Charmed and Dangerous

by Lori Wilde

  They both jumped.

  David reached for the phone with his right hand but the bulky cast stopped him in mid-reach. The phone rang again.

  “Hurry, hurry, before he hangs up,” Maddie said.

  He fumbled in his jacket pocket with his left hand and ended up dropping the phone.

  “Let me do it.” Maddie grabbed for it at the same time David bent down and they ended up cracking their heads together.

  “Ouch!”

  “Ow!”

  Frowning, David answered it on the fifth ring. “Marshall here.”

  Nervously, Maddie gnawed a thumbnail. He listened intently, nodding occasionally but never once letting his expression give any clues about the information he was receiving.

  “Okay, Henri, thanks.” He rang off and shifted his gaze to Maddie.

  “Well?”

  “They found my rental car with Blanco’s prints all over it.”

  “Where?”

  “At the Piazzale Roma car park outside Venice.”

  “Any word on Cassie?” She clasped her hands. Please, please, please let her be okay.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, no.”

  Venice was architectural poetry.

  A floating fantasy. A dozy reverie of mist and sunshine. A winding labyrinth of walkways and waterways of complicated beauty.

  All her life, Maddie had daydreamed of visiting Venice. She’d pictured herself strolling along the cobblestone streets, gliding through the canals in a graceful gondola, shopping in the Rialto district. She’d longed to watch artisans blowing exquisite glassware. She’d thirsted to drink Bellinis at an outdoor café.

  And she’d blushed to think of kissing a handsome stranger under the Bridge of Sighs.

  To think she was in the city of her dearest fantasies in the midst of Carnevale and she could not enjoy a minute of the experience. All she cared about was finding Cassie.

  They arrived on a vaporetto sardined with tourists. By the time the waterbus arrived at their stop, Maddie was yoga breathing to ward off claustrophobia.

  At least she told herself it was claustrophobia. What she really feared was that among the maddening throng, in the narrow pathways of this ancient city, she would never find her sister alive.

  Venice in February was an overwhelming jumble of sights and sounds and scents. The weather was chilly but not uncomfortably cold. Maddie snuggled deeper into her denim jacket and eyed the throng of people—many dressed in colorful Carnevale garb—streaming through the streets.

  Faces were hidden behind elaborate masks. Hair was secreted beneath decorative wigs. Excited shouts of pleasure and rich laughter filled the air.

  A woman in a huge bustle waltzed with a man wearing a startling codpiece along the edge of a piazza. Roaming troubadours in Renaissance attire strummed mandolins or lutes. Young women wore feathers and lace and an abundance of jewelry.

  Maddie stopped and stared, unable to absorb it all.

  “This way,” David said.

  Getting a hotel at the last minute in Venice during Carnevale would have been impossible if it weren’t for Interpol. Henri had pulled some influential strings, grabbing them a VIP suite at the exclusive Hotel International near the Piazza San Marco.

  David took her hand and while she appreciated the comfort of his touch, she couldn’t help bristling. She was still upset with him for not telling her his suspicions about Blanco back at the Prado. He claimed he hadn’t told her because he’d wanted to protect her, but Maddie couldn’t help wondering if he’d kept silent because he was too hardheaded to admit he’d been wrong about Cassie.

  They edged their way to the middle of the bridge but once there, discovered they couldn’t move any farther.

  Up ahead, something had captured the crowd’s attention and no one was budging. From above, the noonday sun cast a festive glow over the city. Below them, gondolas, waterbuses and barges cruised the canal.

  “You know,” she said to David, “if someone had a heart attack right here, right now, they’d die before help could get to them.”

  David shook his head and smiled wryly.

  “What?”

  “Do you always have to imagine the worst case scenario?”

  “It helps prepare me for any eventuality,” she said, defensively. “I like being prepared.”

  “Well, you can stop worrying so much. I’m here.”

  Maddie snorted. “As if I would rely on you.”

  “You still don’t trust me?” He sounded hurt. “Not even after all we’ve been through together?”

  “Don’t take it personally, you’re a little busted up.” She waved at his broken wrist.

  “Didn’t get in my way last night.”

  She felt her cheeks color. She didn’t want to talk about last night. She’d lost her head, lost her mind, lost every shred of common sense. She didn’t want to be reminded of her mistake.

  “You’re a hard nut to crack, Maddie Cooper,” he said, his unblackened eye snapping with an intelligent light.

  She glanced away, not knowing how to deal with her feelings. Did he think it was good or bad that she was distrustful? Did he admire her prudence or believe she was just a nervous Nelly?

  Maddie shifted her attention to the surrounding mob. It was an eclectic mix of old, young and in between. She heard several languages bandied about: French, German, Italian, Japanese.

  David asked a Frenchman if he knew why everyone was stopped on the bridge.

  “The Spectacle of Angelo,” the man answered. “It starts in ten minutes.”

  If she’d been on vacation Maddie might have been able to relax and enjoy the pedestrian traffic jam but as it was, she felt as jittery as if she’d just downed ten cups of strong coffee.

