“If he hadn’t spared Noreen Pushkoshky fifteen years ago, we would never have won over the passengers,” added Cha Cha.
Grampa raised his hands for silence, his thick eyebrows merging into a straight line across his forehead. “You galoots seem to be laboring under the impression that I am angry with our friend here.”
“You mean you ain’t?” said Drop Dead.
“I am not pleased to discover that I have been the target of trickery.” The old man drew himself up to his full height, which made him nearly as tall as Hal. “However, I can see that it was motivated by a desire to please, something that has never troubled my own grandson.”
“Hey!” protested Chet. “I came here like you asked, didn’t I?”
“You came in search of financial backing,” said Grampa. “Which you have received from the Iceman. However, I would also like to participate in this arrangement, now that I know that Mr. Smothers is a legitimate businessman who adheres to the law.”
“In other words,” Hal said, “you trust me now?”
Grampa grimaced in a manner that, to Melanie, conveyed both agreement and a certain embarrassment. “I did not invite you to our summit because I feared you would muscle in. Now I am willing to participate with you in a business deal. However, you are no longer one of my gang.”
“I never was,” said Hal, “or you would have invited me in the first place.”
The old man gave a reluctant nod. “I believed it was only a matter of time before you formed your own gang. I see now that I was wrong.”
“Wait a minute.” Chet folded his arms. “You just announced that you’re participating in our company. I believe I have something to say about that.”
“What is it that you wish to say, then?” asked Grampa.
“I wish to say…yes,” said his grandson. “You’re in. But we’re equal partners, the three of us. And nobody else.”
The other gangsters shifted and muttered, but didn’t insist on being included. Melanie gathered they were relieved not to have to participate in an aboveboard concern.
“Very well,” said Grampa. “Also, you are invited to Thanksgiving dinner at my penthouse, and you will bring pumpkin and pecan pies, none of that sissy apple stuff.”
“Done,” said Chet.
“I will make the yams,” said Drop Dead. “With pineapple.”
“Don’t forget the marshmallows like you did last year,” said Cha Cha.
“Youse a fine one to talk!” snarled the island’s owner. “The size of them lumps in the gravy, everybody thought they was the marshmallows!”
“Wait!” The Swamp Fox held up his hands. “Let us face a painful truth. Without the Iceman’s cranberryorange relish, it will not be Thanksgiving. I vote that we confer upon him the title of Honorary Criminal.”
Everyone looked to Grampa.
He shrugged. “I have no objection.”
“Okay, ya lug,” said Drop Dead. “Ya get to keep yer island privileges.”
The gangsters smiled and slapped Hal’s shoulder. Melanie thought he winced a little, but no one else seemed to notice.
“I will make one final concession,” said Grampa.
Everyone turned to him in varying states of puzzlement “Yes?” said Hal.
“I am calling off all the other contracts you artfully dodged,” said the gang leader. “Your no-hitter record stands.”
“I am relieved to hear it,” said Hal, and shook the hand of his onetime mentor.
Then he turned away so quickly that only Melanie saw the sheen of moisture in his eyes. After so many years, Hal had achieved his goal and been accepted by Grampa.
Yet he didn’t look very happy. She wondered what could be missing.
THE SCENE that resolved a lifetime of uncertainty had played itself out almost on the periphery of Hal’s consciousness.
All of his body, but only part of his mind, had removed itself from the island, transferred to the mainland and conducted this unexpectedly favorable discussion. The rest continued to clasp Melanie with her lips inches from his own.
Although a bed no longer loomed invitingly in the background, he found himself infused with the certainty that the world was full of beds, and haylofts, and other suitable venues. But, more than that, he intended to secure Melanie on a permanent basis.
Steam might rise from his damp clothing, fueled by the fires below. But when the flatbed truck arrived carrying the private railway car, he merely extended a polite arm to Melanie.
Her fingers curled over the muscle of his forearm as they sauntered from the wharf. Each tip burned through his jacket until he could have lifted a set of her fingerprints from his skin. But still he held himself ramrod straight.
While they waited for the driver to set a ladder in place, Melanie stood so close that he could feel the static electricity crackling from her short, defiant hair. “Wait,” she said. “Haven’t you forgotten something?”
Hal strained to concentrate. Forgotten what? His keys? His wallet? His heart? “I do not think so.”
“Your luggage.” Melanie’s teeth toyed with her lower lip as amusement lit her eyes.
“Oh, that.” He had left his suitcase in their suite, since it had seemed bad form to bring it when the cruise passengers were bereft. “Pixie will send it along.”
“I see.” She gave him a bemused smile and climbed up to the car, displaying those impossibly long, slim legs.
Stifling a groan, Hal followed.
MELANIE FELT like skipping into the railway car. Now at last she and Hal would be alone, except of course for the driver, but he might as well be on another planet.
After staying on an unlisted island undetectable by modern radar, she no longer found their mode of transportation odd. There was simply nothing ordinary about Hal.
His loss of gangster status didn’t bother her, and not because of his honorary-criminal position, either. That might give him entrée to what was surely a most peculiar Thanksgiving celebration, but it did not make a woman’s adrenaline kick in.
