Ryan's Rescue

by Karen Leabo

  She supposed she’d better get used to suppressing impulse buys. In her future life, she wasn’t going to be rich. She didn’t kid herself that her father would support her in any way. She had a small trust fund from her grandmother’s estate that was in her control, but she didn’t think the interest was enough to live on.

  As she reluctantly put the box back where she found it, she noticed Ryan studying her with undisguised interest. She smiled shyly, suddenly at a loss for words. He must find her an odd duck, she mused.

  She thought they were heading for a bus stop, but Ryan waved down a cab. “This’ll be easiest,” he said as they climbed into the back seat. “Nearest subway station is in Foggy Bottom.” He gave their destination to the driver.

  Two blocks later, the cab stopped and picked up another couple. Christine looked at Ryan, raising her eyebrows in a silent question.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her closer to allow the other couple room. She was almost in his lap. The enforced closeness made her short of breath. She found she couldn’t muster an answer.

  Ryan didn’t seemed concerned about the extra passengers, so she supposed she shouldn’t be, either. Cab sharing must be the norm, she decided, again realizing how ignorant she was about everyday life in the city.

  The cab ride was short. Ryan paid the driver, then he and Christine went down into the subway station. Cool, fresh spring air gave way to stale underground mustiness as they descended a flight of stairs, but the station itself was clean and bright. Christine tried to see everything at once as Ryan put money in a machine for their fares.

  The station was not very crowded. A few rowdy teenagers, a man dragging around a bag of aluminum cans, a young couple with two small children. She felt a sudden rush of compassion at the thought of how difficult it was for most people to make ends meet. The subway wasn’t an adventure for them, just another part of the daily grind.

  Her breath caught in her throat when she spotted a pathetic-looking man—he had no legs—meandering through the sparse crowd on a platform with wheels, begging for spare change. The teenagers threw some pennies at him, laughing as he scrambled around to collect the coins. His piteous expression tore at Christine’s heart.

  She nudged Ryan, who seemed to be studiedly ignoring the people around them. “Couldn’t you give him something?” she asked, nodding toward the panhandler.

  “Him? No way. You know who that is, don’t you?”

  “Should I?”

  “Pitiful Pete. His part-time job is begging.”

  “Well, of course it is. What else would he do? He doesn’t even have a proper wheelchair.”

  “Oh, yes he does. Right along with a proper house in Arlington, and a proper Jaguar specially outfitted so he can drive it.”

  Christine blinked a couple of times. “You’re kidding. How do you know all that about him?”

  “I, er, read it in the paper. Pete earned over a hundred thousand dollars—tax-free, mind you—last year. And when it’s too cold for him to get out, he runs a successful mail-order lingerie business from his house.”

  Christine was really confused. “If he’s not homeless, if he can drive a car ... why does he do this?”

  “Because he likes bilking people. It gives him a thrill, pretending to be poor.” Ryan gave her a look that made her want to scramble for cover. “Everybody likes to pretend they’re someone else occasionally. It’s not so hard to understand.”

  “I suppose,” she said noncommittally, refusing to meet his too-knowing gaze.

  Then he smiled, and she felt okay again. He didn’t know who she was. It was pure coincidence that he’d chosen to philosophize about something so close to home.

  “C’mon, that’s our train,” he said as a distant roar grew louder and a subway car whizzed into view, stopping with uncanny precision.

  The small crowd of people pushed together near the curb. Ryan’s arm went around Christine’s waist in a protective gesture. She grabbed his belt for added security, unable to bear the thought of getting lost. She hadn’t experienced a press of flesh hemming her in like this since her last political rally, and it made her nervous. But as long as she had Ryan close by, she felt secure.

  They were the last passengers to board, because Ryan stood back to let a woman with a bulky camera bag get on before them. Unlike the station, the train was packed. Christine found herself standing in the aisle, with Ryan practically in her pocket. It took her a few confused moments to figure out where she was supposed to hold on, during which she stumbled into Ryan, nearly knocking him over.

