Chapter 1

The things some men do to get their kicks.

"C'mon," he said to me, adopting a menacing look and his voice sounding like water flowing hard over dense gravel. Not quite a crouch, but deadly serious in his ready-to-fight stance. "Give it your best shot, sweetheart. It's the only one you'll get."

This type of physical confrontation always set my adrenalin pumping. But, in this case, adopting a disarming, nonchalant attitude was called for. I rolled my eyes at him. "Give me a break. I'm not getting drawn into this."

"I'm not playing. There's no way out for you," he said, taking one step toward me, his voice now with an edgier, no-nonsense note.

Looking swiftly around and searching for his partner. The partner shook his head, raised his hands and backed up against the brick wall, leaning back to watch as this man got ready to kick my ass. Well, try it, anyway.

"I don't want to hurt you," I told him. He laughed at me. He should have known better than that. I crooked a finger at him. "Fine, asshole. Come and get me."

He was on his back not even a minute later and my hand was not even a half-inch from causing him severe bodily injury. His mistake? He'd misinterpreted my old give-and-take move for weakness. My version of give-and-take? I gave in initially, causing a man to assume he had the advantage and before he could remember I was a trained operative, not just a little female, I took the advantage from him. It was my own perverse, feminist personality that turned the little trick my way. Besides, this particular man? All you had to do was look at him to know he'd always think of me first and foremost as a woman. It was a soft spot I decided to use to my advantage.

"Give up?" his partner asked him, coming over toward us. 

I eyed his partner, trying to judge if this was a ploy designed to take me in. Ready to take the partner down if this was another little game on their part. When it didn't look like it, I looked down at my now-vanquished opponent to see whether he wanted to push this any further.

"We're done then," he said, his eyes never leaving mine. 

"I don't trust either of you," I replied, moving off him and backing away from them, wary of what they could do if they decided to gang up on me.

"Hey, baby, don't be that way," he told me as he began to rise, rubbing his shoulder where I knew he'd have a bruise the next day. "Admit it. You loved putting me on my ass."

"Terry, if you do this to me one more time, I swear..." But when I couldn't think of anything to swear to, I threw him the bird, turned and walked into the house.

Standing in front of the kitchen sink and sipping a beer as I watched the sun setting outside. Heard him walk in from the back yard and he walked right up against my back, slipping his big arms around my waist. His lips began kissing my neck. "Not mad at me, are ya, Lisa?"

I turned in his arms and nailed him with a look. "Mad? At you? Why ever for?" He tried to kiss me on the lips but I pushed him away from me.

"Oh, baby, c'mon, you know you love me," he whispered in his now-husky, sexy voice.

"Wait. It's coming to me. Yeah. It's this stupid, macho shit you try to pull on me. It was one thing, Terry, to recognize I was rusty and give me the help I needed then. It's another thing not to see that I've got my skills and timing back." We were looking in each other's eyes and I read his shifting, battling emotions. It was so much easier on him if he could believe I was still healing and needed to be sheltered. It was so much harder than he anticipated that I was wanting some fieldwork. Like he'd promised. "I've worked hard with Dino. He's convinced. When will you be? Because I'm damned tired of your little tests and challenges."

He dropped his eyes from my gaze and I felt his hands begin to stroke up and down my back. I shivered, just like always, when his mouth settled warmly over the base of my throat and he let out his little moan that seemed to come from deep in his body.

"Bastard," I whispered. "Don't get me wet when I'm mad at you."

Well, now, that just made him all the more intent on what he was doing. And, hell, I'd never had it in me to really stop him. It felt too good. He pressed in against me, taking my lips with his at the same time he let me feel how hard he'd gotten. Just to be sure I got the message he was intending to send me, he rubbed himself against me until I moaned into his mouth. Then he pulled his face away from mine and smiled at me.

God. He had the most amazing smiles. Sometimes they were the briefest flares and other times, they seemed to light up his entire face. Some were inviting, some menacing, some made you laugh and others could make me come. But they were always welcome because, so often, his face was set in a serious or professional look.

He'd been a part of my life full-time for almost eight months. Since I'd come back with him from the British Virgin Islands. I'd accepted the job he and his partner Dino offered me with their firm, so that kept us in constant contact even when he was off on an operation. I still hadn't moved from Washington to London, even though this had become a major issue in our relationship. But except for occasional trips to the States for me and his frequent travels to so many foreign places, we were essentially living together in his house outside London.

Terry had promised me that life with him would be an adventure. So far, most of the adventure was his. I was relegated to support duty, doing their research, coordinating with their clients, analyzing data and suggesting new strategy for Terry, Dino and their operatives. And that had been fine and dandy for the first few months.

But the more I learned of their trade, negotiating for the release and/or affecting the rescue of social-cause and economic hostages who were employees of large multinational companies, the more I began to want to be a part of some actual operations with them. Being a former DEA field operative, it really wasn't a stretch. Now, granted, when Terry first convinced me to go to work for them, I was coming off a pretty disastrous reintroduction to my old way of undercover life. And I was rusty from years of being a desk jockey bureaucrat whose job at the State Department was behind-the-scenes analysis and coordination of Caribbean drug battles and assassinations.

