Playing for Time

by Bretton, Barbara

  And then he did what he'd never done before in his fifteen years with PAX: He drew his gun.

  #

  Joanna didn't know what scared her more: the sight of that knife gleaming near her throat or Ryder O'Neal, looking steely-eyed and dangerous, with a gun in his hand. However, it really didn't matter; what mattered was getting out of that alley alive.

  "I said, drop the blade."

  Jimmy hesitated. Ryder cocked the pistol. Joanna prayed he was a good shot because not more than six inches separated her and her assailant.

  "Drop it, you fool," she said to Jimmy. "He'll kill you."

  Jimmy stared down at her. "You know him?"

  "He's a murderer," she said. "He's on parole."

  "Shit. I wasn't bargaining on anything like this."

  "I'll count down from ten," Ryder said, his voice more menacing than Joanna could have imagined possible, "and then I'll use you for target practice." He took aim. "Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . "

  "Drop it," Joanna said. "Use your head! Drop it!"

  Jimmy's hand began to shake. "I don't know –"

  ". . . seven . . . six . . . "

  "Stanley's money isn't worth it if you're dead," she urged, trying to move away from his grasp and out of the line of fire."

  ". . . five . . . four . . . "

  He's going to pull that trigger, Joanna thought wildly. Three more seconds and she would be witness to a murder.

  ". . . three . . . two . . . "

  The blade hit the concrete and the sound echoed between the two tall buildings. Jimmy stood up, hands extended, palms forward, then started to run for the exit. Joanna grabbed for him but got a shred of denim jacket instead.

  Ryder was game but his bad leg made giving chase impossible. Jimmy was out of sight before Ryder had gone ten feet.

  He limped his way over to Joanna and helped her up.

  "Are you all right?"

  She looked at the gun in his left hand. "I will be when you put that away."

  He slid it back into the holster hidden by his leather jacket. "Effective, isn't it?"

  "Very." She shivered. "Thank God you showed up when you did. Another minute and –" The realization of how close she'd come to death hit her full force and she fought a wave of nausea.

  "Come on, Kathryn," Ryder said, putting his arm around her. "Let's get you home."

  His touch, as he led her back to the Carillon, was gentle. His manner was solicitous and concerned. He spoke to her with genuine affection.

  He'd risked his life to help her.

  The man was as wonderful as she'd imagined him to be, Joanna thought as the elevator slid up to the ninth floor. Strong and handsome and brave and –

  Wait a minute. She was describing a Boy Scout and, unless they'd changed the handbook drastically, very few Boy Scouts carried a revolver beneath their leather jackets.

  You fool, she thought. You pitiful fool. Last night she had been weaving elaborate fantasies about herself and a man named Ryder O'Neal, dreaming of things she hadn't allowed herself to dream of for years.

  Today that same man pulled a gun out of nowhere and it was obvious he damned well knew how to use it. A cold wave of fear, more intense than she'd felt in the alley, spread outward from her gut. What on earth had she gotten herself involved in?

  Apparently she wasn't the only one who was a master of disguise.

  #

  She hadn't asked the question yet, but Ryder knew it was just a matter of time. Any moment Kathryn Hayes would turn to him and say, "What are you doing with a gun?" and he'd be damned if he knew what his answer was going to be.

  PAX and his identity had been the farthest things from his mind back there in that alleyway. All he'd been able to think of was saving her life, even if it meant taking her assailant's.

  When push came to shove, he was as capable of violence as the next man. For a man who'd spent his adult life trying to come up with ways to combat violence, it was a sobering thought.

  Even more sobering was the realization of how close he'd come to blowing his cover altogether.

  He'd let down his guard these past few weeks, allowed himself the ultimate luxury of normalcy, reveled in the pleasure of enjoying life without glancing over his shoulder at every turn.

  Then he noticed a stray lock of black hair tumbling over Kathryn Hayes's shoulder and he knew Chambers was right.

  Real life was the most dangerous game of all.

