Heart Of The Tiger

She touched the tendrils at her left cheek. “I remember your telling Lowell that you felt I couldn’t do it. Do what?”

Matt gave her a quick look. “You heard that comment?”

“I miss very little. Even when I’m in the throes of sobbing my heart out,” she warned him. “Please answer my question. What don’t you think I’m capable of doing?”

Matt took a breath and dove in. “We’re dealing with cutthroats, Layne. I question Kang’s reliance on you. A Chinese man never places his reliance on a woman. Why you? It would be beneath him. And you’re an outsider, as well.”

“Yet you’re trying to coerce me into joining you on a jaunt to Hong Kong to meet with Kang?”

“Lowell thinks you’re up to it.”

“And you don’t?”

“No.”

She gave him a close look. “Either you’re the cleverest liar I’ve ever met, or you’re working against your own people, Major.”

He remained silent, meeting her impertinent gaze.

“You’re expecting trouble on this mission, aren’t you?” she demanded. “Of course, what mission doesn’t have danger? You don’t think I can protect myself, do you? Kang is an honorable man, even if he is a pirate. These men live by their own unwritten codes. He wouldn’t hurt me, although it’s true they dislike Americans—they think we talk too much and can’t keep secrets.”

“I told you I wouldn’t lie to you, Layne,” Matt reminded her huskily. “And frankly, I wish I had met you under any other circumstances. You’re a woman of exceptional scope. Ordinarily, I don’t let anyone get under my skin…but you have. If I had my way about this, you’d stay here. If we had a penetration agent among the pirates, you wouldn’t even have been considered.” He gave her a veiled look. “But then, I’d never have met you.” Matt shrugged. “We’re both caught up in a web of events outside our control.”

Layne’s heart knew he was telling the truth. What agent would say I don’t want you on this mission? And yet he was still hoping to convince her to come. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re an enigma, Major Talbot?”

His boyish grin reappeared, relaxing his strong features. “I’ve been called many things, Layne. Enigma is just one of them.”

“So tell me,” she asked suddenly, “how would I explain to my colleagues that I’m taking a sudden vacation in the Orient?”

His eyes narrowed. “You’ll come?”

“I’m not sure. I hadn’t realized Kang was involved. But first, I want to know how you’re going to handle this assignment, Major.”

“We’ve arranged for a substitute teacher to take over your duties until you return,” he said in a quiet monotone, as if reciting it by rote. “If you come, you’ll pose as my wife. We’ll be spending our honeymoon and combining it with a writing and photographic assignment for a leading national magazine. It’s a perfect cover. You’re already established as an expert on the South China Sea pirates since you published those three articles in Life. My cover as a photographer is well established, and anyone checking will find my credentials in order. We’re scheduled to fly out of D.C. tomorrow at—” he checked the watch on his wrist “—8:00 a.m. From there we’ll fly to Noreta Airport in Japan and disembark for about an hour. We’ll catch another Northwest Orient flight to Hong Kong, where we’ll stay at the Princeton Hotel for a day or two while we’re waiting to be contacted by Kang. From there, it’s his game, and he’ll tell us how he wants us to play.”

“What does the lao-pan have that you want, Matt?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Layne pursed her lips. “You’re a test pilot they’re sending over with me. It has to have something to do with planes.”

He shrugged. “No lies, remember? It’s safer for you not to try to piece it together.”

“That’s right. The less I know, the less I could spill to the enemy in case I’m caught and interrogated.” Layne drew in a deep breath. “I know the Company has a compartmentation policy. Feed only necessary tidbits of information on a need-to-know basis to those involved. But I’m not one of your operatives. You’re asking me to walk into a situation that’s obviously got some danger attached to it and blindly trust you!” Her voice rose with feeling. “And I learned the hard way about trusting anyone from the Company.”

Matt’s mouth became grimmer. “Look, Layne, if I have my way about this, once the contact with Kang is made, you’ll be staying in Hong Kong where it’s safe.”

A deluge of old emotions broke loose within her. “Why do we have to act like we’re married? And why the Princeton?” Her voice held a note of anguish.

“It’s necessary under the present circumstances to arouse no suspicions when we fly to Hong Kong. A husband-and-wife freelance team on a honeymoon won’t stir up too much interest in enemy intelligence communities. I’ll be contacting our CIA people and British Special Intelligence as soon as we land there.”

“And the Princeton?”

The pain was evident in her trembling voice. Matt softened. She deserved a buffer zone of protection on the emotional front. “Kang’s orders. That’s where you stayed last time, and apparently he likes that location because the hotel sits right on the bay. An ideal strategic ploy if he or his people need to escape from the British officials who’d like to string them all up.” His eyes grew tender. “I know it was the hotel where you and your husband stayed.” He reached out, cradling her hand in his. “I hope it will be for only a few days.”

