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She’d have a family.
The thought was darker than it should have been and he reached for the wine pitcher again, only to find it empty. Thirty-eight years old, horny, thirsty and feeling envious of some innocent, eight-year-old kid.
What the hell was wrong with him? He’d been several years older than Megan had been when his real family had been blown to bits. As for the “family” he’d had after that, he’d hardly term a hard-assed workaholic like Cole as real.
Sitting across from him on the foot of the bed, Angeline had spread out the napkin over her lap, and as he watched, she delicately brushed her fingertips over the cloth.
She had the kind of hourglass figure that men fantasized over, a Madonna’s face and fingers that looked like they should have nothing more strenuous to do than hold up beautifully jeweled rings. Yet twice now, he’d found her toiling away in the ass-backwards village of Puerto Grande.
That first time, five years ago, his usual courier had missed the meet and Brody had been encouraged to develop a new asset. And oh, by the way, isn’t it convenient that there’s a pretty American in Puerto Grande whose family is already involved with Hollins-Winword.
The situation had always struck Brody as too convenient for words. But he’d gone ahead and done his job. He’d talked her into the gig, passed off the intel that she was to relay later when she was back in the States and voilà, her career as a courier was born.
The second time he’d found her working like a dog in Puerto Grande had been, of course, just that morning. He’d called in to his handler at Hollins-Winword to find out who he could pull in fast to assist him on getting the kids, only to learn that, lo and behold, once again the lovely Señorita Clay was right there in Puerto Grande. She would be the closest, quickest—albeit unlikely—assistant. And one he’d had to think hard and fast whether he wanted joining him or not. Desperate measures, though, had him going for it.
Not that it had been easy to convince her to join him. As she’d said, she wasn’t a field agent. Not even close. Her experience in such matters was nil. And she had her commitment to All-Med to honor. The small medical team was administering vaccinations and treating various ailments of the villagers around Puerto Grande.
He’d had to promise that another volunteer would arrive shortly to replace her before she’d made one single move toward his Jeep.
She was definitely a woman of contrasts.
When she wasn’t pulling some humanitarian aid stint, she worked the streets of Atlanta as a paramedic, yet usually talked longingly of the place she’d grown up in: Wyoming.
And there wasn’t a single ring—jeweled or otherwise—on those long, elegant fingers, except the wedding band that had been his mother’s.
Usually, he kept it tucked in his wallet. As a reminder never to get too complacent with life. Too comfortable. Too settled.
Considering how settled he’d been becoming lately, maybe it was a timely reminder.
“Do you remember much of Santo Marguerite?”
Her lashes lifted as she gave him a startled look. Just as quickly, those lush lashes lowered again. She lifted one shoulder and the crisp fabric of the tunic slipped a few inches, giving him a better view of the hollow at the base of that long, lovely throat.
“I remember it a little.” She pleated the edge of the napkin on her lap then leaned forward to retrieve the wineglass that she’d set on the floor. “What do you even know about the place? It no longer exists.”
She had a point. What he knew he’d learned from her file at Hollins-Winword. The dwellings of the village that had been destroyed were never rebuilt, though Sandoval had been in control of the land for the last few decades, guarding it with the violent zealousness he was known for.
She evidently took his silence as his answer. “Where did you grow up?” she asked.
“Here and there.” He straightened from his perch and stretched. Talking about her past was one thing. His was off-limits. Even he tried not to think about it. “You figure that bed’s strong enough to hold us both?”
Her eyes widened a fraction before she looked away again. “I…I’m used to roughing it in camps and such. I can sleep on the floor.”
“Hardly sounds like a wifely thing to do.”
She scrunched up the napkin and slid off the bed. “I’m not a wife.”
“Shh.” There was something wrong with the way he took such pleasure in seeing the dusky color climb into that satin-smooth complexion of hers.
Her lips firmed. “You’ve already established that these walls don’t have ears.”
“So I did. Kind of a pity, really. I was looking forward to seeing how well we played mister and missus for the night.”
