by Cindy Dees
He rested his head against the high back of the old-fashioned tub and let the water’s heat soak away his aches and pains. If only his mind would relax like his body. But his thoughts stubbornly continued to race.
You’re in trouble, buddy. One Annie O’Donnell has gotten way under your skin.
He had no business letting her get involved in his mission. It was dangerous to her, and moreover, it was dangerous to his men. Okay, so he did owe her a debt of gratitude. She’d taken care of him and given him a cover, and she’d put herself at risk to pull him out of the hospital. But his first responsibility was to his guys. What was he going to do with Annie?
He sure as heck knew what he’d like to do with her.
Guilt crept into his consciousness like the heat creeping into his bones. Here he was, relaxing in a hot bath with a beautiful woman waiting on him hand and foot, while his men were living on a razor’s edge, undercover, out of their element, and one mistake away from dying. He was their commander. He ought to be out there with them, leading by example. What were they going to think of him when they showed up here and saw his plush setup?
Showed up here…
He lurched upright, sloshing water over the side of the tub. “Annie,” he called urgently.
She answered instantly from the other side of the door. “Yes?”
“Could you come in here?”
She peered cautiously around the door frame. Skittish about seeing him naked, was she?
“I don’t bite, you know. Well, at least not so it hurts.” How did she manage to scowl and smile at the same time like that?
“What do you need?”
“I wanted to warn you. If any of my men show up while I’m still in here, let them in the apartment and come tell me, okay?”
“No problem.”
“The guys might get a little jumpy if you answer the door instead of me. I’d suggest you move slowly around them and keep your hands in plain sight at all times.”
Her eyes widened in alarm, but she nodded.
“I don’t know which of my men will get here first. Their nicknames are Tex, Doc, Dutch, Howdy and Mac. If somebody knocks on the door, ask them in English what their handle is. They should give you one of those.”
“Tex, Doc, Dutch, Howdy and Mac? Sounds like the seven dwarves. How did they come by those names?”
He grinned. “Remind me to tell you the stories some time when I’m good and drunk.”
She returned his smile warmly.
“By the way, while you’re here, would you mind washing my back?”
Her shoulders visibly tensed up, but she moved toward the tub. Reluctantly. He bit back a grin.
She seemed to relax when she saw the thick layer of suds covering the water.
“So what do you like? A good hard scrub or a gentle wash?”
“Today a scrub is in order. I feel like I haven’t had a real bath in months.”
Her voice was wry. “You haven’t. I was only able to give you sponge baths.”
A washcloth touched his back, and then moved in vigorous circles that were pure heaven. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation. Eventually he gathered his wits enough to speak.
“Is there any chance you could shave me now? I don’t have a mirror, and with one hand,” he lifted his cast off the edge of the tub, “I’m a little awkward. I wouldn’t want to slit my throat after having survived everything else.”
He watched the way she moved as she sat down on the edge of the tub and dunked a washcloth in the water. Graceful. Quick as a deer. She wrung out the cloth and leaned over to press it against his beard. And then she looked up at him. The rich emerald color of her eyes was almost hidden behind the black of her pupils. Poor girl. She had the same effect on him, too.
The silky smoothness of her fingers spreading shaving cream over his face was too much for even his control. He shifted uncomfortably and accidentally bumped her chest with his arm. The springy flesh pressed against his biceps, a brain-scrambling sensation. His control shattered, and under the cover of the bath water, his body reacted violently.
He eyed the big old tub, calculating its volume. It would definitely hold both of them. He could already feel her naked body, soapy and slippery against his. He’d lower her down upon him, easing himself inside her heat. He’d thrust up into her—
Annie cleared her throat, and he blinked away the image. Thank goodness the water covered his reaction to her. She’d probably run screaming if she knew what lurked beneath those suds.
He noticed her hands trembled a little when she picked up the razor. Eyeing the quivering blade, he decided not to tease her about her agitated state.
Instead, he focused on her chest, watching it rise and fall in quick, short breaths under her damp T-shirt. As she carefully scraped his face, her fresh smell mingled with that of the scented bath water. It did nothing to ease his throbbing flesh.
She finished her task with the speed of long practice and wiped the last of the shaving cream from his face. She must have picked up on his discomfort because she jumped up immediately and began to fidget with his towel.
“Uh, is there anything else you need?” she asked.
He racked his brain but couldn’t come up with a single excuse to keep her with him any longer.
Reluctantly he answered, “No.”
She stood up to leave, and he savored the slender length of her legs.
“You might want to put on another shirt before my guys arrive.”
She looked down at the wet spot over her right breast, and so did he. The white cotton clung to her, revealing a wisp of lace and a lot of flesh. It left very little to the imagination and was sexy as hell.
She blushed fiery red and raced out of the bathroom.
You idiot.
He should have kept his mouth shut and enjoyed the view a little longer. She might be off-limits, but he wasn’t dead, yet. Then the thought of sharing that view with his team nixed any regrets.
He leaned back and willed his thoughts to the revolution at hand and to escaping St. George. Anything to calm his body down. He certainly couldn’t get out of the tub in this state.
