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Crusty shook his head. “Package deal. Sorry. He’s in charge of physical safety. Checking for tails. Hauling your butt out of the water if things go bad.”
“I don’t need some baby-sitter bodyguard watching my back.” Which was why he preferred to work alone. No one took his risks upon themselves anymore. He stared out at the bay netted off into a sea pen and scrounged for a way to keep Darcy safe. “Put Lurch on another detail. Like watching the crew.”
Crusty’s jaw flexed. “Renshaw.”
“Bennett and the loadmaster, too, of course.” Crusty snorted like Lucy exhaling.
Max gripped the ends of his T-shirt draped around his neck. “You got a problem?”
“She’s really buying into the whole professor gig.”
“That’s the idea.” What should have been an undercover victory fell flat. He should be dancing a jig over her acceptance of his fake persona.
Rogue thoughts tempted him. It wasn’t totally false. The professor “gig” required more than a few hours spent in the classroom. His deep cover had necessitated classroom lectures and tests to grade.
Operatives frequently had another area of expertise that offered excuses to be in places a known government employee could never enter. To talk freely with people who would clam up at the first signs of a badge. Which was the beauty of it. Hiding in plain sight. Like with the muumuu granny operative beside him, who would suspect their accountant, bus driver, dental hygienist—professor—of working for the CIA?
Sure he was partially the doc, but his first loyalty lay with the Agency. And Darcy Renshaw had accepted a drink date from the professor, not the real Max who also worked ops in darker places.
Max scratched the scar on his shoulder—asouvenirfrom just such an op. He’d been diving in a South American port to blow up a submarine purchased on the black market for drug running. After setting the explosives, he’d stumbled on two armed diver guards. That scar served as a tangible reminder of how fast a mission could go haywire.
Crusty squinted into the sun. “See if you can tone down the beach-boy charm.”
Max couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Do you have some prior claim to those sunflower seeds?”
“That’s not the point.”
Like that mattered. “Do you?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.”
“Not okay.” Crusty slapped a bug on his neck. “Her father will have our asses in one of those dolphin slings if something happens to her.”
“Isn’t she here because of her father?”
“Not a chance. Our squadron commander doesn’t care about politics. Colonel Dawson juggled the schedule to give you his best pilots.”
“Then let her do her job. You do yours. I’ll do mine.” And his included keeping his own hands off her sunflower seeds. “She’ll be gone from the island before things heat up.”
Heat up?Max shut down those thoughts before they led him into morethan a drink with Darcy Renshaw.
Darcy.
Unease prickled the hairs along the back of Max’s neck. His instincts upgraded to red alert. He scratched a hand along the thin scar on his shoulder while scouring the perimeter.
Lurch straightened away from his tree. “Check your six o’clock. Incoming. Meeting over.”
Max scanned the dense jungle and found—a flash of white. A white shirt. Worn by Darcy. Frustration and something else he didn’t dare label charged through him. He needed to intercept and divert her before she stumbled on faces she would be better off never seeing together. Somebody had to look out for that woman as long as she stayed on Guam.
He shot one last order to Crusty, not caring how the guy interpreted it. “I want Lurch assigned to watch Renshaw until she leaves.”
Sprinting along the beach, Max whipped his T-shirt from his shoulders. His battered deck shoes pounded the mix of sand and ground coral. He might not want to label the emotion that felt too close to an anticipation he hadn’t experienced in two and half years. And he might not understand why it bothered him that Darcy Renshaw wanted a man who barely existed anymore.
But he knew without question he had to watch her every step, turn, move until he got her off the island. She must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
* * *
