Holiday Heroes

by Rachel Lee

  She clutched his hand as she had done hundreds of times in the past. Except today the sensation of his skin on hers felt different against her heightened nerve endings. She almost tugged her hand back but found she really didn’t want to. “What do we do next?”

  A double-meaning question if ever she’d heard one. Which way would he choose to answer?

  Hank glanced at their clasped hands now resting on the table and then at the cell phone. His gaze lingered longer on the phone, his chest heaving with a sigh. “We’re on our own until the director of the CIA gets back to me or I can figure out a way to get us to a safe house I know.”

  A safe house? “How far away is this place?”

  “If the weather is kind, we’ll be there by morning.” He squeezed her fingers. “We’re going to be fine, Ginger.”

  She nodded, soaking up the comfort of his broad hand clasped in hers. She couldn’t help but be aware, though, of how in the past he would have given her a comforting hug rather than keep his distance. However, things had changed for them in a silly instant when he’d seen her wearing her favorite red camisole.

  “I’m sorry to have pulled you into this mess, but lordy, Hank, I can’t help but be glad it’s you here with me rather than one of those babies fresh out of secret service training.”

  “Thanks, but I wish we had a couple of those secret service babies around to watch our backs.”

  “Fair enough.” She couldn’t help but think of their battered car outside. “How do you plan to take care of transportation?”

  “It’s dark enough that the couple of bullets the Mercedes took shouldn’t be visible. I’ll slap some sludge up over the marks on the back bumper. For good measure, I’m going to swap out our license plate with someone else’s in the lot in case someone runs the plates.”

  “Do you think it has a tracking device?”

  He shook his head. “The guy driving it was more of a rent-a-cop variety and the car is older. It’s as safe as we’re going to get. Stealing another car is risky. Someone might catch us. Even if they don’t, there’s also the risk of having them report it missing, which gives away the fact we came through here.”

  “Okay, I can see that.”

  “Lucky for us, Mercedes are a dime a dozen in this area, which offers a certain anonymity. That should buy us enough time to get where we need to be.”

  Get there by morning? “It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Then we’d better eat up.” He attacked the last bite of bratwurst in front of him.

  She shoveled a couple more spoonfuls of soup in her mouth and forced herself to swallow. She reached for her roll just as Hank stared past her, frowning. Her jangled nerves jarred back to life. She followed the direction of his gaze. A burly man leaned over the bar to speak with the guy on duty. The bartender nodded, kept nodding, and Ginger could almost foresee his arm slowly rising, pointing…

  Directly at them.

  Her heart picking up speed, she shot out of her chair as Hank threw money on the table. He slung his arm around her.

  She arched up on her toes to look back. “Duck your head. You’re too tall. He’ll see you in the crowd.”

  Hank hunched, pushing his way through the throng, the bar full to the gills with holiday revelers. Ginger crossed her fingers the back door didn’t have some kind of alarm because Hank had pointed them in that direction and there would be no time for changing course.

  They pushed past a couple on the fringes of the dance floor and made it to the bathrooms by the exit. She exhaled her relief. The door seemed to be nothing more than a simple wooden variety.

  Hank twisted the knob and—crap—an alarm blared.

  He didn’t even have to say run this time. She began to sprint only to have him scoop her up again. She really needed to invest in some more practical shoes before this night was over.

  Snow hammered down from the sky—a blessing and a curse. A few steps into the storm and already she couldn’t see the tavern behind them, which meant their pal couldn’t see them either. Only the faint light of the tavern sign managed to flicker through the hammering downpour of snow. Hopefully, their tracks would fill quickly as well.

  Hank tossed her in the car before scrambling half over the hood to take the driver’s seat. The Mercedes fired right up and dodged around two incoming cars that might have slowed down their pursuer. They were safe for a little longer. But in the bad-news department…

  “Hank, I don’t think the weather is going to cooperate with your timetable to reach the safe house.”

