by Cheryl Biggs
She felt every molecule in her body scream a denial of his words. Anger, resentment and hurt rushed through her, stabbing hatefully at her heart.
Rick had fully intended to place the blame for the failure of their marriage on her. The realization of that made her wish more fervently than ever that he was still alive so that she could confront him and slap his face.
She’d suspected him of having several affairs during their marriage, even one with the wife of one of his best friends. But she’d never confronted him, because as much as she’d wanted to, she had always been too afraid it wasn’t the right time, that he’d be called out on a mission, that he’d explode in anger and…
The spot on her cheek where Rick had once slapped her suddenly burned, as if the memory of his assault also brought back the pain and humiliation of it.
She stared at Hart as he waited for an answer. She’d known her husband had never been able to stand looking bad in the eyes of his friends, especially Hart’s. Now she wondered just how far Rick would have gone, or had gone, to make her the villain of their breakup. Had he even said that she’d been the one having the affairs?
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away, determined not to cry.
“It wasn’t like that,” she said finally. Fury at Rick churned through her, but it wasn’t alone. How could Hart believe that of her? That she would have purposely and carelessly put her own husband’s life—anyone’s life—in danger?
“It never is,” Hart snapped coldly. He signaled the waiter for their check. He’d wanted an explanation, not a halfhearted denial. Something that would convince him he wasn’t playing the part of a fool. He stared into her eyes, searching for answers.
He’d known her barely a year before Rick’s death, and most of what he knew about her was from what Rick had told him.
And from his own fantasies.
Which meant he didn’t really know much of anything.
But how well had Rick known her before marrying her? Or after?
He reined in his runaway emotions and thoughts. “I’m sorry,” he said, seeing the anger in her eyes and sensing the wariness toward him that had returned. He’d blundered, maybe irrevocably. Accusations weren’t the way to get an enemy to open up. He should be trying to win her trust, not alienate her. Forget mentioning the missing files now, unless he wanted to make things worse. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“Because it’s what you believe of me,” Suzanne said softly.
“No.” But the look on her face, in her eyes, told him he could deny it forever, and it wouldn’t change anything. There was a rift between them now that hadn’t been there before. Dammit. He was an idiot. For all the training he’d gone through, the interrogation techniques he’d learned, the subtle ways of getting information from an enemy and gaining their trust, he’d just blown it big time with Suzanne.
“There are always two sides to a story,” he said, trying again. Could she really be a spy? A murderer?
He didn’t want the answer to be yes, but he knew the possibility was all too real.
“We fell out of love,” Suzanne said simply. It was as much of the truth as she was willing to give him now, and at the moment she felt it was far more than he probably deserved to hear.
“It happens,” Hart said, continuing the effort to smooth over his blunder. He shrugged. “I just never thought it would happen to you two.” She could have used wifely concern to subtly pump Rick for information, then passed it on to an accomplice, maybe another member of the corps, someone who’d sabotaged Rick’s chopper and stolen the secret plans for the weapons-detection device.
It made too much sense, and he hated that.
They went outside, but instead of heading toward the parking lot, Hart steered Suzanne toward the vast garden that surrounded Cactus Jack’s. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I said things I shouldn’t have a while ago. I don’t even know why I did. I know you wouldn’t have purposely hurt Rick.”
She nodded. “You were his best friend,” Suzanne said.
Her response surprised him, set him back a moment. Then he decided it was most likely just another attempt to garner his sympathy and cooperation.
They walked on in silence.
Moonlight touched the landscape, weaving its way in and about the tall cacti, the wild grasses and well-tended roses, competing with the flames that danced atop the ends of the torches set strategically around the garden and creating a canvas of light and shadow.
Hart noticed that it also gently touched Suzanne’s hair, turned some strands to cascading waves of fire and others to infinite darkness; it danced within her eyes, caressed her bare shoulders and shimmered along the lines of the simple white dress she wore.
Heaven help him, in spite of everything that had happened, in spite of his anger, his frustrations, his resentment, even his suspicions, he still wanted her with a desperation that was almost killing him. Desire had been building in him ever since the moment she’d walked back into his life, gnawing at him like a hungry flame, threatening his self-control and instinct for survival.
What was there about Suzanne Cassidy that made him forget the need for caution? That urged him to pull her into his arms and damn the consequences and danger?
“How can something so beautiful be so deceptive and deadly?” Suzanne said as she stared out at the desert.
Hart’s gaze moved over her, his thoughts stopped by her words, momentarily mistaking them for a confession.
“So many lethal creatures live out there,” Suzanne said, “yet you can look at the desert at times like this and see nothing but beauty.”
She looked back when he didn’t respond, and as their eyes met and their gazes locked, Hart saw innocence. He knew it could be nothing more than a lie, like the desert’s facade of safety. Nevertheless, the desire to pull her into his arms was almost overpowering.
Cursing under his breath, he drew on every ounce of emotional strength he possessed and reminded himself he was engaged in a war unlike any he’d ever fought. She was his enemy, at least until proven otherwise.
