She twisted toward Erik again. “This isn’t your car, is it?”
His head was pounding and he was struggling to keep from seeing double. It complicated the procedure. “Now isn’t the time to worry about legal ownership.”
“We can’t just steal a car.”
“We’re borrowing it,” he corrected. Sweat was popping out on his brow, between his shoulders, creating tiny rivulets down his back. He felt cold and hot at the same time. “And the alternative isn’t pretty.” The car started. He would have cheered if he’d had the strength. It was all he could do to straighten up and grab the wheel. Gunfire echoed in his head as he pulled out. “Duck.” It was an order.
“Duck?”
“Duck!” he repeated, pushing her head down with his right hand. “You wouldn’t look good with a bullet in your forehead. Doesn’t go with the outfit.”
Gritting his teeth against a fresh onslaught of pain, he looked in the rearview mirror. The shooters must have hot-wired a car, as well. A maroon SUV was gaining on them. “Hang on. This is going to be bumpy.”
He wasn’t kidding.
Fifteen minutes later, after taking more twists and turns along the hilly streets than a wayward tornado, he finally felt confident enough to slow down. “I think we lost them.”
She wasn’t going to throw up. She wasn’t. Marla pressed her hand to her midsection. “Along with my stomach.” Composure was something that had been lost on the first steep street. She was more angry than frightened. “Can I please go now?”
He didn’t want her getting killed because he’d entered the wrong hotel room. He wasn’t letting Marla out of his sight until he was sure she would be safe—like on a plane back home. He refused to consider why the thought depressed him. “Not until I’m sure the men following us have given up.”
Taking on the tone she used with unruly students, Marla drew herself up. “No more games. We need to go to the police. Those people mean—”
Her eyes widened as she saw the blood on his hand and followed the path up along his sleeve. “My God, you’re hurt.”
He was twelve degrees past hurt and solidly entrenched in agony. His head felt vaguely hollow. “Deeply, if you keep on arguing with me.”
This was serious. “I mean you’re bleeding. A lot.”
He kept driving, looking for a place that was safe. The streets were blurring. “Just a scratch.”
He was being incredibly stubborn. “Only if you’re nine foot eleven. We have to get you to a hospital.”
He tried to shake his head, and found doing so threatened blacking out. “Not possible.”
“But you need to have your injury taken care of.”
A smile curved his mouth as he looked at her. “Marla, I’m touched.”
“Obviously more than a little.” Determined, she looked along the streets they were passing. At least the scenery was no longer whizzing by. “If you won’t go to the emergency room, maybe we can find a drugstore.”
“I can’t exactly go in like this.”
The car was beginning to slow down. Was he going to be sensible after all? “I was thinking of me.”
“Sorry, I can’t…”
She turned her head in time to see his eyes slide shut. “Oh, God.” Marla grabbed the wheel. Without knowing how, she guided the Mustang to the curb without a mishap. Heart hammering, she pulled up the hand brake. “Erik?” Half-afraid, she touched his throat, feeling for his pulse. He was alive, but unconscious.
Marla let her hand drop.
It was now or never. Marla seized her opportunity.
Getting out of the car, she quickly walked halfway down the block before her footsteps slowed, then stopped. As she turned around she caught her reflection in a store window and shook her head in disbelief.
“You are an idiot, Marla O’Connor. A first-class idiot.”
Frowning, she walked back to the car.
THE PAIN CUT THROUGH layers of anesthetizing haze, growing sharper, dragging him up to the surface. Erik started, his hand reaching to his waistband before he even opened his eyes.
“It’s not there. I thought you’d be more comfortable without a gun jabbing you in the gut.”
Marla. The sound of her voice comforted him like the feel of a blanket on a cold, crisp day. It almost, just for a heartbeat, made him feel safe. It was an odd sensation, given his line of work and the circumstances.
She was the kind of woman his mother would have picked out for him. He could almost hear her voice now. You need a good woman in your life. That was Marla. A good woman.
He needed to keep her a good, live woman.
With effort, he focused. First on Marla, then on his surroundings. He was lying on a sagging bed whose sheets hadn’t been changed since the Bush administration’s first term. The room was small and smelled of cheap liquor and cheaper perfume.
Propping a stiff elbow under him, he managed to sit up. “Where the hell are we?”
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Marla tried to push him back. It wasn’t as easy as she’d expected. The man had amazing stamina. Something inside her vaguely wondered if that extended to all things physical.
“In the seediest motel I could find. This way, the guy at the front desk doesn’t ask questions.”
A smile formed. She saw it in his eyes before it filtered to his mouth. “Smart thinking.” Erik looked down at his shoulder. It still felt as if it were on fire. It was also bandaged. “Who—?”
“Me.” She’d found a pharmacy in the area and bought supplies.
Very slowly he eased himself into a sitting position. The room moved only slightly. He’d been worse. “Where did you learn how to patch people up like this?”
“School yard.” She liked the surprised look on his face, liked not being completely predictable to him. It was her turn to smile. “First neighborhood I taught in was pretty rough.”
A more important question occurred to him. “Why didn’t you run when you had the chance?”
