Books by Maggie Shayne (11 page)

Don't kid yourself."

"If I tell you I won't, then I won't."

"Even if those papers prove your old man did exactly what I told you he did?"

She held his gaze with hers and nodded.

"Yes, even. then." She wanted to add that she knew that wasn't going to be the ease, but her doubts were too strong. And growing all the time.

"I'll swear on his memory, if it'll make you feel better."

He held her gaze for a long moment, searching it, finally nodding.

"I almost believe you would. But I'll go with you, anyway, Alex."

"You... you might not want to."

He sighed long and low, letting his chin fall to his chest. "I saw the bicycles in the garage, Alex. I know they have kids."

She got to her feet, turning to stir the stew but watching his face, wondering if speaking about this would hurt him more or help him.

"Their grandchildren stay with them quite often. Especially during the holidays. I hadn't thought of it before, but chances are if they do get back tomorrow, they'll have the boys with them." She licked her lips, cleared her throat.

"You:don't have to put yourself through that, Torch."

"Don't."

"I saw your face at that diner. I saw what looking at that little boy did to you. I'd have to be blind not to see it."

 
"Don't,"

he repeated.

"Going there tomorrow will only hurt you more," she whispered. And she was thinking of more than just the children. She was thinking of the little things scattered all over the place that would remind Torch of his lost sons.

 
Toys and books and games and small clothes. There would be evidence of the children everywhere.

He lifted his chin, met her eyes without blinking.

"Nothing could hurt me more, Alex. Pain is something I've learned to live with."

"But" -- "And it's my pain, not yours. It has nothing to do with you, do you understand that?"

She blinked, searching his eyes, wanting with everything in her to reach out and touch him, take him in her arms and make it all right for him.

"I want you to leave it alone." He got up, reaching past her to snap the burner off.

"You're burning the stew."

' Torch. " ' He froze her with a single glance.

"Just leave it alone, Alex.

Please. "

She swallowed hard, bit her tongue against the flood of words that wanted to escape. Words of compounds rt that would do little good anyway. She grated her teeth, closed' her eyes. "I don't suppose you thought to buy plastic flatware, did you?"

When Alex opened her eyes again she saw his shoulders sag in relief, heard the breath escape him in a long sigh. "Yeah. As a matter of fact, I did." He reached past her again, scraping open another drawer to reveal the white spoons, forks and knives.

"Paper plates, too. No bowls though. Guess we make do."

"I guess so."

She left it alone. And Torch was grateful, because it was harder with her. He still hadn't figured out why that was, but when Alexandra started poking at his wounds, he couldn't stop himself from cooperating, answering her questions, telling her about his secret pain. And he didn't like that power she seemed to have over him. To make him talk about it, to invade his privacy.

, .

 
He didn't discuss his family with anyone. They were sacred, and that was that.

He looked at Alex when she wasn't looking at him--which wasn't often--and he tried to figure out what it was about her that made him forget his own rules. But there were no answers in her soft brown eyes, or in the way she managed to shovel beef stew into her mouth as if she were half-starved, still looking delicate and graceful and feminine.

Didn't make a damn bit of sense.

And then her eyes caught him in the act of staring. Only they were wide, startled. She swallowed hard and said, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Shh!" She held up a hand, tilted her head to one side. "Torch listened, and in a second he heard it, too. The distinct sound of footfalls in the wet snow. His muscles tensed, and before he was aware of moving, his ghn was in his hand. Alex didn't move any more than he did. Only enough to reach carefully to her left and crank the little window very slightly open.~And -the sounds came more clearly then.

Closer. A few steps, then silence, then a few more steps.

Someone was creeping up on them.

Torch looked into her eyes. Big mistake. She was terrified, and it made a lump come into his throat. Made his stomach clench.

"Don't be afraid, Alex," he whispered, though his thoughts should have been on other things. Like surviving a sneak attack, not comforting a scared woman. "I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you. Promise."

