Heartbreak Hero

Chapter 3

Next morning, Kel took a chance to give his sister Jo a call while he knew Ngaire was in the shower. He didn’t have her home number, but she was sure to be at work by eight. Jo was the baby of the family, the only girl, and probably had had a rougher upbringing than she might have if their mother had lived. He and his brothers had teased the hell out of her. Since Jo was scarcely three inches shorter than him and had been a cop for more years than he could remember, he’d think twice about doing it now.

With Jo’s phone ringing in his ear he kept an eye on the picture on his computer screen. This came courtesy of the fisheye lens he’d slipped through the lock of the connecting door last night. Fiber optics had come a long way. The reception was almost as good as being there. Almost.

So why did it make his skin itch to watch her every move? It had never troubled his conscience when he’d used the setup before. Why did he feel like a voyeur in this instance?

“Detective Jellic.” His sister answered at almost the same moment he saw Ngaire leave the ensuite wearing only a towel.

He had to swallow before he could answer. “Hey, sis, what’s with the name? I heard you’d got married, congratulations.”

“Is that you, Kel? Where are you?”

“Yeah, it’s me, and I’m in Au-ck-land.” The name of his hometown came out mangled as Ngaire dropped her towel. She was tanned all over, and low on her belly a few silvery scars that looked like a botched appendix operation stood out against the bronze skin.

“Yes, I’m married, but I don’t use my name on the job. The powers-that-be have a problem with the wife of one of the Stanhopes using her real name. Too dangerous, they reckon. A temptation to kidnappers. So, when can we meet? I can’t believe you’re home after all these years. Have you spoken with Kurt yet? I’m sure your twin would appreciate a call.”

Ngaire stepped into her black lace thong. Turning her back to the camera, she skimmed a finger between the silky narrow strip and her rounded buttocks, adjusting it to fit.

His mouth went dry as his mind imagined his fingers doing the same. Finally his sister prompted him to answer. “Kel, are you still there?”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, I got distracted.” More than that, he felt embarrassed, as though standing talking to his sister with a hard-on pressing against his zipper put him beyond the pale.

“No. Kurt and I haven’t been in touch.”

At least not in any way he could explain to Jo. He’d been feeling his twin’s pain for more than a year now and knew that though Kurt’s body had healed from the accident on Mt. Everest where two of his friends lost their lives, his mind was a long way from getting over it.

“I won’t be able to see you this time, I’m on the job.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in me asking what job?”

“Right, sis, but don’t worry, I’m not crossing into your territory.” The hardest part of his work was not being able to discuss it with his family. The only one he couldn’t completely hide things from was Kurt. The link between them went both ways, like one of those old phones they’d made as kids with a tin can at each end and a string carrying vibrations.

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for that.”

As he began to answer Jo, Ngaire started dressing and robbed him of speech. He’d been sure Ngaire didn’t wear a bra, and now he knew for certain as she slipped a baby-blue T-shirt over her head. It wasn’t as short as the crop top she’d worn yesterday, but as it barely covered her waist, and she’d still to put her pants on, it did nothing to help his predicament, which was rock-hard.

Seemed his sister had taken his heavy breathing and sighs as something else. “Well, you can’t blame me for being skeptical. I’m a cop, it comes with the job. I wish we could meet, though. I really wanted to speak to you about Dad.”

One leg at a time, Ngaire’s oh-so-tempting skin disappeared from view behind navy capri pants. “Thank God!”

“What?”

He realized Jo had thought his heartfelt exclamation was meant for her and quickly turned it to fit his feelings about his father. “I mean, thank God we can’t meet, because he’s the last person I want to talk to you or anyone else about.”

“The situation isn’t going to go away, Kel. You have to face it some time. I’m sure Kurt would agree.”

“Leave him out of it. Kurt knows my feeling on this better than anyone else.” The screen showed Ngaire gathering up a few things, then she disappeared from view inside the wardrobe. What seemed like an age later, she reappeared holding her small navy day pack and a light nylon yellow raincoat.

“So, have you been in touch with him? Did you know he was living near Queenstown?”

“No, but I knew he was depressed. I thought it was because of his accident. Talk about shades of masochism, what’s he doing surrounding himself with mountains?”

“He’s building a lodge down that way to cater to skiers in the winter and climbers in the summer.”

