Consumed by Fire

by Anne Stuart

  She rubbed Merlin’s head to reassure him she harbored no ill feelings for his sudden affection for strangers. “I’m pretty sure he’s an all-American dog. Otherwise how could he have found his way to a tiny campus in northern Wisconsin?”

  “There’s always that,” he said, noncommittally. “I’m hungry—get in the fucking camper or I’ll put you there.”

  If he took a step toward her, Merlin should have attacked him, even without a verbal order. He had always taken his protection duties seriously, but Bishop seemed to have the ability to cloud Merlin’s judgment. She moved past the man up into the camper, and this time Merlin came with her instead of keeping guard outside the door. At least he recognized that Bishop was more of a threat than anything that lurked outside in the deserted campground. She moved past him, sitting down at the dinette again, avoiding the bed for reasons she wasn’t going to consider too closely, and Merlin dropped down to the narrow walkway with a sigh.

  Bishop ignored both of them as he worked at the stove, and Evangeline made herself watch him, his efficient grace, the beauty of his lean body beneath the work clothes. Of course he was beautiful—it was his stock-in-trade. You couldn’t be a con man if you didn’t have anything to offer, and he used his beauty to lure women in. At least, she assumed it was only women.

  “How many times have you done this?” she demanded suddenly, wishing she still had the beer that had gone rolling across the floor. He’d helped himself to another but hadn’t offered her one—he probably didn’t want to risk having his head bashed in while he cooked. He didn’t realize she’d stored her cast-iron frying pan, the one she used for campfires, beneath the seat of the dinette.

  “Done what?” he said without looking at her.

  “Seduced someone in order to rip her off? Do you have any particular criteria? Do your victims have to be presentable, young, or do you go after older women in search of a boy toy? I would think they’d be more profitable. And what about older men? I would think anyone would like a pretty young thing like you.”

  She saw the side of his mouth quirk up in a half smile, but he was concentrating on cooking. “You still think I’m pretty? That relieves me.” He took a swig of his beer. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you the truth, though I could certainly make up some fascinating stories. In the meantime why don’t you just sit there and see if you can come up with some way out of this. You won’t be able to, but it should keep you occupied.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Bad girl,” he murmured in mock reproof. “What would your students think?”

  She ignored him. “If I can talk my suddenly pacifistic dog into attacking you, how do I get him to stop? Assuming there’s a slight chance I don’t want him to kill you. I assume I yell at him to stop.”

  He shook his head. “If you’d had any sense, you would have signed up for classes once you realized you had a trained attack dog glued to your side. But you’re not terribly sensible, are you? If Merlin attacks and you want him to let go, you say ‘out.’ ”

  “‘Out’? That makes no sense.” She looked down at the dog at her feet. “Attack, Merlin.”

  Merlin whined unhappily, looking between her and Bishop. She tried again, as Bishop watched with the supreme confidence of a man who knew he was safe. “Bite, Merlin.”

  Merlin sat up, put his head in her lap, and whined some more. Evangeline gave in. “That’s all right, boy. We’ll wait until he threatens me again. Then you’ll get him.”

  “I don’t think so,” Bishop said. Somehow he’d managed to unearth the plates she’d brought with her, and a moment later he’d placed one in front of her, heaped with beans and vegetables and strips of what had to be pork if she knew the contents of her tiny freezer. It smelled divine, even in her current state of fury and something that was uncomfortably close to fear, but she knew if she took one bite, she’d throw up. She’d managed to get her hand beneath the cushion that covered the hinged seat in the back, but the handle of the fry pan wasn’t on top, and she couldn’t very well lean down and get it.

  Or could she? He’d turned his back again, presumably to retrieve his half-empty beer, and she dove for the cabinet, yanking the frying pan out with a cry of triumph.

  Except it was the smaller one of the set, big enough to fry a couple of eggs over a fire and not much more. She sat there, staring at it in dismay, and then looked up at Bishop.

