THE PERFECT TARGET (24 page)

Just like he'd kept her safe.

She clung to him now, this man who had somehow swam a swollen river to find her, kissed him, loved him, knowing she'd never get close enough, not even if she crawled inside his skin.

Lightning brightened the church, thunder booming within seconds. Sandro pulled back abruptly, again took her face in his hands. His breathing was hard, labored, his mouth swollen, his eyes hot. "We've got to get out of here."

No. That's what she wanted to tell him. She wanted to stay, right there behind the old altar on the cold damp stone floor, sprawled between his legs. "I know," she whispered.

But he didn't move, just kept touching her, the longing and sorrow in her heart reflected in the steady burn of his gaze.

She tried to breathe, feared she might cry instead. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I—"

"Shh." The moisture was back in his eyes, making the dark oddly bright. "I left you no choice."

"I … I didn't expect Petros to be waiting."
Didn't realize I loved you.

Sandro let out a rough breath, frowned. "He probably put some kind of tracking device on the car," he said, and though he spoke gently, regret twisted through the words. "That's why we ditched it. I was going to get us new wheels in the morning." He paused, his jaw tightened. "I should have told you that."

She couldn't stand the self-recrimination in his voice. "It's not your fault. You're here now. We're together."

He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them a moment later. "I'm glad you didn't have to pull that trigger."

So was she. "I would have," she said. "I would have done anything to keep him from touching me." From touching what belonged to Sandro.

His hand was on her face again, gently stroking. "Killing another person is not a stain I want on your soul,
bella.
You deserve better than that."

There was a note in his voice she didn't understand, but that spoke to her anyway. Spoke to her deep. Her chest tightened. Emotion burned her throat. Slowly, she lifted a hand to his neck, skimmed a finger along the nasty, faded gash. "What of yours, Sandro?"

He glanced to the side of the altar, where Petros lay unmoving. "It's a little late to be worrying about my soul."

"You might as well ask me to stop breathing," she said through the hurt in her heart, determined not to let the tears break through. She tried to smile, knew she failed.

He stood abruptly, reached for her hand. "A man does what he has to do,
bella.
It's as simple as that."

She put her palm to his, rose to her feet. "So does a woman."

Even when doing so defied the very freedom she'd spent her entire life craving.

* * *

They drove south. They drove fast. They drove despite the driving rain and relentless lightning, the pounding thunder. They drove until sunrise chased the squalor away, the dark of the night giving way to an eerily beautiful storm-washed morning. The glare brightened the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds, the green of the grass, the red and orange and yellow flowers tumbling wildly alongside the narrow, single-lane road.

Sandro bit back a stream of virulent frustration. The vivid beauty contrasted sharply the dark, ugly edges inside him. The edges that continued to cut and slice even hours after he'd found Miranda crouched behind the altar in the old abandoned church. If he'd been just a few minutes later…

He tightened his hold on the wheel, his jaw. If his teeth weren't ground to bits by the time this was all said and done, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

Eyes burning, he glanced at Miranda, who lay sprawled across the front seat, sleeping. She rested her head in his lap, her hand curled around his knee. Her hair and clothes remained damp, despite the full blast of the heater.

His chest constricted painfully. Emotion stabbed his throat. She should have been out of the country by now. She should have been safe and warm and dry. She should be free. Instead she lay shivering in the front seat of a beat-up car, trying her damnedest to be brave, even though he'd seen the stark fear in her eyes.

It was that fear that had him taking matters into his own hands. He hoped to God and back Javier still lived, but could no longer be sure. Something inside him went cold at the thought, but he shoved the emotion aside, knowing it would only poison him now. He needed to stay sharp. He needed to stay focused. And his options were pitifully thin.

"My mobile phone," he'd said as soon as they'd retrieved his belongings from the castle. "I need my phone."

He'd seen the answer in Miranda's eyes before she spoke. "It's … gone."

