“Lena, will you have some time for me later? To catch up?”

His stare was so dark, Lena felt herself slide into its endless depths. She fought the sensation with everything she had in her, stopping the headlong disaster at the very last moment.

She spoke slowly, distinctly. “I’m here today, Andres, because I had a job to do. As far as I’m concerned, that job is the only reason I’ll be seeing you again. I certainly don’t feel like going over old times.”

“And if I disagree?”

Her pulse hammered, but Lena had trained herself well. She knew her expression was neutral. “Feel free to disagree all you want. I don’t care one way or the other.”

Before he could reply, she said, “The stairs are going to be our most open point. Stay as close to me as possible and keep your head down. When we hit the ground, we’ll walk directly to the car. If anything happens, fall down. Understand?”

At her imperious tone, his own voice sharpened. “Lena, I know what to do. I’ve done this be—”

“Good. Then do it right, and we’ll all come out alive.”

They’d barely reached the bottom of the stairs when the first bullet slammed into the car.

Dear Reader,

The Commander holds a special place in my heart because it tells the story of a very strong, very independent woman, Lena McKinney. As the leader of Florida’s Emerald Coast SWAT team, Lena faces death daily. She fights crime and keeps victims safe, leading fifteen men into dangerous operations around the clock. But Lena isn’t unique. Every woman reading this book knows someone like Lena.

She could be your mother, she could be your boss, she could be your next-door neighbor or your very best friend. Whoever she is, she’s someone you can depend on to be there when you need her. She’s someone who will listen to you complain and laugh at your silly jokes. She’s someone who will hold you when you cry and comfort you when you’re sad.

She’s your inspiration.

I grew up in a family of strong women, the first of whom was my grandmother. She raised five children by herself, cleaning churches to put food on the table. Then there’s my mom. A survivor of cancer, she’s the most incredible woman I know. Sharp as they come, she can still run rings around everyone else in the family. My sister’s no slouch, either. She teaches elementary school and has put two girls through college on her own. They will be the next generation of formidable women.

A powerful woman deserves an exceptional man. He has to be her equal in all ways, but he can’t be threatened by her strength. He has to appreciate it, to nurture it, to understand it. Fortunately for Lena—and for the women in my family—men like that do exist.

While reading The Commander, I hope you come to appreciate the strengths of all the characters, male and female. Most of all, however, I hope you realize how many people like the ones I’ve described—strong, special and powerful—there are in this world. Chances are you’re one of them!

Sincerely,

Kay David

The Commander
Kay David

www.millsandboon.co.uk

No author ever writes in a vacuum.

I always turn to many experts for help,

too many, in fact, to list here. Heartfelt thanks to everyone,

but the following three need special mention.

To Patricia Brown for generously sharing her medical

expertise regarding gunshot wounds. Thanks for the help,

but most of all, thanks for being such a great friend.

To Dr. Ron Grabowski for helping me with my anatomy

questions. You’re a rare breed—someone who cares

and cares deeply. Thank you for everything.

To Caimee Schoenbaechler, one of my three beautiful,

intelligent nieces, for editing my Spanish. I wish I’d had you

with me in Argentina. People would have understood me

a heck of a lot better had you been my interpreter!

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Somewhere off the coast of Cuba

THERE WAS no moon, thank God.

Andres Casimiro stared into the endless black of the water and counted the only blessing he had. If there’d been light, he’d be a dead man by now.

Easing the throttle of the boat, he slowed the vessel and cut the engine. The gentle sound of slapping waves replaced the throb of the motor, and he took a breath of something that felt like relief. No moonlight, no noise…he might have a chance.

In the still, hot quiet, he looked down at the chart on the table beside the wheel and checked his location again. His gaze traveled past the spot that marked his current position, and he drew a mental line from his home now—Miami—to the place he’d grown up—Havana: 198 nautical miles from one to the other. It should have been much farther, he thought. They were worlds apart. He shook his head to dislodge the thought. All he had to do right now was wait. Wait and not think.

Andres had never been a patient man, but in this instance, the waiting would be easier than the thinking anyway. He had to make his mind as empty as the sea beneath him to get through this. If he couldn’t, the next few hours would be his last.

The minutes ticked by slowly. After a while, he lowered his arm to hide the light and pressed his watch to read the dial—l:00 a.m. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, a surge of disappointment—so strong it felt more like grief—washed over him. He and Lena would have been in Cancun by now, the wedding ceremony long behind them, the I do’s said and sealed with a kiss. They would be settling into the villa on the beach. He’d reserved the last one on the Point, where no one ever came. He’d wanted the privacy, the intimacy of it. When he’d told Lena about the special house, she’d smiled in that secret way of hers and said one word. “Perfect.”

He wondered what one word she had for him right now. It wasn’t perfect, he was sure.

A tiny beam broke the darkness, unexpectedly radiant against the inky night before it winked out. Andres’s heart bucked as if someone had punched him, and he fumbled the flashlight he’d been holding, dropping it to the deck. With a curse, he fell to his knees and patted the wooden planks. His fingers found the flashlight and he jumped up and flicked it once, then again. He thought he heard a splash, but he wasn’t sure.

He started the countdown in his mind. They’d agreed on every thirty seconds. One thousand one, he began silently, one thousand two…

The numbers echoed in his mind, each digit accompanied by the same mantra. Forgive me, Lena. I didn’t have a choice…. Forgive me….

He’d been completely unprepared for the phone call he’d gotten early that morning. Mateo’s voice, coming over the tinny line, was the last one Andres had expected to hear only a few hours before his wedding. His best friend, Mateo Aznar had helped the eighteen-year-old Andres escape Cuba twenty-four years before and had served since as the sole source of information Andres had on the island. A former cop but now working for the Justice Department, Andres passed the intelligence on, most of it centering on one organization—the Red Tide. A drug cartel that purported to be freedom fighters, they had no good intentions.

“You’ve got to come,” Mateo had gasped. “They’ve found out about everything. The radio, the lines, everything. If you can’t get me out, they’ll kill me.”

Andres’s breath had stopped. “But how did they—?”

“I have my suspicions.”

“The same as mine?”

They hadn’t wanted to say the name—in Cuba, there were ears everywhere. Andres wasn’t sure Destin was any better.

“Sí,” Mateo had replied. “I’m certain it’s him.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“I’ve got records of the payments. I think it’s good enough together with what you know of his ‘friends.”’

They’d gone on to what was needed, talking in a code they’d already developed. Within hours, Andres had been on a plane to Miami, then at the dock, renting the boat. He loved Lena desperately and the decision had torn him apart. But it was the only one he could make. When this was all over, he’d go back to her. He’d tell her what he could and pray she’d understand. Deep down, he knew she wouldn’t, but to get through the night, he had to believe in the lie.

One thousand twenty-nine, one thousand thirty… Holding the flashlight above his head, Andres switched it on once more. His eyes searched the water. He’d anchored well offshore, but Mateo should have been visible by now. A movement to the right caught Andres’s eye. Was it him? His palms pressing into the railing, Andres peered over the side of the boat.

If he hadn’t been so focused, he might have seen them.

As it was, when the white-hot flash of the spotlight blinded him, Andres was astonished. The huge cutter loomed as suddenly as if the boat had been dropped from above. When his vision returned, shocked and in a panic, he shot his gaze back to the water. Twenty yards off the bow of his own vessel, he spotted Mateo, floundering in the waves. Before he could cry out, the larger boat angled between the two men.

