Aces High (2 page)

Skye was increasingly conscious of the crowd moving into the area, and felt as well as saw a few curious glances directed at the gambler and himself. It was dangerous to stand there, and he knew it. But he couldn't walk away from the question. “A ghost out of the past,” he told the other man flatly.

There was a moment of silence between them, and then the gambler said, “I can take over. Hagen wouldn't know.” His deep voice was very soft.

Skye shook his head. “No. I…I think I made a bad mistake in Germany. My information may have been wrong.”

Bluntly the gambler asked, “And if it wasn't? Could you go through that again?”

Skye shrugged slightly in a jerky response. “You'd better get to the boat,” he told the gambler. “The customers will expect to be dazzled by your cardplay. See you.” He walked on without giving the other man a chance to say anything more.

The man dressed as a gambler stood where he was for a few moments, then swore in a low voice and turned away. He was almost to the riverboat that was tied up at a pier in the bend of the man-made river running through the park when a petite blond woman approached him. She was in a costume of the same era as he. Dressed scantily as a chorus dancer, she wore a bright red feather in her upswept golden hair.

“Garters,” she said darkly, taking the arm he offered and beginning to stroll along with him. “You picked this costume out, didn't you?”

“I like them,” he replied simply, looking down with some amusement at the frilly garter encircling her shapely leg just above the knee. “Most especially when you wear them.”

In a wondering voice she said, “When you told me your life was complicated, I never realized you meant things like this. I don't have to dance, do I?”

“No, you'll sit on my knee while I play cards.”

She chuckled, then asked, “Have you seen Skye?”

“Yes.”

Alerted by an undertone in his voice, her hand tightened on his arm, and she asked quickly, “What is it?”

“Somebody threw a wild card into the game.” He shook his head slightly at her puzzled look. “I don't know much yet. Skye's shut me out—for the moment, at least.”

“Has he ever done that before?”

“Once. Years ago.” He sighed roughly. “There's nothing I can do about it now. You and I have to assume our places. Ready, love?”

Following his lead, she smiled and said mischievously, “Ready to watch you become a riverboat gambler? Darling, I can hardly wait!”

Smiling, he led her toward the riverboat.

Katrina Keller paused briefly at the desk in the lobby of the hotel to make certain there was no crisis requiring her attention, then went up to her suite on the top floor. Neither Gigi nor the owners of the theme park stinted when it came to the comfort of their employees, so Katrina's rooms were very nice indeed. A corner suite with plenty of windows and bright, comfortable furnishings, it was spacious and lovely.

It was Katrina's home. She had lived there for nearly five years, ever since Gigi had managed to get her out of Germany. Katrina no longer had nightmares about the three-by-five-foot cell in which she'd lived for a year.

She took a quick shower and changed into a pale-gold silk dress that was both businesslike and attractive; since she dealt with guests as a part of her duties as manager, she took care to dress well during her working hours. She always wore her hair up when she was working, and she put it up now in a braided coronet; it was the only style she had found to be neat, since her long, curling hair resisted most efforts to tame it.

Skye had once said—

Katrina canceled the thought instantly, and the face in the mirror never lost its calm expression. One year of her life had taught her the value of control, and it was a lesson the intervening years had done nothing to diminish. Gigi had often called it strength, this ability of Katrina's to focus her thoughts and emotions with total clarity, and Katrina had never offered another explanation to her closest friend.

She could have explained, but she never spoke of that terrible year.

Her mind blank, Katrina slipped her small feet into black pumps and picked up her watch from the dresser, heading toward the living room while she fastened it around her wrist. Three steps into the room she halted, her senses warning her even before she glanced up and saw Skye standing not five feet away.

“We have to talk,” he said in a low, hoarse voice.

Her ability to focus and control her thoughts and emotions had never been put to the test in his presence before, but Katrina wasn't surprised to find that ability strained to the limit. Her entire body felt stiff with the effort of keeping calm, and it had never been so difficult to ignore her own emotions. Looking at him brought too many feelings and memories to the surface.

He appeared much the same as she remembered him, but there were differences both subtle and obvious. He was still strikingly handsome, but his face was leaner and harder, his brilliant violet eyes revealing recklessness that had not been so visible six years before. The years had added even more strength to his physically powerful frame so that his shoulders were broader now, and beneath the black T-shirt he wore she could see hard muscles.

He had told her he was a twin, that his brother Dane was identical, but she had always found it hard to believe there could be another man like Skye.

Katrina tore her gaze away from him and glanced toward the door, which she had locked behind her when she'd come in. “Still good with locks, I see,” she said, her voice calm.

“Katrina—”

She looked at him, keeping her mind blank, shutting the violent emotions away in dark rooms, where they couldn't harm her. “I'm on duty,” she told him. “I must go downstairs.”

“Not yet. Please. Katrina.”

She had never heard him say please before, not like that, and the effect on her was shocking. The outward control held, but she could feel a change within her, as if something she had thought to be dead suddenly woke from a deep sleep and began stirring restlessly. Without immediately speaking, she turned and went to one of the wide windows, gazing through the glass and down onto the colorful park.

“I knew Hagen was sending an agent,” she said finally, relieved to hear her voice emerge steadily. “Gigi told me all about it. Does Hagen indeed believe that this international terrorist, this Adrian, will make an attempt on the governor's life when he comes here in two weeks?”

“He believes it.” Skye's voice was closer now, almost beside her. “Katrina—”

“If my presence here is offensive to you, I can arrange to go away until it's over. Or I can remain in the hotel—”

“Stop it,” he ordered roughly.

She was silent.

Skye drew an audible breath. “I can't go back and change what happened,” he said. “But if I made a mistake about you, if the information I received was wrong…”

“If,” she said in a soft tone. “Such a small word to have so large a meaning. You could never again look at me or speak to me without that word between us.”

