How absurd, she thought, shaking herself. There was nothing to reach out and grab. She was going to get some sleep, and she wasn’t going to think about the strange Mr. Steele.
Carrying out her resolution didn’t prove to be at all difficult. She followed her mechanical night-time routine, brushing her teeth, washing her face, and industriously combing out her hair, then slid into a warm emerald flannel gown and hurriedly brought her cold toes beneath the crisp sheets and heavy blanket on the bunk. The feeling was wonderfully warm and cozy. She might have been thinking about Jarod Steele, but she didn’t do so for long.
Her sleep was very deep; it took some time to interrupt. Erin began to frown from the hazy depths of oblivion, to open her eyes with a start. Above her stood a man, an extremely poker-faced man, in an immaculate and tight-fitting uniform of red and gray. He was impatiently rattling off words in what she was beginning to recognize as Russian. Apparently he had been attempting to wake her for several minutes. His irritation was becoming evident.
Erin bolted to a sitting position in the bunk. The border, she thought, we’ve come to the border. He wants my papers.
Erin smiled, but the man’s face didn’t lose its severity. Her smile turning to an inward grimace, Erin slid her bare feet from the bunk, remembering ruefully that Mary had warned her that crossing the Soviet border would be a no-nonsense affair.
“Please!” she murmured, padding quickly to her purse and extracting the, papers she assumed he wanted. He accepted them, glanced over them quickly with an astute eye, and pocketed them, shaking his head as Erin reached to retrieve them, halting with surprise. The slate-eyed man motioned for her to sit, and Erin numbly did so.
She watched the man as he began to comb through her couchette. He appeared to be about thirty, in the peak of fitness and health, and his manner was a strange combination of civility and determination.
Wonderful, Erin thought. He is most courteously scaring the hell out of me.
He emptied the contents of her purse and neatly replaced them. Her luggage was next. To give the man credit, he was careful to see that her neatly arranged stacks of lingerie, sweaters, dresses, skirts, shirts, and jeans were just as neat as when he had begun his search. Erin folded her hands and stared blankly at her fingers to hide her nervousness, only to glance back up and find the guard staring at her with chilling reproach and accusation—the bananas she had craved in Helsinki and then summarily forgotten, held high in his hands.
Oh, hell! Erin thought sickly, berating herself for such sound stupidity. Bananas. I’m about to be in some kind of trouble over a stupid yellow fruit I don’t even like. Did they put you in jail for bananas? she wondered, fighting a wave of panic. Surely not….
“I’m sorry,” she began to murmur, lacing her fingers together and clenching them, tightly. “I knew—I was aware I couldn’t bring fruit into the country. I meant to eat them, you see, and then I forgot all about them. Couldn’t we just put them in the garbage?”
The slate stare of the young guard didn’t change. He began to approach Erin and it was all she could do to keep from screaming. But he meant her no harm—of the physical variety at least! He merely reached for her hand and brought her to her feet, positioning her near the cabin door. “Please,” he said as he motioned her to remain there. She had the feeling it was the one word he knew in English.
The man was more than thorough. Her bedding was ransacked, the closets and cabinets. Nothing was left unturned. Even the window shade was checked; it rattled as he spun it carefully, filling the night with a sharp, discordant sound.
Had the discovery of the bananas initiated further search, she wondered, or was this customary? Mary, she thought belatedly, you were right, I should have come with a tour….
Her heart seemed to catch in her throat as he turned back to her. She didn’t need a translator to tell her he was still, for some enigmatic reason, dissatisfied. He caught her arm—once more his grip polite but very, very professionally cold, and proceeded to open her couchette door. Where is he taking me? Erin wondered desperately. She felt as if she would fall in another second, she was so damned scared. If only she knew what was going on.
Clad only in her flannel gown, her hair mussed and wild from sleep, she felt the beginnings of panic settle in, and she automatically began to work a bracelet around her left wrist. The harsh, alien man beside her, now barking orders in a glacial voice she couldn’t begin to comprehend, became a terrifying entity.
