The howl of a lone wolf cut through the gray Wyoming sky, shattering the valley’s early-morning silence. The howl echoed across the sharp lines of the Teton mountain range, which rose in a jagged line against the horizon. The raw cry broke through the unseasonably late April snow as it drifted down in a freezing veil that covered the prairie grass surrounding Nassar Security.
On his office balcony just outside Jackson, Wyoming, Vice President Zafir Al-Nassar took a deep breath. A sense of foreboding ran through him. Normally he would have enjoyed the reflective stillness of the late-spring snowfall, but now his thoughts were elsewhere. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. There was nothing disturbing the area except the blanket of snow that covered everything. It seemed to mock his unease as it powdered the nearby landscape and the roofs of the distant houses. It was Hollywood snow, big white flakes coming down in a gentle curtain beneath a still sky. It was the kind of weather that the film industry sometimes chased through the northern states and Canada. His thoughts were broken as, in the distance, he saw a dirt bike buzzing along the road that ran along the interstate.
He rubbed his temple. He’d had a low-grade headache all morning. He’d been up too late last night trying out the limits of an online game his brother Faisal had shown him a few days earlier. They’d played it a number of times while he’d been in Marrakech and Faisal had been here in Wyoming. He’d been looking forward to playing it with him in person when he arrived in Wyoming. He’d been disappointed to find Faisal was on assignment on the East Coast, departing just before his arrival. He’d just arrived with his sister, Tara, from Marrakech, Morocco, via New York, only thirty-five hours ago. Yesterday afternoon he’d seen her off on the last leg of her return journey to the university via the company jet. The travel, the online game, all of it combined into too many days with too little sleep. He stuffed his hand into the pocket of his low-rise jeans.
“Idiot,” he muttered as he watched the motorcycle. Driving a bike in this kind of weather was, across the board, a bad idea. He shook his head and would have lost interest, except for the fact that minutes later, the bike turned into his parking lot.
“What the...” His mouth was set in a grim line. Could this be one of the employees from the Wyoming branch of Nassar? Who else would come out here on a Saturday? They didn’t hire risk-adverse individuals, but they didn’t hire thrill-seekers, either. Both personality types came with their own set of problems. He stayed where he was, intrigued by whom it might be as the bike swerved in a wide arc and pulled in beside his rental. Minutes passed. The rider seemed to be fiddling with something on the bike. It was an older model dirt bike—even worse as far as handling on slick roads. The driver might be a teenager.
He shook his head. That was an ageist thought, but he couldn’t imagine who else would be crazy enough to chance riding such a vehicle in this weather. With the driver’s back to him it was hard to tell. What he could tell was that he wasn’t very big; at least, he had no bulk to him. It looked like he was tall but other than...
The man pulled off the helmet. Black hair fell to his shoulders. He turned around. The gray bomber jacket was half zipped, and it was now clear that this was no man. She held a helmet by its straps as she threaded her fingers through her hair and stopped as her eyes locked with his.
Jade Van Everett. The face and the picture on the file snapped together in his mind like an errant jigsaw puzzle. She was the agent assigned to their latest case. He wasn’t familiar with her, at least not in person. She’d been with the agency only a little over a year, and both times he’d been here, she’d been either on a case or on vacation. But he was very familiar with who she was on paper. Twenty-nine to his thirty-one, her track record was impressive and the fact that she was easy on the eye, a bonus. Again, all of it had only been on paper. Yet he knew in his gut that Jade was different.
Jade... He felt that he knew her so much deeper than he should. She’d fascinated him before he’d ever physically laid eyes on her. But it was her accomplishments in the field that really impressed him, not her picture in the file. He’d studied every angle of the cases she’d been assigned with Nassar and was familiar with her past record with the agency. He knew her like he knew no other agent, and he refused to let himself consider why that might be.
The case she was assigned to now was the same one that had found him at the office this early in the morning. He’d been making sure that everything, as low-key as it was, went off without a hitch. As a family operation, Nassar Security depended on him to manage either the Morocco or Wyoming office at a moment’s notice.
This case involved a Moroccan prince. In fact, it had been Moroccan royalty who had hired the company to provide security for the minor royal, who was visiting Wyoming. The client was a cousin too many times removed from the current king of Morocco to ever attain power, and he wasn’t wealthy. That eliminated two factors that might threaten his safety. Except for the weak link to royalty, there was nothing special about the man. Thus, only one agent, Jade Van Everett, had been assigned.
In the file picture her hair had been lighter, shorter—her expression more serious. She was an extraordinarily good-looking woman even on file, but the paper copy didn’t reflect the vibrant beauty that the real woman possessed. It was hard not to stare, for he was caught by surprise.
Now that she’d finished with the bike, she wasted no time in striding across the small lot, her attention focused on him with a look that hinted at trouble. This was clearly a woman with an issue, and as he was the only person here, he could only assume that the issue was with him.
So much for quietly sliding into the pulse of the business, he thought.
She had trouble branded on the tight line of her full red lips and in the frown that cut between her delicate, well-defined dark brows.
While he felt the chill in her azure eyes slice through him as she came closer, he couldn’t help but admire her figure. He pulled his gaze up from her full bust and met her slightly sarcastic look as she stood on the bottom step looking up.
“Have you seen enough?” she drawled. Her voice was surprisingly relaxed despite the flashing accusation in her look.
She had spunk to go along with her success.
“Maybe,” he replied easily, while at the same time he was fully aware that he deserved every ounce of her sarcasm. The accusation in her eyes faded, and he could tell from the softening of her lips that she’d decided to not push the issue. He admired her for that.
“I’m Zafir,” he began, taking a step forward.
“I know,” she said in her husky voice, and came up a few more steps. “You’re why I’m here. I wanted to meet you in person before I picked up the client.”
Her eyes raked over him as if she, too, had studied him through his work. He imagined that if she was as good as her file suggested, then that was the case. One didn’t come in blind to anything, not a Nassar agent. They were all good, but to be in the top few meant that you left nothing to chance.
Professional, he thought, despite the bike. She smiled and threaded her fingers through her hair, pushing the shining black curtain up and away from her face. She came up another step. They were only a few feet apart.
She put one hand on the railing and held out the other to him. He took it and was caught in a firm grip that held no hesitation.
“What I’d like to know is why Prince Sadiq el Eloua is flying here alone on a commercial airline,” she said as she let go of his hand. She was referring to the client. The one she was assigned to. “I know it’s too late to do anything about it but really, even if there’s no identified threat, at the least he should have been accompanied.”
“There’s apparently never been a security issue—he has no money or status,” he said, realizing that she’d mirrored many of his first doubts. “It appears more for ego that we were hired.”
“Seems like there should be more to