Clearing her throat, Spencer said, “So that’s why Stanton hates Drew? Because Drew shot him?”
“He didn’t know who was after him then,” Burke said. “But since then, whenever Stanton left the safety of the States—where he’s a taxpaying, law-abiding citizen—Drew was on his trail. We couldn’t touch the man legally, because we’ve never been able to get any solid proof against him, and Drew isn’t a man who could kill in cold blood, although God knows he wanted to kill Stanton. So he kept pushing. If Stanton was after something, Drew got there first. If there was a corner, Drew backed him into it. If there was a chance in hell he could ruin Stanton’s plans, he did it. He alerted everyone he could, made it so hot for Stanton that the man could hardly maneuver outside the States—and by then he knew who to blame for it.
“A few months ago things finally came to a head. Working with us, Drew helped arrange a setup to nail Stanton. We still don’t know what went wrong. There was a mix-up, somebody jumped the gun, I don’t know. Stanton got away again, but this time the man was . . . disfigured. He blamed Drew, of course. The last thing we heard him say was that he’d make Drew suffer.”
Fiercely, Spencer said, “You can’t get him for that? You can’t stop him?”
“Threats aren’t against the law,” Burke replied stonily. “And as far as the international police are concerned, Stanton hasn’t done a thing to be arrested for. We have no proof. The only witness we have to an illegal act is Drew, and what he saw took place in a country that was coming apart at the seams.”
Spencer stared at him for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry.”
The strange silvery eyes lost their metallic sheen and he smiled faintly. “So am I.”
Tyler looked at both of them, then said mildy, “As soon as Drew told us it was Stanton, we grabbed Burke and hustled him on a plane. He’d told us the story a while ago—Burke, not Drew—and we figured there could be trouble. But it looks like Drew means to stay back this time.”
There was a tacit question in the words, and Spencer looked at the redhead, half nodding. “Because of me. I won’t let him go without me and—and he doesn’t want me near Stanton.”
Tyler smiled at her. “Sounds like a good reason to me.”
“And me,” Burke said definitely. “As a matter of fact, I’d already made up my mind that if Drew tried to cross the border into Italy—assuming Stanton went that route—I’d throw him in jail the moment he set foot on Italian soil.”
Sliding into his chair beside Spencer, Drew said calmly, “I’d like to see you try.”
Burke looked at him with very steady eyes. “Watch me.”
After a moment Drew smiled. “No need. Not this time.” He spread open a map on the table, studied it for a moment, then indicated a spot along the Austrian-Italian border. “According to a border guard who’s always been straight with me, Stanton crossed over into Italy right here, at about noon today.”
Kane frowned over the map. “He isn’t making very good time.”
“No, he isn’t,” Drew agreed. “I would have expected him to be halfway to Milan by noon.”
Burke looked at Drew from under his flying brows. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to alert us as soon as you knew it was Stanton so we could catch him at the border?”
“It occurred to me,” Drew replied, meeting the stare squarely. “But unless he left Austria with the cross, there wouldn’t be much of a charge you could hang on him. This way, he’s transported a stolen national treasure into another country. With any luck at all, you can nail him this time.”
“If we can catch him before he reaches the Med.”
“You’d better get busy,” Drew suggested, pushing the map toward him.
Spencer could almost feel Burke relax suddenly, and she realized that until that moment he hadn’t been entirely certain that Drew really intended to leave the matter of Stanton’s capture to the authorities.
“I’ve been busy all day,” the Interpol agent said. “I have half a dozen men stationed between the Austrian border and Milan, and a few more making certain we have the coast covered. Every police agency in Italy has been quietly alerted, as well as the relevant Austrian authorities—who are, by the way, biting their nails and going nuts.”
Drew looked at him. “You do realize that we have absolutely no proof that Stanton stole the cross? Or even that he found it if it comes to that. Spencer and I located what we both believe was the hiding place for the cross, and an empty box seems to indicate the cross was stolen, but everything else is based on hearsay.”
“Yeah, I know. Sometimes I scare myself.” Burke shrugged with a faint grin. “But since your hearsay seems to be on par with other people’s facts, I’ll risk embarrassment and disgrace, to say nothing of the loss of my pension.”
“If you wind up needing a job,” Kane said, “I could use another hand at the ranch. Mucking out stalls or something.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Burke told him politely.
LATE THAT NIGHT, cuddled close to Drew’s side in their bed and feeling utterly sated in the peaceful after-math of lovemaking, yet oddly wide awake, Spencer murmured, “You didn’t protest when Kane and Tyler decided to fly to Milan first thing in the morning. I thought you would.”
He rubbed his chin in her soft hair. “I don’t think Stanton will risk going through Milan, and I don’t think Kane believes it, either. He just wanted to distract Tyler before she got impatient and decided to try and track down the cross herself.”
“Would she?”
“Sure she would. And could. Kane calls her a lightning rod for trouble, and he’s right. Of course, he’s just the same.”
“But he doesn’t want to go after the cross?”
