In the Line of Fire Read online

  “Uh huh? And what might that be?” Jett’s growl raised goose bumps on her skin.

  “I’m not sleeping with you in your ex-fiancée’s bed. Or apartment.” Sam felt Jett’s swift intake of breath, the sudden tensing of his muscles. “That would be too tacky for words.”

  “I’ll try and make another plan,” Jett promised, his voice sounding strangled.

  “Good,” Sam replied, resting her cheek against his chest, happy to just stand in the shelter of his arms.

  Chapter Seven

  It took Jett a lot longer than he anticipated to complete all he needed to do because finding a new, safe place for her wasn’t that easy. He had a couple of options but none he was completely happy with.

  His place was, obviously, out, as were the homes of his closest associates. They could hotel hop for a couple of days but, because Sam was so damn recognizable, that was also a risk. It was looking like they just might have to stay in Gemma’s apartment for a few more days, it was absolutely bloody perfect.

  Of course, his dick didn’t agree. It wanted some action and he wanted it as soon as possible. But that organ wouldn’t get any action if he was say, dead, so maybe it should shut the hell up and suck it up.

  Jett released a long breath and strode down the empty corridor to Gemma’s hallway, his mind racing at a mile a minute. He approached the door, checked the corridor again and transferred the bags he held to one hand so he could punch in the code. He opened the door and frowned at the silence he encountered.

  “Sam?”

  “In here,” Sam replied, her voice coming from the bedroom.

  She sounded taut and tense. Jett couldn’t blame her—he’d been gone three hours instead of one. He had some explaining to do.

  Jett dumped the groceries in the kitchen and, holding the bag of clothes he’d purchased—enough to last them both a few days—walked down the short hallway to the bedroom.

  “Hey, I couldn’t find another place to stay so you’re just going to have to get over the ick factor and sleep with me. You can keep your eyes closed to avoid the color poisoning.”

  Kicking the door open with his foot, he stepped into the room and suddenly braked.

  Oh, shit. Oh, fuck.

  Gemma, wearing a hell of a scowl, sat on the edge of the bed, and Sam sat in the chair opposite her, his backup piece—the one he’d handed to her just before he left and didn’t expect her to use—pointed at Gemma’s chest, her finger on the trigger.

  Again... oh, shit, oh fuck...

  Jett forced his panic down, his eyes flying over the gun. The safety was still on and neither woman noticed.

  Gemma’s eyes darted his way as he approached them. He took his gun out of Sam’s hand and tucked it into the waistband of the new pair of jeans he’d just purchased and changed into. As soon as his gun was out of sight, Gemma launched up from the bed and came out swinging. Her hand connected with Sam’s cheek before she hurled herself at him, screaming like a banshee. Jett grabbed her wrists, spun her around so her back was against his chest and twisted his leg around hers to contain her fury. He looked at Sam, who was holding her cheekbone, pain, shock and confusion in her eyes.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Sam nodded, looking miserable, as a handprint bloomed on her cheek. “I thought you said that she was in Spain.”

  “And that just goes to show that you can’t trust social media,” Jett replied and cursed when Gemma slammed her heel into his shin. “Gemma, stop! Dammit, cut it out!”

  “You bastard! You break into my house, your girlfriend holds a gun on me for more than an hour, and you walk into my bedroom, thinking you’re about to get lucky in my bed?” Gemma shrieked. “And you hate the color? You told me you loved my weird color combinations!”

  That was what she was most mad about? Hell, he’d been getting lucky every night with frequent blow jobs in between. He would’ve been happy doing it in a nail-lined coffin.

  “Calm down, Gem,” Jett said, pitching his voice low and hoped that it sounded soothing. “Let me explain.”

  “You’ll explain yourself into a bloody jail cell. You’d better kill me, Jett, because, by God, if you don’t I’m going to kill you!”

  “Nobody is getting killed today, Gem,” Jett said, holding her tighter as she tried, again, to struggle free. She was weakening but he didn’t doubt that if given the chance she’d nail him, or Sam, again. He’d forgotten Gemma had a hell of a temper.

  Not that he could blame her. They had broken into her apartment and Sam had held a gun on her. He wouldn’t be cheerful under the circumstances either.

