Behind Enemy Lines (6 page)

“Tough. It’s already a done deal.”

Frustration coursed through him. He knew what he was talking about here. He’d played this game once, a long time ago, and it had cost one of his men his life. Annie was
not
taking him there again. He had to make her understand.

“Dammit Annie. I want you out.”

“And how are you planning to take care of yourself until you’re healed? Do you expect to stroll out the front door and go shopping without being noticed—assuming you could do it without passing out? Do you know who in St. George will help you and who’ll sell you out? Face it, Tom. You need me.”

He stared hard at her, and she glared right back at him. As much as he didn’t want to accept her argument, she was right. He needed her help. For now. But that didn’t mean he had to like it one bit. As soon as he was a little stronger, he was ditching her like a hot potato.

He sighed, resigned. “If you’re going to be part of this operation for now, you need to understand the ground rules my team operates by.”

She crossed her arms and raised an amused eyebrow. Too cocky for her own good, she was.

“First and foremost, I’m in charge. You do what I say, when I say it. No questions, no hesitation. Got it?”

A wide grin spread across her face. “Got it.”

“I’m serious, Annie. In my line of work, lives hang on orders being carried out instantly. I’m the leader of this squad not only because of my rank, but also because of my field experience. You’re going to have to trust me, quite literally, with your life. Can you do that?”

She tilted her head to the side, considering him. At least she finally seemed to be taking him seriously. “How good are you at what you do?”

He answered her quietly. “I’m the best. My team’s the best there is, too. If you run with my squad, every one of them will die for you without a second thought.”

“Let’s sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Agreed. So. Do you trust me?”

“Yes, I guess I do.”

Why did it feel so good to hear her say those words? This is a job. It’s just a job.

“Welcome aboard then, Annie. Your first assignment is to find me something to eat.”

She saluted smartly. “Yes sir. Right away, sir.”

She marched out of the room, her rear end twitching pertly. Realizing he was enjoying the view, the smile faded from his face. He had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.

Chapter 4

“W
here in the hell were you?”

Annie jumped. She managed not to drop the bags of groceries in her arms, but her keys clattered to the floor. She stepped inside the apartment and closed the door.

“Gee, hello. Nice to see you too, Tom. What are you doing out of bed? You agreed to stay there today.”

He glared at her from his reclining position on the ancient, overstuffed sofa that had come with the apartment. “I was worried sick when I woke up and you were gone. I couldn’t stay in bed.”

A warm feeling crept into Annie’s irritation.

“I went shopping. I picked up more food, and I had to get you mountain climbing supplies.” She plunked one of the bags on the scarred coffee table beside Tom. It rattled metallically. “I managed to find some used gear, so you won’t have to make it look broken in.”

“Good thinking.”

Tom’s terse approval made her afternoon of foraging through dark, dusty, cobweb-ridden pawnshops worth the hassle.

“I’ve got one more load to bring in from the car. Back in a minute.”

She hauled her best find of the day out of the trunk of her car and heaved one of its black nylon straps over her shoulder. Although she exercised daily, she was huffing by the time she reached the apartment. How Tom managed to sneak all over the jungle carrying this bag full of rocks was beyond her.

Triumphantly she set his backpack on the coffee table. “Merry Christmas a little early, Major Folly.”

“My pack!”

He reached out eagerly. His hand stopped abruptly in midair. He grunted and collapsed back on to the sofa, holding his rib cage. His eyes closed tightly as he waged a struggle against the pain.

Annie jumped forward. All her best intentions to keep her distance from him went right out the window. She bent over him in concern.

“Are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you? I picked up some painkillers from Dr. Clark today. Shall I get you one?”

“No. Just leave me alone. I’ll be okay.”

His voice sounded thin, not the rich tones of his usual speaking voice. It took all the punch out of his attempt to be stoic and macho.

She sat down on the edge of the sofa beside him. His eyes flew open and the expression in them shifted from annoyed to startled. She kept forgetting he’d been unconscious most of the time she’d been getting so intimately familiar with him. He looked away.

