His lips returned to hers. Their tongues met, playing a sensuous game that heightened every sense. Even her toes tingled with a wonderful, electric tension. His mouth left hers and moved down to her left breast. He nibbled, then licked, and her body shuddered with reaction. She felt the change in his body, and her own responded. It was as if it was reaching out in some desperate quest. A greedy fire needing fuel.
The throbbing yearning deepened as he prolonged the agony, made her body arch up to meet his. His slow, deliberate entry only intensified the sensations, each movement creating billows of sensation.
He moved in and out slowly, preparing and exciting her until she thought she would go mad with wanting. “Irish,” she whispered as she felt his restraint, his obvious effort to leash himself, to move slowly, ever so slowly.
Too slowly.
A cry of pure agony burst from her. But still he restrained himself, raining kisses on her eyes, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth until the throbbing inside became unbearable. Then the tempo of his movement quickened, and their bodies danced together in a sensuous waltz of two bodies in instinctive harmony.
One last thrust ignited rapturous bursts of pleasure, turning into a fireball of sensations.…
WASHINGTON, D.C.
“You fool!” The speaker could barely contain his anger. “Can’t any of you do anything right?”
“I’ll find her again,” came the voice.
“You don’t have to look. She’ll be running straight to Eachan, and he’ll protect her. I needed her as leverage, damn it. You’re supposed to be so damn good, and you let a stupid bitch outmaneuver you.”
“I almost had her. I don’t know what happened.”
“You said you could handle her alone.”
Silence.
“She’ll be on the road to Washington. Get to Eachan’s before she does. Stop her before she goes inside.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your employment depends on a successful conclusion of this matter.”
The phone went dead.
twenty-one
MARYLAND
It was pouring rain.
Sally could barely see in front of her. She hated the rain. She particularly hated driving in it.
She remembered driving all the way from Arizona to Maryland when her father died. Her mother had a show opening, and refused to go east to the funeral. She didn’t want Sally to go, either. Nothing you can do, honey. You can mourn him here. But it wasn’t the opening of the show, Sally knew that. Her mother hated everything to do with the Eachan family.
Sally had taken the car keys from her mother’s purse during the night and started driving. She’d taken money from her mother’s purse, too. Not that there was that much.
She’d known she wouldn’t be in time for the funeral, but she kept driving. She could barely see the road through tears. It had been the loneliest time of her life.
Sally was pulled over in Louisiana. Her mother had called the cops on her. She’d spent the hours of her father’s funeral in a jail cell.
She never forgave her mother. She ran away again and again. She even threatened to sue her mother after she heard of someone underaged doing exactly that. Her mother finally gave up, and Sally went to live with her grandparents, the Eachans. And after the death of their first-born, they had finally welcomed her.
She remembered every moment of that drive. It had been raining. She’d always equated the death with rain. It was the one thing she’d never told Dusty.…
The rain came harder. She reached the interstate, hesitated, then continued, hands clenched around the steering wheel. She drove another twenty miles, saw a rest stop, and turned off. Instead of taking the branch marked for cars, she followed the truck signs. Finding a number of the tractor trailers parked, she drove into a place between two of them. She had great faith in truckers.
She turned off the ignition and sat there. She had left so suddenly, she hadn’t really thought much ahead. Now she did. She had three credit cards and a hundred dollars cash. There would be phones inside. She could call Dusty. She had his cell phone number. She could call from the pay phone here.
How did someone find her?
The only way was through Dusty. He wouldn’t let anything slip. She knew that. He was the most cautious man she knew. That meant someone was tracing phone calls.
Would she bring danger to him? And if she called, could someone start tracking her movements? Would someone be waiting for her?
What would have happened if she’d taken that drink?
She shuddered. Why had she gone there?
The rain pounded against her windshield. On the roof of the car. A lonely sound.
Maybe she would rest a few moments. Try to think. She checked her doors. Both were locked. If anyone even tried to approach she would lean on her horn and wake up every trucker in the parking area.
The thought made her feel better. She tried to think of safe things. Dustin. That reminded her of the sketch of him in the apartment. She wished she had it now.
She wished she had him now.
NORFOLK
The world was a different place in the morning.
Amy knew it when she woke in Irish’s arms. It might not last—these hours—but she knew she would never regret last night. She couldn’t imagine now going through life without the experience of last night.
She had never known what lovemaking could be like. It certainly had never been like this with Alan. It had been comfortable with him. Not fire and storm.
Did fire and storm last?
She moved, and his hand reached out. “You’re not leaving, are you?” Flaherty’s voice was low and lazy and sexy.
She looked at the window. Dark outside. She wondered for a fleeting second what time it was, then discovered she didn’t care, not when his arms pulled her closer to him. She felt his lips on the back of her neck, and she squirmed with the shudders that started deep inside.
“Shouldn’t we …?”
“Most definitely,” he said.
