She knew he’d rather fall to the ground and crawl than admit to needing her.
“Come to think of it, no man ever thinks his car is ‘just transportation,’” she added with empty brilliance. “It must be a guy thing. Because women never think of their cars—”
He lurched forward and she thought he was going to pass out. Instead, he briefly caressed her stomach. The touch felt intimate and worshipful.
“That’s more important,” he said. “Right there.”
She stopped trying to talk to him.
He regained his strength, leaning less heavily on her as they walked along Fifth Avenue. They heard sirens from a distance.
Tarini let Austin’s arms go and he crossed the street, taking a handful of napkins from a hot-dog stand outside Central Park. He slumped down on a concrete bench partially hidden from the sidewalk by a thick, overgrown bush.
He wiped his face as best he could, grimacing only slightly as the paper raked over the glass still stuck beneath his torn skin.
The owner of the hot-dog stand didn’t spare them a glance—a true New Yorker, he had seen everything.
“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” Tarini said.
Austin shook his head.
“We’ve got to get you out of town,” he countered. “They want you, Tarini, and they want you dead. They might not bother with trotting you out for public consumption. They don’t need you for some puppet trial in the homeland. They’ll take you dead if they can’t have you alive.”
She shivered, survivor’s instincts telling her to run, get out, find sanctuary wherever she could.
A farm in Connecticut sounded just dandy now.
But she thought of Vlad, the key to her country’s salvation, who had offered her selfless salvation when she needed it.
“Austin, if you want to get out now,” she said, “I can go it alone. No sense both of us going down.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I told you before, you’re stuck with me. Until the end. Whatever that end is.”
His voice was soft—gone was the bitterness and the arrogance and the knowing everything. He had been attacked, caught by an enemy he couldn’t see. He was angry…at himself.
She took a napkin from him and soaked it in a nearby water fountain.
“Here,” she said as she knelt in front of him. “You’re not gentle enough with yourself.”
He grunted, and bit his lip as she touched him.
“How’d you know there’d be a timer?” she asked.
“Intuition. I figured they’d find the car, but might not be able to catch up with us. I opened the door, saw the mercury liquid sensor on the dash and I just rolled. I would have looked pretty stupid rolling around on the parking lot if I’d been wrong.”
“Is that why you were so adamant with the parking-lot guy?”
“Yeah, do you think I’m a jerk like that all the time?”
“No,” she said with a wobbly smile. “No…of course not.”
“Yeah, right” Austin grimaced. “Glad to know you like me as much as I like you.”
She wiped the grime away from his face, softly brushed away the slivers of glass that weren’t too deeply embedded and dug into her purse for a bandage for a cut high on his cheekbone.
He stared at her like a proud, wounded animal. He didn’t flinch, didn’t wince, didn’t cry out, complain or curse.
But she cried.
Then she leaned forward. And with featherlight tenderness, kissed the cut on his forehead.
Chapter Seven
“I guess I shouldn’t have done that,” Tarini said breathlessly.
He stared at her from beneath heavy lids.
“You’re right,” he said curtly. “You shouldn’t have done that”
But he grabbed her up in his arms, shuddering as the press of their bodies tore at a bruise in his chest. He wanted her then, and he didn’t care what the consequences were. Didn’t care that his love for her had been destroyed. Didn’t care that she was manipulating him now as surely as if she’d taken his heart in her long, thin fingers, squeezing it until it broke.
His kiss was hard and urgent—with only a moment’s tenderness before he abandoned all pretense of luring her with sweetness or words of love. This was about his gratification, his needs, his physical demands—and her feelings be damned, he’d take what he wanted from her.
With a bruising press of his lips against hers, he possessed her totally, pulling at her lower lip and exploring her mouth with his tongue.
He wanted everything that kisses could be—and more.
He would satisfy himself.
But there wasn’t the womanly surrender of her flesh that he remembered from long-ago December kisses. He wondered if he was hurting her. He caught himself, aware that his hands gripped her too tightly—warning himself not to crush her. Selfconsciousness held him back. And yet, he was in no mood for tender kisses and sweet caresses.
The force of his hardness was as vital and sudden as when he had been a teen.
It had been too long. Too long.
And he remembered why.
He pushed her away.
“Don’t jerk me around like that anymore,” he said brusquely.
“You were the one who kissed me,” she said pointedly, raising her head to challenge him with wide, opaque sea-green eyes. She glanced about, and he realized she was uncomfortable with the prospect of others seeing their embrace. Was it modesty? Or was she looking for an escape route?
“You enticed me,” he said flatly. “Purposely enticed me.” Heaven help him, she could entice him just by being alive.
How he had worked to forget her, and now, as she crouched in front of him, he couldn’t stop hungering at the swell of her breasts in that T-shirt. When she tossed her head to get the hair out of her eyes, he nearly lost it.
He took a deep breath and willed himself to calm. He had to get a grip on himself if they had any chance to survive. If he had any chance of getting through this—with any of his dignity intact.
He wasn’t going to get sidetracked by a bewitching temptress who was his best friend’s woman. He stared at the ring on her finger. Five carats’ worth of Vlad’s woman.
