Hotter Than Wildfire (24 page)

 
She needed this like she’d needed the sunshine this morning. A celebration of life. A celebration of the fact that Nicole and her baby were okay and so was she, for the moment.

And moments were all you were guaranteed in life, weren’t they? No one could promise her that she or Harry might not die today, tomorrow. It came down to celebrating each and every moment of joy.

And being with Harry was pure joy. The more she knew him, the more she could see past that incredible tough-guy exterior. He was, yeah, really tough. He was strong and brave and could outshoot three bad guys.

But inside, inside that tough exterior, was a tender heart. The kind of man who still mourned his murdered mother and little sister, who’d fought almost to the death for them. The kind of man who, together with his brothers, unquestioningly put himself on the line for women and children in need of protectors.

This man made the perfect protector. And he did it with such a light touch, without smothering. If you weren’t on the lookout, you wouldn’t even know you were being protected. He was just…there.

It was a quality she’d never met in a man before. Men took—sex, love, your money—everything, if you weren’t careful. It was so strange to have a man who gave instead of taking.

Maybe she could give him something back.

“Come on.” She stood up and tugged at his hands until he stood up, too.

It was a beautiful evening. The apartment was suffused with evening light, turning everything golden, including the man following her into the bedroom. The other times they’d made love, he’d initiated it, but this time he seemed content to follow her lead. And she liked it, she discovered.

She’d never taken the lead before and now realized it was because she hadn’t cared enough. She cared now. Oh yeah, she cared.

She turned to him in the bedroom, white cotton curtains fluttering in the evening breeze, bringing in the smell of the ocean. They were standing a few inches apart and Ellen had to crane her neck to look Harry in the eyes. Those calm, golden eyes. Patient and steady, taking his cue from her.

Well, okay then. First order of business, clothes off. Easier said than done, she discovered, as she pulled his black T-shirt out of his jeans and tried to slip it over his head. There was no way she could reach up that far, not even when she stood on tiptoe. She dropped down on her heels, kissed his bare chest and said, “You’ll have to take it from here.”

“Okay,” he whispered, his eyes never leaving hers. In an instant the tee sailed to the floor.

He had somehow understood that she wanted to stay in control, so he didn’t move, just stood there, feet slightly apart, big hands hanging by his side. Ellen unbuckled his belt, unsnapped and unzipped, smiling a little as he winced. He was massively aroused, and the zipper had to hurt a little. Ah well, he was a tough guy, he could take it.

She pulled the jeans down those long, muscled legs, scratching the inside of his thigh to see what he’d do. He didn’t do anything but looked pained, but his penis…ah, that jumped inside his white briefs. Just as a muscle jumped in his jaw.

Mmm.

Within a minute, T-shirt, jeans, briefs were neatly folded on a chair, shoes and socks off, and he stood there in front of her, in all his golden glory.

Ellen studied him greedily, committing everything to memory. The long, lean muscles, the straight soldier’s stance, the gold-tinged hair on his chest narrowing down over his lean stomach, the hair on his groin thicker and darker and framing…oh my.

His penis was so thick and long, nearly reaching his navel, blood coursing through it in small ripples every time she looked at it. It was so enormous it was a miracle her body could accommodate him, but it did.

It was readying itself for him even now, just looking at him. The flesh between her thighs grew warm and moist, and she could feel something unfurling deep inside, her sex and her heart, both.

She made no move to touch him; right now just looking at him was enough.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered. She’d surprised him. His head jerked back a little. One side of his mouth curled up, Harry’s version of a full smile.

“That’s my line.”

“Is it?” Yes, he’d told her often enough he found her beautiful. “I mean it, though. You’re so beautiful. You’re—you’re perfect.”

This time there was a full-fledged smile, one of the few she’d ever seen on his face. “Ask my brothers about that. I think they’d beg to differ.”

“They love you,” she said.

“Yes, they do.” His chest expanded on a deep breath. “And why are we talking about them at a moment like this?”

Because they are such an important part of you,
she wanted to say, but didn’t. There were a lot of things she wanted to say to him, but there was no time. So she reached out and touched him, finally, placing her open palm over his heart.

