Holiday Heroes

Why did he keep thinking of his dead wife today? It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about her. But as the years went by, he found he could make it through days, then weeks without thinking of her. She would always be a part of his past and a part of him, but his life had gone on.



A week ago, he simply would have turned to Ginger and asked her something about Benjamin, worked the conversation around to how she dealt with it all. Ginger had always been someone he could talk to.



Just ask her, damn it.



Except suddenly the snow parted in a swirl and his chalet appeared, a holiday fresco painted on the outside. The gabled inn was small and snow-covered and welcome as hell.



Ginger shifted in the leather seat next to him, her exhale rattling along with the engine shutting off. “Not exactly how I planned to spend my Christmas week.”



He eyed the chalet where he would be sharing a room with his best friend, his hot best friend.



“Don’t give up on Christmas yet. With luck we’ll only have to hide for one night.”



This big fluffy robe sure didn’t hide as much as she’d like.



Ginger stood in the bathroom doorway, gripping the tie around her waist. It certainly was a long sprint from here to the sleigh bed where she could dive under the plump comforter to wait for her underwear to dry. Oh, but the bed looked inviting and warm where she could sleep with the sound of the fire snapping, the smell of the evergreen garland decorations reminding her of home as she drifted off…



Except Hank sat on the edge of the bed. All six foot three inches of him taking up most of the mattress, his BlackBerry held in his hands as he typed away, oblivious to her.



Wait.



His BlackBerry!



Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Good Lord, the man was never without the thing. She’d been so focused on the cell phone, she’d never considered what he could do with e-mail and the Internet, especially with his encryption card. She realized her BlackBerry had been lost in the scuffle, so she hadn’t thought about it again since they’d left the airport.



Rushing past the roaring fire in the stone hearth, she padded on bare feet over to Hank, stopping by his knees. “Do you have a signal? Are you calling someone to come get us?”



“The signal is flickering in and out. I’ve sent a message that we’re still safe. It may or may not have gone through. Beyond that, I’m not hearing anything back. But with things so unsure, I can’t risk broadcasting our location to whoever may be on the receiving end of the message.”



“We’re cut off.” Her knees went weak and she dropped to sit on the brocade wingback chair, holding the edges of the robe together while she stretched her legs to wiggle her toes close to the crackling flames. “We should make the most of this time and work on a list of who would want me dead.”



“And why.” His gaze skipped along her bare calves. “Reasons help.”



Sometimes her job really stunk. She tucked her legs underneath her. “You haven’t said ‘I told you so.’”



“About what?”



She toyed with the robe’s tie. “You wanted me to wear a bulletproof vest. If I had, you wouldn’t have had to worry about me so much when you were hauling me around that red carpet.”



Slowly he looked up from the BlackBerry, his deep dark eyes meeting and holding hers with a power that stilled her. “I would have worried about you anyway, Ginger.”



The wind howled. Sleet dinged the windows. And that undeniable attraction hummed along the thread tugging between them. She couldn’t ignore the muscular strength of him. The man undoubtedly still worked out. He had the kind of body a woman could curl up against. The sort she knew would keep her warm on cold nights, whether it be about sex or tucking her toes between those solid legs.



She forced herself to swallow. Well, she had to so she could muster up enough moisture to speak. “Thank you.” Her mouth dried up again. She looked away from him, to his BlackBerry. “Back to the list.”



“Yeah, right.” He rubbed his thumbs over the handheld device. “There were the two threats that came in this morning from new terrorist cells that have popped up along the Russian border.”



Her cheeks puffed with an exhale. “I remember them from the briefings. You wanted me to bail on today’s meeting.”



“I wanted more time to gather intel,” he gently corrected.



“Let’s go over what we do have.”



“As I said, both groups are in their infancy, but looking to make a statement. The one we believe sprouted out of Rubistan has yet to lash out.” He scratched a hand over his five o’clock shadow. By the bed, the digital clock’s glowing little red numbers silently shouted out a reminder of the lateness of the hour—12: 13 a. m. “They’re still training and posturing.”



“Unless today was their opening act.” Her eyes slid from the masculine cut of his jaw to his salt-and-pepper hair, trimmed short to military specs. The sprinkles of gray spoke of experience and wisdom. Strength. All of those things made him more appealing, especially on a day when she desperately needed a strong protector at her side.



Damn it, she didn’t want the heartache of another serious relationship. Why couldn’t he do something totally obnoxious? She forced her mind to stay on the task at hand. “And the other group?”



“Has risen from the ashes of the suppressed People’s Revolutionary Council in Cantou. They like to dabble in nuclear weaponry. They’ve already tried to park a bomb in a duffel bag at a German train station. Luckily, the bomb was defused.”



“Then they’re equal opportunity offenders.”



“Apparently so.” He cricked his neck from side to side, the white uniform shirt open and displaying a tempting hint of chest. “We have our normal assortment of call-in and write-in threats that come with every event. I wish I had the stack in front of me so I could review—”



“Hank, you know it takes weeks, sometimes months to trace through all of those reports. It would be a duck shoot, hoping we lucked into the right one in time for it to make a difference tonight.”



