*
William Thomas sat in a booth near the rear of the fifties-style diner. He’d barely had time to order coffee when a battered pickup pulled into the parking lot and a tall, bearlike young man stepped from the cab. Thomas allowed himself a small smile. Right on time.
Ken walked into the diner, looked around, spotted William Thomas and approached the booth. “Good to see you again,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Young man.” Thomas shook his hand, then indicated the empty seat opposite. “Please. Would you like anything?” he asked as the waitress returned with his coffee.
Ken slid in and smiled at her. “A cola, please.” When she’d left, he turned to Thomas. “I’ve been really excited about what you told me. Is the job still open?”
“Of course. That’s why I wanted to meet with you.” Thomas smiled at the young man. “You’re exactly what I’m looking for.”
He wanted to reach across and grab the kid by the lapels of his ill-fitting sports coat and shake the information out of him, but he forced himself to go slow. Security had been tight at the party three nights ago. Too tight. He hadn’t been able to get back into the building. Between the men patrolling and those bright lights they’d set up, he hadn’t had a chance. But his life was on the line, so he’d come up with a new plan. And it all revolved around this college kid.
“You’ve worked at the way station how long?” he asked. “Two years.” Ken handed him a folder containing several typed pages. “Here’s my résumé. As you can see, I have a lot of responsibility there. I know about the care and feeding of all the cats. Faith, uh, Faith Newlin—she’s the lady who runs the way station—depends on me when she goes away. I’m sure I’ll be right for you. Where did you say you were setting up your facility?”
“Texas,” Thomas said, mentioning the first state that came to mind. He flipped through the pages without really seeing them. Before he’d left the party, he’d circled the compound one last time. He’d seen Ken putting a small, mean-looking cat into a cage and had struck up a conversation with the boy. The alternative to failing to get the cubs back was a .45 in the back of his head, so it wasn’t too difficult to come up with a story to draw the kid out. He’d told Ken he was opening a way station of his own and was looking for someone to run it. The college student had taken the bait.
“I graduate in another month,” Ken said, trying to hide his eagerness. “I was going to stay and work for the summer, but I’m sure Faith wouldn’t mind if I—”
“What about security?” Thomas interrupted. “I noticed a lot at the party. Is all that necessary? It was an expense I hadn’t considered.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Ken leaned back in the booth. “The extra security was for the party. Usually there’s no one there but staff.”
“Usually?”
Ken straightened his jacket. “Yeah, well, there’s a guy there now, but that’s because we have—” He stopped suddenly and looked uncomfortable.
Thomas was silent. He learned long ago that most people couldn’t stand silence. They would blurt out the first thing that came to mind just to fill the empty air.
“There’s some rare tiger cubs staying for a couple months,” Ken said. He paused. “I’m helping another guy with security.”
Thomas didn’t even have to look at him to know he was lying. One man. He smiled. Easy enough to take care of. He would simply drive in tonight and take the cubs.
He turned his attention back to Ken. He would continue with this mock interview. He didn’t want to make the boy suspicious. A casual glance at his watch told him that he had plenty of time until nightfall. He would play out the game, then make his move.
Chapter 10
The absence of sound woke him. Cort sat up on his cot and listened. Normally the cats were active at night, playing, calling out to each other, roaring into the blackness. Nothing stirred outside his window, not even the wind.
He reached for his jeans and pulled them on, then slipped on boots and grabbed his pistol. The hallway was dark. First he checked on the cubs. They were sleeping in a bundle in the middle of their cage. Since the party three days ago, he’d kept them in the windowless room. He felt better knowing someone couldn’t break in through a window. He backed out of the room, then secured the lock. He moved quietly to Faith’s room and pushed open the door. She slept in her bed, her brown hair spread out on her pillow. He allowed himself a heartbeat of appreciation, then eased the door shut and went to her office.
Sparky stirred restlessly at his entrance and padded over to greet him. His chain stretched taut from its hook in the wall. Cort bent down and released the animal. Instantly Sparky raced into the hallway and toward the door leading to the compound.
Cort followed him. He wished he could ask the animal what he heard or smelled. He checked through the glass in the door, but couldn’t see anything. In the faint moonlight, Tigger paced in his habitat. The other cats seemed equally restless, but silent. Sparky butted him, then scratched at the door. Cort opened the lock and let the cat slip into the night. Before following, he chambered a round of ammunition, leaving the safety on. He cracked the door and went outside. As soon as he stood in the compound, he could feel the presence of someone. He crouched down and moved swiftly to the cover of the trees. Sparky had disappeared, and he didn’t dare call out to the animal.
Cort closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate. Could it be a four-legged predator, rather than a man? No, Faith had told him the scent of the cats kept any other animals away. Someone was after the cubs. He crouched low in the brush. He could circle around the building, but that wasn’t where he sensed his enemy. Why would anyone hide out around the compound? He thought about the clearing they’d found a half mile up the mountain. Were they trying to come in that way, rather than through the front? Damn. Since his last mission, he didn’t trust his instincts. He paused, torn by indecision, then moved slowly toward the habitats.
