Guarding Laura

by Susan Vaughan

  The evening loomed ahead. No performance of Diner to occupy them. Only the long night. In the small cabin.

  Alone. Together.

  So when he suggested dinner out, she agreed with alacrity. They’d be out in public, he assured her, and one of the other officers would provide backup for the outing.

  After a dinner of blackened Atlantic salmon with buttery new potatoes and followed by blueberry pie, they went to the blues club in Rockland.

  From a handkerchief-size table in a dark corner, they listened to the guitar riffs and cigarette voices of Sammy McKee and the Smokehouse Band from somewhere in the Midwest. The five-piece group borrowed songs and styles from a mix of genres, ranging from the Texas swing tune “Blues for Dixie” to “She Gotta Thing Goin’ On,” that was pure Chicago.

  “I’d forgotten you liked the blues,” Laura said at the band’s break.

  “I didn’t know you did.” He covered her hand with his and held it gently but firmly, his hard gaze daring her to object.

  The server delivered their refills, Chardonnay for her, club soda for him. A steady parade of more-or-less sober patrons jostled past them, on the way to the rest rooms or to the bar. Odors of hops and smoke swirled with their passage.

  Laura smiled and relaxed, admiring the contrasting textures of smooth muscle and coarse hair on his powerful arms. “I know you don’t drink because of your dad, but there’s a lot I don’t know about recent years. Can you tell me more about Afghanistan?”

  “You understand I can’t give specifics.” When she nodded, he continued, “But here’s a story that will appeal to the anthropologist. I was in the eastern mountains, where Taliban holdouts were hunkered down. My partner and I were scouting a cave.”

  “Alone?”

  “No.” He offered no explanation.

  “Ah. That means you were with a Special Forces unit. Muscle to accompany the intelligence officers. I thought all that was declassified by now, but never mind.”

  Grinning, he shook his head. “Laura, you would’ve made one hell of an intelligence officer. Nobody’s secrets would be safe from you.”

  “Why thank you, sir. I think. Do go on with your story.”

  “Our Afghan escort lagged behind, but he suddenly caught up to us yelling, ‘Samla! Samla!’”

  “Samla,” she repeated. “What does it mean?”

  “I’ll get to that.” His boyish grin started a pulse beating low in her body. “That was early days for me in that wild country, and I was still learning the language. Both of us turned. I thought he was just calling for us to wait, not to leave him behind.”

  “But he wasn’t?”

  He shook his head. “When gunfire erupted behind us and he dived behind a boulder, I caught on quick. He was warning us of an ambush. Samla means Get down.”

  “The man risked his life to warn you. Was he all right?”

  She watched Cole’s eyes darken as he remembered. “He took a bullet in the leg. But he lived.”

  “And so did you.” With her free hand, she traced the webbed scar on his chin. “Is that when you got this?”

  “I learned to duck lower and faster after that.” His reaction to her caress, a rumble deep within, sounded suspiciously like a purr. Did wolves purr? “You must have had some adventures as an anthropologist? Or am I thinking archeologist?”

  She laughed. “No digs or aboriginal burial sites. A few trips to Egypt and China. I even spent time in Iraq before war and looting destroyed many museum treasures. Seven thousand years of Mesopotamian history.” She shook her head sadly. “But my most eye-opening adventures were at home. In D.C.”

  “From your expression, I’m guessing you don’t mean the one that sent you on the road.”

  She shook her head, wanting to escape all the fear and dread for tonight. “No, I’m referring to my volunteer work at the Sojourner Truth Community Center.”

  “Work with kids?” Avid interest lighting his eyes, he leaned forward, probably to hear her better over the canned music.

  To fill the break, a deejay spun tunes by New Orleans song-writer Tab Benoit, the next week’s performer. Laura tapped her foot to the Cajun beat as she considered how to tell Cole about her girls.

  “I do—did—tutoring and tennis lessons with a group of four teenaged girls who’ve been in trouble with the law.”

  “I’d sooner shoot it out with Colombian drug lords. What are these kids like?”

