Code Name: Bikini
Christina Skye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

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

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Northern Afghanistan

Winter

DARKNESS.

Wind and death.

Trace O’Halloran didn’t move. Cold dug under his Kevlar vest as he watched the rugged road below him.

Something moved over the snow-dusted ground near his feet. Another rat.

Red eyes glowed in the faint green light of his night-vision goggles. Only rats could survive in this godforsaken mountain pass in winter.

It was Christmas Eve. Back in the States, families sang hymns and parents assembled dollhouses to surprise wide-eyed children while snow fell in the soft hush.

But here on a rugged plateau in Afghanistan, the cold was merciless and wind cut with icy fingers. Frostbite was unavoidable if he didn’t find shelter soon. But the mission came first.

Trace leveled his gaze on the road three hundred feet below his hiding spot. He didn’t think about the fresh wounds across his left wrist or the blood that darkened his forearm, courtesy of a difficult high altitude, low opening—HALO—jump.

Abruptly he felt movements in the night. Leaning forward, he read a change in energy patterns. A three-truck convoy crawled through the darkness. Their Korean-made trucks were guarded by soldiers wielding Soviet RPG-7 shoulder-launched missiles.

An equal-opportunity war, he thought grimly.

And this was his target. The convoy carried covert German communication technology extorted from a weapons designer based in Singapore. Not surprisingly, the man had disappeared before he could reveal his blackmailer. In the hands of a trained technician, the new device could track a massive quantity of U.S. communications. Through the application of mathematical predictive models, government assets could be located and areas of vulnerability tapped within minutes. In enemy hands the system could inflict catastrophic damage, and Trace’s job was to see that the hardware never reached its destination.

Truck lights carved the darkness. The convoy stopped with a screech of brakes. Agitated voices cut through the cold, still air.

The men in the Korean trucks were ruthless and well trained. They would shoot anything suspicious on their trek to an isolated mountain stronghold sixty miles to the north. But Trace didn’t intend to be noticed until he was ready. As he glanced at his watch, his skin burned. Frostbite was setting in.

Ignoring his pain, the SEAL fingered a button on the device in his left pocket.

Something moved down on the road. The first truck pulled sideways and two soldiers jumped out. Arguing loudly, they pointed to a paper flapping in the bone-chilling wind.

Right on schedule, Trace thought. Nice to see technology working right for once. His maneuver had lured them exactly where he wanted them.

Dark fur brushed his arm. Ears raised alertly, a black Labrador retriever held his down position behind a rock, awaiting Trace’s next order. The big dog had trained with Trace for months to prepare for this mission, and Trace sensed the dog’s eagerness to go to work.

Not yet, Duke.

His hand settled on the dog’s head. The Lab watched every movement, waiting for the next touch command.

As the wind keened over the rocky slope, Santa Fe and Christmas cheer were a universe away. Trace couldn’t even remember his last Christmas at home. His last two leaves had been cut short because of security alerts. As part of a top-secret government team, code-named Foxfire, Trace trained hard and kept personal attachments next to nil. That was the price of admission for special operations work, but the conditions had never bothered Trace, not when the stakes were so high.

Other people might call him a patriot. But for Trace the job boiled down to very personal terms—protecting family, friends and a way of life from enemies without honor or scruples. If doing his job meant taking a bullet, he was more than ready to pay that price with his own blood.

A silent alarm vibrated at his wrist.

Showtime.

Silently, he pulled a small box from his Kevlar vest. The dog sniffed, then gripped the box’s metal handle between his teeth. When Trace touched the Lab’s collar in a pre-arranged command, weeks of training kicked in. Duke skirted the rocks, turned and then headed for the road below.

Be safe, Trace thought. Stay low and move fast. He didn’t have to project the commands. Duke would do exactly as trained.

Trace leveled his scoped assault rifle and measured his target. A third hostile soldier jumped down, shouting at his teammates. Trace took out the nearest truck’s tires and front windshield with a four-second burst.

The insurgents scattered. Gunfire hammered the air above Trace’s head. His next volley drilled the middle truck’s gas tank. Under the explosive flare of an orangered fireball, he jumped a boulder and dropped into a narrow wash that snaked toward the road.

Hidden by walls of sand, he followed the curve of the wash, a shadow swallowed by the greater darkness of the night. One short tap on a small transmitter alerted his backup team that the encounter had begun. Now he had only minutes to complete his objective and head for the extraction point.

He sprinted to the bottom of the wash and found the big package exactly where he’d left it a day earlier, buried beneath a foot of sand. In seconds Trace had opened the canvas to reveal a blood-spattered body dead for barely ten hours. He rechecked the uniform pockets, then hefted the dead weight over his shoulders.

Hidden by the mayhem of the explosion, he carried the body closer to the road, placed it in the sand and then raced along a second trail barely visible in the light from the burning truck.

It was time to draw fire and alert the convoy to the body. If all went as planned, the insurgents would find the communications gear and codes planted on the body and begin using them. Everything they picked up from U.S. sources would be carefully constructed disinformation.

Trace wasn’t crazy about using human remains for a mission, but their local allies had provided unidentifiable bodies of insurgents killed in a violent skirmish earlier that day. Now they were dressed and outfitted as American soldiers.

Automatic weapons fire punched the air to his left, and a tracer round whined over his head. For every round he could see, Trace knew there were three others invisible in the darkness. The SEAL followed the rocky slope away from his service dog, who bounded toward a nearby overhang. Once Trace was certain the body had been discovered, he turned into the open and made a clumsy run toward the highest ridge, his movements calculated to draw maximum fire.

The maneuver worked. Down the hill, dark shapes raced toward him, rifles level.

Kevlar was good, but it wouldn’t stand up to repeated bursts from an AK-47. That’s where the ceramic plates in his vest took over. But a glancing blow hit him with deadly force and knocked him off his feet.

Calculating the speed of his pursuers, he primed a grenade and lobbed it over his shoulder. Rocks shot up, clawing at his back and neck while gunfire burned near his face and tore through his glove. His excited pursuers clustered at the top of the slope below, shouting in delight when they saw Trace fall.

A second burst of fire drilled up his arm, but he didn’t move, feigning a fatal wound.

His heart pounded.

Sweat streaked his face.

Footsteps raced behind him. He calculated strike force, distance and probable accuracy as the wind howled over the rocks, and then his fingers closed around another grenade. He yanked the pin and lobbed the deadly metal sphere hard, generating a wall of noise that masked more enemy fire.

The blast was deafening. Sand flew into his eyes and mouth. Another round tore through his right deltoid.

Trace’s vision blurred. More shrapnel from enemy fire tore into his chest and neck. He stumbled and then plunged forward, the wind in his face as he hit the cold sand. A chopper crested the mountain, the whine from its engines blessedly familiar.

Another explosion ripped through the night, and the lead truck vanished in a red fireball.

The big Lab had accomplished his mission, planting his C-4 charge under the last truck while the insurgents were distracted by Trace’s clumsy run.

Nice job, Duke.

Pain raked Trace’s chest. He stumbled as blood gushed thickly over his Kevlar vest, every muscle stiff, every movement strained. Over his head the mountains seemed to darken, blurred between cold wind and night sky.

And then he died.

CHAPTER TWO

SOMETHING WAS wrong.

The air was too clean, too calm. There was no acrid smell of cordite and no rumble of distant artillery.

White curtains danced slowly in a warm wind. The smells of bleach and floor wax filled his damaged lungs.

Wounded. Hospital?

“Nice to see you’re finally awake.” The voice was vaguely familiar. “You look pretty good for a dead guy.”

Trace cracked open one eye. Even that small movement hurt.

Hell, everything hurt, but he couldn’t remember why.

“Very funny.” Trace managed to lift his head. “You look like shit, Houston.” He smiled slightly. “Maybe life with my sister doesn’t agree with you.”

“Kit, hell. I wish I’d been home with her. Instead I flew overnight from Singapore to get here.”

Trace tried to sit up and grimaced. “Where’s here?”

His superior officer, Wolfe Houston, stared at him thoughtfully. “Military hospital. Germany. You’re in ICU, pal. Ryker has been spitting bullets waiting for you to come around.”

Ryker. The head of his top-secret government operations team. That much Trace remembered.

He didn’t move. His throat felt raw, as if he’d swallowed a convoy’s worth of gasoline fumes, which he probably had. Slowly the fragments began to return. He’d used all his grenades, and then he’d stumbled across the ridge in clear sight, drawing fire to the location of a second, cached body left where they were meant to be found. More false codes were planted on that second body.

As AK-47 bursts followed a blast from a shoulder-launched missile, Trace had gone down, knocked out cold. Duke had to have jumped the rocks, dragging him to safety while the helicopter drew fire. A second chopper would have shot in low to pick up Trace and Duke.

Otherwise the SEAL wouldn’t be here in one piece.

As the rest of his memories returned, his head began to pound. When he sat up, his left arm felt too heavy. “How’s Duke?”

“Your dog is A-Okay. He just ate two steaks and ran a mile before breakfast. I wish I could say the same for you.” Houston’s expression sobered. “You were in cardiac arrest, completely flatlined when our people got you aboard. It took almost two minutes to revive you. Duke didn’t leave your side once.”

Trace managed a lopsided grin. “Duke did good. He saved my butt after that last volley. I remember he dragged me to the extraction point, not much after that. But…something’s different.”

“You were dead, O’Halloran. Of course you don’t remember much.”

No, something else was wrong. Trace shook his head. “My reflexes are off. I can’t pick up any energy trails. Everything is quiet.”

“Your chips are all disabled. Precautionary measure, according to Ryker. He told the medical team to close down all your Foxfire technology until you’re fully recovered.”

Trace stared at the ceiling, trying to get used to the deafening silence inside his head. “I like knowing who’s behind me without having to look around. When will I be reactivated for duty?”

“Get well first.”

In war, soldiers fought with all kinds of ammunition. Recently the array of weapons had changed drastically. As part of the Foxfire team, the two men used focused energy as a tactical weapon. Thanks to mental training, physical conditioning and selective chips developed in a secret facility in New Mexico, their seven-member team had changed the definition of military combat.

Only a few people knew that the success rate of the covert Foxfire team was unmatched anywhere in special operations. Trace excelled at psi sweeps, spreading energy nets and reading changes made by anything alive in the area. The more difficult the terrain, the better.

Usually, he could have communicated telepathically with his commanding officer. Now there was only silence. Trace was stunned by the difference. With his extra senses closed down, he was locked within the narrow space of his body. The experience made him realize how much he had taken his Foxfire gifts for granted. Now he was flying blind, moving through a world that felt like perpetual twilight.

But chips took a toll on the nervous system, and even good implants could malfunction. Better that his hardware be disabled until his body recovered from the beating it had taken in Afghanistan.

As a test, Trace tried to set an energy net around the small room. Usually he would have succeeded in seconds.

But now nothing happened.

Wolfe Houston watched him intently. “Tried an energy net, didn’t you?”

Trace shrugged.

“You okay with this?”

No way. Trace felt out of balance and irritated, and he chose his words carefully. “I’m used to my skill set. Being without any energy sensation is damned unnerving. How do people live like this?”

“I’m told they manage pretty well,” Wolfe said dryly.

Trace shifted restlessly. “How bad was I hit?”

“Let’s just say you won’t make Wimbledon this year.”

“Hate tennis. Stupid ball. Stupid shorts.” Trace hid a grimace as pain knifed down into his shoulder. “Now how about you cut the crap? How bad, Houston? When do I get back on my feet, and when will my chips be reactivated?”

Silence.

He stared at Wolfe Houston’s impassive face. No point in trying to read any answers there.

“You’re here for a patch job, which you’ve received. Air evac will transport you to a specialized hospital stateside within the hour. If you do everything right, you’ll be back in action inside six weeks.”

Trace made a silent vow to halve that prediction. “What about the bodies? Did they take the bait?”

“Swallowed it whole. They’re already using the communications unit you secured inside the uniform. That hardware will generate permanent system deviation in the parent programs. Hello, major static.”

Trace smiled slowly. “Goodbye, security problems.”

“Ryker is thrilled. You’ve earned yourself some solid R&R. So what will it be, Vegas or San Diego?”

“Forget the R&R. Get a rehab doc in here. I need to start building up my arm.” Trace tried to sit up, but instantly something tore deep in his shoulder. He closed his eyes, nearly blacking out from the pain.

A shrill whine filled the room—or was it just in his head?

“Idiot. What happened?”

“I’m just—just a little dizzy, sir.” Trace blinked hard at the ceiling. Pale green swirled into bright orange. Did they paint hospital ceilings orange?

“…you hear me?”

The orange darkened, forming bars of crimson.

“Trace…hear me now?”

The room was spinning. Trace had felt the same sensation back in Afghanistan before Duke had roused him, licking his face furiously.

His vision blurred. He tried to stand up, biting back a curse as the whine grew. Chip malfunction? Can’t be. They’re all disabled.

Have to stand up. Have to find out what’s wrong.

The room spun faster. Trace didn’t see a medical team crowd around the bed, equipment in hand.

