Night of No Return, page 1
When a lethal traitor
threatens to derail the top-secret SPEAR agency,
A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY continues….
Alex Bok
Tall, virile, potently sexy—lives every moment
as if it were his last.
On a deadly mission to bring down a traitor,
this hard-edged bachelor is reunited with the only
woman who had ever truly touched his heart.
Would he pay the ultimate price
for passion’s sake?
Nora Lowe
She has eyes the color of the pale blue dawn,
long, rippling black hair—and is saving all her
love for one unforgettable man.
She didn’t know what Alex Bok was doing on her
archeological dig—or why danger shadowed his
every move. So she engaged in a sweetly seductive
game of kiss and tell….
The man at the helm
Powerful, pragmatic—the shadowed entity
no one sees.
Jonah had given Agent Bok direct orders—
infiltrate the nearby terrorist compound
and ensnare the sinister Simon
in a deadly trap. But was one of his own
about to be neutralized by love?
Dear Reader,
As the Intimate Moments quarter of our yearlong 20th anniversary promotion draws to a close, we offer you a month so full of reading excitement, you’ll hardly know where to start. How about with Night Shield, the newest NIGHT TALES title from New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts? As always, Nora delivers characters you’ll never forget and a plot guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. And don’t miss our special NIGHT TALES reissue, also available this month wherever you buy books.
What next? How about Night of No Return, rising star Eileen Wilks’s contribution to our in-line continuity, A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY? This emotional and suspenseful tale will have you on the edge of your seat—and longing for the next book in the series. As an additional treat this month, we offer you an in-line continuation of our extremely popular out-of-series continuity, 36 HOURS. Bestselling author Susan Mallery kicks things off with Cinderella for a Night. You’ll love this book, along with the three Intimate Moments novels—and one stand-alone Christmas anthology—that follow it.
Rounding out the month, we have a new book from Beverly Bird, one of the authors who helped define Intimate Moments in its very first month of publication. She’s joined by Mary McBride and Virginia Kantra, each of whom contributes a top-notch novel to the month.
Next month, look for a special two-in-one volume by Maggie Shayne and Marilyn Pappano, called Who Do You Love? And in November, watch for the debut of our stunning new cover design.
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
Eileen Wilks
NIGHT OF NO RETURN
A note from RITA Award Finalist Eileen Wilks,
author of ten novels for Silhouette Books:
Dear Reader,
A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY—wow! The name alone was enough to make me excited about being part of this continuity series. I feel privileged indeed to be in the company of so many stellar writers, and I fell hard for the heroes—men and women both—who are the agents of SPEAR. What’s not to love? With spies and bad guys, honor faced off against villainy and love pushed to its limits, A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY promises 12 extraordinary stories about the power and danger of love.
My story, Night of No Return, is set in a land of extremes. Alex Bok is on the trail of terrorists and stolen weapons in the Sinai Desert. He finds more than he bargained for, and his courage is pushed to its limits by the dictates of honor—and by a gutsy heroine who dares him to take the biggest risk of all.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Southern California, U.S.A., September 7
He didn’t want to die.
It was a disconcerting thing for a man like Alex to learn at the age of thirty-four. He sat at one of the wrought-iron tables on the western terrace, dripping with sweat as he watched the southern California sky turn gaudy with sunset over the darkening Pacific Ocean. If the air could have held one dram more of that eye-burning orange, he thought, he’d be able to pluck it like a guitar string.
Color. Life. He drank them both in, relishing the way the muscles in his thighs jumped and the burn in his calves. His heartbeat pleased him. It was almost back to normal, though he’d just finished a five-mile run in the scrubby mountains surrounding the resort. If he wasn’t quite at the peak of conditioning yet, he was well enough. His body had done everything he’d asked of it. He was fit again, ready for assignment.
And alive. He was so damned glad to be alive. The depth of his gratitude troubled him because it was rooted in fear, the same fear that shredded his sleep all too often.
He was the only guest on the large flagstone terrace at this hour. The heat was keeping most people inside, or in the pool. A waiter had brought him a glass and a pitcher of ice water when he’d first reached the terrace. The staff here at Condor Mountain Resort and Spa knew him; he’d stayed here before, though never for as long as he’d been here this time.
Too damned long, he thought. He needed to get back into action. Once he did, his fear would lessen. It had to. He couldn’t stand to live a timid life.
The glass of ice water he picked up was as sweaty as he was. He held it to his forehead, enjoying the shock of cold. The air was dry, smelling of dust and creosote…yet he could have sworn he smelled lilacs.
That was her fragrance. He frowned.
“Brooding again, Alex?”
The voice belonged to another woman—not the one he associated with lilacs. Alex looked over his shoulder and smiled, pleased with the company. He was a man who enjoyed people. Companionship, like sex, came easily to him. If there was a part of him that remained sealed off, untouchable no matter whom he was with, he’d lived with that too long to take much notice of it.
