Code Name: Willow

by Paula Graves

  She closed her eyes, trying to still the sudden thunder of her pulse. God please, she thought. Please don't let me turn back into that foolish little girl who fell for her bodyguard.

  His voice swept over her like a caress, hammering at the walls around her heart she was desperately trying to shore up. "If I help you break the law, it's big trouble for me, too."

  She opened her eyes to look at him, her gut tightening.

  "I have a lot to lose. My license. My gun permit." His dry, reasonable words drove away the warmth his touch had created. Barricades went up around her heart, easing her fears even as her body went cold with despair.

  Jack was right. She knew he was. Her actions would have grave consequences for everyone involved, and it wasn't like Jack was some old friend she could depend on to help her out no matter what. She'd have to make it worth his while.

  After all, he'd been paid to protect her before.

  She straightened. "I'm not asking you to do this for free. I can get you money when it's over. You know that."

  A dark look passed over his face. "I'm not putting you off here to jack up my fee."

  She swallowed a rush of angry disappointment. "So you're really not going to help me."

  He didn't speak, but she saw the answer in his eyes. Her heart dropped, weighted down by disillusionment she hadn't even realized she was capable of feeling anymore.

  Why had she ever thought he could fix things for them? She should have known better; that kind of trust in other people went against everything she'd learned over the past ten years.

  Everything Jack himself had taught her.

  She had to think of Remy. Three weeks ago, she'd convinced the scared boy to tell the police what he'd seen. Remy had wanted to keep his mouth shut and stay away from trouble. But Maggie had convinced him to tell the truth, to trust the authorities to do the right thing.

  He'd been burned. So had she. By the cops she'd trusted to do right by Remy—and now by the man she given one last chance to help her.

  Nobody was going to help them. She understood that now.

  Remy glared at Jack, his expression a blend of fear and disappointment. Maggie pulled her hand from Jack's and touched Remy's thin forearm. He twitched, his dark eyes darting to meet hers. She tried to speak reassurance with her own gaze as she turned to Jack. "Okay, go call the police."

  Remy jerked, but she dug her fingers into his arm.

  Jack released a gusty sigh. "I'll be right back." He stood, reaching out to brush back a strand of hair hanging in Maggie's eyes. Her cheek tingled at the passing graze of his fingertips. She steeled herself against the sensation.

  Make the call from your office, she willed.

  She watched with relief as he disappeared through the door to his office. The second he was out of sight, she stood, pulling Remy to his feet.

  She kept her voice low. "Let's get out of here."

  Chapter 2

  A furtive scraping sound caught Jack's attention as he picked up the phone. What the—? He slammed the phone down and ran to the outer office, finding it empty. The front door stood wide open, rain slanting inside.

  He reached to the door in time to see Maggie and her "kidnap victim" skid to a halt by the blue Corolla parked at the curb. He shouted over the drumbeat of the rain. "Marguerite!"

  Fumbling with her keys, she didn't look up. On the passenger side, Remy hopped and jiggled like a wind-up toy, darting frightened looks in Jack's direction.

  Jack went for the easy target, reaching Remy as Maggie got the car door open. The kid struggled like a puppy, but Jack subdued him effortlessly and glared at Maggie over the top of the car. "What kind of stunt are you pulling here, Marguerite?"

  "I knew we couldn't trust you!" she cried.

  "Oh, grow up!" He jerked his head toward the open door of the office. "Get back inside before we attract attention."

  She glared at him, slammed the car door shut and marched up the cobblestone walk to the office building.

  Jack followed, Remy in tow, alert in case she decided to make another run for it. He set the boy down inside the door, tamping down the urge to thump the back of the kid's head. He locked the door and picked up their discarded towels, tossing one to each of them. "Dry yourselves."

  Maggie refused look at him. Just as well. He was in no mood to be guilt-tripped out of his anger by her "poor me" act. Obviously she hadn't changed as much as he'd hoped.

