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He already knew Nick’s wife Natalie was linked to this organization. He just needed to figure out how. And if he could uncover any hints as to wherethe hell she was, that would be great, too.
Natalie hadn’t shown up for Nick’s funeral or his wake. They were still trying to track her down in the hopes that she might know something about why Nick had been killed. A photo on the cover of a book had led them here—and Gage drew the short straw for the initial recon.
When he’d walked in the door, the receptionist—or whoever the person was who was checking people in—had assumed he was there for the casting call to hire a cover model. That was too good an opportunity to turn down…and the fact that he’d beaten out all the pros and gotten hired on the spot had been a nice ego boost. He’d played it that he could use the extra cash, but now that he was stuck here, he was starting to wonder if he should have just broken in after hours.
“Lieutenant?” That husky, sexy voice snapped him out of his thoughts again. He looked at Anna and found her blue eyes starting to sizzle with irritation. “If this is too much for you—”
Holding up his hand, Gage stopped her. “I got it. A story.” He stared at her.
Eyebrows lifting, she asked, “What’s it like being a SEAL?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know what it’s like not being one.”
“You started young.”
He shrugged. “We all start young—it’s not a game for old guys.”
“A game?”
“When you’re out on a mission, you tend to look at it as something to be conquered. It’s win or lose, and losing is not an option. It’s also fun. You jump out of airplanes and helicopters, swim in some of the worst ocean currents. You’re freezing, you’re sweating, and you hike some incredibly dangerous terrain.”
“That’s what you consider fun?” She sounded skeptical.
He flashed her a sly smile. “I thinklotsof things are fun. Basically, anything that gets your heart racing.”
She flushed a little at that. “And when you have time off?”
His smile slipped into a smirk. “Some of us have been known to go looking for trouble. Or trouble finds us.”
“Which brings you here.” She started snapping photos. “Keep going. You do this alone?”
“Hell, no. You’re a team.We’rea team.”
She looked up from her camera and asked, “And what are they like, your team? Go ahead and move as you talk. You don’t have to stand still.”
He nodded. And stayed where he was, arms crossed. “Well…my team leader fancies himself a bit of a ladies’ man. He’s got more exes spread across this beautiful country than I have teeth, but he’s damn good at his job. Then there’s our sniper.”
“Yeah? What’s he like?” she prompted.
“He’s…well, he’s the typical redhead. A hothead, except in action he is one cool dude.”
Anna grabbed the camera and circled around him. “Linda, bring in a hat.”
Gage lifted his eyebrows. A hat? Linda grinned at him and put a straw Stetson on his head. She gave him a wink.
From behind her camera, Anna asked in that low voice of hers, “What about you, Lieutenant? What’s your role on the team?”
Gage pulled the Stetson down to a better angle. “I’m the demolitions guy. My expertise is things that go boom.” He liked the science of it—understanding all the components, figuring out the factors he’d need to control to get exactly the outcome he wanted. Plus, it was just fun to cause a reaction, to create something explosive and intense, something to take your breath away. He grinned at the thought, shifting the angle of his head, and he heard her breath catch.
“That’s…that’s good,” she said.
“You like it when things explode?” he asked, raising an eyebrow teasingly.
“No, I mean that look. That’s good. Hold that.” The clicking got louder as she took shot after shot. By this point, he was mostly able to ignore the camera. He focused on the woman behind it, on the blush that the equipment wasn’t quite able to hide. Maybe the hat wasn’t a bad idea after all. Not if it made her flush so prettily.
She cleared her throat. “Angle the hat back a bit, let me see more of your face.”
“Like this, sweetheart?” he asked, adjusting the hat and cocking out his hip to emphasize the line of his bared torso. He wasn’t good only with bombs. He knew how to use chemistry in allsortsof fun ways. And he was well aware of how women responded to him, how to make their attraction spike and flare. Maybe it would even help him garner the information he was there to find. If he could get her to open up to him, to trust him, she could be the key to finding the intel he needed.