Giving him a frozen look, she polished off the rest of her wine. Then she just stood there, staring at the blank wall ahead of her.
In the candlelight, her hair looked dark as ink against the pale cloth of her tunic, though he knew in the sunlight, those long gleaming locks were not really black at all, but a deep, lustrous brown.
“Whatcha thinking?”
She didn’t look back at him. She folded her arms over her chest. Her fingertips curled around her upper arms and he saw the wink of candlelight catching in the gold wedding band. “I wonder why they don’t have windows here.”
“Considering the way the weather was blowing out there, that’s probably a blessing about now.” He watched her back for a moment. The tunic reached well below her hips, and though he’d always had the impression of her being very tall, he knew that it was merely the way she carried herself. Not that she was short, but he had her by a good seven or eight inches. And there, in that tunic and pants, her feet bare, she seemed much less Wonder Woman than usual.
Vulnerable. That was the word.
She looked vulnerable.
It wasn’t necessarily a comfortable realization.
“You claustrophobic?”
She stiffened and shot him a suspicious look. “Why?”
“Just curious.” Though the walls in the room were probably going to feel mighty closed in the longer they were confined together with that single, narrow bed.
Her hands rubbed up and down her arms. “The electricity here would be from a generator, wouldn’t it?”
“I’d think so, though that doesn’t explain why it’s not running. Maybe they’ve got concerns with the gas it would take. Why? You cold?”
“Some. You, um, you suppose there’s plumbing here?”
He hid a smile. The convent was cloistered, and located in a highly remote location. But it wasn’t entirely out of the middle ages. “This is built like a dorm,” he said. “I saw the bathroom a floor down.”
She dropped her arms, casting him a relieved look. “You did?”
“Probably better facilities here than you had in that hut at Puerto Grande.” He reached for the door. “After you, my darling wife.”
When they got to the bathroom door, Brody stopped. “Place is built for women,” he reminded her. “You’d better go first. Make sure I don’t send some poor nun into heart failure.”
“I won’t be long.” She ducked inside.
In his experience, women were forever finding reasons to spend extra time in the bathroom. Lord only knew what they did in there.
But she did open the door again, almost immediately. “All clear.” She slipped past him back into the corridor and he went inside.
The halls were still silent when they made their way back up the narrow staircase and to the room. They passed a half-dozen other doors as they went. All closed.
“Where do you suppose the children are?”
He wished that he had a good answer. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
“I don’t understand why you’re still feeling so awfully patient, considering your hurry to get up here.”
“Honey, I’m not patient. But I am practical.”
She stopped. “What’s so practical about getting all the way here, with no means of getting back out of here?”
“Oh, ye of little faith.” He caught a glimpse of swishing black fabric from the corner of his eye.
“Bro—”
He pulled Angeline to him and planted his mouth over hers, cutting off his name.
She gave out a shocked squeak and went ramrod stiff. Her hands found their way to his chest, pushing, and he closed his hands around hers, squeezing them in warning.
She went suddenly soft, and instead of fighting him, she kissed him back.
It took more than a little effort for him to remember the kiss was only for the benefit of the nun, and damned if he didn’t feel a few bubbles off center when he managed to drag his mouth from those delectably soft lips and give the sister—Sister Frances, in fact—an embarrassed, Hewitt-type apology.
She tilted her head slightly. “The sacrament of marriage is a blessing, señor. There is no need for apology.” Her smile took in them both. “You will be comfortable for the night? Is there anything else we can provide for you?”
He kept his hands around Angeline’s. “A visit with our children would be nice.”
“I’m sorry. The Reverend Mother must return first.”
Angeline tugged her hands out of his. “We understand, Sister. But won’t you tell them that we’re here for them? That we’ll be going home just as soon as we can?”
“Of course, señora. They will be delighted.” She gave them a kind look. “Rest well. The storm will hopefully have passed by morning and Mother will be able to return.” She headed down the hall toward the staircase.
Brody tugged Angeline back into their room and closed the door.
The second he did, she turned on him. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“Do what?”