“Put your hands up and prepare to be boarded. Drop any weapons now!” The warning was given in Spanish, through a bullhorn from the deck of the ship.

“¿Comprende?”

Instead of answering, Andres screamed into the night. “Hurry, Mateo, hurry! You can make it! Swim faster! I’ll come get you!”

The water was choppy and rough, but Andres’s and Mateo’s eyes connected over the waves. In that instant, that split second, Andres knew he’d done the right thing. Leaving Lena at the altar, giving up the only woman he’d ever loved…How could he have lived with himself otherwise? He revved the engine then maneuvered the tiny boat around the cutter and headed toward his friend.

He reached Mateo just as an onslaught of bullets peppered the water. A searing pain streaked down Andres’s arm as he took a direct hit, but the wound was nothing compared to the agony he felt as Mateo screamed and began to flail about in the now crimson waves.

“Goddammit, no! No!” Andres gunned the boat and cut past the spot, turning the craft as tightly as he dared to fly back once more. He searched the waves with desperate eyes, placing himself between the huge ship and where Mateo had been, but there was nothing to see.

Mateo was gone.

Andres screamed a useless curse and wasted a few more dangerous moments searching the water. With no other choice, he spun the boat around and disappeared into the darkness. Gunfire followed his wake, but it couldn’t reach him. His craft was fast and small, and the cutter didn’t have a chance.

He made it to Miami a few hours later. He’d sacrificed love for loyalty, a wife for a friend.

Now he had neither. It’d take him a lifetime to forget.

And forever to forgive.

CHAPTER ONE

Destin, Florida

Two years later

LENA MCKINNEY stepped onto the red-carpeted aisle of the flower-filled church, the solemn strains of the “Wedding March” drifting above the crowded pews.

All the guests were watching her and she knew what they were thinking—little Lena McKinney was finally getting married…after all this time! Her tomboy years were behind her, and now she was a woman. From beneath her lacy veil she smiled with silent satisfaction, then all at once, the realization hit her.

Other than the veil, she wore nothing. She was completely naked.

A wave of humiliation swamped her as she dropped her bouquet and tried to cover herself. Her actions were pointless, though. Everyone had already seen. Everyone already knew.

With a startled exclamation, Lena woke up and pushed herself out of the tangled sheets of her bed. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand, her heart still pounding from the dream—5:00 a.m. What in the hell was she doing? She had to get up in another hour, and now she’d never go back to sleep. She never did after the dream.

She collapsed against her pillows, muttering a curse then immediately chastising herself. Her poor mother was probably turning over in her grave. That’s what came from eating, breathing and drinking your work, Lena thought guiltily. She was starting to sound like the testosterone-charged cops she worked with 24/7.

No excuse, her mother’s ghost said with a hopeless sigh. You’re supposed to be a lady, try acting like one for a change.

Lena stared at the stained ceiling above her bed. At least her mother hadn’t been alive to see the Disaster, which was how Lena always thought of the aborted wedding.

The beautiful sanctuary, the silken gown, the wonderful music…every detail coordinated down to her bouquet of white freesias and apricot roses. They’d waited for as long as they could, her father holding her hand in the tiny room off the narthex, then they’d sent out Bering, the eldest of her four brothers. He’d explained as much as possible, and the guests had gone home. Lena had been worried, then incredulous, both emotions finally exploding into a bitter anger the next day when Andres had shown up and given her his lame excuses.

Get a grip, she told herself furiously. It was past history. Dead and gone. Andres had moved on and so had she. Stationed in Miami, he was climbing the ladder at the Justice Department, going up so fast he was nothing but a blur. She hadn’t been standing still, either. In charge of the Emerald Coast SWAT team, Lena held a position of authority and power, too. Two cells of topflight officers worked under her command.

Moaning with disgust over the dream and at herself for having it, Lena sat up and put her feet on the floor. A front had blown in last night and the stained concrete was cold and hard, the icy feeling instantly traveling up her legs. The scene outside the uncovered windows added to the chill, a gray and stormy Floridian sea churning on the beach only a hundred yards away. Above the waves, the October sky looked just as forbidding. Dark, heavy clouds hovered over the horizon, their swirling depths promising rain later.

One of the panes of glass rattled loudly, and propelled by the sound, Lena turned to go to the kitchen. The pipes sang, the shingles leaked, and half the time the heater refused to work. She didn’t care. She had memories of her mother here, and of good summers, laughing and chasing her brothers over the dunes. Her father had tried to buy her a condo last summer in the new high-rise going up off Inlet Beach. The units were “only” three hundred thousand, he’d said. A bargain at preconstruction rates. She’d turned him down, and he’d gotten angry, not understanding.

In the kitchen, she flipped on the television set, reaching for the door of the refrigerator at the same time. Bleary-eyed, she grabbed the last diet cola and a boiled egg left over from a few days before. The breakfast of champions. Her planned stop at the grocery store yesterday had been put on hold, as a lot of her plans were, when the team had gotten a late-afternoon call-out. The situation had dragged on forever, and they hadn’t cleaned up the mess until after two that morning. But that’s what SWAT team work was like. You stayed until the end, no matter how long it took to come.

No one had been hurt, though. That was always her goal: everyone gets out alive.

She popped open the cold drink, then took a long swallow before beginning to peel the egg, dropping the bits of shell into the sink. “Everyone gets out alive,” she repeated out loud. “Hostages, victims…even jilted brides.”

The ringing phone startled her and Lena fumbled with the egg. She caught it right before it slid into the disposal, then grabbed the receiver. “McKinney here.”

Sarah Greenberg’s soft voice sounded, and Lena relaxed the muscles she’d tightened automatically on hearing the phone. Sarah was the SWAT team’s information officer, and her calls didn’t usually signify an emergency. “Sarah! You’re calling awfully early. What’s up? Everything okay?”

“We’re fine,” the young woman answered.

Lena sipped her cola. “Did Beck tell you about last night?” A former negotiator, Beck Winters had left the SWAT team a while back but Lena had promised him a desk job and he’d returned.

Before Sarah could answer, Lena launched into an explanation. “Panama City Beach had a warrant they were trying to serve. It went downhill fast, but—” She realized suddenly that Sarah had gone silent. Usually the young cop had plenty to contribute but for some reason, she hadn’t said a word. Lena frowned. “Sarah?”

A pause—this one lasting long enough to make Lena really nervous—then Sarah spoke. “We got a fax this morning ordering a special dignitary detail for next week. I thought you might want to know about it right away so you could…um…prepare for it.”

“I’ll be in the office in an hour,” Lena said slowly. “It couldn’t wait until then?”

“I thought you might want to know about this one before you got here…so you wouldn’t be surprised.”

Lena waited a minute, but Sarah said nothing more and finally Lena spoke again, this time somewhat impatiently. “Well, are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?”

“It’s for the guy from Justice in Miami.” Sarah sounded almost shaky. “You know, the one they’re sending to open the new office? There’ve been death threats called in. They think an attempt might be made on his life.”

She should have known, Lena told herself later. She should have seen it coming. But it was only after Sarah said “Miami” that Lena’s mind kicked into gear. “No…oh, no…Shit…”

“I’m sorry, Lena. But it’s Andres Casimiro. He’s coming to Destin and he needs protection.”

