by Lucy Monroe
One of the components he needed for a test hadn’t come in. No one had answered the phone when he’d called the supplier about it. He’d had that problem with this supplier before, but he needed the component. So, he’d gone to the warehouse.
Or, rather, he’d meant to.
When he had come out to his bike, a man had been dealing with an engine problem on his sleek-looking sedan. Beau remembered commenting that it was the new cars that seemed to have problems sometimes, not the old clunkers. The man had laughed as his friend had come around the car to Beau’s side.
He hadn’t been laughing. He’d looked damn scary, Beau had thought just as he’d felt a small prick and the world had gone black.
Well, day-um six ways from Sunday. He’d been kidnapped.
Elle was not going to be happy about this.
Elle voice-dialed Beau’s phone for the second time, but it went to voice mail. Again.
She called the security office at ETRD again. “Is Dr. Ruston in the building?”
“I’m not sure. Let me check.” It was a younger voice than the head of security. The other man was probably avoiding her at this point.
“He checked out twenty-seven minutes ago.”
“To go where?”
“He didn’t say, Ms. Gray.”
A really bad feeling settled in the pit of Elle’s stomach. She relayed the news to Josie, who relayed it to Nitro.
“Do you think something has happened to him?” Josie asked.
“He could be on the road and not answering his phone. He rides a motorcycle,” Elle said.
Just then she got a call from Alan. She connected, putting him on speakerphone and signaling to Josie to do the same with Nitro. “Hey, guy. Any news on the visitors to ETRD?”
“Nothing worth pursuing yet. Listen, I did some checking on a hunch. You know me and my hunches.”
“And your propensity to double-check research. It’s one of the things I like about you.”
Alan laughed. “Good. But I don’t think you’re going to like this.”
“What?”
“A private jet registered to a subsidiary company of one known to associate with the South African smugglers flew into a municipal airport outside of Vancouver yesterday.”
“And?”
“They left early this morning with a flight plan for a small airport in Eastern Oregon, one that doesn’t have their flight plans accessible on any computer database.”
“In other words, they could be in California right now.”
“Exactly.”
“The perps’ getaway plans.”
“Maybe. But maybe there’s more to it.”
“Is that what your gut is telling you?”
“Yes.”
“Mine too,” she admitted. “Chantal is safe, so far.”
“What about Beau?”
“He hasn’t been in this at all.”
“But he’s the lead scientist on the project.”
“So?” Was Alan seeing something she wasn’t?
“Now that they have what they believe are the plans, why not take the scientist?”
Beau? No. This was not happening.
“If they were going to take him, why not just start off that way?” Josie asked.
Things had started clicking into place as soon as Alan mentioned Beau, and Elle had an answer to Josie’s question, or at least a suspicion. “Because he doesn’t have the plans in his brain, or at least most scientists wouldn’t. Beau probably does, but that’s just him. They no doubt guessed that it would be harder to coerce him into sharing the plans than Gil Bigsley or Chantal.”
“Right,” Alan said. “Their first objective was to get the plans, but now we know what they were talking about when they mentioned their insurance.”
Josie swore. Very effectively. “They weren’t talking about a backup plan, but a second part to the original objective.”
“Get the plans and the scientist most likely to be able to bring them to fruition,” Nitro said.
“Exactly,” Elle and Alan said simultaneously.
“Josie, call Frank and see if he knows where Beau went. Alan, call The Old Man and get the plane’s takeoff delayed,” Elle instructed.
“I’d love to,” Alan said, “but we don’t know what airport they’re flying out of.”
“Oh yes, we do,” Elle replied as the smuggler’s SUV didn’t slow down for the turnoff to ETRD. She named the airport another fifteen minutes away.
Alan clicked off without saying good-bye.
“Frank said Beau went after something he needed for a test he was supposed to conduct today,” Josie said.
Elle had to force herself not to increase her speed and overtake the primary perpetrators’ car. “Have security verify if his bike is still in the lot.”
A few seconds passed and then Josie said, “It’s still there. His cell phone was on the ground beside it.”
Elle did her own swearing, viciously in Ukrainian, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“Frank’s hyperventilating at the other end of the phone.”
“Tell him to chill, that we’re on it.” Nothing was going to happen to Beau. Elle wouldn’t let it.
This time, she was on the scene and she was going to stop the bastards from taking the man she loved out of the country, or hurting him.
“They’re turning in to the airfield,” Josie said. “Good call, Elle.”
Elle just grunted and got a chuckle from Josie. “You sound like Daniel on a case.”
“And you’re better?”
“Not really.”
Josie’s positive attitude helped keep Elle’s fear at bay. This was Elle’s job, what she did best. Take down the bad guys. She’d done it in person more often than most TGP agents, and she had no doubts in her personal abilities.
She allowed her need for speed to take over and pulled into the parking area for the airfield only moments behind the perps and right behind Nitro.
“Going back to headsets,” Josie said as they both stepped out of the car.
