Stranded with a Stranger

by Frances Housden

  She rolled her shoulders, but it didn’t shift the weight, and it was a burden she couldn’t transfer, not even onto Kurt’s broad shoulders. She had already asked too much of him. Twice in the space of two months a member of the Tedman family had put his life at risk. A third time was way to much to expect of a man who had begun this adventure with her as a stranger.

  A stranger who didn’t want to know she loved him.

  Chapter 15

  Namche Bazaar

  A week later Kurt rolled over in bed and pulled Chelsea closer, afraid to sleep in case he missed any part of their last night together. They were sharing a bed, but not a room. His room at the Peaks Hotel was one floor down.

  Chelsea murmured against his neck. He felt a pinch as her sharp white teeth grazed the cord of his neck. She’d already put her mark on him. Some in places that would show, but what the hell, he could wear a turtleneck. And some in places no one but Chelsea would ever see.

  They had hardly slept a wink, but already he could discern a faint gray strip where the edges of the curtains met. “Looks like I’ll have to go soon.”

  She let out a strangled moan, muffled by his shoulder. “No! I don’t want you to leave. The night’s not over yet.”

  Her arms tugged him closer still, so close their heartbeats became indistinguishable from one another. She hooked one leg behind his, rubbing the softly curving flesh between her thighs against him, making little erotic mewls that drove him crazy until he drove into the damp cave filled with her warmth. This time he was determined to make it last.

  Just one long, slow loving to keep the memory of Chelsea simmering in his heart when she returned to the States and he was living down in the antipodes, a whole wide continent and a deep ocean away.

  Holding her, he rolled until she was on top. His shoulders were propped up in the mass of pillows on her bed.

  She sat straight and proud like a princess. Her firm breasts were the most beautiful he’d ever seen, but he’d known that by instinct the first time they’d met.

  Never in a million years had he imagined his hands holding the curve of her hips while her internal muscles squeezed and let go, squeezed and let go. “Oooh, Teddy bear, I’ll give you anything you want as long as you don’t stop that,” he groaned.

  She bent over him, her breasts level with his mouth, tempting him. He’d only to stretch out his tongue.

  “You’re lying, Kurt. If you love this so much, how can you let me go?”

  He ignored the question and came up off the pillows instead, thrusting harder, deeper as she leaned back. His mouth followed one pink morsel, capturing it with a kiss. “You taste like heaven.”

  She took the thumb and forefinger of each hand and pinched the lobes of his ears. He didn’t mind a bit and didn’t stop filling his mouth with her, sucking the hard round tips against his tongue as he rocked his hips. He was in her to the hilt and it wasn’t enough. He wanted more, wanted a lifetime, but it was impossible. This had to be the last time.

  Kurt was panting as he ran his fingers down her spine till he found the spot that made her clench around him.

  She squeezed him with her internal muscles, tighter, and tighter again.

  Kurt felt the tension build with every thrust. Nothing could break his concentration, and he was intent on making Chelsea feel the same.

  He thrust harder, lifting himself off the bed to fill her completely and then some. Kurt looked up into her face silvered by a Himalayan dawn, laced with fantasy. His fantasies.

  He rolled over, fitting Chelsea under him, taking their lovemaking to the next level. Kurt plunged into her hot and fast they way she liked it. He felt her buck against him as he began to thrust. Her sighs and groans were music to his ears. He didn’t care what Chelsea said about life without him being hell. If he died this moment it wouldn’t worry him. He’d experienced heaven, and he was about to take Chelsea there with him again.

  Chelsea was in an obstinate mood; this was her last chance to get through to Kurt. “You say I taste like heaven, but you’re not addicted to the taste. You can’t be if you’re willing to go without it and me. And to me that sounds like hell.”

  Kurt held her close to his side. She was exhausted, but too frightened to close her eyes and miss one moment of the time they had left together.

  “Hell for both of us, Teddy.” His fingers trailed lazily down the curve of her hip as if he couldn’t stop touching her, but it didn’t prevent him from concluding, “I’ll be miserable without you, but I have to protect your reputation.”

