Authors: Jill Shalvis
Shadow Hawk
Shadow Hawk
Being a writer can be lonely. Thankfully, I have a support group. Thanks to Steph for the sanity lunches. Thanks to Laurie for the sweet enthusiasm. And thanks to Gena forâ¦well, everything. Couldn't have done this one without you.
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Regional ATF offices
S
HE WAS ALL LEG
, and Conner Hawk was most definitely a leg man. Hell, he was also a T&A man, but Abigail Wells, fellow ATF agent and communications expert, not to mention all around hot chick, was so well put together she could have made him a certified elbow man.
Too bad she hated his guts.
She walkedâstrolledâacross the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' office, her soft skirt clinging to her thighs with every graceful swing of her hips. Her blazer hid her torso from view, but he knew she had it going on beneath that as well. Her honey-colored hair was pulled up in some complicated do that screamed On Top Of Her World.
As if she'd read the direction his thoughts had traveled, Abigail glanced over at him, those bee-stung lips flipping her smile upside down, her eyes going from work-mode to pissy-female mode.
Oh yeah,
there
was the frown, the one she'd been giving him ever since the day she joined the team six months ago. She'd come from the Seattle office, where she'd worked in the field. He tried to imagine her wearing an ATF flak jacket, guarding his six, and was halfway lost in that fun fantasy when she spoke.
“You.” This in a tone that suggested he could, and should, go to hell.
“Me,” he agreed, surprised that she'd even given him that one word. She usually avoided talking directly to him, as if he carried some new infectious disease.
Odd, since to everyone else she'd been personable, even sweet and kind. It made that steely backbone of hers so surprising. When she decided to dig her heels into something, watch out. He'd seen it over and over, people so shocked by the unexpected toughness that this pleasant, melodious little thing exhibited that she got whatever she wanted. She must have been a hell of a force out in the field, probably underestimated by every single scum of the earth who'd come across her, but here in Cheyenne she'd stayed behind the scenes.
“You're late,” she said in a school-principal-to-errant-student tone.
Oh yeah, now
there
was a fantasyâ¦. He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the digital readout. Two minutes. He was two minutes late, and that was because someone had taken his parking spot. And he might have explained that to her if she hadn't been giving him the look that people gave their shoe when they stepped on dog shit.
Even as he thought it, her nose slightly wrinkled.
Yeah. In her eyesâwhich were an amazing drown-in-me blueâhe was about equal to dog shit. Nice to know.
“We're wanted in Tibbs's office,” Abigail said.
We?
Well,
that
was a new term. Hawk dutifully followed her into their supervisor's office, his gaze slipping down that stiff spine to her spectacular ass. Attitude or not, she looked good enough to nibble on. A little sweet, a little hotâ¦nice comboâ
Whoa.
She'd suddenly stopped, forcing him to put his hands on her hips rather than plow her over.
Clearly hating even that small contact, she jerked free and sent him a look that said go-directly-to-hell-without-passing-Go.
Right. Hands off. Maybe he should write that down somewhere.
“Any news on the rifles?” she asked.
Great.
The absolute last thing he wanted to talk about. The rifles. Everyone had heard about the 350 confiscated rifles, which had gone missing from ATF storage before they could be melted down. Stolen, from beneath their noses.
His
nose.
She was asking, of course, because he'd been the agent on the raid, the one who'd brought the weapons in. He had no idea how they'd gone missing, but he knew why. They had a mole and Hawk was getting too close.
“No. No news.”
“I see.” And with one last cool glance, she knocked on Tibbs's door.
I see?
What the hell did that mean? Before he could ask, Tibbs called out for them to enter.
Their supervisor stood behind his desk, which didn't make that much of a difference since he was maybe five foot four and nearly as round as he was tall. The balding man shoved his glasses higher on his prominent nose. “We got a tip on the bombers,” he said in that Alabama drawl of his.
Hawk had been working on the Kiddie Bombers for the past two years. Some asshole, or group of assholes, was teaching teenagers how to put together bombs, then using the explosives to terrorize big corporations into paying millions of dollars. Twelve kids had died so far, eight of them under the age of eighteen, and the ATF wanted the bomb-makers and their knowledge off the streets.
Hawk wanted that, too, and also the man running the Kiddie Bombers. Eighteen months ago he'd nearly caught him in a raid on a downtown warehouse. In the pitch-black, on the hard concrete floor, they'd fought. Hawk had wrestled a gun from his hand, managing to shoot him before being tackled by another Kiddie Bomber.
Hawk had escaped with his life intact, thanks to his partner, Logan, and given that the gang had gone quiet after that night, it had been assumed that the Kiddie Bombers' leader had died from his gunshot wound.
