Edge Of Danger

by Cherry Adair

  Rose had died when Eden was fifteen. She still missed her.

  Gabriel walked toward her through the stripes of sunlight and shadow. He stopped about six feet from her, making Eden wonder what kind of problem he had that he couldn’t get near a woman.

  Not that she cared. And really, she didn’t want him anywhere near her anyway.

  Liar.

  “Where’d she get it?”

  “What? The ring? She bought it, or so she told me, from a gypsy at a carnival in Italy on her honeymoon.”

  He gave her a strangely intent look. “Do you still have it?”

  Eden held up her foot.

  He glanced down, then back up. “That’s your lucky ring? Doesn’t look anything like the ones in the portraits,” he said dismissively, and walked off.

  “I didn’t say it wasidentical. ” God, the man was testy. Grandma Rose had told her the ring was silver, but really it just looked like a blackened twist of metal with two hearts on it to Eden. Not that she cared. She never took it off. Whether it was lucky or not wasn’t the point. The point was her grandmother whom she’d adored had given it to her, and she believed it was lucky.

  Her host meanwhile had put more distance between them. She shook her head at his rudeness, and since she was standing there, and he was already twenty paces ahead, slipped off her shoes before following him. Much as she loved these sandals, they were meant for looking pretty as she sat at her computer, not for cross-country hiking. If push came to shove she could use them as lethal weapons.

  The thought brought her up short. She had never—never—in her entire lifeever thought of striking someone. Oh, she’d wanted to put fire ants in Adam’s shorts every time he told her she was packing on the pounds. She’d fantasized about supergluing his eyelids, lips, and fingers together when she first discovered he’d stolen credit for the mainframe reconfiguration she’d spent her last year at MIT perfecting. But the thought of physical combat had never occurred to her.

  Right now, though, she was having some pretty violent thoughts about Gabriel Edge. The sooner the authorities figured out where she was, the safer he’d be.

  The plush carpet cushioned her bare feet, but the corridor went on forever. More dark paneling, more gilt-framed paintings, more interesting-looking objects on tables and in glass-fronted cabinets. More stripes of sunlight and shadow.

  And every woman in the portraits now had only three little boys with her. Eden backtracked a few portraits. How weird was that? From a certain point on, every woman with children had three almost identical sons. No wonder this guy believed in the family curse, looking at these family portraits every day. She turned around to see Gabriel turning a corner. She had to run to catch up with him. “Where’s this lab? Tibet?”

  “Opposite wing.”

  “Tibet it is.” Eden wondered darkly how hard it would be to get blood and brain matter out of fine-grained leather.

  He walked faster. It was that or touch her, and touching her would be a bad move. An incrediblystupid, bad move. Unfortunately for him, the longer he resisted touching her, the more powerful the need became. Gabriel wasn’t a tactile man. Neither was he prone to obsessing, brooding, or fixating.

  He was doing all that and more. And God! He wanted totouch her. Hell, yeah, he wanted to have sex with Eden Cahill. Hard and fast. Long and slow. Standing. Lying down—hell—sitting. Any way, any how, any time.

  He enjoyed sex. Damn it, heloved sex. But if the opportunity didn’t present itself he was fine going it alone. His sexual appetite had never concerned him overly much. There were frequently ops that required months of undercover work, when sticking his dick anywhere but behind a closed zipper could prove fatal.

  He was not going to have sex with the lovely Dr. Cahill. That was a given. As all-consuming as that imagery was, he was disciplined enough, strong enough, hell,motivated enough not to give in to the hunger. So all he could think about, all hefixated on, wastouching her.

  What harm could just one touch bring? He found himself desperate for a crumb, since he couldn’t have the whole meal.

  Christ. Now he was making up excuses. One touch of Eden would never be enough.

  That’s it, dickhead. Heart rate normal. Respirationnormal. Keep it that way.Gabriel closed his eyes.Fat fucking chance.

  Feeling grim, he turned down a side corridor, Eden close on his heels. While they walked, he conjured the lab she’d need to do her job in a distant suite of rooms. He’d made note of everything in her Tempe lab and duplicated it, right down to her ergonomic chair and oversized teacup with “IQ Matters” on it.

  As she followed him, making her wry observations every now and then, Gabriel could smell the warm, heady fragrance of her skin, kissed with tuberose. She’d fallen silent about midway, and God, he was grateful. Every step he’d taken had ratcheted up the temptation to let her to catch up with him.

  He wanted to turn, back her against a wall, a table, anything, and sink his fingers into those glossy dark curls. He wanted to feel the texture, he needed to stroke the softness of her skin, he craved inhaling her fragrance. Up close and personal.

  He wanted to kiss her. Desperately.

  He was a starving man presented with a banquet and then told to step away from the table.

  The Fates must be laughing their collective asses off. They’d presented him with his perfect temptation.Every thing about Eden Cahill enticed him. From the lush look of her, to her wit, to her stubbornness.

  Goddamn it!

