Somehow, he managed to get the rest of the way up the wall and over the windowsill into Tansy’s bedroom without any memory of having moved. One second he was there, clinging to the stucco with his fingertips, and the next he was on his hands and knees on Tansy’s floor. Next to Tansy. Who was flat on her back telling him, “I’m OK. I’m OK,” over and over again.

He had no idea how many times she’d had to say it before he heard her. He also had a feeling he’d had his hands all over her body checking for damage, and it was a damn shame he couldn’t remember that.

She lifted a hand and brushed her fingers over his cheek. “You’re hurt, though.”

She held up her hand. Her fingertips were stained with blood.

“I can’t feel it,” JB said hoarsely. With the adrenaline pumping through his body, he wasn’t feeling much of anything. Apart from an almost overwhelming desire to take advantage of the fact that she was there, on the floor, and all he had to do was bend his head a little to kiss her.

Bad idea. Seriously bad idea. Especially after the way he’d been talking to her earlier. Because this really was just the situation, and had nothing to do with anything except the adrenaline and relief that he wasn’t dead. And that she wasn’t, either.

Tansy squirmed out from under him and sat up. “I should call for help.”

“They’re coming.”

He could hear the voices through the rushing of blood in his ears, and footsteps out in the hallway. Rapid footsteps coming this way.

He shook his head to try to clear it, and managed only to spray little droplets of blood in an arc across Tansy’s fuzzy rug.

Way to go.

She made a distressed sound. That same sound she’d made back on the yacht last year, when she’d walked into the salon and seen Kareem’s dead body.

Now it was probably distress over the death of her expensive rug.

Did blood come out of cashmere?

Someone grabbed the door handle and turned it. And pushed. The hinges protested, but held.

“JB!” Max’s voice called. “Ms. Leighton! Is everyone all right in there?”

JB looked at Tansy.

“I locked it,” she said. “You told me to lock it and not let anyone in until you came back.”

He’d done that. “I’m here now. You can open the door.”

It took her a second to get to her feet. And her steps were unsteady as she made her way across the miles of hardwoods and fluffy rug to the door. JB concentrated on moving from all fours to his ass.

When she turned the key in the lock, the door burst open, and Tansy had to step back to avoid being flattened. Max was the first one inside, and he took in the situation with a glance. While Rusty hurried over to check on JB, and Mick, followed by Walter Leighton, descended on Tansy, Max headed for the window.

“Careful,” JB told him.

Max spared him a glance on his way past. “You all right?”

“Just a scratch.”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tansy rolling her eyes. “Where have I heard that before?”

Some sort of silly romance novel, probably. Or one of those old movies with pretty people she seemed to like. “This really is just a scratch.”

She glanced at Rusty for corroboration. The team corpsman nodded. “A couple of butterfly Band Aids, and he’ll be fine. He won’t even need stitches.”

He dug in his bag for the Band Aids, while Tansy turned back to her father and Mick.

Max came back from the window to crouch next to JB. “What happened?”

He waited for Rusty to apply the last butterfly. There went any shot he’d ever had of being handsome this week. “I was on my way up the wall. Had about five feet to go when we heard the shot. The bullet smacked into the stucco between my head and Tansy. She was standing in the open window.”

“So whoever was shooting missed both of you.”

JB nodded. “This—” he touched his cheek, where he was starting to feel a little pain now that the adrenaline high was fading, “must have been a ricochet. A piece of stucco or something. I know I wasn’t shot. The bullet went over my head.”

“We’ll have to dig it out,” Max said. “At least this time we have a chance of figuring out where the bastard was standing.”

“Better get going before we lose the little daylight that’s left.” JB tried to push to his feet, and was pushed back down, gently, by Rusty.

“Not you, John-Boy. You stay here with the girl and take it easy.”

“The bastard shot at me.” Or at Tansy. “I want a piece of taking him down.”

“He won’t be there no more,” Max said. “You won’t be missing out on anything.”

Probably not. But it still grated to let the rest of his team go after the guy while he stayed here and did nothing.

