Bullseye

Being professional and unemotional was the key here.

She thought Jacob muttered something, but when she looked at him, the cool expression was firmly in place. “Go on,” he said. “Time’s wasting.”

No kidding. She could feel the minutes and hours slipping by as though they hid beneath her skin. So she plowed through the rest of the story and tried to put her mind on hold. “When I came to, the three men were gone. Secretary Cooper was tied to a chair, unconscious. They probably used chloroform, by the smell of it.” She sucked in a breath and said the rest in a rush. “His wife, Hope, and twin toddlers, Becky and Tiffany, were gone. I revived and untied him, but before I could search the premises, the Secretary directed me to play the answering machine back. There was a message.”

She paused and wrestled with the memory. No matter how far she detached herself, the low, gritty voice and the feeling of absolute failure cut through her defenses.

Jacob’s finger stilled. “Keep going.”

“The voice—male, no discernable accent—stated that Secretary Cooper’s family was safe for now, but would be killed if the kidnappers’ instructions were not followed to the letter.” She searched back, trying to remember the exact phrasing and intonation. “If Secretary Cooper alerted the authorities, his wife and daughters would die. Additional instructions would follow.” She remembered the beat of silence that had followed the kidnappers’ message, the absolute horror in Louis Cooper’s eyes, the cold spear of guilt in her heart. She swallowed. “That was all.”

“Did you follow the instructions?” Jacob asked, his whole body tense with its stillness.

“I wouldn’t have,” she admitted. “I wanted to call my superiors and the FBI immediately, but Secretary Cooper forbade it.” His eyes had been wild, his grip on her wrist too strong to deny. Nearly maniacal in his support of the U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists, Louis Cooper had crumbled at the threat to his young family. Not that she could blame him. The very thought of sweet Hope and the two eighteen-month old girls in captivity was enough to make her want to weep. Or scream.

“And you listened to him?” The faint bite underlying Jacob’s words scratched along Isabella’s nerve endings like an accusation.

“I had no choice,” she snapped. “He called my superiors and had me removed from duty. I’m off the active list until my next assignment starts in a month.”

And that was the cruelest cut of all. Though she was one of the most effective agents in the D.C. field office, she knew she wasn’t particularly popular. She just didn’t get how some of her co-workers turned their personalities on and off, how they went from goofy pranksters or sensitive touchy-feely types to hard-nosed agents in an instant. She couldn’t do that—it came too close to what she’d grown up with, a mother who was on top of the world one day, in the dregs of despair the next. Because of it, she’d gotten the reputation of being effective but not particularly friendly. All about the job. And if the labels had stung, she’d shoved the feelings aside because they were, after all, only feelings.

She knew that if it had been one of the other agents being shoved off the secretary’s protection detail, the bosses would have asked questions. But because it was her, the field office had shrugged and made the change.

Tears prickled out of nowhere and she catapulted from the couch to pace, not realizing until it was too late that her path between a set of wooden shelves and a paper-covered desk would bring her dangerously close to Jacob.

He grabbed her arms. The feel of his strong fingers raced through her like lightning and she reeled back, tried to break free from the heat and temptation.

“Isabella!” He shook her gently. “Iz, I know you’re hurt. I know you’re tired and shocky, but you’ve got to do better than this. Why didn’t you go to your superiors yourself? Why did you come here?”

How did you know where I was? The question hung unasked between them, but there was no way she was answering. He didn’t need to know that she checked up on him now and then, didn’t need to know that she’d tried to duck the Montana assignment, not wanting to be in the same state as the Big Sky Bounty Hunters’ headquarters.

Most of all, he didn’t need to know she had measured every man in her life since college against him and found them lacking in everything except kindness.

Because whatever Jacob Powell was, he wasn’t kind.

But she wasn’t looking for kindness now. She needed a warrior, and he fit the bill.

She pulled away from him and crossed her arms to form a pitiful shield between them. “Louis Cooper’s report to my superiors took care of that. He’s smart, he knew exactly how to make it sound like I’d gone mentally shaky and he was trying to cover for me. Thus, the month off.”

And that had galled her down to the bone. But her mother’s problems were in her record, and the condition was genetic. Add that to her reputation as slightly antisocial, and wham.

Instant paid suspension pending a psych eval. Even the thought fisted her stomach with memory and dread. But she didn’t have time for that garbage. Cooper’s family was out there somewhere and she was damn well going to find them.

“So why are you here?” Jacob asked again, his closed expression brooking no evasions.

“I need help.” It stung to admit it, but there was more. “And I think you’ll be interested in hearing who took Hope and the girls.”

“They left a name?”

“No.” She shook her head. “A calling card of sorts. Until I saw it, I thought the attack was linked to the Lunkinburg issue and the stand-up Cooper did with Prince Nikolai.”

“Logical enough,” Jacob agreed. “King Aleksandr’s statement after that press conference certainly wasn’t friendly.” His tone sharpened. “But you don’t think so now?”

