Hotshot

by Mann, Catherine

  TEN

  Two hours later, Shay walked toward her car, working like crazy to keep her temper from exploding and to keep from falling to her knees in abject terror.

  Barely, just barely, her steps stayed even with Vince’s on her way across the community center’s parking lot to get her car. She’d held her silence so far, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could seal the lid on her feelings if she didn’t get away from Vince very soon.

  For days, he and her father had been keeping her in the dark about an unthinkable danger lurking. She’d been deluding herself by imagining Vince might be here to put the past to rest, to make peace.

  To reconnect with her.

  Her feet pounded the steaming asphalt even harder.

  Idiot.

  All those warm fuzzy moments of sharing back in the hotel had meant nothing to him. He’d simply been distracting her to keep her off track until it suited him to bring her in the loop.

  And oh God, if she started thinking about possible terror attacks at that hearing, she would hyperventilate.

  Vince’s arm shot in front of her to stop her, his eyes shaded behind badass wraparound sunglasses. “All right, spill it. What’s pissing you off? And don’t bother denying it. I’m developing a BS-ometer of my own.”

  She pivoted on her ridiculous gladiator sandals she’d put on with him in mind. Only a dozen more steps, and she would have been home free, cranking her car for her big escape. “I have no intention of denying a thing. I was only paying you the common courtesy of not blasting you in front of your work friends.”

  “None of them are here now. Blast away.”

  She hadn’t expected him to agree. Shay looked around to make sure nobody was listening, privacy ramping up to a whole new level. Other than a few stray cars and the old lady across the street painting over the side of her white brick building, everyone else must be sleeping in on Saturday morning.

  But still. “Let’s sit in my car.”

  Striding away, she thumbed the Unlock button, Vince’s biker boots thudding behind her. She settled behind the wheel, waiting until Vince slid into the passenger seat, folding his bulk into her compact. She considered turning on the engine and cranking the AC, but the morning hadn’t heated up the inside yet. Vince waved for her to continue.

  “So you and your friends are some kind of special flyers,” she blurted. What the hell? She wanted to know more about the threat, about her kids, not about him.

  He paused, obviously measuring his words.

  “Damn it, Vince.” She lowered her voice if not her anger. “I get that there’s a big investigation going on, and I’m supposed to help the Feds by spilling my guts about these teens after I’ve spent years doing everything I can to get them to trust me. But I’m still a little confused on what you’re doing here.”

  He thumbed the cracked dashboard. “My friends and I are pitching in with surveillance. We belong to a test squadron that brings new aircraft and equipment into the military’s arsenal. Sometimes we’re called upon to use those toys in conjunction with other governmental venues.”

  “Like my CIA daddy.”

  “It’s best we guard our words carefully outside of secured rooms. You’ve already been given special consideration because of your father.”

  “Thank you,” she said tightly.

  “Wish you meant that.”

  “Wish you would answer my questions.”

  He folded his arms across his chest, the vinyl seat crackling beneath him. “Fine. Ask what you want, and I’ll answer what I can.”

  How much truth would she get? “I thought you were a pilot.”

  “A test pilot. I have a degree in mechanical engineering. I like to fly, but I like to play with how it all goes together. My mom said I started taking apart my moving Happy Meals toys at three years old to see the machines inside. Taking apart dirt bikes then motorcycles naturally followed. And here I am.”

  Charming, but not the point. “Quit trying to distract me with cute little childhood stories. And quit hiding behind those sunglasses.” She tugged them off his face. “I’m mad and I’m scared and I have just cause.”

  He took his glasses back with a surprisingly gentle hand and hooked them on the neck of his T-shirt. “You saw that a search of Kevin’s apartment turned up information linking him to a possible terrorist plot directed at the hearing. It’s likely he tried to rob the clinic that night to raise cash to leave town after the Feds searched his place. I wish the threat could have died with him, but everything indicates otherwise.”

  “What things?”

  “I can’t tell you all the details, but suffice it to say we have picked up on enough cell phone chatter from known terrorist entities to be . . . concerned . . . but we haven’t been able to pinpoint the direct source yet. I hope you realize your father and I are doing our level best to keep you safe.”

  “My father. Right.” It always came back to what Vince felt he owed her father. “I understand more than you think.” Like how easily she could be led off track by his intense eyes and quick smile. Not this time, Hotshot. “My father knew before Kevin broke in. You knew before I gathered that powder keg together under the clinic roof. I know you used a conversation with me to plant a listening device in my place, on my turf.”

  He leaned closer, close enough he had to look down to meet her gaze. “Think, Shay. If we went ballistic hauling folks in for questioning, we might have lucked into nabbing someone lower down in the chain. But we wouldn’t have found the people responsible, and the hit could very likely still carry through with hundreds, even thousands dying. Including the visiting members of Congress. And including you.”

  She blinked back tears of frustration and anger and even helplessness, because he could be right. “Did it ever cross your mind that I could have helped?”

  “That’s the only reason you’re in the loop now. But never forget you’re a civilian. You don’t have a need to know everything. If you want the right to know that comes with a uniform, feel free to join up any time.”

