by Cherry Adair
He welcomed the immediate sense of sanctuary, the dry warmth, the smell of home.
"We're here," he said unnecessarily.
She opened her eyes. "Holy cow! Put me down."
Marnie wriggled out of his arms like a 120-pound blue marlin, eyes wide, curiosity on full alert.
"Oh, wow. This is amazing."
Jake's underground lair consisted of an enormous living space, with a vaulted ceiling, pale gray walls, and tile the same color on the floor. The indirect lighting, as natural as outdoors, had an undetectable source, yet was bright enough to read by. The room reminded Marnie of the bridge of the starship Enterprise with its countless monitors, state-of-the-art equipment, and the backdrop of a low, electrical hum.
The elevator door whispered shut behind them.
"Guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."
While she spun around to take it all in, Jake walked over to a wall unit and turned on the stereo. Something smooth and bluesy filled the room. The rich sound was loud enough to eliminate the buzz but soft enough to remind her of the attraction she felt for him. In the process of removing her jacket, she raised a brow.
Jake caught her eye and scowled slightly, then changed the music selection to something heartier, with lots of drums. He ignored her grin and strode across the room, shedding his own jacket as he went. He tossed it over the back of a worn brown corduroy couch.
One end of the couch was piled with multicolored pillows, none of which reflected the colors in what looked to be an extremely old and very valuable Persian carpet. A paperback cowboy book lay facedown beside a coffee mug and half a package of Oreo cookies on the battered seaman's trunk he used as a coffee table.
"Get out of those wet clothes," Jake said without turning around.
"In a second." Marnie snagged a couple of cookies while she checked out the rest of Jake's personality via his domain. The place had an efficient, comfortably lived-in feel. The temperature in the room was comfortably warm, and her adrenaline rush was subsiding. She didn't, however, feel like getting naked in front of Jake Dolan just at the moment. "Did you do all this?"
"Yeah." He walked over to adjust something on a panel above a long white counter across the room.
On the left, an unmade king-sized bed trailed a brilliant yellow-and-red Chinese silk throw. She scanned the orderly bookcases, filled with everything from Asimov to Zane Grey. His CDs, many of which Marnie had in her own collection, ranged from classical to jazz. A man with catholic tastes.
She ate another cookie; the sugar helped sweep away some of her exhaustion. Then she walked up behind Jake as he scanned the bank of monitors on the wall above an L-shaped, futuristic workstation. Twelve three-foot-by-two-foot flat-screen monitors embedded strategically in the walls around the room gave the appearance of windows.
Jake looked tired and frustrated, his expression intent. The temptation to run her hand over his hair in a gesture of comfort was nearly overwhelming. Instead she curled her fingers into her palm. She had a lot of things to worry about right now; Jake didn't need to be one of them. She rested her fingers on the pulse at her wrist. Fast. But fine. Just fine.
"Infrared?" she asked rhetorically, trying to make out what they were looking at. Each screen showed a different aspect of the surrounding woods in a dim, murky red glow.
She hoped to see Duchess, but there was no movement other than the wind in the trees and the steady fall of snow. Trying to identify each view, she moved down the length of the workstation to face the monitors head on.
"At night, infrared. During the day, normal view."
"Hmmm. You don't, by any chance, have any aspirin around, do you?"
"No." He gave her a piercing look. "Shoulder hurt?"
"Oh, my shoulder's fi—Yeah, it hurts a little."
"Can't hurt too badly if you can't figure out what hurts." Jake turned back to the screen.
Marnie stuck her tongue out at the back of his head. "What do you do if you get a headache? Bite down on a bullet?"
"I didn't used to have headaches."
One of the monitors showed the interior of Jake's cabin.
"Hmmm," she tried to keep the eagerness out of her voice. Moonlight through the window in the kitchen illuminated the edges of her sketch pad with its message to Jake. It was still propped up on the kitchen counter, where she'd left it this morning. It seemed a million years ago.
"How far away is that?"
Jake moved closer to see what she was looking at. "The cabin's directly above us."
Beneath the screen was a panel consisting of a series of flat buttons. As he punched out instructions the camera slowly panned the interior of the cabin. "Doesn't look like they've been in yet." He glanced at her. "With any luck the dog will get there first."
"But the entrance is miles away."
"The way we came isn't as far as you think. But she won't have to go that far. As long as she returns to the cabin, she'll be fine. There's another elevator behind the pantry."
She closed her eyes, thankful that the cabin and her things were this close. There, she told herself. You were starting to get panicky for nothing.
"Can I go up and get my backpack?" Marnie asked, casually, trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice with difficulty. "There are a couple of things in there I need."
Jake narrowed his eyes. "You don't need your lotions and potions. I'm not risking that they've already inventoried your cra—Yes! I see you, you son of a bitch," he said under his breath, gaze intent on the screen.
A blurred shape moved in a crouch toward the cabin twenty feet above their heads. "Come on in," Jake snarled as the figure was joined by another. He manipulated the camera.
The zoom motion didn't produce a clearer image, he zoomed back out again.
The men paused several hundred feet away from the front door.
