by Anne Stuart
“Will you be all right?” Maggie leaned toward the front seat, concern deep in her voice. Randall felt an unexpected surge of jealousy.
“Sure thing, miss,” he replied cheerfully. “They haven’t caught me yet, and they won’t this time, either. Hold on tight.”
He turned the wheel hard, and then they were racketing across the field at a dangerous pace. The bright lights of the pursuing car were no longer visible behind the turn in the road. Moments later, they turned back onto the rutted road, and Leopold slowed down to a crawl.
Randall saw the bridge looming up in the moonlit darkness, and without further hesitation he grabbed Maggie’s wrist and opened the door. “Good luck,” he said tersely, and jumped out, dragging Maggie with him.
They landed on their feet, but just barely. The Fiat sped up and zoomed down the road, and the two of them began a breathless run toward a cluster of buildings that looked more like shacks than houses.
The moon was bright overhead, illuminating their path, illuminating their silhouettes. The sound of the pursuing sedan roared across the field; its headlights swept over the landscape.
“Keep down,” Randall muttered, his hand still clamped like a manacle around Maggie’s wrist.
“I am, damn you,” she shot back. “I’d run a lot better if you’d let go of my wrist.”
“Forget it. I don’t want to lose you.” He stopped short, grabbed her, and shoved her down into the dirt, covering her body with his. The strong beam from the headlights illuminated the spot where they had been standing moments before.
They lay quietly, barely daring to breathe, waiting for all traces of the sedan to be gone. It seemed to take hours although it was less than a minute.
It was a warm night. A soft summer breeze floated through the trees above them and the moon shone down on their entwined, motionless figures. Some other time, some other night, Randall thought, wanting to draw her against him, wanting to tip her mouth up to his.
But that wouldn’t happen. The woman lying motionless beneath him hated him—when she wasn’t trying to turn him into some plaster saint. And he’d sworn to himself that he wasn’t going to touch her until he had to. One day at a time, like an alcoholic keeping away from the drink that he craved. If he could just get through Gemansk without her. …
The secret police were long gone but still they lay there. He wondered if she could feel his erection, wondered if the warm night breeze were responsible for the hardness of her nipples against his chest. And then he pulled away, rising in one fluid movement and holding out his hand for her.
“Let’s go,” he said, his voice even and unmoved.
She put her hand in his, and he felt her shudder as he pulled her upright. It was a shudder of pain. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said flatly. “Let’s get out of this damned moonlight. Which house do you fancy?”
“House? Hovel, don’t you mean?”
“Now isn’t the time to be fastidious. As long as we don’t have to share it with rats, I’ll take anything.”
“You’ll be sharing it with me.”
She looked at him, her eyes bright in the moonlight, the rest of her face shadowed. “You’re not a rat, Randall. No matter how hard you try to convince me.”
“No, I’m an absolute prince,” he drawled.
“I wouldn’t say that, either. I haven’t decided what you are,” she added, cocking her head to one side. Her hair was silver in the moonlight, rumpled around her shadowed, beautiful face, and he wanted to bury his mouth in that hair.
“Let me know when you figure it out,” he said in his coolest voice. “We’ll take the middle hovel.”
She nodded. “I’ll do that. The middle hovel it is.”
The hut was dark, too dark to see more than the outlines of furniture. There was a narrow, sagging bed in one corner of the one-room building, and a huge closet-cupboard, a fireplace filled with trash and rubble, and a three-legged table leaning against the wall. The windows were long gone; the openings let in enough moonlight to ease Maggie’s momentary panic. She looked around her as Randall shut the door behind them.
“Home sweet home,” she said.
“Don’t knock it. It’s better than Miroslav Wadjowska’s interrogation room,” he said, moving across the room on silent feet.
A small, errant shudder twisted through her body. “You’re right,” she said. “Anything’s better than that.”
She moved away from his too-observant eyes to stare out the window. She wanted to keep her bruised face out of his sight, but the moonlight illuminated it with cruel clarity.
