he’d thought for sure she’d cave, she hadn’t. When he’d thought she’d respond one way, she’d respond another. In his line of work, unpredictability was something that he had to deal with every day. But Allie tied him up in knots and made him think that it would be really fun and interesting to get her to release all those knots, one by one.
There he was going down harder than a bad guy at the end of his scope. Only this hurt a whole hell of a lot worse.
He didn’t do relationships. He’d made that clear. Hadn’t he? He wasn’t one to make promises he couldn’t keep. Like in Afghanistan. He’d made promis
es to the men who’d served under him. Many of them hadn’t gotten out alive. Too close. He’d gotten too close to his platoon. That’s when he’d gotten out, gotten drunk for days, then he’d made sure he worked alone. His team really didn’t count. They could all take care of themselves, all as well-trained, as tough as he. He’d picked them just for those attributes. If one fell in battle, it would be due to his or her own carelessness and not his judgment.
His father always told him to move on. Never let his emotions get in the way, don’t make ties. It had worked to his advantage when he’d gone into the military and followed in his father’s footsteps. After all, what was a military brat supposed to do when the life he knew was so fragmented? The military and military training all felt so…familiar.
The sound of the door opening at the far end of the loft brought his head up. She was coming out of the bathroom. Or so he thought. Nothing else happened for the next few seconds, except he slowly rose to his feet from where he’d been sitting.
He was sure of what he’d expected, but when she finally walked through the door, he knew he’d just been out-classed, outgunned and stripped back to private. All he could do was stand there and remember to keep his jaw off the floor.
This was it. This was what he had been worried about since he’d first met her. His heart did a double-flip and he felt as if his brain had just melted.
Dressed to kill. Now that was a metaphor that described her to a T. Her hair was pulled on top of her head in a haphazard ponytail, her glorious mouth was painted a deep, dark red and way too much of her silky skin was exposed. Way too much.
And the outfit. So help him, he couldn’t stop wondering if she had gone commando under the pink tulle. All it would take was a flip of that flippy skirt to find out. The road to hell was paved with good intentions. This was one of his best intentions. The black bustier fit her like a second skin, molded to her torso. Allie’s muscle definition was awesome. Not overworked, just sleek and cool-looking.
His eyes went back to that froth of skirt pulled down to the point where it crossed the top of her legs. She’d chosen a pair of thigh-high boots, leaving a swath of silky skin between the tulle and the leather.
With the dark sunglasses covering her expressive eyes, she was bad-ass. Gina “Bad Ass” Callahan. She looked like sex and hot fudge over cherry ice cream—melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
All he had to do was keep from getting caught in her bad-ass trap himself.
Right. That’s all he had to do.
He did not have to let his gaze slip and slide around her curves. He didn’t have to stand there, sending up silent prayers of gratitude to the gods of leather, or wondering what had happened to the laws of physics—he felt as though he was floating, as if she’d sucked all the gravity out of the room.
She kept walking and he found himself backing up until his spine was so flat against the wall, it was as if a 250-pound bruiser had pushed him there with sheer strength, not this slight, 120-pound beauty who had transformed herself in less than half an hour.
She placed one hand on his chest, and with the index finger of her other hand, she pulled down the shades just enough to peek over them. Her cool eyes studied him like a bug beneath a microscope.
“Is this what you had in mind?”
Even her voice was stronger, more defiant, like Tinkerbelle with an edge.
All he could think was that he wanted all her pixie dust on him.
“Ah, yeah. You know I was kidding about the commando part, right?” he asked, wanting the words to come out as nonchalant, but in his amazement, his voice cracked. He cleared his throat.
“Were you, really?” She smiled, looking as satisfied as a dominatrix snapping her whip, knowing that her victim has just surrendered.
She tilted her head, the movement sliding all that gorgeous blond hair to her bare shoulder where it slipped and slid around. The movement made her look more Allie and less Gina which should have alleviated some of this heat he was feeling deep in his gut and groin, but it only intensified the dichotomy between sweet and tough.
“I would believe your tough macho detachment if it weren’t for the fact that your heart is beating really hard, Drew. Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump. Thrumming like a live wire.”
“Speaking of live wires, let’s channel all this energy into the task at hand, Allie…ah Gina, and get you to think like her, as well as dress like her.”
Allie’s bottom lip came out in a pout. “You’re starting to be such a drag, Mr. Federal Agent. A big, draggety drag.”
