Hot As Ice

by Merline Lovelace

  Diana could only imagine what it would be like to wake up in an alien world, without friends or familiar landmarks.

  Steeling herself, she fought the urge to lift a hand and stroke his cheek. He hadn't asked for comfort or condolences, and probably wouldn't appreciate either.

  "Why don't we sit down, Major Stone?"

  She took a single step, only to come up short as two palms slapped the wall beside her head. His arms caged her. His body formed an immovable wall.

  "I want a few answers first."

  "All right. But just so you know, this type of primitive behavior went the way of the poodle skirt."

  Stone remained silent for so long Diana had to fight the urge to fidget. He was too close and too...too male. To her surprise and considerable annoyance, her skin tingled under her silk long Johns, and the queerest sensation gripped her belly.

  Dear Reader,

  Valentine's Day is here, a time for sweet indulgences. RITA Award-winning author Merline Lovelace is happy to oblige as she revisits her popular CODE NAME: DANGER miniseries. In Hot as Ice, a frozen Cold War-era pilot is thawed out by beautiful scientist Diana Remington, who soon finds herself taking her work home with her.

  ROMANCING THE CROWN continues with The Princess and the Mercenary, by RITA Award winner Marilyn Pappano. Mercenary Tyler Ramsey reluctantly agrees to guard Princess Anna Sebastiani as she searches for her missing brother, but who will protect Princess Anna's heart from Tyler? In Linda Randall Wisdom's Small-Town Secrets, a young widow—and detective—tries to solve a string of murders with the help of a handsome reporter. The long-awaited LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB series gets its start with Marie Ferrarella's Once a Father. A bomb has ripped apart the Club, and only a young boy rescued from the wreckage knows the identity of the bombers. The child's savior, firefighter Adam Collins, and his doctor, Tracy Walker, have taken the child into protective custody—where they will fight danger from outside and attraction from within. RaeAnne Thayne begins her OUTLAW HARTES series with The Valentine Two-Step. Watch as two matchmaking little girls turn their schemes on their unsuspecting single parents. And in Nancy Morse's Panther on the Prowl, a temporarily blinded woman seeks shelter—and finds much more—in the arms of a mysterious stranger.

  Enjoy them all, and come back next month, because the excitement never ends in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours,

  Leslie. J. Wainger Executive Senior Editor

  ISBN 0-373-27199-9 HOT AS ICE

  Copyright © 2002 by Merline Lovelace

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Visit Silhouette at www.eHarlequin.com

  CLS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in U.S.A.

  This is for my dad,

  who flew high and flew proud.

  Prologue

  "I hear her!''

  The figure swathed from head to foot in bright orange Extreme Cold Weather gear whooped with joy.

  She's punching through!"

  His companion spun in a circle, searching the endless, unbroken surface of the polar ice cap. A dozen different shades of white dazzled his eye, shielded though they were by protective goggles. The blue white of the ice. The downy, cloud-soft drifts of glistening snow. The hazy, gray white of the sky that merged with the horizon.

  "I don't hear anything!"

  "Listen!"

  The frustrated listener threw back his hood. He risked losing an ear to biting wind that dropped the outside temperature to almost thirty below but was too eager to care at that moment. Then he, too, gave a shout of glee as a series of sharp cracks rifled through the air.

  Suddenly, a scant forty yards away, the ice cap erupted. Huge white slabs pushed upward. Groan­ing, they rose straight into the air before toppling over with a crash. A moment later, the tip of a black conning tower poked through the crack.

  "How do you like that! She's right on target."Both men grinned. Sophisticated navigational equipment had guided the USS Hawkbill from Ha­waii, but good old-fashioned muscle power had pro­vided her surfacing site...a large X shoveled in the ice.

  The two oceanographers raised their hands and clapped fur-lined mitts in a jubilant high five. After months at the remote laboratory one hundred and sixty-five miles north of Point Barrow, Alaska, they were ready—more than ready!—for a fresh infusion of supplies and outside conversation. Still grinning, they watched as the submarine's conning tower rose afoot. Two feet. Ten.

  The hulking body of the sub appeared, rolling great chunks of ice off its sides. When the hatch atop the conning tower opened and a hooded sailor ap­peared, the two men rushed forward.

  "Boy, are we glad to see you!" the senior sci­entist shouted. "We're down to the last battery for the underwater observation buoy.''

  "We brought the spares you requested." Bulky and awkward in his protective gear, the seaman climbed down the iron rungs riveted to the conning tower. ' 'We’ll start unloading immediately.''

  "We’ll help. Jack, bring up the snowmobile.''

  Eager to get the valuable equipment unloaded and hauled back to the collection of huts connected by air-heated tunnels that formed the United States Arctic Oceanographic Research Station, the lead oceanographer threw an impatient glance over his shoulder.

  "Jack! The snowmobile!"

  His partner didn't move. Frozen in place, he gawked at one of the huge slabs of ice tossed up by the sub.

  "What's got into you, man?"

  His breath clouding on the frigid air, the senior scientist stomped across the ice. Irritation creased his forehead under his ski mask.

