Her Hero After Dark

by Cindy Dees

  Belatedly, he replied, “I’ll share anything of mine with you that you want. Just name it.”

  She helped him plate up their breakfast and slid into a seat across from him at the table. “How about you share some information with me?”

  “Aah, yes. Your infamous debrief.”

  “Hey! You’re back to using eating utensils!” she exclaimed as he commenced eating eggs with a fork.

  He looked down at his hands. “Cramps are gone,” he mumbled.

  She reached across the table to lay her smaller hand on top of his. Her fingers were slender and graceful, shaped like an artist’s. He was surprised to see an altogether feminine French manicure. The tough, all-business field agent was more of a girly-girl at heart than she liked to admit, huh?

  “I’m so relieved you’re feeling better, Jeff. I couldn’t stand watching you suffer like that.”

  His entire body went on high alert as her fingers twined with his long enough to give a brief squeeze. Damn. He was hypersensitive again, but this time to her touch. He replied, “I’m sorry I put you through it.”

  Their gazes met in warm communication. Funny how going to Hell and back with someone forged such closeness so fast. It was the foxhole effect, he supposed. Nearly die with a guy and you were buddies for life.

  Jennifer was speaking again. “…hate to keep pestering you, but I figure you’d like to get on with your life. Dr. Jones is obviously eager to have you back home.”

  He looked up sharply at that. “Gemma and I aren’t romantically involved if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Does she know that?”

  He laughed. “Oh, yes. She never gets involved with any of her patients.”

  “You mean there are more like you?”

  Crap. He kept forgetting how good Jennifer was at inferring a great deal from just a scrap of information. “Honey, there’s no one else quite like me.”

  Jennifer laughed and rolled her eyes. “I’d hate to meet the women that line works on.”

  He grinned back. “They’d drive you nearly as crazy as they drive me.”

  “I suppose having a lot of money gets in the way of normal relationships, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. But money allows a person to pursue his interests. And that makes up for a lot.”

  “What interests you?”

  He pushed his eggs around on his plate. Her. She’d held up remarkably well to his screaming pain, and that couldn’t have been easy. She was too smart for her own good, and she’d risen to his defense like a mother bear when she’d thought Gemma might harm him.

  “Want some more eggs?” Jennifer asked.

  He laughed. “When I’m not screaming, I’m always hungry.”

  She moved over to the stove and cracked a dozen more eggs into the skillet. As she added cheese, milk and pepper, she tossed over her shoulder, “Did the Ethiopians feed you enough?”

  “Shockingly, yes.”

  “That doesn’t sound like them,” Jennifer commented lightly. Too lightly. As if she was suspicious of how he’d arranged that.

  He sighed. “They were scared of me. I think they thought I’d hurt someone if they didn’t keep me well fed.”

  “Would you have hurt someone?”

  He frowned at the implication that he couldn’t control himself. “Look. I don’t run around randomly breaking people’s necks.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “El Mari and I have…had…a history.”

  “Of what?”

  Thankfully, he was saved from having to answer that by Gemma breezing into the kitchen. “Good morning! Jeff, that beard and long hair are awful. You need a haircut and a shave in the worst way.”

  “Good morning to you, Madame Fashion Police. I’m feeling much better, thank you for asking. And you?”

  Gemma rolled her eyes at him and he grinned back at her unrepentantly.

  “Of course, you’re feeling better. I’m your physician.”

  He laughed. “Modesty, much, Doctor?”

  “You wouldn’t have hired me if I weren’t the best, and you know it.”

  Jeff glanced over at Jennifer who, predictably, was taking in every nuance of the exchange. He might have been out of it yesterday, but not so out of it that he’d failed to register Jennifer’s jealousy of Gemma. It was endearing, actually. Although he had no doubt Jenn would be mortified if he ever mentioned it to her.

  “Earth to Jeff. Come in,” Gemma announced sharply.

