Читать онлайн книгу «Hart′s Last Stand» автора Cheryl Biggs

Hart's Last Stand
Cheryl Biggs
His elite Cobra Corps unit demanded discipline, honor, truth. Yet one look at Suzanne Cassidy on the windswept tarmac, and Hart Branson felt his military training failing him. For he' d never had control where Suzanne was concerned, falling for her when she' d been the wife of another man– a buddy in whose death she might be implicated… .Suzanne sought his help in proving her innocence– and protecting her life. Though his heart knew she was beyond reproach, his mind could not dismiss the mounting evidence. Nor could he dismiss the blazing desire between them. To stand up for Suzanne would mean jeopardizing everything. Yet something told him this gutsy lady was worth the risk… .



Desire and anger, resentment and need.
He’d lived with them all for a long time, enduring and ignoring them, but now they were stronger than ever.
Part of him wanted nothing more than to ignore everything that had happened in the past and just drag Suzanne into his arms and take what he’d always wanted, to taste, finally, the sweetness of her lips against his, to feel the slender length of her body pressed against him and experience the passion he knew slept deep within her.
How many nights had he lain in bed unable to sleep, his thoughts all on her, almost feeling her body next to his, wondering where she was, what she was doing, who she was with.
Some nights he’d felt as if his memories were slowly killing him. Other nights he’d wished they would.
He’d thought that was all behind him, that his feelings for her were dead. Now he knew he’d been wrong.
Dear Reader,
Once again, we’ve rounded up six exciting romances to keep you reading all month, starting with the latest installment in Marilyn Pappano’s HEARTBREAK CANYON miniseries. The Sheriff’s Surrender is a reunion romance with lots of suspense, lots of passion—lots of emotion—to keep you turning the pages. Don’t miss it.
And for all of you who’ve gotten hooked on A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY, we’ve got The Way We Wed. Pat Warren does a great job telling this tale of a secret marriage between two SPEAR agents who couldn’t be more different—or more right for each other. Merline Lovelace is back with Twice in a Lifetime, the latest saga in MEN OF THE BAR H. How she keeps coming up with such fabulous books, I’ll never know—but I do know we’re all glad she does. Return to the WIDE OPEN SPACES of Alberta, Canada, with Judith Duncan in If Wishes Were Horses…. This is the kind of book that will have you tied up in emotional knots, so keep the tissues handy. Cheryl Biggs returns with Hart’s Last Stand, a suspenseful romance that will keep you turning the pages at a furious clip. Finally, don’t miss the debut of a fine new voice, Wendy Rosnau. A Younger Woman is one of those irresistible stories, and it’s bound to establish her as a reader favorite right out of the starting gate.
Enjoy them all, then come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance reading around—only in Silhouette Intimate Moments.
Yours,


Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor

Hart’s Last Stand
Cheryl Biggs

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHERYL BIGGS
was never really a reader while growing up, but got hooked on gothics, then romances, when her three children were little. While they napped, she read. Finally she decided to write a romance. That manuscript went into the closet, with the next four or five. Years later, after selling her personnel agency, she pulled out her first manuscript and went to an RWA conference, which garnered her an agent and several good friends. A year later that first book was sold, and a dream came true.
Cheryl lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a sunny suburb at the foot of Mount Diablo with her husband, five cats and a blue-eyed dog. Her children are now grown, and in her spare time she loves to travel, shop, read and try to talk her husband, Jack, into adopting just one more animal.
This book is dedicated to my own Cobra Corps hero,
my husband, Jack, who lent me his expertise
on the military and Cobra, and was always there for me
when I needed encouragement.

Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue

Chapter 1
The plane’s engine coughed again and the nose propeller stopped.
“N299V, wrong runway. Repeat. Wrong runway!”
Suzanne Cassidy glanced at the radio, bit her lower lip and tightened her grip on the control handle. She was out of fuel and out of time. She couldn’t correct.
Suddenly six black Cobra helicopters began to descend in front of her.
She shrieked, and instinctively pulled back on the handle and closed her eyes.
The plane jerked, the nose lifted briefly and the wheels hit the ground, hard.
Suzanne was slammed back against her seat. Her eyes flew open and she fought the control handle as the Cobras abruptly veered off. The new Cirrus SR20 she and her partner had just purchased for the company skidded down the runway.
Suzanne cursed and applied the brake harder.
The plane slid sideways and off the pavement, its wheels grinding through grass and dirt.
Rocks pinged off the undercarriage.
The right ring wheel plunged into a shallow gully, and the Cirrus came to a jarring stop.
Somewhere in the distance a siren began to wail.
Suzanne ignored it and struggled to catch her breath. Her heart was slamming against her rib cage, her hands were shaking and she felt weak all over. Nevertheless she threw the door open and scrambled out onto the wing.
“Lady, what the hell did you think you were doing back there? This is a military base, not a flight school. You could have gotten us all killed.”
She spun around at the deep voice as she slid to the ground, then half leaned into the wing, half clutched it for fear her legs would not hold her up.
The six Cobras sat on the runway a short distance away, their rotor blades still slicing the air, but Suzanne paid them little heed. It was the man approaching that riveted her gaze. Panic seized her.
She wasn’t ready to face him yet. Not like this.
Get back in the plane and fly away, a voice in the far reaches of her head screamed. Now!
Instead, she stood frozen, unable to move or even breathe as she watched him close the distance between them. Suzanne realized the moment he recognized her, and she felt her insides roil as her nerves threatened to get the better of her. It had been almost a year since she’d left Three Hills, but not one day had passed that she hadn’t thought about him and wondered what might have happened between them if Rick hadn’t been killed.
Memories tried to crowd in on her, bringing darkness and pain with them, but she pushed them away. There was no time for that now, not if she wanted to survive.
“Suzanne.”
Her name sounded ripped from his lips, like an ugly curse he hadn’t wanted to utter but was unable to restrain.
The hot afternoon sun turned the dark-blond strands of his hair to burnished gold and glinted off the aviator-style sunglasses, which reflected an image of the chopper hangar behind them, the desert surrounding it, even herself, but obscured his eyes. Suzanne didn’t need to see his eyes, however. She remembered them vividly. They were the darkest, deepest blue she’d ever seen, like the desert sky during a summer storm. Dark, turbulent and dangerous, and always, it had seemed, beckoning to her.
She felt a tremor shimmer through her body and tried to look away. Instead, her gaze skipped over his long, lean body, its well-honed length complemented by his military flight suit. Her eyes darted back to his face, moving slowly over rough-hewn features that could never be termed classically handsome.
Nevertheless, he was striking, devastatingly so.
Friend…or enemy? The question that had been playing over and over in her mind for hours sent a chill racing up her spine as she looked at him. Someone was trying to destroy her, maybe even kill her, and Hart Branson was either the only one who could save her…or the one responsible.
She had come to find out which.
Without another word, without even waiting for her to respond, Hart spun on his heel and stalked across the tarmac toward an open hangar.
Startled, Suzanne watched him walk away, then shook herself, grabbed her bag and followed. She may have been a fool for coming to him, may have put herself in more danger, but she couldn’t give up. Or let him refuse her. There was no one else to turn to, nowhere else to go. “Hart, please, just listen….”
He jerked around. “What do you want, Suzanne?”
She stopped and stared at him, momentarily taken back by the hostility she sensed, not only in his tone, but in his entire being. It seemed to radiate from him like the heat from the runway.
Why? The question pounded at her. What had she ever done to make him so angry with her?
The need to escape his hard, probing stare nearly overwhelmed her.
Get back in the plane and leave, the voice of her own fear said again.
She resisted giving in to it. “The…the FBI came to my house.”
Hart didn’t move, and his features seemed set in stone.
She swallowed, hard, and forced herself to go on even though she could almost feel his disdain pushing her away. “They said military secrets were stolen during Rick’s last mission.”
When he didn’t respond, Suzanne went on, “For some reason they kept the theft quiet, but now the secrets are being sold and they…they…”
The air above the tarmac shimmered beneath the merciless Arizona sun, but his silence was chilling, and stoked her already frayed nerves.
“They insist Rick’s alive, Hart.”
She heard the thread of hysteria in her voice, felt the sting of panic-driven tears behind her eyes, fought both and hurried on. “They think he faked his death, that he stole the secrets and sold them and that I’m his accomplice.”
Fury ignited within Hart instantly, threatening to explode and tear him apart, and only by force of will was he able to control it.
He’d been betrayed before and he would most likely be betrayed again, but he would never believe that of Rick, and she knew it. So why had Suzanne really come back? What did she really want? He had never expected to see her again, and that had been just fine—more than fine—because as far as he was concerned, it was her fault Rick Cassidy was dead.
Turning abruptly, he tore off the dark glasses, walked into the hangar and threw his helmet and flight board onto a workbench, then spun back to face her again. “Do you really expect me to believe this, Suzanne?”
She’d followed him inside, but now she stopped. His disdain and rejection were too much, a lethal jab at the fear she’d been trying for days to deny she even felt. Tears sprang to her eyes, hot and burning, threatening to spill over. Every cell in her body trembled with desperation.
With concentrated effort she threw back her shoulders, stiffened her spine and searched for strength as she blinked rapidly in an effort to hold back the tears. “It’s the truth.” She’d meant it as a hard, convincing statement. Instead, the words came out as little more than a shaky whisper.
Hart stared at her, his eyes narrowed, distrust scorching hotly through his veins. Every woman he’d let become a part of his life, every single one, had cheated and lied: first his mother, then his only aunt, foster mothers and even his ex-wife. But Suzanne’s transgression had been the worst of all, because hers had gotten a man killed.
He’d learned early in life that a man who trusted anyone but himself was a fool. To trust a woman was even worse.
And every time he’d ignored that lesson, he’d ended up sorry.
He turned back to the workbench and reached for the coffeepot that sat on it, his fingers forming a fist around the pot’s handle and squeezing mercilessly as his anger deepened.
A year ago Suzanne Cassidy had been the wife of his best friend, the only real friend Hart had ever had, ever allowed himself to have. In spite of that, he had found himself attracted to her the moment they met. He’d loathed himself for it and tried to banish the feelings by sheer will.
He remembered one night when Suzanne had shown up to say goodbye to Rick just minutes before they were to ship out on an unexpected mission. It was when Hart watched her kiss Rick and tell him to be careful that he’d known he cared about her too much. One hell of a wake-up call for a man who didn’t believe in love or giving his trust or anything else of himself to anyone.
He’d requested a transfer the same day they’d returned to the base. Out of sight, out of mind, he’d figured. But the transfer had been denied.
Then Rick had been killed and Hart blamed Suzanne, because he knew she’d done the unforgivable.
So why did he suddenly feel an almost irresistible urge to drag her into his arms and claim her lips with his?
Self-loathing filled him.
Why did desire simmer within him, threaten to burst free and consume him, overwhelm him, when he looked at her now—even when he considered her little better than a murderer?
He set the coffeepot down with a crash, too angry to be aware of the hot liquid that splashed on his hand. He turned back toward her. “Rick was no traitor, Suzanne.”
Sunlight streamed through the window behind him and touched her tears, turning them to tiny shimmering reflections of the sun’s rays.
Hart drew on his anger to steel himself against the compassion the sight stirred in him, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from drinking in her beauty, or his senses from appreciating it. Delicacy and strength were both evident in the face he’d always found far more alluring than any other woman’s. As he studied her now, he realized she had grown even more beautiful than his memories of her.
Suzanne’s lips were a blend of perfect curves and tempting fullness that beckoned his own. Her nose was slightly turned up at the end, giving her an air of sassiness, while the deep brown of her eyes, splintered by tiny chips of gold, held the richness of the desert floor on a moonless night.
His gaze moved over the pale-yellow silk blouse she wore, lingered on the curve of her breasts, the narrow breadth of her waist, subtle curve of her hips and the way her jeans held snugly to her long legs.
Suddenly all the old feelings crowded in on him. His fingers ached to slip within the silky darkness of her hair, to slide through the waves that cascaded over her shoulders, to wrap around the nape of her neck and pull her toward him, to caress her curvaceous body, to stoke her passion until…
He clenched his hands into fists as the traitorous emotions soared through his body. What was the matter with him? He didn’t want to feel these things.
“I know Rick wasn’t a traitor,” she said finally, breaking the cold silence that had settled between them. “But what I’m telling you is the truth. As unbelievable as it sounds, Hart, I swear it’s true, and I need help. I thought…” Her voice broke, but she forced herself to go on. “I thought…maybe you could…maybe if you would…” She couldn’t finish.
The hostility that emanated from him, the anger she felt fill the space that separated them as he glared at her were too much. He hated her.
The realization shocked Suzanne.
He hated her.
It was so obvious now. But why? She didn’t know…and yet it really didn’t matter. Hope fled from her heart as completely and swiftly as a deer flees a hunter.
She turned toward the door, nearly knocking over a stool in her haste to escape him as panic started to overwhelm her. She’d been a fool to come here. To think he’d help. Her tears burst free, blinding her and turning the world into little more than a blurry collage of color. She stumbled, then paused, wiping at her eyes in an effort to bring her surroundings into focus, to turn the sunlight streaming through the open hangar door into more than just an undefinable bright blur.
Guilt and regret instantly rushed through Hart, but he fought them off as staunchly as he did the urge to reach out and stop her. Tears were just one of a woman’s many tools, and most women knew how to use them all too effectively. Another lesson he’d learned a long time ago—repeatedly.
He moved to stand beside a disabled UH-60 Blackhawk, leaning his back against the gunner’s door. Yet in spite of the lazy appearance of his stance, every muscle in his body was taut, every nerve on end. He couldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt, or even consider believing her. It was out of the question.
Nevertheless he was curious and wanted to know more.
“So if I assume your story is true, why come to me, Suzanne? What do you expect me to do?” He tried to keep his features as hard and unrelenting as he tried to keep his voice. Part of him wanted her to walk out of the hangar without answering. But another part of him, the part he had to fight off with everything in him, urged him to close the distance between them, pull her into his embrace and take what he’d wanted, what he’d dreamed about for so long, and damn the guilt, the world and everything else.
Suzanne turned and, as their eyes met, felt her breath nearly desert her.
For the briefest of seconds she saw desire flame to life in his eyes, felt it reach out to her, beckon to her and stoke the fires of the attraction she’d felt for him before Rick’s death.
Then, as abruptly as the glimmer of desire had appeared in his eyes, it was gone, and there was nothing left there but cold anger again.
Flushed, her mind refused to collate an answer to his question. She looked away again, suddenly engulfed by a flash of memories: the first time she’d met Hart…the attraction that had stirred within her…the guilt that had followed. It hadn’t mattered to Suzanne that her marriage was virtually over, that her husband had indulged in numerous affairs, that she had been the only one still trying to make the marriage work. The guilt had eaten at her night and day, relentlessly.
Her mother, who fell in love as effortlessly as most people fall asleep, was on her sixth husband, and Suzanne had always been determined not to follow in her footsteps. For richer or poorer, in sickness or health, until death do us part—that had been a promise she’d intended to keep, no matter what.
Then Rick had demanded a divorce.
She pushed the memories aside and looked back at Hart. How well had she really known him? He’d been Rick’s senior officer and friend, not hers. Had she been a fool for coming to him?
Friend or enemy? The words echoed through her mind again, taunting her as she stared at him. Yet in spite of them and the fear that gripped her, that undefinable something that had been between them since the day they’d first met, still drew her to him.
Suzanne stiffened against the sensations assaulting her. For the past year she’d been building a barricade around her heart, protecting herself, and now she could feel the structure weakening and threatening to crumble.
Her emotions were in turmoil only because she was so scared, that was all. A month ago the FBI had shown up at her door and questioned her relentlessly. Last week after their third visit, she’d known she had to do something to stop their badgering questions and prove their suspicions wrong. She’d called her cousin Molly, a State Department employee and the only person she could trust. But Molly hadn’t been at work or home. She was on a survival trip somewhere in the wilds of Montana, and according to both her boss and her mother, she was totally unreachable.
That was when Suzanne had known the only person who could help her was the only person who’d seen Rick die—Hart.
She felt his gaze on her and pulled herself together enough to answer his questions. “I came to you because I don’t have anyone else to turn to. I don’t want to end up dead or spend the rest of my life in prison, and to avoid that I need your help, Hart.”
She watched his eyes narrow again, his jaw clench tightly and the small vein on the side of his neck twitch ever so slightly. Apprehension seized her. A shiver of fear skipped up her spine and swept goose bumps across her skin.
Oh, God, she prayed, don’t let him be the one I should be running from.
Reason and rationale warred with the resentment and anger that had been pent-up inside Hart since Rick’s death. Her claims were ludicrous. Too ridiculous to be anything but impossible. Even so, they could explain why someone was investigating him.
He mulled the possibility over in his mind, trying to look at it rationally and calmly.
A week ago his company commander had informed him that someone from Washington had called and asked some very pointed questions. That wasn’t unusual. Someone was always asking questions about the Cobra Corps, even though just about every assignment the army’s elite, special-ops helicopter unit was given was top secret.
It was still a fairly new unit, as far as the army was concerned, having been borne out of a special mission during the Persian Gulf war. Six men brought together to fly a mission most others considered suicidal. But they’d succeeded. Now the Cobra Corps, attached to the 12th Aviation Brigade, 99th Cavalry Division Air Mobile, consisted of thirty-two men, all pilots and officers, with a special attachment of mechanics, aides, communications officer, crew chiefs and a medic. Their permanent base was Three Hills, Arizona, but they could be called out at any time for anything. Their missions were usually classified and highly dangerous; rescuing political hostages, “relieving” certain political pressures, circumventing political uprisings, dealing with the before, or aftermath, of terrorists, and conducting top secret surveillance, being the usual types of assignments.
But this time the questions had been about Hart. Still, neither he nor the company commander had been overly concerned. Hart was the corps’s flight leader, and he was up for promotion. The questioning wasn’t routine, but someone was probably just being overly efficient, ordering a check on him “for the record.” A formality.
But he should have been concerned, because yesterday someone from Washington, and he didn’t know who, had requested his 201 file. To request an officer’s personnel file from his commanding officer was an unusual request. It could mean nothing; someone had a question about him before approving his promotion, or he was being considered for a special assignment and his background was being rechecked. There were numerous possibilities, including that his career was in serious jeopardy.
Now he wondered if these incidents and Suzanne’s sudden return and unbelievable claims could be connected?
He shook his head. He was letting his imagination run wild. Anyway, his commanding officer had denied the request. No one had gotten his file.
Hart caught Suzanne’s gaze and held it mercilessly. “The feds can’t resurrect a dead man, Suzanne.”
Bitterness tinged his tone.
“Hart, I don’t—”
“Rick is dead, Suzanne. I saw his chopper take a direct hit. I saw it explode and go down in a shower of flames and debris. No one could have survived that.”
She took a step toward him, panic rising in her again. Whether he was out to destroy her or he was her only chance to survive, she couldn’t allow him to send her away. She wouldn’t. At least not until she knew the truth and could prove it.
Make friends with your enemies, Rick had once said. It throws them off guard.
She stared into Hart’s eyes, searching for answers to questions she never in a million years would have imagined herself asking. But that was before the FBI had come knocking on her door.
Had Hart murdered Rick to protect himself? Was he the man the FBI should be considering a traitor? Maybe even a murderer? She took a deep breath. Was it really possible the body they’d identified as her husband hadn’t been Rick at all? She had to get Hart to help her and in the process convince herself he was innocent, or find some way to prove he was the one setting her up.
“The FBI doesn’t believe Rick’s dead.” She pulled a file folder from her bag and, hands shaking so badly she nearly dropped it, tossed the folder, open, onto a mechanics table near where Hart stood.
He looked down at the papers suddenly scattered atop the table’s tools, but didn’t understand what he was supposed to see.
“That’s a copy of a bank statement for an account I never knew I had,” she said, pointing to one.
He looked down at the statement. It was a new account, opened only six weeks ago. His gaze moved to the bottom of the page, and he noted the balance: $155,000.
She pointed at a photograph that lay beside the bank statement. “And that’s a picture of me talking to a man the FBI claims is a European spy.”
His gaze moved to the photo, recognizing Suzanne but not the man she was talking to. He looked back at her, still unwilling to believe, even for a moment, that anything she was saying could be true.
She could have deposited the money herself and be lying to him now, and the man in the photograph could be anyone. Her accomplice—a friend, a lover, even a stranger she stopped on the street. But why would she make up such an elaborate lie? What did she really want?
“He came into the auction house where I work…” She paused, realizing Hart didn’t know she’d revamped her career. “I don’t teach school anymore,” she said. “I’m a partner in an antiques auction house and gallery in Beverly Hills now.” She paused again, momentarily distracted by thoughts of just how much her life had changed since the last time she’d seen Hart.
She’d gone to Los Angeles with every intention of continuing her career as a high-school teacher. But two days into her new job several students in one of her classes started arguing and she couldn’t get them to stop. A moment later the sound of gunfire exploded in the room, and one of the teenagers fell to the floor.
She’d taken a leave of absence from her job, too shaken to even think of returning to her classroom. A week later she’d been browsing through a little shop that sold all sorts of bric-a-brac when she had run into Clyde, who’d been talking with the owner. Clyde Weller was Suzanne’s second cousin on her father’s side and had been her best friend through high school. They’d lost touch over the years, but seeing him again proved to be just what she’d needed.
They’d gone to dinner and talked, and talked and talked and talked. Finally, well into the wee hours, Clyde made a suggestion that seemed so natural Suzanne said yes instantly. She was widowed, had received a large settlement after Rick’s death she needed to invest, and her degree was in history, with art as her minor. Clyde had been doing freelance bidding on antiques for others for years, so he was already well connected in the business and had always planned on opening his own gallery/auction house.
It was as if fate had brought them together again. They’d pooled their resources, as well as their last names, and started Casswell’s.
Hart stared, but didn’t question her, so she decided not to explain. He obviously wasn’t interested in her personal life, which was fine. She only needed his help in clearing herself of the FBI’s ridiculous allegations.
“Anyway, about two months ago this man in the picture came into the gallery and introduced himself as Mason Brunswick,” Suzanne continued, “and said he was thinking of consigning Casswell’s—that’s the name of our business—some very old paintings for auction. The next day, on my way home, I ran into him on the street. We chatted a minute, and he asked me a question about one of the paintings. That’s obviously when the photo was taken.”
“So again, assuming this story of yours is true,” Hart said, “and somehow Rick survived that crash—and the body identified as his wasn’t, what do you think I can do?” He didn’t even know why he was asking. Her story obviously wasn’t true. It had taken six months after the Jaguar Loop mission and Rick’s memorial service before the army had been able to recover his body. But they had finally recovered it, and he was dead. So what did Suzanne really want? What could she possibly hope to gain by these ridiculous claims?
He didn’t know.
Nevertheless he knew that, instead of asking questions that had kept her from leaving, he should have just gathered up her so-called evidence, handed it back to her and sent her on her way.
“You’re the only one who saw Rick die,” Suzanne said, seeing the cynicism that still shadowed his eyes. “Hart, you saw it happen. You’re the only one who can swear that it was Rick who got in the Cobra that day, that it was Rick flying it, that Rick is dead—if he really is.”
He didn’t answer.
She continued to meet his hard stare as doubt and suspicion assailed her. What if she’d just walked into a trap? What if he’d cunningly drawn her into it and she was doing exactly as he wanted? What if he was the only person on earth who could help her, but wouldn’t believe her? A torrent of what ifs slammed her. She felt all her senses and feelings intensify: fear, attraction, suspicion, longing.
Her heart raced as he looked at her for several very long, very tense moments. His scrutiny made her breathing become ragged and forced, the blood rushing through her veins in a tumultuous, speeding, hot flow that made her light-headed. She’d known confronting him would be difficult, maybe one of the most difficult things she’d ever done, but it was proving far harder, far more complicated than she’d ever imagined.
Say something, she silently demanded, and gripped one hand with the other upon realizing they were trembling. Control, she told herself. She had to keep herself under control and not break down. She tried to pull her gaze from his, needing to escape those penetrating eyes, and found it impossible.
A chill swept up her back, then rippled through her entire body. Say something, she silently pleaded again. But it wasn’t only his silence that unnerved her, or even the cold fear that had invaded her senses. It was the urge she felt to reach across the space that separated them, to touch him and feel his warmth, his strength. The feeling was almost more than she could resist.
How many times since she’d left Three Hills had she thought of him? Dreamed of him? And told herself to forget him? To put all thoughts, all memories, all fantasies about Hart away?
She curled her fingers into fists and held them rigid at her sides, trying to force away the feelings she knew could only prove her downfall.
“The FBI is building a case against me, Hart.” Her voice sounded weak and pleading, but she couldn’t help it. “They obviously believe Rick survived that crash—or that it wasn’t him flying the plane that day.”
She inhaled deeply.
“My only chance to prove this so-called evidence they have against me and Rick wrong is you.”
“They retrieved the body,” Hart snapped. “They identified it as Rick. You want to believe they were wrong?”
She looked at him and shrugged. “The FBI does.” He saw the fear and desperation she was fighting to hide and the tears she was struggling to hold back.
Hart fought to control the emotions warring within him since the moment she’d turned from her plane and he’d recognized her. Desire and anger, resentment and need. He’d lived with them all for a long time, enduring them, but now they were hotter, stronger than ever.
Part of him wanted nothing more than to ignore everything that had happened in the past and just drag her into his arms to take what he’d always wanted, to taste, finally, the sweetness of her lips, to feel the slender length of her body pressed against him and to experience, revel in, the passion he knew slept deep within her.
How many nights since she’d left Three Hills had he lain in bed unable to sleep, his thoughts all on her, almost feeling her body next to his, wondering where she was, what she was doing, who she was with?
Some nights he’d felt as if his memories were slowly killing him. Other nights he’d wished they would.
But he hadn’t dreamed about her now for at least a month. He’d thought that was all behind him, that his feelings for her were dead. Now he knew he’d been wrong.
But what he was feeling wasn’t all memories and nostalgia, or even desire, because he also wanted to slam a fist through something and frighten her into telling him the truth. He wanted to grab her, jerk her to her feet and demand she stop lying.
“Hart, please,” Suzanne said. “You have to listen. I…”
He shook his head and strode past her to the door. “Rick’s dead, Suzanne. You know it, I know it, the army knows it, and I have no doubt the damned FBI, if they have any reason to want to—knows it, too.”

