He’d blown it. Big time.
Yep. He was screwed. His single-minded pursuit of Shriver, his blind determination to win at all costs, was to blame for his graceless downfall.
So now what? He had left Maddie at the Prado after giving Antonio strict instructions not to let her leave until he returned, so there was no hope of rescue from that resource.
After beating him senseless, Blanco had taken both his duty weapon and his car. He stood no chance of driving or shooting his way out of this situation.
And when he’d tried to call for help on his cell phone he’d realized he hadn’t remembered to recharge the batteries since this whole thing began back at the Kimbell museum three days earlier.
Had it only been three days since Shriver had heisted the Cézanne?
So what now? Lie here and wallow in self-pity or do something about it? He opened his good eye again and studied the distance from his perilous perch on the steep hillside to the road above.
Two hundred yards minimum. Straight up.
He had one option. Scale the incline in the rain with a broken wrist, a black eye and a brain-stabbing headache. Not a particularly cheery thought.
Still, it was better than waiting for the buzzards to find him. Taking a deep breath to bolster his courage against the pain, David began to crawl.
“You’ve gotta drive faster,” Maddie told herself. “I know you hate exceeding the speed limit but if you have any hopes of catching up with Cassie and Shriver you’ve got to jam the pedal to the metal.”
Tentatively, she pressed harder upon the accelerator of the car she had rented in Nice after she’d flown there from Madrid. That project had been almost as big an undertaking as getting past Paulo. At least she hadn’t had to start another fire. Now she was finally on the road and free of that infuriating David Marshall.
Thank God. She prayed Cassie and Shriver were still in Monaco. Of course, she had no idea how she was going to find them once she got there.
Try not to fret about that yet. Take it one step at a time.
Good advice, but could she take it?
She turned on the radio. Julio Iglesias was belting out a song. The music got on her nerves so she switched it off. She tried isometric exercises but found she couldn’t concentrate. She turned on her headlights against the gloomy sprinkles of rain and flicked on the fan to bring fresh air into the car. Her clothes smelled like cigar smoke and charred paper and travel funk.
For the first time all day she realized she had no notion where her luggage was. When was the last time she had seen it? The train? Yes, that had to be it. But never mind. Her luggage was gone now. She could buy new clothes later. Hell, once she found Cassie, she would take her on a shopping spree.
“Cassie,” she whispered. “Hang on. I’m coming. I know you were forced to rob the museum. I believe in your innocence.”
The lights of Monaco twinkled in the distance and Maddie urged the car even faster.
There. She was going a full eight miles over the speed limit. Not so cautious now, huh?
See, I can take risks.
She rounded a curve on her way up a hill. There was something up ahead. Maddie slowed and squinted through the rain. Her headlights caught a man staggering into the middle of the road.
“Eeek!” Maddie screeched and trod the brakes, coming to a stop just in the nick of time to keep from plowing over David Marshall.
FIFTEEN
M
ADDIE?” DAVID BLINKED
against the headlight glare at the ethereal form of the woman hurrying toward him in the rain.
Was she a mirage?
If she was a mirage, she was the most beautiful mirage ever to be conjured by a delusional brain.
But how did she get here? How did she get away from Antonio Banderas? Had she talked the policeman into letting her go? Or had she escaped? She was a pretty good escape artist. Maybe she’d challenged Antonio to a drinking contest. If that was the case, he felt sorry for Antonio.
Maybe you’re dead and living out a sexual fantasy.
No, that couldn’t be. His sex fantasies centered on his masculine prowess and pleasing Maddie within an inch of her life. In his current condition, he couldn’t satisfy a sock puppet.
“David!” she cried and reached him just as his knees gave way.
His nose filled with the wonderful smell of her. It was Maddie. No mistaking her aroma. He had no idea how she’d found him, but she was here.
Thank God.
She caught him under his arms and he almost bit through his lip to keep from screaming in pain. He grunted and fell against her.
“Are you all right?”
“My arm,” he managed to pant.
“Omigod, your wrist is broken.”
“Yeah.”
