by Anne Stuart
“That’s better, princess,” he murmured low in her ear. “Just let it go.”
The image of a Disney princess singing in the ice ran through her mind, and she sleepily wondered what Johnny would do if she started singing? No, she couldn’t trust anyone in this fever dream. She sighed again, and snuggled closer, pressing her face against the crook of his shoulder, breathing him in. For now, for just this moment, she wasn’t going to worry, to panic, to even think. For just this moment, she was going to do exactly what Johnny Larsen told her to do. She was going to let it go.
Chapter 6
Johnny looked down at her. Damn. What the hell had he landed himself with? The girl was clearly Looney Tunes, and if he hadn’t gone to look for her and grabbed her, who knew what she might have done? Ratchett would have called the cops, and, while she was a tough little cookie, he didn’t want to see her hauled downtown by one of the hard-eyed men who kept an eye on Herald Square. No matter how much she tried to hide it, the kid was lost and confused, but he couldn’t see her running amok with a machete. She just needed to be quiet for a while, get some food in her, sleep, and then she’d be able to face whatever she was hiding from.
He knew all about hiding. There were things in this life, hideous, unthinkable things that people did to each other, and if you thought about it too much you were liable to blow your head off. He’d shut off most of this godforsaken decade, he could hardly blame her if she wanted to close the door on her past too.
He shifted her, careful not to wake her. Funny, there was something downright endearing about a creature who falls asleep on you. Cats that crawled onto your lap, dogs that draped their heads on your shoes, beautiful women who curled up in your arms with all the trust in the world. It touched something buried inside him, something he didn’t want to think about.
He couldn’t fix whatever was troubling her—he had to remember that. There were some wrongs he could right—when they’d tried to stop him from hiring Rosa he’d pushed back. When one of Ratchett’s well-dressed goons had put the make on Rosa, he’d fixed that too, and no one messed with her anymore. He could help out some of his army buddies, the ones in rough shape who went from flophouse to Central Park to skid row. He knew what they needed too—the same thing he had. Someone to listen, some warm food, a bed for the night. He wasn’t much better than they were—he camped out in this massive store, he ate from the cafeteria or a hot plate, and he didn’t talk to anyone besides the lost souls who needed someone to listen.
How the hell could he save this girl if he couldn’t even save himself?
Madison—what a stupid name. Mollie wasn’t bad—it went with her red-blond hair, but she didn’t like it. Too damned bad. He was better off not calling her anything. He was better off not being anywhere around her. If you named a stray puppy, they were yours forever, and he had no room in his messed-up life for anything more than survival.
He shifted, and she sighed, snuggling closer. She was making him feel, and he didn’t want to. She was making him care, and he was much better off not giving a damn. She also made him horny as hell, and that was the last thing she needed, but her sweet little fanny was pressing against his stiffening dick, and it was a good thing she was asleep or she’d probably slap him. He deserved it, perverse bastard that he was.
He couldn’t figure out why he’d gone after her. When she’d left with Rosa, he’d breathed a sigh of relief—temptation and distraction leaving him alone for the first time since she’d stumbled into this deserted workspace. It had started with a tightness between his shoulders, then an edginess to his never mellow temper, capped with the absolute necessity of finding her...and his irrational instincts had been right. She’d been seconds from erupting into screams.
He’d recognized the look in her eyes—he’d seen it far too often in soldiers, and the only thing he could do was get her away from everyone, to some place where she could fall apart. And she had, sobbing in his arms, shaking, terrified.
What was she afraid of? Trouble with the law? The mob? A rotten husband? For some reason, that last possibility was the most bothersome, and he ignored it. She wasn’t married. She had no wedding ring and no indentation or tan line to indicate she’d worn one in the last year. So who was after her? Or was she simply crazy?
He’d seen really crazy people before. Women driven mad by loss in the bombed-out villages in Europe, survivors who didn’t want to survive. She didn’t have that look in her eyes, the deadness of the soul. No, she was smart and determined and willing to fight for what she wanted. She was also scared shitless.
