Midnight Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  She let her fingers flex at the base of his neck, testing the corded power there that spread enticingly down his sturdy shoulders and well-defined upper arms, following that hard trail down to his rock-hard midsection where taut tee shirt clung to the curve of his ribs and delineated abs. She traced the contours with her thumbs, lost in the sensual absorption of him because the very reality of him chased away all else.

  Awareness became as basic and as primal as the forest beyond.

  His arms were still about her, but if he realized the shift of her focus from fright to fascination, he didn't react to it. Was he unaware that her trembling now had more to do with him than with some abstract scare? Could he be that indifferent to her as a woman?

  Or that dedicated to the job he was doing?

  She drew a shuddering breath and turned her head slightly so that her nose was pressed against the warm flesh of his throat. She could taste the salt of his skin while riding his hard swallow. And suddenly, she wanted to taste more. If she were to drag her tongue up that firm neck, to chew his ear and eventually seek out his mouth, would he still be so unmoved by her? Would he still see her as a nervous scientist in need of careful coddling or as a needy woman desperate for the calming drug of passion?

  How could her pride allow him to view her in either of those less than flattering roles? How could her fragile confidence as a woman endure it?

  Resolutely, she let him go and leaned away. When she dared risk a look, she found him regarding her through an inscrutable stare. She couldn't bear the thought of pity or disdain behind that guarded gaze. She had to pull herself together, to present a halfway rational front. Not so easy when she had no logical means to explain away her actions.

  And then he touched her, his thumb rubbing along the damp slope of her cheek in a gesture of heartbreaking tenderness so out of character with all she'd believed about him that she was startled and uncertain of how to respond.

  "Another bad dream?"

  His tone was as neutral and without judgment as his caress was rich with compassionate support. The contrast only confused her more.

  "Yes ... no,” she stammered with the indecisiveness of a panicked child. Infuriated that she couldn't reply with more certainty, she cried, “I was awake. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them, I saw...” She stopped, unable to continue through the influx of gut-level fear square-knotting through her insides.

  "Saw what?” he prompted softly. “Was there someone in your room? Doc, what did you see?"

  "I—I don't know for sure. A figure through the netting. I can't seem to remember. Dammit, what's wrong with me?” She punched the heels of her hands against her temples, grinding them there as if she could clear away the maddening fog shrouding her subjective recall.

  Again, he managed to shock her with the gentleness of his response. He covered her fists with his hands, squeezing lightly before coaxing them to lower while her watery gaze sought some sort of answer in the probing intensity of his. Slowly, his fingertips moved down either side of her neck, gradually pushing back the collar of her shirt to expose the sculpted ridge of her collarbone. Her hand rose immediately to cover the medallion she wore, the gesture unconscious and protective.

  "Was it a man you saw in your room, Doc?"

  The subtle edge to his question alerted her to his motives for asking. It brought a flush of animation back to her face and a preserving indignation to her manner.

  "If you're asking if I was entertaining someone, the answer is no."

  He smiled slightly at the snap of her tone. “No, that's not what I was asking. I'm more concerned about someone entertaining unflattering thoughts about you."

  "Oh.” Her mood deflated with a sputter of embarrassment. She looked away from his patient expression, angered by his detachment and by the memory of her reaction to him. Her sigh was harsh and cleansing. “I don't know who or what I saw. Just a shape for a fleeting second."

  "And what was it about that shape that threatened you?"

  "You mean what reduced me into a puddle of useless gelatin?” Her cruel summation reflected her own assessment. He didn't jump to argue it. “I don't know, Mr. Cobb. I don't remember anything overtly threatening. It was instinctual. Is that a concept you can grasp?"

  "Instinct keeps me alive, Dr. Reynard. It's nothing I ignore easily.” He paused, then let the other shoe drop. “Has this happened to you before?"

  What could she say? Oh, for about twenty years. I see things that aren't there. I wake up from dreams I don't remember without being certain that I'm no longer in a dream. I think I may have lost my mind. Could you help me find it?

