Can You Forget?

She shrugged. “We have an unusual relationship, because of my fame. I call him Ghost or sir on missions, of course.”

But he merely shrugged. “Who’s our backup?”

“Ghost is taking this one. It’s been ranked top secret, and apart from Braveheart and Wildman, all the other operatives are coming in from Virginia, hand-picked by the brass and absolutely trustworthy,” she answered, lost between relief and a kind of sick despair. Once upon a time, Tal had always known when she went into hiding and he’d always come to her, made her talk out her fears or pain. He’d made her love him more every time, just by caring so much. But it seemed he’d lost his radar with her. They were drifting further apart every moment, and she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it, unless she wanted more operatives to die.

He frowned. “I’d have thought Skydancer would want to be in on this. This whole thing started because of a private show between Burstall and Skydancer, right?”

“Skydancer does want in on this—so does Countrygirl—but she’s pregnant and they have kids. Ghost won’t bring them in because Burstall’s primary target’s still Skydancer. Skydancer’s also worked with Jack and Angel in the past. And Burstall has an obsession with Countrygirl. We traced a call he made to her through four computers and two different satellites.”

“Nice complication,” he remarked, frowning in concern. “If Burstall ends up taking one of us, he’s likely to demand hostage exchange to get Countrygirl.”

“You’re right.” She looked in his eyes, willing hers not to show the aching hammer of desire hitting her. She could die and not care, when she looked into his eyes… “This whole assignment will be dangerous, without the complication of being conducted in the public eye. My fame is the only ticket we have to get into where Burstall’s hiding—but it’s a flimsy cover at best. We’ll be lucky if they don’t suspect us from the get-go.”

Tal frowned. “Where is he? Where are we going?”

She grinned at him. “That’s one advantage to this—we’ve hit the jackpot. He’s in Amalza. One of the smallest Mediterranean islands outside the Mallorca group off the coast of Spain—”

“Where famous honeymooners hide out, and tax cheats, illegal arms dealers and financial wizards from the wrong side of Wall Street abound,” he filled in with his own special blend of unique grinning irony. He leaned against the hot wall, folding his arms across his tight, muscled chest as he smiled still, making her gulp. “So are we going to an ‘Embassy’ do?”

Grateful for the distraction, she laughed. The “Embassy” was infamous among those in the know. The Embassy was an enormous white castillo of indecent luxury owned by Robert Falcone, an illegal arms dealer who absconded with billions of dollars when his British financial empire collapsed. Anyone who was someone on the international black market partied there—and any spy worth their salt longed to infiltrate it. Every Interpol operative or connected agent dreamed of being the one to take the slippery-smooth Falcone down. A party there was a potential gold mine for the arrest of the century.

“That’s the point of us going, Irish,” she shot back with a lifted brow and a quirky grin. “Why do you think Nick wants me in on this? Burstall’s in Amalza. We’ve heard rumors he’s in hiding out at the Embassy. Falcone has made it obvious he’d love to get up close and personal with me. Falcone’s castillo has tighter security than the White House, but if I go to Amalza—even on my honeymoon—you think he won’t send me an invite?”

“Oh, he will,” Tal retorted dryly. “The question is, will I get an invitation to come with my lovely wife?” He limped to the roller doors and with a bunching heave he let fresh air in, tropical-warm and sweet-scented. “It’s too hot in here.”

Oh, yeah, baby, it was hot all right…she was so hot she could barely think. Those well-worn jeans molded his butt like a loving glove… “Doesn’t matter,” she made herself say through a lump in her throat that felt like sticky tar in summer. She’d had a love affair with that butt for more years than she wanted to remember. “I can’t afford to go without backup.”

He turned back to her and frowned. “Mary-Anne, this is your venue. What use will I be in this beyond window-dressing? I am—was—Search And Rescue. A field operative and medical officer. I might be a doctor, but I’m a bush kid. Tact and subtlety, or sophisticated man-about-town, I don’t think I’ll handle well.”

“Maybe it’s time to stretch your skills.” She hoped her lifted brow, her cynical smile, would stop the unwanted question forming, unbidden, on her rebel lips. “I learned to play the game quick enough. I’m sure you’ll pick it up.”

He gave her a strange, intent look. “Are you willing to risk your life on me being able to do that?”

