She was sound asleep. Of course she was. And he could take the bedroom he’d been planning to give Dylan, at the end of the hall and around a corner, down two steps and up three. Enough distance that he’d have to think long and hard about going to her, with plenty of things to slow him down and help him change his mind.
He could take the room three doors down, close enough to save her ass if someone managed to find them, far enough way that he could maybe shut her out of his mind.
He opened the door to the adjoining room and closed it behind him, going to sit on the double bed with its utilitarian cover. He’d never run from anything in his life and he wasn’t about to run from Beth Pendleton. He’d already ensured she wouldn’t let him anywhere near him. If he decided to change her mind, and he’d have to be incredibly stupid to do that, then it wouldn’t matter where he slept, and this was closest to the bathroom.
He took a quick shower, finishing the Guinness when he emerged. Hot water was still the most wonderful of all the pleasures of civilization, and he could have stayed under there forever if part of him didn’t feel he was still on the job. He should have sent them away with Taka, he thought again. If he had, he’d be alone in this rambling old house, alone with his memories, and it wouldn’t matter how much hot water he hogged, how much time he spent there, or who was sleeping in the next room. He should have said no.
He had nothing to sleep in. Taka had provided him with old men’s boxers, a joke on his part, and MacGowan was tempted to throw them out the window. Instead he put the ridiculous things on, just in case Beth woke in a panic. He took one last look out the shuttered window, into the broad light of early morning, climbed beneath the cool sheets of the double bed and fell asleep.
“So who the hell doesn’t carry a spare tire?” Mahmoud demanded, leaning against the side of the Porsche. It was cold, with the promise of winter on the air, and not only did Peter not have an extra spare, he didn’t have gloves, a hat, or an extra coat. He’d forgotten how infernally cold it could be in this part of France.
Mahmoud was bundled up in the windbreaker he carried in the trunk, but he didn’t look any too happy. “I have a spare tire,” Peter said in an acid voice. “I just don’t have two. You’ll note that we have two flat tires?”
Mahmoud gave him a snarky smile. “I noted,” he said, his voice a perfect mockery of Peter’s icy tones. “So you want to tell me why we’re out in the middle of nowhere, with no mobile service, no highways, no towns? I don’t think I remembered that the sky could be this dark. Reminds me of home. Without the bombs and ruins and terrorists, of course,” he added fairly.
Peter gave him a sour look. “I don’t think I need to justify my decisions to you.”
“Don’t need to,” Mahmoud said cheerfully, “but Genny will give you shit. It’s good to see you’re pussy-whipped.”
“I am not pussy-whipped.”
“It’s not a bad thing if Genny is the p ….” He stopped at Peter’s quelling expression and grinned. “Yeah, I know, she’d kill me if she heard me talking like that. What I meant to say was, if you’ve got someone like Genny you need to listen to her.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed in the last three years since your ungrateful carcass was dumped on me, I do listen to her. And I’d tell you this was simply the first time she was wrong, but I can’t even say that. She’s right, I shouldn’t be here, I can’t fix things. But irrational or not, I needed to come.”
“See,” Mahmoud said. “That wasn’t so hard.”
Peter growled low in his throat. Mahmoud drove him mad. Like all teenagers he was obstreperous, confrontational, superior and obnoxious. Peter had had no choice in accepting him into his household, and he’d kill anyone who tried to take him away. Mahmoud might have little use for Genevieve’s husband but Peter had long ago accepted the little monster as his son. Even if Mahmoud disagreed.
He sighed. “We were going on back roads so we couldn’t be traced. I told you, the CIA is watching for signs of Killian and Isobel, and we need to be careful.”
“They’re coming back?” Mahmoud kept his voice neutral, but Peter knew what he was thinking. Killian had been the first reliable male in the young Mahmoud’s life. It didn’t matter that Mahmoud had pledged to kill him as soon as he was old enough – in Mahmoud’s world that constituted a solid bond.
Besides, he’d passed that pledge on to Reno when he’d first arrived in England, and as far as Peter knew Killian was in no danger from anyone but the CIA. And of course any country where he worked undercover and managed to bugger up most of their operations.
