by Cindy Dees
“What are you doing?” His voice was a low, dangerous rumble.
The sound vibrated deep in her belly, stirring part fear and part something else altogether. She replied lightly, “I’m calling in the cavalry.”
“Don’t.”
“But—”
“You don’t know what you’re involved in. Don’t call the authorities, or the blood of a whole lot of good men could end up on your hands.”
“But those guys were shooting at us—”
“And we shot back.”
“You shot back.”
“I shot back. I need you to leave the police out of this for now. I can’t go into the details but you have to trust me.”
Riiight. Trust him. Not.
“I need you to promise you won’t contact the police. I don’t want to have to restrain you.”
“Restrain—”
He cut her off with a sharp slash of his hand through the air. “Promise.”
Their gazes clashed, hers defiant and his...the sun turned his a molten gold that could consume her whole and melt her down to nothing. A girl could lose herself in those eyes if she wasn’t careful. Very careful.
“Well?” he demanded. “Do we do this the easy way or the hard way?”
Chapter 2
Her gaze narrowed. Oh, how tempting it was to tell him to go to hell. But he was bigger than she was, stronger than she was and undoubtedly meaner. Then there was his machine gun to consider. Reining in her surliness, she retorted, “I won’t call the police if you’ll put that gun away.”
He stared intently at her for a moment more, clearly weighing her honesty. Then he nodded. “Fair enough.” He pivoted with that extreme, muscular grace of his and padded to the back of the deck where his duffel still lay. She caught the wince that passed across his features.
“Are you okay?” she asked in quick concern. If those guys in the black boat came back, Mitch was her only protection.
“Yeah. It’s a flesh wound. I’ll clean it up when I know we’re safe.”
“It looks bad.”
He glanced down, surprised. “Nah, that’s a little scratch. No organs hanging out or bones showing. I’m good.”
He wasn’t good—he was hurt.
She watched cautiously as he wiped down the machine gun and stowed it in the canvas bag.
Thank God. Being in the presence of that giant weapon made her too nervous to function rationally. Not to mention, he was gorgeous enough to send her pulse into the stratosphere. Her thoughts jumped around as disjointedly as caged monkeys.
“I know your name, but who are you?” she asked more sharply than she’d intended. Panic hovered too close, waiting for the slightest opening in which to pounce.
“I’m American.”
“I can tell you’re American from your accent. But who are you?”
Silence. A frown wrinkled his brow, but he ignored her question. Or maybe chose not to answer.
How rude was that? He’d dragged her into the middle of a shoot-out, for goodness’ sake. A tiny voice in the back of her head said her anger was irrational, but the much louder voice of her fear-morphed-to-fury overruled it. “Who were those men chasing you?”
That got more reaction out of him. A full-blown shrug. Wow. Some communicator. A flinch flickered across his face, then his expression went smooth and impassive again. Except for those incredible eyes of his. They all but ate her alive.
Her insides quailing with some reaction she chose not to examine closely, she tried again. “Why were they shooting at you?”
His gaze, now tinted orange by the blossoming sunset, snapped with irritation. What did he have to be irritated about? She was the injured party here. She announced, “I want you off the boat. Now.”
“I’ll bet you do,” he purred.
He could stop sending shivers across her skin like that anytime now. “I’m serious.”
He glanced around at the water on all sides with distaste. “You want me to jump overboard?”
“I was thinking more in terms of walking the plank. But I want you off the Baby Doll. I want no part of whatever it is you’re mixed up in.”
Dammit, the guy had a smile so hot it threatened to melt her righteous fury into a completely ineffectual puddle of lust. Spine, woman. Spine! Her gaze narrowed belatedly.
The humor drained from his expression, abruptly leaving it as cold as the arctic. Dread clawed her gut. Absolutely nothing radiated off him now. Not anger, not irritation, not even danger. He went absolutely, totally, completely still.
“There are sharks in these waters,” he finally muttered.
Yeah, and she was looking at the most deadly one of all. Taking a deep breath and mustering up all her courage to stare him down, she replied, “There’s no history in this area of shark attacks on humans. I don’t want any trouble. Please go. The water’s warm and it’s only about a quarter mile to shore.”
The southwestern tip of Tortola was sliding past their port side now.
He sighed and replied almost soothingly, “I’m sorry. I can’t leave you.”
“Can’t you swim?” she challenged a bit tartly.
Aggravation flashed in his gaze, and matching satisfaction surged in her. He snapped, “I swim very well, thank you. Why, I’ve swum with—” He broke off. “Look. We have a little problem. The driver of that boat got a good look at you. Too good a look.”
“And this is a problem why?”
“Because now he has to kill you.”
She huffed in disbelieving laughter. “I’ve never seen that man in my life! Why in the world would he hurt me?”
Perovski’s voice dropped into a careful, reasonable timbre. “I didn’t say hurt. I said kill. And he’d do it because he thinks you got too good a look at him.”
“I barely caught a glimpse of him what with all the bullets flying and wild driving I was doing.”
In an even gentler tone, he replied, “But he doesn’t know that. For all he knows, you could pick him out of a mug book or a lineup. He can’t afford to let you live.”