He was back in Afghanistan, fighting brutal cold and a hail of tracer rounds.

“DOES HE KNOW?”

“Not yet.”

Two men stood at the end of the deserted hospital corridor, their faces grim. In front of them a fresh X-ray was clipped to a light box.

Trace’s surgeon frowned. “He’s still groggy from the last surgery.” The tall Johns Hopkins grad tapped the black-and-white image. “Torn ligaments. Bone fragments—here, here, here. We cleaned up everything we found. After rehab he should recover full use of his elbow and wrist, which is a near miracle. You saw him on arrival. I’ve seen a lot of trauma cases, but nothing like that. What did you people do, shoot him out of a tank?” He didn’t wait for an answer, rubbing his neck worriedly. “If he’d lost much more blood, he wouldn’t have made it out of surgery.”

The other man took a slow breath. His dark, sculpted features bore a resemblance to Denzel Washington’s, except his eyes were colder, making him look older than his age. “Tell me about his shoulder, Doctor. I don’t like the bone damage here….” Ishmael Teague traced the gray lines radiating across the X-ray. “Will he regain full mobility in his right shoulder?”

“We don’t read crystal balls, Teague. With your medical training, you know how risky predictions can be. All I can say is that this man was in excellent shape before this happened, and we’ll give him the best support for his recovery. The rest is up to him—and to far higher powers than mine.”

Izzy Teague didn’t move, studying the network of lines spidering through the X-ray. “I want hourly updates on his condition and round-the-clock monitoring by your best people. Notify me at any sign of change.”

“All things considered, he’s recovering well. Give me a week, and he’ll be starting phase one rehab.”

Something crossed Izzy’s face. “You’ve got twenty-four hours, Doctor.”

“That’s impossible. This man needs rest, close observation and at least two more surgeries. Maybe after that…”

“You have twenty-four hours.” Izzy’s voice was cold with command. “I have a plane inbound. We’ll prep him for travel.”

“You won’t find a better medical facility anywhere in the country.” The surgeon scowled. “Don’t play politics with me, Teague. He could end up with a ruined joint if you move him now.”

“Not now. Twenty-four hours, Doctor.” Izzy pulled the X-ray down from the light box. “Orders are orders.” His voice was flat.

“You know this is wrong. Fight it. Pull rank.”

Izzy looked at the closed door down the hall. “My clout doesn’t stretch as far as you think. There are other…factors.”

The surgeon glanced at the unnumbered door, which was guarded by uniformed soldiers. The rest of the hospital floor had been emptied. Only this one room was occupied. “I knew something was up when you moved all my patients, but I won’t play along. By all rights this man should be dead, considering how much blood he lost. In spite of that he’s recuperating in minutes, rather than hours. I don’t suppose you’re going to explain how that’s possible.”

Both men knew it was a rhetorical question.

The surgeon made a sharp, irritated gesture. “You won’t let me in on your secrets, and you want me to risk a patient because of a whim.”

Teague’s handsome features were unreadable. “Orders, Doctor. Not whims. We’ll be sure he’s stable before he’s moved. At that point he’ll be out of your hands.” He rolled up the film and slid it carefully inside his briefcase. “And for the record, John Smith was never here. You never saw him, Doctor. You didn’t see me, either.”

“Is that an order?”

“Damned right it is.”

The grizzled military surgeon pulled a cigar from the pocket of his white coat and sniffed it lovingly. “Had to give the damned things up last year. I’ve got a desk full of these beauties, and this is the closest I can get. Life’s a real bitch sometimes.” He stroked the fine Cuban cigar between his fingers and then tucked it carefully back into his pocket. “Do what you have to do. I never saw either of you.” His voice fell. “And just for the record, Vladivostok is the capital of Michigan.”

“You never know. World politics are turning damned unpredictable these days.” Izzy looked down as his pager vibrated. “Hold on.” He pushed a button and scrolled through a data file, his eyes growing colder by the second.

“Is there a problem with John Smith?” the doctor asked.

Izzy slid the pager back into its clip. “Do you remember Marshall Wyckoff?”

“Senator Wyckoff’s daughter? Sure, we saw her—what, two years ago? I heard that she’d recovered from her kidnapping. She was an honor student, head of her debate team.”

“Was, Doctor. They just found her body floating under the third arch of Arlington Memorial Bridge. Three witnesses say she jumped.”

“Suicide?” The surgeon looked back to the guarded room down the hall. “Trace was the one who brought her out. What are you going to tell him?”

“The truth. It’s what we do.”

“Tough bunch, aren’t you? Never take the easy way.”

Izzy squared his shoulders. “Easy doesn’t get the job done.”

Neither man noticed the glimmer of light in the quiet corridor outside Trace O’Halloran’s door. When the scent of lavender touched the air, they were halfway down the hall, arguing about bone reinforcement techniques.

Neither guard looked up as a faint, spectral shimmer gathered near the door and then faded into the still air.

TRACE DRIFTED SOMEPLACE cold, halfway between sleep and waking, his pain kept at bay by a careful mix of medicines too new to appear in any medical reference books or on pharmacy shelves.

But his mind kept wandering, and none of his thoughts held. He was back in the frigid night again, waiting for an armed convoy to draw close. Distant gunfire cut through the air, and he felt the energy change even before he saw the first glow of illumination rounds.

Three trucks. Ten men. They had no clue anyone was watching them.

Trace strengthened the net, feeling the sounds and invisible movements in the night, his specially adapted senses humming on full alert.

Time to come out of the shadows.

Move fast. Head low, course uneven.

Present no stable target.

In sleep his body was tense, his breath labored. Eyes closed, he ran up an exposed ridge, drawing enemy fire beneath an orange-red fireball. His legs moved, carrying him into a world drawn straight out of nightmares.

CHAPTER THREE

THEY WERE coming.

Gina Ryan heard tense voices echo in the hall. She scanned the big wall clock above her commercial double oven. Twenty minutes early?

Unbelievable.

She took a deep breath and rubbed the ache at her forehead, checking her last row of desserts. What was the point of having a schedule if you ignored it? Didn’t people realize that a wedding reception with formal seating required split-second timing and no distractions?

Silver trays laid with white linen napkins?

Done.

Spun-sugar flowers arranged at each seat?

Done.

Mini rum cheesecakes plated?

Ditto.

Three-tier chocolate ganache wedding cake decorated with edible flowers?

Perfect.

Gina straightened the marzipan figures of two Olympic speed skaters, which the bride and groom happened to be. Through a porthole she saw clouds skirt a gleaming row of waves. Another glorious day at sea on a top-rated cruise ship, but she’d be too busy to enjoy it.

Laughter spilled into the room. A door opened and the bride appeared, radiant in a chiffon halter gown with vintage lace that clung at her hips and neck. At her side, the groom stood tall in an elegant black tuxedo. A smile stretched over his happy, sunburned face.

This was it, Gina thought. This was love, exactly the way it should be.

Exuberant and gracious. Taking risks. Staying vulnerable. Not jealous and demanding, calculating selfish returns. And didn’t Gina know all there was to know about that kind of love?

She pushed the thought deep, buried with all her other sad memories. A wedding was no time to dredge up the past. Besides, the champagne was chilled, waiting to be poured into Waterford crystal beneath a display of Orange Beauty tulips.

Her staff was flawlessly efficient, the menu a perfect mix of classic and trendy for the young, excited bride and groom.

She felt a knot form at her forehead. This was her second wedding that day. On a big cruise ship, weddings were the top guest request, and Gina was known for creating the best wedding cakes on any cruise line.

The bride and groom held hands, flushing as eighty-five guests offered cheers and catcalls. At her nod, Gina’s skilled staff poured the first chilled champagne and circulated with tempting desserts.

Music filled the room. Slow and soft, the notes tugged at Gina’s heart as she watched the bride and groom exchange lingering kisses.

The dancing began and the regular waitstaff took over. Her team was done.

As she straightened a silver urn of flowers, Gina had a quick impression of wary eyes, short cinnamon hair and a stubborn chin.

Her eyes, her chin. A face too angular for beauty, and eyes whose strength made most men uneasy. Right now pain circled behind her forehead, vicious and swift.

She was getting worse.

The thought filled her with panic. She needed more time.

“Hey, Chief, you okay?” One of her staff, a slender ex-kindergarten teacher from San Diego, studied her anxiously. “You’ve got that look again. It’s like last week when someone smashed your thumb with their heaviest marble rolling pin.”

Gina forced a smile. “Hey, it’s called resting, enjoying the sight of a job well done.” She hid her embarrassment with casual dismissal. “Anything wrong with my taking a rest?”

“Not a thing. But you never rest. And for someone trying to enjoy her success, you looked too worried.”

Gina made a noncommittal sound and cleared the last serving tray. What was the point of dwelling on what you couldn’t change?

Her vision was going. End of story.

It wouldn’t happen in a day or a week. Maybe not even in a year. But the deterioration was noticeably increasing. Despite the newest medicines, her vascular problems were eating away at her vision neuron by neuron, robbing her of the career and future she’d planned with such care.

Put it away.

Shrugging, she headed to the kitchen door. “I’m not distracted now, so let’s move. We’ve got another event in four hours.”

She took one last look at the bride and groom, who had joined hands to cut the first wedge of her exquisitely iced white chocolate cake with trailing sugar roses. The pair didn’t look back, oblivious to the world as they fell into another slow kiss.

Gina wasn’t really jealous. In a world of bad luck somebody deserved to be happy.

She’d believed in love, dreamed of it, felt certain the right man would appear. When he did, she’d know him instantly.

Nice dream. Stupid dream.

When the man had appeared, she’d chosen wrong. He’d robbed her of many things, the most important among them her innocence and trust. He’d taken her job and her reputation. Now she had no dreams left.

One more line item to cross off your day planner, she thought wryly. No Rose Garden wedding with a formal arch of swords. For some reason she’d seen that vision ever since she was twelve.

She blew out an irritated breath and gathered her equipment. At least she’d made a lot of people happy. With every new event she worked harder, pushing her skills. On the days when her headaches and dizziness were too intense, she’d pull out the bottle of pills hidden inside an empty package of Kona coffee and swallow two.

The pills were working for the moment. But they weren’t a cure. Worse yet, they created side effects.

Without a word her brawny Brazilian sous chef slid the tray from her hands. No one said a word, but Gina felt the eyes of her staff. They knew. They had noticed her unguarded moments of pain.

Funny, she’d been so sure she had fooled them. Maybe you didn’t fool anyone but yourself.

As she felt their silent concern, tears burned at her eyes. Tall, studious Andreas from Brazil touched her arm. Then the others closed ranks around her, two in front and three walking behind.

Emotion engulfed Gina at the unspoken signs of trust and protection. She’d lost her father years before; she hadn’t seen her mother in months. This was her real family, the people she had cursed and laughed, sweated and trained with.

The only real advice her mother had ever given her was that falling in love was a curse. Nice advice for a teenager. But over time Gina had come to believe it. Lucky for her, she was too busy for relationships to have a place in her life.

She squared her shoulders. “Andreas, Reggie, did you finish tempering that white chocolate for the tea cakes?”

“All done, boss. But I need some help with the spun sugar.” Andreas rubbed his jaw. “It keeps cracking at the edge of the petals.”

“Did you double-check the temperature and humidity?”

Gently the conversation turned to safer waters. In the sharp argument over the merits of Colombian vs. Mexican chocolate, Gina forgot about her fear and the bouts of occasional pain. She forgot the headaches and the sudden dizziness.

Who needed love or sex when you could make a killer crème brûlée?

CHAPTER FOUR

Foxfire training facility

Northern New Mexico

One month later

TWENTY.

Twenty-one.

Twenty-two.

Sweat beaded his shoulders and chest, and exhaustion hammered at his concentration. Trace ignored everything until only the heat and pull of his muscles remained, strength returning in slow, almost cruel increments. As the weights rose, he focused on his arm, battling against his own weakness. He had work to do, missions to run. Foxfire men were constantly prepped and ready to deploy at the ring of a pager. Each man had unique skills, and Trace knew his absence made everyone’s work harder.

Thirty-three.

Thirty-four.

More sweat.

More pain. Muscles screamed, their boundaries reached and then crossed until Trace was lost in a haze of pure muscle memory and hints of his old, preambush strength.

His commanding officer appeared in the doorway. “Nice to see you have a good work ethic. Just the same, you should take it easy.”

Trace grinned. “I’ll take it easy the same day you do, sir.”

Wolfe Houston smiled faintly. “Point taken.”

All of the team had been by to see Trace in the past few weeks, offering dry humor and information about current personnel deployment or upcoming missions. Trace had reveled in the details of the job that was his life, the focus of his whole passion for nearly eight years.

It was a job he could discuss with few others, not even his brave, tough sister, Kit, who managed an isolated ranch northwest of Santa Fe, where she trained the finest military service dogs Trace had ever seen.

It was his sister Trace worried about now. But he kept his tone casual as he finished his last set of curls. “Have you seen Kit and the dogs? Is everything okay at the ranch? No sign of any more cougars, I hope.”