Focus, he warned himself. She wasn’t his lover— she was his ex-lover, his best friend’s fiancée, a pregnant woman, and most important, a woman with a price on her head.
And it was his job—no, not a job—it was his life’s meaning to get her safely reunited with the man whose child she carried. Vlad would have his hands full when Austin completed his mission, but that would be his problem.
“Get up,” he said, rising to his feet.
He suppressed the ingrained chivalrous reflex to help her up. He had to show her he was immune to her charms.
She looked up at him, rejecting his command. “I think we’re through, Austin,” she said from beneath jet lashes. “Let’s shake hands on it and part as…nearly friends, not quite enemies.”
“I agree we’re through, but I’m still responsible for you. I told you before, I despise you…but I’m laying down my life for you. So get up and get moving before you provide these killers with the perfect target Or else, I’ll lie down on top of you right now and wait for the bullets to fly.”
“That was always your problem,” she said archly. “An overactive sense of responsibility. There’s another English word for it—bossy.”
“It’s better for you than the alternative,” he countered. “At least you’re alive. Come on, Tarini. I’m getting you out of here.”
He shoved his hands up under her armpits and dragged her to her feet. When she whirled, he ducked. Knowing a slap was coming. It never came.
“Don’t touch me again.”
“Then do what I tell you to do.”
“I’m not your slave.”
“No, if anything, I’m yours. Because I’ve chosen to serve you. I’m getting you back to your fiancé so that you can be a family again, and I’m going to tear apart any man who tries to inter
fere with that.”
“Then what was that kiss all about?”
“I don’t know,” Austin lied. He knew what it was. It was lust Survivor’s lust. And maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t gotten her out of his system. But he added truthfully, “It will never happen again.”
She stood a little closer, challenging him with her light scent and sparkling almond-shaped eyes.
“Never?” she asked.
He set his jaw determinedly. “Never,” he confirmed. “Now, let’s get out of here. If they put a timer in the car, they might have had surveillance on the parking lot. Even if they weren’t watching, they’re going to figure out pretty soon that you and I aren’t dead. We have to get moving. You’re going into safety and I’m heading for Byleukrainia to look for Vlad.”
Tarini pointed to the drops of blood on the sidewalk at their feet.
“But you should go to a hospital.”
“You have to learn to be a little more creative about ditching your men,” he said, shaking his head. “No hospital. We gotta get moving. They might be anywhere.”
They looked around the crowded street. Most passersby didn’t give them a second glance. But any one of them could be a killer. Or anybody in the cars on the street could be holding a gun. Or someone at the window of any of the dizzyingly high skyscrapers could be a sharpshooter.
They were a target waiting for their marksman. But Austin wasn’t going to wait around, and from the darting fear in Tarini’s eyes he figured that she would follow him. If only for the moment.
He stepped out onto the curb, scanning the traffic for a cab. He saw one up the block and it looked empty. He whistled loudly.
“Hey, Austin, just one second.”
He glanced back at her. She stood next to the hot-dog stand where they had gotten the napkins.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.
“No. And you can’t tell me that twenty minutes ago you were throwing up at the sight of food and now…”
“I’ll take three hot dogs,” she said to the vendor. “And put some of that sauerkraut on them. A little more mustard, please. Those pickles look heavenly. Oh, and a couple of bags of chips.”
“I said I wasn’t hungry!” Austin scowled.
She gave him a blistering look. “Did I say any of this was for you?”
AFTER HANDING Tarini her purse, Bob closed the passenger-side door of his car. He held out his hand to Austin.
“Good luck, buddy, keep in touch,” he said. “If you need anything, call me.”
“Let me give you the number…”
Bob shook his head. “Don’t tell me. Better that you don’t tell me where you’re going.”
“I trust you,” Austin protested.
Bob shook his head again. “If Karinolov comes sniffing around here, I don’t want to have anything to tell him. Just call in when you need help. I’ll be here.”
“You’re right,” Austin agreed. “Better for you not to know. Thanks for the car. You’re a good friend.”
“Just bring my car back in one piece,” Bob said.
“Sure, Bob.”
He got in the driver’s side, started the engine and pulled out of the station-house parking lot, waving once to his friend.
Austin would have liked to linger in Manhattan, driving in circles until he was certain that they weren’t being tailed or until he had flushed someone out.
But he knew Tarini. She’d ditch him in a minute if he wasn’t careful. In New York, there were a million places she could hide from him. And he wasn’t sure he’d be the first man to find her if she did.
He headed for Connecticut.
“Don’t you think putting me in hiding is wasting our greatest tool in finding Vlad?” she asked after a while, polishing off the last of an ice-cream cone they’d bought along the way. “After all, I’m the one who’s got something Karinolov wants. A Romanov heir.”
Austin shook his head. “It’s what you’ve got that I’m trying to protect. I won’t risk putting Vlad’s child in danger—Karinolov might do anything if he had you within reach again. Besides, if I have you with me, I’ll put more energy into protecting you than in tracking Vlad.”
