My Spy (26 page)

The man at the table fiddled with his drink. “That's what I came up with. It's a long shot, but I made some calls and found out they still have employee lockers at the Old Post Office. It's a short walk from there to the Federal Triangle station.”

“Check it out.” The order was curt.

First things first
, the man at the table thought. “What about my money?”

“Same place. The deposit will be made in the usual amount. If you find that locker in two days, the payment will be tripled.”

The line went dead.

Tripled.

He put down the phone and stood up, tossing an extra bill on the table for the waitress. The money had been good before, but now it was incredible. If he had to take some risks, so what?

He smiled at the singer with the red cowboy hat on his way out.

S
AM
WAS
SWEATING
HARD,
CURLING
A
THIRTY-POUND
WEIGHT with his good arm and trying not to think about Annie. He especially didn't want to imagine the soft curves hidden beneath her silk robe. About the heat of her skin and the husky rasp she'd made when he'd leaned into her and nuzzled her breasts.

He nearly dropped the weight.

Damn it all anyway.

Cursing, he pulled the weight onto his chest and began doing sit-ups, ignoring the dull ache at his left shoulder.

“Better slow down, McKade. That makes forty.”

“It doesn't count until you hit two hundred,” Sam said irritably.

“That was then, this is now.” Izzy tossed him a bottle of water. “You're in rehab, not BUD/S, remember? Take five.”

Sam sank onto his side, frowning. Annie had left over an hour ago, but he couldn't think of anything else. Hell, he could almost smell that soft perfume she wore, mixed with the apple scent of her shampoo.

She didn't go for makeup or daring clothes. Not much in the way of jewelry either. She dressed for comfort and ease, since she was always on the move.

He liked that.

He could imagine her leading a tai chi class or demonstrating water aerobics in the outdoor pool. He mused on that for a while, certain she wouldn't go for a thong or some ridiculously miniscule bikini.

Too bad.

He suspected that Annie was nothing like his usual choice of companion. He had a sense that he preferred women who showed their assets in tight spandex and probably laughed more than they should. Then again, having deep conversations in bed didn't seem like something that was high on his agenda.

Until Annie.

He enjoyed talking with her as much as he enjoyed touching her, and that was saying a lot, considering that he wanted to touch her every second he was awake.

But he also liked the way her eyes carried a challenge and her laugh rippled softly in her throat, building until it poured out in a husky rush.

Even her laugh left him rock hard.

With a grimace, he headed for the big Swiss exercise ball. If he was lucky, a few dozen leg lifts might clear this haze of painful lust.

But probably not.

A
NNIE
SIGHED.
“F
INE, TAYLOR.
BUT
TWO
HOURS,
TOPS.
I'VE STILL
got the payroll to finish.”

“Forget about the payroll.” Taylor pointed her to the door. “You have more important things to worry about than money.”

“Like what?”

“Sex, power, and lingerie.” She gave Annie a despairing look. “Your underwear has the sexual punch of a peanut butter sandwich.”

“We can't
all
dress like Madonna.” Grumbling, Annie followed Taylor down the hall. “Where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

They passed Megan and the chef, who were both smiling broadly. Clearly they were in on Taylor's plan, whatever it was.

“What's this all about?” Annie hissed.

Taylor pushed open the door to the therapy rooms. “If you're going to have an affair, you have to do it right.”

“Who said anything about an affair?”

Taylor shook her head. “So naive. As if you could fool your sister. Now be quiet and pay attention.” She turned the sign on the door so it read Closed, and bustled inside. “To have an affair, you've got to learn to relax.”

Annie crossed her arms. “Who said I—”

“Don't insult my intelligence by denying that it's on your mind.” Taylor opened the glass door to the outdoor pool, where steam rose gently over heated salt water. “Lesson number one: build a mood.” She swept her Louis Vuitton bag down onto a deck chair. Annie knew the bag dated back ten years to Taylor's first trip to Paris. It was her most prized possession,
after her computer and an amazing black leather jacket she'd picked up for a song in Florence.

Taylor took out a plastic bag and scattered rose petals over the water. “Color and fragrance spur the imagination, and imagination is all.

“Lesson number two.” She reached back into the bag and held up a pair of cotton mitts. “Exfoliating gloves. Trust me, he's going to loooove the feel of your skin after these. Now for lesson three.”

“Heavy animal tranquilizers?”

“Very funny.” Taylor pulled out a shallow glass bowl, set it on the tile near the pool and filled it carefully with water. After that she lit six small candles and floated them in the water, scattering a final handful of rose petals between the drifting candles. “You're good to everyone else. Now it's time to be good to yourself.”

Annie stared, on the verge of tears. “You planned this all for me?”

“You have a problem with that?”

Annie shook her head. “I don't know what to say.”

“Just say thank you and smile. I'm allowed to take care of my best sister.” Taylor frowned. “Especially when she's being an idiot and working herself to death, oblivious to the hunk standing in her kitchen.”

“He's a client, Taylor.” Annie had been trying hard to remember that.

“Like
that
makes a difference. When the man looked at you, I could feel the recoil all the way across the porch.” Taylor took a deep breath. “If you're worried about making time, I'll even fill in for a couple of days.”

