Packing Heat (4 page)

They were in a small town somewhere in western Pennsylvania, at an old farmhouse converted into a restaurant. It was a little mom-and-pop place, dingy but welcoming, with creaking wooden floors, mismatched furniture, and the kind of menu that was loaded with salt, saturated fat, and enough calories to put half the state into a food coma.

“Okay,” Cole said, “so I know what you want from me. Do you have any idea what the risks are? I’m good, but your friends in computer security at the FBI keep a close eye on their firewall. Anybody tries to get through, they make it their mission in life to track him down. And they love to make examples of people like me.”

“We’ve already had this discussion. I knew what the risks were when I took this assignment.”

“But you’re one of
them
, and I’m an escaped convict. I’m the likely scapegoat if things go wrong.”

Harmony sighed heavily.

It was turning out to be a lot harder to convince Cole to help than she’d expected. Because of his history with the FBI. Understandable, since the FBI had put him in jail—for good reason. There hadn’t been a lot of time to plan and prepare, but before she’d embarked on this course, she’d read his file. Not much there; from all outward appearances he’d been nothing more than a stupid kid who’d hacked into the Bureau’s system for kicks, and had the colossal bad judgment to do it at a time when every intelligence agency in the world was on high alert.

Except Cole certainly wasn’t stupid. Or judgmentally challenged. And he kept talking about doing the FBI a favor and being screwed over, and she couldn’t ask him what he meant. Not after she’d lied about having new evidence. Sure it had been a tiny little spur-of-the-moment white lie meant to nudge him closer to helping her. But that lie put her in an awkward position, because it implied she knew more about his predicament than she actually did.

So she’d just have to figure it out as they went along. It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected Cole to be uncooperative. And suspicious. She’d just have to keep an eye on him, a
nd
guard her words. Cole would learn he’d been played eventually, but timing was everything. If he found out now, he’d bolt, and she’d lose her only hope of buying enough time to find out where Richard was being held. If . . .
when
they freed Richard, the Bureau would have no choice but to commute Cole’s sentence. He’d still be angry, no doubt about it, but she imagined freedom—permanent freedom—would have a pacifying effect on his temper.

“Look,” she said, “I know you don’t trust me—”

“I just want to make sure I’m not being set up again.”

“Do you want me to make promises you won’t believe anyway? I’ve given you all the assurances I can.”

“And none when it comes to actually accomplishing your end of the job, except you have the kidnappers’ contact information written on your panties.”

A woman at the next table sucked in her breath and scowled at him.

“Can we try not to draw attention to ourselves?” Harmony said, keeping her voice down.

“In case you haven’t noticed, people have been staring at us since we walked in.”

Harmony glanced around the room. “It’s mostly women, and they’re staring at you.”

“Probably all that million-dollar software I’m going to write.”

Probably they were thinking she was the luckiest woman alive. “I doubt they’re interested in getting their hands on your software.”

He reached across the table and closed his fingers around her wrist, loosely. “What are you thinking about?”

She tried to pull away, but he moved his hand down to hers, twining their fingers. “They’ll stop staring if they think we’re a couple.”

Another quick look around proved he was right, for the most part. Other than a sidelong glance now and again, most of the female diners had gone back to minding their own business. But she had a feeling Cole Hackett had left an impression.

Their dinner arrived, netting them more attention, out of curiosity this time, since the waitress brought enough food to feed half the town, including dessert, which Cole had told her to bring right along with the main courses. The good news? He took his hand back so he could eat. The skin-to-skin havoc was over, but it didn’t end the assault on her libido.

This time the attack came by way of her ears, which suddenly seemed to be connected directly to her nerve endings. He cut into a rare steak, put the first bite into his mouth and moaned, eyes closed, head falling back, a low, sexy sound that made her nerves vibrate like plucked cello strings.

Every woman within hearing distance broke out in a sweat. Harmony experienced an internal earthquake that nearly jolted her off her chair.

“You’re not eating,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those women who only eats salads and pretends not to be hungry all the time.”

“No.” She indicated the spread in front of him with her fork. Roast turkey with stuffing, pork chops, and the steak, with all the sides: buttered noodles, mashed potatoes, the vegetable of the day, and a small tossed salad with ranch dressing so thick it could masquerade as mayonnaise. And then there was the lemon meringue pie, Harmony’s favorite. Not that she was letting him know it. “You’re going to get fat eating like that.”

His voice dropped another notch, becoming impossibly deep, impossibly slow. Incredibly suggestive. “You could help me work it off.”

“Having sex burns less than a hundred calories. You’ve got about ten thousand there.”

“Who was talking about sex?”

She gave him a look. “You were.”

“Don’t ruffle easy, huh?”

