Target Engaged

by M. L. Buchman

  “There’s a swimming hole a two-day hike up Crazy Woman Gulch where you can sit for a week and hear nothing but the animals who have always lived there. Or up on the thirteen-thousand-foot peak of Hesperus Mountain in La Plata with nothing but desert and mesa country to the west. You can sit up there until the sunrise itself has a sound as it cracks the tops of the San Juan Mountains far to the east.”

  Kyle nodded. “I’d like to see that.”

  They had crossed over somewhere, somehow. She wanted to share that wilderness with him. He’d understand. He’d appreciate it.

  Carla had always trusted the men and women of her teams. You had to, or it came apart on you and often in the worst way.

  Then there was The Unit. She understood now why they referred to it that way on their side of the wire. Delta was literally “The Unit.” It was no longer a matter of trusting those with you because you had to. On the inside, you trusted because you knew you could. If it went down bad, there was no question that every last man, and now woman, would give their all.

  Yet with Kyle it was more.

  In The Unit she was as safe in life and limb as someone in their profession could be.

  With Kyle, she herself was safe. She knew she could tell him anything about her past and it wouldn’t change a thing. She wouldn’t be doing that, but she knew he’d treat her exactly the same if she did.

  There was a heat inside her, not the searing fire of lust, but a warmth that started somewhere deep and expanded through her. She had no experience with such a feeling, no word to pin it down with.

  She wanted to grab on to the balcony rail and rant against it. She didn’t want these changes.

  But she hadn’t taken the two words and rammed them back down Kyle’s throat. Instead she had let them free, and that one act was changing her more than any other since joining the Army.

  She felt things. Felt them for the man beside her. Beyond loyalty, beyond trust.

  And it was real, not illusion.

  It was also good. Really good.

  It was just scaring the hell out of her.

  She forced herself to turn to the man standing beside her and holding her as if she was important. His dark gaze was studying the city far below them, his sharp mind already deep at work on the next stage of what they’d come here to do.

  But his arm around her waist spoke of far more inside him than being a Delta Force soldier on a mission. It spoke of more than lust or even companionship. It spoke of a deep caring that Carla hadn’t experienced in years, perhaps never as deeply as now. This moment in this place.

  She kissed him on the cheek.

  He turned those dark eyes on her, and they warmed as they did every time he looked at her.

  “What was that for?”

  She didn’t have the words, so she shook her head. “Just because.”

  Rather than hitting her with one of his soul-scorching kisses, he rested his lips on her forehead for a moment that stretched into forever before he mumbled against her skin, “‘Just because’ certainly works for me.”

  Oddly, it worked for her too.

  Chapter 18

  Rather than eating at the Hotel Ventura or one of the convenient nearby restaurants, Kyle led them farther into the city of Maracaibo.

  The tall Hotel Castillo on the Avenida Cecilio Acosta was far enough from the lakeshore to be affordable for someone on a budget and close enough to Maracaibo’s central core to be attractive to tourists. So, many of the folks brushed back by the waves of high prices along the shoreline washed up here.

  Kyle led his team into the restaurant. They’d have dinner here as a preparatory casing of the place. The top two floors, nine and ten, belonged exclusively to General Vasquez’s portion of the Cartel de los Soles, specifically Major Gonzalez’s part of it. According to the Major’s files, twenty-five hostages were tucked away there under guard.

  It had been four days since their attack on the hacienda. It would help if they could get information on whether or not there had been any changes in status on those two floors. If they couldn’t find out, they’d have to go in blind.

  To keep up appearances, Kyle had bought Carla another dress. At the store she’d gone for the conservative rack and he’d cut her off at the pass.

  This one was the epitome of a “little black dress” cranked up to kill. A short, flirty skirt over bare legs and strap-on sandals, thin straps over bare shoulders that met behind her neck, leaving her back uncovered, and the clean lines of a plunging cleavage that he could dive into and never be seen again. The tiny amber-and-silver sailboat dangled at sea there.

  She was a delight from every angle. There were always dresses that only slender women could wear. With her soldier fitness on top of that, Carla made him wish that she’d never wear anything else.

  As they entered the lobby—an airy mix of potted palms, marble floors, and decent woodwork—cool air washed over them. The fact that it was mid-January meant that the daily high was ninety instead of summer’s ninety-five degrees. The air-conditioning plunged the room to seventy.

  At Carla’s shiver, Kyle could see that they both had a few things yet to learn about girl clothes, like when to also purchase a wrap. He shrugged out of his white Armani jacket and draped it over her shoulders, though he hated to cover up the fine view.

  They proceeded toward the back of the lobby to the restaurant, marked by a wide but shadowy entrance. Duane and Chad split off to check the exits and security, which was wholly in keeping with their bodyguard roles. Richie maintained a watchful eye from three paces ahead.

  Kyle selected a table set in the corner of the half-full room. It had fewer escape routes—though the kitchen was close at hand. But it had excellent sight lines from each place around the circular bench of the booth. Both the lighting and the conversation were subdued.

  Once they slid in and had double-checked the room, they picked up menus. Carla had lightly clasped his jacket by the lapels to keep it mostly closed around her, though she hadn’t slid her arms into the sleeves.