Her lips parted. She practically sputtered before any actual words came out. “Kiss me.”
He slid his hand over her shoulder and lowered his head. “Whatever you say, honey.”
She shoved at him, and he stepped back, chuckling. “Relax, Sophia. We have the nun’s blessing, remember?”
“Very funny.” She put as much distance between them as the small room afforded. “I’m not going to have to remind you that no means no, am I?”
He started to laugh, but realized that she was serious. “Lighten up. If I ever get serious about getting you in the sack, you’ll know.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Usually,” he agreed. He yanked back the cover on the bed, and saw the way she tensed. “And you’re acting like some vestal virgin. Relax. You might be the stuff of countless dreams, but I do have some control.”
Her cheeks weren’t just dusky rose now. They were positively red. And her snapping gaze wouldn’t meet his as she leaned past him and snatched one of the thin pillows off the mattress. “If you were a gentleman, you’d take the floor.”
“Babe, I’ll be the first one to tell you that I am not a gentleman.”
“Fine.” She tossed the pillow on the floor, and gathered up the top cover from the bed. She flipped it out on the slate by the pillow, and sat down on one edge, drawing the other side over her as she lay down, back toward him.
“You’re really going to sleep on the floor.”
She twitched the cover up over her shoulder. “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or applaud. “If I needed a shower despite the one that Mother Nature gave us that badly, you could have just told me.”
She didn’t respond.
He looked at the bed. A thin beige blanket covered the mattress. The remaining pillow looked even thinner and more Spartan now that its mate was tucked between Angeline’s dark head and the cold hard floor.
Brody muttered a mild oath—they were in a convent, after all, and even he didn’t believe in taunting fate quite that much—and grabbed the pillow and blanket from the bed and tossed them down on the ground.
She twisted her head around. “What are you doing now?”
“Evidently being shamed into sleeping on this godforsa—blessed floor.” He flipped out the blanket and lowered himself onto it. Sad to say, but nearly every muscle inside him protested the motion. He was in pretty decent shape, but climbing the mountain hadn’t exactly been a picnic.
“You don’t have any shame,” she countered.
He made a point of turning his back on her as he lay down, scrunching the pillow beneath his head. The area of floor was significantly narrow, but not so narrow that he couldn’t have kept his back from touching hers if he’d so chosen.
He didn’t choose.
So much for trying to convince the higher powers that he was entirely decent.
She shifted ever so subtly away from him, until he couldn’t feel the warmth of her lithe form against him. He rolled onto his back, closing the gap again.
She huffed a little, then sat up and pushed at him to move over. When he didn’t, she scrambled to her feet and stepped over him, reaching back for her bedding.
“Where are you going?” He rolled back onto his side and propped his head on his hand, watching her interestedly.
“Away from you,” she assured. She flung the cover around her shoulders like an oversized shawl and climbed onto the bed. “When lightning strikes you down, I don’t want to be anywhere near.”
Brody smiled faintly. “That’s good, because I was beginning to think you were afraid of sleeping with little ol’ me.”
She huffed. “Please. There is nothing little about you.”
“Babe. I’m flattered.”
She gave him a baleful look that made him want to smile even more. “You know they say the larger the ego, the smaller the, um—”
“Id?” he supplied innocently.
She huffed again and threw herself down on the pillow. “Blow out the candles.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He got up and did so, turning the small, cozily lit room into one that was dark as pitch.
She was silent. So silent he couldn’t even hear her breathe.
“You all right?”
“It’s really dark.”
He wondered how hard it had been for Angeline to admit that. She damn sure wouldn’t appreciate him noticing the hint of vulnerability in her smooth, cool voice.
Two steps to his right and he reached the dresser. The small tin of matches was next to the pitcher and bowl and he found that easily, too. A scrape of the match against the wall, a spit of a spark, the flare of sulfur, and the tiny flame seemed to light up the place again. “I can leave one of the candles lit.”
“You said you weren’t a gentleman.”
He set the flame to one of the candles and shook out the match. “I’m not,” he assured.
