No Strings Attached

“Not gonna happen until I get her out. Sir.” He headed for the door, surprised at his own adamance. He loved his work, particularly the thrill of relying on his wits and the adrenaline rush of having to stay on top of his game at all times. New cases were usually right up his alley since beginnings were inherently more dangerous and exciting due to his lack of familiarity with the players’ quirks. Plus, as much as he enjoyed the company of women when he had a little downtime to spend with them, once he was back on the job he pretty much forgot them. If it had been any other female, he likely would have been perfectly comfortable leaving Tasha’s extraction to a DEA team.

The young agent stepped in front of him, blocking his way out, and Luc went chest to chest, nose to nose, with him. “Get out of my way, kid.”

“Sorry, sir. I can’t do that.”

Luc had to admit that putting his professionalism on the line for a woman—especially one he’d known for only two days—was unlike him. Yet he found himself compelled to do exactly that and he was fully prepared to go toe-to-toe with the guy in his way.

“Stand down, Bradshaw,” Paulson said, coming up behind him. His voice softened. “I’ll extract her myself,” he promised. “But you are getting on that chopper.”

He stepped back from the young agent, but his willingness to argue must have shown on his face as he turned around, for Paulson’s hardened. “This is not up for discussion, Lucas. I’ll call you in D.C. to let you know she’s okay. But you are leaving in—” he consulted his watch again, then looked up at the sound of a helicopter coming in low “—now.”

“No, sir. I’m not.”

“Then turn in your badge, Bradshaw. Because I won’t tolerate an agent who refuses orders from his superior officer.”

He didn’t have his badge with him, of course, but he opened his mouth to say Paulson could have it. Then he thought about what he was doing. His SAC had just told him he’d personally take care of Tasha himself and Luc sure as hell had no reason to doubt he’d do exactly that. “Fuck.”

And the next thing he knew he was running, hunched against the strong wash of the rotor blades, toward a chopper that was lightly settling on the back lawn. Minutes after that, he was winging away from his old case, headed for a new one.

But instead of his usual anticipation over the prospect of a new case, his thoughts were back with the woman he’d left behind.

By the time Paulson called late in the evening two days later, Luc was climbing the walls. “Hey,” he barked into his satellite phone when he saw his SAC’s name on the readout. “What’s going on with Tasha? Is she okay? Did she understand why I didn’t come back when I told her I would?”

“First things first,” his SAC said. “You were set up. The Bahamian DEU raided your hut not long after you left to meet with me and found a kilo of heroin.”

His blood iced over as he thought of the only person besides himself who had been in his beach hut. He didn’t want to believe it but— “Do you think it was Tasha?”

“No—although we thought that when we got there and found her gone.”

“Gone?” He sat down hard. “As in not there?”

“Generally what that means, son. Sources reported she flew out on the last plane to Nassau that night. We ran her through all the databases, but she’s not in any of them.”

“So she just fucking left, when she said—”

Paulson’s impatient voice cut him off. “You think you can focus on the case here, Bradshaw?”

He shoved aside his disappointment over Tasha’s defection as well as another emotion that felt suspiciously like hurt. “Yes, sir. I’m just trying to figure out when the hell Alvarez had the opportunity to plant anything. Tasha and I had just gotten there that morning.” He’d already had reservations on Andros and had talked Tasha into going with him because he’d heard the tiny resort was very private—and because he’d just wanted her to come with him.

“And you stayed in the whole day?”

“Yes.” Then he shook his head. “No. Shit. We went snorkeling that afternoon.”

“So he had a window of opportunity.”

“Yes.” Then his brain kicked in. “Jesus, he’s not the brightest star in the galaxy. If I were actually the drug dealer he thinks I am, I’d likely give up somebody a lot higher up the food chain than me to save my own ass. I doubt Morales would be happy to hear Alvarez set that scenario in motion.” His adrenal glands began pumping juice into his sytem over the thought of what he could do with this situation. Because... Oh, yeah. This could work. “Can you get your hands on a replacement kilo?”

“Huh?” There was a moment of silence. Then, “You can’t possibly be thinking about taking it back to Morales—can you?” The words were negative, but the tone...

Yeah, baby. His SAC was considering it.

“I am thinking that. It’s a fucking twofer, sir. Think about it. Alvarez will be gone the minute Morales learns what he’s done.” One way or the other, unfortunately, but the guy should have thought about all the potential consequences before he tried framing him. “More than that, it’ll likely cement my position in the cartel, which gives us the opportunity to close the case faster than we thought we could. We need to do this.”

