Dangerous to Know (35 page)

“I didn't mean to pull that trigger,” McGowan stated flatly. “Not when I did, anyway.”

“I know.”

“I would have, though. I would've shot you both if I thought you'd harmed Taylor.”

The whine of the engines pulled at Adam. He needed to coordinate a final approach for Cowboy. To check the disposition of his meager forces. To make sure Maggie was secure. But the bleak expression in the caretaker's eyes held him for another second.

“You love her that much?”

A flicker of pain crossed McGowan's face, one that had nothing to do with his wound.

“About as much as you love that woman, I reckon,” McGowan said quietly. His gaze drifted to Maggie, a slender shadow against the snow. “They're a lot alike, aren't they? Her and Taylor?”

“Many ways. And nothing alike in others.” Adam started back to the hut. “I'll send Herrera out with your rifle.”

“Ridgeway?”

“Yes?”

“Good luck. Take care of your woman.”

A wry smile tugged at Adam's lips. “She prefers to take care of herself.”

 

It was over almost before it began.

Scant moments after the hut's occupants took position in the trees surrounding the hut, a wave of dim shapes burst into the open meadow. They raced across the snow, throwing up waves of white behind their skis. The first few were halfway across when a Cobra gunship lifted above the dark peaks directly behind them.

Maggie couldn't see the chopper, since it flew without lights,
but she heard it. The steady
whump-whump-whump
of its rotor blades drowned the sound of the approaching snowmobiles.

When they caught the sound of the chopper behind them, the attackers swerved crazily. Gunfire erupted, and streaming tracers lit the night sky. The cacophony of noise intensified with the appearance of a second gunship, then a third.

The choppers circled the swarming vehicles like heavenly herders trying to corral stampeding mechanized cattle. Blinding searchlights turned night into day. One of the 50 mm cannons bristling from the nose of the lead gunship boomed, and a fountain of snow arched into the sky.

One after another, the buzzing snowmobiles stopped. Their white-suited drivers jumped off, hands held high, while the giant black moths circled overhead.

Only two mounted attackers escaped the roundup. The first dodged across the snow and headed for the trees behind the hut. The second followed in his tracks, almost riding up the other's rear skis.

From her high perch, Maggie took careful aim. She wasn't about to let even one of these scum get away. As soon as the second vehicle entered the ring outlined in the snow by the scattered brush, neither one of them was coming out. No one in their right mind would drive a gasoline-powered snowmobile though the flames about to erupt.

Her finger tightened on the trigger just as a white shape flew out of the trees. Maggie's shot ignited a flash bomb at the same moment Radizwell crashed into the lead driver, knocking him off his churning vehicle.

Flames shot into the sky and raced around the ring of gasoline-soaked brush. Two drivers and one savage, snarling komondor were trapped inside a circle of fire. Horrified, Maggie saw the second driver jump off his snowmobile. Lifting his automatic rifle, he spun toward the dog and his thrashing victim.

In a smooth, lightning-fast movement, Maggie braced her wrist against the limb, took aim and fired. With a sharp crack, the driver's weapon flew out of his hand. When another warning shot threw up a clump of snow just in front of him, he dropped
to his knees. Rocking back and forth, he clutched his injured hand to his chest.

Maggie had shimmied halfway down the tree when she caught sight of a dark figure running toward the wall of flames. Bending his arm in front of his face, he disappeared into the fire.

“Adam!” Her instinctive cry was lost in the fire's roar.

By the time Maggie leaped through the fiery wall and joined him, Adam had the injured driver covered, and Radizwell had terrorized and almost tenderized the other. Adam held the straining animal with one hand while the man scuttled backward, crab-like.

“I don't know!” he shouted.

“Talk, or I let him loose!” Adam snarled, as fearsome as the creature at his side.

“I told you, I don't know who hired us!”

Adam relaxed his grip enough for Radizwell to leap for the man's boot. Clamping his massive jaws around it, he shook his head. The driver screamed as his whole body lifted with each shake, then thumped back down in the snow.

“Call him off! I swear, I don't know!”

Maggie skidded to a halt beside Adam. She watched the man's frantic gyrations with great satisfaction.

“Have him chew on his face for a while,” she suggested, loudly enough to be heard over the growls and cries. “It will improve his looks, if nothing else.”

Evidently Radizwell had reached the same conclusion. He spit out the boot and lunged forward. The man screamed and threw up an arm. At the last moment, Adam buried a fist in the woolly ruff and hauled the dog back.

“You've got five seconds. Then I let him go.”

“I don't know,” the man sobbed. “Our instructions come to a post office box, unsigned. The money's deposited in an account at the bank.”

Adam stiffened. “Which bank?”

“What?”

“Which bank?”

“First Bank. In Miami.”

