Page 50 of Hot & Heavy

"And I could go on the Internet to get all the legal documentation, including the emergency green card application." Good ol' Geek. Always had the answers.

"But who would she marry?" Amber asked, excited to be planning a freakin' wedding. Some guard she was!

Everybody turned to look at Ian.

"No!" he said. "No, no, no, no, no!"

"What a lackwit," Maddie said.

"You shouldn't call your groom… uh, potential groom… a bad name," Dolores advised Maddie. Some guard she was, too!

"Dearling"—Maddie said the odd endearment with sugary sweetness—"I would rather lie with a three-pronged goat than be your bloody bride."

Now, there's a picture.

At first there was silence, and then Cage pronounced, "I think they make a perfect couple."

Ian had the sensation of drowning in quicksand.

Chapter Eight

The sucking sound of a man drowning in quicksand…

Later that evening, Ian was at the party, half blitzed, heading for a total, knee-walking drunk. As if that would help anything!

Just then, an old acquaintance of his walked up. Dan Sullivan was a pain-in-the-ass CIA agent he'd met years ago at some Pentagon cocktail party hosted by Ian's admiral father. Dan liked to needle him every chance he got. Actually, Ian usually did a good job of needling back.

Ian glared at Dan, but did the man take a hint and vamoose? Nope. He looked like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. His smirk boded ill for Ian.

Taking a long swig from his longneck, he braced himself.

"How's it hanging, spy guy?" he asked. Judging by his continuing smirk, Dan must have heard about his

"predicament." Hell, everyone at the party had, thanks to his big-mouth squad members. "Long and hard, Kermit." Dan thought it was cute to call him Kermit, as in frogman, what SEALs used to be called in the old days. "And you?" Dan was still smirking.

"Hot and heavy," Ian replied. It was their usual back-and-forth greeting, but it seemed to have more significance for Ian now. Why he was attempting to make small talk with the jerk-off was beyond him.

Must be the beer.

"I just came back from a late-night meeting with the boss. You are in deep shit," Dan informed him, with glee.

What a loser! "What else is new?"

"Oh, this is new, all right." Dan deliberately failed to go on.

But Ian wasn't going to give in and ask.

Finally Dan couldn't help himself. "Madrene Olgadottir, or whatever the hell her name is, is not Jamal's bed bunny. Nope. Yasmine Bahir was spotted this afternoon in Kabul."

Ian felt the blood drain from his head. He'd suspected as much—that Yasmine wasn't… Yasmine—but somehow confirmation came like a sledgehammer to his thick head. "So, who is she?"

"Damned if we know. Not yet. She has no social security number in the U.S. Interpol has no data on her.

She's still suspicious. Hell, she keeps giving a cock-and-bull story about harems and raising an army to get back her estates, but exactly where those estates are, we can't figure out, and she's not telling. Not yet."

"Where does that leave her?" Or me?

"We can't hold her. Oh, we'll put a tail on her, once she's released, but for now, sayonara."