by Billi Jean
Tazz usually reined him in—when he’d been around, which wasn’t often. On this mission, Tazz had kept Walters on a short leash. David would bet his last dollar Tazz knew Walters was rotten through and through. Maybe he’d known from the start and that’s why he’d kept him close.
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
“Where is Tazz now?” David asked, folding his arms over his chest. It was cold, but he’d rather stand out here and talk than enter Duke’s compound. The man’s fake soldiers and sick ideas made his stomach roll.
“He’s with a woman. He went there instead of meeting you guys and Walters. I can only assume, before you ask,” she said, holding up a gloved hand, “that he sensed something wasn’t on the up and up with Walters and didn’t trust his own reflexes when he wasn’t at a hundred percent.”
“Why wasn’t he at a hundred percent?” Will asked.
“I shot him.” Nonchalantly, she shrugged her shoulder. “Not a kill shot, just to get him where he needed to be.”
“With a woman?” David guessed, more than a little outraged. His voice went up an octave. “What, are you a matchmaker by gunpoint now?”
Will cracked a laugh and Sonya snorted, stretching her arms over her head like a cat.
“Funny, really,” she muttered. “But I do know what I’m doing. I needed to prove I was on board and he was in the way. I didn’t hurt him hurt him, not with Chung’s drug still flooding him.”
He’d heard Tazz hadn’t gotten off the DNA-altering drug like the rest of them, or he had, but he’d gotten back on when some shit had come up with his little sister. All in all, the Sentinel Program was out of business, but since it was a black ops program, it was also going down quietly, and so far, not easily. Duke was proof of that. But even if Duke hadn’t gotten his hands on Chung’s formula and altered it for the black market, someone else would have. Nothing was secret in this world, nothing and no one could really, truly be trusted—outside of a very, very few.
A car pulled in and stopped just shy of the garage. As it did, a man exited a side door in the building across from them as if he’d been waiting on the newcomers. As soon as he reached the blue Honda, the driver’s door opened and a woman with long, auburn hair and a big smile got out. They hugged but pulled apart as the passenger door opened and a blonde girl emerged, ducking her head as if she was shy but shaking the man’s hand when offered it.
David blinked and realized he’d dropped his arms and didn’t even recall doing it.
The blonde was small, slender, and hands down the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. Wholesome. When she smiled he felt a punch to his gut. She reminded him of sunshine and long summer days. Sweet, warm days filled with nothing to do but watch her, he imagined.
“Damn,” he whispered, then glanced over at Will.
His buddy’s attention was on her as well, but focused on the whole scene, not so much on her exclusively. He checked out the blonde’s friend for a long time, then glanced away from all of them. For some reason that pleased the hell out of David in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
“People can just drive in here, huh?” Will asked.
“Duke thinks he’s hidden by being so far out and up a tough road,” Petrok muttered. “Looks like it’s not that tough.”
David agreed. The two girls were driving a Honda, a good car, but he doubted it had any trouble getting up the road and it wasn’t even a front-wheel drive vehicle.
The blonde hugged her friend and pulled away to give an obvious shiver at the cold. The sound of her laughter carried over to them. Another odd turn of his gut had him frowning even harder at her. It wasn’t as if he knew her, but there was something, maybe the way she waved and got in the driver’s seat with a laugh at the chill, that had him out of sorts. It’d been too long since he’d met a nice, normal girl, not some barfly without an agenda for a night’s worth of fun in the sack.
The group talked for only a second more before the door shut, ending his view of the pretty blonde. The guy pulled the dark-haired girl away and together they raced back into the building. A second later the car backed up, turned and left. For some insane reason, David’s heart went crazy, beating as if he was getting ready to jump from a plane, right into a hotspot.
The sound of the car suddenly went oddly louder, then puttered and died.
