And she had assumed that training for assimilation was the reason they had all come here. She simply didn’t know why.
“I talked to Jill Fuller on the balcony earlier,” Cole said. “She seemed nervous, but she didn’t tell me, either.” His tone was more relaxed now, less accusatory.
“Vane dissembled at my question, said he hadn’t realized I wanted to know chapter and verse about every guest’s comings and goings. I had to assure him that I didn’t, that I only wanted to know when we’d have more rooms available for other guests.”
Cole looked down at her. “Did he believe you?”
Alexa shrugged. “I doubt it, although to convince him, I pushed him again about allowing you to invite some of your salesmen friends to join you at the Hideaway.” She stared into Cole’s eyes. “The way no one trusts me around here, I could play all sorts of games. If I tell either of you the truth, you’ll believe the opposite. Maybe the only way I can get you to believe the truth is if I lie in the first place.” She shook her head slowly at the irony. To her chagrin, she felt a sob rise in her throat. “I’ve got to go,” she said quickly, swallowing hard. She stood. “Oh, I almost forgot the main reason I came. I eavesdropped on a conversation between Vane and Minos. Vane asked if Minos had seen the Fullers off all right, and he said he did. He’d made sure they got on the right plane at the nearest commercial airport in Ontario, California.”
Cole took a step toward her, excitement lighting his face. “Did they say where they were going?”
“Seattle.” Then, defensively, she added, “I know if you get people to check and they didn’t arrive there, you’ll blame me, but that’s what I heard.” She headed toward the door.
Before she got there, she felt strong arms turn her. She looked up into those same dark eyes that had regarded her so coldly before. Now, they were intense. “Be careful, Alexa. If Vane knows you’re reporting to me, even if he thinks I’m O’Rourke—”
“Then you do believe me?” She hadn’t meant to put such joy into her voice, but the relief nearly undid her. He might not totally despise her, after all.
“Yeah,” he growled. “I believe you.”
Before she could say anything else, his grip tightened on her arms and his head lowered.
She trembled as his mouth met hers. The kiss was rough at first, begrudging. It suggested speed and dismissal.
But her arms went around him, as if they instinctively remembered how things once had been with this man. She pushed herself close to him, feeling the hardness of his body against her. Familiar hardness. “Oh, Cole,” she whispered with longing.
For a moment, Cole didn’t move, as if he were deciding what to do. Whether to throw her out.
And then…the kiss didn’t end, after all. Instead, Cole’s lips softened. They touched the edges of her mouth, her neck. He opened her robe, and his mouth moved down farther still, his tongue touching her erotically. One of his large, rough hands moved over her breasts, then gently cupped one over her wispy nightgown. She moaned as his thumb rubbed her nipple, causing it to peak.
The most wonderful warmth flowed through her, every bit as overwhelming as it had felt two years ago. She pushed toward him with her hips, feeling his erection, hard and firm, against her belly.
She allowed her hands gently to explore his back, the new roughness. And then downward, inside the waistband of his shorts, until she felt the taut, rounded flesh of his buttocks.
He moaned, thrusting his pelvis toward her, suggesting erotic sensations that she wanted to drink in, more and more—
A phone rang.
They froze. And then Cole moved away from her, toward the dresser, leaving her shivering. Wanting. Shocked by the sound, and his sudden abandonment of her yearning body.
It was his cell phone. “Hello?” he said softly into it.
What had she been doing? Had she totally lost her mind?
Yes, she had…two years ago. Even if he was playing games, only pretending to trust her, she trusted him. With information.
And, heaven knows, she would trust him again with her body.
But could she once again trust him with her heart?
While he continued his low conversation over the phone, she refastened her robe.
At least a dialogue had been started once more. Maybe, somehow, they would find a way to help each other. And then, just maybe, she would be set free.
But was freedom really what she wanted if it meant losing Cole a second time?
She slipped out the door and into the dark hallway.
COLE WAS AWARE when Alexa left the room, and the frustration nearly made him drop the phone and run after her.
But it was Forbes on the other end.
“So explain that e-mail a little more, buddy,” his boss was saying in a mock jovial voice. Cole could almost feel Forbes’s tension as he gripped the receiver.
Cole’s boss was an insomniac who often got on-line in the middle of the night. Fortunately, Forbes almost never called Cole then. But after learning that the Fullers had left that day, Cole had notified Forbes as quickly as possible to enable him to get operatives on them—if the Unit could pick up the Fullers’ trail. He’d sent an encrypted e-mail with as much information as he had at the time, which wasn’t a lot.
Leaning on the dresser, he glanced across the room toward his luggage, where his now-dormant computer lay. “You know,” he said, “I was hoping for another room or two to become available at this great inn so a couple of other guys could come and check it out for our next sales conference.” Translation: Cole had wanted to notify Forbes both when some infiltrators were sent underground, and when there would be accommodations here for backup. “A married couple left today, so there’s one room available.”
“That’s what I gathered from your e-mail. Did they like the place?”
