Secure Target (Elite Operators) (10 page)

Hardy’s eyes narrowed to slits, but he lowered the knife slightly. “Don’t lie to me, Mason. I know what the Special Task Force is like. Bloodthirsty, muscle-headed thugs the police only scrambles when it needs its dirty work done. I outsmarted those bumbling homicide cops one too many times, so they called in their even more bumbling heavies.”

Bronnik held out his hands in a gesture of offense, resulting in his gun pointing away from Hardy. “Now that’s harsh, even for you. I could’ve shot you thirty seconds ago. In fact, I could’ve shot you several times since I took this case. I don’t want you dead, Hardy—why would I? All I’m saying”—he shrugged—“is it’s a lot easier to escape from a prison than a graveyard.”

Lloyd Hardy was trembling. Lacey wrapped her arms around herself, more scared than she’d ever been in her life. Was he about to burst into tears or explode with rage? Neither one struck her as a fantastic option.

The three of them stood in silence for a long minute, the air practically crackling with tension.

Distantly, Lacey heard the shuffle of footsteps in the corridor outside the closed door that led into the range. Panic flew into her throat. Whatever was happening in here, Bronnik seemed to have it under control, and he seemed to be getting somewhere, but if anyone surprised Hardy now—

Before she finished her thought the door burst open and a team of men wearing bulletproof vests and helmets marked
FBI
swarmed in with automatic weapons, barking unintelligible orders.

“Dammit, not now!” she heard Bronnik shout over the din, but then there was a pop and a flash and the room filled with what she assumed was tear gas. Her eyes welled uncontrollably and she gasped for air, her throat burning.

She could just make out Bronnik dropping to a crouch, then a flash of movement and the glint of a blade. She watched through watery, squinting eyes as Hardy’s slight figure moved toward the blurred blue shape of Bronnik’s shirt, and something came to life inside her.

She screamed Bronnik’s name as she sprinted forward, her lungs burning, and then she pulled back her leg and kicked with all her might at what she hoped was Hardy’s arm. As the blade scraped across Bronnik’s forearm she realized she’d gotten his thigh instead, but it was effective regardless. The flash of the knife disappeared, and Hardy seemed to melt away into the hazy smoke filling the room.

“We’re losing him—dammit, I can’t see a thing!” A familiar voice rang through the fog, and Lacey spotted Thando rushing past her at the same time one of the other FBI agents grabbed her around the waist and forcibly dragged her out of the room and down the corridor.

Although the clean air in the main reception area was welcome, her pulse raced with worry for Bronnik. “Let me go,” she demanded, pulling against the agent’s iron grip.

“Sit here,” he instructed, dumping her into a cheap plastic chair behind the cash register. “Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

The shop owner stood against a back wall, his eyes big and glittering with excitement. Two FBI agents stood at the entrance to the corridor, and she could see another by the front door, plus more out in the parking lot. With all this personnel, surely they could catch Hardy—right?

Ten minutes ago she was lost in a passionate kiss that was easily topping the list of her life’s most erotic moments. Yesterday morning she was a receptionist in a dental practice whose biggest concern was whether to stop by the grocery store on the way home from work. Now she was surrounded by law enforcement, and her foot still twanged where she’d attempted to dislodge Hardy’s knife from his grip.

Everything was happening so fast. Angry male voices shouted over crackling radios, the flashing lights from the police cars threw strange blue shadows across the room, and despite the cloying humidity of a room filled with far too much testosterone, she shuddered.

After an interminably long wait that in reality couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, she heard Bronnik’s voice coming down the hallway. It would’ve been hard to miss, because he was shouting.

“And now he’s gone again! Who’s going to find him this time? Are you going to do it?” He appeared in the doorway with Thando close behind, his brow furrowed in anger as he berated Agent Carver. He was holding his left wrist, and there was blood on his sleeve.

