First You Run (3 page)

“Good evening.” She aimed her gaze just above the last row, a speaker’s trick that gave the appearance of eye contact. “The Long Count calendar,” she read, “is the defining touchstone of the ancient Maya civilization, but that’s all it is, not a prediction that the world is about to end. On the contrary studying the calendar can assure us that we will wake up on the morning of December 21, 2012, just as alive as we were on December 20. There will be no asteroid, no Armageddon, no astronomical conjunction in the heavens. There will be no cataclysm, no doomsday.”

A pale-haired young man near the front started coughing, and she paused, waiting for him to finish.

“If you study their culture, their language, and their symbols as I have,” she continued, “the Maya did not believe the world would end on December 21, 2012, despite the fact that their calendar and computations ended then.”

She looked up to fake eye contact again, only to encounter some powerfully real eye contact. A tall, muscular man standing in the back burned her with a stare so intense it made her stumble over her words.

Wow—who let
him
into this mecca of geekdom?

She forced her attention back to the page. “Although some people believe this proves the end of the world is imminent, my research of the Maya hieroglyphics proves that is only a myth. There is no threat that something in the heavens will cause havoc on earth. There is no proof that December 21, 2012, will be the last day of human existence on earth.”

She stole another glance at the man in the back. What was he doing here? Men who spent their days doing scholorly research didn’t have bodies that belonged in the Temple of Warriors, or golden brown hair that curled over their collars and brushed their square, unshaven jaws. They wore glasses, not gold hoop earrings.

And they did
not
look at a woman the way he was looking at her.

She saw Dr. Rosevich, then Adam, follow her gaze. Oh, great. She’d been caught checking out the stud in the back.

There were people who didn’t want her to go public with her theory, wackos who thought The End Was Near and her research was not just wrong, but harmful, who would love to see her book tank.

Maybe their plan was to infiltrate her book signings with a broad-chested, long-haired, magic-eyed decoy to make her lose her place and feel stupid.

Good strategy. It was working.

He shook back his honey-colored mane and the light caught the glint at his left ear. Lifting one side of his mouth, he cocked his head and melted her with a blistering stare of pure sex.

Unbelievable. He was
flirting
with her. And she…forgot what she was saying. Completely.

She covered with a sip of water.
No flirting with bronze-dipped gods.

“Much has been made of the Maya Long Count and the arithmetic that arrived at the end date of December 21, 2012. Much has been made of the fact that the date corresponds astronomically with the date 0.0.00 in the Long Count calendar. But—”

“Much has been made because it’s true!” the cougher yelled, leaping to his feet.

Behind him, a woman stood. “Of course it is! Millions of people think you are doing the world an enormous disservice by negating the astronomical impact of 2012 when something up there…” she pointed skyward. “Hits something down here.”

“Then
millions
of people can stop worrying,” Miranda said calmly and returned to the book. “The Maya calendar fixates on a particular point of time that modern scholars believe represented the creation of time according to complex Maya cosmology. However—”

“They knew the beginning, and they knew the end. How can you ignore that?” The pasty-skinned man pointed at her, wild blue eyes sparking like gas flames.

“Because if you understand how to read the Maya glyphs, as I do, the—”

“I can read Maya glyphs!” he declared. “And they say that the end of the world will happen during a cosmogenesis on December 21, 2012, and only a chosen group will survive!”

“That’s right!” Another college student. “And people will die because of what you’re spouting just to get rich!”

The man in the back moved slightly, his posture becoming alert as his attention shifted to the hecklers.

She gave a self-conscious smile to Dr. Rosevich and continued to read from memory, since the words danced around.

“So what if you’re wrong?” the one with the wild eyes shouted, overriding her.

A girl, young enough to be a freshman in her Intro to Culture class, joined in. “People deserve to know the truth. You’re playing with lives and human safety. The government needs to do something, and the first thing they can do is stop blind optimism and stupidity!”

