Tall, Dark and Dangerous Part 1

by Suzanne Brockmann

  The answering machine beeped and then was silent.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  Melody looked up to see Brittany standing in the doorway.

  “Is this guy trying to win some kind of title as Mr. Romantic, or what?” her sister continued. “He is totally to die for, Mel. That cute little cowboy accent—where’s he from anyway?”

  “Texas,” Melody said faintly. Lieutenant. He’d called himself Lieutenant Harlan Jones. He’d gotten a promotion, been awarded a higher rank.

  “That’s right. Texas. You told me that.” Britt sat down across from her. “Mel, he wants to see you again. This is so great!”

  “This is not so great!” Melody countered. “I can’t see him—are you kidding? God, Britt, he’ll take one look at me and…”

  Brittany was looking at her as if she’d just confessed to murdering the neighbors and burying them in their basement. “Oh, Melody, you didn’t—”

  “He’ll know,” Melody finished more softly.

  “You didn’t tell him you’re pregnant?”

  Mel shook her head. “No.”

  “You didn’t tell him you’re having his baby—that he’s fathered your child?”

  “What was I supposed to do? Write him a postcard? And where was I supposed to send it? Until he called, I didn’t even know where he was!” Until he called, she didn’t even know if he was still alive. But he was. He was still alive….

  “Melody, that was a very, very, very bad thing to do,” Brittany said as if she were five years old again and had broken their mother’s favorite lamp by playing ball in the house. “A man has a right to know he’s knocked up his girlfriend!”

  “I’m not his girlfriend. I never was his girlfriend.”

  “Sweetie, you’re having this man’s baby. You may not have been his girlfriend, but you weren’t exactly strangers!”

  Melody closed her eyes. No, they were anything but strangers. They’d spent three days in that hotel room in that Middle Eastern city whose name she couldn’t pronounce, and another three days in Paris. In the course of those six amazing days, they’d made love more times than she could count—including once in the miniature bathroom on board the commercial flight that had taken them north to France.

  That was her doing. She’d wanted him so badly, she couldn’t bear to wait until they touched down and took a taxi to their hotel. The plane was nearly empty—she’d thought no one would notice if they weren’t in their seats for just a little while.

  So she’d lured Jones to the back of the plane and pulled him into the tiny bathroom with her.

  After three days, she had learned enough of his secrets to drive him wild with just a touch. And Jones—he could light her on fire with no more than a single look. It wasn’t long before the temperature in that little room skyrocketed out of control.

  But Jones didn’t have a condom. He’d packed his supply in his luggage. And she didn’t have one, either….

  Making love that way was not the smartest thing either of them had ever done.

  Brittany went to the answering machine and rewound the message, playing it again and writing down the phone number he left. “What does he mean by ‘I know you said what you said before you got on the plane for Boston….’? What’s he talking about?”

  Melody stood up. “He’s talking about a private conversation we had before I came home.”

  Brittany followed her out of the room. “He’s implying that you were the one who broke off whatever it was you had going.”

  Melody started up the stairs. “Britt, what I said to him is not your business.”

  “I always just assumed that he dumped you, you know. ‘So long, babe, it’s been fun. Time for me to go rescue some other chick who’s being held hostage.”’

  Melody turned and faced her sister, looking down at her from her elevated position on the stairs. “He’s not that type of man,” she said fiercely.

  She could practically see the wheels turning in Brittany’s head. “Now you’re defending him. Very interesting. Fess up, Sis. Were you the one who dumped him? Jeez, I never thought you’d turn out to be the love-’em-and-leave-’em type.”

  “I’m not!” Melody started up the stairs again, exhaling noisily in frustration. “Look, nobody dumped anyone, all right? It was just a…fling! God, Britt, it wasn’t real—we hardly even knew each other. It was just…sex, and lust, and relief. A whole lot of very passionate relief. The man saved my life.”

  “So naturally you decide to bear his child.”

  Melody went into her bedroom and turned to shut the door, but Brittany blocked her.