He shifted her slightly, tucking her closer, but she slept on. He knew the perfume she wore. It was Joy, the most expensive perfume there was, and that dress she’d worn had been pricey. It was hard not to live in a store without picking up far more about retail and fashion than he ever wanted to know.
Joy had always smelled too heavy for him, but he liked it on her skin. It was rich, evocative, and if he were a different man, and she were a different woman, they could get up to all sorts of interesting things on this deserted floor.
He wasn’t going to touch her.
Maybe whomever she was hiding from was worried about her, only wanted to help her. He could ask around, maybe put out a few feelers.
No, he wasn’t going to do that. Whether her fears were real or fantasy, he wasn’t going to do anything that might turn her over to people who could hurt her. She wasn’t that much trouble to look after, and Rosa was already helping. A little time wouldn’t make much difference, and if he ended up blue-balled, as he was now, he’d survive. Men did, no matter how much they complained.
She stirred again, and her breathing changed. She was coming awake, and she was probably going to be ticked off and embarrassed by where she was, and he steeled himself. Her eyes blinked open, still wet with tears, and she tilted her head back, looking up at him out of those sensational eyes, her mouth still tremulous, and he did what any red-blooded American male would do.
He kissed her.
It was the lightest touch of his lips against hers, so soft, so gentle that Madison felt those damned tears start again. Why should a kiss make her cry? Why...?
His lips brushed hers again, and she rose to it, her body moving into the kiss, as this time he nipped her lower lip, tugging at it until her mouth opened and he used his tongue.
She didn’t have time to register her surprise. In the old movies, kisses were chaste and close-mouthed—she figured people didn’t know how to kiss back in the forties. Johnny Larsen knew how to kiss. He was good at it.
There was no rush—he was taking his time, exploring her, learning her, and she knew he wasn’t carrying a flashlight in his front pocket. His hands were firm on her arms as he tugged her closer, and she was half tempted to shock the hell out of him and straddle him. And then she didn’t think at all, just let herself dissolve into his mouth, the taste, the warmth, the feel, as everything else faded...past, present, future, time itself. She made a soft sound of need and his arms tightened, closer, closer...
The sudden bright lights were shocking, and she scrambled off his lap in panic, scuttling backward.
“Turn off the damned light!” Johnny snapped, and they were in the shadows once more.
“Sorry, big guy,” came Rosa’s voice. She didn’t sound chastened, she sounded amused. “I didn’t know you were up here. Is Mollie all right? I heard something happened on the floor.”
“My name isn’t—” Madison started to say automatically, but Johnny spoke over her voice.
“It was nothing. She wasn’t feeling well, and I brought her up here to calm down.”
He sounded monumentally pissed off. She should have moved farther, but she was still in reach, and she felt his warning hand on her knee, and then it was gone.
“Gee,” Rosa said ingenuously. “So you decided to make it all better?”
“Rosa.” His voice was a warning, and Madison could feel her face warm in the shadows as reality, or this absurd
ist version of it, returned.
“Are you okay, Mollie?” Rosa said after a moment, concern replacing her amusement. “Can I get you anything this big stupid man didn’t think of? What’s wrong?”
“Cramps,” Johnny said succinctly, and at least Madison was close enough to kick him.
“I felt dizzy,” she said, casting him a murderous glare that he wouldn’t be able to see. Her mouth was damp, and she hurriedly wiped her hand across it, or tried to, but the tips of her fingers traced her lower lip, and she could feel him all over again, that insane, wonderful kiss. Using the wall as support, she pushed herself to her feet, but Johnny had surged up in one graceful move, and he was hovering, ready to catch her if she fell.
What an odd, seductive idea. That someone might catch her if she needed him to. Then again, a man from the 1940s would probably follow that with trying to run her life. She needed to get a grip.
“Do you need to go home?” All Rosa’s levity had vanished. “I can take you—you shouldn’t be on the subway alone if you’re feeling rotten. I bet even Mr. First Aid Guy would pay for a taxi.”