Dino had been the first to realize I was getting bored. He'd come along with me on a client interface mission about three months earlier. We were going to brief some company CEO in Miami about the status of an ongoing operation to retrieve two of his in-country Guatemalan executives who'd been held hostage for almost a month. But we also needed to interview three men on his payroll whom we suspected might have known quite a bit more than anyone had realized. Turned out they were trying to work their own deal with the guerrillas who'd taken the hostages. And their little side effort was the undercurrent I'd felt in my gut more than I'd known in my head. It was what was making Terry's ability to negotiate much too difficult.

After we'd...ahem... chatted with the three company men, that undercurrent was stamped out. Driving away from the company, Dino had glanced over at me in the passenger seat. I was looking out the window and, to just about anyone else, it would have appeared I was fine.

"So, what's bugging you, Lisa?" he asked me in that lilt of a cadence he had. I adored Dino and his brash, uncompromising take on life. In these months working with him, he'd become the brother I'd never had. "Not having much fun with us anymore?"

I turned and looked at him, giving him my best bland smile. I wasn't about ready to have this conversation with him before I had it with Terry. But I had already decided to stop working for them. When Dino left to return to Honduras where Terry was, I was stopping off in Washington for a day or two before continuing on to London. I had an appointment with an old friend to talk about a consulting position with her agency. So, I chose to divert Dino into another discussion. "Nothing's wrong. I think stopping these guys will allow you and Terry finish this operation. Don't you? Or is there something I'm missing?"

"This is me, kiddo. Talk to me," he said, darting his watery-blue eyes my way, and the red flush creeping up his neck told me he was failing on his effort to not be pissed at my much too obvious attempts to not talk with him.

Feeling that curious twisting in my gut but not showing any of my tumbled emotions as I returned his look. Lying with the ease of years of training. "Nothing's wrong, Dino. I swear."

He gave me a curt nod and peered straight ahead, never saying another word to me until we reached the airport. Thankfully, we were flying out on different airlines so he would have no reason not to assume I was flying to London with a stopover in Washington just to change planes. After I'd checked in at my airline counter, I went to find him in the hotel bar. His flight was leaving first but we had two hours to kill, even with the amount of extra time you had to give for the security screenings.

One beer later, I looked up to find him staring into me, his look very hard and very unhappy. "What?" I asked him quietly.

"You tell me, Lisa. And tell me now, before you do it."

"I'm not..." I began, but his curt headshake and then his hand on my chin made me stop. He peered into my eyes, raising his eyebrows with an unspoken question, as he leaned toward me. "Terry is still waiting for me to shatter into a million pieces and I'm just not built to sit around and let a man worry about me that way. He's never going to be comfortable with me working beside you guys in the field. I just don't think it's working out too well."

"Well, A, he loves you. And, B, you are doing incredible work for us. And it's not just the analysis and research. You have such an ability to work with the clients, to get them calm during the crisis and help us dig out information and intelligence. So it's working well."

"Not for me." He dropped his hand and we looked away from each other. "And this doesn't have a thing to do with our personal relationship. I'm still in love with Terry and you're still one of my dearest friends. Nothing will change that if I leave your firm."

"You're bored, huh?"

"It's not that I'm bored. It's just that..." I shook my head. "I'm wasting my time and my talents. I'm using maybe half of what I am to work for you guys. I don't know. Maybe you're right, maybe I'm bored. But this isn't what you guys said I'd be doing."

"I think Terry's got legitimate concerns, Lisa..." he said. I couldn't even look at him. "Lisa? God knows there are some of our operations where having someone like you along would be a real asset. But not until you've proven to us both that you've got your skills and your mental resources back."

"Terry's dead set against it. Every time I try to talk with him about it, he gets all goofy and gruff and..." I told him in a low voice. When I looked back up at him, he was smiling at me. "I think all he can think about is what happened in Trinidad. No matter how many times I try to tell him that I actually was a pretty good operative, he has only that experience to judge me by. And we all know just how bad that was."

"He knows you were good, Lisa. The Chief told us some stories, and, well, let's just say, we both know you were good. And what happened in Trinidad wasn't your fault, Lisa. All things considered, the fact was you showed amazing resourcefulness in getting away from us and staying hidden until you made the mistake at the port. And then, frankly, just surviving Santiago says a lot," he said. "But you'd need a lot of work to get back to the level you were at when you were in the field. And there have been some changes, especially in equipment, since you were an active agent."

And that's really how the plan hatched between me and Dino. I promised not to leave their company until Dino could arrange for me to get some refresher training. And when the training was over, if Dino thought I was ready, then he was going to help me in convincing Terry. And if that didn't work, only then would I leave the company.

So, at least a month before that evening at Terry's house, I'd convinced Dino I was ready. But between us, we were unable to convince Terry. It was obvious I was going to quit their firm. Obvious to me and Dino. Terry was blindly oblivious.

By that point, I knew Terry well enough to figure this was a hopeless cause. I wasn't upset at him about it. It would have been incredibly unfair to any team of theirs I might join if Terry's mind was only partially focused on the job at hand because some part of his brain was watching out for me, worrying about my safety.

The only thing I was pissed off at him about that evening was that he kept playing this game of "meet this challenge and then I'll be convinced." He'd set up these tests or he'd spring something on me, then if I failed, it was one more vote against me. But if and when I passed, then he'd come up with one more challenge. It had become a never-ending stalling tactic for him.

