He hoped she’d come to warn him, and not turn him over to the local authorities. Once again the disadvantages of his job left him vulnerable. She could explain her presence inside the church office while he could expect a trip to a local lockup.
But even that thought couldn’t stop him from looking at her as if she was a lover he’d been waiting to see.
She was.
One split second of clarity, and Joshua knew he’d hoped to see her. He’d been greedy to rake his gaze over her beautiful face, curious about what move she’d next pull out of her hat.
Not a feeling he’d been consciously aware of, but one he couldn’t deny. No matter what the situation between them, Lindy was also his lover, and he responded to her as such.
But he didn’t get time to dwell on how big a fool he was because at that exact moment, the side door burst open in an explosion of sound.
He and Lindy reacted instantly, but hadn’t cleared the break room doorway before bright lights sliced through the hallway and landed on them.
“Fermata! Le mani su!”
Even with the light partially blinding him, Joshua could see the weapons the two police held trained on them.
In that instant, before he’d followed the command and lifted his arms into the air, before Lindy made a move to do the same, Joshua knew they were facing the moment of truth.
One word and she could end this confrontation. All she had to do was call out the name of her agency, flash her badge and toss him to the wolves. The polizia could easily check out her claim of chasing him into Venice. She’d be off the hook. He’d be taken into custody. A few phone calls, and he’d be extradited to the United Kingdom.
Then again, with one move Joshua could also change the course of events. He still held Lindy. He could take her hostage. Or he could shove her toward the police, giving himself the precious seconds he’d need to get across the room and to the circular window in the hall. By the time she’d gotten to her feet and explained who she was and what was happening, he’d be on his way to the Rialto Bridge.
All this presupposed the police didn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Since no shots had been fired yet…
Lindy had gone rigid in his arms. Joshua would have bet money she was considering the very same options.
Joshua knew what he should do—but somehow he couldn’t force himself to move. He couldn’t wrap his arm round her pretty throat or let her go, even as he waited for her to call out and end these agonizing seconds of indecision.
He gathered her against him, muscles coiling, and his heartbeat stalled in his chest as he waited for her to pull away, to call out…. In a lightning move, she tossed something down the hall, something that clunked heavily on the wooden floor and forced the police to lower their weapons and take cover. In his periphery, Joshua saw a coffee mug rolling across the floor.
He’d already started moving. So had Lindy. She streaked through the room, him on her heels, just as the police yelled out.
“Fermata! Fermata!”
Lindy barely stopped in front of the circular window opening before Joshua had her around the waist and hoisted her up. She went through the opening headfirst and disappeared just as he pulled himself up. He saw her hit the ground in a skilled roll as he came through. Then she was on her feet again, yanking what looked like a backpack from behind a bush and hoisting it over her shoulder as she took off. He ran after her with the cries of police behind him.
As they rounded the corner of the churchyard, she glanced in both directions, obviously undecided.
Catching her arm, he led her in the direction of the Piazza San Marco, ignoring the motorbike he’d parked several blocks away from the chancellery. They ran at full tilt, weaving through alleys and crouching low as they ran over narrow bridges to remain hidden in the shadows.
They only paused long enough for Lindy to peel off her poncho and bury it inside a trash heap. Joshua did the same with his own dark shirt, revealing the white undershirt below. When they finally burst out onto the street behind the piazza, they slowed their pace, joined hands as if they were two lovers, and melted into the crowd.
Sirens whined through the streets, but they kept an even pace while moving across the square. Joshua’s only thought was to get them out of the city, whether they should attempt the road that connected Venice to the mainland or take a more anonymous route across the lagoon.
He wouldn’t guess why Lindy hadn’t turned him in, why she’d thrown in her lot to become a fugitive running from the polizia.
Just then a group of tourists burst out of a café. Americans who’d been drinking, judging by their conversation and raucous laughter. One of the girls paused to stuff money inside a large purse before slinging it over her shoulder. She stepped in front of them, unwittingly cutting them off and forcing Joshua to hang on to Lindy as he bumped into the girl.
“Scusarme,” he said.
The girl frowned and kept going. Lindy tightened her grip on his arm and hissed, “You knocked into her on purpose.”
“That would be rude.”
“Did you rob her?”
He only stared, enjoying the sight of her lovely face in anger. Her eyes flashed. Her mouth compressed into a line that he suspected only kisses would soften again.
“You did, didn’t you?” she demanded. “Tell me, Joshua. We’re in this together now.”
“I might have to rethink this then. You sound awfully naggy for a woman I’ve only made love to once.”
Her eyes widened. “Naggy?”
“Naggy.” He shifted a bit to reveal the woman’s identity papers, which he’d shoved into his back pocket. “Did you happen to bring along another alias?”
She scowled, which he took to mean no.
“Trust me,” he said.
“Trust you? You just robbed that woman.”
“Like you said, we’re in this together. I’m thinking ahead.”
He watched the play of emotions across her face, and resisted the urge to smile when she exhaled a heavy sigh.
“You’ve got a plan?” she asked.
“Always.”
