by Amelia Autin
The riverboat was docked at the foot of the Yellow Ox Temple, so they stopped to peer inside and for Savannah to take pictures. “I’m sorry about the Three Gorges Dam,” he told her again as he leaned against a stone pillar in the shape of a lion at her command.
“You really think I care about that?” she asked incredulously. She hugged him quickly, then let go and stepped back to take the picture. “You could have been killed.”
If not killed, seriously wounded at least, which would leave you unprotected, he told her in his mind. The danger to himself he didn’t care about. It was par for the course. The danger to Savannah? Unacceptable, he thought, his mouth grim.
“Smile, please.”
He complied because it was the least he could do after depriving her of visiting the Three Gorges Dam that morning. And besides, he’d move heaven and earth to give her anything her heart desired.
He, Alec and Shane had always teased Liam unmercifully about being a knight in shining armor when they were younger. Not that he and his other brothers weren’t honorable. They were. But they’d never considered themselves particularly chivalrous, unlike their baby brother.
You owe Liam an apology, he told himself now, gazing at the woman who’d become his world in just over a week. Because for the first time in his life he understood the true nature of chivalry. And where Savannah was concerned, it looked a lot like...him.
Chapter 19
They holed up in Savannah’s stateroom after lunch to read the background reports on the people from their tour group. Niall put the files on a thumb drive to transfer to Savannah’s computer so they could both read them at the same time.
They took their laptops out onto the balcony. The afternoon sun shone warmly and it was just too nice a day to stay indoors. One or the other of them would look up from time to time, drink in the beauty of Xiling Gorge, then dive right back into their work.
Finally Savannah straightened with a regretful sigh and closed her laptop.
“Nothing?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Same here.”
“I keep getting the feeling I’m overlooking something.” Then she confided her thoughts immediately upon waking this morning while he’d still been asleep. “It’s frustrating, because I know it’s there. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“I know the feeling.” He logged off his laptop and shut it down, then stood and held out a hand. “Want me to take that in for you?”
“Sure. Hang on a sec.” She turned her computer off, closed it and handed it to him. “Now what do we do?” she called after him.
“I know what I want to do.” He reappeared in the doorway, raising and lowering his eyebrows suggestively, just in case she didn’t get the message.
“What, again?” she teased.
“Gotta work off some of that backlog.” And he winked.
She pealed with laughter, loving this playfulness between them. “Oh well, if you insist.” She stood, feigning reluctance, then squealed when Niall pounced and hefted her over his shoulder caveman style. “What are you—You can’t—Put me down!”
“Your wish is my command, fair maiden,” he said, dropping her on the bed and coming right down on top of her, pinning her beneath him. She squirmed, but instead of dislodging him, only succeeded in fueling her own arousal...and his.
But as he stared down at her for long moments, the playfulness drained away. And in its place was the desolate expression from this morning. The one that meant he was already saying goodbye to her.
It hurt so much she could scarcely get the words out. “Why do you look at me that way?”
“No one will ever love you the way I do, Savannah. No one.”
“I know.” And she did. She just didn’t understand why his loving her wasn’t a good thing.
“Just remember that when—” He clenched his jaw, and she knew it was to hold back the words that would explain.
Her throat ached, and she cradled his face between her hands. “Will you ever tell me why?”
“If I had a choice, I would never tell you,” he admitted in a voice so low she could barely hear him, his internal struggle reflected in his expression. “If I had a choice, I would keep you and marry you and give you all the babies your heart desires.”
“Niall...”
He overrode her. “But I don’t have a choice.” His voice was hard. Implacable. “So yes, when this trip is over...when you’re safely home... I’ll tell you.”
A sudden spurt of anger made her say evenly, “Do I get a choice in all of this?”
“What do you mean?”
“If my choice is between having you in my life and knowing your terrible secret, I choose you. I don’t want to know. Ever. I mean it, Niall.”
He bowed his head, and for a moment she thought she’d won. Then he raised his head and looked her full in the face, the regret in his eyes telling her she hadn’t. “You’re an angel for making me that offer, Savannah. But if I accepted, the secret would always be there between us. Even if you could live with not knowing, I couldn’t live with not telling you. My conscience would tear me apart. And that would tear us apart. I know it.”
So much pain. She couldn’t bear seeing him in so much pain. “Why can’t you tell me now? Oh. Right,” she corrected herself before he could say it. “You have reasons. Valid-in-your-mind reasons why you can’t tell me why you can’t tell me now.”
Her convoluted sentence made him smile reluctantly. “Yeah. I can’t tell you why I can’t tell you.”
Okay then, she thought. But she still wasn’t giving up. Niall was just like one of her algorithms. Complex. Layered. An equation within an equation. Sometimes they were straightforward, but not usually. Lots of times you had to take a step back and look at things from a different perspective. Approach the solution from a different angle.
She drew a calming breath, then did just that. “We have no future, that’s what you said.”
“Right.”