“Don’t worry, Elle, we’re taking these bastards out,” Nitro said in her ear. He sounded deadly and she appreciated that.
Josie said, “We’re not going to let Beau get hurt.”
“We can’t stop a bullet no matter how much our will might want to,” Elle felt compelled to say.
“We’ll shoot first, if that’s what it takes,” Nitro said.
“I think I like private security rules of engagement over the TGP handbook in this instance,” Elle said as she checked her gun.
Her phone rang in her other ear on the Bluetooth headset. It had about fifty feet of range and she’d left it in the car. The ring tone was The Old Man’s, but she ignored it. He’d either gotten the takeoff delayed or he hadn’t, but she didn’t want to talk to him right now.
He would tell her to wait for the FBI to get there to go in. And there was no way on this green earth that was happening.
Elle felt like she was going to puke as the engines started warming up on the idling plane Perp One and Two were headed toward. Then cold calculation took over and she measured the distance between herself and the plane.
“Nitro and Josie, you take the men on the ground. I’m boarding the plane.”
“You have no way of knowing how many men are on board,” Nitro said.
“It doesn’t matter. They aren’t taking Beau.”
“Josie and I will be right behind you,” Nitro said, instead of arguing further.
Elle smiled grimly. They were good backup.
When the door at the top of the ramp opened, they all started moving as one smooth, extremely fast machine.
Elle trusted her partners to take out Perp One and Two while she took a running leap at the stairs. She landed exactly where she’d expected. She grabbed the handrails and used them to leverage a full-body flip, sending her sailing into the body of the man standing on the top step.
He’d been trying to get his gun from its shoulder
holster, but she heard a sharp crack as her designer boots connected with the arm crossing his chest. She landed on top of him and used a quick forward thrust with the heel of her hand against his nose to further incapacitate him. Then she was up and assessing her situation in a split second.
Another man to her right went down under a damn fine tackle from her beloved former football hero.
“Good job. How many more?” she asked.
“I don’t know. One, maybe two, but they’d be in the cockpit.”
The plane started to move. The pilot must have seen something. Elle ran for the door as she heard clattering on the stairs outside the plane. Then both Nitro and Josie were there as well, securing the two downed men.
Grabbing her gun from the thigh holster, Elle ran to the front of the plane. She kicked the cockpit door in and immediately put her gun to the head of the pilot. “Stop the plane.”
There was no copilot, or maybe one of the other men was supposed to be, but he wasn’t in the cabin.
The pilot hesitated and Elle coldcocked him in the temple. Then she lunged forward and cut the plane’s engines.
“Nicely done,” Nitro said from the doorway.
“I agree, but damn I’ve got a headache.” Beau was smiling, but there was no mistaking the grayed-out pain in his face.
“At least you’re alive,” Elle said with fervent gratitude.
“Yeah, thanks to you, sugar.”
“You had a pretty nice tackle back there.”
“And that’s about all I could handle. One tackle.”
She grinned. He was a fighter, but he wasn’t an arrogant macho jerk who had to insist he didn’t need a woman’s help. “I love that about you, you know?”
“What that exactly?”
“That you can admit you needed my help.”
“I need a lot more from you, sugar. Come home with me and you can tell me what else you love.”
Her throat constricted for some odd reason, but she nodded. “Good plan,” she choked out.
They didn’t get to go home right away.
It was a messier collar than Elle was used to, but not every job went according to plan. The FBI arrived eventually—after the local authorities. The Feds weren’t happy she’d gone for the perps without them, but she didn’t care. Beau was safe and that was all that mattered.
She wasn’t trying to save her career at TGP or make a new one with the Feds. She was done working for the government. That part of her life was over, but she had a lot to look forward to, and the knowledge that the job she loved was lost to her didn’t hurt anymore.
It was all about priorities, she told herself.
The FBI agents perked up when Elle turned over the video and voice-recording evidence. The questioning went on for longer than she wanted, but it could have been worse.
Which is what she told Mat when he came out of the building the FBI had used to question them and started complaining about her and the others being detained for so long.
Finally, they all got to head back to Mat’s place.
Chapter 20
As Beau and Elle left the parking lot, Beau flipped his phone out and dialed. “Hey, Mat. Look, we’ll come over for a debriefing tomorrow, but tonight your sister and I have some things to work out.”
Her brother said something, probably some tease for her, but she didn’t hear it.
“Yeah. See you then.” Beau flipped the phone shut.
Elle didn’t bother to protest. She was coming down from the adrenaline rush and wanted nothing more than to snuggle up on Beau’s big chocolate-brown sofa and drink a glass of his wine.
He suggested she take a hot shower to relax when they got there, and though she felt like she should be taking care of him, she went with it—after getting a promise from him to take something for his headache, which thankfully had gotten better during the questioning, not worse.
When she got out of the shower, there was a man’s robe hanging on the back of the door and she slid into it. Entering the living room a few seconds later, she saw that Beau had a fire going in the grate and two glasses of wine already sitting on the coffee table.