A few more stood in the second row, sending prickly discomfort down Miranda’s spine.

“That’s what you’re selling!” shouted another young woman. “A false sense of security!”

“You’re burying the facts, just like they buried Maya history!”

“The facts are not changed or buried,” Miranda replied, working to maintain her cool under the steamroller that had just moved through the room. A few audience members laughed nervously and two left. Dr. Rosevich stared at her as Adam shifted in his seat and glanced around.

In the back of the room, her long-haired bronze god was gone.

The one with the wild eyes lunged into the aisle, opened a copy of her book, and read a line, his mocking tone changing the meaning of her words.

“That’s not at all what I meant—”

He threw the book onto the ground and turned to another woman, seizing a paperback from her hands and waving it. Miranda recognized it as self-published trash warning of death and destruction in December 2012.

“This is the truth!” Wild Eyes announced, suddenly looking much older and more in control than the twenty-five-year-old she’d first thought he was. “This is the fact! This is the only truth!”

Suddenly he bounded toward the front of the room, and Miranda instinctively backed up. She hit a wall of man and spun around to come face to face with wide shoulders. Higher, she met amber eyes that had gone from flirtatious to dead serious.

He gripped her upper arm and in one move had her two feet from the podium. “Go. Now.” He held her firmly, walking her to the railing that overlooked the first floor.

“Wait a second!” She tried to yank out of his grasp, but it didn’t loosen.

He leaned close to her ear. “I’m going to help you.
Move
.”

The store manager ran up the stairs, horror on her face at the chaos in the room. “What’s going on?” she demanded, breathless.

The man steered around her. “Dr. Lang needs a safe place to go. Now.”

Without questioning, the young woman thrust out a huge ring of keys. “The silver one will get you into the stockroom downstairs. It’s right past the—”

He seized the ring. “I’ll find it.” With a gentle push, he urged Miranda forward. “Move. Fast.”

She managed to free her arm and glare at him. “Who are you?”

“At this moment, house security. You want to stay and be eaten by the natives or get somewhere safe?”

Her linguist’s brain stalled. His voice was richly, beautifully accented with the distinct sheared sounds of Australia, and it matched him perfectly. A voice with purpose, with poetry in every vowel. She glanced over her shoulder, to where the instigator ranted on, standing on a chair and flipping flyers to the crowd.

“Go to this Web site,” Wild Eyes called out. “Find out the truth. Find out how to avoid the inevitable.” He paused to meet Miranda’s gaze with one full of hate.

Holding on to her rescuer’s powerful arm, she flew down the steps, turned a corner behind a stack of reference books, and hustled toward a door in the back. After stabbing the key into the lock, he threw open the door, stuck his head in, and checked it out.

“All right,” he said, pushing her into the closet-sized room jammed floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes and the gluelike smell of freshly printed books. “In you go, luv.”

Was he leaving her there? Locking her in? The wave of panic subsided as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

“Are you all right?” he asked, the concern unmistakable in that lyrical voice.

She nodded. She would be as soon as her heart stopped pounding her ribs. “I’m fine. I just…didn’t…” She blew out a breath and forced her shoulders to relax. “Thank you. I didn’t see that coming.”

He guided her to a cracked vinyl chair. “Quite a unique crowd you draw.”

“I never dreamed the crazies would be here.”

“The crazies? Who are they?”

She looked up at him—way up, since he had to be more than six feet tall—and searched his face. Who was this lifesaver who swooped in from nowhere? Was he one of them and this all a ploy to ruin her first event?

But she didn’t see anything crazy about him, only intense whiskey-colored eyes framed in thick lashes the same shade as his too-long hair and the shadow of a soul patch on his chin. Dangerous, yes, but not crazy.

“Who are the crazies?” he repeated.

“A group of zealots who call themselves the Armageddon Movement. Who are
you?
”

He smiled, adding attention-grabbing dimples to his growing list of attributes. “Adrien Fletcher.” He held out his hand, and she shook it. His palm was wide, strong, and masculine.

