Playing for Time

by Bretton, Barbara

  Joanna enveloped the woman in a bear hug. "Don't ask questions, Rosie," she whispered in her ear. "I'll explain it all tomorrow."

  Not one to press her luck, Joanna headed through the hall toward the front door of the apartment, followed by Rosie and Ryder. Rosie was ranting about Stanley and retribution, and Ryder sounded a bit distracted. Joanna had a pretty good idea what was distracting him. Whatever happened to flannel long johns and respectable bathrobes anyway? God only knew what was visible through her nightgown.

  She paused at the door while Rosie unlocked it.

  "Make sure both Medeco locks are bolted after we leave," Ryder warned Rosie, "and secure the windows the way I showed you."

  "Such a worrier." Joanna had never heard Rosie's voice so soft and affectionate – not even with Bert Higgins. The woman looked up at Joanna. "You best lock up, too. If Stanley sees those frillies of yours that I saw in the laundry room, he'll be in his glory."

  With a wicked wink, Rosie closed the door on the two of them and Joanna heard the rapid click-click of the locks being bolted.

  Joanna was having a terrible time regaining her composure and the presence of Ryder O'Neal was largely responsible. He followed her the ten feet to her own front door.

  "Care to tell me about those frillies Rosie mentioned?"

  The look she gave him would have stopped a more cautious man. "Thanks for seeing me home," she said, unlocking the door. "Good night."

  "Aren't you going to invite me in for a nightcap?"

  "I hadn't planned on it." She shielded her body behind the partially opened door. "How about a rain check?"

  His grin was boyish and undeniably effective, even more so now that she wasn't in septuagenarian makeup. "I always say there's no time like the present."

  Joanna hesitated. It was close to midnight. Inviting a stranger, no matter how attractive, into her home could be risky.

  She considered the prospect of drinking Soave alone by the light of the VCR, then looked down at the big, bulky cast on his leg. How dangerous could he be? Even Rosie could outrun him. "Listen, I want to change my clothes. Why don't you come back in five minutes?"

  His grin slid from boyish to dangerously sexy. "Don't change on my account."

  "I'm not," Joanna said. "I'm changing on my account."

  If she were smart she'd get out the grey wig again. Kathryn could handle the situation. Joanna wasn't altogether sure that she could.

  #

  Alistair usually had trouble sleeping the night before a big assignment and, despite the way he'd downplayed it to Ryder, the trip to St. George Island was a big assignment.

  He had taken the beauteous Ms. Masters to Le Cirque and they had quite frankly delighted each other. There were three things in the world that Alistair adored: beautiful women, good conversation and fine food. All three were in evidence that evening.

  If there hadn't been so many last-minute details to attend to before flying out in the morning, he would have suggested a room at the Plaza with a view of Central Park, a wide soft bed and a magnum of champagne beside it, but duty called. Besides, Ms. Masters was not a woman made for halfway measures and he was not a man to deny himself full pleasure.

  When it happened – and it would happen, they both knew that – he wanted the luxury of time to enjoy her.

  And so he was back in his PAX-provided apartment on Fifth Avenue, alone except for his brandy and pipe and computer. Using the access numbers that changed daily, he'd brought up all the necessary information on tomorrow's assignment and printed it out, encoded of course, for Ryder.

  He had no doubts whatever that O'Neal would take on the assignment.

  In fact, if Alistair knew Ryder as well as he thought he did, O'Neal would have the solution worked out before the plane landed, and then have half of the intricate electronic equipment wired before the limousine got them to the compound where they'd be working.

  There was absolutely no need whatever for the nagging, uneasy feeling that nipped at him and made him feel as if he'd forgotten something vital to the assignment.

  Quickly he tapped in the codes and watched as more and more information filled the screen. The situation was holding steady. The travel arrangements were confirmed. Even the weather was cooperating.

  Nevertheless the uneasy feeling remained.

