Down to the Wire

by Lyn Stone

  There would be a good fifty or sixty miles between where he worked and where she was now. His job would entail a lot of travel. No real reason they should have to see one another ever again. Unless he made a dedicated effort to find her, she wouldn’t be easy to locate. That was the plan. She certainly didn’t want him phoning her casually, asking how she was, keeping himself in the forefront of her mind.

  “If you’re gonna daydream instead of finishing that and unpacking, I’m out of here. Sebastian’s short-handed and needs me back in Atlanta. I’m getting this cast off next week.”

  “That’s too soon! What about therapy for that leg?” Martine demanded to know. “You need to be at full strength before you tackle another assignment.”

  “Yes, bossy-britches. It’s strong enough now to kick your little butt if you get embroiled in anything else as hair-raising as your last escapade.” He stood up and tossed his bottle into the trash. “So behave yourself.”

  “Go unearth the box with my shoes if you can find it and quit giving me orders.”

  He rounded the table, cast thumping, roughly mussed her hair and went into the other room to begin unpacking. Martine felt a tear leak out the corner of one eye. She would miss him when he went home. Her aloneness would be more complete then than ever before.

  But missing her brother would be nothing at all compared to how she would miss Joe. How she missed him even now. She ached for him, longed for the touch of those long, strong fingers, that buff body, that deep sexy voice breathing Spanish love words in her ear.

  Maybe she had become too much like her mother after all in spite of her determination not to. No way could she ever allow a man to become her whole world, her reason for being. Especially not a man who was fully capable of enforcing his will on her. Joe would never use force, but he could be way too persuasive. She had been right on the edge of suggesting compromise when she realized if she gave an inch, he’d surely grab the proverbial mile. She had to do what she had to do and that was that.

  From now on she would spend her free hours arranging this place to suit her, making it a comfortable home where she could be happy with her own company.

  The rest of the time, she would dedicate to the work. The job was tailor-made for someone like her. What she would be doing was vitally important to the training of women and men who would put their lives on the line every day.

  That satisfaction would have to be enough.

  Three weeks of beach life had been more than Joe could stand. With two days left before he had to make a final decision, he bought himself a used Explorer, a few new suits and a couple of pairs of dress shoes and drove as straight to McLean as the highways allowed. He had to work. There was no denying it, no getting around it.

  Now he was enrolled in one of the advanced weapons training classes at Quantico. It was only a three-day thing. Holly had advised him he also needed to bone up on his conversational French while he was here and had signed him up for private tutoring sessions with a contract linguist.

  The French lesson had to do with the next assignment, she had said, being pretty cryptic about it. Mercier was already in place over there. Joe figured he must be slated to go over with the backup team. He certainly was eager enough to get out of the country and immerse himself in something—anything—that might take his mind off himself.

  So here he was at the Academy again, same place he had completed his DEA training years ago, this time for quick brush-up.

  Joe had donned the blue golf shirt and khaki pants, uniform for the weapons range. He wasn’t unhappy about being relegated to student status at the ripe old age of thirty-two. Nope, he had too much misery about other things than to let this training exercise bother him even a little. He lifted his blue baseball cap, ran his fingers through his closely clipped hair and then replaced the headgear, tugging the bill down to shade his eyes.

  Qualifying with anything bearing a sight and a trigger wasn’t going to be a problem. What he dreaded was the crash course in French later this afternoon. His mother was the one with the facility for grasping languages. Even though English was his mother tongue, Joe knew his Spanish was damned near perfect thanks to his dad insisting they speak it at home on alternate days for as far back as Joe could remember. But he sure wished he hadn’t goofed off during his two years of high school French. And that he hadn’t elected to study Russian at the University. Hell, nobody spoke Russian these days, even the Russians.

