Not Another New Year’s (20 page)

The numbered buttons peeped as she pressed them.

He jackknifed up.

Hannah gasped, holding the receiver against her thudding heart. His blue eyes, all at once awake and alert, narrowed as his gaze focused on her face.

“Are you all right?” His hand shot out and grasped her wrist. “I was dreaming…tell me you’re all right.”

She tried on a reassuring smile. “I’m fine. I was just calling, um, calling Desirée. I think I should get back to the hotel and, um, see her.”

“Desirée.” He ran his hand through his hair and sat taller, the sheet sliding farther down his torso.
“Shit.”

Hannah stared at the band of muscle that curved over his hip and wrapped inward toward his belly. Maybe this wasn’t love after all. Maybe it was pure lust, because she couldn’t snap her gaze away from that intriguing sight.

“Shit. Desirée. I meant to check on her last night. Warn her.”

“Hmm?” Hannah sounded dreamy to her own ears. “Don’t worry. I’ll meet up with her this morning. Soon.”

Tanner lifted her chin and forced her gaze to meet his. “You stay away from her, you hear me, sweetheart?”

Hannah blinked. “What? Why?”

He forked his fingers through his hair again. “Another bit of info your uncle laid on me last night. There’s chatter out there about Dez.”

“Chatter?”

“The kind of chatter the intelligence community is listening to. There’s an outside chance—remote, but still—that the assassination attempt on her father last year was the work of a group that has a new plan and a new target in the al-Maddah family.”

Hannah’s mouth went dry. For some reason her mind leaped back to that predator sedan that had nearly run her over a few days back. “Someone might hurt Desirée?”

Tanner grabbed the phone out of her hand and punched in a number. “You burned the thought right out of my head last night, Hannah.” A smile flitted across his face, and he tapped her nose with his forefinger. “Don’t look so worried.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and tried thinking warm happy thoughts even as Tanner had no luck reaching Desirée in the hotel suite or on her cell phone. The line of his mouth turned grim.

“Tanner, what are we going to do?”

He glanced at her again, punching yet another number. “First, we put Troy on the case.”

“And second?”

“Once we find Dez, we’ll check you out of the Del and move you in with me.”

N
ever having had anyone to count upon, Desirée didn’t expect to rely on Troy. After he’d drifted off to sleep that morning in his bed, she’d slipped away.

She hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

Only twenty-four hours had passed, of course, but it was enough time to send her the message. Though he’d been a gentle and generous lover, he wasn’t applying for a permanent position. She accepted that.

However, she couldn’t stay in Coronado. It was no longer a place she could pretend was hers. So she’d slipped out of her bed today as the sun started to rise and took a dawn drive, not only to say good-bye to the beaches and the salty breezes, but to figure out where she’d go next. With the BMW‘s top down and the wind whipping through her hair, she told herself she was lucky.

Independent means.

Independent woman.

She didn’t need anyone else for anything.

Well, she needed someone to make her morning cup of coffee, so she steered in the direction of Junie’s Java, her fave place for an extra-hot skinny latte. The drive-through line was already snaking out the parking lot, so she pulled into a spot. Counter service would be faster, and since she wasn’t a commuter, she didn’t see a reason to clog their line.

Striding between the cars, she checked out the people behind the wheels. One read the newspaper, two were on cell phones, a man ran an electric razor over his jaw. Each of them looked already preoccupied—
occupied
—and it reminded her of her brief employment at Hart’s. Even now, her arms still ached from the trays she’d carried three days ago. And then her heart ached too, remembering what it was like to look up and push the damp bangs out of her eyes to see Troy on the other side of the bar. To know what it was like to be bone-tired and yet feel the day had gone well.

That settled it. Wherever she went, she was going to get a job. The pride she’d felt in working, in earning, wasn’t something she could give up as well as this place and that man. She smiled to herself, thinking of Troy’s reaction when some other bar called him for a reference. What would he say?

The best virgin I ever had and then gave up.

Ignoring the thought, she pushed through the plate-glass doors and approached the counter to make her order.

Manning the register was a young woman with
red-streaked hair, apparently styled by a cruel tornado. She’d half tamed it with a headband and some gel, but the effect was startling, especially when teamed with her earlobes—stretched to the point of, well, ick, by a pair of nickel-diameter plugs.

No wonder there was no one in the walk-up line.

