by Tara Janzen
“Where was she good?” He couldn’t believe this.
“Colombia. Kid and I took her with us as backup on the Personal Security Detail we did for Occidental Petroleum in Bogotá.”
“The one where two members of the National Revolutionary Forces were killed during a kidnap attempt?” He’d read the report, which hadn’t had Skeeter’s name on it anywhere. The FNG’s—Fucking New Guy’s—name, Travis James, had been on the report, but not Skeeter’s.
Hawkins nodded, then hit a couple of keys on his computer when it beeped.
“She got the first kill,” he said, looking back to Dylan.
Dylan, who couldn’t breathe.
“They were waiting for us in the lobby of the hotel we were using as a safe house,” Hawkins continued. “It was close-quarters combat, textbook CQC.
She beat Kid on the draw, which neither you nor I could do on our best day.”
She’d beaten Kid Chaos on the draw—and Dylan still couldn’t breathe. She’d been in battle, with people shooting at her, trying to kill her.
“Has she been anyplace else?” he asked, his voice still so very calm.
To his credit, Hawkins finally looked uncomfortable. “Kabul.”
“Afghanistan?” he asked, just in case, unbeknownst to him, there was a Kabul, Kansas, or a Kabul, Kentucky, like there was a Paris in Texas.
“Mostly just in Kabul, but a little bit up the Gayan Valley toward the Pakistani border.”
Dylan’s gaze went back to Hawkins’s cast. “Where you almost got blown to smithereens?”
Hawkins shook his head. “We’d sent her back to the capital before we went up into the mountains.”
“But she saw action.”
It wasn’t a question. He could see the truth on Hawkins’s face.
“An ambush. The special forces soldiers we were with weren’t too happy to have her along, and the Afghan militia guys were downright horrified, but when the Taliban hit, she didn’t hesitate. The girl kicks ass, Dylan. She can hold her own, and she can certainly watch your back in Washington, where she’s a damn sight more likely to get hit on than hit.”
Unlike Skeeter, Dylan made no claims of clairvoyance, but he’d just gotten a very bad vibe.
“Hit?” he asked, working hard not to choke on the word.
“Skinned,” she broke into the conversation, turning around and giving him the full benefit of her mirrored gaze.
Skinned. His heart lurched to a stop, then started back up on a ragged beat.
“It burned my pants, grazed my leg, and was gone. I didn’t even feel it,” she finished.
Bullshit.
He shifted his attention back to Hawkins. He’d trusted Christian Hawkins with his life more times than he could count, real “end of the line, so help me God” times—but he no longer trusted the man with hers.
It was a wrenching realization.
For seventeen years, trusting Christian Hawkins had been the bedrock of his life. They’d been to hell and back, firefight hell where the odds had been against their chances of survival, the hell of losing two of their SDF brothers, and the black hell where a man was more dangerous to himself than anybody else on the planet. They’d pulled each other back from the razor’s edge more than once, and once was all it took to cement a bond that went deeper than blood. If asked, Dylan would have said nothing would ever come between them, nothing could shake their friendship. They were solid.
But Skeeter had gotten “skinned” on a black ops mission in Afghanistan, of all the goddamn places for her to be, and Dylan’s trust in Hawkins’s judgment was shaken to the core. He’d known Christian was training her, and he’d known that what had started as a course in self-defense had turned into something far more demanding, far more serious. The girl had proven adept, skilled, and too uniquely suited to the clandestine world in which they worked not to be brought deeper into the fold.
But not as an operator in the line of fire. Never as an operator. Hawkins should have known that. Keeping himself carefully under control, Dylan slowly rose from his chair. He was going into his office, his private office, where he could close the door and drink himself under his desk.
He didn’t have a choice.
He couldn’t afford to say something he was bound to regret, not where Hawkins was concerned, and his nerves were just a bit on edge. He needed a break, a vacation, something, before he snapped, and if he was still alive after he took care of General Grant’s Godwin file disaster, he was going to disappear for a while, go someplace and see if he could get his head back on straight. Skeeter Bang was not for him, and he needed to convince himself of the fact before he did something irredeemably stupid. He had enough sins on his head without adding her to the list.
