Operation Willow Quest (20 page)

She tried to avoid Del’s gaze as much as possible, but when he
did catch her watching him once or twice, she saw the small crease between his
brows, and she knew he was picking up on the simmering fury beneath the
surface, waiting for a chance to erupt.

She waited until Summer left to put the baby to
bed to confront the men, and was amazed that she managed to keep her voice so
calm when inside she was a raging tornado.

“Exactly, when were you planning on telling me
that
Trèago
had ordered a hit man to kill us all?” Willow asked the men
still seated at the table.

Tate flinched, his gaze skittering toward the
doorway his wife had disappeared through a few moments before.

“How the hell did you find out that?” Tate
growled, his gaze moving to his friend seated across the table from him, accusingly.
“It’s supposed to be classified.”

“Hey, don’t look at me, I never said a word,” Del protested, his own expression darkening as he stared
at Willow.

“It doesn’t matter how I found out; I want to
know why no one thought it necessary to tell me about it.”

“Because it’s under control,” Tate grated.

“Oh, great, so you know who
Trèago’s
hired, and he’s been arrested?” she asked in a low sarcastic growl, knowing
they didn’t.

“I said it’s under control.”

“How long have you known about it?”

“Not long,” he told her in a clipped, barely
civil tone that she’d learned he used when he was either pushed to breaking
point or seriously worried about something.

“So what now?” Willow
asked, staring at Del’s
stony features warily.

“Nothing.”

Willow
held his steady gaze
with a slight quirk of her eyebrow. “You’re just going to sit here and wait for
him to strike?”

“He’s not going to get close enough to strike.
Everyone from the FBI to the CIA is out searching for this guy.”

“You don’t even know who
he
is!”

“Willow,”
Tate gave a frustrated sigh, and closed his eyes in an apparent effort to
control his patience, “we have it under control, you just need to trust us on
this.”

She switched her gaze from her brother-in-law
to each of the other faces around the table, staring at her with carefully
concealed expressions, sparing only a flicker of a glance at Del with his knowing blue eyes.

“What are we supposed to do?”

“Well, it would make life easier if for most of
the time we stayed together, or at the very least, you and Summer had one of us
with you. While you’re here, we have people watching the house, but if you go
out, you need to let us know in advance.”

“Summer doesn’t know any of this, does she?”

Tate’s eyes hardened. “And I want to keep it
that way; she doesn’t need the stress right now.”

“She isn’t going to like that you kept her in
the dark,” Willow
warned him gravely.

“I’ll risk it—she doesn’t find out, Willow,” he
snapped, his gaze narrowed dangerously on her face.

“Well, on this occasion I have to say I agree
that she has enough to worry about right now, but I still don’t like it.”

“Wonders will never cease—she agrees with us on
something,” Del
murmured sarcastically.

“So how long are we under house arrest for?”
she snapped, ignoring him.

He shrugged. “Until it’s safe.”

“Don’t you think she’s going to get a little
suspicious if I stay longer than usual?”

“Then you better make something up to convince
her. Shouldn’t be hard, you’re a reporter, I’m sure you can make something up.”
Tate tossed out the words abruptly.

“I know,” Tupper piped up with a gleam in his
eye as he sat moving a fork through his fingers like a baton twirler. “You can
tell her you and Del
made up.” A sly grin spread across his mouth as he pinned Willow with a steady gaze. “She’d believe
that.”

Del
’s scoff and Willow’s glare were the
only response to the insane suggestion from around the suddenly silent table.

Tate nodded his head. “You know, that’s not a
stupid idea. That would work.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Willow
snapped, and her gaze instantly flew to Del’s,
finding a dark, almost-mocking, expression lurking there.

“Come on, Sheldon, take one for the team,” he
challenged, in his slow sexy rumble.

“Summer would really stress out if she found
out about this, Willow; it would really suck if she got sick while she was
still feeding Emily and lost her milk,” Maloney added, his face a mask of
concern.

What
?
Suddenly
they’re advocates
for Breastfeeding Mothers of the World, Unite?

“I won’t have her upset, Willow,” Tate told her flatly.

“I don’t want her upset either, but I’m telling
you, she’s going to see right through this.”

Del
made a suggestion and
successfully needled her. “Then we better make sure it’s convincing. We can
start right now; come and sit on my lap and we can do some practice.”

“Trust me, Delaware—it wasn’t that great the first time
around,” she growled, standing with an angry shove of her chair.

Walking away from the table, she left them to
crow and throw insults across the table at each other—she was too unsettled at Del’s proximity to remain
any longer. Pretend
to still like the
man?
It would be all too easy to forget the reasons they’d never
work—especially when she knew he would be putting everything into the charade,
just because he knew how to push her buttons and it would amuse him to make her
uncomfortable.

The problem was, could she remember to recall
all the reasons she
couldn’t
afford
to let Peter Delaware into her life when all this was over?

* * * *

The next morning as Willow sat yawning over her
first cup of coffee in the kitchen, she glanced up to find Del leaning against
the doorway watching her with a lazy smile, making her slosh her coffee over
the rim of the cup in surprise. “Would you stop doing that,” she said, through
clenched teeth. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I’m here to pick you up for our date,” he told
her with a shrug.

“A date?” Summer came through the doorway, her
gaze swinging between them like a mad pendulum.

Willow
’s eyes widened and she
opened her mouth to protest, but Del
cut in smoothly, taking a step further into the room. “Last night Will and I
decided to take things slowly, and see what happens…baby steps.”