  Everyone was watching the Campanile several hundred yards ahead, waiting for the performance to begin. Everyone that is, except for Maddie. She was busy scoping out her environment, and searching the crowd for any signs of Cassie.

  A young mother dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the British flag stood several feet behind them. She was scolding an older child who’d been misbehaving, not paying attention to her toddler trying to climb onto the bridge parapet. One slip and the boy would plunge into the canal.

  Maddie’s heart leaped into her throat and she could think of only one thing.

  The day Cassie fell into the pond.

  Maddie slipped free from David’s grasp and wound her way through the crowd.

  “Ma’am,” she shouted. “Your baby!”

  But apparently the woman couldn’t hear her over the crowd noise.

  “Maddie,” David called her name. But she was utterly focused on what she was doing. All she could think about was getting to that little boy before he fell. She elbowed people aside, hurrying as best she could.

  “Ma’am, ma’am,” she kept hollering.

  Dear Lord, don’t let me be too late.

  The toddler was marching along the top of the narrow ledge, wavering on his chubby little legs as he peered down at the water.

  She was so close.

  Desperately, Maddie lunged forward at the same time a woman with an oversize handbag turned sharply to see what was happening.

  “Oops,” the woman exclaimed in a British accent.

  The swinging purse caught Maddie off guard, smacking her squarely in the back. She tripped over the cobblestones and fell awkwardly across the bridge railing right beside the toddler.

  “Look!” the boy said and grinned at her.

  “Oh my,” gasped the mother, finally realizing what was happening.

  Maddie shoved the boy toward his mother who safely caught him. But the motion knocked Maddie completely off balance.

  The next thing she knew, she was falling over the edge.

  Chapter

  TWENTY

  MADDIE DIDN’T TUMBLE into the canal.

  Just as she toppled over the bridge, a barge loaded with several large vats glided by. David reached the edge of the bridge where Maddie had been
standing at the same time her feet ruptured through the plastic cover of one of the vats.

  He jumped off the bridge after her, aiming for a flat empty spot on the barge near the vats. The crowd on the bridge hollered instructions. He landed with a hard splat and stumbled to his knees. Quickly, he swung around, and saw Maddie’s head disappear under the rim of the vat.

  What was in those containers? Toxic chemicals? Petroleum products? Battery acid?

  Adrenaline had him sprinting for the vat. Fear had him praying she was all right. Worry had him ignoring the pain shooting through his right wrist.

  He reached the vat, which was taller than he. He clambered atop a stack of wooden pallets beside the vats. With his heart in his throat, he peered inside, not knowing what he would find.

  He saw Maddie slowly sinking into a thick tub of raw honey. Honey. Just plain old honey.

  “I’ve gotcha, sweetheart.” David grabbed a fistful of Maddie’s hair just before her nose submerged.

  She was thrashing around, apparently trying to swim, but there was no swimming in the thick, brown syrup.

  “Help!” she sputtered.

  “I’m here,” he murmured and their eyes met. He saw relief on her face and felt his corresponding relief relax the tension knotting his gut. “I’m here.”

  “Get me out of this before I attract ants.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He tried his best not to laugh.

  She tried to swipe honey off her face with a hand thick with the sticky stuff. “Oh bother.”

  “Now we know why Winnie the Pooh always says that,” he said.

  “Did you see that little boy on the bridge? Can you imagine what would have happened if he’d been the one to fall in here?”

  “He would have been all right. You’d have jumped in after him,” David said. “When it comes to protecting other people you’re braver than a firefighter.”

  “You think so?”

  “Nobody else in that crowd ran to rescue the boy.”

  “I don’t think anyone else saw him.”

  “Trust you to notice someone in trouble, Miss Mother Hen.”

  The two-man barge crew picked that moment to stroll over and investigate the commotion. They helped him pull Maddie from the honey.

  The men struggled not to laugh. They kept turning their backs to snigger and chortle, before turning around again and with straight faces offering clean-up suggestions in Italian.

  David had to admit that she was a pretty comical sight. Her clothes were plastered to her skin and with every step she took honey rolled off her.

  “Don’t you laugh at me, too!” She shook a finger at him and a big blob of sweet goo smacked him squarely in the chest. He had to slap a hand over his mouth to hold back his own laughter.

  “It’s not funny,” she growled.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “You’re a horrible man, you know that?”

  He could tell from the tiny upward pull at the corners of her mouth that she was beginning to see the humor in the situation. “Insult me all you want, sweetheart, I’m the one who pulled your fanny out. Without me, you’d be breathing treacle.”

  “So what do you want? A merit badge?”

  “A kiss would be nice.”

  “You’re serious? You want to kiss me? Now?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re taking a risk. I could wallow all over you, suck you down to my level.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m the one who can get you cleaned up.”

  “You’re so smug.”

  He moved toward her, his mouth itching to capture hers. He was just so damned happy to discover she was all right that he had to kiss her, no matter how inopportune the moment.

  Maddie tilted her head toward him, presenting her cheek.

  “That’s not going to cut it, babe. I want the lips.”

  She relinquished and puckered up.

