by Cindy Dees
Another distinctive sound—the thud of a fist connecting with flesh.
Mac’s own fists clenched. Every protective impulse in his body screamed to do something to save this woman. He sagged in relief as the sound of police sirens became audible. A single gunshot rang out. Sirens became audible, and then footsteps pounded as if the attackers were fleeing the scene.
Colonel Foley pushed the stop button. His voice was grim. “She dodged as the shot was fired and was only grazed by the bullet. Paramedics treated her at the scene. She wasn’t seriously injured.”
Mac felt sick to his stomach. He could slit a guy’s throat without the slightest twinge of discomfort, but listening to a woman get roughed up like that was almost more than he could stand. He frowned. As unpleasant as it had been, why would a house robbery and assault launch a Tango One mission? There was something familiar about that woman’s whisper…. The sick feeling in his gut intensified.
The colonel spoke. “She’s convinced her assailant is Ramon Ruala, surgically altered and operating under a new identity.”
Mac frowned. He felt another even bigger bombshell coming.
On cue, the colonel dropped it. “I’ve run the name she gave me and had a preliminary forensic comparison made between photographs of this David Ford guy and Ramon Ruala. The plastic surgeon I spoke to believes they could be the same man.”
Holy shit. Mac leaned forward aggressively. “How did this woman recognize Ruala? Since when does he leave anybody alive who recognizes him? We better move fast before he comes back to her home to finish off the job. Damn, I want to get my hands on that bastard.”
Colonel Foley answered, “I think you’re the best person to talk to her. See if this lead is legit.”
“Put me on the next plane,” Mac declared.
“Before you get on that plane, here’s the woman you’ll be speaking to.” The colonel dimmed the lights with a switch under the edge of the table, and a picture flashed on the screen behind him.
Mac jolted as if fifty thousand volts of electricity had just shot through his chair. Bloody hell. Susan Monroe.
Ramon Ruala had attacked Susan again?
In a flash, his blood boiled and a vein pounded in the side of his neck. Sonofabitch. He was going to kill the bastard for laying a hand on her! A surge of protectiveness raged through him. His need to keep Susan safe overrode every logical, reasonable bone in his body.
Warning bells clanged wildly in his brain. No operator went out into the field in this agitated emotional state. Not if he wanted to come back alive.
He ought to beg off from this mission, ought to leave well enough alone and stay away from her. They hadn’t seen each other in ten years, and he should leave it that way. But then the sound of that gunshot cracking echoed through his head. The room went red before his eyes.
Blood rages got people killed. The name of the game was to stay calm and detached. Keep one’s brain engaged at all costs.
The litany from his training rolled through his head, gradually forcing back the crimson haze. Not far back, but far enough for him to breathe. Far enough for him to snarl, “Ruala’s going to pay for touching her.”
Colonel Foley watched him intently. Sympathetically, even. He asked calmly, “And why’s that?”
Mac caught the hint. The colonel wouldn’t take kindly to him letting his emotions get the best of him. Might not even allow him to help Susan if he didn’t get his shit together in the next, oh, millisecond.
He spoke with forced calm. “Besides the fact that she’s Tex’s sister, you know damned good and well that she and I were close.” He added belatedly, “Sir.”
“How do you feel about her now?” the colonel pressed.
Like he fucking didn’t want to talk about her. He understood why the colonel had to ask the question, but didn’t have to like dredging up the answer. He shrugged with fake unconcern. “I haven’t seen or spoken to her in ten years. It’s ancient history.” He ignored the little voice in the back of his head calling him a goddamned liar.
Colonel Foley gave him a long, considering look. “History has a way of coming back to haunt you. Maybe it’s time you made your peace with her.”
Mac suppressed a mental snort. Susan haunting him? That was putting it mildly. But make peace with her? Foley didn’t know what he was asking. And if he explained it to his boss, there was no way the colonel would let him work on this op.
No way was he getting left behind if Suzie Monroe was in trouble. Wild horses couldn’t keep him away from this mission.
“I can handle our past history. Emphasis on past. I want in on this one. I want Ruala.”