  “She wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom and she took my phone!” Gemma screamed. “She put a gun to my head!”

  Sam lifted a shoulder. “I’m sorry but I didn’t know who she was. Well, I suspected but I didn’t want to take the chance.”

  “You did good,” Jett murmured, which led to another bout of struggles from Gemma and a blistering tirade of what she intended to do to him when he released her. God, what he wouldn’t do for a tranquiliser gun right now. He was, he didn’t mind admitting, feeling a little rattled.

  Jett tightened his grip on his squirming octopus ex and bent his head to talk in her ear. “I’m in trouble, Gem, so is Sam. I knew the code to the apartment, saw that you were out of town, and thought that it would be a safe place to hide out.”

  Gemma stopped struggling but Jett could feel the tension in her muscles and knew if he let her go she’d erupt again. He carried on speaking. “Sam didn’t know who you were. She thought that you could be working for someone who tried to kill us last night.”

  Gemma swore and Jett looked down to see her closing her eyes. Tension seeped from her muscles and he suspected her temper was receding.

  “Why the hell didn’t you call me and ask?” she whispered.

  “No time. And, in all honesty, I planned on being in and out without you ever knowing,” Jett replied. “Why are you back?”

  Gemma pushed his arm away and Jett released her, reluctantly, putting himself between her and Sam.

  Gemma pushed the heavy mass of hair off her face. “My dad had a stroke. I flew in from Barcelona this morning and am catching a mid-morning flight to San Diego.”

  “Will he be okay?” Jett asked, knowing how close she was to her parents.

  “Should be, they said it was mild but I need to make sure.” Gemma dropped her hands and looked at Sam, who was still holding her cheek. “Are you expecting me to apologize for slapping you?”

  Sam shook her head. “We broke into your apartment and I, without any explanation, held a gun on you. Hell, no, I don’t expect you to apologize.”

  Jett flicked a glance at Sam. “Would you mind giving us moment, Red?”

  Sam nodded, stood up, and sent Gemma another apologetic look before leaving the room.

  Jett rubbed the back of her neck, sat on the bed next to Gemma and looked at her, his voice steady. “I’d apologize, Gem, but I’m not that sorry. She’s in danger—”

  “And you’d do anything to keep her safe,” Gemma replied.

  She pulled her feet off the floor and sat Indian style and placed her elbows on her knees. She frowned but Jett saw a touch of warmth returning to her eyes. One of the things he liked best about Gemma was her even-keel nature. Gemma got pissed but her temper never lasted long.

  “Sam Stone, Jett? One of the city’s wealthiest heiresses?” Gemma asked, her tone snarky.

  Jett rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m just protecting her, Gem.”

  Gemma looked past him to the drapes fluttering in the breeze from her open window. “You never looked at me the way you look at her.”

  He shouldn’t ask, he shouldn’t ask... “How do I look at her?”

  “Like she’s the one.”

  Oh, God, he really wasn’t up for one of Gemma’s touchy feely talks. He needed to ask her, persuade her to allow them to use her apartment while she was away and, as he knew, discussions about love lives invariably
turned into arguments and a rehash of who did what, when. He didn’t have the time or the inclination.

  But mostly, he had no idea what was going on between him and Sam. Besides, it was between him and Sam.

  “Gavin looks at me like that,” Gemma mused.

  “Gavin?” Jett asked, because he was expected to. And because, yeah, she wasn’t talking about Sam. Or him. Or linking him and Sam in the same sentence.

  Gemma lifted her left hand and wiggled her fingers. He lifted his eyebrows at the massive rock on her ring finger.

  “You’re engaged? Congratulations.”

  Gemma pointed to a frame on the bedside table and, after kicking his ass at his shoddy observational skills, he squinted at the photograph of Gemma and the long-haired man. They were both laughing and looked so damn happy, Jett thought, irritated at the surge of jealously he felt. He wanted that. Oh, not Gemma but he wanted to feel that in tune with someone, that wrapped up in another person’s life, enveloped by their love.

  But to do that, to have the relationship he craved, he’d have to give up his job and he loved what he did. He couldn’t imagine a life spent behind a desk, shuffling paper. He needed action more than he needed love...

