“Don’t be absurd.” She started to take off her shirt. “Do you think I haven’t bathed naked with men before? I’m CIA. I spent years in the jungles of South America.”
“Pardon me.” He settled himself on the bank. “And it never presented problems?”
“I didn’t say that.” She took off her boots. “But the problems never occurred more than once.” She shed the rest of her clothes and waded into the water. “Pitch me that green bottle in my knapsack.”
“What is it?” He picked up the small bottle and lifted it to his nose. “It smells like rotten leaves.”
“Soap.” She looked at him as she reached water deep enough to cover her breasts. In spite of her words, she had to block the tension that was a product of her awareness of him. “It was created for me by Hu Chang. You know the scent of products is a dead giveaway when you’re on the hunt or being hunted.” She caught the bottle as he tossed it to her. “You must have something like it. No matter how close I got to you, I couldn’t detect your scent.”
He nodded. “But yours is very good. I’d like to meet your Hu Chang.”
“He’d be interested to meet you. He appreciates competence.” She soaped her hair, then dipped her head to rinse it. “You’re very good, Gallo.”
“How long have you known this Hu Chang?”
“Since I was fourteen.”
“Not a CIA man?”
She chuckled. “No, he was very upset when I decided to join them. He was sure they’d corrupt my free will.”
“A valid concern.”
She shrugged. “I had to make a decision I could live with. I grew up on the streets of Hong Kong, and I survived by dealing information to whoever would pay the highest fee for it. But I could see where I was going. Then a CIA agent, Venable, offered me a job with the CIA, and I took it. The Agency wasn’t always clean, but they were trying to protect something besides themselves. That was unique in my world.”
“All of this at seventeen.”
“I told you, age doesn’t mean anything.”
“Hu Chang,” he prompted.
“He had a shop that sold unique poisons and drugs. It’s very profitable on the street, and he was targeted by a couple thieves on his way home. I helped him discourage them. But he was hurt, and I took him home and took care of him until he was well enough to take care of himself. We became … close.”
“I suppose I don’t have to ask how you discouraged them.”
“If I hadn’t killed them, they would have come back and targeted me, too,” she said simply. “In Hong Kong, you don’t take chances like that.”
“And Hu Chang was grateful.” He smiled. “And made you soap that smells like rotten leaves.”
“Among other things.” She started to wade back to shore. “I’m done. Give me that shirt on top of my knapsack. I managed to wash that one two days ago.”
“Use my sweatshirt to dry off.” He handed her a dark green shirt. “It’s not that clean, but it will absorb the water.”
She dabbed her body quickly and reached for her shirt. She had felt more comfortable in the water. She was too close to him. “I feel better now.” She swiftly buttoned up the shirt. “In spite of the rotten leaves.”
“I never said I didn’t like the smell of rotten leaves.” He slipped the looped rope around her waist, then took a step back and gazed at her in the shirt, which hit the top of her thighs. “Pity. But I think you’d better put on something else as soon as possible. I’m feeling a problem coming on. I don’t want a demonstration on how you deal with this one.”
She stared him in the eye. “You have me on a rope. I’m helpless.”
“You’re never helpless.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say that.” She started to dress. “I was helpless when you shot that dart into me. Everyone has moments when they’re not totally in control.”
“You’re right. I don’t know you. Why do I feel as if I do?”
Because these last weeks had taught them as much about each other as if they had known each other for years. “I have no idea.”
“Yes, you do. We may have some gigantic holes in the structure, but the foundation is there.”
“Your foundation is with Eve. That’s why I’m here.”
“Eve…” He was tying her to the tree. “Yes, it all goes back to Eve, doesn’t it? She holds all of us. You’ve gone the limit for her in the name of friendship.”
“I’ve gone after a man who has torn her life in pieces.”
“I never meant to do it. We came together like a summer storm. We never realized that it would last for the rest of our lives. I tried to stay away.”
“But you didn’t do it, did you. Why?”
“Bonnie. I would never have interfered with Eve’s life. She was right to put even the thought of me out of her mind. We’d both changed out of all recognition, and she had Quinn.” His lips twisted. “And I was a man who couldn’t even offer her a sound mind.”
Her gaze was probing his expression. “You care about her. She told me that what was between you was only sex.”
“It was the truth. But Bonnie changed everything. Passion became something else. We both loved Bonnie, and that meant we had to care about each other.” He shook his head. “Oh, nothing like what she had with Quinn. There are all kinds of love and caring. I’ll always feel that bond with Eve.” He smiled faintly. “Even if she did send her favorite ninja after me.”
“She didn’t send me. I owed her, and I knew she couldn’t come here herself.” She added, “If you care about what happens to her, why don’t you let me go? Do you think that she’ll want Joe to come after you? Let it be me.”
“But that’s changed, too. The dynamics are different now, aren’t they? The hunt wouldn’t be the same, and neither would the finale.” He met her gaze. “No, it has to be Quinn.”
She couldn’t breathe. “Let me go.”
He shook his head. “You’ll have to do it yourself.” He began to strip off his clothes. “Because I’m going to take this time for myself.” He waded into the water. “Something is happening between us. You may not like it, but it’s there. I think that we’ll have to ride it out.”
