Heartbreak Hero. Frances Housden

came through about Gordie dying. Its cotton still retained the creases his fist had scrunched in it while Garnet Chaly’s cool voice had come over his cell phone.

      As special agent in charge of Southeast Asian Ops, a huge territory including the South Pacific, he supposed it behooved Chaly to remain calm. The guy hadn’t lost a partner, only an operative.

      Kel knew the drill. Agents weren’t allowed the closure of a funeral. They might be spotted among the mourners. No dragging their asses in sorrow; they picked themselves up and got on with the job. Changing his appearance hadn’t changed that, or relieved the guilt-induced nausea roiling under his ribs. Or the knowledge there’d be no time for grief.

      Heat struck at him from the concrete pavement. It caught him a glancing blow from a midday sun filling the Tahitian sky with a wide, mean streak of brass, taking its spite out on the palms till their leaves drooped. Not a solitary cloud challenged its dominance, yet inside him the rain came down in sheets.

      With one last drag of his smoke, he assumed an outward calm. To maintain the pretence he daren’t blink. Sure his eyes felt raw as a day-old recruit, but it was better than the image inside his lids of Gordie, like a broken china doll someone had tossed aside.

      His latest info on the courier put the guy on a ferry from the neighboring island of Moorea, where the mountains rose high and dark and ancient, like castle turrets in a fairy tale. Not one like Rapunzel, but a dark, blood-filled tale to fit his mood.

      The connection keeping him out in the heat was an airport bus that, by his watch, should have arrived five minutes ago even on island time. Part of his problem was the lack of a photo to help recognize his target. Though going by the name, and life’s conditioning, he’d concluded Two Feathers to be of Native American extraction. That’s unless the feathers in his name belonged to a wild goose.

      Kel lit another cigarette.

      “Monsieur.” A stranger’s rough accent infiltrated the roar of a jumbo jet rising through the fine suspension of kerosene vapors hanging in the air, waiting for a breeze to come along.

      “Yeah?” Kel grated at a bulky islander whose four spare chins overlapped a red shirt that reminded Kel of an old sofa cover his grandmother once had.

      Flashing a grateful grin, the man said, “Whoa man! You speak English. Great. Could I bum a light off of you?”

      Kel let his thoughts race through the Filofax in his head, the place he kept everything too important to write down. The accent had none of the French flavors he’d tuned into since his arrival yesterday; instead it reminded him of home.

      “No problem, mate.” Kel handed over a matchbook, picked up the night before in a downtown bar where the drums kept time with the dancers’ hips.

      The guy sweated noticeably as he tapped his Marlboro on the cigarette packet, then clamped it between his fleshy lips, drawing hard as the match flared. “Thanks, mate, you’ve no idea how I needed that.” He tossed the matchbook over.

      Kel caught it and nodded toward the other smokers, saying, “You, me and about ten others. Wouldn’t say no to a cold one to accompany it.”

      “A beer wouldn’t touch the sides. This heat bites.”

      He looked like a guy who should be used to hotter climates, but appearances could be deceiving. Kel should know.

      Slipping the matches into his shirt pocket, he hefted his suit carrier, gave the guy a brief salute and moved over a few feet, following the shade. He traveled light. No waiting for the carousel to disgorge his stuff while Mr. N. Two Feathers McKay, like Elvis, left the building. Having nothing to hide, after a mandatory inspection, both his carrier and laptop would be allowed on board.

      Of course, this meant nixing all weapons, other than the skills he’d learned in the SAS and a few dirty moves Gordie had taught him that had helped keep him alive more than once. They were all part of the game. Part of being an agent who might be in Sydney one day and Tahiti the next.

      Five days of sun at Club Med had painted Ngaire pale bronze, her skin’s natural inclination. And she’d enjoyed the soft rush of cooling air as the ferry skimmed the waves between islands.

      By contrast, the current bus ride sucked. Small, packed tight, with no air-conditioning to speak of, it made her long to be winging her way toward New Zealand in the relative luxury of economy class.

      For the first time since she’d left San Francisco, she almost felt homesick for the cool mist that had crowded the Golden Gate Bridge as she flew out of the good old U.S. of A.

      Heaven knows, she wasn’t the only one with problems. The legs of the lanky guy behind her stretched into the passage. His bony knees and ankles had invaded her comfort zone, while he had the nerve to grumble in German to his lady companion.

      Then, like a snowstorm in hell, all her complaints melted away instantly as she caught sight of the airport, with its regulation stands of palms edging the road, for the second time in a week.

      Her skin crawled with anticipation, tightening round her bones until she wanted nothing more than to stand up and stretch it back into shape. In a few hours she’d be landing in New Zealand where her grandmother had been born.

      The land her grandfather had called paradise. Though she preferred the words of American author Zane Grey, last, loneliest, loveliest. An evocative description that sang like a siren’s call in her ears. Though she had the blood of four nations rushing through her veins, Ngaire felt ties to none.

      Maybe in paradise she would find herself.

      The sigh of air brakes announced the arrival of a blue bus carrying a yellow hibiscus logo, pulling up a few yards ahead.

      Kel measured its size with his eye and did the numbers, reckoning on a twenty, twenty-two seater. He’d expected to deal with a luxury coach, so this put him ahead of the game.

      Maybe his luck had turned.

      The bus door swooshed open, folding in two. A pair of shoulders balanced above a belly like Buddha’s took its place as the driver lumbered off in a shirt as loud as his bus. Following him in a jumble of leis and woven palm-leaf hats, a half-dozen colorful Tahitian women alighted, swaying and giggling as the driver unclipped the baggage compartment, calling “Un moment, mademoiselles, s’il vous plaît, un moment” over one shoulder.

      Kel took a few swift puffs of his cigarette, letting hot smoke roll over his tongue to release through his nose in short, sharp bursts. Not a sign of anyone resembling the image he’d built of Two Feathers McKay. “Dammit!” He spat the word out under his breath. The curse didn’t relieve his frustration.

      Tossing the half-smoked butt into a sand bucket, he moved closer as the passengers dribbled out slowly and began to blend. He counted twelve islanders with a filtering of Europeans, French extraction, going by the casual elegance of their clothes. Behind the anonymity of his dark glasses, he eyed a tall man in a crumpled beige suit, heard a smattering of German as the dude snapped an order, a curse, then a demand at the driver.

      One more to cross off his list.

      His heart rate picked up. What if McKay had taken a different route? From the smell of things, their info could be a red herring. Wrapping his fist round the strap of his bag, he clamped down on his frustration. He wanted—no, needed—to be the one to find the goons responsible for Gordie’s death.

      The last passenger left the bus, tightening the thumbscrews on the fear of failure raging inside him. This was a woman, medium height, with muscles lightly sculpted under glowing skin. She flicked a long black braid behind her shoulder, stepping into the remaining space to complete the crescent of passengers awaiting luggage.

      As she dropped her small day pack between her feet, he watched her reach high, stretching with all the athletic grace of a dancer.

      Every instinct shouted “Trouble,” with a capital T.

      Latent sexual greed slugged him a good one. He wanted some of that, wanted a taste of the peach-fuzz skin