  Startled out of his pleasant thoughts, he glanced over at his business partner. “What?”

  “I’d like to run some tests on you. Her people wouldn’t let me bring most of my equipment with me, but I did manage to convince them to let me fly in a portable X-ray machine.”

  He snorted. He’d bet she wanted to get a look at his bones. God knew what the past few months had done to his bone density. Gemma thought that if he continued the gene therapy long enough his extreme bone density would become permanent. But obviously, that hadn’t happened, yet. He gathered from Gemma’s rather elliptical answers to Jennifer’s questions yesterday that his bones had been leaching calcium the past few months and had weakened his skeleton badly.

  Jennifer sat a bowl of steaming scrambled eggs on the table and slid into her seat unobtrusively. Hiding in plain sight, was she?

  Leland came into the kitchen just then, patting his ample belly. “Aah, this island air is good for the appetite.”

  Jeff grinned up at him. “Grab a plate and dig in.” After everyone had served themselves, Jeff took all the remaining eggs and bacon.

  “You need to eat fruits and vegetables, too,” Gemma admonished as he polished off his plate. “I know you crave protein, but you need fiber and other nutrients.”

  He glanced over at Jennifer. “Now you know why we call her the Vegetable Nazi.”

  Jennifer smiled at him, and he asked her quietly, “Are you done eating?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Take a walk with me.” As Gemma opened her mouth to protest, he sent her a quelling look and said with grim authority, “Not open to negotiation, Doc.”

  * * *

  Jennifer followed Jeff outside cautiously. She wasn’t any more thrilled than Gemma to see him up and about. She was still plenty creeped out at the idea of his muscles tearing apart his skeleton. “You’ve been very ill. You shouldn’t overdo.”

  “And I won’t. But you and I need to have a private conversation.”

  “So private you had to leave the house?”

  “Are the trees bugged?”

  She stared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I said a private conversation. That house is monitored.”

  “Actually, it’s not. It’s a vacation home for people like me. We can take a break from paranoia here.”

  Jeff pursed his lips. “In other words, you’re not aware of it being bugged. But that doesn’t guarantee that it’s not.”

  Startled, she considered his statement. “I suppose your logic is sound. What’s so private that you’re not willing to take even the smallest risk of being overheard?”

  He glanced over his shoulder briefly. It was an unconscious gesture, but the man really was worried about being observed. Why? What was the big secret?

  “I have to ask you a question, Jennifer.”

  He sounded so serious he’d actually managed to scare her a little. And that was probably why she responded dryly, “I’m sorry, I can’t marry a rich man. I’m allergic to money.”

  He stared, startled out of whatever he’d been about to say. A crack of laughter escaped him and she lurched. It was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh. He threw his head back and flashed even, white teeth as he laughed heartily. He threw an arm around her shoulders and dragged her close against his side in a casual hug. “Thank you. I needed that.”

  “Uhh, you’re welcome.”

  Shockingly, he didn’t turn her loose. He continued to walk with his arm looped casually over her shoulders. She saw
what Brady Hathaway meant about this man being unnaturally heavy. His arm weighed a ton. Were she not in top physical condition, it would be uncomfortable across her shoulders.

  The house disappeared out of sight behind them and he stopped. Turned to face her. “Seriously, there’s something I need to ask you.”

  “Okay.” She looked up into his eyes. The bright blue was flecked with silver. A ring of sapphire around the edges of his irises made his eyes seem darker than they actually were.

  “Do you, by any chance, work at a facility called H.O.T. Watch?”

  Whoa. H.O.T. Watch was extremely classified. Even its name was classified. Only the people who worked there and a very few people outside of that elite group had any idea it—or anything even remotely like it—existed. How did this civilian not only know it existed, but have an inkling she might work there? Did he know how close they were to the surveillance facility now? The idea blew her mind. This security breach was disastrous!

  “What’s that?” she managed to choke out.

  “If you don’t know what it is, I’m not about to tell you.”