Stupid fool, making promises he knew damned well he might not be able to keep. And she wasn't much better, because she actually looked as if those words eased her mind.

As if she believed him, trusted him to protect her.

Sure, just like Marcy and the boys did once.

He closed his eyes to blot out thoughts like that. This was no place for them. Slowly he got up, reaching to douse the lights so he wouldn't be perfectly silhouetted when he opened the door.

"Put on my jacket, Alex, just in case you have to run."

He heard the leather rubbing over her as she complied. Then she was beside him, near the door.

"I'll step out first," he told her.

"You come out behind me, but as soon as your feet hit the ground, slip around behind the camper. I'm pretty sure there's only one of them.

If anything happens to me, run down toward town. Okay? "

"No."

He froze with his hand on the doorknob, turned to study the shape of her face in the shadows.

"I'm not going anywhere if you get hurt. You might... need me."

Those two words, need me, came out' on a trembling breath. Unsteady As if they were terribly important, somehow.

Oh, great, something more about Alexandra for his mind to insist on analyzing while he knew he ought to be planning this mission. Just what he needed.

"If I tell you to run, you'd damn well better run, " he told her. He thought she nodded, but wasn't sure. The footfalls drew nearer, got louder.

Torch flung the door open and lunged through it, landing in the snow in a deep crouch, gun leveled at where the sounds had come from. And at that moment, the clouds skittered away from the full moon, giving him a clear glimpse of the intruder as it whirled and leapt away. A white-tailed deer with antlers that resembled a coat rack.

He was still trying to unclench his muscles when Alex's laughter tinkled through the crisp air like the clearest bell.

He turned, battling a sheepish grin of his own.

"Oh, so you think that's funny, do you?"

She stood in front of the camper, nodding hard, still laughing.

"Of course not," she managed to say between chortles.

"I'm just overcome with gratitude that you saved me from that killer buck." She laughed some more.

 
Torch stuffed the gun into the waistband of his jeans, to free his hands. Then he scooped up a snowball and let her have it. Splat! Dead center of her forehead.

Her laughter came to an abrupt stop about the time his began in earnest.

"Why you..."

She squatted to arm herself for retaliation, but he ran before she could launch the first volley. He got pegged twice in the back as he ducked behind the camper. Then he leapt out again and got her in the chest.

She fired three at him, rapidly, one after the other, and he took one in the face before he had a chance to weave out of the line of fire.

f Time to change tactics. When Josh and Jason used to ambush him with snowballs this little trick had never failed. He let her hit him with one, then fell down onto his back, and lay very still, not moving.

Sure enough, she tiptoed closer.

"Torch?"

And still closer.

"Come on, Torch, I didn't hurt you, did I?"

-And closer yet. She crouched down, her hands moving to touch his face, and he sprang the-trap. Grabbed her shoulders and flipped her onto her back in the snow while she yelped in surprise. He straddled her to hold her still, and drizzled a little white stuff on her face while she wriggled beneath him.

And then he stopped and sat very still. My God, he'd remembered the boys. He'd remembered the snowball fights. He'd done it without struggling in vain, searching his mind for the memory. And he'd done it . ever so briefly. without a flash of blinding pain. He'd been laughing. Laughing out loud. He hadn't done that since he'd lost them.

He stared down at the woman beneath him. Her cheeks cherry red in the moonlight, her eyes sparkling, her hair spread over the snow, damp with it.

 
She smiled softly.

"All right, I surrender. You win. You're a superior warrior, I admit it."

He got off her, took her hands and helped her to her feet. He didn't know what to say, what to think. Part of him knew he ought to feel badly for remembering his sons with-outpain. How could he? How could he play and laugh when his little boys were dead because of him?

But there was another part. a long-starved, craving, hungry part that sighed in blessed relief. A sandy, barren place in his soul absorbed what had just happened the way the desert absorbs the blessed rain. And a single blade of new grass struggled to burst forth.

That sensation, though, was one he didn't deserve. So he ignored it.