“As much as you are, I guess.” Could she handle a fake marriage with Tal, when it could all end in a week and she’d never see him again, except on trips home to see the family—

The thought slammed into her like a truck hitting a kangaroo on a dark Outback road. She felt the blood drain from her face. “Tal,” she whispered, “our parents—”

He jerked around to her, taking her words and running with them. “Not just them. Your brother. My grandparents. Bloody hell, the whole town of Cowinda.”

“My mum and dad and Greg always wanted us to get married,” she whispered, her mind racing along with the horror of the scenario unfolding in her mind.

“My family, too. Dad dreamed of Poole’s Rest and Eden being one property, after Greg chose vet science instead of farming. And you know how much they love you.” He looked at her, his face dark as a sudden Outback storm. “We can’t do this to them.”

“Ghost wants our families as part of the thing, to make it authentic. They’re to come to the wedding, but they can’t know the truth about us being Nighthawks, or our marriage being for the mission…” Her mind went blank. “It would put them at risk.”

“The media will hound ’em as soon as the mock-up starts. Our mothers would give the lot of ’em the scoop on us, along with a bang-up dinner to celebrate.” His muscles bunched again as he leaned both hands on the metal wall. “They won’t just be heartbroken when we break up—they’ll be publicly humiliated.”

Tal always called a spade a spade. A hand lifted to her mouth. “When we break up after the mission…if it leaks out later that our wedding was a fake, I don’t think they’d get over it…”

Still leaning on the wall, he turned his face to her, his eyes burning. “It’s crunch time, Mary-Anne—regional stability or the people we love. We either let someone else handle the assignment or we break our parents’ hearts and shatter the illusions of everyone in Cowinda.”

More ramifications Nick couldn’t possibly have taken into account, because he wasn’t born and raised in a tiny, close-knit Outback town of less than eight hundred people. “We’re the shining kids of Cowinda. We put the place on the map.”

“I was just a doctor. You’re the one who put Cowinda on any maps that matter, sweetness,” he interjected dryly.

She waved that off. “Our marriage would be a fairy tale come true for everyone in town—well, except your ex-wife, her daddy and a few of their followers,” she added, just as dry. “There’s no way everybody wouldn’t know, or find out. The wedding being leaked to the papers is a vital part of the assignment. The paparazzi would bolt to Cowinda to get the scoop. Everyone’s going to have a point of view, want their moment of fame. And when we break up, it’ll make them all look like fools.”

Still slow and thoughtful, he said, “I don’t know about you, but I can’t do this to Mum and Dad. Not since Kathy died. I’m all they’ve got left—and they want me to remarry and have kids.” His mouth twisted in a cynical slash as he finished.

Mary-Anne almost gaped at him. “You haven’t told them about the accident, have you?”

He shook his head. “Anson wanted it kept secret until my contract runs out. I wanted to wait until after the final operation, anyway. After Kathy’s death…I couldn’t scare them like that, or wreck their dreams of me finding another wife.”

She clenched her jaw shut. The man was stone blind, deaf and stupid…he had to be. A woman stood right in front of him, almost dying with the pain of wanting him, and he couldn’t even see it…

Don’t make a fool of yourself over him again. Once is enough.

“Tal, people have died.” Though a tad croaky, her voice was calm, a thin cloak hiding her anguished desire. “The Virginia office is right—only you and I have any chance at all of pulling this mission off. My fame will give us bona fides. Falcone’s interest in me guarantees us an invitation into the Embassy. Ginny’s lies about us will help make our marriage look above suspicion. Any other newcomers to the island would be too heavily scrutinized.” She couldn’t stop the words tumbling from her mouth like falling dominoes. “It’s not only the Nighthawks that will be destroyed with this, Tal. Falcone’s latest arms cache is big enough to start a war or three. The rumor mill inside Interpol has it that he’s not just sending guns to Tumah-ra, but bombs. He’s got caches ready to send to rebel militia and fractious religious groups in volatile countries in Africa and Eastern Europe.”

Tal bit out a gritty epithet. “Then what the hell do we do? I won’t sacrifice our families, but I can’t risk innocent lives for them, either.”

She bit her lip and held on to the too warm wall, feeling the discomfort vaguely as she took on possibilities and discarded them. “I don’t know.”

“There’s only one thing to do.” The note in his voice made her heart hammer. He tipped up her chin, and looked deep into her eyes. “We sacrifice our feelings, and get married for real.”

