by Kay Hooper
“This is a federal investigation,” the younger of the two agents began importantly, and was cut off.
“It looks to me like a bumbling investigation,” Daniel Stuart said, still very politely. “I was notified hours ago, yet I find when I arrive that no word has been sent to the Miami police, no effort made to locate and arrest Edward Sutton, and if this is your idea of how to handle a crime scene, all I can add is you boys are going back in training.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are—” The younger one again began to bluster, but the older of the two began to look queasy.
Daniel reached into an inner pocket and produced a small folded case, which he opened and held out before the two men at eye level. Very softly he asked, “Any questions?”
Both agents had stiffened. “No, sir,” the older one said while the other just looked miserable.
Snapping the case shut and returning it to his pocket, Daniel said, “Fine. You men are relieved. Leave your notes—I assume you took some?—and any relevant information with my men up on deck. Then get your butts back to your office and wait.”
A moment later Robin said, “I’ve never seen grown men scurry before.” She barely made it to her feet before being engulfed in a bear hug, and added breathlessly, “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, yourself,” he returned, his voice a bit thickened now with a different emotion. “Next time you plan to steal ten years off my life, would you at least tell me first?”
Robin hugged him back, then smiled as he held her at arm’s length and looked her up and down. “I had to prove a few things to myself first,” she confessed. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
It was difficult for her to keep her voice steady. Seeing her father for the first time in years, it had hit her with a shock just how thoroughly her past failures had disrupted—and nearly destroyed—her life. She had cut herself off from the father she adored because, as Michael had said, she had hedged a vital bet and had subsequently labeled herself a failure.
She would never do so again.
“As long as you’re all right.” He hugged her once more, then released her and shook hands with Michael. “And the next time you go tearing off alone, I’ll dock your pay,” he told the younger man with mock severity.
“I’ll remember that,” Michael said.
“Glad to hear Lisa’s safe,” Daniel added more seriously.
“I can’t take the credit.”
Before the others could react, Daniel turned to them and said, “Hello, Dane,” and then smiled at Raven. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Mrs. Long. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“From whom?” she asked curiously, offering her hand.
Daniel accepted it with more of a bow than a handshake, a gesture he carried off well. “From Hagen, among others.”
She shook her head with a smile. “I guess the intelligence community is even smaller than I thought. Please, make it Raven.”
Michael was looking from Daniel to Dane, a speculative gleam in his eye. “I wasn’t aware you two knew each other,” he offered.
It was Dane who responded, in a vague tone, while avoiding Michael’s gaze. “Federal honchos need information too.”
“Uh-huh,” Michael said.
Before that could go any further, Daniel said, “You all must be exhausted. Raven, you rented a house on the coast, right?”
“Right,” she answered, not surprised by his knowledge.
“Why don’t all of you go back there and get some rest? We’ll finish up here, and I’ll come to the house in the morning with your statements ready to sign.”
No one bothered to ask if he knew where the house was.
“Wait a minute,” Robin said, gazing at her father. “I have to know something. That ID you showed those guys—what was it?”
Daniel pulled the small case out of his pocket and handed it to her, smiling faintly.
All four of them looked at the case, and it was Robin who said in astonishment, “Director of the FBI? Since when?”
“Since a couple of days ago. It hasn’t been announced yet.”
“Congratulations, Daniel,” Michael offered.
“Thanks.”
Raven looked patently relieved, a reaction that was explained by her rueful words. “I was always afraid Hagen would get that job, and God help America if he did.”
Daniel cleared his throat. “He was being considered. And he doesn’t know I’ve been appointed yet.”
Raven’s relieved expression became blissful. “How nice. May I give him the news? Face-to-face, so I can see his reaction?”
Chuckling, Daniel said, “You may tell him Wednesday morning; it’s being announced that afternoon.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Raven said with a grin.
When the Black Angel slipped out of the cove a few minutes later, she left behind her a yacht lighted from bow to stern and crawling with federal agents, the Coast Guard cutter that Daniel and his men had arrived on—the first one had left—and a number of mildly puzzled fishermen still hoping to land a prize-winning catch by midnight.
Aboard the Angel were four very tired but still keyed-up people, all feeling the physical letdown of diminishing adrenaline and the emotional high of having successfully beaten the odds.
Michael was at the wheel, with Dane keeping him company, and Robin and Raven were on deck enjoying the cool night air.
“I like your father,” Raven told Robin decisively. “And he’s a pleasure to deal with. Especially after Hagen.”
“Can you tell me about Hagen?” Robin asked curiously. “Dane said he was a federal honcho, but—”
“Dane said that?” Raven laughed softly. “It shouldn’t surprise me, I suppose. He seems to have an ear to the ground when it comes to intelligence operations. Sure, I’ll tell you about Hagen; I stopped keeping that man’s secrets when he nearly got me killed.”
So she told Robin the story, beginning with her own involvement with Hagen and touching rapidly on the various events she, her husband, and their friends had become entangled in due to Hagen’s deft manipulation.
By the time the Angel bumped gently against the long pier jutting out from Raven’s rented house, Robin was torn between horrified fascination and the intense desire to meet this Hagen before somebody strangled him.