She shrugged, swallowing the answer that came immediately. Because I couldn’t.
“You could have abandoned me at any time, but you didn’t.”
Her smile softened, her fear fading. There was something about a hero… “If you hadn’t stopped to help me when I fell, you wouldn’t have gotten shot. I figured I owed you one. Maybe two.”
Embarrassed by the way he was looking at her and feeling decidedly warmer than the room would have warranted, she nodded at his shoulder. “You were lucky. The bullet went clean through. But you did lose a lot of blood.”
Erik looked out the window. It was dark. “How long have I been out?”
“Long enough for me to patch you up and get some takeout.” Rising, she went to the bureau against the wall. A large white paper bag dominated the surface. “How do you feel about Chinese food?”
“We’re near Chinatown?”
She nodded. “On the outskirts.”
That meant she’d gotten them clear across town. Admiration lifted the corners of his mouth. “You are full of surprises, Marla O’Connor.”
She was beginning to think so, too. It was a nice thing to find out about herself.
He was reaching for his shirt. Marla crossed back to him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting up.” He was uneasy. They had to get moving. There was no telling if she’d been spotted.
Marla frowned. “You need to rest.”
“I rested.”
“You passed out.”
“Same thing.” He paused to look at her, amused. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you cared.” His eyes touched her face, lingering on her mouth. Remembering. “And I’m not so dumb. I hooked up with you, didn’t I?”
She had no comeback for that. Just a very warm, unsettled feeling unfurling in the pit of her stomach. Especially when he looked at her like that.
The next minute, the feeling was pushed to the background. She heard a noise and turned toward the door of their room. To her disbelief and
horror, the doorknob was being turned once again. What was it about her and hotel rooms? She knew she’d locked it after she’d returned with the Chinese takeout.
Marla glanced at Erik, who was stone-faced, and then back to the door and realized she was holding her breath.
“We know you’re in there,” a deep voice growled from the other side. “If you give us what we want, we won’t kill you—or the girl. If you make this difficult…”
Marla did not like the significant pause.
“The girl is going to suffer. A lot.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MARLA STARED AT ERIK. The only way out was through the front door—she had checked out any possible escape routes after she’d made sure Erik would live. She was beginning to think like him. She wasn’t sure if she liked that.
On the other side of the door were two men who were planning to do unspeakable things to her. She gulped. She did know that she trusted Erik. He grabbed the backpack, making certain that it was zipped shut, then motioned to Marla.
“When I nod my head,” he whispered, “open the door.”
She was putting her life in the hands of a crazy man. Marla could almost see Erik mentally counting to three, then he nodded his head. Terrified, she flipped the lock and yanked open the door.
Prepared to use force, the first man stumbled in, followed by the second one. Erik swung the backpack like a weapon, felling the first. Marla stuck out her leg and tripped the second man, who landed on top of the first goon.
Grabbing Marla’s hand, Erik pulled her out of the room and slammed the door shut in his wake. “Nice work.”
She didn’t know why the compliment had her glowing inside. She had to be going crazy herself. The glow continued.
The lot in front was empty. “Where’s the car?”
“I parked it in the back.” It had seemed like the thing to do.
He liked how she was beginning to think like him. “Perfect.” They ran for the Mustang. “Marla, we’ll make a recruit out of you yet.”
She opened her mouth to say, “Over my dead body,” then realized she really didn’t mean that. It startled her to realize that as frightening as this was, it was also exhilarating. As exhilarating as the man holding her hand. Instead, she shot back, “You couldn’t afford me.”
Reaching the car, he jumped in. Hands on the steering wheel, he was backing out the moment her thigh hit the passenger’s side. But he took a split second to look at her. “Give me a price.”
Why, in the center of an explosive situation, a situation that could end in death at any moment, did she suddenly feel heat throbbing through her body because he’d given her a penetrating look?
“We’ll talk,” she breathed.
His smile went clear down to her bones. “Count on it.”
She had a feeling he didn’t have talking in mind. Marla grew hotter.
They were barreling down the street, careening from one lane to another as Erik jockeyed for distance. Marla forgot to be hot and bothered and concentrated on not falling over in her seat. “Do all spies have a death wish?”
He spared her a look, turning down a street. A glance at the signpost told him where he was. “I’m not a spy. Just a courier.” That was his story and he was sticking to it. For her sake.
Right, and she was a hummingbird. Marla sighed. “Okay, whatever you are, answer the question. Do you have a death wish?”
“No more than most people.” The silence in the car ate into the darkness. Maybe he owed her something more than a flippant answer, he thought. A little truth wouldn’t hurt. He opened a crack into his past. “I was a history teacher.”
She turned her head to look at him. She had her doubts. He wasn’t like any history teacher she’d ever met. “And what—you wanted to make it, not teach it?”
Her naiveté was almost refreshing. Had he ever seen things that simply? He couldn’t remember. “Something like that.”
Marla looked out. Nothing looked familiar. They hadn’t gone this way before. Was he driving away, or driving to? She settled in, knowing she’d find out when she found out. “So how does a history teacher learn how to scale the sides of tall buildings and hot-wire cars?”