Chapter 4

“W-what?” The world shifted around her. She staggered and almost fell. Tal lifted a hand to steady her, but she moved a step back, hating the delicious, pulse-pounding sweetness that filled her whole body when he touched her. “W-what did you say?”

He shrugged, obviously seeing no need to repeat himself.

Marrying Tal. Was this a dream come true or a nightmare about to descend on her? From meeting him again to fake marriage to reality, in the space of three days—

“Are you all right with that?” he asked, his tone grim. “If it’s too much for you to go through—”

Disoriented, she blinked up at him. “T-too much…?”

“Marrying me, sweetness.” He touched his scarred cheek and then made another tiny sneering motion with his mouth. “I know it’s a big sacrifice for you—I realize that I’m a huge step down in standards for a star like you, Miss West—but I thought you cared about saving lives, and our families.”

“I do!” God in heaven, he was blind. How could he not see how much she wanted him? “If we get married, sweetness, I’ll try to make the sacrifice if you do,” she snapped. “You make yourself pretend you want me, and I’ll pretend you’re still the love of my life.” She used the same cynical, flippant curtness he used on her. Damn him! Why couldn’t he be happier about this situation? It wasn’t as though he had to put up with—

A caressing touch on her shoulder startled her. “Pretend I want you? You think I’m going to have to pretend?”

She stood speechless, unable to move or breathe, or think of anything but the sweet ache building in her, wanting, hoping…

“You think it will be an act?” he pressed her, his voice soft, dangerous.

She managed a shaky whisper. “Don’t lie to me, Tal. Lie to the world if you need to, but not to me.”

“All right—you want truth?” He took a step closer to her, his sudden grin half-savage, highlighting his scars. “I might not look so good these days, sweetness, but I’m still a man. Everything that needs to functions just fine, and the thought of kissing and touching you—for the mission, of course—isn’t a big hardship.” He moved on her, his face like a savage angel’s, tender and taunting. “I’ve forced myself to think about kissing you, touching you, and pretending to want you, oh, about two hundred and forty times since I saw you yesterday. Just in case I needed the scenario for a mission, of course. For the sake of the greater good.” He smiled at her, his eyes dark, unfathomable—his body way too close. “I must have been training for this mission for a long time, honey, because I’ve been pretending to want you ever since I was fifteen.”

She wasn’t just hurting now—she was in anguish. A few sultry words and she had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him, trail her fingers over the hard ridges of muscle, to pull his mouth down to hers for a long, scorching kiss…

Dear God, I’m still pathetic. I can’t walk away free if Tal can still keep me bound in the same old chains.

“Mary-Anne?”

The name was soft, husky. Sending flaming arrows of need and hope through her stupid dreamer’s heart. She turned away, blinking hard. “I’m Verity.” The words were shaking, wobbly in their flickering defiance—and a complete lie. She’d never been Verity, not even to herself. Even after seven years, she still felt a slight shock when anyone called her by her stage name. More often than not, she had to force herself to remember.

“Not to me.” The tenderness in his voice showed he saw what was going on beneath the would-be calm surface of her. “Just like I was never the town winner to you. Mary-Anne Poole was the best friend I ever had. I can’t call you Verity.”

She clenched her fists, willing the tears not to fall. “Okay. Call me Mary-Anne if you want—if it works for the job.” Still with her back to him, not daring to show her face, she shrugged. “We both know neither of us would have ever come to the other again, if it hadn’t been for this assignment.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have come to me,” he replied, still quiet, restrained. “I’d have come to you if I’d thought you’d listen to me. I’ve wanted us to make peace for a long time.”

She swiveled back to him, with a glimmering smile of bravado. “Sure. No problem. Peace achieved. Friends again, just like always.” And she held out her hand to him.

Instead of taking it, he looked into her eyes for a moment—and she trembled without his even touching her. With a single look she was a stupid schoolgirl, the shy, chubby loser head over heels for the popular, handsome boy next door.

She tried to drop her hand…but he caught it and lifted it to his mouth, palm up, the kiss gentle yet intensely sensual: a slow, tender seduction. “Were we just friends, Mary-Anne? You told me you loved me. You wanted my baby.”

She froze, her eyes fixed on his, her body hot and weak and shaking with the neediness she couldn’t hide. “I was a silly girl,” she whispered. “And like all good fairy tales, the prince rode into the palace with the real princess.” She knew her hot, shivering reaction to him was giving her away. “I failed the princess test. I missed the pea under the mattress.”