But a year ago, the Kiddie Bombers had popped back onto the radar, pulling off two huge jobs with weapons that had been previously confiscated by the ATF.
Hawk had his suspicions, mostly because there was only one person who could be linked to all the raidsâElliot Gaines. But that was so crazy wild, so out there, he'd kept it to himself, except for Logan. What he hadn't kept to himself was his vow to get the Kiddie Bombers' leader.
In the past month alone, Hawk and Logan had confiscated two huge warehouses full of ammo and other supplies. But not a single suspect. “Tip?” he asked Tibbs.
“Suspicious activity, rumored arsenal. Orders came down from Gaines on this.”
Elliot Gaines was the regional head. Or, as some put it, God. Word had spread that the Almighty was tired of the delays, tired of the false leads and
really
tired of the ATF looking like idiots.
“You're both heading out.” Tibbs tossed a full file on his desk for them to read. “Bullet City.”
Northern Wyoming, approximately four-and-a-half hours from Nowhere, U.S.A. Yeah, made sense to Hawk. Isolated. Cold, which was good for the materials the bombers used. And, oh yeah, isolated. Great.
“Word is tonight's the night they're testing some new product,” Tibbs drawled. “We'll need to catch them in the middle of their private fireworks show.”
That worked for Hawk. He picked up the file and flipped through it, reading about the barn that'd been found loaded to the gills with incriminating equipment, complete with an elusive owner they hadn't been able to pin down.
Abby shifted closer to read over Hawk's shoulder, making him extremely aware of her tension as it crackled through the air like static electricity.
“You've got two hours,” Tibbs told them. “You fly out together.”
“Together?” Abby repeated, her voice actually cracking.
Surprised at the unexpected chink in her armor, Hawk looked at her.
“You'll run the show from the van, Abby,” Tibbs said. “And Hawk from the field. There'll be a team in place.”
Abby blinked. “But⦔
Both men eyed her as two high splotches of color marked her cheeks. Interesting, Hawk thought. She was usually cool as ice. So what had her riled up? Him? Because she sure as hell got to him. He couldn't help it, beneath her veneer there was just something about her, somethingâ¦special. Sure, he wanted to do wicked things to her body and vice versa, but that alone wouldn't have kept him on edge around her for six months. “Don't worry,” he told her. “I've done this once or twice before.”
“Ha.” But her brow puckered, her kiss-me-mouth tightened.
Normally this would make him wonder how long he'd have to kiss her before she softened for him, but not now. “What is it? You don't trust me out there?”
“Hawk,” Tibbs said quietly.
He heard the warning in his boss's voice, but he didn't care. “No, I think it's time, past time, that we get this out in the open. I want to know, Abby. What exactly is your problem with me?”
“Nothing.” She hit him with those baby blues, which were suddenly void of any emotion whatsoever. “There's no problem at all.”
Bullshit. But hell if he was going to keep bashing his head against a brick wall. “Okay, then. Fine.”
“Fine.” She gestured to the file in his hands as she gathered her control around her like a cloak. “Flight's at two.” She said this evenly, back to being as cool as a cucumber. In a freezer. In Antarctica. “Be late and I leave without you.”
Later that night
Twenty-five miles outside of
Bullet City, Wyoming
A
BBY ENTERED THE COMMUNICATIONS
van, and the men stopped talking. Typical. Men complained that women were the difficult gender, but it seemed to her the penis-carrying half were far more thorny.
Not to mention downright problematic.
Not that she cared, because when it came to personal relationships, she'd given them up. A fact that made her life much simpler.
Sliding the door shut behind her, she shivered. Late fall in the high altitude Bighorn Mountains meant that razor-sharp air cut right through her, layers and all. As she rubbed her frozen hands together, her gaze inadvertently locked on Hawk, who had his long-sleeved black shirt open and the matching T-shirt beneath it shoved up so that he could get wired.
He stood there, six feet two inches of solid badass complete with a wicked, mischievous grin, topped with warm, chocolate eyes that could melt or freeze on a dime. From beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt peeked the very edge of the tattoo on his bicep, which she knew was a hawk.
The women in the office practically swooned at it, every time.
But not Abby. Nope, she was made of firmer stuff.
There was a four-inch scar, old and nearly faded, along his left side between two ribs, and another puckered scar above his left pec. The first was a knife wound, the second a bullet hole. She could also see his smooth, sleek flesh pressed taut to hard, rippled sinew. One long, lean muscle, not an ounce of extra on him.
Whew.
Had she been cold only a moment before? Because suddenly, she was starting to sweat. She cursed her 20/20 vision.
Maybe she wasn't made of firmer stuff after allâ¦. But regardless, she was over men.
