Dangerous to Know

by Merline Lovelace

  Did the caretaker resent Adam Ridgeway’s presence in Taylor’s cabin, not to mention her life? Had his supposed devotion ripened into something deeper? And darker? Had he been corrupted into planting that bug in her room, or had he done it for his own purposes? His closed face gave her no clue.

  After a moment, he tossed the spatula into the sink and leaned his hips against it. Folding his arms, he raised a brow in query.

  “You want the snowmobiles?”

  Maggie chewed slowly to cover her sudden uncertainty. Did she want the snowmobiles? Would Taylor want them?

  “You don’t need them,” he added on a gruff note, watching her. “I cleared the path down to the lake with the snowblower before I started breakfast. Knew you’d want to go down there first thing.”

  The lake. Evidently everyone was aware of Taylor’s little ritual of walking down to the lake to find her tree, whatever and wherever that was.

  Before Maggie could reply, the kitchen door opened. The lump of buckwheat lodged halfway down her throat.

  After last night, she should have anticipated Adam’s impact on her traitorous body. She should have expected her empty stomach to do a close approximation of a triple flip. Her thighs to clench under the table. Her palms to dampen. But she darn well hadn’t expected her throat to close around a clump of dough and almost choke her to death. She took a hasty swallow of coffee to ease its passage.

  Damn! Adam Ridgeway in black tie and tails was enough to make any woman whip around for a second, or even third, look. But Adam in well-worn jeans and a green plaid shirt that hugged his broad shoulders was something else again.

  He wore the clothes with a casual familiarity that said they were old friends and not just trotted out for a weekend in the woods. He hadn’t shaved, and a dark stubble shadowed his chin and cheeks. Seeing him like this, Maggie felt her mental image of this man alter subtly, like a house shifting on its foundations—until she caught the expression in his blue eyes as he returned the caretaker’s look. That was vintage Thunder. Cool. Assessing. In control.

  “We didn’t get a chance to meet last night,” he said, crossing the small kitchen. “I’m Adam Ridgeway.”

  A scarred hand took his. “Hank McGowan.”

  Their hands dropped, and the two men measured each other.

  “I understand from Taylor you run the place.”

  A wiry shoulder lifted. “She runs it. I keep it together while she’s away.”

  “It’s a big place for one man to handle.”

  “A crew comes up in the spring. To help with lambing, then later with the shearing. The rest of the time, we manage.” He flicked Maggie a sideways glance. “Me and the hound.”

  “You met him last night,” Maggie interjected, although she knew Adam wouldn’t need a reminder. Even if they hadn’t been briefed on what to expect at the cabin, the first encounter with that strange-looking creature would have stayed in anyone’s mind.

  “So I did. Radizwell, isn’t it?”

  “Actually,” she replied, dredging through her memory for details, “his registered name is Radizwell, Marioffski’s Silver Stand.”

  McGowan’s lips twisted. “Damnedest name for a sheepdog I ever heard. You going to take him down to the lake with you?”

  “Of course. You know very well that I couldn’t get away without him, even if I wanted to.”

  His battered features relaxed into what was probably meant as a smile. “True. Biscuits and bacon are on the stove, Ridgeway.”

  Politeness demanded that Taylor share the table with her guest while he ate. Adam, bless him, took pity on Maggie.

  “I’m not hungry right now. I’ll just have a cup of coffee and tuck a couple of those biscuits in my pocket for later. A walk down to the lake should help me work up an appetite.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You’d better take more than a couple,” Maggie suggested blandly. “It’s a long walk.”

  When the huge, shaggy sheepdog bounded through the snow toward her, Maggie saw at once that he was still suspicious of her. Her hands froze on the zipper of her hot-pink ski jacket as he circled her a few times, sniffing warily.

  Before he issued any of the rumbling growls that had raised the hairs on the back of her neck last night, however, Adam dug into the pocket of his blue ski jacket and offered the dog a bacon-stuffed biscuit.

  “Here, boy.”

