Hot Intent (Hqn) Read online

  He snorted. “That’s your opinion. But I was the one interrogated and drugged. You had free rein to roam around the base and magically come to my rescue.”

  “There was nothing magic about it,” she gasped as his arm got heavier on her neck, partially cutting off her air. “I was scared to death and had to be creative and sneaky. I climbed out a window and stole a woman’s purse and had to sneak around a building crawling with Marines, thank you very much.”

  “You. With no training whatsoever. You want me to believe you pulled off a daring rescue at the last second before they loaded me up with scopolamine and made me spill my guts to them.”

  “Yes. I do.” He snorted under his breath, and she added indignantly, “You’re not the only resourceful, creative person on earth, you know. I happen to be able to solve problems and think outside the box, too. And if you’re too big a chauvinist or have your head shoved up your ass too far to recognize that about me, then I guess you don’t deserve my love.”

  He rolled his eyes at her grand declaration like a total jerk. “I’m neither stupid nor gullible enough to believe you miraculously rescued me. I never should have trusted you. My father always said never to let a woman past your guard. I guess he knew what he was talking about.”

  “Whatever the hell happened between him and your mother doesn’t have to ruin your relationships with women forever, you know.”

  “Cut the psychobabble. I don’t have time for it. And I don’t have time for you. You always did slow me down.” He shoved away from her and she coughed as she rubbed her throat.

  Ouch. It was true that she slowed him down, but it still hurt to hear him say it so baldly. She’d hoped he would put up with her because she loved him and he cared for her a little. Apparently not. Grief tore through her, but she brutally shoved it aside and, instead, let her fury have free rein. This was likely the last time she would ever see Alex. Her last shot at making him see he was wrong about her.

  “Alex. When have I ever given you reason to believe I’m anything but totally loyal to you, first and foremost?”

  “Never. Which is damned suspicious, don’t you think?” He moved across the room and opened a long trunk at the foot of his bed. No surprise, it held an array of weapons in custom-made trays. He lifted them out onto the bed and surveyed the arsenal.

  She spoke to his rigid back. “So, if I had acted disloyal you wouldn’t have trusted me, and if I act loyal now, you distrust me even more? That makes no sense. Since when is the brilliant scholar, Alex Peters, ever illogical? Think, Alex. Get off this emotional roller coaster of yours long enough to ask yourself what’s wrong with you.”

  He whipped around to face her. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m exactly the creature you all made me into.”

  She stepped into his line of sight, forcing him to acknowledge her whether he liked it or not. “I have never tried to make you into anything. I loved you just the way you were.” Past tense.

  He stared at her for a moment as if he’d caught the past tense in her words. Maybe that was even a little shock passing through his silver stare. But then he whirled away and headed for his closet. Dammit. She thought she might have gotten through to him there, for a second.

  If he wouldn’t talk about his feelings, maybe he would at least explain to her what the hell had happened on the mission. “Why did you bail out on me in Cuba, Alex?”

  He emerged from his spacious closet with a suitcase, which he opened on the bed. He began removing clothing from dresser drawers and layering the bag with weapons, ammunition and apparel. “I never bailed out on you,” he eventually answered.

  “You most certainly did. Twice! You made me go to Gitmo alone, and then you ditched me in that café in Guantánamo. Why?”

  “It’s what spies do,” he snapped. “They cut their losses and run.”

  “Don’t throw platitudes at me. I want a real answer.”

  “Platitudes? Coming from you, that’s hilarious,” he bit out.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You and your entire family are a walking platitude. You believe that anything American is better than everything else in the whole damned world. You’re so blinded by your loyalty to the Stars and Stripes that you can’t see how your government really rolls even if its crap is stinking right under your nose. Look at me, Katie. Your precious Uncle Sam has turned me into a killer. Is that the work of a noble and honorable entity?”

  She stared at him in dismay. “Knowing how to kill does not make you a killer.”

  “What the hell do you think I did during my training? Sit around crocheting doilies? I not only killed once, I killed multiple times. In cold blood. I snuck up on living, breathing people and murdered them at the behest of your precious government.”

  She reeled in shock. Is that what had him so messed up? No wonder he was imploding. “The way I understand it from my brothers, it’s not murder if you’re following a legal order.”

  He made a sound of disgust. “You seriously think you can split semantic hairs over killing human beings? Are you really that naive?”

  “I’m not naive,” she retorted hotly. “I get that killing other people is a heinous burden to bear. I’ve watched my dad and my brothers bear it, thank you very much. I know the toll it takes on them. So don’t talk to me about being naive. We’re talking about you, here. Pollyanna though it may be, I do believe that sometimes legitimate, decent, well-meaning governments have to eliminate certain threats if we’re all to be safe. It’s not pretty, but it’s reality.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged with a handful of toiletry items he stuffed in around the corners of his bag.

  “You know the drill as well as I do,” she tried. “If you didn’t do the job, somebody else would have. If I know you, Alex, you did your best to make clean kills that caused no suffering.”

  He didn’t answer, but his jaw did ripple angrily.

  “You don’t have to punish yourself for doing your job. There are people you can talk to. Who can help you work out your feelings. A couple of my brothers have done it.”

