Hot Intent (Hqn) (29 page)

“Um, what was all of that?” she asked in a small voice.

“The cavalry.”

“Holy cow. That was impressive.”

“My old man comes through in a pinch.”

“He really loves you, you know.”

“Yeah. He’s got a funny way of showing it, though.”

“Those are some parents you’ve got,” she commented dryly. “They’re going to make the world’s worst in-laws.”

He chuckled, and then it grew into a laugh, and then into uproarious hilarity. She joined him, laughing until tears ran down her face. They’d done it. They’d survived his first meeting with his mother.

A black Hummer rolled up the driveway as their humor subsided.

“Now what?” Katie muttered in disgust. “Do we have to run again?”

“I’m shot in the leg. I couldn’t run if I wanted to,” he commented.

“What?”
She jumped away from him in panic. “Where? How bad is it?”

“Bullet passed through my calf. It’s not life-threatening.” He jerked his chin at the man climbing out of the Hummer. “Besides, we’ve got company.”

He recognized the bulldog silhouette of André Fortinay. Alex sighed. Time to face the music for this little stunt of his. “Help me to my feet,” he murmured to Katie.

She leaped up and bent down to help hoist him upright. His leg hurt like hell, but that was a good sign. The nerves were operational. He tested the limb, and it held his weight without any new pain or numbness. Bone wasn’t broken, then.

Fortinay strode right up the porch steps, not stopping until he was face-to-face with Alex and Katie, who’d wrapped her arm tightly around his waist. Protective little thing, she was.

“What in the hell have you done, Alex?” André demanded.

He shrugged. “I took what measures I deemed necessary to protect myself when I approached an armed and hostile target.”

“That
target
was your mother. A high-level intelligence asset in the U.S. government in charge of an extremely important and classified mission that you have blown to hell and back.”

“That asset tried to kill me and Katie.”

“Speaking of which, where is Claudia? I have orders to bring her in for debriefing.”

Katie piped up fervently, “Please tell me she’s in huge trouble for trying to kill her son.”

André shrugged. “I’m just following orders. I have no idea what will happen to her.”

Alex looked around the front yard and pasture. “She didn’t come out this door. She must have gone out the back.”

“Or she’s still inside,” Katie added. “Did she get caught in that initial burst of gunfire?”

Alex hobbled inside quickly, alarmed. He didn’t pause long to examine his feelings. For operational purposes, he hoped she’d been immobilized if not taken down outright. But in his heart, his feelings weren’t so simple. He’d loved the idea of her for so long it was hard to separate the reality of the woman from the fantasy of her.

Katie wrapped her arm around his waist again, restraining him when he would have hopped over to the stairs to clear the upper floor of the house. “Let André’s men do it,” she murmured.

“Clear!” someone shouted from upstairs. “There’s no sign of Claudia Kane, Mr. Fortinay.”

André swore under his breath. Alex shared the sentiment. And yet...a breath of relief whispered down his spine.

They waited almost another hour while André’s men did cleanup duty in the woods around the house. The Spetsnaz team disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. If any of the Russians had been injured or killed in the firefight, they’d carried out the casualties when they left.

As for Claudia’s team, a number sported gunshot wounds around the high-tech body armor they’d all worn. One man had been killed by a head shot between the eyes. His body was loaded in the second Hummer that had arrived not long after André’s, and the vehicle drove away.

Finally, the cleanup team reassembled at the house. A big, gruff man reported in to André. “There’s no sign of Ms. Kane, sir. She’s gone.”

Alex snorted. Now there was an understatement. He had no doubt the Claudia Kane identity was dead. His mother would disappear to who-knew-where and not emerge again until she’d built a new legend, a new face, a new life. Just like he would have. His mother was back to being a nameless, faceless ghost who might or might not ever reappear in his life.

And maybe that was as it should be. She’d been a ghost in his mind for so long he almost couldn’t conceive of a flesh-and-blood woman taking its place.

In the meantime, Katie’s body was warm and vibrant against his side. Real and alive. Here and now. She was no ghost at all. She had substance and form. He could wrap his arms around her, hang on to her, tell her his fears and dreams, pour his love into her, and she would return all of it.