  With a sigh, he got off the bus that had transported him and the rest of the eager beavers to the range. They were mostly FBI vets with a few trainees from other agencies, like himself, thrown in. None were fresh recruits. The weapons they were to play with today were not the usual issue. This was the spooky stuff, some of it not yet available either in the field or on the street.

  Work was the byword in his life right now. Anything to make him forget his personal life. Or lack of one. He still hadn’t been able to locate Martine.

  He lined up with the others to await instruction. It felt strange to be part of a group of friendlies after going it alone for so long among the enemy. He hadn’t even had time to get used to working with the other five on the Sextant team and now, here he was among twenty-odd agents he didn’t know, plus the two instructors.

  His gaze drifted to those two individuals wearing the darker shirts. His heart jumped when he saw the long blond ponytail threaded through the baseball cap one of the instructors was wearing. Hair like Martine’s. God, he was seeing her everywhere he looked. Even now he couldn’t help but imagine this woman turning around to face him, Martine’s smile beaming at him, ecstatic about seeing him after nearly a month. Ha.

  Still, wishful thinking had him moving closer to her, hungrily eyeing the curve of that fine little butt in those khaki slacks, the proud set of those shoulders, the long line of that graceful neck. Damn. So like hers.

  She turned. No smile.

  Joe’s knees nearly buckled.

  “If you would, form a line, please,” she snapped, sounding very official as her gaze slid right over him to someone else. “We’ll proceed with roll call.”

  Joe must have managed to comply because she didn’t address him again except to say his name right after some guy’s called Alex Cash. And she used the same perfunctory tone of voice.

  He wanted to grab her and shake her, make her look at him, speak to him. Just to him. Explain why she’d ditched without even saying goodbye. Tell him how the hell she could have left him with a hole in his chest the size of a Florida grapefruit and a brain that wouldn’t work.

  By the time she had finished marking that stupid clipboard of hers, Joe had worked up the worst mad he’d had on since Roy McDonald had planted pot in his locker in the eleventh grade and almost got him arrested. Must have something to do with a person trying to wreck his entire life for no good reason.

  He didn’t understand a word during the entire demonstration of the new sniper rifle.

  When his turn came to fire it, he missed the target completely. He was too busy shooting daggers at Martine and hitting that particular target dead-on. She ignored him. Totally.

  Only when the male instructor who was running things dismissed the class and Martine started walking toward the vehicle parked near the bus did Joe have a chance to speak to her. He had to hustle to catch up. “Martine? Wait!”

  She halted, did a sharp, military about-face and threw up her chin. “Yes?” The clipboard hugged her chest like Kevlar. He noticed her knuckles were white.

  He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath and tilted his head to look at her. “Where the hell have you been and what are you doing here?”

  She forced a tight little smile. “Assisting the weapons instructor, obviously. Filling in. How are you, Joe? Long time, no see. How’s the family?”

  “Dammit, Martine! Why did you just take off that way?”

  “Excuse me. I have to leave.”

  “Don’t you think you owe me some answers?”

  “I don’t believ
e I owe you anything at all,” she said, calm as you please.

  They were drawing an audience, but Joe didn’t care. He started to grab her arm, but yanked his hand back and stuck it in his pocket, unsure what would happen if he touched her. He wanted to kiss her so bad he feared he might break her teeth if he did.

  “How’d you get this job? You’re not trained for it,” he said through gritted teeth. “Are you?”

  “As it happens, yes. I went through police training after college. Top graduate was sent here to the Academy. That was before Ames.”

  “You were a cop? What else haven’t you told me?” he demanded.

  “I never served as an officer. I just trained.” Her lips tightened and she glanced up at the sky. Probably praying lightning would strike him. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “What do you want from me, Joe? You know damned well I’m not going to change.”

  “Who the hell asked you to change?” he all but shouted.

  “You did! We can’t talk about this here. We shouldn’t have to talk about it at all. I know what you want and I can’t be that. It’s over. End of story.”

  “Beginning,” Joe argued, getting right in her face. “It’s just beginning, Martine.”

