He shifted and leaned against the wall.
“You still there?” Forbes demanded.
“Sure.” Cole forcibly refocused his thoughts. “I talked to a few, and most spoke excellent English. I happened to sit at a table with a couple of exceptions. They claimed to be from Bolivia.”
“Bolivia?” Forbes snorted.
“More like Libya. Anyway, their training is well under way. I didn’t see anyone using utensils in anything other than the good old U.S.A. method of both cutting food and eating with the right hand. I joined the group for television afterward, and some even knew the language well enough to guess at game show answers.”
He had also seen Alexa at the door, and had lived dangerously. Tempted fate, and her memory.
From the corner of his eye, he had seen her grow pale when he had answered a question about a tree. Did she remember Cole Rappaport’s knowledge about trees? Did she somehow associate John O’Rourke, home improvements salesman extraordinaire, with the man she had helped to kill?
“Damn.” Forbes’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “If those suspects are doing that well, it means they’re nearly ready.”
“Could be. You got anything for me? Has anyone else reported finding other locations yet?”
“Not yet. You’re on your own. It all depends on you.”
“How can that be?” Cole demanded. “After last time, we know there has to be a host of agents ready to go underground.”
“Maybe they changed tactics,” Forbes said. “Numbers got them nowhere, after all.”
“But the intelligence I learned in the field—”
“Never mind what’s going on elsewhere,” Forbes insisted. “I’ll handle that. You just figure out what’s happening there, hear?”
“Yes, I hear you. What about backup? Are you sending anyone here from the Unit to follow this crowd when they disperse? I already told Maygran and Bradford to expect your call.”
Colonel Jessie Bradford and Major Allen Maygran were a couple of Cole’s most trusted co-agents in the Special Forces Unit. They were among the very few who knew who he really was, for Cole used yet another alias within the Unit. Both had only recently joined other special operations military units. Vane would not know them.
“I’ve told you before to let me handle the details.” Forbes did not sound pleased, although he seldom did. “But, yes, I’m working on getting together an inconspicuous crew to join you there soon.”
“Good.” Cole drew in his breath suddenly, as a familiar figure walked into the convenience store: Minos Flaherty. The squat, muscular thug had not been at the inn last night, and Cole hadn’t been in a position to figure out where he may have gone. He had half hoped that the guy had disappeared for good—but only if he had taken a long dive over a short Skytop cliff. If he had simply disappeared, as all the guests were expected to do soon, it could mean that the operation was commencing before Cole was ready to deal with it.
“Hey, you there? Er, John?” Forbes stumbled over Cole’s name on this assignment.
“I’m here.” Cole kept his voice low. “I’ve got to leave, though.”
“Someone there?” Forbes’s tone was urgent.
“Yes. I’ll be in touch.”
“Do that. And watch your butt.” Cole heard a click on the other end.
His butt? Oh, yes. Cole had every intention of protecting that and every other part of his body.
Alexa’s lovely face loomed suddenly in his mind, and he shut it out.
But for an aching moment, he realized that the most vulnerable part of him could still be his damn, foolish heart.
ALEXA OPENED THE DOOR from the kitchen to the inn’s backyard—and the ground-floor vista overlooking the gorgeous blue splendor of Skytop Lake. At the shore, a long dock extended into the water. The inn’s motorboat was tied alongside.
Around the lake, evergreen trees rose in thick glades covering the sides of the surrounding mountain ridges. Many trees were ponderosa pines. Cole had taught her that, on their wonderful, fateful weekend here. The last time they had been together….
She inhaled deeply. The heated air was so damp that she nearly had to take a sip of it.
“Come on, Phantom,” she called behind her. The lanky German shepherd pup sped by her and out the door. He ran to the side of the house, out of her field of vision. “Wait!” she called. Phantom didn’t return but started to bark.
The noise seemed magnified near the water, which also carried sounds of motorboats in the distance. Alexa ran along the top of the down-sloped lawn to the area where the noisy pup had disappeared. And stopped.
Phantom was barking because there was an intruder. No, not an intruder—a guest.
John was on the lawn beside the inn. He had stooped, and his hand was out toward Phantom, who hadn’t yet stopped barking, though he had previously met John. John grinned and made soothing sounds. His substantial biceps flexed as he continued to reach toward the excited dog.
Alexa hurried to join them. “Enough,” she scolded Phantom. “Sorry,” she said to John. “He’s trained not to bark much inside, but the outdoors is fair game.” She knelt and gathered the pup to her. Only then did he stop barking. Instead, he struggled in Alexa’s grasp, turning in her arms to slurp at her chin with his long tongue. Alexa laughed, then stood.
“I didn’t mean to get his dander up.”
John rose, too. His white T-shirt hugged every bulge of his well-formed chest. Alexa pretended not to stare at John but at his shirt. It had an outline of a mountain on it, and the logo read Skytop Lake. Reach for the Stars.
She wanted to reach for him. Especially with the way his deep brown eyes moved down her appreciatively, obviously taking in the fact that she, too, wore a T-shirt. Hers was over shorts, and his gaze lingered on her legs.
His eyes returned to her face, and she looked away quickly, ignoring the oozing warmth spreading through her, a heat that had nothing to do with summer in the mountains.
“He thinks he’s a watchdog,” Alexa said quickly, bending down to take Phantom’s collar. She was curious as to what John was doing here, practically standing in the flower bed, but figured he was a paying guest and had the right to be anywhere on the grounds he wanted—or at least any public place. “If you were heading for the lake, there’s a paved path on the other side of the house.”
“I know. I went there at sunrise this morning to jog beside the lake.”
“You’d said that was why you wanted to be here,” Alexa acknowledged. She pictured this large man clad in a similar outfit to what he was wearing now, muscles straining as he ran. Sweat would bead on John, for even at dawn the summer air would be warm and humid.
She recalled how Cole had looked after an early-morning run here: damp and well-toned and as sexy as sin. She swallowed. Stop thinking of Cole, she ordered herself. But she might as well tell her lungs to stop breathing.
“I’m out here now because I can’t resist an opportunity,” John said.
“For what?”
“To pitch home improvements. Your inn is great. I love the chalet style. But did you realize it could use a coat of paint?”
Alexa nearly choked. This guy really was a home improvements salesman. No matter how good he looked, no matter how much he knew about tree trivia, he wasn’t Cole.
Cole had been in the military. He’d had a can-do attitude. He