Hell for Leather

by Julie Ann Walker

  Okay? No. Hell, no, he was not okay. Not even close to being okay. Because in the last forty-eight hours, as he watched her stoically suffer pokes and prods from the medical staff, as he watched her answer a gazillion questions from the civilian-clad CIA agent sent in to debrief her, as he watched her refuse to leave her uncle’s bedside, he’d come to the awful conclusion that he’d not only fallen a little bit…but a lot in love with her. As in, all the way. Ass-over-tea-kettle.

  Delilah Fairchild, with her smile and charm, with her bravery and grit, had stolen his goddamned heart. Like a thief in the night. Or maybe it was more like a thief in the day. Because she’d made no bones about her pursuit of him. Not even at the very beginning. So, yessir, the fact that he’d reneged on his pledge to himself was nobody’s fault but his own.

  Which pissed him off. And…scared him to death.

  Goddamn history…why did it have to go and repeat itself?

  “Mac?” Delilah said again. “You’re starting to scare me. What is it? Is Fido—”

  “No, no,” he assured her, shaking himself out of his own head. “Fido’s fine. In fact, Steady said the vet will release him tomorrow mornin’. We can make sure someone transports him up here. If you’d like, he can be at the bar waitin’ when you bring Theo home.” He motioned with his chin toward the softly snoring old man.

  And there it was again. That goddamn smile. The one that said he hung the moon and had the ability to jump over it. It was a problem, that smile. It made him want to throw caution to the wind.

  “I’d like that very much,” she said, pushing to a stand.

  He gulped as she strolled toward him. She was wearing her standard daily get-up of painted-on jeans and a soft, body-hugging T-shirt. And that sensual, hip-swaying gait of hers? Well, there should be some kind of law against it. It was just too mesmerizing, reminding him of all they’d done together not so very long ago, taunting him with the things he’d never allow himself to do again. And it was no surprise when Little Mac, the prick—ha!—took notice of her approach. He had to adjust his stance.

  “Were you able to get the bikes transported up?” she asked, stopping barely a foot from him. Close enough so that he could smell the spicy sweetness of her. Close enough so that he could see the golden flecks in the centers of her pretty green eyes. He loved those little bits of yellow, like the first autumn leaves turning on a tree.

  Oh, for the love of… And now what am I? A freakin’ poet?

  He nodded. It was all he could manage with his tongue threatening to hang out like a dog’s. She was so beautiful. Too beautiful.

  “Good.” She nodded. “Thank you for that.”

  “No problem,” he somehow managed to say while keeping his tongue clamped firmly between his teeth.

  “Mac?” She tilted her head, her sleek auburn brows angling down. He loved it when they did that. The smooth arches curling at the innermost edges, a delightful little wrinkle forming between them. Good God, and now you’re going on about her eyebrows? He really was in sad, sad shape. And that…well…he wasn’t too proud to say, made him feel the need to vamoose himself, like, yesterday. The soles of his feet were actually itching to send him running far and fast and…farther away from her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  No, goddamnit! He was not okay! Because somehow he’d allowed himself to fall, despite everything, despite knowing better. And he was a damned fool. A glutton for punishment. Doomed to follow the path of—

  He shook the half-formed thought from his head. “Did you, uh, think any more about that offer to work on the Winterfield case?” And, yeah, that was good. Work. He should be focusing on work.

  Now that the “powers that be” had proof Luke Winterfield had, indeed, sold state secrets to the highest bidder, he was officially listed as a traitor to the United States of America, persona non grata extraordinaire. And POTUS himself had tasked The Company with finding the guy in his South American hideout. Considering Delilah’s unparalleled expertise in following the convoluted path of money trails and given her close ties with and personal stake in the case—much to Mac’s surprise—the CIA had actually had the good sense and foresight to try to bring her on board as an asset. Will wonders never cease?