“You?”

“Don't act so shocked. I worked the resort from the ground up, remember? Mom and Dad saw to it that I put in my three summers as a fitness coordinator. I used to be damned good at motivating the guests.”

Annie couldn't speak. For Taylor, this was the supreme sacrifice. “You'd do that for me?”

“An offer is an offer. Just don't take too long deciding, or I might change my mind. I'm starting to feel faint at my generosity already.” She dug to the bottom of her bag. “And don't go all giddy on me, because there's one more item of business. Your lingerie has
got
to go.”

Annie tugged at her white camisole, outlined beneath the top of her knit dress. “What's wrong with my underwear?”

“You want a list?”

“Sorry, Taylor. I appreciate the offer, but I'm just not a black lace kind of woman. I don't own any push-up bras or fishnet stockings.”

“About time we changed that.” Taylor had a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Especially since you're one of the few people I know with the body to wear that kind of stuff.” She tossed a bag at Annie. “Go change.”

Annie pulled out a scrap of black lace, hardly big enough to cover the essential areas dictated by civil code. “No way.”

“Try something else.”

Annie reached in the bag again, pulling out a feathered and beaded bra in gleaming satin. “This?”

“Trust me, he'll go nuts when he sees you.”

Annie shook her head and delved in once more, hoping for something more sedate. Instead she found a scrap of snakeskin spandex. Confused, she turned it right and left, up and then down. “I don't understand. How does it go? There are too many openings.”

Taylor sighed. “You are
such
an innocent.” She held up the spandex underwear. “They go like this.”

Annie flushed slightly. “You mean—”

“Yeah. They're great with the fishnet stockings. He'll be begging for mercy.”

“I really don't think—”

Taylor pointed toward the dressing room. “Go try them on. The red thong might be a little much, but give it a go.”

Red thong?

Annie looked into the bag, feeling slightly faint. “What's wrong with white cotton?”

“Nothing—if you're having a slumber party with five of your twelve-year-old girlfriends. For crying out loud, you're twenty-seven, Annie. It's time to let things rip a little. Every item in that bag is guaranteed to be Big O material. Trust me, he'll go berserk, and what woman doesn't want to make a man crazy sometimes?”

Put that way, there was some tortured logic to what Taylor was saying. Annie felt a little flutter in her chest at the mere thought of Sam's hot gaze running over her.

Then his hands.

Then that hot, clever mouth.

“Fine, I'll try them. But this stays strictly between us. It doesn't go into any book.”

“Of course not. My lips are sealed. Not a word.”

After Annie disappeared into the changing room, Taylor frowned. “On the other hand,” she mused, “this could make a fabulous opening for chapter six.” She pursed her lips. “With the right details changed, of course.”

As clothes fell to the floor behind the door, Taylor considered the idea. “Don't forget to try the red lace,” she called out thoughtfully.

S
AM
PUT
DOWN
HIS
DUMBBELL,
WINCING.
HIS
SHOULDER
WAS
ON fire and his leg felt like a truck had run over it. Day after day he was pushing hard, fighting to get back up to speed, but he still hadn't remembered anything significant. The specialists said he would remember with time.

But how
much
time?

When Izzy signaled Sam to take a secure call a few minutes later, Admiral Howe didn't seem to be too pleased with the situation, either.

“Slow down the rehab schedule,” the admiral ordered. “I don't want to see you back in a hospital bed.”

Sam grunted.

“I'm not hearing you, McKade.”

“Yes, sir. I won't push too much.” Like hell he wouldn't.

“What have you found about those fire alarms?”

“Izzy's still checking, but it appears to be defective wiring.”

“The problem is recent?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep an eye on that. I never have believed in coincidences.” The admiral cleared his throat. “How are you getting along with Ms. O'Toole?”

Sam rubbed his shoulder irritably. “She's doing her job, and I'm doing mine.”

Sam could almost see the admiral's raised brow. “No problems of any sort?”

“No problems.”
In a pig's eye.

“Izzy says she's good, and he's damned particular about who he praises.”

“She knows all the moves. Except for my knee, my lowerbody recovery is about 90 percent. Of course this blasted shoulder is a different matter entirely.”

“Stay with it. That was one hell of a tumble you took.” A little silence fell. “Remembered anything yet?”

“A flash here and there,” Sam said tensely. “Nothing that holds still long enough to make sense.”

“The trauma, coupled with your post-op medications, can make recovery unpredictable. Don't let it get you down.”

“I feel like a piece of cardboard, sir. There's nothing I can connect with.” Sam stared out at the gray surf. “Nothing that feels like
me.
”

“There's another problem.” Admiral Howe's voice hardened. “Someone broke into your apartment in Virginia.”

Sam frowned. “Don't you have a surveillance team there?”

“Night and day. But he was allowed to pass.”

Sam ran through the possibilities. “Because you wanted to see where he might lead you.”

“That's the plan. Do you have any other clues that might help us in the meantime?”

Sam desperately wanted to say yes. He put one hand against the window, fighting to dredge up some detail out of his memory. As he stared at the gray water, he saw a flash of blurred images.