She wanted to say yes. If Rosa took her to the door, walked her through, then she’d escape from this nightmare. Except that it wasn’t so much a nightmare, as an odd, inexplicable dream.
That was it. She was dreaming. She’d never had one that felt so real, but she’d definitely come close, waking with all the emotions that she’d weathered in the now forgotten nightmare. This was the part people forgot, and she was somehow stuck in a loop. Maybe the last twenty-four hours were a five-minute blip of REM.
At least, that was how she was going to play it, she decided suddenly. While she kept fighting intermittent bouts of panic, it wasn’t really a nightmare. It was something else, something she couldn’t even begin to figure out. All her attempts to escape, or to even make sense of this, were just making her crazy. She was dreaming, she would wake up. No problem. No hurry either—time moved differently in dreams, and she might as well enjoy the adventure. If it got bad, scary, she’d wake herself up.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Ready to get back to work, in fact. Where do you want us to go, boss?” She appropriated Rosa’s name for him.
“I’m not your boss,” he said, sounding positively cranky.
“I thought you hired her?” Rosa piped up, but Johnny ignored her.
“Rosa, you go work on window seventeen. Green-tinted wood chips, yes? And you,” he turned back to her, and she realized he had yet to call her by name, either her own or the one he’d christened her with. “You head for the back room and lie down for a while. I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”
“Does that include you?” Rosa asked the question for her.
He ignored his assistant’s pert question. “I’ll be helping Rosa,” he told Madison. “Lock the door behind me.”
That answered that. Madison wanted to protest, but she felt so bone-weary she was afraid she might pass out again, which was ridiculous. She’d already fainted once, and if you went by the movies, it would seem like women from the ’40s and ’50s were more likely to drop, even if they didn’t wear corsets that constricted their breathing.
And the tears! They horrified her, but even thinking about them was making her throat tighten, so she pushed everything out of her mind.
“Did you hear me?” he said impatiently.
God save her from bossy men. “Thanks, Rosa, but I’ll be fine. I think I’ll take a nap. If you get a chance, push him in front of a taxi, will you?”
His laugh was a small shock. Had she heard him laugh before? Why was a laugh suddenly irresistible?
She walked them to the door, and even in the deep shadows, he made no attempt to touch her again, though Rosa gave her a comforting hug. “If he gets too mouthy, I’ll stab him,” she promised.
“You and what army?” Johnny said. He was looking at her from the door, looming over her. “Don’t let anyone in but me or Rosa.” He ignored Rosa’s snort of laughter. “I mean it.”
She wanted to fashion her own sassy comeback, but at that moment it was beyond her. “I’ll be fine.”
“Of course you will.” He was impatient again, but she wasn’t sure why. Impatient with the interruption, impatient with the trouble she was causing? It didn’t matter in the end—this was her dream, not his.
She waited until they disappeared down the old escalator before locking the door. Once she did, exhaustion swept over her, and she dragged her sorry ass to the back room and the rumpled sofa, sinking down on it with a sigh better suited to a luxury mattress than a bumpy divan. Divan? Good God, next she’d start calling it a Chesterfield!
A rose by any other name... She stretched out and closed her eyes. Maybe this time, when she awoke, she’d be back in her own world, away from the Twilight Zone. Her hand moved up to touch her mouth again, feeling him again, the pressure, the need.
Maybe she’d even be happy about it.
It was late when she woke up, cold, disoriented on the lumpy sofa in the break room. No one had bothered her, and she had the gloomy suspicion that Johnny, like Elvis, had left the building.
She felt grubby, tired and hungry despite the blackout that constituted her nap, and she swung her legs on the floor, shoving her hands through her thick, unexpected mane of hair.
She needed to get clean, she need to find something to eat, and she needed to find Johnny Larsen and thank him for rescuing her. She also had to make sure that unexpected kiss was simply a fluke. If he started putting moves on her, it would make this tangled mess even crazier.
