The Forever Dream

by Iris Johansen

  "Fantastic." The man entered the foyer, leaving the door discreetly cracked open. "I don't get many tips on this shift, and every little bit helps. My next semester's tuition is due in a week."

  "You're a college student?" she asked over her shoulder as she reached for her bag.

  He nodded. "Law." He snapped his fingers. "I almost forgot. I'm supposed to wait until you open the flowers. There's another present inside, and I was told to make sure it was in your hands before I left."

  "Another present?" she asked, frowning as she handed him a bill.

  He stuffed the tip in his back pocket while balancing the large box in the other arm. He shrugged. "That's what the man said." He fumbled at the lid of the box. "Here, let me help you."

  Long stemmed roses filled the box. They were a crimson shade so deep and vibrant that she caught her breath at the sheer beauty of them. There was a small square box elegantly wrapped in silver foil nesting among the dark ferns.

  She touched one gorgeous petal with a delicate finger. "Beautiful," she breathed softly.

  "What?" She glanced up to see his eyes narrowed on her face with an odd intentness. "The package is right there, ma'am. If you'll just let me see you take possession of it, I'll be on my way."

  "Of course." She gave him a warm smile and reached for the package. "I'm afraid I got carried away. They're such a lovely color, aren't they?"

  "Lovely," he agreed absently. "They came from Mr. Windloes own greenhouse on the estate."

  Her hand tightened on the box as her eyes flew up to meet his. Greenhouse? There wasn't a greenhouse on the farm. The bright blue eyes of the delivery man were no longer cheerful, and he suddenly looked older and harder. "I don't underst—"

  The rest was lost as she was enveloped in a cool mist that seemed to spray from the silver box in her hand. She was vaguely conscious of the lovely roses falling in slow motion through the air to the carpet as the delivery man dropped the box and swiftly stepped back, a handkerchief pressed to his nose and mouth. Then all consciousness faded as she followed the beautiful crimson blossoms to the floor.

  Chapter 3

  Kevin looked up at him from the mat, a rueful smile on his craggy face, his blue eyes dancing. "One of these days, Jared. One of these days." He gave a pained groan as he rose stiffly to his feet. "I'm definitely going to have to give this up. It's not only excruciatingly taxing to my fragile physique, it's positive hell on my ego."

  Ryker threw him a towel, watching with a grin while Kevin McCord wiped the sweat off that massive "fragile" physique. With the gleam of perspiration coating the rippling muscles of his chest, McCord looked more like a gladiator in the arena than a senatorial aide. His short auburn hair curled rebelliously about the rough-hewn toughness of his features, and only the dusting of freckles over the bridge of his nose and the open, engaging frankness of his expression saved him from appearing truly intimidating.

  "You almost had me once or twice, there," Ryker said. "Next time, maybe."

  "Almost isn't good enough. You're a scientist, for God's sake. Didn't anyone ever tell you that scientists are supposed to be stoop-shouldered, ninety-eight-pound weaklings? Where did you learn karate, anyway?"

  "Nam. But I'm sure you're aware of that already. It's

  all in my dossier, isn't it?" He smiled cynically. "Perhaps it was even you who compiled it, McCord."

  McCord frowned. "It wasn't, as a matter of fact. Senator Corbett hires an agency for that type of investigation." He wiped his forehead. "I've studied it, of course, but I don't have a photographic memory, as you do, Jared. Some things do slip my mind occasionally." He turned in the direction of the door leading to the sauna, adjacent to the shower area. "Now I think I'm ready to bake out some of these aches and pains you've produced in my decrepit body." He sighed. "When the senator assigned me to the chateau as your aide, I never even dreamed I'd be the object of this kind of battering. I had visions of handling world-shaking correspondence and inspiring you to burn the midnight oil to make other mind-blowing discoveries. Instead, I'm a glorified sparring partner." He glowered. "You don't even play chess, Jared. Don't you know that all geniuses are supposed to play chess?"

  "Sorry," Jared said solemnly, his lips twitching. "I'll try to rectify that fault at the earliest opportunity. The game wasn't exactly popular in that coal town where I grew up in West Virginia." He fell into step with McCord to cross the highly polished floor of the gymnasium. "You don't enjoy our poker games, then?"