“Damn, it’s worse than I thought.” He knew instinctively that Kurt had no intention of ever climbing again, so what the hell was his twin up to? The sight of Ngaire opening her bedroom door brought his speculation to a halt. “Gotta go. Talk to you on the way back and we’ll sort out Kurt.”

He slipped one foot, then the other into his boots, pulling them up blind as he checked the clock on the bedside table, then lifted the cell phone that Chaly had left beside the wallet and gun. It only took a second to straighten his khaki pants over his boots and cover the S & W in its holster.

He allowed himself another minute to shut down the computer while he removed the lens from next door, because of an inborn belief that people would as soon take a shortcut as not, housemaids and himself included. That minute and the few others it would take him to search her room should give Ngaire time to descend the five floors to the restaurant for the breakfast included in the tour package.

Kel punched the requisite numbers into his cell phone on the walk to the elevator. He’d found nothing in Ngaire’s luggage but some underwear, and that had made him feel a regular letch as he pawed his way through it with the scent she wore floating up from a pile of silk fancies. The clothes she’d hung up in the wardrobe were easier on his concentration, and though his search was swift, it was thorough and there was no evidence of the formula.

“Heartbreaker,” he said, giving his code name to control. Gordie’s idea, because Kel pulled the girls yet brushed them aside.

Heartbroken would have been more appropriate, but he hadn’t told Gordie that. His buddy had thought it funny, but with him gone the joke had worn thin. There was no room for relationships in his life; his work didn’t lend itself to anything permanent. If he’d discovered anything about love it was that the two Ds, death and divorce, would take care of it for him.

“Anything new?” He listened as the guy on the other end gave him what little information Chaly had already passed on. This assignment had him fumbling around in a fog, half blind. Whoever said “No news is good news” was in a different line of work.

“No, nothing to report at this end. She had room service, no calls in or out and went to bed early.” Almost naked.

“A woman, huh? I’ll add that to what I’ve got here.”

“Right. I’ve just made a fruitless search of her room. Whatever she’s carrying she has it on her. I’ll be out most of the day. No contact unless it’s an emergency. I’ll have company. Heartbreaker signing off until 2200 hours.”

He was the only one waiting, and was amazed when the elevator arrived empty. No distractions. Nothing to stop him questioning the unfamiliar sensation curling in his gut.

Guilt? That would be a new one. It never bothered him spying on the people he investigated. They were the scum of the earth and asked for everything they got.

His father included?

Usually, he avoided going down that road, but Jo had set his memories stirring. One thing for sure, his father’s children hadn’t deserved the fallout from Milo Jellic’s brief flirtation with drug dealing. Sure, in a one-parent unit they’d been halfway dysfunctional before his death, but the final years of childhood, with only Grandma Glamuzina in charge of five teenagers had completed what his mother’s early demise had started. There’d been times when he’d thought suicide—the option his father had taken—put Milo Jellic one up on the rest of the family. They’d had to take all the crap that followed.

Although he hated to admit it, the military had given him some sense of what he’d been missing, and when he met Carly, his ex-wife, he’d been certain he had it all.

So, he couldn’t be right all the time. About two years after his divorce was finalized he’d been offered the chance to join GDE and jumped at it.

Payback time. Payment for the devastation his father had helped wreak on the families of addicts, and more personal, for being robbed of what little childhood he’d enjoyed.

So, why the guilty feelings about watching Ngaire?

Why did the guilt feel stronger when he thought of her going to bed in the white, opaque silk nightdress that hid none of her lush charms, than when she’d been naked? Was it the hot blood pulsing in his groin while doing his job that sent tentacles of shame spreading through his veins?

He shook off the feeling as the silent disappearance of the elevator doors brought the second-floor lobby into view.

The word tentacles was a dead giveaway to the state of his subconscious. Ngaire was making a sucker of him with her exotic looks, white virginal silk sleepwear over a siren’s body sculpted in pale copper with her shoulders cloaked in the shining jet veil of hair she’d left loose. Under his breath, he let out a wry curse at the direction his mind was taking.

As if written in headlines, A Mata Hari for Our Times flashed across his retina in a subconscious warning. One thing for sure, unlike James Bond he had no intention of sleeping with the enemy.

Sleeping with the enemy.