He and Dino were flying back out in two days to visit with a client in Houston. I was flying with them as far as Washington.  Terry had set me up to meet with a potential new client and assess their situation before he and Dino would draw up the formal proposal. Terry didn't know I had also made a new appointment with my old friend in Washington to see if her agency might still be interested in having me do some consulting work. I was pretty sure that by the time we hooked back up, I'd be handing Terry and Dino my resignation. Dino had promised to help me deal with Terry's reaction, which we both knew was likely to be pretty unpleasant.

But just then, I was shoving all of that into the furthest reaches of my mind. I was much too busy concentrating on his smile. And on other parts of his body. Like the part he was pressing into me below. And the parts that were even then holding me tighter against his body.

"Damn, baby, you are too sexy for your own good... not to mention mine," I whispered to him just before I dove into his lips. We were kissing, mad and hot for each other, and he was sliding his hands up under my shirt.

The door banged shut but it wasn't until Dino gave a loud snort that we even took note that we were not alone anymore. "Will you two fucking knock it off? How do you think this makes me feel?" Dino said, stage whispering so his date didn't hear. She was sitting outside on the deck, probably wondering just what kind of loonies we were this time.

Michelle Williams, an American ex-patriot working in London as a university professor of sociology, had been to Terry's house with Dino exactly twice. The first time, Terry and Dino had gotten a call and had had to leave immediately for Germany on a case. Which left me to entertain poor Michelle and try to convince her to give Dino another chance. The next time she was with us, we met for a quiet dinner at a nice upscale restaurant and Terry came in sporting bruises and cuts on his face that made it obvious he'd been in some kind of fight. Now, we'd invited her to come over for a peaceful evening and it had devolved into yet another of Terry's spur-of-the-moment challenges when Dino had again told him I was ready for fieldwork.

So, in this evening when it was really important to Dino to make a good impression on this woman he really liked, first I'd almost killed Terry, and now we were about to screw in the kitchen. Lovely.

I started giggling, embarrassed to have been such a poor example of a friend, but Terry would have none of it. "We'll be with you shortly," he said, taking me by the wrist and dragging me toward the bedroom.

It didn't take much effort to get away from him and, even though the rest of the evening he tossed heated looks my way, I knew it had been the right thing to do. When Dino and Michelle left, I thought he'd jump me immediately but, instead he wandered back through the house and started cleaning up the scattered remnants of our evening's fun. I did the dishes as he brought them to me, glancing at him each trip, trying to read where he was going this time. But he never met my eyes. When I was finished, I went looking for him. Found him standing on the back deck, looking off into the night, his brow furrowed with what looked like worry.

Putting my arms around him, I snuggled in to his warm body. One of his arms dropped slowly down to lie against my back but it didn't hug me in like normal. I leaned away from him and looked up into his face to find he was still staring off, like his mind was thousands of miles from his body. "Hey," I whispered to him, then tugged on his chin so he'd looked at me. "What's up?"

He shook his head, just two slight movements. Then sighed and went to sit in one of the padded deck chairs. When he held out his arms to me, I went and sat on his lap. "You've changed," he said.

My heart did this thump-thump thing and then jumped into my throat. "Have I done something wrong, Terry?"

"No, love. It's just..." Big sigh from him that seemed sad.

Oh, crappola, I thought, this cannot be a good thing. "God, Terry, we have only a few days together. Let's just be together and forget everything else."

"Dino tells me you're getting ready to quit on us," he said, still not looking at me. "I know you want to come in the field with us, but I'm just not sure that's a good idea."

"Let's not confuse work with us, Terry. We can still be together as a couple even if I'm not working for you," I said, quietly but firmly. "You and I want different roles for me in your firm. I refuse to fight with you about that. It's simply time for me to move on."

"I don't want you to take another job." His voice had this quiet quality but it sounded so intense. "Lisa, you won't even think twice about staying in Washington if you're working for an agency there. I think that's why you've never given up your place there. If you live there, we won't survive as a couple because we'll never see each other."

Sitting stiffly in his lap, physically close to him but neither of us really touching each other or trying to connect in any way. It saddened me. I wouldn't let this happen to us. So I turned and straddled him, my legs bent into the chair, my crotch purposely on top of his, my arms around his neck and I kissed him under the front edge of his jaw and then leaned in to plant a soft kiss on his lips. When I looked at him, his eyes were shut. "Open your eyes, Terry Thorne," I ordered him in a soft voice.

He slid his eyes open slowly and then focused on mine. "Are you giving me an ultimatum, Lisa? That I either let you go on field operations or you return to Washington?"

"Oh, baby, no. I'd never do that," I whispered, my fingers now pulling his face toward mine. Gave him another little kiss and this time, he responded a little more. "If you don't feel safe with me on a recovery team with you, then I don't want to be there. But, Terry... other people would feel safe working with me. Would it really be that much of a problem if I took on consulting work with a U.S. agency that allowed me to do some low profile investigative work? It'd be all domestic operations."

"We'd never see each other if you live in Washington, Lisa," he replied, his voice hard.

"I'm not talking about staying in Washington. I'm talking about occasional work. It would just be a few times a year."

"When are you moving here with me, Lisa?" His eyes were examining mine now, intent on what they'd read in there.

Damn him. How could he ask me that? Surely, what he really wanted was for me to make a decision that he was my entire future. And he was asking me to do that without either of us ever discussing any long-term commitment to each other. What was smart about giving up my base in Washington to move to London for a man when we were still finding out just exactly how deep our love for each other was? It wasn't wise at all because we might not last very long, and then where would I be?

