On Your Mark Read online

  She gave him a little credit for not looking away from her face, despite his comment. So he wasn’t a complete low-life. His accent said Oklahoma, his smile said self-proclaimed lady killer, but his light brown eyes, with hair to match, were definitely watching her slightest motion in a way that said professional.

  “How about handing me your ID slow as a rattler on a winter day.”

  She unbuttoned her winter coat, then eased open the lapel of her suit jacket. She reached past her FN Five-seveN 5.7mm primary weapon and slipped out her leather Secret Service ID holder. Despite it having her badge and ID, he called it in. That was good—she liked that he was being doubly careful. When he also confirmed her signing time in and out at the range this morning, she was actually impressed. It was far more than she’d expected from a “mall cop” who flashed his charming smile as if it was all the ID he needed.

  “Nice to meet you, Clarice Carver. Sorry for the trouble,” he handed back her badge holder. The backup guy eased his AR-15, but not completely.

  “Reese.” She heard the soft click as the backup reset the safety on his weapon. She’d missed it coming off.

  “To your friends?” and that smile was back. Asshole apparently thought it was beneath him to introduce himself.

  “And my enemies.”

  “Good to know. You headed in or planning to stand and gawk a while longer?”

  “Headed in,” she hated that she’d been caught in a moment of weakness and just wanted to get away from him.

  “Well, that’s fine then. Me and Malcolm, we’re at the end of our hour on the fence. we’ll go in with you.” And he nodded toward the gate another hundred meters down the sidewalk.

  Reese tried to figure out how to shed the guy, but couldn’t come up with anything.

  He tossed a treat to his dog, then scrubbed his fingers into the dog’s fur as it crunched happily. “Gute Hund. Sehr gut!” He said it in a squeaky high voice that the dog clearly enjoyed, but it made the man sound totally ridiculous—and actually a little charming.

  Then he spoke to his dog softly. “Such.”

  And the dog changed; they both changed.

  The dog rose to his feet and began sniffing his way forward through the crowd. The UD officer stepped out smoothly and the two of them were suddenly all business. His eyes scanned the crowd ahead of his animal, both of them on watch.

  The change was almost shocking.

  He was still the same guy. Even though she was looking at his back, she could tell by the way the crowd reacted to him and his dog that he was projecting the same easy-going demeanor ahead like a radar sweep. But by the way he moved—just enough on his toes to be ready for a quick reaction, scanning not where his dog was, but looking out and ahead—spoke of a highly trained professional. Even the positioning of his non-leash hand; it swung close beside the taser on his hip with every stride.

  “I’m Claremont, by the way,” the backup man was on the move as well and was now passing by her.

  She fell in beside him.

  “Reese Carver,” she offered in return, but he just tapped his earpiece. Right. He would have been listening in on the same frequency that the dog handler had used. “Is he as good as he looks?” Reese nodded to the team ahead of them.

  “Better. Three years on the fence line. Jim and Malcolm have the highest identify-and-capture ratio of any team by a factor of three times.” Claremont smiled at her as if he was answering a very different question about just what kind of quarry the handler identified and captured.

  Ladies’ man. Didn’t matter as it had nothing to do with her. It was his three years patrolling the fence that surprised her. If he and his dog were such hot shit, why were they still doing the beat cop routine out in the weather?

  Jim wondered at just how stupid he’d been. He’d never even introduced himself—as if his mama hadn’t raised him right. And now Claremont chatted up the hot Special Agent Reese like they were old pals. He couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, but there was no mistaking Claremont’s smooth Southern accent that slayed so many of the ladies.

  That’s when he identified Reese’s accent. It was well masked, like she’d worked on it hard, but she was from the Carolinas just like Claremont.

  Redneck trucker from Oklahoma didn’t stand a chance.

