Behind him a taxi horn screeched.
A bus lumbered past, belching exhaust fumes. Trace sprinted across the street during a lull in traffic and re-checked the address Ryker had given him.
Three more blocks.
With a little luck he’d be there ahead of schedule.
Something shimmered at the edge of his vision. Through the noise, the bus fumes and the cooking smells he caught the bright tang of lavender, the third time that day.
He scowled at a passing Porsche.
The Phenomenon again. That was his word for the random sensations.
As he walked, the lavender scent thickened.
Trace ignored it.
No doubt it was connected to his chips being disabled. He’d write a complete report for Ryker once he was able to detect a pattern, but not a second sooner. He didn’t want to be ordered to visit Foxfire’s resident shrink, forced to dredge up his past for possible signs of emotional vulnerability.
He knew he was fit for action. His memories of Afghanistan were fading along with his scars, and no shrink would dredge up anything important. The lavender smell had to be a sensory reflex.
His heart pounded. He had a sudden urge to cross the street, coupled with a sense that something important was about to happen.
Neither made any sense. Pedestrians rushed past all around him, but they were all strangers.
There was no reason for him to cut back across Kearny.
He muttered in irritation, staring at a bakery truck double-parked near a fire hydrant. Probably he was dehydrated. Maybe it was the time change and the late-night flight from New Mexico. But he wasn’t a man who was unsettled often, so he watched the street, watched the passing cars, watched the way clouds brushed Nob Hill beyond the tall buildings.
And then Trace saw her—tall and slim, wreathed in a bar of sunlight. Light played through her short, spiky hair, cut in layers that framed huge eyes.
A stranger.
No need to stare. No need to feel as if someone had jerked the cement out from under him and kicked him in the stomach.
Something seemed to wrap around his chest, driving the air from his lungs. It made no sense. She was just another woman racing through the afternoon sunlight. Probably going to meet a husband—or a lover, judging by the eagerness in her expression. She wasn’t even beautiful, he thought wryly. Most people wouldn’t have called her remarkable in any way, yet her long, quick stride and the swing of her hair were doing strange things to his pulse.
Somewhere a clock chimed, but he couldn’t move.
He had less than twenty minutes to reach the penthouse somewhere above him. He would have preferred to spend the time pressed against that long, slim body, memorizing the secrets of her warm skin.
Crazy.
Through long months of training Ryker’s first rule had been burned into the minds of every man on the Foxfire team. No personal life or distractions were permitted. Even sexual contacts were arranged by Ryker’s staff, and the contact was carefully controlled. There was no gentle laughter and slow kisses on a moonlit night. It was physical release and nothing more.
Trace tried to remember the last time he’d laughed with a woman or simply held her hand. Nothing came to mind. The thought left him empty.
Suck it up, sailor. You knew what you were signing on for when you accepted your transfer to Foxfire. You knew all you were giving up.
And you couldn’t wait to be part of the team.
As Wolfe Houston always said, there were only three things you could trust in life—yourself, your team and the probability of getting fungus where you least wanted it.
Then Wolfe had defied the rules by falling in love and asking approval to marry Trace’s sister.
Despite that, all of them were Foxfire property, pure and simple. They were the job, 24/7. Trace had liked that just fine.
Until he’d stood in the afternoon sunlight watching keen eyes and vibrant cinnamon hair.
Around him the noise of the city faded. Even the sunlight seemed strange, wrapping itself around the woman across the street, playing in her hair and brushing the clean lines of her face.
No, she wasn’t a beauty, Trace thought. So why was it impossible for him to look away as she cut through the crowd?
A fire truck screamed past. Shouts mingled with car horns and motorcycles. Then in one of the weather changes San Francisco was famous for, a bank of marine clouds poured in over the hills. In seconds the street blurred beneath a shifting veil of fog.
Traffic snarled. Horns screamed. Up the street Trace saw a construction truck back up, its ladder poised above the rear bed.
The woman had stopped. She bent low as she took something from a young man climbing out of a taxi. Both of them cradled big, white boxes, laughing.
Her laugh made the hairs rise along Trace’s neck. The sound was full and rich and subtly sensual.
She was a stranger, but he knew just how her voice would sound up close, warm and husky.
A wave of sexual attraction hit him, as thick and sudden as the fog.
Hell. Maybe Ryker was right. Maybe this was about stress, not sex, and he hadn’t put Afghanistan behind him.
As the woman headed down the street, she didn’t look in his direction once. Trace took a deep breath. It was time to go. He glanced toward his destination, checking the address through pale, trailing fingers of fog.
Down the street he saw the truck turn, ladder creaking. One of the metal restraints twisted and broke free, the metal frame shuddering violently.
The woman and her friend hadn’t noticed.
He moved by pure instinct, his heart pounding as he sprinted through a gap in traffic. Neither the woman nor her companion heard his shout as they turned toward the nearby hotel, their boxes held tightly at their chests.
Trace jumped the curb, shoved the woman sideways against a wall, and pushed her companion after her just before the ladder swung horizontal across the sidewalk. Its broken edge was a death blade cutting directly over the place the two had stood laughing a second before.
