Into the Crossfire (7 page)

Somehow Sam Reston managed to make it not insulting but...arousing.

At any rate, he was certainly aroused. Those dark eyes were full of heat;

under the olive-toned skin of his sharp cheekbones was a faint wash of red, and it

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wasn't a blush of shyness.

There was pure sex in his look, powerfully potent, stronger than anything

she'd ever felt from a man before. It sapped the strength right out of her knees and

her hand went reflexively to the railing for support. She stood there for a long

moment under his heated gaze.

It was only a lifetime's intense training in diplomatic circles where you

never, ever showed your true feelings that got her feet moving again. She barely

felt them as she descended the stairs, watched by the big dark man sitting across

from her father.

It didn't help that he cleaned up fantastically well. During the course of the

day he'd managed to make it to a barber. An expensive one. His hair--long,

unkempt and greasy--was now shiny clean and beautifully cut, showing off the

elegant shape of his head.

She'd never seen him in anything other than torn, grungy jeans and filthy

tee shirts. Now he seemed like another man entirely, dressed in a well-cut

midnight blue suit, white cotton shirt and burgundy silk tie. Now he looked like

the businessman he was, and a highly successful one at that.

And that businessman watched her intently, step by step.

Her father, normally so astute and alive to the ways of the world, wasn't

paying attention. He'd been caught up in the conversation and was excited at the

company. Thoughtlessly, he reached for his whiskey and sideswiped the glass.

Oh no!

Nicole ran the few steps to her father, catching the glass just as it was about

to shatter on the table.

Her father looked appalled, the high color of joy gone from his face.

Nicholas Pearce, so graceful all his life, with an athlete's build and coordination,

which had been a pure gift from the gods because he never exercised, had become

clumsy. The tumors were robbing him of his fine motor control. The loss had

come so quickly, he often forgot he couldn't control his muscles. He pulled his

shaking hand back, stricken. He hated making a mess when it was just the two of

them. In front of company it was even more humiliating.

Nicole's heart gave a hard squeeze in her chest. She knew very well how

crushed he felt inside, to have almost spilled a drink in front of a perfect stranger,

a stranger whose company he was enjoying. Company was a real treat these days.

How lonely her father must be. He spent his days alone in a wheelchair,

with the housekeeper for company during the day and a tired daughter in the

evenings.

Losing weight, growing weaker, day by day.

Dying was so hard.

She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, picking up the glass, curving his

hand around it. "Sorry to be so late," she said to Sam Reston.

He'd instinctively started to rise to help her father, but a fleeting touch of

his shoulder as she passed by and he subsided. Smart man.

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"That's fine," he said easily. "It gave me an opportunity to talk to your dad,

here. We were both in Jakarta at the same time."

She casually held the whiskey glass to her father's lips, watching him out of

the corner of her eye. A slight tilt and he took a sip. She placed the glass back on

the table next to him, movements natural and unobtrusive. Her father had his sip

without making a mess, and without being humiliated.

"Doing slightly different things," her father said.

"Yes, sir, that we were." An unexpected smile broke out on Sam Reston's

hard face, the first she'd ever seen from him. She nearly did a double-take. It didn't

soften that hard face but it did highlight the strong features, making him look

almost...handsome. "Our doings were less respectable than yours, sir, but we were

still serving the same guy. Uncle Sam."

Oh God, he shouldn't smile, Nicole thought. No, no, no. She had schooled

herself to get through this evening purely as a thank you for opening her door

when she was so desperate, and because she'd given her word.

She didn't want to be attracted.

She didn't want this to be a date, not in any way. This wasn't a date, not at

all. She'd dithered over the dress simply because...because she always tried to look

as good as possible, it was in her nature. And the sucker punch to her stomach

when he'd turned to look at her? Surprise at seeing him in businessman mode.

She was perfectly prepared to spend a very boring couple of hours with Mr.

Muscle as a thank you, to pay off a debt. Drive with him to some bland restaurant,

eat white-bread food, listen to him talk about himself--in her experience, men's

conversations ranged from their jobs to their latest toys and back, seldom

deviating--lock her jaw so she wouldn't yawn, be driven back home, fend off the

gropes, say good night, be back in the house with a sigh of relief before ten.

Nothing she hadn't done hundreds of times before. Her standard date.

Spending an evening with a man who made her father laugh, and who had a

charming, rakish smile in him--no, that wasn't in the program at all.

Not to mention a man who could punch all the breath out of her body with a

mere look.

Nicole had no time for a man in her life. None. She had a very sick father.

He was deteriorating almost daily. Each day brought some new heartbreaking loss.

Keeping a serene facade for him while she watched him die, slowly, inch

by inch, was eating her alive.

Her entire life revolved around her father's illness, as she tried to keep them

afloat.

There was no time for a man, for a love life. The only things she could

allow into her life were caring for her father and work.

Sam needed to know that, as soon as possible. That look he'd given her

meant business. He had to know that there was no possibility of anything between

them.

He stood, bent over her father and briefly held his hand, pretending not to

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notice that her father's hand shook in his.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Ambassador Pearce. I look forward to

talking to you again."

Her father's cheeks were pink again with pleasure.

"The p-p-pleasure was a-all m-m-mine, I assure y-y-you." Pops was tired.

When his scarce physical resources ran down, he started stuttering. Nicole went

quietly into the kitchen and signalled to Manuela that it was time for dinner and

then bed.

Manuela came into the room with a broad smile, wiping her hands on her

apron.