Chapter 2
“May I help you, miss?” The aide looked up from the file cabinet he’d been rifling through.
“Yes, I…” Suzanne glanced at the door to Hart’s office. She knew he was in there. Listening. Nerves, fear and desperation skittered through her veins. “I…I’d like to see Captain Branson, please.”
“Let me see if he’s available,” the private said. “Your name, miss?”
“Suzanne Cassidy.” Why didn’t he just come to the door? He surely could hear her.
The aide closed the file drawer, turned and disappeared into Hart’s office, closing the door behind him.
A moment later he returned, but instead of saying anything to her, he merely nodded and walked directly to the exit and left.
She looked back toward Hart’s office and felt a start of surprise. He was standing in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb. Sunlight, streaming in through his office windows, shone at his back, turning his hair to a golden halo and creating myriad shadows about his face.
Suzanne tried to stop staring, ordered herself to look elsewhere and couldn’t.
“Suzanne,” he said, breaking the silence between them and the spell that seemed to have dropped over her.
“I…” Her throat was suddenly as dry as the desert, and her fingers were wrapped around the strap of her bag so tightly she realized her nails were pushing painfully into her palms. “I have no one else to turn to, Hart,” she said finally, retrieving at least a small part of her senses.
He straightened.
She felt an involuntary start of alarm, but forced herself to remain still. He was an old friend and he was a stranger. She needed him and she feared him.
Strength exuded from every line of his body, hardness shone in his eyes. Fine lines radiated from the outer corners of his eyes and bracketed his mouth, but Suzanne knew Hart was not a man who laughed easily or frequently.
She also knew that, in spite of needing his help, there was no way she could afford to trust anything he said.
“There’s nothing I can do for you, Suzanne,” Hart said, stiffening. He couldn’t let her back into his life, he thought coldly. He wouldn’t.
She watched him walk across the room, jerk the exit door open, and for just a moment look back at her, his eyes cold, wary and full of anger. Seconds later, as she ran after Hart, she heard someone call out to her.
“Suzanne?” the corps crew chief said. “Suzanne Cassidy?”
She stopped and looked at him. Everything about him was thick—his neck, chest, waist, arms, even his hands—while his eyes were a dull gray, nearly the same color as his hair, and his face was marred by a mass of craggy lines that reminded her of a metropolitan street map. “Chief Carger,” Suzanne said.
For a while, just after she and Rick had moved to Three Hills, Rick had thrown Monday-night-football parties, and some of the other pilots, the crew chief and a few mechanics had come to the Cassidy bungalow to eat Rick’s barbecued burgers and watch the game on television.
She remembered Rick telling her once that the chief had lost his family years ago in a house fire. The army had become his home since then, and the corps members his family.
At first she’d liked the chief, thought of him as a father figure, as the men did, and she and Rick had him over for dinner several times. But after a while something about him began to make her feel uneasy.
“Yes, ma’am. Nice of you to remember.” He nodded. “Good to see you again.” His gaze skipped over her quickly, and Suzanne suddenly remembered exactly what it had been that used to make her feel uneasy around him. “Hope everything’s been going okay for you.” He glanced at Hart. “Sorry, sir. If I’m intruding, I can—”
Hart hadn’t missed the quick, but thoroughly assessing once-over the chief had given Suzanne. Before Rick’s death Hart had suspected the chief had been more than a little interested in Suzanne, but he’d put it down to his own paranoid jealousy. Now he felt his hunch had probably been right. They’d both been attracted to their friend’s wife.
“No, what is it, Chief?” Hart snapped, damning himself as much as the chief.
“Just wanted to let you know, sir, that we’ve got a problem with one of the birds. Cowboy’s. Fuel line. May not be able to fix it for a couple of days, unless I can get the parts sooner.”
Hart nodded. “Fine. Reb is on leave. Have Cowboy use his chopper if need be.”
The chief nodded. “Yes, sir, that was my thought.” He glanced at Suzanne again. “Suzanne—Mrs. Cassidy. Nice to see you, ma’am.”
Suzanne waited until he’d left, then turned back to Hart. “Please, just consider—”
He averted his gaze. “No.”
She fought back the feeling of fear and desperation that threatened to send her to her knees sobbing and pleading with him. Instead, she found a very thin, very fragile thread of composure and walked past him and down the path to the street.
A phone booth stood beside another building a few yards away. She stepped into it and began flipping the worn pages of the dilapidated directory that hung on a chain, searching the pages through a blur of tears. “He can’t say no,” she muttered softly. “He can’t.” She finally found a number for a cab company and dialed it on her cell phone.
Hart would think over what she’d said and help her, she told herself. He had to. There was no other way, nowhere else for her to turn.