“Hey, watch it.” The woman slammed him hard with her shoulder, muttering angrily. Then she slipped, hit her companion and both of them lost their balance.
Trace saw the two white boxes fly into the air. He stepped back, twisted neatly and caught one in each hand.
A bicycle messenger shot past, making a string of obscene gestures, and the woman with the cinnamon hair shoved at his chest.
“Drop those and you’re dead. Big, clumsy ox.” She tried to grab one of the boxes. “Give me that now or I’m calling the cops.”
Trace frowned at her. Why didn’t people say thanks when you’d just saved them from death by sudden impalement?
He turned, pushing her back against the building and out of the way of the still-swaying ladder, while the truck bounced back down the curb. A man in a gray uniform jumped out and tugged at the broken hinges, trying to pull the metal sections back into place.
The woman turned, looking over Trace’s shoulder. Her face paled, her body going still. “Shit.” She swayed a little, not struggling against him now.
Her eyes locked on the truck bed. “Holy, holy hell,” she whispered. “The ladder would have hit us. I didn’t see.” She took a deep breath, one hand shaking against the wall. She brushed a layer of cinnamon hair from her face while her hands shook harder than ever. “You aren’t crazy.” Her voice hitched. “You saved our lives.”
“Are you okay?” He balanced the boxes, feeling her thighs press against him. The subtle friction made his mouth go dry.
“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I was rude. I didn’t realize what was happening.” She studied his face. “We see a lot of Navy guys in San Francisco. I thought you were just being a jerk.”
Her voice was breathy, smokey like a good chipotle sauce.
Trace felt her hand on his sleeve. He didn’t know her, would never know her, but the husky catch in her voice was as tempting as the slim, strong
legs he felt brushing his.
Strangers or not, he wanted her bad.
Angry, he bit back a curse and moved away, banking the heat. Trying to bank the heat.
She looked at her friend. “Andreas, why don’t you go check out the room? No surprises, please.”
“Sure thing, boss. I’ll take this with me.” The man deftly removed one of the packages from Trace’s hands and left.
“I’ll take the other box now.”
Trace looked down, feeling stupid as he gripped the white cardboard. “Must be something pretty important in here.”
Her smile felt like pure, distilled summer pouring over his skin. The force of it made him forget the cars racing past and the appointment creeping closer.
“You bet it is. You’re holding a little piece of my heart in that box.”
“Maybe I should keep it then.” His voice was gravelly. Hell, what had made him say something lame like that?
“News flash—men want sex, not women’s hearts.” She straightened her big, colorful sweater and shoved more cinnamon hair out of her eyes, then stared across the street. “Oops. My defensive, bitchy side is showing.”
Trace heard old wounds and bad memories rather than bitchiness. “What’s so important in here?” He raised the box, rattled it slightly.
She lunged, panic sweeping her face. “No. If you drop that, I’m dead.”
Trace simply smiled. He handled high explosives and deadly biotoxins regularly with complete confidence. Steady hands and split-second reaction times were part of his skill set. “Relax, your box isn’t going anywhere. You still haven’t told me why it’s so important.”
“I need to go. I can’t be late.”
Before she could answer, his cell phone vibrated against his belt with unavoidable force, yanking Trace back to earth. He muffled a curse as he realized the pocket was out of reach.
He started to hand over the box, but she leaned down and slid a hand into his pocket. His gaze never left her face as she pulled out the phone.
“Least I can do,” she murmured, opening the phone. Frowning, she stared at the complex screen of Trace’s new government prototype. “How do you—”
“Top left. I’ll take it.”
Instead of giving him the phone, she pressed the button he’d indicated and held the phone up to this ear.
Trace had seen the caller’s number. Wolfe was probably upstairs waiting for him. Still, he didn’t like anyone listening in to the call. “Look, I need to—”
“Take the call. I can see that your shoulder hurts, so as soon as you’re done, I’ll get going.”
Shoulder?
How the hell had she known that?
Another twinge of suspicion made him study her warily.
But the phone was already at his ear, and he heard Wolfe’s voice.
“O’Halloran, are you at the hotel?”
“Right outside, sir.”
“I got held up on a conference call. I’m at least ten minutes away. Go in and press some flesh until I get there.”
“Will do.”
The line went dead and she closed the phone, returning it to his pocket.
Their skin brushed. He smelled her perfume, a faint mix of oranges and lilac. As gentle as a memory, it slid over his senses, leaving him restless for things he didn’t have a name for.
She turned and lifted the white box. “It’s a cake, by the way. I’m giving a class upstairs in thirty minutes.”
“A cake?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I worked five hours on that thing.”
“On a cake?” Trace repeated.
“It’s special. Ganache icing, spun-sugar flowers.” She glanced at his dress uniform and the row of medals. “Impressive jewelry you’ve got there.”
Trace was still trying to get his mind around the idea of a cake that took five hours to finish. In his world you ate whatever appeared on your plate, as long as it didn’t move, and even that rule got broken sometimes.
He shrugged off her compliment. “No big deal. Just doing the job.”
“That kind of hardware doesn’t come easy. Something tells me there’s a story behind each one.” She tensed and nearly dropped her box as another skateboarder shot past close enough to bump her leg. “Damn.”
