by Cherry Adair
“Bloody hell.”
She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt his hand on the back of her head.
“Your head bounced when you landed.” He gently combed his fingers through her hair until he came to the tender spot she’d found a second ago. She winced when he brushed the area with a surprisingly gentle touch. “There’s a nasty bump back here. Bleeding too.”
There was no point mentioning that her jailers had rewarded her for each escape attempt by using her as a punching bag before they’d thrown her back in the cell. Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Reno, Nevada, she’d had plenty of experience with bullies’ fists.
She’d had bruises before. They healed. It was her sight she was worried about.
He dropped his hand. “This complicates things.”
Taylor almost snorted. “For me too, pal.” It hurt to scowl. “Sorry to inconveni—”
He stuck a solid shoulder to her midriff and hoisted her over his shoulder in a smooth move. Taylor grabbed the back of his shirt for balance.
“Oh, God, please don’t hang me upside down. I might puke.” Which proved how badly her head hurt. Upside down was one of her specialties.
“Don’t,” he told her unsympathetically as he strode across the room.
She used both hands to clamp his impressively tight buns, to stabilize herself as he strode across the cell. Seconds later she felt and smelled—other air. It could hardly be termed fresh. It stank of unwashed bodies, fried food, and garbage. In this case, the smell of freedom.
His shoulder must have been made of solid steel. Her bruised stomach and ribs protested vehemently as he jogged. She had the mother of all headaches, her ribs felt like they were gouging her aching lungs, and nausea threatened to erupt into projectile vomiting any second. Taylor didn’t utter a single word of complaint as he headed away from the loud music and sound of bottles breaking. Away from that cell.
She assured herself that the blindness was temporary. She just wished she knew how long temporary was. She’d also like to know who he was, and why he’d gone to all the trouble of rescuing her. But she could figure that out later. Right now she was simply grateful for his unexpected appearance.
His footsteps were surprisingly silent as he ran for what felt like an hour. Just when she was positive she was going to lose all of Maria Morales’s delicious canapés, he swung her to the ground, then held her upright with a firm hand on the back of her neck. His fingers felt hot and hard on her clammy skin. A reminder of his strength and a heads-up that he could snap her neck like a twig. Out of the fire and into the frying pan?
The small fluttering wings of panic she’d been working hard to suppress for the past couple of hours unfurled a little more to beat an urgent tattoo in her stomach.
He wasn’t breathing hard, and she was reluctantly impressed. He was big, strong, and physically fit.
But she was no lightweight. Five-foot-eight in her stocking feet, she might look deceptively fragile, but she was a solid 140 pounds. She worked out to keep her muscles tight and toned. In her business, every advantage counted.
Even though Taylor couldn’t see anything, she closed her eyes to better concentrate. Trying to pinpoint where they were. She hadn’t a clue. No traffic noise. No people talking. She could still hear the music from the club in the distance, muffled by buildings. There was no air movement, so they could be in another minuscule alley. Not being able to see him, or where they were, made her twitchy. She was used to relying completely on herself, and having to depend on a stranger for her safety and well-being made her extremely nervous. She tamped down the anxiety. It was counterproductive.
For the moment, he apparently gave a damn about her welfare. If and when that changed, she’d make sure she was ready.
A car door snicked open.
“In.” He placed his palm on top of her head and shoved her inside. She’d barely dragged both feet into the car when the door was slammed shut. “Huntington St. John,” he said as he climbed in behind the wheel and started the car.
“Annie Sullivan,” Taylor said smoothly. “Thanks for the rescue.”
He snorted. “Annie Sullivan? You’re quick, aren’t you?”
“Not quick enough to get away from the San Cristóbal police, apparently. Is it too soon to ask why you demolished a jail to get me out? Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Simply curious.”
“You have something I want.”
The tires crunched over gravel, and she had to lean into a sharp turn as he pulled the vehicle onto a paved road. “Really? And what would that be?”
“The contents of the safe you robbed earlier this evening.”
