Tall, Dark and Devastating

No, in Harvard’s experience, a leader of a counterterrorist team needed constantly to adjust his plan of attack, altering and revising as unknown variables become known. A team leader needed to know how to listen to others’ opinions and to know that sometimes the other guy’s idea might be the best idea.

Joe Cat had consulted with Alan “Frisco” Francisco—one of the best BUD/S training instructors in Coronado—and had purposely put blustery Tim Farber in command of the very first training scenario in an attempt to knock him off his high horse. A former member of the Alpha Squad who was off the active duty list because of a permanent injury to his knee, Frisco had duties that kept him in California, but he was in constant contact with both Alpha Squad’s captain and Harvard.

Still, judging from the way Farber was holding court at the bar, surrounded by his two fellow agents, it was obvious to Harvard that Frisco’s ploy hadn’t worked. Farber was totally unperturbed by his failure.

Maybe tomorrow, when Alpha Squad reviewed the exercise, the fact would finally sink in that Farber had personally created this snafu, this grand-scale Charlie Foxtrot.

But somehow Harvard doubted it.

As Harvard watched, Farber drew something on a napkin, and the two other FInCOM agents nodded seriously.

Greg Greene and Charles Schneider were around Harvard’s age, thirty-five, thirty-six, maybe even older. They’d spent most of the preliminary classroom sessions looking bored, their body language broadcasting “been there, done that.” But in the field, during the evening’s exercise, they’d shown little imagination. They were standard issue FInCOM agents—finks, as the SEALs were fond of calling them. They didn’t make waves, they followed the rule book to the last letter, they waited for someone else to take the lead and they looked good in dark suits and sunglasses.

They’d looked good smeared with yellow paint from the terrorists’ weapons, too. They’d followed Tim Farber’s command without question, and in the mock ambush that had resulted, they’d been rather messily mock killed.

Still, they hadn’t seemed to learn that following Farber unquestioningly might’ve been a mistake, because here they were, following Farber still. No doubt because someone higher up in FInCOM had told them to follow him.

Only one of the four superfinks out there tonight had openly questioned Farber’s command decisions.

P. J. Richards.

Harvard glanced around the bar again, but he didn’t see her anywhere. She was probably in her room, having a soak in the tub, icing the bruise on the back of her head.

Damn, he could still see her, flung backward like some rag doll when that paint ball hit her. He hadn’t gone to church in a long time, but he’d silently checked in with God as he’d called for the training session to halt, asking for divine intervention, praying that P.J. hadn’t hit that tree with enough force to break her pretty neck.

Men died during training. The risk was part of being a SEAL. But P. J. Richards was neither man nor SEAL, and the thought of her out there with them, facing the dangers they so casually faced, made Harvard’s skin crawl.

“Hey, Senior Chief. I didn’t expect to see you here.” Lucky O’Donlon was carrying a pitcher of beer from the bar.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, either, O’Donlon. I was sure you’d be heading out to see that girlfriend of yours at warp speed.”

Harvard followed Lucky to the table where Bobby and Wes were sitting. He nodded a greeting to them—the inseparable twins of Alpha Squad. Unidentical twins. Bobby Taylor came close to Harvard’s six foot five, and he gave the impression of being nearly as wide around as he was tall. If he hadn’t wanted to become a SEAL, he would have had a serious future as a professional football linebacker. And Wes Skelly was Alpha Squad’s version of Popeye the sailor man, short and wiry and liberally tattooed. What he lacked in height and weight, he more than made up for with his extremely big mouth.

“Renee had a meeting tonight for the state pageant.” Lucky sat down at the table and then kicked out a chair for Harvard to join them. He filled first Bobby’s mug from the pitcher, then poured some beer for Wes. “You want me to get you a glass?” he asked Harvard.

“No, thanks.” Harvard shook his head as he sat down. “What’s that title Renee just won? Miss Virginia Beach?”

“Miss East Coast Virginia,” Lucky told him.

“Pretty girl. Young girl.”

Lucky flashed his movie-star-perfect grin as if the fact that his girlfriend probably hadn’t yet celebrated her nineteenth birthday was something to be proud of. “Don’t I know it.”

Harvard had to smile. To each his own. Personally, he liked women with a little more life experience.

