Jilly’s eyes rounded as Hawk related Dayna’s suspicions about the champagne she’d been sipping right before her attack.
“The Brits promised a lab analysis ASAP. In the meantime, the docs think Rogue should undergo a thorough cardiac evaluation.”
“Does she want it done there, or should we bring her home?”
“Here, although she’s not convinced her heart is the problem.”
“Whatever caused that arrhythmia,” Nick said sharply, “the strain could have damaged her heart muscle. Tell her she’s on ice until she completes those tests. And for God’s sake, make sure she rests up.”
“Harper’s taking care of that,” Hawk drawled.
“Seems like his name is popping up with some frequency all of a sudden.”
“You’ll hear it a lot more. He’s got Rogue on a short leash right now and sounds like he means to keep her there.”
“Our Rogue?”
“The one and the same.”
Nick tried to imagine anyone curtailing Dayna’s activities against her will and failed dismally.
“I need to hear more about that in a minute. First give me an update on the Wus.”
“No change from the report I sent earlier. Rogue confirmed Kim Li wants to defect. Her father has yet to give me a definitive answer. I had planned to work him during the down day tomorrow, but may need to shift my focus to keep a tab on the girl.”
“You want me to send in another operative?”
“Depends on whether Rogue’s still on ice during the last few days of the tournament. She doesn’t want to pull out of it, but unless she gets a green light from the docs she may have no choice.”
Jilly hopped off the corner of Nick’s desk, her eyes alive with excitement. “I’ll take her slot.”
For a moment she looked so much like her mother that Nick blinked. He’d been half in love with Maggie Sinclair from their first meeting in Cannes so many years ago. Adam Ridgeway had eventually claimed Maggie and Mackenzie had later turned Nick’s life upside down. Yet all he had to do was look at the beautiful, vibrant young woman who was his goddaughter to remember the jolt.
Jilly was going to rock some man’s world, he thought ruefully. He just hoped it wasn’t the world of the too smooth, too slick Ivy-leaguer who kept trying to put a ring on her finger.
“It’s a charity tournament,” Jilly said in a rush of eagerness. “The entry fee covers both the initial and final rounds, presuming golfers post a qualifying score. I’ll have to check the fine print, but I’ll bet there are contingencies to cover withdrawal and/or substitution for medical reasons.”
“No!”
The flat refusal erupted from the speaker.
“I’m not as good as Dayna,” Jilly continued in a rush, “but I do know which end of a golf club to swing. What’s your handicap, Hawk?”
“Golf is only a small part of this op,” he countered. “The rest of it could become real dangerous, real fast.”
“Which only reinforces the fact that you need someone to watch your back.”
“Someone who knows how to watch my back. You’re not a trained agent. You don’t know how to handle yourself in the field.”
Lightning was relegated to the sidelines as Jilly planted her palms on his desk and traded verbal punches with one of his toughest agents. Her blue eyes flashing, she gave as good as she got.
“I know enough to feel comfortable walking DC streets at night. Or are you forgetting who taught me how to shoot everything from a single-barrel derringer to a double-ought-thirty?”
“Dammit, Gillian…”
“I also spent almost two years in Beijing. I don’t pretend to fully comprehend the Asian mind with all its subtle complexities. But I’ll bet I can relate to Wu Kim Li and her father on levels you can’t.”
“I’ll give you that,” he conceded, sounding as goaded as a gored bull, “but that’s all I’m going to give.”
“Is that right? How about the fact that I’m my parents’ daughter? If I inherited one-tenth of their combined smarts, I can at least maintain contact with Kim Li while you work her father.”
He responded with something close to a growl, and Lightning decided it was time to intervene.
“Get me the details on the tournament, will you, Jilly? I need to talk to Hawk.”
The polite request housed an unmistakable command. To her credit, she didn’t presume on their close relationship by arguing her case further. She did, however, make a face as she straightened and popped him a salute.
“Yes, sir!”
