by Cynthia Eden
Rachel took the binoculars and peered through the thin blinds that lined a narrow window. “They’re surrounding the house. Do it.”
“Do what?” Tina asked, almost afraid to find out. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough for Tina to see Dylan pull a small box from his pocket.
“Time for Devast to experience some HAVOC of his own,” Drew said. His arm brushed against hers.
Dylan pressed a button. An explosion seemed to rock the street. Through the blinds, Tina saw the flare of fire flash high up into the night.
The house they’d been in had just exploded.
“They’re falling back,” Rachel whispered.
Yeah, because the fire was driving them back.
Drew’s fingers slid down her arm. “He tried to kill you with a bomb before, so we just gave him what he wanted.”
She turned toward him, frowning. “Are you sure Devast is going to believe this? You think he’ll buy that I’m dead?”
He pulled a knife from the sheath strapped to his ankle. “No, I think the explosion will just make him even angrier. And when he sees my GPS signal moving fast soon, he’s going to track it. He’ll come after me with everything he’s got.”
Instead of letting Tina be the bait in this deadly game, Drew was using himself. “Why?” she whispered.
“Because I don’t want you in his sights.”
And she realized why he hadn’t told her about this plan sooner. Because he didn’t intend to use her to finish this investigation. She’d agreed to cooperate, but he was the one calling the shots. He wanted her out of Devast’s path, and he’d just blown up a house to make sure Devast couldn’t get to her.
Drew offered her the knife, handle-first. “I need you to cut the tracker out of me. You know it emits a signal that covers a one-mile radius, not an exact location, so, for the moment he’ll think I could be in that blaze.”
Her fingers closed around the knife. “What are you going to do with the tracker?”
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Rachel and Dylan are going to take it. They’ll lure Devast into Mercer’s web, and I’ll take you out of here. No signal will link back to you and me. You’ll be safe.” His eyes glittered at her. “My job is to protect you. That’s what I’m doing.” He stripped off his shirt and turned his back to her.
Rachel and Dylan hurried into the other room, saying they had to check in with Mercer.
The knife’s handle was cold. Her fingers were slippery with sweat. She rose onto her toes. She knew exactly where Drew’s tracker was located because she’d been the one to implant it. The blade sliced over his skin.
The guy didn’t flinch.
Carefully, she pulled out the tiny device.
“Here.” Rachel was back with bandages. Tina gave her the tracker and began to patch up Drew.
“We’ll rendezvous just like we planned?” Rachel asked him as she pocketed the tracker.
“Dawn,” Drew agreed with a curt nod.
Rachel glanced toward Tina. “This is the best way. Mercer agreed. The big boss wants to make sure Devast can’t ever threaten you or anyone else in the EOD ever again.” Rachel nodded once more and then she was gone.
Tina smoothed the bandage over Drew’s back. The knife was still in her left hand. His blood was on the blade.
Drew turned toward her. “We don’t have a lot of time here. We need to clear out, just in case those guys out there wise up and start searching the houses.” He took the knife. Stepped away and dug in a chest of drawers. A moment later he was clad in a fresh shirt and tossing her—a leather jacket?
“I know you like motorcycles,” he said with a wry grin.
Uh, no, not so much.
“Time to ride.”
Her head was spinning.
“All of the other houses on this street are abandoned. That fire is going to blaze until the EOD tips off the fire department. And Devast’s men? They’re not leaving until he gives them an order to clear out.” He took her hand. “So we leave them. The motorcycle is stashed a few blocks away. Ten minutes, and we’ll be clear.”
She slid on the leather jacket.
Then he gave her a very blond wig.
“Just in case you’re spotted.” He pulled a baseball cap low over his brow. He’d retrieved the cap from the same drawer that held the jacket. “We can’t be the ones they are looking for. That would wreck the plan.”
She balled her hair up, secured it, and became a blonde in moments. She also ditched her glasses. Or rather, Drew took them and carefully stored them in his pocket.
A few minutes later they slipped out the back door. She could hear voices yelling, could hear the faint crackle of flames in the distance.
“Stay close to the buildings. Stay close to me,” Drew whispered into her ear.
Right. She had this.
Her fingers shoved into the pocket of the leather jacket and they curled around—medicine?
She felt the familiar shape. An inhaler. Drew had made sure that she had an inhaler close by.
Their footsteps were silent as they snaked through alleys and around old houses. The area looked so abandoned but she knew they couldn’t take any chances.
Drew caught her in his arms. He spun her around and pressed her back into a brick wall.
“What’s happening—” Tina began.
Drew put his lips on hers. He kissed her hard and deep, and his body seemed to completely surround hers.
Then she heard the thud of footsteps advancing toward them.
Drew’s hand moved between their bodies. His fingers brushed over her stomach. What was he doing? There? This didn’t seem like the place to—
His lips pulled from hers. He kissed her jaw, brought his mouth to her ear.
“I’ve got my gun,” he said.
Oh. That was what he’d been reaching for.
The footsteps were coming closer. They hadn’t gotten away clean, after all. So much for the grand plan.
“Get a room!” an angry voice called out.
Then the thudding of those footsteps continued as they rushed past Tina and Drew.
