Kay Hooper - The Fall of Lucas Kendrick

Contents

Time was supposed to obscure memories, but when Kyle Griffon saw the sunlight glinting off Lucas Kendrick's hair, she knew she'd never stopped waiting for him. Ten years before, he'd awakened her woman's passion, and when he left without a word, her quicksilver laughter had turned to anger, and her rebel's heart of a wild flirtation with danger--anything to forget the pain of losing him. Now he was back, and he needed her help in a desperate plan--but did she dare revive the flame of desire that once had burned her? Lucas had never stopped loving Kyle, wanting her, but could she forgive a man who made mistakes, who was not the perfect hero of her girlhood dreams? Once she'd trusted him enough to answer his savage demands with wild elation, echoing his fierce need with her own. Now could she show him she was strong enough to hold him in the fortress of her love?

He was a rotund little man, an unashamed paunch straining the seams of his tailored vest. Shiny wing-tipped shoes were on his small feet. He had a great leonine head with a cherub's face, small brightly twinkling eyes, and pouty lips. And he was so much a caricature of a strutting banty rooster pleased with his own importance that few people casually encountered would even look for more than that.

Lucas Kendrick was one of the few; he knew from past experience that the federal agent calling himself Hagen was about as harmless as a battle-ship and just as tough. So he stood in the dingy hotel room gazing out a dirty window for long moments before turning to cut off the droning voice of the federal honcho. "All right." Hagen blinked. "All right? Just like that?" Lucas leaned back against the window frame and smiled sardonically. "There was really no need for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff," he said. "Meeting secretly like this. But you have to play your little games, don't you?"

"Mr. Kendrick, this is a serious matter," Hagen retorted in his best official manner. "And I felt it only fitting that you complete the job your friend Steele began a few weeks ago. The stolen artwork must be recovered and Rome prosecuted"

"Sure he has them?"

"Positive."

Lucas didn't question the assurance. "Okay. So how do I get inside his estate? He has more security than we do."

The we Lucas used referred to Josh Long's worldwide financial empire, something that hardly needed clarifying between him and the federal man. Lucas was the chief Investigator for Long Enterprises, and Hagen had spent the past year and more involving Josh and his men in various "assignments" for his agency.

The federal man looked somewhat searchingly at Lucas now, seemingly disturbed. "You're willing to accept the assignment, no questions asked?"

"Plenty of questions," Lucas corrected. "But why fight it? I'm the only one you haven't grabbed for one of your assignments; it was a matter of time. If I turn you down, you'll either talk me into it somehow, or you'll get me involved whether I like it or not. So how do I get onto Rome's estate?"

Hagen's cupid lips pursed slightly, but he responded readily enough. "Rome's having a week-end party soon; he does that from time to time, and his guest list is rather exclusive. There is a past... connection between you and the only single woman on that guest list. If she agrees, you'll be accepted onto the estate as her escort."

Lucas's expression never changed, but some tautness crept beneath his classical features, and his sharp blue eyes, flecked with gold, hardened. "Oh? Who is she?"

"Kyle Griffon." Hagens small eyes were very wary.

Softly Lucas said, "What past connection are you talking about, Hagen?"

"We both know the answer to that, Mr. Kendrick."

"And just how the hell do you know? Her name was never in any of my reports."

"No, it wasn't. She was never linked to your undercover operation. You did an excellent job."

Lucas decided not to repeat his question. He really didn't want to know the answer. Instead he asked tersely, "What's the plan?"

More than an hour later Lucas again stood gazing through a dirty window. He was alone now, Hagen having left, and he looked back over his shoulder at the shoddy room. He had almost for-gotten that secretive men met in dingy hotel rooms to discuss and plan dangerous operations.

Almost forgotten.

Ten years hadn't changed his memories, just made them more distant. He could still remember the cardboard taste of burgers and cold coffee, the stiffness of sitting for too long in cars, and the grinding frustration of political games having no place in his vision of the role of the law in human affairs.

He could remember undercover operations during which he literally had become someone else, and the disorientation of returning to the real world with memories of junkies and glittering life-styles and violence in the back of his mind. He could remember triumphs and tragedies, a little laughter and a lot of pain, and people briefly known.

He remembered Kyle Griffon.

Lucas half closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of a dingy, rainy street seen through a dirty window. And only sagging furniture marred by cigarette burns and too many hard years heard his low murmur.

"Oh, hell, Kyle, how am I going to face you?"

Lucas Kendrick's heart leapt into his throat. He rolled with that old but familiar feeling, annoyed that he still remembered how to ride an emotional bronc. It had been a long time. He clamped his teeth together and watched through narrowed eyes, telling himself he would have felt the same way while watching anyone with a death wish. It didn't help.

He hadn't really expected it to.

The triangular sail was about eighteen feet across and colored bright red and blue; dangling on a flimsy harness and steering the thing with a flimsy control bar was a small figure dressed in drab green.

Objectively speaking, he thought, it was a glorious sight. The hang glider banked and dipped and lifted as the strong mountain winds kept it aloft, its brilliant colors contrasting beautifully with the rich, varied, early-winter shades of green and brown in the valley and the distant snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Lucas watched the glider, fists jammed into pockets and heart pounding in his throat, expecting a treacherous downdraft to snatch the flimsy craft and batter it to the valley floor far below. He couldn't take his eyes off it even long enough to fully appreciate a rare glimpse of a bighorn ram as it perched briefly on a rocky crag nearby and then vanished.

He knew the instant she spotted him, and he saw the glider bank in a tight turn and then hesitate for an instant before it began losing altitude in a long, sweeping descent toward him. He backed up automatically, giving her room, feeling himself tense even more. She cleared the edge of the cliff by inches, and her feet lightly touched ground.

She had to run only a few steps before she could stop the glider. The pointed nose of the thing tipped forward to rest on the ground, and she shrugged out of the harness, only then turning her head to study the visitor.

Without a noticeable expression, startling turquoise eyes scanned him from his windblown, silvery blond hair to his booted feet, taking in the backpack and rugged clothing he wore. Then casually she said, "Hello, Luc," and bent to collapse the hang glider and roll it up for carrying.

Well, what had he expected? Lucas wondered. He knew the answer, of course. Despite everything, because of everything, he'd expected a stronger reaction from her. Rather than a polite hello, he'd braced himself for something more along the lines of venom or hatred. Anger. Something.

And from any other woman that's what he would have gotten, even though it had been ten years.