No, she told herself, don’t give way to fear. This is probably customary. He is not being cruel, merely professional. I have done nothing. I am guilty of nothing but stupidity, and buying bananas. She would laugh about it one day. It would be an adventure to tell. But right now she was about to lose control and fall to the floor in panic-stricken tears.
“Spasee’ ba! Ne noo’ zhna!”
The crisply authoritative Russian comments came from her recent dinner companion. His appearance in the hallway halted the border guard; the two men proceeded to engage in a rapid-fire exchange that left her standing between them, riddled with confusion. She was amazed to see the border guard actually smile.
He is human, Erin thought a little bitterly. As soon as Jarod had appeared, the man had become human.
The Russian was laughing. Delivering her into Steele’s hands, he tipped his hat.
Jarod began to speak again, his hands upon her shoulders as they both faced the guard. Erin felt the smoothness of his palm as it moved caressingly up her neck. Thumb and forefingers absently cradled her cheek and chin in an astounding display of tenderness.
Too stunned to do anything else, Erin stood stock still. A vague part of her mind was warning her she had been safer with the young Russian guard. Jarod Steele’s touch was doing nothing to repair the weakness in her legs. If anything, she felt more immersed in quicksand; the heat and pressure of his powerful chest and long-sinewed legs behind her was dizzying and engulfing. She was once more keenly aware of the scent of elemental strength and masculinity.
The border guard made a last comment to Jarod and turned crisply to continue onward to the next compartment.
“You’ll have to come into my couchette,” Jarod said quietly, releasing his hold and prodding her gently. “Our friend will be back in a minute to lock the doors until the rest of the train is searched.”
For once, his tone was merely gentle. But at this point, had he shouted the order, Erin would have meekly complied.
She moved uneasily into Jarod’s couchette, noticing from the disheveled bedding that he, too, had been hastily aroused from sleep. Unwilling to allow her vision or mind to dwell upon the rumpled sheets and blankets, she wandered nervously to the unshaded window—apparently the guard hadn’t seen fit to rake his couchette apart—and stared out into the blackness of the night. It was thick forest land that set the boundary separating Finland from the U.S.S.R.
The loud retort of a bolt clanging shut on Jarod’s door was so unnerving that Erin literally jumped and spun around to face Jarod with wide eyes.
“Relax, Miss McCabe,” Jarod said, gentle amusement tinging his voice of husky velvet. “This is all quite in order, I assure you.”
“Oh,” Erin murmured, swallowing and lowering her eyes. She was calming down enough to panic again. It had taken her until now to realize that her strange rescuer was dressed in nothing but a brown velour robe, one that bared long, heavily muscled and thickly haired calves, ridiculously appealing feet—of all things!—and a shade too much of a taut, muscled chest, clearly outlined in the loose V of the robe as was another attractive swatch of coarse, curled dark hair. A few of those were also turning silver, Erin noticed; she was suddenly swamped with the obsession to reach out and touch, feel that silver within deepest black.
Unconsciously she began to play with her bracelets. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic, and the cabin seemed to shrink, making her aware of the larger-than-life presence of Jarod Steele. Her heart was beating at a deafening pace, and she wa
s finding it difficult to breathe. His energy, his virility, permeated space and air. His icefire gaze, even when amused, seemed to have the ability to pin her down, to strip her of both clothing and soul, and it terrified her.
“Relax,” he repeated very quietly, leaning against his door and reaching into the pocket of his robe for cigarettes and lighter. He shook two from the packet and lit both, finally leaving his stance to walk over to Erin and put it into her trembling fingers. She didn’t like him so near, but the cigarette helped. She inhaled deeply, then returned her vision to the blackness of the night.
Erin finally managed to clear her throat and talk. “I don’t think I understand,” she murmured, not looking at him as she questioned him. “You mean all that was customary? Where was he taking me?”
