Closing the bathroom door, Dani stripped down, padded into the shower stall and turned the water jets to full blast.
Jack stood at the tall windows, trying his damnedest to ignore the muted buzz of the shower. Trying even harder not to picture in precise detail the wet, naked body of the woman caught in the crossfire of those jets.
He should be exhausted. Should be feeling those twelve hours at the stick, with only short breaks for refueling. Instead, the urge to strip off and join Danielle Flynn in that glass cubicle kept him wound tighter than the Stearman's engine coil.
She bothered him. Big time. Not just physically, although thinking about the way her mouth had tasted under his was enough to put a hitch in his stride. What really bugged him, though, was that he couldn't figure her out.
Last night, he'd pegged her as an uptight, ring-knocking academy grad. This morning, she'd damned near shot off his ear before calmly announcing that she was breaking all the rales by mounting her own rescue operation. Jack was pretty sure the OSI wasn't going to appreciate one of its agents going into a potentially dangerous situation alone, without authority or backup.
She had guts. He'd give her that. Just like her old man.
He emerged from his turn in the shower some time later to find her examining the contents of domed serving dishes laid out on a wheeled serving cart. He'd ordered fish for both of them, a local trout, crusted and served with a red salsa, black beans and chorizo. If the dishes tasted half as good as those heavenly scents wafting across the room promised, he'd made an excellent choice.
"I didn't think I could eat again after this afternoon's aerobics," she commented, her nose twitching appreciatively as she raised another dome.
"Barrel rolls are fun, aren't they? Wait until you experience your first hammerhead."
"Which I hope happens, oh, maybe never. I've decided—"
She broke off, her eyes widening as she turned and caught her first glimpse of him showered, shaved and minus three days' growth. Her reaction drew a rueful grin from Jack.
"I caught a few too many bugs on the way down," he admitted, dragging his hand across his chin. "The whiskers had to go."
Oh, man!
Dani sucked in a breath, sincerely wishing he'd left both the whiskers and the bugs in place. She'd suspected Buchanan might pack quite a punch under his bristles, but she'd seriously underestimated its potency. With his midnight hair slicked back and those golden eyes glinting through those sinfully thick black lashes, he could give the Baldwin brothers a real run for their money.
Shaking herself out of her temporary trance, Dani passed him a plate. They ate at the table set beside the soaring windows. Outside, dusk deepened to night. A few pinpricks of light pierced the darkness. Not many. Aside from a few scattered villages, the canyon was sparsely populated. Which could make tonight's task relatively easy or incredibly difficult.
"So what's the plan?" Buchanan asked as he speared into his trout. "What do we do now?"
"Right now, we don't do anything."
We being the operative word in the equation. Dani had plans for the rest of the night, but they didn't include her dinner companion.
At his questioning look, she shrugged and forked into her fish. "Tomorrow morning we'll drive down to the village and nose around. The kidnappers must have a local base. Someone's supplying them with both information and food. I intend to find out who that someone is."
She intended to do more than that, but she was a professional. She hunted down bad guys for a living. Considering all she hoped to accomplish tonight, she couldn't risk taking along an amateur.
Since she suspected Buchanan might have a different view of the matter, Dani schooled herself to patience for another hour or so. Finally, he cracked a yawn, hooked his hands behind his neck for a body-twisting stretch, and surprised her with another chance at the eagle's nest.
"Sure you don't want the bed?"
"It's all yours."
His glance drifted to her mouth. "We could share."
"I don't think so."
"You might be making a mistake here, Flynn."
She didn't miss the underlying message. He was talking about more than getting naked and sweaty on that wide, inviting mattress. He wanted in on whatever she was planning.
For a moment, she was tempted to take him up on his offer. On both offers. An hour or so spent testing the bedsprings with Buchanan would no doubt do wonders for the tension crawling along her spine. And it would certainly help to have someone drive the Jeep while she operated the specialized piece of equipment she had tucked in her carryall. Convenience, however, wouldn't make up for the danger she'd be exposing him to.
