Free Hot Target by Suzanne Brockmann

guy—were you pulled out of whatever unit you were supposed to serve with, all mysterious-like, no questions answered?”
    Pierce nodded. “Yeah.”
    “See?” Ducky said, triumphant. “Same as the rest of us.”
    Jane stood up. Thank God. “Thank you, I’ve seen enough. Patty!”
    The film sputtered to a stop and the lights came up.
    “You didn’t give him much of a chance,” Jack chided gently. “What did he have, eight words of dialogue total?”
    “Dialogue’s easy,” Jane shot back as Patty came down the aisle.
    Robin smiled at her. Unlike kissing Hugo Pierce or Pierce Hugo or whoever he was, he
could
imagine kissing Patty.
    She blushed and smiled shyly back at him.
    “Jack’s main role in this movie is that of observer,” Janey continued. “The audience is going to get their cues about how to feel from Jack. And if he’s feeling like a two-by-four—”
    “Pierce wasn’t that bad,” Jack objected as Robin got lost in Patty’s blue eyes. “Need I remind you, you’ve started filming. You need to cast this part.”
    “Schedule another session with the casting director ASAP,” Jane ordered Patty. “The right Jack is out there, and I am going to find him, so help me God.”

Chapter
T HREE
    His mother would’ve loved this.
    Cosmo sat quietly in the back row of the screening room as J. Mercedes Chadwick managed to be even more dramatic than the movie clips they’d all just watched.
    Although, truth be told, Cosmo agreed with Mercedes’ assessment. The kid they’d seen hadn’t been up to speed. But apparently they didn’t have a big enough budget to hire a well-known, experienced movie star.
    As Cos watched, he wondered if she knew that her intern was only catching a third of what she said. The girl, Patty, was totally distracted by the brother, Robin.
    Robin, however, was fully aware of Patty’s crush and seemed to be mutually intrigued. Damn, and wasn’t that a train wreck just waiting to happen?
    Cosmo would have bet two months’ pay that neither of them—not Patty and definitely not Robin—knew the least little thing about the other. Questions as basic as
What’s your favorite color?
or
Who was your favorite rock band when you were twelve?
had obviously been ignored. And if by chance either subject was touched on before the frantic removal of clothing, the responses would be short answers with no follow-ups along the lines of
Why Duran Duran?
    Of course, some people went out and got married without bothering to dig deeper and ask
why
questions.
    As for Patty and Robin, sooner or later they were going to wake up in bed together, orgasmed out, and then, look out. As soon as they started using their mouths to talk, all those little bubbles of happy fantasy were going to start bursting. Patty would realize—the hard way—that the man she’d welcomed into her arms didn’t exist, that the real Robin couldn’t hold a candle to her idealized, imagined version.
    Or maybe she’d never see her mistake and spend lots of time crying and wondering why her Prince Charming had suddenly “changed.”
    And Robin, well, he’d leap out of bed and hit the ground running. He was one of those super-insecure guys who hid all his self-doubt behind good looks, fast talk, and that hyper-confident attitude. He was one of those guys who rarely stopped moving, who never let anyone get too close, terrified of all that might come to light if he opened up and let someone in.
    As for his sister . . .
    Cosmo rose to his feet as Mercedes marched her red-hot bod up the aisle, the elderly man in tow.
    Cos had had his share of close encounters with her type before. He knew without asking that her two favorite words were
me
and
now.
Although it
was
possible that she actually cared about this movie she was making, as well as this old man.
    “ . . . round-the-clock bodyguards,” she was saying to Jack Shelton, “and Chief Richter here is the winner who pulled the first night shift.”
    “I’ll be here only until