  McCord flinched. 'That punishment is worse than the karate. I think I just may ask the senator to recall me to Washington . . . unless you're ready to use my other talents to a greater extent. You know you're bored as hell, Jared. Why don't you let me equip a lab for you here at the chateau? Corbett will get you anything you need or want."

  "I'm well aware of that." Jared smiled grimly. "Sam Corbett is much too astute a man not to hedge his bets any way he can. It makes him distinctly uneasy that the key to a complicated piece of work is in my head, and not

  written on a slip of paper locked in a safety-deposit box somewhere."

  "Can you blame him?" McCord's blue eyes were sober. "Your discovery will probably change every aspect of our existence as we know it. It's not very reasonable of I you to insist upon carrying it around in your head. You owe it to society to safeguard that knowledge."

  "But that's what I'm doing, Kevin. Safeguarding it," 1 Jared said. "I'm keeping the key. Without it my notes, papers, models, computer printouts are of little use. As long as the last piece of knowledge is mine alone, I can control it." His facial muscles tightened to flintlike I hardness. "And I will control it, Kevin. I'll be damned if I'll let a bunch of bureaucratic bastards get their hands on this!"

  "Okay, okay." McCord threw up his hands in surrender. "No lab." He sighed. "I guess I'll just have to resign myself to the role of buddy." He rubbed the small of his back in painful reminiscence. "If my muscles will survive the strain."

  Jared chuckled. It was almost impossible not to like McCord, despite the wariness he'd conditioned himself to feel in the presence of any one of the battery of Corbett's underlings who surrounded him here in the senator's stronghold. McCord possessed not only an incisive mind, but almost a quiet charm that drew people to him. God only knew, Jared reflected, how out of his mind with boredom he would have been here without McCords presence. Not that he wasn't nearly to I that point now, he thought, suddenly impatient with himself as well as the situation he was in. The offer of a 1 lab had come at a diabolically tempting time because his need to get back to work was almost a physical ache. And 1 he hadn't the slightest doubt that McCord understood too well.

  "You’ll survive, McCord," Jared said as he pushed

  open the door and entered the shower area. "You may even get a rest cure in the near future. I've been thinking of flying to New York for a few days."

  A troubled frown replaced the grin on Kevin's face. "Betz will foam at the mouth when he hears what you're planning. He was nearly climbing the walls when you left the chateau last time."

  Jared shrugged. "Too bad. I was stumbling over one of his security men whenever I turned around in New York. That should be enough for him; if not, he'll just have to foam away."

  "Believe me, he will. Betz is practically a fanatic about his precious security measures, and the senator's told him that if anything happens to you, he'll be axed." Kevin hesitated. "It's only another six weeks, Jared. Why chance it?"

  "Drop it, McCord," Jared said curtly. He rapidly stripped off the loose white jacket and pants of his gi and reached into the shower cubicle to turn on the spray. "I won't tolerate interference from you any more than I will from Betz." He ducked into the shower and closed the frosted door.

  "Whatever you say," Kevin called to him. "I'll see you at breakfast, after I bake the aches out of these muscles in the sauna." His massive shadow moved away from the translucent door.

  He was feeling a few aches and pains himself, Jared realized as he soaped his body thorou
ghly. What Kevin lacked in skill, he made up for in sheer brute strength, and he'd been perfectly honest when he'd said the match had been closer than any that had gone before.

  "Dr. Ryker." The ponderous, measured cadence to those words announced Ed Betz as surely as the solid square shadow thrown on the frosted pane. "I wonder if it would be possible to see you for a few minutes?" Jared slammed the soap into its compartment on the

  wall and let the spray wash the foam from his body. Foam. The word suddenly reminded him of McCords description of Betz's probable reaction to his plans for this weekend, and he smiled. "I'll be out in a minute, Betz," he said politely. "Unless you'd prefer to come in."

  "No, I can wait, Dr. Ryker," Betz answered with perfect seriousness.

  Jared shook his head in amazement. If Betz had considered the matter of utmost urgency, Jared hadn't the slightest doubt he would have accepted his invitation. Lord, he wasn't even safe from the man under a spraying shower. Well, he might just as well get it over with and see what was on that methodical, snaillike mind. He abruptly turned off the shower and opened the door.