"I didn't know you had a frivolous, silly bone in your body, Torch Palamaro," she said, brushing snow-away from her clothes, then starting on his.

"I..." He couldn't answer her. He was still too overwhelmed.

"I'm glad you do," she said.

"I never had anyone to be silly with. I didn't even know I had it in me."

He shook his head, forcing himself to take his eyes off her. She looked like a kid, her hair tousled and snowy, her face aglow, her eyes shining with emotion.

Damn, damn, damn, he didn't like what he was feeling. "Come on, let's go inside."

Torch followed her, reminding himself over and over why he was here.

He had to kill Scorpion. He had to avenge the murders of his wife and children. He didn't deserve happiness, because it was his fault they were-dead, and even killing that murderer wasn't going to change that.

Nothing would. His family was dead and Torch was alive. That was so wrong, so very wrong that the gods must have gone off duty on that blackest of days. Fate must have taken a vacation, because it just wasn't the natural order of things. It was out of whack. The whole freaking universe was screwed up.

 
And he wasn't going to forget that it should have been him blown into so many bits there hadn't been enough left to bury. Those markers, standing over empty graves, should have his name cut into their stone faces. It should have been him, not them.

"Are you sure we can't go back to the house?" ' It was the fifth time she'd asked him the question as she tossed restlessly on the top bunk.

Above him. He answered her mechanically, his mind on other things.

"We can't go to your house, Alex. It wouldn't be safe."

"You can't be sure of that. Why would they leave anyone behind there, when they have every reason to believe we're heading to New York? It doesn't make sense."

He sighed low. She was right. There was very little chance Scorpion had bothered leaving men at the house, or near it, on su~ei[lance duty.

Very little chance. But a chance, all the same. A chance he couldn't take. It would only take them being sighted up here once to bring Scorpion right back to their doorstep. And Torch didn't want the bastard here.

Not yet, anyway. He'd discovered that he'd prefer to have this formula safely on its way to D.C. first. Moreover, he admitted, he'd like-it if he could get Alexandra Holt out of. the line of fire before it came down to the final confrontation. He didn't want her to see him kill or be killed. She was too damned softhearted to take it.

"Torch?"

"Hmm?"

"I hate calling you that. Torch. What kind of a name is that, anyway?

When are you going to tell me your given name? "

"Don't hold your breath." She could get it out if him, if she applied herself. He figured there wasn't much he could keep from her if she wanted to know badly enough. Things had a way of just slipping out when she was around. She ought to work for the CIA.

 
"Do you really think there are men watching my house?" She leaned over the edge of the bed so she could see him on the bunk below her.

Her hair hung straight down toward the floor and her eyes glimmered in the lamplight like virgin silk.

"And tell me the truth, will you?"

"You look like a troll, upside down."

"A troll?" Her brows drew together.

"Don't tell me you've never seen one. They're these little dolls with hair that Stands straight up. My kids used to collect..." He stopped in mid-sentence, his jaw slack. It had happened again. For just a second, he'd seen the boys in his mind's eye. Sitting in the middle of the living room floor with their troll collection spread out around them, moving the figures around, 'giving them comical voices.

He'd remembered. Without effort his mind had given him a memory, and no black wall had come slamming down to cut it off before it was even complete. No tidal wave of guilt had come surging in to Sweep it away from his grasp.

Twice now in one night. Why? Why now? What did it mean?

She was staring at him. Hanging upside down with her troll hair so long he could have reached out and touched it. She was seeing the emotions cross his face, he knew she was.

' "Oh," she said softly. Then louder.

"Oh, those trolls. The ones with the neon-colored hair, right? A little patient of mine brought one with her to the clinic ionce. Ugly little bugger. I'm not taking that comment as a compliment, Pa-lamaro."

Her eyes said more. They touched his soul, those hu brown eyes. They moved over his face and it seemed to Torch as if they smoothed some invisible balm over his deepest wounds. He could see the warmth in them. He could feel the healing power of their touch.