Even the hint of her warmth was tormenting. At the table he unveiled their lunch with more impatience than elegance. “Hot dogs.”
“Stop your teasing. What are they called, really?”
“I’m not teasing. Eat.”
His tense answer silenced her. She repressed all comments about lunch until later, as they lay on their stomachs facing each other on large rafts, with the checkerboard on a float between them. “Why are they called dogs?” she asked, looking at him solemnly with her chin propped on the back of one hand.
“Because they’re made of dog meat.” He continued setting up the checker pieces, and avoided looking at her. Every time he looked at her he questioned how he could live in this house after she left. He would see her in every room, every hallway—everywhere.
“You like to make fun of me. You’re angry. If I could take back what happened between us the other night, I would. It has only made you resent me.”
“No. I just don’t know what hot dogs are made of. Leftover pieces of pig, I suppose. Who cares? Live dangerously.”
“Is that what you’ve always done—live dangerously.”
“Not when I could help it.”
“Why would a man who can have anything he wants risk losing it all on mysterious schemes?”
“Not schemes. Projects. I help people. Save their lives, even.”
“How?”
“By getting them out of problem situations. Just as I helped you.”
“For money?”
“Sometimes, if the people are rich and can afford my fee. It depends on the customer.”
“And if they can’t afford it?”
“If they have a worthy cause, I help them without charge.”
“How many people work for you?”
Carefully setting the last checker piece in place, he raised his eyes to hers. “I’ll tell you my secrets, if you’ll tell yours. What would have happened to you if you’d stayed with Kriloff?”
“I’d have continued participating in his research, of course.”
“But what kind of research? I have a mental image of you curing white mice sent over from a cigarette study of severe coughs.”
She laughed nervously. “All right, let’s play checkers.”
“So you’re not talking?”
“Neither are you.”
“Hmmm.” He told her the rules of checkers. She nodded. And then she beat him easily.
“Beginner’s luck,” he said. So she beat him again. “How do you do it?” he demanded.
“It reminds me of chess. I’ve played chess since I was a child. In Russia, everybody plays. By comparison, this game of yours is so simple, I could win it blindfolded.” As if to prove that point, she shut her eyes and, as he watched openmouthed, began separating the pieces by color.
Audubon slid off his raft so quickly that he was beside her by the time she opened her eyes in surprise. “This has got to be a trick.”
“You only believe in important, fancy miracles? Not funny, simple ones?”
He scrambled the black and red pieces, then snugly cupped his hand over her eyes. “No peeking, this time.” She separated the pieces again, red with red, black with black. When he lowered his hand, her eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Tell me how you did it,” he commanded.
“Why should I?” She smiled sweetly.
He turned her raft over, and her yell became a comical gurgle as she disappeared into the pool. When she popped to the surface, she slapped water at him. “Criminal!”
“Brat!” He dove down, circled her legs with his arms, and pulled her under. When he let go of her legs, she deftly raised her feet and hooked them around his hips. As she sprang to the surface her feet scooted down. His trunks went with them.
When he righted himself in the chest-deep water, she was giggling, her hands over her mouth and her face bright red. He gave her a grand scowl. “That was potentially quite painful for me. And definitely undignified.”
“I’m sorry, Audubon, I’m sorry. But it’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to be mischievous and have fun. Years, I think. I couldn’t resist.”
A mental image of her somber past life destroyed his anger and made him want to please her. He thrust his chin forward and eyed her with such fake alarm that she laughed harder. “My trunks are around my ankles. I’ve tried to be a gentleman to you. I hope you’re satisfied with my ungentlemanly predicament.”
She wiped her eyes and nodded. “I didn’t think that you’d be too embarrassed. Not a man like you who’s probably been naked in many pools with many women. I’m sorry if you don’t want to be naked in a pool with me. I don’t know why you’re so protective.”
“So you just want to provoke me.”
“I want you to know I don’t like being pitied. I want you to understand I’m wise and careful about my feelings. The way I was raised at the institute … trained … was sad and unfair, but not without dignity. I’m not an emotional invalid. What I was offering you the other night was much more than gratitude for all you’ve done for me.”
The compliment had a direct effect on him, and if she glanced down, she’d get a watery view of a very male response. But Audubon could think only of what would happen if she learned his ulterior motive for helping her. “Maybe I’m not as worldly as you think,” he protested.
“A man who doesn’t bother to pull up his trunks? Hah.” Her expression jaunty, she gazed into the air over his head and busied herself, smoothing her soaked hair back with both hands.
He was right about her swimsuit having a definite see-through quality when it was wet. He doubted that Elena realized how much of a show she was giving him. Her lack of coyness impressed him but made him feel sad, angry, and protective again. He’d never forget that even her most vulnerable, intimate needs had been scheduled like a research experiment. Right now she was stretching her wings, trying to learn how to fly without restraint, and she needed a coach, not a keeper.
He’d play along, from a distance. Crossing his arms over his chest, he said with feigned rebuke, “You’re too chicken to take a look at your footwork.”
