Tall, Dark and Daring. Suzanne Brockmann
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and this little black nightgown?”
“To wear in Montana in September?” he would have mused, lifting one elegant eyebrow. “You’re in trouble, Lange.”
“You wouldn’t believe the way he looked at me in that elevator.” Zoe closed her eyes, momentarily melting just from the heat of the memory. “Dear God, I am in trouble.”
“Doing your boss is bad office politics,” Peter would have reminded her. “But on the other hand, he’s not really your boss, is he? Pat Sullivan is. So, go for him. You’ve been fantasizing about the guy for years—how could you not go for him? And if he’s looking at you like that … I’m surprised you didn’t make a move right then and there. It wouldn’t’ve taken much to disable the security cams in the elevator and …”
“He’d been giving me go-away signals from the moment we met.” She pulled her warmest sweaters from her closet shelf. Her warmest sweaters—and her skimpiest tank tops. Shorts. Her bathing suit even. It was a bikini—Rio cut. Not quite a thong, but not quite demure, either. Maybe she’d get lucky and they’d have Indian summer. “Besides, at the time I thought he was still married.”
“Ooh, there are those upright, golden, Girl Scout morals, shining through again.” When Peter said it like that, it was as if it were something she should be ashamed of.
“He seemed so embarrassed by the fact that he finds me attractive. As if it made him feel, you know, guilty.” She’d come full circle. “He definitely still loves her. In his mind, he is still married.”
“So what are you going to do?” Peter would’ve asked.
Zoe zipped and shouldered her bag. “He’s a really good guy, Pete. I’m going to try to be his friend.”
He’d always hated it when she called him Pete. “And for that you definitely need all that underwear from Victoria’s Secret?”
“Six missing canisters of Trip X,” she said, and Peter’s evil spirit was instantly exorcised, instantly gone.
She had a job to do. A very, very important, life-or-death job.
Zoe grabbed her briefcase, grabbed her laptop and locked her apartment door without looking back.
DAY TWO. OH-THREE-HUNDRED.
Jake had been out most of the night, silently creeping along the perimeter of the CRO compound with Cowboy Jones. Lieutenant Jones’s father was a rear admiral. Jake had figured that out of everyone on the team, Jones would be most at ease with buddying up with a man of his rank.
He’d been wrong.
Ever since they’d inserted in Montana, his entire team had been treating him with kid gloves. Let me carry that for you, Admiral. I’ll take care of that, Admiral. Why don’t you just stand aside and let me handle that, Admiral. Sit down, Admiral. You’re getting in the way.
Well, okay. No one had said that last bit, but Jake knew they’d been thinking it.
Even Billy Hawken, the closest thing to a son Jake had ever been blessed with, had pulled Jake aside to tell him in a low voice that the technological advances in the surveillance gear in just the past few years had changed both the hardware and the software completely. If Jake needed any help understanding the readouts or if he needed any assistance with the equipment, Billy was standing by.
And no doubt if Jake needed helped cutting his food, Billy would do that for him, too.
What, was he suddenly ninety years old? And hell, even if he was ninety years old, that didn’t automatically mean his brain had turned to oatmeal.
As they’d done the sneak and peek, Jones kept asking him if he’d seen enough, if he’d wanted to turn around and head back to camp.
The night had been crisply cold, but Jake had wanted to examine every square inch of the CRO compound he could see from the outer fence. He’d squinted through his night-vision glasses until his head had ached, and then he’d squinted some more. He’d done a complete circuit, and he’d lingered longer than he otherwise might have at the main gate, simply to show Jones he was capable of doing a complete, thorough job.
Except Lucky and Wes had been sent after them, to see what was holding them up. Jake and Cowboy had run into the pair on the trail. It was obvious that his team had sent them out as a search-and-rescue party to drag the old admiral in from wherever he’d gotten himself entangled in barbed wire.
It was discouraging, to say the least.
Jake needed these men to trust him. He needed their support, one hundred percent.
Because he was going in there. He’d figured out a plan—and Zoe Lange’s somewhat different surveillance tonight had given him cause to believe it would work.
She sat across from him now, in the main trailer.
Bobby and Wes had gotten hold of four beat-up old recreational vehicles that afternoon, and the SEALs had already outfitted them with enough surveillance equipment to make a destroyer sit low in the water. They were parked in a KOA campground fifteen miles south of Belle—just a group of happy campers, in town to do some hunting.
Zoe stood up and opened the refrigerator, helping herself to a can of soda. Something without caffeine. She didn’t look tired despite the late hour, but then again, he hadn’t expected her to.
Jake had been taking care to keep his distance from her from the moment he’d stepped on the plane at Andrews. He hadn’t gotten too close, had barely let himself look at her. But he allowed himself to watch her now as she spoke.
“The name of the bar is Mel’s, and it’s owned by Hal—Harold—Francke, spelled with a c-k-e. I didn’t meet him. Apparently he doesn’t come in often on Wednesday nights. The waitress I did meet was named Cindy Allora. She said Hal’s always looking for new hired help.” She smiled. “I guess he’s a dirty old man with a wandering pair of hands, and the turnover rate of waitresses at Mel’s is high.”
A dirty old man. Jake tried not to wince visibly as she sat at the table.
Zoe looked different tonight. The flower-print T-shirt was gone. She was dressed all in black. Slim black flares, black boots, black hooded sweatshirt that slipped off one shoulder to reveal her smooth tanned skin and a body-hugging black tank top, its thin straps unable to hide the straps of her black bra.
She was wearing quite a bit of makeup, too. Dark liner around her eyes, thick mascara, deep red on her lips. She wore her hair down, loose and windswept around her shoulders.
She looked dangerous. Wild. Completely capable. And sexy as hell. Hal Francke would hire her on the spot. And then he’d be all over her.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Jake said. “Maybe you could get a job working checkout at the supermarket.”
She lifted an eyebrow lazily. “And I could communicate with you by semaphore flags when you came into town?” She leaned forward slightly. “You know as well as I do the CRO men come to town and go to the bar. Only the women go into the supermarket.”
Jake refused to let himself look down her shirt. He kept his gaze staunchly focused on her dark brown eyes. “It just … it seems unfair. A scientist of your knowledge and ability. I’m not only asking you to wait tables, but virtually guaranteeing you’re going to get groped as well.”
She laughed. “You haven’t worked with women much, have you, sir?”
“Not as team leader, no.”
“Let’s just say if it happens, it won’t be the first time I’ve been groped while on assignment. And if letting Hal Francke cop a feel in the back alley helps keep me where I’ll be of most assistance to you …” She spread her hands in a shrug.
Jake laughed in dismay. “God. You’re serious.”
“It’s no big deal.” She took a sip of