Consumed by Fire (28 page)

As a declaration of love, it left a lot to be desired, but it still thawed some of the cold that had filled her as he deliberately broke down their relationship in the crudest possible terms.

“Why not?” Her voice was softer than she wanted.

He shot her a glance, and then that slow, lazy grin resurfaced, telling her that honesty was over. “I’m afraid that’s all you’re going to get out of me right now, Angel. Unless you want me to remind you of everything we did in the shower, and then in your bed, in exact detail. Or what we did in the Danieli, or in that bathtub, or even . . .”

“Why do you remember?”

That wiped the smile off his face, she thought smugly, so she pushed it. “Why would you remember a few days from five years ago in such painstaking detail? You obviously were very experienced, knowing just how to turn me from an intelligent woman into a lovesick idiot, so it couldn’t have been that unusual a way to spend a few days. You must have had tons of mindless sex before and since then. Why do you remember the time with me? Why the fuck am I here? How did I happen to get mixed up with you all over again when you should have been out of my life for good?”

She hadn’t noticed they were nearing an exit, but all of a sudden he jerked the wheel and they headed off the highway with a squealing of tires. “That’s a discussion for another time,” he said amiably as he pulled up at a truck stop, one that didn’t look all that different from the first one. “Time to feed you.”

Refusing to go with him until he gave her answers would be a total waste of time, and she was starving. The cooking facilities in the Winnebago were limited, and she had a craving for pancakes, comfort food at its finest, slathered in butter and nothing else. No fake sweet syrups to ruin the taste—if she couldn’t have Vermont maple syrup, then butter was an admirable substitute. And she’d eat meats full of nitrates and not give a damn. She’d work on him once she was finished.

Chapter Fourteen

Dealing with Evangeline was really quite simple, Bishop thought as he headed down the highway, a mammoth cup of strong, bitter coffee between his legs. All he had to do was feed her—preferably carbs—and fuck her, and she wore herself out. She’d slept for hours in the back of the camper after threatening him that she wanted more answers or else, and he had watched her in one of the rearview mirrors, curled up on the smaller bunk, sleeping like a baby. He would have given ten years off his life to park this sleekly reconfigured bucket of bolts and climb into bed with her, but the landscape was so spare and unforgiving that he hadn’t seen much more than a short bush in a hundred miles. There was no way they would get any privacy, and besides, he was going to keep it in his pants, wasn’t he?

Having sex with her last night had ended up being a very smart thing to do, even if his brain hadn’t been working at the time. It had unsettled and confused her, left part of her both aroused and compliant, even though she was fighting that effect, and she’d go out of her way not to let him get close enough to pull her into bed again. As long as she kept her distance, he’d be able to concentrate on business, and they just might make it through the next few days safely. By late tomorrow they’d be in New Orleans, she’d be safe in someone else’s hands, and he and Ryder could do what they had to do without any distractions.

He was going to need to answer some of her questions. She had to understand why she was in danger, or she wouldn’t be able to keep herself safe. Even with the divorce and approaching execution of His Eminence, her safety wasn’t guaranteed—he had too damned many enemies. It had never bothered him one way or another, but when it came to endangering Evangeline, it was another matter entirely. It would be better if he stopped keeping tabs on her—better for her, a hell of a lot better for him. He would have had no trouble forgetting all about her if he hadn’t felt it necessary to keep an eye on her.

He let out a low, mirthless laugh. Yeah, sure. If only it were that simple. For some ridiculous reason Evangeline Morrissey had gotten under his skin, in his blood like some fucking plague, and he couldn’t get rid of her. Even when he went months without checking on her, he couldn’t keep from thinking about her.

There must be some kind of unfinished business between them, but he didn’t know what it was. Not that he’d been thinking last night, but he’d kind of hoped that taking her to bed again would get her out of his system. That hadn’t happened. And if he didn’t get his shit together, they were all going to be in trouble.

He glanced back at her again. Her hair had come loose, that familiar cloud of coppery brown, and he wanted to bury his face in it. She smelled so damned good, so familiar. She smelled like coming home.

