Operation Willow Quest (24 page)

He looked down at her
dark head, lying so trustingly on his chest and felt a surge of something
hopeful.

“Del?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

When she didn’t answer,
he gently moved her hair aside, and saw she’d fallen asleep. He could feel her
soft breath against his skin and lightly ran his hand along her back as he
listened to her quiet breathing, and let his thoughts wander back to that first
time he’d laid eyes on Willow Sheldon. The memory chased away the fragments of
his own nightmare and he drifted off to sleep, his arms wrapped around her and
a contented smile resting on his lips.

*
* * *

“
So we know the assassin’s in Hawaii,” Agent Graham announced boldly as he
paced the room like a caged lion, the next afternoon as they went through the
preparations. “We have the attack on the night watch, two days ago, near the
Maddox residence, and we have the confirmation
Trèago
has recently approved some kind
of large deposit into an off shore bank account; it’s safe to say who ever it
is, is closing in,” he ended in his strange, expressionless tone.

“The
what,
near the Maddox residence?” Willow cut in abruptly.

“The FBI agents,
watching the house were caught out, and the guy escaped. Fortunately, no one
was killed,” Tate cut in smoothly—the barb though, hit the agents in the room
with all the subtlety of a freight train.

“We’ve since stepped up
security, and there have been no further incidents,” Agent Graham said,
ignoring Tate, but Willow
could see the slight smile on his lips was far from genuine. “However, this is
why we feel we’ve run out of time; we need to take the upper hand, and force
this guy out in the open.”

“Miss Sheldon, you and
Staff Sergeant Delaware
will make yourselves visible, shopping, mingling with the tourist crowd, and
then head back to your room—we now have it under heavy surveillance. This guy’s
a professional, and he’s proven to be cautious, but we think the pressure
Trèago
has now placed upon him will hopefully work in our
favour
and force him to make some mistakes.”

Willow
tried to view the
scenario with a perspective as clinical and detached as the Agent speaking
apparently did, but couldn’t manage to ignore herself as
the hit
as easily as Agent Graham did. A quick glance at Tate and
the others revealed they were as unhappy with the situation as she was. If he
was as desperate as they all presumed, what was stopping this guy shooting them
in a public place?

“Miss Sheldon?”

Willow
’s head snapped up as
she
realised
the General had been speaking to her.
“Sorry?”

“Are you still sure you
want to go through with this? There’s still time to pull out if you don’t feel
as though you’re up to it?”

“No. I’m fine. Let’s do
it,” she announced, with a brief nod.

“You heard the lady,
let’s do it,” Agent Graham said, giving a loud clap of his hands to snap everyone
into action.

*
* * *

Del
massaged the bridge of
his nose with his fingertips as he got off the phone with Tate after their
hourly check-in. She saw the impassive expression that he’d been wearing like a
shield, slip. A flicker of reaction crossed his face.

He eyed her. “Tell me
why you’re so determined to do this? The
real
reason—because it just doesn’t make any sense to risk your life like this for a
damn story.”

“You think I’m doing
this for the story?” she asked sharply.

“Aren’t you?”

Pushing herself up into
a sitting position, she swung her legs off the bed and stared at the wall
across the room, an empty feeling settling inside her. Of course that’s what he
assumed—they all did. She was the cold-hearted bitch who stopped at nothing for
a story—that’s all they saw.

“If you say so,” she
told him with a blank expression.

“Tell me the damn story
isn’t part of it.”

Willow
gave a sad shake of
her head. “I know you all think I’m some stuck-up journalist who doesn’t care
about anything other than getting the story, and maybe I am…
was
,” she
almost whispered. “You have no idea how I envy Summer, the way she can make
people love her without even trying. They’re drawn to her, like moths to a
flame—she’s always been like it, even as a kid.” Willow gave a small smile at the memory, then
remembered where she was and it died on her lips. “After Cambodia…it put
a lot of things into perspective for me. I’d used my work as a way to escape
everything that scared me—facing my parents’ death, losing Michael…even dealing
with the fact my marriage was dead, long before my husband ever was—it’s what I
do…I run.”

Del didn’t speak, he
just sat there silent and watchful, his face impassive, while behind it, she
saw he was absorbing every detail—storing it away to process later. She knew he
was a deep thinker beneath that bad boy exterior he liked to fool everyone else
with. She
realised
, after all this time, even though
they’d been sniping away at one another, they’d also been subconsciously
learning about each other, and she figured she knew Peter Delaware probably
better than he knew himself. The down side, of course, was that it also worked
in reverse—he knew how to see through her as well, and that thought was more
than a little unsettling.

“But now it’s time to
stop running, and face what scares me,” she said, turning her eyes up to meet
his honestly.

“I won’t let
Trèago
hurt you,” he said softly.

“You can’t protect me
from him—no one can. He has a power over me that can’t be stopped by a gun or a
fist.
He took
a part of me, Del.”
The admission sounded as though it had been ripped from her body, “The only way
I can get it back, is to face him and
take
it back
. I have to do this, before it destroys me. I don’t want to live
like this anymore.”

“Like what?” he asked,
his gaze holding her own gently.

“Like I’m half a
person—like I don’t belong anywhere.” Her voice cracked and she turned away
quickly, tilting her head toward the ceiling and screwing her eyes shut tightly
against the sting behind them.

Warm hands slid around
her waist and he pulled her back tightly against the front of his body. “You do
belong,” he whispered next to her ear.