  She glanced around them, her fair skin reddening. “Not here, Joe,” she muttered.

  “Then where?” he demanded, shaking his head. “I’m not going away. And if you do, I won’t quit until I find you this time. Count on it.”

  The supervising instructor walked over, hands on his hips. He was a hulk of a guy, outweighed Joe by a good forty pounds and looked fairly lethal. Joe felt he could take the man apart in three seconds in his present mood.

  The hulk glanced back and forth between them. “Problem, Duquesne?”

  “No, sir. Nothing I can’t resolve, thanks.” Her gaze flicked back to Joe. “Don’t you get me fired again!” With that, she put the hulk between herself and Joe and stalked off to the car. Joe reluctantly entered the bus in which he had arrived. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

  Two hours later, still grumbling to himself about the encounter, Joe paced his temporary quarters waiting for the tutor to arrive. A sudden summer storm gathered outside. Though it had grown murky in his room, he purposely left off the lights. Maybe he would pretend to be out and simply skip the little French class.

  Like he wanted to sit here and listen to somebody tell him frontage meant cheese. He wanted to slam out of here and go find Martine, rattle some sense into her. Make her see they could work things out if she’d stop being so bullheaded and just try. But he had to cool off first so he wouldn’t blow his chance. If he hadn’t already.

  Someone knocked and he strode over to the door and yanked it open. And there she was.

  Martine wore a wry grimace as she shoved a book at him. “I had nothing to do with this arrangement. I didn’t know you were here until I got my schedule this morning.”

  Her voice sounded raspy as if she were coming down with a cold. But it hadn’t been that way earlier. Had she been crying? Over seeing him again? He tossed the book on the table.

  She wore no makeup at all and had that beautiful shades-of-gold hair of hers pulled straight back, the ponytail now twisted into a bun. Downplaying her looks, he decided. Probably wise, because they would be a serious distraction for anybody trying to learn anything.

  She had lost weight. A little twinge of sympathy struck when he realized Martine really had suffered, too. Joe knew she cared about him. That wasn’t something she would have faked. It was just that he hadn’t thought he could stand her living the way she seemed determined to live. She must have had second thoughts about it herself.

  He hid his smile. Being an instructor at Quantico was probably the safest job in the world. She’d be surrounded by FBI all day long. Perfect.

  But he’d changed his mind, too. She’d left him thinking he’d be spending the rest of his life bumming around Port St. Joe. Only now did it occur that she might not be nearly as pleased with his latest plan as he was with hers.

  The laid-back lifestyle he had always thought he wanted more than anything, had bored him to death in a matter of days. Now he was itching to get right back into the thick of things. Some of his future missions might make his DEA assignments pale by comparison. What would she think of that?

  “Did you mean it?” she asked carefully, her gaze straying around his room, taking in the neatly made single bed, the spotless floor, the lack of personal items.

  “That I’d look for you if you disappeared again? You know it.”

  “Not that,” she admitted. “About not asking me to change. I thought about it for the last couple of hours and realized you never did actually demand that I quit. Not quite.”

  “Just hinted at it about as subtly as a sledgehammer, right? Sort of begged a little, maybe? Tried to do a deal?” Joe asked, releasing the smile he was fighting. She was going to be a teacher. Just a teacher. Safe.

  He reached for her hand, but she stepped back. Joe sighed. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. “I love you,” he told her honestly. “Just the way you are.”

  Her gaze rolled upward as she sighed. “Easy for you to say now that you know what I’m doing.”

  “Or not doing,” Joe agreed. He kept his distance, knowing that what he said now would make all the difference.

  He began slowly, carefully. “On any mission, under any circumstance, I’d choose you above anyone else to watch my back, Martine. I admire your capabilities so much. But I love you, too. Knowing you’re in danger of any kind makes me a little nuts. But if you hadn’t taken this job, I could have learned to cope.”

