Mission Made For Two (4 page)

He set their bags on the floor and disarmed the alarm system.  No one may know about this place, but that didn’t mean he took chances. 

Sierra move
d
into the den.  The room wasn’t that large with the kitchen directly behind.  Two bedrooms and a bathroom completed the house, except for a small enclosed porch that held a washer, dryer and a freezer.

The center piece of the den was a large brick fireplace
and hearth. 

She turned to look at him and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “So this is home.”

His gaze went unbidden directly to those small firm
globes
again.  Her nipples pushed against the cotton tank top, a reaction he supposed to the cool air coming from the ceiling fan above her head.  

He looked away quickly and nodded. 
“When I’m in the states.”

She walked to the brown leather sofa, running her hand over
the back
as she moved
behind
, stroking it lovingly, like she might stroke a lover
.
  Jake had to grit his teeth.
 
  

“You really are a loner.  You don’t work with a partner, you don’t socialize with any of the other agents and you live up here in the mountains about as isolated as you can get when you’re not on assignment.” 

She stopped and looked at him.  He walked to stand at the other end of the sofa
, trying to keep his thoughts off of her hands, her breasts and all her other enticing body parts
.  He
did however wish
she’d remove
the blue contacts she wore.  Not that there was anything wrong with blue eyes. After all, it was the color of his.  But he liked her brown eyes.  They matched her dark hair and slightly exotic features.

“When you only have yourself to worry about, life is simpler.”

She tilted her head, her gaze as searching as a heat seeking missile.  “Ah…there’s a story there, I bet.”
Before he could respond
, she turned.  “So, are you going to call Trent or should I?”

Jake ran a hand over his face.  “I’ll call him.”

Their boss was not going to be happy with what he had to tell him.  Dammit!  He wished he’d been able to keep Danie
l
from getting killed. 

“Then is there some place
I can freshen up?”

He nodded and picked up her bag.  The bathroom sat in the hall between the two bedrooms.  “This is the only bathroom.  It’s stocked with towels, so help
yourself
.”  He set her bag down in front of her and pointed to the bedroom on the right.  “You can sleep in there.”

“Thanks,” she said and hoisted the bag into her arms.  “I think I’ll take a shower.”

She turned and walked into the bathroom, pushing the door shut behind her. 

Just the thought of her naked beneath the warm spray was enough to make sweat pop out on Jake’s forehead.

He was going to have to get a handle on his lust.
  She was everything he did not need in a woman and besides
,
h
e didn’t have time to indulge
.  Even if he
did, he wasn’t sure that having sex with Sierra wouldn’t kill him.

He
walked into his bedroom. 
S
itting on the bed
,
he picked up the phone and dialed Trent’s private line.
Dread laced through his stomach as he thought of what he had to say.

Trent answered on the third ring.  “Trent Browning.”

“It’s Jake
.”  He ran a hand over his face. 
“Daniel
Matheson
’s dead.”

The line was quiet a moment and he could picture his friend’s face.  Trent might be a big man, but he had a heart of gold.  He would take the loss of one of his men harder than anyone.  “Damn it all to hell,” his friend and boss finally said. Jake figured he wanted to say much worse. 
“
Sierra?”

“She’s okay.  She’s with me in the mountains.”

Trent sighed with relief. 
“What happened?”

“They
met with Diaz’s right hand man.  He got a call while they were there, but the meeting continued.  They
ca
me back to the bungalow and
were ambushed.”  Jake paused a moment, still feeling guilty that he hadn’t been quick enough to save
Matheson
.  “
Toraz
must have called in reinforcements as soon as they’d left.  I didn’t get back to the bungalow until the shooting had started.”

“Daniel’s
death isn’t your fault. If anyone’s to blame it’s me.  I sent them down there without knowing the nature of the leak.”

Jake heard weariness in Trent’s voice.  It was hell when someone in your own organization was putting the agents in danger.  And he knew his friend well enough
to know how much he dreaded
calling
Matheson
’s wife.

“How pissed is Sierra?”

Jake grunted. “She’s ready to go straight for Diaz.  I need you to order her out of it.”

“She
could help us on this one, Jake.”

“No.”  The word was sharper than he intended.  He didn’t need Sierra in the middle of this.  He could handle Diaz on his own.  “She needs to lay low for awhile.”

“Jake, I can give
her the order…but that’s no guara
ntee I can stop her.  Surely, yo
u realize by now that she’s pretty head strong.
  Sierra has always been somewhat of a wildcard.
”

Jake grimaced. 
“Yeah.
  I realize that.
  But Diaz is dangerous and Sierra is too reckless.
”

“She reminds me a lot of you in our early years.”

“She’s nothing like me, Trent.  She’s fearless and we have no idea whether her identity has been compromised.” 
  Jake changed the subject.  “Have you gotten any
new
information on our suspects?”