I mean, he'd be fine if we split up. He wasn't giving up anything. If we broke up, he'd still be living in the same house and working in the same job. I'd be the one packing up and emigrating back to the U.S. to start a whole new life. The medical retirement pension I was collecting from State was my ace in the hole. It was the only reason money wasn't really an issue for me.

"I'm living here with you, Terry, and I'm not sure I'll ever understand why that's not good enough for you," I told him, still hanging on to him but now not nearly so intent on his body. "I don't need to move my furniture here to be living with you any more than I already am. What's really going on?"

"No, Lisa. You're not living with me. You're visiting," he said, almost under his breath, like he wasn't sure he really wanted me to hear that. I figured it must have been a sentiment he'd been holding in for a while, judging by the tone of his voice.

Deep breath. Long look into his eyes. And I got up from him. Without another word. He was breaking my heart. Just before I went back in the house, I paused to look over at him. He had turned in his chair, his eyes following me. We looked at each other for a moment. "Maybe it's time the visit ended, Terry. Because it feels like I've worn out my welcome."

Inside his house. HIS house. It would always be his, no matter how long I stayed with him there. In all those months, I still felt like I had to ask his permission about even mundane things. And even the many, many nights I spent alone there, it felt like I was still a guest. I stood in his bedroom. HIS bedroom. I felt tears falling and wiped them away almost roughly. Fuck. I hated it when I cried over him. I had never felt this way about a man before. He could make me giddy with happiness just to see him and ache with misery when he wasn't with me. It felt like my world revolved around him and sometimes that filled me with joy, but other times it seemed incredibly sad. Because I wasn't at all sure he felt that deeply about me.

"Don't leave me," I heard him say, his voice soft. "Promise me you won't leave me."

I turned to look at him, standing solidly in the doorway, his eyes a sea of feelings. "I don't know what to say, Terry. I haven't a clue anymore what it is you want from me. I love you so much and you have such power over my happiness. You tell me I've changed and I know I have. But maybe you don't like me this way. Maybe that's why you're pushing me away," I told him, not even bothering to wipe away the tears that were streaming down my face.

"Baby, I don't mean to push you away," he said, coming up to me and wrapping his arms around me. "I think I'm just trying to get ready for you to dump me."

"Terry, you big idiot. Why the fuck would you ever think I was going to dump your sorry ass?" I said, my instant anger snapping briskly from me and causing him to jump back from me. "Goddammit. I love you, asshole. I thought you knew that."

He started laughing, even in the face of my fury. "Damn, baby. I think that's probably the nastiest way anyone's ever told me they loved me."

I grabbed the front of his shirt and roughly yanked him back to me. "Where the fuck do you get off doubting my love?"

Eyes closed, he was making an effort to calm the situation by simply waiting me out. Finally, he leaned toward me and found my mouth with his. "I love you, Lisa. I do. And I do know you love me."

"Then what's going on, Terry?"

"Love, I... I cannot imagine you back in the field. I mean, I can imagine you there and that's the problem. It's the, um, the particular methods... It's the way you did things... I'm not sure I can..."

Stumbling, mumbling all over himself and for some reason, I knew exactly what he was trying to say without saying it. "You're worried I'll revert back to what the Chief called my 'special talent?'" I asked him, saying it softly, hoping to make him admit it. So we could address it. Because if this was what the entire problem was, we didn't have a problem.

He sighed and opened his eyes to peer into mine. I doubted he could read me. "Let me spell it out for you, Terry. That was a long time ago. And it was only one part of my repertoire. It might have been the thing Kirk talked about the most to you, but that was only something I did when it was really necessary. I know that you and Dino would never put me in that position."

"No. We wouldn't."

His entire body seemed to relax as my words began to sink in. I smiled at him and stepped in against him. Leaned up toward his ear and whispered, in a voice that was hoarse from want, "You're the only man I'll ever use that special talent on, Terry Thorne. I'd seduce you any day of the week, any hour of the day."

"Seduce me, then, love," he said, his face getting that hard edge to it that always made me wet because it just made him look that much more sexual to me.

But it wasn't really me who did the seducing that night. Well, at least, not just me. I think we seduced each other. We started out wrapped against each other, standing in the middle of his bedroom, kissing, disrobing, exploring. Then he was on his back in the bed and I could have devoured his beautiful cock, but if I'd done that, well... that wouldn't have been very smart for the future, would it? Instead, I licked and sucked and stroked until he was pulling me off and pulling me up his body. His strong arms kept moving me higher until he had my dripping cunt positioned right over his mouth. I had to hold on to the headboard to keep from falling on him when his mouth and tongue drove me to an intense orgasm.

Only then, smiling lustfully into each other's eyes, did I crawl back down his body and settle on top of his shaft, getting that same unique feeling as he stretched me. I rode him hard, my head back as I came blazing past the sweet point of oblivion. He called my name softly and I looked down at him through the hair that had fallen across my eyes. He was smiling at me again and you already know what his smiles do to me. So when he crooked his finger at me, I lowered my body down to his and he held me tightly against him as he began to thrust into me with such force. I was grinding against him, driven by his urgency into seeking another orgasm and when I heard those grunts that I knew meant he was so near his own coming, then I closed my eyes and let myself get swept up in bliss yet again.