What did stir her juices were memories: Hal facing up to his lethal buddies. Hal tenderly holding a baby as he helped its mother wade ashore. Hal pretending not to notice as Melanie unbuttoned his shirt, then grabbing her.
At the same time, she reminded herself how invigorated she would feel once this ache was salved. She could go on about her business unhindered by the inexplicable urge to bury her nose in his jacket and inhale deeply.
Freedom. It was the one thing Melanie had always craved. Soon it would be hers again.
And getting there was going to be more than half the fun.
Inside the car, she glanced around in confusion. The walls, which had been covered with old-fashioned embossed wallpaper, were hung with silken draperies. She wondered if this was the latest trend in railway-car decorations.
The velvet couch was still there. That was the important thing.
She settled onto the cushions and Hal slid the door shut, closing out the rest of the world. Although the car was a large one, his powerful frame dominated it
Melanie propped herself against the arm of the sofa and stretched lazily, aware that the motion thrust her breasts into prominence. The point was to break down Hal’s defenses.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said unnecessarily, and went to the small desk in the corner. There he switched on a computer.
This was not part of the plan. Men, she well knew, could lose themselves in cyperspace for centuries without coming up for air.
“What are you doing?” Melanie asked with more waspishness than she intended.
“Checking out a new program,” he said.
The man would rather play with his computer than make love to her? She choked down a burst of frustration.
In the suite, he had egged her on by pretending indifference while she undressed him. Perhaps his attention to the computer was simply another ploy.
“Need any help?” Melanie purred.
“No. You relax,” he said.
“You have been through a lot these past few days.”
Come to think of it, she could scarcely remember when she’d last slept The churning of the engine made her lump throb, and her muscles tensed as the truck lurched forward. Her hip hurt, too, from when she and Hal had fallen through the ceiling.
Digging in her purse, Melanie found a bottle of ibuprofen and took two, dry. That ought to help.
So it did. Before she knew it, she was asleep.
HAL FINISHED reviewing the program for glitches and stared idly at the computer screen, letting his thoughts wander.
Although he remained friends with Grampa, a new chapter was opening in his life. His identity as a businessman had come out of the closet, and people would regard him differently.
Should he be modest and private, like Bill Gates? Outspoken and activist, like Ted Turner? The future seemed fraught with decisions.
Yet Hal also experienced a rising sense of excitement. The cause of it lay snoozing on the sofa, her inside-out striped sweater bunched around her hips and taut across her breasts where the short black jacket lay open.
He would like to wake her with a kiss. To hold her in his arms as he presented his surprise.
But this was no ordinary woman. He had accepted the fact that Melanie Mulcahy, the love of his life, marched to a different drummer. Possibly to a different band altogether.
She did not wish to be pursued, or wooed, or seduced. If there was anything Hal knew, it was that he must wait for her to come to him.
It was the hardest thing he had ever done.
MELANIE AWOKE to the restful sound of the truck rolling along the highway. Stretching and sitting up, she brushed aside a curtain, but all she could see were rocky, rainshrouded hills.
They could be heading back to Vegas, or Alaska-bound, for all she knew. That would be fine. She wasn’t ready to go home yet
“Hal?” she asked.
He half turned at the desk, a dark figure against the glow of lamplight. Clearing his throat as if dragged from a reverie, he said, “The bar is fully stocked. Juices, snacks…take whatever you like.”
He swung back to the computer. Clamping her lips, Melanie went to the small built-in bar and poured herself a glass of cranberry juice.
It would serve him right if she ignored him. But in a matter of hours they would arrive back in Sin City, and she would be left a seething mass of unslaked desires.
She had to take action.
Melanie drained the glass and slammed it onto the counter. “Time for dessert,” she said.
The man’s head came up and a pair of frank brown eyes met hers. “I regret that we do not have any.”
“Yes, we do.” She leaned back against the counter and regarded him boldly.
Even sitting down, the Iceman radiated power. His shoulders were wonderfully broad, and her eyes traced the brawny swell of his chest.
She wanted him to stand up and walk away from her so she could watch the bunching of his buttocks and note the slimness of his hips and the length of his legs. Better yet, she wanted him to walk toward her, but he seemed in no hurry to do so.
“Scoot your chair back,” said Melanie.
“It is bolted to the floor.” She could have sworn the corners of his mouth twitched, but when she looked again, he wore his usual serious expression.
“You’re doing this deliberately, aren’t you?” she said.
“Pardon me?”
“I’ve never met a man,” said Melanie, “who could be so deliberately obtuse.”
“Who are you calling obtuse?” The words defied her, but he didn’t repress a smile.
“You, you big thug,” she challenged. “You gangster. You fraud. You couldn’t kill a mouse if it ran across your lap and blew you a raspberry.”
“I did not realize mice were capable of making that particular noise,” he said.
She wanted to shake him. Why didn’t he uncoil and speed across the space between them and whip her onto the couch?
