HardWind (24 page)

He let go of her and stepped back, watching her slide down the wall like a broken

puppet. He just stood there—his legs spread wide, his hands clenched into fists at his

side—hating her with every fiber in his being. Blood dripped from his hand to splatter

on the floor but he wasn’t even aware of it.

“Y-you,” she said in a strained voice, “will pay for that.”

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HardWind

He had no doubt he would, if he allowed it. He stepped back as she struggled to

stand up straight.

“That was a mistake,” she said. She coughed, gasping for breath.

Pure evil had settled in Dáire’s dark eyes and he made up his mind then and there

that one of them would not be alive to see the new day. Since he feared for the safety of

the woman he loved and the child she had given him if Gentry were allowed to live, he

knew what had to be done.

* * * * *

No one spoke as the stretch limo made its way to the Montpellier Airport where the

chopper was waiting to whisk them to the
HardWind
. The Sikorsky S-76C Spirit lifted

off the ground just after noon with six people onboard. Along with the pilot and copilot, Gentry, her bodyguard Vlad, Dáire and Jackson were making the short flight to

the yacht. The
HardWind
was anchored just off the French coast near the seaside town of

Arcachon.

The limo stopped on the tarmac and Vlad was the first one out, holding the door for

his employer, putting out a hand to help her from the vehicle. His face was stony and as

granite hard as the mountains of his native Transylvania. Vlad’s cold, black eyes settled

on Dáire when the younger man climbed out of the limo next.

“Bitten any necks lately, Tepes?” Dáire asked, not in the least unsettled by the

bigger man’s steady stare.

“No, but I have driven a few stakes through the disloyal hearts of my lady’s

enemies,” Vlad replied in a nasty tone.

“It’s nice to have a hobby,” Dáire said with a smile.

Jackson rolled his eyes as Dáire helped his old friend out of the limo and into the

wheelchair the limo driver had ready for him. “Play nice, boys,” Jackson suggested.

“I’d like a vodka tonic as soon as we’re on the helicopter, Vlad,” Gentry snapped.

She raked her gaze over Dáire with a look meant to quell him, but Cronin just laughed.

“Certainly, my lady,” Vlad agreed.

The heels of her expensive shoes clicking on the tarmac, Gentry hurried to the

chopper and was inside the craft before Dáire and Jackson reached the big black

helicopter. Vlad was standing at the bottom of the steps leading into the chopper,

blocking their way.

“Just a bit of advice, Cronin,” the big man said in his thick accent. “Stay away from

her during the flight. She wants nothing to do with you.”

Dáire cocked an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be in there making her that

vodka tonic?” he challenged. “Better hop to,
boy
.” He said the last word with insulting

emphasis.

“Oh this is going to be a joyful flight,” Jackson commented, pushing forward so that

Vlad had to take a step up the stairway or have his foot ran over. “Vlad, be a pal and

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

carry me up the steps. If Cronin does, he might drop my wide-load ass.” Jackson

expertly pivoted the wheelchair around so Vlad could bend down and scoop him out of

it.

Scowling at Dáire, Vlad did as Jackson asked and lifted him up, shifted his weight

then took him into the chopper. From over the big man’s shoulder, Dáire could see

Jackson grinning from ear to ear.

The plush interior of the executive helicopter had deep, oversized leather chairs and

Vlad settled Jackson into a window seat before moving away to make Gentry’s preflight drink. Dáire plopped down beside Jackson then leaned over to make a kissy face

and smacking sounds at him.

“Suck-up,” Dáire named Jackson.

“Rabble-rouser,” Jackson returned.

Dáire chuckled and strapped himself into the seat. They wouldn’t be in the air long

but already Gentry was drumming her long red-coated nails on the arm of her chair,

staring out the window, breathing hard. He knew she wasn’t a calm flyer and knowing

she was so nervous amused him. He knew she needed a stiff drink in order to make the

short hop to the yacht.