  She expelled a wry little laugh as she stared out his window. Rivulets of rain were streaking the glass and the stormy sky threw her into sharp relief. Thunder rumbled in the distance as Joe waited for her to speak.

  “You know you’re asking me to do that, Joe. I’m well aware of what Sextant does.”

  “How do you feel about that? Want me to quit? I almost did. I still could.”

  She turned to him, searching his face. “Oh, Joe. You would never be happy on the beach or behind a desk. It’s good that you realized that. But I will admit I’m glad you won’t be out there working alone the way you were.” She did that little one-shoulder shrug thing. “I sort of know where you were coming from. About the worry thing.”

  Joe approached her and held out his hand again. She took it and he felt hers tremble slightly. “I was wrong about what I thought I wanted. Except for wanting you.”

  She smiled up at him, her features barely visible in the semidarkness. “I guess I was, too.”

  Joe lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders, felt them slide up to his neck. He closed his eyes and embraced her, holding her as if his very life depended on it. Which it did. He could never let her go again no matter what.

  His lips found hers, hungry for the sweet taste of her. He tugged off her cap and pulled at the band confining her hair until the silky strands came free even as he backed her toward the single bed in the corner.

  When his mouth left hers, she gasped, “This…must be breaking every rule…in the book.”

  “So they ship us out,” he growled, nipping at the sweet curve of her neck, inhaling the scent of her subtle perfume. “I can learn French anywhere. How do I say Take off these damned clothes?”

  “Enlevez ces vêtements,” she muttered breathlessly, tugging his belt loose, pushing his pants down over his hips. “Maintenant!”

  “Yeah, now. I know that word.” He already had her shirt half over her head.

  They were laughing helplessly as they fell across the bunk, messing up the military precision of it. He kissed her again, this time with his entire body, glorying in the soft, sweet feel of her beneath him. How had he lived for weeks without this? He hadn’t lived, he’d only existed.

  “Oh, Joe,” she sighed, opening to him in every way as he sank into her with a groan of deep relief.

  Instead of rushing to c
ompletion this time, he desperately needed to prolong this, to show her how he valued her, how much he treasured this beautiful connection they shared.

  He withdrew slowly, his mouth trailing down the arch of her neck to kiss those remarkable breasts, concentrating on the fascinating surface of the pebbled peaks against his tongue.

  Her cry of pleasure seemed to go straight to his groin. urging him to reenter her and assuage his greed, but he held back. Determined, he slid downward, raking his teeth gently over the curve of her waist.

  She moaned something in what he thought might be French, causing him to smile against her abdomen and go lower still. His hands encompassed her breasts, alternately brushing lightly and giving her what she wanted. She tasted exotic, wildly erotic, a blend of sweetness and woman.

  He hummed with the pleasure of it and felt her first tremor of completion. No way could he resist. With speed to rival the lightning in the sky outside, he moved up and over her to share it.

  Thunder ripped through him, shook the building and the bed. The sky opened and torrents lashed against the window while his heart pounded just as hard. Joe thought he might never experience a storm again without climaxing no matter where he was.

  They lay, replete and entwined, silently savoring the aftermath. Joe just wanted to hold on to the moment, though he knew they still had a lot to resolve. Martine might be willing to give him more than this, but he wasn’t yet sure about that. Maybe all she wanted was occasional sex. She had never actually said that she loved him.

  He had to know. He raised up on one elbow and looked down at her. The storm had moved on and the afternoon sun was peeking through the clouds, its weak, slanted rays gently illuminating the room with errant streaks of light. One fell across Martine.

  Her eyes were closed, her long lashes like small perfect fans. Her lips looked full, a result of thorough kissing and recent arousal. The sunlight highlighted her features and the folds of white on the pillowcase, the rumpled sheet that he had drawn up to her shoulders.

  “Oh, God,” he murmured, his former vision of her all in white replaying itself in his mind.