Operation Willow Quest (17 page)

With a sudden gasp of euphoric delight as he
moved further down, Willow
gave up all rational thought and succumbed to his mercilessly ruthless assault
on her senses.

“Are you awake, Sheldon?” Del’s low raspy voice asked.

“Yes,” Willow
managed to murmur absently between his drug-like kisses. “Why?”

“Just checking.”

“You usually have women fall asleep on you, Delaware?” she asked
with a smile.

He made a low growl in his throat and gently
nipped at the sensitive flesh along her neck. “I wanted to make sure you knew
what you were doing.”

“The question is, Marine—do you know what
you’re
doing?”

“You know, I’ve come to the conclusion the only
way to shut that smart mouth of yours is to keep it occupied.”

Willow
gave a chuckle, but
soon had it cut off when Del
covered her mouth with his own and suddenly made her forget all about what she
was going to say. The boy certainly knew how to put his words into action.

* * * *

Something hovered on the edge of Willow’s consciousness as
she lay in that nice place halfway between wakefulness and sleep. The distant
crash of a trolley outside the room dragged her back to reality, ending the
mental tug-of-war she’d been fighting.

Opening her eyes, she turned her head sideways
and noticed the empty pillow. With a sigh, she resigned herself to face the
awkward morning-after encounter sure to come. Then a sudden thought occurred to
her. This was good old, love
em
’ and leave
em
’ Del, who was no doubt at this very moment, scratching
another damn notch on his gun…or wherever he kept his most treasured record—bursting
to tell someone of his latest conquest. The thought made her feel even more
depressed.

Throwing back the bed covers, she sat up, her
inner pep talk having recharged her with enough fuel to face Del with no ridiculous notations floating
around to mess with her common sense. Reaching for her shirt, she froze as her
gaze fell on Del’s
broad back as he stood at the window, silently looking out.

He didn’t turn straight away even though he had
to have heard her moving around. Taking a shaky breath, she slipped on the
shirt and stood up—ready to face whatever was about to happen. Rubbing her
hands nervously against the shirt that almost reached mid-thigh on her, Willow gave a small shrug
before jumping into the charged silence feet first. “Good morning.”

“I ordered breakfast, hope that was all right,”
he said, seeming to spring to life at the sound of her voice.

Willow
looked up blankly.
“Sure, I guess.” She watched the unflappable Peter Delaware pace the hotel
floor and shook her head. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” she asked, fearing
he’d had some kind of bad news while she was asleep.

“What?” he asked, turning toward her. “Oh.
Nothing. I couldn’t sleep.” He ran a hand through his hair and let out a shaky
breath as he tried unsuccessfully to meet her confused gaze. “I suppose we
should talk about this,” he said, pointing toward the tangle of bed
sheets…bringing a rush of blood to Willow’s
cheeks as images of the night’s events flashed before her eyes.

“No. We really don’t have to,” she answered
quickly.

“Yeah, we do,” he insisted, appearing to regain
control of himself and walking towards her with his normal confident bravo.

“Why? We’re two consenting adults and it’s not
as though it was totally unexpected—you admitted as much yesterday. It was
just…all that…sexual tension that made us fight all the time. Now it’s out of
our system, we can act like two normal people instead of jumping down each
other’s throats.”

Running a hand distractedly through his short
hair, he shook his head. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” he said as he let out
a strangled kind of chuckle.

Willow
’s eyes narrowed
suspiciously. “What’s gotten into you? This isn’t any big deal, so don’t try to
make it into one.”

A look of incredulity crossed his face. “You’re
brushing me off?”

Battling her own conflicting emotions over last
night’s events, Willow
shook her head wearily. “I’m not brushing you off. I’m pointing out a hard,
cold fact. You and I are not compatible.”

“At what point did you pass out last night? How
can you
say
that?” he demanded
roughly.

“Okay, sexually…”
Oh God,
I’m standing in front of Del
saying the word “sexually,”
“we are…
were
…compatible,
but in every other aspect we’re like chalk and cheese,” she said with a growing
sense of desperation.

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head
stubbornly.

“We fight all the time—we’re doing it now,” she
pointed out, exasperated by his refusal to accept the truth.

“Only because you won’t agree with me,” he said
with maddening logic.

Willow
scowled at him, then
kicked the chair leg in frustration. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. You’re
right—when we talk, we argue...so let’s…not talk,” he said, stepping closer.
Realizing a fraction too late what he had in mind, Willow wasn’t quick enough to avoid the
gentle kiss he placed on her lips. She had to face the truth—when it came to
being up close with Peter Delaware she was a pathetic pushover. She returned
the kiss and mentally shrugged—
Maybe he
has a point
. The kiss ended and Del
pulled away slightly, to look down at her.

“We can’t do this all day
though,” she pointed out softly.

“Say’s who?” he challenged with a soft smile.

The knock at the door indicated breakfast had
arrived and Del
reluctantly moved away to answer the summons. They tackled the food with a
healthy ferocity. Shortly afterwards Willow’s
laundry was delivered. Armed with a clean set of clothing, she headed for the
shower.

The hot water pounded the muscles on her neck
and back as she sighed gratefully. This was what she’d been dreaming about all
those long painful miles they’d walked. She gave a small chuckle when the
bathroom door opened a few moments later and Del suddenly appeared. He slipped into the
small shower cubical and took the soap from her hands, rubbing it in
tantalising
circles across her rosy skin. Casting away her
better
judgement
, she let her heart do the thinking
instead of her brain for just a little while longer. What the hell, she could
convert back to her sane, logical ways when she got home.

