Devil in Dress Blues (4 page)

Rafe leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together over his flat stomach. The zippered opening of his leather jacket fell apart and Sara could read the white lettering on his T-shirt.

You can run, but you’ll just die tired.

Unbidden, an image flitted through her head. Rafe pursuing her. Rafe capturing her. Rafe doing things to her that she’d only ever fantasized about. She might die tired, but she’d die happy.

Disconcerted, Sara bent over her little pad of paper and pretended to take notes. The T-shirt was an immediate and vivid reminder of what this man did for a living, what he was committed to. She’d heard the stories about what the men who’d rescued the aid workers had been doing in Pakistan before the kidnapping. While the military had claimed the unit was in the country to provide security for the opening of an all-girls school that the Marine Corps had helped to finance, if the rumors—and Lauren—were to be believed, Rafe had actually been hunting some of the top Taliban leaders as part of an operation so covert the White House denied any knowledge of it.

“I have good friends who were killed or injured in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said, his voice so low that Sara had to strain to hear him. “The Semper Fi Fund helps their families by providing financial assistance when they need it the most.”

“But you do more than just provide financial support, isn’t that right?”

“We provide emotional support both to the soldier and to his family, that’s correct.”

Sara listened as Rafe told the story of one soldier who had been severely injured by an improvised explosive device, and had nearly died. To keep his spirits up and offer encouragement, his entire unit lined up each Sunday in Iraq to call him on the telephone.

“That’s a wonderful story,” Sara agreed. “During your speech at the charity ball the other night, you mentioned that you do work over at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Can you tell me about that?”

A sardonic smile lifted one corner of Rafe’s mouth, but didn’t reach his eyes. “I didn’t share that information because I’m looking for some kind of validation or recognition. What I do over at the hospital I do because those men are my brothers. They’re the true heroes. I just want to raise awareness about their situation.”

“You raise money to help their families pay their bills. You spend time with those men and you spend time with their families. I’d say you’re the true hero.”

Sara didn’t miss how his jaw tightened. “Don’t mistake me for a nice guy, Miss Sinclair. I’m no hero. If you had any idea what I do for a living, you wouldn’t even be sitting here with me.”

Drawing a deep breath, Sara didn’t allow herself time to think about her next words. If she did, she’d never find the courage to broach the subject. “I think there are three aid workers who would disagree with you. I’m sure that to them, you’re the epitome of a hero.”

To his credit, his expression never changed. The only indication of his surprise was a barely perceptible tightening of his muscles and a palpable tension in the air between them that Sara couldn’t miss, as if his entire body had tightly coiled. The subtle change in him was both frightening and fascinating.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice was quiet.

Sara held his dark gaze, although her insides were trembling and her palms were moist. “I think you do. You and your men were in Pakistan last month, presumably to guard dignitaries at the opening of a girls’ school in Peshawar, but we both know you were part of a covert operation to hunt the Taliban. Lucky for those women, you were also in a position to bring about their rescue.”

Unlacing his hands, Rafe placed them on the table, palms flat against the surface, and leaned forward. Sara found herself trapped in the unyielding blackness of his eyes, unable to look away. When he spoke, his voice was soft and whiskey-rough. “I don’t know where you got your information, Miss Sinclair, but if I were you, I’d get your facts straight before publishing a story that has no basis in fact, and could end up being an embarrassment to you and your magazine.”

Only the hard glitter in his dark eyes betrayed the fact he was completely and seriously pissed off. Not that Sara could blame him. If her editor was right and Sergeant Delgado really had been involved in rescuing the aid workers, her story could blow his cover as a covert Special-Operations soldier.

“I have a reliable source who says you were the mastermind behind the rescue,” she blurted. “It would make an amazing story if you’d be willing to talk about the rescue. And of course, the magazine would give a huge plug to the Semper Fi Fund.”

