“Ha.” But her brow puckered, her kiss-me-mouth tightened.
Normally this would make him wonder how long he’d have to kiss her before she softened for him, but not now. “What is it? You don’t trust me out there?”
“Hawk,” Tibbs said quietly.
He heard the warning in his boss’s voice, but he didn’t care. “No, I think it’s time, past time, that we get this out in the open. I want to know, Abby. What exactly is your problem with me?”
“Nothing.” She hit him with those baby blues, which were suddenly void of any emotion whatsoever. “There’s no problem at all.”
Bullshit. But hell if he was going to keep bashing his head against a brick wall. “Okay, then. Fine.”
“Fine.” She gestured to the file in his hands as she gathered her control around her like a cloak. “Flight’s at two.” She said this evenly, back to being as cool as a cucumber. In a freezer. In Antarctica. “Be late and I leave without you.”
1
Later that night
Twenty-five miles outside of
Bullet City, Wyoming
ABBY ENTERED THE COMMUNICATIONS van, and the men stopped talking. Typical. Men complained that women were the difficult gender, but it seemed to her the penis-carrying half were far more thorny.
Not to mention downright problematic.
Not that she cared, because when it came to personal relationships, she’d given them up. A fact that made her life much simpler.
Sliding the door shut behind her, she shivered. Late fall in the high altitude Bighorn Mountains meant that razor-sharp air cut right through her, layers and all. As she rubbed her frozen hands together, her gaze inadvertently locked on Hawk, who had his long-sleeved black shirt open and the matching T-shirt beneath it shoved up so that he could get wired.
He stood there, six feet two inches of solid badass complete with a wicked, mischievous grin, topped with warm, chocolate eyes that could melt or freeze on a dime. From beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt peeked the very edge of the tattoo on his bicep, which she knew was a hawk.
The women in the office practically swooned at it, every time.
But not Abby. Nope, she was made of firmer stuff.
There was a four-inch scar, old and nearly faded, along his left side between two ribs, and another puckered scar above his left pec. The first was a knife wound, the second a bullet hole. She could also see his smooth, sleek flesh pressed taut to hard, rippled sinew. One long, lean muscle, not an ounce of extra on him.
Whew. Had she been cold only a moment before? Because suddenly, she was starting to sweat. She cursed her 20/20 vision.
Maybe she wasn’t made of firmer stuff after all… But regardless, she was over men. So over men. And seeing that she’d become so enlightened…she blew out a breath and moved to her communications station.
Where for the first time, she hesitated. That in itself pissed her off. So a year ago she’d nearly died out in the field. She hadn’t. And she wasn’t going to this time, either. Shrugging off her nerves, Abby looked around and caught the long, assessing look Hawk shot her as he pulled on a flak vest. He was sharp, she’d give him that. Clearly, he sensed her hesitation, but hell if she’d let him see her sweat. She lifted her chin and sat down.
But if she was a good actress, then he was a great actor, because she had no idea what he was thinking behind that perpetually cynical gaze.
And she didn’t care. She was here for the job. She would remain in the van, in charge of communications, while the team made their way to the farmhouse, and then to the barn a half mile beyond that, where they’d execute the raid.
“There,” Watkins said to Hawk as he finished wiring him.
Hawk shrugged back into his shirt. “You fix the problem from the other day?” he asked.
Abby’s eyes had wandered again to Hawk’s body-bad eyes-but her ears pricked. “Problem?”
“Bad wire.” Watkins lifted a shoulder. “Happens.”
“It shouldn’t,” she said. “Make sure it doesn’t.”
Watkins nodded.
Hawk let his T-shirt fall over his abs, hiding the wires as his gaze again met hers. One eyebrow arched in the silent question: Were you staring at me?
No. No, she wasn’t. To prove it, she turned to her own equipment, trying not to remember the last time she’d been wired before a raid. Elliot Gaines, the head honcho, had done her up himself.
Of course he’d had a personal interest. They’d had a burgeoning friendship, at least on her part. For his part, he clearly wished for more, far more. In any case, he couldn’t have known how bad it would all go…
And it had gone extremely bad. One minute she’d been listening to Gaines’s quiet, authoritative voice in her ear, telling her she was doing great, just to hold her position while his team to the west “handled it,” and then the next, there’d been a 12-gauge shotgun to her temple and she’d been taken hostage.
Now, a year later, in another time and place, someone murmured something in a low voice that she couldn’t quite catch, and several of the men behind her laughed softly.
Releasing tension, she knew, most likely with an off-color joke that she didn’t want to hear. Living as a woman in a man’s world was nothing new, but she had to admit, tonight, it was grating on her nerves.
Granted, her nerves were already scraped raw just by being here, but that was no one’s fault but her own. Gaines had transferred her at her request after a leave of absence. She’d wanted to prove to herself that she could still do her job, that she hadn’t let the “incident” take anything from her.
But with damp palms and butterflies bouncing in her gut, she wondered if maybe she had more to overcome than she’d thought.
“Hey.”
With a start, Abby turned toward Hawk. He was geared up and ready to face the night, looking big, bad, tough and prepared for anything. She bet he didn’t have any butterflies.
The others were engaged in conversation, but Hawk stood close, looking at her as if he could see her anxiety. “Ready?”
That he could see her nervousness meant she didn’t have it nearly as together as she’d like. “Of course I’m ready.”
“Of course,” he repeated, but didn’t move. “Listen, I know you’re going to bite my head off for this, but I’m getting a weird vibe from you here, and-”
“I said I was fine.” She swiveled back to her computer to prove it.
“All right, then.” She could feel him watching her very closely. “You’re fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
She heard him turn to follow the others out the door, and glanced back to watch the long-limbed ease that didn’t do a thing to hide the latent power just beneath the surface. Or the irritation.
Abby let out a rough breath. Damn it. He might be a hell of a charmer, but he was also a hell of an agent, and truth be told, she admired his work ethic even more than she secretly admired his body. And she wanted him to be able to admire her work ethic. “Hawk.”
He looked back, his broad shoulders blocking the night from view, but not the chill that danced in on an icy wind. “Yeah?”
“Watch yourself.”
A hint of a self-deprecating smile crossed his lips. “Thought you were doing that for me.”
She felt the heat rise to her face, but he’d caught her fair and square. His smile came slow and sure, and far too sexy for her comfort.