  “Careful,” he murmured, wrapping her hand around an overhead bar. But he didn’t step away. “Normally it’s not this crowded on a Sunday, but I think we’re competing with a crowd of conventioneers.”

  Thank goodness for conventioneers, she found herself thinking. Ryan’s nearness was intoxicating. Even given all the indelicate aromas around her, she could discern his clean, male fresh-laundry scent. She couldn’t recall that Robert had ever smelled like this. In fact, she couldn’t recall Robert smelling like anything, which amazed her. Perhaps her senses had been dead, and they were only now being resurrected.

  Christine looked out the windows at the concrete tunnel walls flying by. It was a little bit oppressive, being underground. She would be glad to see daylight again.

  The conventioneers got off a couple of stations later. Ryan slid into a seat and pulled Christine in after him. Their thighs brushed. Out of habit, she started to scoot away, but then she thought, What the hell! and stayed just where she was. After tomorrow, she probably would never see Ryan Mulvaney again. While she was still Chrissy Green, she would do just what she wanted—say outrageous things, eat unhealthy food. Flirt.

  “Are you having fun?” Ryan asked suddenly.

  “Sure.”

  “And we haven’t even made it to the zoo yet,” he murmured, studying her again.

  Ryan wasn’t sure what to make of Chrissy. The whole time she rode that crowded subway train—an experience most people would find unpleasant—she’d acted like a kid at an amusement park. Was her life really so sheltered?

  When they arrived at the National Zoo, her exuberance could hardly be contained. “I remember those great big Z-O-O letters at the entrance,” she said excitedly. “I couldn’t have been more than five or six when my parents brought me here. We had a picture taken—the three of us—standing right by the O.”

  Ryan looked around for Fran. She’d done an admirable job of tailing them so far. Ah, there she was, pretending photographic interest in a sea of red and yellow tulips. As Chrissy removed her sunglasses and bent down to admire a solitary bloom, Ryan stood out of the way and Fran squeezed off a shot.

  Perfect.

  “So, did you have the proverbial happy childhood?” Ryan asked as they strolled toward a directional sign.

  “You could say so,” she answered thoughtfully donning the sunglasses again. “I was spoiled, I suppose. My parents lavished all their love and a considerable amount of material goods on me. Then Mom died, and the whole family thing came to a screeching halt.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “That’s really young. It must have been hard.” Ryan felt only a twinge of guilt, pumping Chrissy like this for his own selfish purposes. He wished he had a tape recorder, although his memory for quotes was almost uncannily accurate.

  She shrugged, then glanced up at the sign. “Where to first? Let’s see, hoofed animals, spectacled bears, beavers and otters... Oh, pandas! Remember Ling-Ling?”

  “Yeah, sure.” The whole country had watched as Ling-Ling and her mate tried to propagate their species. “She died a few years ago, if I recall.”

  “Yeah,” Chrissy said sadly. Then she perked up. “Let’s head toward the pandas. Then we can stop and see the zebras, and the elephants and giraffes and...ooooooh, Komodo dragons. Can’t miss those.”

  Ryan flexed one foot against the concrete walkway. Apparently she wanted t
o see everything. This was going to be a long day. But if he could keep her talking about her family like he just had...

  The guilt squeezed his conscience again. Normally it didn’t bother him at all to gather information from an unwitting subject. But lying to someone as innocent as Chrissy made him feel like slime.

  Wait a minute. Since when was she innocent? Last night she’d been drunk, or high, or both. He didn’t know what to believe about kidnappers or an abusive boyfriend, but someone had socked her in the jaw. She was involved in something unsavory. He’d better watch his priorities.

  He had to follow along at a trot to keep up with Chrissy as she flitted from one exhibit to the next, reading the information plaques and stumbling over the Latin names of the animals, laughing at the antics of the monkeys in the Great Ape House, wrinkling her nose at the smell of dung, getting all soft and teary at the sight of a female baboon cradling her week-old infant.

