Code Name: Baby
Code Name: Baby
Christina Skye
Navy SEAL Wolfe Houston is on a mission of national security: protect one stubborn–but gorgeous–civilian in charge of training valuable government assetsBut tracking down four genetically enhanced service dogs and guarding their furry backs 24/7 is going to take all of Wolfe's tactical skills. The dogs' unsuspecting trainer, Kit O'Halloran, doesn't know that deadly mercenaries are determined to kidnap her charges. With hostiles to evade and bullets to dodge, there's no time to waste–so why is Kit pressed against an adobe wall by moonlight, reveling in the hot magic of Wolfe's slow, skillful hands?Wolfe is fascinated by Kit's devotion to her puppies, especially Baby, the incorrigible runt of the litter. But two other trainers have died under strange circumstances–and a foreign government has just posted a staggering bounty for Kit's capture. Before Wolfe can explore their white-hot attraction, the two are on the run, forced to decide which of their secret contacts is friend…and which is deadliest foe. Only Baby can lead them through the storm to safe haven in each other's arms. Good dog!
Christina Skye is Code
for Romance and Adventure!
CODE NAME: PRINCESS
“Skye is unsurpassed at combining adventure and romance.”
—Booklist
“Action-packed…Snappy dialogue and between-the-sheets sizzle will please Skye’s numerous fans.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Christina Skye expertly weaves sizzling romance and suspense in her lightning-paced tales of intrigue.”
—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of Body Double
“With Christina Skye, it’s all about the thrill…and her hot, sexy Navy SEAL is to die for!”
—Carly Phillips, New York Times bestselling author of Hot Number
CODE NAME: NANNY
“Skye is back with another sizzling adventure romance.”
—Booklist
“A fun story blending romance with intrigue. The characters are hot, and so is the book.”
—Hawthorne Press Tribune
More praise for Christina Skye
“A joy to read. Brilliant!”
—Joan Johnston
“Christina Skye always serves up the perfect mix of suspense, excitement and romance.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Christina Skye holds you in her grasp until the very last word!”
—Romantic Times
Code Name: Baby
Christina Skye
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I raise my glass to Abby Zidle,
For too many insightful comments to count.
With patience, humor and wit you
smoothed the writer’s path.
Many thanks…
CODE NAME: BABY
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
THE DOGS WERE HOWLING.
Their noise echoed through the underground lab from cage to cage while monkeys clung to their metal bars and mice raced in blind circles. The dogs dumped their water dishes and slammed against metal walls insulated to cover both threats and screams.
The only man in the room watched with eyes like ice.
Gabriel Enrique Cruz savored the disorder, arrogant even now. With the bearing of a born leader, he measured the activity around him, calculating his next tactical move.
Once—before the drugs and the lapses—he had been called a hero. Now Cruz was simply another lab animal, entirely expendable, valued only for research data in a secret government report.
One glance told him that both surveillance cameras were running. A security team would be here within four minutes. Whenever something went wrong, they always came looking for him.
This time he would be ready.
He tossed his shredded blanket over the nearest camera. While the monkeys howled and four Rottweilers banged against their metal cages, he checked the clock on the opposite wall. Ninety seconds until the armed response team hit the double doors to the lab.
Locked inside a six-by-three-foot cage, Cruz ignored the restless animals, the boxes of experimental medicine and the rows of top-secret equipment.
Sixty seconds.
He shaped his thoughts to stillness and power, becoming the deadly weapon he was trained to be.
An owl flew from its perch near the door and slammed full force into the camera above his head, cracking the glass. The other animals froze.
Watching Cruz. Waiting for his next command.
Forty-five seconds.
As he stared at the Rottweilers, the dogs began to tremble. Working together, they nosed the heavy steel bar off its hook at the front of their cage. Under the force of Cruz’s mental commands, their muscles jerked and strained while the bar climbed slowly—then crashed to the floor.
Thirty seconds.
One silent command brought the dogs hard against their doors. The biggest Rottweiler raced to a crowded desk and nudged an electronic key card from a pile of papers. With the card between his teeth, the dog raced back, and Cruz grabbed the plastic from his jaws.
He waved it at the scanning unit on the wall. A green light flashed.
His cage door slid open.
Freedom.
The animals were silent now, twisting with excitement. Ruthlessly, Cruz crushed all feelings of pleasure. He couldn’t afford emotion until he was miles away from the underground military base that appeared on no map.
As he stepped out of the prison that had held him for months, the Rottweilers raced through the lab, lifting the bars, cage by cage, to free the other animals. Two black howler monkeys leaped on to the keys of the big mainframe computer on the far wall. Cruz scattered them with a silent command and brought the databases online. When the computer screen queried him for a password, he smiled, prepared for this, too.
His fingers raced through a carefully memorized string of numbers and a file opened. Quickly he scanned the highlighted data, noting birth, military training and current residence of the Navy SEAL he sought. Then he pulled up another password-protected file and scanned its contents.
A bullet cracked behind him, ricocheting off metal cabinets. Snapping silent orders to the Rottweilers, Cruz closed the file and hit the escape key. The computer screen went dark just as a uniformed figure staggered through the doorway.
Instantly, the two dogs lunged at his throat. Blood sprayed as the soldier fell, jerked once, and lay still in a crimson pool.
The big dogs turned. Their ears pricked forward as they stepped delicately over the body on the tile. Awaiting Cruz’s next command.
The din grew, every cage open and every animal freed. A gorilla shuffled past, his eyes sullen and watchful. Cruz’s silent command was sent and received. The animal lurched forward, unaware that he was about to face a wall of bullets. The second he cleared the double doors, shouts exploded in the hallway, drowned out by gunfire.
More animals poured out after the gorilla.
Quickly, Cruz flipped off the lights and crawled inside a red bin with a warning logo stenciled on the lid. The underground facility’s medical waste was collected like clockwork. For once the well-oiled procedures would work in Cruz’s favor.
The worker in charge of transporting medical waste had negotiated hard: thirty thousand dollars for the initial transfer—with ten times more to come as soon as his hidden passenger was safely delivered outside the grounds.
The irony didn’t escape Cruz. In the government’s eyes, he was no more than medical waste, the end product of an expensive and highly experimental program using human genetics to shape superior tactical capabilities.
But Cruz had gone rogue.
And though his captors didn’t yet realize it, their experiment had been a stunning success.
CHAPTER ONE
WOLFE DIDN’T MIND the tarantulas. Even the rattlesnakes left him with only minor discomfort.
It was the naked women, with their bloodred lips and leather masks, who really annoyed him. They studied him like tigers facing raw meat, then scraped their long nails across his chest.
He didn’t move, wouldn’t give them the pleasure of a response.
Which only made them dig harder. Tattooed skin brushed his arms. When their breasts teased his mouth, Wolfe Houston decided enough was enough.
He drove everything out of his mind—tarantulas, rattlesnakes and tattoos. With stronger focus, he picked up the slap of liquid against metal walls, the only sound in his darkened containment area. Here in the bowels of the building, there was no time and no light. In these insulated compartments, collectively called the pit, fiberglass walls sealed out noise, smell and external vibration.
A high-tech digital tomb.
After one day inside, most men lost their bearings. After three days, most men lost their minds. Only a few had the ability to endure the silent death of the containment unit.
Wolfe Houston was one of them.
He was well into the fifth day now, and his hallucinations were intense. Sensory deprivation amped up all his senses until he could have heard a fly walk across the ceiling near his head—if a fly could have breached the security of the pit. At the same time Wolfe was acutely aware of the other men floating in nearby units. Men from different backgrounds, each with different training and skills, over time had come to form one finely honed tactical team.
If the public knew their skills, they would have been called supermen—or monsters. Each of them had the power to read energy or transfer images into apparent reality with the sheer force of the mind. Most of them had never suspected their unusual skills before the government identified them through arduous testing. After long months of sweating and swearing and fighting together, they had become a silent, deadly team called out when everyone else—from Rangers to SEALs—had failed. They were tougher than tough, trained to deploy when the government’s highest security was threatened, and so far they had never failed on a mission.
Wolfe wondered how long their record would remain unbroken.
He closed his eyes, rocking gently on the cool gel inside the hermetically sealed unit while ghostly tattoos writhed above him. As the images grew sharper, he slid into level-three hallucinations, feeling his psi ability shoot beyond all his previous limits.
The naked blonde trailed crimson nails toward his groin. Distantly, he felt his body respond and wondered if she was a hologram projection or whether she’d been pulled from the deeper recesses of his mind, stirred to life by the extended sensory deprivation.
Wolfe, are you there?
The silent question swam into his thoughts, sent by his second-in-command. Trace O’Halloran had guarded Wolfe’s back more times than either man could count, and Wolfe had always repaid the favor.
Right next to you, O’Halloran.
One question. You got the same woman in there as the one that’s crawling all over me? Platinum blond, probably five-seven?
What’s she wearing?
Nothing but oil and tattoos, looking damned fine.
Wolfe felt the brush of naked thighs. So the blonde wasn’t his own private fantasy. That meant she was one of the new training constructs, designed by Lloyd Ryker, the facility’s civilian chief, to test mental focus and physical response. No doubt Ryker’s sensors were picking up every detail of his team’s heart rates and body temperatures right now. The man had made surveillance a high art form.
Sounds like you’ve got her pegged, Trace.
I’d like to do more than peg her, boss.
Not allowed.
Wolfe felt the energy of Trace’s laughter. Hell, I’ve never seen tattoos on a woman’s nipples before. Wouldn’t that hurt? I mean, think about getting tattoos on your—
You know the drill, Trace. Put all the details in your report—nipples and everything else. Don’t leave anything out or they’ll ram it down your throat in the follow-up evaluations.
I always thought sex was supposed to be private.
Wolfe grinned into the darkness. Welcome to Foxfire, Lieutenant. In here your thoughts are noisy and sex is as public as it gets. Don’t tell me you’re complaining about having a knockout babe with her hands wrapped around your joystick while she test-drives your cruise control.
Complaining? Who, me?
Wolfe felt his thoughts blur. When his own illusory companion licked her way expertly toward his belt, desire sucker punched him hard. He knew there were no rules, no fouls, no time-outs when Ryker set up the game. Dark and twisted training scenarios were his specialty. Some people said they reflected Ryker’s own fantasies.
Wolfe didn’t have an opinion one way or the other.
Hell, boss, this one is too hot to handle. That mouth of hers is doing real damage.
Red lips closed with unerring skill. Wolfe felt his brain oozing out his ears. Closing his eyes, he slipped deeper into theta, blanking out the construct of the blonde with the velvet mouth.
You feel that, boss?
Wolfe picked up a faint vibration from outside the pit. The blond vision faded pixel by pixel as he shaped his concentration into a tight line and slammed it toward the distant intrusion.
I make it Sector Three, Trace.
That’s just what I’m reading.
Alarms on Levels Four through Seven. Ryker’s on his way down here right now.
Any idea why, Chief?
Not a clue.
Drifting in the darkness, Wolfe considered the images he’d just picked up. Training sessions down in the pit were never interrupted—not for any reason. To Wolfe’s knowledge, three men had cracked during their training because of too-abrupt transition. If Ryker was headed downstairs to interrupt a psi immersion, all hell must have broken loose.
Since hell happened to be Foxfire’s specialty, the team would be the first called out.
Wolfe assessed possible options and explanations. If the country was under attack, Foxfire would go active immediately—whether the team was in the pit or not. Ryker’s movement indicated that was a real possibility.
In war you fought with whatever ammunition was at hand. Some ops called for ICBMs; some used remote surveillance drones. Foxfire used human energy as a tactical weapon in highly controlled scenarios, and the success rate of the secret seven-man team was unmatched anywhere in special operations.
Wolfe intended to keep it that way. Trace, do you read me?
Loud and clear.
I need more data. Set up a level-two energy net while I follow Ryker.
Can do.
The silence rippled and grew heavier.
Done, Wolfe.
Ryker’s almost here. Do we have a threat situation upstairs or is this an exterior attack, something large-scale?
I’m picking up fear—lots of it. There’s something else, Chief. Hell if you’re going to believe it.
Hit me.
It’s Cruz.
Wolfe felt his hands clench. Impossible.
It’s Cruz, all right. I scanned up, down and sideways, and his energy signature is leaking everywhere I look.
Wolfe knew that Trace didn’t make mistakes when he spread a focused energy net. Each member of Foxfire had a different specialty, and Trace’s skill was to set energy nets and carry out controlled psi sweeps, with his mind rather than with his eyes.
Both men knew that Gabriel Cruz, the Navy SEAL who had paved the way for Foxfire, had snapped under pressure. But he couldn’t be anywhere near the secret New Mexico facility. He had died over two years ago, killed when his cargo plane crashed somewhere north of Juneau.
Trace and Wolfe had stood point together at Cruz’s military funeral. They had walked cold vigil as part of the honor guard that long night, and they had seen the casket lowered into the ground.
Negative, Trace. You were there beside me. Cruz is gone, so you must be reading something else up there.
The vibrations grew louder. Wolfe picked up the faint hammer of feet, along with the tense energy of shouted commands. Ryker was steaming about something, that was certain.
I’m dead right about this. Whatever’s going on upstairs has Cruz’s energy wrapped all over it.
Wolfe forced his body to relax, forced the anger and stabbing uncertainty from his mind. Be sure, Trace. That’s an order. Do you copy?
After a brief pause Wolfe felt an affirmative response. Then he sensed Trace’s thought flow change. It drew up hard, like a wire snapped tight. What?
Ryker’s right outside. You don’t think he’d be stupid enough to override the codes and burst in here, do you? Without time for psi terminus and transition, we’ll be fried. The last poor SOB they did that to….
O’Halloran didn’t finish. Both men had seen the mass of nerves and self-inflicted wounds carried screaming out of the pit after an immersion was cut short without warning.
No way. Wolfe managed to project total confidence. Ryker knows the rules. He wrote most of them. It’s too damned risky.
He had barely finished the thought when boots hammered above his head. Automatic weapon fire punched through the silence, and Wolfe realized that he’d been dangerously wrong.
Brace for containment breach, Trace. Open a net and send the order down the line immediately. Wolfe snapped out the command, determined to protect his unit. Ryker was going to get his ass chewed royally once this incident was over.
The containment unit shook, tilting sharply.
Trace, are you psi shielded? Do it now, because they’re coming in!
Metal grated on metal.
Light cut through the darkness. Instantly, Wolfe was slammed headfirst into an angry wall of pain.
CHAPTER TWO
Lost Mesa
Northeast of Taos, New Mexico
One week later
KIT O’HALLORAN STARED at the canine teeth inches from her throat. A low, throaty growl shocked her out of a lazy sunset swim in the warm waters off Belize.
Blast it.
Just once she’d like to finish a fantasy….
The growl stretched into rising notes and ended with a bark loud enough to snap the deepest concentration.
Kit pushed up onto one elbow and stared at the sixty-pound black Labrador puppy pressed against the sofa. “Drop, Baby.”
The next growl ended in a whine. The Lab dropped and went completely motionless.
So much for Kit’s nap. The dogs weren’t used to her taking a rest after the predawn chores were finished, and Baby, her smallest Lab, was especially relentless when it was time to play. And it was playtime right now.
Because they were smart and very determined, her puppies usually had the last word.
“Good girl. Good, sweet girl.” Kit reached to the floor for her treat bag and held out a pea-size liver snack, Baby’s favorite. “What’s all the fuss? Are you ready to practice?”
Baby downed the treat and turned her head toward the door, too well trained to rise from her down position until Kit gave the freeing command.
“Outside?” Kit fought a yawn. “You want to go outside and work?”
Baby’s keen chocolate eyes narrowed intently. As she had before, Kit had the singular sense of being probed, measured, almost trained.
Which was beyond funny, considering that she had eleven years of experience training service dogs for law-enforcement and military units. Never before had she felt one of the hundreds of dogs try to train her.
Fighting another yawn, she ran a hand down the Lab’s lustrous coat, pleased to feel its thickness. The feed mix she had developed seemed to be a success.
Kit wondered what new kind of chaos awaited her downstairs. With four puppies currently in training as military service dogs, upheaval was the norm, not that she minded. In her experience, dogs gave far more than they took.
“Up,” she said firmly. Instantly, Baby shot from the bed, twisted at the doorway in a blur of fur and skidding feet, then looked back. Kit could have sworn there was a silent command in those clever brown eyes.
Hurry up.
Of all the dogs she had trained, these were definitely the smartest and strongest. The breeder who had placed the litter with Kit had told her their parents were extraordinary, and from the very beginning, Baby and her littermates had run harder, jumped higher, learned faster. They were also larger than the average Lab puppy.
Kit ran a hand through her tangled hair. The dogs would run her ragged if she let them. Labs were notoriously exuberant and playful, just as they were focused and intelligent. Already Baby had the energy of a fully-grown dog. It was no wonder Kit usually felt exhausted at the end of the day.
She knew she invested too much of herself in each training group. She also knew that letting go was a necessary fact of life in her work.
On a good day, she could accept that.
Still seated near the door, Baby looked back, her voice rising from snarl to soft whine, like conversation in some unrecognized language.
“Okay, okay. Just don’t expect me to make sense until I grab my sweater and tank up on coffee.”
Baby nosed under the big chest and appeared with Kit’s oldest blue sweater dangling from her head. Laughing, Kit tugged the hooded cardigan over a white cotton T-shirt that had seen better days.
Not that her underwear mattered.
She lived forty miles from the nearest town. Since her closest neighbor was eighty-two and lived on the far side of a six thousand foot mountain, she didn’t receive many spontaneous visitors. Whatever she wore made no difference to anyone but her—and that was exactly the way Kit liked it.
Stretching her arms over her head, she watched sunlight flood through the big bay windows. Judging by the sky, it was a little after six. She had brought the dogs in from their kennel and checked some medical references on her computer while they ate. Her nap had lasted all of twenty minutes, and now it was time for training.
“Stay,” Kit said firmly. Baby didn’t move, her big velvet eyes shimmering with intelligence.
Since the stay command was one of the hardest things for a puppy to master, Kit was delighted. “Good dog. Good Baby.” She pulled an old leather glove from the pocket of her sweater, making a low hiss, and Baby’s ears rose sharply at this cue to pay attention.
“Come,” Kit ordered, holding out the glove.
In three excited strides Baby crossed the room, sniffing the leather with a back-and-forth motion of her head.
“Find,” Kit ordered.
Like a shot, the puppy put her nose to the floor and raced down the stairs, skidded at the front door and started sniffing.
Kit checked her wristwatch.
Four seconds later she heard Baby bark once from the back of the laundry room, where Kit had buried the glove’s mate under a wicker basket and a pile of dirty laundry.
Find complete.
“Good dog.” Jotting a note in her spiral pad, Kit headed downstairs, where Baby was waiting. Baby’s head pointed straight to the spot in the laundry basket where Kit had hidden the matching glove.
The puppy had just shaved three seconds off her most recent record.
“Good, good girl.” Another pea-sized treat appeared from Kit’s bag. Baby nuzzled the reward delicately off Kit’s wrist and swallowed it.
Abruptly the dog’s ears pricked forward. Looking up at Kit, she gave a low series of snarls.
“What? What’s wrong, Baby?”
The dog shot around in a blur, out the dog door and across the courtyard. Kit made a stop at the locked gun cabinet in the hall, then raced after her. Near the side door, she heard low male voices drifting across the outer wall of the compound.
This time there were two of them.
Baby hadn’t barked, so the intruders wouldn’t yet realize they’d been discovered. When Kit cracked the patio door silently, she could make out low whispers.
“I told you this whole idea sucked, Emmett. If she had the box, she wouldn’t leave it all the way out here. Hell, she probably sleeps with the thing under her bed. She’s crazy like the rest of her family.”
Kit inched up beside Baby. “Stay,” she whispered. “Stay, Baby.”
The dog’s position didn’t waver, though her eyes glinted with wary energy.
Kit swung open the gate and leveled her father’s old Smith & Wesson revolver at two men in dusty jeans peering down the well beneath a huge mesquite tree.
Fear prickled at the back of Kit’s neck. The speaker was a big, sullen man she’d seen hauling feed at the local tack store or drinking from a brown paper bag outside several different bars.
“You’re trespassing here, gentlemen.”
The smaller man spun around with a surprised curse. “You said she was in town, Emmett. Why’d you lie to me?”
“Because you’re too damned stupid to know better.” The man named Emmett stood up slowly, his gaze locked on Kit. “Tell us where it’s hidden. We’ll just keep coming back until you do.”
There was no point in asking what they meant. This man was just like the others, hoping to find the famous treasure supposedly hidden somewhere on the ranch.
Except there was no treasure.
Kit’s hands tightened on the grip of the revolver. It had been her father’s gun, and he’d taught her how to handle it safely and well. “There’s no treasure here, fellas. You think I’d be driving a ten-year old Jeep with no air and bad brakes if I was sitting on a fortune? With that kind of cash, I’d be living the high life down in Santa Fe.”
Emmett appeared to think this over for a long time before spitting on the ground beside the well. “I figure that’s exactly what lie you’d tell us, but we both know there’s Apache treasure hid somewhere in this damned well. Bones Whittaker saw it with his own eyes. That old Injun gave it to your father.”
Kit kept her expression calm despite the anger burning in her throat. “Bones was seventy years old and a drunk to boot. Why believe him?”
“Because he saw it,” Emmett said tightly. “So did his best friend and they was sober when they told my uncle. No way they’d lie about that gold your father got out on the mesa.”
“Bones Whittaker was drunk and sick,” Kit said flatly. “He wanted to be important so he made up the whole thing, right down to the story of the box he supposedly saw my father lower into the well. He even admitted it to my mother when he came up here a week before he died.”
“Your ma told you that, did she?” Emmett’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I guess she would. Best way to quiet things down and keep your nice nest egg hid. But that’s mesa gold, and it belongs to anyone that finds it. That’s exactly what I’m fixing to do.”
Kit took an angry breath. The rumors of buried treasure had begun when she was a girl, fed by the tales of an old, lonely man desperate to feel important before he died. When her parents had come into extra money after the death of Kit’s maiden aunt, they’d bought a badly needed truck and built an addition to the kennels, adding fuel to the flames of local suspicion. Unfortunately, more than a few people still believed Bones Whittaker’s crazy story.
When Kit’s brother was at home, no one came sniffing around, but Trace had been gone for over a year now, and this was the second set of trespassers in the last month.
Kit felt a sharp tension at her neck. She glanced up and saw something move up on the ridge. A coyote?
Emmett continued to watch her, frowning when Baby barked inside the courtyard. “That your dog?”
“Yes, it is. And she—”
A callused hand shot around her shoulders from behind. “Got her, Emmett. What do we do now?”
A third man. She should have realized Emmett had an ace in the hole.
Kit dropped her revolver into the pocket of her baggy sweatpants, out of sight. Unable to break free, she pivoted and drove her boot heel down against her captor’s instep.
She fought to stay calm, to wait for her moment.
A second arm locked at her waist.
She caught the smell of aftershave and old sweat as she tried to jam her elbow into his solar plexus, but he was fast, constantly twisting out of range.
“Get her gun.” Emmett’s voice was strained. “Damn it, Harry, do I have to do everything?”
Her captor slammed her forward and pinned her against the courtyard wall, driving her cheek into the rough stucco.
She blinked back tears, refusing to show weakness or pain to these lowlifes. “My brother will kill you for this.”
“But your brother’s not here, is he? Maybe he won’t be coming back.”
Kit kicked viciously, felt her boot strike bone.
“Ben, where’s her gun? You see her drop it?”
“I don’t see no gun here, Emmett.”
Low growling drifted over the wall. “It’s those dogs of hers again.” Ben sounded frightened. “You said they wouldn’t be here, Emmett.”
A mass of dark fur and angry feet shot over the courtyard wall. Missiling down, Baby struck Emmett’s shoulders. Moments later two other furry shapes crossed the wall. One rammed the back of Ben’s legs, knocking him to the ground, and the third landed in front of Kit, teeth bared and menacing.
Then she was free, her revolver trained on the intruders who were circled by her snarling seventy-pound puppies. The dogs had waited for their moment to strike, working together.
“Get moving, you three. And spread the word that the next man who comes up here will be dodging my bullets.” She sighted down the length of her revolver, glaring at Emmett, who was clearly the instigator of this harebrained operation. “But first take off your shoes. Do it now. All of you.”
Three sets of eyes measured Kit, then cut back to the snarling dogs.
“Do what she says, Emmett. Never knew a woman could handle a gun worth shit. She’ll kill all of us in a second.” Ben pulled off his boots and tossed them to the ground. “Can I go now?”
Kit waved her hand and the man immediately took off over the dirt. “What are you waiting for?” she snapped at the other two.
