Wild Encounter

by Nikki Logan

  But there’d been a price to be paid for letting her escape once the business of the transfer was out of the way. Sergeant had paid, too.

  By the time Simon recovered from the gang beating he’d received, Clare drugging him wasn’t even an issue. She did what she had to do.

  He’d hoped she’d found her way to the authorities—for more than one reason. He’d pressed his pistol into her hands for protection. But he’d also given her his weapon so it would be red-flagged when the police conducted the inevitable license check on it. The flag had been intercepted by SIS, and one of their African operatives had been sent in to keep the Republic Police out of Crown business. The interpreter Clare had rightly pegged.

  But now, it couldn’t be any clearer how she had targeted him from the very beginning. He was just a part of her plan. She’d merely been waiting for the best moment to spring her trap—after he’d broken down and let himself be seduced. He never would have fallen for it if she’d been better at seduction. But her innocence, her stumbling awkwardness and fake confidence, and just sheer…goodness…. It fed right into his belief system, his hunger for some kind of connection. He’d been suckered. Totally.

  His superiors had wasted no time in hammering that particular point home.

  A rustling in the bushes near the edge of camp froze him in place for a second and though his hand went to the pistol holster at his back of its own volition, he knew better than to think it was anything four-legged. Lions and elephants in the sanctuaries might wander into the food-rich tourist camps, but out here in the wild they tended to give humans the widest possible berth. Especially with the embers of the fire still glowing red and billowing wisps of smoke. That made it some kind of nocturnal tree rat, most likely.

  A deep, accented voice came out of nowhere. “It seems odd the British government would send two of their top field operatives to shepherd a convoy of wildlife workers up the Trans-African Highway.”

  A nocturnal tree rat…or the two-legged equivalent.

  The big Kiwi materialized from the night shadows.

  Simon straightened cautiously. What was the millionaire doing slinking around the edges of camp this late at night? When he’d already been read the riot act for heading off into the bush by himself. And how the hell did he know where he and Mac fell in MI6’s food chain?

  Simon reigned in the twitch of his fingers toward his holstered gun. “Based on your extensive experience of SIS operations?”

  Perhaps sarcasm wasn’t warranted, but it wasn’t a friendly expression on Tim Fergusson’s suspicious face, and Simon had more than the usual reasons not to feel friendly toward the guy.

  “I know enough,” Tim said. “More specifically, I know who you are, and I know that you’re here under a cloud.”

  “You don’t know jack.” An unexpected perk about working for the Service—you didn’t have to be polite to smug millionaires.

  “What I can’t quite figure out is why you would specifically request this duty.” Tim crossed his arms and leaned a hip on the bull bar. The top of the front grill would hit a normal man around hip-high, but it barely reached the top of Tim’s thigh. “Given you’re at the pointy end of your investigation,” he mock-pondered, “shouldn’t you be at a desk somewhere pulling forensic reports together?”

  Simon considered him silently. For a man ten thousand clicks from home, in the depths of Africa without a civilian mobile tower for a hundred miles, Tim Fergusson was remarkably well informed. Simon wondered which of the three thousand satellites orbiting Earth was pinging a signal to what must be one hell of a pricey private sat phone.

  And who was on the other end.

  “Are all your countrymen so bloody-minded? And so nosey?” Simon asked amiably.

  “Pretty much.”

  He switched tactics. “Listen. I’m an operations officer with the Secret Intelligence Service. I’m hardly in a position to have a casual chat about my objectives here. Even with someone who owns half of New Zealand.”

  Fergusson’s teeth glinted in the moonlight. “Then let’s chat about Clare.”

  Simon’s hackles rose. “Let’s not.”

  Heated stares collided. “I don’t like how she is around you. Tense as a coiled spring,” Fergusson said.

  “You’ve only known her a week. I hardly think you’re in a position to judge.”

  “And how long have you known her?”

  Christ, the man was cool under pressure. Precise as a sniper bullet. He must be deadly in negotiations.

  “Her personality one-eightied the moment you and your partner drove into camp. I may not be a hotshot secret agent—” his smile belied his tone “—but I know enough about people to see there’s something going on between the two of you.”

  “I kidnapped her and held her hostage. You don’t think that has any bearing on her demeanor?”

  “And yet, she’s your biggest defender. It defies logic.”

  Simon’s mind grabbed at that and held it close. “Maybe she feels guilty for drugging me, now that she knows I’m one of the good guys.”

  “I don’t think the hijacking’s what’s bothering her. You’re bothering her.”

  “And you’d like that to stop?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what gives you the right to make that kind of demand? Are you going to pull Clare’s funding if I don’t play nice?”

  “Would that work?”

  “No. And I don’t think you’d do that to her.” Nonetheless, driving off her sponsor would pretty much be the nail in the coffin in Simon’s relationship with her, so it was a pretty powerful card. Not that they actually had a relationship to protect.

  Fergusson played his trump. “Does Clare know you’re investigating her?”

  Simon’s eyes narrowed. He realized suddenly that this whole conversation had stopped being hostile and started being…sport.