  “That’s what you told him before you got on the plane home, isn’t it? That crap about sex and lust and passionate relief? You told him you didn’t want to see him again, didn’t you?”

  Mel gave up and sat down wearily on her bed. “It’s not crap. It’s true.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if this man is your missing half, your one true love?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “He’s not.” God, over the past seven months, she’d asked herself the same question. What if…?

  It was true that she missed her Navy SEAL. She missed him more than she was willing to admit. There were nights that she ached for his touch, that she would have died for a glimpse of his smile. And those amazing green eyes of his haunted her dreams.

  But what she felt wasn’t love. It wasn’t.

  Brittany sat next to her on the bed. “As much as you talk about passionate relief, sweetie, I just don’t see you as the type to lock yourself in a hotel room with any man for six solid days unless he means something special to you.”

  Melody sank back against her pillows. “Yeah, well, you haven’t met Harlan Jones.”

  “I’d like to meet Harlan Jones. Everything you’ve told me about him makes him sound like some kind of superman.”

  “There you go,” Melody said triumphantly, sitting back up again. “That’s my point exactly. He’s some kind of superhero. And I’m just a mere mortal. What I felt for him wasn’t love. It was hero worship. Jones saved my life. I’ve never met anyone like him before—I probably never will again. He was amazing. He could do anything. Pilot a plane. Bandage my feet. Cut his sandals down to fit me yet make them look like new. He spoke four different languages, four! He knew how to scuba dive and skydive and move through the center of an enemy compound without being seen. He was smarter and braver and—God!—sexier than any man I’ve ever known, Britt. You’re right, he is a superman, and I couldn’t resist him—not for one day, not for six days. If he hadn’t been called back to the States, I would’ve stayed with him for sixty days. But that has nothing to do with real love. That was hero worship. I couldn’t resist Harlan Jones any more than Lois Lane could resist Superman—and that’s one relationship that could never be called healthy, or normal, either.”

  Brittany was silent.

  “I still think it’s wrong not to tell him about the baby,” she finally said, setting the paper with Jones’s phone number on Melody’s bedside table. She stood up and crossed the room, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. “Call him and tell him the truth. He deserves to know.”

  Brittany left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Melody closed her eyes. Call Jones.

  The sound of his voice on her answering machine had sparked all sorts of memories.

  Like finding the bandage he wore under his shirt on the back of his arm. They had been in her hotel room and she had been in the process of ridding him of that crisp white dress uniform, trailing her lips across every piece of skin she exposed. She’d pushed his jacket and then his shirt over his shoulders and down his arms, and there it was—big and white and gauze and covering a “little” gash he’d had stitched up at the hospital that morning.

  When she pressed, he told her he’d been slashed with a knife, fighting off the men he’d surprised in the hangar at the air base.

  He’d been stabbed, and he hadn’t bothered to mention it
to either Harvard or Melody. He’d simply bandaged the wound himself, right then and there, and forgotten about it.

  When she asked to see it, he’d lifted the gauze and shown her the stitches with a shrug and a smile. It was no big deal.

  Except the “little” gash was four inches long. It was angry and inflamed—which also was no big deal to Jones, since the doctor had given him antibiotics. He’d be fine in a matter of days. Hours.

  He’d pulled her back on top of him, claiming her mouth with a gentleness astonishing for a man so strong, intertwining their legs as he took a turn ridding her of more of her clothes.

  And it was then Melody knew for dead certain their love affair was not going to be long-term.

  Because there was no way this incredible man—for whom rescuing strangers deep inside a terrorist stronghold and getting sliced open in a knife fight was all in a casual day’s work—would ever remain interested in someone like drab little Melody Evans for long.

  He would be far better off with a woman reminiscent of Mata Hari. Someone who would scuba dive and parasail with him. Someone strong and mysterious and daring.

  And Melody would be better off with an everyday, average guy. Someone who would never forget to mention it when he was slashed by a knife. Someone whose idea of excitement was mowing the lawn and watching the Sunday afternoon football game on TV.