Hart hung up the phone and threw down his pen.
All his commanding officer would say was that no one was investigating him because of his pending promotion. But someone was investigating him.
Instinct, and the fact that he’d never believed in coincidences, told him that whatever was going on was connected to Suzanne.
He reached for the phone and dialed a number he’d never thought he would need.
“Senator Trowtin, please,” Hart said to the secretary who answered.
Three years ago terrorists had kidnapped Senator Keith Trowtin while he was on a goodwill mission in the Middle East. The CIA had tracked their movements and tried to rescue him three times. Four good men had died in the effort. Then they’d asked for the corps’s help. The senator was being held in a desert camp, less than ten miles from U.S.-friendly territory. Hart’s plan had been risky and dangerous, but no one had come up with anything better.
“Tell him it’s Captain Hart Branson,” he added.
The senator came on the line a moment later. “Captain, good to hear from you. I was just telling Julie—”
“Senator,” Hart interrupted, deciding to spare no words, “I need a favor.”
“I owe you my life, Captain.”
“I was just doing my job, Senator.”
“It was a suicide mission, Captain, and we both know it, but somehow you pulled it off and we’re both still alive. So whatever you need, you got it. What is it?”
“Someone’s investigating me, sir. I need to know who and why.”
“I’ll call you back.”
Hart replaced the phone receiver and began to pace the length of the room, uncertain whether he felt better or not. He hated asking for favors. Before he could decide which way his mood was swinging, the phone rang.
“Evidently the feds suspect you of treason,” the senator said.
Hart felt the breath stall in his lungs.
“And the word murder is also being bandied about.”
“Murder?” Hart gasped, incredulous.
“Top-secret plans for an experimental weapons-detection device that was being tested during a covert operation you led a year ago were stolen during the mission, Captain, or right after it.”
“Senator, you know I wouldn’t—”
“You don’t have to convince me, Captain, but you need to know—the feds have two theories. One is that either the pilot who went down in that chopper over there wasn’t killed, his death was faked and the two of you are accomplices, along with his wife. Or, you and the man’s wife conspired to steal the plans, killed him and she’s now selling the plans through a Los Angeles gallery she’s a partner in.”
“This is unbelievable,” Hart said. “I—”
“Listen, Captain,” the senator said, “this could get ugly. If you need me again, call. I’ll do what I can.”
Hart heard a click and the line went dead.
It was worse than he’d thought.
He remembered everything Suzanne had said, the fear in her eyes, the near panic in her voice. But was it real?
“Dammit to hell.” He pounded a fist on his desk. His only chance to save his career now, possibly his life, was to prove both of them innocent—or the woman whose image had haunted his dreams for months guilty.
He stared out the window on the opposite wall and contemplated the situation. Rick was dead, which meant he was innocent. But what if Suzanne was not? What if she was a spy? What if she’d used Rick? Hart swore viciously. The whole damned thing sounded too farfetched, but in the world he lived in, it wasn’t. She could be trying to set him up, could have come back not for his help, as she claimed, but to shift the blame.
He yanked the door open and stalked through his aide’s office toward the exit. Turning to Private Roubechard, he ordered, “I want you to do a background check on Second Lieutenant Rick Cassidy. He served under me in the corps a year ago.”
Hart paused, one hand on the exit’s doorknob. “Do one on his wife, too. Suzanne Cassidy. And I want them on my desk in an hour.”
The anger and resentment he’d lived with for the past year burned hot in him as he slammed out of the office and strode to his car. He slid behind the steering wheel and started the engine.
He didn’t trust Suzanne, but he had to talk to her again.

