Thanks to the hottie with the light brown hair and intense brown eyes, she had a mess on her hands. Looked like Ward was not a simple businessman. Not a simple anything. A gun-for-hire maybe.
Just fantastic.
The only way to remove Ward as a threat had been with a mix of sex and drugs. Men fell for that double whammy every single time, but men like Ward only fell once. She wouldn’t get that shot again.
But thinking about the big guy dropping to the floor did make her smile. Also made her grab a gun, just to be safe. She tucked it into her boot before closing up the Jeep again. Now came the long hike through the overgrown jungle. This Fijian island, one of more than three hundred excluding the hundreds more islets that made up the country, was more remote than most. Its residents included people who worked at the resort, tourists, and one very nasty dictator with some stolen big guns. The egotistical jackass.
She walked half a mile, baking in the island humidity and generally soaking through her shirt until a chill played on her skin. She’d given up on the rocky trail. More like, it ran out and she took to the brush, using one of her knives to clear a path.
Halfway from nowhere, or so the GPS on her watch suggested, she heard scuffling. She’d ignored the patter and slither of whatever moved around her so far, but this sounded human. Male, human, and loud.
No way was she taking the risk of running into the wrong group of men out here alone. She knew she could take them, but that meant blowing her cover and possibly letting the wrong people know operatives were at work on the island.
She looked around for a place to hide and didn’t see so much as a hole to dive into. Ducking down, she peeked through the wooded area and saw heavily armed men walking in the distance about three hundred meters to her left. Men she didn’t recognize.
She had only seconds.
Edging her back around the tree trunk, she moved along the ground until she found a branch she could grab. One just out of reach. With her weapons tucked in her shorts, she did a standing jump. On the first attempt, her palm slapped against the rough bark, and she bit back a hiss.
Focusing all her energy, she tried again, this time snagging the branch with the tips of her fingers. One hand up. Then the next. With a deep breath, she lifted her body up until her stomach rested on the bark. Next came the leg swing and the scramble higher and deeper into the tree.
From her position sitting among the leaves, she could watch and maybe drop on any potential attackers. Or wait. Tasha knew how to bide her time. She possessed a wealth of patience and willingness to shoot if needed. But she could wait only so long because Tigana was on the move and Ward was out there somewhere, likely planning his revenge.
She’d almost rather take her chances with Tigana.
WARD HEARD THE footsteps. Not the light touch of a female. No, this thumped with no thought to hiding a presence.
He tried to open his eyes, get his bearings. He remembered the pain in his head from before. Right after he had the thought, the hammering started hard enough to make his eyes cross. Tasha, damn her. She drugged him. Knocked him out cold and left him.
He tried to move his arms and felt the now-familiar tug of a binding holding them behind his back. “Son of a bitch.”
He blinked again and this time spied shoes. Well-worn sneakers, to be exact.
The floor creaked, and Ford Decker’s face came into view as he squatted on his haunches next to Ward’s head. “Hello there.”
All Ward could manage was a groan. Yeah, a son of a bitch wasn’t nearly strong enough for this scene. Having a witness, especially this witness, made him long to be unconscious again.
“I guess it’s a lucky thing you had a tracker on you,” Ford said.
“Yeah, I feel lucky right now.”
Ford’s hand hung down between his knees, and he let out a long whistle. “So, how did the date go?”
Instead of answering, Ward closed his eyes again. “Shit.”
“You often end a night of sex tied to a chair? I had no idea you were into funky shit.” Ford snorted. “In fact, I kind of wish I didn’t know it now.”
Ward let his senses race. He felt the hard wood under his legs and the floor pressing into his side. The chair. She actually took the time to strap him to the chair. “She did it again.”
It was a message of some sort. One Ward didn’t get, but he planned to track her down and ask her.
“Did you say again?” The laughter was right there in Ford’s voice.
Yeah, that was just about all the amusement Ward could handle for one day. “Shut up.”
Ford barked out an actual laugh that time. “Oh, I don’t see that happening.”
With only one eye open but squinting against the morning light filling the bure, Ward glanced over at his partner on this operation. “You could help me get up.”
“Or I could take a photo.” Ford took a phone out of his pocket as if he intended to go through with it.
“Do and die.” Tied up or not, a chair or not, if Ford walked out of the room with one piece of evidence about this and the shitty night that came before, Ward would take him apart. There were limits on how much bashing his ego could handle.
“Answer this.” Ford picked up Ward’s abandoned wallet and flipped it around. “Did you have a good time, or were you so bad she tied you up to get away from you?”
There was only one answer to that sort of question. “Fuck you.”
“That’s not really responsive.”
Time to get the assignment back on track and Ford’s mind off whatever happened before he walked into this room. Not that Ward even knew the answer. But they did have a problem, and he was clear on at least that much. “She’s not a bartender.”
Ford’s smirk vanished. “What is she?”
“Con woman. Operative. Mercenary.” Ward tried to lift up, to take the weight off his sore shoulder. “Hell, an actress for all I know.”
“That’s a lot of skill sets for one woman.”
