Her Secret Agent Man

Julia asked Dutch with desperate urgency.

Nothing. No response.

Her father’s henchmen had knocked him out cold. She checked his pupils for abnormalities, and tried to ignore that fact that his eyes were a beautiful shade of blue, a silver-touched sapphire a girl could positively lose herself in.

What she
ought
to do was call a halt to her plans and get the heck out of here before he woke up. All her doubts and fears crowded forward. It was, without question, insane to ask for protection from a man who had reason and skill enough to kill her. This scenario had disaster written all over it.

She sat back on her heels, considering Dutch. She
had
to convince him to help her—without losing her heart to him as she had ten years ago.

This time, she must not fail. Her sister’s life depended on it.

To Pattie and Stacy for helping make this book go so smoothly and for keeping me sane whenever it threatened not to. You’re the best.

started flying airplanes, sitting in her dad’s lap, when she was three, and she was the only kid in the neighborhood who got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. After college, she fulfilled a lifelong dream and became a U.S. Air Force Pilot. She flew everything from super-sonic jets to C-5’s, the world’s largest cargo airplane. During her career, she got shot at, met her husband, flew in the Gulf War and amassed a lifetime supply of war stories. After she left flying to have a family, she was lucky enough to fulfill another lifelong dream—writing a book. Little did she imagine that it would win the Golden Heart Contest and sell to Silhouette! She’s thrilled to be able to share her dream with you. She’d love to hear what you think of her books at www.cindydees.com or P.O. Box 210, Azle, TX 76098.

H
uge snowflakes drifted down around him in a winter-wonderland scene, and the boughs of the pine trees passing beneath his feet sagged under a heavy blanket of white. Neon-garbed skiers whooshed past, laughing, but up here on the ski lift, all was silent. Peaceful. Bucolic.
And his palms positively ached with a need to kill the woman he was here to meet.

By what right did she call him out of the blue asking for a secret meeting? After all these years? Did she seriously think she could waltz back into his life without repercussions? Her sheer chutzpah was the only reason he’d agreed to meet her at all. And his unprofessional desire to make her pay was the only reason he’d kept this reunion confidential.

Julia Ferrare had to be certifiably insane to have made that late-night call to his private cell phone two days ago. How in the hell did she get the number, anyway? The
only
people who
had it were his teammates and command-post controllers on Charlie Squad, the elite and highly classified Air Force Special Forces team he was part of.

This whole meeting stunk to high heaven of a setup. And that’s why he’d told her to meet him here at his ski condo time-share far away from his teammates. He leaned back in the lift chair, scowling. Tension coiled tightly across the back of his neck. Fortunately, the resort was relatively empty in spite of the heavy early-season snows. The big weekend rush of skiers wouldn’t hit for another couple days. That was good because he didn’t exactly deal well with crowds when he was in this frame of mind. Hair-trigger reflexes trained to kill and maim were on high alert in his gut.

The low rumble of a motor became audible, and the overhead cable disappeared into a gear house fifty yards or so ahead. He slipped the wrist straps of his ski poles over his hands. Where
was
she? She said she’d meet him on this mountain today. He’d been down it twice, and there was still no sign of her or the trap she was baiting him into. Fine. He’d ski down the damn hill again.

It would help if he could remember what she looked like.

Reluctantly, he prodded at the black maw that gaped in his memory of that steamy summer ten years ago, but nothing emerged from the void. Whatever’d happened that hot July in the jungle had ceased to matter years ago. The fact remained that his brother, Simon, was dead, and Julia Ferrare was the cause of it. The details were irrelevant. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

And he’d been happy to do that until a phone call woke him up and a voice from his past asked to see him right away, without involving the other members of Charlie Squad.

As his chair swung over a snow-covered platform, he aligned his skis in its icy ruts and stood up. The chair shoved
the back of his knees, sending him down the ramp to the snow. The sleek glide of it beneath his feet sent a reluctant ripple of pleasure through him. He’d always loved skiing. Anticipation filled him. Of speed. Of the sting of snow in his face.

And then he saw her.

Maybe ten yards ahead of him. Stunningly beautiful. Raven-haired with dark, hot eyes. Her cheeks were rosy with cold, but her skin glowed with the warm, golden tones of a tropical beach. He stopped and stared as everything around him blurred and faded to gray. His vision narrowed down to a silvery tunnel, her face shining like a beacon at the other end. Something cracked around his heart, like huge chunks of ice calving from the face of a glacier. He all but heard the sound of it crashing down as a barrier of some sort shattered in his chest.