“Then stop acting like one, because now I have to give you room on this bed, too.” She moved on the mattress, and the iron frame squeaked softly. She groaned and covered her face with her hand.
He laughed softly. “It’s just a few squeaky springs. I doubt any of the good sisters are holding glasses against these thick walls hoping for a listen. You act like you’ve never shared a bed with a guy before.”
She didn’t move. Not just that she was still, but that she really didn’t move.
And for a guy who’d generally considered himself quick on the uptake, he realized that this time he’d been mighty damn slow. “Ah. I…see.” Though he didn’t. Not really. She was twenty-nine years old. How did a woman—a woman who looked like her, yet, with her intelligence, her caring, her…everything—how the hell did she get to be that age and never sleep with a guy?
“Why are you still—why haven’t you ever—oh, hell.” Disgruntled more at himself than at her, he scraped his hand down his face. “Forget it. It’s none of my business.”
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not. Now, are you going to sleep on the bed or not?”
He snatched up the pillow from the floor and tossed it beside her.
She’s a virgin. The thought—more like a taunt—kept circling inside his head. Probably what he got for catching a glimpse of that sexy underwear of hers when he’d promised not to look.
He lay down next to her, and the iron bed gave a raucous groan.
“Not one word,” she whispered fiercely.
That worked just fine for him.
Chapter Four
Angeline didn’t expect to sleep well.
She knew she’d sleep, simply because she’d learned long ago to sleep when the opportunity presented itself. And even though Brody’s long body was lying next to hers, his weight indenting the mattress just enough that the only way she could keep from rolling toward him was to hang on to the opposite edge of the mattress, she figured she would still manage to catch some z’s.
What she didn’t expect, however, was to sleep soundly enough, deeply enough, to miss Brody leaving the bed.
Or to find that someone had filled the pitcher on the dresser and laid out a freshly folded hand towel on the dresser top.
Okay. So she’d really slept soundly.
Not so unusual, she reasoned, as she dashed chilly water over her face and pressed the towel to her cheeks. Making that climb in the storm had been exhausting.
Or maybe you’re more comfortable with Brody than you’d like to admit.
She turned and went out of the room, leaving that annoying voice behind.
As before, the corridor was empty, still lit by candles in the sconces. She went down the stairs, visited the long, vaguely industrial-like restroom and then went searching.
But when she reached the ground floor without encountering the impossible-to-miss dining hall, she knew she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.
Annoyed with herself, she turned on her heel, intending to head back and make another pass at it, but a muffled sound stopped her in her tracks.
Footsteps?
Nervousness charged through her veins and she tried to shake it off. She was in a convent, for pity’s sake. What harm could come to them there?
Even if the nuns realized the identity fraud they were perpetrating, what would they be likely to do about it, other than call the authorities, or kick them out into the storm? It wasn’t as if they’d put them in chains in a dungeon.
Nevertheless, Angeline still looked around warily, trying to get her bearings. She went over to the nearest window, but it was too far above her head. She couldn’t see out even when she tried to jump up and catch the narrow sill with her fingers. So she stood still, pressing a hand to her thumping heart, willing it to quiet as she listened for another sound, another brush of feet, a swish of long black robes.
But all she heard now was silence. She was listening so hard that when melodious bells began chiming, she very nearly jumped out of her skin.
She leaned back against the roughly textured wall and waited for the chiming to end.
“If you’re praying, there’s a chapel within spitting distance.”
Her heart seemed to seize up for the eternal moment it took to recognize the deep, male voice.
She opened her eyes and looked at Brody. She came from a family of tall, generally oversized men, much like Brody. And she was used to the odd quietness with which most of them moved. But Brody seemed to take that particular skill to an entirely new level. “It’s a good thing my heart is healthy,” she told him tartly, “because you could give a person a heart attack the way you sneak around!”
“Who needs to sneak?”
“Evidently you do,” she returned in the same quiet whisper he was using.
Despite the wrinkles in his gender-neutral tunic and pants, he looked revoltingly fresh, particularly compared to the rode-hard-and-put-up-wet way that she felt.