  Maggie bit back her instinctive protest as she watched, and the delicacy disappeared in a single gulp. The animal, now Adam’s friend for life, cavorted like an animated overgrown dust mop, then took off for the trees.

  Muttering under her breath, Maggie zipped up her jacket, tugged a matching knit band over her ears and trudged after him. Adam followed her, and the ever-present Secret Service agent trailed behind.

  The path to the lake was steep, snow-covered in spots, and treacherous. It pitched downward from the side of the cabin, wound around tall oaks and silver-barked poplars, then twisted through a stand of Douglas fir. On her own, Maggie would have been lost within minutes. Luckily, the komondor knew exactly where they were headed. Every so often he stopped and looked back, his massive head tilted. At least Maggie assumed it was his head. With that impenetrable, shaggy coat, he could very well have been treating her to a calculated display of doggy disdain. Or waiting for Adam to offer another biscuit as an incentive. Ha! There was no way the creature was getting any more of those biscuits, Maggie vowed.

  Although cold, the air was dry and incredibly sharp. The snow, a foot or more deep along the slopes, thinned as they descended to the tiny lake set in its nest of trees. Maggie was huffing from the strenuous walk by the time they left the path to circle the shoreline. Her silky thermal undershirt stuck to her shoulder blades, and the Kevlar shield trapped a nasty little trickle of perspiration in the small of her back.

  Well aware that wet clothes led to hypothermia, which could kill far more swiftly than exposure or starvation, she slowed her pace and strolled along the shore beside Adam as though they were, in fact, just out to enjoy the spectacular sight of the sun burnishing the surrounding peaks. In the process, she searched the trees ringing the lake.

  Maggie had no idea which was Taylor’s special tree—until a lone twisted oak on a narrow spit of land snared her gaze. Lightning had split its trunk nearly in half, but the tree had defied the elements. Alone and proud, it lifted its bare branches to the golden light now spilling over the snowcapped peaks. Sure enough, Radizwell raced out onto the narrow strip and bounded around the twisted oak. His earsplitting barks echoed in the early-morning stillness like booming cannon fire.

  “He probably thinks he’s going to get another treat,” Maggie muttered.

  “Isn’t he?”

  “If you give away another one of those biscuits, that shaggy Hungarian won’t be the only one howling.”

  He sent her an amused look. “You get a little testy when you’re hungry, don’t you?”

  “Very!” she warned. “Remember that.”

  “I will,” he promised, his eyes glinting.

  The agent patrolled the shore while Maggie and Adam walked out onto the spit for a few moments of much-needed privacy. They had to contact headquarters. Relay the latest developments to Jaguar. Formulate a game plan for communicating in an insecure environment. None of which could be done in a house wired from rooftop to wood-plank floor.

  Despite the urgency of their mission, however, the initials carved into the weathered trunk tugged at Maggie’s concentration. Pulling off a glove, she traced the deep grooves.

  “T and H. Taylor and Harold.”

  “Hal,” Adam reminded her, leaning a forearm against the tree. His breath mingled with hers, soft clouds of white vapor in the sharp mountain air. “She called him Hal.”

  Maggie nodded. “Hal.”

  With the tip of one finger, she followed the smooth cut. It had been blunted a bit over the years, but had withstood the test of time.

  “Did you know him?” she asked.


  “I met him once, just before he died. He was a good man, and a gifted sculptor. I have a bronze of his at home.”

  The glint of gold on Maggie’s finger caught her gaze. “They must have loved each other very much,” she said softly. “The words inside this ring make me want to cry. Now, and forever.”

  When Adam didn’t reply, she squinted up at him, her eyes narrowed against the now-dazzling sunlight reflected off the lake’s frozen surface.

  “Don’t you believe in forever?”

  Unaware that she was doing so, Maggie held her breath as she waited for his answer. There was so much she didn’t know about this man, she acknowledged with a stab of uncertainty. He kept his thoughts to himself. His past was shrouded in mystery. Their only contact was through OMEGA and their work together.