  Despair swamped her and she was feminine enough to hope it didn’t show in her voice. “You could marry me. I said I love you—doesn’t that matter?”

  “I love you, too,” he groaned. “But marrying me could be the worst decision you ever made in your life.”

  “But they can’t say we colluded in Atlanta’s and Bill’s deaths now that we can prove Basie Serfontien was responsible. Once Paul passes on his evidence to the American authorities, we won’t have to worry about that.”

  “Nothing is certain,” he reminded her. “Certainty would mean your sister and Bill were still alive.”

  “Well, what about that report from Tedman foods. That proves the connection. Damn it, there’s a photo of cousin Arlon shaking hands with Basie.”

  Chelsea’s body had been sated with their lovemaking. It was the frustration of knowing she might never feel this way again that had her so uptight. “I knew the guy looked familiar. Who’d have thought he once worked for me? And if Paul Nichols had been doing his job properly he would have had Serfontien’s phone bugged. He is just so behind the times.”

  “There speaks my little spy.”

  “All I do is translate.”

  “And that’s why—” He broke off as she poked him with a finger and chuckled. “It’s the sort of stuff that if you told me you’d have to kill me?”

  She was leaving him no choice. Kurt would have to explain about Milo Jellic. Not until just before he left her bed, though. Kurt couldn’t bear to see Chelsea turn away from him when she discovered he was the son of a man who had sold dope out the back of a cop car.

  The sins of his father had been visited on him more than once in his adult life. He didn’t expect this time to be any different. And even if Chelsea pretended, he couldn’t let the paparazzi sharks turn her into their next victim. She would be fair game as soon as the news got out and they dug into his history.

  The anonymity Chelsea had enjoyed in Paris before the accident wouldn’t continue. Not now that she was so wealthy. Quite apart from Bill having no family, Chelsea would almost certainly inherit his fortune as well as her sister’s, because the gunshot wound in his chest proved he died before his wife.

  Chelsea had said she intended to leave her job when she got back. Going by the way she talked about Mac and her boss Jason Hart, Kurt knew they would be sorry to lose her, but it wasn’t a job she could simply walk away from without being debriefed.

  He wasn’t so crazy in love with Chelsea that he couldn’t see she had responsibilities to her organization as well as Tedman Foods.

  She never needed to work again. Soon she would move on to even more exclusive circles, more high-toned than the rigorous one of undercover agents she already traveled in.

  It was all too rich for his blood—almost as bad as Chelsea was for his equilibrium. He’d spent almost two months off balance just because she was near. Everything would get back to normal once they parted. All he had to keep remembering was that Chelsea would be much better off without him.

  “Can you have someone bring my bags down from my room? Ms. Tedman, number three one two. I’ll check out after breakfast.”

  When Chelsea had woken this morning, Kurt had been gone. Leaving the reception area, she polished her self-contained look as if she were a celebrity disguising her thoughts from the media Kurt was so worried about.

  As if paparazzi were likely to hang around here. These heights were too close to heaven for the trash
Kurt obsessed over.

  The moment she saw him, her attempt dissolved and she began to beam. Surely a grin couldn’t do much harm? “Would you like to share breakfast with me?”

  Her smile wasn’t returned, but he did say, “That sounds good. Let’s just have something light out on the terrace.”

  “Lead the way,” she replied. Had Kurt noticed how she had changed? Noticed the difference in her attitude from the last time they had sat on the terrace together? That she was no longer the wicked controlling madam she had been two months ago?

  Kurt chose a table at the far end of the terrace, away from the comings and goings of guests through the foyer. “Croissants okay by you?” he asked as their server approached.

  “Perfect.” She swallowed a touch of nervousness, unable to remember the last time she’d felt so edgy. Maybe the first few times she’d taken a jump on her horse. Yes, that was it. She remembered a water jump that had scared the bejeebers out of her. She had been a teenager then. No wonder the feeling of restless butterflies in her stomach was so unfamiliar.

