Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way

by Kress, Alyssa

  Dash smiled. "My real name is Dashwood."

  "What Dashwood? You never told me your first name."

  Now he was grinning. "If I tell you, we may never end up in bed."

  "Oh, come on. It can't be that bad."

  "Wendell," Dash said. "That's my first name." From his position above her, still smiling, he lowered two inches. "Now tell me you still want me."

  Shana grinned back at him. "I still want you." She lifted a wet finger and set it against his curved lips. "Any time now," she added smokily.

  The switch was back on again, and with a vengeance. Fire fairly blazed from behind Dash's spectacles as his lighthearted grin slowly faded. But he didn't make a move. "If you aren't going to plant a daisy," he wanted to know. "What are you going to plant?"

  The man was relentless. But Shana was actually heartened that he wanted to know. Tilting her head, she decided, "I'll plant a seed. I'll put it right in the dark, moist soil and see what grows out of it."

  This was apparently the exact right thing to say. The fire behind Dash's eyes blazed higher and hotter, yet at the same time got a soft and tender edge. "Shana," he said.

  She opened her arms and he lowered into them, wrapping his own arms around her. And the way he held her then and kissed her then told Shana this time they weren't going to stop.

  ~~~

  She was alone when she woke up. Brittany eyed the part of the room she could see from the soft pillow on the soft bed, then turned over to check the other side of the fancy-shmancy room.

  Nobody.

  It's okay. Everything's okay. We got out. She willed her rapidly beating heart to calm down as she went through her most recent memories. They'd escaped the underground cell in a costume-drama type farce. The men had arrived just in time. Brittany had observed more gunfire than she ever hoped to see again in her lifetime. Peter had crawled on top of her, shielding her —

  No. Ruthlessly, Brittany attempted to suppress that particular memory. It would unleash a host of devils.

  But her attempt was unsuccessful. She remembered anyway. She remembered Peter holding out the four aspirin, demanding she take them. She remembered doing everything in her power not to look at him. If she'd looked at him, she'd have thrown herself straight into his strong and capable arms. It would have been a comfort, but only a temporary one. Brittany was glad she'd resisted the impulse.

  After taking the pills, everything was a blur. She'd been taken here and put in this luxurious bed. Anja had come in at some point, to tell her the other women were all right, recovering nicely. Anja had told her that Hollister — whoever he was — was in custody. Meanwhile, Dr. Subrahmanyam had not yet been found. Peter rolled in and out of the blur. Brittany was pretty sure he'd been yelling at Anja at one point, demanding to know why the aspirin wasn't working. Brittany had heard sharp concern in his voice.

  But he wasn't here now. He hadn't stayed faithfully by her bedside. Which was good, Brittany told herself. Very, very good.

  With a groan, she pushed herself up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. She was glad Peter wasn't here. She was pleased he was keeping his distance, both physically and emotionally. She was grateful he understood that just because they'd been through this big, cloak-and-dagger thing together didn't mean anything had changed.

  She was not going to let a man into her life, not in any important, permanent type of way.

  Brittany felt a sinking sensation even as she squinted toward the beautiful blue Caribbean sky visible through the French windows. Letting a man into your life opened you to the type of trouble Blake was getting ready to cause. It was a good bet her ex-husband wasn't simply going to hand the kids back to her once she got home. No, Brittany had a feeling he'd suddenly changed his mind about custody, given his abrupt appearance on the scene and his heavy-handed confiscation of the children. Her stomach sank yet further as she considered how he might use this little 'vacation' of hers as a club to convince a judge to give him custody.

  When for two years he'd never bothered to show up in his sons' lives! Not even for one single afternoon.

  Anger rose to ride together with Brittany's fear and she threw her legs over the side of the bed, determined to stand up. She was smart enough to take it slow, however, carefully transferring her weight from the bed to her feet.

  "Okay, where's a phone?" she muttered, and gingerly began walking around the room, the anger and fear churning inside her. How long had it been since she'd last talked to Sean or Cam? Her heart started beating hard in her chest. What if they didn't even want to come home by now? What if Blake had so spoiled and bribed them that they wanted to stay with him, instead?

  Balanced delicately on legs that threatened to buckle and unable to find a damn phone, Brittany felt the humiliation of tears rise in her eyes. They blurred her vision as she turned and looked about the room, certain there had to be a telephone somewhere. Not being able to find one, not being certain of getting her kids back — it was all making her feel so scared and helpless.

  And — and okay. She was upset that Peter hadn't been with her when she woke up. Instead he'd left her here alone, alone with all her problems, alone the way she'd been alone for two years — so happily — before he'd ever darkened her door.

  Brittany swiped at her tears with the back of a hand, but they kept coming, making her vision wacky. Oh, she knew a relationship would never work out between herself and Peter. She didn't even want a relationship, the kind requiring trust on one side, and reliability on the other. She knew that.

  But her lungs spasmed as if she were crying anyway.

