Hart's Last Stand

The plane slid sideways and off the pavement, its wheels grinding through grass and dirt.

Rocks pinged off the undercarriage.

The right ring wheel plunged into a shallow gully, and the Cirrus came to a jarring stop.

Somewhere in the distance a siren began to wail.

Suzanne ignored it and struggled to catch her breath. Her heart was slamming against her rib cage, her hands were shaking and she felt weak all over. Nevertheless she threw the door open and scrambled out onto the wing.

“Lady, what the hell did you think you were doing back there? This is a military base, not a flight school. You could have gotten us all killed.”

She spun around at the deep voice as she slid to the ground, then half leaned into the wing, half clutched it for fear her legs would not hold her up.

The six Cobras sat on the runway a short distance away, their rotor blades still slicing the air, but Suzanne paid them little heed. It was the man approaching that riveted her gaze. Panic seized her.

She wasn’t ready to face him yet. Not like this.

Get back in the plane and fly away, a voice in the far reaches of her head screamed. Now!

Instead, she stood frozen, unable to move or even breathe as she watched him close the distance between them. Suzanne realized the moment he recognized her, and she felt her insides roil as her nerves threatened to get the better of her. It had been almost a year since she’d left Three Hills, but not one day had passed that she hadn’t thought about him and wondered what might have happened between them if Rick hadn’t been killed.

Memories tried to crowd in on her, bringing darkness and pain with them, but she pushed them away. There was no time for that now, not if she wanted to survive.

“Suzanne.”

Her name sounded ripped from his lips, like an ugly curse he hadn’t wanted to utter but was unable to restrain.

The hot afternoon sun turned the dark-blond strands of his hair to burnished gold and glinted off the aviator-style sunglasses, which reflected an image of the chopper hangar behind them, the desert surrounding it, even herself, but obscured his eyes. Suzanne didn’t need to see his eyes, however. She remembered them vividly. They were the darkest, deepest blue she’d ever seen, like the desert sky during a summer storm. Dark, turbulent and dangerous, and always, it had seemed, beckoning to her.

She felt a tremor shimmer through her body and tried to look away. Instead, her gaze skipped over his long, lean body, its well-honed length complemented by his military flight suit. Her eyes darted back to his face, moving slowly over rough-hewn features that could never be termed classically handsome.

Nevertheless, he was striking, devastatingly so.

Friend…or enemy? The question that had been playing over and over in her mind for hours sent a chill racing up her spine as she looked at him. Someone was trying to destroy her, maybe even kill her, and Hart Branson was either the only one who could save her…or the one responsible.

She had come to find out which.

Without another word, without even waiting for her to respond, Hart spun on his heel and stalked across the tarmac toward an open hangar.

Startled, Suzanne watched him walk away, then shook herself, grabbed her bag and followed. She may have been a fool for coming to him, may have put herself in more danger, but she couldn’t give up. Or let him refuse her. There was no one else to turn to, nowhere else to go. “Hart, please, just listen….”

He jerked around. “What do you want, Suzanne?”

She stopped and stared at him, momentarily taken back by the hostility she sensed, not only in his tone, but in his entire being. It seemed to radiate from him like the heat from the runway.

Why? The question pounded at her. What had she ever done to make him so angry with her?

The need to escape his hard, probing stare nearly overwhelmed her.

Get back in the plane and leave, the voice of her own fear said again.

She resisted giving in to it. “The…the FBI came to my house.”

Hart didn’t move, and his features seemed set in stone.

She swallowed, hard, and forced herself to go on even though she could almost feel his disdain pushing her away. “They said military secrets were stolen during Rick’s last mission.”

When he didn’t respond, Suzanne went on, “For some reason they kept the theft quiet, but now the secrets are being sold and they…they…”

The air above the tarmac shimmered beneath the merciless Arizona sun, but his silence was chilling, and stoked her already frayed nerves.

“They insist Rick’s alive, Hart.”

She heard the thread of hysteria in her voice, felt the sting of panic-driven tears behind her eyes, fought both and hurried on. “They think he faked his death, that he stole the secrets and sold them and that I’m his accomplice.”

Fury ignited within Hart instantly, threatening to explode and tear him apart, and only by force of will was he able to control it.

He’d been betrayed before and he would most likely be betrayed again, but he would never believe that of Rick, and she knew it. So why had Suzanne really come back? What did she really want? He had never expected to see her again, and that had been just fine—more than fine—because as far as he was concerned, it was her fault Rick Cassidy was dead.

Turning abruptly, he tore off the dark glasses, walked into the hangar and threw his helmet and flight board onto a workbench, then spun back to face her again. “Do you really expect me to believe this, Suzanne?”

She’d followed him inside, but now she stopped. His disdain and rejection were too much, a lethal jab at the fear she’d been trying for days to deny she even felt. Tears sprang to her eyes, hot and burning, threatening to spill over. Every cell in her body trembled with desperation.

With concentrated effort she threw back her shoulders, stiffened her spine and searched for strength as she blinked rapidly in an effort to hold back the tears. “It’s the truth.” She’d meant it as a hard, convincing statement. Instead, the words came out as little more than a shaky whisper.

Hart stared at her, his eyes narrowed, distrust scorching hotly through his veins. Every woman he’d let become a part of his life, every single one, had cheated and lied: first his mother, then his only aunt, foster mothers and even his ex-wife. But Suzanne’s transgression had been the worst of all, because hers had gotten a man killed.

He’d learned early in life that a man who trusted anyone but himself was a fool. To trust a woman was even worse.

And every time he’d ignored that lesson, he’d ended up sorry.

He turned back to the workbench and reached for the coffeepot that sat on it, his fingers forming a fist around the pot’s handle and squeezing mercilessly as his anger deepened.

A year ago Suzanne Cassidy had been the wife of his best friend, the only real friend Hart had ever had, ever allowed himself to have. In spite of that, he had found himself attracted to her the moment they met. He’d loathed himself for it and tried to banish the feelings by sheer will.

He remembered one night when Suzanne had shown up to say goodbye to Rick just minutes before they were to ship out on an unexpected mission. It was when Hart watched her kiss Rick and tell him to be careful that he’d known he cared about her too much. One hell of a wake-up call for a man who didn’t believe in love or giving his trust or anything else of himself to anyone.

He’d requested a transfer the same day they’d returned to the base. Out of sight, out of mind, he’d figured. But the transfer had been denied.

Then Rick had been killed and Hart blamed Suzanne, because he knew she’d done the unforgivable.

So why did he suddenly feel an almost irresistible urge to drag her into his arms and claim her lips with his?

Self-loathing filled him.

Why did desire simmer within him, threaten to burst free and consume him, overwhelm him, when he looked at her now—even when he considered her little better than a murderer?

He set the coffeepot down with a crash, too angry to be aware of the hot liquid that splashed on his hand. He turned back toward her. “Rick was no traitor, Suzanne.”