Three to Tango (25 page)

He’d done what she’d asked, for once.

Unfortunately, given what Tony had hired him for, Walker Gray wouldn’t have gone far.

Two

W
alker glanced up from his computer screen when he heard the beep of a card being swept through the security entrance into Tony Hallas’s large den.

“Has she come downstairs?” he asked, his fingers pausing on the keyboard.

Barry nodded and plunked down into a chair. Barry had obviously used his time off this morning to take advantage of the undercover assignment location and bask in the Tahoe sunshine. He wore hiking boots and canvas shorts, and his nose was sunburned to a shiny glow. “She’s on the patio with Tony. She’s an eyeful, I’ll give her that, but about as friendly as a piranha on a diet. She sure doesn’t try to hide the fact that she doesn’t want our protection, does she?”

Commenting on Madeline’s hostility seemed about as obvious as saying the Lake Tahoe view was spectacular, so Walker continued with his task of checking for attempts at breaching Tony’s security system. There were only a handful of individuals on the planet as well trained at securing a compound from either a physical or technological threat as the Secret Service. Tony Hallas wasn’t the president of the United States, but he’d hired Walker and his crew because he believed Walker could offer him similar protection in his Lake Tahoe vacation lodge. Even Tony, who owned the largest computer systems security company in the nation, had to admit he didn’t know some of the stuff the Secret Service did.

“Do you know what Madeline just told me?” Barry asked.

Walker frowned as his fingers continued to fly over the keyboard. “I can just imagine,” he murmured.

“She told me that I was infringing on her right to privacy by guarding her.”

“Did you tell her that since she decided to have a relationship with Tony Hallas, she lost a few of her rights?” he asked evenly, his eyes fixed on the computer screen. “Anyone close to Tony is a potential security breach. Kidnap Madeline Sayer or threaten to kill her, and Tony is suddenly at risk for giving away software to China or Pakistan or who-the-fuck-ever who wants the opportunity to attack U.S. financial institutions.”

“You mean beyond the stuff we think Tony hasn’t already given to the Russian mob?” Walker gave Barry a wry glance before he continued his search. Barry had just mentioned the crux of the reason he, Barry and two other members of his team, Arthur Lange and Jim Stephano, were in Lake Tahoe undercover—because the Secret Service criminal investigations division believed that Tony Hallas had been selling software to the Russian mob, information that had been used for a recent hack into U.S. ATM accounts. Over million dollars had been stolen before the breach could be sealed.

Tony hadn’t questioned Walker’s cover about moving back to Lake Tahoe in order to start his own corporate security operation. Tony had bought his cover because, in fact, that’d been precisely what Walker planned to do. He’d already handed in his resignation with the Secret Service and was counting the days until he returned to Lake Tahoe when they’d received some alarming intelligence in regard to Tony Hallas.

One of the Secret Services’s missions was to investigate computer-based attacks on the nation’s financial and banking infrastructure. Tony Hallas was suspected of breaching that security, and Walker was tailor-made to go undercover. Walker’s boss had begged him to stay on the Secret Service payroll for a short period of time and lead the Hallas investigation.

Tony trusted Walker. They’d been friends since they were both seven years old. Walker’s father used to be Tony’s father’s gardener, and the two boys had spent more than a dozen summers practically attached at the hip.

Until they’d met Madeline Sayer, anyway. Until they’d both vied for her attention. Walker had been the clear winner in their younger days. He’d left Tahoe, though, and the spoils went to Tony.

Barry rubbed his sunburned nose and continued. “I did explain things to Ms. Sayer about why she was a weak point in security, and do you know what she asked? How come we didn’t have a person guarding all of Tony’s friends?”

Walker stopped typing and glanced up. “He’s not planning on marrying all of his friends,” he said grimly.

“I told her that. How do you suppose she manages to pull off looking down her nose at you when she probably barely tops five foot four?” Barry mused.

Walker grinned. “Forces of nature can come in small packages.”

He didn’t waste time telling Barry that Madeline was actually one of the warmest people he’d ever met in his life. The fact that they were discussing her like she was a royal bitch was as good an indication as any of how off balance she was with him being there. It was something, he supposed, knowing he was having an effect on her. He couldn’t be too choosy about her manner of reacting to him when the woman he wanted like his next breath was engaged to another man.