  Yes, it might cover up much of what there’d been to see, but it showed a different woman. More than just the soldier embarrassed by scanty clothing.

  Her face was quiet as she bent over to study the menu lying flat on the table before her. The dress’s amazing cleavage glowed beneath the tasteful downlighting above the table. But wrapped in his jacket, she was somehow more his. Without him noticing quite when, they had made the transition from lovers to a couple.

  He wished he had better words for it, ones she might be willing to hear, but he didn’t. She just was as naturally in place with his jacket about her shoulders as she would be with her own. No longer lovers, now they simply belonged together.

  Duane slid into one end of the circular bench and offered a short nod. Nothing unexpected, good.

  “I don’t see any guards on this floor,” Chad informed them as he slid in the other side beside Richie. “I swung by the front desk; they still use keys tucked into cubbyholes. There are no keys and no messages for any room on the ninth or tenth floors.”

  “That’s good.”

  If there were no unexpected changes in the hostages’ situation, that meant that Delta Force would be the surprise.

  * * *

  Carla tried to study the menu, but her brain was doing nothing about distinguishing burger (americano) from beef tenderloin (solomillo de vacuno).

  All she could do was hold on to Kyle’s jacket and do her best not to melt. She’d certainly been more uncomfortable than a brief shiver any number of times before. That wasn’t what got to her.

  Nor was it the delicious warmth of Kyle’s body heat that enveloped her. And the smell of him. He’d been wearing the jacket for under half an hour, but it was filled with his heady scent of iron will and gorgeous man.

  No, what absolutely melted her was the thoughtless consi
deration.

  No one had ever taken care of her.

  Her mother had been overwhelmed by just trying to survive her husband and keep food on the table. Clay had been protective of Carla, but at four years older, he’d always been in a different school with a different circle of friends—he’d been the sort of guy who actually had friends—and then he’d gone into the service.

  Yet Kyle hadn’t hesitated or even considered. She was cold and his jacket should naturally be draped over her bare shoulders. That hadn’t been the soldier’s doing; it had been the man’s.

  Carla kept her face aimed down at the menu but studied him in her peripheral vision.

  He held the menu easily, looked as if he belonged. The smuggler king with his bodyguards and his moll. He also belonged here as the soldier and his team, for no matter his protestations to the contrary, he was this team’s unquestioned leader. Richie always wanted someone to follow, and Duane was glad to go along for the ride. Chad was a hard case beneath that mellow exterior—yet he too looked to Kyle for guidance.

  She and Kyle also belonged here as man and woman in a nice restaurant. When had she fractured into so many versions of herself? And how would they come back together? She didn’t know the answer to either question.

  He should look different as he pointed at something on the menu and asked Richie for a translation. He should look like her leader, not her lover. He should look like the experienced soldier, not the man who had somehow infiltrated past her guards until she was sitting here mooning over him like a teen dreaming of the lead singer of Maroon 5. Back in junior high, she’d scrounged up several Adam Levine posters, though she’d never been able to afford a concert.

  Now she wanted a poster of Kyle Reeves to keep her company.

  She laughed aloud and everyone turned to look at her.

  Carla shook her head to fend them off. Why would she want a poster when she already had the real thing?

  Had it and wanted to keep it.

  Oh crap!

  She’d never wanted to keep a man before.

  Then why did it sound so good?

  “What looks good to you, honey?”

  “You,” she answered before she could stop herself.

  Kyle grinned and leaned in to kiss her. “I meant on the menu, sweetheart.”

  Carla hadn’t noticed the arrival of the waitress, now displaying an amused smile. So, Kyle was playing a role and she’d better get with it.

  “Oh.” She looked at the menu and still couldn’t bring it into focus. The last man to call her “sweetheart” she’d almost put in the hospital. She’d definitely left him lying in the dirt on the first day of Delta Selection.

  Yet, from Kyle, the endearment was…endearing.

  She finally just stabbed down a finger and landed on pabellón criollo, broadly noted as the national dish of Venezuela. Now there was a tourist move if ever there was one.

  A tourist in Venezuela and a tourist into being a couple. She already had a map for the first one.

  Kyle’s knee was warm against hers beneath the table, as was his hand relaxed casually on her thigh.

  She really needed a guide map for the “couple” part of this adventure.

  * * *

  “Incoming!” Duane announced as they finished the main course.

  A lone person was moving toward their table with no weapon in evidence.

  Carla’s shredded-beef stew with rice, beans, and fried plantain slices had turned out to be a good choice after all. She wiped rather than dabbed her mouth, leaving a partial smear of lipstick on the napkin. What was left would be lopsided, so she did her best to wipe off the rest of it quickly. All this girl crap—she was so done with it. How had Kyle talked her into lipstick anyway? She hadn’t even noticed that one going by.

  “And how!” Chad offered in a breathy tone unusual for him.