So
over men. And seeing that she'd become so enlightenedâ¦she blew out a breath and moved to her communications station.
Where for the first time, she hesitated. That in itself pissed her off. So a year ago she'd nearly died out in the field. She hadn't. And she wasn't going to this time, either. Shrugging off her nerves, Abby looked around and caught the long, assessing look Hawk shot her as he pulled on a flak vest. He was sharp, she'd give him that. Clearly, he sensed her hesitation, but hell if she'd let him see her sweat. She lifted her chin and sat down.
But if she was a good actress, then he was a great actor, because she had no idea what he was thinking behind that perpetually cynical gaze.
And she didn't care. She was here for the job. She would remain in the van, in charge of communications, while the team made their way to the farmhouse, and then to the barn a half mile beyond that, where they'd execute the raid.
“There,” Watkins said to Hawk as he finished wiring him.
Hawk shrugged back into his shirt. “You fix the problem from the other day?” he asked.
Abby's eyes had wandered again to Hawk's bodyâbad eyesâbut her ears pricked. “Problem?”
“Bad wire.” Watkins lifted a shoulder. “Happens.”
“It shouldn't,” she said. “Make sure it doesn't.”
Watkins nodded.
Hawk let his T-shirt fall over his abs, hiding the wires as his gaze again met hers. One eyebrow arched in the silent question:
Were you staring at me?
No.
No, she wasn't. To prove it, she turned to her own equipment, trying not to remember the last time she'd been wired before a raid. Elliot Gaines, the head honcho, had done her up himself.
Of course he'd had a personal interest. They'd had a burgeoning friendship, at least on her part. For his part, he clearly wished for more, far more. In any case, he couldn't have known how bad it would all goâ¦.
And it had gone extremely bad. One minute she'd been listening to Gaines's quiet, authoritative voice in her ear, telling her she was doing great, just to hold her position while his team to the west “handled it,” and then the next, there'd been a 12-gauge shotgun to her temple and she'd been taken hostage.
Now, a year later, in another time and place, someone murmured something in a low voice that she couldn't quite catch, and several of the men behind her laughed softly.
Releasing tension, she knew, most likely with an off-color joke that she didn't want to hear. Living as a woman in a man's world was nothing new, but she had to admit, tonight, it was grating on her nerves.
Granted, her nerves were already scraped raw just by being here, but that was no one's fault but her own. Gaines had transferred her at her request after a leave of absence. She'd wanted to prove to herself that she could still do her job, that she hadn't let the “incident” take anything from her.
But with damp palms and butterflies bouncing in her gut, she wondered if maybe she had more to overcome than she'd thought.
“Hey.”
With a start, Abby turned toward Hawk. He was geared up and ready to face the night, looking big, bad, tough and prepared for anything. She bet he didn't have any butterflies.
The others were engaged in conversation, but Hawk stood close, looking at her as if he could see her anxiety. “Ready?”
That he could see her nervousness meant she didn't have it nearly as together as she'd like. “Of course I'm ready.”
“Of course,” he repeated, but didn't move. “Listen, I know you're going to bite my head off for this, but I'm getting a weird vibe from you here, andâ”
“I said I was fine.” She swiveled back to her computer to prove it.
“All right, then.” She could feel him watching her very closely. “You're fine. I'm fine. We're all fine.”
She heard him turn to follow the others out the door, and glanced back to watch the long-limbed ease that didn't do a thing to hide the latent power just beneath the surface. Or the irritation.
Abby let out a rough breath.
Damn it.
He might be a hell of a charmer, but he was also a hell of an agent, and truth be told, she admired his work ethic even more than she secretly admired his body. And she wanted him to be able to admire
her
work ethic. “Hawk.”
He looked back, his broad shoulders blocking the night from view, but not the chill that danced in on an icy wind. “Yeah?”
“Watch yourself.”
A hint of a self-deprecating smile crossed his lips. “Thought you were doing that for me.”
She felt the heat rise to her face, but he'd caught her fair and square. His smile came slow and sure, and far too sexy for her comfort.
As he left, she let out a slow breath and fanned her face.
Â
“D
AMN, IT'S BUTT-ASS COLD
out here.”
At Logan's statement of the obvious, Hawk blew out a breath, which changed into a puff of fog before being whipped away by the cutting wind. The two of them lay on their bellies on the battered roof of the barn that had been pinpointed as a bomb-processing plant.
And yeah, it was butt-ass cold up here, but he was more focused on the fact that he was thirty feet above the ground without a safety rope, with the wind threatening to take him to the land of Oz.
Christ, he really hated heights.
Logan lowered his binoculars to blow on his hands. “Maybe we could do this thing before we freeze to the roof like a pair of Popsicles.”