“Too chicken? Why am I always some kind of bird to you?”
“Oh, never mind. After what you did with the checkers, I expect you don’t have to look to know what’s there.”
“But I knew the checkers by”—she hesitated, realized her blunder, and coughed awkwardly—“by touch.” Then her expression became impish. “I could learn about you the same way, if you’d like.”
He lowered his arms and stared at her. “You can recognize colors by touching them?”
“Not quite. The red pieces had a slightly rougher texture than the black ones, that’s all. Something about the difference in paint, I suppose.”
“Your sense of touch is that well developed?”
“Yes. It’s one of the skills I’ve perfected over the years, as part of my work with Kriloff. You know, I didn’t mind participating in some parts of his research, except that I was never given a choice.” Growing somber, she put her hands on the capsized raft that floated nearby. “This white vinyl is a little scratchy.” She touched a blue stripe across the raft’s headrest. “Smoother.” Slowly she brought her attention back to Audubon. Her eyes were anxious. “You’re staring at me as if I’m a freak.”
“Not a freak. Amazing.” Happiness rose in her eyes, warming him with rapt affection.
She began moving toward him. “So I’ve lost another secret to you. What will you give me in return?”
Audubon forced himself to take a step backward, though every part of him screamed for her fascinating touch, her smile, her future. “Stop, Elena.” His request sounded hollow, even to him. The damned swim trunks trapped his feet. A silly kind of fate was at work, he thought grimly. He tried to back up again, but nearly tripped.
She glided up to him and put her hands flat on his chest. “What secret will you give me as payment for mine, Audubon? Something deep in your heart, something from your past, some fu
nny little eccentricity that I’d love? No, not you, not such a private man, certain of his control. I’ll have to settle for something you can’t hide as easily.”
Trembling, she slid her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. There was nothing between them but her white swimsuit, only millimeters thick … and it only made matters worse. Every detail of her lower body was molded to him along with the smooth material, and even her slightest flexing scrubbed him delicately, as if she were stroking him with velvet.
“Silver fox,” she whispered, her face flushed with desire and anxious with hope. “You asked me to trust you, and I have. You encouraged me to want you, too, and I have, from the moment we met. Now that you’ve accomplished so much, why do you tell me to stop?”
Because I didn’t intend to love you. Because I may have to betray you. Audubon shook his head. He couldn’t say either thing to her. “You have a brand new country to explore. You can’t imagine how many choices you’re going to have about what to see, where to go, and who to share your new life with.”
“That’s a very unconvincing answer.” She trailed her hands down his torso and into the shimmering water. He almost groaned when they smoothed over his sides and back, then lower, only sparing him along the front. There her hands were blocked by her own body, which caressed him in an even more provocative way. “I’m learning to be an American woman. Very bold. I think it’s wonderful that American women can simply tell a man they wish to make love to him.”
“And you’ll have opportunities with any other man you want.”
“But wanting is not the same as wanting to make love. You’re quivering, Audubon.” Her voice broke with emotion. It was the barest of whispers now, her breath feathering his lips as she raised her face closer to his. “No other woman could tell that you are. You won’t even admit it, yourself. But I know. I feel it in my fingertips. Here. And here. Oh, Audubon, touching you is like living inside your world. All your mysteries are at my fingertips. Share them, please. Please.”
He had been born with a crystal dome around him, setting him apart from other people, displaying him like a rare museum piece, a symbol of so many things—his notorious heritage, his wealth, his ideals. No one had ever broken through it until now. Suddenly she was with him, heating him from the inside out, and his mind went blank with the magnificence of being part of her.
Audubon put his arms around her gently, brushed kisses across her face and tasted the small, happy sounds she made when he reached her mouth. He drew her to him in an embrace so sensual that no movement was necessary, and they stood still, their heads on each other’s shoulders, hands unmoving, only the water stroking the single, melded entity they had become.
“You do not take,” she murmured in awe. “You give. You give when it would be easy just to take.”
He shut his eyes, troubled by what she’d think if she knew he had already planned how he’d leak information about her to the State Department—not telling where she was, but simply letting them know that she was something much more unusual than a secretary to Dr. Gregori Kriloff. Once her powers were known, she’d never be free in the way she wanted. But he would have a major bargaining tool for getting help for Kash, if it was needed.
“I want your life to be everything you want it to be,” he said. “But I’m more selfish than you think.” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder, then bit the spot gently, as if warning her.
She inhaled sharply, arching inside the arm he’d circled around her waist. Her head came up as he cinched her tighter against him, and her breath feathered rapidly against the side of his neck. “I know you intend to use me in some way.”
For a moment, shocked, he said nothing. Then he turned his head and caught the tip of her earlobe between his teeth, raked it painlessly, and heard her soft, helpless gasp again. Driven by regret and frustration, he was helpless, himself. “What an insulting thing to say. Why do you trust me, if you suspect my motives?”