  Alistair was about to get up and pour himself another brandy when he noticed the dusting of age spots clustered near the knuckles of his right hand. He'd had them for at least ten years now. They were unsightly, yes, but unavoidable. Part and parcel of the inevitable aging process.

  He'd watched cohorts – both men and women – fight age with drugs and scalpel but, short of wearing gloves, no one had managed a way to hide this telltale sign. How many times had he been introduced to a dazzling movie star with the taut jaw-line of a teenager, only to have the illusion unmasked literally by her own hands.

  Something was beginning to come to him, an observation pushed to the back of his mind in the rush of the day's events. He closed his eyes and called up the memory the way he called up information on his screen.

  Ryder and that elderly friend of Holland's, Kathryn Hayes. Slightly stooped posture. Clear blue-green eyes. Hair of gunmetal-grey. Face a network of wrinkles and lines.

  Her hands.

  Her hands were smooth and pale, the nails perfect translucent ovals. No liver spots, no unsightly veins, no arthritic swelling around the knuckles. They were the hands of a much younger woman.

  He punched in yet another code, and then typed the words "Kathryn Hayes, Carillon Arms, New York City."

  He didn't have long to wait. The screen flashed "No Information Available."

  Impossible. The only people without information were either illegal aliens or undercover agents, and even then it was usually just a matter of expending a bit more effort before he came up with something. Ryder O'Neal was one of the few men whose identities were shielded by all the diplomatic and bureaucratic secrecy the international agency could manage.

  Alistair switched to the D code for classified information, typed in the woman's name, the full street address, and Manhattan, instead of the catch-all New York City, which encompassed all five boroughs. If he'd known her phone number and zip code, he would have added them for good measure.

  He pushed the Enter key and waited.

  Again the No Information Available code.

  Alistair's metabolism made the shift into overdrive as his adrenaline soared the way it always did when he came face-to-face with the unexpected.

  His fingers flew across the keypad as he entered in the complicated, ever-changing series of identification codes and access information that booted him up into the Top Secret, Code L file.

  A Kathryn Hayes had once lived in the Carillon Arms in an apartment owned by one Cynthia Hayes del Portago but no longer.

  Kathryn Hayes died in 1981.

  Someone was taking her place.

  #

  Ryder let himself into his apartment and tossed his jacket over the back of a chair. The image of Joanna Stratton in her sheer nightgown made it difficult for him to think straight.

  At lunch he'd been concerned only with making the stubborn Englishman understand that it was time for him to break free from PAX and the obsession with man's capacity for destruction and to start concerning himself with his own future.

  For fifteen years Ryder had willingly let himself be swept into a secret world that existed parallel to the world in which most people lived. The world Alistair had opened up to him so long ago was more violent, more exciting, more dangerous and ultimately more fulfilling than anything he'd imagined in his wildest James Bond fantasies.

  But, in that moment when he first saw Joanna on Rosie's doorstep, he finally understood Alistair's words.

  Real life was more dangerous.

  When Alistair said that to him earlier that afternoon, Ryder had yet to meet Joanna Stratton. He had yet to feel his heart tumble inside his chest as he looked into her blue-green
eyes and saw something that might be the future.

  Fifteen years of training to follow his gut instincts told him that this dark-haired woman was more dangerous to him than anything on earth.

  And nothing in his training gave him the slightest clue on how to protect himself, not even if he wanted to.

  #

  Joanna's fingers shook as she buttoned the last button her silk shirt and looked at herself in the mirror.

  Any moment Ryder O'Neal would ring her doorbell and she'd let him into her apartment and tell him the truth.

  "I'm a makeup artist," she said to her reflection. "I was practicing a technique for a job I have next week."

  She'd say she was sorry to have pulled him into the middle of it, to have made him grow fond of a woman who no longer existed, but things just got out of hand. He didn't have all those laugh lines around his eyes for nothing. He was bound to see the humor in it.

  But whether or not he did, the ruse was over. Juggling identities was too wearing on her nerves. Besides, when he looked at her in her nightgown, the feelings he inspired were definitely not Kathryn's.