The colonel stared at him for upward of a minute. Heavy silence stretched out between them. Maybe the colonel did know what he was asking. Finally Foley spoke. “I think I’d rather send Dutch to talk to Susan and retrieve the footage of Ford that she reports having.”
Mac retorted, “Dutch wouldn’t know Ruala if the bastard punched him in the nose.”
It was an exaggeration, of course. Every member of the team had studied the assassin thoroughly and would recognize him without trouble. But Mac knew everything there was to know about the guy. Every gesture, every nuance of expression, the way he walked, talked. He’d committed to memory every visual image, moving or still, ever made of Ramon Ruala.
Colonel Foley replied, “I don’t need any distracting, kissy-face reunions here. I need a focused, competent professional to protect Susan Monroe until we nail Ruala’s happy ass.”
Mac rocked back onto the rear legs of his chair, violently displeased with the idea of Dutch going in his place. If anyone was going to save Susan Monroe, it should be him. “I can be objective about this,” he insisted.
Colonel Foley still frowned at him.
Mac spoke as calmly as he could. “Susan’s going to be traumatized as hell by Ruala’s reappearance. She knows me. She’ll work better with me than with some scary stranger who shows up on her doorstep.”
Dutch protested. “I’m not scary.”
Mac grinned. “Sorry, man. I keep forgetting you’re the Easter Bunny.” Jim Dutcher was six-foot-five of sheer Nordic brawn. With his short, brush-cut hair and square jaw, he looked liked a cyber-soldier from a future century.
Everyone around the table grinned.
Mac’s immediate urge was to push his case even harder for going. It was a Tango One mission. He was the one who wanted Ramon Ruala the most. Susan Monroe had been hurt and was in need of saving. He bit back the arguments rushing to his lips. Colonel Foley would make him sit this one out for sure if he acted desperate.
But as the silence stretched out, Mac couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “Look. It’s been a long time. Susan and I have both changed a lot. She’ll barely remember me.”
SUSAN SIGHED HER RELIEF WHEN, as dark fell the next evening, the last policeman finally left. She’d barely managed to talk the sheriff, Bill Franks, out of taking her into protective custody. Thankfully he’d had a crush on her since the sixth grade and gave in when she pleaded emotional trauma and a desperate desire to stay in her own home and sleep in her own bed.
He’d wanted to keep a cop inside her house, but the idea of a strange man in her home, even if he wore a police uniform, freaked her out. Bill had agreed, reluctantly, to post a cruiser at the end of her driveway and put a pair of roving foot cops on patrol around her house. Apparently, Colonel Foley had asked him to guard her around the clock until his men arrived.
The Blackjacks were coming here. To her home. The thought sent whispers of excitement and terror down her spine. The most thrilling time in her entire life had been helping them out with a dangerous surveillance mission against Eduardo Ferrare ten years ago. Right up to the part where Mac inexplicably turned on her—and, in her ignorance and anguish, she’d stumbled into a sting operation and escaped death by a hair.
She never spoke of him with her brother, Tex. Surely, Mac had moved on to some other assignment after all this time. She was an idiot to
get all worked up about seeing him again when he was undoubtedly long gone from the team.
The silence of the vast ranch slowly wrapped itself around her, not nearly as comforting as usual. Exhausted, but too frightened of what lurked her dreams to go to bed, she headed for the back of the house. Echoes whispered off the vaulted ceiling of the darkened living room as she passed through it. Something creaked and she jumped nervously.
Mostly by feel, she made her way to the kitchen. She made a cup of hot chocolate from scratch on the stove and poured herself a big mug of the creamy drink. She sipped at it until it went cold and a skin formed on its surface. Finally, with no enthusiasm, but with no reason to delay any longer, she headed for bed.