  Maggie removed a wad of money from her jeans pocket and waved it. "Should've known you'd want the money up front."

  "Willow—"

  "Don't call me that." She put her arm around Remy, pulling the shivering boy closer to her. "Do you want my money or not?"

  "It's not about money—"

  She jammed the money into her pocket. "Oh, right. You can't risk it." The words came out in a low sneer.

  "You shouldn't risk it, either."

  Her cold eyes met his. "Let us go, then. Call the cops and cover your butt if you want. But let us get a running start."

  "I'm not your enemy."

  Tears sparkled in her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. "Then protect us. I need help, Jack."

  He studied the upturned nose and black-coffee eyes, and wondered why he hadn't recognized her the second she walked in. The party girl trappings were gone, but Marguerite remained, vulnerability wrapped in a prickly coat of independence. And just like ten years ago, he was a sucker for the fear roiling beneath the mirror-like surface of her dark eyes.

  His answer spilled from his lips in a rush. "Okay."

  As soon as he spoke, he regretted it. Every instinct screamed "mistake." Twenty years in the Secret Service had taught him the perils of bending the rules, hadn't they? Every time it happened, people got hurt. So why did he just tell Marguerite he'd help her evade the police?

  Damn those eyes brimming with a blend of wariness and hope, like a puppy that craved affection but knew deep down that a blow would be her reward for daring to trust.

  He'd seen the same look in her eyes the first day they met, just after Jimmy's funeral. Lost and vulnerable, she'd made him forget the first rule of being a Secret Service agent—don't get emotionally involved. He'd touched her shoulder, offering sympathy. Two fat tears had trickled down her cheeks before she turned to stone and told him to go to hell.

  And that had been one of the better days.

  Jack shoved away the memory. Secret Service rules were there for a reason. If he was going to help Marguerite survive this mess, he had to think like an agent, not a friend. "Do the New Orleans cops know you're involved in Remy's disappearance?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "I think so."

  "Then there'll be an A.P.B. out for your car." He held out his hand. "Give me the keys. I'll move it out back for you. There's a shower in my office; go take a hot shower and change into whatever dry clothes you can find. Remy, you keep guard."

  "Is this some kind of trick?" Remy scowled at him.

  Jack met Maggie's uncertain gaze. "You have my word, Willow." He held out his hands for her keys.

  "Your word. Big whoop." Remy remained unimpressed.

  "Enough, Remy." Maggie handed the keys to Jack, her fingers brushing his. Sparks shot up his arm. His breath caught in his lungs. Forcing himself to move, he headed out to the Corolla parked at the curb and tried to ignore his body's sudden quickening.

  Everything in Jack's bathroom was geared for a man, from the utilitarian tub and jumbo bar of musky deodorant soap to the off-brand shampoo in the plastic shower caddy. But a shower was a shower. Maggie leaned against the tiles as hot water peppered her body. The resulting tingles drove away the shivers, leaving her feeling warm and relaxed and—

  —safe?

  He'd given his word. Whatever else she might think of Jack Bennett, she knew he didn't give his word lightly.

  The warm, masculine smell of his soap brought back memories of her Tribeca apartment ten years ago. It always smelled like Jack, though he spent as little time there as he could. He
and the rest of her security detail let apartments on either side of hers. God, how her father had fumed at the exorbitant rents to keep the agents within earshot if trouble came knocking.

  And one night, trouble came knocking with a battering ram.

  Blame it on New York. Or three years of living in the White House fishbowl. Or the five shots of Jim Beam she'd downed in quick succession to win the barroom bet. But when she slipped a stranger her phone number, it hadn't occurred to her that he'd use the number to find out where she lived.

  Jack had come to the rescue before the stranger—a parolee with a string of violent robberies on his record—could do more than push past her feeble efforts to keep him out. Only later had ol' eagle-eyed Jack confronted her about slipping the man her number. Of course he'd seen it. He saw everything.

