by Lyn Stone
It wasn't his fault she was such an idiot.
The shower hadn't restored her sanity, either, and her attempt at a nap had been a joke. How could she sleep in that bed where he had.. .they had...?
Not wise to relive that or she'd be calling him back over. She threw off her robe, yanked on her clothes and cursed when her pants zipper stuck momentarily. Damn it all, she had to keep her wits about her. Next thing she knew, she'd be losing her heart to the man. Then what?
Yeah, he was the kind of man to steal it, she warned herself yet again. Maybe if she could have continued to think of him as a banker with a doting mama who would hate her guts, Dani could have written him off for good. But he was much, much more than that. He had served his country, been severely wounded doing so and had managed to rebuild his life afterward. She had seen his bravery in the face of death. He was a man who would leap between her and a bullet. On purpose. That was definitely hard to resist...even though she didn't need his protection, she reminded herself.
But he had the most wonderful hands. And mouth. And...
Dani sucked in a deep breath and huffed it out. She could look after herself, but just the fact that he wanted to protect and defend her touched her somewhere deep, at a dangerous level.
She had sorely longed for that feeling of security while growing up���that was it. Any psychologist would tell you straight-out that was the reason she felt this way. Ben surely wouldn't appreciate being latched on to as a father substitute.
The thought of that dredged up a bitter laugh. She hadn't felt anything like daughterly with Ben. Ever. Maybe it wasn't an Electra complex after all. Maybe she just wanted him like crazy.
She was securing her hair back in a sleek little knot at her nape when a knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. "Yes, who is it?"
"Me," Ben said.
Dani took another deep breath. Okay, she could do this. She could be casual. It wasn't as if she could avoid a face-to-face for long anyway. She straightened her jacket and opened the door, fully dressed now except for her bare feet. She forced a smile that felt wooden.
He came inside, obviously avoiding her eyes. Maybe she wasn't the only one who considered their roll in the hay a mistake. He threw up one hand. "I'll need another weapon. Mine was in my bag."
"Mercier will have things lined up by the time we get there."
He shrugged as if it didn't matter. "You look great! I hit the downstairs shops too. What do you think?" He held out his arms. "Look European enough?"
He wore a gorgeous cable-knit sweater, dark brown cords and Italian loafers. She almost salivated. "You'll do," she said.
He tossed a new leather jacket on the foot of her bed. "Dani, if you're upset about���"
She laughed. "Upset? No, of course not. Simple lay during a layover. You know as well as I do how these things happen. Nothing to be upset about. Forget it."
"Forget it..."
His eyes narrowed, making him look sort of dangerous. But after a few seconds, his features evened out. He glanced out the window. "Are we set to go yet?"
Dani nodded. "We can leave for the airport anytime. The plane should have landed by now. As soon as it's serviced and we get clearance to take off, we can fly."
She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on the low-heeled suede boots that matched her new brown wool pantsuit. She knew she looked professional. That was important today. Strictly business. No fancy makeup or hairdo or accessories.
Mercier hadn't said who would be joining them for the flight to Switzerland, but she had her bet on Cate. If there was anyone Dani did not want to recognize her burgeoning feelings for Ben Michaels, it was Cate. There would be no end to the jokes and everyone, including Jack, would have the whole story within hours. Unfortunately, feelings were virtually impossible to hide from Cate. She was a tad too telepathic for comfort.
Dani had to admit there was another reason she didn't want it to be Cate, a wholly inappropriate reason. Cate was a long-legged blond Nordic beauty who would look smashing next to Ben Michaels. And maybe to Ben Michaels, as well. Jealousy was a new and unwelcome flea, one Dani hoped she could catch and pinch the life out of. She couldn't have Ben and that was a fact. Therefore, she shouldn't care who else had him, right? Right.
"We'll have some help. Mercier said he's sending another member of the team," she informed him.
