by Linda Conrad
And that scared him even more.
Releasing her, he staggered back, his head reeling and his breath coming in erratic bursts. He stared at her through eyes that had misted over. Her own blue eyes were sharp with emotions and questions. Questions he had no answers for at the moment.
“What was that?” she asked in a raspy voice. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t just…” She stopped, waving her hand like he should be able to fill in the blanks.
He could. But he wouldn’t.
“…a kiss. That was not a simple kiss.”
She was right. But he could do nothing more than stand there like a rooted tree while the sound of the train rumbling against the tracks grew louder in his ears.
“Say something,” she demanded. “Tell me I’m right. Or—” she narrowed her eyes at him “—tell me I’m wrong. What the hell is happening between us?”
He couldn’t give her an answer. He couldn’t even give himself an answer. Not while she was in danger. Not while he didn’t know if tomorrow his entire family might be blown off the face of the earth.
Finally he opened his mouth, and the weakest thing he had ever said flew from his lips. “Later. We’ll have to talk about this much later.”
“But…”
At that moment a faint thud came from right outside the door. Darin put his hand over her mouth and shook his head to keep her quiet.
The door’s handle squeaked. Another more metallic sound clanked through the silence.
Darin braced himself and pushed Rylie to the back of the cabin. Holding his breath, he positioned his body at the side of the door. Whoever this was would get a big surprise from him.
And then the handle slowly turned—and the door opened just a crack.
Chapter 8
Aware of his weapon, the weight of it heavy where it sat lodged at his back, Darin opted not to draw it and take any chances with Rylie’s life. He could hear her turbulent breathing behind him. Could almost feel the erratic pounding of her heart, beating together with his in double-time.
No, this kind of close-range surprise situation called for the hand-to-hand-type combat he’d learned in defense classes. But it became more than he could manage to stand motionless, waiting while the door slowly opened wider. Adrenaline surges crashed inside his head like waves upon a stormy shore.
In the span between two seconds, Darin made his move. Whirling, he kicked the door open and pinned his assailant. Shoulder driven into the intruder’s chest and elbow jammed into his windpipe, Darin drew his knife and rammed it up hard under the man’s upraised chin, almost piercing the skin.
“What do you want with us?” he growled in a voice not sounding like his own.
The man choked out an answer that Darin didn’t understand. Jerking his elbow from the man’s Adam’s apple, Darin grabbed one flailing wrist and twisted the assailant around. He drew the man’s arm up and pressed that wrist solidly between his shoulder blades, thrusting the man’s nose into the wall in the process.
“Ow.” The cry came out more like a whimper than a war whoop. “Monsieur. Monsieur. Please don’t hurt me. Sorry to disturb you. I…I am ze porter.”
“Darin, stop! Don’t.” Rylie’s pleas filtered through the fog of rolling hormones zinging around in his mind.
Dropping his hands and lowering the knife, Darin sank backward and fell against the cushioned bench. “What have I done?”
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” Rylie filled her lungs with air and went to the unfortunate porter slumped against the open door. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, mademoiselle. I…” The man touched his red nose, straightened his jacket and squared his shoulders. “It was my fault. My responsibility is to knock. But I did not think you were in residence.”
The man’s Italian accent mixed with his stilted French words and covered most of his shaky tones. Rylie was amazed. If this had been America, the guy would’ve already been lawyering up and screaming about his rights.
“But we locked the door. Didn’t we? How’d you get in?”
The man smoothed his finger across his mustache and cleared his throat. “There is…how you say? Ze porter’s key? If you wish not to be disturbed, you must adjust ze sign which tells to all occupée. Yes?” He pointed out a sliding button next to the door.
“I came to make up ze bedding,” the porter continued as if nothing had happened and everything was in perfect order. “But I will return later. Do mademoiselle and monsieur wish to view a menu?”
Darin came to his feet, eyes suddenly alert. “No food, but a question. I heard a thudding noise out in the corridor right before you came in. Did you see someone else out there?”
“I passed a gentleman as I entered ze car, signor. Another passenger, perhaps.”
“What did he look like?”
“Just a man.”
Darin looked frustrated. “But was he dressed differently? Anything outstanding that you remember?”
The porter pursed his lips in thought. Finally he said, “Ze gentleman was dressed like a member of a sheik’s party.” The porter touched a hand to his bare head and lifted his eyebrows.
“With a keffiyeh? The head scarf? What color? Was it purple?” Darin peppered his questions at the man.
The porter withstood the assault of words and made another curt nod in his direction. “Sì. Ze colore it was porpora.”
Darin shoved a handful of Swiss francs at the porter and sent him on his way. Then Darin picked up the long, stiletto-style knife from where it lay on the floor, flipped it closed and returned it to his pocket.
“Where’d you get something like that?” Rylie asked as the sharpest frigging blade that she’d ever seen disappeared.
“My brother.” He hadn’t said which brother, but Rylie was guessing something like that could only belong to Shakir.
Darin’s eyes were feverish, glazed. Rylie wanted to help him. She eased down onto the bench and lifted her palm, wordlessly pleading for him to join her.