Because she really wanted him to, deep down, no matter how complicated it would render things. She’d spent her professional life fending off serial harassers, and suddenly she wanted the man who’d...who’d become powerful in this strange world to take advantage? Of course not.
But Johnny Larsen’s tempting mouth was off-limits, along with every other bit of gorgeousness he had to offer.
Not that he was actually offering, she reminded herself. The kiss meant nothing. Knowing Johnny, he probably disliked her more than ever for exposing a possible weakness toward her.
Except that she didn’t really know Johnny Larsen.
Her first order of business was to use the bathroom, and when she discovered a shower behind what she’d assumed was a janitor’s closet she almost wept. She didn’t give a damn if Johnny walked in on her—she was getting clean.
She had to use the brown bar soap to wash her hair as well as her body, and by the time she finished, she smelled faintly of mothballs, but she was clean. There was no towel, so she used the hideous purple dress to dry herself and then she went through Rosa’s contributions to find fresh underwear, including the most bizarre bra she’d ever seen, a green serge skirt and silky white blouse, not to mention the damned socks with high heels. She was going to need to raid the drugs department for toothbrush and toothpaste—they had toothpaste back then, didn’t they? Back now?
The escalator wasn’t running, again, and she stifled a groan before starting down. It was probably late, then. Maybe everyone had gone home, including Rosa.
But Johnny didn’t have a home any more than she did. He’d be here, somewhere, unless he realized that putting the two of them together in a vast, deserted building might lead to...unfortunate situations.
Who was she kidding? It would lead to kissing, which would lead to sex, and then she’d end up back in 2020 with a baby in her belly from 1947 and...
Deep breath, Madison, she reminded herself. It’s all good.
It was easy enough to find a toothbrush and even toothpaste—something called Ipana in a plain white tube, but at least it smelled like mint, and she went into the first ladies’ room she could find.
For a moment, she was struck dumb. This wasn’t merely a bathroom—it was an art deco spa, with gilt fixtures, dressing tables, a pile of linen hand towels and an empty tip basket beside them. There were two chaises, three sofas and two club chairs, and that was simply the anteroom. The bat
hroom itself was marble everywhere, including the row of sinks beneath the gilt-framed mirrors, and she quickly tore open the paper packaging and scrubbed her teeth for a full five minutes.
She could still taste Johnny’s kiss.
She’d grabbed a comb as well, and she pulled it through her tangled, curly hair, trying not to rip any of it out by the roots.
She finally ended up at one of the dressing tables in the anteroom while she worked on her tangled mane. There was another basket there, one that held clips and bobby pins and hair pins for the customers, and she did her level best to turn the whole mop into something resembling a 1940s hairstyle, with loose curls flopping onto her forehead. Jesus, she looked like she belonged here! She reached up to take the pins out, then stilled her hands. When in Rome and all that, and right now she was at the coliseum. At least no lions were charging.
For such a large, famous store, Macy’s seemed ridiculously understaffed when it came to their security detail, or night watchmen, or whatever they called them. Not that she should worry about them—what did she have to lose? If she was caught, they’d expel her, either onto the sidewalk or into the arms of the police, and either way she’d be better off than trapped inside, no matter how fascinating the store was. She neither saw nor heard any sign of life in the vast place,
She didn’t even bother to try the doors—they wouldn’t open, and there were too many. She’d end up a screaming puddle on the floor again if she encountered what she expected—locks. Food was not as difficult to come by, and she headed for the eleventh floor with its gourmet wonders. If she was shoplifting a toothbrush and toothpaste, she might as well swipe a box of crackers, assuming they even had such things.
She was going to have legs like a long-distance runner if she kept heading up and down on the stalled escalators. She kept her head down, trudging upward, and she might have missed the divine smells coming from the tenth floor, the one that held the furniture displays. Someone was cooking, and the aroma made her stomach knot in longing. She didn’t hesitate, pushing through the door. She could see the lights at the far end, coming through porthole-shaped windows in another set of swinging doors, and she went straight to it, pushing past it.