“Dogs don’t scare me.” Emmett crossed his beefy arms. “Especially puppies.”
Baby bared her teeth while Butch and Sundance, Kit’s other dogs, moved into a tight line next to Baby, the three ranged together as one unit.
Kit stared coldly at Emmett. “They could break your arm in a few seconds. Probably chew up your face pretty bad, too.”
“Don’t think you frighten me none, O’Halloran. Don’t think it’s over yet, either.”
“Come on, Harry,” Ben called from down the hill. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Fine by me. I’ve had enough.” The other man pulled off his boots, tossed them beneath the mesquite tree and headed down the slope after Ben.
Two down. One more to go.
“You too,” Kit snapped at Emmett. “Don’t forget your shoes.”
Color surged into the man’s heavy cheeks. After some angry fumbling, he freed his battered sneakers and threw them hard through the air.
Kit was surprised to see Baby jump up and catch them in her teeth.
“One day you won’t be so lucky. Those dogs of yours might not be around.”
Kit kept her expression cold. “Get going, and remember what I said. Next time I’ll shoot first and consider the legalities later.”
Dust drifted over the hillside. Kit didn’t move until all three men had made their way past a row of cottonwood trees far down the hill, where an old pickup was hidden. After they shot out of sight, her knees began to shake, her stomach twisting in knots.
There was no reason to feel sick. Emmett and his friends were gone. She was safe now.
Saying it didn’t help.
She leaned forward against the mesquite tree and threw up. When the spasms stopped, she set her revolver carefully on the ground and sat down on the wall above the well where mesquite leaves shivered in the wind like whispered promises.
But Kit didn’t believe in promises anymore. Every promise that ever mattered to her had been broken. Even her brother had left, tossing all the responsibilities of the ranch onto her shoulders.
She took a deep breath, sagging against the old tree. Her father had planted it the same day he married her mother. Together they had watered it, staked it and tended it. Now the thick, gnarled trunk was twisted into three knots, towering over the well like a rich, dark rope beneath a canopy of green.
Small leaves blew free, raining down on Kit’s face. She sank to the ground. How much longer before Emmett and his friends came back?
How much more could she take?
The three dogs pushed closer, licking her face with small whimpers as if offering exuberant comfort while their tails churned up little circles of dust beside the well.
She frowned, wondering where Diesel was. The most curious of the lot, he was probably back in the courtyard, tracking a squirrel or some other small animal.
But before she could go look, she leaned forward, throwing up all over again.
Some days definitely sucked.
HE WATCHED HER because it was his job to watch her. His orders had come down from the very top: no involvement, no explanations, no contact of any sort. Surveillance and covert protection, nothing else.
But that was before Wolfe had seen Kit ambushed by three men right in her front yard. He’d watched, held back from intervening only by Ryker’s explicit orders. But all that was about to change.
He punched a code into his secure cell phone, all the time studying Kit’s house. “Ryker, it’s Houston. Yes, I’m in place. But I’m requesting permission to break cover.”
“Permission denied. Cruz is almost certainly headed your way, and I don’t want anything to scare him off.”
Wolfe watched clouds shadow the nearby ridge. “Sir, she was attacked a few minutes ago. Three men.” His voice was cold and hard.
“Did they hurt her or threaten the dogs?”
“Negative. She managed to frighten the men off. The dogs helped.”
Ryker’s breath checked. “In that case, there’s nothing to worry about. Do your job and stay under the radar.”
The line went dead.
Wolfe gripped the phone, then shoved it back into his pocket. Orders unchanged. He couldn’t reveal his presence, and the situation was spiking his bullshit meter big time. There were things that Ryker hadn’t briefed him about, foremost among them the fact that Cruz’s death in Alaska had been faked. Everyone had seen how Cruz experienced mood changes during his last months on active service. There’d even been mental and physical side effects brought about by the program medications, but nothing that had been obvious, and Ryker had never briefed the Foxfire team about potential problems. All he had said in response to Wolfe’s questions was that Cruz had become unstable. And that he had been taken into protective custody for the good of the program—and the country.
Wolfe was certain there was more to the story, but no one could pry anything out of Ryker until he was ready to talk. He had also ignored Wolfe’s questions about why Cruz would be interested in Kit and her service dogs. That silence added to Wolfe’s uneasiness.
He had to keep Kit and her special dogs safe, without breaking cover to do it. He shook his head, remembering the shy girl with pigtails who had blushed and stammered whenever he was in the room. Now she could scare off three garden-variety thugs without any help but her half-grown Labradors and a well worn revolver.
Times change.
Kit was grown up now, a woman with killer legs and a mouth that called for long, slow exploration. Not that she would remember him after all this time. To say that Wolfe had changed would be an understatement. But she was still his best friend’s baby sister, off-limits for a man who could never put down roots.
It had been years since he’d been back, years since he’d stood on Lost Mesa. Her family’s ranch was as rugged and majestic as ever, offering forty-mile views of sage, mesquite and piñon in every direction. Coyotes still called from the high ridges, reminding him of long, lazy summer afternoons.
Ancient history.
Cutting off bittersweet memories, he scanned the hill, hidden behind a line of sage in full bloom. As coyote song echoed from a nearby wash, Kit vanished and returned with a pair of binoculars. Silhouetted in the sunlight, strong and tall, she sought the loping pack.
Wolfe remembered the summer when she was twelve and he was a know-it-all high school kid on fire to save the world. Things had been black and white then, good versus evil. But the world didn’t get saved and life had taught him that softness was a trap, trust only a crutch. He’d learned how to live without either.
Watching Kit focus her binoculars, he could sense her fierce determination to protect her ranch, and the dogs lined up beside her seemed almost an extension of that drive. He wondered if so much unspoken communication between dogs and trainer was normal. He also wondered if they had sensed his presence yet. It was only a matter of time before they did.
As the coyotes howled and snarled their way across a neighboring slope, she followed their progress through her binoculars.
She would never see him unless he allowed it. Thanks to his skills she could stand a foot away, yet swear she was alone. He’d implanted focused images on missions in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Middle East, distorting the theta patterns of his targets until all they felt was a temporary dizziness. But in that moment of extreme suggestibility, Wolfe could shape and recreate reality—or what appeared to be reality.
He smiled grimly. Once he’d made a trigger-happy potentate in Afghanistan see dinosaurs charging out of a cave. The man had fled, screaming orders at his men, allowing Wolfe and his team to stroll into the fortified insurgent camp, locate a pair of stolen Stinger missiles, and pack them out before anyone was the wiser.
With time his skill had grown to be second nature. Sometimes he had to work at remembering where reality stopped and his own creations began.
He spread his focus, noting wind direction, weather scenarios, and optimum surveillance points. Though he remained hidden, he missed nothing. As the current leader of the Foxfire team, he demanded two hundred percent from himself in training and in the field, and failure was not a word in his vocabulary.
Unconsciously, his fingers rose, tracing the piece of metal buried in the skin above his collarbone. This chip was one of his first implants, allowing satellite tracking with precise accuracy. Other chips had enhanced his endurance and allowed him to monitor his own brain waves.
Wolfe knew his skills came at a price few people would be willing to pay. For the team members in Foxfire, pain was a given and isolation was constant. Once you entered the program, you left your past behind forever.
If not, you were summarily booted out of the program.
He sensed the force of Kit’s restless gaze. Abruptly she bent double, painfully sick, and he felt a twinge of sympathy. One-on-one combat was a bitch, no mistake about it. The adrenaline rush afterward was almost as bad as the attack itself.
He felt something strike his boot. When he looked down, he saw pieces of an old toy truck sticking out of the dirt beneath him. Blurred memories shot through his mind. Wolfe remembered the day he had dropped it. The beating he had gotten for losing it.
But he didn’t want to remember.
The mesa was silent now. The coyotes had drifted on without registering his intrusion on these rocks.
Down the hill, Kit vanished, followed closely by two of her dogs. Behind them the smallest Lab hesitated, ears raised. For long seconds the puppy didn’t move, staring up the hill at the spot where Wolfe sat motionless.
The power of the dog’s fierce intelligence felt like a physical touch.
LLOYD RYKER HAD FINISHED searching the lab for the third time, and once again he’d come up with nothing.
Staring at the blank gray walls, he considered his options. The facility had been on full alert since Cruz’s escape. Two hundred personnel—military and civilian—were being checked for possible involvement. With enough pressure and scrutiny, one of them would eventually crack.
In the meantime Cruz was off the leash, and there was no way to calculate the damage he would cause if Ryker didn’t find him soon.
The veteran of three presidential administrations frowned at the monitors above his desk. He had never felt completely comfortable with the full implementation of Foxfire. The program’s concept was brilliant, but its personnel were far more dangerous than conventional weapons, which could be tracked and quantified as needed—or stripped and scrapped completely.
It wasn’t so neat with people.
His eyes narrowed as he replayed the footage from the hidden lab camera—at least the rogue operative hadn’t disabled all their security. He watched Cruz move to the mainframe computer and type quick lines of code. Why had the man accessed Wolfe Houston’s service files, pulling up his training records and current duty assignment? Was there a covert connection between the two men?
He couldn’t believe it. Foxfire’s current leader was a straight arrow, his loyalty tested and confirmed.
Frowning, Ryker watched Cruz change screens, pulling up local topo maps and facility blueprints. After that he’d slipped past a million-dollar security system with three levels of password clearance and located complete medical data on all the dogs currently in the program. Now Cruz knew every animal’s location and unique potential. To the right bidder, that information would be worth a fortune.
Coupled with the right trainer, of course.
It was a security nightmare.
Ryker shut off the surveillance tape and closed his eyes. He didn’t have to replay the final footage to remember how Cruz had smiled coldly before hitting the lights, plunging the room into darkness. There was still no clue as to what he’d done next or how he’d escaped. By the time the response team hit the lab, the room was empty.
Ryker opened his eyes and sat forward slowly.
Or was it?
CHAPTER THREE
SOMEWHERE ON THE HORIZON Kit heard a clap of thunder.
Restless for no reason she could name, she studied the gunmetal sky. The dogs were jumpy, too, interrupting their usual play to shoot wary looks at the high ridges around the ranch. Right now Baby was standing motionless, her nose pointed into the wind.
“Do you smell something up there, honey?”
The puppy whined faintly, but didn’t move.
One by one dark clouds began to billow over the mountains, blotting out the sun. Butch and Sundance sat nearby, panting. Only Diesel moved, his pure black coat streaked with dust as he sniffed furiously at a retreating gecko.
Gravel skipped over the rocks, carried in eddies by the restless wind. After a last glance at the sky, Kit opened her backpack and took out Baby’s red collar. Strapping on the work collar always signaled a transition to focused commands, invaluable reinforcement for service dog training.
Warmed up from a good run across the mesa, the dogs were ready to focus on training. Baby’s dark eyes probed Kit’s face, and the dog quivered with excitement, awaiting the first command. No one could say that these animals didn’t love to learn.
Kit began by reinforcing simple stay commands, then followed up with a variety of heel and halt repetitions, alternating ten minutes of training with five minutes of play and copious amounts of praise. After Baby ran through her moves, Kit slipped collars on Butch and the other dogs in turn. Accustomed to working serially, the dogs seemed to compete for fast command acquisition. Sometimes they even seemed to think as a team.
A family of quail shot out of the brush, making the dogs start. Even then, none moved, still on down command. “Stay,” Kit repeated quietly.
Baby whimpered, bumping against Kit’s leg. Lightning cracked over the ridge, followed by the roll of thunder.
Baby’s ears flattened.
From a cluster of rocks up the slope Kit heard a shrill, rising wail. On a punch of fear, she recognized the cry of a mature cougar. Despite the wild pounding of her heart, she suppressed a primal urge to run.
“Stay,” she ordered, one hand on Baby’s head. If the dogs bolted, the hunting cat would be on them in a second, drawn by their motion.
Across the clearing Kit saw her rifle in its sling next to her backpack, and she cursed herself for not keeping the weapon within reach. Over the last months she had seen a rare cougar track on the higher slopes, but none of the animals had ever come close to the ranch.
Brown fur flashed up the ridge. Kit felt the skin tighten along her neck. She gripped her big oak walking stick, the only weapon at hand against a predator with ten times her strength.
Wind sighed through the cottonwood trees.
Kit heard the big cat cry again, the high wail like a physical assault. Beside her leg, Baby gave a powerful twitch.
“Stay, all of you.” Kit’s voice shook.
She knew she would have to take on the big cat armed with only her stick. Her father had done it once, and he’d told the story in electrifying detail for years afterward.
Staying calm was crucial. Sudden movement would trigger an immediate attack. In the face of a cougar, she also had to stand tall, raising her stick so that the cat would recognize her as an intimidating predator prepared to fight back. Her father had also warned her never to stare into a cougar’s eyes, since this was considered a dominance challenge from one predator to another.
With one hand still on Baby’s neck, Kit raised her big oak stick. “Heel.” She spoke loudly to the Labs as she moved backward. As the wind shook the trees, she took another cautious step, the dogs ranged close beside her.
The low, stubby branches of a mesquite tree shook furiously. Brown fur brushed against shivering leaves, and a mature male cougar stepped onto a boulder, mouth open in a snarl.
Too close.
There was no way Kit could possibly reach the rifle now.
Swinging her heavy stick, she took three running steps forward, answering the cougar’s cry with her own loud shout. Despite her terror, she reached deep and found her strength, shaping it to match the predator’s cry. Cougars ranged by territory, killed by territory, and were famously unpredictable, especially if they were defending their young or a previous kill.
This would be Kit’s only chance to save the dogs and herself.
The cougar stared at her, all hunger and rippling muscles. Her dusty sneakers slipped in a patch of gravel, and she fell to one knee, then lurched up instantly, her hands raised while she shouted hoarse warnings in a voice that sounded like a stranger’s. At the top of the ridge, the narrow path twisted past a huge boulder streaked white with quartz, and there the cougar waited, smudged by sunlight, muscles taut, ready to jump.
Ready to kill Kit and carry away her dogs.
Warm sunlight slanted down. A hawk called far down the slope. Kit felt every detail cut deep into her mind as the dogs tensed beside her, barking wildly.
The big cat took a step closer. Grimly, Kit prepared for the attack she sensed was seconds away. The big predator swung sharply to one side, then circled the boulder, snarling in a mix of anger and pain while its powerful shoulders flexed, almost as if it were wounded.
Then the brown body jumped high and cut through the streaming sunlight past Kit, past the dogs, landing less than four feet away. In an instant, the big cat was gone, swallowed up in the shadows cast by junipers and sage.
The glade fell silent. Even the dogs were still.
Kit spun around, guarding the route where the cougar had vanished. When there was no more sign of movement, she raced back to grab her rifle, racked in a shell and leveled the barrel.
With her rifle on one arm and her walking stick in the other, she issued sharp commands to the dogs, herding them uphill away from the trees where the cougar had left the trail. It was a longer route back to the ranch, but no overhanging rocks would conceal a stalking predator.
Kit wasn’t about to be cornered again.
Her hands shook, wind brushing her face. Dimly she realized her cheeks were wet with tears.
WOLFE COULDN’T BREATHE.
His fingers dug into the dirt as he watched Kit’s shaky progress up the steep slope. He still couldn’t believe she’d gone after the cougar armed with no more than a stick.
Fearless—or just crazy. Maybe both.
He’d been on his way up the ridge even before she’d seen the animal stalking her, but she’d done all the right things to make the cougar back down. Her quick, smart response had prevented him from breaking his orders to remain undercover.
She would never know how he had seen the big cat when it was poised to attack. She would never suspect that the animal’s growl of anger and fear had come from Wolfe’s silent intrusion. He couldn’t control the animal, but he could enhance Kit’s appearance to make her resemble a fearsome predator.
Despite the jagged emotions Kit must be feeling right now, she was doing fine, keeping the dogs close as she set a good pace across the mesa. If he had his way, he’d be up there beside her, close enough for protection should the need arise.
But orders were orders. Right now Ryker wanted only deep cover surveillance on Kit and the dogs. Protection if needed, but no exposure.
Crouched near a juniper tree, he watched her. She was quick and confident, with spare elegance in every long stride. Short and spiky, her hair glinted with hints of copper in the shifting sunlight. When she moved into the shade, the color changed, dark as French wine he’d tasted once in Burgundy. The short, uneven chunks hugging her face made him want to slip his hands deep and feel her warmth. He stifled the unfamiliar longing and forced his thoughts back to his mission.
Thanks to his training, he was adept at burying his emotions and forgetting them. The sight of a woman’s uneven hair wasn’t going to make him backslide.
In Wolfe’s line of work, feelings got a man killed faster than bullets.
He kept that thought in mind as he followed Kit back to the ranch, careful to stay out of sight.
KIT WATCHED SHADOWS pool across the empty courtyard, feeling unbearably tired.
She was still shaken by her encounter with the cougar. Shivering, she stared at the ridge above the ranch and realized how lucky she was to be alive. She wanted to believe that her quick response with voice and motion cues had scared the predator away, but she couldn’t. The animal had looked wounded. Perhaps something else had frightened it and sent it running away into the brush.
Too keyed up to sleep, she paced the living room, unable to forget the cougar’s shrill cry. Silent and smart, the animal could be outside the wall right now, searching for a tree branch with access into the nearby courtyard.
Enough.
Disgusted, Kit grabbed her old sweater from the arm of the couch and strode down the hall. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well tackle the pile of bills that had accumulated over the last week. Food, equipment and medical care for the dogs were just the beginning, yet she refused to stint on materials or food for her animals, even if it meant that she wore threadbare jeans and sneakers with holes in the bottoms.
The ranch was a steady drain on the small legacy that had come to Kit at her parents’ death. With forty acres of high desert stretching between two mountain ranges, the land was unsuited for ranching, and the cost of adding modern irrigation would have been prohibitive. Thanks to Kit’s growing reputation training service dogs, her bank account had finally crept out of the red, but it might be five years before she could actually take a vacation.
Five years….
Frowning, she sank into the old chair behind her wooden desk. It was the same place where her mother had handled the ranch’s account books and budgets. The pitted wood was cool beneath her fingers, smooth from years of use. Closing her eyes, she could imagine her mother lining up pens and stacking bills in neat piles as she calculated new ways to stretch a dollar.
Kit did the stretching now.
A local dog food company was pestering her to endorse a new product. The money would help her buy new tires for her Jeep and install an alarm system at the ranch.
As she reached for her checkbook, she saw the red message button flashing on her telephone and quickly scanned the calls. She would be devastated to miss a call from her brother, who was impossible to reach and always phoned at unpredictable times. If she’d missed Trace today, it might be months before she heard from him again.
Triggering her replay button, she fumed through two mortgage offers. The third message was from her oldest friend.
“Kit, it’s Miki. I just got back from a new project in Santa Fe. You are not going to believe the assignment I landed this time. Let’s go drink double shots of tequila while I tell you about it, okay? I need some advice. Stop spoiling those gorgeous canines and give me a call.”
Kit smiled, wondering what kind of bizarre situation her old friend had gotten into now. A year ago it was making a tour documentary for a punk band that performed with defanged rattlesnakes, and her most recent job had been shooting trailers for indie horror movies. Whatever her new assignment, it was bound to be strange. Miki attracted bizarre like honey attracted flies.
The next message was the crisp, professional voice of Kit’s vet, calling to make an appointment for a vaccination titer, a procedure required to check the immunization status of the four puppies. Liz Merrigold had been the O’Halloran family vet for nearly a decade, as well as the local contact for the breeder who had supplied Kit’s current litter of training dogs. Liz always kept a sharp eye on the animals placed for training under her supervision, gladly providing medical advice and moral support, day or night.
Kit jotted a note on her calendar to call and confirm a time for the visit. While she wrote, she triggered the last message.
“This is Doctor Rivera’s office, Ms. O’Halloran. Doctor Rivera asks that you call the office at your earliest convenience. He’d like to speak with you.”
Kit looked down at her hands. All the energy seemed to bleed out of her body. She sank lower in the chair, staring at the breeding awards that lined the walls of the study. Presidents, generals and movie stars smiled down from mismatched frames, mute records of her family’s contribution to humane and practical training techniques for service and working dogs. In twenty-five years her parents had personally trained over two thousand dogs, and Kit was determined to expand on their legacy.
But her body might have different plans.
After a long day of exercise, she could no longer ignore the deep throb in her right hip. Wincing, she pulled a heavy medical textbook from a nearby shelf. She didn’t expect to find anything new because she had read every relevant page at least fifty times. All of them pointed to the same conclusion: joint deterioration, pure and simple.
Kit wished that Trace would come home. She missed his outrageously bad jokes and his off-key Rolling Stones renditions.
But she never knew when her brother would appear, and she tried not to think about the possibility that he might never come back. Although the details were secret, Kit knew he was part of a highly trained covert operations team, and right now they could be deployed anywhere.
Almost certainly, it would be someplace dangerous. More than once she remembered Trace calmly telling her that hell was their specialty.
Baby gently nudged her leg. Kit sensed that the dog had come to offer reassurance with the warmth of her body and the soft thump of her tail. It was uncanny how pets developed a skill at reading their owners’ moods.
Kit took a deep breath, stretching her legs slowly. Her joints felt stiff, but they were no worse than any other day, and that was something to be thankful for. Leaning down, she slid her hand through Baby’s soft fur. She had cried herself dry months ago, cursing her body, her genes and nameless bad luck. Neither the tears nor the curses had made her feel better.
As she stared at the medical book filled with grim facts and sad pictures, something shook free inside Kit. Slowly it uncurled against her chest, blowing away restless fears and dreary expectations. She wouldn’t plan her future based on old medical files. She was strong. She would make her own future.
She closed the textbook with a snap. No more obsessing about medicine and new discoveries. If you gave in to fear, you’d lost already.
Outside the moon drifted above the mesa. Kit ran a hand through her hair and stretched. “I’m in the mood for a hero tonight. What do you guys say? Gary Cooper or John Wayne?”
Diesel stared at her, cocking his head in the half-listening, half-baffled pose that always made her smile.
Baby turned in a slow circle, stretching out on the floor.
“Bogie it is, then.” Shaking her head, Kit went out to find Casablanca.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER the Germans were storming Paris, Bogie was fighting a broken heart, and Kit couldn’t have been happier.
Curled up on the couch, she watched black-and-white images play across the wide-screen TV that had been her father’s single vice. She smiled as the story wrapped around her, pulling her in and making her forget her own troubles. Ilsa and Rick would always have Paris, and she would always have Casablanca.
Claude Rains leered at her. Kit fought a yawn as the day finally took its toll. She fell into dreams of black and white and a world filled with weary heroes.
MOONLIGHT SHIMMERED across the floor. Baby stretched out at Kit’s feet, gnawing on a rubber chew toy.
As Kit slept, the four dogs moved closer. At a look from Baby, Diesel vanished to patrol the courtyard while Butch and Sundance moved to check the backyard and rear doors.
In silence, Baby lifted her paws to the windows that overlooked the mesa. There in the moonlight the dog’s ears pricked forward.
A family of quail scurried for cover, routed from sleep by the shadow of a passing hawk. Wind hissed through the juniper branches that tossed in the moonlight.
Baby absorbed all of these movements, assessing them as unimportant. But something else moved in the darkness, and it was a thing the dog had never sensed before.
The other three dogs appeared from the shadows, drawn by the force of Baby’s uneasiness. As one, they sank down before the window, alert to the night.
While the moon rose higher and war waged across North Africa, Kit slept on, caught in restless dreams. Ranged around her, the dogs kept a wary vigil, sensing new predators afoot beneath the desert moon.
CHAPTER FOUR
SILENT AND CONTROLLED, the highly trained covert operative jumped the courtyard wall and scanned the outside of Kit’s house. At the edge of the shadows, certain he was alone, he triggered his cell phone.
Ryker answered on the second ring, sounding irritated. “0200 hours. This had better be important, Houston.”
“Permission to break cover, sir.”
“You’re persistent, I’ll say that.”
Wolfe didn’t answer. The night was silent, the air rich with the pungent bite of piñon and burning mesquite logs.
“Any new threats, Commander?”
“A cougar in the area. She drove the thing off with a stick. Added to that is the possibility that the men from this morning may return. I can’t keep her safe if I’m hidden at the top of the hill, sir. It’s simple physics.”
“There’s nothing simple about physics,” Ryker muttered. “Foxfire proves that every day.” He cleared his throat. “Permission granted. But keep things airtight. I’m holding you personally responsible, is that understood?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Then good night,” Ryker said sourly. “Some of us need to sleep.”
When Ryker disconnected, Wolfe reconnoitered. He knew the layout of the ranch from his mission documents, but even without the plans, he would still have remembered his way.
