The Defiant Hero (9 page)
He tasted twenty-five years old. His mouth was hot and sweet and impossibly delicious. His lips were both soft and unyielding, and he swept his tongue into her mouth as if it belonged there. And oh, God, for the next few heartbeats, it did.
Maybe it was the knowledge that she wouldn’t call him, wouldn’t see him again, that made Meg kiss him back with such complete abandon. Maybe it was the way he’d looked at her just moments before, with such genuine desire in his eyes.
Maybe it was a lesson in the powers of temptation, a sign from above that she should ease off a little on the holier-than-thou self-righteousness when confronting Daniel about his past transgressions.
But the truth was, the entire world faded into gray when this man kissed her. Nothing else existed. There was only his mouth on her mouth, his tongue against hers, his hands in her hair, on her back, pressing her against him as if the way she was clinging wasn’t close enough to satisfy him.
The doorbell rang, startlingly loud in the stillness, and they both pulled back, both breathing hard.
Oh, God, what was she doing? What had she just done?
He must’ve seen the shock in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse.
“No, I’m sorry.” This was her fault. It had to be. She was older and more experienced. She was married.
“I have to go.” He reached for the door, but then stopped, turning back to her. “Call me, Meg. Jettison that deadweight of a husband and come back to the States. Call me when you get there.”
As she gazed into his eyes, she was as tempted as she’d ever been in all of her life.
But then he was gone, the door closing tightly behind him, and sanity returned. Meg knew the difference between reality and fantasy. And this man was pure fantasy.
That kiss was no more real than if it had happened in a dream.
Call me.
She knew that she never would.
Call me.
Meg sat in the men’s room of the Kazbekistani embassy, aware that despite her attempts to keep her distance, she’d finally done just that.
She’d finally called John Nilsson.
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Five
“WHAT THE FUCK are you doing here?”
Sam knew the moment the words left his mouth that this was not the kind of greeting that would win him any points.
In fact, Alyssa Locke’s cold gaze got pretty damn arctic. “Ensign Starrett. Just my luck.”
His bad luck, too. He’d never have expected to run into Alyssa Locke in the Kazbekistani embassy lobby during a hostage crisis, never in a million years.
Yet here she was. She was out of uniform, either on leave or . . . “I heard rumors you quit.”
Her chin went up. Jesus, she had the world’s most perfect chin. “I resigned my commission as an officer in the Navy because I received a better offer from the Bureau.”
“You’re FBI?”
He couldn’t keep the horror from his voice, and she smiled tightly. “Special counterterrorist unit.”
Which meant that there was a good chance they’d be working together with some frequency, since the FBI often called in the SEALs for military assistance.
They’d be working together in the field, out where bullets could fly and shit could hit the fan and splatter. Alyssa had always wanted to get her hands dirty. She’d wanted to operate out in the real world. Frankly, she’d wanted to be a SEAL, and she’d finagled herself into a place where—amazingly, if she kept with it—she’d someday be authorized to order SEALs around, out in the field.
Sam held out his hand, forced a smile. “Well, shit. Congratulations.”
Out of all the things he might have said and done, she hadn’t expected that. Not that he really meant it, but the effort surely counted for something.
She chose to pretend he was sincere, hesitating only slightly before taking his hand. Her fingers were cool and slender—as perfect as the rest of her, and a perfect fit in his hand as well. “Thanks.”
This was the first time he’d ever touched her. The first time she’d let him. She pulled her hand free way too soon, just a little too fast, as if she’d noticed that perfect fit, too, and gotten just as freaked out by it.
And then they were standing in the middle of the main entrance to the K-stani embassy, just staring at each other. At least Sam was staring at Alyssa. She jerked her gaze away and was looking anywhere but at him.
The room was filled with chaotic activity, but at least the press—thank God—had been kept outside on the sidewalk.
“Is Tom here?” she asked. “And Jazz?”
Sam pointed across the room to where his CO and XO had found both the agent in charge and several top Kazbekistani officials. They were standing there, with Nils, deep in conversation. Nils was nodding. He kept glancing at the closed-off staircase that led to the second floor, as if he wished he could skip the briefing and take the stairs two at a time up to the men’s room where Meg Moore was holding the hostages.
“I never got a chance to thank you back in Massachusetts,” Sam told Alyssa, suddenly uncertain as to where to put his hand now that he wasn’t holding hers. He finally settled on folding his arms across his chest, keeping his armpits closed.
He stank to high heaven. They all did—coming straight in the way they had from last night’s training op. He could see Nils across the room, most of his greasepaint sweated off, leaving his face looking slightly muddy and battleworn. Sam knew he looked the same.
“You know,” he added, “for saving the lieutenant’s life when he was up on that roof.”
Alyssa Locke had been in a sniper position in a nearby church tower while Lt. Tom Paoletti had been up against two tangos—one of whom had a gun aimed at the lieutenant’s teenage niece—on the roof of the nearby Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel. From her perch, Alyssa had had an opportunity to take out the gunman with a single shot, and she’d done it unflinchingly, her aim straight and true. She’d saved the niece, an event that had ultimately saved Tom.
She’d saved the niece, but she’d also taken her first human life.
She nodded curtly now, as if she didn’t want to spend a lot of time thinking about it.
Sam changed the subject. “So how come you didn’t come visit me in the hospital?”
He’d been shot in that same run-in with a believed-to-be-dead terrorist. A bullet had lodged in his shoulder, another had grazed his head. He’d spent most of the ensuing action unconscious, wouldn’t it figure? Way to impress his commanding officer. But after it was over, he hadn’t remained in the hospital’s ICU for very long.