Finally, at long last, the ghost of his mother had released its hold on his heart. He was tired of her cold comfort. Cold Intent had been well-named, after all. It had been all about her rage and desire for revenge.

But Katie had banished all of that from his heart. Instead, she filled him with laughter and the heat of real love. A real relationship. As reluctant as he was to admit it, he might just need a relationship in his life. With a woman who loved him unconditionally.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her long and deeply. She melted into him the way she always did, and for once, he didn’t fight the feelings she aroused in him. He embraced her heat, letting its promise burn away all the icy pain locked in his soul.

“Let’s go home, Katie. To our daughter. Our family.”

“Oh, Alex,” she breathed against his lips. “I love the sound of that.”

“I love you.”

“I know that, silly. I’ve always known it.”

And that pretty much said it all. She’d known him better than he’d known himself, all this time. And she loved him, anyway.

“I don’t deserve you,” he muttered as he tucked her under his arm and led her outside.

A sleek, black limousine was just turning into the long driveway.

“Yikes,” Katie exclaimed softly. “Now what?”

“More like, now who?” André mumbled.

The vehicle stopped and the driver jumped out to open the passenger door. A tall, portly, gray-haired man wearing an expensive wool coat stepped out of the limo.

“Sonofabitch,” André breathed.

Smiling, Alex started forward, dragging Katie with him. He spoke in polite Russian. “Ambassador Deryevnan. To what do we owe this honor?”

“Alexei. Your father sends his greetings to you.”

He bowed his head respectfully. “Thank you, sir. What can I do for you this cold evening?”

“Cold? This?” The Russian ambassador chuckled. “We must send you back to Moscow in January for a visit if you think this is cold.”

“No, thank you, sir. I’m afraid I’ve become a soft, coddled American.”

The Russian ambassador to the United States looked around at the assortment of armed and alert men lounging deceptively around the yard. “The way I hear it, you are as tough and smart as your father. A great credit to Peter.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“So. You nearly start a war this night. You have put many good Russian men at risk. What are we to do with you?”

Frowning, he braced himself mentally. What in the hell was someone of this rank doing out here in person to clean up his mess? He answered carefully, “I gather by your presence here that you have something in mind, Ambassador.”

The big man threw his head back and laughed. “Ahh, you are so much like him. I do, indeed, have a proposal for you.”

And the guy was prepared to lay it out to him in front of his CIA handler? What the hell? Alex glanced over at André, who was listening in closely on the exchange as if he understood Russian fluently.

“What might that be?” Alex asked cautiously.

“Your mother. She works for CIA. Your father. He works for FSB. How are you to choose sides, then? And who will trust you? Neither, I am thinking.” The ambassador added shrewdly, “Or both.”

“How’s that?”

“From time to time, our countries need to exchange information. To share certain...sensitive...pieces of knowledge with each other. Discreet channels for such transfer of information are difficult to come by. We propose that you and your companion consider continuing your employment with Doctors Unlimited.”

The Russian paused for a moment, and then continued carefully. “And we propose that you two also join the employ of a similar Russian aid organization. Doctors of such skill as yourself and your indispensable assistant—” the man glanced in Katie’s direction “—are few and far between. Surely the Americans will not mind sharing your talent with others. After all, your mission as a doctor is to help all patients, no matter what their nationality.”

Alex’s jaw dropped. They wanted him and Katie to work for both the CIA and FSB...with the full knowledge and approval of
both
agencies? “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he blurted.

“I think we can all agree that your situation is unique, can we not?”

André interjected, “We most certainly can.”

Katie muttered urgently, “What’s he saying?”

Alex answered quickly, “He wants me to work for both the CIA and the FSB and act as an information conduit from time to time.”

Her jaw dropped in shock. He knew the feeling.

“Are you going to do it?” she breathed.

Alex looked down at her. “What do
you
think? We’re in this together, after all.”

“Really?” she asked in a tiny, hopeful voice.

“Really,” he answered firmly. “Not only do I love you, I think I
need
you.”

Her jaw went slack for a moment. Then she gathered herself. “Well, in that case, I’d say the two of us will make a heck of a tightrope-walking act together. And I’m all for open lines of communication between our countries.”

Alex looked up at the ambassador and André, who were both staring back expectantly. “The lady has spoken. We’ll do it. Together.”