“What was I supposed to believe?” he demanded. “My God, Katrina, the station chief in Hamburg hit the roof when he found out what I'd done! He couldn't wait to tell me you'd been marked as a communist agent for months, and that my own loyalty was highly doubtful after I'd—”

“Married me,” she finished quietly. Before he could respond, she added in the same tone, “The station chief you speak of was Mueller, and since I didn't work for him, he couldn't possibly have known what I really was.” She turned suddenly to face him, smiling wryly at him. “But of course I might have known who he was even if I had been completely on the other side. We both know that. Just as we both know there is no proof I can offer you that I was not what you believed.”

“I didn't want to believe it.” He was staring down at her, his brilliant eyes glittering, and when he went on, his voice had thickened. “I left Germany in pieces, Katrina, so torn up inside I thought I'd die from the pain. I couldn't face anyone, not even my brother. If he hadn't tracked me down a couple of months later, I probably would have managed to get myself killed. God knows I was trying hard enough.” He laughed, a strange, rough sound. “That was when I went back for you.”

She had gone a little pale, and found it difficult to speak through the sudden tightness of her throat. “You—you returned to Germany?” And when he nodded, she whispered, “Why?”

There was a long moment of tense silence, neither of them moving, the two-foot space between them containing an almost visible barrier they seemed unable to cross. Then, harshly, Skye answered her.

“Because I had to know. I didn't want to believe it, and I couldn't live with the doubt. I told myself you'd still be there in the apartment, that it was all some horrible mistake. I would have believed anything you told me, then. I meant to get you out of the country, bring you back here. But you weren't there, nothing was there except covered furniture and bare walls. And Mueller told me you'd left in the night; he had evidence you'd gone through the checkpoints and into East Germany.”

Katrina drew a breath, vaguely aware that her control was slipping further still. He had gone back for her? She tried to keep her voice steady. “I had gone, but not willingly. I should have known they would come for me. I—I wasn't thinking very clearly.”

He hesitated, then said, “Gigi told me you were imprisoned.”

Katrina nodded, but she didn't want to talk about that, not then, not to him. “Yes. I didn't know until Gigi's friends got me out that you—”

“That I had divorced you?” His voice was still harsh.

She nodded again, and another silence fell between them. It was Katrina who broke it finally, turning a blind gaze back to the window and speaking softly.

“You were right—neither of us can go back and change anything. We both forgot for a while that we had been trained to mistrust and disbelieve. We both forgot what we were. What happened between us
was
a mistake, and how can either of us blame the other?”

“Do you blame me, Katrina?”

She felt tension creep into her, felt a rising heat that was achingly familiar despite all the years that had passed since she'd last felt it.
No. I can't go through it again!

“Do you?” he demanded again.

“No,” she answered finally, refusing to look at him. “I did for a while, of course. But I had a great deal of time to think, and I began to understand what you must have felt. To believe your wife was an enemy agent…At least I had the consolation of knowing we were both on the same side.”

“Was it a consolation?”

Katrina thought of those endless hours spent staring at four gray walls, even when her eyes had been closed, terror and anguish threatening her very sanity. She tried to push the memories away, but this time they clung stubbornly, and she couldn't find an answer for him.

“Katrina…”

“I must go to my office. I have work to do—”

He touched her for the first time, his hands reaching out to grasp her shoulders and turn her toward him. And the strength in those hands was something she had never been able to resist, even though he had never been anything but gentle with her. She kept her arms folded stiffly beneath her breasts and fixed her eyes on the pulse throbbing beneath the tanned flesh of his throat.

“Was it a consolation, Katrina? Tell me.” And when she remained silent, he shook her slightly, his hands tightening on her shoulders.

“No,” she answered finally, hearing the strain in her voice.

“Look at me.”

She was trying desperately to focus her mind and emotions, wary of meeting his gaze. She had long ago given up any hope of ever seeing him again, and so had not prepared herself for this attack by her memories and senses. “Let me go, Skye. I must—”

One of his hands left her shoulder to turn her face up, his thumb under her jaw and his long fingers warm and hard against her neck. “I said look at me!”

Katrina blinked and almost flinched at the violence she heard in his voice, but forced herself to meet his intense eyes.

“Do you hate me?” he demanded.

The question surprised her, and she answered honestly. “I don't know. I felt so much—and then so little. I don't know.” She tried to think clearly. “It doesn't matter now.”

“Yes, it does.”

Her strongest emotion at that moment was bewilderment. What did he mean? He still doubted that she had been a double agent; she knew that because he had made no secret of it. Though both of them had forgotten their training six years ago, she was certain he, like herself, had never forgotten it since. There could never again be an easy trust and lack of suspicion in either of their minds—and most certainly not between them.

“I don't understand you,” she said at last.

There was an odd, twisted smile curving his lips, and his eyes were hard and bright and reckless. “I did everything I could to forget you,” he told her, his voice curiously distant. “Everything. But nothing worked, and I hated myself for it. You've been my own personal demon for six years, Katrina, locked inside me too deeply to be torn out.”

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, her body going both hot and cold at the contrast of the loverlike words and his remote voice. She felt suddenly just a little afraid of him.

“Sorry isn't good enough.”

Katrina bit her lip and saw his gaze drop to fix on the unconscious gesture, and panic swept over her. Revenge? Was that what he wanted? She drew a breath and tried to speak evenly. “I know you hate me, but I can't change that.”

“Hate you?” He seemed to consider the words as he looked from her mouth to her eyes, his containing the same hard glitter. His lips curved again in a mocking smile. “Hate's a tame word for what I'm feeling, Trina.”