"What are we going to do?" Marnie whispered, leaning close enough to feel the brush of his hair on her cheek and smell the damp fabric of his shirt. Knowing those men were up there, so close, looking for him, gave her the willies.
Jake shifted, eyes still fixed on the two men. "You don't have to whisper. They can't hear us."
"Good, 'cause I want to scream. Since I'm here, whether you like it or not, I think you'd better tell me just what I'm in the middle of."
He stared at her as if he had X-ray eyes. After a moment he said briskly, "I thought I told you to change. Get warm and dry first. Then we'll talk."
He strode across the room to the triangular black shower angled in the far corner and turned on both jets. There was no curtain around it, no door, no concealing walls. The hard spray fell in well-disciplined streams into a center drain.
Marnie crouched to untie the wet knots in the laces of her boots. She did need that hot shower. She could wait another ten minutes for answers.
"There's a magic screen that covers that, right?"
No matter how cold and damp she was, she had no intention of stripping off and hopping into that shower with Jake Dolan's eyes on her.
Well, not this time, anyway.
"I wasn't expecting company." Jake took several folded navy towels out of a cabinet and tossed them on the closed toilet seat. "There're some things I have to do. I'll be back in twenty minutes."
"Jake, wait. Those men aren't going anywhere. If you have to go out, at least warm up in a hot shower first, and put on dry clothes."
"I've been colder and wetter."
He strode to a narrow closet and removed a bundle of fleece. After he'd tossed the clothes on his bed, he went to the elevator they'd just exited.
"While you're out, would you mind grabbing my backp—my things?"
"I'm not going that way. Take a hot shower."
He placed his palm on a panel on the wall and the door slid open. He stepped inside, and the door closed silently behind him.
On the monitor above the sleek metal door, she could see him inside the elevator. He looked directly into a camera.
"Make use of the f
acilities, don't use all the hot water, and don't touch anything. I'll be back in twenty."
The cold kept him sharp. Jake moved quickly down the tunnel, checking his firepower and booby traps as he went. When he'd constructed his fortress from the old mine shafts years ago, he'd been playing mental war games. Worst-case scenario. He had never intended it for his own protection.
He came to the mountain to rejuvenate. To remember his own humanity. To remember his friends. The lair had become a laboratory to test his products, to see which of his inventions worked, which would hold up under attack. He was trying to achieve the dreams of the Musketeers.
Face it—he'd built it to fill the gaping hole in his life. Five years of hard labor and sweat equity building something he had never thought he'd need.
Well, now he needed it.
He'd spent a hell of a lot of time alone as a kid. Isolated by circumstances and his age, there'd been nowhere to go but his imagination. He'd dreamed big. At first his thoughts had been consumed with family and friends. Warmth. Security. Stability. He hadn't found anything close until after he'd done his stint in the navy and then joined T-FLAC.
He'd loved the danger, the thrill, the adrenaline rush, the fight for right. But more than having found his niche, Jake had found the three best friends a man could have.
His boots crunched on the gravel as he rounded the corner. He hit the off switch before his beast could growl at him, and returned the flashlight and weapon to their original spot.
And now here he was. Back to square one. Isolated. Without the comfort of imagination to sustain him. Because the days of false illusion were over. He faced cold reality every day. It was a given, like drawing the next goddamn breath. Once again he'd learned how fatal it was to trust. It was considerably easier to know he had only himself to depend on. His friends were gone. T-FLAC had turned its back on him. He was on his own.
No illusions there.
Back to the business at hand.
Who were these bastards?
Just because they wore the same protective gear as T-FLAC operatives didn't mean they were T-FLAC. Just because Marnie didn't understand the language they'd spoken didn't mean they spoke the shorthand he'd learned sixteen years ago in T-FLAC boot camp.
Hell. He didn't want to believe they'd send his own people to erase him.
He welcomed the cold air blasting through his damp clothing as he got closer to the entrance of the tunnel.
Was all this somehow tied into the fiasco his professional life had become in the last year? The reason for his suspension? The reason he was taking an enforced leave of absence up here in the first place?
It pissed him off anew that his superiors believed Jake Dolan was a traitor. They hadn't said it outright. But that was the consensus when they'd suggested he take a vacation. Vacation, hell. He was suspended. Indefinitely.
There was a mole at T-FLAC, all right. But he wasn't it.
His priority in coming up here was to track down who was screwing with his impeccable record. Now this crap with the assassins. It seemed unlikely the two were connected. But anything was possible.
Shit. Back to square one.
Who and why?
And how the hell had anyone tracked him here? No one knew about this place. No one. Not anymore.
Four of them had bought the land with the old cabin on it, dirt cheap, more than ten years ago. They used to come up here to drink beer and swap wild stories about the women they'd encountered on various assignments. The lair had been a pipe dream.
He, Lurch, Brit, and Skully had toyed with the concept of building similar structures for the protection of heads of state or anyone else threatened by terrorists.
Save the world. Make a million bucks.
The Four Musketeers.
Except three had died in the line of duty before any of it could become a reality.
He missed them the same way an amputee missed a limb. Missed knowing that no matter what they'd be there for him, as he'd been there for them. Missed knowing he didn't have to look over his shoulder to know one of them was covering his back.
