“I imagine it does,” Maggie said faintly. His eyes still hadn’t left her. Even after she turned and tried to concentrate on Jackson, she could feel them, feel their pull—a pull she recognized, even with her limited experience, as purely sexual.
“So poor Randall gets his kicks helping out,” Jackson had said, and his gaze flew back and forth between the two of them, not missing a thing, neither Maggie’s averted face and stiff back nor the intense, unreadable expression on Randall Carter’s aristocratic face. Jackson knew how to read faces, and he didn’t like what he saw. He didn’t like complications. “But you two won’t be working together,” he added abruptly. Randall finally looked away from Maggie and turned a quizzical expression toward the older man at the sudden change in plans. “Maggie, I can brief you just as efficiently as Randall can, and we don’t want to bore him with details.” He smiled his friendly smile that hid his barracuda nature. “Randall’s easily bored,” he added to Maggie. “As long as we keep him reasonably entertained, he’ll help us. So we try to spare him all the nitty-gritty of everyday life.”
“I don’t think I’d find Maggie boring.” His voice was low and mesmerizing, and Maggie lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes.
It was a heady experience. A sexual current was flowing between them, a hypnotizing threat that Maggie wanted nothing more than to succumb to. She’d avoided romantic involvements when they’d proved to be more trouble than they were worth. The man staring at her now was nothing but trouble, sheer, terrifying trouble, and normally she would have run. But not this time. She turned and faced him, an unconscious offering that said she was ready for the first time in years to take a chance.
“How’s the wife, Randall?” Mike said.
Randall had already learned to be impassive. He didn’t even blink. Maggie flinched and withdrew, physically, mentally, emotionally, pulling in on herself. “She’s fine, Mike. You already asked after her.”
“Did I?” Mike murmured. “I must be getting forgetful. Maggie, we’ll go over everything you need to know tomorrow. You won’t be heading out until next week—we’ve got plenty of time to get you settled.”
Randall wasn’t one to give up easily. “I think I’d do a better job,” he said. “And I’m at loose ends right now.”
But Maggie had skittered away, nervous and remote. Jackson gave her an approving smile. “We wouldn’t think of bothering you, Randall. Maggie and I will handle this just fine.”
But Randall had pursued her and had done everything he could to feed her attraction. He’d wanted her, wanted her like he wanted one of those damned works of art he collected, and he’d gone after her. And in the end he’d gotten her.
The quiet snore from the sleeping figure opposite her startled Maggie out of her memories. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned spending her first vacation in years, she thought with self-deprecating amusement, which was only a defense against the pain. Hauling bodies around and then wallowing in unwanted memories of Randall Carter. It would be enough to depress even the cheeriest person.
She reached for the bottle of Cutty Sark on the floor next to her chair, refilled her glass, and took a deep drink. She wasn’t used to drinking, and she would probably have a hell of a hangover tomorrow—when she’d have to handle the usually overwhelming arrival of her mother. But she’d be even more exhausted if she had no sleep at all, and the sudden reappearance of Randall in her life needed more than willpower to banish. Why the hell did he have to show up now, asking questions about grapefruit marmalade?
And why had he had to show up in Eastern Europe six years ago, just as everything was falling apart?
She’d managed to avoid him during the week before she left. Oh, he’d shown up in the office every now and then when she’d least expected it, and the feel of those dangerous eyes would pull her attention away from the maps and data she was trying to study, and she’d look up to see him, tall and perfectly clothed and somehow more threatening than any half-dressed savage. But Mike had run interference, more out of self-interest than the goodness of his heart, and Maggie had managed to keep her distance. She hadn’t been able to keep her imagination and fantasies under control, but no one knew. Except perhaps Randall Carter himself, who seemed to have th
e uncanny ability to read her mind.
She’d found out about his wife. It had been easy enough to do—Marilyn Carter was a beautiful, socially prominent brunette who appeared often enough in the social pages of the Post for Maggie to memorize her patrician features. She’d even cut her picture out and stuck it to her refrigerator door during that endless, hellish week, to remind herself. She should have cut Randall’s half of the picture off and thrown it away.
She’d taken off for Eastern Europe with a sigh of relief. Margaret Mullen, off to meet her husband Jim, a representative for Carter Industries who was currently scouting the market for exported automobiles. It would be an easy job, Mike had promised, more a vacation than anything else. Mullen would have done the hard part by the time she got there, and the detailed plans for several Eastern European missile bases would already be making their way back to Washington via another messenger. All she had to do was provide cover for Jim Mullen while they spent an innocent two days touring and then flew back to Washington.
Of course, it hadn’t worked out that way. No one had been at the small, seedy airport outside of Gemansk. It had taken her three days to find Jim. He had been holed up in a caretaker’s shed in a cemetery that was gruesomely appropriate. His shoulder where the bullet was lodged had already begun to swell and redden.
During those three days, she’d sent word back to Mike. She wasn’t supposed to rely on her own abilities—her orders had been exact. If there was a problem, she was to call them with the prearranged code and wait for further instructions. By the time she found Mullen, those instructions had come through: Wait for rescue. Someone would be coming.
First aid had been limited during the thirty-six hours she hid out in the shed with the wounded agent. Mullen had been in and out of a mild coma. He had ordered her to leave him when he regained consciousness and had lain sweating and shivering when he was out. Maggie did her best to warm him, did her best to clean the wound that had spread raw, angry red streaks down his torso, and tried to ignore the smell of rotting flesh as she waited in the darkness with tears streaming down her face. She had waited for rescue, hating her own impotence.
“Hey, Maggie.” It had been just before dawn, and Mullen was conscious again, if just barely so.
“Yes, Mullen,” she had said, pulling herself together and moving back to his bedside. She’d known him only casually in Washington, but in the last thirty-six hours he’d become intensely important to her. Somehow, some way, she had to get him home safely. Her peace of mind, her faith in herself depended on it.
“You gotta get out of here.”
“We’ve spent the last day and half arguing about this. I’m staying.”
“Look,” he said—and she could see the effort the words cost him—“even Vasili had the sense to get away after he brought you here. He can’t help the Resistance if he’s dead, and neither can you. You’re just going to go down the tubes with me—and for what? It’s too late for me; you know it and I know it. The only thing you can do for me is to get away from here safely.”
Maggie mopped his pale, sweating brow—a useless gesture that soothed her more than it did him. “I’ve told you before. My orders are to wait here for rescue. Mike Jackson would have my skin if I disobeyed, and you know it.”
He’d even managed a weak laugh. “He’s going to have mine, for screwing up so badly. Damn it, Maggie, you’ve got to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are.” She hadn’t heard him enter. Some secret agent she was—someone could sneak up on her without her noticing. He stood in the doorway of the shed with the dawn sky lightening behind him; it cast his tall body in shadow. She didn’t need the light to tell her who it was. She’d known, with a sense of fatality, who it would be.
He moved across the dirty little room and squatted down beside Mullen’s supine body. “How are you doing, Jim?”