She moved her head
slowly side to side, and something tore inside her chest. “I don’t, Del, I don’t know where
I belong any more.” She gave a
humourless
chuckle. “I
used to think I had everything: money, a home, a dream job. I’d travelled the
world by the time I was twenty-three. I’d seen everything most people don’t
have a chance to see until they retire. I’d done it all…but look at me—I’ve got
nothing. Seeing Summer with Emily, and when she’s with Tate, it makes me
realise
I’ve been holding onto a fantasy. At the end of the
day I have absolutely nothing that means a damn thing.”

“You don’t need to face
Trèago
to change that,” Del said quietly, still holding her tightly.

“I do. I can’t start
over with him haunting me. I
won’t
take
him into a new life. I want to end this.” She turned in his arms, looked up
into his beautiful, rugged face and felt everything calm.

Del stared down into
her eyes, the blue now a stormy, Caribbean sea, “Then we do it together,
because there’s no way I’m letting that bastard take anything else from you,”
he vowed, in that deep gravely voice she’d had a love/ hate relationship with
for the last two years.

No man had ever evoked
such a fierce longing and hunger inside her before. His lips were strong and
warm—sure of what they wanted and she kissed him back—her hands clenching the
fabric of his shirt tightly as a wave of need washed through her.

She felt Del’s hands move down
over her hips and cup her bottom, lifting her so that her legs wrapped tightly
around his waist as he carried her over to the bed. She broke from their
fevered kisses to run her lips down his neck, feeling a shiver and hearing his
throaty moan in response. A spark of hot, hard pleasure shot through the entire
length of her body at the sound.

Gently,
he lowered her onto the bed. Pulling his shirt off and undoing the button of
his jeans, he stared down at her with a look that made her thankful she was
already laying down because she was certain her knees would have gone weak…and
she wasn’t the weak-at-the-knees
kinda
gal!

“You’re so beautiful.”

His words sent an
unexpected rush of heat to her cheeks…had this come from any other man—she’d
have rolled her eyes and inwardly cringed at the clichéd sweet talk. But the
look in Del’s
eyes as he caressed her with his gaze made her believe he meant it. Reaching
up, Willow
pulled him down to her, arching beneath him as he nuzzled her throat, making
his way down the column of her neck. Slowly, he undid the buttons down the
front of her shirt—his lips trailing warm kisses against the bare skin he revealed
in the process.

Hungry with need, Willow ran her own hands
down the length of his back, slipping beneath the band of his jeans. Her hands
slid over the hard, toned muscle of his backside to pull him tight against her.
She smiled at the sharp intake of his breath against her skin. “You’re wearing
too many clothes.”

“I’m not the only one,”
he countered, and rolled off her to quickly dispense of his remaining,
bothersome clothing.

Willow
could only stare at
the man standing before her, so tall, naked and proud. Her throat closed up as
a rush of emotion threatened to pour out. Standing before him, she held his
smouldering
gaze as she stepped out of her clothes and took
a step toward him, gasping at the first contact of hot skin against skin.

His hands ran the
length of her back and lower. Pulling her tightly against him—locked together
tightly. When frustration and need for more could no longer be contained, Willow pushed at him
impatiently until he backed toward the bed and lay back slowly. Following him
down, she straddled his hips and leaned forward to pin his arms above his
head—the movement bringing her breasts to his mouth level. A long, wanton moan
tore through her, followed by a shudder of pure ecstasy.

She felt him harden and
grow beneath her and all rational thought flew from her mind. Need, white-hot
and desperate, soon overtook them, sucking all the oxygen from the room and
taking with it all the fears and uncertainties that hung above them for the
rest of the afternoon.

*
* * *

“Are you sure you want
to go through with this, Sheldon?” Del
asked, his hand on the doorknob, blocking their exit early the next morning.

Willow
searched his eyes.
“Help me end it, Del,”
she asked him quietly.

He stared down into her
upturned face and slanted his mouth across her own gently. “We’ll end it, but
then we’re going to settle this thing between us once and for all, understand?
No running away, no brushing me off…got it?”

Blinking, slightly
dazed by the unexpected caress, she could only manage a slight nod, taking a
deep breath and forcing a wobbly smile of confidence to her lips.

Pushing down on the
door handle, he swung the door open and stepped outside ahead of her, his eyes
already scanning the area and back in Marine mode once more.

They decided to head
directly into Waikiki and mingle with the
tourists, holding hands and trying to look as though they had nothing except
each other on their mind. Other than the fact Del was wearing an earpiece and dividing his
attention between listening to orders and making conversation, they could
easily be mistaken for a pair of honeymooners.

“Can you see anyone out
there?” she murmured as they strolled along the beach and ate ice cream.

“Nope, which is a
refreshing surprise, I was half expecting the FBI to stand out like…” He paused
and Willow automatically
jumped in.

“Dogs balls? Like tits
on a bull?” she threw in helpfully, amused that he seemed to think she’d lived
in a nunnery or something.

“Damn, Sheldon, where
do you come up with this stuff?” he asked, looking down at her in horrified
amusement.

“I’m Australian.”

“It would really help
if you could speak English,” he muttered.

“Says he, who thinks
all we do all day is wrestle crocs in the outback. You really need an education
in Australian culture,” Willow scoffed.

“Maybe you should
introduce me…after this, you can take me on a road trip around Australia and
educate me,” he said, lifting his eyes automatically to scan their position.

“Maybe I should,” she
said, licking a stray drip off her cone as the ice cream wilted beneath the hot
sun.

The noise of happy
tourists and laughing children running in and out of the water, made it easy to
forget at any moment an assassin’s bullet could hit either one of them. Maybe
that was the reason his casual suggestion of a road trip held so much appeal.
Once she would have simply laughed it off, but this time she was actually
giving it serious consideration, even finding her mind busy plotting out an
itinerary and thinking over things of interest to include on the trip.