“Do your job,” Max said, with a hand on his shoulder. “Take care of the girl. We’ll get the bastard for you.” After a second he added, “But it probably won’t be tonight.”

It probably wouldn’t. Because Max was right: the shooter wouldn’t be there anymore when the SEALs reached the place where he had been. The best they could hope for, was some clue to his identity.

“I’m gonna send a couple guys out with pictures of Cooper and el Saud,” Max added. “Have them flash them around the gas stations and convenience stores in the area. See if anyone has seen either of them. If we know who we’re dealing with, it’ll be a little easier to take precautions.”

JB nodded. Cooper’s approach to killing Tansy was likely to be very different from el Saud’s approach, and if they knew what to plan for, they were more likely to succeed.

So Max took off, along with Mick, to dispatch teams of security personnel and SEALs to comb the estate for intruders and clues, and Rusty gathered up his medical supplies and followed. “I’m gonna join the search,” he told JB. “Can you stay with both of them until I get back?”

JB nodded. Walter Leighton wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to move from Tansy’s side anytime soon, so it shouldn’t be a problem for him to keep an eye on both of them for the time it took to search the estate. And it would free up Rusty to take part in the search.

So Rusty headed out with the others, and JB made his way over to Walter and Tansy and explained the situation. “We’ll have to lock all the doors and sit tight until they come back. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about—the guy’s long gone by now—but since we’re leaving the perimeter unguarded for a while, we’ll have to take some extra precautions in here.”

Walter Leighton nodded. “Are you all right, son?”

“I’m fine,” JB said, a little taken aback by the genuine concern in the older man’s eyes. His own father had beaten him bloody at times, with no thought for the pain or damage he inflicted. And here was Walter Leighton, who hadn’t known him this morning, worried about his wellbeing.

“I’m hungry,” Tansy announced. “Is there anything to eat?”

Her father nodded. “Cook has made roast beef and green peas.”

They had a cook. Of course.

“And there are trays of sandwiches in the kitchen that your team can go and get throughout the night,” Walter Leighton added, with a nod at JB, “if they get hungry.”

Between Walter, Max, and Mick, they’d probably got all that figured out already. “That’s very kind of you, sir.”

Walter patted his shoulder. “We can’t have you boys starving, son. Not when there’s plenty of food to be had.”

“Let’s go,” Tansy said, moving from foot to foot. “I’m hungry.”

She hooked her hand through her father’s arm and pulled him toward the door. “Come on, John.”

JB arched his brows, but followed father and daughter out the door and down the hallway to the stairs. He did wonder what he was expected to do, though. Hold the dining room chair for her before taking himself off to the kitchen for a sandwich?

---

Like everything else in the Leighton mansion, the dining room was beautiful, and antique. Not antique as in the lopsided 1930s table that had graced JB’s kitchen when he was growing up, but antique as in Art Deco and gleaming with polish. It seemed almost a sacrilege to risk dripping sauce on the table top, not to mention the faded but beautiful, no doubt very valuable, rug.

Walter Leighton pulled out his daughter’s chair before JB had a chance to. “There you go, pumpkin.”

He reached for the chair beside it, but didn’t sit. Instead he waved JB over. “Have a seat, Petty Officer Walton.”

JB opened his mouth to argue—he was a SEAL; wasn’t he supposed to get sandwiches in the kitchen?—but after looking at Walter, he closed it again. “Thank you, sir.”

Walter patted him on the shoulder. “It seems the least we can do, son.”

He walked away, toward an interior door JB surmised lead to the kitchen. Probably notifying the serving staff that they were ready to eat.

JB surveyed the plate setting. Napkin, a couple of different forks, knife...

“Salad,” Tansy said, putting her finger on the small fork. “Entree. Coffee.” That was the spoon, lying horizontally at the top of the plate.

JB gave her a look. “I know what utensils are, Ms. Leighton.”

Tansy flushed. “Sorry. You said you grew up modestly, so I thought maybe I’d give you a quick rundown. In case you didn’t know what to do.”