She heard a sudden, quick intake of breath, and then Randall was beside her, his hand on her chin, gently holding her face up in the bright moonlight. “What happened to your face?” His voice was rough; his own face was in the shadows.
“I look like hell, don’t I?” she said with a sigh, touching her cheek gingerly. “I wasn’t properly deferential to my captor.”
He was very close; she could feel his breath on her face, and she remembered the hardness of his body as it had covered her minutes earlier, remembered her own response. And she felt it happening all over again. His hands touched her face lightly, a benediction at odds with the hard and unyielding Randall she had once thought she knew.
“No,” he said, “you don’t look like hell.” He leaned down, and his lips feathered the scrape across her cheekbone. “You look”—his mouth danced across her bruised chin—“absolutely beautiful”—he gently brushed her eyelids—“and more than I can resist right now. I’m sorry.” The words were as soft as his mouth on her swollen lips. Slowly, gently he brushed his mouth back and forth across hers, and she stood mesmerized, motionless, her entire soul concentrated on the feel of his mouth on hers.
This was madness. They were on the run in a country that wasn’t known for its record in human rights; the secret police were within screaming distance; and all she could think about was his mouth on hers. Her mouth opened in response to the gentle pressure of his, and his tongue slipped inside, tasting, soothing, inciting, until she crossed the inches of darkness that separated them and moved into his arms, into the shelter of his body that was no shelter at all.
A sound ripped through her absorption—the scrape of a boot on a rough surface, a voice calling across the fields in a guttural, incomprehensible language. Randall’s hand replaced his mouth across hers, his long fingers stifling any sound she might have made as his body pressed hers against the wall, holding her still.
It must be the secret police, but how did they know? They couldn’t have seen them jump from the car. But Maggie couldn’t bother with her questions now, because one voice was very close—and with a shiver of fear, she recognized it as Wadjowska’s.
Randall had recognized it, too—she could tell by the sudden stillness, the tension vibrating through his body. Slowly his hand moved away from her mouth, slowly he edged them both toward the closet. His firm hands gave Maggie no chance to resist. The flimsy closet door creaked open into the room. Inside there was velvet-thick darkness.
It was a big closet, an endless, pitch-black closet full of demons, and there was no way in hell that she was going to step inside it, into that dark tomb that would smother the last bit of breath from her. She struggled for a moment, a silent, terrified fight that Randall subdued with no difficulty at all. In moments, she was slammed up against his panting body, a prisoner in his merciless arms.
“You have no choice,” he whispered. “If you don’t move now, he’ll find us and kill us.”
She stopped her useless struggle. Even through her terror, she knew he was right, knew that even if death and darkness lay in that closet, it was still not as certain as the death that awaited them out in the moonlit street. She had no choice at all.
He must have felt the fight leave her body. His iron grip relaxed, and carefully he drew her into the closet. There was barely room for the two of them. She had to press up against his body as he shut the door a
fter them, shutting the darkness around them, the silent black darkness of death and madness.
She was shivering and shaking all over; a cold sweat ran down her spine. Her teeth clamped down on her cut lip to drown the scream that fought to break free, and every muscle, every tendon, every nerve in her body was stretched taut.
Then Randall’s arms moved around her, gentle and comforting. His warmth surrounded her, his hands kneaded her back with strong, soothing strokes, and his lips pressed against her forehead.
Slowly she began to release the panic, slowly she let go of the tension that held her rigid in Randall’s arms. The small, icy core of her began to melt, to melt and flow over him. His mouth moved from her temple down the side of her face to catch her upturned lips.
It was a kiss like no other she had ever received from him. It asked nothing, it gave her everything—hope and comfort and healing when the darkness threatened to suffocate her. She could feel unexpected tears in her eyes and felt their sting as they flowed down her bruised face. She shut her eyes, giving herself up to it, giving herself up to Randall.
