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CHAPTER FIVE
HE HADN’T BEEN to San Francisco in six years, and he loved the chaos as much as ever. A bike messenger was blasting rap music. Two truckers argued over one parking space. A woman with purple hair blew him a kiss.
Trace had forgotten how the colors mixed, how the noise roared and ebbed. Standing on Kearny Street, he caught the drifting scent of Middle Eastern spices mixed with Chinese sesame cakes and fried ginger. His stomach growled. Too bad he didn’t have time to stop at the little Hunan restaurant with the blister-your-tongue chile.
But Trace was due to press the flesh at the senator’s affair in less than twenty-four minutes, and he still had six blocks to walk. His CO had stayed behind in the hotel to make a last-minute phone call to the Foxfire facility.
His uniform drew a few curious stares, but Trace ignored them, walking briskly. He enjoyed the sea-tinged air, the fog and the pleasant twinge in his legs from climbing steep streets.
At the busy corner of Sutter Street, he swung his shoulder carefully, testing for range of motion, pain and strength. The rehab process was a success. He wasn’t quite back to one hundred percent strength, but he was damned close. After ten days on the cruise ship, with as many gym sessions as he could schedule, Trace expected to be at full operational ability.
Behind him a taxi horn screeched.
A bus lumbered past, belching exhaust fumes. Trace sprinted across the street during a lull in traffic and re-checked the address Ryker had given him.
Three more blocks.
With a little luck he’d be there ahead of schedule.
Something shimmered at the edge of his vision. Through the noise, the bus fumes and the cooking smells he caught the bright tang of lavender, the third time that day.
He scowled at a passing Porsche.
The Phenomenon again. That was his word for the random sensations.
As he walked, the lavender scent thickened.
Trace ignored it.
No doubt it was connected to his chips being disabled. He’d write a complete report for Ryker once he was able to detect a pattern, but not a second sooner. He didn’t want to be ordered to visit Foxfire’s resident shrink, forced to dredge up his past for possible signs of emotional vulnerability.
He knew he was fit for action. His memories of Afghanistan were fading along with his scars, and no shrink would dredge up anything important. The lavender smell had to be a sensory reflex.
His heart pounded. He had a sudden urge to cross the street, coupled with a sense that something important was about to happen.
Neither made any sense. Pedestrians rushed past all around him, but they were all strangers.
There was no reason for him to cut back across Kearny.
He muttered in irritation, staring at a bakery truck double-parked near a fire hydrant. Probably he was dehydrated. Maybe it was the time change and the late-night flight from New Mexico. But he wasn’t a man who was unsettled often, so he watched the street, watched the passing cars, watched the way clouds brushed Nob Hill beyond the tall buildings.
And then Trace saw her—tall and slim, wreathed in a bar of sunlight. Light played through her short, spiky hair, cut in layers that framed huge eyes.
A stranger.
No need to stare. No need to feel as if someone had jerked the cement out from under him and kicked him in the stomach.
Something seemed to wrap around his chest, driving the air from his lungs. It made no sense. She was just another woman racing through the afternoon sunlight. Probably going to meet a husband—or a lover, judging by the eagerness in her expression. She wasn’t even beautiful, he thought wryly. Most people wouldn’t have called her remarkable in any way, yet her long, quick stride and the swing of her hair were doing strange things to his pulse.
Somewhere a clock chimed, but he couldn’t move.
He had less than twenty minutes to reach the penthouse somewhere above him. He would have preferred to spend the time pressed against that long, slim body, memorizing the secrets of her warm skin.
Crazy.
Through long months of training Ryker’s first rule had been burned into the minds of every man on the Foxfire team. No personal life or distractions were permitted. Even sexual contacts were arranged by Ryker’s staff, and the contact was carefully controlled. There was no gentle laughter and slow kisses on a moonlit night. It was physical release and nothing more.
Trace tried to remember the last time he’d laughed with a woman or simply held her hand. Nothing came to mind. The thought left him empty.
