by Paula Graves
Now that he’d worked with Quinn for a while, he realized that the man had probably gone to the bar with the express purpose of recruiting him for The Gates. Quinn didn’t do anything without a plan.
He just wished he knew what Quinn’s plan was at the moment, because sitting around and waiting wasn’t his style. But he’d seen too many missions go belly-up when someone down the chain of command decided to change things on the fly without having all the information.
“What are you thinking?” Susannah asked.
Glancing up, he saw her studying him with eyes too sharp for his liking. The woman was turning out to be nothing like what he’d thought she’d be. He’d figured her for smart, but he hadn’t banked on her being so observant and insightful that he’d feel like a bug she’d pinned under a microscope for further study.
“What makes you think I’m thinking anything?”
She reached up suddenly, her fingertips brushing his forehead. “This little line. It appears when you’re trying to figure things out.”
He tried to relax his face as she dropped her fingers away, but the feel of her cool touch lingered on his brow. “And you know this because we’re such old, close friends.”
“I know this because I pay attention.” She reached out again, this time touching the muscle directly behind his collarbone. “Your trapezius muscle tenses up when you’re worried.”
“Doesn’t everyone’s?” He knew a frontal attack when he saw one. Every instinct told him she was trying to unnerve him with her touch. Maybe that was her way of regaining some sense of control over her life.
Problem was, it was working. Even the slightest flutter of her fingertips against his skin had sent heat rushing south to his groin. If she ever put her mind to seducing him...
She dropped her hand away from his shoulder, and it took an effort not to groan in response. Her gaze sharpened as it met his. “I know a lot about that hotel, Hunter. I know how things work, where things are, who does what. I can help you if you’ll just let me in on what you’re planning.”
He wasn’t much for trusting other people under the best of circumstances, and his current situation certainly didn’t qualify for best of anything. But she had proved to be a lot tougher—and tougher-minded—than he’d expected. And it wasn’t like Quinn was going out of his way to get in touch.
He needed an ally. Inaction wasn’t in his nature, either, and if he didn’t figure out something to do soon, something that might actually make the situation better rather than worse, he was going to go crazy.
“Okay,” he said, releasing the word in a resigned sigh. “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. But I don’t know if you’re going to like it.”
* * *
HE WAS RIGHT. She didn’t like it. Not one bit. “I’m not going to hole up here in this cabin while you sneak back into the hotel.”
“You asked to hear my plan. That’s it.” His chin jutting stubbornly toward her, he folded his arms across his chest, stretching his shirt across his broad shoulders and powerful chest, a visual reminder that, for all her bluster, she would be no match against this man in a fair fight.
Of course, she’d never had any compunction about fighting dirty if necessary.
“Are you going to lock me in here against my will? Because that would add a lovely little felony to your record.”
He sighed again, a long, gusty one that showed her just what he thought of her refusal to play by his rules. “You’re free to go. And be grabbed by people who want you dead before you ever get close to the edge of these woods.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. Now that she had shoes, appropriate clothing and access to supplies, she might be better at sneaking out of these woods than he thought. Sure, this wasn’t Boneyard Ridge, but her little hometown wasn’t that much farther up the Appalachian chain, only a few miles down the highway that connected several small mountain towns in the Smokies.
Close enough to give her a fighting chance at finding her way around. She knew what the terrain was like. She knew how to find her direction using the position of the sun at this time of year in this part of Tennessee.
“If I leave here without you, you really are going to make a run for it, aren’t you?”
She didn’t answer, but she could tell he saw through her silence. That furrow came back to his brow, and his trapezius muscle looked as hard as a rock.
He turned away abruptly. “Would you stop looking at my shoulders?”
She couldn’t stop a soft huff of laughter. “Why are you fighting this so hard? You one of those guys who thinks a woman can’t do anything without a man showing her the way?”
He turned so swiftly he almost lost his balance, and she saw a grimace of pain flit across his features as the leg he favored twisted. Putting his weight on the other leg, he swung the injured one straight and resettled his weight on both limbs. “You don’t know me. Don’t presume to know what I think about anything.”
“I can only go by your behavior.”
“And I can only go by yours.”
Her smile faded. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He reached out and caught her hand, his gaze narrowing a little as he took in the clipped fingernails. “What would you do if you weren’t here? You’d go get a manicure.” He dropped her hand, but the tingle of his touch seemed to linger. “You had to run barefoot through the woods because you wear four-inch heels to work instead of comfortable shoes.”
“Heels can be comfortable,” she protested, annoyed that he was practically echoing the internal argument she had with herself nearly every day. She could well imagine exactly what kind of woman he thought she was because it was the facade she’d fought hard to present to the world, the armor she wore against discovery.
“Then why do you hide comfortable shoes in your desk?”
“You went through my desk?” Her mind swept quickly through her desk drawers, wondering what else he might have discovered. She tended to keep her personal life out of the office, but there was her chocolate stash—
“It was part of my job,” he said, surprising her by looking a little embarrassed.
