Deadly Memories

by Susan Vaughan

  Sophie could barely breathe. “He was alive.”

  “I had to reach him.” He held up his hands, curled in helpless supplication. “I had to.”

  Darkness concealed the jagged scars on his fingers, but suddenly Sophie knew how he’d gotten them. “You broke the window with your fists.”

  “I don’t remember. The EMTs said I did. Blood was everywhere. His, mine, I don’t know. Loose objects in the car had slammed into David, cut him bad. I touched his cheek. He was warm. And real. And then the life went out of his eyes. After that the EMTs pulled me away.”

  Sophie felt the tears bleed down her face, a red-hot stream of pain and anger. Grief for Jack’s loss scalded every nerve ending.

  From somewhere she dredged up what she hoped were words of comfort. “He saw you and felt his father’s touch. He knew you came for him.”

  “Too late.” His voice raspy with pain, he seemed to tear the words from his soul. “I carry his picture so I can make myself remember him laughing instead of dying.”

  He twisted off his knees and stretched out. “We should get some sleep. Got to meet a guy with a car in the morning.” He folded his arms, then turned on his side away from her.

  End of conversation.

  Sophie got that. She unfolded their extra blanket and spread it over them both before she lay down. Only inches from Jack, she longed to spoon against his hard body, but she sensed he needed space and time alone.

  She comprehended the savage hatred that drove Jack the father. “Was joining ATSA part of your…quest?”

  Silence. She wondered if he slept, but then he said, “I told you my other reasons for going to ATSA. The main reason was that I’d have better resources for finding Vadim.”

  Hello. She just realized…. “Five years. Your search took five years.” Five years of hell.

  “He operates under so many aliases, moves around. When Interpol connected his aliases for the task force, I got myself assigned here. One way or another, Sebastian Vadim will die. If I have to, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Justice? Or vengeance?”

  “In this case vengeance is justice. Sebastian Vadim understands vengeance. The diamond-smuggling gang would’ve been convicted with evidence from the witness I was protecting. Vadim didn’t want the creep freed. He wanted revenge. Later I heard the guy’d been shanked in jail.”

  “Shanked?”

  “Stabbed to death with a makeshift knife.”

  Sophie shuddered at the brutal image. She had no doubt that Jack would kill Vadim with any weapon he could, his bare hands if necessary. He blamed himself for putting his family in danger.

  She understood, but vengeance had its price. Too high a price. “If he were my son, I would never give up until his killer paid. Vadim is wanted for many crimes. You said he murdered the uranium courier or had him killed. The task force will find him. He’ll be punished.”

  “A trial and prison? Not good enough.”

  Sophie’s stomach clenched as she grasped Jack’s intention. “If you get back on the task force, what then?”

  He twisted around to face her. Shadows hid his face, but the live-coal force of his hatred and resolve seared her. “He’ll resist capture, and force will be necessary. In a firefight, he’ll go down. Legit if possible. If not, I’ll do what I have to do.”

  “You’re walking a fine line between necessary force and murder. If you cross the line, the consequences—”

  “Damn the consequences,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “Don’t you think I know? Vengeance is my only reason for living.”

  “Killing him won’t bring them back.” She scraped at her brain for arguments. “Is it worth giving up your life, the possibility of a new family, for revenge?” It sounded crass, but it was all she could come up with.

  “No family. Even if I come out of this clean. I’ll never again allow my job to put a woman—or a child—in harm’s way. Never.” He slugged his big body over, turning his back to her, like pulling a curtain.

  “But Jack—”

  “Go to sleep, Sophie.”

  More argument would accomplish nothing tonight. She hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know. His career and his freedom—and oh, God, maybe his life—would be forfeited if he killed Vadim outright. She bit her lower lip to keep from blabbing on and to hold in a sob.

  Jack was a good man. Underneath his guilt and hatred remained an honorable and dedicated man, a man who could laugh and joke and who had love and loyalty to give. He kept that man under tight control, but she’d glimpsed him. That man deserved better than ruining his life for revenge.