  No, she was wrong. It was over a year ago when Mac had been out of touch for over a week and no one from IBIS knew if he was alive or dead. She remembered the glances cast her way by some of the others in the Paris office, as if there had been more between her and Mac than met the eye. Sure, she loved him, but as a dear friend, the only one she’d been able to talk to after she’d discovered Jacques’s betrayal.

  The terrace was quiet and their server efficient. In next to no time they had a pot of coffee, croissants and all the fixings on their table.

  Chelsea might have learned to give up control, but she was still human, and knew when to pick her moments. She waited until Kurt had taken a large bite of buttery croissant, then lobbed her question. “You were going to tell me why marrying you could be the worst decision I ever made. I’m ready to listen.”

  Kurt took a deep breath and almost choked on flakes of pastry and black cherry conserve. “I might have known you wouldn’t let me off the hook.”

  He washed his throat clear with a huge slug of coffee with cream, then refilled his cup as he waited for the caffeine surge, and took another drink of the almost black liquid. The color suited his mood. The last time he’d told a woman about Milo—a woman he’d thought he was in love with—she’d made an exit he could barely see for dust.

  “When I was thirteen my father committed suicide—drove his car off the top of a cliff, and you know the kind of damage that can do.”

  “Oh, God, Kurt! How awful for you.” Chelsea leaned across the table and took his hand in hers.

  One touch and his fingers jolted as if zapped with a live wire. Had she noticed? He hoped not. All he wanted was to get this over with, not tie himself in knots by remembering how smooth her magnolia-blossom skin felt under his palm.

  Like the magnolia planted next to the front gate of the house where he’d lived as a boy. It was only a hop, skip and jump from there to picturing the police car parked beside that tree, and from there to remembering how he’d raced up to it, glad that his father was home early.

  Even when he’d backed off a step or two at the sight of their grave faces, he’d never guessed the officers had come to inform them of his father’s death.

  Chelsea hadn’t noticed his withdrawal. “Thirteen is a bad age, filled with regrets. Only look what happened with Atlanta and me. Puberty has a lot to answer for.”

  “That wasn’t the half of it. Next thing the family knew, reporters were hassling our grandmother, chivvying her for answers about my father’s drug connections.” That’s when his hatred of the media had begun, when he’d discovered that the pen was truly mightier than the sword. He gulped down another swig of coffee, draining the cup. “Yeah, my father was a bent cop who’d been dealing in drugs.

  “Grandma Glamuzina had always seemed old to me, but to my thirteen-going-on-fourteen-year-old eyes, she aged another century overnight. I hated that, hated seeing what their persistence did to her. After my dad died she was all we had. There were four of us boys, and my little sister, Jo. Each one of us has suffered in different ways from what our father did. For his sins.”

  “Is this what you think will hurt me? What your father did can’t affect us now. It’s in the past.”

  “Is it? When my eldest brother got engaged and her father found out about our family history, he did his best to break them up, and succeeded. Drago was very bitter. He lost his career as a wine maker because of my father. It doesn’t go away. Every time another cop gets brought up by Internal Affairs, up it pops again from the newspaper archives. New Zealand may be small, but the media there have long memories. Do you want to be the subject of a tabloid rag?”

  “I could stand the heat if I had you in the kitchen with me.” She squeezed his fingers, and his grip tightened on hers. A reflex. You are a fool unto yourself, Jellic.

  He choked back what he wanted to say to Chelsea, his Teddy bear, the woman he loved. Clinging to her fingers when what he really wanted was the lovemaking they’d shared in the night.

  He wanted to hear her moan his name as she fell apart in his arms, but it would never happen again.

  “What kind of man would it make me if I was willing to subject you to that kind of abuse?” He shook his head. “No way. I won’t let that happen. Bad enough that going back home will open you and Tedman Foods up to public scrutiny without giving them more fuel to fire up their trashy tabloids.”