  “I did.” She nodded. He couldn’t help but notice the way it caused a lock of auburn hair to drift over her shoulder. It reminded him of how she’d looked atop the dresser in the Noel Motel, head back, breasts lifted, her long hair playing hide-and-seek with her rosy, delicious nipples. Jesus Christ! And now Little Mac, good soldier that he was, was standing at full attention. “The…um…” She glanced around to make sure no one was listening in, before leaning in close. Her sweet-smelling breath tickled his chin. “The Company is installing a secure server back at my place as we speak. As soon as I get Uncle Theo settled, I’m going to start digging.” She cocked her head. “I…I think it’ll be…sort of…cathartic, I guess would be the word.”

  “Yeah.” Mac swallowed.

  “Mac?” Her soft palm landed on his arm, reminding him of how it’d felt when it was wrapped firmly around his erection, tugging, stroking, bringing so much pleasure.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. “I gotto go,” he blurted, causing her wonderfully piquant chin to jerk back. Piquant? Okay, and could a chin even be piquant? Or was that just his silly, fanciful, ridiculous obsession with her—and every single, itty-bitty part of her—coming out?

  “O-okay?” She blinked. And, yeah. He could go on about her lashes for a while, too. About how long they were. About how he loved that the tips glinted blond in the light when she wasn’t wearing any mascara, like now. Fuck…

  “There are…” He had to stop and clear his throat. Someone, at some point, had shoved a big ol’ wad of cotton down there. “Uh…things back at the shop that—”

  “It’s okay, Mac.” And there it was again. That goddamned smile. He barely resisted lifting a hand to his chest in an effort to stymie the ache of his heart. “I understand. You’ve been playing nursemaid and right-hand man to the both of us,” she hooked a thumb toward her uncle, “for long enough. We’re good now. Really. Go take care of what you need to take care of.”

  What he needed to take care of? He needed to take care of the idiotic, ill-timed, ill-fated love he’d developed for her. That’s what he needed to take care of.

  “Delilah, I—” He stopped. Unsure of how to go on. Uncertain, even, if he should. How did he tell her all the things he felt, all the things she meant to him now and couldn’t mean to him in the future? How did he tell her about—

  “What is it, Mac?”

  He swallowed. Damn, were those tears burning the back of his nose? “I’ll…uh…I’ll see you later, darlin’.”

  And with that, he turned tail and ran like the yellow-bellied coward he was.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Red Delilah’s Biker Bar

  Three weeks later…

  I’ll see you later, darlin’…

  Whenever it was quiet and empty in the bar, like now, Mac’s last words echoed through Delilah’s head, taunting her.

  For the first week, those five words had filled her with hope. Hope that he would walk through her door at any moment. Hope that he would take her in his arms and tell her he’d been crazy not to give her, give them, a chance. Hope that he would see that what they had was too precious and rare to let slip away before it was ever given an opportunity to really start.

  But one week slid into two, and he’d done none of those things. Her hope had been replaced with disbelief. Disbelief and hurt. She couldn’t understand why he was avoiding her. That had never been part of their bargain. And if it had been, she wouldn’t have signed herself up for it. Because she’d never, never been prepared to give up everything. To give up his friendship. To give up the chance of seeing his dazzling smile or his adorably crooked nose. To give up ever hearing his slow, Texas drawl.

  And then it’d occurred to her that perhaps he wasn’t avoiding her at all. That perhaps he was s
imply out on a mission somewhere, deep in a jungle or sweating in some desert. He was a super-secret spy-guy, right?

  But she’d quickly been relieved of that little misconception when, one night after a handful of the Knights came in to enjoy some peanuts and brews, she’d oh-so-casually let slip a question to Ozzie about Mac’s “secret” whereabouts. Ozzie had frowned and informed her that there was nothing secretive about it. Mac was back at the shop, cleaning out the fuel lines on Siren.

  Uh-huh. And there’d gone that little glimmer of optimism, crushed beneath Ozzie’s words as surely as Roscoe Porter—one of her most loyal patrons—crushed beer cans against his big, wrinkled forehead.