Suck it up, sailor. You knew what you were signing on for when you accepted your transfer to Foxfire. You knew all you were giving up.
And you couldn’t wait to be part of the team.
As Wolfe Houston always said, there were only three things you could trust in life—yourself, your team and the probability of getting fungus where you least wanted it.
Then Wolfe had defied the rules by falling in love and asking approval to marry Trace’s sister.
Despite that, all of them were Foxfire property, pure and simple. They were the job, 24/7. Trace had liked that just fine.
Until he’d stood in the afternoon sunlight watching keen eyes and vibrant cinnamon hair.
Around him the noise of the city faded. Even the sunlight seemed strange, wrapping itself around the woman across the street, playing in her hair and brushing the clean lines of her face.
No, she wasn’t a beauty, Trace thought. So why was it impossible for him to look away as she cut through the crowd?
A fire truck screamed past. Shouts mingled with car horns and motorcycles. Then in one of the weather changes San Francisco was famous for, a bank of marine clouds poured in over the hills. In seconds the street blurred beneath a shifting veil of fog.
Traffic snarled. Horns screamed. Up the street Trace saw a construction truck back up, its ladder poised above the rear bed.
The woman had stopped. She bent low as she took something from a young man climbing out of a taxi. Both of them cradled big, white boxes, laughing.
Her laugh made the hairs rise along Trace’s neck. The sound was full and rich and subtly sensual.
She was a stranger, but he knew just how her voice would sound up close, warm and husky.
A wave of sexual attraction hit him, as thick and sudden as the fog.
Hell. Maybe Ryker was right. Maybe this was about stress, not sex, and he hadn’t put Afghanistan behind him.
As the woman headed down the street, she didn’t look in his direction once. Trace took a deep breath. It was time to go. He glanced toward his destination, checking the address through pale, trailing fingers of fog.
Down the street he saw the truck turn, ladder creaking. One of the metal restraints twisted and broke free, the metal frame shuddering violently.
The woman and her friend hadn’t noticed.
He moved by pure instinct, his heart pounding as he sprinted through a gap in traffic. Neither the woman nor her companion heard his shout as they turned toward the nearby hotel, their boxes held tightly at their chests.
Trace jumped the curb, shoved the woman sideways against a wall, and pushed her companion after her just before the ladder swung horizontal across the sidewalk. Its broken edge was a death blade cutting directly over the place the two had stood laughing a second before.
“Hey, watch it.” The woman slammed him hard with her shoulder, muttering angrily. Then she slipped, hit her companion and both of them lost their balance.
Trace saw the two white boxes fly into the air. He stepped back, twisted neatly and caught one in each hand.
A bicycle messenger shot past, making a string of obscene gestures, and the woman with the cinnamon hair shoved at his chest.
“Drop those and you’re dead. Big, clumsy ox.” She tried to grab one of the boxes. “Give me that now or I’m calling the cops.”
Trace frowned at her. Why didn’t people say thanks when you’d just saved them from death by sudden impalement?
He turned, pushing her back against the building and out of the way of the still-swaying ladder, while the truck bounced back down the curb. A man in a gray uniform jumped out and tugged at the broken hinges, trying to pull the metal sections back into place.
The woman turned, looking over Trace’s shoulder. Her face paled, her body going still. “Shit.” She swayed a little, not struggling against him now.
Her eyes locked on the truck bed. “Holy, holy hell,” she whispered. “The ladder would have hit us. I didn’t see.” She took a deep breath, one hand shaking against the wall. She brushed a layer of cinnamon hair from her face while her hands shook harder than ever. “You aren’t crazy.” Her voice hitched. “You saved our lives.”
“Are you okay?” He balanced the boxes, feeling her thighs press against him. The subtle friction made his mouth go dry.
“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I was rude. I didn’t realize what was happening.” She studied his face. “We see a lot of Navy guys in San Francisco. I thought you were just being a jerk.”
Her voice was breathy, smokey like a good chipotle sauce.
Trace felt her hand on his sleeve. He didn’t know her, would never know her, but the husky catch in her voice was as tempting as the slim, strong legs he felt brushing his.
