AWOL with the Operative (2 page)

He couldn’t see her body under that bulky parka, but he was willing to imagine it was every bit as alluring as the rest of her. And that made him even more puzzled about her than he’d been back in Chicago.

“What was this Eve Warren doing up there with Fowler?” Sam had asked his squad supervisor. “According to the record you have on him, he was never married, so she couldn’t have been his wife. There wasn’t a mention of any ongoing affair, either. So just who is she?”

Frank Kowsloski, hands folded across his paunch as he rocked back in his desk chair, had just shrugged. “We don’t know. We didn’t even know she existed until the RCMP called us with the news of Fowler’s death. And since then…well, there’s been no time for any proper investigation. All we could learn were the basics online. Her address, that she’s single, parents deceased, works for a magazine in St. Louis. That kind of thing.”

“Seems to me Fowler could have told you he was meeting someone up there.” Sam hadn’t been able to keep the sour note out of his voice as he’d faced Frank across his littered desktop. He’d resented being called in like this. Still did.

“Look, I was lucky to even persuade him in the end to tell us where he was going. I could have lost him if I’d pushed too hard.”

And that, Sam had thought, would have meant losing the FBI’s prime opportunity to send one of the nation’s most notorious crime bosses to prison. Because Charlie Fowler had been Victor DeMarco’s longtime accountant. He’d had the evidence to convict DeMarco, records that would prove years of tax cheating. And Charlie had been willing to turn those records over to the FBI. Why? Terminal cancer. Apparently, Charlie had also suffered from an attack of conscience and a need to make things right before he died.

But now it was too late. For all his careful handling of the case, Frank had lost Charlie Fowler anyway on that road to Dawson.

“Why didn’t you send an agent up there with him?” Sam had pressed his boss.

Frank had shaken his head. “He anticipated that. Said if one of my agents turned up there, the whole deal was off. Guess he wanted this last fling of his, if that’s what it was, to be strictly private. Anyway, the Canadians don’t appreciate our agents operating up there, not without permission and a lot of red tape. I had to settle for the Mounties promising to keep an eye on him.”

Which hadn’t worked, Sam thought, although he knew the RCMP was a reliable law enforcement agency.

“Why me, Frank? Why do I get to be your delivery boy? Hell, you know I’m not ready to come off leave. I’m still a head case.”

“Can’t be helped, Sam. All our agents are either out in the field or off somewhere with their kids on their spring vacations. Disney World, for all I know.”

Yeah, Sam had thought,
warm
places. Not the freeze-your-ass-off Yukon Territory. Why had Charlie Fowler chosen such a spot? Probably because he’d figured it was absolutely safe. It hadn’t been, not if he was murdered because DeMarco had suspected his accountant was about to turn on him. If that was true, it meant DeMarco’s boys had somehow managed to find him.

“You know, Frank, it would have been a helluva lot easier if Fowler had just turned those records over to you before he took off for the Yukon.”

“But he wouldn’t, not until his return. Probably his way of making sure I’d stick to my end of the bargain. I had no choice but to play by his rules.” The squad supervisor had hunched forward in his chair with an earnest “Look, it’s a simple enough assignment. All you have to do is fly up there and bring Eve Warren out. I need her, Sam. My gut tells me if DeMarco’s goons haven’t managed to get their hands on those records, then the woman either has them or knows where they are.”

Sam had doubted that then in Frank’s office, and he doubted it now even more after meeting Eve Warren. There was nothing about her to indicate that Fowler would have trusted her with such important information. No, given her spectacular looks and the considerable age difference between Fowler and her, Sam would wager she had to be nothing more than a playmate hired by Charlie to share his last holiday.

But, yeah, Sam could understand all right why Fowler had wanted her. Temptation that she was, he desired her himself. Not that he would try to initiate anything. She was his assignment, and that was all. Period.

Still, Charlie Fowler must have cared for her on some level other than a purely carnal one. The report Sam had read on his flight up here indicated Charlie and Eve had flown separately to Dawson and that Fowler had intended them to return in the same manner, which was why Eve wasn’t in that rental car with him. Why had Charlie insisted on that? Because he had wanted to safeguard her in the event of trouble? Sam wondered…

She didn’t like him.

On a purely physical level, Eve thought, Sam McDonough might qualify as every woman’s ideal male fantasy. He certainly had all the right, rugged looks for it. She wouldn’t deny him that.

All right, so in that sense she wasn’t entirely immune to him herself. But his attitude…well, that was another matter. The man was a devil—nasty to the point of harshness.

If he had any sympathy for her loss, he didn’t bother to express it either by word or manner. One thing was clear. He resented her.

Eve didn’t bother to wonder why. She was suffering from too much grief over Charlie’s death to trouble herself with something that didn’t really matter.

Charlie, Charlie, what happened exactly? And why did it have to happen?

She missed him. Missed him terribly. She was alone now. Alone and frightened.

Not quite alone, Eve. There’s the man at your side. But why, oh why, do you have to be so aware of him and this very disturbing effect he has on you?

It was impossible to ignore him as she would have liked. He was too blatantly there. Very much of a forceful presence with his hard body and hot temper.

An FBI agent of all things. They had sent an FBI agent to escort her home. Something connected with Charlie, and she was clear about none of it. Still too traumatized by the whole thing to try to figure it out. Or could it be that she didn’t really want to know?

How had she managed to get herself into this terrible situation anyway? She was just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. Work, a nice apartment, good friends, occasional dates when both her mood and interest prompted her enough to go out with the men who asked her.

Pleasant company. None of them that held the promise of anything approaching a serious attachment. None of them any more extraordinary than she was. No secrets in her life, no suggestion of intrigue. And no man who assaulted her senses while managing to be hateful about it at the same time. Until now.

