A small refrigerator stood in one corner and he raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
“I wrap my palette full of paint in plastic and freeze it to prevent drying out.”
“I’m going to learn a lot from you.” He studied the paintings she had in various stages of treatment and drying.
“Do you like to paint?” Judith’s face lit up. She obviously loved what she did and anyone who cared that much, would want to share her love of creating.
“I play around with it, but I’m not that good. I find it soothing.” He had never told another human being that either. He painted, and then destroyed the canvas immediately. A man living in the shadows couldn’t afford to leave anything that personal behind.
He studied the exquisite silk kimono displayed on the wall opposite the French doors. The way the easel was set up, she clearly faced that beautiful garment.
“My mother’s,” she explained and there was love and reverence in her voice. “I like to keep her close to me. Out back, I have a Japanese garden and some of the plants I brought here with me, I actually dug them up from my mother’s garden before I sold the house and planted them here. If I ever move, I’ll take them with me. I have her tea set and a few other things. Part of my childhood was spent in Japan and then my father moved us here, to the States. She kept the house very Japanese. My father and brother loved it that way, and so did I.”
He felt the sorrow in her rising. She hastily pushed it away. “Don’t do that around me,” he said sharply. “I have no problem with any emotion you’re feeling, Judith. Be yourself with me. Feel everything from hate to love, happiness to sorrow. You’re allowed.”
She ducked her head and stepped out into the hall. “You know what can happen, Thomas.”
He
detested
the name Thomas. “Not with me. I’ve seen what you can do, and if you’re honest with yourself, you know I can handle it. You’re afraid of yourself, but you’ll never learn to control your talent unless you start using it.”
“Maybe it’s evil and not meant to be used.”
Deliberately, he gave a derisive snort. “You’re not afraid to admit you want revenge, Judith, so why be afraid of something so pure as the element of spirit?”
“That’s
exactly
why I’m afraid of it. I can twist not only my own element, but my sisters’ talents into something not meant to be. I don’t want that for them. I guard how I feel so I’m not tempted.”
His arm caged her in, hand on the wall beside her head, preventing her from moving. “You know better, Judith. I’m a violent man when necessary. I recognize violence when I see it. You may need revenge. You may even dream of revenge, but torturing a human being in your mind, and killing him there is far different than actually doing it. You would never, under any circumstances use your sisters to hurt another human being.”
Judith blinked back tears, her eyes refusing to meet his. Stefan caught her chin in his fingers and forced her head. “You’re ashamed of that. Ashamed you have the means of revenge and won’t use it. You feel guilty.”
She jerked away from him. “You see too much.”
“Judith, there’s no guilt in not wanting to twist those you love into something that would hurt another being, you already know that’s too high of a price to pay—and there’s always a price. There has to be a moral code, a line you never cross, a personal code, even in something like revenge.”
She took a breath. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“More than you know, angel.” He bent his head and kissed her gently, a tender, comforting kiss when she winced and shook her head. “You don’t like being an angel, even mine.”
“I prefer it when you call me your fallen angel. At least I know you aren’t putting me on an impossibly high pedestal.”
She was on that pedestal for all time no matter what she did. Any sin she had would never compare to his blackened soul. He stepped back to allow her to escape. Judith squared her shoulders and led the way toward the stairs. They passed the last door on the bottom floor without her touching it. Judith had been open about every part of her house, obviously taking pride in it, yet she skipped a major portion of the downstairs without so much as glancing at it, rather she’d taken great care to look away from it, instantly arousing his interest.
“Where does this door lead?” He managed to look innocent as he asked, but he didn’t take his eyes off of her noting her sudden withdrawal, the frozen look on her face and guilt that crept into her eyes. His hand dropped to the doorknob, but it was locked.
She shook her head, her eyes sliding away from his. “Just another studio. I keep it locked and don’t often go in there.” Color crept up her neck into her face.