Strangers or not, he wanted her bad.
Angry, he bit back a curse and moved away, banking the heat. Trying to bank the heat.
She looked at her friend. “Andreas, why don’t you go check out the room? No surprises, please.”
“Sure thing, boss. I’ll take this with me.” The man deftly removed one of the packages from Trace’s hands and left.
“I’ll take the other box now.”
Trace looked down, feeling stupid as he gripped the white cardboard. “Must be something pretty important in here.”
Her smile felt like pure, distilled summer pouring over his skin. The force of it made him forget the cars racing past and the appointment creeping closer.
“You bet it is. You’re holding a little piece of my heart in that box.”
“Maybe I should keep it then.” His voice was gravelly. Hell, what had made him say something lame like that?
“News flash—men want sex, not women’s hearts.” She straightened her big, colorful sweater and shoved more cinnamon hair out of her eyes, then stared across the street. “Oops. My defensive, bitchy side is showing.”
Trace heard old wounds and bad memories rather than bitchiness. “What’s so important in here?” He raised the box, rattled it slightly.
She lunged, panic sweeping her face. “No. If you drop that, I’m dead.”
Trace simply smiled. He handled high explosives and deadly biotoxins regularly with complete confidence. Steady hands and split-second reaction times were part of his skill set. “Relax, your box isn’t going anywhere. You still haven’t told me why it’s so important.”
“I need to go. I can’t be late.”
Before she could answer, his cell phone vibrated against his belt with unavoidable force, yanking Trace back to earth. He muffled a curse as he realized the pocket was out of reach.
He started to hand over the box, but she leaned down and slid a hand into his pocket. His gaze never left her face as she pulled out the phone.
“Least I can do,” she murmured, opening the phone. Frowning, she stared at the complex screen of Trace’s new government prototype. “How do you—”
“Top left. I’ll take it.”
Instead of giving him the phone, she pressed the button he’d indicated and held the phone up to this ear.
Trace had seen the caller’s number. Wolfe was probably upstairs waiting for him. Still, he didn’t like anyone listening in to the call. “Look, I need to—”
“Take the call. I can see that your shoulder hurts, so as soon as you’re done, I’ll get going.”
Shoulder?
How the hell had she known that?
Another twinge of suspicion made him study her warily.
But the phone was already at his ear, and he heard Wolfe’s voice.
“O’Halloran, are you at the hotel?”
“Right outside, sir.”
“I got held up on a conference call. I’m at least ten minutes away. Go in and press some flesh until I get there.”
“Will do.”
The line went dead and she closed the phone, returning it to his pocket.
Their skin brushed. He smelled her perfume, a faint mix of oranges and lilac. As gentle as a memory, it slid over his senses, leaving him restless for things he didn’t have a name for.
She turned and lifted the white box. “It’s a cake, by the way. I’m giving a class upstairs in thirty minutes.”
“A cake?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I worked five hours on that thing.”
“On a cake?” Trace repeated.
“It’s special. Ganache icing, spun-sugar flowers.” She glanced at his dress uniform and the row of medals. “Impressive jewelry you’ve got there.”
Trace was still trying to get his mind around the idea of a cake that took five hours to finish. In his world you ate whatever appeared on your plate, as long as it didn’t move, and even that rule got broken sometimes.
He shrugged off her compliment. “No big deal. Just doing the job.”
“That kind of hardware doesn’t come easy. Something tells me there’s a story behind each one.” She tensed and nearly dropped her box as another skateboarder shot past close enough to bump her leg. “Damn.”
Trace caught her with one arm and steadied the cake with his other hand. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
A delicate wash of color filled her face. She didn’t pull away, only tilted her head, looking up at him over the box. “You’re fast with your hands.”
“Fast enough. What did you mean about my shoulder?” He kept the question casual, watching her face for any sign of calculation.
She shrugged. “You favor your right side. When our boxes went flying, you caught them on the left. So what happened? Gunshot wound? Training accident?”
