Dangerous to Hold

by Merline Lovelace

  She picked up the papers torn from Alex’s sketch pad, which were now filled with the figures they’d hurriedly put together in the small hours of the night.

  “All right, here’s the bottom line. We estimate that the total cost to dismantle all nuclear weapons in Balminsk and Karistan at approximately three billion dollars.”

  “What?”

  “That includes a system to verify the warheads’ destruction, and compensation for the enriched uranium that will be extracted.”

  “Now see here, Dr. St. Clare…”

  “It also includes approximately ten million dollars,” Maggie interjected ruthlessly, “to establish a science and technology center here. The center will bring in outside expertise—researchers, technicians, and their support staffs.”

  “Perhaps a hundred men or more,” Katerina murmured, her eyes gleaming. “My aunts will be most pleased.”

  A wave of red crept up the State Department rep’s bull-like neck. “This is absurd.”

  Richard cleared his throat. “Uh, no, actually, it’s not. This is exactly half what the United States offered the Ukraine less than a year ago as inducement to sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The Ukraine had fewer missiles, as I’m sure you’re aware, giving the Karistanis the advantage of 6.4 times the throw weight.”

  The woman across from Maggie jerked her head up. “Dr. Worthington! We don’t negotiate treaties dollar for dollar based on throw weight. It’s highly irregular!”

  “There is more,” Katerina added. “The major, he has the thoughts about con…con…”

  “Conventional arms,” Nikolas supplied, coming forward out of the shadows at the back of the tent to stand behind Katerina’s chair.

  She sent him a slow, provocative smile over one shoulder. “Da! Nikolas will talk with you about such conventional arms, so we may protect our borders when the missiles are gone.”

  “Now wait just a minute…”

  The blustering official faltered as Nikolas Cherkoff placed his hands on Katerina’s shoulders and leaned into the light. His scar livid against his cheek, he bared his teeth in a smile.

  “No. No more waiting. We have waited long enough for peace in this land. We will proceed.”

  Several hours later, Maggie stepped out of the black tent and wiped an arm across her forehead. “Whew! That was almost as nerve-racking as being trapped in a hole with Richard.”

  “I can imagine,” Alex replied, her eyes on the two stiff-backed bureaucrats who were stalking toward the aircraft that squatted like a camouflaged quail on a flat stretch of plain just outside camp.

  A ripple of sound inside the tent caught Maggie’s attention. The young scientist gave an indignant sputter, Katerina a teasing laugh. For a crazy moment last night, when she first saw Richard approached by a young woman with a cloud of dark, curling hair, a sultry smile and a chest that drew his eyes like a magnet, Maggie thought—hoped!—that Katerina might go to work on Richard’s endocrine system. But either the physicist’s hormonal serums went out of whack only with older women, or Katerina wasn’t interested in awkward young scientists. After a brief greeting to Richard, she’d never taken her eyes, or her hands, off Nikolas Cherkoff, and the young scientist had stuck to Maggie like gum on the bottom of a shoe.

  Maggie sighed, deciding she’d just have to take Richard in hand when they got back to the States and introduce him to more older women.

  Why did her life seem to grow more complicated after each mission? If she wasn’t collecting German shepherd-size blue-and-orange-striped iguanas, she was taking charge of organizing a brilliant physicist’s love life.

  Hearing Cherkoff’s quiet voice, Maggie turned to Alex. “Do you think your cousin and the major will keep the peace between Balminsk and Karistan?”

  “They will, if Katerina has anything to say about it, and my cousin is a most…persuasive woman.” She paused, and gave Maggie a tired smile. “I don’t know how to thank you for your help last night. And this morning. I thought I drove a pretty hard bargain with my suppliers when I negotiated for materials, but you made me realize I’m still in the minor leagues.” Her smile became a little forced. “Nate told me you were good. One of the best, he said, although he failed to specify at what.”

  Maggie caught the faint, almost imperceptible hint of acid in her voice, and decided to ignore it. Until Nate and Alex worked out whatever had driven him away this morning, she wasn’t going to get in the middle.