“Miranda Lang,” she replied.

“The famous author.”
Fie-mous oh-thah
. Oh, that was pretty. And just in case the accent weren’t endearing enough, he added a little wink, as if they shared an inside joke.

“Not so famous.” She released her hand. “No one’s ever heard of me.”

He pointed over his shoulder, in the general direction of the second-floor reading area. “Evidently those people have.”

“Fans like that, I don’t need.” She frowned a little. “Why are you here? You don’t look like a regular at readings.”

“I just wandered in a bit ago. I saw there was an author reading, and I was curious. Didn’t expect I’d have to work tonight.”

“Work?”

“I’m a security specialist.”

“Whoa.” She drew back, a half-laugh caught in her throat. “Talk about serendipity.”

“Talk about it,” he agreed, unleashing another blast of dimples.

They made her heart beat even faster than the rough crowd. She stood and smoothed her skirt. “I think it’s safe to go out now.”

“Not entirely, but we’ll check and then duck out.”

Disappointment dropped her back onto the chair. “My first signing, totally ruined. I won’t sell a single book.”

“Don’t be so sure.” He reached for her hand and tugged her up. Despite Miranda’s five-foot-six-plus-two-inch-heel height, they weren’t eye to eye. More like eye to soul patch. “Controversy is usually good marketing.”

Outside the stock room, only a few people meandered about, the commotion now over. Toward the front of the store she spied her table, the stack of books as tall as it had been when she’d walked in. A bottle of water sat in a ring of condensation, two pens next to it.

“Maybe I should just sign a few stock copies,” she said wistfully.

He nudged her forward with a shake of his head. “Not a good idea. Anyone could be waiting to renew their heated debate.”

“You’re right.” She walked with him to the front of the store. “Anyway, the night is spoiled, and over.”

“It doesn’t have to be over,” he said, his voice rich with implication.

At the cash register, the clerk held out a plastic bag to him. “Here you go, sir. The book you purchased.”

He nodded thanks, took the bag, and led her out to the dimly lit sidewalk. Then he opened the bag. “Would you sign it for me?”

“You bought my book? Before you heard me speak?”

“I thought they might run out.”

“Yeah,
that
was likely.” She found a pen in her purse and opened the cover, thinking of the right words to thank him and maybe impress him. She looked down at the open page, the pen poised. But all she saw was a piece of white paper with stark, dark letters across it.

Have dinner with me
.

She stared at the boldly written words. All confidence, all flair and total command. And no question mark at the end.

“For an expert in the nuances of language, you sure are taking your time,” he said.

She slowly lifted her gaze to meet his, drinking in the smile, the dimples, the twinkle of invitation and attraction in his eyes. “When did you write this?”

“When I saw you walk into the store.” He lifted one eyebrow. “C’mon, Miranda. At the very least, I can keep you out of harm’s way for a few hours.”

Under all that hair, an earring glinted. Under that tight T-shirt, a tattoo peeked. Under that lyrical voice, a man who had targeted her before she knew he existed.

He
was
harm’s way.

And for some reason, that appealed to her. “Yes. I’ll have dinner with you.”

“I
HAVE A
friend who calls this stuff truth serum.” Miranda lifted the sake carafe and offered it across the low Japanese table.

“I’ve a friend who calls it vinegar.” The ceramic container appeared tiny in Adrien Fletcher’s large hands. He poured deftly, filling both cups and offering her one. “
Kampai
, Miranda.”

“
Kampai
, Adrien.” She tapped his cup, then sipped the warm, sweet rice wine, noticing he only let it touch his lips. The liquid burned her throat and moved through her whole body.

“Most of my mates call me Fletch.” He stroked the sexy little triangle under his full lower lip. No doubt its only function was to tickle a woman when he kissed her.

“I’ll stick with Adrien,” she said.

