All-American Baby

CHAPTER FOUR

THE TWO MEN with military-issue haircuts and nondescript charcoal-gray suits arrived at the rendezvous point forty-five minutes early.

“Thorndyke must be good,” said the one who was built like a prizefighter gone to pot. “Not a peep of a problem at the party.”

“He’s good all right.” That from the one who looked like a college professor, thin and bespectacled. “Oughta be. Runs in the blood.”

“Yeah. What’s his old man in for, anyway?”

The professor studied the tips of his shoes, which were marred by pinpoint specks of dirt. “Counterfeiting. Ran a big real estate flimflam in Chicago, the whole thing backed by play money. Very slick. Hell, the whole family oughta be locked up. They’ve handled more hot ice than the first guys to climb the North Pole.”

“Didn’t nobody climb the North Pole, dumb ass.”

“Yeah, well, you catch my drift.”

They waited, each contemplating how he would spend the money he would receive when the Somerset woman was handed over to the guys at the Tokyo airport. They didn’t know what would happen to her then and it really didn’t matter. They didn’t even know the identity of the nutcase who wanted something to hold over Somerset’s head.

“You still planning to invest your take?” The professor glanced at his watch.

“Gotta plan for retirement.” The boxer tossed a cigarette butt onto the ground and tamped it out with his shoe.

“A waste of good dough, I say. What’s the likelihood either one of us’ll make it to a ripe old age?”

“Like spending it on some bimbo’s a wise use of resources?”

“She ain’t a bimbo,” the professor said, his carefully correct speech falling away as easily as the shine on his shoes. “She’s classy. A dancer.”

The boxer’s chuckle was gravelly. “Yeah, at Tony G’s in the Bronx. Some class.”

“Listen, pal—”

“Aw, never mind. You spend your way, I’ll spend mine. We’re gonna have too much to squabble over.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

At the appointed time, Thorndyke didn’t show. Not a huge cause for alarm. Traffic could account for that.

Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty. Still a no-show.

The professor and his pal exchanged uneasy glances. Neither of them relished the idea of explaining why they didn’t have the woman.

They waited two hours. The professor had used up every profanity he knew and his pal had smoked every cigarette in the pack in his pocket.

The professor spit out one more string of words that his mother would have slapped him silly for using. “He ain’t coming, is he?”

“I think that’s a safe bet.”

“We gotta find him.”

“The hell with him. We gotta find the girl.”

“Then we gotta find him. ’Cause you’re gonna ruin that pretty face of his.”

“That’s right, professor.”

ASH AWOKE the next morning to find the van empty except for her discarded evening gown and the ravaged shopping bags.

He leaped up, head still groggy, eyes gritty, and stumbled out of the van. She’d been helpless enough in London; how could she survive on a busy California highway with unknown enemies on her trail?

She could be dead already, for God’s sake.

He saw her sitting on the rocky cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, legs hugged to her chest, chin on her knees. Wind off the water played with her hair, tossing it around her shoulders. The sun was already high. She wore the funny sunglasses he’d stolen for her, but her feet were bare and the hat dangled from the tips of the fingers curled around her legs.

She looked like a magazine ad for the Eccentric Traveler.

At that moment, he would have followed her anywhere. She was more appealing than he remembered, more of a woman, sensuous without trying. And he was so glad to see her, he could have scooped her into his arms and covered her face in grateful kisses.

He took a moment to remember that this maddening woman was the one who’d first stirred in him the notion of going straight, of settling down and leading a normal life. The whisper of that idea had sent him scurrying for cover. He’d thought that if he ran away from the irresistibly charming American student, the crazy notion would leave him. Instead, the idea had taken hold, kept shaking him to the roots of his hair. And all the time, she’d been deceiving him.

What a joke. The con man conned.

“Do you suppose you could steal me some makeup today?” she said without turning, without moving, without any other indication that she’d been aware of his presence.

“We’re not going to steal anything else today.” His voice was still jagged with unfinished sleep.

“We’re not? How boring. I was growing fond of a life of crime.”

She was thoroughly aggravating.

“We’re not keeping these cars,” he said pointedly. “We’re borrowing them.”

“That’s right. And my jeans? My sunglasses?”

“We’ll let your daddy pay them back.”

She stood in one fluid motion, unfolding with the lazy ease of a cat. Unbidden came the image of the way she moved beneath him, effortless, liquid, like no other woman he’d known. He hadn’t been able to forget her. He hadn’t wanted anyone since.

“I’m never going to see my father again,” she said with quiet intensity.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She strode across the rocks as deftly as a bird on a ledge and faced him defiantly. “I’m not going back there. If that’s your plan, we can part ways right now.”

