Consumed by Fire (The Fire Series)

by Anne Stuart

  He felt her come closer, close enough that he could feel her, close enough that he could reach behind him and grab her, pull her down. He kept his hands on the wheel.

  “Just where are we stopping? And when?”

  Questions. Why the hell had he ever offered to answer her questions—he’d told her more than he wanted. “We’ll stop within the hour, and as for where, it’s an abandoned farmhouse off in the countryside with an impossible road leading in to it.”

  “If it’s impossible how are we going to get there?” Her voice was skeptical. Of course.

  “Nothing’s impossible for me,” he said in a calm voice. Except letting go of you.

  “Good to know,” she said wryly, slipping into the passenger seat. “I may as well see where we’re going.”

  “It won’t do you any good. We’re already off the main road, and there are so many twists and turns to get to this place you’d never find your way out, if you were fool enough to make a run for it.”

  There was a long silence. “Make a run for it?” she said finally. “That sounds rather ominous. What would I be running from? Besides your obnoxious company?”

  He grinned. “That’s it, babe. I even promise to keep my hands to myself. I gather there are maybe half a dozen useable bedrooms in the place—it’s huge, and like this rust bucket, it’s a lot nicer inside than out. You’ll have a safe, solitary night’s sleep.”

  He gave her a slanted side glance. Her expression was stony, showing nothing. What had he been hoping for? A look of disappointment? Or even better, relief?

  It was a relief to him. He’d told her he wouldn’t touch her, and he wasn’t a man who broke his word when he gave it. There were few things sacred to him, but his word was one of them. She would sleep in celibate splendor, like a nun, while he stayed awake thinking about her.

  He let out his breath in exasperation. What did it matter what her reaction was? What did anything matter? Let go, you stupid bastard, he told himself grimly. Let her go before you get both of you killed.

  As they drove in silence over the increasingly narrow, rutted roads, it grew into a strangely comfortable silence. He stole a glance at her. She’d lost that stony expression, and she looked relatively peaceful. Merlin had pushed his way between their seats, leaning against her legs, and she was rubbing his head absently while he drove. Jesus, they were like an old retired couple on the road in their big ugly RV, exploring the country. The thought made him incomprehensibly sad.

  That was patently ridiculous. For one thing, he wasn’t going to make old bones, as his grandmother would have said. If he made it to forty he’d be lucky, given his profession. Evangeline wouldn’t be anywhere near him. No aimless journeys into the great unknown, safe in their tin box of a vehicle, camping in the woods, grilling freshly caught trout. He hadn’t been fishing in more than ten years, and he probably wouldn’t go for another ten. He’d been damned good at fly fishing when he was younger.

  “You like trout?” he asked suddenly, out of the blue. “Or are you one of those people who can’t stand seafood?”

  He expected her to ignore him, but instead she laughed. “So you don’t remember everything from five years ago. I love seafood. I even ate the disgusting Venetian concoction called squassetto, which had to have every kind of seafood as well as God knows what else in it. And technically trout’s a freshwater fish, so you can’t call it seafood.”

  “Spoken like an academic,” he said easily.

  She didn’t bristle. The sun was moving toward the trees, and things were oddly peaceful. “When I was camping in Saskatchewan there was a couple nearby who were into fly fishing, which I gather is a very tricky thing. They gave me one of the trout they caught, and I cooked it over the open fire. It was the best thing I ever ate. Including those amazing meals in Venice.”

  He felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “It probably was. Did they clean it for you?”

  “What kind of wimp do you think I am?” she said in lazy, mock outrage, her fingers threading through Merlin’s short, rough fur. “I cleaned it myself. I happen to be very handy with a filleting knife.”

  He didn’t know what that ache in his chest was—probably indigestion. “That might come in handy,” he muttered, thinking of what lay ahead.

  Her peaceful mood vanished, and he wanted to kick himself. “Oh, yeah? Who do I have to kill?” She kept it light, but he knew their few moments of amity had disappeared.

  “Anyone who comes after you.”

  “And is anyone coming after me? I thought they were more interested in you. I was just a way they thought they could get to you. Whoever the hell ‘they’ are.”

  “It worked,” he said shortly. He took a left turn, heading down a narrow path between fields of tall grass. A tractor had gone before him, so his path wouldn’t be noticeable following the heavier tread of the tractor tires. At the end, about half a mile down, he’d reach the river that ran through this rare, untouched piece of countryside. The crossing was a couple of miles farther down. It looked so bad even Indiana Jones wouldn’t have tried it, but there was no other access to the place. The fast flowing rush of the river was too deep everywhere else.

  “Why?” She asked it like she didn’t really expect an answer, and she wasn’t getting one.

  “I said five questions,” he said. He didn’t want to get her riled up—when she got mad he got mad, and when they both lost their tempers he put his hands on her, and then they were lost.

  She wasn’t particularly ruffled by his response. “That was question number four.”

  “Then I answered it.”

  “Not satisfactorily.”

  He grinned. “I didn’t satisfy you? Now that surprises me. What were those interesting sounds you made? Something between the yowl of a bobcat and the scream of a peacock. Not that there are many peacocks in Texas.”

