Sin and Sacrifice (16 page)

Rubbing her forehead, she
paced a path through the living area.

“
So what do we do now?
Keep waiting?” she asked.

Rhett straightened away
from the wall and dropped his arms. “It's all we can do. But I'm
not in favor of holing up in the room all day. Feel up to a short
trip?”

Chapter Seven

The Egyptian sun blazed
down from a sky as clear and blue as a sapphire. Not one puffy
cloud interrupted the perfect canvas. Dry and arid, the breeze
buffeted against her skin. Evelyn sat aside Rhett in a jeep he'd
acquired from some contact in the city. It reminded her of an older
military model, wheels thick with tread, the color a fading pea
green. Roofless, with the doors welded closed, they'd had to climb
up and over to get inside.

Rhett drove with as much
authority as he had the night he'd extracted her from the basement
of the church, aiming for the outskirts of Port Said by what
appeared to be every back road and short cut he knew.

They passed robed natives
and tourists piled into ancient looking buses and a few more
markets that seemed to do brisk business no matter what time of the
day it was. Camels brayed, led by their owners, and a few donkeys
pulled cockeyed carts filled with produce. Raucous crowds reduced
the grind of the engine to a low hum.

Once they left the teeming
city behind, Rhett steered onto dirt roads without consulting any
maps, leading her to believe he knew this area much better than
she'd first thought.

Several times, to distract
herself from distress over her sisters and Galiana, she let her
gaze wander over the flex of muscle under his clothing and the
strong span of his hands. When she found he'd caught her looking
she veered her attention out to the sandy landscape, wondering just
where in the devil he was taking her.

In what seemed the middle
of nowhere, with no one in sight, he brought the jeep to a halt and
hopped out.

“
C'mon. We'll set up right
over here.” Dressed in khaki colors, from his pants to the shirt
and vest over his shoulders, Rhett matched the desert around
him.

Evelyn unclasped her seat
belt and hoisted herself over the welded door to the ground.
Whatever her other faults and flaws, she was fit and in good
shape.

“
Set up for what?” she
asked, meeting him at the back of the jeep.

“
You'll see.”

He hadn't worn the shoulder
holster in the open, but she saw a small cache of weapons when he
opened a black bag to sort through the contents. Skin tingling from
the heat, she watched him take two handguns and three glass bottles
of soda out.

“
What's that for?” she
asked, following him away from the jeep.

Rhett strode ahead,
purposeful and intent. Evelyn had her first inkling when he propped
the three bottles a foot apart from each other on a waist high wall
of chipped cinder blocks. Beyond stretched barren acres of
desert.

“
I'm going to teach you to
shoot better.”

“
I've shot a gun
before--”

“
Not the way I'm going to
teach you. This one's unloaded for now,” he said, handing her one
of the black handguns.

Evelyn eyed it skeptically,
then reached out to fold it into her palm. It was heavy but not
uncomfortable.

“
Aim for one of the
bottles,” he said.

She raised the gun and
aimed for the bottles.

“
Okay. Your stance is all
wrong and you're holding the gun like it might bite you.” Rhett
stepped behind her, a solid wall of hard muscle and heat, and
knocked her feet apart with one of his. Gentle taps of his shoe
against hers. “Widen your feet a little.”

“
I feel ridiculous.” She
widened her feet, glancing down.

“
You won't feel ridiculous
if you're in that basement again and they're coming at you with
torture on their mind,” he muttered. “Shooting at that boat on the
ocean is a whole different animal than protecting yourself in face
to face combat.”

“
Is it normal procedure
for a government agent to teach the people under his watch self
defense?” she asked, feeling truculent and belligerent.

“
Is it
normal
for a group of women to be
hunted, murdered and tortured by a clandestine faction no one can
seem to trace?” he retorted.

His comeback grated on her
fragile nerves. It galled her that he was right. She hated that she
couldn't confess, couldn't admit who she was, or they were, and
certainly didn't want him becoming more suspicious than he already
seemed to be. Instead of fumbling around for an answer to his
question, she centered her balance evenly over her feet and got
serious about the lesson. Alexandra and Minna would be proud of her
for making an effort.

“
All right. That's
better.” The resonant timbre of his voice that close to her ear
sent a tingle down her spine. His hands slid down her arms to her
wrists and over her hands.

“
Hold it like this.
Tighter. Leave your finger off the trigger for now even though it
isn't loaded. Get used to the weight and feel of it.”

Evelyn adjusted her hands
and tried not to be distracted by the way he wrapped himself around
her. The bottles gleamed in the distance. She focused in, realizing
she felt more in control in this stance than she had any other time
she'd fired a gun.

Rhett talked her through
the basics, adjusting her shoulders a little more. His chest kept
making contact with her back though he never knocked her balance
off. When he seemed satisfied that she understood what to do, he
took the gun from her and showed her how to load the
clip.

“
Try to remember how many
bullets you have and how many you shoot.”

“
That might be difficult
in a panicky situation, but I'll try. If it comes to
that.”

Rhett met her eyes under
the ridge of his brows. “You know what they say. Practice makes
perfect.”

Evelyn wanted to tell him
she had no intention of getting into confrontations often that
required the use of a gun. He took out two sets of ear plugs from
one of the many pockets on his pants and gently pressed a set into
her ears. Then he did his.

Standing behind her, he
said, “All right. Let's see what you got.”