“I’m not letting you go off on your own.” And why not? he wondered. Wouldn’t that be the simplest thing? The sanest thing?

“You’re not letting me?” He saw her emotions rising, saw her dark eyes go stormy with rage. “Mr. Thorndyke, you’ve got nothing to say about it!”

“You’re in danger. Someone hired me to kidnap you. You think they’re going to let you waltz around the country without—”

“I’m not in danger! And you don’t—What did you say?”

“I said someone hired me to kidnap you.”

She cocked her head to one side—as charmingly as a 1940s screen starlet—and stared at him. “Who?”

“I don’t know.”

Now she tossed her head in another classic starlet move. This time the fiery vixen. She couldn’t have done it any better if she’d been personally trained by Bette Davis. “So when do you deliver the goods?”

Ash realized his heart was thumping, his fingertips aching with the urge to sift through her soft, thick hair. He remembered the feel of it with stark clarity. “I...” What had she said? Oh, yeah. Delivering the goods. “I’m not. I... I realized... I thought it was for your own good. That’s the only reason I was in on it.”

“Well, I can certainly understand why you’d think that.”

“They said it was your father’s idea. To keep a closer eye on you.” He thought her gaze hardened at that. “Then I overheard the plan and realized you were in danger. Possibly.” He hesitated. This wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to say to anybody, but it had to be said. “Your father wouldn’t... You just said you don’t want to go back to him. Is there a reason? Would he harm you?”

“That’s so ridiculous it doesn’t even deserve an answer.”

“You’re positive?”

She stalked off, leaving him staring for the moment at the spit and roar of the ocean. His heart raced out of control. He was on the rising edge of an adrenaline surge, the kind that he always rode through one of his capers.

He went after her.

She sat in the open side door of the van, putting on the little canvas shoes he’d brought her. They were red with big yellow silk ribbon, which she’d tied into a remarkable bow.

“You have impeccable taste,” she said, holding up one narrow foot, pointing the toe and striking a pose. She had the legs of a dancer, muscular and taut.

She also had the nerves of the best burglars in the business. He’d just informed her that her life was in danger and that her father might be behind the plan to get rid of her, and she was striking poses and taking playful jabs at his taste. Amazing.

“I used to think I had good taste,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder, princess. Come on. Let’s get another car. We’re too close to home to hang on to this one much longer.”

“And breakfast? I woke up this morning with a hankering—that’s an Americanism, isn’t if—for ham and eggs. With pancakes and syrup. And maybe toast and grape jelly.”

They ditched the van in a wooded area just past a collection of shops, then walked back there for breakfast. Ash ordered a bagel. Melina ordered everything she’d mentioned earlier, along with a large orange juice. She probably weighed all of a hundred and five pounds. Yet she’d outeaten him the night before and now again this morning. She’d done the same thing in London. She ate the same way she soaked up life, like a starving person invited to a banquet.

Why was this happening to him? he wondered. He’d managed, using every bit of willpower he possessed, to walk away from her once. Could he manage it again?

“We need a plan,” he said. That’s it. Focus on logic, on reason. “If you’re sure we can trust him, I suggest we call your father and—”

“Please.” She held up her hand to stop him. “I’d really rather not walk out on my food.”

“Why won’t you at least—”

“Besides, I have a plan.”

“I can hardly wait.”

She smiled. Her lips were sticky with maple syrup. She licked them with obvious relish. The tip of her tongue caught his eye and sent his pulse galloping.

“You’re not paying attention,” she said.

He tried to forget about her sweet lips, her teasing tongue. “Yes, I am.”

She grunted her disbelief. “I was saying I want us to tour the countryside.”

“Tour the—Melina, people want to kidnap you.”

“My father has been telling me that all my life. Maybe it’s even true. But I don’t care.” She dunked a forkful of pancake in syrup, drowning it. “I want to see Hollywood—the big sign, you know. And the desert. Las Vegas—maybe I could be a showgirl, do you think? I’m thin and I have long legs.”

“You’re five-two. You don’t have long legs.” He really didn’t need a conversation about her legs. He remembered them too well as it was.

“I don’t?” She popped the bite of pancake into her mouth and glanced down at her legs. “I always thought I did. Maybe it was being around Mother Aloysius. She was very short, I suppose. Under five feet I always felt statuesque around Mother Aloy-sius.”

