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Shadow Hawk
Jill Shalvis


Sassy heroines and irresistible heroes embark on sizzling sexual adventures as they play the game of modern love and lust. Expect fast paced reads with plenty of steamy encounters.From captor…to seducer!Sexy government officer Conner Hawk has been set up. Now wounded and on the run, he has no choice but to take beautiful Abby Wells hostage. After all, she’s in danger, too. And if the only way to keep the fiercely independent communications expert safe is to handcuff her and bring her along for the ride, he’ll do it. With pleasure, even.Only, given their close contact, it’s not long before Hawk’s thinking about a totally different kind of pleasure. . .







“No screaming,” he remindedher. “Promise me.”

She nodded her head. She’d have promised him the moon if he’d only get the hell off her so that she could draw air into her aching lungs. Besides, she was banking on someone, anyone, discovering them any second now. He nodded in return. “Good. Because I’m having a major guilt attack here, and I really just need you to co-operate.” That said, he lifted his fingers from her mouth. Immediately, she opened her mouth to yell, but he stopped her. This time with his mouth. She was so stunned, it actually took Abby a moment to struggle. He was kissing her.


JILL SHALVIS

Bestselling author Jill Shalvis has written over three dozen romances. Look for her stories wherever books are sold, and come and visit her on the web at www.jillshalvis.com, where she keeps a daily blog of all her adventures.



Dear Reader,

I’m drawn to action-adventure films, and if they have a romance in them, well then, that’s just icing on the cake. So it seemed like a logical decision to try my hand at writing one, romance included, of course – an adrenaline-fuelled, seriously sexy romance. Once I’d found my hero, Hawk, it was obvious I couldn’t write his story any other way…

So I’d like you to meet Hawk and Abby, fellow agents on the run for their very lives. In the beginning, they irritate – and arouse – the hell out of each other. But danger has a way of bringing out the best in people. And the best between Hawk and Abby is very, very good…

Happy reading on this one! And as always, I’d love to hear what you think. You can find me on the web, along with my daily blog about my own wacky adventures, at www.jillshalvis.com.

Enjoy,

Jill Shalvis




SHADOW HAWK


BY

JILL SHALVIS




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Being a writer can be lonely.

Thankfully, I have a support group.

Thanks to Steph for the sanity lunches.

Thanks to Laurie for the sweet enthusiasm.

And thanks to Gena for…well, everything.

Couldn’t have done this one without you.




Prologue


Cheyenne, WyomingRegional ATF offices

SHE WAS ALL LEG, and Conner Hawk was most definitely a leg man. Hell, he was also a T&A man, but Abigail Wells, fellow ATF agent and communications expert, not to mention all around hot chick, was so well put together she could have made him a certified elbow man.

Too bad she hated his guts.

She walked—strolled—across the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ office, her soft skirt clinging to her thighs with every graceful swing of her hips. Her blazer hid her torso from view, but he knew she had it going on beneath that as well. Her honey-colored hair was pulled up in some complicated do that screamed On Top Of Her World.

As if she’d read the direction his thoughts had traveled, Abigail glanced over at him, those bee-stung lips flipping her smile upside down, her eyes going from work-mode to pissy-female mode.

Oh yeah, there was the frown, the one she’d been giving him ever since the day she joined the team six months ago. She’d come from the Seattle office, where she’d worked in the field. He tried to imagine her wearing an ATF flak jacket, guarding his six, and was halfway lost in that fun fantasy when she spoke.

“You.” This in a tone that suggested he could, and should, go to hell.

“Me,” he agreed, surprised that she’d even given him that one word. She usually avoided talking directly to him, as if he carried some new infectious disease.

Odd, since to everyone else she’d been personable, even sweet and kind. It made that steely backbone of hers so surprising. When she decided to dig her heels into something, watch out. He’d seen it over and over, people so shocked by the unexpected toughness that this pleasant, melodious little thing exhibited that she got whatever she wanted. She must have been a hell of a force out in the field, probably underestimated by every single scum of the earth who’d come across her, but here in Cheyenne she’d stayed behind the scenes.

“You’re late,” she said in a school-principal-to-errant-student tone.

Oh yeah, now there was a fantasy…. He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the digital readout. Two minutes. He was two minutes late, and that was because someone had taken his parking spot. And he might have explained that to her if she hadn’t been giving him the look that people gave their shoe when they stepped on dog shit.

Even as he thought it, her nose slightly wrinkled.

Yeah. In her eyes—which were an amazing drown-in-me blue—he was about equal to dog shit. Nice to know.

“We’re wanted in Tibbs’s office,” Abigail said.

We? Well, that was a new term. Hawk dutifully followed her into their supervisor’s office, his gaze slipping down that stiff spine to her spectacular ass. Attitude or not, she looked good enough to nibble on. A little sweet, a little hot…nice combo—

Whoa. She’d suddenly stopped, forcing him to put his hands on her hips rather than plow her over.

Clearly hating even that small contact, she jerked free and sent him a look that said go-directly-to-hell-without-passing-Go.

Right. Hands off. Maybe he should write that down somewhere.

“Any news on the rifles?” she asked.

Great. The absolute last thing he wanted to talk about. The rifles. Everyone had heard about the 350 confiscated rifles, which had gone missing from ATF storage before they could be melted down. Stolen, from beneath their noses.

His nose.

She was asking, of course, because he’d been the agent on the raid, the one who’d brought the weapons in. He had no idea how they’d gone missing, but he knew why. They had a mole and Hawk was getting too close.

“No. No news.”

“I see.” And with one last cool glance, she knocked on Tibbs’s door.

Isee? What the hell did that mean? Before he could ask, Tibbs called out for them to enter.

Their supervisor stood behind his desk, which didn’t make that much of a difference since he was maybe five foot four and nearly as round as he was tall. The balding man shoved his glasses higher on his prominent nose. “We got a tip on the bombers,” he said in that Alabama drawl of his.

Hawk had been working on the Kiddie Bombers for the past two years. Some asshole, or group of assholes, was teaching teenagers how to put together bombs, then using the explosives to terrorize big corporations into paying millions of dollars. Twelve kids had died so far, eight of them under the age of eighteen, and the ATF wanted the bomb-makers and their knowledge off the streets.

Hawk wanted that, too, and also the man running the Kiddie Bombers. Eighteen months ago he’d nearly caught him in a raid on a downtown warehouse. In the pitch-black, on the hard concrete floor, they’d fought. Hawk had wrestled a gun from his hand, managing to shoot him before being tackled by another Kiddie Bomber.

Hawk had escaped with his life intact, thanks to his partner, Logan, and given that the gang had gone quiet after that night, it had been assumed that the Kiddie Bombers’ leader had died from his gunshot wound.

But a year ago, the Kiddie Bombers had popped back onto the radar, pulling off two huge jobs with weapons that had been previously confiscated by the ATF.

Hawk had his suspicions, mostly because there was only one person who could be linked to all the raids—Elliot Gaines. But that was so crazy wild, so out there, he’d kept it to himself, except for Logan. What he hadn’t kept to himself was his vow to get the Kiddie Bombers’ leader.

In the past month alone, Hawk and Logan had confiscated two huge warehouses full of ammo and other supplies. But not a single suspect. “Tip?” he asked Tibbs.

“Suspicious activity, rumored arsenal. Orders came down from Gaines on this.”

Elliot Gaines was the regional head. Or, as some put it, God. Word had spread that the Almighty was tired of the delays, tired of the false leads and really tired of the ATF looking like idiots.

“You’re both heading out.” Tibbs tossed a full file on his desk for them to read. “Bullet City.”

