by Renee Roszel
She cursed herself silently, stiffening in his arms, wanting to cry out from the depths of her tortured heart—Damn! Why did I have to fall in love with you! It was hard with Jim. . . it would be unbearable to know you were seeing other women!
In her anguish she blurted, “No, you’re not exactly like Jim. I don’t believe you would beat me.”
His warm embrace turned cold and stony about her, and he stepped slowly away. His voice echoed her words in a low tone of disbelief, “You don’t believe I would beat you? Is that the only difference you see?”
“Please, Rolf—I’d better go,” she stammered, casting a quick glance toward the balcony door and then back up to his brooding face.
“Then go.” It was a hoarse groan through tight, frowning lips.
There had been no apparent challenge in those two words, yet an unfathomable paralysis passed over her body as barren brown eyes reached somewhere deep inside the area of her brain that controlled movement, short-circuiting that mechanism.
As she stared into the abyss beyond his eyes, she saw something that might have been described as sorrow. Flinching at the face that suddenly held no peace, she could not draw her eyes away, but could only stand and look at him. . . . No. . . no, it was more than just looking at him. Somehow, Drew had the feeling that he was allowing her a glimpse inside him; a look beneath the broad-shouldered aloof maleness; beneath the muscle and sinew that in its very manly package hid from the world any hint of human vulnerability. But suddenly it was there, tearing at her heart.
What she saw seemed like the despair a caged jungle cat might display who, having lost his freedom, has given up hope and care for life itself.
The notion, she knew, must be a travesty on the truth, a crazy flight of her own fantasy. . .to compare this powerful, brilliant man, who had just gained his freedom, with an imprisoned animal. But she couldn’t shake the devastating image, or the power of his gaze as his eyes held hers at mute, subdued bay.
The power to move clicked back on, and Drew became aware that Rolf was turning away. Every line of his body was taut, as if he were removing himself from her with rigid control. Staring after his retreating form, a sob welled up in her throat and she jammed a fist to her lips to strangle a betraying cry.
It would be intolerable to have him know she died a little more inside with every step that he took away from her.
A flat click as the heavy door closed behind him echoed loudly in the room which had suddenly grown cold and cavernous. She bit the knuckles of her hand, tasting blood.
She loved Rolf Erhardt so much that at this moment she was positive that a beating from Jim would have been less painful than the crushing her heart had to endure sharing time and space with a man who thought no more of her than he had any other of his temporary playthings.
Running a trembling hand through freshly brushed hair that fell in natural softness about her shoulders, her eyes, shimmering now with tears, were drawn to the bed. The breath caught in her throat with memories of that night almost a week ago, of the man. . . the tender lover he had been.
Tears spilled helplessly as a wave of raw hunger and longing swept through her, and she spun away, running onto the balcony toward the sanctuary of her own room.
Even in her state of bleak emotional agitation, a corner of Drew’s mind caught a quick concealing movement in the darkness below.
Was someone down there?
In her shattered state, she dismissed something that would otherwise have caused her concern.
Who could be watching the house? Why?
These questions poised only for a split second on the edge of her consciousness and slid into oblivion before they were even recognized as ever having existed.
Flinging herself through the door, she slammed it as though she were warding off demons and fell dejectedly to her bed, where hours passed before she drifted into an exhausted, fitful sleep.
Chapter Eleven
The note was as clipped and concise as the handwriting. It read:
Drew,
I had planned to tell you last night of Dr. Hartmut’s invitation for me to visit and speak at the university in Munich. Of course, he expected you to accompany me. But knowing how you feel, I have declined for you, explaining that you felt that you must stay and assist your father. I will be back before the conference ends.
It was signed, plainly, “Rolf.”
“Before the conference ends. . . .” That could mean that he would be gone for as long as a week. . . in Munich. A picture of the sleek Ilka Markus flashed through her mind, constricting her stomach.
She crumpled the note. A week.
The thought of Rolf spending that many days—and nights—in Munich with Ilka Markus was the poorest way Drew could imagine to begin a day.
The balled note was aimed at the small kitchen wastebasket. But at the last moment, she couldn’t throw it away.
It was something of Rolf’s.
Instead, she pushed it into her purse, not really wanting it, but unable to part with anything that held his mark.
“Fool!” She spat at herself blinking back threatening tears as she headed for the door and the morning meetings.
DAYS passed in a dull blur. More than once, her father coaxed her to go on to Munich, saying that he could punch a tape-recorder button as well as she could. He insisted with maddening regularity that her place was with her new husband, not tagging about after a doddering old man.
She had only shrugged his insistence off with forced nonchalance saying that Madder McKenna’s daughter was no less capable of doing her job, whatever the complications, than the next scientific journalist.
To her great relief, he took her devotion to duty at face value and finally let the subject drop.
Too, it appeared that a number of the visiting reporters, including Jim, had followed Rolf to Munich. Obviously, it was their feeling that the story was with the recently freed German rather than at the waning days of the conference.
At least this way, Drew had to admit, she was not continually having to confront either the man she most feared, or the man she desperately loved.
But there was one nagging worry.
