She took his breath away, she looked so good. Healthy, with high energy. Happy. As if she hadn’t spent the past two months pining away after Nash. Of course, maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she hadn’t even noticed when he’d left.
Her brown hair was cut short—even shorter than it had been that night she and Nash had saved his ass at that strip club outside of D.C. She was dressed more formally now in a feminine version of a business suit, a crisp white shirt buttoned nearly to her throat. It was a far cry from those half-undone jeans and nothing else, but okay, thinking about that was seriously inappropriate right now. Decker was certain that a perceptive woman could always tell when a man was remembering what she looked like naked.
And Tess was extremely perceptive.
“Yeah,” he said, thinking instead about Nash sitting in that conference room. “We just flew in this morning.”
She picked up on that we, and her expression changed. It was subtle—she was good at masking it—but her entire body seemed to tense. So much for hoping that she hadn’t noticed when Nash left.
God damn Nash. Deck promised himself to take the son of a bitch into the sparring ring as soon as possible—and beat the shit out of him, under pretense of physical training.
Of course, Decker would get equally thrashed, but maybe he deserved it, too. He should have said something to Nash three years ago, when Tess first came to work at support. Something like, “Hey, I really like this one.”
And then Nash would’ve kept his hands off of her.
Of course, so would’ve Decker.
Because Nash was right about one thing. Refusing to mix work and sex, and then working 24/7, pretty much meant a total lack of sex.
Decker was going to have to do something about that in the very near future.
Right now he turned to Tom Paoletti. “If you want, Nash and I could step outside for a while, let you talk to Tess privately.”
This was the equivalent of a job interview for her. He tried to imagine doing an interview with Emily in the room. Well, okay, bad example, because on some levels he’d been relieved when she’d moved out of their apartment. But still . . .
“No, let’s keep you part of this,” Commander Paoletti said, leading the way back into the conference room.
Deck watched as Tess braced herself. She took a deep breath, stuck a pleasant smile on her face, and . . .
Nash was on his feet, looking equally casual, hands in his pockets. He greeted Tess with a completely impersonal smile. “Tess Bailey. What a surprise.”
“I bet,” she said. “How are you? How was Mexico?”
As Decker watched, something flickered in her eyes, and he knew she’d just realized that she’d given something vital away.
Nash hadn’t told her he was going to Mexico. Which meant that she’d cared enough to look for him after he’d left.
Deck could see from the way Nash was standing, from his “Oh, uh . . . It was . . . uh, great,” that he’d picked up on that info, too.
He wondered if Nash had taken Tess’s seemingly innocent question one step further and realized that not only had she looked for him, but she was good enough to find him.
And intelligent enough not to pursue him.
“That’s . . . great,” Tess said. “You look like you got some rest. I’m glad.”
She really meant it. She really was glad.
Decker couldn’t have loved his partner more if he were his own brother, but never before had he wanted quite so badly to break Nash’s nose.
But then he looked over and realized that Nash knew she meant it, too. And the son of a bitch was actually shaken. Tess and Commander Paoletti probably didn’t notice it, but Decker sure as hell did.
And wasn’t that interesting? Nash. Shaken.
They all sat down, and Decker sat back and watched everyone’s body language as Paoletti—as easygoing and relaxed as ever—explained about the earthquake and the missing laptop. Tess—feigning casual comfort and sitting in a position that signaled she was interested in this job and open to all possibilities—asked questions and made comments that let them all know she was completely up to speed on both al-Qaeda and Kazbekistan, and entirely capable of holding her own as a member of the team.
Nash was very, very quiet. Normally never going for long without some comment or joke, he simply sat and listened while Tess answered Paoletti’s inquiries about why she’d left the Agency, about her training, about her background.
He was completely motionless and closed. Legs and arms crossed, shoulders tight. He looked as if he might explode, if someone held a burning match to him.
Tess had plenty of questions for Tom Paoletti, too, about Troubleshooters Incorporated.
“This team you’re building for this assignment in K-stan, is it a permanent grouping of personnel?” she asked. In other words, if she signed on now to work with Decker and Nash, would she be working with Decker and Nash forever and ever, amen?
“No,” Paoletti told her. “Each team will be created from the larger pool of personnel, depending on the needs of the assignment and the preferences of the individual team leader.”
Tess looked at Decker, one eyebrow raised. “And you honestly want me on your team for this assignment?”
Decker shifted in his seat. “Honestly?” he said. “No.”
She blinked at him, then laughed, turning to look questioningly at Tom Paoletti.
But Deck wasn’t done. “No one in this room wants to send a woman to Kazbekistan. But we need a comspesh, and our choice seems to be either you or no comspesh at all.”
