He didn’t need her smothered, random words to know why she cried. She cried for the gentle priest who’d been her friend, for the two women who’d teased her about her love life and fussed over her like a pair of nosy grandmothers. And she cried for Carlos, a vicious, murdering piece of shit if ever he’d seen one, but to her a lost child.
He didn’t bother talking sense to her. He simply stroked her braided hair and let her weep against him, enjoying it. He had no problem with women’s tears – he was Irish, after all. As long as he wasn’t the cause he could comfort her for as long as she’d tolerate it.
Gradually her tears lessened, coming to a shuddery, choking halt. He knew when she suddenly realized where she was, whose arms were around her, whose bare chest she was pressed against. The sudden stiffening of her muscles, a slow withdrawal, and he let her go. She scrambled off his lap like he was radioactive, and tried to rise to her feet, but her fit of weeping had taken the very last of her energy, and she sank back down on her knees, at a safe distance from him.
“Don’t worry, love, I’m not taking that as an offer of sex,” he said with a wry smile. “I got the generator working. Why don’t you go take yourself a long, hot bath while I find something to eat.”
She didn’t move. Her voice was raw from her tears when she finally spoke. “There’s still a lot of food left behind. Cans of fish and beans, flour and corn and rice. If you just give me a minute I can make something.”
“You cook?” Teasing might help bring her back to her fighting weight. “Rich, beautiful, virtuous, and you can cook? What more could a man ask for? Well, maybe virtuous wouldn’t be on my top-ten list of desirable traits, but the rest of the package makes up for it.”
She wasn’t responding to his blarney, but then, she’d always proven surprisingly resistant to it, probably because of the intensity of their situation. She glanced down at herself, then at him, and he realized she wasn’t admiring his manly physique.
“You’re bleeding.” Her voice was flat, strong, no longer shaken by repressed grief.
“Just a scratch.”
He saw the tension suddenly sweep her body. “Is someone here?”
He shook his head. “I got this when I went to get the machete. It stopped bleeding until you decided to pummel me.” He wasn’t above using guilt to get what he wanted.
Sister Beth, however, was impervious. “You need stitches.”
“You offering?”
She was considering it, then shook her head. “Much as I’d love to drive a needle through your un-anesthetized flesh, I think I’d rather not. I can put some butterfly bandages on it.” This time when she rose she was steadier. God save him from a holy martyr, who could draw herself together for the greater good but could no more take care of herself than a newborn kitten.
“No, you can’t. They took most of the medical supplies.”
“Not the kit in my cell.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And you still swear you’re not a nun?”
“Fine, I’m a nun. So keep your lascivious thoughts away from me. I can find enough butterfly bandages to keep that slash together so that it will heal.”
“’Lascivious’?” he echoed with a laugh. “I’ve never heard them called that before.”
“It means . . .”(
“I know what lascivious means, sweetheart. It’s just not a word I hear in everyday conversation.”
“You surprise me. You’re a powder keg of testosterone ready to explode. I’m surprised more women haven’t mentioned it.”
“I don’t tend to shag women with your vocabulary. And it’s been three years, remember?”
“How could I forget? Are you going to stay there, or come with me to my bedroom?”
He surged to his feet with far more energy than he felt. “Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse.”
“Medical treatment only, MacGowan.” Her previous bout of grief might never have happened – she was her calm, indomitable self. “Follow me.”
“To the ends of the earth, me darlin’.”
CHAPTER TEN
Don’t think about it, Beth told herself firmly. It won’t do any good, they’re gone and you’ve already fallen apart. You just have to hold on.
They hadn’t gotten into the living quarters. But then, why bother? They’d already killed everyone who lived here, and had her as hostage. She pushed the narrow door open and looked at the familiar, safe confines of her little room once more, and a stray shiver ran across her body.
“Get on the bed,” she said.
Odd how much bigger MacGowan seemed in her tiny room. Without his shirt she could see just how bony he was, probably twenty or thirty pounds under his fighting weight from his years in captivity. He loomed over her, and she finally understood her ambivalence. He had protected her, killed for her, led her to safety. He was safety.
