First Lieutenant Darcy “Wren” Renshaw flung her flight checklist on the planning room table with a resounding smack. Not much of an outlet for her frustration, but the satisfying thunk on scarred wood made her feel marginally better.

While her siblings pounded dictators in Southeast Asia, she was stuck flying Flipper to Guam.

Restrained anger pinged inside her like antiaircraft missiles. Darcy spun an empty chair and dropped into the seat at the lengthy conference table, eager to start and therefore finish this mission all the sooner.

For once she didn’t plunge into conversation with the other aircrew members plotting their early-morning takeoff from San Diego bound for Guam – an island that still haunted her dreams. No need to infect the crew with her rotten mood. After all, transporting marine biologist Dr. Maxwell Keagan and his two bottlenose dolphins to the South Pacific was considered an honor.

An honor for the rest of the C-17 crew maybe, but for her? Darcy knew better. She hadn’t earned this cake mission, an embarrassing reality that burned over her with the devouring speed of flaming jet fuel.

How dare her three star General father “encourage” the Squadron Commander to yank Darcy’s combat slot to Cantou and schedule her as a last minute substitute on the safer Flipper Flight? She’d worked her boots off to be deserving of the wings on her leather nametag since the first day of pilot training. She wouldn’t start quietly accepting gift-wrapped cushy assignments now.

Sounds of Air Force crewdogs at work wrapped around her, the familiar routine offering none of its usual excitement. Rustling charts, clipped banter. Pilots. Loadmasters. Ground support. Every one of them having already pulled their rotation in conflicts around the world. She couldn’t allow them to shoulder all her risks as well as their own.

Once she offloaded Dr. Dolittle and his dolphin duo in Guam, she would confront her commander. If she wasn’t qualified for combat in the Cantou conflict, then he should remove her from flying status altogether.

Darcy yanked a bag of sunflower seeds from the thigh pocket of her flight suit and wrestled open the cellophane. Munching away emotions she refused to let rule her, she cracked shells, slowly, one at a time to restore her calm while waiting for Dr. Keagan to arrive. “Anybody seen the dolphin doc around yet?”

Captain Tanner “Bronco” Bennett, the aircraft commander, looked up from his chart. “What’s your hurry, Wren? He’s got another ten minutes.”

“Eight,” Darcy answered without checking her watch. “To be early is to be on time.”

“Cool your jets. He’ll get here when he gets here.” Bronco reached into the thigh pocket of his flight suit. “Since we’re waiting, have I showed everyone the latest pictures of Kathleen and the baby at the zoo?”

“Yes!” the room collectively shouted.

Bronco held his hands up in good-natured surrender. “Hey, just trying to pass time till the guy arrives.”

“I’m starting to wonder if you could fit enough pictures in your pocket for that, Captain.” Darcy eased her grouse with a quick grin, drumming her fingers impatiently on the gouged wood.

She hadn’t met Keagan yet, having only arrived at the San Diego Naval Air Station from her home base in Charleston, South Carolina the night before. But the guy must have some heavy-duty clout to warrant military transport for his dolphins.

String pullers weren’t high on her list of favorite folks, especially today.

This time General Pops had gone too far with the overprotectiveness. Sure, she’d been kidnapped in Guam as a kid. A terrifying experience for her family, and one she still couldn’t dwell on for even thirty seconds without dropping her damned sunflower seeds all over the floor. But it was time to get past it.

Darcy cracked seeds one at time to focus her thoughts and calm her pissed off senses. Maybe the time had come to confront her father, too. If only she didn’t have to confront the inevitable worry on his dear craggy face as well.

Why couldn’t her dad understand that by clipping her wings, he’d always denied her the chance to put that week behind her? Her very nature, inherited from seven generations of Renshaw warriors, demanded she fight back. Like the squadron motto on her patch, she would be ready for anything, anywhere, anytime.
She hadn’t expected that to include hauling cetaceans across the Pacific.

Darcy jack-hammered another salty seed with her molars.