  ~~~

  "Yes, sir. I understand, sir." Peter leaned back in a huge wicker chair out on the terrace overlooking the bay, his cell phone to one ear. It sure was nice of Hollister to have been so persnickety in his accommodations. Thanks to Hollister, Peter was able to look out over the beautiful, aquamarine bay of Maria Island while trying to mollify the bureaucrats.

  "We understood we didn't want to upset the local authorities with a show of U.S. force," Peter told General Boylston, Pentagon overseer of the Agency. On the terrace, Peter crossed one ankle over the other knee. "That's why Special Forces came in with their helicopter from the unpopulated side of the island. Fortunately, both Hollister and the Gang of the Pure Sword were clandestine in their own arrival. We don't believe the local government is aware anything went down here at all."

  Out on the breeze-strewn terrace, Peter frowned at the next question the general posed him. "The women? No, we followed your orders, sir. They were not taken to any hospital." Though a few days before Peter had been perfectly willing to disobey those orders, when it had looked as though Brittany was getting worse instead of better. Only Gideon confiscating Hollister's car keys had prevented Peter from arranging exactly what the general hadn't wanted.

  "Yes, of course, the vector is still classified," Peter went on, as if he would have cared. "Having the women's medical condition seen at a hospital would have impacted that." He rolled his eyes. Fortunately, it was a moot point. All the women had successfully fought off their various infections.

  "Meanwhile," Peter went on, "a team from the Agency is sweeping the abandoned mine the Gang was using, making sure no samples of the virus have been left lying around. As for

  Hollister — " Peter shrugged. "I suppose we'll have to take him back to the States for prosecution. Uh...on what charges? Oh. I see. You have a point there." They could hardly charge Hollister with kidnapping, or even theft. It would expose the existence of Anja's vector. "How about animal abandonment?" Peter suggested. "With the right judge we could get him in for at least a year or two."

  Peter beamed at the answer he received to this suggestion. He wanted to murder the men in the Gang of the Pure Sword. It was a damn good thing — for them — they were already at Guantanamo Bay. Hollister he simply wanted to put away for a good, long while. "Thank you, sir, yes. We'll be very, very sure to keep Maria Island out of the whole proceeding."

  His smile was
already fading as he hung up the phone. With a sigh, he considered his mental list for whom to call next. As the only one of the men without a significant other to take care of, he'd volunteered to tie up loose ends. With the thought, Peter's gaze went, despite himself, to a set of windows down the side of the building. It was the set behind which Brittany lay. He felt the empty place in his gut open up, once again.

  He drew in a deep breath and, with an effort that was becoming habitual, willed the sensation away.

  His sardonic amusement at the dramatic justice of his situation with Brittany had faded. Left in its wake was a gnawing, empty helplessness. Over the past few days he'd been struggling with a powerful yearning, understood ahead of time to be futile.

  Peter forced himself to turn away from the white-framed windows. He gazed out on the bay, at the pretty white sails dotting the deep, blue water. It was some comfort to know that yesterday Brittany's health had finally taken a turn for the better. Also comforting was work. Work made a marvelous distraction.