Ah. So the woman hadn’t taken no for an answer after all. “What safe?” she asked mildly, fumbling for a seat belt as the car sped through the single-lane streets of the city. There was no seat belt. Taylor waited to be catapulted through the windshield at any moment. The upside was, she wouldn’t actually see Death coming for her. God had some sense of humor.
“Morales.”
An unfamiliar ache squeezed her chest, and there didn’t seem to be enough air in the car, which made her breathing erratic. She rubbed her fingers on the dull pain at her temple and tried to even out her breathing. “Never heard of him.”
“See where we are?” he asked conversationally. It was a taunt if ever she’d heard one.
“No,” Taylor told him coolly. “I don’t.”
“What did you do with the contents of the safe?” he repeated. No inflection, but she suspected he was annoyed. Too bad.
She could play the poor blind girl card—God only knew it was true. That might buy her time. Or flat out lie and keep insisting she had no idea what he was talking about. Or she could do what she did best. Shade the truth enough to weasel out of this as fast as possible.
“Okay,” she said slowly, as if he’d dragged the truth out of her. “So I pulled off the Morales job. Unfortunately, the cops confiscated my take when they arrested me.”
“Bullshit. They arrested you at your hotel.”
“As I said—”
“There was nothing on you. Nothing in your room.”
Of course not. Did this guy think she’d fallen off the turnip truck? She’d mailed the stuff on her way back to the hotel. “That’s because the police have it.” Taylor leaned her head against the headrest and closed her useless eyes. “Whether you believe me or not, those are the facts. Sue me. And since I don’t have what you want, go ahead and drop me off at my hotel. I’ll thank you nicely for the heroic rescue and say bye-bye.”
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, sweetheart, you’re not in any position to piss me off. I could always drop you off right here on a street corner,” he told her with far too much relish for comfort. “Watch you stumble around for my own amusement.”
If he wanted something badly enough to break her out of jail he wouldn’t toss her out of the car onto the dangerous San Cristóbal streets, by herself, at night. Not until he had what he wanted. And that assumption wasn’t based on the sexy, rough timbre of his voice or the heady fragrance of his soap. Both of which filled the car and her senses. “A hero and a charmer. My lucky day.” She faked a yawn. “I’ll consider myself kidnapped. Wake me when we get to wherever we’re going, will you?”
“Don’t you want to know our destination?”
She rolled her head in his direction without opening her eyes. “Would it make any difference if I said I didn’t want to go there?”
“No.”
Exactly. “Then let’s keep it a surprise, shall we?”
Liberating her only to turn around and abandon her wouldn’t have any payoff for him. And he’d want a payoff. He’d gone to considerable trouble to rescue her. So he wanted something that had been in the safe at the Morales estate, did he? What?
The Barter sapphires? No. She didn’t think this guy would go to all this trouble for a necklace or two. Not the jewelry, despite its value. She’d netted at least five mil in jewels alon
e. A nice evening’s work.
What hadn’t been inside that safe were the Blue Star diamonds she’d hoped to find along with the sapphires. Like a dog chasing a car, she’d pursued the Blue Stars all over Europe and half the free world for the last five years. Once again Morales had moved them.
She’d been in an unaccustomed hurry with this job from the start. Usually, her heists were planned to a hair, and she didn’t have to hurry. But she’d had a dammed persistent itch on the back of her neck all day. Taylor never ignored a sign. She’d speed-robbed the Moraleses. Instead of picking and choosing, she’d swept the contents into the thin black silk bag tied like a Colt .45 to her thigh, then split through the third-story window and down the side of the house via a conveniently placed trellis.
No sweat.
The self-addressed mailer, tucked down the leg of her jeans, had been stuffed and sealed as she darted between hedges and shrubs. She’d scaled the estate’s wall, and avoided the Dobbies sleeping where she’d left them, courtesy of the doped treats she’d tossed them when she’d arrived.
No one had seen her. No one.
