Consumed by Fire (31 page)

Was he going to up the ante? Habaneros were too much for her—she knew from experience—but she was damned if she was going to let James win. They ate in silence for a while, letting the residual heat in their mouths flavor the chili. James finished one bottle of beer, then started in on the second. She was almost at the end of her bowl, feeling comfortably replete. The fire in her mouth had died down to a pleasant buzz, her own beer empty, when she saw James reach for the remaining small yellow pepper.

He picked it up. “There are so many peppers that are hotter than this one,” he said in a voice that was almost musing. “Particularly in Thailand and the Far East. I’ve spent a lot of time out there, you know.”

“I don’t know anything about you,” she said, unable to help herself. “And everything you tell me I don’t believe.”

He smiled, holding the pepper by its stem. “You don’t think I’ve gotten used to food a lot hotter than this pepper?”

Oh, shit, he was going to make her eat it. She’d do it, she wouldn’t let him win, but she wasn’t going to be happy about it. She usually stopped at jalapenos, and she was accustomed to a lot less than that ridiculously generous bite she’d taken, but there was too much at stake to back down now.

And then she laughed in relief.

“What’s so funny?” he asked in a voice far milder than the chili.

“It’s a fucking chili pepper, not the fate of the world. Go ahead and eat it. I don’t have to prove how tough I am by burning my mouth out.”

“It’s not that hot,” he said, his voice soft with reproof, and popped the entire thing in his mouth.

She was vindicated by the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, and the fact that he drained almost the entire bottle of beer when he finished chewing. She laughed again.

“It’s not that hot,” he said again, the slight flush around his eyes belying his words. Before she knew what he was doing he’d leaned over, caught her chin in one strong hand, and put his mouth over hers.

He was on fire. His lips were blazing, his tongue was like a firebrand, turning her own mouth into a conflagration, her entire body shooting up in white heat, melting her from the inside out. She wanted to sink into the fiery heat of his bones, lose herself in the fierce demand of his mouth, and she wanted to burn, burn forever in that heat.

He drew back, and her own reaction was stronger than his: her heart pounded, her face flushed, her eyes watered, and sweat beaded on her forehead. Or maybe that was just how she reacted to his kisses, she thought dizzily. Wanting more. Hating herself, but wanting more.

“Here,” he said, handing her half a cut lime. She had no idea where it came from—he must have brought it back when he’d replenished his beer supply. “It cuts the heat.” He took the other half and bit into it.

She did the same, letting the citric acid fill her mouth, calming the flame his kiss had started. She was almost sorry to feel it lessen. She had the melancholy feeling that every time she tasted lime in the future, she would taste him leaving her.

“Better?” He acted like he’d never kissed her. All right, she could play that game as well.

“Much,” she said, her voice slightly raw from the power of the chili peppers. “You get to do the dishes.”

“No need. We just dump them in the sink and the magic fairies will come in and take care of things after we’re gone.”

She didn’t bother to hide her outrage. “You’re going to let the dishes sit out all night?”

“As if you haven’t done the same thing,” he mocked her.

Of course she had—she hated doing dishes and her housecleaning skills were sadly lax. Only in the camper was she neat, and that was out of sheer necessity. And of course James would know that, damn him.

“Then you can put the leftover food away. And don’t tell me there’s no need for that either. Your ‘magic fairies’ might be hungry. There are children starving in China.” She brought out the old cliché deliberately.

“There are children starving in Texas, and this isn’t going to help any of them.”

“No, probably not. But we’re not wasting this.” She rose, scooping up the dirty dishes and heading into the kitchen.

He followed her, and in the tight space, so much larger than anywhere in the campers, he seemed to crowd her. He put the food in the refrigerator, and she was just about to move past him when he suddenly blocked her exit, trapping her into the corner of the kitchen counter.

“Did you wear that dress on purpose?”

Lucky she was already burning from the heat of the peppers. “What? No, of course not.”

“That’s a shame,” he said in a low voice. “Because I would so like to pull it up your long legs and find you wearing nothing underneath it.”

She swallowed. “I’ve got granny panties underneath. You’d be disappointed.”

“That would only make it more fun,” he whispered. “And I like the way your nipples stand out when you eat something that’s spicy. I’d like to lie you down on the bed and experiment with you, see what makes your nipples hard, see what makes you wet.”

She was already wet from the sound of his soft voice. Wet and burning, as if he’d put that searing mouth between her legs. He wasn’t even touching her, and she was melting, ready to fall, wanting an excuse, any excuse, to go into his arms. All he had to do was touch her and she’d give in. It was their last night, what more harm could it do, she wanted him so badly . . .

Then he moved away.

Turned his back on her and headed back to the computers, as if he’d said nothing incendiary at all. “I’ve got work to do,” he said without looking at her. “There are a bunch of movies and a portable DVD player in the first room on the right. You should find something to occupy yourself with before you head for bed. We’re going to have an early start, so don’t stay up too late.”

It wasn’t a slap in the face. It wasn’t even a gentle rejection. It was a dismissal, as if she were not worth thinking about. He had more important things to do.

And the thing was, she couldn’t fault him. Oh, she could blame him for cornering her in the kitchen, getting her all hot and bothered, but the stuff he was doing at the computer was keeping them alive.

She left the room without a word, slipping into the hall. She wasn’t going to watch movies, she wasn’t going to read, assuming she could find something that interested her. This house had everything, but a collection of good romance novels seemed unlikely, and racy sex scenes were the last thing she needed right now. Her mouth burned, her body burned, outside the thunder shook the sky, but there was nothing she could do to get through the long night but get through it, she reminded herself.

Merlin had stayed behind with James, and for just a moment she felt bereft. Merlin was as wise as his name—James was going to be up for a while. He was the one who needed company.

