Hidden Heat: Hauberk Protection, Book 4 (2 page)

She flicked through the psychiatrist’s recommendation that Scott was well enough to be placed back on active duty. “He’ll be glad to get back into the field. He’s been grumbling for months about being on restricted duty.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Troy tugged his shirt collar.

“You don’t think he’s ready, do you?”

“I didn’t say that.” Tug. Tug.

“You don’t have to.”

He huffed in exasperation. “What are you talking about?”

She settled back into the chair, tucking one foot beneath her. “Whenever you don’t agree with something, you tug at your collar.”

“I do?” He pulled his hand away from his neck and stared at it as if it didn’t belong to him. “Any other tells I should know about?”

“If you’re impatient or annoyed with something, you fiddle with your watch band. If you’re worried, then you rub the pad of your index finger over your thumb nail.”

“Remind me never to play poker with you. You’d bankrupt me in short order. Or better yet, I should bring you to my next poker night and introduce you to a couple of my friends with big wallets I’d love to take from them.”

That he would never invite her, that none of the guys ever thought to invite her to any of their parties or events stung. Boys’ club didn’t begin to describe the clique mentality of the Hauberk operatives. Either you were an agent or you were invisible. “Name the time and place and I’ll be there.”

Shooting him a bright smile that she didn’t feel inside, she hurried back to her desk.

While he enjoyed the sight of Sandy walking away from him—what man wouldn’t enjoy ogling her curves?—he wondered at the smile she’d plastered onto her face. Oh, it might have fooled anyone else, but there was something missing in it. Did she think he wasn’t doing enough for his agent?

He flipped through the report to ensure the shrink hadn’t missed some sign Scott was still
having trouble. True, his nightmares had lessened, as had his requirement for meds. So what was it that was bugging him about placing his friend back on active duty?

Unable to see a satisfactory answer, he tossed the file back on his desk and shoved his chair back, intent on asking Sandy if she’d noticed anything about Scott. Standing up would be a waste of motion—Sandy was busy with a client, or potential client. While he couldn’t hear exactly what the woman in her late thirties was saying, Sandy’s glance toward Sam’s closed door told him that the woman was demanding to see Hauberk’s owner.

If she was a potential client, Chad’s agents had their work cut out protecting that walking safety deposit box. With the almost-floor-length fox coat she wore, the visitor presented a fantastic target to the PETA crowd. Snatch-and-grab artists would have a field day with the expensive designer purse tucked beneath her elbow. Or maybe they’d pull a gun on her and demand some of the diamonds glittering on her wrist or the finger she wagged in Sandy’s face.

Despite Sandy’s smile, the tension in her shoulders betrayed that the woman had hit some sore spot. Yet she rose and poured the woman a cup of coffee and chatted to her, smoothing whatever remaining feathers—or fox fur—might still be ruffled.

With a little training, she would have been a good asset in the field. Not as an agent. No, she would have been a perfect mole. She could slide into any environment and adapt, make herself useful while extracting information people wouldn’t tell others.

The door to Sam’s office opened and Sam sauntered out, greeting the woman with his trademark smile. While everyone else might buy the mellow persona Sam exuded, Troy knew it was a façade. Only Rosie had found the way to dispel the demons he’d fought to hide.

Sandy’s shoulders relaxed as Sam’s southern drawl thickened, charming the client, leaving Sandy free to return to her desk. The sweater she wore covered her cleavage but it couldn’t hide the curves he found so erotically enticing.

He forced his attention off the outer office and back to the folder on his desk. He’d finally managed to lose himself in his operatives’ reports when his secure phone jangled.

“Garcia’s planning on meeting his people in Val Varde next month,” Cooper Davis’s voice barked down the line. How Davis had managed to get hold of the private secure line, Troy had no idea, but he could only guess the Brigade had resources from all the alphabet agencies. “If you want in on it, tell me now.”

So why hadn’t Davis revealed that nugget earlier? “I want in.”

“Just so we’re clear, I’m only inviting you. Phillips gets nowhere near the op. In fact, I don’t want you breathing a word about it to him.”

