He lifted her chin and gazed in her violet-blue eyes. There was a hint of sadness that brought forth an unexpected, dark emotion that clenched his heart.
“Doona apologize! Act on it.” He shook his head, aghast that she was apologizing for something that was not her fault. “It will keep happening if you doona put a stop to that. For your own sake, I suggest you talk with the baron as soon as I leave.”
“I will,” she said. “I promise.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven thirty.”
“What? Tonight?” she asked, alarmed at the speed with which things were moving.
“Aye,” he answered. “Dinner. We didn’t get to celebrate.”
“Ah, yes.” She nodded as they walked to the front doors. “The contract.”
“Nae,” he shook his head at her. “Our relationship.”
“Tavish. I won’t jump head on into a relationship.”
“It’s not head on.” He opened the door. “It’ll be a slow, deep diving.”
“But—”
“I’ll pick you up. At seven thirty.” His lips brushed hers softly, cutting off her protest. Between them, Cleopatra emitted a rumbling purr. “Next time, Cat.”
She stayed there watching him walk to his friend’s Defender.
His broad back and shoulders made such a large shadow on the garden that the crickets complained louder.
Before Tavish entered the car, he turned, waved, and waited for her to close the door.
He had discovered that Laetitia was a quiet bubble floating on his sea of noise. A healing breeze in his burning hell.
A disruption he wanted to be next to.
While he maneuvered Hugh’s car, he wondered how she had slid so quickly and inconspicuously under his skin.
The tortures he had suffered made him a lonely, closed man, but for a few select family members. He hadn’t found a woman who made him want to invest in a relationship. He knew how destructive it could be, yet he had decided to experiment again.
He didn’t need the world to see how broken he was. He fought every night and every day the knowledge that, after so many years, he had spent connecting with the distressing memories and the guilt complex, strengthening his protective barriers, rebuilding what was left of himself, but there were still many cracks in his castle of glass. He feared she was going to rip him apart, but there was something about her that made him hunger to expose all his remaining secrets, all of himself, broken or not.
He took a deep breath and floored the gas pedal.
CHAPTER 21
Afghanistan
December 2008
For Johanna’s and his family’s sake, he had tried to keep himself together.
He kept exercising inside the small hole, managing to not lose too much weight; he had eaten all the meager and distasteful meals he had been offered; he had played chess games with an imaginary enemy in the dark that he was subjected to for months, and under the light that kept him awake for days; he had stayed positive in all his letters to his family; and the few times he had been allowed to interact with Johanna had kept his hopes up.
Ironically, in his supreme triumph had lain his abject defeat. His struggle had been the reverse of an officer’s or a special agent’s.
He strived not to lie but to tell his captors the truth, because he didn’t have the inside information they wanted, but still they tortured him. They could not believe a graduated officer like him didn’t have access to intel—any intel—as he was only a doctor. Or that he wouldn’t be ransomed.
Hours passed in a blur, morphing themselves into weeks, and uncountable weeks into hellish, maddening months, until one of their imprisoned companions told them he was getting free the next day because his parents had paid a ransom. On the next day, he was commanded to make a ransom-demand video, which he refused. His honor and morals didn’t let him resort to the same resource. He preferred to die than to give his captors a pound. The Taliban chief could not believe he wasn’t bending to their orders and warned that he would suffer the consequences of his rebellion. He didn’t believe there was something worse than living in that hell. Every day felt like the day before one of them was going to get executed, but it never became a reality.
Until they made him witness Johanna’s beheading.
He spent the whole day mumbling prayers, until he realized it was not for himself he was praying but for Johanna. Detached, he listened to his voice as it asked God to guide him, despite the fact that since his capture, the comforting force he had always believed in had gone from quiet to utterly deaf and mute—totally silent. His mind and soul split.
A day later, Tavish was moved to another location.
“Yer next,” said the man pulling him by the chains.
The chains restraining him were loose, and only his right hand was chained to his right foot, which for a left-handed man was the best situation under the circumstances.
“Next?” he asked, blinking. The strong light burned his retinas, but through the slits of his eyelids, he scanned this bigger cave. “Next tae do what?” Praying is not helping. I have to find a way out. Any way.
“Has you no learned? Video. Prove yer alive. You tell yer country and yer family that you sick, you tired, you want home,” a guard said in barely understandable English. “Tell them give us money. Say hello to yer family and country and religion.”
The other guard poked him with his rifle. “Or say good-bye.”
Their laughter abounded in the cave, resounding eerily in his mind.
“Here.” The first guard shoved in his face some letters his family had written and sent through the secret services. “It be nice if they pay for you. They must no liked theirs citizen.”
“You big man, big rank. We demand more big ransom.”
You’ll just have a bigger corpse on your hands, you big asshole. He knew Britain did not pay ransoms or trade prisoners. Nor would they ever allow his family to do it. And for that, he was glad, but he didn’t want anyone dying because of his stubbornness.
“Or trading you for many brothers. Faithful servers of Allah.”
Fucking cruel terrorists, you mean. He snorted derisively, and the butt of the rifle connected with the back of his head.