With quick movements he jimmied the side door lock and broke into the house. Once inside, he listened for Kit’s voice or the sound of footsteps, but all was quiet. Only as he turned down the front hall did he hear low voices—male and female.
Instantly his hand flashed to the Sig at the small of his back. How had someone gotten past him? He’d been watching every road, window and door for a week. During his brief naps, his scattered motion sensors took over, so the property was always monitored.
Light flickered from the far end of the hall. Muffled voices rose in anger.
Neither of them was Kit’s.
When he glanced around the corner into the living room, he saw Kit asleep on the couch, legs curled up, her hand flung over the back of a pillow. Ranged around her were the four dogs Ryker had briefed him about. Smart, fast, and highly motivated, they were products of the same genetic technology that made Wolfe one of the government’s most valuable military assets. Kit mumbled in her sleep, one hand in Baby’s fur, and the big puppy moved closer, almost protectively, as Wolfe surveyed the room. Currently Kit had no idea about the nature of the dogs she was raising. Though her supervision of the dogs’ training remained hotly contested by the Foxfire scientists, the bottom line was results: as long as Kit’s dogs showed superior skill acquisition, they would stay right where they were.
For long seconds none of them moved, Wolfe by the door and the dogs keenly alert near Kit. Baby’s head rose. She sniffed the air softly, and Diesel came to stand beside her, their intensity was nearly palpable.
Muted voices continued to come from the flickering television on the far wall as Wolfe monitored the room, staying far back in the shadows.
Then Baby turned in a circle, sneezed and sat down beside Kit with no further wariness or hostility. Wolfe felt some of his tension ebb. The dogs appeared to have accepted him as friendly. Ryker had assured him that their shared chips would make this likely.
Better than getting an ankle savaged, Wolfe thought wryly.
He made a mental note to drop this observation into his next report, along with a description of the dogs’ quick threat response when they’d shot over the courtyard wall to protect Kit.
Spirit and courage. Both were key traits for a military service dog, and these animals would be amazing assets when their training was complete. Healthy and clearly curious, they shot forward to sniff at his legs and circle him excitedly.
But Wolfe was watching Kit and the way light from the television played over her face, outlining her cheekbones and full lips. The surveillance photos in his file didn’t show the gold in her short hair or the dark curve of her eyelashes. Nor did they capture her restless energy, even in sleep.
As he came closer, Wolfe noticed the ugly welt on her arm where she’d fallen on the trail this morning. Near the welt was a bruise from Sundance, who had kicked her accidentally while running through an improvised obstacle course on the mesa.
She’s changed, Wolfe thought. Grown up with a vengeance.
There was no mistaking the smooth curve of her breasts or the line of her thigh beneath the nightshirt she wore.
Bad news, pal.
Frowning, he looked away, studying this airy room with views over three mountains and forty miles of sagebrush. He’d spent some good hours here, playing pool with Trace, arguing about cars and politics. He’d felt safe here once.
Memories rushed over him, good mixed with bitter, drawn from his few hours of normal boyhood. In this house he had glimpsed all the things his life might have been in a different family.
One with a father who didn’t enjoy casual cruelty.
Wolfe hadn’t thought about his father for years. His past was a closed book, the wistful boy buried deep. Before joining the Navy, he had changed his name and dropped the bitter memories like a stone hurled far and long into deep water. Only seventeen, he’d already been a man when he left Lost Mesa. He’d worked in the fields, backbreaking labor that had carried him from county to county and harvest to harvest. Two days after his eighteenth birthday he’d seen a recruiter’s office and felt a light go on.
Two days later he was on a bus bound for the closest training facility. The Navy had made him whole again and he’d met every challenge thrown his way, proud to become a SEAL. When he’d been selected to join the ultrasecret Foxfire unit, his new life had seemed complete.
All these thoughts flashed by in seconds as Wolfe stood in the blue-gray light of a movie he didn’t recognize. The four dogs didn’t move, faces alert beside the couch where Kit slept, and Wolfe knew beyond a doubt that they were measuring him, analyzing every action. He avoided any swift movements that could be mistaken for aggression, and when the dogs continued to show no sign of hostility, he crouched beside the smallest one, a black Lab with melted chocolate eyes.
So this was Baby.
The runt of the litter, she was also the smartest and most gifted, if Ryker’s files were right—and they almost always were. Wolfe raised his hand, checking the dog’s response.
The big dark eyes focused intently. She sniffed his open palm and nudged his hand, her tail bumping on the rug.
The SEAL felt a little surge of satisfaction when Baby rolled over calmly in a gesture of trust, raising her head to meet his hand. The animals were well nourished and superbly groomed. Their coats were thick and smooth, their eyes clear. According to Ryker, none of the government’s in-house labs had produced dogs with anything close to Kit’s record of health and growth rate. Wolfe made a mental note to check the ingredients of the new food mix she had developed. He had already sent back photographs with a 12X zoom and detailed notes about her training methods. Clearly she deserved her excellent reputation.
Ryker wanted to know how a civilian working alone in an isolated and meagerly equipped location could outperform highly paid scientists in state-of-the-art facilities. Some people were convinced that Kit’s parents had stumbled across a food additive to enhance the dogs’ training speed. Others had called it blind luck. For his part, standing face to face with Kit’s dogs, Wolfe suspected a different process was at work.
Kit didn’t hesitate to crawl through the dirt on her stomach to show a six-month old puppy how to be silent in the brush. She didn’t hold back a laugh of pure glee when she jumped from a ladder into a mound of straw with two wriggling dogs in her arms. She offered unquestioning loyalty and her animals responded in kind.
Wolfe wasn’t a scientist, but he sensed that Kit herself was the secret ingredient.
He looked up to the scrutiny of chocolate-colored eyes. Baby continued to study him for what felt like a lifetime, sniffing his hand. Damn if Wolfe didn’t feel as if he’d been scanned, analyzed and dissected from forehead to big toe.
When Baby nudged his leg, Wolfe winced. She was a little too close to the jagged cut he’d received during his insertion jump from a military chopper north of Taos. But he didn’t pull away, sensing the dog’s concentration.
Seconds later Baby was nudged aside first by Diesel, then by Butch and Sundance. Each dog sniffed the area on his thigh where he had been wounded. When they were finally done investigating, they drew back into a motionless line.
The seconds stretched out. Wolfe felt the dogs’ concentration grow.
What in the hell was going on? Why did he feel as if he was being ruthlessly analyzed all over again? Suddenly Wolfe realized it was his wound that fascinated the dogs, possibly because they sensed something unusual—or familiar—about his blood chemistry. Another observation to go into his report to Ryker.
Across the room, Kit twisted suddenly. Still asleep, she kicked free of her cover, her hand hitting the remote on the side table.
The images on the screen multiplied, twelve small boxes of the same street scene.
Curious, Wolfe moved closer. He’d never seen a complicated TV screen like this one. Back at the lab, facilities were tight and schedules strict. Training constantly, the team members had little time for entertainment, since they had to be able to deploy at a moment’s notice, day or night.
It was fair to say that he had missed a few things, given his lifestyle. With Baby by his leg, he followed images of tanks rumbling through the streets of Paris. Against the haunting chords of a piano, he saw Humphrey Bogart’s ashen face when he was left alone for a second time.
War was hell, all right. Wolfe could identify with that.
Kit twisted again. Her other hand hit the remote, changing the display to one small box in the bottom corner of the screen.
Fascinated by the technology, Wolfe picked up the remote and sat down in the far chair while he studied the unfamiliar control. He could rig complicated trigger units for every kind of explosive device, so he figured this equipment wouldn’t be much of a problem.
He touched one of the buttons.
The action froze on the big screen.
He touched another button. In seconds he’d worked out how to resume action, mute the audio and fast-forward. After making sure that Kit was still out cold, he started the movie again. Diesel moved closer while Baby nuzzled his shoulder. With the dogs ranged around him, he felt oddly safe and protected.
But safety was an illusion with Cruz on the loose. Jumpy, he rose and circled the room, checking windows and doors. After each pass, he was drawn back to his seat beside Baby and the images that flickered over the screen.
Without a sound Sundance moved to the big window overlooking the front porch. Diesel and Butch slipped away into the shadows. Baby didn’t budge, her head resting on Wolfe’s shoulder. For one strange moment the SEAL felt an unshakable sense of belonging.
But he didn’t belong. Not as a ragtag boy, and definitely not as a man. Because of Foxfire, he would always be different, and he had accepted that difference, both gift and curse, the day that the government had implanted his first chip.
And he had work to do. Now that he had ascertained Kit’s safety, there was no reason for him to sit watching a sixty-year-old movie and enjoying the sight of Kit’s hair aglow in the lamplight.
As Wolfe stood up, Baby slanted her head and met his eyes.
He wasn’t sure if he imagined what happened next. Across the room the sound climbed, voices murmuring. Wolfe tapped a button on the remote, wondering if he had accidentally hit something without noticing. But a second later the volume climbed again.
A defective television?
He frowned at the wall of high-tech equipment and lowered the audio again. Behind him the dogs were lined up in a row. Panting, they stared at him expectantly.
As a test, he muted the sound. Instantly, it shot back to its prior level.
Wolfe dropped the volume, sorting through possible explanations. A wiring malfunction? Battery failure?
Flipping the remote, he removed the batteries. He was about to pry off the inside cover and check the inner circuitry when the TV muted on its own.
The batteries were in his hand. The dogs were ranged on the floor in front of the television, unmoving. Baby’s tail thumped once.
The dogs?
He didn’t buy it. This kind of skill had never been part of their genetic package. The source had to be an equipment malfunction.
Tensely, he pocketed the batteries and moved to the far wall. Leaning down, he scanned the controls and manually triggered the volume.
Nothing happened.
Wolfe thought it over. Then he thought it over again. His gaze returned to the dogs.
Baby sat down in the middle of the rug. Casablanca stopped, and the television switched over to regular programming, where a man with a sequined cowboy hat waved his arms and pitched used trucks.
“Hell if I believe this,” Wolfe muttered, muting the volume.
Kit stirred restlessly, and he dragged a hand through his hair, then switched off the television and waited—not sure what he was waiting for.
The silence stretched out, deep as the New Mexico night. He stared at the dogs, and they stared right back at him. A branch scraped the window. Baby draped her head across Diesel’s neck, looked at the television and wagged her tail. Coincidence?
Wolfe shook his head, returning the batteries to the remote and placing it next to Kit so she’d assume that she had turned off the movie in her sleep. Baby yawned. The previous phenomena with the television appeared to have stopped. Though Wolfe waited, nothing else happened.
Time to go.
But at the door he paused, unable to resist one last look at Kit. She was striking even in her sleep. In a dozen ways she reminded him of her mother, who’d still turned heads at sixty. Wolfe remembered the night Amanda O’Halloran had found him sleeping in the old barn, desperate and exhausted, still bleeding from his father’s drunken beating.
She had cleaned him up without a word, fed him without a word, then opened her heart as well as her house to him. When his father had come looking for him, she’d run him off with a shotgun.
He hadn’t thought of that night for years. It was this unnerving house, the dogs on the old Mexican rug and the fire that crackled happily.
He rubbed his thigh as he walked down the shadowed hallway. The wound had torn open again and was throbbing—a minor discomfort after the abuse Wolfe’s body had suffered over the years. He had a full supply of medicine in his field pack to deal with exactly this problem.
Something moved at the end of the corridor. Quickly Wolfe slid against the wall, listening to a shuffling noise in the hall.
The sounds came closer and then Baby appeared a few feet in front of him. Her ears perked up as she stared at the spot where Wolfe was standing, hidden in the shadows. Moments later Butch and Sundance moved to face the kitchen entrance, while Diesel prowled the house, going from window to window, alert and wary.
Baby let out a low growl and trotted to the kitchen door, staring at the window. She was soon joined by the other two dogs. When Diesel finished his circuit, he joined them in front of the kitchen doorway.
A noise brought Wolfe around, low and fast. Kit stood in the shadows, looking sleepy and mussed. The rifle she held was dead level. Then Diesel began to bark, and the other dogs joined in.
“Baby? Diesel? What’s wrong?”
She hadn’t seen him yet, Wolfe realized. She must have heard the dogs prowling around earlier.
But something else was moving in the darkness. Wolfe heard the faint crunch of feet on gravel outside.
Grabbing Kit, he pulled her out of sight, his hand clamped over her mouth. Seconds later the kitchen window shattered in a noisy explosion, glass flying over the tile floor.
She fought his grip as he pinned her against the wall with his body, feeling her panic in the wild rise and fall of her chest. She tried to kick him, but he nudged her leg aside and blocked her clawing fingers.
He brushed her breast, soft and warm beneath thin cotton, and the contact made him jerk as if he’d been burned; his hand locked over her mouth when she tried to protest.
Glass crunched.
Across the kitchen a man climbed in over the windowsill, his knife glinting in the cold moonlight.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG?
He pushed Kit down the hall, fighting her every step of the way. When she tried to scream, Wolfe cut her off with fast, focused images of herself floating in bubbling hot springs until he felt her body relax and slump against his chest, arms askew.
Grimly, he called up the floor plan of her house, memorized during mission prep.
Four steps left. One step right and then around the corner. She was still slumped as he carried her inside a closet and left her sitting against the wall, snoring faintly.
One problem solved.
Quickly Wolfe closed the door and wedged a chair under the knob.
There was a bang in the kitchen, followed by a muffled curse.
Silently, he crossed the room and waited beside the door as Kit’s intruder inched through the darkness. Moonlight touched the blade of a saw-edged hunting knife.
Wolfe’s lips twitched. Bad move, pal. You just used up all your chances.
With one sharp movement, he captured the man’s wrists and smiled coldly as he felt the bones begin to snap. Within two seconds the man was on his knees, begging to be released.
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody.”
“Try again, peanut brain.” Wolfe increased the pressure on his wrists.
“No more. It was just me and the boys, looking for—for that Apache gold that’s hid up here.”
He was whimpering now, and Wolfe was inclined to believe him. The man didn’t look like a professional who could lie in the face of pain. As he pulled the man around into the muted light from the window, Wolfe recognized the troublemaker who had assaulted Kit that morning. Apparently he’d decided to return by night and complete the job.
“Give me a name,” Wolfe repeated as he twisted the man’s hands, grinding bone against bone.
“Nobody—I already told you. That’s the truth, damn it!”
Wolfe considered the quickest way to tie up loose ends. He could kill the man without leaving any marks, then dump him off a ridge. After the body had dropped sixty feet and rolled down a wash, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was a simple hiking accident. For a second, the urge for murder pounded through his veins.
He pulled himself back from the edge, and in one quick movement of his foot sent the man flying to the floor. Ignoring Kit’s muffled curses from the closet, Wolfe pulled up an image of the toughest, most frightening Apache warrior he could remember from his reading as a boy. Then he sharpened the image, adding streaks of color at face and chest along with a honed hunting knife.
This was the exact image that the man on the floor saw bearing down on him. No amount of thought or argument would change the force of that vision later.
“If you come back here, ever again, we will find you.” Wolfe figured that the words should fit the image, and he chose them carefully. “There are four of us here. Together we guard the ranch and this family. If you come back, we will find you. Then we will kill you. But first we will skin you slowly while you scream.”
The man’s body trembled at Wolfe’s feet. He was crying openly now, consumed by Wolfe’s terrible vision. “I won’t. I swear it. Lemme go.”
Growling, Baby and the other three dogs lined up around the intruder. Kit’s cursing from the closet was turning shrill.
Time to dispense with Einstein here.
“Go back to your town. Tell your friends what I have told you tonight. Know that if any one of you returns, we will be here waiting.”
“We won’t come back,” the man blurted. “None of us will, I promise.”
Wolfe wasn’t going to take any chances. He focused the man’s fear, shaped it. Then he drove it deep inside his head to fester and grow.
The intruder’s face was slack with terror when Wolfe finished. As the man staggered to his feet, something fell out of the front pocket of his shirt.
Wolfe caught the torn piece of paper with one hand.
The faint, irregular lines appeared to be some kind of drawing. He realized the marks were a clumsily drawn map of Kit’s ranch.
But there was no time for closer investigation. Wolfe shoved his stumbling captive back toward a broken window in the kitchen. The dogs were still growling when the bulky shadow plunged through the window and dropped out of sight. Footsteps drummed, a car door opened, and then a truck’s engine roared to life.
The big dog, Diesel, circled back to the closet where Kit was locked, while Baby jumped up and rested her front paws carefully on the window, looking out into the night. The only sound in the house was the furious sound of Kit’s fists as she hammered at the closet door.
Wolfe figured the safest thing to do was engineer exactly what she would remember in the morning. He’d have to clean up outside and then replace the broken window so the dogs wouldn’t be hurt. He could easily have blocked Kit’s memory entirely, but he would have to make an appearance sometime, and it might as well be now. He couldn’t guard her effectively if he stayed hunkered down halfway up a hill outside.
Kit’s curses stopped. The sudden silence was broken by the crack of shattering wood. What the hell had the woman done now? But Kit would have to wait until he checked out the house.
Quickly, he scanned the courtyard. There was no sign of the last intruder or any accomplices. Standing motionless, he feathered his senses through the darkness in search of Cruz’s energy trail.
Nothing even close. Not here or in any of the other rooms.
At least one worry was dispensed with. When he crossed the first floor hallway, he heard Kit’s urgent shouting from the closet. He figured she’d be pretty surprised to see him after all this time, but no matter. Surprise, he could deal with.
Outside the closet, he pulled the chair away from the door, which immediately shot open against his hands. She came out fighting—aimed a savage left hook at his face, rammed something heavy into his stomach, then shot past him toward the door.
Hell.
Wolfe sighed, following her down the dark hallway. A barrage of metal pots caught him at the far side of the kitchen. He ducked and nearly tripped on a bench she’d overturned near the door.
When Wolfe stepped over the bench, the dogs were positioned around his feet. Diesel rammed his leg, forcing him to jump sideways to avoid stepping on Baby and Sundance.
When he again looked up, there was a rifle pointed at his forehead.
“Hands up where I can see them.”
Wolfe cursed silently, glaring at the dogs. He hadn’t expected that last stunt by Diesel, which was pretty damned amazing.
In any case, it was time to cool her down before she shot him.
“Lower the Winchester. It’s me, Kit. It’s Wolfe.”
The rifle stayed right where it was. “Someone breaks my window and invades my house, he’s going to regret it.” The kitchen was dark and Wolfe realized she still hadn’t seen his face.
“I had some leave and Trace told me to drop by and look in on you. Sorry I drove up from town without calling first, but I never figured I’d get a rifle in my face for forgetting my manners.”
In the darkness, she reached back to run her hand along the wall. “When I count to three, I expect you to be sitting in the chair next to your right hand. Meanwhile, if I see anything I don’t like, I’m going to fire. Are we clear on that?”
Wolfe’s lips twitched. She had spirit to burn, his little Katharine. Except she wasn’t little anymore, and those long legs of hers looked damn good under her nightshirt.
Slowly Wolfe raised his hands in the air, just the way she’d ordered. He wasn’t about to give her a reason to shoot him. “Hell, Kit, don’t you recognize me? Your brother was supposed to call and let you know I was coming. It’s Wolfe.”
She stopped moving. Wolfe thought he heard her breath catch.
She blew out an angry breath. “Shut up and keep your hands in the air.”
In the dark he listened to her stalk toward him. “Whatever you say. But all you have to do is turn on the lights and you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”
“I just tried the lights, and they’re out. But you’d know that because you turned off the power before you broke in here.”
So Einstein had been smarter than he looked, tackling Kit’s electricity. “There’s a penlight in my pocket,” Wolfe said quietly. “Top right side of my jacket. Pull it out and see for yourself that I’m not lying.”
“And let you jump me? No way. You’re staying right there, and I’m staying right here with my rifle. I just called the state police on my cell phone. They should be here shortly.”
Police were the last thing Wolfe needed. He moved away, slipping around the corner beyond the closet.
“Where are you going?”
Wolfe heard her stumble, her legs striking an overturned chair.
He didn’t answer, moving silently through the darkness, staying low as he circled the counter. Then he stepped in fast, pivoted and knocked the rifle from her grip.
All in all she had put up a pretty good defense, but Wolfe was still furious. Trace should have installed an adequate security system before he left, damn it. He should also have taught Kit a fallback plan in case of an attack. She was living miles away from neighbors or police and she was pinned against the counter, the rifle behind her on the floor. Anyone else could have done some real damage to her.
Wolfe felt the dogs close in. Baby pressed against his leg, whining, and Diesel nuzzled his thigh.
“What are you doing to my dogs?” Kit said sharply.
Typical, Wolfe thought. Pinned to the counter, she worried about the dogs, not her own safety.
“Nothing. Stop fighting and I’ll pull out my light so you can see my face.” Wolfe found his penlight and raised it slowly, shining it up at his head.
She winced in the sudden blue-white beam, her eyes tracking to his face. Her breath caught. “Wolfe?”
“I’m sure as hell not the Avon lady.”
“You should have said something sooner.” Her voice sounded unsteady. “I could have shot you.”
“Next time I’ll be sure to send a telegram and flowers,” he muttered.
Her voice was tense. “Why are you here? It’s not Trace, is it? He hasn’t been shot or anything…?”
“Trace is just fine.”
Her breath hissed out slowly. “Then why—”
“He wanted me to see how things were going here.” The lie slid smoothly off Wolfe’s lips. “So here I am.”
She leaned back, trying to get a better look at his face. “I don’t believe you. Trace would have told me if you were coming.” She cleared her throat. “Do you mind? You’re flattening me against this counter.”
Wolfe silently cursed and moved a few inches back. “Reflex. Sorry.”
“Why did you lock me in that closet? And who broke my window?”
“We can discuss it later. Let’s get your power back on first.”
She shoved against him, her body brushing him from knee to chest. When she turned her head, her lips were only inches away.
Concentration deserted Wolfe for a moment. With an effort he managed to focus again. “Where’s your fuse box?” he asked gruffly. He sure as hell knew where his was.
She didn’t answer, her cheeks touched with color as he backed out of reach.
“Well?”
“Beside the kitchen door.” Her voice was hoarse. “I’ll go outside and check.”
“Hold on. Let me take a look first.”
She turned slowly, her face pale in the half shadows. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Wolfe shrugged. “It never pays to take chances. Trace should have taught you that.” Taking her arm, he steered her toward the far side of the kitchen, away from all the broken glass. “I’ll go out this way.”
“You still remember your way around after all this time?”
“I remember a lot of things.” Most of them were bad, but Wolfe didn’t mention that. “What’s with the body I feel against my leg?” She’d definitely expect him to be curious about her four dogs.
“That’s probably Baby. She has to get her nose right in the middle of everything.”
“Baby?” Wolfe managed to sound puzzled.
“The four-legged kind. Shine that light down here.” Crouching near the door, Kit was instantly surrounded by eager, panting dogs. “Meet my newest pupils.”
Wolfe ran his light from dog to dog, pretending to be surprised. “Four of them? You never do anything by half, do you?”
Kit smoothed Diesel’s fur. “I’m a sucker for a beautiful pair of eyes.”
“I’m a leg man myself.” Wolfe cleared his throat as the penlight flashed on her long, slender thighs.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
“I told you, Trace asked me to—”
“You never could lie to me, Wolfe.” Kit jerked down her nightshirt as she walked to the side door. “The fuses are out here, by the way.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Wolfe cut in front of her and checked the darkness. “Looks quiet enough.” When he glanced down, the dogs were right beside him, their noses pressed against the glass door. “Back, you guys.”
“Down,” Kit said quietly.
Instantly, all four dogs were on the floor, motionless.
“Stay.”
Wolfe raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. You and the dogs had better stay inside just the same.” As he held up the penlight, his other hand edged to the pistol hidden at the small of his back. “How far to that fuse box?”
“About six feet. It’s just above the power meter on your right.”
Wolfe opened the door and listened. Nothing moved. He felt no hint of Cruz or any other intruders. Silently, he followed the wall to the fuse box. “Circuits have been reset. Hold on,” he called.
A moment later, light flooded from the windows. He closed the box and turned to find Kit staring at him. “Something wrong?”
“You look…different.”
As a welcome, it could have been worse, Wolfe thought. And it was true, he did look different—bigger, faster and harder. Now there was a coldness in his eyes that made people step out of his way.
Inside the door, he turned to face her, ready for more arguments. But she surprised him again, gripping his chin and turning his head up toward the light.
“You’re bleeding, you idiot. I’m going to kill Trace for not telling me you were coming.” Kit leaned closer, frowning. “What was that noise from the kitchen?”