Northern Wyoming, approximately four-and-a-half hours from Nowhere, U.S.A. Yeah, made sense to Hawk. Isolated. Cold, which was good for the materials the bombers used. And, oh yeah, isolated. Great.

“Word is tonight’s the night they’re testing some new product,” Tibbs drawled. “We’ll need to catch them in the middle of their private fireworks show.”

That worked for Hawk. He picked up the file and flipped through it, reading about the barn that’d been found loaded to the gills with incriminating equipment, complete with an elusive owner they hadn’t been able to pin down.

Abby shifted closer to read over Hawk’s shoulder, making him extremely aware of her tension as it crackled through the air like static electricity.

“You’ve got two hours,” Tibbs told them. “You fly out together.”

“Together?” Abby repeated, her voice actually cracking.

Surprised at the unexpected chink in her armor, Hawk looked at her.

“You’ll run the show from the van, Abby,” Tibbs said. “And Hawk from the field. There’ll be a team in place.”

Abby blinked. “But…”

Both men eyed her as two high splotches of color marked her cheeks. Interesting, Hawk thought. She was usually cool as ice. So what had her riled up? Him? Because she sure as hell got to him. He couldn’t help it, beneath her veneer there was just something about her, something…special. Sure, he wanted to do wicked things to her body and vice versa, but that alone wouldn’t have kept him on edge around her for six months. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ve done this once or twice before.”

“Ha.” But her brow puckered, her kiss-me-mouth tightened.

Normally this would make him wonder how long he’d have to kiss her before she softened for him, but not now. “What is it? You don’t trust me out there?”

“Hawk,” Tibbs said quietly.

He heard the warning in his boss’s voice, but he didn’t care. “No, I think it’s time, past time, that we get this out in the open. I want to know, Abby. What exactly is your problem with me?”

“Nothing.” She hit him with those baby blues, which were suddenly void of any emotion whatsoever. “There’s no problem at all.”

Bullshit. But hell if he was going to keep bashing his head against a brick wall. “Okay, then. Fine.”

“Fine.” She gestured to the file in his hands as she gathered her control around her like a cloak. “Flight’s at two.” She said this evenly, back to being as cool as a cucumber. In a freezer. In Antarctica. “Be late and I leave without you.”


1

Later that nightTwenty-five miles outside ofBullet City, Wyoming

ABBY ENTERED THE COMMUNICATIONS van, and the men stopped talking. Typical. Men complained that women were the difficult gender, but it seemed to her the penis-carrying half were far more thorny.

Not to mention downright problematic.

Not that she cared, because when it came to personal relationships, she’d given them up. A fact that made her life much simpler.

Sliding the door shut behind her, she shivered. Late fall in the high altitude Bighorn Mountains meant that razor-sharp air cut right through her, layers and all. As she rubbed her frozen hands together, her gaze inadvertently locked on Hawk, who had his long-sleeved black shirt open and the matching T-shirt beneath it shoved up so that he could get wired.

He stood there, six feet two inches of solid badass complete with a wicked, mischievous grin, topped with warm, chocolate eyes that could melt or freeze on a dime. From beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt peeked the very edge of the tattoo on his bicep, which she knew was a hawk.

The women in the office practically swooned at it, every time.

But not Abby. Nope, she was made of firmer stuff.

There was a four-inch scar, old and nearly faded, along his left side between two ribs, and another puckered scar above his left pec. The first was a knife wound, the second a bullet hole. She could also see his smooth, sleek flesh pressed taut to hard, rippled sinew. One long, lean muscle, not an ounce of extra on him.

Whew. Had she been cold only a moment before? Because suddenly, she was starting to sweat. She cursed her 20/20 vision.

Maybe she wasn’t made of firmer stuff after all…. But regardless, she was over men. So over men. And seeing that she’d become so enlightened…she blew out a breath and moved to her communications station.

Where for the first time, she hesitated. That in itself pissed her off. So a year ago she’d nearly died out in the field. She hadn’t. And she wasn’t going to this time, either. Shrugging off her nerves, Abby looked around and caught the long, assessing look Hawk shot her as he pulled on a flak vest. He was sharp, she’d give him that. Clearly, he sensed her hesitation, but hell if she’d let him see her sweat. She lifted her chin and sat down.

But if she was a good actress, then he was a great actor, because she had no idea what he was thinking behind that perpetually cynical gaze.

And she didn’t care. She was here for the job. She would remain in the van, in charge of communications, while the team made their way to the farmhouse, and then to the barn a half mile beyond that, where they’d execute the raid.

“There,” Watkins said to Hawk as he finished wiring him.

Hawk shrugged back into his shirt. “You fix the problem from the other day?” he asked.

Abby’s eyes had wandered again to Hawk’s body—bad eyes—but her ears pricked. “Problem?”

“Bad wire.” Watkins lifted a shoulder. “Happens.”

“It shouldn’t,” she said. “Make sure it doesn’t.”

Watkins nodded.

Hawk let his T-shirt fall over his abs, hiding the wires as his gaze again met hers. One eyebrow arched in the silent question: Were you staring at me?

No. No, she wasn’t. To prove it, she turned to her own equipment, trying not to remember the last time she’d been wired before a raid. Elliot Gaines, the head honcho, had done her up himself.

Of course he’d had a personal interest. They’d had a burgeoning friendship, at least on her part. For his part, he clearly wished for more, far more. In any case, he couldn’t have known how bad it would all go….

And it had gone extremely bad. One minute she’d been listening to Gaines’s quiet, authoritative voice in her ear, telling her she was doing great, just to hold her position while his team to the west “handled it,” and then the next, there’d been a 12-gauge shotgun to her temple and she’d been taken hostage.

Now, a year later, in another time and place, someone murmured something in a low voice that she couldn’t quite catch, and several of the men behind her laughed softly.

Releasing tension, she knew, most likely with an off-color joke that she didn’t want to hear. Living as a woman in a man’s world was nothing new, but she had to admit, tonight, it was grating on her nerves.

Granted, her nerves were already scraped raw just by being here, but that was no one’s fault but her own. Gaines had transferred her at her request after a leave of absence. She’d wanted to prove to herself that she could still do her job, that she hadn’t let the “incident” take anything from her.

But with damp palms and butterflies bouncing in her gut, she wondered if maybe she had more to overcome than she’d thought.

“Hey.”

With a start, Abby turned toward Hawk. He was geared up and ready to face the night, looking big, bad, tough and prepared for anything. She bet he didn’t have any butterflies.

The others were engaged in conversation, but Hawk stood close, looking at her as if he could see her anxiety. “Ready?”

That he could see her nervousness meant she didn’t have it nearly as together as she’d like. “Of course I’m ready.”

“Of course,” he repeated, but didn’t move. “Listen, I know you’re going to bite my head off for this, but I’m getting a weird vibe from you here, and—”

“I said I was fine.” She swiveled back to her computer to prove it.

“All right, then.” She could feel him watching her very closely. “You’re fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine.”

She heard him turn to follow the others out the door, and glanced back to watch the long-limbed ease that didn’t do a thing to hide the latent power just beneath the surface. Or the irritation.

Abby let out a rough breath. Damn it. He might be a hell of a charmer, but he was also a hell of an agent, and truth be told, she admired his work ethic even more than she secretly admired his body. And she wanted him to be able to admire her work ethic. “Hawk.”

He looked back, his broad shoulders blocking the night from view, but not the chill that danced in on an icy wind. “Yeah?”

“Watch yourself.”

A hint of a self-deprecating smile crossed his lips. “Thought you were doing that for me.”

She felt the heat rise to her face, but he’d caught her fair and square. His smile came slow and sure, and far too sexy for her comfort.

As he left, she let out a slow breath and fanned her face.

