Soldier's Last Stand

by Cindy Dees

  Although Brady didn’t dare put a microphone on Eve—and it wasn’t like there was anywhere in that dress of hers to put a mic—one of the civilian technicians at H.O.T. Watch was an accomplished lip reader. She gave Brady a running commentary of the conversation between Eve and Annika.

  The conversation was desultory at first, reminiscences about home and mutual acquaintances, a brief exchange of sympathy over Viktor’s death. Predictably, Annika dodged the question of what she’d been up to since the cruise ship hijacking. The Frenchwoman seemed alarmed when Eve casually brought up Annika’s participation in the terrorist act, and the woman’s gaze skated around the room warily as if to see who might be eavesdropping.

  Brady smiled into his drink. Little did she know.

  They were into their third glasses of wine when Eve brought up the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. The lip reader murmured without emotion in his ear but he could imagine Eve’s breezy, casual tone. “So, Annika. Any chance you’re thinking about getting back into the business?”

  Annika didn’t exactly spew wine all over herself, but she didn’t come far from it. “And what business, exactly, would that be?” she asked sharply.

  Eve smiled knowingly. “Why, the family business, of course.”

  Annika slammed down her wineglass and glared at Eve without any pretense of civility. “Is this a setup? Who sent you? Interpol? The FBI?” Her gaze darted around the bar anxiously. “Where are they?”

  “You always were a little paranoid,” Eve replied, smiling mildly. “Really. You should work on that. It draws too much attention to you, and goodness knows, that’s not healthy in your line of work.”

  Brady held his breath. It was a dangerous gambit to bait someone as mercurial as Annika.

  The Frenchwoman slugged down the rest of her glass of wine in a single angry gulp. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  Eve leaned in close. “I want to pick up where Viktor left off. It took me a while to know what I want to do with my life, and I had to get the cops off my back, but my brother left unfinished business behind.” She shrugged. “I’m a Dupont. It’s in my blood.”

  Annika went utterly still.

  Eve swirled her glass of wine idly and then looked over slyly at her companion. “And I know it’s in your blood, too.” When Annika said nothing, Eve added with a cajoling smile, “C’mon, Anni. It’ll be like old times. We’ll have fun.”

  “Fun? Fun?” Annika’s voice rose until Brady could hear it where he was seated halfway across the bar.

  Eve clearly shushed her, glancing around nervously herself. “I’m serious, Annika. I know you’re active again. I want in.”

  Brady held his breath. The next few seconds would determine the future of the entire operation.

  “How do you know such a thing?” Annika demanded.

  Eve rolled her eyes. “I’ve got my sources. Viktor had connections, and some of them have kept in touch.”

  “Even if I were active again, why should I let you in?”

  “You are not the only one who suffered a great tragedy. I lost my brother on that ship. For all intents and purposes, he raised me. I loved him, and they shot him down in cold blood.”

  “So this is about revenge?”

  Eve’s gaze narrowed to something angry and cold. Brady’d never seen that expression from her before. It went beyond convincing acting. That was genuine fury rolling off of her. He jolted, startled by the intensity of her reaction when she talked about her brother’s death.

  A new voice spoke in his ear, “Brady, it’s Jennifer. Are you sure you can trust this girl? How well did you get to know her, exactly? She looks plenty steamed over her brother’s death. Is it possible she’s been using you all along just to get access to Annika?”

  His gut clenched in denial. He was shocked to realize he trusted her. When had that happened? “She’ll come through for us,” he muttered into the microphone in his collar. He hoped.

  The lip reader continued translating. “You’re talking crazy, Eve. Trust me, you don’t have the stomach for what you’re suggesting.”

  Brady didn’t need a translator to read the passion pouring off of Eve. “You don’t know anything about me, Annika. I’ve changed a lot since you disappeared. I’ve endured years of continuous harassment by the police, I stood aside helpless while my mother drank herself to death, and I’ve seen the injustices you and Viktor used to talk about with such fiery passion. I’ve grown up. And along the way I got cynical. Since when do you have the exclusive rights to acting upon your anger at society, anyway?”

  The bartender poured Annika another glass of wine, which she sipped thoughtfully. Don’t push too hard, Eve. Easy does it.

  As if she’d heard him, Eve sat back and let her gaze roam across the room. It slid off of Brady as casually as it did every other man in the place, and a moment’s pride filled him. She was a natural at this.

  Annika shifted on her barstool until she was leaning so close to Eve their shoulders almost touched. And then, to Brady’s dismay, she covered her mouth with her hand and murmured something to Eve.

  “I can’t see her mouth, sir,” the lip reader announced.

  Brady frowned, worried. Whatever Annika had said to Eve had put a look of dawning horror on her face. If he wasn’t mistaken, Eve had paled beneath her newly acquired tan. What on earth had the terrorist just said to her?

  Annika stood up and, with a sardonic smile for Eve, left the bar. Brady was torn. Should he follow Annika and see where she went, or should he stay and find out from Eve what had just transpired?

  Thankfully, Harry Sheffield came onto his earpiece shortly. “We have visual on the subject. She has left the resort on a scooter, and is proceeding north along Bay Road.”

