No one argued, and a moment later the little convoy was speeding across the desert once again.
Chapter 13
“W hat do you suppose Curnyn is up to?” Mel asked.
She stood in the center of the room they’d been shoved into, looking around with wide, curious eyes. Alex rubbed his wrists, noting the red marks on hers. The guards had taken the cuffs off them, pushed them through the open door, then slammed and locked it.
This cell wasn’t much different from their earlier one, except that it included crude furnishings. A wobbly card table and two folding chairs stood in one corner, with a kerosene lantern and a book of matches in the center of the table. Alex moved forward, levered up the glass globe and struck a match. When he touched the flame to the wick, flame blazed high and spewed black smoke, but he quickly turned the knob, adjusting the wick. When he lowered the globe into place, a soft yellow light spread through the small square room.
A rough blanket, folded neatly, sat on the floor in the corner opposite the table and chairs. There were no windows, and the door that had been closed and locked was solid. There was no barred opening in the top, as there had been in the other cell.
“They didn’t even leave the handcuffs on,” Mel muttered as she walked around the room, running her hands along the walls as if in search of some secret exit.
She wouldn’t find one, Alex knew. The floor was concrete, the walls cinder block. The ceiling consisted of barn beams, four feet apart, with floorboards nailed in the opposite direction across the tops of them.
Alex took it all in and got an inkling what was behind all this, but he couldn’t be sure. He was damned if he wanted to tell her, though. But it looked to him like the noble offering of a last meal to the condemned. He glanced again at the blanket in the corner and wondered just what else their captors expected them to do for the last time before dawn came.
“Alex? What’s the table for?”
As it turned out, he didn’t have to lie to her, or struggle for a pretty way to phrase the truth. Before he could find the words to do either, there was a tap on the door. It swung open a beat later, quickly enough so he knew the knock had been just for show. An armed soldier entered, his rifle in his hands, and he was followed by another. As the two stood just inside the door, flanking the entrance, a smaller man walked in between them, carrying a heavy tray. He set it on the table, which rocked dangerously.
“What is this,” Mel asked.
“It’s a matter of honor.” At the sound of Curnyn’s voice, Alex and Mel both turned to see him standing at the doorway. “It’s customary to feed the condemned a last meal,” he said, looking toward them but never quite meeting Mel’s eyes, Alex noted. He really didn’t want to kill her, did he? In fact, Alex thought the man admired her, maybe even had a small crush. “Especially when the condemned are as worthy as the two of you. I’m afraid this is the best we could do under the circumstances.”
“And how do we know it’s not drugged just to keep us quiet until dawn?” Alex asked.
Curnyn nodded. “I expected you to think of that.” Stepping into the room, he walked up to the rickety table, lifted the lid off the plate of food and took a fork from the tray, then scooped up a soggy bite of what looked like chicken stew. He ate it, then broke off a piece of the accompanying biscuit and popped it into his mouth, as well.
Alex nodded at the tin pitcher of water. “A little drink to wash that down, Curnyn?”
“Of course.” Curnyn poured some of the water from the pitcher into a tin cup, and drank it down. Then he held the cup upside down to demonstrate that it was empty. “Perfectly safe,” he assured them. “You will not die hungry or thirsty. If you wish for more, call the guards.” Licking his lips, he glanced at Mel. “You have four hours until dawn. And then you will die a martyr. Your people will never forget you, Katerina. And even though history is, as they say, written by the victors, I will see to it that your true valor and spirit are recorded for all time.”
“That’ll be a great comfort while I’m being shot between the eyes, Curnyn.”
He lowered his gaze. Alex didn’t even bother watching the men leave. He was busy watching Mel, because her bravado faded as soon as Curnyn took his guards and left them alone. She stared at the door as it closed, and very slowly the horror of the situation seemed to paint itself over her face in white. She blinked, seemed to try to shake it off. But he saw the way her pupils contracted as if to shut out the light of realization. He didn’t think anyone else would have seen any of it. But he was completely tuned in to her. He felt what she felt, and he knew what she felt right then, even before the locks turned audibly and she turned to face him and finally put the rush of emotion into words.
