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“It’s really no biggie. I mean, I was the one who wasn’t being careful. I should have known this particular guy would be trouble. And then I made a second mistake by letting him get too close. I definitely underestimated the situation. If I’m paying the right amount of attention, I’m completely capable of taking care of someone that size. But I messed up. And I almost paid for it.”
“What’s his last name?” Jake asked. “Wayne what?”
“No,” Zoe said. “Sir. No disrespect intended, but I’m not going to tell you.”
“You were sexually assaulted.” His voice broke. “This is not something to just say oh, well about and let go.”
“What are you going to do, Jake? Find him and beat him up? And maybe blow our cover when he recognizes you in a few weeks when you walk into Mel’s bar with Christopher Vincent? Or maybe you think I should press charges? I’m supposed to be a drifter, right? My cover is that I’ve had my share of trouble with the law, that I’m jaded with the system—ready to be enlightened by the CRO’s doctrine. Somehow it doesn’t fit for me to go running to the police and shouting for justice.”
He knew she was right. She could see it all over his face. He had such an expressive, wonderful face.
She leaned closer. “Our job here is to regain possession of that Trip X. That takes priority over everything. Even this.”
Jake exhaled in frustration. “I just … I know. I just hate not being able to do anything.”
She gave him a shaky smile. “You want to do something? You could put your arms around me for a minute.”
He didn’t need more of an invitation than that. He reached for her, and she found herself wrapped in his arms.
He smelled so good and felt so familiar—as if she’d been in his arms far more than just that one other time.
His arms were warm and so solid as he held her tightly, as he stroked her hair. It was funny how much better that made her feel.
It didn’t mean she was weak. It didn’t mean she wasn’t strong. She didn’t need him to hold her, but it sure was nice that he was there.
Zoe closed her eyes, not wanting this minute she’d asked for to end.
She felt him sigh and braced herself, waiting for him to pull away. But he didn’t. And she didn’t.
“God,” he finally said on another sigh, still holding her tightly. “This just feels too good.”
Zoe lifted her head and found herself gazing directly into his eyes. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
He pushed her damp hair from her face. “It feels inappropriate,” he whispered. “Doesn’t it?”
She gazed at the graceful shape of his mouth. “Not to me.”
“I’m not going to kiss you again,” he said hoarsely, pulling away, pushing himself off the built-in couch and all the way across the tiny room. “Not until I have to.”
Zoe tried to smile, tried to make a joke as he slipped on his brown leather flight jacket and prepared to leave. “Gee, I didn’t realize kissing me would be such a negative.”
He turned to give her a long look. “You know damn well that I liked it. I know it wasn’t real, but nevertheless, I liked it too much. I’m leaving tonight,” he added.
Zoe stood up. “Tonight? But …”
“I’m ready as I’ll ever be and this … this is getting crazy. You be careful working at Mel’s,” he ordered. “With luck, I’ll see you in the bar in a few weeks.”
“Jake.”
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and looked back.
Zoe’s heart was in her throat. He’d liked kissing her. Too much. “I liked it, too,” she said, adding, “kissing you.” As if he’d needed her explanation.
Another man might’ve stepped toward her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her until the room spun. But Jake just gave her a crooked smile that was overshadowed by the sadness in his eyes.
“Be safe,” he said, and walked out the door.
JAKE KNEW FROM THE WAY Harvard cleared his throat that the moment of truth had arrived.
It was time for him to leave. So if anyone was going to try to make him change his mind, it was now or never.
Jake had kind of hoped it would be never.
So much for hoping.
“Permission to speak freely, sir.”
Jake looked from Harvard to all four of the lieutenants, and then at the enlisted men. They were all there but Zoe. She wasn’t part of this. Or maybe the men had intentionally excluded her.
“This isn’t a democracy, Senior,” Jake said mildly.
“At least hear us out, Admiral.” Admiral. When Billy called him admiral, it meant he was dead serious.
Jake sighed. “I don’t need to hear you out,” he said. “You don’t think I’m up for this. You think it’s been too long since I’ve seen action, since I’ve been out in the real world. You don’t think I can keep up, despite the fact that every time we’ve run together, you’ve had to fight to keep up with me.”