  “No thanks are necessary,” she said with a grin. “Unless…”

  “Yes?”

  “Unless you might have a dress or two in your tent that would fit me. One of your own designs, maybe, that I could purchase at a reasonable price.”

  Alex gave her a quick once-over. They were about the same height, although Maggie carried a few more inches on her curving frame than Alex did.

  “I think I might just have something.”

  “You wonderful person!”

  “In cashmere.”

  Maggie groaned with pleasure.

  Alex’s eyes sparkled in response. “Dyed a shade of burnt orange that will pick up the glossy highlights in your hair and always remind you of the steppes at sunset.”

  Maggie tugged off her glasses and tucked them into the pocket of her plaid shirt, staring at this Alex. No wonder Cowboy had disappeared to lick his wounds this morning. If he was hit as hard as Maggie suspected he was, it was going to tear him in two to leave this vibrant, glowing woman behind.

  “Thanks, Alexandra. I’ll admit I wasn’t looking forward to flying back to the States and facing my boss for a mission debrief wearing this outfit. It’s going to be tough enough without feeling like I just crawled out of…of a silo.”

  At the mention of flying, the smile faded from Alex’s eyes. She lifted a hand and toyed absently with one of the small tassels decorating the yoke of her swirling fitted greatcoat.

  “You’re leaving this morning?”

  “In a couple of hours. Richard wants time to inspect the missiles on Karistan’s soil before we leave.”

  “Is Nate going with you?”

  Maggie gave her a level look. “Yes. And Three Bars Red, evidently. Nate asked me to have the pilot rig a stall for him. He said that you weren’t satisfied with the stud’s, er…performance.”

  Maggie had to bite her lip to hold back a grin. The memory of Nate’s choked voice when he’d told her just which stud Alexandra had decided to accept on behalf of Karistan was one she’d always treasure.

  “It’s not his performance that’s the problem,” Alex replied in a tight, small voice, then gave herself a little shake.

  “Red’s already covered half the mares in Karistan,” she continued. “We just can’t seem to keep him in the pastures and out of the tents. Not if he gets a whiff of anything sweet. He destroyed my aunt Feodora’s latest pysanky—Easter egg—when he…”

  Alex broke off at the sound of muffled thunder from outside the camp. Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder. The thunder rolled closer, then separated into the pounding tattoo of hooves drumming against the earth.

  It happened so quickly, Alex had no time to react. One moment she was standing in the open square beside Maggie, staring at the barricades still ringing the camp. The next, Red came soaring over the low wall, ears flat, nose stretched out, legs tucked. He landed with a fluid grace and flowed into a smooth gallop.

  Nate was bent low over the stallion’s neck, his eyes on Alex, one hand gripping the reins.

  In the same instant Alex realized what he intended, she knew she couldn’t stop him. Instinctively, she stumbled backward, without any real hope of getting away.

  Nate leaned lower, his arm outstretched. It wrapped around Alex’s waist with the force of a freight train and swept her up as Red thundered by. Her thick coat padded most of the impact, but her bottom thumped against a hard leg, then a hip, before he dragged her across his thighs.

  She grabbed at his jacket and wiggled frantically to find purchase.


  “Are you crazy?” she shouted, gasping for breath. “What is this?”

  “Just a little circus trick I picked up from Peter the Great. Hang on, sweetheart.”

  Alex did, with both hands, as Red slewed to one side and then the other, weaving through the tents with the agility of a world-class cutting horse. He cleared the barricade at the opposite end of the camp with the same flying ease.

  Her hair whipping her eyes, Alex caught a glimpse of Petr’s startled face behind them. And Dimitri’s grinning one. She heard a distant shout, a surprised oath, and then nothing but the sound of Red’s steady gait and the wind rushing in her ears.

  Nate didn’t slow, didn’t stop to let her find a more secure seat. Holding her against his chest with one iron-hard arm, he took Red across the steppes.