Dizzy, he let himself be dragged to another hole, paying close attentions to the new surroundings. They allowed him to clean himself and gave him new and warmer clothes, stolen from the Afghan military.
This place was roomier than the first and more convenient for him, too. He could now sit with his legs stretched and even stand up, and he had a bigger bucket to use as a toilet.
There was no light—none at all.
But there was a sense of time passing that came from the occasional noise of nature and animal life from outside. Otherwise, the unholy, cold Afghan winter was horribly silent.
He knew he couldn’t make it through another day of knowing that he could die at any second. He was becoming an embarrassing loose end that the Taliban would want to be rid of.
In an attempt to remain rational, he switched plans. He started to calculate how long it would take him to do this last video, to send it to the British authorities, and for the Taliban to discover that the United Kingdom would never pay a ransom.
He spent thirty days in torment, as time elapsed too quickly for a man sentenced to death, with no escape plan.
He exercised until his muscles were on fire, restoring their strength, turning them into steel again.
He carefully wrapped his chain, loop by loop, in the rags he used to keep himself from rotting in the filth and unsavory, unhygienic conditions.
He listened to the minute noises, which could tell him when it was day or night: the slight changes in the wind, divining how deep the cave was and its mouth location, how many guards there were and their shifts.
He weighed the risks of staying against those of trying to escape.
Every small detail was stored and drawn on his imaginary chessboard.
On the thirtieth morning, a new guard came to ta
ke him to shoot the video. The trapdoor bolt was made of old iron; it took some time for it to be lifted and put aside.
How many? Tavish flexed his arms and legs and crouched on his heels. How many men this time?
The door hinges were rusted, and its heavy wood was badly put together. It caught on the uneven, earthy ground, the aperture not spacious enough for a man as big as Tavish to pass through.
His eyes acclimated to the light as the guard cursed, awkwardly lifting the door from the rocky ground and pulling it wider. Just one fucking bastard!
“Allahu Akbar!” Tavish got quickly out of the cave and towered over the shorter man from behind.
The man looked up at him over his shoulder, flabbergasted, and didn’t see the bucket come down full force on his head. His handgun fell to the floor, and his shout of warning was cut off before it began by the chain being looped around his neck.
Tavish pulled hard, cinching the chain around the guard’s neck until his arms and legs stopped flailing. He dropped the body on the floor and looked at the dead man inanely for a moment.
For just a split moment.
“That was for Johanna, ye son of a bitch,” he whispered, as he divested the guard of his rifle, knife, and clothes and put them on over his own, knowing he would face the cold winter, if he managed to escape. Had he not lost forty pounds in captivity, it would’ve been impossible to fit in the smaller man’s clothes. There was a knife and another AK-47 magazine in the coat pockets.
Hiding his identity behind the large and long balaclava, he threw the rifle’s strap around his body and secured the loose chain in his hand.
Stealthy as a panther, he moved through the winding corridors until he arrived in the main cave, which led outside.
To one side, a group of four men was gathered, talking and laughing, rifles set aside on the corner near them. On their bodies were just small guns and knives. In the farthest corner, there were two boys who had barely reached adolescence, sleeping with their rifles by their sides.
He halted and calculated.
By the size of the round magazine, he could tell it held between seventy-five to a hundred bullets. There were only five hundred feet or so to reach freedom.
And, in between, four distracted terrorists and two sleeping teenagers.
God forgive me. He closed his eyes and forced every thought away from his head, drew in a huge breath, and muttered to himself, “God has forsaken you, Doc. Make this the killing of your life.”
Tavish pulled the trigger.
He shot at everything he could hit, then shot again, while running to the cave’s mouth.
Cries, shouts, and curses exploded in the caves; the stench of blood and gunpowder filled the air.
“Fuck ye, ye piece of shit. FUCK YOU!” he roared and laughed like a maniac, as he vaulted the mangled bodies and ran the last several feet.
Tavish leaped to freedom with a vindictive smile on his face.
“Allahu Akbar!”
A bullet caught him in the thigh.
Mallory Court, Master Suite
5:30 p.m.
In the shower, thinking of the kiss and what he had said to Laetitia, Tavish found his state of mind spiraling downward like water down the drain.
He had seen a slow homogenization of people’s emotions in response to world-impacting tragedies, but he had always felt too strongly, and even more so after the war. Whether he was being too stoic or too intolerant, too emotional or too cold, he had difficulty judging any given circumstance.
It isn’t that I wish to pressure her. It’s because I care. It’s because this type of attraction doesn’t happen every day.
With his history of losses and tortures, his imbalanced and too-serious temperament usually took the best of him; he had forgotten what should be the proper responses to social situations. His emotions didn’t seem to be dictated anymore by his past, but its pull was irresistible, and he was dealing with it on a daily basis. He wished it were as easy to wash away his memories as the lather from his hair.