From the day he’d realized his mother had abandoned him, Hart had kept the core of his emotions, the essence of himself, locked away, taking what he’d wanted from life and giving back as little as possible. That was exactly what he intended to do now.
He didn’t believe in love—never had and never would—but he did believe in desire. And in war, it was as good a tool as any other.
And this was definitely war.
Suzanne knew that trying to look away from his eyes was impossible. She tried anyway, feeling a sudden need to escape, and failed.
For one brief second it seemed every hard, unyielding line of him resonated with rage, all directed at her. The cold contempt in his eyes, the animosity she’d felt come over him sporadically ever since she’d returned, the resentment that seemed to exude from him. She saw it all now. The sight chilled her to the bone. At the same time she found herself unerringly drawn to him, searingly aware of the virility and force that surrounded him and beckoned to her.
Fear and want battled for control of her. She wanted to tear her gaze from his, to turn back the way she’d come and race through the garden until she was far away from him. But she couldn’t.
Suddenly he closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms.
A soft shriek of surprise slipped from Suzanne’s throat.
Play the game, Hart told himself. Play the game. His lips crashed down on hers, giving Suzanne no chance to turn away or refuse him, demanding she give, while all he intended to do was take.
His arms tightened around her, crushing her to him until her curves melded with his lines, until there was no light, no air, between them, only the thin veil of their clothes.
Other women had aroused his passions, stoked and satisfied his desires, but none had threatened his self-control the way Suzanne did.
Was she the essence of all his dreams or the reality of all his nightmares? He did
n’t know, couldn’t decide and at the moment didn’t care.
Play the game! a voice in the back of his mind screamed again. The game. But the sound that penetrated his desires and reached his consciousness was barely a whisper, too faint to be noticed.
His hands were splayed on her back, and he could feel the fragileness of her bones as he caressed her, the raggedness of her breath as he continued to incite her passion, the rapid beat of her heart as she surrendered to what they both wanted.
He slid a hand upward, his fingers delving into the long tendrils of her hair and losing themselves within that silky darkness.
“Hart,” she whispered, her voice ragged with emotion.
His name on her lips was a caress he couldn’t resist, a whispering stroke of seduction that pulled him over the edge and banished any thread of reason left to him.
The game plan was forgotten as if it had never existed.
He wanted her with an intensity that gave him no choice, needed her the way he needed air to breathe.
Suzanne felt as if she was losing herself to him, as if all her will and reason, everything in her that was Suzanne Cassidy, was being devoured by the passion he was stirring to fiery life within her.
She had tried to hold herself back from him; told herself when she’d returned to Three Hills that it was only to gain his help, to find the truth behind the FBI’s suspicions and allegations. There had been nothing between her and Hart before, and there was nothing between them now except friendship, if that.
But it had been a lie. It had always been a lie.
Her senses leaped to life at his touch, then burned with need. It had never been like this with Rick. So intense. Theirs had been a quiet love, so quiet that when it began to die neither realized it until it was gone. A delicious shiver raced through her body as his tongue slid into her mouth and danced and dueled about hers. The heat of his body enveloped and invaded her own like a rampaging fire, and a pulsing, hungry, demanding, knot of desire formed deep inside of her.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way between them, but it was, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.
She tightened her arms around his neck, and her body pressed more urgently against his.
Hart’s lips were hard and searching, his passion commanding her own to respond, the fire of his needs melding with hers.
His passion stoked her desire.
Her desire fired his passion.
It was an intimacy like none Suzanne had ever known, an invasion of feeling she had never expected to experience, had not been aware even existed.
She knew her surrender to him was inevitable. Maybe she’d always known that. She suddenly jerked out of his arms, the ugly thought racing through her mind and sobering her like a bucket of cold water. Was that why they’d chosen her to frame? How whoever was behind this thing had done it? By using her attraction to Hart?
Chapter 7
The ringing of the phone startled Suzanne out of her dreams of Hart. She hurried across the room and snatched up the receiver, half hoping it was him, yet dreading the prospect that it was.
She wanted to hear his voice…and wanted time to convince herself that what had happened between them, what she’d felt when in his arms, had meant nothing.
“Suzanne?”
Relief. Disappointment. Joy. Dread. “Hi, Mom,” Suzanne forced past a stifled groan.
“I tried your cell phone, honey, but it didn’t work.”
Because Suzanne had it plugged in to recharge.
“So I called Clyde. He gave me this number. I just had to talk to you.”
Suzanne adored her mother, but there was only one reason Lyla Ramsey-Conners-Ponder-Njorney-Houston-Bracci-Drake ever called her only daughter in the middle of the night. It was a conversation they’d had numerous times, and one Suzanne didn’t welcome.
When she got back to L.A., she’d hang Clyde from the ceiling by his toes for giving her mother the number to the bungalow.
“Joey and I broke up,” Lyla said. An exaggerated sigh followed. “I’m afraid it’s over between us.”
Big surprise, Suzanne thought, although this marriage had lasted six months longer than her mother’s last three. “I’m sorry,” Suzanne said, just as she always did. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, I’m fine. But it was inevitable, I guess,” Lyla said. “We were just too different.”
