by Anne Stuart
“I’m touched,” she said acidly. “I’ll need some proof.”
The first glimmer of a smile lit his brooding face. “My, how you’ve changed, Angel. You used to be such a trusting soul.”
“That was before I met you. Nowadays I wouldn’t trust my own mother.”
“As far as I can tell you never trusted your parents, and with good reason. Face it, Angel, you’re my wife.”
“I told you, I need proof!”
“You won’t take my word for it? I’m wounded.”
“Damn right you’re wounded, and if you give me any more shit I’ll smack you in your stitches.”
“I would strongly suggest you keep from hitting me,” he said in a calm, unsettling voice. “I might react . . . badly.”
She believed him. He’d protect her, but he could also hurt her. A lot. She took a deep breath, trying to shake off the chill his words had brought. “I need proof I was married if I want to get a divorce.”
“Do you want to?”
“Want to what?” She was feeling cranky, upset, confused.
“Get divorced. It’ll be harder than you expect—Italian marriage laws are fairly rigid, and we had a cardinal perform the service.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “That was either an actor or some poor seminary student looking to make a quick buck.”
“He was a little old for a seminary student, wasn’t he? And there was a certain gravitas to him . . .”
“All right, an actor. A good actor. In fact, I don’t even remember him or what he looked like.” She regretted those words the moment she said them.
He wasn’t about to let that slip by. “Something distracting you, Angel?”
“You were probably feeding me an aphrodisiac to keep me compliant.” Her voice was sullen. Embarrassment did that to her. She wanted to change the subject, fast, but she should have known he wouldn’t let it pass.
“No aphrodisiac. Admit it, you were besotted with me. Back then I could make you come just by looking at you.”
Jesus, why didn’t he stop? She turned her face toward the window, watching as the scenery sped by. “If you believe that’s physically possible, then some woman must have fed you a load of crap at some point.”
He laughed, and she felt just a bit of the tension leave his body. “Well, you came close. I can prove it to you.”
“No, thanks. I’m not interested in your soulful looks. I just want to get away from you.”
He grunted in annoyance. “Still on that? How about this? As soon as I think you’re safe, I’ll let you go. First we have to get to New Orleans and then I can reevaluate things.”
She wasn’t going to get her hopes up. “Exactly why are we going to Louisiana? It’s the most corrupt state in the union. Or is that why it attracts you? That would make sense.”
“Keep on trying, Evangeline,” he said lightly. “Sooner or later you’ll manage to get to me.” It was a warning. “We’re going to New Orleans because the people I work for have decided to set up a branch in the United States, and New Orleans seemed an obvious choice. It’s an international port, the local laws are . . . elastic, and to top it off, it’s got a strong connection to my current project.”
“The people you work for? Your project? Exactly what is it you do?” She made no effort to keep the disbelief from her voice.
He turned to look at her. She could see his reflection in the window, the assessing look on his face, and then he gave her his charming smile, the one that was full of shit. “I’m a consultant.”
“Who kills on the side?”
“Competition’s a bitch,” he replied.
“But . . .”
“Just shut the fuck up, Evangeline.” She’d managed to get on his nerves, a dubious triumph. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us, and I don’t want to spend the next ten hours bickering. Not when there isn’t a bed nearby to resolve things.”
That stopped her. He punched the stereo she’d had put into Dolores, and music filled the cab. He cast a glance at her. “Punk?” he said in disbelief.
She bit back her annoyed retort. Don’t poke the sleeping tiger, she told herself. “There’s country, classical, rock and roll, some opera, African music—just about every kind of music with the possible exception of polka music. If you don’t like punk I can change it if you tell me what the . . . what you did with my iPod.”
“Punk is fine. It fits my mood.”
It didn’t fit hers. She’d taken cocaine once, at Pete’s urging during one of his faculty parties, and it made her feel nervous, jangled. The circumstances and the music were doing the same thing to her, and she kept one hand in Merlin’s fur, as if it were a security blanket, as she tried to take stealthy, calming breaths.
The Dead Kennedys were pounding away through her Bose speakers, always a great choice for long, fast drives but getting on her last nerve at the moment, though she said nothing. She breathed again.
“I find it works best if you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth,” he observed.
She ignored him. He was right, of course—she’d been too anxious to even remember that much. She’d make it through this.
The song finished, and X Japan came on. “All right, you’ve managed to surprise me,” he said. “Japanese punk?”
“You said you didn’t want me to annoy you,” she muttered, refusing to look at him directly. She could see him well enough in the window as the sky grew lighter. “I don’t think we can have a discussion without it.”
“You’re probably right.” He seemed perfectly content with J-rock when he finally found a paved road; then the driving style she remembered so well came into play, and they were barreling down the thankfully empty road. They had gone through the Ramones and classic Stooges, with “I Wanna Be Your Dog” leaving her feeling itchy, when he straightened slightly and reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulling the fabric tight against his crotch. He pulled out her iPod, and glanced at her. “Got any requests?”