He distanced himself from the memory. “I’ve been at this for a while. You pick up things.”
Marla glanced in the rearview mirror, hoping not to see the police. “Like stolen cars?”
That was the least of his concerns. “It’s just borrowed, remember?”
“Shouldn’t we ‘unborrow’ it before some patrol car runs the plates and stops us?”
He laughed softly. “I’m impressed.”
She didn’t know if he was laughing at her or not. “NYPD Blue,” she murmured.
“We all have to get our education somewhere.” Making a right, he drove into a strip mall. “All right, we’ll lose the Mustang. This looks like a good place to ditch it.”
They pulled up into a space. She looked out. “A McDonald’s?”
He exited the car as if he hadn’t a care in the world. She scrambled after him. “A lot of through traffic here. Still hungry?”
She’d had dinner twice within her grasp, only to have to flee without taking a bite. “That is an understatement. I’m starving.”
“Then we’ll eat.” Taking her hand, he led her inside.
The place was packed. There was hardly enough room to walk unobstructed. “Crowded enough for you?” she asked.
He merely smiled in reply. They got in line and ordered, then undertook the ordeal of finding a table. Erik nodded toward one that had just been vacated. “Looks like our luck’s changed.”
She sincerely hoped so. Sitting down, she made short work of the paper wrapper around the hamburger. Her stomach growled as she bit into the bun. “You really know how to show a girl a good time.” She hesitated, then pushed ahead. “I’ve got a question for you.”
There was a dab of ketchup on her chin. Leaning over, he wiped it away with his thumb and felt something stir inside him. Maybe it was the way she looked at him, with large, smoky eyes filled with emotion. With a sincerity that surprised him, he wished there was time to explore that emotion. “Shoot.”
For all her hunger, Marla found she was having trouble swallowing. He was looking at her that way again. It curled her toes and made her ache for a warm fireplace and a long, endless night. “Why did you stop to help me up when we were running for the car?”
Did she think he was heartless? he wondered. “I couldn’t just leave you.”
Marla could still feel her pulse doing tricks. You’d think she’d never had a man touch her before. But she hadn’t. Not the way he did. Even wiping away ketchup felt like an erotic activity. “I thought all secret agents were taught to be hard-hearted.”
He shrugged and instantly regretted it. Pain scissored through him. “I cut class that day.”
“Lucky for me.” She took another bite. The door opened and her eyes darted toward it. But it was only a group of teenagers. “How do you suppose they found us at the motel?”
He’d been working on that. “Either blind luck or—” It suddenly occurred to him. “How did you pay for the room?”
“With my charge card. Why?”
An easy mistake. “There’s your answer. They tracked you down by the card activity.”
Marla laid the hamburger down. She’d thought that happened only in the movies. “What kind of people are you up against?”
“The shrewd, intelligent, ruthless kind. People who take good things and turn them into bad. People who would make those kids in the tough neighborhood you were talking about look like Good Samaritans.” He’d dealt with their kind for so long, he’d forgotten there were any other type around. It had taken her to make him remember.
Wouldn’t it be nice if he could keep her around? Coming from nowhere, the thought almost succeeded in unsettling him.
She shivered. “Comforting thought.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.” Having finished his fries, he crushed th
e container. “It was meant to keep you on your toes.”
“For how long? I get nosebleeds easily.”
“Just until morning. Once I turn the ‘product’ over, our friends are in a new ball game.”
She wished he’d tell her more. “And that makes them harmless?”
“Not harmless, but they won’t come after you.” And in the past few hours, that had become important to him, he realized. Very important.
“What about you?”
There was nothing but ice chips left in his drink. He stirred them with his straw. “I knew the risks when I signed on.”
She wondered about that—and about him. “Is there a Mrs. Spy somewhere? Does she know the risks?” She wondered why the answer was so important to her.
“No, there’s no Mrs. Spy.” Their eyes held for a long moment. “I wouldn’t have kissed you like that if there was.”
“Ah, an honorable spy.” She’d tried to make a joke of it, but fell short of her goal.
“I’d try to be—if I were one.” Humor entered his voice. “I thought I told you I’m not a spy.” A movement caught his eye. The door was opening. Damn. The designer agents had found them. “Here we go again.”
She didn’t even bother to look as he grabbed her hand and pulled her up with him. Marla caught a handful of fries with her other hand and then they plowed through the crowd, making their way around the counter.
“Hey, you can’t go there!” an adolescent food server protested as they hurried through the kitchen, heading for the back door.
Marla pulled herself up short, barely avoiding crashing into one of the help. Her fries flew out of her hand. She sighed in resignation. “You know, I’ve seen an awful lot of kitchens for someone with an almost empty stomach.”
He pushed open the back door. “A full stomach won’t do you any good if you’re dead.”
“Good point.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY USED THE CAR one more time, driving into the heart of Chinatown before finally abandoning the Mustang on one of the side streets. As they wove their way from one store to another, Marla noticed that revelers were everywhere. “What is all this?” she finally asked, slightly breathless.
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