“She can ride out a force-ten gale but she can’t puddle hop across a calm stretch of

ocean without nearly shitting her britches,” Jackson commented.

“She hasn’t been fond of flying since she set fire to her broom out there in Oz and

the locals threw water on her,” Dáire said, laying his head back on the comfortable

headrest. “Besides, she doesn’t have her flying monkeys to keep her company.” He

snorted. “A flying ape, but none of her flying monkeys.”

“Vlad really is a nice guy,” Jackson said. “I wish you’d stop slamming him.”

“As long as he’s her gofer, I want nothing to do with him,” Dáire said, and closed

his eyes.

The chopper lifted off the ground as soon as Gentry had her drink in hand. Dáire

opened one eye to take a look at her hand as she clutched the crystal glass. Her knuckles

were white and the ice in the glass was vibrating. He chuckled to himself and settled in

for the short ride.

* * * * *

As Dáire was half-dozing on a helicopter a world away, Star was writing a check to

a private security firm, giving them strict instructions on what she expected from them

in regards to her daughter’s protection.

“I am fully convinced the woman is insane,” Star told Malcom Ventner, the owner

of Prime Security. “You can’t take any chances with Jillian.”

“We’ll take very good care of your little girl, Miss Kiernan,” Ventner assured her.

“She’ll be on a flight to her new destination within the next few hours.”

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HardWind

“I’ll call you when I get back to Panama City,” Star said, getting to her feet. “One of

your men will be following me?”

“You have nothing to worry about, Miss Kiernan,” Lloyd Fallon, Ventner’s partner,

told her. “If anyone even looks like they want to get close to you, we’ll stop them. I wish

you’d let us involve the FBI in this. After all, someone did try to kill you.”

Star chewed on her thumbnail. “I don’t know that this Gentry woman isn’t part of

the FBI,” she said. “I know one of her men was.”

“We haven’t been able to find out anything about her, ma’am, but we know for a

fact she isn’t with any federal agency we have access to. If she’s black ops as you

suggest she is, it would be nearly impossible to learn anything helpful about her.”

Ventner shrugged. “We have other means at our disposal so let’s hope someone will

come forward and give us information on her.”

Star shook hands with the two men and Fallon offered to walk her to her new car

while Ventner called down to have her car brought to the front of the building by the

valet service. As they took the elevator down to the lobby of the high-rise in which

Prime Security had its office, she couldn’t stop herself from asking what—if anything—

they’d been able to find out about Dáire.

“Dáire Patrick Cronin was a Ranger,” Fallon said. “Decorated hero and all that. He

kind of disappeared off the radar about nine years ago. From everyone we’ve

questioned, he’s a good man but…” Fallon looked at her. “You sure you want to hear

this, Miss Kiernan?”

“I have to know,” she said.

“One of our sources suggested that he’s a mercenary, hiring out to the highest

bidder.”

Star took a deep breath. “In other words a killer?” she questioned.

“One of the best we’ve been told,” Fallon answered. “Very good at what he does.

Ruthless and merciless when it’s needed.”

A part of her had known, of course, but hearing it from Fallon made the hairs stand

up on the nape of Star’s neck. She could do no more than nod, not wanting to hear

anything else.

“You’re running with a very dangerous man, Miss Kiernan. That kind of man has

more enemies than friends. You’d do well to cut your losses and move on.”

“Just keep my daughter safe. That’s all that matters. I can handle my personal life,”

she said then softened the harshness of her tone by thanking Fallon for his concern.

“We’ll be watching over you too, ma’am,” Fallon reminded her. He held the door

open for her as the silver pine metallic Lexus GX with the darkly tinted windows pulled

up at the curb and the valet got out.

Star slipped her sunglasses on, shook Fallon’s hand one last time then skirted the

front of the Lexus and got in. She laid her purse on the passenger seat with the top

toward her, the opening unzipped and the 10mm Glock 29 autopistol only eighteen

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

inches from her right hand with a ten-round magazine locked and loaded. Pulling away

from the curb and into the traffic in downtown Pensacola, she constantly checked her

side mirrors, the rearview mirror, her eyes skittering every now and then to the weapon

in her purse. Once she was out on the interstate, she reached over and slipped the gun

out of the purse and laid it in her lap.