But he was also big and raw and so elementally male that it made her teeth sweat. She’d spent most of her life blissfully above the calls of the flesh and the dark, desperate couplings that subsumed others. She didn’t like sex, didn’t want sex. Body parts were simply that. She looked at MacGowan and thought about sex.
“I’m too bloody, sweaty, and dirty to get on your sheets, sweetheart. You can work while I stand.”
Which kept him looming over her and kept her in a subservient position. She was going to argue with him, but the longer he stood in her tiny room the more overwhelmed she felt. She needed to get him patched up and out of there.
“All right,” she said, reaching under the bed and pulling out her medical kit. A bed that wasn’t as small as the bed they’d shared last night, she realized, feeling her face heat in sudden awareness, and she kept her face down, her voice brisk. She sat down on the bed herself, opening the kit. “Come here.”
He said nothing, moving closer so that his legs were against her knees. The knife had bounced off his ribs, only going in deep in one spot, and it looked relatively clean. She reached for a pair of rubber gloves and started to pull them on when he plucked them out of her hand. “We’ve already been mixing blood, sweat and tears. Save the plastic for someone else.”
“I bet you say the same thing about condoms.” The moment the words were out of her mouth she wanted to bite her tongue. She didn’t want to be talking condoms with this man.
He laughed. “What makes you think I use condoms, Sister Beth? I’m a good Catholic boy.”
That made her give him a disgusted look, but of course he was still teasing her.
“Lighten up. I don’t go around courting disease and dropping bastards. We’re almost out of here, this is just a scratch, and in a few days you’ll be safe back in the states and I’ll be a rich man. No one else is going to die, you’re safe, we’ve made it. Now patch me up and go take a long hot bath.”
She said nothing, bending to her work. Fresh blood had crusted on the wound, and she cleaned it before reaching for the butterfly bandages. She knew it hurt him, but he said nothing, not even flinching, and she began pulling the torn flesh together with the bandages. “How come you have so much hair on your face and so little on your chest?” she grumbled, trying to keep her mind off how warm and sleek his skin was.
“Hoping to shave my chest, were you? I never bothered to think about it. Do you like your men hairy or smooth?”
“It depends where the hair is.”
He laughed, and she realized how indelicate that sounded. “You have the mind of an adolescent boy,” she grumbled, putting on another bandage. “And don’t give me any more crap about three years. I don’t imagine you were ever restrained.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Miss Pennington.” It was the voice of a stranger, clipped, cool, polite, and she looked up, startled. Even past the familiar beard he looked completely different, an upper class Brit in a distasteful situation. And then, just as swiftly, the mask fell away, and it was MacGowan again, with a slow, lazy grin on his face.
She bent back to her work. “What was that?”
“You don’t know what I do for a living. There’s a reason I survived up there for so long, a reason why they took me in the first place, a reason I was able to get the two of you down safely. I’ve been trained by the best, and I know how to get a job done without looking back. I also know how to be anyone I want to be. A year from now if you passed me in the street you wouldn’t even know me.” His voice was cool, dispassionate, almost bleak, and she wanted to break through that sudden wall.
“Especially if you shave,” she said caustically. “All done.” She gave him a little shove, but instead he moved closer, pushing between her legs so that he was too close, and he caught her hand as she started to put the bandages away.
She looked up, into his eyes, and her breath caught. He was looking down at her with the oddest expression on his face, something she’d never seen before, something she couldn’t understand.
“Where the fuck have you guys been?” Dylan appeared in the doorway, breaking the tenuous thread that had stretched between them.
MacGowan stepped back, and Beth felt her breath return. “Sister Beth’s been patching me up,” he said. “Where have you been?”
“Exploring. Whoever was living here sure left in a hurry. I found . . .”
MacGowan already had him by the arm, manhandling him out of the room. “Beth was living here,” he said. “And I don’t think she wants to talk about it. You can take care of dinner. She needs a bath and a rest, I need the same.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t like a bath?” Dylan shot back.
