was asking, of course, because he’d been the agent on the raid, the one who’d brought the weapons in. He had no idea how they’d gone missing, but he knew why. They had a mole and Hawk was getting too close.
“No. No news.”
“I see.” And with one last cool glance, she knocked on Tibbs’s door.
I see? What the hell did that mean? Before he could ask, Tibbs called out for them to enter.
Their supervisor stood behind his desk, which didn’t make that much of a difference since he was maybe five foot four and nearly as round as he was tall. The balding man shoved his glasses higher on his prominent nose. “We got a tip on the bombers,” he said in that Alabama drawl of his.
Hawk had been working on the Kiddie Bombers for the past two years. Some asshole, or group of assholes, was teaching teenagers how to put together bombs, then using the explosives to terrorize big corporations into paying millions of dollars. Twelve kids had died so far, eight of them under the age of eighteen, and the ATF wanted the bomb-makers and their knowledge off the streets.
Hawk wanted that, too, and also the man running the Kiddie Bombers. Eighteen months ago he’d nearly caught him in a raid on a downtown warehouse. In the pitch-black, on the hard concrete floor, they’d fought. Hawk had wrestled a gun from his hand, managing to shoot him before being tackled by another Kiddie Bomber.
Hawk had escaped with his life intact, thanks to his partner, Logan, and given that the gang had gone quiet after that night, it had been assumed that the Kiddie Bombers’ leader had died from his gunshot wound.
But a year ago, the Kiddie Bombers had popped back onto the radar, pulling off two huge jobs with weapons that had been previously confiscated by the ATF.
Hawk had his suspicions, mostly because there was only one person who could be linked to all the raids—Elliot Gaines. But that was so crazy wild, so out there, he’d kept it to himself, except for Logan. What he hadn’t kept to himself was his vow to get the Kiddie Bombers’ leader.
In the past month alone, Hawk and Logan had confiscated two huge warehouses full of ammo and other supplies. But not a single suspect. “Tip?” he asked Tibbs.
“Suspicious activity, rumored arsenal. Orders came down from Gaines on this.”
Elliot Gaines was the regional head. Or, as some put it, God. Word had spread that the Almighty was tired of the delays, tired of the false leads and really tired of the ATF looking like idiots.
“You’re both heading out.” Tibbs tossed a full file on his desk for them to read. “Bullet City.”
Northern Wyoming, approximately four-and-a-half hours from Nowhere, U.S.A. Yeah, made sense to Hawk. Isolated. Cold, which was good for the materials the bombers used. And, oh yeah, isolated. Great.
“Word is tonight’s the night they’re testing some new product,” Tibbs drawled. “We’ll need to catch them in the middle of their private fireworks show.”
That worked for Hawk. He picked up the file and flipped through it, reading about the barn that’d been found loaded to the gills with incriminating equipment, complete with an elusive owner they hadn’t been able to pin down.
Abby shifted closer to read over Hawk’s shoulder, making him extremely aware of her tension as it crackled through the air like static electricity.
“You’ve got two hours,” Tibbs told them. “You fly out together.”
“Together?” Abby repeated, her voice actually cracking.
Surprised at the unexpected chink in her armor, Hawk looked at her.
“You’ll run the show from the van, Abby,” Tibbs said. “And Hawk from the field. There’ll be a team in place.”
Abby blinked. “But…”
Both men eyed her as two high splotches of color marked her cheeks. Interesting, Hawk thought. She was usually cool as ice. So what had her riled up? Him? Because she sure as hell got to him. He couldn’t help it, beneath her veneer there was just something about her, something…special. Sure, he wanted to do wicked things to her body and vice versa, but that alone wouldn’t have kept him on edge around her for six months. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ve done this once or twice before.”
“Ha.” But her brow puckered, her kiss-me-mouth tightened.
Normally this would make him wonder how long he’d have to kiss her before she softened for him, but not now. “What is it? You don’t trust me out there?”
“Hawk,” Tibbs said quietly.
He heard the warning in his boss’s voice, but he didn’t care. “No, I think it’s time, past time, that we get this out in the open. I want to know, Abby. What exactly is your problem with me?”
“Nothing.” She hit him with those baby blues, which were suddenly void of any emotion whatsoever. “There’s no problem at all.”
Bullshit. But hell if he was going to keep bashing his head against a brick wall. “Okay, then. Fine.”
“Fine.” She gestured to the file in his hands as she gathered her control around her like a cloak. “Flight’s at two.” She said this evenly, back to being as cool as a cucumber. In a freezer. In Antarctica. “Be late and I leave without you.”
1
Later that night Twenty-five miles outside of Bullet City, Wyoming
ABBY ENTERED THE COMMUNICATIONS van, and the men stopped talking. Typical. Men complained that women were the difficult gender, but it seemed to her the penis-carrying half were far more thorny.
Not to mention downright problematic.
Not that she cared, because when it came to personal relationships, she’d given them up. A fact that made her life much simpler.
Sliding the door shut behind her, she shivered. Late fall in the high altitude Bighorn Mountains meant that razor-sharp air cut right through her, layers and all. As she rubbed her frozen hands together, her gaze inadvertently locked on Hawk, who had his long-sleeved black shirt open and the matching T-shirt beneath it shoved up so that he could get wired.
He stood there, six feet two inches of solid badass complete with a wicked, mischievous grin, topped with warm, chocolate eyes that could melt or freeze on a dime. From beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt peeked the very edge of the tattoo on his bicep, which she knew was a hawk.
The women in the office practically swooned at it, every time.
But not Abby. Nope, she was made of firmer stuff.
There was a four-inch scar, old and nearly faded, along his left side between two ribs, and another puckered scar above his left pec. The first was a knife wound, the second a bullet hole. She could also see his smooth, sleek flesh pressed taut to hard, rippled sinew. One long, lean muscle, not an ounce of extra on him.
Whew. Had she been cold only a moment before? Because suddenly, she was starting to sweat. She cursed her 20/20 vision.
Maybe
