“If I hadn’t been so crazy in love with you, I’d never have followed their instructions.”
“Their instructions? Whose instructions?”
“They came just as I was about to leave. They said that you’d sent them to bring me to the church. It never occurred to me that they were lying.”
“They? You keep saying they. Who were these mysterious messengers, Erica?”
“I don’t know. All I knew then was that they were wearing the uniforms of your unit. By the time I figured out that they weren’t Green Berets, they’d kidnapped me.”
Conner let out a disbelieving laugh. “Members of the Special Forces kidnapped you? But they let you go, didn’t they? Doesn’t that seem a bit odd?”
He was mocking her, but in truth, he knew that could have happened. As a Green Beret, a man was trained for covert operations. He followed orders without question. Kidnapping a woman would have been a simple mission.
“They drugged me, kept me for two days.”
“What did they want you to do?”
“Give them the notes on my art project and then leave Berlin.”
“Notes? You mean all those sketches of buildings you and Bart made? Why?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t argue. I thought we’d broken some kind of law. I gave them my sketchbooks and Bart’s portfolio. They told me to stay away from you and keep quiet or the next time we’d both be killed. Then they let me go.”
“And you took the next plane to Paris. I’m touched by your concern.”
The tears that had collected behind her eyelids threatened to spill over. She swallowed hard. “No. I was frantic with worry. I went straight to the base. The military police questioned me for two days before they told me you’d been taken back to the States. They said the best thing I could do was follow the assassins’ orders.”
“And that was it? You’ve had ten years to get in touch, Erica. I haven’t been hard to find.”
“I wrote to you, Conner.”
“I didn’t get any letters.”
“There was only one.”
“Only one?”
Any faint hope she might have had to make things right between them died as she heard the derision in his voice. “I was young and scared, Conner. And, silly me, I actually thought you’d come back for me. I waited, but you didn’t.”
From Conner’s expression, Erica knew he didn’t believe her. “I understand your anger and I can’t change it, but I believe there is some kind of connection between what happened then and the present. Somehow, because of me, Bart was killed and now the ambassador’s been shot.”
Conner’s silence said it all. He was a soldier who still stood for truth, honor, and justice. For now she had to be content to think he was considering her words. She could understand his disbelief; she’d felt the same way over his abandonment. They’d been in love, desperately in love. She’d always consoled herself with the certainty he would never have walked away and left her if he’d known the truth.
And so she’d waited. Then one day she lost the baby he never knew she was carrying and it didn’t matter anymore.
Now they sat, staring at each other, no longer touching, yet still connected by the tragedies that had touched their lives.
Erica glanced down at the angry red fingerprints on her wrist. She felt branded. Her skin still tingled, the sensation radiating up her arm.
“Conner, what were you really doing in West Berlin? Could the assassin have thought that Bart and I were working with you?”
“No way, Dragon Lady. I was just part of a team sent in to protect any visiting government officials. There was nobody special in West Germany at the time. It makes no sense. Why is somebody stalking you now?”
He brushed right past the threat to himself.
She rubbed her wrist. “I’m sure you know that in the last seven years, since the Berlin Wall came down, certain artworks missing since World War Two have been sold on the black market.”
“I’d heard.”
“I assume you know that the treasures in question disappeared during the German invasion of Europe. People have been searching for them ever since. It was rumored that they were hidden under the German headquarters in Berlin. Some said they were beneath a lake, in an underground cavern, even divided up among the officers, who sold them to buy a new beginning after the war.”
“I know. Finding art and antiquities are my business, but what does any of that have to do with you and the ambassador? Talk to me, Erica. I’m listening.”
“The ambassador is the chairman of a three-man committee appointed by the United Nations to look into the black market sale of missing artworks that belonged to the people of occupied Europe.”
Conner just waited.
“Brighton Kilgore is one of the committee members. He told us that he was dealing with a mercenary known as Shadow who was close to learning the identity of the sellers. I knew it had to be you.”
Conner concealed his surprise. The only time Brighton Kilgore had contacted Shadow, he’d been turned down.
“I suppose you discussed me with Kilgore?”
“No, of course not. I didn’t even have a chance to tell the ambassador. He was shot as we were leaving our first meeting. That’s when he told me to call Mr. MacAllister. Ambassador Collins said Mac knew you, that I could trust him to keep me safe.”
“What’s your part in this?”
“I went to work for Ambassador Collins in Paris, nine years ago. I’m his administrative assistant. Didn’t Mac tell you about all this?”
“He told me about the committee. I already knew you worked for Collins.”
That statement said it all. He’d known all along where she was, and he’d never made any effort to contact her. Erica’s last vestige of hope vanished. So be it. Where Conner had once been tough, now he’d become hard and unyielding. She could be that way too. If she had to work with him, she’d find a way to do it. He’d never find out she still cared for him.
“I don’t know what they’re after, Conner. I just know they’re prepared to kill to get it.”
