Ten Brides for Ten Hot Guys

by Donna Fasano

  “No?” He shrugged. "Fine. Suit yourself. But conversation is likely to be rather one-sided.”

  Except, one of them already knew she fully intended to tell them anything they wanted to know. Set-up superfluous.

  She gave a puff of annoyance through her nose. Well, at least with the duct tape removed, she’d be able to tell him what an asshole he was. Besides, how much could he do to her in handcuffs? She walked over to the bed, warily turned her back to him, and leaned her face down toward his hands.

  It was a fumbling disaster, but after several false starts, he was able to grasp the tape, and she yanked her head back.

  "Yeow!" she cried out, pain zinging through her torn lips.

  “You okay?” he asked with a wince as she sat back and licked the sting away.

  “I’ll live,” she muttered, tasting blood, then cringed at her poor choice of words. “I hope, anyway.”

  He gave her a weak smile. “Ditto.”

  She scooted away from him on the mattress, trying to avoid the worst filth and stains. So gross. "Have you really been here since the night of the dance?” she asked, still with a trickle of distrust.

  "'Fraid so.” A muscle jumped in his jaw as he clamped his teeth. “More than a little embarrassing, I must say.” He mocked a headline, “Hot-Shot CIA Officer Caught Dreaming at Country Dance." When she didn’t react to the admission with stunned amazement, he groaned softly. “Shit. You already knew who I was.”

  “’Fraid so,” she echoed.

  He shook his head. “Fucking figures.”

  She smiled in spite of herself and the situation, but quickly sobered again. "I suppose now you're going to tell me it wasn't you who tried to kill me and Kauti.”

  He sat straight up. "Kill you? Are you insane?" The look he gave her was one of pure shock. "I was supposed to make love to you, not kill you.”

  She blinked. Wait. "What?”

  He leaned his head back against the wall. "I’ll have you know, it's not easy for a man to fail at this kind of mission. I am never going to live this one down." His voice was tinged with pique. “Assuming I live, of course.”

  She stared at him. Oh. My. God.

  "I was handpicked to appeal to you, you know.”

  He’d been running a honey trap on her.

  She had to ask. "Handpicked by whom?”

  He rolled his head to look at her. "When your grandmother started stirring up all the old Pentagon files on Robert Grant, they came across the East European Desk at Langley—that’s where I work as an analyst. Last month we learned of your plans to come to Sweden to look for his grave. My boss was intrigued, and started digging around some more. She found out that someone suspected of being a former KGB operative is running for president in the Hungarian elections coming up.”

  Through the daze of information, Joanne felt a twinge of pride that the theory she, Leif, and her grandfather had come up with hit so close to the mark.

  Bill continued, "We got to thinking the actual list of KGB assets might turn up at some point in your search. Having it in our possession would be...useful.”

  Holy crap. The CIA had been tracking her from the get-go. Like, for months. The C-frigging-I-A.

  "So, you being single and all, and travelling alone...well—" He swiped a hand across his mouth. "She thought you might be open to—" He coughed. "Anyway, we researched what kind of men you prefer, and voilà, I was sent over to go fishing.”

  She gaped at him. And refused to think about how they managed to research that bit of information.

  He blew out a breath. "I guess we got it wrong.”

  She shut her mouth with a snap. "No, you had me pegged, all right," she managed to choke out. "Right down to your Italian leather loafers." She leaned back against the wall with a thud. "Somebody just beat you to it.”

  "Shit for luck," Bill muttered. "Clever, too, how Mr. Warmth and Personality got the Swedish State Department to assign him to the Robert Grant case, so he could be with you all day.”

  She studied her shoes. "You’ve got it wrong. Leif was after the KGB list, not me.” She nibbled her cracked lip. At first, anyway.

  Bill shook his head. "No, you've got it wrong. The Swedes don’t know about the list.”

  "They do. I overheard Leif talking to State Department about it just yesterday."

