“Jeans,” he growled against her mouth before resuming their intimate duel.
“What?” she said on a gasp.
Taking matters into his own hands, he unfastened her jeans and pushed them down over her hips. “Kick them off.”
“Stop moving your mouth away,” she complained, looking more than a little dazed.
He undid the braid in her hair, setting her long, wavy tresses free. “Don’t you remember promising I could kiss you wherever I wanted?”
It took a second for his meaning to register. “I need help with my jeans.” Katya leaned over to tug at them, lost her balance, and landed on the blanket in a tangled heap. “Maybe we should do this another time,” she grumbled.
“Hell no, this is happening right now. I don’t care if the sky falls on us, we aren’t stopping for anything.” He rolled her onto her back and tugged her jeans down her legs—taking her red lace panties with them.
“Nice.” He twirled them around with a finger. “Girly.”
“Well, I am a girl,” she protested.
“Aye, so I see.” His hands on the inside of her knees, he eased her legs apart, his eyes focused on the prize. “Now we’re getting to the good stuff.”
“Brodie!” Katya playfully smacked his shoulder.
“I’m going in,” he told her solemnly. “I may be some time.”
She was laughing when his mouth found its target, and then she released a breathless gasp.
Her perfume was heady, her taste divine. She was his own special treat or willing playmate to torture—depending on their mood. Right now, he was starving for her. Cradling her backside in his hands, he angled her closer to his mouth and lapped at her until she squirmed and begged for mercy.
Breathless, he lifted his head. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“Brodie, stop being evil,” she complained, her heels digging into his back.
“Evil would be slowing down or even taking a break.” He ran the tip of his finger over her cute wee clit, delighting at the pink swollen sight in front of him. “I can be evil…if that’s what you think I am.”
“No. I’m sorry!” she wailed. “I didn’t say anything. Not a word. Carry on.”
“Thanks. I think I will.” He lifted her back to his mouth and set about driving her straight up and over until she screamed out his name and clawed at his shoulders.
Suddenly desperate for her, Brodie shucked his jeans and stalked up her body. The sight of her flushed cheeks, swollen lips, and heavy lashes was almost enough to send him over the edge. But not until he was inside her.
Katya curled her leg around his hip. “Stop being such a big baby and get over here,” she whispered.
“You always did know how to sweet-talk me.” He surged inside her, finding her mouth to swallow her moan.
For a moment, the delight of being joined together, after so long, almost overwhelmed him. He wanted to lie there forever, feeling Katya surround him. Feeling her wet heat as it cradled his hard length. Knowing that was where he belonged.
She tore her mouth from his. “Move.” Her heels bounced on his backside.
“If I move, this will be over a whole lot faster than I’d like.”
“Then we’ll just do it all over again.” She tightened her inner muscles on his hard length.
“Damn it, Kat,” he moaned as he buried his face in her neck.
The witch chuckled.
“Fine, have it your way,” he complained.
And he moved.
It was after the third time they’d made love, and were still lying on the ground under the wing of her plane, that something occurred to Katya. She rested her chin on Brodie’s chest and stared up at him as she doodled on his skin with the tip of her finger. “Should we have used condoms?”
“I don’t know, should we?”
“I’m on the pill. What about you?” She held her breath, waiting for his answer.
She was no fool—she knew he hadn’t been celibate these past ten years—all she was asking was that he’d been responsible too.
“No, I’m not on the pill,” the idiot teased.
Katya bit him.
“Fine, I’m clean and healthy, and apparently desperate, because I want to do that all over again.”
Relief flooded through her, letting her relax back into him. “What are we? Sixteen? I need food. And a bed. The ground’s getting cold now that the sun’s fading.” She pouted up at him. “Besides, you promised me deep-fried pizza.”
“Well, as we’ve established, a promise is a promise.” As he caressed her back, Brodie stilled beneath her, and her every instinct went on alert.
