In Rides Trouble (8 page)

Of course.

“And the media?” she asked.

“Will be fed the same story.”

Sleight of hand built upon lies layered on top of deceit. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Clandestine Missions.

Rounding a final turn, they finally came to sick bay. Anxiously stepping inside, she quickly took in the half dozen crisp, white hospital beds spaced three feet apart and lining opposite walls until her hungry gaze lighted on Frank at the far end of the long room. Every bed had its own blue-and-white striped curtain attached to an overhead, semi-circular bar. Its purpose was to give the patients a modicum of privacy. Lucky for Frank, since he was currently the only resident of sick bay, privacy was not much of an issue.

The size of the hospital bed, however? Now
that
was an issue.

She could see his big, bare feet dangling off the end of the mattress.

He didn’t seem to mind, however, considering he was fast asleep, his heavy chest rising rhythmically in time to the gently fluctuating hum of the
Patton
’s big engines.

She took a hasty step forward before Angel wrapped a restraining hand around her elbow, giving her a nearly negligible shake of his head before smiling winningly as the ship’s surgeon strolled toward them.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Angel rasped as the doctor shoved thick, black-rimmed glasses up a rather short nose while tucking a clipboard under his uniformed arm. “But Miss Reichert wanted to personally thank the man who spearheaded the negotiations for her ransom, even if all our work on her behalf turned out to be unneeded,” he added quickly. “Is now a bad time?”

Geez, Becky. Use your head.

Frank was supposed to be a perfect stranger, so she couldn’t very well run to his bedside and start crooning over him. But that’s exactly what she’d have done had Angel not held her back.

And
you
think
you’re ready to be an operator? Pfft.

The doctor ran a critical eye over both of them before glancing at his watch. “No. It’s time for me to wake Mr. Smith anyway,” he used Frank’s alias, “and test his cognitive abilities. Come with me.”

“And how is the patient?” Angel asked as they followed the doctor toward the back of the room.

“He has three problems,” the ship’s surgeon said, referring to his clipboard. “The first is the laceration near his scalp. I stitched that up and, as long as he keeps it dry and clean, it should heal rather nicely with barely a scar.”

Not
that
another
scar
would
make
that
much
difference
, she thought lovingly, her eyes glued to Frank’s battle-ravaged face as they approached his hospital bed.

“His second problem is that he’s concussed. His CT scan shows some bruising but no bleeding, so as long as he takes it easy, he should be back to form in a couple of days. His third problem, however, isn’t such an easy fix.” The doctor stopped, and Becky wanted to howl
No, damnit! Keep walking!
But she was forced to peel her eyes away from Frank to fix her attention on the doctor. “You said he came by this injury after falling from the second story railing outside the mess hall?”

“Yes.” Angel shuddered for effect. “I think I’ll hear that bone-rattling
thud
in my dreams tonight.”

The doctor cringed in sympathy. “Yes, well, when I first examined his shoulder, Mr. Smith explained how he’s had a rotator cuff tear that has gone untreated for years. Unfortunately, this latest injury makes the option of forgoing treatment impossible. He’ll require surgery once he’s back stateside.”

“Mmm,” Angel shook his head, “he won’t be too happy to hear that.”

Um, yeah. That might be putting things a
tad
mildly since, as Billy liked to say, Frank was a 100 percent tear-off-your-head-and-shit-down-your-throat warrior. Being out of commission for whatever length of time it was going to take to rehabilitate himself was going to make him mad as hell.

The doctor escorted them the final feet to Frank’s bedside, and Becky had to lace her hands behind her back to keep from reaching out to touch him.

“Mr. Smith?” The doctor gently shook Frank’s uninjured shoulder. “I need you to wake up for me. Can you do that?”

Frank’s eyes instantly snapped open, but they were dull and glassy, unfocused.

“Mr. Smith,” the doctor began but was cut off when Frank lazily glanced over at her.

“So beautiful,” he murmured dreamily. “Beautiful Rebecca Reichert.”

Alarm slammed through her like a sledgehammer blow. “What’s wrong with him? Is it the concussion?” Because Frank didn’t say things like that to her.
Ever.