“Hey, Crash,” Wes called in his megaphone voice. “Pull up a chair.”

William Hawken, Alpha Squad’s newest temporary member, sat across from Harvard, meeting his eyes and nodding briefly. Hawken was one spooky individual, dark and almost unnaturally quiet, seemingly capable of becoming invisible upon demand. At first glance, he was not particularly tall, not particularly well-built, not particularly handsome.

But Harvard knew better than to go by a first glance. The man had been nicknamed Crash for his ability to move soundlessly in any circumstance, under any condition. Crash was anything but average. On closer examination, his eyes were a steely shade of blue with a sharpness to them that seemed almost to cut. Crash didn’t so much look around a room—he absorbed it, memorized it, recorded it, probably permanently. And beneath his purposely loose-fitting clothes, his body was that of a long-distance runner—lean and muscular, without an extra ounce of fat anywhere.

“Grab a glass and have a beer,” Lucky told Crash.

He shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said in his deceptively quiet voice. “Beer’s not my drink. I’ll wait for the waitress.”

Harvard knew that Crash was part of this FInCOM project at Captain Catalanotto’s special request. He was in charge of organizing all the “terrorist” activities the Combined SEAL/FInCOM team would be running into over the next eight weeks. He’d been the strategical force behind tonight’s paint-ball slaughter. The score so far was Crash—one, CSF team—zero.

Harvard didn’t know him very well, but Hawken’s reputation was close to legendary. He’d been part of the SEALs’ mysterious Gray Group for years. And apparently he’d been involved in countless black operations—highly covert, hush-hush missions that were as controversial as they were dangerous. SEALs were allegedly sent into other countries to perform tasks that even the U.S. Government claimed to know nothing about—neutralization of drug lords, permanent removal of political and military leaders preaching genocide and so on. The SEALs were forced to play God, or at least take on the roles of judge, jury and hangman combined. It was not a job Harvard would have relished doing.

If the SEALs on a black op succeeded at their mission, they’d get little or no recognition. And if they failed, they were on their own, possibly facing espionage charges, with no chance of the government stepping forward and accepting the responsibility.

No wonder Crash didn’t drink beer. He probably had an ulcer the size of an aircraft carrier from the stress.

He’d no doubt come here tonight in an attempt to better get to know the SEALs who made up Alpha Squad—the men he’d be working with for the next eight weeks.

Which reminded Harvard of why he’d come here. He glanced at the three FInCOM agents sitting at the bar. Still no sign of P.J. “Has anyone tried to make friends with the finks tonight?”

“Besides you trying to get close to P. J. Richards, you mean? Trying to hold her hand out in the woods?” Wes Skelly laughed at his miserable joke. “Jeez, Senior Chief, only time in my memory that you were the first man down in a paint-ball fight.”

“That was my paint ball that hit you, H.,” Lucky drawled. “I hope it didn’t hurt too badly.”

“Hey, it’s about time he found out what it feels like just being hit,” Bobby countered in his sub-bass-woofer voice.

“I couldn’t resist,” Lucky continued. “You were such a great, big, perfect target, standing there like that.”

“I think Harvard let you shoot him. I think he was just trying to score some sympathy from P.J.,” Wes said. “Is she hot or is she hot?”

“She’s a colleague,” Harvard said. “Show a little respect.”

“I am,” Wes said. “In fact, there are few things I respect more than an incredibly hot woman. Look me in the eye, H., and tell me that you honestly don’t think this lady is a total babe.”

Harvard had to laugh. Wes could be like a pit bull when he got hold of an idea like this. He knew if he didn’t admit it now, Wes would be on him all night until he finally caved in. He met Crash’s amused gaze and rolled his eyes in exasperation. “All right. You’re right, Skelly. She’s hot.”

“See? Harvard was distracted,” Bobby told Lucky. “That’s the only reason you were able to hit him.”

“Yeah, his focus was definitely not where it should have been,” Lucky agreed. “It was on the lovely Ms. Richards instead.” He grinned at Harvard. “Not that I blame you, Senior Chief. She is a killer.”

“Are you gonna go for her?” Wes asked. “Inquiring minds want to know. You know, she’s short, but she’s got really great legs.”

“And a terrific butt.”