“It’s about keeping us all alive, honey. And if that makes me a drag, then bring it on.”
With that she backed up.
“It’s time to take the show on the road.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door.
“Where are we going?”
“To Hell and Gone.”
“What? That whole lake-of-fire, burn-in-eternity thing doesn’t really work for me, and I really don’t like to sweat.”
“It’s time to learn how to be bad-ass.”
“Oh, no. I think I’m going to be sick.”
8
Abandon every hope, ye who enter here.
ALLIE READ the plaque on the door as they stood in front of one of the roughest, toughest bars in LA—Hell and Gone.
“You brought me to a dive bar? Are you nuts? They’ll eat me for lunch and pick their teeth with my bones.”
“Not as long as I’m here. I just want you to get the attitude, Allie. It’s just observation,” Drew told her.
“Sure,” she said, giving him a glance that told him he was twice the idiot she thought he was if he believed that.
“We’ll just get a drink, play a little pool and leave. If you want to assert some of that attitude, go ahead. I’ll cover you.”
“Great, you’ve got my back, but who’ll cover yours?”
“I’ve got all the cover I need.”
“I know that’s not alpha-male crap because I’ve seen you in action. It’s just a statement of fact.”
“I want your body language to say “don’t mess with me.” Watching other people who already have that attitude, helps. It’s a lesson pure and simple. You don’t need to become a new person—you just need to be comfortable with yourself and your flaws. By being comfortable with yourself, you show that you don’t care what they think of you.”
“I don’t care what people think of me.”
“Yes, you do, Allie, and it shows. Lose it.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said under her breath, but Drew heard her.
Hell and Gone was living up to its name as Drew and Allie entered. A wall of heat and steam came pouring over the threshold. Drew put his hand on the small of her back and pushed her forward. The temperature inside the room had to be close to a hundred degrees.
“The first ring of hell,” Allie said, eyeing all the people. “Are you sure we have to do this? School never looked like this.”
Hell and Gone was packed to the rafters with a boisterous crowd of misfits, outlaws, hipsters and goth wannabes.
He and Allie moved deeper into the place, skirting the dance floor where people gyrated to the very loud music on the stage.
Allie took a barstool close to the edge of the bar and Drew settled in next to her. “Shabby chic takes on a whole new meaning in here,” she said, her voice filled with sarcasm.
The bartender came over and Drew ordered a beer. Allie surprised him by ordering a shot of tequila. She crossed her gorgeous legs, garnering her plenty of stares. The men in the club were all focused on her, their eyes taking in every curve. Drew felt proprietary when he knew he had no right to feel that way. He wanted to break their faces, but instead he tried not to radiate any kind of protective quality over her.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she whispered. “But there’s a switchblade in this skirt’s pocket. A switchblade in a Tinkerbelle skirt.”
“Leave it in there. It’s illegal to carry a concealed weapon i
n LA.”
“You’re carrying a gun.”
“I have federal ID and a permit.”
“Oh. Right.”
She watched the people in the room and after her third shot, Drew shook his head at the bartender when he started to move toward her.
She swiveled on the stool and eyed him. “Who do you think you are? If I want to drink, I’ll drink,” she said belligerently.
“Allie,” he whispered.
“Let me try this out,” she whispered back.
“It’s Gina. Gina Callahan. You’ve forgotten already?” With that she ordered a fourth shot and picked it up, moving toward the patio and outside. Not liking that one bit, Drew followed her.
It was then that he got separated from her.
A bouncer put his hand on her arm and said, “You can’t drink on the patio.”
“Really? What kind of lame rule is that? This is a bar after all, and I’ll drink where I want.”
Other people started shouting that she was right and surged forward until the bouncer was pushed out of the way and a flood of people emptied onto the patio. Drew got jostled and pushed with the others and for a moment he lost sight of Allie.
Then he spotted the damn Tinkerbelle skirt. Jesus, she was going to be the death of him. He started shoving through the crowd, pissing off plenty of people, but he didn’t care. His chest felt tight and his stomach seized. He never panicked. Never. But Allie was making him lose his cool and fast.
If anything happened to her…
Then he heard it and his blood ran cold.
“Gina!”
Of all the places in LA he had to bring her to, he’d chosen the one club where she might be recognized. He got close enough to see Allie whirl. At least she was responding to the name. She faced the man who’d called out, and double damn—it was Gina’s old boyfriend Spike.