Blogger Bundle Volume VIII: SBTB's Harlequins That Hooked You

by Jennifer Crusie

  Another shot, another broken window.

  “God damn,” Laughton said. “Where the hell is he shooting from?”

  Joe heard the second shot, felt the impact of the bullet as it hit the stage, and knew. The assassin was behind him. Inside the theater. And with all of the shielding facing out, away from the theater, Joe was a Goddamn sitting duck. It was amazing he was still alive. That second shot should have killed him.

  It should have, but it hadn’t. The son of a bitch had missed.

  Joe dove off the stage headfirst, weapon drawn, shouting instructions to his men and to the FInCOM agents who were surrounding him. Cowboy was on the roof of the theater, for God’s sake. They could cut the shooter off, nail the bastard.

  Inside the surveillance van, the video monitors went blank. Power was gone. Lord, what was happening out there? Veronica had heard Joe’s voice. He was alive, thank God. He hadn’t been killed. Yet.

  The gunman was inside the theater. Upper balcony, above the lobby, came the reports. The back door was surrounded, they had the assassin cornered.

  Veronica stood, pushing past Kevin Laughton and opening the door of the van. She could see the theater, see the two shattered windows. She could see the FInCOM agents crouched near the front of the theater. She could see three figures, scaling the outside of the theater, climbing up to the roof.

  God in heaven, it was Joe and two of his SEALs.

  Veronica lowered her mouthpiece into place. She hadn’t wanted to speak before this, afraid she’d only add to the confusion, but this…

  “Joe, what are you doing?” she said into the microphone. “You’re the target! You’re supposed to get to safety!”

  “We need radio silence,” Blue’s voice commanded. “Right now. Except for reports of tango’s location.”

  “Joe!” Veronica cried.

  One of the FInCOM agents leaned out the van door. “I can’t cut this line,” he said to Veronica, “so unless you’re quiet, I’m going to have to take your headset.”

  Veronica shut her mouth, watching as a tiny figure—Cowboy—helped Joe and the rest of his team up onto the theater roof.

  Up on the roof, Joe looked around. There was one door, leading to stairs that would take them down.

  You all right? Cowboy hand-signaled to Joe.

  Fine, he signaled back.

  The gunman surely had a radio, and was probably monitoring their spoken conversation. From this point on, the SEALs would communicate only with hand signals and sign language. No use tipping the gunman off by letting him know they were coming.

  Harvard had an extra HK submachine gun, and he handed it to Joe with a tight smile.

  Another shot rang out.

  “Agent down,” came West’s voice over Joe’s earphone. “Oh, man, we need a medic!”

  “T’s location stable,” said another voice. “Holding steady in the lobby balcony.”

  “Get that injured man out of the line of fire,” Laughton commanded.

  “He’s dead,” West reported, his normally dispassionate voice shaken. “Freeman’s dead. The bastard plugged him through the eye. The sonuvabitch—”

  Let’s go, Joe signaled to his men. I’m on point.

  Blue gestured to himself. He wanted to lead the way instead. But Joe shook his head.

  Soundlessly he opened the door and started down the stairs.

  Another shot.

  More chaos. Another agent was hit with unerring accuracy.

  “Stay down,” Laughton ordered his men. “This guy’s a sharpshooter and he’s here for the long haul. Let’s get our own shooters in position.”

  Silently, with deadly stealth, fingers on the triggers of their submachine guns, the SEALs moved down the stairs.

  Veronica paced. She hadn’t heard Joe’s voice in many long minutes. She could no longer see any movement on the roof.

  “One of the cameras is back on,” someone said from inside the surveillance van, and she went back in to see.

  Sure enough, the video camera that had been dropped and left on the stage had come back to life. It now showed a sideways and somewhat foggy picture of the theater lobby. Behind the reflections in the remaining glass windows, Veronica could see the shadowy shape of the assassin on the upper balcony.

  It was quiet. No one was moving. No one was talking. Then…

  “FInCOM shooters, hold your fire.” It was Joe’s voice, loud and clear, over the radio.

