“I didn’t want to tell you like this, Lee. But I’m Malone. I’ve come back.”

“No.” Ainslie shook her head. “No, Malone’s dead. You’re someone called John Smith, and right from the start you’ve come up with one crazy story after the other. You’re not Malone. I buried Malone.”

“Ask me anything about our time together.” His voice was edged. “I remember it all.”

“He made me a promise. You can’t know about that.” Ainslie heard her own voice as if it was coming from a long way away, through the enveloping mist of pain.

“I promised you I’d never leave you the way you’d been left before. You’d had a nightmare, and I heard you crying out in your sleep. I held you and you told me about your dream.” His eyes were dark as he grabbed her wrists. “Don’t you get it, Lee? I didn’t break my promise to you. I’ve come back., dammit!”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

May holds more mayhem for you in this action-packed month of terrific titles.

Patricia Rosemoor revisits her popular series THE MCKENNA LEGACY in this first of a two-book miniseries. Irishman Curran McKenna has a gift for gentling horses—and the ladies. But Thoroughbred horse owner Jane Grantham refuses to be tamed—especially when she is guarding not only her heart, but secrets that could turn deadly. Will she succumb to this Mysterious Stranger?

Bestselling author Joanna Wayne delivers the final book in our MORIAH’S LANDING in-line continuity series. In Behind the Veil, we finally meet the brooding recluse Dr. David Bryson. Haunted for years by his fiancée’s death, he meets a new woman in town who wants to teach him how to love again. But when she is targeted as a killer’s next victim, David will use any means necessary to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

The Bride and the Mercenary continues Harper Allen’s suspenseful miniseries THE AVENGERS. For two years Ainslie O’Connor believed that the man she’d passionately loved—Seamus Malone—was dead. But then she arrives at her own society wedding, only to find that her dead lover is still alive! Will Seamus’s memory return in time to save them both?

And finally, we are thrilled to introduce a brand-new author—Lisa Childs. You won’t want to miss her very first book Return of the Lawman—with so many twists and turns, it will keep you guessing…and looking for more great stories from her!

Happy reading,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

The Bride and the Mercenary
Harper Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harper Allen lives in the country in the middle of a hundred acres of maple trees with her husband, Wayne, six cats, four dogs—and a very nervous cockatiel at the bottom of the food chain. For excitement she and Wayne drive to the nearest village and buy jumbo bags of pet food. She believes in love at first sight, because it happened to her.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Ainslie O’Connell—Two years ago she buried the only man she would ever love. But when she glimpses a stranger on the way to her wedding, she’s almost certain Malone has come back from the dead….

Seamus Malone—He was killed by a sniper’s bullet. Wasn’t he?

Terrence Sullivan—Ainslie’s P.I. brother, Sully knows that the man she loved hid a dark past. But does the man who looks like Malone have an even more dangerous secret?

Pearson McNeil—Older than Ainslie and slightly stuffy, he’s offered her his hand in marriage. Being jilted at the altar wasn’t part of the deal.

Brian McNeil—He’s angry at the way Ainslie has treated his brother. But is his anger a cover for a more deadly intention?

Paul Cosgrove—He was Malone’s partner when the two of them worked for the mysterious “Agency,” and he saw him die. Now his own life seems to have fallen apart.

Noah Watkins—He’s tracked the international assassin called the Executioner for two years. When he finds him he’ll kill him without a qualm.

The Executioner—He’s responsible for too many deaths to count, and his identity has remained a secret. But does he himself know who and what he is?

To Sean Cole with thanks.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Prologue

They made little shovels especially for this, Ainslie O’Connell thought in dull wonder, taking it from the man beside her and grasping it by the handle. Who would have thought it? The shaft was of oak, so smooth that it felt like silk instead of wood, and the blade itself gleamed like polished silver. It was almost too pretty to use.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Lee.” The low voice at her shoulder was thick with emotion. She looked up.

“No, I’m okay.” She looked down again at the shining shovel, the heap of brown loam at her feet. “But I’m not really sure how this works. Am I supposed to take a full shovelful, or is it just kind of symbolic, Paul?”

“It’s only symbolic, Lee.” His tone was edged with sadness. “Get a little dirt on the tip of the blade and then throw it onto the coffin. They’ll cover up the rest of it after we leave.”

“Oh.” Ainslie frowned in understanding. “Okay.” Hefting the delicate implement in her hands, she started to slide the blade into the pile of earth, but then she stopped. “Do they leave the flowers on top of the coffin? They don’t take the flowers off before they bury him, do they?”

“No. The flowers stay with the coffin. The roses are yours?”

“Red roses.” She nodded in agreement. “Red roses for true love. That’s why I chose them. They’re really beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they are, sugar. He would have liked them.” Paul Cosgrove’s hand wrapped around the shovel handle next to hers, his skin almost the same color as the oak, the white sliver of shirtcuff protruding from the somber gray of his suit sleeve a snowy contrast to the brown earth and the dull red fire of the roses. “It’s time to say goodbye, Lee. That’s really what this symbolizes.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” She gave him a startled look, shaking her head. “I’m not ready to do that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

Her gaze clouded in confusion, and she let go of the shovel. Her gloved fingers touched her forehead. “Is this really happening, Paul? Do you think there’s any way this might be some kind of a bad dream?”

The man watching her sighed heavily, a flicker of pain passing over his features. Instead of answering her, he leaned forward, plucked one of the blood-red roses from the arrangement on the polished mahogany lid in front of them, and handed it to her. Ainslie took it from him, her eyes wide.

“Can you smell it?” he asked softly.

She brought the flower up and took in a deep breath, her lashes drifting onto her cheekbones as she did so. Yes, she could smell it, Ainslie thought. The scent was intoxicating—wine and perfume and a lover’s kiss all swirled together in one heartbreakingly lovely scent. The cold petals felt like velvet against her lips.

And then she knew. Her eyes flew open and met his.

“But…but I loved him, Paul!” she whispered, her voice cracking in urgency. “You don’t understand—he can’t be gone! I can’t have lost him!”

“You didn’t lose him.” The big man took the rose gently from her and handed it to the woman standing slightly behind them. He placed Ainslie’s hand back on the shovel. “You didn’t lose him, Lee. He’ll always be in your heart.”

Unresistingly she let him slide the tip of the spade into the crumbling earth. When the two of them had lifted the shovel, he let his hand fall away. With a suddenly frightened glance at him she saw his encouraging nod, and slowly turned her attention back to the task in front of her.

The silver blade held little more than a palmful of dirt, but that was enough to dull its shining surface. It was pretty, and delicately crafted, but in the end it was only a shovel, Ainslie realized. And Paul could say what he wanted about symbolism, but his words were just a comforting lie.

There was nothing symbolic about what she was doing. She was filling in the grave of the man she loved.

She straightened, her shoulders thrown back and her feet planted slightly apart for balance. She felt Paul’s hand on her arm and shrugged it off almost angrily. Bringing the shovel up, she held it over the lowered coffin and tipped it sideways.

The clod of earth fell onto the polished lid with a terrible thudding sound. On the other side of her she heard the priest sigh and then begin intoning words she’d heard in movies and read in books, but that she’d never really listened to before.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—”

“He’s not in there, you know,” Ainslie said loudly. “I think I’ll go home and wait for him. Celeste, can I have my rose back, please?”

She grabbed the flower from Paul’s startled wife, and began to push her way through the black-clad crowd. She took three determined steps.

Then she fainted and Paul, darting forward, caught her.