  Only recently had she finally acknowledged how much she wanted him. Yet now, staring into eyes deepened to midnight by the dark blue of his ski jacket, she realized with shattering clarity that wanting wasn’t enough. Physical gratification wouldn’t begin to satisfy the need this man generated in her.

  In that moment, with the sun cutting through the distant peaks and their breath entwined on the cold, clear air, Maggie knew she wanted more. She wanted the forever Taylor had never had. With this man. With Adam.

  “I believe in a lot of things, Maggie, my own,” he said softly, in answer to her question. “Several of which I intend to discuss with you very soon.”

  My own.

  She liked the sound of that. A lot. Suddenly very soon couldn’t come fast enough for Maggie.

  “It seems as though the list of things we have to discuss with each other is getting longer by the hour,” she replied, her smile answering the promise in his eyes. “Right now, though, I guess we’d better contact Jaguar.”

  They moved to a boulder at the end of the spit. While Maggie brushed the snow off its flat surface, Adam punched the necessary codes into the transceiver built into his watch.

  To the agent on the shore behind them, it must have appeared as though they were enjoying the panoramic vista of an ice-crusted lake skirted by towering dark green firs. Shoulder to shoulder, Maggie and Adam shared the rock and waited for headquarters to acknowledge the signal. He kept his arm tucked against her body to muffle the sound of Jake’s voice.

  “Jaguar here. Been wondering where you were.”

  “I couldn’t check in this morning. Chameleon discovered a hidden device in her room. We had to assume there was one in mine, as well.”

  Through the crystal-clear transmission, Maggie could hear the frown in Jaguar’s voice. “What kind of device?”

  “One that our scanners didn’t pick up when we swept the rooms last night. Or someone planted while we were downstairs.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  Maggie bent her elbows across her knees and leaned forward. Keeping her voice low, she spoke into the transmitter. “About an inch square. Wafer-thin. Blue-gray in color, made of a composite material I’ve never seen before. It looks like plastic, but it’s a lot more porous, almost like a honeycomb.”

  “That doesn’t fit any of the designs I know. I’ll have the lab check it out.”

  “Tell them to dig deep. This might be the first break we’ve had on this mission.”

  A hint of excitement had crept into her voice. She’d had plenty of time to think through this unexpected turn of events during the long hours of the night…after she’d left Adam’s bed.

  “Tell the lab to talk to the Secret Service’s technical division. Those guys have access to the latest materials.”

  “You think the Secret Service planted a bug in the vice president’s bedroom without her knowledge or approval?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie confessed. “But if they did, the order had to come from high up in their chain.”

  “Like from the secretary of the treasury himself,” Jaguar drawled.

  “Exactly.”

  “Slip someone into Digicon’s labs, as well,” Adam instructed. “I’m willing to bet they’re using this composite material in the work they’re doing for NASA.”

  “I’d say that’s a pretty good bet,” Jaguar commented. “By the way, you might want to know that we’ve confirmed Stoney Armstrong’s suspicions about First Bank.”

  “First Bank is laundering drug money?”

  “Laundering it, dry-cleaning it, and serving it up starched and folded. It took our auditors some time, but they finally uncovered a blind account that traced back to a dummy corporation fronted by a major cartel.”

  “Tell them they did good work.”

  “They didn’t do it all on their own. We got some inside information. From a source tracking it from the other end.”

  “Is the source reliable?”

  “Ask Chameleon,” Jake drawled. “She had dinner with him when he was in Washington a few weeks ago.”

  “Luis!” Maggie exclaimed. “That’s where I heard about First Bank! I knew it was in connection with something other than the president’s inter-monetary whatever.”

  Adam’s black brows snapped together. The idea of Maggie having dinner with the smooth, oversexed Colonel Luis Esteban, chief of Cartozan security, didn’t sit particularly well with him.

  “What’s Esteban’s interest in First Bank?”

  “His government’s trying to unfreeze the assets of the drug lord Jaguar and I helped take down last year. Evidently First was holding some.”

  “And?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Cartoza’s a small country. They were getting the runaround from some bureaucrat or another. I made a few calls to one or two of my contacts and hinted at high-level government interest on our side.”

