Danger in the Desert

by Merline Lovelace

  Deke raised his head, and the regret in his eyes mirrored Jaci’s. She held that look in her heart through the next hectic hours.

  It stayed with her until well after the specially configured medevac aircraft was airborne and winging its way above an achingly blue Mediterranean. Only then, with Susan snoring softly in a drugged sleep and the medical personnel conferring quietly at the front of the plane, did the doubts begin to seep in.

  They were so different, she and Deke. Although she craved travel and adventure, she preferred them dished up in easily digestible servings. He lived day after day on a steady diet of both. His aviation consultant business took him to the far corners of the globe. What’s more, his work for this secret, shadowy government agency added an edge that fascinated Jaci as much as it intimidated her.

  Now here she was, heading back to her comfortable little nest while Deke helped Kahil track down a band of potentially violent conspirators. Nibbling on her lower lip, she stared out the window while tired clichés drifted through in her equally tired brain.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  Easy come, easy go.

  And the really scary bit about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks.

  She was still chewing on that one when the pilot of the aircraft left her copilot at the throttles and exited the cockpit.

  “How’s our patient?” she asked the medical officer in charge.

  “Stable and sleeping.”

  Nodding, the leggy blonde made her way back to Jaci’s seat. “How about you?”

  “Stable and wide-awake.”

  “Ace mentioned in his report that you collected a few bruises before you took out the guy who came after you. The doctor probably has something in his bag of tricks that would ease the aches and help you sleep.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “That was nice work, by the way.”

  “It was more luck than anything else,” Jaci acknowledged ruefully.

  “Not according to Ace.” A smile tugged at the pilot’s lips. “You seem to have made quite an impression on him.”

  “That works both ways.” Jaci hesitated. She wasn’t the prying type, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. “Have you known him long?”

  “Long enough.”

  It was the blonde’s turn to pause. She and Deke and the others in their supersecret organization lived by a strict code, Jaci guessed. They wouldn’t reveal information about the agency’s operatives to an outsider. Probably not even to each other. So she was surprised when Talbot treated her to a wry grin.

  “I have to admit I’m curious. So is everyone else back at the agency. Ace hasn’t requested this level of post-op security for a target before.”

  “Target?” Jaci echoed with a grimace.

  “Person of interest,” she amended. “You certainly appear to be that.”

  There were so many shades of nuance in that comment that Jaci didn’t even try to decode them.

  “He just wants to keep me under wraps until he and Kahil nose out the rest of the conspirators,” she said with a show of nonchalance.

  “You think so, huh? I guess we’ll see.”

  “Guess we will,” Jaci murmured as the pilot tipped her a two-fingered salute and made her way back to the cockpit.

  Susan Grimes’ granddaughter was waiting when the jet touched down at Gainesville Regional Airport. A third-year nursing student at the university, Debby had arranged an ambulance and skilled care for her grandmother. She’d also opted to move in with her during her post-hospital recovery. Grandmother and granddaughter greeted each other with such obvious affection that Jaci had no qualms about relinquishing the patient to Debby’s care.

  The schoolteacher was still dopey but gave Jaci’s hand a squeeze before being rolled to the ambulance. “Come see me,” she murmured drowsily.

  “I will.”

  “You and Deke.”

  “He stayed in Cairo,” Jaci reminded her. “I’m, uh, not sure when he’ll make it to Florida.”

  When, or if.

  Now that she’d returned to familiar surroundings, Jaci’s doubts magnified. Suddenly Egypt seemed so far away. Everything that had happened there so unbelievable. She almost pinched herself while she waited for Victoria Talbot to turn the aircraft over to the copilot and collect the vehicle waiting for her at the airport.

  As Victoria trailed Jaci through Gainesville’s tree-lined streets, Cairo’s raucous, bustling traffic and the vast emptiness of the Western Desert seemed to recede further with each turn of the wheels.