“You’ve got a choice between food or a bath and you’re a teenage boy. I figure the answer is simple. You can take a bath after I’ve finished.”
“She stab you?” Dylan surveyed him with great interest.
“No. Not that she wouldn’t have liked to, but Sister Beth is a woman of infinite resources. Unlike you and me. Come along, hermano, and I’ll let you raid the kitchen.”
Their voices trailed off, and she was alone once more, sitting on her bed, unmoving. They were gone, and she’d already indulged herself in the luxury of grief. For now she could put it away, deal with it more properly once she was home. In the meantime, if she could trust MacGowan, there would be a hot bath available for the taking. Grabbing clean clothes from the trunk by her bed, she went out into the familiar hallway, heading for the bathing room that had once served the nuns.
The old bath was huge, and she filled it only half-full, with lukewarm water. MacGowan and Dylan needed baths or showers themselves and she wasn’t going to hog all the hot water. Besides, room temperature water was almost warm enough.
She was completely filthy, and the tub would be muddy in two seconds if she got in like this. She stripped off her clothes and stood under the shower, unbraiding her long hair as the top layer of mud and dirt came off her. Turning it off, she slid into the old porcelain tub, sinking down. She tilted her head back, letting her hair flow about her in the warm water, and felt the last bits of tension drain away. For now, for this moment, she was safe and happy. In an hour they’d begin the fight to survive once more, but right now she could simply lie back in the tub, rub herself with the rose-scented soap Tia Maria had brought her, and be glad to be alive.
It was no wonder she fell asleep. No wonder that getting a mouthful of water woke her with a start, and she climbed out of the now-cold water, wrapping herself in the threadbare towel. Her skin was burned by the sun, and bruises covered half of her body. There were no mirrors at the mission – the nuns had been denied them and Beth hadn’t cared, but now she wished she could see just how bad she looked. She pulled on a clean pair of cargo shorts and a tank top, covering her lack of a bra with an oversized cotton shirt. Her feet were a pathetic mess, but she had an old pair of flip-flops she could wear that would give her soles some protection, and she could smell food coming from the kitchen. Something spicy and good, and she realized with relief that Dylan was a better cook than she would have thought. The electric lights were on, the overhead fan spinning lazily when she walked inside the kitchen, and she opened her mouth to speak, then stopped in shock at the sight of the stranger standing by the stove. Not Dylan after all, and she should have run, but she was too petrified to move. It was one shock too many, and she stared at the man, trying to assess whether he was going to kill her, rape her, or feed her.
The stranger looked up at her out of cool gray eyes. He had long, blonde-streaked brown hair, a strong nose, and a mouth that curved in the trace of a smile. He wasn’t Hispanic, and therefore unlikely to be a threat, but she wasn’t going to let down her guard just because a ridiculously handsome man appeared in her kitchen.
“Where’s MacGowan?” she demanded fiercely, determined not to show fear. “What have you done with him? And where is Dylan?”
The man gave her a lazy smile, the kind that would charm most women, and the suspicion blossomed before he even opened his mouth. “I didn’t do a damned thing to MacGowan except give him a shower and shave him, Sister Beth. What do you think . . . do I clean up well?”
That was the understatement of the year, and for some reason Beth was suddenly annoyed. Almost betrayed. What the hell was someone that good-looking doing hiding under all that hair and dirt. Granted, he’d had no choice in the matter, but it was unfair of fate to have suddenly presented her with someone that gorgeous.
“Well enough,” she said in an unpromising voice. She limped over to one of the long tables where they’d fed the children, Carlos included, and sat. “Dylan’s in the shower?”
“Let’s hope so. He was making a fair mess of things here so I kicked him out. How are your feet?”
“They’ll heal. Did you get your dressing wet? I don’t have an unlimited supply of butterfly bandages, you know.”