  “How high?”

  Her eyes gleamed. “I more or less left it to their imagination.”

  Adam frowned. There were too many references to First Bank cropping up for simple coincidence. First, there was the president’s plan for stabilizing the Latin-American economies, which the bank had helped draft. Then Stoney Armstrong. Now Maggie and her smarmy Latin colonel. There was a connection. There had to be.

  “Is that team of auditors still in place?” he asked Jaguar sharply.

  “I was going to pull them out today.”

  “Keep them there. Have them examine every transaction, every wire transfer, for the last two years. See if Digicon does any business with them.”

  “Roger.”

  “And have them look into any blind trusts that may have been set up to handle accounts for persons currently in public office.”

  “Like the secretary of the treasury?”

  “Like the secretary of the treasury. Get back to me immediately if they turn anything up. Anything at all. There’s a link here that we’re missing. Something that ties it all together.”

  “Will do.”

  Adam signed off. Rising, he shoved his hands into his back pockets and frowned at the lake.

  “What do you think it could be?” Maggie asked. “This link?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s there. I’m sure of it.”

  She regarded him with a solemn air. “Careful, Thunder. Your sixth sense is showing.”

  Adam turned, and felt his heart twist.

  Maggie shone through the facade of her disguise. His Maggie. Irrepressible. Irresistible. Her eyes alight with the mischievous glow that snared his soul.

  Surrendering to the inevitable, he reached for her. At that moment, he didn’t care who was watching. Who was listening. He had to kiss her.

  “Mmm…” she murmured a few moments later. “Nice. See what happens when you let yourself go and operate solely on instinct?”

  “I’ve been operating on instincts where you’re concerned for a long time,” he said dryly. “You defy all logic or rational approach.”

  Laughter filled her eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Adam caught her chin in his hand. Tilting her face to his, he warmed himself in her vibrant glow. “It was intended as one.”
r />   “Hmm… I think this is something else we have to add to our list of topics to discuss. Soon.”

  “Very soon.”

  Her breath caught. “Adam…”

  He would always remember that moment beside the lake and wonder what she might have said—if the distant throb of an engine hadn’t snagged her attention. If the agent on the shore hadn’t turned, his head cocked toward the humming sound. If the dog hadn’t risen up off its haunches and swung its massive body around.

  Adam lifted his head and searched the tree line.

  “It sounds like a snowmobile,” Maggie murmured, a frown sketching her forehead. She listened for a moment, then stiffened in his arms. “It’s not coming from the direction of the cabin.”

  “No, it’s not. Come on, let’s get off this unprotected spit.”

  Tension, sudden and electric, arced between them. The dog picked up on it immediately, or perhaps sensed the danger on his own. He growled, deep in his throat, and pushed ahead of them onto the pebbled shore. His huge paws had just hit the snow when the first snowmobile burst out of the screen of trees.

  It darted forward, a blue beetle whizzing across the snow on short skis. A second followed, then a third. The white-suited driver in the lead vehicle lifted his arm, and a burst of automatic gunfire cut the Secret Service agent down where he stood.

  Maggie and Adam dived for cover. In a movement so ingrained, so instinctive, that they could have been synchronized swimmers, they rolled across the snow. On the first roll, Maggie had freed Taylor’s puny little weapon from her pants pocket. On the second, Adam’s far heavier and more powerful gun was blazing.

  The first attacker came at them, spewing bullets and snow as he swerved to avoid the counterfire. Maggie left him to Adam and concentrated on the second, who was circling behind them. She got off one shot, and then a shaggy white shape hurtled through the air.

  An agonized scream rose over the sound of gunfire and roaring engines, only to be cut off by a savage snarl.

  Chapter 10

  Adam saw at once that they were outgunned and outmaneuvered.

  Their Secret Service escort lay writhing in the snow, blood pumping from a hit to the stomach. They couldn’t reach him without running along a stretch of open, exposed shoreline. The downed man’s only hope of survival was for them to keep the attackers focused on their primary target. And her only hope was escape.