She watched him as he moved in the water. Magnificent.
Tight muscular butt, flat stomach, totally male.
Totally.
And that maleness was having an effect on her own body.
“We’ll have to ride it out.”
The sentence brought to mind an image that was causing her body to ready. Stop it. So he was magnificent physically and fascinating mentally. She couldn’t be drawn into the web that was hovering. Enemy. She had to think of him as the enemy.
He was coming out of the water. She should close her eyes. Not from any sense of embarrassment. That did not exist for them. But every step he took was causing a jolt of feeling, a surge of heat.
She would not close her eyes.
She met his gaze with boldness as he stopped before her.
“Me, too,” he said quietly. “What do we do about it?”
“Ignore it.”
“I’ve never been known for my restraint. I have a tendency to take what I want.” There was a glitter of pure recklessness in his eyes. “And I don’t believe I’ve ever wanted anything as much as I do you, Catherine Ling.”
She could see the crystal drops of water beading on his shoulders and tangling in the thatch of dark hair on his chest. He was close enough for her to feel the heat of his body. She wanted to reach out and touch him.
Dizzy. The intensity was overpowering. She felt like a damn virgin. She had been married and had a child. She’d had occasional one-night stands in the years since her husband had been killed. But she’d never felt anything of this intensity before.
“Catherine?”
He wasn’t forcing, he was asking. She should say yes, and he would cut the ropes. A man was never so vulnerable as when he was engaged in sex. She would be able to go on the attack.
; But would she do it?
Dear God, she was afraid that she wouldn’t.
She couldn’t afford to take a chance of that self-betrayal.
She shook her head. “There’s too much baggage. I won’t let you complicate my life, Gallo.”
He stared at her for a moment in which she saw emotion after emotion flickering in his expression. “You mean the way I’ve complicated the lives of everyone else around me? Complicated and destroyed.” His smile was bitter. “You’re right. And I’d do it, too.” He turned away. “Just give me the chance.” He was dressing quickly. “And you can bet that I’d take advantage of any chance you gave me. So keep me away from you.” He grabbed a knife from his knapsack and came back to her and cut the ropes that bound her to the tree. Then he cut the ropes binding her wrists. “Or take off. That would probably be better.”
She stared at him in shock. “You’re releasing me.”
“I’m not stupid enough to let you have any of your weapons back. Though I’m sure that you could be formidable in hand-to-hand.” He looked at her. “But you don’t want to be that close to me, do you? It might turn into something else.”
She shook her head as she rubbed her wrist. “I won’t stop, Gallo. Why did you change your mind?”
“Victims. I’m sick to death of victims. I won’t make you one, Catherine.”
“‘Victim’? You son of a bitch. You can’t make me a victim. Who the hell do you think you are?”
“A son of a bitch who seems to have a talent for bringing down even the strongest and most worthwhile.” He turned away. “Why don’t you get going? There aren’t any guarantees that I won’t change my mind.”
She didn’t move. “And you’ll wait for Joe. I’m supposed to run the risk that you’ll let him kill you? Hell, you tell me that you’re unstable. That there aren’t any guarantees, that you can change your mind. You have warrior instincts. So does Joe. That creates a scenario that spells big-time trouble. I’m not going to lose him.”
He turned to look at her. “And what are you going to do?”
“I’ll stay with you until Joe comes and make sure that he survives.” She met his gaze. “And if I get the chance, you’ll go down. I made a promise to Eve, and nothing has changed that.”
“No, I guess that would be your first priority. She’s lucky to have you for a friend.”
“Lucky? She helped me find my son. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do for her.” She paused. “But we can end this now. I’ll postpone trying to bring Eve your head for the time being. All you have to do is tell me what happened to Bonnie and where she is.”
“All?” His lips were tight with bitterness. “That would be fine, wouldn’t it? But I can’t help you, Catherine. I told you, I don’t remember. I don’t even remember taking her life.”
She glanced away from the unbearable pain in his expression. She mustn’t let him affect her like this. “Then we’re at an impasse. I stay.”
He gazed at her for a moment, then his expression changed. The recklessness was suddenly there again. “Why not? Go with the flow. Step into my parlor, Catherine.”
“Bad phrasing. That would indicate that you were in control. You’re not, Gallo. This is my choice. You’ll never be in control of me.”
“A challenge.” He smiled, and the recklessness was even more obvious. “Up or down. The compromise would be for us to take turns. What do you think?”
She ignored the inference. “I think if your memory suddenly returns, we’ll both be better off.”
“But maybe I’m suppressing it. It’s possible. It would hurt me, and I’m a selfish bastard. Maybe I don’t give a damn about anything or anyone but myself.” He grabbed his knapsack and slung it over his shoulders. “I’m going back to camp. Come along if you like. We’ll see what comes of it.”
“I want my phone back.” She picked up her knapsack. “Keep the weapons. But I want my phone.”
“A phone can be a weapon.”