  The weather was definitely not cooperating.

  Hank had been scavenging through his memory for a place to take shelter from the snowstorm pounding the Mercedes. The blasting heater couldn’t completely combat the frigid nighttime temperatures. Ginger shivered beside him, silent since they’d left the tavern. Luckily, no one seemed to be following them along the winding mountain roads.

  However, the storm and remote locale also ended any hope of cell phone communication.

  He didn’t expect to have reliable connections back any time soon either. Plus, the crummy weather conditions only allowed for a crawling pace. With ice sheeting from the sky, it wouldn’t be long before this road closed down, too. While he trusted his driving skills, he’d already watched countless cars spin out and off into ditches, more than once taking other vehicles with them. Very likely someone could hit the Mercedes.

  Yet, on the bright side, if the storm kept them from moving, it would also keep whoever had been shooting at them from gaining speed as well. “Are you okay over there?”

  Ginger nodded without taking her eyes from the road, a solid wingman from the get-go, calling out reports on conditions and sliding vehicles after translating updates from the radio. But she’d been quiet the last few minutes while the station switched to holiday music. “Just thinking. Wondering how they’re going to explain away the cancellation of the big Christmas ceremony at the old chapel while still maintaining I’m not missing.”

  He swiped at the front windshield, the defroster unable to keep the windows completely clear.

  “Have you lost faith in me already? I’ll get you there.” Of course, first he had to find somewhere for them to stay before the sedan ran out of gas.

  He recalled from a trip to the area a chalet where he’d done some sightseeing on his own for a couple of days before returning home. He could have sworn the small hotel was up here, but it had been five or so years ago. The place could have gone out of business or his memory could be faulty.

  Not that he’d ever been wrong when it came to navigation. His wife had always sworn she was the one woman married to a man who actually didn’t need to stop and ask for directions.

  Ginger held that bag of hers in a death grip even though the tires kept firm traction as they wound around a bend through a sleepy mountain village. “I had mixed feelings about this trip from the start, too.”

  “What do you mean?” He’d learned long ago to trust instincts in the air and on the battlefield. And if nothing else, keeping her talking might relax her.

  “I know when I signed on for this job, I gave up a significant amount of my personal time, but I really don’t like being away from my family at Christmas.”

  “Your nerves are just fried. Plus you must be exhausted from all these whistle-stops on the goodwill trek across Europe. You definitely need to talk to your social planner when you get home and have her schedule more downtime. A human being needs to do things like take a drink of water, make an occasional trip to the bathroom.”

  She grinned, pressed a gloved hand to her lips, a laugh tripping free. “Lord love ya, Hank, I do so enjoy how you can always make me laugh. You’re the only person I can relax around other than my kids and yours.” She sagged back with a sigh. “I knew I would be apart from my boys for Christmas and thought I’d prepared myself. It’s not like I’m always with all of them, but I’m always with at least one of them.”

  He chuckled low, a little sa
d. “And it seems like I’m never with any of my children for the holidays, never really have been. We learned to celebrate on whatever days we were together.”

  “I guess I do remember a few of those sorts of delayed birthdays when Benjamin was on active duty, but he didn’t stay in the Air Force long enough for the kids to remember him missing anything significant.”

  “You’re lucky.” The memories of those years parted like the windshield wipers slapping away the sheets of snow. “My young’uns remember well. They would say it didn’t matter…but I knew better. A live-in nanny wasn’t enough, yet it was the best I could do.” He studied the road ahead, a narrow path cut by the slim double beams of light. Much like he’d lived his life. “I still wrestle with the guilt over not having gotten out of the military and taken some nine-to-five job.”

  “Your children grew up into amazing adults, and they all joined the Air Force.” Her hand in a black leather glove rested halfway between them on the seat, reaching in comfort, almost there, patting. “I think it must mean they understand that for some people like you, the calling to serve in the armed forces is not something you can deny. It’s in your blood.”