“This is different than running, and you know it,” Billy said. “Yes, you’re physically fit for—” He broke off.
Jake bristled. “Go on, say it. For an old man. Right?”
“Jake, I love you, and I’m worried about you,” Billy said, cutting through to the bottom line, the way he always did so well. “I don’t know why you’re doing this when any one of us could find a way to get inside the CRO—”
“Because I can walk through those gates in the morning,” Jake told Billy, told them all, “and have dinner at Christopher Vincent’s private dining table by night. If you or Cowboy or Lucky were to go in there, God knows how many months it would take you to work your way up to just being able to stand guard outside the dining room door.”
He looked them all directly in the eyes, one at a time. Billy. Cowboy. Mitch. Lucky. Harvard. Bobby. Wes. “We don’t have months, gentlemen. The CRO could decide to do a test run of the Triple X at any time, in any city.” They all had family, friends living all over the country, and his unspoken message cut through, loud and clear. Until they regained possession of the T-X, no one was safe.
Jake shouldered his bag of gear. “Now, who’s taking Mitch and me to the airport?”
THE AIR FORCE FLIGHT TO South Dakota seemed to take forever.
Mitch slept for most of it, only waking as they began their descent.
Jake was sick and tired of thinking about the way his team had questioned his plan. He’d worked hard over the past week to gain their respect. He’d thought his physical stamina, his ability to run hard and fast, had won them over. Obviously, he’d been wrong.
His team thought of him as an old man.
He wished Billy was with him instead of Mitch. He’d wanted to talk to the kid about Zoe, find out if he was shocked by Jake’s intention to pretend he and the young doctor were romantically involved.
But Jake’s plan had called for one of the SEALs to wind up arrested, thrown into jail for conspiracy and charges of aiding and abetting the escape of a suspected felon. Both Mitch and Billy had volunteered, but Jake knew that playing this role would be hitting a little too close to home for the kid. It hadn’t been that long since Billy had spent time in prison, facing very similar charges for real.
So Jake was here on the plane with Mitchell Shaw. A man he’d always thought of as a friend.
A man who—just a few hours ago—had lined up with the rest of the team and questioned Jake’s command.
Right now, CNN was announcing a late-breaking story of conspiracy and intrigue in the U.S. military. As the story went, Admiral Jake Robinson had escaped from house arrest. He’d been confined to his quarters after being charged with conspiracy, allegedly leaking top secret military information to several extreme right-wing state militia groups. Those militia groups had been lobbying for fewer federal regulations, less control by the federal government. Allegedly there were tapes, and the words Jake had spoken could be interpreted as treasonous.
The military had been attempting to keep the entire affair from the public eye, since as an admiral in the U.S. Navy, Robinson should have been among the staunchest defenders of the federal government. But four days ago, as the story went, Robinson had escaped his guards with the help of three unidentified men, and now the incident was national news.
All four of the men were currently at large.
To help this cover story along, Mitch and Jake were going to be spotted in South Dakota, and Mitch was going to be apprehended while Jake once again made an escape.
Jake was then going to proceed, by car and on foot, to Montana, leaving a trail that the CRO could trace if they tried. And they would try—particularly after he showed up on their doorstep, seeking asylum.
Within a few days, CNN would stop carrying the story—Admiral Mac Forrest would see to that. And after several weeks of hiding in the CRO compound, Jake would be able to leave hiding and venture into town.
And then he’d see Zoe again.
Zoe. Who’d liked the way he’d kissed her.
Mitch shifted his jaw, expertly popping his ears as the plane continued its descent.
“Hey, Mitch,” Jake said.
“Yes, sir?”
“No,” he said, “not sir. I’ve got something I need to discuss, and I need you to talk to me as a friend.”
Mitch nodded, completely serene. “I’ll do my best.”
“It’s about—”
“Zoe.” Mitch nodded. “I figured you were going to say something. I’m sorry if I got in your way. I honestly didn’t think you were interested in her—you’ve been avoiding her all week.” He smiled slightly. “You know, Jake, I’ve found it’s far easier to get a woman into your bed if you actually interact with her.”
“I don’t want to get her into my …” He couldn’t finish the sentence—it wasn’t true. He exhaled noisily in exasperation. “God, she’s too young for me. How could I even be thinking about that?”