Melanie wondered if he was still angry about her occupation. Or if, like shallow men everywhere, he lost interest in a woman once she began to develop an interest in him.
She didn’t care. She wanted him, one more time.
“I’m not taking no for an answer.” Tensing against the movement of the truck, she crossed and stood over him.
“Who said no?” asked the Iceman.
“I don’t see you taking action,” she reproved.
“That is because I see no need to.”
Melanie leaned down and blew in his ear. The only response was an involuntary shudder.
He still wore the windbreaker, unzipped, and beneath it a pullover. There were no buttons to unwork, so she brushed her lips over his jawline and ran her tongue down the side of his throat.
He swallowed hard.
Reaching to his waist, she tugged the sweater loose from his belt and reached beneath, up to the bare expanse of his chest. She could feel each individual muscle tighten.
How much longer could this go on? she wondered, and slid her hands lower, beneath the belt
Like a volcano, Hal exploded.
Melanie got an impression of seething heat, and heard a low roar, and then she was lying on the couch, deliciously draped. Her clothes flew through the air along with Hal’s.
One of these days, she was going to figure out how he accomplished warp speed. Then she remembered that there weren’t going to be any rematches; this was it.
Her blow for freedom. Well, so be it. She intended to enjoy every millisecond.
A hard, probing mouth closed over hers, and Melanie surrendered herself to a pyroclastic flow of sensations. His chest rubbed her breasts. His hands adjusted her hips beneath him. His body covered hers.
They floated atop a column of rising heat. By the time Hal entered her, Melanie felt as if she had been awaiting him for aeons. He belonged there, swelling inside her, melding them into white incandescence.
The rumbling of the truck intensified his thrusts. She wrapped her arms around him and hung on for dear life.
Gasping at the intensity of his sensations, Hal rolled her atop him. Bracing her hands against the couch, Melanie was startled to discover that he could plunge upward with undiminished force.
His lips claimed the tips of her breasts. Lava shot through her as Hal pumped fast and hard.
Melanie wanted to hold back some part of herself, but his mouth had become welded to her breasts, while his eager shaft erupted inside her. She felt herself lit by a blaze that came from the earth’s core.
It was a long time before the heat receded. Hal lowered her beside him, one arm encircling her so that she rested against his shoulder, a perfect fit.
It was over, Melanie realized dimly. They had made love, just as she planned.
Now, finally, she would be free of him.
13
“THERE IS SOMETHING I wish to show you,” said Hal.
“I think you just showed me,” said Melanie.
“That, too,” he murmured. “But not again. Not quite yet”
She sighed. It seemed a shame to interrupt their reverie, lying here entwined in classic lover bliss. Independence might be a fine thing, but she was in no hurry to get on with it.
“This will just take a minute,” said Hal. “I believe you will find it intriguing.”
He swung himself from the couch and reached above her to tug at something on the wall, near ceiling height Melanie heard the swish of fabric and realized he was pulling apart the hangings.
Her recollection had been right, she discovered as the draperies retreated along a rod: the walls were covered with embossed paper. Or at least, that part of the walls visible beneath a display of maps circling the car.
Each map showed a different region of the world and was marked with red symbols and letters. “A geography lesson?” she asked dubiously. “Or is this some kind of weather forecasting?”
“Allow me to demonstrate.” Hal retrieved a navy robe, belted it about his midsecti
on and went to the computer. “There is a master that is continuously updated.” With a couple of keystrokes, he produced a miniature world map onscreen. It seethed with shifting red symbols. “We have to transfer them manually onto the wall maps.”
“What are those red things?” Melanie leaned forward to get a clearer glimpse of the graphics.
“I apologize. I intended to give you this.” Hal handed her a plasticated sheet on which each symbol was accompanied by an explanation.
C stood for civil war, W for conventional war. A spiral meant a tornado, wavy horizontal lines represented hurricanes and a wavy vertical line signified an earthquake. A drawing of the atom indicated a nuclear accident, explosion or theft.
“What’s all this for?” she asked.
“At any given instant, we can run a computer simulation to determine the most calamity-prone spot in the world,” he said. “The maps on the walls are not strictly necessary, but I thought you would enjoy being surrounded by danger.”
“But—what use is it?” she asked.
“First,” he said, “to pick a spot for our wedding. Then the honeymoon. At that time, we can rerun the program and figure out where to build a house.”
“You want to find the safest place?” She knew the man was no longer posing as a criminal, but this caution seemed excessive.
“Not at all.” Hal tried to lean back, rediscovered the fact that the chair was bolted and folded his arms instead. “The opposite.”
“So we can pick the most dangerous place on earth?”
“Is that not what you desire?”
“You dreamed this up for me?” she asked.
“I know how much you love danger,” he said. “You have given me the impression you cannot live without it. So, here it is.”
He was offering her freedom with a bonus—himself. “You mentioned a wedding?” Melanie couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly.
“Also a honeymoon.” Hal studied her thoughtfully. “Which region of the world would you prefer? The Middle East is generally unsafe. There are still regions of instability in the former Soviet Union, also.”
Kidnapped / I Got You Babe Page 15
