Crazy Love

by Tara Janzen

  He looked back through the window, his gaze raking the white room. Whatever had been in the Navy’s antidote had worked. He was back to what he was comfortable being—a coolheaded, coldhearted, calculating son of a bitch. Skeeter and Travis had made a mess of the white room. There was blood everywhere, and a whole lot of other stuff running down the walls, and none of it bothered him, not even the damn chair.

  It was eerie, how exactly Dr. Souk had recreated this room to match the one on Sumba, but Dylan guessed if he’d been a psycho medical-sadist, he would have done the same thing. And yeah, he probably would have used a dental chair, too, just to up the terror factor.

  Fuck. He rolled his head to one side, stretching out the kinks.

  So everything had worked out fine, everything was good. Gillian Pentycote would undoubtably recover from her ordeal. Travis was going to get promoted to full operational status, and Skeeter was…

  Skeeter was…

  Fine, he decided, a great girl. Hot, lovely, gorgeous, spooky, and out of his system. He’d had her. It was time to move on, just the way he’d known it would be.

  Once was enough.

  And if he’d said a few things, done a few things, well, he’d been jacked up on NG4, and she knew it as well as he did.

  And those female abandonment issues left over from his childhood and his truly horrendously crappy relationship with his mother—well, those were still in the vault, still his, still safe and sound and keeping him out of trouble.

  No harm, no foul, no commitment, no error. Especially no commitment. Things were back to normal. He was back to normal, and what he normally did in situations like this was get a new assignment and go make the world safe for another week, until the next disaster hit the fan. With everyone else at Steele Street starting to settle down and look like goddamn Ozzie and Harriet, it was why he was the boss.

  He checked his watch. If he could move things along here, he could catch a flight out of Dulles and be in another country by lunchtime.

  Yeah. That sounded good. He always thought more clearly when he was out of the country.

  He looked over at the white-haired man and caught his attention with a slight nod. In answer, White Rook’s gaze landed briefly on the outside door, then returned to his aide.

  Fine. Perfect. All systems go. If Dylan wanted orders to kill Tony Royce and Hamzah Negara, White Rook was the guy who could give them.

  CHAPTER

  27

  Two months later—Mexico

  SHE WAS leaving.

  That was impossible.

  From where he was sitting in a pool of hot Mexican sunshine, watching the waves break on the beach below his cabana, Dylan read the fax transmission again.

  Skeeter Jeanne Bang was leaving Steele Street. She was packing up her spaceship apartment, her ungodly amount of junk, and her bags, and she was leaving.

  She’d gotten a better offer, the fax from Hawkins said, an offer from the freaking FBI, which was ridiculous. She would never be happy with the FBI.

  He set down his tumbler of Scotch, then picked it back up and took another swallow.

  Skeeter couldn’t leave Steele Street. The whole damn place would fall apart if she did, and everyone knew that—so why in the hell weren’t they doing something about it?

  Did he have to do everything?

  No.

  Okay, that had been a stupid question. He didn’t do crap at Steele Street, except stay away from it.

  Looking up, he lifted his tumbler and signaled his houseboy for another refill.

  There had been a time—oh, say, two months ago—when he would have had a woman, a lover, to pour his Scotch. But he hadn’t had a lover in, oh, say, two months, and even then, he’d only done it once, and before that, he hadn’t done it in months, and sometimes he wondered if he was ever going to “do it” again. It was so goddamn stupid. It was just sex, for crying out loud, not rocket science.

  So why wasn’t he getting any?

  And why was he drinking so goddamn much Scotch all the time?

  He’d killed Negara—or actually, Kid had. Dylan had spent the last eight weeks collecting intelligence for a hit on the warlord, and two weeks ago, he’d contacted Kid and had him fly from Paris to Jakarta for the final run-up to the mission.

  With Kid on his rifle, and Dylan on a pair of binoculars, they’d lain in the fetid jungle of Sumba day after day after day, waiting for the exact moment when Kid could line up his bore with Negara’s heart. It had been an immensely satisfying experience.

