by Cindy Dees
Dinner was rich but blessedly served slowly enough so she could enjoy some of all the courses without fearing for the seams of her dress. The leisurely meal gave her plenty of time to study Tom in his native environment. The conversation over the meal was highly technical in nature and ranged across the spectrum of financial issues. Tom was fluent in them all and offered a number of sharp and insightful comments that the other financiers at the table listened to with respect. And considering the host of experts seated around the long table, that was no mean feat.
As coffee was poured all around and a course of sherbet served to cleanse palates before dessert, Tom leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. “Bored to tears yet?” he murmured.
“Actually, no. I’m finding the discussion fascinating. Although you do surprise me with some of the viewpoints you take. I’d love to hear more about why you think some of the things you do.” That sent one of his dark eyebrows upward. She continued, “Frankly, I expected you to be more worried about protecting your own best interests.”
That sent his other eyebrow up. “I have more than enough money for ten lifetimes. Why would I be greedy at this point in my career?”
“In my experience, the richer people are, the more interested they are in protecting their wealth.”
He grinned. “Some would argue that their concern with money is why they have a lot of it.”
She shrugged. “I’m still surprised. I had you pegged for a crusty old fart in the making.”
He laughed. “Honey, I’m a long way from that. But then, you haven’t been in bed with me—yet—so I won’t hold you responsible for not knowing.”
He just had to get in the jab at her, didn’t he? She shot him a look laced with irritation. “Good luck with that.”
His eyebrows climbed even higher. “Are you challenging me to get you into bed? What’s the bet?”
“I wouldn’t gamble with you to save my life, and I certainly wouldn’t take a bet over something like that.”
“Chicken,” he murmured silkily.
She smiled blandly. “You know, a couple of years ago I might have risen to that bait. But I know full well who and what I am these days.” And God bless her Medusa instructors for imparting that lesson to her. Although she doubted they’d ever intended to have it applied in exactly this scenario.
He leaned close, throwing his arm over the back of her chair, and whispered in her ear. “You and I both know you’re afraid to sleep with me. And I don’t need a bet to find the challenge irresistible.”
She turned her head and all but put her lips on his ear. “You hold on to your delusions because that’s all you’re ever going to get from me.”
He laughed low and husky, drawing the attention of several people around them. She suddenly found herself intently studying the napkin in her lap. She’d lay odds he’d engineered that little scene to make it look like they were flirting with each other. Although, come to think of it, she supposed they actually had been flirting. In their own rather bizarre, backward way.
After the meal, the men retreated to a smoking lounge to drink brandy and sample cigars, but Tom declined the invitation to join them. Which was nice of him. She would have hated to make a stink in front of all these people about not being separated from him. Instead, he suggested a walk on the beach.
Paige snorted. “Like that’s a better security option than you in a generally safe room full of your colleagues without me?”
He shrugged. “If there’s someone after me, I’d just as soon draw him out and take him down than hang around waiting for him to attack.”
It occurred to her that he must trust her training at least a little if he was willing to bet his life that she could stop whoever was out to get him. She probably didn’t deserve that much confidence. After all, this was her first time out in the field, and by herself, no less. Aloud, she asked, “Jeez. Am I that bad a girlfriend? You’d rather try to get yourself killed than spend a few days with me?”
He grinned and opened one of the French doors for her. She stepped into the sultry humidity of the night, relishing the darkness and the smell of the ocean.
“In truth, you’re a great deal more interesting than most of the women I go out with.”
She replied lightly, “That’s what you get for dating empty-headed supermodels.”
“Actually, some of them are highly intelligent. Good businesswomen. Nonetheless, I swore off supermodels for good after Mimi.”
“Mimi Ando?” she asked.
He paused at the end of the veranda and leaned down to untie his shoes. She followed suit and kicked off her heels. “Yeah. You know her?”
Paige answered, “I know of her. What’s she like?”
“Imagine a great white shark, but skinny and tall. And selfish. And childish. Oh, and mean.” He strode out into the sand.
Wow. A wee bit bitter, was he? After all this time? Mimi must have really done a number on him. Paige caught up to him, looking around for threats and begging her eyes frantically to adjust to the dark. “And you dated her why?”
He snorted. “I’d just made my first billion. I thought it was what I was supposed to do. You know. Get rich, get a famous, gorgeous girlfriend who puts you on the front pages of the tabloids.”
“How did things work out?”
He glanced at her as the sound of the ocean grew louder. “Not so great. I guess she didn’t want to wait around for me to die so she could get her hands on all my dough. She dumped me for another billionaire who was forty years older than me. She married him.”
“Did she make Takashi happy?”
“She didn’t speak a word of Japanese, and his French was barely adequate to order a meal in a restaurant. That was probably the key to their success at standing one another for as long as they did. I heard a few months back that there was trouble in paradise, but I don’t really follow such things. There are always rumors.”
“I really don’t like having you out in the open like this, Tom. You’re making me nervous. Can we please get you undercover?”
He shook his head. “How can you be a Medusa and not like to live dangerously?”