Still, she had a friendly smile that turned puzzled as she looked up into Desirée’s face. “Hey, do I know you?” she said.

“No, I don’t think so.”

The other woman’s gaze narrowed. “Did we go to school together?”

Desirée shrugged, playing along. “Eastman in Illinois for a few years, then Hall-Peterson’s in Arizona, high school years at a different boarding school in Virginia. Ring any bells?”

“Wow. No.” She rang up Desirée’s order. “Boarding school. That sucks, I guess.”

“It was no day at the beach in Coronado.” Maybe if it had been, she would have met Troy there. He was eight years older than she, but she could picture herself a decade ago, prancing around in her bikini and doing anything she could to get the older guy to notice her.

Would he have?

The other woman handed over a tall cardboard cup, and Desirée smiled in thanks. Turned.

A man was standing there. Too close.

Her heart jumped. Out of instinct she jerked back, her hips banging against the counter. He was olive-skinned and stocky, and though it was morning and cool inside the store, there was sweat collected in the creases of his thick neck and beads of it dotting the
edges of his hairline. He was staring at her, or maybe through her, but either way…

Ducking her head, Desirée stepped around him and then rushed back to her car. She settled in the BMW, but nerves still jittering, she locked her door and pressed the button to lift the top in place. Feeling marginally more protected, she took a sip of coffee and blew out a slow breath as she set it in the cup holder on the dash.

She needed more sleep.

Closing her eyes, she blew out another breath. Then something made them flick open. A dark shadow—a man’s body—was standing beside her car, blocking the driver’s side window.

Heart jolting again, Dez reached for the ignition, shoved in the key, and started the car with a
vroom
that was wild, even for her. Then she shifted the car into reverse and got the hell out of there, nearly clipping another car’s bumper in her race to make it to the street.

The other vehicle gave an angry squawk with its horn, but she ignored it to accelerate, zooming in front of yet another less-than-happy driver.
HONK HONK HONK.
She made a couple more risky maneuvers, getting herself farther away from that unsettling moment at Junie’s Java.

Then she was out of the congested section of Coronado’s small downtown and flying free along the road that led south. It was a narrow causeway that was the only other connection besides the bridge to the mainland, and she let her foot go heavy on the accelerator as she put more distance between herself and that unsettling man.

On an open section of road she forced herself to take in and then let out a long, calming breath. Reaching for her coffee, she made a casual glance in her rearview mirror. Her hand fell to her lap.

There was a black sedan riding her ass. Though she couldn’t clearly see the driver through the windshield, she had an impression of dark hair, sweaty neck, malevolent eyes.

Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, she pressed harder on the gas, trying to break farther away. But the dark car stuck with her, and Desirée made a little sound of panic deep in her throat.

Calm down, Dez. Calm down.

There was no reason to feel hunted, even with the big car on her tail. It was a rude driver, or someone she’d pissed off with her less-than-considerate maneuvers getting out of the coffee place’s parking lot.

But good God, it was deserted on this section of road. Commuters took the bridge over to San Diego proper, and this was a skinny, flat stretch that was a much longer route leading to the southern part of the county. On weekends there were bicyclists and kids on skateboards in the parallel recreational lane. Today, this early in the morning, there was only her and the evil-looking dark sedan breathing down her neck.

She glanced in the rearview mirror again and saw the other car drawing closer—close enough for a kiss. Gritting her teeth, Desirée forced away another wash of panic, instead digging deep for the kind of bravado she’d brought every night to her shift at the bar. The bravado that she’d used to face down her attraction to Troy.

Go ahead and kiss my ass,
she telegraphed to the person in the car behind her.
Then you’ll see what happens.

Then what
would
happen?

What did the other driver want?

Thump.
Bumped by the black car, Desirée’s BMW jerked forward. Her foot slipped off the gas and the car was again jolted from behind.

Shocked, she shrieked, but every instinct warned her not to stop. Her trembling leg shifted her foot back to the pedal and she pressed down, heedless of the speed limit. Heedless now of anything but getting away from the other vehicle.

Her memory flashed on Troy’s warning from the other night.
You’re going to kill yourself like this. Or someone’s going to do it for you in an act of road rage.

Was that what this was? Road rage?

She glanced in the rearview mirror just as the car came at her again, bumping harder this time, causing her to swerve into the opposite lane as she tried to stay in control. It hit her a fourth time, glancing off the corner of her back bumper as she slid across the asphalt.