  So when the doorbell rang, Joanna went to answer it, feeling jumpy but certain that what she was about to do was the right and proper course of action.

  She hadn't expected Ryder to show up minus his crutches, gripping an ivory-handled cane with his right hand and a bottle of Ruffino in his left.

  He was bigger than he should be, more male, more sexually demanding.

  "Hi." A smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. "Can I come in?"

  Joanna felt as if she were surfacing from a deep and dreamless sleep. She stepped aside and as he maneuvered past her, cane tapping loudly against the parquet floor, she caught the scent of his skin and her heart tumbled against her ribs.

  There had been men in the years since she lost Eddie, but none who came close to making her feel quite this open, quite this vulnerable. It seemed a thousand years since she had walked down that aisle with her head filled with dreams that never came true. Only her fierce determination had kept her going; only her unshakable inner strength had kept her sane.

  And now the same woman who had prided herself on her strength, felt as if she were standing in the eye of a storm with no shelter within reach. No safe place to hide.

  She closed the door, took a deep breath, then turned to face him.

  "We'll have to be quiet," she said finally as he lowered himself onto the couch. "Kathryn's in the next room and I'd hate to wake her up."

  Maybe the storm would safely pass her by.

  Chapter Seven

  Inviting him inside was her first mistake.

  Joanna watched as Ryder filled their glasses with Ruffino. The sleeves on his cream-colored sweater were pushed up past his elbows and her eyes were drawn again and again to the muscles of his forearms with their patterning of deep blue veins.

  After years of working closely with some of the most charismatic men in the world, Joanna had thought herself immune to the charms of a mere mortal.

  That was her second mistake.

  Somehow when she was hidden away in her Kathryn disguise, she hadn't been fully aware of his magnetism. Certainly she had noticed the handsome face and appreciated the lean, tough body but somehow he had seemed more boyish, more malleable than he seemed now as he sat in the living room.

  There was nothing boyish about him, nothing malleable or soft. That sparkle in his hazel eyes covered pure steel. Had her disguise somehow dimmed her perceptions or had she merely see what she wanted to see and disregarded everything else?

  He handed her her glass and held his own aloft.

  "To Rosie," he said, clicking his glass against hers, "and her missing Maidenforms. I'm in her debt."

  Joanna smiled but said nothing. She didn't trust her voice. As Kathryn she had been won over by his kindness. As herself, she was overpowered by his sexuality.

  There was something in the air between them, something so electric that her scalp tingled from it, making her want to throw caution to the winds and tell him everything. But there was something to be said for an imaginary grandmother asleep in the next room.

  The urge to melt against him, to feel his lips on hers was so powerful that only the strength of her own lie kept Joanna in her seat.

  She took a sip of wine, acutely aware of her lips against the rim of the glass, of the burst of flavor against her tongue, the warmth that trickled down her throat and into her stomach. Even the feel of the fragile stem of crystal between her fingers was heightened, turned into something sensual by the simple fact that he was watching her.

  He knows what I'm thinking. The look in his eyes was so blatantly sexual that there was no doubt in her mind. Solitary, strong Joanna Stratton – the woman many men wooed but few had ever won – had finally met her match.

  She took another sip of wine and cleared her throat. "So, tell me," she said, leaning back in her chair, "how long have you known Rosie?"

  His gaze never wavered. "Not too long."

  "Three days? Three months? Three years?"

  "About three weeks. We met on the elevator. She was going to search through Stanley's garbage for her missing curtains."

  Rosie's exploits were getting more and more bizarre. "Stanley isn't a man to cross, Ryder. Not if you value little things like heat and hot water. I hope you didn't encourage her."

  "I didn't encourage," he said with a smile. "I helped her look."

  "You may find Rosie amusing," Joanna snapped, "but her situation isn't amusing at all. These flights of fancy are going to find her without a home."

  "I thought the New York City housing laws protected her."