He struggled up to his elbow. The awkward position made it tough to break a tie a second time but at least he felt a bit more in control of his surroundings. “I don’t know who she really is. Our intel didn’t go deep enough.”
Ford shook his head as he jumped to his feet and started walking around the open room, scooping up the contents of Ward’s wallet off the floor as he went. “Man, you know how to pick them.”
Turning his wrists, Ward realized the way his hands were bound provided some give. He couldn’t slip them out, but it wouldn’t take that much strength to rip the tie apart. Especially since Ford didn’t seem all that inclined to help perform a rescue.
“She is hot.” The comment slipped out, but Ward decided it needed to be said. Maybe as an explanation for losing his grip. Maybe because he couldn’t forget her face.
Ford hummed. “Smokin’, yeah.”
“She also carries weapons and, as you can see, went through my wallet.”
“Then there’s the part where she dropped you to the ground like a rag doll. You, a complete hardass with hundreds of thousands of dollars of training behind you.” Ford held out the wallet in front of Ward’s face. “That’s just sad, man.”
Ward wanted to grab it. Would have if he could move his hands. “Did you miss the part where I said ‘fuck you’?”
“It would be easier to take you seriously if you weren’t tied to a chair.”
The smartass comment got Ward moving. He shifted his hand, turned, and . . . snap. “There. I’m free.”
Ford shrugged. “Better, but still embarrassing.”
“Thanks for your support.” Ward rubbed his wrists as he sat up.
“You know I plan on telling everyone we know about this, right?”
With his head still spinning and his ego deflating with each passing second, Ward jumped to his feet. “I’ll stab you and leave you for dead on the island.”
“Gotta be honest. You’re not that scary to me right now.” Ford walked over to the edge of the bure an
d scanned the tropical forest beyond. “Tasha weighs, what, a buck-thirty?”
“If that.” Thinking about her brought a flash of her face to Ward’s mind. Damn if she didn’t have him wrapped around and chasing his own ass.
Ford was right about one thing: this situation was pretty damn embarrassing.
Ford turned back with his hands on his hips and a stupid grin on his mouth. “She took you down without trouble, so I’m betting I could take you without working up a sweat.”
“Tough talk, but you didn’t see her.” The legs, that ass . . . the sexy way she held her own, not even a little afraid of him. Ward shook his head to push those thoughts out and stay focused. “Or the big needle she hit me with.”
“Interesting.”
Ward held up two fingers. “Twice.”
“She drugged you multiple times, but you still think she’s hot.” Ford mumbled something under his breath. Something about Ward being a dumbass.
“Hell, yeah.”
“You sick bastard.” Ford took an extra gun out from where he had it tucked behind his back and handed it to Ward. Added in a lot of head shaking and a few more “dumbass” comments as he went. “Now what?”
“We go after her.” More out of habit than anything else, Ward checked the weapon. Satisfied it would do the job until he could get his hands on one of the stashes he had hidden around the island, he held it. He was ready to fight, and he had a feeling a battle loomed right around the corner—and not just with Tasha.
Ford used the toe of his sneaker to move the remaining debris around the floor. Broken zip ties and scattered papers. Nothing of any value, but all of it out of place in this out-of-the-way locale.
“We have three hundred acres to cover. Want to point me in the right direction?” he asked.
“She’s wherever you think Tigana is.” Call it instinct, but Ward knew. Tasha was not on the island for sightseeing or to make a few bucks. She had a job to do. Just like him.
Ford froze. “You really think she’s here to get to him?”
No question. “This is going to be a race to see who gets to the guy first, and it’s going to be us.”
“But she could still mess up our operation.”
Ward could almost hear the pieces click together in Ford’s brain. The operation goals were clear. Go in, take Tigana out, and secure the weapons. No room for error. No way to take on the responsibility of a random woman on the island . . . regardless of how good she looked in those cargo shorts. “Definitely.”
“Damn.” Ford shook his head. “I hate this assignment.”
“At least no one drugged you.” The woman could have at least kissed him first. Seemed obvious to Ward.
“As if you didn’t enjoy it.”
Ward hated to admit it, but his partner was not wrong on that score. He never thought of himself as the punishment type, but the whole kick-ass thing Tasha had going on worked for him. On every pathetic level.
“Oh, I intend to talk with Tasha about her nasty needle habit when I find her.” That and the flirting and the touching. Maybe see how they could get back there when the assignment ended.
“Plan on sticking it to her, do you?” Ford managed to ask the question with a straight face.
No way could Ward answer without sounding like a complete jackass. Not usually something that worried him, but he’d long grown out of the whole prove-your-dick-size-with-raunchy-locker-room-talk thing.
Ford broke the silence with what amounted to more of his unending commentary. “I’m just asking because you need to stay on task.”
That one Ward could not ignore. “Meaning?”
“The hot bartender isn’t our assignment.”
Red-hot temper whipped up out of nowhere, and Ward shoved it back. “I know what the job is. I’m in charge, remember?”
Ford glanced at the ripped zip tie and the overturned chair. “Yeah, you look like you’ve got this handled.”