Ben took the small bag she had purchased and headed out. She pulled the door closed behind her, determined to keep everything on a totally professional level from here on out. Maybe she would even fix Ben up with Cate. That would solve all her problems, now wouldn't it? It would prove how in control she was.
Her gaze followed him as he strode down the hallway to the elevators, unaware of her fixation on his back. On his wide shoulders and his narrow waist and his fine tush. She loved his relaxed gait, and how he could switch to that powerful stride when the situation called for it. He just exuded confidence and capability. And sex.
Dani squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Oh, man, she had it so damn bad and it was only going to get worse. She had to do something.
They boarded the small private jet Mercier sent for them. Ben saw they had company on the flight. Not realizing the other agent was this close, he had hoped they would have the plane to themselves.
She had been willing. More than willing, actually. And now she was acting as if it didn't matter at all. She sure didn't want to discuss it, he knew that much. He did. But not with that blonde present. She was already shooting him and Dani sly, curious looks, as if she could guess what their problem was.
"Cate Olin, Ben Michaels," Dani said, her words clipped.
Olin stuck out her hand to greet him. "Hi, Ben. Welcome aboard." She raised a finely shaped eyebrow at Dani. "I hear you two have been pretty busy. Want to catch me up?"
"Ben will fill you in," Dani said, sounding distracted. "I need to call Jack to let him know we're on our way."
"No need," Olin told Dani. "I just informed him you two were boarding and we would be off directly."
Dani shrugged. "Well, I need to ask him about the assets that will be available. So if you'll excuse me..."
"Oh, Jack sent all the info about that. It's in my briefcase." Olin grinned, rubbing her hands together with obvious anticipation. "Hope we get a few days R and R out of this. Maybe we can get in some slope time after we finish the op."
She took her seat in a dark gray padded recliner and gestured for Ben to sit facing her. "Do you ski, Ben?" she asked.
The tension had grown thick. Dani was ticked off for some reason. And Cate Olin seemed to find that amusing.
"I was born on skis," he said in answer to Cate's question.
She laughed. "Your mother must have loved that experience!"
Ben smiled, then noted the tightening of Dani's lips. She was not amused. Did the two women not get along? he wondered. "How about you, Dani? You like to ski?"
"No," she said succinctly. "Never had the pleasure."
"I'll bet Ben would teach you," Cate said, a teasing note in her voice. The sound of the plane's engines distracted her. "Here we go. Everybody buckled up?"
They hadn't been in the air a half hour when Ben realized that Dani was trying to throw him together with Cate Olin. And that she was doing so reluctantly. When Cate excused herself later in the flight, he decided to nip this in the bud.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked her.
Dani's eyes widened in a sorry attempt at innocence. "What do you mean?"
"I mean the obvious references to my lifestyle and your take on Cate's long-held dream of small town life. And the crack about the gross factor of sushi and how she and I both love it. You're going a little overboard pointing out our commonalities, don't you think? I've never appreciated being set up. Especially by someone I just��� What's your motive?"
She shrugged, still giving him that doe-eyed, clueless look. "You seemed to have a lot in common, that's all. What's the matter? Don't you like Ca
te?"
Ben settled back and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at her. "She's okay, but I don't get this. It's not as if you need to unload me on her to get rid of me."
He watched her shoulders slump a little as she shook her head. "No, it's not that."
"Then what?" He unclasped his arms and leaned forward.
"Just a little misdirection," she said in a near whisper, glancing guiltily at the aft section where Cate had gone, ostensibly to the restroom in the rear of the plane. "The boss thinks���" She broke off, took a deep breath and gave him a stony half smile. "Well, he somehow got the idea that I have a personal interest in you."
"But you don't," he said, feeling the sting. "So what's the difference in you having this interest and Cate having this interest?"
Dani rolled her eyes as if he should already know the answer. "Everybody knows Cate's would be temporary!"
"And yours wouldn't?" he asked.
"No, no, that's not what I meant." She blew out a harsh breath. "Just forget it."