“Where are you, Dáire?” she whispered. “Where are you? I need you, baby.”

* * * * *

At that moment, the man Star Kiernan loved so recklessly, so passionately, she was

unwilling to give him up without one hell of a fight, was striding across the deck of the

HardWind
. The ocean breeze ruffled his thick brown hair and billowed the white shirt

that so richly accented his deep tan. Jackson rolled alongside him, keeping up a

constant patter about the rough seas that were making the yacht pitch and roll a little

too much for the older man’s comfort.

“I don’t like the fucking ocean,” Jackson complained. “If God had meant man to be

out on the ocean, he’d have given him gills.”

“You get a few glasses of tequila in you and you won’t give a shit about the ocean,”

Daire taunted.

“If all this rocking and rolling don’t stop, I’ll be puking a few glasses of tequila,”

Jackson grumbled.

“Cronin!” Gentry called out. “I want you in my office. Now!”

Dáire stopped walking and glared at the woman as she disappeared into the yacht’s

interior. A muscle jumped in his jaw and his eyes were as cold as an Alpine avalanche

and just as deadly.

“Be cool,” Jackson recommended.

Vlad had also stopped walking and was waiting for Dáire to join him. It was

obvious he’d been given instructions to make sure Dáire did as he was ordered.

“If you hear a splash,” Dáire told Jackson, “it will be her ass going over the side.”

“Just make sure no one sees you pitch her over and that there are sharks in the

vicinity,” Jackson said.

Rolling his shoulders to rid himself of the tension gathered along his neck, Dáire

headed for Vlad. He didn’t speak to the burly bodyguard as he passed him, but if looks

could have killed, the Transylvanian would be pushing up daisies with his size fourteen

boots.

Gentry was pacing in front of her desk when Cronin came into her office without

knocking. He halted a few feet from her, crossed his arms and waited for the tirade he

suspected was brewing.

“Take your clothes off,” she threw at him as she continued to pace.

“Fuck you,” he replied with a snort.

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HardWind

She stopped pacing, looked at him, and the smile she gave him could have turned

water to ice. “I have a call in to my associates in Panama City. If I don’t call them back

within the next hour with a certain codeword, spoken in my normal voice, Star Kiernan

is a dead woman.”

Dáire’s face drained of color and he slowly unfolded his arms, staring at Gentry

with stunned eyes. “You’re bluffing,” he said so softly she barely heard him.

“Want to bet that whore’s life on it?” she countered. She leaned her hips against the

front of her desk and braced her hands on the desk’s top.

He would put nothing past Tyndall Gentry. He’d known her too long, seen too

many brutal things she’d set into motion, heard too many tales from operatives who

had run afoul of her vile temper. The woman was psychotic and a person crossed her at

his own peril—or in this case, Star’s.

“I won’t tell you again,” she said.

With his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed mercilessly, Dáire put his hands to his

shirt and tugged it from the jeans. He made quick work of the buttons that were still

buttoned then stripped off the shirt, tossing it to the chair in front of him. He lifted his

left leg, crooked it over his right and yanked the sneaker from that foot, peeling off the

sock too, before repeating the procedure with the other leg. He unsnapped his jeans, he

tugged the zipper down then pushed the garment down his long legs, stepped out of

the jeans and kicked them away.

Throughout the entire time he was stripping for her, Gentry never took her eyes

from the honed body that was being revealed to her. Unadulterated lust had turned the

chill of her eyes to molten silver, heat pouring from her gaze, so that at the moment he

stood there completely naked before her she actually licked her lips.

Dáire was sickened by her reaction to him as he had always been disturbed by her

unwanted pursuit. Only once—long ago when he had been a new recruit to The

Cumberland Group—had he gone willingly to her bed, and that was a mistake he