James rose, turning to face her for the first time. He wasn’t even out of breath—he simply stared at her for a long, measuring moment.
“You killed him,” she whispered in horror.
“And his friend outside as well,” he said. “What did you expect me to do, invite them in for tea?”
She looked up at him, the horror compounded. There was no Texas drawl in his voice, no anonymous American accent. He was Irish. As Irish as the man who’d just tried to kill her.
He held out a hand to her, but in the murky light she told herself she could see the blood staining it, and she shrank away from him. “All right, then,” he said coolly. “You make your way into the kitchen on your own steam, and I’ll clean up this mess.”
He turned from her and she pushed herself to her feet, using the wall for support as she held her arms tightly around her middle. She made it into the kitchen, and then she threw up in the sink, the beer, the fish and chips, everything.
She could hear water running in the bathroom. She knew she should rouse herself, offer to help him. He’d saved her life. He’d killed the man who’d been trying to kill her, and she ought to be grateful, not horrified.
Dr. Death, Martin had called him. Quick and clean and he made house calls, James had told her. She shivered, looking down at the blood seeping into her clothes.
The gash on her forearm looked gory enough, but the blood seemed to have slowed to a steady ooze. She didn’t dare use any of the filthy dishtowels in the place, and it didn’t come equipped with anything as useful as napkins, so she simply pulled off her T-shirt and ran it under the faucet, hoping the water was reasonably pure.
The slash across her arm was long and shallow. It would leave a scar if she didn’t get stitches, but somehow she couldn’t see James taking her in to the nearest emergency room. Win would be upset, she thought with a latent bubble of hysteria. He didn’t like anything to mar the perfection of his possessions.
She sank down in the chair, suddenly dizzy, as she wrapped the white T-shirt around her arm. It had begun to sting, just enough to weaken her already shaky self-control.
She didn’t want to hear the thumps and bumps from the hallway. She didn’t want to think about what James was doing, and how he managed it with such cold-blooded expertise. She wanted to shut down her mind, her thoughts, her emotions. But still the thumps and thuds echoed throughout the empty house.
James worked quickly and efficiently, silently cursing himself for cutting the man’s throat and creating such a mess. He should have simply broken his neck. But he’d been reaching for the gun in his pocket, and within seconds he would have managed to shoot Annie, and James had only had time to react, not to think.
He knew what Annie was thinking. He’d seen the horror in her eyes before she’d staggered off into the kitchen. She thought he’d executed the man for no reason, simply cut his throat on a whim instead of necessity.
He wasn’t about to explain to her, to try to make her understand. He’d killed often enough for just as little reason. If this time was justified, there were others that weren’t, and he was willing to take her judgment.
It had all been theory to her. She knew about the deaths, she’d even seen Clancy’s body, seen her own father. But she’d never seen death delivered, in all its filth and sweat and blood. It had still been one step removed from her existence.
Now she’d seen him for what he was. A killer. It was a relief, he told himself, dragging the body out the back door to the tiny garden shed where he’d already left the other man. She would forget her daydreams, her memories. She would know him for what he was. She would know the truth.
She was sitting in the corner of the darkened kitchen, but he refused to allow himself to glance her way, instead picking up the kettle and heading toward the sink. “Tea,” he said in a deliberately cool voice. “The British cure-all.”
“What’s the Irish cure-all?” Her voice was no more than a faint rasp, but the accusation in it was unmistakable. Down but not out, he thought, not sure whether he was relieved or regretful.
“Whiskey, of course. Unfortunately, we’re flat out of the stuff, so we’ll have to make do …” He allowed himself to face her, now that he’d gotten his mask firmly in place, but the sight of her sent the words tumbling off into space.
She was sitting there wearing only a pair of jeans and a bra. For a brief, crazed moment he wondered whether she was trying to seduce him, and then he saw the blood-stained cloth wrapped tightly around her arm.
For a moment he couldn’t move. A remote part of him marveled at that. In all his thirty-nine years he’d never been paralyzed as he was now, by the sight of a wounded girl.
She was a girl too. Twenty-seven years old, far from a virgin, bold and fierce and angry. But a girl despite it all.
“The bastard hurt you,” he said in a quiet voice, refusing to let himself move. Afraid he’d move too fast, that he’d scare her, that he’d say something, do something he’d regret for the rest of his cursed life.
“It’s not as bad as it seems. The bleeding’s almost stopped.”
He knelt down beside her, his hands gentle as he unwrapped her makeshift bandage. He half expected her to pull away from him, but she didn’t. She let him touch her, holding very still, her eyes downcast, her breathing shallow.
“It looks worse than it is,” he agreed in a deceptively cool voice. “Though it’ll leave a scar.”
“Something to remind me of my Irish vacation,” she said in a harsh attempt at flippancy. “That’s where we are, aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where you come from, isn’t it?”
He hesitated, but there was no reason to deny it. No reason for lies. If she’d asked him just then who killed her father, he would have told her the truth. “Yes.”
