Dangerous Waters (17 page)

Without hesitation, she said softly, "I think in your heart you do trust him, or you wouldn't have kept calling him regularly. And I trust you."

Mac turned his head sharply and their eyes met. She saw shock in his before he looked just as quickly away. There was silence for a moment, and then he said brusquely, "So be it."

She nodded and sat quietly beside him. At last she had to ask. "What about me? What should I do?"

"You know," he said, with seeming casualness, "I may pretend I'm bait, but I don't intend to get eaten."

Eaten. Shuddering, Megan remembered her first glimpse of Mac, the two men shoving him overboard like a bundle of garbage. Could she bear it if something like that happened again, and she was off hiding her head in a hole?

"Would I be in your way?" she asked.

He didn't look at her. "I don't see what difference you'd make, if you're willing to follow orders."

The decision wasn't hard. "I'd rather stay with you."

Now he did turn his head. Their eyes met, his so clear a gray she could have tumbled in and sunk without a trace. "I shouldn't let you," he said, "but I was hoping you'd say that."

Megan let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. "Then...what do we do next?"

"We call Norm." He rose to his feet and held out a hand. "No time like the present."

Half an hour later they had found another phone booth. Mac wouldn't take the chance of using the resort office phone. "We're damn careful, but with technology changing as fast as it is, somebody might come up with a new way of tracing a call. I don't want to be found until I've issued the invitation."

Megan wasn't sure she wanted to be found then, either. On the other hand, as Mac had pointed out, what was the alternative? Living on the run?

She waited in the car this time, too. On the way back to their cabin, Mac summed up the conversation.

"Norm's traveled the same route I have. It's got to be one of the other four agents. He's done a little asking around, figuring what the hell. They all know my troubles. They're not stupid. They'll have come to the same conclusion."

"Must make for congenial working conditions," Megan muttered.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"He hasn't gotten any interesting answers. Didn't find any big debts. The only one with a lifestyle out of step with his income is Bill Marshall. I told you about him."

"The one who married the model."

"Yeah. Well, Norm managed to find out how much the inheritance was. It nicely paid for that fancy new nest."

"Then . . . where do you start?"

"Ramosa is in hot water again. He's gotten his wrist slapped so many times, this round they're suggesting he find a new career."

"Do you really think...?"

"Goddamn it, somebody is behind this shit!" Mac snapped. "Don't start in on me."

Megan's voice rose. "I wasn't..." Then she made herself take a deep breath. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I'm just asking for...your opinion. That's all."

There was silence for a moment before she saw him rotate his shoulders as though in answer to the same kind of tension she felt. "I'm sorry," he said roughly. "I don't like any of this. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

She swiftly touched his arm. "It's okay."

He took one hand off the steering wheel to cover her hand, but didn't say anything.

After a moment Megan said, "So you're going to start with this Ramosa."

"It's a case of eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Norm says he's damned bitter. My gut tells me it's not him. My head isn't so sure."

Megan only nodded. "So what's the plan?"

Mac told her. It sounded so simple. Norm would find a way of letting Ramosa know where Mac was. Mac and she would actually rent a room elsewhere, as well as a second car, and stake out the cabin which they'd leave looking occupied.

If nobody came hunting them, in six or seven days they would move to a new location and Norm would drop the word to the second suspect. Then they'd wait again.

Sooner or later, as Mac said, someone would take the bait. It was the waiting that would be hard.

*****

In the days that followed Mac changed. Maybe she did, too, Megan wasn't sure. But the easygoing man who teased her, whose voice was amused as often as it was husky with passion, had turned into someone else. During long stakeouts of their beachfront cabin he was endlessly patient, silent for long stretches, his few comments brief to the point of taciturnity. When she tried to argue about the vantage point he'd chosen to watch the cabin from, he wouldn't rise to any bait.

"This is best. With the angle of the morning sun, nobody'll see us."

"But it's uncomfortable," Megan said, hoping she wasn't whining. "Couldn't we move behind those trees..." But he wasn't even listening.