“She doesn’t think she’s too young.” Mitch smiled again. “I’ve been hanging out with her. Telling her stories about you. She’s yours if you want her, Admiral. And if you don’t, I’m hoping I might be next in line.”
Jake had to know. “She’s beautiful and she’s smart and she’s very sexy, but … you’ve had the opportunity to meet plenty of beautiful, smart, sexy women, and as far as I’ve seen, you’ve never given any of them a second glance. So why Zoe? What is it about her?”
Mitch gazed thoughtfully out the window at the approaching runway for several long moments. “She’s one of us,” he said simply, turning to look at Jake. “I get the sense that she wants the things I want from a relationship—no strings, no promises, no regrets. Just good, clean, healthy fun. Sex that’s just that—sex. No more, no less.” He laughed softly. “To be painfully honest, Jake, I tend to stay away from most women because I’m afraid of hurting them when I leave. And you know in our line of work, we always leave. We disappear on some assignment, and who knows when we’ll be back. But Zoe …” He laughed again. “Zoe would never expect anything long term. Because she leaves, too. And she’d probably leave first.”
The plane touched down on the runway with a jolt.
“I know you miss Daisy,” Mitch said quietly. “I know how you felt about her. But you’re not dead. And Zoe might be just what you need. It won’t have anything to do with what you and Daisy had. It doesn’t have to go too deep.”
Jake sighed. “Just thinking about it makes me feel unfaithful.”
“To whom, Jake?” Mitch asked gently. “Daisy’s gone.”
CHAPTER SIX
WEEKNIGHTS WERE THE WORST. Weekends were no picnic, but at least on Friday and Saturday nights, Mel’s was crowded and Zoe was kept busy.
But on a Tuesday night like this one, Zoe sat at the bar with old Roy, who sat nursing a beer on the same stool every night and could have been anywhere from eighty to a hundred and eight, and Lonnie, who owned the service station on the corner of Page Street and Hicks Lane and was probably older than old Roy.
On Tuesday nights, Hal Francke had his bowling league, so even he wasn’t around, trying his damnedest to brush up against her.
And Wayne Keating—Monica’s boyfriend, the one who’d nearly overpowered Zoe—had been arrested for DUI. It was his third offense, and he was being held without bail. So there was no chance of him staggering into the bar and livening things up.
No, it was just another deadly boring Tuesday night in Belle, Montana.
Zoe was definitely going to go mad.
Two weeks had come and gone and come and gone and here she was, well into week five in her new career as barmaid, with no sign of Jake.
He’d gotten into the CRO compound. She knew that. She’d seen surveillance tapes of him being let inside. Even taken from a distance, she’d clearly recognized him. The way he walked, the way he stood.
According to the team, he’d been spotted from time to time within the confines of the electric fence.
But he hadn’t come out.
Each time a car or van left the CRO gates and headed toward town, Harvard or Lucky or Cowboy would call, and Zoe’s silent pager would go off. And she would know to be ready.
Maybe Jake would show up this time. Maybe …
But even though Christopher Vincent himself had come into Mel’s a number of times, and always with an entourage, Jake had been nowhere in sight.
Zoe was completely frustrated. And getting a little worried.
Had something gone wrong? She called Harvard every night on the pretense of checking in, but in truth to find out if Jake had been spotted again during the course of the day.
What if he’d gotten sick? Or injured? What if Vincent knew he was only there to find the Triple X? What if Jake were locked in the factory basement, beaten and bleeding and …
Oh, dammit, and the really stupid thing was that beneath her worries and her frustration at this endless inactivity was the unavoidable fact that she missed him.
She missed the man.
She missed his smile, his solid presence, his calm certainty, the sweet sensation of his arms around her.
Zoe groaned, resting her forehead on the bar atop her folded arms. He’d only kissed her once, but she missed that, too. Holy Mike, when had she become such a hopeless romantic? And hopeless was the key word here.
This foolish schoolgirl crush she was experiencing was definitely one-sided.
Yes, the man had kissed her. Once. And afterward, he’d run screaming as hard and as fast as he could in the opposite direction. And when he kissed her again, it was going to be because he had to. He’d told her as much.