They were so screwed. Something inside him had twisted, but he kept his expression blank, refusing to let her feel an ounce of remorse for tossing their only safe link to the agency, after discovering he'd removed the battery to prevent her from making a call that would place them in greater danger.

Now he had to rely on landlines, which meant he had to work through an elaborate network to keep calls from being traced. But he would do it. Because he had to.

For Miranda.

For the freedom she so desperately deserved.

He glanced in the rearview mirror, finding grim satisfaction in the deserted road behind him. No one followed him. Of that he was sure. Petros wouldn't be leaving the old church. When Miranda was safely out of the country, Sandro would call the authorities, make sure Petros was found and returned to his home country of Ravakia. He doubted anyone would truly mourn the man, but he hadn't lost his grip on humanity to the point where he wanted Petros to lie forgotten on the floor of the old church. True, a fundamental part of him had died that long ago, ominously beautiful morning in London, beneath a sky as starkly blue as the one above him now, but not the part that could let him take human life without feeling a shot of cold deep inside.

He just thanked God it was a feeling Miranda would never know.

"Sandro?"

He looked down at the sound of her sleep-roughened voice, found her gazing at him through those gypsy eyes of hers. They looked greener than usual, verdant, like the fields through which they drove. But red streaks marred the illusion. And the shadows beneath her lower lashes looked disgustingly close to bruises.

"Sleep well?" he asked as casually as he could.

She pushed up from his lap and ran her fingers through still-damp hair, glanced out the front window. "Where are we?"

"About a hundred miles away from where we were."

She wrinkled her brow. "Where are we going?"

Home.
"Somewhere I can get you out of those wet clothes."

She blinked, her eyes going even darker. "I'd like that."

He wasn't sure how he stopped from groaning. His whole body tightened, painfully, forcing him to keep his hands clenched on the steering wheel and out of her hair, off her flesh.

"And into dry ones," he amended. "I can't have you catching pneumonia on me."

He would have sworn she frowned. She watched him for an excruciatingly long heartbeat, before a soft little smile curved her mouth and damn near cut his heart out. "I'm not afraid," she whispered. "Not anymore."

This time he couldn't bite back the hard sound that broke from his throat. "Maybe you should be."

Her eyes almost seemed to glow. "Maybe," she said, tucking herself up against him. "But that's never stopped me before."

No, it hadn't, a fact which left him alternatingly terrified and fascinated. She approached life with a gutsy joy he'd never before encountered. She was fire and life and deserved the freedom she treasured above all else.

The very freedom he'd walked away from five years before.

A smart man would leave it at that. A smart man would keep his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road, his mind on the job. But Miranda was cold and wet and shivering, and no power on earth could have stopped him from draping his arm around her shoulders and drawing her close, holding her tight.

Under the circumstances, he figured, two out of three wasn't bad.

Twenty minutes later he hid the car in an old garage on the outskirts of a sleepy, white-washed village overlooking the Tagus river.

"We can shower up here," he said, as they exited an alley and faced what passed for a hotel in Coruche. "Change clothes, then hit the road again."

Miranda stopped walking, looked up to meet his gaze. "You're exhausted," she pointed out, skimming her fingertips along the increasingly dark stubble itching against his jaw. "When was the last time you slept?"

For some stupid reason, he felt his lips twitch. "If I recall, you made sure I slept for a good couple of hours last night."

He'd meant the words teasingly, but the shadow crossed her gaze so quickly, so violently, he would have given anything to grab the stupid comment back. "Miranda—"

"No," she said. "You're right."

"I left you no choice," he reminded. "You were doing exactly what I would have done in the same situation."

This time, the smiled quirked her lips. "What does that say about me?"

He didn't know how or why, didn't even know it was possible, but he laughed. "Good damn question." He refused to voice the answer that vaulted to his throat.

Kindred spirits.

They were about as kindred as shadows and sunshine.

Her eyes were sparkling now, but still heavy with a concern he didn't deserve. "You need sleep, Sandro. Maybe we should stay here longer."

