Hero Under Cover

“You’re not going to try to buy it off him because you like the man,” Cara said triumphantly, making Homer’s head bob wildly. “You like him, I knew it. You don’t want to take advantage of him.”

Annie put her head down on her desk. “Oh, MacLeish, he’s going to be here for weeks and weeks and weeks. What am I going to do?”

“At least he’s handsome,” Cara said. “Imagine if you had to stare at some guy with no neck all day and night—”

Annie stared up at her. “Yeah, terrific. Great. Wonderful. He’s handsome. He’s gorgeous. To tell you the truth, I’d prefer staring at some guy with no neck. Taylor’s so good-looking, it’s distracting as hell, and he’s…standing in the door, listening to me say this,” Annie said, looking over at Pete, who was leaning against the door frame, amusement in his dark eyes.

“We were talking about you,” Cara said unnecessarily. She smiled happily. “How embarrassing for us.”

“It’s not embarrassing,” Annie said to Cara. “I mean, the fact that he’s gorgeous shouldn’t come as big news to him. He knows what he looks like. And the fact that we were discussing him also shouldn’t put him into shock. He’s invading my life, and I deserve a chance to bitch and moan about it—about him.” Annie gestured toward Pete.

Still smiling happily, Cara said, “Annie just spoke to Marshall—”

“The bastard,” Annie interjected.

“—on the phone,” Cara finished. “Looks like you might want to get your suitcase in from the car and put it someplace a little more permanent.”

“Oh,” Pete said.

“Don’t gloat,” Annie snapped.

His eyebrows moved a millimeter. “All I said was—”

“I’m so annoyed,” Annie said. “Marshall—”

“The bastard,” Cara supplied.

“—doesn’t think a woman can take care of herself,” Annie sputtered. “I asked him to hire a female bodyguard—no offense, Taylor—”

“None taken,” he said.

“—and Marshall—”

“The bastard.” This time Pete interjected, his lips twitching up into a smile.

“—laughed that obnoxious wheezing laugh of his.” Annie demonstrated it, sounding an awful lot like a circus seal in mortal terror. “And he said that he’d still have to pay Taylor—to protect the female bodyguard! He said being a bodyguard is a man’s job! Of all the stupid, chauvinistic things to say! And he topped it off by calling me ‘little lady’! As if ‘darlin” weren’t bad enough. So I told him I quit. I told him he could take the stupid artifact and have it authenticated by a stupid man.”

“And?” Cara asked, grinning in anticipation.

“Marshall—”

“The bastard—” Cara and Pete said in unison.

“Laughed again and said—” Annie imitated Marshall’s heavy Texan accent “—‘It’s typical of a woman to try to break a written, binding contract.’ Then he suggested we talk again when it was a better time of month! I wanted to reach through the phone, grab his nose and twist it—hard!”

“So?” Cara asked.

“So nothing. I’ve still got a contract and a bodyguard,” Annie muttered, with a black look in Pete’s direction.

“You know—” Pete started to say.

“You might not want to be talking right now,” Annie interrupted him. “I’m starting to feel the urge to vent some of my hostilities, and you’re looking like an extremely attractive target.”

“Extremely attractive, eh?” Cara smiled, leaning back in her chair and putting her feet up on the desk.

“That’s not what I meant,” Annie said dangerously. “You’re fired, MacLeish. Go make some copies or do whatever else it is that I pay you to do.”

The phone rang, and Annie swooped toward it.

“Maybe it’s Marshall,” she said. “Maybe he changed his mind….” She picked up the receiver hopefully. “Hello?”

She’d pulled her headband out while she was pacing, and now she pushed her hair back from her face with one hand as she used the other to hold the receiver to her ear. As Pete watched, she stared into the distance, her eyes temporarily unfocused as she concentrated on the call. He saw surprise, then shock flash across her face. Then her blue eyes narrowed.

“Who is this?” she demanded. “You want to do those things to me? I dare you to try. Why don’t you show yourself? Come here in person, instead of hiding behind threatening phone calls and rocks thrown through windows—”

Pete leapt toward her, grabbing the telephone out of her hand, trying to activate the tape recorder the FBI had left behind. But the connection had been broken, and the line buzzed with a dial tone.

“Damn it,” he swore, hanging up the phone. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why didn’t you record that call? And what the hell possessed you to say those things? You really want this guy to come out here?”

She was shaking. “Don’t you shout at me!” she said, her eyes blazing. “I just listened to some crackpot describe some incredibly sick fantasy of his in detail, and I happened to have a major role. You can’t expect me not to tell him off—”

“I expect you not to goad him on,” Pete said, his own eyes glittering chips of obsidian. He stood with his hands on his hips, effectively pinning Annie in against her desk.

She wanted to move, but in order to do that she’d have to push past him, or climb over her desk. So she stayed where she was and tried to hide her shaking hands by sticking them into the back pockets of her jeans.