“You also said you love me.”
He didn’t answer at first. Then, “I do.”
“But you also said, and I quote, ‘...this tour is all we have.’ Did you mean it?”
This time the wait for his response was longer, and she held her breath until his deep voice replied, “From the bottom of my heart.”
“Then would you please make love to me?” She forced a teasing note into her voice. “There’s all that backlog, remember?”
Niall made love to her as if it were the last time, though Savannah hoped and prayed it was not. He touched her everywhere with a gentleness that made her heart weep, but she kept her tears to herself and reveled in what this said about him. When he finally rolled on a condom and slipped inside, she was so ready for him she came almost immediately—not the earth-shattering explosion she’d come to expect, but rather like the undulations of waves that went on endlessly.
“Oh, Niall...”
She used every tool in her arsenal to show him how much she loved him. From sighs and moans to whispered words of love and longing. Telling him how he made her feel so cherished. Adored. How he felt deep inside her. Laying her heart bare.
* * *
He held on as long as he could, but then she touched him where they were joined and he lost control, driving into her with a desperation born of need. And when she arched and cried his name, clinging to him as release washed over her again, he let himself sink into her one last time as if he could claim her as his by holding tight and never letting go. Then he rolled them over and kissed away the tears that followed.
“No tears,” he soothed. “Remember?”
“Can’t help it. Oh, Niall, it was so beautiful I never wanted it to end.”
Balm for his wounded soul. He’d wanted to make it perfect for her. And he had. But she’d made it perfect for him
at the same time. Had any woman ever opened her heart to him this way? He couldn’t remember.
“It was...” He cleared his throat. “Pretty special for me, too.”
* * *
“What are you going to do?” the woman asked the man. “There’s only the rest of today and a full day tomorrow. Then we dock at Wuhan the following morning. After that we fly to Shanghai.”
“I know the schedule,” he snapped. “You don’t have to remind me.”
“You don’t have to bite my nose off. I was just wondering—”
“We’re down to one local since the other one got his arm broken,” he said, ruthlessly cutting her off. “Which means it won’t be so easy to smuggle her out of the country. We might have to wait until we return stateside.”
“But didn’t Spencer say it had to be done in China? To throw suspicion on the government here?”
“I know what Spencer said. But he also told us she would be traveling alone, nothing about this Johnson character.” He brooded for a moment. “I don’t know who he is or what he does for a living, but he’s good. Too damn good. Makes me wonder.”
“About what?”
“He spotted that trip wire. And he broke Ming Li’s arm in the knife attack, without receiving so much as a scratch,” he said, putting the man’s surname last as most English-speaking people did. “That tells me something.”
“Tells you what?”
He ignored the question. “And he never lets her go anywhere alone. Almost as if he suspects something. Makes me think maybe he’s a cop or a Fed.”
“They’re sleeping together,” she protested. “Would he do that if he was a cop or a Fed?”
“They’re sharing a stateroom. Doesn’t mean they’re sleeping together any more than we are. Double beds in that room, too.” He pondered their options. “If Chao Li can find someone to replace his brother,” he said eventually, “we still might be able to...” He thought some more, then reached a decision. “There’s one more shore excursion before we reach Wuhan, the trip to the school in Jingzhou tomorrow. It’s nothing special, so she might not be planning to go. You’ll have to make sure she does.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You’re a woman, aren’t you? Don’t most women go gaga over anything to do with brats? There’s supposed to be some kind of show at that elementary school, with the kids singing and dancing. Play up that angle. Do whatever you have to do, but make sure she’s on that bus!”
* * *
“There’s an employee talent show in the lounge this evening,” Savannah reminded Niall as they dressed for dinner. “Want to be my date?”
“Very funny,” he replied. “You go, I go. You go nowhere without me, even with a bunch of witnesses around you. It’s as simple as that.”
“I’m not talking about that. I asked if you wanted to be my date for the evening.”
He froze. “We’re way past dating,” he said finally.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Could you just answer yes or no?”
“What’s different about being your date as opposed to the man keeping you safe?”
She tilted her head to observe him. “For one thing, if you were my date I could think of you as arm candy.”
“Arm—don’t you have that backward? Men have arm candy, not women.”
“Ahhh, I knew you were a sexist pig.”
“Sexist—” She let her eyes twinkle at him, and he laughed abruptly. “Okay, I’ll admit I’m not as...enlightened...as I could be. Blame the way I was raised. But I’m not sexist. At least I don’t think I am. I have learned a thing or two from the women in my life.”
Her smile faltered. “The women in your life?”
He tucked his Henley into his jeans and zipped up. “My sister. My three sisters-in-law. And my mom, too, in some ways.” Then he seemed to get what she’d thought he meant, and he said gently, “You’re the only woman in my life the way you mean, Savannah.” He walked toward her, his expression morphing from serious to teasing. “So if you want me to be your arm candy, just say the word.”