A slow grin eased over his face, calming the adrenaline rushing him. If that didn’t sound like car trouble, he’d be a monkey’s uncle. A car door opening and shutting filled the wintery silence, guaranteeing he wasn’t closely related to the primates. His heart did a nosedive to his toes. Whoever the blonde was, she had one hell of a handle on his pulse.
Petrok stood, pulling a second of his attention off his plans for helping a damsel in distress.
“I want you two to stay low, keep yourselves under Walters’ radar. Duke will assign him as your direct supervisor, no doubt, but not at first. I want Walters busy with his own thing, with no idea where you two are. This place is big. He’ll never know you’re here if you lay low. Maybe the blonde will help with that,” she added with a laugh.
“But Duke will know,” Will clarified.
“Yeah, of course he’ll know. He wanted the real deal, so now”—she shrugged—“he has it.”
“The real deal?” Will repeated.
“Soldiers, real soldiers.”
“And he wants what? Security? Because that girl just drove right in the back door.” Will gestured to the buildings.
“Sure, he needs it, right? But then, he’s not here hiding, remember? He’s that bold,” she muttered. “Just keep a low profile. I’ll be your contact with Duke, unless he calls you in, maybe to meet you before you begin training those Ken dolls, huh?”
Will snorted but David laughed at the reference to Duke’s men. It was accurate in his opinion.
“We get this done, find the leads to who knows about the drug then pull them in. That way Walters won’t have a clue he’s stepped into the trap until it snaps down on him.” Petrok brushed her hands on her thighs, giving them a questioning glance.
“Will do,” David said, but sounded distracted even to himself. He couldn’t seem to stop dancing from foot to foot, either.
Is she outside in this cold working on her car?
“Come on, you want to go save the damsel in distress, huh?” Will slapped him on the back with a grin and headed toward the entrance at a slow jog.
Petrok raised her eyebrow at him as if daring him to deny it. Hell, he not only wanted to go save her, but wanted to do it alone. He couldn’t think of a way to stop Will though, so he didn’t even try.
“Later, Petrok.”
“Right. Later.” She laughed.
The coldness of the wintry air added something to the dash through the snow. He wanted to catch up to Will before he could reach the blonde. Something odd, like a sensation that would stay with him for a long time, crept over his shoulder blades, making him slow as he approached. A shiver raced down his skin when she came into view. She had her back to them, but as they approached, she spun and grabbed her throat with one hand as if they’d frightened her.
The first thing that struck him was the unusual color of her eyes. They were blue, but so pale, they might be called gray. She lowered her hand and sighed in relief when he grinned. She was even prettier close up than she’d been from a distance. Dressed in a light blue snow cap with white snowflakes, matching mittens and a light blue fleece, she reminded him of a snow bunny ready for the slopes, only sweet and kind of timid.
“You scared me,” she said breathlessly. But she must have thought two guys wearing snow BDUs were safe, which really made him want to grin for some insane reason.
“Sorry,” Will murmured next to him. Thank God, because David couldn’t get his tongue working.
He’d never been good at being so easy with a woman like this—a pretty, sweet woman. He stopped when he got close enough and waited, but when Will didn’t go on, and neither did the girl, he
walked over to her car and tried to jump-start his brain.
“What’s the problem?” he managed. He played like he was studying the car, when he really knew jack shit about automobiles. He could change oil, fix a flat and a few other things, but he hated working on cars. “Car died?”
“Yes, it just, well, it did this.” She gestured to the smoking hood with a blue mitten, giving the car tire a disappointed kick with her boot.
“Damn, that’s too bad, but we have a truck—we can take you into town, if you want, or Will knows a thing or two about cars,” David offered.
Will stepped forward, and she took a step back, a little wide-eyed, then hurried to say, “It’s not my car. It’s Sara’s. Maybe I should go back and well, tell her.”
“Sara’s the friend you dropped off?” Will asked quietly.
“Yes, she, oh…” She paused and seemed to think of something more distressing than the car or meeting two strangers out in the middle of nowhere. She bit her bottom lip and winced. “She might be busy,” she whispered with a shy smile, blushing pink to her blonde roots. “So, maybe that’s not an option, oh, for… A while?”