“Instincts count for something when you go duck hunting.”



“Do you still think they haven’t told the kids about us being missing?”



“Honestly? I don’t know.”



She stretched her legs in front of her, cracked her toes, then felt the weight of Hank’s gaze on her calves again. The logs in the fireplace snapped and popped.



Hank’s chest expanded in his uniform shirt. “We’ll need to get back on the road the minute the weather breaks.”



“Of course.”



“You should turn in now and nab as much rest as possible.”



Go to bed? Did he intend to get off the mattress before she stretched out? Or was he going to sleep, too?



She couldn’t imagine he would give up his watch even though he should snag a couple of hours of shut-eye.



“Uh, I’m going to put my clothes back on first, in case we need to leave quickly.” She would simply suffer through damp underwear.



She sprinted for the bathroom and slid back into her clothes, minus the panty hose and high heels. If she’d been alone, she could have slept in the camisole and tap pants…She couldn’t resist the grin that thinking of how that would surely make Hank stop in his tracks brought to her face.



“Ginger,” his voice called through the wall. “We’ve got an e-mail.”



Chapter 4



Hank jostled the weight of the BlackBerry in his hands as well as the weight of the message in his mind. Could he trust the simple text on a day when shots appeared to have come at him and Ginger from allies? Maybe even from within their own camp?



Ginger sat beside him on the edge of the bed, her fresh-washed hair damp and tousled and tempting right beneath his nose. “Do we trust the all clear to come in?”



“It’s not as if we can leave yet with the snowstorm. Once the weather does cooperate, we really don’t have a choice but to take this one cautious step at a time.”



“Basically, then, the e-mail changes nothing tonight.” Her bare toes curled into the carpet, a sexy temptation, a woman’s bare feet and a stretch of n**ed leg leading into the red skirt.



“Afraid not.” He pulled his attention back onto the BlackBerry, a much safer place to look at the moment. “We’re still captives of the weather.”



She scratched the top of one n**ed foot with the toes of her other foot. Damn, he was developing a foot fetish.



Hank rose from the edge of the bed, dimming the lights one after the other on his way. “I’ll sit over here and see what other information I can milk out of this BlackBerry. You should try to sleep while you can.”



“All right. I know it’s senseless to insist you need sleep as well.”



“I’ll rest, catch catnaps. I’m used to pulling long shifts.”



Pivoting on her heels, she snorted, mumbling something he could have sworn sounded like “pigheaded men.”



He turned away and tried not to listen to the sound of rustling sheets. Good God, how long would it take the woman to find a comfortable spot? A second before his sanity snapped, the sounds quieted.



“Good night, Hank.”



Her voice carried across the room with an unmistakable intimacy.



He cleared his throat and forced words free. “G’night, Ginger.”



He tapped keys on his BlackBerry and lucked into a solid Internet connection. At least he could do some research on the two terrorist groups that had made the death threats. Was there a significance in the date, this season of unity and hope?



Or was he chasing shadows? He’d been so certain there had been gunshots coming at them from within the protective detail. Everything had happened so quickly, he hadn’t recognized each of the faces well enough to know if the shooters were from local forces or their own. He could have sworn at least two of the people who should have been protecting Ginger had been aiming at her.



Hank kept tapping through his Internet search, fruitless though it might be, but at least he was doing something. Inaction wasn’t an option.



Especially once those sheets started rustling again. And again.



He glanced over his shoulder. Ginger thrashed in her sleep. Her feet kicked at the covers as a low moan slipped from her lips.



Hell. No question, this day was the stuff nightmares were made of.



Hank holstered his BlackBerry and shoved to his feet. Four long strides took to him to her side.



“Ginger,” he said softly, cupping her shoulder in a careful hand, not wanting to startle her awake. “Ginger, honey, it’s okay. You’re safe.”



Her eyes stayed tightly shut, another moan slipping free. Apparently the nightmare had deep talons. He knew the sort well from years of combat.



Waking her wouldn’t help. She would only remember the horrors all the more vividly. If he could soothe her back into a deep and peaceful sleep, with luck she wouldn’t remember the terror come morning.



He hadn’t been able to take her to safety yet, but he would give her a serene night’s rest. He could help her ease the tight grip of her manicured hands on the sheets. Hank couldn’t help but stare at her bare ring finger where Benjamin’s family diamond set had once rested. Now she only wore a simple band on her right hand, a ring with her children’s birthstones.



Right now he would sacrifice anything to lie there with her. His want warred with his need to continue researching on the Internet, hoping to luck in to some answer.



Ultimately though, as she thrashed from side to side, her comfort was too damn important to him.



Mission set, he stretched slowly beside her, his back against the headboard. He slid an arm along Ginger’s shoulders and sure enough, she curled against him with a sigh and stopped kicking. He couldn’t ignore how right it felt to hold her there, her soft cheek on his chest, her breath against his neck.