Seal Team Ten

by Brockmann, Suzanne

  Her eyes were alight with intelligent wit, her mouth quick to smile. Her laughter was contagious, and her body...

  Jake let himself look, for just a second, at Dr. Zoe Lange's near-perfect body. Her legs were long, her jeans slightly loose on her hips and thighs. She was not partic­ularly tall, not particularly short, but average wasn't a word that could ever be used to describe her. Her arms were well-toned, lithe. She was trim in all the right places, and, God, all right, yes, he was a breast man, and she had a body that pushed all his buttons in a very big way. Her T-shirt clung to her full figure enticingly, making her demure little flow­ered print look decadent and sexy.

  In a flash, in his mind's eye, Jake saw her, tumbled back on his bed with him, her T-shirt and jeans gone, his mouth locked on hers, her perfect breasts filling his palms, his body buried deeply inside her as they moved together and...

  Oh God, oh God, oh God. Sheer wanting slammed into him so hard he nearly gasped aloud. But that wanting was followed just as quickly by guilt and shame.

  He still loved Daisy. How could he still love Daisy and want someone else so badly?

  Sweet Lord, he missed her so much.

  The hole in his gut that he'd been trying to heal for nearly three years tore wide open.

  And he released Zoe's hand and took a step backward, bumping awkwardly against the elevator wall. He realized almost instantly that he was well on his way to becoming completely aroused. Ah, jeez, terrific. Just what he needed—a souvenir from his little guilt trip.

  He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

  So he did neither, casually holding his briefcase in front of him.

  Zoe kept her eyes carefully on the numbers above the elevator door, and he knew she'd seen something in his eyes that embarrassed her. No wonder—he'd been eyeing her like the hungry old fox checking out the gingerbread

  girl. Good job, Robinson. Way to feel even older and nas­tier. And somehow it was even worse since his attraction was clearly one-sided.

  But when she turned toward him, she was the one who apologized. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to em­barrass you. You must get approached by people all the time and—"

  "I like it when they've done something really right with their lives—the way your father obviously did. He must be very proud of you. God knows I'd be proud as hell if you were my kid." He tried his best to sound fatherly. But all he sounded was pathetic.

  She smiled tentatively. "Well, thanks."

  The elevator opened, and this time Jake stood back, cour­teously letting her out first. She looked both ways, up and down the deserted corridor as the elevator doors closed be­hind them.

  "Exit to the street's down that way." Jake pointed. "Take the—"

  "First right," she said. "I know, thanks. Listen, Admi­ral—"

  "Jake," he said. "Please."

  "Actually, Admiral works a little better for me."

  "All right," he said quickly. "That's fine. It's not like I'm ordering you to call me Jake or anything. It's not like—"

  "I know." She tried to meet his gaze, but couldn't hold it this time. She was nervous again. "I was just... I can't help but wonder about your willingness to put yourself at risk. I mean, you've earned the right to sit back and com­mand safely from behind a desk, sir. And I can't imagine your, um, wife is very happy about your decision to go back into the field. Particularly after that assassination at­tempt a few years ago. You were in the hospital for months."

  Jake had been around long enough to recognize a fishing expedition when he heard one. But what information ex actly was Zoe Lange fishing for? Was she looking to find his motivation for taking the mission or his reason for look­ing at her as if he wanted to eat her alive?

  He had no need to hide anything from her—well, except for the extremely unprofessional fact that nearly every time he looked at her, he pictured her naked. And even if thoughts of Daisy didn't stop that, all he really had to do was think about those missing canisters of T-X. That cooled him down pretty damn instantly.

  "I know that's an extremely personal question," she continued quickly, "and you can tell me it's none of my business if you want and—"

  "Daisy, my wife, died of cancer," he told her quietly. "It'll be three years ago this Christmas."

  "Oh," she said. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

  "And I think you're probably right. If she were still alive, I'd be thinking long and hard about the risks of this mission. But even if she were still alive, I wouldn't be able to avoid the fact that I've got a connection to Christopher Vincent. I know I can get into the CRO's inner sanctions. It's just, this way, it makes the choice a complete no-brainer."

