by Hinze, Vicki
His promise had the desired effect. She dipped the barrel of her gun to the floor. “I’m going to hold you to that promise.”
“You won’t have to work at it,” Mark assured her.
Kunz feigned a yawn.
Tempted to shoot him just for that, Amanda tensed. Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
“Ah, it appears the cavalry has arrived.” Kunz smiled. “The choice of whether I live or die is apparently no longer yours to make, Captain West.”
“Don’t count on it,” Mac spoke up from the doorway. “Captain West, if you want to kill him, now’s the time. Otherwise, we’re coming in.”
Fear flashed through Kunz’s eyes. Fear that gave Amanda an enormous sense of satisfaction, which, she was sure, had been Mac’s intention. She waited a long moment, as if wrestling with whether or not to put a bullet in him, her gaze locked with his. The fear in him deepened, solidified, and he dropped the glass he’d held midair.
It shattered on the floor, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.
Amanda smiled. “Come in, Mac. There’s no one in here worth a bullet.”
A team of five men entered the office and arrested Thomas Kunz. The lieutenant read him his rights, and Amanda and Mark stood back and watched, immensely satisfied.
When they led Kunz out and he passed Amanda, he smiled, and an odd chill coursed through her chest. His eyes were empty, with no sign of remorse. “You’ve been amusing, Captain.”
Amusing. He’d said that she would be amusing when she’d first seen him in that warehouse. It seemed like years ago. Amazing how much evil one person can cram into a short period of time. Refusing to let him get to her, she let out a little sigh. “I wish I could say the same, Thomas. But the truth is, you’ve been mundane and ordinary—almost boringly predictable. And Reese...” She paused for effect. “Why did you take on an arrogant, self-centered liability like Reese?” Giving her head a little shake, she grunted. “Huge mistake. Huge.”
If looks could kill, Kunz’s glare would have murdered her right where she stood. Enormously satisfied at having pricked his ego, she added, “You will tell us everything, Thomas, including the locations of the detainees and doubles and the other compounds. And seeing you screw yourself will be very amusing to me.” She turned her back on him, signaling him as he once had her, that she didn’t feel threatened by him.
“The FBI will take it from here.” Kunz’s footsteps echoed down the corridor. Mark swung an arm around Amanda’s shoulder. “Let’s go home, honey.”
S.A.S.S. remained covert and unmentioned. The FBI would handle all the information made public. “Yours or mine?” She looped an arm around his waist and led him out of the office.
Mischief danced in his eyes. “Does it matter?”
“Not to me, but it could to Colonel Drake.”
“Mine, then,” Mark said. “Since she’s at Providence.” Amanda stretched up to kiss him on the chin. “I’m seeing sunset and a fishing rod in my immediate future.”
“And lots of water,” Mark added with a lopsided grin. “I’ve got a promise to keep, too. About winning a computer game.”
“Yes, you do.” She smiled up at him and they walked down the corridor to the fork. “Do you have a laptop?”
“Yeah, why?” He clearly wasn’t tracking her train of thought.
“It’s portable,” she said, giving him a wisp of a wink. “Multitasking is a valuable tool, Mark.”
His gaze heated, glazed with a sensual fog. “You want to take it to the dock?”
After all the tension, being playful was a welcome respite. Switching gears from life-threatening danger to a normal life was a lot easier with him than it ever had been alone. Wanting him to realize that, too, she tossed the playful tone right back at him, answering with a mysterious Mona Lisa smile. “Not exactly.”
They walked out into the sun.
“Captains?” The lieutenant who had given up his golf cart on their arrival met them at the mouth of the shed. “Colonel Drake’s ordered you back to Providence ASAP.”
Amanda tried not to resent the transition to normal being postponed, and nodded, hoping she could conjure up at least a little more energy to hold her over until they had resolved whatever new crisis had arisen. “Thanks, Lieutenant. Can you give us a lift to the airstrip?”
“Sure thing, ma’am.”