Chapter One

“I look like a blob of pistachio fudge in this stupid dress, Aunt Lee. And when am I ever going to wear green satin shoes again in my life?”

“Next St. Patrick’s Day?” Ainslie gave her fourteen-year-old adopted daughter an unsympathetic glance and looked out the limo window. “Jeez, it’s a real October breeze out there. I hope this darn crown thing stays on.”

“It’s not a crown, it’s a headpiece,” muttered Tara, flopping back dramatically against the seat. Then she relented, peering at Ainslie through silky, for-this-occasion-only, mascaraed lashes. “Don’t worry, Aunt Lee, it’ll stay on. You look beautiful—the perfect bride.”

“Please.” Ainslie’s voice was gruff. “I don’t feel any more comfortable in this getup than you do. Why I couldn’t have worn a simple suit and tied the knot at city hall, I don’t know.”

“Because Pearson’s rich and stuffy and comes from one of Boston’s oldest families, maybe?” Tara looked immediately stricken. “Sorry. But he is an awful lot older than you, and he does seem to care about doing the right thing all the time. Doesn’t that bug you just a little?”

Ainslie framed her answer carefully. “Sometimes, pumpkin. Just like sometimes I guess it bugs him that I still run the gym downtown and manage a couple of the boxers. But he loves me and he wants me to be happy, so he makes compromises. And I want him to be happy, so I compromised on this wedding.”

“Compromised?” The teenager snorted. “What did he want originally, if this was the compromise?”

Tara had a point, Ainslie thought. In a few minutes they would be pulling up in front of St. Margaret’s Cathedral. There would be a red carpet leading up the stone steps to the massive church doors, and police had apparently been hired to hold back the crowds of spectators that were expected.

It was one notch down from a royal wedding, except for the bride, she told herself glumly.

“I know you like Pearson well enough,” she said reasonably. “If anyone’s supposed to get cold feet at this point it’s me, not my bridesmaid, for heaven’s sake.”

“I know.” Tara fiddled with the ribbons on her wrist. “But I’m worried you’re getting married to him mainly for my sake. You aren’t, are you, Auntie Lee?” She looked up at Ainslie, her smooth young features troubled. “Because if you are we could stop it right now. We could tell the driver to turn around and you could phone Uncle Sully at the church and—”

“Sweetie, calm down!” With a little laugh, Ainslie leaned over and clasped both of Tara’s hands in hers. She met the suddenly brimming eyes with a mixture of love and concern on her features. “Of course I’m not getting married just for your sake. Where in the world did you get that idea?”

“From Uncle Sully.” Tara’s flooded gaze widened in alarm and she hastened to elaborate. “Well, not exactly. I overheard him talking to Bailey about it. He said Pearson might be an old stick in the mud, but that your main concern was making sure I had a stable home and a father.”

“Your uncle Sully has no idea what he’s talking about,” Ainslie said tartly. “Listen to me, pumpkin, and listen good. I’m marrying Pearson because I want to marry Pearson. In fact, you were the reason I didn’t accept his proposal when he first popped the question.”

Tara looked dubiously at her, and she gave the girl’s hands a little shake. “Scout’s honor. I wanted to be sure you felt comfortable with this, too.”

“I guess I do, really. It’s just that he tries so hard to be nice all the time—buying us presents, telling you there’s no need for you to keep working at the gym.” Tara stuck her bottom lip out stubbornly and suddenly she looked very young, despite the mascara. “What does he have against boxing anyway? He never comes to the ring.”

“He’s old-fashioned enough to think that boxing’s a man’s sport—and even then he wouldn’t be caught dead at the fights.” Ainslie sighed. “I’m not going to make myself over into some society matron, if that’s what you’re worried about. We O’Connell females are a rough, tough breed, and Pearson knows that.” She slanted a quizzical gaze at Tara, and the outthrust lip curved into a reluctant smile.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ainslie. I didn’t mean to spoil your wedding day. I just wanted to be sure you were happy.”

“I’m happy,” Ainslie replied promptly. “I’d be happier if I hadn’t let the saleswoman talk me into this ridiculous outfit. I look like Marie Antoinette dressed up as a shepherdess, for heaven’s sake.”

“Yeah, kind of,” Tara said judiciously, tipping her head to one side and then dodging Ainslie’s mock slap with a giggle. She sobered again. “But you do love him, right? Like Uncle Sully loves Bailey?”

She’d never lied to Tara, Ainslie thought regretfully, but there was no way she could answer that particular question with the truth. She fudged, telling herself it was in a good cause.

“O’Connell women only fall in love once, and that’s it for the whole of their lives,” she said. “Do you think I’d be marrying Pearson if he wasn’t the one?”

“I guess not,” Tara said slowly. She kept her gaze fixed on Ainslie’s for a second longer, as if looking for reassurance. Whatever she saw there seemed to satisfy her, and she straightened in her seat. “We’re almost there, Aunt Lee. Are you nervous?”

“I’d ten times rather be going into the ring to face Holy-field. Does that answer your question?” Ainslie put her hands gingerly to the headpiece to make sure it was straight, and managed to pull her veil sideways just as St. Margaret’s hove into view.

“Great,” she muttered. “By the time we drop you off at the side entrance I’ll be looking like a—” She blanched. “Oh, my God, it’s worse than I thought it would be. Look at all those people! Don’t they have lives?”

Oblivious to the fact that the limo windows were heavily tinted, Tara regally tilted a palm back and forth until they turned the corner and left the crowd behind. “Wow, this might actually be fun. There’s that cute usher getting off his motorcycle in the parking lot.”

“Don’t even think about it. Motorcycles are dangerous—why do you think I stopped riding them?” Ainslie said distractedly. “Okay, pumpkin, this is where you get out.”

Tires crunching over the gravelled parking lot, the limousine rolled to a stop, and almost instantly the uniformed driver was at their door. As he opened it Tara threw her arms around Ainslie impulsively, hugging her tight.

“I love you, Aunt Lee. If you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

How many times had she held this precious gift of a daughter close? Ainslie wondered, her own eyes tearing as she fiercely hugged Tara back. When her cousin Babs had died of leukemia, leaving the seven-year-old daughter she’d had out of wedlock in Ainslie’s care, she’d already been head over heels in love with the little girl. All the O’Connell clan had adored the child, and even Ainslie’s half brother Terry Sullivan had taken one look at her and handed her his heart. Tara had never wanted for love, and she had given it back in return.

But she hadn’t ever known the permanent presence of a father, and sometimes Ainslie had worried about that. Pearson would fill that void, she thought, giving Tara one last too tight squeeze.

“I’ll see you in there, pumpkin,” she said, clearing her throat and blinking rapidly. “I guess I’d better go run the gauntlet now. If your uncle Sully isn’t waiting for me on that darn red carpet, I’m going to have his hide.”

“He’ll be there.” Tara stepped out of the car, and then popped a thoughtful face back in. “Unless Megan Angelique picked today to be born. Bailey said she’s been feeling like the Goodyear Blimp these last few days.”

With a quick wave she turned and ran to the side entrance of the church, where Ainslie could see a knot of females already waiting for her. The O’Connell women, she thought fondly, catching a glimpse of her aunts Cissie and Jackie before her view was cut off by the driver closing the car door. A moment later the limo pulled sedately out of the parking lot and onto the street.

Ainslie folded her hands in the creamy satin and lace of her lap and chewed nervously at her bottom lip, wishing the day was over.

Immediately she felt a pang of contrition. Pearson had meant well when he’d arranged their wedding. He came from a different strata of society than she did—not to mention a different generation, she admitted honestly to herself—and this was the way things were done in his circle.