“There’s a difference between danger and stupidity, and this is the latter.”
He laughed. “You’re calling me stupid?”
“Yes. And reckless.”
“Well, then. What do you suggest I do, great mother hen?” He kicked at a seashell with a toe, examining it.
“Let’s go back inside. We’ll order a nice armored limo to take us back to the hotel where I can tuck you into—” Bang.
She dived on him before a curse could even form in her head. She knew that sound. High-powered rifle. Had Tom not bent down just then to pick up a shell, he’d likely be minus his face right now.
“Into the water,” she bit out. “Stay low. I’ll be on top of you.”
Cursing under his breath, he rolled beneath her to face her. Under other circumstances she might have gotten a thrill out of lying on top of Tom Rowe. But as it was, she was merely scared. And mad. She’d warned him.
“Let’s go get him,” Tom argued up at her.
“No. Absolutely not. Into the water now. No arguments, Tom. I’m the bodyguard.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she waited, holding her breath. At the end of the day, she couldn’t force him to do anything. He would have to cede authority to her voluntarily.
He exhaled hard. “Okay, okay.” Then he added, “But as soon as we’re in the water, I want to try to spot him.”
“Fine. Just move,” she retorted, exasperated. Every second they delayed here on the beach gave the sniper more time to reload and zero in on them.
She did a push-up, and Tom rolled beneath her once more. It was awkward crab-walking above him as he crawled into the surf, but he was taking bigger facefuls of salt water than she was. Finally, the water became deep enough for him to swim out from under her and for her to push off the bottom and swim against the tide, as well.
; She followed Tom away from shore until they were both bobbing on the waves several dozen yards out.
“See anything?” he asked.
She fumbled in her sodden dress, thankful that the light silk was not yards and yards of heavy cloth dragging her down and tangling in her legs. She unzipped her thigh pouch and felt around for the fist-size cylinder inside. She found it and pulled it out.
Treading water, she raised the spotter’s scope to her eye and scanned the shore. The optical device was used to help snipers find targets and zero in on the exact distance to them. And it worked great in a pinch as a small telescope.
“Color me impressed,” Tom commented from beside her. “You had a scope under that skirt?”
“Mmm hmm.” Odds were the sniper was sitting in the jungle just to the north of the hotel. Speaking of which, she saw a group of armed security men moving fast out of the hotel garden toward the trees she was scanning.
She reported to Tom, “Hotel security’s heading for that stand of jungle. Our shooter’s bugging out by now.”
“Let’s swim north and see if we can get ahead of him.”
She glanced over at Tom. “We’re swimming. He’s running. No way will we outpace him.”
“We will if he’s having to move stealthily.”
“Maybe,” she replied unconvinced. “But then there’s the little problem of actually getting in front of him and putting you squarely into his sights again. Sorry. No can do.”
“Dammit, Paige. He’s right over there. If we can catch him, the threat to me is eliminated for good.”
“I disagree.”
He looked over at her, startled. “How’s that?”
“The shooter’s a hired gun. Somebody is bankrolling him. We catch this shooter and another one will be hired to replace him. The key to making you safe is to figure out who wants you dead.”
Tom was silent at that, which she took for tacit admission that she was right. Then he said, “If we catch the shooter, maybe he’ll tell us who hired him.”
“C’mon, Tom. Think. The shooter won’t talk unless we torture him, and even then, he probably won’t know who hired him. The deal will have been done by intermediaries who never met face-to-face.”
She thought she heard a sigh drift across the water. Then he murmured, “Vanessa Blake does pick smart women to work for her.” Bang.
They both flinched hard and she shoved him reflexively under the water as she ducked under herself. She bobbed up first, and when Tom emerged, she bit out, “You hit?”
“No, but that was close. I felt the bullet go by.” He sounded distinctly more tense than before. Good. Maybe he was finally taking the threat to his life seriously.
“How far can you swim?” she asked, weighing her options for getting him back under safe cover. She’d met him with a surfboard in hand. Please let that mean he was a strong swimmer.
He grunted. “As far as you need me to, boss.”
Thank goodness. And thank goodness he was finally feeling cooperative, too. “Your resort’s about a mile down the beach from here—” Bang.
She swore mentally as she ducked underwater again. That shot had passed right between her and Tom. And they weren’t more than two feet apart. She swam off to the south, tugging on Tom’s shirt to indicate that he should go with her.
When they both surfaced she panted, “Head south and stay under except for breathing!”
Tom moved in the direction she indicated and she followed close behind. They swam in tense silence, each concentrating on keeping a low profile. And she suspected Tom was praying just like she was that the sniper didn’t get another decent shot at him. That last one had been way too close for comfort. She placed herself between Tom and the shore, trying to time surfacing to breathe with his bobs to the surface. It wasn’t much by way of protecting him, but it was the best she could do out here.
The shooter took another shot at them, but it sprayed well wide. Thankfully, water changed the trajectory of bullets enough that she wasn’t worried about getting hit as long as she and Tom stayed mostly under the surface. But as they swam, her thoughts churned. Was there more than one shooter? Surely the guy parked just north of the hotel had been chased away by that squad of hotel security men. The thought of a team of hit men coming after Tom made her sick to her stomach.
