The Bride's Protector

by Gayle Wilson

  She wanted him still

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  She wanted him still

  Wanted him again, she amended. As much, or maybe more, she realized, than before he had taken her. Taken her. The words echoed in her consciousness. Out of place. So foreign to what she had always thought should happen between a man and a woman. She didn’t think she had ever used the term in connection with making love. Now, however, she knew exactly what it meant.

  Hawk had taken her. He hadn’t talked to her, no whispered words of seduction. And he hadn’t pretended he was doing anything other than what he had done. He had consumed her. Invaded and conquered, just as his kiss had the first day she’d met him. Taken, she repeated mentally, acknowledging the truth. But at the same time, she knew that he had taken nothing she hadn’t willingly given. Nothing she didn’t want him to have.

  Dear Reader,

  The most frequently asked question an author hears is, “Where do you get your ideas?” For this trilogy, that spark was wondering what would happen to our secret warriors now that the Cold War has ended.

  What if a highly specialized black ops team is considered by the CIA to be obsolete in today’s New World order? What if the men who had spent their lives carrying out incredibly dangerous missions around the globe are now an embarrassment to their own government? What if the agency that created them wants to destroy their identities, so that even if the operations they took part in come to light, they could never be traced back to their superiors?

  In this trilogy, three men, all members of the CIA’s elite External Security Team, are in such a position. Their identities destroyed, but with all the deadly skills they have been taught still intact, these men embark on private missions that will test not only their expertise in dealing with danger, but also their hearts. And the skills they once used to guard their country will now be employed to protect those they love.

  Please watch for all the stories in this new

  MEN OF MYSTERY series from Harlequin Intrigue: The Bride’s Protector (April 1999), The Stranger She Knew (May 1999), and Her Baby, His Secret (June 1999). Enjoy!

  Love,

  Gayle Wilson

  The Bride’s Protector

  Gayle Wilson

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  For my Aunt Maylia, with love and deep affection

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Tyler Stewart—On the eve of her fairy-tale wedding, she discovers that not everything in her life is what it seems.

  Lucas Hawkins—The mysterious CIA operative known only as Hawk, whom Tyler unwittingly draws into the middle of an assassination plot.

  Amir al-Ahmad—The playboy bridegroom. Did he have a hand in his own father’s death, or is he caught up in the same plot that threatens to destroy Hawk?

  Jordan Cross—Is this CIA agent a friends, or is he playing a very dangerous double game?

  Claire Heywood—A powerful Washington attorney, Claire has the influence and the resources to get to the bottom of the mystery, but will her beliefs keep her from helping her slain lover’s friends?

  Malcolm Truett—An Englishman with ties to Middle Eastern terrorists, or simply an innocent pawn in someone else’s game?

  Carl Steiner—The new head of the External Security Team appears to be dismantling the close-knit unit, whose loyalty still lies with their slain leader.

  Griff Cabot—The man whose leadership tied them together and whose death threatens to destroy all that the team had once accomplished.

  Prologue

  This was, of course, what he did. He was the unquestioned master of a skill the CIA believed there was no longer any need for. A skill...

  The man he was watching moved, and without any conscious thought, his brain directed his body to adjust the rifle the fraction of a millimeter that would again place his target in its crosshairs. He supposed that at one time he had had to think about making that alignment. But no longer.

  Just as there was no longer any adrenaline rush to overcome. No tremor of hand or glint of perspiration on the motionless finger that held on the trigger. After that infinitesimal, automatic adjustment, his entire body was again absolutely motionless. And it could remain that way for endless minutes.

  No nerves. No compunction concerning what he was about to do. He had made his peace with that a long time ago. And of course, in this case...

  He eased in a breath, aware that the line of thinking he had begun to pursue was not an indulgence he could afford. This was simply another job. Another target. Another slow squeeze of the trigger. Danger passed. Threat resolved. Lives saved.

  Just another job, he told himself again, forcing the rhythm of his breathing back into the familiar calm of duty. Away from the images of what had been done to his friend.

  It had taken him months to reach this place. To find this man. This time. This moment. Just another job.

  His entire world was focused now on his rifle sight, sharp, clear and utterly unmoving. His finger completed the slow pull it had begun. The remarkable brain that functioned behind the ice-blue eyes, locked now on their target, was once more in complete and total control of every emotion.

  The shot was true. He knew that without even watching the result. Instead, as soon as he released the trigger, his hands began the familiar tasks of picking up the casing and disassembling the custom-made, lightweight rifle. Those actions, too, were automatic and unthinking.

  It was finished in a matter of seconds, less than a minute, certainly. He could hear, on some level at least, the commotion from the street below, just as he had probably unconsciously heard the shot.