  If only she could remember that last day at the villa, if only she knew Vadim’s hideout, she would try to keep Jack from crossing the line. She would help the task force apprehend Vadim.

  But too much of her memory remained a blank screen.

  Guilt made him think revenge was his only reason to live. She longed to show him he was wrong. But all she had to offer was herself.

  And why not?

  Between them flamed awareness hotter than she’d ever felt before. Every touch flared sparks within her, every look ignited flames. He wanted her as much. Simple, right? At first, maybe, but no more.

  He appeared harsh, but that was his natural reserve and his dedication. His vulnerability wrenched her heart and his wounded soul called to hers with a power stronger than sex.

  She’d have to keep herself under control or she’d fall in love with Jack.

  No way did she need a man who locked his emotions inside. She needed no man at all before she found her own strength.

  Love? No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. But…

  He felt so deeply and focused so totally. Would he concentrate as fully on a woman in bed? Would he lose control in lovemaking?

  Imagining Jack’s hair-roughened chest against her skin, his mouth on her breast, his rigid length seeking her, made Sophie’s skin itch and a pulse throb between her legs.

  She was so in trouble.

  Chapter 12

  Jack opened his eyes. His hand closed around the grip of his 9mm. He drew it slowly from beneath the blanket edge and listened.

  A light breeze shivered leaves and stirred scents of loam and green things. Nearby an owl hooted. In the distance, another answered.

  No bad guys in the woods. He exhaled and laid down his sidearm. The luminous dial of his watch read one o’clock.

  He hadn’t expected to sleep, but exhaustion must’ve done the job. When he turned on his side, sharp twinges in back and hip muscles protested a night on lumpy ground and days of crimping his legs into a sardine can disguised as a car.

  Settling again, he knew he wouldn’t sleep. In the woods the night was darker than the tombs dug into the hill, but in the clearing the moon shone silver on the grass.

  And on Sophie sleeping beside him.

  She was facing him, on her right side, the blanket over her sling-bound left arm and tucked around her feet.

  Even without the moonlight he’d recognize the curve of her hip, lush and round and womanly, not Popsicle-stick thin. And if he couldn’t see her, he would know her by the rhythm of her breathing and the scent of her skin.

  God, he’d told her everything. Too much. But she’d perceived his pain. In their situation, he owed her the truth.

  Tonight she’d absorbed his grief and cried along with him. And he’d bawled like a baby. Damn it, he hated tears. He hated the choking feeling, the weakness.

  He needed strength—she would need strength from him.

  Sophie shifted in her sleep and then sighed, a soft murmur that jazzed his pulse.

  Imagining Vadim touching her, taking her, had twisted a jagged knife in his gut. Her reassurance that she’d never been in the creep’s bed withdrew that particular dagger. Relief had swept over him in waves so strong she must’ve noticed.

  Man, he wanted her. He’d been with a few women since his wife, but those had been just for sexual release.

  With S
ophie, he wanted more.

  Impossible. A man with no future and no right to endanger another person could expect only brief passion.

  Passion that would block from his mind and soul the damned beast that drove him. Oblivion, respite, release, if only temporary—oh, God, to forget in her arms…

  She was intuitive, smart and sensual—a woman who experienced life with all her senses and reacted without artifice. She should never play poker because all her emotions were hanging out there—happy or sad, curious or exuberant. He ached to know if she tackled sex with the same gusto.

  He brushed a curl from her cheek. The thick mane had come loose. Repairing her braid in the morning was the only way he ought to touch her. Heart stumbling with desire and regret, he withdrew his hand short of contact.

  “Afraid I’ll bite?”

  “Afraid I’ll wake you.” True, as far as it went. Uptight about her reaction to his meltdown was more like it.

  “Too late. This rock under my hip already did the job.” She edged closer to him and placed her right hand over his now-sprinting heart.