“Suit yourself. So, have you ever been to Japan?” he asked, continuing the casual, friendly conversation he’d started as they walked to the sushi restaurant on a quiet side street off College Avenue.

“Not yet. But I’ve never been to a lot of places that are best reached by air.”

“You don’t fly?” He looked perplexed and disbelieving. “At all? Ever?”

“Nope. Never.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “If I knew why I have the phobia, I’d conquer it.”

“But isn’t an anthropologist, by nature, someone who likes to travel?”

“I travel by car and boat. I’ve been all over Central America for my studies, and I’ve sailed to Europe twice. Man saw the earth before there were planes. It doesn’t stop me from living.” She was rationalizing, dammit. “As a matter of fact, I’m going on a book tour tomorrow.”

“By car?”

She nodded. “A cross-country tour that lasts six weeks.”

“Six weeks?” He sounded genuinely disappointed. “Will you have some time off? Can you get back here at all?”

She picked up her sake and teasingly touched his cup. “We just met, Adrien. You want me to adjust my schedule for you already?”

He leaned forward, sending a zing of something earthy down to Miranda’s toes. “I’ll be gone in a month.”

She managed a
que será
shrug. Jaw-droppingly sexy men who pursued her with secret notes and intimate dinners didn’t land in her lap on a regular basis. Balding archeology professors who wanted to discuss the fine points of the hieroglyphics at Tikal and maybe get the name of her literary agent, yeah. Those guys were all over her. But this one…

“It’s a shame that you don’t fly,” he said, his lovely clipped consonants ricocheting over the table as he casually shook his hair back. “You’ll never see Tassie, then. Beautiful island, it is.”

Byu-ee-ful ah-lind. Byu-ee-ful voice. Byu-ee-ful man.
“I might see it,” she said. “There are whole Web sites devoted to getting us aero-challenged folks around. It takes some time, money, and creativity, but there’s a boat, train, or car to anywhere. Is that where you’re from? Tasmania?”

“Yes, but please…” His dimples deepened to deadly. “No devil jokes. I’ve heard them all.”

“I bet you have.” She closed the menu. “The sushi boat is great here. So, are you visiting, or do you live here now?”

“I’m in the Bay Area on business, but I make my home in New York. I travel a lot, so it’s not much more than an empty apartment and a place to crash after my Sunday ruggers match. Uh, rugby.”

“What does someone in the security business do, exactly?”

“I work for a company that runs investigations and threat assessments, developing security plans for high-profile individuals. Sometimes I protect them or escort them to dangerous places. Sometimes I merely find them. Sometimes I just warn them when they are in danger.”

“That’s interesting,” she said, cracking her chopsticks apart. “Who sends you off looking for these lost and endangered people?”

“Our clients”—he sipped his sake—“are confidential.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “How mysterious.”

“Not really. I’m basically a ridgy-didge bodyguard, which isn’t mysterious in the least.”

“But it is handy. You certainly were tonight.” She made a mock toast with her cup. “Thank you again for the rescue.”

His eyes glinted just enough to make her feel as if she’d already downed the whole carafe of sake. “Tell me about your crazies. Have you dealt with them before?”

“From what I can gather, the Armageddon Movement is a small community—online, mostly. I don’t know who runs it, but they fervently believe that the world is going to end in 2012, and the mission appears to be to recruiting members who buy into their dogma. They’re opposed to anyone who tries to speak sensibly about the Long Count calendar, since they’re hell-bent on convincing the world that it will end. As I said, crazy people. And they don’t seem to be too well organized.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “What happened in that bookstore was very well orchestrated. I had riot-control training in a former life, and that event was, in my professional opinion, choreographed to do exactly what it did.”

“To stop me?”

“To scare you.”

She straightened. “I wasn’t scared. I was embarrassed and furious, but not scared.”

“You should have been. Group threats like that have a tendency to escalate. A couple more of those people, one or two who get aggressive, and you’ve gone from a bit of heckling to seriously hostile in five seconds. You’d best watch your back on this book tour.”