David coughed hard to cover his laugh at her words. Clearly she knew what her friend was probably already doing.
Will ignored him and focused on her like David maybe should have instead of laughing at what she wasn’t saying—her friend was having sex with her boyfriend. By the sound of it, she thought they might be going at it like bunnies for a while, too.
“I’m William, Will Bryson and this is my buddy, David Jansen.”
“Oh.” She appeared even more nervous and took a few steps backward again. Her boots crunched in the fresh powder until she seemed to realize she was retreating. Her gaze bounced from Will to him and back again nervously. “Right, well, um, I’m Paris—”
“Hey, we’re safe, promise.” David kept his voice low, wanting to ease the nervousness he could feel coming off her. “Really, you can trust us. Besides, it’s cold out here. Let’s take you to town after Will sees what’s wrong. They’ll have an auto store in town and we can get what we need to fix it.” She seemed uncertain so he grinned and said, “I’ll even let you buy us dinner.”
“We’ll buy dinner,” Will said sternly, making David’s unease settle. Will always knew what to say. “Can you open the hood?” Will asked, indicating the driver’s side door. “And I’ll fix it while Jansen tries to entertain you. I can see what’s up, no problem. It won’t take long.”
She shifted from foot to foot. The move had his heart doing an odd jump and he felt a laugh building. How long has it been since I’ve laughed so easily, not because something was shit and I need to laugh or lose my mind, but really laughed because I felt good?
“You know there are horror stories that start out this way,” she said.
Her comment surprised that laugh right out of him.
“We’re not gonna hurt you, promise,” he offered. They were out here alone, and there were two of them. He knew they looked like the badasses they were, it was hard not to, besides, she was alone. It had to freak her out to face them, but she was, and she was able to joke around, too.
“Those horror stories are all at summer camps, right?” he reasoned. “Not in some mountain in Wyoming in the snow. And I swear to God I don’t own a ski mask, or what was that? An old hockey mask maybe?”
Will snorted. “Hockey mask. There was that crazy Red Rum one, right? Jack Nicolson movie. Classic. It was in the snow.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “I’ve seen that! The Shining. What a horrible movie, really, that scared me for weeks.” She examined them, relaxing a little as she did.
His face warmed under her scrutiny before she switched her clear gaze to Will. A smile tugged at her lips probably because of Will’s not so patient posture. He’d been waiting for her to pop the hood for a while now. She finally stopped shifting her feet, so David thought the wait worth it when she gave them another sweet smile.
“Okay, but if you can’t fix it, that’s totally okay,” she said, giving them both a hopeful smile that made it clear she was going to be much happier if they did fix it. Hell, maybe he needed to learn a bit more about the mechanics of a car, instead of a gun.
“I’m sure someone in the town”—she waved off behind her—“can fix it. Really.”
He grunted at that. No way would they let some town mechanic win a smile from her. He speared Will with an impatient frown that got his buddy grinning but at least moving toward the smoking car.
“Can you release the hood? Let’s see what’s wrong, first,” Will said.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, forgot.” She blushed again, a cute pink. She opened the car door and bent to find the release.
Will caught his eye and David knew his buddy was interested in her. They’d shared women before, but Paris—she was going to be different. For one, he wasn’t so on board with sharing—a first for him. In his life, sharing a woman notched the sex up to sky rockets going off. Paris is obviously nervous, shy and beautiful, but is she into us?
“All right, sorry, but I can’t find the hood thingie.” Paris gave them a frustrated frown.
David tried to pick out something about the woman he didn’t like, and not a thing surfaced. He felt awkward around her, as if he’d suddenly been shifted back in time to when he’d been a teenager with his first girl. Shoving the anxiety aside, he grinned his normal smile, one usually reserved to hide his unease, and walked over.
“Here, they’re tricky to find, let me help out, okay?”