“Someone broke in. He was alone, and I handled it.” Wolfe tried to pull free, uncomfortably aware of the heat triggered by contact with her body. “Forget about my face.” His cheek was swelling from the one blow Emmett had managed to land. “It’s nothing.”
But Kit moved closer, pressing him against the refrigerator door. “I’ll clean it better than you would.” She dodged under his arm, her long legs flashing in a way that left Wolfe’s throat dry. “Why didn’t you say something about it before?” she called.
“There wasn’t a lot of time for conversation. It’s just a scratch anyway.” Distracted by what felt like blood dripping into his eye, he let her shove him down into a chair beside the sink. “Kit, you don’t have to—”
“Shut up, Wolfe.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. He was trying not to notice the warm brush of her fingers, the pressure of her breast against his shoulder. He especially didn’t want to watch how her nightshirt rose over her thighs as she reached into cabinets and opened drawers. The sight of her was making his body respond in all the right ways, which happened to be the wrong ways.
“What are you staring at?”
Wolfe cleared his throat. “The cabinets. Ah…you painted them blue,” he said gruffly.
“I got tired of all that white.” Kit looked across the kitchen at the shattered glass. “He did a nice job on my window.” Her voice tightened. “Who was it?”
“Big guy, built like a fire hydrant. Ugly as the backside of a bull.”
“That’s Emmett. He’s convinced there’s treasure hidden here somewhere. He came back just like he said he would. I wish I could have seen his face when you stopped him.” She frowned at Wolfe. “Always being a hero. I see you’ve gotten your leg hurt as well as your face.”
“I’m fine.”
But she vanished into the bathroom and returned with a handful of boxes and bottles. “Take off your pants.”
“Kit, I don’t think—”
“Strip, Wolfe. Otherwise, I’ll cut them off you.”
“I’ll pass.”
“You think the sight of your naked butt is going to make me faint dead away?”
Wolfe felt his body tighten as she stared at the blood on his dark pants. “There’s no need to get upset.”
“Who’s upset? I’m just being practical, but you’re being the same as you always were. Mr. Tall, Dark and Silent, always in control.” He tried turning to look at her, but she held his face still. “That was your nickname in high school, didn’t you know?”
Somehow it didn’t surprise him. High school had been a blur of anger and confusion. The Russians could have invaded, for all he would have noticed. “Can’t say as I did.”
Kit finished cleaning the cut at his jaw, and then her gaze cut down to his leg. “Are you going to take your pants off or not?”
“Definitely not.”
Her eyes glinted as she went for his belt. They circled one another for a moment and Wolfe realized she wasn’t giving up. With a sigh he grabbed alcohol and cotton from the tray beside her on the counter, then removed a blood-soaked pad covering the wound just visible beneath his torn pants. He cleaned the area thoroughly, threaded a surgical needle, and went to work.
She stood watching, her hands locked at her sides.
Wolfe put in two precise stitches. As wounds went, this was only a scratch, so the sewing was no problem. He’d already shot himself up with antibiotics and covered the area with a gauze bandage, but he should have closed the wound sooner.
No time like the present.
With steady fingers he held the torn skin in place and shoved the needle home.
“You should take something for the pain.”
“Not necessary.” Wolfe put in another neat stitch.
Kit swallowed and looked away. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“Basic field medicine.” He shrugged. “No big deal.”
“I can see you don’t need me.” She pushed away from the counter, her body stiff. “I’ll get Trace’s bed ready.”
“Don’t go to any trouble. I can sleep down here on the couch.” Not that he’d do much actual sleeping.
“You’re sleeping in a bed, understood?” Her voice was tight. “It’s the least I can do.”
Turning, she collected the leftover bottles and bandages. When her gaze fell on the dogs, who were watching the byplay quietly, she frowned. “Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s my point. The dogs didn’t bark at you. What’s going on here?”
Baby’s tail thumped on the floor, and Diesel gave a happy little yelp.
Kit glared at both of them. “What kind of guard work is that, you two?”
Baby’s tail thumped harder.
“Something’s wrong.” Kit rounded on Wolfe. “Have you been here before? Is that why my dogs know you? There’s no way they would let a stranger in here without a fuss.”
Wolfe cut a new piece of gauze and covered the wound loosely. The easiest thing to do now would be to brush away her memories, painting out all the unwanted details that would make her ask difficult questions. But he couldn’t make her forget. He needed to stay inside the house. That would be the best way to keep her safe while he took a closer look at her dogs.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, standing stubbornly in front of him.
“Just a friendly visit, like I told you. When I came in the dogs growled a little. Then they smelled my hands for a long time, but they didn’t seem upset. Maybe they could sense that I’m not hostile.”
“Mind reading isn’t one of their skills, Wolfe. I don’t buy any of this.”
“You must be sleepy. I’ll finish up down here and take care of the window,” he said quietly. “Go on to bed.”
Kit shook her head. “Not until you explain.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“You bet we will. If I weren’t exhausted, I’d make you talk now.” She winced a little, rubbing her hip. “The dogs don’t sleep in the house.” She yawned. “They need to go outside to the kennel.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
She didn’t move.
“Go on. Get some sleep, Kit.”
“I always hated it when you gave me orders. I see you’re still doing it.” She looked away. “You’re not going to tell me why you’re really here, are you?”
“I already told you. Trace asked me to—”
“Skip it.” She took an irritated breath. “You know the bad part? Part of me really wants to believe you. But that’s my problem, not yours.” Her back stiffened. “The bed will be ready for you upstairs.”
Wolfe could see the muscles tighten in her neck. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Tomorrow you’d better go. It will be easier that way.” She turned away, the dogs close behind her.
He felt as if she’d pulled all the warmth from the room when she left.
CHAPTER SIX
HE DIDN’T DO WINDOWS.
He knew how all right, but it wasn’t in the job description.
Wolfe glared down at the mess at his feet and shook his head. Apparently there was a time and a place for everything. If he didn’t clean up the glass all over the kitchen floor and replace the pane, one of the dogs could get hurt.
He rubbed his neck, remembering that Kit’s frugal father always kept panels of uncut glass for repairs. Unless she’d changed things, they would be neatly stacked, separated by particleboard, out in the shed near the kennels.
Ten minutes later, glass crunched beneath his feet. Baby whined, watching him from across the room while he worked.
The dogs sniffed the broken glass, but didn’t come closer. Was that normal, Wolfe wondered? He didn’t have a clue, so he’d list it in his report, along with everything else.
After he dug the remaining fragments out of the window frame, Wolfe ran his fingers over the inside pocket of his shirt, where the map was now carefully stowed until he could get it analyzed. Why had Emmett been carrying a diagram of the ranch, especially one that looked new?
The simple answer was that the map stemmed from the old local belief that a treasure was buried somewhere on the O’Halloran ranch. Every few months Kit’s father used to catch someone prowling around, digging in the deserted washes near the house.
But why a new map?
He stopped as Kit’s phone echoed somewhere down the hall. After two rings, her answering machine clicked in, and Wolfe went back to work lining the clean window frame with putty. The dogs watched him, absorbing every move, while the moon’s silver eye rose above the mesa.
Carefully he lifted a six-foot pane of glass over the frame and checked the placement. As a teenager he’d worked as a handyman for extra money, and one summer he’d learned the glazier’s trade. Now the techniques came back to him, putty moving smoothly under his knife. It felt good to watch something take shape beneath his hands for a change.
Not like running surveillance out of a filthy shack in the jungles of Paraguay while you tried to track a money trail that led to Mexico or Burma or downtown Chicago.
As he laid down the last line of putty, Wolfe saw his reflection, cool and silver against the new glass. There were deep shadows at his cheeks, and his eyes were the color of bitter coffee. He looked tough and aloof, as if he’d seen too much too fast—and he had. Those memories were carved into his face, leaving a distance that could not be crossed.
But Kit had crossed it. He didn’t frighten her in the slightest. He thought about how she had nearly decked him, then threatened him with her rifle, and a faint half smile crept over his face. No, she wasn’t the kind of woman who ran from hard problems.
He feathered his knife along the frame, sealing the glass with long, deft strokes. When he was finally done, he faced his own reflection once again.
He was a hard man, trained to have the hands and mind of a killer, but there in the moon’s cool light, Wolfe was reminded that he could also be surprisingly gentle.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE WAITRESS AT the Blue Coyote Truck Stop looked as if her feet hurt and she needed a smoke.
But there was no mistaking the interest in her eyes or the way she bent over the counter to expose the front of her low-cut uniform. “Want anything else with your coffee, honey?” She put one hand on her hip. As if she learned it in the movies, Cruz thought. “Anything at all, you just tell me right out.”
“More coffee will be fine, thanks.” The soup had been hot and filling, all he really needed. The coffee was an unthinkable luxury.
It was a Wednesday night, almost 2:00 a.m. She’d have cash from tips in her pockets and credit cards, too. But he wouldn’t touch the cards. Too dangerous.
“The praline pie is pretty good tonight. Lemon meringue’s fair. You look like you could use a couple slices.” The waitress topped off his coffee and pushed the worn metal canister of sugar toward him.
“No thanks. I don’t eat sugar.” He had to keep his body clean. Strength came first. With his strength restored, he could concentrate on revenge.
His eyes flickered through the quiet restaurant. There was no one else around except for a short-order cook bustling somewhere in the kitchen.
When the waitress leaned in closer, he focused and made her forget everything but that she was tired and ready for a smoke. Her eyes went blank and she stood behind the counter, motionless.
He cleaned out both of her pockets and moved around the counter, fishing through the purse she kept pushed to the back of the low shelf.
Ninety-seven dollars. Car keys, too. He’d risk driving for an hour, no more. He knew exactly where his brother would be waiting.
Wind howled across the floodlit courtyard. The rain that had been threatening all night finally broke loose, pelting the windows with small bits of gravel.
Time to go.
The cook yelled. Cruz released the waitress from the images he’d just constructed.
“No dessert.” The waitress looked dizzy for a second. Then she turned, frowning, her eyes predatory. “Hell, just what do you do for fun, honey?”
Cruz watched a layer of oil gleam on the surface of his coffee. Once he had trained for the sheer joy of being the best. He had laughed at danger.
But three years ago, something had changed. At first it was little details like reflexes off by mere seconds. After that had come the memory blips and subtle mood shifts. His handlers had told him not to worry, that the changes were to be expected. Stress, they said. The result of constant training.
Like a fool he’d swallowed their lies, one after another. He had never questioned what he was told, not even when the mood shifts became severe.
That’s when they’d increased his medicine, and the new surgeries had begun. He’d believed every lie they’d told him, despite the continued deterioration of his mind and body.
Cruz drank his coffee slowly, savoring its heat even though he knew it was a poor mix of bad beans and sloppy preparation. After months in captivity, fed from an IV with only enough nourishment to keep his heart and vital systems functioning, even bad coffee was ambrosia.
“Looks like you could use a little fun.” The waitress was very close now, her fingers on top of his. Cruz had a clear line of sight down the front of her dress, and there was no bra anywhere. The woman couldn’t have made her invitation any plainer.
He couldn’t have been any less interested.
“I’ll take my bill now.” His face held no emotion as he pushed away the empty cup and stood up. He’d taken a chance to come inside only because he’d needed food, cash, and little time to warm up. He’d already dismantled the single surveillance camera at the front door, and he’d handle the waitress in a moment.
“You’re leaving already? Honey, there’s no bus for another three hours, and I know you don’t have a car.”
His fingers shot around her wrist. “How do you know that?”
“I saw you walk in from the woods, that’s all. Kinda odd, I thought, but hey, it’s a free country. You ain’t one of those damned tree huggers, are you?”
“What else did you see?”
“You looked around everywhere and you didn’t go near any cars, so I figure you walked from one of those parks up north. We get hikers in here now and again. They look thin, the same way you do.”
He released her wrist. She’d made a lucky guess, nothing more.
He put a five-dollar bill on the counter—one of hers—and smoothed it with his fingers. He had forgotten what it felt like to have money of his own.
For too many years he’d let other people control him. He’d been an empty-headed killing machine pumped up with the certainty that he was some new, advanced kind of hero.
Now he knew better.
“Keep the change.” Cruz picked up the backpack that was never far from his reach, scanning the parking lot outside.
“Hell, honey, why not tell me to go suck exhaust and die? And where are you going at two in the morning anyway? If you ask me, you don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe you are, but the nearest town is fifty miles away, and that’s a damn long hike.”
He could walk twice that distance. He could run it easily, in fact, despite his long confinement. Good genes, Cruz thought wryly.
He studied the waitress’s face, sifting through the fairly boring mind beneath her straw-colored hair. “I’m catching a ride to El Paso. I’ve got friends waiting for me there,” he said calmly, pleased that all the old training was in place.
Never tell the truth when a lie will do. Never trust anyone outside the team.
She rubbed her wrist slowly as if it hurt. “You one of those G-Men working over at the New Mexico base?”
Nothing changed on Cruz’s face. “What makes you ask?”
“Don’t know. Your eyes, maybe. You don’t say much, but you don’t miss much either. And you sure don’t like the idea of anyone watching you.”
So she wasn’t as stupid as he’d first thought. “I’m FBI,” he said quietly. “And I’ve never been here, understand? If I hear you told anyone different, I’ll be back and that won’t be good for you.” As he spoke, he shaped the warning, driving it like a knife into her brain until she nodded, looking disoriented.
“FBI.” She rubbed her forehead as if it hurt. “Sure—never seen you,” she repeated.
He sensed that she was afraid of him now. Pleased, he tightened his knapsack over one shoulder. After reinforcing his warning and wiping her memory of him, he headed out into the night, but it was hard to focus. His head ached and the coffee left him a little dizzy.
He heard the rumble of distant tires and the blast of a truck horn. He needed to make contact with his brother as soon as possible.
Maybe he’d chance taking the waitress’s car and driving to Albuquerque. He had her keys now, and he’d picked up the model and color of her car. Cruz hesitated, considering the idea. He’d made a deep wipe of her mind, but he wasn’t sure how long it would last. In recent weeks his skills had become unreliable. Sometimes he could pull the faintest thought from a crowded room. Other times he could barely remember his own name.
And if the waitress reported the theft, the police would be watching for her car.
The truck horn blasted again and he swung open the restaurant’s grimy front door, smiling up at the nonfunctioning surveillance camera as he left.
The truck didn’t seem to be slowing down, and a second rig was straining up the hill maybe a hundred yards back. Cruz took in the Illinois plates and the muddy windshield. Long-haul trucker with no reason to stop at a crummy little diner three hours from anywhere.
He flipped up the collar of his stolen jacket. He liked the feel of the sheepskin lining and the soft suede body. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn a coat this nice.
Turning away from the well-lit parking lot, he melted into the trees while an owl called somewhere in the night.
An unmarked white sedan pulled into the parking lot from the other direction. Drawing back into the shadows, Cruz studied the two men who got out.
Hard faces. Concealed carry holsters.
If they hadn’t been sent by Ryker, they were sent by someone close enough that it didn’t matter.
The restaurant door opened. The waitress walked out, looking confused. She stared at the parking lot as if she didn’t know where she was, and the men from the white car started walking toward her—the last thing Cruz needed.
Somewhere the owl cried its two-note dirge and Cruz followed the sound, his eyes cold and focused.
The owl’s dark shape cut through the darkness, headed back toward the bright lights and the woman who was turning slowly, studying the parking lot. Like a sleepwalker, she crossed beneath the big mercury lamps, one hand shading her eyes.
“Ma’am, is something wrong?” The two men were walking faster now.
Cruz watched the owl with renewed intensity. He wasn’t going back into a cage.
Not ever again.
The owl circled, dropped. The second truck was up the hill now, motor racing as it picked up speed. Cruz focused, feeling pain behind his eyes, down his neck. But the pain brought power.
The owl folded its wings and plummeted, talons extended, striking the waitress, who covered her head vainly. Cruz focused on the attack as the owl surged upward and plunged again.
The men from the sedan were shouting now as they ran toward her.
The waitress stumbled and then ran out into the path of the oncoming lights….
And screamed.
MOONLIGHT CREPT SLOWLY across the old adobe walls. The kennels were quiet. A hawk cried somewhere in the night, and the long wings of a hunting owl hissed over the juniper trees.
Baby awoke suddenly, shooting to her feet and waking Diesel, who was curled up beside her. She sniffed the air, her body tense.
In the shimmering glow her fur looked like dark water beneath new ice. Only her eyes held the snap of heat and restless energy. Though she didn’t move, all the other dogs awoke.
Soon they were standing together, noses to the wind, painted in cold moonlight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAUGHT IN SLEEP, one foot in dreams, Kit heard a low, steady tap-tap on the roof, a rare sound in the desert.
Yawning, she burrowed back under the covers. During the last storm, Baby and Diesel had raced through the mud like creatures gone mad, scampering in circles, their heads raised to the sheeting rain. Butch and Sundance had simply lain down and rolled until they were completely encased in brown slime.
A dark nose rooted under her quilt, searched right and left, and then a second nose appeared.
“How did you guys get out of the kennel?”
Downstairs, pots clanged. Kit took a deep breath as she smelled the unmistakable aroma of coffee brewing.
Wolfe.
Hit with a sudden dose of memories from the night before, she closed her eyes. She’d heard the sound of breaking glass, armed herself with her father’s rifle and moved quietly down the hall….
And then Wolfe had knocked her weapon away, tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and dropped her in the closet.
Baby’s head appeared from under the quilt. Her tail banged loudly on the edge of the bed, signaling keen excitement. Diesel wiggled out next and laid his head at an angle over Baby’s.
“High-handed jerk,” Kit muttered. She didn’t care if the man was back or how he looked. She didn’t care why he’d come back either. She’d had a crush on Wolfe Houston for way too long, but it was over now. He was no good for her, and nothing was ever going to happen between them, so she’d packed up her memories and shipped them off to the same dead letter box that held her belief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
He wasn’t swooping into her life again, no way. She was over him and that was final. Guaranteed. Definite. The thought made her feel good.
Kit frowned at what Wolfe had told her about Emmett’s return and break-in. The man was nuts as well as nasty, and she had called to report him to the local police before she’d gone to sleep. The deputy was the son of her father’s best friend, and he’d assured her that Emmett would be taken into custody the following day.
More pots rattled downstairs. Diesel took off at a run, clearly hoping for edible handouts.
What was the freaking man doing down there, cooking for the 75th Infantry Division? Sighing, Kit looked at Baby, who gave two quick barks. “Okay, I’m coming. After a quick shower, everything is bound to look better. But I’ve made up my mind. I’ll eat his food—assuming it’s edible—and drink the coffee I smell brewing, and then I’ll kick him out on his tight and very attractive butt. I don’t need his kind of trouble back in my life. Not for a second.”
She’d dreamed about him for ages and planned her future around possibilities that involved him. But somewhere in the last months working with these four special dogs, Kit had grown up and gotten over her fantasies. She had important things to do with her life and she wouldn’t go on looking over her shoulder, hoping for an illusion.
Baby’s tail thumped.
Pleased with her determination, Kit threw off the covers—and fell back with a groan.
Pain hammered at her back. Her knees felt frozen. She tried again to sit up and grimaced, wishing she could tell herself it was nothing. But she knew what her X-rays looked like. After fifteen months, she’d read enough online medical articles to be nearly as conversant with her illness as her family doctor.
But that was books, and this was real. Books didn’t capture how pain felt.
She studied the room dizzily. Something had made her worse. Something that she couldn’t remember.
She forced down deep breaths, trying to relax. More stress meant more tension.
For the first time Kit considered the possibility of getting weaker. Her doctor had warned her the disease might progress, but Kit had been resolutely optimistic. She didn’t want to hear about diminishing capability or limited strength.
She gripped her soft quilt, shivering. If she lost joint mobility, she couldn’t adequately care for her dogs, which meant giving them up to another trainer. Without strength, she couldn’t handle the constant demands of the ranch and that would have to go, too. She couldn’t ask Trace to come home and help. This was her world, not his.
She took a sharp breath. She wasn’t giving up. There were always new medicines, new techniques—
Tensely, she stared at the top of her nightstand. Her pills were exactly where she’d left them, each day’s dose carefully marked in her own handwriting. Last night’s compartment was untouched.
Relief blazed through her. In all the turmoil after the break-in, she’d forgotten to take her pills. She’d been watching Casablanca and dozed off, and then Wolfe had shown up. For some reason, that part was still a blur.
But there was no more worrying or wondering about why she felt so much worse.
She grabbed the container and gulped down two pills, confident that she’d be better in fifteen minutes, maybe less. Then she could get back to living her life.
With stiff legs, she stood up and tugged down her nightshirt. First, a shower. Second, coffee.
Third, kick Wolfe out of her house.
As the first hot spray of the shower hit her face, Kit sighed in primal pleasure. After allowing herself several long, indulgent minutes under the pounding water, she forced herself to face her situation honestly. Was she really going to throw Wolfe out?
It wasn’t that she didn’t find him incredibly sexy, because she did. It wasn’t that her gut response to his gorgeously chiseled body had changed, because it hadn’t. The man still spiked her awareness meter right up into the red zone.
But Kit refused to waste any more time mooning over a man who’d always be a shadow, slipping in and out of her life when he could fit her in around whatever covert mission he was on at the time.
Which brought her to question two: What was he doing here?
Kit glared at the steam covering the glass door. He said Trace had asked him to come by. A perfectly reasonable story, except that it didn’t ring true. Trace knew she’d always been vulnerable where Wolfe was concerned, and he would have made a point to tell her that his friend was dropping by, so she’d be prepared.
Wolfe couldn’t leave New Mexico fast enough all those years ago. He hadn’t been back once since he’d joined the Navy, and it wasn’t as if he had anything new pulling him home. So why did he appear now?
Either something was wrong with Trace, or Wolfe was lying. Since Kit didn’t think he would lie about Trace being fine, that meant he was lying for another reason. None of the possibilities looked good.
Frowning, she shut off the water and grabbed a towel. It was time to get a few answers from the man who was currently making free with her kitchen.
Which brought her to question three: why hadn’t her dogs shown signs of wariness or hostility, or attempted to warn her when he’d arrived? They’d never met Wolfe and had no reason to consider him a friend, but they’d all taken to him immediately.
The question kept gnawing at Kit as she dried her hair and pulled on her oldest, most threadbare jeans. No way was she going to fuss for the man who’d ruined most of her teenage years and a major part of her adult life.
Just by being gorgeous…and unavailable.
She took a quick glance in the mirror. Her hair was uneven from the last time she’d cut it. Her face was sunburned and there were faint lines under her eyes. That was A-okay with her, because she wasn’t getting dressed up for Wolfe Houston ever again.
Baby stayed one step ahead as Kit headed for the stairs, drawn by the heavenly smell of coffee. Had the man ground fresh beans? The scent seemed to be from a new bag of Jamaican Blue Mountain she’d stashed in her freezer because she hadn’t had time to grind it.
Now that was strictly hitting below the belt.
Irritated, she strode down the stairs, where more delicious scents assailed her.
Warm maple syrup.
Blueberries and cinnamon.
Pancakes sizzling in fresh butter.
What kind of sneaky pool was the man playing? He’d cooked her favorite things for breakfast. How had he remembered all that?
Kit stopped just outside the doorway, her senses on full alert as Wolfe moved easily around her kitchen. Today he was wearing some kind of tan camouflage pants and a simple white T-shirt, but his shoulders were rippled and his biceps stood out in perfectly cut lines.
Okay, he looked good. Maybe even fantastic. Mouthwatering, in fact. But it meant zip to her. Zilch. Nada. She wasn’t falling victim to him ever again. Pancakes and caffeine be damned.
With that thought firmly in mind, she yanked the last button closed on her flannel shirt and stalked into the kitchen, nearly tripping over Butch, who was lying across the threshold.
They were guard dogs. Alert, highly trained service dogs. Hel-lo?
“Are you still here?” Kit snapped, annoyed to see Sundance following every step Wolfe took, while Diesel perched in the spot where food was most likely to drop.
“Looks that way. The state police called. Someone should be here to take a report before noon. There’s a big pileup on the interstate, so that’s the best they can do.” He slid a stack of pancakes onto a plate and pushed it down the counter toward her. “Sit down and eat. You look like you could use something in your stomach.”