Chapter Three
A WOMAN COULD only sit in a tree for so long before the whole thing got silly. After three hours of waiting and watching, Tasha stretched. The branches bent and the leaves swayed as she balanced her leg along the bark. The soft, warm breeze caught most of the noise, but the right person, a trained person, might sense or hear her presence.
The muscles in her legs ached, and her finger cramped in its position along the side of her knife. She switched off from ready position to surveillance for about the hundredth time since she’d crawled up there. The small, lightweight binoculars were infrared and long range. She’d rather have a muffin, but they did have a practical use.
She scanned the trees. The ground. The distance.
Nothing. A strange lack of nothing.
The newest mumble of voices had disappeared fifteen minutes ago, and the sun burned through the trees, casting part of the forest floor in white spotlights and the rest in shadows. Not the best place to hide, but then again she didn’t pick this battlefield.
After a few seconds of moving her legs and making sure her body parts still worked, she gathered her few possessions and dropped to the ground. Her knees bore the impact, as did the palm she balanced against the earth where she landed.
She took two steps before her senses clicked into high alert. A noise—slight, almost silent—passed by her left side. It was little more than a whisper of air, but she knew what that meant.
Before she could turn around, something hard pressed into the back of her head. The barrel of a gun. “Damn it.”
“Hello, sunshine.”
She’d know that husky voice anywhere. It licked against her in her dreams. Played in her head long after he’d abandoned his seat across from her at the bar during all those nights.
Ward Bennett.
She should have shot him and been done with it. So much for wanting to preserve his hot face with that bit of scruff and those meet-me-in-the-bedroom eyes.
She started to turn around. The gun rammed harder against her skull.
“Oh, I don’t think so, sweetheart.” Ward’s hand reached around, and he snatched the knife out of her hand. “See, I trusted you once, and you shot me full of drugs.”
Still reeling from the fact he got the jump on her, she calculated the number of weapons she still had within grabbing range. She could take him. She had before.
The thought almost made her smile, but she went with a shrug instead. “A misunderstanding.”
“Then you won’t mind if I use that trick on you this time.”
That couldn’t happen. She had to stay on her feet to neutralize Tigana. “A woman has to be careful. Some men are nasty on dates.”
A deep male chuckle then . . . “She’s got you there.”
The sound of a second male voice screeched across her senses. One she could handle without trouble. Two put her at a disadvantage. If number two was anything like Ward, he was bigger and heavier than her. Then there was the issue of Ward’s anger. She couldn’t gauge how out of control that was at this point.
She blew out a long breath as a list of possible attack strategies filled her head. “You brought a friend. Fantastic.”
The pressure against her head eased, and before she could blink, two men stood in front of her. Ward’s shoulders blocked most of her view into the woods beyond, but she recognized the other one. Brown hair and green eyes, good looking in that would-likely-break-your-heart kind of way.
He’d attracted a lot of attention back at the resort with his supposed businessman-looking-for-an-island investment front. Had an unusual name . . . she pulled it out of her mind somewhere. Ford. This guy and Ward looked like a matched set, all tall and dangerous with a smooth-talking calm about them.
And liars. Not businessmen. No doubt about it. The only mystery was why it took her so long to see it.
Ward motioned toward his friend with the big gun and even bigger frown. “This is Ford.”
“If you try to stick a needle in me, I’ll break your arm,” Ford said.
Well, there
was no confusing that statement. She appreciated that. “He’s charming.”
Ford nodded. “I thought we should understand each other from the beginning.”
Her gaze kept zipping back to Ward. She hated the energy that bounced between her and him even more. She’d spent her entire career dealing with controlling assholes and assholes who thought having a penis put them in charge. But there was something different about Ward. When he looked at her, she knew she had his full attention. His gaze didn’t wander. His eyes stayed even and clear.
“How did you sneak up on me?” She had to know. She’d scouted every inch of the area from above. She’d been trained to pick up sounds and see clues others missed. Yet these two, each one pushing over six feet, walked right up without tipping her off. Really, it was embarrassing.
Ward smiled. “Trade secret.”
That sounded like an admission to her. Of what, was the question. “Which trade is that again?”
“Watch her.” Ward handed his gun to Ford then started patting her down.
“Is this necessary?” And why didn’t his hands on her bother her one bit?
Ward dropped one of her knives to the ground and then another before holding up the last one. “Apparently.”
“Where’s the needle?” Ford asked.
“I only had two.” Which ticked her off. If she’d known she’d have to beat back a bunch of guys pretending to be office types, she would have brought vials of the knock-out drug.
“Huh.” Ford shrugged. “That’s a shame.”
“Says the guy who didn’t get stuck with it,” Ward grumbled as he slid his fingers into her boot and took out the small gun she’d stashed there.
This wasn’t good. He’d been thorough, and everything she brought with her except for a small thin blade taped to her hip now lay on the ground. That made escape tough. She thought about kicking Ward in the head and running, but Ford looked ready and willing to shoot.
Her life would be much easier if the Americans would have just stayed in America. The least they could do was admit who they were . . . and then it hit her. The mirrored stances, the weapons, the we-like-to-kill attitudes. They were professionals. Not guns-for-hire or weekend warriors. They played the same game she played.
Running Hot Page 2