Why had Jim left her alone? Surely he had not given up trying to get her back just when she was finally unprotected—almost at his mercy. It didn’t make sense. But Rolf had been gone four days now, and there had been no sign of Jim in all that time.
She shook off the negative thought with the logical explanation that Jim was, after all, working for a living, and must get the story for his magazine.
She sighed, pulling on a wool sweater-jacket. Determined not to let late afternoon loneliness at the chalet bear down on her another moment, she decided to take a walk along a nearby stream.
Dressed comfortably in walking shoes, navy chino pants and blue striped oxford-cloth shirt, her white sweater-jacket opened to the season’s briskness, she ambled destinationless, yet always upward, along the rapidly flowing mountain stream.
After nearly an hour of walking, she was attracted to the rocky edge where a large flat rock protruded over the water. It was, no doubt, an often sought-after resting place above the picturesque town.
Her thoughts, however, were not as peaceful as the placid sight below.
Expelling a long breath, she searched among the pebbles nearby for a flat stone to toss into the stream, to disrupt its flow. . . a physical parallel to the mental disruption Rolf had made in the flow of her own life.
The first toss was in mid-flight when a familiar voice at her back startled her to her feet.
“Well, well, babe, how do you like spending your honeymoon alone?”
She spun toward the cynical voice, her disquieted mood lurching toward alarm.
“Jim!”
He smiled, a smile that bordered on a leer. “Right on the first guess.”
She took a step backward, but, in time, remembered that she was poised precariously over the stream, making that mode of escape require a rough, frigid s
wim.
She stopped. “I thought—I—Weren’t you in Munich?”
He lifted thick shoulders. “Was. But the brilliant Dr. Erhardt began to bore me.”
He moved toward her; the crunch of gravel beneath his feet was magnified thunderously in her ears.
“Besides, job or no, I said we’d get together later.” Impatience gleamed in the brightness of his cool green eyes. “And since we pack up tomorrow, I figured today’d have to be that ‘later.’”
Nausea rose in her throat as he took another step toward her. “What do you want, Jim.”
“What do I want?” He laughed harshly. “Don’t be stupid, Drew. I want you.”
Her skin crawled at the very idea. Gulping at the bile that was rising in her throat, she was unable to trust opening her mouth to speak.
“I want answers, straight answers!” His voice had become razor sharp.
Though she was quailing wretchedly inside, she managed to lift her chin with bravado. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”
It was impossible to imagine the ugly sneer becoming more obscene, but it did as he closed the gap between them, taking her sweatered arms with rough authority.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your marriage when I first saw you?”
She twisted in his painful grasp, grimacing. “Take your hands off of me!”
“You get what you deserve, babe.” It was a growl. “Now answer my question!”
She raised cold bright eyes to meet his, offensive, the greenish tint of tornadolike foreboding making her cringe with terror.
He spat, “Why were you registered at the hotel alone. . . and as Mrs. Pollard?”
She gasped, “Jim—I—we. . .” Her thoughts tumbled quickly towards the obvious story. “We didn’t know when or. . . if he would get out. To protect him, I had to act as though nothing had changed. You must see that!”
His jaw worked angrily, watching her before he ventured further, “Yes, that’s possible. But you can’t make be believe you two really planned to make this thing work. I’m no fool. Either you’ve been hiding behind his name to keep me away or”—he lowered his face toward hers and finished in a guttural whisper—“or you’ve really fallen for the guy.” He snorted without humor. “He just used you to get out of the East. You know it and I know it.”
His breath was harsh against her face. “In fact, from what I saw in Munich between him and that Markus woman.”
Those words stabbed deeply into her soul and she felt her lips tremble with the hopeless denying shake of her head. “Nooooo!”
The bite of his fingers increased with the slash of his words. “Hell, every waking minute that slinky woman was draped over his arm.” His chuckle was dark, evil. “I’m betting she was with him more than a few sleeping minutes too.”
Knowing that what he said was true did not make it any easier to hear. In fact, hearing it, hearing that her fears about Rolf and Ilka were true, made it all that much more horrible to endure.
“Stop it, Jim! Stop it!” she cried desperately, pushing at his chest, feeling the comfortless tears well up and overflow.
Her struggles only increased his determination, and he pulled her into a stifling hold against the rough wool of his jacket.
“Fight me, Drew. That’s a good girl. Go on and fight me.”
A terrified scream trembled on her lips, but sound would not come.
“It’ll be so much better if you fight me.” He taunted in a guttural whisper. And to her horror, Drew could feel his desire being aroused by her struggles.
He prophesied with the assurance of a demented dictator, “You’ll come crawling back to me after Erhardt drops you flat in the good old U.S. of A. You know you will.”
Pounding her fists against his chest, she sobbed, “No, no! I’ll never, never want you back. I won’t come back to you! Jim, you’re sick. You need help!”
He didn’t appear to feel the pounding, and Drew became desperate as she saw his wide lips move to cover hers. She couldn’t stand the thought of his repulsive kisses.