“DAMN, IT’S BUTT-ASS COLD out here.”

At Logan’s statement of the obvious, Hawk blew out a breath, which changed into a puff of fog before being whipped away by the cutting wind. The two of them lay on their bellies on the battered roof of the barn that had been pinpointed as a bomb-processing plant.

And yeah, it was butt-ass cold up here, but he was more focused on the fact that he was thirty feet above the ground without a safety rope, with the wind threatening to take him to the land of Oz.

Christ, he really hated heights.

Logan lowered his binoculars to blow on his hands. “Maybe we could do this thing before we freeze to the roof like a pair of Popsicles.”

Like Hawk, Logan was built with the capacity to do whatever, whenever. Tough as nails. Physically honed. Trained to be a weapon all on his own, with or without the aid of bullets. But he enjoyed complaining. Always had, and Hawk should know—they’d been together since they’d been eighteen and in boot camp. They’d gone from bunkmates to brothers and knew each other like no one else.

To get here, they’d drugged a pack of rottweilers, disabled the alarm on the farmhouse and stealthily made their way through the woods to the barn. The place was a nice setup for criminal activity. Surrounded by the sharp, jagged peaks of the Bighorn Mountains, there were also rolling hills and a maze of lakes and streams, all of which were nothing but an inky black silhouette in the dark night. No neighboring ranches, no neighboring anything except maybe bears and bison and coyotes.

And the many cars and trucks parked behind the farmhouse.

Odd. It would seem that there was a large group of people here somewhere, and yet there hadn’t been a soul in the house or in any of the small storage sheds behind it.

Which left the huge barn.

An icy gust hit Hawk in the face, burning his skin. He had to admit, things had definitely gone from interesting to tricky, because now the metal tiles beneath them were icing over. Any movement could be detrimental to their health, because slipping off here meant a thirty-foot fall to the frozen earth below.

Thanks to his goggles, Hawk had a crystal-clear view of the ground, and the distance to it made him want to puke. They’d been in far worse circumstances, he reminded himself, where his fear of heights had been the least of his worries. He and Logan had done some pretty ugly shit involving some pretty ugly people. On more than one occasion, they’d managed to stay alive on instinct alone, in parts of the world that didn’t even warrant being on the map.

So all in all, things had improved.

“Hope it doesn’t rain, because this baby’ll turn right into a giant metal slide.” Logan said this calmly, because he, damn him, did not have a height issue. “Like the one at the carnival—”

“Logan?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

He laughed softly.

The temperature had indeed dropped to two degrees above freezing their balls off, and with that wind icing up their organs, Hawk wanted to get a move on. But they were stuck up here until they got the signal from communications, which happened to be Abby and crew parked in a van on the main road half a mile south of here. “We need to move closer,” he said to her via his mic, over a noisy gust that whipped dust from the roof and into his face.

“Remain in position,” she ordered, her voice breaking with static, but still sounding soft, warm… and sexy as hell.

At least in Hawk’s opinion.

Just listening to her made him react like Pavlov’s dog. Only he wasn’t drooling. Nope, listening to her elicited visions of wild up-against-the-wall sex, which caused a much more base reaction than slobber. “Remaining in position isn’t going to work,” he told her.

“Soon as I hear from Watkins and Thomas,” she said, the static increasing, “we’ll move.”

We. As in not her. He knew she used to be a great field agent, and yeah, so he’d read her files. But all her cases had ended abruptly a year ago, and no amount of digging could produce a reason. Then, after a six-month leave, she’d transferred from Seattle to Cheyenne, where Hawk had done his best to ignore his inexplicable attraction to her, because that had seemed to work for her.

But now he wondered, how was it she’d gotten so comfortable behind the safety net? Why had she given up being in the trenches with the rest of them for a computer screen?

“Watkins and Thomas are making their way to the east and west doors beneath you,” she added, referring to Logan’s and Hawk’s counterparts on the ground. “Wait for my cue.”

Uh-huh. Easy for her to say. She sat out of the slicing wind in that van, and Hawk would bet money she had the motor running and the heater on full blast.

She’d changed on the plane, out of her skirt, the one that had messed with his mind every time it clung to her thighs, which was only with every single movement she made. But her cargo pants and long-sleeved ATF button-down clung to her, too. Hell, she could wear a potato sack and do something to him.

Logan shifted. Probably trying not to freeze to the roof. Hawk did the same, but for different reasons entirely.

“Nearly there,” Thomas said into their earpieces. “Hearing noises from inside, a steady pinging.”

“Affirmative,” Watkins said. “The windows are blacked out, going in southwest door— Jesus. It’s full of ammo and workstations. Definitely bomb-making going on here, guys, but there’s no one in sight.” He let out a low whistle. “Seriously, there’s enough blow in here to make Las Vegas prime beach-front property.”

“Suspects?” Abby asked.

“None.”

“That can’t be,” she murmured.

Hawk had to agree with her. Something was off, and not just because they’d managed to get onto the premises and up here, past the alarm and a pack of hungry rottweilers without being detected. But now they’d found the proof, right beneath their noses? It was all too easy. He flicked off his mic and looked at Logan.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Logan asked.

“That we’re being set up, instead of the other way around?”

“Bingo.”

“I’m guessing we got too close, and he’s unhappy with us?”

“Let’s make him really unhappy and catch the SOB red-handed.”

“Watkins, search the interior,” Abby directed, the static now nearly overriding her voice. “Hawk, Logan, guard the exits from above.”

“But where is everyone?” This from Thomas. “It’s like a ghost town in here.”

“There’s got to be a building we haven’t cased yet. Or a basement. Something,” she insisted. “Find it. Find them.”

“There’s nothing,” Watkins said from inside. “No one.”

Logan cocked his head just as Hawk felt it, a slight vibration beneath them. It was hard to discern between the howling wind screeching in his ear and the sharp static on the radio, but he’d bet that they were no longer alone up here.

“What’s going on?” Abby asked.

Neither Logan or Hawk answered, not wanting to give away their position in the icy darkness, which was so complete that without the night vision goggles, they couldn’t have seen a hand in front of their faces. Unfortunately, the goggles couldn’t cut through the heavy dust kicked up by the wind as they silently moved toward the ladder they’d commandeered and left on the northeast side.

Which was now missing. Shit.

“Problem,” Logan said.

“What?” Abby repeated in that voice that could give a dead guy a wet dream. Hopefully Hawk wasn’t going to get dead, but without the ladder there was no way down without taking a flying leap. Just the thought made him break out into a cold, slippery sweat.

Logan jerked his head to the left, and Hawk nodded. Logan would go left, and he’d go right.

“Logan,” Abby said tightly. “Hawk. Check in.”

“We’ve got company,” Logan said, so calmly he sounded comatose. “We’re separating to locate.”

“Details,” she demanded.

“Someone took our ladder.”

There was silence for one disbelieving beat. “Watkins, Thomas,” she snapped. “Back them up. Now.”

She was sounding a little more drill sergeant and a little less sex kitten, thought Hawk. Which was good, except he must be one sick puppy because the sound of her kicking ass turned him on as much as when she’d sounded like she was kissing it.

“West side is clear,” Logan reported via radio, right on cue.

“Hawk?” This from Abby. “Check in.”

“Oh, I’m fine, thanks.” He eyed the slippery roof, the distance to the ground, and gave a shudder. At Abby’s growl of frustration, he let slip a grim smile as he looked left, right, behind him. Another gust blew through, wailing, railing, raising both holy hell and a thick cloud of dust as the icy air sliced right through him. He couldn’t see anything, any sign of Logan behind him, or anyone else.

Which could be good.

Or very, very bad.

“Where are you?” Abby asked.

In hell. Of that, Hawk had no doubt. “Logan?”