Tina glanced up. She saw the back of a man’s head. He had a baseball cap on, too. He was rounding the corner, not seeming to care about her and Drew at all.
Her shoulders slumped in relief.
“We’re almost there.” Drew’s body still brushed against hers. “You ready?”
Tina swallowed and nodded. She glanced once more toward the left, but the other guy in the baseball cap was long gone.
Her fingers curled around Drew’s. They hurried into the darkness.
It seemed to take forever, but in reality, Tina knew only about five minutes had passed before they were on the promised motorcycle. The bike vibrated between her legs when Drew kicked the engine to life. The motorcycle shot into the night. She held on tight to Drew.
And they got the hell out of there.
* * *
COOPER MARSHALL WATCHED the lights of the motorcycle vanish as he pulled his baseball cap lower over his forehead.
He had his own ride waiting, but he didn’t want to follow Drew Lancaster too closely.
He hadn’t realized that Drew and Tina would be coming down that alley. He’d seen the flames and thought that he’d been too late to help the doctor.
Nice job getting her out of there. He had to hand it to Lancaster—the agent had a certain style.
And Cooper knew that he’d been lucky, too—if there had been more light in that alley, Drew would have recognized him.
Recognition wasn’t on Mercer’s agenda. Not then.
He wondered if Mercer knew just how involved Drew had gotten with the good doctor. Because Cooper had seen the way the guy touched her.
The touch of a lover, not an agent.
He’d have to brief Mercer. Drew might not be up to his usual standards of ice and detachment on this particular case.
When cases got personal, they all too often got messy.
As far as Cooper was con
cerned, personal involvement always led to danger.
Tina Jamison was already in enough danger as it was.
* * *
“I DIDN’T GIVE any order for a bomb!” Anton snarled. “What the hell happened?” He wanted to shatter the phone.
“B-boss, the house just exploded. They were inside—all of ’em! They’ve got to be dead.”
His back teeth ground together. He spun around and tapped on his keyboard. The feed on Drew Lancaster’s tracker immediately came up. According to the signal, Drew Lancaster was moving fast down Bridge Avenue.
His eyes narrowed. I’ve got you. Drew thought that he could throw up a distraction and escape with Anton’s prey?
Not happening.
The agent should have taken the money. Now he’d just die.
And so will the woman.
* * *
TINA’S ARMS WERE locked around Drew’s waist.
He eased the motorcycle to a stop, pulling it up near the wall of a bar. It was hitting close to 3:00 a.m., and the bar was about to shut down.
Perfect timing for him.
Drew shoved down the motorcycle’s kickstand.
“Why are we stopping here?” Tina asked quietly.
He knew the place didn’t look like much of a safe house, but that was why they were there. Appearances could be plenty deceiving.
He tucked his helmet under his arm. “You need a place to crash.” They both did. “By morning, this case will be all over.” Because Devast would have followed their breadcrumbs straight to Mercer.
Drew had told Tina that he had to make the situation personal for Devast. And he had. The bomb at the house on Moyers would have infuriated Devast. As soon as Devast had pulled up Drew’s tracking signal and realized that he’d escaped the flames...
The SOB would have decided that he had to go after Drew himself.
After all, Devast had told him that he didn’t give second chances. Devast’s men weren’t catching Drew and Tina.
So you have to get involved in the job yourself, don’t you, Devast?
Devast would follow their planted trail. Mercer and the EOD agents could capture him.
And Tina would be able to head back to her old life.
He pushed open the bar’s door. His gaze swept the area, checking for any threats and, when he was satisfied, Drew gave a nod to the bartender. The redhead raised her brows when she saw him. Like Sarah, this woman had ties to the EOD. The bartender’s brown gaze flickered toward the Staff door.
A band was playing. A somebody-did-me-wrong slow tune. Three couples were still on the dusty dance floor.
Drew eased past them. Tina glanced over at the couples, hesitating.
“Come on, Doc,” he said. “We need to go.”
A sad little smile tilted her lips, but she followed him. Just past the Staff door, a narrow flight of stairs waited for them. Drew had actually been to this bar a time or two before. He’d crashed here between missions, so he knew exactly how to find the hidden key to the upstairs apartment. They headed inside, and he secured the door.
“The bar will close by four,” he told her, putting the motorcycle helmets down. “Then it will be dead quiet, and you can have plenty of time to rest.”
That same smile—one that looked a little sad and a little lost—curved her lips as Tina ditched her blond wig. “And when I wake up again, I’ll go back to my old life?”
He nodded. “That’s the plan.” A fast and frantic plan that he’d had to make as soon as he realized exactly how Devast must be tracking them.
The music drifted lightly in the room, muted, so that he couldn’t clearly hear the singer’s words, but he could easily hear the guitar’s strains. The low melody was sad and soft.
Tina brushed her hand through her hair. “I never thought so much could change for me in just a few days.”
“You’ll be back to safety soon.”
“Safety.” She seemed to be tasting the word. “Yes, I guess I will be safe again.” She glanced toward the bed. Narrow, only built for one.
