“Listen, Alfonso. Don’t play games with me. My intelligence quota has increased exponentially since you last saw me and I’m not nearly as gullible. Why are you here? And I want the truth.”
His brow furrowed and he studied her face as if she were a science experiment that needed to be weighed, measured and cataloged. Then his gaze traveled slowly down her body, tickling every traitorous nerve ending. “You miss the latest Agency directive? Until further notice, all Trackers shall be accompanied by another Guardian while out in the field.”
“I’d have heard if the rules had changed.” Jackson hadn’t said anything about it a few minutes ago.
“It was just faxed to all the field offices in the region.”
How the hell would he know? He was obviously trying to trip her up, make her think it was official so she’d agree. “And last I knew, you’re not a Guardian. How’d you even get in here? The place is cloaked. Did Mackenzie tell you what was going on? She did, didn’t she? Or wait, Jackson!”
During the lame-ass emergency briefing that had cut into the precious time she should’ve been out searching for Kip, he hadn’t made eye contact with her. Not once. It totally was him. Next time she saw the guy, she was going to fry his ass.
“Nope.” He looked down, flicking something off his thigh. As he picked at the frayed edges of a small hole in his jeans, his thick lashes rested against his cheeks.
His nonchalance fanned her anger and every muscle in her body went rigid. How could he be so calm and act so totally uninterested? They hadn’t seen each other in over a year. The least he could do was shake her hand or give her a hug. Tell her she looked good or something. Like normal people would do. Normal people who’d once shared something special. God, she was so stupid for thinking he’d ever cared about her.
A tiny voice inside told her she wasn’t exactly welcoming to him either, but she shut that down instantly. She needed to keep her exterior shell as hard and rigid as possible in order to protect her too fragile heart. Love was a candy-coated fairy tale whose sugar high didn’t last long in the real world.
“Sorry to break it to you, but you’re not coming with me.” She poked a finger toward him and the loaded duffel bag almost slipped off her shoulder. She elbowed it behind her back again. “In fact, you’ve got a lot of nerve showing up like this. What do you mean accompanied by another Guardian, anyway? You’re not Agency.”
“Santiago okayed me coming on board temporarily to help you track down the missing trainee.”
It felt as if someone had slapped her. The Region Commander didn’t think she had the chops to handle this assignment on her own? Santiago must think she’d slacked off because Kip had disappeared under her watch. Despite the chill in the air, her internal temperature cranked up like a furnace and the stiff collar of her jacket suddenly became too tight.
She clenched her jaw and pressed her lips into a hard line. “Well, news flash for you. I don’t report directly to Santiago. I don’t need your help or anyone else’s, so get away from my car. It’s new and I don’t need any scratches or fingerprints.”
“He got the okay from Roxanne Reynolds. Does that make a difference?”
She had started to step over his legs, but that stopped her in her tracks. Roxanne was in charge of all Tracker Agents and her word was law. If you valued your job, you didn’t cross her. Unlike Santiago, her bite was much worse than her bark.
“Yeah, I thought it would.” He stood up, straightening to his full six-foot-four frame, taking full advantage of the fact that he was almost a full twelve inches taller than her. She had to crank her head back to keep eye contact with him and it made her feel even smaller. Damn. She should’ve worn heels.
A piece of his tousled blond hair fell to the middle of his cheek, and when he absently pushed it off his face, it slid back down anyway. The soft color of his eyes and the tiny wrinkles around the corners belied the hard planes of his square jaw and the rough texture of his unshaven face. Those large hands, with fingertips callused from playing the guitar, were incredibly dexterous, and that powerful body could be surprisingly tender. He was a mass of contradictions, wrapped up in a package too attractive for her own good.
She shouldered past him, the corner of her duffel smacking against his hip. Too bad it missed his balls. Yanking the car door open, she threw the bag inside, angry with herself for still being so physically attracted to him. He angled himself around to the side of the car, and leaned against the front quarter panel as if he was the one calling the shots.
“You wasted a lot of time driving down here,” she said. “Despite what everyone must think, I am perfectly capable of tracking Kip on my own. Now, step aside.” But he didn’t budge. Fine. He’d move his ass as soon as she hit the accelerator.
“I realize that,” he said. “You’re one of the best Trackers in the Agency. That’s not why I’m here.”
She crossed her arms and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Then why are you here?”
“Despite what you must think, Lily, I worry about you. With this new Darkblood strategy, if they even so much as catch wind of you while you’re looking for your little trainee, they’ll ditch him in a heartbeat. He’s not who they wanted in the first place. I plan to be your temporary assistant. No, your bodyguard.”
“You? My assistant?” She lifted her chin and laughed. “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard in a long time. Wait. I think I understand. You’re feeling nostalgic and want to screw again, eh? You want to do it for old time’s sake because—” she lowered her voice to a caricature of him “—I can’t find anyone who shags like you do, baby.”
“Gimme a little credit here.”
Something flashed in those glacier eyes. If she didn’t know any better, she’d have thought he looked hurt. But that wasn’t possible. He was the one who had hurt her.
“Yeah, nothing says you care like a year’s worth of … of … nothing. I was much too naive, thinking you’d be back after things settled down. But I guess it was just an assignment to you. A long-term assignment, and once it was over, we were over.”
“Jesus, Lil.” He opened his mouth as if he were going to say more, but snapped it shut. The square corners of his jaw flexed over and over.
She’d struck a nerve. Good.
“When Mackenzie thought she saw you in the lab moments before she saw flames, I thought you’d been trapped inside. I spent the next few nights sifting through the ashes looking for your remains. I looked for that medallion I gave you for luck, but then you probably only wore it when you knew we were getting together anyway.”
He reached into his shirt and pulled out the gold pendant that swung on a leather cord around his neck.
She stared at it, stunned. He still wore it?
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but it couldn’t be helped. They had to believe I died along with Pavlos.”
She swallowed and tried to regain her composure. He’d probably put it on knowing he was coming to see her. “And you didn’t see fit to inform me of your little deception.”
When she’d thought he had died in the fire that day, a huge part of her had died as well. But when Mackenzie told her later that he was very much alive, she wasn’t sure what to think. Then, in one fateful phone conversation, when he’d told her he no longer loved her—even after all they had shared—it just about sent her over the edge. She’d sworn she’d never be such a sucker for romance and a handsome face again.
“For your sake, it was better if everyone thought I was dead. It still is.” He examined the medallion, its interconnected links with no beginning or end, as if he’d never seen it before. “I was hoping you’d moved on by now.”
“And