“I wonder what this is about?” Mark asked, sliding onto the back ledge of the golf cart.
“I don’t know.” Amanda sat down beside him and wedged her hip between his and the wall of the cart. “But the way your luck’s been running, I’d say it’s a sure thing that whatever it is isn’t good.”
Chapter Twenty
Mac provided a pilot to fly Amanda and Mark back to Florida.
They sprawled out in the cabin and slept like the dead, not waking until the pilot awakened them after he’d landed the C-5. Bleary-eyed, Amanda glanced at her watch. It was just before 2:00 a.m.
When they had taxied in and parked, the pilot opened the hatch, and she and Mark moved to leave the aircraft. “Thanks for bailing us out, Captain,” she told the pilot.
“No problem, ma’am. You two look pretty beat.”
An understatement if ever one had been uttered. Amanda walked out onto the steps and looked down. Kate stood at the edge of the flight line, waiting for them. “I told you it wasn’t going to be good,” Amanda muttered to Mark.
He didn’t bother to answer, just took a drink of water out of a fresh bottle and sighed, which said all that needed saying about both of them and their physical condition. They walked side-by-side over to where Kate stood.
“Tell me there’s not another crisis,” Amanda said. “I’m dead on my feet and Mark really needs a substantial meal.” He’d been munching on emergency rations since they’d left the cemetery, but she remembered the feel, and his stomach had to resemble a hollow pit.
“No new crisis,” Kate said, pointing to the car they were to get in.
Amanda walked toward it with Mark striding at her side at a good clip.
“Unfortunately, we’re still working on the old ones.” Kate tugged at her uniform skirt, cueing Amanda that she had run out of slacks, which was the only time, when given a choice, Kate ever opted for a skirt and the heels that went with it. The heels had her struggling to keep pace with Amanda and Mark. “This whole thing is so complex. It has more legs than a millipede.”
Mark looked as puzzled as Amanda. “Then what prompted the ASAP summons to return here?” he asked.
“You can thank Colonel Gray for that.” Kate frowned. “God, but that man’s a real piece of work.”
“What did he do now?” Amanda slid into the sedan’s passenger seat, then shut the door behind her.
Mark usurped the driver’s seat, leaving the back seat open for Kate.
She crawled inside, slammed the door and reached for her safety belt. “He petitioned Secretary Reynolds to reassign Mark as a liaison to the FBI to clear out the clutter in Texas and Kunz’s other compounds.”
“Texas?” Amanda shuddered. The compound was a heap of rubble in a barren desert. The only things moving around there were rattlesnakes and tumbleweed.
“He wants a finger in the operation, and I’m the knuckle.” Mark cranked the engine, knocked the stick into Drive and hit the gas. “I don’t want to move again already—especially not there.”
“He wants to punish you for hooking up with Amanda and siding with Drake against him, the petty jerk.”
Kate leaned forward and gave Mark a consoling tap on the shoulder. “But you’re not going to have to move. At least, not if Colonel Drake has her way.”
Amanda looked back at her. “What are you saying, Kate?”
“When Colonel Drake heard what Gray had done, she went to Secretary Reynolds, too. She said since Gray was willing to cut Mark loose anyway, she could really use his expertise in the S.A.S.S., which is where he belonged—with his own, not with the FBI. They wouldn’t utilize Mark’s special ski
lls anyway, because he’s not one of them. His being there will just make everything a turf war over jurisdiction.” Kate grabbed a breath then continued. “Anyway, Secretary Reynolds talked with SAIC Mac about it, and then called back Colonel Drake.”
“Reynolds agreed to bring me to the S.A.S.S.?” Mark checked Kate out in the rearview mirror. “Just like that?”
“He’s considering it for twenty-four hours,” Kate said. “Until then, at Colonel Drake’s recommendation, he’s restricted you both to quarters.”
Amanda and Mark exchanged a glance and had to bite smiles off their faces. “Why?” Amanda asked because she was supposed to and not because she objected. She couldn’t be more pleased.
