Water From the Moon (16 page)

"Damn!" she said again. This was not the discreet little reception she and Paolo had carefully plotted, the one she’d counted on to let her sneak off into the sunset with Cameron. Somewhere along the line someone had mishandled things and leaked information. Someone whose head was about to roll, had messed up. Royally.

Already she could distinguish the government officials from the media; the latter were unholstering cameras, brandishing microphones. Cameron moved up behind her, and Acasia spun around, ripping her sunglasses from her pocket, pushing him back inside, snatching up a cap and pulling it over her ears.

"Sit tight," she muttered tersely. "We’ve got the whole damn Sioux nation coming down on us." She banged on the cockpit door. "Jules. Company."

Cameron shoved past Acasia, determined to see for himself what was happening. "What’s the matter with you, Casie? You’ve gone melodramatic again. This is Miami, not Custer’s last stand." He stared for a second then whipped back into the cabin even faster than Acasia had. "On the other hand, I thought you said this outfit was discreet."

"It is. Something’s gone wrong. Jules!"

The roar drew nearer, becoming a babble of indistinct phrases and barely discernible words.

"You weren’t expecting this?" Cameron caught Acasia by the shoulders. He was angry at her, but just looking at her was enough to fire his need.

"No! Paolo, a couple of guys from the State Department, the obligatory reporter or two… not this. This looks international, and it shouldn’t. You weren’t gone long enough for this. This will get in the way, Cam. I can’t… we can’t…"

"Mr. Smith, Channel Eight News…"

"Mr. Smith, World Express…"

"Mr. Smith, XTI Radio. Is it true…"

They could hear the various news teams beginning to identify themselves, shouting questions, vying with one another for first dibs on Cameron’s answers.

Cameron pulled Acasia into his arms, touching her mouth with his. "Don’t think about it. We’ll work it out."

"How?"

How. A simple word. An equally simple question. The kind for which Cameron simply had no answer.

The cockpit opened, and Julianna uncoiled her seventy–three–inch frame from its confines at the same moment that the first intruder came through the open door. With a quick push she shoved the newcomer inside, then followed him in and reached around to yank the cabin door shut. "Who left this open?"

No one answered.

The intruder shook the creases out of his cream–colored linen suit, and smoothed an olive hand through his disheveled array of curly dark hair.

"Nice threads," Cameron volunteered, straight–faced.

Ignoring him, Paolo stretched his neck painfully and turned to cast a pair of baleful brown eyes over his carrot–haired partner and pilot. "Remind me not to run into you alone in a dark alley."

"You should be so lucky." Julianna jerked a thumb at the door. "It’s cook’s day off, you know. You might have rung ahead to say you were bringing company for tea."

"Tea? Tea?" Paolo gritted his teeth. Patience was not a virtue available in large quantities among the partners at Futures and Securities, Inc. "Do you have any idea what I’ve dealt with since Monday? Zaragoza reported Smith killed, the wire services said he was kidnapped by a guerrilla band with expensive taste in cars—someone got video of that… that rescue stunt of yours, Jones—and I’ve got reporters up the wazoo because some rookie lunatic from Smith’s office sicced ’em on me." He glared at the three of them, and Julianna patted his arm and made sympathetic clucking noises.

Acasia rubbed Cameron’s arm nervously. "Trouble," she muttered.

"Appears so." His arm tightened around her. "I’m sorry, Casie."

"Me, too, but all this coverage… my work… it could compromise everything I do."

"You could give it up."

"Just like that? Be realistic. I can’t quit. I don’t think it would help us right now, anyway."

"There has to be a way."

"Think of one. I’m game."

"You guard bodies, right? Guard mine."

"Too much exposure."

"Not from my viewpoint."

Acasia’s lips curved wryly. "Cute. Too much press."

Cameron shrugged. "Made you smile."

His knuckles scraped her jaw, and he drew her forward. Their mouths met, lingered. Then they released each other, withdrawing from such intolerable nearness.

Dumbfounded, Paolo tried to form words, failed. He looked at Julianna, who blinked expressively. "What went on down there?"

"The short version?"

Paolo nodded.

"Auld Lang Syne." The law according to Julianna: Never use ten words when three will do.

Paolo bit back his anger. "So this has all been personal." He didn’t even make it a question.

