Hot

by Angel Payne

  He hauled in a huge breath. “The note said…Magic honey for my Little B.”

  “Oh.” There was barely volume in it. “Oh…”

  “Shit, Mom, I thought it was from you. I saw it as a sign that everything would work out okay. There was a part of me that probably believed it was magic…that by drinking it, I’d instantly teleport to be with you or something.”

  Their hands were still twined. Mom gripped him back so hard, she trembled from the effort. “He knew,” she whispered. “Somehow, he knew I’d signed with Cameron, so he went back to the house and put it there…for you to find.” Her head dropped forward between her shoulders. “Bastard!”

  “Mom. Mom. Who’re you talking…”

  His words drifted out beneath the weight of his shock—because of the agony in her tears. Mom peered at him like he’d been gunned down in front of her. “Homer. I had no idea he could be so cruel.”

  “What?” Shay uttered. “Why?”

  “You drank it.” Her voice was flat and grim. “The honey. Didn’t you, Shay?”

  Hell.

  This wasn’t like line-driving the baseball through the kitchen window. He couldn’t stick the flower vase in front of the hole and be assured it wouldn’t be discovered for another week. They were already out of time. He heard men bellowing orders over the gunfire, meaning it might already be too late to scoot his ass safely back down the hallway. But that didn’t mean he could shirk the responsibility of his reply, either.

  “Yeah, Mom. I drank it.”

  He felt nine years old all over again, confessing it. But even his nine-year-old self, who could peg the woman’s reaction to a healthy list of shit, wouldn’t have predicted the impact of his admission on his mom.

  Who fell against him in a dead faint.

  “Fuck!”

  He and Ghid spat it in unison as the walls quaked again around them.

  The military was here. The building had been breached.

  Ghid snatched Mom’s satchel and the case of vials and thrust them into Zoe’s hands. As if Mom weighed the same as those containers, he scooped her into his arms. “This way,” he ordered Zoe with a jerk of his head toward the stairwell. “Now!”

  Shay didn’t stop to ensure if Zoe followed. He prayed she was smart and simply did. He bolted the other direction, sticking close to the wall and praying that CENTCOMM had sent some guys with decent brains in their buckets—and reason in their trigger fingers. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t see them at all.

  He didn’t get lucky.

  “Freeze, dickwad! And get your ass on the floor right now, before I blast another hole in it!”

  He complied without question. He knew better. Though it was torment to rein back his temper, especially when his face was “accidentally” grinded into the floor as they cuffed him, he accomplished the miracle by gritting his jaw and thinking of Zoe. He slid his eyes shut as they rolled him over and a boot pushed into the cavity between his ribs, crushing his hands beneath his body and all the air in his lungs.

  But when the boot released, he still couldn’t breathe. The voice belonging to that foot, just as angry as the stomp it had delivered, ensured that fact with crushing precision.

  “Hello, little brother.” Tait flung down a glare full of revulsion and hate. “Fancy meeting you here, asshole.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Zoe shivered, curled her legs under her in the patio chair, and wrapped her purple pashmina tighter against her shoulders. It was early November in the high desert, meaning the temperature descended with the sun. Though a few violet streaks lingered in the sky beyond the peaks of Red Rock Canyon, nighttime was definitely on the prowl.

  She took another sip of the Cabernet Brynn had brought to go with their lasagna and salad. As the wine slackened her limbs, she leaned back, trying to let it ease her mind and heart as well. A bite of wind rustled through the juniper and willow trees and then across the in-ground reflecting pool, a nice reminder of why she’d decided to rent a place in Canyon Gate and commute a little farther to work on the Strip. When a girl’s post-shift happy hour was at two in the morning, it was skies like this, blanketed with a thousand stars, that bested any cocktail for “taking the edge off the work day.”

  But she’d never had edges this harsh.

  The stars began to glitter more brightly, but tonight, she didn’t see any friends in them. Instead, they were heart-stabbing reminders of the gorgeous glints in Shay’s eyes. The mighty silhouettes of Turtleback Peak and Mount Wilson only made her think of every perfect ridge in his muscles, of how safe she’d felt in his massive embrace. And the wind, stronger now, sucked her breath away just like he had on so many occasions. The first moment their gazes had met. Every single time he’d kissed her. Every second he’d filled her body with his.