Shrugging, she turned aside his offer. "It wouldn't be my first mistake."
But it could very well be her last.
Dani had time for that one thought and that one thought only when a menacing figure lunged out of the darkness at her an hour later, just as she was about to climb into the white-and-green-striped Jeep.
Chapter 3
It took only a single, fleeting glimpse of the figure in black for Dam's training and instinct to kick in simultaneously. Dropping her carryall, she flattened her right hand into a throat-crunching blade. Her left knuckled into a fist that might have seriously rearranged the man's facial features if she hadn't recognized his set, angry face.
"Buchanan!" Her breath hissed out. "You damned idiot! Don't you have more sense than to creep up on a trained operative like that?"
"If the trained operative had let me in on her plans for the night," he shot back, "maybe I wouldn't have had to creep up on her."
He crowded her against the Jeep, all hard, angry male. Dani had handled bigger and badder men, but she had to admit Buchanan could project a particularly nasty air when he wanted to.
"You want to tell me where you're going, green-eyes?"
"No."
His jaw locked. So did the powerful body pressing hers against the Jeep's fender.
"Wrong answer," he said softly, dangerously. "Try again."
She gave in. Not because he intimidated her in any way, shape or form, but because she'd already wasted too much valuable time.
"I'm going to conduct a little reconnaissance."
"And you didn't tell me because...?"
Dani saw no need to sugarcoat the matter. "Because I didn't want you getting in my way."
She could feel his anger singeing the ends of her hair.
"Do you really expect me to sit around twiddling my thumbs while you scour the canyon on your own?"
"That's exactly what I expect. Your part in this operation consists of flying me into Mexico, providing a convenient cover where necessary, and flying me and my sister out. I'll handle the rest."
"Wrong again."
"This is what I do," she insisted, trying for calm and rational. "I'm trained in specialized surveillance techniques. I brought along a piece of very high-tech equipment that lets me— "
"I'll drive." He bit out. Obviously he wasn't buying calm or rational. "You play with your high-tech toy."
"You're not listening, Buchanan. I don't need you for this part of the operation."
"Tough. You've got me. Grab your stuff and get in the Jeep."
Okay. Fine. She'd warned him. He didn't have a clue what he was getting into, but she suspected he wouldn't find it anywhere near as much fun as joy-sticking a Stearman around the clouds.
Despite the James Bond mystique, the truth was that ninety-nine-point-nine percent of undercover operations consisted of pure drudgery. Manning listening posts. Monitoring electronic emissions. Following up on tips from dozens of different sources in the hopes that one might actually produce a solid lead.
Occasionally, only occasionally, did operatives get to play Lone Ranger and charge in to the rescue. With any luck, Dani thought grimly, tonight might just be one of those occasions.
It wasn't.
She and Buchanan spent the hours between midnight and dawn cruising the narrow, winding r
oads that cut through the canyon. After the first few hairpin turns, Dani ignored the dark precipices plunging straight down from her side of the Jeep, and concentrated her attention on the hand-held, heat-seeking scanner she'd "borrowed" for this mission.
The powerful device was a derivative of the active-passive defense systems developed by the military to guard missile silos and nuclear aircraft. In those systems, strategically deployed sensors detected any approaching source of heat, however slight. Holographic images of the heat source would then paint on screens in the control center. If the heat source got close enough to actually trigger alarms, security forces would respond, but they'd know whether they were responding to a stray jackrabbit or a possible saboteur.
The scanner Dani aimed across the dark canyon used the same technology. Its sensitive beam pierced the darkness and picked up any heat source registering a specified number of degrees above the surrounding cliffs and rocks. The images that appeared on the screen were small, but astonishingly detailed.
She zeroed in on a mule deer curled up around her fawn under a pine tree. What looked like two coyotes on the prowl. An owl swooping down on a scurrying creature. Isolated farmhouses tucked in the narrow valleys, with assorted farm animals asleep in their pens or roosting in henhouses. An occasional village clinging to the side of a mountain.
