Oh, help. If he were any sort of honorable man, he’d retract his proposal now, give her more time—or give her freedom. But he suddenly discovered he wasn’t honorable enough for that.
Or was it that? Some gut instinct he had to work with told him that she needed him—now more than ever. He didn’t know what happened in the past half hour, but he knew Lissa was in trouble. Trouble bad. Trouble deep.
Whatever she was hiding from him was bad news. Someone or something had put her under compulsion to agree to his proposal, and he realized that, like Lissa, he had little choice but to go on with it until he got the truth from her…one way or another.
Was this a Nighthawk-related thing? Did someone know?
By marrying her, he could find out.
Stupid jerk—you’re lying to yourself! After seventeen years aching for her, I’d take Lissa any way I can have her.
Not much of an officer and a gentleman after all.
So he quietly said, “Thank you,” and released her hands, walking beside her out to the car.
Opening the door for her, he saw a tear fall onto the step as she passed him. She was shaking so badly, she held on to the post to walk down the stairs and again to walk through the gate. It amazed him that she even made it to the car.
More than anything he wanted to take her in his arms, hold her and reassure her, melt her fear into trust, kiss her ice into fire. But his gut screamed at him to back off, give Lissa space and time until he knew what was going on. Because he had a bad feeling about this whole situation. A feeling that a hell of a lot more was going on than just Mitch McCluskey and Lissa Miller alone. He had a premonition, a gut-gnawing feeling that the Nighthawks were mixed up in this somehow…and the lid of four decades of highest-level secrecy was about to come off….
In an explosion of nuclear proportions.
Chapter 5
H
e was beginning to wonder if they’d get past the wedding vows before he found out who was holding what threat over Lissa.
Some spy he was. He couldn’t even worm information from the woman he was going to marry or listen in on those whispered phone calls that came night and day. All he knew about her was that she was a fabulous cook, was utterly devoted to the kids, had a home security system to rival the best stores—he’d yet to discover why—and that she was rather a good kickboxer. As were the boys. They took lessons together every Monday and Thursday. He’d watched her last week. She’d dropped her opponent in moments without breaking a sweat. The master said she was the best and most determined student he’d ever had. She’d already reached intermediate stage—and she’d make advanced by the next meet. Six plus continuous kickboxing matches would clinch it.
Lissa—kickboxing?
This latest mystery felt like the tip of the dinosaur’s tail. The final piece of the puzzle to whatever the hell was going on.
He couldn’t involve the Nighthawks in this yet; it was too personal. If he told Anson, he’d have to bug Lissa’s phone, put hidden security cameras everywhere and, worst of all, give daily reports to his boss on Lissa’s behavior.
Mitch couldn’t do it to her, even though he damn well knew she was doing it to him.
She made the most piss-poor Mata Hari he’d ever known, but it made her maddeningly adorable. Asking fumbling questions about East Timor. About where he went on his courier flights. Sneaking glances at his log books to make sure.
He walked in the door from dropping the kids to school, knowing the wearying battle, the guarded questions, would begin again as soon as she heard his news.
About to push open the kitchen door, he heard her strained voice, arguing with a defensive weariness that hurt him. She must be talking to her contact again; and, just as obviously, she’d waited for him to go before calling him.
Hating the necessity, he pushed the door ajar and listened in, hoping to hear something, anything to give him a clue.
Her voice was almost desperate as she spoke.
“No, you can’t—not this weekend. I’m sorry. Yes, I know, but—I know that. Have I denied you? Just listen, all right? I…I have something to tell you.” Mitch heard her drag in a deep breath. “I’m getting married, Tim.” A short silence. “What do you mean, how? The same way anyone else does. A man asked me and I said yes!” Another silence. “Yes,” she said, sounding defiant. “It’s Mitch. Just like you always said it would be.”
Mitch had had enough. He pushed the door wide and strode in. Lissa gasped as he grabbed the phone from her slack hand. “G’day, Tim. Mitch here,” he snapped into the silence. “I’m back and I’m marrying Lissa in ten days. You got a problem with that?”