So how come when he finally decided to marry he picked a single mom twenty years his junior and an ex-boxer to boot? she wondered as she’d so often done before. But she knew the answer to that—at least, she knew the answer he’d given her.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Ainslie.” He never called her Lee, which was just one more instance, she supposed, of the stuffiness that Tara had referred to. “You’ve got a lot going for you. You’ve built up that derelict gymnasium of your aunt’s into a going concern, you’ve raised Tara as if she were your own child, and you even mended the relationship with your half brother, Terrence, despite the way his father left you and your mother in the lurch when you were a child. I look at you and I see strength. I admire that.”

“As long as it’s out of the boxing ring,” Ainslie hadn’t been able to resist adding, and his handsome features had relaxed into a rare smile.

“You can’t blame a man for not wanting to see the woman he loves take a beating in front of a crowd of lowlifes and riffraff, can you?”

“I prefer to think of them as paying customers, not riffraff,” she’d answered with a touch of tartness. “And I didn’t exactly stand around and take a beating, as you put it. I retired a champ, Pearson. Now I coach future champs. Boxing is an empowering sport for a lot of women.”

And it helped save my sanity two years ago, when I didn’t know if I could go on, she might have said, but didn’t. Pearson didn’t know about that part of her past. There was no reason for him to know. The girl she’d been then was dead, and the man that girl had loved was dead, too.

She hadn’t lied to Tara. The O’Connell females were one-man women. He’d been her first love, her last love, and her only love. She’d been twenty-five years old when she’d seen Malone’s coffin lowered into the cold, black earth, and she’d known that her own life had ended with his.

For a while she’d gone a little crazy, she realized now. Paul Cosgrove had been his partner, and although the government agency they both worked for was so security-conscious that it didn’t even have a name, he’d bent the rules enough to tell her that Malone had been shot in front of his very eyes. Although Paul had gotten him to a hospital, Malone hadn’t survived the head wound he’d sustained—a head wound so horrific that there had been no question of having an open coffin at the funeral.

But even hearing the terrible details of his death from the man who’d witnessed it hadn’t helped her to accept the reality of his passing.

For three whole days after his funeral she’d sat in her darkened apartment all alone, not bothering to change out of the somber black suit she’d been wearing. Only when Paul had actually pounded on her door, demanding to know if she was all right, had she roused herself enough to tell him to go away before returning to her vigil.

Because that had been what it was. For three days and three nights she’d sat, her hands folded quietly on her lap, her eyes open wide in the shadowy gloom, waiting for Seamus Malone to come back to her. Not from the dead. She just hadn’t accepted that he’d been killed. She’d been convinced it had all been some kind of insane trick.

And then on the third day she’d finally fallen into a state of semi-consciousness—not sleep, not true wakefulness, but a limbo halfway between the two. In it she’d relived every moment she’d ever had with him, from the moment they’d first met only a few weeks before, to the last time he’d left her arms. Measured in days, their time together had been cruelly short. But time was an irrelevant yardstick for what they’d had.

In two weeks they’d made a lifetime of memories.

They’d so nearly missed knowing each other at all. On a rare impulse she’d dropped by Sully’s house one night after seeing Tara off with a schoolfriend at Logan Airport. The month-long trip to Arizona had been planned for ages and Ainslie knew that the Cartwells would look after Tara as if she were their own daughter.

That night Sully had casually introduced her to his guest.

She’d stared into a pair of brilliant green eyes, and that had been it. Twenty minutes later, Malone and she had left a bemused Sullivan and had gone out to a Thai restaurant together. Two hours later they’d walked hand in hand along Beacon Street, then ended up back at her apartment and making love. The next morning, just before dawn, Malone had shakily told her he couldn’t imagine life without her.

Love at first sight really happened. They’d had it, and it had lasted, right up until the end.

On their last night together he’d asked her to marry him. She’d thrown her arms around his neck tightly enough to knock him backward onto the sofa. Half laughing, half tearfully, she’d told him yes, and in the middle of their kiss his pager had gone off. Forever after, Ainslie had wondered how things would have turned out if he’d ignored it, but wondering was futile.

He’d answered the page. He’d left her apartment a few minutes later, after one last, hard kiss and a quick grin, telling her he wouldn’t be gone long. Sometime in the hour that followed, he’d been killed.

It had been her love for Tara that had finally forced her to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and rebuild some kind of existence after Malone’s death. On the fourth day after his funeral, she’d stripped off the clothes she’d been wearing and stood under the shower until the hot water ran out. Then she’d pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans, balled the black suit into a paper bag and thrown it down the garbage chute at the end of the hall. She’d returned to her apartment, taken a deep, shuddering breath and firmly closed a door in her mind.

But she still dreamed about him every night—saw those brilliant green eyes, that midnight-black hair, his slow smile. She hadn’t let those dreams stop her from agreeing to marry Pearson, however. Tara needed a father. Pearson wanted a wife. And what she’d told Tara a few minutes ago had been true—he was a good man, and she cared for him. He knew she wasn’t madly in love with him, but that wasn’t what he was looking for, he’d told her quietly. Mutual affection, the shared goal of creating a family of their own one day—if she could give him that, he would make sure that Tara never wanted for anything.

It was something a little more than a business agreement, something much less than a love match. And she was going through with it.

The limousine whispered to a stop in front of the red carpet. Before the driver could get out, Sully, impossibly handsome in a dove-gray morning suit with tails, was opening her door for her. He looked harassed. Behind him one of Boston’s finest was trying to keep onlookers away from the waist-high velvet ropes that created a barrier between the crowd and the carpet.

“What the hell was McNeil thinking?” he growled as he took her hand and helped her from the back seat.

“It’s like a damn circus,” she agreed, slanting her eyes sideways at the throng of bystanders just as a camera flash went off. “Let’s get into the church and get this over with.”

“My sister the romantic,” Sullivan murmured, stepping up his pace. “You should at least give them a smile, Lee. When Pearson and the rest of the McNeil clan arrived, they were glad-handing all over the place.”

“Goody for the McNeil clan,” Ainslie said tightly, almost tripping on a ruffle as she mounted the last step. Nonetheless she paused just before the open oak doors, pasting a stiff smile on her face and looking out over the milling crowd.

Sully was right—the least she could do was to be gracious. After all, these onlookers were ordinary people like herself. Most of the upturned faces were smiling at her.

But not all of them.

About to turn away to step into the church, Ainslie’s attention was caught by the incongruity of a figure at the edge of the crowd. Heavily bundled in an old army greatcoat, the derelict’s inappropriate clothing alone pegged him as odd. The knitted watch cap pulled low on his forehead only partially concealed the unkempt hair that straggled to his shoulders. His heavy beard was dark and ungroomed. He was wearing fingerless gloves, as if it was deepest winter instead of a mild autumn day. His ramshackle shopping cart was piled high with what appeared to be odds and ends of broken appliances. Riding on the top of the pile was what looked like a pair of used boots.

Although the shopping cart provided a physical barrier between him and those nearby, it was obviously unnecessary. Like so many street derelicts, there seemed to be an invisible demarcation line around him, as if drawing the attention of someone so obviously unbalanced would be dangerous.

Except there was no fear of that. His attention was fixed solely on her, Ainslie saw with a prickle of unease.

“Come on, champ,” Sully said wryly. “This is just the pre-bout warmup. The main event’s inside.”

He started to move forward, but Ainslie remained rooted to the stone steps, her grip on his arm tightening.