The mailbox had been on the way back to the hotel. The entire heist had taken barely an hour. Start to finish. Yet the local police knocked before she’d closed the door to her hotel room.
Taylor opened her eyes a slit to see if her vision had returned. It hadn’t. Damn. She hurt all over. The least of her problems at the moment. Her heart, already beating a little too fast, sped up even more. She pushed the alarm back. Don’t panic, she warned herself. Do not panic. She’d been in trouble before, and she’d always found a way out of it. Except she’d never been blind in a foreign country before. A hard knot of fear lodged in her throat.
She curled her fingers into her palms until the pain from her short nails digging into her skin centered her. Concentrate. Panic was wasted energy. Not having her vision put a large crimp in her plans, but nothing was impossible. She calculated the time close to midnight. Her flight left at ten A.M. All she had to do was make it through what was left of the night, grab a cab in the morning, and get on that plane.
Who’d tipped off the police? The woman who’d tried to hire her yesterday? Or—what was this guy’s name? Oh, yeah. “Where’d you get a name like Huntington?”
“Call me Hunt.”
“For short?” Taylor asked, almost amused. “But not for long?”
“You are quick.”
The fact that after all these years of being invisible, two people had not only discovered who she was, but where she was, freaked her out. Where had she zigged instead of zagged? Taylor rubbed the warning prickle at the back of her neck. “Not quick enough apparently. How did you find me?”
“In that cell? Followed the police trail. In general? Thousands of man-hours.”
Taylor’s heart slammed into her ribs, knocking a loud and instant warning. She had to moisten her lips before she could speak. “Thousands of man-hours?”
“Yes.”
How fast were they going? Lord, she couldn’t believe she was actually contemplating jumping out of a fast-moving vehicle, God only knew where, when she couldn’t see. “Care to explain?”
“No.”
She’d never experienced claustrophobia before, but she did now. This entire situation, coupled with being unable to see, made her feel as though she were in a very small box without any air. Her stomach lurched with anticipation—never call it fear—as the vehicle slowed. She fumbled for the door handle. There wasn’t one.
“Don’t bother.” The car stopped. “We’re here.”
Four
“Let’s go,” Hunt instructed when she sat there unmoving, head tilted. Her eyes didn’t track when he passed a hand in front of her nose. Hell. She still couldn’t see. “Here, take my hand. Watch the curb.”
Her fingers were slender and filthy dirty as she gripped his hand and let him pull her from the car. As she gracefully unfurled from the seat and stood beside him, Hunt realized she wasn’t as petite as he’d first thought. Her head reached his shoulder, so she was at least five-eight.
He took a good look at her. She was dressed as he was, all in black. Jeans, loosely fitting long-sleeve black T-shirt, black running shoes. Body tall and slender. Skin: Mediterranean dark. Hair: shoulder length and a matted, dusty black.
Heavily lashed dark chocolate eyes focused a few inches to the left of his face. A fast-beating pulse leapt at the base of her throat, and a sheen of perspiration filmed her skin, but she sounded merely curious instead of frightened when she asked calmly, “Where are we?”
“Somewhere the authorities won’t find you. For the moment. Come on.”
There were no streetlights to speak of. The shops up and down the street were either abandoned or their owners just didn’t give a damn. The T-FLAC safe house, Villa D’Este, looked like the dozens of other derelict hotels and businesses lining the city.
During the day and late into the night, gamines of all ages and sizes ran wild here, dodging vehicles and fists alike in search of a pocket to pick. The street kids were all bedded down somewhere for the night, so it was quiet at this hour. Come morning it would be a different story. The common denominators for the neighborhood were poverty and filth.
“Where the cops won’t find me. Not a lot of information to go on,” she told him dryly.
Was she really not able to see, or was she bullshitting? If it was bs, she was a damn good actress. “Fifteen steps to the front door, then one stair up.”
As she walked beside him she blinked repeatedly as if trying to clear her vision. Hunt dragged his gaze away from the rapid pulse throbbing at the base of her sweat-dampened throat. Despite her bravado, she was scared. She had reason to be.