After a moment Tim’s deep chuckle came over the line. “No, mate, why should I have a problem? I’ve only waited for it since the day I walked out. What took you so bloody long?”
“A small matter of not knowing you’d gone,” he replied dryly.
“Another thing that’s my fault, eh?” The laughter was gone now. “I knew where you were. I could have told you—I should have told you. And I should never have married her either. I know that. I was selfish and I stuffed up your life for years—yours and Lissa’s both. I knew I was screwing up big-time, and I did it, anyway. I punished you both for my mistake. I’m sorry, Mitch.”
“Bloody hell. You haven’t changed, have you?” he growled in exasperation. “Do whatever you want and give the grand apology after. And the worst of it is, you always mean it. Well, it’s twelve years too late as far as I’m concerned. I might have to put up with you coming here—you’re Jenny’s father and I wouldn’t stop you seeing her if I could—but you so much as touch Lissa’s hand from now on and you’re dead meat. Got that?”
Another short, pregnant silence. Then Tim chuckled again, his good humor as unbreakable as ever. “I guess I deserved that—all of it. About time you got your own back on me. Have you told Lissa you love her yet, or are you still too shit-scared?”
“Go to hell,” he replied without heat, starting to enjoy the conversation. Tim’s charm, his rueful honesty about his failings and the ability to apologize with sincerity, had always been his saving grace—and the thing that stopped Mitch from belting him to hell and back, more than once. “Just remember what I said.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tim laughed. “The obsession lives on. Mitch, my old mate, you know what I reckon? It’s way past time you told her the truth. And I think it’s time Lissa told you some things you obviously don’t know. Put her back on, will you?”
“Yeah, bye.” And he hung up.
Lissa rounded on him. “What did you hang up for? I was talking to him about arrangements for Jenny! And as for that warning, you can just—”
“Mind my own business?” he suggested, the very essence of blandness in his tone. “Um, that’s what I thought I was doing, Lissa. Warning him off my woman. My wife-to-be.”
Her jaw set. “Fine,” she muttered through gritted teeth, and swung away, cleaning the breakfast dishes with such force she cracked a plate. “Damn!” She threw the plate in the trash and kept thumping crockery in the sink.
He grinned as he grabbed a towel to wipe up. Her evident frustration was so cute…and he hoped its origin was as sexual as his own. “Um, you might want to turn the taps off there, unless you usually like to mop the floor with used dishwater.”
She didn’t even look at him. She snapped the taps off and continued abusing the cups and plates.
Stop jerking her chain and get to the point. Mitch gritted his teeth and plunged in to give her the news he’d been putting off all morning, since Ans’s 5:00 a.m. call. “I have to go away for a few days. I’ll be back by Sunday, maybe Monday.”
The crashing stopped. “Oh?” There was a wealth of casual inquiry in her voice, but he wasn’t fooled. Her every nerve was on the alert. “Setting up the business?”
“A job I need to do before I can set up. That’s all.”
“Where are you off to?”
Even with her back still turned, he saw
her thumbnail move to her mouth, chewing, chewing. “First to Canberra, then a little place up north. You wouldn’t know it.”
“Oh.” Her other hand was making a fist, releasing. Tugging at her simple sundress. A teardrop of perspiration trickled down her neck. “I’ve never been farther away from here than Sydney,” she remarked, as if it were no big deal. “Maybe I could come on the trip with you?”
“Not this time,” he replied, just as casually, his gut seizing. “But I’ll take you wherever you want on our honeymoon. You still haven’t told me where you’d like to go.”
She pulled her hair out of its ponytail, shook it out and turned to smile at him over her shoulder. “It might be a good chance for us to be alone,” she said softly, using her mouth to wickedly stunning effect.
Oh, hell. The bad hats must’ve been piling the pressure on her to mammoth proportions for her to start trying to seduce him; she’d barely touched him since his first day back home. He gulped, fighting temptation with the last threads of his self-control. “Next time. I promise.”