  Bill looked at her speculatively. "Well, we sure as hell didn't tell them about it. They must have had another source.”

  Shocker. She had a feeling his name was Harry. Or maybe Robert.

  Bill shook his head. "Detroit, it was always you Leif wanted, not any damn list. Even a blind man could see that.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. “You really think so?” Was she the only one who’d been blind?

  "Yeah," he said, then lightened his tone. "And frankly, it's about damn time he came crashing through that door to rescue us.”

  She choked out a fatalistic laugh. "Not likely." She sent Bill a look of apology. "Last I saw of him, he probably won't be scraping himself out of bed for hours.”

  Chapter 72

  Leif and Pelle pieced together what had happened fairly quickly. The three sets of footprints in Leif's unpaved driveway told them Joanne had been attacked by two men between his front door and her car, dragged into a large sedan, and driven away by one of them. Her rental car had been taken by the other and abandoned just outside the village.

  Leif had a bad feeling the Hungarian AVO agents were her kidnappers.

  But there was one other disturbing element to consider—Bill McAndrew seemed to have disappeared, as well.

  Could the CIA be involved in her abduction?

  Either way, if anyone so much as touched Joanne, Leif would break every bone in their body.

  He paced back and forth in his living room while Pelle stood staring out the window. Niall Södergren, had the local police conducting a wide search around the village, with reinforcements from Kiruna on the way. But Leif felt helpless just hanging around waiting.

  A burst from Pelle’s two-way radio pierced the air. "Chief Inspector, we've found something!”

  Pelle pounced on it. "What have you got?”

  "Out near the campground, we just found two guys tied up and left by the road.”

  Leif grabbed the mike. "Have they seen Joanne?”

  The radio spat out, "No, but they gave us descriptions of the men who hijacked them. Sounds like those two Hungarian agents from your APB."

  Pelle took the mike back. "Just the two attackers? Did they see anyone else?”

  "No. It was pretty early this morning, probably before they grabbed Ms. Fager. Oh, and Chief Inspector, the guys who were tied up? It's those test engineers from Mercedes Benz. The car that was stolen was the Benz prototype.”

  Leif and Pelle exchanged a troubled glance.

  Helvete. Taking the prototype car that everyone in the village was used to seeing at all odd hours and places had been a stroke of genius. The Hungarians could have the run of the area without arousing any suspicions. Plus, its windows were all tinted dark, so no one would see inside.

  "Did the Benz guys see which way it went?”

  "The highway, going south.”

  Leif collapsed onto the couch as Pelle set down the mic. "So it wasn't McAndrew," Leif muttered, instantly more apprehensive. He didn’t like the man, but he was pretty sure the bastard wouldn’t kill her, at least. The Hungarians, not so much.

  Pelle nodded. “Doesn't look like CIA was involved. But until those engineers identify their photos, I'm not ruling anything out.”

  It was a start.

  Niall and his men followed the highway south and combed the area for a second time, but several hours later they still had found no sign of the car or the kidnappers. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.

  Leif's heart tore in two thinking of what Joanne must be enduring. He had to get her back!

  His cell phone rang, and he swiped it up.

  "Leif, it's Vanja. I'm over at your parents’ house w
ith Robert. There's something here I think you should see.”

  Chapter 73

  Leif followed impatiently as Joanne’s grandfather rolled his wheelchair over to his mom’s coffee table, where a small stack of notebooks lay, and opened one. It was filled with handwritten entries and beautifully drawn birds.

  Seriously? One of his father’s zillions of birdwatching journals?

  Leif’s chest tightened. It was similar to the one he’d been writing down bluebirds in, perched up in that ridiculous juniper, the first time he saw Joanne.

  "It was your father who got me interested in birdwatching, back in the day,” Robert said, glancing up. “In fact, I remember this notebook from 1956." He handed it to Leif. “He showed it to me while I was still in the hospital.”

