Ryan's Rescue

by Karen Leabo

  “Where are we going?” Christine asked.

  “How about the Sheraton?”

  “Mmm...nice digs.” She was surprised. A cheap motel would have been fine with her, but a first-class hotel sounded better—and safer.

  “I can use my frequent-flier miles there.” Ryan explained, blowing away any illusions she might have had that he’d chosen a nice hotel to soothe her sensibilities. Dollars and cents. That was what it all came down to.

  It took only a few minutes to reach the Sheraton. Christine studied her surroundings as if she were studying for a test, in case she needed to find her way around in a hurry. Actually, she’d never seen a hotel garage before, and it wasn’t very glamorous. She’d always had a chauffeur to deal with annoying things like parking.

  “I don’t let valets touch my car,” Ryan explained, even though she hadn’t said a thing. He was getting very good at reading her thoughts, which was a scary realization.

  With her hokey disguise in place, knowing she looked scruffy and unkempt in Ryan’s borrowed clothes, Christine felt ridiculous. But no one seemed to notice her. In fact, she’d been more anonymous today than she could ever remember being in her life. She was accustomed to attention. It was nice, but a little weird, not to have it.

  “I’ll need two rooms, please,” Ryan said, placing his credit card and frequent-flier card before the registration clerk.

  “Um, Ryan, wait. Just get one room, okay? You don’t want to waste your miles.”

  He gave her a look that made her feel like a steamed lobster. Surely he didn’t think she was suggesting anything improper. Well, if that was what her suggestion had implied, she’d set him straight as soon as they were alone.

  “One room,” he amended to the clerk. “Two beds.”

  The paperwork seemed to take forever. That was something else Christine wasn’t used to. Normally when she checked into a hotel, traveling with or without her father, she got VIP treatment—instant recognition, and no fussing with credit cards. Just an attentive bellman to whisk her things up to some elegant suite.

  Ryan carried his own bag. She carried her paper sack from Target, which contained all her worldly possessions, at least for the moment. They took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked down a long hallway, and Ryan opened the door to their room with an electronic key.

  It was not a large room, but it was nicely furnished, and it did indeed have two double beds. Christine sat down on one of them. She was suddenly exhausted.

  Ryan crossed to the other bed and dropped his duffel on it. “This’ll do.”

  “Comfortable,” she agreed.

  He immediately began pulling out the things he would need to work on his story. Christine watched, feeling detached from the whole thing. She’d boarded a runaway train and she couldn’t get off, but she almost didn’t care anymore. At least she was safe.

  “About sharing a room,” she said. “I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea.”

  “I asked for two beds, didn’t I?” he said gruffly, not even looking at her.

  “It’s just that I’m afraid to stay alone. That Denny guy could break into my room and spirit me away without anyone the wiser. But if you’re here, sleeping in the next bed, that can’t happen.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be a problem.” He began tapping on the keys of his laptop, evidently immersed in his own thoughts.

  Christine couldn’t escape the feeling that he was angry with her about something. True, if not for her, no one would have broken into his apartment. He wouldn’t have lost his hubcaps, and he could be relaxing at home now, microwaving a pizza for dinner, or inviting over his girlfriend, instead of being on the run, the target of a terrorist.

  Did he have a girlfriend? she wondered. He’d made it clear that Fran was an ex, but Christine would be surprised if he hadn’t found a replacement.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.

  He looked at her then, appearing amused at the question. Then he shook his head. “No.”

  “I didn’t want her to be mad at you because of me.”

  “I wouldn’t date a girl who got mad at me for spending time with the subject of a story I’m writing.” He returned to his typing.

  “But you kissed me. A girlfriend would have a right to be miffed over that.” Immediately she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. He probably hadn’t given the kiss a second thought, and here she was, dwelling on it, making it obvious that she’d placed some importance on it.

  He looked up again. “That kiss didn’t mean anything.”

  “I know. But a girlfriend wouldn’t care. She’d still be mad.”

  “There is no girlfriend, so this is a really pointless discussion, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose.” She paused, looking around the room, wishing she’d thought to grab one of Ryan’s books to read. “I think I’ll take a bath, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  She was feeling really grungy. Gosh, how long had it been since she bathed? Since before the kidnapping... No, that couldn’t be right. That was three days ago, and she wasn’t that grungy.

  She paused at the bathroom door. “Did I take a bath last night at your place?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But I thought I was unconscious.”

  “Most of the time you were. You fell asleep in the tub and almost flooded the bathroom.”

  “Yikes. You caught it in time?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then how did I get...from the tub...” She could feel her face turning three shades of red. When she looked at Ryan again, he was grinning wickedly at her.

  “Now that,” he said, “is a subject best left undisturbed, if you know what I mean. Suffice it to say that my mythical girlfriend would have every right to be miffed. And you have a cute little mole on your left upper thigh.”

  She couldn’t begin to come back with a smart reply to that revelation. Ryan had seen her naked! He’d pulled her unconscious body out of a bathtub, dried her off, tucked her into bed...and he’d looked.