  Was she offering sympathy? Damn it, pity was the last thing he wanted from her. “Look, about earlier—”

  Her fingers on his lips stopped his words. “Jack, chill. You needed to let it out. Honest emotions are healing. I always feel better after a good cry.”

  The smile in her voice eased his coiled nerves a notch. He kissed her cool fingers. “Now you’re reading my mind.” God, he hoped not. His thoughts might singe her hair.

  “Let’s see if you can read mine.” She pulled his head down and sealed her lips to his. Sweet and insistent, her tongue slipped inside his mouth and blotted out all coherent thought.

  Jack cupped her rounded butt and dragged her closer, let the taste and the scent and the feel of her course heat through him, unchecked and unrelenting.

  She clung to him, setting flame to the hot coals that had been smoldering since he’d first seen her.

  Never had he wanted a woman the way he wanted her, now and hard and deep….

  When she broke the kiss, he gasped for control but ached to ignore the alarms in his head, to ignore everything but her and the inferno they created together. “Sophie, ah, Sophie.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said in a breathy whisper.

  And then she was tugging his shirt from his jeans and running her soft hand over his bare chest.

  “We shouldn’t.” But all the reasons they shouldn’t floated out of reach like her memory mirages. All he knew was Sophie—her sweetness, her vibrant spirit, her softness.

  “I know and I don’t care.” She had never felt this heart-slamming hunger from a kiss, this rush at the musky scent and heat of his hard body. He was as sexy as he was severe and stern. And vulnerable beneath his protective shell. Knowing he’d allowed her to see the inner man kicked her in the heart. “Make love with me, Jack.”

  He smoothed a hand over the swell of her hip to the heat between her thighs. Heat surged through her in ripples of desire. When she scraped her nails over his nipple, he moaned and stripped off his shirt.

  She tugged at the snap on his jeans. “I want to see you, all of you.”

  He grasped her hand and brought it to his lips. “Don’t or this’ll be over faster than you can blink. I’m so hard I can barely breathe.”

  She sank back into the shadows. “Protection. We have no protection.”

  Jack produced a foil packet from his kit. He shrugged with an apologetic and very appealing grin. “Leoni slipped them in my bag. Just in case.”

  She grinned in return. “Thank him for me.”

  “I make no promises beyond tonight. You’re sure?”

  “I want no promises, only tonight,” she lied, knowing in her heart she wanted more, much more. “Hold me, love me. Give me a new memory to brighten the darkness around us.”

  “No regrets,” he said.

  “No regrets.” When she saw heat leap in the dark centers of his eyes, she ripped at hook-and-loop fasteners. “This will go a lot easier if you help me out of this straitjacket.”

  He slid the sling away. She wriggled out of her jeans. He helped her pull off the sweatshirt.

  When he saw she was wearing only a skimpy pair of blue lace panties, no bra, he sucked in a breath. The cool night air puckered her nipples. When he palmed her breasts, the sensation zinged through her body.

  “Ah, Sophie, rose-brown nipples, perfect breasts. So beautiful. You’re so beautiful,” he murmured as their bodies fitted together, skin to skin.

  “You’re beautiful, too.” She reveled in the feel of him against her, the coarse hair on his chest rasping against her nipples, his thighs hard as boards against hers and his rampant sex thrusting the harsh denim against her belly.

  Stripping away her panties, he found her with his fingers. She gasped, arching her back at the exquisite sensation. He stroked and circled and explored. She sighed and nibbled and kneaded. They kissed, hot and hungry, until neither could wait a second longer.

  He kicked off his jeans and boxers, and when she wrapped her soft hand around his aching arousal, he thought he’d lift off to Mars.

  She shimmied beneath him and wrapped herself around him like a ribbon of fire. Without her clothing, she was a miracle of soft curves and silken skin.

  He sank into her tight, pulsing heat as blood thundered in his head and flames enveloped him, and she writhed against him with urgent pleas.

  Lost in the wonder of this woman, in the perfection of their joining, in an intensity that transcended sex, he wanted the incredible rush to transport him forever, but the tide of his climax pulled at his belly and licked at his spine.

