by Anne Stuart
“And what about the others?”
He wondered that himself. The ice storm might be enough to keep them away, but they would have called. There was something going on, and he’d been a fool not to realize it sooner. Too caught up with Annie Sutherland to wonder what the hell was going on.
Win had asked him to come by in the morning, and Win was nowhere around. Nothing happened without Sutherland being aware of it, behind it all, and James had no doubt he was exactly where he was supposed to be. It would have helped if he knew whether Annie was in any sort of danger, but it was typical of Win not to have told him. Not to have warned him. He’d know that if anyone could keep his daughter safe, James could. Whether he suspected danger or not.
Damn Win! he thought with sudden fury. His arrogance was so complete, his control so absolute, that he never considered there might be an alternative danger. An emotional danger between the two of them.
“The others will show up sooner or later,” he said in a cool voice, as the dimming lights blinked off entirely. “It’s an electric oven, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Electric heat as well. Don’t you think the power will come on again? It was only out for about ten minutes before.” She sounded completely unconcerned. Maybe she thought she was safe from him. Maybe she thought he wasn’t safe from her.
“The power will come back on. It’s just a question of how long it will take. That’s freezing rain out there, and when that happens the electric company gets depressed. Add the holiday into that equation, and we might be looking at a long stretch without power.”
The dim glow of the candlelight filtered from the dining room. “And we forgot the radio.”
“I don’t think we ought to go back upstairs for it,” he said in a deliberately soft voice.
“You’re probably right.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Why don’t you take the candles and go into the library?” he suggested. “I’ll find us something hot to drink and see about building a fire in the fireplace. It’s already feeling chilly in here.”
“That’s your Texas panhandle blood,” she said. “You aren’t used to rough winters.”
He could remember the bitter cold of an Irish January in that unheated flat. “Yeah,” he drawled. “This is too tough for a country boy like me.”
He took his time, telling himself he needed to keep his distance, needed to remember who and what he was. Win trusted him, for God’s sake. Wherever he and the others were, they were counting on him to keep Win’s daughter safe. Not humping her brains out.
He found the sherry and poured them both a glass. He hated sherry—it was too thick and sweet, and he drank it deliberately. He usually drank bourbon to go with his Texas persona, though he would have preferred the good Irish. But right now he didn’t dare drink anything stronger than fortified wine. He was holding on to his sense by a thread. It wouldn’t take that much for the thread to snap.
He found the answer to one of his first questions when he tried to make a few phone calls. The phone line was dead. He had no idea whether it was the ice storm or human interference, but he could only assume the latter if he wanted to keep them safe. He’d lied to her when he told her the security measures were off with the power. Win had the kind of backup that allowed for the vagaries of Washington weather, and it would still take a heavily armed combat unit to get inside.
And then they’d have to deal with him.
But Annie wouldn’t understand why her father would have that kind of security. And he wasn’t going to be the one to explain to her.
Any more than he was going to explain the presence of the gun he carried. He was far more lethal with his bare hands, but with everything so uncertain he needed every advantage he could get. If worse came to worst, he’d just tell her he was paranoid.
She’d managed to get the fire going by herself. She’d pulled the sofa up close, and she lay curled up, a lap rug pulled around her. The chill was already seeping into the air—even with the fire he doubted that throw would be enough. And he didn’t dare offer to warm her up.
The firelight sent dancing patterns across her face. She accepted the glass of sherry with murmured thanks, and pulled her feet up to make room for him on the high-backed sofa.
He sat, because if he’d refused, it would have meant admitting how much she affected him. It was a big, enveloping couch. Room for both of them. Room for them to stretch out. Side by side. Him on top of her. Beneath her. Inside her.
“You’re safe, James,” she murmured. “I promise I won’t make another pass at you.”
He leaned back, staring at her out of hooded eyes. “That would probably be a smart idea, Annie. I’m not your type. Too old, too dull.”
“Are you?”
“Believe it.” He stretched out his legs in front of him, aware that she’d somehow managed to move closer to him.
“What if I told you I liked my men old and dull?”
“I’d say tough shit. I’m not doing this, Annie. Not to you, not to Win.”
“I don’t think Win wants to go to bed with you,” she said with a hint of laughter.
He didn’t laugh with her, though he knew he should make the effort. “He’ll be home soon, Annie,” he said patiently. “And if the power hasn’t come on by then, Win’ll make sure it happens. No one ever denies Win anything.”
He didn’t expect an argument, and he didn’t get one. “True enough,” she said, crossing the distance between them, leaning against his shoulder. “I wish I took after him instead of my mother.”
Despite her closeness he knew she’d accepted defeat. He only wished he could accept triumph. “Be glad you’re not like him, Annie,” he said in a rough voice.
It was more than he ever should have said to her. But some saving grace kept her from questioning him. Instead she simply sighed, pulling the lap robe firmly around her. And James leaned back and put his arm around her, pulling her closer, letting her rest against his shoulder.
And that was the way Win found them.