Harmony wasn’t sure what she was feeling, but ruffled was definitely too mild a word for it. “Why are you trying to ruffle me?”

“Just having fun. It’s been a while.” He took her hand again. “Not that it’s such a bad idea—sex, I mean. We could keep pretending to be a couple. It would be a good disguise.”

“We don’t need a disguise. You’re here to strip bank accounts.”

“Okay, but it would give me more incentive to toe the line.”

“You actually want me to hold sex over your head.”

“Every woman gets around to it eventually.”

“I’m insulted for all womankind, not to mention personally. And you don’t need me to have sex.”

“Uhhh . . . I’m out of prison now.”

“I meant, if you want sex, you can get it from any woman here.”

“With you watching?” he asked, effectively shutting her up. The problem with that was that it left him alone with his thoughts, and his thoughts weren’t exactly comforting because he was thinking that he didn’t want sex from any other woman there. He wanted it from Harmony Swift.

That was troubling until he realized he’d only fallen back into his old pattern, afraid to approach women. He didn’t even like Harmony, and he sure as hell didn’t trust her. But he knew her now, he could talk to her, and that had always been half the battle for him.

He wasn’t that nerdy kid anymore, though. After eight years in jail he didn’t think he’d have any trouble breaking the ice with women, no gunfire necessary. Not that it was going to be an issue, anyway, seeing as he was stuck with Harm—with Agent Swift—for the next little while . . . And if she ever looked at him the way she was looking at the lemon meringue pie, they were both in real trouble.

Her tongue crept out to wet her lips. He focused on his meal. And changed the subject. “I do what you want, I get the new evidence, right?”

“Yes, but there are some ground rules.”

“Such as?”

She put her fork down, met his eyes. Making sure he heard her. “I’m in charge,” she said.

“Nope.”

“But—”

He stood, his chair legs screeching over the wooden floor when he shoved it out of the way and walked off.

“I have to pay . . .” Harmony half rose, then sank back into her seat, smiling at the other diners. “Sorry,” she mumbled, grabbing the lemon meringue pie before she went up front to pay the bill.

When she got outside, Cole was pacing in the cool evening air, keeping to the gloom at the side of the building. At least her speech about keeping a low profile had sunk in.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the takeout box in her hand.

“Dessert.”

“You’re going to get fat.”

“It’s a new diet,” she told him, “the irritation diet. I figure as long as I’m around you, I’ll burn enough calories to eat a pound of sugar every day.”

“You’re an FBI agent,” he said in his own defense.

“And you don’t trust me, I get it. But you have no idea what’s at stake.”

“Because you’re holding back. And you don’t trust me, either.”

“No, I don’t, so I’ll be running this show until you prove I can trust you.”

“But you don’t have to prove anything to me?”

“You can still go back to jail and serve out your sentence,” she said. But she wasn’t looking at him.

Cole turned and saw what she saw, two police officers heading into the restaurant.

“What’s it going to be,” Harmony said, “me or them?”

Cole crowded close to look over her shoulder. “I thought you said they wouldn’t notify the local authorities that one of their agents defected.”

“This isn’t Russia; I didn’t defect,” she said, her voice rasping out on a soft wheeze because she’d just realized he was all but wrapped around her, a warm, solid, comforting hulk of a man who smelled like a man and felt . . . safe.

“Why else would they be here?”

“The warden. According to his file he has a pretty good relationship with the Pennsylvania State Police. He must have alerted them before the Bureau gagged him.”

“Great, a federal employee with initiative.”

“Hey, I’m a federal employee.”

“Not a recommendation in my book.”

“Maybe you’d prefer those two guys, and whoever they just called in as backup.” Harmony eased away from the window—and from Cole—turning back when she realized he wasn’t behind her. “Look,” she said, “this means the FBI isn’t the only agency after us. We’ll have to avoid the local police. I expected it, but not this soon.”

“Kind of complicates things.”

“Not really. Your choice is still pretty simple.”

“Is it?”

Harmony shrugged, but after the day he’d had she knew what he was thinking. Seventeen more years in jail couldn’t compete with wide-open spaces and restaurant meals. By the time he said, “We can’t go back to the car,” she’d already managed to suppress a self-satisfied grin. But she didn’t even pretend to agree with him, heading toward the Explorer.

“Their cruiser is blocking the drive,” Cole said, trying to muscle her off into the darkness.

“And the parking lot is completely surrounded by trees, I get it,” she said, ducking out of reach, “but if I don’t get my laptop we might as well give ourselves up.” She opened the rear passenger door just as the two cops came out of the restaurant and shouted at them to stop, crossing the parking lot at a dead run.