  Remembering which, Peter glanced down and opened up his cell phone. Next on his list of loose ends was a call to the Coast Guard. They might have a line on Dr. Subrahmanyam.

  He had to keep his mind on his work. He couldn't afford to let it wander onto paths leading to Brittany, or Cam, or Sean. He couldn't afford to muse on everything he'd never known he'd always wanted: family, love, security.

  If Peter wanted to retain his sanity, he simply couldn't think along those lines.

  "Admiral Hamilton?" Peter asked into his cell phone. He smiled. "Have I got a challenge for you."

  ~~~

  Anja parked the four-wheel drive they'd commandeered from Hollister in the driveway of his rented villa. She killed the motor and opened her car door with a smirk of satisfaction.

  After arguing with Walter for days about seeing a doctor, she'd finally won. They'd gone to a local clinic with a story about Walter having fallen while hiking. Now she stood on her side of the car, not bothering to disguise her triumph as she waited for Walter to haul himself, casted right arm and all, from his side of the vehicle. She'd known he'd broken something.

  Finally out of the car, Walter threw the door closed with his good arm and shot Anja a disgusted look. "Feeling pretty flush with yourself, huh?"

  "Actually," Anja replied, smiling beatifically. "I am."

  Walter emitted a grunt, then grinned. "I haven't broken a bone since I was in grade school."

  "You haven't done anything so stupid since then as to walk into a professional soldier's billy stick, either, I would wager."

  "No," Walter agreed with a sigh. "No, I haven't."

  Anja narrowed her eyes briefly at the memory of Walter walking into that billy stick. Quickly, she retrieved her carefree smile. "Come on. You look like you could use a glass of wine."

  Walter grimaced. "I could go for a beer."

  "If you insist on exposing your proletarian roots."

  "Whatever that means, then yeah, I insist."

  Chuckling, Anja led the way into the house and started down the intricate turns that led to so plebian a space as the kitchen. She had to admit she admired the way Walter didn't apologize for the gaps in his education or his lack of sophistication. He was happy with himself just the way he was. That was...refreshing.

  They had the kitchen to themselves. Anja opened the luxury size refrigerator and soon located the beer. It was Peter, she supposed, who'd gone into town to make sure of their supply. She removed one bottle, thought about it for a second, and then removed another one. "Here we are," she said, and turned around with a beer bottle neck between the fingers of each hand.

  Walter's head tilted. "You're having one, too?"

  "Certainly." Anja set the beers on the central island counter of the kitchen and watched appreciatively as Walter took one of the bottles, squeezed it between his cast and his hip, and wrenched the cap off with his bare hand. He handed it to her.

  "What's the occasion?"

  Anja lifted the beer bottle in his direction. "A celebration. That back door actually worked."

  Walter went still with the second beer bottle halfway to his hip. He looked at her.

  Anja lifted a shoulder. "I only had a chance to test it in a petri dish. Not even animal tests had been run."

  "Jesus," Walter breathed. He proceeded to wrench the cap off the beer, took a healthy swig, and then looked at Anja again as he wiped his mouth with the side of his hand. "I'm assuming you didn't admit as much to Gideon."

  "Are you crazy?" Anja laughed as she lifted her beer for a good swallow. "He was ready to kill me as it was. And giving my friends the aspirin was the best chance they had for recovery."

  Walter shook his head and drank some more beer. It was then, standing in the kitchen swilling beer, of all things, that Anja had a startling, if not downright chilling, thought.

  No, she hadn't admitted the possible ineffectiveness of the back door to Gideon.

  But she'd just admitted it to Walter.

  "Say, whose turn is it tonight to make dinner, do you know?" Walter asked. He was sauntering over to the set of chairs they'd dragged into the room. He looked as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Meanwhile Anja was trembling.

  She hadn't even thought — hadn't considered. She'd just blabbed one of her most frightening secrets. Of course, the aspirin had worked as an effective back door, killing the action of the virus, but for her to have confessed to any uncertainty over the event, to have confessed any doubt about her own competence...

  "Uh...I believe it is Gideon's turn to make dinner," Anja replied, searching for and then retrieving the chain of the conversation.

