Killer Countdown (Man on a Mission)

by Amelia Autin

  “Ah.” Carly couldn’t help but smile. “I wondered about that.”

  Shane laughed and sipped at his wine. “It still shows, huh?”

  “Just a tad,” she said, tongue in cheek.

  “Guess it’s a good thing you never met me back then.” Carly shook her head at him, but didn’t say anything. She looked down at her nearly full plate and at Shane’s empty one, then pushed her plate toward him. “You’re not hungry?” he asked.

  “Not really. I had a late lunch in Philly after the press conference.” She watched as Shane made quick work of her leftovers and smiled to herself because it seemed to be another little sign of how he felt about her. Her dad used to do that with her mom, finishing what her mom wasn’t hungry for. Most Americans wouldn’t even consider eating off someone else’s plate—but husbands and wives did it all the time.

  Stop right there, she ordered herself sternly. Shane isn’t your husband.

  But she wanted him to be. And that realization almost made her gasp.

  * * *

  Marsh disconnected the call on his disposable phone and reviewed the notes he’d taken. Sunday, 3:00 p.m. Old Town University. Adams Hall.

  Plenty of time, he thought. The senator had gone to ground, but he would surface for the panel and discussion on climate change. Marsh could scope out the venue tomorrow, plot his sight lines, stash his weapon and be ready come Sunday afternoon.

  Once the senator had been dealt with, he still needed to take care of the damned reporter. But that could wait for a more propitious time. Unless, of course, the reporter tagged along with the senator, as she seemed to be doing a lot lately. Then he could kill two birds with one stone.

  * * *

  Once again Carly woke to an empty bed beside her. And once again the sheets were cold where Shane had lain, which meant his place had been empty for a while. This time, though, when she glanced at the clock on the nightstand, she saw it was past eight. Which meant she’d gotten her requisite eight hours of sleep and then some.

  She went in search of Shane, thinking she’d find him in the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. A pot of coffee had been made, and she gratefully poured herself a cup before continuing her search, cup in hand. She knew he wasn’t in the living room—she’d already passed through it on the way to the kitchen. But he wasn’t in the office, either. Puzzled, she went farther down the long hallway and tried the two closed doors she’d never entered. The first was the spare bedroom—empty. The second door swung open to reveal the man she sought—in a workout room that rivaled a gym.

  Shane was jogging at a rapid pace on a treadmill set on a steep incline, wearing earphones, running shorts, socks and running shoes...and nothing else. His body gleamed with sweat, his abs rippling with exertion.

  When he saw her, he smiled and took off his earphones but didn’t turn off the treadmill. He glanced at his watch and said over the noise of the machine, “Three more minutes.”

  She nodded, then turned to peruse the rest of Niall’s workout equipment. Weight bench—that made sense. But this one looked professional grade, not the kind of thing usually found outside a gym. Not far from it was a machine she recognized as an elliptical trainer, and next to that was a recumbent stationary bicycle. There was also a leg press machine like the one in her physical therapist’s workout room, where she’d gone after she’d had arthroscopic surgery on her left knee following a skiing accident.

  She took a large sip from her coffee cup, then saw the chin-up bar that stretched across the far corner of the room, and all she could think was Wow! No wonder Niall’s in great shape.

  The sound of the treadmill suddenly ceased, drawing her attention back to Shane. She watched as he wiped his face and chest with a towel, then draped it across his shoulders, and thought, Shane must work out religiously, too. Because there was just no way he could look that good at forty-one unless he did.

  Carly belonged to a fitness club and usually went three times a week when she was in town. When she traveled, she tried to use whatever workout equipment was available in her hotel. She had to maintain her weight for her job—TV tended to add a few pounds to the way she appeared on the screen—and she worked out for the same reason. It wasn’t fair, but women were held to a higher standard than men when it came to TV news. A well-fitting suit on a man could hide a lot of faults, but not so with women.

  Shane came up to her and stole a kiss while she was musing. “Morning,” he said. “Sip?”

  She held the coffee cup up to his lips, but he took it from her hands and turned it so he could put his lips where hers had been before he drank. “Sweet,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes before he gave the cup back to her.

  “I don’t know how you can say that,” she argued. “I don’t put sugar or sweetener in my coffee.”

  “I know.”

  He raised and lowered his eyebrows suggestively, and then she got it. “Oh.” A flush of warmth spread through her body, as if she’d been the one on the treadmill.

  The smile was suddenly wiped from Shane’s face, and he went completely still. And Carly saw the goose bumps forming on his arms. “Son of a bitch!” he whispered in a furious undertone. She put her coffee cup down on the nearest surface and placed a hand on the tense muscles of his left arm. His skin was warm to the touch, but she knew to him the room was suddenly freezing.

  “It’s okay.” She didn’t know what else to say to him. She wanted to reassure him somehow, but all she could say was, “It’s okay, Shane. You’re okay.”

  The seconds ticked by like hours. Thirty seconds, she reminded herself feverishly. He’d told her the episodes lasted roughly thirty seconds, then the symptoms disappeared like magic.