“And your face! Oh!” She hovered, just dying to mother him. He couldn’t say he minded. “Your poor handsome face.”
She thought he was handsome? He would have smiled if his lip didn’t hurt so much.
“Oooooh.” She touched his left eye that was swollen shut.
“Easy.”
“Poor baby.” Tenderly, she kissed his cheek.
In a million years David would never have suspected he would enjoy being made a fuss over. He’d lost his mother at a young age and he’d toughened up quick, eschewing mushy emotions, going so far as to make fun of boys who cried on the playground. But Maddie’s concern made him want to wallow in his wounds. He wanted more touching and kissing and caressing.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Can’t talk now,” he mumbled through gritted teeth. It was all he could do to stay conscious.
“Yes, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. Here. You grab on to me so I won’t hurt you.”
He wrapped his good hand around her upper arm. “Let’s get to the car.”
“Are you sure you can make it?”
“I’ll be fine, woman, unless I end up catching pneumonia from standing here in the rain.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologized again. “I’m just so flustered at seeing you beat up. It hurts me here.” She touched her heart with her fingers and David felt something inside his chest flip.
Shake it off.
Determinedly, he put one foot in front of the other and ignored the sappy feelings stirring inside him. At last, they made it and Maddie helped him ease slowly into the passenger seat.
He was soaked to the skin and the eye that was swollen shut throbbed like an ingrown toenail. His teeth chattered—tick-tick-tickety-tick—like loose rice in a tin cup. He was cold and dizzy and his body hurt like the blazes in a dozen different places.
Buck up. You can’t look weak in front of her.
“Breathe deeply,” she coached. “I’ll get you to the hospital as quickly as I can.”
He nodded, just barely. Her calm competency reassured him. He lay back against the seat and concentrated on dealing with the pain.
She didn’t ask any more questions and he was glad for that. He wasn’t ready to tell her about Blanco yet, or the stupidity that had landed him in the canyon.
“Maddie,” he said. “I left you behind with Antonio for your own good. I shudder to think what would have happened if you’d been with me.”
“Shh,” she said. “No talking. We can talk later. You hang in there.”
In that moment he knew she’d forgiven him for ditching her. She wasn’t going to hold a grudge or pick a fight.
What a woman.
The car smelled of her. Nice. Womanly. Uniquely Maddie. They rumbled along in the rain.
“Move over, step on the gas, Grandma,” Maddie grumbled to a slow moving vehicle in front of them. “We have an emergency here.”
She was adorable in her urgency. David gazed at her with his one good eye. She drove with both hands on the wheel, eyes trained on the road, her chin set with serious intent. Right now, he loved her take-charge attitude. Sometimes, the way she tried to muscle in and take over infuriated him, but for the time being, he loved that she was in the driver’s seat.
“Outta my way, sucker,” she said and slammed her palm into the horn. “Hey, that jerk flipped me off. Well, up yours too, buddy.”
He almost smiled. If his damned wrist didn’t hurt so much he would have.
She was colorful. He had to grant her that.
“Here we go, here we are. It’s the hospital.”
Maddie left the car running and dashed inside the squat white building with a large red cross over the door of the emergency entrance. Sisters-of-something-or-other hospital. He couldn’t read the lettering too clearly. Having just one eye played hell with a guy’s visual acuity.
But his eye was still sharp enough to notice the sweet sway of Maddie’s hips as she hurried inside. Watching her hips made him think of when he’d touched her on the train. And thinking of the train made him remember that after Henri’s phone call, they’d forgotten to retrieve their luggage.
Too bad. He had condoms in his bag. Not because he’d been planning on getting lucky. The rubbers had been tucked in the side pocket ever since an unfruitful vacation to a singles resort last year.
Yeah, Mr. One-Armed Cyclops. As if you could even do anything if you had condoms.
But the lack of protection didn’t stop him from thinking about making love to Maddie. Damn if he wasn’t working on a woody, in spite of his plentiful aches.
You’ve made enough mistakes this trip. Stop thinking about sex.
Still, it was better than thinking about the pain.