  "Why are you just standing there? We've got a hundred tasks to get done before we... Oh, my God!"

  His eyes bugged. Disbelief rose up in great, chok­ing waves to close his throat, cut off his breath. Stumbling to a halt, he gaped at the helmeted figure staring hack at him through five feet of ice.

  Chapter 1

  An early June breeze frisked through the streets of Washington, D.C. Trees decked in bright chartreuse dipped and swayed like synchronized dancers in the afternoon sunshine. The hundred-year-old chestnuts lining a quiet side street just off Massachusetts Av­enue, deep in the heart of the capital's embassy dis­trict, whispered the same playful song. Their rus­tling branches almost obscured the facades of the Federal-style town houses that marched along either side of the brick-paved thoroughfare.

  The town house halfway down the block pre­sented a dignified front very similar to its neighbors. Three stories, with tall windows sparkling in the summer sunlight, the elegant one-time residence boasted a discreet bronze plaque beside the front door. The plaque confirmed that the dwelling now served as the offices of the president's special en­voy... a nebulous position created years ago as a re­ward for a campaign contributor with a yen for a fancy title and a burning desire to rub elbows with the political elite.


  Only a handful of Washington insiders were aware that the special envoy also served as the head of OMEGA, an organization so covert that its agents were known within the highest government circles only by their code names. Just as OMEGA repre­sented the last letter of the Greek alphabet, this or­ganization represented the U.S. president's last re­sort in a crisis. Its operatives were activated only when other, more conventional agencies like the State Department, the CIA, and the military, couldn't respond to a crisis for legal or political rea­sons.

  The president himself appointed OMEGA's di­rector. With great reluctance, he'd recently named a new chief, as the current head had requested an extended leave of absence. After directing the agency through three administrations, Maggie Sin­clair had decided to take some time off to complete a ground-breaking book on infant phonetics. She also planned to add a third child to the large, chaotic household she shared with her husband, her two daughters, an overgrown sheepdog and a bug-eyed, blue-and-orange striped iguana with an appetite for paper and plants.

  Her husband fully endorsed her decision and had recently resigned his own position as the U.S. am­bassador to the World Bank. While Maggie worked on her book, the wealthy, sophisticated Adam Ridgeway had decided to try his hand at full-time fatherhood.

  Every agent not currently on assignment or oth­erwise detailed had gathered in OMEGA's third floor control center to wish them well. Ignoring the soft chorus of beeps and blips emitted by the elec­tronic communications consoles, they toasted Mag­gie and Adam as they began the latest phase in their hectic, adventurous marriage.

  "The betting is you'll be back within a month," a lean, lanky operative with the code name Cowboy predicted. "One or the other of you. Hunting ter­rorists or illegal arms dealers is a lot easier on the nerves than raising kids."

  "You should know," Maggie retorted. "Most couples would have the sense to stop after two sets of twins."

  "What can I say?" Nate Sloan grinned. "This ole boy doesn't shoot blanks."

  Amid the hoots and groans that followed, Eliza­beth Wells calmly made the rounds to refill cham­pagne glasses. The gray-haired, grandmotherly woman had served as personal assistant to the di­rector of OMEGA since its inception. She was loved and respected by all for her many talents, not the least of which was her deadly skill with the 9mm SIG Sauer pistol she kept within instant reach at her desk downstairs.

  Maggie waited until Elizabeth finished topping off the glasses to step forward. The irreverent grin that had both irritated and inflamed her one-time boss tugged at her lips as she tipped him a quick look.

  "I'll admit I'm looking forward to spending more than two nights in succession in the same city, not to mention the same country, with my husband."

  The answering gleam in Adam's blue eyes was for Maggie alone. She melted inside, and the mus­cles low in her belly clenched in delicious antici­pation.

  "As the president stated when he approved my successor," she said a little breathlessly, "I'm leav­ing OMEGA in good hands."

  Her glance shifted to the operative standing qui­etly to one side.

  ''Nick is one of our own. Adam and I would trust him with our lives. We have trusted him with our lives."

  Nick Jensen, code name Lightning, strolled for­ward and lifted Maggie's hand to his lips with a charm that fluttered every female heart in the room.

  "It was my pleasure, Chameleon."

  Straightening, Nick included her husband in his glance. Despite the differences in their ages and backgrounds, the camaraderie between the two men showed clearly in the smiles they exchanged.

  "I'll never forget that breakfast on the veranda of the Carlton Hotel."

  "Nor will I." Grinning, Adam clapped a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I believe the bill for that journey of gastronomic discovery ran to three figures."

  Maggie caught the curious looks the other oper­atives traded. Only she, Adam, and the couple who'd adopted Nick knew that this cool, imperturb­able agent had once roamed the back streets of Cannes.

  Surveying him now, Maggie found it hard to be­lieve that a skinny, half-starved pickpocket with the improbable name of Henri Nicolas Everard had once graciously offered to serve as her pimp. Or that the bone-thin street tough kid would grow into such a hunk!

  His boyish shock of red hair had softened over the years to a burnished gold. The wide, muscled shoulders covered in whisper-soft gray cashmere could have belonged to a linebacker. In fact, he'd traded his shorts and beat-up soccer shoes for a foot­ball uniform when Page and Doc Jensen had brought him to the States.