  “I don’t need counseling,” he burst out.

  “From where I’m standing, it looks like you do,” she replied as calmly as she could muster. “It looks to me like you’re going to great lengths to deny yourself happiness, to punish yourself.”

  “You’re the one not being honest, Katie. I know who and what I am. You, on the other hand, are deluding yourself.”

  About him or about herself? Sadly, she asked him, “Do you hate yourself so much that you’re willing to cut me out of your life rather than allow yourself to love anyone?”

  He didn’t bother to answer. He merely threw her a derisive look that spoke volumes.

  Her spine stiffened. “You really don’t deserve me, do you?”

  For an instant, something like pain crossed through Alex’s cold stare. But then the shutters closed again.

  Something snapped inside her. He was being an idiot, plain and simple. She battered against his internal barriers without much hope of breaking through, but she had to try. “You’re so convinced that any show of emotion is a sign of weakness that you can’t let yourself experience the most basic and simple of human emotions. I see a pitiful, broken human being when I look at you, Alex Peters, not some tough-as-nails superspy. You’re nothing more than a scared little boy running around trying to convince everyone else of how terrible you are. And you’re failing. Do you hear me? You’ve failed.”

  Waves of icy rage poured off him but she was too infuriated to care at this point. How dare he walk out on her like this?

  “Here you go, running away from home again. This is the cowardly act of a child, Alex.”

  He zipped the suitcase closed and set it on the floor by the door. He whirled so fast that she recoiled in spite of herself, and snarled right in her face. “You are an anchor around my neck, and furthermore, you betrayed me. I do not trust you. You do not deserve my love. I’m finished with yo
u.”

  He grabbed the suitcase and stormed out of the bedroom, leaving her to stare at the empty doorway and struggling to draw her next breath. He was gone. Really, truly gone. It was as if the earth had fallen out from under her feet and she was plunging downward into a bottomless abyss that would never end.

  It was so tempting to let her knees buckle. To fall to the floor and curl up in a little ball and never uncurl. Blackness closed in around her heart, so dark and thick she didn’t think she would ever find her way out of it. But from somewhere deep, deep inside her a kernel of determination remained.

  Dammit, she was a McCloud. A fighter. She might have lost the man, but she wasn’t about to let him leave thinking she’d betrayed him. She would never betray a friend, let alone the man she had loved. He bloody well did not get to have the last word this time.

  She ran after him, but he’d already left the apartment. Crap, he was fast. She threw open the front door. The elevator was on its way downstairs already. She headed for the stairwell and flew down it, taking huge chunks of steps with every bound. This was her last chance to have her say. Once he left the building, she would never find him again.

  She tore out into the lobby with the intent to head for the driveway to block his car from leaving the parking garage. But as she raced outside, she spotted his silhouette striding down the street. He was on foot. She tore after him.

  “Alex Peters! I have one more thing to say to you!” she shouted.

  She heard the gunshot, a sharp clear sound piercing the silent night. Felt something hot slam into her chest. Was aware of being spun around and thrown into the door at her back. Registered the sound of shattering glass and remembered the pavement rising up to meet her.

  But then everything started to fade, gray heading toward black. And truth be told, she was kind of glad for that. She probably couldn’t have watched Alex walk out of her life for good, anyway. Poor Dawn. Poor Alex. Who would love either one of them now?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AT THE SOUND of the gunshot, Alex spun down behind a car and whipped out his pistol. Sonofabitch. He’d been so furious with Katie he’d barged out here right into the damned line of fire. Of course, the CIA had sharpshooters out here to take him down.

  He scanned the rooftops looking for sniper perches. Where were the sight lines to him? Too many. He had to move to better cover. He spied a vestibule to the building next to his about twelve feet away. He could make it. He gathered himself, sprang forward and dived low, rolling into the deep doorway.

  Huh. No gunshot. Why hadn’t the sniper taken the shot? Surely the guy’d had time to get a bead on him and knew Alex would head for better cover quickly.

  He eased forward, staying in the shadows, but close enough to the street to scan the area. If there was a shooter out there, the guy was hidden too well for him to spot. Deep, waiting silence settled over the street.

  Into the night, he heard a faint sound. A moan.

  He was not a trauma surgeon for nothing. He’d heard that sound a thousand times. A semiconscious person in severe pain. Who in the hell was moaning out here...?

  Knowing exploded across his brain with the force of the gunshot. Katie. The shooter had taken out Katie. The bastard was using her as bait to draw him out.

  He should walk away from here. Let her bleed out. He owed her nothing. He wasn’t a gullible amateur to fall for such a thing. And yet, he checked out a route back to his building’s entrance that would give him maximum cover. What the hell. The act of moving back toward her should cause the sniper to take another shot at him and reveal his position.

  He darted from the safety of the doorway to the side of a parked car. No shot. Hmm. The sniper must be off to the side and not have a clear shot yet. Alex moved behind a steel trash can built around a tree trunk. He had significantly less cover here. The shooter should be able to get a bead on him from most of the street now. He braced for the hit, covering his head with his arms to prevent an outright kill shot.

