Raw Talent

by Debra Webb

  So Gabrielle chose denial. Her mother would not have lied to her. Though that same mother could have cared less if she’d lived or died most days.

  The little girl’s one dream was shattered. A crappy life held together by one fleeting fantasy was shot to hell.

  So the little girl decided to get even with the world by having her revenge on the man who’d ended her fantasy.

  A.J. turned his face slightly in a futile attempt to make out her profile. She was reaching for the only thing that felt right, felt noble in her life. And no matter that she looked like a very grown-up woman, gorgeous figure included, a whole lot of that little girl still lived deep down inside her. A little girl who just needed somebody to love her.

  “You know, Braddock,” she said quietly, her words startling him all the same, “I haven’t had sex in like six months. If you keep this up we may have a serious problem on our hands.”

  Damn. Was he that obvious? Even in the dark?

  “I was just thinking,” he admitted, keeping his voice down to a whisper. The plat-plat-plat overhead informed him that it had started to rain. That could be good, he decided. It could send their enemy into fixed camps. The large groups in camps they could spot and go around.

  “I have a pretty good idea what you were thinking,” she retorted knowingly.

  He ordered his body to relax. They were pressed so close together she could feel his tension rising in a very palpable form.

  “Sometimes we have no control over primitive instinct,” he suggested. “You can rest assured it wasn’t an intellectual decision.”

  “It rarely is.”

  That she so fully understood his reaction irritated him beyond reason. “Let’s just try to get through this, shall we.”

  She shrugged. “Sure. Just let me know if you decide you need to take matters in hand. I’m not into voyeurism.”

  Now that ticked him off.

  He shifted onto his side so that he could look more directly at her lying next to him. Not that it did any good since he couldn’t see a damned thing.

  “Don’t give yourself so much credit, Gabrielle. The situation isn’t that hard.”

  She made a breathy sound that was basically a laugh. “From where I sit, it feels pretty damned hard.”

  The irritation morphed into fury, but before he could say what was on his mind a noise, ten maybe fifteen yards away, nabbed his attention.

  He felt Gabrielle stiffen.

  Rustling foliage. The crinkle of leaves under a booted foot. They didn’t actually have to worry about being seen, getting stepped on would be the more probable scenario.

  A.J. held his breath. Listened.

  The two, maybe three men stopped almost on top of them.

  Their dialogue sounded weary with disgust. A.J. could make out most of what was said. The men—definitely two, he decided—were furious over having to tromp around the woods in the rain. In their opinion the man and woman were long gone. A.J. hoped this was the prevailing attitude among their pals.

  This could be good news for A.J. and Gabrielle. The less interest the men had in their work, the poorer the job performance.

  The conversation shifted to business.

  According to the man who sounded as if he might have seniority over his compadre, all they needed to make the deal happen was the children. The interlopers—he and Gabrielle, A.J. surmised—were of no real consequence. The other guy argued that they might not be able to find the children in time unless they found A.J. and Gabrielle. The truth could be gotten out of them and finding the children would be a simple matter.

  Someone they referred to as jefe wouldn’t wait beyond the forty-eight hours he had given.

  A.J. knew jefe translated to boss. These two felt certain they would all be killed if the children weren’t brought in within that forty-eight hour deadline. From the discussion, it appeared the emphasis of the search was on the older child, the younger somehow more insignificant. A.J. wondered at this. Was it because Mark, the oldest, was Sloan’s flesh and blood?

  The two moved away, the conversation fading with their footsteps.

  “Why do you think they want Mark?” Gabrielle whispered.

  She’d apparently understood most of the conversation, as well.

  “I don’t know. But we’re going to have to make sure they don’t find them.”

  “How can we find out who this jefe is?”

  A.J. wasn’t about to tell her, but he knew of only one way. Infiltrate the enemy. In his experience, in a situation like this one, there was only one way to do that.

  Get caught.

  Gabrielle could sense a change in Braddock’s demeanor. The tension in his body felt different somehow. Resolved or resigned. The sexual tension was still there but far less noticeable. Had he understood more of the conversation than she had? There had been blocks of dialogue that had gone right over her head, but she’d felt confident she’d gotten the most important parts.

  If he was plotting something and leaving her out…how would she know until it was too late? She had to find a way to keep him off balance where she was concerned.

  There was only one way she could think of to do that.

  She purposely eased her hip against him. His body reacted instantly. No point in him denying that he was attracted to her, she could feel that he was.

  “We’ll stay here a little longer, then we’ll try to cover some more ground,” he murmured, his voice sounding oddly strained.

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea for us to attempt to move about in the darkness? Shouldn’t we just stay right here?” As she said this she put a little more pressure on that sensitive location.

  “No.” His voice croaked. “We have to move.”

  She had to smile. Men. Their physical reactions were as dependable as time itself.

  “I’m cold,” she said next. “Is it okay if we lay a little closer?” She’d no sooner asked the question than she pushed her arms around him and snuggled closer.