  #

  Joanna stood in the dimly lit hallway and waited while Ryder locked them safely inside her mother's apartment.

  "We should call Rosie," she said. "If she's in danger, she needs to know about it."

  "We will," he said, putting her keys down on the side table, "but first we have to take care of that hand."

  She looked at him blankly. "What?"

  "Your hand." He lifted her left hand and she stared at the small cut made by the knife. "It's not serious but we ought to clean it out and bandage it."

  Suddenly she was aware of the throbbing pain that ran along the base of her thumb and she remembered the quick slash of the knife. "My God," she breathed. "I had no idea."

  "Adrenaline," he said, leading her into the bathroom. "It does amazing things."

  "Evidently." She sat down on the closed toilet seat and watched as he rooted around in Cynthia's well-stocked medicine cabinet for hydrogen peroxide and bandages. "For a moment back there I felt like I could wipe up the alleyway with him."

  "You almost did, Kathryn. He's going to have one hell of a black eye."

  "Good." She smiled at him. "Better me than Rosie. At least I have youth on my side."

  He gave her a funny look as he set things out on the sink, but Joanna was too preoccupied with her dreams of glory to pay much attention.

  "A three-year advantage isn't much to crow about," he said, uncapping the peroxide and reaching for her injured hand.

  "Well," she said, aware that once again this wasn't the right time for a full confession, "Rosie lies about her age."

  "I see."

  He flipped her hand over, stroking the smooth white skin with his fingertip as if searching for broken bones. His touch drew her belly into a tight knot and started a painful throbbing in he4r breasts and between her thighs.

  "Does that hurt?"

  "A little." The pain, however, had nothing to do with the knife wound.

  He drew his finger in the space between thumb and forefinger and she swallowed hard against the obvious symbolism of the gesture.

  "The hand is one of those little known erogenous zones," he said, his voice lazy with sensuality. "Thousands of nerve endings all waiting for the right stimulus." His index finger stroked her palm and she felt herself absurdly growing ready for him.

  "Ryder," she said weakly. "The peroxide?"

  He held her hand over the basin and drizzled the peroxide over it. He didn't mean anything by that, she assured herself as he dried her hand and put a Band-Aid over the cut. Don't go reading things into an innocent statement. To Ryder, she was seventy-seven-year-old Kathryn Hayes. He didn't know – he couldn't know – how her body ached for him.

  "Let me see your other hand."

  She kept it firmly on her lap. "There's nothing wrong with my other hand."

  "You didn't think there was anything wrong with that hand," he said, pointing to the newly bandaged one. "Come on."

  He smiled but the smile reminded her of the way he'd looked in the alley with that gun pointed in her direction. There was something predatory about that smile, something male and savage and dangerous. Something that excited her in a way that should terrify her – if she could just think clearly. Maybe she'd lost more blood than her cut would indicate and she was growing lightheaded. There had to be some explanation for the strange thoughts racing through her brain.

  Stop acting like a fool, Stratton, and give him your damn hand. He was hardly the kind of man who'd come on to a woman old enough to be his grandmother.

  "You have beautifu
l hands, Kathryn."

  "Thank you," she managed.

  He drew the palm of his hand over the palm of hers and his heat burned against her skin. Then he drew his thumb across the fleshy pad at the base of her thumb and her breathing accelerated dangerously. It was the movement of a man well-versed in pleasing a woman, a movement that, at the right time and in the right place, would drive her instantly to madness.

  "Do you know what this is?" he asked.

  She swallowed. "My thumb?"

  "Your mount of Venus. The plumper the mount, the higher the degree of sensuality."

  The one possibility she and Holland had never considered: Ryder O'Neal was crazy.

  "You're a very sensual woman, Kathryn."

  She tried to pull her hand away but he held it fast. "Ryder, I really don't think you should be doing this."

  He lifted her hand to his lips. "Age doesn’t matter," he said, "not when the chemistry is right." His tongue flicked gently cross the sensitive flesh of her palm. The spot at the top of her thighs quivered in response. "And it's right with us, isn't it, Kathryn?"