“The cross, yes. Stanton, no. He’s encountered Stanton at least once that I know of, and he doesn’t want Tyler anywhere near the man. Like you, she wouldn’t let him go alone.” Drew was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “Burke told you, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” She could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath the hand resting on his chest, and a chill of fear went through her as she thought of how quickly and ruthlessly a life could be snuffed out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His arms tightened around her. “Because I didn’t want you to look at me and know how easily I could kill.”
Without hesitation Spencer said, “You could never kill easily, I know that.”
“I could kill Stanton.”
“Yes. But not easily. Not without it costing you.”
Drew was vividly aware of the silk of her skin touching his, the warm aliveness of her body pressed against him, and thought that if Stanton in any way threatened her, killing him would be a very easy thing. He wondered if Spencer had yet realized that his mask of civilization—that any man’s—was only a thin veneer of polish over savage instincts that two million years of evolution had failed to tame.
No man was civilized when he loved a woman. Once her brand marked his heart—once her unique scent and taste filled his senses, her eyes looked at him in passion and her body accepted his—all the instincts of the cave were reborn in him. She was his, to be protected and cherished, and he belonged to her body and soul.
Drew wanted to tell her that, wanted to tell her that he loved her. Talking about Stanton had reminded him again of how vulnerable he was to her. Like that thief who had instantly handed over a gold idol and had begged for the lives of his wife and unborn child, Drew knew that if a knife was held to Spencer’s throat, he’d do anything. Anything.
Patience was wearing away under the strain of uncertainty. He wanted—needed—to bind her to him with all the words a man could utter, all the hopes and promises and dreams, all the tenderness and potential pain that came with love and need, and life.
She moved against him just then, snuggling closer, and he felt the softness of her belly pressed against his hip. Life, he thought, and a strange sensation that was both yearning and alarm welled up inside him. His child growing
inside her delicate body . . . It was possible, he knew. They might already be connected in the most basic and primitive way possible, their very cells merged to form a new life.
Drew made a rough sound, shifting on the bed so that he could kiss her. She responded to his tenderness as instantly as she did to his passion, her lips clinging softly to his, her hands lifting to stroke his face gently. His heart was hammering and he knew his voice was too harsh when he spoke, but he couldn’t rein in the surging emotions that forced the words out of him.
“I just realized . . . you could be pregnant.”
Spencer went utterly still, her hands motionless against his cheeks, and in the dimness of the room the dark shine of her eyes told him nothing. But she didn’t flinch from the abrupt words and harsh tone, and her reply was very soft.
“Yes, I could be.” She drew a quick breath, not quite nervously but a little wary, and added even more softly, “As a matter of fact, I think the timing is right. Or wrong, depending on—on how you feel about it. So much has been happening so fast, and—It wasn’t deliberate, Drew.”
He lowered his head and kissed her deeply, until her hands slid to his neck and the tension drained from her body. Even then he couldn’t stop kissing her, brushing his lips over her face, her throat, and his voice was still rough when he muttered, “We’re getting married as soon as we get back to D.C.”
She tensed again and whispered, “Because I might be pregnant?”
“No,” he said against her throat, and raised his head to look down at her with burning eyes. “Because we belong together. Because I love you so much I’m half out of my mind with it.” His own body was rigid, and he went through silent agony in the few seconds it took her to respond.
Spencer made a choked little sound and lifted her head from the pillow, kissing him with warm, trembling lips. “I was afraid to hope you could love me again after what I did to you, and I didn’t think you’d want me to love you . . . but I do. I love you, Drew, I love you. . . .”
The relief was staggering, and fierce satisfaction filled him. He held her tightly against him, burying his face in the soft curve of her neck. “I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to push you any more than I already had,” he said huskily. “You’d been through so much, and I was such a bastard at first that I couldn’t expect you to trust me. But I needed to hold on to you because I was so terrified of losing you again. God, sweetheart, I’ve loved you for twelve years.”
She’d been right, Spencer thought in a daze of happiness as his hungry mouth and urgent hands brought her body alive. Losing herself in him was exhilarating when he gave of himself as well. And he did. She had no doubts, now, about what he was feeling. There was nothing coolly detached about him, nothing dispassionate or remote.
He loved her as if this would be his one and only chance, so fiercely tender it made her throat ache. His powerful body trembled with the force of his desire, and the heat of it burned in his eyes even in the darkness. He touched her as if she were infinitely precious and desperately needed, his hands shaking, and his voice was choked with intense emotion when he murmured words of love against her skin.
As always, it was frantic and almost wild, but this time openly expressed love made it even more profound, and the hot, sweet tension that built inside their straining bodies was so acute in its power that when it finally snapped they were hurled into a shattering culmination.
She refused to let him leave her afterward, her arms and legs clinging with what strength was left to them. She was so blissfully happy, so gloriously content that she never wanted to move again. It seemed to her a miracle that he could love her, and she almost held her breath for fear of having imagined it.
Drew brushed his lips tenderly across her closed eyelids and, catching the faint trace of salt at the corners, murmured deeply, “You always cry.”
Spencer opened her eyes slowly and smiled up at him. “I can’t seem to control that,” she admitted. “Does it bother you?”
“It’s a little unnerving. Scared the hell out of me the first time. I thought I’d hurt you.”