When his mouth released her, she sank against him and pressed her cheek against the rough texture of his shirt, ignoring the pain of salty tears and bruised skin, feeling oddly content for the moment.
“Mister!” The word was a hiss of sound filtering into the room. “Hey, mister! Are you here? It’s Leopold.”
Without releasing his hold on her, Randall pushed the door open. The moonlit room was dazzling in its brightness after the coffinlike depths of the closet. Maggie drank it in like pure spring water, feeling it flow through her veins and bringing her strength and resilience back. With it came presence of mind. She stepped out of the closet and Randall’s arms with only a small, desperate pang of regret.
“Where are they?” Randall’s voice was clipped, indifferent. The moments in the closet might never have happened.
Leopold laughed. “Me, I have been very clever. The two flunkies have gone chasing after my cousin Tomas. Miroslav is thrashing about in the graveyard, chasing ghosts. He’s looking for you, my friend. Do you wish him to find you?”
Randall nodded, a short, satisfied nod. “Can you lead him toward the bridge?”
“I can lead him anywhere,” Leopold boasted. “You’ll be waiting?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He disappeared into the night, and Randall turned to the silently watching Maggie, his face blank once more. “Is it a waste of breath to tell you to wait here?”
“Even that question is a waste of breath,” she said.
He reached out and took her hand, holding it in the moonlight. The dried blood and cuts looked no worse than Maggie had expected. “Did he do that to you, too?”
“No,” she said. “I did it to myself, breaking the window. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“And this?” He turned her hand over, caught the other one, and examined her wrists. They were dark and bruised from the handcuffs, and Maggie had no choice but to nod.
“You already admitted he did this.” His hand reached out and feathered across her face.
She didn’t pull away. “I’m just glad he’s left-handed. He could have wrecked my best side,” she added with an attempt at lightness.
Randall’s hand moved from the bruised side of her face to the untouched side, the fingers gentle and questing. And then it left her, falling back to his side. “If you won’t stay here, at least stay out of sight.”
“What are you going to do?”
A savage smile transformed Randall’s distant face. “Settle some old debts”—his hand touched her face lightly, one more time—“and a few new ones.” And he turned and headed out into the moonlit night.
sixteen
Her legs were long, her strides rapid, but there was no way she could keep up with Randall Carter when he was determined. The moonlight illuminated his silent, almost ghostly figure as he raced across the stubbled fields toward the narrow bridge, and she crashed along behind him with a fraction of his stealth, falling farther and farther back until he was out of sight in the fitful shadows.
When she finally reached the bridge, breathless, with a stitch in her side, the confrontation had already begun. Leopold stood to one side, watching. His youthful face was intent; for once, no trace of a smile lingered around his generous mouth. His eyes flickered to Maggie, then went back to the two men circling each other like wary dogs.
Miroslav was shorter than Randall by a few inches, but his burly arms and shoulders, his stocky legs, and the ruthless determination on his broad face made him a force to reckon with. Maggie felt panic sweep over her as she tried to figure their chances against him if he managed to best Randall.
And then the combatants’ movements brought Randall’s face into view, and Maggie’s doubts vanished, replaced by something close to shock. At this moment, the eminently civilized, impeccably dressed man looked absolutely savage. She watched with horrified fascination as he closed in on Miroslav, wondering if she were about to see a man die in front of her eyes.
It was a longer fight than she would have expected. Miroslav was incredibly strong, incredibly determined, and despite his shorter height he must have outweighed Randall by ten or twenty pounds; those ten or twenty pounds were all muscle. For the first few minutes, Randall did little more than evade Miroslav’s furious attacks, letting his opponent wear himself out. And then, when Miroslav’s energy began to flag, when he stood panting, staring at his enemy like a frustrated, maddened bull, Randall moved.
