Hero Under Cover

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Annie, I’m sorry about this afternoon,” Pete said, the faint Western drawl of his rich voice making all thoughts of Nick vanish from her mind. “I wish it could’ve been handled differently.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Annie said tiredly.

  “Yeah, well, I still wish…” His voice trailed off. Man, he wished this whole investigation had been handled differently. He wished Annie hadn’t turned out to be so friendly and funny and charmingly sweet. He wished he could allow himself to care what happened to her. Too late, a little voice spoke in his head. Too late, you already do care…

  On the other side of the room, he heard Annie sit up. “What?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper. “You wish what?”

  Pete pushed himself up on his elbows, sensing her sitting there in the darkness, afraid she was going to get out of bed and move toward him. Disaster. That would be a disaster. If she as much as touched him, he would go up in flames. Spontaneous combustion. A life, a solid career reduced to little more than a sensational headline on the front of the National Enquirer.

  He remembered running down the stairs that morning, adrenaline sweeping through his system after she’d shouted his name. He’d held her in his arms then. True, it had only been for a few short seconds, but he could take that memory, play it on slow motion and…Dangerous. Man, that was way too dangerous.

  “What do you wish?” Annie asked again. He heard a noise, as if she were moving down to the foot of her bed, down where she could see him if she peered through the darkness.

  “Too many things,” Pete said. “Go to sleep, Annie.”

  The noise stopped.

  Pete prayed, sending a few words up to the gods of his grandfather, as well. Please don’t make this temptation worse than it already is….

  There was silence for several long minutes.

  Annie swore choicely, her voice breaking through the darkness. “I can’t sleep. I’m exhausted, but my brain won’t slow down. And I have to get up early tomorrow, and—”

  “Are your eyes closed?” Pete asked.

  “Well, not exactly—”

  “Close your eyes,” he said in his tone of voice that left no room for argument. “I’m going to teach you a relaxation technique, okay?”

  “Okay,” Annie said, doubt in her voice. “But I’ve tried this kind of thing before, and it doesn’t work.”

  “This one does,” Pete said. “Do you have a favorite place? Somewhere you can go and feel totally calm?”

  Annie squinted up at the ceiling, thinking. “Monument Valley,” she said decidedly. “I loved it there. Sunrises were incredible. Except…No, maybe the beach on Tahiti would win. That was fabulous.” She sat up. “I really loved it there. Although, there was something about the pyramids in Egypt that made me feel like I was on another planet, which was surprisingly calming—”

  “Annie.”

  “Yes?”

  “Lie down.”

  She lay back against her pillow, pulling her sheet and the comforter up to her chin.

  “I’m going to tell you about my favorite place, okay?” Pete’s voice was soft but clear.

  “Okay,” Annie said.

  “Close your eyes,” Pete said, “and your mouth, or else it won’t work.”

  She was obediently silent.

  “My favorite place was a beach,” Pete said. “It wasn’t Tahiti, but it was the Pacific Ocean. Usually when I got there, I was tired and hot and dirty, so the first thing I’d do was take off my boots and walk straight into that clear blue water.” He would come out from the jungles of Vietnam, and wash all the blood and death away from him in the ocean. “Picture yourself doing that. Picture yourself in the water, letting everything that happened today just get washed away. Out where you are, behind the break, the ocean’s calm, with gentle swells that lift you up. You can look out toward the horizon, and it’s all blue water, as far as you can see. It just goes on and on and on, almost forever.”

  Annie lay in the darkness with her eyes shut, letting Pete’s soft voice wash over her. His twang was more pronounced as he himself relaxed and his voice grew lazy. She liked it. The drawl suited him far better than the clipped accentless voice he assumed when giving orders.

  “You climb out of the water,” he was saying. “And up onto the beach. The sand’s fine and soft and hot under your feet. It feels real good. There’s a blanket already spread out, and you lie down on it. It’s warm and the sun feels great on your face. There’s no one else on the entire beach—you’ve got the whole place to yourself—so you take off your wet clothes.”

