Niall went completely still, his face a frozen mask Savannah didn’t recognize. That’s when she realized his expression was usually quite animated, and he exuded an innate charm it was nearly impossible to resist. The charm had vanished along with the animation, and she wondered why. Had he taken her words as an insult? She hadn’t meant them that way, so she struggled to explain.
“That wasn’t a criticism. Truly. It’s just that I’m a fairly honest person. I know I told you about my one foray into a life of crime...” She smiled faintly and he smiled back, but she sensed it was an effort. “But that was a long time ago and I learned my lesson.” She stared at his hand, which was still laying on hers, then turned her hand to clasp his. “I want you to know I’ll never lie to you. And I wouldn’t even begin to know how to deceive you. What you see is what you get where I’m concerned.”
“And you’re telling me this why?”
She breathed deeply. “Because you’ve been honest with me from the start. You’re not looking for anything more than a vacation fling, and I get that. I thought that’s what I wanted, too.”
“But...”
“But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking for more. Not from you,” she rushed to add when his hand tightened on hers. “I’ll settle for whatever you’re willing to give me for as long as that lasts. And when you walk away...” She swallowed hard. “I’ll take that piece of you that you said you’ll leave behind. And I’ll gladly give you a piece of me to take with you when you go.” She smiled again because she had to smile. Or cry. “Someday I’ll find a man who wants more—I believe that with all my heart. But I’ll never regret this time with you.” She drew her hand away gently. “That’s really all I wanted to say.”
* * *
The bullet he’d taken to his heart all those years ago hadn’t hurt this bad, Niall admitted to himself, shaken by the force of his desire to vehemently deny her words. But he couldn’t. Because everything she’d said was the truth, save for one thing. He hadn’t been honest with her...except that he was temporary man material only.
He scoured his mind for something—anything—to say that would walk the fine line between what he wanted and what he knew he could have under the circumstances. But he couldn’t think of anything other than, “Thank you for telling me.” Which, when you got right down to it, was pretty much the coward’s way out.
“You’re welcome.” The polite way this was delivered, and the tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes told him exactly what it had cost her to reveal these things to him. And all you can say is thank you? he berated himself.
He couldn’t tell her he was falling in love with her. That was out. And no way could he come clean about why he’d crashed into her life in the first place. Even if he was given the green light by his boss to tell her, he couldn’t risk being banished from her side, not while she still needed his protection. Not to mention you’re nowhere close to being ready to give up sharing her bed, his conscience piped up at the worst possible moment. But he had to tell her something.
“You will find someone, Savannah. Someone far better than me.” Thinking of her with another man, admitting it couldn’t be him, was like tearing a bandage off in one fell swoop—you knew it would hurt, but it was better to get it over with quickly rather than dragging the pain out.
She rolled her eyes in response to his heartfelt words, taking him by surprise. “Oh please. Not the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line. That’s so cliché, Niall. And frankly, I thought better of you than that.”
“It’s not a line.” He bit the words out, anger springing out of nowhere. “I told you before, there are reasons I can’t share with you why I’m the last man with whom you should get involved.”
“But I am involved, and it’s too late to go back and change it.”
“Savannah...”
“It’s okay. It’s just physical. I understand.” She stood up and unhooked her purse strap from the back of her chair, then slipped it over her shoulder. “You promised me the best sex of my life, and you’ve delivered so far. In spades. I don’t want to give that up. So please forget I said anything, and let’s just focus on what we do have for the rest of this trip.”
* * *
Niall made love to Savannah that night as if he could lay his heart at her feet without saying the actual words. As if he could show her how precious she was to him by taking her higher and further than he’d ever taken her before. If all he could give her was sex, he reasoned, he was going to make it so damn good for her she’d never forget him. The way he’d never forget her.
And she gave back to him with every sigh, every moan. Every rasping cry of fulfillment that culminated in his name.
He loved the smoothness of her skin beneath his fingertips. The taste of her on his tongue and the way she clung to him when he drove her up and over the peak time and again. But most of all he loved being buried in her body. So tight. So deep. Torturing himself by moving slowly, drawing her pleasure out until she couldn’t take any more and pleaded for release. Then giving her that release. Finding it together. Being the man she needed, if only in this way.
