Angel shrugged. “Nothing. I thought perhaps after what happened…” He let the sentence dangle.
“What do you mean after what happened?” Her nerves jangled with alarm. “What happened?”
“I saw him kiss you.”
Right. Damn. So there was that.
“Didn’t mean anything.” She waved a dismissive hand. “It was a heat-of-the-moment thing and— Shit on a stick!”
Her boot slipped on the damp grass, and she plowed headlong into Angel. He would have caught her easily, except that he’d been in the process of turning, so she’d caught him off-balance. They were a tangle of pinwheeling arms and legs as they each tried to regain their footing.
No use. Timber!
Angel grunted when she landed atop him, her forehead smacking his chin. For a second, she was too dazed to move. Stars flashed in front of her eyes.
Pushing up onto her knees, she rubbed her abused noggin. “You have the hardest chin in the world,” she accused. “What’s that thing made of anyway?”
“I could say the same for your head.” Angel massaged his stubble-dusted chin.
“Am I interrupting something?” The sound of Christian’s low voice swirled inside Emily’s ears. He was leaning against the corner of the manor house. “Should I turn ’round and give you two a minute?”
Blinking in confusion, she realized she was straddling Angel and that one of his big hands was curled unconsciously around her thigh. A split second later, she was scrambling to her feet.
“It’s not what it looks like,” she blurted, then immediately furrowed her brow.
What the…? Why the hell did she say that?
Christian didn’t say a word, but his eyes were filled with… What was that? Dismissal?
She felt cut off at the knees and wondered how she was going to get around on bloody stumps for the rest of the day.
When Angel pushed off the ground, brushing grass clippings from his back and legs, Christian shoved away from the corner of the house and started toward them. He moved with the easy grace that came courtesy of good genes, honed muscles, and no small amount of masculine virility.
“It’s a simple system,” he said, stopping in front of them. “We can disarm it, no problem.” He directed his statement to Angel, but his eyes flicked briefly to Emily.
She sucked in a startled breath at the coolness she saw there. No, not coolness. Coldness. He reminded her of an ice sculpture. So hard. So glossy. If she squinted, would she see her own reflection on his surface?
“Th-that’s what Angel just said.” Why was her voice shaking?
“Ah.” That single word seemed to say more than most people managed in ten paragraphs. “I guess if Angel said it, it must be true.”
Okay, so… What. The. Actual. Fuck? Why was he suddenly and inexplicably pissed at her?
Chapter 9
“You want me to do that?” Angel asked when Christian fished his lock-picking set from his rucksack.
“I can bloody well pick a lock,” he managed through gritted teeth. “Get ready to disarm the alarm once I open the door.”
For a moment, Angel was quiet. Then he said softly, his voice raspier than usual, “It was an accident, you know.”
“What was?” Christian inserted the tension wrench into the bottom of the keyhole and slid the pick in beside it. Now it was a simple matter of sliding and jiggling until all the pins in the lock fell into place.
Civilians took such comfort in locks. If they had any idea how easy one was to pick, they wouldn’t sleep so well at night.
“Emily slipped and took me with her,” Angel said. “We landed in a tangle.”
Christian glanced over his shoulder, glad to see that Emily, Ace, and Rusty had walked toward the small gravel car park. They were keeping an eye on the narrow country lane, making sure no one happened upon them. It wouldn’t do to be caught red-handed picking the lock. Not much they could say to talk their way out of that.
“No skin off my nose,” Christian told Angel, turning back to concentrate on his task.
“Really?” There was no mistaking the skepticism in Angel’s voice. “You could have fooled me.”
Christian sighed and glared up at Angel. “What the devil are you on about?”
“You and Emily.”
“There is no me and Emily.”
“Really?” One of Angel’s dark eyebrows arched. “You could have fooled me.”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“If there is no you and Emily, then what was that kiss in the hangar’s parking lot about?”
“Like Emily told you”—if Christian gritted his teeth any harder, his molars might explode—“it didn’t mean a thing. Heat of the moment.” Her words scraped across his brain like fingernails down a chalkboard.
“So”—Angel nodded—“that is what this is all about.”
“What what is all about?”
“You turning into Oscar the Grouch. You heard Emily say that. Then you came around the corner and saw us on the ground. But like I said, it was an accident.”
Christian sighed and let his head hang between his shoulders. Angel was right. Seeing Emily on top of the handsome bastard had made Christian want to box Angel’s ears until his head rattled.
Lifting his chin, Christian did his teammate the courtesy of looking him in the eye when he said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to take any of it out on you.”
“Understandable.” Angel gave a Gallic shrug. “Probably would have reacted the same way if the woman I loved was on top of another man.”
A startled breath wheezed from Christian’s chest. “Love?” The word barely had enough oomph to make it past his lips. It was one thing to admit to himself that he was sweet on Emily. Another thing altogether to admit it to someone else. “I wouldn’t call it love.”
“No?”
“Maybe the opposite.” Liar, liar, drawers on fire!
“Hate?” Angel scoffed. “Let me be the first to tell you, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference, which is one thing you do not feel for Emily.”
