Wild Encounter (15 page)

Fergusson played his trump. “Does Clare know you’re investigating her?”

Simon’s eyes narrowed. He realized suddenly that this whole conversation had stopped being hostile and started being…sport.

“I’ve been watching you, deVries. You and your partner have made eye-contact with everyone in this camp since we got back from the bush. Everyone except Clare. You’re super careful not to let anyone see you watching her. And you’ve scheduled interview appointments with everyone but her. Doesn’t take a mole in your department to tell me what that means.”

A mole? Fergusson was either incredibly good at this game or he really did have a source at SIS. Either way, Simon was intrigued. “Tell me. What does the CEO of a Kiwi produce company have such an interest in the activities of the British Government for?”

He’d never made vegetables sound so irrelevant.

“Everyone else here is intimidated by you,” Fergusson deflected.

“But you’re not?” That was easy to believe. Fergusson was the kind of fearless you wanted on your team, not the enemy’s. But there was a fine line between courageous and reckless.

“I deal with intimidating bastards every day. It’s why someone like Clare is a rare find. Her freshness. Her goodness. Nice qualities.” Blue eyes stared steadily at him, assessing, judging. “I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“I’m not here to hurt her,” Simon said. Never mind that that’s all he seemed to have done. “I’m just here gathering facts.”

“Then I have to question your motives. And your impartiality.”

Simon snorted. “You and everyone else, mate.”

That earned him a smile and it changed the big man’s face. “But you
are
here investigating. This isn’t just an escort.”

It wasn’t a question. Simon dipped his head. “Clare’s testimony will form part of our case.”

“So interview her back in London,” Fergusson said.

It may well come to that. But he’d had his own ace up his sleeve, and that ace was the only thing that had gotten him close to Clare again.

“Chain of evidence. There’s something we need to collect here.”

Fergusson considered this, nodding. “The British purse must have grown fatter lately. That’s hardly a job for two.”

Simon shook his head. The man should have been a cop. His terrier mentality was wasted in big business. The frankness made for a refreshing change from Simon’s usual seven-layer repartee. Fergusson watched him steadily.

“I came for Clare.” Simon admitted, tired of playing dodge ball.

Only for Clare
. If nothing else, he’d needed to hear from her own lips that she didn’t want him. That she’d been faking it back in that farmhouse. It was the only way he could walk away from her. He’d defied his bosses to be here; he wasn’t going to leave just because some rich guy didn’t like a crowded field.

“I don’t think she wants you here,” Fergusson said, but it wasn’t unkind.

“I don’t doubt it. Our history is…complicated.”

The taller man looked undecided for a moment but then spoke up. “Did anything happen between you two—anything personal—that she didn’t want to happen?”

Simon’s gut clenched. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

Fergusson’s silence was telling. Seconds ticked by before he hauled his giant frame off the bull bar and onto both feet. “Fair enough. Just know I’ll be watching.”

Fergusson nodded a brisk goodnight and dissolved back into the darkness.

It wasn’t a handshake, but it was close.

Simon blinked back his own surprise. He’d just told a total stranger something he’d only allowed his subconscious to whisper through a mile-thick defensive wall.

He’d come for Clare
.

He’d slept with a lot of women before her, but none since—despite the best efforts of a few. He’d never needed anyone so badly, wanted them so obsessively in such a short time—or under such wrong circumstances—as that day in the farmhouse.

But this was all much bigger than just physical attraction.

Maybe his deputy chief was right. Maybe he had himself a healthy case of Lima Syndrome. But no. He’d never thought of Clare as his hostage—she was just an unlucky bystander caught in a web of badness—so the incredible draw she exuded wasn’t circumstantial. She might have thought he meant her harm back then, but he never had. He’d always been one hundred percent on her side.

So maybe he and Clare really did have something rare and unexpected happen in that farmhouse.

He needed to find out.

Because even as he’d come to on the cold farmhouse floor, throwing up his misery, his first thought had been for her—if she’d gotten away safely. In the following days, he couldn’t escape the memories of her. Her skin. Her eyes. Her smile. Her breasts. All rushing unbidden to his mind at the most inappropriate times. It was what got him through the thrashing the others delivered for letting her escape. That vision of her lying, head thrown back, below him.

She was genuinely attracted to him, he had no doubt. Good girls from Boston weren’t that skilled at faking the kind of response she had to him. The chemistry they’d had together certainly had not felt one-sided.

Then again, maybe Clare had traded on that chemistry from the beginning, just another tool in her plan. Like the needles and the drugs. Pure and simple. As angry as the realization had made him at the time—and still did in his weaker moments—he wouldn’t blame her, if it turned out to be true.

He knew too well what the drive to survive could push people to do.

Clare had done her best to get herself free. WildLyfe had done their best to get her home. And he’d had done his best by…what?