His commanding officer eased his long legs down, settling into a nearby chair. “Kit’s fine. So are the dogs. Damned if those four don’t get smarter every day. Last week we were running a bomb-detection scenario and the team figured out where I’d hidden the dummy device even before I’d let them off their training leashes. It’s a sad day in Red Rock when four puppies make a trained professional look bad.” But there was pride in the officer’s voice.

Wolfe Houston had good reason to know the state of the ranch. He had just returned from two weeks of canine assessment exercises—and a passionate homecoming with his soon-to-be wife. Although Kit never asked for details about where the dogs had come from, she had enough experience to know that they were special.

Of course Wolfe could never reveal the nature of the secret program that had produced such unusual animals.

Trace was relieved that things were fine at his family’s ranch. The unmistakable happiness in Wolfe’s face meant that things were fine with Kit, too. It was strange to think of his stubbornly independent sister getting married. But if she had to pick anyone, this man was the right one.

Trace put down his weights and dried his face with a towel. “So they’re as good as everyone hoped?”

Wolfe stretched his arms behind his head and chuckled. “Is the Pope Catholic? I’ve put in a recommendation to Ryker that the four dogs never be split up once they’re sent on military assignment.” A shadow crossed his face. “Kit is worrying about them already.”

“She’ll tough it out. By the way, has Ryker finally okayed your request to set a formal date? I’d like to be there to give away my sister, you know.”

Lloyd Ryker was a long-time government power broker at the highest levels; he kept his cards close to his chest and ruled the Foxfire facility like a medieval potentate. Because he got results, his foibles were overlooked.

Wolfe frowned. “One day it’s yes, the next day it’s maybe. When I pressed Ryker, he told me I’d have an answer this week. It might even be true,” the SEAL said dryly. “He’s not going to be happy when he finds out that I got the marriage license anyway, and our blood tests are already submitted.” His eyes narrowed. “Or what will pass for a specimen of my blood.” Rules were rules. Any scientific details relating to Foxfire were top secret and that included all team members’ medical reports.

“Give him hell,” Trace said wryly. “My sister deserves to be happy, and for some crazy reason she’s set her sights on you.” His shoulder had begun to ache with a low, dull throb.

Ordinarily he’d agree that marriages involving Foxfire team members wouldn’t work, but Kit knew the score. His sister could handle whatever fate—and the U.S. government—threw at her.

So Trace hoped.

It was Wolfe’s career choice that gave Trace some bad nights. Who knew better than a fellow SEAL how often work would intrude? Trace knew just how much uncertainty his sister would have to live with. He hoped she could learn to accept the unknown, because virtually every aspect of the Foxfire program required absolute secrecy.

He and Wolfe and the rest of the team had volunteered, and they knew the rules. But could Kit or any other woman—no matter how remarkable—live with the tight constraints that program security imposed?

Trace didn’t have an answer for that.

Ryker, the civilian head of Foxfire, had a rule against personal involvement, and for good reason, in Trace’s opinion. But Wolfe and a second Foxfire member had gotten involved up to their eyeballs. Now they were part of deep, stable relationships that had to be faced, not swept under the carpet. If Ryker couldn’t accept that fact, he would lose two of his best men, including Wolfe, their team leader.

Trace realized that Wolfe was staring at him. “Something wrong?”

“If you keep overdoing your workouts, I’ll put someone here to watch you.” Wolfe met Trace’s glare. “Take this one by the book, hotshot. Your body has been through hell and back. Give it time to recover.” He studied Trace through narrowed eyes. “Are you going to do another set to keep your mind off it?” he said quietly.

Trace didn’t move.

“We both know Marshall’s death is bothering you.”

Trace started to answer, then looked down at his hands. He didn’t want to talk about Marshall. Hell, he didn’t want to think about the death of the teenager he’d rescued from particularly nasty South American kidnappers two years earlier. Her death was ruled a suicide, but Trace was having a hard time believing it. Marshall was a fighter and a survivor. Lost and confused, she still had shown the courage of a soldier during her captivity.

It didn’t make sense that she’d overcome so much just to give up in the home stretch.

He was fighting to accept her death, fighting to acknowledge his grief. If he’d kept in better touch with her afterward, things might have gone differently. If there were problems, she might have confided in him.

But beating himself up now wouldn’t help anyone. It was too damn late to do what friends do—supporting each other, watching each other’s back.

And he wasn’t going to spill his guts to Wolfe. This was his own problem to work through. “The rehab is taking too long. My shoulder’s much stronger now. I keep thinking if I can work a little harder or a little longer—”

“All you’ll do is blow out your shoulder.” Wolfe faced him squarely. “Do me a favor and get well before you report for duty. Otherwise, you endanger all of us in the field.”

Trace knew Wolfe was dead right. Every man relied on his team for life-or-death backup during a mission. If Trace screwed up on an assignment, he could get other people killed. “Roger that, sir. I’ll gut it out.”

Even though I’m going to shoot someone if I don’t get out of rehab and back to work soon. He wanted his chips functional, too.

He was getting to like the Superman experience.

“Glad you’re being reasonable. And in the spirit of being reasonable, Ryker told me to give you this.” Wolfe’s lips twisted as he slapped a thick envelope on the table beside Trace. “You’re shipping out in forty-eight hours.”

“Mission orders?” Trace grabbed the envelope and tore open the seal eagerly. “Urban or jungle target?”

“Neither.” Wolfe crossed his arms. “You’ll be at sea.” He cleared his throat. “On a cruise ship to Mexico.”

Because he was concentrating on reading the papers, Trace almost didn’t hear the assignment. “Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán? I don’t understand. This says—” His head snapped up. “This is a pleasure vessel? A cruise ship?” he said, ice in his voice. “I’ll be damned if Ryker is going to send me off for ten days on a ship full of Desperate Housewives at sea.”

“He’s dead serious about this. This mission is important.”

“On a cruise ship?” The words dripped with distaste. “Why not a Navy support vessel? Hell, even a tramp steamer would be preferable.”

Wolfe’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have all the details, only that you’re to guard a package being conveyed outside normal channels. This is highly sensitive material and you’ll be working with a civilian.”

A civilian? Trace hated the assignment already. “Anything else I need to know?”

“A Navy SEAL will be aboard with his family. Izzy knows them well. Use him if things get sticky.”

“Identity?” Trace asked. He wondered if Ryker had bothered to cue the guy about the chance that he would be tapped for duty during a family vacation.

Doubtful, he decided. Ryker didn’t bother with niceties. If a SEAL was stupid enough to get married and have a family, Ryker would figure the man deserved to live with interrupted vacations.

“His name is Ford McKay. The man is tough and smart. His wife, Carly, has been involved in producing several Navy training films. You may have seen her pictures in Time and Newsweek.”

Trace gave a low whistle. “I’m impressed.”

“You should be. She’s way above your pay grade, pal.”

“Exactly what is the nature of the package and the possible threat?” Something cold stirred in Trace’s mind. “Not Cruz?” That had to be impossible. Their old enemy and rogue operative was dead, according to all intelligence.

Trace had seen him die.

“No, not Cruz. He went down in the chopper crash in the Pacific.” Once the leader of the Foxfire team, Enrique Cruz had been a superb officer and fearless operative, but he had snapped a year earlier, betraying his team and his country with a vengeance. Everyone in the secret project had breathed a sigh of relief when the man had finally been cornered and killed on a deserted island in the Pacific.

“No one could have escaped from that burning chopper.” Trace frowned. “Right?”

“Nothing suggests that Cruz escaped. Ryker has a full-time team monitoring the crash region, and they’ve found zilch.”

Some of Trace’s uneasiness faded. “What’s the threat?”

“Izzy will give you more details before you embark.” Wolfe shook his head. “You know how Ryker loves drama.”

Irritated, Trace riffled through the papers, pulling out a set of travel documents. “Vacations make me crazy.”

“I seem to recall hearing something about that from your sister. Kit says your record visit at the ranch is three days and four hours—and that was only because you were testing some new ammunition for Ryker.”

Trace gave a sheepish laugh. “At least Kit understands how I feel.” His smile wavered. “She wasn’t upset that I haven’t visited for a while, right? She loves the ranch and she’s great at raising her service dogs, but—”

“Stop worrying. Kit knows the ranch isn’t your thing. She’s fine with that. On the other hand she told me to make sure that you don’t get cut to ribbons someplace with an unpronounceable name. I promised to try my best.”

The words were casual, but the strength behind them was unyielding as forged steel. Foxfire men were tighter than family. Guarding each other’s back was both a practiced skill and a task of bone-deep loyalty.

“Always glad to have you watching my six.” Trace held up an arm brace made of moldable high-tech foam. “This new contraption is pretty amazing, but I’d like to know when I’ll be done with the training wheels.”

“Ask Teague. He’s the go-to guy for tech and rehab.”

The door swung open. “Someone call my name?” Izzy appeared with a sleek laptop under one arm.

“Speak of the devil,” Trace muttered.

“I’m a hell of a lot more handsome. Better with computers, too. So what’s your problem, O’Halloran?”

Trace dangled the tube of molded foam. “I’m ready to roll. And not on some half-baked duty aboard a cruise ship. I want my chips operational.”

“Not possible until the medical team finishes a complete assessment. Some anomalies have turned up following your hospitalization.”

Trace made an impatient sound. “I’m fit, Teague.”

“You’re strong and your reflexes max the chart. That’s why you were chosen for Foxfire in the first place. The chips enhance, but they don’t define your abilities, O’Halloran. They just make you a little stronger and faster than you already are. And throwing energy nets can wait until the assessment is done.”

Trace wasn’t close to being convinced. He hadn’t endured his grueling Foxfire training to be stuck on a half-baked assignment that a civilian could handle blindfolded. “This is kindergarten. Tell Ryker I’m ready for real action.”

“Tell him yourself. He’s out in the hall finishing a call to the head of the NSA.”

The men in the room stiffened. Lloyd Ryker’s presence usually had that effect on people.

“I went over your rehab reports,” Izzy continued. “I’d say you’re good to go. I’ve already conveyed that information to Ryker.”

“Appreciated.” Trace drummed his fingers on the pile of travel documents. “But I want a real assignment.”

“Better than pacing the floors of the medical wing and scaring all the nurses.”

“What nurses? Ryker pulled everyone but Foxfire staff as soon as my last surgery was done.”

“He’s just being cautious.” Wolfe looked around as the door opened again. Lloyd Ryker was shoving an encrypted cell phone into the pocket of his understated Italian suit while an aide zipped papers into an alligator portfolio.

He studied the SEALs. All were standing now, eyes forward. Ryker noted the disciplined response and nodded slightly at Wolfe. “You still say O’Halloran is ready to leave rehab?”

“Yes, sir. Ishmael Teague concurs.”

“I saw the reports. I want a guarantee your assessment is correct.”

“You have it.” Izzy crossed his arms, meeting Ryker’s sharp gaze. “The surgery went even better than planned.”

“Good. I’ll be holding you two responsible for any problems.” The civilian head of the Foxfire Unit made several quick marks on a form held out by his aide, then turned to study Trace. “Nice work in Afghanistan, O’Halloran. They found our hardware and were testing it within hours, congratulating themselves on a major success. For two weeks now we’ve been feeding them ‘secret’ updates. After our planted information is complete, their stolen equipment will start malfunctioning. The operation is a success.”

“Glad to hear it, sir.” Trace remained at stiff attention, certain that Ryker had more to say.

Ryker glanced around the room, then frowned. “I’m not convinced you’re ready for duty. I can’t have anyone on the team operating below full capacity, O’Halloran. You flatlined after that last round hit you and when you died—even briefly—your chips went haywire.” Ryker’s eyes narrowed. “You’re carrying expensive technology. As far as I can see, my only option is to shut everything down until you’re completely recovered and I have all the tests to prove it.”

Trace shoved his anger deep. Ryker was baiting him, probing for signs of weakness or anger, but Trace wouldn’t give any excuse to sideline him.

“Permission to speak, sir?” Trace kept his eyes forward.

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t like going out unarmed. I am trained and fully field capable, sir.”

“Speculation. While the medical team is still running tests, I can’t risk a foul-up. The chips are turned off.” Ryker’s eyes narrowed. “Anything to add, O’Halloran?”

“No, sir.” Nothing that wouldn’t get him into deep trouble.

Ryker glanced at his watch and then motioned his aide out of the room. “You’ll be working this mission with the help of the ship’s security director, who has been briefed on your arrival. In the event of problems, he will take orders from you.”

Trace kept his eyes forward. The day he’d joined the Navy, he had accepted the fact that working for the government meant twenty-four-hour days and no privacy. It also meant taking orders from SOBs like Lloyd Ryker, who made mental manipulation an art form.

No whining. Do the job or pack your bags.

“Are you clear on your orders?”

“Yes, sir…except for the exact nature of the threat and the contents of the items in transit.” In other words, everything important, Trace thought wryly.

His comment caught Ryker midstride.

