Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 (14 page)

The evening was already turning cool, but her excitement and the crush of people made her impervious to temperature as she moved toward the southerly facing veranda.

“Bless all that’s holy—Nicki Clark! That is you.”

She wheeled around and a bear of a man broke free of the crowd. His grin was wide as he strode up to her, and he was only held off from picking her up bodily because her hands were full of food and drink.

“Josef!” Nicki said. “I didn’t think you’d be here until August.” She had competed with Josef and against him in mixed competitions, and he was one of her favorite windsurfers on the circuit. At forty-five, he was old enough to be her father, but he was everything her father wasn’t—active, happy, filled with boundless energy and an optimism that never wavered.

“All the to-do, how could I stay away—especially because we’re getting into training, did you know that? Beginners and improvers up through intermediates. It’s a great setup. You should come and do a story on it—hell, you should come and be a trainer! South Padre Island is a sweet location—never gets cold.”

“Josef, you don’t change,” Nicki laughed. “You in Alaçati long?”

“Here for the week. We got a full slate of students who flew in to experience the best windsurfing in the world. Hey!” his eyes lit up. “One of them said something about video blogs on the place. That’s you, isn’t it! You’re doing your whole camera and adventure reporter thing. It’d be a good time to do a report on us, I’m just saying…”

“I’ll think about it—I’ll think about it!” Nicki said, edging toward the low wall of the penthouse veranda as it was vacated by some of the guests. Josef followed her. From here, it was a clear shot over to the southern ridge, and she could easily see the clear-cut trees and construction vehicles, next to a large, ugly cinderblock structure, appearing to be hunched over the mountain.

“What’s that, do you know?” she asked, as casually as she could.

Josef followed her sight line. “Nothing yet,” he said. “One of my students is a total archaeology freak, went up there the other day. They’re nowhere near opening, but he says it’ll be pretty cool when it’s done. Despite the fact they’re moving too fast to really preserve any of the more delicate artifacts that might be there, according to him.” He shrugged. “That’s what happens when you’re tripping over ruins everywhere you turn around, I guess.”

“I guess so.”

“Hey—you should come out tomorrow!” Josef said, returning to his main interest. “They’re doing an expo of trainers, and you could show off your stuff.”

“Except I’m not a trainer.”

“Yet,” he teased. He glanced over her shoulder and his eyes lit up. “There’s the maestro himself. I’ll ask him. You got your board with you?”

She stared at him. “Of course I don’t, Josef. I’m here to video the expo, not participate in it.”

“Not a problem, I’ve got plenty! Wait here.” He bounded off with his good cheer, hailing Omir. Nicki winced. So much for keeping a low profile.

“You’ve made a friend.”

Stefan had materialized in front of her.

Watching Nicki across the room with the much older man had set off a riot of reactions within Stefan, none of them worth paying attention to but all of them impossible to ignore. The two were familiar, clearly, and clearly were not inappropriately entangled. He could tell that by their body language. Yet he’d found a reason to break off his conversation with Omir to come striding over like a jealous boyfriend, and now that he was in front of Nicki, he didn’t have anything specific to say.

What was wrong with him?

“Josef is a well-known windsurfer—a former champion, though he’d never admit it. He’s running a training school.” Nicki’s eyes were alight with interest. “More importantly, he had information about the ruins. Says a student of his went up there, and they’re nowhere near finished, and that the place is closer to a construction zone than an archaeological site. Chances are someone’s cutting corners to get the excavation done before heritage sites learn about it. Which would be a really good reason to use workers who can’t gossip.”

He nodded. “Was he able to get inside?”

“Nope, only check it out from over a fence. But how difficult would it be to get in for someone who probably has his
own
ruins to exploit in Garronia, the Alaçati of the North?”

Stefan blinked at her, startled, then realized she was joking. “I’ve tried suggesting it already to Omir,” he said. “He was not interested in talking about anything but the surfing expo.”

“Oh, give me a break.” Nicki rolled her eyes. “If you really want to get his attention, I can do that.” At his skeptical glance she handed over her plate. “Why do you think Lauren really chose this dress? She wasn’t expecting you to jump my bones, I can tell you that.”

She turned on her heel and sashayed across the room to where Josef and Omir were huddled. Predictably, Omir’s face lit up as Nicki stepped up to him, and Stefan dumped her plate in irritation onto the nearest passing server’s tray. He moved through the crowd, nearing the trio, until he could hear Nicki plainly.

She actually cooed.

Stefan grimaced and forced himself to extract the details of the conversation. Yes, yes, Omir was familiar with the site. It would be a future pride of Alaçati. No, it wasn’t ready—there were no tourists allowed. Yes, it would be beneficial to have video shot of the work in progress…

At that point, Stefan knew they had him. There was no need for Nicki to continue to flirt with the official, but she didn’t seem to realize that. She pressed up against him as if he was the most interesting man in the southern hemisphere. She was not merely dangerous in that dress, she was a lethal weapon, and one he was more than willing to disarm. If only he could—

“Sir.”

Stefan looked up, surprised to see Tamas. They’d made arrangement for updates to be relayed during the party by person, not by electronics, in case Omir was scanning anything. Sometimes the simplest solution was the best. But Tamas had chosen his moment well. Stefan remained on the open veranda, and the wind had picked up, swirling around the conversations and serving as an effective scrambler to everyone’s words.

“How has your tour of the city been?” Stefan asked easily.

“Couldn’t be better,” Tamas grinned. “The weather, the restaurants, everything perfectly in its place. And the residents are so trusting and welcoming. You can walk in almost anywhere and feel at home.” He shrugged. “There are exceptions of course, but until you get up into the mountains, you will never exhaust the goodwill this city has.”