  Veronica felt herself sway, and she groped for her seat. Joe and his SEALs were somewhere near the gunman—in range of the FInCOM agent’s guns. Please, God, keep him safe, she prayed.

  A door burst open. She heard it more than she saw it on the shadowy video screen.

  The gunman turned, firing a machine gun rather than his rifle. But there was no one there.

  Another door opened, on the other side of the balcony, but the gunman had already moved. Using some sort of rope, he swung himself over the edge and down to the first floor.

  Veronica saw Joe before the gunman did.

  He was standing in the lobby, gun aimed at the man scurrying down the rope. She knew it was Joe from his gleaming white jacket. The three other SEALs were dressed in dull brown.

  “Hold it right there, pal,” she heard Joe say over her headphones. “We can end this game one of two ways. We can either take you out of here in a body bag, or you can drop your weapons right now and we’ll all live to see tomorrow.”

  The gunman was frozen, unmoving, halfway down the rope as he stared at Joe.

  Then he moved. But he didn’t drop his gun, he brought it up, fast, aimed directly toward Joe’s head.

  The sound of gunfire over the radio was deafening.

  The gunman jumped to the ground—or did he fall? Who had been hit? And where was Joe…?

  “Joe!” Veronica couldn’t keep silent another second as she leaned closer to the blurry screen.

  “Do you need medical assistance?” a voice asked over the headphones.

  “Alpha Squad, check in,” Blue’s voice ordered. “McCoy.”

  “Becker.”

  “Jones.”

  “Catalanotto,” Joe’s familiar, husky voice said. “We’re all clear. No need of a medic, FInCOM.”

  Veronica closed her eyes and rested her head on her arms on the tabletop.

  “This stupid sonuvabitch just made himself a martyr for the cause,” Joe’s voice said into her ear.

  Joe was alive. It was all over, and Joe was alive.

  This time.

  18

  It was after nine o’clock in the evening—twenty-one hundred hours—before Veronica’s phone rang.

  She’d been busy all afternoon and evening with meetings and debriefings. She’d worked with Ambassador Freder and Senator McKinley, scheduling the remainder of Prince Tedric’s tour. A report had come in from FInCOM that made them all breathe easier. The assassin had been ID’d as Salustiano Vargas—Diosdado’s former right-hand man. Former. Apparently the two terrorists had parted ways, and Vargas was no longer connected with the Cloud of Death. He had been acting on his own. Why? No one seemed to know. At least not yet. At any rate, Vargas was dead. He’d be giving them no answers.

  But now that the assassin was no longer a threat, the ambassador and senator wanted to get the tour back on track. Tedric was flying in from the District of Columbia. He would meet them all in Seattle in the morning, where they would board a cruise ship to Alaska. They would finish the tour with a flourish.

  Security would return to near normal. Two or three FInCOM agents would remain, but everyone else, including the SEALs—including Joe—would go home.

  At dinnertime, Veronica had searched for Joe, but was told he was in high-level security debriefings. She returned to her room to pack, but couldn’t stop thinking. What if he didn’t get finished before morning? Sometimes those meetings went on all night. What if she didn’t see him before she had to leave…?

  But then, at nine o’clock, the phone rang. Veronica closed her ey
es, then picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Yo, Ronnie.”

  “Joe.” Where are you? When will you be here? She clamped her mouth tightly shut over those words. She didn’t own him. She may have given her feelings away this morning when she’d told him—and the entire world—that she loved him, but she could stake no claim on his time or his life.

  “Have you had dinner yet?” he asked.

  “No, I was…” Waiting for you. “I wasn’t hungry.”

  “Think you’ll be hungry in about twenty minutes?” he asked.

  “Hungry for what?” She tried to make her voice sound light, teasing, but her heart felt heavy. No matter how she approached this relationship, the conclusion she kept coming to was that it wasn’t going to work out. Tomorrow they were both heading in different directions, and that would be it. All that was left was tonight. She’d been so worried earlier that she wasn’t going to get to spend this final night with Joe. But now she couldn’t help but think that it might be easier to simply say goodbye over the phone.

