Crossfire

Hawk unfastened his shoulder holster and carefully placed his Glock on the nightstand between the beds. Just because he hadn’t gone to Yale or Harvard, didn’t mean he wasn’t smart. He learned. He made adjustments. Circumstances had brought him and Elizabeth together again, but this time he would carry out the assignment and then walk away, this time with his heart, his self-esteem, intact.

From the bathroom he heard the shower curtain rattle into place, the water run through the pipes. He hoped it was warm enough. He hoped the spray had enough pressure to actually do some good. He hoped—

Nothing.

He flat didn’t need to be thinking of her standing naked beneath the spray, running the little bar of soap along the smooth planes of her body. If he did, he’d have to remember the way she’d braced her palms against the white tiles of his bathtub and let her head fall back against his chest, while he’d stood behind her, running his soapy hands along the soft skin of her stomach. He’d have to remember the feel of her hair as he’d applied shampoo and built a lather.

A mistake, Wesley. Can’t we just leave it at that?

No. He couldn’t leave it at that. If she’d just been civil about it, if she hadn’t denied what they both knew, then maybe he could have let it go. But whether it was pride or ego or lingering hurt, he refused to let her pretend she hadn’t come apart in his arms. He was willing to admit they were all wrong for each other, but for one night they’d been pretty damn right.

He didn’t understand why she pretended otherwise.

Honesty. That’s all he wanted. Acceptance. Then they could go their separate ways. She could cling to her plans like they were gospel and marry pretty-boy Ferreday, and Hawk could get on with his life. Without her.

That’s all he wanted.

Frowning, Hawk grabbed his mobile phone and punched out a familiar number.

“I’ve got her, sir,” he said a few seconds later. He’d tried to place the call from the car, but had been unable to get a signal. “She’s safe.”

“You’re a good man,” Ambassador Carrington said. “I knew I could count on you. As always, you have my sincerest thanks.”

“Just doing my job, sir.” Hawk almost choked on the words.

“What’s this I’m hearing about shots fired?”

Hawk sat on the bed he’d claimed for himself and lifted a hand to rub the tight muscles of his neck and shoulders. Despite the security he’d put into place, despite Zhukov’s penchant for grandstanding, he hadn’t expected an attack so soon. It burned that he couldn’t figure out how the bastard had gotten through his net.

“Z was there, sir, but he didn’t count on you being one step ahead of him.”

“Not me, son. You. You’re the one who got her out of there.”

Peter Carrington had always treated Hawk with the utmost respect, even when Hawk had been little more than a disillusioned ex-Army Ranger hungry and in desperate need of work. The older man had given Wesley and his newly formed security company the opportunity to prove themselves. He’d given him trust.

In return, Hawk had taken the man’s best and brightest for the ride of her life.

“I’ll let the authorities know my daughter is safe,” the ambassador was saying. “I’d rather the two of you keep a low profile for now.”

“Agreed.” Hawk filled Elizabeth’s father in on the events of the evening, leaving out only the stupid, reckless kiss.

The sound of the bathroom door opening was the only warning he got. He glanced up, saw her standing with the bright light behind her, creating a glow around her damp, slicked-back sable hair. Her skin was clear and flawless. His shirt hung like a shapeless dress down to her knees.

And Hawk forgot to breathe.

“Is that my father?” she asked.

Shifting uncomfortably, he gestured for her to join him on the bed. “I have someone here who’d like to talk to you, sir.”

Elizabeth took the phone from his hands and sat next to him. “Dad?”

Hawk stood, not wanting to share the mattress with her, not wanting to look at the way his flannel shirt rode high on her smooth thighs. “I’ll shower up,” he mouthed. “Holler if you need me.”

Her eyes, washed clean of all makeup, met his, revealed a flicker he couldn’t quite decipher. Then she looked down at the carpet, and the moment passed with sobering speed.

Grinning despite himself, despite her, Hawk walked away, confident he wouldn’t hear a peep out of his charge.

Elizabeth Carrington would rather walk barefoot over broken glass than admit she needed him.

“I’m fine, Dad. Really. Wesley was…” Magnificent. Flawless. On top of his game. “…there in time. He had everything under control and us out of there before anyone even knew what was going on.”