She closed the door behind her. She wasn’t particularly tired, but she needed some solitude. She’d forgotten to check his wound—she’d meant to breeze into the room and demand that he remove his shirt, but she’d forgotten all about it. Well, he could just fester if he was too noble to ask for help.

But he wouldn’t. This house would have everything he needed to take care of any wounds. He was probably doing better than she was, and she was almost healed.

She flopped down on the bed, limp as a rag doll, worn out by the emotions, the tension, the danger. Overhead the thunder seemed to be closing in on them, danger from the sky as well as the world around them, and she shivered in the ozone-laden air. Maybe she needed to turn down the AC. The thunder was getting on her nerves, and every now and then lightning would spear through the sky. She rolled over on her stomach, pulling the pillow over her head. She wanted her old life back. This hurt too much—she just wanted to return to her boring world in Wisconsin where James Bishop was nothing more than a distant memory. That was a damned lie—James Bishop had been with her always, every day, an empty place in her soul that nothing had ever filled. Maybe this time she could finally forget him.

And maybe children weren’t starving in China. And Texas. And everywhere, and . . .

For a moment she thought the arm that slid under her was James’s, but the hand over her mouth held a reeking cloth in it, and before she had time to strike out, she was gone, into a scary darkness as the thunder shook the world.

Chapter Sixteen

Bishop pushed himself back from the computer and grabbed another beer. He was almost tempted to take another habanero chili. All he could remember was the taste of her mouth, not the explosive heat, and he didn’t want to be thinking about her mouth. He glanced at Merlin, sound asleep beneath the computers. He’d fed him earlier—the Powers That Be at the Committee had provided the same designer dog food Evangeline used—and Merlin was conked out, as if he’d spent the day racing around, not in a cramped RV.

“Wake up, Merlin,” he said, closing the refrigerator door. “I’m surprised you haven’t been making a fuss about being with her. When I trained you to look after her, I didn’t expect you to fall in love with her.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Not that he expected conversation from Merlin, but why the fuck had the word “love” come from his mouth? And why the fuck wasn’t Merlin moving?

He crossed the room in two strides, leaning under the table to put his hand on Merlin’s neck. The dog didn’t even twitch.

Bishop wasn’t a man who panicked. He spent less than two seconds checking Merlin’s heartbeat and pupils—he was alive but heavily drugged. And then he was down the hall, crashing into Evangeline’s bedroom.

It was dark, but he already knew the bed would be empty. He turned on the light, staring at the open window. The rain had started an hour ago, but he’d barely paid any attention. It was pouring in, the wind whipping the wet curtain across the room, and for a moment he wondered whether she’d run away from him again.

He knew she hadn’t. She never would have endangered Merlin by drugging him—she would have taken him with her. How the hell had someone managed to get into the dog food? Merlin wouldn’t eat anything that didn’t come from someone he trusted, but whoever had taken Evangeline had managed to circumvent that precaution.

Taken Evangeline. The words slammed into his head as he crossed to the open window, but he could see nothing through the torrent of rain. Who? Why? Her main value had been as a way to get to him. If they found her, they found him, and a sniper’s bullet would have taken care of him. That, or blowing up the whole damned house to get rid of both of them.

Instead they’d taken Evangeline, someone who had no enemies, not even that asshole of a not-real husband who’d cheated on her and ripped off her work.

No enemies, except for Claudia, who never forgot a potential threat.

He didn’t want to waste time, but calling London was a necessary evil, and he wasn’t going to go through the computers.

Claudia was in the Far East, Madsen told him in the voice of a man who didn’t like to be called at the crack of dawn. He had Takashi O’Brien’s word for it.

Bishop didn’t even bother to consider what time it was in Japan. Taka picked up the phone at the first ring, and he could hear the fretful cry of a hungry baby in the background, quickly silenced. He’d lost count of how many children Taka and Summer had, and he wasn’t about to waste time asking.

“Have you seen Claudia recently?”

Taka didn’t bother with social niceties either—he recognized by Bishop’s voice that things were at a crisis level. “Not for five days. She said she was going to the mountains on Hokkaido, but there’s no way to prove it.”

“Shit.”

If Claudia had decided that Madsen’s edict against killing immediate family no longer pertained to Evangeline, then she was as good as dead. Claudia was one of the best assassins the Committee had ever had, and she had absolutely no compassion or morality. She was a true sociopath—the best kind, untroubled by emotions. She simply did the job.

Maybe she’d seen the writing on the wall, knew her days with the Committee were numbered, and she’d decided to act. She had a long memory, and she had never forgiven James for getting Evangeline out of her line of fire. Maybe Claudia had decided to make the break herself.

It wasn’t as if her skills weren’t highly marketable—she might already be working for the Corsinis. At least that settled things as far as Bishop was concerned. He was going to kill his occasional partner. He should have done it long ago.

Things were beginning to make sense now. His instincts had been right—Claudia would have known where Evangeline was, Claudia would have set the Corsinis after her. Claudia was capable of anything.

The rain was pounding down, and even in the darkness, he could see white balls of hail bouncing off the ground amid all the rain. Lightning hit close by, momentarily illuminating the yard, and it took only that brief moment to see the muddy path they’d taken. It took him another moment to grab his gun, and he was out the window, after them. If he muttered prayers under his breath as he ran, he wasn’t even aware of it.

The pain came first. Evangeline felt as if she were being pulled apart—her shoulders burned, her wrists stung, her head felt like a black hole of misery, and she was wet and aching and blind. No, not blind. It was pitch black, but as her eyes slowly grew accustomed to it, she could make out her surroundings. She was in some sort of shed, and she was hanging from her bound wrists, her toes barely touching the ground. She squirmed, trying to release her hands, but she’d been tied with something that felt like wire, and it was cutting into her wrists.