“They seemed to. I talked to the wife a bit. I may try to contact them again and ask, but I’m not sure where they live. They said they were originally from Bolivia, but they didn’t mention where they were heading.” Damn! He wanted to tell Forbes immediately that Alexa had overheard that Seattle was their destination, but if someone was listening in, they’d wonder where he’d gotten that information. And he wasn’t even certain it was true. Alexa may have lied about what she’d heard…although despite his better judgment he was starting to believe in her again. But Cole realized that Vane might not be giving his fiancée all the truth. If he knew Alexa eavesdropped on his conversation with Minos, he might have planted a little misinformation.
Alexa… Cole was very aware that, despite the rude intrusion of the phone call, his body hadn’t yet returned to normal after their embrace, their kiss. Their touching—
“I want more information about the place before I commit some guys to check it out.” More than irritation spewed from Forbes. He sounded angry. But Cole knew that his boss’s frustration was not with him. It was with their situation.
“Look,” he said placatingly, forcing himself to concentrate on the call, “take my word for it. There will be one room available, at least, so send Bradford and Maygran up here, why don’t you?” He would feel most comfortable with fellow agents he trusted as backup.
“Worst case,” Cole continued, “they can share the room for a few days. Meantime, I’ll give you a call tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, I’m considering a trip soon to the Pacific Northwest to check out a few more possible sites for the conference.”
“Really? Like…Portland?”
“Maybe. Or Seattle. I haven’t been there in a long time, and I keep hearing good things about it.”
Good. He’d found a way to slip in that little piece of information, true or not: that the Fullers had headed to Washington State. Forbes would understand the reference, and anyone eavesdropping…well, it had been a risk, but one he’d had to take. Waiting to speak to Forbes on a different phone tomorrow would give the Fullers even more of a head start, a better chance of going underground without a trace.
“All right. W
e’ll consider a couple more places, including Seattle. But I thought you really liked it there.”
“Oh, I do,” Cole said with more fervency than he’d intended. “I hate to make a decision too quickly, but I think this place has all the amenities we need, at least for now.”
Like a starting point for this latest batch of infiltrators. A spy of his own, to help him get information: Alexa.
That was the heart of it all. Alexa was here. She was helping him, or at least purporting to.
If she was as genuine as she claimed—as he was beginning to believe—then he had to stay to get everything useful she could feed to him.
And to protect her, for if she was genuine, she was in danger. She had already been shot at, although that bullet had most likely been meant for him.
“All right, John, my boy,” said Forbes Bowman. “I’m counting on you to find the right place for this conference. It’s a damn important one. Never lose sight of that.”
“I won’t,” Cole promised. He pushed the button to end the call. He wouldn’t lose sight of it, for if they were right, a lot was still riding on getting this assignment completed quickly.
A lot of lives. Including his own.
And, very possibly, Alexa’s.
ALEXA HAD HER USUAL morning routine down pat: walk Phantom, then cook breakfast.
She was glad the next morning, as she stood at the kitchen island preparing dough for biscuits, that she didn’t have to think a lot about what she was doing, for she was thinking too much about the night before.
Her sojourn to Cole’s room. His apparent about-face from total suspicion to at least qualified trust.
The knowledge that he was Cole, and the feel of his body against hers once more….
A phone call in the middle of the night, reminding her abruptly who he really was, and why he was there. A government operative, here to ferret out what was happening. To stop it, at any cost.
No, she had better keep her feelings for him in check. Otherwise, she could get burned again. Badly. “Right, Phantom?” She glanced toward the pantry, where her pup was sitting at attention behind the gate, watching her. He wriggled at her words, and she laughed. When she tossed her head, she felt her hair, caught in a clip, swing along the back of her neck.
“Good morning.”
She twisted around. Cole strode into the kitchen as if she had conjured him by her thoughts. His dark and luminous eyes captured hers, and she smiled, then quickly turned her attention toward her white, gooey hands. “Good morning,” she repeated without looking at him. “I hope you slept well last night…John.” John O’Rourke. She had to keep reminding herself that he was John O’Rourke.
“No, actually I didn’t sleep well at all,” he replied.
She hurriedly looked around the kitchen to make sure they were alone—but she didn’t forget he’d found a bug in her room. There could be one here, too.
“I hope you weren’t feeling bad,” she said, alarm zinging through her. Had the phone call been bad news?
He stood beside her, so close that she fought the urge to rub her cheek against his brown knit shirt.
“I’m fine now,” he said, “but I had a touch of flu, I think, last night. At least I felt as if I had a fever.” The sensuous glow in his eyes, the slight flare to his nostrils, sent a flash of answering heat through Alexa.
“Sorry to hear that.” Her voice was husky, and she cleared her throat. “There’s something going around, I’m afraid.”
He gave her a sexy smile that nearly made her toes curl inside her tennis shoes. She’d worn a pink cap-sleeved top and blue jeans that day, and wondered if she ought to change into a tank top and shorts to keep cool.
“Guess we’ll just have to fight it off,” he said. “Or else we can hope that the case we get doesn’t do us in.”
She knew he was teasing, but his words were like a bucketful of mid-winter lake water tossed in her face. “Right,” she replied grumpily.
“Alexa, how’s breakfast coming?” Vane stood at the kitchen door, in a white shirt, slacks and loafers with no socks. Had he been there long? Alexa felt her face flush.