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Christina Skye
Navy SEAL Wolfe Houston is on a mission of national security: protect one stubborn–but gorgeous–civilian in charge of training valuable government assetsBut tracking down four genetically enhanced service dogs and guarding their furry backs 24/7 is going to take all of Wolfe's tactical skills. The dogs' unsuspecting trainer, Kit O'Halloran, doesn't know that deadly mercenaries are determined to kidnap her charges. With hostiles to evade and bullets to dodge, there's no time to waste–so why is Kit pressed against an adobe wall by moonlight, reveling in the hot magic of Wolfe's slow, skillful hands?Wolfe is fascinated by Kit's devotion to her puppies, especially Baby, the incorrigible runt of the litter. But two other trainers have died under strange circumstances–and a foreign government has just posted a staggering bounty for Kit's capture. Before Wolfe can explore their white-hot attraction, the two are on the run, forced to decide which of their secret contacts is friend…and which is deadliest foe. Only Baby can lead them through the storm to safe haven in each other's arms. Good dog!
Christina Skye is Code
for Romance and Adventure!
CODE NAME: PRINCESS
“Skye is unsurpassed at combining adventure and romance.”
—Booklist
“Action-packed…Snappy dialogue and between-the-sheets sizzle will please Skye’s numerous fans.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Christina Skye expertly weaves sizzling romance and suspense in her lightning-paced tales of intrigue.”
—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of Body Double
“With Christina Skye, it’s all about the thrill…and her hot, sexy Navy SEAL is to die for!”
—Carly Phillips, New York Times bestselling author of Hot Number
CODE NAME: NANNY
“Skye is back with another sizzling adventure romance.”
—Booklist
“A fun story blending romance with intrigue. The characters are hot, and so is the book.”
—Hawthorne Press Tribune
More praise for Christina Skye
“A joy to read. Brilliant!”
—Joan Johnston
“Christina Skye always serves up the perfect mix of suspense, excitement and romance.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Christina Skye holds you in her grasp until the very last word!”
—Romantic Times
Code Name: Baby
Christina Skye
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I raise my glass to Abby Zidle,
For too many insightful comments to count.
With patience, humor and wit you
smoothed the writer’s path.
Many thanks…
CODE NAME: BABY
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
THE DOGS WERE HOWLING.
Their noise echoed through the underground lab from cage to cage while monkeys clung to their metal bars and mice raced in blind circles. The dogs dumped their water dishes and slammed against metal walls insulated to cover both threats and screams.
The only man in the room watched with eyes like ice.
Gabriel Enrique Cruz savored the disorder, arrogant even now. With the bearing of a born leader, he measured the activity around him, calculating his next tactical move.
Once—before the drugs and the lapses—he had been called a hero. Now Cruz was simply another lab animal, entirely expendable, valued only for research data in a secret government report.
One glance told him that both surveillance cameras were running. A security team would be here within four minutes. Whenever something went wrong, they always came looking for him.
This time he would be ready.
He tossed his shredded blanket over the nearest camera. While the monkeys howled and four Rottweilers banged against their metal cages, he checked the clock on the opposite wall. Ninety seconds until the armed response team hit the double doors to the lab.
Locked inside a six-by-three-foot cage, Cruz ignored the restless animals, the boxes of experimental medicine and the rows of top-secret equipment.
Sixty seconds.
He shaped his thoughts to stillness and power, becoming the deadly weapon he was trained to be.
An owl flew from its perch near the door and slammed full force into the camera above his head, cracking the glass. The other animals froze.
Watching Cruz. Waiting for his next command.
Forty-five seconds.
As he stared at the Rottweilers, the dogs began to tremble. Working together, they nosed the heavy steel bar off its hook at the front of their cage. Under the force of Cruz’s mental commands, their muscles jerked and strained while the bar climbed slowly—then crashed to the floor.
Thirty seconds.
One silent command brought the dogs hard against their doors. The biggest Rottweiler raced to a crowded desk and nudged an electronic key card from a pile of papers. With the card between his teeth, the dog raced back, and Cruz grabbed the plastic from his jaws.
He waved it at the scanning unit on the wall. A green light flashed.
His cage door slid open.
Freedom.
The animals were silent now, twisting with excitement. Ruthlessly, Cruz crushed all feelings of pleasure. He couldn’t afford emotion until he was miles away from the underground military base that appeared on no map.
As he stepped out of the prison that had held him for months, the Rottweilers raced through the lab, lifting the bars, cage by cage, to free the other animals. Two black howler monkeys leaped on to the keys of the big mainframe computer on the far wall. Cruz scattered them with a silent command and brought the databases online. When the computer screen queried him for a password, he smiled, prepared for this, too.
His fingers raced through a carefully memorized string of numbers and a file opened. Quickly he scanned the highlighted data, noting birth, military training and current residence of the Navy SEAL he sought. Then he pulled up another password-protected file and scanned its contents.
A bullet cracked behind him, ricocheting off metal cabinets. Snapping silent orders to the Rottweilers, Cruz closed the file and hit the escape key. The computer screen went dark just as a uniformed figure staggered through the doorway.
Instantly, the two dogs lunged at his throat. Blood sprayed as the soldier fell, jerked once, and lay still in a crimson pool.
The big dogs turned. Their ears pricked forward as they stepped delicately over the body on the tile. Awaiting Cruz’s next command.
The din grew, every cage open and every animal freed. A gorilla shuffled past, his eyes sullen and watchful. Cruz’s silent command was sent and received. The animal lurched forward, unaware that he was about to face a wall of bullets. The second he cleared the double doors, shouts exploded in the hallway, drowned out by gunfire.
More animals poured out after the gorilla.
Quickly, Cruz flipped off the lights and crawled inside a red bin with a warning logo stenciled on the lid. The underground facility’s medical waste was collected like clockwork. For once the well-oiled procedures would work in Cruz’s favor.
The worker in charge of transporting medical waste had negotiated hard: thirty thousand dollars for the initial transfer—with ten times more to come as soon as his hidden passenger was safely delivered outside the grounds.
The irony didn’t escape Cruz. In the government’s eyes, he was no more than medical waste, the end product of an expensive and highly experimental program using human genetics to shape superior tactical capabilities.
But Cruz had gone rogue.
And though his captors didn’t yet realize it, their experiment had been a stunning success.
CHAPTER ONE
WOLFE DIDN’T MIND the tarantulas. Even the rattlesnakes left him with only minor discomfort.
It was the naked women, with their bloodred lips and leather masks, who really annoyed him. They studied him like tigers facing raw meat, then scraped their long nails across his chest.
He didn’t move, wouldn’t give them the pleasure of a response.
Which only made them dig harder. Tattooed skin brushed his arms. When their breasts teased his mouth, Wolfe Houston decided enough was enough.
He drove everything out of his mind—tarantulas, rattlesnakes and tattoos. With stronger focus, he picked up the slap of liquid against metal walls, the only sound in his darkened containment area. Here in the bowels of the building, there was no time and no light. In these insulated compartments, collectively called the pit, fiberglass walls sealed out noise, smell and external vibration.
A high-tech digital tomb.
After one day inside, most men lost their bearings. After three days, most men lost their minds. Only a few had the ability to endure the silent death of the containment unit.
Wolfe Houston was one of them.
He was well into the fifth day now, and his hallucinations were intense. Sensory deprivation amped up all his senses until he could have heard a fly walk across the ceiling near his head—if a fly could have breached the security of the pit. At the same time Wolfe was acutely aware of the other men floating in nearby units. Men from different backgrounds, each with different training and skills, over time had come to form one finely honed tactical team.
If the public knew their skills, they would have been called supermen—or monsters. Each of them had the power to read energy or transfer images into apparent reality with the sheer force of the mind. Most of them had never suspected their unusual skills before the government identified them through arduous testing. After long months of sweating and swearing and fighting together, they had become a silent, deadly team called out when everyone else—from Rangers to SEALs—had failed. They were tougher than tough, trained to deploy when the government’s highest security was threatened, and so far they had never failed on a mission.
Wolfe wondered how long their record would remain unbroken.
He closed his eyes, rocking gently on the cool gel inside the hermetically sealed unit while ghostly tattoos writhed above him. As the images grew sharper, he slid into level-three hallucinations, feeling his psi ability shoot beyond all his previous limits.
The naked blonde trailed crimson nails toward his groin. Distantly, he felt his body respond and wondered if she was a hologram projection or whether she’d been pulled from the deeper recesses of his mind, stirred to life by the extended sensory deprivation.
Wolfe, are you there?
The silent question swam into his thoughts, sent by his second-in-command. Trace O’Halloran had guarded Wolfe’s back more times than either man could count, and Wolfe had always repaid the favor.
Right next to you, O’Halloran.
One question. You got the same woman in there as the one that’s crawling all over me? Platinum blond, probably five-seven?
What’s she wearing?
Nothing but oil and tattoos, looking damned fine.
Wolfe felt the brush of naked thighs. So the blonde wasn’t his own private fantasy. That meant she was one of the new training constructs, designed by Lloyd Ryker, the facility’s civilian chief, to test mental focus and physical response. No doubt Ryker’s sensors were picking up every detail of his team’s heart rates and body temperatures right now. The man had made surveillance a high art form.
Sounds like you’ve got her pegged, Trace.
I’d like to do more than peg her, boss.
Not allowed.
Wolfe felt the energy of Trace’s laughter. Hell, I’ve never seen tattoos on a woman’s nipples before. Wouldn’t that hurt? I mean, think about getting tattoos on your—
You know the drill, Trace. Put all the details in your report—nipples and everything else. Don’t leave anything out or they’ll ram it down your throat in the follow-up evaluations.
I always thought sex was supposed to be private.
Wolfe grinned into the darkness. Welcome to Foxfire, Lieutenant. In here your thoughts are noisy and sex is as public as it gets. Don’t tell me you’re complaining about having a knockout babe with her hands wrapped around your joystick while she test-drives your cruise control.
Complaining? Who, me?
Wolfe felt his thoughts blur. When his own illusory companion licked her way expertly toward his belt, desire sucker punched him hard. He knew there were no rules, no fouls, no time-outs when Ryker set up the game. Dark and twisted training scenarios were his specialty. Some people said they reflected Ryker’s own fantasies.
Wolfe didn’t have an opinion one way or the other.
Hell, boss, this one is too hot to handle. That mouth of hers is doing real damage.
Red lips closed with unerring skill. Wolfe felt his brain oozing out his ears. Closing his eyes, he slipped deeper into theta, blanking out the construct of the blonde with the velvet mouth.
You feel that, boss?
Wolfe picked up a faint vibration from outside the pit. The blond vision faded pixel by pixel as he shaped his concentration into a tight line and slammed it toward the distant intrusion.
I make it Sector Three, Trace.
That’s just what I’m reading.
Alarms on Levels Four through Seven. Ryker’s on his way down here right now.
Any idea why, Chief?
Not a clue.
Drifting in the darkness, Wolfe considered the images he’d just picked up. Training sessions down in the pit were never interrupted—not for any reason. To Wolfe’s knowledge, three men had cracked during their training because of too-abrupt transition. If Ryker was headed downstairs to interrupt a psi immersion, all hell must have broken loose.
Since hell happened to be Foxfire’s specialty, the team would be the first called out.
Wolfe assessed possible options and explanations. If the country was under attack, Foxfire would go active immediately—whether the team was in the pit or not. Ryker’s movement indicated that was a real possibility.
In war you fought with whatever ammunition was at hand. Some ops called for ICBMs; some used remote surveillance drones. Foxfire used human energy as a tactical weapon in highly controlled scenarios, and the success rate of the secret seven-man team was unmatched anywhere in special operations.
Wolfe intended to keep it that way. Trace, do you read me?
Loud and clear.
I need more data. Set up a level-two energy net while I follow Ryker.
Can do.
The silence rippled and grew heavier.
Done, Wolfe.
Ryker’s almost here. Do we have a threat situation upstairs or is this an exterior attack, something large-scale?
I’m picking up fear—lots of it. There’s something else, Chief. Hell if you’re going to believe it.
Hit me.
It’s Cruz.
Wolfe felt his hands clench. Impossible.
It’s Cruz, all right. I scanned up, down and sideways, and his energy signature is leaking everywhere I look.
Wolfe knew that Trace didn’t make mistakes when he spread a focused energy net. Each member of Foxfire had a different specialty, and Trace’s skill was to set energy nets and carry out controlled psi sweeps, with his mind rather than with his eyes.
Both men knew that Gabriel Cruz, the Navy SEAL who had paved the way for Foxfire, had snapped under pressure. But he couldn’t be anywhere near the secret New Mexico facility. He had died over two years ago, killed when his cargo plane crashed somewhere north of Juneau.
Trace and Wolfe had stood point together at Cruz’s military funeral. They had walked cold vigil as part of the honor guard that long night, and they had seen the casket lowered into the ground.
Negative, Trace. You were there beside me. Cruz is gone, so you must be reading something else up there.
The vibrations grew louder. Wolfe picked up the faint hammer of feet, along with the tense energy of shouted commands. Ryker was steaming about something, that was certain.
I’m dead right about this. Whatever’s going on upstairs has Cruz’s energy wrapped all over it.
Wolfe forced his body to relax, forced the anger and stabbing uncertainty from his mind. Be sure, Trace. That’s an order. Do you copy?
After a brief pause Wolfe felt an affirmative response. Then he sensed Trace’s thought flow change. It drew up hard, like a wire snapped tight. What?
Ryker’s right outside. You don’t think he’d be stupid enough to override the codes and burst in here, do you? Without time for psi terminus and transition, we’ll be fried. The last poor SOB they did that to….
O’Halloran didn’t finish. Both men had seen the mass of nerves and self-inflicted wounds carried screaming out of the pit after an immersion was cut short without warning.
No way. Wolfe managed to project total confidence. Ryker knows the rules. He wrote most of them. It’s too damned risky.
He had barely finished the thought when boots hammered above his head. Automatic weapon fire punched through the silence, and Wolfe realized that he’d been dangerously wrong.
Brace for containment breach, Trace. Open a net and send the order down the line immediately. Wolfe snapped out the command, determined to protect his unit. Ryker was going to get his ass chewed royally once this incident was over.
The containment unit shook, tilting sharply.
Trace, are you psi shielded? Do it now, because they’re coming in!
Metal grated on metal.
Light cut through the darkness. Instantly, Wolfe was slammed headfirst into an angry wall of pain.
CHAPTER TWO
Lost Mesa
Northeast of Taos, New Mexico
One week later
KIT O’HALLORAN STARED at the canine teeth inches from her throat. A low, throaty growl shocked her out of a lazy sunset swim in the warm waters off Belize.
Blast it.
Just once she’d like to finish a fantasy….
The growl stretched into rising notes and ended with a bark loud enough to snap the deepest concentration.
Kit pushed up onto one elbow and stared at the sixty-pound black Labrador puppy pressed against the sofa. “Drop, Baby.”
The next growl ended in a whine. The Lab dropped and went completely motionless.
So much for Kit’s nap. The dogs weren’t used to her taking a rest after the predawn chores were finished, and Baby, her smallest Lab, was especially relentless when it was time to play. And it was playtime right now.
Because they were smart and very determined, her puppies usually had the last word.
“Good girl. Good, sweet girl.” Kit reached to the floor for her treat bag and held out a pea-size liver snack, Baby’s favorite. “What’s all the fuss? Are you ready to practice?”
Baby downed the treat and turned her head toward the door, too well trained to rise from her down position until Kit gave the freeing command.
“Outside?” Kit fought a yawn. “You want to go outside and work?”
Baby’s keen chocolate eyes narrowed intently. As she had before, Kit had the singular sense of being probed, measured, almost trained.
Which was beyond funny, considering that she had eleven years of experience training service dogs for law-enforcement and military units. Never before had she felt one of the hundreds of dogs try to train her.
Fighting another yawn, she ran a hand down the Lab’s lustrous coat, pleased to feel its thickness. The feed mix she had developed seemed to be a success.
Kit wondered what new kind of chaos awaited her downstairs. With four puppies currently in training as military service dogs, upheaval was the norm, not that she minded. In her experience, dogs gave far more than they took.
“Up,” she said firmly. Instantly, Baby shot from the bed, twisted at the doorway in a blur of fur and skidding feet, then looked back. Kit could have sworn there was a silent command in those clever brown eyes.
Hurry up.
Of all the dogs she had trained, these were definitely the smartest and strongest. The breeder who had placed the litter with Kit had told her their parents were extraordinary, and from the very beginning, Baby and her littermates had run harder, jumped higher, learned faster. They were also larger than the average Lab puppy.
Kit ran a hand through her tangled hair. The dogs would run her ragged if she let them. Labs were notoriously exuberant and playful, just as they were focused and intelligent. Already Baby had the energy of a fully-grown dog. It was no wonder Kit usually felt exhausted at the end of the day.
She knew she invested too much of herself in each training group. She also knew that letting go was a necessary fact of life in her work.
On a good day, she could accept that.
Still seated near the door, Baby looked back, her voice rising from snarl to soft whine, like conversation in some unrecognized language.
“Okay, okay. Just don’t expect me to make sense until I grab my sweater and tank up on coffee.”
Baby nosed under the big chest and appeared with Kit’s oldest blue sweater dangling from her head. Laughing, Kit tugged the hooded cardigan over a white cotton T-shirt that had seen better days.
Not that her underwear mattered.
She lived forty miles from the nearest town. Since her closest neighbor was eighty-two and lived on the far side of a six thousand foot mountain, she didn’t receive many spontaneous visitors. Whatever she wore made no difference to anyone but her—and that was exactly the way Kit liked it.
Stretching her arms over her head, she watched sunlight flood through the big bay windows. Judging by the sky, it was a little after six. She had brought the dogs in from their kennel and checked some medical references on her computer while they ate. Her nap had lasted all of twenty minutes, and now it was time for training.
“Stay,” Kit said firmly. Baby didn’t move, her big velvet eyes shimmering with intelligence.
Since the stay command was one of the hardest things for a puppy to master, Kit was delighted. “Good dog. Good Baby.” She pulled an old leather glove from the pocket of her sweater, making a low hiss, and Baby’s ears rose sharply at this cue to pay attention.
“Come,” Kit ordered, holding out the glove.
In three excited strides Baby crossed the room, sniffing the leather with a back-and-forth motion of her head.
“Find,” Kit ordered.
Like a shot, the puppy put her nose to the floor and raced down the stairs, skidded at the front door and started sniffing.
Kit checked her wristwatch.
Four seconds later she heard Baby bark once from the back of the laundry room, where Kit had buried the glove’s mate under a wicker basket and a pile of dirty laundry.
Find complete.
“Good dog.” Jotting a note in her spiral pad, Kit headed downstairs, where Baby was waiting. Baby’s head pointed straight to the spot in the laundry basket where Kit had hidden the matching glove.
The puppy had just shaved three seconds off her most recent record.
“Good, good girl.” Another pea-sized treat appeared from Kit’s bag. Baby nuzzled the reward delicately off Kit’s wrist and swallowed it.
Abruptly the dog’s ears pricked forward. Looking up at Kit, she gave a low series of snarls.
“What? What’s wrong, Baby?”
The dog shot around in a blur, out the dog door and across the courtyard. Kit made a stop at the locked gun cabinet in the hall, then raced after her. Near the side door, she heard low male voices drifting across the outer wall of the compound.
This time there were two of them.
Baby hadn’t barked, so the intruders wouldn’t yet realize they’d been discovered. When Kit cracked the patio door silently, she could make out low whispers.
“I told you this whole idea sucked, Emmett. If she had the box, she wouldn’t leave it all the way out here. Hell, she probably sleeps with the thing under her bed. She’s crazy like the rest of her family.”
Kit inched up beside Baby. “Stay,” she whispered. “Stay, Baby.”
The dog’s position didn’t waver, though her eyes glinted with wary energy.
Kit swung open the gate and leveled her father’s old Smith & Wesson revolver at two men in dusty jeans peering down the well beneath a huge mesquite tree.
Fear prickled at the back of Kit’s neck. The speaker was a big, sullen man she’d seen hauling feed at the local tack store or drinking from a brown paper bag outside several different bars.
“You’re trespassing here, gentlemen.”
The smaller man spun around with a surprised curse. “You said she was in town, Emmett. Why’d you lie to me?”
“Because you’re too damned stupid to know better.” The man named Emmett stood up slowly, his gaze locked on Kit. “Tell us where it’s hidden. We’ll just keep coming back until you do.”
There was no point in asking what they meant. This man was just like the others, hoping to find the famous treasure supposedly hidden somewhere on the ranch.
Except there was no treasure.
Kit’s hands tightened on the grip of the revolver. It had been her father’s gun, and he’d taught her how to handle it safely and well. “There’s no treasure here, fellas. You think I’d be driving a ten-year old Jeep with no air and bad brakes if I was sitting on a fortune? With that kind of cash, I’d be living the high life down in Santa Fe.”
Emmett appeared to think this over for a long time before spitting on the ground beside the well. “I figure that’s exactly what lie you’d tell us, but we both know there’s Apache treasure hid somewhere in this damned well. Bones Whittaker saw it with his own eyes. That old Injun gave it to your father.”
Kit kept her expression calm despite the anger burning in her throat. “Bones was seventy years old and a drunk to boot. Why believe him?”
“Because he saw it,” Emmett said tightly. “So did his best friend and they was sober when they told my uncle. No way they’d lie about that gold your father got out on the mesa.”
“Bones Whittaker was drunk and sick,” Kit said flatly. “He wanted to be important so he made up the whole thing, right down to the story of the box he supposedly saw my father lower into the well. He even admitted it to my mother when he came up here a week before he died.”
“Your ma told you that, did she?” Emmett’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I guess she would. Best way to quiet things down and keep your nice nest egg hid. But that’s mesa gold, and it belongs to anyone that finds it. That’s exactly what I’m fixing to do.”
Kit took an angry breath. The rumors of buried treasure had begun when she was a girl, fed by the tales of an old, lonely man desperate to feel important before he died. When her parents had come into extra money after the death of Kit’s maiden aunt, they’d bought a badly needed truck and built an addition to the kennels, adding fuel to the flames of local suspicion. Unfortunately, more than a few people still believed Bones Whittaker’s crazy story.
When Kit’s brother was at home, no one came sniffing around, but Trace had been gone for over a year now, and this was the second set of trespassers in the last month.
Kit felt a sharp tension at her neck. She glanced up and saw something move up on the ridge. A coyote?
Emmett continued to watch her, frowning when Baby barked inside the courtyard. “That your dog?”
“Yes, it is. And she—”
A callused hand shot around her shoulders from behind. “Got her, Emmett. What do we do now?”
A third man. She should have realized Emmett had an ace in the hole.
Kit dropped her revolver into the pocket of her baggy sweatpants, out of sight. Unable to break free, she pivoted and drove her boot heel down against her captor’s instep.
She fought to stay calm, to wait for her moment.
A second arm locked at her waist.
She caught the smell of aftershave and old sweat as she tried to jam her elbow into his solar plexus, but he was fast, constantly twisting out of range.
“Get her gun.” Emmett’s voice was strained. “Damn it, Harry, do I have to do everything?”
Her captor slammed her forward and pinned her against the courtyard wall, driving her cheek into the rough stucco.
She blinked back tears, refusing to show weakness or pain to these lowlifes. “My brother will kill you for this.”
“But your brother’s not here, is he? Maybe he won’t be coming back.”
Kit kicked viciously, felt her boot strike bone.
“Ben, where’s her gun? You see her drop it?”
“I don’t see no gun here, Emmett.”
Low growling drifted over the wall. “It’s those dogs of hers again.” Ben sounded frightened. “You said they wouldn’t be here, Emmett.”
A mass of dark fur and angry feet shot over the courtyard wall. Missiling down, Baby struck Emmett’s shoulders. Moments later two other furry shapes crossed the wall. One rammed the back of Ben’s legs, knocking him to the ground, and the third landed in front of Kit, teeth bared and menacing.
Then she was free, her revolver trained on the intruders who were circled by her snarling seventy-pound puppies. The dogs had waited for their moment to strike, working together.
“Get moving, you three. And spread the word that the next man who comes up here will be dodging my bullets.” She sighted down the length of her revolver, glaring at Emmett, who was clearly the instigator of this harebrained operation. “But first take off your shoes. Do it now. All of you.”
Three sets of eyes measured Kit, then cut back to the snarling dogs.
“Do what she says, Emmett. Never knew a woman could handle a gun worth shit. She’ll kill all of us in a second.” Ben pulled off his boots and tossed them to the ground. “Can I go now?”
Kit waved her hand and the man immediately took off over the dirt. “What are you waiting for?” she snapped at the other two.
“Dogs don’t scare me.” Emmett crossed his beefy arms. “Especially puppies.”
Baby bared her teeth while Butch and Sundance, Kit’s other dogs, moved into a tight line next to Baby, the three ranged together as one unit.
Kit stared coldly at Emmett. “They could break your arm in a few seconds. Probably chew up your face pretty bad, too.”
“Don’t think you frighten me none, O’Halloran. Don’t think it’s over yet, either.”