Bronco spun her chair to face him. “Geez, Renshaw. How about I get you some rocks to chew? Wouldn’t be half as noisy.”

Bronco’s linebacker bulk filled his chair as completely as his teasing filled the room. Darcy shrugged off her irritation and slid into the camaraderie with as much ease as zipping her flight suit. Childhood years spent as a squadron mascot while her classmates earned Scout badges had left her with a slew of surrogate big brothers and the ability to hold her own around any military water cooler.

She sprinkled a pile of sunflower seeds on top of the aircraft commander’s chart. “Shelling is an art form, boss man. Didn’t they teach you old guys anything when you went to pilot training?”
From across the table, Captain Daniel “Crusty” Baker scooped the shells. “We old guys must have been busy inventing the wheel.”

“Old guys? Ouch!” Bronco thumped his chest. “Renshaw deals another lethal blow to the ego. My wife would be proud.”

Crusty pitched the seeds into his mouth, swiped his hand along his flight suit and grabbed the bag for a second helping.

Darcy snagged it away, irritation creeping through in spite of her resolve. “Get your own, moocher.”

Bronco eased back his chair, a big-brother-concern glinting in his eyes she recognized too well. “What’s got your G-suit in a knot today, Renshaw?”

Uh-uh. She wasn’t answering that one. Her feelings were her own. Always had been since the terrorist raid on her childhood overseas home.

She clenched her fist around the shells until they sliced into her palm. One rogue seed spurted between her fingers and spiraled to the carpet. She inched her flight boot over it to conceal the seed as well as her momentary lapse.

Darcy popped another seed into her mouth. “I’m sorry. Were you talking?” She scavenged a quick grin. “I couldn’t hear you over my crunching.”

Chuckling, the two senior captains resumed pouring over Bronco’s chart.

Tipping back her seat, Darcy dragged the industrial-size trash can forward and pitched her hulls inside. Time to launch this flight and bring her closer to launching her life as well. She rolled her chair away from the table. “I’m going to find out what’s keeping Keagan so we can get this mission off the ground.”

Footsteps sounded from the hall, stalling Darcy half-standing. The door swung open, voices swelling through as three men strode in, two in naval khaki uniforms, one in creased pants and a bow tie.

Ah, the professor.

Just as Darcy started to look away, another man strolled through the doorway. One glimpse at him and she lost all interest in studying flight data scrawled on the dry erase board.

Holy marine mammal, the guy was hot.

Six foot two, three maybe. Early thirties? Given his laid-back air and casual clothes, perhaps he was the graduate assistant accompanying the professor on the flight. A graduate assistant who looked as if he spent all his after school hours on a surfboard.

Sandy-brown hair spiked from his head, the tips bleached from overexposure to the sun. The damp disarray could have been styled deliberately, but somehow she didn’t think so. His five o’clock shadow at 8:00 a.m. hinted his only comb might be fingers tunneling through sun-kissed hair.

A sea-foam colored windbreaker zipped halfway up his broad chest. The banded waist grazed the top of his low-riding drawstring swim trunks. Slim hips and an incredible tush were covered by… Flowers.

Loud tangerine and purple blooms blazoned from faded nylon hitting right around knee-length, obliterating her earlier frustration in a Technicolor sensory tidal wave.

After hanging out in an almost exclusively male world all her life, she wasn’t often rattled by a man’s physical appearance. So why were her fingers itching to comb through this guy’s hair?

The senior Navy officer paused beside the dry erase board. “Sorry for the delay. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Dr. Maxwell Keagan, head of Marine Mammal Communications at the University of San Diego. And his research assistant, Perry Griffin. Now that they’ve arrived, I’ll set up the computer and projector while you introduce yourselves.” The officer turned to the two civilians. “Dr. Keagan, we’ll be ready for your brief in about five minutes.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Huh?

Dr. Keagan’s answer hadn’t come from Mr. Bow Tie, but from the surfboarder dude with incredible pecs and horrid fashion sense.

Darcy dropped into her seat with more force than a botched parasail landing. She blinked, stared again.