“IS THIS THE FULL REPORT?” Andres raised his gaze to Carmen San Vicente, his assistant. They were in the director’s private jet, fifteen thousand feet above the Florida Panhandle. Andres hadn’t taken the time to look out the window and see the turquoise waters beneath him, but he’d buzzed the captain a moment before and asked for the ETA. The man had said ten minutes and Andres had felt his gut respond accordingly. Now he was glaring at Carmen and she had no idea she wasn’t responsible for his expression. He was thinking of the same thing he’d been thinking of for the past week—every day, every hour, every minute—since he’d known he was coming back to Destin.

Lena.

Carmen answered, but Andres’s mind had already gone elsewhere. He hadn’t spoken to Lena since the night he’d returned to Destin following Mateo’s death. The meeting had been disastrous, of course. He’d told her what he could—that a special mission had come up, that he’d had no choice but to miss their wedding.

She’d stared him in the eye and said just what he’d expected, her voice calm and controlled. “I’m a cop, Andres. I would have understood if you’d told me.”

With his heart cracking in two, he’d met her accusing stare. It had held equal shares of pain and anger, and he’d felt both just as deeply. “I couldn’t tell you, Lena. Not this time.”

She’d looked as if she wanted to believe him, but a moment later she’d closed her expression. “Then we have nothing more to discuss.” Pulling off the diamond he’d given her, she’d handed him the ring and turned away. “Please leave.”

He’d done what she asked because he hadn’t had another choice. And he still didn’t. To begin with, she would never believe him, and if she did accept his suspicions—by some miracle—it would almost be worse. The news would completely destroy her.

Lena’s father had arranged Mateo Aznar’s death. He’d wanted to kill Andres, as well.

Andres had had his suspicions before the wedding, but for Lena’s sake, he’d kept them to himself. He’d waited and watched, collected the tiny scraps of evidence he could, the main one being a local drug dealer named Pablo Escada, who had kept Phillip McKinney’s law office on retainer. The Panamanian immigrant was in the Union Correctional Institution for the moment, but he hadn’t shut down his business. Andres couldn’t prove the connection but he knew—he knew—Escada was hooked up with the Red Tide. He had to be. The organization funneled all the drugs that came through the area.

And Phillip was connected to Escada.

For months after the murder, Andres had devoted every minute of his time trying to document Phillip’s involvement, but he’d ended up with nothing. He’d been unable to find a shred of data, an iota of validation, to link the wily old attorney with the terrorists.

After a while, Andres had to let it go and accept what appeared to be the truth: things had gone terribly wrong that night and the Red Tide had acted on their own. Mateo had been wrong about the money coming from Phillip’s office.

“I brought everything that was in the folder.” Carmen’s voice held an anxious flutter. “Are you missing something?”

Andres finally heard her apologetic tone. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark at you. I’m a little preoccupied—”

“It’s okay,” she answered in an accommodating way. “I understand. Really, I do. It’s impossible to get anything done when you have to travel all the time.” She reached up and tucked a strand of dark hair behind one ear then her eyes warmed hopefully as Andres’s gaze met hers. “Would you like to work this evening? I could come to your hotel room after dinner tonight and we could finish this then.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ll cover the final details right before the meeting in the morning. It’s not necessary to take you away from your kids and make you work overtime, too.”

Andres watched her hide her disappointment by turning away to fuss with some files in her hands. With her shining hair and olive skin, she had the kind of beauty for which Miami’s women were famous. Years before, she’d befriended his aunt Isabel, and the older woman, more of a mother to him than his own had been, had convinced him to hire Carmen when she’d needed a job. She was smart and ambitious, a single mom with two children she was putting through private school.

She’d finally gotten him into bed the month before.

He’d known the minute it started, he was making a big mistake. He’d tried to tell her, to back away and bow out gracefully, but she’d put her fingers across his mouth and stopped him from saying more. When her lips had left his and gone lower, he’d said nothing else, allowing her hot eyes and slow touch to comfort him. But he should never have given in. It’d been unfair to her.

Carmen started toward the front of the plane, then stopped at the bulkhead and turned, as though just remembering something. “Did you get your vest?”

He stared at her blankly. “My vest?”

“The director left a bulletproof vest for you to wear when you get off the plane. He told me he’d have my head if you weren’t wearing it when you arrived.”

Andres dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. It was a very Latin gesture; as a child, he’d seen his Cuban father make the same one a thousand times.

“I promised him,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have. They’re hot and heavy and totally useless. I never wore one when I was a cop and I’m not going to start now.” He went back to the files spread before him.

“And did the Red Tide have money on your head while you were a cop?”

“Drop it, Carmen. I don’t have the time or the patience.”

Ignoring him, she came back down the aisle and rested on the arm of the seat opposite his. “Por favor, Andres, those guys are terrorists. They’re bad—”

“They’re leftover Communists and rejects from the islands who sell drugs. Don’t be confused about this, Carmen.” He narrowed his gaze. “They’re criminals and nothing more. If I let scum like that scare me, then I don’t deserve to be in this job.”

“They’ve threatened to kill you.”

“So what? They’ve done the same before and nothing has happened. We’ve ordered security at the airport. Let the Emerald Coast SWAT team handle this.”

He turned his eyes out the window of the plane. Destin was almost in view. What would Lena say to him? How would she react after all this time?

Carmen started to argue more, but the captain’s voice came over the intercom. “Two minutes to landing, folks. Everyone buckle up.”

“I’ll get the vest for you right now.” She tried one last time. “You can slip it on before we land—”

“No.” He slammed his files shut and pulled on his seat belt. “No one’s going to be shooting at anybody. Not the Red Tide. Not anybody. Not today.”

Carmen shook her head then sat down abruptly in the seat in front of him, the sound of her own seat belt an angry click as she buckled herself in.

But Andres hardly noticed. Once again, he wasn’t thinking about his assistant or the Red Tide or even the man he’d suspected all those years ago of backing them. His thoughts were centered on the only thing he really cared about in Destin.

Lena McKinney.

The woman he’d never stopped loving.

LENA STOOD beneath the overhang of Terminal A, her eyes scanning the buildings around her as the breeze tugged at her hair and pulled on her jacket. The sky was so blue, it almost glowed. Strong winds straight from the Gulf had blown away last week’s storm clouds and now it was clear, the sunshine warming the temperature to a balmy seventy degrees, the quick change typical for Destin’s weather. A salty tang hung over the blackened tarmac, as well. The airport was blocks from the beach, but the sea was always close in Destin. Even if it wasn’t in sight, you could either hear it or smell it.

Her earphone crackled suddenly and Lena put her fingers against the small black piece of plastic all the team members wore in order to communicate with each other. The words sounded faintly in her ear. Andres’s plane would be landing within minutes.

She lifted her gaze to the cloudless expanse. The aircraft was not yet in sight, but she could feel its nearness deep inside her. Ever since Sarah had given her the news, Lena had hovered between craziness and calm acceptance. One minute she’d tell herself she could handle Andres’s appearance. He no longer meant anything to her, anything at all. The next minute lunacy would take over and she’d start to recall everything about him—his black eyes, his heavy-lidded looks, the Latin sighs.

Standing on the asphalt, she told herself there was only one way this meeting would go. He’d arrive, she’d say a cool hello, then she’d concentrate on her job and nothing else. Keeping him safe was all she had to worry about and nothing could interfere with that goal.

Everyone gets out alive.

To maintain her calmness, she focused on her preparations. The airport was tiny and that made things simple. Their primary concern would be the deplaning. Passengers didn’t always go through jetways here; sometimes after the aircraft landed, they walked down exterior stairways. He’d be the most vulnerable right then. That was why she would go out and meet him personally. Her chest went tight at the thought, but she took a deep breath and concentrated on the details.