At the door to his office, he stopped and turned, his gaze meeting her damned mirrored sunglasses. It was probably a bad idea, but he had to say something—just a little something straight from the heart.
“I think it might be best if—” He stopped, recognizing a weak start when he got off to one. What he needed was to be honest, forceful but kind. He needed to use the authority of his position, and yet be reasonable.
“If I ever…ever…hear of you going out on another mission,” he began again. “So help me God, Skeeter Jeanne Bang, I’ll bust you back down to grease monkey so fast, it’ll make your head spin, and then I’ll ship you up to Commerce City to work in the garage, sweeping floors for Johnny Ramos.”
His words fell into an abyss of silence.
Okay, so it had been a carefully modulated threat, but it felt good, and he would deliver on it in a heartbeat. Guaranteed. And if he did say so himself, he was pretty damned impressed with how calm and steady he’d kept his voice. Listening to him, no one would ever guess how badly his heartburn was suddenly acting up. The pain was like a knife in his chest, and the nausea was about ready to double him over.
He turned to go. She’d killed a man and been hit by a bullet, and he needed a drink.
“Screw you.”
He froze where he stood, his hand on the doorknob.
Screw you?
He wanted to paddle her himself, then shake her, then sit her down in a chair and explain to her why she must never, ever get herself in a situation where she could be shot at again—and then throw himself at her feet. It was all so tragically stupid, he couldn’t bear it. He’d never been a sap over a woman, and she barely qualified for the designation. He knew exactly how much older he was than her, to the day, and he couldn’t quite fathom his fascination. He’d never been attracted to younger women. So what was different about her…except everything?
Screw you?
He wasn’t going to dignify the remark with a reply. He didn’t dare, not when he’d fantasized about it more ways than she could possibly imagine. Scotch on the rocks was what he needed, something cold and serious. He did not need an argument with a tattooed, clairvoyant street rat who just happened to be the woman of his dreams.
CHAPTER
2
SKEETER WATCHED Dylan disappear into his office, her jaw so tight she couldn’t speak, her hands clenched at her sides.
Commerce City, her ass. Johnny could sweep his own damn floors. SDF and Steele Street didn’t run by themselves, and Dylan knew it as well as she did. He couldn’t replace her in a month of Sundays, if ever.
“Well, that went pretty well,” Hawkins said, turning back to his desk and continuing with the automobile inventory they’d been working on when Dylan had shown up. Typically, they’d had more acquisitions than sales so far this year, and even with seven floors of garage space, Steele Street was running out of places to put cars. Some of their stock had to go, and after half a day of careful deliberation, the two of them had narrowed the To Go list down to one nondescript, late-model Buick they called Sheila, the same name they used for all their nondescript, late-model Buicks. They had to do better—but not tonight. She was done, finished, out of there.
Almost.
“He’s such a jerk,”
she said, her gaze still fixed on Dylan’s office door.
“Sometimes.”
She wanted to throw something at that door, like one of her boots. That ought to get his attention, a big old black mark on his pristine office door. He hadn’t been home for two hours, and he’d already locked himself away—double damn it all. Things were supposed to be different this time.
“Why did you have to go and tell him about Afghanistan? That wasn’t the plan.” She turned on Hawkins, so frustrated, and angry, and hurt, she could bust. “The plan was just to tell him how good I was in Colombia. Let him warm up to the idea of me being part of the team. Remember?”
“Dylan’s the boss.” Hawkins’s computer beeped again, and he tapped a couple more keys. “He needed to know, and the timing was right.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Nothing was right. She was staring at Dylan’s closed office door again, just like the last time he’d come home, and the time before that, and the time before that. It was almost more than she could bear. “You didn’t tell him about Travis, and he was in Colombia, right next to me.”
“Dylan has already okayed Travis for active duty.”