“I want to call Eve. She may have been trying to reach me. I won’t have her worried. What difference does it make? I’m not going to tell her anything that would bring them here. I don’t want Joe on your trail until he’s entirely well.”
He thought about it. “There are all kinds of ways that you could use that phone to bring havoc down on me. You’re probably up on every technical advance that could cause me to be traced or destroyed.” He shrugged. “What do I care? It should make the game more interesting.” He reached into his knapsack and brought out her phone. He disconnected it from its solar battery charger and handed it to her. “By all means, call Eve.”
* * *
BUT CATHERINE DIDN’T make the call until later that day. Eve had phoned her during the time that Gallo had possession of her phone and Catherine wasn’t sure what excuse she wanted to give her for not answering. She could tell her that she was out of tower range. Eve might accept that because she knew Catherine had had problems before when they were trying to track Paul Black through this forest.
But that would be lying, and she hated to lie to Eve. She would just have to play it by ear.
“You’re frowning.” Gallo looked up from cooking fish over the fire. “You don’t like fish? Or you don’t trust me? I promise I won’t poison you.”
“Why should I trust you? For God’s sake, you shot me after I saved your life.” She made an impatient gesture. “Yes, I know that you didn’t regard that as a favor. You said you were trying to get around your ghostly Bonnie’s interference in your doing away with yourself.” She scowled. “Which is some of the most complete crap I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“My, my, how bad-tempered you are.” He tilted his head. “Not that I blame you. It sounds like crap to me, too.” He took the fish from the fire. “I don’t expect you to believe me.”
“It’s ridiculous.” She glared at him. “And you’re not a man who would imagine that kind of nonsense.”
“Hallucinations. Talk to the doctors who examined me after I broke out of that prison in North Korea.”
“That was a long time ago, and you’re not nuts now, dammit.”
“How do you know?”
She didn’t have any idea why she was so certain. Instinct, again? Lately, she had been thinking long and hard while she had been with him. Carefully sorting out the basic emotion and what her judgment told her was true. But, dammit, she had known him for such a short time that she had to rely on her faith in herself. Yet when had she ever relied on anything else? From the moment she had started the hunt, she had tried to predict his every move, every thought. At times, she had felt as if she could read his mind.
And that mind was clear and sharp and entirely sane.
But this bullshit about Bonnie was a complete contradiction of what she knew was true about him.
“You didn’t even know her. You’d never even talked to your daughter. You admitted that yourself.”
“I knew her.”
“How?”
“Would you like any of this fish?”
“No. How?”
He didn’t look at her as he helped himself to the fish. “She came to see me.”
“What? You said that you’d never met her.”
“Not formally. She never told me her name. But after a while, I knew who she was.” He looked up and met her eyes. “You won’t let it alone, will you? Okay. It doesn’t matter. It will probably convince you that I’m as crazy as I say I am.” He poured coffee into a cup and handed it to her. “But that part of Bonnie I didn’t imagine. She was real. She did come to me.”
“What are you talking about? Came where?”
He picked up his coffee and sat down again before the fire. “In that hellhole of a prison. I was being tortured and starved. I was sure I’d either die or go crazy and after months I didn’t care. Then I started to dream of a little girl. She had curly red hair and a smile that could light up the world, much less that stinking hole where I was being held. She was very young when she first came to me
, but then she seemed to grow older. She would sing me songs and tell me about going to school. She saved my life and my sanity. She kept me from hanging myself in that cell.” He took a drink of coffee. “She never told me about her mother, but I knew it was Eve. And I knew her name was Bonnie.”
Catherine stared at him, stunned. She hadn’t expected this, and she didn’t know how to deal with it.
His lips twisted as he looked up and saw her expression. “I told you that you wouldn’t believe me. But that was no hallucination. Bonnie was more real to me than the whip or the knife or all the other little toys they used on me. I thought she was a dream in the beginning, but later I knew she was somehow there. How else could I know…” He shook his head. “She was real.”
He believed it, Catherine realized. Nothing could be more certain than his belief that Bonnie had visited him in that prison. She was silent, then shook her head. “How can I believe you? Have I heard of tales like that? Of course. Astral projection and all kinds of weird stuff. But I’ve never encountered it in any plausible form. I think perhaps your mind was distorted by what you were going through.”
“My distortion gave me a name—Bonnie. At that time, I didn’t even know she existed.”
“Then it had to be something else.” She moistened her lips. “Bonnie was alive when you were having those visions. Did you have them after she died?”
He nodded. “Not often. And then I did think they were dreams. Until recently.” He paused. “When Eve told me that she had them, too, and that they weren’t dreams.”
“What?”
“I thought that would shake you. Your friend, Eve, who is definitely sane and not prone to imaginary visits from a spirit. Yet she was the one who told me that she had gone through years telling herself that her visits from Bonnie were hallucinations or dreams.” He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “Until she realized that it wasn’t true. She wanted to prepare me for the same painful rejection process.”
“She told you that Bonnie—”
“Ask her.” He took another sip of coffee. “Or not. She might not want to discuss it with you. It’s difficult to admit to believing in spirits when the world around you is so pragmatic.” He lifted his cup in a half toast. “Like you, Catherine.”