The bleeding had just about stopped. He rewrapped the arm, fastening the T-shirt with strips of the dirty dishrag that lay in the sink, and then went to make them tea. He didn’t waste his time ordering her to drink it. Either she would, or he’d force her.
She drank the tea. The room was chilly, and he pulled off his own shirt and draped it around her bare shoulders. She didn’t say thank you. Instead she concentrated on the tea, sipping it, seemingly lost.
“Who were those men?” The question startled him, coming out of the blue.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me, James,” she said, the first note of emotion filtering through her shock-deadened voice.
“I’m not lying. They could be anyone. Carew might have sent them, though I don’t think so. It wasn’t his style. They might have been old mates of mine, eager to settle up a score, but I don’t know how they would have known I was coming. Besides, most people I used to hang around with are long dead. I suppose even Martin might have sent them.”
“Martin!”
He didn’t like the surge of emotion that shot through her voice. Jealousy, he thought absently. He never thought he’d waste his time with something as petty as jealousy.
“I don’t trust anyone, Annie,” he murmured. “We’re forced to trust Martin, at least a little bit, but I don’t like it. The first thing I learned in this business was that anyone could be your enemy. For what it’s worth, I still think we can count on Martin when the chips are down. It was most likely Win’s confederates. The people that have been after us all along.”
“I thought everyone was after us,” she said dully.
“True enough.” He sipped his tea. There was no sugar, no milk to make it more palatable, and he would have sold his mother for a shot of whiskey. But his mother was already dead. “But some are more determined than others. The people who worked with Win, betrayed Win, want us out of the way. We ask too many questions, we cause too much trouble. They’d been trying to kill me for a while. The moment you came after me, you put yourself in the line of fire as well. They want us both dead. And Carew wouldn’t be likely to shed any tears.”
“How
would they know where we are?”
“They know everything, Annie. That’s why we’ve kept moving.”
“So why are we here? A sentimental pilgrimage to the auld sod?”
The sarcasm strengthened her voice, and he wanted, oddly enough, to smile. “Not likely, Annie. I try to keep my visits to a bare minimum. Unfortunately, your father had a particular fondness for the Irish. He used Northern Ireland as one of his favorite recruiting centers.”
“Recruiting centers?”
“Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten, Annie. Your father hired killers. He trained them, made them his creatures, and then sent them out into the world to do his bidding. He found the Irish particularly adept at that sort of work. It amused him that such a charming race could be so savage.”
“Amused him?” she echoed faintly.
“Your father had an odd sense of humor.”
“Is this where he found you?”
He should have known. He had opened up the subject on purpose, waiting for her questions. Waiting for the most important question of all.
“Not exactly. I was in Highroad Prison. On the thirty-fourth day of a hunger strike, just about ready to die.”
“Why?”
“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” he said lightly.
“I mean, why were you in prison?”
“I’d set a bomb off in a pub when I was seventeen. It killed a great many people, I’m afraid. I started young in my life’s work.”
She stared at him. “And what happened?”
“Your father thought I showed great promise, so he managed to extract me from a place few Irishmen ever leave. I was declared dead, and my body was given over for burial. He brought me to the States and turned me into a good old boy.” His voice slipped into the cool Texas drawl effortlessly.
“This is crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Look around you, Annie. Believe it.”
She rose, pushing back from the table, his black shirt hanging from her shoulders, flapping around her narrow torso. He wanted to reach out and pull that shirt, pull her close against him. He didn’t move. “What did you do with the body?” she asked in a low voice.
“You mean bodies, don’t you? There was another one outside. I dumped them both in the garden shed out back. Useful things, garden sheds. Almost every house in Britain and Ireland has one.”
“Stop it!” she said with a shudder. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Don’t you want to ask me something, Annie?” he said, hating himself. Pushing himself. And her.
“No.”
“Even if I promise to tell you the truth this time?”
“No!” she cried, the passion in her voice leaving no doubt that she knew what he was asking. She started past him, and suddenly he rose, blocking her way.
“Go ahead and ask, love,” he whispered, letting the Irish back into his voice. “Ask me and I’ll tell you anything you want. Do anything you want.”
“Would you go to hell?” she demanded fiercely.
“Been there. Done that,” he murmured.
“Would you tell me who killed my father?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t move, and he waited for the words that would bring everything crashing down.
“Would you take me to bed?”
He stared down at her. At the pale, soft mouth, the dark, shock-filled eyes. She was weak, vulnerable, easily shattered. She didn’t know who she was or what she wanted, and to touch her now would be to damn his soul to eternal hell.
But then, he already knew he had no other alternative.
“Yes,” he said. And catching the lapels of the shirt, he drew her toward him.
Chapter Fifteen
Annie had no idea where those words had come from. Her conscious mind seemed to have shattered, vanished. She looked up at him, into his stranger’s face, and her mind went numb. And her heart spoke.
He’d given her his shirt, and he was wearing only a dark blue T-shirt and jeans. She didn’t remember seeing those clothes before, and absently she wondered where they’d come from. She could see a dark, wet stain on the shirt, and she knew it was blood. She shuddered.