Her stomach dipped. “I really don’t think they are a force to be reckoned with.”

“Is your tour schedule public?”

“Of course. It’s on my publisher’s Web site and mine. It would be counterproductive to keep a book tour secret.”

The waitress arrived, and he ordered sushi boats, then returned his full focus to her. “Is this the first time they’ve made physical contact?”

She thought about the question. Had someone actually made physical contact with her? “A few have approached me on campus, but I just don’t think they’re capable of…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” he asked, leaning forward. “What is it?”

“There have been some bizarre problems with my book already.”

“Like what?”

“A warehouse fire in New Jersey that burned thousands of books, and a derailed train that sent half my print run into a river in Tennessee.”

“And you thought these events were coincidences?”

“I wondered, but my publisher was convinced it was just really bad luck, and I want to believe that,” she admitted. “Although they didn’t reprint the lost copies.”

“You need protection.”

She dropped her forehead onto the heel of her hand. “Oh, please. I really don’t want to have this conversation.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to be afraid of them. Of
anything
.” A man like this would never understand. A big, tough, fearless man who probably faced danger for fun? “I don’t want to be paranoid.”

He shook his head. “It’s just plain insane not to have protection when someone is obviously sabotaging you. They’ll only get more aggressive.”

“Do me a favor,” she said. “Change the subject.”

“All right, then. Tell me, is your fear of flying why you stayed in Atlanta and did all your studies at Emory? So you didn’t have to get on a plane?”

He
knew
that?

Her expression must have given away her question, because he tapped the Page Nine bag next to him. “Your biography on the cover flap.” He leaned toward her and whispered, “You’re being paranoid about the wrong things and the wrong people.”

“Well, let’s see. I just got verbally attacked, publicly mortified, and royally screwed by a bunch of wack jobs who are determined to stir up some kind of Y2K mania over 2012. The head of my department, who holds my future in his hands, witnessed the entire thing. A complete stranger shows up and saves me, then reveals that he’d been waiting to pounce on me with a dinner invitation. At which point, he tells me I should be scared. Very scared.” She pointed a chopstick at him. “The list of things to be paranoid about just keeps growing.”

“I didn’t pounce,” he said with a grin. “I was the essence of subtlety with that move.”

The sushi arrived, and before she took her first bite, she asked the question she’d been wondering about. “You did ‘orchestrate’—to use your word—our meeting, didn’t you?”

“I did.” He dipped a tuna roll in soy sauce, then looked right into her eyes. “The moment I saw you, I wanted to…get to know you.”

Warmth that had nothing to do with the sake spread through her.

“And then I opened your book,” he continued. “And heard you read. And I realized you were not only beautiful”—
byu-ee-ful
—“but intelligent as well.” He tugged on the little gold hoop in his left ear. “I was immediately attracted.”

She couldn’t look away.

“And I still want to get to know you, Miranda.” His gaze sharpened with raw, potent sensuality. “As well as possible in the time we have.”

She’d never been seduced. Dated, kissed, and involved in sexual relationships, yes. But she’d never let anyone strip her guard, lay her down, and melt her bones for the sheer thrill of it.

Anticipation rolled from her head to her toes, along with something else. Desire?

“Then we’d better start getting to know each other, Adrien. I leave tomorrow morning at eight.”

He curled long, strong fingers around hers. “You go first,” he said quietly. “Tell me everything about you. Start with…where you were born.”

She gave a bittersweet laugh that masked her reaction to the electrical current of his touch. “Well, I’m not sure. I was born on an airplane.”

“Really.” He let go of her hand, his expression interested as he filled her sake cup. “Tell me. I want to know everything about you.
Everything.
”

This was when it got squishy.