  She was looking at him with compassion in her eyes, and he glanced away, unable to bear the thought of looking closer and seeing her pity.

  "You better go pack," he said brusquely. "We go wheels up in ninety-eight minutes. If you make us wait for you, trust me, the team will never let you live it down."

  "Don't worry, Jake," she said. "I'll be the first one on the plane."

  He watched her walk away, and before she took that right corner, she looked back and gave him a smile and a little wave.

  And it wasn't until he was in his office, changing out of his ice-cream suit and into black BDUs, that he realized she'd called him Jake.

  Chapter 3

  She itched to call Peter.

  Five months ago, she would have. She would have called on a secured line and she would have said, "What does it mean—a man's been a widower for nearly three years, and he still wears his wedding ring?"

  Peter would've said, "That's obvious. He uses the ring to keep women from coming too close."

  And she would have said, "I think he still loves her."

  And Peter would've snorted and said, "Love's a myth. He just hasn't met anyone who could replace his dead wife. But you better believe when he does, that ring will come off faster than you can spit. The hell with him. What do you say you and I meet in Boston next weekend and set the Ritz Carlton aflame?"

  But that's what Peter would've said five months ago. Before he'd discovered that love was indeed not a myth.

  Her name was Marita and she was a TV news anchor based in Miami. She was of Cuban descent and lovely, but Zoe wasn't even remotely jealous. Well, maybe she was a

  _

  little jealous—but only of the fact that Peter, restless, hun­gry, insatiable, cynical superagent Peter McBride had fi­nally found complete inner peace.

  Zoe was jealous of that. She'd liked Peter—she'd even loved him more than a little, but she knew just from one conversation with him after he'd met Marita that he finally had a shot at true happiness.

  And Peter deserved that.

  Zoe had liked talking to him, liked the way he could always make her laugh. And she had liked making love with him the few times a year that their work for the Agency brought them into each other's presence.

  But she'd known from the start there could be no per­manence in their relationship. She was too like him. Too restless, too hungry, too damned insatiable, too jaded by a world bent on destroying itself.

  She hadn't spoken to Peter in five months, assuming his new bride wouldn't appreciate his getting phone calls from a former lover. But she missed his friendship. She missed talking to him.

  She missed the sex, too. It had been safe. She'd never once been in danger of completely losing her heart.

  "So," she said to Peter, even though he wasn't there, "what does it mean that I'm packing my sexiest underwear and this little black nightgown?"

  "To wear in Montana in September?" he would have mused, lifting one elegant eyebrow. "You're in trouble, Lange."

  "You wouldn't believe the way he looked at me in that elevator." Zoe closed her eyes, momentarily melting just from the heat of the memory. "Dear God, I am in trouble."

  "Doing your boss is bad office politics," Peter would have reminded her. "But on the other hand, he's not really your boss, is he? Pat Sullivan is. So, go f
or him. You've been fantasizing about the guy for years—how could you not go for him? And if he's looking at you like that... I'm surprised you didn't make a move right then and there. It

  wouldn't've taken much to disable the security cams in the elevator and..."

  "He'd been giving me go-away signals from the moment we met." She pulled her warmest sweaters from her closet shelf. Her warmest sweaters—and her skimpiest tank tops. Shorts. Her bathing suit even. It was a bikini—Rio cut. Not quite a thong, but not quite demure, either. Maybe she'd get lucky and they'd have Indian summer. "Besides, at the time I thought he was still married."

  "Ooh, there are those upright, golden, Girl Scout morals, shining through again." When Peter said it like that, it was as if it were something she should be ashamed of.

  "He seemed so embarrassed by the fact that he finds me attractive. As if it made him feel, you know, guilty." She'd come full circle. "He definitely still loves her. In his mind, he is still married."

  "So what are you going to do?" Peter would've asked.

  Zoe zipped and shouldered her bag. "He's a really good guy, Pete. I'm going to try to be his friend."

  He'd always hated it when she called him Pete. "And for that you definitely need all that underwear from Vic­toria's Secret?"

