Why couldn't she bring herself to think of him as a bad guy? It was more than a mere physical attraction. Something about him seemed wrong, as if there was a hidden man beneath the surface, one that only she could bring to light.
Like when he kissed her in the kitchen. Here she was, wearing the same clothes as yesterday, sweaty and, she raised an arm, definitely not smelling shower fresh, yet he treated her as if she was a princess, looked at her as if she were the most precious thing in his world.
Dr. Jekyll. Only problem: she was certain there was also a Mr. Hyde. Chase Westin was most definitely lying to her about his dealings with Gianotti and The Crusade. He was a damned good liar, but not good enough to fool KC. Until he told her the truth, there was no way in hell she could trust him.
She turned the water as cold as it would get and dunked her face in the basin. Faster than a cold shower and it didn't involve getting naked in Chase Westin's bathroom.
Raising her head, she ran her palms over her eyes, whisking the water away. Despite the frigid water, she still felt flushed.
Chase motioned to Jay to keep talking as he crept out to the carport and retrieved his HK. Feeling better with its familiar weight at the small of his back, he returned inside.
"Haven't you told her the truth?" Jay muttered when he returned.
Chase pitched his voice below the sound of the water running in the bathroom. "I can't. There's too much at stake."
"Chase—"
"Trust me on this, will ya? I know what I'm doing."
He moved down the hall to where he could see KC in the mirror that hung there. She'd taken her jacket off, was washing her face. Water beaded off her long eyelashes and down her cheekbones. His breath caught with the urge to be in there with her, his hands rubbing soap over her soft skin.
Who could have guessed he'd ever find a woman like her here of all places? She was as out of place as a diamond in a coal mine. Smart, intelligent, quick witted—her fast thinking and superior acting abilities had saved him with Bruno tonight. And the way she was so protective of Jay...
He shook his head, backed up into the living room. This was nuts. A guy like him, leading his kind of life, just wasn't built for long-term commitments. If—big if—he ever did consider settling down, it would be for the kind of relationship his parents had: an enduring, quiet passion that even after thirty years of marriage still charged the air every time they exchanged glances. Soul mates.
Not a chance in hell of finding a woman who could complete him like his mother did his father. At least that was what Chase had always thought. Then KC charged into his life with her sashaying handcuffs and colorful tattoo and purple hair and suddenly everything felt different.
This couldn't be love, could it?
Sure as hell wasn't only lust. He'd never been obsessed by a woman like this, unable to think, to stop touching her when she was near, to take his eyes off her.
This constant knot in his stomach, similar to the anticipation he felt before battle, it jazzed him, gave him energy, but also in a strange way it comforted him, made him feel like, no matter what, everything was going to be all right.
Impossible. He couldn't be falling in love with a woman he just met, a woman whose real name he didn't even know. What would Lucky say about that?
Lucky. Damn, how could he have forgotten? Lucky could be dead, lying in a ditch, a bullet in his head. Or worse.
The autopsy on the FBI agent The Crusade killed last summer revealed evidence of torture before the poor bastard was put out of his misery. Could Lucky be suffering a similar fate while Chase stood here, mooning over a woman?
Chase shut his eyes on that unpleasant image, wishing there was anything he could do to help his friend. Much as he wanted to tear out of here and start a search for Lucky, he had to leave it to Rose and her people. Best thing for everyone involved was for the meet to go as scheduled, for Chase to maintain his cover and nail Bruno and Deacon, hopefully before Deacon's pals killed Lucky.
If that meant lying to the woman he was beginning to fall in love with, then that was the way it was going to have to be. If KC was half the woman Chase imagined she was, she would understand in the end.
He hoped.
CHAPTER 25
KC heard a door slam shut. Damn Westin, he was going to make a run for it.
She grabbed her jacket and rushed back out to the hallway. Standing in the entrance to the living room, blocking her path, was Chase Westin, all six foot of commanding presence and self confidence, grinning at her like a boy who'd just gotten a Daisy Brand, Red-Ryder BB gun.
