In the Line of Fire: Hot Desert Heroes, Book 1

by Jett Munroe

  “Babe.” His tone of voice was one he’d adopted with her a few times over the past weeks, one of mild irritation and impatience.

  She clenched her jaw. “There isn’t a confidentiality clause with this one, Beck.”

  His lips thinned. “Until your background check is final, there are still things you’re not allowed to know.”

  She put a hand on her hip. “I don’t think asking what you specifically will be doing is top secret here.”

  His face went expressionless, even his eyes.

  She threw up her hand. “Oh, you make me crazy,” she growled. “Okay, so how’s this then? You tell me something about your childhood. Did you have a dog when you were growing up? What was your mother’s favorite flower? Did you and your dad ever play baseball together? Do you have any brothers or sisters?” She felt like tearing her hair out. “Why did you join the marines? Give me something, Beck. Anything!”

  Face. Like. A. Stone.

  “Aargh! When will you get it through your stubborn head that I love you? I want all of you, not just bits and pieces. I want the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the sweet and the horrible. I’m not asking for work secrets you can’t divulge or for gruesome details, Beck. I want you. What you feel, how you’re able to do what you do and still be the compassionate, caring man I know you to be.”

  He’d come to his feet at the first of her rant and now moved toward her so fast she didn’t have time to react. He yanked her into his arms and hugged her, tight, his back bowing, his face buried in her neck.

  Knowing this was an important moment, hoping against hope it meant he was finally ready to open up to her, she dropped the folder, letting it fall willy-nilly onto the floor, and wrapped her arms around him, holding on as tightly as she could. “Beck,” she whispered.

  “Been waitin’ for you to say it, baby,” he whispered back. “Kept hopin’ you would.” He lifted his head and looked down at her with eyes that glittered with silver fire. Lifting his hands, he cradled her face in his large palms. “Feel the same about you.” He bent his neck and kissed her, his lips moving on hers with gentle pressure. It was a reverent caress, one full of hope.

  When he lifted his head, she could see his eyes roiling with emotion. “Beck. Honey.”

  “Love you, baby.” He rested his forehead against hers and it was such a sweet gesture her heart melted for him a little bit more. He wrapped her up in his arms again, rocking her back and forth gently. “There’re things about me, things I’ve done, that I don’t ever want you to know about. Can you understand that?”

  “I understand,” she whispered. “But I don’t agree. Because that means you don’t trust me to love all of you, only part of you. And if I can’t love all of you, then what kind of love is that?”

  “It’s the kind of love I need.”

  Delaney didn’t believe that for a minute. Everyone needed the kind of love she had to offer, that she was offering to Beck. He was too scared to reach out for it. And now was not the time to go all gangbusters to try to force him to. She’d take her time and work on him little by little, and pray she had the patience to endure.

  She leaned back, putting pressure on his arms, and he let her go. She took a breath to regain some composure and with a downward glance spotted the folder. Before she could squat to get it, Beck bent over and grabbed it. He handed it to her and asked, “We good?”

  She knew he was asking about more than work. “Yeah, we’re good.” With a gentle touch of her fingers to the tip of his chin she went back out to the front desk. An hour later she heard the men going into the conference room for their weekly Friday-afternoon debriefing. Ty had been out on a fugitive hunt and had returned, successful, last night. Gabe and Rafe had been working with a local client on a cybersecurity job. Quincy had gone out of town on a job she apparently didn’t have the clearance to know about, and Beck had been on the phone and in meetings lining up more clients.

  Fifteen minutes into a meeting she knew would last at least two hours, she heard the front-door buzzer chime. Looking at the small screen on the corner of her desk that showed the view from the camera by the door, she saw Edmond Barras standing there holding a narrow, long, white florist’s box in one hand. With a slight frown, she depressed the button that unlocked the door and watched him walk into the lobby. She blinked, sure she was imagining things. But, no, it was Edmond walking slowly toward her desk, the white box now held in front of his body with both hands.

  She got to her feet, surprise robbing her of a professional greeting. “Edmond, what’re you doing here?”

  His smile seemed strained and disingenuous. “I heard you lost your job but had the good fortune to begin working here. I had hoped to apologize for my behavior when you introduced me to your sister.”

  She tipped her head to one side. He’d only just recently struck her as creepy, and now here he was coming to her place of work. How had he even found out about it? That was the definition of creepy. “You should go,” she said.

  “Not until I deliver this,” he told her and slowly held out the box. “As part of my apology.”

  Figuring if she took the flowers she’d get him out of there quicker, she accepted the box. She was just about to set it down on the desk when he said in a hard, icy voice, a tone unlike she’d ever heard from him before, “I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

  She went still, like a mouse facing a rattlesnake. “W-what?”

  He had moved back several paces. Pointing to the box, he said, “That’s a bomb. Motion sensitive. So you shouldn’t even breathe heavily.” He pulled a white handkerchief from the front pocket of his slacks and wiped at a face she now noticed was shiny with sweat.

  She stared at him, her heart thudding a dull beat against her ribs. Mouth dry, she whispered, “Is this a joke?”