“It has more to do with living long enough to understand that unfortunate things . . . well . . . they happen to everyone, and we have to seize—fucking great! Now, I’m talking to myself out loud.” He turned off the shower and stepped out of the stall. His eyes immediately caught the reflection of his leg and groin in the mirror. He wondered if she would stare in horror when he disrobed. What the hell is wrong with me? So what if she does? Either she likes me as I am or not.
He wound a towel around his waist; then he towel dried his hair.
Tavish eluded pain and suffering as best he could; he was firmly trying to stay planted in the present, avoiding further time-killing entanglements with the past, but he knew that without dealing with it he would be beset on all sides with the pull of responsibility.
He wore different skins for different parts of his life, but he was tired of having to look in his inner closet for them yet not sure if he was dealing properly with the devastation he had been through; losing himself to his dark thoughts, or battling to avoid them, he had been sure the coming years would be dark and dreamless despite his youth.
Since he had met Laetitia, which seemed so long ago and not merely a few days, he wanted to face life bared. He looked forward to the distraction of talking to her, if nothing else. She was delicate and fragile, for sure. Feminine and sweet. Scottish images of legends came easily and instantly to his mind to better qualify her.
Because he saw her exactly as an angel of beauty and a flower of delicacy.
He threw himself on the soft and generously big black-and-white bed of the Master Suite.
Before he closed his eyes for a brief slumber, it drifted through his mind that he had been living like he was eating the core of an apple without the juicy benefits of tasting the fruit.
Now, he wanted to appreciate it all.
Beardley Lodge
7:00 p.m.
Laetitia had never felt possessive about anyone. From an early age, she had learned that possessiveness for her was futile and that it was the borderline between love and obsession. The immature, neurotic—and dangerous—behavior it implied didn’t sit well with her. But she was feeling a rather strong desire to be possessive over that giant of a man, who drove her crazy with his tempestuous eyes and turbulent temperament.
She visualized Tavish’s forehead stamped with a “Laetitia’s” seal, because “mine” was too tame for the ardor currently heating her body.
Don’t be childish. She laughed out loud at the image. The guy is too serious for his own good.
She wondered if he’d be wearing one of his perfectly tailored suits or more casual attire, then wondered if she should choose a sophisticated look from her vintage outfits. I don’t care; we are just friends. She had some nice clothes in her wardrobe, courtesy of Elizabeth, and she leafed through them. Ah, damn. Who am I fooling?
CHAPTER 22
Mallory Court
9:51 p.m.
Tavish nibbled on the petits fours without really enjoying them. His mind had been in overdrive since the moment she appeared on her porch, wearing a royal-blue hooded velvet cloak, her forearms and hands protruding from fashionable front openings, her long braid peeking out from under the hood. He was reminded even more of her fay likeness.
Their kiss inside the car left him reeling, and only her firm grasp on his wrists kept his hands from opening her cloak to cup her breasts.
When, inside the hotel, she took off the cape with a swirl, he was glad she had restrained him. He had to keep his mouth from dropping. An embroidered navy gauze-and-silk blouse matched with dark emerald-green bell-bottomed trousers, finished with a long lilac-blue and leaf-green corded belt, made her look fluidly elegant and ethereal.
During dinner, the conversation flowed naturally. He told her about his childhood and his holidays in Scotland; about his teenage years; about his brother, Alistair, and his sister, Alice. The only subject he avoided was war. But, somehow Laetitia hadn’t spoken enough ab
out herself. Every time the conversation veered toward her past, she distracted him, running her fingers over his hand, jaw, or through his hair. It was not that she hadn’t contributed to the conversation, but he had done most of the talking and now began to feel like an addict who needed a fix, as her life story drifted in the air like tiny bits of smoke and not like the lightning of a crashing thunderstorm he was expecting.
At each glide of her tongue over her lips, Tavish’s mouth watered, and he thought of even naughtier things he wanted to do with her. Each time Laetitia inhaled, Tavish’s masculine smoky-sweet scent left her dizzy and longing.
When dessert was over, the conversation drifted to the weather and died.
Tavish was sure his brain had been addled; all his blood had gone south.
Laetitia’s body was heated, and she had become damp with need. Unconsciously, she licked the last taste of marmalade from the corner of her mouth.
His erection got so hard in his tight jeans it was painful. He uncrossed and crossed his legs, trying to find more room.
She caught the movement and stared at his crotch. And up into his eyes. Her mouth parted.
They fell silent, staring at each other.
He stretched out his hand, and over her carefully braided hair, his fingers traced her ear. He was simply fascinated by their shape. “You’re lovely, Little Elf.”
She leaned back on the arm of the sofa, twisting her fingers together. It was disconcerting having him so near. She wanted him badly, but all she wished now was to run back to her house. “I’m not sure about this: me and you.” Then she jutted her chin to the bulge on his jeans. “About it.”
His lips twitched in amusement, and a faint blush tinted her face.
“Him and I haven’t done anything. Yet.” He bent in her direction and captured her long braid, coiling it securely around his fingers proprietorially.
Overwhelmed by the dominancy in that simple action, when he tugged, she leaned naturally into him and whispered in his ear, “But the problem is I want you to.”