by Dana Marton
He looked as dazed as she felt. But then his gaze hardened. “Stay away from Mitch.”
“Like I need to be told that? Do I look stupid?”
He let his gaze travel the length of her body. “You look—” He bit off the sentence, then shook his head as if awakening from a dream. “I better get going. I want you to stay here until I get back. Your place isn’t safe.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the mansion to search the Congressman’s private quarters. He’s at a reception with his wife. They shouldn’t be back before midnight.”
“How do you know?” Even she wasn’t privy to Wharton’s schedule. Only Nick had that, and the Congressman’s constant personal two-man detail.
Troy gave an easy grin. “I have my ways.”
She tucked in her shirt that had come loose while she’d slept. “I’m coming with you.”
He pulled to full height and flashed her a discouraging frown. “No way.”
* * *
Nothing on this op had gone right, from the beginning, Troy thought the next day as he did surveillance on the mansion, parked at the end of the street in a road survey van he’d received from the Bureau for the day.
The inside search the night before had been a wash. He’d ended up taking Claire with him. She turned out to have a stubborn core, which didn’t surprise him in the least. She had been useful, with her thorough knowledge of the place and all. But they hadn’t been able to look as thoroughly as they’d wanted to. The Congressman’s wife had developed a headache and stayed home, messing up their plans.
He pushed his frustration aside. Claire was on house duty today, inside the mansion at last. He kept track of who was coming and going, and tried to follow the ones he found suspicious, to see if they might lead him somewhere interesting. He watched an arriving white SUV, his thoughts returning to Claire as he jotted down the license plate number into the notebook next to him.
She’d slept on his boat last night. That had been the deal they’d struck. He agreed to let her go on the night op with him, if she admitted that her apartment wasn’t safe.
He’d slept in one of the tilt back deck chairs on top, which didn’t make his cracked ribs happy.
There hadn’t been any further kissing, which kept the rest of him unhappy as well. Even while he knew that staying away from her was the right thing to do—no doubt about that.
He couldn’t believe he’d given into impulse and had kissed her in the first place. He hadn’t meant to push her. She’d been pushed before, and she’d run all the way to the Army to get away from guys like that.
Except, he wasn’t a guy like that. He didn’t mean to kiss her so abruptly, without warning. Desire had overridden his brain; which was the excuse every damned jerk out there used. Shit.
When she’d mentioned Mitch Wharton, the bolt of jealousy that had shot through him defied reason. She might have been the first woman to have awakened something in him since Nicky had died, but Claire Montgomery wasn’t his, and he needed to remember that. She didn’t want him. She didn’t want or need anyone; she’d made that perfectly clear.
He was lucky she was still talking to him. She was a professional. She had promised to help, so she would see this mission to the end. But he might have killed the budding friendship that had somehow formed between them when they hadn’t been looking. He hoped not. He enjoyed her company, both on and off the job.
His phone buzzed in his shirt pocket. He figured the FBI, but saw a text message from Claire, instead. PCs and file boxes loaded into white SUV. She also gave the plate number, just in case.
He turned on the engine and waited. Could be Wharton was trying to have evidence destroyed. Could be he was donating old stuff to charity.
The white SUV pulled through the gate, two men in the front. Troy waited a few seconds before he followed them. After a couple of turns, he was fairly sure they were heading toward the same shipyard where he’d been taken before, so he fell farther back to make sure they didn’t spot him.
And sure enough, the men did stop in front of the shipyard twenty minutes later, waited until the gate was raised for them, then drove through. Troy pulled up to the security guard in the weather-beaten shack.
“Here to see about the job. They said I could go straight back to the office.”
The man looked over his road crew service van.
“Getting laid off next week.” Troy put as much resentment into his voice as he could.
The man nodded and raised the gate.
Since the white SUV had stopped in front of what looked like a warehouse, Troy drove in a different direction and looped around the offices so he wouldn’t look suspicious. He parked out of sight, then walked closer. The SUV was gone. Must have driven into the warehouse through one of the doors that had RECEIVABLES written above it.
He scanned the area, the dozen or so people out by the boats who minded their own business, and the guy who was stacking pallets nearby with a forklift. Nobody seemed to pay attention to him, so he rounded the building, trying to get close enough to a window to look inside.
Unfortunately, all the windows stood way too high above the ground. He lucked out by finding some empty oil drums stacked against the back wall. He looked around again. Nobody would see him back here. He climbed the barrels to the window, carefully so they wouldn’t bang against the corrugated steel siding and give him away.
Abandoned machinery and boxes occupied most of the space inside, crates piled against the walls. More steel drums stood in the middle of the large warehouse, and next to them what looked like five-gallon jugs of gasoline.
The men unloaded the contents of the SUV. Troy called his FBI liaison and gave his location, asked for immediate backup. Then he picked up the barrel next to him, threw it through the window and, gun drawn, vaulted in after it.
The two men immediately opened fire on him, squatting in the cover of their vehicle.