“Well, you aren’t. You’re petite. You’re no match for the kind of men who—”

“Okay, forget Las Vegas. But there’s the Grand Canyon. And Texas. Do you suppose I could get a pair of hand-tooled boots? Now, if I had a pair of cowboy boots and a Stetson hat I would certainly be tall enough to—”

“Are you crazy? Look me straight in the eyes and tell me you’re not crazy.” If not, she was at the very least making him crazy. Because he was falling for it—for her, God forbid—all over again.

She paused, put her sweetly pointed chin in her palm and looked at him with dark-fringed eyes. She didn’t need makeup, stolen or otherwise.

“I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m just making up for lost time.”

“Making up for lost time. You’ve had more advantages than ninety-nine point nine percent of the world and you want more. You are crazy ... and spoiled!”

She tossed her fork into her syrup-logged plate with a dull splat. She stood and snatched her sunglasses and hat off the table. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“That’s for sure! It’s hard to get to know a mirage, Mel.”

Her dark eyes snapped. “If I’m a mirage, what are you? Showing up in my life, disappearing, showing up again and snatching me right out from under the best security money can buy. Traipsing me down the California coast in stolen cars and pilfered—”

He slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the table, took her by the arm and directed her toward the door. “If you’re trying to attract the highway patrol, you’re doing a very good job,” he said between clenched teeth as they exited the restaurant.

She kept silent but snatched her arm out of his grasp. When they were almost out of the parking lot, her gait slowed, and then she came to a complete halt as she stared into the woods.

“Oh, my,” she said.

He followed her gaze. A black-and-silver Harley-Davidson was parked off the path, near a shed.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said.

“Oh, Ash.” She turned her best coaxing gaze on him.

“I know. You’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

She smiled, all sign of her temper gone. Her emotions were as quick as summer lightning. “What fun.”

The way she said it held all kinds of promise. Not knowing what visions she had in her mind, Ash suddenly had plenty of his own. Her thighs pressed to his hips, her small, pointed breasts nudging his back, her excited breath in his ear.

He heaved an exasperated sigh.

“Just for a few miles,” she said.

“Mel, you don’t understand. People and their Harleys—this is asking for trouble.”

She pushed her sunglasses up and propped them on her head. “Ten miles. Five. Then we can trade it in for the most boring tan sedan you’ve ever seen. And we can make a plan. Whatever kind of plan you want.”

“Then you’ll call your father?”

“Not that plan. But any other plan.”

Ash knew when he was being had. But he simply couldn’t resist her.

He had to push the bike through the woods to another trail that led to the highway to avoid starting its engine close enough to attract the attention of the owner. And he was doing it, he reminded himself and her, on half a bagel and two cups of black coffee.

But when the Harley-Davidson roared to life and Melina curved her lithe body to his and linked her arms around his chest, Ash knew he would have done it a dozen times over, with an army of enraged Hells Angels behind him. They rode for twenty miles before his arousal subsided.

TOM SOMERSET STARED out the window of the room his daughter had vanished from sometime during the night. Mid-morning sun was burning the mist off the Golden Gate Bridge. The bay glistened a glorious blue. It was going to be a beautiful day in the city by the bay.

Tom fought dry heaves.

His daughter was gone. The only thing left in the world that mattered to him had vanished. He’d been through this before. He wasn’t sure he could survive it again. That’s why he’d insisted on bringing her to the United States with him. She hadn’t been out of his sight since his men picked her up in London three months ago. He’d been in hell the entire time they’d searched for her. Because each time she disappeared—and it had happened three times before this—Tom was convinced it was a replay of that day fourteen years ago.

No, he told himself. Not that. She’s run away. That’s all. You know that’s all.

He knew that was all because she’d warned him. The day before, in no uncertain terms, she’d told him he had to allow her to lead a normal life or she would find a way to escape.

This was his fault. The result of his excessive fear. He knew it. And he hated himself for what he’d done to her. But he didn’t know what else to do.

Yes, she’d run away again. That was all.

He turned and looked around the room. Tom didn’t know anything about decor, but he knew it was the kind of room that should have delighted any young woman. The high iron bed was covered with a fluffy rose-colored comforter and ruffled pillows. He could almost see his daughter at the dressing table, her long, dark hair shining in the sunlight that streamed through the bank of wall-to-wall windows. To him, the room looked like something from a fairy tale.

It’s just another prison! Another in a long line of prisons!

Tom closed his eyes against the memory of Melina’s angry accusation the afternoon before. She hadn’t wanted to be here. She’d wanted to go to some museum, had wanted to wander around Haight-Ashbury, for God’s sake. Her eyes had communicated her frustration.

And, as he had done for half her life, Tom Somerset had insisted that he knew what she needed far better than she knew herself.

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