Wes smiled blissfully, closing his eyes. “And an incredible set of—”

“Well, this is really fun.” Harvard looked up to see P. J. Richards standing directly behind him. “But aren’t we going to talk about Tim and Charlie and Greg’s legs and butts, too?” Her big brown eyes were open extra wide in mock innocence.

Silence. Dead, total silence.

Harvard was the first to move, pushing back his chair and standing up. “I have to apologize, ma’am—”

The feigned curiosity in her eyes shifted to blazing hot anger as she glared at him from her barely five-foot-two-inch height.

“No,” she said sharply. “You don’t have to apologize, Senior Chief Becker. What you have to do is learn not to make the same disrespectful mistakes over and over and over again. What you as men have to do is learn to stop dissing women by turning them into nothing more than sex objects. Great legs, a terrific butt and an incredible set of what, Mr. Skelly?” She turned her glare to Wesley. “I have to assume you weren’t about to compliment me on my choice of encyclopedias, but were instead commenting on my breasts?”

Wes actually looked sheepish. “Yeah. Sorry, ma’am.”

“Well, you get points for honesty, but that’s all you get points for,” P.J. continued tartly. She looked from Wes to Bobby to Lucky. “You were the first three tangos I shot out there tonight, weren’t you?” She turned to Crash. “Exactly how many members of your team were hit tonight, Mr. Hawken?”

“Six.” He smiled slightly. “Four of whom you were responsible for.”

“Four out of six.” She shook her head, exhaling in a short burst of disbelief as she glared at the SEALs. “I beat you at your own game, and yet you’re not talking about my skills as a shooter. You’re discussing my butt. Don’t you think there’s something really wrong with this picture?”

Lucky looked at Bobby, and Bobby glanced at Wes.

Bobby seemed to think a response was needed, but didn’t know quite what to say. “Um…”

P.J. still had her hands on the hips in question, and she wasn’t finished yet. “Unless, of course, you think maybe my ability to hit a target was just dumb luck. Or maybe you think I wouldn’t have been able to hit you if I had been a man. Maybe it was my very femaleness that distracted and stupefied you, hmm? Maybe you were stunned by the sight of my female breasts—which, incidentally, boys, are a meager size thirty-two B and can barely be noticed when I’m wearing my combat vest. We’re not talking heavy cleavage here, gang.”

Harvard couldn’t hide his smile.

She turned her glare to him. “Am I amusing you, Senior Chief?”

Damn, this woman was mad. She was funny as hell, too, but he wasn’t going to make things any better by laughing. Harvard wiped the smile off his face. “Again, I’d like to apologize to you, Ms. Richards. I assure you, no disrespect was intended.”

“Maybe not,” she told him, her voice suddenly quiet, “but disrespect was given.”

As he looked into her eyes, Harvard could see weariness and resignation, as if this had happened to her far too many times. He saw physical fatigue and pain, too, and he knew that her head was probably still throbbing from the blow she’d received earlier that evening.

Still, he couldn’t help thinking that despite everything she’d said, Wesley was right. This girl was smoking hot. Even the loose-fitting T-shirt and baggy fatigues she wore couldn’t disguise the lithe, athletic and very female body underneath. Her skin was smooth and clear, like a four-year-old’s, and a deep, rich shade of chocolate. He could imagine how soft it would feel to his fingers, how delicious she would taste beneath his lips. Her face was long and narrow, her chin strong and proud, her profile that of African royalty, her eyes so brown the color merged with her pupils, becoming huge dark liquid pools he could drown in. She wore her hair pulled austerely from her face in a ponytail.

Yeah, she was beautiful. Beautiful and very, very hot.

She stepped around him, heading toward the bar. Harvard caught up with her before she was halfway across the room.

“Look,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the cowboy music blaring from the jukebox. “I don’t know how much of that conversation you overheard—”

“Enough. Believe me.”

“The truth is, you were a distraction out there tonight. To me. Having you there was extremely disconcerting.”

She had her arms folded across her chest, one eyebrow raised in an expression of half-disdain, half-disgust. “And the point of your telling me this is…?”

He let his eyelids drop halfway. “Oh, it’s not a come-on line. You’d know for sure if I were giving you one of those.”

Her gaze faltered, and she was the first to look away. What do you know? She wasn’t as tough as she was playing.