She opened her mouth and started to protest. But didn’t.
She had finally come around, Austin decided, and he was fairly optimistic about the odds of her staying exactly where he put her as they finished the drive along the two-lane road leading to his parents’ farm. A light spring rain blanketed the asphalt. The first crocuses and daffodils lined the streets.
The colors made him think of the bright oilcloth raincoats children wore and he wondered what this child would be like. Would Vlad’s child be a boy or girl? For some reason, Austin could not imagine this baby as a girl.
Would he like football? Of course he would— and Austin had a brief daydream of teaching the little tyke how to pass and carry the ball.
Then he remembered that Vlad didn’t like football—didn’t like any sports, come to think of it. Vlad had always been sickly, suffering more than the average bouts with childhood diseases.
Vlad liked chess. He was excellent at strategizing, could anticipate his opponent’s moves masterfully.
Austin couldn’t work up a daydream about teaching a youngster chess.
Besides, what was he doing thinking about teaching Vlad’s child anything? It would be Vlad’s job. Vlad would train his son as he saw fit Vlad would be there to decide if it was chess or football, wouldn’t he?
Austin would see to it.
And what about the child’s mother?
What role would she play in the lives of Vlad, Austin and the baby?
He glanced at the woman sitting in the passenger seat. Tarini seemed a complete stranger.
Hard to believe he had once loved her, although, of course, he had never said the words. He had never wanted to confuse lust—which he certainly felt for her—with an emotion that would make him want to promise to forsake all others for the rest of his life. His caution had been rewarded—she had played him for a fool. Thank God he hadn’t put a ring on her finger or told her that he loved her.
In the past months, he had settled into regarding her as a cold, manipulative operator. And then a single, ill-advised kiss on a New York sidewalk had reignited his passion for her. The kiss had confused him, made it hard to think straight.
That’s what she wants, buddy, he reminded himself. Confusion is what gives her the upper hand.
He didn’t talk to her again along the drive.
His parents were expecting them but hadn’t been told any details of why their son needed safety for a woman. They didn’t comment on his injuries and Austin excused himself to his childhood room to shower, bandage the worst of it and change into a pair of familiar jeans he had worn in college.
His mother, who as a diplomatic wife had gracefully conquered the stickiest protocol problems, cheerfully put out a tea tray in the glass conservatory on the south side of the house. After ensuring that everyone was-comfortable in the plushly cushioned rattan chairs, she chatted with seemingly random interest about gardening, the local schoolboard elections and the recipe for the layer cake she served. No one held up their end of the conversation and, in any other person, her incessant talk would have seemed self-centered.
Austin knew, however, that she was doing her job.
And doing it well.
His father, meanwhile, observed Tarini carefully, though he appeared to be utterly attentive to his cake. Tarini polished off two pieces of cake and three cups of tea without more than an occasional polite murmur in his mother’s direction.
Exactly twenty minutes after their arrival, the stringent protocols of hospitality having been observed, Mrs. Smith put down her teacup. She asked—in a way that made it clear there was no answer but yes—if Tarini would care to see the guest suite where she could freshen up from the long drive.
Taking his cue as the women ascended the front staircase, the retired Honorable Ambassador Reginald Smith gruffly
asked his son if he would like to see his latest pet project.
Austin followed his father down the hall to the richly paneled study.
“Here, look at this,” the ambassador said, holding out his palm to Austin.
Austin peered at his father’s hand. Barely visible was a copper square no larger than a pinhead.
“It’s a tracer,” his father said proudly. “Can be placed in an ordinary dental filling. We can keep up with someone anywhere on the globe with this.”
Austin murmured his admiration, careful not to ask too many questions about his father’s hobby. The ambassador had long been rumored to be a spy for the CIA. Or the NSA. Or Interpol. Austin had never asked, knowing it was not the kind of question that would be answered.
After a few minutes of explaining the technology involved in making the chip, Ambassador Smith carefully placed his treasure in a plastic bag and put it in his middle desk drawer.
“So what’s with the woman?” he asked. “She looks like a Schaskylavitch.”
“She is,” Austin said. “And she’s trouble.”
“Looks like it. Be careful.”
“I haven’t been.”
While his father puffed on his pipe, Austin outlined the events of the past few months. He knew he was repeating a lot that his father already knew about from his own contacts, but Austin wanted to be utterly thorough in making sure his father understood what was at stake.
Ambassador Smith nodded occasionally, interrupted the narrative a few times with incisive questions and stared out the window over the grass to the horses that were his newest acquisition.
Austin left out anything more than a cursory explanation of his own feelings, but he sensed his father understood that he and Tarini had been intimate and her betrayal of him had been painful.
“So what I’d like to do is leave Tarini with you,” Austin said. “She’s accepted the idea that she needs to be protected for the sake of the baby and I know you can take care of her. I’ll head back to New York to confront Karinolov. Now that I know that Vlad is alive, I can go after him. I know I can find him.”
His father remained silent for several minutes. Then he sighed. “There’s only one problem with your story,” the ambassador said.
His Kind Of Trouble Page 8