  He could have done a lot more, she reminded herself as she entered the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Ryan fell back against the pillows with a groan. He hadn’t counted on this. The longer he spent with Chrissy, the harder it was for him to keep his hands off her. Now he had the fantasy image of Chrissy in a bubble bath to deal with, and he didn’t even have to rely on his imagination. He knew what she looked like without her clothes. His traitorous brain called the image up every ten seconds or so, with or without his consent.

  He’d been lying when he said the kiss meant nothing. He wasn’t even sure why he’d said that, unless it had been a desperate attempt to keep things on an impersonal level.

  He wasn’t the kind of guy who played hard to get. When he saw something he liked, he normally went for it. He was no Casanova; sometimes he made a conquest, sometimes he got shot down. He certainly never sweated it.

  But Chrissy Greenlow had him tied up in knots. Now he was sharing a room with her! If she even hinted that she might feel an inkling of desire for him...

  Ah, hell, who was he kidding? She was engaged. Even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t go for him. He represented everything she hated.

  Still, why hadn’t she turned to her fiancé for help? Ryan understood that there was something weird going on between her and her father, but what about this...what was his name? Richard, Robert, something like that?

  Ryan needed to make some phone calls while Chrissy was in the bath. Forcing his mind to the job at hand, he called Fran first. She wasn’t at home, so he tried the darkroom at the Guardian, where she sometimes did her developing and printing, because she could scam free chemicals and paper.

  He hit pay dirt. “Hey, wait till you see some of these shots,” she said excitedly, not even giving him a chance to speak. “The one of you and her in a lip lock is pure gold. Sex and steam and exotic birds
—”

  “I don’t want you to use that one, Franny,” he said abruptly.

  “Why not? Your face isn’t recognizable.”

  “I’ve decided I’m going to have to be up front about my role in all this. I took her to the zoo. I kissed her. If I don’t admit that, it’s like—Oh, I don’t know. Entrapment.”

  “Oh, Ryan, don’t get all sensitive on me at this late date. I know I ribbed you earlier about having a case for the society babe, but you don’t really, do you? I mean, you don’t have a soft spot for the princess, do you?”

  Ryan didn’t answer right away. When he finally responded, his answer surprised even him. “I like her, Franny. I’ll do the story—it’s not the kind of thing you stumble across every day—but I don’t want to run over her with a bulldozer. Besides, I’m beginning to think there’s something more to it than we originally thought. This society-girl-in-the-fast-lane idea isn’t working. She’s not like that.”

  “Hmm. What angle are you aiming for, then?”

  “I don’t really know, yet. But I’ll tell you one thing. This scumbag who’s trying to grab her is one persistent S.O.B. He’s not acting like any gangbanger I’ve run across. And he had a Save the Wetlands bumper sticker on his car.”

  He paused to let that sink in.

  “You think those NATURE guys might really be involved?” Fran asked in a hushed voice. “That they really held her hostage, like she said?”

  “I’m beginning to think it’s a real possibility. I’ll know more in a little while. As soon as she finishes her bath, I’m going to get into the interview, full swing.”

  “If anyone can find cracks in her story, you can,” Fran said. “Want me to drop by with some of these photos?”

  “Sure.” He told her where to find him, and why he and Chrissy weren’t at his apartment.

  “A break-in? Jeez, that’s scary,” she said. “I’ll be by the hotel in an hour or so, then.”

  “Make sure you’re not followed.” With that warning, he disconnected and dialed another number. He’d tried earlier, at his place, but hadn’t managed to connect with his policeman friend on the youth violence detail. This time, his friend Jerry answered his cell phone on the first ring.

  “Hey, Mulvaney. Yeah, I did some checking up for you—talked to my little Pit Bull snitch. He’d heard about the blonde in the red dress, flying higher than a kite, all right. But there was no mention of you specifically, just that the girl went off with her boyfriend.”

  “And...”

  “And, that’s it. This was pretty much a nonevent in their books. They never realized it was you that took the woman away from them. These were younger guys, you know. They don’t remember the business with the stories you wrote, the harassment, nothing. Your name doesn’t even ring a bell with them.”

  “Really?” Then Ryan had an inflated view of his own importance, he supposed. Could the gang really forget him so easily? His involvement with the Pit Bulls had changed his whole life. “Then there’s no vendetta? No wild-eyed older member out to teach me a lesson?”

  “Nada, dude. If someone’s out to get you, he’s not with the Pit Bulls. You sure you’re not being paranoid?”

  “Oh, this guy’s real, all right. I took his gun away from him. It’s still in my glove compartment, as a matter of fact.”

  “well, hell, bring it over here. We’ll check it out, tell you who it belongs to, if it’s legal—which it probably isn’t.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that,” Ryan said. But he really didn’t need to. He knew who the guy was, now. His name was Denny, and he was an environmental terrorist.

  Chapter 8

  Christine had a record-breaking soak in the tub. She was sore all over—from being manhandled, from jumping out a window, from being bitten by a parrot. She could easily have nodded off in the warm, sudsy water, and almost did a couple of times. But the thought of Ryan finding her as he had last night frightened her into wakefulness.