*

Keep reading for an excerpt from HOT PURSUIT by Cindy Dees.

Is redemption possible when the past won’t let go?

If you loved
Hot Intent
by acclaimed author Cindy Dees, be sure to also catch her thrilling romantic suspense title
Close Pursuit
.
Available now in ebook format.

Order your copy today!

Also, don’t miss the novella
Take the Bait
in this thrilling series!

For more tales of romantic suspense, be sure to also check out Cindy’s Harlequin Romantic Suspense titles, all available in ebook format:

A Billionaire’s Redemption
Deadly Sight
Flash of Death
Breathless Encounter
Her Hero After Dark
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CHAPTER ONE

K
ATIE
M
C
C
LOUD
STUDIED
the barren valley at her feet and shook her head.
Mars. It looks like freaking Mars.
Who’d have guessed anywhere on Earth looked like this? Of course, she’d had to go to the foothills of the Himalayas at the intersection of Nowhere and Uninhabitable to find it.

She ducked inside the makeshift shelter tucked between two giant boulders and looked around. It would be a tight squeeze for two people and their gear. But this trip wasn’t about having all the comforts of home. She really was trying hard to think of it as a grand adventure, but her personal pep talk wasn’t sinking in at the moment. Her brother had promised it would be like primitive camping. Maybe if she was primitive camping in
hell.

“Come help me,” her partner-in-crime, Alex Peters, called low from outside. She slipped out just as a cloud of dust rained down on the opening. Coughing, she batted the local gray grit out of her hair and glared at him on the hillside above her. “What are you doing?”

“Camouflaging our tent.”

“You didn’t have to camouflage
me.
”

A rare smile crossed his face. “You do want us to remain hidden, right?”

“Well, yeah,” she groused. “If they find us, we’ll be killed.”

Which was pretty crazy if she stopped to think about it. And which was why Katie was trying hard
not
to stop and think about it. Her brothers did this kind of stuff all the time, and everything always turned out fine. How tough could it be? She’d spent most of her adult life insisting to all of them that she could do the same sorts of wild things they did. And getting laughed at for saying it or, worse, patted on the head like some kind of cute puppy. This was her chance to prove she was the real deal once and for all.

Her confidence temporarily bolstered, she joined Alex on the steep slope above their little hideaway. She stumbled on rolling gravel, and his hand shot out to grab her elbow and steady her. As always, her pulse leaped at the contact. Surely he knew how totally hot he was. If he did, he didn’t give any hint of it as he let go of her arm and turned his attention back to hiding their tent. She gathered up an armful of scrawny, dead weeds and scattered them across the canvas surface.

“Too much,” he said critically. “The tonal value of the tent’s green contrasts too much with the dead grass. It draws the eye to the tent.” He slid gracefully down to the edge of the tent roof and removed most of the plant material.

“And when did you become an expert on the tonal values of tent canvas?” she asked tartly. Not that she doubted for a second that he was correct. In the few days she’d known him, he’d surprised her multiple times with the esoteric tidbits he knew. Her brother had warned her that Alex Peters was brilliant. As in off-the-charts-genius brilliant. But in her experience, intellect and common sense were two entirely separate things.

Alex stared at Katie warily. He did that a lot—look at her as if he thought she was about to leap on him and tear his shirt off or something. Not that it hadn’t crossed her mind. He was pretty gorgeous in a dark, tortured kind of way. That combination of dark hair and light eyes was surprisingly sexy.

He answered her question laconically, “They made me take an art class my last year as an undergrad at Harvard.”

“How old were you then? Twelve?”

“I didn’t start college until I was thirteen,” he replied absently, obviously already focused on something else entirely.

Her brother had told her Alex graduated from Harvard at sixteen with a degree in mathematics. Master’s in statistics and probability from MIT at seventeen, and well into PhD work in cryptography there before the wheels had come off his life. Maddeningly, her brother hadn’t said a word about what
that
meant. Just that the wheels had come off.

At thirteen, she’d been trying to convince her parents to let her wear makeup and her brothers to quit calling her Baby Butt. As she recalled, she’d developed an abiding hatred of math that year, too, compliments of pre-algebra. Thankfully, her degree in early elementary education only required basic mathematics.