  Her tears dried in the face of his cool tones that echoed too closely to overheard fights between her mother and father. “You can’t even bring yourself to say you’re sorry.”

  “What do I have to be sorry for? We were careful not to violate anyone’s rights. The bomb threat should make you realize more than ever the urgency of what we’re doing. I was called in to do a job, and I have done it to the best of my ability in the very short time frame I was given. I am sorry that people are dead, more than I could ever express, and I’m going to work my ass off to make sure no one else is killed.” He angled closer still, crowding her in the already tight confines of the compact, his voice rumbling low, deep. Intimate. “We’re just trying to round up the right people so they can be put away.”

  She backed from him, from the urge to flatten her palm to his chest. “Okay, so you want my input. Fine. It’s more complicated than simply arresting or deporting these people. Take MS-13 for example, an L.A.-based gang comprised mostly of immigrants from El Salvador. It started out as a group looking to protect themselves and morphed into a street gang. Cops deported some of them back home, but the country was in the middle of a civil war. Those gangbangers became experts in guerilla warfare, skills they brought right back here to the States. Now we’re dealing with drugs, human trafficking, weapons smuggling.”

  He clasped her arms. “That should tell you right there the scope of what we’re confronting. People are already terrified of these kids. If these gangs cause a major event during this televised hearing, how jazzed do you think taxpayers are going to feel about giving tax dollars for more of your pizza parties and small group sharing?”

  “Is that really all you think I’m doing? Throwing pizza parties and hosting campfire chats over s’mores?”

  His silence said too much.

  God, she’d had enough. Of this. Of him. She needed to go home.

  Shay grasped the key in the ignition. “I guess we’re at an
impasse.”

  He put his hand over hers. “We still have to work together.”

  “I know what’s important.” She put his hand back on his knee. Even if her retreat could only be temporary, she needed to regroup. “I’ll do my job. Thank you for getting me back safely to my car, but I really need some time alone to think.”

  Just go?

  Did she really think she could dismiss him that way? Standing by his bike, Vince watched Shay rest her forehead against the steering wheel in her rust bucket of a car. This woman was wreaking havoc on his mind.

  He hadn’t even found out where she intended to go now that she had her car and a lone credit card retrieved from her apartment.

  He would not let his hormones affect his judgment.

  Vince charged back over to her car and knocked on her window. “Shay, get out.”

  She turned her head to the side, still resting on the wheel. A sigh shuddered through her so visibly he didn’t even need to hear it. Her mouth moved with a clear no.

  “Come on, Shay. We’re not done here.” Not by a long shot. He opened the door. “Step out.”

  She stayed put and silent.

  He sighed just as hard as she had and added, “Please.”

  She sagged back in the seat. “Where I come from, no means no.”

  He grasped her hand and tugged her out. “Please listen without interrupting for once.” She opened her mouth with a gasp, and he tapped it closed. “Maybe you have a point about your input being valuable earlier on, but this isn’t some paint by numbers deal where everything just fell into place. There are real world, big stakes here, and I fucking care what happens to you.”

  Her mouth fell open again, but this time in total shock.

  Screw it all. Adrenaline flooded reason.

  He sealed his mouth to hers. She went stock-still. For all of two seconds.

  She fisted her hands in his shirt, twisting, tugging him closer. Oh yeah. He swept his tongue along the seam of her lips, and she parted, opening, inviting, meeting the thrust with a bold taste of her own.

  He pressed closer, anchoring her against the side of the car, all the pent-up heat from the very long and sleepless night pouring out of him into this kiss. A kiss that beat the hell out of anything he’d fantasized about as a teenager.

  Her arms slid around his neck, her hips rocking against his in an unmistakable answer to the frenzy roaring through him harder and faster than any souped-up bike. He palmed her head, fingers spearing through her silky hair until the short ponytail came free. The hair band fell to the ground. Whispery curls teased around and over his fingers, as sexy and elusive as Shay.

  The soft give of her breasts against his chest only reminded him how vulnerable she was. He fit his leg between hers, the reins on his restraint getting thinner by the second. Much longer, and they would need to take this somewhere else, somewhere less public.

  He eased his mouth from hers, and her forehead fell to rest on his chest. Thank God she wasn’t ready to talk yet.

  And she wasn’t bolting.

  He forced ragged breaths in and out, his hand still cradling her head, testing the glide of her hair against his fingers. Willing his heart rate to slow, he scanned the deathly quiet lot. He would have expected some kids to be shooting hoops on the weekend, even in the morning. The bomb threat last night must have scared everyone into staying clear today, because he saw nothing more than the occasional car.

  A four-door compact slowed on its way past the center, darn near crawling, like tourists rubbernecking to check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Except there sure wasn’t much to see here, other than that old lady sweeping a roller of white paint up and down her brick grocery corner market. He checked out the sparse foot traffic: an old man walking his dog, a young guy jogging.

  His eyes went back to the car. A truck roared around a corner, speeding to pass the four-door. Vince tried to make out the driver in the slowing vehicle but couldn’t see through the tinted windows. Very tinted.

  “Shay,” he whispered against the top of her head, a bad feeling dumping acid in his gut.