Tiny tingles of pleasure arose from his touch, and Layne wondered if he realized how much his one gesture had halted her spinning emotional reaction.

“I—It’s just that…it brings back some very unpleasant memories.”

Matt frowned. “Unpleasant?” He’d assumed the opposite. “But you were on vacation….”

Layne withdrew her hand from his. “It’s nice to know that not everything is in my file,” she said sharply, suddenly refusing to meet his eyes.

“Files give facts, not emotional experiences. Didn’t your husband want to vacation in the Far East with you?” Rapidly he searched the compartments of his memory for facts on Brad Carson’s marital status with his wife. Outwardly, it had appeared to be storybook perfect. There’d been nothing to suggest that Layne was unhappy. But his gut had told him differently when he’d perused Layne’s file. Carson had been ice all the way through, and after meeting Layne, Matt had recognized the chasm of emotional differences between her and her late husband.

“I suppose anything I say to you will end up in a report somewhere.”

“No, it won’t. It’s none of anyone’s business what your personal life with Brad was like.”

Layne wanted to believe him. “It was my idea to try and find one of the pirate clan leaders for an interview. Brad wanted nothing more than to relax at the hotel for two weeks.” Layne drew small circles on the white damask tablecloth with her index finger. Her voice became hushed. “I love the Far East. I was raised by my amah—my Chinese nanny—and could speak her language before I ever learned English.” She gave a rueful laugh. “My mom and dad were chagrined, to say the least, when they found that out. Anyway, I practically begged Brad to take me to the Orient. I hadn’t been there in seven years, and I was homesick.” She glanced over at Matt. “Would it sound strange if I told you that I feel more at home living among the people of the Far East than I do here?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s understandable. You spent the first fifteen years of your life over there.”

“Funny,” Layne mused, “Brad could never grasp that. He didn’t want to go, and we got into a terrific fight over it. Brad hated tears. He called them a sign of weakness. And I cried a lot because I wanted to go home, just for two weeks. To make a long, complicated story very short, Brad capitulated and we went to Hong Kong.” She shut her eyes against the memory. “If I had known that two months later he was to be killed,” she said softly, “I’d never have forced the issue with him. I would have done exactly as he wanted. I should have let him have his way….”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Matt murmured, catching her morose gaze. “After five years of marriage you had never returned home. Why shouldn’t he have allowed you that one request?”

Layne gave him a small smile. “Because we always went where he wanted to go on vacation, for each of those other four years.” She sighed, raising her dark head to look at him. There was an odd catch in her voice when she spoke. “You have a gentle way of getting me to put it into perspective, Matt. Thank you.”

The seconds spun effortlessly between them. Matt was aware of nothing in that moment except her. He felt a wrench in his chest, the blazing heat of desire uncoiling deep within his body. God, how he wanted her. “If you had been my wife,” he said huskily, “I’d have made damn sure that you’d gone home to the Far East long before our fifth year of marriage. The Orient is as much a part of you as flying jets is to me, we all need our own kind of emotional sustenance in order to be happy.”

“I agree with your analogy.” A soft smile lingered on Layne’s lips, and in her heart, as she tilted her head, drinking him in. There was an honesty to him that she’d never encountered in an agent before. “Are you working for the Company full-time?”

Matt shook his head. “No. Just on special projects. The rest of the time I do what I enjoy most—flying.”

“A career officer, no doubt?”

“Does it show?” he asked, grinning.

“Yes, but it’s becoming to you. You wear your authority well.” And I feel heady, dizzy and wonderful, she added mentally. How could one man unhinge her so quickly?

“Since that’s coming from an Air Force brat, I’ll say thank you.”

As Layne met his warm gaze, she felt a delicious wave of hunger course through her. She stared at Matt’s mouth, a mouth neither so thin as to be considered cruel nor so full as to be overtly sensual. But it was the way he used his mouth that entranced her. One moment the corners would be drawn inward as if he were experiencing some silent pain; the next, they’d be curved generously upward into a genuine smile meant for her alone. She remembered his kiss, the branding fire of his commanding mouth as it took total charge of her parting lips. How many times in the past forty-eight hours had she recalled those moments of intimacy between them?

“Listen, Layne,” Matt said quietly, breaking into her thoughts, “we’ve got to have your decision.”

She remained silent a long minute, studying him. The bright September sun slanted through the floor-to-ceiling glass, back-lighting his head, broad shoulders and torso. He was an eagle ready to attack and a warrior from the past come to life again. He could be ruthless one moment, hot-blooded the next. She used her instincts, trying to probe beyond what he wanted her to read in his features. Fear raced through her, making her stomach clench in response.