It took him thirty minutes to circle through the facility. He moved silently around the cages, trying to stay downwind of the more vocal cats. Twice Sparky appeared at his side. The leopard seemed to be hunting, as well, and having as little luck. Neither found any signs of an intruder, and Cort never heard a car or a truck. When he reached the main building again, all feeling of someone being there had disappeared. He put Sparky inside, but didn’t chain him, then got the Jeep and drove it down to the main entrance.
He stared at the closed gate. A light mist of dew covered the ground. He bent down and touched the dirt by the road. It clung to his finger. No one had driven this way tonight. They would have left tire marks. He stood up and brushed his hand on his jeans. Was he crazy? Jeff had told him to stay and do his job because he was the best Jeff had. Was that still true? How much of his edge had he lost in South America?
He got back in the Jeep and jerked the steering wheel around. When he’d parked the vehicle, he took one last look around the compound. The cats were stirring now, behaving normally. A couple played with the bowling balls in their cages. The familiar thunk of the heavy balls hitting steel bars should have made him relax, but it didn’t.
He opened the door to the foyer, then blinked at the lights in the hallway. Faith appeared at the doorway to her office. The sight of her caught him like a fist to the belly. She stood in a pool of light, naked beneath her cotton gown. The thin fabric hung to her ankles but concealed little. He could see the shape of her breasts, the darker color of her nipples and the small triangle of shadow at the apex of her thighs.
Long hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her feet were bare. She wore no jewelry, no ornamentation save her faint smile. Sparky sat at her side. The black leopard contrasted with her white nightgown. Cort understood why ancient men had worshiped women. Primal female power called to him, and every part of his body longed to respond. Between her thighs he could forget all that troubled him.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I though I heard someone. I didn’t find anything
. Neither did Sparky.”
She nodded. “He would have treed a stranger. He’s done it before. He won’t, as a rule, attack.” She rested her hand on the cat’s head. “What else is wrong, Cort?”
He forced himself to look away from her. “What if no one was there? What if I’ve lost it?”
“If you’ve lost it, we’ll find it for you. I believe you’re right. Someone was there, but now they’re gone. Come on.” She held out her hand. “I’ve warmed some milk.”
He ignored the outstretched hand. “I’m not some child you can coddle after a bad dream.” The sharp tone of his voice had often made green agents tremble with fear. Faith simply looked at him. Sparky yawned. Cort stuck his gun in the small of his back and wondered when he’d stopped being intimidating.
“I’d planned to put rum in it,” she said, turning away. “You look like you need a drink.”
She hadn’t shown her feelings, but he knew he’d hurt her. “Dammit, Faith.” He hurried after her, stepping over the leopard who had settled in the hall. “I didn’t mean—” He grabbed her arm and forced her to stop. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
He held her firmly, yet without bruising. Faith stared at his hand, at the scratches from playing with the tiger cubs, then looked at his bare chest. There was a scar from a bullet on his right arm, and the scratch she’d treated over a week ago. Had he been here that short a period of time? It felt as if he’d always been in her life.
Taking a deep breath, she raised her eyes to his. “I know what you meant,” she said. She pulled her arm free. “Come into the kitchen. You could use a drink.”
When he’d settled into one of the straight-back chairs, she poured warm milk into two mugs and added a healthy dose of rum. After sprinkling nutmeg on top, she handed him one.
“Cheers.”
He touched his mug to hers. “I shouldn’t drink on the job. It clouds judgment.” He laughed without humor. “Hell, I don’t have any judgment left.” He sipped. “It’s good.”
“Thank you.” She flipped off the overhead lamp and took the seat opposite him. Light filtered in from the hall and glowed from above the ancient stove. “What happened tonight?”
He shrugged. The movement caused muscles to ripple across his bare chest and down his arms. She clutched her cup to keep from reaching out to touch him.
“Something woke me up. It’s crazy, but it was the silence that made me think there was a problem. You know how loud the cats are at night.”
She nodded. “If they were all quiet, there was someone or something out there.”
“Whatever it was, it’s gone now.” He took another sip. “I checked the gate. No one had touched it. Maybe it was just some camper who got lost. He took one look at the jaguars in those end cages and headed back for the hills.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Am I?” He set his mug down and leaned toward her. “I still can’t remember everything. It’s driving me crazy. I know forcing my memory only makes it harder to recall exactly what happened, but I’m tired of waiting.”
A strand of gold-blond hair fell over his forehead. She wanted to push it back into place. It was difficult to sit here and carry on a conversation while he was half-naked. She glanced down at her thin nightgown and smiled. She wasn’t much more dressed than he was, but Cort didn’t seem to be noticing.
“You don’t want to hear this,” he muttered, staring at the Formica table.
“Of course I do.” He looked at her. The haunted expression in his eyes made her want to cry out in pain. Instinctively, she reached for his hand and covered it with hers. “Tell me anything you want. It won’t go past these walls. I promise.”
He turned his wrist until their fingers entwined. She squeezed tightly, trying to tell him she would hold on as long as he needed.
“I still don’t know how the mission ended. I only have Jeff’s word that I didn’t kill my friend.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if you know his first name. Dan. His name was Dan.”