He’d hardly expected her to run into his arms. Not Madeline Sayer.

Walker stared out three floor-to-ceiling arched windows onto the shimmering blue lake cradled in the cup of the High Sierra Mountains. Tony’s enormous, secluded lodge was made of river rock, pine and glass, but the glass dominated, giving a person the impression that the outdoors and indoors blended seamlessly. Even though Walker had grown up in a comfortable, modest apartment in Kings Beach with his father, mother and brother, he wasn’t unused to being inside the realms of grand Tahoe estates. He’d often accompanied his father for jobs and had been a regular visitor at Tony’s father’s lush Tahoe City villa.

Walker wasn’t really seeing the stunning Tahoe scenery on the other side of the windows, though. An equally riveting—and even more powerful—image crowded into his mind’s eye: a naked Madeline staring up at him as defiance, fury and hurt warred behind her huge, dark eyes.

You fucking liar,
she’d said.

Walker may be in Tony Hallas’s house under false pretense, but he hadn’t been lying when he told Madeline he had come back to Lake Tahoe for her. He could have started his security firm almost anywhere, but he’d chosen Tahoe at least in part because of his memories of her. The sharp pain of regret of having left her had grown into a dull ache over the years. When he’d seen the glossy surveillance photos of a Madeline all grown up, it’d been like a slug to the gut.

Tony had seemed so eager to change the subject when Walker asked him about a wedding date that Walker had wondered if one or both of them were dragging their feet about final commitment. If it was Madeline hesitating, she’d probably elope with Tony tonight just to spite Walker. Handcuffing her and having sex with her out in the changing rooms earlier hadn’t exactly been the smoothest of moves on his part. When he’d volunteered to head up this assignment, he’d forgotten the full effect of Madeline.

The past eleven years had only made her more difficult to ignore.

Barry came over to the desk where he worked. “I’ll take over here. You might as well watch out for Ms. Friendly. Tony told me to ask you to have dinner with them. They’re waiting for you on the terrace.”

Tony stood and shook his hand a few minutes later when Walker stepped outside to join the others. The particular terrace where they’d gathered was another example of architecture mimicking nature. The floor and surround consisted of the type of huge, smooth granite boulders found all over the Tahoe area. They’d been artfully arranged not to distract from the main attraction, the cerulean blue alpine lake. Natural pine outdoor furniture echoed the surrounding forest.

“What do you think, Walk? Can you make this place into a Camp David?” Tony asked.

“That might take a little more than twelve hours, but we’ll get you in good shape quick enough. The perimeter of the lake is going to take some doing to seal, but I have the equipment I’ll need arriving tonight. I was just running some diagnostics on your system.”

Tony gave a mock frown. “I’m sorry I asked. Enough about work. I don’t come to Tahoe to talk shop.” Walker’s gaze flickered to the right and landed on Madeline reclining in a lounge chair, looking like a vision in a white halter dress that set off her tan.

“It’s what you asked me here for, Tony,” Walker said wryly.

“Only partially. I asked you to Aspen Lodge because I wanted the company of a good friend.”

“And to pick your good friend’s brain about his government security secrets,” Hal Margrave added with a booming laugh and a wink. “Tony acts so nonchalant, but I bet he’ll be looking for your opinion on how to convince the senate that U.S. banks are at high risk for hacking threats. Tony’s looking for any morsel he can get to help convince those politicians the banks are as vulnerable as the country would be if we disbanded the military. That recent hackjob into American ATM accounts that was done from Moscow certainly has the politicians sitting up and taking notice.”

Walker studied Tony’s reaction to his friend’s reference to the recent high-profile case of bank hacking. He suspected his old friend of creating the havoc in order to make his company’s latest product all that much more appealing to the powers that be. Tony looked anything but guilty, however. He flashed a grin that hadn’t changed much since he was a seven-year-old dreamer and troublemaker. Just like when he’d been a kid, Walker found himself grinning back. Tony was nothing if not charming. He would have been better off without that vast cache of charm. Having to work hard for something might have made him into a different person.