“Hawk, get down now,” Logan suddenly said, and then came a click, as if he’d been cut off.

“Logan?” Hawk tapped the earpiece. Nothing. The radio was dead, but he’d get off the roof because Logan’s instincts were as good as his own. He couldn’t see much, but he knew there was a tall oak nearby, with branches close enough to reach and subsequently shimmy down. All the way down. Christ.

A sound came from three o’clock, and Hawk whipped his head around. Logan or enemy? Going down.

To do so, he had to shove his night vision goggles to the top of his head so that he couldn’t see the ground rushing up to meet him, not that that helped much because he had a helluva imagination, and could picture it just fine.

The wind doubled its efforts to loosen his hold, blinding him with debris. All he could do was hold on and pray for mercy as he lowered himself, even though praying had never really worked for him.

When his feet finally touched ground, he inhaled a deep breath and nearly kissed the damn tree trunk. Instead, he drew his gun and backed to the wall of the barn. Just to his left was a window, boarded and taped, and yet he’d swear he saw a quick flash of light from within.

Someone was definitely inside.

Watkins?

Or his very secretive bomb maker?

The radio was still eerily silent, and foreboding crept up through his veins as he slipped the night-vision goggles back over his eyes and turned the corner of the barn. There his gaze landed on a door low to the ground—a cellar entrance. Before he could try the radio again, the door flipped open, catching the wind and hitting the barn wall like a bullet.

A man crawled out, silhouetted by stacks of ammo behind him, and piles of guns, rifles, awfully similar to the ones that had been stolen from beneath his nose. Apparently the Kiddie Bombers liked to be armed. With ATF-confiscated weapons. Hawk steadied his gun and waited for the rogue agent to reveal himself.

The man’s head lifted and all Hawk’s suspicions were immediately confirmed. Gaines.

He managed to get a shot off, then a white-hot blast knocked him flat on his ass.


2

THE BASTARD HAD shot him, point blank, and given that it felt like his lungs had collapsed, he assumed he’d taken the hit in his chest. God bless the bulletproof vest. Stunned, gasping for air, he tried to remain conscious, but his vision had already faded on the edges and was closing in as he lay on his back, staring up at the night sky as a whole new kind of hurt made itself at home in every corner of his body….

“Hawk? Check in,” Abby said in his ear.

Check in? He felt like he was checking out…. But the radio was back, good to know, and man, did she sound hot. Too bad he was floating…floating on agony, thank you very much, and utterly unable to move.

Or speak.

“Hawk.”

Ah, wasn’t that sweet? She sounded worried. He was touched, or would have been if he could get past the searing pain. He needed to get up, to protect himself—

A foot planted itself on his throat, and then the fire in his body sizzled along with his vision as his air supply was abruptly cut off.

By Gaines. Regional director.

Traitor.

Hawk tried to lift one of his arms to grasp at the foot on his windpipe.

“Don’t bother.” Gaines pressed harder. “You’ll be dead soon, anyway. I just wanted you to suffer a little first, you know, for screwing with me for so long.”

Hawk found himself shockingly helpless, an absolutely new and unenjoyable experience. He simply couldn’t draw air, and good Christ but he felt like his chest was burning.

“Hurts like a mother, doesn’t it?”

What hurt the most was that he couldn’t remember if he’d managed to spit out Gaines’s name before he’d gone down. In case this all went to shit, he wanted Logan to know they’d been right. That is, if the radio was even back up. “Logan—”

“Sorry. It’s going to be a tragic evening all around. You’re both going to die trying to double-cross the agency.”

Through a haze of agony as he choked on his very last breath, he realized he was still gripping his gun. Now if only he could get the muscles in his arm to raise it. As he struggled, he heard everyone checking in.

Watkins.

Thomas.

Logan. Thank God, Logan.

Any second now they’d realize Hawk hadn’t checked in as well.

That he couldn’t…

“HAWK? COME IN, HAWK.” Abby said this with what she felt was admirable calm, even as a bead of sweat ran between her breasts. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t just that their equipment had failed—even the backup equipment—for five long minutes.

“I don’t see him,” Thomas radioed.

“Me either.” This from Watkins.

“I’m going back up to the roof,” Logan responded. “Maybe he never got down.”

She expected Hawk to jump in here with laughter in his voice to say that everything was good. But he didn’t. Oh, God. She needed to sit down. For several months. Because he would not joke, not at a time like this. He might be surprisingly laid-back and easygoing considering the constant, nonstop danger the job put him in, but he knew protocol. He’d been a soldier, Special Forces. He lived by the rules, and to her knowledge, always followed them. “Hawk.”

When he still didn’t answer, she visualized him. Her therapist had taught her that picturing the cause of her grievance helped.

Of course her therapist had meant the men who’d taken her hostage, but the idea behind it was the same. Hoping it would work, she concentrated on the image of Conner Hawk.

It took embarrassingly little time—like one-point-two seconds. He came to her shirtless, which she didn’t—shouldn’t—speculate about. The only time she’d ever seen him that way had been six months ago, on her first day. He and Logan had spent hours lying beneath a truck in the broiling hot sun, surveying a house. After the arrests, Hawk had come into the office for a change of clothing he kept in his locker.

Abby had been sitting at a table in the employee room eating lunch, her fork raised halfway to her mouth, her salad forgotten as he’d stalked past, eyes tired, several days worth of growth on his lean jaw, sunglasses shoved up to the top of his head. He’d ripped off his sweaty shirt and stood there in nothing but jeans riding dangerously low on his hips as he and Logan laughed about something while he fought with his locker door.

Ever since the hostage situation, her therapist had been promising her that her physical desire for men would eventually return, probably when she least expected it. She’d traveled a bit, visited her parents and sister in Florida, where they’d busily set her up on all the blind dates she’d allow, and yet nothing had really taken. But sitting there in that room, it had not only returned, it came back with bells and whistles.

Holy smokes.

Conner Hawk had it going on.

Unable to help herself, she’d continued to stare at him, soaking in his tanned, sinewy chest, the tattoo, the various scars that spoke of how many years he’d been doing the hero thing. His jeans had a hole in one knee and another on the opposite thigh, exposing more lean flesh.

Then he’d glanced over and caught her staring.

Unnerved, she’d dropped her fork in her lap. Unfortunately it had still been loaded with the bite she’d never taken. Ranch dressing on silk. Nicely done.

Those melting chocolate eyes had met hers, filled with that cynical amusement he was so good at. He hadn’t said a word as he’d yanked a fresh, clean shirt over his head, the muscles in his biceps and quads flexing, his ridged abdomen rippling as he’d pulled the material down. His eyes, even heavy-lidded from exhaustion, had still managed to convey a heat that had exhilarated her in a way she hadn’t wanted to think about.

After that, he’d never quite accepted her icy silence for what it was—a desperate cry for him to stay away, because she needed her distance.

Oh, boy, had she needed her distance. And she couldn’t blame him for not really buying it. Hell, she’d definitely, at least for that one moment, given him the wrong impression. She’d given herself the wrong impression, because she’d wanted him—wanted his arms to come around her, wanted him to dip his head and kiss her, long and deep and wet as he slid his hands over her body, giving it the pleasure she’d denied herself all year.

But she’d come to her senses and hadn’t let herself lapse again.

At least not publicly.

As the newcomer to the division, she’d made a big effort to fit in, to get to know all her co-workers, while definitely staying clear of Hawk. She’d been aloof and stand-offish with him and him alone because she’d thought it best for her to keep far away until she was ready for the feelings he evoked. Which she still wasn’t.

That didn’t mean she didn’t care, because she did. Too much. Therein lay her problem.