Wildly she kicked out at his shin. Once finding it, she scraped downward with the hard leather of her shoe along his ankle to end in a solid stomp on the top of his foot.
“Damn!” The curse was expelled with wrathful surprise. “You little bitch!”
She felt herself being lifted off the ground, her punishing foot now dangling ineffectually in midair.
“You don’t kick me and get away with it, not by a long shot!”
She watched the world spin as Jim pivoted away from the stream, still holding her suspended in the viselike grip. He put her down with bone-jarring suddenness.
“This time, Drew, you’re not getting away.” Grabbing her arm as though it were a chicken neck needing to be wrung, he pulled her roughly after him. “I’ve been watching you and Erhardt in that gingerbread playhouse you’ve been sharing.” He let go a very impolite snort. “And it’ll be a real pleasure to do it to you there.”
He yanked on her arm and she cried out in pain, stumbling, almost falling, as he growled on, “You’ve done it with him there, and now it’s my turn.”
“Done it?” She let the question trail off. Suddenly knowing that what Jim had in mind was more than a mere beating this time. He meant to rape her, and his sick, jealous mind somehow reasoned that the location of the chalet would make his sexual revenge just that much more sweet.
“God! Jim, you can’t do this!” she choked.
He jerked his ruddy face around to meet her wide-eyed stare. “The hell I can’t, lover. Don’t bet the farm on it!” The corners of his mouth lifted menacingly. “You’re finally going to pay the way I want to be paid!” His narrow eyes glittered with perverted lust. There was no mercy there, and in the ugly face of his twisted rage, Drew knew again a justifiable fear for her life.
Just then she became aware of laughter—faint laughter—and people singing some distance away.
Casting a cautious look toward Jim, who had resumed his rampaging descent, she could tell he had not yet noticed the approach of people.
Dragging her roughly along after him, his eyes were riveted ahead for the first sign of the chalet, as yet too far down the mountain to see.
With difficulty, trying to keep her balance on the uneven rocky slope, she twisted toward the sound, spotting, off almost parallel to them, a group of about eight young men, clad in gaily colored hiking attire, and backpacks, probably ending a day of hiking.
Hope edged back into her mind.
Could she escape? Could she get to the hikers for help?
If she could, she knew Jim would not dare attack her with so many others present. Even without the ability to ask for help in German, the young men would surely recognize a cry for aid.
She knew she would have to act quickly, for at this foolhardy pace Jim was demanding, they would soon leave the merry hikers behind.
Without another moment’s hesitation, she flung her leg out into Jim’s path and braced herself for the fall as his foot caught against her calf.
She couldn’t stifle the groan of pain as his toe pegged the tensed muscle at the back of her leg.
“What the—” he managed before he realized they were falling.
They landed heavily, his body dropping over her legs.
The breath left her in a “whoof,” but she had been ready for the impact, taking away as much of the force of it as she could with her arms.
And then, when Jim released her in a reflex action of self-preservation, she pulled out from under his weight, rolling away. She scrambled on all fours in the direction of the hikers as Jim lay stunned on his face near the stream.
Coming to a skidding stop, she dislodged rocks and gravel that tumbled on down ahead of her in a miniature landslide, making her shudder as she watched the rocks bounce and ricochet into the distance.
Heart racing, she peered over her shoulder at Jim. He had lifted his head slightly, shaking it. A low moan escaped his throat.
Spitting d
irt, she ran a fist over a stinging scrape along her dusty cheek. Looking down at the clenched fist, she realized that it was shaking violently. She knew she was not safe yet.
Pulling a deep breath that helped renew her determination, she righted herself, wincing at a bloodied spot on her slacks that stuck painfully to her knee.
“Hey, there!”
Biting her lip, she stopped. What could she say that they would understand?
Please! She knew the word for please!
“Bitte! Bitte!” She waved a frantic hand.
A young man turned, stopped, then grasped a fellow’s shoulder. Suddenly the noises of comradeship ceased, and eight pairs of eyes were riveted on her.
“Ja?” the first hiker called.
She heard another moan at her back and knew she must not tarry. As quickly as her bruised body would let her she limped toward the now stilled group.
She knew as long as Jim was down, they could not see him. And rather than have to answer embarrassing questions she called in English, “I—I was walking. . .I fell. Could you help me back to my house?”
She stopped for a gasp of air and plucked at the sticky knee. “It isn’t very far.”
Most of the faces stared blankly, but one young man, about twenty years old, stepped forward. “Of course, mein Fraulein. We will help you. Come.” He moved to grasp her arm, firmly, yet cautiously, as if fearful of doing her any additional harm, while explaining what she had said to his companions.
Once they had heard that she was asking for their help, Drew could do nothing for herself, not even walk. The youths, Drew could now see, ranged in age from about sixteen to twenty. And in their enthusiasm to help a damsel in distress, the young men were almost comical in their fledgling attempts at gallantry, insisting that they carry her two at a time, on their arms, all the way down to the chalet. When they reached it, the young blond that spoke English asked if they might send for a doctor. Drew sweetly refused, saying that she would be fine. She offered them the hospitality of a glass of iced tea, which was all that she had.
