Bulletproof Seal

He’d kept her number on his phone and had even called it once or twice just to hear her low, sultry voice caress his ear. But the last time he’d tried to call it, the harsh tones of an automated operator told him the cell number was out of service, and he had no business trying to contact the woman he’d sent to her death.

Dropping his chin to his chest, Quinn smacked the cell phone against his temple. If only he’d shown more restraint out there on the DMZ. He could’ve taken out both of the soldiers holding Rikki. She would’ve responded in an instant, would’ve been able to take appropriate evasive action.

She’d been one of the best damned operatives in the field.

The CIA and navy had clouded his judgment, had accused Rikki of being a double agent, had sent him there to take her out. If he hadn’t been so damned eager to please his superiors, he would’ve gone in with a backup plan.

He always had something to prove.

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He needed to stop playing back the incident in his head over and over every day. Rikki was gone. The CIA was happy. The navy had sent him out on another assignment, which had allowed him to stuff everything away as he’d concentrated on the mission, and now that he was home on leave, he could erase it from his mind another way—the old-fashioned McBride way.

He hunched over the kitchen counter, bringing the phone close to his face. Avoiding Rikki’s number, he placed a call to Rinaldi’s and ordered an extralarge pizza with everything on it.

When he ended the call, he smacked the phone on the counter and yelled out to the empty apartment, “That calls for another beer.”

His stomach rumbled again as he stared at the fridge, and suddenly the effort required to grab a bottle and twist off the top overwhelmed him. He went into the living room instead and crashed onto the sofa, grabbing the TV remote on his way down.

He clicked through the channels, settling on a true crime show about some cold-case murder, and stuffed a throw pillow beneath his head.

The doorbell startled him awake, and the remote fell from his fingers, which had been dangling off the sofa. He ran his tongue around his parched mouth and swept his wallet from the coffee table.

He peered out the peephole at the pimply-faced kid on his doorstep and swung open the door.

The delivery guy’s eyes popped open as he held out the pizza box. “Your pizza, sir.”

God, he must look even worse than he felt. He handed the kid more money than he should’ve just to compensate for scaring the hell out of him.

When he collapsed back down on the sofa, Quinn rewound the show, since he’d dozed off during most of it—dozing off being a polite term for passing out stinking drunk.

Before digging into the pizza, he retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and downed half of it before making it back to the sofa. Three slices later and no closer to figuring out whodunit, Quinn closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the sofa cushion.

This time, the click of a gun near his temple woke him up.

Other than blinking once, Quinn didn’t move one muscle. Then he spread his hands in front of him and said, “Take what you want, man. Wallet’s on the table. Anything you can carry out is yours.”

The gunman behind him huffed out a breath and then purred in the low, husky voice that haunted his dreams, “You sure have gotten soft since trying to kill me, McBride.”

Chapter Two (#ud8f13364-d3f5-57ea-824a-f2159eb7c65d)

Quinn jerked forward and cranked his head around. He choked as he stared at Rikki—but not Rikki—behind the Glock. She always did prefer a Glock.

Her blue eyes had been replaced by a pair of dark brown ones, narrowed in rage. Long, straight strands of brown hair framed her face instead of the thick, wavy red locks that used to dance on her shoulders like tongues of flame, tickling his body when they made love.

“Rikki?” He held out a trembling hand and then clenched it, cursing his drunken state. Maybe this was all an alcohol-infused hallucination. “Is it really you?”

She stepped back, wrinkling her nose. “You smell like a brewery.”

Then it hit him. Her presence two feet away sobered him up like a cold shower and a pot of coffee, and his blood hummed through his veins with elation. “How are you here? I—we thought you were dead.”

She took another step back, her aim at his head never faltering. “Yeah, too bad for you the North Koreans wanted me more alive than dead. That shot the soldier took grazed me, nothing fatal, but at least it protected me from the bullet waiting up on that hill—a bullet from a deadly navy SEAL sniper.”

“I wasn’t going to do it. Why do you think I took out the other soldier? I realized you hadn’t turned traitor the minute I saw you make a grab for your guard’s gun. I couldn’t get a clean shot at the soldier holding you, but I thought you might be able to take care of him yourself.”

Her lashes dipped over her eyes once. Her mouth softened, and for a crazy minute he almost took that as a sign to kiss her. Yeah, if he wanted a bullet between the eyes.

“That’s a good story. At what point during your prep for the assignment did you realize the CIA spy you were supposed to eliminate was your former lover?”

“Not right away.”

“But even if you had known immediately, you never would’ve turned down the mission, would you?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I received an order. The CIA had proof.”

His words, spoken aloud now to Rikki’s face, sounded tinny and paltry to his own ears. How would they sound to hers?

She snorted. “And of course you would’ve had to reveal that you’d carried on a fling with a CIA operative while we were both on assignment in the Middle East.”

“If I had doubted the evidence against you in any way, not only would I have owned up to our...affair, but I would’ve tried to convince them to call off the hit.”

“Instead you charged right in like the good little soldier you are, all honor and duty.” Her dark gaze flickered to the half-empty pizza box and the two bottles of beer on their sides at the base of the coffee table.

“All I needed to see was one shred of proof contradicting the CIA’s story—and you gave it to me when you charged that soldier. That’s why I shot the other one. I was trying to give you a chance.”

“Are you sure you didn’t kill him because you were afraid I’d already passed along secrets to him?”

“They were low-level grunts marching you along the DMZ. I didn’t figure that was the time and place you were going to spill intel. Besides—” Quinn kicked the pizza box out of the way and braced his foot on the edge of the coffee table “—if I’d wanted to take everyone out, including you, I would’ve started with you first and then dealt with the two soldiers.”

She flipped back her dark hair with a shrug of her shoulder. “Maybe.”

“I had you in my crosshairs, Rikki. Had you there for a while. I could’ve dropped you at any time. I couldn’t do it.”

The corner of her eye twitched. “What does the CIA think? I know my name’s not cleared, so whatever you told them, it didn’t have much of an impact. Unless you told them nothing and took credit for eliminating a CIA spy.”

He scratched his unshaven jaw. How did she know her name hadn’t been cleared? How did she get out of North Korea? “I told the CIA and my commanding officers in the navy exactly what happened. Told them their intel must’ve been wrong, that the North Koreans had you as a captive.”

“They didn’t believe you?”

“They didn’t care. I also told them the North Korean soldier had shot you dead. Case closed.”

“Except it’s not closed, is it? Here I am.”

At least the gun had slipped a little from her grip. Even in his current muddled state, he probably could disarm her. Then again, nobody ever benefited from mistaking Rikki Taylor for an easy target.

“How’d you get out of North Korea? How’d you get here? Where have you been the past—” he counted on his fingers “—sixteen months? And can you get that gun out of my face?”

“If I do, will you take me down? Call the CIA and turn me in?”

He rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do I look like I’m in any condition to do that?”