  David leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers. He’d never tasted anything sweeter and he wasn’t talking about the honey. His naughty libido wished they were somewhere private so he could lick her clean to the last drop.

  David imagined that they resembled a very peculiar version of the Bavarian couple who emerged from Aunt Caroline’s cuckoo clock at midnight to steal a quick kiss before popping back into their respective houses. Him with his blackened eye and busted wrist and Maddie dipped in bee spit.

  The Venetians clapped and cheered.

  “Our audience approves.”

  “That’s all fine and dandy, but what am I supposed to do now? I don’t have a change of clothes and I don’t think the concierge is going to let some honey-glazed American go traipsing through their chichi hotel lobby.”

  In his rudimentary French, David asked the men if they had something onboard he could use to drape over Maddie. One man nodded, disappeared and returned with a newspaper. Not exactly what he had in mind, but it would do.

  “What are you planning?” Maddie asked, eyeing the newspaper suspiciously.

  “I’m arranging it so you can at least walk around without enticing the local wildlife.” David opened the newspaper, separated the pages and then pasted them to Maddie. “What’s black and white and read all over?”

  “Hardy-har-har.”

  “I’m betting this is one worst case scenario you never anticipated.”

  “You got me there.”

  When he finished covering her clothes, he wrapped her feet with newspaper. In the end, he was almost as messy as she, with honey and bits of newspaper sticking to his cast and printer’s ink decorating his skin. He started to shove his hand through his hair, but stopped himself just before he got a head full of honey.

  The bargemen let them off at the nearest dock and they had to walk back to the Piazza San Marco. Poor Maddie was struggling valiantly to keep from sticking to the ground with every step.

  “This is just fabulous,” she muttered and glowered at the passersby staring openly in her direction. “As if I’m more interesting than Carnevale?”

  “You are pretty eye-catching,” he said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “You never let me get away with avoiding uncomfortable topics.”

  She bared her teeth and growled.

  “I’m on to you, Maddie. You don’t scare me.”

  “You forget. I’m covered in honey. I can wreak much sticky havoc on you.” She shuffled forward, arms outstretched zombie-style.

  He held up his tacky hands. “You already did.”

  “You think that’s bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Here we are. The Hotel International.” He gave Maddie the once-over. She was the cutest darned newspaper mummy he’d ever seen.

  “What should I do?”

  “I’ll go check us in, then I’ll come around and let you in a side entrance.”

  “Hurry up. I’m starting to draw flies.”

  He checked them in and then slipped out a side door to find Maddie pacing and muttering to herself behind the hotel.

  “Psst.” He dangled their room key for her to see. “This way.”

  “I feel like I’m in a bit from I Love Lucy,” Maddie grumbled.

  “I guess that makes me Ricky.”

  “More like Ethel.”

  He chuckled. “Insult me all you want, sweetheart. I can take it.”

  They ascended the staircase to their room, Maddie leaving bits of honeyed newspaper sticking to everything she touched. David opened the door, stepped aside and bowed with a flourish.

  She tramped over the threshold, then stopped and stared.

  “Wow,” she said. “Fancy shmancy.”

  David moved through the suite, opening doors and checking the premises. He didn’t want any ugly surprises like Jocko Blanco hiding under the bed. Maddie trailed after him, taking it all in.

  “This place is almost as big as my condominium in Fort Worth.”

>   It was decorated in an elegant Old World style that combined vintage furniture with new pieces, but David hardly noticed. Instead, he was checking the security. There was a large sitting area, two separate bedrooms and a private bath.

  He ambled over to open the drapes and revealed French doors. They were on the second floor with a balcony overlooking the Piazza San Marco.

  While it might seem romantic, the balcony and the trellis of vines growing up the side of the hotel posed a security problem. Anyone with the desire could scale the trellis and break into their room.

  He tested the locks. “Make sure you keep this door locked anytime you aren’t on the balcony.”

  “Okay.”

  David stepped back and jerked a thumb toward the door. “I’m just going to go call Henri, let him know we’ve arrived.”

  “Hey!” She sounded panicky. “You’re not leaving me like this!”

  “I thought you’d want some privacy.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you expect me to get out of these clothes by myself?”

  “Come on.” He grinned. “Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “You need me.”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Okay.” He knew he was cruel to tease, but he just couldn’t resist. “I’ll see you later.”

  “All right, come back. I need you,” she said through clenched teeth. “Now get in this bathroom and help me out of my clothes.”

  “Oooh, I like it when you get all dominatrix on me.”

  She stuck out her tongue.

  “Now that’s an interesting thought, but let’s wait until you’re cleaned up.”

  “What lit your fire, Sparky?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the excitement of you almost drowning in a vat of honey.”

  “Maybe it’s that knock on the head Jocko Blanco gave you yesterday.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself, Maddie.” David said. He didn’t know why he was feeling so damned giddy.

  “Well, don’t just stand there looking all googly-eyed, help me get this sweater over my head.”

  He fished around between the layers of newspaper and goo to find the hem of her sweater. Gently, he peeled the garment up over her head.

  It got stuck halfway, giving him a perfect full-on view of her breasts.