She spoke quietly to his averted face. “You must hate having anyone see you like this.”

He didn’t respond. But then she didn’t really expect him to.

“I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for you to be accustomed to perfect health and then to find yourself in this situation. Give it a little time. You’ll be back to your old self soon.”

He turned his head and gazed bleakly at her. “Will I?”

His words cut like a knife. She was responsible for potentially ending his career and causing him all this anguish.

She reached out to smooth away the frown from his forehead. To her surprise he closed his eyes and accepted the comforting touch. And as usual her fingers couldn’t resist straying into his dark, silky hair. She massaged his scalp gently.

As much as she savored touching his vital warmth, she had to stop this. He’d made it crystal clear earlier that he wanted nothing personal to do with her. She’d pegged him correctly. He was one of those men to whom the mission was everything. Reluctantly, Annie removed her hand.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”

He sighed. “Actually, you can. In the top pocket on the right side of my pack, there’s a beeper.”

She fished around and found a small black object that looked like a pocket pager. “Is this it?”

“Yeah.”

She handed it over, watching while he punched in a series of numbers.

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing if my team has left a message for me.”

“They probably don’t know you’re out of the hospital yet, let alone that you’ve got your gear back.”

“They will soon. I just sent each of them a message to come here.” He set aside the beeper. “In the big section of my pack, near the top, there’s a little vinyl notebook. Could you get it for me?”

Annie found it and gave it to him. Interested, she watched him flip to several pages covered with a jumble of numbers.

“Do you have some paper around here?”

“Yes, sir.” Annie got up and fetched a yellow legal pad for him.

He tore off a single sheet of paper.

“Never write on a pad of paper. The impression goes through to the pad and can be lifted for someone else to read.”

“I’ll remember that, Major.”

Tom stopped and looked up at her. “What’s all this sir and Major stuff?”

“Well, you do outrank me, and I am working for you now.”

He scooted back on the sofa. “Sit down.”

She sat beside him in the spot he patted by his hip.

“You and I are going to be living together in very close quarters, Annie. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m going to need your assistance. I’d feel awkward accepting your help if you decide to stand on military ceremony with me.”

Annie resisted the charm in his voice. She knew better than to become vulnerable to one of these gung-ho types. “I understand your point, but it wouldn’t be proper to fraternize—”

“Hey, I’m the first person to shout about the danger of superiors and subordinates getting too friendly and blurring the lines of command. But you don’t work for me.”

“Then what was all that stuff about me following your orders without question?”

His voice went dead serious. “I don’t give orders often, but when I do, it’s because people are going to die if something doesn’t happen pronto. If I ever do give you an order, I expect you to hop to it.”

She nodded. “Fair enough.”

“One of my team’s missions is to pull civilians out of dangerous situations. That’s essentially how we’ll treat you, even though you’re military. It’ll be less confusing for everyone if we treat you as a non-combatant evacuee. Can you live with that?”

Annie considered him. She knew full well he was splitting semantic hairs with her, but he had made several good points. They were going to be living together in pretty intimate circumstances. And he was still going to need care and assistance.

She didn’t for a minute believe the ridiculously hopeful expression he was throwing at her was sincere. He was a smart enough operator to try charming her into agreeing with him. But darned if that boyish smile wasn’t hard to resist.

“You’re just saying this stuff because you want another one of my massages, don’t you?”

He accepted her surrender gracefully. “Darn straight, I do. In fact, I may even have to order you give me one on a daily basis.”

“Oh, yeah? And who’s going to die if I don’t do it?”

He arched a dark brow at her. “My, my, we have led a sheltered life haven’t we?”

Abruptly she blushed to the roots of her hair and jumped up off the sofa. “And just when I thought you might be turning out to be a gentleman, after all.”

She hustled over to the kitchenette and fussed with putting away the groceries. “Are you hungry?”

