Kat did something she rarely did. She blushed to the roots of her hair. “Not unless you call her baby, too.”
The other women’s eyebrows shot up en masse, and unholy amusement glinted in their gazes. She’d forgotten how nothing was secret or sacred among them. Becoming a Medusa had come with inheriting five nosy, if well-meaning, sisters. If they caught wind of the depth of her infatuation with Jeff, they’d razz her until she wished she’d never met any of them.
Kat sighed and made introductions all around, including the snake field handles of all her teammates.
Aleesha asked briskly, “So. What’s up?”
Kat sat back and let Jeff bring the team up to speed. He gave a good briefing. Quick. To the point, but thorough.
Aleesha said to him when he finished, “Since you’re the expert on this case and have already been named mission commander, how ’bout you take point on this? Has Cobra briefed you on our various specialties?”
“No, ma’am. She hasn’t said much about you ladies. But if she’s any indication, you’re a hell of a team.”
More amused glances shot Kat’s way.
Aleesha smiled broadly. “Call me ma’am again, boy-o, and I may ’ave to hurt you. You makin’ me feel olduh dan dirt.”
Jeff grinned back. “Duly noted, Mamba.”
Aleesha gave him a quick rundown of who did what on the team. They all were cross-trained in a wide variety of skills, but Karen was the pro at things mechanical, Isabella was the team’s intelligence analyst, Misty was a pilot and a whiz with computers and Aleesha was the team’s medic. In fact, she’d been a trauma surgeon prior to becoming a Medusa.
Jeff looked faintly shell-shocked when Aleesha finished the recitation of the team’s skill set. But he said calmly enough, “Have you ladies had breakfast?”
Karen laughed. “We’re commandos. We’re always hungry.”
Kat made a room-service order for six while Jeff pulled out a detailed map of Barbados and showed the Medusas where tonight’s meeting was supposed to take place.
The four other Medusas spent the afternoon casing Welchman Hall Gully, a gorgeous park/walking trail tucked into one of the many gullies slashing across the island’s landscape. Kat retreated to her room to meditate until they returned, and Jeff left after mumbling something about getting some special gear for tonight.
It was just as well they stayed apart. Her teammates were far too perceptive to miss the sparks-either of sexual tension or anger-that inevitably flew between them when they spent more than two minutes together. And Kat really could do without the Medusas’ teasing.
Late in the afternoon, they all reconvened to finalize a plan of action. The caves beneath the gully were going to be a problem. They were extensive, and there was no way the Medusas could reconnoiter, let alone cover, all of them tonight. If the Ghost wanted to emerge from or escape into the caves, they’d be hard put to intercept him. The team settled on forming a loose net around Kat and planning to let the Ghost slip into it unmolested.
“And are you going to let him leave in peace as well?” Kat asked Jeff as they sat around the dining table, with maps and sodas scattered across it.
He looked her square in the eye for the first time all day. “No, I am not.”
“But-”
He cut her off. “Don’t argue with me on this, Kat.”
“I am going to argue with you on this. There’s no way the Ghost would have set up this meeting unless he has something of the utmost importance to tell me. We owe him the courtesy of hearing him out and giving him free passage away from the meeting.”
“We owe him nothing. He’s a criminal.”
“He could’ve tried to kill me last night. But he didn’t.”
“You could’ve killed him, too, but you didn’t. I’d say you two are even on that score.”
Kat flinched as her teammates stared at her.
Aleesha asked quietly, “Cobra? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she grated. “I’m fine. Jeff seems to think that honor counts for nothing, however. And he’s prepared to trample mine.”
Aleesha looked over at Jeff soberly. “Mon, de girl, she take dat honor wicked serious.”
He exhaled heavily. “Yeah. I know.” He paused. “Our orders are to stop the Ghost. Using whatever means necessary. Nothing in our orders precludes use of force. As mission commander, I have to assume that implicit in our mission orders is not only permission to use force but a directive to do so if it will accomplish the mission.”
Kat winced. Jeff had resorted to legalese for one reason and one reason only. He was warning her that he’d given her a lawful order-to use force if necessary to apprehend the Ghost. And furthermore, if she failed to do so, he’d hold her liable for having disobeyed a direct order.
Sure enough, on cue he said grimly, “Do you understand me, Captain Kim?”
“Yes, and I acknowledge that you have given me a lawful order. Do you want that in writing?”
She looked up from her tightly clenched hands at him across the table. His stare gave away nothing. No pity, no compassion, no caring. Just the hard, cold gaze of a military commander putting a subordinate sharply and unquestionably in her place.
So. That was how it was going to be.
Anguish wrenched her heart messily in two as she sat there, frozen, her face totally devoid of expression. Damn Hidoshi for teaching her this terrible control, anyway. She wanted to scream and cry and rage, to argue with Jeff about the stupidity of his decision, to demand to know how he could cut her off like this. Worse, she desperately wanted to beg him to look at her the way he had last night in the moonlight. To love her a little. But here she sat, as cold and lifeless as some plastic mannequin who didn’t feel a damn thing.
Jeff sighed heavily and looked away from her.
Meanwhile, her teammates stared back and forth between the two of them in nothing less than open shock. As well they should. She’d never shown a single hint of temper, let alone defiance, in all the time any of them had known her.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
She’d known from the very beginning that it would never work between her and Jeff. And sure enough, it had come to this.
She stood up from the table and said woodenly, “I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back in time for the final briefing.”
Kat was mildly surprised that none of the Medusas followed her down to the beach. But she supposed they were so stunned by her outburst that they didn’t know what to do. She’d been walking aimlessly along the beach for about an hour, oblivious to the magnificent sunset glinting scarlet off the pristine sand, when her cell phone rang.
Reluctantly, she pulled it out. Startled at the caller, she opened the phone. “Hi, Vanessa. Did the others sic you on me?”
“Hi. And yes, they did. Wanna talk?”
“If I say no and hang up, will you call me back continuously until I do talk to you?”
“No. I’ll be on the first plane down there to get in your face until you talk to me.”
Kat sighed. The woman would do it, too. Vanessa wasn’t known for taking no for an answer. Thing was, of all her teammates, her boss came the closest to understanding her. She sometimes thought Vanessa had an inkling of her true capabilities but chose to honor her secret. Vanessa also seemed to have a handle on Kat’s view of things like honor and right and wrong.
Kat asked in resignation, “What did they tell you?”
“That Captain Steiger, while making a rational mission decision, is forcing you into doing something he shouldn’t.”
Her teammates had supported her? She ought to have expected it, but it surprised and pleased her nonetheless. “They said that?”
“Aleesha said he asked you to go against your personal code of honor. She’s worried that you’ll disobey him and get in trouble.”