  He was leaning against the counter, perfectly relaxed as he watched her. “You don’t give up easily, do you, Angel?” he said, and the name hardened her resolve.

  “I never give up,” she snapped. “And stop calling me that stupid name. You can call me Ms. Morrissey, or Professor Morrissey, or if you really must, Evangeline. I don’t like nicknames.”

  “I’m afraid it’s Mrs. Bishop,” he corrected lightly. “And I’ll call you any damned thing I please. You’re forgetting I have the upper hand.”

  She weighed the cast iron in her hand. Granted, it wasn’t quite the weapon a full-sized one would be, but she didn’t really want to crush his skull, just knock him out, and this was probably better suited to the task. It was damned heavy. “You don’t have any guns or knives,” she said smugly. “I could break your hand with this thing. Or your face.”

  “You think a little thing like a broken hand would stop me?” His voice was soft, musing, at odds with his chilling words.

  “Who are you?” she said. “What are you?”

  He leaned forward, plucking the frying pan from her hand, twisting it so quickly that she cried out in pain, and shoved it into the cold oven. “You already called it, Angel. Your worst nightmare.”

  She threw the plate at him.

  He ducked, though the food went everywhere, and a moment later hauled her up from the banquette, his hands rough and impersonal. “I’ve had enough,” he muttered, manhandling her back toward the bed, and her panic increased until she remembered his earlier words. He wasn’t interested in her—he was hungry, not horny.

  He shoved her face down on the mattress, putting his knee in the middle of her back, and her struggles were useless. He grabbed one hand, pulling it behind her, paired it with the other, and she heard a ripping sound. A moment later he was wrapping something around her wrists, and the more she struggled, the harder he pressed with his knee, so that she could scarcely breathe. “Merlin,” she tried to cry, but her face was pushed into the mattress and the sound of her voice was muffled beyond recognition.

  He moved his knee and flipped her over, with the casual efficiency of a short-order cook flipping burgers. Then he grabbed her ankles, wrapping them as well with her cheerful Mickey Mouse–patterned duct tape. “You son of a bitch,” she spat at him.

  “I haven’t decided whether to gag you or not,” he said, looking down at her. “Trust me, it’s even more unpleasant than having your hands and feet bound. It makes it hard to breathe, especially if you start crying.”

  True outrage filled her. “I’m not going to cry.”

  “Good. Then lie there and be quiet while I eat my dinner. I don’t remember when I last had a real meal, and I’m tired of you annoying me.”

  He turned and headed back to the dinette, where he began to eat from the huge plate mounded with food in front of him.

  Merlin was beside her, whining. He licked her face, her tear-free face, and made distressed noises, but he’d done nothing to help her.

  “Merlin, eat.” Bishop said, and Merlin immediately turned away from her and began clearing up the food that was splattered all over the floor and walls.

  Evangeline fell back on the bed, shaking with frustration and fear. The man she’d supposedly married, the lying, cheating bastard, had returned, a stranger now, with the wrong eyes, the wrong hair, the wrong everything.

  It was growing dark in the cabin, but he’d turned on the wall lights at the dinette and was looking at a crumpled piece of paper.
Not hers, so she could only suppose it belonged to him.

  He turned to glance at her through the gathering shadows. “I don’t suppose you get Internet out here?”

  She didn’t answer, but simply turned her face away from him. She wasn’t going to speak to him again, not when everything he said was lies and more lies. She stared at him as he ate with calm efficiency, and fury burned within her.

  Calm down, she told herself. Calm down and consider the situation and your alternatives. If you keep fighting him, he’ll overpower you. If you run, he’ll come after you. You need to be reasonable, to appear as if you’re going to cooperate. Otherwise he’ll just keep you trussed like a chicken. He even managed to mesmerize Merlin . . .

  She looked up at him. “How did you know my dog’s name?”

