In Close Quarters

“Cari?o, tell me this man did not—”

She shook her head sharply. “No, nothing like that.”

“Then what? What did this man do?”

“He didn’t do anything. It was more of a suggestion. Hell, at first I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t.” She paused for a moment, then took a deep breath before focusing her stare somewhere past his left shoulder. “He suggested a trade of sorts. My…favors…in exchange for his help in securing a slot for myself in the next class of anesthesiology residents.”

“And when you told him no?”

Her gaze snapped to his.

TJ refused to dignify her surprise over his certainty with a comment.

“He left,” she replied.

Gracias a Dios. He eased out the breath he had not known he had been holding. “I still do not understand. His offer, how could this mark your record? Especially since he left once you refused.”

“Because that wasn’t the end of it.”

He set his mug down. Carefully.

She shrugged. “Maybe he was afraid I’d squeal, or maybe he just wanted to get even, I don’t know. All I do know is he stopped by Dr. Manning’s office the next morning and confessed that one of the residency applicants had invited him over for dinner, and that she’d tried to use sex to ensure her slot in the class.”

TJ sucked in his breath as he shot to his feet and strode to the windows. He stared at the string of palm trees lining the kidney-shaped pool ten stories below as he worked to control his growing fury. It was useless. His blood was no longer running cold. It was hot. Searing. And there was but one way to cool it. He would find this man who had slandered his woman and wrap his hands about the bastard’s neck until he no longer breathed. TJ locked his stare on the pool, certain that if he turned, all the undercover skills in the world would not keep her from reading the intent in his heart.

“Who?”

“I don’t understand—”

“Who did this to you?”

“Why? I doubt you know him, even if you are DEA.”

“Who?”

He heard her sigh. “His name is Doug Callahan. He’s the hospital’s—” She broke off again as he whirled about.

It mattered not. She was wrong.

He did know this man. He knew the name, anyway. As he should. In fact, he would say he knew Doug Callahan exceedingly well—considering he had spent the better part of the afternoon studying the man’s official military record. But apparently there were a few assessments missing from his officer fitness evaluations. For not only was Lt. Callahan a first-rate pharmacist, he was a first-rate bastard, as well.

But this was not all.

Doug Callahan had just become his number-one suspect.

Chapter 3

Karin stepped out of her car, smoothed the skirt to her Navy whites and snagged her briefcase off the leather seat before slamming the door. TJ would be furious if he knew where she was and what she was about to do.

Too bad. It was her career, not his.

So what if she’d agreed to let him nose around?

Yes, as a DEA agent, he could backdoor the hospital’s records. Yes, he could check with the distributors and see if the pharmacy had been ordering an unusually high number of narcotics. He could even discover which types. If the right numbers had gone up, they’d know there was truth to the note she’d received. That it wasn’t a joke or another nasty link in Doug’s chain of petty revenge.

But it was a joke.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized it had to be. In fact, she’d lay odds Doug was rubbing his grimy paws together in anticipation right now. He’d probably slipped the note into her paperwork, hoping she’d run to Dr. Manning the moment she read it, screaming the sky was falling. Doug knew better than anyone that when they combed his pharmacy records and found nothing amiss, she’d come off worse than Chicken Little—more like a big fat sitting duck. And that’s when he’d take aim and blow her career right out of the water.

Well, she sure wasn’t handing him the gun.

Not when she could do something about it.

And she could do something.

She shifted her briefcase into her left hand and shoved the hospital door marked Staff Entrance open before marching down the corridor. Besides, TJ wasn’t being totally honest with her either. She was sure of it. She might not have concrete proof he’d held something back on her last night, but she didn’t have to. Her instincts were pretty darn good.

They were right about him.

Tijuana Jones.

God, she hated that nickname, almost as much as she hated the man’s reputation. She wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t missed the not-so-subtle allusion to Indiana Jones.

What a crock.

It wasn’t the man’s sultry looks, either. It was his personality. TJ Vаsquez was no self-effacing Harrison Ford. But then, it wasn’t his personality his fellow agents had been attempting to immortalize when they’d baptized him with the moniker, now was it? And while she didn’t doubt that a number of his DEA exploits had taken on the legendary feel of an action hero’s, she had a feeling the topic those two agents she’d overheard betting on her was closer to the real reason behind the name.

Yes, the man was irresistible.

Unfortunately he also knew it—and he abused it.

She reached the end of the corridor and took the left that led to her office. Tijuana Jones her tush. His buddies should have nicknamed him Don Juan. He probably had women lined up outside his apartment, waiting their turn.

Well, she wasn’t standing in it.

Karin stopped in front of the door to her new office and grabbed the knob, but as she twisted, something made her jerk her hand back and blink. She grabbed the knob again and turned it again, opening the door a crack so she could peer inside.

She couldn’t see anything, but there it was again.

That noise.

Someone was scraping open the drawers of the desk across the room. Her desk. But all she could make out as she craned her neck around the door were broad shoulders encased in Navy whites and the back of a blond, barely regulation haircut. It was enough.

Doug.

She slammed the door open and stormed in. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

An equally loud string of curses blasted back at her when, closing the top drawer of her desk, he smashed his fingers. Then he turned. She stared up into a pair of deep-green eyes. Not blue.