Keeping her alive and unharmed.
Mostly. Under the circumstances, that was something.

Then he’d also had her assigned to the best Boston shrink on their books.

If only he’d been able to get her to safety himself. She might have looked at him very differently when she’d seen him earlier, maybe with gratitude instead of suspicion. Excitement instead of terror.

As the man who got her out of danger, rather than the man who put her in it.

Chapter Eleven

“Here.” Simon thrust a bowl at Clare almost the moment she returned to camp from her first early morning watch in the blind.

She regarded the cold cereal with a sigh. It certainly wasn’t going to warm her up, but it would fill her stomach. And she had a feeling he meant the food as more than just sustenance.

It was a peace offering.

“Thank you,” she said tentatively, still stripped raw by the emotions of yesterday.

She ate the first few mouthfuls in silence, her mind scratching around for something to say. Something
professional
. He wouldn’t talk about the case he was working on, and she couldn’t think of anything else.

This morning he was wearing military cargos and a fitted white T-shirt. Without his power suit and sunglasses he was no less sexy, but he made her a lot less nervous. This was the Simon she was more familiar with. Casual-looking, laid back.

As much as any complicated, tense man could be laid back.

“No spy suit today?” she asked, between mouthfuls.

“Traveling protocol,” he murmured. “This is a heap more comfortable. And not shredded.”

His gaze went to the scratches on her skin. She’d done some DIY first aid the night before and they’d started to heal.

Just once she’d like him to see her with makeup on. Maybe wearing a dress or her hair freshly washed—
sigh
—with shampoo. “I wonder if you’d recognize me without a face full of bruises and lacerations?” she ventured.

Simon flinched before he was able to discipline his expression. “How was your first watch?” he asked.

Okay. Subject thoroughly changed.

“The first day is really just setting up the routine. No way would the dogs have made it here overnight. But tomorrow night is a definite possibility.”

“It’s a lot of work. Getting them here,” he said.

So careful and polite
.

She smiled. “Believe it or not, this is actually the easy way.”

One handsome eyebrow cocked. “Easier on whom?”

So proper
. Even his grammar.

“There are only two of us licensed to use the dart guns, so we have to be as fast and accurate as we can. As soon as the first shot’s fired off, the dogs scatter. Getting them back can take hours and it really stresses the animals.”

“I could help shoot.” His voice was hushed, like everyone else’s in camp. They all moved quietly, as though the dogs could be just moments away. In case they actually were. “McKenzie, too. We’re both licensed.”

Clare stopped her spoon half way to her mouth. “Delivery of canine sedatives by distance darting part of Spying 101?”

He smiled. And her heart skipped a beat.

“We’re authorized to use firearms in Africa. And we’re both crack shots, trained to the highest level with moving targets. If you load the sedatives, we’ll hit the dogs. Guaranteed.”

Oh, to live life with that kind of confidence.

Of course, he could probably back it up. She was a reasonable shot, as was Mitch, but Simon would no doubt be better and faster. Agent Amazon, too.

And this was as much a peace offering as the food he’d thrust at her.

She put her empty bowl next to her on the log. “I’ll keep that in mind if we don’t get all the dogs in. Thanks for the offer.”

So very…
professional.

“You’re welcome. Besides, if I’m holding the gun, you can’t accidentally dart me with it.”

Being full did nothing to stop her stomach lurching at his joke. It hit just a little too close to home. The blood drained from her face.

She took a deep breath and abandoned the subtext. His imitation of an iceberg at her apology last night said he hadn’t forgiven her. She needed to explain herself.

“Simon, I wanted to…” Her voice broke on her first attempt. “I know you don’t want to discuss the case, but I need to—”
God
, this was agony “—I need you to understand why I did what I did.”

He grew very still. As alert as Jambi when he heard something unfamiliar. And off-kilter for the first time since he’d rolled into camp all gorgeous and in-charge. “Did what?”

Her heart hammered all the way up to her voice box. “Drugged you.”

Instead of locking up harder, his chest heaved—just once—and the fists she’d only just noticed loosened off by his thighs. “You drugged me to save your life.”

She blinked. Sucked in a breath. “You don’t blame me?”

His discipline wasn’t good enough to hide the astonishment on his face. “Why would I blame you? It was brilliant. You’re the toast of my whole department.”

Her heart swelled enough to crack a rib.
He didn’t hold it against her.
What had changed? “But it must have been awful.”

“Awful doesn’t even come close. But if it hadn’t been so appalling, they’d never have believed I didn’t let you go. I’d have had to abandon my cover and blow the operation.”

She stared, speechless.

“Seriously, Clare. I fell asleep next to you believing two years of work had been shot to hell, and I woke up on the floor of the farmhouse and realized that you’d saved it all. You’d saved me. I’m not saying it didn’t take some getting to, but I got there eventually.”