  Odds were Annika had someone in the bar watching Eve after her departure. Brady’s money was on the bald guy glowering in the corner at no one in general. A rough fellow like that didn’t fit in at a place like this.

  Brady nursed his drink for several more minutes so it wouldn’t appear in any way that he was following Annika before he stood up to leave. As he sauntered by Eve, he looked upward toward the ceiling briefly. He hoped she would understand the signal to join him in his hotel room.

  He didn’t have long to wait. He heard Eve’s key card in the outer door and she slipped into the room a few minutes later.

  “What did she say to you to put that look on your face?” he asked without preamble.

  “She told me the only way she’d let me on to her team was for me to kill someone. Here on Grand Cayman. Some random person to prove that I’m capable of violence. I can’t do it, Brady. I can’t kill anyone.”

  ‘You don’t have to actually kill someone. All we have to do is make it look like you killed someone and do it believably enough to fool Annika.”

  “Huh?”

  He shrugged. “We’ll fake a murder starring you as the assassin.”

  “I don’t think I could pull something like that off,” Eve replied doubtfully. “Annika’s pretty smart, and she’d be really mad if she figured out that we tried to trick her.”

  If Annika didn’t buy the act, she would be more than mad. She’d be homicidal. He answered lightly, “Then we’ll have to make sure she doesn’t figure it out.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Eve murmured.

  He shrugged. “The fake kill will be easy. It’s all the arrangements we have to make in advance that will be difficult, starting with convincing the Caymans police force to help us.”

  “Will they do it?”

  Brady grinned. “I’ll have Jennifer Blackfoot work her magic on them. She can talk anybody into anything.”

  Eve sat down on his bed, leaning against the piled pillows and stretching out her legs in front of her. The sinuous lines of her reclining body made her look like a siren out of an old movie. Desire flared low in his gut. He’d have to be dead not to react to her beauty, but still, it was a distraction he didn’t need right now.

  �
�Did she say anything else to you? Give you a deadline for this murder?” he asked.

  “No. She just said I have to kill someone.” Eve picked up a pillow and hugged it close enough that he might just start to get jealous of the thing. Then she asked, “Do you have anyone specific in mind for me to murder?”

  “Yes,” Brady answered grimly. “Me.”

  Chapter 7

  Eve lurched up off the bed in shock more intense than when Annika’d told her to kill someone in the first place. “What? I can’t murder you!” The very thought made her faintly ill.

  “Glad to hear it,” Brady replied wryly.

  She moved across the room and spontaneously hugged him. His arms came up cautiously around her. She mumbled into the soft cotton of his shirt, “I’m serious, Brady. I could never hurt you.”

  He went stiff in her arms and mumbled, “Never say never. Nothing’s impossible.”

  Like him ever relaxing around her? Or maybe him returning a bit of the monster crush she had on him?

  He continued earnestly, “The day may come when you’ll be more than thrilled to kill me.”

  “I really wish you’d quit talking like that.” She buried her face in his chest and inhaled the clean, safe scent of him. He was wrong. This was a man who’d been kind to her, who listened to her, who believed in her. He was decent and honorable, even if he was far too closed off emotionally. But then, who was she to throw stones about that? At the end of the day he was a good man. No matter what he said, she could never kill him.

  A finger under her chin tilted her face up to his. “You’re capable of much more than you know. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

  Like landing him? The man in the impregnable emotional fortress? Could she get him to lower his defenses and let her in? Sadly, she doubted it. Even if she did have a special affinity for lost causes.

  She followed her Gallic impulse and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. If he’d been stiff before, he went granitelike now. She smiled against his mouth. It was high time he learned he’d tangled with a woman who could give as good as she got. She didn’t buy the disinterested tree imitation for one second. She continued to kiss him, ignoring his complete failure to respond.

  He broke all in a rush, growling in the back of his throat as his mouth opened and he took command of the kiss. Triumphant, she ceded control of the thing to him, delighting in the desperation of his arms as he swept her up against him and crushed her to him. After the initial onslaught, his mouth gentled on hers, and she melted into their kiss, surrendering to him with an abandon that was completely unfamiliar to her. How did he do that? No other man had ever evoked such a response from her.

  “You have to trust me,” he murmured against her mouth. “It’s the only way we’ll get through this mission.”

  She believed him. And shockingly, she did trust him. He was the first man since Viktor whom she could honestly say that about.

  She reveled in the feeling of security that washed over. It was really nice to feel this way. She laid her head on Brady’s chest and listened to his heartbeat, pounding unsteadily in her ear. He wasn’t affected by kissing her, huh? Ha!

  She smoothed her hands around his waist and let them drift lower toward the muscular curve of his buttocks. His heart pounded harder and her grin widened. He might talk a good talk, but Mother Nature never lied.

  She vaguely heard the tinny sound of someone talking in Brady’s earbud. Something about the target having a visitor.

  He exhaled in what sounded suspiciously like relief and set her away from him. “I have to go.” He beat a retreat so blatantly hasty it made her laugh at the door as it slammed behind him.