It had seemed to take forever for the taxi to arrive. Suzanne was now halfway to Tucson when the sensation that she was being watched grew too strong to ignore. She turned and looked out the cab’s rear window. The road behind was long, winding, narrow and very empty. Nevertheless, she was unable to shake the feeling or its intensity. She’d felt it on and off over the past several days, but now it seemed stronger than ever.
Her gaze swept the vast, open desert, and apprehension pulled on the knot in her stomach. She’d left Three Hills a little more than a year ago, and after settling in Los Angeles she had completely revamped her life.
But it hadn’t stopped her from thinking about him.
She trembled as a wave of hot yearning swept through her. It raced up her spine, through her arms, legs and fingers as she remembered the moment she’d turned from the plane and faced him—the instant they’d recognized each other. She could still feel the piercing stare of his eyes, the potent essence of Hart Branson as it had reached out and enveloped her.
For the briefest of moments it had been as if his consciousness dove inside hers to probe her thoughts, uncover her secrets and search, then gently touch, her very soul.
He had never looked at her like that before. No man had.
Her cell phone rang, startling her and bringing her a glare in the rearview mirror from the cab driver. He hadn’t relished driving to the base to pick her up, and it was obvious even the promise of a good tip hadn’t improved his mood any.
Suzanne pulled the phone from her purse, hoping it was Hart telling her to come back, that he believed her. He’d help her. Then she realized it couldn’t be him—he didn’t know her cell number. Her spirits instantly plunged. Please, she prayed fervently, please don’t let it be my mother. Not now. She wasn’t in the mood to defend her reasons for moving to L.A. or hear why she should start looking for another husband, which seemed to be her mother’s two favorite topics lately.
“Hello?” she said hesitantly.
“Suzanne, darling, what in heaven’s name is going on? Are you all right? Where are you?”
She jerked the phone from her ear and nearly groaned aloud at hearing her partner’s high-pitched, squeaky voice.
“I thought…” Clyde sucked in a breath. “Well, darling, when you didn’t show up at the gallery this morning, I had the most awful visions, I mean…”
She shuddered, remembering her close call last night in L.A. She’d worked late at the gallery. The street had been deserted, but when she’d started to cross it, a car had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Only the fact that she’d realized she’d left her briefcase in the office and had started to turn around and go back had saved her.
Afterward she’d felt such panic that she’d driven straight to the airport. And the terror had prompted her to take their new plane at first light and fly to Three Hills.
“…you’re never even late, let alone a no-show…”
“I’m sorry, Clyde.”
“…and then Mr. Collins came in for your nine-o’clock appointment, and you weren’t here, so naturally he was upset and…”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, hoping she hadn’t lost the gallery one of their most valued customers. “I should have called you, but…” But what? She searched for an excuse, knowing she couldn’t tell him the truth—for both their sakes.
“Yes, you’ve said that, thank you. So where are you?”
“Arizona,” she said before she could stop herself.
“How did you…?” He gasped. “You took the plane?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, but there wasn’t time to—”
“I know—you heard of a terribly wonderful find and just couldn’t wait to get to it, right?” he said, offering her the best excuse she could ask for, even though his tone was somewhat sarcastic.
“I’m sorry, I should have called first, but—”
“Oh, never mind,” he said, sounding placated at the thought of a handsome sale on whatever she’d gone to pick up that couldn’t wait. “I handled Mr. Collins just fine, but I’ll expect to see something deliciously valuable when you get back, so don’t be gone long. And for heaven’s sake, don’t put a scratch on our new baby.”
Her heart sank as she remembered their “new baby” sitting cock-eyed back at the military base, one wing wedged into the gully next to the runway. Rick had taught her how to fly during their first year of marriage, and she’d loved it, but she hadn’t been behind the controls since his death. Guilt nibbled at her conscience. She was rusty and should never have taken the plane up. But she’d panicked.
The army had reluctantly agreed to rescue and stow the plane until she could make arrangements to leave. Of course they thought that meant tomorrow, but she had no intention of going anywhere until she felt safe again and knew the truth—and that all depended on Hart. He could save her. He was probably the only one who could.
Or he could be a cold-blooded killer, the dark side of her thoughts reminded her. He could have stolen the plans and killed Rick. He could be the one behind the FBI’s suspicions, the one trying to frame her.
It made sense, and she didn’t want it to.
The hair on the back of her neck suddenly seemed to stand on end. She jerked around, looked out the rear window again and nearly screamed.
A black Corvette was right on the taxi’s tail, but the sun reflecting off the windshield made it impossible for Suzanne to make out the driver’s face.
The car remained behind the taxi all the way into Tucson, and pulled in behind them at the entrance to the hotel where she’d made a reservation. Fear had settled in Suzanne’s stomach like a boulder, heavy and immovable. She decided to wait until whoever it was in the other car stepped out, then she’d order the taxi driver to speed off and take her to another hotel.
The driver’s door swung open.
Suzanne froze.
Hart pushed himself out of the Corvette and stood, his light-brown uniform molding to his body, accentuating length, complementing muscle.
Relief and something else, something she didn’t want to feel for him, or even acknowledge, rushed through Suzanne’s body like a flash flood. Compared to what her imagination had been raking up, he was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.
She quickly paid the cab driver and climbed out, her legs shaking so badly she had to momentarily lean on the car door for support. “Hart,” she said as he approached, “I didn’t know that was you behind me. I thought—”
“We have to talk, Suzanne.” He took her suitcase from the driver, grasped her upper arm firmly and steered her into the hotel and across the spaciously elegant lobby. “Get your room,” he said curtly, “drop off your luggage and meet me in the coffee shop.”
She nodded and approached the front desk, even though everything in her urged her to hang on to Hart for dear life. She was reluctant to leave his side because of the sense of safety she felt when with him, in spite of his obvious disbelief of her claims. But he’d come after her, and that was all that mattered now.
Once in her room she hurriedly slipped into a clean white blouse and a pair of sandals. Just before leaving to meet Hart, she drew back the curtain to the balcony to let sunshine pour in and warm the room. The view of the Arizona desert, sprawling out beyond the hotel for as far as the eye could see, was magnificent, and for a brief second she savored it, suddenly realizing how much she’d missed it. Then she saw a man standing on what appeared to be a path meandering through the foliage near the pool.
He was looking up at her.
Suzanne gave a start, her heart skipped a beat and she stepped quickly away from the window. Was he watching her? Or was she being paranoid?
A knock on her door sent her heart into her throat.
“Suzanne.”
She whirled around, her fear instantly abating as she recognized Hart’s voice. Just as instantly she admonished herself. She couldn’t do that, couldn’t put all her hope and trust in Hart Branson, no matter how much she wanted to. She had to remember to be wary of him, to suspect him of the worst. He could be the traitor. He could be a killer. He could even be the one who’d tried to run her down last night.
L.A. was only a short plane ride from Tucson. He could have been there. It was possible. She didn’t want to believe that, but she knew men found it all too easy to betray a woman. It had been a lesson she’d learned the hard way, first from her father, then from a stepfather, a fiancé and finally from her husband.
She would never trust a man again, not with her heart, and especially not with her life.
Suzanne walked to the door and opened it.
Her gaze met his directly. In spite of the cold, ugly suspicions she was determined not to ignore or forget, a river of warmth swept through her as Hart’s gaze met and held hers. “I thought we were meeting in the coffee shop,” she said, surprised at how calm she sounded.
“I thought you might have changed your mind.” He strode past her and into the room. “Maybe figured out that your lies weren’t going to work.”
Lies? Shock, then anger sped through her veins, burning away every molecule of caution and rationale, and dousing the desire that had been smoldering within her ever since the moment she’d stepped from her plane and saw him walking toward her.
She closed the door and turned, struggling to remain calm and resist the urge to stalk across the room and slap his face.
Anger gave her strength, and that allowed her to ignore her fears, at least for the moment. “I know what I’ve said sounds incredible, Hart, but I thought if anyone would or could believe me, it would you. You were Rick’s best friend. But—” she shrugged and glared at him “—if you don’t believe me, if you really think I lied, then I’ve obviously wasted your time and mine by coming here, and there’s nothing left for us to talk about.”
“Yes, there is.” His eyes held hers, refusing to let her look away, forcing her to face the disdain and resentment he’d lived with for the past year.
Suzanne felt her breath nearly desert her, along with her anger. After a moment that seemed an eternity, she tore her gaze from his and moved toward a chair, twisting her hands together, then thought better of sitting down and paused beside the faux fireplace. It was only because she still found him physically attractive that her emotions were in such a tangle. She should have expected that.
“I made a few phone calls after you left my office earlier,” he said, still standing in the center of the room.
She looked at him, wary again. Uncertain what to expect. “And?”
“Let’s just say that I know there is something going on.”
“Something,” she repeated slowly. “But you don’t believe what I told you?”
She saw the anger that flashed back into his eyes. “Rick is dead, Suzanne. He was the one flying his Cobra that day, not some doppelganger or science-lab clone. It was Rick, and there’s no way he survived that crash.” Hart shook his head. “No way. Which means there is absolutely no way he could have stolen those plans and be selling them now. And I’m pretty sure the feds aren’t so stupid they’d believe that, anyway.”
“Then who?” Suzanne asked, and added silently, Other than you?
He stared at her, and she suddenly realized that he suspected her. She felt her jaw drop, her hope shrivel and die. “You can’t… No, I don’t believe…” She shook her head. “You can’t really think I did it! How could I have stolen plans that were on that mission? I wasn’t there.”
Hart’s face remained a cold mask of scorn. “I don’t know. But I know Rick didn’t do it.”
She sagged against the fireplace. He wasn’t going to help her prove her innocence. He was going to damn her. The prospect of actually being charged with treason, followed by a life in prison, loomed before her, bringing a chill to her veins and a terror into her heart like none she’d ever felt before.
“But what I think or even know at this point doesn’t matter,” Hart added, his tone as hard as the glint in his eyes.
Suzanne looked up in surprise, not understanding what he meant, but feeling an unreasonable spark of hope.
“They think I’m in on it with you.”
Shock rendered her nearly speechless. “What?”
He watched her closely, saw the disbelief and surprise that pulled at her features, but knew he couldn’t believe everything he saw or heard. At least not yet, and especially not from her.
Suzanne sank onto a chair, her legs suddenly too weak to support her. The thought that the FBI would suspect him of being her accomplice had never crossed her mind. “Oh, Hart, I’m sorry. I never should have come to you. I never meant…”
To kill Rick? To get caught? To make me want you? The words screamed in Hart’s mind, but not from his lips. “I ordered my aide to do a background investigation on Rick. I should have it by morning.” He didn’t mention that he’d ordered one on her, too.
She looked up at him, puzzled. “Why? You know Rick was a good soldier, and you said you saw his chopper go down. You said it exploded. You said no one—”
“I know what I said,” Hart snapped, struggling to control his temper and hang on to at least a thread of patience. “But the feds don’t believe he’s dead, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to start.”
Suzanne nodded.
“I’ll go over the report in the morning, then decide what to do from there.”
“I’d like to see it, too.”
He frowned, instantly suspicious. “Why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, really. I just know I have to be involved with whatever you’re going to do about this mess. It’s my fault you’ve been drawn into it. I shouldn’t have come here.”
He sat down in the chair across from her. Play their game. It was one of the first things he’d been taught in POW training. Play your enemy’s game and get inside their head. It was a soldier’s best chance of survival.
But he’d never lusted after any of his enemies.
He purposely softened his tone. “It wouldn’t have mattered whether you came here or not,” he said. “I was already being investigated.”
“You were?” She frowned. Could she believe him or was it a lie to throw her off guard? “But why? By whom?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He sat on the edge of his chair, arms resting on his thighs, and leaned slightly toward her. “Did Rick mention anything unusual to you the day before we left on that last mission?” He started to reach for her hand, then caught himself. “Think, Suzanne. It could be important. Did he say or do anything out of the ordinary?”
He demanded a divorce. She shook her head again. “No. Why?”
She was lying. He’d sensed it in her hesitation before answering, saw it in her eyes.
“I think something was bothering him that last day,” Hart said.
She looked at him. How much did he really know?