For you to go to hell, she thought fiercely. “Van Morrison,” she muttered. Van the Man would give her strength.
“Good choice,” he said, and she immediately regretted it. He glanced down at her iPod Classic, navigating it faster than she could, and a moment later “Days Like This” came on the stereo. It was a cynical choice but she didn’t care; she let the music slip under her skin, shutting him out. He stopped trying to talk to her, instead concentrating on the road, and she finally, finally began to relax. There was nothing unsalvageable in a world with Van Morrison in it.
She drifted into sleep, on and off during the endless hours, and when she woke with a start, she needed a bathroom, and damn, did she need some food. At some point they’d gotten on a wider road. Tall, spiky mountains appeared on one side as they headed toward a depressingly flat landscape. “Where are we?”
“Halfway through Wyoming.” While she’d slept the music had changed, and he must have set it to shuffle. At the moment it was Richard Thompson.
“If you don’t stop soon I will start to chew off my own arm.”
“Hungry, are you? I’m not surprised. Maybe next time I cook for you, you won’t throw the plate at me.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’m afraid I can’t wait that long. I need a bathroom and I need food. You need to stop in the next town.”
“There aren’t many towns in this part of the country.”
She looked at him. Some of that tension had left him, but not all, and she knew she should still tread carefully. She wasn’t in the mood. “Find one,” she said flatly.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said sarcastically. Merlin was lying at her feet, marginally more alert, and he added a whining noise to her request.
“You need food, old boy?” Bishop said, sounding a lot more affectionate toward her dog than he had been with her, and for a moment Evangeline couldn�
��t decide who she was jealous of, which was patently ridiculous. Bishop had taken over her life five years ago, and now he’d come back and taken over again. He was even trying to steal her dog from her.
“He hasn’t eaten in a long time either. We’ll need to find a pet store, if possible, or at least a grocery store. He doesn’t eat people food.”
“He’ll be fine with people food.”
“I only give him a very expensive blend for big dogs with delicate digestive systems,” she said sternly.
“What makes you think he has a delicate digestive system? He’ll be fine with a couple of hamburgers.”
“Why the hell do you think you know more about my dog than I do?” she demanded, thoroughly pissed.
He didn’t answer, and his words to Clement came back. You cut my woman, and you hurt my dog. Not that she was his woman, but she had the sudden, horrible, unavoidable feeling that Merlin really was his dog.
“You bastard,” she said under her breath, leaning back against the seat.
He sighed wearily. “What did I do now?”
“You know what you did. You took my diamond earrings, my trust, my . . . my love, and disappeared with all of them. As if that hadn’t hurt me enough, you give me a dog so you can have the extreme pleasure of ripping him away from me.”
He didn’t bother denying it, the bastard. “Figured that out, did you? Took you long enough. Don’t be so melodramatic. I hate to tell you, but he no longer considers me his owner. He obeys my instructions because I trained him, but if he was given the choice, he’d always come back to you. You have that effect on dumb animals.”
Merlin lifted his head, as if to protest the description, and Evangeline rubbed behind his ears in his favorite spot, wondering what other dumb animals had supposedly fallen under her spell. There was no way he was talking about himself.
“So why don’t you tell me why the hell you dropped your trained attack dog in the middle of a Midwestern college campus and expected him to find me and stick to me?”
“That was the easy part. He’s trained to guard, but even a soldier like Merlin has a mushy heart in the center. That’s part of what makes him so good—if anyone comes near you who means any harm, he’ll rip his throat out.”
“And that’s why he didn’t rip your throat out,” she said, feeling stupid and trapped and manipulated. “I should have realized that from the very beginning.”
He shrugged. “I know you’re used to being the smartest person in the room, but there are times when even you can’t figure something out.” She gave him a contemptuous glare, one that left him completely unmoved. “As for finding you, it was easy enough. You remember that practically transparent wrapper you wore a couple of times for approximately two seconds? It contained enough of your scent to train him to home in on you.”
She jerked her head to stare at his cool, emotionless face. “How in the world did you get that? I threw it in the trash when I left the Danieli.”
“I retrieved it. I figured it would come in handy. If I ever ended up missing you, I could always jack off into it.”
“You’re disgusting,” she said.
“So you’ve said.”
He pulled off the road, and she saw a truck stop, with a dozen big rigs parked outside, and her hopes rose. She loved country music and trucking songs. Maybe they really were the knights of the road, and they’d come to the rescue of a damsel in distress.
His gorgeous blue eyes were on her. “Don’t even think about it, Angel. I can kill, remember? Kill without remorse, without thinking twice, and trust me, I can be very efficient. You want to be responsible for the death of one or more of those truckers inside?”
He knew her too well. She refused to admit defeat, but she was going to have to think very hard before she put anyone else in danger. “Just feed me, Seymour,” she said, “and I won’t give you any more trouble.”
“Little Shop of Horrors,” he said, recognizing the quote. “That would be wise on your part.” The menace was still there. The man who’d tended her wounds, who’d protected her, had disappeared, leaving this cold-eyed stranger in his place. She’d been a fool to forget exactly who he was, seduced by the familiar body and the familiar touch. “Stay here while I walk Merlin.”
