Playing For Keeps (Montana Men) (2 page)

Chapter One

More important
than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself and
enjoy the pursuit of your dreams.

~Amy Grant

McLean, Virginia

CIA Headquarters

February 16, Monday

Seven hours before the assassination…

Duel
Remington pushed open the door to Special Agent Mac Bradshaw’s office and
quietly stepped inside. He hadn’t seen his ex-partner and friend in over a
year, and today was Mac’s last day on the job. Duel decided this was probably
his only opportunity to wish the older man well with his retirement.

Although
they hadn’t worked as a team in over five years, when they had, and the bullets
started flying, he and Mac had covered each other’s sixes on many assignments
together. If they hadn’t, one or both of them would have died, or been captured
behind enemy lines.

Early
on, they’d been dubbed the Montana Duo, even though Mac was from Utah. But as
one of the agents said, ‘Don’t expect me to remember any state west of New
York,’ so no one bothered to keep his and Mac’s home states separate in their
minds. Because they were both from the West, they’d been lumped together as
one, and the moniker, Montana Duo, stuck.

Angie Hillcrest, Mac’s long time secretary, had her back
to him when Duel entered the spacious office of his former associate. In one
hand, she held a sheaf of papers and the other was busy flipping through files
he knew held some pretty dicey information.

With a soft snip, the door closed behind him.

Looking over her shoulder, Angie’s slender face lit up.
“Oh, my goodness, Desperado, it’s so good to see you back. You’ve been away
much too long.” Angie shoved the bundle of papers in the drawer, shut it and
turned the lock. The little silver key vanished inside the pleated depths of
the pocket in her pale pink suit jacket. She hurried to him, arms wide for a
bear hug.

Petite, silver haired, thin as a rail, and wearing
over-sized glasses, she greeted him with a buzzed kiss to his cheek. She leaned
away, running a motherly eye over his face. “You look like crap! You’ve lost
weight. Don’t they feed you at that ranch of yours out there in the wilderness?
When did you last eat? Sleep? How’s your brother? Have you heard anything about
Dianna? We’ve kept our ears tuned to CNN.”

Duel forced a smile and hugged the
sixtyish
lady back. He ignored the numerous personal questions
she’d rattled off at him like a drill sergeant concerning his eating habits,
and concentrated on answering the ones about his family instead. “Jace is
recovering with Kaycee’s help.”

“Kaycee? That’s his new wife?”

“Yes.” Duel nodded and released her. “We haven’t heard
from Dianna. And CNN is a nightmare with all the speculation about where the
plane might have gone down and whether she and Kaycee’s brother survived the
impact or not. It’s tough waiting for word. Is Mac still around?”

“Sorry, Desperado, you missed him by five minutes.”

Duel grinned. Angie had always called him Desperado. No
matter how often he reminded her of his name, she refused to call him anything
else. She once warned him if he ever stopped wearing shit-kickers to the
office, then she’d call him Slick. He preferred Desperado. “I wanted to
congratulate him on his retirement, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I
suppose he left early to beat the storm moving in or was he just avoiding
good-byes?”

“A bit of both, I think. I guess he told you he was forced
to retire. But you know Mac, he does hate driving on the ice, and the forecast
sounds pretty grim. He wasn’t avoiding you, but…” Her voice trailed away and
she shrugged rather pitifully.

Duel patted Angie on the shoulder. “How did he take it?
Retiring early?”

Angie hesitated, then sighed. “Just as you imagine. I
might as well tell you, you’ll hear it anyway. Mac was forced to leave the
agency because he’s involved.”

“Involved?” Duel lifted a brow. “How so?”

She blinked like an owl behind the large frames of her
glasses. “You know…
involved,”
she
stressed.

“You mean he’s having an affair?” He whistled softly. “No
way. Mac is nuts about Marie. He’d never cheat on her.”

“He has…he
is.
I
saw the prescription for Viagra on his desk.” Her face turned bright pink at
the statement. “I wasn’t snooping, but it was right there, plain as day when I
placed some papers in front of him to sign.”

Duel laughed. “It doesn’t mean he’s cheating on Marie.
Hell, sounds to me like Mac was keeping Marie a happy woman.”