  “They sure each found their own paths. Alicia is one helluva a fighter pilot. That girl never took gruff off of anyone.” His daughter with the call sign “Vogue” had an eclectic style to go along with a strut that cut a swath through a very male-dominated world. Damn, but he was proud of her. He was proud of all three of his kids—even if his relationship was easier with some than with others. “Hank Junior and I don’t get to talk as much as I would like.”

  “It’s tough flying in your father’s plane in the shadow of your father’s stars.” She leaned her chin on her elbow, staring out the window as they drove past a small pond where a few kids braved the weather to skate by the light of a bonfire.

  “I try to stay out of his business.” More like his son tried to stay out of his old man’s way, which seemed to include not talking all that often.

  “But then when it comes to Darcy—”

  “Yeah, yeah, she’s my baby.” His youngest daughter had been kidnapped briefly as a teen in an attempt to get to him. So, of course, his knee-jerk reaction was to check up on her. He tried to rein himself in, and she was a tough cookie who didn’t hesitate to tell him when to back off.

  He couldn’t stop a deep smile from digging into his face. He’d never admitted it to any of them, but Darcy had always been the one who reminded him most of himself. Actually Jessica had pointed out the similarity for the first time.

  Why did he keep thinking of his dead wife today? It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about her. But as the years went by, he found he could make it through days, then weeks without thinking of her. She would always be a part of his past and a part of him, but his life had gone on.

  A week ago, he simply would have turned to Ginger and asked her something about Benjamin, worked the conversation around to how she dealt with it all. Ginger had always been someone he could talk to.

  Just ask her, damn it.

  Except suddenly the snow parted in a swirl and his chalet appeared, a holiday fresco painted on the outside. The gabled inn was small and snow-covered and welcome as hell.

  Ginger shifted in the leather seat next to him, her exhale rattling along with the engine shutting off. “Not exactly how I planned to spend my Christmas week.”

  He eyed the chalet where he would be sharing a room with his best friend, his hot best friend.

  “Don’t give up on Christmas yet. With luck we’ll only have to hide for one night.”

  This big fluffy robe sure didn’t hide as much as she’d like.

  Ginger stood in the bathroom doorway, gripping the tie around her waist. It certainly was a long sprint from here to the sleigh bed where she could dive under the plump comforter to wait for her underwear to dry. Oh, but the bed looked inviting and warm where she could sleep with the sound of the fire snapping, the smell of the evergreen garland decorations reminding her of home as she drifted off…

  Except Hank sat on the edge of the bed. All six foot three inches of him taking up most of the mattress, his BlackBerry held in his hands as he typed away, oblivious to her.

  Wait.

  His BlackBerry!

  Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Good Lord, the man was never without the thing. She’d been so focused on the cell phone, she’d never considered what he could do with e-mail and the Internet, especially with his encryption card. She realized her BlackBerry had been lost in the scuffle, so she hadn’t thought about it again since they’d left the airport.

  Rushing past the roaring fire in the stone hearth, she padded on bare feet over to Hank, stopping by his knees. “Do you have a signal? Are you calling someone to come get us?”

  “The signal is flickering in and out. I’ve sent a message that we’re still safe. It may or may not have gone through. Beyond that, I’m not hearing anything back. But with things so unsure, I can’t risk broadcasting our location to whoever may be on the receiving end of the message.”

  “We’re cut off.” Her knees went weak and she dropped to sit on the brocade wingback chair, holding the edges of the robe together while she stretched her legs to wiggle her toes close to the crackling flames. “We should make the most of this time and work on a list of who would want me dead.”

  “And why.” His gaze skipped along her bare calves. “Reasons help.”

  Sometimes her job really stunk. She tucked her legs underneath her. “You haven’t said ‘I told you so.’”

  “About what?”