  “I’ve been watching you, deVries. You and your partner have made eye-contact with everyone in this camp since we got back from the bush. Everyone except Clare. You’re super careful not to let anyone see you watching her. And you’ve scheduled interview appointments with everyone but her. Doesn’t take a mole in your department to tell me what that means.”

  A mole? Fergusson was either incredibly good at this game or he really did have a source at SIS. Either way, Simon was intrigued. “Tell me. What does the CEO of a Kiwi produce company have such an interest in the activities of the British Government for?”

  He’d never made vegetables sound so irrelevant.

  “Everyone else here is intimidated by you,” Fergusson deflected.

  “But you’re not?” That was easy to believe. Fergusson was the kind of fearless you wanted on your team, not the enemy’s. But there was a fine line between courageous and reckless.

  “I deal with intimidating bastards every day. It’s why someone like Clare is a rare find. Her freshness. Her goodness. Nice qualities.” Blue eyes stared steadily at him, assessing, judging. “I don’t want to see her hurt.”

  “I’m not here to hurt her,” Simon said. Never mind that that’s all he seemed to have done. “I’m just here gathering facts.”

  “Then I have to question your motives. And your impartiality.”

  Simon snorted. “You and everyone else, mate.”

  That earned him a smile and it changed the big man’s face. “But you are here investigating. This isn’t just an escort.”

  It wasn’t a question. Simon dipped his head. “Clare’s testimony will form part of our case.”

  “So interview her back in London,” Fergusson said.

  It may well come to that. But he’d had his own ace up his sleeve, and that ace was the only thing that had gotten him close to Clare again.

  “Chain of evidence. There’s something we need to collect here.”

  Fergusson considered this, nodding. “The British purse must have grown fatter lately. That’s hardly a job for two.”

  Simon shook his head. The man should have been a
cop. His terrier mentality was wasted in big business. The frankness made for a refreshing change from Simon’s usual seven-layer repartee. Fergusson watched him steadily.

  “I came for Clare.” Simon admitted, tired of playing dodge ball.

  Only for Clare. If nothing else, he’d needed to hear from her own lips that she didn’t want him. That she’d been faking it back in that farmhouse. It was the only way he could walk away from her. He’d defied his bosses to be here; he wasn’t going to leave just because some rich guy didn’t like a crowded field.

  “I don’t think she wants you here,” Fergusson said, but it wasn’t unkind.

  “I don’t doubt it. Our history is…complicated.”

  The taller man looked undecided for a moment but then spoke up. “Did anything happen between you two—anything personal—that she didn’t want to happen?”

  Simon’s gut clenched. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  Fergusson’s silence was telling. Seconds ticked by before he hauled his giant frame off the bull bar and onto both feet. “Fair enough. Just know I’ll be watching.”

  Fergusson nodded a brisk goodnight and dissolved back into the darkness.

  It wasn’t a handshake, but it was close.

  Simon blinked back his own surprise. He’d just told a total stranger something he’d only allowed his subconscious to whisper through a mile-thick defensive wall.

  He’d come for Clare.

  He’d slept with a lot of women before her, but none since—despite the best efforts of a few. He’d never needed anyone so badly, wanted them so obsessively in such a short time—or under such wrong circumstances—as that day in the farmhouse.

  But this was all much bigger than just physical attraction.

  Maybe his deputy chief was right. Maybe he had himself a healthy case of Lima Syndrome. But no. He’d never thought of Clare as his hostage—she was just an unlucky bystander caught in a web of badness—so the incredible draw she exuded wasn’t circumstantial. She might have thought he meant her harm back then, but he never had. He’d always been one hundred percent on her side.

  So maybe he and Clare really did have something rare and unexpected happen in that farmhouse.

  He needed to find out.

  Because even as he’d come to on the cold farmhouse floor, throwing up his misery, his first thought had been for her—if she’d gotten away safely. In the following days, he couldn’t escape the memories of her. Her skin. Her eyes. Her smile. Her breasts. All rushing unbidden to his mind at the most inappropriate times. It was what got him through the thrashing the others delivered for letting her escape. That vision of her lying, head thrown back, below him.

  She was genuinely attracted to him, he had no doubt. Good girls from Boston weren’t that skilled at faking the kind of response she had to him. The chemistry they’d had together certainly had not felt one-sided.

  Then again, maybe Clare had traded on that chemistry from the beginning, just another tool in her plan. Like the needles and the drugs. Pure and simple. As angry as the realization had made him at the time—and still did in his weaker moments—he wouldn’t blame her, if it turned out to be true.

  He knew too well what the drive to survive could push people to do.

  Clare had done her best to get herself free. WildLyfe had done their best to get her home. And he’d had done his best by…what?

  Keeping her alive and unharmed. Mostly. Under the circumstances, that was something.

  Then he’d also had her assigned to the best Boston shrink on their books.

  If only he’d been able to get her to safety himself. She might have looked at him very differently when she’d seen him earlier, maybe with gratitude instead of suspicion. Excitement instead of terror.

  As the man who got her out of danger, rather than the man who put her in it.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Here.” Simon thrust a bowl at Clare almost the moment she returned to camp from her first early morning watch in the blind.

