Operation: Midnight Tango (16 page)

Do it! Save yourself. Your reputation.

She’s just like her old man….

Emily put her fingers on the keys, but she didn’t start the engine. She couldn’t leave now. Not only because she knew her employers at Lockdown, Inc. were responsible for countless crimes but because at some point—and despite her resolve not to—she had come to care for Zack. There was no way she could leave him alone in such a perilous situation.

What kind of person did that make her? she wondered. Like her father? Was Emily making the same mistake he had all over again?

“Enough,” she told herself.

She leaned back in the seat and looked around. In the last twenty minutes or so the sky had darkened and begun to spit snow. Because of slippery conditions remaining from the day before, the highway was all but deserted. Turning in the seat, she tried to spot Zack, but he’d already reached the overlook. She was about to turn back around when she noticed movement in the scrub brush thirty feet above the overlook.

Terror struck her like a bolt of lightning when she realized she was looking at a man with a rifle set up on a tripod. Not a hunter or a rancher but a man wearing a dark trench coat, and he was seconds away from killing Zack.

Without considering her own safety, she threw open the door and started toward the overlook at a dead run. She wanted to call out to Zack, to warn him that he’d walked into an ambush, but she feared the sniper would fire prematurely. All she could do was run as fast as she could and hope she got there in time.

Her boots pounded against icy asphalt as she rounded the curve in the road. She spotted Zack standing at the rail, looking out over a magnificent snow-covered valley below. Though he stood ready, as if anticipating trouble, his back was to the rise. There was no way he could see the sniper.

Torn between warning him and alerting the sniper that he’d been seen, Emily stood motionless for the span of two heartbeats. Then she screamed, “Gun! Zack! Behind you!”

He spun. Myriad emotions scrolled across his face. Pleasure at seeing her. Fear for her safety. The realization that he’d made a fatal mistake.

The gunshot split the air like a crack of thunder. As if in slow motion, Zack jolted. For a moment he looked stunned. Then his hands clutched his abdomen. Emily saw blood coming between his fingers. And then he crumpled to the ground.

“No!” Forgetting her own safety, she streaked toward him.

As she covered the snowy ground, she saw the gunman out of the corner of her eye. The black flash of the barrel as he lined up for another shot. He was on a rise less than thirty feet away from where Zack had fallen. The logical side of her brain told her she was next. But it was her heart, not logic, that sent her barreling toward Zack.

Dear God, he couldn’t be dead.

She was so intent on reaching him that she didn’t hear the second shot.

Chapter Thirteen

Zack had gotten kicked by a horse when he was twelve years old. One moment he’d been standing there watching Katie Murdoch throw on the saddle and tighten the cinch. The next he’d had a steel shoe planted in the general vicinity of his solar plexus with a thousand pounds of thrust behind it.

Getting shot wasn’t much different, he thought as he lay on the ground and tried to get oxygen into his lungs. He could feel shock stealing his thoughts. Then his training kicked in. He rolled once and staggered to his feet. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the sniper fired again. He had to find cover.

Then he saw Emily running toward him and his only thought was that the damn crazy woman was going to get herself shot.

Just like Alisa.

“Emily, no!” Clutching his side where the bullet had struck him, Zack leaped into a run toward her. “Go back to the Jeep!”

She stopped and stood there, hesitating. He imagined her lovely face in the crosshairs of a sniper scope and he panicked. “Go back!”

She turned as if in slow motion. Zack poured on the speed and followed. Somewhere in the distance a bullet ricocheted off rock. Running at full speed, Zack placed himself between Emily and the sniper. “Get in the Jeep!” he shouted.

He was just ten feet away from her when they reached the Jeep. She ran to the passenger side, flung open the door and dived onto the seat. Zack yanked open the driver’s-side door, twisted the key. The Jeep shot forward before he’d even closed his door, its wheels slinging snow and slush and gravel high into the air.

For several seconds the only sound came from the roar of the engine and the ragged hiss of their labored breathing. Jamming the gears with a tad too much force, Zack pushed the vehicle to a dangerous speed. He didn’t know if it was the pain in his abdomen or the remnants of fear, but he was suddenly furious with Emily.

