Aces High

by Kay Hooper

  “He needs it, you see,” Dane told her solemnly. “It’s been my job off and on for the better part of thirty-five years, but I have a wife now, and she’s keeping me too busy to give me much time to cope with Skye’s recklessness.” A bit more seriously he added, “He needs a balance, a center. He needs someone to care about him, so he’ll stop and think before risking his neck.”

  She refused to be moved by the words, ignoring a sudden pang near her heart. “I don’t think he needs anything or anyone,” she said flatly. “He’s too strong to need.”

  One of Dane’s eyebrows lifted and his eyes hardened. “Is he? Even strong men can be shattered if the blow’s hard enough and the aim is good. He isn’t made of iron, Katrina.”

  She felt absurdly in the wrong. “I know.”

  “Good. Convince him, will you?” Dane smiled suddenly, the flinty look gone from his eyes. Before she could respond, he added a light “See you,” and moved gracefully away.

  Katrina stared after him for a few moments, then fixed her eyes on the pavement again and tried to get her thoughts and emotions under control. She found it hard to accept that Skye felt something other than desire for her, though she had felt that desire and knew only too well how powerful it was.

  Vaguely aware of faint sounds and movements as the park was readied for the day’s visitors, she struggled to come to terms with her own feelings. Could she accept the passion between her and Skye without looking further? No. She knew herself too well. It wasn’t in her to give her body without giving her heart as well, and she was afraid of the very idea of giving her heart to Skye.

  And she didn’t know what he wanted. Another chance? What did that mean? Because I’ve never been able to forget you. Even when I wanted to.

  She was beginning to realize, partly due to Dane, that she had never really known Skye. She hadn’t looked deeply enough six years earlier. He wasn’t a tender man, or even a gentle man; he was too forceful to be either for very long, and she no doubt would have discovered that years before if they’d had more time together. He was hard in many ways, and he could be cruel. His life had taught him to be suspicious, and probably to expect the worst. His temper was as quick as the remorse he felt afterward, both expressed hastily and in blunt words.

  But she hadn’t seen that six years earlier.

  Startling herself by speaking wryly aloud, Katrina murmured, “You fell in love with a beautiful face.” She shook her head, no longer surprised that Skye had gotten her totally off balance this time, because now she was looking underneath that beautiful face, and the unexpected force of him was shocking in its intensity.

  How could she have been so blind all those years before? So shallow that she had never even tried to understand him? Even though they’d had little time, she should have seen.

  And now…Now she was older, and wiser, and always strove to see beneath the surface. She was a woman, and the instincts that had never stirred at twenty-two were torturing her.

  He was complex and often rough, and his impulsive temper had already cut her more than once. But the strength and force in him tugged at her like nothing she’d ever felt before, and the sheer primitive passion he aroused in her left her weak and shaking in his arms.

  She didn’t hear him then, but looked up anyway as Skye approached her rapidly. His expression was stony, and there was so much leashed violence in his pantherlike stride that for a moment she felt a thrill of fear. But then he yanked her up from the bench and into his arms, and his muttered words chased the fear away.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Trina, I swear I didn’t.” His head was bowed, and he rubbed his cheek against her hair. “God, I keep saying that to you, don’t I?”

  She lifted her face from his shoulder and smiled, wondering dimly what had happened to her anger. “It’s probably good for you,” she said.

  His eyes moved restlessly over her face and his mouth twisted in self-contempt. “I don’t know what I’m saying half the time around you. You make me feel like some horny teenager with sweaty hands. I keep hurting you.”

  “I’ll keep your temper in mind from now on,” she said a bit ruefully. “But what you said didn’t hurt me, it made me mad.” Her chin came up. “You had no right to say that.”

  “I know.” He hesitated, then asked, “Will you tell me something honestly, Trina?”

  She felt wary, but nodded.

  “Has there been anyone since me?”

  Katrina couldn’t look away, and she couldn’t lie to him. Not about this. “No.”