The quick flicker of emotion, gone in an instant, socked him in the jaw like a TKO. Terror. Devastation. Anguish. Then she plastered a smile on her face, sultry and feminine, and fake as the sensual look in her eyes. “Please, Mitch. Please take me with you. I want to be alone with you. I…I could help you. We could do anything. Anything you want.”
Oh, man—if she’d given him that look, that promise, without the knowledge that someone was out to destroy him through her, he’d have been in fool’s heaven. As it was, her words only hurt. “Lissa, can we stop playing these games and talk?”
The flare of panic flashed again and was gone. “About what?”
He could feel terror simmering beneath the projected calm in her voice. “About why you’re looking through my things. About why you’re asking me about my work in the islands. About why you stopped touching me after the first day, and made excuse after excuse for us not to make love for the past three weeks.”
Silence. A quiet as dark and stricken as the guilt and driven need in her eyes.
He drew in a harsh breath and said the hardest words he’d ever had to say in his life—risking his dreams, his hopes, his future in one sentence. “And I want to know why you’re marrying me when it’s obvious you don’t want to.”
A slow, shaking hand covered her mouth. “Mitch…”
He had to physically force himself to stand still, to not reach out and give her comfort—the reassurance of touch he needed as desperately as she did right now. He balled his fists at his sides and breathed between the slamming beats of his heart. “Baby, talk to me. I know something’s going on—that someone’s got you scared. But whatever they think they’ve got over you, I can fix it. Just trust me, Lissa. I’ve never lied to you, and I won’t start now.” He closed his eyes as she gave a silent, gulping sob. “I’ll let you go if I have to. I’ll leave here, if that’s what you want. Just don’t shut me out.”
“Shut you out. Shut you out?” With startling suddenness she laughed, loud and strong and totally fake. “Boy, have you got a vivid imagination! Who do you think you are, James Bond? Looking through your things! How would you know, with the mess you keep in that room? And I shut you out? About what? And as to questions about your work, isn’t that what all couples do?”
“Lissa—”
She shook her head and put a finger to her lips. Shut-up, she mouthed, using their one-time favorite method of quiet communication. It’s about time you finally caught on. “Where did you get all this rubbish about someone scaring me?” she laughed. “Have you seen anyone? I’ve been too busy with the kids and the wedding to see anyone. I’ve barely had time to call Mum and Dad in Europe to give them our news.” Then her mouth moved, silently speaking words echoing the terror flashing in her sweet eyes.
The house is bugged.
Oh, my God. So it was true.
She giggled, sweet and false, keeping up the charade. “And as for sex—honestly, Mitch, can’t you think of anything else? For goodness sake, there are times of the month a woman can’t make love, not to mention when the kids walk in with nightmares! Of course I want to marry you. We have the rest of our lives to make love, after the wedding, when it won’t damage the kids and Jenny’s accepted that I won’t be getting back with Tim.”
It’s there. She pointed to the picture of the Pears soap baby in the bath. With one step he could see it hiding between the frame and the wall. The cheap kind of bug made and sold at electronics stores.
Okay. They could work with this. Their invisible friend wouldn’t be able to hear them with that crappy piece of work if they whispered softly enough…but no doubt within seconds they’d come to check on the sudden silence.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone…he had the weirdest sense of unreality, the sublime and the ridiculous. Breckerville and Lissa. Home. Love. Peace. Where life was always serene and nothing bad would ever happen.
Where spies listened in and threatened the one person he’d always been sure would have a carefree life.
For God’s sake, Why?
His scalp crawled. “C’mere, baby. Sorry I’ve been stupid. I was just scared of losing you.” He held out his arms, sweating on the hope that she’d get it. Then they could talk, just like they had from their windows in the old days, when they’d turned lip reading into an art form.
She walked into his arms, moving against his body with the sensuality of an icebher skin cold and clammy with fear. “They won’t hear us at this pitch,” he whispered into her neck.
She nodded. “Kiss me, Mitch,” she said aloud, her voice pulsing with sensuality. She breathed in his ear, “There might be cameras, too, but I don’t think so. I’ve looked.”