  When at last he drew rein beside a low outcropping of rock, Alex had regained some of her breath and most of her equilibrium. Still, she was forced to cling to him with both hands as he kicked a boot out of the stirrup, swung his leg over the saddle horn and slid off Red with her still banded to his body.

  She shoved at his shoulders with both hands, leaning back to look up at his face.

  “Were you just trying to impress me with a last demonstration of your horsemanship?” she panted. “Or is there a point to this little circus trick?”

  “Oh, there’s a point. Which we’ll get to in a few moments. After we straighten out a couple of things between us.”

  Alex wasn’t sure she cared for the hint of steel under his easy tone. It was as hard and unyielding as the arms that held her.

  “First,” he said, “you want to tell me just what Katerina was doing with that decoder? I just about blew it when she pulled it out last night.”

  “I gave it to her.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why, Alex?”

  “I closed my ears to what the women were trying to tell me,” Alex admitted, still breathless and shaky. “When I saw you caught in the middle of the feud that my grandfather had helped perpetuate for so long, I realized I was trying to hold Karistan to his vision, instead of shaping it to theirs.”

  “I’d say you did some pretty fair shaping this afternoon. I just talked to two very uptight bureaucrats at the plane.”

  She managed a smile. “With Maggie’s help. I still can’t quite believe I haggled over nuclear warheads like a horse trader bringing a new string to the bazaar.”

  The knowledge that she’d just bought Karistan a future went a long way toward easing the ache in Alex’s heart. Not all the way, but a long way.

  “What’s the second thing?” she asked, staring up at Nate’s lean, sun-weathered face. Alex knew that the little pattern of white lines at the sides of his eyes would stay in her memory forever. And the gold-tipped sweep of the lashes that screened those gray-brown eyes. And the small half smile that lifted one corner of his lips. “What else do we have to get straight between us?”

  “I love you, Alex. With a love that doesn’t know any borders, or states, or cultures. I want to bind your life to mine, but not your soul. That has to stay free. That’s what makes you unique. And wild and proud and too damn stubborn for your own good. It’s also what makes you the woman I can’t live without. I figure I’ve got about two hours until I have to go back to the States to wrap up some loose ends, but then I’ll be back. And when I come back, I’m staying. We’re going to do some serious flyin’ across the steppes, my darlin’. For the rest of our lives.”

  She didn’t move, didn’t speak, for long, endless moments. “You’d live here, with me?”

  “I’d live in the back of a pickup with you, Alexandra Danilova. Or in North Philly, or Wolf Creek, or Parsnippety, New Jersey. I never needed an anchor in this world until I met you. Now you are my anchor.”

  Alex felt her separate halves shimmer, then splinter into a hundred smaller and smaller pieces, until the different worlds that had pulled at her for so long disappeared in a shower of dust. With a feeling of coming home, she slid her arms around Nate’s neck.

  “The decoder wasn’t all I gave Katerina,” she whispered. “I also passed her the silver bridle bit, the one the czar presented to my ancestor. The one my grandfather gave to me.”

  It was Nate’s turn to go still. He stared down at her, his skin drawing tight across his cheeks as he waited for her to continue. This had to come from her, he knew. As much as he wanted to pull it out, or force it out, or kiss her until she breathed it out between gasps of raw passion, he knew it could only come from her.

  “Katerina’s stronger than she thought she was,” Alex said softly. “She has the strength of the steppes in her, and the wisdom of our people’s women. She’s of my grandfather’s blood. She should be ataman of this host.”

  “And you, Alex? What do you want to be?”

  Her eyelids fluttered for a moment. Nate could count each black, sooty lash, see each small blue vein. Then the lids lifted, and her glorious, golden eyes called him home.

  “I want to be your anchor, Nate.”

  Alex thought he’d kiss her then. Her heart thudded painfully against her breastbone with anticipation. Her breath seemed to slow, until she forgot to draw in any at all.

  Instead, his lips curved in one of those lazy, crooked grins that set her pulse tripping and sent a liquid heat to her belly.

  “Which brings us to the point of my little circus act, as you called it.”