  Leif looked at the notebook with growing annoyance. This was not helping to get Joanne back. He was wasting precious time. “All very interesting,” he said, holding onto his patience by a thread. “But—”

  "Harry always carried a birdwatching journal with him when he went out in the field," Robert interrupted. “Always.”

  Leif snapped it shut and tried to hand it back. "I know. I do his infernal Audubon surveys when he's on vacation."

  Robert folded his hands in his lap and didn’t take it. "This morning, it occurred to me that a birdwatching journal would be a perfect place to record other types of data.”

  Leif stared blankly at him for a second, then whipped the notebook up and opened it again. A thread of excitement spun through him.

  Grant pointed to a colored pencil drawing. "See how the bird’s Latin name is written? Most often, they’re named after the scientist who first recorded the variety. But you could easily substitute the real name for another, and very few people would recognize the deception.”

  Leif nodded. “And the dates and numbers of the bird sightings could become any numerical data you wanted to record.”

  “Exactly.” Grant directed him to a page in the middle of the book. "I noticed an abundance of Hungarian-sounding birds in this one.”

  A wave of elation broke over Leif. "My God! You've found the KGB list!”

  He gave the old man a high five. He couldn't believe it! The damn thing had been hiding right here in plain sight on his parents’ bookshelf since before he was born.

  He gripped the thin volume in his hand—the prize that everyone had been searching for. And killing people over. And kidnapping Joanne for, he assumed.

  But Leif had it now. And that meant he could—

  He could...

  What?

  Chapter 74

  Leif rushed back to the police command center at his house. The first thing he did was to call the hospital. He wanted to make sure Kauti was all right, and to tell him the KGB list had been found, so, hopefully, he could rest a bit easier.

  "Yeah, we'll be leaving it right where it is," Leif was saying when Niall Södergren strode into the living room, the police radio on his shoulder crackling. He shushed the man, then resumed his conversation with Kauti. "It's been safe for sixty years, a little longer shouldn't do any harm.”

  Leif also wanted see if the old man could remember anything about his assailants that might help track them down.

  But Kauti had already told Pelle everything he could. He said to Leif, "I hope your American woman knows we are all concerned about her. We wouldn't want any harm to come to her in our peaceful village.”

  "She knows," Leif said, humbled that the man would think of another when he’d been so badly hurt himself. "And that's why we have to get her back.”

  After hanging up, he turned to hear the tail end of the constable's report to Pelle. Niall shook his head, avoiding Leif's gaze. "My men have questioned everyone from here to Haparanda and back, and found nothing.”

  Leif swore, and slammed his fist on the nearest table.

  Pelle grabbed his arm. "Calm down, buddy. We'll find her." He looked at Niall. "Scour the whole area again. There has to be something we've missed.”

  Niall nodded, and headed back to his police cruiser.

  Leif broke free of Pelle's grip and stalked to the bathroom. Furious and miserable, he stared at the message Joanne had written on the bathroom mirror in red lipstick.

  I love you, Leif Adel. Forever and always.

  Surrounded by a pink lipstick heart.

  His gut tied itself in knots. Something had to give soon, or he would lose his mind.

  Without her, his life would be empty. In a few short days she had set his quiet, lonely world on its head, and he would never be able to go back to the way it was before meeting her.

  He needed her. He needed her sunny smile, and her sharp mind. He needed her strength, and her heart-melting pout. He needed her flashing angry eyes, and her irritating ability to make him throw all caution to the wind. He needed her arms around him and her body growing large with his child.

  He let his head fall forward against the mirror in anguish.

  Joanne, älskling, please come back to me.

  He had to find her. Whatever it took.

  He would find her.

  And when he did, he would marry her and never be without her again.

  Chapter 75

  The door to her ratty cabin jail creaked open, and Joanne’s two captors walked in. She did her best to tame the hammering of her heart at the sight of their nasty mugs.

  It would be fine. She'd tell them this was all a terrible mistake, and they'd let her go.