They dozed when sleep overtook them, then woke and picked up where they’d left off. They writhed on the bed late into the night, until he sensed and heard the rumble of boat engines that indicated their midnight departure. Then he donned a condom one last time, and thrust deep.
* * *
In the wee hours of the morning, Savannah lay sprawled naked beneath the bedclothes in total abandon, her chest rising and falling in the slow cadence of deep sleep, like the princess in a fairytale. He’d worn her out, in the best way possible. He’d carried her into the shower the last time because her legs just wouldn’t support her, and had held her upright while he’d rinsed them both off as best he could in the close quarters. Then he’d dried her with gentle hands, carried her back to the bed and tucked her in. She’d been asleep in seconds.
His body was exhausted, too, but his brain wouldn’t shut down. He kept hearing Savannah saying, Someday I’ll find a man who wants more—I believe that with all my heart.
How he wanted to be that man. The one who would give her the more she deserved. But no matter how he tried to resolve things in his mind to give them the outcome he wanted, he kept coming up short. Even if he quit his job for her, how could she ever get past his initial assignment? He couldn’t see any way around that.
Finally he gave up trying to sleep. He dragged some clothes on, scrawled a note and left it on the nightstand: Back soon.
The entire boat appeared to be sleeping, except for the pilots in the wheelhouse. Niall climbed all the way to the top deck, but he saw no one. The night pressed in all around, and the stars seemed to mock him as he stood at the stern watching the moonbeams reflected in the rippling water the boat left in its wake.
He stood there a long time, his thoughts going round and round the way they had in Savannah’s bed. Finally he gave himself a mental shake. Cut the pity party, Jones. It is what it is, and no amount of wishing will change it. You’ve got work to do. Focus on that. Find out who’s targeting Savannah and why. Put them behind bars. Then kiss her goodbye and don’t look back.
“Don’t look back,” he whispered to the night. The stars. The moon. But none of them answered him.
* * *
Niall was descending the narrow, outside staircase that would take him back to Deck Five when something caught his eye and he froze midstep. “Son of a bitch!”
His sharp gaze cut from the stairs to the deck above and the one below, but he saw no one. Someone had been here, though. Someone who’d known he’d be descending this staircase, and had laid a very clever trap.
He carefully stepped over the narrow, clear plastic fishing line stretched across the stair right below him, and went down a few more steps so he could examine the trap more closely. He whistled between his teeth, then whispered, “Nice job,” acknowledging he couldn’t have placed this trip wire better himself. If he hadn’t seen a flash of the line in the moonlight, if his reflexes had been a half second slower, he would have pitched down the staircase and broken an arm or a leg, if not his neck.
Which meant someone was trying to get him out of the way. Which also meant someone did want to kidnap Savannah, and saw him as a roadblock.
He pulled out the Swiss Army pocketknife he had to put in his checked luggage every time he flew but which he’d retrieved along with his Beretta and ankle holster before they’d gone down to dinner. He cut the line close to the knots on each side. Fingerprints off the line were impossible, of course. But he might get lucky if he came back with his fingerprint kit and dusted the metal bars to which the line was attached, which was why he wanted to leave the knots in place. He also took the precaution of counting the stairs above and below the step that had held the fishing line, just in case the knots loosened now that the tension had been removed, and the tiny bits of plastic fell off. Or in case someone is watching and removes them the minute I leave.
He shoved the fishing line into his pocket along with his knife, then continued down the staircase with a seeming nonchalance. But he remained alert and watchful all the way back to Savannah’s stateroom.
She was still sleeping peacefully the way he’d left her, and he made a mental note to tell her everything in the morning, so she’d be on her guard. He unlocked his suitcase without turning on the light, and felt around for his fingerprint kit. Then he headed out again.
* * *
Savannah woke when a large male body depressed the mattress and slid beneath the covers. Double beds aren’t really made for two people, she thought, stifling a yawn. Unless they sleep really close. Suiting her actions to her thoughts, she snuggled up to the naked man in her bed, then pulled away. “Wow, you’re cold.”
“Sorry.” His voice was early-morning hushed. “I had to go out, and it’s pretty cold on the river at night.”
“Poor baby. I’ll get you warm.” She pulled the covers more securely over both of them and pressed her warm body against his cold one, trying her best to repress a shiver. Eventually the warmth inside the cocoon of bedclothes was enough to allow her to drift off again, when she suddenly realized what Niall had said and her eyelids flicked open. “What do you mean, you had to go out?”
