Cassie Miles - Navajo Echoes

“How are we doing for time?”

He checked his watch. “Six minutes to midnight.”

While John hid the scooter in the lush under-growth, she found a shadowed hiding place near the shore. She sat with her knees pulled up and her back leaning against the limestone.

She could see how Pirate Cove had gotten its name. Jagged rocks thrust into the sea, creating a natural barrier where smugglers could hide. Blackbeard and his crew of buccaneers might have rowed ashore to this very place and buried their treasure of gold doubloons.

John joined her and stretched his long legs out straight in front of him.

They sat quietly. Exhaustion rolled over her like waves from the sea, but her mind was still active. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier.”

“About what?”

“You reminded me that I’m not a cop anymore.”

“Right.”

“That badge comes in handy,” she said. “If I were a cop, I wouldn’t have spent the past hour dodging through town, evading a tail. I’d arrest the creep and move on.”

“Simple,” he said.

And nothing about PPS was simple. “Our work is way more complicated than regular law enforcement. We don’t have the authority to lock up the bad guys. On the other hand, we’re not limited by a need for search warrants and chain-of-evidence procedure.”

“For someone like you, someone who acts on instinct, that ought to make a positive difference.”

She liked the freedom of thinking outside the box, but some of the things their job required bordered on being illegal. Like not reporting the plane crash. “It’s a little confusing.”

“How so?”

“Have you ever been asked to do something you thought was wrong? Like being a bodyguard for somebody who wasn’t a good person.”

“That’s happened,” he said. “But I didn’t think it was morally wrong. Even scumbags deserve protection.”

“How do you know you’re doing the right thing?”

When he turned toward her, the moonlight cast an intriguing shadow below his high cheekbones. “I trust in what I’m doing because I trust the vision of Robert Prescott, who founded PPS. He’s a good man. No matter what he asked me to do, I’d do it. Without questions.”

She’d heard so many stories about Robert Prescott, the former agent for the British secret service who was involved in dozens of international conspiracies. After he supposedly was killed in a fiery plane crash in Europe, the legends got bigger. Robert Prescott came off sounding like a combination of a superhero and James Bond. “You’ve been with him a long time. What’s he really like?”

“He has the qualities I respect. A sense of honor. Courage. Loyalty. He loves his wife, Evangeline, with all his heart.”

And yet, he’d stayed away for two years. There must have been compelling reasons. Soon Lily would know. Soon she would meet the legend himself. Excitement stirred her senses. Here she was on a Caribbean island in a place called Pirate’s Cove, waiting for a former MI6 agent. Life didn’t get more exotic than this.

John checked his wristwatch. “He’s late.”

“Edgar said we should wait only an hour.”

She hoped they hadn’t come all this way to find a dead end. In spite of her sweatshirt, a shiver went through her.

“Cold?” John asked.

“A bit.”

“Lean against me.” He slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“I’m fine.” Right now she had the advantage in their game of sexual one-upsmanship, and she wanted to keep it that way. Shrugging off his arm, she repeated, “Just fine.”

“I’m not coming on to you, Lily.”

The hell he wasn’t. “Of course not.”

“Think of me as a big brother.”

“Can’t do it. I was an only child.”

“That explains a lot.”

He folded his arms across his chest and stared out to sea. As always, his attitude was calm, controlled and absolutely maddening.

She peered around his shoulder. “What does my being an only child have to do with anything?”

“No siblings,” he said. “You never had to learn to compromise.”

“Oh, please.” She got along well with other people. “Spare me the cut-rate psychology. Both my parents were doctors, and I was sent to a shrink at the first sign of rebellion.”

“And how did that work out?” he asked drily.

“What are you hinting at?”

“You’re still a rebel.”

“Maybe so,” she admitted. Definitely so. The more people told her that she shouldn’t do something, the more she wanted to give it a whirl. “I like to go my own way. What’s the point in following the predictable path of college and career, marriage and kids?”

“Security.”

He answered so quickly that she knew this was an issue he had considered. Doing what was expected. Being like everybody else. And yet that description didn’t fit John at all. For one thing, he was thirty-seven and not settled down with wife and kids. “Have you ever been married?”

He gave a quick shake of his head. “You?”

“No.” She hadn’t even lost her virginity yet—a detail she didn’t intend to share with him.

“How did you end up at PPS?” he asked.

“Long story.”

He grinned. “You don’t seem to mind telling long stories.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide. What you see is what you get.”

“We’ve got an hour to kill,” he said. “Tell me all about yourself.”

“I stepped off the predictable path when I dropped out of college in Ann Arbor.”

She told him about backpacking through Europe, working as a waitress when she could and picking up the languages.

After seeing injustice on a global scale, she’d felt the need for order. That was when she’d moved to Denver and entered the police academy. “Then I joined PPS. It feels like this is where I belong. I love the people in the office. Former FBI agents like Evangeline and Melissa. Jack Sanders was an Army Ranger. Cameron Morgan, the cowboy.” Her gaze bounced into his eyes. “Then, of course, there’s you.”

“What about me?” he asked suspiciously.

“You’re very secretive. The strong, silent type. All I know about you is your work. You’re an electronics genius and an expert in security systems.”

“I like detail work.”

No surprise there. He was a master of precision and planning. “Tell me about growing up. Did you have a big family? Were you good in school?”

John checked his wristwatch again. “We’ve waited an hour. Robert isn’t coming tonight.”

How typical of John to divert the subject as soon as it shifted to him. She followed him across the sand to the bushes where he’d hidden their transportation. Climbing onto the back of the motor scooter, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against John’s broad back.

In a moment, they were back on the road, headed back to the hotel. She snuggled closer. Hanging on tightly wasn’t really necessary; they were only going about twenty-five miles an hour. But she liked holding him. Her attraction to John was far from sisterly fondness. He was much too sexy to ever be thought of as a brother.

She heard him curse, sat up straighter and peeked around his shoulder. Headlights. A big vehicle. A Hummer. And he was coming right at them.

As the motor scooter skidded off the narrow road, she heard herself scream.

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