by Obsession
He followed without a word.
When her bare sole hit the blistering blacktop, she marched on without so much as an outward wince.
Step, sizzle, step, sizzle, step …
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said, and came up behind her and scooped her up into his arms without another word.
Even as she grabbed on to his shoulders, she glared at him.
“Nobody asked you to pick me up.”
“Yeah, well, try wearing shoes and I won’t have to.”
“Just for the record, I wasn’t going to cry back there.”
“Never thought you were.”
“Oh, right. You got all distant and broke off the conversationbecause you thought I wasn’t going to cry.” Her arms curled around his neck simply because there was nothing else for them to hold on to. His chest felt all warm and solid against her, and his neck provided a strong anchor for her arms, and if she hadn’t been so ticked off at him she would have almost enjoyed the ride. But she was ticked off: He was the one who had encouragedher to unburden herself, after all. Then her innate sense of fairness, unwanted and inconvenient, kicked in. “Look, I realize you don’t have to be doing any of this, and I’m grateful. If you want, we can turn around here and you can take me back to the airport. I’ll be just—”
He shot her an exasperated glance and interrupted before she could finish. “Drop it, angel eyes, would you please? You know damned well I’m not going to leave you on your own.”
As that registered, she went perfectly still in his arms. She could feel him tensing, feel his arms hardening around her, feel the expansion of his chest as he drew in a long, deep, not-as-discreet-as-he-probably-had-hoped breath.
Their eyes met.
“What did you just call me?” she asked.
It wasn’t much—barely more than the flicker of his eyelashes. But it told her that he hadn’t meant to say it, that his words had caught him by surprise as much as they had her, and that in the few seconds since he had spoken, he had been anticipating her response with trepidation. Except for that telltale flicker, though, his expression was impossible to read. His eyes revealed nothing at all. His mouth was unsmiling, maybe a little hard. Otherwise, his face was blank.
“I don’t know. What?”
Why wasn’t she surprised that he was opting to play dumb?
“Angel eyes?” she repeated in a testing way. There was something about it—something that seemed to reach deep into her subconscious. Angel eyes …
“Oh, that. Look, it just came out. Don’t go making it into a big deal.”
“Have you ever called me that before?”
He glanced away.
“Maybe. I don’t know. You think I pay attention to things like that?” He heaved a sigh, then met her gaze again. The mild blue eyes looked mildly rueful. The hardness had left his mouth. His arms around her even felt less constricting. “All right, I confess. You got me. It’s just something I call women sometimes, okay? Nothing personal at all.”
Her gaze was both skeptical and searching, and he looked away again. She was just starting to think that perhaps that whole looking-away thing was totally significantwhen the arms holding her shifted without warning. As she felt her body dip, she instinctively tightenedher grip on him. An instant before she heard the beep that was him unlocking the door, she realized that they had reached the Blazer.
Okay, maybe he had been looking toward the SUV.
“If you need to use the restroom …” Breaking off delicately, he glanced toward the ladies’ room. At the same time, he managed to get the door open without setting her on her feet, which required a significant jugglingact on his part.
“I don’t.” Even while she was hanging on to his neck for dear life, she was still studying his face.
He nodded acknowledgment without meeting her eyes. Then he dumped her into her seat, like, she thought, a sack of very hot potatoes, closed the door on her—she could almost feel his relief—and walked around behind the Blazer and out of her sight.
She was left with the impression that he wanted to put the whole subject of what he had just called her behindthem.
Angel eyes …
The memory remained tantalizingly elusive, but she was sure—well, almost sure—it was there. But the harder she tried to capture it, to assign the words their proper time and place and context, the more it seemed to slip away. It was frustrating. No, worse, it was maddening.Vaguely, she heard the rear driver’s-side door open, but beyond glancing over her shoulder to make sure it was Dan and not some murderous bad guy who had opened it, she paid scant attention. Her head dropped back to rest against the seat as she desperately racked her brain, searching, searching, searching for the key that would unlock all the hidden details of her past …
Without result.
