Honeymoon with a Stranger

by Frances Housden

  Roxie stayed still as any of the statues inside the Louvre and didn’t begin breathing again until Javier shouted, “Non, halte!”

  Thrusting out his free hand, he warned Mac off. “Stay back, I will retrieve it.”

  With that same hand, he reached in front of Roxie, grasping her opposite wrist to spin her out wildly between the two men, all the while edging closer to his goal.

  Though more by chance than skill, Roxie’s feet collided with the container, kicking it farther away.

  The next few seconds went past in a slow blur as time stretched in a series of still-life pictures.

  “Salaud,” Javier shouted as she threw herself onto the paving stones, pulling him off balance with her weight and fueling his anger by tugging hard to release the hand circling her wrist.

  The knife moved in a bright arc of light in front of her face.

  She blinked, shutting her eyes as if what she couldn’t see couldn’t harm her. Rolling across the paving, into Javier instead of away from him, Roxie came to a jarring stop as her shoulder thumped into his shin.

  He didn’t even yelp as he released her wrist to step over her.

  She was free.

  Javier didn’t seem to have noticed. Eyes fastened on his goal, he stretched for the box of deadly vials, snapping it shut as he pulled it up into his arms.

  Intent on slowing his escape, Roxie grabbed Javier’s ankle.

  Mac’s shadow loomed across them. “Get him!” she shouted, dodging another swipe of the knife that left her clutching a slice of men’s suiting, thankful that the fingers on that hand still numbered five.

  Mac was conscious of the weight of his 9 mm Glock against his back, but the thought of a stray bullet hitting Roxie stayed his hand. Just one more item on his list of reasons for preferring not to work with the woman he loved.

  The danger to her put a huge constraint on his highly honed instincts, slowing them to the point where he wasn’t doing his job at all well.

  Conscious of Roxie on the ground at their feet, he dived at Javier. A feint with the knife sent Mac dancing out of reach, far enough away for the Frenchman to grab a slim vial from under the lid of the container. Then, head down, Javier made a break for freedom, leaping over the barrier to sprint across the surface of the empty pool.

  “No, you don’t,” Mac shouted after him. Whipping around, he hurdled the wall and ran in Javier’s wake.

  Roxie pushed to her feet, hair wild as she shook it back from her eyes, her red suit covered in dust. Not a great advertisement for her new Roxie venture.

  Mac’s shoes slipped on the slippery pool lining. Ahead of him Javier took a tumble, but not hard enough to slow him down.

  Praying Roxie would have the good sense to leave the guy to him now, Mac didn’t have enough time to turn and check, or count on her obeying.

  Though he desperately wanted to take Javier Sevarin down, he was conscious of the snipers on the rooftops and the chance of his body blocking a clear shot from on high.

  Then the worst happened as he drew level with the entrance side of the pyramid. Enough visitors to fill a bus began flowing off the escalators and out into the courtyard.

  Reaching for his gun as he ran, Mac heard Roxie yell, “Au voleur! Stop, thief!”

  Her cry set up a clamor, women squealing and men yelling, “Who, what, where?” The last thing Mac needed was any more help.

  Javier didn’t slow down or act as if he’d heard Roxie.

  Plunging through the crush, he emerged on the other side, leaving an older woman on the ground from a push in the back.

  Curses and protests filled the air. Mac had to contend with the aftermath, dodging through what was evolving into an angry mob. He ran faster, the soles of his shoes repeating the thud of the Frenchman’s footsteps on the paving as they both drew away from the crowd.

  Up ahead lay the Carrousel du Louvre, an inverted pyramid centering a circle of grass, ringed by finely trimmed box hedges.

  Javier leapt over the hedge. Out of the blue, Mac had a clear shot. He skidded to a halt, raised his arm and leveled his gun at Javier’s retreating back, slowly squeezing the trigger.

  “No-o-o-o.” The word was ripped from Roxie’s throat as she saw Mac aim at Javier. What was he thinking?

  The fine green sward that was some gardener’s pride and joy, abounding with Keep Off the Grass signs, didn’t even earn a glance from the man galloping across it.

  But all Roxie could see were the consequences.

  If Javier fell on the grass and broke the vial there would be no more grass to worry about.

  No more grass in the whole of France, Europe even.

  Mac fired. The report rang in Roxie’s ears like a death knell for la belle France. The country she loved and had made her home.

  She saw Javier stagger, twist to face them as he uncorked the vial, and throw it as he fell backward onto the toughened glass covering the inverted pyramid.

  Slipping out of her shoes, Roxie brushed through the hedge. Ignoring the wounded man she raced to the spilled vial.

  Desperate now, she pulled off her jacket, mopping up liquid she could hardly see as tears streamed down her face.

  It was a thankless task, she knew, having seen Green Shield at work, but she had to try.

  She couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

  Mac crouched on the glass and touched his fingers to Javier’s neck, as if unaware of the faces gazing up from the hall below.