Pete picked up a pad and a pen from her desk. “You have to tell me what he said to you,” he said brusquely. “Word for word.”

Annie shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t.”

“If you don’t remember exactly—”

“That’s not it,” she said. “I can remember. I just…can’t repeat what he said. It was too awful.”

She tried to meet his gaze challengingly, but her eyes suddenly welled with tears. She swore softly and blinked them back. “I’m having a really bad day,” she said.

Pete turned away, shocked at his emotional response to the tears in her eyes. He wanted to pull her into his arms, tell her everything was going to be okay and kiss her until her hands shook for an entirely different reason. He wanted to tell her he’d take care of her, protect her.

But he couldn’t tell her that, and he certainly couldn’t protect her without her cooperation.

Annie took the opportunity to move around to the other side of her desk and sit down. She wished that Taylor would leave her alone. God, wasn’t it bad enough that she’d been subjected to that obscene phone call? She wanted to forget about it. The thought of having to tell him exactly what that creep had said to her made her cheeks burn.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Taylor pull up a chair across from her desk. He sat down, then looked over her head, across the room to where Cara sat. Annie glanced at her friend, who was watching them both with unabashed interest.

“Would you mind…?” Pete said to Cara.

Cara stood up uncertainly.

“Set up the final test for that copper bowl, please, MacLeish,” Annie said. “I’ll be out in the lab in a minute.”

Cara hated being left out of anything, but she went out of the office. Pete stood up and closed the office door behind her.

Annie looked up at him as he sat back down across from her. To her surprise, his eyes were soft, kind even.

“The reason I wanted to record this call,” he said quietly, “was to help us track the caller. And I’m not just talking about locating him—most of these people call from public telephones, so that doesn’t do much good. But the FBI can use their computers and try to match phrasing or word choice or even sentence structure, in the event that this is a repeat pattern offender.” He pushed the pad and pen toward her. “And that’s why I need to know what he said to you. As exactly as you can remember. Maybe it would be easier for you to write it down.”

For a long time she didn’t move. She just stared at him. Then, suddenly, she picked up the pen and paper and began to write.

Pete sat back in his chair, watching her.

Sunlight was streaming in the window, and it lit her from behind, creating an auralike glow around her. Pete remembered the words he had overheard her saying to Cara. He distracted her. He distracted her? Not half as much as she distracted him, he was willing to bet.

He was carrying around this tight feeling of need all the time now, Pete realized. It no longer was triggered only by her quick smile, or her walk, or her low, sexy laugh. All he had to do was see her…. Man, all he had to do was think about her and, whammo, he wanted her. And when he wasn’t with her, he sure as hell was thinking about her…. This could turn out to be one hell of an uncomfortable two months.

Annie finished writing, put the pen down on top of the paper and stood up. “I’ll be in the lab,” she said shortly and left the room.

“Thanks,” Pete called after her.

She didn’t respond.

He reached across the desk and picked up the pad she’d written on. As he read the words that the phone caller had said to her, his jaw tightened. The threats had a horrific, nightmarish quality to them. They were all violently sexual and graphically explicit.

He read it over and over, each time his sense of uneasiness growing. It was entirely possible that these were not idle threats meant only to frighten Annie. It was entirely possible that her life really was in danger.

He reached for the telephone and dialed Whitley Scott’s number.

“ONE OF US HAS TO RUN OUT to the airport,” Cara said to Annie as they finished up the test on the copper bowl. “We’ve got that package from France coming in.”

Annie looked at her blankly.

“Remember, the package coming in to Westchester Airport?” Cara said. “The job you aren’t going to get to for a decade? Subject of a conversation we had two days ago?”

“Right, right,” Annie said. She had put her hair back into a ponytail while they were working, but now she pulled it free, and it swung down around her shoulders. She sat down on one of the wooden stools that were scattered throughout the lab. “MacLeish, when’s the last time we took a vacation?”

Cara pushed her glasses up higher on her nose and frowned. “You mean, like a trip to Easter Island and two weeks of crashing through the underbrush and staring at giant rock heads from some distant, ancient culture? Or are you talking about Thanksgiving at the parents’ house? Or do you mean Club Med—lying on the beach in bikinis while handsome men bring us daiquiris and margaritas?”

“I mean Club Med. I definitely mean Club Med.”

Cara chewed her lip as she thought hard. “I’ve worked for you for…how long now?”

“Forever,” Annie answered.

“Right. And the last time we took a vacation was…Never?”

“That decides it,” Annie said. “We need a vacation. When we’re through with what we’ve got—when’s that gonna be?”

Cara shrugged. “End of December, beginning of January?”

“We’re taking January off,” Annie said. “Don’t accept any more work unless the clients can wait until February for us to start the project.”

“Thank you, Lord,” Cara said to the ceiling. “Club Med, here we come! Bless you, master!”

Annie stood up. “Back to work, slave,” she said. “I’m heading for the airport.”

