Heat Seeker (9 page)

Her body was flushed, heated; damn, she was aroused. She could feel the damp warmth heating the flesh between her thighs, the spiked hardness of her nipples. She would have found it amusing if it weren’t for the fact that she knew next to nothing about this man, and what she did know, she wasn’t certain she liked.

Why, she wondered, was she letting him affect her like this? She’d met him once. Only once. In Atlanta, where he had helped steal the prize she had sought for so long. Orion’s head.

Where he had kissed her. Where he had touched her as though he knew her and her body had responded with a familiarity that made very little sense.

Turning away from the window, she shook her head as she drew the thick, heavy robe from the chair next to her bed and drew it over the silk nightshirt she slept in.

She didn’t have time to sit here waiting on a man who might or might not show up. A man she should pray never showed up. He could only be here for one reason, and that reason wasn’t her. He was here to steal the prize again.

Grinning at the thought, she left her bedroom and descended the winding staircase of the huge cabin-style mansion her parents had had built more than thirty years ago.

She had returned here a year ago and begun the very subtle game of drawing Warbucks into her own little web. Her life had been secured time and again by Warbucks for only one possible reason. The Serborne fortune. Now that she had revealed her disenchantment with her country, once she had proven it by looking the other way when several military items had been compromised at a Serborne research facility, she knew she was close.

Stepping into the foyer, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her robe and gave a soft sigh before turning and heading to the kitchen at the back of the house.

Entering the kitchen, she inhaled the scent of fresh coffee before moving to the coffeepot and taking a cup from the cupboard. Filling it with the aromatic brew, Bailey went to the breakfast nook, sat down in one of the opulently cushioned chairs, and stared outside the wide picture windows that surrounded it.

She knew he would be here this morning. Glancing at the watch on her wrist, she lifted the cup to her lips and sipped as she cast her gaze outside once again.

A shadow moved.

Bailey pretended she didn’t see it as she hid her smile behind the cup. It could be someone other than John Vincent, she told herself, but she doubted it. Only John sent this quicksilver punch of excitement rioting through her veins.

She watched the shadow shift again outside, this time closer to the house. Rising to her feet, she poured another cup of coffee and moved it to the table as those first fragile rays of sunlight lightened the snow-laden trees and evergreen shrubs that filled the property.

The mountain was beautiful in the winter. The snowy
blanket looked pristine and untouched as it piled around the pine trees that surrounded the house.

There were bare spots beneath the trees, and if she wasn’t mistaken her shadowy visitor was using those bare spots to slip up to the house without leaving evidence of his visit.

She would have done the same thing. She’d actually helped her mother to plant some of the trees in the back when she had been a teenager. At the time, Bailey had been fascinated by the subject of slipping around undetected. Several of the trees had been planted with the idea of giving her an easy, untraceable route.

She’d left before she could try it, and now she watched as John used it instead, moving steadily to the patio and the French doors that were unlocked and awaiting his arrival.

She watched as the doorknob turned slowly, the door opened, and John stepped inside.

She was caught anew by the shock of primal awareness that surged through her at the sight of him. The dark blond hair that fell roguishly around his face. The high, almost flat arch of his cheekbones, his expressive dark gray eyes. The strong bridge of his nose.

“Coffee?” She arched a brow as he flashed her a quick, devilish grin and pulled off his leather gloves and ultra-thin protective jacket.

“It’s a bit cold out there.” He closed the door, locking it carefully behind him as he stared around the breakfast room and the kitchen.

“We’re alone,” she assured him as she indicated the coffee. “Have a seat, Mr. Vincent, and tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you for trespassing.”

She slid her Glock from the pocket of her robe and laid it casually on the glass-topped breakfast table beside her coffee.

His brow arched in amusement as he glanced at the weapon before moving to the table.

Bailey pushed out the opposite chair with her foot and waved her hand toward it.

“At least you’re going to allow me a cup of coffee before
actually shooting me,” he said, chuckling. “How would you explain that to the authorities?”

“Explain what?” she asked with a shrug. “I’d simply hide the body. I wouldn’t have to explain anything.”

The dark, low laugh that vibrated in his throat sent a rush of sensation chasing up her spine. Damn him, she should shoot him for that alone.

“I knew you’d be trouble when I first saw you in Atlanta,” he told her as he wrapped one hand around the coffee cup and brought it to his lips. “Pure fire wrapped in the sexiest package I’ve ever glimpsed.”

She grunted at that as she leaned back in her chair and watched him cynically. He was definitely charming. Something about his smile, the movement of his body, invited a woman to trust him, to lean into him. She knew better than to trust or to lean into anyone.

“Compliments won’t soften you?” he asked as he set the cup back on the table. “For shame, Bailey. Are you a bit conceited?”

“A bit disbelieving perhaps,” she admitted, amused by him, turned on by him. “Now what the hell do you want? I have things to do today and I don’t have time for your games.”

“I don’t play games.” There was a glimmer of warning in his gaze.

“And I don’t play at all,” she told him. “So get to the point.”

She wanted him out of here. She wanted him out of her sight and out of her life before it was too late. Before she lost more of herself than she already had to a too-charming man and her own hormones.

“An impatient woman as well.” He shook his head as though he pitied her. “I had heard you were quite patient.”

“I don’t know where you heard such a thing.” She widened her eyes in false surprise.

“Orion.”

That shocked her for a brief second. Bailey could feel her training kicking in as she held her expression. Bland amusement, no surprise. She merely stared back at him
with innocent curiosity, as though there was nothing Orion could possibly know about her.

