She nodded when Adam suggested that the dog’s arrival necessitated a change in plans. With less than an hour of daylight left, they couldn’t take the chance that someone might pick up the dog’s tracks and follow them here. They should scout out a better defensive position until they could call in the extraction team.

  Maggie crawled out of the snow cave with mixed emotions. As much as she hated to leave their private nest, she needed air. Adam followed a moment later. Keeping to the shelter of the towering conifer, they breathed in the sharp, clean scent of snow and pines. Radizwell hunkered down on Adam’s other side, pointedly ignoring her. Maggie suspected that he still hadn’t quite accepted this stranger in Taylor’s clothes. Or forgiven her for the empty, bacon-scented napkin.

  They stood still and silent for long moments, searching the slopes above and below. Nothing moved. No sounds disturbed the quiet except the distant, raucous call of a hawk wheeling overhead and Radizwell’s steady panting. The sun slowly slipped toward the high peaks, deepening the shadows cast by the towering trees and bathing the snow in a soft purple light.

  “We’ll have to head farther east,” Adam murmured after a few moments. “Just in case they picked up Radizwell’s tracks and are heading this way.”

  He pointed toward a jagged ridge a short distance away. “Let’s try for those rocks. Even if the wrong people lock on to our signal, it will be harder to see us up there at night. We can hold them off until the extraction team gets here.”

  Maggie drew in a deep breath. “I don’t think we should hold them off. We should try to pull them in.”

  He swung around to face her. “We’ve already talked about this.”

  “We started to,” she said evenly, “but my growling stomach interrupted us. As I recall, we got sidetracked by a few cold biscuits and bacon bits.”

  A small smile tugged at his mouth. “So we did.”

  As much as she wanted to, Maggie didn’t let herself be drawn in by the softening in his face or the glint in his eyes. She’d known this confrontation with Adam would come, and she was ready for it.

  Keeping her tone brisk and businesslike, she reiterated the conclusions they’d reached in the cave.

  “Look, we both agree the scope of the mission has changed somewhat.”

  “Somewhat?”

  “Okay, a lot. But my basic role in the operation hasn’t changed at all. I’m still the bait.”

  “You were the bait when we thought we were dealing with a single assassin. Now we know that individual has a whole team backing him up.”

  “That’s just it, Adam. I’m still the one they want. I’m still—”

  She stopped abruptly, frowning.

  “I’m still the one they want,” she said slowly. “The one he wants.”

  Adam stiffened, and in his eyes Maggie saw an echo of the same suspicion that was forming in the pit of her stomach like a cold, heavy weight.

  “He wants me.” She articulated each word with careful precision, not wanting to believe them, even as she said them. “He wants me. Not Taylor Grant. Me.”

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t say a word, and his silence hammered at Maggie like a crowbar striking against a metal wall.

  “You think so, too, don’t you? Don’t you?”

  “I admit the idea occurred to me. But—”

  “But nothing! This unknown assassin knew how to bypass the White House phone system. Which meant he probably could have circumvented the personal security system and gotten to the vice president any time he wanted. But he didn’t really want her, did he? He wanted me. I’ve been the target all along.”

  She stared at Adam, stunned. “That’s it, isn’t it, Adam? You know it as well as I do. He wants me.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “All right, Maggie. Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say he wants you. Who is he?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Whoever made that call.”

  “Who? Who made it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Snow crunched under his boot as he took a step toward her. “Think! Who wants you dead?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Radizwell picked up on the tension arcing through the air between them. He whined far back in his throat and padded forward to nudge a jeans-clad hip. Adam ignored him, his attention focused on the woman before him.

  “Who, Maggie? Who wants to get to you?”

  She flung out a gloved hand. “Any one of a dozen men, and a few women, all of whom are behind bars now!”

  “Why?” The single syllable had the force of a whip, sharp and stinging.

  “Because they’re behind bars!”

  Adam’s eyes were blue ice behind his black lashes. His breath came fast and hard on the cold air. “Not good enough. Try again. Think! Why would any of those people want you dead?”

  “Because…” She wet her lips. “Because I know something I’m not supposed to know. Or I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. Or heard something I wasn’t supposed to hear.”

  The shadows obscured his face now. Maggie couldn’t see his eyes, but she felt them. Narrowed. Intent. Searing.

  “What? What did you see or hear? What could you know that you’re not supposed to?”

  “I don’t know, dammit! I don’t know!”

  The sharp frustration in her voice sliced through the tension-filled air like a blade. Radizwell gave a low growl, unsure of the source of their conflict, but obviously unhappy about it. He edged closer to Adam. If it came to choosing teams, Maggie thought in a wild aside, the dog had already chosen his.

  “What I don’t understand is, why here?” she said, bringing herself under control. “Why not in D.C.? Or anywhere else? Why set this trap, using me as bait? Luring me in like this. Or—” She stopped, her eyes widening. “Or out!”

  “Out, how?”

  “Out of my civilian cover. My God, Adam. Maybe that’s it. Maybe someone staged this elaborate charade to draw me out, because he couldn’t get to me any other way. He couldn’t get to Chameleon.”