Like Hawk, Logan was built with the capacity to do whatever, whenever. Tough as nails. Physically honed. Trained to be a weapon all on his own, with or without the aid of bullets. But he enjoyed complaining. Always had, and Hawk should knowâthey'd been together since they'd been eighteen and in boot camp. They'd gone from bunkmates to brothers and knew each other like no one else.
To get here, they'd drugged a pack of rottweilers, disabled the alarm on the farmhouse and stealthily made their way through the woods to the barn. The place was a nice setup for criminal activity. Surrounded by the sharp, jagged peaks of the Bighorn Mountains, there were also rolling hills and a maze of lakes and streams, all of which were nothing but an inky black silhouette in the dark night. No neighboring ranches, no neighboring anything except maybe bears and bison and coyotes.
And the many cars and trucks parked behind the farmhouse.
Odd. It would seem that there was a large group of people here somewhere, and yet there hadn't been a soul in the house or in any of the small storage sheds behind it.
Which left the huge barn.
An icy gust hit Hawk in the face, burning his skin. He had to admit, things had definitely gone from interesting to tricky, because now the metal tiles beneath them were icing over. Any movement could be detrimental to their health, because slipping off here meant a thirty-foot fall to the frozen earth below.
Thanks to his goggles, Hawk had a crystal-clear view of the ground, and the distance to it made him want to puke. They'd been in far worse circumstances, he reminded himself, where his fear of heights had been the least of his worries. He and Logan had done some pretty ugly shit involving some pretty ugly people. On more than one occasion, they'd managed to stay alive on instinct alone, in parts of the world that didn't even warrant being on the map.
So all in all, things had improved.
“Hope it doesn't rain, because this baby'll turn right into a giant metal slide.” Logan said this calmly, because he, damn him, did not have a height issue. “Like the one at the carnivalâ”
“Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
He laughed softly.
The temperature had indeed dropped to two degrees above freezing their balls off, and with that wind icing up their organs, Hawk wanted to get a move on. But they were stuck up here until they got the signal from communications, which happened to be Abby and crew parked in a van on the main road half a mile south of here. “We need to move closer,” he said to her via his mic, over a noisy gust that whipped dust from the roof and into his face.
“Remain in position,” she ordered, her voice breaking with static, but still sounding soft, warmâ¦and sexy as hell.
At least in Hawk's opinion.
Just listening to her made him react like Pavlov's dog. Only he wasn't drooling. Nope, listening to her elicited visions of wild up-against-the-wall sex, which caused a much more base reaction than slobber. “Remaining in position isn't going to work,” he told her.
“Soon as I hear from Watkins and Thomas,” she said, the static increasing, “we'll move.”
We
. As in not her. He knew she used to be a great field agent, and yeah, so he'd read her files. But all her cases had ended abruptly a year ago, and no amount of digging could produce a reason. Then, after a six-month leave, she'd transferred from Seattle to Cheyenne, where Hawk had done his best to ignore his inexplicable attraction to her, because that had seemed to work for her.
But now he wondered, how was it she'd gotten so comfortable behind the safety net? Why had she given up being in the trenches with the rest of them for a computer screen?
“Watkins and Thomas are making their way to the east and west doors beneath you,” she added, referring to Logan's and Hawk's counterparts on the ground. “Wait for my cue.”
Uh-huh. Easy for her to say. She sat out of the slicing wind in that van, and Hawk would bet money she had the motor running and the heater on full blast.
She'd changed on the plane, out of her skirt, the one that had messed with his mind every time it clung to her thighs, which was only with every single movement she made. But her cargo pants and long-sleeved ATF button-down clung to her, too. Hell, she could wear a potato sack and do something to him.
Logan shifted. Probably trying not to freeze to the roof. Hawk did the same, but for different reasons entirely.
“Nearly there,” Thomas said into their earpieces. “Hearing noises from inside, a steady pinging.”
“Affirmative,” Watkins said. “The windows are blacked out, going in southwest doorâ
Jesus
. It's full of ammo and workstations. Definitely bomb-making going on here, guys, but there's no one in sight.” He let out a low whistle. “Seriously, there's enough blow in here to make Las Vegas prime beachfront property.”
“Suspects?” Abby asked.
“None.”
“That can't be,” she murmured.
Hawk had to agree with her. Something was off, and not just because they'd managed to get onto the premises and up here, past the alarm and a pack of hungry rottweilers without being detected. But now they'd found the proof, right beneath their noses? It was all too easy. He flicked off his mic and looked at Logan.
“You thinking what I'm thinking?” Logan asked.
“That we're being set up, instead of the other way around?”
“Bingo.”
“I'm guessing we got too close, and he's unhappy with us?”