  “Now, Ms. Fager," said Aviator Creep. "Shall we continue yesterday’s discussion"— he pinned her with a menacing stare—“before we were interrupted by the river...”

  Her pulse skyrocketed. "It was you who pushed me!"

  The bastard just smiled.

  "And Kauti, did you shoot him?”

  The other creep grinned. That was answer enough for her.

  "How did you find out about Kauti?" she demanded. She whirled on Bill. "Did you tell them?”

  Aviators snorted derisively. “That pathetic excuse for an agent?”

  “Analyst,” Bill corrected with a growl.

  The Hungarian grinned at her. "No. You told us.”

  “I didn’t,” she refuted.

  “The deck at the restaurant was crowded. Child’s play to eavesdrop.” His smile was serpentine. "Now. Are you willing to tell us where the list of KGB operators is?"

  Joanne wrestled her anger under control, determined to save her life if it killed her. "Set us free, and I'll tell you where it is.”

  Bill choked. "Joanne, you can't tell them—”

  Sidekick strode over and backhanded him across the face.

  Joanne leapt up, incensed. "Stop it! Or the deal's off!”

  “Deal?” Aviators registered a flash of amusement, then he flicked his hand toward the door. Sidekick backed off. "Okay. Where is the list?”

  "You’ll let us go?"

  He gazed at her evenly. "After I have the list.”

  She didn’t believe him for a nanosecond. She had a sudden, sickening certainty that he was going to kill them no matter what.

  She pursed her lips to keep them from trembling. " I hope you have a contingency plan." She sat back down on the bed and crossed her arms to keep them from shaking.

  Aviators snarled, his patience apparently at an end. "Fine.” He gestured to Sidekick. “Kill them.”

  Panic surged through her. "Okay, okay!" She scrambled backward on the bed, doing her damndest not to cower. "Harry Adel's got it. He's in China.”

  Aviators took an angry step toward her. "I warned you.”

  She held up a trembling hand. "I'm telling the truth. Ask anyone in the village where he is.”

  The Hungarian’s eyes slitted. "Why would he take the list to China?"

  “How should I know?” She did her best imitation of clueless. "Selling it to the Chinese?”

  The tension in the room was oppressive, the scent of her own fear thick in the air. Bill looked astonished. The two AVO agents studied her, bouncing betwe
en suspicion and flat-out distrust.

  If she could pull this off, she and Bill just might have a chance. She only needed to stall long enough. Eventually, Leif would find them.

  And, hey. Maybe the creeps would believe her, and scurry back to their rat hole in Hungary.

  Sure they would.

  In the other room, a phone rang. Their two captors went out to answer it. A minute later, a heated argument broke out on the other side of the door.

  "That was a damn stupid thing to say, Detroit," Bill sputtered under his breath. He jerked at his handcuffs angrily. "Once they have that list, we're both dead.”

  Deep down, she figured he was right. But she still clung to one hope—other than Leif and the cavalry. "Killing us would just create a bad international incident right before their elections.”

  Bill gave her a long-suffering look. "Has it not occurred to you, that might be exactly what they're after?" His voice hummed with frustration.

  "Why would they want that?" she asked, nonplussed. "It would come out that one of the candidates was a paid operative for the KGB. Isn't that what they're trying to avoid? I mean—”

  "Joanne." His low, intense command cut through her explanation. "Listen to me.”

  She stopped and listened.

  He fought visibly for control. "It's the pro-democracy candidate who was the asset. The candidate the U.S. supports. And these two jerks are his henchmen.”

  Her jaw dropped. "But—”

  "Their orders are get that list, at any cost. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Bill ground his jaw. "And you may have just convinced them that we are useless baggage.”

  Terror crept up her spine, along with utter disbelief. “How can our country support someone like that? Someone who would kill innocent people over ancient history?”

  He gave her a pitying look. “Don’t be so fucking naïve.”

  She slumped against the wall, sinking into a pit of despair.

  Holy crap. She couldn’t believe it. She really was going to die.