The easiest way to take them out would have been to hit the fuel tank, but the explosion would have destroyed all the evidence they’d piled up just a few feet from the car. Troy dashed behind the cover of a wide stack of crates and did his best to come up with another plan.
To his right, a row of used boat motors lined the ground, probably waiting for repair. They wouldn’t provide any cover. To his left, a stack of stained cardboard boxes stood about five feet high, containing screws according to the label--a much better alternative. That, at least, could stop a bullet.
He shot in the direction of the men as he dove behind the boxes. And managed to land on the shoulder he’d dislocated two days ago. He shook off the pain and looked at the industrial lighting that hung on steel chains from the ceiling. From his new position, he could shoot that chain and bring the whole damn thing down on those bastards.
Except, even as he prepared to do just that, the men split up, one guy dashing left, and the other one to the right. They kept Troy’s hiding place peppered with shots as they went. By the time he could stick his head out again, he could no longer see either of them. But he knew what they were doing. They were trying to circle back on him.
He shot at the chains and the light fixture crashed with a loud noise onto the SUV, shattering windows and folding the roof down enough so nobody could get in on the driver’s side. At least now they wouldn’t be able to use the vehicle to ram him or to get away.
He pulled a box from the bottom of the pile next to him as quietly as he could. He hadn’t been Jenga champion at the farm for nothing when he’d been a kid. He flattened himself into the space, then pulled the box in to cover him. The boxes hadn’t been lined up neatly, just piled up as workers had carried them in. One sticking out a little wouldn’t be that obviously noticeable in the haphazard mess.
He waited, listening for an opportunity.
“Where is he?” a shout rang out to his right, but not close enough.
He hoped at least one of the men would walk by closer than that. He listened for the scraping so
unds their shoes made on the cement floor.
They were searching through the warehouse, eliminating potential hiding places. Then one of them did stop right by him. Troy kicked the box aside and rolled out of the hole, just as the man was spinning around, his own weapon drawn. The two shots went off almost simultaneously.
Except the goon had missed and Troy hadn’t.
He grabbed the dead guy’s gun, then ran to the back and ducked behind some metal shelving. He progressed along the wall, keeping in cover. He needed to get closer to the evidence so he could secure it.
A shot rang out and hit the wall by his head. He ducked, scanning the place, but couldn’t see the man. He moved forward, got shot at again. Okay. That gave him a rough idea. Next time, as he moved forward he shot in the direction he thought the man was hiding. That kept the bastard tucked away, so Troy could reach the next bit of good cover, a large metal container.
“FBI,” he called out. “Throw out your weapon, put your hands on your head and slowly come forward.”
“Eat shit,” came the response, the man’s voice betraying his exact location behind a double file cabinet.
Troy squeezed off a shot, hoping the bullet would go right through and hit something vital. No such luck. The man didn’t cry out in pain. In fact, he laughed.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s in those file boxes you brought here to destroy?” Troy positioned himself, so he could dive forward.
“Doughnuts. Why don’t you call your cop buddies and have a party?”
As if the words had conjured them, sirens sounded in the distance.
Troy relaxed. Okay, they had him now. “Sounds like you got your wish,” he told the man. “Listen, I take you out of here in handcuffs and all will be well. If the FBI storms the building, anything can happen. There’ll be a lot of bullets flying.”
“Go to hell.”
“How about you go first and send me a postcard?”
The man stepped from cover and came at him, guns blaring. Where did he get the second weapon? Troy shot back before he crouched down behind cover.
This time, he did hit the idiot. Not that a single bullet could stop him. The man swore and kept firing.
The sirens sounded right outside now.
Troy darted to the left and ducked behind the SUV to use it for cover. He reached up and adjusted the side mirror so he could see without having to pop up and make himself a target.
The guy kept coming, squeezing off a hail of bullets. They were ricocheting off the cement floor, coming too close for comfort. Since he couldn’t just stay down and hope for the best, Troy popped up and took the man out with a single shot to the chest.
Straight through the heart.
The fight was over.
But as the man fell, he squeezed the trigger one more time. Whether he’d aimed for it or not, he hit the SUV’s fuel tank.
Troy flew through the air as the explosion shook the building. Flames licked his skin, heat seared his lungs, smoke clouded his vision. Time slowed, then sped up again, his body slamming into the cement floor that was covered with sharp chunks of metal and burning debris.
* * *
Since she couldn’t contact him through his cell phone and he didn’t show up at her apartment after her shift had ended, Claire went to see him. And found Troy lying in bed below deck.
His thick, dark hair was singed, his face scraped. He held his body stiffly.
“Hope the other guy looks worse,” she said lightly, even as anger bubbled up inside her. Anger and a sense of protectiveness, which was strange. It wasn’t as if they’d been partners forever. But he was a decent man, on the side of good. And, not the least, an excellent kisser. She hated to see him in this shape.
She wanted to reach out to him, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t like to be fussed over. She shoved her hands into her pockets.
“The other guys are dead,” he rasped.
“Good.” She felt nothing but satisfaction at that. “And the stuff they took from the mansion?”
“The evidence and I got blown up a little. There’s a phone number for Chinese delivery on the fridge,” he continued smoothly.