Chapter Eleven
Annie’s hands were still trembling when she poured a cup of instant coffee. She hated instant coffee—she considered it undrinkable. But it was sometime after dawn on a bleak desert morning, and there was nothing but instant in the shabby trailer.
She could still feel his hands around her throat. His hips against hers as he’d straddled her on the bed. He’d had an erection. They’d both known it, and she’d accused him of being sexless on purpose. To see if she could goad him into proving otherwise.
It was odd, this long-buried urge to push him. To make him look at her, touch her, see her. It felt uncomfortably familiar, and she wished she could believe her own words.
But James McKinley wasn’t sexless. Never had been, although for the past few years he’d done a damned good job of convincing her he was.
She could feel him watching her, and she looked up. He was lounging in the doorway of the bedroom. He pushed away from the wall, coming toward her, and she felt a sudden panic. It was what she wanted, and yet it terrified her. There was too much riding on this, and once he touched her there’d be no turning back.
He reached her. He took her coffee mug from her and set it down on the cracked formica counter. And then he came closer, backing her up against the cabinets, entrapping her there, with his arms on either side of her, imprisoning her.
She held very still, waiting. Waiting for him. He was moving closer, dipping his head down, blocking out the murky light, when the sound of a car broke the dawn stillness.
He froze, and for a moment she knew she’d been dismissed, forgotten, as he concentrated on the sound of that automobile that drove straight up to their ramshackle trailer.
The engine was silenced. One door opened and then slammed shut; one pair of footsteps came up the rickety stairs. One fist pounded on the door.
She opened her mouth to say something, but as quick as a snake he moved, twisting her around and covering her mouth with his hand. She could fe
el the gun in his other hand, and the cold metal against her waist shocked her. She struggled for a brief moment, but he subdued her quickly, painfully, and she subsided, leaning back against him, gasping for breath.
“You there, McKinley?” Martin Paulsen’s voice came from the other side of the metal door. “Carew sent me after you to blow your brains out and get rid of Annie as well. You gonna leave me out here like a sitting duck, or are you going to let me in and let me have a closer shot at the two of you?”
The tension drained from James’s rigid body, and he set her away from him. “Are you alone?” he called out, pitching his voice low enough that it could be heard on the other side of the metal door and no farther.
“Give me a break, James. I wouldn’t bring those bastards with me and you know it.”
“You might not have had any choice in the matter. Carew can be pretty persuasive.”
Martin’s sigh of disgust was completely audible. “Listen, James, you may be the best in the business, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are slackers. I can get where I need to go without being followed. Now, are you going to let me in, or am I going to continue to freeze my ass in this desert?”
James was already unfastening the door. For the first time Annie noticed the steel bar he’d set across it in addition to the array of locks. It would have taken her five minutes to unfasten all the hardware that locked them in there. James disposed of it in less than thirty seconds.
She’d seen her ex-husband just before she left on this insane journey of discovery. He’d been the one to tell her where to find McKinley, and now she didn’t know whether it was a curse or a blessing.
He looked so very normal, jarringly so as he closed and locked the door behind him just as efficiently as James had unlocked it. And then he held up his arms, presenting himself to his old friend. “Want to check for weapons?”
Annie closed her eyes for a moment as a wave of nausea washed over her. She was Alice through the looking glass—everything was strange, topsy-turvy. Martin looked the same to her, from his handsome, slightly craggy face to his trim, muscular body dressed in Eddie Bauer’s best. And he stood perfectly still as his best friend checked him for weapons, as if this were all part of his normal experience. And she realized with a shock that it was.
If Win and James weren’t what she’d always assumed them to be, neither was Martin. The man she’d been married to, the man she’d shared everything with, had lived a lie.
He glanced over at her, and his smile was rueful. “Looks like you’re not in Kansas anymore, Annie,” he said lightly.
James stepped back, clearly satisfied that one of the few people he supposedly trusted wasn’t going to kill him. “She’s known that for a while. Why’d you send her to me, Martin?”
“I figured it was time she knew the truth.”
“But I don’t,” she said sharply.
“I don’t know if anyone does,” Martin said. “You got any more of that coffee, Annie?”
“It’s instant.”
“I’m not fussy.”
The Martin she knew, the Martin she’d spent three years of married life with, insisted on Sumatran beans, dark-roasted and freshly ground. Annie shrugged, turning away from him to deal with the coffee, deceptively docile.
James threw himself down on the ratty sofa, seemingly at ease. “How’d you find out where we’d gone, Martin?” he asked gently.
“Give me a break, Mack. I can find out what I need to know. The fact of the matter is, Clancy trusted me, even if you didn’t feel like you could.” Martin didn’t seem the slightest bit offended by that fact. “He thought you might need someone else to cover your back. In case something happened to him. And he was right about that, wasn’t he?”
James’s expression didn’t change. “Why are you here, Martin?”
“To help you.”
“What if I said we don’t need any help?” he said.
“Don’t be an asshole. You need all the help you can get. You may be close to invulnerable, but sooner or later someone’s gonna catch up with you. I don’t want Annie around when that happens.”