Four young men, high on the adrenaline and idealism. The good guys, making the world safe. They'd felt invincible, cocky, and so damn sure of their rightful place in the scheme of things.
And then there was one.
And he wasn't so damn cocky and sure of anything anymore.
The adrenaline rush, the thrill, had lost its shine. There was a never-ending supply of terrorists. It was harder than hell to fight the good fight when the bad guys kept on going like the Energizer bunny.
Hell, he was only thirty-six, though sometimes he felt older than dirt. But trying to save the world from terrorist threats was all he knew. Maybe it was time to train the next batch of gung-ho young operatives to fight the good fight.
He owned a decent chunk of Wyoming cow country he seldom visited. Maybe he'd go there. Fix up the house. Buy some cattle…
Not anytime soon. He wasn't ready to retire.
He'd clear his name and get back to business.
His prime directive was to track down a tango named Dancer and make him pay for Lurch's death.
All he had to do was get rid of a bunch of determined assassins, an equally determined woman, and a missing dog.
Piece of cake.
Snagging a pair of hidden night vision goggles, Jake put them on, then clambered up the rocky vee until he was outside.
The snow fell in large, wet flakes. The NVGs showed no movement, nothing out of the ordinary. He checked for signs of his and Marnie's earlier passage, then, satisfied the snowfall had covered their tracks, clambered back into the cave.
What the hell was he going to do with her?
He double-checked that the Walther had a full clip, repositioned the NVGs, and made sure the flashlight faced the rear of the cave, in case someone entered and saw a reflection on the glass. That done, he stared at the blackness leading back to his lair.
Dammit. She was down there. In the shower. Naked but for translucent wisps of steam. He imagined her lifting her arms to the spray, turning her slick, soapy body, running her hands over her skin.
She'd be making those damn noises deep in her throat.
He tried to remember what it had taken to build that shower. He'd lugged cement, tile, and a frigging water heater three miles up the mountainside just so he could have hot water whenever he wanted it.
Her skin would be soft. Smooth. Warm.
Pale against the black tile.
Jake stopped midstride, tempted as hell to do an about-face and go back outside. The way he felt right now, he could off four or five guys with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back.
It would beat going back and smelling his soap on her skin.
Hell.
Chapter Seven
« ^ »
Marnie figured she'd been less exposed pooping in the woods on camping trips than she was here, showering in Jake's basement. She used the facilities with her eyes glued to the monitors, feeling vulnerable and self-conscious even though she was completely alone. She didn't consider herself particularly modest, but she'd taken the fastest shower on record.
As she hurriedly dried off with a thick navy towel, she realized how ingenious the underground room actually was. Nobody could approach without being seen. Wherever one stood, a monitor could be observed.
The second Jake exited the elevator into the tunnel on ground level, she had stripped and stepped into the shower. While she washed and defrosted, she'd watched him travel down the corridor. Cameras picked up each bend in the tunnel.
By the time she'd showered, she was both warm and invigorated. And starving.
With a towel wrapped around her, she snatched a cookie to sustain her while she dressed. She glanced at Jake's unmade bed. This was the bed he'd left to come and get her at the crack of dawn this morning. It seemed like days ago instead of only twelve hours.
A little shiver raced up her spine. She'd never run so far or s
o fast in her life. Abject terror was a great motivator.
Thank God she'd been jogging around the local high school track for the last few years and was in decent shape.
She'd never been quite so terrified in her life as when she'd heard those bullets whizzing over their heads or the inexorable thunder of the water racing down on them.
She glanced around the cozy lair. Unreal. But if she wanted a reality check, it was there on the monitor near the bed. A bulky, blurred red shape moved through the trees.
She had about a zillion questions. One of which was, would she be home on Monday before her dad freaked out?
He expected to hear from her when she got into the office on Monday morning. He and the boys hadn't approved of her impromptu trip in the first place. They were already worried about her. If her brothers knew what was going on up here, they'd arrive like the cavalry, guns blazing.
The first person they'd shoot would be Jake.
It was unlikely this would all be over by tomorrow night so that she could go home. She might as well make the best of the situation.
The best of the situation was her attraction to the mysterious Jake Dolan.
She thought of his mouth on hers. The feel of his arms tight around her. The heat in his eyes, despite his insistence that he was immune to her. With a wicked grin, she wondered how he'd react if he came back and found her waiting for him in his bed, stark naked under his exotic silk throw. How immune would he be then?
She relished a bite of cookie, then almost bit off her tongue as the sound of a buzzer split the air.
"Which one?"
She scanned the monitors frantically, trying to figure out what had triggered the alarm. The half-eaten cookie in one hand, the top of the towel clutched between her breasts in the other, Marnie dashed from one screen to the next.
The buzzer sounded again.
"Damn it, what does that mean! Jake, get back here!" She glared at the tunnel monitor. "Thank God."
He was on his way back.
"Get the lead out, big guy. Things are happening. What, I have no idea. But something."
Jake stepped into the elevator. He looked right at her. Well, Marnie amended, right at the camera.
