Lover's Leap (29 page)

It wasn’t little
, she wanted to point out. It had been a twenty-thousand-word series.

“As if that wasn’t enough,” Jack continued, “the scumbags running the dog-fighting ring were connected to the mob. I’m surprised they started with a pipe bomb. You’re lucky you weren’t taken out in a drive-by shooting the day the story came out.”

He put her on the defensive and she didn’t like it. “I took precautions.”

“I took out your ‘precaution’ with one little kick. Where did you get that sorry excuse for a security guard anyway? Who recommended him?”

Cat figured he didn’t need to know that her hairdresser had recommended the agency, and that she had already decided she needed someone less … flirtatious.

She folded her arms and crossed her legs. “Look, I can understand why my mother might have been concerned, but why didn’t she just talk to me about it? Why bring you into it? Why the elaborate show? An abduction off the street? Really? It’ll make the stink over my story even bigger.”

“I’m counting on it.” Jack crossed to the bar and poured himself a drink. “I don’t want the pipe bomber looking for you. This way he’ll think that another one of your enemies got to you first. He’ll sit back and wait to see where you turn up. That’ll give my people time to find the pipe bomber and to analyze the likelihood of other enemies of yours committing acts of retribution against you.”

How many enemies did he think she had? Cat scowled as she asked, “Your people? I thought you left the Agency.”

He gave her a sharp look. “You checked up on me?”

“Mother mentioned you a time a two. I asked her to stop.”

His smirk suggested he didn’t believe her, and Cat told herself she didn’t care. “Who do you work for now?”

He remained stubbornly, but not surprisingly, silent.

He’s doing some sort of black ops
, she surmised. She tried another question. “You said ‘where I turn up.’ When and where is that going to be?”

“I’ll make that decision at the appropriate time.”

He’ll
make that decision? Cat had the urge to go six-year-old on him and stick out her tongue and say,
You’re not the boss of me
.

“We’re going off the map for a little while, Catherine,” he continued. “You might as well sit back and enjoy it.”

Enjoy it? With you around? Yeah, right
. “Off the map? Where are you taking me, Jack? Mars?”

Again, he showed her that smile. “Not Mars, but it is a little bit out of this world, I’ll admit. We’re going to the mountains, Cat. A little place in Colorado called Eternity Springs.”