by Cassie Miles
He’s gone. Though his absence left an emptiness where her strength should have been, it didn’t do any good to wish things were different. He’s not coming back.
She had to go on. Alone. There was no other alternative. “Pull yourself together, Tasha.”
She’d been in worse situations. She just couldn’t remember when.
Forcing herself to be rational, she cleaned up the glass in the kitchen. Pull yourself together.
In the bathroom, she peeled off her panty hose and cleaned the cuts on her legs. Nothing serious. Mostly nicks.
She hardly recognized her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. A sickening terror haunted her eyes. Her jaw trembled weakly. A waxy pallor erased the blush on her cheeks. Even when she scrubbed away the traces of smeared makeup, she wasn’t herself.
Dressed in her favorite old flannel nightgown, she stumbled back into the kitchen. Though still hungry, she couldn’t face the job of cooking. Instead, she went to the lower cupboard beside the dishwasher and took out a mostly full quart of Stoly.
Grabbing a tumbler from the kitchen cabinets, she splashed the clear vodka over ice cubes and took a healthy swallow. The liquid burned a path down her gullet, and she hoped the warmth would spread like a goosedown quilt, muffling her fear and rage. She needed to escape, but she couldn’t run. There was no choice whatsoever. She had to follow orders from Green and Cerise or else. It was best to deaden her emotions, to find solace in the traditional drink of her Russian ancestors.
Making quick work of the first straight vodka, she poured another and sank down into a ladder-back chair beside her kitchen table.
The alcohol spread through her body, gradually easing her tension. False courage in a bottle. That wasn’t her way. Tasha wasn’t a drinker, though she’d always had the ability to drink hard liquor and not get drunk. Her mother was the same way. And her sister. Damn you, Stacey. Where are you? How did you get me into this mess?
Tasha easily imagined her twin’s mischievous grin. So many times, Tasha had taken the blame for something her sister had done. Getting into their mother’s makeup. Stealing a candy bar from the drugstore. Sneaking through the night, dressed all in black. Breaking and entering.
Somewhere, Stacey would be laughing about the plot to steal the Sheikh’s Rubies. But she would be safe, and, somehow, Tasha would have to find her way through this ordeal. Alone.
Without David. Because he’d run out on her. His high and mighty ideals wouldn’t allow him to associate with her, a common criminal.
She was totally insulted. She raised her glass. “Common? Let me tell you this, David, there’s nothing about me that’s common, old boy.”
If only he’d given her a chance to explain.
What did it matter? She couldn’t have told him about Green.
Tasha sipped at her vodka. She barely knew David, anyway. Why should she care about him?
But she did care. She liked him, admired him.
More than that. Tasha groaned, remembering their brief but wonderful kiss. That would never happen again.
She would never have the chance to lie beside him, would never make love to him.
She downed the last of her second vodka. Feeling woozy, she headed off to bed. She tore off the pillowcases where Green’s head had made an indentation. Tomorrow, perhaps, she would burn them. But for right now, she was too tired.
As she pulled the covers up to her chin, she glanced at her bedside clock. Three minutes after midnight. Into the darkness, she whispered, “Good night, David.”
HER SLUMBER BROKE suddenly. There was a sound in her apartment. It would have been handy to be instantly alert, but Tasha was still dizzy from the vodka. Through blurred vision, she saw the clock. It wasn’t even one o’clock yet. What was going on? Why had she wakened? She floundered through a mental fog, so heavy and thick she could barely move.
But she had heard.something. The click of the front door lock? Someone had come through her front door. Was it Green? Had he returned to inflict some new abuse upon her? The man was a bully, a horrible fiend.
There was another noise from the kitchen. Through her half-opened bedroom door, she saw the light being turned on in the front room.
Okay, she wasn’t imagining this. There was definitely an intruder. Wake up, Tasha! Wake up! She needed to defend herself. Since she kept her handgun at the store, her only protection was a baseball bat that she hid under the bed.