The dog lifted his head at the sound of his name, turning to look at Evangeline expectantly. “I think he wants me to come.”
“Tough. To me, Merlin,” he said in a cold voice.
But Evangeline was stroking under his neck; along with all his hidden training, she’d done a little of her own, and that was her signal to relax and play. Merlin turned and climbed into her lap, an impressive feat for a ninety-pound animal. Evangeline gave Bishop a limpid smile. “He thinks he’s a lapdog,” she said. “He may have started life as an attack dog, but after three years with me he’s become an absolute pussycat.” She was exaggerating, but it was basically the truth. Merlin loved to wrestle, to curl next to her, to climb into her lap. The only thing he wouldn’t do was sleep on her bed—he insisted on sleeping by the door, always on guard. He’d slept on Bishop’s mattress in the trailer, and it had only increased her anger.
“Don’t push me, Angel,” he muttered. “Get out of the damned truck then. We can all go for a walk.”
She gave him her best smile before reaching for the door. “Walkies, Merlin!” The dog jumped off her in excitement, waiting for her to climb out before he followed, dancing around.
“‘Walkies’?” Bishop said in tone of deep loathing. “You’ve ruined my dog.”
“You forget, he’s my dog now. You gave him to me.”
“Wouldn’t hold up in court,” he muttered.
“And of course you’re comfortable with the legal system.”
“If I want him you can’t stop me from taking him.”
The thought filled her with fear, but she was determined not to show it. Merlin was busy marking everything around them, and she hoped he’d lift his leg against Bishop’s faded jeans. “If you take him, he’ll do whatever he has to in order to get back to me. Ever seen The Incredible Journey? He’ll find me.”
She should have kept her fucking mouth shut. Bishop was on the ragged edge, and pushing him over would be a very bad idea. For some reason she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t going to be a victim, ever again.
“Do you want to eat?”
It wasn’t a question, it was a threat, and she could already smell hamburgers and bacon on the air.
“Eat,” she said with appropriate meekness, mentally giving him the finger.
He didn’t say anything more, but she got the message. She walked behind him, a deliberately demure ten paces as they made their way through the grass-covered space next to the diner. Merlin kept running ahead, then turning around, shooting straight back to her, cavorting in joy, bypassing Bishop each time, and any doubts she had vanished. Merlin would swim oceans to get to her, and she’d do the same.
Bishop got back to the pickup truck first, and by the time Evangeline and Merlin arrived he had a bowl of water for Merlin to inhale before the dog jumped into the truck, the cab windows open. He wouldn’t leave, and he’d make sure no one would come near the vehicle.
It was a cool evening in the late summer—the endless day had brought them through Montana and into the flat part of Wyoming, and she hadn’t been awake to appreciate the jagged peaks of the mountains. Would they get back in the truck and drive all night, or were they going to stop at a motel . . . ? She didn’t want to think about it. She needed to fill her stomach. After that, she could come up with a plan. She’d been fantasizing about revenge for the last five years—surely she could adapt one of those scenarios to her current situation?
Food. She was planning to follow Bishop into the diner, but he caught her arm in a grip that looked casual but was going to leave bruises. “Smile at me, sugar,” he muttered. “Or you’re on bread and water.
”
She gave him her most brilliant smile. “Fuck you,” she said sweetly, and walked into the truck stop like the most docile of wives.
Chapter Nine
Bishop took in a deep breath as he checked out the diner. It was crowded, noisy, and bright, filled with the smells of everything cooked in fat, and all those strangers made him feel twitchy. Evangeline was being relatively well behaved beside him as they took an empty booth—he’d scared her. Good. He wasn’t in the mood to fart around, and it would take very little to push him over the edge. He’d never hurt her, but right now he didn’t mind her thinking he would. In fact, the smart thing to do would be to keep her on edge, afraid enough to obey his commands without hesitation, not ask any questions, not think for herself.
But that wasn’t the new Evangeline. In fact it wasn’t even the old Evangeline, though she’d been a damned sight more trusting. She’d still been reticent, but he’d been able to smash through any of her doubts with sex, blinding, mesmerizing sex that left her shattered and compliant.
There was only one problem with that. It had left him shattered as well, and he hadn’t been able to replicate the experience in the last five years. No one felt like her, no one took him to the places she did, and he’d eventually given up, at least for the time being. A good long period of celibacy would probably whet his appetite, make him appreciate the simple pleasure of getting off.
He hadn’t factored in having to rescue Evangeline.
He’d thought she was safe enough at her backwoods little college, particularly with Merlin dogging her heels. Bullets wouldn’t stop Merlin—nothing would.
He had no idea how Corsini’s people had found out about Evangeline. He’d done his level best to break every single tie he had. He’d trained Merlin for her, but Ryder had delivered him, and it would have been almost impossible for him to be traced back to Bishop. “Almost” being the key word.