Harvard pressed his advantage. “I think it’s probably a good idea for you to know that I believe there’s no room in this kind of high-risk joint FInCOM/military endeavor for women.”

P.J. gave him another one of those you’ve-lost-your-mind laughs. “It’s a good thing you weren’t on the FInCOM candidate selection committee, then, isn’t it?”

“I have no problem at all with women holding jobs in both FInCOM and in the U.S. military,” he continued. “But I believe that they—that you—should have low-risk supporting roles, doing administrative work instead of taking part in combat.”

“I see.” P.J. was nodding. “So what you’re telling me is that despite the fact that I’m the best shooter in nearly all of FInCOM, you think the best place for me is in the typing pool?”

Her eyes were shooting flames.

Harvard stood his ground. “You did prove yourself an expert shooter tonight. You’re very good, I’ll grant you that. But the fact is, you’re a woman. Having you on my team, out in the field, in a combat situation, would be a serious distraction.”

“That’s your problem,” she said, blazing. “If you can’t keep your pants zipped—”

“It has nothing to do with that, and you know it. It’s a protectiveness issue. How can my men and I do our jobs when we’re distracted by worrying about you?”

P.J. couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re telling me that because you’re working with a Stone Age mentality, because you’re the one with the problem, I should be the one to adapt? I don’t think so, Jack. You’re just going to have to stop thinking of me as a woman, and then we’ll get along just fine.”

It was his turn to laugh in disbelief. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Try counseling, Senior Chief, because I’m here to stay.”

His smile was nowhere to be seen, and without it, he looked hard and uncompromising. “You know, it’s likely that the only reason you’re here is to fill a quota. To help someone with lots of gold on their sleeves be PC.”

P.J. refused to react. “I could fire those exact same words right back at you—the only black man in Alpha Squad.”

He didn’t blink. He just stood there, looking at her.

Lord, he was big. He’d changed into a clean T-shirt, but he still wore the camouflage fatigue pants he’d been wearing earlier tonight. With his shirt pulled tight across his mile-wide shoulders and broad chest, with his shaved head gleaming in the dim barroom light, he looked impossibly dangerous. And incredibly handsome in a harshly masculine way.

No, Harvard Becker was no pretty boy, that was for sure. But he was quite possibly the most handsome man P.J. had ever met. His face was angular, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. His nose was big, but it was the right length and width for his face. Any smaller, and he would have looked odd. And he had just about the most perfect ears she’d ever seen—just the right size, perfectly rounded and streamlined. Before the war game, he’d taken off the diamond stud he always wore in his left ear, but he’d since put it back in, and it glistened colorfully, catching snatches of the neon light.

But it was Harvard’s eyes that P.J. had been aware of right from the start. A rich, dark golden-brown, they were the focal point of his entire face, of his entire being. If it were true that the eyes were the window to the soul, this man had one powerfully intense soul.

Yeah, he was the real thing.

As a matter of fact, more than one or two of the other patrons in the bar, both men and women, were sneaking looks at the man. Some were wary, some were nervous, and some were flat-out chock-full of pheromones.

Without even turning around, Harvard could have snapped his fingers and three or four women—both black and white—would’ve been pushing their way to his side.

Well, maybe she was exaggerating a little bit. But only a little bit.

This man could have any woman he wanted—and he knew it. And even though P.J. could still hear an echo of his rich voice saying yes, he thought she was hot, she knew the last thing he needed was any kind of involvement with her.

Hell, he’d made it more than clear he didn’t even want to be friends.

P.J. refused to feel regret, pushing the twinges of emotion far away from her, ignoring them as surely as she ignored the dull throb of her still-aching head. Because the last thing she needed was any kind of involvement with him—or with anyone, for that matter. She’d avoided it successfully for most of her twenty-five years. There was no reason to think she couldn’t continue to avoid it.

He was studying her as intently as she was looking at him. And when he spoke, P.J. knew he hadn’t missed the fatigue and pain she was trying so hard to keep from showing in her face. His voice was surprisingly gentle. “You should call it a night—get some rest.”