  He didn’t think about either. Picking up the rattan case that now contained the silencer and the strapped-down, high-powered rifle with which he had just killed a man, the operative known only as Hawk descended the curving staircase that led downward from the roof where he had waited for his victim. He didn’t appear to hurry. There was, after all, no need for haste.

  When he reached the street, he put the case on top of his left shoulder, holding it in place with the long, brown fingers of his left hand. Dressed in the traditional headdress, which covered his dark blond hair, and a white robe, both totally unremarkable in this locale, he moved with utter and unhurried confidence through the throng that crowded the narrow streets of Baghdad. His skin was tanned darkly enough to allow him to pass for a native—at least to the casual observer.

  There was nothing about his appearance that might cause anyone to give him a second glance. Nothing to cause comment. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would betray the fact that he didn’t fit into this society. Just as he had never fit into any other.

  It was not until he turned into the shadowed arches of an ancient building, blocks away from the roof from which he had fired the fatal shot, that he paused. He made a pretense of adjusting the case he carried, and the hard line of his mouth moved only enough to whisper the phrase he had waited months to say.

  “Rest in peace, Griff,” the
man called Hawk said softly. “Rest in peace, my friend. The debt is paid.”

  Chapter One

  “I knew you’d be the most beautiful bride in the world,” Amir al-Ahmad said softly. His deep voice, with its slight British accent, was filled with satisfaction and a hint of possession, something Tyler Stewart had certainly noticed before.

  “Turn around, my darling, so we can see every inch of you,” he ordered. His full lips tilted upward beneath the dark mustache, a smile intended to soften the effect of what had been—almost—a command.

  “I think you’ve seen more than enough,” Tyler objected with a laugh. “The groom’s not supposed to even glimpse the bride on their wedding day, and you’re demanding the full runway show.”

  “And why should I not see the woman who will become my wife in...” Amir paused, consulting the gold Rolex he wore before he looked up at her, smiling again “...in a little more than an hour? Besides, that is not a custom in my country, I assure you,” he said, unmoved by her objection.

  Tyler knew, of course, she shouldn’t be surprised. After all, her fiancé had listened to none of the objections she had tried to make throughout the course of their whirlwind courtship. Why should she think that would change now?

  “Please, darling,” he urged again, the false patience of his tone clearly expressing his impatience, “we are all waiting.”

  Fighting a frisson of resentment, Tyler smiled at him instead of arguing. Her smile was forced, perhaps, but she was determined not to let anything spoil this day. Not Amir’s tendency to ride roughshod over anyone else’s suggestions. Not even the building anxiety she had felt during the last week.

  Despite her repeated mental lectures, that sense of foreboding had been present the whole time her bridesmaids had clustered around her, laughing and chattering, helping her dress. Making all the old prenuptial, off-color jokes.

  Just prewedding jitters, Tyler had told herself over and over. Just nerves. Stress. All perfectly normal.

  She took a deep breath, striving for serenity. After all, Amir’s request was simple enough. And he was right Why should he be expected to observe traditions he didn’t understand?

  Just as she didn’t understand the ones that had shaped his personality. The ones that would soon govern her life. That was probably part of her apprehension, she acknowledged. She knew so little about the culture from which he came, despite hours spent at the library trying to remedy that ignorance. And sometimes it seemed she knew even less about her fiancé himself.

  Obediently, however, she made the slow pirouette he’d requested, showing off the designer gown that Amir had chosen. And paid for, of course. The yards of silk organza that made up its bell-shaped skirt and short train swung gracefully as she circled. The elegant Manhattan hotel suite, one of the two floors of rooms Amir had rented for the wedding entourage, certainly provided an appropriate background.

  “Breathtaking,” he said. “But I always knew you would be.”

  Always. The word reverberated in her mind. This was really for always.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “The dress is wonderful, Amir. Thank you for that, too.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude, Tyler. You’re to be my wife. I am looking forward to having the right to take care of you,” he said softly. “The privilege.”

  She could see the approving smiles on the faces of the watching women, but for some reason, the romantic words jarred. Maybe because that sounded like something Paul might have said. The part about taking care of her. And Paul...

  Was something else she wasn’t going to think about, she decided, pushing the pain of that away. It had nothing to do with today, she told herself, and shouldn’t be allowed to spoil what was supposed to be a joyous occasion. The most wonderful day in a woman’s life.

  Deliberately, she smiled at her fiancé again, the movement less forced this time. She held his eyes, trying, as she had so many times before, to read past their opaque blackness and into the soul of the man. Maybe that was also part of the problem. She never seemed to know what he was thinking. Or feeling.

  Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Amir al-Ahmad seemed almost British, even to the Saville Row suits and school ties he favored. He was handsome, in a darkly exotic way, and probably more sophisticated than anyone she had ever known. And, of course, he was also immensely wealthy. Riches beyond anything she could imagine, produced by the seemingly endless supply of oil that lay beneath the forbidding surface of his country.