“Then I’m sure you know appearances can be deceiving.”
“Why do you dye your hair brown? And wear brown contacts?”
“Ever heard any dumb-blonde jokes?”
His eyes narrowed. “Nobody would mistake you for a dumb anything.”
“Thanks. I think.”
He took a couple of slow, deliberate steps toward her. “I know when someone’s hiding something. And you, darlin’, are hiding a whole lot of something. Which makes me very nervous.”
“I’m not the one who took a job at the hotel under false pretenses.” Which was a lie, of course, but he didn’t know it was.
He couldn’t know, could he?
“Are you connected to the BRI?” His voice was warm velvet, but she could sense the steel beneath.
She almost wilted with relief. He didn’t know. He wasn’t even close. “Are you crazy? I thought you said the BRI was trying to kill me.”
“They are. But why?”
“To put Marcus Lemonde in charge of the conference. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“I did,” he admitted, his eyes slightly narrowed. “But you know, you have a few tells of your own.” He pushed her hair back from her forehead, touching one rough fingertip to the skin beneath her left eye. “Your eye twitches right here when you feel threatened. I noticed it last night in the cave. Twitching away.” His fingertip lingered for a moment, then traced a slow, shiver-inducing trail over the curve of her cheek and down to the side of her neck. “What are you afraid of now? You’re safe here, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” She hated the weakness of her voice, the sudden hammering of her pulse beneath his touch.
“As safe as you want to be.” His gaze dipped to her mouth, and fire arced its way through her belly. The heat of his body, so close to hers, was as powerful as a magnet, tugging her toward him bef
ore she realized what she was doing.
His gaze flicked up to meet hers, his eyes dark and deep. He wanted her. She could almost feel the desire coming off him in waves, enveloping her in a maelstrom of heat.
Slowly, as if giving her time to react, he slid his hand around the back of her neck and tugged her even closer, his breath warm against her lips. “How safe do you want to be?”
Safer than this, she thought, taking a step that she meant to propel herself backward. But somehow, she ended up even closer to him, close enough that her hips brushed against his, eliciting a quick gasp of breath between his parted lips.
A faint vibration ran through her where their bodies met. She didn’t realize until Hunter growled a soft profanity and took a step away that what she was feeling was his phone buzzing quietly in the pocket of his jeans. “This is Quinn. I have to take this.”
She took advantage of the timely pause to expand the distance between them, crossing to one of the cabin windows and gazing out at the sun-dappled side yard. The small clearing where the cabin sat was barely large enough to contain the cabin. What lawn existed was a narrow, browning patch of halfhearted grass swallowed within a few yards by the encroaching woods.
This place was well-hidden, she thought. People who lived within easy walking distance might go a lifetime without realizing this cabin and its enigmatic owner existed at all.
By design, she thought, sparing a glance toward Hunter. He stood near the fireplace heater, his head bent as he listened to the man named Quinn.
“I understand,” he said finally, slanting a quick look at Susannah. She turned her head back to the window before their gazes connected. “I’ll see if I can make that happen.”
She waited to see if the conversation continued, but after several seconds, she realized he’d already hung up the phone. She angled another look his way.
He was still standing by the hearth, one arm propped up on the mantel. His gaze seemed fixed on the stone floor of the hearth, his expression grim.
“What does he want to do?” she asked.
His gaze flicked up and locked with hers. “He wants me to find a way back into the hotel. We’re no closer to knowing what they were planning than we were last night when everything went down. And we’ve lost almost a day’s worth of investigation.”
Her mind rebelled at the thought. The place would be swarming with cops, and they wouldn’t stand still and let him explain why he hadn’t shown up to work the morning after the hotel’s director of events and conferences had gone missing. “How’re you supposed to do that without getting caught?”
One dark eyebrow ticked upward. “Is that concern I hear, Ms. Marsh?”
Annoyed by his flippant tone, she pressed her lips shut and didn’t answer.
His shoulders rose and fell on a sigh. “I’ll figure something out. I have the map of the hotel layout—”
“Does the map show the secret entrance in the executive parking deck?” she asked.
His eyes darkened. “No, it doesn’t. There’s a secret entrance?”
“I don’t know how secret it is, really—I’m sure that the people who run hotel operations know it’s there. But it must be fairly secret, because they don’t cover it with security and it’s never locked.”
“And you know this how?”
“I’m an executive.”
“But you park all the way down in the employee parking lot.”
“So?”
“And you made a note in your phone about joining a gym.” He turned to look at her, his gaze sweeping over her in a quick but thorough assessment. “It’s the chocolate stash, right? Gained a pound or two, so you’re parking in the lower forty so you have to get some extra exercise?”
“You were right. You’re definitely not a gentleman.”
“I did warn you.” He pushed away from the fireplace and crossed to where she stood by the window, his movements slow and deliberate, as if giving her the chance to flee if she wanted to. But she couldn’t seem to move.
The heat of him poured over her again, and she felt the strangest sense of relief, as if she’d been waiting for him to return. He lifted one hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “And in case it means anything, there’s not one damn thing wrong with your body.” His lips quirked with a crooked smile. “Chocolate looks good on you.”
