Wielding her fork left-handed in the European manner, she carried a juicy morsel of beef to her mouth with the tines pointed downward. She could only eat a portion of hers but the men cleaned their plates. When they were done, Sam pushed away from the table.
“We have a rule here at the Double H, Lara. One Hamilton does the cooking, the other has to clean up. How about we take the ATVs and I show you some of the high country?”
“I would like this,” she replied.
Dodge made what sounded like a low, warning growl deep in his throat. “Sam…”
“We’ll see you later, cuz.”
Once again, Lara bundled up in the warm duster. Sam insisted she add a hat with a wide brim and a woven leather strap that cinched under her chin. She felt odd in these Western garments. Almost a different person. Perhaps that was why she let herself relax. That, and Sam’s so lively charm. He grinned and teased and offered her such outrageous compliments as they made their way to the barn, that she could only shake her head in amusement.
Once inside the barn, he opened a stall door and whisked canvas covers off two vehicles with monster, tractor-type wheels. “These are Yamaha Grizzly 700s. They’re as powerful as they are big. You sure you can handle one?”
Lara had to laugh. “I’ve launched test SS-18s. I think I can manage this little toy.”
They crossed the meadow beyond the barn and took a trail that soon had them climbing into the mountains. Sam drove with care, slowing several times to navigate around fallen logs. Lara followed his lead while her mind’s eye recorded every detail of their journey. She’d never seen such glorious color. The white birches reminded her of home, but the blazing red of what Sam called serviceberry trees enchanted her. As did a stand of aspen. The song of the wind rustling through their shimmering gold leaves brought a contentment that flowed through Lara like fine, mulled wine.
That sense of peace diminished as they returned to a ranch house bathed in the shadows of the high peaks. To Lara’s disgust, an insidious, irrepressible tingle of anticipation licked at her veins. As much as she’d enjoyed Sam’s company, it was Dodge who stirred sensations that she could not, would not allow free rein. Consequently, she kept her smile cool and her responses polite when he asked how she’d enjoyed the ride.
“Very much. Now, I think, we must return to the base.”
“It’s still early,” Sam protested. “You should stay for dinner. Better yet, stay the night.”
“We cannot.”
Dodge countered with a shrug. “Actually, we can. We’ve got another two days’ downtime.”
“It’s…” Despite herself, Lara couldn’t meet his gaze. “It’s impossible.”
“Why?”
He knew why. She had only to hear how he rolled the question so slowly, so deliberately, to know he challenged her. No, dared her.
“It is impossible. I’m sorry, but I must ask one of you to drive me back to Cheyenne.”
Her flat tone said the matter was closed. Sam, apparently, was as deaf as his cousin.
“If Dodge says you’re off for a few days, there’s no reason to rush back.”
“There is every reason. I brought no clothes, no tooth powder…”
“Tooth powder we can handle. And my sister leaves some things here for when she comes up with the kids. I think we can outfit you for a day or two.”
“Perhaps you do not understand,” Lara said carefully. “I will have to make a report of my visit when I return.”
“To the FSB officer on her team,” Dodge explained.
She wasn’t surprised that his cousin grasped immediately what the initials stood for. The FSB was almost as well-known around the world as the CIA.
“So you file your report,” Sam said with a shrug. “It’s no skin off my nose if my name turns up on a file in Moscow.”
Oh, for…
Exasperated, Lara started to insist. A belated realization stilled the stern order she was about to issue.
Dodge must know why she’d accepted his invitation in the first place, just as she was well aware of the subtle motivation behind it. He, like she, hoped to milk as much information as possible from his counterpart.
Was that why he’d kissed her? she thought with a sudden, sinking feeling. To entice her into lowering her guard so she would reveal more than she should? If so, he’d come perilously close to succeeding. For a reckless moment, she’d wanted nothing more than to give in to the wild hunger the man stirred in her.
The realization was both sobering and steadying. Now that she’d put that kiss in a rational framework, she could deal with it. And with Dodge. Or so she assured herself as she accepted Sam’s invitation with only half-feigned reluctance.
“I could remain until tomorrow, if you are sure it will not cause you inconvenience.”
“It won’t,” he assured her.
“Then I thank you for the invitation.”
“You’re welcome. You can use the spare bedroom.” His grin slipped out. “Unless you’d like to share mine.”
Dodge’s breath hissed in, but Lara had his cousin’s measure now. Laughing, she shook her head.
“No, I do not wish to share your bed. Nor should you make such suggestions. They are, how do you say? Not approximate.”
“Appropriate,” he corrected.
“Don’t worry,” Dodge said with no touch of amusement in his voice. “I’ll make sure this ugly horse’s patoot behaves himself.”
But would he? Lara found herself wondering as afternoon faded to evening. Supper was an easy affair of stew topped with doughy biscuits, then the Hamiltons endeavored to teach her a game called Texas Hold ’Em. She was about to lose the last of the pennies Sam had supplied from a big glass jar when Dodge’s cell phone rang. He excused himself to take the call in another room and returned with the news that the Wyoming Highway Patrol had found a black SUV abandoned some fifty miles west of Douglas.
