"Saves on dry cleaning." Max flipped a mental switch, shutting off all thoughts except his upcoming crew brief.
Darcy propped her elbow on the table, chin on her palm, landing smack in Max's line of sight. "So you spend a lot of hands-on time with your job?"
Hands-on? With two little words, she'd flipped that switch right back.
He told his libido to take a swan dive off the nearest cliff. "With applied science labs at the university—'' along with marine mammal training at the Pt. Loma, California, naval facility "—I spend the majority of my time in the water."
Which was true. Two cardinal rules of undercover work: keep it close to the truth; keep it simple. And a small uncorrupted part of himself resisted lying to an innocent.
Better drown that impulse, too, chump.
"Ever been to Guam before?"
Damn, but she was nosy underneath all that guileless enthusiasm.
He rolled out his rehearsed cover story that mixed in a splash of truth. "I went to the South Pacific a few years ago while writing my dissertation." Truth, minus the part that the CIA had already recruited him. He'd annotated footnotes while dodging bullets in some Southeast Asian cesspool. "I was part of the dolphin rescue team flown out when two calves beached in Guam."
"Now you're the one to set them free. How cool to get closure." She edged forward, her scent of baby powder and soap edging further right into his senses.
"Guess you could call it that." God, she smelled good. Clean and untainted, and so unlike anything he'd been exposed to in years. He'd almost forgotten people like her existed, were in fact the very reason he'd signed on with the CIA. Back in a time when he'd planned to save the world and have the secret satisfaction of showing up his father.
See, Old Man, I can serve my country as well as you, but on my own terms. Screw creased uniforms and buzz cuts.
Max nudged a stray sunflower seed with his foot. His ratty deck shoes made an appropriate contrast to the polished sheen of Renshaw's combat boots.
"So, Doc, did you always want to work with dolphins? Be a marine biologist?"
Time to turn those questions around. "Did you always want to join the Air Force?"
"Yes," she said.
But her eyes said no.
An awkward silence settled.
He studied her suddenly guarded eyes and wondered at the reason. She seemed one hundred percent military. Crisp conformity and camaraderie above all.
He knew the type well, just like his old man. The Air Force uniform on the C-17 crew might differ from his father's Navy whites, but Max recognized the military mantle that transcended service branches. All the same, he felt those glimmering eyes luring him like a mythological siren.
Not wise on the job.
Max forced himself to remember every detail of Eva's murder. How he'd been unable to save his lover, his CIA dive partner. How he'd held her in the crashing surf while she bled out. Taking their unborn child with her. All because some faceless bastard had been turning over American agents in the Pacific.
No way in hell would Max lose this chance to put a name to that traitor. Finally he'd found the link when the military reported intercepted communications. Agency intel analysis pointed to a leak in Guam, most likely a tap on one of the military's oceanic communications cables.
Time was critical now with missions being flown in the Cantou conflict. Intercepted flight-planning data could allow the enemy to shoot down U.S. aircraft at will.
Shutting down all underwater cables out of the island wasn't an option. But once he identified the tapped cable with the help of his trained dolphins, a few tantalizing nuggets of transmitted misinformation would bait the trap. Then the CIA would tighten the net around the whole enemy spy ring.
Tighten around one double agent in particular, and by God, Max wouldn't let anything distract him from being the one to reel that traitor in.
A flash from the projector jarred Max back to the present. The Navy officer dimmed the lights to half power. "All set. Dr. Keagan, are you ready to begin?''
"Of course." Max shoved out of his chair. Hell yes, he was ready to lose himself in work.
Turning from the lure of siren eyes, Max focused on his graphs projected onto the screen. He worked better as a loner anyway, always had.
The less a man had, the less he had to lose.