  Still no shot. What was up with that?

  He looked around and spied Katie lying facedown in a spray of broken glass. Blood was spreading from underneath her, a river of red among the crystalline shards.

  Frowning, he moved away from the trash can toward her prone form. Why was the shooter waiting? Surely there was a sanction out on him by now, a kill-on-sight order. Even if the order was just to bring him in, they had to know he was armed and dangerous. At a minimum, any half-decent sniper would want to wing him. To drop him and take him out of commission. And yet, no shot was forthcoming. Had the sniper fled already?

  Why in the world would the sniper shoot Katie and then leave the area without shooting him, too? Unless...

  Oh, holy God. No. Swearing violently, Alex moved over to Katie fast and rolled her over. She was bleeding from a wound in the upper left quadrant of her chest.

  He worked quickly, his movements practiced as he ripped away her shirt to expose what turned out to be two wounds—an entry and an exit wound. He used the torn cloth to fashion makeshift pressure pads. Pressing down hard on the wounds and making her moan more loudly, he used his left hand to pull his necktie free. He bound the pressure pads in place rapidly, and then grabbed her arms and hoisted her over his back in a fireman’s carry.

  He took off jogging down the street toward a major thoroughfare. When he reached it, he started watching for a taxi and urgently hailed the first one he saw.

  The cabbie slowed and rolled down his window to yell, “Hey, buddy. I’ve got a fare, but I’ll radio for another cab to head over here!”

  Alex nodded his thanks and kept moving. Mustn’t stop. Mustn’t make himself and Katie any easier targets than they already were. God, he felt naked out here like this. Every cell in his body screamed for him to take cover. To go into full stealth mode. But Katie was shot and unconscious, and he had no choice but to run along a damned city street for all the world to see.

  That fucker had shot at Katie.

  Why in bloody hell was she the target and not him?

  As desperate as he was to get the hell away from her, his gut told him it was vital to answer that question before he disappeared. Goddammit.

  *

  KATIE WOKE UP SLOWLY. Her left shoulder felt like it had been smashed with a baseball bat. It throbbed horribly and felt stiff and swollen. She reached for it but her right hand encountered tape....

  Her eyes flew open and she craned to look down at herself. A bandage?

  She looked around. She was lying in a double bed in a plainly furnished room. It didn’t look like a hotel room or a hospital. Someone moved beyond the doorway and she sat up carefully. Crap. The room spun around her for several unpleasant seconds. It finally settled down and she stood up cautiously. No more whirligig, thank God.

  She felt strangely weak and light-headed as she shuffled to the doorway and peered out. A plain living room furnished with only a sofa, coffee table and television on a stand unfolded before her. There was no carpet on the dirty wood floor, and plastic roller blinds on the windows were pulled down.

  Off to one side a small, dingy kitchen was visible. She caught movement in there and headed for it.

  Alex looked up from a glass of orange juice he’d just poured. “How do you feel?” he asked emotionlessly. Professionally. Like a doctor talking to a patient.

  “Like crap.”

  “Drink this. You lost a fair bit of blood.”

  “What happened?”

  “Sniper took a shot at you. An inch lower and he’d have killed you. Must’ve been a long-range shot for him to have missed. You should be dead.”

  That last sentence was delivered with all the sympathy of a robot. Which was almost more upsetting than the news that she’d been shot. She’d almost died, apparently, and even that wasn’t enough to break through the damned walls Alex had thrown up against her. He really was lost to her, after all. The grief of it hurt almost worse than her wounds. She took the juice and downed it all.

  “More?
” he asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “How’s the pain on a scale of one to ten? Can you function?”

  Seriously? He could make polite doctor conversation with her like he wasn’t shattering her world with every unemotional, detached word he uttered? She forced herself to consider his question. “A six. It hurts a lot, but if I had to walk or run, I probably could for a little ways. Where are we?”

  “Safe house.”

  “Still in Washington?”

  “Close by.”

  “You have a safe house in Washington in addition to your fortress of a condo?” she asked, startled.

  “Never can be too careful.”

  “Or paranoid.”

  “It’s not paranoia if people are really shooting at you.”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “Speaking of which, who’s shooting at you?” He turned fully to face her and met her gaze directly for the first time.

  “They were shooting at me?” she echoed blankly.

  He nodded once, tersely. “I gave the bastard a clear shot at me and he didn’t take it. The sniper was definitely targeting you. Probably thinks he killed you, too.”

  “Um, that’s good?” she tried.

  “It is good. Gives us a window to figure out who in the hell sent someone to kill you before they come after you again.”

  “They’ll come after me again?” she squeaked.

  He made a “don’t be stupid” face at her. Okay, she deserved that. If she were under orders to kill someone and realized she had failed, she would go back to finish the job off. She sighed. “Unlike you, I don’t have a long list of enemies eager to do me in.”

  “Do you have any enemies at all?” he asked a shade derisively.

  “Actually, no. I mean, there were a couple bitches in high school who hated my guts for no apparent reason, but I highly doubt any ex-hormonal teens are climbing on rooftops and taking potshots at me after all this time.”

  “This is serious,” he snapped.