  Betz was standing outside the stall. Dressed in one of his usual dark business suits, he offered a towel to Jared with his customary impersonal efficiency. "I'm glad you were almost finished," he commented. "I did want to get you settled before I left the chateau. I received a call from the senator asking me to try to make it to Washington by noon to coordinate the security for his trip to California next week."

  "Settled?" Jared began to dry himself with the towel. "I appreciate your concern, but I don't think I'll need your help. Run along to Washington, Betz."

  "As I said, I intend to do that immediately after I see you . . . er . . . happy to stay here," Betz said. "I wouldn't have considered leaving before, but now that I'm sure you'll have something to occupy you, I don't think there's any further cause for alarm." He smiled with a satisfaction bordering on smugness. "I believe you'll be very content here when you see the surprise that arrived at the chateau for you a few hours ago."

  Jared was dressing rapidly, and he looked up from zipping his jeans to frown impatiently. "Stop playing cute, Betz. What the hell are you talking about?" He

  pulled a cream-colored sweatshirt over his head and settled it around his hips before taking a comb from the tray over the basin and starting to comb his hair. "If you're trying to be mysterious, believe me, it isn't your forte."

  A little smile was tugging at Betz's lips as he met Jared's eyes in the mirror. "I have no intention of being mysterious, Dr. Ryker. In fact, I'm quite eager to show you what I've arranged for you, if you'll come along with me now."

  "Certainly," Jared drawled as he threw the comb back on the shelf. "I don't think I've seen you this excited over anything but the New York Times crossword puzzle." He gestured mockingly. "By all means lead on, Betz."

  Jared was feeling a mild flicker of curiosity as he followed the security man up a flight of stairs to a hallway on the ground floor of the chateau. Their heels clicked on the echoing parquet-floored corridor as they made their way toward the grand staircase.

  The bedroom door on the second floor before which Betz paused was in a generally unused wing of the chateau. For a moment there was a glint of triumph in the usually expressionless face as he opened the door and stepped aside. "After you, Dr. Ryker."

  Jared darted him a derisive glance. Betz was really carrying his little surprise to extremes.

  As he entered the room, darkness enveloped him. When his vision adjusted slightly he could make out vague shapes and a general impression of the same Louis XIV elegance in furnishings that characterized the other rooms in the chateau. Then, as his eyes became fully accustomed to the lack of light, he saw the heavy emerald velvet drapes that were drawn across the French windows, blocking out the early-morning sunlight. A canopied double bed stood in the dusky intimacy of the center of the room. An occupied double bed.

  Jared sighed impatiently, curiosity gone and annoyance in bloom. "Another one of your imported whores, Betz? I thought I'd discouraged that particular practice."

  "Look a little closer, Dr. Ryker."

  He drew closer to the bed and, casting a casual glance at the sleeping woman who occupied it, suddenly stiffened. His body was as galvanized by shock as if he'd been stroked by an electric wire.

  She looked almost childlike to him in that big double bed. Her small body was obviously naked beneath the cream satin sheet that covered her to her shoulders, and the dark shining hair falling over one shoulder was braided with silver and fastened with a tiny diamond star. The long sweep of her lashes against the curve of her cheek gave her a curious vulnerability that was absent when dominated by those blazing dark eyes. The silken sheet scarcely lifted with each breath; she was sleeping deeply. Too deeply.

  "I thought you'd be pleased."

  Betz's voice was redolent with satisfaction, and it served to jerk Jared from his state of bemusement at the sight of Tania Orlinov. He whirled to face the other man, his eyes blazing with an intensity of anger that caused Betz to take an involuntary step backward. "You arrogant son of a bitch!" Jared's voice was hoarse with rage. "Whatever gave you the idea that you could do this to someone?" He strode nearer to the bed and picked up Tania's wrist. The pulse was slow but steady. "What the hell did you give her?"

  "She'll be quite all right in a little while," Betz said soothingly from behind him. "She breathed in an innocuous gas, which knocked her out immediately. On the plane she was accompanied by a competent physician, who kept her sedated at a very safe level of drugs. She'll wake up in a few hours without even a trace of a headache."