Her jaw dropped. A killer thought she could finger him? She felt a distinct urge to throw up. “Great. Why did I have to get dragged into this?”
Sounding downright apologetic now, he answered, “No one said anything about there being anyone aboard the Baby Doll. Congressman Hollingsworth said I could borrow his boat, but he didn’t say anything about you being here.”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
Perovski started. “Did you steal this boat?”
“Of course not! I just didn’t tell my father I was coming down to the beach house.”
“Your father?” His voice was deadly quiet.
She exhaled hard. “Yeah. My father. Richard Hollingsworth.”
He pounced immediately. “I thought you said your name was Kinsey Pierpont.”
“It is. Kinsey Pierpont Hollingsworth.”
He absorbed that one in silence. So much for anonymity on this little retreat of hers. This guy would brag to someone in a bar about running into Kinsey Hollingsworth, and someone would overhear him. Before she knew it, the local paparazzi would mob her. And any chance at hiding in peace would be blown.
“Your middle name is really Pierpont?”
He didn’t have to sound so bloody amused about it. “What’s yours?” she challenged.
“Edgar,” he admitted.
She suppressed a spurt of laughter. “And you’re giving me grief about Pierpont?”
“I’m named after my grandfather,” he said defensively.
“So am I,” she retorted.
Laughter danced in his eyes, transforming their dangerous depths to a warm, inviting amber. Belatedly, she shook herself free of their spell.
&nbs
p; She sighed. “Since you’re the reason I’ve apparently run afoul of the guy in the boat, what do you suggest I do about it?”
He clammed up on her again. It figured. Honestly, the whole idea of some killer tracking her down and offing her was too preposterous. She faced her impromptu companion squarely and said resolutely, “Please leave.”
His shoulders bunched up in annoyance, followed by a grimace of pain, but his voice was a low, steady rumble that made her want to curl up in it. “Ma’am, I’m not kidding. That bastard’s gonna kill you.”
“He doesn’t even know who I am.”
“And two minutes on the internet running the name of this boat or a couple quick phone calls wouldn’t produce your identity and enough information to find you and kill you? With all due respect, you’re not exactly a low-profile kind of girl.”
“Low profile?” she repeated ominously.
He shrugged. “Yeah. Your dad’s famous, and besides, you look...rich. With that lightbulb-blond hair and those legs—” He broke off.
She got the idea. Why the sour note in his voice when he described her, though? She studied him, and he glared back inscrutably. Something primitive deep inside her rose to the challenge of this man, relishing sparring with him.
What the heck was she supposed to do now? Pretend the shooting had never happened and take the Baby Doll back to Daddy’s place? Run and hide? The pure insanity of such ruminations yanked her rudely back to reality. He was just trying to scare her. Perovski didn’t want her to toss him off the boat and was probably making up the whole business of the other shooter coming after her.
He subsided into brooding silence, staring sphinxlike at the sunset’s splendor. The moods of the sky were many, and at the moment the evening was quiet. Soft. Contemplative. Streaks of peach and lavender reached toward the east, where the distant horizon was darkening into a blue nearly as deep and unfathomable as the sea around them. Night would come soon. She got the distinct feeling the man beside her was a creature of the dark. An errant desire to walk in that world flashed through her. It might be a more interesting place than the gilded media microscope she lived under.
At least he hadn’t threatened her. And his gun was put away. As armed-and-dangerous night stalkers went, he could’ve been worse.
St. John, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, wasn’t far away. She could duck into Cruz Bay—the U.S. Coast Guard guys there were on the ball. If she signaled them for help, they’d nab this man and his gun and get them off her boat. And after all, she’d only promised not to call the police. She hadn’t said anything about not contacting the Coast Guard. She set course for St. John. Now all she had to do was keep this guy calm until she got there.
She glanced over at him. He slouched in the passenger seat, far too sexy for his own good. She almost missed having not been born in the good old days before AIDS and other nasty STDs, when a girl could casually jump a guy’s bones without any thought to consequences. This guy just begged to be bedded.
He leaned his head back against the leather headrest. His eyes drifted closed. For an instant, he looked utterly exhausted. She shifted weight the slightest bit, and his eyes snapped open, alert and intelligent. His gaze traveled briefly up and down the length of her. “Are you done panicking yet?”
She blinked. Retorted with light sarcasm, “Why, yes, I’m perfectly fine. Thank you for asking. Lovely weather we’re having, aren’t we?”
A rusty sound escaped him. It took her a moment to identify it. That was a laugh—from a man who apparently didn’t do it very often.
“Jeez, that was close,” he mumbled.
Keep him talking. Make a human connection with him. So he wouldn’t view her as an object to be kidnapped or killed at will. “And just what was that?”
“A hit. Or rather an attempted hit, since I’m still alive.”
“Why were they trying to kill you?”
He shrugged. “The list of people who’d like to see me dead is long and distinguished.”
“Were those old enemies or new ones?”
He shot her a speculative look. “A perceptive question. And one to which I don’t know the answer.”