“My God, they really intend to kill us.”
“Intentions are a dime a dozen, Mel. They don’t mean a damn thing until they’re carried out.”
“But they will be carried out.” She stared at him, her eyes hard, cold. “In four hours. Four hours. It doesn’t seem possible that I might have only four more hours to be alive.” She frowned then, her gaze lowering, turning inward. “I wonder if I’ll feel it when the bullets hit me? I mean, will I die instantly, or…”
“Don’t do this, Mel.” He gripped her shoulders, squeezed them gently. “Don’t let them mess with your head that way. I have no intention of just letting them shoot us, and I know damn well you don’t, either.”
“Well what do you suggest we do about it? We’re locked in here, there’s no way out, we’re outnumbered and we’re unarmed. They’re going to come in here in four hours and march us outside and shoot us.” She stared into his eyes, her own showing signs of panic.
“We’re not dead yet, so don’t start thinking as if it’s over. It’s not. It’s far from over. Say it, Mel.”
“It’s not over.” She drew a deep breath, closed her eyes. “It’s not over. God, it can’t be over.”
He pulled her closer, hugged her to his chest. “I swear to you, it’s not.”
She nodded against him, and he felt dampness soaking through his shirt. Tears. She would hate like hell for him to know she was crying. “You’re right,” she said. “As long as we’re still alive, there has to be a chance.”
“There is.”
“We might still be able to get out of this mess alive.”
“We are definitely going to get out of this mess alive.”
She sniffed a little, drawing one hand up to knuckle the tears from her cheeks, and tried not to let him see what she was doing. Then she finally lifted her head and looked up at him. “You’re a great liar, Alex. Thanks for that.”
“I’m usually a great liar. Hell, I’m supposed to be a great liar. It’s part of my job description. However, that doesn’t seem to matter with you.”
“No?”
“No. You have this uncanny knack for seeing right through me. I’ve never met anyone before who could cut through all my bull, straight to the truth, as easily as you can.”
“I can?”
He nodded. “I’m serious about this. Look at me, and you’ll know I’m telling the truth. I really believe we have a fighting chance to survive this.” She didn’t quite look convinced, so he went on. “We have a code, you know. In the Secret Service. You can lie to anyone about anything if it’s to protect the client. But no matter what else happens, you never, ever lie to your partner.”
Her head tipped slowly to one side.
“You’ve been my partner from day one in this, Mel. You’ve watched my back, you’ve taken my crap, and you’ve never once let me down, no matter how scary things got. You could have left me a half dozen times by now, but you didn’t. You stuck with me. I trust you more than any partner I’ve ever worked with. And I respect you too much to lie to you.”
She’d been staring into his eyes, her own swimming with emotions throughout his entire little speech, but at the end she suddenly turned away.
“Hell, I wasn’t trying to make it worse,” he said, sliding his hands
over her shoulders.
“Well then, stop being so damn mushy. If you make me cry in front of you, I’ll be forced to kick your butt.”
“Sorry. I meant it, though. All of it.”
“Yeah, right. Okay. And just so you know…me, too.”
“You too? I give you a five minute declaration of loyalty, and all I get is a ‘me too’?”
She drew a deep, nasal breath, straightened her spine and turned toward him again, but instead of looking at him, she looked past him, then walked past him to examine the food on the table. “I’m hungry, despite all that’s going on. You suppose the food’s safe?”
He had been expecting more. Hell, didn’t she realize this could be their last night on earth? Maybe he’d done too good a job of convincing her they would survive this. Maybe that was because he honestly believed it. Hell, he had to believe it. He couldn’t begin to even consider the possibility that he might lose her now. Not now that—
“Bleck,” she said, examining the food.