“Fine.” Christian punctuated the word with a terse downward jerk of his chin. “So it’s not hate. It’s annoyance.” Then he figured he’d better sprinkle some truth into his pack of lies if he had any hope of throwing Angel off the scent. “And an unhealthy amount of lust.”
“What’s the holdup?” Emily called to them. Her arms were crossed against the damp and cold, and the mother of all scowls scrunched up her pretty face. “Christian, if you’re having trouble with the lock, let Angel do it.”
Let Angel do it. Right-oh. Because Angel was sooooo accomplished, sooooo bloody brilliant at everything.
Bugger it all. There was that green-eyed monster again.
Christian turned back to the lock and gave it his full attention. Two seconds later, the pins fell into place and the front door swung open on squeaky hinges. The alarm let out a series of warning chirps that reminded Christian of the many times in his misguided youth when he’d smashed through the window of the corner store or the local Tesco to filch some food after his mother had squandered their government support check at the pub.
Angel wasted no time jogging inside. After a quick three-sixty spin, the former Mossad agent spotted the alarm keypad on the wall. Pulling off the casing, he did some quick work with the wires. Five seconds later, the alarm blipped off.
Christian could admit, if only to himself, that Angel was bloody good at the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Emphasis on the dagger.
Standing, Christian turned toward the car park and waved for the others to come inside. Rusty was the first to breeze past him in the open doorway. The redheaded giant whistled at the interior of the manor house.
Ace followed Rusty inside, mimicking Rusty’s whistle. But given that Ace’s eyes were glued to Rusty’s ass, Christian was qu
ite certain the flyboy’s appreciation had less to do with the house and more to do with the marine-cum-fisherman.
Emily was the last one through the door. Before she stepped all the way inside, however, she flattened a hand on Christian’s belly.
“Good idea about this place.” She flicked a quick glance around the marble-floored entry with its small wooden desk, pamphlets that gave a brief history and site map of the property, and wood-paneled walls. “This is much better than a moldy motel room or spending the next twenty-four hours cooped up in the truck.”
Thoughts. He should be having those. Words. He should be speaking them. But the second she touched him, a bolt of lightning blazed down his spine, shooting electricity into all his nerves, making speech or thought impossible.
“That was a compliment, Christian.” She snatched her hand away. The skin on his stomach throbbed in an exact outline of her handprint. “You’re supposed to say ‘thank you,’ or ‘no worries,’ or anything besides trying to glower me into the ground. And just FYI, I know we’re good at having wordless conversations, but I don’t speak glare-ish. So if you got somethin’ you wanna say to me, you’re gonna hafta spit it out.”
Ah. And there was the blue-collar Bridgeport ’hood girl in all her bad grammar glory. Why he should find her so adorable was anyone’s guess.
“I haven’t anything to say.” That was a lie. He had a million things he wanted to say to her. A million more things he wanted to ask her. Like, why did she always bust his bollocks? And why was she so quick to scurry off Angel when she saw him standing at the corner? But he knew better than to rip open his chest and expose his heart. She might eat the bloody thing whole.
He lifted an eyebrow that asked, So? Was there anything else?
Her mouth thinned into a straight line that called him the most exasperating man alive.
He tilted his head, his grin saying, What else is new?
Emily threw frustrated hands in the air and turned to march deeper into the house.
“Make yourselves familiar with your surroundings now,” he called to the others, who were already fanning out to inspect the place, “while the sun is still up and we can see what’s what.”
After sundown, they daren’t turn on the lights. That was a surefire way to bring unwanted attention to themselves. And since the manor house was tucked way back in the wood, no streetlamps for miles, it was going to get quite dark.
“You remember which way to the bathroom?” Emily glanced at Christian over her shoulder.
Her unbound hair was a curtain of drying waves against her slender back. An image blazed to life in his brain of how it would feel to wrap a length of her hair around his wrist so he could pull her head back and hold her still while his lips and tongue marauded over the tender flesh of her neck.
“Down the hall on the left.” He was shocked at the breathless sound of his voice.
“Thank you.” Her smile was so syrupy he was tempted to look around for a stack of pancakes.
Sodding hell. He was cocking things up. Why couldn’t he act normal around her?
Oh, right. Because now he knew what it was to hold her in his arms, to kiss her sweet lips, to…love her. Normal had pretty much gone the way of the dinosaurs.
* * *
Lawrence pulled his vehicle to the side of the gravel road and shoved it into Park.
“What are you on about now?” Ben demanded. “The manor house is a quarter mile up the way.”
“And if they’re holed up there,” Lawrence said, “we don’t wanna alert them to our presence.”
“Oh.” Ben nodded. “Right.” When he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bounced nervously.
Lawrence leveled a steely-eyed look at his younger brother. “Are you up for this? Tell me now if you’re not, ’cause you’ll slow me down and create a distraction I don’t need.”
“No.” Ben swallowed again. “I mean, yeah. I’m up for it. You’re right. It’s the only way to set everything right. But, Lawrence… Brother, I gotta tell you, I don’t like it.”
“You don’t gotta like it, Ben. You just gotta do it.”
Ben firmed his jaw and pushed himself from the SUV. Lawrence followed him out, gun in hand.