  “No, no joke, ma chérie.” His black eyes glittered like obsidian. “You will wait five minutes after I leave the building before you call your lover, or I will detonate the bomb remotely. I will be close enough to see, and if any of them come out of the building sooner than five minutes from now, the bomb will go off.” His lips curled with a slow, menacing smile. “When Townsend comes to you, you tell him this is a gift from Germano Dujardin. You understand? Germano Dujardin.”

  She nodded. In a hoarse voice she said, “Five minutes. Germano Du-Dujardin.” She licked her lips and tried to speak through a voice gone tight with terror. “W-why are you doing this?”

  “Ask Townsend.” He walked forward until only a foot separated them. It was all she could do not to move back, to put more distance between them again. “Don’t move,” he cautioned quietly.

  She watched in fear as he carefully removed the lid to the white, oblong box. And there, nestled in green florist’s paper, but sans flowers, squatted a gray block of claylike material with little silver posts in it that had wires leading to a black box in which two small glass tubes were suspended. “These are mercury switches,” Edmond, no, Germano told her. “Old school, but they work. As you see, they enter the box from different sides. You tilt the box this way and the mercury in one tube hits the contacts and boom! You tilt the box that way and the mercury in the other tube hits the contacts and… Well, you get the picture, I’m sure.” He stepped back and set the lid on top of her desk. “The point, my dear Laney, is to not tilt the box.”

  “What did I ever do to you?” she asked.

  For the briefest of moments regret shone in his eyes before it was eclipsed by the black rage burning there. “You picked him,” he snarled.

  She could barely hear him over the sound of her heartbeat crashing in her ears. He was insane!

  “I watched you at the coffee shop. You were so pretty and shy, and lovely with your friends. You reminded me of someone else…” He trailed off. “I tried to get you to go out with me and you refused. I tried again, and again you refused. I would not mind your reject
ion so much, except for whom you did decide to date.” His face darkened. “You could have chosen anyone else on the planet,” he went on, “and we would not be standing here today with you holding a bomb. But since cutting the brake line on your car didn’t work, here we are.”

  She caught her breath. He was the one who’d cut her brake line? Had he also been the one who… “D-did you take the s-spare set of my car keys and s-steal my quilt?”

  He nodded. “I found Townsend and began to follow him. Many, many times I lost him but the one place I did know he frequented was your friend’s little eatery. I saw you, and you reminded me so much of my love.” He shook his head. “The night after I saw the way Townsend looked at you as he sat beside you on the sofa at the confectionery, the way you looked at him, I knew I could not let him have you and live a life full of joy and love, not when it’s because of him that I will not be able to do the same thing. I went inside your house and found your spare car keys. I watched you sleep,” he said, and her heart pounded so hard her chest hurt.

  God. God. He’d broken into her house and she’d never even known. He’d watched her sleep. Her flesh prickled with revulsion. She fought back a shiver, afraid the slightest movement would make the mercury touch the contacts. She swallowed, feeling tears trickle from the outer corners of her eyes.

  He seemed unmoved. “I could have had you at any time,” he said in a conversational tone that made his words all the more chilling. “But scaring you by calling your safety into question got to him. And I will get at him any way I can, even if that means hurting an innocent like you. For that I am sorry. But know this: If he were not in the building and you were the only one who died from the blast, I would still feel great satisfaction because I would have hurt him. And I will continue to hurt him until one of us is dead.”

  He walked to the front door and paused. He turned and gave her a short bow. “Delaney Murphy, you are a lovely person with, I am sad to say, regrettable decision-making abilities. I would wish you a death in old age after a long life filled with love and laughter, rather than one that follows moments of terror and pain, but, alas, you made a choice that led you to where you now stand.” In a soft voice he added, “Au revoir, ma chérie.”

  After he left she kept one eye on the clock display on her desk phone and tried to ignore the sweat trickling down the middle of her back. Her heart thundered in her chest, her hands started to shake, and she watched in horror as the mercury in the glass tubes began to dance. “Don’t tilt,” she whispered. “Don’t tilt.” She looked out the door and couldn’t see Edmond…Germano, but what if he was waiting where he could see, like he said he would? She couldn’t take the chance and so waited the five minutes he’d demanded. The display stayed on 4:59 for what seemed like a year. As soon as it clicked to 5:00 she called out, “Beck!”

  At least she meant to call out his name. But in five minutes fear had sucked every drop of moisture out of her mouth and throat, and all that came out was a croak. She could feel the muscles in her arms beginning to tremble, not because the flower box was heavy but from the strain of holding it in the same position. She licked her lips. “Beck!” she yelled.

  She gave it a few seconds, and when she didn’t hear any movement from the conference room, she tried again, “Beck! Gabe! Anybody…” She ended on a broken sob. God, they had to come out here and help her or they might all die. She would for certain, splatted in tiny bits and pieces all over the reception area.

  The phone on her desk beeped; then Beck’s humor-filled voice came through the speaker, “Jeez, Laney. Did nobody show you how to use the intercom?”