"Highly unlikely if you keep playing matchmaker." Ben didn't believe for a second that Dani's job was in danger because of this. It wasn't as if he were a suspect or a fellow agent. There were no rules that said they couldn't be involved if they happened to make a connection. No, it was that Dani's feelings for him made her uncomfortable. Fair enough. His for her shook him up more than a little, too.
Maybe he ought to encourage her to continue with the game. If he were the least bit drawn to Cate Olin, he might, but he wasn't. Not that Cate wasn't gorgeous, probably more classically beautiful than Dani. But something about Dani just set him on fire.
"Tell you what," he said, trying to look as serious as he possibly could. "I'm not looking to hook up with anybody right now. We'll keep everything on a strictly platonic level, all three of us, okay?"
"Great! Yes, if we could just do that. See, the, uh, what happened sort of threw me. I thought maybe you...well, never mind. I'm just glad we got this straightened out and that you agree. Thank you, Ben."
"Don't mention it," he said with an amiable nod.
"Don't mention what?" Cate said as she sailed back to the seating area and plopped down in her recliner. Her blue eyes were bright and her smile even brighter as she looked from one to the other. "What'd I miss?"
Ben faced her directly, his expression deadpan. "I just told Dani to stop trying to fix us up. You obviously don't need the help and I'm pretty much hung up on somebody else."
Cate laughed out loud, a full-throated laugh that was contagious. "Oh, God, the man's direct as death, isn't he?"
"Hung up on who?" Dani demanded, frowning at him.
Cate held up one long finger, "Uh, uh. Shouldn't that be on whom ? Object of a preposition and all that?"
Ben nodded, his lips pursed. "I believe you're right, Cate. On whom sounds better anyway."
Dani threw up her hands, shot them a look of exasperation, marched into the aft cabin and shut the door.
"You're crazy about the girl, aren't you, Michaels?" Cate asked, grinning.
Ben inclined his head. "Isn't that obvious?"
"As I said, you are direct." She shook a lazy finger in his direction. "But I like you, Michaels, so I'm probably going to let you have your way."
Ben smiled. "Why do I sense there's a condition attached to that?"
Cate's cocky grin vanished. "You can play, but you have to be playing for keeps, that's all. If you don't play fair, I'll have to break off something important. And we're not talking fingers."
"I admire your loyalty, Cate, and I know Dani deserves it. I wish I could give you the assurance you're asking for."
"So what's the holdup?"
He shrugged. "Dani doesn't want this thing between us to go any further. She's made that clear. And I promised her I'd back off, so strictly business from here on out."
Cate laughed again, this time a bit more subtly than before. She shook her head. "Idiot. You act like you two have a choice."
Ben leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped between them. "Dani does have a choice, Cate, and I believe she's already made it."
She wore an expression of concern that looked out of place on her sophisticated features. It seemed almost motherly. "She had a premonition about you?"
"What do you mean, a premonition? About what?"
"Never mind," Cate said, breaking eye contact.
The whole situation was ridiculous. He wanted Dani, she wanted him. Why couldn't they just act on it and let all the peripheral problems take care of themselves? Where had his daring gone? Had it disappeared along with his familiar face?
His injuries had made him all too aware of the impact he had on others, that's what it was. He had seen firsthand and in detail how his mother had suffered because of the way he had lived his life. And not just her, either. His patient, loving father had borne the brunt of both their disabilities for well over a year and was bearing it still with his mother. Like it or not, Ben knew he must take everything into consideration when developing a relationship or anything else in his life. Coming on this mission was a mistake he should never have made. Falling for Dani, another mistake in the making.
"Always finish what you start, Michaels," Cate Olin said, her voice as commanding as her look.
Ben squinted at her. "Read minds, do you?"
She smiled, but her blue eyes were serious as a war. "Easily, so be careful what you think."
Ben would have laughed, but he had a sneaking suspicion there was no joke there.
"So you read minds and Danielle has premonitions. Must make some interesting investigations for that merry little band of yours."
