SPY IN THE SADDLE (4 page)

She shot him a dark look. “I’m not going to pass out.”

Good. Because he really didn’t want to have to carry her up. He didn’t think he could handle touching her.

They walked to the elevators together. He kept close watch on her from the corner of his eye. At least they were alone when they got on. Her bloody arm would have brought on some questions, for sure. But they reached her room on the third floor without running into anyone.

She had a suite, small but tidy. She walked straight to the closet and grabbed some clothes. “I’m going to clean up. Make yourself at home,” she said before she disappeared behind the bathroom door.

He looked around more carefully. The space, like any hotel room, was dominated by a bed: king-size, plenty of room for two. He cut that thought right off and turned his back to the damn thing. He blew some air from his lungs. He shouldn’t be here. He shoved his hands into his pockets and reassured himself with the thought that he was here only in a professional capacity, and this would be the last time.

He scanned the rest of the furniture: a desk and a table with chairs in the small kitchenette. Plenty enough for the week she would be staying.

The sound of running water drew his attention to the bathroom door. He bent his head, rubbed his thumb and index fingers over his eyebrows as he squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He so didn’t want to think about the new, grown-up Lilly naked under the hot spray of water.

He did anyway. Maybe he had more self-discipline than the average Joe, but he was still a man.

She kept the shower brief. Long before he could have reined in his rampant imagination, she emerged from the bathroom, wearing soft white slacks and a pale green tank top that emphasized the green of her eyes. A nasty red wound, at least four inches long, marred her lower right arm. It still seeped blood.

She went to the closet again and bent to the bottom. She grabbed a jumbo first-aid kit, then came over to sit on the edge of the bed. “I wouldn’t mind if you helped me bandage this up. I’m not good with my left hand.”

The bed? With five chairs in the suite, she had to sit
there?

He almost suggested the kitchen table, but he didn’t want her to guess that she affected him in any way.

He stepped up to her, trying not to notice her fresh, soapy scent. “You travel with an emergency kit?”

She’d been a pretty haphazard person back when he’d known her, definitely not the Girl Scout type. More of a “let the chips fall where they may” sort of girl.

She popped the lid open. “I like to be prepared.”

Of course, she was an FBI agent now. She’d probably been shot at before, even if he didn’t want to think about it. Obviously, she’d lived and learned.

He looked at the brown bottle of peroxide in the middle of the box. “Let’s start with the disinfecting.”

The bullet ripped along her skin but didn’t go through, didn’t damage muscle, or not too badly. That was good. She was right—she didn’t need the E.R. Although, it might have been better if a nurse was doing this.

He hadn’t planned on seeing her in so little clothes that he would have to notice her toned arms. He hadn’t planned on getting close enough to her to touch her.

But fine—he was a soldier. He could suck it up for ten minutes. As long as he didn’t look at the curve of her breasts, which the tank top very unhelpfully accentuated.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s what they always say.”

He slipped into latex gloves and disinfected the wound then dabbed it dry. To her credit, she didn’t make a sound. He leaned closer to get a better look at the damage now that dry blood didn’t obstruct his view.

She held still. “So?”

“The missing swath of skin is too wide for butterfly bandages, but the gash isn’t deep enough to really need stitches.”

To her credit, she didn’t say
I told you so.

He put on antiseptic cream then a sterile pad, wrapped her arm in gauze. “It’s going to leave a nasty scar.”

“Good thing I’m not a photo model.”

As she shrugged, his gaze strayed to her naked shoulder, to her soft, tanned skin. Feeling lust at this moment had to be wrong for at least half a dozen reasons. Trouble was, she had him so bamboozled, he couldn’t remember any of them.

He cleared his throat. “Good to go.”

She flashed a smile. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He stepped back.

“And thank you for...before,” she added with a tilt of her head, her eyes growing serious. She filled her lungs, a consternated look coming over her face for a second. “I’m sorry if I was a difficult teenager.”

Difficult
didn’t begin to describe her. “You were something.”

