THE PERFECT TARGET (22 page)

But that wasn't going to happen.

Because
he
was the nightmare, the worst-case scenario her father had warned her and Elizabeth about repeatedly.

"Then what?" she forced herself to ask.

A ghost of a smile replaced the frown. "Come on,
bella,
who are you trying to kid? I know you. The second I close my eyes, you'll be on your feet and running for the boat. And I can't let you do that."

She blinked several times. "Can you blame me?"

He hesitated only a moment before answering. "No," he said in that hoarse voice of his, the one scarred by the sharp object which had slashed across his throat.

Instinct told her he harbored more than physical scars.

"I can't." Grim-faced, he crossed to the fireplace and resumed his work.

Miranda took advantage of his distraction and knelt before the knapsack. "Ready for some water?"

His back to her, he put his lighter to the makeshift pile of kindling. "That'd be great."

Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she leaned over and quickly twisted off the lid, then slid her hand into the pocket of the shorts she'd pulled on back at the house and pinched the little white grains she'd been steadily grinding since she'd found the sleeping pills while looking for granola. Just as quickly, she dropped the granules into the bottled water, closed the lid, and started toward him, deliberately stumbling and sending the bottle careening across the hard dirty floor. That was the closest she could come to shaking the contents without drawing his suspicion.

"You okay?" he asked, pushing to his feet.

She feigned embarrassment. "Fine, just tired."

He studied her a moment before going after his water, then unscrewed the lid and put the bottle to his mouth. One long swallow and almost half the liquid was gone. She saw the brutal slash across his throat bob as the water slid down, saw the fledgling firelight glint off the sheen of moisture on his lips.

"You must be thirsty," she said.

He shoved a hand through the swath of dark hair that had fallen across his forehead. "Thirsty, hungry, tired as hell, not to mention wedged between the mother of all rocks and the papa of all hard places." He paused, finished off the water, then settled down in front of the fire and stretched out his long legs, patted the hard ground beside him.

"Come get warm," he said.

She blinked, felt her heart thrum in anticipation. Everything inside her felt tight, strained, like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point. And she desperately feared that if she snapped, she'd spring straight back toward Sandro.

"You don't act like a kidnapper," she practically growled.

Please.

His lips twitched. "Would you feel better if I was mean to you?"

No. She'd feel better if every time she looked at him, her heart didn't slam against her ribs. If every time she heard his voice, her breath didn't jam in her throat. If every time she thought of the way he'd held her in the wine cellar, how badly she'd wanted to make love with him, her eyes didn't fill.

Let It Happen.

She moved jerkily across the room, putting as much distance between them as he would allow. "You don't want to know what would make me feel better, trust me."

Fast.

Sandro watched her like she was an exotic dancer peeling off her clothes one garment at a time. He actually smiled, damn it. Faintly. Appreciatively. "Anyone ever told you you're beautiful when you're agitated?"

His voice was thicker, almost slurred, his eyes heavy. And something deep inside Miranda started to bleed. She didn't want to be beautiful for him. She didn't want to be anything for him. And she didn't want him to be anything for her, either.

Not even a memory.

Heart pounding mercilessly, she watched him watch her, watched him blink, watched the tight lines of his body gradually relax. She kept walking back and forth, doing her best to imitate an amulet swinging hypnotically on a chain, and finally his eyes drifted shut, and his body slumped to the ground.

And Miranda sprang into action. She rushed to his side, dropped to her knees. "Sandro?"

"Bella?"
he muttered, reaching for her.

She shivered when his big hand found the exposed flesh of her thigh. She hadn't realized how cold she'd become until the heat of his palm seared into her. "I'm here," she whispered.

"Y-y-ou're c-cold. L-lie with … m-me."

Her throat tightened. And for a moment longing poured through her like floodwaters rushing from a broken dam to wipe out an unsuspecting valley. She wanted to do as he asked. Lie with him. Feel the heavy weight of his arm draped over her, his breath against her flesh, the rhythm of his heart. The rhythm they'd danced to. She wanted him to be just a man, her just a woman. She wanted the freedom she'd found only in his arms.