If he’d been the one held captive, the one forced to watch his partner tortured to death, he’d demand to go. He’d see the bastard’s death as justice served. Did Scott deserve any less? Yet if he insisted Scott be included in the op, Davis would hang up and neither of them would be in on taking Garcia down.

“All right. Just me,” he agreed. Scott would be pissed, but knowing Garcia was dead should placate some of his ire. “Consider it a quid pro quo for keeping silent about Harris going rogue.”

“I can give you no more than two hours’ warning so be ready to leave whenever I call. Oh and, McPherson? If you’re not at the airport, the plane will take off without you.” Cooper cut the connection before Troy could respond.

Troy laid the receiver in its cradle and fingered the psychiatrist’s report. Would knowing Garcia was no longer a threat, that Scott’s partner Devon King had been avenged, help Scott heal? Or would it drag him back into the morass of pain and doubt? Either way, he wanted to be in on the op.

“I’ll get him for you, buddy,” Troy whispered.

His inbox notifier dinged. Almost absently he checked his inbox and found a note from John Lake, Hauberk’s IT manager, requesting a meeting with all department heads in an hour. Wonderful. Just how he wanted to spend the rest of the day. Trapped in a fucking meeting talking computer crap.

Chapter Two

Sandy closed her apartment door behind her and leaned against it with a sigh. Her purse fell with a thump at her feet. She set her laptop case down with a little more care. It wasn’t hers, after all. “Hey, Jazz? You home?”

Jazz didn’t answer but an orange tabby padded out of her roommate’s bedroom to wind around her ankles. Its purr strengthened when she bent to scratch behind its ears. “Hey there, Xander. Did you miss me?”

As if in answer, the cat jumped up on her desk, meowing at the bag of treats Jazz had left there. “You miss them more than me, huh? Those things will make you fat, you know?”

Xander blinked and nudged the bag until it toppled onto the floor.

“Yeah, you don’t care, do you? Must be nice not to have to worry about your weight.”

She kicked her heels into the closet, taking a certain satisfaction in the thump they made. With a sigh, she bent to pick them up and place them together. They’d cost her over four hundred dollars, far too much for her budget, but they’d looked so good in the store and even better on, she hadn’t been able to resist. Her mother would be horrified to learn she’d spent that much on a pair of shoes. But then her mother didn’t have to meet and greet millionaires and some of the country’s movers and shakers on a day-to-day basis. Women—and occasionally men—who would judge her by what she wore on her feet. Her now-aching feet.

She headed into her bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and pulled on her favorite pair of fuzzy plaid pajama pants and matching top. So it wasn’t the most glamorous outfit she owned, but it was comfortable. Besides, it wasn’t as if anyone would see her.

She’d just settled onto the couch and turned on the television when someone thumped at the door. After unfurling herself with a groan, she peeked through the spy hole.

On the other side of the door, a stunning redhead juggled a pizza box, her purse and her keys.

Recognizing her roommate, Sandy unlocked the door and opened it. “Hey, Jazz.”

“Thanks. Couldn’t hold all this and work the keys.”

Sandy opened the door wider to let her roommate in. The scent of cheese and pepperoni quickly filled the apartment. “What are you doing back so soon? I thought you had a date tonight.”

“I did. My date turned out to be a snoozefest so I ditched him.” She dumped the pizza on the tiny table by the front window before heading into her bedroom.

“Any luck on the job hunt?” Sandy grabbed a plate from the cupboard, flipped open the box and slid two slices onto the plate.

“No.” Jazz’s voice was muffled as if she were pulling a top over her head. “I thought I had a nibble but it turned out they were looking for someone who knew video editing software.”

“Rats. I was really hoping you’d find something.”

“So was I. I’m so frickin’ tired of working at that call center. Do you have any idea of how nuts people can get?” Jazz padded back, wearing a slinky black silk chemise and a pair of pink boyshorts. She piled three slices onto her plate and then curled up on the couch beside Sandy.

