Hot Target (17 page)

If. She’d actually said
if
he’d killed eighteen people.

She was standing there, gazing at him, scrutinizing his face, as if she were trying to read his mind.

Cosmo just let her look, even though he no longer knew what she might see in his eyes.

And then she asked him. Right to his face. “It’s not really true, is it? That story . . . ?”

He didn’t answer right away, but Jane just waited.

And waited.

He could have stalled until dawn, and she would’ve still been standing there.

“You’re the first person who’s ever asked me that,” he finally admitted.

She was honestly surprised. “Are you serious?”

Cos nodded. “Not everyone’s like you, Jane. In fact, hardly anyone is.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll take that as a compliment, thanks.”

“It was meant as one.”

“So it’s not true,” she guessed. “Or is it? Because you haven’t exactly answered the question.”

“Take a shower,” he told her. “Then come downstairs and I’ll tell you what happened.”

“Okay, you win.” Jane raised her hands in surrender. “I’ll go change. God, you must really hate this dress. For your information, I wore it tonight because it photographs well.”

It was impossible not to watch her as she went up the stairs, and Cosmo had to laugh. Hate that dress?

She had no freaking clue.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

Jules carried his towel with him as he came out of the hotel bathroom. “I’ll hang mine over here, on one of the coat hangers,” he told his boss, who was sitting at the room’s one desk, glaring at the screen of his laptop, chin in hand.

The TV was muted but still playing CNN. It was possible Max would leave it on all night.

And sleep with one eye open, watching it.

This was beyond weird—rooming with his boss. Please, Heavenly Father, don’t let either of them fart tonight.

There were two beds in the room, one rumpled, one still neatly made. Jules pulled back the hideously floraled spread of the bed that was as yet untouched. From the looks of the other, along with Max’s rather intense bedhead, it was obvious that he’d attempted to sleep earlier this evening.

Attempted and failed.

In all honesty, Max looked like shit warmed over.

And it was only partly due to his red plaid flannel pajama pants, faded Jimi Hendrix T-shirt that
clashed,
and his totally out-of-character uncoiffed hair. He had bigger than usual bags under his eyes, and although he wasn’t known for being a smiler, his mouth and jawline were set on extra unhappy.

The man was a tension convention.

Of course, Max had never been particularly good at relaxing, but he’d been stress personified ever since his girlfriend, Gina, had left him. Or rather, since he’d let Gina leave.

Unlike when Adam had left Jules, if Max had gone after Gina, if he’d gotten down on his knees and begged her to come back, she would have. He might’ve been smiling right now, thinking of her waiting for him in their sweet little condo in Dupont Circle—no, wait, it was Jules who wanted to live in Dupont Circle, not Max.

God only knew where Max wanted to live.

Other than in a world free from terrorist attacks.

“Is that something I can help you with?” Jules asked his boss now.

Max glanced up. “No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” He shut the laptop, but he didn’t move out of the chair. “So why’d you turn off your cell phone today?”

And there it was. The question he’d been dreading.

When Jules first came into the room, dragging his rolling luggage behind him, they’d discussed all of the obvious topics.

What was Max doing in L.A.?

His being here had nothing to do with the Mercedes Chadwick case. He had a meeting in the morning with the Los Angeles office of Homeland Security. He caught the flight out before Laronda had discovered the dearth of hotel rooms.

What was new up in Irving, Idaho?

Zip. Jules had spent time with the Bureau’s Idaho Falls office. He’d even taken an uneventful chopper ride over Tim Ebersole’s Freedom Network compound. The area was being watched by the FBI, 24/7, same as it had been for years. There was no unusual movement today or even over the past few weeks, nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.

Had Jules spoken to Peggy Ryan lately?

Apparently another suspicious e-mail had come in while Max had been on that flight to California. His second in command, a lovely but homophobic woman named Peggy, who preferred to pretend that Jules simply didn’t exist, was getting it checked out. Jules should touch base with her in the morning.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

The things he and Max
hadn’t
talked about included the fact that Jules’ ex-lover, Adam, whom Jules had foolishly just slept with, had been cast as one of the leads in Mercedes Chadwick’s movie
American Hero.

They particularly didn’t discuss how difficult it was going to be for Jules to be on set on the day they shot that big-screen kiss between Adam and the hottie of an actor playing Harold Lord—Robin Chadwick.

They didn’t talk at all about the fact that Robin was embroiled in a soap opera of his own making with his sister’s personal assistant, Patty.

