The Warrior (23 page)

The scent of the freshly ground beans permeated the room as he measured grounds and water and then slid the carafe onto the burner and punched Start. When the coffee began flowing into the carafe, he turned away and moved to the windows.

There was already a change in the density of the darkness toward the east. He didn't think about how many thousands of mornings he'd watched this happening. He was still trying to combat the shock of what Alicia had said. It had knocked him so far off center that his head was spinning. For all he knew, the Old Ones were messing with him. Suddenly he pivoted and strode quickly through his home, heading for the portrait. The house was dark, but he navigated it easily. He wanted—needed—to be near her. He had to see for himself that there was nothing about them that was alike.

The display light over the painting was the only light in the room. Entering in the dark to see her face—so alive that he could almost hear her breathing—was a physical pain. He stared at her from across the room, studying the shape of her eyes, the curve of her mouth, the widow's peak dip in her hairline, searching for anything that reminded him of Alicia Ponte. There was nothing.

Momentarily satisfied that he'd made a big deal out of nothing, he started to walk away when he remembered: Richard Ponte looked nothing like the Spaniard who'd destroyed his world, and yet he knew in his soul that they were one and the same.

He told himself that if he was able to feel the soul of his enemy, he would certainly also recognize the other half of his heart. Disgusted with himself and his flight of fancy, he stalked back to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of the freshly brewed coffee, disarmed the security system and walked out onto the terrace to wait for morning.

 

Richard had been waiting for a call from Dieter for more than twenty-four hours. He needed as much information as Dieter could get on the state of the case against him. He wanted details from the news and anything they reported about his daughter. He'd also put Dieter in contact with a man who could find just about anyone on the planet if they were still alive. One way or another, he would face his daughter one last time.

On top of everything else, he needed to get rid of this cell phone, but he couldn't discard it until he'd given Dieter the new number he wanted him to use, and he couldn't do
that
until the man called back.

At least the past twelve hours had been fruitful in another way. He'd reconnected with the business world in a big way. As Anton Schloss, he manufactured tires in Germany and was the absentee owner of a lucrative ski lodge in the Swiss Alps. His beard was longer now, and neatly clipped. He shaved his head daily, and had purchased a whole new wardrobe befitting his status.

In two days he would be traveling to Switzerland for reconstructive surgery. During the time of his convalescence, Richard Ponte was going to meet with a very violent and untimely death. After that, no one would be looking for him, and he would be able to move about the world with comfort and ease. And that was when payback would begin.

 

A day had passed since Alicia's awakening. She had recovered completely and was back to her old acerbic self, pushing at boundaries John didn't want breached, asking questions he had no intention of answering. She seemed determined to get to the bottom of what made him tick, and he was just as determined to ignore her.

He had been in his office for the better part of three hours. Twice she had found a reason to walk past, and each time, he'd either been online or talking on the phone. From the bits and pieces of conversations she'd overheard, it was business as usual for him. He was giving orders to import a new shipment of brass and copper pots from India, then bargaining with some middleman to double his order of Native American blankets and jewelry into Great Britain.

It gave her insight into where he got his money, but it didn't do anything for her peace of mind. And his work ethic only brought home to her how shallow her own life had been. Her social calendar had always been full of one event or another that she needed to attend—sometimes on her father's behalf, sometimes as a pet project of her own, but as she spent time with John, it had become painfully clear that without the auspices of her father's power and notoriety, her life had no meaning. She didn't have a job other than to play decorative hostess. She didn't have close friends, only acquaintances with whom she shared lunches and committees. And except for a college boyfriend, there'd been only one other man in her life, and that had been years ago. She'd had the occasional interlude, but nothing lasting beyond four or five dates. She'd never
thought about why, but now the question kept coming back to haunt her.

John Nightwalker still grieved for the woman in the painting.

She wanted someone to love her like that.

She wanted John, but knowing her father had been responsible for his family's deaths made pursing a relationship with him an impossible dream. He would never see her as anything but the spawn of his own private devil.