  Pete paused a moment, unable to get the picture of Annie lying naked on the beach out of his mind. Damn, this was supposed to be relaxing….

  “You lie back against that blanket, and feel that hot sun on your skin. The sky is the bluest you’ve ever seen it, and the sand is so white. You close your eyes, though, and listen to the sounds of the waves, and to the seabirds. It’s like music, with its own special rhythm and rhyme. It’s soothing, and soon you’re so relaxed, you seem to be floating….”

  He could hear Annie breathing, slow and steady as he let his voice trail off. She was asleep.

  She trusted him. Another few nights like this, and he’d ask her about what she’d done in Athens—who she talked to, where she’d gone. He’d ask her if maybe she was in too deep….

  Although he couldn’t believe she was involved with any kind of conspiracy. He smiled to himself. She didn’t seem to have the ability to lie. Another few nights and he’d know for sure….

  Except the alarm system was scheduled to be updated starting tomorrow afternoon, and he’d soon be sleeping in the guest bedroom, away from her.

  Pete lay awake, staring up into the darkness for a long time before he finally fell asleep.

  PETE CALLED WHITLEY SCOTT IN the morning, while Annie was in the shower.

  “Can you talk?” Scott asked.

  “For maybe three minutes,” Pete said. He stood in the office doorway, listening for Annie, and looking down the long hallway, watching the front door for Cara. “I need you to delay the installation of the motion detectors. Have the alarm installers call Annie and tell her it’ll be at least a week before they can get the system out here.”

  “Annie, huh?” Scott said meaningfully.

  Pete ignored the comment. “Will you do it?”

  “Sure.”

  “What have you found out?” Pete asked.

  “You mean about the phone calls?” Scott asked.

  “And the rock through the window, and the wolf man in the car, and the carcass hanging—”

  “Right, right,” Scott interrupted him. “Not much. It’s not our main concern right now—”

  “Push it up a little higher on the priority list,” Pete said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

  But Scott argued anyway. “Come on, Captain,” he said. “You know those nutball groups. This could be any one of them. We don’t have the manpower to waste an investigation on a threat that’s not real—”

  “I think it is real,” Pete said tersely. “Get a team working on it immediately.”

  Silence. Whitley Scott didn’t like being ordered around. But Pete waited him out, and Scott finally sighed with exasperation. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said grouchily. “So what’s happening up there? Are you getting somewhere with Morrow?”

  “She’s starting to trust me,” Pete said. “She’s starting to think of me as a friend.”

  “A friend?” the head of the FBI division scoffed. “What’s this friend crap, Pete? Seduce her, for crying out loud. Women naturally trust the men they sleep with. She’ll tell you all her secrets then.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Pete said brusquely, even though he could still hear the water coursing through the house’s old pipes, and there was still no sign of Cara. He hung up the phone, Scott’s words echoing in his mind. Seduce her.

  Why should Scott’s nonchalant words make him so angry?

  Bec
ause Annie was…well, Annie. She was special. Pete liked everything about her. He liked her a lot—way too much to take advantage of her that way.

  He sat down heavily at Annie’s desk, massaging the tense muscles in his neck and shoulders. The ironic thing was, if he really were Pete Taylor, if he really were plain and simply Annie’s bodyguard, with no ulterior motives or hidden agendas, he would have been working hard to get into her bed long before this.

  Life was too damn strange.

  “YO,” CARA SAID, BREAKING INTO Annie’s concentration. “You’ve got a phone call I figured you’d want to take. It’s the burglar-alarm guy.”

  Annie looked up from her equipment, stretching her stiff shoulders and back, and working out the kink in her neck with one hand. “Thanks,” she said to her assistant. “I’ll take it in here.”

  She crossed to the white lab phone that hung on the wall next to the door. It was late afternoon, and the light was already starting to fade. She picked up the phone and flicked on the bright overhead lights.