  The wind died.

  It was eerily quiet.

  Just like his four days of silence.

  All the better to hear the desperate questions on their ridiculous repeat loop in her head.

  Where the hell is he?

  Is he safe?

  Is he alive?

  If so—and she wouldn’t allow herself to believe anything else—then was he still playing his dangerous ruse with Stock? Or had he returned to his Spec Ops team, gone from the country on a completely new mission?

  You knew it would probably go down like this. Even after you learned his truth, you knew the possibility of seeing him again was never as sure as splitting aces.

  “Shut up,” she muttered, gulping more wine.

  Four days. Why did it feel like four thousand? Yet in so many ways, it could’ve been yesterday…even a few hours ago. She could almost hear the deafening roar of the helicopter again, carrying her, Ghid, and Melody Bommer away from the raid. She could smell the wildflowers in the meadow where they’d landed, near the ghost town in the middle of nowhere. She’d guessed they were at one of the long-forgotten mining camps that were scattered across northern Nevada. Though a tour wasn’t offered, it was clear Ghid and his gang had taken over the place as a remote outpost, probably in preparation for exactly what had happened at the base.

  The setting had been remote and chilly, a perfect match for the instant plummet of her spirit. Logic dictated that the despair was due to her sudden adrenaline drop, but that concept was paltry satisfaction for a mind still coping with the surreal somersault her life had taken. In a little over a day, she’d gone from watching her friends chug margaritas at LAX to sitting in an old gold panning trough as Ghid and his team refueled a helicopter in a meadow…

  Okay, maybe “surreal” wasn’t the right word.

  Or maybe it was perfect.

  Zoe glanced to the lavender bushes lining the yard, waiting for Morpheus or Glinda the Witch to emerge and confirm she’d really jumped into an alternate reality. She probably wouldn’t mind things so much then. Glinda rocked great shoes, but bending spoons in a kick-ass leather trench definitely appealed too. Hell. What a dilemma.

  No.

  She knew what a dilemma really looked like. She was just fighting the memory—which, as her mind’s eye so lovingly helped demonstrate, only pulled the whole thing closer.

  Much too close.

  She twisted her scarf harder as the recollection hit with brutal clarity.

  She saw every tormented crease of Melody Bommer’s face while Ghid relayed that Stock had been stopped from getting the airliner back off the ground. When Melody asked about the “guys,” who Zoe assumed to be the strange patients on the gurneys she’d seen in the hallway, Ghid’s features had succumbed to rare emotion. He had no answer for her and was clearly ripped apart by it. By the time Melody’s tears surfaced, he’d become a human wall again, holding her while she sobbed out phrases about being helpless and pissed and confused, and then pissed again.

  Zoe had been unable to sit by and watch anymore. She couldn’t very well blurt that she’d fallen like a lead brick for the woman’s son after knowing him for a day, but she could help by taking over the tea
r-wiping duties. The action was a balm for her. Being closer to Melody helped her notice many wonderful traits the woman shared with her son—the brilliant amber eyes, the caramel highlights in the thick chocolate hair, the strongly angled face—and best of all, the similarities in their personalities. Even in her grief, Melody let out one-liners full of wicked sarcasm. Her protective side showed when she voiced concern about Zoe’s growling stomach. But best of all—and oddly, worst of all—her smile was exactly like Shay’s, easily formed and persistent in its strength.

  When it had come time to say goodbye to Melody, she’d clung longer than she planned…and cried more than she wanted to.

  And Shay’s silence had stretched on.

  At least the troupe had finally been reunited yesterday. Stock and his goons had taken away everyone’s phones once they’d all become hostages, only now that everyone in the troupe was the media’s hot flavor of the month, a cell company sponsored a big “get reconnected” celebration for them on a yacht at The Lakes. The last thing Zoe had felt like was a party. She dialed in from her own new phone, kindly messengered over to her, and video-chatted with everyone until she couldn’t stop thinking about the moment she’d turned the device on, finding fifty texts and phone calls from Ava, about that many from Ryder, twice that many from Papi—and a grand total of zero from Shay. The ruse of cheer became too much. She excused herself, hanging up to indulge a self-pity bawl over the stupidity of falling so hard and fast for a man in one damn day.