Oh, how she loved doing that. Feeling the crisp hairs, the lean hard muscle below that and underlying it all, the strong beat of his heart. She stepped closer and felt that heart rate speed up.

She had that power. The power to make this warrior’s heart race.

“Come with me,” she murmured. They were alone in the house; there was no reason to keep her voice low, but the moment called for it. The whole world was hushed, as if waiting for something, and any noise would just be a distraction.

He stepped forward as she backed up to the bed. Ellen put her knee on the bed, rolled over, held her hands up. There was no need for words at all. As naturally as breathing, Harry covered her body with his, slowly entering her as he kissed her. Everything slow and gentle, because the moment called for it. He slid into her fully, kissing her deeply, and soon his breathing speeded up and she could feel his stomach muscles tensing to start moving in her.

She held him with her hands on his hips. “Not yet,” she whispered, and he stilled. Content with being inside her and kissing her.

Ellen arched as she opened her legs wider so he could seat himself fully in her. She didn’t want him to move, because that would speed things up and she wanted to freeze time, hang on to this one moment forever, she thought, as she memorized every inch of him she could with her fingertips. This moment was so very precious.

Because this time tomorrow she’d be gone and would never see him again.

 
Monday morning, they drove into the city center in the little convoy again, all three driving down into the underground garage. When they got out of the vehicles, the men surrounded the women in a tight tense knot of security.

Women
because Nicole insisted on coming in to work, too. She said she’d go crazy staying home in bed, as Sam insisted. She was fine, just
fine
.

They went up in the elevator in a tight cordon of men, no one talking and no one smiling. At the ninth floor, the doors opened onto a creative type, standing there with carefully tousled, gelled hair, a tight sharkskin suit and with a tasteful stud piercing a very cute, surgically sculpted nose.

He took one look at the three huge men glowering at him and scampered away to another elevator.

As the men walked them down the hall, their collective body language was a Dirty Harryesque
Come on punk, make my day
.

When the door of Nicole’s office closed behind them, Ellen opened her mouth and Nicole held up a finger. “If you apologize one more time, I swear I will scream. And then Sam and Harry and Mike will come running and we’ll never get anything done at all.”

Ellen felt so miserable. Nicole looked tired. The spotting had stopped almost immediately yesterday, but she’d spent the day in the hospital undergoing tests before coming home and she clearly hadn’t slept well. There were slight bruises under her eyes.

Of course, that was nothing compared to what was under
her
own eyes, because she hadn’t slept at all last night. She hadn’t even been able to close her eyes, staring wide-eyed at the black ceiling, listening to Harry’s heartbeat, savoring his solid warmth by her side, waiting for the dawn.

Thinking awful thoughts. Knowing what she had to do and dreading it.

“All right.” Nicole hung her jacket up neatly on a perfumed hanger and hung that on the brass clothes tree. “I’ve got an urgent translation for a Luxembourg bank to finish, and you’ve got to save me some more money. So let’s get to work.” She sat down to her desktop and slid in her portable hard disk.

Her tone was brisk, but her movements were slow. She was battling through this in a way Ellen recognized and respected.

Nicole could use a thousand excuses and no one would think less of her. If she had wanted to stay home today—and all next week or even all next year—her husband would be more than happy. But she had a company to run and people who depended on her for their livelihood and clients who expected her to deliver a good product in a timely fashion, so here she was, tired and shaken, but ready to start her working day.

The least Ellen could do was offer her a little something. Nicole had been ridiculously behind with her accounts. Ellen had made her a simple, rational system that would be easy to keep up, and she was working hard on finding ways to save on taxes.

Ellen settled down at the desk, reaching down to the case at her feet. She was using Harry’s laptop instead of Nicole’s because she’d worked on Nicole’s files over the weekend and her spreadsheets were there. “I nailed another couple of thousand in tax deferrals and with a little luck I think I can set up a slightly different corporate structure for you so that you can deduct more stuff. That’ll save you at least ten thousand in taxes over the next five years.”

“Wow.” Nicole tipped her head to the left of the monitor and gave her a dazzling smile. “That’s great. Thank you so much. And”—she held up an elegant pink-tipped finger—“don’t apologize again. If you apologize I’ll do you bodily harm. Don’t forget, I can be meaner than Sam or Harry or Mike. I don’t think any of them could hurt a woman, but I can. Don’t make me hurt you.”