She realized they weren’t exactly talking about the same thing, but he was nibbling her ear, and his body was growing hard, and hers was growing taut; they, at least, were in harmony. Such wonderful harmony.
She turned to face him and began nibbling his ear as he had done hers. It tasted a little salty and really wonderful. He groaned, and she cherished the idea that she could make him do that.
He pulled the sheets off and moved against her. His hard, hot arousal made her ravenous.
He paused a moment, took a precaution that she had not considered. Then he was inside her again. She had thought nothing could match the intensity of last night.
She was wrong.
When Amy woke again, light was streaming through the window, and she smelled coffee brewing. She also realized that there was another difference between Flaherty and herself. His body clock and hers were not in sync. She was a bear in the morning, unwilling to roll out of bed. He was Mr. Marvin Sunshine. She really, really hated that.
Yet a small glow of satisfaction shoved away her usual morning moodiness. He was still here. Making coffee and, from the aroma coming from the other end of the trailer, something else. How extraordinarily … domestic.
Don’t. She told herself that for the thousandth time. Don’t even think of anything beyond the next few days. He had never mentioned words like “love.” Their normal worlds were so far apart that they could never come together. He was a wanderer. She was a homebody. He was a warrior. She was a pacifist.
Does a pacifist ever carry a pistol in her purse?
How far had she traveled from her roots in these past few days?
And could she ever settle down to her usual routine once this was over? Could she ever go to bed again without thinking about the warmth of his arms? Could she ever wander about without looking for people in the shadows? Could she ever crawl back into her world of history and books? Once you felt the rush of adrenaline, could you ever forget it? Or did ordina
ry life turn gray, colorless?
She would have to ask Flaherty.
She reluctantly climbed out of bed, pulled on her T-shirt, and went into the bathroom. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and looked at herself critically. Something had changed last night. Her eyes seemed brighter, her color more vivid. Her lips were slightly swollen. She felt she had never looked better. In fact, she seemed to glow, even first thing in the morning.
Did men glow, too?
She ran a comb through her hair and went into the small kitchen.
“Good morning,” she said.
“It’s an extraordinarily good morning,” he replied with a grin.
“That good?”
“Not for you?” he asked with feigned disappointment. Or was it feigned?
“I’m not usually fond of mornings. Particularly since waking up to someone trying to kill me. But today is a decided improvement.”
He put his fingers on her cheek and brushed back a curl from her face in a gesture so intimate and possessive it made her hurt inside. She wanted to run her fingers through his hair.
Instead, she stepped back. “I smell something.”
His hand dropped, and he gave her a wry grin. “I told you I can cook two things. Steak and omelets. This is the omelet again.”
“I’ll cook tonight,” she said.
He nodded as he divided the omelet and put her share on a plate.
“Will we be here tonight?”
“I think so. I’ll make some calls in Newport News today.”
“What if he’s avoiding you?”
“I plan to take care of that little matter,” he replied grimly. “I’ll let him know that my next stop is the newspapers.”
“What if he doesn’t care?”
“I’ve learned a great deal about Dustin Eachan. He’ll care, all right. He has grander ambitions than being an assistant to a deputy. I would bet my last dollar that he’s the one who maneuvered my new posting.”
“Didn’t you say someone was injured? Would someone in the State Department … do something like that?” The moment she said the words she knew how naive she must sound, and how could she possibly be naive after everything that had happened? She knew a lot about human nature, but still … what had been happening was so outside her range of experience.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I don’t know the man. I only know his reputation.”
“What if he doesn’t know anything? Or won’t tell us anything?”
“Then we try something else,” he said. “Someone thinks you have some information that endangers them. That idea must have come from somewhere.”
She hesitated, then finally gave voice to the thought that had weighed heavily in her mind. “What if Jon found something? And took it?”
His eyes told her that he had already considered that possibility. “You knew him,” he said. “I didn’t. Would he have taken some papers and used them in some way?”
“He was my friend,” Amy said. “But everything seemed to start with those papers.”
“I thought it might have started because I made queries,” Flaherty said.
“But they didn’t come after you, not until you interfered,” she said slowly.
“I’m not so sure of that. Maybe they just didn’t know where I was. I was on leave.”
“They seem to know everything and how to get to anyone,” she observed, taking the last bite of the omelet. “It’s just a matter of time.”
“Such little faith,” he said. “But back to your friend. Do you think he was capable of making a few calls of his own without telling you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was he capable of blackmail if he found something in those boxes?”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to think what she was thinking. But now was no time to hold back. Flaherty’s life was in danger, too. “Two weeks ago I would have said no way. But the more I think about it, I wonder. He was having marital problems. He might have needed money. If he found something he thought he could use.…”
She left the sentence hanging.
He nodded. “If he did take something, where would it be?”
She shrugged. “His office. Home. I don’t know.”