 

The three choppers settled on the snow like hens nesting for the night. In the blinding glare of their powerful searchlights, a heavily armed counterstrike team rounded up the band of attackers and stripped them down to search for weapons.

A tall, lanky figure left the circle of activity and plowed through the snow toward the ring of fire.

“Thunder? Chameleon?”

“Here!” Maggie shouted.

Leaping over dwindling flames, Cowboy came to an abrupt halt. He pushed his Denver Broncos ball cap to the back of his head, surveying the scene.

A white-suited figure with his hands behind his head stumbled forward in front of Maggie, who covered him with the puniest excuse for a weapon Cowboy had ever seen. Adam knelt in the snow to retrieve a semiautomatic. And a mound of shaggy white perched atop the stomach of a downed attacker, fangs bared. A series of spine-tingling growls rolled toward Cowboy, and he didn't make the mistake of moving any closer.

He shook his head in mingled amusement and relief. “Here I bring the cavalry chargin' to the rescue, and you didn't even need us. You've got your own…” He jerked his chin toward the still-growling creature. “What
is
that thing, anyway?”

“A Hungarian dust mop,” Maggie said.

“A Hungarian sheepdog,” Adam corrected.

The Hungarian in question snarled menacingly.

“Not exactly a hospitable sort, is he?”

Maggie shook her head emphatically. “No.”

“Yes,” Adam countered. “Once he gets acquainted with you.”

“Well, we'll have to get acquainted some other time. My orders are to get you back to Sacramento immediately. Jaguar's got a plane standing by to fly us to D.C.”

“Why the rush?” Maggie asked.

She was as anxious as he to bring down the final curtain on this mission, but she'd thought—hoped—she and Adam would have at least an hour or two at the cabin to clean up and finish
one or more of the several interesting discussions they'd started in the past few days.

“Jaguar radioed just before we landed. The vice president's completed those treaty negotiations faster than she or anyone else thought possible. She's flying in from Camp David, and insists on resuming her public persona. Death threat or no death threat, she wants to be at the press conference tomorrow when the president announces the treaty. He's calling you in.”

A
s it turned out, the entire ragged band flew back to Sacramento with Maggie and Adam.

A grim-faced Denise Kowalski insisted on accompanying her “charge” back to D.C. Hank McGowan set his jaw and refused to be taken to a hospital. He wanted to see with his own eyes that Taylor was safe. A medic with the counter-strike team packed and patched his wound on the spot.

To Maggie's disgust, even the dog got into the act. He whined pathetically when Adam climbed aboard the chopper and refused to remove his massive body from a skid. Forced to choose between ordering the pilot to lift off with a hundred pounds of komondor on one track and taking the creature aboard, Adam had opened the side hatch. With a thunderous woof that had half a dozen well-armed counter-strike agents swinging around, weapons leveled, Radizwell leaped into the cabin.

With his odoriferous presence, the air in the helicopter took on a distinct aroma. After a day of strenuous physical activity followed by a night that had raised Maggie's nervous-tension levels well beyond the stage of a discreet, ladylike dew, she
wanted nothing more than a bath, a good meal and Adam, not necessarily in that order. For a few more hours, though, she had to maintain her role.

With unerring skill, the chopper pilot put his craft down a few yards from the gleaming 747 that waited for them, engines whining. The media, alerted to the vice president's departure by the presence of Air Force Two, crowded at the edge of the ramp. Realizing that this might be her last public appearance as the vice president of the United States, Maggie gave them a grin and a wave as she walked to the aircraft. Luckily, the night was too dark and the photographers were too far away to record the precise details of Taylor Grant's less-than-immaculate appearance, much less the blackened hole in the front of her ski jacket left by a 44-40 rifle shell.

The diminutive martinet who waited for her inside the 747 saw it at once, however. Lillian's black eyes rounded as she gaped at Maggie's middle.

“Good heavens! Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

Her face folding into lines of tight disapproval, the dresser scowled at Denise, who entered the plane behind Adam. “You told me she'd been attacked down at the lake. But you didn't tell me she was hit.”

“She wasn't,” Denise said wearily, dragging a hand through her sandy hair. “Not down at the lake. McGowan put a bullet through her, or tried to.”

“Hank?” Lillian's gray eyebrows flew up. “Hank shot the vice president?”

The uniformed stewards ranged around the huge cabin listened with wide-eyed astonishment. All the crew knew was that a call from the president had cut short the vice president's scheduled vacation. And that an “accident” of some sort had occurred just prior to their departure from the cabin for Sacramento.

“It was a mistake,” Denise said, confirming the story. “One McGowan's already paid for,” she added. “I put a bullet through his shoulder.”

“Good heavens!” Lillian repeated faintly.