Sure enough those tropical-flower-clad hips were advancing toward her end of the table for an introduction. Not Mr. Bow Tie. That guy was crawling along the floorboards searching for an outlet for the computer like an eager-to-please research assistant.

Surfboarder dude extended his hand. “Dr. Max Keagan.”

A beach bum with a brain. Fantasies didn’t come any better.

“Hello, Doctor.” Standing, she transferred her sunflower seeds to her left hand and extended her right. “Lieutenant Darcy Renshaw.”

His callused fingers enfolded hers, his scent chasing right up the link to blanket her with intoxicating potency. Coconut oil, salty air and a hint of musk wafted from him, like a pina colada after long, sweaty sex on the beach.

If she’d ever had such a moment.

For a crazy, impulsive second, Darcy wondered what it would be like to make that memory – with this guy. A shiver whispered through her that had nothing to do with the whoosh of the air conditioner.

Did she see an answering attraction in his blue-green eyes? Maybe the slightest narrowing of his gaze to one of those sleepy-lidded assessments she’d seen her eight ka-zillion pseudo big brothers give other women when–

Bronco cleared his throat just before the chair behind Darcy jarred the back of her knees. Damn. Did the big guy have to kick it so hard? Be so obvious in pointing out she was still clasping Max Keagan’s fingers?

Darcy jerked her hand away and glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, the pilots stood side-by-side, a mismatched Mutt and Jeff with identical smirks. Double damn and dirt. They would razz the hell out of her all the way across the Pacific.

She willed herself not to blush. Salvaging what she could of her pride and professionalism, Darcy pulled to attention. “Dr. Keagan, a pleasure to meet you.”

Pleasure? She stifled a groan at her word choice.

Bronco snorted.

Forget salvaging squat. She turned on her boot heel toward the aircraft commander. “With all due respect, sir, I’m going to roll you off the loadramp right after we cross into international airspace.”

She faced Max Keagan again, unable to read anything on the man’s tanned – gorgeous – face. “I apologize for him and for my, uh…” Adolescent drooling? Mortifying lack of self-control? “For staring. You aren’t quite what I expected.”

“No problem. I’ve heard the same in more than one faculty meeting.” He let her off the hook with a few simple words.

Oh, man. Smart, hunky and nice enough to grant her an easy reprieve when he could have been an egotistical jerk.

She was toast.

“Let’s start again.” Composure thankfully back in place, Darcy made the formal introductions without a hitch. They settled into their chairs, Bronco and Crusty suddenly opting for a new seating chart that left only one place for Dr. Keagan. Next to Darcy.

Great. Now instead of teasing her, they were “helping.” She had her very own hulking Cupid with a sunflower-mooching cohort.
She probably needed their help. And then some.

If only she possessed as much ease with flirting as she did with touch-and-go landings.

Touch-and-go. Her heart rate fired like jet pistons chugging to life. Why did a routine flight term suddenly sound sexy courtesy of Dr. Keagan?

Duh! Because his bad-boy, fine self was sitting no less than eighteen inches away, his eyes gliding over her flight suit with a heat she’d never, never had sizzle her way before from any guy. After all, men did not look at their best bud that way, even if said bud was a woman.

Darcy savored the heat all the way to her toes.

Twenty-five years of virginity, of overprotective relatives, of being everybody’s pal and never the object of those sleepy-lidded stares, weighed her down like a seventy-pound survival pack ready to be shed after a marathon trek. She was tired of being slotted into safer roles.

Why wait until after this mission to go for what she wanted? Here was a big, hunky risk ready for the taking.

And she could have that risk without breaking her personal rule. No military men. No men like her father, government protectors by training, trade and blood.

Before she lost her nerve, Darcy extended her fist toward Max. Her fingers unfurled to reveal a now steady palm full of sunflower seeds. “Want some?”

***

Max stared at that slim hand, up to Darcy Renshaw’s wrist where a pulse double-timed in a fragile vein.