Rafe stared at her in astonishment for a moment and then laughed softly. “Jesus. I must be getting soft,” he muttered, and then pushed to his feet. “The interview is over, Miss Sinclair.”

Sara felt her heart drop and she stared at him in dismay. “Wait. What do you mean it’s over?”

He was angry. Sara could see it in every pore of his being. But when he spoke, his voice was almost gentle.

“I make it a policy never to speak to journalists, but you seemed so sincerely interested in talking about the Semper Fi Fund that I went against my better judgment and decided to meet with you.” He gave a snort of disgust. “But you’re not really interested in the injured marines, are you? You’d rather publish a story that’s not only classified information, but could put other marines at risk.” He stepped back from the table and pushed the chair in. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Sinclair, but you’ll have to get your dirt from someone else.”

Sara rose hastily to her feet. “No, wait,” she implored as he turned away. He angled his head toward her, his expression unfathomable, and waited.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to put anyone in danger. If I promise to keep your identity a secret, would you reconsider?”

His gaze swept over her once more, traveling down and back up her body to rest briefly on her mouth. For an instant, Sara thought she saw something like regret in his face.

“Goodbye, Miss Sinclair.”

She watched as he wended his way through the crowded terrace and then disappeared onto the main street. Realizing she was still standing and that several people at nearby tables were watching her with interest, Sara sat back down. The waiter appeared with a small tray and set a mug of hot chocolate down in front of her.

“Don’t bother with the coffee,” Sara muttered with an apologetic smile. “He’s gone.”

What had made Lauren think that he would ever agree to talk to her about the rescue? Worse, why had she agreed to ask him about it this way?

She groaned, wishing she could redo the interview, wishing she’d followed her instincts and not pretend to be interested in his charity work. What must he think of her? That she was a dirt-grubbing journalist who would do anything she could to get a story? Sara sighed. She couldn’t blame him for walking away. She’d have done the same thing had she been in his shoes. But what was she going to tell Lauren? Her editor had been counting on her.

The fragrant mug of hot chocolate steamed invitingly, but Sara was no longer interested in drinking it. She felt sick to her stomach as she contemplated Lauren’s reaction to her disastrous interview. She’d be furious. She’d certainly never invite Sara to another gala event like the charity ball. Instead, she’d be relegated to the ranks of the other junior contributors, writing trivial little articles with no substance.

Gathering up her notepad and the little black book, Sara was preparing to leave when she had the distinct sensation of being watched. Straightening, she glanced at the other patrons, but couldn’t find one person who seemed remotely interested in her. Still, the short hairs on the back of her neck tingled with awareness. Trying not to appear obvious, Sara searched the pathways and gardens beyond the cafè, but aside from the normal tourist traffic and business people enjoying the late-autumn afternoon, nothing struck her as unusual.

Still, the feeling of being watched persisted. Unsettled, Sara shoved the book and pad of paper into her pocketbook and placed some money on the table. She didn’t look around, but made her way through the cafè and out the front doors. Only when she found herself standing on the busy sidewalk did she breathe a little easier. Nobody was watching her; it was just her over-active imagination. But as she walked in the direction of her car, she couldn’t prevent herself from throwing a quick glance over her shoulder.

4

R
AFE NEEDED A DRINK
. Badly.

Leaving the Pavilion Cafè, he strode along Constitution Avenue until he saw a small pub and ducked inside. He ordered a Guinness and stood at a table near the windows, replaying the interview with Sara Sinclair again in his head.

He hadn’t wanted to meet with her, hadn’t wanted to be sucked in by the radiance of her smile or the guilelessness in her blue eyes. He’d told himself that nobody could be that sincere, and he’d been right. Sara Sinclair wore her open-faced, Ivory-girl looks like a mask, deceiving those around her into believing that she had only their best interests at heart, while hiding her true nature. In that regard, she was exactly like Ann Lonquist, the woman who’d turned him off journalists.

