Too Hot to Hold

by Stephanie Tyler

  “Who’s asking?”

  She turned toward the door Nick had left through before responding in a low voice, “I’m a reporter—K. Darcy for theLedger.”

  A pause, and then, “I’ve heard of you.”

  “I got your name from a colleague of mine, he worked with you last year—Richard Kent. He said you really know your way around the area.”

  “Do you want me as a photographer or as a guide?”

  “I need to get to an area in the DRC safely. I’m going to be arriving in Africa by ten in the morning tomorrow—my time—I’m going to need a guide.”

  “The DRC’s a dangerous place.”

  “I can pay you well,” Kaylee assured her.

  “The DRC’s six hours ahead—you’ll land at four in the afternoon here.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “Where exactly do you need to go?”

  Kaylee read the coordinates to her—Nick hadn’t mapped them yet, but he’d told her it was along the Lualaba River.

  “That’s Ubundu,” Sarah told her after a few seconds of silence. “I can help. Call me with the exact time you’re landing. I’ll meet the plane. Fly into Kisangani—it’s the closest to where you need to go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Are you going to trust me or not?” Sarah asked her, and before Kaylee had a chance to answer, she continued, “Are you working on a story? Because if you need a photographer, I’d be happy to help.”

  “This isn’t for a story—it’s personal,” Kaylee told her.

  “I understand personal. I’ll wait to hear from you.” Sarah disconnected the line and Kaylee stared at the phone for a second before shutting it and placing it on the table.

  It took her a moment before she realized that she was no longer alone in the room. There was a well-over-six-foot-tall man, dressed in some crazy mismatch of camouflage and tie-dye, at the back door, and he was staring at her in a way that she wasn’t sure was friendly.

  The rifle he wore casually around his neck did little to shake that feeling. She wondered just how much of her conversation he’d heard.

  “Chris, what the fuck?” Nick barreled through the door and came up behind her. She sighed in relief that at least they knew each other.

  “So what, now you’ve got a thing for reporters?” the man drawled, but still he didn’t move from his position, nor did he take his eyes off Kaylee, and yes, the man called Chris had heard enough.

  She took a physical hit from those words but Nick didn’t seem surprised at all. In fact, the only one who was surprised was her, and that was never a good thing.

  They know who you are, but they don’t know what you know.

  She could do this. “It’s true—I wasn’t trying to hide it. I was about to tell you, back at the apartment before we got, um, interrupted.”

  Chris raised a brow and looked at Nick, who told him, “It’s not what you’re thinking, asshole.”

  “You have no idea what I’m thinking, trust me,” Chris retorted, still calm, and after that brief exchange, all eyes were back on her.

  She turned her full attention to Nick, stood up and held out her hands as if in surrender. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it mattered. We weren’t going to see each other again—you said so yourself.”

  “And then I came back.” Nick’s teeth were gritted.

  “But you told me…” She faltered, not wanting to reveal more than she had to in front of Chris, although he seemed to have gotten the gist well enough already.

  “Chris, I need to speak with Kaylee alone.” Nick’s voice was tight and oh-so-angry. She wrapped her arms around herself for only a second and then let them fall to her sides, hands fisted.

  She’d dealt with angry military men before, she’d do it again.

  Chris didn’t argue. She watched him move, silent as a shadow, out a side door to God knows where. Nick didn’t say anything until she turned back to him.

  “Look, I’m sorry that you had to find out about me from someone else,” she started.

  Nick didn’t acknowledge the apology, barely blinked as he stood, unmoving, in front of her. The large kitchen seemed smaller with his presence and far less comforting than it had just a mere hour earlier.

  She wondered if he’d always given off that air of control and decided yes—his demeanor was something that couldn’t be faked or learned. He’d been born with that easy grace, that rough prowl that defined him as a man who was a lot to handle. Tonight, he looked ready for combat. Ready for anything.

  She hoped she was as well. “Are you going to stand there and stare at me all morning?”

  “You’re something else, aren’t you? Now you’re pissed at me?” He shook his head. “I wasn’t listening at the door, but obviously you somehow gave yourself away to my brother.”

  “Then how did you find out about K. Darcy?” she asked. “Did you run some kind of background check on me?”

  “I was trying to get some intel on Aaron. And I also know you ran one on me.”

  “I tried.”

  “Of course you did.” He turned away from her and laughed, but all too soon he was facing her again, holding her tight by the shoulders. “Are you screwing me, Kaylee? Are you and Aaron in on some kind of sick scheme together?”

  “What? No!” She struggled to get away from him but he held her fast, even pulled her closer so that his body pressed against hers as intimately as it had last night.

  “How do I know? Maybe you fucked all the other men on Aaron’s list in order to do a story on this.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes as she wrenched away from him and slapped him hard across the face. He didn’t even flinch but the crack of her palm meeting skin made her feel better. Her voice shook with a barely restrained anger when she told him, “You basically told me you were a bastard—I should’ve listened to you.”

  It was his turn to jerk away. He swallowed hard, and a sudden show of emotion filled his eyes all too briefly before it was replaced by a cool gaze. “You should have.”