  He held on until he felt her first spasms clenching at him and heard her call his name, and then his body seized up and he convulsed with her in a wrenching wave of white-hot pleasure.

  The next afternoon Sophie peeled garlic in the safe-house kitchen as she watched Jack outside talking on the sat phone to his ATSA colleague. Byrne was the name, she thought.

  That morning a tow truck had arrived at the tomb road with a new car, an Opel Corso, another subcompact. The driver had handed over the keys and a sealed packet, then had driven off with the bullet-riddled Fiat in tow. Among other items, the packet contained money and directions to a farmhouse in the hill town of Giordano, just south of Florence.

  Farmhouse, Sophie scoffed. Maybe once but no longer. Someone with a decorator’s eye had bought the stone dwelling from the farmer. With truckloads of euros they’d transformed it into an elegant country retreat, complete with new tiled floors and a modern kitchen.

  A mix of antiques and clean-lined modern furniture gave the rooms a relaxing ambience. Palm trees, as incongruous as a vineyard in the East Village, grew on either side of the red front door, similar to the Under the Tuscan Sun house.

  Jack had told her it belonged to Byrne’s fiancée’s parents, their future retirement home, so neither ATSA nor the task force knew about it.

  The caretaker, Silvio, who lived just down the road, kept the house ready for occupation. He’d just finished weeding the flowers when she and Jack had arrived. Sophie had smelled wine on the red-faced man’s breath as they’d shaken hands.

  She set the garlic aside on the slate counter beside the new peas, fava beans and asparagus. Experimenting, she rotated her shoulders—both of them. No twinges in her left shoulder as long as she didn’t try to lift it too high. She was fine.

  Next she began to chop the leeks and peppers. She’d probably bought too much in the Giordano village market, but fresh spring vegetables were hard to resist. Sautéed in olive oil and tossed with chopped tomatoes and ziti, they would make a wonderful dish to accompany the remaining grilled chicken. She’d also purchased fresh bread and half a cream cheese tart with orange marmalade and sliced almonds.

  She crossed herself and aimed a glance skyward. “See, Nonna, all your efforts with me in the kitchen paid off.”

  Outside the mullioned kitchen window, the sat phone
to his ear, Jack paced in the small garden. In a navy polo shirt that clung to his muscled chest and wide shoulders, he looked so sexy and strong that heat curled in her stomach. His rugged features set in a stony expression, he punctuated his conversation with jabs of his free hand.

  Maybe not bad news, but no good news, for sure.

  If only she could remember the crucial day at the villa. All she seemed to be able to think about was last night.

  Making love with Jack had been incredible. After the first time, they’d slept in each other’s arms. The second time, he’d lifted her astride him, insisting that he was concerned about her shoulder pressed to the hard ground. The night—no, Jack—had been romantic and sexy and magical.

  She warned herself that her aching need for him was just lust. Big-time lust, not the other L word. The heady connection, the euphoria—all that emotion was because of being thrown together in the midst of danger. What she felt couldn’t be love.

  It couldn’t, shouldn’t be. But it was.

  She’d fallen in love with Jack.

  Her heart swelled with tenderness. She wanted to dance a jig and weep at the same time.

  Making love had been amazing, not like the few hasty, lukewarm couplings she’d experienced before. Their bodies and needs meshed as though they’d been made for each other.

  In every other way, they definitely hadn’t been made for each other.

  She was an emotional open book. He kept his feelings locked behind a stone mask—except for anger. And hatred. Besides, they wanted different things.

  She was bound to find her memory and herself, not to be responsible for others until she was ready for a family of her own. He was bound in his grief and revenge and saw no future for himself, let alone a future with her or any woman.

  So she couldn’t let him know her true feelings. She would cherish whatever short time they had left together. She would make the most of it. For them both.

  She sighed, longing to comfort him, to help him end this chase in a way that somehow maintained his pride and assuaged his guilt.

  But what could she do?