She could smell roses—smell them so strongly that it seemed as if she were enveloped in a perfumed fog. She knew her bouquet was inside the church; even if it hadn’t been, it was of white lilac and lilies. Yet she could smell roses—red roses—and for a moment she could almost swear she could feel cold velvet petals brush against her lips.

It wasn’t unease that was making her heart beat so madly, Ainslie thought, holding on to Sully for support. It was fear. She was going crazy, and she knew it.

The derelict’s hair was a matted tangle obscuring his eyes, but even as she watched he wiped at it with a gloved hand. Across the crowd, his gaze met hers, and she felt the blood drain from her face.

His eyes were a clear, brilliant green. She’d only seen eyes like that on one man, and that man was dead.

Abruptly the derelict turned away, wrenching his shopping cart around on two wheels so quickly that a man in a business suit had to scramble to get out of his path. Hunched over the handles, he started pushing it down the street toward a nearby alleyway.

He was trying to disguise his height, Ainslie thought faintly. He was trying to cover his features with that appalling beard, trying to become just another invisible cast-off from society with his strange assortment of clothing.

Either that, or he was exactly what he appeared to be—a lost soul, a denizen of the streets, a man who had slipped through the cracks and who had stayed there.

But she had to know.

“What the hell’s going on, sis?” Speaking out of the corner of his mouth, Sully tugged at her elbow, a faint frown creasing his brow as she turned to him. “Are you getting cold feet, or what?”

“Did you see him?” She forced the urgent question out from between lips that felt coldly numb. “Did you see him, Sully? Was it him?”

“See who?” Frowning in earnest, Sullivan looked over his shoulder from where a knot of ushers and bridesmaids waited just inside the oak doors. “What are you talking about, Lee?”

“I’m sure it’s him. See—there, with the shopping cart!” It felt like a gigantic weight was pressing down on her chest, making it hard for her to breathe. Ainslie heard the high quaver in her own voice, and turned to her half brother. “Don’t you see him, Sully?”

There was more than concern on his features now, there was alarm, and beyond him Ainslie caught Tara’s dubious look. The good-looking teenager she was standing with broke off whatever he’d been saying to her.

She was causing a scene. She was causing a scene at her own wedding, and she didn’t care, Ainslie thought desperately. It couldn’t be him—but she had to know for sure. She wrenched her arm from Sully’s grip and ran to the edge of the top step, leaning out over the black iron railing that framed it.

“Malone!”

Her hoarse cry was more of a scream, and with part of her mind she realized that the crowd had fallen silent and was staring up at her with avid curiosity. But she wasn’t concentrating on anything or anyone but the shuffling figure in the greatcoat, now almost at the entrance to the alleyway.

“Malone!” Her voice cracked on his name, and she felt Sullivan’s strong hand wrap around the lace on her upper arm. “Dammit, Malone—look at me! It’s you, isn’t it?”

“For God’s sake, Lee!” Sullivan’s voice was almost as shaky as hers. He thrust his mouth close to her ear. “Malone’s dead, sweetheart. You know that. Let’s get you inside—”

She shut out Sully’s words. The veil blew across her face and she impatiently pushed it aside, feeling the headpiece finally let go. It fell from her hair and tumbled down the top two steps. It didn’t matter, she thought as she watched the man in the greatcoat turn back to look at her from the entrance to the alleyway. Even at this distance she could see the pain etching his features.

There was no way he could be Malone, Ainslie thought faintly, her knuckles white against the iron railing as his eyes met and held hers for a heartbeat. No way at all. As Sully had said, Malone was dead.

It was him.

“Malone,” she whispered incredulously, her hand going to her mouth. She felt the hot rush of tears behind her eyes and blinked. Joy, so sweet and sharp it felt like pain, lanced through her. Unheeded, warm tears slipped down her face.

Through her blurred vision, she caught his one last, agonized glance before he turned and pushed his cart swiftly down the alleyway, his head bowed. He disappeared around a corner and was gone.

“No,” Ainslie breathed disbelievingly. “No—I won’t lose you again. I can’t have lost you!”

Breaking free of Sullivan’s grasp, she whirled desperately away from him and ran down the steps into the crowd.

Chapter Two

“For the love of Mike, Ainslie—what were you thinking of, flying down the church steps like that?”

The little change room at the back of the church was packed with O’Connell females. Jackie O’Connell Byrne, once a flawless beauty and still sexy at fifty, raised an incredulous eyebrow at her niece.

“We’ve got a packed church, an organist who’s started the wedding march twice, and one extremely patient groom out there. What we don’t have is a bride walking down the aisle.”

“Would you like me to get Father Flynn in to talk to you, dear?” Her face flooding with color, Cissie glanced meaningfully at the yards of white ruffles and lace of her niece’s wedding dress. “Is there…is there something you’d like to confess before you go through with the ceremony, Ainslie?”

“For crying out loud, of course there’s nothing she needs to confess,” Jackie snapped. “Just because you’re still hanging on to your virginity for dear life at forty-nine doesn’t mean—”

“Shut up, the both of you!”

The gravelly roar that cut through the small room came from a wiry figure clad, like Jackie, in a silk suit. But instead of a skirt, the jacket was paired with trousers in the same sea-foam green that Tara, sitting wide-eyed a few feet away, had so vocally groused about earlier. Peeking out raffishly from under the cuffed silk pants was a pair of lime high-top sneakers.

A flicker of amusement briefly overlaid the chaos of Ainslie’s thoughts as she took in the pugnacious jut of her Aunt Kate’s jaw. Even as she stood there facing down her younger sisters, she seemed to bounce a little on the balls of her feet, as if she were getting ready to take on an opponent in the ring. Her boxing days long behind her, Ainslie mused, the woman once known as Kiss of Death Katie would never be anyone’s idea of a sweet little old lady.

The rest of the O’Connell women had fallen silent. Raking an impatient hand through her cropped steel-gray hair, Kate’s gimlet gaze fell on one of Ainslie’s cousins.

“Bridie, go out and tell Father Flynn that Ainslie’s just feeling a little faint from all the excitement. Say she needs a few minutes to compose herself before the ceremony.”

“Lie to a priest, Aunt Kate?” Bridie sounded shocked.

Her aunt’s jaw jutted out even farther. “It’s not a lie. Look at the poor girl, for God’s sake. Her face is like cheese.”

“Thanks, Aunt Kate,” Ainslie murmured dryly, then wished she’d kept quiet. As Bridie reluctantly left the room, the high-tops swivelled her way.

“Lying to Father Flynn’s going to buy us ten minutes, no more, so let’s hear it, Lee. Are we scrubbing this event or what? And what was that performance in front of the church all about?”

Performance was the right word, Ainslie thought, feeling the color rise in her cheeks under the scrutiny of her three aunts and Tara’s alert glance from the corner of the room.

She’d made a complete fool of herself. She’d heard cameras clicking like crazy all around her, had seen Susan Frank, News Five’s roving reporter, elbow her way toward her like a stevedore in high heels, and had felt one of her own satin shoes catch in a billowing ruffle.

She hadn’t fallen for the same reason that she hadn’t been able to go any farther. The crowd had just been too thick. As Susan Frank, microphone thrust out in front of her, reached her, sanity had suddenly washed over Ainslie in a cold wave.

Of course it wasn’t Malone, she’d thought stupidly. How crazy can you get, O’Connell? Malone’s dead. You’re running after a ghost.

“And here we were hoping to surprise you, sis.” Sullivan had given a rueful chuckle and tightened his grip on her arm. “We told Lee her favorite great-uncle, Paddy Malone, wasn’t up to making the trip over from the old country, Miss Frank. His heart’s not as strong as it used to be, so we didn’t want to disappoint her if he couldn’t make it at the last minute, but it looks like she spotted him. Come on, Lee, Paddy’s already slipped in the side entrance.”