Nick waited until she’d closed the door to pick up the thread. “Jilly made some excellent points. I’d have to clear it with Maggie and Adam before I allow her to go into the field, but…”
“Yeah, good luck with that!”
“…but this is your op. Yours and Rogue’s. The final decision is up to the two of you. Get her take on it and get back to me.”
Dayna took the call from Hawk while circling the shore of a small loch ringed by rolling hills. Black-faced sheep grazed the slopes, lifting their heads to peer over stone walls while Luke navigated the narrow road.
Dayna stared back at them in disgust as Hawk confirmed that she was on ice until she got a green light from the docs. The news that Jilly had volunteered to step in spawned mixed emotions. Dayna’s initial reaction mirrored Hawk’s. The more he argued against the idea, however, the more she saw its potential. If nothing else, Jilly could maintain the tenuous connection with Kim Li until Dayna returned to the scene.
“Sorry, Hawk. I know you don’t like the idea, but I think Jilly would make an excellent substitute if I have to pull out of the tournament. She plays a good game, so she’ll hold her own on the course, and she’s smart.”
“Smart people can end up dead in this business.”
“She knows that. So does Lightning.”
“She doesn’t have any field experience.”
“Maybe not, but I’m betting she’s picked up more operational awareness than any of us realize while filling in for Elizabeth these past weeks.”
She was also all grown up, which Hawk refused to admit. Dayna experienced a momentary qualm when she recalled her brief conversation with Jilly on that very subject. Ruthlessly, she suppressed it. As she’d pointedly reminded Hawk, Gillian Ridgeway was smart. She wouldn’t complicate matters by injecting a personal agenda into the mission.
Not that it could get more complicated—or more personal. Where she and Luke were concerned, anyway.
“I should know by tomorrow noon whether I have to pull out of the tournament. If I do, Jilly has my vote as a stand-in on the course. She’ll have to jump a plane soon, though, to get to St. Andrews in time for us to bring her up to speed.”
Assuming Luke could find his way back to St. Andrews, she amended after she’d terminated the conversation with a still-unconvinced Hawk. Although they’d driven less than forty kilometers, they’d traded the neat towns and fishing villages of the coast for windswept moors cut by rushing rivers and deep glens.
Some five kilometers later the road deteriorated to a dirt track that hugged the shore of the long, narrow loch. Across the lake, the ruins of a castle perched on a high promontory. If there was a hunting lodge anywhere in the vicinity, Dayna couldn’t see it.
“Where is this place, anyway?”
“We’re almost there.”
“How did you find it?”
“It belongs to an RAF colonel at the base. He’s invited some of us Yanks out to hunt a few times.”
She tried to envision Luke Harper in tweeds with a shotgun under one arm, stalking deer or quail. The tweeds didn’t work for her but she had no trouble picturing him as a hunter. In essence, that’s what he did every day when he strapped on his two-billion-dollar plane and went after the bad guys.
“The lodge is pretty rustic,” he warned, slowing for a tight bend.
Rustic was certainly one way to describe the stone cottage that appeared at the end of the track. A cow
byre was attached to one side and the slate roof looked in imminent danger of collapsing in several places, but Dayna had camped out during enough kayaking expeditions to appreciate the fact that it had a roof at all.
On those expeditions, however, she’d toted a knapsack packed with survival essentials. The only essential she carried with her on this outing was the tube of lip balm in her fanny pack.
“I hope the colonel provides his guests with little niceties like soap and/or toilet paper. Or do we go au naturel?”
“He keeps the basics on hand.”
Luke parked the car in the cow byre and unlocked the front door with a key retrieved from under a loose stone in the windowsill. Dayna started to follow him inside, but a silent vibration against her wrist stopped her in her tracks.
“This is Rogue. Go ahead, Hawk.”
“Gillian’s hopping a plane tonight,” he reported in a voice as stony as the cottage walls. “She’ll arrive tomorrow.”
Uh-oh. He wasn’t happy about bringing in an untrained operative. Neither was Dayna, but she’d rather have Jilly take her place in the charity Pro-Am than anyone else she could think of.