Drew cleared his throat. “You take the bed.” He could crash in the chair. If he could crash. Ever since he’d gotten that call from Devast, his body had been tight with tension and too much adrenaline.
He’s not the first person who thinks he can buy my allegiance.
But this wasn’t about allegiance. Not really.
It was about Tina.
There were some things in this world that money would never be able to buy.
Tina didn’t advance toward the bed. Instead she turned and walked closer to Drew.
The tension in his body got even worse. Hell, if the woman was about to try her hand at seducing him, she wasn’t going to need to try too hard.
Any time she got close to him, desire pushed through him and he wanted. Not an easy need. Frantic and fast. Consuming. Not safe, when safety was what she seemed to need so badly.
“Drew...”
The way she said his name had him clenching his hands into fists. Husky, sexy. She’d been running for her life that night. He needed to back off, but if she was saying—
“Will you dance with me?”
That was not what he’d expected the doc to say. Drew just stared at her.
Then he saw the color flood her cheeks. The embarrassment because she thought he was rejecting her.
“Never mind.” She spun away from him. “That was stupid. I—”
He caught her shoulders in his hands and slowly pulled her around to face him. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
Her lashes lifted. She gazed up into his eyes. “Neither am I.”
No, she didn’t understand. “My life is about missions and violence. Following orders and getting the job done.” His left hand slid down to the curve of her waist. His right caught her hand and cradled her fingers in his.
Her breasts brushed against his chest as she stepped closer to him. Her scent filled his head. Strawberries shouldn’t make a man feel drunk, but her scent worked better than wine on him.
“There wasn’t a lot of dancing when I was young,” he confessed to her. The music was still playing from downstairs. “There wasn’t a whole lot of anything.” Except a kid on the path of destruction. A mother with a heart that was breaking because she couldn’t seem to stop her son.
His feet moved. Slowly. Carefully. “I won’t ever be the polished guy.” Not the one who could blend in at any party or ball.
Her movements matched his. But she wasn’t awkward. She was graceful and perfect.
His doc.
He took his time, trying to give her what she wanted because making her happy mattered to him.
“There’s more to you,” Tina said softly as she glanced up at him with eyes that seemed to gaze right into his soul, “than just bullets and combat.”
She didn’t understand. It was the combat that had saved him. “When I was eighteen...” His fingers tightened around hers. At eighteen, Tina had watched her parents die. And at eighteen, Drew had been trying to find his life. “I had a choice. Get my life in order, join the army, or find myself in jail.”
“Jail?”
“I told you before I wasn’t the good guy back then.” He’d been the guy always looking for trouble, and finding it. “I was on a crash course with destruction. I knew what waited in my future, and it wasn’t pretty.”
“Why?” No judgment. No censure. Just curiosity. “What was happening to you?”
The music kept playing. So he kept dancing with her, bringing her even closer to his body as they moved so slowly around that little room.
“My old man didn’t want to be a father, and my town... Hell, ‘poor’ didn’t even describe it. There was no way out for us. My mom was trying, but she couldn’t make enough to take care of me and my three sisters.”
For an instant she stilled.
“Crime was the way to make money for them. So I did whatever I could. Whatever I had to do. The only law I followed was my own.”
He waited
for her to stop looking at him with such trust in her eyes.
Only, she didn’t.
They kept dancing.
“I stole,” he confessed. “I cheated. I found myself in the back of a patrol car a dozen times.”
“What made you change?”
The money had been good. He’d finally been able to buy nice clothes for his sisters. For his mother. My mom... “My mother cried over me. When the cops came—when they were taking me back to juvie—she begged me to stop.”
He could still see her tears. “I wanted to help her, but all I was doing was hurting her worse.”
“I’m sorry,” Tina whispered.
Drew shook his head. He wasn’t telling her the tale because he wanted her pity. Pity was the last thing he wanted from her. “I wanted her to be proud, not to be holding her head down in shame because of what I was doing.”
Then Drew realized why he was telling Tina about his past, when he’d tried to bury those Mississippi memories as deeply as he could.
He wanted Tina to know that he couldn’t be bought, not anymore. That he wasn’t going to trade her for money.
That he was better than that.
He pulled in a deep breath. “I joined the army. I sent her my checks. She used them for the girls.” Kim, Heather and Paige. “Things started to change for my family. Things changed for me.”
Did she understand?
“I’m not the same boy I was back then.”
Tina shook her head. “I never thought you were.”
And it was still there. That blind trust in her eyes. When she’d been on that godforsaken rooftop and Lee had put his gun to her head, Tina had looked over and seen Drew. She’d recognized him, even when he’d had on that damn ski mask.
Trust had been in her stare then, too.
“Why do you have so much faith in me?” She shouldn’t. It was dangerous. He was dangerous. “You know about my missions.” She’d dug the bullets out of him, seen the scars from the knife attacks. “You know everything I’ve done.”
“Yes, I do.” She pushed up onto her tiptoes then. Her mouth brushed against his.
She knew, and Tina wasn’t afraid. She wanted him—good, bad and everything in between.
And he just wanted her.
His mouth pressed harder on hers. Need and desire twisted within him. He licked her lower lip, and loved the little moan that she gave in response.