He sat down beside her, but she could feel the nervous tension stringing his body tight with electric charges.
“Talk to me,” she said, using as calm and collected a tone as she could muster. “About what?”
“Finish telling me what your family is doing about the Taj Zabbar threat.”
Darin stared at her a long minute, as though he couldn’t believe she would be asking such a thing.
But as she was about ready to say something else, he said, “My brothers and I have taken leave of our professions in order to flush out the truth. Our family must be prepared for the worst.” His voice was rough, hoarse, but finally quiet.
“The Taj Zabbar are known to be secretive,” he went on. “Few people in the world know for sure what they’re up to, and that’s been their operating style for centuries.”
She was almost sorry she’d asked. He looked so distraught. So guilty—for no good reason she could see.
“We’ve also recently learned they’re covertly trading in a variety of illegal enterprises.” Darin shifted and ran his hands down his arms as if he were cold. “The legitimate money they’ve made in oil seems to be financing more criminal-style activities with the potential for bigger profit yet. Drugs. Arms dealing and weapons of mass destruction. Human trafficking and slavery. A whole plethora of dirty activities.”
When Rylie gasped and widened her eyes at the idea of such nasty and deadly dealings, Darin dropped his chin and stared at the carpeted floor. “I know. It sounds bad. But now that we’re sure they’re conducting a war of retribution against the Kadirs, I’m afraid my next accusation will sound much worse.”
This time it was Rylie who picked up one of his hands and grasped it tenderly between her own. “Go on. Whatever it is, I can take it.”
“They’re coming after our family like a python, using stealth and power to bring us to our knees and choke the life out of our businesses and destroy our families. The explosion that killed your father and my uncle, nearly ruining Hu
nt Drilling, must’ve been a tentative first round in their war against the Kadirs.”
“I knew that explosion wasn’t any accident.”
Darin looked into her eyes, anguish clear in his face. “I’m sorry your family got caught up in something so terrible. But my brothers and I will find the person responsible and make it right. I promise.”
“You and your family are trying to uncover the Taj Zabbar’s next moves. What will you do then?”
“Turn the information over to the international authorities. The United States. The United Nations. If we make the snake public, we remove the worst of its bite.”
“I want to help.” Her own words surprised her, but she didn’t intend to take them back. “I want to let the whole world know who caused that accident and who should be stopped by whatever means necessary.”
Shaking his head, Darin whispered, “It’s too dangerous. You shouldn’t even be anywhere near us. I’m sure that’s why the Taj Zabbar has already tried to kidnap you. Because you’ve been seen with me.
“You have to stay out of this, Rylie,” he pleaded. “It’s not your war. Let us do what we must. I promise I’ll let the world know the explosion was no accident and who it was that caused it. Give me a little time.”
“Let me help.” Again she surprised herself with such fervent determination. She would help, she realized. Nothing could stop her now that she knew the whole story.
“No. You have to stay safe. Away from the Kadirs and their enemies. Away from me.”
She began to argue. “I’m tougher than you…” But then she looked into his eyes. Really looked. The man was terrified—for her sake. No one but her father had ever been concerned for her welfare. The idea was powerful and potentially life-changing.
She interrupted her revolutionary thoughts to turn the subject around with a coy smile. “Let’s talk about all this later. Right now I’m too hungry to continue this discussion. Feed me.”
After a quick stop in the compartment’s tiny toilet to freshen up, Darin ushered Rylie to the dining car. Eager to go in search of the Taj Zabbar assailant whom he felt sure had boarded the train with them, Darin frantically ran through ideas in his head for a way to keep her safe in the meantime.
“Oh, look at the golden eagle.” Rylie pointed out the window to a large bird, soaring in and out of sunset’s shadows on the springtime updrafts.
The waiter seated them at a small table set with white tablecloth and sterling utensils. Rylie still didn’t take her eyes off the picturesque sight out the window.
“I never believed anything could be this beautiful.”
The train was climbing higher, moving slowly past mountain pines and dwarf spruce. Up ahead the ice-covered Alps with their rose-colored peaks were brushed in a golden glow of the setting sun. They stood like a line of sentinels guarding the Swiss-Italian border.
“Would you like me to order a bottle of wine?” he asked to recapture her attention. “A nice Tuscan cabernet or perhaps one of the Masseto merlots?” Maybe with enough alcohol in her system, she would become sleepy and he could lock her safely in their compartment while he searched the cars for their assailant. Or perhaps the porter could scare up a couple of sleeping pills.
“I’d better not. I don’t suppose they have sweet iced tea on this train?”
“I’m sure they don’t.” His chances of locking her away for safety appeared to be more and more remote.
“My ears just popped.”
“It’s the altitude. We’ll be traveling through the Gotthard Pass a little after midnight and dropping into the Ticino valley a couple of hours later. You’ll probably experience the effects of more altitude changes by then.”
They ordered dinner and ate a meal of spring veal and gnocchi. Whie she was drinking the espresso he hadn’t wanted her to order, Darin realized it had grown late and they were the sole occupants of the car. Maybe it was time to try putting a scare into her. That could make her stay out of his way.