“What the bloody hell do you think you were doing?” he demanded.

“I saw the sniper,” she said between breaths. “Before the gunshot. I was trying to warn you.”

“You just about got yourself killed, damn it!”

“Zack, calm down.”

“Like
hell!
”

“Zack, please…you’ve been shot.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He rapped his
hand hard against the steering wheel. “Damn it, Emily. You scared the hell out of me!”

“Look, there was no way I could sit there and do nothing while that sniper picked you off.”

He looked away from the road to glare at her, felt another wave of terror envelop him. He would never be able to live with himself if anything happened to her. Why in the name of God had he dragged her into this? What was he supposed to do now?

“Was that the mole?” she asked after a moment.

“I didn’t get a good look at him.” But he knew he’d just had a close encounter with the man who’d betrayed him. There was only a handful of people who’d known he would be there. His contact at MIDNIGHT. Avery Shaw. An administrative clerk by the name of Watson. He wondered which one of them wanted him dead and why. Did it have something to do with Lockdown, Inc.?

“He almost killed you, Zack. What are we going to do?”

“We don’t have a whole lot of options,” he said, hating it because for the first time in his life he was flat out of ideas.

“Maybe we could go back to the bed-and-breakfast,” she suggested.

“They’ve seen my face.”

“They only saw you with the disguise.”

He felt her eyes on him, and then she gasped. “Zack, you’re gushing blood.”

He looked down, saw blood pouring through his
coat and cursed between clenched teeth. Damn, it ticked him off when people shot at him.

“Swell.” He shifted his gaze from the road to Emily to the rearview mirror. He could feel the warmth of blood on his shirt beneath his coat. He didn’t think it was more than a flesh wound; he wouldn’t be able to function if the bullet had penetrated his gut. Still, the damn thing hurt like a son of a bitch.

“We need to stop,” she said.

“We’ve no place to stop,” he said tightly.

“My dad used to own an old hunting cabin not far from here. He left it to me when he died.”

“How far?”

“About fifteen miles south of Shoup. In the Salmon National Forest. There’s a dirt road.”

Zack figured it was the best they could hope for. He only hoped the police—or his pals from MIDNIGHT—hadn’t done their research thoroughly. Because if they had, there was no doubt in his mind someone would be waiting when he and Emily arrived.

THE SNOW MADE THE NARROW mountain road a nightmare to maneuver. Even with the four-wheel drive, the Jeep got stuck twice along the way. But with some pushing and cursing and a little bit of luck, Zack finally pulled into the snow-covered driveway of the cabin and parked beneath a thick stand of ponderosa pines.

He’d been quiet for the last ten minutes of the
drive. At Emily’s urging they’d stopped at a service station for first-aid supplies. Zack had forced her to wear the mustache and glasses. She wasn’t sure what the clerk had thought, but she was relatively certain he hadn’t recognized her face.

Emily slid from the Jeep into a foot of snow. Zack was already close to the cabin. She didn’t like the way he was moving—hunched over as if he were in pain. She prayed the bullet wound wasn’t serious because she knew he would refuse to go to the hospital.

The cabin was small. The front porch sagged a little more than she remembered. The tin roof was rusted through in places and in dire need of repair. Surprisingly most of the windows were still intact. On the porch she came up behind Zack as he tried the front door.

“Locked,” he said. “Do you have a key?”

She shook her head. “We’ll have to find another way to—”

Zack smashed his elbow through the small pane closest to the bolt lock. “You can bill me later,” he said and opened the door.

The cabin smelled of ancient wood and dust motes. The floorboards creaked like old bones as they stepped inside. “This place have electricity?” he asked.

“No.”

“Terrific.”

“There’s a fireplace. And there should be a kerosene lamp or two.”

“Better than spending the night in the snow.”

“Or in jail.”

He turned to her and his expression softened. “Sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

“It’s okay. You’re hurting.”

“Yeah, and pain really ticks me off.” He touched the side of her face with the backs of his fingers. “I’ll build a fire. Why don’t you see if you can round up those kerosene lamps you mentioned?”

