Navajo Echoes. Cassie Miles

freedom of dancing on the sand, her sandals felt like bricks strapped to her feet and the idea of another cross-island trek almost brought tears to her eyes.

      He pointed to a colorfully painted bench beside a beige stucco wall. “Wait here.”

      Splitting up seemed like a terrible plan, but she did as John ordered, sinking onto the bench, bending down to massage her calf and putting her ankle holster within easy reach.

      John didn’t go far. He approached a young man sitting on a beat-up motor scooter. After a quick negotiation and an exchange of cash from John’s money belt, they had transportation.

      “Did you rent this?” she asked.

      “Bought it.”

      His extravagance surprised her. “What about the expense account?”

      “I’ll resell when we’re done. Maybe even turn a profit.”

      She perched behind John on the scooter, which was only slightly larger than a moped and not much faster. Top speed was probably about thirty miles per hour, but it was better than walking.

      On the scooter, they doubled back, passing the man who had been following them. He jogged after them. John whipped onto a side street, then took a couple more zigzags. Then, they were on an unlit two-lane asphalt road, bordered by thick vegetation on either side.

      Despite the crowds in town, there were no cars out here. She held on to John’s waist for balance, but her gaze fastened on the road behind them. If the man who had been following them gave pursuit, her backside presented an obvious target. She saw no one. No headlights. No light at all except for the full moon. No sounds but the putt-putt of the scooter and the squawks of island parrots.

      The entire island was only sixteen miles from end to end, and it didn’t take long to get to the far end, where John turned right onto a road that was little more than a bike path. At a rocky strip of beach, he stopped. “This must be it. Pirate Cove.”

      “How are we doing for time?”

      He checked his watch. “Six minutes to midnight.”

      While John hid the scooter in the lush under-growth, she found a shadowed hiding place near the shore. She sat with her knees pulled up and her back leaning against the limestone.

      She could see how Pirate Cove had gotten its name. Jagged rocks thrust into the sea, creating a natural barrier where smugglers could hide. Blackbeard and his crew of buccaneers might have rowed ashore to this very place and buried their treasure of gold doubloons.

      John joined her and stretched his long legs out straight in front of him.

      They sat quietly. Exhaustion rolled over her like waves from the sea, but her mind was still active. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier.”

      “About what?”

      “You reminded me that I’m not a cop anymore.”

      “Right.”

      “That badge comes in handy,” she said. “If I were a cop, I wouldn’t have spent the past hour dodging through town, evading a tail. I’d arrest the creep and move on.”

      “Simple,” he said.

      And nothing about PPS was simple. “Our work is way more complicated than regular law enforcement. We don’t have the authority to lock up the bad guys. On the other hand, we’re not limited by a need for search warrants and chain-of-evidence procedure.”

      “For someone like you, someone who acts on instinct, that ought to make a positive difference.”

      She liked the freedom of thinking outside the box, but some of the things their job required bordered on being illegal. Like not reporting the plane crash. “It’s a little confusing.”

      “How so?”

      “Have you ever been asked to do something you thought was wrong? Like being a bodyguard for somebody who wasn’t a good person.”

      “That’s happened,” he said. “But I didn’t think it was morally wrong. Even scumbags deserve protection.”

      “How do you know you’re doing the right thing?”

      When he turned toward her, the moonlight cast an intriguing shadow below his high cheekbones. “I trust in what I’m doing because I trust the vision of Robert Prescott, who founded PPS. He’s a good man. No matter what he asked me to do, I’d do it. Without questions.”

      She’d heard so many stories about Robert Prescott, the former agent for the British secret service who was involved in dozens of international conspiracies. After he supposedly was killed in a fiery plane crash in Europe, the legends got bigger. Robert Prescott came off sounding like a combination of a superhero and James Bond. “You’ve been with him a long time. What’s he really like?”

      “He has the qualities I respect. A sense of honor. Courage. Loyalty. He loves his wife, Evangeline, with all his heart.”

      And yet, he’d stayed away for two years. There must have been compelling reasons. Soon Lily would know. Soon she would meet the legend himself. Excitement stirred her senses. Here she was on a Caribbean island in a place called Pirate’s Cove, waiting for a former MI6 agent. Life didn’t get more exotic than this.

      John checked his wristwatch. “He’s late.”

      “Edgar said we should wait only an hour.”

      She hoped they hadn’t come all this way to find a dead end. In spite of her sweatshirt, a shiver went through her.

      “Cold?” John asked.

      “A bit.”

      “Lean against me.” He slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’ll keep you warm.”

      “I’m fine.” Right now she had the advantage in their game of sexual one-upsmanship, and she wanted to keep it that way. Shrugging off his arm, she repeated, “Just fine.”

      “I’m not coming on to you, Lily.”

      The hell he wasn’t. “Of course not.”

      “Think of me as a big brother.”

      “Can’t do it. I was an only child.”

      “That explains a lot.”

      He folded his arms across his chest and stared out to sea. As always, his attitude was calm, controlled and absolutely maddening.

      She peered around his shoulder. “What does my being an only child have to do with anything?”

      “No siblings,” he said. “You never had to learn to compromise.”

      “Oh, please.” She got along well with other people. “Spare me the cut-rate psychology. Both my parents were doctors, and I was sent to a shrink at the first sign of rebellion.”

      “And how did that work out?” he asked drily.

      “What are you hinting at?”

      “You’re still a rebel.”

      “Maybe so,” she admitted. Definitely so. The more people told her that she shouldn’t do something, the more she wanted to give it a whirl. “I like to go my own way. What’s the point in following the predictable path of college and career, marriage and kids?”

      “Security.”

      He answered so quickly that she knew this was an issue he had considered. Doing what was expected. Being like everybody else. And yet that description didn’t fit John at all. For one thing, he was thirty-seven and not settled down with wife and kids. “Have you ever been married?”

      He gave a quick shake of his head. “You?”

      “No.” She hadn’t even lost her virginity yet—a detail she didn’t intend to share with him.

      “How