He especially enjoyed tall, slim-hipped women who wore shorts that showed off their legs. That the woman crossing the patio to him now was a fellow agent added to the pleasure of her company. “Hey, I don’t brood. I’m enjoying the sunset.”
“You do look like you’re having a good time melting. You actually like this heat, don’t you?”
“Heat is good. Come sit down and we’ll talk about it. There’s body heat, for example…”
Alicia Kirby pulled out the chair across from him. She was twenty-four, brilliant, and looked, he thought, like a forward on a high school basketball team, with her long, elegant bones and that boyish cap of auburn hair. When she shook her head, that pretty hair bounced with the motion.
Pretty, yes, but it wasn’t a long, rippling fall of hair as black as the desert sky, and smelling like lilacs…. Dammit. He had to stop thinking about a woman he’d never see again.
“Life must be painfully dull,” Alicia said, “if you have to flirt with me to add a hint of danger to your humdrum existence. No more than a hint, of course. East doesn’t take you any more seriously than I do.”
He put his hand over his heart. “I live for danger, but flirting with a beautiful woman is a different sort of spice.”
The edges of her high cheekbones took on a faint pink tinge, which pleased him. Alicia might not take him seriously—hell, he didn’t want her to, she was married to a man he considered a friend—but she enjoyed a compliment as much as the next woman. He had a feeling she hadn’t heard enough of them.
“Beautiful?” She managed to look skeptical despite her pink cheeks. “That’s laying it on pretty thick. I feel like roadkill.”
He straightened, alarmed. “Maybe you should go back inside. In your condition, this heat—”
“Not you, too! What is it about pregnancy that turns halfway sensible men into nervous idiots?”
“The fact that we can’t do it, I guess. Is East making a pest of himself again?” He liked the idea that the legendary East Kirby—legendary in some circles, anyway—had been reduced to a nervous wreck by his new wife’s pregnancy.
“Why do you think I came out here? I’m escaping.” She tilted her head. “Just like you.”
“Uh-uh. I might like to escape, but I’m stuck here until I hear from our mutual friend. Not that there’s anything wrong with your hospitality,” he added. Alicia and East ran Condor Mountain Resort and Spa for fun, profit, and the benefit of the occasional SPEAR agent in need of rest and rehab. Like Alex.
Though SPEAR had been founded by Abraham Lincoln, its existence had always been shrouded in such secrecy that few people knew it existed, even at the upper levels of government. Technically, SPEAR stood for Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue. In a deeper sense, the organization stood for much more. Honor, above all. Sacrifice. Service. Values that a confused, cynical world didn’t always recognize, but which the men and women of SPEAR understood and were willing to live for.
Or to die for.
Alicia had a skeptical look on her face. “So all that running you do is purely for the sake of fitness? Not
Alex fought off a frown. Behind that youthful face of Alicia’s was an irritatingly observant woman. He took another drink of water. “Running is a great way to get back in shape. I’ve been using the gym, too.”
“Yes, but you’ve been running in the afternoons. In temperatures of ninety degrees or better. That seems like an odd thing for a man who nearly died in the desert to do.”
But it wasn’t heat he feared. It was darkness. Death was dark. That thick and sticky darkness clung to him still, clogging his dreams…sending him running through the sun-soaked hills. He saluted her with his glass. “Hey, I can take the heat. After all, I grew up in a part of the world that makes southern California seem air-conditioned.”
“You nearly died there, too.”
She was definitely beginning to get on his nerves. “It was a knife that nearly did me in, not the desert. Have you heard from Jeff lately?”
For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to accept the change of subject, but after favoring him with another thoughtful look, she spoke of the young man who was East’s adopted son. Jeff was Alicia’s age, a decade younger than East or Alex, and he’d recently been through an ordeal much worse than what Alex had endured. Not that Alex knew the details—SPEAR agents might discuss an operation among themselves in a general way, but specifics were shared only on a need-to-know basis. Apparently Jeff had come out of it okay.
The resilience of youth. Alex wanted to think that was why Jeff had rebounded from his experience so quickly. But maybe Jeff was just the better man. Stronger. Not given to waking up in the middle of the night with the icy sweat of terror drying on his skin.
Alex drank his water as he listened to Alicia talk about her new stepson. Jeff was in Los Angeles after spending some R & R time at another SPEAR operation in Arizona. His experience had propelled him to enlist in SPEAR, which was now covering the last of his med school. He’d just started his residency in the ER of a busy Los Angeles hospital.
“I don’t expect we’ll hear much from him for a while,” Alicia said. “He plans on specializing in trauma medicine with an emphasis on on-site treatment.” She smiled. “When he isn’t working, he’ll be sleeping.”
“You’re probably right.” Alex heard the door to the resort open and glanced that way.
A tall man with shaggy brown hair stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised. “Trying to make time with my wife again, Alex?”