  Too bad. Special Agent meant she was good. But there’d also been a small code on her ID that said she was a member of the Presidential Protection Detail. He almost hadn’t called in to confirm her identity because it was so unlikely for that to be forged. He finally had, just to see if he could learn anything else about her. No joy. The main desk had merely confirmed she was USSS and even pushing through to the range officer only confirmed that she had indeed logged five twenty-round magazines that morning. But that little code on her ID said that she was beyond exceptional in more than her looks.

  Just two inches shy of his own six feet. Pitch black hair that fell straight to scatter over strong shoulders. Her deeply brown skin was smooth and creamy. It was her dark-dark eyes that had been so hard to look away from. There was something about them that both hid and revealed the woman at the same time.

  And when she’d pulled back her jacket, he saw her trim waist with enough of a figure to not make the big Five-seveN handgun look ridiculous in her shoulder holster. The weapon said even more about her. What he could see of the handle had the shine that only came from being held for thousands of rounds.

  As he’d returned her ID, he’d spotted the shooter’s calluses thickening the web between her thumb and forefinger. She looked like everything a man could want and he’d messed it up something awful.

  Sadly, it wasn’t the first time. Maybe he was losing his touch. When Linda and her dog Thor had joined the White House team last month, he’d done nothing much about it. At least not right off. That had seemed like a good idea.

  She’d been cute as hell, and he’d entertained a few thoughts. But while he’d been taking his time, she and her dog had gone on to save over sixty lives, including the President’s. It was a Secret Service agent’s wet dream—making that once-in-a-career save. Then, while he wasn’t watching, she’d gone and fallen in love with the chocolate chef, which seemed a little unfair. It was like the Big Guy upstairs was smacking him in the face and shouting, “Wake up, dude.”

  The last girl to make him even think about wanting the long-haul had been Margarite of the sleek body, long red hair, and a laugh like Christmas sleigh bells. Though she’d hung with him for almost a year, she’d made no secret that her aim was always set higher. “You’ve walked that fence so long, there’s a rut there with your name on it.” Margarite had finally latched onto a Congressional aide who—with her street smarts at his side—was now in the running as a Virginia state senator.

  He’d had a lot of time to think about it while walking the fence line. The sex had been good and the companionship great. But they’d been on such different tracks. He’d always been content to be who he was and she’d…never been. In the end he’d wished her well, though what he’d really wished was that she was still there beside him when he woke up in the mornings.

  Oh well. He figured that, just like Malcolm, he’d keep patrolling ahead and someday he’d catch a scent and track the right lady.

  Pity about Reese Carver though. She was quite something. He wondered what it might be like waking up next to her. It was a very nice image.

  At the security booth, he and Reese stepped through the door while Claremont waited for the next dog team to come out.

  They both showed their IDs and were waved through easily.

  So Reese was known. Of course she was known. Her code said Presidential Protection Detail. That was a very small, very elite group. Strange that he hadn’t seen her walking around. There was no way not to notice her.

  If Jim the dog handler was arrogant, Reese decided that his backup security was perhaps the least subtle guy on the planet. Pleasant, well-trained, and just about everything he’d said could be taken as s
exual innuendo. He always said it as if it was a joke—no way to quite take offense despite her sensitivity being set on ultra-high. But it was getting old by the time they reached the entrance to the grounds. What the guy really needed, she decided, was new material.

  Once through, Jim waved to a Uniformed Division woman headed out to take his place. She was preceded by a small, brindle-colored mutt. They looked as if they both belonged in suburbia somewhere, but he wore the harness of a USSS dog and his handler was vested and armed.

  “Hey, Malcolm,” the woman called out to the springer spaniel.

  “Hey, Thor,” Jim did the same to her dog. The two of them traded smiles as they passed.

  Thor? Reese could only shake her head in wonder. That little mutt was the one who’d caught a potential bomber outside the fence and then saved the President’s life just last month? Never judge a dog by its stature, she supposed. The female handler followed Thor as he trotted happily out the gate and joined up with Claremont before heading off on patrol along the other side of the fence.

  She looked down at Malcolm and silently asked, Anything you want to be telling me?

  He just wagged his tail at her.

