Joshua smiled into her eyes. The woman didn’t forget anything. “Even rescuing you. And we don’t have to stand up.”
Taking her by the hand, Joshua threaded his way around several tall, giant boxes with bold, foot-high black lettering on the side.
Against one wall there was enough space on the floor for an average-size male to stretch out. He was a little taller than that, but it would do. Pausing, he stripped off his shirt and placed it on the floor.
“Not exactly a cape,” he allowed. “But then Sir Walter Raleigh was dealing with a mud puddle. This is just dirt.”
He had impressed her. She felt herself smiling despite efforts not to. “You do know how to improvise, Secret Agent Man.”
Joshua winked at her, sending mini tidal waves through her stomach again. Holding her hand, he helped her down onto the floor. “I got an A in improvising in spy school.”
Was that an inadvertent slip despite the humor? “Then you are a spy.”
He lowered himself onto her, his hard body covering hers, creating anticipation. She felt her loins responding.
“I am if you want me to be.”
“What I want you to be,” she said, feeling her pulse accelerate to an incredible rate, “is here.”
“I can do that.”
Joshua pressed a kiss to her neck that began setting off all sorts of alarms inside her. Alarms she opted to ignore this one last time.
The rest of the clothes, per force, remained on, but that didn’t diminish the explosions taking place within either one of them. Having to remain clothed heightened the sense of urgency as well as the sense of danger.
Joshua took possession of her like a man already familiar with the terrain, already invested with its ownership. Pru knew she should have been indignant, angry at his presumption. The only problem was she had the same sort of feeling about him. In her mind, she knew his body was merely on loan to her.
In her soul, however, it was a different matter. Her soul whispered that this could easily be forever. She pretended that she believed.
She curbed the desire to rip his trousers off, to shred them from his torso so that she could run her hands along his bare, hard body, thrilling to the taut muscles as well as to his biceps, triceps and pectorals. But if she did that, his pants would be in tatters, or close to it, and he couldn’t very well go into the heart of London half-dressed. She could just see the headlines on the tabloids: Prime Minister’s Daughter Making the Rounds with a Half-Naked Man.
The thought made her blood surge again. God, but it might be worth it.
“Hey, whoa, slow down,” he said, laughing and then groaning because she’d almost brought him to a climax before he wanted to reach that destination. “We do have a little time to spare before the train hits the next station.”
But Pru wasn’t taking any chances. She’d already had too much time stolen from her, had learned not to take anything for granted. Especially this man, who seemed to draw out armed killers like flies to honey.
“Good,” she murmured, splaying her hand along his muscles, skimming the tips of her nails along his chest as she twisted and turned beneath him. “Then we can do it twice.”
His eyes smiled at her first. His lips were a bonus. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all anyone can ask,” she told him. Raising her head, she sealed her mouth to his. Trapping his very soul.
She made him feel like Superman. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Make love nonstop until the world ended.
Joshua did what he could to keep his word and not disappoint her. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels absorbed the cries of pleasure that escaped her lips.
He couldn’t get enough of her.
And when it was finally over and Pru laid panting beside him, her head cradled on his arm, he looked at her, trying not to think the thoughts that kept insisting on materializing. Thoughts he’d never entertained before about any woman.
Thoughts he shouldn’t be entertaining now.
They belonged to two different worlds, worlds that would have never touched, had it not been for a violent act.
But she was here now, beside him, and there was no tomorrow, no next hour. There was only now.
Without thinking, he kissed her forehead. A sigh escaped. And then he reined himself in. He was an agent of one of the most prestigious organizations in the world. He had to remember that.
To cover the tenderness, he pretended to laugh. “What the hell do they put into those granola bars?”
She smiled up at Joshua, feeling way too content now to shrink back and grasp hold of reality with both hands the way her survival instinct begged her to. It was all she could do to keep from going under for the third time. Because she wanted to make love again. And again. Until she expired.
Look at Pru the Shrew now, she thought. The afterglow took its time in leaving.
“I think the earth moved,” she finally said, running her fingertip along his lips.
“Yeah.”
Covering her hand with his own, he pressed her fingers to his lips and kissed them. Damn, he thought. Just damn.
“Me, too,” he continued. “That’s what happens when you make love on the floor of a freight car.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” Pru whispered.
She should be pulling herself together, getting ready to enter the city. Instead, she was hoping for a derailment that would keep them here indefinitely. Away from London and politics and everything else. She had to be insane.
As she watched, Joshua sat up, then rose to his feet. She wanted to linger, to let the moment continue and to keep all other moments, all other realities, as far at bay as possible. But that was tantamount to declaring that she would never grow up. And she already had. After the euphoria slipped away, no amount of pixie dust was going to ultimately make her feel safe.
Only Secret Agent Man seemed to know how to accomplish that.
Twisting around, she followed him with her eyes. “What are you doing?” she wanted to know when he opened the door they’d originally used to get into this car. Outside, trees appeared to be rushing by, with the freight car standing still.