  He took his hand away from hers and wrapped it around what was left of his croissant. If he was eating he couldn’t answer any more questions. “Besides, I’ve my family to think of, as well. My sister is not long married. My twin is working the Pacific Rim putting away drug barons and the like, trying to make up for all the harm he knows our father did. I’m sorry, Chelsea. My father has done too much damage to our family without me adding to it.”

  The croissant was gone in two bites, but he was saved by the concierge’s arrival at their table. “Ms. Tedman, the porters have arrived to take your luggage to the helicopter.”

  Kurt pushed back his chair. “I’ll organize that for you.”

  Chelsea stared at him from those wonderful gray eyes that could twist his heart, like now. “I’m sorry for everything, Teddy. I should never have let you fall in love with me,” he murmured.

  “I didn’t need your help to fall for you. I think the mother goddess had a hand in it somewhere.”

  He stood. “You’re dead right. It was probably just the high-flown setting. Once you’re back in your own milieu your life will eventually get back to normal.”

  “Damn you, Kurt Jellic.” Color flew into Chelsea’s face and her eyes blazed. “Don’t you dare try to dismiss my feelings.” She looked around the terrace quickly as if mindful of the demand for secrecy he’d made. When she finished her remonstrance, her voice was low as if she was in pain. “Don’t dare ever dismiss my love for you, Kurt. I can’t, so why should you?”

  The pain he’d caused her stabbed into him with every step that distanced him from Chelsea. He’d never told her it would be easy. He’d said only that there was no way out. His way or the highway—they both added up to him turning his back on the woman he loved.

  The huge blades of the Alouette III helicopter circled—whaup, whaup, whaup—and Chelsea’s heart kept time. She rubbed the back of her knuckles against her breastbone to ease the pain behind it. The soothing action didn’t help. She wouldn’t be soothed.

  Kurt was shaking her hand in a casual gesture as they stood near the helicopter. The calluses she’d grown in the past couple of months matched his.

  She matched him, damn it! Why couldn’t he see that?

  “I’m glad your friend Mac has come all this way to take you home. He looks like a good guy. He’s the one you need now—he’ll protect you and keep you out of harm’s way until your cousin Arlon has been dealt with. I like him. You could do worse.”

  Was he deliberately trying to annoy her? She didn’t notice other men.
Her head, her heart, her eyes were filled with Kurt and she couldn’t see past him. “I could do better.”

  “We’ve already gone into that, and you know this will be best for you…best for me.” Now as he spoke his eyes went black, the pupils almost swallowing up the dark brown she loved. Like hers, his eyes were red and raw from the tumultuous night they had both spent.

  “You can’t lie worth a damn, Kurt Jellic. Not to me.”

  “Well, at least the money you spent on the helicopter wasn’t wasted. It will get you where you want to go quicker than shank’s mare. Not that all that walking doesn’t look good on you.”

  What had happened to his demand that they keep away from everything personal? She wanted to say, You look good on me, but swallowed the edges of her rough humor deep down inside. That way she only hurt herself.

  She hadn’t told him that she wasn’t being asked to pay for the helicopter. Or that it was one belonging to IBIS, tarted up in one of its many guises that no one could connect back to the bureau. She had already told him more about that side of her life than was allowed.

  A sigh she had no control over shuddered through her. This had to be the hardest task he had ever set her. Climbing a mountain was nothing compared to leaving him, walking away from the man she loved without a hint of the emotions roiling inside her showing on her face.

  She sucked air in hard through her nose and felt her nostrils flare. Did that give her away? Was that a loss of control? She looked at his stony features. Could he see what this cost her? Did he care?

  When she found her voice it sounded as brittle as her control and likely to shatter as easily. “I’ll transfer funds to Aoraki Expeditions as soon as I get home.”

  His eyes flashed, showing the first spark of real emotion since they had reached the helipad. “Look, I’ve been thinking about that. Have this one on me.”

  “No, damn it, no! Without you none of this would have been possible.” She touched the chain at her neck. “Do you realize what this means—the jobs, the lives, towns even, you’ve helped save? This cost must be mine. Not yours. Go back to New Zealand, set up your lodge, try to be happy without me.”