Sam waited until Manuela was bent over her father and, with a nod of his

head and a murmured "ma'am" to Manuela, he took Nicole's elbow and walked her

out the door.

They descended the stairs and walked down the driveway in unison. Nicole

realized he was shortening his strides for her. He seemed to be somehow attuned

to her movements, though he wasn't looking at her at all. He was scanning the

street ahead. Still, she got the distinct impression that though his attention was

focused on the road ahead, he'd catch her if she were to trip on her very pretty and

very impractical sandals.

Across the street, the curtains of the window of the living room opened and

Creepy peeped out, then Creepier. She suppressed a shudder.

When her grandparents had bought this house in the early sixties, it had

been an upper-middle-class area, the perfect place for a couple to bring up a family

during the Kennedy years. Safe and ordered and prosperous. Nicole had heard her

mother talk often and affectionately about life on Mulberry Street, among families

that knew one another and socialized often.

But something had happened to the street after Meredith Loren grew up to

marry Nicholas Pearce and spend the next thirty-five years abroad. Nicole didn't

know whether it was because of demographics or economics or whether someone

had put a hex on the area. Whatever had happened, it had turned the whole area

into a receptacle for the lost and the hopeless, people on the last rung before

falling into the void.

The big house across the street where her mother's best friend had once

lived had changed hands twenty times and was now a run-down rooming house

owned by an absentee landlord and inhabited by the saddest people imaginable.

Poor single mothers barely scraping by, shabby middle-aged divorced men who

had just lost their tenth job in a year, the odd illegal immigrant keeping his head

down.

And, worse, it seemed to be Club Drifter--a place where angry, unbalanced

young men congregated and spat their rage at the world. There were two in

particular, one black and one white, both dreadlocked and heavily pierced, both

with pant crotches down to their knees, both either high or drunk at all hours.

Both fixated on her.

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If they happened to see her, it was like some inaudible signal had been

beamed to dogs. They'd stiffen, start whistling, calling out obscenities. Nicole's

only defense was to get into her car as quickly as possible, hit the locks, and pull

out, fast. The other day, horribly, the blond had moved fast and knocked on the

passenger-side window of her car just as she was getting in. She'd closed the locks

with a whump and taken off as quickly as she could, heart pounding.

The whole thing was incredibly...unpleasant, to say the least.

And there they were, both of them. Just her luck. As if the door closing

behind her were a secret signal, Creepy came out on the porch followed by

Creepier.

Sam felt her stiffen, followed her gaze, and tightened his hand on her

elbow.

They started with the cat calls and whistles, loud enough to pierce

eardrums. Nicole watched her feet and walked as fast as she could. Experience had

taught her that looking at them, acknowledging their existence, only made things

worse.

She and Sam walked down the street together as he calmly escorted her to

his car, a late-model, dark blue BMW. He seated her in the passenger seat and

walked around to the driver's side. He stopped for a second before getting in,

looking out over the roof at the two creeps grinning and whistling from the porch.

She knew what they were seeing. A guy dressed like a businessman

who...wasn't. When he'd seen the two, he had instantly morphed into the soldier

he'd been. Amazing. She'd been standing next to him, thinking he was so very big

when the air around him became supercharged and he grew even bigger.

The man had been a Special Forces soldier, a Navy SEAL, for God's sake,

and had won a chestful of medals. He beat Creepy and Creepier on the male scale,

hands down.

All she saw was a chunk of male torso through the driver's window but the

two creeps must have seen more, because the whistling and cat calls stopped, as

abruptly as if someone had put a hand around their throats and squeezed.

Males are, above all, animals. Herd animals, with a very keen instinct for

the alpha male and when to keep out of his way.

Just a minute's look, and the creeps' eyes were on the ground in

subconscious submission, another minute and they sullenly turned and slouched

back inside, slamming the front door closed.

Never, ever, in a million years could Nicole have achieved that, not even

with a gun in her hand, let alone with a look.

Sam got into the driver's seat, jaw muscles jumping. As soon as he was

seated, he activated the locks.

"It's truly a man's world," Nicole said, sighing. "I could never quell them

with a look."

"No, you couldn't." He shot a look at the front porch, then his gaze shifted

back to hers. He reached over her, pulled down her seat belt, latched it. His

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shoulders were so broad they blocked out the evening light from the driver's-door

window when he turned to her. "Is that their usual MO? Standing on the porch,

shouting and whistling at you as if you were a dog?"

"Yes." Nicole sighed. Tense muscles started relaxing again. It was almost

impossible to feel afraid inside the big, safe, locked car with Sam Reston at the

wheel. "I think that they have a very narrow behavioral repertoire."

His dark serious gaze met hers. "Are they escalating? Becoming more

forward? Because that's what punks like them do. Feel for the boundaries, then

push until you push back. You're not going to pull a gun on them. If you were, you

would have already. So they take one step forward. Then another."

Were they escalating? They'd moved in a month ago. Or maybe not moved

in. They just appeared, like mold, out of nowhere. The first week they'd stared out

of the front window at her. Then they came out on the porch and stared. It was

unnerving, but she dealt with it. By the time she got to the corner, she'd forgotten

they existed. The second week the whistles and cat calls started, together with rude

gestures. It took her the entire drive downtown to shake the disgust from her

system. The other day, when Creepy knocked on the car window, well, that had

been truly frightening.

"I think--I think they might be escalating," she said quietly. There. She'd

put it into words, that vague sense of unease hanging like a gray cloud in the back