  Reese turned for the White House and almost ran over a teen standing there.

  “Hi!”

  How did some tourist and her Sheltie dog end up on this side of the fence?

  Malcolm almost took Reese out as he and the Sheltie rushed to greet each other in the area usually reserved for her knees.

  “Hey, Dilya,” Jim said from so close over Reese’s shoulder that it was all she could do to not jump.

  “Hi, Sergeant Fischer.”

  “You don’t call me Jim and I know you’re up to something.” He sounded just a little too relieved at having an excuse to say his name in front of her. At least he knew he had been a jerk.

  “Doesn’t replace a proper introduction, Sergeant,” she muttered at him. Southern politeness said that you introduced yourself properly when meeting. And, in her experience, it was a bad sign when a guy couldn’t be bothered to do that.

  He might have blushed at being caught but he recovered fast, making it hard to tell. “Right. Sorry. Reese Carver, this is First Dog Zackie. Zackie, this is Reese,” he addressed the Sheltie. Which explained what the dog was doing here.

  “Hey,” the girl protested.

  Jim just grinned. “And this pint-size piece of trouble is Dilya Stevenson.”

  “Not the introduction I meant,” but Reese could see that he knew that. She turned to the kid, “Hi.” She never knew what to say to kids.

  They would come up when she used to do publicity for her NASCAR sponsor. The boys were easy—they were either young enough to have a crush on her car or old enough to have a crush on a woman who won races in one. The young girls were tricky. They were either some weird mix of shy and tongue-tied that she’d never understood, or chatty-beyond-belief, which she’d both never understood or had time for. A lot of them idolized her as a symbol of all women or all African-American women or…

  She was just a girl who’d grown up in a racing family outside Charlotte, North Carolina. They’d lived a five-block walk from the Charlotte Motor Speedway rather than out in the McMansions along Lake Norman with most of the other pro drivers. As a young girl, if she wasn’t watching Pop or her brother racing, she was timing their competition or hanging out in the garage or the pits. The school bus never dropped her at home—it had always dropped her at the Speedway’s back gate.

  This Dilya was the first teen Reese had been near since she’d left racing and joined the Secret Service. Without even racing as a guide, she had no calibration for what the kid could want.

  She was mid-teens, with that strung-out look of hitting her growth, though she’d never be tall. Her skin was about half as dark as Reese’s own but the tone was different, so not African heritage. Her hair fell in a thick ruffled wave almost to her elbows, but that wasn’t her standout feature. It was her eyes. Impossibly green, they assessed Reese as thoroughly as Reese was assessing her. Except she had the feeling that those green eyes could see far deeper into her than the kid was letting on. Or than Reese was comfortable with.

  Her parka was bright blue. Her jeans stonewashed. Her boots red cowboy. She also wore a beautiful, hand-knit scarf of brilliant colors.

  The three of them—the five of them counting the dogs frolicking up and down the wide, secured street between the EEOB and the White House—headed toward the entrance to the West Wing. Left with no choice except to draft along, she fell in behind them.

  Jim wasn’t doing a lot to impress her so far.

  “Are you on the New York shopping trip?” Dilya slowed down to ask her.

  “What trip?” Reese hadn’t heard anything about New York.

  “Oh. Never mind.” Her smile was pleasantly enigmatic.

  Staffers were hurrying past. Dilya and Jim walked as if there was all the time in the world. Reese considered moving by them, but that seemed rude, even for her.

  She scanned behind her to the fence line and saw nothing out of place. Thor and his female handler, with Claremont in tow, were just disappearing behind a large beech tree, still devoid of leaves. To her right she could catch glimpses of the grounds through the screen of trees: the children’s garden, the basketball court, a hint of blue of the swimming pool, and the white facade of the south face of the White House.

  When she turned back, Dilya was eying her closely. A Marine in full uniform had come up beside Jim. It sounded as if they were talking football scores. Didn’t they get that it was February and the season was over?