"No." Because the word came out harsher than he intended, he softened it with a faint smile. "It's too risky, too public."

She held his gaze for a painfully long moment, searched deep, then sighed. "I trust you."

The words were soft, but they landed hard. It was what he'd wanted, what he'd maneuvered for these past several days. Her trust. But offered up like that, given so simply, twisted him up in ways he hadn't expected.

And couldn't afford to analyze.

"De hora?"
the motel manager asked a few minutes later. An hour? She was a large woman, slightly graying, with a knowing smile that speared straight through him. Sandro found himself grateful Miranda didn't understand Portuguese.

"Seem,"
he told her. Yes.
"Tem quartos livres?"
Have you any vacancies?

Her gaze slipped to Miranda, who stood by Sandro's side, silently holding his hand. She watched the two of them through wide, expectant eyes.

"Seem,"
the manager said at last.
"Tenho um quarto."

"Fico com ele,"
he practically growled, reaching for the key she handed him. I'll take it.
"Obrigada,"
he said in thanks, then led Miranda down the hall. He'd made sure the motel rooms had two methods of access, just in case. If someone came through the window, he and Miranda could leave through the door.

That wasn't going to happen, though. They weren't going to be here long enough.

"Problems?" Miranda asked, hurrying to keep up with him.

He thought about lying, didn't see the point. "Senora Lopez doesn't believe we just want to shower."

They were at the door now, and as he slid the key into the lock, he felt Miranda's gaze on him, hot and insistent, offering promises he would never allow her to keep.

"Smart woman," she whispered.

He shoved open the door and strode into the small but clean room. Now was not the time for afternoon delight, no matter how tempting the bed looked. Now was the time to get her warm and dry, make a few phone calls, kick the final act into motion.

That was all.

* * *

The late-afternoon sun chased them south. Streaks of light slanted through the branches of gnarled olive trees, casting long shadows across the bumpy dirt road.

Sandro stared straight ahead, one hand curled around the bottom of the steering wheel, the other resting with deceptive casualness in his lap. At his feet sat the attaché case with his submachine gun tucked safely inside. Dark sunglasses concealed his eyes but not the scratches on his face, and while a Hawaiian shirt again stretched across his shoulders, this one brown with little tiki idols scattered about, the illusion of casualness that had come before with the brightly colored shirts didn't form.

He looked … tired. He'd only wanted to spend an hour at the hotel, but she'd taken a deliberately long shower, taken a deliberately long time getting dressed. To give him time to rest, she'd told herself. That was all. The fact she'd left the bathroom door unlocked hadn't meant anything. The fact she'd stood naked under the spray of lukewarm water, sudsing up her body while listening for Sandro, meant nothing.

Nor did the fact that while she'd left the door unlocked while she showered, he had not.

Of course, she'd had to cuff her ankle to the bottom of the bed before he would agree to leave her alone long enough for him to shower. She'd volunteered to go in the bathroom with him, sit on the commode while he stood behind the flimsy curtain.

He'd looked at her like she'd volunteered to shove splinters beneath his fingernails.

So she'd stood outside the door to the bathroom, knowing she couldn't shuffle too far from the bed. But that hadn't stopped her from putting her hand to the knob, and turning.

And finding that he'd locked her out.

A sane woman would be thankful. Because after her own shower, she'd stood in the foggy bathroom, listening to him speak on the phone. She hadn't understood the language, but the hushed tones were universal. So were the short, urgent bursts.

Their time together was drawing to an end. She knew that. But with every corner of her heart she also knew that whatever his allegiance to General Zhukov, he wouldn't hurt her.

There are many ways to hurt,
bella.
Not all of them are physical.

She knew that, too. She also knew in a few days their paths would part. They could have no future. She would return to life as she knew it, and he, this complicated, enigmatic man by her side, would return to his.

There could be no shared path for the daughter of an American ambassador and the right-hand man of an Eastern European militant responsible for the deaths of eight highly trained U.S. operatives.