“I do my best,” he said cheerfully. “Go away, East. I can’t get anywhere with you breathing down my neck.”
“You go away.” East walked over and pulled out a chair. “I just talked to Jonah. You’re to call him.”
At last. Alex was on his feet instantly. “I’ll let you take over with the flirting, then. Be sure to mention her gorgeous legs. I hadn’t gotten around to them yet.”
“Fickle.” Alicia shook her head. “Sadly fickle.”
“Come back down after you’ve talked with him,” East said. “I’m supposed to brief you on some background details.”
“Will do.” Alex was already at the door.
The shock of cold air from the air-conditioning hit him the moment he stepped inside the expensively rustic lobby. He passed the regular elevator, stopping at one that the other guests at the resort couldn’t use, and inserted the key required to operate it. His heart was pumping with excitement.
A call from Jonah could mean only one thing—an assignment. He was ready for it physically, and if he still had a way to go emotionally…well, he’d shake down just fine once he got into action again.
Contrary to what his parents believed, Alex had never had a death wish. Nor was he an excitement junky—not anymore, at least. He’d outgrown that years ago. He liked edges, though. A man never felt more alive than when he was challenging his limits. He’d teetered on the slipperiest edge of all more than once while on assignment, but until a month ago he’d never gone over. But when he’d been left for dead in the Negev desert, he’d skidded down that dark slope…until she found him. His lady of the lilacs.
It had changed him. For the last month he had been trying to come to terms with that change while strength eased back into his body. He’d hiked or run through the dry mountains that cradled the resort so he could enjoy the slide and flex of thigh muscles, the bunch and release in his calves. Life was good.
Alex’s suite was on the top floor. The view was breath-taking—rugged hills falling in sage and dust-colored humps into the vast blue of the ocean. The bed was king-size and comfortable, and the walls were reinforced with steel and an inner layer of sand. They would stand up to anything but a direct hit from a bomb. The steel had the additional property of making it difficult for anyone nearby to pick up the signal from the cell phone he grabbed as soon as the door closed behind him.
This phone, too, had special properties. The signal was digitized and encoded, so that even if someone did manage to intercept part of the transmission it wouldn’t do them any good. It wasn’t dependent on normal cells, either, but used a system established by orbiting satellites, rendering calls completely untraceable. With this phone, Alex could talk to anyone anywhere on the planet.
He punched in a number he knew well, hung up and waited. A few minutes later, the phone rang, then a cool, dry voice said, “Are you ready to go back to work, Alex?”
Ten minutes later he disconnected. He stood in his air-conditioned room and stared out the reinforced glass of the window, and he tasted the hot, dusty wind of the desert.
No surprise that he was going back to the Middle East. That was where his expertise lay. Among other skills, Alex spoke Arabic and Greek fluently and could make himself understood in Hebrew. He knew smugglers in five countries, and scientists in three. He’d be going in as an archaeologist—a cover he’d used often, since it dovetailed so neatly with reality. Nor was his assignment a surprise; the people who had left him for dead a month ago had ties to the terrorist organization whose base he would be hunting.
No, none of that was unexpected. But the dig he’d be participating in as part of his cover, and the person in charge of that dig—oh, yes, that had surprised him.
The scent of lilacs drifted across his memory again, and Alex smiled slowly. Never say never, he thought, his spirits rising. Not only was he going to have a chance to exorcise the fear that clung to him like a bad smell, he would get to work another distracting memory out of his system.
A memory named Nora.
Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, September 9
There were no songbirds in the Sinai. Not in this part of it, not at this time of year. To the north, the land rose in stony leaps to the barren height of the Tie Plateau before slipping down in sandy drifts to the dunes that met the Mediterranean. To the south, ragged mountains heaved themselves high again, bunching up into the gaunt peaks of the Sinai Massif, the range surrounding Gebel Musa— Mount Sinai. Here, in the Dividing Valleys, the land dipped lower. The rare rains of the desert had spent millennia wearing away granite and sandstone, limestone and dolomite, to leave a jumbled confusion of rock cut by canyons and wadis. Here there might be the sound of the occasional caw of a raven or the cooing of quail, but even that was unlikely this early. At this hour, the soft percussion of Nora’s footfalls in the sand and gravel was the only sound.
The vague light of dawn canted in steeply from the east, leaving the bottom of the wadi in shadow. It was cool there, cool enough that she’d barely broken a sweat, though she’d been running for ten minutes. The rough terrain kept her from running very fast, but the wadi’s course was downward; it would take her ten more minutes to reach the convergence of this wadi with the next, where she’d veer back uphill, toward camp.
Then she could expect to sweat. But now she ran easily, enjoying the flow of cool air over warm muscles, and she dreamed of another run she’d taken. Another desert. And the man she’d found there.
When Nora thought of him, she thought of darkness. The near-dark of the time when she’d found him. Dark, sun-bronzed skin. Hair as black as her own. And the darkness that men create, the darkness of violence and death.