His gaze locked upon Julia Ferrare. How could he ever have forgotten that spectacular face? He prickled all over. His hands and feet went numb. It felt as if he was disconnecting from his own flesh. It felt damn strange, in fact.

And then darkness raced toward him, a towering wall that broke over him with tsunami force, sweeping him completely away from himself. He couldn’t tell if he was flying toward something or away from it. The only sensation that registered was one of drowning panic. And her beautiful face. Always that beautiful face swimming in front of his eyes, beckoning and goading him into the abyss.

Time and space had no meaning in this place. Only the deep, cold blackness embracing him. He drifted, disembodied, in the void. What in the bloody
hell
was happening? The darkness changed, abruptly suffocating him. Tangling itself around him like an unwanted blanket. He battled it back, clawing against its confines, tearing it away with a great heave.

He blinked, disoriented at the white landscape whizzing by at high speed. Where
was
he? He sure as shootin’ wasn’t at the top of the mountain anymore. An icy ski run fell away before him like a bloody cliff.
The professional downhill run!
Wind clawed at him as if it would rip the flesh from his bones. He must be going close to sixty miles per hour. How in the world had he gotten here? Oh
crraapp…

He launched into space, flung off the side of the mountain by a huge mogul. He windmilled his arms furiously, fighting with all his strength to stay upright and drag his feet beneath him as he soared down the steep mountainside. He slammed onto the snow once more, his knees smashing into his ribs like twin jackhammers, driving every last ounce of oxygen from his chest.

He gasped for air and by some miracle managed not to fall. The ski run jinked to the right just ahead and he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of making the turn. He shot off the run and his ski tips plowed into a deep snowbank. Their abrupt halt sent him airborne, cartwheeling high through the air. Straight toward a wall of orange crash fencing. Headfirst. He didn’t even have time to curse as he tucked his shoulder and pulled off a partial midair flip.

He took the fence squarely in the back. And landed sprawled in the snow, what little wind he had knocked clean out of him. He gasped like a fish flopping on a dock. For many long seconds, his lungs refused to cooperate. Finally, he managed to suck in a short breath. And another. Then the pain hit him. Like a train wreck. Jeez, he hurt all over. He knew better than to move after a crash like that. He lay still in the same tangle he’d landed in.

“Can you hear me?” It was a male voice from off to his left. “Are you injured?”

He peered up at a White Cross on a red vinyl vest. Ski pa
trol. “I hear you. Dunno how messed up I am,” he managed to grind out. “Hurts like hell if that counts for anything.”

The guy grunted in commiseration. “That was an awesome fall you took. We already called for a medic. He’s on his way.”

Dutch closed his eyes as the cold from the deep snow he lay half buried in seeped into his body. At least it numbed some of the pain crunching through his bones. What in the hell had just happened to him? With one exception, he’d never blacked out before. And that other time had also been related to the Ferrares. A drinking binge after an ambush had landed him in the hospital and erased a solid month from his memory.

Guys in his line of work who lost consciousness without a damn good reason lost their jobs, oh, instantly. And that would be why he’d never told anyone he had no recollection of the op involving Julia, the op that killed his brother. Thankfully, his teammates respected his silence regarding the mission and never brought it up.

He’d not blacked out in ten years. Why now? Another ski patroller showed up and knelt down, running his hands over Dutch’s limbs. The guy’s movements were efficient, competent. Dutch went limp and let the medic carefully straighten his arms and legs out of their awkward positions.

The guy rocked back on his heels after poking Dutch’s gut and checking his pupils with a little flashlight. “I don’t know how you did it, but you seem to have no serious injuries. You must be in killer condition to have hit the fence like that without breaking something.”

The guy didn’t know the half of it. Dutch, in fact, stayed in good enough condition to kill. And did. Regularly. He planned to do that very thing today as a matter of fact. A movement caught his attention beyond the ring of ski patrollers. A flash of black hair and golden skin.

His heart pounded abruptly.
Her
again. Even garbed in ski overalls and a bulky denim jacket, she had a body that made dirty thoughts run through his mind. He noted the way the thick, dark lashes fringing her eyes flickered apprehensively. The anxious way she bit her lower lip.

She had good cause to be nervous. Rage flooded through him, visceral, white hot. If it was the last thing he did, he was going to make her pay for what happened to his baby brother.

She froze as their gazes locked, as still and frightened as a hunted doe. His vision began to tunnel down again and he ripped his gaze away from her as she staggered backward. How was she robbing him of consciousness like this? A chill chattered down his spine. He’d be kicked out of Charlie Squad so fast it would make his head spin if his boss found out about this inexplicable blackout. Nobody wanted an armed Special Forces soldier floating away to la-la land at a crucial moment in a mission.