But her instinct, that same gut feeling that had sent her racing out of the hospital in advance of Bennett and Starkey, that had warned her to play nice with Ed, that had kept her one step ahead of whatever was going on so far, was niggling at her again.
Angel eyes had struck a chord. She was almost—and almost was the operative word, because she couldn’t be one hundred percent positive—sure that someone, somewhere, had called her that before. If that was true, then logic dictated that the odds-on favorite had to be Dan. Unlike darling, or sweetheart, or baby, for example,angel eyes was not a generic endearment.
As a matter of fact, it would seem uniquely fitted to someone whose best feature was clear green eyes.
Hmm.
So far, she’d taken Good Neighbor Dan on trust coupledwith a vague memory of him as her next-door neighbor, and a certain feeling in her gut. Maybe that wasn’t very smart.
The driver’s door opened, and Dan slid in beside her. She was just shifting her newly suspicious gaze his way when the pair of sandals she had taken from the town house landed on her lap.
Momentarily sidetracked, she glanced down at them in surprise.
“You might want to put them on.” His tone was dry. “I need to run in here for supplies. And I don’t think leaving you alone in the car is a good idea. Unless you disagree, that means you’re coming in with me.”
She glanced at him, glanced down at the sandals, and then, as he drove around toward the front of the store, slipped them on one at a time in a silent act of agreement.Under the circumstances, with visions of silent assassinsdancing in her brain, she wasn’t a big fan of staying in the car alone, either. As she had noted before, the sandals fit. Of course, they were basically thongs with heels. Tricked-out, expensive-looking thongs with dangling turquoise beads and supple leather straps, but nothing that was too exacting as to size.
They were pretty shoes, feminine shoes, frivolous shoes—but she had no sense that they were her shoes.
If the shoe fits, does that make me Cinderella?
That was the semihysterical question that flitted through her mind as she stepped inside the store with Dan right behind her. Walking into so much air-conditioningwas like walking into a solid wall of cold, and by the time he grabbed bread and milk and chips and whatever else it was he was grabbing off the shelves, she was freezing again. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest and her teeth were locked togetherto prevent them from chattering as she kept a wary eye on their fellow Stop-N-Go shoppers. A heavy-setguy in a green T-shirt and unfortunate plaid shorts, a harried mother with two children begging loudly for candy, a couple of teen boys picking soft drinks out of the cold case—if these folks were Feds, Alphabet Soup World was in bad trouble. In fact, the only person in the store who looked in the least like he could possibly fit the covert-ops bill was—Dan.
The thought occurred as, having paid cash for the Extra Strength Tylenol that was her sole contribution to their booty, she moved away from the counter to wait for him. Standing several feet behind him as he was payingfor the groceries, she watched him pull his wallet out of his back pocket and fish several bills out of it, which he then handed to the orange-aproned clerk, who was
a plump, thirtyish woman with a bad blond perm. The movement made his shoulders flex, and as the cash registerflew open with a jingle of coins, Katharine was suddenlystruck by how broad his shoulders really were. Her gaze swept him, and her eyes widened.
For all his leanness, the guy was built. The reason she hadn’t picked up on it before was probably because up until now she’d basically had frontal views of him, which meant that she had focused primarily on his face. Now, seeing him from the back, she realized that his limp cottonshirt did little to camouflage a torso that was a classicvee. The shirt was tucked into loose black dress pants that rode low on his hips, courtesy of an ancient-looking black belt. His hips were narrow, his butt small and tight and hard-looking, his legs long and muscular. And—and this was the kicker—just like the putative covert-ops guys in her town house, he was wearing black dress shoes.
In other words, Dr. McDreamy was total spook material.
Except for the hair. Covert-ops guys went in for buzz cuts, not dark gold waves that curled around their shirt collars.
Katharine frowned.