He kissed her, long and deep, touching and caressing her for the silent listener’s benefit. “Keep it up,” he mouthed into hers. Relieved beyond words she’d decided to trust him, furious enough to kill whoever the hell it was doing this to her. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Talk,” she whispered back. “We’ve kissed long enough.”
She was right. He rushed on, “Sorry I’ve been so stupid. I just love you so much, and the thought of losing you…”
She shuddered so delicately only he felt it. “I love you, too, Mitch.” The words, warm and soft, came out frigid on her lips, as insincere as the words of love he’d just given.
Damn! After waiting half a lifetime, it shouldn’t be like this. None of it should be like this. But there was more at stake than his relationship with Lissa. He had to find out what was going down here, or the vital work of the Nighthawks would be destroyed. He kissed her jaw, her ear and murmured, “Who is he?”
She tugged at his ear with her teeth. “I don’t know. He said you left the Air Force two years ago.” She moved against him, moaning. “Darling, that’s so good…”
My God. That was highly classified information! His cover was blown even before he set up a courier business. Anson would roar like a wounded tiger when he knew. “Let’s go to bed.” He cupped her bottom in his hands, his body taut with fury and unwanted arousal. “Is there anything on you? Any bugs?” he whispered.
“No. Just in every room. I think he did it when we were at Bob’s the first night.”
Damn and double damn.
She let her hands roam under his shirt. “I don’t want our first time to be in the bed I slept in with Tim,” she said in a strangled sexual mutter. “That’s why I’ve held off, darling—not because I didn’t want to. Let’s make love outside, out by the water hole, where we were always together as kids.”
“I’ll buy us a new bed this afternoon.” He chuckled aloud for the bug, but in truth stunned by her quick thinking and clever manipulation. She’d woven truth and lie, using her real life and his to find a way of getting privacy their silent watcher would find hard to doubt. And heaven help him, he was horny as hell, turned on beyond belief by the lightning change in her, by her intelligence in a terrifying situation—by the sexual game th
ey had to play. “I’ll grab a blanket.”
“Mmmm…” She kissed him again. “Two blankets, darling, just in case anyone comes and sees us.” Another soft, melting kiss, her eyes flashing. “He’s not far away. He’ll probably watch us. We’ll have to make it look real—but it damn well better not be until I have answers,” she whispered fiercely into his mouth. “Don’t take long,” she moaned aloudan’t wait…”
And he’d thought her predictable? Sheesh. She could win an Academy Award for this performance. But while the Nighthawk in him cheered her on, the man wanted more.
The next kiss he gave her was deep and hot and real. Grinding against her, getting even hotter when she pressed back, kissed him back with a passion she couldn’t possibly be faking. “Is this exciting you as much as me?” he growled in her ear.
She grinned up at him. “Probably more,” she whispered, “since I reckon you’re probably used to it. I haven’t had this much fun since I always beat you and Tim and Sally Jones at Spy versus Spy. Oh, Mitch! Now!” she cried aloud.
The memory hit him. How had he forgotten? Lissa always found the treasures buried on school orienteering games, always knew who murdered who, and where, whenever they played Cluedo, and always topped them at Spy versus Spy. Her nickname at school had been Nancy Drew. She’d been so known for her love of intrigue-type stuff she’d been voted “girl most likely to join the FBI.”
So make use of it now, if only this once—then get her right out of it.
“I’ll get the blankets.” In her ear, “You’d better control this if you want it to stay fake, because I’m way past that.”
She lifted a brow. “I like that idea,” she purred, loud enough for the bug to pick up, low enough to sound saturated with sex. “Being on top. Hmm.” Try it and you’re dead, she mouthed.
He laughed and nuzzled her neck. “You’re driving me nuts, Miller, you know that?”
Both brows lifted this time. The look in her eyes was pure, undiluted satisfaction. “Get the blankets.” Bug is in the hallway beside the linen cupboard.
Who Do You Trust? Page 8