Stefan nodded. The security was lax through much of the old town, from what Tamas was saying. But up on the ridges surrounding the city, the story was different.

“I haven’t been exploring much. I have heard Ephesus is remarkable.”

“Eh, why bury yourself outside of the city when there is so much more here to see. Everything you want is right here.”

“You’ve heard that story enough times that you’re starting to believe it?” Stefan asked good-naturedly, clapping Tamas on the shoulder. This time, however, Tamas’s expression lost its good humor. Turned as he was away from the crowded veranda, he was only visible to Stefan. But his face was almost ashen, his eyes stark and cold.

“I have heard it often enough to know it is true,” he said. “All roads lead to the same walls. There’s no way to tell what those walls are hiding, though.”

“Such is the nature of walls,” Stefan said. “You have been at it long enough, and tomorrow will be another long day. You should get some rest.”

Tamas ducked his head, firmly back in his role of earnest tourist. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. The two of them exchanged another round of pleasantries, then the Garronois special forces operative slipped back into the crowd, drawing appreciative glances but little true attention as he made his way back out.

For his part, Stefan couldn’t shake the expression that had transfixed the young operative’s face. Whatever Tamas had heard had convinced him that Ari was in fact prisoner inside the asylum they’d been targeting—a stark-looking warehouse on the southern ridgeline above Alaçati. Whether he was alive or not there was no way to guess. Security was also tight around the asylum, which would surprise no one. If people knew there were inmates, they’d want to be sure they were kept inside—and even if not, asylums were the type of buildings that invited extra security.

Even with the tour that Nicki was in the process of adroitly arranging, getting into the asylum wouldn’t be as easy as asking Omir if they could pop in next door for an extended visit. But seeing the building close up from the vantage point of the ruins might prove useful. So would seeing exactly who was working on the excavation teams.

He had a feeling there were very few actual drunkards that had been roped into service. Chances were good they were all squatters, the poor, the mentally ill, or small-degree felons, offered a chance to work off their debt to society. If so, and if Ari had eventually stopped acting erratically, there was a good chance he had survived. As Stefan had told Nicki, Ari was tall and strong, and was no stranger to hard work. He could—possibly—have survived this long.

“Hey!” Stefan turned as Nicki bounded up to him. “I spoke to Omir and guess what?”

“He agreed to give us a tour—tomorrow, under the pretext that you’ll be shooting video footage of the ruins to aid him in his promotion of the city’s project.”

“That’s right! He didn’t completely skeeve me out either, which I was expecting. I mean, there was low-level skeeve, but totally manageable. I can’t believe that was so easy!”

“And your friend Josef? Will he be joining us too?” Stefan eased his expression as he spoke the words to lessen their sharpness, and Nicki squinted at him.

She laughed. “Seriously? Is this jealousy? He’s twice my age and has five kids. Um, no.”

He lifted his brows, unable to keep from asking the question. “You don’t care for children?”

“Not when they’re other people’s, and not for myself until I have oh, I don’t know, a roof I can put over their heads. Somewhere that’s not in Indiana, preferably.”

“I’m not so certain. Indiana sounds like a very wholesome place to raise children. Although unless I miss my guess, it is not a place famed for its windsurfing opportunities.

“You would be correct.”

Nicki laughed then, single-handedly dragging him out of the dark waters of his own thoughts. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—wait another moment to touch her again.

“Stefan?” Nicki finally caught his mood and misread it, her face shuttering into a mask of concern. “Is everything all right?”

“It isn’t. I need to talk with you a moment.”

Nicki peered around the room. They were an island among a hundred or so milling guests, and no one was paying attention to them.

“You can’t talk to me here?” she asked.

He shook his head, unable to keep the harshness out of his voice. “Not for what I need to say.”

Chapter Twelve

Be chill,
Nicki admonished herself as she and Stefan moved easily back through the crowd. But how had she so totally misread Stefan’s response to her? How had he slid from interested to infuriated?

She went over her actions in her mind. Yes, perhaps it was impetuous for her to suggest that she could simply ask Omir to show them the ruins and assume he’d pander to her… but it’d worked. They had a tour scheduled for the next morning, and all because she’d been willing to lean over and show a little cleavage. Granted, she’d also gotten roped into surfing at the expo tomorrow afternoon, but that was a price she was willing to pay. And besides, she hadn’t gotten in any serious exercise since they’d left on this jaunt. The sex, though remarkable, didn’t count.

Her cheeks flamed thinking about the previous night in Stefan’s state room. He’d so completely exceeded her expectations that she had now a completely unfair and unrealistic bar that none of the ordinary men back in her ordinary world would be able to clear. Sleeping with Stefan had been the equivalent of standing too close to the sun, and her retinas were permanently singed.

She giggled then stifled the sound at Stefan’s black look. They were moving out of the main party area into an antechamber where a few small groups chatted, more of the servers weaving in and out with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Private conversation was completely possible here, but Stefan angled off into another hallway, past the kitchen and another sitting room—this one dark.

He stopped and moved back, glancing up the hallway. Then he pushed her in the room.

“What are you doin—” Nicki’s hiss was cut off mid-sentence as Stefan pressed her up against the wall, his hand over her mouth.

“Shh,” he said and her eyes went wide, only in part because of the utter gloom in the room, its shades drawn against the fading sky outside. “Can you be quiet?”

She blinked, nodding. Of all the secret agent things she’d been expecting to see from Stefan, this wasn’t it. But it felt exactly like something out of a movie, and when he pulled his hand away from her mouth it was all she could do not to burst with the questions piling up in her mind.