Her eyes filled, but she swiped back the tears. "Sandro?"

Nothing. No slurred words, no movement of his fingers against her thigh.

Robotically, she reached for his duffel bag and fished around inside, finding the precious mobile phone and the car keys. From his briefcase she helped herself to his semiautomatic and the small handgun he kept as backup. She didn't plan on using the weapons herself, but if he came after her, she couldn't bear the thought of facing Sandro with a gun in his hand.

She started to leave then, but the firelight glinted on a shiny surface, forcing Miranda to go very still. She knew what she had to do. No matter how badly she didn't want to, no matter how coldly furious he would be with her, she had to put those cuffs on him. Otherwise he would come after her.

She blinked at the ridiculous moisture clouding her vision and with the detached precision she'd learned from him, searched his bag for the keys.

Instead she found Virgil.

This time, the moisture spilled over, no matter how violently she blinked.

I really did have a dog named Virgil.

And he'd loved him. That much was undeniably clear. No matter what else had gone down in Sandro's life, he'd once been a boy who had loved a dog. A dog who'd bestowed upon him the same unconditional love as his grandfather. Unconditional love Miranda instinctively knew he'd not found anywhere else.

But something had gone horribly wrong in the life of that young boy who'd nursed a sickly, abandoned, unloved dog back to health. Something inside
him
had broken, and no one had been there to fix it, fix the man he'd become.

Forsaken.

Miranda squelched the foolish thought that maybe
she
could be the one to make a difference in his life and forced herself to continue searching the bag. Locating the keys, she returned to Sandro, ignoring the way he looked sleeping, his dark hair falling against his forehead. He looked almost … at peace.

Longing stabbed in again, sharper than before. Betrayal bled through, as cold and irrevocable as death. She'd let down her guard with this man. She'd danced with him, put her head to his chest and lost herself in the feel of his arms around her, his body pressed to hers, the two of them moving as one. She'd listened to his heart thrum. She'd let the heat of his body warm her. She'd marveled at the feel of his mouth moving against hers, kisses that alternated between excruciating tenderness and mind-numbing passion.

She'd wanted to be naked with him. She'd wanted to touch every inch of him, to have him touch every inch of her. She'd wanted to feel him over her and underneath her, inside her. She'd wanted to make herself his. She'd felt free with him. For the first time in her life, she'd felt beautifully, exquisitely, gorgeously free.

But all along, she'd been a prisoner.

And all along he'd wanted only to play her for a fool. It had been a game for him, an act, a skillful way of maneuvering her where he wanted her, as putty in his hands.

She touched his shoulder anyway, where a bullet had grazed him back on that first day. Then she skimmed her finger along his cheek and the whiskers shadowing his jaw, fought the crazy desire to touch his mouth. With hers.

To kiss her kidnapper goodbye.

Crazy.

The rubber band was about to break, she knew, snap clean in two. She forced herself to act quickly and without emotion, bringing the cuffs to his wrists and closing the jaws around his big bones. They fit snugly, manacles digging into flesh.

She couldn't let herself care.

Pocketing the key, she pushed to her feet and ran from the warmth of the fire, toward the chill of the gaping stone doorway.

Freedom lay just beyond, she knew.

Not in his arms.

* * *

Miranda jabbed the paddle into the water, saying a silent prayer when she connected with the muddy bank below the surface. The current had knocked her downriver, but here, at last, she was making her way toward shore. Her arms stung from exertion, her muscles no match for the violent pace of the water. She pulled the boat toward the oar, almost wept when she felt the bump against solid ground.

Soon, she would reach the car. And freedom.

Onshore, Miranda took only a moment to orient herself. First, she would follow the river back to the castle. She hated the extra time that would involve, but if she stood a chance of finding the car, she had to start from familiar territory.

Rain fell harder now, steady sheets plastering her hair and her clothes to her body, but she didn't care. She ran. Over broken tree limbs and washed-ashore debris, through mud and puddles. Didn't care. Only ran.