  She smiled tightly. “I'm sure it's nothing, Mr. Cobb. Just the product of any overly tired mind and an overly fertile atmosphere."

  He regarded her unblinkingly, his steady stare not exactly calling her a liar, not in bold type anyway. Damn him. Why should she care what he thought?

  He took another glance around and then went to the far wall. Upon it hung a native carving, a mask cut into rich, dark mahogany. He studied it for a moment then looked back to where she sat, still shaken and shaking.

  "Could this be what you saw?"

  "That hardly appears to be threatening, now does it, Mr. Cobb?"

  "Through a filmy netting, with your eyes a little unfocused.” He shrugged his conclusion.

  "All right. Maybe it was. There. Are you happy?"

  "Delirious."

  She waved off his dry retort. It hadn't been some mask on the wall that yanked her up to the brink of hysteria. It hadn't. “Go away, Mr. Cobb. I have to get dressed for dinner and Sam's social mill afterwards."

  Letting him leave her alone in that room was going to be one of the most difficult things she'd ever done. Letting him leave while smiling as if nothing was wrong, as if she believed his simple explanation, was close to impossible.

  "I'll wait right outside,” was his response to her attempt at bravery.

  Part of her sagged in relief as another rebelled indignantly. “You'll do no such thing. As you can see, there is nothing in my room, and I am in no danger."

  "And I'd like to keep it that way."

  "Don't you have to get dressed too,” she pointed out with a reasonable arch to one brow.

  "I am not a guest here."

  She waved her hand at him. “Just go. Guard the door if it makes you feel better."

  He grinned. That sudden dazzle of charm threw her completely off balance.

  "It will,” he promised. With that, he was gone, leaving her almost more disturbed than she'd been when he'd arrived.

  Good grief, she'd wanted to kiss him.

  She was losing her mind, and all she could think of was the taste of Frank Cobb's kiss.

  Maybe a sign that it was already gone.

  * * * *

  She'd wanted him to kiss her.

  That knowledge shook him nearly as much at the thought of her in danger. It made him pace the porch, desperately wishing for a cigarette.

  He'd felt the instant her intent had shifted from seeking comfort to steeping desire. He'd felt it in the way her body went from inanimate to molten in a single luxurious movement. He'd been doing the noble thing in taking her into his arms. To console her like a child. Well, that child had grown up damn and disturbingly fast, and he'd found himself with a willing woman in his arms.

  And himself with little will to resist.

  He'd remained still while his imagination roamed every long and lithe degree of her, filling in what he didn't know from the feel of how she pressed against him. She was no fragile girl—probably from toting that hernia-popping suitcase of hers. She was tough and toned and yet still deliciously woman. He'd wanted to seek out soft spots with his hands, to taste sweet places with his mouth.

  When her breath blew warm and seducing upon his neck, he'd been a shivering mass of lust right down to his cotton socks. If she'd lifted her head and he'd seen longing in her big brown eyes, it would have been all over for him. His nobility
would have cracked wide open.

  Thank God she had more control than he did at that precarious moment.

  It wasn't him, of course. He wasn't fool enough to fall for that illusion. He'd been a ready substitute for safety and a handy male remedy for the loneliness that frightened her. If it had been Paulo Lemos at her door, she would have undoubtedly responded the same way. Not that the randy scientist would have resisted, he surmised with an odd tang of bitterness as uncharacteristic as it was unwise.

  "What are you doing here, Cobb?"

  Lemos's curt tone woke him from his musings. He regarded the man who saw him as a rival with a cool gaze and a crooked smile. “Just trying to fight off the desire for a smoke."

  Lemos was impeccably dressed in an evening coat, his dark hair slicked back and gleaming, his dark eyes fierce and gleaming, as well. He assessed Cobb's appearance with a jaundiced eye. “If you plan to fit in invisibly this evening, you'd better change into something a little more ... palatable."

  Resisting the urge to sniff at his shirt for signs of offense, he held his ground, forcing Lemos to get right to the point of it.

  "I'll escort Sheba to dinner, Cobb. It's not part of your job description, is it?"