  “Anne Morrow speaking,” she said, glancing over at Pete. He sat leaning back in a chair, his feet up on a stool. His relaxed position was only a sham, she realized. He was watching her as intently as ever, no doubt noticing the way she couldn’t keep her eyes from running the long, lean lengths of his jean-clad legs. Shoot, the man was just too good-looking. She turned her back, trying to focus on the voice speaking to her over the phone.

  “We gotta little problem with scheduling,” the man with the heavy New York accent said, after identifying himself as being the owner of the burglar alarm installation company Pete had called to put in the motion detectors. “The earliest I’m going to be able to send a crew out is next week. End of next week. Thursday, Friday at the earliest. Maybe not even till Monday.”

  “Oh, shoot.” Annie chewed her lip. “You were supposed to be here today.”

  “Sorry, miss,” the man said, not sounding remotely remorseful. “It’s that time of year. Halloween. You can try calling another alarm company, but it’s the same all over. Everyone’s backlogged.”

  Annie stared out the window into the deepening twilight. Another week and a half of Pete sleeping in her room at night. Now, why didn’t that news bother her the way it would have a day or two ago?

  “You still wanna keep your name on our list?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” Annie said. “Yeah, thanks. Thanks for calling.”

  Slowly she hung up the phone and told Pete about the call. He took the news with his normal lack of expression. Was he disappointed? Pleased? She couldn’t begin to tell.

  “Is this an official break?” Cara asked cheerfully, coming back into the lab. “It’s time. You’ve been hard at it all afternoon. I, for one, have finished inputting all that data from the dread phony copper bowl, so I’m ready to celebrate.”

  “You’re always ready to celebrate.” Annie smiled.

  “Yes, but this time I have an excuse,” Cara said. “Jerry’s coming over in a little while. What do you say we all go out and have Chinese food?”

  “I don’t know,” Annie said.

  “Oh, come on,” Cara urged. “You know how weird you get when you don’t leave the house for days on end. A little fresh air and some moo goo gai pan’ll be good for you.”

  Annie glanced at Pete. “Whaddaya say, Taylor? Do you want to go?”

  “I go where you go,” he said.

  “I know that,” she said impatiently. “I asked you if you wanted to go.”

  He pulled his worn-out cowboy boots off the stool and stood up. “I would love to,” he said, a smile breaking across his face as he steadily met her eyes.

  ANNIE WATCHED PETE AS JERRY talked about his latest exploits in South America, telling stories across a table that was littered with the remains of their dinner. As the busboys began to clear away the dishes, Pete looked over at Annie and smiled. She felt the now-familiar warm rush of attraction and had to look away.

  This was not a date, she reminded herself for the hundredth time that evening. Pete was her bodyguard. He was there only to protect her, despite the fact that his eyes sometimes burned with an intensity that could take her breath away.

  In the few short days that he’d been protecting her, he’d done nothing to make her think she meant anything to him besides a reason for employment. True, he was friendly, kind even, generally polite, but in short, he wasn’t acting like a man who was going crazy, longing for her touch.

  The way she was longing for him to touch her.

  Damn, damn, damn, Annie thought. When had she crossed the line between This is a guy I’d like to get to know, and This is a guy I must have? When had it happened?

  Last night, probably, when she’d drifted off to sleep listening to his soft, husky voice. Or it might’ve been earlier that day, when he’d offered to make lunch for her. Or maybe it was the night before, when they first lay awake, talking….

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight,” Jerry said to Annie. “And you barely ate anything. What gives?”

  Annie could tell from the way he and Cara were sitting that they were holding hands underneath the table. Cara looked so happy.

  “She’s had a bad week,” Cara answered for her. “She lost a couple of days’ work by going to England to pick up old Stands Against the Storm’s death mask, and then when she came back, she got hassled by the feds while she was going through Customs. They detained her six hours.”

  “Why?” Jerry asked. “Whatd’ya do this time, Morrow?”