She wasn’t quite sure what to think. It didn’t add up. “I said they left a calling card. A signature, in fact, drawn in Cooper’s own blood across his chest.” She glanced over at Jacob, found his eyes intent on her. “MMFAFA.”

Jacob’s disbelief vibrated between them for a split second, then he was in motion. He yanked the door open and bellowed, “Everyone to the situation room, now!” Then he slammed the door and spun toward her, eyes alight with excitement and a hint of accusation. “That’s our bounty. The Montana Militia for a Free America. Eight members of the group escaped from The Fortress last month and we’ve been on their trail ever since. If this is their work…” He trailed off, spun and yanked the door open. “Stay here.”

She grabbed his arm and felt him stiffen even as the sizzle of heat raced through her body at the contact. “I want in on this. I know your group was involved with the MMFAFA incident with the train derailment, and I know your bounty is still at large. We can help each other. Why else do you think I came here?”

He shrugged her off. “Because you didn’t have anyplace else to go.” She stepped back, stung, and he cursed at himself. “Sorry, that was nasty. And I’m grateful you brought me this information. But you have no idea who you’re dealing with here—it’d be best if you stay here while we take care of it. These men are dangerous. Violent.”

She grabbed his arm again when he tried to leave the room, and this time hung on when he brushed her off. She kept her voice low and urgent. “I’m a Secret Service agent, and a damned good one. You think I haven’t gone up against militias before? That I can’t handle myself in dangerous situations? Well, to hell with you. I’m in this thing all the way.” When he glanced down at her fingers on his arm and raised one eyebrow, rage flared and she snapped. “Don’t you dare accuse me of clinging or being irrational. It was my job to protect Louis Cooper. My duty. There’s no way I’m letting you take over. Not while there’s breath in my body.”

Jacob froze, even the background sparks of motion stilling as his eyes went dark. Isabella expected an explosion.

Instead his voice softened. “I wasn’t going to accuse you of being irrational.” He took a breath, then said, “I’m sorry about how I handled things back at Georgetown. You weren’t clingy or irrational, or any of the things I accused you of. You wanted a ring and I wanted an out, so I hit you where I knew it would hurt most.” Even as his words slashed through the years around her heart, his voice hardened again. “But that’s ancient history and this is today. I don’t want you anywhere near Boone and his maniac followers. Stay here and let us do our jobs.”

He squeezed her hand, removed it from his arm and slipped through the door.

Isabella saw it shut, heard a dead bolt slide and realized there was a lock on either side. Some office.

But even as her mind noted these details, her consciousness grappled with Jacob’s words. Perhaps it was way too little and thirteen years too late, but his apology left her shaken. It brought back a lurking tendril of graduation day when she’d accused him of being unfaithful and he’d thrown it right back at her, saying she had pushed him away with the very closeness she had so depended on, so wanted.

I’m sorry. His words echoed in her heart. I hit you where I knew it would hurt most. For a girl whose goal was to break free from her upbringing to hear that she’d gone right back there—

Yeah, it had hurt.

“But that’s neither here nor there,” she said out loud, wincing when her voice scraped on the words. “What’s important now is rescuing Cooper’s family.”

And there was no way she was leaving that solely to Jacob and his teammates, she thought, determination hardening in her soul. No way in hell.

She tried the door to confirm it was locked, then scanned the room. The desk held a nifty computer locked in wait mode—though she was pretty sure she could crack it if she took the time—and news printouts with cryptic notes in the margins. There were no photographs or personal items, but the air smelled of Jacob.

So why did he have locks on both sides of his door?

Masculine voices rose from downstairs, likely shock and excitement as Jacob revealed that the bounty hunters’ quarry had been involved in abducting the Secretary of Defense’s family.

Gritting her teeth with the need to be out there making her report, Isabella turned to the single small window. It wasn’t locked, but a bar prevented it from opening more than halfway. The gap was too small for a man to pass through.

But she was no man.

JACOB SCANNED the faces of the half dozen bounty hunters assembled in the situation room on the lower level of the headquarters. Away from the public eye, the “basement” contained a warren of interconnected rooms boasting weapons, interrogation rooms and more surveillance equipment than most Secret Service field offices.

Although Cameron Murphy was their leader, the former Special Forces colonel gestured for Jacob to proceed with the meeting. “Why don’t you fill us in on our mystery lady upstairs?”

“Agent Isabella Gray.” Preternaturally aware of the zing in his blood from where she’d touched him, Jacob cleared his throat, shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them from twitching, and paced. “She was in charge of protecting the Secretary of Defense, Louis Cooper. Near dinnertime, three masked men disabled Agent Gray and Secretary Cooper with a flash-bang and kidnapped his wife and twin girls. A message on the answering machine warned of a ransom demand to follow.”

He grimaced. Saying the words out loud punched him below the heart. He might have learned long ago that just as he wasn’t going to be the son his parents wanted, he also wasn’t marriage-and-babies material. But the thought of a man’s family being taken brought a fierce spurt of anger. Quickly he sketched in the rest of the attack and the circumstances of Isabella’s suspension, ending with, “She says Cooper had letters written across his chest. MMFAFA.”