Painstakingly, Dani swept each farmhouse for signs of something, anything, out of the ordinary. An armed guard at a door. Sentries posted at the farm's perimeter. She recorded the coordinates of each village in the scanner's computer for return, daylight visits. But it was the cliffs above the farms and villages that drew her most intense scrutiny.
Despite the failed attempt to rescue Patricia, government authorities had gathered some useful intelligence. By far the most significant piece had come from a Canadian executive who'd escaped some months before Patricia was snatched. The kidnappers had kept him hidden in caves, he'd told authorities. He'd also confirmed that they moved often to escape detection. Always at night.
Inch by inch, grid by grid, Dani swept the dark cliffs across the valley. She stayed hunched over the scanner, her eyes glued to the small screen, as Buchanan navigated the tortuous, winding roads. The tight switchbacks and steep curves restricted the Jeep to a slow crawl. By dawn, they'd covered only about ten miles of a series of canyons that stretched for more than a hundred. And they'd surveyed just the east-facing cliffs. They'd have to cross to the far side of the valley to survey those facing west.
When Dani finally tucked the scanner inside the carryall and slumped wearily against her seat, Buchanan hooked his arm over the steering wheel. Eyes narrowed, he studied the sun rising above the rugged escarpments stretching endlessly in both directions.
"Driving these dirt roads isn't going to hack it. Not if you want to find your sister this year."
"The only other options are horse or mule," Dani retorted. Her back ached and her eyes felt as dry and hard as peach pits, but she was darned if she'd give up after just one night. "I doubt they'd prove any faster."
"We've got a plane at our disposal. We should use it."
"In these narrow ravines? At night? With no terrain-following radar or sophisticated navigational aids? You can't be that good a pilot!"
The grin he flashed her said it all. "Sure I am."
"Get this straight, Buchanan. I'm not climbing into that sorry collection of canvas, baling wire and bubble gum you call a plane and swooping sideways through these gullies and ravines in total darkness."
"Chicken?"
"Yes!"
"Well, you've got twelve hours of daylight to work up your nerve. What do we do until then?"
Firmly resolved to use those twelve hours to convince Jack of the idiocy of night aerial surveillance in a forties-era Stearman biplane, Dani hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "We drive back to the hotel, snatch a few hours sleep, then hit the villages."
That was the plan, anyway.
Dawn was exploding into bright, brilliant morning when Jack parked the Jeep outside their casita. Scrunching her eyes against the dazzling sunlight, Dani trudged inside and dumped her leather tote on the table. Puffs of red dust billowed from the bag, adding to the layers already coating her face and clothes.
"Mind if I grab another quick shower before you claim the bedroom?"
"Be my guest."
Stripping off, she set the water to just below scalding and stepped inside the glass booth. Hot needles pierced her body from every angle. Sighing in pure delight, Dani dropped her head back and let the water drill through the tension that had gripped her day and night since Patricia was snatched. It took awhile, but she finally worked up enough energy to soap down and shampoo up.
Wrapping herself in one of the hotel's bath sheets, she plopped down at the built-in dressing table and grimaced at the creature in the mirror. Her cheeks glowed bright cherry from wind-chafing during yesterday's flight. Last night's activities had drawn road maps in the whites of her eyes. Her hair... Well, at least the dust was out of the red tangles.
Flicking on the wall-mounted hair dryer, Dani adjusted its flexible neck to blow down without scorching her scalp, and set to work dragging a comb through the sodden mass.
That was where Jack eventually found her. With her back slumped against the bathroom wall. Her hair a red sail rippling under the force of the blow dryer. Sound asleep.
He'd knocked. He'd give himself credit for that, at least. And he'd called her name. When he'd received no response and cracked open the bathroom door, he'd even spent a good ten seconds debating whether he should pull it shut again.
