“I’ll leave you unconscious if you don’t watch it,” she warned. “I’m not in the mood to be teased.”
“Maggie, you may look like Miss Sweden and act like Superwoman, but you’ve got the personality of a king cobra. Don’t you ever lighten up?”
She thought about it for a moment. Every muscle in her body ached, her eyes were gritty and stinging, and she would have given anything to be able to dump Mack Pulaski at the nearest airport. But it wasn’t his fault, and normally she would have responded to his teasing with better temper. But she was too damned tired to make the effort.
“Pulaski, if anyone could ever die of jet lag, I’m going to be the one. I was in London twenty-four hours ago, and I didn’t get more than three or four hours of sleep a night while I was over there. I am so tired I could cry, and I’m sorry if I’ve been less than gracious, but that’s life and you’re going to have to put up with it. I’ll keep you safe but I’m not going to flirt with you. And it’s Denmark.”
“What?”
“I’d be Miss Denmark. My father’s Danish.” She pulled off the road in front of a low, rambling motel that had clearly seen better days. “You stay put—I’ll go register.”
His hand reached out and caught her arm, and she noted its strength with absent relief. He’d be able to hold his own if it came to that. “You stay put,” he said. “When married couples travel it’s the husband who registers, not the little woman.”
“Little woman!” she roused herself enough to snap.
“A definite misnomer in this case, but the idea’s the same. I’ll be right back.”
She watched him go with her mind in a fog. Someone could leap out of the bushes, shoot him in the back, and she’d just be sitting in the car like a zombie. Well, too bad. Until she got a few hours of sleep he was going to have to fend for himself. He was strong, so surely he could manage for just a few minutes while she sat here and closed her eyes. …
three
“Hawkeye, incoming wounded …” The voice blared into her unconsciousness, and she burrowed deeper, away from the sound. “Hawkeye …” Maggie rolled over, away from the noise, and then suddenly her eyes shot open, all her senses alert.
“Not Superwoman after all,” Mack’s raw skeleton of a voice came from a few feet away. “Have you decided to join the living again, Maggie?”
Maggie raised her head, looking around her in complete disorientation. She was
lying on a double bed in a motel room that had clearly seen better days. The paint was peeling, the color scheme was mud, the air-conditioning was complaining loudly enough to be heard over the black-and-white television with its interminable M*A*S*H reruns, and the bed beneath her closely resembled a sack of potatoes. Mack was lying stretched out on the second double bed, which filled the small room to bursting. He’d taken a shower, and drops of water still beaded his shaggy blond hair. The two weeks’ growth of beard was scraped clean from his chin, the sunglasses were reposing on the bedside table, and he was lying there in faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and bare feet. There was a very dark amber glass of Jack Daniel’s in his hand and an amused smile lingering around his mouth and lighting those warm hazel eyes of his.
“Wake up, little Maggie. I’ve got a sandwich for you from the sleazy little cafe. You won’t like it much, but I don’t think it’ll kill you. But I’m not sure if I’ll survive their chili.”
“Why did you eat chili? I would have thought you’d be sick of it by now,” she said wearily, pulling herself into a sitting position on the lumpy bed.
“I’m a glutton for punishment. Do you always sleep like the dead?”
“Not usually. What’d you tell the motel manager?”
“That we were on our second honeymoon and I was going to carry you across the threshold. I don’t think he even bothered to look.” He reached down on the floor beside him and tossed her a paper bag. “Eat hearty, and don’t ask me what’s in it. Figure it’s just one more price you have to pay.”
Maggie swallowed the mystery sandwich dutifully, washing it down with the glass of whiskey Mack provided. “You want to call a truce?” she said when she’d finished.
“I was never fighting, Maggie,” he said. “You must be feeling more human after your nap.”
“I am,” she said, leaning back against the headboard. “And more observant too. Who are you, Pulaski?”
“I’ve already told you who I am.”
“I don’t mean now. I haven’t gotten a really good look at you until now, and you look strangely familiar. I can’t get over the feeling I’ve seen you before.”
“You may have,” he said casually, draining his glass and pouring himself a healthy second dose. “Were you into rock ’n’ roll in the late sixties, early seventies?”
“Who wasn’t? Even in my early teens I had a thing for Jim Morrison. Not to mention—oh, my God.”
He grinned. “You do have good powers of observation, don’t you? I don’t think I’ve been recognized in years.”
“Snake,” she breathed. “You were the lead singer of the Why, weren’t you? With that glorious blond hair down to your hips. God, you were every teenybopper’s dream of heaven, in your leather pants and no shirt, leaping all over the stage. And that wonderful … voice …” She let it trail off, her enthusiasm draining. “Good God, what happened to you?”
“My run-in with friend Mancini,” he said with a shrug. “And don’t look at me with that shocked expression, Maggie. You know as well as I do that things were pretty wild back then, and I was whacked-out. Different woman every night, different drug every hour. Or maybe it was the other way around. I was an arrogant bastard, and I thought people like Mancini couldn’t touch me if I decided what they provided wasn’t the proper quality. A couple of his goons taught me otherwise. A kick in the throat can put quite a dent in a singing career.” He took another sip of his whiskey, and Maggie stared at him, unbelieving.