the sexy prince brought nothing more than a pleasant buzz when Jacob—there he was again, darn him—had brought roaring heat that had charred her from the inside out and left her hollow and filled at the same time.
Irritated with her lack of focus, she followed Secretary Cooper into the chalet, scoped out the three-thousand-square-foot vacation palace and checked the perimeter motion detectors to make sure nothing had changed in the hour they’d been gone. As she did her job, she shoved the distractions to the back of her mind.
Nothing seemed out of place. When she returned to the stone-accented great room, King Aleksandr scowled out of the flat screen TV that dominated the opposite wall.
Secretary Cooper cranked up the volume.
“…a traitor to my blood and to my family,” the king shouted, red-faced. “The American people should be warned!”
A frisson worked its way through Isabella’s gut at the near-threat. The ornate stonework and tapestries visible in the background indicated that Aleksandr was still holed up in his palace in Lunkinburg, but too many incidents in recent years had shown that evil men could cause trouble from afar.
Aleksandr leaned close to the microphone, bringing his flinty gray eyes and heavily lined face into sharp focus. “If Louis Cooper brings war to my country, then his family and the American public will suffer the consequences.”
The shiver worked itself into full-blown battle readiness. Isabella locked eyes with Cooper, who warned, “That bastard better not touch Hope and the girls.”
“Agreed.” She reflexively checked the semiautomatic pistol she carried in a holster at the small of her back. “I’m going to call the Great Falls field office. To hell with them being short staffed, I need backup.” She frowned. “I think we should return to Washington. The Service can protect you and your family better there.”
God knows her hands were tied out here, with most of the active protection agents either overseeing the President’s fund-raising efforts or keeping tabs on the last of the UN diplomats as they left the country.
“Of course.” Cooper nodded shortly. “I hate to interrupt our vacation, but my family’s safety comes first.” He spun on his heel and left the room.
“Yeah,” Isabella said into the empty space. “I know.”
And she shouldn’t envy that. She had chosen her path, and though it might not have been the happily-ever-after she’d envisioned in college, the lifestyle fit her like a second skin now, one that she wasn’t sure she would want to peel off if offered the chance.
Frankly, she wasn’t sure she could.
Cooper returned moments later and gave her a sharp nod. “We’ll be ready to go in an hour. Hope is making the necessary arrangements.”
“Fine,” Isabella said, already forming a mental list of the calls she needed to make. “I’ll just—”
Boom! A catastrophic explosion ripped her words away and flung her across the room. She slammed into the wall and lost her breath, her senses. After a moment her vision came back, gray and fuzzy.
Louis Cooper lay flat on the floor, unmoving. Hope reeled from the bedroom, blond hair flying wildly, red-painted mouth open in an O of horror, hands outstretched toward her husband.
Percussion bomb, narrow focus, Isabella’s brain supplied, quickly naming the device. The ringing in her ears faded within moments and her arms and legs twitched with returning consciousness. Heart pounding, she dragged herself up and fumbled for the gun at the small of her back. She shouted, “Hope, get back! Get the girls!”
At least she thought she shouted the words. She couldn’t hear a thing over the buzzing and the rush of blood through her body.
Three men charged into the room, heavily armed and running low. Their faces were cloaked in rubber Halloween masks of former Presidents Johnson, Clinton and Nixon, which gave the scene a surreal feel.
Nixon and LBJ reached for Secretary Cooper.
“Get away from him!” Isabella yanked up her weapon and fired in one smooth move, but her target jerked aside at the last possible moment. The shot ricocheted off the fieldstone fireplace in the sunken living room and spent itself in a bullhide sofa.
She squeezed off a second round and hit Nixon in the leg. He cursed and went down as she struggled to her feet.
Clinton rushed at her. “Bitch!”
She spun in a dizzy circle and fumbled to bring her weapon up even as the knowledge beat in her veins— I’ve got to protect Cooper and his family.
Her third shot went wild. LBJ closed in from the other side, reversed his weapon and swung it at her head in a deadly arc. She aimed between his eyes and—
Blackness.
IN HIS SMALL OFFICE on the second floor of the Big Sky headquarters, Jacob scrubbed his hands through his short, spiky brown hair, hoping to take away his headache with the gesture. No dice, but maybe he deserved the pain. He’d pretty much pushed himself into the ground since that afternoon, first with a long, hard run through the woods, then with an impromptu sparring session in the gym that Cameron had finally halted due to one too many bloody noses.
Maybe it wasn’t pain he was feeling in his head, Jacob thought as he rolled the chair back to the computer and pulled up his e-mail messages, hoping for a lead. Maybe it was anger.
Over the past thirteen years he’d learned to keep his emotions in check, learned to—mostly—control his temper.
But one sight of Isabella and there it was, front and center in his soul.
Anger. Guilt. Regret. Relief.
He hadn’t seen her since the day after they had both graduated from Georgetown. The day he had ended a relationship that had been too intense, too overwhelming for him to stay in and not lose himself.
He cursed and pushed away from the computer and the pitiful amount of information he’d managed to amass in an evening of data mining and phone calls.
Why was he thinking of her at all? How could a single glimpse of her put him back in that roiling, all-consuming place where he barely knew his own name? A place he intended never to go again.
She was nearby. That was why he was thinking of her. It was bad enough he’d glimpsed her on TV and felt the lightning bolt hit his gut. It was worse to learn she’d accompanied the Secretary of Defense on his annual vacation, where Louis Cooper invariably rented the same chalet at the same expensive adult playground.
The Golf Resort. Half an hour away by Jeep, less by horse if he cut up and over the mine-riddled ridge.
Not that he would do any such thing. Why would he? They were nothing to each other now. Ancient history. A bad taste at the back of his mouth.
But damn, she’d looked good on that TV screen. Good enough that several hours, one run and three mock fights later, his body still revved on overdrive from the sight of her, from the memories he’d tried to forget over the years.
Memories of sexual delirium. Sensual oblivion.
The