  “Er…sure.” He hesitated but eventually wrapped his arms around her.

  She had to admit, she liked the feel of him. Muscular, powerful. He was very fit. A woman wouldn’t have to worry about not being safe with him. She imagined he could hold his own in most any situation.

  The minutes ticked by like hours. The rain plopped on the leaves of the trees and the underbrush. Even the fresh smell of rain couldn’t detract from the smell of him.

  Gabrielle had quickly come to regret her move. His body wasn’t the only one responding to various stimuli. Like the feel of his every male contour nestled against her more pliable frame. His chest felt like a rock wall with her breasts flattened there save for the nipples that had gone rock-hard themselves.

  The equally solid ridge below his belt had her lower anatomy humming with anticipation. She had denied herself for so damned long that even the idea of having sex with Braddock made her melt in readiness.

  Maybe she should just stop neglecting herself and have sex with him right now.

  Need jolted through her.

  They could die most any minute, she might as well have a little fun first.

  It didn’t seem right somehow to lay here hiding from killers and not take advantage of the one luxury offered by the situation.

  Sex with Braddock would be good. He was older than her, which translated into more experience. Older guys knew what women wanted more so than younger guys who were far too concerned with themselves to care what a woman needed.

  “Braddock,” she whispered, “I think—”

  “Don’t talk,” he ordered. The feel of his lips against her temple sent a thrill through her.

  She tilted her head back and attempted to align her lips with his. “Talking wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  His breath whispered against her lips. His mouth couldn’t be more than two or three centimeters from hers and yet he held back…denied her contact.

  “Not a good idea,” he said tightly.

  She lifted slightl
y, closed that meager distance, allowing her lips to brush his.

  “Oh, yeah,” she challenged, “this is a very good idea.”

  His mouth came down hard over hers as he pinned her to the ground with his weight. At almost the same instant his hips ground into hers and it was all she could do not to cry out with the exquisite pleasure of the resulting sensations.

  Leaves and dirt trickled down onto her face but she didn’t care. She just wanted to feel this…to feel him. His kiss was relentless and filled with a kind of desperation that matched her own.

  She opened her mouth in invitation when what she wanted was to spread her legs and be taken completely with the same desperation with which he kissed her.

  His tongue plunged into her mouth and she whimpered.

  He froze.

  She could feel his heart pounding…could hear his breath raging in and out of his lungs…but above all else she felt his emotional withdrawal.

  “We can’t do this now.” His voice was taut, as ragged as his respiration.

  “I guess this is something else we’ll just have to finish later,” she said breathlessly, determined to keep him guessing.

  He plunged the fingers of his right hand into her hair and cradled her head. “I can guarantee,” he said, his tone a blatant warning, “that we will finish this part.”

  He made no move to roll off her. Instead he stayed right there, his weight pressing down on hers.

  She paid dearly for her little ploy.

  Over and over again.

  Chapter Ten

  It was almost dawn. In her office, Victoria stood at the window that overlooked the city she loved. She hadn’t been able to sleep. Some part of her, that instinctive part that had kept her awake so many nights after she lost her son, warned that whatever was happening in Mexico was getting worse instead of better.

  A.J. had left more than forty-eight hours ago and still there was no word from him. Amy Calhoun had followed twenty-four hours later. Sloan and Rachel were still away and no one appeared to have any idea where.

  This was very wrong.

  Something well beyond Gabrielle Jordan’s need for revenge.

  The telephone on her desk rang. Victoria turned to verify that it was her private line. It would be Lucas. No one else used that number. Well, except for Jim or Tasha, and it was far too early for a call from either of them.

  Unless there was a problem with the baby.

  A new kind of fear rushed through Victoria’s heart as she hurried to grab the receiver.

  Tasha was only a few months along but each trimester in a pregnancy carried its own set of risks and difficulties.

  “Victoria Colby-Camp,” she said, her voice breathless.

  “I do love to hear you say that.”

  Lucas.

  Relief whirred along her nerve endings. “Lucas, you’re calling awfully early.” That meant that he knew she wasn’t at home in bed as she should be. He worried that she worked too hard. As if he had any room to talk.

  “And you’re at the office rather early,” he countered gently.

  The fact that she missed him immensely could very well be part of the reason she couldn’t sleep. Whenever he went back to D.C. to advise on a situation, she felt completely out of sorts.

  “I miss you,” she admitted, partly because it was true and partly because she wanted to shift the focus from her to him. “Will you be back this week as planned?”

  He sighed. Not a good sign.

  “It’s looking like next week. Do I need to cut it short? Tell them they’ll have to do this without me?”

  Victoria smiled. He would do that, too. Lucas would lay down his life for her, here and now if she asked him to. He would gladly come home early and never regret the decision or question her reasons if she asked him to. He was truly one of a kind.

  “No. No. I’ll be fine.”

  “Still no word from Sloan, I take it,” he guessed.

