Dana Marton - Spy in the Saddle

He tried to remember if he had any aspirin in his desk drawer. “They’ll have to send someone else.”

Jamie lifted an eyebrow, a warning look forming on his face. “She’s my family,” he said, in case somehow Shep didn’t get that.

He did. Shoot me now.

“She can’t be my Lilly Tanner. There must be a hundred Lilly Tanners out there.” He stubbornly clung to denial.

“She’s yours.” Jamie extinguished that hope with ruthless efficiency. “I ran a background check on her when I got the name. Right age. Came from the juvie system. Right city.”

Shep pushed to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Mo wanted to know.

“Taking a break.” He needed an hour at the gym.

He needed a little time to clear his mind so he could focus fully on his work. His thoughts were all over the place, and he had plenty to get done today.

No distractions. He had to erase the picture that filled his mind: the seventeen-year-old bundle of holy terror that had made him quit the juvenile justice system. Sort of. Okay, fine, they fired him because of her.

But even as he moved toward the fridge to grab a bottle of water to go, another car pulled up outside. A throaty engine rumbled, sounding nothing like the team’s SUVs. A car door slammed.

He had a hollow feeling in his stomach.

The urge to run hit him, but he stood immobilized as he listened to heels clicking on the floor in the main office area. On reflex, he cataloged the weapons within range: his gun at his hip, his backup firearm in the ankle holster, the knife in his pocket.

Then the door swung open and a pair of familiar devil-black eyes, fringed with thick lashes, scanned the break room before they zeroed in on him.

Oh, holy hell. She was definitely his Lilly Tanner.

Yet she was nothing like the girl he remembered.

Her full lips stretched into a smile that made Ray stare openmouthed. Shep considered throwing the water bottle at the idiot to snap him out of it. Then he realized that the rest of them were just as bad, staring at her, more than a little dazed. Great.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” Her voice was a sexy purr, enough to make a man sit up and pay attention, nothing like the disdainful teenage tone Shep still heard sometimes in his nightmares.

She had stretched up and filled out, and somehow managed to look like a Playboy Playmate even in a straight-cut charcoal FBI suit. She wore her wild, dark curls pulled back into a no-nonsense bun, her five-inch heels a somber black, yet everything about her somehow spelled sex, which made Shep feel all wrong and uncomfortable.

She’d been his charge once. He was pretty sure he shouldn’t be standing there thinking how she was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.

Good thing he knew too much about her to fall for the new look. Hell, he even knew where her tattoos were—

He caught himself and tried to backpedal out of that thought. Too late. A strange heat flooded him.

She strode straight to him on endless legs, her hips swaying in a mesmerizing way. “Hey, Shep. Long time no see.”

Enough roundness was happening in that skirt to make a man’s palms itch. And her breasts, too, had come into their own since he’d last seen her. Definitely. His brain was short-circuiting, unable to reconcile his old image of her with the new.

“Are you going to introduce me to your friends?” she asked when she stood close enough for him to catch the light scent of her perfume, her head at a slight tilt, an amused look in her eyes.

He had a hard time recalling his friends.

“Ray Armstrong.” Ray came around the table and took her hand, held it longer than necessary.

Keith deftly pushed Ray out of the way. “Keith Gunn.”

She shook his hand, too, then Mo’s and Ryder’s as they came up to introduce themselves. Then she turned to Jamie. “You must be Jamie Cassidy, then.”

Jamie stood with a bigger smile than Shep ever remembered seeing on him, and walked over to her, then enveloped her in a hug that made Ray and Keith look decidedly unhappy.

“We’re family,” he said when he pulled back. “I’m glad they found you. Now maybe Mitch will learn to relax a little.” He grinned. “What are the chances?”

She stood a little stiffly, as if not entirely sure of the hearty welcome. But she said, “From what I’ve seen of him, very little.”

Jamie grinned, then shot a watch yourself look at Shep, who wished he knew where the button was to project him into an alternate universe.

Ryder and Mo looked rather protective of her, too. They both had tremendous respect for Mitch Mendoza. Both would have laid down their lives for him. Or his little sister, from the looks of it. Ray and Keith, all googly-eyed, were obviously in lust with her and didn’t care who knew it.

Shep swallowed in disgust. Less than five minutes had passed since she’d walked through the door. The disciplined, battle-hardened team of six of the best commandos in the country stood in shambles.

That was Lilly Tanner.

He drew a slow breath, careful not to inhale too much of her perfume that wreaked havoc with his senses. He was a well-trained undercover operative. He could and would figure out how to stay away from her.

He stepped back, ready to leave the insanity behind, but her voice stopped him.

“While we’re all together here, I do have some information to share.” She paused, as if to make sure she had everyone’s attention but of course she did and then some. “We have confirmed intelligence that on October first, terrorists and their chemical weapons will be smuggled across this section of the border.”

“We know that,” Shep told her.

She went on. “This team is not large enough to monitor a hundred miles.”

Ryder nodded. “But a larger force would be noticed. Then the transfer would just be delayed or moved to another location.” They’d been through this many times in the past weeks.

She held up a slim hand. “A small undercover team catching the terrorists would have been the best option,” she agreed. “However, orders have been given for the National Guard to seal the area in question. They’ll be arriving on the thirtieth. If you can’t show results by then, we do need to be ready with plan B.”

Ryder’s face darkened. “It’s been decided and approved?”

She nodded. “This morning.”

“How long will they stay?”

“An indeterminate period.”

“But an incomplete and temporary deployment?”

“Yes.”

Shep watched her. “The terrorists will just wait them out. Or find another spot.” Ryder had just said that, but it seemed she hadn’t heard him.

She pulled her shoulders even straighter. “There’s no guaranteed perfect solution.”

Her not meddling in his team’s business would have been perfect, Shep thought as Ryder asked, “And if we can pin down the exact transfer location within the next couple of days? In time to set up an ambush.”

“Capture is preferable to deterrence. If you obtain an exact location, your team will be allowed to go ahead as planned with the apprehension on the first.”

The phone rang out in the office area. Shep, already near the door, went to answer it, needing some space.

Jamie and Mo followed him. They were heading out to the border for their shift, so they went to their desks for their backup weapons and started loading up.

They had the date, but the tangos could change their minds. And catching even a regular smuggler could always turn into gold, if the guy could lead them to the Coyote.

As Shep picked up the phone, the others came out of the break room, too. He turned his back to them to focus on the call.

“Hey, I got those prints for you,” Doug at the lab said on the other end. “They belong to one Jimmy Fishburn. Petty criminal.” He rattled off the address.