  Tugging her arms from around his neck, he set her to one side. Dazed, Alex watched as he untied a rolled bundle from behind the saddle. He walked a few steps into the high grass, then knelt on one knee.

  Alex raised a hand to shove her hair back. “What are you doing?”

  Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. Desire, hot and sweet and instantaneous, flooded through her.

  “I’m making us a bed,” he replied, confirming her hopes.

  She swept the open, windswept plain and endless blue sky with a quick glance. “Here?”

  “Here. Katerina told me that when a woman of the steppes chooses a man to take to her bed, she’d best be sure the bed is movable, because it’s a sure bet the man will be. I figured it works both ways.”

  “Kat—Katerina told you that?”

  The leather laces gave, and a thick, shaggy wolf pelt gleaming with silvery lights rolled out onto the thick grass.

  “Uh-huh. Right after she reminded me that the Cossacks of old didn’t take a whole lot of time for courting. They just swooped down and carried their brides off.”

  Tucking the knife back in his pocket, he spread one of the feather-soft mohair blankets that kept the Karistanis warm, even in the bitterest of winters, on top of the wolf pelt. That done, he squatted on one heel and grinned up at her.

  “Come here, Alex. Come, shed your clothes and your worries and your inhibitions, and fly across the steppes with me.”

  She took a half step, then hesitated.

  “Still have some doubts?” he asked with a little twist of pain at the crease that etched a line between her eyes. “Some worries?”

  “One,” she murmured, taking a slow step toward him.

  “Tell me. Share it with me.”

  Her fingers touched his, then slid across his palm and folded around it.

  “I’m just hoping you don’t have any chewing gum in your pockets. I don’t want Red nosing under the blanket at…an inopportune moment, to get at it.”

  Laughing, Nate tumbled her to the blanket.

  If Alex had thought this joining of their bodies and their hearts would be a gentle one now that they’d torn down the barriers between them, she soon realized her mistake.

  It started easily enough. His hands worked the buttons on her coat with lazy thoroughness, while his mouth played with her, touching, tasting, rediscovering. Her fingers worked their way inside his jacket, planing across the wide spread of his chest. With each outer layer shed, however, their legs tangled more intimately. With each touch, their bodies caused more friction.

  By the time
Nate tore the last button loose on her tunic and yanked it open, his breath was a river of heat against her skin.

  By the time Alex fumbled open the snap on his jeans and pushed them down over his lean hips, her fingers trembled with the need to feel the warmth of his flesh.

  Nate crushed her into the mohair, his body hard and urgent against hers. Alex opened for him her arms, her mouth, her legs.

  They twisted together, straining against each other, aching with want and with need. Nate buried both hands in her hair, anchoring her head while his mouth slanted across hers.

  Alex arched under him, grinding her pelvis into his until at last frustration and need made her twist her hips and thrust him off.

  Panting, she propped herself up on one elbow. “The women of Karistan have a saying about a situation like this.”

  “Oh, no, Alex…” he groaned, flopping back on the blanket. “Not another one. Not now.”

  “Oh, yes, another one.” She slid a leg across his belly, then pushed herself up. Planting both palms against his chest, she straddled his flanks.

  “Once a woman decides where it is she goes, she must simply mount and follow the sun across the steppes until she gets there.”

  Steadying herself against his chest, Alex lifted her hips and mounted.

  Later, much later, when Alex had followed the sun until it exploded in a million shards of light and Nate had flown across the steppes twice, they lay wrapped in a cocoon of mohair and body heat, cooling sweat and warming sun.

  Pressed against the shaggy pelt by Nate’s inert body, Alex slid one foot along the blanket to ease the ache in one hip joint from her splayed position. Her toes slipped off the edge of the blanket and into the rough grass. She smiled, remembering another rocky bower under another open sky.

  “Nate?” she murmured against his ear.

  “Mmm?”

  “I love you. I’ll live with you in the back of that pickup, if you want, or in Parsnippety or Wolf Creek or wherever. But do you suppose we might invest in a bed, or at least a real mattress? And make love on something other than the hard ground once in a while?”