Breathing against her skin, he moved his mouth with infinite tenderness to her wrist. “I guess I’m not your average prince. I liked Cinderella a lot better than Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. And I always preferred Mary Ann to Ginger.”

She shook even more, as shooting darts of heat burned up the flesh of her arm to her deepest core. “Y-you did?” Then, without warning, blinding reality hit her, broadsiding her with its careless cruelty. “Of course you did. Well-endowed redheads were never your thing, were they?”

He frowned, his mouth pausing between tiny kisses. “Who fed you that piece of propaganda—or do I even have to ask?”

Snatching her hand from his, she wheeled away. “Does it matter? It’s old news. I got over it years ago.”

“Obviously.” His voice was gentle. He moved closer to her, so close he must be able to feel her intense response to him…like the gullible fool she’d always been with him, her heart and body screamed, Touch me, Tal, oh, please, touch me…

Untamed magic surrounded him, an aura of dangerous chemistry ready to combust in her—a catalyst straight to a broken heart. And no Gil waited this time to save her. Don’t look. Don’t let him touch you. It’s the only way to survive. “We’ve made peace—we’ll do the mission. Let’s leave it at that,” she muttered, willing him to follow her lead.

“What if I can’t leave it like that, Mary-Anne?” he asked, husky, dark and aching. “What if I want to show you how good I can be at pretending to want you—right here, right now?”

Helpless, mesmerized, she turned her face to his…and she saw that look on his dangerous, beautiful face—the look he always wore before he’d kissed her on those pulsing-hot summer nights by the billabong, when she’d dared to believe the boy she adored really wanted her, really loved her. And her needing body performed a coup d’état on her will. “Oh, Tal,” she whispered, and swayed toward him.

Then she noticed a shadow flitting from a shrubbery to the trees beside the runway. Within the shadow of another bush, she could see the reflecting glint of a lens aimed their way.

He can’t see Tal’s scars.

Desperately she grabbed his shoulders, pulled him close and pressed her mouth to his, hoping Tal had enough acting skills to make his side of the kiss look passionate—

Yet before she’d even finished the thought her tongue was twined around Tal’s so tight it gave a whole new definition to tonsil hockey, her body splatted against his like paint on a wall, and she wriggled and whimpered like an excited puppy going walkies, begging for petting and stroking…and oh, he was petting and stroking, his hands hard on her bare skin beneath her top, sending jolts of heated need from skin to her most feminine core while she purred and moaned in helpless pleasure…

Verity West the Iceberg? An iceberg in the equator, maybe. She was so hot for him steam was curling around her ears. Even though warning bells in her brain screamed at her to back off, she couldn’t help it. Her hands found his bare skin and caressed him in ardent eagerness. Her mouth, with a will of its own, remained plastered on his, harder and hotter. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t help the languid sexual heaviness of her body, urging her on, urgently demanding more, demanding it all.

Cupping that glorious male butt in her hands—oh, finally, this fantasy had come true—she moved against him, purring in delight at the hard male reaction she felt to the kiss. His kiss grew even harder. His hands were everywhere, caressing her bottom and breasts, sending hot shivers of need through every single nerve ending. The alarm on her lambent hormonal clock shrieked at her—five years, four months and eighteen days since she’d last been loved by a man…and oh, to love Tal, to finally have him touch her body, slowly strip off her clothes and bring her to completion, right here, right now…

“How’s the throat infection, Miss West?” A familiar voice: Gary Brooks, from a tabloid not known for its discriminating taste in stories—or their verification of what they printed as “fact.” “Did you feel like sharing germs with your lover?”

Tal’s whole body jerked. She emulated the movement, not needing to pretend to make it look real, she’d forgotten all about the damn reporter. She gasped and turned away. Oh, no, what had he seen—and photographed? “Tal, close the door!”

“Too late, sweetness,” he whispered dryly. “As was your intention, I think, when you grabbed me.” With a cynical twist to his smile, he turned toward the eager photojournalist, still snapping off picture after picture.

“No,” she whispered urgently, pushing him back. “Don’t let him see the scarred side of your face!”

His face cooled with instant comprehension and complete self-control. With a pang, she knew her chance of making a connection to him was gone. He shrugged and moved into the shadows. “Sure. I don’t particularly want to be scrutinized as the walking freak show fiancé or husband of the beautiful Verity West. Just as well, I haven’t seen my parents since before the accident, and nobody outside the Nighthawks knows about it.”