“Tell me again what happened,” he said. “All of it. Word for word.” Conner leaned forward as if to intimidate her.
It did. “The man with the gun deliberately shot the ambassador. Then he said ‘We want the book. If we don’t get it, you’ll be next.’ ”
“And you’re sure you don’t know anything about a book?” Conner asked.
“I have no idea what he was talking about. But obviously he thought I did.”
The coffee cooled. The tension heightened. In this one tiny segment of time, nothing had changed. Erica and Conner were together again. She held her breath, afraid to move.
Then she let the air out of her lungs and pulled away. She was doing just what she’d sworn she wouldn’t. Emotionally she was still as drawn to Conner as she had been that first night their eyes met across the smoky tavern. They’d once made a commitment to each other that should have included trust. For whatever reason, that trust had been shattered and nothing could bring it back.
At least he was talking to her. “I was hoping,” she said, “that you might have learned who shot you ten years ago.”
“No, the incident was covered up so completely that even the army has no records. The only thing we can figure is that it had something to do with the political situation in West Berlin at that time.”
“Conner, I know this is painful for you, but why did they shoot Bart? There was nothing political about him. He was such an innocent, such a gentle soul.”
“He was just talking to them and reached in his pocket. I think they thought he had a gun. The sons of—they killed him. The second man shot me too, once in each leg. Then they panicked and they ran.”
“Bart had a gun?”
“Of course not. I didn’t know what he was going for until later.”
“What was it, Conner?”
Conner gave a short laugh, placed his mug on the table, and stood. “Our mar
riage license.”
THREE
Conner walked to the window overlooking the valley. The fog had blown away while they were talking. Now he could see the lights of Chattanooga below. It was hard to believe it was Christmas. Without family or close friends, Conner paid the holiday little mind, pausing only to curse the shutdown of commerce between December 25th and New Year’s Day.
“You don’t have a tree,” he said.
“You mean a Christmas tree?”
“Yes. You used to be sentimental. I remember the Easter bunny you put on my pillow.”
Sentimental? Others might argue with that. Conner was the only one who’d ever seen the vulnerable side of her. Just when Erica thought she’d drawn the perimeters inside which she could effectively operate, Conner erased them. How dare he talk about what they’d shared when he’d taken it away so callously? Those memories were private, something to keep hidden away, to treasure.
“You used to have a sense of humor. Where’d it go?”
“I don’t know. Death has a way of making you serious.” He turned to face her, leaning against the wall beside the window, his arms folded loosely across his chest. “You know we can’t do this, don’t you?”
“Do what?”
“Work together as if nothing ever happened between us. Something did happen and the hell of it is that it’s still there. I didn’t expect it and I don’t like it. Lust gets in the way of logic.”
“Lust?” She swallowed her sense of incredulity and asked, “That’s the way you remember it?”
“No, that’s the way it is now.”
She tried to hide the pain he evoked with his words, then realized that pain—and distance—were what he was going for. “We don’t have to work together, Conner. You can walk out that door and keep going.”
“No. You and I both know I can’t.”
Even in the half-dark he was pinning her down with the incredible blue of his eyes. She lowered her gaze and found herself staring at the toes of his shoes. Shoes? She was staring at his shoes when all she wanted to do was look at him.
She skidded away from the end of the table and turned toward the fire, anything to break the connection between them. “Just how do you expect us to get past the lust?”
He noticed that she said us, suggesting that she was still as attracted to him as he was to her. “I’ve always found that bringing something into the open took away the mystery.”
“Fine. How do we do that?”
“I could be wrong, but I think this might be the only way.” He walked toward her, holding out his hand, palm up.
She laid her hand in his and let him pull her up and draw her close. With every move her awareness heightened, her sensitive nerve endings reacted. He was giving her time to turn away, to stop what was happening.
She did neither.
Then he flipped her hand behind her and pulled her against him.
For a minute they glared at each other, measuring, daring, neither flinching.
“You always were a witch, Dragon Lady. You haven’t changed.”
“And you always were so sure of yourself.”
“Not this time,” he growled, and lowered his head.
The kiss started hot and got hotter. With his lips he was demanding, punishing, taking. She gave him the same in return. He walked her backward, pushing her until her body pressed against the desk and she could go no farther. Then, with one hand he lifted her so that she sat on the edge, and he was between her legs.
His arousal pulsated against her, and she moved to meet it with abandon. Deeper and deeper his tongue delved into her mouth, exploring, sucking. He pulled away, took a long, heated look at her, then recaptured her lips with devastating greed.
Then suddenly he leaned back and started to slide his arm beneath her knees.
“No, don’t,” she said in a voice taut with emotion. “I’m not going to do this. Kissing leads to making love and that … to—no! Let me go, Conner.”
“What’s wrong? Don’t you believe in confronting a problem head-on?”