  According to everyone she knew, he was, therefore, everything a reasonable woman could possibly want in a husband. And apparently he had fallen head over heels in love with Tyler Stewart the first time he had seen her.

  She couldn’t imagine why. She had finally been forced, however, to accept that it must have happened. Which did make her the luckiest woman in the world, she supposed. At least that was the other thing everyone told her. And she had the evidence of her own experiences with Amir. All as charmingly romantic as the statement he had just made.

  “Well, aren’t you even going to look at yourself?” Cammie Torrence asked in exasperation. Her maid of honor’s suggestion destroyed the awkward silence that had fallen when Tyler failed to respond to Amir’s claim. Cammie took her shoulders and turned her to face the hotel suite’s floor-length, gilt-framed mirror.

  For the first time Tyler surveyed the finished product of this morning’s efforts. At what she saw reflected there, she took another breath, this one deep enough that the white veil, gossamer sheer and touched delicately with seed pearls, lifted like a cloud around her bare shoulders.

  The exquisite lace that comprised the bodice of the gown she wore was cut so that it ran straight across her chest and upper arms. The line of the material lay just above the beginning swell of her breasts. The bodice narrowed to show off the twenty-three-inch waist she worked so hard to maintain, and then spread out into those billowing yards of silk organza.

  It was strange, but Tyler couldn’t remember ever having been a bride before. Surely she had been. Surely at some time in the last twenty years she had been photographed for a bridal magazine, these familiar features topped by a spill of veil and a small, artfully arranged spray of flowers.

  If I was, she thought, still studying her reflection with a detached and professional appraisal, I hope I looked happier. Younger. More at peace.

  Her lips tightened against the surge of anxiety, and she watched in the mirror as the creases formed at the corners of her mouth. And she could clearly see, as she had been able to for the last few years, the fine lines etched by time into the delicate skin around those famous violet eyes.

  She turned her head, unconsciously examining the stilltaut line of her jaw, looking for the smallest sag and thankfully not finding it. Not bad, she thought. Not too bad for an old broad.

  “What do you think?” Cammie asked softly, interrupting that unconscious assessment.

  Tyler smiled at her maid of honor, catching her eyes in the glass and holding on to the friendship in them. “I think...” she began, and then her gaze shifted to the figure standing behind Cammie. Amir al-Ahmad. To whom she would be married in a little more than an hour. “I think I look like a bride,” she finished.

  They all laughed. Even Amir smiled, his dark eyes moving away from hers to study her reflection in the mirror. In them was again possession, which was not, she realized, the emotion she had always dreamed she would see in her bridegroom’s eyes.

  “Will your father approve of this?” she asked, denying that small disappointment, burying it with all the other anxieties that had been growing in her heart as this day approached. “I’m sure this is not anything like what the women in your country—”

  “My father will adore you,” Amir interrupted, sweeping that particular worry away with his accustomed surety.

  He walked across the short span of carpet that separated them and put his hands on her upper arms, almost exactly as Cammie had done. His long brown fingers, however, closed tightl
y over the off-the-shoulder sleeves of the wedding gown, the rich ivory lost under their covering darkness.

  “There is absolutely nothing for you to worry about. As for what is expected of the women of my country, that’s really of no concern to you. Do you think I shall require that you put on hijab? We are not so old-fashioned as you seem to imagine.”

  He smiled at her again, his expression almost paternalistic. “Nothing will change about your life, Tyler. Except, after today, I shall finally have the right to make you mine.”

  He paused, and Tyler wondered if the others had been aware of that slight emphasis. Finally the right to make you mine. Which she hadn’t been.

  Another tradition of his country? Or, as he had hinted, an aspect of his religion? She hadn’t asked. She had been grateful for his lack of sexual pressure, especially considering all the other pressures he had imposed. That had been, for some reason, the one reassuring element in the breakneck speed at which this relationship had developed.

  “And,” he added, “finally I shall have the right to take care of you.”

  Again their eyes met in the glass. Tyler wanted to say that she had been taking care of herself just fine for the last thirty-eight years, thank you very much. That she certainly didn’t need anyone’s help in that department. And she might have said exactly that three months ago. But now...

  Now, she conceded, her confidence was shaken. She was scared. Almost as frightened as when she had shown up in Paul Tarrant’s office more than two decades ago, a skinny seventeen-year-old refugee from a little hick town in Mississippi.

  This was almost the same feeling. Except twenty years ago she had fervently believed that, with a little luck and a whole lot of perseverance, she would succeed. She had had stars in her eyes, incredible dreams in her heart and almost two hundred carefully hoarded dollars in her vinyl pocketbook. The difference between then and now was that she no longer had any of those things. Not even the two hundred dollars.