“You all come back now, hon,” the clerk said, handingover some change.
“I will,” Dan promised genially, tucking the bills into his wallet and shoving the wallet into his back pocket again. Gathering up the groceries and casting a quick look around to make sure she was still with him, he headed for the door.
Katharine followed, but not so closely that she didn’t see the clerk giving him an appreciative once-over as he pushed through the door.
As he opened her door for her, then put the groceries into the back of the Blazer, she collapsed back into her seat without a word. Closing the door, fastening her seat belt, she stared unseeingly out the windshield, blind to the big silver ice machine not a yard in front of her nose, blind to the brightly colored banners advertising milk at $1.19 a gallon and Little Debbie snack cakes at four for a dollar that were plastered to the big plate-glass windows,blind to the comings and goings of customers passing in front of the SUV.
One question consumed her to the exclusion of all else: Was she being dumber than a rock here?
He was built like a spook, he’d been Johnny-on-the-spotever since she’d opened her eyes on this hellish day, and he’d called her “angel eyes.”
She knew this guy, yes, but what, exactly, did she know?
The sound of the motor turning over coupled with a rush of tepid air shooting out of the vents refocused her attention in a hurry. Dan was already sitting next to her; he had started the Blazer. A growing panic made her heart begin to race. If she had any doubts about who and what he was, now was the time to act on them. While they were here, in this well-traveled area, she had options. Not great options, but options. She could call a taxi. Or hitch a ride. Or, well, if one of those two didn’t pan out, she could probably think of something else. But once the Blazer was on the road again, she realized, her choices dried up. Dan would once again be the only game in town. And by his own admission, he was taking her to a cabin—a cabin that was probably out in the back of beyond …
Could anybody say “jumping out of the violent spook killer pan into the sneaky cov-ops kidnapper fire”?
“Wait. Stop,” she ordered. “Hold it right there.”
With one hand already on the gearshift, he looked questioningly at her.
“I want to see some ID,” she told him firmly.
13
His eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard me. I want to see some ID.”
Once again, he was looking at her like she had grown a second head.
“You want to see some ID?” His tone was incredulous.“You mean, like, my driver’s license? That’s ridiculous.You know me.”
She shook her head. “I already explained it to you. I don’t even know myself right now, much less you. At least, not for sure. It’s like I’m trapped in one of those house-of-mirrors things they have at amusement parks. Everything’s so confused in my head that I can’t be sure what’s real and what isn’t. So my new motto just becametrust … but verify. And by verify I mean I want to see some ID.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.”
A beat passed in which they exchanged measuring looks. Her chin was up, her shoulders were squared, and her hand was curled in her lap and ready to make a grab for the door handle. If he started to drive away, all bets were off: She was leaping for the pavement.
“Fine.” He took his hand off the gearshift, and she huffed out a silent little breath of relief. Unbuckling his seat belt, he reached into his back pocket and produced his worn-looking brown leather wallet, which he passed to her. “Knock yourself out.”
Ordinarily, she was probably squeamish about going through other people’s private possessions. Probably was the operative word there, because, of course, she couldn’t quite remember. But this was not ordinarily. This was potentially life or death. Her life or death. She opened that wallet without a qualm and found herself staring at a clear plastic window with a driver’s license in it. Pulling the license out, she held it up and closely examined the small picture.
She didn’t even have to glance at the genuine article sitting beside her to know that it was the same man.
Her attention shifted to the identifying information: Daniel Webster—Webster?—Howard; DOB 11/16/67 (which, she calculated quickly, made him thirty-eight years old); height, 6’1’; weight, 185 lbs.; address, 1215 Union Street, Alexandria, VA.
Okay, so that checked out. With a quick glance at him, she looked at the names on the credit cards: Daniel Howard, Daniel W. Howard, Dan Howard. There was even an insurance card with his name on it, and another from the state medical association, complete with the age-old physician symbol.
“Satisfied?” he asked sardonically as she restored everything to its proper place and handed his wallet back to him.