"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye," she muttered, ignoring his smirk and shoving past him into the living room.
Jay came from the kitchen, scraping the bottom of a jar of peanut butter with a spoon.
"And what's your excuse?" she demanded of the younger Westin. "You're supposed to be the smart one, remember?"
Jay flushed and gulped down a mouthful of peanut butter, offering her the spoon.
"Merry Christmas, KC," he said with a tentative smile.
KC rolled her eyes as both idiot brothers stood together. Although her stomach was growling, she ignored the peanut butter, watching Chase as he took the spoon from Jay and licked it, his tongue stroking it like—
Snap out of it, she commanded herself. You're on the job here.
She took control of the situation, with these two someone with a little common sense had to.
"Jay, get your bags out to the car." Jay nodded and grabbed his coat. She pointed to Chase. "You're driving." She tossed him the car keys, which he snatched from the air with ease.
"Excuse me, Madame Special Agent, but I don't take orders from you," he said, leaning against the wall, licking the last of the peanut butter from the spoon.
KC narrowed her eyes at him, sending him her best Death Star glare. She didn't have time for this crap. "Don't make me cuff and frisk you, Westin."
Chase's grin widened. "Sounds like fun, KC."
There was a smudge of peanut butter on his chin, and she couldn't take her eyes off it. It took all her will power not to go over and lick it herself.
"Does getting your little brother killed sound like fun?" she retorted.
He straightened at her words, tossing the spoon to the dining room table with a clatter.
"How about if I take you into custody for obstruction of justice? Maybe a few days cooling your heels in a holding cell will dampen your libido."
"You can't do that," he said, his voice menacing. He stood so close now that she had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze.
"Just try me, Westin. Right now my priority is keeping your brother alive and to do that I need to be certain that you're not off flapping your lips to your buddies."
"I would never—" he protested.
"I can't trust you farther than I can throw you, so shut up and get in the car. Your choice, either drive or you get to ride handcuffed in the trunk with the spare tire. No difference to me."
The glower he sent her would have made any Marine DI proud, but KC wasn't moved. No one screwed with her operations. It was how she kept control, kept everyone safe. Including Chase Westin, the big, fat idiot.
He turned to grab his jacket. He was carrying again, a semiautomatic holstered at the small of his back. Where the hell had he gotten that from? The cookie jar? Man like him, ex-Marine, probably had a knife somewhere as well.
Fine, so they were basically matched weapon-wise. She'd deal with it after she saw Jay safely in the hands of the Marshals. No time to strip search him now, as much as the prospect of running her hands over Chase Westin's bare skin excited her.
His eyes followed her gaze, and KC was surprised when he lifted his shirt to reveal the Heckler Koch nine millimeter. Mr. Gosh-shucks, I'm as honest as the day is long. She rolled her eyes. Yeah, right.
"There's no permit," he said. "You can arrest me later if you want, but right now we're in this together, KC."
When he spoke her name it sounded intimate, as if he was caressing her.
"I want to keep my brother alive, that's all. Don't get in my way on this. Besides," he finished with a wolfish grin, "if we get into trouble, I'll cover your ass." His gaze dropped down to the handcuffs dangling from her belt.
KC shook her head. As if she would trust a man like Chase Westin to watch her back. No way in hell.
"Get moving," she ordered, following him out to the car where Jay waited in the back seat.
KC kept one eye on the road and the other on Chase as he drove. Jay leaned forward from the back seat, his fingers drumming against KC's headrest in an irritating rhythm.
"Tell Chase about your grandfather, KC," he said, breaking the silence.
KC cut her eyes at him. No way she wanted Westin to know about her personal life. She never should have told Jay so much about herself. "I doubt he wants to hear about ancient history."
"Sure he does. KC's grandfather was my age when he organized a resistance, fought against Stalin," Jay said, bobbing his face forward between the two front seats. "He was even younger when he fought against the Nazis."
Chase's gaze darted over to KC. "Where was this?"