  Ryan couldn’t seem to get her talking about her family or her personal life for very long. She kept changing the subject—talking about the animals or, worse, turning his questions back on him.

  Her ever-changing array of emotions fascinated him, yet he couldn’t escape the feeling that she was a very complicated person and he was only scratching the surface.

  When they reached Lion-Tiger Hill, Ryan turned to see if Fran was following, and he was startled to see a man in a leather jacket ambling along by himself. The man, in his mid-twenties, looked familiar. An aging Pit Bull, perhaps?

  Ryan shivered involuntarily. Yesterday he hadn’t scored any points with the gang by hustling Chrissy away from those young thugs. Was he being followed because of it? Were the gangbangers planning revenge? He’d been the target of the gang’s revenge before, and it hadn’t been pretty. He’d had to disappear for a while until they lost interest. If the Pit Bulls had figured out who he was, their revenge could become revitalized.

  But maybe he was imagining things. The leather-jacket guy didn’t look very menacing. He was eating cotton candy, after all. Ryan pushed the stranger from his thoughts.

  “Amazonia,” Chrissy declared.

  “Hmm?”

  “That’s the rain-forest place where the birds fly around free. Can we go there?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  They stopped on the way to Amazonia to get popcorn. Chrissy fed half of hers to the fat, greedy sparrows, giggling and pointing as they scuffled over each kernel she threw out.

  When they entered Amazonia, Ryan immediately broke out in a sweat. It felt like ninety degrees inside the huge enclosed space, and it smelled of dank, growing things. Colorful birds darted from tree to tree all around them, screeching loud enough to burst eardrums. Chrissy was immediately taken with a blue-and-gold macaw, which sat on a branch invitingly close to the walkway.

  “Hello, pretty bird,” she cooed, holding out her hand. “You seem like a friendly guy.”

  “Um, Chrissy, the sign says not to touch the birds.”

  “I’m not touching him,” she argued. “I’m making friends. Holding out an open hand is a friendly gesture in just about any culture. It ought to work with birds.”

  The macaw took one look at Chrissy’s delicate pink hand and, apparently deciding it was edible, gave it a vicious bite.

  Chrissy yelped and yanked her hand back. “The ingrate bit me!”

  “Well, that’s what happens when you disobey the signs,” he teased. But then, seeing that she was genuinely in distress, he sobered. “Here, let me see.”

  She offered him her hand. Her eyes looked so wounded and betrayed that he almost found it amusing. Almost.

  “That damn bird drew blood,” he said as he inspected her injury. There were two neat puncture wounds, one on her palm near her thumb, one on the back of her hand to match. Without thinking much about it, he drew her hand to his lips and pressed a light kiss on each of the lacerations, the way he would have for a child in similar circumstances. “There, is that better?”

  When he looked up, he found no smile on her face, no gratitude for his small kindness. Her eyes had grown huge, and her expression could only have been described as hungry.

  Suddenly he was hungry, too. He kissed her hand again, then folded it inside his and drew her closer. “Just what am I supposed to do with you?” He impulsively pulled off her baseball cap, wanting to see the tumble of blond silk. It cascaded to her shoulders, wildly out of control.

  Just like the rest of her.

  “Kiss me?” she asked in a tentative voice. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath, and he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  Kiss her? Hell, yeah, and more. He lowered his head and claimed her moist pink lips with his.

  If he’d expected the kiss to be tentative, he was disappointed. She took to it like a bird to the air, winding her arms around his neck, opening her mouth to him, teasing him with her tongue.

  All right, so maybe she’d kissed one or two guys before. Was there anything wrong with that? he thought murkily.

  The click of a camera shutter, and the whir of an auto-winder brought him back to his senses. Fran! He opened his eyes, and from the corner of one of them he could see that his partner in crime had indeed recorded his passionate embrace with Chrissy.

  That Fran was watching made him very uneasy. Not that any romantic feelings remained between him and Fran. But he hadn’t intended the kiss to be part of the story. That was private, and had nothing to do with the charade he was perpetrating on Chrissy.

