Midnight Rainbow (12 page)

           
 
"Two men kidnapped me after school, took
me to an abandoned house and locked me in a closet until Dad paid the
ransom."

           
 
The explanation was
so
brief as to be ridiculous; how could something as traumatic as a kidnapping be
condensed into one sentence? She was staring at the rain now, her expression
pensive and withdrawn. Grant knew too much about the tactics of kidnappers, the
means they used to force anxious relatives into paying the required ransom.
Looking at her delicate profile, with the lush
provocativeness
of her mouth, he felt something savage well up in him at the thought that she
might have been abused.

           
 
"Did they rape you?" He was no
longer concerned about maintaining a casual pose. The harshness of his tone
made her glance at him, vague surprise in her exotically slanted eyes.

           
 
"No, they didn't do anything like
that," she assured him. "They just left me in that closet… alone. It
was dark."

           
 
And to this day she was afraid of the dark, of
being alone in it. So that was the basis for her fear. "Tell me about
it," he urged softly.

           
 
She shrugged. "There isn't a lot more to
tell. I don't know how long I was in the closet. There
were
no other houses close
by, so no one heard me scream. The two men just
left me there and went to some other location to negotiate with my parents.
After awhile I became convinced that they were never coming back, that I was
going to die there in that dark closet, and that no one would ever know what
had happened to me."

           
 
"Your father paid the ransom?"

           
 
"Yes. Dad's not stupid, though. He knew
that he wasn't likely to get me back alive if he just trusted the kidnappers,
so he brought the police in on it. It's lucky he did. When the kidnappers came
back for me, I overheard them making their plans. They were just going to kill
me and dump my body somewhere, because I'd seen them and could identify
them." She bent her head, studying the ground with great concentration, as
if to somehow divorce
herself
from what she was
telling him. "But there were police sharpshooters surrounding the house.
When the two men realized that they were trapped, they decided to use me as a
hostage. One of them grabbed my arm and held his pistol to my head, forcing me
to walk in front of them when they left the house. They were going to take me
with them, until it was safe to kill me."

           
 
Jane shrugged,
then
took a deep breath. "I didn't plan it, I swear. I don't remember if I
tripped, or just fainted for a second. Anyway, I fell, and the guy had to let
go of me or be jerked off balance. For a second the pistol wasn't pointed at
me, and the policemen fired. They killed both men. The… the man who had held me
was shot in the chest and the head, and he fell over on me. His blood
splattered all over me, on my face, my hair…" Her voice trailed away.

           
 
For a moment there was something naked in her
face, the stark terror and revulsion she'd felt as a child; then, as he had
seen her do when he'd rescued her from the snake, she gathered herself
together. He watched as she defeated the fear, pushed the shadows away. She
smoothed her expression and even managed a glint of humor in her eyes as she
turned to look at him. "Okay, it's your turn. Tell me something that
happened to you."

           
 
Once he'd felt nothing much at all; he'd
accepted the chilled, shadowed brutality of his life without thought. He still
didn't flinch from the memories. They were part of him, as ingrained in his
flesh and blood, in his very being, as the color of his eyes and the shape of
his body. But when he looked into the uncommon innocence of Jane's eyes, he
knew that he couldn't brutalize her mind with even the mildest tale of the life
he'd known. Somehow she had kept a part of herself as pure and crystalline as a
mountain stream, a part of childhood forever unsullied. Nothing that had
happened to her had touched the inner woman, except to increase the courage and
gallantry that he'd seen twice now in her determined efforts to pull herself
together and face forward again.

           
 
"I don't have anything to tell," he
said mildly.

           
 
"Oh, sure!" she hooted, shifting
herself on the ground until she was sitting facing him, her legs folded in a
boneless sort of knot that made him blink. She rested her chin in her palm and
surveyed him, so big and controlled and capable. If this man had led a normal
life, she'd eat her boots, she told herself,
then
quickly glanced down at the boots in question. Right now they had something
green and squishy on them. Yuk. They'd have to be cleaned before even a goat
would eat them. She returned her dark gaze to Grant and studied him with the
seriousness of a scientist bent over a microscope. His scarred face was hard, a
study of planes and angles, of bronzed skin pulled tautly over the fierce
sculpture of his bones. His eyes were those of an eagle, or a lion; she
couldn't quite decide which. The clear amber color was brighter, paler, than
topaz, almost like a yellow diamond, and like an eagle's, the eyes saw
everything. They were guarded, expressionless; they hid an almost unbearable
burden of experience and weary cynicism.

           
 
"Are you an agent?" she asked,
probing curiously. Somehow, in those few moments, she had discarded the idea
that he was a mercenary. Same field she thought, but a different division.
His mouth quirked.
"No."

           
 
"Okay, let's try it from another angle.
Were
you an agent?"

           
 
"What sort of agent?"

           
 
"Stop evading my questions!
The cloak-and-dagger sort of agent.
You know, the men in
overcoats who have forty sets of identification."

           
 
"No. Your imagination is running wild.
I'm too easily identifiable to be any good undercover."

           
 
That was true. He stood out like a warrior at
a tea party. Something went quiet within her, and she knew. "Are you
retired?"

           
 
He was quiet for so long that she thought he
wasn't going to answer her. He seemed to be thinking of something else
entirely. Then he said flatly, "Yeah, I'm retired.
For a
year now."
His set, blank face hurt her, on the inside. "You
were a… weapon, weren't you?" There was a terrible clarity in his eyes as
he slowly shifted his gaze to her. "Yes," he said harshly. "I
was a weapon."