As the head of Foxfire turned slowly, his cell phone beeped. He glanced at Trace and grimaced. “I’m expected in D.C. in four hours, so I’ll make this short. Foxfire has an off-site scientist down in Mexico working on a highly specialized project. I have a man on board the cruise ship who carries sensitive material back and forth for me when necessary. The procedure has always worked well in the past. Who in the hell would expect someone on a cruise ship to be a government courier?”

Ryker shoved his cell phone in his pocket. “But last week someone tried to penetrate security at the Mexican compound. Then we detected an attempt to bypass our scientist’s computer security.” Ryker picked up Trace’s discarded foam cast and stared at it for long moments.

When he looked up, his eyes were very cold. “I’m taking no chances with this transfer. If it was simply a question of data, we could send everything digitally, but there are tissue specimens involved, and their temperature stability is crucial. Your job will be to oversee security and provide backup.”

“May I have the name of my shipboard contact?” Trace asked. Leave it to Ryker to milk the intrigue for all it was worth.

“Izzy will pass that info in a briefing packet at the appropriate time.” Ryker crossed the room and opened the door. “Before you sail, you have one more assignment. Tomorrow a senator from California is hosting a cocktail party in your honor—4:00 p.m. at the Carlton Hotel. That means spit-shined and polished, Lieutenant. Wear all your medals.”

Trace hated social events where he was the cocktail centerpiece. Ryker used the events for friendly politicians seeking reelection. A crisp uniform and a chest full of medals never failed to impress prospective campaign contributors.

“I’ll be there, sir.” Hating every freaking second, but I’ll be there. Trace kept the irritation from his face. If the senator kept money flowing for Foxfire’s expensive research, who was Trace to complain?

I hope some lobbyist’s bored wife doesn’t fondle my ass, like that last gig in Georgetown.

The woman had suggested Trace join her in the garden for some down-and-dirty sex between cocktails. She’d been plenty miffed when Wolfe had shown up and spoiled her plans.

“A problem, Lieutenant?” Ryker turned, eyes narrowed. “You dislike attending the social events I arrange?”

“No, sir.” Hell, yes. Every one of Ryker’s team shunned social displays like the plague. But now was not the time for honesty.

“Let me remind you these parties provide the funds to keep our facilities viable. You may forget how expensive this project is, but I am reminded of that fact daily. I don’t want to hear a hint of a complaint.” Ryker shot a cold look at Wolfe. “Is that understood?”

“Absolutely, sir. May I offer to join Trace, sir? Sometimes two uniforms are better than one.”

Ryker’s eyes narrowed. “Excellent suggestion. You’ll have travel documents ready in an hour. Be sure to give the senator and his wife my regards.”

He gestured at his aide and strode out. The door slid shut behind him.

Silence filled the room. Then Wolfe Houston rubbed his neck and sighed. “Me and my big mouth. I swear, if another woman tries to grope my ass—”

“You’ll grin and bear it, sir. You are always the height of courtesy.” Trace grinned, glad that another one of the team was in the same boat. “That’s one reason you’re so popular with all the Beltway wives.”

Wolfe muttered a graphic phrase. “Don’t tell your sister that.” The SEAL’s expression turned serious. “Kit’s the one. As far as I’m concerned, no other woman exists. I hope she knows that.”

“You can do no wrong in my sister’s eyes.” The emotional force that bound the two was overpowering. For some reason Trace felt a little jealous when he saw how happy his sister and his friend looked when they were together.

A flicker of movement made him turn, staring at the door behind Izzy Teague. More like a shimmer than anything concrete, the phenomenon was damned strange. He caught a sweet scent…something almost familiar.

Trace moved swiftly, snapping open the door to the hall. He still couldn’t peg the elusive scent.

An alert security officer stared back at him. “Problem, sir?”

“No. None.” Except that I’m hearing, seeing and smelling things that aren’t there. Had the change in his chip status triggered a wave of sensory distortions?

Who the hell knew?

Trace closed the door carefully. Through the window he watched a black helicopter cut through the azure New Mexico sky.

Nothing moved in the quiet room.

“We’ll have to double-time it if we’re going to catch that chopper.” Wolfe picked up his equipment bag.

Trace grabbed his towel and sweatshirt. “I’m ready.” He ignored a dull pain at his shoulder. Rehab was over. That was all that mattered.

CHAPTER FIVE

HE HADN’T BEEN to San Francisco in six years, and he loved the chaos as much as ever. A bike messenger was blasting rap music. Two truckers argued over one parking space. A woman with purple hair blew him a kiss.

Trace had forgotten how the colors mixed, how the noise roared and ebbed. Standing on Kearny Street, he caught the drifting scent of Middle Eastern spices mixed with Chinese sesame cakes and fried ginger. His stomach growled. Too bad he didn’t have time to stop at the little Hunan restaurant with the blister-your-tongue chile.

But Trace was due to press the flesh at the senator’s affair in less than twenty-four minutes, and he still had six blocks to walk. His CO had stayed behind in the hotel to make a last-minute phone call to the Foxfire facility.

His uniform drew a few curious stares, but Trace ignored them, walking briskly. He enjoyed the sea-tinged air, the fog and the pleasant twinge in his legs from climbing steep streets.

At the busy corner of Sutter Street, he swung his shoulder carefully, testing for range of motion, pain and strength. The rehab process was a success. He wasn’t quite back to one hundred percent strength, but he was damned close. After ten days on the cruise ship, with as many gym sessions as he could schedule, Trace expected to be at full operational ability.

Behind him a taxi horn screeched.

A bus lumbered past, belching exhaust fumes. Trace sprinted across the street during a lull in traffic and re-checked the address Ryker had given him.

Three more blocks.

With a little luck he’d be there ahead of schedule.

Something shimmered at the edge of his vision. Through the noise, the bus fumes and the cooking smells he caught the bright tang of lavender, the third time that day.

He scowled at a passing Porsche.

The Phenomenon again. That was his word for the random sensations.

As he walked, the lavender scent thickened.

Trace ignored it.

No doubt it was connected to his chips being disabled. He’d write a complete report for Ryker once he was able to detect a pattern, but not a second sooner. He didn’t want to be ordered to visit Foxfire’s resident shrink, forced to dredge up his past for possible signs of emotional vulnerability.

He knew he was fit for action. His memories of Afghanistan were fading along with his scars, and no shrink would dredge up anything important. The lavender smell had to be a sensory reflex.

His heart pounded. He had a sudden urge to cross the street, coupled with a sense that something important was about to happen.

Neither made any sense. Pedestrians rushed past all around him, but they were all strangers.

There was no reason for him to cut back across Kearny.

He muttered in irritation, staring at a bakery truck double-parked near a fire hydrant. Probably he was dehydrated. Maybe it was the time change and the late-night flight from New Mexico. But he wasn’t a man who was unsettled often, so he watched the street, watched the passing cars, watched the way clouds brushed Nob Hill beyond the tall buildings.

And then Trace saw her—tall and slim, wreathed in a bar of sunlight. Light played through her short, spiky hair, cut in layers that framed huge eyes.

A stranger.

No need to stare. No need to feel as if someone had jerked the cement out from under him and kicked him in the stomach.

Something seemed to wrap around his chest, driving the air from his lungs. It made no sense. She was just another woman racing through the afternoon sunlight. Probably going to meet a husband—or a lover, judging by the eagerness in her expression. She wasn’t even beautiful, he thought wryly. Most people wouldn’t have called her remarkable in any way, yet her long, quick stride and the swing of her hair were doing strange things to his pulse.

Somewhere a clock chimed, but he couldn’t move.

He had less than twenty minutes to reach the penthouse somewhere above him. He would have preferred to spend the time pressed against that long, slim body, memorizing the secrets of her warm skin.

Crazy.

Through long months of training Ryker’s first rule had been burned into the minds of every man on the Foxfire team. No personal life or distractions were permitted. Even sexual contacts were arranged by Ryker’s staff, and the contact was carefully controlled. There was no gentle laughter and slow kisses on a moonlit night. It was physical release and nothing more.

Trace tried to remember the last time he’d laughed with a woman or simply held her hand. Nothing came to mind. The thought left him empty.

Suck it up, sailor. You knew what you were signing on for when you accepted your transfer to Foxfire. You knew all you were giving up.

And you couldn’t wait to be part of the team.

As Wolfe Houston always said, there were only three things you could trust in life—yourself, your team and the probability of getting fungus where you least wanted it.

Then Wolfe had defied the rules by falling in love and asking approval to marry Trace’s sister.

Despite that, all of them were Foxfire property, pure and simple. They were the job, 24/7. Trace had liked that just fine.

Until he’d stood in the afternoon sunlight watching keen eyes and vibrant cinnamon hair.

Around him the noise of the city faded. Even the sunlight seemed strange, wrapping itself around the woman across the street, playing in her hair and brushing the clean lines of her face.

No, she wasn’t a beauty, Trace thought. So why was it impossible for him to look away as she cut through the crowd?

A fire truck screamed past. Shouts mingled with car horns and motorcycles. Then in one of the weather changes San Francisco was famous for, a bank of marine clouds poured in over the hills. In seconds the street blurred beneath a shifting veil of fog.

Traffic snarled. Horns screamed. Up the street Trace saw a construction truck back up, its ladder poised above the rear bed.

The woman had stopped. She bent low as she took something from a young man climbing out of a taxi. Both of them cradled big, white boxes, laughing.

Her laugh made the hairs rise along Trace’s neck. The sound was full and rich and subtly sensual.

She was a stranger, but he knew just how her voice would sound up close, warm and husky.

A wave of sexual attraction hit him, as thick and sudden as the fog.

Hell. Maybe Ryker was right. Maybe this was about stress, not sex, and he hadn’t put Afghanistan behind him.

As the woman headed down the street, she didn’t look in his direction once. Trace took a deep breath. It was time to go. He glanced toward his destination, checking the address through pale, trailing fingers of fog.

Down the street he saw the truck turn, ladder creaking. One of the metal restraints twisted and broke free, the metal frame shuddering violently.

The woman and her friend hadn’t noticed.

He moved by pure instinct, his heart pounding as he sprinted through a gap in traffic. Neither the woman nor her companion heard his shout as they turned toward the nearby hotel, their boxes held tightly at their chests.

Trace jumped the curb, shoved the woman sideways against a wall, and pushed her companion after her just before the ladder swung horizontal across the sidewalk. Its broken edge was a death blade cutting directly over the place the two had stood laughing a second before.

“Hey, watch it.” The woman slammed him hard with her shoulder, muttering angrily. Then she slipped, hit her companion and both of them lost their balance.

Trace saw the two white boxes fly into the air. He stepped back, twisted neatly and caught one in each hand.

A bicycle messenger shot past, making a string of obscene gestures, and the woman with the cinnamon hair shoved at his chest.

“Drop those and you’re dead. Big, clumsy ox.” She tried to grab one of the boxes. “Give me that now or I’m calling the cops.”

Trace frowned at her. Why didn’t people say thanks when you’d just saved them from death by sudden impalement?

He turned, pushing her back against the building and out of the way of the still-swaying ladder, while the truck bounced back down the curb. A man in a gray uniform jumped out and tugged at the broken hinges, trying to pull the metal sections back into place.

The woman turned, looking over Trace’s shoulder. Her face paled, her body going still. “Shit.” She swayed a little, not struggling against him now.

Her eyes locked on the truck bed. “Holy, holy hell,” she whispered. “The ladder would have hit us. I didn’t see.” She took a deep breath, one hand shaking against the wall. She brushed a layer of cinnamon hair from her face while her hands shook harder than ever. “You aren’t crazy.” Her voice hitched. “You saved our lives.”

“Are you okay?” He balanced the boxes, feeling her thighs press against him. The subtle friction made his mouth go dry.

“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I was rude. I didn’t realize what was happening.” She studied his face. “We see a lot of Navy guys in San Francisco. I thought you were just being a jerk.”

Her voice was breathy, smokey like a good chipotle sauce.

Trace felt her hand on his sleeve. He didn’t know her, would never know her, but the husky catch in her voice was as tempting as the slim, strong legs he felt brushing his.

Strangers or not, he wanted her bad.

Angry, he bit back a curse and moved away, banking the heat. Trying to bank the heat.

She looked at her friend. “Andreas, why don’t you go check out the room? No surprises, please.”

“Sure thing, boss. I’ll take this with me.” The man deftly removed one of the packages from Trace’s hands and left.

“I’ll take the other box now.”

Trace looked down, feeling stupid as he gripped the white cardboard. “Must be something pretty important in here.”

Her smile felt like pure, distilled summer pouring over his skin. The force of it made him forget the cars racing past and the appointment creeping closer.

“You bet it is. You’re holding a little piece of my heart in that box.”

“Maybe I should keep it then.” His voice was gravelly. Hell, what had made him say something lame like that?

“News flash—men want sex, not women’s hearts.” She straightened her big, colorful sweater and shoved more cinnamon hair out of her eyes, then stared across the street. “Oops. My defensive, bitchy side is showing.”