Their hands were on their holsters, but they hadn’t drawn their weapons, and Cole wasn’t giving them the chance. He headed for the bigger of the two, walking calmly, hands spread to show he wasn’t armed. When the cop got close enough, Cole sucker punched him. The officer went down, not out cold, but definitely groggy. Which left officer number two. He was smaller than his partner, but he had a good sixty pounds and six inches on Harmony. What he didn’t have was a takeout container of lemon meringue pie.

Harmony opened the little takeout box, scooped out the pie, and hit the cop square in the face, all in one slick Three Stooges move that left him blind. And enraged. He swiped at the lemon in his eyes with one hand, swinging wildly with the other.

Cole slipped up behind the officer, wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, and had him folding in a boneless heap to the pavement.

“Pie?” he said to Harmony, his eyes on her mouth.

“I didn’t want to shoot him,” Harmony said, choosing to respond—at least verbally—to the professional criticism rather than the way Cole had watched her lick lemon meringue off her fingers. Her physical response was completely involuntary and absolutely inappropriate given the fact there was an unconscious police officer at their feet and a groggy one just a few yards away. Not to mention the whole convicted felon thing.

And on that note, Harmony hit the locks on the Explorer’s key fob and pulled out a duffel and a laptop case, slinging the latter over her head so the strap lay between her breasts.

“Not taking a chance on losing the computer,” Cole said. “A woman after my own heart. What’s in the duffel?”

“My clothes, and I don’t want to lose those, either.”

He took the duffel from her and said, “We can work on that. Do you have any idea where we are?”

“A small town in western Pennsylvania.”

“Not a lot of options.” He cocked his head and smiled. “But there are possibilities.”

He wrapped his hand around her wrist and took off for the street, putting as much distance between them and the state cops as he could.

It would have been a good plan, if not for porch lights and barking dogs marking their path through the pitch black. The residents of this little town might be in for the night, but they weren’t sleeping. And they were probably armed.

“We have to get out of town,” Cole said, echoing her thought process. “Every one of these people has a gun in the house, a hunting rifle if nothing else. We keep this up and it’s only a matter of time before somebody takes a shot at us.”

“Not if the police get to us first,” she said, red and blue lights flashing against the white siding of the nearest house.

The police cruiser pulled into the driveway and two state troopers jumped out, one of them sporting a lemon meringue hairstyle, the other a nice lump on the jaw. Both of them displayed a singularity of purpose born of humiliation.

Lemon Meringue Guy stayed in front of the house, but the other cop came around the back, right toward the spot where Cole and Harmony crouched behind a rotting old shed Harmony suspected had once been an outhouse. This time his gun was in his hand.

“Keep to the shadows,” Cole said, which was great in theory, not so much in reality.

Harmony took off after him, but suddenly there was light everywhere, not to mention puddles, ditches, fences, a variety of gardening equipment, and the odd gnome. Cole blasted through every obstacle, Harmony struggling to keep up in his wake and quickly losing him in the darkness. The good news was that she’d lost the cop, too. She didn’t delude herself he’d stay lost forever.

“Man,” she wheezed when Cole appeared out of nowhere, dragging her behind a handy thicket of lilac bushes.

“Fake a twisted ankle,” Cole said, trying to shove her back out into the open. “I’ll circle around and take out the cop.”

Harmony grabbed two handfuls of shrubbery and refused to be thrown under the bus. “You’ll take off.”

“You’re the one who keeps saying we have to trust one another,” Cole reminded her, his voice low but fraught with frustration.

“Fine, you fake a twisted ankle,” she said. “I’ll circle around and take out the cop.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

“These hands are lethal weapons,” she said, holding them up, French manicure and all.

She could all but see Cole rolling his eyes. “Twisted ankles are chick territory, and the cop is less likely to shoot a woman.”

“Wow. You managed to be a chauvinist twice in one sentence.”

“I’ve always been an overachiever,” Cole said.

“Then you might be able to handle chick territory,” Harmony said. “With a little help.” She kicked him in the shin, and when he jackknifed to clutch at the assaulted body part she planted her foot on his butt and sent him stumbling out from behind the bushes.

“Hey,” the cop yelled, “I mean, freeze.”

Harmony heard the pounding of feet as she cut the opposite way around the bushes, coming up behind the cop and kicking him in the knee. She used her gun butt on the back of his head at the same time, and he crumpled into a satisfying heap at her feet. And then he jumped back up and lumbered toward her, murder in his eyes and his gun completely forgotten for the more primal urge to strangle her.

Harmony danced out of his way, heart pounding, no idea how she was going to live up to her big claims to Cole, let alone avoid arrest, when the cop dropped again. This time he didn’t get back up. Any self-congratulatory urges or notions of delayed reaction died when she saw Cole behind the cop. The look on his face was . . . bloodthirsty.

“You didn’t, uh . . .”

