Edge of Danger (12 page)

 
“Certainly, sir, I shall have a tradesman come and install air conditioning. That should be done by next Thursday. If I put a rush on it. The furnishings will be moved later this morning. It’s the plumbing that might prove problematic, however.”

 
Sebastian had his hand resting on the top of her head, his fingers tangled in her dark glossy curls. What for? What was the man going to do? Shove her face in the glass even if she didn’t want it? “What’s wrong with the goddamned plumbing, MacBain?”

 
“There isna any, sir.”

 
No, by God. He was stroking her curls and talking to her softly.
Son of a bitch
—

 
Gabriel’s jaw was starting to ache from gritting his teeth. “What room do you want to put her in then?”

 
“The chamber Mr. Tremayne just vacated.”

 
Fucking hell. Right across the hall from
his
bedroom? “I
am
cursed.”

 
“Aye, I know, sir. Excuse me. I shall go and fetch warm water and clothes for our guests.”

 
“Yeah, you do that,” he muttered, watching as Sebastian crouched beside Eden, tilting the glass to her lips again. She grimaced, but drank. The bastard knew his way around women, Gabriel thought sourly. His friend had hands like ham hocks, but they were gentle on her skin. How dare Sebastian touch her, when he couldn’t?

 
There was no need for Tremayne to hold her face while he was pouring liquor down her throat, he thought, irritated. No need to crowd her like that either.
Give the woman some air, why don’t you?

 
Big brown eyes met his over the rim of the glass. Pushing Sebastian’s hand away, she ran her fingers through her hair in a nervous gesture that was at odds with her murderous expression. Her dark hair went every which way and looked charmingly disheveled and as silky as mink. Damn it to hell.

 
Sebastian had touched it. Had touched
her.
His friend had felt the warm satin texture of her skin beneath his fingers. He’d been close enough to feel the sigh of her breath on his skin. Close enough to feel the brush of her hand against his.

 
Sebastian had been close enough to be puked on, Gabriel reminded himself with marginal satisfaction. Resting his ass on the sideboard behind him, he crossed his legs at the ankles. “Feel better?” he asked politely, tossing the lemon back into the bowl and sticking his fingers into his front pockets.

 
“I’d feel better if you told me where I am, and why you kidnapped me.”

 
It actually took all of Gabriel’s concentration to hear her words, he was so
fucking
busy watching her mouth. Soft. Pink. Damp with his smoky whiskey. He could almost taste it on his own tongue. Her mouth tightened, and her chin came up. Stubborn, he thought as he pushed away from the sideboard. He crossed to an ornate mahogany chair at the far end of the table. Yanking it out, he sat down. “Help her into that chair next to—”

 
“I’m going to wash up,” Sebastian told him with a grin. “Don’t get to anything interesting until I get back.”

 
Eden ignored the wink from her kidnapper’s smiling accomplice as he dashed from the room, leaving her and her abductor alone.

 
“Damn it,” he snarled. “Couldn’t you wait for him to help you?”

 
“Why would I trust any of you to
help
me?” Still a little dizzy, she’d managed to stand, stagger, and immediately plopped her butt into the closest high-backed, heavily carved antique chair. Everything looked authentic, although Eden wouldn’t know if they were the real deal or fake. She glared at him over the straight row of candles in pewter holders evenly spaced down the gleaming length of the table.

 
In fact, looking around at the dark paneled room hung with tapestries and filled with dark, highly polished antiques, she’d swear she was sitting in the middle of a museum replica of a medieval castle.

 
An elaborate coat of arms, silver with a red lion rampant and a black eagle—it looked vaguely familiar—hung over a stone canopied fireplace big enough to roast a herd of cows. Monstrously huge oil paintings, depicting dour men and pained women in period costume lined the walls, interspersed with some fearsome-looking weaponry.

 
The narrow room had to be at least sixty feet long and forty feet wide, she thought with awe. The table alone would seat thirty. Eden didn’t even
know
thirty people.

 
If she wanted mourners at her funeral she was going to have to get out more, she thought a little hysterically.

 
“Better?” he asked, seated at the far end of the table as though she were contaminated with the bubonic plague. She had the most ridiculous urge to walk the walk and go and plop herself down right next to him. Breathe on him, and see if he’d run. She didn’t think so. He looked big and mean enough to take on the Marines, the Navy, and the Air Force.
Combined.

 
And where did that leave her?

 
She didn’t have the brawn. She looked him over. She’d bet she could run circles around his brain with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. “I’m fine,” she lied, folding her hands on top of the table. The wood was smoothly weathered and scratched and gouged from age. She traced her thumbnail around one of the nicks as her mind whirled and her stomach settled. First she had to find out where she was.

 
“No you’re not. You’re still sick to your stomach and you have vertigo.”

 
True, unfortunately.
She tilted her chin and gave him the evil eye. “You don’t know anything about me.”

 
“T-FLAC has a crack research team who came up with a profile of one Eden Elizabeth Cahill, age twenty-seven,” he told her flatly. “Want me to continue?”