He’d stripped to his boxers and looked frankly edible. “I can see why you think talking is at risk when we get naked,” she said.
“We’re not naked. Yet.”
“Getting that way has me preoccupied.” She curled into the corner of the couch and took a sip of her wine. “But I do think we need to talk.”
Instead of sitting beside her, Beau came around to kneel in front of her. “You saved my life, princess.”
“It could have gone differently.” She shuddered at the thought. “It did for Kyle.”
“Kyle’s death wasn’t your fault. You weren’t there, but you were here and I’m grateful for that. If you hadn’t been on the case, I would have ended up in South Africa, and probably dead when I refused to build the antigravity ship for them.”
“You stick by what you believe in. I love that about you.”
“You were going to tell me what else you love, remember?”
She swallowed around a suddenly dry throat. “I love you, Beau.” Oh, man, she’d said it. She really had. And she meant it.
“Thank God. And I do mean that.” He leaned forward and kissed her until they were both breathing hard. “I love you too. So much. I don’t want you to leave, but if you go, I’m following you.”
“I’m staying.”
“Here.”
“With you.”
“Kids?”
“I want them, but maybe not right now.”
“Me too.”
“Your family?”
“I’ll talk to my sister. And then maybe my parents.”
“Your job?”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty pissed at Mr. Smith.”
“But you believe in what you do. Don’t let Archer Sandstone’s actions take that from you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Besides, I’ve still got the security measures to work out. And you’re my liaison.”
“You’re going to finish the project?”
“I always finish a project once I start.” It was an interesting conversation to have with their mouths only a breath away from each other.
“How about this project?” And then he was kissing her and she felt the final walls around her heart crumble into dust. Mama was right: loving someone was a risk, but Elle was good at taking risks.
She would have been a lousy government agent otherwise.
She might not be a field agent any longer, but that didn’t mean she was going to start balking at the hard stuff.
Especially when the potential for good was so strong. She had a whole life shared with the most amazing man she’d ever known ahead of her. Not to mention a ride on his super-fast motorcycle.
Definitely worth it.
Epilogue
The family dinner at Mama and Papa Chernichenko’s that Sunday was more of a party than anything else. Elle had insisted on bringing a couple of extra guests besides her and Mat’s lovers. Frank and his wife hit it off immediately with the rest of the family, and Elle could tell that made Beau very happy.
Mat introduced Chantal as his fiancée, and Elle told the family she’d agreed to marry Beau and was moving back to California. Her parents and Baba were ecstatic, and the two older women started in immediately on planning not one, but two weddings.
The next day, Archer Sandstone was fired and served with a restraining order as well as charged with stalking and a list of other criminal activities Frank’s lawyer had come up with. Beau was ecstatic, and since he was in such a good mood, he called his sister and asked her about their parents for the first time in years.
He discovered his mother and father regretted their actions more than a little and wanted to hear from him. When he called, his banker father, who never showed emotion, cried and begged for forgiveness. For the former football star turned scientist, it was a surreal moment, but he agreed to take
Elle to meet them sometime before the wedding.
“Happy now?” he asked Elle as he got off the phone.
Lying across their bed, she was dressed in little more than girl boxers and a tiny tank top. “The question is, are you happy?”
“Sugar, as long as I have you, I’ll always be happy.”
She grinned and then pounced, landing on top of him spread-eagle on the bed. “Good answer, but I hope you can have a relationship with your parents too.”
“I will and we all have you to thank for it. I never would have called them otherwise.”
“Baba would have talked you into it eventually or called them for you.”
He didn’t doubt his beautiful, über-smart, ultraproficient fiancée. Her baba was a scary woman sometimes.
“Just as long as she never talks you out of loving me.”
“Never happen. I love you too much to ever let you go!”
“I believe you.” Elle would never lie to him, no matter how their relationship had started.
“Love you.”
“I love you. Now let me show you just how much.”
And he did.
Whit dialed a number for a man he hadn’t ever expected to speak to again.
“This is Mr. Smith,” the man answered.
“Hello, Jonathan.”
“Whit.”
“You cost me one of my best agents.”
“That was unintentional.”
“I believe you, but I’m still pissed.”
“They make a good couple.”
“Beau and Elle? They do.”
“I knew they would.”
“You were matchmaking?”
“I find that the older I get, the more important certain things become and the less others.”
“I’m finding the same thing.”
“Maybe we should pool our knowledge.”
Whit considered the possibility with an unexpected smile as he and his old mentor/nemesis discussed other less personal issues.
Like this book? You’ll love DARING THE MOON by Sherrill Quinn, out this month from Brava….
“Look, Ms. Gibson…Taite.” He sat next to her, angling his body so that their knees touched. When she shifted slightly, pulling back from him, he wasn’t surprised. What did surprise him was the sense of hurt he felt at the movement. But it was no more than he deserved. “I know I’ve been…less than hospitable,” he went on. “I’d like to apologize.”