“No, no” the doctor assured her. “He’s had an…um, unexpected reaction to the pain meds. I used the correct dosage for a man of his size, but he’s been flying high as a kite ever since. It happens sometimes. Has something to do with a quirk in a person’s metabolic rate, but he’ll come down soon enough.”

“Ooohhh,” Frank pursed his lips, making a pouty face that astounded her as much as it disconcerted her, “that poor, poor li’l cheek.” He raised a big, calloused hand toward her cheek. “Come lemme kiss it better.”

She laughed uncomfortably—after all, the man was supposed to be a total stranger, and he was talking about kissing her—but a little part of her heart broke off. She’d waited years for him to make a move, and now that he had, it didn’t count—considering he was blitzed out of his gourd on happy pills. He’d probably be just as excited to kiss a potato.

That was confirmed when the doctor cleared his throat. “Please don’t pay him any attention, Miss Reichert. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Mr. Smith?” Frank slowly turned his head on the pillow, lowering his hand and blinking owlishly as if trying to bring the doctor into focus. “Do you know where you are?”

“Navy Destroyer USS
Patton
,” Frank replied, dragging the final
s
out like a hissing snake.

“Good.” The doctor nodded. “And do you know why you’re here?”

“To save the girl and win the day.” Frank giggled, actually giggled. Becky didn’t know whether to giggle right along with him or fall down dead from a heart attack.

“Yes,” the doctor assured him, “that’s right. But you needn’t worry about that now. As you can see, Miss Reichert is safe and sound. She’s come down here to meet you.”

With an awkward swivel of his neck that made his head look like it weighed about ten thousand pounds, Frank turned back to her. “Hello, Rebecca,” he murmured warmly, his expression certainly
not
that of a man meeting a complete stranger.

Heat flooded up her neck into her face, making her injured cheek pound like a second heartbeat.

“Hello, Mr. Smith,” she whispered, hoping the look on her face wasn’t all but screaming her fear that Frank was about to let slip something he shouldn’t.

“Mr. Smith,” the doctor said again, and Frank growled in inebriated annoyance, once more turning his head on the pillow, this time to glare at the doctor. “Do you remember how you got hurt?”

Becky held her breath, which caused Angel to surreptitiously pinch her elbow. She realized then that her eyes were wide as pie plates, and she was disgusted to discover she was actually wringing her hands. Calling herself ten kinds of stupid, she fisted her hands at her sides and pasted on what she hoped was a look of mild indifference.

Frank’s broad forehead wrinkled as he considered the doctor’s question. Then he ran his tongue over his lips as if they were numb, which, considering how blasted he was, was probably true. “Weight was too much,” he said, only the last word sounded more like
mush
. “The shoulder went.”

“Yes, that’s right.” The doctor marked something in his chart, and Becky covertly blew out a relieved breath. Turning from his patient, the doctor addressed Angel. “His cognitive abilities appear to be fine. It’s the pain meds making him loopy, not the concussion. I’ll continue to wake him every hour, but I’m confident he’ll—”

“M’feet’r’cold,” Frank mumbled, causing all of them to glance down at the size sixteens protruding off the end of the bed.

“We didn’t have booties big enough to fit him.” The doctor frowned. “I’ll get another blanket.”

“He needs socks,” Becky declared, then bit her tongue when she realized how inappropriate it was for her—a supposed stranger—to make any sort of suggestion about Frank’s well-being.

“I’ll go search through his gear and find a pair,” Angel offered, sliding her a look that clearly stated she should stay exactly where she was. It was obvious he wasn’t comfortable leaving Frank alone with the doctor given his current level of incoherence.

She had to agree.

“I’ll stay with Mr. Smith until you get back,” she offered just as the telephone over in the corner rang.

The doctor absently handed her the extra blanket, which she immediately tucked around Frank’s bare feet, before scurrying to answer it.

“Just try to keep him from saying or doing anything stupid,” Angel whispered, keeping a wary eye on the doctor. “I’ll tell the others we’ll take bedside shifts until these pain medications wear off and we’re assured he’s not going to open a can of worms or spill the beans or whatever other quaint little phrase you Americans like to use.”