"Mmm."

"Swell." He viewed Acasia through the veil of irritation he reserved for people he normally respected. "You generate any other Auld Lang Syne down there I should know about, Jones?"

Acasia eyed him without a flicker. "What may or may not have happened of a personal nature on this trip is none of your business."

"The hell it isn’t! Anything that interferes with your edge is my business. Anything."

"There wasn’t any other choice. You said so yourself."

"Nuts." Paolo made a gesture of frustration. "Well, I guess it’s a good thing you’re needed in Milan."

"Milan?" Acasia’s jaw set. She knew that portion of the world rather better than she liked. Paolo’s family was from Milan. Normally that wouldn’t have registered, but today Lisetta was as close to her as Cameron. "I’ve got a meeting in Costa Rica Friday afternoon."

"Not anymore. I scrubbed it. The merchant banker’s kid disappeared again, and this time it looks real. DeSantes asked for you by name. And while you’re in the neighborhood, you can look in on the London office for a couple of years… sit at a desk, stay out of trouble. You—" he turned to Cameron "—have a lot of rubble to clear up. We’ve got a press conference to handle—there have been a lot of questions about the mine deal you went down there to set up. The State Department wants to get you debriefed pronto. They’ll start on you here and finish up in Washington."

A hollow banging from outside drew his attention before he went on. "The press will ask how you got out of Zaragoza. Blame it on anyone but us. No names. I’ll be with you, but I’m a security consultant attached to your office, period."

Outside, the noise escalated. Acasia carefully separated herself from Cameron.

"This thing in Milan," Cameron said, and Acasia looked at him. "It’s a kidnapping?"

She nodded.

"Anything like mine?"

"I hope not."

His mouth tightened. "And what will you do about it?"

"Work with our negotiator to get the victim home safely. I won’t know how till I get there." She turned to Paolo. "You booked my flight and brought my bag?"

Paolo nodded. "And the case file. You’ve got an hour. Your flights go New York to Paris to Milan. Goddard will meet you."

"Fine." Acasia peered blankly at the briefcase Paolo handed her, knowing how Cameron watched her, wishing she’d chosen to do anything else with her life. Wishing there had been another choice.

"Acasia." There was a wealth of emotion in Cameron’s voice, and she shied away from it, keeping a tight rein on her control.

"It’s what I do, Cam. I can’t walk away. People depend on me, on this business—and I believe in it. I won’t risk leaving it behind. I can’t. I have to go." She gazed steadily at him, and he returned the look.

"Leave it, Smith," Paolo advised him. "We’ve got to get moving."

Cameron’s jaw clenched, but he nodded, his eyes on Acasia, "When you’re done, call me. Just so I know."

"You’re sure you want me to?"

"Yes."

Acasia removed her sunglasses and lifted liquid purple eyes to him. "I’ll call."

Cameron bridged the distance between them to catch her roughly in his arms. She folded hers around him, rubbing her cheek over the side of his face, kissing his left ear. Paolo and Julianna moved away to give them a moment’s privacy.

"I’ll think about you," Acasia said.

He cradled her head in his palm, his cheek rubbing her hair. "You’d better believe I’ll think about you, too, lady. Let’s not leave it at that, huh?" He took hold of her upper arms to push her away. "Be care—" he began, but Acasia kissed him quickly, putting a stop to the word.

"Don’t say it, or I might be," she said, and left him.

And Cameron understood. Being careful could get her killed. "Then I guess you’d best be good." He brushed her cheek with a fleeting kiss. "See ya, lady."

Julianna shoved the door open and let in a blast of heat–drenched air and voices. Acasia caught Paolo’s lapel and pulled him aside before he could go.

"You’ll take care of him?"

"You wrote the procedure, Casie," Paolo reminded her quietly. He tried to turn, but again Acasia stopped him.

"Dominic is alive," she said softly, "and he’s not very happy that I am, too."

Paolo jerked his coat out of her hand. "Is there anyone you know who you didn’t run into in Zaragoza?"

"I exchanged threats with Angelo, but I missed saying hi to Sanchez."

A single blistering obscenity hit the air. Paolo spun on his heel and headed for the door.

"Paolo."