He could still recall the night he and his men had infiltrated the compound where she and the other aid workers had been held by Taliban forces. Up until that point, the rescue mission had gone smoothly. His team had neutralized the guards positioned around the compound, and within minutes they had found the workers locked in a room deep inside the building.

He and his men had swiftly evaluated the women’s physical condition. They were exhausted and frightened, but unharmed. The youngest woman, Ann Lonquist, had clung to him, and Rafe had felt his protective instincts kick into high gear. For just an instant, he’d imagined himself as the big he-man hero and her as the helpless damsel in distress. Then his professional training had kicked in and he’d pushed the fantasy aside. They’d begun working their way out of the compound, using their own bodies to shield the women, when they’d encountered a top Taliban leader. The man had been walking almost absent-mindedly through the corridor, turning an expensive camera over in his hands. The expression of horrified surprise on his face when he rounded the corner and saw Rafe’s team of Special Ops soldiers might have been comical if their situation hadn’t been so perilous. There was no question in Rafe’s mind that he could have eliminated the man without making a sound or rousing any of the other Taliban, but Ann had given a low cry of outrage.

“That’s my camera!”

She’d darted forward, but had been restrained by one of Rafe’s men. Cursing, Rafe had launched himself at the enemy, just as the man jerked a gun out of his belt and fired wildly in their direction, striking Staff Sergeant Brody in the upper leg.

Then all hell had erupted.

They still might have gotten out unscathed had Ann Lonquist not stopped to retrieve her camera and snap several photos of the now-dead Taliban leader. Rafe had hauled her upward by her arm and literally dragged her alongside him, firing his weapon with his free hand as insurgents pursued them, while she continued clicking the shutter.

“What the hell are you doing?” he’d roared.

“Documenting the rescue,” she’d gasped, squirming in his grasp.

Rafe had responded by yanking the camera away and shoving it into a pouch on his belt. “Now move your ass,” he’d growled at her, “or I’ll damned well leave you here.”

Her pretty blue eyes had widened, but she’d snapped her mouth shut and allowed him to shove her ahead of him through the corridors. As he and his men hurried the women toward the exit, gunfire had erupted all around them, and a second man, Sergeant Hager, went down with a muffled cry. Rafe had hauled him up by his flak jacket and supported his weight as they’d made their escape. They’d planted several explosive devices around the compound hours earlier, and now Rafe’s men began methodically detonating them. In the ensuing confusion, the team managed to slip into the surrounding darkness with the aid workers, and they hadn’t stopped until they were several miles into the surrounding mountains.

Rafe had been forced to carry Hager across the rugged terrain. By the time they’d reached a safe spot to rest, Rafe’s entire body had ached with effort. After he’d set the man down, he’d fished through his pouch for his first aid kit, removing Ann’s camera and setting it on the ground nearby. The bullet had struck his friend just below the edge of his flak vest, in the side of his abdomen.

“We need to stop the bleeding before we can head to the extraction point, or he’s not going to make it,” he’d said grimly. “How is Brody doing?”

“I’m fine,” Brody had replied, as another team member wrapped a tourniquet around his injured thigh. “Just a scratch.”

A series of blinding flashes had sent Rafe surging to his feet, his weapon drawn. Fury seethed through him when he saw that Ann Lonquist had grabbed her camera from where he’d placed it on the ground, and was busy snapping pictures of their hasty triage. Had he really thought her attractive? With a feral growl, he’d advanced on her.

“Are you that much of an idiot?” he’d hissed, as she backed away. He snatched the camera out of her hands. “What the hell are you doing?”

“D-documenting.”

“Just who the hell are you?”

“I—I’m a relief worker.” Her voice had sounded high and thin, and Rafe had known she was lying.

“Bullshit. Tell me the truth.”

“Fine. I’m a photojournalist,” she’d acknowledged in a small voice. “But how else was I going to get my story? I never thought we’d be kidnapped and held hostage.”