  "Yes – I mean, no – oh, God, I don't know what I mean." Although Joanna's brain was turning to cotton candy, this time she succeeded in regaining possession of her hand. "Ryder," she said, clenching both hands together on her lap, "things aren't always what they seem."

  "To hell with the way things seem to others," he said, totally missing the point. "What we have is strong enough to stand up against the talk."

  Holland would never believe this. Last night in her see-through nightgown, he'd contented himself with fantasy. Today in her iron-grey wig and sensible shoes, he was all over her.

  It could start a whole new trend in singles' fashion.

  He pulled her into his arms.

  "Ryder," she said, as his mouth came closer, "I'm not what you think. I –"

  "Shut up."

  No five-course meal, no fine champagne ever tasted as wonderful as Ryder O'Neal's mouth on hers. She didn't care if he thought she was Grandma Moses, just as long as this ecstasy never ended. His hands insinuated themselves up her spine, caressing her shoulders and throat, then plunging into her hair.

  Wait! The hair he was stroking was removable. She waited for him to let out a yelp of surprise, or storm out of the apartment, or even faint dead away on her finely polished parquet floor.

  But he did none of these things. Instead, he jerked her head back until her eyes met his and, in a steely voice she barely recognized, said, "I'll give you ten seconds to explain, Joanna Stratton, and it'd better be good."

  Once again he removed that deadly pistol from his shoulder holster but this time he pointed it straight at her heart.

  It had been the most extraordinary day of Joanna's life and she did the first thing that came into her head.

  She passed out at his feet.

  Chapter Twelve

  Damn Alistair Chambers and his suspicious PAX-washed brain.

  When Ryder pulled out his gun and watched, horrified, as Joanna crumpled to the floor, he knew in an instant he was totally, absolutely, one hundred percent wrong.

  Joanna Stratton wasn't a spy or an operative. She wasn't mixed up in anything, covert or otherwise, that could possibly endanger either Ryder or the organization. She was a makeup artist, exactly as she had said, who got caught in a game of let's-pretend that backfired.

  Ryder tossed the gun to the floor just outside the bathroom door and bent over her. With those vivid blue-green eyes of hers closed, she seemed softer, more vulnerable, her fiercely independent nature subdued. Even with that Kathryn Hayes makeup job, the classic loveliness of her bone structure showed through and he knew she would be as beautiful in old age as she was now at the peak of her loveliness.

  Her sweater was loose-fitting and dipped to a low V in the back, exposing the smooth white skin. She was totally at his mercy and feelings of extreme tenderness overpowered him. He wasn't used to feeling protective of women his own age.

  The nature of his business had kept him on the move all these years, and he'd grown used to taking pleasure where he could, then moving on, living out juvenile fantasies of freewheeling, no-strings relationships where around each corner awaited a new woman more beautiful and eager than the last.

  When things got too serious there was always the midnight call summoning him away to some other part of the globe. He thought of Valerie and winced. He hadn't been above taking the easy way out.

  His feelings for Joanna Stratton were uncharted territory, a strange land he'd once been reluctant to explore.

  He wet a towel with cool water and placed it against her brow. She murmured softly and his heart turned over with the strangest combination of sweetness and desire that he'd ever experienced.

  It was almost enough to make him forget that when Joanna Stratton finally came to, he was going to have to come up with a damned good reason for pulling a gun on her.

  #

  A man's voice.

  "You weren't supposed to do that."

  It seemed to be reaching her from a tremendous distance, taking forever before her brain could interpret the sounds. She felt as if she were suspended in another world.

  Then she remembered. Ryder O'Neal. His threat. The gun. Could he have – oh my God, he shot me!

  She struggled to sit upright but a wave of dizziness swept over her.

  Probably from loss of blood.

  She opened her eyes. He was leaning over her, looking amazingly distraught for a man who whipped out a pistol the way other men whip out a pack of Marlboros.