She crossed her long, long legs and tapped her slender fingers on the arms of her chair. "Something tells me you're a skeptic, Michaels. Am I right?"
Ben smiled. "Do I need to answer or will you just read what's in here?" He tapped his head.
Her next smile seemed real. "Ah, well, I expect you'll come around in time. Dani's a little shy about broadcasting her talents so I won't elaborate on them, but I feel it's only fair to warn you about mine."
"Am I gonna get a parlor trick here to prove your point?" Ben asked.
She shrugged and closed her eyes. "If you insist. You were recently thinking how your involvement will affect your parents, your mother in particular. You plan to return home hale and hearty or in a box with a flag over it, not maimed as you were before, right? And you're concerned that they will have to worry about Dani, too, if you fall for her and they come to love her."
Ben's breath caught in his throat.
She flapped one long hand in a negligent wave of dismissal. "Child's play to read you. Believe me, nobody on the team's going to encourage your interest in Dani, Ben. We wouldn't want to lose her to Smalltown, America. And I seriously doubt you'd stir yourself up to join her in what she's doing. You'd love to, but you can't."
Ben didn't quite know what to say so he said nothing. He was even trying to keep his mind blank, he realized.
"Don't worry," Cate told him. "I promise not to dig around in your thoughts unless I think it concerns me or the operation. Or Dani, of course. I can turn it off and on at will."
"I see," he said simply. "I wonder..."
"If our paranormal proclivities are why we were hired for COMPASS?" she asked before he could say more. "In a word, yes. But we also have to qualify in all the usual areas. Have to excel, actually."
"So, all of you..." Ben made a rolling motion with his hand.
"All of us," she admitted. "Dani has premonitions. I'm telepathic. Vanessa has what we like to call 'cat sense.' She manages to land on her feet no matter what. No real category for that yet, but it's been real handy."
"All women on your squad?" he asked.
"Well, there's our control, Mercier. Plus one other guy." She paused, playing with the catch on her seat belt as she spoke. "I guess I don't have to tell you this information is not for public knowledge."
Ben laughed. "Like
anybody would believe me! So, how do you plan to use these gifts to help us on this op?"
"However I can."
Dani returned with a tray bearing three cups. "Coffee?"
"���tea or me?" Cate added, laughing. "I told him."
"I heard," Dani said, bending a little so Ben could reach his coffee. "Milk, no sugar, right?"
He nodded. "Do you mind my knowing? Why didn't you tell me yourself?"
She turned her back as she handed Cate her coffee, then set down the tray and took her own cup. When she was seated, she gave him a steady look. "I'll go you one better and tell you how I got the way I am. We might as well get everything out in the open so there won't be any further distractions."
Ben fanned his hands out. "I'm all ears."
She nodded, shot Cate a look, then faced him again. "Since the three of us already know we've been fighting sexual attraction, there's no point in treating it like it doesn't exist."
Ben shrugged. "Maybe you didn't notice, but I stopped fighting."
"Well, you have to know it's not a good idea. It would benefit us to get that out of the way for good so we can function efficiently. Telling you about myself is the best way to discourage any interest you have in me. Seeing your disgust will surely get rid of my interest in you."
"Disgust?" Ben asked with a laugh.
"Dani..." Cate said, like a warning.
"Fine then, here it is. I'm Rom. Gypsy."
"That's hardly disgusting. I'm sure there are many fine people among the Rom."
Maybe he was right. She didn't know any, fine or otherwise, except the two who had deserted her. "My mother was a palm reader. Father was an occasional carnival worker. Mostly he was a grifter. They were basically scam artists and thieves. Or what they prefer to call travelers."
"Okay," Ben said. "What happened?"
"While traveling through Iowa, they left us in the care of the state. We landed in an orphanage."
Ben nodded at her to go on. He didn't say so, but thought that she was probably lucky to have landed where she did, considering how far she had come in life since then.