“So you’ve appointed yourself my bodyguard?”
“Don’t be so damned amused. I’m good, and you know it.”
“Not as good as I am.”
“You want me to get a tape measure to see which one is bigger?” Annie demanded from the kitchen.
Martin’s laugh was easy, familiar. “James always wins,” he said. He took the rickety, straight-back chair, turned it around, and straddled it. His voice dropped. “I’m sorry about Clancy.”
“Yeah,” said James. “It happens.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“That depends. You still haven’t told me how you managed to get here without Carew knowing. Where does he think you are? And how did you get out of the little clean-up detail?”
“You mean L.A.? I flat-out refused. Told him I couldn’t do a decent job—I was too conflicted. Carew probably knew the truth.”
“And what’s that?”
“I was scared shitless. I’m no match for you, James, and we both know it.”
He didn’t even blink. “Did Carew send Mary Margaret after me?”
Martin looked startled. “I don’t know. She doesn’t even work for him anymore. Since Win’s death she’s kept a low profile.”
Annie brought Martin his coffee. There was no other place to sit but the sagging loveseat next to James. She didn’t want to. But she was even more loath to show it bothered her.
“I haven’t seen Mary Margaret in years,” she said as she perched gingerly next to James, careful not to brush up against him. She could feel Martin’s eyes on her, watching the physical byplay, and she knew him well enough to know he would jump to conclusions. She wondered whether they’d be the right ones. “What’s she been doing with herself?”
“She’s dead.”
She turned to James, and something in his flat tone goaded her. “Does everyone around you die, James?”
He flinched. That very human reaction surprised her, but a moment later it was gone. “Sooner or later, Annie,” he said. “You got any more of that coffee?”
“Get it yourself.”
His mouth curved in a smile that was far from pleasant as he glanced over at Martin. “As you can see, we haven’t exactly hit it off. It’s just as well you’re here—maybe you’ll keep me from murdering her.”
A look flashed between the two, so brief she didn’t have time to decipher it. And then Martin smiled up at her with his old charm. For some reason it left her unmoved.
“What James is trying to say is that we need to talk without you listening, Annie. Why don’t you go into the kitchen and make a lot of noise? Cook us some breakfast or something while James and I confer?”
She didn’t move. “You can’t pat me on the head and dismiss me the way my father used to, Martin, Too much has happened in the past six months. The past few days.”
Martin froze, staring at her as if she’d suddenly grown another head. “I’m afraid Annie isn’t the docile, unquestioning creature you remember,” James said with a lazy drawl. “If we want to get rid of her, we’ll either need to threaten her, knock her out, or tie her up.”
“You haven’t tied me up yet,” she snapped.
“There’s always a first time,” he replied evenly.
“I’m not really into this tiresome macho posturing,” she said. “How about I go for a walk?”
“Sorry,” James said, sounding not the least bit sorry. “I don’t know if it’s safe yet. Go into the kitchen and turn on the radio.”
It was an order, not to be disobeyed. For a brief moment Annie considered doing just that. And then cold, harsh reality settled over her. This wasn’t a game they were playing. It wasn’t really macho posturing. It was life and death. He’d saved her life once already. In return he expected obedience.
She was tired of being an obedient little girl. Of doing and being what other people expec
ted of her. She was turning into her own person, and that person didn’t slink away politely when she was dismissed.
“Or I’ll tie you to the bed,” James added sweetly.
“Don’t overplay your hand, James,” she muttered gracelessly. “You’re just lucky I’m hungry.”
She wasn’t, of course. The crackly AM radio could pick up only salsa music, but she turned it up anyway. CNN was a reasonable alternative, but she didn’t want to risk hearing about the California brush fires, or the bodies found in that tiny rose-covered cottage.
She stood at the stained, rusty sink and peered out the obscured window, ignoring the quiet murmur of voices in the sitting area. The sun had come up, and the bright light of the desert day fought past the greasy coating of the window. She could see a couple of trailers in the distance, in equally bad shape, and a few abandoned cars. And the barren landscape, going on for miles upon endless miles.
Where the hell were they? And did she really want to know? Where were they going? Were they going to find the answers she needed?
She leaned forward, resting on her forearms. There was a cockroach crawling in the sink, a small one, and she considered squashing it. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. There’d been too much death in the past few days. Let James the hunter do it.
She thought about revenge. She’d toyed with the notion for months now, as her belief in her father’s murder grew. Someone had killed him, the man who’d been the center of her life, her guiding force, her mentor. Someone had ruthlessly snuffed out his life in his prime, and she desperately needed to know who had done it, and why.
She didn’t necessarily need revenge. She could count on McKinley for that. Once he found the man who murdered Winston Sutherland, he’d destroy him. And Annie could finally put the past to rest.
But she needed answers. And she wouldn’t rest until she got them.
“How much does she know?” Martin pitched his voice low enough so that there was no way Annie could overhear.
“Enough. Too damned much.”
“Does she know what happened to her father?”
“She knows he was terminated.”