  He would have to tell Fran in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t use that picture.

  He gently broke the kiss. “I bet you forgot all about the parrot bite, huh?” he said inanely.

  “I forgot all about a lot of things, including propriety,” she said, nervously looking around to see if anyone was watching. Fran, thank goodness, had dropped out of sight. She was amazingly good at that. “I’m sorry. The whole thing was silly.”

  Ryan didn’t think so. He touched his lips, remembering the feel of her. Hell of a kiss.

  He plopped the cap back on her head. “Silly or not, I enjoyed it.”

  Chrissy’s face was flushed and growing pinker. He found it charming that she could blush. He couldn’t recall having seen a girl blush since high school.

  “I need to find a rest room,” she said abruptly. “I should, um, wash my hand to get the parrot germs off.”

  “I saw a ladies’ room right by the entrance,” he said. “I’ll wait here for you.”

  “Okay.”

  He watched her walk away, her hips gently swaying beneath the borrowed denim shorts, her tumbled hair gleaming even in the dim rain-forest light.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Fran said close to his ear.

  He jumped. The woman could melt in and out of sight like she had magic powers. “Ah. Fran. That wasn’t supposed to be... That is, I didn’t mean to kiss her. No more pictures with me in them, okay?”

  “It’s kind of hard, when you’re sticking to her like duct tape. Look, stud, I have enough zoo pictures to fill a scrapbook. I thought she was meeting her pusher or something.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but stick with us awhile longer, okay? She’s starting to trust me.”

  “I’ll say,” Fran said tartly.

  Ryan ignored the gibe. “I want her to tell me what’s really happening in her life right now. An abusive boyfriend? Maybe. But I have a hunch it’s something more dramatic, or else why the faked kidnapping?”

  “You’ve got a point,” Fran said. “All right, a couple more hours. How much of this zoo stuff can one person stomach?” With that, Fran stalked away.

  Ryan shook his head. He liked the zoo.

  He decided he’d better go find Chrissy. He didn’t imagine she would abandon him, but he couldn’t vouch for her state of mind. He sauntered back toward the entrance of Amazonia, where the ladies’ rest room was.

  Chrissy blotted her face with a moist paper towel. She’d washed the parrot bite with soap and
water, but that wasn’t the real reason she’d retreated to the ladies’ room. She’d needed some distance between her and Ryan. She’d spent half the day with him, and during that time she’d found him the most charming, fun, uninhibited guy she’d ever been around.

  Not to mention sexy.

  Where had that kiss come from? She’d started it, no doubt about that. At least he hadn’t ridiculed her, or turned away in revulsion, when she asked him to kiss her. No, he’d done just what she asked, and more, kissing her until her toes curled and her skin broke out in goose bumps.

  She hadn’t felt like this since that giddy first love—that only love—in college.

  She had to get a grip here. It was just the thrill of being on her own, of being free of the terrorists and her father’s thumb. No reason to let that thrill take her to places she really shouldn’t go.

  Okay, she was sane now. She tucked her hair back under the cap, donned her sunglasses, and was ready to face Ryan again.

  She turned toward the exit, surprised and not a little frightened to see a man in a black leather jacket standing just inside the ladies’ room door. He smiled, not pleasantly.

  She tried for a smile of her own. “I think you have the wrong...” Oh, no. He was tall, gaunt, with greasy black hair and a ravaged face. Denny.

  “I’ve got the right room, all right, Christine. And I’ve got a gun pointed right at your heart. You just come with me real quiet, and everything’ll be okay.” He crooked his finger at her.

  “What do you want with me?” she asked, the question coming out in a squeaky whisper. “My father won’t pay you the ransom.”

  “He would, if the right kind of pressure were applied. We did it all wrong before. No publicity. We were too afraid of getting caught. This time we’ll get it right.”

  He closed the distance between them, took her arm. “C’mon now, Ms. Greenlow. Christine.” On his lips, her name sounded obscene. “You and I are going for a little walk.”