  Reclaiming her two felines from the friend who’d been pet-sitting them only reinforced the odd feeling of separation. Mittens, lazy slug that she was, could barely be bothered to acknowledge Jaci’s return. Lively little Boots went to the opposite extreme. He gave her a number of ecstatic, raspy kisses before scrambling onto her shoulder. Tail swishing, claws dug in, he remained perched there throughout the ride to her condo.

  Another friend had checked the place and watered the plants, but the two-bedroom unit still gave off a musty air. Jaci dispelled that with scented oil sticks while Victoria did a walk-through.

  The blonde had switched to full operative mode. Watching her in action, Jaci had no difficulty thinking of her in terms of her code name. Precise and efficient, Rebel checked the locks on windows and doors before installing what she termed a very basic intrusion detection system. She then walked through each room, fixing their layout in her mind as she skimmed the ceilings, walls and fixtures with a handheld device.

  “What’s that?” Jaci asked as she and Mittens followed her through the rooms.

  “A handy-dandy bug sniffer, developed by the genius who heads OMEGA’s electronics division.”

  She was looking for listening devices, Jaci realized with a gulp. Not the silverfish and palmetto bugs and other pests that invaded Florida homes.

  This all, too, seemed so unreal. She couldn’t imagine how the conspirators would’ve had time to bug her cozy condo. Or that they would want to.

  “OMEGA’s co-opted the empty unit directly across the courtyard from yours,” Rebel informed her. “I’ll set up operations there.”

  “The room I use as an office has a sofa bed,” Jaci offered while a playful Mittens batted at the other woman’s pant leg. “You could stay here.”

  Rebel shook her head and scooped up the black-and-white fur ball. “You need your space. And, depending on how long it takes Ace to wrap things up in Egypt, I’ll need backup for 24/7 surveillance. You don’t want strangers camped out indefinitely in your office. But,” she added as she scratched behind Mittens’s ears, “we’ll get to know each other real well in the next days or weeks.”

  Weeks?

  “I’ll give you the number at the empty unit,” she said over the cat’s ecstatic purrs. “Also my cell phone. Contact me before you go out, and I’ll either go with you or stay right on your tail. Ditto if anything makes you nervous. Anything at all.”

  Ooo-kay.

  “When do you plan to go back to work?”

  Frowning, Jaci counted time zones and hospital days. They’d all run together in her mind. It took her several moments to sort through them and recognize that this was Thursday afternoon.

  “I’m not expected back until the middle of next week,” she said with a twinge of regret for her shortened vacation. “I’ll probably go in on Monday, though.”

  “Wise move to wait a few days. You’ll need that time to recover from jet lag.”

  Among other things. Like almost getting kidnapped. Being whisked off to a desert oasis. Having the hottest, most intense sex of her life. And losing her heart to a certain consultant/secret agent.

  She looked around, taking in the plants and fluffy throw pillows, and tried to convince herself it wasn’t all a hallucination. Especially that incredibly erotic sex with the man of her dreams. Gulping, she wrenched her attention back to Rebel and the ecstatically vibrating Mittens.

  “Before I crash, I want to hit the grocery s
tore and pick up my mail from the post office.”

  “That works for me,” the agent said. “I can stock up on a few things, as well.”

  “Oh! I belong to an Ancient Civilizations study group. It meets tonight.”

  Rebel shot her a quick glance. “Isn’t that the group that includes Dr. Nasif Abdouh?”

  “You know about him?” Jaci asked curiously.

  “Ace had me check him out.” Her hand stilled, precipitating a protesting mewl from the cat draped over her arm. “He didn’t tell you Abdouh has been funneling funds to an antigovernment dissent group in Egypt?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  Good grief! Talk about guilt by association! No wonder she’d come under such scrutiny. As if that business with the scarab weren’t suspicious enough.

  “I had no idea,” Jaci exclaimed. “Honestly!”

  “It didn’t take Ace long to reach the same conclusion,” Rebel assured her. “Otherwise…”

  Her shrug said it all. Otherwise Jaci might well be sitting in an Egyptian jail cell at this very moment.