  "Not if she's declared a public nuisance or her apartment's deemed a safety hazard. If Stanley caught her sifting through his trash, he could even have her arrested."

  "Back up a little," Ryder said. He didn't appear to be properly chastened. "What do you mean, 'flights of fancy'?"

  Joanna took another sip of wine. "That should be obvious. Certainly you don't believe Stanley, or anyone else for that matter, is sneaking into her apartment to steal kitchen curtains and Maidenform bras."

  "Not bras," he corrected her. "Girdles."

  Joanna ignored him. "Rosie's imagination could put her on the street."

  He polished off his wine and set the empty glass down on the tabletop. "Maybe it's not her imagination."

  "Don't tell me she has you suspecting foul play."

  "You've met Stanley," Ryder said. "Would it surprise you?"

  "I admit he has his hand out all the time," she said. "but that doesn't make him guilty of harassment. Besides, he doesn't own the building. What would he gain from evicting her?"

  "Come on, Joanna. No one is that naïve. Who pays his salary?"

  His point was a good one, but the situation seemed too implausible for Joanna to take seriously. "I've known Rosie for many years," she said, "and she is getting a tad forgetful. Is it so unlikely that she's misplacing a few things?"

  Ryder leaned forward. "A misplaced blender?"

  "Don't tell me her blender's gone missing too."

  "And her electric wok. Do you still think it's senility or are you willing to admit something might be going on?"

  "She probably rearranged her cabinets or gave the wok to Goodwill. She is almost eight years old, Ryder."

  "So is Kathryn," he shot back, "but she's sharper than most thirty-year-olds I know."

  And there's a good reason for that, Joanna thought as she finished her wine.

  "You need a refill."

  She looked up at the sound of his voice. Suddenly she was aware of nothing save the warm sound of his words, the cool sleek feel of crystal beneath her fingers, the intense, almost erotic silence of the darkened room. Joanna's heart pounded in her ears like the sound of the ocean after a storm. The moment seemed to wrap itself around the two of them, drawing them closer, urging them toward the unknown.

  The invitation as in his eyes, in the way his gaze lingere
d softly on her mouth and trailed down her throat. It was there in the touch of his hand as he reached toward her, in the way he leaned close enough for her to sense the desire building inside him.

  How simple it would be to join him on the couch, to give in to this insane fever that burned deep inside the pit of her stomach and flared outward.

  And she knew exactly how it would be . . .

  Joanna would remove her clothes slowly, fingers trembling, letting her shirt slide to the floor along with her slacks in a puddle of silk. There would be something savagely exciting in exposing herself to this man, in watching the effect her beauty would have on him.

  Ryder's hands, large and strong, would reach out to cup her but she would elude him, letting her hands drift across her stomach and thighs, making him wonder how she would feel against him. The air in the apartment was chilly and her nipples would grow hard and tight, dark against the paleness of her skin, and he would once again reach out for her as she lifted her hair off the back of her neck and –

  "Joanna? I said, do you want some more wine?"

  She blinked and noticed she was sitting, fully clothed, in the club chair while Ryder waited for her to answer.

  "Yes," she finally managed. "Make it a double."

  #

  It was a good thing he'd broken his leg because if it weren't for that bulky cast, Ryder would have been tempted to sweep Joanna off her feet and up to his apartment where he could make love to her all night long.

  In her lacy nightgown she had raised his temperature a few degrees; but now, just sitting there in pants and a simple shirt, she was turning his entire body to molten steel.

  He'd never seen such pure desire in a woman's eyes before. Hell, if he looked in the mirror he'd probably see the same look in his eyes.

  He wanted to slide his hands into those black silk pants of hers and cup her buttocks, feel the soft flesh of her hips, slide his fingers to the top of her thighs and beyond, but as much as he wanted her, naked and writhing beneath him, some gut instinct held him back. Oh, there were ways around the inconvenience of a cast – he'd already explored two or three of them a few weeks ago. Pleasure was where you found it, and pleasure was something he knew all about.