Peter took a deep breath. The countryside smelled different in France, even in a winter-dead season. It smelled like fresh herbs and grapes and the hint of salt breeze from the sea over sixty miles away.
“I hope he’s not coming back. I told them to stay away – too many people still want him dead, and they’re willing to pay good money for his murder. In particular the CIA have a jones for him, and they’d go through anyone to kill him. Innocent or guilty, young or old, they’ll kill to get him. I warned him, and for our sake I think they’ll stay away. If he does show up you keep your distance.”
Mahmoud grinned. “Yes,
abouya
.”
Peter didn’t bother to ask him what that meant. He’d used it a number of times, and he had little doubt it was Mahmoud’s way of insulting him. “We’re going to have to walk, pal,” he said.
“You walk. I’ll stay in the car.” Mahmoud reached to the passenger door, but Peter grabbed his arm and hauled him back.
“You signed on for this, kiddo. You get to suffer along with me. What do you think, head back the way we came or go forward?”
“The last village we passed was too small for a mechanic. The last one with a gas station was more than 25 miles back. And don’t tell me someone will give us a ride. If you wanted seclusion you chose wisely. I haven’t seen another car in at least an hour.”
“Good,” Peter said. “That gives us time to bond.”
And he didn’t need a dictionary to translate Mahmoud’s surge of profanity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was dark when Beth awoke and for a moment she was swamped with panic, disoriented, a scream rising in her throat.
She managed to stop it as memory came back. They were no longer on the miserable roll of the ship or in the constant movement of the car. They weren’t tied up, awaiting death. They had gotten away.
A farmhouse in France, he said. She vaguely remembered him carrying her, and she could feel her face heat. She had just let him. In fact, she’d curled up against him, putting her arms around his neck, seeking his heat, seeking his strength. God, she couldn’t allow that to happen again.
In retrospect, she couldn’t believe he’d let her come with him. Why? The sooner she got home the sooner he’d get his goddamned money. It didn’t matter that during their poker game he’d lost all his winnings for the simple chance of spending the night with her. One would hardly think her pathetic skills were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and she had every intention of paying him that money, and more.
So why was she here? Or to be more exact, why had he kept her here? She knew perfectly well why she had chosen to come. She had realized it when she was trapped in that narrow alleyway, and it was like Pandora’s box. Once opened, you couldn’t stuff the secrets back in. She thought she was in love with him.
There were hundreds of reasons for her delusion, she reminded herself, sitting up and finding the small lamp on a table by the bed. He’d saved her life countless times, he’d fed her, bound her wounds, protected her, delivered her out of danger. Time and again he’d come to her rescue, and then he’d ended up making it abundantly clear that despite her lack of experience, she was most definitely not frigid. He’d given her something she had refused to believe existed. It was only reasonable that she’d want more, and she’d want it wrapped up in fantasies of love.
She was a practical, sensible woman. She could see her weakness quite clearly, understand how she could imagine herself to be in love with him. She’d get over it, once she was back in civilization, once she was away from him, she’d return to her normal, unbesotted self.
Fuck that. She was tired of being reasonable, being sensible, doing the smart thing, the wise thing, the safe thing. She saw MacGowan quite clearly – his sweetness and his savagery, his avarice and his generosity. The first thing he’d done when she’d met him was untie her and give her his precious bar of pure Colombian chocolate. He was a bundle of contradictions, and he knew as much about love as she did. Which was absolutely nothing.
She wasn’t such an idiot that she thought he loved her. He wasn’t the kind of man, didn’t live the kind of life where he could fall in love. The best she could hope for from him was … what? To be with him as long as he’d have her? Check. He’d brought her with him. To sleep with her? He’d done that literally countless times, curling his body around hers while she’d pretended she didn’t like it. To make love to her?
Men were supposedly simple creatures, her friend Jenny had told her. All you have to do is show up naked and they’re yours. She wasn’t sure if MacGowan was that predictable, but then again, one night probably didn’t even put a dent in three years’ abstinence.