He’d enjoyed hero status at the hospital, with a steady stream of visitors coming to see him. But none of them had been Alyssa Locke.
She laughed at his question now. “You hate me,” she told him flatly.
“Whoa,” he said. “Wait a minute—”
“We can’t talk for more than two minutes without arguing, Roger.” Locke had the annoying habit of calling him by his given name. His own mother didn’t call him Roger anymore, for Christ’s sake. “I didn’t think pissing you off would help your recovery.”
“I don’t hate you,” he insisted. “You’re the one who . . . well, you hate me.”
“Ah,” she said, with a tight little smile that was really no kind of smile at all. “That’s right. Rednecks give me a rash. That’s what it was.”
God damn it— Sam took a deep breath. Forced himself to stay cool. “Regardless of our personal differences in the past,” he managed to say, albeit a little bit tightly, “I just wanted you to know I was damn glad you were in that church tower that day.”
Her smug little smile faltered.
Sam nodded curtly. “I’m sure I’ll see you around. . . .”
Ma’am.
That’s all it would have taken. Just one little word, just a punctuation of respect, and the beginnings of a truce may well have been declared.
But when he opened his mouth, something else entirely came drawling out. “. . . sweet thing.”
And instead of a truce, Sam saw World War Three declared in this woman’s eyes.
He beat a quick retreat, the devil in him laughing, which, naturally, only made it all the more worse.
Meg’s cell phone rang, interrupting her singing.
She was singing to pass the time, singing to keep herself awake. She’d gone through all of the American, Russian, and French folk songs she knew, and had just started in on the English, Irish, and Welsh. “Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier.” “Llwyn Onn.” “Buttermilk Hill” or “Shule Aroon.” “Here I sit on Buttermilk Hill. Who could blame me cry my fill . . . ?” Most of the songs were about pain and despair—an appropriate soundtrack for this terrible, awful day.
Osman Razeen still sat watching her, seemingly unblinkingly, as she answered the phone.
It hadn’t yet been six hours—it had barely been five. Maybe Max Bhagat was calling to tell her that there was going to be a further delay. Oh, God, she didn’t think she could handle that. She wanted John here now.
She didn’t say anything into the phone, she just waited.
“Meg?”
It wasn’t Max’s voice. It had been years, but it sounded like . . .
“It’s John Nilsson,” he continued.
Relief ripped into her so intensely she nearly dropped the phone. Breathe. Keep breathing. Keep holding the gun on Osman Razeen. He was watching her, waiting for her to make a mistake.
“What are you doing in there?” John asked.
Waiting for you.
“Well,” she said, when she could finally speak without sounding like Mary Richards imploring Mr. Grant to help her, “I’ve gotten myself into something of a situation here.”
He laughed. God, had it really been years since she’d heard his warm, rich laughter? It seemed like just yesterday.
“Yeah, I couldn’t help but notice,” he told her. “How about you put the gun down, let those guys go, and I come in and we talk?”
“That’s not how it would happen, and you know it.” If she put down the gun, a SWAT team or maybe John’s SEAL team would burst through the door. She’d be on her stomach, face pressed against the tile floor, with her hands roughly cuffed behind her back in a matter of seconds.
He was silent for a moment. Then she heard him sigh. “What can I do to help you, Meg? Can I come in? I’m right outside the door.”
“No weapons,” she told him. “Nothing under your jacket or shirt, Ensign.”
“It’s Lieutenant now. Junior grade.”
Lieutenant. Of course. He’d been promoted. It had been years since he’d been an ensign. “Congratulations.”
“Yeah, we’ve got some catching up to do.” He paused. “I just heard about Daniel. I—” Another pause as if he’d suddenly changed his mind about what he’d been going to say. “I’m sorry for your loss. Look, I’ll come in in my T-shirt, hands high. No weapons, nothing hidden, no threat.”
She could do this over the phone. She should do this over the phone. But she wanted to see him. She wanted to look into John Nilsson’s eyes and see reassurance that he was going to help her, that he could help her. “Just . . . promise you won’t try to shoot me or take my gun.”
“You got it.”
“Say it.”
“I promise.”
“Make sure you open the door only wide enough to slip in,” she ordered him. “No one comes with you. No sudden moves. I’m serious, John. I’ll shoot these people if I have to.”
“Give me a sec,” he said, “to get my jacket off.”
The connection was cut. Meg put down the phone, held her gun with both hands, humming a bit more of that folk song to steady her nerves.
Yes, indeed, she and John Nilsson had some catching up to do. It was entirely likely that he was married by now, and if not married, then certainly attached.
But whether or not he was married had nothing to do with saving Amy. She and John Nilsson had once been friends. She was counting on him to remember that.
He knocked on the door. “Meg? It’s me. I’m coming in.”
The door opened. Just a little. And he slipped inside the room.
Meg wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. Possibly for him to be wearing his dress whites. Or at least some other kind of naval uniform. Instead he was completely dressed down in dirty BDUs, dusty boots, and a T-shirt that was stained with sweat. Black greasepaint smudged his face and he had a heavy stubble of beard covering his chin. His eyes were rimmed with red and lined with fatigue. Just like the first time they’d met, it had been a while since he’d last slept.
He was bigger, broader, taller than she’d remembered, particularly with his arms up, fingers laced and resting on his head. With his arms in that position, his biceps were flexed and they strained against the sleeves of his T-shirt. His face had filled out some, too, making him look more like a man and less like a twenty-something kid.
But his smile was pure twelve-year-old despite the concern in his eyes. “Hi.”
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