  “You were the one who came back, not me. Why the hell did you come back?”

  That stopped him cold for a second. When he spoke again, his words were unexpected. “I don’t like thinking about you with anyone else.” His voice was quiet, rough, and he’d moved closer to her, although he didn’t touch her. “I didn’t like seeing that other guy’s ring at your apartment. And I sure as hell don’t like not being able to stop thinking about you.”

  “Well, look at that, the big bad warrior is afraid of something. Well, here’s a tip, Nick—I’m scared too. I didn’t want this, didn’t expect to feel anything for you. The last thing I wanted was to get involved with another military man.”

  “Well, good thing we’re not involved, then.”

  “You left me your phone number. You came back to find out more information on Aaron. You were worried about me,” she continued. “I’m not writing a story about this. I’m trying to get out of this alive. I’m…” She broke down then, unable to hold back the frustration and the anger, and she turned away from him completely so he wouldn’t see the tears. His words bit at her, crude and harsh, but knowing what she knew about Nick, about his past, a small part of her understood.

  If he was truly Cutter Winfield, he’d have spent his entire life avoiding reporters. She supposed she would lash out too. And so she drew on her own strength, because that was what had gotten her through all the tough times in her life. “It’s hard for me to trust you too, Nick, because of what you do for a living. I think you can understand that, based on what’s happening around me. Please believe me—I’m not planning on doing a story about you or about this. I just want to figure out what’s really going on.”

  “And I’m supposed to trust that?” His laugh was short. “Sorry, Kaylee, but I’m not that fucking naive. What’s to stop you from writing about what happened between me and Aaron?”

  “My word. I understand undercover. My job depends on it. And sometimes, even, my
life.”

  “Why is that?” he asked.

  “Don’t you get it? I get threatened almost every time one of my stories is published. The threats that aren’t discounted immediately are forwarded to a special branch of the police. They don’t do much except file them away, in case…” She drew a deep breath. “I stopped asking about what the notes said after my third month on the job. It’s been easier not knowing.”

  He hadn’t thought about it like that, not at all, and every protective instinct in his body came to life more strongly than ever. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

  “Because it’s not something I like to admit. Saying it out loud makes it real.”

  He rubbed the small scar on his neck as he stared at her. “This is as real as it gets, Kaylee.”

  “I’m not afraid of real, Nick,” she told him. “Right now, there’s just one thing that scares me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want to lose you when I’ve just found you.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Idon’t want to lose you when I’ve just found you.

  Kaylee would fight to keep him—Nick was sure of it. Liked it, even, and a strange pride swelled inside him at the thought. “I can’t make any promises. Especially now. Not with all this shit coming down around our ears.”

  “I understand. I just… wanted you to know where I stand.” She moved closer, went to touch his arm softly but he jerked back.

  “You barely know me.”

  “I know enough.”

  She knew nothing. He planned on keeping it that way, no matter how hard his cock got. “I’ve got to talk to my brother. I’ll be back. Don’t answer your phone without me here.”

  “I have to tell you about the call I made,” she said quickly. “I found us a guide through the DRC.”

  He exhaled. Tried to stay calm. “Do you know this person? Can you trust him?”

  “I didn’t say anything, just that it was a personal matter. She’s a photographer who lives in the area—she’s worked with colleagues of mine. She’s good.”

  She. Jesus, he was in real trouble here.

  “She said to fly into Kisangani, said the coordinates were in Ubundu—”

  “You gave her the coordinates?”

  “I had to. Is that the right place?”

  It was—he’d mapped it out quickly while he’d attempted to get in touch with Clutch. “Yes, that’s the right place.”

  “Did your source come through?”

  Clutch hadn’t. The man had fallen off the face of the earth. “No. And we don’t have time to wait on him. I’ll book the flight.”

  He had friends he could call, could probably get use of a private plane in order to bypass security and allow him to bring weapons. Anything else would leave them too little time. They were pushing it as it was, according to Aaron’s forty-eight-hour timetable.

  And so he left her in the kitchen before he did something even more stupid—not thatadmitting he couldn’t stop thinking about her wasn’t stupid enough—and went to find his brother.

  Better to face Chris alone than to let Kaylee fall under his scrutiny.

  There’d be plenty of time for that later, with an extra brother who wasn’t nearly as forgiving as Chris could be.

  Chris sat behind the desk in what was once Dad’s office, legs propped up on its corner, waiting patiently. His iPod was on and his eyes were closed as he belted out a version of Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog,” but they opened the second Nick walked into the room.

  I just sense things, Chris would say with a dismissive shrug when questioned. His gift, like Dad’s, was both amazing and unnerving, and Nick wasn’t particularly grateful for it, not when Chris’s eyes bore through him like a laser.

  “Chris, before you start in on me—”

  “Seriously, what the fuck? Like you need this now, with everything else going on?” Chris asked and then stopped. “Shit. You like her.”

  Nick couldn’t put voice to it, just nodded. For a second, the two men sat there in silence and Nick prayed Chris wouldn’t push him on this.

  But Chris, being Chris, didn’t say another word about it, knew how significant it was that Nick had admitted as much as he had. Instead, he asked, “Do you know that the FBI is asking questions about you? Any idea what the hell that’s about?”