Ellen had opened her mouth to thank her, and to apologize once more, but she closed it. The idea of Nicole wrestling her to the ground was so ridiculous, she just had to smile.

“Hold that thought.” Nicole’s processor beeped and she bent over the keyboard. “Go save me some more money. Lunch is at twelve thirty. Goat cheese salad, grilled vegetable sandwich with focaccia bread, sliced apples for dessert, everything washed down with green tea. I ordered the same lunch for the men. It’s a good thing these walls are fairly soundproofed, because you’d hear the groaning from here. Now let’s concentrate.” And she disappeared into her monitor.

Ellen opened Harry’s laptop and plugged in his Bose headset. The laptop he’d given her was loaded with fabulous music. She loved isolating herself from the world with music when concentrating on work. In a second, she had a spreadsheet program open and Billie Holiday purring in her ears.

Okay.

Ellen was going to do extra-good work for Nicole today. She was going to set her up with a specially designed program that would automatically calculate the best billing method and Nicole’s commission, weighted for urgency of the translation, technical difficulty and rarity of the language combination, together with a streamlined tax statement structure. It was going to be her good-bye gift to Nicole.

Before disappearing.

She’d struggled with this decision all night, staring dry-eyed into the darkness, held close to Harry’s heart.

There was no way around this except for straight ahead on the hard rocky road of necessity. Montez would be after her forever. Year after year of fear and hiding. Of being afraid to be out in the open, of forcing her new friends to live under a shadow.

It was very likely that what Nicole had found out was the extent of what a civilian could discover. The next steps had to be taken by law enforcement officers, preferably the FBI.

There was a moral issue here, too. The longer Ellen waited to tip this tangled mess into the FBI’s capable hands, the longer Gerald had to mess with any evidence that might be left.

It might even be too late. Maybe she’d been wrong to spend this past year afraid and in hiding. Maybe she should have been bolder, gone to the FBI before. She’d been so scared, so terrified of sticking her head above the ground, that she might have ensured that Gerald got away with murder, twice. Three times, actually, including Frank Mikowski. If Gerald got away with it, it would be her fault.

Gerald would spend the rest of his life getting richer and richer, becoming ever more powerful, never paying for his crimes, while Ellen stayed hidden in the dark, worried every single second of the day that she was endangering people she’d grown to care for. And in the case of Harry, to love.

Unthinkable.

Yesterday had been a false alarm—a couple of balloons popping. But Harry was right, it could have been Gerald or one of his guys. At any moment, she could be in the crosshairs of some sniper employed by Gerald.

In five months, Nicole would have her baby and Ellen would be in a permanent sweat of anxiety that Gerald could kill her and Nicole and the
baby
. He wouldn’t hesitate. If he found out where she was, he’d kill everyone with her, on the off chance that she’d talked.

It was too late to keep Nicole from becoming a friend. Everything she knew about Nicole told her that she cared for Ellen and that she was intensely loyal to the people she cared about. She wouldn’t stay away from Ellen just because there was a vague possibility that Gerald would catch up with her.

It was more than just a vague possibility, though. He’d caught up with her in Seattle; he knew she’d been in San Diego. Gerald was smart and rich and had huge resources.

He’d know how to track her down somehow. He’d done it before.

Ellen had been careful when having the records produced. The musicians, puzzled, had been in the next room and had never seen her, nothing had been signed in her name, not even in the name of Irene Ball, but in the name of a small company she’d set up where no one’s name actually appeared except that of a lawyer who worked online just for companies like hers.

But Gerald had found Roddy, had tortured him. Who knew what he’d been forced to say? Who knew if Roddy had said something that would help Gerald find her? Who knew if she’d covered her tracks enough?

It was a very lucky thing that she had kept her friendship with Kerry a secret. Without ever talking about it, they had never shown each other warmth in public, rarely called each other and never went out together. They had a message board accessible only to themselves, and that’s where they made plans to meet. Mostly at Kerry’s place.

Not even Mario, the owner of the Blue Moon, realized how close they were. So Kerry shouldn’t be in any danger. But there were other ways to find people.

