Holiday Heroes (Wingmen Warriors 13)

Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Good Lord, the man was never without the thing. She’d been so focused on the cell phone, she’d never considered what he could do with e-mail and the Internet, especially with his encryption card. She realized her BlackBerry had been lost in the scuffle, so she hadn’t thought about it again since they’d left the airport.

Rushing past the roaring fire in the stone hearth, she padded on bare feet over to Hank, stopping by his knees. “Do you have a signal? Are you calling someone to come get us?”

“The signal is flickering in and out. I’ve sent a message that we’re still safe. It may or may not have gone through. Beyond that, I’m not hearing anything back. But with things so unsure, I can’t risk broadcasting our location to whoever may be on the receiving end of the message.”

“We’re cut off.” Her knees went weak and she dropped to sit on the brocade wingback chair, holding the edges of the robe together while she stretched her legs to wiggle her toes close to the crackling flames. “We should make the most of this time and work on a list of who would want me dead.”

“And why.” His gaze skipped along her bare calves. “Reasons help.”

Sometimes her job really stunk. She tucked her legs underneath her. “You haven’t said ‘I told you so.’”

“About what?”

She toyed with the robe’s tie. “You wanted me to wear a bulletproof vest. If I had, you wouldn’t have had to worry about me so much when you were hauling me around that red carpet.”

Slowly he looked up from the BlackBerry, his deep dark eyes meeting and holding hers with a power that stilled her. “I would have worried about you anyway, Ginger.”

The wind howled. Sleet dinged the windows. And that undeniable attraction hummed along the thread tugging between them. She couldn’t ignore the muscular strength of him. The man undoubtedly still worked out. He had the kind of body a woman could curl up against. The sort she knew would keep her warm on cold nights, whether it be about sex or tucking her toes between those solid legs.

She forced herself to swallow. Well, she had to so she could muster up enough moisture to speak. “Thank you.” Her mouth dried up again. She looked away from him, to his BlackBerry. “Back to the list.”

“Yeah, right.” He rubbed his thumbs over the handheld device. “There were the two threats that came in this morning from new terrorist cells that have popped up along the Russian border.”

Her cheeks puffed with an exhale. “I remember them from the briefings. You wanted me to bail on today’s meeting.”

“I wanted more time to gather intel,” he gently corrected.

“Let’s go over what we do have.”

“As I said, both groups are in their infancy, but looking to make a statement. The one we believe sprouted out of Rubistan has yet to lash out.” He scratched a hand over his five o’clock shadow. By the bed, the digital clock’s glowing little red numbers silently shouted out a reminder of the lateness of the hour—12: 13 a. m. “They’re still training and posturing.”

“Unless today was their opening act.” Her eyes slid from the masculine cut of his jaw to his salt-and-pepper hair, trimmed short to military specs. The sprinkles of gray spoke of experience and wisdom. Strength. All of those things made him more appealing, especially on a day when she desperately needed a strong protector at her side.

Damn it, she didn’t want the heartache of another serious relationship. Why couldn’t he do something totally obnoxious? She forced her mind to stay on the task at hand. “And the other group?”

“Has risen from the ashes of the suppressed People’s Revolutionary Council in Cantou. They like to dabble in nuclear weaponry. They’ve already tried to park a bomb in a duffel bag at a German train station. Luckily, the bomb was defused.”

“Then they’re equal opportunity offenders.”

“Apparently so.” He cricked his neck from side to side, the white uniform shirt open and displaying a tempting hint of chest. “We have our normal assortment of call-in and write-in threats that come with every event. I wish I had the stack in front of me so I could review—”

“Hank, you know it takes weeks, sometimes months to trace through all of those reports. It would be a duck shoot, hoping we lucked into the right one in time for it to make a difference tonight.”

“Instincts count for something when you go duck hunting.”

“Do you still think they haven’t told the kids about us being missing?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.”

She stretched her legs in front of her, cracked her toes, then felt the weight of Hank’s gaze on her calves again. The logs in the fireplace snapped and popped.

Hank’s chest expanded in his uniform shirt. “We’ll need to get back on the road the minute the weather breaks.”

“Of course.”

“You should turn in now and nab as much rest as possible.”

Go to bed? Did he intend to get off the mattress before she stretched out? Or was he going to sleep, too?