Shrieking didn’t seem to help, but she did it a few more times anyway, as if someone, somewhere, could hear her.

As if someone, somewhere, would care.

Terror ratcheting higher, she pressed harder on the gas pedal, trying to outrun the enemy. She didn’t dare check the speedometer, but she knew she was going fast, faster. Ahead she saw a widening, to the side of the road a flat scrabble of gravel and dirt that could be used as a turnaround.

That
she
could use as a turnaround.

If she dared.

If she wasn’t going too fast.

But if she made it, she would be heading back toward Coronado.

Toward Troy. That was the destination she’d been searching for this morning. For forever.
Troy.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw the car was gaining on her again. Her cell phone started to ring but she ignored it. Up ahead was her chance.

Lucky for her she was the kind of driver who’d made a career out of risky moves.

But God, if she survived this, she promised she’d drive like a grandma for the rest of her life.

Knuckles white on the wheel, and with the sound of her cell phone still singing, Desirée took a breath and took what seemed like her only chance.

T
roy trudged out of the surf, his longboard under his arm. This morning the waves weren’t bad, but his mood was. Surfing usually provided him with the peace he’d craved since his tour in Afghanistan, but not this time.

This time he couldn’t get out of his head how he’d awoken yesterday morning. He couldn’t get out of his head the chaos of his pumping heart and the image of the beautiful woman who was trying so hard to turn his life upside down.

His old VW van was one of the few in the beach parking lot. As he headed for it, he grabbed the long tail attached to the back zipper of his wet suit and drew it down. Then he propped his board against the side of the van and stripped his arms out of the black neoprene.

Looking down at his own naked chest made him think of Dezi again. She’d been stalking his surfing places.

His chin jerked up and his gaze searched the lot, but there was no flashy BMW, and no even flashier Desirée in another of her outfits designed to get him hard. She always looked as bright as a butterfly, and yesterday morning she’d flown away from him, as he’d always suspected she would.

He’d never had anything to offer her except rough edges and hard muscles anyway, and it was why he’d kept his distance to begin with. There was nothing to keep someone as vital as Dez beside him, and he should be glad for it. Ever since she’d high-heeled it into his world she’d been shaking things up, shaking
him
up, and he’d had enough of loud noises and rockin’ and rollin’ to last his lifetime.

He unlocked the hatch and slid his surfboard inside, then heard the tinny flourish of his cell phone ringing from its place at the front of the car. With a slam, he shut the hatch and hurried to the driver’s door to reach the phone, but it stopped pealing just as he pulled it open.

To hell with it, he thought. There wasn’t anyone he wanted to talk to anyhow.

As he started the slow process of peeling off his wet suit, the phone rang again. Grimacing, he started to hobble forward, then thought better of it and dismissed the sound as he finished stripping out of his suit.

In a pair of old sweats and a T-shirt, he slid, dry, into the driver’s seat. The phone went off again, and this time he managed to get it to his ear.

Tanner didn’t begin with a greeting. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling for half an hour.”

“I’ve been out surfing. What do you need?”

“Desirée.”

A cold itch tickled the back of Troy’s neck. “Why do you need her?”

“Is she with you?”

“Why the hell would you think that?”

His brother’s sigh sounded impatient. “Hell, Troy. I’m
hoping
she’s with you.”

He couldn’t figure out why. And he didn’t want to acknowledge that icy premonition playing footsie along the flesh of his back. “There’s nothing between me and Dez.”

“Shit, Troy, you practically fracture when she gets within ten feet.”

Fracture. See, that was the problem. Desirée made him weak, and that was the whole damn reason he hadn’t wanted to get involved with her. “What is it you’re calling for, Tanner?”

“I saw my old boss Geoff Brooks last night. There’s chatter about Desirée.”

The chilly feet were doing a full-on Gene Kelly tap dance now. “What? What kind of chatter? Intelligence chatter?”

“It’s a lot of supposition and innuendo, but I’d feel better if I heard her voice.”

“What kind of chatter?”

“About the possibility of another assassination attempt, this time targeting an al-Maddah family member, not the prince himself.”

Troy’s eyes squeezed shut.
Dezi. Oh my God, Dezi.
“You called the hotel. You called her cell.”

There was a telling moment of silence on the line. Of course he’d called the hotel and called her cell. That was why Tanner was calling him at o’brink of dawn.

“Christ,” Troy groaned out. “I don’t know where to start looking.”