She nodded and moved back to let him in. This close he could smell something citrus and warm woman on her—soft and sweet. He imagined she tasted just like that. The thought had him twitching below the belt. He ignored the response and ducked in to find the latch, pulled it and winked at her. “See, always hidden, these things,” he assured her.
“Why do they do that?” she asked, but she seemed grateful he’d had some trouble finding the latch, too.
“Messing with you is my guess,” he teased and stood.
She grew nervous again and headed over to where Will was. Will stopped her with a hand out on her arm, freezing her in place. “Not too close. If it overheated it might release hot air when I raise the hood. You could get third-degree burns.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “And you won’t?”
For some reason that tiny response made David grin. “Hey now, he knows what he’s doing. Come over here and we’ll see what Will finds out.”
She nodded and backed over next to him then did the oddest thing. She gave him a head to toe glance, shaking her head. “You two are really tall, aren’t you?”
Will snorted but shot her a smile—something his buddy hadn’t done much in the past few years. “It helps being guys, you know?”
She nodded seriously, as if that made sense to her.
David had the irresistible urge to hug her. He shoved his hands into his parka to keep them off her. For some insane reason when she did that he wanted to haul her in close. Maybe because she was so damn cute taking Will seriously.
“You’re in the service?” she asked. “American military?”
“We were,” he told her, because Will was already tinkering with the engine, clearly only half listening. If David had to guess, Will would not only fix the car, he’d make it run like new—all to impress one little blonde they’d just met. Or maybe her friend—David considered recalling how intense Will had checked out the other girl.
“Yes, that would help, wouldn’t it? Being so…” She tilted her head to examine them again. “Big.”
“Not always. Some of the other guys are bigger. I’m only six-three. Will’s what? Six-one?”
Will nodded.
“Well, compared to five-two that’s pretty tall,” Paris offered.
“Yeah, well, size doesn’t always matter.” The comment went completely over her head.
Will shot him a cool-it frown. Since neither of them were lacking in that department, he couldn’t
offer to see if the saying was true or not.
“Besides, I know a woman that can hold her own in anything and she’s about the same size as you,” he admitted.
“Really?” she asked, sounding interested.
“Absolutely.” Will stood. “It’s a belt. We can get one in town. I should have you back on the road tomorrow. Do you want us to take you somewhere? Home?”
“Oh,” Paris murmured, shifting her feet again. “I don’t live here, but yes, if you don’t mind, I rented a hotel room in town. I could use a ride, and I guess you two are safe enough,” she teased.
David ducked his head to hide the rush of anticipation he experienced. Would he be able to interest her in more? He wanted more. He wanted a lot more and he knew, without asking him, his buddy would be on board as well. Again, David felt a rush of anxiety at the thought of sharing her, but more, his brain seemed to spin on the possibility of there not being a chance at more after the heat settled. What if I go for sex and that is all I get from her? Sex.
Why does that bother me? Isn’t sex the goal?
It was always the goal when it had been this long without it. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his jacket sleeve and thought about that. Hell, that made him sound like some guy only after a girl for one thing, like Walters. He wasn’t that kind of man, but when he met someone he was interested in, he pursued. It might not be for more than a brief time, a few weeks, maybe longer, but sometimes he was too engaged in a mission to offer more.
Suddenly that didn’t sit well. And it wouldn’t work with her—Paris.
What the hell is wrong with me? Now, out in the middle of the freezing wilderness, I’m getting a conscience about sleeping with women—women who only want to sleep with me?
“We can take you into town, no problem,” he offered, trying to dislodge the misgivings.
“That’s right,” Will said, shutting the hood. “You’re never gonna be safer, right, Jansen?”
David swallowed and got his head back on straight. She would be safe. He’d never pushed a woman into anything, no matter that he suddenly felt wrong about never having had a real relationship with one. Paris wouldn’t be safer, and for some reason he wanted to be the man who made sure of that.