“It was reported stolen last night,” he relayed. “The dents and paint scrapings make it a pretty safe bet it’s the same vehicle that sideswiped us. It was also wiped clean.”
“Wiped clean?” Lara echoed. “What does this mean?”
“It means whoever stole it made care to leave no fingerprints that could identify him.”
Lara was no stranger to stolen vehicles or daring thieves. The black market in Russia defied all official attempts to suppress it. Apparently it thrived here in America, as well. At this point, however, she was too tired to worry about such things. The brisk mountain air and surfeit of food had robbed her of energy.
They had also submerged, temporarily at least, the memories that had haunted her these past days. After reiterating that she must return to base in the morning, she settled between clean-smelling sheets and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 7
Lara flatly refused to remain at the Double H a second day. Sam tried to convince her otherwise, but she held firm. Grumbling, he brought his pickup around to the front of the house shortly after breakfast. She wedged into the front seat between him and his cousin for the ride into Douglas, where Dodge had arranged another rental.
Lara said goodbye to Sam with the wind swirling dried cottonwood leaves around her legs and the sky an ominous gray. The sun had disappeared behind dark clouds that now piled one on top of another. Dodge lifted his face and scanned the horizon.
To her disgust, Lara felt her stomach kick at the sight of him testing the weight of the air against his tanned, weathered skin. He wore the clothes he’d changed into after the accident yesterday. Jeans, denim shirt, down vest, the well-creased black cowboy hat parodied in so many films of the American West. On him, the clothes looked right.
As right as his military uniform.
Lara didn’t need the reminder of who he was—who she was—but it hit hard anyway. So hard that she nodded grimly when he said they’d better get going.
“Sky’s going to open up,” he warned. “Feels more like rain than snow, but you never know thi
s time of year.”
The deluge hit only a few miles south of Douglas. Lara couldn’t but be thankful for the diversion. It forced Dodge to keep his attention on the road, leaving her to spend the rest of the trip listening to rain drum against the pickup’s roof and preparing for what she would face when she returned to the base. It would not be pleasant.
She would have to report the accident yesterday to Aleksei Bugarin. She needed to report as well the rasping voice she’d heard—and the agonizing memories it had evoked.
She dreaded having to speak of Yuri and the night of the fire with Bugarin though. The FSB officer was a pig. There was no other word for him. He gobbled his food like a swine at the slops, swilled vodka until he was blind most nights and had more than once suggested they could make their stay in the United States far more enjoyable by sharing a bed.
Yet Lara had to tell him. She couldn’t jeopardize her mission, couldn’t risk letting the memories of that awful night cloud her judgment. What she did here was too vital to her country’s future. After a decade of slashed budgets, fractured commands and black marketeering of everything from boots to antimissile defense systems, the military was a hollow shell, barely able to provide an adequate shield for the motherland.
That was just one of the reasons Lara believed so passionately in the START treaty. The only way to ensure Russia’s ability to protect itself against the United States—the one nation on earth that had demonstrated its willingness to loose the devastation of atomic weapons—was to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal. If that meant reducing Russia’s arsenal at the same time, so be it.
Closer to home, the very real possibility of dissidents gaining control of the strategic missiles located in their regions often put her and her comrades in the Russian strike force into a cold sweat. With each step in the elimination of nuclear warheads, Lara felt that much closer to securing a future for Katya.
She couldn’t let anything interfere with that process.
Anything!
The rain was still coming down when they topped a rise and Cheyenne emerged from the natural hollow cut by Crow Creek. The elevation gave Lara a bird’seye view of the city that had sprung up along the banks of the creek.
The streets were laid out in a precise grid, with the round-domed capitol in the center and a scatter of tall buildings running north and south. Iron tracks threaded through the vast railroad yard on the south side of the city, then cut east and west through the plains surrounding Cheyenne on all sides.
The city reflected the character of its population, Lara thought. Tough and tenacious. Stubbornly isolated, far from the centers of population they sup ported with their vast cattle ranches and fields of wheat. Proud of their independence and their unplaned edges.
Much like the man who sat beside her. Too close beside her.
Despite her determination to remember that they straddled opposite sides of a very dangerous fence, she’d scarcely drawn a full breath during the drive. It worried her, this absurd awareness of the American. With a career spent working almost exclusively with men, she should not be so affected by a sun-weathered face and a body characterized by lean hips, flat belly and sinewy muscles. Especially when they came packaged with such irritating arrogance.
Not that he’d displayed such arrogance when he’d held her in his arms yesterday afternoon. He’d been so gentle, she recalled with a flush of mortification. So comforting. She, who prided herself on her strength of will and ability to function with icy precision in any crisis, had snatched at the comfort he offered.
And that kiss. How could she have allowed it?
She still couldn’t believe how the feel of his mouth on hers had stirred such swift and fierce hunger. She’d had no man since Yuri. Wanted no man since Yuri. Katya and her military duties filled her life.
She had to put all thoughts of Dodge Hamilton out of her head. Had to focus on her mission. Only her mission. Jaw set, she barely waited for him to pull to a stop outside the Visiting Officers Quarters before she shouldered open the door. The icy drizzle needled her face and reminded her she still wore the flannel-lined duster he’d loaned her yesterday.