 
She waved a hand in a “go for it” gesture. While he told her where she’d been born, the names of her parents, and where she’d gone to nursery school or whatever, she considered how many people there might be in residence. One or one hundred. She wasn’t going anywhere until the nausea passed and she knew exactly what she was dealing with.

 
“Married to Dr. Adam Burnett, who was what? Twenty-five years older than you?”

 
She presumed the question was rhetorical and kept her mouth shut. She did her best not to think about either Adam or their marriage. As short a time as it had lasted, they’d both gotten what they wanted, or deserved, she sometimes thought. Adam had attached himself to her accomplishments, and she’d learned that she’d rather be lonely by herself.

 
“Divorced at twenty-one.” He had a great voice. Smooth and mellow. Under normal circumstances she’d quite enjoy listening to him. But he was reciting her life as though it were scrolling in front of him on a TelePrompTer.

 
“Dr. Burnett took credit for most of your work while you were married. After the divorce and MIT, you went to work for Jason Verdine at Verdine Industries.” He was tapping his index finger on the edge of the table as he talked. An annoying habit that on anyone else Eden would’ve read as nerves. But not this guy. She’d be willing to bet nothing fazed him.

 
“You’ve been called one of the most brilliant scientists in America by
Popular Science
magazine. You were what? Sixteen?”

 
“You tell me. You seem to know it all.” The finger-tapping was as annoying as jiggling change in a pocket. She glanced from his face to the offending finger, and back again. “In a hurry? Or do I make you nervous?”

 
He flattened his hand on the table. “Honored by
Technical Review Magazine
as ‘Innovator for the Next Century.’ Ten years’ experience in robotic technology—including the year when Verdine Industries loaned you to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories. BS in Mechanical Engineering, and an MS in Computer Science, both at MIT. Nobel Prize for computer language processing for dialogue and translation—”

 
“Very thorough,” she interrupted. Very thorough, and freaking
creepy
to know that
anyone
was interested enough in her life to bother digging all that up.

 
“You’re a woman who’s used to being alone. A woman comfortable with her own brilliance, but modest about her contribution to both the scientific and commercial inventions. A woman who spends more every month on shoes—size seven and a half—and perfume—you favor florals—than she does on rent. An honest woman who told the biggest lie of the century and now regrets it. More?”

 
“That pretty much covers it,” Eden said briskly. The only thing he hadn’t mentioned was how many pounds she’d been overweight. “Who did you say dug all of this up?” Her stomach was settling. A few more minutes and she’d ask for the bathroom. The second she was out of this room, and away from him, she’d run like hell.

 
“T-FLAC.”

 
She had no idea what that was. Nor did she care. Everything he’d just said by rote was true.

 
But he couldn’t possibly know about the lie. Could he? Why the hell not? She still didn’t understand how she’d gotten here.

 
Stay calm,
she cautioned herself.
Don’t let him see me panic. Don’t let him think he can bully me into admitting—anything.

 
Giving her rapid heart rate time to return to some semblance of normalcy, Eden spared a glance through the leaded-glass windows. Evergreens. Shrubs. Mountains in the distance. None of it looked familiar. “Where are we?”

 
“Montana.”

 
Eden stared at him, wide-eyed. “Montana? My God, what did you give me that could keep me out for so long?” She, who loathed exercise, felt her body vibrate with unspent energy. She felt the need to run. To jog five miles, to swim laps or leap tall buildings. She had to escape this kidnapper with his dark eyes and bad disposition,
tout de suite.

 
“I didn’t—never mind that.”

 
He didn’t—
what
? Drug her? “What do you want from me?”
Because as hunky as you are, weasel dog, you are
not
going to get it.
“Kidnapping is a felony, and I assure you, I’ll prosecute you to the full extent of the law.”

 
“They’ll have to find you first, won’t they?”

 
She gave him a stony look. “A threat layered over a kidnapping is just overkill.”

 
The man who she’d thrown up on earlier walked back into the room and shot her a smile as he walked the length of the table toward her. “He kidnapped you to protect you, Dr. Cahill.” He took a chair a few feet away from her.

 
No fair, she thought, that he’s had a shower. She shot him a quick glance. He was a nice-looking guy. Tall, dark, light blue eyes, dimple. But her heart didn’t accelerate when she looked at him.
He
didn’t worry her, or make her feel threatened. Eden looked back at her kidnapper. “Really?” My God, the man had a scowl like nothing she’d ever seen. “How kind of you. But I have all the protection I need back in Tempe. I’d like to go home now.”

 
“Your prototype for the Rx793 robot was stolen,” Gabriel said unnecessarily. “Know who has it?”

 
Eden reached for a glass and the crystal decanter of whiskey on a nearby silver tray. She rarely drank, and certainly not at this time of the morning. However, these were definitely extenuating circumstances. She needed time to come up with a good answer. If he was toying with her to find out how much she knew, she’d have to be on guard.

 
She poured half a glass, then drank most of it down in one gulp. It was vile and hit her stomach like a tsunami. It tasted just as bad now as it had when the other guy had poured it down her throat. She swallowed it like medicine, grimaced, then set the glass down. “You should know. You trashed the place.”