  Fiercely loyal to his adopted country, Nick Jensen had been educated at UCLA and Stanford. After graduation, he'd parlayed his early, ravenous hunger into a string of world-class restaurants that had made him a millionaire many times over. The out­rageously expensive watering holes attracted movie stars and princes. They also allowed Nick to roam at will between the glittering world of the superrich and the dark underworld of terror and intrigue.

  Which, in Maggie's rather vocally expressed opinion, made the tall, wickedly handsome opera­tive the perfect choice for acting director of OMEGA. Happy to be leaving her team in such ca­pable hands, she lifted her glass.

  "Bonne chance, Nick."

  "Thanks, Chameleon," he said in the rich bari­tone that gave no hint of his French roots. "I'll need more than luck to manage this crew."

  "You've got that right."

  Nick's gaze traveled over the small crowd. He'd gone into the field with most of these operatives at one time or another, had depended on their unique talents to get him out of some decidedly uncom­fortable situations. Now he'd be the one to send them into harm's way.

  He rolled his shoulders under his hand-tailored jacket. Nick hadn't asked for the director's job, wasn't sure he wanted it. He'd been his own man for so long that he'd balked at the idea of assuming responsibility for the dozen or so highly skilled and very independent OMEGA agents. But as Maggie so bluntly put it, the order to put your life on the line went down a whole lot easier when it came from someone who'd done just that countless times.

  "Just don't take too long to write your book," he urged. "I'm opening a new restaurant in Lima in a few months, another in Acapulco later this year."

  "Strategically placed to cover the Pacific drug routes," Adam murmured approvingly.

  "Among other activities."

  Maggie's brown eyes sharpened. She might have one foot already out the door, but the other was still planted firmly in OMEGA's control center.

  "What kinds of activities, Lightning?"

  He'd opened his mouth to relay the rumor of a high-seas pirating operation based in the Chilean capital when a shrill buzz cut through the air. Every­one in the control center spun around. In a room crammed with the latest in high-tech electronic wiz­ardry, only one device broadcast that particular sig­nal.

  "I've got it!"

  Mackenzie Blair, OMEGA's chief of communi­cations, leaped for the central console. Slapping her left hand down on a flat surface, she snatched up a receiver with her right. Instantly, a complex double helix appeared on the screen above the console. Like colorful snakes performing some exotic mating ritual, the two strands writhed and danced for sev­eral seconds before confirming Mackenzie's DNA signature. Only then did the unscrambler built into the receiver activate.

  "OMEGA control." Shoving a strand of her thick, unruly sable hair behind her ear, she listened for a moment. "Yes, sir. She's right here."

  Turning, she offered the receiver to Maggie. "It's the president. He wants to speak to the director."

  Maggie caught herself just in time. With a wry grin, she gestured to Nick. "It's for you, Nick."

  "So it is."

  He strolled across the room. OMEGA's chief of communications hesitated for the merest fraction of a second before handing him the receiver. Hiding a frown, she stepped aside.

  Maggie Sinclair, code name Chameleon, had hired Mackenzie fresh out of the navy over the ob­jections of some of OM
EGA's older heads. Even more to the point, Chameleon had given her new Communications chief a blank check to procure the latest in high-tech gadgetry. She'd even sent Mac­kenzie into the field to experience first-hand the challenges of communicating with headquarters while dodging bullets or burrowing into burning desert sand to escape detection. Mackenzie consid­ered Maggie her mentor, her role model, her friend. She still hadn't recovered from the shock of hearing that her idol was turning over OMEGA's reins for an indeterminate period.

  And to Nick Jensen, of all people. An unabashed, unapologetic sensualist. An epicure, whose sophis­ticated palate demanded the finest wines, the fresh­est delicacies, the most glamorous dinner compan­ions. In Mackenzie's mind, those qualities tended to blur the fact that Nick, code name Lightning, was also one of the most experienced operatives in the agency. She'd wasted two years of her life on a man with similarly varied, if decidedly less discriminat­ing, appetites. Her ex had forever turned her off too-handsome, too-charming rogues.

  Still, when OMEGA's new director pinned her with an intent stare, it took her a moment to get her breath back. And to realize he wasn't looking at her, but through her.

  "Where's Artemis?"

  Her glance flicked to the computerized status board projected onto the far wall. One of her unit's main challenges was keeping track of OMEGA's agents twenty-four hours a day. A single glance confirmed the status of Dr. Diana Remington, code name Artemis.

  "She's at John Hopkins, teaching a class on an-tipeptide antibodies...whatever those are."

  ''Contact her. Tell her I want her in my office in thirty minutes."

  Mackenzie's brows lifted at the preemptory order.

  It hadn't taken Lightning long to shift from opera­tive to director mode. "Aye, aye, sir”

  A glint appeared in Nick's dark eyes. Deliber­ately, he planed the brusque edge from his voice. "While we're waiting for Artemis to arrive, get the Field Dress folks working on Arctic gear for her. Also, pull up everything in the computers on the U-2."