Operation: Midnight Escape

by Linda Castillo

  Knowing better than to get caught up in a situation that would only end up hurting them both, he carried Leigh to the counter and let her slide to her feet. He watched her closely for a wobble, but she stood straight with her shoulders back, her chin high.

  “If you’re waiting for me to collapse, it’s not going to happen,” she said.

  “In that case, I’ll let you stand here while I go get the first-aid kit.”

  “Jake, I’m going to be okay.”

  Because the bullet wound was on the backside of her shoulder, he figured she hadn’t yet seen the amount of blood. “If you have a bullet in you, we’re going to the hospital.”

  “We could just send Rasmussen an invitation to come kill us.”

  “You don’t mess around with bullet wounds, Leigh. You know that.”

  She turned away from him but not before he noticed that she’d once again gone pale. “Take off your jacket,” he said. “Drape it over your shoulders to conserve body heat. I’ll be right back with the kit.”

  The snow was blowing sideways when Jake walked to the truck to retrieve the kit. The bad weather was a mixed blessing. While it would conceal their tire tracks and slow down Rasmussen’s men, it would also hinder his own travel if he needed to get Leigh to the hospital or leave quickly.

  Jake returned with the first-aid kit, an extra blanket, the last two bottles of water and a flashlight. Leigh had just finished clearing off the counter and turned toward him when he entered.

  Looking at her, it occurred to him that she was going to have to remove her shirt for him to take a look at that wound. Now that the tables were turned, and she was the injured one, he was just as uncomfortable with Leigh’s getting undressed in front of him as he’d been earlier when he’d had to do the same. He vowed not to let the sight of her pretty body get to him.

  Still, he flushed as he set the kit on the counter. “Why don’t you hop up on the counter. I’ll rig the flashlight and take a look.”

  She looked as if she wanted to argue. But while Leigh might be stubborn and argumentative at times, she wasn’t stupid. “All right.”

  Not waiting for her to move, Jake put his hands beneath her arms. She seemed weightless as he lifted her onto the counter. Despite his vow not to let her get to him, the sweet scent of her hair titillated his senses, and his heart beat faster. Their eyes met briefly, long enough for him to feel the quick rise of heat between them.

  He propped the flashlight against the shelf, rigging it so that the beam shone in the general direction of her shoulder. Once the light was in place, he turned to her. “You’re going to have to take off your shirt.”

  She looked at him as if he’d asked her to stick her neck in a guillotine. Then her gaze skittered away and she looked everywhere except for into his eyes.

  “I’ll turn around,” he said. “You can drape the blanket over your shoulders.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned away. Clothing rustled as she removed her shirt. He closed his eyes against the quick swipe of desire. In his mind’s eye he saw her the way he’d seen her six years ago. She’d been innocence and passion and heat like he’d never before known. She’d shared every inch of her body with him. There had been no hesitation, no vacillation. It was as if they’d known their time was limited.

  The regrets had come later, he thought.

  “Okay.”

  Bracing himself, Jake turned slowly toward her. But nothing could prepare him for her beauty. She was sitting on the counter, facing him. The blanket was draped over her shoulders, the ends clutched together just above her breasts so hard her knuckles were white. His eyes were drawn to the slender angle of her throat. His imagination filled in the rest.

  He went instantly hard. His vow went straight out the window. The rush of blood to his groin was so powerful that he felt dizzy and hot and for an instant he wondered if he was coming down with something. Then he remembered it had always been like this between them. Well, back when she hadn’t hated him, anyway.

  Jake cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other to accommodate his erection. “Swivel around and let me have a look at the back part of your shoulder.”

  She winced when she turned, and Jake reached out to help her slide around. Once her back was to him, he took the edge of the blanket and gently lowered it.

  She had a beautiful back. All golden skin and silky, slender shoulders. Then the bullet wound came into view and he went queasy.

  “Aw, Leigh.” On impulse, he reached out and set his hand against her shoulder and turned her slightly so that the light illuminated the wound.

  “Bad?” she asked.

  “I’ll know as soon as I get it cleaned up.” Using his finger, he gently slid her bra strap from her shoulder. “This is going to sting.”

  “I can take it.”

  He moistened a gauze pad with hydrogen peroxide and wiped away the blood that stained the skin surrounding the wound. “Bled a lot,” he said.

  Her quick intake of breath told him it hurt when he touched the wound. “Sorry. Gotta do this.”

  “Sadist.”

  He moistened a fresh gauze pad. Relief trickled through him when he realized the bullet had just grazed her. “It’s just a nick.” Thank God.

  “If a graze hurts this much, I’d hate to find out what it feels like to get shot.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  She looked at him over her shoulder, and Jake resisted the urge to pull her to him and make promises he knew he might not be able to keep. “You could probably use a couple of stitches.”

  “Sorry, Vanderpol, but I draw the line at your jabbing a needle into me. My turn, I guess, for a butterfly bandage. Can you make it quick? It’s getting a little drafty.”

  Looking at the smooth flesh of the most perfect female back he’d ever seen, Jake couldn’t have disagreed more. As far as he was concerned, it was getting downright hot.