From that salad-in-the-lap moment, Abby had taken one look at him, past the bad boy physique, past the knowing grin, and had known.

She could care too much for this man.

Now she sat in the van, with the night whipping around them, desperately visualizing Hawk checking in because she had to believe he was okay.

Please be okay.

“Someone’s down,” came Watkins’s voice. “Repeat, agent down.”

Oh, God. Once upon a time, she’d been the agent down, and just the words brought back the stark terror.

Dark room.

Chained to a wall.

Cold, then hot, then fear like nothing she’d ever known when she’d realized her captors wanted information she didn’t have, and that they were going to torture her anyway….

But this wasn’t then. And what had happened to her wasn’t happening now. Concentrate, damn it. Focus. “Where is he?”

The men behind her, Ken and Wayne, already in high alert from the equipment failure, worked more frantically, trying to get feed on him.

“Watkins,” she said. “Clarify.”

Nothing.

“Thomas, are you with Watkins?”

More of that horrifying nothing. Whipping around, she looked at the two men in disbelief. “Are we down again?”

Wayne’s fingers tapped across his keyboard. “Fuck. Yes.”

Was it possible for a heart to completely stop and yet pound at the same time? “They need backup.” She stood to yank off her blazer.

“What are you doing?” Ken demanded.

“Getting ready.” Abby tossed her useless headset aside.

“No. We’re not supposed to—”

“We have at least one man down and no radio.” She slapped a vest over her shirt, and then grabbed a gun, emotion sitting heavy in her voice. No cool, calm and collected now. No, all that had gone right out the window with her last ounce of common sense, apparently. “We’re going in.”

There was some scrambling, whether to join her or stop her she didn’t know because she didn’t look back as she opened the door to the van.

LOGAN BOLTED ACROSS THE ROOF of the barn, dodging the icy spots and the shadow he’d seen. Not Gaines, but one of his paid goons, coming back from where he’d last spotted Hawk.

He sped up, high-tailing his way toward Hawk, because that’s what they did, they backed each other up. They’d been doing so for years in far tighter jams than this one. And in all that time, he’d never once felt anything but utterly invincible.

But at this moment, all he felt was terror.

Hawk was down.

Rounding a corner of the roof, Logan headed toward a vent. As he crouched down behind it to survey the situation, the air stirred, and he felt a blinding pain in the back of his neck. As he whipped around to fight, he was hit again, by a two-by-four, or so it felt, and then he was flying off the roof toward the ground.

Shit. Now both he and Hawk were down….

THIS WAS RIDICULOUS, ABBY TOLD herself as the cold, icy night slapped her face. She’d taken herself out of the field. She’d vowed that nothing could get her back to it. And yet here she was, off and running at the first sign of trouble because she couldn’t stand the thought of an agent down.

Ken caught up with her, both of them gasping in the shockingly bitter wind. They took the long, winding dirt path up toward the ranch. The place sat on a set of rolling hills that looked deceptively mild and beautiful by day. But by night the area turned almost sinister, steep, rugged and dangerously isolated. Fallen pine needles crunched beneath their feet. The patches of ice were lethal spots of menace that could send them flying, but still they ran.

The wind didn’t help. It was picking up, if that was possible, slicing through to the very bone, kicking up a dusty haze that nothing could cut through, not even the night vision goggles.

When they reached the dark farmhouse, they stopped to draw air into their burning lungs.

“Around the back,” Ken said. “The barn’s around the back.”

She was already moving that way but came to a stop at the corner of the farmhouse, where she had the vantage point of what should have been a woodsy clearing, but with the dark and the driving winds, seemed more like the wilds of Siberia.

She knew the barn lay beyond the trees, but in between there were no lights, no sign of human life. Abby went left, Ken right, both skirting the edges of the clearing, using the trees as cover.

Where was everyone?

As she came through the woods, the barn loomed up ahead, nothing but a black outline against a black sky. And then she saw him.

Hawk.

He was standing, holding his gun pointed at someone standing in the door of the barn.

Abby watched in horror as the gun flashed, and she caught a glimpse of the man he’d aimed at flying backward like a rag doll.

Gaines? Elliot Gaines? What the hell? Why was he here? Everything within her went cold. Had Hawk just shot Gaines?


3

WINNING WAS EVERYTHING. Knowing it, Gaines pushed down harder on Hawk’s windpipe, barely feeling the blood running down his arm. He’d been nicked before, a year and a half ago in Seattle as a matter of fact, while wrestling in the dark with one of his own ATF agents.

Hawk, in fact.

See, that’s what happened when one hired the best, and Hawk was the best of the best. He was a fucking pitbull, and he’d all but publicly promised to stop at nothing until the leader of the Kiddie Bombers was behind bars.

He might as well have signed his own death certificate.

And goddamn, he’d actually gotten a shot off. That was a pisser. But the explosions Gaines’s men had rigged would go off soon, and Hawk would be lost in them. Logan also, because it had become clear tonight that there was no other way.

And though it killed him, Abby, too.

No loose ends.

And there wouldn’t be. Thanks to his crew, which included Watkins working on the inside, everything had been perfectly choreographed. Already Tibbs would have received an anonymous tip that would raise enough questions about Hawk’s “role” in the theft of the rifles from the ATF to enable Tibbs to get a search warrant for Hawk’s place. There he’d find a computer memory stick with Kiddie Bombers’ information, including purchases, sales and contacts, password-protected and encrypted just enough to make it look legit.

Hawk framed, check. Hawk dead, almost check.

And then, retirement time. Good times. The only thing that would have made tonight perfect would have been if he hadn’t been forced to take out Abby. He regretted that, and he’d miss her like hell, but he couldn’t risk the rest of his life for a piece of tail, no matter how badly he wanted that piece.

He was so close now. Close enough to taste it. God, he loved to win. And tonight, he planned to win big. “Got any last-minute prayers?”

EVEN WITH HIS VEST, the after-effects of taking a slug in the chest were brutal. His muscles were spasming, his body twitching, and it was sheer agony to get his limbs to obey his mind. But Hawk managed to grab Gaines’s ankle and yank him to the ground, leveling the playing field, though not by much. Jesus, even his brain hurt, feeling as if it’d been used as a pinball within his skull. Gathering his thoughts was an exercise in futility, but he had to fight off Gaines—then he caught the flicker from within the barn. Flames. Ah, shit, the whole thing was going to—

Blow.

The explosion knocked them both backward. The barn roof blew sky high, catching the grass in the clearing on fire, as well as the trees.

Surrounded. He was surrounded by unrelenting heat, scorching him both inside and out. Gaines came up on his knees, looking like death warmed over as he staggered to his feet, pointing his gun. “You’re hard to kill.”

“So are you.” Hawk’s gaze locked on the dark spot blooming out from the shoulder of Gaines’s jacket. “Missed your black heart, unfortunately. I blame the hit to the chest. Threw me off.”

The smoke rose from behind Gaines’s head, making it look like steam was coming out of his ears.

“It’s going to get worse,” his own personal monster said.

It was true. If Gaines chose to shoot Hawk in the nuts, there was nothing he could do. His body was shit at the moment.

Gaines pointed the gun between Hawk’s eyes.

“Go to hell,” Hawk said.

Gaines grinned. “Tell you what, I’ll meet you there.”

Hawk’s life flashed before his eyes. His parents, gone now, but so proud of him when they’d been alive. Special Forces, where he’d had a good run—no, make that a great run—before moving to ATF.

Another great run.

Until now.

Maybe he should have added some more personal touches to his life’s canvas. A wife. Kids. But he’d always figured there was plenty of time for that.

Helluva time to be wrong. “Do it,” he said, coughing from the smoke. “And die.”