That, Raven told her, was a common reaction.
SEVEN
THE HOUSE RAVEN and her friends had rented was a big, sprawling place, fifty yards from the sandy beach and set high on massive pilings. It was isolated, but the lights they had left burning early that morning gave it a welcoming air.
Michael drew his Black Angel up to the long pier, and they all helped in tying her up before heading toward the house. Steps led up to a big wooden deck, where French doors and floor-to-ceiling glass provided the central den with a clear view of the ocean. The place was comfortably furnished and equipped, Raven told them, with every necessity except food; she and her friends had brought that along with them.
All four worked together in preparing a casual meal in the kitchen, talking idly, still winding down from the tensions and activity of the day. They had barely finished cleaning up afterward when the phone rang.
Raven answered, and after a short conversation hung up and turned to the others with a smile. “Kyle says the girls are fine; they reached the hospital without a problem, and the security team is in place. The doctor told her it’ll be days before all the drugs are out of their systems, and he wants to keep them under observation. Michael, he said to tell you that Lisa wasn’t hurt at all—not even a bruise. It’ll be at least a couple of days before she knows what’s going on around her. Also, they have a very good trauma specialist to help all the girls deal with what happened to them.”
“Thank you, Raven,” Michael said quietly. He was sitting beside Robin on one of the two couches. Glancing from Raven to Dane, he added, “Both of you. And, Raven, if I don’t see Teddy and Kyle before you head back to New York—”
She waved that away. “Don’t mention it. Now, there are four bedrooms and four baths in this place. Everybody take your pick. I’m beat, and I’m turning in.”
Dane, lounging in a chair, said, “Me too. I’ve used muscles today I didn’t know I had.”
Robin, who had noticed a number of well-defined muscles when they’d all been running around in bathing suits earlier, eyed him in amusement. But she said nothing; if she had learned anything about Michael’s world, she had learned that things were rarely as they appeared on the surface.
When they were alone, she looked at Michael, conscious of the tension still remaining in his lean body. She knew intuitively that he found it difficult to relax after today and all the days since Lisa had been kidnapped. It was hardly surprising, she thought, considering what kind of strain he’d been under through all this.
“Why don’t we take a walk on the beach?” she suggested lightly. “I don’t think either one of us is ready to sleep yet.”
“Good idea.”
He took his gun with him, worn this time in a shoulder holster; it didn’t surprise Robin, nor did she feel a need to comment on his caution.
The tide was going out, and they walked over the wet, firmly packed sand just below the high-water mark. There was a full moon reflecting off the water, and a soft breeze blowing.
“I haven’t thanked you yet,” he said suddenly after they’d walked for a time in silence.
“There’s no need to.”
“Yes, there is.” He reached for her hand and held it tightly. “I know what it cost you, going down that hall on the yacht alone. I know it was—something out of your nightmares.”
“It’s funny,” she mused, “but it wasn’t like that. I thought it would be. And I was afraid. But once we were on the boat, there just … didn’t seem to be time enough to be afraid. Except when I heard someone on deck start shooting. What happened?”
“One of the guards took a few shots at Dane. But when he saw I had him covered, he dropped the gun fast.”
“That gave me a bad moment,” she confessed. “Then that man tore out of the cabin, and there wasn’t time to think. He was making for Lisa, and I had to stop him.”
After a moment Michael said, “I think those demons have finally stopped chasing you.”
Robin knew there was one last demon at her heels, one final test she had to pass, but she wasn’t ready for it just yet. And she wasn’t ready to talk about it to Michael. “I owe you a lot,” she said instead.
“You owe me nothing.” His voice was steady. “If there was ever a debt, it was more than paid today.”
They walked in silence for several minutes, and then Robin asked the question that had been haunting her. “What about us, Michael? Where do we go from here?”
He stopped, faced her. The moonlight painted half his face in stark relief, left the rest in shadow. He was half there, curiously incomplete. The highlights and shadows stole all expression, leaving his face a mask. She didn’t—couldn’t—know what he was thinking.
“It’s tomorrow,” she said. “And I still love you.”
His hands found her shoulders, fingers moving gently in an absent, probing touch. “What about that story you were going to write?”
Robin drew a deep breath. “I got too involved. I lived that story; I can’t write about it. Not yet.”
He was silent for a moment, then spoke almost tentatively. “I’ll probably be at loose ends for a while. With Daniel leaving to assume the FBI directorship, there’s bound to be a restructuring of our agency. Until the dust settles, I won’t be given a new assignment. Even then I have time coming to me; I want to spend some of that with Lisa, make sure she’s all right.”
Robin waited, wondering if he could feel or sense her growing tension. The hands on her shoulders tightened.
“Stay with me,” he said huskily. “For a while, at least.”
She went into his arms silently, conscious of relief mixed with pain. He was still holding a part of himself back, she knew, still guarding the vulnerable place in his heart where wounds never healed and the ache lasted forever. Even knowing no more than bits and pieces of his past, Robin couldn’t blame him for that.
She couldn’t blame him, but it hurt. He trusted her, but he didn’t trust her love for him. And Robin didn’t know how much time she would have to convince him.