  “They’re pretty amazing. Strong, resilient. At least one is ambitious. I miss them as much as my support group. I enjoy the kids at Passabec, but most of them don’t tug at my heart the way those girls did.”

  His brows beetled as though he were trying to picture her—the privileged princess—with ghetto kids. “Go on.”

  “Jamila’s gang member brother dragged her into some of their dealings. Desirée’s quiet, sometimes too quiet. She was sleeping on the street some nights because one of her mother’s boyfriends tried to climb into her bed.” The image of her narrow little face, pinched with fear, gave Laura’s heart a sharp twist. “And Missy was headed down the road—I should say street—to prostitution, with her older sister’s tutelage.”

  “I see they got to you. Who’s the ambitious one?”

  “Tanisha. Now she’s a piece of work.” Laura smiled, remembering the girl quivering with intensity, bells jangling on her many braids. “She’s a cross between Queen Latifah and Serena Williams.”

  “Big mouth and big swing?”

  She chuckled at his perception. “Exactly. She thinks tennis is her ticket out of the ghetto. She has talent, but I’m no expert tennis coach. I wonder what’s happened to them, whether the center found someone to replace me.”

  He brought her hand to his lips. Her skin tingled at his light kiss. “Nobody could replace you, Laura. Not with your combination of guts and talent. You’ll make it back to them. I’ll see to it.”

  “I believe you.” The heat of his blue gaze shimmered into her body, and she needed him to keep talking, to give her time to bolster her resistance. “You mentioned Colombian drug lords. Was that duty as dangerous as Afghanistan?”

  He shrugged. “Colombia was more intelligence coordination and less combat potential. Locals were less suspicious of us.”

  “Who is Marisol?” She felt her cheeks flame. Drat. The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them. Her heart betrayed her every time she tried to resist him. “I…I couldn’t help seeing the name on your laptop screen.”

  Sadness infused his eyes. Affection canted his half smile. “Marisol is an orphan. She’s four years old.”

  He might have yanked her chair from beneath her. Her brain could barely process the words. “A child.” Marisol is a small child.

  “At the San Sebastiano Orphanage. I mentioned it before.”

  She remembered his talking about the orphanage the first day of sailing class. “You did…coin tricks for the kids. And you said something about finding a baby.”

  “Another operative and I found Marisol when she was only eighteen months old. Her family had abandoned her in a field. She was hungry and dirty and screeching louder than a monkey.”

  Tears burned her throat at the thought of a mere baby alone and frightened. “Abandoned her? You said that before, but it didn’t sink in.”

  “There are more orphans in Colombia than in other South American countries. All the conflict and poverty have decimated families. Desperate mothers who can’t feed their children feel they have no recourse. And Marisol has a deformed foot, so she probably was seen as too big a burden.”

  Sadness wrenched her heart. “And in San Sebastiano?”

  He smiled more broadly. “The nuns take good care of her, but she’s still too thin. She needs an operation to rebuild her foot. I’m acting as intermediary to arrange that at Johns Hopkins. The specialist will do it for free, but I have to get her there.”

  She sat back with a sigh, speechless. All those phone calls and e-mails were to help a small child have a cha
nce at a full, productive life. No voluptuous señorita at all. And the tragedy of it for him personally scraped at her heart. This proud man who so longed for his own family had only a long-distance, substitute one. She was grateful when the band’s next set stifled further conversation.

  When the musicians began a softer ballad, Cole murmured in her ear, “I wonder if country-and-western is just blues from an Anglo-Saxon background.”

  “Now who’s thinking like an anthropologist?” Seeing other couples fill the dance floor, she stood and tugged on his arm. “Whatever it is, this song calls to me. Their singer even sounds like Maria Muldaur. Come and dance with me.”

  And dancing was a legitimate excuse for being in his arms, she rationalized. She swayed her hips to the dreamy beat of “Meet Me at Midnight.”

  Cole didn’t budge. When his jaw clenched and one eyebrow shot up, she knew. “Oh, no, you’re not going to get out of this by claiming you can’t dance. Anyone can dance to this.”