"It’s already done," he said without looking at her. He stepped into a streak of sunlight and took a deep breath. Behind him, Cameron stood, not quite ready, but waiting. Again the reporters took up the cry.

"Mr. Smith, tell us…"

"…who drove the car…"

"What do you plan…"

"Did your rescuer come…"

"Back off, back off, let him out," Paolo told them.

Acasia slid her sunglasses on. "See ya, Cam," she whispered.

He quirked an eyebrow, winked at her and then was gone into the excited babble, surrounded by watchful men in dark suits and white shirts, followed by microphones, cameras and newsmen. The entire entourage shimmered away into the blazing sun, leaving behind the dregs of sound and a lone reporter in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, festooned with cameras. Acasia kept to the shadows, watching Cameron grow smaller, and felt chilled to the bone.

Julianna coiled her long red braid under a baseball cap, following the path of Acasia’s gaze. "Nice guy." She reached into her breast pocket for some gum and handed a piece to her friend.

"Yeah."

Well, she’d really done it this time, Acasia thought. Everything she’d ever vowed not to do, and then some. How could she have said all that to Cameron, convinced herself it was all right as long as she didn’t make promises? How could she have been so stupidly, childishly, blindly hopeful? She’d been a cynic for such a long time. How could she have let it happen? Falling in love, being in love, loving… There was no way she could have prevented it, no way she would have, even knowing that emptiness would follow.

This is what I do. This is who I am.

For years she’d used the words as explanation, excuse, reason, apology, not because she always believed they were the truth. Here was where you drifted if you had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, no one else who waited. Here was the place you left when something better came along. Here was the ever–changing sameness of hotel rooms and waiting games, boredom and intrigue, life and death and stupidity.

Here was her choice.

She jumped out of the plane after Julianna, automatically readjusting her cap and blowing a bubble with her gum when the leftover reporter raised a camera to snap a picture.

"Hey! You two know anything about the guy who pulled the rescue stunt on Smith? I’d like an interview. Give you fifty if you can tell me where he is."

"Sorry, mate," Julianna said around a huge pink bubble. "We’re just the postal crew. Pickup and delivery, that’s it."

"Some crew." His eyes wandered appreciatively up and down the curves their coveralls only alluded to. "Buy you both a drink? You must’ve spent some time talking with Smith. Man’s bound to’ve said something… anything."

"Yeah, he did. Asked us what we normally carry. We told him horses ’n’ grooms. That’s it. He slept the whole way."

Hard at work, the journalist’s innate skepticism wouldn’t let him accept Julianna’s word. "That so? Mind if I look inside your plane?"

Julianna shrugged. "Just keep your fingerprints to yourself."

They waited, leaning against the aircraft, while the reporter went inside to satisfy his curiosity. Acasia flicked perspiration off her neck and scrubbed a hand over her face, trying to wipe away the dread that accompanied letting Cameron out of her sight.

She backed into the shade of the wing, leaned against the plane and pressed her forehead to her arm. A pitiless, if somewhat angst–ridden, self–examination of her character and its weaknesses filled her mind. She’d left a huge amount of unfinished business behind her on this trip, business that was likely to haunt her in the future. And it didn’t thrill her to look back and realize how much she’d left undone in her life. She’d never thought of herself as a woman who didn’t follow through and complete a project once she’d started it. Now she saw tattered edges everywhere she looked.

Everything she did—retrieval, security consultations, negotiating—was centered on someone else’s existence, on someone else’s demands. In essence, what she did was come in and clean up little chunks of people’s lives, then turn the aftermath over to someone else for polishing. In, out, gone. She acted as a crutch, entering other lives at their lowest point, seeing too many people at their weakest and most vulnerable, never staying long enough to see how what was broken mended—or if it did. She had little experience with follow–through in anyone’s life, least of all her own. If it weren’t for the course she’d chosen…

But she hadn’t chosen her life; it had chosen her. And somehow she’d gotten used to it, and it had become a habit. An obsession.

She turned and punched the plane’s fuselage, but the ensuing pain in her knuckles didn’t alleviate the turmoil inside her. How did two people build a life together when they’d each already built separate, and completely incompatible, ones?

"Damn," she muttered.

Julianna walked over and peered at her shrewdly, but the reporter reappeared before she could say anything.