The phone, she remembered with a jolt. She had Sandro's phone. She could call the embassy, her father.

Excitement coursed through her as she fished into her bag for the small black phone. And when her fingers closed around it, the punch of relief almost knocked the breath from her lungs. She hurried along the shore, trying desperately to figure out which button turned the phone on. She pushed them all, but nothing happened. Finally she stopped, waited for lightning. Saw the on button. Pushed.

But nothing happened.

"No," she whispered, but when she turned the phone over, she saw that the battery had been removed. No doubt by Sandro the thorough. No doubt to ensure she couldn't outsmart him.

But she had, she reminded herself. She'd gotten away. She'd used his deceit against him. She could only imagine how he'd planned to use the sleeping pills against her.

Frustrated, she dropped the useless instrument to the riverbank and pushed on, until the otherworldly outline of the castle came into view. Lightning flashed, casting the ruins in silhouette.

Somewhere inside that crumbling stone wall, Sandro slept.

Alone.

Forsaken.

She turned abruptly and headed into the woods.

* * *

Someone was knocking at the door. No, they were pounding. Loudly. Furiously.

Go away, Sandro thought, but then instinct kicked through the blanket of fuzziness and he bolted upright. Not knocking. But thunder. Rumbling not through a house or a hotel room, but the old castle.

He blinked against the dryness of his eyes, brought the stone room into focus. It was cold now, dark, the paltry fire long gone.

Miranda.

He lunged to his feet and spun around, searching the room. Finding nothing.

"Miranda!" He listened for a response, heard only his voice echo through the castle walls. And he knew. God help him, he knew.

She was gone.

On the floor, his knapsack lay open, contents spilled around it. Sandro reached down to inventory what she'd taken, only then realizing she'd done more than just run. She'd tried to incapacitate him. His own handcuffs bound his wrists. And before he even sorted through his bag, he knew the sleeping pills were gone. So were the keys, the phone, the handgun. And when he looked to the right, there by the corner of the fireplace, he saw his attaché case open, his semiautomatic missing.

And his blood ran cold.

Adrenaline spewed through him. He had to find her, find her fast. He found a rock first, smashed the handcuffs against the sharp edge. Over. And over.

But nothing happened.

Swearing, no time to waste, he gathered his things and ran outside, not surprised to find the boat gone.

And this time, it was his bones that felt the chill.

The river was angry tonight, swirling and fast. He'd had to fight the current on the way over. Miranda…

Cristo.

He quickly searched the perimeter of the small island, but found no flotation devices. When he saw the plank of wood, he knew he had only one choice. His bound wrists would prevent him from using his arms to swim, but with his hands holding onto the wood, at least he could keep himself afloat while he kicked. Fifty yards. He could do that. He grabbed the plank, ran to the dock area, and dove into the dark swirling water.

Icy needles stung every inch of his body. The brutally strong current knocked him downstream, but he fought back, kicking hard, fighting for breath but getting mouthfuls of river water instead. He refused to think about Miranda in a similar struggle, but found his eyes scanning the wide river anyway, looking for any sign of the small rowboat. Finding none.

Thirty yards to go. More lightning. Thunder rumbling.

Twenty yards to go. A branch careening downriver, slashing his leg.

Ten yards. Five. Then shore. His feet sank in the mud the second he planted them. Shaking the hair from his face, he turned upstream and ran along the riverbank. And when at last he reached the dock area, he almost went to his knees.

Because there in the mud leading into the woods lay a single set of tracks.

* * *

Miranda broke through the clearing and said a silent prayer of thanks. She'd been running for a seeming eternity, the rain having long since destroyed any tracks Sandro hadn't erased in the first place. All the trails looked alike, old trees and clinging vines, and they'd all led in seeming circles.

Still, she'd run.

And now, she'd found the clearing where they'd begun. She rushed to the overgrown bushes, behind which waited the no-nonsense car. Almost deliriously, she jabbed the key in the lock and turned. Or at least tried to. Nothing happened. The key didn't turn in the lock. She tried again and again, same result.