Gaines laughed. “You have no idea how right you are. Now give me your gun.”

Hawk tossed it over, then attempted to keep breathing. Not easy when his chest was still on fire, and actual flames were leaping all around them. He had no idea why he was alive but just in case it didn’t last, he kicked his foot out and again swiped Gaines’s legs from beneath him. They rolled, and he got two strong punches into his superior’s gut before he lost the element of surprise and Gaines clocked him in the jaw, and then his ribs.

Unlike Tibbs, Gaines had no soft middle. He was built like a boxer, one who trained 24/7. On a good day, he’d be a tough opponent in a fight, but tonight, with Hawk in agony, was not a good day. They fought dirty and hard, and the bitch of it was, Hawk had no idea what the hell had happened—why had Gaines come after him? He fisted his hands in Gaines’s shirt, and the material ripped, revealing…

A puckered scar over his collar bone. From a bullet. Goddamn, his proof had just literally appeared. “I did hit you that night,” he breathed. “I did. I fucking hit you.”

“But I lived.” Panting heavily, Gaines grinned. “Guess you need more target practice, huh?”

The heat from the blast and the flames licking at them had sweat streaming into Hawk’s eyes. He couldn’t see anything but Gaines’s face and a wall of flames.

They had to finish this thing off now, one way or another, or they were both going to die. Hawk swiped more sweat from his eyes and gasped to draw air into his taxed lungs. “So running the whole division wasn’t good enough for you, you had to put illegal weapons back on the street? Why didn’t you just kill a bunch of innocent people yourself?”

Gaines’s jaw tightened. He was holding onto his shoulder with his free hand, assuring Hawk that he’d been hurt more than he wanted to show. “I’m going to kill you instead.”

“I’m not dying tonight.”

“We’re both dying tonight. Only difference is that my death’s going to be fake. Well, that and the fact that you’re going out as the bad guy.”

“You’re insane. No one will ever believe that.”

“Abby will.”

Abby. Abby? What the hell did she have to do with this?

“She’s out there, you know.” Gaines jerked his chin in the direction of the clearing.

Hawk was just stunned enough to crane his head and look, but all he saw were those flickering flames coming ever closer, so close he could feel the hairs on his arm singing. “What are you talking about? She’s in the van.” Safe and sound.

God, please let her be in the van, safe and sound.

Gaines shrugged. “Let’s just say the hero worship I’ve built up with her is going to finally pay off for me, however briefly. Along with the news that Tibbs has just discovered evidence that you’ve been running the Kiddie Bombers.” He tsked. “Shame on you.”

Hawk had no idea what the hell Gaines was talking about. He couldn’t see Abby. Hell, he couldn’t see anything beyond the smoke, but Abby wouldn’t leave the van.

And yet he remembered how she’d lost her 1-900 voice when she’d sounded worried about him.

Or so he’d assumed…

He hadn’t survived all he’d survived without seeing the ugly side of human nature. Maybe she hadn’t been worried for him at all, but for Gaines. Ah, God, the thought of her in cahoots with the bad guy put a sharp pain right through him. A new pain, over and above the others, and that was saying something.

“Once Abby realizes I’m here and that I’m missing, she’ll want to save me,” Gaines mocked. “Too little, too late, of course.”

Hawk willed his damn muscles to obey the commands his brain was sending. Get up. Kick his ass. “Abby’s done with you. She turned you in,” he improvised.

Gaines went utterly still. “Bullshit.”

“Are you willing to gamble on it?” he taunted, biding time, trying to figure a way out of this mess.

Gaines straightened to scan the horizon, still holding his shoulder as he searched for someone.

Abby?

“If that’s true, I’ll have to up my timeline.”

Oh, Christ. “You won’t find her.” Because Hawk would get to her first. He began to inch backward. He had no idea where he thought he could escape to, but it was time to go. He’d managed to get a foot away when another explosion rang out, raining down fiery fragments on top of them. The smoke was so thick Hawk couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, but he sure as hell could keep moving, and he hightailed it as fast as he could.

“Goddamn you!” came Gaines’s howl of fury at Hawk’s escape.

Using the choking smoke as a screen, Hawk dodged into the woods, past the flames and grabbed a tree for support. Christ, he felt as if he’d been run over by a Mack truck.

Sinking all the way to the spinning ground seemed like a good idea. He did manage to roll to his back, where he studied the smoke-filled sky. Though he couldn’t see anything without his night goggles, which had slid off, oh, somewhere about the time that Gaines had given him a nice one-two punch to the left kidney, he could hear sirens. Fire engines, probably cops, too. Lots of them.

Because somehow Gaines had managed to frame him for everything he’d done, which was plenty.

God, he was so screwed.

ABBY COULDN’T BREATHE. Yes, she’d just run a half mile in less than two minutes, and was now inhaling only smoke as she stared in horror at the barn, engulfed in flames, but that wasn’t why she couldn’t catch any air in her lungs.

Had she really seen Hawk shoot Gaines before the explosion? She’d left the van in such a hurry that she hadn’t taken a radio. The only personal effects she carried were her gun, cell phone and the mini credit card she had attached to it in case of emergencies. She’d already called Tibbs. He’d told her that according to Thomas, Logan had fallen from the roof and was waiting for a helicopter to airlift him to Cheyenne Memorial Hospital. No word from Hawk.

God. The whole night had blown up in their faces. She’d asked Tibbs about Gaines being here, and he said he’d check and get back to her. In the meantime, gun drawn, she tried to get closer to the barn but the heat stopped her. She couldn’t see a thing, and she couldn’t get closer.

And then her cell vibrated. “Gaines is there,” Tibbs drawled. “Apparently, he came to watch the takedown.”

“Oh, my God.” So if she hadn’t imagined Gaines, then she probably hadn’t imagined Hawk shooting him either. Still holding her phone to her ear, she took off again but immediately tripped, falling flat on her face and losing her grip on her gun. Twisting around to see what she’d fallen over, she saw a roof shingle, and…a rifle?

“Abigail?”

“I’m here, Tibbs. I’m okay.” Crawling to the rifle, she picked it up, burning her fingers. She dropped it, but she didn’t need to access her computer to guess that the serial number on this rifle would match one of the ones stolen from their storage.

Was that why Gaines had come—had he suspected the Kiddie Bombers had taken the illegal weapons for their own personal use?

And why had Hawk shot him?

“Gaines radioed his office that he’d gotten into the barn,” Tibbs told her.

“The barn is on fire.”

“Did he get out?”

“On it.” After spending a few futile minutes trying to find her gun, she checked the rifle. Loaded. She slipped the leather strap over her shoulder and took a deep breath for courage. You can still do this. All around her the flames leaped and crackled and burned brighter, spurred on by the vicious wind.

Knowing she had to hurry, she moved deeper into the woods to get around the fire, staggering to a halt at the unholy howling of a wolf that sounded far too close. Could be worse, she told herself. Could be a grizzly.

Some branches rustled and she nearly swallowed her tongue as she rushed into motion, her shoes crunching on the frozen ground as she circled back in toward the barn, determined to get to the bottom of this crazy evening.

She passed no one, and not for the first time felt unnerved by that fact. How was the place so utterly deserted? None of it made any sense.

Unless.

Oh, God. Unless it had been a setup from the start. At the realization, her feet faltered, and she slipped on the rocky terrain but caught herself in time on a tree only twenty feet from the barn. Abby wanted so badly to wake up, to know that she wasn’t losing her mind.

She thought she knew Hawk, and sometimes she’d even felt as if he knew her, which was exceptionally crazy because she’d never let him in at all. But, God, the thought of him being a bad guy was like a knife to the gut.

Again her cell phone vibrated. She flipped it open.