  The thought sent another rush of blood to his groin and he nearly groaned with frustration. Shifting, he reached for a small tube of antibiotic cream. “You’ve got some bruising,” he said in a rough voice. “You’re going to be hurting for a few days.”

  “Both of us are going to be hurting if Rasmussen gets that close again,” she said.

  “I don’t plan on letting that happen.”

  “You didn’t plan on letting that happen the first time.”

  She winced when Jake affixed the bandage. “Sorry.”

  “Jake, we can’t keep running like this. We have to come up with a plan.”

  He debated whether to tell her about his suspicions with regard to Mike Madrid and the MIDNIGHT Agency. He didn’t want to frighten her unduly. But Jake was a realist; she had good reason to be frightened. She deserved the truth. If something happened to him it might save her life.

  “I’m fresh out of plans, Leigh.”

  “We’re going to run out of places to hide. These bullets are getting a little too close for comfort. First you, now me.”

  “Right now running is the only thing that’s keeping us alive. We can’t rely on the Witness Security Program. Not until we find out what happened.”

  “Jake, I don’t understand why you haven’t contacted your people at the MIDNIGHT Agency.”

  “I told you. I left the agency. They wanted me to put you in the hands of another agency and I told them to get screwed.” Not that he’d done a stellar job of protecting her so far.

  “I understand. But that doesn’t mean the men and women you work with aren’t good. I’m not exactly comfortable putting my fate in the hands of someone else but, Jake, what other choices are there?”

  “I still think someone within the agency gave up our location,” he said.

  She turned to him, her eyes wide with shock. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were threatened. Maybe they did it for money.” Jake ground his teeth at the thought.

  She bit her lip. “Who? Do you k
now?”

  “I’m not sure about any of this—”

  “Judging from the look on your face you have a pretty good idea.”

  Jake looked away. “Mike Madrid.”

  She blinked. “He’s your friend.”

  “That’s what makes this so damn difficult.”

  “Jake, twenty-four hours ago I thought I could handle this on my own. I thought I could disappear. A new town. A new identity. A new life. But after everything that’s happened, I’m not so sure.”

  “I knew from the start we were in over our heads. Do you have any idea how difficult it would have been to hack into the Witness Security Program?”

  “If anyone could pull it off, Rasmussen can. He’s a multimillionaire, Jake. He has resources and power. If someone refuses to cooperate, he either buys them or kills them.”

  “Or their family.” Frustrated and more scared than he wanted to admit—not for himself, but for Leigh—he said, “If he got to Mike Madrid, he can get to anybody. I know Mike. He’s not for sale. For him to give us up, it would have to be bad.”

  “Does he have family?”

  “He never talks about his family or his past.”

  “What makes you think he sold you out?”

  “He was the only person who knew where we were last night.”

  She considered that a moment. “Ian called me, Jake. Maybe he traced the call.”

  “It’s possible, but he’d practically have to own the phone company to do that.”

  “Maybe he does.”

  “Still, I don’t think we should rely on MIDNIGHT to bail us out of this.”

  “That’s why we need to come up with a plan.”

  So they were back to the plan. Jake had to admire her strength. She’d been threatened and shot at and on the run for days. And yet she wasn’t falling to pieces. “What do you have in mind?”

  “We know what he wants. Let’s dangle it in front of him and see if he bites.”

  Jake felt a sinking sensation in his gut. “Don’t even go there, Leigh.”

  “Use me as bait.”

  “No.” The single word was out of his mouth before he could stop it. A decision made on emotion, something he’d only done once before in his life. It was ironic as hell the only other time he’d acted on emotion alone, it had been with regard to this woman.

  “It worked six years ago, why wouldn’t it work now?” she asked.

  “Things were different six years ago.”

  “You still want Ian Rasmussen. He still wants me. I don’t see that things have changed that much.”

  Except I can’t bear the thought of your getting hurt. He banked the thought before he could voice it. “He wants to hurt you, Leigh.”

  “He hurt me six years ago and that didn’t stop you.”

  Jake wasn’t proud of the way things had gone down six years ago. He felt sick with guilt every time he thought of what he’d put her through. He swore he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

  “Sorry isn’t going to keep us alive.”

  Needing to look into her eyes, to make her understand, he grasped her shoulders and gently turned her to face him. He’d almost forgotten that she’d removed her shirt. But she was clutching the blanket to her breast as if it were a lifeline.

  “Six years ago it was all about the job,” he said. “It was about me getting my suspect. Good against evil. Black and white. You were with him. I thought you were like him.” Looking into her eyes, he couldn’t imagine how he’d ever believed that about her. “Then, when I was assigned to protect you, when we were together in that safe house for five days—” he looked away, then forced his gaze back to hers “—when I got to know you, everything changed.”

  Her eyes searched his. Tears shimmered in their depths, but she didn’t let them spill. If only she would open up to him, believe him. Forgive him.

  “You slept with me,” she said. “Then you sent me back to Rasmussen. You knew what I’d have to do, but you didn’t care.”