They disconnected a short while later after Paulson promised he’d check with the director about another kilo—with the caveat that it was by no means guaranteed they’d get one. But Luc refused to entertain the idea, because he was deadly determined to see this case through.

Unfortunately, it didn’t keep him from gnawing over Tasha’s defection. What had made her decide to catch the night flight back to Nassau after all, when she’d assured him she would wait?

He went around and around on it but eventually had to shelve the whole damn mess. “Get over it, chump,” he said, his mood black. Chicks dumped guys—it happened all the time, even if he’d only rarely experienced it himself. There sure as hell wasn’t anything he could do about it. She clearly hadn’t been as into him as he had been into her.

“Well, your loss, sweetheart,” he finally growled aloud. And shoving his wallet into his back pocket, he went off to find something to distract him from the pointless what-ifs pinballing around in his brain.

* * *

“SO WHAT WAS THE CASE?”

“What?” But he shook his head to bring himself back to the present and told his half brother a condensed version of what had gone down that day. Then he simply stared at the big deputy for a moment.

“Christ, Max,” he finally said. “I was blown away to see her in your dining room last night. Then when I followed her out to the backyard, she was beyond pissed, which I don’t get, ’cause like I told you, I thought she’d run out on me. Yet she was furious with me.” Remembering her parting words, he rolled his shoulders. “And maybe with reason.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “What reason?”

“Last night she said that thanks to me, she’d spent two nights in a Bahamian jail.”

“So either there was a failure to communicate between the two countries’ drug enforcement agencies, a clerical screwup—or somebody lied to you, Slick. I don’t know the players, but I know Tasha. And I gotta tell you, if there was any lying going on, I doubt it was her.”

“Yeah.” Luc doubted it, too, because she knew just enough about his cover to get things wrong—and they were things she shouldn’t know at all. Plus, she was crazy furious with him, which she’d have no reason to be if she had taken off.

He met Max’s eyes and didn’t doubt his own eyes were every bit as hard as his half brother’s. “And you can take it to the bank that I will get to the bottom of this. But first,” he admitted, “I have to convince Tasha that I’m not a drug dealer. Then I need to get her to talk to me long enough to learn exactly what happened that night so I can figure out where to go from there.”

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_cd04fa9e-2857-5208-8600-781ca54c6aae)

TASHA HEARD THE street door to Bella T’s open while she was scrubbing down the kitchen. “We’re closed,” she called, which everyone and their brother should already know because—hello!—Razor Bay. Monday. Labor Day weekend now behind them.

On the other hand, it hadn’t even occurred to her to lock the door while she was back here cleaning. So on the off chance it was some out-of-towner looking for a slice, she came out to give him/her the bad news. But seeing Tiffany, the young woman who had worked for her since the day she’d opened the restaurant’s doors, Tasha frowned in bewilderment. “Hey, girl. What are you doing here on your day off?”

“I parked in my spot behind Bella’s to run some errands,” the plump, flawlessly-made-up brunette with the sunny smile, even sunnier disposition and easy way with people said. “But when I was cutting between the buildings to the street I saw...” Her words trailed away, and for a second she appeared unusually hesitant. Then she tipped her head inquisitively, gave Tasha a penetrating look and suddenly asked, “Do you and that good-looking new Bradshaw brother have something going on that I should know about?”

“What? No!” Oh, God, was it written on her forehead that she and Dieg—Luc—had had crazy wild sex one night a hundred years ago? “Why would you think so?”

“Because I saw him heading upstairs a minute ago,” Tiffany said with a vague wave toward the end of the building where the outdoor staircase ran up to the living quarters. “And he was carrying a big duffel bag like he’s moving in.”

“What the hell—?” Tasha peeled off her rubber gloves, tossed them on the service counter and headed for the door. “Lock up for me, will you?”

“You got it, boss.”

Her heart pounded with an emotion she didn’t want to examine too closely, but she was never so rattled that she forgot to give her aqua-white-and-green-painted building a ritualistic pat as she rounded its corner. Bella T’s was the realization of a dream she’d held since she was twelve years old—except better, because not only was the pizzeria a reality, but she owned the building that housed it, as well. Well, okay, she and the bank owned it, but one day it would be hers alone. And she never, but never, failed to show her appreciation when she transitioned from her work space on the street level to her home upstairs. This was likely the most well-loved inanimate object in Razor Bay.

And she intended to find out what the hell Luc Bradshaw was doing in it.