  “Ow,” he said, laughter in his voice. “You kill me, lady. But I meant are you hungry for food. Like, you and me—the real me, no disguises—going out somewhere for dinner.” He paused. “In public. Like to a restaurant.” He paused again, then laughed. “God, am I smooth, or what? I’m trying to ask you out to dinner, Ron. What do ya say?”

  He didn’t give her time to answer. “I’m still downtown,” he continued, “but I can catch a cab and make it up to the hotel in about fifteen or twenty minutes. Wear that black dress, okay? We’ll go up to Camelback Mountain. Mac says there’s a great restaurant at the resort there. There’s a band and dancing, and a terrific view of the city.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, yes. There’s a cab pulling up, right outside. Gotta run, babe. Get dressed—I’ll be right there.”

  “But I don’t want to go out. It’s our last night—maybe forever—and I want to spend it alone with you,” Veronica said to the dead phone line.

  She slowly hung up the phone.

  She had one more night with Joe. One more night to last the rest of her life. One more night to burn her imprint permanently into his memory.

  Hmm.

  Veronica picked up the phone and dialed room service. Joe wanted dinner and dancing and a view of the city? The view from this room wasn’t too shabby. And the four-star restaurant in this hotel delivered food to the rooms. As for dancing…

  Holding the telephone in one hand, Veronica crossed to the stereo that was attached to the entertainment center. Yes, there was a tape deck. She smiled.

  For the first time, Joe actually knocked on her door rather than picking the lock and letting himself in.

  With the long skirt of her black silk dress shushing about her legs, Veronica crossed to the hotel-room door and flung it open and herself into his arms. “Lord, I’ve waited all day to do this,” she said. “You scared me to death this morning.”

  Having his arms around her felt so good. And when his lips met hers, she felt herself start to melt and she wrapped her own arms more tightly around his neck. Her fingers laced through his hair and—

  Veronica pulled back.

  His long hair was gone. Joe had cut his hair. Short. Really short. She looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since she’d opened her hotel-suite door. He was wearing a naval dress uniform. It was dark blue with rows and rows and rows of medals and ribbons on his left breast. He wore a white hat on his head, and he took it off, holding it almost awkwardly in his hands. His dark eyes were slightly sheepish as he watched her take in his haircut. His hair had been buzz cut around his ears and at the back. The top and front were slightly longer—just long enough so that a lock of dark hair fell forward over his forehead.

  He smiled ruefully. “The barber went a little overboard,” he said. “I don’t usually wear it quite this short and…” He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Damn, you hate it.”

  Veronica touched his arm, shaking her own head. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t hate it….” But she didn’t like it, either. Not that he looked bad. In fact, he didn’t. If anything, his short cut made his lean face more handsome than ever. But it also made him look harder, tougher, unforgiving—dangerous on an entirely new level. He looked like exactly what he was—a highly trained, highly competent special-forces officer. She couldn’t help but be reminded that he was a man who risked his life as a matter of course. And that was what Veronica didn’t like. “It suits you,” she told him.

  He searched her eyes, and whatever he saw there seemed to satisfy him. “Good.”

  “You look…wonderful,” Veronica said honestly.

  “So do you.” His eyes flared with that familiar heat as he ran them down and then back up her body.

  “This is the way I thought you were going to look—before we met,” she said.

  A brief shadow flickered across his face. “Yeah, well, I guess I oughta tell you, I can count on my fingers and toes the times I’ve worn this dress uniform. What you saw when we met is closer to the truth. I usually wear fatigues or jeans. And if I’ve been working with engines, they’re usually covered with grease or dirt.”

  Why was he telling her this? It seemed almost like a warning. He seemed so serious, Veronica felt compelled to make things lighter. “Are you saying this because you want me to do your laundry?” she teased.