Shock stunned her into dead silence, and for a long moment all she could do was stare at Hawkins. Travis? Active for SDF? Unfreakingbelievable.
“When?” she demanded to know, finally finding her voice. She was the one who had trained the angel boy. So how in the hell had he gotten authorized for duty before she had?
“Three weeks ago,” Hawkins said.
And Travis hadn’t told her. Dammit. She ought to—
“Hey, wait a minute,” she said, startled out of one thought and slammed straight into another—another unfreakingbelievable thought. “Don’t tell me Travis isn’t visiting his cousin in San Francisco.”
“Travis isn’t visiting his cousin in San Francisco.”
Double dammit.
“He’s with Creed, isn’t he?” She couldn’t believe he’d lied to her. “In Colombia.” But of course he’d lied to her. Travis James was too good a friend to de liberately hurt her feelings—and her feelings were hurt. Big-time.
“Yes,” Hawkins said, not sounding the least bit concerned with her feelings. “He is.”
Damn Dylan Hart. That man really needed to learn to appreciate her talents.
“I’m going to Washington.” And by God, she was.
“Not without Dylan taking you, you aren’t.”
The hell she wasn’t. She didn’t need Dylan Hart to steal the Godwin file, and wouldn’t that just fry his machismo, if she beat him to Whitfield’s and stole the damn papers right out from under—
“Don’t,” Superman said.
Startled out of yet another thought, she jerked her head around. “Don’t what?” Geez. What an amazing idea, an amazing plan. She could break into Whitfield’s, snatch the Godwin file, and be back in time for—
“Don’t think what you’re thinking.” Hawkins looked up from the keyboard. “Back up and rewind, Baby Bang. You’re not going to Washington, not without Dylan’s approval.”
“Yes, I am.” It was too perfect, the ultimate coup, the—
“No, you’re not,” he said, his steady gaze adding enough weight to his words to make a girl think twice.
But damn. It would be so easy.
“I could.” Honestly, she didn’t have a doubt in her mind.
“I know you could,” he agreed. “And you’re too good to spend the rest of your life knocking around the office, but it’s got to be by the book from here on out.”
“What book?” SDF didn’t have a book.
“The Skeeter Jeanne Bang Rule Book, all eight volumes of it.”
Except for that book. Dammit.
“He’ll come around,” Hawkins said. “Just give it a little time. Let me talk to him tonight.”
Time. She let her gaze go back to Dylan’s door. She’d run out of time—again. Damn him. He’d closed himself into his private office, and if everything went the way it usually did, that was it. He’d be gone in the morning, and she wouldn’t see him again for weeks, months.
Suddenly, it wasn’t almost more than she could bear, it was way more than she could bear.
“Talk all you want. I’m out of here,” she said, turning on her heel and heading for the door that led to the garage. It was eight o’clock on a Friday night, and she was going to blow off some steam. All she needed was a fast car, nerves of steel, and to throw down some cash at the Midnight Doubles.
The car was waiting for her out in the bay. The cash was in her hip pocket, and her nerves were pure titanium alloy. Just let the rice-car boys try to mess with her tonight. She’d bury them up to their eyeballs in asphalt.
DYLAN’S office was a refuge of near-Zen simplicity, containing a desk with two black laptops, a lamp, and a phone. The bookcases and file drawers were made out of beech and matched the desk and the door. Pale green woven-grass wallpaper covered the walls. There were no photographs, no plants, no loose supplies scattered anywhere.
The main office, where everybody worked, was full of high-tech equipment and gadgetry and enough Scandinavian-designed furniture to host a team meeting with a cocktail party on the side. There was only one chair in Dylan’s office—for a reason.
He settled into that chair with a bottle of Scotch and a glass of ice he set on the desk. The bottle was almost empty, which didn’t bode well for his plans.
Neither did the sudden roar and rumble coming from the garage. The ice in the glass shimmied. The floor hummed, and the walls shook with the power of the engine somebody was firing up out in the bays.