Trace heard old wounds and bad memories rather than bitchiness. “What’s so important in here?” He raised the box, rattled it slightly.

She lunged, panic sweeping her face. “No. If you drop that, I’m dead.”

Trace simply smiled. He handled high explosives and deadly biotoxins regularly with complete confidence. Steady hands and split-second reaction times were part of his skill set. “Relax, your box isn’t going anywhere. You still haven’t told me why it’s so important.”

“I need to go. I can’t be late.”

Before she could answer, his cell phone vibrated against his belt with unavoidable force, yanking Trace back to earth. He muffled a curse as he realized the pocket was out of reach.

He started to hand over the box, but she leaned down and slid a hand into his pocket. His gaze never left her face as she pulled out the phone.

“Least I can do,” she murmured, opening the phone. Frowning, she stared at the complex screen of Trace’s new government prototype. “How do you—”

“Top left. I’ll take it.”

Instead of giving him the phone, she pressed the button he’d indicated and held the phone up to this ear.

Trace had seen the caller’s number. Wolfe was probably upstairs waiting for him. Still, he didn’t like anyone listening in to the call. “Look, I need to—”

“Take the call. I can see that your shoulder hurts, so as soon as you’re done, I’ll get going.”

Shoulder?

How the hell had she known that?

Another twinge of suspicion made him study her warily.

But the phone was already at his ear, and he heard Wolfe’s voice.

“O’Halloran, are you at the hotel?”

“Right outside, sir.”

“I got held up on a conference call. I’m at least ten minutes away. Go in and press some flesh until I get there.”

“Will do.”

The line went dead and she closed the phone, returning it to his pocket.

Their skin brushed. He smelled her perfume, a faint mix of oranges and lilac. As gentle as a memory, it slid over his senses, leaving him restless for things he didn’t have a name for.

She turned and lifted the white box. “It’s a cake, by the way. I’m giving a class upstairs in thirty minutes.”

“A cake?”

“Don’t look so surprised. I worked five hours on that thing.”

“On a cake?” Trace repeated.

“It’s special. Ganache icing, spun-sugar flowers.” She glanced at his dress uniform and the row of medals. “Impressive jewelry you’ve got there.”

Trace was still trying to get his mind around the idea of a cake that took five hours to finish. In his world you ate whatever appeared on your plate, as long as it didn’t move, and even that rule got broken sometimes.

He shrugged off her compliment. “No big deal. Just doing the job.”

“That kind of hardware doesn’t come easy. Something tells me there’s a story behind each one.” She tensed and nearly dropped her box as another skateboarder shot past close enough to bump her leg. “Damn.”

Trace caught her with one arm and steadied the cake with his other hand. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

A delicate wash of color filled her face. She didn’t pull away, only tilted her head, looking up at him over the box. “You’re fast with your hands.”

“Fast enough. What did you mean about my shoulder?” He kept the question casual, watching her face for any sign of calculation.

She shrugged. “You favor your right side. When our boxes went flying, you caught them on the left. So what happened? Gunshot wound? Training accident?”

The explanation was plausible. “Nothing very interesting.” He’d died, that’s all. He sure as hell wasn’t going to discuss that with her.

He crossed his arms. “Are you doing anything later?” At least they could have a drink before he left. Trace didn’t have to be at the cruise dock until the following morning.

She cradled her cake, and then her fingers tightened. “No.” There was an edge in her voice that hadn’t been there before. “I’m sorry, but there’s really no point.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Believe me.”

Trace watched her shift her box, then move off into the flow of messengers, workers and tourists.

Great legs. Strange encounter. She’d probably forgotten him already.

He shrugged off a sense of regret. He had a cocktail party to attend and lobbyists to charm.

DAMN.

Abso-freaking—damn.

Was she crazy?

Gina Ryan gripped her cake, scowling at her own stupidity. She’d been breathless, panting over a complete stranger, a man with trouble stamped all over him. It just wasn’t her style.

Oh, she’d been tempted to say yes to that drink. It was the hard set to his jaw, coupled with the hint of danger in his eyes.

Yeah, she was a sucker for a man who knew his own mind.

Trouble, she thought grimly. And she hadn’t been lying when she told him not to waste his time on her.

Meanwhile, she had two kinds of crème brûlée and a white chocolate wedding cake to worry about, not the hot challenge in a stranger’s eyes.

She waved as Andreas trotted back, carrying a big set of keys. “Room’s all set, Gina. You’ve got a big crowd upstairs.” He waved the keys. “These are for the kitchen next to your lecture area. Your big Hobart industrial mixer wasn’t set up, so I sent someone to track it down.”

Gina resisted an urge to pull out her hair. Without her mixer for the demonstration, this master pastry class was going nowhere fast. “Did they have a record of our request?”

Andreas followed her up a sidewalk bordered by forgotten newspapers and scattered leaves. “They knew about it. They just haven’t found the mixer yet.”

“I may have to kill someone,” Gina muttered. “Maybe myself.”

“It won’t be so bad. They’ll find you something close. You’re always quick on your feet at demonstrations.” Andreas glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes to go. Good thing that guy in the uniform caught our stuff.” Gina’s sous chef stared back down the street. “The man was smoking. Those were a lot of medals, too.”

“Really?” Gina cleared her throat. “I didn’t notice.”

“Like hell you didn’t. You two vanished into some kind of alternate reality. Hell, the guy had his arms around you right in the middle of the sidewalk.”

“Because he knocked me over and I almost fell,” Gina muttered. “Plus, I was trying to hold my cake steady.” She nudged the big, white box. “The last thing I need is for this thing to get crushed.”

Andreas glanced back, grinning smugly. “Don’t look now, but he’s following us. Probably wants to ask you out.”

“He already did.”

“And you said no? Come on, Gina, I felt the tension snap between you two. You haven’t looked twice at a man in months.”

“And I’m not looking twice at a man now.” But she had to fight an urge to look back. She wondered if she’d have the willpower to turn down that drink if he asked her again.

“Too bad. He went in a different door.”

Gina tried not to care. “Forget about the hunk, will you? We’ve got to find a mixer and test the sound system. Was the chocolate there?” She took a deep breath. “If anything happened to my tempered chocolate…”

Pain stabbed at her forehead.

“You okay, Chief?”

No, not even close to it.

“I’m fine.” Ignoring the little blur in her vision, she walked past the uniformed doorman, away from the lobby filled with fresh roses and real Chinese antiques.

“Let’s move.” She checked her watch uneasily. As she strode past the gleaming marble lobby, Gina was proud of herself for not glancing back in search of a white uniform.

It took all of her willpower.

CHAPTER SIX

THE LOCATION COULD HAVE been worse.

At least there was running water, a decent gas oven and space to lay out her cakes as part of her master class on pastry. But the clock was ticking, and there was icing to finish. When transporting off-site, you never added final embellishment until you were almost ready to serve. Gina had learned that the hard way. Now she had two cakes that needed icing for final display.

Outside the participants were arriving. Stress beat a path down her forehead. “Reggie, where are the edible flowers?”

“Right here, Chief. Your buttercream is on the other side of the table. All three colors, present and accounted for.”

“Yet again you save my butt.” Without a pause, Gina opened the frosting made in the ship’s kitchen that morning and assembled her tools. “Andreas, are you okay with the crème brûlée?”

“Good to go here. The demerara sugar’s in place. They’ll be ready to torch for your first presentation.”

Gina knew that all of her staff were well trained. But the cruise management had insisted that she do the honors. Something about her recognition factor, Gina thought sourly. In an age of media-hungry celebrity chefs, finding time for actual cooking had become harder and harder.

“Andreas, where’s my Hobart mixer?” Gina squeezed icing through a small bag and produced the first of two dozen rose petals to cover a white chocolate fondant–covered display cake.

“Supposed to be in the elevator any second. I called the hotel beverage services ten minutes ago and they said it was down at the loading dock.”

“Call them again.” Gina straightened, frowning. “No. I’m almost done here so I’ll go. I need that mixer for the whole second segment.”

“You sure?”

As she went back to work, icing swirled beneath her skilled fingers and crimson petals bloomed over a white ground. Carefully she dusted edible flowers over the sides of the cake and the iced cake board.

“Whoa, great roses.” Andreas glanced over her shoulder.

Gina didn’t look up, securing a ribbon of lifelike petals across the top of the cake. When you dealt with buttercream, there were always worries, always mistakes. The trick was being fast enough and experienced enough to know how to cover them up. “Almost done here. Have Reggie bring the cake stands.”

She eased the second display cake from its box. The rich lemon batter had been enhanced by a liberal amount of rum, and the cake happened to be the captain’s favorite. Using her turntable, she whisked swirls of white all around the base and then anchored pink hearts cut from marzipan, each one dotted with an edible silver bead.

The result was pretty damned good. She stood back, warmed by a zing of pride.

No matter how many pastries she made, she always felt a glow of pleasure at creating a thing of beauty. She’d never planned to cook for a living. Growing up in a quiet suburb of Sacramento, she’d wavered between being the world surfing champion or a neurosurgeon. Her policeman father had encouraged her in both—right up until the day he’d taken a bullet in the heart during an armored car robbery. After that, life had taken Gina down a very different route.

She centered the cakes on a rolling cart. Behind her she heard Andreas fire up his crème brûlée torch.

Now she had to find that damned mixer.

SHOWTIME, Trace thought.

Staring at the receiving line, he picked out a senator, two congressmen and a whole lot of major-league diamonds. San Francisco society was out in force, it seemed. Ryker’s connections appeared to be solid gold.

There was too much loud laughter and too much jockeying for position next to the most powerful people. Trace glanced longingly at the bar displaying cans of ice-cold beer.

Wolfe appeared beside him, carrying two glasses of cola. “Skoal.”

“Hell, sir, you expect me to drink that?”

But Trace only pretended to complain. He rarely drank to excess, and in a crowd like this it would be stupid to drink at all. You never knew who you were rubbing shoulders with. Any casual remark could find its way to the E-ring of the Pentagon within hours, killing a good career overnight.

He glanced at the door, wishing he had an excuse to leave. Any excuse.

Trace realized that Wolfe was talking to him. “Sorry, sir. What did you say?”

“The senator’s wife just told me that a case of vintage champagne is held up somewhere down in the hotel’s receiving department.” Wolfe motioned toward the door. “You are hereby ordered to go find it. It’s that or keep explaining to people why you look like you hate these events, so get moving. And I want you back before this thing is finished, clear?”

“Understood, sir. Thank you, sir.” Trace scratched his cheek. “But it might take me longer than I think to find that missing champagne. Probably a real mess down there.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” Wolfe muttered.

Trace grinned. With luck, he’d be back just in time to say his goodbyes.

THE HOTEL LOADING BAY was deserted, half in shadow.

The mixer was still in its box, wedged in a corner next to a row of folding chairs.

Gina tried to lift the box and staggered back, gasping. She’d forgotten how heavy a commercial mixer could be. And there was no one around to help her move the stupid thing.

On the other hand, there happened to be a forklift parked by the wall, and it was screaming her name.

Gina had spent two summers working in a warehouse, so she knew her way around forklift trucks. She hopped aboard, scanned the controls and gunned the motor. It took her less than a minute to maneuver across the small loading area and center the metal arms. She nudged the mixer into position, raised it four inches, locked the long arms in place and then swung wide.

“You mind watching where you aim that thing? I kind of like having my chest in one piece.”

And it was such a gorgeous chest, Gina thought, staring at her rescuer from earlier that afternoon.

The broad wall of muscle showed off his white uniform and rows of medals to perfection.

“Mind if I borrow your forklift for a few minutes?”

“Yes,” she snapped. What was he doing here? She didn’t have time to be distracted, not with two hundred people upstairs expecting a killer pastry presentation to begin any second. “Sorry, but I’m late. You’ll have to find your own ride. It’s every man for himself right now,” she said grimly.

Wheeling, she balanced the mixer and turned with small, precise movements.

“You’re pretty good at that.”

“Summer job,” she called over her shoulder.

Learning to drive a forklift had been easy. Getting along with the macho male warehouse staff had been the hard part. But she’d held her own and made good money those summers, enough for all her tuition and more. When summer ended, her male coworkers had been sorry to see her go.

She had almost finished her turn when a man’s voice echoed from someplace inside. Abruptly the heavy metal door of the loading bay started to slide shut.

“Hey, stop!” Gina shouted, trying to maneuver back out of reach.

But the door kept right on moving.

In her concentration, she barely saw the Navy officer jump up onto the area under the closing door. “Hold on,” he called over the din of creaking metal. “There has to be a manual override here somewhere.”

He wouldn’t find it in time, Gina thought desperately. She maneuvered sideways, her gaze locked on the moving door. Suddenly she felt a hand at her elbow. She was yanked off the truck and pulled against a rock-hard chest.

“No. My beautiful Hobart mixer—”

“Can be replaced. You can’t,” the man said roughly. “That door probably weighs eight hundred pounds. You’d be hamburger, trust me.”