She was flat-out lying to him, when she hadn’t lied about anything else and she wasn’t very good at it. Nothing else could have raised his suspicion more. What the hell was she hiding? He tried not to let his mind make a leap back to Jean-Claude, but the man was obsessed with her, had someone watching her, taking pictures for five straight years. Was it possible she was holding something for him? Her loathing of the man rang true, yet why would she lie?
He worked for his government and until he knew for absolute certain that he was on a list to be wiped out, he would make certain his country’s secrets were protected at all times. He had to make sure that Judith was in no way guarding the microchip Jean-Claude had managed to keep hidden for the last five years. He had to get into that studio. A part of him acknowledged he didn’t really believe she was still connected to Jean-Claude. He simply didn’t like her keeping secrets from him.
He wanted her giving every part of herself to him, holding nothing back. He stayed still forcing her to look at him. She looked away quickly and then down at the floor. He gestured toward the stairs, with a small shrug. Judith took the lead and he deliberately brushed his fingertips over her denim-clad butt.
“You are one beautiful woman, Judith.” If she needed the subject changed, he would oblige. He had no compunction about returning on his own and finding out the things he wanted to know. She didn’t use her alarm system and he had been careful to commit the details of her home to the map in his mind. He would have no trouble finding his way around in the dark of the night where he mostly lived.
Instantly the tension drained out of her and she sent him a smoldering smile over her shoulder as she led him back into the kitchen.
“I like to have lunch on the balcony or in the garden when I’m not working at the store or gallery,” Judith explained. “It’s so beautiful outside, and the colors of the sky and forest along with the flowers always inspire me.”
Stefan unpacked the food containers and handed them to her. “That sounds good to me.”
He made certain that Judith forgot all about the uncomfortable moment standing in her hallway in front of the locked door. He got her laughing, kissed her thoroughly over and over and talked about creating kaleidoscopes, a subject he didn’t have to feign interest in. The afternoon melted away and when she glanced at her watch, he took the cue and stood up to leave.
ATTENTION
to detail,
meticulous
attention to detail was the secret formula that kept men like Stefan Prakenskii alive. He noted every detail of his surroundings at all times. License plates, make and models of cars, animals and tracks, whether shades were up or down, the slightest detail was significant and could save his life. He’d learned such things in a hard school, where one small screw-up earned beatings that left him crawling across the floor, or out in the freezing cold snow and ice until he could no longer feel his body.
Those years of training, of enduring, had taught him to accomplish his mission no matter the hardship, to go on even when his body and brain protested and there was only his will driving him. Judith Henderson had become his mission. He would not fail in his objective. He was staking his claim and no one—
no one
—would stop him. Stefan knew only one way to play the game and that was life or death. For him, Judith was life and everything else was death.
Stefan pulled his vehicle through the gates with the birds following him every step of the way. The double gate swung automatically closed behind him. He drove toward the highway, surrounded by the forest, until he’d rounded several bends and knew if anyone from the farm was watching, his car was long gone from sight and sound. He drove off the road, into the heavy forest and parked in the shelter of the trees. It took him only minutes to change clothes and shoes and then slide weapons and tools into place. He had two visits to make tonight. The first to Judith’s locked studio and the second to his brother. In the meantime, he was going to sleep. He had learned to sleep anywhere at any time, even if for a couple of short minutes.
10
A
single sound woke Stefan. His eyes snapped open, senses flaring out, one hand sliding to find the familiar butt of his Glock. Around him, the forest was dark. Overhead, clouds had formed, creating a series of rolling dark hills in the sky. Bats reigned supreme, darting here and there after the insects. Something heavy brushed along branches just once to his left. He had dismantled the interior light the moment he’d picked up the car from a lot, paying cash as always. He slipped outside the vehicle, not shutting the door completely, dropping low while he secured his silencer onto his weapon.