She smiled again.

He didn’t smile back. “And by that, I mean trouble. And it was pretty obvious you’d be even bigger trouble in a couple of years. I was just hoping we wouldn’t be running in the same circles by then.”

She watched him. “And here I am.”

“And here you are.” He drew a slow breath, and the flowery scent of her soap hit him all over again.

* * *

L
ILLY
WATCHED
THE
WARY
expression on his face.

Being alone in a hotel room with Shepard Lewis had been her teenage dream. To have him here now seemed beyond strange, even if under vastly different circumstances than she’d spent hours daydreaming about back in the day.

She’d written
songs
about him, for heaven’s sake.

She pushed all that away.

“You kept insurance on the car I borrowed,” she said. Okay, stole. But seeing how they were practically colleagues now, there was no sense splitting hairs.

He shifted where he stood. “Figured you couldn’t afford it. Driving without insurance is illegal. Didn’t want you to get into more trouble if you got caught.”

“You never reported it stolen. That car saved my life. I lived in it the first year after I ran away.”

He nodded.

“How come you’re no longer a parole officer?”

His dark eyes focused a little sharper, his jaw jutting out a little, his masculine lips tightening.

Oh, God.
“Did you quit because of me?” Had she been that bad?

He backed away from her, to the window, and looked out. He said nothing.

“You did?” She stared.

He did a sexy, one-shouldered shrug. “Technically, I was let go.”

She stared some more as she tried to make sense of that.

“Why? You were really good. You were the only decent person I met in the system. If anyone could have made me go straight, it was you. You just got me too late. I was... Look, nobody could’ve gotten through to me by that point. Why on earth would they let you go?”

He turned back to her, holding her gaze. “There was that letter.”

For a long second, she had no idea what he was talking about. Then it clicked. “The email I sent?”

“Work emails are not private.”

“But I was thanking you for all your help and apologizing for the car—”

And then it hit her.

Heat flushed her face. The email...
Oh, God.
At the end, in a fit of teenage drama, she’d confessed her undying love. She might have even mentioned that she would be saving her virginity for him.

She’d blocked that memory, apparently, until now. She cringed as she pushed to her feet and busied herself with packing up the first-aid kit. FBI agents didn’t blush, she tried to remind herself, too late.

“I’m sorry,” she said without looking at him. She couldn’t just now.

She had a fair idea what had happened. He’d probably been accused of encouraging her teenage fancy. He hadn’t. The opposite, if anything. He’d always tried to treat her as a big brother would, which used to frustrate the living daylights out of her.

“I’m really sorry,” she said again, feeling it in the bottom of her soul.

“Don’t worry about it. I found my place.”

She didn’t know what to say. She put away the white box and moved out to her kitchen to put a little distance between them. “Would you like a drink?”

“I better get going.” But he stayed where he was and watched her for a long minute. “There was one thing I could never figure out. Why did you set fire to the house?”

The air got stuck in her lungs. “Your house burned down?”

Again, he waited awhile before he spoke. “Could have been an accident.” He shook his head, then scratched his eyebrow as he thought. “I had the oil pan over to the side. You knocked a few things over when you drove the car off the metal ramp, come to think of it. Something might have thrown a spark.”

She’d burned his house down.

She sank into the nearest chair as the stark truth hit her. “I ruined your life.”

He gave a wry smile. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

For the first time in a long time, she had no idea what to say. He was armed. Why hadn’t he shot her yet?

She wasn’t about to ask him and give him any ideas.

For her, coming here, seeing Shep again meant...tying up some loose ends from her past. He’d been a good memory. She might have even looked forward to showing off to him a little...
look, I’ve made it,
that kind of thing.

She might have spent some extra time on her hair and makeup this morning. He’d pushed her away years ago. Now part of her wanted him to see what he’d missed and maybe even regret it.

She closed her eyes. What a fool she’d been.

All these years, he must have thought of her only as his worst nightmare.