9
LINDY CLUNG to Joshua’s waist as he maneuvered the motorcycle around a steep curve in the Italian countryside. The night wind whipped through her newly dyed hair—a lovely shade of auburn to match Joshua’s dark brown. She also sported tanned skin, compliments of instant tanning lotion. The effect together worked quite nicely, she thought.
Besides the darkened hair, Joshua was sprouting a day-old stubble along his jaw, and she found the look transformed his usual polish into bad boy. It was a decidedly yummy look, and one that should—hopefully—deter them from being easily recognizable to the Italian authorities, who would circulate their descriptions.
The changes to their appearances had been her idea.
The changes to their identities had been Joshua’s.
After he’d stolen the passport from the girl in the Piazza, he’d taken Lindy to a train station in Venice where he’d collected a new identity of his own from a public locker.
“Do you keep new aliases in all major cities?” she’d asked.
“Only in the ones I visit,” he’d answered dryly.
Nifty trick. Lindy stashed it in her own repertoire, recalling several instances when she’d needed to make quick exits and an instant new alias would have been more efficient than contacting Blythe to do the honors.
Then they’d traveled from Venice to the mainland, visited an all-night druggist and holed up inside a petrol-stop bathroom to effect the costume changes. From there, altering their passports had been a simple matter of taking photos with Joshua’s digital camera and visiting an instant photo developer. Voilà. They now traveled as Emily Stratton and Mark Chesney.
She didn’t know where Joshua had gotten the motorcycle and didn’t ask. While Lindy got creative in her own work, Malcolm tended to frown when she “created” too close to illegal.
A poor reflection on the Crown, he’d say and st
are her down so she understood he’d enforce consequences if she kept pushing her luck.
Lindy knew what Malcolm would say about being on the run from the Italian law with their target. She’d keep this part of her little adventure a secret.
Pressing her cheek to Joshua’s back, she felt the warm man beneath his T-shirt and tried to figure out why, of all the men in the world, she had to be going all soft inside over this one. What was it about him that made her forget that she had a job to do?
Who was Joshua to tempt her with glimpses of a man who wasn’t anything like she’d imagined a bad-guy fixer to be?
With the motorcycle growling underneath her, the dark night whipping past as he maneuvered skillfully over the road, and his dishy bum tucked against her, Lindy closed her eyes and let herself think about the man who’d stood in the rain last night as her taxi had pulled away, watching her leave as if he’d rather have been with her.
She let herself think about what it would be like to have been two people who’d simply crossed paths and found themselves attracted to each other. No Renouf. No dodgy deals. No MI6 profile. No jobs that dictated their lives no matter what side of the law they were on.
What would she do if she had Joshua all to herself?
The question wasn’t hard to answer. Not with her arms wrapped around him and her body pressed close. With every breath she inhaled his male scent. She could almost taste his rain-soaked skin in her memories of Vienna.
Lindy would make love to him in a bed.
So far their every encounter had been an irresistible explosion of the senses in the most wholly unexpected places. If she could have her way, then she’d hole up with this man and get him naked for a change. She’d close the door on the world, peel away his clothes and indulge herself in this surprising pleasure they made together.
She’d explore him in long, lazy lovemaking sessions that exhausted them both so much they wouldn’t get out of bed. They’d sleep wrapped around each other. They’d order room service whenever they worked up appetites.
Then Lindy realized there was no reason she couldn’t.
They were on the run, so, for the moment, Joshua’s game of hide-and-seek was over. By not declaring herself to the Italian authorities, she’d tossed in her lot with this man. She still needed to convince him to spill the beans on Renouf, and it wasn’t as if they could stroll out of the country. They needed to lie low and avoid capture. She could not be apprehended.
Not only would Malcolm have something to say about having to collect her from the field, but Renouf couldn’t get wind that an MI6 agent had made contact with his fixer. She wouldn’t stand a chance in hell of getting close to him through Joshua. The mission would go pear-shaped and she didn’t relish explaining why to Malcolm.
No, there was absolutely no reason they couldn’t avail themselves of this opportunity to be alone. In fact, Lindy knew it would likely be safer that way.
When Joshua finally steered off the road and headed down a dirt path, she stared into the darkness, trying to make out where he was headed. She’d been gauging the distance they’d traveled and had a bead on their direction from the stars overhead, but at their current speed, she couldn’t ask. The wind snatched away any conversation, and with only the motorcycle’s headlamp to illuminate the night, Lindy could only assume he must know where he was going. All she could see were edges of fields that melted into blackness. But she hoped wherever they wound up had a hot shower and a soft bed.
A wish not fated to be granted, Lindy realized, when Joshua brought the motorcycle to a halt in front of a building that didn’t look like any homey cottage she’d ever seen.
“The Piazza, hmm?”
He tipped his head back, so her whole world was filled with the sight of his handsome face. “Even safer. We can hide here for what’s left of the night and head into town later, after we have an idea of how far the Venice police extended their search.”
“How are we going to find out about the police inside a barn?”
He flashed a grin that dazzled the darkness and earned a swoopy feeling low in her belly.