“Don’t say anything,” she warned. “Let’s agree not to analyze this. It is what it is.”
“Okay.” He shifted slightly, putting his arm under his head to better see her. “I want to say one thing though—”
“No!” She slapped her hand over his mouth, knowing nothing good would come of a naked heart-to-heart.
Brodie gently clasped her wrist and removed her hand. “I regret not going with you all those years ago.”
Her heart skipped a beat before it sank.
“Why did you have to say that? Didn’t I tell you not to? Now you’ve ruined everything.” Katya scrambled off him to search for her discarded clothes. Finding her jeans first, she shimmied into them. Almost rolling her eyes at Brodie’s fascination with her bouncing boobs as she did so.
He cleared his throat when she pulled on her shirt, spoiling his view. “We need to talk. There’s no point in pretending we don’t have a history.”
“Exactly.” She pointed at him as she checked behind clumps of overgrown weeds for her shoes. “It’s history. Which means it should stay in the past.”
Brodie cocked an eyebrow at her and pointed upward—at her historical aircraft.
“That’s different.” She found one of his shoes and tossed it at him, possibly a little harder than necessary. “What good can come of us digging up old arguments?”
“I’m not arguing, Kat. I’m just saying I’ve started seeing things in a different light this past week, and I’ve realized I should have gone with you.” He sat up and bent his legs, then rested his arms on them. “I was dumb. Young and dumb. I figured if you really loved me, you wouldn’t completely change our lives purely because you’d found something more interesting than what we’d planned. That’s why I gave you an ultimatum, never believing for one minute you’d actually leave. It was ego. Childish, pathetic ego mixed in with fear of the unknown. I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. You meant every word you said back then.” Where the hell was her other shoe?
“I didn’t. I wanted to make you hurt as much as you’d hurt me. I thought you were rejecting me, that’s why I overreacted.”
“How could I reject you when I was asking you to come with me?” she snapped as she scooped up her underwear.
“Like I said, young and stupid.”
Katya stuffed her underwear into the pockets of her jeans. All she wanted was to run while shouting nonsense at the top of her lungs, her fingers stuffed in her ears. She didn’t want to hear another word, didn’t want to know he’d finally realized he should have come with her. That the ten years apart had been a mistake.
There was too much cruelty in thinking about all the time they’d wasted when they’d been apart.
She spun on him. “It’s great you’re having some sort of epiphany. Good for you. You can’t rewrite history while you’re doing it though. I remember every word you hurled at me back then, and you were right. I’m a Savage, through and through. I thought I was different, but it turns out I’m not. I’m just like every other member of my family who chases crazy ideas and plans weird schemes. I know that now.”
There was her shoe!
She fell on it and tugged it on. Hopping on one foot to do so, desperate to escape.
“I didn’t mean it, any of it,” he said earnestly.
“It doesn’t matter because
it doesn’t change the one thing that will always stand between us.” Her heart throbbed with pain. “I left. Not you. Me. I took your ultimatum seriously and stopped believing you’d come around. How do you apologize for that, Brodie? How do I?”
She grabbed his jeans, removed his keys from the pocket, and proceeded to steal his car, yet again. Stranding Brodie with her plane, and hoping that this time, he’d leave it where she’d put it.
32
February 1946
Scotland
* * *
Word of Tom and Natasha’s engagement quickly spread. Fearing Ben would hear from someone else before she could tell him, Natasha found someone who was going to be driving past the Baxters’ farm and asked for a lift.
However, in her haste to get to Ben, she forgot one important thing. She was no longer wearing the American soldier’s coat Ben had found for her; instead, she was still wearing Tom’s gift. It was a slap in the face to the man who’d done so much for her, and she couldn’t understand how she’d remembered to take off Tom’s ring, but not his coat.