Her iron control over her emotions reluctantly impressed him, and he felt a mild twinge of sympathy. He dismissed the thought the moment it surfaced. She was nothing more than a means to an end, and, as good as she was, had already caused him months of delay. This was more than a recovery operation. She was a small—albeit vital—cog in the far more important wheel of the mission to come.
He hoped to hell this inconvenience wasn’t an indication of things to come.
The open door of the hotel cut the darkness, spilling golden light onto the filthy street. Hunt kept her hand in his and angled his body to guide and stabilize her. Her fingers were clammy, her back rigid, as she walked beside him with a natural grace only slightly marred by her lack of sight. A fine shiver traveled down her body as she stumbled over a rough patch, and she clenched his hand in a death grip to keep her balance.
“Easy,” he steadied her. “Step.” Her hesitation as she took the step was infinitesimal. “This really discombobulates you, doesn’t it?”
She stepped up carefully, allowing him to draw her into the dimly lit, grungy vestibule of the hotel before she turned her head to answer. “What? Being blind as a bat, led into a strange place, by a strange man, in a foreign city?” she said dryly. “Discombobulate isn’t quite the word I’d use. But the situation certainly makes me uncomfortable, and cautious.”
“Helpless.”
She hesitated for a moment, as if considering the possibility. “Temporarily. Very temporarily.” She stopped walking and pulled him to a stop.
Hunt looked down. She wasn’t unattractive. He suspected that once cleaned up, her looks would improve.
“Just because I can’t see you,” she told him tightly, “doesn’t mean I can’t protect myself. You got me out of a bad situation, and I appreciate it. But if you’ve brought me here to something worse—think again.”
He was close enough to see she wore contact lenses, and he wondered almost absently if she wore them to see better or to change the color of her eyes. “You’re in no danger from me as long as you give me what I want.”
“And you’re in no danger from me,” she shot back. “If what you want is what I want.”
“I can be quite persuasive,” Hunt told her, steering her across the lobby once more.
&nbs
p; She turned her face up and gave him a sweet smile. “And I can be quite stubborn— What? A step?”
“No. Keep going.” Her unexpected smile threw him for a loop and shot an unexpected jolt of desire straight to his groin. He reminded himself that he was past the age to be aroused by something as false as a woman’s smile. His body vehemently disagreed.
Standing behind the reception desk, watching their slow approach, Gil hand-signed a question. Hunt pointed to his eyes. Gil nodded. The man had run the safe house autonomously for the past ten years or so, and he knew everything that went on in and around San Cristóbal.
In his weekly report to HQ, Gil had alerted T-FLAC to the arrival of the Morales family at their summer home. He’d also acquired a copy of the Moraleses’ party guest list. He’d been the one who reported the theft.
Hunt didn’t give a damn about the stolen diamonds. She could keep those. It was what was in the safe with the rocks that T-FLAC wanted. Their informant inside of Morales’s organization had been vague on the details. The person had clearly been scared witless. All she knew was that the disk held data, possibly codes to access intel on yet another of Mano del Dios’s world domination threats. The information, however flimsy, from this particular source was enough to activate every available T-FLAC operative to discover what that disk held.
If things had gone according to plan, this woman would have stolen the disk for T-FLAC, and handed it over hours ago. What a bloody waste of time this was. By now the intel should be in the hands of people trained to put an end to Morales and his Mano del Dios, Hand of God, terrorist group. Instead, here he was, extracting and babysitting a blind woman.
“Do you require a doctor for the señorita?” Gil asked, handing over a key from the rack behind him.
Her head jerked toward the sound of Gil’s voice and her fingers gripped his as she tried to orient herself. She’d thought they were alone.
“Need a doctor?” Hunt asked, taking the key with a frown. She’d become paler, her hand clammier.
She licked her lower lip. “Not here. If I need one, I’ll wait till I get home.”