  He shook his head. None of his thoughts betrayed themselves to the possessive Peruvian. He didn't look offended or affected by the other man's rude summation. It wasn't personal. None of it was personal. It was a job. “No, it's not. Excuse me while I go to change into something more ... respectable."

  And as he disappeared into his own room, Frank wondered if Sheba would object to the last minute change in escorts. Or would she even notice?

  Don't be stupid. Stick to the job.

  That job wasn't to stick it to Paulo Lemos for having a condescending manner and irritating habit of looking right through him as if he truly were invisible.

  Nor was it his job to stick it to Sheba Reynard, which was by far the more enticing prospect.

  Something or someone had been in her room. Whether it was her imaginary demon or his very real one was the question he needed to concentrate upon. And until he knew for sure, whether Paulo Lemos liked it or not, he was going to stick to the pretty ethnologist like a new strain of flu.

  All he could do was hope it wasn't something so contagious that he'd die from it.

  Chapter Eight

  Sheba realized her mistake the moment she stepped into the dining room.

  She should have guessed when she saw Paulo in his sleek and shiny best, but she was so comfortable with her friend that she didn't make serious note of his appearance. And she'd been oddly disappointed to find him instead of Frank Cobb waiting outside her door. Paulo, being the consummate gentleman, never said anything to her and by the time she recognized her error, it was too late.

  She was used to university and academic crowds where she was supposed to look the part of the ethnologist from the wilds. There, they were interested in her ideas and experiences. Not in her wardrobe.

  What a surprise to come all the way to Peru to be shown the tremendous gap in her own social education.

  The group gathered in the lodge's dining room could have been part of a photo shoot for some expensive liquor ad. In their tuxedos and glitter, the whole lot of them seemed transposed upon the scene from some New York penthouse party as they sipped champagne and indulged in polite chatter.

  And there she stood like a jungle guide in her khaki shorts, hiking boots and dark green camp shirt, unadorned by makeup or jewelry and obviously bare, as well, of social instincts.

  It was too late to back out before her disgrace was complete. Peyton Samuels, resplendent in his gleaming white evening wear, hailed her loudly and waved her over to his exclusive cadre of listeners. What could she do but swallow hard and obey the summons.

  She was aware of the curious glances following her through the elite company, but unlike Rosa in her bold floral kaftan who'd set up her own clique in a far corner, Sheba hated drawing attention to herself, and this scrutiny was like walking over hot coals.

  "There you are, my dear.” Peyton enveloped her in an embrace, then presented her like a prize to his other guests. “This is Dr. Sheba Reynard, whom I consider family."

  The eccentric branch, obviously, she thought with a gritted smile as she nodded to each introduction. She didn't remember the names: a movie producer and his starlet prodigy, a billionaire commodities investor, several political lobbyists, a senator and his wife, a Peruvian television personality, and the president of a university. Only the last had heard of her or had the slightest clue what she was about. The rest greeted her with painfully indifferent smiles and continued with their conversations as if she were as invisible as Frank Cobb practiced to be.

  There she stood, trapped at Samuels’ side in the hell of social limbo. Looking about for rescue, she saw Paulo had been snagged by the research community. He already had them laughing at some clever observation, and his smile in her direction offered no invitation. Rosa, with her orange hair sticking up like a peacock's crest, her voice booming and equally loud persona commanding notice, presented no opportunity for a discrete retreat, either.

  And then she saw Frank Cobb and hope flared eternal that he would come through for her with another spectacular, nick of time intervention.

  But Cobb met her anxious glance with one of cool impenetrability. Not so much as a warming flicker of acknowledgment. On the job in his dark suit and buttoned up shirt, and invisible to the others in the room. If she were to cross over to him, bringing attention to his presence, she'd be compromising his effectiveness.

  Grin and bear it, Sheba-darlin', her father would have said. His version of turn the other cheek.

  Roll with the punches.

  So she pasted on a stiff smile and managed to endure the looks and whispers until she was able to escape to Paulo's side as they sought their tables for dinner.