“Where are you?” Watkins demanded.

“I’m—”

“I know, I’ve handled it,” he said.

Abby went absolutely still. “What?”

“Nothing, talking into my radio.

Wait—radio? He was talking into his radio? But the radios were down. And now her heart was in her throat. I’ve handled it…those three words brought her directly back to another raid, and another extremely bad time.

They’d been the words Gaines had spoken before she’d gone in that day, and then later, she’d heard those words from the men who’d held her. They’d spoken the words handled it into a radio to some unseen boss.

No. Had to be coincidental. Of course it was.

“Where are you?” Watkins asked tensely. “Why the hell did you leave the safety of the van? I need you to get back to the safety of the van, Abby. Do you copy?”

She opened her mouth to answer him but stopped herself.

Not saying a word was stepping over a line, a big one, but she didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Because who the hell was the bad guy here? Hawk?

Or…Watkins?

God, she was losing it.

“Abby?”

Yeah. That was her. But instead of responding, she quietly shut her phone and kept hugging the tree because suddenly her legs didn’t want to hold her.

She’d seen Hawk shoot Gaines. Hawk, gun in his hand, shoot point-blank. That made it him.

Right?

Her brain hurt, physically hurt. She couldn’t process it all, or make sense of it. Who to trust? Knowing she had only herself, she pushed away from the tree and ran—

And then tripped over…oh, God…a man sprawled on the ground, far too close to the flickering flames. “Elliot—” Dropping to her knees, Abby set her hands on his back and realized her mistake instantly.

This body was one solid muscle. With a moan, he rolled to his back, keeping his eyes closed beneath dark lashes and the straight dark lines of his eyebrows, which were furrowed together.

Hawk.


4

ABBY CROUCHED OVER Hawk and checked for a pulse, which he had. Relieved, she got to her feet and peered through the trees that were providing them cover. Out there she could see the barn. The side door was open, fire ripping outward, drawn by the cold, chilly oxygen. Beyond them, she could see…oh, God…boxes and boxes of ammo. She ran back to Hawk. “Hawk.”

“Present.”

She had no idea whose side he was on, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to leave him here to die. “Get up.”

“Sure.” But he didn’t move. And in spite of herself, everything within her softened. It was nothing personal, she tended to soften for injured animals and wayward children, too. It helped that he didn’t look like his usual strong, capable self all sprawled on the ground. “That was a direct order.”

“I’m hearing ya.”

She put her hand on his jaw and looked at his mouth, which was usually curved in amusement, at her, at himself, at life. But at the moment, it was tight. Grim. Reflecting pain. She never thought she’d miss that smile, but she did. “Come on, get up, you cocky, smug SOB.”

He lifted his head, and she found herself leveled flat by his soft brown eyes that were so in contrast to his definitively unsoft demeanor. Even flat on his back, he looked lean and angular and startlingly attractive as that mouth curved slightly. “Abby.”

How, while completely surrounded by such utter chaos, she could feel an odd zing, she had no idea. But just looking at him made her feel dangerously feminine. “Where’s Gaines?” she asked.

Hawk’s short, almost buzzed hair was dusted with dirt and ash and stood straight up, revealing his hairline and a nasty cut, oozing blood. “In hell,” he answered, voice rusty. “If there’s any justice.”

Oh, God. So it was true. Regret, and a huge sadness welled inside her. Once Gaines had saved her. Picked up the broken pieces and helped her put herself back together again. And she hadn’t been able to return the favor. “So he’s—”

“Not yet, he’s not.” His face hardened, his eyes so intense on hers that she’d have fallen to her knees if she hadn’t already been there.

“I saw you shoot him,” she said.

“Did you?” He grimaced. “Trust me—”

“Are you kidding?” Abby managed a laugh. He hadn’t even tried to deny it. “After what I saw tonight, I should trust a rat’s ass over you.”

“Look, whatever you’re thinking, you’ve got it wrong.” His gaze shifted past her as he carefully scanned the immediate area, making her shiver at the danger sparking from his eyes. “He set this whole game up tonight.”

Okay, clearly he was delusional, but she still had to get him away from the flames. “What hurts?”

His laugh was short and harsh. “Only every fucking inch.”

Well, that they could deal with. “Get up.”

“Any minute now, I swear.” He closed his eyes. “So, a cocky, smug SOB? Really?”

“Come on, Hawk.” He might be eyeing the flames licking at them with an eerie calm, but she was not. She hoped like hell Elliot had indeed gotten out. “Get up!”

He shifted to do just that. “Check our sixes.”

“What?”

“Our asses, Ab. Make sure we’re not being made. Gaines has a crew out here tonight, somewhere. They’re setting explosions and making merry.”

She added paranoid to the list. Which, given his situation, made sense. “I’ve got your damn ass, Hawk.” Fine as it was. Crawling around behind him, she slid her arms beneath his, wrapping them around his chest so that she could pull him to safety.

“Ah, that’s so sweet,” he murmured. “But now’s not a good time for me.”

She grated her teeth. This. This was one reason why she’d stayed her distance. The man exuded raw sex appeal. Only problem? He knew it. “Don’t flatter yourself.” She tugged. “Do you have to be so big?”

Though his eyes remained closed, he flashed a smile straight out of her very secret fantasies—pure wicked, mischievous promise. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Okay, if she ever got him out of here, she was going to kill him herself.

“You smell pretty,” he whispered.

Her gaze swiveled back to his, but his eyes were still closed.

“You always smell pretty…”

“You’re dreaming,” Abby said flatly.

“Nah. If I was dreaming, I wouldn’t be this close to begging you to finish me off.” But he tried to stand up, then inhaled sharply at the movement and promptly choked on the smoke. “Yeah. You really do smell amazing. Sexy.”

Now she choked. “Stop it.”

“Really sexy. Even when you’re blasting me with your glacial stare.”

“Shut up, Hawk.”

“You don’t glare at Logan,” he said thoughtfully. “Or Watkins. Or anyone. Just me.”

Well, that was just true enough to have her drawing in her own sharp breath as he staggered to his feet. “You don’t like me much,” he told her, rolling his shoulder as if it hurt.

“That’s not true. I like you plenty when you’re not talking.”

He sighed. “Now, see, I think I’d like you plenty if you were naked.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Asshole Hawk. Yeah, that fits—”

The next explosion was small but way too close and very hot. Instinctively, she pushed him back, knocking them both down. Then she was enveloped in Hawk’s strong arms and rolled, tucked into him while embers rained down.

When it was over, she realized that the muscles in his arms were quaking. He was a dead weight on top of her. “Hawk?”

A litany of swear words escaped him, blowing her hair back. He lifted his head, his eyes not even close to warm and soft, but hard as aged whiskey. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“What? Save your sorry ass?”

“Exactly. Save your own first, you hear me?”

“Then get moving!”

“Yeah.” With a groan, he got to his feet and reached out a hand to help her. A considerate bad guy.

Where was Gaines…?

Having been in a bad situation before, the worst, Abby had a gut-wrenching need for everyone to be okay and accounted for, even knowing that someone on her team had caused all this. “Do you think Gaines—”

“Oh, that’s right. You still need to rescue your Sugar Daddy.”

No one at ATF knew that she’d dated him twice, she’d made sure of that. Their relationship mostly consisted of her miraculous rescue, and then a vague, uncomfortable friendship that she’d had difficulty maintaining because of her new “issues.”

“Where is he, Hawk?” When he didn’t answer, she shook her head and turned toward the direction of the barn.

“No, wait. Don’t.” Hawk grabbed her arm, his eyes dark with concern. For her. And though it shouldn’t have, it touched her as he spoke. “Don’t even think about going back—”

“I have to.”