“A
little.
  Lawrence Town
send just bought a beach house
in the Caribbean.
  I’m trying to trace where the fund
s for that property c
a
me from
.”

“
Nothing on Senator Cassidy
?”

“Not yet,
and I don’t want to alert any
of the suspects that we’re poking around.  What have you got planned in the meantime?”

Jake sighed. “I’m still working on it
.”

“Jake.  Just don’t
forget
Diaz has
got a lot of contacts
a
nd resources.”

“I have a few of my own. I’ll call you later.”

They hung up and Jake
stood,
figuring since it was way past
lunch time, Sierra might be hungry when she came out of the bathroom. 

One thing he made sure of was that his freezer and pantry were well stocked so he didn’t go hungry when he was home.

He’d no sooner gotten out some hamburger meat to thaw
in the microwave
for spaghetti sauce, than Sierra padded into
the
den.  She’d cha
nged into a pair of low slung jeans and red tee shirt that barely covered her belly. 
Her hair hung wet and shiny down her back and across her shoulders, her face was scrubbed clean of
all the
makeup
she’d worn earlier and her eyes were back to chocolate brown.

But damn,
s
he s
till didn’t have
on a bra
.
Her nipples pushed enticingly against the material.
 

“I thought you might be hungry.”  He held up the package of meat.
“Spaghetti okay?”

She shrugged and walked toward the kitchen. 
“Fine.
  Need some help?”

Jake shook his head.  The last thing he needed was her underfoot.  He could already smell the fresh scent of her hair. 
Some
thing light and fruity.
  And her faded jeans clung to her hips and long legs like a glove
, making him want to peel her out of them
. 

“
Not really.
Why don’t you just sit
and relax.  You want a drink?”

“Do you have anything with alcohol?”

“Beer or liquor?”

“A beer will be fine.”

He turned and retrieved two bottles of beer from the fridge.
  He twisted the top off of one
and handed it to her.  “The porch out front is usually cool,” he suggested.

S
he nodde
d and walked to the front door.

Cool air washed over Sierra’s face as she stepped onto the wood plank porch.  The weathered surface was rough beneath her bare feet. 

Taking a large swallow of the cold beer, she settled into a rocking chair.  Funny, but she wouldn’t have pictured Jake as having a place like this or with having a rocking chair on the front porch.

She noticed he only had one.  Definitely not a man expecting company and probably wasn’t thrilled to be sharing his retreat with her.  His sense of obligation to repay his debt to her was most likely his only reason for bringing her here.
  He had saved her life. That much she had to admit, no matter how irritated she was with him.
 

She inhaled
the fresh mountain air, taking pleasure from
the decidedly cooler temperatures than Miami, and took another swig of beer.  She
enjoyed
the bitter taste and the fizzy bubbles as they rolled across her tongue. 

During her shower
,
her mind had strayed over and over again to Daniel.  And to the possibilities of who’d betrayed them.
Her partner shouldn’t be dead.

Jake walked out the door, beer in hand.  He leaned sideways against a post.  “The sauce is cooking.”

“I’m not terribly hungry,” she admitted.  The adrenaline rush from earlier had sapped her appetite and her energy
, along with the grief she was keeping buried beneath
the surface
.
She didn’t have time for it other than to let it fuel her determination to get answers.
“Who are your suspects?”

He grinned.  Sierra realized how little any of them re
ally knew
the man.  H
e’d always looked so serious
, but when he grinned, he looked younger and more carefree.
  It was another side to the intense agent that she suspected he rarely showed others.
 

“I knew you were just biding your time.”  He took a swallow of beer and propped the bottle on the porch rail. 

“Come on, Jake.  I deserve to at least know who you suspect.”

He considered her plea a moment,
then
caved.  “Okay.  There are
four
people, besides the President and Vice President,
who know about our organization on the outside. 
Representative Lawrence Townsend, Senator Gail Cassidy,
Bruce Sanders, head of the FBI
and Bradley Hawkins, the head of the
CIA
.”

“
The head of the armed services committees for both house and senate and the two heads from the other investigative agencies.
So, you’re pretty much discou
nting the other agents involved?
”

“For the moment.
  Trent
has
had everyone thoroughly checked and has found nothing to point to any of them.”

“You have any gut feelings on the subject?”

Jake looked out across yard.
  “I suspect Townsend or Cassidy.  Townsend recently bought an expensive pie
ce of property in the Caribbean
.”

“What about Cassidy?”

Jake shook his head.  “Nothing yet to throw suspicion on her, but when it comes right down to it, it almost has to be one of the
four
.”

“What about Hawkins
or Sanders
?”

“
Sanders has been FBI for fifteen years, he was in the Air Force before that. Not a blemish on his record.  Hawkins has
been with the
CIA
ten years. 
An impeccable record
also
.
  It’s certainly possible
one of them
could have sold out…”

“But you don’t believe it. You’d rather believe it’s one of our esteemed lawmakers.”