  Tony Royce was still at large. The man had completely disappeared, and not even Dylan’s best rats had been able to find him. He’d show up someday, though, and when he did, he was a dead man.

  None of which addressed his current problem—a spooky girl with a lightning-bolt tattoo who had blown his mind. For the life of him, he could not seem to get her out of his head. She was just there, inside him, all the time, smelling like sugar, and melting all over him, and all around driving him crazy.

  He waited while the boy filled his tumbler, then he took another long swallow. Scotch was not Skeeter, but at least it numbed his brain long enough to get some sleep every now and then. Not much sleep, and not very now and then, just occasionally, but not occasionally enough. He was a wreck, and it was time to face some facts.

  Once had not been enough.

  It was as simple as that. He needed to do it with her twice, maybe three or four times, and he couldn’t do that if he was in Mexico, and she was leaving Steele Street.

  He had to go home.

  He started to take another swallow of Scotch, but set the tumbler back on the table instead and pulled out his cell phone.

  There was a flight out of Cabo San Lucas in two hours, and with a little luck, he was going to be on it.

  Leaving, his ass.

  She couldn’t leave.

  He was the one who left—always.

  CHAPTER

  28

  IT WAS, without a doubt, the most amazing thing Dylan had ever seen at Steele Street—Superman, walking the hall with a small pink-blanketed bundle in his arms, crooning.

  Hawkins looked like hell. The baby looked…small. Dylan tried to think if he’d ever been in the presence of an infant before, and decided this was a first. He’d seen them on television, of course, and in the movies, but he’d never actually been in the same room with one.

  Alexandria Kleir Hawkins.

  While he and Skeeter and Travis had been shooting it out with pirates in Washington, D.C., that night, and generally making a big deal out of everything, Hawkins and Creed had killed three of their own, kept one for interrogation, and then taken Katya to the hospital for the night’s truly big event.

  Alexandria had dark hair and the tiniest hands he’d ever seen. One of them was wrapped around Hawkins’s finger, and there was room to spare on both ends. He hadn’t realized Hawkins’s hands were so large—or that babies were so…small.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he said, stepping out of the elevator on the eleventh floor. Skeeter’s floor. He hadn’t even been up to his place on thirteen. He’d dropped his luggage in the office on seven and hauled his butt up here to eleven.

  Hawkins looked up and smiled, and Dylan had to wonder how someone who looked so exhausted could also look so sappily happy.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Hawkins said—except he didn’t say it exactly. He kind of sang it in the same tone of voice he’d been crooning in, and he did it without missing a beat or a step. He was still walking, walking, walking, one short jiggly step after another, the baby bouncing up and down on his arm. Her head and her back were resting in his hand and along his arm. Her butt was about halfway to his elbow, and her little legs were dangling down on either side of his forearm.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to hold them like that.” Geez. Shouldn’t there be a professional around for this, or at least Katya?

  “And I don’t think you have any idea how pisse
d off Skeeter is at you,” Hawkins crooned, the sound of which was just weird enough to push Dylan a little more off center, which was the last damn thing he needed. “I told her you were coming.”

  Great.

  “Should I go get a Kevlar vest?”

  “No. Just remember she leads with her right.” Hawkins came to a stop next to Dylan, but he didn’t actually stop. His feet weren’t moving, but the rest of him was—his arm swaying from side to side and going up and down, his body rocking back and forth—and the baby lying there, sleeping, looking utterly content, with the sweetest little smile Dylan had ever seen on the teeniest lips he’d ever seen.

  It was weird, but she looked like Hawkins, the badass Superman. No shit. Her dark hair was all wild and sticking up like Hawkins’s, and the two of them had the same exact eyebrows, except hers were in miniature.

  Geez. Hawkins had a baby. He’d known it was coming, and known it the night it had happened, but it was still amazing to actually see the reality.

  “You’ve got spit-up on your shoulder.”