“I’ve never seen him like this before.” Even to her own ears her voice sounded tight with concern.

“He’ll be fine just as soon as—”

“I’ll go out with you,” the doctor interrupted Angel, snatching a first-aid kit. “I’ve got a midshipman with his finger caught in a gear shaft.”

Angel nodded and followed the doctor toward the door. And after they disappeared down the corridor, Becky blew out a shaky breath and turned toward the man of her dreams.

“Frank?” She moved to the edge of the hospital bed and smoothed a lock of soft dark hair away from his bandaged brow.

He sucked in a ragged breath, and Becky jerked her hand back. “Sorry. Sorry, geez, I didn’t think that’d hurt.”

“It didn’t.” He opened his eyes again, his expression warm and bemused.

“It didn’t?”

“No.” He shook his head, smiling drunkenly. “I just like th’sound of that.”

“Of what?”

“My name.”

She fought a grin, relaxing now that the doctor was no longer in the room avidly listening to Frank’s confused ramblings. “You like the sound of your own name? Man, Frank, that’s a bit egomaniacal, even for you.”

“No.” He shook his head on the pillow. The action caused his thick hair to fill with static and stand on end. That combined with the softness of his expression made him appear almost boyish. Okay, not boyish, but perhaps a bit more…approachable. “I like the sound of my name when
you
say it.”

She swallowed and blinked down at him, shakily smoothing his hair back into place—God, it was so cool and silky she figured she could run her fingers through it for days and never tire of the sensation.

Don’t get your hopes up, girl. He’s delusional.

Of course, not getting her hopes up was easier said than done. Her heart was suddenly a ninety-pound weight throbbing in her chest.

“You don’t like it when I call you Boss?” she asked, holding her breath, knowing she probably shouldn’t be having this conversation with him now, while his faculties were compromised. But having his faculties compromised might just be the only way she’d ever really get the truth out of him.

He was always so guarded around her…

“Hmm-mmm,” he closed his eyes, grabbing the hand she was using on his hair, threading his thick fingers through her thin ones. He pulled her palm down to his chest, flattening it firmly over his beating heart. “You should always call me Frank.”

The tingling in her hand, clasped so warm and tight between his calloused palm and hard chest, spread up her arm and branched across her chest until her nipples pebbled.

“I don’t know,” she gulped and tried to ignore the storm of strange sensations flashing across her nerve endings. “Are you going to stop calling me Rebecca and start calling me Becky?”

Besides her father, Frank was the only one to refer to her as
Rebecca
, and it always made her feel like a child awaiting admonishment. Initially, she thought he’d done so to drive home the difference in their ages because, okay, so…she’d sort of suffered from a case of hero worship from the very beginning. But later she’d come to realize he called her Rebecca because he didn’t care to encourage her familiarity. He called her Rebecca because he was her boss and she was nothing more than the irritating woman whose company he was forced to endure since she happened to supply his cover…

Or was she? The way he was acting now she wasn’t so sure.

“What’s wrong with Rebecca?” he asked, rubbing his rough thumb along the back of her hand until she thought she’d go crazy. The way her body was reacting, you’d think he was rubbing something far more intimate. “It suits you.”

“It does not,” she rasped, trying with all her might to focus on the conversation instead of letting her eyes cross in pleasure. “It makes me sound like I should be Angel’s grandmother.”

He chuckled, the sound low and rolling and strangely…
intimate
. Her insides turned to mush. “It really sticks in your craw to be called Rebecca, doesn’t it?”

She swallowed again and tried to moderate her breathing. Her whole body was on fire. “If I—” she licked her suddenly dry lips, “if I say yes, will that just encourage you to keep doing it?”

“Maybe.” He chuckled again, and her knees started wobbling.

“You are the most impossible man,” she whispered hoarsely, because at some point she’d inadvertently swallowed the
Titanic
.

“I’ve been called worse.”

“Whatever,” she tried to growl with her usual level of sarcasm, but the word just came out all low and husky.

“You know,” he said, opening his eyes, the color was dark and turbulent, like Lake Michigan after a nor’easter, “I’ve missed your sharp little tongue.”