"Razgravia. It's a small country, between Bulgaria and Romania—"
"I know where it is. Rogue nation, base for terrorists. Your people have a reputation as hell raisers."
"They're not my people, well, they are, but—" She broke off. Damn the man, he was the devil the way he twisted everything she said. "We're not quitters, we fight for what we believe in."
"And right now that happens to be a right wing totalitarian dictator."
How dare he? He knew nothing of Razgravia or the role her family had played in its struggle for freedom. Her cheeks burning with anger, she turned to face him. "My grandfather was safe here in this country, he had a wonderful life. After the fall of the Soviet regime, he sacrificed all that. He returned to lead the revolution to topple Gregor. Thanks to the CIA, he failed. But he died fighting for the freedom of his people."
"Don't mess with KC," Jay put into the awkward silence that followed her speech. "She knows how to take care of herself."
KC glared at him, willed him to shut up. Jay was a great kid, but he was so naive sometimes. It was her own damn fault for confiding in him in the first place. What had she been thinking?
Chase had switched the radio station to Froggy, the local country station, so she leaned forward to change it back to Qwik-rock and cranked up the volume to drown out any further conversation.
Chase reached out and turned it off just as Metallica was rolling into "King Nothing".
"Driver's choice," he said when she began to turn it back on. "So what did your mom and dad think of your grandfather's going back to the old country? Did they go too?"
KC crossed her arms around herself and settled into the seat, staring out the window at the snow-covered mountains. She was
not
having this conversation.
"KC doesn't have a father," Jay chimed in from the back. "And her mom died when she was twelve. She lived all by herself in New York City for a year."
"Shut up, Jay," she snapped.
Had she told the kid that? Oh yeah, Thanksgiving when he was mooning over never seeing Chase or Neil again, when the impact of moving into WitSec had hit him. They'd stayed up all night talking, sharing family stories. Damn, the kid had gotten under her skin—he was almost as bad as his big brother.
She looked up to see Chase's eyes on her instead of the road. The expression on his face was one of concern—as if he really cared or something.
"It wasn't a year," she muttered, "only seven months."
Chase gave a small nod, his gaze returning to the empty highway. "Until it got cold?"
"Yeah. There was a nun in a van—anyway, they found my grandfather." She stretched her seatbelt out, it was too tight against her chest, making it hard to breathe. "Ancient history." Time to turn the tables. "Tell me about Lejeune."
His face went stony and his hand shot out to click the radio back on. KC's hand intercepted his.
"My car," she reminded him. To her surprise, it was Jay who answered her question.
"He never should've been there," Jay said in a bitter voice.
"Quit it, Jay," Chase barked—the voice of a Marine giving a command. Jay seemed immune.
"You know what time it was when I got the call, Chase? Three-fourteen in the morning. The phone rings and it's Colonel Hicks. He's sorry to tell me, but you've been injured, they took you to Kabul, if you live long enough, they're going to fly you to someplace in Germany. And, oh yeah, there's not a damn thing I can do about it—don't call them, they'll call me with more information when they get it. Here's the number of the Red Cross if I need anything, have a good night."
KC pivoted in her seat to look at Jay. She'd never seen the kid like this before. She reached back to lay a hand over his, gave it a squeeze. "That couldn't have been easy. After just losing your parents."
Jay sucked in his breath. "After that Christmas, those first couple of days were hard, but Chase and I, we made it through together. We were a team. Then he left and I was on my own and it was only a few weeks later—"
"Jay, we don't need to talk about this," Chase said from the driver's seat. KC could see him looking in the rearview mirror at his brother.
"Maybe you don't need to talk about it, but I do," Jay shot back. "You never need to talk about anything. When they finally transferred him to Walter Reed for his second and third operations, I would go down on weekends to visit. Take the bus or me and Neil would drive down."
Chase looked up at that. "You took the bus? What was wrong with the Malibu?"
"Dropped the transmission and I didn't have the extra money—mom and dad's insurance hadn't paid yet."