“Colonel Drake convinced him it would be in the best interests of the United States—integrity of the mission—to not have you two interact with anyone until you’ve had time to rest and then do a full debriefing. After that, she says, you can be informed of new intelligence gathered from the compounds and/or prisoners. Keep the chain of evidence clear and clean and not contaminate your statements.”
Mark looked at Amanda. “She’s giving us time alone to celebrate?”
Amanda nodded.
“Celebrate what?” Kate asked, her blue eyes dancing with curiosity.
“Surviving,” Amanda said, her voice deadpan flat.
“Right.” Clearly disappointed at being shut out of the inside loop, Kate sniffed. “Swing by headquarters and drop me off, Mark.”
Mark again sought Kate’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Don’t we have to report to Drake?”
“No, that’s why she sent me. She doesn’t want either of you at headquarters, on base, or even checking your voice mail until 10:00 a.m., day after tomorrow. You’re on isolated restriction to your quarters.”
He pulled up in front of the building housing headquarters and stopped near a concrete barrier. “God, I think I love that woman.”
“She has her moments.” Kate let out a little laugh and got out of the car. “Ten a.m. day after tomorrow. No phones, no news, no interaction with the outside world,” Kate reminded them. “Isolated restriction to quarters.”
“No problem.” Amanda promised.
“None at all.” Mark glanced over. When Kate shut the door and turned for the building, he looked back at Amanda and added, “I think you’ll probably sleep straight through until then.”
She let out a little grunt. “With everything on our minds, I wouldn’t count on it.”
* * *
Amanda didn’t make it out of the car much less to the bedroom.
It had been days since she’d really slept, and more days since that sleep consisted of more than stolen naps. But on the short ride from the base to Mark’s house, Amanda had given in to her body and relaxed.
It was flattering, Mark thought, lifting her out of the car and carrying her into the house. She grunted twice but didn’t bat an eyelash. He’d bet he was the first man in her life she’d trusted enough to sleep the sound sleep she was indulging in now. Just as he’d bet she was the first woman with whom he’d sleep that sound sleep. It was born in trust. And until now, and with each other, neither of them had had people in their lives they felt they could trust enough to be totally vulnerable around.
He carried her into the living room, sat with her on the sofa. He should have taken her to her room, but the truth was he couldn’t make himself do it. He’d almost lost her. He couldn’t let go of her just yet.
In the tomb, through dark and empty hours, he thought he would never again see her alive. It had rattled him then, and the memory rattled him now.
There wasn’t a bone in his weary body that didn’t ache, or a muscle that wasn’t seizing with cramps, or a gray cell in his brain that didn’t beg for sleep. Yet as much as he needed relief from all those things, he needed something else more. He needed to hold her. To just hold her and let it sink in that she was safe, and they were together.
The truth bolted through him with such force if he hadn’t been holding her in his arms, he’d have stumbled to his knees. He was in love with her. Totally and completely, head over heels have-you-lost-your-ever-loving-mind-you-Delta-Force-idiot in love with her.
He didn’t have to like loving her—he knew for sure she wouldn’t like it—but he did have to accept it. He had avoided entanglements his whole life, particularly since joining Delta Force. That’s when he’d first invoked the six-date-limit rule. But the first time he had seen Amanda he had known that there was no way he could protect himself from her. She was going to take him down.
She had, and she’d been so quick about doing it, too. But he seriously doubted she would ever love him back.
Like him? Yes. Care about him? Yes. Love him? Maybe. Eventually.
That she’d had the courage to tell him about the double meant even more to Mark. Trust. Respect. Integrity. He admired her for that. But did she love him? Could she ever really love him?
He scrunched a throw pillow, moving it out of the way, and watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. He hoped, but he wouldn’t bet a nickel on it. Her father had destroyed the odds of her ever loving any man long before she’d even hit puberty.