  "Six missing canisters of Trip X," she said, and Peter's evil spirit was instantly exorcised, instantly gone.

  She had a job to do. A very, very important, life-or-death job.

  Zoe grabbed her briefcase, grabbed her laptop and locked her apartment door without looking back.

  Day two. Oh-three-hundred.

  Jake had been out most of the night, silently creeping along the perimeter of the CRO compound with Cowboy Jones. Lieutenant Jones's father was a rear admiral. Jake had figured that out of everyone on the team, Jones would be most at ease with buddying up with a man of his rank.

  He'd been wrong.

  Ever since they'd inserted in Montana, his entire team

  .

  had been treating him with kid gloves. Let me carry that for you, Admiral. I'll take care of that, Admiral. Why don't you just stand aside and let me handle that, Admiral. Sit down, Admiral. You're getting in the way.

  Well, okay. No one had said that last bit, but Jake knew they'd been thinking it.

  Even Billy Hawken, the closest thing to a son Jake had ever been blessed with, had pulled Jake aside to tell him in a low voice that the technological advances in the sur­veillance gear in just the past few years had changed both the hardware and the software completely. If Jake needed any help understanding the readouts or if he needed any assistance with the equipment, Billy was standing by.

  And no doubt if Jake needed helped cutting his food, Billy would do that for him, too.

  What, was he suddenly ninety years old? And hell, even if he was ninety years old, that didn't automatically mean his brain had turned to oatmeal.

  As they'd done the sneak and peek, Jones kept asking him if he'd seen enough, if he'd wanted to turn around and head back to camp.

  The night had been crisply cold, but Jake had wanted to examine every square inch of the CRO compound he could see from the outer fence. He'd squinted through his night-vision glasses until his head had ached, and then he'd squinted some more. He'd done a complete circuit, and he'd lingered longer than he otherwise might have at the main gate, simply to show Jones he was capable of doing a complete, thorough job.

  Except Lucky and Wes had been sent after them, to see what was holding them up. Jake and Cowboy had run into the pair on the trail. It was obvious that his team had sent them out as a search-and-rescue party to drag the old ad­miral in from wherever he'd gotten himself entangled in barbed wire.

  It was discouraging, to say the least.

  Jake needed these men to trust him. He needed their support, one hundred percent.

  Because he was going in there. He'd figured out a plan— and Zoe Lange's somewhat different surveillance tonight had given him cause to believe it would work.

  She sat across from him now, in the main trailer.

  Bobby and Wes had gotten hold of four beat-up old rec­reational vehicles that afternoon, and the SEALs had al­ready outfitted them with enough surveillance equipment to make a destroyer sit low in the water. They were parked in a KOA campground fifteen miles south of Belle—just a group of happy campers, in town to do some hunting.

  Zoe stood up and opened the refrigerator, helping herself to a can of soda. Something without caffeine. She didn't look tired despite the late hour, but then again, he hadn't expected her to.

  Jake had been taking care to keep his distance from her from the moment he'd stepped on the plane at Andrews. He hadn't gotten too close, had barely let himself look at her. But he allowed himself to watch her now as she spoke.

  "The name of the bar is Mel's, and it's owned by Hal— Harold—Francke, spelled with a c-k-e. I didn't meet him. Apparently he doesn't come in often on Wednesday nights. The waitress I did meet was named Cindy Allora. She said Hal's always looking for new hired help." She smiled. "I guess he's a dirty old man with a wandering pair of hands, and the turnover rate of waitresses at Mel's is high."

  A dirty old man. Jake tried not to wince visibly as she sat at the table.

  Zoe looked different tonight. The flower-print T-shirt was gone. She was dressed all in black. Slim black flares, black boots, black hooded sweatshirt that slipped off one shoulder to reveal her smooth tanned skin and a body-hugging black tank top, its thin straps unable to hide the straps of her black bra.

  She was wearing quite a bit of makeup, too. Dark liner around her eyes, thick mascara, deep red on her lips. She

  wore her hair down, loose and windswept around her shoul­ders.

  She looked dangerous. Wild. Completely capable. And sexy as hell. Hal Francke would hire her on the spot. And then he'd be all over her.