She’d just started up the stairs when a loud ringing noise made her jump. The front doorbell. Her heart slammed against her ribs until she remembered the police outside. They’d probably forgotten something. She flicked on the porch light and peered through the peephole. Four elongated figures, their faces hidden in shadows, stood there. They didn’t look like cops. Although she did see a uniformed officer standing behind them at the bottom of the front steps. Whoever they were, they’d passed muster with him. Were the Blackjacks here already? Less than a day to muster a team, equip and brief them, and fly them halfway across the country to west Texas? Not too shabby a response time.
Leaving the chain on the door, she eased it open a few inches.
“Hello?” she asked suspiciously.
One of the men answered back form the shadows, “Colonel Foley sent us. We’ve come to protect you until we can apprehend Ramon Ruala.”
She unlatched the chain and threw the door open. A tall, blond Viking stood on the far left. An Omar Sharif look-alike stood beside him. The third guy was fair in coloring and lean of build, and the fourth guy…
She started.
It couldn’t be.
She blinked and looked again.
It was.
She stepped forward, drew back her clenched fist and let fly with it as hard as she could.
CHAPTER THREE
“Well, Mac,” the Viking said dryly, “I’d say the lady remembers you.”
Susan reeled back, appalled by what she’d just done. It felt like she’d broken every one of her knuckles, and she shook her hand to ease the sting.
How did he do that to her? One second she was a calm, rational, logical human being. Then Mac Conlon showed up, and the next second she was a certifiable psychotic. One glimpse of the face that had haunted her heart for the past decade and instinct just took over. She’d slugged him before she even knew her arm was moving.
What in the blue blazes was he doing here? Why couldn’t he have just stayed in Washington, D.C., and let the other Blackjacks protect her? If he’d had the good grace to stay away from her for the past ten years, why did he have to go and change his mind now?
Pain radiated from her knuckles, throbbing up her forearm. Seething, she reached for inner serenity. Heck, right now she would settle for reasonably calm. Yoga mantras flitted through her head. She focused on her breathing. She imagined floating on a tranquil ocean. She even counted to ten. Nothing worked.
Mac Conlon. She’d been passionately in lust with him practically from the first moment she laid eyes on his Black Irish good looks, and she’d fallen passionately in love with him in a matter of days after that. He’d remained firmly, stubbornly lodged in her heart ever since. She’d tried everything to get over him, and nothing had worked.
She schooled her voice to calm with only partial success. “Come in, gentlemen.”
A momentary brush of panic stroked her spine as the men piled into her house. It would be okay. These were the good guys. They wouldn’t hurt her. But, oh, did Mac have the capacity to if she didn’t guard her heart!
To fill the awkward silence she asked, “Are you guys hungry?”
Their relieved smiles were answer enough. She led them into the big kitchen that dominated the back of the house. The Viking and the lean one pitched in to help her make a batch of sandwiches and carry them to the long table.
Déjà vu broadsided her. Ten years ago she’d sat around a table with another group of men much like these, planning surveillance on Ferrare with the new digital audio analysis program that had earned a Ph.D. for her. She’d been fresh out of college, and so excited she could bust at the prospect of working with a totally cool Special Forces team. Tonight the adrenaline rush was still there, albeit tempered by the pain of the abrasion under her ear from getting shot last night, and an aching knee to remind her of her naiveté all those years ago.
Mac’s eye was red and starting to swell from where she’d clocked him. A pang of remorse shot through her. She filled two plastic bags with ice and wrapped them in dishtowels. She gave one to him and kept the other for her hand as she sat down at the table.
“Thanks,” he murmured.
She didn’t deign to reply. She dragged her attention to the Viking, who was talking to her.
“I’m Dutch. This is Doc.” He gestured at Omar Sharif. “And this is Howdy.” He pointed at the fair, lean guy. “I gather you’re familiar with Mac.”
Hah. Understatement of the century. She glanced over at him. Mac lounged in his seat, his crossed arms displaying breathtaking biceps muscles, his piercing blue gaze taking in everything. Lord, he was more gorgeous than ever.
Memories of long nights spent working with him in a cramped surveillance van came rushing back. The air had been so electric between them it was a wonder the listening equipment hadn’t melted. Just sitting in the same room with him now made breathing difficult.