  “I’ve also got the code to Skeeter’s door. Come on. I’ll let you in.” Hawkins started that damned disconcerting jiggly-step walking again, heading back down the hall.

  “She’s beautiful.” Dylan might not have known anything about babies, but he knew beautiful when he saw it.

  “You should see her when she’s awake,” Hawkins crooned. “She’s so cool.”

  Cool?

  “She’s limp. I don’t know if you hypnotized her or what, but she’s gone.” And like all women, she trusted Superman implicitly. Her life was literally in his hands, one hand, and the girl was completely blissed out.

  “Aaaa-lex-annn-driaaaa,” Hawkins sang. “Daddy’s little kick-ass pummmmmmpkin.”

  Geezus. Steele Street really had slipped into the Twilight Zone, and personally, Dylan didn’t think anyone under ten pounds could kick anybody’s ass.

  Then again, even at eight weeks, it looked like Alexandria Hawkins had already kicked Superman’s ass, but good.

  Two minutes later, he was face-to-face with his own kick-ass pumpkin, but his little squash really could get the job done, and then some.

  Yeah, she’d been expecting him, all right. He could tell by the ice-cold unwelcome frozen on her face. The girl was not happy to see him.

  He was hoping to change her mind with the ring in his pocket.

  Yeah, a ring. A diamond ring.

  He’d actually gotten it a few weeks ago, on a side trip he’d taken to Hong Kong while trying to track down Tony Royce. It had been too good a deal to pass up.

  Right.

  That’s what he’d told himself at the time, that dropping five figures on a perfect diamond set in platinum was a smart move, the thing to do.

  It was unnerving, really, what a good deal he’d gotten. Too many more good deals like that one and he’d end up with a harem.

  Or not. Because the look on Skeeter’s face was saying “fat chance,” whether he whipped out a ring or not.

  “Hi.” He’d decided a simple opener was the best. At least it had sounded good in the elevator.

  “Who let you in?”

  Ouch.

  “Hawkins. He’s, uh, walking the hall and burping the baby.”

  She softened a little at the mention of the baby, moving aside enough for him to get out of the main gangway. Her whole loft had been reconfigured with foam and paint and ingenuity into a fair replica of the Millennium Falcon, complete with a hydraulic hatch, otherwise known as the front door, and a gangway, otherwise known as the entry hall. The jungle she was growing for Creed in the loft below hers had “Jumanjied” itself through the floor in a few places, but he managed to negotiate the works to get himself into her living room…into hot water up to his neck.

  “We got Negara, Kid and I, a week ago, on Sumba.” That was his big news.

  “Yeah. I heard.” She turned and walked over to her computer desk, showing absolutely no interest whatsoever in his big news.

  “It was a helluva shot, if Kid hasn’t already told you about it.”

  “He did.”

  Of course he had. She and Kid had probably talked about the shot dozens of times in the last week.

  He needed to do better, or he was going to end up back out in the hall.

  “You were a great help that night, in Washington, D.C.” He followed a short ways behind her, watching her, carefully, looking for a sign, any kind of a sign that she was glad to see him.

  “Yes, I was,” she agreed, giving herself full credit for a job well done, which was exactly what she deserved, right along with a heavy dose of abject groveling at her feet—her black patent-leather, thigh-high, spike-heeled, boot-clad feet.

  He could see it all so clearly now. He’d been an idiot to run off and leave everything at such loose ends.

  She boosted herself up on the edge of the desk and just sat there, looking at him, her eyes clear and blue and completely unadorned by any damned mirrored sunglasses.

  He guessed they’d both moved on from old habits.

  He let out a heavy breath, ran his hand through his hair, and looked around her loft. He was nervous.

  That was a first, a damned disconcerting first.

  “Skeeter, I…” His voice trailed off. He didn’t know what to say.

  Another first.

  He dragged his hand through his hair—again. Christ. He had to do better than this.

  “You’re a complete jerk, Dylan.”

  Okay, he wouldn’t have said that, not exactly, but she wasn’t too far off the mark.