Tess nodded, meeting his gaze again. “I appreciate your honesty. As a woman, I’m not particularly happy at the thought of going there. On the other hand, I am completely thrilled at the idea of participating in such an important assignment. If we can locate that laptop and gain access to al-Qaeda’s plans . . .” She looked at Paoletti again. “If you’re offering me this job, I accept.”
Nash suddenly spoke up. “What about Mike Giacomo?”
“Gigamike?” Decker laughed. Nash despised Gigamike Giacomo.
“Yeah,” Nash said. “Sure, he’s an idiot, but no more so than freaking David Malkoff. Gig’s a comspesh and he’s male.”
“I don’t want him on my team.” Deck put finality in his voice.
There was silence then. Paoletti had definitely picked up on the tension in the room. But he just sat back, watching.
“There are steps we can take to ensure Tess is as safe as possible,” Decker continued.
“Yeah, except at night, because as an unmarried woman, she can’t sleep in the same room with us.” Nash was done being silent. “Depending on where we’re staying, there’s a chance she might even be housed in a different building than we are—”
Tess cut Nash off. “So I’ll go in as a married woman. Who’ll know that I’m not?”
“That’ll work only if you pretend to be married to one of us,” Decker pointed out. He looked at Paoletti. “But that’s a good idea. If we can get Tess a new passport and papers on short notice . . .”
Paoletti nodded. “I’ll get whatever documents we need.”
“Then one of us can pretend to be her husband and be with her at all times,” Deck said.
“It can’t be Decker,” Nash said to Paoletti, to Tess. “Too many of our contacts in Kazabek think he’s got a K-stani wife back here in the States.”
That was true. In the past, Deck had worked hard to establish an identity, a cover, on his frequent trips to K-stan. He’d created Melisande, his fictional wife, and it had helped him gain acceptance and trust. To show up now with a different “wife” would be the equivalent of tattooing the words “I am an agent of the U.S. Government” on his forehead. Even now, three years after his last visit.
“And it can’t be Dave Malkoff,” Nash continued. “No one in their right mind would believe Tess would marry him. Our cover would be blown before we even got out of the airport.”
Tess cleared her throat and crossed
her legs. “I don’t know Dave, so I’m not sure whether you’re insulting me or—”
“Him,” Nash said quickly. “I’m insulting him.”
“Dave is lacking in certain social skills,” Decker told her.
“He’s a freak,” Nash said bluntly, going for truth over tact. “And he looks and acts like a total geek.”
“So what?” she argued. “People fall in love and get married for all different reasons. Maybe he’s great in bed. In my experience, just because a guy isn’t GQ handsome doesn’t automatically mean he’s not great in bed. And vice versa.”
O-kay. Decker didn’t dare look at Nash. And vice versa. He didn’t want to begin to speculate about the subtext of that message.
Tess broke the silence. “Well, I sure know how to stop a conversation cold, don’t I? My comment was inappropriate, and I’m sorry, but it really annoys me when people are judged on their appearance.”
“Dave Malkoff is a freak because he’s a freak,” Nash told her in that completely calm voice he used when he was hiding an emotional reaction. “He’s book smart, but if someone didn’t remind him to go home, he’d starve to death in his office. The fact that he looks like a geek is secondary to—”
“It can’t be Dave,” Paoletti interrupted the discussion. “Or Murphy. So we might as well get that idea off the table. They’re already en route to Kazabek. They’re out of the loop. They both spent significant time in K-stan before the borders were closed—I have no way of knowing what kind of cover they already have in place. I apologize for not having that information.” He looked at Nash, and he didn’t look entirely happy. “It’ll have to be you.”
Decker was watching Tess. She kept her face carefully blank.
Nash was noticeably silent again, too.
“Is that going to work?” Decker asked them both.
“If Tess is going, in order for her to be safe, it’ll have to work,” Nash said. He even managed to smile. “Won’t it?”
“I can make anything work,” Tess agreed. “Particularly for the short term.”
“Good,” Paoletti, standing up. “Figure out a cover story. Chief, with me in my office. Now.”
Tess sat at the receptionist’s desk in the outer office of Troubleshooters Incorporated, flipping through the packet of information on Kazbekistan that Tom Paoletti had emailed to her, waiting for Jimmy Nash to come out of the bathroom.
She’d already read it twice. And she’d done extra extensive research on the country, downloading info from the State Department and other Web sites for savvy travelers onto her laptop. She’d studied it all on the flight to San Diego.
She couldn’t believe how quickly this had happened. She’d called Tom Paoletti on the rumor that he was looking for people. He’d actually answered his own phone, they’d had a conversation, and she’d faxed over her resume. He’d called her ten minutes later to tell her he had a job he wanted her to consider and that there was a plane ticket waiting for her at Dulles so they could meet face-to-face.
At the time, he hadn’t mentioned Lawrence Decker or Diego “My name’s Jimmy” Nash.