“He’s not dead,” Cole said, “but it won’t be long before his partner finds him or he wakes up.” He took her by the wrist again. “And then we’re going to discuss your definition of teamwork.”

“I can walk by myself.” Harmony gave her arm one good, twisting yank that broke his grip, then she set off, getting about two steps before the heel of her shoe caught on some obstacle unseen in the utter darkness and she fell on her backside, hitting Cole below the knees and nearly taking him down with her.

“You can walk,” he said, his face a white blur above her. “It’s staying upright that seems to be a problem.”

“Stop manhandling me,” she hissed as she climbed to her feet.

“You’re lucky I didn’t fall on top of you.”

“It’s these shoes,” she whispered back. “They’re not exactly outdoor gear.”

But they made her look like she had a mile of leg. “We have to go cross-country,” Cole said, putting her incredible mile-long legs—and how they’d feel wrapped around him—out of his mind before he lost the blood flow to his brain. “We don’t have a choice.”

“Then we go cross-country.”

They didn’t go fast enough for Cole’s preference. He kept the pace down for Harmony’s sake, not to mention his own. He couldn’t afford for her to fall again and maybe turn an ankle. But it worked against them.

They hit the edge of town and headed into the woodland beyond, Cole pulling her to a stop behind a handy tree while he got his bearings. Noise had a tendency to travel in the country, and there wasn’t anything to mask it, no crickets chirping, no frogs croaking, no sounds of the sidewalks being rolled up since that had apparently happened while they were in the restaurant.

The troopers were crashing through the underbrush, swearing and making enough noise to wake the dead as they split up and went in different directions. He and Harmony were both wearing dark clothing, but there was enough moonlight coming through the trees to reflect off their skin like neon. If the cops looked in the right direction . . .

Harmony curled her hand around his arm, and all Cole could think was that he ought to be paying attention to the guys with the guns. But her face was close to his and her breath was short, heat and excitement pumping off her. He was right there with her, adrenaline sparking along his nerve endings, but it wasn’t fight or flight he was thinking about.

She turned to him, started to speak, and he took her mouth. She sank in, just for a moment, her lips softening under his, her breath easing out on a small moan, her tongue tangling with his. And then she punched him in the gut.

There wasn’t a lot of oomph behind the shot—they were too close for that—but it was enough to startle a grunt out of him, and that, coupled with her snarling, “What are you doing?” was all it took to get the other cop’s attention. He sent up a shout for his partner and came after them at a run.

“Keep up,” Cole said, pointing himself into the darkness and setting a ground-eating pace, not full speed, but fast enough to put some distance between himself and Pennsylvania’s Finest without slamming into a tree trunk or stumbling into a hole. His heart was chugging like a freight train, from a combination of exertion, fear of arrest, and the conflicting urge to either kiss Harmony Swift or throttle her. She wasn’t exactly helping the situation.

“Every man for himself?” Harmony said, breathing hard, her voice dripping sarcasm.

“You’re not facing another twenty years in jail,” he shot back, “not to mention what they’ll tack on for this little field trip,” but the important thing was she was right behind him. She was the key to exoneration, he told himself. He almost believed it—he might have believed it if that kiss wasn’t still sizzling across his skin like heat lightning, if he didn’t taste her again with every breath he took.

Think, he told himself, or there won’t be any more kisses, or wide skies, or choices. There wouldn’t be any more freedom, which was enough to send his hormones packing and re-engage his brain.

The troopers weren’t stupid enough to keep blundering around in the dark with no idea where they were going. Sooner or later they’d stop and do what he’d done, listen for sounds of movement. He pulled Harmony into a copse of saplings big enough to hide them both, and they froze except for their breath steaming on the chill autumn air. Sure enough the night was silent, the cops playing the waiting game, too.

Harmony was on the same page, head cocked, listening hard. All her attention was on the threat, Cole figured, or she never would have shifted closer to him, one hand on his stomach, the other creeping around his waist. Cole moved away, far enough to keep himself from being muddled by her again.

After a minute or two there was some crashing and swearing behind them, but it seemed to be headed in the opposite direction, back toward the town. Cole didn’t believe for a moment it meant they were off the hook. But they had some breathing room.

“What now?” Harmony asked, her voice no more than a breath of sound—with an unmistakably arctic overtone. Pissed off, Cole realized with a mental eye roll. One minute she was cranky because he’d gotten close, now she was angry that he wanted distance. Typical woman.

“Hear that?” he said close to her ear. He couldn’t resist brushing his lips, just a whisper of a touch, over her skin.

She shivered, but she moved away. He had to admire her self-control. It was a hell of a lot stronger than his, especially since taunting her had only backfired on him and it took her saying, “Seventeen more years of jail,” to shock him back to the fugitive-on-the-run stuff.