She popped the top buttons and started to remove it. “I thank you for the loan of this coat.”
Before she could shrug out of its warm folds, he took her elbow and steered her toward the building.
“Why don’t we do this inside, out of the rain?”
Lara’s lips thinned. He put his hands on her too easily, this one. Far too easily. She must end that habit. They would go inside. She would thank him coolly for the visit to his home. Then she would inform him that they must now resume their respective roles.
After which she would find Bugarin. The prospect tightened her throat.
The outer doors swung shut behind them, cutting out the rain and encasing them both in the dimness of the hall. Lara led the way down the corridor and inserted her key in the door to her suite. When the door swung open, she turned to Dodge with a fixed smile.
“I thank you for a most interesting visit.”
“You’re welcome.”
She tried once more to remove the warm jacket. Once again, he stopped her.
“Keep it.”
“No, I cannot. I…”
Dodge trapped the rest of her protest in her throat. Trapped Lara, too, in a shock of surprise. She stood frozen while rain dripped from his hat brim onto her cheeks and his mouth moved over hers with a sensuality that demanded a response.
She ached to give it. Her treacherous body flared with instant hunger, even as determination iced her veins. She refused to afford him the satisfaction of jerking her head away, refused to show by so much as a blink how much he’d angered her when at last he raised his head.
“You will not kiss me again. Ever.”
She kept her voice cold and flat and devoid of all inflection, as though such behavior did not merit excess emotion. Any of the junior officers who worked under Lara would have blanched at such a tone and stammered an immediate acknowledgment. Hamilton merely shoved his hat back on his head and regarded her with a rueful glint in whiskey-colored eyes.
“I can’t guarantee the ‘ever’ part, but…”
“There are no buts. You must remember who you are, and who I am.”
“I do, sweetheart. Believe me, I do.”
“Nor can you address me so. From this moment, we are once again Major Petrovna and Major Hamilton.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see.”
He tipped two fingers to his brim and left Lara once again prey to wild emotions. Damn the man! He roused her to such fury and such heat. Racked by both, she turned toward her door and inserted the key. A sound from the other end of the hall brought her head whipping around. Her heart thumped painfully against her ribs as she stared at the man standing in an open door at the far end of the corridor.
Bugarin eyed Dodge’s retreating back for several moments before he emerged from his own room, closed the door behind him and sauntered down the hall. Lara’s heart sank at the glint in his dark eyes. It reminded her all too forcefully of the lizards that flattened themselves on rocks along the shores of the Black Sea.
“That was quite an interesting scene, Larissa Petrovna.”
“Do you think so?”
Baring his teeth in a smile that raised the hairs on the back of her neck, he pushed past her. She closed the door behind her and clenched her jaw as he lowered his bulk into the armchair.
“Tell me,” he purred, steepling his fingers on his paunch, “did you seduce Hamilton last night, or he you?”
It would not do to show fear. Like the carrion they were, Aleksei Bugarin and his kind fed off others’ weaknesses.
“Neither.” She managed a credible shrug. “I did, however, allow him some familiarities…as you saw.”
“Yes, I did.”
He was enjoying this, she knew. The little bastard thought he’d found something he could hold over her head. He would try to make her sweat before he finished with her
.
“How strange…and how unlike you, Larissa Petrovna.” He propped his pudgy chin on his fingertips and let his glance roam the length of her body. “You have not used your undeniable attractions to extract information before.”
“Nor did I this time.”
“Ahhh. So what do I report? It was lust, not duty, that took you into the arms of an American officer?”
“Report what you will.” She feigned total disinterest. “But at least be accurate. I did not go into his arms.”
An unhealthy purple rose in the FSB officer’s veined cheeks. Pushing out of the chair, he stalked across the room.
“Nor did you slap his face,” he ground out, “as you slapped mine.”
His breath fouled the air between them. Although it was not yet noon, he’d been drinking. Heavily. Making no attempt to hide her scorn, Lara raked him with a withering glance.
“He didn’t maul me, Aleksei, as you did. And you were lucky I only slapped you. Had I not exercised rigid restraint that day, you would now be walking with a permanent limp.”
Bugarin glared at her through the haze left by the vodka. Damn the woman! Somehow she’d turned the tables on him yet again. Who was she to act so cold, so superior? She’d treated him like one of her lieutenants since the start of this cursed trip. He didn’t answer to her, only to his superiors in the FSB.
He hated them, these self-righteous military officers he was assigned to watch. They mouthed terms like honor and courage and duty to the mother land, yet most would sell the uniforms off their troops’ backs if offered the right price.
Those who didn’t rake in extra rubles from the black market were even worse. They actually believed they could survive without compromise. Larissa Petrovna was such a one. The stupid bitch would break before she would bend. And Aleksei would thoroughly enjoy watching her snap.
“You dare to speak of endangering our mission?” he shot back. “You, who spends the night in a house that has not been checked for listening devices or hidden cameras?”
Strangers When We Meet Page 7