Trace caught her with one arm and steadied the cake with his other hand. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
A delicate wash of color filled her face. She didn’t pull away, only tilted her head, looking up at him over the box. “You’re fast with your hands.”
“Fast enough. What did you mean about my shoulder?” He kept the question casual, watching her face for any sign of calculation.
She shrugged. “You favor your right side. When our boxes went flying, you caught them on the left. So what happened? Gunshot wound? Training accident?”
The explanation was plausible. “Nothing very interesting.” He’d died, that’s all. He sure as hell wasn’t going to discuss that with her.
He crossed his arms. “Are you doing anything later?” At least they could have a drink before he left. Trace didn’t have to be at the cruise dock until the following morning.
She cradled her cake, and then her fingers tightened. “No.” There was an edge in her voice that hadn’t been there before. “I’m sorry, but there’s really no point.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Believe me.”
Trace watched her shift her box, then move off into the flow of messengers, workers and tourists.
Great legs. Strange encounter. She’d probably forgotten him already.
He shrugged off a sense of regret. He had a cocktail party to attend and lobbyists to charm.
DAMN.
Abso-freaking—damn.
Was she crazy?
Gina Ryan gripped her cake, scowling at her own stupidity. She’d been breathless, panting over a complete stranger, a man with trouble stamped all over him. It just wasn’t her style.
Oh, she’d been tempted to say yes to that drink. It was the hard set to his jaw, coupled with the hint of danger in his eyes.
Yeah, she was a sucker for a man who knew his own mind.
Trouble, she thought grimly. And she hadn’t been lying when she told him not to waste his time on her.
Meanwhile, she had two kinds of crème brûlée and a white chocolate wedding cake to worry about, not the hot challenge in a stranger’s eyes.
She waved as Andreas trotted back, carrying a big set of keys. “Room’s all set, Gina. You’ve got a big crowd upstairs.” He waved the keys. “These are for the kitchen next to your lecture area. Your big Hobart industrial mixer wasn’t set up, so I sent someone to track it down.”
Gina resisted an urge to pull out her hair. Without her mixer for the demonstration, this master pastry class was going nowhere fast. “Did they have a record of our request?”
Andreas followed her up a sidewalk bordered by forgotten newspapers and scattered leaves. “They knew about it. They just haven’t found the mixer yet.”
“I may have to kill someone,” Gina muttered. “Maybe myself.”
“It won’t be so bad. They’ll find you something close. You’re always quick on your feet at demonstrations.” Andreas glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes to go. Good thing that guy in the uniform caught our stuff.” Gina’s sous chef stared back down the street. “The man was smoking. Those were a lot of medals, too.”
“Really?” Gina cleared her throat. “I didn’t notice.”
“Like hell you didn’t. You two vanished into some kind of alternate reality. Hell, the guy had his arms around you right in the middle of the sidewalk.”
“Because he knocked me over and I almost fell,” Gina muttered. “Plus, I was trying to hold my cake steady.” She nudged the big, white box. “The last thing I need is for this thing to get crushed.”
Andreas glanced back, grinning smugly. “Don’t look now, but he’s following us. Probably wants to ask you out.”
“He already did.”
“And you sa
id no? Come on, Gina, I felt the tension snap between you two. You haven’t looked twice at a man in months.”
“And I’m not looking twice at a man now.” But she had to fight an urge to look back. She wondered if she’d have the willpower to turn down that drink if he asked her again.
“Too bad. He went in a different door.”
Gina tried not to care. “Forget about the hunk, will you? We’ve got to find a mixer and test the sound system. Was the chocolate there?” She took a deep breath. “If anything happened to my tempered chocolate…”
Pain stabbed at her forehead.
“You okay, Chief?”
No, not even close to it.
“I’m fine.” Ignoring the little blur in her vision, she walked past the uniformed doorman, away from the lobby filled with fresh roses and real Chinese antiques.
“Let’s move.” She checked her watch uneasily. As she strode past the gleaming marble lobby, Gina was proud of herself for not glancing back in search of a white uniform.
It took all of her willpower.
CHAPTER SIX
THE LOCATION COULD HAVE been worse.
At least there was running water, a decent gas oven and space to lay out her cakes as part of her master class on pastry. But the clock was ticking, and there was icing to finish. When transporting off-site, you never added final embellishment until you were almost ready to serve. Gina had learned that the hard way. Now she had two cakes that needed icing for final display.
Outside the participants were arriving. Stress beat a path down her forehead. “Reggie, where are the edible flowers?”
“Right here, Chief. Your buttercream is on the other side of the table. All three colors, present and accounted for.”
“Yet again you save my butt.” Without a pause, Gina opened the frosting made in the ship’s kitchen that morning and assembled her tools. “Andreas, are you okay with the crème brûlée?”
“Good to go here. The demerara sugar’s in place. They’ll be ready to torch for your first presentation.”
Gina knew that all of her staff were well trained. But the cruise management had insisted that she do the honors. Something about her recognition factor, Gina thought sourly. In an age of media-hungry celebrity chefs, finding time for actual cooking had become harder and harder.
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