Page 12 of Hawk on the Hunt

“Yeah,” Ace said with a nod. “And Lilly, Yankee’s girl, is a doctor. So she helps us with anything on the medical side.”

“Which is good news,” Yankee said, “since Ace’s fiancée is about to give birth.”

Ace suddenly grinned from one ear to the other. “Yeah, any day now.”

Stunned, Dylan stared at all four men. They were on the run like he was, but they’d managed to carve out some sort of private life and happiness for themselves. Did this mean that there was a chance that he and Zara could have that too? Could they too be a couple again even though he still had to live in hiding? But how did Ace, Fox, Yankee, and Tiger manage this? How did they stay under the radar?

Dylan shook his head, more to himself than to the others. “How do you do that? How do you keep your women safe?”

“We keep a close eye on them,” Tiger said with a grin.

Ace laughed. “Yeah, I notice that close eye every morning when you guys come down for breakfast.”

Surprised, Dylan looked at Tiger. “You live here?”

“We all do,” Tiger said, pointing to the others. “Together with our girlfriends.”

“Yeah, even Michelle and I moved in a while ago,” Fox said. “Before that we had a safe house in the city, but considering that we stepped up surveillance on Bancroft, and spend every waking moment here, we figured we might as well sleep here too.”

“Sounds like a commune,” Dylan said. “And the house? Whose is it?”

“Mine,” Ace said. “It was my father’s. I grew up here. And before you ask: no, the house isn’t in my name. It’s in a trust, so that nobody can figure out where I am, and—”

“—and that’s also the reason why we’re not yet married,” a woman said from the door.

Dylan turned to look at her. The woman was beautiful with dark hair and a belly so round that he knew instantly who this was: Ace’s pregnant fiancée. Neither he nor Yankee had joked: she did indeed look like she would pop out that baby any moment.

“Phoebe.” Ace jumped up and rushed toward her. “Didn’t I tell you to put your feet up?”

As Dylan watched how Ace put his arm around Phoebe, he smiled to himself. An ex-Stargate agent could indeed find love. There was hope for a future after all. But first, they needed to find the elusive Mr. Jones.

7

Zara entered the large open-plan office in the Dirkson Senate building she shared with three other staffers. Nicky and Ben were standing over the coffee pot, gossiping, while Clara was busy opening the mail and sorting it into different baskets.

“Morning!”

Nicky and Ben greeted her in the same way.

Clara looked up. “Overslept?”

“My alarm was on silent,” Zara lied. “Is he in yet?”

She tilted her head in the direction of the senator’s office. She was rarely ever late, but she knew that her new boss was strict when it came to working hours. The old senator who’d died rather unexpectedly only a month earlier had been very laissez-faire, maybe because he’d held office for five 6-year terms and didn’t have anything to prove anymore. He’d been a delight to work for.

“Sunny boy’s got a breakfast meeting. But he’ll be back any minute,” Clara replied. “You’re lucky. You can pretend you’ve been slaving away for hours. I won’t tell.”

“You shouldn’t call him that,” Ben interjected. “It’s disrespectful.”

Clara huffed. “If he wants respect, he has to earn it first. And so far, he hasn’t.”

“Just because he wasn’t elected but appointed doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve our respect,” Ben added. “Besides, he’s not the first senator who was appointed to a seat rather than elected.”

“I do miss his father,” Zara said, trying to steer the conversation into safer waters. “He was a good man.”

“That he was,” Clara said. She sighed. “And I’m not saying that his son isn’t a good man. I’m just against the whole idea that he basically inherited his father’s Senate seat without having to stand for election.”

“But he will stand for election,” Nicky said as she poured a cup of coffee. “There’s only seven months left in his father’s term.”