  Knowing her father would cut off her funds and force her back home to Washington if he knew, she'd begged Jack to keep that information out of the official Secret Service record. And he'd given in, though he'd risked his job to do so, a fact that had occurred to Maggie only later, when she started to think of him as more than just a goon with a gun raining on her parade.

  No wonder he was wary, she thought, cutting off the water.

  She wrapped herself in a fluffy towels and went searching for clothes. She found a pair of boxer shorts and a white T-shirt in the bathroom closet. She cinched the drawstring of the oversized shorts and hoped for the best.

  Jack and Remy turned when she entered the office. Remy's grin eclipsed his whole face. "Nice shorts, Doc."

  Jack moved past the boy and approached Maggie, his scrutiny like phantom fingers sliding over her skin. "Feeling better?"

  "Much. No more shivers." Not from the cold, anyway.

  "I traded your license plates for mine," Jack said. "We'll take your car to my house and leave mine parked here."

  "Your house?" She hadn't thought beyond getting Jack to help, hadn't considered that he might have a wife and family he'd have to explain their presence to. She forced a casual smile. "No Mrs. Bennett? Or is she particularly good-natured?"

  Jack's eyes narrowed slightly. "No Mrs. Bennett."

  So Laura Sandoval hadn't kept her perfectly manicured claws in his hide after all, Maggie thought. Good for Jack.

  "A motel probably isn't safe enough. So, my house. We could all use some shut-eye." He gestured toward the back office. "I've already locked up front. We'll leave through my office." He pressed his hand against the small of her back, his fingers sliding against the sensitive skin.

  She was acutely aware of the heat of his touch through the thin cotton T-shirt as he led her to the back door.

  By midnight, Jack's house fell quiet. Remy had been asleep almost an hour, after nodding off in the middle of dinner. Jack had managed to nudge him toward the fold-out bed in the den before the boy went down for the count. Maggie had settled into the spare room for the night, leaving Jack alone at the kitchen counter, staring at the blinking display on the telephone answering machine. One New Message.

  Tonight of all nights, why had she decided to call?

  He started to punch the button again, then stopped, his finger hovering over the keypad. There were at least a hundred good reasons not to do this. He'd listened to the call the second Maggie and Remy left the kitchen to settle in for the night. He knew what she'd had to say. He should just forget about it. God knows, he had enough to deal with as it was.

  Instead, he punched the "play" button.

  "Hi, Jack, it's Laura Sandoval. Bet you never thought you'd hear from me again, huh?" Even distorted by the phone line and the digital recording, there was no mistaking the husky timbre of that voice. Still in full force after years away from the bayou, her Louisiana drawl flowed through the phone line like sun-warmed honey, reminding Jack of long, lazy nights of lovemaking.

  He stopped the message replay and slumped on the breakfast bar stool, his gaze moving to the picture window spanning the west wall. Rain obscured Mobile Bay, only the brightest of coastal lights visible in the gloom. But in his mind, he was back in his old world, in the apartment just outside D.C. He'd always loved the rainy night views from his balcony, the gray mist over the Potomac and the hazy, otherworldly glow of the monuments in the distance. That view had made his cramped one-bedroom money-pit of an apartment seem like a mansion.

  Laura had, for a while, made it feel like a home.

  He forced away the memories, conquered the temptation of the answering machine and walked down the darkened hallway to the living room. He stood for a long time in front of the living room window, gazing out at the rain-washed night and wondering how, in the span of a few short hours, he'd managed to turn back the clock on his entire life.

  Laura's phone call, out of the blue after so many years, just as he found himself entangled in another one of Marguerite Cole's messes. Unbelievable.

  Well, Laura he didn't have to deal with. He'd ended things between them years ago. Made peace with the wasted years, the bitterness of the parting. He didn't have to call her back. He could erase her message and pretend it never happened.

  Marguerite Cole wouldn't be quite so easy to ignore.

  Maggie Stone, he corrected himself. He could guess why she'd made the name change—declaring her independence from her father and the baggage that went with being the only daughter of President James Mallory Cole III.