Her father didn’t need to know the gory details.

“Thank God. I’ve been anxious waiting for word.”

Elizabeth smiled. Her father was a big bear of a man who needed to be in control like most people needed to breathe. When he wasn’t, he paced. Incessantly. The memory of him stalking across his study was as deeply ingrained as that of his booming voice. Eventually her mother had given up on carpet and tried hard wood. Pamela Carrington had been sure her husband couldn’t wear down oak.

Peter had proved her wrong.

“Everyone else okay?” Elizabeth asked, trying not to think about Hawk behind the closed door of the bathroom. Peeling off his damp clothes. “Miranda and Sandro and Ethan?”

“Relax, pumpkin,” her father said in that reassuring voice of his. “We’ve got our bases covered. Sandro’s not about to let Zhukov within a mile of Mira, and we’ve tightened security at the embassy.”

His thinly veiled omission sent an icy spear through her heart. “And Eth?”

Her father sighed. “Your brother is fine, sweetheart, but you know how he gets.”

She did. Too well. Ethan wasn’t just her brother, he was her twin and every bit as strong willed. As a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, he’d been chomping at the bit to get his hands on Jorak Zhukov. He wanted to make sure the dangerous man was locked away for life, the key thrown away.

If Zhukov was free, it would be just like Ethan to bait him, lure him in, take justice into his own hands.

“He’s not doing something stupid, is he?”

“Your brother can take care of himself,” her father said, and though she knew the words were meant to be reassuring, something cold and ominous settled low in her stomach.

“I want to talk to him.”

“Not tonight. Tonight I need you to let Hawk take care of you. There will be plenty of time for talking once you’re safe and sound in Richmond.”

Let Hawk take care of you.

The words lingered long after her father’s voice faded. Peter Carrington trusted Hawk, said he was the best, and Elizabeth knew it was true. He would lay down his life if that’s what it took. But never his heart. She knew that, too.

I don’t do hearts, sweet thing. I’m more of a body man. They’re a lot more fun.

Even now, two long years later, the memory of his carnal smile had the power to heat her blood. The mistake they’d made had been devastating enough with just their bodies involved. If hearts had entered the equation, she hated to think what could have happened.

Frowning, Elizabeth stood and started to pace, unable to block the sound of water rushing through the old pipes. She didn’t want to think about Hawk Monroe standing naked in that cramped little bathtub, his height forcing him to bend so the shower could beat down on his big body, but the image wouldn’t leave her alone.

Nor would the memory.

After all this time, what went down that long-ago night shouldn’t still have the power to twist her up inside. She should be able to delegate those seven mindless hours to the dark corner of her mind where she’d shoved images from another night, the one that had shattered her family and almost killed her father. She should be able to see those hot burning eyes without feeling her blood heat. She should be able to accept the lesson she’d learned from their time together and move on.

But somehow, when it came to thrill-a-minute Hawk Monroe, nothing was that easy.

Elizabeth picked up the remote and turned on the television. She didn’t want him back in her life. She didn’t want to be holed up in a cramped hotel room with him. She didn’t want to wear his shirt. She didn’t want to go to sleep knowing he was only a heartbeat away, that if she cried out, he would hear.

“Something wrong, sweetcakes?”

The question jumped through her like a live wire. She swung around, found Hawk striding toward her. Dark blond hair was wet and combed back from his face, emphasizing his wide cheekbones and I-know-what-you’re-thinking eyes. Loose-fitting gray sweatpants hugged his lean hips and covered his long legs. His chest was bare, except for the dog tags dangling from a silver chain.

Words failed her. She’d been told, but the knowledge, the cold, impersonal words, had not prepared her.

“See something you like?” he asked with that infuriating grin of his.

Only then did she realize she was staring. And that her heart was screaming through her chest. “Your…scar.”

He glanced below his left shoulder, to the pale, jagged flesh that marked the spot where a sniper had come within inches of ending his life.

The thought of a vital man like Hawk Monroe dead made something deep inside her go insidiously cold.

“Sorry,” he drawled, “the bullet just missed my heart.”

Horror welled hot and fast, but she bit back the reaction. “That’s not fair,” she said quietly.