Tasha reached for the bat, but her arms and legs were tangled in her sheets. Clumsily, she battled free from the twining bedding. Moving with all the stealth of a water buffalo, she groped under the bed for the Louisville Slugger. When she stood, the bedroom twirled slowly, like a merry-go-round in slow motion. Balancing carefully on the balls of her feet, she crept toward the bedroom door.
The silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway.
She took aim. With all her might, she swung. And missed.
The bat clattered against the door frame. The reverberation of the ash wood stung her sensitive fingers, and she dropped her weapon with a little yelp of surprise.
Now what? Trembling and indecisive, she covered her face with her hands. If she were lucky, the pain would be over soon.
“Tasha? What the hell are you doing?”
The baritone voice was gentle and.wonderful.
“David!” He’d come back! He couldn’t leave her, after all. Despite her angry parting words, she flew into his arms, adjusting her body to fit around the gun in his shoulder holster. “You’re here. Thank God, you’re here.”
He enfolded her in a sweet embrace, and her tension ebbed like the moonlit tide. His strength absorbed the harsh terror that had gripped and shaken her. She could feel her breathing return to normal. Hard-edged, stark reality blurred to a softer focus.
David peeled her off of him and stared into her eyes. “Are you all right?”
“Now I am.”
“Tasha, what’s wrong?”.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. But she was still a little shaky on her feet and had to rest against the wall in the hallway to keep from weaving back and forth.
He picked up the bat from the carpeted floor. “Were you planning to protect yourself with this?”
“Maybe.” She peered through the semidarkness. He was really here. David had come back to her. He was going to help her. She wasn’t alone anymore.
“The Louisville Slugger isn’t such a good idea,” he said in a sensible tone. “If I’d really been a bad guy coming to attack you, your best defense would probably be to reach over to the phone by your bed and dial 911.”
“Really?” Her heart lightened. Though it was the middle of the night, the world seemed rosy and wonderfully bright.
“Yes, really. It’s too easy for an intruder to disarm you, then use the weapon against you.”
“Really?”
He pulled her toward the light from the kitchen. Again, he studied her eyes. He was worried about her. Illogically, his concern pleased her. She thought his caring was the most marvelous thing in the whole world.
“Tell me more,” she said. “About how to fight off the bad guys.”
“Never take on somebody bigger and stronger than you are,” he advised, “unless you have better weapons and know how to use them.”
“Okay.”
“Whenever possible, call for backup.”
“Reinforcements.” She nodded. Her head felt loose and wobbly on the stem of her neck.
“Stay alert and don’t get sloshed.” A slow grin spread across his handsome face. “But I guess it’s too late to tell you that.”
“This is a lot to remember, David. All these security things.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed.
“Know what? I don’t think I can handle it all by myself.” Hesitantly, she added, “I need a bodyguard.”
“If the job’s still open, I’ll take it.”
“Oh, David!” It was all she could say. Happiness welled up within her until she felt that she wo
uld burst from the sheer, unmitigated pleasure of having him here.
“Obviously,” he said, “you also need a cup of strong, black coffee to sober up.”
He hitched his arm around her waist and guided her to the kitchen where the Stoly and single, empty tumbler waited on the dining room table. It looked so pathetic, Tasha thought. A woman alone. Drinking alone.
She felt compelled to make an excuse. “Usually, I’m not much of a drinker. But I didn’t have any food, and—”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Got a headache?”
“I’m not sure.” There was a pressure behind her eyes, but it didn’t hurt. She reached up and touched her nose, remembering Green’s threats. “I’m kind of dizzy.”
“Turn around,” he said. “Get back into bed and I’ll bring you coffee.”
Though she was perfectly capable of walking, she leaned on his arm. It felt good to be cared for.
He turned on the bedside lamp and stared questioningly at the tangled sheets and blankets. “Were you bouncing on the bed? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
He pulled down all the covers and plumped up the pillows. “Lie down. I’ll cover you.”
When she scooted into the center of the bed, her long flannel nightie hiked up. She started to pull down the hem, but David caught hold of her hand.