Annie stopped in the middle of the bedroom, panting hard. Sexual vibes had been pouring off him like the steam from his bath. It had been all she could do not to plunge her hand into that water to see if he was reacting to her the same way she was reacting to him.
This was nuts. She had to get control of herself.
In the meantime she had to get out of her wet clothes. She stripped off her T-shirt and bra quickly, eyeing the closed bathroom door. With her luck Tom would pop out of there right now.
A naughty corner of her heart wished he’d do just that. She’d fling herself into his arms and they’d have wild sex in the bathtub, just like she’d been imagining while she shaved him.
Stop that!
Furious with herself, she yanked dry clothes from the scarred armoire in the corner and scrambled into them.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she was safely clothed once more. Restless, she moved out into the living room and straightened up. She carried Tom’s pack into the bedroom and set it on the chair beside the bed. Maybe tomorrow she’d have better luck keeping him in that bed where he belonged.
Her breath hitched and her body tingled all of a sudden. Tomorrow Tom might kiss her again in exchange for another day of bed rest. She craved the taste of him. Her palms itched to feel him, and her breasts ached for the weight of his body upon her.
She jumped as a sound intruded upon her fantasy.
Someone was knocking on the front door.
Her heart beat double time as she moved to the entrance. Without opening it, she spoke softly through the flimsy wood.
“What’s your handle?”
A drawl she could cut with a knife came from exactly opposite her ear. “Tex, ma’am.”
She opened the door and stepped back.
The man edged into the room fast, his back to the wall beside the door
. Lean and darkly tanned, he closed it with a soft click and took a hard, assessing look around the apartment. Remembering Tom’s advice to move slowly, she eased away from the dangerous looking man.
“And who might you be, ma’am?”
“My name’s Annie.”
“Hey, aren’t you the lady from the hospital?”
“That’s right. I’m Tom’s cover. He’s in the bathtub at the moment. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go tell him you’re here.”
“No need.”
Startled, Annie looked up. She hadn’t heard him come into the room, let alone get out of the tub and leave the bathroom.
Her breath caught at the sight that met her eyes. Tom lurked in the doorway to the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his hips and a nasty-looking pistol held low in front of him. He looked every bit as dangerous as the man called Tex. With lethal grace, he waited, poised to do violence.
“Hey, boss, am I glad to see you!”
Tom’s posture relaxed and he stepped forward. “Ditto, Tex. Any trouble finding this place?”
“Are you kidding? I know every inch of this miserable hellhole—excuse me, ma’am—of this town.”
Annie noticed that Tom looked a little pale around the gills and was beginning to wobble. “Tom, why don’t you get dressed, and I’ll pour some iced tea for all of us.”
Tex’s eyebrows went up, but he made no comment as Tom nodded and retreated to the bedroom.
Tom emerged a few moments later, bare-chested and wearing green camouflage pants.
Annie groaned mentally. He probably couldn’t get a shirt on by himself over his cast and wasn’t going to ask for help in front of one of his guys. But how was she ever going to sit calmly in the same room with him semidressed like that?
Tex dragged a chair over from the kitchen table and plunked down on it while Tom eased onto one end of the sofa. Annie had no choice but to sit beside him.
“Where are the others?” Tom asked.
“Mac’s working in a government warehouse across town. Dutch is posing as an American journalist because he’d never pass for a local. Doc’s got himself a sweet job working as a medic for the rebels, and Howdy and I hang out here and there. I keep an eye on things and stay in contact with the other guys.”
“What’s the situation?”
“In a nutshell, the rebels are fixin’ to bust out and attack any second now. They’ve got most of the roads sewed up and they control the airport. Nothing’s moving in or out of the city without their say-so. There’s a major player out there backing them hard. They’ve got more equipment than they can possibly use, and somebody’s trained them on it.”
“What’s the government doing?”
“Sitting around with its thumbs up its—” he threw an apologetic glance at Annie “—nose. The army’s got tanks and howitzers rolling around for show, but it lacks the manpower to fight an urban guerrilla war. Desertion numbers are climbing fast. The government troops have lousy weapons, rotten training, and their morale’s the pits. Not to mention their leadership sucks. They outnumber the rebels about two to one, but that’ll be good for squat when it comes to a shootin’ war.”
“So the government’s going down?”
Tex nodded succinctly. Underneath his homespun vocabulary, Annie sensed a sharp mind at work.
“Timetable?”
“Like I said. Any second. There’s been some house-to-house fighting on the east side of town the last couple nights. Mostly drunks brawling, but tension is high.”
“So what have you guys been doing while I was out of play?”
Tex leaned back with an engaging grin and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Mostly whorin’ and drinkin’ and gamblin’ all night long.”
Annie was intrigued when Tom merely raised an eyebrow and Tex sat upright abruptly, the grin wiped from his face.
“We’ve been waiting for you to get out of the hospital so we can bug out of this damn country and leave it to its revolution. And we’ve been prayin’ for you, sir.”
“Thanks.”
Annie watched the silent look that passed between the two men. Yup, these guys had been through rough times together.
Tom asked casually, “Have you given any thought to how we go about leaving Gavarone?”
“Actually, sir, we were waiting to see how mobile you were before we finalized a plan.”