He needed to remember he had no home, and never would. It had been his choice, a logical one. Most of his family were long dead, he had no siblings, and because his father had been in the military, they’d moved so much that there was no place on earth he had any ties to. He was the perfect Committee operative—a lone wolf with no connections, nothing to hold him back or make him think twice. He was a weapon, albeit a very advanced, skilled weapon, and setting up the New Orleans office would be a piece of cake. Just as long as he got Evangeline safely stowed and out of his life forever. That was all he asked of a fate that had never treated him too kindly. He needed her gone.

He kept driving down the flat, endless roads, and it was almost a relief when he started having to deal with traffic. It meant he was nearing the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and the abandoned farmhouse that the Committee had used a few years ago. No one knew about it except the few operatives under Peter Madsen, and most of them would have forgotten it. It would be a place to unwind, to hide out, and there were half a dozen bedrooms in the place, which meant he could keep his distance from Evangeline.

All he had to do was piss her off enough that she wouldn’t let him anywhere near him; then he could spend the night doing what he had to do—checking in with Ryder and Madsen, making sure his journey to the old house in the Garden District was still an option. He could hardly do that if he was rolling in the sheets with . . .

Shit. He had to stop thinking like that. She hadn’t slept long, and during the last few hours he’d been intensely aware of her every move, the sound of her footsteps, followed by the soft click of Merlin’s paws. She needed to make sure his nails were cut—short enough not to make noise, long enough to give him some purchase. With an attack dog it was a fine line, though he wasn’t sure if Merlin could be called an attack dog any longer. She’d turned a canine weapon into a lapdog, and if he didn’t have faith that Merlin would defend her with his life, he’d be annoyed.

Hell, he was annoyed. He’d put a lot of time and effort into training Merlin, and now that was shot to hell. But then, he’d trained the dog for her, and it only made sense that Merlin would adapt. They’d been comrades together, he and Merlin, but now Merlin wasn’t a soldier; he was a civilian with a highly honed sense of protection.

And he was going to have to let go of him.

Evangeline was up and about, rustling through the cabinets, looking for something to eat. “You don’t have to worry about dinner,” he said, probably the first time he’d spoken since their desultory and entirely phony lunchtime conversation. “There’ll be food waiting for us when we stop.”

He felt her come closer, close enough that he could feel her, close enough that he could reach behind him and grab her, pull her down. He kept his hands on the wheel.

“Just where are we stopping? And when?”

Questions. Why the hell had he ever offered to answer her questions—he’d told her more than he wanted. “We’ll stop within the hour, and as for where, it’s an abandoned farmhouse off in the countryside with an impossible road leading in to it.”

“If it’s impossible how are we going to get there?” Her voice was skeptical. Of course.

“Nothing’s impossible for me,” he said in a calm voice.
Except letting go of you.

“Good to know,” she said wryly, slipping into the passenger seat. “I may as well see where we’re going.”

“It won’t do you any good. We’re already off the main road, and there are so many twists and turns to get to this place you’d never find your way out, if you were fool enough to make a run for it.”

There was a long silence. “Make a run for it?” she said finally. “That sounds rather ominous. What would I be running from? Besides your obnoxious company?”

He grinned. “That’s it, babe. I even promise to keep my hands to myself. I gather there are maybe half a dozen useable bedrooms in the place—it’s huge, and like this rust bucket, it’s a lot nicer inside than out. You’ll have a safe, solitary night’s sleep.”

He gave her a slanted side glance. Her expression was stony, showing nothing. What had he been hoping for? A look of disappointment? Or even better, relief?

It was a relief to him. He’d told her he wouldn’t touch her, and he wasn’t a man who broke his word when he gave it. There were few things sacred to him, but his word was one of them. She would sleep in celibate splendor, like a nun, while he stayed awake thinking about her.

He let out his breath in exasperation. What did it matter what her reaction was? What did anything matter?
Let go, you stupid bastard
, he told himself grimly.
Let her go before you get both of you killed.