“What do you want from me, James?” she asked in a raw voice. “Is that even your name? James McKinley? It doesn’t seem to fit you anymore.”
“It’ll do,” he said. “It’s mine now.” His hands gripped the lapels of the shirt that wrapped around her, holding her there, imprisoned, making no effort to move closer.
“What do you want from me, James?” she asked again.
A faint, derisive smile curved his mouth. “I want you out of this. I want you safe and happy, living in suburbia, with an unimaginative yuppie husband, fat babies, and no worries except about your cholesterol. I want you twenty pounds overweight, worried about daycare and mortgages. I want you to have a real life.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I could go back home,” she said. “I could marry Martin.”
“No!” His protest was violent. “It’s too late for that. You’re in too deep. And Martin …”
“What’s wrong with Martin?” she demanded when he stopped in mid-sentence.
“Martin is one of us.”
“One of us?”
“He knows how to kill, Annie. You don’t need a killer in your life.”
She accepted his lack of jealousy with detachment and her own knowledge. Despite what he said, she knew Martin. Martin wouldn’t kill. Martin was safety. She knew that deep in her heart. Even as she knew she no longer wanted safety.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We stay put for the time being. Keep an eye out for more intruders. Where one came, others will follow, but it wouldn’t do us any good to run. They’ll find us. We stay here and try to find where the picture is. He brought it here, Annie, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why. But we’ll find it. And maybe we’ll find some answers as well.”
“I don’t mean that,” Annie said in a deceptively tranquil voice. “I mean, what do we do now? At this very minute?”
She could feel the tension, the heat, the adrenaline running through him. She was learning to read him despite the cool exterior he presented. She could feel his need, and it matched hers.
He dropped the lapels of the shirt and took a step away from her. “You try to get some sleep,” he said in his distant voice. “I’ll keep an eye out—”
“I’ve been sleeping for days,” she said in a low, fierce voice. “I’ve lost count of them. You’ve been drugging me, haven’t you? Filling me with some sort of filthy stuff to keep me out of it. How could you do that?”
“I had everything I needed at the trailer,” he replied, willfully misunderstanding her. “Win always saw that we were provided with the newest gadgets, the best in technology. Did you think I wouldn’t take advantage of anything I had?”
“How could you do something like that to me? I saw the marks on my arm—you used a needle, didn’t you? How do you think my father would have reacted if he’d known you’d used those weapons against me?”
“He wouldn’t have given a shit.” James moved closer for a brief, dangerous moment. “There’s nothing I’m not capable of doing, Annie. Remember that.”
She thought back to the man lying in the hallway, the pool of blood seeping beneath him, and she shivered.
“Go to bed,” he said again, trying to dismiss her. “If you need something to help you sleep, I’m sure I can find some more of the stuff I was giving you—”
She hit him. She slapped him across the face so hard that his head whipped back, so hard that her hand felt numb, and the shirt draped around her shoulders fell to the floor.
She tensed, waiting for him to touch her. But he simply smiled crookedly. “Go to bed, Annie,” he said, patient as ever.
She knew where her anger came from. From the lies, from the tricks, from the fear. She knew what she was going to do with it. “That’
s what I had in mind,” she said, a thread of fury running through her voice. “With you.”
She reached up and touched the harsh imprint of her hand on his face. He hadn’t shaved recently, and the roughness of his stubble pricked her hand.
Don’t, a voice in her head warned her, a voice that sounded eerily like Martin’s. There’ll be no going back.
But James simply looked down at her, unmoving, allowing her touch. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said in a rough voice. “You’re out of your league. I won’t give you a transcendent roll in the hay and a slap on the butt when we’re finished. We wouldn’t do it in the dark, safe and polite, you in your nightie, beneath the covers and me the perfect gentleman.”
“What would you do?” The words were barely audible.
He heard them. “I’d take everything from you—your heart, your soul. Maybe even your life. Run away from me, Annie. I’ll be the death of you.”
There was no way she could go. She simply looked up at him, stricken, pleading, needing. Unwilling to back down, to run away, as her instincts warned her to. Her fingers stroked his lean, stubbled cheek as she looked into his eyes with complete fearlessness.
“Take me, then,” she whispered.
He didn’t kiss her. She knew he wouldn’t, and she didn’t seek his mouth. He simply slid his hands around her and lifted her up, almost effortlessly. She hadn’t realized how strong he was. She hadn’t realized a great many things about him, and yet she was putting herself at his mercy.
She thought he would carry her into the bedroom. He didn’t. He settled her body against his, draping her long legs around his narrow hips, oddly gentle with her wounded arm. She could feel his erection, something that astonished her. She still couldn’t quite believe he wanted her. That this time he would take her.
This time she wasn’t giving him any choice. She closed her eyes, threading her arms around his neck, ignoring the pain in her rudely bandaged arm, trying to move closer still, pressing her breasts against his chest.
The kitchen was cold and dark, and she shivered. He unfastened her bra, and it fell free. His mouth was at her ear, beneath her fall of hair, and his breath was moist and hot.