When they’d finished their pizza, Jazz grabbed the remote and muted the sound. “I’m bored sitting here. Let’s go down to Rusty’s and see who’s hanging around.”

“I don’t know. I just got comfortable. Going out means I’d have to get dressed again—” The phone rang. A quick check of the caller ID had her groaning as she answered. “Hi, Mom.”

“Oh, Sandy honey, I’m so glad you’re home for once. I wanted to make sure you’re coming home for your sister’s anniversary party next weekend.”

“Uh, gee, Mom, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it. Things have been pretty busy lately.” Fat chance she was going to fly all the way back to Minnesota to spend forty-eight hours listening to how wonderful her boring brother-in-law was. He was a former prison guard who had been fired and become a salesman. Of cardboard, for criminy’s sake. When he wasn’t talking about his experiences in the jail, he waxed poetic on corrugation. Talk about yawnsville.

“You work too hard. You should find yourself a nice man and settle down. Are you seeing anyone, dear? You could bring him along. We’d love to meet him.”

Usually her mother waited until later in the conversation to get to the “who are you dating” questions.

“Mom, considering your history of interfering, I’m not talking about my dating life.” She rolled her eyes at Jazz while wondering how many more times she’d have this conversation before her mother got a clue that she had no intention of getting married. Ever.

“If you come back for Jennifer’s party, you can meet Ernie’s cousin, Donald. He’s a very nice young man who lives a little ways outside of St. Charles. You could move back here and we could see each other every day. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Nice? “Um, I like living in D.C., Mom.”
I like having a life that doesn’t revolve around dishes and babies and diapers.

Her mother ignored her. “Donald sells used farm equipment so he’s got a steady job. Not like that awful boy you brought home last time.”

She’d brought home Tank specifically to shock her mother. His tattoos and piercings had accomplished that the minute he’d walked in the door. That he’d had a respectable job as a paramedic hadn’t mattered one whit to her mother. “He sounds a lot like Glen and I’m not going through that again.”

“Oh honey, Glen wasn’t so bad, I still don’t know what your problem with him was or why you broke off your engagement.”

Sandy gritted her teeth to stop herself from launching in a rant at her mother.

“Donald is a perfectly lovely young man. You should see how he worries about his mother. Gives her a part of his paycheck every week like clockwork.” Her mother lowered her voice. “Now, Donald’s a little bit shorter than you are, I think. So it’s best if you don’t wear heels when you meet him and it should be fine.”

Just shoot me now.
“Mom, he doesn’t sound like my type.”

Her mother sighed. “Dear, you’re nearly thirty. You can’t afford to be picky. It’s time you settled down. Got married and had babies. Like your sister and Cathy and Patti.” She named Sandy’s brothers’ wives. “Seriously, dear, this isn’t something you can put off until you’re my age.”

Sandy thumped her head against the back of the couch. “Mom, I’m only twenty-eight. I’ve got lots of time.”
As in the rest of my life.

“Sandra Elizabeth, when I was your age, I’d already been married ten years and had Eddie and Dwayne and was about to give birth to Frank. You’ve only got a few years left if you want to have a family without having to resort to medical intervention. And I want to be young enough to enjoy my grandbabies. I’m not getting any younger either, you know.”

God, sometimes she swore her mother had gotten stuck in the fifties. “Mom, you’re not even sixty yet. You’ve got lots of time to enjoy your grandchildren.” She hurried to cut her mother off before she could launch into a recitation of this neighbor or that friend and their health problems. “Was there anything else? Because I’m on my way out.”
Please don’t let there be anything else, please please please.

“Oh, you’ve got a date? I suppose I shouldn’t keep you then.” Her mother’s interest was palpable. “Is it someone you might be serious about?”

“No, Mom, it’s not a date. I’m going out with Jazz.” Rats. She should have just said yes, it was a guy she’d picked up at a bar. Another one with lots of tattoos and piercings. No, that wouldn’t be enough to discourage her mother’s grandbaby obsession. “I really need to go. I’ll call you later, all right?”