Maddie returned shortly with a nurse and an orderly. They helped him out of the car and into a wheelchair.
The orderly wheeled him into an exam room, while Maddie stayed at the reception area to answer the desk clerk’s questions.
The nurse assisted him onto the gurney and asked him if he was allergic to anything. She started an IV in his good hand, and then left the room. Later, she returned with an injection.
He was grinning two minutes after the drug hit his veins. Ah, sweet freedom from pain. The nurse departed again, but left the door ajar.
“Payment?” He heard the desk clerk ask in French.
“No par-lay fran-say,”
Maddie replied.
“Habla español? Habla ingles?”
Maddie and the clerk began a cobbled conversation of French, Spanish and English he couldn’t really follow as he drifted in and out on a sea of morphine relief. What he did follow, was the soothing lilt of Maddie’s voice. The sound of it grounded him, kept him from completely floating away.
“Psssstt.”
Huh?
“Psssstt, David,” Maddie whispered from the doorway.
Reluctantly, he pried open his eye. He thought he said, “what is it?” but it came out more like “mphmlottamut.”
“You got insurance?”
He nodded.
“Can you give me the info? They were making a big deal out of getting paid so I had to pretend to be your wife. Until I told them we were married they weren’t even going to let me see you. But now they want this money situation taken care of.”
“Wife?”
Now there was a pleasant thought. Maddie as his wife. He imagined coming home from work to find her cooking dinner. No, scratch that image. Maddie wasn’t the domestic goddess type. Let’s see. He envisioned them getting up at dawn every morning, running five miles together before coming home to make love in a sweaty heap on the floor. Ah, much better.
“Don’t blow my cover, okay? I’ll get freaky if they won’t let me in to see you. I need to see you to know you’re okay.”
Aw, but that was sweet. “I’m okay.”
“Just play along, please?”
“Sure. When did we get married?”
“I told them we were on our honeymoon after a whirlwind courtship.”
She approached the gurney, her gaze sweeping over him. A look of concern worried her cute little face but when she caught him watching her, she forced a smile.
“Our honeymoon, huh?”
“It was the only thing I could think of to explain my ignorance of your medical history. The nurses think you’re terribly romantic, proposing to me during a gondola ride in Venice with us both in Regency era dress.”
“Great. You make me sound like a doofus.”
“It’s always been my fantasy marriage proposal from the time I was a kid, so sue me.”
“I knew it.” He smiled.
“Knew what?”
“You’re much more romantic than you let on.”
“It was a childhood fantasy. Luckily I had one, it made the lie more convincing.”
“So how did I perform on the wedding night?” He tried to wink but being one-eyed, it didn’t come off very debonair and his words were definitely slurred.
“David! You’re drugged.”
He gave her a thumbs up with his good hand.
“Terrific,” she muttered. “Just what I need. A stoned FBI agent with a broken wrist.”
“Wallet,” he said.
“What?”
“My insurance card is in my wallet. Take my Mastercard too, just in case they won’t take American insurance. I’m not sure how their health care system works. Maybe you have to pay and your insurance company reimburses you.”
“Where’s your wallet?”
“Right hip pocket.”
She glanced around the room. “Where’s your pants?”
“I’m still wearing them.”
“Why haven’t they taken your pants off yet?”
“I dunno.” David felt as placid as a marshmallow riding around on a magic carpet. “Maybe they decided to leave the task for my young bride.”
“You’re a lot friendlier when you’re looped. You know that?” Maddie complained. “I’m really starting to miss the old, grouchy Marshall.”
“Why? He’s an egotistical asshole. Stick with me, kiddo, and I’ll make sure to always put you first.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Why are you afraid of a little TLC? You can dish it out but you can’t take it?”
“Could you just lift your butt off the gurney?” She was running her hand underneath the back of his thigh.
He laughed. “That tickles.”
“Raise your butt.”
“You know, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Poor you. Butt in the air.”
He dug into the gurney with his heels and arched his back. “How’s that?”
She was skimming her hands over his backside, grappling for his pocket. “Quit squirming.”