Lining up a shot, his
instructions running through her mind, she depressed the trigger.
And missed. She frowned.

“
Try again.”

She missed four more times.
None of the bottles so much as twitched. It really had been a long
time since she'd done any target practice and it showed.

“
Line it up again.
Breathe. Concentrate,” he murmured behind her.

On her fifth try, one of
the bottles of beer exploded into a shower of glass and liquid.
Evelyn, lowering the gun, glanced behind her to find Rhett smiling
his approval.

“
Well done. Four more
rotations and we'll call it a day.”

Dusk sheared away the last
of the sunlight, leaving Port Said in that twilight time where
night hadn't quite taken hold. Evelyn walked at Rhett's flank after
they dropped off the jeep, keeping an eye on the swirling bodies
filling the street. Moving at a brisk clip, he kept both hands free
of his pockets, alert and attuned to his surroundings.

Evelyn wondered if he was
always this intense. Even while he taught her how to shoot, she'd
detected the underlying sense of awareness about him. As if he
would never be completely at ease.

The bag of weapons, slung
over his shoulder, made them appear, she thought, like any other
tourist couple on a sight seeing trip. She tried to give off that
aura, concentrating on not drawing any undue attention their way.
The acrid heat made her shirt stick to her shoulders and back. She
plucked at the material at her hip, letting in a fissure of air to
cool her skin.

Around them, the scent of
food mingled with sweat, smoke and concrete. Jostled from almost
every direction as they sank into the crowded series of market
streets, she felt Rhett reach back for her hand. Warm,
rough-palmed, it encased hers and held firm. Evelyn had never been
the hand holding type when it came to men and relationships, no
matter how brief, but she enjoyed the sensation with
Rhett.

Without any warning, he
stopped.

Evelyn bumped into his side
with a quiet oomph. Glancing up, she saw him twist a look behind
them, eyes narrowed.

“
What is it?” She had to
raise her voice to be heard even standing right at his
side.

He didn't immediately
answer. While bodies swarmed around them, making her feel like a
sardine in a tin, Rhett surveyed the area.

“
Get in front of me. You
know the way to the hotel from here, right?” He tugged on her arm
and gave her no choice but to do as he asked.

“
I know the way.” She
recognized several of the taller buildings.

With a lurch, she started
walking in front of him, the clasp of their hands broken. All along
her spine she felt his heat. Several times he bumped her when the
crowd pressed too close. The urgency she detected from him set her
on edge.

Something was wrong. Maybe
his instinct kicked in and he felt like they were being
followed.

Twice she felt him turn
around to look behind them.

“
If I tell you to,
you
go
and don't
look back. Take the shortest route to the hotel and wait for
Christian.” Into her palm he slapped the card-key to the
room.

“
But I don't
think--”

“
Just do it, Evelyn. Don't
argue or interrogate me for once.”

The short, clipped way he
said her name told her that he was on high alert. Using her
shoulders, she threaded through the crowd, unable to stop herself
from glancing back once or twice. He loomed so close that she
couldn't really get a glimpse of his face or his expression.
Clutching the key card in her hand, she navigated one street to
another, looking for the opening to the market that ran the length
of their hotel.

She saw it ahead, finally,
and was just about to tell him so when he gave her a push. He
didn't shove her, just propelled her forward.

“
Go.
Right now. Go.”

Evelyn stumbled forward a
step but didn't fall. Adrenaline surged through her like a hot
lash. Breaking into a run, she didn't look back because she
couldn't, not without banging into an unsuspecting body. Cutting
down the market street, she thought she heard heavy, hard breathing
not far behind her.

As if someone were giving
chase.

The hair stood up on the
back of her neck because she knew it wasn't Rhett.

“
Excuse me!” A knot of
people haggling over an item at a booth seemed an impossible
barrier between her and the door to the hotel. She squeezed through
them instead of going around, gasping when she thought she felt
someone grab for her arm.

Bursting out of the group,
she hit the doors to the hotel and darted in. Without looking back,
heart in her throat, she veered to the steps and ran up
them.

Every second she expected
to hear the door slam open behind her. Making it to the fourth
floor, and then the suite, she jammed the key card into the slot.
Glancing down the hallway, she saw no one rushing toward her but
that didn't slow her momentum. Sweeping inside, she closed the door
and engaged all the locks.

Rhett could knock when he
got there.

“
Christian?”

Silence.

“
Christian, are you here?”
Evelyn tossed the key card on the table and searched the suite.
Christian was no where in sight.

Wary of the balcony, she
stood near the sheer drapes and peered out along the market street,
though it was too narrow to really get a good view of the end
without being on the balcony itself. Worry for Rhett increased when
he didn't show up right away, and doubled after fifteen minutes
passed by. Holding the panic at bay, she started mentally going
through options and making hasty plans. She had money,
identification and Galiana's credit card in her pocket. That was
all she would be able to take with her.

The chain on the door
rattled, startling her, when someone tried to come in. She
froze.

“
Evelyn? It's Christian.
Rhett's on his way up. Can you open the door?”

Relieved, she went over and
removed the chain.

Christian looked out of
breath and sweaty. Like he'd been running.

“
What happened?” She
closed the door when he came in.

“
Ran into Rhett out on the
street. He thought you guys were being followed so we took a little
detour away from the hotel, then split up to make our separate ways
back.” Christian bent and put his hands on his thighs to catch his
breath.

“
Well, were you? Being
followed?”