What did it mean?
Nothing. It meant nothing. She wasn’t here to rekindle a former romance that had ended bloodily. She was here because she had no other option. Because Hope and the girls needed her.
“You’re right.” She took a deep breath, organized her uncharacteristically scattered thoughts and made her report, pretending she was speaking to one of her bosses rather than to her ex-lover. “Not long after the press conference, maybe five-thirty this afternoon, Secretary Cooper’s chalet at the Golf Resort was attacked. A percussion bomb stunned the occupants of the chalet.” Including me, she wanted to say, but didn’t because it was easier to report things this way.
She strove for the professional detachment she prided herself on, the lack of emotion so different from who she’d been, where she’d come from. “Three men entered the chalet wearing rubber masks resembling Presidents Nixon, Johnson and Clinton.” She pulled out the mental snapshot she’d taken of the attackers and compared them to each other, to the furniture and walls. Remembered them coming toward her. “Nixon was about five-ten and skinny as a rail. Mid-brown hair on his arms and hands. Johnson and Clinton were taller and more muscular, though still lean.”
She paused, remembering the blow, the unconsciousness and the screaming fear of coming around and not knowing what she would find.
Of finding three of her four protectees gone.
When Jacob remained quiet, motionless except for his left index finger, which continued to tap a complicated beat against his leg, she continued. “They…” She swallowed, realizing she couldn’t give the report from a distance now. “I missed with my first shot, hit Nixon in the leg and got off two more rounds before they rendered me unconscious.” There, that sounded more detached than clubbed me with a gun butt, more professional than knocked me out.
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