She’d put Ryan Lukas, their main sniper, on the center roof and his counterpart from the other team, Chase Mitchell, on the rear building. Peter Douglas and John Fletcher, the two rear entry men from Team Beta were manning security at the entrances inside and out. Cal Hamilton and Jason Field, the rear guys from Alpha were providing undercover surveillance inside the waiting lounges. She’d ordered dogs and handlers into the parking garage as a final extra precaution. The remaining team members she’d scattered about the airport, leaving only a skeleton crew in town under the control of her second in command, Bradley Thompson. Maybe she’d gone overboard, but she didn’t want to examine that thought too closely, so she told herself if nothing else, it was good training for the day when someone really important might show up.

The low, thrumming sound of a jet interrupted the expectant silence. When Lena spotted its blue-and-white logo, she reached up and adjusted her headset to bring the microphone closer to her mouth. “Head’s up, everyone. Package approaching.”

Her voice was level and constant. It’s just another job, she told herself. Another situation, another call-out, nothing more. Andres was coming to meet with the head of the new D.E.A. branch office that was opening in Destin. According to Sarah, he’d be in and out in one day. She’d see him for a total of ten minutes, coming and going, and that was it.

Everyone gets out alive.

The plane came into view and a few seconds later, the wheels touched down, their screaming protest louder than Lena was accustomed to from inside the terminal. In a matter of minutes, the jet reached the end of the blackened asphalt, then turned slowly and began to taxi toward her. Lena’s gaze went over the area one more time, checking and rechecking. Everyone on the field had gone through security, but a sudden edginess brushed against her. She didn’t believe in omens but all at once her instincts were screaming too loud to ignore. She concentrated a moment more, then her gaze homed in on the porthole in the aft section of the arriving plane, pinpointing the source of her discomfort. Her unease was coming from inside the aircraft, not out.

A face stared at her through the thick glass of the window. She caught only an impression—dark hair and a black suit—but it was enough. She knew it was Andres. The engines whined loudly and the plane ended up alongside the waiting stairway. A moment later, the noise from the turbines died, leaving only silence.

Lena walked into the bright sunshine and headed for the stairs.

CHAPTER TWO

ANDRES ROSE from his seat, nervous energy propelling him into the aisle before the jet had even stopped moving. Pacing the tiny walkway, he waited for the flight attendant to open the door, willing the man to hurry up, but without obvious results. A rush of humid air and sunshine flooded the cabin as the uniformed steward finally drew the door back.

He told himself he was prepared.

But he wasn’t.

Lena stepped inside and Andres’s heart stopped. He could actually feel it thump once then quit. A moment later, it started again, but for a second, he hadn’t been sure it would.

Her whiplike body filled the black SWAT uniform with unmistakable familiarity. She’d never had a voluptuous figure, but what she did have was perfect. She was fit and trim without an ounce of extra anything. Her brown hair, still shiny and smooth, was tinged with streaks of blond and cut shorter than he remembered. Her gray eyes weren’t as stormy as they’d been the last time he’d seen her, but there was something in her gaze that stabbed him, the pain unexpectedly pointed and physical.

“Andres.” She said his name with aloofness. “Welcome to Destin.”

“Thank you, Lena. It’s good to see you—”

She didn’t let him finish, her brisk response impersonal and distant. “We need to do this fast, Andres. The longer we take, the more opportunity for trouble there is.” Tilting her head, she indicated the stairs behind her. “I’ll go down first. You follow me. Scott will get your back. Everyone else comes off after you’re clear.”

He knew it was foolish but Andres found himself wanting something else from her, some-thing…more. The realization bothered him, but he put it aside and looked at the man behind her. He was young but had the hard air of a seasoned cop. Wearing the same uniform as Lena, black and tight, he acknowledged Andres with a quick bob of his head as Lena spoke again, her voice even more clipped and cold.

“You’ve got on the vest?”

“No,” he said brusquely. “The vest is not necessary.”

“We’re not deplaning until you have it on.”

“You’re wasting my time.”

“No,” she answered in a no-nonsense way. “You’re wasting it yourself.” Her eyes flicked over his shoulder and she spoke to Carmen, figuring out her status instantly. “Do you know where his Kevlar vest is?” Carmen apparently nodded, and Lena continued. “Go get it, please.”

Her manner brought forth another flash of irritation. She always did it by the book, no matter what. He glanced down at his watch then looked back up at her. “I have to be downtown in fifteen minutes.”

Carmen appeared at Lena’s side and handed her a small black bag. Without even looking at it, Lena handed the pack over to him. “Then put this on, and we’ll leave.”

He glared at her and she glared back, but a moment later, he snatched the bag from her hands and pulled out the black sleeveless garment. His eyes remained on her face as he ripped off his tie and began to unbutton his jacket. “This is ridiculous.” When he was upset a trace of Spanish inflection always came into his voice. He heard it now. “You’ve made the area safe, no? Why should I do this?”

“Because I’m not perfect,” she told him calmly. “And neither are the men who work for me. We’ve swept the terminal and have people in place, but you never know. Someone could have slipped through.”

He pulled off his black silk coat and shrugged into the Kevlar, the fabric stiff against his white, starched shirt. In the closeness of the cabin, he could smell her soap…or was he imagining it?

“I’m trusting you to have done your job right,” he snapped. “You should be flattered, not giving me a hard time.”

Her steady eyes revealed nothing in response to his words, but a vibration of energy came off her body, a low, silent humming that only Andres could have caught. His fingers stilled on the fasteners of the vest as she spoke.

“My job will be done when you’re off this plane and still alive.” A heartbeat passed as her gray eyes locked on his. “Trust has nothing to do with it.”

ANDRES GATHERED his briefcase and jacket while Lena stood at the door of the plane and surveyed the runway area one more time. Her eyes went slowly over the buildings in front of her, but in fact, she wasn’t really seeing them. The image coming to her instead was that of Andres and his hands. When she thought of him, she always thought of those hands. Other women might have noticed his trim stomach or the width of his shoulders or even his eyes as they’d stared at her, but not Lena. She’d watched his fingers move over the buttons of his blazer. They were long, his knuckles slim and well-formed, his wrists broad and strong-looking.

She’d noticed the rest of him, too, though. Above the collar of his pristine white shirt, the café-au-lait tone of his skin, that sweet, smooth color she’d always loved, was darker than before, the contrast of the material against his face and neck sensual and appealing. When he was under a lot of stress, he spent as much time as he could outdoors, playing baseball usually.

Beneath all the polish, though, he acted just as he always had—like a banked fire poised on the verge of explosion. She’d responded as she’d known she would, too, with the same mix of fascination and dread and anger he always created inside her. Nothing she could say to herself would make her heart stop crashing inside her chest. How could she do what she was supposed to do? How could she concentrate?

All she could think about was the last time they’d been together, when he’d shown up after the canceled wedding and told her about the special operation he’d had to run. She’d been a cop all her adult life and a good one; even though his distrust had hurt, she had understood the need for secrecy, the reticence to talk. But she was a woman, too. He’d broken her heart and destroyed her self-confidence. She could never forgive him for that.

As she always did when her thinking got too heavy, she turned to action, forcing herself to focus as she pulled her microphone closer. “L1 calling team leader. Package secure.”

“Gotcha, L1. We’re clear. Wait for final check then proceed.”