She looked around her. The room was pretty, almost feminine, with soft colors and pretty country furniture. Her small duffle was sitting on a chair, and she realized she felt gritty, filthy, and she needed a bathroom quite desperately. If she had to run into MacGowan before she got cleaned up then so be it. He’d seen her looking worse, and she was still the only game in town.
She pushed out of bed and winced. She still had her t-shirt bandage wrapped around her hand, another sign of Finn’s seemingly reluctant care. She unwound it, then breathed a sigh of relief. The cut was looking remarkably healthy, needing nothing more than a solid band-aid when she was finished.
Thank god the huge bathroom was just across the hall. The toilet was in a separate compartment, and the room had clearly once been one of the bedrooms. There was an old-fashioned bathtub and a space age shower, and when she turned it on it was instantly the perfect temperature. With a sigh of pure bliss she stripped off her clothes and climbed under the water.
Someone had already used the shower – there was an open bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. MacGowan most likely – Dylan had casual notions about cleanliness. She took the bar of soap and ran it across her stomach, watching the lather build up. That soap had slid across Finn’s stomach, his chest, all over him.
She moved it up to her breasts, and she closed her eyes, imagining the soap in his strong hands, touching her, caressing her, sliding it down between her legs. She covered every inch of her body, slowly, languorously, picturing his dark, intent gaze, the way he looked as he held himself above her, his eyes when he was inside her, and by the time she’d finished she was trembling.
She washed her hair, the grit and dirt from her face. Her cheek was tender, and she remembered the fists of that man, the rough fingers poking her roughly between the legs. She remembered MacGowan, his face against hers, his strong teeth taking hold of the duct tape that covered her mouth and ripping it off, a look of unholy amusement in his eyes. He’d known she was going to have to go for the switchblade knife, and he’d been enjoying himself. He’d be laughing in the face of death when it finally caught up with him.
And she didn’t want to miss a minute that she could possibly spend with him. Okay, she may as well face the uncomfortable truth. It was no delusion, no fantasy. She was in love with him, because he was tough and brave and sweet and mean, tender and ruthless, a warrior when she’d spent her life a pacifist. It was inconvenient and doomed, but she loved him, and the least she could do was face it.
She pulled on her underwear, then reached for her jeans. They were dirty, and she shook them, then coughed as the dust flew from them. She hated having to put them on her clean body. She just had to hope she didn’t run into MacGowan when she dashed back into the hall wearing only her underwear and a towel.
But the hallway was dark and silent when she emerged, with no sign of MacGowan anywhere.
She glanced at the long, narrow hallway. The door next to hers was closed, the rest of them open. As usual he must have decided sleep was a luxury, not a necessity. She’d probably find him downstairs somewhere, planning something bloody.
She closed her door, then looked over at her satchel. She really couldn’t stand the feel of her jeans anymore, and if worse came to worst she’d wash them in that claw-footed bathtub. In the meantime she’d have to find something else to wear.
The satchel was too small to hold another pair of jeans, but there was a pair of shorts and a sundress. Her room was cool, though heat was coming from somewhere, and November in France was hardly the place for sundresses, but she could borrow a sweatshirt from Dylan for added warmth.
She pulled the dress over her head, then shivered. She had no shoes – maybe Dylan had a warm pair of socks she could use as well. It would help if she were at least physically comfortable before she faced MacGowan again.
Belatedly she realized there was a second door in her room, and it was ajar. She went over to it, her toes curling on the bare floor, and tapped softly. “Dylan?”
There was a sleepy mmph which she took as an invitation, and she pushed it open, stepping into the darkness. The warm light from her room barely penetrated into the shadows, and she could see the outline of a bed, rumpled, and the shadow of a man standing beside it.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” she said in a quiet voice. “I need a sweatshirt and a pair of socks. I’m freezing.”
He didn’t move. She came into the room, impatient. “I don’t want to bother MacGowan – I’m hoping he’s asleep somewhere and he needs all the rest he can get.”
He moved then. A shaft of moonlight came in the closed shutters, and she realized her mistake. No one moved the way MacGowan moved.
“You’re not bothering me.” His voice was low, and she could feel it vibrating through her body, between her legs. Oh, shit. “You could get back in bed.”