  “Maybe you both got off on the wrong paw,” Dilya must have noticed the direction of her glare. “You know, I just read Pride and Prejudice. They hated each other at first but it was just because they didn’t know each other.”

  Reese swallowed hard. She barely knew the story, but it was a romance novel and they only ended one way. No way was this Presidential dog walker going there.

  “You better not be saying what I think you’re saying.”

  “What would that be?” The girl practically batted her eyelashes at her in all innocence. Inside the door, Dilya pulled out her security badge, swept it through the turnstile, then flipped the lanyard over her head.

  Reese noted that it was an “All Access” badge: Residence, the Oval, Air Force One, even the Motorcade. She knew for a fact that neither the President nor the VP had kids yet, though both wives had just recently been reported pregnant—the security briefing beating CNN by less than an hour.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Uzbekistan. At least I think so. I don’t really know. I can still speak Uzbek, so I’m guessing I grew up mostly there.”

  “How did you end up here?” Reese was finding the conversation more than a little surreal. They stepped through the lobby and past the Situation Room entrance, where the Marine peeled off. There was a solid flow of people around them now, all moving fast and with purpose. Normally she’d be in perfect sync with them, but now she was with these slow-moving dog people and felt out of step with herself.

  “I walked.”

  “You walked from Uzbekistan to the White House?” Reese only roughly knew where that was. North and west of Afghanistan?

  “No, silly. I would have had to swim the ocean. I only walked to Pakistan.”

  Jim stopped so abruptly that Reese slammed square into his back. It was like walking into the SAFER barrier that encircled racetracks. The man was impossibly solid. She stepped back, but her nervous system felt as if she’d just been hit with a taser charge. No man should feel so real.

  “You walked to Pakistan?” Jim was staring down at Dilya.

  The teen shrugged.

  “Is that hard?” Reese actually made the mistake of engaging him in conversation despite her plan to never waste her time on him again.

  “You walked across the freaking Hindu Kush?” Jim ignored her and kept his attention on Dilya. “That’s worse than surfing in a
Texas hurricane.”

  Reese had heard of those mountains. Okay, that was hard. Beyond hard.

  “With my parents, before they were killed. Then by myself until Kee found me.” Dilya winced—perhaps at the memory, perhaps at talking about it at all. “Not fun.”

  “Not fun?” Jim’s eyes were wide. “I drove that road nigh on a couple hundred times. It’s the worst place I’ve ever seen to cross.”

  Reese looked at him again. More change. He’d driven the Hindu Kush a couple hundred times? That meant he’d been in the military, part of the war effort there. So, he wasn’t just some dog handler, not if he’d done that.

  “We didn’t follow roads much,” Dilya took a sudden interest in the First Dog, kneeling to comb his fluffy brown-and-white fur with her slender fingers.

  “You really went all the way across those mountains?” Jim missed the teen’s desire for a subject change.

  “To Bati.”

  “The soccer stadium? The one converted into a US Special Operations fort?”

  Dilya stopped fooling with Zackie and looked up at Jim abruptly.

  “I delivered some loads there,” he explained. “Fuel and food, mostly. Hauled out some pretty shot-up helicopters too.”

  “I lived there for over two years with my new parents,” Dilya’s voice was small.

  “You were embedded with—” Jim glanced at Reese and snapped his jaw shut.

  Dilya shrugged. “They rescued me from the middle of a firefight…and then they kept me.” She jolted to her feet and was gone so fast it was as if she’d never been there.

  “Bati?” Reese asked as Jim gazed down the crowded hallway in the direction Dilya had disappeared.

  “Forward operating base,” he spoke as if he stood ten thousand miles away, looking at the scene. “Spec Ops. Very hush-hush. Home to the best team and best pilot of the entire Night Stalkers—that’s Army airborne.”

  Hard to have grown up in Charlotte and not know about the Night Stalkers. They flew overhead all the time on their way between their base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and the Special Operations teams stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They’d done numerous demos at the Speedway before big races. Once even delivering the pace car from one of their big black helos.