“Well, you’ll have to take that up with the shooter—”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” The words came out in a rush. “Your comment wasn’t fair. I’m glad you’re…okay.” Had prayed incessantly from the moment she’d heard about the shooting…

He stepped closer, looked down at her in that alarmingly intimate way that made her feel as though he skimmed a finger along her neck instead. “Are you, Ellie?” he asked in that crushed-velvet voice of his. “Are you sure?”

She tilted her chin, acutely aware that if she stepped back, he would have her pinned between his big body and the small bed. “I never wanted anything bad to happen to you.”

His eyes gleamed like melted butterscotch. “Oh, that’s right. That’s why you’re so fond of looking at me like you harbor some secret fantasy of slipping arsenic into my food.”

She wasn’t sure how it happened, but the laugh slipped free before she could stop it.

“Now, there’s a thought.” Deliberately she lifted a single brow. “Is arsenic detectable?”

His lips twitched. “Afraid so. The whole world would know Elizabeth Carrington isn’t as infallible as she pretends to be.”

“Too bad,” she said with a breeziness that pleased her. “What about toothpaste?”

He blinked. “You want to kill me with toothpaste?”

She slipped by him, brushing against the bed to avoid contact with his seminude body. “Is that possible?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll settle for brushing my teeth.” She reached the bathroom and eyed his shaving kit. “Do you still carry a spare?”

“You know me,” he called from the bedroom. “A man in my line of work can never be too prepared.”

The words sent an odd thrill through her. She ignored it, ignored him, focused on getting rid of the lingering taste of fear. And of Hawk.

Inside the battered leather bag, she found his toothbrush, green as always, the bristles slightly bent. She kept digging, found the toothpaste. The spare would be toward the bottom, she knew, right next to the—

Elizabeth froze, her hand going completely still against the familiar blue box.

A man in my line of work can never be too prepared.

Heat flashed hot and hard and powerful. Her heart broke into a staccato rhythm, much like the rush after drinking a venti latte. That was life with Hawk Monroe, she knew. A caffeine overdose.

Maybe that’s why her hands had been shaking that night, as she’d reached for the little foil package and almost savagely ripped it open. Maybe that’s why her vision had blurred, why she’d looked at Hawk and seen surprise and fascination, not hard, uncompromising lines.

Maybe that’s why she’d come apart in ways she’d never imagined possible. Never wanted to experience again.

“Ellie?”

Startled, she lifted her eyes to the mirror, where she saw Hawk filling the doorway, watching her through those hot, knowing eyes. “Find what you need?”

Chapter 3

Hawk just stared. Long damp strands of sable hair scraggled against her face, but not enough to hide the surprise, almost the…guilt, in her eyes. Her skin was slightly flushed. Her lips were parted. She looked almost exactly like she had when she—

Uh-oh.

It took effort, because he damn well liked the sight, but Hawk forced himself to look from the mirror to his shaving kit, where the box of condoms winked at him like a pal with the habit of reappearing at the worst possible time.

And he knew. God have mercy, he knew why Elizabeth looked exactly the way she had that night two years before.

Awkward wasn’t a word in Hawk’s vocabulary. He always had just the right comeback, the right solution. But when he looked into Elizabeth’s wide eyes and saw memory glowing back at him—the heat, the uncertainty—his body came to immediate and painful attention.

Say something, he commanded himself. Break the moment before it breaks you. It was bad enough he had to spend the night with her. He didn’t need to spend it with memories, too.

“Don’t worry, Ellie,” he gritted out, spurred on by survival instincts that had failed him earlier. “I’m not here to get you into bed. We’ve been there,” he said with a casualness he didn’t come close to feeling, “done that, remember?” He paused, tried to smooth the jagged edges inside him. For effect he grinned. “And if I were a betting man, I’d lay money on the fact you threw out the T-shirt.”

Confident he’d said what was necessary to kill the moment of intimacy, Hawk braced an arm against the doorjamb and waited. But then the most amazing thing happened. Elizabeth didn’t look away or lift her chin, she didn’t skewer him with a pointed comeback. She…smiled.