  Step away from the table.

  “This is it.” He shoved open the door and preceded her, by a good ten feet, into the state-of-the-art computer lab. He glanced around. He did nice work.

  The lab was a means to an end. He watched her openly as she walked in behind him, then did a slow circuit, seemingly oblivious to his presence in the room.

  “Impressive.”

  Gabriel heard the excitement in her voice, but he was distracted by her bare feet. He dragged his attention back to her face. She’d shown less interest as they’d passed priceless Fabergé eggs and Rembrandts.

  Her eyes, those glorious big brown eyes, glowed with temptation as she walked around the room, touching objects as she went. “Who usually works here?”

  “As of now, you do.”

  If he could get her to lose control—twelve seconds was all the time he needed—he could extract the information she held in her subconscious. With that information he could conjure her robot with little difficulty. If he could do that, Gabriel thought grimly, watching the sunlight tangle in her hair, then damn it, he wouldn’t need her here.

  Why didshe have to be his Lifemate, the only person whose mind he couldn’t read? Hell, she wouldn’t feel him trespassing. She’d never even know he’d been there.

  Extracting the data wouldn’t hurt her.

  But if she stayed, it just might kill her.

  There was a phone in the library. If either Gabriel or MacButler caught her skulking, Eden decided, she’d say she couldn’t sleep, and had gone down for a book.

  “What am I thinking?!” She stopped pacing a path in the bedroom carpet. “No, I won’t! I’m aprisoner, for God’s sake! I don’t have to make excuses for a freaking prison break.”

  The “couldn’t sleep” part would’ve been true even if she wasn’t determined to put as many miles between herself and her kidnapper as humanly possible.

  Guilt weighed heavily on her mind. As did the attraction she felt for the man who’d kidnapped her. And how sick was that? Opting to put the Stockholm syndrome thing out of her mind, she concentrated on what wasimportant. Getting to the authorities with all haste.

  After MacBain had escorted her back upstairs several hours ago, Eden had explored the room they’d given her. Just for something to do while she tried to formulate a viable escape plan. A basket on the bathroom sink held all of her usual brands of toiletries. She glanced at the row of familiar perfume bottles with a frown. “A full-service kidnapping, how lucky can I get?”


  She was also suitably freaked out to find the armoire she thought held a TV was actually filled with clothing in her size. Her taste, too. Until she realized they were not just her size and taste, but damn him to hell and back—they were her own clothes. Pilfered right out of her closet at home.

  How, and when he’d had time, was a mystery. He was pretty damn sure of himself if he imagined she’d be here long enough to need this many clothes, she thought with annoyance as she ran her hand over the row of colored T-shirts and jeans. She actually got excited when she realized if he’d brought her clothes, he must have also brought shoes.

  She had a dozen or more pairs of tennis shoes tossed into the back of her closet. Tennies she’d bought every time she’d gotten motivated about a new exercise class. Most of them had hardly been worn.

  But no. The son of a bitch hadonly brought her Jimmys and her Manolos.Thirteen pairs of high heels. There wasn’t a pair of flats in the bunch.

  “Officer: ‘How did he keep you prisoner, ma’am?’ Kidnap victim: ‘Oh, officer. He forced me to wear my high heels and oh! I just couldn’trun in them.’ ”

  Eden paced as she pictured the conversation. “Nice try, Mr. Edge, but no cigar,” she told her absent host. “Shoes or no shoes, I’m out of here.”

  After what felt like years, she decided she’d waited long enough for the household to be asleep. Feeling like a cat burglar, she changed into black jeans and pulled on a practical, long-sleeved black hoodie over several of her pocket T’s.

  A drawer held her panties and bras—the bastard—but there wasn’t a sock to be found.

  Barefoot it was.

  Even though it was midsummer, the air was decidedly chilly here in the mountains when she opened the window to check. She wasn’t in any danger of hypothermia. She wasn’t in the Antarctic, she reminded herself when she shivered. Cold and uncomfortable, definitely. But a brisk walk would take care of that pretty fast.

  She didn’t relish a long trek on an unfamiliar highway in the dark,barefoot, but she was going to do it anyway.

  Of course there was always the possibility of stealing some sort of vehicle. She’d have to see what she could find, within a time limit, of course. The longer she skulked, the better the odds that someone would catch her.

  She gave herself a mental pep talk. Get away from this castle. That was probably, relatively speaking, the easy part. Once she was back in civilization she’d call Jason. It didn’t matter where she was—Jasonwould send someone to get her. She might not find their personal relationship filled with bells and whistles, but she knew she was too valuable to him as a scientist for him not to race to her rescue.

  He’d have contact information for the right people for her to talk to at Homeland Security. Eden was sure he’d want to go with her when she confessed. If not to back her up, then to make sure she didn’t implicate him in any wrongdoing. Either way, she’d tell the authorities what to watch for, and fill them in onall of Rex’s capabilities.