“Yes. Sorry.”
She had the grace to feel a little ashamed of herself. Apparently, he really was Good Neighbor Dan, that angel eyes slip notwithstanding. Maybe she was just imagining it felt familiar. Maybe she was just imagining this whole thing. Maybe it was all a dream, and when she woke up she would marvel at how real it had all seemed. Maybe … maybe …
To hell with maybe. She was suddenly too tired to think about it—any of it—anymore.
“So are we on for the cabin or not?” Having restored the wallet to his back pocket, he refastened his seat belt as he spoke.
“Yes.” Even her voice sounded exhausted now. Under the circumstances, there was really no other decision she could make. The cabin was the best available choice. “By the way, thanks for offering. And for everything else.”
“You’re welcome.” If there was an acerbic note to that, it was only a very slight acerbic note. He might not be totally thrilled to have his identity and motives questioned,but it seemed that he understood.
“You really are a nice guy, aren’t you?”
“So I’ve been telling you.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that takes some getting used to.”
“In that case, maybe you ought to start thinking about running with a different crowd.”
Good point again. “Maybe.”
The Blazer was in motion now, and a moment later they swung out of the parking lot, joining the stream of traffic heading west. A mile or so down the road they left the fast-food places and motels and gas stations behind,and the traffic thinned out. A few miles farther down the road, and they and a big green farm tractor trundling along in their lane were the only vehicles left in sight.
Dan whizzed past the tractor.
“Did you get any water? Or anything I could take a couple of Tylenol with?” she asked once they were safely back in their lane again.
“No water. Orange juice. Milk. Soda. How bad’s your head?”
“I’ll live.”
Turning to reach into the backseat, she snagged an orange Fanta from one of the plastic bags. Then she retrievedthe Tylenol from her purse, where she
had tucked it away, and swallowed two capsules. The fizzy orange soda was sweet and tangy and cold, and she realizedas she drank it that this particular brand was a favoriteof hers.
Then the ramifications hit, and she almost choked on the mouthful she was swallowing.
How had he known that? Had he known it? Or was it just one more mind-bending coincidence?
“What now?” he asked, on a long-suffering note. It was only as he glanced her way and their gazes met that she realized she was staring at him.
“I like orange soda,” she said.
His attention returned to the road. “Good. So do I.”
Her eyes remained fixed unwaveringly on his face. “You like orange soda?”
“Didn’t I already say that?” His lips thinned impatiently.He flicked another glance at her. “Is there some sort of significance to this that I’m missing out on here?”
She wavered. After all, millions of people probably liked orange soda. That he should buy some wasn’t exactlyremarkable. Was it?
Jeez, was she getting totally paranoid or what? Either she trusted the guy or she didn’t. She couldn’t keep bouncing back and forth between the two like a ball in a tennis match.
Her gut said trust him. Her brain said—who the hell knew what her brain said? It was hard to tell with scrambled brains. So she was going with her gut by default.
“No,” she said, realizing that she was way too exhaustedto even begin to make sense of the labyrinthian possibilities that not trusting him presented. “I was just wondering, is all.”
He grunted by way of a reply, and that was the end of that.
Ten minutes later, Katharine realized with relief that the throbbing headache that had plagued her all day was largely gone. With her head resting back against the seat and her lids drooping with weariness, she watched tall green fields of corn and shorter green fields of soybeansand the occasional herd of cows or sheep stream past the window. The great thing about a nearly empty two-lane highway was that it was pretty easy to be sure they weren’t being followed. Soon she lightened up on the whole looking-over-her-shoulder thing, and even Dan glanced in the rearview mirror less and less frequently.For a while they traveled alongside the C&O canal, and she caught a glimpse of one of the long, mule-drawncanal boats, complete with costumed driver and loaded with tourists, as it maneuvered through a lock. Then the canal branched north, curving through a vast expanse of forest, and she lost sight of it.