But, for now it was enough. She had been afraid that Michael would try to send her away, and anything else was preferable to that. Anything.
With one mind they started back toward the house, Michael’s arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist. Neither said anything more about the future because there was nothing more to be said.
When they were inside again, Michael said, “I’ll lock up down here.”
Robin nodded, heading for the open stairs to the right of the den. There were two sets of stairs because the upper floor was divided in half with two bedrooms and a bath looking down on each side of the den/kitchen combination below. Raven and Dane had taken the two bedrooms to the left, leaving the other side for Robin and Michael.
Robin had been reunited with her luggage, thanks to Teddy and her friends’ thoughtfulness in bringing it with them from Miami, and she’d brought an overnight bag with her while leaving the rest on Michael’s boat. The others had also brought with them some kind of overnight bag.
She went upstairs while Michael checked the doors and windows downstairs, and arbitrarily chose the oceanside bedroom. Like the other rooms, it was spacious and airy, with a wide, comfortable bed already made up. Robin decided on a shower, conscious of the residue of salt from her earlier swim, and unpacked only her toiletries bag to take into the bathroom.
She stepped under the warm spray with relief, remembering with some amusement the tiny bathroom on Michael’s boat where she had burned her bridges. This shower stall was considerably larger, the entire room was, in fact, and a far more ideal place for an attempted seduction.
Robin was washing her hair when she saw, through the steam-fogged glass door, Michael come in and begin shaving at the vanity. It felt right, neither of them self-conscious, casual together even in intimacy. She thought about that, happy with the idea, but realizing a few minutes later that where there was intimacy and desire, “casual” was a fleeting thing.
She was even happier about that.
Michael slipped into the stall with her, eyes darkened and intent, and took the bar of soap from her. “Let me,” he stated a bit roughly.
Robin couldn’t take her eyes off him even as her body responded instantly and wildly to his touch, and she reached for him. He seemed to be memorizing her, tracing every curve and hollow with his strong hands, and she found a new delight in the sensation of slick muscles under her fingers. The normally unthinking, automatic actions of soaping and rinsing became a series of caresses, hers and his, seeking, slippery touches while the water beat down on them.
Michael tossed the bar of soap out of the shower and pulled her into his arms suddenly, their bodies sliding together in a sensuous friction as he covered her mouth with his in a deep, almost violent kiss.
Robin felt his hand tangle in her hair, holding her head firmly while his mouth took hers and his tongue probed and possessed, the building heat in her writhing like something alive. It was different from their previous lovemaking, this driving hunger of his, and she realized dimly that a part of his earlier guardedness had stemmed from what had then lain ahead of them. He had shut a large part of himself off from her because that trained, dangerous part of him, by necessity, had concentrated on rescuing his sister and the other girls.
But not now. Danger past, his mind was fully on her, and if he was still guarded, it was a final wall, the deepest possible shield protecting his heart. Desire was uppermost, almost uncontrolled, hunger fierce and total.
And Robin responded to his need with a burning craving of her own. She could hardly breathe, and her legs were weak, shaking, her hands trembling as she helplessly stroked
his shoulders, his back. Then his hands slid down to her buttocks, lifting her against him, off her feet, and a moan caught in her throat.
Michael was scarcely aware of the water beating down on them. Her flesh tasted of soap and natural sweetness, and he couldn’t get enough of her. The soft, unconscious sounds she made drove his desire higher and higher, fogging his mind with a heat that was burning him. He lifted her higher, his mouth seeking her throat and then her breasts, finding nipples that were wet and sweet, tight and hard with wanting him.
Robin held on to him fiercely, feeling the cool wall against her back, feeling his body and his mouth. She was aching all over, burning, and if they could have opened the shower stall and tumbled immediately into bed, it wouldn’t have been fast enough for her. Her legs parted and lifted, wrapping around his waist.
“Now,” she whispered hoarsely, the word echoing her desperate need. “Now, Michael, please …”
With a hoarse sound he buried himself in her, pinning her to the wall with the first deep thrust. For an instant, a heartbeat, he was still, his body rigid against her and inside her as he fought to control his wild need. But control was impossible, and his body recognized that long before his fogged mind could. His powerful thrusts were an erotic assault, and she whimpered with the incredible pleasure of it.
The soft, tight sheath of her body was a velvet clasp around him, driving Michael to the edge and over. He found her mouth, wild and rough, catching her faint cries so that they mingled with his own hoarse sounds. He wanted more of her, all of her, wanted to merge himself with her so completely that she would never be rid of him.
She stiffened against him and uttered a ragged moan, clinging tightly to his shoulders as waves of ecstasy jolted through her body. The inner ripples of her pleasure caught him in a tight, rhythmic caress, holding him deeply inside her, and he groaned wildly, dying a little, violently alive as his own release shattered the unbearable tension.
Robin came back to an awareness of her surroundings slowly, conscious again of the shower still beating down on them. She was shaking, as if aftershocks of that incredible passion still rippled through her, and he was as well. Her legs released him finally, sliding down over his hips and legs, and he let her down slowly until she was on her feet again. But he continued to hold her close, both of them leaning against the cool wall of the shower stall and each other.