  "My God, you actually kidnapped her." Jared was charged with incredulous anger. "Didn't it ever occur to you that she's an independent woman, with the right to make her own decisions? You can't ride roughshod over a human being this way."

  "It was necessary," Betz said calmly. "We offered her a great deal of money, but she wouldn't take it. We had no other option but to use force." He frowned. "You needn't worry that the method of her arrival will spoil your pleasure. We've taken precautions against something like that happening."

  "Take her back to New York!" Betz's eyes widened in surprise. "Back to . . ." He studied Jared's tense face and blazing eyes for long, thoughtful moments before he slowly shook his head. "I'm afraid we can't do that, Dr. Ryker. Aside from the fact that our actions in abducting her might be discovered and make things difficult for the senator, the reason we took Miss Orlinov in the first place still exists." He paused. "You want her."

  Oh, yes, he wanted her, Jared thought grimly. Even in his anger he could feel his swelling need for her push against the fabric of his jeans. The sight of her lying there before him, her shoulders and the upper swell of her breasts rising from the satin sheets, was like a delicate loving hand stroking him. His eyes turned compulsively to the pulse point his thumb was absently stroking even now. Her hand. He drew a deep breath and carefully laid her arm back on the counterpane. "It's the mark of a civilized man that he does not always take what he wants, even if he can have it. That quality separates us from the Neanderthal. Take her back to New York, Betz."

  "No. The situation hasn't changed, so it would be unreasonable to undo all our work at this stage." He frowned. "I don't understand the problem, Dr. Ryker. It's been obvious that the reason you've been taking

  these hazardous trips to New York was Miss Orlinov. Now the trips are no longer necessary. You have her here in the chateau."

  "And have you informed Sam Corbett of your solution to your little problem?" Jared asked caustically. "I think he'd regard your reasoning as simplistic, to say the least."

  Betz shook his head. "I didn't consult him, but I don't think he'd have any major objections. My instructions were to take any measures necessary to protect you." He paused. "Any measures, Dr. Ryker."

  "Delightful," Jared said bitterly. "You wouldn't consider your attitude a bit ruthless?"

  "You have the reputation of being a bit ruthl
ess yourself, upon occasion. You should have no problem understanding our position." Betz meticulously straightened his discreetly-patterned tie. "Now I really must be on my way. I'll probably be back within a few weeks, but if you need anything, you need only inform Mr. McCord, of course."

  "Of course," Jared echoed ironically. "If I want another woman abducted or a murder committed, I'll just tell Kevin."

  Betz's lips curved in an uncertain smile. "You're being humorous?" He shrugged and turned away. "I'm sure after consideration you'll realize this action can only be to our mutual benefit." He was moving swiftly toward the door. "Until you come around to a more logical way of thinking, however, I should warn you that I've left instructions with my staff that under no circumstances is Miss Orlinov to be allowed to leave the chateau." He paused at the door. "Oh, one more thing. I know that you've mentioned your disgust at the cloying willingness of some of the other women we've provided for you. I did think, though, that you might find rebelliousness or resistance on Miss Orlinovs part not to your liking." He smiled. "I wanted to make sure you and she started out on the right foot, so I had the doctor give her an injection of paradynoline."

  Paradynoline. A potent illegal drug whose side effects were aphrodisiacal. "You really are a bastard, aren't you, Betz?" Jared said, his lips twisting. He hadn't the slightest doubt that the man knew exactly how that piece of information would affect him. His stomach muscles contracted from a jolt of pure lust at the thought of Tania's waking to find him beside her, and desiring him as much as he desired her.

  "I do what I think is necessary."

  "Betz!"

  The security man turned to look at him inquiringly.

  Jared's gaze was once more on Tania's sleeping face, fixed with compulsive fascination on the parted pinkness of her lips. She looked so damn young and innocent. Her skin had the clear, silky sheen of a child's. "Who undressed her?"

  "The doctor and I. Why?"

  Jared reached out a hand and touched the curve of Tania's cheekbone. "Don't ever touch her again, Betz," he said thickly. "You'd better make damn sure that no one ever touches her again."