  With a crooked grin, he set down his club soda and followed her to the dance floor.

  “See, you just hold me and let the rhythm take you.” She nudged his right arm around her and clasped his left hand.

  “With you in my arms, babe, I usually move to another natural rhythm.” His arm tightened around her, sliding downward to her derriere, to press her against his solid planes. And a harder bulge.

  He smelled of the smoky bar and his aftershave. Her inner flame flickered higher, shimmering heat along her veins. With each swaying step, their hips and thighs slid together in an erotic dance. Oblivious to the press of other couples, they might have been the only dancers.

  She slid her arms up to link her hands behind his neck, but resisted going up on tiptoe to run her tongue along the white scar. Tonight was another memory to carry with her. He didn’t look dangerous to her now, only handsome and unbearably dear with his rugged face and square chin. His hair had grown a little longer, and she suppressed an urge to run her fingers through the rich midnight waves.

  She whispered, “You may not be Fred Astaire, but I think you must have seen Dirty Dancing more than once.”

  Her husky innuendo reached inside Cole and drained what blood was left in his cranium to his crotch. With a groan, he pulled her hands from around his neck and dragged her from the dance floor. “Laura, you’re playing with fire. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 12

  Cole slammed money on their table and hustled Laura out of the club so fast that Byrne nearly missed catching up to them. She appeared so shell-shocked by his rush that she didn’t utter a word all the way home.

  Or was she in the same desperate state as him?

  His jaw clenched and his entire body taut with desire, he set a new land-speed record for the drive to Passabec Lake.

  Was the woman mad? Didn’t she know what holding him, grinding her hips against him like that did to him? He was a horny kid again, his craving for her ripping him apart. He could no more separate the job from his feelings for her than he could sever his bones from his body, and the realization scared the hell out of him.

  But it wouldn’t stop him from the inevitable tonight.

  Once locked inside the cabin, he gathered her in his arms and kissed her. Deeply, demandingly. He kissed her as if it were the last time. Or the first time. He took possession with his mouth and tongue, staking a claim that seeped liquid honey through his body.

  He felt the rapid thudding of her heart, in time with his. His tongue slid inside her mouth, caressing the slick moistness and reacquainting him with her taste, layered with tonight’s wine. He burned with the fiery caress of her fingers on his biceps. He scooped her up and headed to the bedroom.

  “Laura?” He made no attempt to slow his stride as he asked permission.

  He saw hesitation swirling with the gold in her maple-brown eyes. But then the flame of desire burned the doubt away. “Hurry, Cole.”

  He laid her on the bed. “Where’s the light?”

  She clutched at his hand. “Leave it off. The light from the other room is enough. Come to me.”

  Damn, but she was as needy as he was. He stripped off her shirt, the peach ice cream one he liked, and her white cotton bra. Trembling with desire, he tossed away his clothing so he could revel in the softness of her breasts against him.

  A little friction from his chest hairs feathered her pink nipples to attention, and he tasted their sweetness as she wriggled out of her short linen skirt and panties. Luscious as the apple lotion she smelled of, was his first thought. Ah, her breasts. He loved her breasts, round and firm and silken. He suckled hard, wanting more of her taste.

  She writhed beneath him, moaning into his mouth. “Cole…please!”

  His pelvis anchored her to the firm mattress as his shaft hardened and pulsed against her center. Her hand, clutching at him, found his turgid flesh. Scorched by her soft palm, he arched as she closed her fingers around him. Kissing his chest, she swirled her tongue over one nipple, then the other.

  A ragged gasp escaped him, and he brushed her hand away. He pulled back, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs as though he’d run ten miles carrying a field pack. “Easy, sweetheart. I want this to last more than a blink. I want to revel in every touch, every taste. I want to explore all your sensitive spots.” In case this is the last time.

  With his lips and tongue, he laid a moist path down her breasts and belly to her thighs. Kisses bathed the soft skin at the crease of her mound, and when his tongue flicked her intimately, she thrashed with urgency and called his name.