“Come on, Harry,” Ben called from down the hill. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Fine by me. I’ve had enough.” The other man pulled off his boots, tossed them beneath the mesquite tree and headed down the slope after Ben.
Two down. One more to go.
“You too,” Kit snapped at Emmett. “Don’t forget your shoes.”
Color surged into the man’s heavy cheeks. After some angry fumbling, he freed his battered sneakers and threw them hard through the air.
Kit was surprised to see Baby jump up and catch them in her teeth.
“One day you won’t be so lucky. Those dogs of yours might not be around.”
Kit kept her expression cold. “Get going, and remember what I said. Next time I’ll shoot first and consider the legalities later.”
Dust drifted over the hillside. Kit didn’t move until all three men had made their way past a row of cottonwood trees far down the hill, where an old pickup was hidden. After they shot out of sight, her knees began to shake, her stomach twisting in knots.
There was no reason to feel sick. Emmett and his friends were gone. She was safe now.
Saying it didn’t help.
She leaned forward against the mesquite tree and threw up. When the spasms stopped, she set her revolver carefully on the ground and sat down on the wall above the well where mesquite leaves shivered in the wind like whispered promises.
But Kit didn’t believe in promises anymore. Every promise that ever mattered to her had been broken. Even her brother had left, tossing all the responsibilities of the ranch onto her shoulders.
She took a deep breath, sagging against the old tree. Her father had planted it the same day he married her mother. Together they had watered it, staked it and tended it. Now the thick, gnarled trunk was twisted into three knots, towering over the well like a rich, dark rope beneath a canopy of green.
Small leaves blew free, raining down on Kit’s face. She sank to the ground. How much longer before Emmett and his friends came back?
How much more could she take?
The three dogs pushed closer, licking her face with small whimpers as if offering exuberant comfort while their tails churned up little circles of dust beside the well.
She frowned, wondering where Diesel was. The most curious of the lot, he was probably back in the courtyard, tracking a squirrel or some other small animal.
But before she could go look, she leaned forward, throwing up all over again.
Some days definitely sucked.
HE WATCHED HER because it was his job to watch her. His orders had come down from the very top: no involvement, no explanations, no contact of any sort. Surveillance and covert protection, nothing else.
But that was before Wolfe had seen Kit ambushed by three men right in her front yard. He’d watched, held back from intervening only by Ryker’s explicit orders. But all that was about to change.
He punched a code into his secure cell phone, all the time studying Kit’s house. “Ryker, it’s Houston. Yes, I’m in place. But I’m requesting permission to break cover.”
“Permission denied. Cruz is almost certainly headed your way, and I don’t want anything to scare him off.”
Wolfe watched clouds shadow the nearby ridge. “Sir, she was attacked a few minutes ago. Three men.” His voice was cold and hard.
“Did they hurt her or threaten the dogs?”
“Negative. She managed to frighten the men off. The dogs helped.”
Ryker’s breath checked. “In that case, there’s nothing to worry about. Do your job and stay under the radar.”
The line went dead.
Wolfe gripped the phone, then shoved it back into his pocket. Orders unchanged. He couldn’t reveal his presence, and the situation was spiking his bullshit meter big time. There were things that Ryker hadn’t briefed him about, foremost among them the fact that Cruz’s death in Alaska had been faked. Everyone had seen how Cruz experienced mood changes during his last months on active service. There’d even been mental and physical side effects brought about by the program medications, but nothing that had been obvious, and Ryker had never briefed the Foxfire team about potential problems. All he had said in response to Wolfe’s questions was that Cruz had become unstable. And that he had been taken into protective custody for the good of the program—and the country.
Wolfe was certain there was more to the story, but no one could pry anything out of Ryker until he was ready to talk. He had also ignored Wolfe’s questions about why Cruz would be interested in Kit and her service dogs. That silence added to Wolfe’s uneasiness.
He had to keep Kit and her special dogs safe, without breaking cover to do it. He shook his head, remembering the shy girl with pigtails who had blushed and stammered whenever he was in the room. Now she could scare off three garden-variety thugs without any help but her half-grown Labradors and a well worn revolver.
Times change.
Kit was grown up now, a woman with killer legs and a mouth that called for long, slow exploration. Not that she would remember him after all this time. To say that Wolfe had changed would be an understatement. But she was still his best friend’s baby sister, off-limits for a man who could never put down roots.
It had been years since he’d been back, years since he’d stood on Lost Mesa. Her family’s ranch was as rugged and majestic as ever, offering forty-mile views of sage, mesquite and piñon in every direction. Coyotes still called from the high ridges, reminding him of long, lazy summer afternoons.
Ancient history.
Cutting off bittersweet memories, he scanned the hill, hidden behind a line of sage in full bloom. As coyote song echoed from a nearby wash, Kit vanished and returned with a pair of binoculars. Silhouetted in the sunlight, strong and tall, she sought the loping pack.
Wolfe remembered the summer when she was twelve and he was a know-it-all high school kid on fire to save the world. Things had been black and white then, good versus evil. But the world didn’t get saved and life had taught him that softness was a trap, trust only a crutch. He’d learned how to live without either.
Watching Kit focus her binoculars, he could sense her fierce determination to protect her ranch, and the dogs lined up beside her seemed almost an extension of that drive. He wondered if so much unspoken communication between dogs and trainer was normal. He also wondered if they had sensed his presence yet. It was only a matter of time before they did.
As the coyotes howled and snarled their way across a neighboring slope, she followed their progress through her binoculars.
She would never see him unless he allowed it. Thanks to his skills she could stand a foot away, yet swear she was alone. He’d implanted focused images on missions in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Middle East, distorting the theta patterns of his targets until all they felt was a temporary dizziness. But in that moment of extreme suggestibility, Wolfe could shape and recreate reality—or what appeared to be reality.
He smiled grimly. Once he’d made a trigger-happy potentate in Afghanistan see dinosaurs charging out of a cave. The man had fled, screaming orders at his men, allowing Wolfe and his team to stroll into the fortified insurgent camp, locate a pair of stolen Stinger missiles, and pack them out before anyone was the wiser.
With time his skill had grown to be second nature. Sometimes he had to work at remembering where reality stopped and his own creations began.
He spread his focus, noting wind direction, weather scenarios, and optimum surveillance points. Though he remained hidden, he missed nothing. As the current leader of the Foxfire team, he demanded two hundred percent from himself in training and in the field, and failure was not a word in his vocabulary.
Unconsciously, his fingers rose, tracing the piece of metal buried in the skin above his collarbone. This chip was one of his first implants, allowing satellite tracking with precise accuracy. Other chips had enhanced his endurance and allowed him to monitor his own brain waves.
Wolfe knew his skills came at a price few people would be willing to pay. For the team members in Foxfire, pain was a given and isolation was constant. Once you entered the program, you left your past behind forever.
If not, you were summarily booted out of the program.
He sensed the force of Kit’s restless gaze. Abruptly she bent double, painfully sick, and he felt a twinge of sympathy. One-on-one combat was a bitch, no mistake about it. The adrenaline rush afterward was almost as bad as the attack itself.
He felt something strike his boot. When he looked down, he saw pieces of an old toy truck sticking out of the dirt beneath him. Blurred memories shot through his mind. Wolfe remembered the day he had dropped it. The beating he had gotten for losing it.
But he didn’t want to remember.
The mesa was silent now. The coyotes had drifted on without registering his intrusion on these rocks.
Down the hill, Kit vanished, followed closely by two of her dogs. Behind them the smallest Lab hesitated, ears raised. For long seconds the puppy didn’t move, staring up the hill at the spot where Wolfe sat motionless.
The power of the dog’s fierce intelligence felt like a physical touch.
LLOYD RYKER HAD FINISHED searching the lab for the third time, and once again he’d come up with nothing.
Staring at the blank gray walls, he considered his options. The facility had been on full alert since Cruz’s escape. Two hundred personnel—military and civilian—were being checked for possible involvement. With enough pressure and scrutiny, one of them would eventually crack.
In the meantime Cruz was off the leash, and there was no way to calculate the damage he would cause if Ryker didn’t find him soon.
The veteran of three presidential administrations frowned at the monitors above his desk. He had never felt completely comfortable with the full implementation of Foxfire. The program’s concept was brilliant, but its personnel were far more dangerous than conventional weapons, which could be tracked and quantified as needed—or stripped and scrapped completely.
It wasn’t so neat with people.
His eyes narrowed as he replayed the footage from the hidden lab camera—at least the rogue operative hadn’t disabled all their security. He watched Cruz move to the mainframe computer and type quick lines of code. Why had the man accessed Wolfe Houston’s service files, pulling up his training records and current duty assignment? Was there a covert connection between the two men?
He couldn’t believe it. Foxfire’s current leader was a straight arrow, his loyalty tested and confirmed.
Frowning, Ryker watched Cruz change screens, pulling up local topo maps and facility blueprints. After that he’d slipped past a million-dollar security system with three levels of password clearance and located complete medical data on all the dogs currently in the program. Now Cruz knew every animal’s location and unique potential. To the right bidder, that information would be worth a fortune.
Coupled with the right trainer, of course.
It was a security nightmare.
Ryker shut off the surveillance tape and closed his eyes. He didn’t have to replay the final footage to remember how Cruz had smiled coldly before hitting the lights, plunging the room into darkness. There was still no clue as to what he’d done next or how he’d escaped. By the time the response team hit the lab, the room was empty.
Ryker opened his eyes and sat forward slowly.
Or was it?
CHAPTER THREE
SOMEWHERE ON THE HORIZON Kit heard a clap of thunder.
Restless for no reason she could name, she studied the gunmetal sky. The dogs were jumpy, too, interrupting their usual play to shoot wary looks at the high ridges around the ranch. Right now Baby was standing motionless, her nose pointed into the wind.
“Do you smell something up there, honey?”
The puppy whined faintly, but didn’t move.
One by one dark clouds began to billow over the mountains, blotting out the sun. Butch and Sundance sat nearby, panting. Only Diesel moved, his pure black coat streaked with dust as he sniffed furiously at a retreating gecko.
Gravel skipped over the rocks, carried in eddies by the restless wind. After a last glance at the sky, Kit opened her backpack and took out Baby’s red collar. Strapping on the work collar always signaled a transition to focused commands, invaluable reinforcement for service dog training.
Warmed up from a good run across the mesa, the dogs were ready to focus on training. Baby’s dark eyes probed Kit’s face, and the dog quivered with excitement, awaiting the first command. No one could say that these animals didn’t love to learn.
Kit began by reinforcing simple stay commands, then followed up with a variety of heel and halt repetitions, alternating ten minutes of training with five minutes of play and copious amounts of praise. After Baby ran through her moves, Kit slipped collars on Butch and the other dogs in turn. Accustomed to working serially, the dogs seemed to compete for fast command acquisition. Sometimes they even seemed to think as a team.
A family of quail shot out of the brush, making the dogs start. Even then, none moved, still on down command. “Stay,” Kit repeated quietly.
Baby whimpered, bumping against Kit’s leg. Lightning cracked over the ridge, followed by the roll of thunder.
Baby’s ears flattened.
From a cluster of rocks up the slope Kit heard a shrill, rising wail. On a punch of fear, she recognized the cry of a mature cougar. Despite the wild pounding of her heart, she suppressed a primal urge to run.
“Stay,” she ordered, one hand on Baby’s head. If the dogs bolted, the hunting cat would be on them in a second, drawn by their motion.
Across the clearing Kit saw her rifle in its sling next to her backpack, and she cursed herself for not keeping the weapon within reach. Over the last months she had seen a rare cougar track on the higher slopes, but none of the animals had ever come close to the ranch.
Brown fur flashed up the ridge. Kit felt the skin tighten along her neck. She gripped her big oak walking stick, the only weapon at hand against a predator with ten times her strength.
Wind sighed through the cottonwood trees.
Kit heard the big cat cry again, the high wail like a physical assault. Beside her leg, Baby gave a powerful twitch.
“Stay, all of you.” Kit’s voice shook.
She knew she would have to take on the big cat armed with only her stick. Her father had done it once, and he’d told the story in electrifying detail for years afterward.
Staying calm was crucial. Sudden movement would trigger an immediate attack. In the face of a cougar, she also had to stand tall, raising her stick so that the cat would recognize her as an intimidating predator prepared to fight back. Her father had also warned her never to stare into a cougar’s eyes, since this was considered a dominance challenge from one predator to another.
With one hand still on Baby’s neck, Kit raised her big oak stick. “Heel.” She spoke loudly to the Labs as she moved backward. As the wind shook the trees, she took another cautious step, the dogs ranged close beside her.
The low, stubby branches of a mesquite tree shook furiously. Brown fur brushed against shivering leaves, and a mature male cougar stepped onto a boulder, mouth open in a snarl.
Too close.
There was no way Kit could possibly reach the rifle now.
Swinging her heavy stick, she took three running steps forward, answering the cougar’s cry with her own loud shout. Despite her terror, she reached deep and found her strength, shaping it to match the predator’s cry. Cougars ranged by territory, killed by territory, and were famously unpredictable, especially if they were defending their young or a previous kill.
This would be Kit’s only chance to save the dogs and herself.
The cougar stared at her, all hunger and rippling muscles. Her dusty sneakers slipped in a patch of gravel, and she fell to one knee, then lurched up instantly, her hands raised while she shouted hoarse warnings in a voice that sounded like a stranger’s. At the top of the ridge, the narrow path twisted past a huge boulder streaked white with quartz, and there the cougar waited, smudged by sunlight, muscles taut, ready to jump.
Ready to kill Kit and carry away her dogs.
Warm sunlight slanted down. A hawk called far down the slope. Kit felt every detail cut deep into her mind as the dogs tensed beside her, barking wildly.
The big cat took a step closer. Grimly, Kit prepared for the attack she sensed was seconds away. The big predator swung sharply to one side, then circled the boulder, snarling in a mix of anger and pain while its powerful shoulders flexed, almost as if it were wounded.
Then the brown body jumped high and cut through the streaming sunlight past Kit, past the dogs, landing less than four feet away. In an instant, the big cat was gone, swallowed up in the shadows cast by junipers and sage.
The glade fell silent. Even the dogs were still.
Kit spun around, guarding the route where the cougar had vanished. When there was no more sign of movement, she raced back to grab her rifle, racked in a shell and leveled the barrel.
With her rifle on one arm and her walking stick in the other, she issued sharp commands to the dogs, herding them uphill away from the trees where the cougar had left the trail. It was a longer route back to the ranch, but no overhanging rocks would conceal a stalking predator.
Kit wasn’t about to be cornered again.
Her hands shook, wind brushing her face. Dimly she realized her cheeks were wet with tears.
WOLFE COULDN’T BREATHE.
His fingers dug into the dirt as he watched Kit’s shaky progress up the steep slope. He still couldn’t believe she’d gone after the cougar armed with no more than a stick.
Fearless—or just crazy. Maybe both.
He’d been on his way up the ridge even before she’d seen the animal stalking her, but she’d done all the right things to make the cougar back down. Her quick, smart response had prevented him from breaking his orders to remain undercover.
She would never know how he had seen the big cat when it was poised to attack. She would never suspect that the animal’s growl of anger and fear had come from Wolfe’s silent intrusion. He couldn’t control the animal, but he could enhance Kit’s appearance to make her resemble a fearsome predator.
Despite the jagged emotions Kit must be feeling right now, she was doing fine, keeping the dogs close as she set a good pace across the mesa. If he had his way, he’d be up there beside her, close enough for protection should the need arise.
But orders were orders. Right now Ryker wanted only deep cover surveillance on Kit and the dogs. Protection if needed, but no exposure.
Crouched near a juniper tree, he watched her. She was quick and confident, with spare elegance in every long stride. Short and spiky, her hair glinted with hints of copper in the shifting sunlight. When she moved into the shade, the color changed, dark as French wine he’d tasted once in Burgundy. The short, uneven chunks hugging her face made him want to slip his hands deep and feel her warmth. He stifled the unfamiliar longing and forced his thoughts back to his mission.
Thanks to his training, he was adept at burying his emotions and forgetting them. The sight of a woman’s uneven hair wasn’t going to make him backslide.
In Wolfe’s line of work, feelings got a man killed faster than bullets.
He kept that thought in mind as he followed Kit back to the ranch, careful to stay out of sight.
KIT WATCHED SHADOWS pool across the empty courtyard, feeling unbearably tired.
She was still shaken by her encounter with the cougar. Shivering, she stared at the ridge above the ranch and realized how lucky she was to be alive. She wanted to believe that her quick response with voice and motion cues had scared the predator away, but she couldn’t. The animal had looked wounded. Perhaps something else had frightened it and sent it running away into the brush.
Too keyed up to sleep, she paced the living room, unable to forget the cougar’s shrill cry. Silent and smart, the animal could be outside the wall right now, searching for a tree branch with access into the nearby courtyard.
Enough.
Disgusted, Kit grabbed her old sweater from the arm of the couch and strode down the hall. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well tackle the pile of bills that had accumulated over the last week. Food, equipment and medical care for the dogs were just the beginning, yet she refused to stint on materials or food for her animals, even if it meant that she wore threadbare jeans and sneakers with holes in the bottoms.
The ranch was a steady drain on the small legacy that had come to Kit at her parents’ death. With forty acres of high desert stretching between two mountain ranges, the land was unsuited for ranching, and the cost of adding modern irrigation would have been prohibitive. Thanks to Kit’s growing reputation training service dogs, her bank account had finally crept out of the red, but it might be five years before she could actually take a vacation.
Five years….
Frowning, she sank into the old chair behind her wooden desk. It was the same place where her mother had handled the ranch’s account books and budgets. The pitted wood was cool beneath her fingers, smooth from years of use. Closing her eyes, she could imagine her mother lining up pens and stacking bills in neat piles as she calculated new ways to stretch a dollar.
Kit did the stretching now.
A local dog food company was pestering her to endorse a new product. The money would help her buy new tires for her Jeep and install an alarm system at the ranch.
As she reached for her checkbook, she saw the red message button flashing on her telephone and quickly scanned the calls. She would be devastated to miss a call from her brother, who was impossible to reach and always phoned at unpredictable times. If she’d missed Trace today, it might be months before she heard from him again.
Triggering her replay button, she fumed through two mortgage offers. The third message was from her oldest friend.
“Kit, it’s Miki. I just got back from a new project in Santa Fe. You are not going to believe the assignment I landed this time. Let’s go drink double shots of tequila while I tell you about it, okay? I need some advice. Stop spoiling those gorgeous canines and give me a call.”
Kit smiled, wondering what kind of bizarre situation her old friend had gotten into now. A year ago it was making a tour documentary for a punk band that performed with defanged rattlesnakes, and her most recent job had been shooting trailers for indie horror movies. Whatever her new assignment, it was bound to be strange. Miki attracted bizarre like honey attracted flies.
The next message was the crisp, professional voice of Kit’s vet, calling to make an appointment for a vaccination titer, a procedure required to check the immunization status of the four puppies. Liz Merrigold had been the O’Halloran family vet for nearly a decade, as well as the local contact for the breeder who had supplied Kit’s current litter of training dogs. Liz always kept a sharp eye on the animals placed for training under her supervision, gladly providing medical advice and moral support, day or night.
Kit jotted a note on her calendar to call and confirm a time for the visit. While she wrote, she triggered the last message.
“This is Doctor Rivera’s office, Ms. O’Halloran. Doctor Rivera asks that you call the office at your earliest convenience. He’d like to speak with you.”
Kit looked down at her hands. All the energy seemed to bleed out of her body. She sank lower in the chair, staring at the breeding awards that lined the walls of the study. Presidents, generals and movie stars smiled down from mismatched frames, mute records of her family’s contribution to humane and practical training techniques for service and working dogs. In twenty-five years her parents had personally trained over two thousand dogs, and Kit was determined to expand on their legacy.
But her body might have different plans.
After a long day of exercise, she could no longer ignore the deep throb in her right hip. Wincing, she pulled a heavy medical textbook from a nearby shelf. She didn’t expect to find anything new because she had read every relevant page at least fifty times. All of them pointed to the same conclusion: joint deterioration, pure and simple.
Kit wished that Trace would come home. She missed his outrageously bad jokes and his off-key Rolling Stones renditions.
But she never knew when her brother would appear, and she tried not to think about the possibility that he might never come back. Although the details were secret, Kit knew he was part of a highly trained covert operations team, and right now they could be deployed anywhere.
Almost certainly, it would be someplace dangerous. More than once she remembered Trace calmly telling her that hell was their specialty.
Baby gently nudged her leg. Kit sensed that the dog had come to offer reassurance with the warmth of her body and the soft thump of her tail. It was uncanny how pets developed a skill at reading their owners’ moods.
Kit took a deep breath, stretching her legs slowly. Her joints felt stiff, but they were no worse than any other day, and that was something to be thankful for. Leaning down, she slid her hand through Baby’s soft fur. She had cried herself dry months ago, cursing her body, her genes and nameless bad luck. Neither the tears nor the curses had made her feel better.
As she stared at the medical book filled with grim facts and sad pictures, something shook free inside Kit. Slowly it uncurled against her chest, blowing away restless fears and dreary expectations. She wouldn’t plan her future based on old medical files. She was strong. She would make her own future.
She closed the textbook with a snap. No more obsessing about medicine and new discoveries. If you gave in to fear, you’d lost already.
Outside the moon drifted above the mesa. Kit ran a hand through her hair and stretched. “I’m in the mood for a hero tonight. What do you guys say? Gary Cooper or John Wayne?”
Diesel stared at her, cocking his head in the half-listening, half-baffled pose that always made her smile.
Baby turned in a slow circle, stretching out on the floor.
“Bogie it is, then.” Shaking her head, Kit went out to find Casablanca.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER the Germans were storming Paris, Bogie was fighting a broken heart, and Kit couldn’t have been happier.
Curled up on the couch, she watched black-and-white images play across the wide-screen TV that had been her father’s single vice. She smiled as the story wrapped around her, pulling her in and making her forget her own troubles. Ilsa and Rick would always have Paris, and she would always have Casablanca.
Claude Rains leered at her. Kit fought a yawn as the day finally took its toll. She fell into dreams of black and white and a world filled with weary heroes.
MOONLIGHT SHIMMERED across the floor. Baby stretched out at Kit’s feet, gnawing on a rubber chew toy.
As Kit slept, the four dogs moved closer. At a look from Baby, Diesel vanished to patrol the courtyard while Butch and Sundance moved to check the backyard and rear doors.
In silence, Baby lifted her paws to the windows that overlooked the mesa. There in the moonlight the dog’s ears pricked forward.
A family of quail scurried for cover, routed from sleep by the shadow of a passing hawk. Wind hissed through the juniper branches that tossed in the moonlight.
Baby absorbed all of these movements, assessing them as unimportant. But something else moved in the darkness, and it was a thing the dog had never sensed before.
The other three dogs appeared from the shadows, drawn by the force of Baby’s uneasiness. As one, they sank down before the window, alert to the night.
While the moon rose higher and war waged across North Africa, Kit slept on, caught in restless dreams. Ranged around her, the dogs kept a wary vigil, sensing new predators afoot beneath the desert moon.
CHAPTER FOUR
SILENT AND CONTROLLED, the highly trained covert operative jumped the courtyard wall and scanned the outside of Kit’s house. At the edge of the shadows, certain he was alone, he triggered his cell phone.
Ryker answered on the second ring, sounding irritated. “0200 hours. This had better be important, Houston.”
“Permission to break cover, sir.”
“You’re persistent, I’ll say that.”
Wolfe didn’t answer. The night was silent, the air rich with the pungent bite of piñon and burning mesquite logs.
“Any new threats, Commander?”
“A cougar in the area. She drove the thing off with a stick. Added to that is the possibility that the men from this morning may return. I can’t keep her safe if I’m hidden at the top of the hill, sir. It’s simple physics.”
“There’s nothing simple about physics,” Ryker muttered. “Foxfire proves that every day.” He cleared his throat. “Permission granted. But keep things airtight. I’m holding you personally responsible, is that understood?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Then good night,” Ryker said sourly. “Some of us need to sleep.”
When Ryker disconnected, Wolfe reconnoitered. He knew the layout of the ranch from his mission documents, but even without the plans, he would still have remembered his way.
With quick movements he jimmied the side door lock and broke into the house. Once inside, he listened for Kit’s voice or the sound of footsteps, but all was quiet. Only as he turned down the front hall did he hear low voices—male and female.
Instantly his hand flashed to the Sig at the small of his back. How had someone gotten past him? He’d been watching every road, window and door for a week. During his brief naps, his scattered motion sensors took over, so the property was always monitored.
Light flickered from the far end of the hall. Muffled voices rose in anger.
Neither of them was Kit’s.