Softly, she said, “I feel so much when you love me that it’s almost frightening.”
“You aren’t alone in that,” he said, kissing her. “I love you so much, Spencer. I made the mistake of hiding that before, but I never will again.”
She didn’t doubt that. Curled up at his side as sleep finally claimed them, she didn’t doubt anything at all.
But she had peculiar dreams. Unsettling dreams. In them, Drew was holding her hand and telling her how much he loved her while another voice, a distant voice, kept saying, “The painting and the statue—I did them both, don’t you remember? But years later, when I was old and he was gone. You have to remember, it’s very important. And I was English, not Austrian. That’s important, too.”
Something had her other hand, pulling it as if trying to get her away from Drew, and she was staring at the face of a clock with huge, crooked numbers and wildly spinning hands. She wanted to look at the clock and think about it, because she had the feeling there was something she should have remembered about it. But that other thing was tugging hard, trying to pull her away from Drew, and the grip of it was cold and cruel.
Then her father’s voice, strong and clear as it had been before the stroke, said, “Behind the clock, Princess. Look behind the clock.”
Spencer pulled her hand free of the cruel grip and turned to Drew, wanting to tell him that she knew now, that she remembered everything, but he kissed her with so much warm tenderness that she forgot again. . . .
chapter eleven
SPENCER MURMURED DROWSILY and opened her eyes with definite reluctance. The room was bright with morning, and Drew was leaning over her.
“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” he said. “It’s early.” She looked at him, waking up instantly and feeling her heart turn over with so much emotion that all she could say was, “I love you.”
He kissed her again, his face so transformed by tenderness that it moved her almost unbearably. “I love you, too.” His voice was husky, topaz eyes glowing.
She had heard the love in his voice in the night, had felt it in his touch, but now she saw it in the light of day and it was a naked thing. She had a curious certainty that Drew’s mask of detachment was gone forever now, shattered by the power of the feelings between them. He would never again hide what he felt from her, and he would never again be able to hide what he felt from others.
When he straightened, smiling down at her, she tried to think of something casual to say and found it when she realized he’d been up for some time. “You’re dressed.”
His mouth twisted slightly. “Not because I want to be. I wouldn’t leave you willingly, believe me. Burke called, damn him. He wants me to meet him for coffee downstairs.”
Uneasiness stirred in her, a reminder of problems even in happiness. “Trouble?”
Drew shook his head. “He’s expecting his men to check in with him in the next hour or so. I should be there, so we’ll know what’s happening.”
“I didn’t hear the phone,” she commented, and glanced at the clock on the nightstand as she sat up, absently holding the covers to her breasts. “I might as well get up, too.”
“What you should do is rest,” he told her.
“I don’t feel at all tired. Besides, I want to have breakfast with you.” She smiled at him. “Why don’t you meet Burke, and I’ll join you when I’ve had a shower.”
He hated leaving her so much that the thought of spending even a couple of hours out of her presence was almost unbearable, but he was also determined to never again see the painful white exhaustion her delicate face had held in Paris. He’d thought a few extra hours of sleep would be good for her, and it hadn’t been his intention to wake her at all. But she was glowing, contentment and love shining in her eyes, and it would have taken a much harder heart and far stronger will than his to refuse her anything.
“All right.” He rose to his fee
t. “We’ll be on the terrace. Take your time. Burke needs at least half a pot of coffee before he’s reasonably human.”
Her soft chuckle followed him out of the room, and he was smiling to himself quite unconsciously as he left the suite and went downstairs. He’d been awake since dawn, just lying there watching her sleep and feeling incredibly lucky. God knew the path had been a rocky one, but they’d made it, and there was a sense of wonder in that. He’d thought of all the future mornings and waking up beside her, feeling her warm body against his, and he was so damned grateful.
He walked through the early-morning quiet of the lobby and went out into the terrace, thinking absently that if the chill in the air was still present when Spencer joined them, they’d go inside for breakfast.
Burke, seated at one of the tables with a pot of coffee and a phone, looked up with a scowl and said sourly, “I hate people who’re cheerful at the crack of dawn.”
Drew sat down and poured a cup of coffee for himself. “Dawn cracked a couple of hours ago, friend. Are you sitting out here in the cold to stay awake?”
“More or less,” Burke admitted, smothering a huge yawn with one hand.
Knowing that the agent tended to go weeks at a time short on sleep and that he’d had little chance to rest since completing the investigation in Madrid, Drew merely said, “If that was your first cup of coffee, drink another one. You’re still half asleep.”
“Three-quarters,” Burke muttered, pouring more coffee. “But awake enough. I got two calls during the night,” he added abruptly.
Drew felt tension steal over him. “You didn’t tell me that. Trouble?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” Slouched in his chair, the collar of his black leather jacket standing up to frame a hard jaw and his flying brows drawn together in a frown, Burke looked more like a ruffian than a cop in an international police agency. “One of my guys knows the border as well as his own face, and he got antsy. Said the place Stanton supposedly crossed over into Italy was all wrong, too obvious, nobody on the run would pick it if there was an easier way—and there is, a few miles east. I told him to go check it out if he wasn’t happy.”