He really hated that Tony had gotten himself mixed up in this crap. If he didn’t go to prison, he was going to end up with a Russian bullet in his skull.

“How about a mojito, Walk? Fresh mint from the garden. Not as good as your dad could grow it, but tasty.” Tony walked behind the terrace bar and pulled down a glass. Walker glanced again at Madeline as Hal and Kitty murmured to each other. She was giving him a stare of blistering hatred, but it was hard to look away. Madeline had been beautiful as a girl—petite, dark-haired and dark-eyed with a face that could make a man do crazy things—but as a woman, she was nothing short of breathtaking.

Walker had almost sacrificed all of his dreams for her, but pride could go a long way in propelling a young man into his future.

Tony leaned across the bar as he was grinding up fresh mint with a pestle in a small marble bowl and spoke confidentially. “Sorry about Maddie. She’s not too keen on you guys being here. Giving me the cold shoulder as well,” Tony added, rolling his eyes. He’d only grown browner during his boat outing today, making him look like a sleek, Greek playboy frolicking in the Mediterranean. The image was both apt and completely off. Tony was Greek-American and Hollywood-handsome, but he was also a genius when it came to computers, a whiz with the fun-loving spirit of a perpetual ten-year-old imp and the libido of a seventeen-year-old boy.

Yeah, that was Tony in a nutshell. Why he’d decided to sell crucial software to the Russian mob had more to do with being adored and spoiled most of his life than any deep, dark thread of evil. Tony probably had figured it was an easy, harmless way to help convince U.S. financial institutions that they desperately needed him and his product. He knew the chances of getting caught were negligible.

He’d have been right if it hadn’t been for a childhood friend. Tony had given Walker and his team full access to his private computers. It was just a matter of hours before they had the evidence they needed for an indictment. For his old friend’s sake, Walker almost regretted how easy the operation was.

Madeline, Kitty and Hal were discussing restaurants in the Tahoe area when Tony and Walker joined them.

“I’ll make a reservation for us at Spinner’s Run for brunch tomorrow. You’ll love it—terrific food and a wonderful champagne list,” Madeline was telling Kitty and Hal warmly.

“I’d prefer you didn’t go out in public until I can get a better understanding of what happened with the shooting,” Walker said as he sat.

Madeline leveled him a glacial stare. Tony picked up her hand and shook it playfully, as if to tease her out of her mood, but Walker knew it would take more than a hand-squeezing to get through to her. He couldn’t help but notice what a gorgeous couple they made with their sun-gilded skin, dark hair and white clothing, Madeline’s delicate features and large, slightly tilted eyes making such a striking contrast to Tony’s bold, masculine features.

The sight of them together made his blood boil.

“I refuse to be held in this house like a prisoner just because some idiot took a potshot at me while I was leaving my mom’s house,” she said defiantly.

Walker shrugged and sipped his mojito. “If you do go in public, it would be extremely selfish of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we can protect you better within the bounds of the Aspen Lodge than we can out in public. If you return to your condo, or the real estate office where you work, or go to your mom’s, or wander around wherever your headstrong-self desires, you put everyone in your vicinity at risk. How would you feel if someone else was shot because you went out to get your nails done? If I can contain you, I can contain the threat.”

The fabric of her dress gaped slightly when she jerked forward, gifting him with the sight of the pale inner curves of her small breasts. Madeline’s breasts had always driven him crazy.

“I’m not something to be contained, Walker,” she seethed quietly.

“I think that’s exactly what you are.”

After an untold period of time, Tony gave a bark of laughter. Walker looked away from eyes so velvety dark brown, they looked black and depthless in the shade of shimmering aspens. Hal joined Tony in mirth.

“Tony said you three have known one another since you were kids. I can tell, only old friends feel so comfortable sniping at each other. So you attended Mount Caramel as well, Walker?” Hal asked amiably as he stroked his wife’s shoulder.

“No. My father was a gardener. He was Tony’s father’s gardener, actually. He wasn’t up for the tuition at Mount Caramel.”

Madeline rolled her eyes and sat back in the recliner, obviously barely restraining a hiss of disgust. A becoming blush stained her cheeks. “Your father owned a reputable landscaping company. You make it sound like he was Tony’s dad’s servant.”