  She regarded the cold cereal with a sigh. It certainly wasn’t going to warm her up, but it would fill her stomach. And she had a feeling he meant the food as more than just sustenance.

  It was a peace offering.

  “Thank you,” she said tentatively, still stripped raw by the emotions of yesterday.

  She ate the first few mouthfuls in silence, her mind scratching around for something to say. Something professional. He wouldn’t talk about the case he was working on, and she couldn’t think of anything else.

  This morning he was wearing military cargos and a fitted white T-shirt. Without his power suit and sunglasses he was no less sexy, but he made her a lot less nervous. This was the Simon she was more familiar with. Casual-looking, laid back.

  As much as any complicated, tense man could be laid back.

  “No spy suit today?” she asked, between mouthfuls.

  “Traveling protocol,” he murmured. “This is a heap more comfortable. And not shredded.”

  His gaze went to the scratches on her skin. She’d done some DIY first aid the night before and they’d started to heal.

  Just once she’d like him to see her with makeup on. Maybe wearing a dress or her hair freshly washed—sigh—with shampoo. “I wonder if you’d recognize me without a face full of bruises and lacerations?” she ventured.

  Simon flinched before he was able to discipline his expression. “How was your first watch?” he asked.

  Okay. Subject thoroughly changed.

  “The first day is really just setting up the routine. No way would the dogs have made it here overnight. But tomorrow night is a definite possibility.”

  “It’s a lot of work. Getting them here,” he said.

  So careful and polite.

  She smiled. “Believe it or not, this is actually the easy way.”

  One handsome eyebrow cocked. “Easier on whom?”

  So proper. Even his grammar.

  “There are only two of us licensed to use the dart guns, so we have to be as fast and accurate as we can. As soon as the first shot’s fired off, the dogs scatter. Getting them back can take hours and it really stresses the animals.”

  “I could help shoot.” His voice was hushed, like everyone else’s in camp. They all moved quietly, as though the dogs could be just moments away. In case they actually were. “McKenzie, too. We’re both licensed.”

  Clare stopped her spoon half way to her mouth. “Delivery of canine sedatives by distance darting part of Spying 101?”

  He smiled. And her heart skipped a beat.

  “We’re authorized to use firearms in Africa. And we’re both crack shots, trained to the highest level with moving targets. If you load the sedatives, we’ll hit the dogs. Guaranteed.”

  Oh, to live life with that kind of confidence.

  Of course, he could probably back it up. She was a reasonable shot, as was Mitch, but Simon would no doubt be better and faster. Agent Amazon, too.

  And this was as much a peace offering as the food he’d thrust at her.

  She put her empty bowl next to her on the log. “I’ll keep that in mind if we don’t get all the dogs in. Thanks for the offer.”

  So very… professional.

  “You’re welcome. Besides, if I’m holding the gun, you can’t accidentally dart me with it.”

  Being full did nothing to stop her stomach lurching at his joke. It hit just a little too close to home. The blood drained from her face.

  She took a deep breath and abandoned the subtext. His imitation of an iceberg at her apology last night said he hadn’t forgiven her. She needed to explain herself.

  “Simon, I wanted to…” Her voice broke on her first attempt. “I know you don’t want to discuss the case, but I need to—” God, this was agony “—I need you to understand why I did what I did.”

  He grew very still. As alert as Jambi when he heard something unfamiliar. And off-kilter for the first time since he’d rolled into camp all gorgeous and in-charge. �
��Did what?”

  Her heart hammered all the way up to her voice box. “Drugged you.”

  Instead of locking up harder, his chest heaved—just once—and the fists she’d only just noticed loosened off by his thighs. “You drugged me to save your life.”

  She blinked. Sucked in a breath. “You don’t blame me?”

  His discipline wasn’t good enough to hide the astonishment on his face. “Why would I blame you? It was brilliant. You’re the toast of my whole department.”

  Her heart swelled enough to crack a rib. He didn’t hold it against her. What had changed? “But it must have been awful.”

  “Awful doesn’t even come close. But if it hadn’t been so appalling, they’d never have believed I didn’t let you go. I’d have had to abandon my cover and blow the operation.”

  She stared, speechless.

  “Seriously, Clare. I fell asleep next to you believing two years of work had been shot to hell, and I woke up on the floor of the farmhouse and realized that you’d saved it all. You’d saved me. I’m not saying it didn’t take some getting to, but I got there eventually.”

  She was almost afraid to ask, but she had to know… “Did they hurt you?”

  His eyes clouded over and he glanced away for the briefest of moments. When his gaze returned, it was rock solid. “No.”

  For a spy, he was a terrible liar.

  Her eyes prickled with moisture. She blinked them back. “I’m so sorry, Simon.”

  He leaned in closer. Pinioned her. “On the record? Your actions saved my ass. Off the record? You never apologize to me—or anyone—for anything you did in that farmhouse, you understand? Ever.”

  And there it was. A breath-length glimpse of the man she’d made love with six months ago. A vivid reminder of why she’d had such trouble getting over him. Her heart squeezed.

  His intense, gray focus shifted over her shoulder then flicked away.

  And just like that, old Simon was gone.

  He stood abruptly. “If you need us for the darting, just say the word.”