  The flat, hard expression on Adam’s face might have signaled disbelief, or denial, or a combination of both.

  “It’s possible,” she insisted. “No one outside OMEGA knows our real identities. Hell, only a handful within the agency have access to that information.”

  “You’re saying someone set this whole thing up? Just on the chance you’d be tagged to double for the vice president?”

  “It’s possible,” she repeated stubbornly.

  “For God’s sake, do you have any idea how remote that possibility is?”

  “Not that remote,” she snapped. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  That stopped him. He went completely still, his arms at his sides, his hands curled into fists. His face could have been carved out of ice.

  “If that’s the case,” he said finally, “this all boils down to a question of who knew you might double for the vice president. Who, Maggie?”

  “No one,” she protested. “No one knew, except the president, and the vice president. Lillian. Jaguar. The OMEGA team. And—”

  She stopped, swallowing hard.

  “And the director of OMEGA,” Adam said slowly.

  She didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. It seemed to Maggie that her body had lost all capacity to move. Her brain had certainly lost all ability to function. It had gone numb and completely blank. The white, silent woods seemed to close in, until her world became a single, shadowed face.

  “Why, Maggie?” he asked softly, bringing them full circle. “Why would any of those people want you dead?”

  She struggled for an answer. Any answer. One that would satisfy him, and her. The silence spun out, second by cold, crystalline second.

  A hundred chaotic thoughts tumbled through Maggie’s numbed mind. A thousand shattering emotions fought for preeminence in her heart. Could Adam have brought her to this isolated spot for some desperate reason of his own? What did she know of him? What did any of the OMEGA agents know of him? His past was shrouded in secrecy. Even now, he led a double life that few knew about. He’d always kept himself so remote. His feelings so shuttered.

  Until today. Until he’d held her in his arms and she’d taken him into her body. When he’d looked down into her eyes. There had been no shutters on his soul then.

  Her riotous emotions stilled. The confusion dulling her mind faded. She didn’t need to know the secrets in Adam’s past. She didn’t care about his present double life. If she was ever going to trust her instincts, it had to be now.

  Adam didn’t, couldn’t, want her dead.

  She’d stake her life on it.

  Drawing on everything that was in her heart, she summoned a valiant grin. “Well, I think it’s safe to cross the OMEGA team off our ever-expanding list of suspects. I put my life in their hands every time I walk out the door. And I know the director of OMEGA wouldn’t set me up like this.”

  He didn’t respond for long, agonizing moments. “Do you?” he said at last.

  The cool, even tone was so quintessentially Adam that Maggie didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. She did neither. Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and nodded.

  “I do. Although he’s tried to take my head off on several memorable occasions in the past three years, he’s in love with me. He hasn’t admitted it yet. He may not even realize it yet. But he is. What’s more, I love him. With all my heart and soul.”

  If anyone had told Maggie that she’d finally articulate her feelings to Adam while standing knee-deep in snow, with cold nipping at her nose and a team of killers searching for her, she would’ve checked their medication levels. Of all the times and all the places to have the “discussion” she and Adam had delayed for so long!

  Not that it was much of a discussion, she realized belatedly. So far, the exchange had been entirely too one-sided.

  “You can jump in here anytime,” she invited sweetly.

  With a sound that was half laugh, half groan, Adam swept her into his arms. He locked his fists behind her back, holding her against his chest. The deepening shadows didn’t obscure his eyes now. Now they blazed down at her with a fierce emotion that warmed Maggie’s nose and toes and all parts in between.

  “I am. I do. I know.”

  “Come again?” she asked, breathless.

  “I am in love with you. I do realize it. I know you love me, too.”

  “Well, well, well…”

  Her smug, satisfied grin made Adam want to pick her up and carry her back to the snow cave. Hell, it made him want to throw her down in the snow right here, rip off her various layers and lose himself in her fire. He had to satisfy himself with a shattering kiss.

  They were both breathing fast and hard when he pulled back. It took some effort, but Adam put her out of his arms.

  “We’ll finish this interesting discussion when we get out of here.”

  Her mischievous smile almost shattered the remnants of his control. “It’s finished. At least as far as I’m concerned. You are. You do. You know. What more is there to say?”

  “Maggie…”

  “All we have to decide now is what to do about it.”

  “Correction. Right now we have to get you out of here. We can decide about it—about us—after we get you to a safe haven.”

  Her teasing smile faded a bit. “I can’t operate out of a safe haven. I’m a field operative.”

  He bent to pick up their small store of supplies. “It’s too dangerous in the field. I’m calling you in.”

  She winced at his use of the euphemism every OMEGA agent dreaded hearing. He was calling her in. Out of the cold. Ordering her to abandon her cover and her mission.

  Maggie shook her head. “Not yet, Adam. You can’t terminate this mission yet. We won’t find the answer in a safe haven. The answer’s here, in the field.”

  He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. They both knew she was right. Maggie saw his jaw work. He wanted to find whoever was behind this scheme as much as, or more than, she.