What a joke.

He and Max hadn’t discussed the fact that Jules desperately missed his former FBI partner, Alyssa Locke, who was out of the country with her husband, Sam, in some no-cell zone. He didn’t mention how badly he needed to talk to her—especially now—so he could confess that he’d fallen—again—under Adam’s spell. He said nothing of how much he needed her, his best friend, to tell him that his slip had been only temporary, that he was now back on his feet, that he was strong, and it wasn’t going to happen again.

That given enough time, all the pain he was feeling would fade to a manageable level.

Jules also didn’t talk about the fact that he’d actually gone and called his mother earlier this evening, but that she’d been on her way out to a movie with her new husband, Phil, who pretended to be cool with the fact that Jules was openly gay but really wasn’t.

Max was still sitting there, gazing at him, waiting for him to respond to his question. Why had he turned his cell phone off?

“You know the way Gina sometimes calls, and you run out of the room so that Laronda doesn’t have to lie when she tells her you’re not there?” Jules asked him.

Max closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, the body language equivalent to
Oh, my holy Christ, I can’t believe you brought up Gina.

“Well, I’ve also got someone that it hurts too much to talk to,” Jules continued. For one wild moment, he was filled with hope that Max would reach out to him, that he would acknowledge this kind of weird half friendship they’d built over the past few years. That he would say,
Do you want to talk about it, because I would love to talk to someone about Gina, and I get the sense that you might understand. I miss her so much it sometimes feels as if I’m going to drown. Is that what it’s like for you?

“I’m sorry to hear that” was all Max managed to mutter as he turned out the desk lamp and threw himself into the other bed. “But you’ve got to make sure we can get in touch with you, Cassidy. Don’t go dark side of the moon on us again.”

He used the remote to turn off the TV, and the room was plunged into blackness.

Okey-dokey.

The silence was as suffocating as the pitch darkness, and Jules let it rest there, on his chest, for as long as he could.

Which wasn’t very long at all.

“I guess you’re not going to use my clever mention of Gina to tell me how she’s doing or where she is,” he finally said. “You know . . .” He imitated Max’s FM DJ–like delivery: “ ‘Gee, Cassidy, funny you should bring up Gina. I just got an e-mail from her. She’s back in New York. She’s doing well, getting ready to go to law school.’ ”

“She’s still in freaking Kenya,” Max said, his smooth voice unusually rough. “Just drop it, all right? Don’t make me regret letting you in here.”

Letting
him in here? The bastard had practically issued a presidential order demanding he share this room. But right now Max’s inner cornered dog was snarling—Jules had hit a little too close for comfort.

He pushed himself up onto one elbow. “With all due respect, sweetie, why aren’t you in Africa? If Adam loved me even
half
as much as Gina loves you—”

Now Max’s voice was dangerously quiet. “I said drop it.”

Again the silence seemed to crackle around them in the blackness of the room.

“Okay,” Jules said, lying back down. “It’s dropped.” He waited, but Max said nothing. “Good night.” Again, no response. “Sir.”

Max didn’t so much as move.

“Sleep tight, Mr. Bhagat,” Jules added, just to drive home the fact that Max was missing out on a very real opportunity here to bond.

“I have a meeting”—Max finally spoke—“in less than five hours. With all due respect,
sweetie,
shut the fuck up.”

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,”
Cosmo said as Jane came into the kitchen, her hair still wet from her shower.

It took her a second, but then she remembered. Yesterday she’d asked him what his all-time favorite movie was. “Really?”

He’d been reading a book, and he put it down now, open and spine up on the table in front of him. It was a military history, nonfiction. Something about the Philippines during the Second World War.

“For true classics, it would have to be
The Philadelphia Story,
” he told her. “Katharine Hepburn floats my boat. And as far as more recent movies go, I’m a sucker for both
Apollo 13
and—don’t hate me, I know it’s a popcorn movie—
Air Force One.
”

“Yeah, I always liked the idea of a kick-ass president, too. One who’s actually been in combat.” Jane took the kettle from the stove to the sink, dumped out the tea she’d brewed far too many days ago, and washed the thing out. He liked Katharine Hepburn, huh? It was an interesting variation on the beautiful, blond, skinny Sophia-from-his-office theme, because ol’ Kate had played smart-mouthed, high-society characters who were often sharply funny—as well as being bony-assed, beautiful WASPs.

Jane had the mouth, but her ass was about as far from bony as it could be—and what was she doing? Comparing herself to Cosmo’s ideal woman? As if she were interested in him or something?