“Goddamnit, Ab—”

Yanking free, she was halfway to the barn when her cell vibrated. Pulling it out of her pocket, she flipped it open and saw “unknown” ID. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

Elliot’s unmistakable voice brought a wave of relief. “Where are you—”

“Listen to me. We’ve been betrayed. By Hawk.”

She processed the words, but, damn, it was hard to swallow, despite what she’d seen with her own eyes. “Elliot, are you sure, because—”

“Have I ever been wrong?”

Okay, no. No, he hadn’t. And she knew exactly what she owed him, but— “Whose phone are you calling me on, because it’s not yours—”

“Trust me, Abby.”

She wanted to. She knew he wanted her to. But just because she hadn’t ever allowed Hawk’s charm to melt away her panties didn’t mean she didn’t know that he was an incredibly good ATF agent, one who believed in what he did and believed in putting away the bad guys. There had to be an explanation for all of this. “Tell me where you are—”

Another explosion interrupted her, picking her up like a rag doll, tossing her once again on her ass in the dirt. Damn. Crawling back through the trees to where she’d left Hawk, she realized three extremely unsettling facts at once.

Gaines had disconnected.

Hawk was gone.

And she was all alone.

This night just kept getting better and better.


5

HAWK STUMBLED THROUGH the burning forest, getting his strength back as he made his way through the fiery night. Things had gone FUBAR quickly—“fucked up beyond all repair”—but he knew Gaines planned on somehow vanishing for good, and he couldn’t let that happen. What he really needed right now was Logan, and he wished like hell he still had a radio.

But, really, he was lucky to still have his head.

He knew Abby was going to be pissed at the disappearing act, but he’d have to deal with that later. And if it turned out she wasn’t in with Gaines, well, then he’d apologize and they’d all go back to their regularly scheduled program.

Which was her ignoring him. One of these days he’d figure out why her pissiness was such a turn-on….

Hawk made it around to the back of the barn before he fell to his hands and knees hard. Staring down at the dirt, he tried to gather his wits. Not easy, since they’d been scrambled by the explosions and then again by the knowledge that his boss had been playing both sides, selling the weapons they’d confiscated over the years on the black market, in essence undoing all the good they’d accomplished by putting those weapons right back into the hands of gangbangers, murderers and terrorists.

If he thought about it too long, it hurt his brain all the more. But it sure made sense. No matter how hard they’d worked at getting to the top of the Kiddie Bombers’ hierarchy, they’d been thwarted at every turn.

But Gaines hadn’t worked alone. No way. So who else was involved…Abby? And if not her, then who?

Watkins? Thomas?

Tibbs?

Not for the first time, he slapped at his pockets and his belt, but all forms of communication had been stripped from him in the fight. He’d even managed to lose his cell phone.

“We can’t get in because of the explosions.”

Hawk’s ears perked at the male voice. Who was that? Thomas?

“On Gaines’s last transmission, he said that Hawk did this, all of it.”

No, not Thomas, Hawk thought as he used a tree to silently push himself to his feet and peer through the trees at the figures he could barely make out.

“Gaines is presumed dead.”

Watkins. Watkins was the inside help Gaines had most likely needed.

“No,” came an answering female voice. A shaken one. “We don’t know that he’s dead.”

Abby. Sweet, hot Abby, with those gorgeous baby blues that softened whenever she smiled.

And hardened whenever she looked at Hawk.

He’d been looked at that way by women before, usually after a few drinks and an overnighter, when he’d made his excuses rather than stick around and explain that he was only saving the woman some time because he wasn’t a good long-term bet.

Hell, he wasn’t even a good medium-term bet.

No sweat, he’d always figured. He’d get back to the whole love game when he retired from the job.

Which wasn’t looking so good right now.

Abby had pulled out her cell, and was listening. “Yes, sir.” Slapping the phone shut, she let out a breath. “Tibbs found a memory stick in Hawk’s house.” She hesitated. “With information on the Kiddie Bombers.”

Ah, Christ. He’d been set up but good. Thanks, Gaines.

“If Gaines is dead…” Watkins trailed off, but Hawk silently finished the sentence in his own head.

Then I go up for murder.

The men around Abby moved off, probably to search for him. Get in line, he thought.

Gaines had really gotten it together for this one. If he had his way, Hawk would die tonight. Probably Logan, too.

And…oh, Christ. If Hawk had succeeded in even planting a seed of doubt in Gaines’s mind about Abby turning him in, then he’d screwed her.

Gaines would have to off her, too.

Whether she’d been in with Gaines no longer mattered, she was now a target right alongside Hawk. If something happened to her, it’d be his fault. Shit. Gulping in a deep breath, he pushed off from the tree and whipped around to pursue Abby.

To keep her safe.

But he only got about two steps before he plowed directly into a brick wall. A soft, perfumed brick wall.

Flying through the air, he realized the person trying to kill him had an instantly recognizable body and scent. Flowers, and some sort of sexy light spice that made him think of both sweetness and heat at the same time.

Of Abby, who’d wrapped her arms around him hard, and as they both sailed through the hazy air, heading toward the frozen earth, he had time to think one more thing.

Goddamn, but he was getting tired of eating dirt tonight.

ABBY SKIDDED ACROSS the unforgiving ground. She felt it digging into her legs, felt the damp chill her skin, but that was the least of her problems as Hawk rolled, pressing her into the ground with his body, which was taut and extremely primed for violence. Before she could so much as draw a smoke-filled breath, he clamped a hand over her mouth, completely immobilizing her, which promptly brought her back to another time and place. All her training flew out the window as terror took over, leaving her fighting like a wild thing, ineffective and serving only to drain her energy.

“Stop.” Hawk’s voice came low and gravelly, his mouth so close to her ear that she felt his lips brush her skin. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I can’t vouch for Gaines, so save it.”

The night and smoke combined to create an unwanted intimacy, as did his weight over her. They were away from the barn, in the trees, out of sight. But still, she held out hope that any second now Ken or Watkins or someone was going to help her. Then she’d find Elliot and get to the bottom of this crazy night.

“I’m going to take my hand away,” Hawk murmured. “But we’re going to stay just like this. Real quiet, okay?”

She nodded. Of course she nodded, but the minute he lifted away his fingers, she spit out “Get off me!”

He sighed and again covered her mouth, which made her struggle like mad beneath him. She was beyond frightened, but he was calm, breathing so normally she wanted to scream in frustration.

“Abby, goddamn it, stop.”

She tried to bite his fingers but he just pressed harder on her mouth. The low light cast his face in soft shadows, softening his features, making him seem almost vulnerable. Which was ridiculous given that she was the vulnerable one here!

“Are you with Gaines?” he asked.

What?

He was watching her very carefully. “I need to know. Which side are you on?” Slowly he lifted his hand from her mouth.

“I’m on the good side!”

Hawk stared at her. “I have no idea if you’re lying—”

“I’m not!”

His jaw brushed hers as he nodded, and she became extremely aware of how he held her. Tightly. Too tightly to move. And yet somehow, incredibly gently.

What kind of a bad guy cared if he hurt her or not?

“Just had to make sure.” He said this lightly, as if they were having tea and cookies instead of lying on the ground. “So if you’re not a bad guy, that means you—what came back to help me?”

“Yes,” she lied, closing her eyes for a moment to protect her thoughts, which were that she wished she could help him. She wished she could connect what she’d seen to what her heart was telling her—that this man, this fierce, intense, wildly sexy man couldn’t have possibly done what she saw him do. She gauged his weight. “I came back to help you.” Take you in. “Hawk…” She had to, Abby reminded herself, and though she had no idea what made her say it, she whispered, “I’m sorry,” and then came up hard with her knee between his legs.




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