The explanation was plausible. “Nothing very interesting.” He’d died, that’s all. He sure as hell wasn’t going to discuss that with her.
He crossed his arms. “Are you doing anything later?” At least they could have a drink before he left. Trace didn’t have to be at the cruise dock until the following morning.
She cradled her cake, and then her fingers tightened. “No.” There was an edge in her voice that hadn’t been there before. “I’m sorry, but there’s really no point.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Believe me.”
Trace watched her shift her box, then move off into the flow of messengers, workers and tourists.
Great legs. Strange encounter. She’d probably forgotten him already.
He shrugged off a sense of regret. He had a cocktail party to attend and lobbyists to charm.
DAMN.
Abso-freaking—damn.
Was she crazy?
Gina Ryan gripped her cake, scowling at her own stupidity. She’d been breathless, panting over a complete stranger, a man with trouble stamped all over him. It just wasn’t her style.
Oh, she’d been tempted to say yes to that drink. It was the hard set to his jaw, coupled with the hint of danger in his eyes.
Yeah, she was a sucker for a man who knew his own mind.
Trouble, she thought grimly. And she hadn’t been lying when she told him not to waste his time on her.
Meanwhile, she had two kinds of crème brûlée and a white chocolate wedding cake to worry about, not the hot challenge in a stranger’s eyes.
She waved as Andreas trotted back, carrying a big set of keys. “Room’s all set, Gina. You’ve got a big crowd upstairs.” He waved the keys. “These are for the kitchen next to your lecture area. Your big Hobart industrial mixer wasn’t set up, so I sent someone to track it down.”
Gina resisted an urge to pull out her hair. Without her mixer for the demonstration, this master pastry class was going nowhere fast. “Did they have a record of our request?”
Andreas followed her up a sidewalk bordered by forgotten newspapers and scattered leaves. “They knew about it. They just haven’t found the mixer yet.”
“I may have to kill someone,” Gina muttered. “Maybe myself.”
“It won’t be so bad. They’ll find you something close. You’re always quick on your feet at demonstrations.” Andreas glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes to go. Good thing that guy in the uniform caught our stuff.” Gina’s sous chef stared back down the street. “The man was smoking. Those were a lot of medals, too.”
“Really?” Gina cleared her throat. “I didn’t notice.”
“Like hell you didn’t. You two vanished into some kind of alternate reality. Hell, the guy had his arms around you right in the middle of the sidewalk.”
“Because he knocked me over and I almost fell,” Gina muttered. “Plus, I was trying to hold my cake steady.” She nudged the big, white box. “The last thing I need is for this thing to get crushed.”
Andreas glanced back, grinning smugly. “Don’t look now, but he’s following us. Probably wants to ask you out.”
“He already did.”
“And you said no? Come on, Gina, I felt the tension snap between you two. You haven’t looked twice at a man in months.”
“And I’m not looking twice at a man now.” But she had to fight an urge to look back. She wondered if she’d have the willpower to turn down that drink if he asked her again.
“Too bad. He went in a different door.”
Gina tried not to care. “Forget about the hunk, will you? We’ve got to find a mixer and test the sound system. Was the chocolate there?” She took a deep breath. “If anything happened to my tempered chocolate…”
Pain stabbed at her forehead.
“You okay, Chief?”
No, not even close to it.
“I’m fine.” Ignoring the little blur in her vision, she walked past the uniformed doorman, away from the lobby filled with fresh roses and real Chinese antiques.
“Let’s move.” She checked her watch uneasily. As she strode past the gleaming marble lobby, Gina was proud of herself for not glancing back in search of a white uniform.
It took all of her willpower.
CHAPTER SIX
THE LOCATION COULD HAVE been worse.
At least there was running water, a decent gas oven and space to lay out her cakes as part of her master class on pastry. But the clock was ticking, and there was icing to finish. When transporting off-site, you never added final embellishment until you were almost ready to serve. Gina had learned that the hard way. Now she had two cakes that needed icing for final display.