  Chapter Seven

  It was a reasonable question, Bishop thought as he shoveled food into his face. It was a slip, but he was always good at fast responses. “His name is on his collar,” he said, pretending he wasn’t looking at her. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Five years. Five endless years.

  He’d seen photos of her, surveillance video. There’d never been a time when he hadn’t known exactly where she was and who she was with. The only time he’d seen her from a distance was at her wedding to that asshole. He could have told her the guy was a fuckhead, but of course he didn’t go anywhere near her. If Madsen even knew Bishop had been there he would have blown a gasket. But Bishop couldn’t let Evangeline get married without getting a good look at the man.

  Part of him had really hoped he’d be a decent human being, an all-American good guy who’d love her and treat her the way she deserved to be treated, who’d give her a safe life full of love and babies.

  His delight in knowing Pete Williamson was a sneaking, lying asshat told him he wasn’t even close to getting over her, and he’d kept his distance for the next three years, doing his best to avoid the photos that were passed on. Knowing she was safe was good enough for him.

  But she wasn’t safe anymore. He wasn’t about to tell her that—he wasn’t about to tell her anything more than he absolutely had to. The less she knew the better—this time when he disappeared she wouldn’t be in any danger. He was going to make sure of it, no matter what the price.

  She was practically vibrating with rage as she lay tied up on the bed, and damned if he wasn’t even more turned on. He’d never seen her furious, but for some reason he found it encouraging. It was a sign she could take care of herself. When she had pulled the trigger to shoot him in the face, he could have kissed her.

  She’d be all right, once he took care of things. Until then, she was going to have to put up with him, and learn that resistance was futile. He laughed to himself. Even after all these years, the life he lived, he was still a Trekkie.

  He took his empty plate to the tiny sink, then grabbed her plate from the floor and added it in. He glanced over at her. “You got a dishwasher?”

  It was supposed to annoy her, and it did. “That would be you,” she said.

  He cleaned up efficiently enough, heating water on the stove and methodically washing everything he’d used. He dried it all and put it away, then turned to his little problem.

  Shit. He would have given ten years off his life to climb into that bunk with her. Unfortunately, kinky bastard that he was, he even liked the Mickey Mouse bondage. Touching her like that was probably the last thing he should do, for his sake and hers. Just that moment of shoving her up against the stove had left him with a hard-on that hadn’t subsided completely.

  God, he needed a shower. He’d been in the woods for weeks, hiding out until Corsini’s men had given him up for dead. It took a lot more than that to kill him, which they’d find out soon enough. Unfortunately somewhere along the way they’d discovered Evangeline’s connection to him, which doubled her risk, and he knew they’d been looking for her as well. Otherwise he would have left Canada through Washington and returned to his current persona, Charles Edmunds.

  He wasn’t going to get pissy about it—life had a habit of throwing curves, like the time she’d walked into the church where he’d just assisted in an execution. It would have been so much simpler if she’d never been there, never seen what she’d seen. He still hadn’t decided if he would have preferred that simpler version of life.

  Fortunately it wasn’t up to him to decide. He leaned against the sink and looked at her. Her hair was in her face—he’d always loved her soft, flyaway hair, and he wanted to push it out of her eyes. He didn’t.

  “Well, don’t you make a lovely little housewife?” Her voice was caustic.

  He grinned at her. No matter what happened, she wasn’t going to give up easily. “I was a Boy Scout.”

  “I don’t believe you. Boy Scouts don’t seduce and rob helpless women, they don’t kidnap them . . .”

  “You’re hardly a helpless woman. If it had been your choice, you would have still been scrubbing my brains off the dinette.”

  She shuddered, trying not to show it. He was okay with her reaction—violence was difficult to process, especially if you weren’t used to it. He still knew she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger again if she felt threatened.

  He pushed away from the stove and leaned over the bed platform, resting his arm against the overhead framing, staring down at her. Deliberately intimidating. “I’ve got one question.”