Chapter 3
Hart paced the small sitting area of Suzanne’s hotel room, struggling against his frustrations, against the resentment and anger that were roiling inside him and that he was trying not to let her see. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and the longer they talked, the longer he looked into those fathomless brown eyes, the more he felt torn between ugly suspicion and the unfounded desire to believe her.
She set her glass of water on the coffee table, and he paused, turning at the sound of glass on glass. His dark gaze met hers, and for a split second he thought he saw the passion and mistrust he knew was most likely mirrored in his own eyes.
“I shouldn’t have come back,” she said again, though she wasn’t really talking to him.
Hart slid a hand through his hair as he contemplated his next move. He knew how to play the game as well as anyone. Better, actually. And it was definitely time to play. He closed the distance between them and knelt in front of her. “Suzanne.”
Innocence or treachery? Which was it that shone from those infinite depths, that coated her words, that hid behind that tantalizing smile?
He reached for her, and the moment his hand touched hers, and without warning, all the old feelings of desire welled up inside him, stronger than ever, a scorching inferno that instantly began to war with his suspicions of betrayal.
He’d meant the gesture merely as a way to get her confidence and trust. But it had been a mistake, one he had no doubt now would end up costing him dearly.
With an effort of concentration and training he pulled on the cold mantle he normally assumed when readying for a mission that would take him into battle—and possibly take his life—and shrugged the unwanted feelings of desire aside. He needed to stay focused. To remember that she was likely the most dangerous enemy he’d ever faced.
That caution might be all that stood between his life and his death.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I know you’re scared, Suzanne, and I shouldn’t have accused you of lying. It was a stupid thing to do. But you can understand, can’t you? I mean, this whole thing sounds so unbelievable. I was taken back. I felt I had to test you.”
He saw the wariness in her eyes. The fear. But was she afraid of him? Or afraid she wouldn’t succeed in fooling him?
“Look, I’m sorry,” he repeated, making an effort to soften his voice further. “I know you have no reason to lie about something like this, Suzanne.”
She looked down at the hand enveloping hers. “I didn’t lie, Hart, but I shouldn’t have come to you,” she said. “Now they suspect you, too.”
“I told you, someone was already investigating me. They requested my personnel file before you got here. I’m not quite sure where it fits, but your coming has added a piece to the puzzle and given me at least an idea about what’s going on.” That was probably the biggest lie he’d told in years.
She looked at him in surprise.
“It’ll be all right,” he said, seeing the fear still in her eyes, but not trusting himself, or her, to believe it was real. “We’ll figure out what’s going on.”
Suzanne nodded. They’d been attracted to each other once, and the timing had been wrong. Terribly wrong. It was no better now, and she felt certain it never would be. Rick’s ghost would always be between them.
Hart started to stand.
“No,” she said quickly, surprising herself. She didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want him to leave for fear he might not come back. “Stay awhile longer, please. You were right, we need to talk. Maybe we can discuss this further over dinner.”
And you’ll tell me more lies? Hart wondered, still kneeling in front of her. Yet in spite of the ugly thought, he thought he saw innocence in her eyes. Or maybe it was merely the skill of a good actress. A well-trained spy, looking up at him guilelessly, letting him see what he wanted to see while she drew him into her deadly web.
And a good soldier knew when to confront his enemy and when to let them think he was coming around to their way of thinking, Hart reminded himself, and this was not the time for confrontation or assault. Congeniality was called for. Maybe even seduction. “I’d like that,” he said, smiling at her for the first time since she’d returned.