The way he said the word
tongue
made her own feel as if it was weighed down by an anvil.

And the way he was staring at her? Man, she was either dreaming or imagining things, because this just couldn’t be real.

“You’ve missed my sharp tongue?” she managed, panting as he brought her hand to his whisker-covered cheek. He rubbed his face on her palm like a cat seeking comfort. “Now why is that, Frank? Is nobody stepping up to the plate and poking holes in your ego on a…” she licked her lips again, “on a regular basis? Is your swelled head st…starting to hurt?”

“Mmm,” he grinned, his big square teeth blazing as white as the bandage on his head, “maybe.” He lazily snaked his hand around the back of her neck and slowly started pulling her down.

If she’d been the fainting type, she’d have gone lights-out right then and there, but she was
not
that type of girl. And thank God she wasn’t, or she’d have missed the feel of his hot breath brushing across her tingling lips.

“Frank,” she whispered his name, her heart threatening to come crashing through her breastbone.

He groaned, the sound intoxicatingly fierce and darkly yearning, and then he was kissing her.

Frank Knight was kissing her.

Her.
Rebecca Reichert, the thorn in his side, the professed bane of his existence, and his full male lips were so warm and surprisingly smooth as they brushed over hers.

She was instantly caught in a storm of his making when he angled her head with the gentle pressure of his thumb along her jaw, licking lazily at the seam of her lips. Opening to him wasn’t an option; it was automatic. And when he dove inside, she melted against his chest. That wasn’t an option either since her knees folded under her like wet noodles
.

Oh, she finally understood what it meant to be tempest-tossed. But what she couldn’t understand was whether Frank was the storm or the shelter
from
the storm. She only knew that she wanted it to go on forever. The devouring plunge of his tongue into her mouth, the smell of him so warm and male, the feeling of his heavy chest cushioning the sensitive weight of her breasts, the deep sounds of hunger and triumph he made at the back of his throat, and the answering groans of desire and surrender at the back of her own.

This
is
wrong. This is so wrong!

She recognized that voice. It was reason, and it occasionally screeched at her, but she chose to ignore it because what they were doing felt so,
so
right.

She thought perhaps she’d have crawled on top of him, damn the impropriety of having full-out monkey sex in the middle of sick bay and the certain moral contemptuousness of taking advantage of a man who was obviously out of his mind, if the sound of a throat being cleared hadn’t had her jumping away like a teenager caught necking in the park.

She lifted a hand to her trembling lips and tried to still the thundering of her heart as she glanced at Angel standing in the doorway.

Embarrassment or contempt.

She’d have easily expected to see either of those emotions in his handsome face…but the pity caught her off guard.

“I—”

He lifted a hand to halt whatever explanations or excuses she was going to sputter. “Do not, Becky.”

She swallowed and lowered her eyes, embarrassed, ashamed. Not at having kissed Frank—she’d wanted to do that for what seemed like a zillion years and boy-oh-boy, her fantasies hadn’t held a candle to the real thing—but she was horrified at having allowed the moment to happen when Frank didn’t have a clue what in the hell he was doing.

Dear
God, Becky, you’re a complete reprobate.

Angel advanced into the room, his quiet steps and still tongue were so much more terrible than if he’d harshly admonished her or made a joke of the whole thing. She was used to both from Billy and the rest of the boys…from Frank even. She could’ve fallen back on her usual quick temper or come back with a quip of her own, something about having a weakness for semi-conscious men. But she had nothing to handle or combat Angel’s silent…
judgment
. It was as if St. Peter himself was measuring her worth and finding her lacking.

When he reached her side, she dared a quick peek at his ethereally beautiful face, but surprisingly, she didn’t find any judgment there, only a sort of sad sympathy.

So the judgment had been all in her head.
Dang.
For some reason that was worse, and she suddenly felt the urge to bawl her heart out.

“You’re…what is it you call it?…playing with fire. You realize that, yes?” he asked quietly.

“It’s not what you think,” she assured him, then realized how ridiculous that sounded.

“It’s not?” He tilted his head, lifting one sleek, black brow. “So you’re not in love with him?”