Thick snow coated the hills as her driver made his way up to the Baxter house. Even in her woolen coat, a shiver still ran through Natasha when she caught sight of Ben’s family home. It always seemed so lifeless compared to the rest of Invertary, something others noticed too. Betty, one of her landlady’s teens, believed the place to be haunted—by the victims of a mass-murdering Baxter who’d passed on his insanity to Ben. Betty McLeod had her own unique way of thinking about things that was often rather concerning.
“Are you sure you want to go in there?” asked Mr. MacCabe. “The laird has no’ been in the best of moods lately.” The old man’s grey bushy eyebrows frowned as he considered the house.
“I’ll be fine, thank you.”
Mr. MacCabe appeared unconvinced. “You know, I could do with a cup of tea. I wonder if his housekeeper would mind making me one. Then, if I’m still here when you’ve finished your business with the Baxters, I’d be happy to give you a lift back into town.”
“But you were on your way to somewhere.”
“Aye.” He looked worried. “It can wait.”
It was a testament to the depths of Natasha’s anxiety that she didn’t turn down his offer. “Thank you. You’re very kind,” she said instead.
Together, they made their way up the snow-cleared path to the imposing front door.
“I don’t see a chimney going,” Mr. MacCabe said. “Maybe there’s nobody here.”
The door swung open, and Ben’s young housekeeper smiled tightly at them.
“Hello, Anne.” Natasha had always been friendly toward the woman, even though she was often short in return. “Is Ben home?”
Anne tightened the shawl around her shoulders. “Mr. Baxter’s no’ in the mood for company. It would be best if you came back another day.” Her hand moved to the door.
“Please.” Natasha took a step forward, blocking the entrance and preventing the housekeeper from shutting them out. “It’s urgent that I speak with him.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed Anne’s face, reminding Natasha that the woman cared very much for her employer. “I haven’t seen him for a couple of days. He’s not left his rooms.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind fixing Mr. MacCabe a nice cup of tea while I talk with Ben?” Natasha gestured for the man to go ahead of her into the house. “I can find my own way to Ben’s rooms.”
“Aye.” Anne turned icy. “I’m sure you can.” She turned on her heel, her back ramrod straight under the tight knot of hair at her nape. “Come with me, Mr. MacCabe. I’ve a teapot on the go in the kitchen.”
With a worried glance at Natasha, he followed the housekeeper deeper into the house.
Natasha turned to the stairs that wound up from the entryway. With each step she took, her stomach lurched. A brittle laugh escaped as she registered the irony of being able to fly into a war zone in the dark, face off against the enemy, and return to base only to do it all over again, and yet the thought of speaking with Ben Baxter had her quaking in her shoes.
The house felt chilled as she walked along the corridor to the set of rooms Ben called his own. He had cousins who also considered the farm home, but none of them had yet returned to Invertary after the war. Their rooms were shut up and unused, making the house seem even more deserted. Natasha couldn’t help but feel as though she were walking through a mausoleum rather than a grand farmhouse.
At the end of the corridor, she took a shaky breath and knocked on his door.
“Go away,” Ben bellowed.
“Ben? It’s Tasha,” she called back, steeling herself for whatever came next.
The door flew open, and Ben stood there, looking haggard and unkempt. His gaunt face was unshaven, his shirt partially tucked into his trousers, and his hair obviously hadn’t seen a comb in days.
“I’m glad you’re here.” He reached out, clasped her arm, and tugged her into the room. “I was going to come see you later because I’ve been thinking about the gold, you see.” Unfocused eyes met hers as he leaned in closer. “I’ve figured out why the Nazis took it. You know, the gold from their victims. That gold.” The stench of whisky coming from him was almost overwhelming.
“Maybe we could open a window and let in some fresh air,” she suggested, gingerly stepping over the books and papers strewn across the floor.
“No.” He rushed around her to block her path. “If you open them, they’ll see in.”
“Who’ll see in, Ben?”
“The Nazis!” He thrust a hand through his hair. “Who else would we be talking about? We’re in the middle of a war, Tasha. You, better than anyone, should know that.”