* * *
Savannah and Niall arrived in the lounge early enough to get prime front row seats for the talent show. She waved at Anders and Martha Mortenson, sitting in the more comfortable lounge chairs on the side. “Should we move, you think?” she asked Niall doubtfully, resettling herself on the straight-backed chair she’d chosen and realizing why the Mortensons had picked the spot they had.
He shook his head. “It’s a trade-off. Better view here, more comfortable there.”
“Okay, as long as you’re good with it.”
She was kicking herself two minutes later, however, when Mary Beth plumped herself down in the chair next to her. “Well, hi there,” the other woman said brightly. “I thought I recognized the back of your head sitting all the way up here.”
Savannah pinned a smile on her face. “Oh, hi, Mary Beth. Where’s Herb?”
“He’s getting us a drink at the bar.” She set her purse down on the seat next to her to save it for her husband.
Niall started to rise, saying, “I should have asked you. Did you want something?”
But Savannah tugged on his sleeve, mouthing, “You traitor! Don’t you dare desert me with Mary Beth!”
He chuckled, but he sat back down.
Mary Beth babbled on and on. Even when her husband joined her with their drinks, she barely paused to take a sip before she was off and running again on every topic under the sun. The Three Gorges Dam today. The talent show on her last cruise. The shore excursion to the elementary school tomorrow. “Some people at dinner said they’re not going, but I wouldn’t miss it. I hear in addition to the show the children will put on for us, you actually get to visit some of the classrooms and sit with the children and ask questions. Are you and Niall going?”
“I think so.” She hadn’t discussed it with Niall, but if she wanted to go he would go, too. He wouldn’t even argue about it. He would just...go. That thought filled her with warmth, and she clasped his hand, smiling wordlessly when he looked her way.
The room was filling up quickly, but Savannah noticed no one had taken seats on the other side of the Thompsons. Gee, I wonder why, she thought facetiously. If she’d seen Mary Beth in this row, she would have avoided it, too.
Then suddenly a couple took those seats, and she recognized Tammy and Martin. Her gaze met Tammy’s, and she read sympathy in the other woman’s eyes that she was sitting next to Mary Beth.
When the houselights went down and the spotlights came on, Savannah discovered the one thing that would shut Mary Beth up—a glittering extravaganza. She leaned over to whisper in Niall’s ear, “Oh thank God,” and was rewarded with his strangled laughter.
Two hours had never passed so swiftly, especially since she was spared Mary Beth’s running commentary, which would have spoiled the talent show for her. At the end when all the performers returned to take a bow to a standing ovation, the audience was invited to come forward for pictures with the performers. Savannah would have gone—she’d taken numerous photos during the show and would have liked a few close-ups—but Mary Beth surged forward, camera in hand, and Niall whispered, “Time to get while the getting’s good.”
She choked on a sudden laugh but dutifully edged through the crowd with Niall’s arm around her shoulders. They found themselves outside the lounge finally, Tammy and Martin right behind them, and the cessation of noise was noticeable. “Cup of hot chocolate?” Niall asked, indicating the coffee bar just a few feet away.
Savannah shook her head. “I wouldn’t mind a cup of hot tea, though. How about you? Coffee? Tea?”
“I’m good.”
“Tammy? Martin?”
Tammy said, “I could go for a cup of herbal tea. They have the best tea here, don’t you think?”
The two women chatted as they prepared their beverages, while the two men stood a little apart not saying much, waiting for the women.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Tammy asked casually.
“There’s that shore excursion to the elementary school,” Savannah replied. “Mary Beth says it’s actually better than what’s in the itinerary. Are you and Martin going?”
“Oh yes. My sister’s a teacher, didn’t I tell you? She was particularly interested when I mentioned it to her. So I’ll go and take some pictures for her. How about you?”
Savannah grimaced. “Only if I can be on a different bus than Mary Beth.” When Tammy laughed softly in understanding, she added, “Oh, I know that sounds terrible, but she almost never stops talking! I get a headache just thinking about it.”
“Me, too,” Tammy commiserated. “We wouldn’t have taken those seats tonight, but there really weren’t any others except way in the back, so...” She chuckled. “If you really want to visit the school, don’t let Mary Beth stop you. Tell you what. Go down early and we will, too. We can take seats right across from each other. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like a plan.” She fit a lid into place over her tea. “Well, if we’re going down early, we’d better call it a night. See you in the morning.” She caught Niall’s eye and the two of them headed down the hall toward her stateroom, Tammy and Martin a few paces behind.
It wasn’t until they were in her stateroom with the door bolted behind them that Niall said, “That’s interesting.”
Savannah put her tea down on the nightstand and turned to look at him. “What’s interesting?”
“The Williamses have a stateroom on this deck, too.”
Chapter 20
The suddenly stricken expression that came over Savannah’s face made Niall sorry he’d mentioned it in one way, but in another... She’s really too trusting, he thought. The Thompsons. The Mortensons. The Williamses. And me.