Sucking in a horrified breath, she glanced at Frank only to discover, to her utter humiliation, he was dead asleep, his carpenter’s square of a jaw slack, his thick chest rising and falling like the tide.

Scorching heat burned across her face like she’d stepped too close to an open fire.

“I…I…” She shook her head, unable to give voice to her feelings for Frank. Respect, longing, lust, frustration…she experienced all of that and so, so much more. Love? Yes, she certainly felt that, too.

Angel’s mouth twisted. “He’s involved with someone else.”

“I know he is,” she gulped, the tears that’d steadily been climbing up the back of her throat now threatened behind her eyes.

“You’ll get hurt.”

Yeah, she knew that, too.

He sighed heavily and shook his head before moving to slide the socks he’d brought onto Frank’s big, square feet. “You should go and take a nap. Your brother has arranged a transport for us at oh-nine-hundred.”

“Angel—”

“Just be careful,” he interrupted her.

Careful. Not a word she usually put into practice, but this time, she figured she’d be smart to heed his advice.

“I will,” she promised, fighting the hot tears pooling in her eyes as she turned away and made herself walk, not run like her legs were begging her to do, out of sick bay.

Exactly
which
portion
of
your
anatomy
were
you
just
thinking
with, Becky?

If she’d been a dude, she figured the answer would be her dick. But since she was woman? What was the equivalent body part?

She very much feared it might be her stupid, reckless, hopeful heart…

***

Port of Haifa, Israel
Eighteen hours later…

“What
is
that smell?” Eve asked Becky irritably as they waited for the transport vehicle that would take them on their next leg of the journey. “I think I can taste it.”

It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to reach up and pinch her nose closed or risk enjoying the spaghetti dinner she’d eaten aboard the
Patton
for the second time.

All she wanted at this point was to curl up in the first-class cabin of a big Boeing 747 with a cold mimosa in one hand and a sleep mask in the other. Unfortunately, given how the last several hours had gone, she figured that was pretty much out of the question.

She’d only gotten a few hours of sleep in the “rack” she’d been assigned aboard the
Patton
before she’d been none too gently shaken awake by Billy and gruffly told they were heading out.

“Heading out” turned out to be a six-hour helicopter ride from the deck of the destroyer to a tiny, desolate, dusty landing strip out in the middle of nowhere, Egypt, where they boarded what could barely be called a plane for a hellacious flight to some farmer’s seaside field in Israel. From there, they’d hopped on a speedboat and roared through the choppy Mediterranean for what seemed like hours.

Their journey finally landed them here, at the huge docks that ran the length of the colorful Port of Haifa. And even though darkness had descended a few hours previous, the docks still bustled with noise and activity.

“That smell,” Becky answered, reaching into the pocket of her borrowed warm-ups to pull out two Dum Dums, “is fuel mixed with dead fish combined with a little excrement and tinged with God only knows what else.”

She handed Eve one of the lollipops, and Eve gratefully popped it into her mouth. Squeezing her eyes closed, she tried to concentrate on the burst of sugary sweetness. It helped. But only marginally. Probably because her sense of smell was still reeling from shock.

Deciding the only way to avoid the rancid air would be to stop breathing entirely, she reluctantly opened her eyes, only to find the huge man once more eyeing her friend like a hawk eyes a field mouse. Even injured, with a bandage on his forehead and his arm in a sling, he was still the most dangerous-looking individual she’d ever laid eyes on.

Geez
Louise.

“Uh, that man is staring at you again,” she whispered, shivering at the hardness of the guy’s face and the fierce heat reflected in his eyes.

“I know,” Becky said, refusing to look, using her tongue to shift her sucker to her opposite cheek. It clacked loudly against her teeth, a strange sort of expletive. “I’m trying to ignore him.”

“I can’t tell if he wants to kiss you or kill you.”

“He’s already done the first, so I’m thinking it’s the second he’s after now.”

“
What?
” When Becky pinched her arm in warning, she lowered her voice. “He
kissed
you?” she whispered incredulously, snatching the sucker out of her mouth so she could gape with appropriate horror at her friend.

Which was a big mistake, because then she really
could
taste the fetid air.