“Sometimes. But I’ve been down this road before and I’m not interested in the pain at the end of it.” She pushed him away, rubbing the back of her hand against bruised lips. Old memories rushed back. Being pregnant and alone was scary, but nothing was as bad as what had happened next. She’d lost one baby. She’d never hurt like that again.
“Too bad. Sex is a pretty powerful mediator.”
“It’s also a dangerous substitute for that logic you referred to. We’re a lot wiser now, Conner, a lot stronger. There has to be another way.”
“I hope to hell you’re right.”
“Let’s start with fresh coffee and we’ll—we’ll examine what we have.”
He looked down at his still prominent erection and in a flash of the old Conner quipped, “I’d say that what I have is fairly obvious.”
Erica hoped he hadn’t noticed the marbled tightness of her nipples pressing against the silky fabric of her jump suit. She didn’t want to think about the ache she felt in even more private places.
Moments later they’d each claimed opposite corners of the couch and were watching the flames licking at the artificial logs in the fireplace before them. Erica searched for less intimate conversation.
“Tell me about Shadow, Conner. What’s he been doing for the past ten years?”
He frowned as if he didn’t want to answer, then asked, “Are you familiar with Paradox, Inc.?”
“Yes, I’ve heard about it. Mac said you import and export fine gifts. You’ve been very successful. How’d you learn about those things?”
“I didn’t. I have developed a kind of photographic memory and I have an assistant, Sterling. Sterling knows everything about every item we sell. She’s taken on the task of sophisticating me.”
“She?”
Erica couldn’t keep the dismay from her voice. Of course Conner had a woman, many of them probably. But being confronted with it in such affectionate tones was hurtful. “She’s apparently done a good job. I’ve heard that Conner Preston is the darling of the international set, a real man about the world. But what about Shadow?”
He hesitated for so long that Erica wasn’t certain he was going to tell her. Then he put his cup on the table beside the couch and leaned forward, as if he needed the warmth of the fire.
“Let’s just say that Mac and I have managed to find a use for Shadow’s talents.”
“And is he still a member of the Special Forces working undercover?”
“That Shadow is no more, Erica. He died along with my army career. Not much market for unconventional warfare in the civilian world.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you?”
“Because Mr. Kilgore seemed very sure that you could find the truth. I’m not sure the others were too happy with his hiring you.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Erica. I’m not working for Brighton Kilgore. Tell me about the committee. Who else is involved?”
“There’s just the ambassador, Mr. Kilgore, and Karl Ernst.”
“Karl Ernst? How very interesting. A politician and two thieves.”
“Nonsense! Mr. Ernst was chosen for his knowledge of the missing art treasures and his position as a government official in Berlin. The committee was Mr. Kilgore’s idea. He was added because as an art patron he’s underwriting part of the expense of the committee.”
“And the ambassador?”
“As a young man Ambassador Collins was part of the official governing party sent in with the occupation forces to carry out the restructuring of Germany after the war.”
“Doesn’t the composition of the committee strike you as a little odd?”
“What do you mean?”
“Examine the connections between the past and the present. Brighton Kilgore, present-day entrepreneur, says he’s hired Shadow, who once spent time in Berlin. The ambassador, currently an American government official, has you, a f
ormer student in Berlin. It makes me wonder about Mr. Ernst’s tie to the past.”
“Well, there’s only one other person I can think of who is connected to the two of us and Mr. Ernst.”
Conner’s lips narrowed. “Yes. Mac.”
She shook her head. “I was thinking of Bart. At the time, Mr. Ernst was Bart’s adviser at the university.”
Conner swore.
“Does that make a difference?”
“I’m not sure.”
“This is awkward for you, Conner. Mac should have sent someone else.”
“It isn’t something I’m excited about, but it may be a new link to Bart’s murderers. And it’s pretty clear that we have to see this through—whatever we might want. Mac was right. Nobody else has the answers.”
“Answers?” Erica snapped. “We don’t have any answers. I don’t even understand the questions.”
“Neither do I—yet. Help me spread out these blankets, Erica. One of us will sleep while the other keeps watch. I’ll take the first shift.”
“This is my house, Conner. I’m the one who was shot at—twice. You go to bed and let me think.”
He smiled at her, more tenderly than he knew. “You aren’t the only one, Dragon Lady. Ten years ago I was shot at. That shooter didn’t miss.”
After midnight, when Conner was certain that Erica slept, he used the cellular phone in his coat pocket to call Mac. Mac answered instantly. Did the man ever sleep?
“Mac? Conner here. I’m on top of a damned mountain in Tennessee with Erica Fallon. Somebody took a shot at us. You want to tell me what this is all about?”
“I told you all I know. The ambassador was shot and Erica’s life was threatened. Are either of you hurt?”
“No. If the shooter had meant to kill the ambassador, he would be dead. I think someone wanted to bring Erica and me together again. Would you know anything about that, Mac?”
“No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Ten years ago the ambassador was kind enough to help answer questions about what happened at the church. When he asked for protection for Erica, I felt obligated to supply it.”
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