He wanted a lot more than sunflower seeds from the leggy dynamo seated beside him. Her flight suit and take-no-lip attitude assured him she could probably down the average man in five different ways. One helluva woman, no doubt.

Not that he intended to act on the impulse to accept that challenge. Following impulses could get even the best of CIA officers killed.

Or worse yet, someone else…

Chapter One

Being a princess was a real pain in the tiara.

Wearing the crown and fifty-plus pound royal garb of her native country of Cantou threatened to give Las Vegas Police Detective Kim Wong a debilitating rash and back ache. And the police station hadn’t even been called to order for morning brief yet.

She shuffled from foot to foot, shoes too tight as she stood with her fellow police officers on the Las Vegas Police Force. And yeah, they were smirking.

“Zip it, Jakowski,” Kim said, “or I’m gonna send your wife a picture of you in drag.”

Coughing into his hand, the smirker hushed and rejoined his conversation with an older detective in plaid shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and a camera around his neck.

Aside from this whole costume party being the strangest morning brief in history, the clothes brought back all the reasons she’d decided to put the pomp and circumstance behind her for a life where she controlled her choices. Hanging out with the coffee maker burping sludge into the pot, Kim bolstered herself with thoughts of the wager she’d made with her two best pals, also detectives, Dorian Byrne and Clarissa Rivers.

The bet?

Who would close their case first this weekend. The stakes? A very precious – and rare – week off.

Their boss, Captain Bill Pearson, was riding the whole department’s back to clean up the town the weekend before a big influx of tourists for the Labor Day extended holiday. Finishing up fast and first would rate extra kudos around the water cooler.

Every cop not on another detail had been assigned to work a suspect casino. She would be working the Great Wall Casino. The tip on the Great Wall would barely warrant attention on a normal day, but her boss was really wigging. So he paid more attention than normal to an unreliable snitch with a heroin habit who vowed stolen diamonds were going to be moved through the Asian-themed casino this weekend.

Normally, they would just do a cursory check, not a deep undercover gig. Except this wasn’t a normal weekend. Their Captain was definitely not in a normal mood with politicians breathing down his neck and his wife breathing fire not-too-privately about all her husband’s overtime.

So, here Kim stood in fifty-pounds of embroidered garb.

She raked her fingernails along her shoulder and resisted the urge to replace her tiara with a jeweled baseball cap. She truly respected the beauty and history of her heritage, but she’d picked a new path for her life years ago. However for this weekend she had to impersonate her spoiled brat princess cousin, Ting.

Lucky for Kim’s case, she and “Princess” Ting could be identical twins.

Not that either of them was really royalty. The whole imperial thing had ended thirty-eight years ago in a military coup. Her family was allowed to keep their titles out of courtesy only.

Kim was grateful for the support of her two best pals – her cohorts in the bet. Clarissa had already started her assignment and Dorian would be heading out soon. But Confucius love ‘em, her friends had been emphatic about giving her a big send off even though they’d already gotten their marching orders.

A hand rested on her shoulder, jolting her. She turned to find Dorian had slid through the masses, past a lion tamer and a “vacationing” couple. Her buddy, Dorian, wore a prim suit, lucky her, but her undercover get-up would come soon enough.

“Hang in there, my friend,” Dorian consoled. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. We all know you can kick any man’s ass with your black belt qualifications – not to mention your street moxy.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “I can barely walk in this get-up. But sure, whatever.”

Dorian dipped her head and whispered, “Kim, are you sure you’re up to this?”

“I only needed a few stitches, not major surgery.” Itching. Not pain. She wouldn’t think about the bullet wound. A nick only, really.

“That doesn’t mean getting shot didn’t mess with your head.”

Kim forced a smile. “You just want to shift the odds in your favor of getting that week off.”

“I’m just watching my friend’s back.” She grinned. “Not that I could recognize your back in all those clothes you’re wearing.”

“It’s better than being darn near naked,” Kim pointed out because Dorian would be wearing streetwalker gear soon enough.

A scowl turned Dorian’s expression fierce. “Point taken. The stilettos are guaranteed ankle-breakers”

“I respect my country’s historic wear, but dang, this stuff chafes.”