  She mentally counted—one thousand eighteen, one thousand nineteen, one thousand twenty—and had just passed twenty-seven when the goose bumps beneath her fingers vanished.

  She let out the breath she’d been holding, sucked in air and let that out, as well. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—when, with a muttered oath, Shane pulled away from her and stalked out the door.

  She went after him. He was not doing this. He was not going to lick his wounds in private, like some kind of alpha wolf, and if he thought he was, he’d better think again. “Shane!”

  She caught up with him as he was stripping his clothes off in the master bathroom. The shower was already running, warming up the water, but Carly grabbed his arm when he went to step into the shower stall. “You’re not doing this,” she told him fiercely.

  “Not taking a shower?” He peeled her hand off his arm. “Sorry to be the one to break the news to you, but I usually shower after a hard workout. Most men do.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it.” She grabbed his arm again and shook it. “You’re not running away and dealing with this on your own.”

  His face was closed, his eyes hard. “One, I’m not running away. Two, I’m dealing with it the only way I know how.”

  Damn you, she wanted to say. Damn you for being such a stubborn, pigheaded man. Instead she said, “Talk to me, Shane. Please. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  “I’m not feeling anything except exhausted from twenty-five chin-ups, a hundred push-ups, a hundred sit-ups and an hour on the treadmill. And sweaty. I’m feeling sweaty, too. Does that satisfy you?”

  It would have hurt less if he’d slapped her. She let go of his arm and stepped back away from him. “Fine,” she said, forcing the words past stiff lips. “You win. But then you always do, don’t you? Everything has to be your way or the highway.” Emotions rose up, choking her, and she couldn’t say anything more. Then she turned and walked out, refusing to let herself look back at him.

  * * *

  Shane thrust his head under the punishing shower spray, letting the hot water pummel him. He soaped himself all over, scrubbing his hide as if
he could scrub away the memory of Carly’s face, pale and still, from his mind. As if he could wash away the memory of her stricken eyes as she said You win.

  He’d hurt her, and that was like a dagger to his heart. The fact that he hadn’t meant to hurt her cut no ice with him. A man didn’t hurt a woman—that had been engrained in him as far back as he could remember. Not physically—never physically—but not emotionally, either.

  Emotional distance. That’s what she’d insisted on four nights ago, although he’d known from the start it was a crock—Carly could no more maintain an emotional distance than he could fly unaided. But had she known somehow this was coming? Had she sensed that if she didn’t keep an emotional distance, he’d inevitably hurt her as he’d just done?

  He abruptly turned off the shower and sluiced the water from his skin, then dried quickly and headed for the bedroom. Carly wasn’t there. But then, he hadn’t really expected her to be. He dressed in the first clothes he could find and walked out of the bedroom with only one thing on his mind—apologizing to Carly.

  It wasn’t until he’d gone through every room in the condo twice that he realized he couldn’t apologize to her...because she was nowhere to be found.

  * * *

  Carly had walked out without her purse, gloves or scarf. She’d thrown on jeans and a sweater, had tugged boots on and had grabbed her jacket, but she was already out the front door of the condo building and two blocks away before she realized what she’d left behind. She stopped so quickly the man behind her walking his dog ran into her, and Carly was forced to apologize.

  When she was alone again she stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, her hands in her pockets against the cold, her breath making a little cloud in the near-freezing air as she realized she’d left behind more than just her purse, gloves and scarf. She’d left Shane behind, as well. She’d given up without a fight, and that was so unlike her she couldn’t believe it.

  She turned around and headed back the way she’d come, but before she reached the second light Shane came flying out the condo building’s front door, frantically looking left and right as if he were searching for someone. As if he were searching for her.

  He suddenly spotted her in the sparse Saturday morning crowd and broke into a run. Carly barely waited for the light to change before she was running, too. They met in the middle, and Shane caught her in an embrace that threatened to crush her ribs, all the while peppering her face with kisses.

  “I’m sorry,” he said over and over. “God, Carly, I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too,” she said, achingly glad she’d turned back. “I shouldn’t have run away.”

  “I didn’t mean it. Please believe me. I just didn’t know what to say.”

  “I know.”

  They kissed and hugged and murmured apologies to each other until two teenage boys passed them and shouted rudely, “Get a room, for Chrissake!”

  Carly spluttered with laughter, and then Shane was laughing, too. “We have a room, Marine,” she whispered. “What say we take their advice?”

  Chapter 18

  Once Carly and Shane were inside the condo, however, the smell of coffee drew them to the kitchen. “Oh, my cup,” she said. “I left it...”

  Before she could go fetch it herself, he said, “I’ll get it.”

  By the time he’d returned she’d poured a cup for him—straight black, the way he liked it—and was rummaging in the pantry and fridge for breakfast. Shane tossed the dregs of her drink in the sink before refilling her cup, then turning off the coffeemaker.

  “There’s not much in the way of breakfast,” she informed him with the air of someone delivering bad news.

  “I thought I saw oatmeal in the pantry.”