They transmitted on closed channels, but when doing protections Lena insisted on maintaining as much security as possible. With a precise, calm voice, she checked on each of the team members, using the code they’d already agreed on. Everyone was in place and ready to move. When Ryan, the sniper, issued a final clear from his vantage point, they’d go. She looked over her shoulder, past Scott to where Andres stood.

He was giving some last-minute instructions to the woman who’d brought Lena his vest. His secretary, his assistant, his lover? Lena wasn’t sure of her position, but she’d immediately known how the woman felt about Andres. Her adoration of him was obvious. It meant nothing to Lena, of course, yet she couldn’t help but notice. When they’d been together, he’d continually attracted women. They couldn’t seem to resist him.

Passing Scott, Andres moved to the front of the cabin and took up his position directly behind her. He’d donned his jacket again and the bulky vest beneath made his chest look vast. As he juggled his briefcase to his other hand, he bumped into her shoulder. “Lo siento,” he murmured. I’m sorry….

The Spanish was unexpected and somehow too intimate. She looked directly at him then, and in the closeness, all her senses, the ones she’d been trying to tamp down since she’d walked into the plane and into his presence, heightened, as if someone had turned up a volume knob until the sound was out of range. She could smell his aftershave, a scent she didn’t recognize, thank God, and even see the tiny flecks of gold imbedded in the iris of his right eye. She had on a SWAT jacket and vest as well, but the brush of his arm burned through the fabric like a lighted torch.

She couldn’t physically step away; she was trapped between him and the door, but she pulled into herself and shuttered her expression, turning her face away from him.

Her coldness didn’t stop him. Impulsively, it appeared, he reached out and drew a line down the side of her cheek. His touch was as smooth and sensual as ever and it left a trail of stunning memories behind. “Lena…” He gave her name the Spanish inflection. “Will you have some time for me later? To catch up?”

His stare was so black, Lena felt herself slide into its endless depths. She fought the sensation with everything she had in her, stopping the headlong disaster only at the very last moment. She spoke slowly, distinctly. “I’m here today because I have a job to do. And as far as I’m concerned, that job is the only reason I’ll be seeing you again. I have nothing else to say to you and I certainly don’t feel like going over old times.”

“And if I disagree?”

Her pulse jackhammered, but Lena had trained herself well. She knew her expression was neutral. “Feel free to disagree all you want. I don’t really care one way or the other.”

His eyes danced over her face, searching it for something, and she felt the plunge begin again. Before his inexorable pull could drag her any deeper, her radio sounded, Ryan’s voice in her ear. “This is G1. Area clear. L1 proceed.”

She acknowledged the call, then spoke to Andres, heading off whatever his reply might have been.

“The stairs are going to be our most open point. Stay as close to me as possible and keep your head down. Don’t look around. Just watch my feet and go where I go. Scott will be at your back. When we hit the ground, we’ll walk directly to the car. If anything happens, fall down. Understand?”

At her imperious tone, his own voice sharpened. “For God’s sake, Lena, I know what to do. I’ve done this before—”

“Good,” she broke in. “Then do it right, and we’ll all come out alive.”

He started to reply, but at the last minute he snapped his mouth shut and jerked his head toward the stairs in an impatient let’s-go motion. Lena caught Scott’s eye, spoke into her headset then started down the stairs.

AS ANDRES FOLLOWED Lena down the steps, he told himself to calm down, to act as if he didn’t care. It was an impossible order, though.

He’d never be able to do that, not as far as she was concerned.

When she’d made that crack about trust, Lena had been putting him on notice. There was no trust between them—not now. She would do her job but there would be no other contact. She wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.

Forcing himself to ignore his response, he discarded Lena’s instructions and looked around the tarmac, his stare quick and jumpy as it traveled over the jetway and to the buildings beyond. He saw nothing unusual.

To their right a mechanic in a set of blue overalls worked under the hood of a small Cessna, his tools laid out in a precise line at his feet. To his left, a man in sunglasses and a cap sat behind the wheel of a small motorized cart filled with luggage. In between them was the terminal, and through a wall of windows, Andres could see a group of passengers mingling and talking. Well-dressed and well-heeled, they matched the expensive designer suitcases on the wagon. They were probably waiting for one of the private jets that made up the majority of planes coming in and out of the airport.

By the time he finished his scan, they were at the foot of the stairs, and Andres took a deep breath, an unconscious sweep of relief hitting him hard. For the first time, he noticed the weather; the sunshine was almost blinding, the air warmer and softer than it usually was this time of year. Along the walkway, a row of sago palms swayed in the brisk breeze, their green fronds gleaming in the light.

A second later they reached a nearby SUV. The unmarked Suburban, painted black with darkly tinted windows, was so obviously a government truck it could have had the department’s seal on the side. The back doors swung wide, and Zack Potter stepped out. Potter would be running the Destin office Andres was here to officially open. A former D.C. policeman, the handsome man looked more like a bodybuilder than a federal official. They’d been friends a long time and Andres respected him greatly. Except for Andres himself, no one could run the office any better. With Zack Potter in charge, the Red Tides’s pipeline of drugs from Mexico to New York was about to hit a major roadblock.

Potter crossed the space between them and held out his hand, a wide grin splitting his face. “Casimiro! ’Bout time you got here.” He nodded toward the jet. “Nice ride, too!”

“Let’s save the greetings for later, gentlemen.” Lena glanced in Potter’s direction, then spoke quickly, her eyes studying the area around them as she motioned Scott to the other side of the car. “I need to get Mr. Casimiro inside, please….”

“Of course, of course!” Potter smiled again then stepped aside to let Andres pass. Lena stood at the door of the truck waiting for him.

He reached her side, threw his briefcase onto the seat, then turned to look at her. Just as in the plane, they were inches apart, her slim form backed up against the open car door, his body poised to get inside. Her gaze was serene and composed, the stone color of her eyes even more intense now that they were outside in the sunshine. It was crazy, but he had to try—and he wasn’t even sure for what—one more time.

“Lena…querida…”

Again the Spanish. Lena couldn’t believe it, but something curled inside her, a warm yearning for a time that was far behind them. The depth of pain that accompanied the craving surprised her, but she stiffened against it. She wasn’t his sweetheart and hadn’t been for a long time. How dare he use that word and that tone of voice? How was she supposed to deal with that?

Before she could form her angry reply, she caught an unexpected movement in her peripheral vision, a sudden motion that made her snap to, almost as if waking up from a dream. She glanced toward the area, already cursing herself for letting down her guard. Her profanity had barely cleared the air when the first bullet slammed into the Suburban.

A moment later, the second one came.

Beside them, Zack Potter collapsed onto the asphalt, his scream dying as the bullet ripped into his neck. Lena stared at his still-jerking body, then she yanked her head up and cried into her headset for backup. As she spoke, she whirled and Andres’s shocked eyes met hers. Grabbing his arms instinctively, she did what she was trained to do—she pushed him straight into the truck.

But he resisted her, and for one single second, they held on to each other, each trying their best to protect the other one first. Lena won—not by strength—but by doing the only thing she could. She went limp. Caught off guard by her action, Andres hesitated and that was all she needed. With a violent shove, she forced him down, then turned, thrusting herself in front of him.

The final shot was a direct hit. Lena crumpled without a word.

CHAPTER THREE

ANDRES REACTED instantly, old habits taking over as adrenaline kicked in. He grabbed Lena by the collar of her jacket and yanked her to him. Still trying to draw her weapon, she fought him futilely. “No,” she gasped. “You go! Get in the car and leave!”