A female voice sounded in the background. “Coffee. Junie’s Java.”

“Did you hear that?” Tanner asked. “We’ll head straight to the hotel, see if she’s hanging around there. You check the coffee place and anywhere else you can think of. Don’t worry, she’s probably shopping or something.”

At six-thirty in the morning? But he didn’t bother voicing the question, and instead clicked off. Then, starting the VW with his right hand, he used his left to try Dezi’s number himself.

Voice mail. “It’s me. Leave a message.” Then she smacked a kiss. He squeezed his phone until he swore he heard the plastic shell crack. When the beep arrived, he managed to speak even as he was bumping out of the parking lot.

“Dez. Dez. God, baby. God.” His voice sounded strangled. Then more words tumbled out and he couldn’t even wish them back. “I miss you. And I’m God damn in love with you!” He knew he sounded angry, but hell, he was angry. “Call me. Call me right this minute.”

But yelling had never worked with Desirée. His cell phone stayed silent and he cursed loudly as he
sped from the parking lot and toward the center of town.

Her cell phone isn’t charged. She’s sleeping with the pillow over her head or she’s in the shower or she’s having breakfast in the hotel dining room.

None of those explanations quieted the voiceless scream caught in his chest.

The van lurched and clattered through the gears as he tried getting it up to a decent speed. Finally going about forty, with the beach on his right, he barely noticed the white flash of car racing in the opposite direction. Half a heartbeat passed, and then he hit the brakes, the van shuddering to a halt.

He heard another screech of tire on asphalt, and craning his neck out his window, he saw the white car come to its own stop. Pulse pounding, he put the van in reverse and hit the gas. The BMW did the same, and then, God, finally, he was looking at Desirée’s beloved face. There were streaks of tears on her cheeks and he didn’t miss the BMW’s bashed back bumper.

They stared at each other for a beat of silence, and then she was opening her door and he was opening his door and they met in the middle of the road.

Two hearts pressed together.

Two pairs of lips pressed together too.

She broke away before he had his fill. “We have to get out of here,” she said, her head whipping south, the ends of her hair flicking against his wet mouth. “I think he might still be after me. I spun into a turn and then drove away as fast as I could before he could make his own turn, but—”

He grabbed her up against him again. “Nobody’s getting you.”
Nobody but me.

She pushed him away. “You don’t understand. You don’t know…”

Her story stuttered out as Troy’s stomach turned and churned. He leaned against the side of the van to keep himself upright. She was doing it again. Shaking him up, rocking him off his very foundation, and he felt seasick with the unbalanced motion. “We’ll call Tanner, the police, the FBI.”

She blinked. “Tanner? The FBI?”

He didn’t want to terrify her anymore. They’d talk about it when he had her safely…somewhere. “Get in the van. We’re leaving your car here, on the side of the road.”

She didn’t obey, of course, but stood wringing her hands as he wedged himself behind the wheel of the BMW and steered it over to the shoulder. Then he bundled her into his vehicle and started driving.

“Call Tanner,” he instructed her.

She reached inside her purse for her cell phone.

His heart froze. The message he’d left. “No,” he barked out. “
My
phone.”

“No! Not yours. I can—”

He grabbed her phone from her hand and made the call to his brother himself.

Facts were sparse. Black sedan, with possible front damage. The impression of a young, swarthy man. But that was the guy she’d seen in the coffee place, and not a for sure on the driver of the assault car.

“Christ,” he said, feeling sick all over again. Desirée was vibrating with nerves and she was half
turned in her seat, staring at the road behind them. “Bro, can you handle the authorities end?”

“I’ll call Geoff,” Tanner said, and assured him they’d be in touch.

Troy clicked off the phone and Dezi darted a quick glance his way before returning to her rear survey. “What did he say?”

He glanced over at her pale face. “Dezi. Dez, I hate having to tell you this, but Tanner heard some talk that there might be another…another assassination attempt. But this time on—”

“Me.”

He almost pitched them both through the windshield when his foot trod on the brake. “What? You knew?”

“I heard a rumor too.”

Appalled, he continued to stare at her, while his belly rolled like a cement mixer. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“Say anything to who?” She sent him an impatient glance. “Turn around. Take me back to the hotel.”

“Forget it.” He stomped his foot on the gas pedal again. Why did she do this to him? How could one woman make such chaos? “That’s likely where the bad guy was staked out and found you.”