  “I’m sorry.” That was a good place to start, way better than him being a jerk. “I should have…well, I’ve been thinking…and what I thought was that you were too young…for me, I mean.”

  “You were wrong.”

  Past tense. That wasn’t good. “Don’t make this easy on me.”

  “I won’t.”

  Okay, he deserved that.

  “Are you armed?” It seemed a reasonable question after what he’d seen in Washington, D.C.

  “Of course.”

  Of course.

  “So what should I be on the lookout for? Combat knife? Butterfly Sting? A Remington .45 caliber hardball?”

  Lightening the mood could only help, and he was ready for anything, except what she used.

  Slowly, but unmistakably, her lips started to tremble, and her nose turned pink.

  Emotion.

  Hell. That was a surefire killer. He’d never hold up under emotion.

  “Skeeter, honey.” He moved in closer, heedless of the danger, and cupped her face. She was so amazingly soft, and if she was going to do him in, a couple of feet of distance wasn’t going to make any difference.

  “Dammit, Dylan. You cut me out of the hit.”

  The hit?

  She was on the verge of tears because of the hit?

  Oh, man, he was on a helluva lot shakier ground than he’d thought.

  “Kid’s the sniper, babe, not you.” He smoothed his thumb over her cheek.

  “Then you haven’t been paying attention.”

  Of course he hadn’t been paying attention, he’d been…thousands of miles away for eight weeks, and before that for seven months, as far away as he could get. He’d only come home to die, and he hadn’t done that, and in the middle of not dying, he’d made love to her.

  She was right. He was a complete jerk.

  “Kid’s been training you on the long gun. That’s…uh, great.” He needed to get used to this if he was going to be hanging around Steele Street, if he was going to be hanging around her—which he guessed was one way to put it, one kind of stupid way. He had a freaking diamond ring in his pocket. “Hanging around” didn’t begin to cover what he had planned.

  “He says I’m a natural.”

  “Of course you are.” He’d seen her move. He’d seen her think under pressure, under fire. He’d seen her plan and outfit a mission. And he’d seen her save Gillian Pentycote. “How�
�s Red Dog?” The two women were friends, and he should ask. He should have asked about Gillian a long time ago.

  Her gaze fell away, and beneath his hand he felt her jaw tighten again.

  “Not so good,” she said. “She doesn’t know who she is. She never regained her memory.”

  Oh, Christ. He should have known that. He should have done a follow-up.

  “I didn’t have any memory loss.” Unfortunately. There were things that had happened on Sumba that he wished he could forget.

  “Dr. Souk gave you NG4. Gillian got the XT7. Plus, you’re a lot bigger than she is, and male. The drugs reacted oddly on her. Even the lab rats who work with the stuff have been surprised by her reaction. Memory loss hasn’t been associated with that class of drugs in any of the clinical tests.”

  “What are her chances of recovery?”

  “Memory-wise, no one is taking a guess,” she said. “But in every other way, she’s doing very well, even great. Physically, she’s stronger than she’s ever been, in perfect health.”

  “I’m sorry, Skeeter.” He’d lost people out of his life, but never because of amnesia.

  She gave a small shrug. “We’re still friends, just different friends than we were before. Kid is training her, too.”

  “Ah…” That was pretty alarming. “Kid is training an amnesiac to be a sniper?”

  Geez, he really did need to spend more time at Steele Street, just to get everybody back on the straight and narrow, if nothing else.

  “Yes. She’s very, very good. Better than me, and Travis is working with her, too, using some of his sexual imprinting techniques.”

  And that was even more alarming. He’d heard about the FNG’s sexual imprinting business, and although Kid was completely sold on the whole idea, Dylan had to wonder what the guy was up to.

  “Travis is having sex with an amnesiac?” God, somebody really did need to take the place in hand, get back on the reins, and Hawkins was obviously way too preoccupied to do the job. Coming home was starting to feel more and more like the right thing to do.

  “Not sex. I don’t think so. He’s trying to get her back in tune with her feminine side, and he buys her underwear.”