The sun slid quickly behind the looming mountains, and day became night in minutes. The temperature dropped nearly as precipitously. The two of them retreated into the tent to huddle near the propane heater.

“You’re sure they’ll come?” she asked Alex over a pouch of freeze-dried beef stew reconstituted with water warmed on the top of the heater.

“D.U. put the word out,” he answered. “They’ll come.”

Doctors Unlimited was a low-profile international aid organization that sent medical personnel into the most remote and dangerous corners of the planet. Katie still didn’t know a whole lot more than that about the group, even after she’d gotten the call from her brother that it needed her help. Mike was military intelligence, although he couldn’t officially admit it. But everyone in the family knew he’d been a SEAL and probably still worked with the teams as an intel analyst.

She’d half suspected this trip was some sort of undercover SEAL op until she’d met Alex, who
no way, no how
was a SEAL. It wasn’t just that he ran to the lean and elegant rather than stupidly buff. He was more...cosmopolitan...than she associated with most of the guys on the teams. He was James Bond, not Rambo.

And then, of course, there was the whole bit about his actually delivering babies out here. She didn’t doubt SEALs could deliver babies—Lord knew, they could do just about everything else—but she couldn’t see one successfully posing as an obstetrician for weeks or months on end. Although, how Alex had gone from mathematician to physician during the black hole of time her brother wouldn’t speak of was a mystery to her.

“This area looks completely deserted,” she announced.

He shrugged. “You saw the same maps I did. Karshan’s a good-sized village, and it’s less than a mile up the river from us.”

“How will word spread that we’re here? And to whom?”

“Women gossip faster than the internet,” he murmured absently.

She’d already lost him again. His gaze was fixed on the heavy boxes of medical equipment they’d carried up there from the Land Rover, which was hidden under a brush pile down by the river at the bottom of the narrow, steep valley. Emphasis on steep. Her legs and back were going to kill her tomorrow.

She bloody well hoped they didn’t have to move this camp anytime soon. Their first two camps had been in caves in much more accessible locations than this mountainous crevasse. Twice Alex had woken her up with an urgent warning that the rebels were coming, and it had been relatively easy to throw their gear in the Land Rover and bug out.

At this time of year, Zaghastan, high in a remote region of the Hindu Kush, was as barren and lifeless as the moon with vast stretches of gray granite mountains and wind-scoured valleys. She huddled deeper into her high-tech mountain climber’s coat as a burst of frigid air rustled the canvas overhead. “Feels like snow,” she commented.

“Humidity’s under ten percent. Any snow will fall as virga.”

“And what is virga?” she asked with the long-suffering patience she’d learned working with kindergarteners.

“Precipitation that falls from clouds but evaporates prior to reaching the ground. Although technically snow is a solid, so the correct term in this case would be sublimation and not evaporation, of course.”

“Of course,” she echoed drily. Being with this guy was like traveling with an encyclopedia. And he had about as many emotions as one. Either that, or Alex Peters was freakishly, inhumanly self-disciplined. Either way, she felt completely inadequate in his presence. As for her, she let everything she felt and thought hang right out there for everyone to see. It was so much easier that way. No secrets. No surprises. No head games.

Still, there was one thing she knew that he didn’t—the local language. The natives of this region spoke an ancient tribal tongue not used anywhere else on earth—except in a small community of Zaghastani expatriates living in Pittsburgh. She’d learned it during her three-year stint there with Teachers Across America, educating their children.

It turned out she had a gift for languages. Absorbed them like a sponge. That, and the rules of hospitality in Zaghastani culture dictated that teachers be invited into parents’ homes. She’d picked up the dialect like candy. It had helped her teach the kids English.

“Storm’s blowing in,” Alex observed.

She huddled closer to the tiny heat source, and her knee accidentally bumped his. He drew his leg away fractionally, and her fantasies about him were dashed yet again. Clearly, he didn’t think she was in his league. Either that or he was gay.

“I thought you said we’d only get virga,” she said a tad peevishly.

“That doesn’t mean it won’t get cold and windy. At this altitude, it’s not uncommon for temperatures to drop well below zero.”