The Ferrare woman took a step toward him. Her expression indicated she had something urgent to tell him. She opened her mouth. And then a pair of men moved into his line of vision, skiing horizontally across the hill toward a less challenging slope. Nothing struck him as unusual about them, but panic flared in Julia’s eyes. She nodded at him fractionally, a single subtle dip of her chin.

Now, what was that supposed to mean?

She turned, took a couple awkward steps and pushed off quickly down the slope. Fleeing. Good call. Except for all the world it looked as if she was running not from him but from that pair of men. She’d learn the error in her thinking soon enough. His gaze narrowed as he stared at her retreating back.

The wall of darkness roared forward again. He blinked his eyes hard and shook his head to clear it. Pain shot across his shoulders and up his neck.
Ow! Damn, that hurt. Note to self:
no abrupt head movements.
It was a tough-won victory, but he fought back the encroaching blackout by main force of will. In its wake, a single question burned across his brain like a comet in the night sky.

Why did Julia Ferrare want to meet him?

He clambered to his feet, determined to follow her. But the medic detained him, insisting on testing his balance before he’d clear Dutch to ski again. He shook off the guy. Ignoring the queasy sensation rumbling in his gut, he stepped into his ski bindings and pushed back out onto the run. He crested a mogul and stopped sharply. The bottom of the mountain lay in gorgeous panorama at his feet. He searched it for a woman in blue. There. A slender denim outline. Below him on the downhill run, making careful S-curves back and forth across the course to keep her speed down.

Something else caught his eye as he scanned the mountain. A half-dozen skiers arrayed in a large, perfect starburst, all moving in arrow-straight lines, all converging purposefully on something. Or someone. He checked the center of their loose formation. Julia! What were the odds
that
was a chance occurrence? He looked more closely. Two of the skiers looked like the same ones who’d cut across the downhill run and panicked her.

He let rip with a foul curse and plunged off the mogul, gathering speed. Given how afraid she’d been, it was obvious she was in some sort of trouble. He had to get to her before those men did. Talk to her. Find out what she wanted from him. Find out why the sight of her did such weird things to his head. Then, he’d make her pay.

His speed continued to build, and he couldn’t spare any more brainpower for questions. All his attention riveted on the deadly slope falling away before him. He didn’t even want to think about how much another crash would hurt. The ski
lodge came into view, and with it a chilling sight. Julia stood directly in front of the huge log structure, and the ring of men was almost on her.

Dutch crouched in a racer’s tuck and flew toward her. Other skiers squawked in protest as he blasted by them. He zoomed past one of her pursuers and caught a brief glimpse of a cap and goggles obscuring the guy’s face. Not that he could have gotten much of a look, anyway, at the speed he was traveling.

He aimed his skis straight at her where she bent down to unfasten her bindings. He screeched to a halt, pelting her with snow. She jumped and spun to face him. Her eyes went wide with shock. He hit the quick releases on his boots with the tips of his poles and jumped out of his skis, not bothering to pick them up. He grabbed her arm. “Come on,” he growled.

Although he was a big, powerful man, he rarely took advantage of his strength to overpower anyone. But there was no time for explanations. He half lifted her off the ground and dragged her along with him. He bit out the words, “A bunch of guys are closing in on you. They’re right behind us. Let’s
go.
”

She clumped along awkwardly beside him in her ski boots. “Where to?” she gasped as they raced into the crowded lobby of the lodge.

He looked around fast. They’d never make it out of here before their pursuers arrived. “This way,” he ordered tersely.

They darted toward a coatroom beside the main restaurant. He pushed past a startled attendant and pulled Julia into the small room, out of sight of the lobby. He wedged her deep into the packed rows of coats, shielding her body protectively with his own. Awareness of her screamed through him like a banshee. She smelled like cinnamon. Her hair was silky
against his cheek; her lithe body hummed with tension. The bulky layers of clothing between them did little to dampen the way his baser instincts roared to life.

She looked up at him, fear raging in her huge eyes. “Now what?” she whispered.

His head swam, and he fought off a sick, drowning feeling. The swirling sensation in his skull intensified. He braced his hands on the hanger rod above her head, his outspread arms caging her against him. The room spun, and a wild cacophony of color assaulted his eyes as the racks of ski jackets twirled like a carousel.

“Are you all right?” she murmured in concern. Her voice was soft and throaty and felt like sex on his skin.