Sudden Death

“It wasn’t that bad-”

“Dammit, Megan.” He turned away from her again.

Hans was upset, but so was she. She didn’t understand why he was treating her like this, why he sounded so angry. A life had been in danger, she acted. That was Megan’s job. Perez’s comment about being barefoot and in the kitchen made her tense again. Hans wasn’t like that; he’d never treated her differently because she was a woman. At Quantico he demanded as much from her as from the men. He didn’t let her slack off, and he respected her. Or so she’d thought.

She wished it was just her and Hans right now so she could get him to tell her why he was so upset. He’d been the closest thing to a father to her after her dad died….

She was shivering. The air was warm, electric with the pending storm. She couldn’t stop shaking and didn’t know why she was so cold.

Jack reached over and rubbed her shoulders. “The tension isn’t going to help you get over the shock. We have a twenty-minute drive. Relax, close your eyes. Let it go.”

Relax? How could she relax with Hans angry at her? With Jack Kincaid sitting so close to her she could smell the soap he’d used in the shower. She felt the heat radiating off his body. His thigh pressed against hers in the small Jeep. She wanted to move away from him-she wanted to move closer. Put her head on his broad shoulder. His body was rock hard-all muscle, no fat. His face-dark, eyes probing, a day’s growth of beard making him look even more dangerous. When he saw her looking at him, he winked. She turned her head and frowned.

Jack Kincaid’s presence was overwhelming. Smart, sexy, confident. Too damn sure of himself. He’d almost gotten killed, and he was sitting here in the back of the Jeep, his arm draped over the back of her seat, as if nothing had happened-nothing too unusual anyway. She blamed her strange reaction to him on weakness- she’d been hit with a bolt of electricity. She absently rubbed her shoulder where the probes penetrated her skin.

Her problem was she liked confident men. She liked the smart guys. No, she told herself, Jack Kincaid was beyond confident. He was arrogant. Cocky.

He shifted in his seat and pulled the edge of her blouse from her neck. “You’ll have a nasty bruise,” he said, inspecting the punctures. “But you’ll be back in action after a good meal and a night’s sleep.”

Attentive and sexy.

Don’t think about him.

“You’re shaking.” Reaching into a box in the back, he pulled out a wool blanket. “Not a satin sheet, but it’ll do the job.” He wrapped it around her body, touched her hands. “Damn, Blondie, your hands are like ice cubes.”

He brought her hands to his mouth and blew into them, then rubbed them in his large, very warm hands.

It was hard, impossible, to ignore Jack Kincaid when he was blowing hot air into her hands, when their bodies rubbed against each other as the Jeep bounced over the rough road. She tried to scoot away, but with every jolt of the Jeep, she was pushed back against him. He wrapped an arm around her and stuffed her hands into his leather bomber jacket. God, he was hot. Literally. A furnace …

She pulled her hands out as if they burned; he grabbed them again, turning stiffly in his seat, a faint grunt in his chest. Megan remembered his injuries. She’d been thinking about Jack the man, instead of Jack the victim. What was wrong with her?

She pulled one hand from his grasp and pushed up his chin, inspecting the cut. “They went for your throat.” That ticked her off. Someone needed to answer for the attack on Jack Kincaid. “It doesn’t look too deep.”

“It’s not.”

She tore a small piece from her blouse, poured some of the water from her bottle onto it, and dabbed away the dried blood. She then wiped the blood from his face. His jaw tightened.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s not you, Blondie.”

Blondie. “We weren’t formally introduced. Megan Elliott.”

“Jack Kincaid.”

She nodded. “Were you stabbed?” She put her hand on the front of his shirt, feeling around for a wet spot that would indicate blood.

“No, but feel free to inspect anywhere you want.”

She pulled her hand away and put it in her lap. “You were favoring your right side.” She sounded like she was accusing him of something. She breathed deeply. Megan Elliott, he’s just a man.

Jack Kincaid was not just anything.

“Paul got a jab in there, his fist, not a knife.” He shifted again in his seat, obviously uncomfortable.

She was going to regret this, but she couldn’t help herself. Jack was like her brother in that he’d never admit he was hurting. Matt had cracked a rib during a high school football game, and if it wasn’t for her, he’d never have gone to the hospital until the bone had broken and punctured an organ or worse.

She pulled up Jack’s shirt; he let her. She saw a bruise forming, but no blood. She ran her hands around his stomach to make sure there wasn’t a life-threatening injury elsewhere. In the dark, with his darker complexion, she might not see any blood. His abdomen molded a perfect six-pack. She jerked her hand back, averted her face. What was she thinking?

Are you serious, Megan? You think Jack Kincaid would sit so casually if he were seriously injured? This man knows how to take care of himself.

Jack leaned over, his breath warm in her ear, sending first heat, then chills through her body. She blamed the sensation, and the distant memories it aroused, on being hit with a Taser. This was not normal. Not for her.

He wrapped the blanket tighter around her, holding her close to his side.

“I would have survived,” he whispered. His lips touched her ear. On accident? On purpose? “But thanks for the backup. I’ll have fewer scars because of you.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jack checked his perimeter and was satisfied that no one had been out here since he left two days ago. San Diego seemed so far away-the confrontation with his father, seeing his family again. Even his call last night to Dillon that brought the two feds into his world seemed long ago.

While some people went with high-tech security measures, Jack was old school. A string in the doorway, seemingly random props that weren’t so random to see if anyone had rifled through his stuff. And a good old- fashioned safe, no computers to store important documents.

He brought out several bottles of water and beer to the table and watched Megan Elliott carefully. When she’d walked into the jail and announced herself as FBI, he had almost laughed-it seemed so Hollywood. While he hadn’t liked the three-to-one odds, he was at his best when using his wits, and the three idiots Carlos had sicced on him would have been dispatched without the one-woman cavalry.

He touched his tender nose. Swollen, not broken. So he’d missed one or two well-aimed punches; the bastard broke a finger because he didn’t know how to throw a punch in the first place, well worth the bruising Jack had.

The bridge in his mouth had been knocked loose, and he’d have to go see someone to fix it, unless he could convince Padre to pull out his old field kit. Padre could fix damn near anything, organic or mechanical.

The senior agent was angry and worried, and at first Jack thought there was something going on between Vigo and Megan, even with the fifteen-year, give or take, age difference. But he quickly ascertained that Agent Vigo was protective of Agent Elliott like a father would be to a daughter. Good.

Not good. Jack had no time to dally with a fed. Frankly, he hadn’t had time for a personal life in years, and he didn’t care to start up with someone who played too close to the rule book he’d tossed twenty years ago. Most feds followed those damn rules as if they were a sacred text. Otherwise, they walked, or ran, away, like his brother’s girlfriend.

Megan Elliot was something else. She’d been damn scared when she walked in and saw the fight. All female cop-hip-hugging slacks and tailored blazer, her badge flashing, pinned to her slender waist. Long, long legs … tight ass … perfect tits. How the woman could look so damn sexy in clothes that concealed all that incredible, silky skin