  “Why should I answer yours? You don’t answer mine.”

  “You get one, I get one. Go ahead.” He was being stupid. His question was so reasonable and so important he shouldn’t waste time with her. But he couldn’t resist.

  “Okay.” She glared up at him, not hesitating. “Exactly who are you? Because even though you bear a resemblance to the man I met in Italy, you aren’t the same man.”

  “That one’s too easy, Angel.” He loved watching her stiffen every time he called her his pet name for her, the name he’d only spoken on rumpled sheets smelling of sex. “My real name is James Bishop, and I’m your husband.”

  “Liar.”

  “It’s not my problem if you don’t believe me,” he pointed out. “Now for my question, and it’s important. Did you tell anyone at the border crossing where you were headed?”

  She looked up at him, her delectable mouth stubborn, and for a moment he was distracted, remembering the feel of her mouth on his skin. Ignoring it, he leaned over her, all menace. “I’m going to need an answer, and I don’t mind what I have to do to get it. The truth would be a good idea as well, considering your life is at stake as well as mine.”

  She looked startled. She still hadn’t figured out what kind of world she’d suddenly stepped into, just as she hadn’t known in Italy. He couldn’t protect her completely this time, though, and trying to might mean the difference between life and death. She had to know he wasn’t playing games.

  “Yes. I told the asshole who was giving me such a hard time. I bet he was one of your friends, holding me up so you could sneak into the camper.”

  He pulled back. “Shit,” he said in a low voice. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “Not a friend, then?” she said. “So unfasten me and we can go.”

  He shook his head. “I think you’re better off right where you are. It’s a bouncy ride but you’ll survive.” That way if Clement caught up with them she wouldn’t be a visual target. And she wouldn’t see him kill the man.

  “I don’t want to stay here!”

  “Yeah, well things are tough all over,” he said heartlessly, reaching for duct tape. “Maybe next time you’ll keep your mouth shut. Or lie.”

  “I’m not a good liar.” She was eyeing the duct tape warily.

  He gave her his most affable smile. “I’m an excellent liar, as you well know. I’ll teach you. In the meantime I’m strapping you in so you don’t fall around inside the camper. I’m going to be driving fast a
nd I don’t want you hurt.”

  Her eyes widened in alarm. “You’re going to what?”

  “You heard me.” He ran the duct tape across the bed, row after row, trapping her. He’d survived any number of stormy seas using the same principle, lashed to his bunk. She’d be fine. “Do I have to gag you?”

  “No.” There was just a note of breathless panic in her voice. Even if she had agreed, he wouldn’t have gagged her. People could choke to death on fear, and he couldn’t quite calculate how frightened she was. She was determined not to show him.

  He leaned over and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’ll keep you safe,” he said. “I promise.”

  He pulled back before he could say anything more, do anything more. She was his personal Kryptonite, and he had to remember that.

  “Merlin, heel,” he said. The dog had been curled up on the floor by her bed, and he rose obediently, whining softly as he looked back at her. “With me, Merlin,” he said.

  He locked the door from the outside.

  Evangeline heard the sound of the lock, and for a moment absolute panic raced through her body. She was trapped in here, and even if she managed to get free from this ridiculous spider’s web of duct tape, she’d have a hard time getting out. There was an escape window, but it was dark, and she didn’t remember the instructions. She had a flashlight somewhere . . . no, it was in the cab of the truck, so no help there. She squirmed, trying to free herself, but she could barely move.

  A moment later she was just as glad. She heard the roar of the truck engine, and then they shot forward with a jerk. The camper bumped and bounced over the rough terrain, and Evangeline lay very still. Poor Annabelle—her trailer wasn’t used to such rough treatment, and suddenly she remembered tearing up and down mountain roads beside the man calling himself James Bishop, a name she didn’t believe for one moment, any more than she believed in this specious marriage. Annabelle couldn’t withstand such treatment . . .