Illusion.
Maybe it was all an illusion, she thought. The way she felt, the way her body hummed. Just an illusion.
Still, she clung to it.
“Checking to see how far along we are.”
Pru felt as if she’d been nudged with a cattle prod and scrambled to her feet. She’d almost forgotten about their final destination. Making love with Joshua seemed to knock everything else out of her head.
From where she was, everything looked the same. “You can do that?”
Her question amused him. Twelve hours ago, the same question would have annoyed him. “Yes.”
Picking up his shirt from the floor, she dusted it off and then snaked her way over to him. How did he know things like that, she wondered. Did he look at the sky to get his bearings, the way sailors used to?
With careful, measured steps, she made her way over to him, then inched her way forward and looked out. Looked like the middle of the forest to her. She held out his shirt to him, shaking the dirt out of it. “Here, you might need this to look civilized.”
“Awful lot of responsibility for a piece of material.” He grinned, shrugging into it. “Didn’t know a shirt could do that.”
She looked at him, struggling against the fond feelings that insisted on flooding through her. This was going to end very soon. Once he delivered her to Number 10 Downing Street, he’d go his way and she hers.
And never the twain shall meet.
She felt pain in the pit of her stomach.
“Well, maybe not in your case,” she allowed, “but it does make you look a little more respectable.” She straightened his collar, smoothing it down. “You’ll want to look respectable when you meet my father.”
He wondered if she meant picking up a jacket and tie from one of the shops once they were in London. “I have a fee
ling with all that’s gone on in the last two days, he’d be happy to see me even if I was stark naked as long as I had you in tow.”
Joshua was right, she thought. Prime minister or not, Jeremy Hill was still her father and he did love her. It was just the details of life that got in the way and separated them.
“Stark naked, huh?” she echoed, then shook her head. “You’re confusing my father with your lady friends.” She looked out again just before he closed the door. “So how far are we going?”
“To the end of the line.” The train was stationed near Canterbury.
She couldn’t say why, but she liked the sound of that. To the end of the line. ’Til death do us part. She roused herself. Too far, her thoughts were going too far.
Pru cleared her throat. “How far away is that?”
He thought a second, envisioning the map he’d looked at and committed to memory before leaving. “Another thirty, forty kilometers, give or take.”
She liked the sound of that. She’d be home soon.
And yet…
And yet it would mean that he would be out of her life. Like a comet streaking across the sky. A major force to be reckoned with one moment, gone without a trace the next.
She felt a deep pang in her chest.
But because she knew that was what he’d been charged with doing, she forced a smile to her lips. “Good, very good.”
Joshua caught the minuscule difference in modulation. His was a very well-trained ear and he’d dabbled in profiling more than once.
“What’s the matter?” As he asked, he took out his cell phone.
She didn’t want to go into what was bothering her, why she wasn’t rejoicing at the prospect of being delivered to her father’s doorstep, safe and sound. So she changed the subject. Nodding at the phone, she asked, “Trying again?”
“Yes.” He’d almost forgotten about phoning. One romp in the hay and he was behaving like some mindless dolt. That had never happened before.
And it wasn’t going to happen again, he thought, putting himself on notice.
They had to have repaired the lines by now, he reasoned. Storm or no storm. But as he began to input the number to the prime minister’s residence, he frowned. “Damn.”
Turning, Pru glanced at the cell phone screen in Joshua’s hand. “Still won’t go through?”
He shook his head. The signal was back up, but that wasn’t his problem. “Battery’s down. It needs recharging. I had it on all evening, in case someone from the organization was trying to reach me and found a way to bypass the effects of the storm.”
The “someone” he was thinking of was Lucia. The woman seemed to eat and sleep the Lazlo Group, even more than the rest of them.
And almost as much as his uncle did.
She craned her neck to see. There was still a faint bar running along the upper right-hand corner of the screen. “You’ve still got a little juice left,” she pointed out.
Enough, he judged, to make one call, since calling was more draining than leaving the phone on. But as he resumed pushing buttons that would connect him to the prime minister, he was surprised when Pru took the phone from him.
“What are you doing?”
She held the phone like a trophy. “You might not be able to reach my father. If he’s in a meeting, or in conference, he shuts off his phone and we slip into limbo. Uncle George never turns off his cell.”
“Uncle George?” he repeated. Her dossier said nothing about an uncle. Both her parents and her stepmother were only children.
She nodded. “George Montgomery. He’s my father’s right-hand man, remember? Telling him I’m all right is as good as telling my father. Better. Because we’ll be able to reach him.”
The phone on the other end was actually ringing. She felt like cheering. And then the line was picked up. There was some crackling interference.
And then there was a deep, male voice answering. “Hello? Montgomery here.”
Definitely time for cheering, she thought. It was over.
Chapter 14
Pru pressed the cell phone against her ear while covering the other one with her hand to mute the noise. “Uncle George, it’s me, Pru.”