Chapter 12

Willow
sat and watched the
ground coming up to meet the wheels of the plane on landing. Reality was
knocking and soon they’d be going back to their old ways.
With no sex to keep
us
anchored, it’ll
be like watching a runaway
train plummeting over a cliff.
She mentally rolled her eyes at her
dramatics.

As she moved away from the
baggage claim area, Willow’s
gaze fell on the broad-shouldered figure of her brother-in-law as he headed
toward them. She tried not to wither beneath the steely-eyed expression he
pierced her with.

Tate reached over and shook Del’s hand, swapping a glance that spoke
volumes between them, without uttering a single sentence.
No doubt
there’ll be a full
debriefing conducted later with a complete rundown
of Operation: return wayward sister-in-law
. Willow scowled at the thought. She just hoped
Del wasn’t
going to say too much.

“Look, there’s no point telling Summer I’m
here. I can’t stay.”

“Too late. She’s waiting for you back at the
house,” Tate replied in that I’m–not-taking-any-of-your-crap tone she hated.

“Why would you tell her I was coming back? What
am I supposed to tell her?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll think up
something—but it better be good, she’s already suspicious.”

“Well then I’ll tell her the truth.”

“You will not mention
Trèago
,”
Tate snapped, placing a hand on her arm and turning her to look at him. “I mean
it, Willow—what
you did was worse than stupid. You put yourself and Del in serious danger. Summer has enough to
worry about at the moment without adding a sister hell-bent on self destruction.”

“I didn’t go down there to cause trouble. I was
gathering information on a story and that’s it.”

“Information that almost got you killed. When
will you get it, Willow?
You can’t mess with
Trèago
.”

“I wasn’t planning on messing with him—I just
wanted to get my hands on the proof to stop him once and for all.”

“He will be stopped.” Tate’s gaze thawed
slightly, but still remained glacier-like. “But not by you. By professionals
who know what they’re doing.”

“You need a few days to unwind and rest up, Sheldon…we
both do,” Del
added with a wince.

“What have you told Summer?” she asked Tate wearily.

“Nothing. I told her you’d called from the
airport and wanted a lift. Luckily for you, she’s too preoccupied with the baby
to read too much into anything at the moment,” Tate said with a small shake of
his head as they walked out through the airport doors into bright sunshine.

Stopping in front of a small bus-like,
people-mover, Willow and Del exchanged a surprised look as Tate sheepishly
unlocked the door.

“We had to expand,” he murmured and patted the
roof of the new car with forced enthusiasm.

Willow
sent him a dubious
look while Del
slapped him on the back in outright sympathy. “It’s…nice,” Willow offered, and smiled.

“Yeah,” Del
nodded, but the wince he tried to hide implied he couldn’t bring himself to say
any more.

They dropped Del
off on their way back to the house and Willow
let her head rest against the window of the car, staring out listlessly as the
scenery flashed past. She’d done her best not to think about the enormity of
what Del and she had just accomplished, and more to the point—how close they’d
come to having it turn into a complete disaster. She could feel Tate’s anger
simmering barely below the surface and couldn’t blame him. She didn’t deserve
his understanding—how could she, when half the time she couldn’t even explain
it to herself? How could she expect these people to accept that she was a professional
and never let her work put her in danger, when all they seemed to be doing was
jumping in to save her butt?

In all other areas of her life, she was
careful, but when it came to Samuel
Trèago
, she lost
all perspective.

The man had torn her life apart.

She’d spent the six months after her husband’s
murder, ordered by
Trèago
, determined to finish the
exposé her husband been doing on Samuel
Trèago
at the
time of his death. Nothing had mattered then, no one could talk her out of her
dangerous obsession to seek out this bastard and bring him to justice, and on
that occasion she’d gotten too close to
Trèago
and
paid the price. If it wasn’t for Tate and his men,
Trèago
would have killed her too, but he didn’t—and with Tate’s help, eventually
Trèago
was convicted and thrown in prison. Only now, she’d
discovered he was still somehow able to pull strings from prison, and she
couldn’t turn her back on that.

He was dangerous—she knew first hand just how
dangerous—and she couldn’t help this red haze of fury that clouded her judgment
and common sense wherever
Trèago
was concerned. He
was like a foreign parasite lodged inside her—lying dormant until his name was
mentioned, and his evil hooks dug into her once more.

Summer threw her arms around Willow and hugged her tight. “There was a
time I hardly ever saw you and now we can’t get rid of you,” she teased
lightly.

“Yeah, I’m sorry—my last assignment was
cancelled and I was closer to you than home.”

“You know it’s never a problem—I wish you’d
move here permanently.”

“Let’s not push it, two visits within the same
month is extreme enough.”

“You look terrible, Will; what have you been up
to?”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I mean it, you’ve lost weight and you’re
covered in scratches. Where were you?”

“What are you? The Gestapo? Where’s my niece?
I’m having hug withdrawals.” Willow
brushed off her sister’s questions and went in search of the baby. Maybe it was
a low blow using her baby niece to shake off her sister’s questions, but what
the hell—she had a list a mile long of past transgressions; what were a few
more?

It was decided to hold a celebratory barbeque
that evening and Willow
came to the conclusion that in the Maddox household, any reason for a
get-together and meal was considered fair game.

When Del
arrived with the others, Willow
froze as he came up to her and kissed her cheek.