If a woman had ever felt as good as Jackie in his arms, he couldn’t remember it. When she released him, his gaze slid down her face to her lips, which were curved into a smile, and he knew he would do anything in his power to keep it there.
God, how he wanted to kiss her.
Bad idea, Rhodes.
Who the hell was he kidding? He couldn’t ignore lust. He couldn’t even ignore it for five minutes. He was tethering himself to the one woman he should know better than to be around. Jackie believed in fairy-tale endings and happily ever afters, while he knew nothing could be further from reality, yet he wanted her.
He wanted her badly.
“I’ll call HERO Force and get the ball rolling. Hopefully Jax Andersson has a connection or two that can expedite the process.” He dialed his cell phone. “Jax, it’s Razorback. I need your help on something.”
He gave the other man the details, from Jackie’s true identity to her plan to expose McGrath, and wasn’t surprised when Jax asked if Razorback was out of his goddamn mind.
“They’ll both need passports, ASAP,” said Razorback.
There was a knock at the bedroom door and Sloan called, “Jackie, is Ian with you?” She let him in, a rifle slung over his shoulder and his hands full of cookies. It was time for the men to change shifts, and Razorback nodded to him.
“Let me make some phone calls and see what I can do,” said Jax. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Hang on. What’s that?” He mumbled something away from the phone, clearly talking to someone else, then came back on the line. “Son of a bitch. Moto says Border Patrol and Homeland Security released a joint statement this morning, claiming a high threat of terror attacks on our borders surrounding the Democratic National Convention, including two credible threats from Mexico.”
“How much you want to bet those credible threats can be traced back to McGrath?”
“I don’t doubt it, but getting a passport for a dead woman is going to be more difficult than usual.”
Razorback looked at Jackie. “Difficult or impossible?”
“Nothing is impossible,” Jax said. “I’ll have to call you back.”
12
Razorback and Sloan were checking the outbuildings together before changing the guard, just as they’d done last night, leaving a thoughtful Jackie to rest for a while. They reached the first cabana and Sloan unlocked the door, each man with his weapon at the ready.
The main room was round and large, with a mahogany king-sized bed stripped down to the mattress. A wall cut off a slice of the circle like a chord dissecting the space, creating a private area for a fancy marble bathroom and a small kitchenette. Razorback opened an armoire, finding two plush white bathrobes. “Clear.”
“You think there’s any food in here?” Sloan asked. “I’m starving. I’m getting a migraine, I’m so goddamn hungry.”
“You ate ten cookies before we left the house.”
“They were little cookies, and I have a very fast metabolism.”
He could imagine Sloan training on the beach at Coronado, up to his eyeballs in icy water and shaking from the cold.Do you have any trail mix, or a piece of fruit? I have a very fast metabolism.Razorback shook his head. “You’re killing me, man.”
On the walk over, Razorback had explained the paternity idea to Sloan, who didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual about volunteering to be falsely named as the father of a child you’d just met. “That’s cool,” was all he’d said.
Sloan opened the refrigerator. “I need a sandwich or something. Oh, man, I just got one of those sous vide cookers. You know, where you cook steak in hot water?”
“That’s fucking disgusting.”
“It’s amazing. I’m going to make it for you when we get home just so you can eat your shitty attitude with a side of Worcestershire sauce.”
“Can’t wait. I’ll bring a nice loaf of bread in a pot of boiling water.”
“It’s not boiling, it’s—”
“Shut up. Let’s go check the others and see if they’re as empty as this one.” It was identical to the first, as were the next two. But the fifth and final cabana was different the moment Razorback turned the key. “It’s unlocked,” he mouthed to Sloan.
With one kick, Razorback pushed open the door to the seemingly empty room, holding his weapon trained in front of him as the hinge let out a high-pitched squeak. Sloan was on his six, the men moving cautiously around the space, checking beneath the bed and in the bathroom. “Clear,” Razorback said.
The bed was stripped, just like the others. The armoire held two bathrobes. But when Razorback entered the bathroom, the distinct smell of urine drew him to the toilet. He lifted the seat. “There are drops of wet piss on the edge of the bowl. Were you in here?”
