Staying Cool (3 page)

He remembered that silky dark hair sliding over his chest, his thighs...

Stay cool, Byrne. Don't go there.

He took his own advice and shut his thoughts down
. She'd walked out on him. Fuckin' disappeared.
What the hell kind of woman did that? And she still hadn't answered him. "Who was bull boy and why was he trying to kill you?" Seemed a fair enough question to him.

She took a belt of Scotch and did not look him in the eye when she said, "He's a muscles-for-hire guy, my, uh, boyfriend uses for security. And other stuff."

Patrick thought about what she'd said while trying to disgorge the word "boyfriend" from his Type-A imagination. "You're telling me that was Coleman's security goon who tried to stuff a pillow down your throat?"

She played with the drink of Scotch in her hand, seemingly riveted by the last of its slosh at the bottom of the glass. "I told you, I would have been fine. He was probably just trying to, uh, get my attention."

"He could've done that with a Post-it note on your fridge."

"Funny." She eyed him now. "I remember how sarcastic you were."

"Good to be remembered for something. Although I'd have preferred it being for another of my talents."

She finished her drink, set the empty glass on the kitchen counter. "Like how you were great in bed, maybe?"

Ah, the Gina he remembered—straight to the burning core of things. "Now that's the way to a man's heart."

"Really? I always thought a good pasta did the trick."

"That too. With a big dash of honesty." When she glanced away from that remark, he said, "Let's get back to the human semi's form of pillow talk."

Her chin lifted, but it couldn't hide the nervousness that made her mouth twitch the slightest bit. "You don't need to know. Trust me on that."

"Hm-m, trust? Now there's a radical concept."

That had her looking away again. And, damn it, he couldn't tell if she was pissed at him or hiding a shame face. By all measures, it should be the latter. Finally, she said, "Don't, Patrick. Just don't. Okay?"

"Don't what? Ask why you walked out on me? Why you left me standing on a street corner with a fistful of flowers, waiting for a woman who—unknown to me—had already packed and disappeared without so much as a 'see you later'?"

Silence.

He went on, "Or does that
don't
apply to asking about your current lover's methods of getting your attention?"

"Both." She practically spit the words. "Just get the hell out of here, will you? I can handle Igor and his boss."

"Igor? Igor who?" He planted his feet, set his butt more firmly against the counter, every stubborn Irish bone in his body straight and ready. He'd grow roots before he left without answers. Real answers. Not dumbass crap about thugs and "boyfriends."

"No idea. Just Igor. Now go, will you?"

He ignored her. "When did you start messing with Coleman?"

Her chin lifted, her eyes—as rich and chocolaty brown as he remembered—finally and truly met his. Burned into his. She started to say something, and then, as if she'd thought better of it, stopped, suddenly looking tired. The flannel, doggie-covered PJs helped the tired bit along. He marveled at how she could look so sexy covered in slathering Marmadukes.

He waited, keeping his eyes on her.

Then she said, this time with a note of pleading, "I'm asking—again—leave it alone. Leave me alone." She rubbed her palms down her thighs. "I'm sorry things didn't work out between us. Sorry that I skipped out on you. But really, this"—she nodded in the direction of Igor's exit—"has nothing to do with you. And Coleman is dangerous." She took a breath. "I'm asking you to leave." A pause. "Before you get hurt."

"The hurtin's been done, darlin'. You just weren't around to watch me bleed out." Saying the words, Patrick surprised himself. He briefly looked at the ceiling over Gina's head, then back at her. "But, for what it's worth, I accepted your running off months ago. I'm good with it."
A necessary lie, so don't be striking me dead, sweet Jesus
. "Meaning we won't be starting anything over. But Coleman set me up, used me to find you, and time a kill." He scratched his jaw. "That kind of riles me, you know."

"This is not your fight."

He wanted to smile at that. "I'm an Irishman, remember? Every fight is my fight. So you either level with me, and we deal with Coleman together, or I call in the boys in blue and let them take care of it."

"No!"

He tilted his head. "I thought you'd say that."

"You don't
underst
—Damn it! Damn you!" She ran a hand through her weird blond hair, paced a few feet away, and poured herself another drink, then took a chair at the kitchen table. She gestured to the seat across the table from her. "Sit," she said.

He sat.
This was going to be good...

Chapter 4

The kitchen table, small enough for them to knock knees under, had a vase of daisies as a centerpiece. Gina didn't object when Patrick shoved it aside.

He hooked an arm over the chair back and watched her. Whatever was on her mind, it stuck in deep, because she was taking her time dragging it up.

Finally, she took a drink, then a breath, and began. "Coleman tried to kill my brother."

As an opening, it got his attention and pissed him off at the same time. "I didn't know you had a brother." When he thought about it, he really didn't know much of anything about this woman. Hence the pissed-off thing. He knew her skin was soft, her laughter bright, and her eyes miracles. He knew every cell in his body quivered the second she walked into a room. And he knew he'd handed her his fuckin' heart on a gold platter . . . Pretty much the dumbest move he'd ever made.

"Twin brother. His name's Marco."

"Go on."

"It happened in Abidjan—"

"The Ivory Coast?"

She nodded, but her face was blank. "He was held there and tortured for three days on Coleman's orders by one of his—for want of a better word—customers."

"And why would Coleman do that?"

"He thought Marco was sleeping with his wife."

"Was he?"