  Thank God for that. At least he wasn’t running around telling everyone he knew about the place. But how on earth did he know about it? “Why do you ask?” she threw out as casually as she could manage, which wasn’t very casual at all.

  “Because it’s compromised.”

  Compromised? H.O.T. Watch? Her mind went completely blank. Only disjointed bits of thought came together. No way. Compromised? For God’s sake, how? Eventually, she mumbled, “Why do you say that?”

  His fingers trailed down her cheek with incredible tenderness from such a strong man. “Honey, you haven’t denied working there. I need a yes or no answer from you. Do you work there?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny—”

  He cut her off gently. “You have to tell me. Lives depend on it. The lives of good men and women who are trying to do the right thing.”

  “I…” She trailed off. She had no idea what to say next.

  He sighed. “I’m going to take your inability to come up with an answer as a yes. Which puts me in a bind.”

  “How so?”

  He placed his hands on either side of her face and gently, but inexorably, forced her to look him in the eyes. “Have you ever sold information obtained from H.O.T. Watch’s surveillance equipment to a non-U.S. government source?”

  Dead shock poured through her. Rage exploded through the shock. She demanded in a terrible voice she barely recognized as her own, “Are you telling me someone’s selling information from H.O.T. Watch?”

  A relieved smile unfolded on his face. “Thank God. It’s not you. I need you to leave this island with me. Now. Come with me somewhere where we can really talk. I need to show you something. But not here.”

  She was the CIA agent and he was her prisoner. She was the one doing the debriefing. The one who was supposed to put her subject off balance and get him to reveal his secrets to her. But she was the one reeling here. She was the one whose mind was blown with the things he knew about her. She was the one being deftly handled.

  Jennifer shook her head. It wasn’t possible. How he’d heard the name H.O.T. Watch was a mystery, and heads were going to roll when she found out who’d let it slip. Let alone what she was going to do to the traitor who was selling the place’s secrets. That person was going to wish his head only rolled.

  “Please, Jenn. Trust me.”

  It was the last straw. She blew up. “Trust you? You? The man who won’t answer any of my questions, not even to save your own life? The man who breaks another man’s neck in front of me and won’t explain why? Who won’t tell me even the most basic things about where he’s been or how he ended up in an African jail? Or why he’s addicted to drugs that will kill him by their absence? How am I supposed to trust you?”

  Chapter 7

  Jeff contemplated her soberly. He could see her point. He hadn’t done a thing to earn her trust since they’d met. “Jennifer, I’m asking you to trust me because right now there is no one else you can trust.”

  Her eyes widened in dismay as that reality sunk in. He hated being the one to put that hurt and betrayal into her gaze. Nonetheless, he had to convince her. “H.O.T. Watch is compromised, and I can prove it. Come with me, and I’ll show you. I swear on my word of honor.”

  She’d accepted his word before. Maybe she’d do it again. She looked…battered. Like his declaration had destroyed the foundation of her world. Surely she hadn’t worked for the CIA for any length of time and managed to remain an idealist. But apparently, she had. The idea of her becoming cynical and jaded was painful to him. He had to make her see the truth, though. He owed it to her.

  She spoke heavily. “No.”

  He supposed denial was a reasonable response from her. But he didn’t have much time to overcome her objections. Her minders would get suspicious if the two of them were away from the house for too long. And no matter what she said, he had no doubt whatsoever that the place was under surveillance.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. The call would be monitored, but that couldn’t be helped. He would just have to move faster than the response team eavesdropping on his conversation.

  Leland answered the call. “What’s up, Jeff?”

  “I need you to collect Gemma and the pilots and meet me at the airstrip ASAP.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Later. Quickly, Pops.”

  “Got it.”

  * * *

  Jennifer stared in disbelief. “I haven’t cleared you to leave this island! And I’m not about to now. Not after what you’ve just revealed. You need a full security briefing. There are legal documents I need you to sign….”