When he glanced around the corner into the living room, he saw Kit asleep on the couch, legs curled up, her hand flung over the back of a pillow. Ranged around her were the four dogs Ryker had briefed him about. Smart, fast, and highly motivated, they were products of the same genetic technology that made Wolfe one of the government’s most valuable military assets. Kit mumbled in her sleep, one hand in Baby’s fur, and the big puppy moved closer, almost protectively, as Wolfe surveyed the room. Currently Kit had no idea about the nature of the dogs she was raising. Though her supervision of the dogs’ training remained hotly contested by the Foxfire scientists, the bottom line was results: as long as Kit’s dogs showed superior skill acquisition, they would stay right where they were.
For long seconds none of them moved, Wolfe by the door and the dogs keenly alert near Kit. Baby’s head rose. She sniffed the air softly, and Diesel came to stand beside her, their intensity was nearly palpable.
Muted voices continued to come from the flickering television on the far wall as Wolfe monitored the room, staying far back in the shadows.
Then Baby turned in a circle, sneezed and sat down beside Kit with no further wariness or hostility. Wolfe felt some of his tension ebb. The dogs appeared to have accepted him as friendly. Ryker had assured him that their shared chips would make this likely.
Better than getting an ankle savaged, Wolfe thought wryly.
He made a mental note to drop this observation into his next report, along with a description of the dogs’ quick threat response when they’d shot over the courtyard wall to protect Kit.
Spirit and courage. Both were key traits for a military service dog, and these animals would be amazing assets when their training was complete. Healthy and clearly curious, they shot forward to sniff at his legs and circle him excitedly.
But Wolfe was watching Kit and the way light from the television played over her face, outlining her cheekbones and full lips. The surveillance photos in his file didn’t show the gold in her short hair or the dark curve of her eyelashes. Nor did they capture her restless energy, even in sleep.
As he came closer, Wolfe noticed the ugly welt on her arm where she’d fallen on the trail this morning. Near the welt was a bruise from Sundance, who had kicked her accidentally while running through an improvised obstacle course on the mesa.
She’s changed, Wolfe thought. Grown up with a vengeance.
There was no mistaking the smooth curve of her breasts or the line of her thigh beneath the nightshirt she wore.
Bad news, pal.
Frowning, he looked away, studying this airy room with views over three mountains and forty miles of sagebrush. He’d spent some good hours here, playing pool with Trace, arguing about cars and politics. He’d felt safe here once.
Memories rushed over him, good mixed with bitter, drawn from his few hours of normal boyhood. In this house he had glimpsed all the things his life might have been in a different family.
One with a father who didn’t enjoy casual cruelty.
Wolfe hadn’t thought about his father for years. His past was a closed book, the wistful boy buried deep. Before joining the Navy, he had changed his name and dropped the bitter memories like a stone hurled far and long into deep water. Only seventeen, he’d already been a man when he left Lost Mesa. He’d worked in the fields, backbreaking labor that had carried him from county to county and harvest to harvest. Two days after his eighteenth birthday he’d seen a recruiter’s office and felt a light go on.
Two days later he was on a bus bound for the closest training facility. The Navy had made him whole again and he’d met every challenge thrown his way, proud to become a SEAL. When he’d been selected to join the ultrasecret Foxfire unit, his new life had seemed complete.
All these thoughts flashed by in seconds as Wolfe stood in the blue-gray light of a movie he didn’t recognize. The four dogs didn’t move, faces alert beside the couch where Kit slept, and Wolfe knew beyond a doubt that they were measuring him, analyzing every action. He avoided any swift movements that could be mistaken for aggression, and when the dogs continued to show no sign of hostility, he crouched beside the smallest one, a black Lab with melted chocolate eyes.
So this was Baby.
The runt of the litter, she was also the smartest and most gifted, if Ryker’s files were right—and they almost always were. Wolfe raised his hand, checking the dog’s response.
The big dark eyes focused intently. She sniffed his open palm and nudged his hand, her tail bumping on the rug.
The SEAL felt a little surge of satisfaction when Baby rolled over calmly in a gesture of trust, raising her head to meet his hand. The animals were well nourished and superbly groomed. Their coats were thick and smooth, their eyes clear. According to Ryker, none of the government’s in-house labs had produced dogs with anything close to Kit’s record of health and growth rate. Wolfe made a mental note to check the ingredients of the new food mix she had developed. He had already sent back photographs with a 12X zoom and detailed notes about her training methods. Clearly she deserved her excellent reputation.
Ryker wanted to know how a civilian working alone in an isolated and meagerly equipped location could outperform highly paid scientists in state-of-the-art facilities. Some people were convinced that Kit’s parents had stumbled across a food additive to enhance the dogs’ training speed. Others had called it blind luck. For his part, standing face to face with Kit’s dogs, Wolfe suspected a different process was at work.
Kit didn’t hesitate to crawl through the dirt on her stomach to show a six-month old puppy how to be silent in the brush. She didn’t hold back a laugh of pure glee when she jumped from a ladder into a mound of straw with two wriggling dogs in her arms. She offered unquestioning loyalty and her animals responded in kind.
Wolfe wasn’t a scientist, but he sensed that Kit herself was the secret ingredient.
He looked up to the scrutiny of chocolate-colored eyes. Baby continued to study him for what felt like a lifetime, sniffing his hand. Damn if Wolfe didn’t feel as if he’d been scanned, analyzed and dissected from forehead to big toe.
When Baby nudged his leg, Wolfe winced. She was a little too close to the jagged cut he’d received during his insertion jump from a military chopper north of Taos. But he didn’t pull away, sensing the dog’s concentration.
Seconds later Baby was nudged aside first by Diesel, then by Butch and Sundance. Each dog sniffed the area on his thigh where he had been wounded. When they were finally done investigating, they drew back into a motionless line.
The seconds stretched out. Wolfe felt the dogs’ concentration grow.
What in the hell was going on? Why did he feel as if he was being ruthlessly analyzed all over again? Suddenly Wolfe realized it was his wound that fascinated the dogs, possibly because they sensed something unusual—or familiar—about his blood chemistry. Another observation to go into his report to Ryker.
Across the room, Kit twisted suddenly. Still asleep, she kicked free of her cover, her hand hitting the remote on the side table.
The images on the screen multiplied, twelve small boxes of the same street scene.
Curious, Wolfe moved closer. He’d never seen a complicated TV screen like this one. Back at the lab, facilities were tight and schedules strict. Training constantly, the team members had little time for entertainment, since they had to be able to deploy at a moment’s notice, day or night.
It was fair to say that he had missed a few things, given his lifestyle. With Baby by his leg, he followed images of tanks rumbling through the streets of Paris. Against the haunting chords of a piano, he saw Humphrey Bogart’s ashen face when he was left alone for a second time.
War was hell, all right. Wolfe could identify with that.
Kit twisted again. Her other hand hit the remote, changing the display to one small box in the bottom corner of the screen.
Fascinated by the technology, Wolfe picked up the remote and sat down in the far chair while he studied the unfamiliar control. He could rig complicated trigger units for every kind of explosive device, so he figured this equipment wouldn’t be much of a problem.
He touched one of the buttons.
The action froze on the big screen.
He touched another button. In seconds he’d worked out how to resume action, mute the audio and fast-forward. After making sure that Kit was still out cold, he started the movie again. Diesel moved closer while Baby nuzzled his shoulder. With the dogs ranged around him, he felt oddly safe and protected.
But safety was an illusion with Cruz on the loose. Jumpy, he rose and circled the room, checking windows and doors. After each pass, he was drawn back to his seat beside Baby and the images that flickered over the screen.
Without a sound Sundance moved to the big window overlooking the front porch. Diesel and Butch slipped away into the shadows. Baby didn’t budge, her head resting on Wolfe’s shoulder. For one strange moment the SEAL felt an unshakable sense of belonging.
But he didn’t belong. Not as a ragtag boy, and definitely not as a man. Because of Foxfire, he would always be different, and he had accepted that difference, both gift and curse, the day that the government had implanted his first chip.
And he had work to do. Now that he had ascertained Kit’s safety, there was no reason for him to sit watching a sixty-year-old movie and enjoying the sight of Kit’s hair aglow in the lamplight.
As Wolfe stood up, Baby slanted her head and met his eyes.
He wasn’t sure if he imagined what happened next. Across the room the sound climbed, voices murmuring. Wolfe tapped a button on the remote, wondering if he had accidentally hit something without noticing. But a second later the volume climbed again.
A defective television?
He frowned at the wall of high-tech equipment and lowered the audio again. Behind him the dogs were lined up in a row. Panting, they stared at him expectantly.
As a test, he muted the sound. Instantly, it shot back to its prior level.
Wolfe dropped the volume, sorting through possible explanations. A wiring malfunction? Battery failure?
Flipping the remote, he removed the batteries. He was about to pry off the inside cover and check the inner circuitry when the TV muted on its own.
The batteries were in his hand. The dogs were ranged on the floor in front of the television, unmoving. Baby’s tail thumped once.
The dogs?
He didn’t buy it. This kind of skill had never been part of their genetic package. The source had to be an equipment malfunction.
Tensely, he pocketed the batteries and moved to the far wall. Leaning down, he scanned the controls and manually triggered the volume.
Nothing happened.
Wolfe thought it over. Then he thought it over again. His gaze returned to the dogs.
Baby sat down in the middle of the rug. Casablanca stopped, and the television switched over to regular programming, where a man with a sequined cowboy hat waved his arms and pitched used trucks.
“Hell if I believe this,” Wolfe muttered, muting the volume.
Kit stirred restlessly, and he dragged a hand through his hair, then switched off the television and waited—not sure what he was waiting for.
The silence stretched out, deep as the New Mexico night. He stared at the dogs, and they stared right back at him. A branch scraped the window. Baby draped her head across Diesel’s neck, looked at the television and wagged her tail. Coincidence?
Wolfe shook his head, returning the batteries to the remote and placing it next to Kit so she’d assume that she had turned off the movie in her sleep. Baby yawned. The previous phenomena with the television appeared to have stopped. Though Wolfe waited, nothing else happened.
Time to go.
But at the door he paused, unable to resist one last look at Kit. She was striking even in her sleep. In a dozen ways she reminded him of her mother, who’d still turned heads at sixty. Wolfe remembered the night Amanda O’Halloran had found him sleeping in the old barn, desperate and exhausted, still bleeding from his father’s drunken beating.
She had cleaned him up without a word, fed him without a word, then opened her heart as well as her house to him. When his father had come looking for him, she’d run him off with a shotgun.
He hadn’t thought of that night for years. It was this unnerving house, the dogs on the old Mexican rug and the fire that crackled happily.
He rubbed his thigh as he walked down the shadowed hallway. The wound had torn open again and was throbbing—a minor discomfort after the abuse Wolfe’s body had suffered over the years. He had a full supply of medicine in his field pack to deal with exactly this problem.
Something moved at the end of the corridor. Quickly Wolfe slid against the wall, listening to a shuffling noise in the hall.
The sounds came closer and then Baby appeared a few feet in front of him. Her ears perked up as she stared at the spot where Wolfe was standing, hidden in the shadows. Moments later Butch and Sundance moved to face the kitchen entrance, while Diesel prowled the house, going from window to window, alert and wary.
Baby let out a low growl and trotted to the kitchen door, staring at the window. She was soon joined by the other two dogs. When Diesel finished his circuit, he joined them in front of the kitchen doorway.
A noise brought Wolfe around, low and fast. Kit stood in the shadows, looking sleepy and mussed. The rifle she held was dead level. Then Diesel began to bark, and the other dogs joined in.
“Baby? Diesel? What’s wrong?”
She hadn’t seen him yet, Wolfe realized. She must have heard the dogs prowling around earlier.
But something else was moving in the darkness. Wolfe heard the faint crunch of feet on gravel outside.
Grabbing Kit, he pulled her out of sight, his hand clamped over her mouth. Seconds later the kitchen window shattered in a noisy explosion, glass flying over the tile floor.
She fought his grip as he pinned her against the wall with his body, feeling her panic in the wild rise and fall of her chest. She tried to kick him, but he nudged her leg aside and blocked her clawing fingers.
He brushed her breast, soft and warm beneath thin cotton, and the contact made him jerk as if he’d been burned; his hand locked over her mouth when she tried to protest.
Glass crunched.
Across the kitchen a man climbed in over the windowsill, his knife glinting in the cold moonlight.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG?
He pushed Kit down the hall, fighting her every step of the way. When she tried to scream, Wolfe cut her off with fast, focused images of herself floating in bubbling hot springs until he felt her body relax and slump against his chest, arms askew.
Grimly, he called up the floor plan of her house, memorized during mission prep.
Four steps left. One step right and then around the corner. She was still slumped as he carried her inside a closet and left her sitting against the wall, snoring faintly.
One problem solved.
Quickly Wolfe closed the door and wedged a chair under the knob.
There was a bang in the kitchen, followed by a muffled curse.
Silently, he crossed the room and waited beside the door as Kit’s intruder inched through the darkness. Moonlight touched the blade of a saw-edged hunting knife.
Wolfe’s lips twitched. Bad move, pal. You just used up all your chances.
With one sharp movement, he captured the man’s wrists and smiled coldly as he felt the bones begin to snap. Within two seconds the man was on his knees, begging to be released.
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody.”
“Try again, peanut brain.” Wolfe increased the pressure on his wrists.
“No more. It was just me and the boys, looking for—for that Apache gold that’s hid up here.”
He was whimpering now, and Wolfe was inclined to believe him. The man didn’t look like a professional who could lie in the face of pain. As he pulled the man around into the muted light from the window, Wolfe recognized the troublemaker who had assaulted Kit that morning. Apparently he’d decided to return by night and complete the job.
“Give me a name,” Wolfe repeated as he twisted the man’s hands, grinding bone against bone.
“Nobody—I already told you. That’s the truth, damn it!”
Wolfe considered the quickest way to tie up loose ends. He could kill the man without leaving any marks, then dump him off a ridge. After the body had dropped sixty feet and rolled down a wash, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was a simple hiking accident. For a second, the urge for murder pounded through his veins.
He pulled himself back from the edge, and in one quick movement of his foot sent the man flying to the floor. Ignoring Kit’s muffled curses from the closet, Wolfe pulled up an image of the toughest, most frightening Apache warrior he could remember from his reading as a boy. Then he sharpened the image, adding streaks of color at face and chest along with a honed hunting knife.
This was the exact image that the man on the floor saw bearing down on him. No amount of thought or argument would change the force of that vision later.
“If you come back here, ever again, we will find you.” Wolfe figured that the words should fit the image, and he chose them carefully. “There are four of us here. Together we guard the ranch and this family. If you come back, we will find you. Then we will kill you. But first we will skin you slowly while you scream.”
The man’s body trembled at Wolfe’s feet. He was crying openly now, consumed by Wolfe’s terrible vision. “I won’t. I swear it. Lemme go.”
Growling, Baby and the other three dogs lined up around the intruder. Kit’s cursing from the closet was turning shrill.
Time to dispense with Einstein here.
“Go back to your town. Tell your friends what I have told you tonight. Know that if any one of you returns, we will be here waiting.”
“We won’t come back,” the man blurted. “None of us will, I promise.”
Wolfe wasn’t going to take any chances. He focused the man’s fear, shaped it. Then he drove it deep inside his head to fester and grow.
The intruder’s face was slack with terror when Wolfe finished. As the man staggered to his feet, something fell out of the front pocket of his shirt.
Wolfe caught the torn piece of paper with one hand.
The faint, irregular lines appeared to be some kind of drawing. He realized the marks were a clumsily drawn map of Kit’s ranch.
But there was no time for closer investigation. Wolfe shoved his stumbling captive back toward a broken window in the kitchen. The dogs were still growling when the bulky shadow plunged through the window and dropped out of sight. Footsteps drummed, a car door opened, and then a truck’s engine roared to life.
The big dog, Diesel, circled back to the closet where Kit was locked, while Baby jumped up and rested her front paws carefully on the window, looking out into the night. The only sound in the house was the furious sound of Kit’s fists as she hammered at the closet door.
Wolfe figured the safest thing to do was engineer exactly what she would remember in the morning. He’d have to clean up outside and then replace the broken window so the dogs wouldn’t be hurt. He could easily have blocked Kit’s memory entirely, but he would have to make an appearance sometime, and it might as well be now. He couldn’t guard her effectively if he stayed hunkered down halfway up a hill outside.
Kit’s curses stopped. The sudden silence was broken by the crack of shattering wood. What the hell had the woman done now? But Kit would have to wait until he checked out the house.
Quickly, he scanned the courtyard. There was no sign of the last intruder or any accomplices. Standing motionless, he feathered his senses through the darkness in search of Cruz’s energy trail.
Nothing even close. Not here or in any of the other rooms.
At least one worry was dispensed with. When he crossed the first floor hallway, he heard Kit’s urgent shouting from the closet. He figured she’d be pretty surprised to see him after all this time, but no matter. Surprise, he could deal with.
Outside the closet, he pulled the chair away from the door, which immediately shot open against his hands. She came out fighting—aimed a savage left hook at his face, rammed something heavy into his stomach, then shot past him toward the door.
Hell.
Wolfe sighed, following her down the dark hallway. A barrage of metal pots caught him at the far side of the kitchen. He ducked and nearly tripped on a bench she’d overturned near the door.
When Wolfe stepped over the bench, the dogs were positioned around his feet. Diesel rammed his leg, forcing him to jump sideways to avoid stepping on Baby and Sundance.
When he again looked up, there was a rifle pointed at his forehead.
“Hands up where I can see them.”
Wolfe cursed silently, glaring at the dogs. He hadn’t expected that last stunt by Diesel, which was pretty damned amazing.
In any case, it was time to cool her down before she shot him.
“Lower the Winchester. It’s me, Kit. It’s Wolfe.”
The rifle stayed right where it was. “Someone breaks my window and invades my house, he’s going to regret it.” The kitchen was dark and Wolfe realized she still hadn’t seen his face.
“I had some leave and Trace told me to drop by and look in on you. Sorry I drove up from town without calling first, but I never figured I’d get a rifle in my face for forgetting my manners.”
In the darkness, she reached back to run her hand along the wall. “When I count to three, I expect you to be sitting in the chair next to your right hand. Meanwhile, if I see anything I don’t like, I’m going to fire. Are we clear on that?”
Wolfe’s lips twitched. She had spirit to burn, his little Katharine. Except she wasn’t little anymore, and those long legs of hers looked damn good under her nightshirt.
Slowly Wolfe raised his hands in the air, just the way she’d ordered. He wasn’t about to give her a reason to shoot him. “Hell, Kit, don’t you recognize me? Your brother was supposed to call and let you know I was coming. It’s Wolfe.”
She stopped moving. Wolfe thought he heard her breath catch.
She blew out an angry breath. “Shut up and keep your hands in the air.”
In the dark he listened to her stalk toward him. “Whatever you say. But all you have to do is turn on the lights and you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”
“I just tried the lights, and they’re out. But you’d know that because you turned off the power before you broke in here.”
So Einstein had been smarter than he looked, tackling Kit’s electricity. “There’s a penlight in my pocket,” Wolfe said quietly. “Top right side of my jacket. Pull it out and see for yourself that I’m not lying.”
“And let you jump me? No way. You’re staying right there, and I’m staying right here with my rifle. I just called the state police on my cell phone. They should be here shortly.”
Police were the last thing Wolfe needed. He moved away, slipping around the corner beyond the closet.
“Where are you going?”
Wolfe heard her stumble, her legs striking an overturned chair.
He didn’t answer, moving silently through the darkness, staying low as he circled the counter. Then he stepped in fast, pivoted and knocked the rifle from her grip.
All in all she had put up a pretty good defense, but Wolfe was still furious. Trace should have installed an adequate security system before he left, damn it. He should also have taught Kit a fallback plan in case of an attack. She was living miles away from neighbors or police and she was pinned against the counter, the rifle behind her on the floor. Anyone else could have done some real damage to her.
Wolfe felt the dogs close in. Baby pressed against his leg, whining, and Diesel nuzzled his thigh.
“What are you doing to my dogs?” Kit said sharply.
Typical, Wolfe thought. Pinned to the counter, she worried about the dogs, not her own safety.
“Nothing. Stop fighting and I’ll pull out my light so you can see my face.” Wolfe found his penlight and raised it slowly, shining it up at his head.
She winced in the sudden blue-white beam, her eyes tracking to his face. Her breath caught. “Wolfe?”
“I’m sure as hell not the Avon lady.”
“You should have said something sooner.” Her voice sounded unsteady. “I could have shot you.”
“Next time I’ll be sure to send a telegram and flowers,” he muttered.
Her voice was tense. “Why are you here? It’s not Trace, is it? He hasn’t been shot or anything…?”
“Trace is just fine.”
Her breath hissed out slowly. “Then why—”
“He wanted me to see how things were going here.” The lie slid smoothly off Wolfe’s lips. “So here I am.”
She leaned back, trying to get a better look at his face. “I don’t believe you. Trace would have told me if you were coming.” She cleared her throat. “Do you mind? You’re flattening me against this counter.”
Wolfe silently cursed and moved a few inches back. “Reflex. Sorry.”
“Why did you lock me in that closet? And who broke my window?”
“We can discuss it later. Let’s get your power back on first.”
She shoved against him, her body brushing him from knee to chest. When she turned her head, her lips were only inches away.
Concentration deserted Wolfe for a moment. With an effort he managed to focus again. “Where’s your fuse box?” he asked gruffly. He sure as hell knew where his was.
She didn’t answer, her cheeks touched with color as he backed out of reach.
“Well?”
“Beside the kitchen door.” Her voice was hoarse. “I’ll go outside and check.”
“Hold on. Let me take a look first.”
She turned slowly, her face pale in the half shadows. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Wolfe shrugged. “It never pays to take chances. Trace should have taught you that.” Taking her arm, he steered her toward the far side of the kitchen, away from all the broken glass. “I’ll go out this way.”
“You still remember your way around after all this time?”
“I remember a lot of things.” Most of them were bad, but Wolfe didn’t mention that. “What’s with the body I feel against my leg?” She’d definitely expect him to be curious about her four dogs.
“That’s probably Baby. She has to get her nose right in the middle of everything.”
“Baby?” Wolfe managed to sound puzzled.
“The four-legged kind. Shine that light down here.” Crouching near the door, Kit was instantly surrounded by eager, panting dogs. “Meet my newest pupils.”
Wolfe ran his light from dog to dog, pretending to be surprised. “Four of them? You never do anything by half, do you?”
Kit smoothed Diesel’s fur. “I’m a sucker for a beautiful pair of eyes.”
“I’m a leg man myself.” Wolfe cleared his throat as the penlight flashed on her long, slender thighs.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
“I told you, Trace asked me to—”
“You never could lie to me, Wolfe.” Kit jerked down her nightshirt as she walked to the side door. “The fuses are out here, by the way.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Wolfe cut in front of her and checked the darkness. “Looks quiet enough.” When he glanced down, the dogs were right beside him, their noses pressed against the glass door. “Back, you guys.”
“Down,” Kit said quietly.
Instantly, all four dogs were on the floor, motionless.
“Stay.”
Wolfe raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. You and the dogs had better stay inside just the same.” As he held up the penlight, his other hand edged to the pistol hidden at the small of his back. “How far to that fuse box?”
“About six feet. It’s just above the power meter on your right.”
Wolfe opened the door and listened. Nothing moved. He felt no hint of Cruz or any other intruders. Silently, he followed the wall to the fuse box. “Circuits have been reset. Hold on,” he called.
A moment later, light flooded from the windows. He closed the box and turned to find Kit staring at him. “Something wrong?”
“You look…different.”
As a welcome, it could have been worse, Wolfe thought. And it was true, he did look different—bigger, faster and harder. Now there was a coldness in his eyes that made people step out of his way.
Inside the door, he turned to face her, ready for more arguments. But she surprised him again, gripping his chin and turning his head up toward the light.
“You’re bleeding, you idiot. I’m going to kill Trace for not telling me you were coming.” Kit leaned closer, frowning. “What was that noise from the kitchen?”
“Someone broke in. He was alone, and I handled it.” Wolfe tried to pull free, uncomfortably aware of the heat triggered by contact with her body. “Forget about my face.” His cheek was swelling from the one blow Emmett had managed to land. “It’s nothing.”
But Kit moved closer, pressing him against the refrigerator door. “I’ll clean it better than you would.” She dodged under his arm, her long legs flashing in a way that left Wolfe’s throat dry. “Why didn’t you say something about it before?” she called.