As they drove in silence over the increasingly narrow, rutted roads, it grew into a strangely comfortable silence. He stole a glance at her. She’d lost that stony expression, and she looked relatively peaceful. Merlin had pushed his way between their seats, leaning against her legs, and she was rubbing his head absently while he drove. Jesus, they were like an old retired couple on the road in their big ugly RV, exploring the country. The thought made him incomprehensibly sad.

That was patently ridiculous. For one thing, he wasn’t going to make old bones, as his grandmother would have said. If he made it to forty he’d be lucky, given his profession. Evangeline wouldn’t be anywhere near him. No aimless journeys into the great unknown, safe in their tin box of a vehicle, camping in the woods, grilling freshly caught trout. He hadn’t been fishing in more than ten years, and he probably wouldn’t go for another ten. He’d been damned good at fly fishing when he was younger.

“You like trout?” he asked suddenly, out of the blue. “Or are you one of those people who can’t stand seafood?”

He expected her to ignore him, but instead she laughed. “So you don’t remember everything from five years ago. I love seafood. I even ate the disgusting Venetian concoction called
squassetto
, which had to have every kind of seafood as well as God knows what else in it. And technically trout’s a freshwater fish, so you can’t call it seafood.”

“Spoken like an academic,” he said easily.

She didn’t bristle. The sun was moving toward the trees, and things were oddly peaceful. “When I was camping in Saskatchewan there was a couple nearby who were into fly fishing, which I gather is a very tricky thing. They gave me one of the trout they caught, and I cooked it over the open fire. It was the best thing I ever ate. Including those amazing meals in Venice.”

He felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “It probably was. Did they clean it for you?”

“What kind of wimp do you think I am?” she said in lazy, mock outrage, her fingers threading through Merlin’s short, rough fur. “I cleaned it myself. I happen to be very handy with a filleting knife.”

He didn’t know what that ache in his chest was—probably indigestion. “That might come in handy,” he muttered, thinking of what lay ahead.

Her peaceful mood vanished, and he wanted to kick himself. “Oh, yeah? Who do I have to kill?” She kept it light, but he knew their few moments of amity had disappeared.

“Anyone who comes after you.”

“And is anyone coming after me? I thought they were more interested in you. I was just a way they thought they could get to you. Whoever the hell ‘they’ are.”

“It worked,” he said shortly. He took a left turn, heading down a narrow path between fields of tall grass. A tractor had gone before him, so his path wouldn’t be noticeable following the heavier tread of the tractor tires. At the end, about half a mile down, he’d reach the river that ran through this rare, untouched piece of countryside. The crossing was a couple of miles farther down. It looked so bad even Indiana Jones wouldn’t have tried it, but there was no other access to the place. The fast flowing rush of the river was too deep everywhere else.

“Why?” She asked it like she didn’t really expect an answer, and she wasn’t getting one.

“I said five questions,” he said. He didn’t want to get her riled up—when she got mad he got mad, and when they both lost their tempers he put his hands on her, and then they were lost.

She wasn’t particularly ruffled by his response. “That was question number four.”

“Then I answered it.”

“Not satisfactorily.”

He grinned. “I didn’t satisfy you? Now that surprises me. What were those interesting sounds you made? Something between the yowl of a bobcat and the scream of a peacock. Not that there are many peacocks in Texas.”

He’d pushed it too far, and he realized he’d done it deliberately. She sat up straighter, her body tight with tension, and Merlin rose, his instincts responding to hers. “I guess we’ll never know, since you aren’t going to be hearing those sounds ever again.”

“Oh, you never can tell,” he said lazily. “You might find someone you want to get it on with while you’re still being guarded by the Committee. You’re noisy enough that if I’m in the same building, I’ll hear it.” Funny how he didn’t like that idea at all.

“Despite what you know of me, I don’t tend to fall into bed with men at the drop of a hat.” Her voice could have frozen anything, even the steamy Texas evening.

He said it before he could think twice. “What about the year after I left you? I counted nineteen, but I might have missed one or two . . .” His voice trailed off when he saw her face, and he wanted to kick himself so damned hard he wouldn’t be able to walk for days. “Sorry,” he muttered, before he could help himself.