  “I can’t go in,” she said softly, firmly. “Not yet. You wouldn’t have any respect for me if I did. You wouldn’t…” She circled a hand in the air. “You wouldn’t see me the same way, ever again. As an agent, or as a woman. You wouldn’t love me the same way.”

  Her uncanny echo of his earlier thoughts pierced Adam’s wall of resistance. He would love her. He would always love her. But he would love her differently if she wasn’t the Maggie who stood nose to nose with him, in the middle of nowhere, with no food, little firepower, and a killer on her trail, yet refused point-blank to run for cover.

  Still, he made one last effort. “Do you think I’ll ever see you the same way again after those hours in the snow cave? As a woman, or as an agent?”

  “Good Lord, I hope not!”

  Her startled exclamation wrung a smile out of him. Maggie pounced on it like a cat after a ball of catnip.

  “Whatever else happens,” she said softly, “we’ll always have those hours in the snow cave.”

  “Maggie…”

  “And the memory of those bits of bacon.”

  She cocked her head, inviting him to capitulate, giving him the means to.

  “And don’t forget the feel of pine needles,” she murmured wickedly. “Prickling us in places few people have ever felt pine needles prickle before. And the interesting way we found to melt that handful of snow. And…”

  “All right, Maggie. All right.” His jaw clenched. “Suppose you tell me how you think we should handle this situation.”

  She wasn’t the type to crow. “We keep it simple,” she said briskly. “I’m the lure. We use me to bait a trap, then spring it.”

  “We stake you out like a skinned rabbit and wait for the hungry predators to arrive, is that it?”

  “That’s not quite what I had in mind,” she drawled.

  “So tell me.”

  “We have to assume they’ll lock on to our signal when we contact Jaguar, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So instead of trying to evade them while we wait for the extraction team to arrive, we let them find us. Or think they have. We draw them in and pin them down until the team gets here.”

  Thankfully, Adam didn’t point out the obvious. He knew as well as Maggie that they didn’t have enough firepower to keep attackers armed with automatic weapons and night-vision equipment pinned down. Which meant they had to use the terrain to their maximum advantage. And use their wits.

  “We can do it, Adam.”

  “We can try it,” he said slowly, reluctantly.

  Yes! Maggie wanted to shout her relief, but one look at his face warned her he was not happy about this. At all. Wisely she kept silent while he scanned the darkening horizon.

  “That ridge won’t work. We’d lose them in the rocks and boulders.”

  “We’d better head down to lower ground.” Shoving her hands in her pockets, she turned to scan the steep slope. “What we need is a canyon or crevice of some kind.”

  What they found was a shack.

  Or rather Radizwell found it.

  Maggie and Adam had only gone a few yards down the slope, angling through the trees to avoid detection and make the descent easier, when the komondor decided they were heading in the wrong direction. He stopped, and a low whine alerted Adam to the fact that the animal wasn’t following.

  “Come on, boy. Come on.”

  The dog backed up a few steps, rumbling a low sound deep in his throat.

  “Heel!”

  Even Radizwell recognized the voice of authority. Belly to the ground, he slunk across the snow, whining pitifully all the way.

  Adam’s dark brows slashed together. “What? What are you trying to tell us?”

  Taking courage from the more moderate tone, the shaggy beast leaped up and bounded down the slope a few feet in the opposite direction. He skidded to a halt in the snow, turned back to face them, then let loose with a deep, rolling thunderclap bark.

  “Good grief!” Maggie exclaimed. “Who needs a satellite transmission? Anyone within a five-mile radius can lock on to that.”

  It was an exaggeration, but only a slight one.

  Adam quieted the animal with a slicing gesture of command. Radizwell snapped his jaws shut and plopped back on his massive haunches, as if sitting at attention.

  “Obviously he wants us to follow him,” Adam commented. “Since he appears to know these mountains better than we do, I suggest we see where he leads us.”

  He led them on what Maggie suspected was a merry chase. The moment he saw them start in his direction, Radizwell whirled and raced down the slope at a steep angle. He dodged around trees and over snow-covered fallen logs with surprising agility. Just before they lost sight of him completely, he skidded to a halt and waited for them to catch up.

  When they were almost up with him, he jumped up and took off again. After the third or fourth relay, Maggie was huffing from the exertion and Adam’s breath was coming in short, sharp pants. The sun had slipped behind the peaks now, and the shadows had deepened to long purple streaks across the tree-covered hillside. Overhead, a few early stars glowed in an indigo sky. Maggie caught a glimpse of a pale moon floating between the tips of the pines.

  Although it was difficult to judge distance with their visibility obscured by the towering trees, an occasional clearing gave them some idea of progress. Maggie guessed they were three-quarters of the way down the slope when she had to stop to catch her breath. The dog padded back, not even winded.

  She eyed him with mounting suspicion. “You don’t suppose…this is his way…of getting back at me, do you?”

  Adam propped a foot up on a half-submerged boulder. Leaning an elbow across his knee, he drew in several long breaths. “For what?”

  “For scarfing…up all the biscuits…and bacon.”

  “Could be.”

  Maggie groaned. “I knew it!”

  “Come on. Let’s keep moving. We’re almost at the bottom of the slope.”