“What happened to your legs?”
She couldn’t tell him. Green had warned her about going to the police, and David was one step away from them. “Nothing,” she said, reaching down to cover the dozens of tiny cuts.
“This isn’t nothing. There are a couple of good-size slices here.”
“I dropped a vase in the kitchen,” she said. “It shattered and, I guess the glass cut me.”
“I don’t believe you.” But he covered her legs with her soft, old, flannel gown. Not saying another word, David shook out the wrinkles in the pastel sheets and smoothed the comforter over the lower half of her body.
Tasha waited. She knew he would ask questions that she couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to deceive him, but she couldn’t speak the truth. It was too risky.
Finally, he sat on the edge of the bed, facing her. He stroked her bangs off her forehead. “Someone hurt you, Tasha. Was someone waiting for you when you came into your apartment?”
“I can’t say.” She held herself very still, knowing that he could read her slightest movement.
“Was it that big guy?” David asked. “Was it Green?”
“Could you get me two aspirin from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom? I think I’m getting a headache.”
He lifted her hand from her lap, held it to his lips and breathed a light, lingering, warm kiss across her knuckles. “You’re afraid to tell me.”
She sealed her lips. Fear and common sense warned her not to speak. She’d entered into a pact of silence with the devil. If she betrayed Green—
“You know, Tasha, the first step in ending the abuse is to tell someone. Someone who can help you.”
But if she told David, something terrible would happen. She could die. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Green would kill her, and it wouldn’t be a quick, executioner-style death. She remembered what he did to Jenson. She remembered the bits of broken glass slicing into her legs.
She closed her eyes and remembered…a long time ago. Her mind drifted into a distant past, dark threats, painful consequences, the cold disbelief in her mother’s eyes. Denial. Only Stacey knew the truth. Only her twin believed her. Even when Tasha said nothing, Stacey knew her pain.
Tasha remembered when she was pregnant. The father of her child. The features of his aristocratic face were no longer clear in her mind, but she would never forget his words when she’d told him that she was carrying his child. “You mustn’t tell a soul.”
He’d slapped her, hard. Called her a fool. Then slapped her again. Didn’t she know he was married?
She hadn’t known. Tasha had been blinded by the glitter of his costly gifts. Diamond stud earrings. A strand of pearls. She hadn’t seen beyond his Rolls-Royce. She’d been seduced by elegant dinners served by a butler at his London flat.
You mustn’t tell a soul. Or else…
But she had to tell Stacey. Tasha had to explain why she was leaving the magic act. And Stacey had taken revenge. His lordship was beaten. His head was shaved.
It wasn’t enough to save Tasha. She had suffered the worst possible consequences. Her baby had been stillborn. Baby Nicholas had died.
In her rational mind, she knew there was no connection between her cruel lover’s warnings and the death of her child. Still, his words carried weight.
She abandoned her memories, returned to the present danger.
“I can’t tell you, David.” She searched the depths of his gray eyes, expecting to see rejection and anger. Instead, she found kindness. He was strong enough to be gentle. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I won’t go.”
“Promise me.”
“I’ll be here all night. Tasha, you don’t have to be scared anymore. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
Though she had learned never to trust anyone but her twin sister, she believed him. She pulled his hand to her cheek and rubbed against it. For this moment, she felt safe.
When he left the bedroom to get her aspirin and to make coffee, she allowed herself to drift on the warm, secure feeling of being protected. Safe, at last.
She was no longer alone.
Chapter Seven
Though she managed to gulp down a couple of aspirins, Tasha was asleep by the time David had finished brewing a fresh pot of coffee. Standing in her bedroom doorway, he gazed down at her resting figure. The light from the bedside lamp filled the room with a pinkish glow, soft and lovely across her face. Her eyelids were closed. She was so small and slim that she barely made a ripple under her pretty, feminine white comforter.
“Tasha? Are you awake?”