Angie shook her head. “No. You don’t know what it’s been
like here. The rumor mill is hot. You know as well as I…where there’s
smoke…besides, Mac was caught in a compromising clutch with the woman. Marie
found out about them and her being Latin and all with that hot temper, she left
him and filed for divorce. She won’t even talk to Mac.”

“Who’s the woman?”

“Humph!”
Angie
shoved her glasses back in place and shook her silver head. Her blue eyes
snapped with annoyance. “Trouble, that’s what she is. Uses her walk, I tell
you, parading around in those tight skinny skirts and spiky heels, making eyes
at all the men.” She patted her smooth hair, checking for loose strands that
might have dared to escape the tight chignon she’d scraped it into. “I never
bothered to go to the trouble to find out her name. We don’t run in the same
circles, if you know what I mean.” She sniffed with righteous indignation. “She
hasn’t worked here long…just long enough to sink her red-painted talons in poor
Mac. It cost him his job, his wife, and all the males are panting after her
like she’s a bitch in heat…the secretary, not poor Marie.”

Duel grinned. “I’m sure Marie is thankful, too.”

She paused and flashed her burning gaze over him. “You
watch out for yourself, Desperado. That woman’s a money-hungry, gold-digging
little tart if ever there was one.”

Angie walked around her desk, unlocked the top drawer and
retrieved her gray leather purse. “Just yesterday, I saw with my own eyes, Mac
pushing a wad of bills in her hand. Course, she acted all smarmy like,
pretended she didn’t want it, but in the end, she walked away stuffing the
money in that push-up, thirty-four C-cup…all that cleavage…and it was all
hundreds.”

Duel blinked. “Hundreds?” He’d got lost somewhere between
the C-cup and the cleavage. Damn, he’d always been a boob man. Thirty-four C—
more
than a mouthful
—
l
ucky
Mac.

“I know there was at least a thousand dollars,” Angie
said, “if not more, ‘cause I got him the cash out of his safe…two thousand
bucks. He hadn’t been anywhere to spend it…all hundreds, I tell you. I bet he
gave every dime of it to her, too. No wonder poor Marie left him.”

“Huh.” Okay. Leaving the cup size and cleavage behind,
Duel managed to jerk his mind back to the conversation with Angie. “Why did he
give her money?”

“You know I don’t like to gossip
—
”

“I know, Angie.” Duel’s lips twitched.

“
—
and
I wouldn’t say a word if I wasn’t worried about Mac, you know that.”

“I do.”

“But I tell you, it doesn’t look good.” She flipped off
the light and followed him out the door.

“You know how rumors spread here, Angie, half the time
that’s exactly what it is…gossip and lies.”

“I know, and any other time I’d agree with you, Desperado.
But yesterday, Mac and that
tramp
spent the entire afternoon away from here, and it wasn’t the first time,
either. When they got back, that hussy’s lips were bare, that red-devil hair of
hers all mussed, you know…like there’d been a lot of tussling in bed.” She
lowered her voice. “Sex in the afternoon, a man his age and with a young
woman…why, it’s a wonder poor Mac doesn’t drop dead from a heart attack.”

Duel kept his face sober. “But think what a happy man he’d
be, Ange, dying in paradise.”

Angie paused to glare at him. “This is no joke, Desperado.
I’m dead serious here. They came back and that evil woman…well,” she lowered
her voice, “she wasn’t wearing her bra or her hose. You tell me what you think they
were doing for three hours…and her return here without her lip-gloss on,
bare-legged, and her boobs unharnessed.” She sniffed. “Disgraceful, I tell you.
Course, they’re so firm, one can hardly tell the difference, but a lady doesn’t
go out in public without her harness, lip-gloss, or her hose. And it doesn’t
take a genius to figure out what he was paying her good money for. Poor Mac,
like I said, you watch out for her.”

Duel coughed and knew he dare not let Angie hear him
laugh. Poor Mac, indeed,
he
should be
so lucky. “Just how firm are they?”

“What?” Angie blinked.

“You said they’re firm. I assume you’re talking about the
thirty-four Cs.”