  Joe gave her one of his quicksilver grins. Yes, seeing him smile that way, his teeth so very white against his lean, tanned face, Veronica could say that this new haircut definitely suited him. “You want to do my laundry?” he countered.

  The casual question suddenly seemed to carry more meaning, as Joe watched her intently. His dark eyes were sharp, almost piercing as he waited for an answer.

  Veronica laughed, trying to hide her sudden nervousness. Why were they talking about laundry? “I don’t do my own laundry,” she said with a shrug. “When do I have time?”

  She stepped back, opening the door wider to let him in. “We’re standing in the hall,” she added. “Won’t you come in?”

  Joe hesitated. “Maybe we should just go….”

  She smiled. “Think if you come inside we’ll never leave?”

  He touched the side of her face. “I don’t just think it, baby, I know it.”

  She kissed the palm of his hand. “Would that be so terrible?” she whispered, gazing up into the midnight depths of his eyes.

  “No.” He stepped inside the room, closing the door behind him.

  Veronica was nervous. Joe could see that she was nervous as she moved out of his grasp and into the room and—

  The table was set and covered with a very grand-looking room-service dinner. And the rest of the room… Veronica had pushed all the furniture out of the center of the living room.

  She’d done that before. Back in D.C. Back when he’d climbed up to the balcony and gone in her sliding-glass door and…

  Joe looked up to find her watching him. She moistened her lips nervously and smiled. “Dinner and dancing,” she explained. “I made room, so that we could dance.”

  “We?”

  Veronica blushed, but she held his gaze. “So I can dance for you,” she correctly herself softly. “Although, at some point you will dance with me, too. But maybe we should have dinner first.”

  The fragrant smell of gourmet food filled the air. Joe knew that he hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. He also knew that dinner was the very last thing he wanted right now. Veronica was going to dance for him. She was going to dance the way he’d seen her dance when he’d climbed up to her room. Only this time, she would know right from the start that he was watching. “Maybe we should have dinner later,” he said huskily.

  As he watched, she crossed to the window and closed the curtains. God, his heart was pounding as if he’d just run a three-minute mile. He could feel his blood surging hotly through his veins with each pulsing beat. She was really going to do this. She knew he wanted her to—he’d asked her to
dance for him. But he’d never thought she’d actually do it. He thought he’d asked for too much.

  Veronica smiled at him as she crossed back to the dinner table and took a bottle of beer from a small bottle cooler. She opened it, poured it into a glass and carried it to him.

  “Thanks,” Joe said as she handed him both the glass and the bottle.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Veronica murmured, and with a whisper of silk, she moved back to the other side of the room.

  Sit down. Yeah, right. Sit down. As Joe lowered himself into a chair, Veronica crossed to the stereo and slipped a tape into the deck.

  Joe knew what her dancing meant to her. She’d told him that it was private and intensely personal. It was a way to let off steam, to unwind, to really relax. And she was going to share it with him now. She was going to let her personal, private pleasure become his pleasure.

  The fire that was shooting through his veins reached his heart and exploded. Veronica St. John had told him she loved him today. And tonight, by sharing herself with him this way, she was showing him just how much.

  The music started—softly, slowly—and Ronnie stood in the middle of the room, head back, eyes closed, arms at her sides. God, she was beautiful. And she was his. All his. Forever, if he had anything to say about it. And he did. He had a lot to say about it. Hell, he could write a book on the subject.

  The music changed with a sudden burst of volume, and Veronica brought her hands up sharply, into the air.

  And then she began to move.

  She was graceful, fluid, and her dress seemed an extension of her body, moving with her. Her eyes were still closed, but then she opened them and looked directly at Joe.

  She blushed, and his heart burned even hotter. She was such a contradiction. The slightest thing could make her blush—until passion overcame her. And when that happened, she was amazingly uninhibited. Joe had never had a lover like Veronica St. John. One moment she was seemingly prim and proper, and the next she was wild, giving him pleasure in ways he’d only dreamed of, and telling him—quite specifically, in no uncertain terms—exactly what he could and should do to please her.