Annie suspected that if they had to carry him out on their backs, they’d do it.
“Any idea how soon you want to move out, sir?”
Tom answered quickly. “ASAP.”
Annie interjected. “Not so fast, Tom. I want Dr. Clark to have a look at you before you go running off into the middle of a war. And you still need some time to get your strength back.”
He shot one of those saber-sharp looks of his at her, and she glared right back at him.
“Tex, I don’t believe I’ve introduced you to my nurse-maid and resident fussbudget, Annie O’Donnell. She’s attached to the American Embassy here and has been helping me out since the accident.”
“We sort of met in the hospital. But it’s a pleasure to officially meet you, ma’am. Doc and Dutch said you took real good care of Major Folly, here.”
She smiled. “I did my best. But you know what a cranky patient he can be.”
“I can imagine, ma’am.”
She sighed, calculating her chances at getting him to stop ma’aming her every other sentence. The odds weren’t very good, but it was worth a shot.
“You can cool it on the ma’aming, Tex. It makes me feel like an old lady.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean, all right.”
Tom grinned and Tex scowled at his boss.
Another knock sounded on the door, and Annie gaped at the instantaneous transformation of the two smiling men into deadly serious hunters.
One second they were sitting in their seats, and the next, Tex was plastered against the wall by the door while Tom melted into the shadows of the bedroom. A series of hand signals flashed back and forth between the two men, and weapons appeared in their hands.
Tom gestured Annie to get the door.
Scared so bad she shook, Annie walked over to the door. In Spanish, she asked, “Who’s there?”
The half-whispered reply was also in Spanish. “A friend, madam.”
In English, she tried, “What’s your handle?”
“Mac.”
She opened the door to a black-haired, blue-eyed Irishman with killer dimples.
He took a quick look down the stairwell, then leaped into the apartment, shoving Annie out of the way in the process. He closed the door fast, slowing at the last second to ease the latch shut silently.
“Sorry, ma’am, but I was being followed. I had to get in here before they saw where I went.”
Tex raced silently across the room, a pair of binoculars coming out of somewhere on his person as he moved. Annie lost sight of him in the darkened bedroom until she made out his silhouette half-hidden behind her freshly hung curtains.
As fast as Tex moved into the bedroom, Tom moved out of it and closed the door behind him.
Keeping her voice low, Annie asked, “What’s going on?”
Tom answered her emotionlessly. “Tex is trying to spot whoever followed Mac. I closed the door so he wouldn’t be backlit from the light in here. Don’t worry, Annie. Tex is the best spotter in the Air Force. He’s got the damnedest eyesight I’ve ever seen. He knows what he’s doing.”
She let out the breath she realized she’d been holding. On wobbly legs, she made her way to the sofa and sat down. Tom’s transformation into a Special Forces commander had been instantaneous and complete. Gone was the smiling, relaxed man from the bathtub. In his place was this cold, hard stranger who knew his way around guns and dark shadows.
When he spoke again, Tom’s voice was perfectly normal. It showed no signs of strain over the last few tense moments.
“Hi, Mac. Glad you could make it. Any reason you felt obliged to bring company to
the party?”
“A government guy picked up my tail, and a rebel guy picked up his tail. I couldn’t dump them both without being obvious about it, so I had to wait till the last second to get rid of them. I think they’re following each other right now.”
The door from the bedroom opened. Tex strolled out, as unconcerned as Tom, as if this kind of thing happened every day.
“All clear. Your tails are running around in circles trying to figure out who’s chasing who out there. Nice misdirect, Mac. Not bad for a dumb, Irish kid.”
Mac flashed a fast hand signal at Tex, and all three men chuckled. She had to get Tom to teach her that sign language.
“Macready Angus Conlon, this is Annie O’Donnell. I gather you’ve met already.”
He nodded at her. “Yes. At the embassy and again at the hospital. Thanks for your help with our commander.”
“My pleasure.”
Annie wasn’t surprised when Tom wasted no more time on pleasantries.
“Tex has given me a quick overview of the situation, Mac. We were just starting to discuss egressing Gavarone. Any thoughts?”
“Yes. I’ve been working in a government supply depot the last month or so, and I pick up juicy tidbits now and again. In fact, we spent all day today issuing ammunition to the troops. Word has it the rebels are planning an all-out attack on the coast highway tonight.”
Annie gasped. According to her situation briefing at the embassy yesterday, that was the last major road into or out of St. George that the government still controlled. If it fell to the rebels, the city would be surrounded and effectively under siege.
Mac glanced at her and continued. “If you were a little stronger, sir, I’d suggest we leave this minute and head for the ocean.”
“If we’ve got to go now, I’ll manage.”
The Irishman frowned and his brogue abruptly disappeared. “Major Folly, sir. With all due respect, don’t BS me. I’ve been in this business nearly as long as you. You can’t handle the trip, and you sure as hell can’t swim twelve miles out into the ocean to get to international waters for a Navy pickup.”
Annie piped up. “I second that. I’ve been at your side for seven weeks, Tom, and you’re in no condition to move yet. You’ve only been conscious a couple days, and walking for less than one.”