Forbidden Fantasies Bundle(115)
She hadn’t even realized that she had grabbed fistfuls of his jacket to keep him close until he pried her fingers loose.
Disappointment and embarrassment streamed through her. But he was right. Of course, they couldn’t stay here—wherever that was. They weren’t out of danger yet. And they were in a public place.
She dragged her gaze away from his and tried to gather her thoughts. And that’s when she saw it—a dark stain on the sleeve of his jacket, just above where she’d grabbed it.
“You’re bleeding.” Some of the blood was on her hand. Even in the pale light from the streetlamp, it looked bright red. “They shot you.”
“So they did. They must have used a silencer.” With a finger under her chin, he urged her gaze upward until it met his. “It’s just a scratch, Zoë.”
“They could have killed you,” she said.
“You were the one they were after. Why?”
9
IT HAD BEEN SEVEN YEARS since Gage Sinclair had engaged in any cloak-and-dagger work for his country, and he had to admit that doing a favor for Jed Calhoun had brought back a thrill he’d been missing. Most of the consulting work he did was analytical and it didn’t shoot the same zing through the blood as the kind of jobs he’d done before his injury.
He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard of his car and then back up at the windows in Zoë McNamara’s apartment. In the last ten minutes, since Bailey Montgomery had entered through the front door, he hadn’t seen so much as a flicker of light.
She was good. Gage Sinclair frowned as he thought about that. When Jed had faxed him the information two days ago that Bailey Montgomery had been the one who’d shot him in Bogotá, Gage had been surprised. That she’d failed in her mission had surprised him even more.
Somehow she’d learned that he was going to meet Jed Calhoun at the Blue Pepper tonight. That meant that either his phone or Jed’s had been tapped. It also meant that Jed was probably right and Bailey had spotted him at that party.
He intended to check his phones. In the meantime, he wanted very much to know what Agent Montgomery was up to.
He’d found himself a spot across the street from the Blue Pepper after he’d left the envelope with the bartender. When Bailey hadn’t followed him, he’d known that she was sticking around to see where the envelope ended up. That’s what he would have done.
He’d watched “Ethan Blair” leave and return and then leave again with Zoë following. Believing that Jed had that end of things under control, he’d remained to keep an eye on Bailey, and he’d followed her to Zoë’s apartment.
It had taken her less than twenty minutes to get a name and an address for Zoë McNamara. Pretty slick work. But then Bailey Montgomery was the best agent he’d ever recruited and trained.
And she was still very easy on the eyes. All in all, she was one well-put-together package. Not only was she beautiful in a classic sense, but she’d been first in her class at Yale when he’d met her. Over the years, he’d kept tabs on her career, and he couldn’t think of one other assignment she hadn’t successfully completed.
Truth was, he’d kept his eye on Bailey Montgomery over the years because in the early days he’d had a yen for her. Of course, he’d never acted on it. Number one, he was her senior by eight years, and fraternizing with fellow agents was frowned upon. Plus he’d been her mentor. And while he might have been tempted to ignore all that after she’d been at the agency for a while, Bailey Montgomery wouldn’t have. She was a stickler for following rules. One of the reasons he’d gone back into fieldwork was to get away from a growing attraction that he couldn’t act on.
Later, after he’d left the CIA, there’d been other reasons why he hadn’t acted on his attraction to her, not the least of which was the fact that he’d lost a leg during his last little government caper. It had taken a while, but modern medicine worked miracles, and there were very few people who were aware that he wore a prosthesis.
Gage’s eyes narrowed as Bailey reappeared out of the shadows at the side of Zoë’s house, then walked quickly down the street to her black Beetle convertible. In Gage’s mind the car suited her to a tee—the color was conservative but the style was wasn’t.
Maybe that was what had always intrigued him about Bailey Montgomery—the fact that she was prim and proper on the outside, but there was that hint of the risk taker underneath.
Case in point: Miss Follow-the-Rules had just broken into Zoë McNamara’s apartment. He couldn’t help but wonder what other rules she might be willing to break.