“That was Hawk,” she explained to Luke when she entered the hut. “A backup is flying in. I’m meeting with her tomorrow morning.”
“You have a treadmill test at nine,” he reminded her as he pried open the shutters to let in light and fresh air.
She nodded, looking around. The interior of the one-room cottage matched its rough exterior. The downstairs combined living and eating areas. An open loft constituted the original crofter’s sleeping quarters, now supplemented with four metal bunk beds.
Although a gasoline generator could supply electricity, blocks of dried peat stacked beside the stone fireplace were obviously the primary source for heat and light. A bubbling brook behind the cottage supplied fresh water. Nature, Dayna confirmed, would supply the bathroom facilities.
As promised, a metal storage cabinet contained the basic necessities to include a wide variety of canned goods, tins of tea, soap and tooth powder and an impressive selection of whiskeys.
“All the comforts of home,” Dayna drawled, eyeing the array of bottles.
“Did I mention the colonel is a native Scot?”
A rumbling in the vicinity of her stomach reminded Dayna that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Correctly interpreting the signal, Luke grinned.
“I’m hungry, too. Why don’t you kick back and relax while I start a fire?”
“I can help.”
“You’re supposed to take it easy. Doctor’s orders.”
Dayna wasn’t any more used to being waited on than she was to being hovered over. Embarrassed and uncomfortable with Luke’s determined attentiveness, she flapped an impatient hand.
“Opening a few cans won’t stress me out. Go start the fire.”
Within moments a crackling and somewhat smoky fire chased away the dank smell. Mere moments after that, hearty beef stew sizzled in a heavy cast iron frying pan. Mushing tinned soda crackers with water, Dayna spooned the lumpy mixture into the stew to make dumplings.
Rather than eat at the rickety wooden table, they took their bowls and mugs outside. The late-afternoon sun had warmed the air, although the shadows creeping across the loch presaged an imminent drop in temperature.
Dayna downed her stew with a disconcerting sense of unreality. This morning she’d completed one of the best rounds of golf in her life. Before, during and after the game, she’d been forced to alternate her concentration between her target and her fabricated reunion with Luke. The scary episode at the hotel had upped the pucker factor considerably.
Now, a scant hour and forty-five kilometers later, there wasn’t a fairway or green in sight. Just bracken-covered moors, stony crags and a scarlet-breasted kingfisher skimming a few inches above the deep, dark waters of the loch.
And Luke. He was a solid presence beside her, dominating even the spectacular scenery, disconcerting Dayna with his nearness even as she drew a sneaky comfort from it…as she had during those terrifying moments at the hotel.
Gulping, she swallowed her pride with a lump of mushy dumpling. “I didn’t thank you.”
He slanted her a quizzical glance. “For?”
“For calling the EMTs. For elevating my feet. For, uh, holding me when I couldn’t breathe.”
Why was that so blasted hard to say? Why did she feel as though she’d just surrendered a part of herself?
Because she had, Dayna realized with another gulp. By uttering those simple words, she’d let go of the anger and hurt she’d hauled around for so long.
“It was my pleasure,” Luke returned with a smile.
He must have sensed how much the grudging admission that she’d needed him had cost her. His smile tipped into a grin.
“It always was.”
She dug her spoon into her stew. “Don’t complicate a simple expression of gratitude, Harper.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Although I have to say simple isn’t the adjective that comes to mind when discussing your episode this afternoon.”
Gut-wrenching didn’t come close, Luke thought. Terrifying was too tame. He’d let Dayna walk away from him once. The very real possibility she might slip away again, right there in his arms, had shaken him to his core.
Luke would need a thesaurus to find the right words to describe his raw emotions while she struggled for every breath. For now, all he could do was fight to keep his voice light and the memory of her agonized rasping at bay.
He was determined to help Dayna kept it at bay, as well. He could think of a number of ways to accomplish that objective, but only one that didn’t involve touching her.