  Which brought her to today. Three weeks into what she’d come to call The Great Disappearing Act. And even though the words I’ll see you later, darlin’ still accosted her from time to time, they no longer brought with them hope or disappointment or hurt. Nope. Now they just pissed her off.

  What the hell is wrong with him? The man doesn’t even have the decency to—

  “You’re going to slice off a finger the way you’re handling that knife,” her Uncle Theo observed. She was behind the bar, cutting up lemons and limes to be used in cocktails. When she glanced at him—he was sitting on a stool across from her, the Chicago Sun-Times in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other—she couldn’t stop the little sigh of relief that whispered from between her lips. He was healthy. And alive. And save for a little scar near his temple and the crutches he still had to use, no one looking at him would know what a harrowing ordeal he’d been through.

  But she would never forget. Never forget the fear in his eyes. The tears streaming down his face. The blood. God, there’d been a lot of blood…

  No, she’d never forget. Not if she lived to be a hundred years old. She wiped her hands on her apron and reached across the bar, squeezing his hand.

  He made a clucking noise, his bushy, white mustache drooping at the corners. “How long until you stop needing to touch me every thirty seconds to assure yourself I’m really here?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I don’t know. It might be a while yet.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but a sharp knock on the front door sent Fido scrambling out from under her feet and racing around the end of the bar. His doggy nails scraped against the hardwood floor, alerting her to the fact that it was probably time to take out the clippers. Dog ownership had its own learning curve, one she was enjoying immensely. And besides seeing her uncle healthy and happy—well, as happy as he could be considering he’d watched one of his oldest acquaintances die at the hands of terrorists. She knew he was still struggling with that—nothing gave her more pleasure than to know Fido had completely recovered. The dog had nothing to show for his close brush with death except for a six-inch scar furrowing through the yellow hair on his chest.

  “Yorp! Yorp! Yorpyorpyorp!” he sang happily as both Delilah and her uncle yelled toward the door, “We’re closed!”

  “It’s Zoelner!” came the reply from outside, and Delilah’s hand jumped to her throat when her heart tried to escape from her body via that route.

  Mac…. Something had happened to Mac and—

  She hopped over the bar, not bothering to use the hinged ledge at the end. Hurdling a barstool, she was across the room in two seconds, twisting the locks and throwing open the door. Zoelner stood on the threshold in jeans and a leather jacket, his expression unreadable.

  “Mac,” she said, or at least tried to say. Her throat was so restricted by the presence of her heart that it came out sounding more like a wheezing Mahhh. She swallowed and tried again. “Is he okay? Is he hurt? Do you—”

  “Relax,” Zoelner said, grabbing her elbow and steering her back into the bar. “Mac’s fine.” A whooshing sigh of relief gushed from her, and it was then she realized her knees were shaking like the overhead fixtures tended to do on Wednesday nights when a troop of local line-dancers took over the place. When Zoelner spotted her uncle sitting at the bar, he dipped his chin. “Theo. You’re looking well. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see that.”

  “Thanks to you and the boys of BKI,” her uncle said.

  Zoelner waved off his comment. “No need for thanks. Just doing our jobs.”

  And Delilah still couldn’t quite believe how blasé her uncle had been when she explained to him in the hospital—after getting the go-ahead from Frank “Boss” Knight, of course—what exactly the Black Knights were and why exactly they’d been there assisting in his rescue.

  Yeah, that makes sense, was all he’d said in answer to her revelation. Then he’d gone back to eating pudding while watching the Cardinals trounce the Cubs on the television hanging from the hospital ceiling.

  Makes sense? Makes sense? she’d thought at the time. In what world? But then she figured it made sense in the covert government mission world her uncle had been a part of back in the day. And, go figure, they’d not mentioned a word of it since.

  Men, she thought with an eye roll. Then she decided to narrow that down to super-secret former and/or current government men… They were seriously exasperating.

  “When does the cast come off?” Zoelner asked her uncle, bending to scratch Fido behind the ears. The dog was sitting in front of him, holding a paw up for a shake.

  “Next week, thank goodness,” her uncle said. “I’ve had an itch I haven’t been able to get to for six days now.”