  Then maybe she’d take Jason up on the offer of a monthlong cruise. If she wasn’t in jail for withholding evidence.

  She glanced at her watch. Almost eleven. Opening the bedroom door in small increments, she prayed it didn’t creak. It didn’t. She closed it just as quietly and carefully behind her. She almost expected the flicker of oil lamps or candles, but the lights were electric. All the modern conveniences of home, she thought as she paused to listen. Not a peep.

  Dimly lit wrought-iron sconces lined the upstairs hallway, illuminating the way. Good. She wasn’t fond of the dark, which was why she’d opted to find the phone before forging outside into the great unknown. There was a sliver, a verysmall sliver of moon. She’d prefer the headlights of a cab to take her where she was going.

  All she had to do was go right, walk down the hall, take a left down the stairs and she’d be in the entryway. Straight ahead was the front door and freedom, left was the library and a call to the cavalry.

  The place was dead quiet. Not a rafter to creak, not a floorboard to squeak. Every time she stood still, the silence of the enormous spaces throbbed against her eardrums. While the upstairs corridors and rooms were carpeted in plush wool, the floors downstairs were comprised of large worn stone slabs that were icy under her bare feet.

  Totally Gothic, and she wondered what secrets this castle harbored, what ghosts haunted the halls. She shivered as she remembered Gabriel and his talk of a curse.

  More sconces along the wall provided muted light as she ran lightly down the sweeping staircase, and across the ridiculously large entry hall.

  By the time she darted into the book-lined library she was out of breath and her heart was pounding as if the Hounds of Hell were after her, fangs bared.

  Closing the door quietly behind her, she leaned against it and waited for her heartbeat to settle down and her breathing to even out. She really needed to make use of one of her gym memberships when this was all over.

  The room was dead quiet and softly lit. And, thank God, empty. She half anticipated running into Gabriel—somewhere. Not seeing him was a huge relief.

  The room smelled faintly of musty paper, leather, old fires in the blackened fireplace, and the fresh flowers placed on the mantel and on several tables about the room.

  Two-story-tall, built-in, ornately hand-carved mahogany bookcases lined three walls; the fourth was taken up by the huge stone fireplace. There must have been several thousand leather-bound books with faded gold titles housed on the shelves, she thought, and wondered if her kidnapper had readany of them. Probably not. He didn’t strike her as particularly cerebral. He was more the Me: Tarzan, you: Jane, kind of guy.

  He certainly hadn’t attempted any conversation, scintillating or otherwise, at dinner earlier.

  Waited on by MacBain, she and Gabriel had eaten dinner in here several hours ago. Of all the rooms in the incongruously and inexplicably placed castle, Eden liked this one the most. The dark brown leather chairs and sofas looked old and comfortable. All the furniture in here was probably antique, but it didn’t have that highly polished “do not touch” look to it. It all had the patina of use, as though people had placed their feet on the coffee tables, and taken long naps on the deep cushions of the two sofas flanking the fireplace.

  Yeah, well, no naps for her for a while, she thought, crossing the room to the desk placed beneath a window.

  She’d seen the phone on the desk, and then forced herself not to look at it again for the duration of the meal. Not a simple task, since once she’d seen it, that was all Eden could think about.

  The conversation, what there was of it, had been strained. They were two strangers. One a kidnapper and one a kidnappee. She didn’t see that they had anythingto discuss. She’d eaten what was placed in front of her, refused wine, and sipped on a glass of water. And as soon as the meal was over had requested that she be allowed to go to her room.

  MacBain had escorted her up hours ago.

  Nice to knowhe wouldn’t be chasing her down. It had taken them twice the time to mount the stairs it would have taken her alone, because: He. Walked. Very. Slow. Ly.

  The marble game table, which had served as their dining table, had been cleared. The room smelled faintly of oranges, which were heaped in a large copper bowl on a sofa table. She’d noticed a similar bowl of lemons in the dining room this morning. A lifetime ago. Either he had a thing for citrus, or they were a decorator element she didn’t understand.

  Shooting a nervous glance at the closed door, heart lodged in her throat, Eden snatched up the phone and punched out 911. If ever there was an emergency, this was it.

  An extension somewhere in the castle was picked up midway through the first ring. “How may I be of assistance, Doctor?”

  MacBain.Shit.

  At exactly the same time the operator came on the line. “Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emerg—”

  “Good evening to ye, Dorie. This is Alfred MacBain at the Edge ranch. I’m afraid a guest misdialed.”

 
; “No problem, sugar.”

  The emergency operator clicked off the line.Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “I need a cab,” Eden told the unseen MacBain.

  “It is ten fifty-sevenP.M ., madam.”

  “Thank you,” she said dryly. “I have the time. What I want is a taxi.”

  “If one is required, I shall be happy to procure it for you in the morning. Would you like my assistance in returning to your chamber?”

  He wouldn’t procure anything for her that Gabriel didn’t sanction first. “No thanks. I can navigate on my own. I’ll just find something to read before I go up.”