His phone rang, breaking the silence, and he answered it. She was ridiculously grateful for the chance to gather herself.

He listened before he said, “Okay, I’ll be right there.”

“What is it?” she asked, still a little dazed by his revelations. “Did they find the Mustang?”

He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Not yet. It’s probably hidden somewhere in a garage right now. It belongs to a Doug Wagner, who doesn’t seem to be home at the moment. Keith went out there. He got a list of Wagner’s buddies. A neighbor said Wagner likes to hang out with them at The Yellow Armadillo.”

“Which is?”

“A seedy bar in Pebble Creek. Known smuggler hangout.” He shrugged. “But he wouldn’t be out in public right now, after a hit. We’re going to run down his friends and see if he’s holed up with one of them or, at least, if one of them is holding the Mustang for him.”

He held out his phone for her, with a mug shot on the screen. The man in the picture was average-looking— beady dark eyes, greasy hair, giant chin.

She’d seen only a little of the Mustang’s driver, but enough to match him to the photo. She pushed to her feet. “That’s him. I’m coming with you.”

“No.” He said it as if he meant it, in that stern, disapproving tone she knew only too well. “You just got shot. You’re probably still tired from flying out here. And now you’re injured. Stay and rest. Just take the rest of the day off, all right? Give your body a chance to recover.”

She bristled for a moment but then, just this once, she decided to give in to him. A few hours of distance might be just what the both of them needed to put the past behind them. They needed to do that so they could move forward.

“I’m really sorry about before. Do you accept my apology?”

He nodded without having to think about it. “I’m glad it all worked out for you in the end. It’s good to see you doing well.”

“You, too.” It was a relief that she hadn’t driven him to alcohol or something. “When I come into the office tomorrow morning, we’ll start over. Could we do that?”

“It’s a deal.” He walked out the door with a brief nod at her, then closed it behind him.

She had to give it to him, he wasn’t one to hold a grudge. She wasn’t sure she could have been as understanding. She thought for a minute about their past, about where they were now, and tried to put things into perspective.
Think positive.

She did that, and she also thought of something that would let her show Shep that she’d changed, that she wasn’t the same person who’d nearly ruined his life, that she was good at what she did now.

The sudden need to prove herself to him took her by surprise.

When she’d received the assignment, she got a list of the team members and a one-page memo on each. She knew she would have to face Shep and she didn’t really think she’d have any problem with it. She’d expected an awkward moment or two, maybe, but then they’d get over it.

Reality, however, turned out to be a lot more complicated.

She looked up the address of The Yellow Armadillo on the internet, then walked to her closet. Just because she’d agreed to stay away from the office for the rest of the day, it didn’t mean she was done with investigating. She wasn’t here on vacation. She wasn’t here just to observe and evaluate the team.

She was here to help them achieve their objective.

She’d come prepared, brought undercover clothes in addition to her FBI suits. She pulled on blue jeans, cowboy boots, left the tank top and combed her hair out, then pushed a cowboy hat over her head.
Ready.
She would hang out at the bar, nurse a beer and get a feel for local activity.

Wagner was the key. The Coyote must have sent him to take out Jimmy, a loose end. Wagner could lead them straight to the Coyote, who could take them straight to the terrorists. They needed Wagner.

Her car was at the office, but The Yellow Armadillo was just a few blocks away. A chance to clear her head was more than welcome. And she could use the walk to get a better feel for Pebble Creek. She took the stairs, adding a little more to the exercise.

Her phone rang. Unknown number.

“Hey, it’s Jamie. Shep said you got shot. How are you doing?”

Okay, that was weird. She wasn’t used to family checking up on her. “Just a scratch. Not to worry.”

“If you need anything—”

“I’m fine.” As a rule, she handled her life on her own. She didn’t depend on people.

Jamie paused for a second. “Okay. Just wanted to check in.”

The day was hot but not unbearable as she hung up and walked out onto the street from the hotel lobby. She turned right after the bank and walked down the side street until she found the bar.