  “Vince,” she answered, her voice soft and husky, “no talking. Not yet, please.”

  “Shay—”

  The window on the sedan rolled down. A glint showed with raising arms pulling—

  “Shit.”

  A gun.

  “Shay, down, damn it! Down!”

  Vince tackled her to the ground just as gunfire popped through the air. They landed. Hard. Asphalt tore up his elbows, but better that than the lethal rip of a bullet into flesh.

  Shay wriggled beneath him. “The guard. We need to warn him.”

  Gunfire sprayed, pocking the ground, ping, ping, pinging off her car.

  “I think the guard already knows,” Vince barked in her ear, tucking her closer, pressing as near to the car as possible. He considered climbing in but didn’t want to risk rising. “Don’t move. Do. Not. Move.”

  “Believe me”—Shay wriggled beneath him—“I’m not running anywhere.”

  The air roared around him with the sounds of war. A scream echoed from across the street, the squeal of tires, and still the shots continued. From more weapons? Other shooters?

  He turned his head and looked under her car, trying to assess the threat from his limited vantage point. She wriggled again. “Be still.”

  “I’m trying to look,” she shouted. “Maybe I can see who it is.”

  Him looking was one thing. Shay exposing her face was another matter altogether. “An ID won’t mean a thing if you’re dead.”

  “I’m more likely to smother,” she muttered, her breath hot against his cheek.

  Her heart pounded against him, hard, fast with a fear she wouldn’t let past her bravado. His arms convulsed around her. Breasts to chest, her hips cradled against him, and yeah, his body was hepped up with adrenaline and still hard from their kiss. He would worry about the erection later, once the bullets stopped.

  He clutched her closer, her citrusy smell filling what little air there was between them. Screw waiting for these thugs to quit shooting. What if the shooter left the car? He had to get Shay out of here. He slid his arm up to open the door . . .

  Just as brakes squealed, and the car sped away.

  That fast it was over. Silence surrounded them. The neighborhood echoed with that wounded quiet after a storm. He scanned the parking lot, the basketball court, across the street . . .

  Abandoned. Everyone had run for cover.

  And Shay was still alive. He kissed her again, firmly.

  Slowly, the air around them cooled as a siren sounded in the distance. He eased up onto his elbows, lifting himself from her, even as their mouths held until the very . . . last . . . second. Shay stared up at him with confused but passion-fogged eyes. He started to apologize, but apparently his voice wasn’t working right yet.

  He turned his head to the side, coughing to clear his throat and hopefully his mind. A glint on the asphalt on the other side of her car tripped his attention. He stared harder, his brain on a fucking gerbil wheel trying to process everything barraging him. About six feet away lay something he recognized well from his first night in town. Their shooter had used and tossed.

  The gun from Shay’s little backpack.

  ELEVEN

  Fifty yards away, Officer Jaworski sealed the little gun in the evidence bag.

  Shay hugged her stomach while crowds gathered and gawked across the street. There had been a time when she didn’t care if she lived or died. That time had long passed.

  She looked at her bullet-pocked car and shivered. Police had roped off the scene, marking shell casings on the ground, more bullet holes in the center’s street sign and a billboard. She was seriously starting to hate this parking lot.

  At least no one had died this time, which was somewhat comforting, but the increasing violence brought a thick cloud of impending doom she couldn’t shake. She snuck a glance at Vince standing solid and steady beside her. The past ho
ur had been filled with giving statements, and while she hated what had happened, she welcomed the distraction from speaking about what happened before the shooting.

  A kiss that still had her body on edge, her senses already on total overload from the shots, the danger, the fear. She plowed her fingers through her hair, remembering the urgency of his touch as he’d freed her short ponytail.

  Vince moved closer, the heat of him warming her back, his head dipping toward her ear. “While we’re stuck here cooling our heels waiting for Jaworski’s questions, you and I should talk.”

  Not in this lifetime, Hotshot. “Talk about what?”

  “Don’t play coy here. We can’t ignore that kiss. Hell, probably half the neighborhood saw.”

  “Then half the neighborhood witnessed a mistake. Quite frankly, I’m more focused on the drive-by.”

  “A mistake?” he hissed as if he hadn’t even heard the rest of what she’d said. “You can’t tell me you didn’t feel something last night in the hotel room. Even before that. This has been building for a long time.”

  “And now we know.”

  “Damn straight. There’s a chemistry here that needs to be dealt with.”

  “I am dealing with it. By staying away from fire.” This man had already burned her once without laying a finger on her. She didn’t want to think of how badly he could singe her to the core given free rein over her body. Or worse yet, her feelings.

  One thing was certain. She couldn’t trust her own will-power anymore. She needed to put distance between them.

  Without a word, she strode toward . . . she wasn’t sure what, except the destination would be somewhere away from Vince.

  She made it all of three steps.

  He gripped her upper arm, his touch nearly as hot as the fire it stoked. “You can’t just put your fingers in your ears and chant, ‘La, la, la, I’m not listening.’ ”

  “Says who?” She shrugged to tug free, but he held firm.

  Just her arm, for crying out loud, and already she ached deep and low to dive right back in for round two of wrapping herself around Vince’s hard-muscled body.