She rubbed her forehead, in a gesture he remembered, using two fingers between her brows. "That doesn't matter. What does, is that Coleman isn't what he seems."

Neither are you
. Patrick kept that thought to himself; no sense getting her off point.

"I'll back up a bit." She shoved some of her false blond hair behind an ear. "The Ivorian people recently elected a new president, and—nothing new here—there's a group of warmongering assholes who don't agree with the people's choice." Her expression hardened. "Their plan is to stage a nice little rebellion to get their way. And they need guns to do it. Enter Coleman."

"Coleman? An illegal arms dealer?" He whistled softly. Patrick knew him to be a cutthroat businessman, nothing more. But he'd been a cop for fifteen years, long enough not to be surprised by ugly truths and crimes well hidden.

"Name a war or conflict in the past ten years—particularly in Africa—and Coleman, along with his gang of uglies have profited. Big Time. They fly in the weapons, mostly AK47s and small missiles, then fly out with whatever
legal
resources they can, timber, tobacco... diamonds. Whatever the belly of the plane will hold. And Coleman's behind all of it."

"You have any proof of that?"

"
Almost
had proof. And we all know where that gets you."

While she worried her lower lip, he drank some coffee. "Let's rewind," he said. "How exactly did your brother end up involved in this?"

"Coleman's wife, Safi. She was going to give him a journal, a journal full of people, places, dates—and transactions. All of them implicating Coleman and at least three of his collaborators in the illegal arms trade. Enough information—
proof
—to deprive the world of their vicious presence for years to come."

"And the wife was going to give Marco this? Why?"

She shrugged, then glanced left. "Who knows? Coleman's a sick bastard. Safi had an ax to grind, and she wanted to bury it in Coleman's back."

"And use Marco to do it."

"Not exactly." She took a beat. "Marco...
cultivated
the woman."

"Cultivated? Sounds painful."
Now we're getting somewhere.

This time her silence stretched out and filled the room. He waited for what she obviously
did not
want to tell him.

"Marco works for a private security foundation called Raven Force." She toyed with her glass, turning it one quarter at a time. "So do I."

"Something else you didn't tell me."
I didn't know you. I didn't know you at all.
He strangled his growing sense of hurt with anger and disappointment. Told himself he was ten times the duped asshole for believing that if a woman slept with you, laughed with you, made plans with you, she also trusted you. She'd suckered him. Big time.
Dumb sap!
Dumber still was he didn't regret a moment of the time he'd spent with her. Those cells of his seemed to be set on permanent high alert when it came to Gina Argento.
Fuck!

"No. And I wouldn't be telling you now if you weren't an ex-cop and seriously in my face." The words were tough, her smile oddly fragile. "Raven Force doesn't have a public profile. It's privately funded, and
beyond
private when it comes to its particular areas of interest."

"Which are?"

"In this case, the illegal arms and ammunitions trade. FYI, that's estimated to be between two and ten billion dollars a year, most of its nasty product destined for warlords and miscellaneous warped despots who prefer war and murder to the ballot box. Raven Force tracks both the buyers and sellers, and does what most governments haven't been able to do—identify and stop them." She paused, took a breath. "Coleman has been on the Raven Force radar for two years. Marco's a field guy. He met Coleman's wife and—"

"—cultivated her. Yeah, I got that."

She shrugged. "She told Marco about the journal. He went after it. But before he could get his hands on it, Coleman found out about his relationship with his wife, assumed she was cheating on him. He had Marco picked up by a couple of local thugs. They held him for two days before he—with Safi's help—managed to get away. He was barely alive." She trembled lightly. "Thank God, Coleman had no idea what Marco's real intention was."

"Where's Marco now?"

She shook her head. "Not sure. He called once, said he was okay, and that he needed to stay out of sight and heal up a bit. Nothing since."

"And Safi?"

She took her time thinking about his question. Still short in the trust department, he guessed, a fact he intended to ignore. Finally, she said, "She's with Marco. Which means Coleman won't stop looking for 'what's his,' and when he finds her—with him—he'll kill them both."

Patrick met her gaze, a gaze thick with passion and fear. He took a hand off his coffee mug, used it to massage his chin. "That leaves one missing piece of the puzzle: the journal. Where is it?"

Some of the worry left her face at his question, replaced by determination. She stood. "Safi said Coleman always keeps it with him—which means he brought the journal back from Abidjan with him." She took a few steps. "I know there's a safe in his house. And I know its make and model. The journal has to be in there."

"And if it is, what then? How do you plan to open it?"

After a brief hesitation, she said, "That won't be a problem."

He stood, faced her. "You have the combination?" Patrick knew he sounded a bit stunned, but that's exactly what he was. "This Raven Force of yours obviously has clout."

Without answering, she ran a hand through her hair. Another gesture he remembered, but this time it made his heart hurt, not warm.

With Gina, it seemed, gestures were the only thing real, all else a facade. "I intend to shut Coleman down before he finds Marco," she said.

Patrick studied her, gauged her intensity level, putting it somewhere way,
way
off the scale. She was too close to this, too damn angry. Anger rewired synapses, made a person rash, careless. And careless people had a way of getting themselves dead. He wasn't about to let that happen, which put him squarely "in her face" for the foreseeable future—whether she liked it or not. Maybe the only thing real between them was her lies and omissions, but he still wanted one question answered:
why did she walk out on him?