“We had to act—you’ve said yourself that he can’t be underestimated and every opportunity has to be seized,” Carver insisted. “I didn’t know you wanted to negotiate—we could’ve brought in a professional for that.”

Bronnik’s expression would’ve withered the most resilient flower, and he drew breath to reply, but as they stepped fully into the room she saw his gaze come to rest on her. She sat up in her chair, unable to contain her smile, and his face softened almost imperceptibly. He spoke to Agent Carver for another minute, closing the conversation with an irritated shake of his head, and as Thando followed the FBI agent into the parking lot he crossed the room and dropped into the chair beside hers.

“You saved my neck with that kung-fu kick of yours.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Ever considered a career in an elite tactical unit?”

“It was nothing,” she tossed back in a tone that gave no indication of her heart’s delirious, adrenaline-fueled cartwheels. “You’re bleeding pretty badly. You are aware of that, I hope?”

“I am indeed.” He adjusted his grip on the injured limb. “I’ll be fine. I wanted to check on you first.” His face grew serious. “Hardy skipped out. We think he got back into the air vent in the confusion and managed to get away from the building before anyone spotted him.” He shook his head incredulously. “FBI personnel everywhere and he walks away. I’m not sure I’ll ever know how he does it.”

Lacey bit her lip. They still had a long way to go. “I’m glad I saw him, in a way. I feel better now that I know what I’m up against.”

Bronnik regarded her steadily for so long that she began to shift under his gaze. “You’re a remarkable woman,” he said finally.

“Thanks, I guess.” A hot flush crept over her cheeks. She shouldn’t be this shy about accepting a compliment from someone whose tongue had been in her mouth not a half hour earlier. She flushed even more deeply at the memory.

“I need to get this taken care of.” He indicated his arm. “But at some point we’ll have to talk about what happens tomorrow, and what happened this afternoon.” He paused, and the hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “And what happened right before what happened this afternoon.”

There was no fighting it: Lacey let herself wallow in a combination of embarrassment and excitement at his last statement.

He hesitated a minute, his expression indecisive as he asked, “Would you like to have dinner with me this evening?”

His request, and the formality of it, was so unexpected that Lacey wasn’t sure what to say. He was essentially her bodyguard, so it seemed inevitable they’d be eating together. Unless he meant—

Doubt clouded his handsome face, interrupting her thoughts. “I’m sorry, that was completely inappropriate. You must be going through hell worrying about tomorrow, I don’t know what I—”

“Bronnik”—she stopped him with a hand on his knee—“I’d love to. Now please get that cut taken care of before you bleed all over this lovely shooting range.”

He grinned. “On your orders, miss.” He saluted, and loped off into the parking lot. She sat back and considered what he’d said—that she must be going through hell.

In fact, she was having the time of her life.

Which couldn’t possibly be normal—could it? Ten minutes ago she’d genuinely feared for her life, and now her blood thrilled with excitement and adrenaline.

Maybe she was in shock—maybe this was a delayed reaction—or maybe she had some little-known version of Stockholm Syndrome. She’d just faced down the man who intended to kill her—there was no way the emotions careening delightfully up and down her nerve endings could be what they felt like.

Thudding desire. Heady anticipation. Absolute certainty that Bronnik would keep her safe.

A few minutes later Detective Harris came in and motioned for her to join him, jolting her out of her reverie. “Let’s get you back to the hotel. These guys don’t think Hardy will try again today.”

She followed the policeman into the rapidly fading midwinter dusk. It was late afternoon, but she could already see the faint glimmer of the moon in the twilight sky. She paused in the open passenger door of Harris’s patrol car and gazed out across the parking lot. What had been an empty stretch of asphalt when they’d pulled in hours ago was now buzzing with activity, flashing lights, radios crackling, men in uniform milling around.

Over the top of one of the cars she spotted an ambulance, its back door open and the interior light burning bright. Inside, with a uniformed EMT bent over his extended arm, Bronnik stared back at her.

His lips curved, and he winked.