Mark understood that, and made a conscious decision to never ask her for more than she could give him. He started to go to the kitchen for a drink, but as soon as he moved, she snuggled, seeking him. He stayed put at her side, wrapping his arms around her and dropping a kiss to the crown of her head. She inhaled, let out a breathy little sigh he took to mean he smelled like himself so she could relax, and slung her arm over his, her head and hand on his chest, over his heart.
His throat felt like sandpaper. He craved a glass of water, but not enough to leave her arms to get one. Sighing his contentment, he stretched out his legs, propping his feet on the coffee table, then closed his eyes...
* * *
Sometime later, Amanda fought to awaken. It was daylight outside. The blinds at the windows were closed, keeping the living room in near darkness, but fingers of fight edged in between the slats. She didn’t know where she was, but she felt a man’s weight on the sofa beside her. Mark.
She was at Mark’s, on the sofa, and he was beside her. He smelled good, fresh and clean. He’d showered—and obviously she hadn’t. Tilting her head, she looked into his face. Sleeping soundly.
She eased from the sofa and into the bathroom, used the facilities and took a long, steamy hot shower. The soap and water stung her cuts and she had more than a few bruises, including a real winner along her jaw where Paul Reese had knocked her senseless. The water rippled over her body and pinged against the shower-stall floor. The moist heat felt fabulous on her sore muscles and between her stiff shoulders.
Seeing a bottle of shampoo on the ledge, she smiled. It was her brand. She soaked her hair and lathered it up, then rinsed and soaped it again. Arms up, she worked the shampoo through her hair when she heard Mark outside the door. “Need anything?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I thought you were sleeping.”
“I missed you.”
Her heart warmed. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“I won’t be long.” She finished up, dressed and found him in the kitchen. “Good morning.”
“Hi.” He stepped over to her and kissed her right below her ear.
“Um, I prefer to start my day with a proper kiss, Cross.”
“New experience for me, but I’m game to give it a shot.” He closed his arms around her, pulled her to him and kissed her long and deep.
No tender exploration, this. This was a kiss steeped in the desire to share all and yet tender and gentle. The combination stunned her. It seemed impossible and yet it was, and it sent her tumbling into a world of sensation that stacked layer upon layer of feelings and bared emotions she never before had dared to let loose, never before been tempted to let loose.
Rioting on their own, these emotions rose up from hidden places inside her and expanded one upon another, and another, a
nd yet upon another until logic and thought ceased and only raw emotion and acute awareness of everything about him remained.
They did not come together in body, but somehow they had merged in mind and heart, holding nothing back, giving without thought to protections and shields and repercussions.
This was a time for celebration, for the sheer joy of living and loving and being loved, and they reveled in it.
He pulled back and looked down into her face. The look in his eyes softened. “I think the doors are open.”
“Definitely.”
* * *
Twilight found them on the end of the dock, sitting in low-slung chairs, rocked back, downing huge quantities of water and dipping fishing lines into the bay. Amanda couldn’t remember ever in her life feeling this relaxed or satisfied.
It’d been a day of bonding, of resting and eating—not necessarily in that order—and through all of it, that sense of union persisted. Amanda had never before felt anything like it, and she brought it up to Mark. It was new to him, too, so they discussed and analyzed, put forth hypotheses and speculated, but neither of them were ready to admit out loud that what between them made everything so different from any other in their experience was love.
That would come with time. They’d grow into it. For now, they were content to not speak of it. Probably because they both had heard enough empty words in their lifetimes. Neither wanted to hear them from each other.
When the sun sank beneath the horizon, they returned to the house, made dinner—fish and salad and fresh greens with apple pie for dessert. They ate too much, and then tidied up the kitchen grumbling because they were stuffed.
When they were done, Amanda turned out the light and asked Mark about his laptop. “Are you ready to show me the secret path to winning Dirty Side Down?”
“Sure. There’s a desktop in the computer room.”
“There you are then. Let’s do this.” She lifted a hand and walked out of the kitchen and back to the computer room.