P.J. glanced toward the bar, toward Tim Farber and the other FInCOM agents. “I just thought I’d grab a nightcap before I headed upstairs.” Truth was, she’d wanted nothing more than to drag herself to her room and throw herself into a warm tub. But she felt she had to come into the bar, put in an appearance, prove to the other agents and to any of the SEALs who might be hanging around that she was as tough as they were. Tougher. She could go from a hospital X-ray table directly to the bar. See? She wasn’t really hurt.

See? She could take damn near anything and come back ready for more.

Harvard followed her as she slid onto a bar stool several seats away from the other agents. “It wasn’t even a concussion,” she said. She didn’t bother to raise her voice—she knew Farber was listening.

Harvard glanced at the FInCOM agents. “I know,” he said, leaning against the stool next to her. “I stopped in at the hospital before heading over here. The doctor said you’d already been checked over and released.”

“Like I said before, I’m fine.”

“Whoops, I’m getting paged.” Harvard took his pager from his belt and glanced at the number. As the bartender approached, he greeted the man by name. “Hey, Tom. Get me my usual. And whatever the lady here wants.”

“I’m paying for my own,” P.J. protested, checking her own pager out of habit. It was silent and still.

“She’s paying for her own,” Harvard told Tom with a smile. “Mind if I use the phone to make a local call?”

“Anytime, Senior Chief.” The bartender plopped a telephone in front of Harvard before looking at P.J. “What can I get you, ma’am?”

Iced tea. She truly wanted nothing more than a tall, cool glass of iced tea. But big, tough men didn’t drink iced tea, so she couldn’t, either. “Give me a draft, please, Tom.”

Beside her, Harvard was silent, listening intently to whoever was on the other end of that telephone. He’d pulled a small notebook from one of his pockets and was using the stub of a pencil to write something down. His smile was long gone—in fact, his mouth was a grim line, his face intensely serious.

“Thanks, Joe,” he said, then he hung up the phone. Joe. He’d been talking to Joe Catalanotto, Alpha Squad’s CO. He stood up, took out his wallet and threw several dollar bills onto the bar. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay.”

“Problem at the base?” P.J. asked, watching him in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. For some reason, it was easier than looking directly at him.

He met her eyes in the mirror. “No, it’s personal,” he said, slipping his wallet into his pants.

She instantly backed down. “I’m sorry—”

“My father’s had a heart attack,” Harvard told her quietly. “He’s in the hospital. I’ve got to go to Boston right away.”

“I’m sorry,” P.J. said again, turning to look directly at him. His father. Harvard actually had a father. Somehow she’d imagined him spawned—an instant six-and-a-half-foot-tall adult male. “I hope he’s all right….”

But Harvard was already halfway across the room.

She watched him until he turned the corner into the hotel lobby and disappeared from view.

The bartender had set a frosty mug of beer on a coaster in front of her. And in front of the bar stool that Harvard had been occupying was a tall glass of iced tea. His usual.

P.J. had to smile. So much for her theory about big, tough men.

She pushed the beer aside and drank the iced tea, wondering what other surprises Harvard Becker had in store for her.

CHAPTER THREE

“HE LOOKS AWFUL.”

“He looks a great deal better than he did last night in that ambulance.” His mother lowered herself carefully onto the deck chair, and Harvard was aware once again of all the things he’d noticed for the first time in the hospital. The gray in her hair. The deepening lines of character on her slightly round, still pretty face. The fact that her hip was bothering her yet again—that she moved stiffly, more slowly each time he saw her.

Harvard’s father had looked awful—a shriveled and shrunken version of himself, lying in that hospital bed, hooked up to all those monitors and tubes. His eyes had been closed when Harvard had come in, but the old man had roused himself enough to make a bad joke. Something about how he’d gone to awfully extreme lengths this time just to make their wayward son come to visit.

The old man. Harvard had called his father that since he was twelve. But now it was true.

His parents were getting old.

The heart attack had been relatively mild, but from now on Dr. Medgar Becker was going to have to stop joking about how he was on a two-slices-of-cheesecake-per-day diet and really stick to the low-fat, high-exercise regimen his doctor had ordered. He was going to have to work to cut some of the stress out of his life, as well. But God knows, as the head of the English department at one of New England’s most reputable universities, that wasn’t going to be an easy thing to do.

“We’re selling the house, Daryl,” his mother told him quietly.

Harvard nearly dropped the can of soda he’d taken from the refrigerator on his way through the kitchen. “You’re what?”