“I know how to take a shower without ruining a field dressing, darlin’.” He started dishing up a plate of something, then dumped it in front of her. “Eat up. Tons more where that came from.”
It looked like canned dog food and smelled like heaven, and she took the fork he handed her and dug in, burning her mouth on the first bite and not caring. “What is it?”
“A bit of this and a bit of that. Flavored with a lot of chili.” He filled another plate and sat down opposite her, and his leg knocked against hers under the table. She jumped back, nervous, but either he didn’t notice or pretended not to. She kept her eyes lowered, staring into the mystery food in front of her, suddenly tongue-tied. As if things weren’t bad enough.
She needed to say something. He was watching her, she could feel those hard gray eyes assessing her, and she swallowed too large a mouthful of the dinner, then had to wait while she chewed. “How did you manage to shave?” she said finally. “There aren’t any mirrors here, and I gather scraping that much hair off a face is a complicated matter.”
“I can make do with most of the basic necessities of life. Look – not even a nick.”
She had no choice but glance at him, but her eyes skittered away quickly. He had a stubborn jaw, high cheekbones, with a deceptive delicacy about his mouth, a sweetness she knew was a complete lie. And there wasn’t even a scratch on his gorgeous face. “I’m impressed,” she muttered into her stew.
He laughed. “Why, Sister Beth, I do believe you’re shy.”
That was too much. She glared at him, looking for what she remembered in his face, the mocking, flinty eyes. “I don’t do shy.”
“Now that’s a lie, sweetheart.” Before she realized what he was doing he’d reached across the table and caught her hand in his. There was a world of difference. His hands were large, burned dark by the sun, covered with scars and scratches. Two of his fingers had been badly broken at one point and hadn’t been properly set, and her smaller, paler, much more delicate hand seemed almost child-like caught in his stronger one. His thumb rubbed against the inside of her palm, and she felt heat move up her arm, and she wanted to pull away from him, but she looked up into the handsome face of a stranger and didn’t move, mesmerized. r />
“I’m clean,” Dylan announced unnecessarily from the kitchen door, and Beth tried to yank her hand free. She couldn’t. “Dinner smells great.” He peered into the pot distrustfully. “Looks like ass, though.” He looked back at them. “What’s going on with you two? Every time I walk in the room you both look like you’ve been fucking. You decide to have a piece, dude?”
“You need to learn to respect your elders, lad,” MacGowan said in a lazy voice, still caressing her palm with his thumb, the slow, deliberate strokes sending a mass of contradictory feelings through her.
Dylan plopped himself down at the table beside MacGowan and dug in. He seemed to take MacGowan’s transformation in stride, but then, the elegant cheekbones, the seductive mouth would most likely leave a teenage boy cold. “You know, holding hands isn’t gonna get you anywhere,” he confided, his mouth full of food. “You’re not that old.”
MacGowan laughed then, and released her. “You make me feel positively ancient. If I have any trouble getting Sister Beth in bed I’ll ask your advice. Until then, shut the fuck up.”
Dylan chuckled. He glanced over at Beth, who’d snatched her hand back and stuck it under the table. “You look nice,” he said to her. “Not that you look all that different from when you arrived, just cleaned up a bit. I didn’t recognize MacGowan when I first saw him.”
“Three years,” MacGowan reminded him absently, his eyes still on Beth’s face. She wished he’d look somewhere else. She looked in his direction, avoiding his gaze, concentrating first on his shoulder, then looking at his long hair.
“He looks very different,” she agreed. “How long were you held captive? And how did they kidnap you?”
Dylan shrugged, but he looked a bit sheepish. “I was just bumming around the country with a couple of friends, having a good time, and the next thing I know I wake up and I’m in the mountains.”
“What he’s not saying,” MacGowan broke in, “is that he and a bunch of his rich friends commandeered his father’s private jet and came down here in search of drugs and a good time. The friends got hauled back to the States but our lad here managed to avoid capture and struck up a friendship with the wrong sort of people. People who sold him out to the Guiding Light. How long were you with us, kid? Three months? Four?”