She wondered if the bastard had actually kept files. How insane would that be for an assassin—to actually keep records? Of course, if he had, perhaps they held a clue to who or what Warbucks actually was.

“I rather doubt Orion had much to say about me,” she finally said quietly. “What could he know other than how deep to slice my wrists to keep from killing me?”

She heard the anger that filled her tone, the edge of bitterness. And she was angry, just as she was bitter. Orion’s death had been stolen from her. For so many years she had dreamed of being the one to pull the trigger and blow his fucking head off. She’d deserved the chance to do it. She had deserved the right to call his life her own.

“Orion wasn’t that easy to find,” he finally told her soberly, his gray eyes serious as he wrapped his hands around the coffee cup. “You couldn’t have done it on your own. He wouldn’t have allowed the payoffs to continue from whoever sent those deposits to assure that you weren’t killed. You were becoming a risk to him, baby.”

She had meant to become a risk. She had wanted him to come after her, to make that first move that she could have used to identify him and kill him herself. “What do you mean by that?” She feigned surprise at his statement.

John clucked his tongue as he shook his head at her. A smile tilted those beautiful male lips and for a second, all she could think about was kissing him, eating those lips until her need for him was sated.

“You knew he was being paid off to let you live, didn’t you?”

What to tell him, what not to tell him?

She smiled back at him. “Where did you get your information?”

“Why didn’t you tell me everything you knew in Atlanta?” he queried instead. “I helped you, Bailey, I got you out of there. You held back on me.”

“Information wasn’t part of the deal,” she reminded him
coolly as she leaned forward and braced her arms on the table. “You released me without conditions, John, remember that. Now, how did you find out Orion was being paid off?”

He couldn’t know who had been paying the assassin to not kill—otherwise, he wouldn’t be here pumping her for information. He would be tracking another of Orion’s employers instead.

“Orion was a very expensive assassin,” he stated. “Only the richest of men, or women, could have afforded his services. He was careful. He was damned good at what he did and he wouldn’t have allowed you to live if he wasn’t being paid handsomely to do so.”

Bailey tilted her head to the side and watched him curiously for long moments. She’d been right last night: He was here to poke his nose into her business again.

“I have no idea who was paying him,” she finally admitted.

“But you knew he was being paid?”

Bailey tightened her lips for a second before nodding. “I knew. He told me in Russia, when he sliced my wrists. He warned me then to stay out of his way. That he wouldn’t let me live the next time.”

John’s eyes narrowed dangerously. For a second, just a second, a flashing memory of Trent with that same look on his face, his body tightening protectively when she had been threatened, flashed across her mind.

“And you continued to search for him?” His voice lowered, became almost guttural with anger.

Bailey smiled at the sound. “Of course I did. If I backed down every time I was warned to do so, then I wouldn’t have had a career for long, now would I?”

“You nearly didn’t have one the way it was,” he growled. “Orion was out of your league, Bailey. No lone agent could have taken him out, no matter how good they were. You didn’t have a chance.”

“So I let you have him.” She rose from the chair and moved back to the coffeemaker, where she collected the pot and returned to refill their cups. “What’s your bitch?”

She glimpsed the tightening of his jaw, the way his forehead tensed and had to force herself not to grit her teeth. Was it wishful thinking?

“My bitch is the fact that you haven’t learned your lesson,” he said dangerously. “You’re still trying to bite off more than you can chew.”

Now, this was just supposition, she thought in amusement. He couldn’t be certain why she had returned home, no matter what he wanted to believe.

“I was fired from the agency, John, or did you forget that little piece of information?” She shoved the pot back into the coffeemaker before turning to face him once again. “I’m not on assignment here.”

“You weren’t on assignment in Atlanta, either,” he grunted as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t play games with me, Bailey. We both know why you returned here.”

Bailey inhaled deeply, gritted her teeth and forced back the anger that rose inside her at his domineering attitude.

“This is my home, John. Where else was I supposed to go?”

“The same home you disowned fourteen years ago?” He rose from his chair now and faced her challengingly. “The same home you swore you’d never return to when your father refused to believe that his best friend had killed his wife and daughter? Is that the home you’re talking about here?”

Control, control. She breathed in once, twice. She wasn’t going to let him crack the shield she had promised herself she would keep in place.

“That was a long time ago . . .”

“Bullshit!” he snarled. “You came back one time, when your parents were killed. After that you began chasing Orion. You suspected he was involved in their deaths, didn’t you?”

“Was he?” What else had John found when his group had assassinated the assassin? What other files had Orion kept?

Bailey shook her head slowly. “He was here in Aspen the night they were killed, that was all I ever knew. What did you find?”

If he’d kept the information that he’d been hired to let her live, then perhaps he had kept other information as well.

“We found his kill book,” John revealed. “Your father’s name was listed.”

She swung away from him, her hand covering her lips to hold back the cry that would have slipped from them. She had known. She gripped the counter with her other hand to hold herself up, fighting the tremors that wanted to shake her body. She had known her parents had been murdered by Orion.

“Why?” She forced the word past her lips. “Why were they killed?”

She had to fight back the tears that filled her eyes, the pain that clawed at her chest as she felt him moving behind her.

“Bailey.” His hands gripped her shoulders as he turned her slowly to face him.

She couldn’t look up at him. Tears were a weakness.
Never let them see you cry,
her mother had always cautioned.
Never show anyone your weakness.