  She was physically different, too—more curves, less eyeliner. Nor had she tried to use her abundant physical charms to bend him to her will the way she had during the year they'd been stuck with each other. Maybe because of the kid. Couldn't exactly come on like a sex-kitten with the kid watching.

  And what was the deal with the kid anyway? Did Maggie and really think he was going to buy that bull about a crooked cop?

  Maggie had never struck him as a good liar during her days in New York, but ten years was a long time. People changed. God knows, Maggie's father had been one of the most consummate actors Jack had ever known. Could be in her genes.

  Maybe the kid was the liar. Maybe he'd knocked off his foster parents and fooled Maggie into buying his story about crooked cops. Or was Maggie in on it, too? It wouldn't be the first time an older woman seduced a boy to do her dirty work—

  No. He didn't get that vibe from the two of them.

  Still, the vague, disjointed story about murder and corrupt cops they'd fed him sounded like something out of a movie. She hadn't given him names of the people involved. He didn't even know if she really worked at a youth counseling center. The only evidence supporting any of their story was the Louisiana license plate he'd switched from the Corolla to his own Beretta.

  How many laws had he already broken for Naughty Marguerite?

  He dragged himself off the breakfast bar stool and went to the living room, booting up his notebook computer. Online, he started with the news sites to see if there was anything about the former president's daughter kidnapping a New Orleans youth. But he found nothing.

  He closed his eyes. Everything tonight had moved so quickly. Too quickly. He should have asked more questions.

  A soft creak behind him made him jerk upright.

  "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you." Maggie's voice was little more than a whisper in the dark. Light from the street lamps outside outlined her body with a golden glow, burnishing the soft waves of her honey-brown hair. She still wore his plain white t-shirt and boxers. Below the bottom cuffs of the shorts, her legs went on for miles.

  She moved close enough for him to feel the heat of her body and smell her warm, sleepy scent. The masculine aroma of his soap and shampoo lingered on her skin and in her hair, transformed to something rich and lush and female.

  His body tightened with hunger.

  Was this why he'd agreed to help her? Sheer, animal lust?

  "I couldn't sleep." She moved past him to the window and rested her forehead against the rain-blurred pane.

  He took a deep breath, fighting to get his heart rate under control. Business, he thought. Co
ncentrate on business. "Tell me what you haven't told me, Marguerite."

  She turned her head slowly. "How much time do you have?"

  Her skin looked like velvet. It was all he could do not to touch her to see if she was as soft as she looked. His year with naughty Marguerite had required him to exert a lot of self-control, not all of it to keep from killing her.

  He turned on the floor lamp next to the window. The golden light chased shadows to the corners of the living room. "I have all night if you need it."

  Her brow furrowed. "What do you want to know?"

  I want to know whether or not you're lying to me, he thought. Aloud, he said, "Everything."

  "I guess I should start with Remy."

  "He's a patient at your clinic, you said."

  "Derrieaux Street Counseling Center. Substance abuse intervention and counseling, pregnancy prevention counseling, free psych screening—that kind of thing. The city started referring local foster children to the center because we have a good reputation for family counseling and facilitation."

  He nodded. "Remy's a foster child."

  She sat on the love seat, tucking her legs under her. "He's a tough case—his parents won't give up their parental rights and the state so far refuses to mandate it, but they're both substance abusers who aren't likely to clean up their acts before Remy reaches the age of majority. Meanwhile, he's been bounced from foster home to foster home since he was seven."

  Jack sat next to her on the love seat. "Why doesn't someone declare his parents unfit and let him get settled?"

  "Good question." She sighed. "But I can't think about whys. It makes me crazy and keeps me from doing my job."

  "You're a counselor?"

  "I run the center. I finished my PhD in psychology a few years ago and took the job in New Orleans."

  PhD? There'd been a time when he wasn't sure she'd ever get through her first year of grad school. Assuming any of this is true, the nagging voice in his head reminded him. "You deal directly with the patients?"