Holiday Heroes (Wingmen Warriors 13)

“I try to stay out of his business.” More like his son tried to stay out of his old man’s way, which seemed to include not talking all that often.

“But then when it comes to Darcy—”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s my baby.” His youngest daughter had been kidnapped briefly as a teen in an attempt to get to him. So, of course, his knee-jerk reaction was to check up on her. He tried to rein himself in, and she was a tough cookie who didn’t hesitate to tell him when to back off.

He couldn’t stop a deep smile from digging into his face. He’d never admitted it to any of them, but Darcy had always been the one who reminded him most of himself. Actually Jessica had pointed out the similarity for the first time.

Why did he keep thinking of his dead wife today? It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about her. But as the years went by, he found he could make it through days, then weeks without thinking of her. She would always be a part of his past and a part of him, but his life had gone on.

A week ago, he simply would have turned to Ginger and asked her something about Benjamin, worked the conversation around to how she dealt with it all. Ginger had always been someone he could talk to.

Just ask her, damn it.

Except suddenly the snow parted in a swirl and his chalet appeared, a holiday fresco painted on the outside. The gabled inn was small and snow-covered and welcome as hell.

Ginger shifted in the leather seat next to him, her exhale rattling along with the engine shutting off. “Not exactly how I planned to spend my Christmas week.”

He eyed the chalet where he would be sharing a room with his best friend, his hot best friend.

“Don’t give up on Christmas yet. With luck we’ll only have to hide for one night.”

This big fluffy robe sure didn’t hide as much as she’d like.

Ginger stood in the bathroom doorway, gripping the tie around her waist. It certainly was a long sprint from here to the sleigh bed where she could dive under the plump comforter to wait for her underwear to dry. Oh, but the bed looked inviting and warm where she could sleep with the sound of the fire snapping, the smell of the evergreen garland decorations reminding her of home as she drifted off…

Except Hank sat on the edge of the bed. All six foot three inches of him taking up most of the mattress, his BlackBerry held in his hands as he typed away, oblivious to her.

Wait.

His BlackBerry!

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.