We never discussed the job again until the morning we were rushing around getting ready for our flight to the States. I came running out of the bedroom, trying to pack and get dressed and remember where I'd left the extra battery for my laptop - all at the same time. And ran smack into his big, hard body. If he hadn't grabbed me, I would have fallen on my ass.

"Oops, sorry, Terry! My mind was on other things. You okay?"

He looked at me. "I'm fine, Lisa. Look, I really don't want you to take another job. Why don't we spend some time on the flight with Dino and talk about how we'll use you in fieldwork?"

I looked at him. "Don't, Terry. Don't make a decision like that if it's only because you're worried that I'm going to just stay in Washington. I'm not. I'll be here when you get back."

"No, that's not the reason. It's that... well, I know that I promised you, back when I convinced you to come work for us, that you'd be working with us in the field sometimes. And I remembered that you said it might be the only way we'd see a lot of each other since I was on the road so much. And I'm thinking that might be part of what's happening between us."

"Okay. I think that's a good point. If you think I'm ready," I said, trying hard not to show just how this thrilled me; probably not even aware myself until just that point how very much it excited me, the prospect of working at a new level with Terry and Dino.

But I couldn't help it; a big grin snuck on my face. He pulled me to him and kissed me, hard and probing. I saw where this was going between us and I rather liked the idea. But there was this ever-practical side to me. I pushed gently on his big chest. "Terry. The time. We're never going to make our flight if we don't scram."

"This is crazy, the way we live," he grumbled, reaching around me for his bag. "How am I ever gonna convince you to marry me if this is the kind of life I have to offer you?"

I watched him turn and stalk off down the hall. What? Had he just said what I thought he'd said?

Chapter 2

Coming through Customs and staring back at the past.

God, I shuddered inside, I absolutely hate this feeling of déjà vu.

It was seeing the redhead again, coming toward me, fast and agitated, that gave me that curious feeling. It felt like Jamaica all over again.

"Any news?" I whispered to him as we hugged. Felt him shake his head against me and hold me a little tighter.

Dino grabbed my bag and my arm. Started dragging me to the waiting car and the men with guns who'd guard our trip into Belize City.

As we drove, he was trying to go back over the information, about the operation Terry had been running, the negotiations to recover the Macal River dam project surveyor who had been taken hostage by an unheard-from-before environmental activist group intent on stopping the dam's construction. But all I could concentrate on was the fact that this wasn't supposed to be part of the bargain.

"How did this happen?" I interrupted him, feeling tears battling my will to remain calm. "Why would they kidnap the person negotiating with them? What did they hope to gain?"

In my own mind, this just didn't seem possible. It was more than irrational. I was trying so hard not to feel hopeless, but it just seemed to me they would never have taken Terry if they were still interested in negotiating. And if that was true, then they'd have little reason to keep either hostage alive.

He took my hands between his, looked in my eyes, giving me that piercing look that always made me focus totally on him. He talked through his teeth, like he always did when we was deadly serious, saying, "We don't have the time for you to fall apart, Lisa. You and I have got our work cut out for us. Terry needs us to come through for him."

Nodding. Shaking. Scared and trying not to be. Why, oh why, I wondered, would my first time in the field with them be for something like this?

When Terry finally agreed he could trust my abilities enough to give me some fieldwork, Dino and I had felt validated. Dino had worked so hard with me, finding the resources to train me and then testing my mettle ruthlessly. And during that long flight from London to Washington, the three of us had spent several hours plotting how the first time I went along on an operation, it would be one that seemed pretty routine. And I'd be with Dino. We all agreed that for the first time out, I didn't need to have Terry pacing and second-guessing every danger I might face.

This operation was most definitely not routine. Not now that Terry was a hostage along with the original hostage. But I had been the first one Dino called and that gave me some understanding of the way he trusted in me.

I'd been in Washington two days when the situation in Belize initially erupted. Terry had left directly from Houston and Dino had stayed there, since that's actually where the hostage's company was.  They were a major subcontractor to the Canadian company that was trying to drive this hydroelectric dam project through, despite determined opposition among ecologists and environmentalists in Belize. By the time Dino had gone to join him three days later, Terry was gone. Their local operatives, the ones Terry had been working with, were able to pick up his trail just before they met Dino at the airport with the bad news.

Dino called me while I was in Miami visiting Barb and Sam, who'd come in for her Mom's 75th birthday. I heard it in his voice as soon as I answered my phone. Barb watched my face and told me later it had turned almost white. I was on the next plane out.

During the flight to Belize, I kept picturing the last time I'd seen Terry. It had been in the busy Dulles airport in Washington. I'd stayed with them until their flight left. They had a three-hour layover. We were in this little bar in the terminal, they were both standing and I was perched on the only open stool in the noisy, crowded room.

I think Dino got antsy about an hour into the wait and took off to walk off some of his ever-present energy. As soon as he moved away from us, Terry and I were exchanging a little kiss.

"I hate saying goodbye to you in airports," I whispered into his ear as he moved in a bit closer to me. "We have to be so prim and proper when all I really want to do is climb all over you."

He moved in that much closer and I felt his hands spread my knees, then he moved his body into that space. And with that, we were basically pressed together. "I know what you mean, Lisa," he told me, that deep, breathy, growling tone of his that dripped sex.  His hand on the small of my back held me firmly against him and I felt him growing hard. "Right now, I'd like to be fucking you silly. Instead, I have to be content with reminding you how much I love you."