“Don’t jump the gun there, hotshot.” She flashed him a cheeky grin, even though her insides were quivering. “It’s a little early in our acquaintance for you to be picturing me in chocolate.”
The phone he still held in his left hand buzzed again. He closed his eyes, taking a swift breath through his nose. “Really?” he muttered to the phone, frustration keen in his voice.
She turned back to the window, waiting for him to drift away again. But his heat remained, cocooning her as his gravelly voice rumbled close to her ear. “What now?”
She heard the faint, tinny sound of a voice in response, though she couldn’t make out any words. But there was no mistaking the crackle of tension that ripped through the room a second before Hunter’s arm wrapped around her shoulders and dragged her backward, away from the window.
“What?” she managed, before he pressed his palm against her mouth, silencing her.
Then she heard the footsteps. Heavy thuds on the wooden porch outside, moving closer. A pause as thick as molasses in December, then a nerve-shattering trio of raps on the door.
“Anybody home?” The voice was low, drawling. Unfamiliar.
“Not a word,” Hunter whispered in her ear.
Chapter Nine
It was impossible to determine friendlies from enemies from the cockpit of an ordinary commercial helicopter gliding over a thicket of evergreens and leaf-shedding hardwoods at a hundred miles an hour, but Alexander Quinn had decided that anybody approaching the well-hidden cabin where his newest operative had holed up should be considered a potential threat. So when he’d spotted the two men heading toward the cabin during the last pass-by, he called Hunter Bragg’s secondary burner phone and gave him a heads-up.
He hadn’t bothered with the first phone he’d given Bragg shortly before the man went undercover. He’d already established the line of contact between that phone and his own had most likely been compromised.
But by whom? It infuriated Quinn to think that someone might have gotten past his byzantine security system, even though people had been raising eyebrows at his choices of operatives ever since the doors to The Gates first opened. The son of a con artist had been one of his first hires. An actual con artist had followed. A couple of slightly disgraced FBI agents—disgraced not by dishonor, of course, but by putting honor above the bureau—had joined the motley crew. A former CIA double agent who’d spent time on the FBI’s most-wanted list for terrorism in South America. An ex-Marine living under suspicion of an eighteen-year-old murder. A former Diplomatic Security Service agent with a record of fighting the system.
All good agents for The Gates, or so he’d thought.
Had he been wrong?
He heard the sound of three loud raps, then a whisper, barely audible, on the other end of the chopper’s satellite phone. “Not a word,” Bragg whispered, apparently to the woman.
He heard the faint rustle of movement, the snick of a door opening and closing. Then the line went dead.
He put the satellite phone back in its holder and looked at the other passenger in the chopper. The man across from him raised an eyebrow but didn’t bother speaking. The roar of the rotors made dialogue impossible without using headsets, and neither of them was inclined to risk putting anything into the ether that might be intercepted. It wasn’t likely the strutting imposters of the so-called Blue Ridge Infantry had the equipment to snag in-air chatter, but Quinn wasn’t sure they were working alone.
Someone had changed the plan for Susannah Marsh’s murder in the middle of the game, and only a chance meeting with another BRI operative, one neither Quinn nor Bragg had known was in place at the hotel, had
allowed Quinn’s agent to get the woman to safety in time.
They had to be very careful how they proceeded from here on. He’d keep contact to a minimum and trust Bragg to run the operation on the ground.
The Army vet didn’t realize it, but Quinn’s decision to tap him as an operative for The Gates hadn’t been a fluke or even an act of pity, as Quinn suspected Bragg believed. Before the IED explosion that had nearly taken Bragg’s life and ended his Army career, Bragg had been an exceptional warrior, valued by his men and his superiors alike for his quick mind and fearless leadership.
Quinn believed a man’s character didn’t change just because he’d taken a body blow in combat. Bragg might have been having trouble getting back on his feet after the injury, but the warrior was still there, aching to get out and do what he’d been trained to do.
Quinn could use that warrior in the mission he’d undertaken. He sure as hell hadn’t been willing to let Hunter Bragg waste away in a quagmire of guilt and anger without giving him a chance to salvage that part of himself that still had much to offer the world.
Now he’d just have to trust that he hadn’t overestimated the man’s ability to swim instead of sink.
* * *
THE CELLAR BENEATH the cabin was small, taking up only half the length of the house, but beyond the stone walls of the basement room was a narrow tunnel carved in the rocky soil and reinforced with concrete. There was an outside exit, if they were forced to use it, well-hidden fifteen yards past the tree line east of the cabin. He hoped they wouldn’t have to use it, but if the person or persons still knocking on the cabin door decided to come in and take a look around, they’d have to make a run for it.
They hadn’t turned on any lights that morning, the daylight filtering through the windows the only illumination, but the heaters had run all night. Even though he’d flipped the switch on the heater in the front room, nobody who entered the front room would be fooled that the cabin was uninhabited.