Dutch continued imperturbably. “What can you tell us about Ruala?”
Right. The reason Mac had deigned to bring his hot self to her door at long last. Jerk.
She pointedly avoided looking at him as she answered Dutch. “A guy calling himself David Ford showed up at the Fasco Weapons facility yesterday to test fire the RITA rifle. I believe he’s Ramon Ruala, surgically altered. I’ve got surveillance footage of him if you’d like to look at it. It’s the same footage I sent to Colonel Foley today. I can’t think of anybody else more likely to recognize Ruala than the Blackjacks.”
Mac interjected, “We left to come here before it arrived at our Ops center. Can we look at it now, Suzie?”
Her insides twisted sharply. His mellow voice sent sexy little shivers down her spine. Nobody else before or since him had ever called her Suzie. It caught her off guard. For an instant she was that young girl all over again, fantasizing about a new Special Forces operator who was way out of her league and who, miraculously, returned her interest. She struggled to think past the onslaught of images flashing through her head. His bare chest. The two of them in bed together. Her laughing up at him. The passion in his eyes as he stared down at her--
Mac’s cobalt blue eyes gazed into hers now with all the hypnotic intensity she remembered. And yet there was a dangerous edge to them—to him—that she didn’t remember. Even his voice held a hint of violence. “Where’s the footage?” he prodded politely. “Can I get it for you?”
That’s right. Save the cripple from having to walk anywhere. “I’ll get it,” she snapped.
She pushed herself up painfully from the table. Her knee was swollen like a cantaloupe after last night’s fall. She should have iced it instead of her sore knuckles. Mac’s hand materialized on her elbow and he whisked the chair out from behind her, steadying her until she planted her cane firmly on the floor. She glared at him until his strong, warm hand fell away.
Her cane scorched her palm as she made her way out of the kitchen. She felt Mac’s gaze lock on the hideous thing, and humiliation smoldered like a hot coal in her gut. The last time he’d seen her walk she’d been lithe and graceful, an athletic and whole person.
The sound of her cane’s wide, pivoting triangle tip thudding rhythmically on the stairs was obscene in her ears. Tears burned her eyelids before she made it to the second floor. She stopped in the hallway ups
tairs—out of sight of Mac—and sagged against the wall.
She rarely felt sorry for herself. That bullet through her knee had been her fault, and being a gimp was a small price to pay for being alive. But every now and then, like now, she bitterly regretted the loss of her ability to move freely. To run. To dance. To be normal, for crying out loud.
She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes. Damn him! Why had Mac come back and opened up all these old wounds? Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone? She bit back the sob rattling in her chest. She would not cry in front of Mac Conlon.
She fetched the flash drive and retraced her steps.
Of course, Mac was waiting at the foot of the stairs for her. He had the gall to have a concerned look on his face. That had better be worry for her safety and not about her being a freaking cripple. Temptation to whack his shins with her cane nearly got the best of her. But she managed to refrain.
As she brushed past him, she couldn’t help suck in a sharp breath at the familiar scent of his cologne. Languid memory washed over her of their unforgettable nights together. His gaze snapped to hers, blue fire flickering hotly in his eyes. Dammit. He remembered, too.
She plugged the drive into a USB port on the side of her high-definition television and hit the play button. All four men leaned forward intently and stared fixedly at the images. And then they got to the part where Ford fired the RITA rifle for the first time and did that finger-rocking thing. Susan jumped as Mac abruptly muttered a foul curse under his breath. Apparently, he recalled the tic, too. Not that she’d doubted her I.D. of the guy for a second.
Mac pulled out a cell phone and dialed a number. The conversation was short. “Mac here, sir. Yup, it’s him. No doubt about it. Roger. Right away.”
He closed the phone and tucked it back in his pocket. “Colonel Foley wants a signed statement from you about how you got the footage on this thumb drive and how you recognized Ruala. Doc and Howdy will fly the statement back to him so he can’t get arrest warrants issued, and then Doc and Howdy will get to work tracking down Ruala. Dutch and I will stay here and keep an eye on you until the situation is contained.”