If anyone could whip a choice morsel away from a shark, her half brother could, Ainslie thought now. Susan Frank had looked immediately bored, Sully had hustled her into the church and Aunt Kate had taken over from there.

But even the combined forces of the O’Connell women and Terry Sullivan couldn’t hold off the delayed wedding for much longer, Ainslie told herself. Not for the first time since she’d accepted Pearson’s proposal, she felt a pang of longing for her mother—a longing that had never really faded over the ten years since Mary O’Connell’s untimely passing.

When Thomas Sullivan, Sully’s feckless and charming father, had walked out on his second wife and his young daughter, taking his son by a previous marriage with him, at five years old she’d felt as if her world had been torn apart, Ainslie remembered. Reverting to her maiden name, Mary O’Connell had moved in with her sister Jackie’s family and the O’Connell clan had practically smothered Ainslie with love. But the lack of a father had always hurt. Even when her beloved half brother Sully had come back into her life years later, his reappearance hadn’t been able to completely make up for Thomas’s absence.

Her aunts and Sully would always be there for her, Ainslie thought, meeting Kate’s inquiring gaze. But her mother would have known without asking that she still intended to go through with this wedding. She wanted Tara to have the one thing she’d missed out on—the presence of a stable father figure in her life.

“We’re not scrubbing this event, Aunt Kate.” She forced a smile and smoothed down a ruffle. “You were the one who taught me to leave the butterflies outside when I stepped into the ring. I—I guess I just forgot that for a minute.”

“Is that all it was, butterflies?” Her aunt looked unconvinced, and Ainslie nodded decisively.

“Plain old-fashioned bridal nerves,” she said firmly, and saw the doubt in her aunt’s eyes disappear. “Ladies, start your engines—or at least get your butts out of here so the bride and her chief bridesmaid can make an entrance in a minute or so.”

The older woman’s craggy features broke into a rare smile. “Some of the stuffier McNeils are going to bust a gut when they realize it’s Kiss of Death Katie who’s giving the bride away, darlin’. I can hardly wait to see their faces. Ciss, Jackie—let’s get out there and raise some eyebrows.”

With the squeak of sneakers and the tapping of heels receding down the hall, Ainslie took a deep breath and turned to face Tara with the same grin she’d given her aunts still fixed on her face. “Well, pumpkin, it’s just you and me now,” she said bracingly. “Ready?”

“No.” The teen’s one-word answer was flatly antagonistic.

Shocked, Ainslie stared at her. In the limo, Tara’s recalcitrance had obviously stemmed from a childlike need for reassurance, but there was nothing childlike about the white, set face turned to her now. Tara’s gaze, as it met hers, was disconcertingly adult.

“You lied to them. I was the only one close enough to see what happened, and I know it wasn’t just butterflies, Aunt Lee. You saw someone, didn’t you? You saw Seamus Malone.”

Ainslie felt her own face pale. “How do you know that name?” She realized her hands were clenched at her sides, and with an effort she relaxed them. “Don’t tell me—your uncle Sully, right?”

Tara shrugged, her shoulders tense under the sea-green chiffon.

“It couldn’t have been Malone I just saw, because he did die. I went to his funeral. I was there when they buried him. He walked out of my arms one night and he never came back. And he hasn’t now,” she whispered fiercely, her words not directed at the young girl in front of her. “It’s time to let him go.”

“At Uncle Sully’s marriage to Bailey you told me that true love was the rarest thing there was. You said that if a person ever found it, she should never, ever let it go. What if you did see Malone, Auntie Lee? Even if it’s impossible, what if you did?”

Under the lace and ruffles, Ainslie felt as if an iron band was constricting her chest. “I didn’t. And I don’t want to talk about it any more, Tara,” she said tightly. “Now, I’m walking out that door to get married to Pearson. Are you coming?”

For a long moment Tara’s gaze defiantly held hers. Then the soft young lips quivered, and with an impulsiveness that she’d begun to display less and less often since becoming a teenager, she rushed to Ainslie and wrapped her arms around her.

“Of course I’m coming, Aunt Lee. It’s not often a girl gets a chance to wear sea-foam green, for goodness’ sake.” Her laugh was uneven, but as she gave Ainslie one last crushing hug and stepped back, her smile was tender. “Besides, even with the door open, that perfume is getting to me. Aunt Cissie must have doused herself in it—she’s the only one who would wear something so romantically old-fashioned as roses.”

“Aunt Cissie doesn’t wear perfume,” Ainslie said absently. “She’s allergic to it.” Straightening her veil and turning to leave, she stopped, her heart suddenly crashing in her chest.

It was no ghost of a scent. Tara was right—it was overpowering, as overpowering as it had been half an hour ago, when Ainslie’d finally convinced herself that both the aroma and the man had been illusions. But now it seemed that the scent of roses was real. And Tara was conscious of it, too.

What if Malone hadn’t been an illusion, either?

“Red roses for true love,” she said through numb lips. “What if he’s still alive? What if he’s still alive?”

“The perfume means something to you, doesn’t it?” Tara’s gaze was fixed on her, her eyes enormous in the paleness of her face. “You think he has come back, don’t you?”

“But how could he?”

In an unconscious reversal of their roles, Ainslie turned to her adopted daughter. Tara wasn’t a child any longer, she realized with a small start. She was a young woman, and her steady gaze was filled with a wisdom beyond her years.

“One way or another, you have to be sure, Aunt Lee. If you don’t go after him you’ll never forgive yourself.” Tara gave her a little shake. “I’ll never forgive you.”

“But Pearson…Father Flynn…all those guests!” Was she actually considering this? Ainslie thought. “I can’t just walk out on my own wedding! Besides, I’ll run into the same crush outside as before. That Susan Frank will have a film crew right on my heels.”

“Go out the back.” Tara jerked her head toward the door leading to the parking lot, her voice quickening in excitement. “He went down that alley about a block away, didn’t he? This street should get you there just as well as the one in front of the church, and it’s quieter. No one will even see you.”

Even as she spoke Ainslie was shaking her head. “Someone will notice, and in this getup I can’t exactly outrun the mob. Leaving Pearson waiting at the altar is terrible enough. He doesn’t deserve his wedding to be made into a public joke in all the papers.”

“You’re right. That would destroy him,” Tara said slowly, her face clouding. Then she brightened. Darting to the small table near where she’d been sitting earlier, she bent over and grabbed something up. She whirled back to Ainslie, her palm outstretched. “Here.”

Ainslie blinked at the object Tara was handing her. It was a small plastic skull with glowing red eyes. Attached to it was a key.

“It’s Bobby’s.” Tara blushed, and all of a sudden she was a teenager again. “Cool, huh? He was showing it to me and in all the excitement I guess I forgot to give it back to him.” She saw the confusion on Ainslie’s face and elaborated impatiently. “It’s the key to his motorcycle, Aunt Lee. It’s right outside—I’m sure if Bobby knew he’d tell you to go ahead and use it. After all, this is kind of an emergency, isn’t it?”

Tara was right, it was an emergency. With any luck, this wild-goose chase could be over and done with in less than five minutes. If it wasn’t—

“Get this darn veil off me, pumpkin.” As Tara swiftly complied, Ainslie bent and lifted the masses of ruffles, revealing the two stiff crinolines that had made her walk up the red carpet resemble the stately progression of an unwieldy ocean liner being nudged along by a tugboat. Stripping them off, she turned back to Tara, feeling blessedly less encumbered.

