Deep Breath (9 page)

She’d let him bring her off in a public place, for crying out loud. And now she thought she was going to be able to lie quietly in a bed separated from his by nothing but a nightstand and a six-foot expanse of plush carpet?

Still, she couldn’t stay in the bathroom any longer. He’d be in here any minute checking to see if she’d flushed herself down the tubes. So, wrapped in one of the room’s thick terry robes, she cut off the light and prepared to meet her doom.

He was lying beneath the sheet on the bed he’d chosen, the lamp off on his side of the nightstand, his head pillowed on both of his wrists, his eyes closed. She was glad to see he was wearing a T-shirt because, really.

A woman could hardly be held responsible for her actions when faced with a bare chest like his. It was bad enough taking in the sculpted bulge of his triceps beneath his shirt’s short sleeves.

On the far side of her bed, she shrugged out of the robe and climbed beneath the thermal blanket, the quilted spread, and the crisp clean sheet. She pulled the triple layer of covers to her chin, thinking she should’ve checked the room’s thermostat when she walked by.

But instead of getting back up to do so, she turned onto her side—her back to Harry—tucked a pillow to her chest, and settled in to go to sleep.

11:40
P.M.

Harry wasn’t sure if he’d actually slept or if he’d only dreamed that he had. He did know that he’d climbed into bed while Georgia was in the bathroom and that he’d done his best to fall asleep before she came out.

She was uncomfortable being here with him, and he didn’t want to add to her stress. He was working for an out-of-sight, out-of-mind scenario, hoping she wouldn’t freak on him and run out in the middle of the night.

She needed her sleep—not for reasons having to do with beauty rest or decompression from the tension of the day, but because he was going to be heading out in an hour or two and he had to have her down for the count.

Before he left to take care of business, however, he would rig a couple of transmitters—in her boots, her duffel bag, her backpack—so he could find her again should she vanish before he got back.

She’d been in bed now for twenty minutes, and she still tossed and turned. He hadn’t said a word. He didn’t know if she was still cold, simply restless, or as frustrated as he was. Because he was. Frustrated. Very.

And as much as he was focused, concentrating on what he had to do once he put things in play, laying out the logistics of his plan while he stared at the play of light on the ceiling where the moon shone over a gap in the top of the drapes, his body was wired and tight.

So when Georgia flopped over again and sighed, he wasn’t surprised. What did surprise him was several moments later to hear her whisper, “Harry?”

He waited, his heart racing, uncertain whether she really wanted him to answer or whether she was doing no more than testing the waters.

Then again, he mused, would she ask if she wasn’t interested?

And what exactly was it she was asking? Obviously he would never find out if he just laid here like a lifeless slab of clay…

“Harry?” She was louder this time.

And so he said, “I’m here.”

“I think I’d like it better if you were over here.”

He tossed back his sheet, started to swing his legs over the side of the bed and sit up. But then something made him stop and ask, “Are you still cold?”

“Uh, yes. And no. I’m not sure.” Her voice sounded tiny and lost in the dark.

He thought about everything she’d gone through in the last thirty hours. An arrest. A night spent in jail. The siege at the diner. The threat to her brother’s life.

Whether or not she was cold didn’t matter. She was alone. And that was one thing he could make better. He slid out of his bed and crossed the short space to hers.

Her eyes were wide and white in the pale oval of her face. She scooted over, making room, and he did as he’d promised her he’d do.

He smoothed the top sheet over his side and slid beneath the blankets, wearing his T-shirt and jogging shorts that nearly hit his knees.

He lay on his side facing her, but he didn’t move any closer and he didn’t touch her at all. The first move, whatever it ended up being, wasn’t his to make.

He bunched the pillow beneath his head with one arm and stared at her while she stared straight up, as tense as any slick-sleeve new recruit who’d just been dressed down by his drill sergeant.

When several minutes later she said, “I don’t know if this is any better or not,” he had to laugh.

“As long as you’re warm and you can get some sleep, then it’s better.”

She shivered, the vibrating tremor reminding him of how nervous she’d been before the preview reception, reminding him of the scent of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the way she’d come in his hand.

He closed his eyes, pushed aside the thoughts, and tried to catch forty winks. He’d learned a long time ago to grab his sleep when and where he could, never knowing when he’d get a chance to grab more.