“As I recall, the colonel keeps a deck of cards somewhere in the lodge.”
She cocked her head, her competitive spirit stirred. “Cards, huh?”
“Want to play a few hands?”
“Depends on the game.”
“How are you at gin rummy?”
“Not as good as I am at kayaking or golf, but I think I can hold my own.”
“You’re on.”
Their few hands of rummy stretched to a duel that lasted into the evening. Rather than power up the generator, they scooted the rickety table closer to the fireplace and played by its flickering light.
Luke didn’t let her win. She’d chew him up and spit him out in little pieces if she thought he had. But sitting across from her, watching while she debated over a discard, seeing the sly triumph in her eyes when she snagged the deck, shot his concentration all to hell. As a result, he was both relieved and amused when she gave a little hoot of delight.
“Gin!” Smirking, she slapped down a five-card run to empty her hand. “That’s game, set and match, Harper.”
Basking in her win, she gathered the cards. Luke hooked an arm over the back of his chair and wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was. The tough round of golf this morning and the vicious attack this afternoon would have wiped out most ordinary mortals. But Dayna’s skin had regained a healthy, natural glow that owed nothing to makeup and her eyes once again sparked with life. She’d released her hair from its ponytail and let it tumble over her shoulders in a tawny fall that made Luke ache to bury his hands in it. Ruthlessly controlling the urge, he exercised his muscle as her self-appointed nursemaid.
“I think we should call it a night.”
She flicked a surprised look at the gizmo strapped to her wrist.
“You’re right. I lost track of the time. I’ll make a quick trip outside and head up to the loft.”
He stayed by the fire while she went out. The memory of all the times they’d scrubbed down in Rocky Mountain streams before wiggling into a single sleeping bag stayed with him until she returned.
“You want the top bunk or the lower?”
Luke accepted the unsubtle message that they wouldn’t be sharing anything, much less a sleeping bag, with a shrug.
“Your choice. I’ll bank the fire and be up late
r.”
Dayna left him in his chair. His long legs were outstretched, his hands threaded loosely over his middle. She would have bet a hefty sum that a prickly awareness of his proximity would keep her awake half the night.
She would have lost the bet. Within the first three minutes of climbing into the lower bunk, she was sawing serious Zs.
Chapter 9
Dayna woke to the trill of a bird perched just outside the only window in the loft. She listened for a moment, smiling at the insistently cheerful song and stretched.
God, she felt great! Rested. Relaxed. Ready to jump back into the game.
Her lazy stretch collapsed. A frown replaced the smile. She couldn’t jump back into the game. She’d been sidelined until she completed these damn medical tests.
Crossing her arms over the blanket she’d found in a footlocker, she contemplated the underside of the bunk directly above her. It showed no sagging springs, no half-tucked blanket, no signs whatever of occupancy. Ditto the two bunks on the far side of the room. If Luke had climbed up to the loft last night, he’d slipped in and out with the same stealth as the plane he piloted.
Dayna wasn’t quite sure how she felt about the fact they might—or might not—have shared the same sleeping space. Seven or eight hours ago she would have sworn the mere possibility of stretching out in the same room with Luke would keep her wide-awake the entire night. Yet apparently she’d dropped like a stone into the void.
Throwing aside the blanket, she snagged her pants and jacket from the foot of the bed. She’d slept in her briefs, sports bra and stretchy T-shirt. She might just as well have gone commando.
An increasingly urgent need to hit the great outdoors prompted her to strip off the single sheet and army blanket. She left both folded at the foot of the bunk and went downstairs.
Luke was crouched beside the dying fire, coaxing sparks from a peat brick to boil some water. He glanced up at the sound of her descent, and Dayna felt a jolt go through her entire system.
His previously pristine blue oxford shirt was a wrinkled mess. The tails hung out and the sleeves were rolled up over muscular forearms. Stubble shadowed his cheeks and chin. His dark hair stuck up in spikes, as though it had been combed with an impatient hand.
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