“Go find Uncle Sully and tell him everything. If I’m not back in ten minutes, he’s to make up some kind of story that’ll save Pearson’s face, okay?”

With that she was gone, running toward the yellow Yamaha that was the only motorcycle in the lot, holding her skirt high as she flew across the gravel.

SHE LOOKED RIDICULOUS, and she knew it. She also didn’t care. Letting the motorcycle’s revs climb as her riding skills came automatically back to her, Ainslie tore down the conveniently deserted street and into the alley. It was flanked, she saw, by a small commercial hotel, boarded up and abandoned.

She cut the bike’s engine, realizing in the sudden silence that she had absolutely no idea what to do next. Aside from the usual litter of junk and garbage, only made notable by a discarded and rotting sofa bed a few feet away, the alleyway was empty.

What had she expected? Ainslie asked herself, her heart sinking. From his odd appearance, the man she’d seen obviously wasn’t completely normal, and when she’d unexpectedly focused her attention on him she’d probably frightened him. Had she really thought it possible that he would be waiting for her around some corner?

Very slowly, she reached for the key in the ignition. As she did so she caught a gleam just beyond the discarded sofa bed, as if something shiny was catching the light there.

She knew what it was even before she jumped off the motorcycle and ran over to it. Lying on its side, covered with a piece of torn plastic, was a shopping cart. Its contents had spilled out onto the ground, but right in front of her eyes was a pair of worn boots.

Looking up, recessed into the wall of the abandoned hotel, she noticed a door painted the same faded red as the brick of the building.

It was slightly ajar.

It had to be where he lived, Ainslie thought, her pulse racing. It had to be. Condemned or not, the place offered shelter and some kind of privacy; she knew instinctively that the man she’d glimpsed would find it impossible to bunk down with a roomful of strangers every night in a shelter. Like a wild animal, he would have a place where he could go to earth.

It would be impossible to find him in there. She hardly had time for a room-to-room search. There was only one way she could force him out.

“Malone! Malone!” Standing in the middle of the alleyway, she shouted the name as loudly as she could. He wasn’t Malone—he couldn’t be, there was no way he could be—but if this was his private lair, she was drawing attention to it. He would want her to go away, but she wouldn’t—not until she saw him face-to-face.

“Malone, I know you’re in there!”

For some reason she knew the stranger wouldn’t hurt her if he did appear. He’d definitely been odd, but there’d been nothing threatening in his oddness. Again she saw the flash of anguish she’d seen in those green eyes that had been too much like Malone’s. The memory was so clear that again her heart leaped crazily.

“Malone!”

“Stop shouting! Dammit, lady, you’re going to lead them right to me!”

The hoarse warning came from directly behind her. Whirling around in shock, Ainslie stared at the big man in the army greatcoat standing only inches away.

The bottom fell out of her world.

Dark hair fell to his shoulders, and most of his face was obscured by a heavy growth of beard. His skin bore the weathered tan of someone who spent most of his time in the elements, and there was a smear of black grease high on each cheekbone. But through the tangle of hair that fell over his forehead she could see those eyes.

She tried to take a step toward him, but her limbs wouldn’t work. “Malone—it really is you!”

This time when the hot tears streamed down her face she made no attempt to wipe them away.

“They told me you were dead, Malone! They told me you were dead, and I didn’t believe them, but when you didn’t come back to me I thought I’d lost you forever!”

The words tumbled out of her almost incoherently, and the ice that had surrounded her finally broke. With a little cry of incredulous happiness she rushed to him, wanting only to feel his arms around her, his heartbeat close to hers.

Swiftly he stepped back out of her reach. His eyes narrowed and his whole body seemed to suddenly tense.

In confusion, Ainslie met his gaze, and as she did, the wild joy that had been flooding through her instantly turned to sharp fear.

He was looking at her with no recognition at all. Those green eyes were blank and shuttered.

“Malone?” she breathed tremulously. “Malone, what’s the matter?”

“My name’s not Malone, lady.” His answer was unequivocally antagonistic. “And I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

Chapter Three

Ainslie stared at the man in front of her.

For a long moment his eyes, narrowed in suspicion, remained locked on hers. Then his shoulders stiffened under the tattered coat and he darted a quick glance down the alleyway before turning back to her.

“Did you lead them here?” His question was more of an accusation. It was so unexpected that she was jolted into a reply.

“Of course not.” She caught herself. “Lead who here?”

“Them,” he said impatiently, as if she were being deliberately obtuse. He looked down at the other end of the alleyway and then seemed to come to a decision. “Maybe you didn’t, but they’re coming anyway. They must have seen you. We’d better get going.”

He moved quickly for such a big man. Before she realized his intention, his hand had wrapped around hers and he was pulling her toward the door to the abandoned hotel, and at that, her numbness dissipated.

“No.” She tried to disengage her hand, but his grip was too strong.

It was true, then, she thought with dull clarity. He wasn’t Malone, despite the shock of recognition she’d felt when she’d first seen him, despite her certainty of a few minutes ago. He was exactly what he appeared to be: a derelict, a man of the streets with more than a few problems of his own, although of the two of them, she wasn’t sure who was the crazier. Suddenly the full import of what she’d done slammed into her.

What had she been thinking?

If she hurried, she could be back at St. Margaret’s before Sully told the assembled guests the bride had gone AWOL.

She tugged at her hand again. “No,” she said gently. “Whoever they are, they’re not after me. I should get back to my own world now.”

She didn’t know why she’d phrased it like that, only that it seemed right. She looked up into the tanned, heavily bearded face, seeing him for the first time as the man he was, not as the man she’d so desperately and illogically wanted him to be. A pang of sadness stirred in her. She’d been right about one thing. The expression she’d thought she’d seen in those eyes was anguish. He was looking at her as if the very sight of her caused him immeasurable pain, and maybe it did. Maybe she reminded him of someone, too—a woman he’d known, a girl he’d loved, the life he’d lived before everything had spiralled out of control for him.

“I’ll decoy them away from you.” She kept her voice soft. “A bride on a motorcycle would be enough to distract anyone, and that’ll give you a chance to get to safety.”

Her attempt at reassurance didn’t have the effect she’d intended.

“No!”

The explosiveness of his answer was shockingly loud in the quiet alleyway, his voice amplified by the narrow brick walls of the buildings. Ainslie felt a twinge of nervousness, but almost immediately she realized that her unease wasn’t a result of his unexpected reaction.

The alleyway was quiet. They were in the middle of a busy city—surely it wasn’t natural not to hear any signs of life. Now that she thought about it, she realized she hadn’t seen so much as a stray cat since she’d driven in here.

She gave herself a mental shake. The man’s fear was contagious. This time when she tried to pull away from him, she put more force into it.

Still he wouldn’t let go.

“It’s too late. They have to know you’re with me, and they won’t allow you to leave now. Come on. Maybe if we hide, they’ll keep on going.”

He was more than just troubled. He was paranoid. Whoever they were, he’d credited them with almost supernatural powers. Now her uneasiness was because of him.

Don’t upset him any more than he is already, for God’s sake, she told herself sharply. Keep everything calm and low key, and just walk out of here.

“Even if they do come after me, they can’t catch me on that.” She nodded at Bobby’s motorcycle, garishly yellow against the crumbling wall. “It’ll be better if we split up and—”

“Dammit, they’ll kill you!” For a moment reality faded again. He even sounded like Malone, Ainslie thought faintly—except Malone had never spoken to her with such fearful urgency. “Don’t you get it? These people are ruthless, Lee! We can’t let them find us!”