  No pulse.

  Mac’s sense of relief discharged in a pent-up sigh.

  He couldn’t say he enjoyed killing, but if it had to be done, it was best done swiftly.

  It wasn’t until he straightened, stood and looked around for Roxie that he noticed his audience and the attendant dragging on Thierry’s arm, calling, “Non, non, ne pas approcher.”

  “Let him through,” Mac yelled, and saw the man’s jaw drop, shocked, he supposed, by the body at Mac’s feet.

  For once Mac was all wrong. “But the grass, it is not allowed!” came the pompous protest.

  “There will be no grass in the whole of Paris if someone doesn’t help me.” This last complaint from Roxie.

  Then Mac realized what she was doing and loped to her side, pulling her up off the grass and into his arms. Prying the damp jacket from her fingers, he tossed it down onto the grass.

  “No, Mac, don’t!”

  The tears from her gray eyes overflowed onto her cheeks like liquid crystals.

  To him she had never looked more beautiful.

  Mac brushed away her tears with a swipe of his thumb. She looked so sad, but all he wanted to do was smile. “Ah, chérie, your beautiful suit, it’s ruined. You looked so chic in it, too.”

  “How can you be so calm,” she ranted. “There is Green Shield all over the lawn. I couldn’t mop it all up, and now look.”

  They both glanced down, then Roxie realized. “The grass? It isn’t brown or dead. Did I save it, or…?”

  He pulled her into an embrace that would have done justice to a bear as he laughed. “Chérie…” He grinned. “Bébé, not even for you would I have let him have Green Shield. Besides, I’d had it destroyed long before he made his demands.”

  “Ah, Mac,” she sighed, “that’s why I love you, you always seem to think of everything.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That you think of everything. You always plan ahead—”

  “No, not that.” Mac held his breath.

  “I said that’s why I love you.”

  “Well, it’s about time. I thought you were never going to admit it,” he said, his voice gruff with relief.

  He pulled her up higher in his arms and she fell into his embrace, lifting her face for his kiss, oblivious of the crowd of onlookers lining the ring of trimmed box hedges.

  Mac poured everything he had, all that he was, into that kiss.

  He’d gone through two days of hell.

  First the meeting with his parents and the sinking feeling that he
had had never really known them.

  That he was a stranger in his own skin.

  Then, discovering that Javier had Roxie.

  If she’d died, he didn’t know if he’d be able to go on.

  He’d never known that love could take you like this, like an unannounced storm where hot air clashes with cold high in the atmosphere, all heat, energy and flashes of pure brilliance.

  By the time he lifted his head, the gendarmes had arrived on the scene as well as Dumont, and the groundsman was arguing against stakes being hammered into his lawn to hold the crime-scene tape.

  “Life will go on, chérie, ours especially, but first we have a little mess to clear up.” He gave her a small kiss on her forehead, then let her slide to the ground as Dumont approached.

  He pushed the hair back from her face and said, “Quickly now, tell me.”

  Roxie quirked her head to one side as she looked up at him, her eyes sparkling as she understood where he was going with it. “Tell you what?”

  “Say, I still love you, Mac.”

  “I still love you, Mac.”

  “That’s good, for I’m never going to stop loving you.”

  Epilogue

  The French had always believed they had the copyright on love.

  L’amour.

  They certainly knew how to put it in the right setting, and in Paris at night, the Eiffel Tower stood out as the diamond in the City of Lights’ crown.

  Mac was more than willing to take advantage of that setting.

  He kept his arm round Roxie, holding her close to his side as they traveled up in the elevator to the viewing platform.

  As a matter of fact, in the week since the confrontation at the Louvre, he’d seemed unable to keep his hands off her, or bear her to be out of his sight.

  Not that he’d heard any complaints.

  Mac looked over the railing, pointing out the smudge of lights as a tourist boat sailed through the mist covering the river Seine.

  Christmas would soon be upon them and Paris was decked out in her gaudiest jewels to welcome its arrival.

  Mac turned his back to the rail and leaned back, pulling Roxie into his arms. He’d brought her up the tower to propose, but before that he had some apologizing to take care of, and started with, “There’s something I have to tell you, chérie.”

  She blinked up at him as if surprised he’d said tell instead of ask, and he knew his so-called secret plans hadn’t fooled her one iota.

  Her eyebrows quirked, making the bridge of her nose crinkle. “Okay, you’ve got me going, what is it?”

  He thought, cute, but noted the thread of apprehension in her question and decided that putting them both out of their misery was his best option. “Here I am, going on thirty-one years old, and just over a week ago I discovered I was adopted.”

  Mac heard the soft intake of her breath, but she didn’t say anything, just leaned closer. Her warmth was what he needed right now. That, and her understanding.

  “My parents are in Paris at the moment and I love them dearly, but I don’t always understand them. My birth certificate says I was born in New Zealand, it doesn’t mention another mom or dad.”