“Do something,” Gina whispered. Her presentation was going up in smoke before her eyes.

Caught against his chest, she watched in horror as metal ground down against metal. The forklift shuddered, crumpling slowly, with her mixer caught firmly beneath.

The man blew out a breath. “Something tells me I’m going to regret this.” He set Gina back on her feet, scanned the out-of-season tools and supplies lining the walls and grabbed a thick rope.

He circled the mixer and pulled hard, bending to the task, his face taut and arms rigid. As the door came lower, the space was plunged into shadow.

Gina heard the scrape of metal as she searched vainly for any kind of wall control panel or power button, but finally she had to give up. “Forget it,” she called. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

He didn’t seem to hear, so she gripped his shoulder and yelled over the growl and grind of metal. “Let it go. It’s not your problem.”

As her eyes grew accustomed to the shadowed light, she saw that he had worked the big steel mixer several inches closer, but it wasn’t far enough. She flinched as the crucial piece of equipment was mangled by the door.

Finally the metal stopped moving. She took a shaky breath and sank against the wall, frantically trying to plan around the loss of the mixer.

“Are you okay?” The man’s voice was cool, precise. He’d recovered incredibly fast, Gina noticed. He wasn’t even breathing hard now. She, on the other hand, was a total wreck.

“Okay as in not hurt or maimed? I think so. Okay as in anticipating a happy life and a prosperous future? Definitely not. I’ve got two hundred people upstairs waiting for me and that mixer, and I am so screwed.” She looked up, stabbing a hand through her hair. “Thanks for trying, Mr.—”

“Trace.”

“Gina,” she said without really thinking. She stuck out one hand and felt a tug at her sleeve. Furious, she tried again.

No luck.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t move, that’s what’s wrong.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHE LEANED RIGHT and left. This time there was a definite snag on her right side.

Trace moved closer. “Stay still.”

“But I—”

His hard body nudged hers. “Stop twisting around.” He ran a hand along the wall and then across her shoulders.

“What’s wrong? What did you find?”

“Give me a minute here. The light’s not great,” he said shortly. “I’ll get my cell phone.”

“Check the left pocket of my skirt,” Gina shot back. “Outside corner right under the snap.”

She felt his hand slide along her arm and into her pocket, searching to the bottom.

“How deep are these pockets?” He searched some more. “This feels like plastic. Do you always carry thermometers in your cargo pockets?”

“Knitting needles. Hand them over.” Gina turned a knob on the bottom of the long piece of plastic and instantly her hand was bathed in a blue-white glow. “They’re for knitting in the dark. I never leave home without them.” She held up the bright needle, trying to look over her shoulder, but Trace moved her back against the wall and angled the needle downward.

“I think I see the problem. A big piece of your sweater is caught in the joints of the loading-bay door. It must have happened when you were trying to find the control.”

She would never, ever knit bell sleeves again, Gina swore. She gave an experimental tug with her arm.

The man was right. Her sleeve was caught in the cross joint.

“You want me to cut it?”

Her heart fluttered. “Hand dyed cashmere yarn? I don’t think so. Do you have any idea what cashmere costs?”

His lips curved slightly. “In that case, I guess we’re stuck here until someone comes.”

We. Not you.

That was nice.

Gina’s eyes narrowed. Only maybe the man wasn’t heroic. Maybe he was a psychotic stalker who waited for opportunities to get women in deserted places and this was definitely deserted. After that he’d—

She remembered how he’d caught her cake boxes and balanced both of them carefully.

Nah. He was hero material, all right.

“Actually, there is another way to handle this,” he said thoughtfully.

“Anything. I’ve got a master class to give upstairs.” Desperation made her voice shrill.

He crossed his arms. She felt his gaze brush her face, her chest.

“Then take off the sweater.”

She stared at him. This was heading right into psycho territory after all. He even had a faint smile playing around his lips. Better nip this line of thought in the bud.

“Forget it. I can’t take the sweater off.”

“Why? I’ll help you. The sleeve doesn’t look that tight.”

“It’s not the sleeve.” Gina took an angry breath. “There’s not—I’m not—” She frowned at the wall. “I’m not wearing anything underneath the sweater. Is that clear enough for you?”

His mouth twitched. “I can see how that would be a little problem.”

If the man laughed, she was going to hit him in the face.

But he tilted up her knitting needle, studied the sweater and rubbed his jaw. “When did you say your class was supposed to start?”

“Five minutes ago.” Damn, damn, damn. She had to think. “My cell phone is in my purse. Call security and get them down here.”

He fumbled for her phone. “I don’t think they’ll get here fast enough to be much help.”

Gina blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “I can’t walk into my class naked. Well, half naked.”

“Wear my jacket. You can find a cook’s uniform somewhere in the kitchen, can’t you? That should tide you over.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? It just might work.

“That’s good. But my sweater will still be hanging here.” No way was she losing all that excellent cashmere. The yarn had been worth a week’s wages.

“I’ll come back for it. I’ve got to track down a case of vintage champagne. After that I’ll drop off your sweater wherever your class is meeting.”

She stared at him suspiciously. “Hold on. Why are you being so nice?”

“Do I have to have a reason?”

“Absolutely.” She shoved a strand of hair out of her eyes. “If I know anything, I know this. Nobody does nice for nothing.”

“You’re wrong.”

Gina felt the skim of his hand at her neck, the heat of his body against her thighs. She swallowed. “No way.”

“I do,” he whispered.

An odd little flutter dipped into her chest. Gina felt something earthier and more reckless than simple gratitude.

She closed her eyes, hit with sudden images.

Her.

Him. Together in a hotel bed, doing things Gina hadn’t ever tried, putting herself into the hands of a stranger. Breaking all the rules.

She closed her eyes, forcing away dark images that left her skin hot and aching.

It had been too long, she thought. This was just reflex and cranky female hormones talking, nothing more.

She cleared her throat. “It’s a deal. Turn off the light while I get out of this sweater.”

The light vanished.

Just like that? No protests or trickery?

She wasn’t sure if she should be thrilled or insulted. Most men she knew would have tried to sneak at least one look. She shimmied out of her sweater, clutching the soft cashmere to her chest. “So—are you about ready? I just have to work free of this sleeve.”

The sweater came off. Cool air skimmed her naked breasts. She sensed Trace’s presence nearby.

Warm cloth settled around her shoulders.

“How’s that?” His voice was low and rough.

“F-fine.” No, it wasn’t fine. It was a very bad idea. Gina realized the uniform jacket was warm with the heat of his body, as intimate as the touch of his hands on her sensitive skin. The fabric also carried his scent, a mix of crisp outdoor air, citrus soap and sweat.

Kill me now, she thought dimly, intensely aware of how close he was standing.

Her nipples hardened as the cloth touched and skimmed, driving her crazy with the thought of his callused hands curved over all the same places.

Hel-lo.

The man is a stranger. Did you lose all functioning cells of your brain when the light went out?

There was only one answer.

Yes.

She felt reckless and hot, her fingers digging into the long sleeves of his uniform jacket. Whatever she wanted, he would do it. Here and now. They were alone and she’d never see him again, so what would it matter to let go, just this once?

“Are you ready to go? Your people will be waiting. Maybe you should call them.”

Earth to Mars. The man was dead right. When had her brain blown every fuse? “I’m ready. You can turn on that light again. Then I’ll make my call.”

She heard the rustle of cloth and saw his chest, rows of hard muscles outlined beneath a white T-shirt, caught in the glow of her knitting needle.

The sight made her knees go soft. Okay, the man had a chest out of her deepest fantasies. So what? You didn’t go to bed with a man just because he had a fantastic chest and abs to die for.

At least you shouldn’t, she thought wildly.

“My first topic is bed.” Gina felt her face go hot. “I mean, bread. Then I’m doing puff pastry and custard-style desserts. Andreas will be able to get things started.”

“Bread. I’ve always loved a hot loaf fresh from the oven. You must be a great teacher. And don’t worry about your sweater. I’ll bring it to you.” He took her arm, guiding her up a set of narrow metal steps.

Sweater? What sweater?

She was worrying about a lot more than some cashmere yarn. Right now her sanity seemed to be at risk.

“I appreciate your help.” She tried to ignore the way his muscles bunched and flexed as he moved in front of her to open an interior door.

But she couldn’t ignore the way her nipples felt, tight and hot, driving against the soft lining of his uniform. The friction was making her lose all focus as her body came alive.

“By the way, was that Mongolian cashmere? Four-ply?”

She simply stared at him.

All this, and the man knew about yarn, too? Be still my beating heart, she thought dizzily.

She managed to make her voice cool and casual. “You noticed that?”

“My friend is a knitter. A fanatic, actually. When she finally scored a whole bag of cashmere on eBay, she went nuts. I heard about it for months.”

“Your friend is a she?” Somehow the question just tumbled out. “Not that it’s any of my business,” she said stiffly.

His fingers cradled her wrists. For a moment he held her lightly, their bodies touching, while the sense of contact between them grew, nearly electric. Gina’s throat went dry.

“Miki,” he said quietly. “A she. Just a friend, in case it’s important.”

It shouldn’t have been.

She barely knew the man, so his friends and background were of no possible significance.

Like hell, they weren’t.

“You’re not—married or anything? Seeing anyone, I mean.” Great job, Ryan. Spell it out, why don’t you? Let him know you’re a complete tongue-tied idiot in a major state of lust.

“No one.” He slid one hand slowly over her hair. Just that and no more, letting the warm strands play through his fingers as if they were infinitely interesting. “What about you?”

Gina took a deep breath. “No one for me, either. No time for any of that stuff.”

“Good.” The word was rough.

He moved before she knew it, and his mouth brushed hers, careful and slow. Gina made a lost sound. Somehow her fingers were locked around his strong shoulders and there was no space between them. With her thigh to his, she felt the sudden tension of his body.

“Hell,” he whispered.

“What?”

“This. You. It shouldn’t be happening.” His tongue slid against hers, hot and searching, and Gina’s fingers tightened. He kissed her hard as if he couldn’t stop himself, but had to try. His arousal was unmistakable.

The suggestive pressure at the base of her stomach made her greedy for more.

The sharp vibration of her cell phone jolted her back to reality. She shouldn’t be doing this. She had never been interested in casual sex. She hadn’t been too good with long-term relationships, either. But the slick, damp feeling between her legs told Gina that her body was making up for lost time.

The vibration continued, and she dug in her purse, found her cell phone and answered breathlessly. “Yeah.”

“Chief, where are you?” Andreas sounded worried. “I’ve got Reggie at bat, but the natives are restless. You’ve got four food critics and six reporters up here, and they want you, not us.”

“I’m on the way. Ask Reggie to grab an extra white jacket in my size and leave it out, okay?”

“Why—”

“Don’t ask. Just stall. I’ll be there in five.”

“You got it. There’s a television crew here, too. Someone from the home office set it up and forgot to let us know.”

Gina coughed back a sound of dismay. No need to worry Andreas more than he already was. “Not a problem. We’ll start with the bed recipe—I mean, bread,” she said quickly.

Great.

Silence. “Gina, are you okay? You sound…strange.”

She struggled through a haze of major lust and stared up at Trace. He was focused on her entirely, his hands open on her shoulders. His attention—and his control—were nearly tangible.

Another major turn on, she thought. How long since a man had listened to her, watched with that kind of total focus and concern?

Never, a small voice whispered.

“I’m fine, Andreas. See you in five.” She powered off her cell phone and shoved it into her pocket. There was so much more to say, so much more that could have happened then.

But her time was up.

“I have to go.” Her voice was strained. “I can’t let them deal with this without me.”

He nodded as if he understood. “The elevator is beyond those stairs. Make a left and then a quick right. You can’t miss it.”

“How do you know where the elevator is?”

“I memorized the hotel floor plan. It’s a habit of mine.”

She frowned, suddenly aware how different his life was from hers and how unlikely it was that they’d ever met.

That knowledge made her push to her toes and rest her palm against his cheek, savoring the heat of his body. “Thank you.”

She felt his jaw flex. “I did nothing special.”

“Wrong. I’d forgotten there could be giving with no strings. I’d forgotten—a lot of things. You just reminded me.”

She brushed her mouth across his, feeling the instant rise of heat.

Him. Her.

They both felt it. His body left no mistake about that.

Wrong place, wrong time.

Gina forced herself to climb the stairs. No point in dragging things out. “After I change, I’ll leave your jacket upstairs in the kitchen. It’s just off the ballroom. Good luck with the champagne.” She smiled briefly. “I’ll…see you around.”

But she wouldn’t. They both knew that.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE WATCHED HER GO, her hair swinging, her steps fast. Great legs, he thought. A woman with places to go and people to see.

He wanted her to stay.

She was mouthy and stubborn, but he liked her energy. He also liked her sense of loyalty to her kitchen team. Trace knew all about the importance of team loyalty.

But five hours to make one cake?

He felt a dull ache at his shoulder and grimaced. He was regretting his wrestling match with the big mixer, but he hadn’t done any real damage. Any pain had been more than offset by her smile of thanks and gentle kiss.