She quickly ran upstairs and grabbed her jacket and car keys. “See you later,” she called out to Cara as she ran lightly down the stairs.

Outside, the air was crisp and cold, and she buttoned her jacket, thinking it was time to dig her scarf out of her closet—

Pete Taylor was standing next to her car.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

She looked at him blankly.

“I’m your bodyguard,” he said patiently. “That means when you go someplace, I go, too.”

Annie closed her eyes. Please, God, she thought, when I open my eyes, make him be gone. Make this all just be a bad dream….

He was still there. Damn, damn, damn.

“I’ll drive if you want,” he said.

“I like to drive,” Annie said. But her car was piled high with books and papers and empty seltzer cans. And his car was a sporty little Mazda Miata…. Her eyes slid toward his shiny black car.

“We can take mine if you want,” Pete said, as if he could read her mind. He held out the keys. “You can drive.”

Slowly she reached for them. “What’s the deal? Is it rented?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said with one of his rare smiles.

“You’d trust me…?” Annie asked.

“You’re trusting me with your life,” Pete said. “I’ll trust you with my car.”

Annie got in behind the steering wheel and adjusted the mirrors. She didn’t realize just how little the car was until Pete got in and nearly sat down on top of her. He was so close, they were practically touching. Maybe they should’ve taken her car instead….

She turned the key and the engine hummed.

“I faxed the FBI your transcript of that phone call,” he said.

“Oh, great,” Annie said sourly. “I’ll bet they get a good laugh out of that.” She eased the sports car out of the driveway, feeling the power in the engine.

“They’re checking a number of different leads,” Pete said, ignoring her sarcastic comment. “There are a couple of radical groups who have already lodged ownership claims to Stands Against the Storm’s death mask. And another group has sent a formal complaint, claiming it should be returned to the Navaho people in New Mexico.”

“Don’t tell me. None of those groups is actually connected to the Navaho,” Annie said, glancing at him, already knowing the answer.

“You’re right.” A white flash of teeth made her turn quickly back to the road. His smile was a killer. It was a good thing he didn’t do it more often. “The Navaho don’t want anything to do with the death mask. As far as they’re concerned, they were happier with Stands Against the Storm’s bad spirit safely across the Atlantic Ocean in England.”

“How do you feel about it?” Annie asked. “Having the death mask in the house?”

She risked another look at him. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were lit with humor.

“You don’t really think it would bother me, do you?” he said.

“You are at least part Navaho,” Annie said. “Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Half. Is it that obvious?”

“Actually, no. But your necklace gave you away. It’s so valuable. I figured it must have sentimental value to it, that it must be an heirloom and that’s why you wear it. Because if you were just a collector, you’d keep it locked in a case.”

“My grandfather gave it to me,” Pete said. “His grandfather made it. My great-grandfather made the ring and the belt buckle. They were all made to be worn—not locked away.”

She glanced at him again. When she met his gaze, she felt a jolt of warmth that was different from the attraction that always seemed to simmer between them. This was friendly and comfortable. Oh, brother, she was actually starting to like this guy.

She pushed the Miata up to seventy.

“So what do you think?” she asked. “Who’s really after this death mask? If it’s not the Navaho…”

Pete shrugged. “Maybe the FBI’s right and it’s one of these radical Friends of the Native Americans groups.”

“But you don’t think so.” She glanced over at him. He was watching her, his eyes warm. What would he do, she wondered suddenly, if she reached over and took his hand?

He’d assume she’d fallen for him—the way every woman who’d ever crossed his path had no doubt done. But she didn’t want to be just another notch on his belt. No way. If she was going to be stupid enough to fall in love with this man, she was going to make damn sure he fell in love with her, too.

Something told her she’d better work fast. She already liked him, and Lord knows she was attracted to him. Her heart was ready for some bungee jumping. It had been a long time since she’d met a man she wanted to get to know better, a man she could imagine becoming involved with. And she could imagine being involved with Pete Taylor. Oh, baby, could she imagine it.

With very little work at all, she could imagine the way his strong, hard-muscled body would feel against hers. She could imagine his mouth curling up into one of his rare, beautiful smiles before he kissed her. She could imagine him in her bed, his hair damp with perspiration, his naked body slick and locked together with hers. She could imagine his dark eyes watching, always watching, learning all of her secrets, giving away none of his own.

She glanced at him again, then quickly looked away, afraid if he gazed into her eyes too long, he might somehow read her mind.

But he managed to anyway. When she looked up at him again, there was a moment when she could see deep hunger in his intense, dark eyes. But he turned away before she did, as if he, too, were fighting the attraction.

Annie cleared her throat, focusing all her attention on the exit ramp that led to the local airport.

Pete tried to wipe his damp palms inconspicuously on his jeans. Man, this woman disturbed him. One of these days, he was going to lose the last bit of his control.

Annie was following the signs leading to the main terminal parking lot. She slid the car into an empty parking space and shut off the engine. She turned in her seat and looked at him.

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