“Actually,” she said in that honeyed voice of hers, the one that rang of old Richmond breeding and hot Southern nights, the one she usually hid behind crisp boarding-school style, “I donated the T-shirt.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or swear or eliminate the distance between them and show her just what she did to him. Still. Even now. Against every rule in his book.

“You saying I’m a charity case, dear heart?” he asked, stepping toward her.

The bathroom wasn’t big to begin with, but with both of them standing in the cramped space and the heat of memory weaving between them like a net falling into place, the little white walls seemed to box them in. She tried to step back, but there was nowhere to go.

“Your words,” she said with a breeziness that he recognized as dismissal, “Not mine.”

This time he did laugh. “Because if I’m a charity case and your job is fund-raising, then maybe we should seriously consider getting another donation together and—”

She lifted her chin. “Go away, Wesley.”

He’d never been a man to back down from a challenge, and that cultured, clipped voice registered as a twenty on a scale of one to ten.

“What are you afraid of?” he drawled, his voice low. “I’ve told you my intentions are honorable, and it’s a little late for modesty.” They both knew he’d seen her do far more than brush her teeth. “If I go away, who’ll protect you from the bad guys?”

Her eyes met his. “Maybe I’ll take my chances.”

“But I won’t.” Then, because the Army had taught him the value of ending a campaign before the tide turned, he reached into his shaving kit, found the spare toothbrush and handed it to her. “Here.”

She took the red handle from him and ripped off the plastic wrapper. “I’d tell you you’re a jerk,” she said, meeting his gaze in the mirror, “but that would make you too happy.”

Very true. “And God knows that would be a crime,” he muttered, then turned and walked out of the bathroom.

He didn’t look back.

As much as he’d once enjoyed playing verbal chess with Elizabeth Carrington, that time had come and gone. They weren’t dancing in the shadows now. Each encounter wasn’t foreplay. They’d exploded and fizzled out, no matter how much a part of him deep, deep inside burned to see if he could still rattle her cage. He had a job to do. It was as simple as that.

Out there somewhere, Jorak Zhukov lurked. Thirsting for revenge. Targeting Elizabeth. Acting out of character. Striking quickly wasn’t his style. The bastard preferred to stalk his prey slowly, deliberately, luring them into invisible traps.

Desperation, however, could change a man.

Hawk knew that well.

Pacing, he glanced toward the nightstand, where his Glock lay next to Elizabeth’s black pearls. They shimmered against her skin, changed colors with her outfits. Once, he’d enjoyed holding them in his fingers, rubbing, caressing…

On impulse he crossed the room and sat on the bed closest the window, picked up the pearls. They were soft and smooth, cultured, refined.

Just like her.

Swearing softly, he let the pearls fall from his fingers, but could do nothing about the sound of gunfire echoing through his memory.

“You don’t have any more surprises in store for me, do you?” Elizabeth turned off the bathroom light and breezed into the main room. “We are headed to Richmond tomorrow, right?”

Hawk stretched out on the bed and linked his hands behind his head. When he’d left her a few minutes before, her eyes had been big and dark, memory glowing like a candle that refused to burn out. But classic Elizabeth Carrington, she’d washed all that messy emotion away and now looked at him through a gaze as refined as the pearls he’d been fingering moments before.

“I don’t know,” he said, unable to resist. He lifted the remote and cruised away from CNN. “I was thinking we could take a scenic tour of Lake Louise first…”

Elizabeth swung around. “Wesley,” she said with just the right blue-blood clip. “I’m serious.”

Hawk felt his lips twitch, clenched his teeth hard. Laughing at her wouldn’t help matters, but she had no idea how she looked, standing there with her mother’s glare in her eyes and his ratty flannel shirt hanging from her shoulders.

“So am I,” he drawled, then stopped channel surfing on a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game. “I was reading about a horseback ride up to a glacier, where there’s this quaint little tearoom.” Laughter almost broke through the words. “You like tea, don’t you, Ellie?” he asked with all the innocence of the young elk pictured on the cover of the travel magazine beneath his Glock.

“Why the hurry to get back to Richmond when you’re in such a beautiful country?” he added, knowing the answer. “Does being around me make you that uncomfortable?”

For a minute, there, he actually thought she was going to stalk across the room and smack him.