She was almost afraid to ask, but she had to know… “Did they hurt you?”

His eyes clouded over and he glanced away for the briefest of moments. When his gaze returned, it was rock solid. “No.”

For a spy, he was a terrible liar.

Her eyes prickled with moisture. She blinked them back. “I’m so sorry, Simon.”

He leaned in closer. Pinioned her. “On the record? Your actions saved my ass. Off the record? You
never
apologize to me—or anyone—for anything you did in that farmhouse, you understand?
Ever
.”

And there it was. A breath-length glimpse of the man she’d made love with six months ago. A vivid reminder of why she’d had such trouble getting over him. Her heart squeezed.

His intense, gray focus shifted over her shoulder then flicked away.

And just like that, old Simon was gone.

He stood abruptly. “If you need us for the darting, just say the word.”

Distant. Official. Once more a stranger.

Clare turned to follow the line of his gaze. Agent Amazon stood by the entrance to the women’s tent, her attention squarely on the two of them, her face neutral.

Seriously, Simon? Are we still all about secrets and tip-toeing around?

He couldn’t even have a conversation with her without raising suspicion in his partner’s eyes? And he was ashamed enough to try and hide it? All the warmth that had just inflated the wary muscle in her chest back to its usual heart-shape escaped into the cool African morning.

Clare faced him again and forced a smile past her full body sigh. Tired of trying to work out which of his multiple personalities was the real Simon. “Looks like your services are required. Thanks for breakfast.”

She rose and walked resolutely toward her tent, leaving him standing alone in the center of camp.

…

Simon followed Clare’s retreat from behind his government-issue sunglasses. She passed McKenzie and the two women ignored each other entirely. He met Mac at the Nissan where she began dissembling and reassembling her gun restlessly.

“Waving your gun around is not going to win you any friends, Mac.” He leaned against the car next to his scowling partner.

“Like I care. I’m here under sufferance.”

“We both are.”

“Bull. You chose to be here. Her shrink could have debriefed her, but you wanted to do it yourself. The personal touch.” She mimicked the last words.

He glanced across camp. “There’s more to settle between us than the mechanics of what happened last year.”

“You must want to settle it pretty badly. Enough that I’m crusted with tsetse flies instead of enjoying a pot of English Breakfast in Soho.”

He shook his head. “Not coffee? Do you have any American left in you at all?”

“I’m British on my father’s side. I have a genetic predisposition toward tea, I’m sure.”

Simon shook his head. “The US posted you with SIS to work any case involving an American citizen. So you’re fly-bitten because of them.”

“They posted me in the interests of inter-organizational cooperation,” she sniffed, ignoring his obvious attempt at changing the subject and disassembling her weapon again. “So I still blame you. You’re a maverick, deVries. You always were. I’m sure this won’t be the last time you’ll make my life hell.” A hint of a smile played at her lips. “So just make damn sure it’s worth it.”

Simon looked to where Clare sat in a low slung chair, her binoculars firmly fixed on the bush as she scanned the tall grass for a sign of the pack.

“It is.”

“I’m talking about the case.”

He turned to her, put on his best intelligence officer face. “Me, too. I have a chain of custody to ensure for our evidence.”

“The pair of you looked pretty cozy just now for two people supposedly keeping things strictly business.”

He glared at her. “I know the boundaries, Mac. Exactly where they are.”

She snorted. “And I know you, deVries. You’ll push up against them until they quiver under the strain.”

What could he say? Mac was his best friend. She knew him better than anyone on the planet. “And yet, have I ever failed on a job?”

She made a face at him.

“So trust me to know what I’m doing on this one. The crown will get their evidence and their witness statements, and hopefully convict themselves a basketful of bad-guys with it.”

Mac jammed the clip into her reassembled weapon and slid it into her back holster. “You know you’ll have to question her at some point, right?”

He’d managed to finesse information from hardened criminals; surely he could manage one meaningful conversation with a pint-sized civilian. He just needed the right time and place.

“Unless you want me to talk to her?” Mac offered, nonchalant.

His horror was immediate. “Hell, no.”

“Why? Afraid I’ll tell her how you feel about her?”

“I’m afraid you’ll tell her how
you
feel about her,” he grunted.

She smiled. “You know me too well.”

He turned to scan the camp. “Why don’t you like her?”

And why did that matter so much to him?

McKenzie shrugged. “I don’t like what she did to you.”

The drugging. “How else was she supposed to get away?”

“And I really don’t like what she
does
to you. Making you turn against what you know.”

He lifted his eyes to the deep, blue sky. “Thanks Mac. I’ll keep that in mind.”

There were just two problems with her theory.

Clare hadn’t done a blessed thing to him yet.
Unfortunately.

And, how could he turn against what he knew if he no longer knew a damn thing about anything?