LITMIR.BIZ

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and picked it up.

      “I can take it.”

      “I’m sure you can, but we can’t miss the ferry.” He gestured to the man waiting for them and didn’t put down the bag until they had climbed aboard and gone to the top deck.

      “Thank you.” She sat on the bench and breathed out, lifting her face to the sun. “I’m sorry for being on edge. I just don’t like surprises. And, frankly, you’re not what I expected.”

      “What did you expect?” Hadn’t she been given his file to read also?

      She gave him a small smile, a shake of her head. “I’m just used to…it’s just better if I go it alone.”

      Yeah, well. “I prefer it, too, actually.”

      She sighed. “I don’t like it. It’s just the way it is.”

      He sat next to her, breathing in the salty air and the tang of coconut oil, listening to the cry of gulls overhead. The sky had turned a cerulean blue and a slight breeze off the ocean skimmed the sweat from his skin.

      He could think of worse assignments.

      She, too, seemed to relax as the boat pulled away from shore, cutting across the nearly translucent blue swatch of water between Cancun and Isla Mujeres.

      “I have to admit, the good part about my job is the freedom to choose my own schedule. And take off when I need to. And I needed this.”

      Yes, maybe he did, too. An assignment away from the cramped, cold quarters of his Prague apartment. He could already feel the sun baking his bones, uncoiling the tension of the past year. Years, actually.

      “I don’t want to walk into any surprises. Is there anything you need to know about me?” he asked. “We should make sure we look like an actual couple by the time we get there.”

      Although she’d put on her sunglasses, he saw her eyes widen. “I thought we’d ironed this out. I don’t need your help.”

      “That came through loud and clear, but since I’m here, for the sake of world peace, let’s work together.”

      She leaned over, pulled her feet out of her boots and took off her socks. She had cute toes with pink painted nails, a do-it-yourself job. “I guess you’re right. We’re all fixed up—it would spare us complications. Fine, you can be my date.”

      Awesome. Except her tone might make a guy just throw himself overboard. Still, he tried a smile, just to be neighborly. “I promise to be the best wedding date you’ve ever had.”

      She pulled down her glasses and narrowed her eyes at him, as if she might be trying to see through him. “Really, I meant it about the nub thing. Just because I’ll let you dance with me doesn’t mean—”

      “Got it, Scarlett. Just enough to be believable.”

      She pulled off her glasses and sighed. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know what you heard, Luke, and truthfully, any other girl might be flattered by your dedication. But I’m just here for the wedding, and I’d like to see it go off without a hitch.”

      “Agreed.”

      She smiled, nodded and replaced her glasses. “Good. Everyone just needs to calm down.” She pulled out a cap, put it over her hair and lifted her face back to the sun. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

      Right. Luke folded his arms over his chest, closing his eyes. Just fine. “I trust you,” he said. What choice did he have?

      TWO

      “I don’t know, Chet, there’s something about Scarlett—er, Stacey. I don’t think she likes me, for one. I clearly offended her.”

      “I think she thought that I expected a sort of, well, more realistic relationship. But the woman has more than a ‘Keep Away’ sign around her neck. She’s wired with a thousand volts of don’t-touch-me. And talk about cold. I think the Sanchez family is going to see right through us,” he said into his international cell phone.

      Luke sat on the edge of the king-size bed, watching the surf pound the reef, spit froth into the air and break on the coral outside his Lost Breezes cottage. He had taken off his shoes, letting the tile cool his feet, and in a second, he fully planned on jumping in the shower and washing off the sweat of the sun, the saline of the ocean and the still-stinging reception of Miss Hot-Around-the-Collar.

      Scarlett had barely spoken to him the rest of the ferry ride, or even as they’d hailed another cab to the far end of Isla Mujeres, the Isle of Women, where the resort of Lost Breezes sat on the northern tip. He picked up a towel folded in the shape of a swan sitting on his bed, shook it out and rubbed it over his forehead.

      “Stacey is from the private sector, but she came highly recommended by my pal David Curtiss. He mentioned that she was a lone wolf, but she said she was very capable and knows what she’s doing.”

      Luke pictured Chet in his office in the Czech Republic, staring out at the snow along the Charles Bridge in Prague.

      “So, you’ve never met her?”

      “Just on the phone. But I’m confident she can handle herself. She probably is used to working alone, but this is a couple’s job, so you need to get her to warm up to you.”

      “Believe me, no matter what I said, it was the wrong thing. It felt pretty chilly over on the port side of the ferry.”

      “Listen, Luke. If Sanchez’s men think you’re anything other than Lucia’s special guests for her wedding, they’ll take you out into the middle of the ocean and leave you for the sharks. Lucia has been working too hard and too long for this mission to go south.”

      “Scarlett’s probably right. I could get the job done better solo, too.”

      “No, you couldn’t. You need Stacey to act as Lucia’s bridesmaid and your fiancée, otherwise you won’t be able to stay close enough to Lucia to get her out of there when the CIA moves in on the Sanchez family. This mission all hinges on Lucia walking down the aisle on Saturday night. Augusto Sanchez will come out of hiding, and the CIA will finally get their hands on one of Panama’s biggest crime bosses. We need you on-site, watching Lucia, or she could get killed. And she needs someone there to remind her that she’s not in this alone. That’s Stacey’s job. Lucia’s already had one scare.”

      “I thought you told me the accident in the market wasn’t an attempted assassination.”

      “The CIA said it wasn’t. But that’s why she called for help. She’s scared, Luke, and you gotta keep her calm. Focused.”

      Everyone just needs to calm down. Scarlett’s words made a little sense now.

      Luke stood up and leaned against the doorjamb that led out to the balcony. The salt weighed the air, layered his skin in grit. “And why, exactly, did Lucia call you?”

      He heard Chet sigh. “We met in D.C. We’re old friends.”

      Old friends. Luke didn’t want to explore that meaning too far, but it was no wonder Chet didn’t want to take this job. After all, Chet was recently married and he didn’t need any reminders of past liaisons. Luke knew what ghosts could do to a guy—suck him back to the past, into his mistakes. No, Chet deserved a fresh start with his bride, Stryker International pilot Mae Lund. Luke’s silence pushed Chet into confession.

      “We may have had some sparks, Luke, but mostly, we were just friends. She was just a young law student, and I was in and out of the country with Delta Force. It wouldn’t have worked. However, I also know Benito—her fiancé—from my Delta days, and if I showed up, he’d know Lucia had been betraying him, romantically and possibly otherwise.”

      “Chet, is Lucia expecting you?” Perfect, just perfect. At least he now knew what not to say.

      “No. She’s expecting one of my men. My capable, get-the-job-done-despite-personal-feelings

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