  “Oh. You’re right.” She took down the tall, cylindrical container. “I was looking for those little packets of instant,” she explained. “You know, the ones you just add water to and put in the microwave.”

  “This is almost as quick,” he said, taking the container from her. “You can nuke it, but I’d rather cook mine the old-fashioned way.” He found a pot, filled it halfway with water, and set it on the stove to boil.

  “Let me guess—this is how your mom makes it.”

  He leaned a hip against the counter and grinned at her. “Give the lady a cigar.”

  “Tell me more about her,” she invited. “You started to last night, but then we got sidetracked to your dad, and...”

  He picked up his coffee and drank deeply, a reminiscent light creeping into his eyes. “She’s one tough lady. She’s had to be. Four rambunctious boys and a little girl determined to be as fearless as her older brothers.” He checked the pot on the stove, then looked back at Carly. “Then losing my dad before he ever reached retirement age. He was the light of her life and it nearly broke her. But she refused to surrender to grief.” Love and admiration were evident in his voice. “My dad was the marine, but I think my brothers and sister and I get our grit and determination from her.”

  He chuckled suddenly. “Every one of her children has scared the you-know-what out of her by nearly getting killed, but that never stopped her from loving us with everything she has.”

  “I know about you and Liam—what happened with the others?”

  “Keira stepped in front of a bullet meant for someone else to save him. Alec was nearly killed when two terrorists attempted to kidnap his date and him in a coffeehouse in the tiny Middle Eastern country where he was serving as the regional security officer at the embassy.”

  Surprised, Carly paused in the midst of raising her coffee cup to her lips and named the country. “That was Alec? I read about it, but the State Department never released the name of the DSS agent involved.”

  “Yeah, that was him.” The water was boiling, so he turned the fire down and added oatmeal, stirring occasionally. “And Niall...” He chuckled softly. “I can’t disclose any of the details,” he said with his back to her. “Suffice it to say that if you ever see him without his shirt, you’ll know just how close he came to dying.” He turned around and added drily, “Not that I want him to take his shirt off in front of you, you understand.”

  She started to respond with a snappy comeback, until it sank in he was only half-kidding. She put her coffee cup down. “No matter how ripped Niall is—and by the looks of his home gym I’d be willing to bet women drool when he strips—” she told Shane as she crossed the room to him. She took the spoon from his hand and turned off the fire under the oatmeal, then placed her hands lightly against his chest. In all seriousness she said, “No matter what he looks like naked, he can’t possibly hold a candle to you.”

  He breathed sharply, and she added with a note of incredulity in her voice, “I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

  “It’s irrational, I know,” he admitted in a low voice. “I love him—don’t ever think I don’t—but I’ve been in competition with him nearly my whole life. That’s good in some ways, but... And he delights in yanking my chain whenever he can. Last night...”

  “Men are going to look at me, Shane. I can’t help that. And they’re going to like what they see,” she said bluntly, “unless I wear a burka. But I thought I made it perfectly clear last night where my interests lie.”

  That forced the beginnings of a smile from him. “Yeah. You did.”

  “So what is the problem?”

  The faint smile was still on Shane’s face, but she sensed the effort he was making to keep it there. “Niall doesn’t have epilepsy.”

  His answer was so unexpected she couldn’t think of what to say. Then she remembered the first day she’d met Shane, and her assessment of him as a wounded warrior trying to come to terms with the diagnosis that had to have devastated him. She’d thought he’d dealt with it. Put it behind him. She’d thought wrong.

  “No, he doesn’t,” sh
e said with deliberate emphasis. “He doesn’t have epilepsy.” Her right hand reached for his left one, and she raised it to her cheek. “But he’s not you, either.”

  Her gaze held his, and in those dark brown depths she saw what she knew he didn’t want her to see...and her throat ached. “Take me to bed, Shane,” she whispered. “Let me prove it to you.”

  Alpha male that he was, Shane tried to take control once they were in the bedroom, but Carly was having none of that. This was her seduction, and she was going to erase that sliver of insecurity from his eyes if it was the last thing she did.

  “No,” she told him firmly, catching his hands in hers when he tried to undress her. “I want to do it.” And when he started taking his clothes off himself, she stopped him there, too, shaking her head. She let her eyes promise he wouldn’t be disappointed, then removed his shoulder holster and his clothes one deliberate piece at a time. Caressing. Stroking. Every move dictated by her heart.

  When he was completely naked, she breathed deeply and let it out very, very slowly. “There’s no contest,” she told him, her voice soft, seductive. Gliding her hands over his pecs, his abs. And lower. “No one can compete.”

  His body responded with a surge of desire, and she didn’t need to hear the low growl coming from his throat to know how much he wanted her. But she was just getting started. She was going to teach him that he was the only man she wanted, as well as something new and amazing about postponement of pleasure, by the time she was done.

  Carly gently pushed Shane onto the bed and dragged the bedclothes over him, saying, “I can’t concentrate,” then stepped away. She’d never set out to seduce a man before. But she knew enough about men—about this particular man—to know what would drive him crazy.