Her lips puffed. She made a muffled, indelicate noise that sounded suspiciously like, “Drop dead, David,” and rolled to one side, dragging the bedding askew.
He took a sip of coffee from a blue ceramic mug. “This isn’t what I expected,” he murmured.
He had wanted to clear the air. Halfway to Denver International Airport, he’d decided that she was right when she accused him of being judge and jury, convicting her without hearing her side of the story. He hadn’t given her a chance to explain.
Instead, he’d quit—something he’d never done before on a bodyguard assignment. No matter how difficult the client, David had always managed to ignore the affronts, the rudeness and the outright insults. He granted a great deal of latitude, figuring that these people were under stress, otherwise they wouldn’t need bodyguards. Besides, it wasn’t his job to get personally involved with his clients. His only responsibility was to make sure they didn’t get dead.
Tasha was different.
He grinned as he watched her restlessly kick the sheets. She slept like a gymnast doing floor exercises. If anybody else had been flopping around in the bed, he would have found it annoying. With Tasha, he thought her acrobatics were cute. No matter what she did, she touched him in a way that no other woman could. From the start, he hadn’t been able to maintain his professional impartiality.
That was why—when she had deceived him, when he’d overheard her plotting to steal the rubies—David felt betrayed at the deepest level. He’d thought they were a team, but she was playing solo. And that hurt.
Still, he was wrong to quit.
She deserved a chance. Even if she was a thief, she had proved that she was a cat burglar with a heart of gold at the hospital where she selflessly cared for Mandy. There was much good in Tasha.
He set down the coffee mugs on the bedside table, removed his shoulder holster and hung it on the headboard where he could pull his automatic in an instant if he needed to.
Tonight, David would stay in her bedroom instead of attempting to rest on her uncomfortable brocade sofa.
As a bodyguard, he’d taught himself how to exist on catnaps and light rest, but he much preferred a bed.
Tasha flipped again, and he frowned. Cuteness not withstanding, it might be impossible to sleep next to someone who bounced around on the bed. Maybe the sofa was better.
He kicked off his loafers, propped himself up on the pillows and stretched out his legs on the queen-size bed. He reached for his coffee and took a sip.
In her gyrations, Tasha now had one leg completely free from the covers. In the light from the bedside lamp, he studied the tiny cuts on her shin. Her injuries could have been a result of an accident she’d had with a vase, as she claimed. But he doubted that her pain was so innocent. Somebody was still terrorizing her. Somebody had inflicted those nicks on her legs.
Green, he thought. That huge guy who had snapped Jenson’s wrist in his bare hands. Green. What kind of creep was he, anyway? What kind of man got his kicks by scaring women?
Tomorrow, if David was lucky, he’d have some answers. Earlier this afternoon, he’d given all the photos and her sketch of Brown to Earl Rockman, his friend who owned the detective agency and still maintained connections with the CIA and Interpol. Fingerprints would have been a better source of identification, but the photos might work. Tomorrow, David might have real information instead of these stupid names. Mr. Green. Mr. Brown. Cerise.
And Tasha. How did she fit into their color scheme?
She flung herself across the bed again. In her slumber, she discovered him beside her. Making tiny purring sounds, like a kitten, she snuggled in the crook of his arm. Her lips breathed a contented sigh. And she went limp and motionless.
The warmth of her slender body felt right in his arms.
He should have turned off the lamp and caught some rest. Instead, he looked down at her. Even without makeup, she was striking. Her sculpted eyebrows and lashes were dark as ebony against her creamy complexion. The long tendrils of black hair curled artlessly across her cheeks and forehead.
Mesmerized, he wanted to kiss her. From deep within, he felt an overwhelming urge to taste her mouth, to feel her come alive in his arms.
Oh, yeah! That was a great idea! Not only were they both exhausted from one hell of a stressful day, but he still didn’t know if she was a cat burglar. David hardened himself against the tenderness she elicited so easily. He couldn’t make love to a criminal. What if she’d been plotting all along to steal the rubies? What if she’d duped him?