“It was customary that he search your couchette and belongings. Rules and regulations on what may enter the country are very strict.” He hesitated a moment and then continued. “He was taking you to a female guard to be searched. He must have decided you looked suspicious—and you were trying to bring fruit into the country.”
“I wasn’t!” Erin protested. “I forgot I had the stinking bananas! And I can hardly believe I look suspicious!”
She felt Jarod’s eyes on her in calculation as he exhaled a long plume of smoke. “A young woman traveling into the Soviet Union alone? Eschewing the more normal, controlled routes and entering through Finland? A young, attractive, American woman…. He wasn’t quite sure what you were up to. Neither am I.”
“Up to?” Erin exclaimed incredulously. “I’m not up to anything! It was my understanding that more and more Americans were visiting the U.S.S.R.”
Jarod shrugged, his nonchalance belied by his astute and assessing stare. “Who’s to say, Miss McCabe? Fragile-looking women usually travel with tours.”
“I’m hardly fragile,” Erin retorted.
A dark handsome brow arched in amused mockery. “I’ll accept that, Miss McCabe. Sometimes I get the distinct impression that any fragility of yours would be comparable to that of a boa constrictor.”
Erin felt an instant grinding of her teeth, a tensing of her fingers. It was incredible that this same man had come to her rescue, touched her with the lightest stroke of tenderness, instilling quicksilver in her veins.
Erin directed her own most piercing silver-frost stare into his eyes. “Would you mind felling me, Mr. Steele, just why you dislike me?”
He appeared mildly surprised; his reply held a similar note, as if he were discovering something new himself. “I don’t dislike you, Miss McCabe. I’d just as soon not be terribly near you when you drink. You’re rather hard on a wardrobe, you know. But I certainly don’t dislike you.”
Erin turned back to the window. She hesitated a moment. “I suppose I should thank you, Mr. Steele, for saving me a great deal of unpleasantness.”
She felt rather than saw his shrug. “I dare say that nothing too dire would have happened. They would have asked you a few questions, frisked you a bit, and allowed you to return to your cabin. That is, unless you are hiding something.”
“Don’t be absurd!” Erin protested angrily. “How many times must I tell you? I’m simply a tourist, trying to do something a little off the beaten track, trying to really see a little of the countryside and the people!”
Despite her anger, she was shivering again. Frisked you up a bit. Jarod Steele couldn’t possibly imagine what a nightmare that would have been for her.
Thankfully, his astute gaze was no longer focused on her. He had moved toward the ledge above the shelf and was pouring a clear liquid from a bottle into the two glasses on the wood shelf over the ornate sink.
“How long are you staying, Miss McCabe?” he inquired with what could have been interpreted as a normal, polite querying tone.
“Two weeks,” she replied briefly, then added, “one in Moscow, then one in Leningrad. Then”—she couldn’t prevent a bitterness slipping in—“you’ll be pleased to hear I’ll be leaving the country.”
He turned back to her, his expression noncommittal, his blue gaze fathomless as he handed her one of the glasses of clear liquid. Then he ruined the effect of his gallantry by carefully stepping back. “I carry only one robe, Miss McCabe, and I’d just as soon not have it drenched.”
Erin closed her eyes for a moment of control and pursed her lips.
Jarod lifted his glass to her. “Drink up, Miss McCabe. Welcome to the U.S.S.R.—with a taste of the country’s finest.”
“What is it?” Erin inquired suspiciously.
He laughed, and it was as if she could feel the sound. It was low and smooth and throaty, very male, very seductive.
“Vodka, Miss McCabe. What else?”
Her nerves compelled her to take a sip, and then she was gasping. The liquid burned like a brushfire.
Jarod rescued her glass first, patted her back second. “I should have warned you, Miss McCabe. This is their equivalent of our moonshine—very powerful stuff.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” Erin finally managed to mutter.
He chuckled again, that warm sound that seemed to fill her senses. “You should sit down and relax—and sip slowly,” he advised. “It will still be some time before they finish checking the train.”