Stefan eased his way over the uneven ground, testing each step with the ball of his foot first for freshly dropped twigs and branches. The forest floor was deep in pine needles, leaves and other vegetation, his feet sinking inches into the tightly woven debris. Staying low, he moved to the right, circling, trying to keep downwind of anything in the thick stand of trees.
An owl hooted and another answered. The resonance was off just a tiny bit. Stefan slid the gun back into his holster and palmed his knife.
I know you’re out here somewhere hunting me.
His brother’s voice filled his mind. Smart. He wasn’t giving away his location. Stefan remained silent. He’d seen Lev one time since they had been separated as children. He didn’t know what kind of man his brother had grown into. For his part, Stefan had to cling to one thing to keep himself humane: his loyalty to his absent brothers. He had no idea if they held to the same code that he did. Before meeting Judith, Stefan would have gone to hell and back for his brother, but now, he was angry that Lev had actually gone so far as to marry Judith’s beloved sister to protect his cover. That was strictly taboo. Against their code. There had to be a line drawn somewhere.
Were you sent to find me? Kill me?
Stefan rarely lost his temper. Men like him didn’t have tempers and if they did, they kept that damning emotion tightly under wraps. Reacting with anger—with any emotion—was usually a death sentence in his line of work. He felt a dam burst inside of him, hot magma welling up unexpectedly, his gut churning.
Ungrateful little mongrel. You’re the one hunting me in these woods. I put everything on the line for you and this is the thanks I get. Come ahead, then, little brother.
Silence settled over the forest once again. Stefan didn’t know whether Lev moved closer to him or was thinking things over. It occurred to him that his baby brother wasn’t a kid anymore. He was every bit as lethal, with the same training under his belt, the years of hardship and pain that shaped them into dangerous killing machines.
The schools they’d trained in were run like military schools, using physical and mental challenges and hardships, eventually working in every kind of terrain possible. Weapons training was every bit as important as learning languages and being able to pass for a native of a country not one’s own. Lev had been forced under water, thrown into choppy seas and lived in snow caves, just as Stefan had. The physical punishments had most likely been similar. The fact that he had survived meant his brother had the same mental toughness as Stefan. Those who didn’t have absolute will and a hefty streak of resilient determination, didn’t survive the training camps.
I knew you would come to my home, Stefan, and my wife is not like others. I couldn’t allow that, even to see you.
That was definitely conciliatory. Could Stefan take Lev’s word at face value? Deceit was weapon, just like everything else.
You don’t marry your cover.
Again silence met his reprimand. Stefan moved cautiously forward. The breeze slipped through the trees, branches swayed gently and a few leaves fluttered. He froze as he realized the fluttering was a bird settling onto the branches above his head.
I married my wife because I love her. She’s my world and I won’t let anything—or anyone—take her away from me.
That brought Stefan up short. He hadn’t considered, even for a moment, that Lev might have fallen in love with the woman. Stefan knew with absolute certainty that there was no other woman for him than Judith. He had been around the world, knew he was cynical and jaded. He certainly didn’t believe in fairy tales, or love at first sight. And it hadn’t been that, his feelings had grown over time without him even knowing. There had been something in her photographs that had attracted him to her, and then her paintings had revealed so much about her.
He had studied the file on her childhood, the way she was so gifted in art and color, the way she applied herself to her studies, in her own way, every bit as one-track as he had been. He embraced that small shadow of darkness in her. She hadn’t quite learned to control her talent and therefore viewed the darker emotions as weaknesses instead of strengths, but she would learn once she got over her fear. And it was those darker emotions that would allow her to love him completely.
Physically, he was very drawn to her exotic appearance, her mouth and hair. He loved her Japanese heritage and the way she moved so gracefully. He was drawn to her passion and fire, matching those traits with his own.
It was just possible Lev was telling the truth. It made sense, especially if his wife was an element, as Stefan suspected. Like attracted like. Their psychic gifts would be magnets, continually pulling at one another.