  “Sounds awful.” Zoelner grinned, rubbing Fido’s belly when it was presented to him. The big goofy canine was on his back, thick tail swooshing across the floorboards, head thrown back so his upper jowls sagged and made him look like he was smiling maniacally. Delilah could only shake her head and grin, wondering how she’d ever lived without the dog’s daily antics to make her laugh. Then Zoelner glanced up at her. “You got a couple of minutes? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Sure,” she said, brow puckering. “You want some coffee?” She glanced at her watch. It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but the look on Zoelner’s face told her he could maybe use something a little stronger. “Or a beer, perhaps?”

  “Coffee’s fine,” Zoelner said, standing and walking with her over to the bar. He grabbed a stool while she skirted the long mahogany length. This time she took the time to lift the hinged section at the end before slipping in behind.

  While she poured him a cup of joe, her uncle folded his newspaper, grabbed his crutches, and said, “I’m gonna head outside to smoke a cigar.” He shot her a meaningful look. “And I don’t want to hear a word about it.”

  “The doctors say you should stop smoking those things.” She placed her hands on her hips, completely ignoring his second sentence.

  He rolled his eyes. “The doctors also say I’ve got the cholesterol levels of a twenty-year-old.” He began hobbling toward the door at the back of the bar, the one leading to the alley. “So I figure I’m ahead of the curve. Besides, a man my age has to enjoy what pleasures he can.”

  “And speaking of pleasures,” she called to him, “stop sharing your stogies with the agents in the surveillance cars. You’re a bad influence!”

  He simply lifted a hand to wave her off.

  “He’s a tough old coot,” Zoelner observed.

  “And stubborn,” she agreed, smiling after her uncle. “He insists there’s no reason for the CIA to keep an eye on him even though the head honchos in that al-Qaeda group know he’s now the only living person with the exact coordinates of five missing nuclear warheads.”

  “Three,” Zoelner said.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s only three now,” he told her. “Given this most recent development, the DOD decided it behooved them to allocate a portion of their healthy budget to the retrieval of the nukes. Two have already been raised from the sea floor. The salvage of the remaining three is underway.”

  “About damn time, if you ask me,” she said, wondering, not for the first time, at the idiocy of a government that w
ould not put the recovery of nuclear weapons at the very top of its to-do list.

  Zoelner shrugged, and there was that look again. The one that made her wonder if she should renew her offer of a beer. She tilted her head. “You’re not here at the bequest of Agent Duvall, are you? Was I wrong? Did the Intel I gave them on the ghost accounts Winterfield set up in Argentina not pan out? Does she want me to—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Chelsea Duvall,” Dagan spat the name like one usually spits out rancid meat. “She was a pain in the ass while I worked for The Company, and now, thanks to her spiffy new title, she’s a pain in my ass again.”

  Uh-huh. Pain in the ass. Did Zoelner realize when he said that, it sounded like a euphemism for my wildest fantasy come true? Usually she would have called him on his bullshit, but there was that look again. It was really beginning to trouble her. “So, then, um…what did you want to talk about?”

  “Do you love Mac?”

  “Say what?” She must have misheard him.

  “Do you love Mac?” he repeated, and yeah, okay, so she hadn’t misheard him. He’d asked it. That question. The question. Her scalp began to tingle.

  “I don’t know how that’s any of your—”

  “Because he loves you.”

  Thunk. The sentence landed with the weight of a tractor trailer. Was the room spinning, or was that just her head? Then, reality—and the words I’ll see you later, darlin’—slammed into her. She shook herself.

  “Yeah, right!” she scoffed, grabbing the coffee pot to top off his nearly full cup. She needed something to distract herself, to keep him from seeing just how much his words affected her. “The man has been avoiding me like I’m a plague carrier. If that’s how he treats someone he loves, I’d hate to see how he treats someone he hates.”

  Zoelner reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photo, slapping it down on the bar. She leaned forward, examining the picture. A woman. Black hair. Blue eyes. Nice face. Curvaceous figure.