“Trust me.” He held the motorcycle steady while she slid off. “Grab the door, will you?”
She did as he asked and he moved the motorcycle inside what was indeed a big barn. But that was all Lindy noticed about their surroundings because Joshua came off the bike in a fluid burst of male grace that made her pause to watch.
And when he caught her watching… It was so stupid, but meeting his gaze made the heat rush into her cheeks.
Thank goodness for the dark that she hoped hid the worst of her reaction. As if the bloody man could read her thoughts.
“Do you keep hideouts in every country you visit?” She shot for casual.
Joshua slipped his fingers around her arm and led her inside. “I don’t usually need to hide out.”
“I assume you know the owner of this barn. So who is he, or she? Or am I getting too personal?”
Something about her question made Joshua frown. Lindy hadn’t meant to be sarcastic, more ironic really. They’d gotten intimate yet they knew next to nothing about each other beyond the personas they wore for the public.
“I don’t want MI6 bothering people who don’t know anything about my life.”
She wondered if that was because he didn’t want her agency to glean any clues or if he didn’t want said people knowing about his life. “What about a cease-fire?”
“That means we’d have to trust each other.”
“That’s what you keep telling me. We’ll probably be more effective if we do. I don’t know where your boss stands on the subject, but mine will likely leave me to rot in an Italian jail cell if I get apprehended.”
“I expected you to declare yourself to the polizia.”
“And I expected you to hang me out to dry.”
Joshua appeared to consider this, that steady gaze of his fixed on her face and forcing her to remember to breathe. “We have made a helluva team so far, haven’t we?”
“I think so.”
He inclined his head, decision obviously made. “Then trust it is. Within reason, of course.”
“Of course. So who owns this place?”
“A crazy old man who invites me to visit whenever I’m in the country. But if I don’t catch him when he’s outside working, he never hears the door.”
“Really?”
“He’s nearly deaf. Not that he’d admit it. I’ve spent more than one night out here in this barn because he didn’t hear me knocking.”
“So you didn’t date his daughter?” she asked lightly, but his joking accusation of her getting naggy suddenly echoed in her memory. Lindy really had no business asking about this man’s past lovers, even less business thinking about them.
Unfortunately, she wanted to know. And not for business.
“No. He doesn’t have kids. That’s why he likes me to visit. Doesn’t get into town much anymore.”
Here was another of those tidbits that took her by surprise. Lindy was beginning to get the feeling that his profile had missed a lot of important things, such as that Joshua Benedict, fixer extraordinaire, visited old folks in his spare time so they wouldn’t get lonely.
She wanted to ask how he knew the old man, knowing his answer would reveal something important about him, which might explain why he didn’t offer her a chance to ask.
Switching on a pocket flashlight, Joshua illuminated the cavernous interior of the barn before steering her around a piece of heavy machinery. Shadows loomed around them, but he seemed to move more by instinct and memory than sight.
“There’s a radio in here,” he offered. “We can find out what’s happening with the search before deciding our next move.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Not squeamish about a few hours in a barn, are you?”
“You know how to show a girl a good time.”
He gave a throaty laugh then brought her to a stop by a ladder. “Stand here. I’ll
grab blankets. We can stay up in the loft.”
Again, she thought it said something else about him that he’d hole up in a straw-filled loft smelling of cut grass and dirt rather than making for his usual five-star luxury digs.
She preceded him up the ladder while he shone the light to illuminate her way. Then she caught the blankets he tossed up. Two huge, roughly-woven blankets that would layer nicely over the straw and keep them warm—so far from the high-thread-count sheets she’d been hoping for that Lindy almost laughed.
He brought the radio when he climbed up behind her. “Here’s hoping these batteries still work.”
She spread the blankets in a makeshift bed while Joshua spun dials and sent crackling blasts of static through the night in his efforts to lock onto a signal. Looked like hopeless business. She’d catch snatches of an announcer’s voice before he spun the dial again.
She heard him mutter, “I don’t know why he bothers keeping this when he can’t hear it.”
“So what time does your old friend make an appearance in the morning?”
“After the sun comes up, but we won’t see him.”
“Don’t want to introduce me?” Some cease-fire. Although Lindy understood the precaution, Joshua obviously didn’t realize that as it stood right now, she wouldn’t have been able to pick her way back to this farm without a trail of bread crumbs.
“He starts in the south field on Thursdays. We’re safe here. We can steal some shut-eye.”
But sleep was about the last thing on Lindy’s mind. The glow from Joshua’s flashlight only managed to make the blackness even blacker, an intimate cocoon that sheltered them from the night, the Italian authorities, the world they’d left outside.
Despite their hard-of-hearing host in a farmhouse somewhere in the dark beyond the barn, it felt as if she and Joshua were alone in the world. Shadows sliced across his features, illuminated the strong line of his stubbled jaw, the mouth that could flash such devastating grins. And kiss such arousing kisses.
He sat cross-legged on the blanket, his expression intent as he fiddled with the dials, focused on assessing their situation, revealing that meticulous attention to detail she’d become so familiar with during the past few days.
Into Temptation Page 13