Jerking her roughly toward the door, he shoved her inside and then pulled it shut. Ainslie heard him fumbling in the dark for something, and then the blackness was suddenly illuminated by the beam of a flashlight.

“Up those stairs,” he whispered hoarsely. “Hurry!”

She didn’t move. “What did you just call me?” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. He looked impatiently at her, his beard and the tangle of hair falling across his eyes shadowing his face.

“I said take the stairs. Come on, we have to get to the third floor!”

“You called me Lee. How did you know my name?”

“Dammit, we’re wasting time! They’re coming for us!”

Grabbing her roughly by the arm again, he started up the stairs. The faint beam of the flashlight bobbing eerily ahead of them, Ainslie found herself stumbling up the first few steps. She felt her shoe catch on the trailing hem of her gown and heard it rip slightly before she could release it.

“Watch the fifth step. It’s loose.” Frowning, he looked over his shoulder at her, not slowing his pace or loosening his grip. “What the hell are you wearing, anyway?”

“It’s a wedding dress.” At the Alice in Wonderland turn to the conversation, she felt as if her final connection with the sane world on the outside had just been severed. “I was supposed to be getting married today, remember? You saw me going into the church.”

“Oh.” There was a note of uncertainty in his voice, and she wondered if he did remember. They reached the second floor, turned a corner, and continued upward. “Well, I guess the wedding’s off now,” he grunted dismissively, hauling her up the last few steps.

They were on the third floor, the flashlight wavering over a dusty, patterned carpet that ran down the hallway in front of them. As her abductor—of course, he thinks he’s my rescuer, she told herself grimly—dragged her swiftly along the seemingly endless hallway, on either side she saw numbered doors, forbiddingly dark rectangles set into the peeling walls.

He’d called her Lee. She was sure he’d called her by name, although at this point she realized she couldn’t be sure of anything. But she’d heard him, she knew she had, and the only way he could have known it was if—

If he’d read about the wedding in the papers, she told herself sharply. If he’d heard someone outside St. Margaret’s mention it. For God’s sake, the events board on the church lawn lists the names of the bride and groom when there’s a wedding being held. He could have seen that.

Except somehow those explanations didn’t seem very convincing. Whoever he was, he lived in his own world—the world of him and them. The danger he perceived all around him was imaginary, of course, but to him it was real and immediate. He focused on it exclusively. Nothing else existed for him.

Which was fine, if that was the way he wanted to live his life. Except now she’d been drawn into his paranoia.

Whatever excuse Sully was making for her right now, it couldn’t be more outlandish than the situation she was in, Ainslie thought. She couldn’t allow this to go any further. As he came to an abrupt halt in front of one of the doors, she found her voice.

“I’m not going in there with you.” She was shaking, she noted dispassionately. “I don’t know who you think is after you, but I know that if you don’t let me leave, people are going to start looking for me. As soon as they see that motorcycle outside, they’ll know I’m here. You don’t want to spend tonight in a jail cell, do you?”

With the hand that wasn’t holding hers, he fished for something inside the open collar of the ragged shirt he was wearing under the greatcoat. Ainslie saw it was a length of string with a number of keys attached to it.

“They’re here.”

She was close enough to him to feel the sudden rigidity in his muscles. In the act of unlocking the door, he froze in a listening position, his whole demeanor one of tense alertness. Despite herself, she froze, too.

“I don’t hear any—” she began in a whisper, but then stopped.

Had she heard something? Unconsciously holding her breath, and realizing that her unlikely companion was doing the same, she listened intently, straining her ears to catch the slightest sound. She heard it again, and this time she knew what it was.

Three floors below them, someone—or was it more than one person?—was coming up the stairs. The footfalls were muffled, as if the intruders were trying to approach as quietly as possible.

“Two. Three…” Counting out loud almost inaudibly, the big man was staring at something above his head. She followed his gaze and saw a tiny red pinprick of light appear just above the door. “Four.” He looked up for a second longer. Under the beard, his mouth was set in a tight line.

“Four of them.” He saw her confusion. “Something I rigged up under that fifth stair,” he said briefly, unlocking the door. “The light goes on inside the room, too, so I know if someone’s coming. Hold on, I’ve got to disable something.”

Cautiously pushing the door open an inch or so, he squatted and felt along its bottom edge, finally releasing her hand to do so. This was her chance to run, Ainslie thought. She didn’t move.

“Okay, we can go in.” He straightened and opened the door completely. “I guess this is the last time I’ll have to reset it. This place is blown now.”

“‘Blown’?” she repeated, moving like an automaton ahead of him into the room. The wavering beam of his flashlight seemed to be growing fainter, and she felt a sudden sharp panic overlay the nebulous fear gripping her. His solid bulk brushed against her in the dark, and her panic eased a notch.

Which was stupid, she admitted to herself. He was the reason she was creeping around in the dark in the first place, jumping at the slightest sound. That flashing light over the door was a perfect illustration of just how unbalanced the man was—and how off balance he’d made her feel, since for a moment there, watching the red pinprick, she’d actually believed it meant something.

“Blown. Finished.” His elaboration was perfunctory. “I won’t be able to come back here again.”

At his last words Ainslie heard a small clicking sound, and the next moment she was squinting her eyes against the harsh brightness that suddenly illuminated the room. Still blinking, she peered at him suspiciously.

“How did you do that? Is that another gadget you rigged up?”

He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Yeah. It’s called a light switch.”

“But…but the power to this place must have been cut off years ago.”

She looked around her. The hotel room that this must have originally been was no longer recognizable as such. It was obvious that he’d been living here long enough to put his own stamp on the place. His own wacky stamp, Ainslie thought, not knowing whether to laugh or to be appalled.

Whatever the booby trap was that he’d jury-rigged at the entrance, it was hardly necessary. On either side of them were towering walls of bundled newspapers, and even as she turned she felt the wall nearest her sway ominously. He grabbed her arm.

“Watch out, they’re balanced pretty delicately. Walk behind me and try not to touch the sides. It opens out just past the curve.” Setting off down his insane hallway, he kept talking, no longer making an effort to keep his voice low. “I ran a line in. What the power company doesn’t know won’t hurt them. I needed the electricity to make the modifications, anyway.”

“What modifications?” she asked faintly, following him. They reached the curve in the newspapers, and he stopped so suddenly that she almost ran into him.

“The door, for one. I replaced it with a steel one, and then painted it to match the rest of them again. And of course all the interior walls had to be sheeted with quarter-inch steel, in case they tried to get in from one of the adjoining rooms.”

“Good thinking.” Ainslie pressed her fingers to her forehead, hardly able to absorb what she was hearing—and seeing. The man was a full-blown paranoiac. That was a given. But there was no denying he was also quite a handy renovator, in his own unique way.

Somewhere in the real world Sullivan would be attempting to apologize for her actions to an incredulous Pearson, she supposed. Somewhere in the real world the man whose wife she should have been by now would be wondering how he’d managed to read her character so inaccurately.

In that real world was a man she’d behaved unforgivably toward, Ainslie thought. She owed it to him to deliver her apology in person, and as soon as possible. Except that she first had to find a way out of this fantasy world she’d stumbled into.

She had no idea what the Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions around her were supposed to do. In one corner of the room was what looked to be the back half of a bicycle. Attached to it was a circular leather strap, and nearby were neatly lined-up rows of car batteries, each with alligator clips and wires snaking from each terminal. Out of the corner of her eye she could see similarly strange juxtapositions of junk, but she purposely didn’t look at them. Instead she looked at their creator. Even as she did, though, he turned from her and headed toward the truncated bicycle.