He relaxed. It was all good. Except the minute he felt himself dozing, drifting, he also felt Georgia move over to his side of the bed.

He stayed where he was; if he’d been underneath the sheet, he wasn’t sure he would have managed. And even with the barrier between them and the promise he’d made, he was tempted to wrap her up in his arms.

It was especially hard to stick to his position when she shifted, scooting up so that her head was nearer the headboard than his. That put his face scant inches from the crook of her neck. She smelled so damn good.

“Harry?”

His eyes opened at her whisper. “Georgia?”

“I know we agreed on no skin-to-skin contact, but I’d like it if you held me. You know. With the sheet between? Just your arm around my waist or something?”

Or something?

He groaned. He had no problem draping his arm over her and settling it into that curve, but
something
sounded so much better. Because, sheet or not?

Her waist was halfway between the good stuff upstairs and the good stuff down. And her face was so close that he could smell her toothpaste, a hint of soap and shampoo.

But he wanted more than anything to ease her distress, and so he hooked his arm around her and pulled her close. And he went ahead and kissed the slope of her shoulder above the strap of her tank top, breathing her in and growing hard.

“Better?” he asked once he’d calmed himself enough to speak.

“It is. I’m sorry. I thought I’d be okay by myself.” She tried to laugh, but the sound was a tortured sort of bark. “I mean, I
am
okay by myself. All the time. I don’t know why today should be any different.”

That one was easy. “Maybe because today
was
different. Because yesterday was different. How many nights in your life have you spent behind bars?”

“Just that one, thank goodness. If not for Finn…” She begin to shake. Not the tiny quivers of earlier, but full-bodied tremors.

He tightened his hold, soothed her with quiet shushing sounds, with the stroke of his hand up and down her rib cage, with his lips against the side of her neck. “He’ll be fine. He’s a big boy.”

“He’s always there for me. Always,” she said with a hiccupping sob, one that turned into a desperate cackle. “I’ve been so obsessed with finding this dossier because it’s what my father wanted that I’ve completely taken advantage of Finn. Not to mention taken him for granted. He never even complains. He just comes when I call.”

“Then I doubt he feels taken advantage of. He’d let you know if he did.”

She seemed to let that sink in, then asked, “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

“None.” He’d been a spoiled rotten only son with the best parents a kid could wish for. “But I work with a group of guys who are the closest thing I’ve ever had. And I can guarantee not a one of them would hesitate to tell me if I was using and abusing.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t grow up with them,” she said, chuckling softly, her angst melting. “You didn’t fight with them over who washed the dishes and who dried, or who got to use the car on Friday nights.”

She wasn’t shaking now, and her skin beneath the sheet had grown warm. He really needed to move away. He didn’t. “And I’ll bet you got it most of the time.”

“Well, I am the oldest. Besides, Finn always had a lot of friends with cars. Better cars than our father’s Buick LeSabre.”

Harry thought of his own love affair with wheels. “Gotta side with the brother on that score.”

“Heh,” she teased, snuggling deeper into the covers. “You said score.”

He smiled to himself. She wasn’t going to let him live that down, was she? “It’s not quite so painful when I’m in your bed.”

“I am warmer now, thanks,” she said, wiggling closer.

Closer, but not close enough. She could wiggle against him all night and he wouldn’t complain. “Not a problem.”

“And I’m not so panicked. Or so scared,” she admitted moments later with a long breathy sigh, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know what she was feeling.

Hmm. This could get deep if he let it. He didn’t know if he wanted to go there, to get that personally involved. In the end, how could he not? Being here for her was the whole point of this torturous exercise.

He might be a spy, but he wasn’t a heel. “So, what scares you?”

She plucked at the edge of the sheet she held beneath her chin. “The biggest one? That I won’t find what Charlie wants me to find in time to save Finn.”

“Don’t be scared,” he said, knowing she had no reason to put stock in his words, having complete faith that what he told her was the truth. “Come Monday morning, this will be nothing more than a bad dream.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone pulled into the middle of a nightmare.”

He gave a sideways shrug, the best he could do lying down. “I was a few years in the army. I’ve seen worse.”

“Combat?” The one-worded question came wrapped in too many others for him to deal with right now.

He gave her the Cliffs Notes version. “Of a sort.”