He tilted his chin down and I reached up so we could kiss. Before I knew it, convention be damned, we were kissing in such a way, it was almost obscene. I was hoping no children could see us because we would have scandalized their parents. And by the time our lips parted, I was panting so hard that I dropped my forehead into his neck to keep from being too obvious.

We stayed that way, just kind of latched on to each other, for the longest time. That's how Dino found us.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked, his voice revealing the humor he found in finding us locked together like love-sick, hormonal teenagers. I looked at him and he was almost giggling. "Would you two like me to stand guard outside the men's room so you could have some privacy?"

Terry straightened and I watched him glare at his partner. "Leave off, Dino," he grated out.

"Actually..." I said, raising an eyebrow like I was considering it as they both whipped their heads around to look at me. The looks on their faces. They made me laugh so hard sometimes.

I always smiled at Terry when he left on a plane. I was smiling that time. The reason I always smiled at him was born of a years-long realization about such partings. Because I knew every time we parted could be the last time we saw each other. That realization had been present in me from the first operation I was on in the military because it was also the first time one of my friends didn't come home with me. So I was in the habit of always remembering that the last impression I might leave on a friend or lover should be a good one in case something happened to me after we said goodbye. In other words, if I died before Terry saw me again, it was important for me to know that his memory of our last moment together was of me smiling.

And on that flight to Belize City, I was trying to remember how Terry had looked in that last moment I'd seen him. He hadn't been smiling at me; he'd been too busy talking with Dino and he'd just kind of waved my way as they entered the gateway ramp to their plane.

It might not have been one of his wonderful smiles, but it was almost as good. He'd been happy the last time I'd seen him and he'd been with his best friend. It was a good memory for me.

In my heart and in my head, I believed it wouldn't be the last memory I would have of him.

The firm's team was now staying at the client company's local office building because Dino felt it was easier to guard against intruders. Terry, as was custom in this type of operation, had been staying in a local hotel and he'd been taken during the drive between the hotel and the office building.

When we got there, Dino dropped my bag inside a small office he'd set aside for me to use as an office and sleeping quarters. I appreciated the privacy it would give me. Then we went into a large meeting room so he could introduce me to their two local operatives and some of the company personnel. The first thing I spotted when I entered was the communications gear and I instantly flipped my eyes away from it.

Met the eyes of a dark haired woman named Rosaria Alvarez. She was young, mid-20s, thin and athletic, sharp eyes that seemed to catch me off-guard. Firm handshake and tight smile. Dino introduced her as their most reliable local operative, someone they worked with whenever they were in that area of Central America, but she was a native of Honduras.

Their other operative was in his late 30s. Bennie Craig, he said, as he shook my hand and gave me the once over. I had my professional mask on, because Dino didn't want anyone to know anything about me other than that I was an experienced operative. No hint of a personal relationship with Terry, he reminded me, not until we knew more about what had happened.

Next, I shook the hands of and studied the eyes of the company's local executives. There were a couple of engineers, a hydrologist and the area manager. I detected an undertone that seemed a bit off with one of the engineers and made a mental note to ask Dino about it when we were alone.

The survey company's lone security guard had been supplanted with six guards flown in by Dino. I'd met two of them on the trip from the airport; I'd meet the other four over the next few days. The six men guarding the building were people Dino and Terry had used on other operations in the Caribbean; Dino felt he needed people he absolutely trusted in that role. He had another six men standing by in case they were needed for any recovery efforts.

Dino motioned me over and started showing me reference points on the map. Then handed me a case file of background material. I'd done a little research about the battle over the dam when Terry had first left for the operation. But a lot of what I'd been boning up on was the political situation in this region. Between Guatemala and Mexico, there were enough of those countries' guerilla groups and splinter groups floating in and out of this country to de-stabilize Belize. But for some reason, this largely-English speaking country remained pretty much out of the civil wars and the bush league flare-ups in its neighboring countries.

I took the case file with me and walked back to the little office I'd be using. I set up my laptop and checked connections. An hour later, I was deep into research mode. Dino tapped twice and then opened the door. He stood there leaning against the doorframe, not quite meeting my eyes.

"What?" I asked him softly.

"I need you to go in with Bennie and one of the guards to Terry's hotel room," he said, looking at the floor and tapping one of his feet to an unheard melody. "Pack up his stuff but look for anything out of the ordinary. Can you do that?"

We didn't bother to check in at the desk since I knew they wouldn't just give me a key to Terry's room. After all, who was I to them? It made me remember I wasn't actually anyone official in Terry's life anyway. It flashed through my mind to remember to ask Dino if and when he'd be telling Terry's son that his dad was a hostage.

It took me all of two minutes to get tired of waiting on Bennie to get the lock on Terry's door open. "Stand up," I told him, in a quiet voice that obviously brooked no argument. Ten seconds later, we were in.

"That was impressive," Bennie said, giving me this little grin.

"That was nothing," I replied. "You two wait by the door. I want to do this the right way."

I started in the bathroom. Walking in there, flipping on the light, and instantly fighting not to lose it when I saw his toothbrush. Fuck, girl, get a grip, I thought. Before I packed his kit bag, I rifled through it, looking for anything unusual, anything that struck me the wrong way. When I'd packed his gear from the bathroom, I carried everything out and tossed it on the bed. Went to the closet and pulled out his bag. He always carried this soft bag that looked like an oversize athletic bag. He hated carrying regular suitcases. I'd never asked him why; honestly, looking at the bag there in that room was the first time I realized I even knew that about him.