  He’d pushed it too far, and he realized he’d done it deliberately. She sat up straighter, her body tight with tension, and Merlin rose, his instincts responding to hers. “I guess we’ll never know, since you aren’t going to be hearing those sounds ever again.”

  “Oh, you never can tell,” he said lazily. “You might find someone you want to get it on with while you’re still being guarded by the Committee. You’re noisy enough that if I’m in the same building, I’ll hear it.” Funny how he didn’t like that idea at all.

  “Despite what you know of me, I don’t tend to fall into bed with men at the drop of a hat.” Her voice could have frozen anything, even the steamy Texas evening.

  He said it before he could think twice. “What about the year after I left you? I counted nineteen, but I might have missed one or two . . .” His voice trailed off when he saw her face, and he wanted to kick himself so damned hard he wouldn’t be able to walk for days. “Sorry,” he muttered, before he could help himself.

  The damage was done. It was a good thing, he told himself. Her shattered expression was as good as any brick wall between them.

  “You didn’t miss any,” she said in a hollow voice. “It took me a while to come to my senses, and I didn’t realize how many there were until a couple of years later. I couldn’t bear to think about it for a long time. I still don’t like to remember, but I should. I need to remember so I’ll never get so broken, so needy, again. Sex doesn’t fix anything; it couldn’t push you out of my system and make me forget.” She turned to look at him. “I take it you were spying on me. Do you have any interesting videos you could put on the Internet?”

  In fact, he did. It was a mistake, and he’d watched it once. Then he had taken his laptop and thrown it against a wall, destroying it. He’d thought it would help him let go. Seeing her in another man’s arms had made him furious, seeing the desolate look on her face had almost sent him after her, until he remembered what being around him would do to her. He’d made sure all copies were destroyed, and there was no
reason she had to know one had ever existed. “Of course not,” he said.

  She had almost the same expression on her face now as she’d had in that fucking video as she lay beneath a man who wasn’t him. Shattered. Empty. He’d betrayed her, once again. Good, he reminded himself. It was a good thing.

  She slowly unfastened her seat belt. “I’m going to lie down for a little while,” she said. “Wake me when we get there.”

  “We’re five minutes away.” He didn’t want her to go, he wanted to make things better, but he didn’t know what to say.

  “That’s good,” she said in a dull voice, rising and moving past him into the small cabin of the RV, Merlin trotting happily behind her.

  Leaving the world’s worst bastard alone in the driver’s seat, driving into nowhere.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She didn’t cry. At first Evangeline had wanted nothing more than to get away from him before he saw how raw his words had made her. She expected to fall on that bunk and bury her face in the pillow and weep, and then face him again with the calm expression that drove him crazy.

  There were no tears. She wanted to throw up, as that sick, desperate feeling filled her again, reminding her of that horrible year. She could see them, smell them, hear the mindless buzz of their lame come-ons. She’d never gone to bed sober, not with any of them, but it still didn’t wipe out the snippets of memory, and her stomach churned with disgust. Disgust with them, disgust with the situation, most of all disgust with herself. She thought she’d made peace with it, but just a few words from Bishop and she was an angry little ball of shame once more.

  She felt Merlin’s nose nudge her, and he made a soft whining noise of support. She laughed, a weak, rusty sound, and slung her arm around his neck, burying her head in his fur. “You don’t think I’m terrible, do you, baby?” she murmured, low so that Bishop couldn’t hear her. “I was just hurting so badly, and I was trying any way I could to feel better.” Her voice almost broke on that one, and she couldn’t decide whether throwing up or weeping was a better choice. Stoic non-reaction was what she should aim for. Bishop couldn’t know how he got to her. Couldn’t know that deep inside she was just as weak and stupid for him as she’d been five years ago.

  She felt the camper tip and rumble over something that could scarcely be called a road, and then move through water, and she knew a sudden panic. Her cousin had died when his car had been swept away in a flood, and she’d always been nervous about vehicles and water ever since. Then again, if the Winnebago was carried away in a flood it would solve all her problems.

  She sat up, looking out the narrow window beside the bunk. It was sunset, and she could see a farmhouse in the distance; it looked like the Bates Motel—derelict and depressing. It was probably the Taj Mahal inside, she thought grumpily. At least he’d promised a separate bedroom, which had somehow felt like a slap in the face. He didn’t want to get involved with her any more than she did with him, and he wasn’t hindered by foolish emotions. In his case it was simply lust, something he could control.

  So could she. She could control everything about herself until she got away from him. Then she could let go, scream and rail and throw things, get rid of everything she had ever kept locked tight inside her, and he wouldn’t know what he did to her, how he made her mixed-up and crazy and fragile and furious. How she still loved him.

  She sat up abruptly. Jesus, where did that come from?

  It was the simple truth: no matter how much he had lied, used her, no matter how dangerous a man he truly was, she still loved him, and the more she tried not to, the tighter the bonds grew.

  She’d thought she was over him. She had barely thought of him in the last few years, and when she did her reaction had been fury, pure and simple. Hurt and betrayal had vanished in her righteous rage.

  But now it was back full force, reminding her of just how much she still felt for him.