  “Once burned?” he suggested in an obviously false light voice.

  She wasn’t ready to be that honest. “I’ve been very busy,” she said evasively, stepping back and feeling both relief and disappointment when he instantly released her.

  His eyes gleamed. “So I shouldn’t imagine you’ve been eating your heart out for me all these years, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” she returned dryly, grateful that he was treating this casually. Then he shook her up again by refusing to let the matter drop.

  “Still,” he said, watching her intently. “Six years is a long time for a beautiful woman to be alone.”

  “Five,” she snapped. “You forgot prison.”

  His faint smile died. “I keep trying to forget it, but I can’t. Did they hurt you, Trina?”

  “Not a mark,” she said flippantly, back on balance.

  He caught her hand when she would have turned away. “I have to know,” he said in a harsh voice.

  She looked at him for a moment, then said, “Interrogation techniques are more subtle these days, you know that. Drugs, sensory deprivation. And there wasn’t much I could tell them, after all. They didn’t really suspect me of being a double agent, they just wanted to know about you. I came through it.”

  “You should hate me,” he said slowly.

  “Because of them? I knew the risks. I never blamed you for that, Skye, because it wasn’t your fault.” She held her voice steady with an effort. “Is that why you want another chance? Because you feel guilty?”

  “No. No, that isn’t why.”

  “Then there’s nothing more to say about it. Did you find anything in the Haunted Mansion?”

  “Back to business?”

  “I think we’d better.” She could hear the strain in her voice and wasn’t surprised by it. She felt buffeted by the storm of emotions that had swept over her during the last twenty-four hours, and didn’t know how much more she could take.

  Skye must have heard the strain as well, because his expression softened abruptly and he carried her hand to his lips before releasing it. “All right,” he said gently. “I’ll try to stop pushing.”

  She nodded, wishing she didn’t feel like crying when he showed her a rare glimpse of his softer side. “Did you find anything?” she repeated.

  “No. How about you?”

  “Nothing. The park will open in an hour; we don’t have time to go over the pirate ship or the circus tent today.”

  “There’s no hurry. But since you’ve got the day off, why don’t you show me around the park?”

  “You’ve seen it,” she objected somewhat weakly.

  “Not with you.” He smiled. “I promise to be good.”

  Katrina wasn’t sure she trusted his smile, but she wanted to be with him and couldn’t deny it even to herself.

  —

  For the next three days Skye kept his promise, and Katrina’s wariness soon eased. He didn’t bring up the past or push her in any way, and since he was an extremely charming man when he put his mind to it, she was quickly disarmed—and was aware of the ease with which he’d accomplished it.

  She had refused to abandon her duties for more than one day, though, and Skye hadn’t protested. Instead, he turned up often during the day, joining her for meals and spending a few minutes talking to her in her office. Some of the talk was of business, but for the most part the conversations were casual and friendly. He took her to dinner each
night, danced with her, and left her at her door with a light kiss.

  “Biding his time, isn’t he?” Gigi, amused, asked as she passed Katrina in the lobby one morning just after Skye had been talking to her.

  Katrina had to smile, because Skye’s determined patience was so obvious it was almost funny. But she felt no impulse to laugh; she was grateful to him for giving her time, especially when she could sense the strain lurking just under his composure.

  And that it was a strain on him she didn’t doubt; it was in his voice sometimes, and in his face there was a finely honed look. He was an impatient man by nature, so the fact that he was forcing himself to be undemanding said a great deal about his determination to develop a new relationship with her.

  She appreciated that deeply, but it was a strain on her too, because she was no closer to sorting out her own feelings, and the pull of physical attraction was growing stronger with every passing day. She was afraid that desire was clouding her judgment, and she didn’t know how to cope with it.

  She could feel his presence the instant he entered a room, even if her back was to him, and when he was with her she found it almost impossible to look at anything but him.

  On the third day it occurred to her with devastating simplicity that she was falling in love with him.