Why would someone hire assassins to take this man out? What line of work was he in? “You’re not a drug dealer, are you? Because I don’t mess with drugs, regardless of what the tabloids say. And I certainly won’t run them on this boat.”
He made a wry face at her. “Trust me. My life would be a helluva lot simpler if I were a drug runner.”
“So how do you know my father?”
“I don’t.”
“And he let you borrow his boat because...”
“Because my boss asked him for a favor. And no, I’m not going to tell you who my boss is.”
“Did my father know you were running from hit men when he agreed to this favor?”
Mitch’s lips twitched. “He probably surmised as much.”
“Why?” She didn’t waste her breath asking again what he did, but the question hung heavy in the air between them. Silence stretched out while she waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. She probed a little more. “Surely you’re exaggerating the threat to me. I vaguely saw two men from a distance and one of them has a giant hole in his chest now. I certainly wasn’t close enough to make out their faces.”
“You saw more than you know.”
“Like what?”
“You can accurately estimate their height and weight. Identify hair color. Skin color. Give a rough description of their clothing. Of how they ran. Their shooting stances. Tell that they used handguns and a shotgun. And if you know anything about firearms, you might be able to tell the police they used large-caliber, hollow-point slugs from the sounds of the shots.”
She was tempted to swear under her breath. He was right. Darn it. She’d just wanted some peace and quiet. To be left alone. Was that too much to ask for? She fiddled with the GPS navigation system, checked the coordinates for St. John and made a course correction to point more directly at the island and its Coast Guard contingent. They’d remove this guy from her boat and her life, and then, if she was lucky, paradise would settle back down to its dull, safe and monotonous routine.
If she was lucky.
* * *
Mitch’s cell phone vibrated insistently against his hip. Again. Yeah, he bet they wanted to talk to him. In a big way. They’d probably picked up a report of a dead man in the water from Coast Guard radio scanners in Tortola. Thank God Kinsey had already been on the Baby Doll and had the boat untied and engines running. Otherwise, he’d be shark bait now instead of the Cuban killer.
Interesting female, Kinsey Hollingsworth. Very East Coast upper crust. The whole package screamed old money. Her attractiveness went way beyond good grooming and expensive packaging. She was genuinely beautiful. Her blue eyes, long blond hair and aristocratic bones were very easy on the eye. She ran to the tall side, maybe five foot eight. In good shape. Just enough curves in the right places to give a man hot sweats. Which set his teeth thoroughly on edge. He probably shouldn’t despise every leggy, gorgeous blonde he met, but damned if he could stop the reaction. Even after all these years, the gall of betrayal tasted bitter in his mouth.
At least the princess hadn’t panicked when the chips were down.
Nobody should’ve known about tonight’s meeting between him and Zaragosa. How in the hell had the Cubans found out about it? Worse, how had they found out about the meeting early enough to position assassins to disrupt it?
He didn’t like it. Not one bit. This was the sort of wrinkle that got a mission scrubbed. But he wasn’t so sure the boys upstairs would call this one off. Too much rode on it. And like it or not, he was the best man for the job. Hell, the only man for the job.
He pushed wearily to his feet. He probably ought to see to his shoulder now.
Kinsey replied, “Inside the cabin. There’s storage under the sofa cushions.”
She turned away to have a look at the propellers, and he took the opportunity to surreptitiously unplug the microphone from the boat’s radio. He pocketed it quickly, grabbed his bag and headed inside.
Sure enough, the bullet had grazed the meaty part of his upper arm just below the shoulder joint. After awkwardly cleaning and bandaging the shallow wound, he fished out his cell phone. He needed to let the boys in the Bat Cave know he was alive and find out if the mission was still green-lighted after this fiasco.
The Baby Doll’s cabin was low and compact. A flat-screen TV, tufted leather upholstery and lots of brushed chrome oozed money. Nearly as sexy and expensive as the woman up top. A tiny porthole let in a wash of red light as he dialed. The phone barely finished a single ring before it was picked up.
“White Horse here. Go.”
Usually, Mitch worked on the civilian side of the house for Jennifer Blackfoot, the civilian agent-in-charge of the Hunter Operation Team. Casually dubbed the H.O.T. Watch. But for this mission, he’d been put under the control of her equivalent on the military side of the operation, Commander Hathaway.
Mitch replied, “Lancer here. Thought you’d like an update.”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
Mitch snorted. “It’s good to be alive. This afternoon was a little too close for me.”
“Where are you now?”
“Sitting on the Baby Doll in the middle of the Caribbean watching the prettiest sunset you ever saw. Thanks for arranging the Plan C, by the way. Needless to say, I’m not gonna make the rendezvous at twenty hundred hours.”
“What happened?”
He had to give Hathaway credit. The guy didn’t waste time moaning and groaning when a plan went to hell. He got right to the point.
“I left the hotel early to sanitize my tail before the meeting with Zaragosa. A pair of men picked me up immediately. As soon as I made a move to shake them, they closed in and tried to off me. I ran for the emergency egress point. When I got there, the driver was dead and his boat’s engine sabotaged. You know the next bit. I headed for Hollingsworth’s boat.”