  It almost matched the dumbass move of picking up the phone when it rang with a new video call, even when she recognized the number as Brynn’s. She should have known that no matter how many margaritas Brynn had swigged, her friend would be instantly wise to her swollen eyes and cherry nose—explaining why she, Ellie, and Ryder were here for dinner tonight.

  “Somebody’s glass is almost empty.”

  Ry’s sing-song, a usual natural for making her giggle, cracked only a small smile tonight. With a resigned sigh, she lifted her glass for the cheeky boy to refill. Ryder sloshed more Cabernet in as he settled into the chair to her right. “Thanks,” she said, arching a brow at the large puddle of vino he’d managed to spill to her deck. “Good thing this is used brick.”

  “And good thing I wore my lined jacket,” Ry quipped back. “Holy shit, girlfriend. It’s cold enough for Otter Pops out here.”

  “Then I’d like a Sir Isaac Lime, please.” She sipped from her refilled glass. “And the cold is…good. At least tonight.”

  “Needing a little distraction?” He waited for a decently long moment, like any good friend, but jumped back in as soon as he possibly could. “From thinking of a certain Dom-alicious individual who rocked your world a few nights ago?”

  “It’s…a little more complicated than that.” Though she managed to keep the tears from completely ruining the last of her statement, Ryder’s sympathetic tsk pushed her over the edge.

  “Ohhhh, honey.” He fell to his knees next to her chair and pulled her into his warm hug. “Crap. I’m so sorry. Me and the nasty cesspool of my mind. Like you’d be thinking of shag-worthy Shane after all the shit those cockbags put you through, and—Zo?”

  She buried her face against his shoulder, letting the sobs come again. “Oh, Ry…”

  “Jesus.” He slammed down his wine in order to hug her more tightly. “Zo. Shit, girl. What is it?”

  She shocked herself by actually growling. The sound blatantly dazed Ry, who’d never heard her pull a blubber-fest like this since they’d known each other. “Screw it,” she finally blurted. “I’m a mess, and I don’t care who knows.”

  That caused the guy to squirm. Ryder might have been a walking, talking expert about everything Sondheim, Prada, and penis, but he also hated rom-coms, Gaga, and people who whined in the gym—which meant a bawling woman in his arms likely didn’t rank high on his list. “You want to talk to Ava? I could get her on the phone, sweetie.”

  “No!” she snapped. “She’ll call Papi. His cardiac check-ups have finally been better, and I’m not going to ruin that energy two months before her wedding.”

  He huffed. “So much for not caring who knows you’re a mess, hmmm?”

  Mierda. The only one who did hot angry better than him was Shay. “Ay. Callate, pendejo.” She forced a tease into it, throwing a hand through the trendy new crop cut of his dark-blond hair.

  “Hey. Not the hair!”

  Just before they debated trying to fling each other into the reflecting pool, there was a forceful knock at her front door.

  “Odin’s fucking beard.” Brynn emerged from the kitchen, intercepting Zoe on her rush to the door. “Did you invite Thor and his hammer and not tell us?”

  Zoe swung open the portal as the pounding started again. She barely avoided a fist in the face from the man who stood on her porch—correction, consumed her front doorway—like a full-scale Malibu Ken doll.

  “Are you Zoe Chestain?” His guttural demand cut the Ken doll impression by half. The accent immediately gave him away as a Texas boy, only it was the Chuck Norris side of Texas, used to confronting a lot of danger.

  Which wasn’t a great comprehension for her gut. “Uh…”

  “Who the hell wants to know?” Ryder stepped forward, producing an inner alpha dog that Zoe didn’t know he had. It was stunning. A little scary.

  The guy tossed a furtive look over his shoulder as he stomped in and slammed the door. “My name’s Dan Colton.” He flashed a gold badge. “I’m with the CIA. And you were the dancer with Shay at A-51, weren’t you?”

  “Don’t tell him a thing, Zo.”