  She was sitting at her desk, conscious of the faint smile that Skye had left her with just minutes before, and when the realization dropped into her mind it did so with the clarity of total certainty.

  I’m beginning to love him.

  She put her pen down with unnatural care and folded her hands on her neat desk blotter, conscious of her heart beating like a drum in her ears. She felt both hot and cold, eager and fearful, delighted and hurting. She hadn’t meant to love him. He had crept into her heart with charm and patience.

  And she couldn’t let him know, because she was still afraid of giving him her heart.

  Despite his careful patience these last days, Katrina knew only too well that the power of his desire for her was an all-consuming thing, stark and possessive. Whatever his feelings for her now, he wouldn’t be content with only a “loving and passionate” woman in his bed. He would demand a total surrender this time, driven by his own doubts about the depths of her feelings before to be certain of them now.

  Beginning to understand him, Katrina knew that his harsh demands on that first night had not been uttered only with the desire to exact revenge for what he had gone through after Germany. There had been a certain amount of truth in his avowed intention to purge himself of her.

  She wondered if he realized himself what he was after this time.

  He had gone through hell after Germany; she didn’t doubt that. In all truth, he had been more deeply hurt than she had, because the shallowness of her own emotions had protected her somewhat, and because she had known there had been no betrayal. For six years Skye had remembered her, his own feelings eating at him. Then they had met again, against all odds, and he was bent on a “second chance.”

  Katrina couldn’t help but believe that whether or not Skye knew it himself, what he wanted was to get her out of his system once and for all. So she couldn’t very well tell him she loved him.

  She couldn’t.

  Chapter 4

  Teddy Steele began to push herself into a sitting position on the bed, but then turned somewhat green and hastily fell back onto the pillows. The very powerful arm of her husband reached out with perfect timing, and a cracker was placed between her lips. Teddy didn’t waste time with thanks, but munched the cracker with her eyes closed, willing her stomach to settle.

  Zach raised himself on an elbow and looked down at his wife’s pale face with a worried frown. “Better, honey?”

  One of her big brown eyes opened cautiously, then the other, and she sighed in relief as her stomach behaved. Blinking away the morning dryness of her contact lenses, she answered, “Yes, but it’s the pits.”

  “Why don’t you sleep in today?” he suggested casually.

  Teddy eyed him with loving understanding, her gamine smile quirking her lips. “I’m fine, Zach.” She reached up a hand to his lean cheek, stroking gently. “I’m not going to lose this one.”

  Zach had a great deal of faith in his vivacious wife’s peculiar psychic certainties, but he had too much experience with the vagaries of fate to share her confidence. He also remembered far too vividly Teddy’s miscarriage months before, and the terror he’d gone through at almost losing her. Not all her assurances—or those of the doctor who was still astonished by this second conception—could allay his fears. He caught her hand and held it firmly to his face, his free hand moving to push the sheet aside and cover her very slightly rounded belly. “You should have stayed in New York,” he said a bit harshly.

  “What, and miss our final hurrah?” she said, deliberately light. “It isn’t a jungle this time, remember? There’s no danger at all, Zach.”

  He shook his head slightly. “Honey, there’s always danger in a scheme like ours. We’ve covered all the bases, sure, but it’s impossible to plan for the unexpected element. And Hagen’s such a wild card, God only knows what could happen.”

  “Well, you’re with me,” she said serenely, her faith in her big warrior absolute.

  His lips twisted, but his gray eyes gleamed with sudden wry humor, and she grinned at him. Zach bent his head to kiss her, his hand still moving gently over her stomach. After a few moments he muttered huskily, “We should have waited, given you more time to recover.”

  Teddy, perfectly aware that his mind was never long distracted from her unexpected pregnancy, slid her arms around his neck and laughed softly. “After you and the other guys came back into the country on that flying visit, I was so happy to see you that birth control never crossed my mind. Or yours, for that matter.”

  Remembering the very passionate reunion with his wife, Zach silently admitted that his lifelong control had never stood against Teddy. Thank heaven. Aloud, he said, “Are we going to tell her she was conceived in a Jeep?”

