“I didn’t date in high school. Hidoshi-san didn’t pass away until I was seventeen. When I came to the States to go to college, I was so busy trying to bring my English up to speed and keep my grades up and adjust to the culture shock that I didn’t have much time for a social life.” And the few relationships she’d had with college boys had left her unimpressed with dating in general. The guys she’d gone out with didn’t have a fraction of her focus or drive, and she’d found them…frivolous.
“Why didn’t Hidoshi-san let you date?”
“Oh, he’d have let me date. But I was too busy training to spare the time for such silliness.”
“Wow. You must have been one mega-serious teenager.” He grinned over at her self-deprecatingly. “The same could not have been said about me. My high school teachers always harped at me about applying myself more. About all I applied myself to back then were sports and girls. And not necessarily in that order.”
She didn’t find that hard to believe. And yet, when the two of them had talked through possible plans for catching the Ghost, he was as focused as any operator she’d ever worked with. He seemed to subscribe to the theory of working hard and playing hard in about equal measure.
He asked, “Were you always so committed to your martial arts, even at a young age?”
“I started training when I could barely walk. I’ve done it hard-core my entire life. It’s who I am.”
“That’s a strong statement.”
“If you’re so determined to pursue a relationship with me, you need to believe me. My training runs bone deep. The physical aspects, the mental aspects, the ancient code of honor-all of it.”
“Why did you choose the martial arts as your framework for self-definition?”
She turned her head to stare at him.
He shrugged. “So, sue me. I was a psychology minor in college.”
Great. She’d fallen for an amateur shrink. She sure could pick ’em. His question was insightful, though. She finally murmured, “I had nothing else. No one else. Hidoshi-san loved me when no one else did. Becoming like him was the least I could do to show my gratitude.”
“No one else loved you? The absentee father, I understand. But what about siblings? Aunts and uncles?”
“Nada.”
He shifted the weight off one elbow and reached out to touch her cheek. Just the slightest graze of his fingertips against her skin. “Are you still completely alone?”
The loneliness aching within her radiated outward in a terrible tension that froze her facial muscles beneath his brief touch. Her entire being felt stiff as she answered, “I have the Medusas now. They’re my family.”
He nodded as if he knew the feeling well. And, given that he had a team of his own that he ran with, he probably did know the feeling. “But what about you? Isn’t there anyone in your life just for you?”
“Is all this psychoanalysis really necessary?” she asked lightly.
“You’re avoiding the question. Your grandfather has passed away, and you have no one else, do you?”
He was prodding painful places in her soul that she’d just as soon have him leave alone. She retreated into the emotionless cool she always did when people tried to get too close to her. Except this time, she felt like a coward for running away. Damn him! She’d been happy the way she was before she met him…or at least at peace with herself. Why did he have to go and tear away the veil of her lonely existence like that and show it to her for what it really was?
She answered in a tone that sounded stilted, even to her. “I don’t need anyone else, so your question is moot.”
He nodded sagely. “The lady has built her very own fortress of solitude. And here you were, doing so well at starting to crawl out of it. I’m a pushy jerk, aren’t I?”
Secretly relieved that he’d poked at her-given her an excuse to come out of her emotional cave, really-she rolled her eyes. “You got one part right. You are a jerk.” But she said it without any real heat.
He grinned over at her. “And you love me anyway.”
Stunned, she jerked her gaze back to the estate in front of her while she turned the concept over in her mind. Did she feel love for him? Was it possible? She’d loved Hidoshi. But that was different. She’d loved him as a child loves a parent or grandparent.
But Jeff? Could she love a man like him? As an equal? A mate? She stared fixedly through her spotter’s scope, seeing a blurry morass of green and peach, vividly aware that he was studying her in the meantime.
“Dare I hope?” he breathed. “Are there really feelings for me lurking behind that inscrutable exterior of yours?”
She started to lower the fist-size telescope to glare over at him, but something caught her attention at the farthest edge of her vision, and she jerked the scope back up to her eye. “I’ve got movement,” she announced. “I do believe our Ghost is putting in an appearance.”
Jeff lurched, his attention swinging back to the mansion. “Say position,” he responded tersely, abruptly back in full mission mode.
“Eleven o’clock. North end of the upper terrace. Moving in low and fast toward the shed housing the main electrical boxes.”
They’d been right, then. The Ghost was simply going to knock out the alarm and make a speed run for the painting. Earlier, they’d discussed trying to nab the guy as soon as they spotted him or waiting until he’d stolen the painting and then catching him. Their concern was that if they grabbed him before the theft, the police wouldn’t have enough evidence to hold the guy. He’d slip away from them, this time for good.
“Good eye,” Jeff murmured. “He’s practically invisible.”
“I should think any respectable thief is invisible most of the time,” she murmured back absently, concentrating hard on not losing sight of the elusive figure. Likewise, any half-decent sniper ought to be able to follow a figure like him at this distance. And she was more than half decent.
Jeff breathed, “Let’s move in closer. Full stealth. We don’t want to spook this guy.”
She nodded, rising silently to a crouch and easing off through the imitation Balinese landscaping behind Jeff. She didn’t hear a sound as they slipped through the night. Jeff was every bit as good as she was at this silent sneaking thing-and she’d been trained by the best. Hidoshi had been one of the last great ninja masters.
Jeff hand-signaled her to go around the house and watch the front doors while he took the oceanside doors. She nodded and Jeff hand-signaled. “First one to spot him leaving calls for backup. Then we move in on him.”
She nodded and glided off into the dark, at one with the night. Adrenaline sang through her veins and her body was light and responsive. She was ready for whatever came. Moments like this, where she got to fully turn her skills loose, were rare. But in these moments she was profoundly grateful to Hidoshi, to whatever quirk of fate had led her to him, that she’d been granted the opportunity to do this. To be this.
Jeff found a carved tiki pole casting a deep shadow and had just taken up position behind it when every light in the mansion abruptly came on and a piercing noise split the night.
“Time hack,” he announced. He looked down at his watch. Three-twenty a.m. on the nose. He figured they had about sixty seconds to wait, and then one of them should spot the Ghost leaving with his prize. He scanned the ground-floor doors and windows on this side of the house, watching for the slightest movement anywhere in his field of vision.
Eighty-two seconds had passed since his time hack when two things happened simultaneously. He heard the first police sirens in the far distance, and Kat radioed, “I’ve got him. He’s coming out the front door now.”
“Go get him!” Jeff ordered as he took off sprinting around the house.
And then all hell broke loose.
No less than five heavily armed men burst out of the bushes in front of Jeff, forcing him to screech to a halt and drop to the ground. “Incoming!” he whispered urgently to Kat. “Five armed men heading your way. Might be cops. Hold your fire!”