And here came Nash now, his carefully polite smile—more suitable for strangers than people who had been naked together—perfectly in place.
This entire assignment had the potential to be one giant, embarrassing ball of pain. For both of them.
But particularly for her.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” she said point-blank. It seemed a far better route to take than avoidance. Ignoring the anvil that was hurtling down from the sky could only work for a limited time. And she didn’t want him to think she’d followed him here.
Especially since she’d already given away the fact that she’d gone looking for him, at least electronically, by asking about Mexico. Boy, for a Mensa member, she could be a total imbecile. She felt the need to explain that further. “I had no idea you and Decker were leaving the Agency. I was worried when you dropped off the map, so I checked around and found out . . . It wasn’t because I wanted anything else from you.”
“I know,” Nash said. She couldn’t tell if he was lying. “I also know you’ve wanted to go into the field for a long time, so . . .”
“Here I am,” she said.
“Yeah. Here you are.” He sat down across the wide expanse of the desk from her. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “No, you’re not. You’re sorry that you’re forced to work with me now. You’re sorry you didn’t foresee that possibility. I’m into honesty, Nash, remember?”
“Yeah.” He met her gaze only fleetingly. “I, uh, do remember.” He laughed softly. “God, this is awkward.”
“Why?” she asked, and this time he really looked at her, with wariness and disbelief in his eyes, neither of which he tried to hide from her. “I’m serious,” she added. “Why should this have to be awkward?”
Apparently she’d rendered him speechless.
“I don’t know about you, but I had some really great sex that night,” she told him. “It was incredible. You’re very good in bed. I’m sorry if I implied otherwise when we were talking about Dave Malkoff—you just really pissed me off. And yeah, okay, it’s true, the first time was a little quick, but you more than made up for it later—”
“Tess, stop. Look, you have every right to be angry—”
“But I’m not,” she said. “I’m really not. I’m just . . . Yes, okay, I am, but not about what you think. I didn’t even realize it until Decker said you were here, until I saw you again.” She closed her eyes, wishing there was an easy way to explain. “I didn’t expect you to call me because we had sex that night, Jimmy. I expected you to call me because, well, I thought we were friends.”
Tess opened her eyes and he was staring at the floor, jaw muscles jumping. When he glanced at her, his eyes were filled with chagrin. If it was an act, it was brilliant.
“Are we really going to be able to do this?” he asked.
“I am,” Tess said. “I’ve wanted this for too long to walk away from it now. And unless you’re going to let Decker go by himself into a city that’s been labeled ‘the terrorist capital of the world’—”
“I’m not,” he said.
“Well, there you have it,” she said. “It looks like we’re going to do this.”
They were both silent then. Nash was looking at her now, really looking at her. He’d looked at her that same way, that night—as if he liked what he saw. And as if that surprised him.
They both spoke at the same time, both cut themselves off.
“I’m sorry,” Nash said. “Go ahead.”
“No, you go,” she said.
“I was just going to ask if there was any way we could be friends again.”
Yeah, right. “Well, that depends on your definition of friends,” Tess countered evenly instead of bursting into disbelieving and near hysterical laughter. “Because I was just going to say that there’s absolutely no way I’m ever going to sleep with you ever again. Not in this lifetime.”
He nodded. “Of course. I . . . I understand.”
Did he really? Tess doubted it. But there was no way she was going to explain that she couldn’t keep sex separate from her emotions—the way he did—without revealing that she’d fallen a little bit in love with him that night. She might’ve been able to keep her heart out of it if it really had been a casual encounter—just relatively superficial small talk, some laughter, and an orgasm or two—the way she’d expected. But Nash had talked to her. He’d said things she’d never expected to hear him say.
They’d connected.
Correction—she’d thought they’d connected. He’d merely played her. Although why he’d done that, she wasn’t sure. She’d made the first move—he had to know she was more than willing.
But maybe Jimmy Nash had gotten to the point where sexual conquests weren’t enough. Maybe he didn’t get off unless he knew he was going to break someone’s heart.
Although
hers had only been cracked.
“So,” she said now. “Tell me what I need to know about you to pass myself off as your wife. Have we been married for long? What’s my name?”
“My cover was that I was unattached, so you can keep Tess,” he said. “It’s easier that way. Although you’ll be Tess Nash, of course, to drive home the fact that we’re together.”
“But Nash isn’t your real name,” she started to say, and as he glanced at her, she saw surprise and even wariness in his eyes. No doubt he was wondering if, as a comspesh, she’d had access to his Agency file. His real Agency file, not the one that proclaimed Access denied. She had, after all, tracked him to Mexico. That hadn’t been easy to do. “Never mind. Off topic. It’s inconsequential. I’m sorry, go on.”
Troubleshooters 08 Flashpoint Page 6