Great mouth, too.

Then he shrugged off the memory. She wasn’t his type. He’d always favored leggy blondes or sultry brunettes, women who liked to feel a man’s body fast and hard, without much discussion.

He rubbed his neck and wondered why the other women he could remember suddenly seemed pale and uninteresting.

He glanced at his watch.

Vintage champagne, he thought wryly. But first he was going to chew someone’s butt for closing the loading door without maintaining direct visual contact with the area. There was probably an override switch somewhere, but it was nowhere in sight, and someone could have been killed beneath the heavy door. The hotel was damned lucky that their only casualties were a forklift truck and a Hobart mixer.

After he retrieved his uniform jacket from the kitchen, he’d report that problem to security.

“LOOKING FOR SOMEONE?” Wolfe stole through the crowd, his smile forced.

“Just an escape route. I found the missing champagne. The senator’s wife seemed very happy.” Trace set his untouched glass of punch on a nearby table. “Is it just me or do these things keep getting worse?”

“Yes,” Wolfe said cryptically. “Don’t look now but the senator is gesturing. We should go make nice-nice.”

Trace uttered a sound of pain and eyed the open bar wistfully. “I didn’t sign up to play nice. I signed up for det cords and delayed rocket rounds.”

“Welcome to the New Navy,” Wolfe muttered.

TEN MINUTES LATER Trace stood at the back of the crowded room finishing a shrimp canapé that tasted like cardboard. To his left a journalist was trying to draw Wolfe into an argument about the necessity of collateral damage during wartime operations. Not that he’d succeed.

Finally Wolfe broke away, looking harassed as a woman slid a business card with her phone number into his pocket. “If I’m not brain dead, I will be in another five minutes.” Wolfe glanced at his watch, then examined the thinning crowd. “We’re done here. Let’s roll.”

“Hallelujah.” Trace headed to the door without a backward glance. He and Wolfe said polite goodbyes to the senator and his wife, then breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the elevators.

Trace consulted his memory of the hotel floor plan and hit the elevator button down.

“Fourth floor?” Wolfe raised an eyebrow as Trace pulled a bright pink sweater out of a brown paper bag. “I don’t think pink is your best color, O’Halloran.”

“I have to drop this off at a lecture downstairs. I won’t be long.”

The elevator doors opened at four.

“There’s a story here somewhere.” Wolfe stared at Trace, then shrugged. “None of my business, though. Downstairs. Five minutes. There’s a beer back at our hotel with my name on it.”

“Roger that.”

ALMOST DONE, Gina thought.

The crème brûlée demonstration had received wild applause, with her cake decorating tutorial a close second. She was pretty sure she had flecks of buttercream frosting in her hair, but she was too tired to care. All she wanted was to get back to the ship, kick off her shoes and unwind.

Then she saw the white uniform at the back of the room and all thoughts of relaxing vanished. He’d actually tracked her down. She’d expected him to be distracted and forget all about her.

She tried to focus on the food critic in the front row. The man tugged at his small goatee, launching into his third convoluted question.

Meanwhile, Trace was handing her sweater to Reggie. The two spoke quietly and Reggie nodded.

Please get his phone number, Gina prayed.

She cleared her throat. “I think this will be our last question.” She smiled but made a point of glancing at her watch.

“Ms. Ryan, the New York Times recently quoted a food writer who said that imported chocolate is the new sex. Any comment?”

Gina waited a beat and smiled. “Was something wrong with the old sex?”

When the laughter stopped, she cut to a brief review of quality, artisanal imported chocolates, outlining her personal favorites. Then she wrapped up the session.

When she glanced at the back of the room, Trace was staring at her, smiling.

He raised his hand.

“Yes? The man in the uniform,” Gina said a little breathlessly.

“Don’t get me wrong, ma’am. I like good chocolate as much as the next guy. But the way I see it, sex is always going to have it over chocolate.”

Laughter broke in another wave.

He gave her a calm two-finger salute that sent the dark flutter nose-diving through her chest. Before Gina could answer, a man with a camera cut in front of her and she was caught in a TV interview.

When she looked up, Trace was gone.

CHAPTER NINE

One day later

THE SHIP’S LOWER DECKS were packed. While passengers lined up for entrance upstairs, uniformed workers raced past the lower loading areas with cans, food boxes and equipment.

Gina leaned against a rail, watching huge drums of cooking oil being rolled toward the ship’s stores. The head of beverage services stood in the middle of the chaos, looking perfectly made up and very smug. Gina wasn’t up with all the fashion trends, but she suspected that Blaine Richardson’s cropped red sweater was a Prada original. How you could afford designer clothes on a head of beverage service’s salary was a mystery to Gina. Then again most things about Blaine were a mystery to Gina.

As a seabird circled overhead, she rubbed her neck, smoothing knots of tension. All she wanted to do was sit down and close her eyes for a few minutes before the dinner madness began, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

Blaine was gesturing to her from the deck, and talking to Blaine was never a good thing.

Gina crossed the deck warily. “You wanted something?”

“No, but you will.”

The mysterious act again. “I don’t see any problems, Blaine. I logged all my stores in the ship’s computer three days ago. I’m good to go.”

Blaine studied a crimson nail and yawned. “Really?”

Whenever Blaine struck a casual pose like this, disaster always waited right around the corner.

“There’s no problem for me. But you’ve definitely got one. You should have been here earlier when the men began to load. There were space issues inside one of the refrigerated units. You remember when the thermostat started acting up, don’t you?” Her voice was sweet.

About as sweet as poisoned fruit, Gina thought. “That thermostat was supposed to be replaced here in California.”

“Afraid they couldn’t find the right parts.” Blaine studied another crimson nail. “That means no repair and no guarantees on anything stored in that unit.” She yawned dramatically. “Lucky for me that I’m an early riser. I made sure that all my stores were put in the functioning units. Since you weren’t here…”

The workers had diverted her food to a malfunctioning unit?

Gina stiffened, hit by a wave of anger. The day before she had been busy doing a favor for the cruise line bigwigs. Earlier in the morning she had had to catch up with her work on board. Meanwhile, the Wicked Witch of the West had been here sabotaging her pastry stores. Any pastry chef knew that chocolate was very temperature-sensitive, with an ideal storage temperature between fifteen and eighteen degrees centigrade. Fluctuations in temperature could result in melting and subsequent recrystalization of the cocoa butter fat. The surface powder or “bloom” was death to good pastry, requiring a new round of tempering.

Now Gina would have to beg, wheedle and trade favors to find adequate space for her sensitive chocolates and edible flowers in the ship’s already tight refrigerated areas. There was no way she’d ask Blaine to share her space.

Not that asking would help.

Never pleasant, Blaine had lapsed into full bitch mode after she learned that Gina was being considered for a food series on national TV. Since that day three months ago, it had become Blaine’s sole goal in life to beat out Gina with her own wine series, and her sabotage efforts were becoming more difficult to avoid. Gina had spoken to the head of food services twice, but he had been no help.

No surprise there. Blaine was boffing the man every chance she got. There was little that didn’t get noticed aboard a crowded ship, and crew gossip had pinpointed the spots and times, right down to the noise level and positions involved.

Ugh. Some details you just didn’t want to know.

“Thanks for all your help, Blaine.” Gina’s voice was icy. “You’re a real team player.”

Blaine buffed another nail. “Nobody said it was a team sport, honey. Just remember. If I don’t get a TV series, then nobody on board does.”

“Wow. Now there’s a healthy adult attitude.”

Much as she would have liked to, Gina didn’t stay around to trade insults.

She had a pallet of varietal semisweet chocolate to rescue before it started to sweat.

WHEN GINA TURNED into the corridor to the rear storage area, she nearly ran into her Brazilian sous chef. Andreas looked exhausted and worried. “He wants you and it’s not pretty.”

“Who wants me?” Gina ran through any recent problems with personnel, management or the captain and was relieved when she found none.

“Tobias Hale from security. He was down at the kitchen ten minutes ago. And ten minutes before that. He said you were to go straight to his office as soon as you came aboard.”

“Can’t. Gotta go save a ton of expensive chocolate from imminent peril. The Wicked Witch sent them over to the malfunctioning cooler.”

Andreas muttered a string of harsh words in Portuguese street slang. “You want me to help you with this transfer?”

“I can manage. But come back when you’ve finished checking on the tarts for dinner. We may have to work fast.”

“Nothing to sweat for, boss.” Andreas’s English was very good, but he occasionally mixed an idiom. “I will come soon. But Tobias—”

“Can wait.” The ship’s security chief was six feet five inches tall, built like an oak tree and had the smooth, dark features of a slightly younger James Earl Jones. He stopped fights with one glance and shot fear into the hearts of boisterous travelers and drunken crew alike. Because of him the ship never had security problems. The crew scuttlebutt said that he was a former CIA operative; others said he was ex-Delta Force. Maybe both were right.

His orders were never ignored.

But Gina did that now. She had her food to protect.

She was racing along the corridor to the galley so fast that she didn’t see a hand truck half hidden by a box of cleaning supplies. Her ankle hit metal and she went flying headfirst, skinning her palms, elbows and one cheek.

Closing her eyes to the sudden burst of pain, she sat up slowly.

A worried face loomed over her. The cleaning man shoved his hand truck back against the wall. “You okay? I had to use the bathroom. Sorry about that. Hey, you’re the one who made the rum cake for my birthday last month. Man, it was great.” He offered her his hand and tugged her to her feet.

Gina blinked, feeling a little dizzy. “Glad to hear you liked it.”

“Ma’am, you don’t look so good. You want me to get someone—like a doctor or something?”

“I’ll be fine. Just be sure you store that hand truck so no one else trips over it.”

“Sure. Real sorry about that. By the way, Tobias Hale is looking for you.”

Great.

Gina dug a tissue from her pocket and limped off. Most of the blood was gone by the time she located her chocolate pallet, just in time to keep it from being loaded into the cooler with the unreliable thermostat. After fifteen minutes of mixed pleas, promises and threats, she found an alternate berth in a different unit, but it meant volunteering to prepare special desserts for staff dinners the following month.

Next time she’d definitely beat Blaine to the dock. And until then she’d remember to watch her back.

When Gina finally reached the kitchen, she sank wearily into a chair, kicked off her shoes and pressed a bag of ice against her bruised cheek.

“Want to tell me what you are doing?”

“Resting?” She didn’t look up. She knew that deep voice, and there was no ignoring its edge of anger. “I had to rescue some chocolate.” She sighed. “And after that I was trying to avoid running into you.”

“In my office.” There was steel in Tobias Hale’s order. “Five minutes, Gina. Otherwise I’ll put you on report.”

If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have jumped up and saluted. “Aye-aye, sir.”

“Don’t bother sounding nice and obedient. We both know you’d like to insert one of your favorite knitting needles up my…nose. So stop smiling and get over to my office.”

One more fire to put out, Gina thought wearily. What had she done to piss off Tobias so royally?

She rubbed a fresh trickle of blood off her cheek and wiggled back into her shoes. Whoever thought cooking was glamorous needed to have a serious mental evaluation.

CHAPTER TEN

“YOU SHOULD HAVE told me.”

“Told you what?” Gina paced Tobias’s small office, watching seabirds rocket past the porthole. The ship was two hours out of San Francisco, following the curve of California south to Mexico. Given the hum of the big engines, she put their speed around fifteen knots.

Funny how she’d picked up the maritime life. Now it seemed like second nature. She was going to miss all of this when she left.

When she had to leave.

She prayed it wouldn’t be soon.

“Stop pacing like a scrawny, caged cat.”

“Who’s scrawny?” Gina muttered.

Tobias sat down at his desk and glared at her. “You know damned well what I mean. You’re not eating enough. You’re not sleeping enough. Scrawny,” the big security officer repeated flatly. “Bad-tempered and wound up tight.”

Gina started to rub her forehead, then caught herself. Tobias missed nothing. She couldn’t give any sign of the headache that was digging in behind her eyes. “You have a cigarette?”

“Why? You gave them up four years ago.”

“Right. Then how about some of those lemon drops you think you’ve kept hidden in the top left drawer of your desk?”

Tobias flipped open a drawer and tossed her a bag of candy. “Don’t change the subject. I know what’s going on.”

What was he talking about? Had she forgotten to return those last two videos of 24 from the ship’s video library? Did she owe money for uniform laundry?

No to both. But something had Tobias riled up big-time.

She savored the bite of a sour lemon ball, frowning. “Gee, Tobias, I don’t know what—”

“Of course you do. You were pale and shaky out at that damned pastry class you refused to say no to. You were dizzy by the end.”

“Oh, that.” She should have known Tobias would get reports on staff activities ashore. The man was spooky in his ability to gather information. She shrugged. “Didn’t sleep very well last night. Must be too much partying.”

“Partying, my ass. You don’t party. You don’t take time off. You work twenty hours out of every twenty-four and your staff is worried about you.”

Gina stopped pacing. “They told you that?”

“I had two worried calls today. Everyone says you looked pale yesterday.”