Chapter Eight

“I guess I’m a divorcee,” Lacey remarked wryly when Detective Harris led her to a new room in the same hotel where they’d stayed last night. The adjoining door was closed and locked, and armed police officers lingered in the corridors. The detective looked at her quizzically but said nothing. She figured she must be a lost cause in his estimation.

“Thando Zarda is across the hall,” he informed her stiffly. “Bronnik Mason will be next door. Let one of the guys outside know if you need anything.”

He took his leave, and Lacey shook her head, wondering that someone who’d surely seen as much crime and disorder as he had could be so scandalized by a tiny extra-professional indiscretion.

Not her problem, she decided as she faced down the empty hotel room and the vacant hours stretching ahead of her.

She tried watching TV but quickly found that, having experienced the real thing, the sorts of police procedural dramas she normally enjoyed now seemed synthetic and hollow. She pulled a paperback out of her duffel bag and read a few pages, but she couldn’t concentrate on the story. After a few lines her eyes blurred and she began replaying the scenes she’d lived with Bronnik that day—the weight of his arm over her shoulder, the dry warmth of his hands as they’d covered hers, the hard press of his arousal through his jeans—she blinked and the page came back into focus, and she couldn’t remember a word she’d read.

She put the book aside, flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, giving herself over to her thoughts.

She wasn’t a nun—far from it. She’d had after-a-couple-of-dates sex, she’d had casual but recurring partners, she’d even had the odd one-night stand. But no one had set her body on fire like Bronnik, and all they’d done was kiss.

She crossed her arms behind her head. What was it about him that was so different from the others? Obviously he was handsome in a rugged way, his body was super sexy, and he wasn’t a complete jerk—those were the boxes Lacey normally hoped to tick. On top of that he had a cute accent, a decent sense of humor and an unexpectedly boyish charm. Yet while those were all true, they weren’t the spark that set Lacey’s passion alight. That was harder to put her finger on.

It wasn’t the sharpshooting, the elite tactical skills, the lethal intensity that lay beneath the tanned blond exterior. It wasn’t his physical power, his lack of fear in the face of danger or his enthusiastic response to high-risk situations.

It was the way he’d defended her from her brother, and his fury at a man’s disrespect for a woman. It was the sincerity with which he admitted his mistake with Hardy’s previous victim, the humility and honesty in his explanation. And although it should be completely counterintuitive in her situation, it was his decision not to kill Hardy when she knew he had the chance.

He was a good man. At his deepest core, he was a good man.

Lacey had no idea when to expect Bronnik for dinner, or where they’d be going. She got ready early, grateful that she’d packed a simple but flattering green dress with a small white chevron pattern. She pulled on black stockings and fastened a silver necklace with a solitary jeweled charm, but decided to leave the flats-versus-heels question until she found out their destination.

She gave her hair one last fluff in the mirror and sat on the edge of the bed, prim and expectant.

After twenty minutes of waiting, Lacey decided she might as well kill some time on the Internet. She logged on to her laptop and checked her e-mail, then read the local news. The incident at the firing range had been reported in a brief paragraph as “police responding to a weaponry malfunction”, and the mall shooting wasn’t covered at all. The FBI certainly knew what it was doing when it came to the press.

Almost without thinking, she clicked to the Special Task Force video she’d saved in her favorites. She watched, for what must have been the hundredth time, Bronnik’s attentive stare in the briefing, his kick to the door, his hefted weapon—

The knock at the hotel-room door startled her out of her reverie. She paused the video and leapt up, smoothing the front of her dress one last time before opening the door.

Bronnik was a tall drink of water in crepe-soled tan desert boots, slim-fitting jeans, and a heather-gray sweater pulled snugly over a white-collared shirt.

“Hi,” she breathed, realizing just how much she’d missed him in the few hours they’d spent apart. “Come in.”

“There was a lot of housekeeping back at the range,” he said apologetically. “I hope you’re not starving.”