  “That’s not true,” Jake shot back. “I didn’t mean for things to get complicated between us.”

  She blinked back tears. “I had to sleep with him.” A sob escaped her. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

  Jake felt the words like a punch to the solar plexus. He’d spent six unbearable years wondering what had gone down that night.

  The harsh reality of what she’d had to do—of what he was partially responsible for—hurt far more than he ever could have imagined.

  Chapter Ten

  Leigh had never forgiven Jake. She’d given him her body, her heart. She’d fallen in love with him. In turn he’d hurt her so deeply that she’d thought she’d never recover.

  But he wasn’t the only one at fault. She’d found out about the plan from another agent, who’d told her the sting had been Jake’s idea. She hadn’t given Jake the chance to change his mind. She’d told herself then she’d gone along with the plan because she’d known it was the only way to stop Rasmussen. But as time passed, she’d finally admitted to herself that a part of her had also wanted to hurt Jake because he’d been the one to devise the plan. So was it really fair to continue to hold that against him?

  “By the time I found out Cutter was going to go through with the plan, you were already wired and on your way to Rasmussen’s penthouse,” Jake said.

  He grasped her arms and forced her gaze to his. “I tried to stop it, Leigh, but Cutter wouldn’t pull you in.” He sighed. “We came to blows over it. Two agents had to pull me off. I came within an inch of losing my job with the agency.”

  “Jake, I’d never felt so…used. So alone in my entire life.”

  He could only imagine how terrifying it must have been for her being alone with a killer. The wire the agency had used was the size of a safety pin and hidden in an earring. But if Rasmussen had found out what she was doing, he would have killed her before an agent could have gotten in to save her.

  “You were in that penthouse for five hours.” He’d been wild with fear for her safety for every second of those torturously long five hours.

  “It seemed like forever,” she said.

  He ran his hands up and down her arms. “Cutter had put me on administrative leave. I didn’t know where you were. I couldn’t listen in, and I was insane with worry.” His gaze went to hers. “And sick with guilt.”

  Even now the thought of her being with the international arms dealer filled him with a rage so black he could barely contain it. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said. “I’m sorry I hurt you. But I can tell you, Leigh, it nearly killed me knowing you were with him. That you’d risked your life.”

  That they were facing the same thing now filled him with dread.

  “I’m not going to let you do it again,” he whispered.

  “It’s not your decision to make.”

  “It’s my decision as long as I’m breathing.”

  “You know it’s the only way to stop him.”

  “It’s too dangerous. I’m not going to let you risk your life.”

  “I’m not going to let him destroy what’s left of my life.” She turned away and slid from the counter. She’d only taken two steps when Jake stopped her.

  “Don’t walk away from me,” he growled, snagging her uninjured arm.

  “Don’t try to run my life or tell me what to do. I know this isn’t going to be easy. I know it’s dangerous. But what’s the alternative?”

  When he pulled her to him, he was suddenly aware of heat and curves and the softness of her body against his. Temptation speared him. Looking into her eyes, he found the last six years had melted away. Six years of missing her and wondering where she was. Wondering if she ever thought of him and the magic they had shared.

  Jake didn’t intend to kiss her. Getting this close to her when his emotions were running high, his body was running hot, was like tossing a match into a keg of gunpowder. But even knowing
what was at stake—her safety, her very life—he could no more resist her now than he could six years ago.

  Knowing his fate was sealed, he lowered his mouth to hers.

  JAKE’S MOUTH ON HERS was like the arc of a thousand volts of electricity between two conductors. Every nerve ending in her body sizzled with pleasure.

  Leigh knew better than to let herself be swept away. But Jake Vanderpol was one weakness she’d never been able to resist.

  As his mouth seared hers, her only thought was that she’d been wrong about him. About what he’d done. A door that had been slammed shut and locked down tight sprang open. Bullet wound forgotten, the past set aside, she wrapped her arms around him. His shoulders were like boulders beneath her hands. She could feel his muscles trembling with restraint. The warmth of his skin chasing away the cold that went all the way to her core.

  Growling low in his throat, he raised his hands to her face and kissed her hard. Leigh’s mind cried out for her to pull back. To regroup. To take a few minutes to think this through before leaping from a cliff.

  But her relationship with Jake had never been rational. It had always been primal and instinctive and out of control. He was the only person in the world who could do that to her, and the intensity of her feelings for him, as they had before, frightened her.

  He jammed his fingers through her hair. His tongue entwined with hers. She tasted heat and need, felt the impatient snap of sexual frustration. Pleasure tore down her defenses, rendering her helpless to resist.

  Never taking his mouth from hers, he backed her toward the wall, taking, not giving her an inch. A gasp escaped her when her back hit the wall. Her heart swirled and dipped when he took her hands in his and lifted them over her head.

  “I’m not hurting you, am I?” he asked.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Good, because I’m just getting warmed up…”

  He kissed her like she’d never been kissed before in her life. Her mouth. Her throat. The tender spot just beneath her ear. Too much intensity. Too many emotions. Too much sensation to absorb.