Unable to think of a sensible reason to refuse, Erin attempted to sit with the comfortable nonchalance that seemed to rule her companion’s every movement. But he isn’t casual, she thought, he isn’t casual at all. He’s as sharp as a whip. Those eyes of his burn while they freeze. They seem to see everything….
Erin curled into the far corner of the bunk, leaning against the wooden footboard and tucking her bare feet beneath her, as if by hiding them she could regain a certain dignity.
He smiled at her, but she had the feeling that his smile was absent, that it hid something else.
“What?” she demanded irritably. Had she gone from the frying pan into the fire? Or straight from one fire into another fire? She was absurdly nervous; it was as if she could still feel the incredible heat of his body from the bed, as if the innocent bunk held a sensuous threat by mere alliance to the man. A man, she reminded herself, who found her no more sexual than the “skin and bones” he considered her to be.
“Pardon?” he inquired with a frown.
“What is that stare for now?”
He shrugged, then apparently decided to give her an honest answer. “You’re right, Miss McCabe, I’ll be glad to see you out of the country. I would just as soon not think about you gallivanting around Soviet Asia.”
“Oh really?” Erin inquired with a smoldering irritation. “What on earth is it to you where I go?”
“Ignorant English-speaking parties are the basis of my concern.”
Erin stood. “Mr. Steele, I am not ignorant. I realize that you seem to think very little of my profession, but I beg to inform you, models are not necessarily ignorant, uneducated, or stupid! I’ve studied the Soviet Union very carefully, I planned my trip with even greater care. Thank you for the help you’ve given me. Please remember it was offered, not requested—and excuse me, I’ll try not to cause you any more concern!”
Her pride was wrapped about her like a cloak. Erin was regally straight, her chin tilted high. With distinct care she set down her barely tasted vodka and whirled for the door, her exit an almost perfect display of dignity.
Except that the door was still bolted—from the outside.
Erin closed her eyes and lowered her head, her fingers tense around the knob. She knew without turning that Jarod Steele was silently laughing, and if she could have viciously kicked herself, she would have done so.
She finally turned, leaning against the door, her silver gaze one that would quell most men, her sigh aggravated and yet resigned with a very blatant effort at self-control.
“How much longer will I be locked in here?”
Jarod made little attempt to hide the amusement that twitched the corners of lips capable of appearing full and sensual one min
ute, hard and grim and white thin the next.
“It depends,” he said.
“On what?”
“On how many other criminals they find trying to smuggle bananas into the country.”
“Not amusing, Mr. Steele.”
“But true, Miss McCabe.”
They were at an impasse, each staring at the other. Oddly enough, it was Jarod this time who broke the silence with irritation. “Would you please light somewhere, Miss McCabe? You remind me of a damned butterfly flitting about.”
Erin took a deep breath and lowered her eyes, then moved to regain her curled position on the bunk near the footboard. She did so simply because his tone had been much more of a demand than a request and she didn’t think she was up to a battle with this man over something so idiotic and she was very, very afraid that he might touch her again.
“Tell me,” she demanded in return, “what did you tell the guard to get him to let me go? He even forgot about the bananas.”
“I have diplomatic immunity, Miss McCabe. I’m allowed to bring certain things into the country which a tourist isn’t.”
“Yes, but I had the bananas.”
“I told him you were my fiancée.”
Although his expression remained carefully neutral, Jarod was stunned by the reaction his statement drew. She didn’t move, she didn’t even blink, but he had never seen another human being literally turn almost paper white. For some reason, that irritated him. No, he thought, I’m not just irritated, I’m bordering on being furious.
It was illogical, unreasonable, but he still found himself lashing out. “Don’t be alarmed, Miss McCabe. You’re not obligated in any way. It was simply the first thing that came to mind. You needn’t worry. I don’t plan ever to marry again, so if the story should happen to get anywhere, it won’t harm either of us.”
She was still silent; her paper-white coloring was becoming even more ashen than before.
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