  She curled up on her side on her bed, staring at the piece of paper that Brittany had left on her bedside table.

  Still, she had to call him back.

  If she didn’t call him, he’d call here again, she was sure of it. And God help her if he spoke to Brittany and she let slip Melody’s secret.

  Taking a deep breath, Melody reached for the paper and the phone.

  Cowboy was in Alpha Squad’s makeshift office, trying to get some work done.

  Seven desks—one for each member of the squad—had been set up haphazardly down at one end of a metal Quonset hut. This hut was a temporary home base to work out the details of a training mission. Except this time, the members of Alpha Squad were the trainers, not the trainees. Within a few months, a group of elite Federal Intelligence Commission or FinCOM agents were being sent down from D.C. to learn as much as they could of SEAL Team Ten’s successful counterterrorist operations.

  They needed the desks, and the computers and equipment set up on top of them, to plan out their own little version of BUD/S training for these Finks.

  Joe Catalanotto had pulled strings with his admiral pal, Mac Forrest, to make arrangements for Lt. Alan Francisco, one of the top BUD/S training instructors, to meet them out here in Virginia. Joe Cat was hoping Frisco would be able to organize the jumble of notes and training ideas the squad had come up with to date.

  Frisco was a former member of Alpha Squad who had been pulled off the active duty list with a knee injury more than five years ago. Cowboy had been filling in for a missing member of the squad when Frisco had been injured. That had been Cowboy’s first time in the field, his first time in a real war zone—and he’d been sure that it was going to be his last. Cowboy was certain that Joe Cat, the squad’s commander, had seen his hands shaking as they set a bomb to blow a hole in the side of an embassy.

  It had been another embassy rescue….

  Melody Evans’s wide blue eyes flashed into his head, but Cowboy gently pushed the image away. He’d been thinking about Mel too much lately, and right now he was writing up a summary of the information he was intending to share with the FinCOM agents. At Cat’s request, he was in charge of presenting the psychological profile of a terrorist to the Finks. The key to success when dealing with terrorists lay in understanding their reasoning and motivation—how their minds worked. And with all of the cultural, environmental and religious differences, their minds worked very differently from the average white-bread American FinCOM agent.

  Frisco was going to arrive Monday morning, and although it was only Friday, Cowboy was pushing to get his report finished today. After working nearly nonstop over the past seven months, he was hoping to take a few days of leave this weekend.

  Mel’s face popped into his thoughts again. He’d left a message on an answering machine he’d hoped was hers. Please, dear Lord, let her call him back.

  Again he took a deep breath and focused his thoughts on his report. It was important to him that this summary be as complete as possible. Alan “Frisco” Francisco was going to be the man to read it, and Cowboy wanted to make the best impression he could.

  Because when it was determined that Frisco’s injury was permanent, Cowboy had been assigned to Alpha Squad at Joe Cat’s request, as the man’s replacement.

  Cowboy still felt a little uncomfortable when Frisco was around. He knew the man missed being in the action, and here he was, his official replacement. And if Frisco hadn’t been hurt, Cowboy probably wouldn’t be working with the elite seven-member Alpha Squad. Cowboy had benefited from Frisco’s tragedy, and both men damn well knew it. As a result, when they were together, they tippytoed around each other, acting especially polite. Cowboy was hoping that would change as the two men worked closely together over the next few months.

  Right now, he appeared to be the only man in the room who was actually working. Blue McCoy and Harvard were checking out the Web site for Heckler and Koch, the German weapon manufacturer. Even Joe Catalanotto had his feet up on his desk as he talked on the phone with his wife, Veronica. Their son’s first birthday was quickly approaching, but from what Cowboy couldn’t help but overhear, it sounded as if Joe was more interested in planning a separate, very different, very private party for the parents of the birthday boy, to be held after all the guests had gone home and little Frankie Catalanotto was tucked into his crib.

  The rest of the guys were sitting around the “office,” trying to come up with ways to truly torment the poor Finks.