There was shock in the voice on the other end. “Dear God, Pru, are you all right? We’ve all been so worried about you. What’s that noise in the background?”
She was straining to hear his voice, hoping that the signal wouldn’t abruptly disappear again. “That’s the freight train.”
“Freight train?” Montgomery echoed, sounding confused. “Where are you? Are you safe?”
Pru couldn’t help glancing at Joshua, who was standing very close to her as if he was trying to hear what was being said by the man she’d called. Safe was a matter of opinion, she thought. Physically, yes. In other ways, it remained to be seen.
She took a breath. “For now, yes. Tell my father I’m all right.”
“Of course, of course. Tell me where you are and I’ll send someone for you. Better yet, I’ll come myself.” That he heard, Pru thought, seeing the alerted look on Joshua’s face. He signaled no, frowning.
It was against her better instincts to lie to Uncle George, but she didn’t want to spend the rest of their short time together arguing with Joshua.
“It’s much too complicated to explain right now, Uncle George. But tell my father I’ll be there as soon as I can. Another couple of hours, maybe more. But definitely before the vote later today.” That was the most important part. “Tell him to go ahead and vote his conscience. And that I’m proud of him.” Something, she realized, that she had never said to her father before.
“I will,” Montgomery promised. “But you’re sure I can’t—”
“I’m sure,” she repeated reluctantly. “I—” There was crackling on the other end, and then nothing. “Uncle George? Uncle George, are you there?” When there was no response, Pru looked at the phone. The screen was completely blank, as if it hadn’t been turned on. With a sigh, she flipped it closed and handed the cell phone to Joshua. “Your battery’s dead.” She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. It seemed as if everything was conspiring against her. “You really should get a long-lasting one.”
“It is.” Joshua deposited the dead phone into his back pocket. “I haven’t exactly been able to recharge it these past two days.”
“Well, it’s useless now.” Still, she had managed to reach Uncle George, who’d tell her father that she’d escaped. Her father didn’t have to worry about her anymore.
The train lunged, as if running over something small left on the tracks and she pitched forward against Joshua. He held her for a moment, then released her. A sharp jolt of electricity insisted on racing through her.
“Why wouldn’t you let me tell Uncle George where we were? He could have sent a car to the next station to pick us up. We wouldn’t have to continue the rest of this trip like excess parts of a tractor.”
His explanation was simple. “Because we don’t know who ordered your kidnapping.”
That might be true, but there were some things that were a given. “Well, it wasn’t George. He’s like a second father to me. More,” she amended, recalling a few traumatic moments when she was growing up, after her mother had died. “He was available to talk to when my father wasn’t.” She felt she owed it to the man to stand up for him. “I’d trust George Montgomery with my life.”
Joshua looked unmoved. And unconvinced. “Right now your life is mine and I don’t trust anyone with it.”
She believed him. Pru sighed, frustrated. “How can you stand it?” she wanted to know. “Being like that? Not trusting anyone? Looking over your shoulder all the time?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t trust anyone. I trust the people I work with.” They were a handpicked crew who answered to his uncle and met the man’s rigid, high standards. He wouldn’t hesitate to trust any of them. The rest of the world was suspect. And then he smiled at Pru. “And as for my life, it has its perks.”
&
nbsp; “Oh, right, I forgot. Hot and cold beautiful women running through your life twenty-four/seven,” she noted sarcastically.
Joshua shook his head, amusement curving his lips. “I’m afraid you’ve watched too many James Bond movies.”
There was a great deal of similarity between the fictional superagent and the man standing in front of her. More than she was happy about. “Your work takes you all around the world, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you never know where you’re going to wake up tomorrow.”
Where was she going with this, he wondered, amused at the determined expression on her face. “A slight exaggeration, but I’ll give you the concept.”
She continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “And half the people you deal with are women.”
He dealt more with men than with women, but he let that go. “Give or take.”
“A little hard work, a little hard play, accomplish your mission and be on your way.” That summed up his life, she thought. And made him someone whose life she didn’t fit into.
His eyebrows drew together as he replayed her words in his head. “Did you just deliberately rhyme that?”
That did rhyme, didn’t it? She hadn’t realized that it would until the words had come out of her mouth. “No, but now that you mention it, I guess that could double as your theme song.”
She had lost him entirely. He shook his head as if to clear it. “I’m sorry, but what is the point here?”
“At the top of my head it would seem.” For allowing herself to dream, even for a moment, that there might be a possibility for some sort of relationship with him, other than the kind established by taking a number and queuing up.
He cocked his head and looked at her intently, trying to divine what she was actually saying. “Sam?”
She stared at him. “Who?”
Joshua laughed. “I asked you earlier what to call you and when I said ‘Sam,’ I believe your answer was ‘whatever,’ which I took as your acquiescence to it. For my part, I rather like it. At least I know that no one else will ever call you that.”
My Spy Page 14