JB wanted to snort, but held it back. Snorting at the table was gauche, even in poor homes. But lord, ‘modestly’... If she’d ever visited the Appalachian Mountains, she’d know his upbringing hadn’t been modest. “I grew up dirt poor. On a good day, dinner was turnip stew. If we managed to wing a squirrel with a slingshot, we got meat.”

Tansy stared at him, her lips parted.

“But I’m not a complete savage. I do know about forks and spoons. I’m a fucking Navy SEAL. We have five course dinners with admirals. I even ate with the president once.”

She didn’t say anything, just kept looking at him, and he felt compelled to add, “It was a big room and he was on the other side of it. I didn’t make conversation with him or anything. But I can get through a fancy dinner without disgracing myself. Or the Navy.”

There was silence. It stretched. JB was just starting to think about apologizing for laying into her when she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you’re a savage.”

Her voice was small.

JB sighed. Looked like he’d hurt her feelings, too. Great. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. You were just trying to help. And you’re right. This...”

He looked around, at the fine china, the opulent dining room, and the whole damn estate, not to mention Tansy herself, “is all pretty intimidating to a poor boy from a mining town in West Virginia.”

She nodded, and actually looked sympathetic.

“I’ve visited fancy places before. You should see some of the hotels in Dubai.”

“I already have,” Tansy said.

Of course she had. “You get used to seeing how the other half lives. Or the tiny percentage that lives like this.”

She nodded.

“But you don’t ever feel like you belong. You can go through the motions, but the fit isn’t quite right. I’d be more comfortable having a sandwich in the kitchen with the other guys, if you want the truth.”

“It’s all right,” Tansy said. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. If you want to leave, you can. You don’t have to eat with us.”

“Your father would probably be upset if I didn’t,” JB told her, “and after he’s been so gracious to me—to all of us—I don’t want to be rude. It’s all right. I’ll eat your roast beef. With the proper fork.”

Tansy nodded. “Thank you. And you’re quite right. It would upset Daddy if you didn’t accept his hospitality. You’re here trying to protect me, and he wants to make you feel at home. He didn’t realize that this would make you uncomfortable.”

Not much he could say to that, so JB didn’t try. Instead he sat there, feeling like a heel. They were treating him like a welcome guest. Walter Leighton even called him son, and JB—because of his own prejudices, nothing they were doing—was making everything worse.

She lifted a hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry about this.”

“It was my own fault.” JB made a face. “If I hadn’t tried to impress you, I wouldn’t have been out there, hanging from the wall by my fingertips.” And she wouldn’t have been standing in the window like a silhouette in a shooting gallery.

“You told the others what you were doing,” Tansy reminded him. “Were you worried one of them would think you were an intruder, and shoot you?”

“The thought crossed my mind.” Not that any of the SEALs would have made a mistake like that. He was less sure about Mick’s guys, although he wasn’t about to tell Tansy that. “Lucky break for the guy, that I decided to play Spiderman and made you stand in the window.”

Tansy nodded. “I think he came closer to shooting you than me. Either his aim is really bad, or it was another warning shot.”

“It came close enough to qualify as a real threat.” Although she had a point. Anyone trained by SSG—like Mohammed el Saud—would be able to hit what they were aiming at. He would have thought a hunter, like James Cooper Senior was supposed to be, would have had better aim, too.

So maybe Tansy was right and the shot had been intended to miss.

The swinging butler door on the other end of the room opened, and Walter Leighton came in, back first. When he turned around, JB saw that he was carrying a big tray with a steaming roast, surrounded by potatoes and small, green peas.

No serving staff, it seemed.

He made to get up, but Walter shook his head. “I’ve got it. Stay where you are.”

He dropped the platter in the middle of the table, and pulled out the chair opposite from them. “Tansy? Would you do the honors?”

He seated himself, while Tansy reached for JB’s plate. “Roast beef, Petty Officer Walton?”

“Please,” JB said politely and settled in to pretend to be civilized for the remainder of the meal.