  "Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Jake said. "Maybe you could get a job working checkout at the supermarket."

  She lifted an eyebrow lazily. "And I could communicate with you by semaphore flags when you came into town?" She leaned forward slightly. "You know as well as I do the CRO men come to town and go to the bar. Only the women go into the supermarket."

  Jake refused to let himself look down her shirt. He kept his gaze staunchly focused on her dark brown eyes. "It just...it seems unfair. A scientist of your knowledge and ability. I'm not only asking you to wait tables, but virtually guaranteeing you're going to get groped as well."

  She laughed. "You haven't worked with women much, have you, sir?"

  "Not as team leader, no."

  "Let's just say if it happens, it won't be the first time I've been groped while on assignment. And if letting Hal Francke cop a feel in the back alley helps keep me where I'll be of most assistance to you..." She spread her hands in a shrug.

  Jake laughed in dismay. "God. You're serious."

  "It's no big deal." She took a sip of her soda. "You know, Jake, I just don't take sex as seriously as I think you do."

  Sex. God. How did their conversation get onto that topic? She was more than just dressed differently tonight, she was looking at him differently, too. Just a few days ago he'd felt bad because there hadn't been a bit of attraction in her eyes. Now she was holding his gaze rather pointedly. Now she was smiling just a little bit too warmly.

  It made him nervous as hell.

  And they were talking about sex. But he couldn't steer

  the conversation in a safer direction. Not yet. First he had to ask. "Are you telling me you'd sleep with this guy?"

  "I think of my body as just another of my assets," she told him, a small smile playing about the corners of her lips. "I don't mind showing it off if it gets me closer to my goal, It's amusing, actually, to see the way men can be manipulated—" she leaned closer again and lowered her voice "—just by the whispered suggestion of sex." She laughed, and her eyes seemed to sparkle. "Look at you. Even you aren't immune."

  "Me? I'm... I'm..." Hi
s face was heating in a blush, as if he were fourteen again. How did she know? He'd been purposely playing it super cool. Mr. Extra Laid Back. It had required superhuman effort, but he hadn't looked down her shirt. His gaze slid there now, and he quickly shut his eyes. "I'm only human." Damn, and he'd been trying so hard not to be.

  "Try human male," she said, laughter in her voice. "I swear, men fall into one of two categories. You have the men who are totally controlled by sex, and you have the men—like you—who spend all their time trying to protect women from the men who are totally controlled by sex. Either way, it's a complete manipulation."

  She stood up, peeling off her sweatshirt. "I walk into Mel's bar dressed in my little tank top. You're sitting at the bar, and maybe you're not controlled by sex per se. Maybe you don't catch sight of me in the mirror and try to imagine me naked."

  Jake did his best not to react. How could she know? There was no way she could have read his mind.

  She sat next to him, sliding onto the bench beside him. "Maybe I sit down next to you and you glance over, and you think, gee, what's that nice woman doing in here alone? Maybe you don't notice what I'm wearing, maybe it has no effect on you, and you think, gee, she has pretty eyes." Her smile clearly said, yeah, right. "And you look up, and you notice about five big drunk guys getting ready

  to approach me, and you think, she's not going to like it when those clowns put their hands all over her. And you stand up, you move closer. You're ready to save the day."

  She smiled. "Like it or not, notice 'em or not, babe, you've just been manipulated by my breasts."

  Jake had to laugh. He put his head in his hands.

  "God, the awful thing is that you're absolutely right. I just never thought of it that way." He looked at her from between his fingers. "Look, we need to focus on how you're going to get that waitressing job at Mel's, and what's going to happen after you're established there."

  She stood up, slipping her sweatshirt over her shoulders. "Cindy invited me to a party at her friend Monica's house on Saturday afternoon. Hal Francke is going to be there. I thought it would be smart to manipulate him into approach­ing and asking me to work for him. That way if anyone in the CRO gets suspicious and starts checking into me, they'll find out I'm just another girl Hal found at some party. It's a little less suspect than if I go into Mel's and fill out a job application."