Sighing, slightly disappointed that she hadn’t thrown herself into his arms, he looked at the food, too. It wasn’t much. Vegetables and chunks of chicken swimming in gravy. It looked like the kind you could buy dehydrated. Just add water. There were the biscuits, and the pitcher of water. “I don’t think it’s poisoned or drugged. But it looks a long way from safe.”
“Oh, yeah, listen to the snob. You probably prefer gourmet cuisine.” She was teasing him, getting a little bit of her spirit back. He was glad to see it.
“Actually, compared to this, I’d prefer fast food.”
“Don’t knock fast food. It’s the most efficient source of empty calories in the Western world.” She used the unused fork to spear a bit of gravy-moistened biscuit, drew it to her nose and sniffed. Then she grimaced. “Unfortunately, I think you’re right. This chicken smells a little…off.”
“What makes you so sure it’s chicken?”
She tossed the fork down. Then she paused, stared at it and picked it up again. “Why do you suppose Curnyn cares if we eat it or not? Enough to take a bite himself just to prove it’s safe, I mean?”
Alex lifted his brows. “I don’t know. Actually, I think the man may have developed a crush on you.”
“Oh, come on, Alex, I’m being serious here.”
“So am I.” Then he shrugged. “Hell, he’s only human. I suppose there’s no sense disappointing him.” He took the cloth that had covered the tray when the man carried it in and spread it open. Then he scraped the food into it, bundled it up, set it in the darkest corner of the cell.
“What about the water?”
Alex looked at the water, sniffed it, even tasted a little on his fingertip. “I don’t know. Curnyn drank it. I watched him closely. He definitely drank, he wasn’t putting us on. But, uh…it could give you some stomach issues.”
“I’m so thirsty I could drink from a mud puddle,” she said. “And Mamma says I have a stomach made of cast iron. I think I can handle a little questionable water.” She took the remaining tin cup, the one the other man hadn’t touched, and filled it with water from the pitcher.
“Mel, I wouldn’t do that,” Alex warned, but he was too slow. She took a sip. Then she licked her lips and looked up at him.
“It’s fine. Sweet, and even cold.”
“I don’t think bacteria have a taste.”
She drank down the rest, then handed the cup to Alex. “It’s fine. Have some.”
Alex filled the cup, took a sip, just to see if he could detect anything. The water didn’t taste off in any way. He resisted drinking it, though, just in case. He needed to be at 100 percent if they were to have any hope of escape. Getting sicker than hell from tainted water wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“Now,” Mel said, “let’s see if any of this stuff can be used to our advantage.” She picked up the forks, wiped them off and put them into her pockets. She lifted a tin plate. “If only we could sharpen the edges, we could fling it like a Frisbee and behead the bastards.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna happen.” Alex left her to rummage through the dishes, while he made his way around the cell’s four walls, feeling them with his hands, just as she had done earlier. He pressed each block to see if anything gave. He checked the floor, as well, and then the low ceiling, but it seemed to be solid.
“I wish I had a nail file,” Mel said. She was sitting in one of the chairs now, studying an empty tin cup. “They’re as good as little daggers, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yeah. My sister Edie would never be caught dead without a nail file. Neither would the princess, I’ll bet. Pretty little princess. If she were the one locked up with you right now, she would have a nail file. Not that she’d know what to do with the damn thing. Besides filing her nails, I mean.”
Alex frowned. “You’re right, she wouldn’t have a clue.”
“Come to think of it, there were lots of things in old Bernadette’s makeup case that kinda looked like implements of torture. I didn’t know what most of them were, but now I’m wondering if I ought to change my ways. Get my own makeup kit, you know?”
“You hate makeup.”
“Yeah.” She laughed. Actually, she giggled.
Alex went utterly still.
“High heels. I should’ve kept the high heels. I could have driven one of those stilettos right between Curnyn’s beady little eyes.” Another giggle. High-pitched and totally un-Mel-like. “Besides, they were sexy as hell.”