“Because I don’t think I’m mistaken about you.” She hugged him fiercely, and put her head on his shoulder again. “I feel great gentleness in you, and I’ve seen the respect people give you—there’s no fear in it. You’ve earned the kind of loyalty that only comes to those who are honorable.” She paused. “I’d recognize the opposite kind easily. I’ve known it all my life.”
He told himself her words were flattery—sincere, but uninformed flattery—and they shouldn’t affect him. But they burst inside him like flowers, blooming profusely, filling him with bright colors of desire, emotion, and hope.
In the dim haze of passion and despair, he didn’t hear the first hushed chime of the house alarm system. But the second pierced him like a bullet. By the time he set her away and lifted his trunks to the surface with his foot, a technique borrowed from his soccer-playing days in one of Virginia’s finest military academies, Bernard was standing in the doorway to the great room, a portable phone in one hand.
“Michael says we have most unusual visitors on their way up the drive.”
Most unusual. The standard wording Bernard used in front of guests. Dangerous visitors. Anyone who had gotten past the guard at the gate without Audubon’s permission must have a search warrant.
And there was only one reason for it. Elena.
“Entertain our guests until I change clothes,” Audubon called calmly. Bernard nodded and left. If he had glimpsed Audubon’s nakedness under the water, he gave no sign.
Sliding to the side of the pool, Audubon forced himself to move with unhurried ease, but adrenaline poured into his bloodstream. Elena met his reassuring gaze with a starkly fearful one. She knew. Dammit, she was too sensitive. She knew something was very wrong.
Audubon shook his head at her. “Relax. Why don’t you get yourself a towel and dry off?” Reaching for the pool’s edge beside his head, he tossed the swim trunks on the tile then winked at her. “Are you really going to stand there and stare at me while I get out? Ill blush, I swear.” His husky teasing only made her nod woodenly. All her fears about being found and sent back to Kriloff had jelled in the horrified expression on her face. “Elena,” he said softly, keeping his urgency hidden, “trust me.”
That galvanized her. Nodding again, this time firmly, she swam to the pool’s shallow edge and climbed out, then ran to the white towel draped on a wicker couch and wrapped it around her like a skirt. By that time he had put on his swim trunks and vaulted to his feet. “Let’s take a walk, wet dove.” He held out his hand.
She trotted to him and grasped it hard. Both of them dripping water on the hardwood floors and thick imported rugs, they walked through the great room. “Who do you think’s come to look for me?”
“Probably the FBI.”
“What will they do?”
“Ask me a number of insulting questions and search the house.”
He led her into the central hall past Italian porcelain vases as tall as their heads, and paintings worth more than most homes. He had an impractical, illogical urge to pile everything outside the main entrance and set fire to it, as a blockade. Riches up in smoke, easily forgotten, for the protection of a loved one. Great-great-great-uncle Zeodorus Audubon had done something similar during the Civil War, to save his invalid wife from being evicted by Yankee troops.
“Where are we going?” Elena asked, unaware that once again an Audubon was intent on saving his heart’s blood from Yankees. She probably didn’t even know what Yankees were. And the FBI types were probably Southerners, anyway, men named Billy Frank and Tommy Lee, and …
He was losing his mind. The supercool icing system around his nerves had never threatened to shut down before. You’ve never been in love like this before.
“I’m taking you to my dungeon,” he said with a short, smooth laugh, then raised her hand and kissed it. They entered his paneled study, where polo trophies glinted in sterling silver grandeur on the fireplace mantel.
“Won’t they look in your ‘dungeon’ as well?” she asked as he led her through a door
on the other side of the study.
“They don’t know it exists. And they have no way of finding out.” The smaller room, with thick, paisley-print drapes hiding the windows, was Clarice’s office. But she was standing by an opening in the paneled wall, smoothing her gray chignon with one hand and flicking a bit of lint off her white coatdress with another. As Audubon and Elena halted, Clarice smiled at her but shot a furtive, worried look at Audubon. “This is no place for a swim, Chief.”
He chuckled at their pool attire and dripping bodies. “We’re looking for the secretarial pool.”
“Phew-wee. Put that joke in the sun and let it stink.”
“Stop speaking in a secret code,” Elena begged softly, looking from Clarice to Audubon with blue eyes gone nearly violet with concern. “Please.”
He let go of her hand and quickly put his arm around her in a hug. “It’s no secret code, I promise. Follow Clarice downstairs and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll be down to get you when it’s safe.”
“I hope you like root beer and marshmallows,” Clarice commented. “Because that’s what you and I are going to be stuck with to munch on until Bernard has time to come down with something more appetizing.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine—whatever these root beers are,” Elena told her. She faced Audubon and grasped his arms. “In my country, when government men come to people’s homes, it’s very bad.”
“Here we only worry if they’re from Animal Control. Last month I was ticketed for letting my hot dogs run free.”
“What?”
“Shhh. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“I’m worried about you.”
If Clarice hadn’t been observing with her motherly brown eyes, he would have picked Elena up and kissed her. Instead he merely smiled. “Go downstairs, now. I’ll see you soon.”