She winced at the thought. Give her a nice, cozy fireplace, fuzzy socks and a cup of hot chocolate, and she was a happy camper. Less than one day on this mountainside and she was ready to pack it in and head home. Even a cave would be a step up from a canvas-covered crack in the rocks. At least they had the mountain at their back to block the wind a little.

“We should have some business before morning,” he announced.

“Why’s that?” she asked curiously. Was he psychic, too?

“Female mammals tend to give birth in the worst possible weather. It suppresses the movement of predators and enhances survivability of the gravid female and her offspring during the birth process.”

Well, okay, then.
This trip was going to be nothing if not educational, apparently. Alex commenced rummaging through his boxes of equipment. He looked frustrated, as though he’d misplaced something. “Can I help?” she asked.

“No.”

That was Alex. Mr. Monosyllable.

Intense silence fell around them, disturbed only by the flapping of canvas.

“Seems like the only predators around here are the husbands of the local female population,” she remarked to fill the void. She hated quiet. She hadn’t grown up with five older brothers for nothing. Their house had been a zoo. But Alex seemed to prefer the transcendent silence.

He lifted one of the boxes effortlessly and shifted it into the corner. He might run to the lean side compared to her buff brothers, but he was stronger than he looked. He commented, “I doubt the husbands are the problem. It’s an eighty-five percent probability, plus or minus about three percent, that conservative religious zealots have been the ones killing the midwives.”

Slaughtering them, more like. Religious extremists were killing not only the midwives, but all women who advocated women’s rights or who represented female power in their communities. It was obscene. And largely unreported in the media. The massacre had prompted Doctors Unlimited to fund this secret mission into Zaghastan to deliver babies, in fact. When her brother had asked her to go along and translate, she wasn’t about to say no to helping women just trying to survive childbirth. She’d also just finished her gig with Teachers Across America and had yet to land a permanent teaching job or even decide where she wanted to live. And then there was the bad breakup with the latest rotten boyfriend to get away from. Her friends called her the asshole magnet for good reason.

“I’d suggest you get some sleep,” Alex said briskly. “You look like you need it.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you women don’t like to be told they look like crap?”

He looked vaguely startled—a first for him. “I beg your pardon?”

OMG. He really doesn’t know that?
“Women don’t like to be told they look bad.”

He frowned, his formidable mind obviously examining her statement from ninety-two different angles. “I suppose that’s logical if a woman is insecure about her appearance for some reason.”

“News flash, Einstein—
all
women are insecure about their appearance.”

“I have no context within which to place that remark.”

Oh, for the love of Mike.
“Are you always such a geek?”

For just a second, something incongruous—and totally non-geeky—flashed in his eyes. Amusement. Male appreciation. Desire.

What. The. Heck?
Where did the geek go?

She did a sharp double take, and his eyes were back to being as guarded and clueless as ever.

*

A
LEX
CONSIDERED
K
ATIE
—or at least the tip of her nose where it poked out of her sleeping bag. She could prove to be a serious problem. For a self-professed dingbat blonde, Katie had already showed herself to be deeply intuitive. Smarter than she let on. God knew, she was easy on the eye. The first thing he supposed most people would notice about her was the lush, golden hair falling in soft waves around her face. Or maybe her bright blue eyes. Or maybe even her slender, attractive figure.

Frankly, the thing he’d keyed in on first was her smile. It was warm and genuine and filled a room. He would like to think his mother had smiled like that. But, knowing his father, the man would never have gone for an open, loving woman. His old man would have gone for an ice bitch with a heart as hard and cold as a diamond.

Which would, of course, be more in keeping with his mother’s early and complete disappearance from his life. He had no memory of the woman whatsoever. Had no idea what happened to her. Never seen a picture. Never even heard a name.

A loose rock rolled outside, and he jerked to full alert. He shed the sleeping bag he’d wrapped around his shoulders and slid into the shadow beside the tent flap. He shook a razor-sharp scalpel out of his sleeve and slid it into his palm.

A low voice whispered on the other side of the canvas and then devolved into the persistent cough most of the locals had.
Dammit.
He didn’t understand a word of what the voice was saying. But it was female. He pulled the flap back, and two lumps of black cloth crouched in front of him. He gestured for them to come inside. The scalpel went inconspicuously back inside his sleeve as he moved to the back of the tent.