“Your thoughtless actions nearly got my men killed,” he’d said softly, “and now you’re determined to advertise our exact location with your fucking camera flash.” In disgust, he’d opened the camera and retrieved the small memory card. “What did you plan on doing with these photos?”

He could see from her expression that she’d fully intended to publish them in whatever magazine or newspaper she worked for.

“Jesus,” he’d breathed in disgust. “You’d put all our lives at risk for the sake of your story.”

“I risked my own life for this story,” she retorted. “I’ve earned those photos.”

“The hell you have,” he’d snarled.

He hadn’t spoken to her again, not during the hike to where a helicopter was waiting to airlift them out, and not when they arrived back at Bagram Air Base. He could barely bring himself to look at her when she’d stiffly asked for the return of her camera. He’d handed it to her—minus the memory card—and then he’d turned and walked away.

His men had survived, but Sergeant Hager had suffered so much internal damage from the bullet he’d taken that he’d been forced to leave the Marine Corps on a medical discharge. Rafe blamed Ann for the fact that he’d lost a good man.

He told himself again that he shouldn’t be so surprised—so goddamned disappointed—to realize he’d been right about Sara Sinclair. But he was. There was something about her that appealed to him on a primal level, and it was more than just the ripe lushness of her mouth or her curvy body. There was a kind of innocence to her, a sweet vulnerability that couldn’t be hidden no matter how hard she tried to come across as sophisticated and independent. He recalled the look of confusion in her eyes when he’d refused to accept her hand at the charity ball. The memory still made him cringe. He’d behaved like a dick, and all because she’d reminded him a little too much of Ann Lonquist, with her big blue eyes and guileless smile. His initial reaction to Sara had been too reminiscent of his reaction to Ann, only on a bigger scale. He’d been rendered momentarily brainless. He might have rejected her handshake, but he’d spent the night of the ball wondering what it would be like to have her lips on his body, and to fill his hands with her amazing breasts.

He took a hefty swallow of the dark stout, telling himself again that he was an idiot. He might find Sara sexy as hell, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get involved with her.

A journalist. A freaking reporter.

Go figure.

He wondered again how she had discovered his involvement in the rescue of the aid workers in Pakistan, and who her source was. There were only a select few people who knew about his role in the rescue, and aside from his own men, most of them were in the higher echelons of the Pentagon.

Rafe was in the process of taking another swig of beer when he paused, the glass raised halfway to his mouth. Sara Sinclair strode past the window of the pub, her coppery hair swinging over her shoulders, her breasts gently bouncing beneath her blue sweater. Rafe barely resisted the urge to press his face to the glass and watch her retreat down the sidewalk. Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he raised his glass again and then paused, the motion arrested by what he saw outside on the sidewalk. A man followed Sara, and as Rafe watched, he gestured to someone on the other side of the street.

Rafe’s heart rate kicked up a notch and he swiftly set down the beer and threw some money on the table. Even as part of his brain argued not to get involved, that it was none of his business, he was out the door of the pub before he’d fully realized it. The gesture had been swift and subtle, no more than several flicks of the man’s hand, but Rafe recognized the hand signals. He’d used them himself numerous times during close engagements in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Follow. Intercept. Stay out of sight.

The hand signals were used almost exclusively by the military or law enforcement, but instinct told Rafe the man following Sara was neither. Glancing down the sidewalk, he saw the first man striding purposefully along, keeping five or six pedestrians between himself and his target. Across the street, Rafe saw a second man working his way swiftly through the crowd, presumably to head Sara off.

Even as he watched, Sara turned a corner and disappeared, and the man across the street sprang into action, sprinting into oncoming traffic in order to cross to where she’d vanished down a narrow passageway between buildings. Rafe guessed she was headed for a parking lot on the next street and the alley was a shortcut through. Even if he ran, he wouldn’t be able to catch up with Sara before the two men reached her, and every instinct in his body told him this wasn’t going to end well for her.