“Not without you!” They wasted a few more precious moments, then too weak to do anything else, she gave in to Andres and allowed him to pull her into the truck. Before he tumbled inside the vehicle with her, Andres sent a quick glance in Zack Potter’s direction. The time to help his friend had passed. “Get us out of here,” he roared to the driver. “Now! Let’s go!”

The man needed no urging. The black SUV sprang forward, the tires squealing as he drove it down the sidewalk and straight toward a set of double gates. Only when she spoke again did Andres realize Lena had never released her grip of his arm. She pulled at him weakly, her voice fading but still urgent. “Stay down. We don’t know where the shots came from.”

Andres turned, but it was too late for her to hear his reply. Her eyes rolled back and she fainted without a sound. Her limp body started to pitch off the seat, but he threw himself on top of her and stopped her fall at the very last minute. Bracing himself, he fought the violent rocking of the truck and prepared for the crash of the vehicle as it went through the metal frame of the gate.

When it didn’t happen, he lifted his head and took a quick glance. A figure in black, one of Lena’s men, had swung back the iron grilles. The driver deftly maneuvered through the narrow opening, then bumped the speeding vehicle over the grooved tracks to a grassy swell just at the left of the runway. With the tires screaming even louder than before, the Suburban hit the pavement outside the terminal then turned right on two wheels. Within seconds they were on the main road into town, two black and whites escorting them, one front, one rear.

In the back of his mind, Andres realized what he had just witnessed. Lena had planned for this. She’d had a man stationed at the exit and an escape route in place.

The man behind the wheel said something about alerting the hospital, then spoke into a headset. “Let them know we’re bringing someone in,” he said shakily. His voice thickened as he answered an obvious question. “No, it’s not the package. It’s Lieutenant McKinney. She’s been hit.”

Beneath Andres, Lena groaned. He slid to the floorboard of the vehicle to give her more room, then he took a good look at her injury for the first time. The bullet had managed to go beneath her vest. It didn’t look good. His mouth went dry.

“Where’s the first aid—”

Before he could finish, the driver thrust a white metal box over the front seat. “There’s bandages and tape inside,” he said. “We’ll be at the hospital in five minutes.”

Andres ripped open the case and grabbed a roll of white gauze, but the material was woefully inadequate. It seemed as if blood was pouring from Lena. Yanking off his coat, he pressed it against the wound but the fabric was immediately soaked. He’d seen plenty of men shot, had even done the shooting himself more than once, but this was Lena, for God’s sake. She groaned and a sick feeling rose up in his chest to block his breathing.

He slipped a hand beneath her head. She was going into shock, her skin pale and clammy, her body shaking on the leather cushions that were already slick with her blood. Her eyes fluttered open, and suddenly she looked smaller and more frail.

“Hang on, querida, hang on.” His endearment slipped out naturally, just as it had earlier in the plane. “We’ll be at the hospital any minute. You can do it.”

She spoke with great difficulty. “You…okay? Not hit?”

“Don’t talk,” he said automatically. “You’ll lose more blood.”

She ignored him completely. “Are you…okay?”

“Sí, sí. I am fine, now por favor—no more talking!”

She nodded weakly, her eyes closing once more, only to blink open again. “W-what about…Potter?”

“Don’t worry about him. The others will take care of him. You just lie there and be quiet.”

They bounced around a curve. She tried to bite back a cry but failed, her agony apparent. Helpless to do anything else, Andres screamed at the driver. “Take it easy up there, goddammit! You’re hurting her!”

The man didn’t respond; he simply added more gas, the black Suburban barreling down the highway, passing everything else in a blur.

“Andres…” She spoke his name softly, painfully.

He bent down, his heart suddenly plunging into a frightening abyss. She was fading right before his eyes, growing obviously weaker as he held on to her. “Lena! Stay with me, okay? Stay awake!”

She lifted a shaking hand and grabbed his shirt. Her fingers were red and sticky with her own blood, but the strength in her grip was shocking. She pulled him closer, her voice a fading rasp. “I should have done a better job…shoulda checked better.” Her lips were dried and caked, the words thick but the meaning clear. “I’m sorry, Andres, I’m so sorry….”

She was apologizing for saving his life? If there were shoulds they belonged to him, dammit! He should have been the one lying there bleeding, not Lena.

He leaned over her. “Lena, please! You did do your job. Don’t get loco on me, okay? ¿Me escuchas? Do you hear me?”

She nodded faintly, then she went still in his arms and her head fell back.

ANDRES DIDN’T KNOW which was worse: holding Lena’s unresponsive body or handing her over to the medics at the hospital. Either way he felt helpless and totally out of control.

Three nurses and two doctors were waiting as the SUV wheeled into the drive-through by the hospital’s back door. They shoved him out of the way and disappeared with Lena down the hall. He caught up to the gurney just as they turned it into a room and slammed the door in his face. All he could do was listen as someone screamed for X rays STAT and another voice yelled out for a chest tube. He vented his frustration by cursing in Spanish and waving his arms but his actions were futile. No one would let him inside.

Leaning his head against the mint-colored wall, a storm of emotion broke over him. Panic, anger, fear, guilt—every feeling he’d ever experienced erupted all at once. It was a tide he couldn’t stop, a flood he couldn’t control. In a useless attempt to stem the sensations, he raised his hands to cover his face, but all he did was make it worse as his fingers came into focus.

The creases in his skin were painted red. Red with Lena’s blood. His horrified gaze fell lower. His pants, his shirt, even his shoes were crimson. He was covered with her blood.

He stared a moment longer, then he closed his fingers, his knuckles shining under the bright lights of the corridor as a rush of guilty rage shook him. Lifting his arm in one fluid movement, he slammed his fist into the wall. A hole appeared as a rain of green plaster cascaded to the floor.

His whole side went numb, but his mind—and his heart—cracked open wide.

THE DOCTORS and the nurses were talking. Their voices were hurried, but distinct, each word a perfectly formed entity that Lena heard, then saw. They floated above her, just out of reach in little cartoon boxes, as did the masked faces of the people nearby. She wanted to tell them she felt fine but everyone seemed too rushed to listen to her mumbles. She closed her eyes slowly, the lids fluttering down. The next thing she knew, she was at the beach. Jeffrey, the youngest of all her brothers, was chasing her into the tide, splashing her and calling her a baby, telling her about the monsters that were just offshore, waiting to get her.

She looked out into the emerald waves and shivered. Monsters were out there, all right, but they weren’t in the water. They were closer, closer than either of them had ever suspected. She shut her eyes and screamed, but no one heard her.

ANDRES HEARD Phillip McKinney long before he saw him, the man’s unmistakable voice rolling down the hallway and bowling over everything in its path. Andres jumped to his feet and after a questioning glance, Carmen, at his side, stood as well. A moment later, Lena’s father strode into the waiting room, his entourage following behind him as he plowed through the crowd of cops who’d begun to congregate after hearing the news.

Phillip had aged a bit, but not that much. His hair, always silver, was a little thinner and his step a little slower, yet his back was ramrod straight, his skin tanned and tight. The handmade suit, the polished shoes, the silk foulard tie, they hadn’t changed at all. Expensive and flashy, they were essential to Phillip’s presence.

At seventy, he was a still practicing attorney with personal injury lawsuits his speciality. His thriving partnership had given him the kind of wealth and power few men could ever achieve; he was well-known all over Florida and even in the nearby states.