  Or be arrested while trying to flee the country. Like Dr. Abdouh.

  She heard about it as soon as she clicked on her answering machine to check the phone messages that had piled up in her absence. Three different members of her study group had called to relay the astounding news.

  His arrest was apparently still the main topic of conversation when Jaci walked into the meeting that evening. She heard his name mentioned and the wild speculation being tossed around when she and Rebel appeared at the door. Her appearance was almost as much of a surprise.

  “Jaci! What are you doing here?”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be in Egypt for another week?”

  “What happened?”

  She couldn’t tell them the real story, as fantastic as it was. Not until Ace or Rebel gave her the green light. So she stuck to the simple truth.

  “Some of you may know Susan Grimes, a member of my tour group. She was in an accident and had to be airlifted home. I accompanied her back to the States.”

  After murmurs of sympathy and inquiries into Susan’s condition, the group shifted its attention to Rebel. Jaci explained her presence with another truth.

  “Victoria piloted the plane that ferried us home. She’s staying over for a few days…”

  Or weeks.

  “…So I invited her to join us tonight.”

  That satisfied the group, since they were all eager to return to the subject of Dr. Abdouh’s arrest. Jaci pleaded ignorance but listened with intense interest to the sketchy details the group tossed back and forth.

  The Thursday-night group set the pattern for the encounters that followed.

  The members of Beethoven’s study group expressed the same surprise when Jaci appeared at their monthly conclave Saturday afternoon. So did her fellow librarians when she showed for work Monday morning.

  Rebel begged off attending the cat lovers’ coffee klatch Tuesday evening. Instead, she dropped her charge at the designated meeting place with instructions to contact her when the group was about to disperse.

  As the meeting broke up, Jaci used her hostess’s phone to place the required call. But when she walked into the balmy Florida night, she saw at a glance it wasn’t a long-legged female leaning against the front fender of a rental. The leanee was several inches taller, more broad shouldered and most definitely male.

  Her heart gave a joyous leap…and quickly clunked back into place. While she struggled with wrenching disappointment, the stranger pushed away from the fender.

  “Hi, Jaci. I’m Clint Black. Rebel’s relief. I just got in a little while ago. She had some urgent business to take care of and asked me to pick you up.”

  Jaci had learned her lesson in Egypt. She backed up a step and kept the front door handle firmly in her grip. “How do I know you’re who you say you are?”

  “Check your cell phone. You must have turned it off. Rebel left both a text message and a voice mail.”

  She flipped up her phone. Sure enough, she’d put the thing on silent mode at the start of the coffee klatch. The display showed one voice and one text messages, both from Rebel. But the information that an operative nicknamed “Blade” would pick her up didn’t prove particularly reassuring.

  Rebel’s associate didn’t appear to live up to his assigned code name, however. His smile invited trust, and his manner remained easygoing and loose during the drive home. Jaci found herself relaxing in his engaging company…right up until he turned onto her street and they spotted a vehicle parked a little way from her condo.

  Their headlights speared through the darkened windows. Jaci thought she caught the gleam of honey-gold hair in the driver’s seat. Her sudden tension eased, then shot off the charts again when the passenger door opened.

  Chapter 13

  “Deke!”

  Jaci shouldered her door open even before Blade hit the brakes. The car was sliding to a stop when she jumped out. The combination of forward momentum, soaring excitement and her habitual klutziness made her trip over her own feet.

  As he had at the pyramids of Giza, Deke leaped across the short distance separating them. He caught her just as she went down and cradled her against his chest. His eyes gleaming in the light of the blazing headlights, he grinned down at her.

  “Is this going to become a habit?”

  As she had at the pyramids, Jaci reveled in the strength of his arms. “I sincerely hope so.”

  A car door slammed behind her, and Blade’s acerbic comment penetrated through her haze of happiness.

  “You might have let me know you intended to deliver Ace here, Rebel.”