  She looked around the hotel room speculatively. It would be in keeping with her party girl on holiday cover if she didn’t return to her own room tonight. She highly doubted Annika had someone staking her room out, but Eve couldn’t be one hundred percent certain of it.

  Smiling broadly, she kicked off her stilettos and peeled off the tight red dress before helping herself to a shirt from Brady’s closet. She crawled under the covers, snuggling into the scent of him on his pillow.

  The moon had set and only darkness came in through the window when Eve woke to the feel of strong, warm arms going around her and drawing her close.

  Brady spoke darkly in her ear, “Do you know what I usually do to intruders in my room?”

  “Make love to them until dawn?” she murmured sleepily.

  He laughed quietly. “Is something wrong, or are you here to welcome me home?”

  “Welcome home, darling,” she said sweetly.

  He did his granite impression again, big time. Except this time he didn’t thaw. He was frozen solid against her for long enough that she finally rolled over with a sigh to face him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he ground out between what sounded like clenched teeth. “I like my life simple. Uncomplicated.”

  She tried and failed to find a context for that comment. Finally, she admitted, “I don’t understand.”

  “Forget it.”

  He rolled away from her in the dark and surged out of bed. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “Whatever for? This is a king-size bed. It’s plenty big enough for both of us, even if you want to hide way over on the far side so you won’t touch me and my pesky girl parts.”

  “That’s not the point. You’re just—”

  He broke off tantalizingly. She demanded, “I’m just what?”

  He huffed. “You’re tempting, all right? Are you satisfied?”

  She smiled into the darkness, absolutely satisfied. Tempting was progress.

  She woke up sometime after sunrise to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. She dozed until he emerged, wearing jeans and no shirt and toweling his hair dry.

  “Good morning,” she murmured sleepily.

  He looked down warmly at her for a moment, and then his gaze shuttered. It must have occurred to him that he was enjoying the sight of her in his bed. “Nice shirt,” he commented dryly.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed it.”

  “As your handler, it’s my job to give you whatever you need. Including the shirt off my back.”

  She threw back the covers and swung her bare legs out of bed. His gaze flared with satisfying heat at the sight of their tanned length. “What I could use right now from you is a little reassurance that everything’s going to be all right.”

  He replied soberly, “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind by way of re assurance.” She stood up and took a step forward to bring them chest to chest.

  He sighed but didn’t take a step backward. “You know we can’t—” he started.

  “Can’t and choosing not to are entirely different.”

  “Well, I can’t,” he snapped.

  She gave him a wide-eyed look of dismay. “The equipment doesn’t work? Well, no wonder you’re so afraid of me.”

  “Everything works just fine,” he declared irritably, “and I’m not afraid of you.”

  Victory. She’d provoked an emotional reaction out of him. She smiled serenely and headed for the shower. As she brushed past him, he muttered a rather unflattering epithet regarding women in general. He really was making wonderful progress in tapping into his passionate side. After all, love and hate lay side-by-side on the spectrum of strong emotions.

  Brady was gone when she got out of the shower. Although she was disappointed, she took comfort from the fact that he’d felt compelled to flee before she could sashay out of his bathroom wearing only a towel.

  She pulled on her clingy red dress from last night. If they were going to have more slumber parties, she would have to bring a few of her clothes over to his hotel room. Although knowing him, he’d flip out at that. He probably was right that they really should concentrate on the mission at hand. But it was darned hard to keep her mind off of him when he was so yummy.

  The ho
tel room door opened, and she turned in quick alarm. It was Brady carrying a brown shopping bag. He smiled neutrally when he saw her. Damn. He was back to being all calm and withdrawn. “Enjoy your shower?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she answered. “What have you got in the bag?”

  “Breakfast. I hope you like fresh tropical fruit.”

  “I love mangoes. I love all kinds of juicy, sweet things.”

  His eyes blazed briefly, but then he banked the fire in them. “Good to know.”

  He unpacked a smorgasbord of fruits, cheeses, bread, and bottled water. They sat down across from one another at the small table in the corner and shared the newspaper he’d purchased. She could get very used to spending time with him like this. She checked her happy train of thought, reminding herself that after this mission was done, so were they. Unless she could get through to him before it ended.

  He really could use a woman in his life. Why not her? The idea of the two of them together in a real relationship was riveting. Of course, before that could happen she had to kill him. Even the idea of fake-murdering Brady made her shudder. She took a chunk of mango he held out to her on the blade of a deadly looking knife.

  She asked with a sigh, “So when am I supposed to kill you?”

  “The sooner the better. Annika will be impressed if you don’t hesitate to kill someone. How about tonight?”

  “Can you have all of the preparations done by then?” she asked in surprise.

  “H.O.T. Watch has been busy overnight. They’ve still got a few things to take care of, but they think you can kill me tonight.” He smiled wryly at her.

  She reached across the table and put her hand on top of his. “If it makes you feel better, this whole murder business sounds pretty strange to me, too. I much prefer you alive.”

  He made eye contact with her briefly and gave her a little nod. “Thanks. Me, too.” More importantly, he didn’t pull his hand out from under hers immediately. The man was definitely making progress.