  Annie glanced at Pete, who was watching her intently. “After I picked up the artifact from the English Gallery, the place was bombed and robbed,” she said.

  “You’re kidding,” Jerry said with shock.

  “I wouldn’t kid about something like that,” Annie said ruefully.

  “God, you have the worst luck,” Jerry said, shaking his head. “Maybe you should stay stateside for a while. I mean, another coincidence like that and—”

  “No thank you,” Annie said with a flash of anger in her eyes. “My job requires international travel. I’m not going to let myself get bullied into changing my life.”

  “Maybe you should’ve been more cooperative with the Athens thing,” he said, frowning.

  “How much more cooperative, Tillet?” Annie said tartly. “You mean, like giving them a signed confession? Because that’s what they want.” She turned to look at Pete. “We better get going. I’ve got more work to do tonight.”

  “Does she ever not work?” Jerry asked Pete. He turned to Annie. “You must be disgustingly rich. Maybe I should be hitting you up for funding for my latest project. See, I found a site in Mexico—”

  “I know, I know!” Annie said, rolling her eyes. “I’ve heard it…what? Five thousand times this week already.”

  “You know that you’re interested,” Jerry said. “You could come along.” He shot a sideways glance at Cara. “You, too,” he added. He looked back at Annie. “When was the last time you participated in a dig?”

  “It would be fun,” Annie said, “but I really don’t have the money.”

  The waiter brought the dinner check, and she reached for it, but Pete grabbed it first. “This one’s courtesy of Mr. Marshall,” he said with a smile.

  “I’ll drink to that.” Jerry grinned.

  Annie watched Pete bring the check to the cashier. She stood up, pulling on her jacket. Pete’s leather jacket was on the back of his chair, and she picked it up. God, it was heavy. “See you guys tomorrow,” she said, giving Cara an overobvious “have fun” wink.

  Pete met her at the door and took his jacket. “Thanks,” he said.

  “What are you carrying in your pockets?” Annie said, leaving the warmth of the restaurant and going out onto the sidewalk. “Your jacket weighs a ton.”

  Zipping her own jacket up, she shivered slightly in the cold autumn night.

  “It’s armor,” Pete said. “In case I have to throw myself in front of any speeding bullets.”

&nb
sp; Annie laughed.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “It’s bulletproof.”

  He was watching her in the dim light from the street lamp on the corner. His dark eyes were soft and warm, luminescent. If any other man had looked at her like that, she would have bet her life savings that he was going to kiss her. But not Pete Taylor. He broke the eye contact, looked down at the ground and took two solid steps backward, away from her.

  Hiding her exasperation, Annie turned, and they walked to his car in silence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANNIE THREW HER JACKET OVER the back of her chair in the office and pressed the playback button on her answering machine.

  The first voice on the tape was Nick. He didn’t even bother to identify himself, assuming that she’d recognize his voice. Which, of course, she did.

  “Sweet Annie,” he said in his proper English accent. “I’m beginning to consider taking your answering machine to the party at the museum instead of you. I’ve spoken to it more often in the past few weeks. Where are you? MacLeish says you’re busy, but you’ve never been too busy for me before. What’s going on? Call me.”

  Pete had assumed his regular position, leaning in the doorway.

  “That was Nick York,” she told him.

  “I know,” he said. “Why don’t you call him back?”

  Annie sighed, temporarily stopping the tape. “Because he’s going to ask me to authenticate some very tiny, but very important, archaeological find for him. It’ll be really easy, he’ll tell me, it’ll only take a few hours of my time, I can surely squeeze him in. Except something will go amazingly wrong—there’ll be some glitch in the test, and I’ll end up working until dawn four nights in a row.” She sighed again. “Somehow Nick always talks me into doing things. This time I really don’t have the time, so it’s easier to avoid him.” She met Pete’s eyes and smiled ruefully. “I know it’s the coward’s way out. I also know that he’s going to catch up with me sooner or later. At the fund-raiser at the Museum of Modern Art, at the very least.”