She swallowed the worry that had bubbled up her throat. “What, you’re going to laze around in bed all night, instead of cooking?” she joked, because if she didn’t, she would have had to cry at the sight of him. “I guess the honeymoon is over.”
“I’ll be up in a minute. The Congressman and his wife are going out again tonight. We get another crack at their private quarters.” He struggled to sit. “Damned nurse shot me up with drugs when she cleaned my burns. I don’t like it.”
The sheet slid off him, revealing a pile of bandages next to him on the bed. “What’s that?”
He pulled the sheet back over them and flashed a completely fake smile that she supposed he’d meant to be reassuring.
“Troy?”
“I looked like a freaking mummy. I didn’t want you to lose confidence.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I didn’t unwrap the burns on my leg.”
Now that he was sitting, naked to the waist, she could see that his torso was all black and blue in between lacerations. “You broke those cracked ribs, didn’t you?”
“Maybe a couple.”
Macho idiot. She spotted a box of brand new bandages on the table and brought them over. “I’m taping your ribs back up.”
“Okay.” Relief laced the single word. “I kind of regret undoing that.”
She shook her head as she began, her arms around him, the scent of iodine in her nose, and beyond that a more masculine scent, his. Even the extensive bruises and scrapes did little to distract from his lean muscles. She noted the older scars all across his six-pack abs. His body was a mixture of masculine beauty and destruction, a strange combination that reached her the way sheer perfection could never have. She ran her thumb over a particularly thick older scar.
“That must have been pretty bad.” She didn’t need to explain that she was talking about the explosion that had killed his fiancée.
He held her gaze. “I seem to be making a habit out of nearly getting blown to pieces.”
“How bad was it?”
“I died. The paramedics brought me back. I wasn’t happy about that at the time.”
“And now?”
He put his hand on top of hers and trapped it against his chest. “Is there a pity kiss somewhere in this for me?”
She bit back a laugh. Pity was definitely not on the list of things she was feeling for him: attraction, exasperation, confusion…
He leaned closer, his lips a hair’s breadth from hers.
She could feel the heat that radiated off his body. She held her breath.
“There’s something about you,” he murmured.
“That’s the painkillers talking.”
“You look like the kind of woman who could distract a man from a fair amount of pain.”
“I’m the kind of woman who could cause a man a fair amount of pain,” she corrected.
He gave a strangled laugh then dipped his head and took her mouth.
This so wasn’t why she’d come here, she thought hazily as instant pleasure washed over her. She wasn’t ready for getting tangled with a man. Especially with this man. Although, at the moment, he didn’t look to be up to serious tangling, which somehow quieted her nerves enough that she could fully enjoy the kiss.
It’d been so long; she’d forgotten how good a man’s mouth could feel on hers. Or maybe it’d never felt this good before.
His stomach growled, interrupting the scary thought that he was somehow special to her and that he was beginning to mean something.
She pulled away. “Let me call for that food.”
“Dinner can wait.” His gaze darkened, betraying another kind of hunger.
Since every cell of her body responded to that, she fled.
~~~***~~~
Chapter Six
She snuck through the mansion, the e
arpiece Troy had given her in her right ear, a new security earpiece in the left, so she would hear if any of the guards noticed anything amiss. Troy sat in his black SUV in the golf shop’s parking lot, close enough to step in if she met with any trouble.
That had been a battle not easily won. He’d wanted to come in with her. He was just stubborn enough to attempt scaling the wall even with his broken ribs. She had to bargain hard to hold him back, and promised him all kinds of idiotic things like staying on his boat until the op was over and then finding a different apartment in a safer neighborhood after that.
She couldn’t fathom why he would care. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that a few kisses, extraordinary as they were, meant they had something between them.
“Entering the bedroom suite on the second floor,” she said, glad that she had all the security override codes. She pushed in the door. “It’s empty.”
As it should be. They’d seen the Congressman leave in his limo with his wife an hour earlier.
“Look for a wall safe,” Troy suggested through their connection.
“Might take a while. Looks like the national gallery in here.” The bedroom suite sprawled over a thousand square feet, and included a sitting area with a fire place, plus an extensive reading nook, in addition to the California king, four-poster bed that had steps leading up to it.
A state-of-the-art entertainment unit took up one wall, from floor to ceiling. The rest of the walls were covered with oil paintings in elaborate antique frames. She looked behind every one of them. “No wall safe in the bedroom.”
“How about a desk?”
“Everything but.”
“Not even a dressing table?”
“Maybe in the dressing room.” She moved that way.
The door stood half open, revealing a closet that promised to be larger than her entire apartment. She pushed into the dark space. The blinds on the windows were drawn here. She reached for her flashlight, closed the door behind her before she flicked it on. Then gasped.
“Did you find something?”
“Just where the national budget has gone.” She panned the light over rows and rows of designer shoes. All men’s. Then suits. Then tuxes. A display of Rolex watches. The Congressman’s clothes and accessories filled at least three quarters of the closet, leaving the back wall for his wife’s things.