“I don’t—”
His eyes darkened with pain. He relinquished her and stepped back.
She moved closer to him and traced his strong jaw with her fingers, eased her thumb over the scar across his eyebrow. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I was about to say I don’t know how I can be so lucky.”
With a whoop of joy, he crushed her in his arms, lifted her off her feet and whirled her around the room. The hem of her robe swept his folders on the Black Order from the desk, but Kyle didn’t seem to notice. Abruptly, he set her down and studied her face, his own suddenly serious.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’ve loved you from the moment you appeared in the capitol that awful day.”
With a groan, he claimed her lips again. Passion exploded within her in response to his fiery kiss. She forced her hands between them and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. He reached for the knotted sash of her robe, but it refused to disengage.
“Damn,” he muttered. “These fingers can disarm a bomb, but they’re helpless now.”
Taking pity on his impatience, an eagerness that mirrored her own, she quickly untied the sash. It dropped to the floor, and her robe billowed open, revealing her nakedness.
Kyle pushed the garment from her shoulders, and it puddled at her feet.
“God, you’re even more beautiful than I’d imagined.” His voice was stunned, awe-filled.
He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the king-size bed. After depositing her among the pillows, he swiftly shed his own clothes and lay beside her. She reveled in the warmth of his skin against hers. Sliding her fingers over the scars on his chest, she kissed the reminders of how close he’d come once before to losing his life.
He gripped her to him, and she buried her face against his shoulder. “I was so scared tonight.”
“Scared?”
“Afraid you wouldn’t make it. I can’t imagine life without you.”
He shifted above her and gazed down with smoldering eyes. “You’re sure you want to go through with this?”
“This?”
He ran his fingers lazily down her breasts, across her stomach, between her thighs, and she shivered in anticipation.
“If we consummate this marriage,” he said teasingly, “an annulment’s out. You’ll be stuck with me.”
She arched against him, wanting more, and flashed him a wanton smile. “I can stand staying married if you can.”
“You’re sure?” His lips teased her nipples.
She gasped with pleasure. “You certainly know how to set off explosives.”
He grinned. “Just doing my job, ma’am.” His lips continued their exploration.
She struggled for breath. “And you’re damn good at what you do.”
“I aim to please.” He nibbled at her earlobe.
“Please—”
His green eyes glowed with desire and a hint of amusement. “Please, what?”
“Love me.”
“Oh, I do, Mrs. Foster. Without a doubt.”
“Show me.”
He entered her with surprising tenderness, molding his body to hers, and the heat of his passion quickly filled her until she felt they had stumbled into a consuming inferno of desire. Every nerve in her body kindled with delight and forged her to him on a cellular level, their flesh one. As he stoked the fire higher, his gaze, like green flames, held hers, and his lips murmured her name. Too soon, the explosion came, a flash of star-flung fireworks, plunging them both over the edge in a conflagration of breathless pleasure.
Afterward, she had only a moment to lie sated and content before he rose and tugged her into the suite’s bathroom. They made slow, languid love in the immense whirlpool bath, and remained tangled comfortably in each other’s arms until the water began to cool.
With reluctance, she stepped from the tub, toweled dry and slipped on her robe.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Famished.” His expression had nothing to do with food, and he reached for her again. Reluctantly, knowing he needed food and rest, she eluded his grasp.
“I’ll order breakfast.” Happier than she could ever remember, Laura leaned down and kissed him.
He clasped her face between his large, gentle hands. “No regrets.”
“Just one,” she replied, straight-faced.
His expression darkened. “What?”
“That we didn’t do this days ago.” She scurried from the room to avoid the water he splashed at her.
Kyle’s file on the Black Order lay scattered across the floor in front of the desk. On her way to phone room service, she scooped up the papers and was stuffing them back in the folder when a name caught her eye. Dropping into the desk chair, she began to read. Her eyes widened in shock and betrayal.
Minutes later, when Kyle came out of the bathroom, wearing only a towel and a cocky grin, she turned on him. “How dare you!”
Her icy words stopped him in his tracks. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Where did you get these papers?”
The telephone on the desk rang, and Kyle moved to answer it.
“Leave it,” Laura snapped. “Whoever it is can wait.”
Her heart was breaking, and only the fire of her anger kept her from bursting into tears. Kyle looked so deliciously handsome, he’d made love to her with a fierce tenderness unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and he’d been deceiving her all along.
Ignoring the ringing phone, she picked up the offensive documents and waved them in her fist. “Where did these come from?”
He approached her, his demeanor stern, and took the papers she had brandished like a weapon in his face.
“They were found in Lawrence Tyson’s desk,” he said after skimming through them.
After numerous rings, the phone fell silent.
“They’re lies.” Her entire body vibrated with rage. “My father never had any connection to the Black Order.”
With his broad back to her, he replaced the papers in the folder. “It’s my job to prove whether he did or didn’t.” His voice was low, its tone controlled.
“The Black Order blew my father to bits, and now you—” she sputtered, grappling for words through a red curtain of rage “—you have the audacity to imply he was involved with these killers. It’s like killing him all over again.”