  Solemnly Teddy said, “Well, if I’d known neither of us could wait until we got home, I would have borrowed the limo to pick you up at the airport. Then she could have been conceived in style.”

  He chuckled softly. “And I probably wouldn’t have given a damn about the driver either.” He caught his breath suddenly as her hand wandered, and added somewhat thickly, “Didn’t the doctor say we should be careful?”

  “I plan to be extremely careful,” Teddy said. “We have a couple of hours before we meet the others in Josh and Raven’s suite for breakfast. That’s long enough to be careful, don’t you think?”

  Zach, no longer unnerved by his inability to think at all where his wife was concerned, growled and pulled her petite body into his arms.

  —

  Skye walked briskly along the paved pathway leading to the Old West section of the park. The gates hadn’t opened for the day, but he could hear the usual morning noises, and employees in costumes wandered about talking and laughing. From the section Skye was nearing came occasional gunfire as various characters practiced the tricks they’d be called upon to perform later.

  Stopping to watch two costumed characters perfecting their sharpshooting, Skye waited for a pause in the gunfire and then said dryly, “Funny how many of you have managed to act out your own personal fantasies.”

  Lucas Kendrick, in the guise of Wild Bill Hickok, chuckled as he reloaded his rifle. “My ego’s suffering,” he told the other man, and nodded at the slim brunette at his side who wore the costume of Annie Oakley. “She’s so much better than I am.”

  Kyle’s turquoise eyes gleamed briefly at her husband, and then she looked at Skye. “Something up?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. But I’ve settled on the Ferris wheel as the most likely spot.”

  Lucas turned to look in the direction of the Ferris wheel, his sharp blue eyes narrowing as he picked out the tall structure in the distance. “Good,” he murmured thought
fully. “It’s fairly central, so we can all get there quickly.”

  “Will you tell the others?” Kyle asked Skye.

  “Yeah.” Skye listened intently as the sounds of gunfire echoed, and added, “If you two see Raven and Josh, tell them, will you? They’re the only ones who wander all over the park, and I may not see them anytime soon.”

  “Sure.” Lucas gazed at him steadily. “You sound a bit jumpy.”

  Skye managed a shrug. “Must be the gunfire. See you later.” He strode off.

  Lucas looked at his wife with a lifted brow, and she said, “I caught it too. He’s definitely on edge.”

  Grimacing slightly, Lucas said, “I’ve noticed Dane’s keeping a pretty close eye on him, and he wouldn’t if he weren’t worried about his brother. If Hagen sees those two together, he’s going to start to smell a rat.”

  “They’re both pros,” she observed.

  He nodded, but said, “Still, one thread too tight and this whole thing’s going to unravel. Maybe we’d better talk to the others tonight.”

  Kyle nodded agreeably, then took aim with her rifle and put yet another neat hole through the target some yards away. Lucas gave her a pained look, but laughed warmly.

  Meanwhile, Skye found the others he sought gathered around the sheriff’s office in the dusty main street of the Old West town. The sheriff, a tall, lean man with copper hair and tawny eyes and a lazy air that was somewhat deceptive, straightened from his lounging pose to offer Skye a cheerful hello.

  Skye returned the greeting as he looked at him, then eyed the other three people. Both the ladies were tiny, and both were redheads, but the sheriff’s lady had an expression of serenity in her sea-green eyes that perfectly matched both her husband’s lazy calm and her own dignified costume of schoolteacher. The other redheaded lady, leaning back against the gunslinger who had both arms around her, had big, waiflike brown eyes that were bright with interest and a vivid face that made her as eye-catching as the scanty saloon girl costume she wore.

  Looking finally at the powerful dark man who was playing the role of gunslinger, a menacing figure due to his size, the faint scar on his lean cheek, and the all-black costume, Skye shook his head ruefully. “You people didn’t choose this park just because of Adrian’s threat,” he said definitely. “You wanted the chance to play dress-up.”