"What are you looking for, Lisa?" Bennie asked me. I looked at him, leaning against the door and trying to look tough. "Maybe I can help."

"If it's here, I'll know it when I see it," I told him. "You can help by not helping."

Before I turned away from him, I saw him exchange glances with the guard. To them, I was an unknown quantity. They were only letting me have my way because they'd seen that Dino trusted me.

I was searching through the bureau where Terry had stored his clothes when I found them. One sealed envelope with my name on it and one just like it with his son's name on it. Clipped together with a note to Dino attached to make sure we each got our envelope if anything happened to him. It nearly dropped me to my knees.

"Lisa? Are you okay?" Bennie sounded genuinely concerned but I kept my back to him. "Did you find something?"

Cleared my throat, blinked my eyes, looked up and I was facing the balcony. Outside was another world. Inside here, I was in Terry's world. I felt so close to him and that made me ache for him that much harder. "No. I, um, I need to finish this."

In the bedside stand, I discovered Terry's address book. That struck me as funny. Since I'd known him, he'd always carried that little book with him. It held important contact numbers for any of the locations he was working in. I shook my head and wondered if it could be significant that he'd left it behind that day. Probably just one of those odd little things that happen, I thought.

I laid his clothes out on the bed before I packed them and tried to figure out what was missing so we'd have a clue as to what he'd been wearing the day he'd been taken. Had to have been jeans. I stood there staring at his clothes and feeling awful that I didn't have a clear memory of what he'd packed in terms of shirts. When I gave up, I packed everything away and tucked the envelopes and the address book in on top.

Before we left, I looked under the bed and each piece of furniture. His extra Glock, escape money and passport were taped behind the headboard.

And then we were gone back to the office building. I think Dino read my blank look almost as easily as he would have read my face if I'd been showing any emotion. We stood inside my office, closed the door and I showed him what I'd found. He leafed through the address book and said he didn't think it meant anything. I showed him the envelopes in Terry's bag and he ran his fingers over them.

"Old habit," he said. "We both do it every trip."

I had had the same habit when I was an agent. I think every person who's ever served in the military and been sent away to war or on a mission you might not return from has done the same thing. Write letters to the ones you leave behind so they know that you were thinking of them. You write down the things you'd most want them to know if you didn't come back.

"Well, these are envelopes you'll never deliver," I told him, my voice very firm. I moved his hand from the envelopes and zipped Terry's bag shut, then tossed the bag in the corner next to my suitcase. When I turned and looked at Dino, his eyes were bright but they were focused on me. I smiled at him. "We have some work to do, don't we?"

"Good girl," he said, grinning at me. "Where do you want to start?"

I looked at the file on the desk. "Let me call Maria and see if anyone there knows anything about this group. While I'm waiting, I want to go to the local newspaper office and see what's been written here about the situation. I'd like to talk with whatever reporter's been covering this case. See if he or she has any inside stuff or rumors they haven't printed. It just seems to me we need to know who could be a local contact for this group and go from there."

While I was gone, driven by one of the guards, the others were busy as well. Dino was pretty well spending his time coordinating our movements and monitoring the communications gear. He was placing calls ever thirty minutes to the frequency Terry had been using, hoping someone would actually want to still talk. Bennie and Rosaria were checking in with their own local sources, trying to see if anyone had heard anything.

By the time I got back, I had filled many pages of my notebook with information from the reporter I'd talked with. He'd been particularly helpful, especially since he thought I was a producer with one of the broadcast affiliates in Miami. Reporters might not always be helpful to investigators, but they are generally nice to each other as long as you're not working the same beat.

By nightfall, Dino and I had mapped out days worth of people we'd be checking on. When Rosaria and Bennie came back, we cross-referenced the list of names and would start with any that appeared on all our lists.

That night, I lay snuggled into a sleeping bag on top of the couch in the office. I was blindly watching the ceiling and not sleeping. Trying hard not to have nightmares and repeating to myself over and over that if anyone could get out of this alive, it would be Terry. Hell, he's probably on his way back to us right now, I thought.

Sometime around 2 a.m., a thought blazed into my brain. I went sneaking into the conference room looking for Dino. He was tucked inside his own sleeping bag and I hated to wake him. I tapped him on the shoulder and he came bolt upright from what had seemed to be a deep sleep.

"There was something missing from Terry's things," I whispered to him. "Where's his laptop?"

In the shadows of the room, I watched Dino smile. Terry never took his laptop with him from the hotel room. He hated carrying the danged thing, as he called it, and when he was on an operation, its primary use to him was for communications with us. But he also kept a lot of his case file notes on it.

Now we would work on the assumption that the same people who took him also returned to his hotel room later and took his laptop. And my suspicion was that he might have been taken not necessarily to stop the negotiations, but because he'd gleaned some information that the group holding the hostage did not want anyone associated with the client to know about.

The reason we grinned at each other? It made more sense and anything that made more sense provided you with opportunities.

The next day, I checked in with Maria. No real news, but one of DEA's agents in this area suggested the name of someone he thought could be a contact to this new group. He thought the group was pretty loose. And pretty unprofessional. In other words, there didn't appear to be anyone who'd actually done this type of thing before, the terrorism or hostage-holding.