“She's a damn hard woman,” the caretaker stated, panting. He leaned a forearm against the bulkhead to catch his breath. The effort of climbing the stairs had pearled his face with sweat and darkened a spot on the shoulder of the jacket he'd borrowed from Herrera. He'd insisted on coming along, but it had obviously cost him.

The arrival of Cowboy, Herrera and an enthusiastically sniffing Radizwell snapped Lillian into action. In her best drill-sergeant manner, she took charge.

“I've laid out clean clothes in your stateroom, Mrs. Grant. I knew you'd want to shower and change as soon as we took off. Hank, you come with me. I'll look at that shoulder. Steward! Take this animal to the aft compartment. He stinks!”

“The understatement of the year,” Maggie murmured.

Unfortunately, Radizwell refused to be separated from his pal, Adam. Maggie suspected the delicious aromas wafting from the galley had something to do with his fierce, growling stance. The hound wanted his share.

So did she. As her nose picked up the mouth-watering scents, her bruised stomach sent out a series of growls very close to Radizwell's in volume and intensity. Suddenly Maggie realized she could fulfill all three of her most immediate needs and still maintain her role.

“Why don't you come with me, Adam?” she suggested. Keeping her tone light, for the stewards' sake, she nodded toward the forward compartment. “You said you needed to contact your people to let them know about our change of plans. You can use my office while I shower and change. Then we can have a bite to eat.”

“Fine.”

“We'll serve as soon as we're airborne,” the head steward added helpfully. “We've prepared a vegetable quiche for Mrs. Grant, but perhaps you'd prefer a steak, sir?”

“Steak,” Adam replied, his eyes glinting. “Definitely the steak.”

 

In the privacy of the well-appointed bathroom, Maggie made free use of various sundries kept on hand for the vice president.
It was amazing how much a toothbrush and the prospect of soothing, perfumed lotion after a hot shower could revitalize a woman.

The prospect of the hot shower itself was even more revitalizing. Eagerly Maggie shed her boots and socks, along with the turtleneck and brown pleated pants, now a great deal the worse for their wear. Her movements slowed a bit when it came to removing the bodysuit.

Wincing, she twisted to one side to reach the Velcro straps. Her stomach muscles screamed a protest as the supporting shield fell away. Using both hands, she lifted the hem of her thermal undershirt, then froze. Her jaw dropping, she surveyed the effects of the rifle shell in the bathroom mirror.

A bruise the size of a dinner plate painted her middle in various shades of green and purple, with touches of yellow and blue thrown in for dramatic emphasis. She gulped at the dramatic colorama, then tugged the shirt over her head and bent to push off the bottoms. An involuntary “Ooooch” escaped her when she tried to straighten up.

Realizing that she might have to adjust the scope of her plans for the next few hours or so, Maggie padded to the glass-enclosed shower. Under her bare feet, the floor vibrated with the power of the 747's huge engines. While she waited for the water to heat, Maggie let her appreciative gaze roam the wood-paneled bath.

Air Force Two was a model of efficient luxury. It had to be. It served as a second home for the vice president on her frequent trips around the globe. Just as her predecessors had, Taylor Grant represented the president at everything from weddings to funerals of various heads of state. This duty required extensive traveling, so much so that Mrs. Bush had once quipped that the vice president's seal should read Have Funeral, Will Travel.

Maggie smiled at the thought and stepped into the shower. With a groan of pleasure, she lifted her face to the pulsing jets and let the hot water sluice down her body. Sighing in sybaritic
gratification, she dropped her arms to her sides while heat needled her shoulders and breasts.

She was still standing in a boneless, motionless lump when the shower door opened.

“The steward just served your dinner,” Adam said, his face grave. “Having experienced firsthand how testy you get when you're hungry, I thought I'd better let you know immediately.”

“Thank you,” Maggie replied, equally grave, as though she weren't standing before him completely naked.

Through the mist of the escaping steam, she saw that he'd taken advantage of the selection of sundries in one of the other bathrooms, as well. The dark bristles shadowing his cheeks and chin were gone, and he'd made an attempt to tame his black hair. He'd scrounged up a clean white shirt, but wore the same snug jeans and ski boots.

Adam appeared just as interested in her state of dress, or undress, as she was in his. In a slow sweep, his gaze traveled from her face to neck to her breasts. Maggie felt her nipples harden under his intimate inspection, and a twist of love at the sudden pain in his eyes when he saw her stomach.

“Remind me to give the chief of Field Dress a superior performance bonus when this is over,” he said fiercely. “A big one.”

Maggie was too busy enjoying the blaze of emotion on his face to spare more than a passing thought for the pudgy, frizzy-haired genius who'd produced her torturous corset. A fiery warmth that had nothing to do with the water steaming up the shower enclosure coursed through her belly, and her muscles contracted involuntarily. Maggie ignored the stabbing ache in her middle and focused instead on the ache building a little lower.