Before Suzanne could respond, her mother began to expound on all the reasons she and her latest husband were going their separate ways.
Half an hour later, lost in thoughts of Hart while her mother continued to talk, Suzanne heard her finally say she had to go or she’d look like a zombie when she met her attorney in the morning.
Suzanne refrained from asking if he was a marital prospect, told her mother to take care and hung up. After fixing herself a cup of coffee, she walked out onto the patio and sat on the chaise longue.
The night was still warm, the sky like a velvet black blanket sprinkled with diamonds. A sliver of moon hung above the distant mountains, while the desert’s uniquely sultry scent permeated the air.
How could she have responded to Hart’s kiss like that? She knew she couldn’t trust him, knew he could be… She chased the thought away and forced her mind to the problem of why she’d come to Three Hills.
They’d found no blemish whatsoever on anyone’s record, neither corps members nor family members, but Suzanne knew blemishes could be concealed. The secret plans had disappeared during the mission, and that had to mean that someone directly connected to the Cobra Corps, if not Hart, was guilty.
She didn’t see any other possibility. But she wanted to. She desperately wanted to.
Hart sat in his Cobra and stared up at the night sky, not really seeing it. Instead, he saw Suzanne, tasted her lips crushed to his, felt the heat of her body, the touch of her flesh. He was losing the battle to find the truth and losing himself—again—to her.
He gripped the stick, squeezing down hard. Sitting in the Cobra, being alone and hearing the silence or flying through the sky, the rotor blades singing overhead, had always helped him find the answers he sought. But not tonight. Nothing was working tonight.
Frustrated and angry with himself, he climbed from the chopper, stalked across the tarmac to his car and drove back to his apartment. Maybe sleep would help, if he could get any. He pushed open the front door, flipped on the light switch as he stepped inside—and cursed.
He strode from room to room, glaring at one slightly disturbed object after another, as if it could tell him, and wouldn’t, who had been in his home and rifled, ever so carefully, but not quite carefully enough, through his things.
The feds. The accusation popped into his mind instantly. It was their style. No up-front questions, no warrants. Just go in, look for and, if necessary, take what they wanted. He opened, then slammed drawers shut, grabbed a pillow from the sofa, put it back, picked it up again and threw it halfway across the room.
He wanted it to be the feds. Told himself it had to have been the feds. But there was another possibility, one he didn’t like: Suzanne. He’d left her hours ago, and whether he wanted to believe it or not, it could just as easily have been her who’d gone through his things.
Anger seared him—at them, at her, at himself. If he’d come home after leaving her, there wouldn’t have been an opportunity for anyone to break in. He looked around again. What had they been looking for?
Then another thought struck him. Maybe they hadn’t been looking for something so much as planting something. His anger turned to alarm. Had something been left in his apartment that would make him appear guilty of treason? Something that would point to him as a thief and murderer?
Cops, MPs…could have been called and be on the way to his apartment right now.
He began searching through drawers and closets for anything that shouldn’t be there. When he found nothing, he began to search again, but this time he looked for bugs or hidden cameras under tables, chairs
and inside lamps and the phone.
Again he came up with nothing, except the realization that sleep wasn’t going to come to him anytime soon. He switched on his computer. He’d placed a call to the senator earlier, but the man’s secretary claimed that Trowtin was out of town. And he hadn’t returned the call yet. Hart pulled up his e-mail. The senator hadn’t answered that, either. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the earth or turned incommunicado. At least where Hart was concerned.
He remembered Suzanne’s saying her partner’s name was Clyde Weller. Hart punched in the name and clicked on “search.”
The next morning when the phone rang, Hart felt as if a saw was slicing through his head. His temples throbbed, a spot between his eyes ached—even his brain felt as if it hurt, and images of Suzanne filled his mind. Groaning, disgusted with himself, he rolled over and grabbed the phone, more to stop its ringing than respond to the caller.
His life was spiraling into an abyss of disaster, and all he could do was dream about making love to the woman who could very well be the one who’d pushed him into it.
“Sir,” Private Roubechard said, “Company Commander Lewis has requested that you be in his office in one hour.”
The aide’s words immediately chased any lingering shadows of sleep from Hart’s body and, for the moment, all thought of Suzanne from his mind. But his head continued to pound. He normally didn’t drink, and spiking that last cup of coffee while he’d been on the computer last night obviously had not been a good idea. “I’ll be there,” he said, and hung up. He had no doubt what was happening to him. He just didn’t know how to stop it.
Three cups of strong coffee and three aspirins later, he made it to the base, reporting to the commander’s office ten minutes early.
“At ease, Captain,” Major Lewis said, looking up from the files he’d been reading through on his desk as Hart entered and saluted. Lewis removed his glasses and rubbed the crest of his blunt nose between thumb and forefinger. “I’ll be brief and to the point, Captain,” he said, leveling his piercing blue gaze at Hart. “I received another request for your 201 file this morning, and this time I was ordered not to deny it. I don’t know why Washington is so interested in you or why they want the file. I don’t even know who actually requested it. But I wanted to inform you of this morning’s events in person. Your file has been sent to the Pentagon.”