Dealing with amateurs? That is usually much scarier than dealing with a pro. The pro's know the rules and you can take some calculated guesses on what they'll do. You also know they're motivated by simple things: money, fame, power. Amateurs? Who knows what really drives them and who knows just what game they'll play by.

I went with Rosaria to check out the DEA man's lead. From what we could find out, this might be the person. She'd appeared on the list I'd made from conversations with the reporter as a sympathizer and Bennie had her on his list.

We stopped by the woman's restaurant and when I met her, I pulled out the producer-from-U.S.-television-news cover story. We played with each other for a little while, but by the time I was walking out of there, she was at least intrigued. We agreed I'd check back with her the next day to see if she was able to find anyone who might know someone with the group who might want to talk.

Back at the office building, a proof of life had arrived. We walked in as Dino and several of the company men were watching a videotape. As we entered the conference room, I heard Terry's voice and hesitated long enough to earn a long, hard look from Rosaria.

On the tape, he was wearing his blue polo shirt. The one that made his eyes look bluer than I normally thought of them. I shook my head and used my eyes to examine the visual clues that would help us find him, not the ones that made me go all gooey inside.

He was dirty, he was tired, he had a black eye. He was holding the newspaper with the wrong hand. The hand he should have been holding it with was in a sling. Next to him was the original hostage.

"Play it again, please," I asked quietly. "I'd like to listen to the whole message."

Dino nodded and the company manager stepped forward to rewind the tape before playing it for me again. This time through, I listened as first the original hostage, Ben Taylor, and then Terry carefully read the words that had obviously been given to them by whoever was holding them. The demands were money, written assurance from the Canadian company to stop the dam project and publicity. They wanted the world to know about the dam and about how it would do such environmental damage to their country that they were willing to do whatever it took to stop the project. They also wanted the dam developer to go public with their intent to stop the project.

The third time I watched the tape, it was just Dino and me. We hit the pause button over and over so we could look closely at any clues or signs Terry might have been giving us. We looked at the background to see if we could determine where they were or the layout of the camp they were at.

We didn't have a lot to go on. Terry sent out some signs but the only one that ended up mattering was the way he held the newspaper. Dino caught it. He watched Terry look carefully at the paper as it was handed it him and then place his index finger on a specific spot that never moved. Dino sent Bennie to retrieve a copy of that edition. When he returned, we looked at the spot and we looked at the story. The dateline was San Ignacio, a town deep in the Belize interior and the community closest to the dam project. His finger was resting just under a reference to the Chiquibul Forest Reserve and National Park.

Things seemed to be sliding into place. Perhaps too neatly. "Amateurs," Dino grumbled when I mentioned my suspicions. "They're getting too caught up in their cause. They'll never be able to keep Terry confined."

I wasn't convinced but then I didn't have Dino's experience.

The Chalillo Dam was a $30 million project that was destined to flood more than 22 square miles of the Mecal River valley inside the Chiquibul Forest Reserve and National Park. There seemed to be little dispute that what was at stake was the virtual elimination of the natural habitat of Belize's famed, but rare, scarlet macaws and its jaguars. But, as in so many other places in the world, the mix of money and politics had overridden any environmental concerns. So before anyone really knew what was happening, the Canadian company and Belize government officials had planned the project and were merrily heading toward destroying a significant wildlife habitat. But several respected international environmental groups came to help the local, outgunned ecologists and filed suit, alleging several types of illegal shenanigans. The project was on hold, pending legal resolution, after a federal judge ruled in favor of the environmentalists and now the legal fight was in the country's top court.

The reporter I spoke to said allegations had been made very recently that the company was proceeding with building the dam, with the blessing of the government. But the thing that the country's media was focused on was the outrage among many residents that the costs of building the dam was going to be passed on to taxpayers and the cost for electricity was actually going to go up to pay for the dam's operations.

That evening, we had our first radio contact. Unbeknownst to us at the time was that the group holding the hostages had also communicated their demands to the country's media.

I listened in while Dino talked via radio to a woman identified only as Escarlata. How appropriate, I thought, since her name meant scarlet in English, just like the macaws the group wanted to save.

The conversation was pretty one-sided. It was about what they wanted and when they wanted it. It was about stopping the construction, restoring the damage already done and placing government officials on notice. Very little of what they wanted was within our immediate control. Dino's voice was calm, strong, reasonable. Hers was passionate, articulate, educated.

I was on the phone to the client company before the conversation even stopped. Stop the work on the dam, I told them. Out of their hands, their person told me, all we are is the subcontractor on surveying and engineering. Actual construction's being handled directly by the Canadian firm. Give me the name and number of the Canadian company's boss, I demanded. I woke that guy out of a dead sleep. He was none too happy with me; I was none too happy to find their first instinct was to deny the allegations.

"At this particular point, sir, it doesn't even matter if there's anything illegal or unethical going on. What we need is to be able to calm these people with some type of action. You need to stop whatever it is your company's done in the last two weeks to get these people to this point," I told him.

"Miss, we are not doing anything. We are awaiting the court's decision on the project. Until then, I assure you, no construction is going on," he said.

Deep breath that I made sure he heard over the long distance wires. Low voice that I filled with serious intent, saying, "Let me be real clear before I hang up. I'm going there, to the dam site. If I find any evidence that you've lied to me, I'll be on a plane to Canada to deal with you myself."

"Is that a threat?" he said, his voice almost laughing at me.

"Yes. Absolutely. And it's a promise as well."