She crossed the kitchen on feet that still ached from too many hours spent in too-high heels, and began refilling the kettle with water from the bubbler. The answer to that was a depressing yes. She was definitely interested in the man. And not just interested as in,
Oh, you’re a Navy SEAL with a rather odd name—that’s so different from most of the men I know. How interesting. What on earth made you decide you wanted to do that for a living?
No, she was also
interested
interested.

As in interested in the possibility of long, lazy Sunday morning breakfasts in bed.

Jane glanced up to find Cosmo watching her. Provided, of course, that he wasn’t a psycho who had lost control on some mountaintop in some unnamed country and killed eighteen people in cold blood.

She laughed at herself. A few days ago she would’ve believed him capable. His silence and watchfulness seemed to support the allegation that he was, indeed, a killing machine. When he wanted to, he could make his eyes look cold and flat.

But now she knew him. Not well—it would take more than a few conversations over the course of a few nights to really dig beneath his crunchy protective outer shell. But she definitely knew enough to be certain that if he had killed anyone, it had been because there had been no other option.

Jane also knew that if this were a perfect world, she would do whatever it took to get to know him much, much better—an effort that would surely culminate in many Sunday morning breakfasts in bed.

But the world wasn’t perfect and her timing couldn’t be any more wrong.

Cosmo was here in her kitchen not by choice, but because protecting her was his job. She’d also spent most of the evening making sure that, starting in a few days, anyone who came within ten feet of a supermarket checkout line would believe she and movie director Victor Strauss had a thing going on.

And if that weren’t enough to keep her from letting her feelings get out of this still low, mostly curious idle, she’d promised to help Cosmo win the heart of his Sophia.

Petite, blond, bony-assed, beautiful, sweetly nice, and Barbie-doll perfect Sophia.

The bitch.

“So why
Butch Cassidy
?” she asked Cos now as she crossed back to the stove and turned on the gas.

He didn’t answer—what a surprise—so she turned back to look at him. He had the strangest expression on his face.

“What?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Most people don’t ask why.”

“Is that your polite way of saying, ‘Most people aren’t nosy like you’?”

Cosmo laughed. God, she loved it when he laughed. “No,” he said. “Most people don’t care enough to ask.” He scratched his chin. “ ‘Course, now that I’ve said that, I’m not sure I can explain why it’s my favorite movie.”

He was silent then, but she waited.

And waited. She just watched him.

“I guess,” he finally said, “it’s because it’s funny and well written and . . . Because it’s a movie about friendship. About loyalty and trust.” He met her gaze. “They were a team. Butch and Sundance. When I was a kid, when I first saw this movie, I mostly hung by myself. I was really quiet and . . . shy, I guess. I think I probably connected with the Sundance Kid, because he was quiet, too. He was okay, so I was okay, you know?”

Jane nodded. His answer was so much more heartfelt and honest than she’d expected. So of course she lightened things up. “Good answer. Congratulations. You pass.”

He laughed at that. God, he had an awesome smile. She was both dreading and dying to hear his version of that story she’d first heard from Alana in makeup. Alana, whose roommate used to waitress at some bar near the Navy base in Coronado.

Apparently Navy SEAL chief Cosmo Richter was frequently talked about by other sailors in hushed tones.

But not so hushed that Alana’s friend hadn’t been able to listen in from time to time.

The fact that no one—no one—had ever asked him directly about the legend seemed unbelievable.

On the other hand, maybe it didn’t. He was huge, with arms reminiscent of those on her Terminator action figure. Only Cosmo’s muscles were real.

And yes, she had seen him with his T-shirt off—hard to forget that. Everything underneath there was real, too. The man was ripped, and he had the height to go with the build.

And then there were his eyes. Startlingly pale blue in a face that had too many hard edges and sharp planes and angles to be called handsome.

If she were casting him in a movie, he’d play the bad guy. He had that type of face.

Except when he smiled like he was smiling right now . . .

When he did that, it was bad guy, good-bye. Hello, hero.

“So that was a test?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. Want some tea?” she asked, as she got her favorite mug from the cabinet.

“No thanks.” He managed to say it without that little condescending laugh that implied real men didn’t drink tea. It was another point in his favor, damn it.

She wanted to shout at him,
Stop being so attractive, will you?

“There was definitely a wrong answer,” she told him instead. “If you’d said, like, something that featured a chimpanzee, or
Laurel and Hardy versus Dracula
—”