Lifting his gaze to hers, he smiled. His eyes held a tender softness in their blue depths that Maggie had never seen before. One that intensified the liquid heat gathering low in her belly.

“Do you want to eat now, or later?”

“Now,” she told him with a grin. “And later.”

As she watched Adam strip off his clothes, Maggie thought
she'd melt from the sizzling combination of hot water and spiraling desire and disappear down the shower drain in a rivulet of need. From a snow cave to a 747, she thought. From under the ground to a mile above it. From an attack beside a frozen lake to a ring of fire beside a deserted shack. Out of all the missions she'd ever been on, she knew this one would always remain vividly emblazoned in her mind.

And when Adam stepped inside and closed the shower door behind him, Maggie knew the expression in his eyes would always—always!—remain imprinted in her heart.

Water streamed over his broad shoulders and down his chest as he buried his hands in her wet hair. Tilting her face to his, he smiled down at her.

“I love you, Chameleon. In all your guises. But I love you in this one most.”

His use of her code name gave Maggie a little dart of pleasure, then one of pain. Her personal relationship with Adam was so inextricably bound to her professional one. Yet she knew in her heart that couldn't continue. They'd stepped through the barriers that separated them, and there was no stepping back. Not now. Not ever.

“I love you, too,” she whispered, sliding her palms up the planes of his water-slick chest. “In all your guises. Special envoy. Director. Code name Thunder. Plain ol' Adam Ridgeway. But I love you in this one the most.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought his mouth down to hers. He tasted of warm, rich brandy. Of smoky fire. Of Adam.

Rising up on her toes, she brought her body into his. She managed to contain her startled gasp when her bruised tummy connected with his, but he didn't miss the tiny, involuntary flinch. Sliding his hands down the curve of her waist, he grasped her hips gently and pushed her away.

She murmured an inarticulate protest.

Guiding her gently, he rotated her slick body until she faced the wall. “Like this, my darling,” he whispered in her ear. “Like this. I don't want to hurt you.”

Maggie discovered that “this” wasn't bad, after all. In fact, she thought on a gasp of pure pleasure, “this” was wonderful. Adam's broad chest felt solid and strong and sleek against her back. The way he reached around to mold her breasts with both hands sent waves of sensation washing through her. The touch of her bare bottom against his belly was even more electrifying. Hard and rampant and fully erect, he pressed against her.

Bracing her palms on the shower tiles, Maggie arched her back. Her head twisted, and he bent to take her mouth. While his tongue and hers met in a slow, sensual dance, his hands played with her nipples. With each tug and twist, fire streaked from Maggie's breasts to her belly. With each nip of his teeth against her lower lip, she felt the sting of need in her loins.

When his hands left her breasts to brush with a feather-light touch down her middle, her pelvis arched to meet them. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he parted her folds and opened her to his touch and the pelting of the pulsing water. Maggie gasped at the exquisite sensation.

“Adam! I don't think— I can't hold— Oh!”

“Don't think,” he growled in her ear. “Don't hold back. Let me love you, Maggie. Let me feed your soul, as you feed mine.”

 

When her soul had been fed, twice, and Adam's at least once, they decided it was time to feed their bodies. While he used one of the fluffy towels monogrammed with the vice president's seal to dry himself, Maggie pulled on a thick, sinfully soft terry robe.

Plopping herself down on a vanity stool, she treated herself to a spectacular view of Adam's lean flanks and tight white buns as she towel-dried her hair.

“Mmm… Nice.” Her fingers curled into the towel. “Maybe that steak could wait a few more minutes.”

“The steak might, but Radizwell probably won't. I left him sniffing around the office. If we don't get back in there, he's liable to—”

“Adam!” Sheer panic sliced through Maggie. Throwing the towel aside, she jumped off the stool. “You didn't leave that animal in the same room with my steak, did you?”

The terry-cloth robe flapped against her legs as she rushed through the paneled bedroom and threw open the door to the office.

“I'm going to shoot him!”

Hands on hips, Maggie glared at the shaggy creature stretched out contentedly beside the litter of dishes he'd pushed off the table onto the floor, all of which were licked clean. Sublimely indifferent to her anger, Radizwell raised his head, thumped his tail at Adam a couple of times, then yawned and laid his head back down.

“I'll shoot him!” Maggie snarled again. “I'll skin him. I'll—”

“Strange,” Adam murmured. “McGowan said Taylor threatened to do the same.”

“It's not strange,” Maggie fumed. “It's natural. It's possible. It's very likely, in fact, that someone will do so in the very near future. Why Taylor would keep this obnoxious, smelly, greedy beast is beyond me.”

“Probably for the same reasons you keep a bug-eyed reptile with a yard-long tongue.”