  “Could you all come out here, please?”

  There was a pause then he said, “We’re in the middle of somethin’. Can it wait, babe?”

  Did he think she was an idiot and didn’t remember they were in a freaking meeting? Delaney closed her eyes and prayed for patience. When she didn’t find it she screeched, “Come. Out. Here. Now!”

  She heard the conference door open then the thud of multiple pairs of booted feet coming down the hallway. As soon as Beck rounded the corner, the tears oozing from the edges of her eyes picked up speed. “L-look!”

  “Someone sent you flowers?” he asked, coming closer. When he looked down into the box, his expression hardened and his gaze shot back to her face. “Laney, don’t fucking move.”

  “No k-kidding,” she wheezed.

  “What is it?” Gabe asked and moved forward.

  “Everyone, keep your distance for now,” Beck instructed. “It’s a bomb.”

  All of the men exclaimed in various ways, but all of their words were interspersed with expletives. If she’d had it in her, she would’ve laughed.

  “H-he said his name was Germano D-Dujardin,” she whispered, holding on to Beck with her eyes because that was the only way she had available to her. “When I asked why, he told me to ask you.” She took a shallow breath. “Why am I holding a bomb from Germano Dujardin, Beck? Why was he pretending to be a guy named E-Edmond from Canada who hung out at Coffee & Confections? Why does he say he can’t live a life full of joy and love because of you?”

  His eyes flared at that but all he said was, “Baby, I’ll tell you all about him as soon as we take care of this, all right?”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise. Now, I’m gonna put my hands under yours and I want you to slide yours out from under the box real careful, okay?”

  Her heart tripled its beat. “Beck, no. It’ll go off.”

  “Not as long as we don’t tip it.” He stared into her eyes, his own glinting with determination. “I’ll hold it while Quincy deactivates it.”

  She didn’t take her gaze off him. “He can do that?”

  “Yes, baby. He can do that.” He stood closer and reached forward. She felt his big palms cradling the back of her hands; then he said, “All right, now carefully slide your hands out.”

  “He said he could make it go off remotely,” Delaney remembered to tell him. She pressed her lips together and slowly, so slowly, brought her hands back and away from the box. Only when she was clear did Gabe come forward and grab hold of her, one arm around her waist. “I’ve got her,” he murmured.

  “Thanks, brother.” Beck looked at her then, his lips tilting up in the slightest of smiles. “Go with Gabe, baby.”

  “No! I want to stay here with you.” She couldn’t bear it if she were sitting in one of the offices and heard the bomb blast. If he was going to die, she wanted to spend every last minute with him she could.

  “Laney, please. Go with Gabe.”

  She saw the strain on his face. “All right,” she whispered. “All of you be careful. You especially, Quincy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She went with Gabe, in a daze, not really paying attention until bright sunlight hit her eyes. “What…” She looked around. He was leading her to his car. “Gabe, what’s going on? Why are we leaving? I thought we were just going to go wait in one of the offices.” She strained against his hold, but he easily urged her along.

  “You need to be somewhere safe, sweetheart,” came his immediate response. “And that place isn’t in a building where there’s a bomb or anyplace where Dujardin might be hanging around waiting to see what happens.” He opened the passenger door and gently pushed her in, then quickly went around to the driver’s side. As he climbed behind the wheel he told her, “Buckle up,” and did the same. Then he started the car and pulled away from the small parking lot. He clipped his cell phone into the holder on the dash and pressed a button. “I’m going to call my wife. We’ll come back as soon as I get the all-clear from Beck.”

  She twisted in her seat and watched as Beck’s building got smaller and smaller then was hidden from view after Gabe turned a corner.

  Delaney turned back toward the front and heard the phone ringing; then Vivian’s cheerful “Hello!” came through the speak
er.

  “Viv, darlin’, I need you to grab the kids and go to your sister’s.”

  “What? Why?”

  He drew in a deep breath. “Please, blossom.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know. It might be awhile. Pack light and quick, though, because you need to go. Now.”

  “All right.” Her indrawn breath was loud over the speaker. “Are you safe?”

  “Yeah, babe. Don’t worry about me. You get yourself and the kids to Marge’s. Call me when you get there.”

  “Okay. Love you, sweetie,” she whispered.

  “Love you too. Give the kids a kiss for me and tell ’em I’ll see ’em soon.”

  “I will.”

  They said their goodbyes and he punched the button that ended the call.

  “Do you think your family is in danger?” Delaney asked.

  “No. I don’t know.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I wasn’t part of the team that took Dujardin down, but if he’s after Beck, he’ll use anyone he can to mess with Beck’s mind.”

  It wasn’t lost on Delaney that Gabe hadn’t told Vivian any details over the phone. He’d told her to get the kids and go, and she was going to get the kids and go.

  When Beck had told her to leave, she’d argued. She bit her lip. “Who is Dujardin?” she asked.

  “That’s Beck’s story to share.” Gabe glanced at her. “I heard him promise to tell you.”

  She stared out the side window. “He won’t,” she said softly.