The echo flirted with his memory. Chaly saying, “I hear the target’s built,” then later, “Sleep with her if necessary.”

When had his boss discovered the courier was a woman? And why hadn’t he passed the news on to either him or control earlier? Come to that, what else did he know that he hadn’t passed on? Time had taught him that when the top brass started keeping secrets from you it was essential to watch your back.

His gaze zoomed in on Ngaire’s table, an automatic response from some sort of residual magnetism, useful even if annoying.

“I’d like a table at the rear by the window,” he told the hostess, knowing the restaurant wasn’t busy enough for her to mind him choosing.

Ngaire was supping cereal as he approached her table. He caught her with the spoon to her mouth as he said, “’Morning, Ngaire. I hope you slept well.”

The spoon in her hand waved in response as she desperately chewed what she had in her mouth—muesli, judging from the amount of crunching going on. Her eyes widened, focusing on the chair opposite as she swallowed. He knew it was perverse to take satisfaction from her discomfort, though he had to admit she looked cute, and young.

Too young for the game she was playing.

“’Morning, and yes, I slept fine. Did you want to join me?”

“No, I won’t disturb you.” I’ll leave that until later. “Maybe I’ll see you around.” Count on it.

When he finally caught up with the hostess, she motioned him to a table by the window where the wind spattered the glass with sea and rain. Sitting farther back, he could keep Ngaire in plain view without affording her the same opportunity.

He shrugged off his light rainproof bomber jacket, hanging it over the back of his chair before heading for the breakfast buffet to load up his plate. No problem there, he was a quick eater, a trait that came with being a member of a large family.

Soon they’d have to board the bus for the Gannets and Grapes part of the tour northwest of the city. Their bus would leave at 0900 hours. Ngaire’s small day pack looked as though it was loaded for everything but bear. Being a guy he needed much less—a jacket to keep off the rain, his wallet and a gun to take care of the rest. Maybe even bears. The human kind.

Kel planned to be last onboard. That way he wouldn’t have to endure sitting beside Ngaire with a libido still fragile from watching her this morning. He’d never had any trouble imagining a woman naked, but Ngaire had exceeded anything his mind could conjure up.

Spearing bacon, eggs and mushrooms, he layered them up the tines of his fork and took a bite. If nothing else, he could enjoy the food. Everything was first class on this job.

Including his target.

Ngaire stifled a yawn as she squirmed farther down into the cushioned seat. “The tour is full, but I’ll find someone compatible to sit with you,” the tour guide had said, showing her to a window seat roughly halfway up the aisle. The guide’s accent had been pure Kiwi, though her looks were Oriental, and Ngaire found a sense of fellowship.

Outside in the cafés bordering Prince’s Wharf, where the hotel was built, umbrellas drooped miserably, like sun hats caught in a sudden downpour, and what patrons there were hid inside. This wasn’t exactly the welcome she’d expected from paradise.

Though she’d told Kel she’d slept well, last night her slumber had been filled with visions of Te Ruahiki. Not the war club, but its spirit, the original owner of the mere.

At least she knew she wasn’t going mad. There had been no escaping the reaction of the others at Customs; their eyes had widened, bulged. Even Manu Pomare had looked be-mused.

Once she’d had the temerity to tell her grandfather that no matter how much she’d enjoyed the legends as a child, stories of spirits locked up inside inanimate objects were way off the planet. The scary thing was, even though she’d long since done an about-face, she now believed with every fiber of her being that George Two Feathers had known best. There was indeed a spirit inside the greenstone mere.

With five minutes to go, it looked like she’d have a whole seat to herself. This suited her. She’d soon realized she was the odd man out, since most of her fellow passengers appeared to be Chinese. Considering she’d won the trip from the Blue Grasshopper, she shouldn’t have been surprised.

Although she’d picked up more than a few words of Cantonese, and even fewer of Mandarin, from living around Chinatown, she was anything but fluent, so from her standpoint it looked like this would be a lonely trip.

“You two should get on well together.” The tour guide spoke softly, but there was a big stick behind her words that brooked no argument. “None of the others speak much English,” the guide continued, smiling at Ngaire. Her almost black doe eyes twinkled in the calm masklike perfection of her face, as if she thought she’d done Ngaire a favor by bringing her Kel. She guessed the guy must have international appeal. “I’ll leave you to introduce yourselves.”

