LITMIR.BIZ

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of her company. “Hey, I don’t brood. I’m enjoying the sunset.”

      “You do look like you’re having a good time melting. You actually like this heat, don’t you?”

      “Heat is good. Come sit down and we’ll talk about it. There’s body heat, for example…”

      Alicia Kirby pulled out the chair across from him. She was twenty-four, brilliant, and looked, he thought, like a forward on a high school basketball team, with her long, elegant bones and that boyish cap of auburn hair. When she shook her head, that pretty hair bounced with the motion.

      Pretty, yes, but it wasn’t a long, rippling fall of hair as black as the desert sky, and smelling like lilacs…. Dammit. He had to stop thinking about a woman he’d never see again.

      “Life must be painfully dull,” Alicia said, “if you have to flirt with me to add a hint of danger to your humdrum existence. No more than a hint, of course. East doesn’t take you any more seriously than I do.”

      He put his hand over his heart. “I live for danger, but flirting with a beautiful woman is a different sort of spice.”

      The edges of her high cheekbones took on a faint pink tinge, which pleased him. Alicia might not take him seriously—hell, he didn’t want her to, she was married to a man he considered a friend—but she enjoyed a compliment as much as the next woman. He had a feeling she hadn’t heard enough of them.

      “Beautiful?” She managed to look skeptical despite her pink cheeks. “That’s laying it on pretty thick. I feel like roadkill.”

      He straightened, alarmed. “Maybe you should go back inside. In your condition, this heat—”

      “Not you, too! What is it about pregnancy that turns halfway sensible men into nervous idiots?”

      “The fact that we can’t do it, I guess. Is East making a pest of himself again?” He liked the idea that the legendary East Kirby—legendary in some circles, anyway—had been reduced to a nervous wreck by his new wife’s pregnancy.

      “Why do you think I came out here? I’m escaping.” She tilted her head. “Just like you.”

      “Uh-uh. I might like to escape, but I’m stuck here until I hear from our mutual friend. Not that there’s anything wrong with your hospitality,” he added. Alicia and East ran Condor Mountain Resort and Spa for fun, profit, and the benefit of the occasional SPEAR agent in need of rest and rehab. Like Alex.

      Though SPEAR had been founded by Abraham Lincoln, its existence had always been shrouded in such secrecy that few people knew it existed, even at the upper levels of government. Technically, SPEAR stood for Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue. In a deeper sense, the organization stood for much more. Honor, above all. Sacrifice. Service. Values that a confused, cynical world didn’t always recognize, but which the men and women of SPEAR understood and were willing to live for.

      Or to die for.

      Alicia had a skeptical look on her face. “So all that running you do is purely for the sake of fitness? Not because you’re trying like crazy to get away from something?”

      Alex fought off a frown. Behind that youthful face of Alicia’s was an irritatingly observant woman. He took another drink of water. “Running is a great way to get back in shape. I’ve been using the gym, too.”

      “Yes, but you’ve been running in the afternoons. In temperatures of ninety degrees or better. That seems like an odd thing for a man who nearly died in the desert to do.”

      But it wasn’t heat he feared. It was darkness. Death was dark. That thick and sticky darkness clung to him still, clogging his dreams…sending him running through the sun-soaked hills. He saluted her with his glass. “Hey, I can take the heat. After all, I grew up in a part of the world that makes southern California seem air-conditioned.”

      “You nearly died there, too.”

      She was definitely beginning to get on his nerves. “It was a knife that nearly did me in, not the desert. Have you heard from Jeff lately?”

      For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to accept the change of subject, but after favoring him with another thoughtful look, she spoke of the young man who was East’s adopted son. Jeff was Alicia’s age, a decade younger than East or Alex, and he’d recently been through an ordeal much worse than what Alex had endured. Not that Alex knew the details—SPEAR agents might discuss an operation among themselves in a general way, but specifics were shared only on a need-to-know basis. Apparently Jeff had come out of it okay.

      The resilience of youth. Alex wanted to think that was why Jeff had rebounded from his experience so quickly. But maybe Jeff was just the better man. Stronger. Not given to waking up in the middle of the night with the icy sweat of terror drying on his skin.

      Alex drank his water as he listened to Alicia talk about her new stepson. Jeff was in Los Angeles after spending some R & R time at another SPEAR operation in Arizona. His experience had propelled him to enlist in SPEAR, which was now covering the last of his med school. He’d just started his residency in the ER of a busy Los Angeles hospital.

      “I don’t expect we’ll hear much from him for a while,” Alicia said. “He plans on specializing in trauma medicine with an emphasis on on-site treatment.” She smiled. “When he isn’t working, he’ll be sleeping.”

      “You’re probably right.” Alex heard the door to the resort open and glanced that way.

      A tall man with shaggy brown hair stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised. “Trying to make time with my wife again, Alex?”

      “I do my best,” he said cheerfully. “Go away, East. I can’t get anywhere with you breathing down my neck.”

      “You go away.” East walked over and pulled out a chair. “I just talked to Jonah. You’re to call him.”

      At last. Alex was on his feet instantly. “I’ll let you take over with the flirting, then. Be sure to mention her gorgeous legs. I hadn’t gotten around to them yet.”

      “Fickle.” Alicia shook her head. “Sadly fickle.”

      “Come back down after you’ve talked with him,” East said. “I’m supposed to brief you on some background details.”

      “Will do.” Alex was already at the door.

      The shock of cold air from the air-conditioning hit him the moment he stepped inside the expensively rustic lobby. He passed the regular elevator, stopping at one that the other guests at the resort couldn’t use, and inserted the key required to operate it. His heart was pumping with excitement.

      A call from Jonah could mean only one thing—an assignment. He was ready for it physically, and if he still had a way to go emotionally…well, he’d shake down just fine once he got into action again.

      Contrary to what his parents believed, Alex had never had a death wish. Nor was he an excitement junky—not anymore, at least. He’d outgrown that years ago. He liked edges, though. A man never felt more alive than when he was challenging his limits. He’d teetered on the slipperiest edge of all more than once while on assignment, but until a month ago he’d never gone over. But when he’d been left for dead in the Negev desert, he’d skidded down that dark slope…until she found him. His lady of the lilacs.

      It had changed him. For the last month he had been trying to come to terms with that change while strength eased back into his body. He’d hiked or run through the dry mountains that cradled the resort so he could enjoy the slide and flex of thigh muscles, the bunch and release in his calves. Life was good.

      Alex’s suite was on the top floor. The view was breath-taking—rugged hills falling in sage and dust-colored humps into the vast blue of the ocean. The bed was king-size and comfortable, and the walls were reinforced with steel and an inner layer of sand. They would stand up to anything but a direct hit from a bomb. The steel had the additional property of making it difficult for anyone nearby to pick

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