  “We start the whole thing off with a twenty-five-mile run,” Wesley was suggesting.

  One desk over, Lucky O’Donlon was playing some kind of computer game complete with aliens and exploding starships and roaring sound effects.

  “No, I read the rule book,” Bobby countered loudly to be heard over the sound of the alien horde. “These guys—and gals—are going to be put up at the Marriott while they’re here. I don’t think they’re going to let us run ’em for five miles, let alone twenty-five.”

  That got Lucky’s attention. “FinCOM’s sending women out here?”

  “That’s what I heard,” Bobby said. “Just one or two out of the bunch of them.”

  Lucky smiled. “One or two is all we need. One for me and one for Cowboy. Oh, but wait. I almost forgot. Cowboy’s sworn off women. He’s decided to become a priest—or at least live like one. But then again, maybe a little one-on-one with a pretty young FinCOM agent is all he needs to get him back in the game.”

  Cowboy couldn’t let that go. Lucky had been teasing him mercilessly about his current celibacy for months. “I don’t criticize the way you live, O’Donlon,” he said tightly. “I’d appreciate it if you’d show me the same courtesy.”

  “I’m just curious, Cowboy, that’s all. What’s going on? Did you honestly find God or something?” Lucky’s eyes were dancing with mischief. He didn’t realize that he’d pushed Cowboy to his limit. “I seem to remember a certain Middle Eastern country and a certain pretty little former hostage you seemed intent upon setting some kind of world record with. I mean, come on. It was kind of obvious what you were up to when you went to meet her for dinner and then didn’t come back for six days.” Lucky laughed. “She sure must’ve been one hell of a good—”

  Cowboy stood up, his chair screeching across the concrete floor. “That’s enough,” he said hotly. “You say one more word about that girl and you’re going to find the very next word you say is going to be said without any teeth.”

  Lucky stared at him. “God, Jones, you’re serious! What the hell did this girl do to you?” But then he grinned, quick to turn anything and everything into a joke. “Do
you think if I asked real nice, I could get her to do it to me, too?”

  Cowboy was moments from launching himself at the blond-haired SEAL when Harvard stepped between them, holding up one hand, silently telling Cowboy to freeze.

  The big man fixed Lucky with a steady, dangerous gaze. “You’re nicknamed Lucky because with all the truly asinine things that come out of your mouth, you’re lucky to still be alive, is that right, O’Donlon?”

  Lucky wisely returned his attention to his computer game, glancing up at Cowboy with disbelief still glimmering in his eyes. “Sorry, Jones. Jeez.”

  Cowboy slowly sat back down, and as Joe Cat hung up the phone, a complete silence fell, broken only by the sounds of Lucky’s computer game.

  What the hell did this girl do to you?

  Cowboy honestly didn’t know.

  Surely it was some kind of witchcraft. Some kind of enchantment or spell. It had been seven months, seven months, and he couldn’t so much as glance at another woman without comparing her, unfavorably, to Melody Evans.

  Melody. Shoot, she’d had his head spinning from the moment she’d opened her hotel-room door for him.

  Her hair was so light, he’d nearly laughed aloud. He knew she was a blonde from her picture, but until he saw her, he really hadn’t been able to imagine it. Cut short the way it was, it accentuated the delicate shape of her face and drew attention to her long, graceful neck.

  She was gorgeous. She’d gotten hold of some makeup and wore just a trace of it on her eyes and a touch of lipstick on her sweet lips. It highlighted her natural beauty. And it told him without a doubt that she had anticipated and prepared for this dinner as much as he had.

  She was wearing some kind of boxy, shapeless, too large dress that she must’ve had sent up from one of the hotel shops. On any other woman, it would’ve looked as if she was playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. But on Mel, it looked sexy. The neckline revealed her delicate collarbone, and the silky material managed to cling to her slender body, revealing every soft curve, every heart-stopping detail. Her legs were bare, and she wore the sandals he’d made for her on her feet.