  She didn’t remember last night’s bath, but there was no doubt she’d awakened this morning clean and naked.

  It wasn’t so bad that Ryan had seen her in the buff, she supposed. The bad part was that she didn’t remember it. He could have climbed into the tub and bathed with her, and she wouldn’t have remembered it! Her deviant mind wondered what he would look like naked.

  All right, so she was indecently attracted to the guy. It was only natural. He was gorgeous, they were in close proximity, and she’d been a long time without really good... No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t just that she wanted sex. It was him. She felt a special attraction for Ryan Mulvaney that was a new experience for her.

  How did he feel about her? she wondered. Contempt? Desire? Indifference? The thought of his indifference was the hardest for her to handle.

  Oh, what was she thinking? She was at a turning point in her life, facing estrangement from her father and possible poverty, not to mention national notoriety—the kind nobody wanted. She was too mixed-up to think about getting involved with another man, even in a purely frivolous way.

  When she finished her bath, she toweled off, then donned the complimentary hotel robe hanging on the back of the door. She had her clean underwear and T-shirts but a good airing-out would have to suffice for the shorts. Maybe the hotel would launder them—but no, that was what rich people did. They sent all their clothes out to be daintified.

  Next she donned a new pair of panties, after debating mightily over her choice of colors—purple, pink or blue. She would sleep in the robe, she decided. She brushed her teeth and finally felt ready to face Ryan again.

  the was deep into his computer screen when she exited the bathroom, and seemed hardly to notice her. Fine. She would watch TV until he was ready to interview her. Television was another luxury she seldom had time for, unless it was C-Span.

  She found the remote and turned on the TV, volume down low. She didn’t really care what she watched, just anything to occupy her mind and keep her more dismal thoughts at bay. So she channel-surfed.

  “Do you think you could light on something and stay there?” Ryan asked, sounding peeved. He didn’t even bother to look up when he spoke to her.

  “Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. She was providing him with a hot story; the least he could do was pay attention to her.

  All right, so maybe she was the one who was being peevish. She was used to people noticing her. She was spoiled. Very soon, she would be just another working woman worrying about the price of panty hose and dining on fast food or Chinese takeout because she was too tired to cook.

  Heck, she wasn’t sure she could remember how to cook. She’d attended a French cooking school for a few weeks the summer she graduated from high school, but not much of it had stayed with her.

  “Ryan, what kind of job do you think I could get?” she asked.

  “Um, I don’t know.” He finished typing a sentence. Christine thought that was all she would get from him, but suddenly he looked up. “What do you know how to do?”

  “I don’t have a college degree.”

  “Neither do I. It doesn’t matter that much, unless you want to be a doctor or a C.P.A. or something.”

  “Neither of those careers appeals to me.” So maybe her lack of a university education was okay!

  Ryan pushed his computer aside, stacked his two pillows behind him and leaned up against the headboard. “Okay, so what skills do you have?”

  “Well...I can host a mean dinner party.”

  “Hmm. I suppose you could get a job as a professional party planner. Your name’s well-known enough. I’m sure all your friends would hire you.”

  Unless she became a pariah. After she dumped Robert and ruined her father’s political career, it was possible that none of her friends would want to speak to her, let alone give her money.

  “That’s one possibility,” she said, not wanting to dismiss Ryan’s idea out of hand. It might work. “But what if I wanted to break away completely from the Washington society stuff?
I might even move to another town. What could I do?”

  “Can you type?”

  “No.”

  “Wait tables?”

  “I could learn that.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, most people with reasonable intelligence and no job skills take an entry-level job at a company where they might be able to advance if they prove themselves. You could answer phones, or work retail, or be a filing clerk.”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “On the other hand, most people with reasonable intelligence, no job skills but lots of connections start out considerably better. If you put out the word among your friends that you’re looking for employment, you can probably land some cushy job, like being an assistant to an assistant to some bigwig.”

  Christine frowned. She didn’t want to get a job using connections. She knew that others would think she was crazy, but she was tired of having things handed to her. She wanted to make her own way, achieve her own successes. She imagined that accomplishing things with hard work and nothing else gave one a terrific sense of self-worth.

  “How did you become a writer?” she asked Ryan.

  “Oh, I worked as a gofer at the Guardian for a couple of years. Then a proofreader, then a copy editor. I started doing my own writing on spec, which mostly got turned down. But then I sold a couple of pieces to magazines, and the Guardian took a little more notice. I started freelancing for them, then made it to staff.”

  “But you’re not on staff now?”

  “No.” A shadow crossed his face. “I like working for myself, even if the income is chancy sometimes.”

  “I like to write,” she said thoughtfully. “Not that I’m any good, but that’s something I would enjoy learning more about. Do you think I could get a job as a... What did you call it? A gofer?”

  “Most gofers are college kids. The pay is terrible.”

  “I can live with that. I have a small income that would supplement...” She stopped, noticing the moment Ryan went from “friend mode” to “reporter mode.” He got this certain intent look on his face that Christine translated as meaning he was trying to remember the facts, the exact words, so that he could faithfully report them.