  Ryder had gone to full-on protective hound mode. Now the whole thing was a little irritating. Zoe gave him a bop on the shoulder and a soft she-growl.

  “Yes,” she told the agent, “that was me. Is he okay? Are you his contact from the agency?”

  “I am.” His face tightened. “Or at least I was.”

  “Was?” Zoe clutched at Ry. Her body went cold. Oh, God. Didn’t they bring priests along when they informed loved ones that a soldier had died?

  But she wasn’t Shay’s “loved one,” was she? What had she been? A nice diversion, if that? Maybe she should be grateful for Colton’s house call, instead of a phone message or email.

  “Yeah.” Colton’s green eyes turned stormy. “I’m pretty damn certain my involvement with the guy is past tense.”

  From clenched teeth, Zoe demanded, “Which means what?”

  The agent pierced her with a harder stare. Whatever he saw in her face clearly disturbed him. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  The urge to drill her fist into the man’s jaw intensified by the second. “Tell you what?”

  “Okay, back up the trolley. I’m not on board.” Ryder frowned. “Who the hell is Shay?”

  “Ditto,” Ellie and Brynn added in unison.

  Zoe glanced up, biting her lip. “Remember when I told you it was complicated?”

  “Complicated enough to involve the CIA?” Her friend dropped onto an ottoman when she only bit her lip. “Holy shit, Zo.”

  “Pop a chiller, sparky. Let the man explain.” After the sarcasm of her gibe at Ry, Brynn pulled a one-eighty in her cordiality to Colton. “Come in, Agent Colton. Are you hungry? I just pulled some lasagna out of the oven.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” The agent was oblivious to the fact that Brynn clearly thought he was better than Thor and the hammer. His palpable stress crunched Zoe’s gut even harder. “So Shay hasn’t contacted you at all in the last four days?” he turned and asked her.

  Zoe joined Ryder on her worn leather couch. “No. I’m sorry, Agent Colton. I can see how stressed you are about this. If I could tell you anything else, I would.”

  “How about telling your friends who the hell this guy is?” Ry snapped. “Or was?”

  “Is.” Zoe bit it out before falling against the cushion, cradling her head in her hands. “His name is Shay Bommer, but you know him as Shane Burnett. Agent Colton was his main lin
e at the CIA because he was working with them on an undercover basis, and—”

  “Whoa,” Ry cut in. “Now the trolley’s jumped all the tracks.”

  Brynn stomped back in, oven mitts on the hands she braced to her hips. “Damn straight it has. Shane Burnett? The world’s last chunk of chivalry from the airport?”

  “Shit.” Ellie gasped. “The one with the supersized fries in his crotch?”

  Ryder straightened. “You didn’t tell me about the big fries.”

  Brynn stomped closer. “You didn’t tell me that you spent any more time with him after we got back to the hotel.”

  “And there was time to do that…when?” Zoe shot back. “Remember the hangover you boarded the plane with?”

  “The plane.” Ryder repeated it like the words brought new revelation. “Oh, hell. Shane is Shay. And he was with you during the shit at A-51. So does that mean that Dom-alicious was also one of the dickwads who hijacked your plane?”

  “Dom-alicious?” Brynn and El were once more an echoing chorus, complete with their own accusing gapes.

  Colton came to her rescue in the nick of time. Rising with a sweep of his impressive height, the man silenced the three of them with a single glower.

  “As much as I’d love to hear that story and have a sweet piece of blackmail material to hold over my friend’s head, there’s a larger cow pile to shovel here.” He paced to the patio door so forcefully, Brynn flattened to the wall to let him by. “I officially don’t know where they’ve taken Shay. And I’m freaked as a virgin in a whorehouse about it. Now none of my calls are being returned, my secure email address is no longer accessible, and my key card doesn’t work at the office.”

  So much for the rescue. Zoe surged to her feet. “What does that all mean? They who?”

  Before she could interpret anything from his cryptic glare of a reply, her cell vibrated on the dining room table. The window didn’t identify a caller. She showed it to Colton, who nodded at her to answer but to keep the device tilted so he could listen. She wiped her clammy palms on her thighs before clicking open the line with a wobbly finger.