Instead she lifted her chin. “Saturday is the charity auction. Nicholas and I—”

“Nicholas.” Hawk felt his whole body go tense. “I thought you two called it quits.”

She turned from him and stared a long moment at the ice bucket and room-service menu strewn on the floor. Frowning, she picked them up and returned them to the dresser. “We did.”

The momentary enjoyment he’d found in teasing Elizabeth hardened into something dark and entirely too familiar. He worked hard to shove the emotion down, but the reality of what that man represented overrode years of rigorous training.

“What happened?” He resisted the urge to close the distance between them and take her shoulders in his hands, force her to look him in the eye, deny what they both knew. “You couldn’t marry him after we—”

“No.” The denial came out hard and fast, determined.

But Hawk had to wonder. He knew she’d dreamed of marrying Ferreday since she’d been a young girl, long before Hawk entered her life. And he knew to Elizabeth, plans were sacrosanct. But part of him wanted to think their night together had forced her to reconsider her plans, to realize what a pompous idiot Ferreday really was.

The thought of Elizabeth going from Hawk’s bed, to Ferreday’s, still had the power to grind him up inside.

Keeping his voice level was hard. “Then why?”

Her back stiffened. “I’m not discussing this with you.”

“Sure you are,” he drawled, fascinated by the way she fiddled with the room-service menu. Elizabeth Carrington was one of those rare women who never seemed at a loss, who always maintained her poise and composure, even beneath the suffocating glare of the hot Virginia sun. “Otherwise you’ll let my imagination take over, and we both know you don’t want to do that.”

She pivoted toward him, flashed a tight smile. “Nothing happened, Wesley. The timing was just wrong.”

“And now?”

Damp hair scraggled against her cheekbones, emphasizing the flicker of hesitation. “Things are…better.”

That’s not what Miranda had told him. Only a few months before, when he’d escorted Elizabeth’s sister to Portugal, Miranda had looked him in the eye and told him Elizabeth and Nicholas weren’t together anymore, that Elizabeth had never been the same since Hawk left. That the two of them should talk.

He’d politely explained that the two of them had never…talked.

Intrigued, he swung his legs to the side of the bed and lowered his feet to the floor.

Things weren’t better. And they weren’t going to be better, not until Jorak Zhukov was behind bars.

“I hate to break it to you,” he said, needing her to understand the significance of the situation, “but until Zhukov is caught, public appearances are like handing an arsonist a can of gasoline and a match.”

Her eyes flared wide. “I realize that,” she said softly, then glanced toward the vacant bed. Just as quickly, she looked away. “I don’t make a habit of tempting fate.”

But she had.

Once.

The memory cruised through him, hot and damning, and though he knew the polite thing to do—the gentlemanly thing to do—would be to ignore the eight-hundred-pound pink elephant she’d just summoned from the past, he couldn’t quit looking at her standing fewer than ten feet away, with her hair starting to dry and falling loose around her face, her gaze startled, her lips parted. Even wearing nothing but his ratty, threadbare flannel shirt, she still managed to steal his breath.

He met her gaze. “You sure about that?”

Elizabeth glanced at the bedside clock and squeezed her eyes shut, and Hawk had his answer.

“Life doesn’t always unfold neat and tidy the way we want it to,” he pointed out, leaning forward to balance his elbows on his knees. He didn’t understand his fierce need to force her to look in the mirror. “I’d have thought you’d realized that by now.”

Her gaze met his, quiet, seeking. “I’ve realized a lot, Wesley. Have you?”

The question splintered through him. A hot comeback begged for release, but he refused to let her lure him on to a path he had no desire to travel. It was late, and tomorrow would be a long day. She’d probably been awake close to twenty-four hours. She’d been tracked, almost abducted, could have been killed. Any adrenaline had long since drained away.

He wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay standing.

“Come to bed, Elizabeth. You’re exhausted.”

She didn’t move. “Have you?”

The control he’d been exerting crumbled. She wanted an answer? Fine, he’d give her one. “You want to know what I’ve realized?” The question broke from his throat rougher than he’d intended. “I’ve realized you’ve got your whole life mapped out, and nothing else matters. You know what you’re going to do, what’s acceptable and what’s not, who you’ll be with. Everything is black, or it’s white. Gray confuses you.”