  One day away from New Orleans, and he’d happily pass her off to someone else. One night in the creepy-looking farmhouse, a day on the road, and she could say good-bye to him forever. She just had to hold out that long.

  He stopped the vehicle, then came back into the camper. She met his gaze stonily, which clearly didn’t bother him. “Stay put,” he said. “I need to check the place out first, then I’ll come back and get you.”

  “All right.” It was shadowy enough that he wouldn’t see the tears on her cheeks. She glanced at the dog beside her. “I think Merlin wants to go with you.” The German shepherd had risen, his body tense, almost like a soldier standing at attention.

  Bishop raised his eyebrows. “You mean he’ll leave your side? Miracles never cease. What kind of magic potion did you put in his food anyway, to turn him into such a pussycat?”

  “Love.” The answer was out before she could think twice, and the silence in the cabin was as thick as the humid Texas air coming in the open door.

  Finally he spoke. “Well, I’m fresh out of that.” Merlin bounded past him into the gathering darkness. “Stay put,” he said to her again, and he was gone.

  Shit. He’d made her cry. He was every bit the asshole she’d called him. He’d heard every word she’d whispered to Merlin—You don’t think I’m terrible, do you? I was just hurting so badly—and he wanted to punch something. Why the fuck had he done that, thrown it in her face like she’d done something wrong? He didn’t give a shit how many people she’d fucked.

  Well, he did care, because he begrudged every damned one of them, and because it had hurt her. And still hurt her, even though she’d been looking for something to ease the pain. The pain he’d caused her. Around and around it went, in circles of cruelty he hadn’t planned on, but it didn’t mean shit whether he planned it or not. It had happened, and he couldn’t fix it. He only made it worse.

  The air outside the camper was so thick with heat and humidity that it felt like a steam bath, and it was well past the heat of the day. What would it be like midday?

  Probably just what New Orleans would feel like, the city he’d chosen to house the new branch of the Committee. He’d picked the city; Ryder had picked the house. Bishop was impervious to weather—it took him just moments to acclimate, to move from the refrigerated cool of the RV to air so thick you could eat it with a fork. Would Evangeline be able to adapt as easily? Then again, she wouldn’t have to for long. As soon as it was safe, she’d be back in her ivory tower in northern Wisconsin with a brand-new camper and truck thanks to the Committee, and she’d never have to think about him again. He just wished he could say the same thing for himself.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about her, worrying about her, and he was destroying her. Huge live oaks surrounded the front of the farmhouse, and he wanted to punch one. He’d break bones in his hands and put them in more danger, he reminded himself. No, he didn’t have the luxury of taking his frustration out on inanimate objects. He had to stay on task, shut out any extraneous feelings he might have. Feelings. He wanted to laugh. He wasn’t allowed feelings, and he damned well didn’t want them.

  Merlin returned from his pace around the building, which meant the place was clean, but the dog was still unusually tense. “What’s up, boy?” Bishop murmured, squatting down beside him. “Something wrong?”

  Merlin looked at him for a moment, then toward the RV, and Bishop sighed. “Yeah, you don’t like being away from her, do you? She’s got you suckered good. Join the club.”

  All the security measures were still in place when he climbed up the sagging front porch and unlocked the front door. The air-conditioning had been turned on, and cool air spilled out into the evening air.

  His search of the place was deliberate, despite the security measures and Merlin’s approval. He never took anything for granted, and they were up against very smart, very dangerous people. When he was finally convinced the house was safe, he headed down the stairs to the front hall.

  Evangeline
was standing there, the door shut behind her, her backpack in one hand, Merlin resting against her side, and he wanted to explode in fury. Why the fuck couldn’t she ever do what he told her to?

  He closed his eyes and counted to three before acknowledging her presence. He didn’t want to make things worse by yelling at her.

  “I told you to stay in the camper,” he said in a dangerously calm voice.

  She’d gotten her second wind, and no longer looked so fragile. “You took too long, and that place is like an oven when the air-conditioning is turned off. I figured if you weren’t done by now you were probably dead, and I would be too, and I wanted a shower before I died. I decided that wasn’t too much to ask from the universe.”

  “You think too much,” he growled. “We’ll keep to the first floor—there are three bedrooms on this level and I don’t intend to sleep, so take your pick. No, take the one at the back. It’s closest to the door if you need to get out fast.”

  Of course she picked up on it. “You don’t intend to sleep? You’ve been driving nonstop for two days, and you plan to drive . . . what . . . another eight hundred miles tomorrow?”

  “It’s only about five hundred miles. And I don’t need much sleep.”

  “I believe it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need any. If this place is as safe as you say it is, then there’s no reason you can’t get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “I’ll think about.” He pinned her with his stare. “Why do you care one way or another?”

  “I don’t,” she said immediately, and he knew it was a lie. “I’d just rather not die in a fiery crash on the highway when you nod off and drift into oncoming traffic.”

  “Sensible,” he said evenly. “Dump your stuff in the third bedroom and take your shower. I’ll see what we have for grub.”

  “I think I’ll take the front bedroom . . .” she began, but before she could finish he leapt down the last few stairs, picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.