           
 
They had aimed him, fired him, and watched him
destroy. He would be matchless, she realized. Before she'd even known him, when
she'd seen him gliding into her darkened bedroom like a shadow, she'd realized
how lethal he could be. And there was something else, something she could see
now. He had retired himself, turned his back and walked away from that grim,
shadowed life. Certainly his superiors wouldn't have wanted to lose his
talents.

           
 
She reached out and placed her hand on his,
her fingers slim and soft, curling around the awesome strength of his. Her hand
was much smaller made with a delicacy that he could crush with a careless
movement of his fingers, but implicit in her touch was the trust that he
wouldn't turn that strength against her. A deep breath swelled the muscled
planes of his chest. He wanted to take her right then, in the dirt. He wanted
to stretch her out and pull her clothes off, bury himself in her. He wanted
more of her touch, all of her touch, inside and out. But the need for her
satiny female flesh was a compulsion that he couldn't satisfy with a quick
possession, and there wasn't time for more. The rain was slowing and would stop
entirely at any moment. There was a vague feeling marching up and down his
spine that told him they couldn't afford to linger any longer.

           
 
But it was time she knew. He removed his hand
from hers, lifting it to cup her chin. His thumb rubbed lightly over her lips.
"Soon," he said, his voice guttural with need, "you're going to
lie down for me. Before I take you back to your daddy, I'm going to have you,
and the way I feel now, I figure it's going to take a long time before I'm
finished with you."

           
 
Jane sat frozen, her eyes those of a startled
woodland animal. She couldn't even protest, because the harsh desire in his
voice flooded her mind and her skin with memories. The day before, standing in
the stream, he'd kissed her and touched her with such raw sexuality that, for
the first time in her life, she'd felt the coiling, writhing tension of desire
in herself. For the first time she'd wanted a man, and she'd been shocked by
the unfamiliarity of her own body. Now he was doing it to her again, but this
time he was using words. He'd stated his intentions bluntly, and images began
forming in her mind of the two of them lying twined together, of his naked,
magnificent body surging against her. He watched the shifting expressions that
flitted across her face. She looked surprised, even a little shocked, but she
wasn't angry. He'd have understood anger, or even amusement; that blank
astonishment puzzled him. It was as if no man had ever told her that he wanted
her. Well, she'd get used to the idea. The rain had stopped, and he picked up
the packs and the rifle, settling them on his shoulders. Jane followed him
without a word when he stepped out from beneath the rocky outcropping into the
already increasing heat. Steam rose in wavering clouds from the forest floor,
immediately wrapping them in a stifling, humid blanket.

           
 
She was silent for the rest of the afternoon,
lost in her thoughts. He stopped at a stream, much smaller than the one they'd
seen the day before, and glanced at her. "Care for a bath? You can't soak,
but you can splash."

           
 
Her eyes lit up, and for the first time that
afternoon a smile danced on her full lips. He didn't need an answer to know how
she felt about the idea. Grinning, he searched out a small bar of soap from his
pack and held it out to her. "I'll keep watch,
then
you can do the same for me. I'll be up there." Jane looked up the steep
bank that he'd indicated. That was the best vantage point around; he'd have a
clear view of the stream and the surrounding area. She started to ask if he was
going to watch her, too, but bit back the question. As he'd already pointed
out, it was too late for modesty. Besides, she felt infinitely safer knowing
that he'd be close by.

           
 
He went up the bank as sure-footedly as a cat,
and Jane turned to face the stream. It was only about seven feet wide, and
wasn't much more than ankle-deep. Still, it looked like heaven. She hunted her
lone change of underwear out of her pack,
then
sat
down to pull off her boots. Glancing nervously over her shoulder to where Grant
sat, she saw that he was in profile to her, but she knew that he would keep her
in his peripheral vision. She resolutely undid her pants and stepped out of
them. Nothing was going to keep her from having her bath… except maybe another
snake, or a jaguar, she amended. Naked, she gingerly picked her way over the
stony bottom to a large flat rock and sat down in the few inches of water. It
was deliciously cool, having run down from a higher altitude, but even tepid
water would have felt good on her over-heated skin. She splashed it on her face
and head until her hair was soaked. Gradually she felt the sweaty stickiness
leave her hair, until the strands were once more silky beneath her fingers.
Then she took the small bar of soap out from under her leg, where she'd put it
for safekeeping, and rubbed it over her body. The small luxury made her feel
like a new woman, and a sense of peace crept into her. It was only a simple
pleasure, to bathe in a clear, cool stream, but added to it was her sense of
nakedness, of being totally without restrictions. She knew that he was there,
knew that he was watching her, and felt her breasts grow tight.

           
 
What would it be like if he came down from
that bank and splashed into the water with her? If he took the blanket from his
pack and laid her down on it? She closed her eyes, shivering in reaction,
thinking of his hard body pressing down on her, thrusting into her. It had been
so many years, and the few experiences she'd had with Chris hadn't taught her
that she could be a creature of wanting, but with Grant she wasn't the same
woman.

           
 
Her heart beat heavily in her breast as she
rinsed herself by cupping water in her palms and pouring it over her. Standing
up, she twisted the water out of her hair,
then
waded
out. She was trembling as she pulled on her clean underwear,
then
dressed distastefully in her stained pants and shirt. "I'm finished,"
she called, lacing up her boots.