  "Why didn't you tell me it was formal dress?” she hissed up at him as he seated her.

  He blinked in typical male oblivion. “You look lovely to me."

  She sighed in resignation. “I look as though I should be serving the meal, not sitting down to it."

  He laughed as if she'd meant it as a joke.

  Feeling herself the joke, Sheba cast a look about for Cobb but, true to his word, he had become invisible. Wishing she could perform the same trick, she bared her grin and prepared for a long, painful evening.

  * * * *

  From out on the wraparound porch, Cobb settled himself in for a long night of surveillance. For him, it was the worst part of the job, not because of the boring inactivity, but because it made him crave a smoke. Stakeouts would be much more pleasurable with a filter tip and a cold one, but both were no-nos. Each could potentially betray him in a very different way—the smoke by giving away his presence, and the beer by stealing his presence of mind. So he abstained. And he cursed.

  Waiting was never a problem. He'd learned patience as a child. He'd learned to wait and not complain even if cold or weariness or hunger made him long to be inside familiar surroundings. He was none of those things now, so he had no reason to feel dissatisfied.

  Except that Sheba was inside and all he could do was watch from an impersonal distance.

  Such was the job.

  He situated himself in his obscure vantage point and smiled wryly at the circumstance that would have him in the middle of a jungle observing what could have been a Manhattan party. He could say one thing for Peyton Samuels, besides knowing how to pull the right manipulative strings to get both him and Sheba to Peru, he knew how to schmooze. He had a room full of influential people dining on his food, sucking up his liquor, all ripe for the picking. Sheba had characterized him as a bit larcenous. Cobb couldn't fault him for that. He had a touch of the con man in his own soul. Samuels was a businessman, seeking to protect his investment, and it was up to Cobb to make sure he wasn't disappointed.

  Not a particularly dirty job when he had Sheba Reynard to watch over.

 
; The woman interested him. Not an easy feat. He was a hard man to distract with mere face and form. But there was so much more to Sheba. There was her quixotic nature. Sometimes the tough myth-buster, sometimes the wounded bird. And then there was the mystery. He was a sucker for intrigue. The obvious and proper never grabbed him up the way the incongruous and inconsistent did. Like the way the medallion she wore played peek-a-boo at the neckline of her shirt with just enough of a quick glimpse to stir the curiosity.

  He watched her flounder in the midst of Samuels’ elite, a daisy transplanted in a field of hothouse orchids. She wasn't elegant or eye-catching or even exotic, but there was an undeniable appeal to her simplicity. There was grace in her unrefined lines, a beauty without drama or artifice. Her very uniqueness made her stand out when she would seek to remain unnoticed.

  And Paulo Lemos noticed, too.

  Damn him.

  Cobb had no reason to feel threatened by the suave scientist. Sheba was totally oblivious to his charms. It wasn't as if they were involved in a competition for the lovely Sheba's attention.

  Were they?

  Surprised by that thought, Cobb concentrated more fiercely upon his job. Courting Sheba Reynard wasn't part of it, not that he'd know how to go about the wooing of her anyway. He was about as naive and inexperienced as the blushing ethnologist when it came to romance. He didn't have the time, the temperament or the talent for it. While his peers had been coaxing their dates out of their panties in the back seat of the family car, he'd been learning to field strip automatic weapons in the dark. Though there were some similarities, an Uzi never asked if you'd still respect it in the morning. He had an ultimate respect for instruments of destruction and not a clue when it came to the opposite sex. Sex, he understood just fine. No problems there and no complaints. But the messy, emotional stuff that too often came along as baggage made him grateful he always traveled light. And alone.

  He watched Lemos angle so he could drape his arm along the back of Sheba's chair. A nice, subtle move that allowed his fingertips to linger on her shoulder and play with strands of her hair. Perhaps Sheba's vision of him as a harmless friend would go against her in Lemos's game of seduction. She wouldn't expect such seemingly innocent touches to conceal ulterior motives. Until it was too late. Then Lemos would be tangled in her panties, and Cobb would be left holding his Glok.