  Jett shrugged off his irritation. Life was a series of compromises and sacrifices and, for the time being, this was his compromise, his sacrifice.

  Love and a relationship—a chance with Sam—would have to wait until he was ready to give up field work.

  He was not ready to give up field work.

  Jett looked away from the photograph and pulled up a smile for Gemma. “I hope he makes you really happy, Gem. You deserve it.”

  Gemma nodded and looked down at the bright yellow comforter. “I did love you, Jett.”

  Jett nodded. “Maybe. But just not enough to let me do what I needed to do.”

  Gemma sent him a sad smile. “Yeah, just not enough.”

  “Fair enough,” Jett said as he stood up. He gestured to the room. “Can we stay here, for a few days? I’ll pay you.”

  Gemma scooted to the side of the bed and swung her legs over the side. She slowly nodded. “Yeah, okay and, no, you don’t need to pay me.” She wrinkled her nose. “Just don’t sleep with the redhead in my bed, that would be too squicky for words. Use the spare bedroom.” Gemma looked at her watch and jumped up. “I need to get moving if I’m going to make my flight.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with her, Gem.”

  Gemma patted his cheek. “Oh, honey, you’re going to do so much more to her than just sleep. Lucky girl.”

  “Dammit, Gem,” Jett muttered, wondering if her strident voice could be heard in the living room and kitchen or wherever Sam was.

  “Can I call you a taxi?” Jett asked, hoping to get her off the subject.

  “Yes, please,” Gemma said, heading toward her chest of drawers and yanking out a handful of lingerie. She tossed the garments onto the bed and panties and bras scatted across the mattress, adding more color to a room that didn’t need it.

  Lacy, sheer panties... half cup bras. Yeah, that was his cue to leave.

  Sam, from a stool at the kitchen counter, watched Jett drop a kiss on Gemma’s cheek and pull the woman against his chest. Jealously tightened her throat and squeezed her lungs. Unable to look, she stared out of the kitchen window to the next building, idly watching a young woman blow drying her hair. While she was grateful to Gemma—reluctantly grateful—for letting them stay in her apartment, she wanted to go back home, to her lovely house with its muted colors and light floors. She wanted to sit on her porch in her rocking chair and watch the shadows cross her minuscule patch of lawn. She didn’t want to be in the city, cooped up in Jett’s ex-fiancée’s apartment.

  Jett closed the door and Sam looked at him, her eyebrows raised. “All good?”

  “Yeah. She’ll be back by the end of the week so we have to be out of here by then,” Jett replied, flipping a phone over and over in his hands. It was cheap and small and nothing like the expensive phone he’d been using up until now.

  Jett saw her looking at the phone and tossed it on the coffee table. “It’s a burner. I picked it up earlier.” He moved to stand behind her, pulling the drapes aside to look down at the alley between them. “I bought five phones, so if one is compromised we have backups.”

  Sam glanced at her watch and winced. It was late morning and work didn’t stop for hit men and bodyguards. “I do need to make some calls and get online.”

  “Why?” Jett demanded.

  “I have to ask for deadlines to be extended, to reschedule some meetings.”

  “I’d prefer that you didn’t. Your email account could be hacked,” Jett said, his tone conversational.

  Sam frowned. “This is my career, Jett! I can’t just drop out of sight. If I don’t make those meetings or, at the very least, reschedule them, the word will get out that I am a flake, that I can’t live up to my commitments. That won’t be good for my business.”

  Jett twisted his lips. “Okay, I see you point. Who would you feel comfortable asking to do that for you? Apart from Stone and Seth?”

  “Fern... Mary.”

  “Remind me who they are?” Jett asked, lifting a black eyebrow.

  “Fern is my best friend, we’ve been friends since we were kids. Mary is Stone’s assistant, his right hand person and she was my father’s assistant before that. She’s someone else I’ve known all my life.”

  “And they are all people who The Recruiter would expect you to contact.”

  Sam bit the inside of her lip. “I could ask Ross to do it.” Actually, contacting Ross would be a very good idea, he knew most of the people she did and they were working on a couple of projects together.