Willow
stared blankly for a
moment before she swung her gaze toward her sister and saw the small flare of hope
lighting up her tired, new-mother-weary eyes. Summoning what she hoped would
pass as a smile, and not a cringe, she gave a shrug and nodded her head—there
was no way she could force out anything coherent with her jaw clenched so
tightly.

“So where are you going?” Summer asked, trying
to sound casual, but failing miserably as her excitement quite obviously
brewed.

“I thought we might go for a drive.” Del smiled his most charming smile, and Willow wanted nothing more than to wipe it
off his smug face.

“He’s such a doll, he even agreed to let me
drive—if that isn’t head over heels, I don’t know what is,” Willow added and
smiled sweetly, carrying her cup to the sink.

Del
chuckled, and Willow was sure she
wasn’t the only one who detected the malice beneath its surface.

“Sounds like a great
idea, and I get to have my husband all to myself for a change,” Summer replied,
unaware she was severing any remaining hope Willow
had of getting out of a date with Del.

Lowering his head to
her ear, he whispered, “Need me to help you take a shower?”

“Depends—how partial
are you to your testicles?” she whispered back with an extra sweet smile.

He winced. “Fairly
partial. Don’t be too long, we have things to discuss,” he warned. “You have no
idea how much I’ve missed you today,” he said loud enough to carry to their
audience, but low enough to sound like a convincing love-struck Marine.

As she turned to leave
the room, he caught her arm in a firm grip and drew her back to face him.
Before she could move away, his lips closed over hers, momentarily making her
forget she wasn’t supposed to be enjoying this, that it was all an act.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Her sister’s amused chuckle barely registered
as Willow
struggled to keep her head above the engulfing tide of lust his clever mouth
seemed to be reawakening. When he finally lifted his head, she was relieved to
see he didn’t seem as cocky as he had been before and his arms were still
locked like steel bands around her waist—which she was thankful for, seeing as
her legs appeared to have forgotten how to function properly.

“I think she was convinced,” she murmured, and
her gaze fell on the tanned column of his neck where she caught the steady
thump of his pulse.

“Yeah. I think that worked,” he agreed in a
slightly strangled tone.

Taking a step away from temptation, Willow made a hasty exit
to grab her handbag. Restraining the urge to slam her door, she swapped her
daggy
tracksuit pants and comfy t-shirt for cargo pants and
clean shirt, making it a quick change—she wasn’t about to give him an excuse to
come to her room and find her.

* * * *

Del
let out a long, hard
breath as Willow
all but scampered from the room. He dragged a hand across his face and bit back
a low moan. The woman was going to kill him.

His heart had almost leapt out of his chest
when Tupper had opened his big mouth last night, then as she’d all but dismissed
the idea as ludicrous, his ego quickly switched to asshole mode and he’d
taunted her in a purely defensive action. What had made him kiss her this morning
had been purely instinctive.

Her sexy full mouth—the one that could spit out
insults and debase his manhood in one breath, then smile and render him a
complete love-sick idiot the next, had been too tempting to ignore. He needed
her—wanted to taste her, smell her fresh, clean smell, and feel her smooth skin
against his own.

He wanted…
her
.

After spending the entire night having
flashbacks of the night they’d spent in LA, he’d awakened tired, out of sorts
and too horny to be sociable. He’d gotten in his car and been driving here
before he was even aware the place had been his destination. He was going to
use the lifeline he’d been thrown, to prove to Willow they could make this work. It would
probably be the death of him, but he was going to do it…one way or another.

* * * *

It was a strained
silence in the small confines of Del’s
car as they headed away from the house.

Willow
didn’t even bother to
ask where they were going. She could see from the tense set of his shoulders
and the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel that he was in no mood to
tell her much of anything at the moment.

Willow let her gaze slip over the scenery out
her window, as it zipped by—aware of the man with his big, steady hands on the
wheel beside her.

They hadn’t spoken since leaving the house, and
Willow wondered
how on earth they were going to spend an entire day together. “You know, if you
don’t feel like this you can drop me at a market place and come back for me
later… I’m sure Summer won’t find out you weren’t with me the entire day,” she
said quietly.

“You want to go to a market?” he asked.

She tried to sound indifferent. “I was just
saying.”

“I haven’t been to the international Market in
a while; maybe we can hang out with the tourists.”

“I’m not really in the mood for tourists.”

“Okay, I know where we can go,” he finally
said, driving with a new purpose, moving through the lanes of traffic with
practiced ease.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Nope.”

“Can we at least put on something decent to
listen to?” she said, reaching for the glove box to search from some CDs.
“Don’t you have anything other than angry music?”

“Angry music?” He raised an eyebrow skeptically.

“Nirvana,
Nickelback
,
ACDC?”

“What do you listen to? Don’t tell me—
Enya
,” he guessed, then sniggered, then did a double take
when she stared at him with an unimpressed glare. “
Seriously?
” he asked, and chortled.

“It’s relaxing,” Willow said defensively.

The scenery flashed by and Willow lost herself in its beauty. Eventually
Del pulled
his car into the car park of a quiet beach.

When she looked at him he raised his shoulders
a little and said, “Why are you looking at me like that? You like the beach.”
She gave a slight nod of her head. “Yeah, I do,” she acknowledged, surprised
he’d picked that up without her having told him. “Can we go for a walk?”