The streets of San Diego were covered in security cameras. Could she go through life here wearing huge sunglasses, shapeless dresses and wide-brimmed hats? Every single day? Without making a mistake once?

She’d go crazy. Most of all, she’d drive Harry crazy, too, and ruin his life. And since he was embedded in a tight group of people who loved him and were starting to love her, she’d ruin their lives, too.

And Nicole’s baby…

Ellen’s mind kept circling back to that terrifying thought. Harm to the baby. What it would mean to Harry. Harry had lost his baby sister. He’d never survive Nicole and Sam’s child being killed. She’d never survive it, either.

The longer she stayed, the worse it would be. The longer she stayed, the more she’d care for them, the more embedded in their lives she’d be. And after the baby was born, she’d love the baby, too. One more hostage to Gerald’s craziness and cruelty.

Oh God.

She had to go. She had to go now before one of these wonderful people got hurt.

She wanted to stay, but she had to go.

Billie’s sad, beautiful voice came over her headset, begging for a dream or two.

The dreams were all gone.

The screen in front of her blurred, grew refracted as tears filled her eyes, but she willed them back, dashing the back of her hand angrily over her eyes.

Tears were a dangerous weakness.

What she was going to do—had to do—in the next half hour was tricky, because she was going to have to sneak past Nicole, who was no fool, and past three men who were very alert. No tears, no second thoughts, no hesitation. She had to be brave and decisive, take it step by step.

First, dropping the whole mess into the lap of the FBI.

The San Diego FBI Field Office website was very informative. The person in charge of the office—the official title was Special Agent in Charge—was a woman, Karen Sands. There was even a photo of her, a handsome woman with straight, light-blond hair, looking boldly into the camera. She was reassurance itself and looked capable and fearless. Just what Ellen needed.

Between songs, she lifted an earphone and heard the reassuring sound of Nicole deeply immersed in her translation, keying the words in a steady patter. Nicole wasn’t paying her any attention. Good.

There was a CONTACT US button for reporting crime. Ellen hesitated for just a moment, fingers curled over the keys.

This was it. After alerting the FBI, there would be no going back. She would be cutting Harry and his friends out of her life and she would break Harry’s heart.

But better to break his heart than be the cause of any more death.

After a moment’s hesitation, Ellen filled out the data page with her real name, without giving an address. Presumably they’d be able to track down her location using the IP address, but by that time, she’d be at the office itself.

In the message field she stated that she had reason to believe that a government contractor, Gerald Montez, CEO of Bearclaw, had stolen money from the U.S. government in Baghdad and had killed three people.

Should she ask for an appointment? No, she decided. Better not to wait for a response. Better just to show up at their offices.

The address given was Aero Drive, in the northern part of the city. The site gave a photo of the façade of the building, a distinctive combination of white marble and dark glass shaped into a big dark Y. She’d recognize it when the cab pulled up.

The door opened and closed. Good. Nicole had gone to the bathroom down the hall. She complained about practically living in the bathroom now that she was pregnant. She’d be a while. When she came back, Ellen would slip out. Only instead of going to the bathroom, she’d keep on walking down the hall, into the elevator, into a cab, into the FBI office and into a new life.

A barren life, an empty life, but a life where everyone she cared for would be safe.

It would take a while for them to discover she was gone. By the time Nicole realized that Ellen was taking too much time in the bathroom, she’d be on her way to Aero Drive in a taxi.

She’d finished the spreadsheet program and she’d straightened out Nicole’s accounts, happy that she could leave her a little something, a little thank-you for her friendship.

What could she leave Harry?

Her heart.

My dearest Harry,

 
This is for the best and you know it. It’s a waiting game and time is on Gerald’s side. The more I wait, the more time he has to find me, the more we’ll all be worn down with worry, you included. Nothing happened to Nicole, but it could have. I could never live with myself if she’d been hurt or lost the baby, and I think the same holds true for you.

I’m going to the FBI and ask for protection, so don’t worry about me. I should have done this a year ago, but instead I took the coward’s way out and ran. Yet maybe, as a New Age friend of mine would say, the universe wanted me to be a coward because I got to meet you.