“Ya gonna do that singing thing tonight?” Lonnie leaned over and asked.
He was talking about the karaoke. Last Friday, Hal had bought a karaoke system secondhand and very cheap from a guy going out of business over in Butte. Zoe had been the only member of the wait staff brave enough to give it a try. The songs were mostly all retro dance hits, with a bunch of old country songs thrown in.
Zoe lifted her head to look in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. Besides Lonnie, old Roy, Gus the bartender and herself, there were only three other people in the place.
“I don’t think so,” she told Lonnie. “There’s not much of a crowd.”
Old Roy was already leafing through the plastic-covered pages that listed the song titles available on this karaoke system. “I love this old Patsy Cline song.” He blinked at her hopefully. “Will you sing it? Please?”
It was the same song he played over and over on the jukebox at least three times every single night. “The record sounds much better than I do,” she told him. “Here, I’ll even front you a quarter.”
“But we like it when you sing it.” Now Lonnie was giving her his best kicked-puppy look. “I’d like to hear the other songs you did on Saturday night, too.”
Zoe sighed.
“Please?” they said in unison.
She should really clean the bathrooms. God, she hated cleaning the bathrooms.
“Sure. Why not?” She went behind the bar to the stereo system and powered up the karaoke player. “But if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right.” She untied the short apron that held her ordering pad and change. She set it down, picked up the karaoke microphone and switched it on. “Ready for this, boys?”
Both Roy and Lonnie nodded.
She used the remote to turn on the TV behind the bar, setting it to receive the signal from the karaoke system. She put in the right CD and programmed the machine and …
Thunderous strains of pedal steel guitar came pounding out of the speakers. Old Roy and Lonnie both clapped their hands over their ears.
“Sorry!” she shouted, turning the volume down by a full half.
The words on the screen turned color, and she sang them into the mike. “Crazy …”
Old Roy and Lonnie sat paying rapt attention—the president and vice-president of her personal fan club—as Zoe did her best country diva imitation, singing to an imaginary crowd of thousands.
One song became two, then three and four. Each time it ended Roy and Lonnie gave her a standing ovation.
“Sing mine again,” Old Roy requested.
When Zoe looked to the bartender for help, Gus just smiled. “I like that one, too.”
“Last one,” Zoe said. “Last time.”
She didn’t need the words on the screen this time as she sang. “Crazy …”
It was her finale, and she went all out this time, exaggerating all the moves. Roy and Lonnie grinned at her like a couple of two-year-olds.
And during the instrumental break and the subsequent key change, she climbed up to sing while standing atop the sturdy wooden bar, and they gave her a two-man wave.
Zoe knew it wasn’t so much her voice that got them going. Her voice was pleasant enough, and she could certainly carry a tune, but she was no Patsy Cline. No, Roy and Lonnie were fans of her tight blue jeans and her low-necked tank tops.
She closed her eyes, threw her head back and struck a pose for the last chorus of the song, letting a very country-sounding cry come into her voice as she sang about being crazy for crying, crazy for trying, crazy for loving you.
As the last strains of music faded away, the room was filled with applause. Way too much applause for just Old Roy and Lonnie.
Zoe opened her eyes.
And looked directly down at Christopher Vincent.
The CRO leader was standing near the door, surrounded by about fifteen of his disciples.
She’d had no warning, no time to prepare, but then again, she’d taken off her apron—and in it, her pager—at least five songs ago.
“That was just beautiful,” Vincent said. “Just beautiful.”
She gave a sweeping bow. “Thank you.”
“Someone want to give her a hand down from there?”
“Yeah, I’d love to.”
Jake.
He pushed his way out of the crowd and stood smiling at her.
She didn’t faint with relief, didn’t gasp, didn’t reveal in any way that she recognized him. Instead she looked at him very deliberately, as if she were checking out the new man, the handsome stranger in town.
He was dressed the same as the rest of the men, in blue jeans and a worn denim work shirt. But the faded jeans hugged his thighs, and the shirt fit perfectly over his very broad shoulders. He was heart-stoppingly, impossibly beautiful, his eyes an incredible shade of molten hot blue.
During the past four and a half weeks, she’d forgotten just how amazingly blue his eyes were.