  Nick didn’t answer, just dumped out the contents of the envelope he’d gotten from Kaylee—everything Aaron had left her in the safe-deposit box—onto the desk between him and his brother.

  “It’s amazing that a man’s entire life can boil down to this,” Nick murmured as he sifted through the contents. He pushed the patch aside and opened the folded legal-size paper that contained the list of men. It was ten sheets, meticulously written out and stapled together, and worn, as if Kaylee had read the reports Aaron had written out dozens of times.

  He handed them to Chris and then turned his attention to the bankbook. He thumbed through it quickly, whistled when he saw the numbers involved.

  Chris was moving Aaron’s dog tags between his fingers as he read, flipping them back and forth, the steady soft clink of the metal the only sound between them for several minutes.

  When Chris finished the last page—the report that talked about Nick—he put down both the papers and the tags and began to rub the fingertips on his left hand together, an unconscious signal Nick knew all too well. “That’s why she came to you,” he said finally.

  Chris knew about the mission and the patch—Nick had told both him and Jake about it and where to find the patch in case they needed to be the ones to hand it over to Kaylee.

  “Aaron’s been … calling her. At least he could be. Shit, Chris, I heard one of the calls. Something’s going on, and it’s not good. I already committed to going with her to Africa,” Nick said, felt the heat of his brother’s unlikely anger shoot across the room.

  Chris was typically slow to burn—it showed just how on edge he was, how much they all were because of the Winfield situation. “So you uncommit. You did what Aaron Smith asked of you, you met with her.”

  “Someone wants her dead. Two men tried to take her out of her apartment tonight—they said they were FBI but I don’t think they were. I hope they weren’t anyway.”

  “What the hell did you do? If she’s in danger, she needs to go to the police or someone higher up the food chain. You’re not going to fucking Africa with her—you don’t know what the hell you’re getting into.” Chris slammed a palm down on the table while Nick tried to remain unimpressed at his brother’s show of temper.

  “Are you going to stop me? Because I’d really like to see that.”

  “Fuck you, Nick. You know that jones for danger you’ve got is going to get you in some major trouble one of these days.”

  Chris was right—Nick always had to hit it harder and faster, to up the bar. But that wasn’t what this was all about.

  “Speaking of jones for danger, I seem to remember you sitting next to me in that jail cell. And this is my mountain,” he said tightly.

  Dad’s favorite expression made Chris’s face soften, but only for a second. “You barely know this woman.”

  “I know she’s not making up being in trouble.”

  “I’m going with you for backup. I’ve got the time.Shit.” Chris rubbed his fingers together. “You’re going to have to give me the whole story.”

  Nick did so, quickly and quietly. When he finished, Chris sighed, scrubbed his face with his palms. “Christ, Nick, if those men were FBI…” He trailed off, shook his head.

  “You’re going to need to stay here, deal with the fallout.”

  “You want me to run interference while you run off to Africa to figure all this out? Send you there with no backup?”

  “I tried to get in touch with Clutch, but no dice. Kaylee’s got someone to help.”

  Both his brothers—especially Chris—had shit a brick when they’d discovered he’d worked with Clutch off the books and off the radar last year.r />
  Chris continued to stare at him. “When were you going to tell me that Walter came to visit you?”

  “How the hell—” He sat back in his chair. “Dad,” they both said simultaneously.

  And then Nick spoke the words out loud, the ones that had been echoing inside his mind since earlier that night. “He came looking for forgiveness. He told me… Fuck, he told me that I’m his son, not Billy’s.”

  Chris shot forward on his elbows, nearly jumping across the desk. “Ah, shit, Nick.”

  “Yeah.” He closed his eyes and then opened them to look into his brother’s.

  “Do you think Kaylee suspects anything?” Chris asked him. “I recognize her pen name … She’s been writing about Cutter for a while now.”

  Nick shrugged, like it didn’t matter, but Chris’s sentiments echoed his own worries. “None of those reporters are that good—you know that.”

  “She’s major, all right? Big-time. Comes off as unassuming, Nick, but K. Darcy can take you down at the knees. She’s got a hell of a lot of clout in her industry. Has a reputation of not being afraid to take on anything.”

  “Yeah, I have the same one in mine.”

  Chris grew impatient, turned the laptop that had been facing him toward Nick, an article written by Kaylee on the screen. “She’s broken some big stories, unearthed corruption in the government and the military, opened her mouth when she was bribed—and threatened—to try to keep it shut. Took some big personal and professional risks. And that’s not including the times when she delved into people’s private lives too—do you remember this story she did?”

  Nick scanned the piece and recalled reading it last year. Kaylee had been the first to break the news of a very married presidential candidate’s affair with a very married U.S. congresswoman, despite pleas from the candidate’s family.

  The anger swelled inside of him again. What if she was lying to him? What if all of this was a ruse to get close to him? “She’s good, okay. But she’d have no reason to suspect me, and the angrier I get at her, the more suspicious she’s going to be, right? Besides, she’s here because of Aaron. That’s all.” He was well aware that he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.