Suzanne stole a glance across the table at Hart. Her reactions to him were intense. But she had to believe they were merely physical. She’d been so lonely since Rick’s death. And in reality, long before that. But another whirlwind romance like the one she’d had with Rick before they got married was not what she was looking for. In fact, she wasn’t looking for anything. Or anyone. She liked her life just the way it was. She was independent, successful, and…
Alone, a little voice in the back of her mind said.
She ignored it. The only reason she was here with Hart was that someone was trying to destroy her. She needed his help—that was all.
She opened her mouth to say something to him, but a movement near the entrance to the hotel dining room caught her eye, and as she turned, she instantly forgot every thought in her mind. The man she’d seen near the pool earlier looking up at her room stood talking with the maître d’.
He was short and wiry with small eyes, dark, oiled-back hair, dark complexion and a thin black mustache that followed the curve of his upper lip and ended bluntly at each corner. She thought instantly of a weasel. A very dapper, very slick and very polished weasel.
The maître d’ motioned with his hand, and both men began to cross the room toward Suzanne and Hart.
She stiffened.
The maître d’ breezed past.
The man from the pool caught her eye.
A slight smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, and he nodded.
Suzanne cringed and instinctively pushed against the back of her seat. Was that his way of telling her she was being watched?
Hart saw Suzanne’s reaction to the man passing their table. He glanced over her shoulder and watched as the man took a seat at another table. Was he Suzanne’s accomplice? Or had she recognized a federal agent? Was that a warning to the man he’d seen in her eyes or fear of him?
“Who was that?” he asked, deciding his waning patience wasn’t going to abide anything at the moment but a direct approach, even if all it garnered him was yet another of her lies.
“I don’t know, but I saw him earlier. He was watching me.”
“Watching you?” He nearly scoffed at what was most likely a lie, and his mind raced to figure out where to put this piece of the puzzle. Feigning concern, he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Where was this, Suzanne? And when did you notice him watching you?”
“When I—”
“Excuse me, señorita.”
They both looked up to see that the man in question had returned and was standing beside their table. He nodded to Hart, then looked back at Suzanne and smiled widely, but there seemed a sadness in his dark eyes that didn’t disappear with the warm gesture of his lips.
Hart saw Suzanne’s fingers tighten around the delicate stem of her water glass, but the move didn’t completely obscure the fact that she was trembling. At least, it didn’t obscure it from him.
Fright or nervousness? he wondered.
“Yes?” she said.
“Excuse me,” the man repeated. “I am Salvatore DeBraggo.” He offered a curt bow, at the same time scooping up Suzanne’s free hand and raising it to his lips. “Are you not Señorita Cassidy from Casswell’s Gallery in Beverly Hills, California?”
His accent was extremely thick, but Suzanne understood every word. Mainly because they’d brought her a rush of relief. She’d almost expected him to pull out a knife or gun. She smiled, feeling foolish. “Yes, I am, but I don’t believe we’ve met, Mr….”
“Oh, no, señorita, we have not met. You see, I have been dealing with your associate, Señor Weller. I have a very extensive collection of antique jewelry, my late wife’s, actually. But—” he waved a hand, as if in dismissal “—we had no children, so there is no one to give the jewels to and I could use the funds.”
“I see,” Suzanne said.
“Yes. I would like to place them up for auction, and when I spoke with Señor Weller today on the telephone and he realized you and I were both here in the same city, he assured me you could—”
Hart felt his temper rising. He was trying to handle the possibility of losing his career, deal with espionage, treason and betrayal, and keep his burning libido under control, and this overly polished dandy was trying to arrange an auction? The rein on his patience snapped.
“Look, Braggo,” Hart interjected.
“Señor DeBraggo,” the man politely corrected, still smiling but not taking his gaze off Suzanne.
“Señor DeBraggo,” Hart repeated with more than a touch of sarcasm purposely instilled in his tone, “Ms. Cassidy is here on vacation, at least for the next few days, so if you wouldn’t mind…”
The man handed Suzanne a card. “Of course. Again, please excuse me, señorita. I apologize humbly for the interruption. It was only that Señor Weller insisted I contact you here right away. He made no mention of a vacation. I am sorry to have bothered you.”
“It’s all right, really, Señor DeBraggo,” Suzanne said, shooting a glare of reproof at Hart. “I often mix business with pleasure. It’s no problem at all.”
DeBraggo smiled. “Then I will await your call, Señorita Cassidy. I am also staying here in the hotel and have written my room number on the back of my card, in case you have the time to look at my jewelry. Until we talk again, at your convenience, of course.” He snapped his heels together, then turned and walked away without even so much as a “drop dead and goodbye” to Hart.
He watched the man walk back to his own table. There was something about him that made Hart uneasy. Instinct warned him that the man was not what he seemed, that he was someone who could be very dangerous. Maybe even deadly. The glint in his eyes was too cold and hard.
Hart looked back at Suzanne. “Do you get that sort of thing a lot when you’re out?” he asked sharply, unable to rationalize just why his temper was still smoldering. What in hell did he care if the man had insultingly ignored him? Or that Suzanne didn’t mind mixing business with pleasure? If indeed that was what had happened. And if it was and his instincts were on the wrong course, it was certainly none of his concern if her partner sicced inconsiderate clients on her.
“No, not often,” Suzanne said, staring at DeBraggo’s card.
Hart took a long swallow of ice water, hoping the coldness of it would somehow miraculously put a chill on both his overactive libido and his temper. Could he mix business with pleasure? he wondered, watching her. Could he draw her into his arms, kiss her, taste her passion as he’d wanted to for so long and still seriously consider that she could be out to destroy him? That she could be guilty of treason, possibly even murder?
A frown dug deeply into Suzanne’s brow as Hart studied her. He suddenly found himself wondering if she could read his thoughts.
“Hart,” she said softly, cutting into his musings.
He saw new fear in her eyes.
“I didn’t tell Clyde what hotel I was going to be staying in.”
Hart instantly shoved out of his seat and darted across the restaurant in the direction Salvatore DeBraggo had gone. His gaze swept over the other patrons, but there was no sign of the Spaniard anywhere.