“I’m not implying anything,” he said calmly. “I’m only studying the evidence.”
She wanted to hit him, throw something at him, hurt him as he’d hurt her. “You believe my father’s a traitor, you’re working to convict him, to ruin his good name—all of him that’s left—and yet you made love to me?”
“It doesn’t matter—”
She stared in horror. “You honestly think it doesn’t matter to me that you’re accusing my father?”
Shaking his head, he turned from the desk to face her. “Your father’s guilt or innocence has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”
She clasped her hands to her temples, afraid her head would explode from the conflicting emotions swelling in her brain. “I can’t love a man who’s out to destroy my father.”
“I’m not out to destroy anyone—”
The phone shrilled insistently on the desk, and Kyle cast her an apologetic look. “I have to answer that. It could be important.”
“Go ahead.” Her heartbreak was overpowering her anger, and she struggled not to cry. “There’s nothing more for us to talk about.”
Kyle looked as if he wanted to say more, but the phone continued its annoying interruption. He grabbed the receiver.
“Foster here.”
Overwhelmed with sadness, Laura watched his expression turn from irritation to alarm as he listened to the person on the other end of the line.
“When?” His query split the air like a thunder-clap, making Laura jump. Then he fell silent while the caller talked.
Laura watched in bewilderment as his face paled beneath his healthy Montana tan.
From his strained, shocked reaction, she realized something terrible had happened.
“We’ll catch the first plane back.” Kyle hung up the phone and turned to her, his face dark with rage and despair.
Fear caught in her throat, and she forced herself to speak through wooden lips. “Molly?”
Kyle’s face softened fleetingly at his daughter’s name. “Molly’s fine.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“It’s Governor Haskel. He was taken from his hotel during the night.”
“Kidnapped?”
Kyle nodded grimly. “By the Black Order.”
“But he’s been under extra security guard since the bombing.”
“The terrorists infiltrated the hotel staff. His entire team was found drugged. A powerful sedative in the coffee delivered by room service.”
Her anger at Kyle momentarily forgotten, Laura remembered how kind the governor had been to her after her father’s death. “What will they do to him?”
“They’re demanding a ransom for his return.”
“Oh, no.” Laura’s knees gave way and she collapsed into a chair.
“But that’s not the worst,” Kyle continued.
Laura shook her head. “What could be worse?”
“If the ransom isn’t paid and the Black Order members now being held by authorities aren’t released within forty-eight hours, the terrorists have promised to deposit the D-5 in the water supply of a Montana city.”
Chapter Twelve
Kyle felt as if he’d been ripped down the middle. Part of him wanted to draw Laura into his arms, to assure her he’d do everything he could to clear her father’s name, but the cop in him knew he had a job to do. Personal feelings would have to wait. Thousands of lives were at stake.
“That was Daniel on the phone,” he explained. “Foiling the Black Order’s attempt at the senator’s house last night apparently didn’t sit well with them. They want revenge.”
Her eyes teared. “How many more innocent lives do these murderers need before they’re satisfied?”
“Daniel wants us to fly home immediately.” Kyle chose his words carefully. Laura wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “He still believes the key to locating the terrorists is at the Institute.”
“Of course.” Her anger vanished, along with her tears, replaced by an icy reserve. “I’ll pack.”
Hours later, in the sky over the Midwest, Laura still hadn’t defrosted. Her manner was painstakingly polite, Kyle thought with a sigh of regret, but he’d need the plane’s deicers to find a trace of the warmth and passion they’d shared earlier that morning.
When he withdrew the Institute’s personnel files from his briefcase for further study, he caught her sharp intake of breath.
“Something wrong?” He knew the answer, but hoped by talking he could ease the tension between them.
“I demand you return those,” she stated in a low but savage voice, “and ban you from ever stepping foot on the Institute compound again.”
With a sinking heart, he shrugged. Their conversation hadn’t taken the turn he’d hoped for. “Then I’ll have to procure a search warrant to have legal access to the complex to recover them.”
With an imperious tilt of her head and the wintry glint of her magnificent blue eyes, she was more beautiful than ever. And completely untouchable. Deep down, he’d known she’d react this way to any suspicion cast on her father. That’s why he’d been so careful to hide it. But facts were facts. Eventually, she would have to face the truth.
“Laura,” he said in his most reasonable tone, appealing to her better nature, “I didn’t plant the evidence against your father. I’m just the messenger. How long are you going to hold that against me?”
“That’s it!” Her eyes lost their icy glare and blazed with excitement. “That folder that implicates Daddy. It was planted.”
Kyle groaned inwardly and shook his head. “You don’t know that.”
She grasped his arm, her slender fingers and beautifully manicured nails biting into his skin. “Think about it. Lawrence Tyson wasn’t a stupid man. In fact, like Daddy and Dr. Potter, he had a brilliant mind. Why would he have left such incriminating documents unsecured in his desk where anyone could find them?”