He withdrew the Taj Zabbar letter from his pocket. “Do you see this letter?”
She jerked it from his hand and frowned at what must have looked like jibberish to her. “Is this what you found today? A letter? In the Taj Zabbar language? What’s it say?”
“It’s an order from one of their elders to one of their soldiers. An order demanding the capture and transportation of you—or your body—to a meeting place in Milan tomorrow.”
“Me?” She actually had the nerve to beam at him. “Think of that. I wonder how I got to be so important.”
This was not the reaction he had anticipated.
“It’s nothing to joke about. They want you dead. These men are beyond dangerous, Rylie. You need to give them a wide berth. We’ve intercepted messages from them before that tell about torture and seduction of young women for both profit—and for fun. Stay out of their line of sight.”
She casually shrugged a shoulder and studied her fingernails.
Finally she glanced up at him. “But what if I let them capture me? Couldn’t your family use someone on the inside? I could listen for…”
“Not one chance in a thousand hells of that happening.”
Rylie folded her arms over her chest. “Maybe we should ask your brothers for their vote.”
“That’s it.” Darin threw his napkin on the table and stood, pulling her along by the elbow.
“You’re going back to the sleeping compartment to wait for me. I’m on this train to find that bastard who attacked you. He boarded with us and I intend to capture him and make him talk.”
“But…”
“No buts.” Darin had had enough. “You can have the gun. And I’ll slip the porter money to keep an eye on the corridor and on your door. You should be safe enough.”
He inched his arm around her waist and began shuffling her out of the dining car. But the moment her body was pressed to his, their combined heat raced along his veins and landed hot and erotic at the base of his spine. Impossible. Not now. He eased his grip on her and backed away to a more respectable distance. But he kept them both moving forward through the passenger cars.
Rylie never spoke a word. When he gave her the gun and final instructions on how to use it, she glared up at him with a look that could’ve set fire to a glacier.
“Stay safe,” he reiterated while turning his back on that gorgeous but furious face. “And be here when I return.”
He took a deep breath and walked out the door, praying all the while that by leaving her alone he wasn’t making one of the biggest mistakes of his whole life.
Rylie stared at the back of the closed door, still waiting for Darin’s return and to hear him say he needed her help. Ten seconds. Forty. One minute. Two.
Well, dang it.
Okay, she got that he was worried about her. Really she did. But she’d also hoped he was coming to know the person she was inside. The person who could never in a million years wait around in safety, sitting on her hands while someone she cared about worked to save her life. Uh-uh. So not going to happen, Darin.
It was amazing how close she felt to him after such a short time. How well she knew the real him even with few words spoken between them. How could he care about her and not know her any better than he apparently did?
And he did care for her, she was absolutely positive. Um, maybe his emotions were based mostly around lust, but he did care. She could easily see that in the way he looked at her and in the way he kept demanding that she stay safe.
Her insides were already jumping, raring to follow after him. But she would sit here for one more minute first. To be sure he didn’t turn her around in the corridor and find a way to lock her inside their cabin.
Images churned in her mind as she perched a foot over one knee, flapping it up and down in midair with nervous energy. She cared about him, too. More than cared. In fact, what she’d been feeling verged on a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
But was it real? Her emotions had been on such a roller-coaster ride since she’d fi
rst set eyes on him that she hardly knew what to think. It had started out with her being sure she hated him. Positive he’d had a hand in murdering her father. Now she knew he was no murderer. Taking a life in self-defense had all but killed him, too.
As the days and hours had gone by, she’d been experiencing many other feelings toward him. Some she couldn’t even name. Lust was right up there on top, of course. But there was so much more.
That last kiss had been…special. It was the kind of kiss that spoke of millions of tomorrows. The extraordinary sort of kiss that brought to mind knights in shining armor about to give up their lives for the woman they loved. A kiss like nothing in her experience.
Love? Not a remote possibility in their case. Darin didn’t even know the true her. And would he still care as much if he did? Maybe not. Maybe they came from such differing backgrounds that he would never be able to respect a strong woman. A woman who wanted to stand beside her man and not behind him as they faced life together. A woman like her.
And how did she feel about him deep down? She knew there was a lump in her chest whenever she thought about him. A lump in her chest and a wildly crazy heat at her core. The man seriously turned her on.
Hmm. Perhaps that could be the answer for all her questions. The two of them needed to have sex. That would clear both their minds of any infatuation and prove once and for all if their differing backgrounds could ever be overcome.
Rylie found it easy to imagine that whatever lust Darin had been feeling for her would quickly disappear in a puff of smokin’ hormones after one roll in the hay. She’d seen it happen to men before. But she wasn’t going to push him into having sex for his sake alone. She wasn’t that horny. No, she had come to the conclusion that the two of them should have sex for her own enlightenment. She was the one who needed to discover how becoming intimate with a person so different from herself would affect her emotional well-being.
Would she want more? Or would she run screaming from his arms and fly all the way home, glad to be free? She would never know until she tried.