“Shh. I’ll tell you in the morning.” He set one hand on the curve of her hip and pulled her even closer.
“Tell me now.”
At first she thought he wouldn’t, but then he said reluctantly, “I couldn’t sleep, so I took a walk up on the top deck.”
“You couldn’t—how could you not sleep? Are you made of iron?” She playfully tested his arm, then teased, “Well, one part of you seems to be made of iron, but they can’t all be,” which made him chuckle under his breath.
But then he turned serious again. “When I was coming down the outside staircase, I found someone had set a trip wire across the stairs.”
“What?” She sat up and turned on the bedside lamp to look at Niall. “Really?”
He nodded, punched up the pillows behind him, tugged her into his embrace, then settled back against the pillows, his arms tight bands around her. “It’s not just my theory anymore, Savannah. Someone is out to kidnap you, and they need me out of the way.”
“Oh my God. Someone tried to kill you? Because of me?”
“I’ll acquit them of attempted murder...for now. A broken limb would have put me out of commission, too. There’s a doctor on board, but no real medical facilities. The captain and crew would probably have transferred me to a hospital on land, at least for a day or two, which would mean you’d be left unprotected. Exactly what they want.”
She still couldn’t believe it. “Why would someone want to kidnap me? What do they have to gain?”
“I suggested it before and you dismissed the idea, but I really think it has something to do with your job. The job you used to have, I mean.”
“You don’t think...” She trailed off, not wanting to suggest what she didn’t want to believe. But the sinister implications of the blocked GPS signals immediately flashed into her consciousness. Was it possible?
“Don’t think what?”
“I know the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are paranoid about it, but I can’t believe...”
“Can’t believe what?”
She reviewed her security briefings in her mind, making sure she wasn’t crossing some kind of line by mentioning the possibility to Niall, and concluded it was okay. “Ever since the fall of the USSR, the main target in most of the battle simulations conducted by the Department of Defense—the DoD—is the PRC. The People’s Republic of China. And a lot of the cyber warfare is aimed at them, too, because of the computer hacking originating here.”
When Niall didn’t say anything, she continued. “If it’s them, it truly is like something out of a spy novel. But why me? I mean, I’m good at what I do, but I’m not the only GNC engineer out there. And besides, how could they think kidnapping me would get them what they want? They have to know the US government would suspect them if I disappear here, and it would create an international incident.”
An odd expression crossed Niall’s face. Then he said, “I think that’s exactly what someone does want. I think whoever’s trying to kidnap you wants to throw suspicion on the Chinese government, to cover up their real motive.”
* * *
There was so much he couldn’t tell her...yet. He couldn’t tell her someone had deliberately set out to make the US government think she was a traitor. That she intended to sell what she knew to the PRC. So that when she disappeared, no one in the government would be surprised. And no one would look very hard for her, except to catch a traitor!
He blinked when that thought occurred to him. Why hadn’t he seen it before?
“But who would want me that badly? I mean it doesn’t...make...sense...”
Her sudden hesitation made his sixth sense sit up and beg for attention. Hell, not just his sixth sense, all his senses. “You just thought of something. What?” he demanded.
“It can’t be that.”
“Talk it out for me.”
“Spencer Davies. Davies Missiles and Fire Control—although the company is more commonly known by its initials, DMFC. It’s located in Alamogordo, New Mexico. I was thinking about him on the flight here.”
“And?”
“And he’s tried to hire me several times, at a substantial bump in salary. He recruited me especially hard this year. But I’ve always turned him down, because...”
“Because why?”
“Because I don’t trust him,” she said in a rush. “Because he and his company have a reputation in the defense industry for taking shortcuts, and I don’t like that. Shortcuts are shortsighted in my opinion. They’ve never gotten caught. Well, not seriously. DCMA—the Defense Contract Management Agency,” she explained as an aside, although Niall knew very well what she meant, “has never done anything more than slap their hands and impose not-very-onerous fines. We’re competitors with them. Or rather, the company I used to work for is competitors with them,” she said, in the manner of one who was trying to be strictly accurate.
“Keep going.”
She wrinkled her forehead, as if trying to remember something important. “DMFC lost several big competitive contracts in the last year,” she said slowly. “To the company I used to work for.”