Outside the participants were arriving. Stress beat a path down her forehead. “Reggie, where are the edible flowers?”
“Right here, Chief. Your buttercream is on the other side of the table. All three colors, present and accounted for.”
“Yet again you save my butt.” Without a pause, Gina opened the frosting made in the ship’s kitchen that morning and assembled her tools. “Andreas, are you okay with the crème brûlée?”
“Good to go here. The demerara sugar’s in place. They’ll be ready to torch for your first presentation.”
Gina knew that all of her staff were well trained. But the cruise management had insisted that she do the honors. Something about her recognition factor, Gina thought sourly. In an age of media-hungry celebrity chefs, finding time for actual cooking had become harder and harder.
“Andreas, where’s my Hobart mixer?” Gina squeezed icing through a small bag and produced the first of two dozen rose petals to cover a white chocolate fondant–covered display cake.
“Supposed to be in the elevator any second. I called the hotel beverage services ten minutes ago and they said it was down at the loading dock.”
“Call them again.” Gina straightened, frowning. “No. I’m almost done here so I’ll go. I need that mixer for the whole second segment.”
“You sure?”
As she went back to work, icing swirled beneath her skilled fingers and crimson petals bloomed over a white ground. Carefully she dusted edible flowers over the sides of the cake and the iced cake board.
“Whoa, great roses.” Andreas glanced over her shoulder.
Gina didn’t look up, securing a ribbon of lifelike petals across the top of the cake. When you dealt with buttercream, there were always worries, always mistakes. The trick was being fast enough and experienced enough to know how to cover them up. “Almost done here. Have Reggie bring the cake stands.”
She eased the second display cake from its box. The rich lemon batter had been enhanced by a liberal amount of rum, and the cake happened to be the captain’s favorite. Using her turntable, she whisked swirls of white all around the base and then anchored pink hearts cut from marzipan, each one dotted with an edible silver bead.
The result was pretty damned good. She stood back, warmed by a zing of pride.
No matter how many pastries she made, she always felt a glow of pleasure at creating a thing of beauty. She’d never planned to cook for a living. Growing up in a quiet suburb of Sacramento, she’d wavered between being the world surfing champion or a neurosurgeon. Her policeman father had encouraged her in both—right up until the day he’d taken a bullet in the heart during an armored car robbery. After that, life had taken Gina down a very different route.
She centered the cakes on a rolling cart. Behind her she heard Andreas fire up his crème brûlée torch.
Now she had to find that damned mixer.
SHOWTIME, Trace thought.
Staring at the receiving line, he picked out a senator, two congressmen and a whole lot of major-league diamonds. San Francisco society was out in force, it seemed. Ryker’s connections appeared to be solid gold.
There was too much loud laughter and too much jockeying for position next to the most powerful people. Trace glanced longingly at the bar displaying cans of ice-cold beer.
Wolfe appeared beside him, carrying two glasses of cola. “Skoal.”
“Hell, sir, you expect me to drink that?”
But Trace only pretended to complain. He rarely drank to excess, and in a crowd like this it would be stupid to drink at all. You never knew who you were rubbing shoulders with. Any casual remark could find its way to the E-ring of the Pentagon within hours, killing a good career overnight.
He glanced at the door, wishing he had an excuse to leave. Any excuse.
Trace realized that Wolfe was talking to him. “Sorry, sir. What did you say?”
“The senator’s wife just told me that a case of vintage champagne is held up somewhere down in the hotel’s receiving department.” Wolfe motioned toward the door. “You are hereby ordered to go find it. It’s that or keep explaining to people why you look like you hate these events, so get moving. And I want you back before this thing is finished, clear?”
“Understood, sir. Thank you, sir.” Trace scratched his cheek. “But it might take me longer than I think to find that missing champagne. Probably a real mess down there.”
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” Wolfe muttered.
Trace grinned. With luck, he’d be back just in time to say his goodbyes.
THE HOTEL LOADING BAY was deserted, half in shadow.
The mixer was still in its box, wedged in a corner next to a row of folding chairs.