  To hear her cry her need, that he could make her need him with such desperation, and no one else, hardened him to stone. If only it didn’t have to end…

  When she began to buck and arch, he penetrated her with one finger and laved a new trail up to her mouth. Tingling sensations tightened his buttocks. He was close to the edge.

  So was she. She tangled her hands behind his neck and pulled his mouth to hers. He kissed her, hard, and then reached for the foil packet in his trousers pocket.

  When he was ready, she guided him to her. She squeezed her eyes shut, as though concentrating on the sensations. The silkiness of their passion-slick skin sliding together. The feel of her ruched nipples tugging at his chest hair. The throbbing tip of his hardness probing her tender entrance.

  “Laura!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Open your eyes. Look at us. See how perfectly we fit.” He clenched his jaw, and his mouth contorted with restraint. For all his much larger size, their bodies molded together perfectly.

  All denials evaporated like mist over the lake.

  He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her.

  Whatever happened afterward, she belonged to him tonight.

  Languidly, as though drugged and boneless, she opened her eyes, burning with amber flames. “Now, Cole!” She gripped his shoulders and wriggled herself onto his rigid flesh.

  Yielding to the voluptuous sensual rush, he drove home, deep inside her. His control cracked, and he gave a shout as he thrust into her again and again.

  When inner tremors convulsed her, the pressure jolted him with molten electricity, and he pulsed inside her, with her, around her as they exploded into a single flame.

  When the aftershocks ceased, he slipped to the side and tugged the blanket over them. Curling her close, her backside tucked against him, he wrapped an arm around her so he could cup one breast. At last she was where she belonged. Here he could keep her safe.

  And he slept.

  Laura did not.

  Her mind and body still in a daze, she lay awake, guilt and love battling within her. Why had she let desire overrule her judgment? And what could she do now? If Cole saw the scar on her abdomen, he’d know or she’d have to tell him the rest of the truth. And then she’d have to watch him withdraw from her, from a woman with no way to give him what he needed.

  The dam of her resistance had crumbled, but she could no more cope with the flood of passion and love than with the threa
t to her life. Love, like the fear, drained her, leaving her exhausted.

  Love and death were inexorably linked. Once Alexei Markos and his hit man were caught, she would never see Cole again.

  Tears stung her eyes. She held still as they leaked out and trickled down her face. Why did he have to be so gentle and strong, so caring with her students, so generous with a vulnerable child, so protective—and so much more than the proud, successful man she always knew he could become? He needed—he deserved the family she could never give him.

  Why did she have to fall in love with him again?

  And what was she going to do now?

  The next evening, Cole lounged in a beach chair as he waited for his cell phone to ring. His contact should call soon with an update on Markos. Laura was safe in the inn kitchen with Joyce Hart and some other women, so he could damn well sit here staring at the lake and digging his toes in the warm sand until the hellish instrument jangled.

  He scraped fingers across his jaw. Hell, he should’ve known lovemaking would make no difference to her in their relationship. He shouldn’t have been surprised that when he woke up, she’d already slunk out of bed and was in the shower.

  Hadn’t he said it himself? She wanted nothing more from him but sex. He was only a reminder of her past mistakes and heartbreak.

  …no-account…outta your league…

  “Take what you can get, buddy.” But the acknowledgment twisted a knife in his chest.

  “Who you talking to, Mr. Stratton?” piped a laughing voice.

  “Looks like he’s talking to himself,” said another.

  Cole swung around, springing to his feet at the same time. When he spied Butch and Zach, he sighed with relief that he hadn’t pulled his piece. The way this op was dragging out was making him too jumpy. “Hey, guys. You caught me.”

  He sat back down and the two boys sank onto the sand cross-legged before him. Both eleven-year-olds wore cargo shorts, Sea Dogs shirts and sly grins.

  “My dad talks to himself all the time,” Butch offered. “Says it helps him think.”

  “Does he? I suppose that’s why I do it, too.” He glanced from one to the other. “So, what’s up?”