“Why do you doubt Jeff?”
“He may think I’m not ready for the truth.” He leaned toward her. “I didn’t have to pull the trigger to have killed him. There are a lot of ways to die on an assignment. A misspoken word. A route not changed quickly enough. Did I do or say something to tip the bad guys off?”
“Stop making yourself crazy,” she said. “You have to put it behind you and go forward.”
“I can’t.”
He stared out the window into the black night. She felt his pain as surely as if it were her own. She looked at his strong profile, at his straight nose and firm jaw. The pang inside her shifted and she realized it wasn’t all about his hurting. She had a few wounds of her own to wrestle with.
He made her lonely. As they sat here in the quiet, baring souls, he made her ache with a wanting that would never be eased. She’d convinced herself she would never find a man who could understand her life-style and love her enough to stay. But being with Cort, sharing things with him that she’d always done alone, caring about him, made her vulnerable to hope. It was futile, she knew. But that didn’t stop her from dreaming.
When the mission was over and the cubs were in their new home, he would leave her. His good fight required that he travel without excess baggage. He wouldn’t have the room or the desire to carry her heart along. Even if she tried to tuck it in his pocket unnoticed, he would figure out the truth and cast it aside.
She listened as he spoke haltingly about Dan and their first meeting at the academy. He mentioned Jeff and the good times they’d shared. She could resist the warrior. He intrigued her, but didn’t call to her innermost self. But this man, the one who exposed his wounds, swept through her barriers. She could not resist his vulnerability. His strength had first attracted her. His weakness made her care too much.
“The hell of it was,” he was saying, “Jeff went ahead and asked me to be best man at his wedding.” He shook his head. “At first, I didn’t understand why he got married. Then I saw him with Jeanne. I don’t know.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Loving that woman almost killed him.” He shook his head. “That’s not right. Losing her almost killed him. Loving her…” He trailed off. “It was all a waste of time, if you ask me.”
Loving her made him strong, Faith thought, silently finishing Cort’s sentence. She stared at their clasped hands, at his long, powerful fingers curling around hers. The truth swept through her, with all the power of a hurricane.
She understood Cort’s reluctance to get involved. She knew he believed emotions weighed a man down. She recognized his confusion about love and duty because she shared it. For days she’d thought she felt attracted to him because he reminded her of the cats. All wild, unholy beauty with an amoral heart. Now she knew the truth. She’d seen more than the cats in Cort. She’d seen herself. They were, in the most basic of terms, soul mates.
“I need to go back,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking. Her discovery shocked her to the core of her being.
“I have to know I can make a difference. It’s all that matters.” He looked at her. “Does that make sense? You—” he swept his arm across the table “—you make a difference every day. Every time you save a cougar or send a snow leopard back into the wild, it changes the future.”
She ached for him, for herself and what she had to say. “If fighting your battles makes the world better, then go back and fight.”
“Does it matter a damn?”
“I don’t know. Does it?”
He drained his mug and squeezed her hand. “Sometimes,” he admitted. He hunched over as if the weight of his responsibilities were too heavy to bear. “When I know who the bad guys are, like now, yes, it matters. Other times—”
“You mean, when the enemy might be your best friend?” “You see too much.” He looked at her. His lips curved up in a faint smile. With his free hand, he stroked her cheek. “You are so beautiful.”
The compliment surprised her. She knew what she looked like, and while she didn’t have to run around with a bag over her head, she wasn’t anyone’s idea of a beauty. She covered the hand on her cheek with her own and pressed his large palm against her skin.
She saw it deep in his gold-flecked eyes. He wanted to forget. And she was the easiest road to oblivion. He didn’t love her; he never would. His heart had been given away long ago to a woman who hadn’t bothered to appreciate the gift. Faith wanted to find the woman and demand she return Cort’s heart so that someone else—someone like her—could have it.
Not likely. She knew her failings as well as her looks. She wasn’t the kind of woman that men stuck around for. But the wanting in his eyes was a temptation. It would be easy to allow him to forget, if only for a night. She didn’t give her body lightly, but this was Cort, and she could deny him very little.
Cort didn’t regret the compliment. He’d spoken without thinking, but now, looking at Faith, he knew his words to be true. In the evening light, with compassion filling her eyes and her hair down on her shoulders, she was beautiful. It wasn’t about the shape of her face, or her breasts almost visible under her gown. It was about the woman herself. All cats were gray in the dark, he’d told himself. But with Faith, he wanted to keep the lights on and know he was with her.
The itch that needed scratching, the desire to get lost, required a specific cure. It wasn’t about any woman. It wasn’t about the heat in his groin. It was about her. He needed her.
The realization scared him more than any sniper’s bullet. He pulled away from her and stood up.
“Cort?” she asked quietly from her place at the table.
“This doesn’t make sense,” he grumbled. He walked over to the counter and leaned against it. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She rose to her feet. “I understand completely.”
“I wish I did.” He looked at her, at the shape of her body, at her honest face. “Go back to bed, Faith.”
“I don’t mind talking.” She hovered beside her chair, not moving closer, but not going away, either.
Tempting Faith Page 15