  She toyed with the robe’s tie. “You wanted me to wear a bulletproof vest. If I had, you wouldn’t have had to worry about me so much when you were hauling me around that red carpet.”

  Slowly he looked up from the BlackBerry, his deep dark eyes meeting and holding hers with a power that stilled her. “I would have worried about you anyway, Ginger.”

  The wind howled. Sleet dinged the windows. And that undeniable attraction hummed along the thread tugging between them. She couldn’t ignore the muscular strength of him. The man undoubtedly still worked out. He had the kind of body a woman could curl up against. The sort she knew would keep her warm on cold nights, whether it be about sex or tucking her toes between those solid legs.

  She forced herself to swallow. Well, she had to so she could muster up enough moisture to speak. “Thank you.” Her mouth dried up again. She looked away from him, to his BlackBerry. “Back to the list.”

  “Yeah, right.” He rubbed his thumbs over the handheld device. “There were the two threats that came in this morning from new terrorist cells that have popped up along the Russian border.”

  Her cheeks puffed with an exhale. “I remember them from the briefings. You wanted me to bail on today’s meeting.”

  “I wanted more time to gather intel,” he gently corrected.

  “Let’s go over what we do have.”

  “As I said, both groups are in their infancy, but looking to make a statement. The one we believe sprouted out of Rubistan has yet to lash out.” He scratched a hand over his five o’clock shadow. By the bed, the digital clock’s glowing little red numbers silently shouted out a reminder of the lateness of the hour—12: 13 a. m. “They’re still training and posturing.”

  “Unless today was their opening act.” Her eyes slid from the masculine cut of his jaw to his salt-and-pepper hair, trimmed short to military specs. The sprinkles of gray spoke of experience and wisdom. Strength. All of those things made him more appealing, especially on a day when she desperately needed a strong protector at her side.

  Damn it, she didn’t want the heartache of another serious relationship. Why couldn’t he do something totally obnoxious? She forced her mind to stay on the task at hand. “And the other group?”

  “Has risen from the ashes of the suppressed People’s Revolutionary Council in Cantou. They like to dabble in nuclear weaponry. They’ve already tried to park a bomb in a duffel bag at a German
train station. Luckily, the bomb was defused.”

  “Then they’re equal opportunity offenders.”

  “Apparently so.” He cricked his neck from side to side, the white uniform shirt open and displaying a tempting hint of chest. “We have our normal assortment of call-in and write-in threats that come with every event. I wish I had the stack in front of me so I could review—”

  “Hank, you know it takes weeks, sometimes months to trace through all of those reports. It would be a duck shoot, hoping we lucked into the right one in time for it to make a difference tonight.”

  “Instincts count for something when you go duck hunting.”

  “Do you still think they haven’t told the kids about us being missing?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know.”

  She stretched her legs in front of her, cracked her toes, then felt the weight of Hank’s gaze on her calves again. The logs in the fireplace snapped and popped.

  Hank’s chest expanded in his uniform shirt. “We’ll need to get back on the road the minute the weather breaks.”

  “Of course.”

  “You should turn in now and nab as much rest as possible.”

  Go to bed? Did he intend to get off the mattress before she stretched out? Or was he going to sleep, too?

  She couldn’t imagine he would give up his watch even though he should snag a couple of hours of shut-eye.

  “Uh, I’m going to put my clothes back on first, in case we need to leave quickly.” She would simply suffer through damp underwear.

  She sprinted for the bathroom and slid back into her clothes, minus the panty hose and high heels. If she’d been alone, she could have slept in the camisole and tap pants…She couldn’t resist the grin that thinking of how that would surely make Hank stop in his tracks brought to her face.

  “Ginger,” his voice called through the wall. “We’ve got an e-mail.”

  Chapter 4

  Hank jostled the weight of the BlackBerry in his hands as well as the weight of the message in his mind. Could he trust the simple text on a day when shots appeared to have come at him and Ginger from allies? Maybe even from within their own camp?