Fetch had attempted direct, with the sheila in St. Louis who slammed him with an original birth certificate and papers that proved she’d already located her real parents. He’d tried sly, with the dog trainer in Detroit who also had researched her parentage and knew plenty about the Sapphire Trail babies; she’d already found her birth mother in Pittsburgh. In Vegas, he thought he’d hit pay dirt with a sweet newlywed by the name of Noreen, but her own birth mother had found her via the Internet, and they’d had a tearful reunion on her wedding day. He’d already lost ten of his thirty days.

He strongly suspected that Miranda didn’t have a clue she was adopted, since that tended to come up rather quickly in conversation. And given that she had buttercream for skin, smoke-blue eyes the color of a misty morning over Sydney Harbor, and mahogany hair wrapped in a knot thick enough to hint that it might be very long and quite fun to explore, all bets were off. And he had no intention of pulling out the guaranteed-to-cark-the-wine-buzz question:
Are you adopted
?

No. Tonight, he would do an investigation so heated by their undeniable chemistry that she wouldn’t even realize how much of her past she’d revealed. Then, after a bit of heavy pashing in the darkest corner he could find, he’d root around in the sack with her until he spotted the ink.

Then he’d tell her why he was there, and not one minute before.

Worst case? He had the wrong girl and a good time. He’d be off in a day or so for the next name on the list. There were only five left.

“So how is it,” he said, sliding into the easy opening she’d offered him. “that you were born on a plane?”

“My parents were flying home to Atlanta from Charleston.”

Charleston? Too right. “When was that?”

“July 31, 1977.”

Bingo! “So, what were they doing flying so close to Mum’s delivery date?” How she answered that question would tell him exactly what she knew about her birth.

She merely shrugged. “I don’t think they had strict rules about flying back then. People did all sorts of things when they were pregnant—including drink and smoke.”

“So, does your birth certificate say you were born…in heaven?”

She smiled. “I don’t think I ever noticed. Probably Atlanta. My parents have lived in the same house in a suburb called Marietta their whole lives.”

If she’d never noticed something on her birth certificate, then she was definitely in the dark about the adoption. Yet Miranda Lang, daughter of Carl and Dee Lang of Marietta, Georgia, was a Sapphire Trail baby. That much he knew from his list.

“Do you have any sibs?” Had the Langs adopted more?

She shook her head. “You?”

“A half-brother I never met.”

“You’ve never met him?”

“What can I say? My oldies are weird.”

“Oldies? Parents?”

“Sorry, bad habit. Too much strine.”

“Strine?” She waved a ginger slice on the end of her chopsticks. “Oh, I get it. Australyine. Strine. I like it.”

“You do?”

“I’m a sucker for accents. Remember, a linguist?”

“Remind me to spew a string of strine, then, just to impress you.” He winked, enjoying the flirtation.

She dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin but couldn’t hide a smile. “How long have you been over here?”

“Uh-uh,” he chided, tapping her knuckles as she reached for sushi. “Your life story is on the table now, not mine.”

“Sorry, but mine makes for pretty dull dinner conversation.” She finally shed her businesslike jacket and he stole a glance at the thin crepe blouse, the whisper of lace silhouetted under it, kissing a sleek collar bone and covering tiny breasts. She was bird-thin and narrow, and he wondered where the tattoo might be. He’d start where Aborigine babies were tattooed, on the bottom of her foot. And work his way up. Slowly. He took a deep drink of ice water, but it didn’t cool anything down.

“Being born on a plane isn’t dull,” he said.

“It went downhill after that.”

“The plane or your life?”

She laughed again, completely relaxed now. “Not downhill, exactly, but really not that interesting. I was raised in a suburb, home-schooled until I was sixteen, fast-tracked into Emory University, where I spent the next ten years amassing degree after degree, taking the occasional trip for postdocs and research, and finally getting an offer for an adjunct position at Berkeley. Last year, coinciding with the sale of my dissertation to a major publishing house, and much to my colleagues’ dismay and disdain, I made assistant professor. End of story.”