Kelvin Johnman. He’d honored her with his full name yesterday as they’d traveled in on the shuttle. Kelvin. She didn’t think it suited him. Nor did she know if she wanted the distraction he represented, even if he did have the smile of a fallen angel. Or that when he pushed his hair back from his eyes, like he was doing now, his palm ruffled his curls, making her wonder how his fingers would feel forking through her hair.

“We meet again.” The shirred band of Kel’s bomber jacket lifted as the last swipe of his hand added a few extra damp spots to its shoulders. Ngaire’s eyes were caught by a glimpse of a slim brown belt that emphasized the narrowness of his waist and hips. Today, instead of the loose floating shirt that had hidden this very masculine trait yesterday, he wore a tan polo shirt tucked into his khakis.

As she lifted her chin, and with it the level of her gaze, she saw his eyebrows quirk as if he expected some comment about seeing him again so soon after making an idiot of herself. She could still feel tenderness in her throat from trying to swallow her muesli without choking.

Kel’s smile cut the thread of her thoughts.

Darn the man. He had the cheek of the devil and he knew it. Plus he fitted every criteria of her wildest fantasies—tall, dark and devastating—making her wonder if Te Ruahiki had conjured him up just for her.

A gurgle of suppressed laughter left her mouth as a gasp. Her far-fetched fantasies had as much chance of coming true as a snowball had of lasting in hell.

Though if that little bundle of ice and slush should take its time melting, maybe that was the best reason in the world to reach out, hang on and let fate take her for a ride.

The code her grandfather had lived by and had drummed into her at the worst moments of her life had been Never Give Up. She’d lost the most important people in her life, including George Two Feathers, whose words had been his legacy. But since her time in the hospital, when she’d won her last battle with life, Ngaire had never backed down from a challenge.

She wasn’t about to change now, while the latest battle still had five weeks, six days until New Year’s Eve. “Are you following me?”

His features froze for about a second before he answered. “Sorry, but I can see where you’d get that impression. Guess we have to chalk this one up to fate.”

There it was again. Fate. And Kel felt it, too.

How long was it since the last time she’d gone into a match blind, with no knowledge of her opponent or his moves? How long since she’d pitted her skills and enjoyed a contest where the balance of throws could go either way?

Too long, according to her best friend Leena Kowolski, who’d urged her to indulge in a holiday fling, who’d been so insistent that Ngaire had had to laugh and say she’d think about it, but only if the guy was the kind dreams were made of. And he was.

A small prickle of conscience stabbed as she arched her eyebrows in feigned disbelief and a darker slash broached the tanned skin covering his cheekbones. He leaned closer, resting one arm on the back of the seat her day pack still guarded, and swiped his other hand over his chest in a cross. “Honest.”

His voice was low, husky, intimate. She fell into it, into his eyes, her heart skipping at the dark, liquid intensity in their expression, begging to be believed.

“Returning your pink shades was deliberate on my part, but that’s all. Unless it was fate that made you drop them. Though if I’d known…”

“I didn’t think men believed in fate.”

His dark eyebrows knitted. “What else could it be?”

What else? Let’s face it, she was a sucker for those eyes. She gave him a melting look, putting her own to good use. Leena said they were her best feature, canceling out the nose she’d inherited from her Modoc ancestors. “I owe you an apology. Blame it on the world today. It’s hard to know who to trust.”

His smile drew her eyes down to the indent in the center of his chin and the square, no-nonsense line of his jaw, tempting her to trace the shape and see if it was as firm as it looked.

“Face it,” he said. “We’ve been thrown together by a common language. The only thing to do is grin and bear it.”

“And since the bus is almost full.” Out of the corner of her eye, Ngaire saw the tour guide wave some tailenders onboard.

It was then she felt the engrossed stares and turned to see two Chinese women in the seats behind them. Her next words froze in her throat as they smiled and nodded. She crossed her fingers mentally that the guide had been correct about Kel and her being the only English speakers. The body language she couldn’t do anything about.

She tried to tip him the wink about their audience with her eyes, but he had his own agenda. “If there’s something about me that rubs you the wrong way, tell me and I’ll do my best to help you get over it. Meanwhile, I’m blocking the aisle and there are people heading this way.”