He’d been looking her over as thoroughly as she had been looking at him, and now he smiled.
Jake Robinson had a vast collection of smiles in his repertoire, but this one was very different from any she’d seen in the past. This one was as confident and self-assured as all the rest, but instead of promising friendship or protection, this smile promised complete, mind-blowing ecstasy. This smile promised heaven.
Damn, he was good. He almost had her believing that she’d lit some kind of fire inside of him.
Christopher Vincent noticed it, too. Noticed it, and recognized it. And wasn’t entirely thrilled by it.
Zoe held Jake’s gaze, lifting an eyebrow in acknowledgment of the attraction that simmered between them and giving him an answering smile that promised maybe. A very definite maybe.
“Zoe.” Gus was completely overwhelmed behind the bar.
Jake reached for her, and she leaned down to give the microphone to Lonnie before bracing her hands on Jake’s shoulders. He held her by the waist and swung her lightly to the floor, making sure that before her feet touched the ground, every possible inch of her that could touch every possible inch of him was, indeed, doing so.
And oh, God, it felt so incredibly good. She wanted to hold him tightly, to close her eyes and press her cheek against his shoulder, hear the steady beating of his heart beneath the soft cotton of his shirt. He was safe, he was whole, he was finally here. Thank God, thank God, thank God.
She wanted to hold on to him for at least an hour. Maybe two. Instead she touched the side of his face and held his gaze for just a second longer, hoping he could read her mind and know how very glad she was to see him.
His arms tightened around her for just a second in an answering embrace before he, too, let her go.
“I’m Jake,” he told her, with another of those killer smiles.
“And I’m Zoe,” she said as she went behind the bar. “Welcome to Mel’s. I’ll be your waitress tonight.” She slipped her apron around her waist, and sure enough—inside the pocket, her pager was silently shaking. She quickly shut it off. “What can I get you?”
He sat on the bar stool directly in front of her. “What kind of beer do you have on tap, Zoe?”
He said her name in a way that called up all kinds of erotic images, in a way that made her mouth go dry.
She leaned toward him, gesturing for him to come closer, and she felt his gaze slip down her shirt, nearly as palpable as a touch. “I recommend bottled beer,” she told him. They had a little problem with roaches. She didn’t know how they got into the tap hoses, but they did, and … yuck.
“Then definitely make it bottled,” Jake said. He was close enough so his breath moved her hair. “Whatever you bring me will be fine.”
As she turned around and reached into the cooler, she could feel him watching her. Make-believe, she told herself. It was all part of an act. Jake Robinson wasn’t really drooling over her rear end. He was just pretending to.
She opened the beer—a Canadian import—and set it down in front of him. “Glass?”
“I don’t need one, no.”
“Zoe, two pitchers, one light, one regular!” Gus called.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Zoe told Jake.
She could feel his eyes on her as she filled both pitchers.
He was still watching as she carried them with a stack of plastic cups to the tables where Christopher Vincent and most of his men were sitting.
“What brings you boys out on a Tuesday night?” she asked.
“My friend Jake’s been going a little stir-crazy,” Christopher told her. “He’s been … keeping a low profile. You don’t recognize him from anywhere, do you?”
Zoe glanced at the bar where Jake was sitting, still watching her. “He looks like a movie star. Is he a movie star?”
“Not exactly.” Chris looked around. “Where’s Carol? I wanted to introduce him to Carol. I thought they would hit it off.”
“She’s off tonight,” Zoe said. “Some kind of program going on over at her daughter’s school.”
“Maybe tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow will definitely be too late,” Zoe told him. “Finders keepers, and all that—because I definitely saw him first. He’s adorable.”
Chris didn’t look happy. But Chris rarely looked happy.
Considering he was the leader of the so-called chosen race, Christopher Vincent was not a particularly attractive man, mostly due to the grim expression he wore on his face nearly all the time, and partly due to his thick, dark eyebrows, which grew almost completely together in the middle. He was tall and beefy with long dark hair, which he wore pulled back into a ponytail. He kept his face hidden behind a thick, graying beard, and he usually wore tinted glasses over his dark brown eyes. He looked over the tops of them as he gazed at Zoe.