“Now that you mention it, I could use a bite to eat.”

Tom’s answer was mild, but she definitely heard undertones of amusement in his voice. The rat.

While she cooked up pasta and vegetables, Tom fiddled with his notebook and paper. From her vantage point, it looked like he was encoding some sort of message.

He set aside the pen and paper to eat. Annie was dismayed when, a few minutes later, he handed her his plate still half-full of food.

“You didn’t like my cooking, did you?”

“Yes, I did. It was a far sight better than the grub I was living on before the accident. I’m just not hungry.”

“Once you get more active, maybe your appetite will pick up.”

He put his hand on her arm as she bent down to pick up his glass. Her breath hitched at the feel of his fingers on her bare skin.

“Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. The meal was great, and I appreciate you making it for me.”

Flustered, she sidled away from his hand. She’d finished washing and drying the dishes before she calmed down enough to breathe normally. How in the heck was she going to live with this guy if every time he touched her she got the vapors?

Tom’s voice interrupted the stern lecture she was giving herself. “Annie, would you mind helping me for a minute?”

“Not at all.”

He rolled on his side and gestured for her to sit down by him on the sofa. She did so and found her fanny wedged against his lean, hard stomach.

“What can I do for you?”

Resting his forearm on her thigh, he showed her the sheet of paper he’d been working on. The top half of the sheet was covered with what looked like random mathematical doodles. The bottom half of the sheet was covered with neatly printed rows of numbers. They swam in a jumble before her unfocused gaze.

His muscular power surrounded her. His clean, male smell filled her nostrils and made her light-headed. Or maybe it was the picture that came to mind of all those brawny, bronzed muscles she felt as he spooned his body around her that made her feel faint.

“You see here where the sequence starts with 924681?”

She swallowed to clear the lump from her throat. “Uhh, yes.”

“Start there and read me the numbers in sets of six while I enter them in my pager.”

The procedure took a couple of minutes. Somewhere along the way she found herself relaxing back against the warm wall of his body.

When they finished, she jerked herself upright once more. “So. Can you tell me what we just did?”

“We sent a status report to my superiors.”

“How?”

“Digital satellite paging. When we’re out in the field, headquarters monitors all the transmissions over our assigned frequencies.”

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now we wait.”

“For what?”

“For my team to arrive.”

She nodded. “Pretty slick. And here I was wondering how my contacts in St. George were ever going to find your guys to let them know where you are.”

He grinned. “We stand by the Boy Scout motto—Be Prepared. We have contingencies for all sorts of things, including teams getting split up.”

“Very impressive.”

His answering grin was downright boyish. Dang it. Why did he have to be so blasted appealing? Her plan to resist him was in a shambles, and they’d barely been together twelve hours. She was going to be a mess in a week.

“By the way, Annie. Do you happen to know how I’ve been getting shaved for the past seven weeks?”

His question knocked what little equilibrium she had right out from under her. She managed to mumble, “I might.”

“Uh-huh. I thought so. Is there anything you haven’t done for me?”

Her face heated up. “Not really.”

His eyes glinted. Suddenly he seemed a lot less bothered by their forced intimacy than she was.

“Do you want me to give you a shave, Tom?”

“What I’d really like is a bath.”

Oh, Lord. There was no way in heck she was going to manage to give him a full-body sponge bath when he was wide awake and watching her.

“If you think you can make it into the bathroom, I’ll run a bath for you. How does a long, hot soak in a tub sound?”

“Amazing.”

“Great. Stay here, and I’ll get it ready for you.” Relieved to have dodged that bullet, she jumped up and headed for the bathroom.

While steaming water filled the tub, she tucked her serviceable bar of Ivory soap out of sight and laid out shaving cream, a new razor and a towel. Grinning, she set out the array of floral soaps in frilly packages she’d bought that afternoon.

She returned to the living room. “All set. Do you want me to put a plastic bag over your cast, or can you keep your arm dry?”