“Sonuvabitch,” he muttered, lofting himself out of the chair. Dylan couldn’t recognize every single car Steele Street owned by the sound of their engine—but he recognized this one. It was unmistakable, and it wasn’t supposed to exist. He’d personally given the destruction order back in January, and the best damn mechanic they had was supposed to have obeyed.
Instead, she was out in the garage giving it gas and making the whole place rattle.
The girl was completely out of control. Somebody needed to take her in hand, rein her in, put a leash on her, something, and it obviously wasn’t going to be Superman.
He jerked the door open.
“Where in the hell is she going?”
Hawkins checked his watch, then looked up. “At eight o’clock on a Friday night in August, I’d say she’s going to the Midnight Doubles.”
“Driving Mercy?” He couldn’t believe it.
“That would be my guess,” Hawkins said, oddly undisturbed by a situation that Dylan found damn near apocalyptic—Skeeter racing Mercy against a bunch of idiot weekend road warriors who didn’t know their torque from their alternators. He’d done his share of street racing, and it was a freaking free-for-all. The miracle was that more people didn’t go down in flames.
He tightened his hold on the bottle of Scotch. “She was supposed to tear that engine down last January,” he said as calmly as possible. “I gave a direct order.”
Mercy was a monster, a 1969 Chevy Nova with a 427 and a zero to sixty of under four seconds, and that was before Skeeter and Creed had modified her. With high-octane gas and ten pounds of boost, the dynamic duo had gotten the Nova up to 700 hp, making her absofuckinglutely lethal on the streets.
“It would take a papal bull to get Skeeter to destroy Mercy,” Hawkins said.
“She isn’t Catholic,” he said, feeling another nerve snap and unravel and go straight down the toilet.
“She’s not stupid, either, Dylan.” Hawkins turned back to the computer. “You need to give her a chance. You need to stop staring at her ass and take her to Washington, D.C.”
Well, that was pretty close to the last damn thing he wanted to hear—and it was wrong, to boot. What he needed, what he really needed, was to take her to bed, but he wasn’t going to do that, either. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t going to think about it anymore. He was done, finished, moving on.
“Call
her and tell her to get her butt out of that car and back up to this office.” That’s what he needed to do—give orders. And what everybody else needed to do was obey them.
But once again, it didn’t look like he was going to get what he needed.
The look Hawkins gave him said he was completely deluded. “You must have her confused with the other Skeeter Jeanne, the one who does what I tell her to do, because the one out there”—he gestured toward the windows overlooking the garage—“that one pretty much does whatever the hell she wants to do, especially when she’s off the clock.”
As if to prove his point, a pair of tires started winding up out in the garage. Within seconds a cloud of smoke rolled against the windows.
Sonuvabitch.
Dylan strode over and looked down at the rows of cars filling the bays. They were some of Steele Street’s finest—Trina, his AC/Cobra roadster; half a dozen of Quinn’s Camaros; a lot of classic muscle from the late sixties and early seventies, including Hawkins’s 1971 Dodge Challenger, the mighty Roxanne; and in the middle of them all, Skeeter, tempting fate, God, and the wrath of the ventilation system.
Mercy was screaming when Skeeter finally released her brakes and tore down the garage, burning rubber all the way, heading for the freight elevator.
Dylan’s heart lodged in his throat. Fuck.
The building wasn’t long enough for that freaking trick.
Sure, he’d done it, which was why he could hardly breathe. At sixteen, he’d come within inches of dying in flight, airborne behind the wheel of a fastback Shelby Mustang.
At the last possible second, Skeeter eased down on the brakes and downshifted, driving Mercy home. The Nova slid into the freight elevator like warm butter, no danger, no drama—except for the heart attack she’d given him.
Okay. That was it. She was done. Finished. He was clipping her wings.
He looked back at Hawkins, who tossed him a set of keys.
“You’d better take Roxanne,” Hawkins said. “Where Skeeter’s going is no place for a nice girl like Trina.”