“I’ll be safe enough in my room—”

“Like hell!”

She rolled her eyes. “Until I make some calls. Then I’m leaving town. With a bodyguard.”

Someone was going to be guarding her body, all right. “You’re with me. Get used to it.”
He
was going to be the one to keep her safe.

“Your Marine streak is showing, Troy, but I don’t need your pity.”

“Pity!”

“I can afford to hire someone to—”

“You make me nuts!” Goaded beyond reason, he threw her phone in her lap. “Check your messages. Then tell me you can ‘hire’ someone to give you that.”

He
was
nuts. A sane man would snatch the phone back and throw it as far as his long arm could reach. A sane man wouldn’t pull into the same parking lot he’d pulled out of just a few minutes ago. But everything inside him was a mess, with emotions making their noisy demands, and common sense trying to offer up its two pennies too.

Never let her leave you!

Get away before she shakes you to pieces!

His own voice suddenly pierced the cacophony of inner turmoil, sounding tinny but urgent as his words replayed through her cell.
“Dez. Dez. God, baby. God.”

Troy stared out the windshield, watching a wave make its way to shore.

“I miss you.”

Desirée made a hiccup of sound. From the corner of his eye he saw her cover her mouth with her palm. The rat’s nest that was his gut roiled and boiled.

“And I’m God damn in love with you!”

He closed his eyes, ready to splinter into a million pieces, and unwilling to watch her face as she broke him, as he’d always known she would. He’d been a warrior, but there was no defense, no armor or weapon, against this.

“Call me. Call me right this minute.”

As if on cue, Troy’s own phone let out its distinctive peal. Certain it was Tanner, he fumbled for it blindly, then brought it to his ear.

“You should check
your
messages,”
a soft voice said. Through the phone. From the seat beside him.

He opened his eyes, but he didn’t look at Desirée. His heart was pounding, the noise inside of him getting louder and louder as he pressed the buttons to access his phone mail. Then he lifted his phone to his ear again, uncertain if he’d be able to hear anything over the chaotic thumping of his heart.

But there was her voice. Dezi’s voice, breathless, thinned by fear. His belly clenched. “I’m being followed. A car…it bashed into me. I think I lost him, but…but if I didn’t…Troy, just so you know…oh, I’m sure you won’t want to know, but I have to tell you. I have to tell you I love you. ’Bye.”

The phone went quiet. In a quick swoosh, the noise inside Troy did the same, going from scream, to yell, to murmur, to silence.

He turned to the woman beside him, his voice sounding loud in his ears. “‘’Bye’? That’s it?”

“What?” Her face looked tired, but her smile was radiant. “You’ve already forgotten all the mushy stuff before that?”

“No,” he admitted. “I’ll never forget that mushy stuff. Not for the rest of my life, Dez. But ‘ ’Bye’? I’m not letting you get away now, you know.”

“I’ve never had anyone before.” A flush took away some of her pallor. “Not just in bed, but never anyone who didn’t want me to get away. Never anyone to…to depend upon. Like that. Like you.”

And then it happened. All his fears came true.

In his old beat-up van, in front of the beach where he’d spent the happiest years of his life, macho Marine Troy Hart’s heart split. His palm flew up, but that didn’t help. Nothing kept that rent in his chest from opening wider—and letting Desirée further in. Funny, though, that even as he despaired about the break, it started healing over again, all the rifts and cracks he’d been worrying about since meeting her mending, leaving him harder on the outside. Softer within.

But strong. Strong and at peace.

He’d been a warrior. And now, now he was a lover.

Whole.

Without looking away from Dezi’s face, he thumbed the buttons on his phone and left a message for Tanner. “If you need us, we’ll be at the desert house with Mom and Dad.” She’d be safe there, with something else that he could give to her besides himself—his family.

Troy smiled, wondering if it was tears that were making her eyes so bright. “No flirting with my dad, now.”

Her lips twitched. “Oh, you can count on it.”

He laughed. His gruff, louder-than-life father was going to melt into a puddle of whatever-Dezi-wants goo, just the way he did with Troy’s mother. Then he sobered. “And you can count on me too, don’t you ever doubt that, Ms. Magna Cum Laude.”

“Or you’ll kick my butt into Monday, Mr. Semper Fi?”

“That’s right.” He reached for her, pulling her into his lap. “Just remember it. Semper fidelis, baby. You know what that means, right? Always faithful.”