When they weren't watching the cabin, Mac was physically restive; while she read or watched TV, he would prowl the small confines of their hotel room. The few times he let her swim at a deserted cove, he waited on the beach, his watchful gaze traveling nonstop over the shoreline and boats that approached within half a mile. Megan felt as if she was accompanied by one of those blank-faced Secret Service men she'd seen on TV, who always seemed to wear dark glasses to hide whatever vestiges of emotion remained.

Oh, he made love to her, but differently, almost grimly. The night he decided it was time to leave Lake Shasta was typical.

They had found a hotel room in a big place just off the highway and rented the second car, while ostensibly holding onto the cabin and the first car. There was no way they could keep the cabin under surveillance twenty-four hours a day, but Mac spent ten to twelve hours every day watching it. Catching the hit man wasn't the object, as Mac pointed out; the fact that an attempt on their lives was made at all would put a name to the traitor in his office.

"But I sure wouldn't mind catching this SOB, too," he said, in a voice that chilled her.

Usually Megan went with him, but sometimes he left her in the hotel. Those times alone made her nervous, and she thought he felt the same, that there was relief in his eyes when she opened the door at his voice.

It was nearly ten that night when he returned. He sank wearily onto the queen-size bed and said, "They'd have shown up by now if they knew where we were. It's time to make our next move."

"Could they have been watching and...and guessed we weren't really there?"

"That's always possible, but I don't think so. I've driven in and out, ducked out of the back door, turned lights on at different times. The place is busy enough that they wouldn't take a chance of being seen peeking in windows." Mac shook his head as he stripped his grey sweatshirt off. His voice was muffled by the shirt. "Saldivar's not a patient man."

"We can't stay here?" Megan asked uncertainly. It should have made no difference to her where they were; Lake Shasta wasn't home territory anyway. But it had become familiar and, therefore, safe. She knew the beaches, the grocery stores, the highway. Change was always scary. She'd known too much of it.

"You know we can't," he said, hardly glancing at her. "When somebody strikes, we've got to be damned sure where the leak was. If we stuck around here, how could I be sure whether Ramosa or the next guy had passed our locale on?"

She didn't argue. What was there to say? Megan didn't even ask where they were going.

"We'll turn the first car in," Mac said. "Make sure we're not followed. We can rent another when we get there. I think we'll head over to the coast. The resort here was perfect. I want to find another one like it."

She knew what he meant. He'd liked the fact that their cabin was separate enough from the others that nobody else was likely to be hurt accidentally. It scared her even more than she'd already been, to be in love with a man who assessed hotel rooms by how vulnerable they were to attack instead of how comfortable the bed was.

Silently Megan went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and changed to her nightgown. When she came out, Mac gave her one comprehensive glance, then without comment went into the bathroom himself. By the time he came out, she was already in bed, her reading lamp turned off.

She was tired, bone-tired, and desperate to be held. Not in passion, but for comfort. She wanted reassurance, understanding, tenderness. And she wanted them from Mac, who was as tired as she and unlikely to understand her needs.

She heard the shower running, and at last Mac came out of the bathroom naked except for a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was wet and spiky, and though he had obviously shaved, weary lines were carved deeply on his face.

He turned off lights as he came, finally settling heavily down on the edge of the bed, where he tossed the towel onto a chair and pulled the covers up. Mac switched off his bedside lamp, and in the darkness Megan thought for a minute that he wasn't going to touch her at all.

Then he turned suddenly and slipped his arm under her neck, gathering her in. On a sigh she snuggled up to his warm strength and closed her eyes, glorying in the feel of his embrace. His other hand brushed hair back from her face.

"Sitting around waiting is hard, isn't it?" he said in a low voice.

She was surprised that he'd read her mind. She nodded, knowing he could feel the motion.

"It's not so different from anything else you're not looking forward to," he said. "You just want to get it over with."

One way or the other. The phrase popped into her head, but she stayed silent. She didn't even know what most frightened her. Was it herself she feared for? Or Mac?