The airfield was a simple one—two runways recently plowed for takeoffs and landings and a metal hangar attached to a small building that must serve as an office.

Their pilot emerged from the structure, shaking hands with them when Sam and Eve climbed out of the car. He was a portly, middle-aged man with the look of a Native American. Or at least a mixture of ancestry, Sam thought.

The guy verified that when he introduced himself. “Ken Redfeather,” he said. “Plane’s all gassed and ready for you.”

Sam nodded in the direction of the rental car. “There’ll be someone who’ll return the car to the Dawson airport, won’t there?”

“Yep. All arranged for, just as you specified on the phone. This way, folks.”

Ken Redfeather led them out to the waiting plane, a single engine, high-wing craft. Insisting on carrying her own suitcase this time, Eve followed their pilot. Sam brought up the rear with his own bag.

Why the hell couldn’t he keep his eyes off her? First it was her face. Now it was her backside. Or, anyway, what he could see of it in that coat. Whether the seductive sway of her hips was done consciously or unconsciously, whether it was fair of him or not, he resented her for his arousal. Emotionally messed up as he was, he didn’t need this unexpected complication.

Redfeather took their luggage when they reached the plane and stowed it in a baggage compartment behind the seats. Apparently a conscientious pilot, he invited them to settle themselves inside while he checked the outside of the plane to make sure everything was sound.

Ducking under the wing, Sam folded the front passenger seat back. “You take the backseat,” he indicated to Eve.

“Why?”

“Because there are no windows back there to speak of. You’ll be more secure.”

“And just what do you think I could possibly be in danger from up there? Birds?”

“It’s not birds I’m worried about. I don’t want you being a possible visible target when we land for refueling, which I was told when I made the arrangements that we’d have to do before we set down in Calgary.”

“And after Calgary?”

“We board a commercial jet for Chicago. No more questions. Get in the back.”

“I don’t think so,” she said stubbornly. “It’s bound to be warmer in front near the heater.”

“So, just keep your coat on.”

“I’d still like to ride in front.”

“I’m not giving you that choice,” he informed her sharply. “Just do what I tell you when I tell you, and we’ll both be happy.”

He could tell by the way her eyebrows lifted and the ice-hard glare under them that she was royally pissed off with him. Well, that was her problem.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re rude to the point of—”

“Meanness? Yeah, plenty of times. So what?”

She muttered something under her breath that he didn’t catch. He could guess what it might be. Something that probably involved the word
bastard
. Too bad. She had to understand he was responsible for her. That meant, like it or not—and she obviously didn’t anymore than he did—following his instructions.

“I’m beginning to think the only threat to me is you, Special Agent McDonough.”

One of those shapely eyebrows of hers, which Sam was beginning to realize were capable of expressing a whole range of emotions, shot up again with barely restrained anger. Before she could go on arguing with him, he cut her off with an emphatic, “Now get in the back like a good girl, and try not to give me any more grief.”

She must have figured it wasn’t worth the effort to make a further issue of it. Long-strapped, leather purse swinging from her shoulder, she clambered aboard and into the backseat. Sam lowered the front seat and swung himself into it. He shut the door behind him as Ken Redfeather rounded the tail of the plane and approached the pilot’s door.

As cramped as the cabin was, Sam wondered how Redfeather, with that ample belly of his, could possibly fit behind the yoke. As it turned out, once he’d shed his coat, he managed it with relative ease.

“Belt up, folks, and we’ll get my girl here on her way.”

A few minutes later, the plane lifted off the runway and into the clear, blue sky. When they had reached their cruising altitude, Sam looked down over the side.

The terrain spread out below them was an impressive sight. Snowy mountains, frozen lakes, vast forests of white spruce, birch and fir. On the flat, treeless bowl of a valley, Sam thought he could spot what had to be a herd of elk.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Redfeather said, obviously proud of his rugged homeland.

Sam murmured his agreement. Eve, probably unable to catch more than glimpses of what lay below them, had nothing to contribute. Sam should have felt some guilt about that and didn’t. Hey, he was only ensuring her welfare, wasn’t he?

Needing to confirm that welfare after a long silence in the cabin, he twisted around in his seat to check on her. And learned she was waiting for him. Or so it seemed when their gazes collided head-on. Sam sucked in his breath as her green, siren’s eyes held his, searing him with a hot intensity.

The moment was a compelling one. He had never felt so inflamed by a woman. And he didn’t appreciate it. Not when his self-control was in jeopardy by this senseless attraction to a woman he’d met less than two hours before. Not when he felt helpless to do anything about it, except damn himself for a weakness he couldn’t afford.

She finally broke the contact, dragging her gaze away from his, her face flushed. That’s when Sam realized she was not only conscious of him on the same level but that she didn’t want this tug of strong emotions between them any more than he did.

Releasing his breath with a rush of air, he turned around in his seat to avoid the provocative sight of her. Ken Redfeather appeared to be unmindful of the whole exchange. Sam meant to keep it that way.

“Think I’ll catch a few winks,” Sam mumbled. “I didn’t have a chance to sleep on the flight up here.”

Focused on his flying, Redfeather merely nodded.

It was warm up front, probably why Redfeather had wisely rid himself of his coat before takeoff. Something else that Sam should have felt guilty about, especially since he meant to follow the pilot’s example. Unbuckling his seat belt, he squirmed out of his own coat and dropped it down beside Redfeather’s in the space between them.

Sam restored his belt before he slid down in the seat as much as his tall body would allow. He closed his eyes, but, although he needed the rest, he didn’t expect to sleep. He didn’t sleep much at all these days, not even in his own bed. And with Eve Warren very much on his mind…