  Carla focused on the approaching woman. A tall and slender blond with serious curves of the sort that would have intimidated Carla in high school, if she’d cared about something as trite as who had screwed the quarterback. After Carla had—he’d been great—she’d had to stuff Barbara Jean Geller, the head cheerleader, into a school locker before the girl would stop threatening her. Maybe she should have let the girl keep her clothes. It had been a little harsh, because Carla had chosen to use the boy’s locker room for B. G.’s sequestration shortly before the end of football practice. She’d carefully avoided Carla for the last two years of high school.

  The woman walking up to their table was what the cheerleader should have been: walking like she didn’t care and wasn’t here to sell it. She was dressed immaculately and looked very feminine in tailored slacks, a shining blue blouse, and a simple silver chain. She exuded an elegant perfection that Carla would never achieve.

  “Buenas tardes!” She looked right at Carla.

  Carla responded in kind and the woman nodded to herself as if she’d just confirmed something, though Carla couldn’t imagine what. With a quick scan she assessed the table, a brief hesitation at Chad’s obvious interest—he looked like a hunting spaniel about to spring into retrieval mode—and then her eyes reached Kyle’s and stopped.

  Perceptive woman.

  “You just arrived on the Viento Salvaje, the Savage Wind.” She didn’t make it a question. Her voice was German-accented English—clear but overarticulated in a way no lazy American would ever consider. Except Carla suspected the German wasn’t authentic. The woman was pretending to be a German tourist; they were everywhere. But her clothing was a little too high-end for a German on holiday—they loved to dress down—and her act a little too polished.

  Carla hadn’t paid any attention to the sailboat’s name.

  The woman reached into her pocket, pulled out a card, and slid it across the table to Kyle. “Tanya Zimmer, Société de Reportage International. May I perhaps join with you?”

  Chad didn’t wait for Kyle’s answer and instantly made room, offering Richie a sharp elbow when he didn’t move fast enough.

  She waited until Kyle nodded his permission before sliding in beside Chad.

  “What can we do for you, Ms. Zimmer?”

  “I find you to pose an intriguing puzzle. Rumors of your recent arrival”—she nodded to Carla—“they have already swept the waterfront. As a reporter, I do try to keep a close ear upon such things.”

  “However…?” Carla asked. Clearly the woman knew something.

  “Your Spanish is a little too Spanish. I have no knowledge of the Empress of Antrax ever traveling to Spain.” Her ear was exceptionally well trained, which spoke volumes about just who had joined their table.

  “Mierda!” Carla thought she had it down well enough.

  Tanya laughed. “However, that most certainly was the right accent. And your figure is also not”—she waved a casual curve in the air—“Latinate. While the latter is far from ubiquitous across the culture, it is one of the Empress of Antrax’s trademarks.”

  “You also are no Latinate, despite your exceptional figure.” Chad offered a friendly leer, which evoked a smile in return. The air was practically shimmering between them.

  Did she and Kyle look like that to others? Did she and Kyle look like that at all? She didn’t want to shimmer at a man, but she knew she did more than that inside each time Kyle was in the same room as her. A feature that had been pretty much constant for the last seven months of their lives, OTC and living together hadn’t offered them much time apart. Maybe she needed to find herself a little space from him. A thought she didn’t like the sound of.

  “No, she’s Israeli.” Richie looked at their guest closely. “Well masked, but that isn’t a true German accent no matter how good she is at pretending. It has Hebrew behind it. Exceptionally well masked.”

  “You have a pet linguist.” Tanya nodded the round to Richie and addressed Kyle. “Your group continues to beco
me ever more interesting.”

  “And you are Mossad.” Carla took a stab in the dark.

  The Israeli woman shook her head. “No, I work for SRI.”

  Carla simply waited, could read the half lie.

  Tanya Zimmer grew a bit uncomfortable and shifted in her seat.

  Kyle waited with her.

  Tanya sighed. “This would perhaps be easier if our cards were upon the table.”

  Kyle spoke softly. “We are on vacation from Aruba, seeking business opportunities. We’re Kyle and Carla Javits.” Keeping their first names made life easier.

  “And you are registered at the exclusive Hotel Ventura, yet you are eating here. This food is good, but definitely second-rate in comparison. ‘Business opportunities’ are far more likely along the lakeshore. Should I mention that a window on your ‘vacation yacht’ has been shot out?”

  “May I mention that pirates are a royal pain in the ass?” Kyle reposted smoothly.

  “You may,” she countered, “but you are here, they are not, and there is only the single sign of damage to your boat. The pirates in these waters are typically more successful.”

  “They were successful on the craft prior to ours,” Carla said grimly.

  That shifted something at the table.

  Tanya opened her mouth, then closed it again when the waitress came to clear the plates and take coffee and dessert orders.

  After their corner was quiet again, Tanya spoke once more over her café americano. “I’m assuming the pirates won’t be troubling anyone else?”

  “Maybe in another life.”

  Her nod of “good” won her more credit in Carla’s eyes than any previous words.

  Carla reached into the purse that Chad had insisted was a necessary accessory item and pulled out the documents they had taken from the powerboat. After a moment’s hesitation, she slid them across the table.

  The woman looked down at them, but did not move to take them.

  “Can you, as a reporter, make sure that their family is notified?”