“Land’s sake, Desperado, I’d never say something like
that. How would I know if they’re firm or not? But don’t you worry ‘bout how
compact that hussy’s breasts are. She’s trouble with a capital T.”

“I’ll be on guard.” Duel made a cross with his fingers.
“I’ll ward her away. I promise.” Quickly, he bid Angie goodbye and left her to
lock Mac’s office and go her own way. He headed down the corridor toward the
row of elevators. Wow. He couldn’t believe his old friend had let a woman cost
him his wife and job, but it was none of his business.

Anyway, he was too tired to dwell on it. Mac was old
enough to live with his mistakes, and the price he paid for them.

Duel smothered a yawn. God, he didn’t think he’d ever been
this mentally or physically exhausted. Angie’s chatter and gossip had pulled
him out his slump momentarily, but for sure, he didn’t feel like pushing his
way through hordes of people all trying to squeeze inside the first available
elevator going down, not when he needed to go up two floors to the sixth floor.

He rubbed the back of his neck where a steady ache
reminded him he was on the edge. There’d been enough stress in his family the
last few days to break anyone. Weary to the bone, the fluorescent lighting
aggravated the tension headache that had settled between his eyes hours ago.
Nothing he took knocked it. He had a feeling the only thing that was going to give
him relief was a solid twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. Something that
wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

The nerves in his stomach jittered. It felt like a million
ants raced around willy-nilly in his gut. The strain of the last ten days was
finally catching up with him. Any minute now, he expected to crash and burn.

Duel scratched the stubble covering his jaws and chin. He
frowned. Whiskers? Hell, when had he last shaved? He probably looked like an
outlaw on a wanted poster.

Mac’s secretary nicknamed him Desperado, referring to a
television series from the 80s. She’d said not only did he remind her of the
actor, Alex McArthur, who played Desperado at the time, but that Duel was the
same as the character McArthur portrayed, tough when he had to be, plain-spoken
and dangerous.

Angie had a habit of comparing him to one outlaw or
another, but since he’d never watched the
Desperado
series, he couldn’t agree or disagree. However, he was pretty sure that at the
moment, he looked the part.

Stroking a fingertip along the thick stubble of his jaw,
he winced. No wonder Angie had said he looked like crap. Hell, he felt like
shit. But life, normal routine anyway, had screeched to a halt when the plane
his sister Dianna was flying crashed somewhere in Western Australia with one
passenger aboard, Taylor Spencer.
Not knowing if either of them survived
was like having a thorn shoved in his heart
—
a steady pain that never ceased.

Just hours before the incident, hi
s eldest brother
Jace was shot by the notorious serial killer, Smitt Davis. Jace had nearly died
from the gunshot wound. His brother was now home at the Dancing Star ranch,
having been released from the hospital, but his complete recovery was going to
take time.

Lacey Blackstone was another victim of Davis. The poor
woman had barely survived the violent attack on her by the insane killer. Yeah.
Sleep had become a luxury. Duel couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full
night’s slumber or a decent meal.

He eyed the throng of people who’d massed around the
elevators and wished fervently he could simply find a quiet corner somewhere
and close his eyes. Impatient to get to the floor he needed to be on, he knew
he’d used up his quota of tolerance just flying to D.C. He sighed. Ordinarily
there wouldn’t be this big a crowd so early, waiting for the elevators, but
several of the various offices on the fourth floor were shutting down in
anticipation of the blizzard moving in from the west. In a few hours, the
streets and highways would be too slick for any sane person to risk driving.
Those who drove home wanted to beat the predicted arrival of sleet and snow,
including his friend, Mac Bradshaw.

Duel frowned at the horde. Nothing left to do now but
track down Travis Bradley, his current partner, then report to the boss,
Samantha Rivers. Feeling edgy and not keen on waiting with the pack jammed
around the elevators, nevertheless, he joined the throng and tried not to let
his annoyance show as he waited his turn. If he wasn’t so dog-tired, he’d take
the stairs.

He figured some of the urgency of the swarm waiting
impatiently wasn’t all related to the snowstorm headed their way. There was
always an important dinner party somewhere in D.C., and most of the social
climbers were willing to risk life and limb to make the guest list at any one
of them.