But he'd never made any claim to sainthood, and Danielle Flynn draped only in a sagging bath towel could tempt the archangels to sneak a peek. Besides, he couldn't just leave her to sleep sitting up.
Or so he told himself as he strolled into the bathroom and cut off the dryer. If she'd stirred then, or flickered so much as an eyelash, he would have just waited with a wicked grin for her eyes to open. When they didn't, he let himself enjoy the view for several more satisfying moments before he scooped her into his arms.
Her lids drifted up at that point. Glazed with sleep, her forest-green eyes filled with confusion. "Buchanan? What are you doing?"
"Taking you to bed."
Jack anticipated a dozen possible reactions to that provocative remark. A sudden tensing of her body. An icy demand that he get real. Or maybe one of the lethal karate chops she'd been ready to lay on him last night. To his surprise, she merely snuggled against his chest.
"Thanks," she mumbled into his shirt. "The couch is too short for you, but maybe if you scrunch up..."
The sleepy murmur gave way to a long sigh as he stretched her out on the downy comforter.
"Two hours," she muttered. "I'll just sleep two hours."
With that mumbled vow, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. The towel rolled with her— more or less. Jack's lungs squeezed as he took in a curved spine. A rounded bottom cheek. A long, smooth leg.
When he could breathe again, he dragged his gaze away, gave the wood-framed couch in the sitting room a considering look and tossed a mental coin.
Dani wasn't sure what pulled her from total oblivion. She knew her internal alarm clock hadn't pinged. No way could she have slept for a whole two hours. Her body still desperately craved sleep.
Nor had she sensed danger. No external alarms had gone off, either. Her instincts told her that whatever had wakened her posed no immediate threat. So she lay still, letting her mind rev up to full power. Slowly, she absorbed the hazy light. The damp towel tangled around her body. The heavy arm draped over her waist.
The very heavy arm draped over her waist.
It lay across her, casual, possessive, altogether too intimate. Dani could feel Buchanan behind her now, a solid wall of warm flesh. The damp towel separated them. Barely.
She remembered sitting under the blow dryer. Remembered going horizontal. And she was sure she remembered a gruff promise of sorts.
When the wall behind her made no response, she poked it sharply with her elbow.
"Buchanan!"
He jerked awake, tightening his arm instinctively, and grunted an inarticulate, "Huh?"
Locked against him now by an iron band, Dani twisted her head. His chin, clean-shaven last night, already showed a dark shadow.
"What happened to our deal?"
"What deal?"
"You were supposed to bunk down in the living room."
"Oh, Yeah." His head dropped back to the pillow. His arm loosened a mere fraction. Drawing up his knees, he nested her bottom on his thighs. "This is better."
Much better. Dani could admit the truth when it slapped her in the face. Or in this case, the butt.
"Go back to sleep," he mumbled into her damp hair. "We've still got a good forty minutes."
Dani spent the next forty minutes reviewing her game plan for the coming day, counting the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams and fighting the most ridiculous sense of pique.
Here she was, in bed with the man. Naked, except for the damned towel. His ribs pressed into her bare back with every rise and fall of his chest. The bristly hair on his thighs tickled the undersides of hers. She could feel the warm wash of his breath on her cheek. Feel, too, the hard curve of his arm tucked just under her breasts.
The bath sheet had long since ceased to act as a protective shield. It was now more of an irritant, still damp, still twisted under her in hard ridges. Wiggling discreetly, Dani tried to smooth the lumps.
They wouldn't smooth. Buchanan's weight added to her own and kept the oversize cotton towel pinned in place. Frowning, she tried again.
"Careful, Flynn."
The warning was low and rough and went a long way to soothing Dani's feminine pique. The growing bulge on the other side of the towel eliminated the rest.
It also set off the internal alarms that had been silent up to now. Her heart began a wild rhythm, hammering against her chest with heavy, erratic thumps. Nerves danced under her skin everywhere Buchanan's hard body contacted her own.
Undercover Operations Page 3