“Maybe he didn’t expect to be murdered.” Kyle couldn’t keep the irony from his voice.
“Or maybe, like you speculated before, the real terrorist informer killed him and planted the incriminating documents to steer suspicion away from himself.”
“You have a point. But if someone did plant the file, the question is who? Here, you take Melinda Kwan’s folder and I’ll take Wayne Pritchard’s. See if you can find anything questionable in her background.”
Laura frowned. “Why these two? I thought you said they’re both squeaky clean.”
“Maybe too clean. If you falsified your background, wouldn’t you be tempted to make it perfect?”
For the next hour, Kyle read and reread Pritchard’s file. Something buried in the pages of information niggled at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Beside him, Laura closed Dr. Kwan’s folder. “I’ve studied this upside down and backward. If the woman is hiding anything, my eyes can’t find it.”
“Eyes! That’s what I’ve been missing.” Kyle turned to her in his excitement as the pieces fell into place. She’d solved the puzzle. More than anything, he wanted to kiss her, but feared a bad case of frostbite if he tried.
“What are you talking about?” The smooth perfection of Laura’s high forehead crinkled in puzzlement, and he resisted the impulse to even the silky contour with his thumb.
“Eyes,” he said. “That’s the key. What color are Wayne Pritchard’s eyes?”
“Brown,” she replied without hesitation. “I remember because they always remind me of dirty ice, just like my former husband’s. So what?”
“Because on Pritchard’s first driver’s license application, issued when he was sixteen, his eyes are described as hazel.”
She shook her head. “You’re grasping at straws. Hazel eyes are sometimes more brown, sometimes more greenish.”
“That’s true, but my gut tells me I’m on the right track. Pritchard’s been very helpful in the investigation. Almost too helpful.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in the number for the ranch. “I’ll have Court and the FBI do a deeper background check, all the way back to the cradle, just to make certain we haven’t missed anything.”
When Daniel came on the line, Kyle filled in his boss on his suspicions and told him what he needed from Court and the FBI.
“Does this mean Daddy’s in the clear?” she asked when Kyle broke the connection. The hopefulness in her expression wrenched at his heart.
“Not yet. We have to verify the origin of those incriminating documents first.”
“I don’t need verification. I know he’s innocent.” The acid in her tone could have etched steel.
“I admire your loyalty, but I’ve got to have more than that to go on.”
“Fine.” The acid turned to ice, a glacial anger that froze his hopes. “Just finish your investigation quickly so we can end this ridiculous sham of a marriage as soon as possible.”
Mourning the loss of the intimacy they’d shared earlier and his dreams of making a family with Laura, he let his disappointment boil into anger. “We’ll work quickly all right. In case you’ve forgotten, there’s more at stake than your father’s honor. The lives of Governor Haskel and thousands of others are on the line.”
She flushed with embarrassment, but he could tell her fury hadn’t dissipated. They spent the remainder of the flight and the long drive back to the Institute in strained silence.
When they arrived at the house, Laura hurried upstairs, then reappeared a few minutes later. She’d changed into jeans, a sweater and low-heeled boots.
“Going out?” he asked.
“There’s work to catch up on at the lab.”
&nb
sp; “I can’t go with you. I have to wait for Court’s call.”
“I’ll be fine. The place is crawling with security, remember?”
He wanted to grab her and kiss some sense into her, but the rigid set of her shoulders and the haughty angle of her chin warned him off.
Suddenly the ice in her eyes softened. “What about Molly?”
She loved his daughter. He could see it in her face. Then why the hell couldn’t she love him, too? Especially since she knew by investigating her father he was just doing his job.
“She’ll stay at the ranch for now. It’s safer.”
Disappointment flickered across her exquisite features, and without another word, she turned and hurried out the door.
Kyle let out a stream of curses. How had he managed to screw things up so royally? Everything had been so perfect earlier this morning, but her unshakable loyalty to Josiah had spoiled all that. Somehow Laura had convinced herself that she had to choose between him and her father, and in that contest, even with Molly on his side, he didn’t stand a chance.
He had started up the stairs to unpack his bag, when the phone rang. He turned and rushed to Josiah’s den to answer it.
“You were right,” Court’s voice sounded in his ear. “We did a deep background search on Wayne Pritchard.”
“And?”
“He died at age sixteen in a car crash.”
“Then who the hell is working at the Institute?”
“We sent Pritchard’s current prints to Interpol—”
“Let me guess,” Kyle interrupted. “He’s Agarese.”
“Bingo. Born and raised in the Emirate of Agar. Frank’s warming up the chopper. We’re on our way.”
“Meet me at the lab.”
Kyle slammed down the phone and raced from the room. His bag remained on the foyer floor where he’d left it. After flinging it open, he removed his automatic, rammed in the clip and activated the slide, loading a bullet in the chamber. Shoving the gun in the waist of his jeans at the small of his back, he headed for the door.
Before he left the house, he calmed himself with a series of deep breaths. He couldn’t let Pritchard see him agitated. He wanted to take the bastard by surprise.
Licensed to Marry Page 16