Her heart physically ached as she gentled her voice. “The war’s over, Ben.”
He appeared disoriented for a second. “I know that. Don’t you think I know that? It doesn’t mean they aren’t still out there planning something, though.”
With a sweep of his hand, he cleared some books off an armchair and dropped into it.
Natasha, meanwhile, counted the empty bottles of whisky underneath the side table by his chair. “When did you last eat?”
“That doesn’t matter.” He abruptly leaned forward in his seat. “I need you to get a message to the high command in London. I need you to tell them about the gold. I can’t do it. I’m being watched.”
“How about we see if Anne could bring up some soup first?” She rang for the housekeeper. “While we eat, we can make plans.”
“Yes. Yes. That’s a good idea.”
“It will take a few minutes to talk to her and for her to return with the food,” Natasha added. “Would you like to bathe and change while we wait? That way, you’ll feel fresh when we have our discussion. For a conversation this important, we should both be in top form.”
Ben shot to his feet, smiling at her. “I knew you were the right person to talk to about this. You always understand exactly what’s needed. I won’t be long.” He paused at the door to his bedroom. “Don’t bother her for hot water; the cold will do fine for bathing. And ask her to bring another bottle of whisky up with the soup, would you?”
Once the door closed behind him, Natasha let out a tense hiss of a breath and started clearing some of the mess. While putting books back on the built-in bookshelves on the far wall, she heard a knock on the door.
Anne’s hopeful expression hardened when she realized Ben wasn’t in the room. Then she noticed the mess and gasped, a hand fluttering to her mouth.
“I’ve managed to talk him into eating something,” Natasha said. “Maybe soup?”
Anne nodded. “I have some on the stove.”
Natasha gathered the empty whisky bottles and handed them to the housekeeper. “He also wants more whisky. I think it might be best if we forgot that request.”
“Is he…is he well?” Anne’s eyes strayed to the closed bedroom door.
Natasha sighed. “I don’t think so. It may be an idea to send a message to Fort Willia
m and ask for a doctor to visit.”
“Are you…?” Anne seemed to gather herself. “Will you be staying to look after him, then?”
“No, Anne, that’s not my place.” She tucked her hands into the pockets of the coat her fiancé had given her. It felt like she was wearing his embrace, and—heaven help her—she needed it.
The housekeeper took a step back as though struck. “Not your place? Not your place?” Her voice rose with each word.
“Please.” Natasha cast a nervous glance at the bedroom door. “Keep your voice down. Ben’s distressed enough.”
“Aye, I can tell you’re very concerned about him.” Anne closed the distance between them. “Perhaps not as upset as a proper wife should be, though.”
Natasha reeled.
“Aye,” Anne sneered. “Your secret isn’t as well hidden as you think. I know very well you married Ben just to get out of Germany. You took advantage of a good man’s soft heart, and now here you are, flaunting your new lover in front of him. Have you no shame?”
“What?” Natasha whispered.
“Everybody’s heard the news of Tom’s proposal and his gift of a fine new coat. Does he know you’re already married and you don’t care one whit about your husband?”
The blood drained from Natasha’s face—she felt every last drop of it go.
“I can see Tom doesn’t know,” Anne said. “Then perhaps somebody should tell him, before you con another man into looking after you.” The housekeeper spun on her heel and headed for the door.
“No.” Natasha grabbed her arm. “You don’t understand, and you can’t tell anyone. Marrying Ben was to help me get out of the country.”
Anne snorted. “Then I’d say I do understand.”
“No, you don’t. It was Ben’s idea, and it was never meant to be anything more than a piece of paper.”
Fury shone from the housekeeper’s eyes. “Then why does he take that piece of paper out of his safe every night and stare at it? And why haven’t you divorced him?” Her face twisted in pain. “Why can’t you release him to find someone who does love him?”
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