  “Nerd boy?” Jett lifted his eyebrows.

  Sam glared at him. “Can I call him or not?”

  “You have a minute. That’s it,” Jett told her and Sam, thinking that he might change his mind, quickly dialed.

  Ross answered the unknown number with hesitancy and then started to lambast Sam for not getting in contact, for leaving him hanging.

  Sam cut him off. “Ross, I’m with Jett and I’ve landed in some trouble. I need your help, will you help me?”

  “Are you okay? Are you safe? Must I call the police?”

  Sam heard the panic in his voice and slapped down her surge of irritation. What did he have to be panicked about? He was quite safe, sitting in his highly decorated office. Sam ruthlessly cut him off, told him what she needed from him and hurtled through her request. She didn’t worry about Ross not getting the details, he had an eidetic memory and wouldn’t forget a thing.

  Sam’s eyes drifted over Jett’s muscled thighs and up and over his flat stomach, across his broad chest.

  “Yes, yes, fine, I’ll make the calls. But I need to know, where are you? Are you sure you are safe with that slab of testosterone?”

  Jett slashed his fingers across his throat and Sam knew that she had to wrap it up. She kept her eyes on Jett’s as she spoke. “I’ve got to go, Ross. I’ll check in later.”

  “When?”

  Sam lowered the phone, disconnecting the call and met Jett’s eyes, Ross instantly forgotten. The only person she needed, she needed to be with, was Jett. Now and later. And, probably, in a year, or ten. Maybe for the rest of her life.

  Ah, crap.

  Jett gestured for the phone and Sam handed it to him. He tapped in a number and Sam heard the familiar rumble of Kelby’s voice. Jett asked for a status update and listened through Kelby’s answer.

  After a quick goodbye, Jett started to dismantle the phone. He pulled the battery out and ground the sim card beneath the heel of his boot. Tossing the nonfunctional phone onto the coffee table, he put his hands on his hips and released a long, creative curse.

  Oh, what woe had befallen them now, Sam wondered, at her sarcastic, although silent, best.

  “I gather there’s a problem?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Jett replied. “Dinner, with old friends of your fa
thers, at Stone’s Lennox Hill house tonight?”

  Sam slapped her hand against her face. “The Bell-Jonsons. They aren’t only old friends of my father’s, they’re also my godparents. Growing up, I spent every summer with them in the Hamptons. They now live in England and this date was booked months ago.” Sam looked at Jett and lifted her hands. “I have to go, Jett.”

  “Stone seems to think so too.” Jett placed his hands on his thighs. “Dammit, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Can you skip it?”

  Sam shook her head, feeling the burn of emotion in her throat. “I can’t, Jett. Blake, my godfather, was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer and it’s untreatable. He’s decided to forego treatment, and is traveling instead, visiting all the people he loves before he dies. If I don’t see him tonight, I might never again.”

  Jett swore. He rested his forearms on his thighs and linked his hands, staring at the floor. “Okay, let me think this through.” After a minute, he looked up and nailed Sam with a hard look. “What time is this dinner?”

  “Drinks will be at seven-thirty, dinner at eight.”

  “Who else will be there?”

  Sam gave his question some thought. She remembered discussing this with Mary, ages ago. “Fern, because she spent many summers with me at the Hamptons. She considers Blake and Jennifer her second parents. Mary, because she’s been around for more than twenty years and they know her through my dad. Blake and Jennifer and their son, Travis, and his wife, Collette.”

  “That it?”

  Sam nodded. “Stone, me, you.”

  Jett picked his head up to look at her and electricity buzzed between them. “You want me to join you?”

  Sam licked her top lip and nodded. “I thought you said that you wouldn’t leave my side.”

  Jett tipped his head to the side. “I’m sure you’ll be safe in your brother’s dining room or lounge for a few hours. I’ll be close but you don’t need me hovering.”

  But she wanted him with her... And not because she was worried about her safety. For the first time in ages, she was with a man whom she was proud to introduce, whom she wanted to be seen with. Jett wasn’t only stunningly good-looking, he was also sharp and smart and Blake, who’d served in Vietnam, and who loved the armed forces passionately, would enjoy talking to Jett.