“Things were hectic.”

The security chief snorted. “Try again.”

So much for fooling her staff. “Look, I—I’m fine, Tobias. I was tired and too rushed to eat. Everything piled up.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re still pale. Something else is going on.” The head of security steepled his fingers and stared at her. “Level with me, or I’ll get really nasty.”

Gina cast about desperately for another excuse. “A truck ladder broke and almost hit us. Things were looking nasty.”

“I know all about the lieutenant with the medals who saved the day.”

“Is there anything you miss?”

“Not if I can help it. So did you get the man’s name?”

“No. Should I have? We weren’t contemplating marriage,” she said dryly.

“I’m just curious. And I’ll take the rest of those lemon sours, if you’re done shredding the bag.”

Gina took a breath and handed the bag back to Tobias. “Do you have boxes of these stashed somewhere? They’re imported from France, so you can’t just pick them up at the local Wal-Mart.”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” His lips curved faintly. “So they say.”

“When are you going to tell me the truth, Tobias? Were you Delta Force or a Green Beret?”

The security chief moved his fingers over the single photo on his desk. It was a shot of a woman at a distance, her face blurred by the sunlight pouring over the mountain at her back. The thick trees could have been in Mississippi or Connecticut or Guatemala. Gina had often wanted to ask about the woman, but Tobias wasn’t the sort of man you crowded with personal questions.

“What I was doesn’t matter. It’s over. That me is dead.” He sat up stiffly as if the words had surprised him. “Stop changing the subject.”

“Fine. I’ll eat. I’ll sleep. I’ll be more careful in the future.” And I’ll learn to lie a whole lot better, too.

Keen eyes swept her face. “Pressure is part of the job. You’ve dealt with it before without any problem. Something’s different now.”

No kidding.

Now my eyes ache and I keep failing my peripheral vision tests. Occasionally colors blur and lines of print wobble. “Nothing important, I promise you.”

The dramatically handsome security officer leaned back in his chair. He straightened a pen and pencil near his phone, then looked up. “That’s bullshit and we both know it.”

No fooling Tobias, Gina thought glumly. But she said nothing. If he reported her as unable to work, she’d have to appear for a medical evaluation, and any serious exam would reveal anomalies in her last set of vision tests. It would only be a matter of time before her condition went on record for personnel and everyone else to see.

No way. This chef was going to die in the saddle. What else could she do but cook? Once upon a time she’d had a different job back in Seattle. She’d been damned good at the job, too.

Ancient history.

Gina knew she’d go crazy if she had to stare at her hands and do nothing while she waited for the color loss and double vision that signaled final optic nerve deterioration.

So she had to lie through her teeth and convince Tobias she was in perfect shape to work. Not that it was a lie; the day she couldn’t do her job was the day she’d turn in her resignation.

Of course it was never a good idea to have a blind person working near an open fire.

Tobias leaned back in his chair. “Stop that.”

“What?”

“Trying to cook up a lie. It won’t work. You know, I thought we were friends. Friends don’t lie to friends.”

Yeah, they were friends. They’d shared some bad jokes during awful storms at sea. They had worked together for five years on more cruises than Gina could count, and they spent Thursday nights playing poker in a secret, rotating location with only select crew in attendance. She counted Tobias as a true friend.

But some things you didn’t share.

After her dad’s death, Gina’s mother had flaked out completely. Unable to function, she’d lived on medications that left her half asleep most of the day. She hadn’t accepted what was going on around her. Instead, she’d built a wall of denial and vanished behind it.

That wasn’t happening to Gina.

Tobias had a right to expect the truth from her, but friendship had its limits. How did you tell a friend that you were going blind? That the meds were working, but only to a point and one morning you’d wake up to see shadows and squiggles. About that time Gina’s color vision would become unreliable. Outlines would blur and the headaches would ratchet up.

She closed her eyes. Dear God, she needed more time. How could she break the news to someone else when she still hadn’t come to grips with it?

“No more evasions.” His voice was rough with concern. “Damn it, Gina, I want to help but I don’t know how.”

It was his baffled anger that finally cut through her defenses. Pity or concern she would have dismissed easily, but anger was something she understood too well. Anger had become her closest companion in the past few months. Little things, nothing things, left her shaken and furious.

Meanwhile, Tobias wouldn’t let go until he had answers.

“It’s personal, Tobias. I have to deal with this myself.”

His eyes narrowed. “Personal how? Blaine trouble?”

Blaine. He thought that was her big problem. If only he were right.

Gina cleared her throat. “I’d rather not discuss it.”

He didn’t move, didn’t speak.

She didn’t try to make up a story. The man would spot it in a second. “If things get desperate, I’ll come to you—I promise.” That was true. Tobias was the only one she could trust. Her staff was too emotional. They would worry and intervene and hover. They’d want medical details and the name of her doctor. They’d need to try to change what couldn’t be changed.

Only Tobias would be cool and practical. Gina needed that if she was going to face the truth, not live on wishes and impossible hopes for a cure.

Her throat was raw. She locked her hands, trying to stay calm.

“Here.” He held out a white handkerchief. “Your cheek is bleeding again.”

She took the soft cloth, feeling her cheek burn as the soft cotton pressed against her skin. “If things change, you’ll be the first to know. Isn’t that enough?”

“I guess it will have to be. I know you keep your promises. But we can’t avoid this conversation forever.”

Gina took a long, rasping breath, feeling lost and afraid of the future. It was past time she faced that future.

All at once, she blurted out the words that couldn’t be trapped inside any longer. They fought her, demanding to be heard, demanding an honesty that felt like sandpaper on an open wound.

“I’m…going blind, Tobias. That’s pretty much it, soup to nuts. It’s a nerve degeneration problem and I’ve got meds to slow it down, but there’s no cavalry over the hill and no cure in sight.” She sat stiffly. “I didn’t want to tell you. Now if you don’t mind—I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Head between your knees.” Gentle hands pushed her forward, rubbed her neck while she gulped in air and tears seared her eyelids.

He didn’t speak. When her shaking had stopped, he sat forward. “What’s the specific diagnosis?”

Gina said the long, barely pronounceable Greek name. She’d avoided the word for so long that it was a relief to say it out loud.

“Which means?”

“Optic nerve damage of unknown origins. My doctor in Palo Alto says it will probably be months. Maybe I’ll get two good years before…” Her fingers twisted, locked. “I need to work until then, Tobias. If I lose that, I’ve lost everything. Working is what I know best. I’ve got no family to speak of, and my friends are all here. This will never impact the ship or my staff, I promise.”

He didn’t speak. He crossed his arms at his chest and stared out the window. Two seagulls dove into churning waves, then reappeared carrying small fish that wiggled vainly.

Gina knew exactly how those small fish felt.

“So you want me to keep your secret, even if it means breaking a dozen company regulations?”

“What are rules if you don’t break them once in a while?” She squared her shoulders. She wouldn’t grovel. She’d quit first.

Tobias studied the neat piles of paperwork on his desk. “I never break the rules.” He leaned toward the picture, then stopped abruptly. “Only once. That was enough.” He swiveled in his chair, his face a mask. “Here’s the way it will go. This stays between us for now. You report to me every week and I see your medical files. If your symptoms change, you tell me immediately. Understood?”

It was better than she could have hoped. Worse, too, since she hated the thought of giving up her privacy, even to this friend.

Too bad her choices were a little limited at the moment.

“I accept. Thank you, Tobias.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said tightly. “It’s my job to push.” He made a dismissive sound, then looked out the window. After a long time he picked up a set of keys from his desk. “Take care of yourself. And stay away from Blaine. She’s gunning for you bad now.”

“I got that message, believe me.”

“So watch your back. And get Andreas to take over the heavy lifting. He’s good, so let him do more.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Tobias frowned. “I mean it. Start delegating or I’ll report you.” His eyes were steely. “Don’t mess with me, Ryan.”

“I won’t.” This time her voice was soft, hesitant. “Delegate.” She snapped a small salute. “Even if it kills me.”

“It’s a hard thing to learn, but your people have to advance sometime.” He stood up, shaking his head. “I thought it was money problems, or Blaine. Maybe something with an old boyfriend. Nothing like this.”

Gina gripped his arm for a moment. She didn’t cry this time. The tears were gone. Saying the words had driven them away.

She stood up, smoothed her hair. “Hell, isn’t it? So what happens now?”

“Work. The usual grind. And we live for Thursday nights.” He smiled slightly. “You got all that stuff we ordered in San Francisco?”

“Safe and sound in my cabin. Andreas brought the second box himself. Brown paper wrappers, just the way you asked.”

“One more thing.” His forehead furrowed. “A friend of yours contacted corporate to set up some time with you. The cruise brass okayed it.” Tobias glanced at his computer screen. “Carly McKay, wife of Ford McKay. Three children traveling with them.”

“Carly’s here? But she isn’t supposed to be taking the cruise until next month.”

“They boarded three hours ago. Her husband looks like an interesting guy.” Tobias scrolled through the passenger information, his eyes intent. “Navy, I see.” He kept on scrolling. “A man who’s been a lot of places.”

“Something wrong with that?”

“Not that I can tell. Your friend has your ship e-mail address and she wanted to get together later today if you have time.”

Gina hid a grimace. The first few days at sea were always hectic. Tonight would be worse than usual due to the malfunctioning refrigeration unit. But she and Carly had been college roommates. It had been far too long since they’d been able to meet. How could she refuse?

“Okay, I’ll e-mail her back. I’ll check with the captain about—”

Tobias waved one hand. “Already done. Strings have been pulled. As long as your work is complete, you can see your friend whenever you like.”

“I appreciate it, Tobias.”

“Thank corporate. All I did was field the calls.” He cleared his computer screen and stood up abruptly.

“Tobias? Is something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The tall man let out a slow breath. “Turns out that McKay and I have…friends in common. Not that it matters.” He pulled a set of keys from his top desk drawer. “The doctor tells me a nasty strain of flu has hit coastal Mexico. He wants everyone down for flu shots in the next twenty-four.”

Blaine. Medical files to Tobias. Flu.

What else could go wrong?

“I’ll get my staff lined up. Nothing for me, though.” Gina worked at a knot in her neck. “I’m under strict orders not to combine anything with my experimental meds.” She laughed dryly. “But the good news is, I won’t be losing my sight because of any flu.”

Tobias stared at her, his gaze cold and angry. “That isn’t funny, damn it.”

“I guess not.” Gina let out a slow breath. “Sorry. My humor’s been a little…warped lately. I’ll try to keep it to myself.”

“If it bothers me, I’ll let you know.” He glanced at his watch and held open the door to the outer office. “Remember Blaine’s out there somewhere, and she’s one very hungry shark.”

“Warning noted.”

As she walked back across the hall toward the kitchen, Gina ran through the night’s pastry platings and calculated her staff assignments. Suddenly she felt a sharp prickling at her shoulders.

She stopped across the hall from Tobias’s office, looking in both directions. One of the purser’s staff walked by with a paperback and a bottle of water. One of Tobias’s security team moved down the hall, his walkie-talkie squawking.

No one else was in sight.

Stress. Lack of sleep. She had enough problems without conjuring any new ones from her imagination.

Gina leaned against the wall and rubbed her eyes gently, using the exercises the doctor in Palo Alto had shown her. Though they wouldn’t reverse her problem, they reduced some of her pain.

But even after she walked into the pastry kitchen, the probing sensation between her shoulders remained.

TOBIAS HALE CLOSED his door and stared at the paperwork forgotten on his desk. He was reeling with the news Gina had just given him.

Blind.

And he thought his problems were bad.

Rules or not, he’d find a way to protect her as long as he could. He only hoped it was the right thing to do.

How did you ever know until years later?

Meanwhile there was Ryker to consider. Damn Ryker for hanging on to him when he had worked so hard, paid so dearly to sever all ties and put the past where it belonged. But old debts never got repaid, and the past didn’t stay forgotten for long.

He’d done what he thought was best all those years ago.

Now he owed Ryker. One favor to make his family safe forever. That one favor became ten and then twenty.

Tobias studied the two photos on his desk. His callused fingers traced the worn wooden frames the way he had daily for seventeen years.

It had all seemed best at the time.

It had seemed the safest for those who counted most.

But people had a way of growing up and making their own choices, even if they didn’t understand the truth. Tobias had no doubt that Ryker had manipulated everyone to suit his own purposes. No one did manipulation like Lloyd Ryker.

Now Tobias was trapped. It was too late to go back, too late for explanations or amends.

Too late for everything that mattered.

He stared at the photos on his desk for a very long time. Then his head fell, braced on his hands in the empty room that was the only home he had allowed himself since he’d left the government.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TRACE WASN’T SURE what a cruise ship security office was supposed to look like. He didn’t have a clue what to expect of his contact on board, either.

The man was probably overweight, fiftyish and an ex-Marine with delusions of operational grandeur. Probably read Soldier of Fortune religiously.

A balding, middle-aged man in a brown uniform walked out of the Security office.

Figured.

Trace frowned at him. “Are you the security chief?”

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