  "Lord help us," Walter groaned. He eased into one of the chairs in a way that told Anja he was still in a great deal of pain, no matter what he pretended. She resisted the urge to press any painkillers on him, however. Instead she stayed where she was, far away from Walter. She stayed leaning on the center island and casually sipping her beer.

  Oh, yes, Walter had walked into that billy stick trying to rescue her. He'd fought long and bravely to that end. She'd experienced a certain...justified concern since finding him wounded in the basement.

  But that didn't make him anyone Anja should trust.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  An unmarked private jet waited for them on the runway in Antigua. Olivia knew better than to question that, to ask where it had come from or how they had the use of it in order to fly back to the States. Gideon would just smile politely and ask her, once again, how she was feeling.

  So she didn't question, but simply shouldered her bag and followed the others out of the terminal building and onto the tarmac. She didn't want to be asked how she was feeling, not when Gideon was bound and determined not to tell her how he was feeling.

  To avoid thinking about Gideon, which only led to depression, Olivia forced her thoughts to the figures already walking ahead of her. Dash and Shana were in the lead of the little line trudging toward the plane, although they were hardly trudging. Arm in arm, they strolled at a happy pace. Dash had both his own and Shana's bags thrown over one shoulder. Their heads tilted toward each other as they exchanged yet more of the private, smiling conversations Olivia had witnessed over the past three days while they'd been waiting for Brittany to fully recover. Dash and Shana were so euphoric they'd been oblivious to the jokes tossed regarding them whenever they deigned to come out of Shana's bedroom.

  Olivia felt one corner of her mouth twitch upward. Things had definitely worked out nicely for Shana and Dash.

  Peter, however, marching stoically behind the lovebirds, was another matter. Olivia couldn't help feeling sorry for the guy. Not that she blamed Brittany for avoiding him. She understood where Brittany was coming from, the fear of getting caught in another destructive cycle. But at the same time, Olivia had become convinced over the past few days that Peter Grenadine was for real. Really in love and, even more admirable, really looking out for what would make Brittany happy.

&n
bsp; He was a rare find, and it was too bad Brittany wasn't in a healthy enough place to accept such a gift.

  Anja and Walter came next in their little line. Olivia saw Anja try to take Walter's bag from his one good arm, and Walter deftly avoid any such maneuver. Making a 'suit yourself' gesture, Anja tossed her head and stalked pointedly ahead of him.

  It was fascinating to see Anja show concern for a man. Olivia suspected her concern for Walter was a first in her carefully controlled life. She also suspected Walter didn't have a clue how to deal with a woman as high-maintenance as the brilliant scientist.

  As an aside, she wondered why Walter looked so familiar. She was almost certain she'd seen him before this whole escapade...

  She shook her head. No, she couldn't have seen him in the neighborhood...could she? What would he have been doing there?

  But an idea of exactly what Walter might have been doing hanging around her neighborhood suddenly occurred to Olivia, causing her to gasp and drop her bag. Just then, Gideon appeared at her side.

  "I'll get that," he said.

  "What?" Olivia asked, but it was too late. With the polite solicitousness that had been his strange hallmark for the past few days, Gideon scooped up her dropped canvas bag. "Oh," Olivia said. "Thanks."

  "No thanks necessary." As if the heavy bag weighed nothing, Gideon strode along by her side.

  Olivia cast her mind for something to say, anything to break the horrible silence that descended every time they were together. But asking Gideon if Walter had been sent to the neighborhood to spy on her didn't seem like the best conversational gambit. If only Gideon would blow up at her!

  At least then she'd know he cared.

  Instead, he was keeping his thoughts strictly to himself. Which went to prove, Olivia mused, turning forward again, that she'd been right all along. Their marriage had a significant communication problem.

  For heaven's sake, he couldn't even tell her it was over.

  At the metal stairway set against the jet, Olivia blinked and turned around. "Where's Brittany?"