Hart lay on his bed and stared into the darkness, running everything that had happened that evening through his mind again. Right after leaving Suzanne he’d called Private Roubechard about the background checks he’d requested, but there was some problem with getting the files downloaded and transferred from the Armed Security Agency, so they weren’t going to be available until morning.
He mulled over the incident at dinner again. Had the whole thing with DeBraggo been a setup? Something the man and Suzanne had staged just for him? Maybe so she could gain a little more of Hart’s trust? Look a bit more innocent, a bit more vulnerable, so that he’d believe and help her?
He threw back the sheet and swung his feet to the floor, annoyed by his inability to turn off his thoughts and go to sleep. That wasn’t usually a problem. He’d slept in everything from a sagging feather bed to a foxhole to a leaf-filled muddy crevice in the Peruvian jungle. He’d slept through artillery fire, bombing raids and silence so deep it was deafening.
He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. Almost 3:00 a.m. If he wasn’t going to sleep, the least he could do was think. Rationally.
Why had she really come back?
Frustrated and annoyed by the traitorous bent of his thoughts, Hart settled down at the desk in his bedroom and flipped on the computer. If his libido and sudden bent for nostalgia kept getting in the way, he was most certainly going to end up either behind bars or dead. Especially if the woman heating his libido and stirring that nostalgia had come to him with a lie and treachery in mind.
He typed a series of codes into his laptop and tried accessing ASA, but whatever was wrong on their end was still wrong.
Maybe he could do a search for DeBraggo and Suzanne on the Web. He zipped through several search engines before deciding which one to use.
Within five minutes he had pulled up several sites that had something to do with the name DeBraggo. One advertised financial assistance, another was a travel agency in Texas, another a tax attorney in New Mexico and yet another an import/export-business Web site.
None seemed suspicious, but he knew that guilt sometimes had a way of hiding behind a facade of angelic innocence.
He opened the first one, and his brows rose in interest. Their headquarters were based in Los Angeles, California.
A little much for coincidence.
The sound of screeching tires, followed by a crash, suddenly shattered the stillness of the night and Hart’s concentration. He ran to the window of his apartment. Two cars were at the corner, the front end of a sporty red foreign job embedded in the passenger door of a sleek black Lincoln twice its size. A cloud of steam rose from the sports car’s crushed hood as the two drivers started throwing their arms and hands about, obviously arguing.
Hart stared down at the wreck glistening in the glow of the moon. The steaming sports car reminded him of dancing waves of fire.
Rick’s chopper had burst into flames.
Memories assaulted Hart and before he could stop it, time spun backward…
The team had split into pairs, partnering off to circle their enemy, surround them and move in stealthily for the attack. Rick and Hart had been approaching from the rear, flying low over the Raumsean Woods, several miles inside of Iran’s border.
The experimental weapons-detection systems installed in their Cobras warned them of an antiaircraft missile installation hidden within the dense growth of trees below. With that warning they both should have been able to easily avoid any attack and take out their would-be assailant before he even knew they were there.
“Tracker, we got one below,” Hart radioed. “You see it?”
“Got it in my sights, Ice,” Rick answered, using the name the close-knit group of men in the corps had given Hart not only because of his coolness under pressure, but because each of them, in one way or another, had discovered that he kept his innermost emotions on ice; out of reach or touch.
Hart watched him descend toward his target.
Suddenly a missile shot from the trees.
“Tracker, evade!” Hart ordered. “Evade!”
Rick’s Cobra exploded in a burst of flames.
Stunned, unable to believe what he’d just seen, Hart froze. For the briefest of moments he stopped living, as he watched what was left of the burning chopper spiral from the sky, crash into the dense woods and explode again.
Another missile burst from the foliage below.
The instinct for survival rushed in on Hart, and he jerked back on the throttle…
Hart was pulled back to the present by the sound of a police siren. He realized that his only hope of finding out who was trying to destroy him was to turn the tables on them—just as he’d done during that mission. For the briefest of moments that day a year ago he’d stopped being the hunter and had become the prey—a move that had nearly gotten him killed.
It wasn’t going to happen again.
He shrugged aside the past and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now, on what he knew about Suzanne Cassidy.
It wasn’t much.
He snatched the telephone receiver from the hook. The night before Rick’s last mission, she had done the one thing that no pilot could ever forgive. If she was innocent she would have known better.
The thought had nagged at him for the past year. Rick would have trusted her, might even have confided in her—told her things about the corps, about their missions, that he shouldn’t have. Things that she might have, in the end, used against him.
Hart punched out the number for her hotel, but the moment the operator came on the line, he hung up. No. Not this way. He needed to look into her eyes when he asked her that question.
A week ago he would have labeled the mere idea of her stealing secret military plans and setting Rick up to be killed ridiculous, the suspicion ugly and totally unwarranted. Now he couldn’t discount it, because now he knew all too well that she could have come back to do the same thing to him.
Or was she merely someone’s pawn? A total innocent who was being used?
His mind was a jumbled maze of unanswered questions, each filling him with frustration, slicing away at his patience and leaving him too keyed up to even contemplate another attempt at sleep.
He dressed and left the apartment, carrying a brown paper bag in which he’d placed the water glass Suzanne had used at dinner and which he’d managed to slip out of the dining room under his jacket without anyone noticing.
The lab guys at the base weren’t going to like being woken up in the middle of the night, but he didn’t care. If he was going to find out the truth, this was as good a time as any, and he couldn’t think of a better place to start than running her prints and finding out who or what Suzanne Cassidy really was.
All he knew about her was that she’d been Rick’s wife, a schoolteacher and had once said she’d grown up in Virginia. But he had to know what else there was. It might be all innocent; then again, it might not.
It was a fact that the Soviets had always had spies in the United States, families who were devout Russian Communists, but who had lived in the U.S. for years, maybe were even born here. They obtained government jobs and top-secret classifications, became scientists, doctors and teachers, and were usually not caught until they’d managed to pass back secrets to the Russians.
And they weren’t usually caught until it was too late.
On impulse he stopped by Suzanne’s hotel on the way to the base. If she wasn’t in her room, he’d take the opportunity to search it. If she was, he’d apologize for his brusqueness earlier, say it had kept him awake and, in spite of the late hour, ask her downstairs for coffee.
As he entered the lobby he heard the chime of the elevator to his left and glanced toward it.
Suzanne stepped forward as the wood-paneled doors silently slid open.
Salvatore DeBraggo was beside her.

Chapter 4
It was almost noon when Suzanne pulled her rental car alongside the building that housed Hart’s office. She’d meant to arrive earlier, but after he’d left her last night, she’d known she would have a hard if not impossible time getting to sleep, so she’d run down to the hotel lobby to get a book from the gift shop.
The sight of Salvatore DeBraggo standing in the small shop, flipping idly through a magazine, had rattled her, and she’d been about to turn and hurry away when he’d looked up, spotted her and spoken.
“Mrs. Cassidy.” His thick accent turned her name to a series of deep, musical rolls.
“Mr. DeBraggo, hello.” She felt a tiny bit of relief to realize there were several other people in the gift store. She wasn’t alone with him.
“Please, let me apologize again for interrupting your dinner earlier,” he said, smiling.
Anger and a bit of bravado melded with her fear, and she instantly decided to confront his lie. She’d never been one to skirt an issue. “I didn’t tell my associate in L.A. where I’d be staying, Mr. DeBraggo.”
He nodded. “Ah, my late wife used to tell me I wasn’t very good at white lies.” He smiled. “I should stop trying.”
Suzanne didn’t return the smile.
“Yes, well, the truth is, I recognized you from your picture in the New York Times—the article they did on your gallery when you purchased the Mastroniani painting from the Brenroget estate last month. I’m afraid when I saw you in the hotel restaurant, impulse overrode my normally good manners.” He shrugged. “Again, I apologize.”
It had been a coincidence, and Suzanne had chided herself for the dark suspicions she’d harbored about him. Assassin, FBI agent, foreign spy, even privateer and terrorist.
She turned the car ignition off and grabbed her bag. Before leaving for Hart’s office she’d made several long-distance calls in regard to the jewelry Mr. DeBraggo wanted to sell. She wasn’t certain but something still didn’t ring true about him. And she could swear she’d seen one of the pieces before—in a museum.
She’d also placed a call to Clyde, who had suggested she move into a place owned by a friend of his. He’d also badgered her mercilessly for almost fifteen minutes for details about whom she’d gone to dinner with.
The fact that Hart could still stir feelings in her she didn’t want stirred had taken her aback yesterday, but she had gathered her wits about her now. It was merely a physical attraction. That was all it had ever been, and she could handle that.
She stepped from her car and entered the building. She made her way to his office and found his aide standing at the file cabinet just outside. Hart’s office door was closed, but she knew he was in there. She’d seen him through the window when she’d climbed out of her car.
She had to be careful.
The aide turned from the cabinet, and Suzanne asked to see Hart.
Even though Hart could hear her voice through his closed door, he’d known the moment she stepped into his aide’s office, had been acutely aware of her presence since he’d seen her car pull up outside. Anger and yearning churned within him. He had half hoped that she had left Three Hills and was out of his life forever, and he had feared that was exactly what she would do and he would never seen her again. His feelings didn’t make sense, but he was too smart to examine them.
Doubting oneself, examining feelings and trusting women were the three things that turned a man into a fool.
He looked down at the lab report on the drinking glass he’d taken from the hotel dining room. They’d come up with nothing out of the ordinary. According to the fingerprints from DMV and when she’d worked as a clerk in the army before her marriage, Suzanne Cassidy was Suzanne Cassidy. Maiden name Ramsey, middle name Julynne. Her parents had divorced by the time she was eight, father ex-military, mother an artist who’d been married six times.
The preliminary background check Hart’s aide had handed him earlier on Suzanne hadn’t told him anything different. It was far from complete, and he didn’t need to read through it again to know what it said. He’d already gone over it a half-dozen times.
According to it, Suzanne was clean. But Teresa Calderone’s record had been clean, too, or so said the feds, and believing that, and them, had nearly gotten Hart and several other members of the Cobra Corps killed.
A little over two years or so ago, the daughter of Peru’s staunchest antidrug advocate had been abducted by a member of the drug cartel, and the CIA spooks pulling duty there had requested the corps’s help in getting her back. It had been a simple plan: go in, grab her, get out.
The CIA’s main contact for information in Peru had been Teresa. Unfortunately, the spooks’ background check on her failed to discern that her fiancé had been murdered by a member of the cartel.
Teresa hadn’t really cared about rescuing the hostage or aiding the war on drugs. She hadn’t even cared about living. All she’d cared about was getting revenge—killing the man who’d ordered the death of her fiancé—and helping the CIA and the Cobra Corps put her in a position to do just that.
But Teresa hadn’t done nearly as good a job of seducing the cartel’s leader, Guilermo Ortega, as she’d thought, and when she tried to kill him, he’d been ready for her. It was only by sheer luck that Hart had been nearby and heard the struggle. A well-placed fist to the jaw had rendered the older man unconscious, and Hart had gotten Teresa away.

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