Alex crossed the room in three strides and knelt in front of her, his hands on her upper arms as he studied her face. Her head was a bit wobbly, and her eyes were all pupil. They could have swallowed him whole. She was smiling crookedly at him.
“If I were a woman like the princess, or Bernadette, I’d know all about all that stuff,” she told him. “I’d gut those bastards with my eyebrow tweezers, and I’d hot-wax their faces off and save us all.” Her head lowered, hanging limply. “But I’m not. I’m not. I’m a poor excuse for a female, and I know it.”
“The water was drugged. Dammit, Mel.” He got to his feet, picking her up on the way, and he carried her to the corner where the blanket was. As he struggled to unfold and spread the thing with one hand, she looped her arms around his neck and nuzzled his cheek.
“I wish I were more like that whiny little princess.”
“Why the hell would you wish a thing like that?” he asked, finally getting the blanket straight and dropping to one knee to lower her onto it.
“Because then you would want me the way you wanted me when I was being her.”
He paused, bent over her, her arms still linked at the back of his neck, her face only a few inches away. “I’ve never wanted Katerina. Never even met her until today, and I didn’t like her much. And I never wanted you because you were acting like her, or pretending to be her.”
She blinked and tipped her head to one side. “Then it was the shoes. It was those sexy shoes, wasn’t it? I could get used to them, I guess—”
He would have laughed if he hadn’t been so damned worried. Was it lethal, what they’d fed her? Or just a tranquilizer? “It had nothing to do with the shoes.”
“But you kissed me and…you know…you wanted to…”
“And you pick now to want to know why?” He sighed, shaking his head. She’d shot him down every time he’d even come near the subject.
She blinked, looking confused and a little stupefied, mostly due to the drug, but maybe a little bit by him. “Yes. I pick now. Tell me why. Why did you kiss me the way you did? If it wasn’t the shoes and it wasn’t Katerina…” She shook her head slowly, searching his face with unfocused eyes.
“Lie still now. We don’t want this stuff working through your bloodstream any faster than it has to.”
“Was it the clothes?” she asked, sitting up.
“No.” He eased her back down, trying to keep her still.
“The hair? Was it the hair?”
“Mel, I wouldn’t care if you were bald. Will you just lie still and be quiet?”
“Not until you tell me why!” she insisted, sitting up yet again.
“All right, I’ll tell you why, but only if you promise to lie still.”
She nodded very slowly, leaning back against the wall.
“I kissed you because I wanted to. Period. I wanted to kiss you, Melusine Brand, and I didn’t care about your hair or makeup or shoes, or about much of anything else except how it would feel to kiss you. So I did.”
He was kneeling beside her, leaning over her, hands on her shoulders trying to keep her from moving around too much. He started to move away from her, now that she was lying fairly still. But he got caught in her eyes and felt their pull, and knew he was way too close to her right now.
“Then…kiss me again,” she whispered to him.
He licked his lips. “Not a good idea,” he said. “Not now.” But his heart wasn’t in it. His gaze was on her mouth now, and he was craving it.
“It’s our last night on the planet, Alex. If not now, then when?”
She lifted her head a little. He could have backed away, but he didn’t. He let her press her lips to his, and then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her some more. God, it felt good to hold her like this. He’d been spending his waking moments in doubt, his sleeping moments in need. But when he was touching her, kissing her, all those things faded away, and there was only this sense of rightness left. She fitted him like a hand in a glove, and all the 1001 differences between them didn’t matter in the least.
He lifted his head, gently took his arms from around her and sat down beside her, leaning back against the wall, trying to digest the insane notions cycloning through his mind.
Mel slid herself across his lap, linking her arms around his neck and resting her head on his chest. When her lips nuzzled his neck, he closed his eyes in sweet agony. And then she whispered, “Make love to me, Alex.”
He clenched his jaw as the blade of self-deprivation speared him. He held her gently, his fingers running through her hair. “You don’t know how badly I’d like to take you up on that offer right now, Mel.”
Secrets and Lies Page 18
