Part 13 (2/2)
”It's best we guard our words carefully outside of secured rooms. You've already been given special consideration because of your father.”
”Thank you,” she said tightly.
”Wish you meant that.”
”Wish you would answer my questions.”
He folded his arms across his chest, the vinyl seat crackling beneath him. ”Fine. Ask what you want, and I'll answer what I can.”
How much truth would she get? ”I thought you were a pilot.”
”A test pilot. I have a degree in mechanical engineering. I like to fly, but I like to play with how it all goes together. My mom said I started taking apart my moving Happy Meals toys at three years old to see the machines inside. Taking apart dirt bikes then motorcycles naturally followed. And here I am.”
Charming, but not the point. ”Quit trying to distract me with cute little childhood stories. And quit hiding behind those sungla.s.ses.” She tugged them off his face. ”I'm mad and I'm scared and I have just cause.”
He took his gla.s.ses back with a surprisingly gentle hand and hooked them on the neck of his T-s.h.i.+rt. ”You saw that a search of Kevin's apartment turned up information linking him to a possible terrorist plot directed at the hearing. It's likely he tried to rob the clinic that night to raise cash to leave town after the Feds searched his place. I wish the threat could have died with him, but everything indicates otherwise.”
”What things?”
”I can't tell you all the details, but suffice it to say we have picked up on enough cell phone chatter from known terrorist ent.i.ties to be . . . concerned . . . but we haven't been able to pinpoint the direct source yet. I hope you realize your father and I are doing our level best to keep you safe.”
”My father. Right.” It always came back to what Vince felt he owed her father. ”I understand more than you think.” Like how easily she could be led off track by his intense eyes and quick smile. Not this time, Hotshot. ”My father knew before Kevin broke in. You knew before I gathered that powder keg together under the clinic roof. I know you used a conversation with me to plant a listening device in my place, on my turf.”
He leaned closer, close enough he had to look down to meet her gaze. ”Think, Shay. If we went ballistic hauling folks in for questioning, we might have lucked into nabbing someone lower down in the chain. But we wouldn't have found the people responsible, and the hit could very likely still carry through with hundreds, even thousands dying. Including the visiting members of Congress. And including you.”
She blinked back tears of frustration and anger and even helplessness, because he could be right. ”Did it ever cross your mind that I could have helped?”
”That's the only reason you're in the loop now. But never forget you're a civilian. You don't have a need to know everything. If you want the right to know that comes with a uniform, feel free to join up any time.”
Her tears dried in the face of his cool tones that echoed too closely to overheard fights between her mother and father. ”You can't even bring yourself to say you're sorry.”
”What do I have to be sorry for? We were careful not to violate anyone's rights. The bomb threat should make you realize more than ever the urgency of what we're doing. I was called in to do a job, and I have done it to the best of my ability in the very short time frame I was given. I am sorry that people are dead, more than I could ever express, and I'm going to work my a.s.s off to make sure no one else is killed.” He angled closer still, crowding her in the already tight confines of the compact, his voice rumbling low, deep. Intimate. ”We're just trying to round up the right people so they can be put away.”
She backed from him, from the urge to flatten her palm to his chest. ”Okay, so you want my input. Fine. It's more complicated than simply arresting or deporting these people. Take MS-13 for example, an L.A.-based gang comprised mostly of immigrants from El Salvador. It started out as a group looking to protect themselves and morphed into a street gang. Cops deported some of them back home, but the country was in the middle of a civil war. Those g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers became experts in guerilla warfare, skills they brought right back here to the States. Now we're dealing with drugs, human trafficking, weapons smuggling.”
He clasped her arms. ”That should tell you right there the scope of what we're confronting. People are already terrified of these kids. If these gangs cause a major event during this televised hearing, how jazzed do you think taxpayers are going to feel about giving tax dollars for more of your pizza parties and small group sharing?”
”Is that really all you think I'm doing? Throwing pizza parties and hosting campfire chats over s'mores?”
His silence said too much.
G.o.d, she'd had enough. Of this. Of him. She needed to go home.
Shay grasped the key in the ignition. ”I guess we're at an impa.s.se.”
He put his hand over hers. ”We still have to work together.”
”I know what's important.” She put his hand back on his knee. Even if her retreat could only be temporary, she needed to regroup. ”I'll do my job. Thank you for getting me back safely to my car, but I really need some time alone to think.”
Just go?
Did she really think she could dismiss him that way? Standing by his bike, Vince watched Shay rest her forehead against the steering wheel in her rust bucket of a car. This woman was wreaking havoc on his mind.
He hadn't even found out where she intended to go now that she had her car and a lone credit card retrieved from her apartment.
He would not let his hormones affect his judgment.
Vince charged back over to her car and knocked on her window. ”Shay, get out.”
She turned her head to the side, still resting on the wheel. A sigh shuddered through her so visibly he didn't even need to hear it. Her mouth moved with a clear no.
”Come on, Shay. We're not done here.” Not by a long shot. He opened the door. ”Step out.”
She stayed put and silent.
He sighed just as hard as she had and added, ”Please.”
She sagged back in the seat. ”Where I come from, no means no.”
He grasped her hand and tugged her out. ”Please listen without interrupting for once.” She opened her mouth with a gasp, and he tapped it closed. ”Maybe you have a point about your input being valuable earlier on, but this isn't some paint by numbers deal where everything just fell into place. There are real world, big stakes here, and I f.u.c.king care what happens to you.”
Her mouth fell open again, but this time in total shock.
Screw it all. Adrenaline flooded reason.
He sealed his mouth to hers. She went stock-still. For all of two seconds.
She fisted her hands in his s.h.i.+rt, twisting, tugging him closer. Oh yeah. He swept his tongue along the seam of her lips, and she parted, opening, inviting, meeting the thrust with a bold taste of her own.
He pressed closer, anchoring her against the side of the car, all the pent-up heat from the very long and sleepless night pouring out of him into this kiss. A kiss that beat the h.e.l.l out of anything he'd fantasized about as a teenager.
Her arms slid around his neck, her hips rocking against his in an unmistakable answer to the frenzy roaring through him harder and faster than any souped-up bike. He palmed her head, fingers spearing through her silky hair until the short ponytail came free. The hair band fell to the ground. Whispery curls teased around and over his fingers, as s.e.xy and elusive as Shay.
The soft give of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest only reminded him how vulnerable she was. He fit his leg between hers, the reins on his restraint getting thinner by the second. Much longer, and they would need to take this somewhere else, somewhere less public.
He eased his mouth from hers, and her forehead fell to rest on his chest. Thank G.o.d she wasn't ready to talk yet.
And she wasn't bolting.
He forced ragged breaths in and out, his hand still cradling her head, testing the glide of her hair against his fingers. Willing his heart rate to slow, he scanned the deathly quiet lot. He would have expected some kids to be shooting hoops on the weekend, even in the morning. The bomb threat last night must have scared everyone into staying clear today, because he saw nothing more than the occasional car.
A four-door compact slowed on its way past the center, darn near crawling, like tourists rubbernecking to check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Except there sure wasn't much to see here, other than that old lady sweeping a roller of white paint up and down her brick grocery corner market. He checked out the spa.r.s.e foot traffic: an old man walking his dog, a young guy jogging.
His eyes went back to the car. A truck roared around a corner, speeding to pa.s.s the four-door. Vince tried to make out the driver in the slowing vehicle but couldn't see through the tinted windows. Very tinted.
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