  He waited her out with a patient look on his face. She knew she was babbling, but for the life of her, she couldn’t stop. Things were moving too fast for her to process. It was too much to absorb. H.O.T. Watch compromised? This island under surveillance? What else didn’t she know?

  She was one of the two senior officials in charge of H.O.T. Watch. How could she not know about the surveillance here? Surely Brady Hathaway wasn’t under orders to spy on her—or on the entire civilian side of the H.O.T. Watch house! Wouldn’t she have been put under corresponding orders to spy on him, too? If only her staff was under surveillance, did that mean someone on her team was the leak? She couldn’t believe any of her people were moles. She’d handpicked them all. Vetted them out herself. They all had sterling records. Unquestionable patriotism. They’d all had plenty of opportunities to compromise missions, to make a little slip or omission here and there that would have compromised operatives all over the world, but she’d never seen even a hint of such a thing.

  Jeff seemed so sure of himself, though. His body language shouted that he was telling the truth. Unless he was trained in how to lie with his body. It was possible, although it took exquisite control to fool someone as experienced as her.

  “Tell me you’re not lying, Jeff.”

  Without hesitating, without any conscious thought, he looked her square in the eye. “I’m not lying. Please trust me.”

  Dammit! Not even a hint of a twitch to indicate dishonesty!

  “We need to go, honey. We’re on a short timetable now.”

  “What are you talking about?” She really wished her brain would quit feeling like caramel.

  “That call I just made to Leland? If I’m telling the truth, your boys at H.O.T. Watch heard me declare my intention to flee the island. You know as well as I do that they’ll send in the cavalry to stop me.”

  He was right.

  He took her by the elbow. Steered her farther down the path. “Is there a shorter way to the airfield than following the cart path?”

  “Yes. There’s a trail straight down the mountain. It’s steep. Bad footing. But passable.”

  “Show me.”

  She couldn’t overpower him. It would be laughable to try. So, she’d go along with his scheme f
or now. Head down to the airfield with him. Show him that no cavalry was rushing in to stop him. That he was being paranoid. That he was wrong about H.O.T. Watch being compromised. Wrong about this island being under covert surveillance.

  A plan in place, her panic receded slightly. She led the way down the mountain. The narrow path was no picnic to navigate, and about halfway down she fell on a patch of loose scree that rolled out from under her feet, planting her on her behind in a scary downhill slide.

  All of a sudden, a huge body was beside her. Jeff lifted her to her feet like she weighed nothing and lent her his bulk to balance on as they slid down the hill together in a rush. They pulled up sharply at the bottom of the scree field.

  “Thank you,” she gasped.

  “My pleasure.” He reached up to push a lock of her hair out of her face and tuck it behind her ear. The contact sent thrills racing through her.

  The attraction in his voice was plain. No doubt about it, the two of them had something between them. Chemistry. And she had to ignore it. Had to keep her head. Whatever game Jeff Winston was playing, it was deep. And she would drown in it if she wasn’t exceedingly cautious.

  The rest of the hike went uneventfully until he put a restraining hand on her arm as they approached the airfield. The Winston Enterprises Gulfstream G650 stood at the near end of the runway, its door open and one of the pilots circling the jet doing a preflight inspection.

  She glanced over at Jeff. “Why have we stopped in the trees?”

  “H.O.T. Watch.” He pointed at the sky and sick shock poured through her. He knew the facility used high-resolution satellites to watch the earth below? What else did he know?

  She shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny—” she started.

  He cut her off. “Spare me the party line. I’m looking out for your future career.”

  “My…huh?”

  Without warning, he bent down and scooped her off her feet. She squawked as he settled her in his arms like a child. He stepped out from under the canopy of foliage. “Feel free to kick and scream, but don’t hurt me too badly, please.”

  Realization slammed into her. He was making it look like he was kidnapping her to whoever was watching this little exchange from above. Wait a minute. He was kidnapping her!