She closed her eyes. She’d foreseen this, but it slammed into her soul—the guilt of a woman who knew too well how it felt to need to hide from ridicule. And she’d done it to him, she’d made him feel not good enough for the person she was now.

Damn you, Nick—you opened the door, then gave him the ammunition to slam it right back in my face.

With all her will, she turned to Gary Brooks, mustering up the haughty, imperious look that had first given her the Iceberg tag, but Tal spoke first from within the shadows, his graveled voice strong and confident. “We’ll do you a deal, mate. Take off for now—hold those shots, and we’ll give you the announcement of your life, complete with exclusive photos.”

Mary-Anne gasped. He’d not only grasped Nick’s take, he’d taken full control of the mission in three sentences. Yes, a perfect take on what Nick would want. He and Nick were alike, all right, and in more than just looks.

“Just one photo of you both first, face-on,” the man pleaded, who’d obviously already caught on: he wasn’t arguing.

“Tomorrow, in Sydney.” She jumped in, before Tal could speak. When the journo looked mutinous, she added, “Do you know who this is, Gary? It’s the man all the stories were about three years ago. You’re going to have the scoop of your life in twenty-four hours. I’m willing to put that in writing, if you go away now. We’ll meet you at the Grand Hotel, tomorrow at four.”

Gary Brooks’s eyes lit with a mingled kind of ecstatic wariness. “I’ll release every damn picture by tomorrow if I don’t get that contract,” he threatened, and left.

“Well, you sure know how to take charge of a situation, don’t you, sweetness?” Tal spoke from the superheated half darkness of the wall. “He must have taken about twenty-seven shots of us eating each other alive. Anson will be happy with our progress. We’d better call him to get a real marriage certificate.” He shrugged. “We can stay together a year or two, make our families happy, go home for visits, right? I’m not going to risk hurting Mum and Dad, or Aunt Miranda and Uncle Ed—not for any of Anson’s save-the-world principles.” His eyes glittered with sardonic humor. “And Greg was my best mate for twelve years—we still call each other now and then. I won’t dump his little sister, sweetness. You’ll have to dump me.”

Not knowing what to say, she nodded. Everything he said was right, with the mission and their families in mind—but considering their mind-blowing kiss and its degrading, tacky aftermath, his self-control chilled her soul. “I don’t want to get married in Cowinda,” she said quietly. The one thing she couldn’t face. A real-yet-sham wedding with Tal was bad enough, but she’d never survive the hype and happiness of everyone in Cowinda. She’d break down for sure.

He gave a short laugh, without humor. “Fair enough—it’s too personal for us both. We’ll do the whole thing in Sydney. We can call our parents when we get there and tell them what’s going down. What’s the condensed version—that we met again by accident and fell madly in love?”

It took all her self-control to keep the tears in. If he knew how she’d dreamed of that since they’d passed each other in the hall at headquarters in Canberra three years ago. How she’d wished she wasn’t urgently needed in Nick’s office just as he was leaving on assignment… “That’s about the size of it.”

“Okay, done. We’ll say problems with your schedule kept us from coming home for the wedding. They’ll understand that, and be too busy to think about being hurt, I hope.”

“I think we’d be better off giving it a day or two. We need to orchestrate our romance a bit.”

His mouth twisted. “Wining and dining, sizzling slow dances, a few kisses. Yeah, a whirlwind society courtship sounds like the perfect end to our decade-old torrid billabong affair. Being in Sydney should maximize the impact. If we hide my face, that is. How does Anson plan to do that, by the way? And why?”

There was no easy way to say it. She took a breath and blurted it out. “Burstall might not know your real name, but he knows you survived the blast. He knows you’re Australian, and he also knows you’re a doctor because of the kit you left at the village.” She heard her own voice, full of quiet despair. “He knows the extent of your injuries, too—there were several unauthorized hits on your hospital records at the database. You were admitted under a fake name, but we can’t take risks. You’re relatively safe to go to Amalza if he sees no sign of your injuries or scars, but if we go to the Embassy and you show up with your face as it is now, along with your limp, and being an Australian doctor—all the world knows your profession, thanks to Ginny—it will only take seconds for Burstall to put two and two together, and he’ll kill us both.”