“Hmm. Covert stuff?” When he remained silent, she added, “I’m only guessing that since you’re not talking.”

He was not talking because his military days were in the past. He brought forward his skills and his experience to apply to the present as needed. That was it.

The rest of the time he was simply Rabbit. “And here I was thinking you were just another pretty face.”

She stuck out her tongue. “I was kinda wondering why you’ve been so calm while I’ve been a basket case.”

If she thought she was a basket case…“I’m always up for a good adventure.”

She huffed. “Or a bad one?”

“No such thing.”

“Only bad outcomes?”

“I told you. It’s not going to happen.”

“Promises, promises,” she grumbled, turning onto her side and spooning back against him.

“Hey, I’ve kept them so far, haven’t I?” He loved having her this near, loved the feel of wrapping himself around her, loved the way their bodies fit.

Loved the fact that he actually had it in him to do no more than hold her. “No skin-to-skin contact? No between-the-sheets action?”

She chuckled, grabbed his drifting hand. “Just above the sheet kissing and groping?”

“Only because you asked.”

“Hmm. Did I?”

“Well, maybe not for the kissing.”

“Definitely not for the kissing.”

She made him smile. God, but she made him smile. “I gave it up.”

“I know,” she said softly, pausing, then adding, “You can start again if you want.”

That stopped him cold, even while it raised his temperature to a record high. “This isn’t about what I want, Georgia. If it were up to me, we’d both be naked by now.”

“I know,” she repeated, adding a heavy sigh. “That’s why this is so hard. I want the same thing. I just don’t know if wanting it is right.”

“I can’t answer that for you.” He wasn’t having a problem answering it for himself, but then he was the one with a stick shift between his legs.

“I wish you could. I’m having hell trying to answer it for myself.”

That settled it. “The only thing I can say for sure is that we both need sleep. And right now? We probably need that more than anything.”

Life is a wretched gray Saturday, but it has to be lived through.

 

—Anthony Burgess, English novelist
(1917–1993)

 

March 15, 1989

Paul Valoren pulled his glasses from his face and tossed them to the center of his desk. They slid to a stop at the edge of the blotter.

He rubbed his eyes, his forehead, the bridge of his nose. He’d thought he would get word via a phone call. He’d never expected to see the news splashed across the
New York Times’
front page.

Leaning forward and reaching for the switch on his lamp, he kicked the garbage can tucked deep in the desk’s kneehole. He’d shoved the receptacle out of sight after crumpling the newspaper down inside.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

It wasn’t working.

Never had he believed that any of his friends would see prison. He wasn’t sure he would have agreed to the terms of the deal if he had. He had been assured—they had
all
been assured—that the negligible chance for failure made the risk one worth taking.

He’d been in charge of the financial arrangements, the budget, the backing, the international transfer of funds. That made it easy for him to see the monetary scope, the broad personal appeal, the opportunity for amazing wealth they held in their hands.

He wasn’t even sure he remembered who was the first to suggest the alterations to the satellite specs. It had been made in jest. It had been taken to heart. It had been implemented with the resolve to never look back.

Now the decision would ruin one of their lives forever. It could quite possibly ruin them all.

As had the others, he had profited. He had bought and sold stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets, making his investments based not on speculation, but viable, confirmable data. Data illegally obtained.

He enjoyed the life he now led. He could afford to travel for pleasure as well as for work, and he did. He indulged in small luxuries, exquisite food, cultural stimulation.

He didn’t want to lose what had become a life of comfort, a life where he was held in high regard, where his opinion was sought out, where his name was whispered in awe.

Neither did he wish to risk his position at the university, or the rapport he’d built with his students.

His involvement in the TotalSky project had been immaculate in detail. Not one recorded cent had been wrongfully allocated. His name, in fact, had been the first to be cleared. But he had turned his head during crucial negotiations…

He knew there was a true accounting of the events that one day would have to be destroyed. One kept to be used not so much as ammunition, but as insurance. He trusted his alliance partners, was consumed with guilt that one had to pay, knew of no way around that inevitable end.

He thought of the newspaper beneath his desk, thought of the lives affected by the guilty verdict and sentence. Thought of his own most of all. His pleasures, his way of life, his promising career.

And then he picked up his pen to sign the papers that would change the world as he knew it.