She tilted her head slightly, pressing her cheek into his hand. She knew it was silly, but the small contact felt incredibly reassuring. “Deal,” she said.

Ten minutes later Emily had located two kerosene lamps. The wick had rotted in one of them, so she set it aside and lit the single remaining lamp. Zack had managed to find some dry wood and was kneeling in front of a blazing fire. He’d shaken the dust from a Navajo-print rug and spread it on the floor.

“That ought to warm it up in here enough to keep us from freezing to death during the night,” Zack said, sitting back on his heels.

Emily knelt beside him. “I need to see to that gunshot wound.”

She could tell he wanted to argue, but he was smart enough to know he couldn’t let a potentially serious injury go untreated. Neither of them had any idea when or if he would be able to seek medical help.

Grimacing, he motioned toward an Adirondack chair a few feet from the hearth. “That okay?”

“It’ll do.” Turning away from him, she dragged the
small end table to the chair and set the kerosene lamp on its dusty surface. Behind her she could hear Zack taking off his coat. She knew it was silly, but the thought of facing his bare chest made her mouth go dry. Gathering the first-aid supplies, she turned to him.

He was standing next to the chair watching her. She stood mesmerized as his hands moved down the front of his shirt, unfastening the buttons. Never taking his eyes from hers, he worked the shirt from his body. Light from the hearth flickered over bronzed skin and muscles that rippled when he moved. His chest was wide and covered with a thatch of black hair that tapered to the waistband of his trousers.

There were a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t be attracted to this man, but she was. And that attraction was pulling at her, like some volatile chemical reaction that would invariably burn them both.

She set the tray on the table. “Sit down.”

Wincing a little, Zack lowered himself into the chair and leaned back. For the first time Emily was able to get a good look at the gunshot wound. The bullet had opened the skin and caused a deep gash a couple of inches above his navel. There was some swelling and bruising, but the bullet hadn’t entered his body. Relief poured through her when she realized it wasn’t life threatening.

“I think this is a superficial wound,” she said. “Like mine was.”

“Doesn’t feel superficial. Hurts like hell.”

“It could have been a lot worse.”

Her hands were shaking when she picked up the bottle of peroxide and a sterile gauze pad. Emily knew this was no time to be taken in by this man’s charms—all one million of them. But the sight of Zack Devlin slouched in that chair was enough to make any woman long to be reckless.

“This is probably going to hurt a little,” she said.

“It’s probably going to hurt a lot.”

She drizzled some peroxide over the wound, then began to clean it. Zack’s quick intake of breath told her it hurt. She could feel his abdominal muscles tensing.

“How bad?” he asked, his voice strained.

“It’s a deep graze. You could probably use a few stitches, but I think I can close it with a butterfly bandage.”

“Do what you need to do to keep me operational. Don’t worry about hurting me. I can handle it.”

But when she glanced up, she saw sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is painful.”

“It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as knowing you’re still having a hard time trusting me.”

Her hand stilled. “I don’t have the power to hurt you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said baldly.

Unable to meet his gaze, she stared at her hand, pale against the dark hair of his abdomen, surprised to see that it was shaking.

“You’re afraid that if you admit there’s something between us, you’ll be drawing some kind of parallel between you and what your father did.”

“The parallels are there,” she said.

“The circumstances are different. You’re a different person than he was, Emily.”

She needed to finish bandaging the wound so she could put some distance between them, but her fingers kept fumbling the gauze.

“Look at me,” he said gently.

“I just want to finish this,” she said, staring at the wound.

Somehow she managed to press the bandage into place. But her hands were still visibly shaking. She knew Zack had noticed. She could feel his eyes on her. The heat rising from his body. She could feel her own body responding to all of those things.

“Why are you shaking?” Putting his fingers beneath her chin, he forced her gaze to his. And then she was staring into his dark eyes. She could feel the tremors moving through her body. Her breaths coming short and fast. She didn’t know what was happening to her. All she knew was that no man had ever looked at her the way Zack Devlin did. No man had ever affected her the way he did. No man had ever made her want with such total and utter desperation.