Hart's Last Stand. Cheryl Biggs
blue she’d ever seen, like the desert sky during a summer storm. Dark, turbulent and dangerous, and always, it had seemed, beckoning to her.
She felt a tremor shimmer through her body and tried to look away. Instead, her gaze skipped over his long, lean body, its well-honed length complemented by his military flight suit. Her eyes darted back to his face, moving slowly over rough-hewn features that could never be termed classically handsome.
Nevertheless, he was striking, devastatingly so.
Friend…or enemy? The question that had been playing over and over in her mind for hours sent a chill racing up her spine as she looked at him. Someone was trying to destroy her, maybe even kill her, and Hart Branson was either the only one who could save her…or the one responsible.
She had come to find out which.
Without another word, without even waiting for her to respond, Hart spun on his heel and stalked across the tarmac toward an open hangar.
Startled, Suzanne watched him walk away, then shook herself, grabbed her bag and followed. She may have been a fool for coming to him, may have put herself in more danger, but she couldn’t give up. Or let him refuse her. There was no one else to turn to, nowhere else to go. “Hart, please, just listen….”
He jerked around. “What do you want, Suzanne?”
She stopped and stared at him, momentarily taken back by the hostility she sensed, not only in his tone, but in his entire being. It seemed to radiate from him like the heat from the runway.
Why? The question pounded at her. What had she ever done to make him so angry with her?
The need to escape his hard, probing stare nearly overwhelmed her.
Get back in the plane and leave, the voice of her own fear said again.
She resisted giving in to it. “The…the FBI came to my house.”
Hart didn’t move, and his features seemed set in stone.
She swallowed, hard, and forced herself to go on even though she could almost feel his disdain pushing her away. “They said military secrets were stolen during Rick’s last mission.”
When he didn’t respond, Suzanne went on, “For some reason they kept the theft quiet, but now the secrets are being sold and they…they…”
The air above the tarmac shimmered beneath the merciless Arizona sun, but his silence was chilling, and stoked her already frayed nerves.
“They insist Rick’s alive, Hart.”
She heard the thread of hysteria in her voice, felt the sting of panic-driven tears behind her eyes, fought both and hurried on. “They think he faked his death, that he stole the secrets and sold them and that I’m his accomplice.”
Fury ignited within Hart instantly, threatening to explode and tear him apart, and only by force of will was he able to control it.
He’d been betrayed before and he would most likely be betrayed again, but he would never believe that of Rick, and she knew it. So why had Suzanne really come back? What did she really want? He had never expected to see her again, and that had been just fine—more than fine—because as far as he was concerned, it was her fault Rick Cassidy was dead.
Turning abruptly, he tore off the dark glasses, walked into the hangar and threw his helmet and flight board onto a workbench, then spun back to face her again. “Do you really expect me to believe this, Suzanne?”
She’d followed him inside, but now she stopped. His disdain and rejection were too much, a lethal jab at the fear she’d been trying for days to deny she even felt. Tears sprang to her eyes, hot and burning, threatening to spill over. Every cell in her body trembled with desperation.
With concentrated effort she threw back her shoulders, stiffened her spine and searched for strength as she blinked rapidly in an effort to hold back the tears. “It’s the truth.” She’d meant it as a hard, convincing statement. Instead, the words came out as little more than a shaky whisper.
Hart stared at her, his eyes narrowed, distrust scorching hotly through his veins. Every woman he’d let become a part of his life, every single one, had cheated and lied: first his mother, then his only aunt, foster mothers and even his ex-wife. But Suzanne’s transgression had been the worst of all, because hers had gotten a man killed.
He’d learned early in life that a man who trusted anyone but himself was a fool. To trust a woman was even worse.
And every time he’d ignored that lesson, he’d ended up sorry.
He turned back to the workbench and reached for the coffeepot that sat on it, his fingers forming a fist around the pot’s handle and squeezing mercilessly as his anger deepened.
A year ago Suzanne Cassidy had been the wife of his best friend, the only real friend Hart had ever had, ever allowed himself to have. In spite of that, he had found himself attracted to her the moment they met. He’d loathed himself for it and tried to banish the feelings by sheer will.
He remembered one night when Suzanne had shown up to say goodbye to Rick just minutes before they were to ship out on an unexpected mission. It was when Hart watched her kiss Rick and tell him to be careful that he’d known he cared about her too much. One hell of a wake-up call for a man who didn’t believe in love or giving his trust or anything else of himself to anyone.
He’d requested a transfer the same day they’d returned to the base. Out of sight, out of mind, he’d figured. But the transfer had been denied.
Then Rick had been killed and Hart blamed Suzanne, because he knew she’d done the unforgivable.
So why did he suddenly feel an almost irresistible urge to drag her into his arms and claim her lips with his?
Self-loathing filled him.
Why did desire simmer within him, threaten to burst free and consume him, overwhelm him, when he looked at her now—even when he considered her little better than a murderer?
He set the coffeepot down with a crash, too angry to be aware of the hot liquid that splashed on his hand. He turned back toward her. “Rick was no traitor, Suzanne.”
Sunlight streamed through the window behind him and touched her tears, turning them to tiny shimmering reflections of the sun’s rays.
Hart drew on his anger to steel himself against the compassion the sight stirred in him, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from drinking in her beauty, or his senses from appreciating it. Delicacy and strength were both evident in the face he’d always found far more alluring than any other woman’s. As he studied her now, he realized she had grown even more beautiful than his memories of her.
Suzanne’s lips were a blend of perfect curves and tempting fullness that beckoned his own. Her nose was slightly turned up at the end, giving her an air of sassiness, while the deep brown of her eyes, splintered by tiny chips of gold, held the richness of the desert floor on a moonless night.
His gaze moved over the pale-yellow silk blouse she wore, lingered on the curve of her breasts, the narrow breadth of her waist, subtle curve of her hips and the way her jeans held snugly to her long legs.
Suddenly all the old feelings crowded in on him. His fingers ached to slip within the silky darkness of her hair, to slide through the waves that cascaded over her shoulders, to wrap around the nape of her neck and pull her toward him, to caress her curvaceous body, to stoke her passion until…
He clenched his hands into fists as the traitorous emotions soared through his body. What was the matter with him? He didn’t want to feel these things.
“I know Rick wasn’t a traitor,” she said finally, breaking the cold silence that had settled between them. “But what I’m telling you is the truth. As unbelievable as it sounds, Hart, I swear it’s true, and I need help. I thought…” Her voice broke, but she forced herself to go on. “I thought…maybe you could…maybe if you would…” She couldn’t finish.