Gina tried to lift the box and staggered back, gasping. She’d forgotten how heavy a commercial mixer could be. And there was no one around to help her move the stupid thing.
On the other hand, there happened to be a forklift parked by the wall, and it was screaming her name.
Gina had spent two summers working in a warehouse, so she knew her way around forklift trucks. She hopped aboard, scanned the controls and gunned the motor. It took her less than a minute to maneuver across the small loading area and center the metal arms. She nudged the mixer into position, raised it four inches, locked the long arms in place and then swung wide.
“You mind watching where you aim that thing? I kind of like having my chest in one piece.”
And it was such a gorgeous chest, Gina thought, staring at her rescuer from earlier that afternoon.
The broad wall of muscle showed off his white uniform and rows of medals to perfection.
“Mind if I borrow your forklift for a few minutes?”
“Yes,” she snapped. What was he doing here? She didn’t have time to be distracted, not with two hundred people upstairs expecting a killer pastry presentation to begin any second. “Sorry, but I’m late. You’ll have to find your own ride. It’s every man for himself right now,” she said grimly.
Wheeling, she balanced the mixer and turned with small, precise movements.
“You’re pretty good at that.”
“Summer job,” she called over her shoulder.
Learning to drive a forklift had been easy. Getting along with the macho male warehouse staff had been the hard part. But she’d held her own and made good money those summers, enough for all her tuition and more. When summer ended, her male coworkers had been sorry to see her go.
She had almost finished her turn when a man’s voice echoed from someplace inside. Abruptly the heavy metal door of the loading bay started to slide shut.
“Hey, stop!” Gina shouted, trying to maneuver back out of reach.
But the door kept right on moving.
In her concentration, she barely saw the Navy officer jump up onto the area under the closing door. “Hold on,” he called over the din of creaking metal. “There has to be a manual override here somewhere.”
He wouldn’t find it in time, Gina thought desperately. She maneuvered sideways, her gaze locked on the moving door. Suddenly she felt a hand at her elbow. She was yanked off the truck and pulled against a rock-hard chest.
“No. My beautiful Hobart mixer—”
“Can be replaced. You can’t,” the man said roughly. “That door probably weighs eight hundred pounds. You’d be hamburger, trust me.”
“Do something,” Gina whispered. Her presentation was going up in smoke before her eyes.
Caught against his chest, she watched in horror as metal ground down against metal. The forklift shuddered, crumpling slowly, with her mixer caught firmly beneath.
The man blew out a breath. “Something tells me I’m going to regret this.” He set Gina back on her feet, scanned the out-of-season tools and supplies lining the walls and grabbed a thick rope.
He circled the mixer and pulled hard, bending to the task, his face taut and arms rigid. As the door came lower, the space was plunged into shadow.
Gina heard the scrape of metal as she searched vainly for any kind of wall control panel or power button, but finally she had to give up. “Forget it,” she called. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He didn’t seem to hear, so she gripped his shoulder and yelled over the growl and grind of metal. “Let it go. It’s not your problem.”
As her eyes grew accustomed to the shadowed light, she saw that he had worked the big steel mixer several inches closer, but it wasn’t far enough. She flinched as the crucial piece of equipment was mangled by the door.
Finally the metal stopped moving. She took a shaky breath and sank against the wall, frantically trying to plan around the loss of the mixer.
“Are you okay?” The man’s voice was cool, precise. He’d recovered incredibly fast, Gina noticed. He wasn’t even breathing hard now. She, on the other hand, was a total wreck.
“Okay as in not hurt or maimed? I think so. Okay as in anticipating a happy life and a prosperous future? Definitely not. I’ve got two hundred people upstairs waiting for me and that mixer, and I am so screwed.” She looked up, stabbing a hand through her hair. “Thanks for trying, Mr.—”
“Trace.”
“Gina,” she said without really thinking. She stuck out one hand and felt a tug at her sleeve. Furious, she tried again.
No luck.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t move, that’s what’s wrong.”