“Thank God, I finished this yesterday,” he said with a touch of satisfaction. “I figure the first thing they’ll do is get the outside team to cut the power.”

“The outside team? I thought you said they were coming up the stairs.” She kept her tone carefully neutral. “Shouldn’t they have been here by now?”

Hunched over his invention, he didn’t look up, but she could hear the amusement in his voice. “That was the first wave. I’ve already taken care of them. If everything went the way I planned it, the four of them are in the basement right now, probably with a broken bone or two among them. Trap door on the first landing,” he added, toggling a switch on one of the batteries. “I activated it at the same time I turned the lights on.”

This time she couldn’t hide her horrified reaction. “A trap door? For God’s sake, it was probably a group of street kids on those stairs! Are you out of your mind?”

“The mechanism is weight sensitive. It can’t even be tripped by a good-size teenager, only by a full-grown male who’s packing a lot of muscle—and equipment.” Setting a lever at the side of the bicycle wheel, he stood, turning to face her. “And no, I’m not crazy. But you’re just going to have to trust me on that for a few more—”

The room was suddenly plunged into darkness once more, and Ainslie heard him draw in a sharp breath. “Tell me you did that,” she said, fighting her sudden desire to reach out and touch him. “Another one of your gadgets, right?”

“No, that was them. They’re moving faster than I thought.” She heard him bend down again. “Here, put this on.”

Something was pressed into her hands, and she started. Whatever it was it felt clammy and rubbery. Even as she opened her mouth to ask him what it was, a low humming sound started, gaining in volume and speed. A moment later the room was dimly illuminated with the weak yellow glow of a bare bulb in the ceiling. In front of her the bicycle wheel was spinning madly, the leather strap attaching it to the smaller flywheel near the batteries a brown blur.

“It’s a gas mask. They used gas the last time, and I almost didn’t get away. I wasn’t expecting to need two of these, but I thought I’d better keep a spare handy.” In the half light she saw him smile lopsidedly at her. “This must be our lucky day.”

Malone’s grin had been one-sided, she thought distractedly, fumbling at the rubber-and-metal mask with no real idea of what she was supposed to do with it. He put his on, the cylindrical snout of the mask giving him a distinctly alien appearance. Taking hers, he slipped it into place over her face and adjusted it at the back of her head.

Ainslie forced back the bubble of inappropriate laughter that suddenly threatened to escape her. The Bride Wore Army Surplus, she imagined the headline, feeling dangerously near hysteria.

She had no doubt that someone had attempted to enter the abandoned building a few minutes ago. She even accepted his assurance that whoever it was must have been big enough and heavy enough to set the trap door into action. But that was as far as she was prepared to go. He’d said himself that he had run an illegal electrical line here—why hadn’t it occurred to him the power company might have sent someone out to investigate? Her theory made a whole lot more sense than his assumption that he was under siege.

He was gesturing for her to follow him, and when she didn’t he took her by the arm as he’d done earlier. It was the final straw. Wrenching away, Ainslie started to take the gas mask off, her fingers clumsy and trembling. She heard a dull, explosive thump from where the newspaper wall led to the door, saw him look past her and then lunge for her, his eyes wide in alarm behind the protective lenses. She felt him jam the mask back onto her face. Instinctively she looked back over her shoulder. In the split second it took for her to comprehend what she was seeing, she became a believer.

He wasn’t paranoid. He’d been right all along—they were after him, and they meant business.

Even in the dim light she could discern the thick yellow fog surging toward them from the open metal canister on the floor. The newspaper wall no longer existed, and incredibly, the metal door to the third-floor hallway now had a gaping hole punched through it. She thought she could see movement in the hall beyond, and her limbs turned suddenly to water.

This time when he grabbed her wrist, she needed no urging to go with him.

The bicycle contraption didn’t appear to have been affected by the explosion. It spun at top speed, the lightbulb still glowing dimly above them, although in the spreading fog it was harder to see. Releasing her wrist and shrugging out of his heavy coat, the dark-haired man kicked at the solid wall in front of him.

It broke easily, and for a moment she didn’t understand. Surely he’d told her he’d lined the room with—

She saw him pull the thin wood away, revealing a neat opening about half the size of a door. Around the edges of the square she could see the thick steel that comprised the rest of the wall.

Was it a way into the adjoining hotel room? As he gestured for her to duck into the opening, she crouched swiftly and crawled forward. A moment later she felt him at her heels; she kept moving until the filter of her gas mask bumped solidly against something.

A faint red glow—enough to see by—came from somewhere above her and, looking around, Ainslie saw her companion push a button on what seemed to be some kind of primitive control panel. Just beyond she could see the yellow tendrils of gas drifting across the floor of the room they’d exited; she looked apprehensively at him.

He gave her a thumbs-up sign. Relief flooded through her, and a heartbeat later she realized that she trusted him totally.

An hour ago she hadn’t known him. Half an hour ago she’d been convinced he was crazy, and maybe he was, a little. But he’d been right about everything so far, and his off-beat inventions, as unconventional as they were, had all worked.

She remembered the time she and Malone had taken a drive out into the country and her car had broken down. He’d twisted a piece of barbed wire off a nearby fence, asked her for a copper penny and had fished a stick of chewing gum out of his pocket. Then, whistling “Danny Boy” between his teeth, he’d stuck his head under the hood for a minute or so. When he’d called out to her to try to start the car, she’d turned the key and the engine had purred to life—

She felt a jarring jolt. From beside her, he put his hand reassuringly on her arm as she realized they were moving upward.

He’d built a homemade elevator in the air shaft between the walls. Already the opening to the room had slid out of sight below them. In the dim red glow she saw him reach up and pull off his gas mask, and then motion for her to do the same.

At this point if he’d told her it would be safe to jump off a roof she would have followed his lead, Ainslie thought wryly.

“This goes right up to the roof.” As she gratefully stripped the rubber-and-metal mask from her face he leaned close, his mouth only inches from her ear. Despite his appearance, she realized disconcertedly, she could discern the clean scent of soap on his skin. “I’ve got a cable running over to the next building’s fire escape. All we have to do is slide down it and we’re home free.”

They were going to jump off the roof. She flinched as the sound of a muffled explosion boomed hollowly up the shaft from below. Under the tangle of hair that obscured his brow she saw him frown.

“They just blew the door open. Any second now they’ll find the generator and turn it off, but they’ve left it too late.” He shrugged, and leaned back against the wall. “They’ll get me one of these days, I guess. But today I survived.”

With the heavy growth of beard it was hard to tell his expression, but as he closed his eyes Ainslie thought she saw a corner of his mouth lift briefly. As the echo of the explosion faded, another less ominous sound filled the small elevator. For a minute she didn’t know what it was.

Then she realized what she was hearing. Oblivious to the mayhem, the man beside her was whistling, so quietly that at first it was hard to make out the tune. He couldn’t be comfortable in such a small space, she thought. His knees were drawn up awkwardly in front of him, his battered work boots braced against the opposite wall. But for the first time since she’d first laid eyes on him, some of his tenseness had dissipated. Without the woolen coat, the heavily defined sheath of muscle on his arms was apparent. His wrists, large-boned and tanned, rested easily on his propped-up knees, and he seemed, for the moment at least, to be at peace.

His eyes still closed, he continued whistling softly between his teeth, and now she recognized the song.

The tune was “Danny Boy.” And the elevator was filled with the scent of red roses.

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