  He forked his fingers through her hair and massaged the base of her skull as if that would help. “But that’s not the point, not what I wanted to say…. I want to apologize for the way I treated you. Now I know how it feels from personal experience, to discover someone you love doesn’t trust you. It hurts.”

  “Oh, Mac, I don’t think we can compare the two. You had a job to do. And it’s been proved that I didn’t have enough experience to be a good agent. To be like you.”

  “You flatter me, chérie. I made a ton of mistakes. At least you had the courage of your convictions. Me, I thought I was case-hardened, after my last romantic experience with a beautiful female agent ended with her sticking a knife in my ribs. I guess I ought to tell you about Lucia.”

  Roxie put a finger to his lips. Tales about romantic adventures in his past were something he didn’t have to share. “Mac, hush. Do you really think this is the best time to give me a list of your old lovers?”

  She reached up and placed her palm along his taut jawline, smooth as silk for a change, but hardly surprising. She’d heard him shaving only minutes before the cab arrived to carry them to what had started out as an undisclosed destination. It was so like her secret agent lover to plan the evening covertly.

  “I can empathize with your feelings,” she said. “Trust has to come with love. But knowing the man you are now, the person your parents brought up with high ideals, a sense of honor and a huge love for his country, I can’t believe they kept your adoption secret without a very good reason.”

  Roxie slipped one hand around his neck, and before he could say anything, she stretched on tiptoes to bring his mouth closer for her kiss.

  As her heels touched the floor again, she asked, “Do you really think being adopted has changed your values overnight, or could make me think less of you?”

  He pulled closer, took her into his arms in a close embrace and bathed her face in kisses. “No, I never thought that of you. I just had to make sure it didn’t give you pause about our relationship. If we have children, how can you be sure I won’t pass on some genetic quirk?”

  “Children? Oh, my goodness, Mac. I knew you had to have brought me up here for more than confessions about your heritage or ancient love affairs. You want to ask me to marry you.”

  “How did you know?” His voice was gruff with tenderness, but he hadn’t denied it and the knowledge filled her with elation.

  Overjoyed, she had a sudden urge to tease him. She leaned back in his arms until she could see his face, read his expression, and said, “Didn’t I tell you? I’m a secret agent. We’re good at working things out, given certain evidence. And that said, as for genetic problems, you’re a spy. If you want, you can discover all you need to know and we’ll take whatever comes in our stride.”

  He shook his head and grinned, then pulled her close again. Close enough for her to feel the slow, heavy thud of his heart. Close enough to take in the male scent that spelled out Mac McBride. A scent she would recognize blindfolded.

  “God, I love you, Roxie,” he told her, and then held her away to give her a quizzical look. “What evidence?” he asked.

  Really, for a clever man he’d left himself wide open for a little naughty repartee. “I can feel a bulge in your trousers that’s too small to be what you usually keep there for me, so it can’t be anything else but a ring box.”

  He laughed, a large, joyous bellow that rippled through her.

  This was Mac, the man who had taken over her life, filled it with love, warmth and a hundred other blessings, until she couldn’t picture the rest of her days without him.

  “I cannot tell a lie. It’s a ring box.”

  Roxie waited…and waited. “Aren’t you going to ask me then?”

  “Ask you what?”

  That was another thing about Mac. He knew how to win. She capitulated. “Ask me to marry you.”

  His expression grew serious, his eyes a dim gold that reflected the lights of Paris behind her as he pulled out the ring box and opened it.

  Her heart began to race as she looked at the large emerald-cut diamond set in platinum. It was really going to happen.

  “Roxie, when I say the words ‘till death do us part,’ that’s exactly what I mean, a lifetime together. I love you. So, will you marry me? Be my wife in whichever corner of the globe life takes us and stay with me always?”

  She quivered as she said, “I will, till death do us part,” knowing that in Mac’s line of work, that was more likely to come sooner, than later.

  Mac’s voice was rough as he told her, “Before we seal this promise with a kiss, there’s something else you ought to know.”

  Her heart flip-flopped in her chest as she prepared for the worst, prepared to hear he’d been given an even more dangerous assignment than the last.

  “Jason Ha
rt has asked me to become SAC of the Paris bureau. That means no more undercover work. As a designing female, how do you feel about being married to a desk jockey?”

  “Oh, you big tease.” She batted her palms against Mac’s broad shoulders. “I’ll love it.”

  “Great, and since our original honeymoon was between strangers, how about setting our sights on New Zealand? There are family there we both need to meet, four brothers and a sister.”

  Mac had asked her to be his wife in whichever corner of the globe their life would take them, and if that meant going to the end of the earth, she would follow him there. New Zealand was a long way, but not quite that far.

  And with Mac by her side, she’d go willingly into this new adventure. For wasn’t that the nature of love?

  “Whatever it takes, chéri. I’ll be by your side.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6739-2

  HONEYMOON WITH A STRANGER

  Copyright © 2005 by Frances Housden

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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