He played with his coffee cup. “If I don’t get Eachan today, maybe we should pay a visit to the widow.”
“If he had taken some papers and the bad guys want them, why haven’t they searched his home?” She found herself using his words for the assailant. They fitted as well as anything.
“Maybe they have,” he said.
“Could his wife be in danger?”
“He died in an auto accident. I doubt if anyone would want another accident this soon.”
A chill crept through her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Your friend may not have done anything.”
“I hope not,” she said softly. She couldn’t even imagine going to Jon’s house and asking his widow if she could go through his things.
There was a question in his eyes.
“No,” she said. “There was never anything between us, but from what I understand, his wife thought there might be. That was one of the problems. She thought he was cheating with everyone because he couldn’t stand being home. We had lunch sometimes. Coffee. He was my mentor. He supported my tenure, but that was all there ever was.”
He nodded, and she wished she knew what he was thinking at that moment. He didn’t say anything, but helped himself to another cup of coffee and poured one for her.
She was amazed, however, at how at ease they were together most of the time. She had never felt this way before, not even with Alan, the man with whom she had a two-year relationship. There was no juggling for control, for position. No sense of competition. He listened to her, gave her opinions credit. She hadn’t known that two people could have this kind of ease. A lump lodged in her throat. For the first time she wasn’t sure she wanted to catch the bad guys. Once that was done, he would leave. She remembered what she’d thought about earlier and meant to ask him.
“Can you ever go back?” she said.
He gave her a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“I never understood the appeal of danger,” she said. “I never understood why some people choose dangerous jobs, like policemen or fireman or Special Forces, or driving race cars or jumping out of planes.” She didn’t know if she was making herself clear or not, but he had put down the coffee cup and was studying her intently.
“Now,” she continued, “I know what is meant by adrenaline. I … understand its appeal. It must be a little like a drug.”
“It can be,” he said. “It is for some.”
“Are you one of those some?”
He hesitated. “I personally think it’s overrated. I don’t like getting shot.”
She didn’t either. She remembered only too clearly the pain that followed her first brush with danger. And yet … life had never been so vivid. “Once … you experience it, can you ever go back?” That was the big question. But then she wondered whether it was the danger, or Irish Flaherty.
He looked at her thoughtfully. “I suppose it depends on who you are. I always thought it made peace more precious.”
“Then why do you continue doing what you do?”
“I usually don’t get shot at. And I like solving puzzles. Most of the investigations I conduct involve paper trails. Dishonest contractors and procurement fraud. Unsafe equipment. That kind of thing.”
“But not in Bosnia?”
He shrugged. “That mostly involved preventing weapon theft.”
“And in South America. Wasn’t that dangerous?”
“That’s why I transferred to CID,” he said with a self-deprecating shrug.
She didn’t quite believe that. He’d not shown the slightest fear or hesitation since she’d met him. Instead, he’d plunged in at every opportunity. To protect her.
Why?
But she had no opportunity to ask more questions. H
e stood up and took the dishes to the sink. “Time for me to leave.”
“Should I go with you?” She wanted to.
He shook his head. “You have Bo, and I know you want to do some work. Why don’t you do that, and if you have time, check on Navy deployments about ten years back?”
She had almost forgotten about the tenure hearing after the last couple of days. It was less than a week away now. She would have to return by then. It would not hurt to review everything. But her life in Memphis seemed a hundred years and thousands of miles away.
He was right. She did have work to do. She did have her own life.
“Keep the pistol handy. Don’t open the door to anyone but the chief. I should be back by midafternoon.”
If you’re not.…
He wrote something down. “If I’m not back, call this number. It’s my commander. He’s also a friend. He’ll help you.” He leaned down and kissed her slowly and thoroughly. “But I will be back.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dustin left his Georgetown home and drove to a gas station that had a pay phone. He dialed Sally’s number. The phone rang and rang and rang.
No answer.
Damn. She didn’t have a cell phone. She hated the things. He should have insisted. He looked at his watch. Seven in the morning. She should be there.
He had been awake all night, reviewing the meeting he’d had earlier in the day with his superior. He had, more or less, been ordered to change his recommendation. He hadn’t agreed. He hadn’t disagreed. But he knew it was damned wrong, and could well come back to bite them all in the ass. The sale of those vehicles would mean one more dictator could more easily slaughter his people. He just wasn’t sure how far he would go to deny it.
Jordan, damn it. He suspected he would have another call from the man today.
That was one call he planned to avoid.
He did hope Flaherty would call.
And where in the devil was Sally?
He felt like a juggler who had lost control. Balls were bouncing all over the damned place.
Fifteen minutes later he strode into his office. His secretary wasn’t there. Sally was.
She looked terrible. She wore no makeup, and her clothes were wrinkled. She was in his arms before he could say anything. He held her for a moment, then pulled back. “Why are you here?”
Broken Honor Page 24