"I need to kiss you," he said gruffly.

Megan lifted her face willingly. Mac's big hand framed it, and then his mouth found hers unerringly. No gentleness here, she recognized immediately. Perhaps this raw desire was the masculine counterpart to her own need for simple contact. Whatever drove him, she responded to. Her lips were bruised, her tongue took part in a duel, his teeth bit her neck sharply enough to hurt for a fleeting instant. But something feminine in her reveled at being the object of such desperate hunger. This wasn't the way a man took a woman who didn't matter; this was the way he made love to one he was afraid of losing.

He entered her almost roughly, too, after wrapping her legs around his hips and gripping her buttocks in large hands that held her steady as he thrust deeply. She cried out, as much in pleasure as shock, and Mac's fingers clenched tighter as he held himself still with an effort that had him trembling.

"Please," Megan whispered.

"Stop?" She hardly recognized his voice.

"No." She ran her fingernails over his back. "Make love to me."

It was as though she'd unchained him. He groaned something she thought was her name, and then drove hard into her, again and again, faster, deeper. Sex had always been a mutual coupling, pleasurable but not an act that branded her as his. This time, she thought with what little part of her that could still reason, he was claiming her.

And at the end he did something else he never had before. He gave a guttural cry that could have been ripped out of him just as he shuddered with the shock of climax.

Afterward Megan held him as he lay heavily on her. His muscles were slick and hard under her caressing hands. He didn't roll away as he usually did, and she was glad.

How many more nights would they have? she wondered. If they survived this trap Mac had set, then what? Would she ever see him again?

*****

The Oregon coast was as beautiful as Megan remembered it. She hadn't been here in years. The narrow highway climbed on cliffs above the Pacific. Thickly forested land ended abruptly in the rocky cliffs, and stacks worn by the pounding waves stood sentinel out in the ocean.

Right now Megan could just see a gravel beach below, the cove protected by the arms of forested points, one crowned by a white lighthouse. The day had begun gray, with mist curling over the highway and softening the outlines of passing cars while dulling the deep green of fir and cedar. Megan was glad that they were going north instead of south. She wouldn't have wanted to be too close to the guardrail and the abrupt drop-off. Her memories of the battle to stay on the Devil's Lake road were too fresh. If someone tried the same thing here...

She wouldn't let herself think about it.

"I'm getting hungry," she said instead.

Mac glanced at her. "If the fog would burn off, I'd suggest a picnic."

A mileage sign appeared out of the mist, reminding Megan of a childhood holiday. "Have you ever been to Florence?" she asked.

"Italy or Oregon?"

"Oregon."

"Nope. Anything special about it?"

"Sand dunes," she said dreamily. "Miles and miles of them. Golden sand that slips through your fingers and your toes. You can go sledding as if it were snow, except it's warm. I must have been eight or nine the time we went there. I loved that vacation."

"Many places to stay around there?" Mac asked.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I think we camped the time I remember. I'll bet there are, though."

"Makes as good a destination as any, then."

They had a brief lunch at a fast-food restaurant, and by afternoon had reached the small town of Florence. Mac drove around for nearly an hour before he found a resort similar to the one at Lake Shasta, with a vacant cabin set off far enough from the others to satisfy him.

"Told the guy we wanted our privacy," he said, getting back into the car. "We can spend the night here, find another place and a second car tomorrow. Want to go jump on some dunes?"

"Can we?" Megan asked, her heart lifting.

"What the hell. The dog'll need some exercise anyway."

The mist had finally lifted, though the day was nowhere near as hot as it had been at Lake Shasta. Megan changed to shorts and canvas tennis shoes, bringing Zachary's leash. The plump, cheerful woman who managed the run-down cabins offered them a plastic disk to slide on, which Megan accepted.

At the state park they joined hordes of other tourists, who were dragging everything from cardboard to surfboards up the steep dune above the parking lot. A small lake was a vivid blue-green against the golden sand.