“There wasn’t a lot of time for conversation. It’s just a scratch anyway.” Distracted by what felt like blood dripping into his eye, he let her shove him down into a chair beside the sink. “Kit, you don’t have to—”
“Shut up, Wolfe.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. He was trying not to notice the warm brush of her fingers, the pressure of her breast against his shoulder. He especially didn’t want to watch how her nightshirt rose over her thighs as she reached into cabinets and opened drawers. The sight of her was making his body respond in all the right ways, which happened to be the wrong ways.
“What are you staring at?”
Wolfe cleared his throat. “The cabinets. Ah…you painted them blue,” he said gruffly.
“I got tired of all that white.” Kit looked across the kitchen at the shattered glass. “He did a nice job on my window.” Her voice tightened. “Who was it?”
“Big guy, built like a fire hydrant. Ugly as the backside of a bull.”
“That’s Emmett. He’s convinced there’s treasure hidden here somewhere. He came back just like he said he would. I wish I could have seen his face when you stopped him.” She frowned at Wolfe. “Always being a hero. I see you’ve gotten your leg hurt as well as your face.”
“I’m fine.”
But she vanished into the bathroom and returned with a handful of boxes and bottles. “Take off your pants.”
“Kit, I don’t think—”
“Strip, Wolfe. Otherwise, I’ll cut them off you.”
“I’ll pass.”
“You think the sight of your naked butt is going to make me faint dead away?”
Wolfe felt his body tighten as she stared at the blood on his dark pants. “There’s no need to get upset.”
“Who’s upset? I’m just being practical, but you’re being the same as you always were. Mr. Tall, Dark and Silent, always in control.” He tried turning to look at her, but she held his face still. “That was your nickname in high school, didn’t you know?”
Somehow it didn’t surprise him. High school had been a blur of anger and confusion. The Russians could have invaded, for all he would have noticed. “Can’t say as I did.”
Kit finished cleaning the cut at his jaw, and then her gaze cut down to his leg. “Are you going to take your pants off or not?”
“Definitely not.”
Her eyes glinted as she went for his belt. They circled one another for a moment and Wolfe realized she wasn’t giving up. With a sigh he grabbed alcohol and cotton from the tray beside her on the counter, then removed a blood-soaked pad covering the wound just visible beneath his torn pants. He cleaned the area thoroughly, threaded a surgical needle, and went to work.
She stood watching, her hands locked at her sides.
Wolfe put in two precise stitches. As wounds went, this was only a scratch, so the sewing was no problem. He’d already shot himself up with antibiotics and covered the area with a gauze bandage, but he should have closed the wound sooner.
No time like the present.
With steady fingers he held the torn skin in place and shoved the needle home.
“You should take something for the pain.”
“Not necessary.” Wolfe put in another neat stitch.
Kit swallowed and looked away. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“Basic field medicine.” He shrugged. “No big deal.”
“I can see you don’t need me.” She pushed away from the counter, her body stiff. “I’ll get Trace’s bed ready.”
“Don’t go to any trouble. I can sleep down here on the couch.” Not that he’d do much actual sleeping.
“You’re sleeping in a bed, understood?” Her voice was tight. “It’s the least I can do.”
Turning, she collected the leftover bottles and bandages. When her gaze fell on the dogs, who were watching the byplay quietly, she frowned. “Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s my point. The dogs didn’t bark at you. What’s going on here?”
Baby’s tail thumped on the floor, and Diesel gave a happy little yelp.
Kit glared at both of them. “What kind of guard work is that, you two?”
Baby’s tail thumped harder.
“Something’s wrong.” Kit rounded on Wolfe. “Have you been here before? Is that why my dogs know you? There’s no way they would let a stranger in here without a fuss.”
Wolfe cut a new piece of gauze and covered the wound loosely. The easiest thing to do now would be to brush away her memories, painting out all the unwanted details that would make her ask difficult questions. But he couldn’t make her forget. He needed to stay inside the house. That would be the best way to keep her safe while he took a closer look at her dogs.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, standing stubbornly in front of him.
“Just a friendly visit, like I told you. When I came in the dogs growled a little. Then they smelled my hands for a long time, but they didn’t seem upset. Maybe they could sense that I’m not hostile.”
“Mind reading isn’t one of their skills, Wolfe. I don’t buy any of this.”
“You must be sleepy. I’ll finish up down here and take care of the window,” he said quietly. “Go on to bed.”
Kit shook her head. “Not until you explain.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“You bet we will. If I weren’t exhausted, I’d make you talk now.” She winced a little, rubbing her hip. “The dogs don’t sleep in the house.” She yawned. “They need to go outside to the kennel.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
She didn’t move.
“Go on. Get some sleep, Kit.”
“I always hated it when you gave me orders. I see you’re still doing it.” She looked away. “You’re not going to tell me why you’re really here, are you?”
“I already told you. Trace asked me to—”
“Skip it.” She took an irritated breath. “You know the bad part? Part of me really wants to believe you. But that’s my problem, not yours.” Her back stiffened. “The bed will be ready for you upstairs.”
Wolfe could see the muscles tighten in her neck. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Tomorrow you’d better go. It will be easier that way.” She turned away, the dogs close behind her.
He felt as if she’d pulled all the warmth from the room when she left.
CHAPTER SIX
HE DIDN’T DO WINDOWS.
He knew how all right, but it wasn’t in the job description.
Wolfe glared down at the mess at his feet and shook his head. Apparently there was a time and a place for everything. If he didn’t clean up the glass all over the kitchen floor and replace the pane, one of the dogs could get hurt.
He rubbed his neck, remembering that Kit’s frugal father always kept panels of uncut glass for repairs. Unless she’d changed things, they would be neatly stacked, separated by particleboard, out in the shed near the kennels.
Ten minutes later, glass crunched beneath his feet. Baby whined, watching him from across the room while he worked.
The dogs sniffed the broken glass, but didn’t come closer. Was that normal, Wolfe wondered? He didn’t have a clue, so he’d list it in his report, along with everything else.
After he dug the remaining fragments out of the window frame, Wolfe ran his fingers over the inside pocket of his shirt, where the map was now carefully stowed until he could get it analyzed. Why had Emmett been carrying a diagram of the ranch, especially one that looked new?
The simple answer was that the map stemmed from the old local belief that a treasure was buried somewhere on the O’Halloran ranch. Every few months Kit’s father used to catch someone prowling around, digging in the deserted washes near the house.
But why a new map?
He stopped as Kit’s phone echoed somewhere down the hall. After two rings, her answering machine clicked in, and Wolfe went back to work lining the clean window frame with putty. The dogs watched him, absorbing every move, while the moon’s silver eye rose above the mesa.
Carefully he lifted a six-foot pane of glass over the frame and checked the placement. As a teenager he’d worked as a handyman for extra money, and one summer he’d learned the glazier’s trade. Now the techniques came back to him, putty moving smoothly under his knife. It felt good to watch something take shape beneath his hands for a change.
Not like running surveillance out of a filthy shack in the jungles of Paraguay while you tried to track a money trail that led to Mexico or Burma or downtown Chicago.
As he laid down the last line of putty, Wolfe saw his reflection, cool and silver against the new glass. There were deep shadows at his cheeks, and his eyes were the color of bitter coffee. He looked tough and aloof, as if he’d seen too much too fast—and he had. Those memories were carved into his face, leaving a distance that could not be crossed.
But Kit had crossed it. He didn’t frighten her in the slightest. He thought about how she had nearly decked him, then threatened him with her rifle, and a faint half smile crept over his face. No, she wasn’t the kind of woman who ran from hard problems.
He feathered his knife along the frame, sealing the glass with long, deft strokes. When he was finally done, he faced his own reflection once again.
He was a hard man, trained to have the hands and mind of a killer, but there in the moon’s cool light, Wolfe was reminded that he could also be surprisingly gentle.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE WAITRESS AT the Blue Coyote Truck Stop looked as if her feet hurt and she needed a smoke.
But there was no mistaking the interest in her eyes or the way she bent over the counter to expose the front of her low-cut uniform. “Want anything else with your coffee, honey?” She put one hand on her hip. As if she learned it in the movies, Cruz thought. “Anything at all, you just tell me right out.”
“More coffee will be fine, thanks.” The soup had been hot and filling, all he really needed. The coffee was an unthinkable luxury.
It was a Wednesday night, almost 2:00 a.m. She’d have cash from tips in her pockets and credit cards, too. But he wouldn’t touch the cards. Too dangerous.
“The praline pie is pretty good tonight. Lemon meringue’s fair. You look like you could use a couple slices.” The waitress topped off his coffee and pushed the worn metal canister of sugar toward him.
“No thanks. I don’t eat sugar.” He had to keep his body clean. Strength came first. With his strength restored, he could concentrate on revenge.
His eyes flickered through the quiet restaurant. There was no one else around except for a short-order cook bustling somewhere in the kitchen.
When the waitress leaned in closer, he focused and made her forget everything but that she was tired and ready for a smoke. Her eyes went blank and she stood behind the counter, motionless.
He cleaned out both of her pockets and moved around the counter, fishing through the purse she kept pushed to the back of the low shelf.
Ninety-seven dollars. Car keys, too. He’d risk driving for an hour, no more. He knew exactly where his brother would be waiting.
Wind howled across the floodlit courtyard. The rain that had been threatening all night finally broke loose, pelting the windows with small bits of gravel.
Time to go.
The cook yelled. Cruz released the waitress from the images he’d just constructed.
“No dessert.” The waitress looked dizzy for a second. Then she turned, frowning, her eyes predatory. “Hell, just what do you do for fun, honey?”
Cruz watched a layer of oil gleam on the surface of his coffee. Once he had trained for the sheer joy of being the best. He had laughed at danger.
But three years ago, something had changed. At first it was little details like reflexes off by mere seconds. After that had come the memory blips and subtle mood shifts. His handlers had told him not to worry, that the changes were to be expected. Stress, they said. The result of constant training.
Like a fool he’d swallowed their lies, one after another. He had never questioned what he was told, not even when the mood shifts became severe.
That’s when they’d increased his medicine, and the new surgeries had begun. He’d believed every lie they’d told him, despite the continued deterioration of his mind and body.
Cruz drank his coffee slowly, savoring its heat even though he knew it was a poor mix of bad beans and sloppy preparation. After months in captivity, fed from an IV with only enough nourishment to keep his heart and vital systems functioning, even bad coffee was ambrosia.
“Looks like you could use a little fun.” The waitress was very close now, her fingers on top of his. Cruz had a clear line of sight down the front of her dress, and there was no bra anywhere. The woman couldn’t have made her invitation any plainer.
He couldn’t have been any less interested.
“I’ll take my bill now.” His face held no emotion as he pushed away the empty cup and stood up. He’d taken a chance to come inside only because he’d needed food, cash, and little time to warm up. He’d already dismantled the single surveillance camera at the front door, and he’d handle the waitress in a moment.
“You’re leaving already? Honey, there’s no bus for another three hours, and I know you don’t have a car.”
His fingers shot around her wrist. “How do you know that?”
“I saw you walk in from the woods, that’s all. Kinda odd, I thought, but hey, it’s a free country. You ain’t one of those damned tree huggers, are you?”
“What else did you see?”
“You looked around everywhere and you didn’t go near any cars, so I figure you walked from one of those parks up north. We get hikers in here now and again. They look thin, the same way you do.”
He released her wrist. She’d made a lucky guess, nothing more.
He put a five-dollar bill on the counter—one of hers—and smoothed it with his fingers. He had forgotten what it felt like to have money of his own.
For too many years he’d let other people control him. He’d been an empty-headed killing machine pumped up with the certainty that he was some new, advanced kind of hero.
Now he knew better.
“Keep the change.” Cruz picked up the backpack that was never far from his reach, scanning the parking lot outside.
“Hell, honey, why not tell me to go suck exhaust and die? And where are you going at two in the morning anyway? If you ask me, you don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe you are, but the nearest town is fifty miles away, and that’s a damn long hike.”
He could walk twice that distance. He could run it easily, in fact, despite his long confinement. Good genes, Cruz thought wryly.
He studied the waitress’s face, sifting through the fairly boring mind beneath her straw-colored hair. “I’m catching a ride to El Paso. I’ve got friends waiting for me there,” he said calmly, pleased that all the old training was in place.
Never tell the truth when a lie will do. Never trust anyone outside the team.
She rubbed her wrist slowly as if it hurt. “You one of those G-Men working over at the New Mexico base?”
Nothing changed on Cruz’s face. “What makes you ask?”
“Don’t know. Your eyes, maybe. You don’t say much, but you don’t miss much either. And you sure don’t like the idea of anyone watching you.”
So she wasn’t as stupid as he’d first thought. “I’m FBI,” he said quietly. “And I’ve never been here, understand? If I hear you told anyone different, I’ll be back and that won’t be good for you.” As he spoke, he shaped the warning, driving it like a knife into her brain until she nodded, looking disoriented.
“FBI.” She rubbed her forehead as if it hurt. “Sure—never seen you,” she repeated.
He sensed that she was afraid of him now. Pleased, he tightened his knapsack over one shoulder. After reinforcing his warning and wiping her memory of him, he headed out into the night, but it was hard to focus. His head ached and the coffee left him a little dizzy.
He heard the rumble of distant tires and the blast of a truck horn. He needed to make contact with his brother as soon as possible.
Maybe he’d chance taking the waitress’s car and driving to Albuquerque. He had her keys now, and he’d picked up the model and color of her car. Cruz hesitated, considering the idea. He’d made a deep wipe of her mind, but he wasn’t sure how long it would last. In recent weeks his skills had become unreliable. Sometimes he could pull the faintest thought from a crowded room. Other times he could barely remember his own name.
And if the waitress reported the theft, the police would be watching for her car.
The truck horn blasted again and he swung open the restaurant’s grimy front door, smiling up at the nonfunctioning surveillance camera as he left.
The truck didn’t seem to be slowing down, and a second rig was straining up the hill maybe a hundred yards back. Cruz took in the Illinois plates and the muddy windshield. Long-haul trucker with no reason to stop at a crummy little diner three hours from anywhere.
He flipped up the collar of his stolen jacket. He liked the feel of the sheepskin lining and the soft suede body. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn a coat this nice.
Turning away from the well-lit parking lot, he melted into the trees while an owl called somewhere in the night.
An unmarked white sedan pulled into the parking lot from the other direction. Drawing back into the shadows, Cruz studied the two men who got out.
Hard faces. Concealed carry holsters.
If they hadn’t been sent by Ryker, they were sent by someone close enough that it didn’t matter.
The restaurant door opened. The waitress walked out, looking confused. She stared at the parking lot as if she didn’t know where she was, and the men from the white car started walking toward her—the last thing Cruz needed.
Somewhere the owl cried its two-note dirge and Cruz followed the sound, his eyes cold and focused.
The owl’s dark shape cut through the darkness, headed back toward the bright lights and the woman who was turning slowly, studying the parking lot. Like a sleepwalker, she crossed beneath the big mercury lamps, one hand shading her eyes.
“Ma’am, is something wrong?” The two men were walking faster now.
Cruz watched the owl with renewed intensity. He wasn’t going back into a cage.
Not ever again.
The owl circled, dropped. The second truck was up the hill now, motor racing as it picked up speed. Cruz focused, feeling pain behind his eyes, down his neck. But the pain brought power.
The owl folded its wings and plummeted, talons extended, striking the waitress, who covered her head vainly. Cruz focused on the attack as the owl surged upward and plunged again.
The men from the sedan were shouting now as they ran toward her.
The waitress stumbled and then ran out into the path of the oncoming lights….
And screamed.
MOONLIGHT CREPT SLOWLY across the old adobe walls. The kennels were quiet. A hawk cried somewhere in the night, and the long wings of a hunting owl hissed over the juniper trees.
Baby awoke suddenly, shooting to her feet and waking Diesel, who was curled up beside her. She sniffed the air, her body tense.
In the shimmering glow her fur looked like dark water beneath new ice. Only her eyes held the snap of heat and restless energy. Though she didn’t move, all the other dogs awoke.
Soon they were standing together, noses to the wind, painted in cold moonlight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAUGHT IN SLEEP, one foot in dreams, Kit heard a low, steady tap-tap on the roof, a rare sound in the desert.
Yawning, she burrowed back under the covers. During the last storm, Baby and Diesel had raced through the mud like creatures gone mad, scampering in circles, their heads raised to the sheeting rain. Butch and Sundance had simply lain down and rolled until they were completely encased in brown slime.
A dark nose rooted under her quilt, searched right and left, and then a second nose appeared.
“How did you guys get out of the kennel?”
Downstairs, pots clanged. Kit took a deep breath as she smelled the unmistakable aroma of coffee brewing.
Wolfe.
Hit with a sudden dose of memories from the night before, she closed her eyes. She’d heard the sound of breaking glass, armed herself with her father’s rifle and moved quietly down the hall….
And then Wolfe had knocked her weapon away, tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and dropped her in the closet.
Baby’s head appeared from under the quilt. Her tail banged loudly on the edge of the bed, signaling keen excitement. Diesel wiggled out next and laid his head at an angle over Baby’s.
“High-handed jerk,” Kit muttered. She didn’t care if the man was back or how he looked. She didn’t care why he’d come back either. She’d had a crush on Wolfe Houston for way too long, but it was over now. He was no good for her, and nothing was ever going to happen between them, so she’d packed up her memories and shipped them off to the same dead letter box that held her belief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
He wasn’t swooping into her life again, no way. She was over him and that was final. Guaranteed. Definite. The thought made her feel good.
Kit frowned at what Wolfe had told her about Emmett’s return and break-in. The man was nuts as well as nasty, and she had called to report him to the local police before she’d gone to sleep. The deputy was the son of her father’s best friend, and he’d assured her that Emmett would be taken into custody the following day.
More pots rattled downstairs. Diesel took off at a run, clearly hoping for edible handouts.
What was the freaking man doing down there, cooking for the 75th Infantry Division? Sighing, Kit looked at Baby, who gave two quick barks. “Okay, I’m coming. After a quick shower, everything is bound to look better. But I’ve made up my mind. I’ll eat his food—assuming it’s edible—and drink the coffee I smell brewing, and then I’ll kick him out on his tight and very attractive butt. I don’t need his kind of trouble back in my life. Not for a second.”
She’d dreamed about him for ages and planned her future around possibilities that involved him. But somewhere in the last months working with these four special dogs, Kit had grown up and gotten over her fantasies. She had important things to do with her life and she wouldn’t go on looking over her shoulder, hoping for an illusion.
Baby’s tail thumped.
Pleased with her determination, Kit threw off the covers—and fell back with a groan.
Pain hammered at her back. Her knees felt frozen. She tried again to sit up and grimaced, wishing she could tell herself it was nothing. But she knew what her X-rays looked like. After fifteen months, she’d read enough online medical articles to be nearly as conversant with her illness as her family doctor.
But that was books, and this was real. Books didn’t capture how pain felt.
She studied the room dizzily. Something had made her worse. Something that she couldn’t remember.
She forced down deep breaths, trying to relax. More stress meant more tension.
For the first time Kit considered the possibility of getting weaker. Her doctor had warned her the disease might progress, but Kit had been resolutely optimistic. She didn’t want to hear about diminishing capability or limited strength.
She gripped her soft quilt, shivering. If she lost joint mobility, she couldn’t adequately care for her dogs, which meant giving them up to another trainer. Without strength, she couldn’t handle the constant demands of the ranch and that would have to go, too. She couldn’t ask Trace to come home and help. This was her world, not his.
She took a sharp breath. She wasn’t giving up. There were always new medicines, new techniques—
Tensely, she stared at the top of her nightstand. Her pills were exactly where she’d left them, each day’s dose carefully marked in her own handwriting. Last night’s compartment was untouched.
Relief blazed through her. In all the turmoil after the break-in, she’d forgotten to take her pills. She’d been watching Casablanca and dozed off, and then Wolfe had shown up. For some reason, that part was still a blur.
But there was no more worrying or wondering about why she felt so much worse.
She grabbed the container and gulped down two pills, confident that she’d be better in fifteen minutes, maybe less. Then she could get back to living her life.
With stiff legs, she stood up and tugged down her nightshirt. First, a shower. Second, coffee.
Third, kick Wolfe out of her house.
As the first hot spray of the shower hit her face, Kit sighed in primal pleasure. After allowing herself several long, indulgent minutes under the pounding water, she forced herself to face her situation honestly. Was she really going to throw Wolfe out?
It wasn’t that she didn’t find him incredibly sexy, because she did. It wasn’t that her gut response to his gorgeously chiseled body had changed, because it hadn’t. The man still spiked her awareness meter right up into the red zone.
But Kit refused to waste any more time mooning over a man who’d always be a shadow, slipping in and out of her life when he could fit her in around whatever covert mission he was on at the time.
Which brought her to question two: What was he doing here?
Kit glared at the steam covering the glass door. He said Trace had asked him to come by. A perfectly reasonable story, except that it didn’t ring true. Trace knew she’d always been vulnerable where Wolfe was concerned, and he would have made a point to tell her that his friend was dropping by, so she’d be prepared.
Wolfe couldn’t leave New Mexico fast enough all those years ago. He hadn’t been back once since he’d joined the Navy, and it wasn’t as if he had anything new pulling him home. So why did he appear now?
Either something was wrong with Trace, or Wolfe was lying. Since Kit didn’t think he would lie about Trace being fine, that meant he was lying for another reason. None of the possibilities looked good.
Frowning, she shut off the water and grabbed a towel. It was time to get a few answers from the man who was currently making free with her kitchen.
Which brought her to question three: why hadn’t her dogs shown signs of wariness or hostility, or attempted to warn her when he’d arrived? They’d never met Wolfe and had no reason to consider him a friend, but they’d all taken to him immediately.
The question kept gnawing at Kit as she dried her hair and pulled on her oldest, most threadbare jeans. No way was she going to fuss for the man who’d ruined most of her teenage years and a major part of her adult life.
Just by being gorgeous…and unavailable.
She took a quick glance in the mirror. Her hair was uneven from the last time she’d cut it. Her face was sunburned and there were faint lines under her eyes. That was A-okay with her, because she wasn’t getting dressed up for Wolfe Houston ever again.
Baby stayed one step ahead as Kit headed for the stairs, drawn by the heavenly smell of coffee. Had the man ground fresh beans? The scent seemed to be from a new bag of Jamaican Blue Mountain she’d stashed in her freezer because she hadn’t had time to grind it.
Now that was strictly hitting below the belt.
Irritated, she strode down the stairs, where more delicious scents assailed her.
Warm maple syrup.
Blueberries and cinnamon.
Pancakes sizzling in fresh butter.
What kind of sneaky pool was the man playing? He’d cooked her favorite things for breakfast. How had he remembered all that?
Kit stopped just outside the doorway, her senses on full alert as Wolfe moved easily around her kitchen. Today he was wearing some kind of tan camouflage pants and a simple white T-shirt, but his shoulders were rippled and his biceps stood out in perfectly cut lines.
Okay, he looked good. Maybe even fantastic. Mouthwatering, in fact. But it meant zip to her. Zilch. Nada. She wasn’t falling victim to him ever again. Pancakes and caffeine be damned.
With that thought firmly in mind, she yanked the last button closed on her flannel shirt and stalked into the kitchen, nearly tripping over Butch, who was lying across the threshold.
They were guard dogs. Alert, highly trained service dogs. Hel-lo?
“Are you still here?” Kit snapped, annoyed to see Sundance following every step Wolfe took, while Diesel perched in the spot where food was most likely to drop.
“Looks that way. The state police called. Someone should be here to take a report before noon. There’s a big pileup on the interstate, so that’s the best they can do.” He slid a stack of pancakes onto a plate and pushed it down the counter toward her. “Sit down and eat. You look like you could use something in your stomach.”
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Christina Skye
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Navy SEAL Wolfe Houston is on a mission of national security: protect one stubborn–but gorgeous–civilian in charge of training valuable government assetsBut tracking down four genetically enhanced service dogs and guarding their furry backs 24/7 is going to take all of Wolfe′s tactical skills. The dogs′ unsuspecting trainer, Kit O′Halloran, doesn′t know that deadly mercenaries are determined to kidnap her charges. With hostiles to evade and bullets to dodge, there′s no time to waste–so why is Kit pressed against an adobe wall by moonlight, reveling in the hot magic of Wolfe′s slow, skillful hands?Wolfe is fascinated by Kit′s devotion to her puppies, especially Baby, the incorrigible runt of the litter. But two other trainers have died under strange circumstances–and a foreign government has just posted a staggering bounty for Kit′s capture. Before Wolfe can explore their white-hot attraction, the two are on the run, forced to decide which of their secret contacts is friend…and which is deadliest foe. Only Baby can lead them through the storm to safe haven in each other′s arms. Good dog!