“About another half-hour,” she said. “I was just going to put John to work stirring rarebit cheese sauce at the stove for our eggs.”
She noticed how “John” gave Vane a totally innocent, salesman’s look. “I’m taking notes, you know,” he told Vane. “I don’t think I’ll be able to hire your fiancée away from you, so I’ll just steal her recipes, in case I decide to open a restaurant next door to the home improvements store I hope to establish in this area.”
“No,” Vane said, drawing closer, “I won’t let you have her.” Before she could comment, teasingly or not, he grabbed her by the waist and kissed her soundly on the mouth. He kept her close at his side when he finally ended the kiss. “Alexa, do you have any sightseeing ideas for today? I think our remaining guests want to do something new and educational.” His eyes, when he looked down at her, held a warning she couldn’t interpret. She had no choice but to play along—and ignore the way Cole’s eyes had narrowed as he watched them, two apparently happy fiancés with a world of deceit between them.
“Let’s see,” she said. “There’s always Big Bear Lake. We could take them there, show what the competing neighborhood looks like.” She wanted to throw a look of apology, one that begged for understanding, to Cole, but she couldn’t. She would have to trust him to understand.
“Big Bear is a great idea,” Vane said. “Not too far, but someplace I haven’t taken them yet.”
Alexa turned to Cole and asked, “John, would you like to come along?” She knew what his answer would be before he spoke. Staying here, hopefully alone, would be an opportunity he would not want to miss.
If only she could help him search.
As anticipated, he shook his head. His gaze that moved from Vane to her and back was blank, and Alexa wanted to shake him. I’m playing along partly to help you, she wanted to cry to him.
“Wish I could come,” Cole said, “but with that fever I had last night, I think I’ll hang around here and sleep.”
“Okay,” Vane said. “Suit yourself.”
“I hope you’ll feel fine by the time we return,” Alexa said.
To her relief, his glance warmed a little. “Me, too,” he said.
COLE DID FEEL PRETTY GOOD right after Alexa, Vane and Minos left the inn with their entourage of guests. But he could have felt better.
Alexa had told Cole, at breakfast in front of everyone, that she would make up his room first so he could lie back down and rest. He’d found her at the door to his room just as she was finishing. “Look under your pillow later,” she’d whispered, then said aloud, “I’m all through here. I’ll tend to the other rooms that Minos didn’t get to, then we’re going to leave. See you when we get back.”
He’d hated seeing her being pawed yet again by Vane that morning. But despite how it made him feel, he understood it was part of her act, the one she’d taken on even before Cole had arrived. The one that had become even more important now, to keep Vane off guard about how she was helping.
When he’d locked the door and checked under his pillow, Cole could have kissed her. She’d left him a printout of the names, addresses, phone numbers and credit information of all the inn’s current guests. He knew it all must be fake, but even tracing the origins of false IDs could have some use.
There was also a set of passkeys to all the rooms.
After everyone left, Cole used the keys first to get into Vane’s suite. It comprised a bedroom, office and bathroom. The place hardly looked lived in. Smelling of pine cleaner, it appeared as impersonal as any of the guest rooms, with generic wallpaper and furniture, and nothing to indicate it was occupied by someone other than a transient.
Except for the computer.
Cole had donned surgical gloves for this foray. It was unlikely that Vane would check his room for fingerprints, but Cole had been surprised by the man’s eccentricities an
d mistrust before.
He flicked the switch and waited for the computer to boot up. The screen soon demanded a password, but Cole had anticipated it. He plucked a CD from his pocket and inserted it. The software it contained should find the password promptly.
But it didn’t.
“Damn!” He kept his voice low but pounded one fist into the other hand. The software had been state-of-the-art. But Vane’s password had managed to defy it.
This degree of secrecy shouted to Cole that something he’d want to know was definitely hidden on this machine.
Wanting to smash the impenetrable computer, he instead turned it off. He riffled through the files in Vane’s desk drawers, but like his furnishings, their contents were sparse and of little value.
It was as if Vane had already stripped them, pending pulling out of here. Was this an indication that the meat of the operation was about to begin?
“I’ll find out another way, you bastard,” Cole muttered.
There was, of course, no sign of the mysterious file Alexa had mentioned, the one that would tie her parents to the earlier plot. He wasn’t surprised. If it were here, Alexa would already have found it.
Rather than waste his remaining time alone, he used Alexa’s keys to get into some of the occupied guest rooms. As in Vane’s room, there was nothing useful.
There was one more place he wanted to scour: Minos’s room. But before he could, he heard vehicles pull up outside. A horn sounded.
His back against the wall to avoid being seen, he turned his head slightly to look out the nearest window. Alexa slid from the driver’s seat of one of the SUVs. Immediately, Vane got out of the other and sped over to her. Minos stood behind him, appearing equally irritated.
Cole couldn’t hear the words, but their gestures and scowls, right in front of everyone else, told him what had happened.
Alexa had honked to warn him of their return. Vane hadn’t liked it. Cole was sure he would complain that her action had disturbed the neighbors, and Alexa would claim accident or a signal to a cat that had gotten in her way….
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