  The reply carried the same sting. “Where did you think I intended to deliver him?”

  No love lost there. The thought flitted into Jaci’s mind, then flitted right out as Deke’s arms tightened around her.

  “Sorry Rebel had to call you in on such short notice, Blade. She didn’t know I was already in the air, on my way back to the States.” He hefted Jaci higher and started for the front door. “You two can shut down operations and head home. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Victoria!” Wiggling up, Jaci called over Deke’s shoulder. “Thanks for everything. You, too, er…”

  Darned if she could remember his real name.

  “Blade.”

  Then Deke was leaning down so she could insert her key in the lock. Once inside, he dipped again so she could flip on the lights. Her first good look at his face drove his associate’s departure right out of her head.

  “Have you slept since I left Egypt?” she gasped, shocked by his red-rimmed eyes.

  “Not that I remember. But I plan to make up for that real quick. Which way to your bedroom?”

  She gestured in the general direction and tried to pry information out of him on the way.

  “Deke! You have to tell me! Did Hanif spill the names of the others in the conspiracy? Did Kahil round them up? Is it over? Really over?”

  “Yes, yes and yes. Really.”

  He lowered her to the bed. Jaci scrambled to the side to make room for him but had to know.

  “What about Ma’at’s scarab? Will the museum folks now validate its authenticity?”

  “No clue,” he muttered as he took off shoes, shirt and jeans. “I jumped a plane the minute Kahil took the last of Hanif’s cohorts into custody.”

  There were so many other questions Jaci wanted answers to. How many conspirators he and Kahil had rooted out. The reaction, if any, in the Cairo papers to the improbable plot. Hanif’s current condition. But the weariness carved into Deke’s face put everything else on hold.

  It was enough that he was here.

  More than enough.

  With a tremulous smile, she shed her outer layers of clothing and opened her arms. He sank into them and was out, like, ten seconds later.

  She held him, just held him, until the need to draw a little air into her lungs forced her to wiggle out from under his dead
weight.

  Jaci wasn’t sure how long she lay stretched out beside him, watching him sleep, listening to his heavy breathing, before her lids started to drift down. Twenty minutes? An hour? Long enough for her to give up trying to prevent Mittens and Boots from claiming their usual spots on the bed, anyway. She lost the battle and fell asleep on the sincere hope that Deke wasn’t allergic to cat hair.

  He wasn’t, Jaci discovered happily when she woke the next morning. Boots lay curled in the hollow between their bodies while Deke rubbed his fat, upturned belly. He had all four paws up in the air and an expression of utter bliss on his gray-and-white face.

  Jaci’s heart melted into soupy mush. If she hadn’t already fallen hard for this man, the sight of him tickling her cat’s freckled belly would have done the trick. So when he gave her a rueful smile and asked almost the same question he’d asked her last night, she was able to return the same answer.

  “This thing with your cats joining us in bed? Is it going to become a habit?”

  “I sincerely hope so.”

  “I don’t mind. Much. But we need to set some boundaries.”

  “We do, huh?” She smirked.

  “We do. I don’t want to crush Jellybrum here when I make love to you.”

  Jaci was almost as surprised by the fact that he knew the characters from the long-running musical Cats as she was thrilled by the lazy promise.

  “Then by all means,” she replied on a breathless note, “let me take them into the kitchen. They need to be fed, anyway.”

  “So do I.”

  His slow smile sent her stomach into an instant spin. She rolled out of bed wearing only her under wear and hauled the cats to the kitchen with something less than her usual gentleness. Mittens took the rough handling in stride. Boots indicated his displeasure with a twitch of his whiskers and unsheathed claws.

  Jaci dodged the sideswipe and dumped cat food into their dishes. While they feasted, she brewed a quick pot of coffee. She slipped out of the kitchen with a steaming mug in each hand and used her hip to nudge the door shut behind her. Every nerve in her body pulsed as she padded back to the bedroom.