After about thirty minutes of swimming with no more shots fired, she felt fairly certain the sniper or snipers had abandoned the idea of shooting at them again this evening. Still, she didn’t relish bringing Tom ashore and exposing both of them at the water’s edge. She didn’t want to endanger him more than she absolutely had to. She needed a stretch of beach where the water was deep right up to the shoreline, and with plenty of cover once they got ashore.
And she knew just the spot.
She tapped Tom’s foot and he surfaced, treading water. She asked between pants, “Have you got another mile or so of swimming in you?”
“Yeah. You?”
She was gratified to hear him breathing hard. “Me? I’m fine. You see that rock promontory sticking out into the water a ways ahead?” When he nodded, she continued. “We’re headed for a spot just beyond that.”
“Then what?” he replied.
“Then you and I go to ground.”
Chapter 10
As he passed through fatigue into that dogged state of perseverance special operators could maintain indefinitely, Tom became aware of something else.
Fear. It was one thing to be in a firefight armed to the teeth and able to shoot back. At least a guy felt like he had an even chance of surviving then. But this. Bobbing along in the ocean with no cover except the water itself gave new meaning to the phrase sitting duck.
He kicked off his tuxedo, abandoning the heavy clinging cloth to the embrace of the ocean, stripping all the way down to his spandex undershorts. They could pass for a pair of biking shorts or a swimsuit in a pinch. Thankfully, the Pacific in this part of the world was reasonably warm year-round, particularly close to shore in shallow waters like these.
As a half hour stretched into an hour with no more shots fired at them, he finally began to relax. Which wasn’t necessarily any great blessing because his survival adrenaline drained away, leaving only the insidious drag of the water, the darkness and an interminable swim in painful silence.
He wasn’t about to complain, though. If Paige could do this without whining about it, he damned well could, too.
Eventually, she murmured from behind him, “There. You see that little beach just beyond that big outcropping? That’s where we’re headed. To the rocks on the far side of the sand.”
“Got it,” he managed to grit out without sounding like he was panting too badly.
He dragged himself ashore behind Paige, immensely relieved to be done swimming for the night. His arms felt like lead, and his entire body was heavy with exhaustion. Frankly, he couldn’t believe Paige had survived that grueling swim without crying uncle a long while ago. Every time he thought he knew what the Medusas were capable of, they went and surprised him again.
Sometimes he regretted having left active duty before he got a chance to work with the all-female team. The way he heard it, they were making quite a name for themselves in the Special Forces community. And he could see why. If Paige Ellis was only an adjunct member of the team, he’d hate to see the full-timers at work.
“You got a little crawling left in those arms?” Paige muttered.
“Have you?”
Her smile flashed white in the darkness. “I’m a Medusa.”
And he supposed that said it all.
She hand-signaled to him to follow her, and he signaled back an acknowledgment. She’d picked a good spot to come ashore. They’d been able to swim right up to a jumble of boulders and creep behind their plentiful cover. Thick foliage loomed only a few yards ahead. They gained the cover of the heavy underbrush, and then she turned south, skirting the edge of the jungle. He followed, grateful for the cautious pace she was setting. And then
he rounded a palmetto bush and spied their destination. He grinned. Clever. Paige’s borrowed cottage. The local police knew she was staying here, but no one else knew. Whoever was trying to kill him wouldn’t have been able to give this address to a hit man.
She dug a door key out of that magic pouch under her skirt. They both rose to a crouch and slipped inside the back door low and fast, leaving the lights off. She motioned for him to sit down on the kitchen floor, and he leaned against a cabinet while she moved off in the dark to do a quick security sweep of the house. He had to give her credit for being thorough.
It felt weird having someone look out for him like this. Under less threatening circumstances, he might even have enjoyed it. She really was cute when she went all fierce and protective on him. Although, after the last two hours, his reaction was turning more into admiration than amusement.
“The house is clear,” she murmured from the kitchen doorway. “Let’s keep the lights out, however. No sense advertising our presence.”
He nodded. That made sense. Besides, his vision adjusted well enough to the dark not to need any more than the thin stripes of moonlight filtering through the window blinds for illumination.
“Why don’t you jump into the shower and get warmed up?” she suggested. “I’m afraid I don’t have any clothes that will fit you, but I can offer you a clean sheet.” She added slyly, “You’ll look great in a toga.”
He grinned at her. “I’d rather go commando, thanks.”
“Go take your shower.”
“Ladies first.”
“Sorry. I’m not a lady at the moment. I’m a Medusa. And we don’t tolerate preferential treatment based on our gender.”
“Right. I forgot. You Medusas have got to be more macho than the guys.”
She answered surprisingly mildly, “Not at all. We’ve never tried to be like the men. And we’ve certainly never pretended to be as strong as our male counterparts. But in an operational situation, there’s no time for niceties. We have to be just another soldier to the operators around us.”
“And the guys you work with manage to treat you that way?” he asked in disbelief.