Almost as an afterthought, Andres’s brain registered the identities of the men surrounding Phillip. They were Lena’s brothers, all older than her except for Jeffrey, the baby of the family. Bering, the eldest, waited anxiously just beside his father. On the other side of the old man was Richard, her second brother. Behind those two came Stephen, and finally, trailing, came Jeffrey.

As always, Jeff was a peripheral member of the group. Even though he worked at Phillip’s law firm alongside his brothers, he was the black sheep of the family. Idealistic and sometimes naive to Andres’s way of thinking, Jeff continually disavowed what he considered the other McKinneys’s base materialism. He spent his vacations helping migrant workers and went his own way, a way that was usually the opposite of what Phillip McKinney wanted.

Which was exactly why Andres had liked Jeff and had called him to inform the family of the shooting. He couldn’t stand the rest of them.

Shaking hands and greeting the officers, most of whom he seemed to know, Phillip McKinney was almost on top of Andres before he noticed him. He didn’t have time to prepare himself, so instead a cascade of emotions, genuine and unedited, crossed his expression at once. First surprise then anger, and finally a wary edginess, all of which he hid as soon as he could behind a stony mask.

Andres stared back from behind his own facade. He’d never known if the old man was aware of the investigation he’d conducted against him or not. Regardless, they’d hated each other from the very moment they’d met. Phillip had told Lena that Andres wasn’t good enough for her, but the real truth was a lot more complicated. Phillip had had Lena to himself since her mother died and he didn’t want to share her, with a husband or anyone else. It was power and control and love, all mixed together.

Phillip recovered fast. “How is she?” Silky smooth and deep, his voice was his trademark. It now held a tinge of something Andres had never heard before. Fear? Concern? Love?

“Lena’s in surgery,” Andres answered. “The bullet entered her body just beneath her left breast. They reinflated her lung in ER, then took her into the operating room.”

Phillip sagged. It wasn’t a physical response, but just as Andres had caught the tremble in his voice, he saw this as well. Phillip seemed to falter a bit, to pull inside himself, then the moment passed, almost, it seemed, before it had happened.

He tilted his head toward the double doors behind them that led to the operating room. “How long have they been in there?”

Forever.

Andres glanced at his watch. “An hour and a half.”

Bering spoke for the first time. He lived in his father’s shadow, never quite measuring up, never quite making the grade. He compensated for this with a blustery attitude and a burning desire to replace his father in the practice. “An hour and a half? And no one’s been out with an update?” He shook his head at Andres’s obvious lack of status, then turned to Stephen. “Go find somebody who knows what’s going on. Get a doctor out here.”

Phillip nodded his approval and Stephen scurried off through the crowd. Wearing a self-satisfied expression, Bering said something about coffee and bustled over to a small kitchenette in one corner of the room, Richard going with him, offering help. Andres remained where he was, his black eyes meeting Phillip’s blue ones with the coldest of gazes. Something passed between them. It definitely wasn’t a truce—the war between them was too involved for that to ever happen—but the moment was understood by them both. This wasn’t the time or place.

Jeff broke the tension by moving up to where Andres stood. He extended his hand, then his eyes widened as Andres lifted his own, now swathed in bandages. “You were hit?” Jeff asked in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell us—”

“No, no. I wasn’t shot.” He dismissed the inquiry with a shake of his head. When Carmen had arrived at the hospital with fresh clothes for him, she’d taken one look at his hand and forced him to have someone take care of it. He’d bruised three knuckles so badly the doctor had insisted on wrapping them. “It’s nothing.”

Behind him, Bering and Richard returned, Carmen helping them distribute the coffee they’d brought. Earlier Andres had been annoyed by her presence. Now he was glad. She handed out packets of sugar, then she made conversation and kept things cordial. Andres was suddenly grateful; he wasn’t sure he could have kept up the facade for much longer.

Stephen returned with the doctor a moment later. They stepped to one side, isolated by a bumper of space from the waiting officers. “They’re still in surgery,” the man said, holding up his hands as if to ward off their questions. He was young but looked exhausted, his jaw dark with stubble, his shoulders a weary slump beneath his pristine white coat. “I’m Dr. Maness, Dr. Edwardson’s assistant. She’s still operating. The bullet’s currently lodged in the diaphragm behind the patient’s lung on the left side. It nicked the lobe before it stopped.”

His gaze went to Phillip, then on to the other men until it came to Andres. Despite Phillip’s age and obvious status, the doctor seemed to sense Andres was the man he should be addressing. Andres hardly noticed this, though. All he felt was a rush of anxiety as their eyes met and locked.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor continued. “You’re just going to have to be patient. If you want something to do, then go downstairs.” He let his gaze go over all of them this time. He wore thick glasses and his eyes were bleary and sad behind them. “There’s a cafeteria…and a chapel.”

ANDRES DIDN’T LOOK for either place. He certainly wasn’t hungry and he’d given up searching for comfort from above a long time ago. Instead he went outside. He wanted isolation and some distance from the crowd upstairs, stopping first at the hospital gift shop to buy a pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t smoked in as many years as he hadn’t prayed, but the craving had hit him and there was nothing to do but satisfy it.

Cupping his bandaged hand around the flame of his match, he was lighting the first one when Carmen opened the door of the hospital’s atrium. As she walked across the flagstones toward him, he jumped to his feet, his pulse suspended in midbeat. She shook her head as soon as she saw him and motioned for him to sit back down.

“There’s no news,” she said. “I just came outside for some air.” She stared curiously at the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “What are you doing? You don’t smoke.”

He was angry at seeing Phillip McKinney, angry over Lena’s injury and angry at himself. With a pointed disregard for Carmen’s feelings, Andres unleashed the emotion and sent it flying toward her, his words scathing. “You don’t know me that well, Carmen. Don’t tell me what I do and what I don’t do.”

She blinked at his tone, and he immediately felt like a bastard. Instead of apologizing, he turned his face away from her and took a deep drag on the cigarette. The acrid smoke seared his lungs with a sting so painful it brought a wave of dizziness with it as well.

Without saying a word, she sat down on the concrete bench beside him. They weren’t the only ones in the small, walled garden. There were other smokers who’d been banished, and they all wore the same worried expressions. No one saw the carefully tended flowers or heard the bubbling fountain. Andres studied a young man on the other side of the patio, his hand on the head of a young girl who was dancing a doll along the edge of a low concrete wall.

The silence between he and Carmen built and hung, then finally she spoke softly, almost reluctantly, it sounded to Andres. “This woman who was shot. Lena McKinney…you know her, don’t you? From before. You didn’t just meet today.”

It took him a moment to decide how to answer, then he realized there was only one way. He had to tell her the truth; she deserved it.

“Yes, I know Lena.” He looked at the cigarette between his fingers. “I know her very well.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

She shifted on the bench. He could feel her eyes on him. “You didn’t think it was important?” She shook her head and smiled softly. “That usually means it’s just the opposite.”

“Carmen…”

She stopped him. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Andres.”

“No.” He rose abruptly. “I do owe you that. At least.” He took a final, death-defying drag on the cigarette, then crushed it under his shoe. He turned and looked at her. “Lena and I were engaged at one time. We were going to marry.”

“To marry!” Her dark eyes widened in surprise. “You mean she was your fiancée?”

“That’s right.”

“Wh-what happened? Why didn’t you get married?”

“It didn’t work out.” His tone defied her to ask for more information. “I went back to Miami.”

“And?”