It had been a fight with no rules, but even so, Maggie was still startled to see just how vicious Randall could be. The fight she’d witnessed in Caleb’s apartment had been a minuet compared to this. Randall’s knee slammed into Miroslav’s groin, his hand chopped across his throat, and his fist drove into his stomach. In moments, Miroslav was lying in the dust, groaning and spitting blood.
Randall stared down at him for a long, meditative moment. Maggie shut her eyes, afraid of what would come next. Miroslav’s semiconscious body was hauled upright and dragged toward the old stone bridge, and Randall shoved him up against the side of it. His body bounced against the unyielding stone, and Miroslav’s moan would have been pathetic if Maggie hadn’t remembered exactly who and what he was: chief torturer for the secret police, with more pain on his conscience than Randall could ever deliver.
It might be a close call, though. As Maggie watched and listened in the still, hot night, Leopold moved beside her, equally intent. Randall’s voice, speaking to Miroslav, carried on the thick night air. “I owe you a great deal, my friend,” he said, his voice rough and eerily polite. “More than I can ever repay.” He slammed him against the stone wall again, and Miroslav began to weep.
“But your worst mistake,” he said gently, “was being a little too free with your hands today. She said you were left-handed—” His voice was dreamy, almost meditative, as he caught Miroslav’s left arm and pulled it upright.
It happened so fast, Maggie almost missed it. Randall slammed Miroslav’s left hand against the stone wall with hideous force, shattering the fragile bones. He screamed once, a shrill, high-pitched shriek, and pitched forward in a dead faint. Randall stood above him, looking down without a trace of emotion, and a shudder ran through Maggie’s body. Suddenly, the hot summer night was cold and deadly.
Leopold moved to Randall then, taking it all in stride. His matter-of-fact manner was almost as horrifying as Randall’s savagery had been. “You didn’t kill him?”
Randall lifted his head. His black hair was damp around his forehead, his shirt had ripped during the battle, and there was dust and sweat and exhaustion on his dark face. “Not this time,” he said, suddenly weary. “You said you had plans?”
Leopold reached down with hidden strength and hauled Miroslav’s unconscious body up and over his shoulder. “I thought he’d make a good birthday present for my brother. He had Vasili for almost a year before he managed to escape.”
“Then you
r brother must owe him even more than I do,” Randall said, his eyes glancing over Maggie’s still figure and then moving away.
“I think he will enjoy repaying his hospitality, yes,” Leopold said jauntily. “You can stay in one of the houses? My cousin Tomas will pick you up before dawn and get you over the border. I don’t think you should bother with customs this time around. The secret police will know Miroslav has disappeared, and they know he was after the two of you.”
“I agree completely.” Randall’s cool, polite voice was still shocking, coming from the rumpled, violent man opposite her.
“Meet him here by the bridge, mister. And take care of the lady. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.” Leopold’s voice was amused; the unconscious man across his shoulders was no more burden than a backpack.
“Maybe she has,” Randall said. “We’ll be in the middle shack if something comes up. Good-bye, my friend. Give my best to Vasili.”
Leopold nodded, hefting the body higher. “Good-bye, lady.”
She forced herself to move then, to break the paralysis that had kept her weary limbs captive. She crossed the few feet to Leopold, keeping her eyes averted from the limp body draped over him. “Thank you, Leopold,” she said, “for everything.” And she leaned over to kiss him lightly on the cheek.
He dropped Miroslav into the dust and grabbed her, planted his mouth on hers, and kissed her with a youthful completeness she hadn’t experienced since … since his brother. When he finally released her, he had a pleased grin on his face.
“Vasili told me how beautiful you were, lady,” he said, hauling the body over his shoulder again, “and he didn’t lie. Now I’d better get out fast. Your man is looking like he’d like to do to me what he did to Miroslav. Good-bye, my friends.” And he disappeared into the shadows with his burden.
Maggie turned to face Randall. Whatever expression had amused Leopold was gone now, leaving the blank, shuttered look she was so damned used to. There were no words. She looked at him for a long, confused moment.