“How you wanna do this?” Ben asked, heading toward the tree line next to the road.
“We sneak up to the place and see what’s what.” Lawrence’s heart beat with an eager rhythm. When he sucked in a breath, the air felt stingingly crisp and cool. It flooded his lungs and hardened his resolve.
This was right. What they were about to do was right. He knew it. He felt it.
Neither of them spoke as they trudged through the dripping forest toward the manor house, their booted feet kicking up the smell of wet leaves and dark, fertile soil.
Lawrence imagined what his life would have been like had Christian Watson not buggered it all by starting that ruckus at the Iraqi roadblock. His brother would be alive. His parents would be alive. And maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to hurt people. Maybe he wouldn’t have so much hatred in his heart that it required an occasional outlet and—
“It’s up ahead,” Ben whispered, pulling Lawrence from his thoughts.
He motioned for Ben to keep going and stayed tight to his brother’s flank. Once they reached the edge of the forest, they positioned themselves behind neighboring trees. Lawrence narrowed his eyes as he took in the great gray manor house and the recently cut front lawn.
His eyes skimmed over the bushes trimmed to look like flying horses and dragons, slipped past the rock lions, and landed on the gravel car park. The empty gravel car park. A hard stone of bitterness and self-disgust settled in his chest.
He’d chosen wrong. He’d thought Watson and his mates would avoid the CCTV cameras, but obviously they—
“They’re not here,” Ben breathed.
Lawrence couldn’t tell if his little brother sounded annoyed or relieved. Either emotion cheesed Lawrence off, since what Ben should be feeling was fear. And fury. And a bone-deep frustration that they wouldn’t be spilling the blood of their enemies this day!
“I can bloody well see that, Ben. I got eyes.”
“So what you wanna do now?”
What did he want to do now? What did he want to do now? Well, he wanted to fit his little brother with some cement galoshes, sail him out to the middle of the Celtic Sea, and feed him to the fecking fishes! If it weren’t for Ben, Lawrence wouldn’t be in this mess and—
No. No. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Forced down the anger that was always so near his surface. Ben was family, and the Michelsons stuck together. Plus, maybe Ben was right. Maybe Lawrence had watched too many gangster movies.
“We go with your original plan,” he said decisively, turning back into the forest as his mind raced through the possible stumbling blocks in their new path. “And we hope like hell it holds up to scrutiny.”
Trudging alongside him, Ben glanced at his watch. “But it’s been too long. The body at the airport musta been discovered by now. How in sodding hell are we gonna explain why we fled the scene? And what are we gonna say when someone asks why we waited over an hour to call in what happened?”
“Easy,” Lawrence said. “We were chasing the perpetrators all over Cornwall.” Again, it was close enough to the truth to be believable. “And we couldn’t call it in ’cause your mobile is broken.”
“But that doesn’t explain why we wouldn’t have used yours.”
“I forgot mine at home in my hurry to leave the house to confront Watson.” Lawrence smiled. It wasn’t the way he’d wanted to play things. But if he and Ben kept their story straight, they might come up smelling like roses.
“Is that true?” Ben lifted a brow and hopped over a fallen log.
“It is.” Lawrence had never been so pleased to forget his phone in his life. “We say we chased them and lost them, a
nd only after that did we stop to make the call.”
“Okay.” Ben nodded. “Okay, it could work.”
“It will work,” Lawrence insisted as they broke through the cover of the forest and headed toward the parked SUV. “We just gotta stick to the story. And it’d probably be better if we call it in to our own unit. They’ll be more likely to take our words at face value.” After all, hadn’t his unit turned a blind eye the few times some sack-of-shit pub patron had accused Lawrence of being the one to start a fight?
“Right,” Ben said, opening the passenger door and hopping inside.
Lawrence was behind the wheel a second later, cranking over the engine and hanging a u-ey. They hadn’t made it far, maybe a half mile or so, before a flash of green caught his eye. He stomped on the brakes so hard that the SUV fishtailed down the road.
Ben gripped the dashboard. “What in hell?”
Lawrence shifted the Peugeot into reverse and backed up slowly, squinting through the trees, searching for—
“There!” He pointed, stepping on the brakes a second time.
“There what?” A deep scowl wrinkled Ben’s brow.
“There.” Lawrence shook his finger in the direction of the truck. It was parked in a depression. The only thing visible was a portion of its roof. He wasn’t sure how he had seen it. He hadn’t been looking. It had just jumped out at him.
Fate…
The word drifted through his mind once again.
“Oh Jesus,” Ben breathed when he saw what Lawrence was pointing at. “You think they’re in there?” Ben’s hand was suddenly on the butt of the gun protruding from his waistband.
“No.” Lawrence shook his head. “I think they’re inside the manor house.” He quickly pulled the SUV to the side of the road. “It’s back to plan B.”
Chapter 10
Colby “Ace” Ventura had a gaze that could be unnervingly intent.
Rusty Parker felt the power of it when he walked into the large upstairs library. With its wall of windows, the library was lighter than any other room of the house. Which meant when Ace turned to look at him hovering in the doorway, there was no escaping the force of those ocean blues.
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