19 Headed for Trouble by Suzanne Brockmann Page A

man in the red shirt, who actually still believed he could get a piece of Jules.
    The FBI agent was subcompact and had a far better fashion sense than Alyssa, but he knew how to bring it in hand-to-hand combat. He fought with an efficiency of movement that Sam admired. It was beautiful, actually. Jules fought with his brain, unlike Red Shirt, who’d let loose his inner Neanderthal, swinging blindly, flailing mindlessly—making himself good and winded in the process.
    Jules, on the other hand, was breathing about as hard as he’d been during lunch.
    Red Shirt came at him one too many times, and Jules dodged him yet again, this time tripping him on his way past, using an expertly placed elbow to help the man greet the ground that much harder. He didn’t get back up.
    The gay waiter, meanwhile, had run to get the entire serving staff of the restaurant, including the owner.
    As Sam watched, Jules turned to face this new threat, ready to take them all out if necessary. But—again, since his brain was fully functioning—he immediately recognized them for what they were. The cavalry come to save them. Not that they’d needed it.
    The owner of the restaurant spoke fluent English. “This is not the first time such an outrage has happened here. Such anti-American sentiment is not helpful to our town. Tourism is down as it is.”
    Anti-
American
? Not anti-gay?
    The man ushered them into his kitchen, ordering his staff to bring the first-aid kit and ice for Jules’s raw knuckles. Sam looked at Jules, but he was playing right along, talking about the anti-American protests in Greece and even Dubai, as he helped Sam over to a table and pushed him into a chair.
    It was then Sam realized he was bleeding. He’d gotten cut by that knife.
    It wasn’t too much more than a scratch, but the restaurant owner—who was also the chef—wasn’t about to let them leave without cleaning them up. And feeding them a sampling of all his desserts, which was fine by Sam.
    The man even drove them back to the resort in his little Mini. It was only then, after they said their goodbyes, as they headed down the pathway past the pool, that Sam asked, “Anti-American?”
    But Jules’s phone rang. It was his boss’s administrativeassistant, Laronda. It was okay with Max if Jules wanted to take a few more days off. Which meant …
    “Let’s get you a flight home,” Jules said.
    But Sam shook his head. “Anti-American, my ass. I’ve been here for weeks. That was not about us being American. That was about you being gay. I’m not leaving you here alone.”
    Jules rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”
    Sam held out his bandaged hand. “No, it’s not.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    This was going nowhere fast, but Sam couldn’t let it go. “Jules—”
    “Don’t you get it?” Jules asked, leading the way up the stairs to Sam’s hotel suite. “This is my life. I could be jumped, beaten, and, yeah, even killed for being gay—not just here, but in any town in virtually any country in the world. Particularly in the United States, by the way. Are you going to follow me home to DC, Sam? Lots of hate crimes happen there, you know.”
    “Then maybe
you
should have a beard.” Sam knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. But then he unlocked the door to his suite, and the situation went from bad to worse.
    Chloe, dressed in only a pair of leopard-print thong panties and some very high heels, was dancing to music on the radio while fixing herself a drink at his wet bar.
    A
drink?
Another
drink. Clearly, she’d had quite a few already. “There you are,” she said, as she caught sight of Sam. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
    Once again, Jules stepped in front of Sam. “You must be Chloe. I
love
your shoes.”
    She grabbed—apparently just as Jules had hoped she would—for her robe. In fact, he even helped her into it. “Pack,” he ordered Sam over his shoulder, as he led Chloe out onto the balcony. “You