  “Nothing. I’m concerned, Lucas. This feels very wrong somehow. Very, very wrong.”

  “Braddock is a good man, Victoria. He can handle Gabrielle.”

  He was right. She had no doubt about A.J.’s ability to get the job done. It was that nagging feeling that this was bigger than Gabrielle…far bigger than they knew…that bothered her.

  “Do me a favor, my dear,” Lucas urged.

  Another smile tilted her lips. “Yes.” She knew what he would say even before he uttered the words. Please take care of yourself…you know I couldn’t live without you.

  “This case is personal to you. I know you’re worried. But, please take care of yourself…you know I couldn’t live without you.”

  She promised her husband she would take the best of care of herself, told him she loved him and said goodbye. Her life had gone so well for months now. Her son and his wife were happy. Her first grandchild was on the way. Lucas was amazing. Life just couldn’t get any better. Perhaps having it all after years of personal loss and suffering made the prospect of disaster even more painful.

  Borrowing trouble wouldn’t help. She had to trust her incredible staff to do what they did best.

  Determined to get on with her day, despite the early hour, she strode across her office with the lounge as her destination. A strong cup of coffee would help lift her spirits. She’d had a cup before leaving the house. But that caffeine fix had long ago worn off. Time for another.

  Three or four minutes was all it took for the coffeemaker to do its business. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee filled the air and she felt better already. After pouring a steaming cup, she cradled it in her hands a moment to relish the warmth then sipped the smooth blend Mildred Parker, her personal assistant, special-ordered every week like clockwork.

  As she strolled along the hall, headed back to her office, she was surprised to see Ian Michaels striding purposely in that same direction.

  “Good morning, Victoria.”

  Daylight had scarcely started to creep across the dark sky. That she was here so early wasn’t so shocking considering her husband was out of town and her relationship to Sloan wouldn’t let her treat this like just another case. But Ian Michaels’ appearance at this hour meant something was up. Something tangible. Not just intuition.

  “We have a problem,” she suggested as they entered her office together.

  “I believe so.”

  Anticipation sent her heart into a faster rhythm. “Why don’t you have a seat and bring me up to speed.”

  Ian settled into one of the wing chairs that flanked her desk and wasted no time in getting to the point. “I’ve spent most of the night attempting to reach Amy. Despite a call on the hour, every hour, there is no answer at Sloan’s residence.”

  Worry sliced deep into Victoria’s chest. “When was the last time you made contact?”

  “Shortly after her arrival yesterday. Around noon. The house was deserted and she’d had no luck touching base with A.J.”

  “She hasn’t attempted to call in and you haven’t been able to reach her?” Victoria reiterated, worry gnawing at her with even more ferocity now.

  “Correct.”

  “All right then.” Victoria set her coffee aside and folded her hands on her desk. “We’ll need to go in this time under the assumption the area is hostile.”

  “I agree.” Ian leveled his gaze on hers. “Ric Martinez and I will leave this morning. Since he’s fluent in the language, I felt he would be an asset.”

  Victoria nodded. “Excellent decision.” She considered Ian a moment. “You haven’t been in the field in a while, Ian, are you sure this is what you want to do? There are other well qualified investigators to choose from.”

  The determination that glimmered in his eyes told Victoria that further discussion was not only unnecessary but a waste of time.

  “I trained Amy personally. If her disappearance is related to a failure on my part—”

  “Ian,” Victoria cut in, “that won’t be the case. However, I understand your need to do this person
ally. You do whatever you need to. We always take care of our own.”

  Ian stood. “We’ll contact you as soon as we’ve arrived at our destination.”

  Victoria watched him go. For most of her life she had been able to rely on her intuition.

  Considering what she feared, this was one time when she would just as soon that instinct failed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  A.J. stopped. Listened. The rain was still falling. Slipping down the leaves of the trees and dripping onto their heads. He ignored it.

  He hadn’t heard anything out of the men searching for them since before daylight. Since he and Gabrielle had climbed out of that hole. He’d spent the whole night on the verge of ripping her clothes off and…

  Don’t think about it, he reminded himself.

  She’d pushed the issue, in the hope of keeping him off balance, he felt certain. She’d had him armed and ready from the moment she scooted in next to him. He deserved a medal for maintaining control all those hours.

  They’d been moving for just over an hour. It was daylight now. Still no cell phone service. Using it would be a risk considering the enemy appeared to be equipped with the unexpected as far as technology went. Touching base with Amy wasn’t necessary at this point. A.J. had a plan. The first step of which was to get the hell off this mountain without getting caught.

  “Did you hear that?”

  Her desperate whisper had him turning to face Gabrielle. He had avoided doing that for the past hour.

  A sound echoed in the distance. He cocked his head and listened. A frown furrowed his brow as he strained to hear, but couldn’t identify the noise.

  “Damn,” she moaned.

  Their gazes locked as recognition simultaneously slammed into their brains.