“And what? That was it.”

“You never saw her again?”

“Not until this morning.”

Carmen sat immobile on the bench, a pinprick of guilt stinging Andres as he looked at her. He should never have slept with her. She wasn’t crying, but she looked as if she wanted to. Beneath her expression, there was a gentle dignity that made him feel even worse.

“Does she still love you?”

Back in the plane, Lena’s gaze had held nothing but disgust when she’d looked at him, yet she’d protected him with her life and now she might have to pay up. Did that mean she loved him or had she just been doing her job? He didn’t know…so he didn’t answer.

“I guess that wasn’t the right question, was it?” Carmen asked.

His hand suddenly ached, a striking, sharp pain that bypassed the painkiller the doctor had insisted he take. He cradled the injured fingers with his other palm. “What do you mean?”

“I should have asked, ‘Do you still love her?”’

This time she waited even longer for his answer. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to reply, she stared at him a minute more, then she stood and walked away. He watched her disappear through the hospital door, and after it closed behind her, he reopened the package of cigarettes and tapped out another one. When he lit the end, the match trembled in his hand.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the double glass doors opened once more. Dropping his cigarette, Andres jumped to his feet again, his heart pounding as Jeff McKinney crossed the small patio and came in his direction.

The nearby ashtray was overflowing with butts, and Andre’s stomach felt sour and sick. With nothing else to do, he’d been on his cell phone ever since Carmen had left, making calls and getting as much information as he could about what had happened. It hadn’t taken long and the news had started a train of thought Andres couldn’t stop. But those thoughts fled now.

“The nurse just found us,” Jeff announced as he reached Andres’s side. “The doctor’s finished the surgery and she’s coming out to talk to everyone.”

“Did she say anything else? How’d it go? Is Lena okay—”

Jeff held up his hand and stopped him. “I don’t know any more than what I just told you. Let’s go upstairs and see what the doctor says—”

Andres was heading for the door before the young attorney could even finish. Jeff caught up with him a second later, sending a quick glance at the phone in Andres’s hand. “Did you find out any more details?”

Andres nodded grimly. Normally, he wouldn’t tell a civilian anything, but Jeff was an attorney. He knew the system. “According to Lena’s right-hand man—some guy named Bradley—the shooter never made it off the field.”

“Who was he?”

“They don’t know yet.”

“And your associate?”

“Potter’s dead.”

They walked into the hospital lobby. “How’d this guy get in the airport?” Jeff asked. “With Lena in charge, I can’t imagine—”

“Bradley wasn’t sure, but he thinks the perp picked one of the baggage handlers and started a friendship. The bad guy had on the handler’s ID and uniform and when they started checking afterward, they found the handler’s body back at his apartment. Bradley thinks the guy might have hidden his weapon the day before when he visited his pal.”

Jeff raised his eyebrows. “That’s an awful lot to know so soon.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less from Lena’s team.” Andres spotted the elevators and headed toward them, still speaking. “Her sniper took out the shooter with a cold shot.” He pointed to the base of his neck.

“Lena won’t like that. She hates it when the snipers have to fire.”

Andres met Jeff’s eyes with a steady look. “I think she’ll understand this time.”

The elevator came and they both got in.

“Before you got here, Lena had said there might be trouble with some group named the Red Tide. Was he a member?”

“That’s the assumption.” Andres shook his head angrily and jabbed at the buttons as he spoke. “These pendejos—these Red Tide people—they’re idiots. That makes them even more dangerous. We can’t predict what they’re going to do. They haven’t actually done anything violent like this since—”

When Andres didn’t continue, Jeff looked at him then obviously thought better of whatever question he’d had in mind. The silent elevator rose slowly. “Why do they want you dead?” Jeff asked finally.

“Because I’m trying to stop them and have been for years. They’re behind ninety per cent of the drug shipments coming through here. They finance their political activities—their little riots and rigged elections—with drug money. They tell the people they’re fighting for freedom when what they’re really doing is taking it instead.”

“Drugs? I thought Lena said they were revolutionaries.”

“That’s what they want everyone to think. They’re nothing but a bunch of thugs, though.” Andres paused, the inevitable conclusion he’d come to while he’d been waiting forming itself into words. “They’ve gone too far this time.”

The elevator pinged softly, announcing its arrival on the surgical floor. When the doors slid open, Andres held them back, but instead of walking out, he turned and looked at Jeff. His voice was low and soft. No one overhearing them would have even bothered to listen.

“Shooting Lena was the biggest mistake they could ever make,” he said quietly. “I’ll lock up every one of the bastards…or I’ll die trying. Ya están muertos.”

Jeff stared at him, then nodded his head with a slow thoughtful movement. The Spanish needed no translation.

THE SURGEON came out moments later. She was a handsome woman, in her fifties, with graying hair and dark blue eyes that looked both kind and exhausted. She wore a set of green scrubs with her name embroidered on the left side. Laura Edward-son, M.D. Obviously recognizing Phillip as he held out his hand, she greeted him then nodded toward the rest of the group.

Her eyes stopped on Andres when she saw his bandaged hand. “You were the one who was with her?”

“That’s right.”

“She kept asking about you. Fought the anesthetic so hard I didn’t think we’d ever get her out.” Before he could reply, she continued. “She’s in stable condition right now. The bullet clipped the lower lobe of her lung. We sutured that as best we could and put in a chest tube, but we’re going to have to watch that area very closely. Infection can be a big problem in the lungs. So can pneumonia.”

“We need a specialist.”

She glanced at Phillip as he spoke. “That’s exactly what I recommend,” she said calmly. “In fact, I’ve already called in our thoracic man and our pulmonary man as well. Dr. Weingarten, the thoracic surgeon, assisted me in the operation, and he’ll be monitoring her closely.” She stood wearily. “She’ll be out of the recovery unit in an hour. After that, she’ll be in intensive care until we know we’re clear on that lung. Once she’s settled into ICU, one of you can see her then. One of you.” She paused until all eyes were on her. “It’s none of my business, but since she asked for Mr. Casimiro, I suggest it be him.”

SHE WAS COLD, colder than she’d ever been in her entire life, and nothing but a jumble of sounds and impressions made their way through the bone-chilling numbness. Lena lay perfectly still and let the sounds wash over her. Eventually one stood out—a bubbling noise. She had no idea what it was or where it came from, but strangely enough she was breathing in rhythm with it. Other than that, she felt little. It was like being suspended in midair, as if nothing were touching her, nothing holding her down, nothing holding her up. She wanted to open her eyes but she couldn’t. Her lids were too heavy and when she tried to speak, her tongue felt the same way. Someone had attached weights to it.

Out of the confusion another detail started to register. It was minor, but she concentrated on it and tried to magnify the feeling. After a moment, she put a name to it. Touch. Someone was touching her. It took another second to understand where the connection was being made and another second after that to name it. Her hand. Someone was touching her hand. She strained to respond, but her fingers wouldn’t move, the command never making it out from her brain.

“Lena…querida… Can you hear me?”

The words were soft in her ear, soft and loving. They brushed her cheek with a feathery touch and a warmth she craved. For some unexplained reason, the Spanish made her feel good, too, made her feel as though whoever had spoken cared deeply, cared passionately. Who was talking to her like this? She could hear the emotion in his voice and the coldness faded, if only for a moment. When he spoke again, she fought the cloud of confusion that surrounded her, but it was too strong. It picked her up and carried her off.

The last word she heard was querida. The last thing she felt was a kiss.

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