“Were you involved in those proposals?”
She nodded. “All of them. I even have a patent pending for the IRAD work I did leading up to one of the proposals.”
“IRAD?” he asked, even though he knew.
“Internal research and development. Some companies refer to it by the initialism IR&D, but we call it IRAD.” She buried her face against his neck. “But I can’t believe that’s the reason. I just can’t.”
“Does he know you quit?”
She raised her head and looked at him, then nodded again. Slowly. “I didn’t tell him the real reason, though. I just said I wanted to travel and my security clearance was an issue for some of the places I wanted to go. But I still can’t believe...” She trailed off, and the distress on her face told him she didn’t want to believe it.
Niall let out his breath long and slow. “I know someone who can find out for sure.”
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“How? No offense to your sister, but if what you suspect is true, it’s a matter for the US government.”
He laughed softly. “Keira is the US government,” he said, careful not to mention her last name. Not that Savannah would connect Keira’s married name, Walker, to her maiden name, Jones, but since she knew him as Niall Johnson he wasn’t taking any chances. “Or rather,” he continued smoothly, “Keira works for a hyper-secret government agency with a far-reaching mandate. This sounds like it’s right up the agency’s alley.”
“You’re kidding me. The agency?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Only because there was a security incident at my work three years ago. It was all hushed up, and the man pled guilty to a lesser sentence in exchange for keeping things quiet and agreeing to be a double agent for a time. He was a spy for the Russians, and the US didn’t want them to know he’d been ‘turned.’ The US funneled a lot of false information to them before the government finally shut him down last year and sent him to a federal prison.”
“If it was so secret, how do you know so much about it?”
She made a face at him. “First, he was assigned to one of the programs I used to work on, so I was questioned extensively by special agents from the Defense Security Service, the FBI and the agency. Second, the operation is over and the man is safely in jail. Third, I was one of the engineers selected to create the false information that was fed to the Russians. Do you know how hard that is? Deliberately sabotaging your own work?”
“I can imagine.” He hesitated, but he had to ask. “Why have you told all this to me? Isn’t that... I don’t know...a security violation?”
She shook her head vehemently. “I’ve only talked in general terms. I haven’t named names or specified what information was sabotaged or what missiles were involved or anything.”
“Okay. Makes sense. But let’s get back to my original point. I can ask Keira to check on this Spencer Davies and his company on the QT. She’s a whiz at research, can uncover things no one else seems to be able to. And before you say it,” he said when Savannah opened her mouth, “I also know the man she works for, the head of the agency in DC. I’m sure he’d authorize Keira to get involved.”
“How do you happen to know him?”
Uh-oh, he thought. But he didn’t want to lie to her again. The lies he’d told her at the start—that was his assignment. This was different. So he told her the truth. Just not all the truth.
“My sister’s husband also works for the agency...rather high up in the ranks.” Yeah, head of the Denver branch qualifies as high up in the ranks. “And two of my brothers were major players in one of the agency’s ops.” Just like Savannah, he couldn’t name names. Not for security reasons—that op was long since closed and the bad guy was six feet under—but because the names Alec and Liam were unusual enough they might ring a bell, especially since both had been in the news a year ago. And if she recognized Alec and Liam, the surname Jones just might come to her mind, too.
He wouldn’t just contact Keira, though. He’d already scanned and sent to his own agency the fingerprints he’d lifted from the china trays this evening, as well as from the railing on the outside staircase. So he’d also turn over the name of Spencer Davies and his company, DMFC, for further investigation. Hopefully somebody would turn up something.
“I have to ask you again,” he told Savannah, tightening his arm around her. “Will you go home now?” Now, meaning now we have solid proof you’re a target.
If he hadn’t been holding her so close he might have missed they way her body went absolutely still at his words.
“You want me to go home.” Her voice was flat. Emotionless. Then she pulled away and slipped from beneath the covers. She dug into a drawer and pulled out an oversize T-shirt, which she tugged on over her head before turning to face him. “How would going home now make me safer?” she asked in reasonable tones, which surprised the hell out of him. He’d thought from her initial reaction she’d be upset. “If you’re right, I’m just as much a target in the US as I am here. At least here I have you for security.” She paused. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about that now.”
Anger, hot and swift, flashed to life. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”