“Did you know you pretty much sleep like the dead?”
She wasn’t going to argue the point with him when ordinarily, as a result of her paramedic training, she was quite a light sleeper. “What are you doing sneaking around? Do you know what time it is?”
“It’s almost 3:00 a.m. And what are you doing sneaking around? I’ve been trying to find you for ten minutes.”
“I needed the restroom,” she whispered. A portion of the truth at least.
He cocked his head. “You got your boots on. Good.” He closed his long fingers around her wrist and started walking along the hallway, sticking his head through doorways as he went. “While you were dreaming of handsome princes, I was scoping out this place. Hard to believe, but the fine sisters have an interesting collection of vehicles.”
Her stomach clenched. “You’ll ask to borrow one?”
Despite the dim lighting, she could tell that his expression didn’t change one iota.
She swallowed a groan. “We can’t steal one of their cars,” she said under her breath.
“Babe.” He sounded wounded. “Steal is a harsh word.” He stopped short and she nearly bumped into him. “I like borrow better.”
“That only works when you intend to ask permission to do so,” she pointed out the obvious.
“Details. You’re always getting hung up on details.” He reached up and plucked a candle out of one of the sconces, then pulled open the door beside him and nudged her through. “I wanna move fast, but we’ve gotta stay quiet. Think you can manage that?”
Her lips parted. “Yes, I can be quiet,” she assured, a little more loudly than she ought.
He raised his eyebrows and she pressed her lips together, miming the turning of a key next to them.
His lips quirked. “Good girl.”
The spurt of nervousness she’d felt before was nothing compared to the way she felt now as Brody drew her through the doorway. He stopped long enough to hold the door as it closed without a sound.
After tramping down a warren of alarmingly narrow halls, the tile floor gave way to hard-packed dirt.
She swallowed again, feeling like they were heading down into the bowels of the mountain. “Did you sleep at all? How long did it take you to discover this rat maze? Do you even know where we’re going?”
He paused again, letting her catch up and the candle flame stopped the wild dance of light it cast on the walls. “Yeah, I slept enough. And yeah, I know where we’re going. Don’t you trust me? We’re going to get the kids and get the hell outta Dodge while the going’s good.”
“But what about your big first-things-first speech?”
“You slept some, didn’t you?” His voice was light. “And ate.”
She pressed her lips together, determined not to argue. “Your sudden rush just surprised me,” she finally managed stiffly.
“Well, along with their various vehicles,” he said in such a reasonable tone that she felt like smacking him, “the fine sisters here have a satellite phone system. Hardly the kind of thing one would expect, but hey. Maybe one of the local politicians figures he’s buying his way into heaven or something. Anyway, I checked with my handler. The Stanleys have been moved again. And despite the weather, the Mother Superior has found a guide to get her back to her flock. She’s supposed to be here shortly after sunup.”
“A guide,” Angeline echoed. Her irritation dissolved. “What kind of guide?”
“The kind who won’t let a washed-out road get in his way.”
“You don’t think it’s that Rico person who searched Sophia and Hewitt’s place?”
His gaze didn’t waver.
Dismay congealed inside her stomach. “This is a nightmare.”
“Nah. Could be worse. Way worse,” he assured.
She looked over her shoulder in the direction from which they’d come. What was worse? Going forward or going back? Either way, she really, really wanted to get out of this narrow, closed-in tunnel. She looked back at him only to encounter the look he was giving her—sharp eyed despite the gloom. “What?”
“You tell me. What’s bothering you?”
Aside from the entire situation? She moistened her lips. “I, um, I just don’t much care for tunnels.”
He held the candle above his head, looking up. Then he moved the candle to one side. And the other.
She knew what he was looking at. The ceiling overhead was stucco. The walls on either side of them were stuccoed, as well. And though the floor was dirt, it wasn’t as if it were the kind of dirt that had been on the road where the Jeep had gotten stuck. Her boots had encountered no ruts. It seemed perfectly smooth, perfectly compacted.