“Once you get through the opening ceremonies, things should be more casual.”

“Obviously you’ve never seen Ting featured in Celebs Magazine.”

Clarrisa Rivers made her way past Jakowski in drag to join them. “Too bad they couldn’t give you a purple tiara. You like purple.”

“I’m sure Ting has one shoved somewhere.” Her cousin made full use of the family coffers to pamper herself.

“At least you don’t have to go undercover as a maid or a hooker.” Clarrisa tugged at the apron in obvious disgust, the magenta costume obviously striking some kind of negative chord.

“You’ve got me there.” Kim eyed her two friends, grateful for their support. They really could be out working their cases now, getting a head start on her, but they’d come here to check on her, to make sure she had her feet under her since the shooting a month ago. “Thanks for coming over to check on me. But I’m sure you need to get back to your own assignments.”

Clarissa tapped Kim’s tiara. “We wouldn’t have missed your launch for the world.”

Then the room was called to attention for the head dude, their boss, Captain Pearson. “Be seated. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s get straight to it and start with getting Detective Wong out on the street.”

Deep breath. Time to make her grand march to the front of the room. Bye-bye burping coffee pot.

Kim tossed her head back and strode forward, willing the crowd to part.

Which it did.

Hmmm. Apparently the royal blood still shooshed through her veins after all. Her protective entourage – police officers all decked out as well – flanked her on her way to the front of the room.

Captain Pearson nodded to her as he stepped aside to make room for Kim and Company. “Good. You all look good, convincing. Well done, detectives. We’ll get started soon. We’re just waiting on one final individual, your personal bodyguard.”

What? All itchy sensations disappeared in light of a full tingle of irritation. “Personal bodyguard? I think I’m insulted.”

Pearson shook his head. “It will look strange in the casino if you don’t have a bodyguard.”

“Of course you’re right.” Irritation slid away, which of course gave the itching full rein to return. “I’m thinking with my ego rather than my brain.” She was still stinging after getting winged on that domestic dispute job last month. She didn’t doubt herself, but she feared others would.

“We’re concerned about security on this one, Wong. It goes beyond the jewels. There’s been a threat called in on the royal family given the shaky relations between some rogue factions in the U.S. and in Cantou.”

“I’m a U.S. citizen now.”

“But you’re not yourself this weekend.”

Of course. Already her brain was getting muddled.

“This weekend, you are Ting in the eyes of your mother country. And if the diamond transfer to fund underground armies in Cantou is true, they won’t care if you’re the princess or not. You’re royal. That’s cause enough to put a price on your head. So, regardless. We want a robust security detail, and what makes the most sense is big burly boyfriend.”

A boyfriend? She searched the room full of her fellow detectives. At least she could be sure she wasn’t getting the jerk Jakowski since he wouldn’t scare off anybody in his spandex skirt and pink lipstick. Somebody really should have told him to shave his hairy legs.

Shuddering, she turned back to her boss. “You’re kidding, sir.”

“I’m afraid not,” the captain said from behind the podium. “And the most logical choice would be the man well known for hanging out with the Wong women–

A slight inkling started to niggle through. Oh no.

“–when he was deployed to Cantou–”

He couldn’t mean. She clutched Dorian’s arm.

“–two years ago on assignment with the U.S. Air Force.”

Oh no. Pearson totally did mean–

The door opened wide and in lumbered Kim’s bodyguard to the whooping and applause of her fellow police officers who must not realize this man wore the uniform for real. He wasn’t a rent-a-hunk.

Nuh-uh. He was a man she wouldn’t have forgotten regardless of his size. The looming guy wore Air Force blues, with a uniform jacket packed with ribbons and silver wings attesting to his career bravery. A military pilot who’d darn near stomped her heart a couple of years ago when she’d made her annual journey to her homeland. It should have been a fling. Instead, it had been an emotional code red, courtesy of the most intense, serious… sexy man she’d ever known.

Captain Marcus “Joker” Cardenas.