  "That's better," he said. "You know, you really took all the fun out of it."

  "If shooting women is your idea of fun, I'd hate to see you when you're angry." She managed to sit up but a sharp pain in her right arm made her wince. "How bad is it?"

  "You'll live."

  She was too angry to be afraid of him any longer. "The least you could do is call me a cab so I can go to the emergency room."

  "For what?"

  "My bullet wound."

  His face darkened. "That bastard shot you?"

  "No," she said, jabbing him in the chest with her forefinger, "this bastard shot me."

  "The hell I did."

  "Someone shot me and since you're the only one here with a gun . . . "

  "I couldn't shoot you," he said. "The gun's not even loaded."

  "I don't believe you."

  He picked up the gun from the floor outside the bathroom door and opened the chambers. "See? Empty. Nothing. Completely harmless."

  "Then why does my shoulder feel like it's been through a blender?"

  "There's a logical explanation" he said, barely concealing a grin. "You hit it on the edge of the sink when you took your dive."

  "I didn't take a dive. I had a dizzy spell. A minor one."

  He laughed outright. "A dizzy spell? You passed out, Joanna. Cold."

  "I've never fainted in my life."

  "There's always a first time."

  "I refuse to believe it."

  "Believe it or not, It happened." He looked at her intently. "You're not pregnant, are you?"

  "Bite your tongue!"

  "It would be more fun if –"

  "Don't finish that sentence, Ryder. Not if you know what's good for you." What on earth was going on? The man tried to kill her and she was indulging in sitcom banter.

  "The least you can do is help me up from the floor."

  "You're right," he said, bending over her. "It is the least I can do."

  Before she could react, he swept her up into his arms and started to carry her into the bedroom.

  "Oh, no," she said, her face disconcertingly close to his, "not there. The living room will do fine."

  "You fainted," he said, his hazel eyes twinkling. "You should be in bed."

  "I did not faint, and the sofa will do just fine, thank you."

  "I love it when you sound like a schoolmarm," he said. "It goes great with that getup of yours."

  H
er hands flew to her face and she felt the thick layer of latex cosmetics. She signaled a left turn. "Back to the bathroom."

  He took her back into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub while she peeled off the rubbery mask and scrubbed her face clean with lots of soap and warm water.

  "The real me," she said, drying her face with a fluffy white towel. "No makeup, no subterfuge, no glamour."

  "I like the real you," he said, standing up. "I like everything about you, Joanna Stratton."

  The room was large for a bathroom, but not large enough for all that was happening between them. He stepped closer to her and trailed a finger across her left cheek. Joanna's breath drew in sharply.

  "You're bruising," he said, his voice angry. "The bastard punched you?"

  She gingerly touched the swelling beneath her cheekbone. "Afraid so. I'd forgotten all about it in the excitement."

  "You should put some ice on it."

  She shook her head. "My skin is too temperamental. Ice breaks the capillaries."

  "So does a good left hook."

  "I'll be fine," she said, acutely aware of his nearness and her body's reaction to it. The leap from fear to banter to all-encompassing desire was making it hard for her to think. "All I need is some brandy." She raised her arm to turn off the overhead light and yelped. "Damn! Are you sure you didn't shoot me? My left shoulder feels like it's been used for target practice."

  "Let's see." He turned her toward the mirror over the sink and slid her loose-fitting jade-green sweater over her shoulder so that both the line of her throat and the swell of her breast were visible.

  A mottled bruise was beginning to blossom beneath her collarbone but Joanna had suddenly lost interest in it. Instead her attention as riveted to their reflection in the mirror, to the way his gaze slid over her body like a warm breeze. Gone was the boyish charm, the easy-going, lighthearted man she'd first met.

  In his place was the man she'd seen in the alleyway, a hard-edged man whose power easily dominated those around him. He didn't need that gun to be dangerous. He had only to look at Joanna the way he was looking at her now for her to know she didn't have a chance.