With a muttered curse, he ducked back into the pub and headed for the rear exit, ignoring the surprised exclamation of a waitress as she came around the bar with a tray of drinks.

“Sorry,” he muttered, then pushed through the exit door onto a narrow service road and quickly orientated himself. If he sprinted, he could approach the alley from the opposite direction, but he’d need to move fast if he wanted to reach Sara before the two men did. He took off at a dead run, estimating it would take no more than ten seconds to reach the far end of the alleyway.

The lane behind the pub was blocked off and he had to scale the security fence to reach the next road, but it took him no effort to leverage himself over the chain link and drop easily to his feet on the other side. By the time he reached the alley, Sara was a little more than halfway through, seemingly unaware of the two figures who shadowed her.

“Sara,” he called, infusing his voice with what he hoped sounded like friendly relief. “There you are! I was afraid I’d missed you.”

Sara stopped in her tracks and stared at him, her face expressing her astonishment at seeing him standing there. Behind her, the two men stopped as well.

“Sergeant Delgado,” she exclaimed. The alley acted like a wind tunnel, blowing debris around her feet and plastering her hair across her face. She pushed it back with an impatient movement. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he said, his glance flicking to the two men. They stood undecided about thirty feet behind Sara, conferring silently. Rafe put an arm around her shoulder, placing himself between her and the men while simultaneously steering her toward the end of the alley. “Friends of yours?” he asked quietly, gesturing toward the men.

Sara looked over her shoulder at the two men in the middle of the alley. A small frown puckered her forehead. “No.”

They had almost reached the end of the narrow alley. In another two seconds they would emerge onto the main street, where Rafe could see pedestrians and cars passing by. He propelled Sara out of the alley, and as they turned the corner onto the street, he cast one last look at the two men. Clearly frustrated, one of them kicked savagely at the dirt beneath his feet before they turned and retreated back the way they had come.

“So…why did you come after me?” Sara asked as they walked along the street.

“I just, ah, forgot there was something I did want to tell you, after all.”

She looked skeptically at his hand on her shoulder and then up at him, her blue eyes wary. “Really? After the way you left, I can’t imagine there’s anything you’d want to share with me. You made your feelings perfectly clear.”

Afterwards, Rafe could never be sure what made him do it. Maybe it was the expression in her eyes—a vestige of the hurt he’d witnessed at the charity ball when he’d refused to shake her hand. Maybe it was the way she stubbornly set her chin, as if by doing so she could disguise the imperceptible tremble of her lower lip. He only knew that in that instant, he needed to kiss her, to taste her.

“Well, maybe not completely clear,” he muttered, and pushed her up against the wall of the nearest building. He swept his gaze over her face. Her lips had parted on a soft “oh” of surprise, and her hands had flattened against his chest, probably to push him away. Before she could form a word of protest, Rafe bent his head and covered her mouth with his own. She went still with shock.

He knew he should pull away, but in the same instant that he realized they were drawing attention from passersby, his brain registered the incredible softness of her lips and the subtle scent that filled his nostrils. She smelled like ginger and honey and he wanted to eat her.

He deepened the kiss, pressing past her lips until he found her tongue with his own and stroked it. She made a small sound in the back of her throat and her fingers no longer splayed flat against his chest. Instead, they curled into the soft leather of his jacket and drew him closer.

She tasted faintly like the hot chocolate she’d drunk earlier, and he angled his head to explore her mouth more fully, feasting on her lush lips. Her mouth had driven him crazy from the first moment he’d seen her at the charity ball, but the reality of kissing her exceeded all of his lustful imaginings. He hadn’t meant to kiss her, but he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of her mouth, and what he’d intended to be a brief brushing of their lips had turned into something…more. He needed to regain control of the situation. With supreme effort, he dragged his mouth from Sara’s and sucked in a lungful of air.