On Thin Ice (Ice 6)

She looked up, in his direction, not meeting his eyes. “Are they . . .?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Dead, or close to it. They won’t bother us. I need to find you something to wear.”

“Yes.” Her voice was lifeless, expressionless. Good. Shock would make things easier until they got aboard the Martha Rose. Dylan was already there waiting for them, unless he’d decided to exert his independence. If so, fuck him. He’d killed too many people for his little chicks, and he couldn’t do it any more.

He found an ancient, flowery dress in one of the other rooms, brightly colored and much too big for her, but it would provide some cover, and the cheap flip-flops would protect her fee

t, at least until they got to the ship. He threw it at her, but she didn’t move, simply sat there in stunned disbelief.

“There’s no time for this, Sister Beth,” he said, knowing kindness wouldn’t help. “I tried to get rid of as many of them as I could, but that doesn’t mean some of them might not come back to see what fun they might be missing. Put on the fucking dress.”

She fumbled with it, awkward, and he came over to her, impatient. She flinched, which ticked him off even more, because he knew he’d screwed up, but he hauled her up anyway, his hand rough, and pulled the dress over her head. He didn’t want to see her breasts. Small, soft, perfect breasts with pale nipples in the shadowy room. He wanted to put his mouth on them, he wanted to rip off those sensible panties and really take her. He made do with monosyllabic noises, shoving the flip-flops at her.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, heading for the door. If he moved her quickly enough she wouldn’t look in the tiny kitchen and see the bodies of the three men. She wouldn’t notice the blood smeared on the floor, or the stink of death in the air.

But the blood was the first thing she saw. She looked around her in a cold panic and saw the feet sticking out of the kitchen doorway, and she started to scream.

He had no choice. He slapped her, for real this time, hard enough to shock her out of her hysterics, not hard enough to hurt her. Her scream was cut off, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears and what he knew was fierce hatred. “We don’t have time for squeamishness,” he snapped. “Once we’re on the freighter you can scream all you want.” He reached for her arm, but she tried to avoid him, pissing him off even more.

He caught her in a hard grip, yanking her against him. The dress was huge on her, the neckline gaping, and he cursed, pulling it back over her shoulders so the sight of her breasts wouldn’t distract him. “Put your head against my shoulder and pretend you’re in love.”

The sound she made in response to that was reassuring. Her contemptuous disbelief was the sound of someone who was pulling herself together, and he wanted to pull her closer, to kiss her again. He didn’t.

“Vamanos,” he said in Alcista’s rough baritone. And they headed out into the stifling afternoon heat.

The heat wrapped around Beth like a shroud, thick and liquid. MacGowan had her clamped to his side, and if anyone looked too closely she sincerely doubted they would mistake them for lovers. In the late afternoon sunlight she took a good look at him. He hadn’t even bothered with a disguise; it was more the way he had carried himself. He was still underweight from his time in the mountains, but as Alcista he seemed hulking, menacing, a thick-set brute of a man. He was someone else now, not the Bull but not MacGowan either. He had the sunglasses covering most of his face, dirt smeared on his face, and his hair was slicked back with something that made it look almost black.

“Stop looking at me,” he growled, mashing her head back against his shoulder.

Son of a bitch, she thought, trying to summon up a righteous rage. He’d . . . he’d . . . the memory of his arousal under those awful circumstances was appalling. The fact that he’d . . . finished was even worse. She should be furious, and of course she was. What she couldn’t understand was the strange hint of something else in her reaction to his disgusting behavior. A feeling, almost, of tenderness.

She didn’t like sex. She didn’t make a habit of admitting that – women looked at her with pity and men decided they had a mission to change her mind. Not everyone was cut out for passion, and she knew her blood ran cooler than most people. Her emotions were reserved for friends, for children.

There was no question she’d fantasized about MacGowan. Even if she knew from experience that lovemaking wasn’t for her, she could still toy with the idea that if she were different, if things were different, if she were ever to take a lover, it would be someone like MacGowan. Someone tough and tender, someone with high cheekbones and flinty gray eyes and a lean, strong body.

It was no wonder that she felt a stray tendril of reaction from their simulated sex. Well, not simulated on his part.

Not that she was going to let him know that. She would spend the next day or two in offended dignity, enough so that he would never bring the subject up. And Dylan . . .

She yanked her arm away from him, coming to a dead stop. “Where’s Dylan? Did they kill him?”

“He’s already on the ship.” He tried to pull her back against him but she managed to skitter out of his way, yanking up the shoulder of the dress before it dropped perilously low.

“Is he all right?”

He looked at her. He’d been dragging her through a series of narrow alleyways, all of them deserted. This one was littered with trash and old boxes, the flies were buzzing loudly in the quiet afternoon, and it smelled like rotting meat. Rotting meat, she thought, picturing the dead men in that stifling apartment, and she almost threw up. “Now isn’t the time to hold a conversation,” he snapped. “He’s fine, but we won’t be if we don’t . . . fuck.” The final word was low and vicious, and she flinched.

It was insane, that words would still affect her after all the things she’d seen. But at that moment she was teetering on the ragged edge of control. One more curse, one more yank on her arm and she’d shatter. “Would you mind?” She was astounded at how icily calm she sounded. But then, she’d been perfecting her controlled mask for years. “I think I’ve had enough cursing for the day.”

He moved quickly, coming up to her fast, pulling her into his arms like a lover suddenly overcome with desire. In the middle of a trash-strewn alleyway. His hand was between their bodies, and she felt the heavy metal of the gun in his hand. It was cold – how could it be cold in this heat? He put his mouth to the side of her face, by her ear, and to an observer it would have looked as if he was kissing her. “When I tell you to, run,” he said in an undertone. “Even if I fall, just keep running. If I don’t catch up with you I’ll send someone else.”

She was as cold as the gun now. “What’s happened? Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer, simply turned, shoving her behind his back as he faced the figure at the end of the alleyway. There was a moment of silence, and she had the sudden image of two gunfighters facing off at high noon. “Long time no see, MacGowan,” the man said. American, and she knew she should feel relief. She didn’t.

“Sully. What are you doing here? Part of the welcoming committee?” He sounded cool, unconcerned. He wasn’t hiding the gun he held.

“You might say so. Put the gun away, Mac. I didn’t come alone, and I don’t necessarily have to take you alive.”