 

Alicia awakened the next morning with a plan. It was time to rethink her existence, but living in this cocoon with a man who didn't like her was making it difficult to broaden the range of her skills. Still, she could start small, and one thing she could do was learn how to cook. Everyone needed to know how to feed themselves. It was embarrassing that she could not.

She prowled through the library looking for some kind of cookbook without success, then gave herself a mental thump on the head when she found several on a shelf in the kitchen. Where else should a cookbook be? She pulled a couple off the shelf, then took them and a soda to an easy chair in the living room. The terminology and preparations were mind-boggling. She wasn't even sure how to pronounce them, let alone perform them. But it wasn't long before she was completely absorbed.

It was the quiet that finally soaked into John's consciousness. Too much quiet. He glanced at his watch and tried to remember how long it had been since he'd seen or heard Alicia. Immediately, his instinct to protect went into gear. He saved his work, then got up and started his search.

The first place he went was her bedroom, but after knocking and receiving no answer, he looked in to find the room empty. He then went from the library to the living room. It wasn't until he'd paused there that he realized he could smell something cooking.

That in itself was shocking. He headed for the kitchen, trying not to run.

She was at the sink, her long hair pulled up in a ponytail, wearing white shorts and a simple yellow cotton shirt, untucked. Her feet and legs were bare. Steam was rising from a pot bubbling on the stove, and there were at least a half-dozen dirty bowls and pans scattered across the counter.

He knew what she looked like naked, but damned if she didn't look almost as good like this. That she was cooking was a shock. He didn't know what had prompted it, but he gave her a mental high-five for the effort.

“Hey,” he said softly.

Alicia looked over her shoulder and grinned when she saw him. “I'm making dinner.”

He glanced at his watch again. “It's ten after three in the afternoon.”

“I know…but I didn't know how long it would take. I'm not exactly a pro at this, you know.”

He stifled a smile as he walked up beside her, then noticed she'd suffered a few battle wounds in the process. One hand was sporting Band-Aids on three fingers, while her other had a Band-Aid on the thumb.

“What happened?” he asked, pointing.

“Um…” She nodded toward a bowl of potato peelings, which, when he looked closer, had a good quarter
inch of potato on each spiral. “Peeling potatoes is harder than it looks.”

He took the knife out of her hands, laid it aside and turned her hands palms up. She'd also managed to slice a thin flake of skin from the area above her left wrist. The blood had dried, but not before leaving a smear on her chin and another on the hem of her shirt.

“I know…it looks like I went to war, not the kitchen,” she said, suddenly embarrassed by her lack of skill.

“Poor little fingers,” he said softly, and couldn't help thinking of how adept White Fawn had been with nothing but a thin piece of flint. “But an A-plus for effort.”

Alicia beamed.

Man…she did have her moments. That smile was a heartbreaker. “So…we're having potatoes.”

“Oh…that's not all,” she said. “I'm boiling eggs…and making toast.”

He grinned, then glanced at the pot on the stove. There were four eggs on the boil, but with less than an inch of water in the pan.

“Er…uh…about how long do you think those eggs have been boiling?”

She frowned, then glanced up at the clock over the stove. “Maybe thirty minutes.”

“They're done,” he said, and turned the burner off under the pan.

“Oh…well…okay,” Alicia said, and pointed to the potatoes she had chopped up in a bowl. They'd been there long enough that they were starting to turn a little brown, but he knew from experience that wouldn't change the flavor. And he wasn't going to complain about a thing. “I'm going to cook those next,” she said.

He also wasn't going to point out that timing was all-important in a kitchen. So her hard-boiled eggs were probably going to be rubbery. There had been hundreds of times in his life when he would have killed for a rubbery egg.

“How are you going to cook the potatoes?” he asked.

She pointed to another pot. “In that.” She dumped the chopped bits of raw potato into the pan, and then put it on the stove and fired up the burner.

“So…what are we going for here?” John asked. “Boiled or fried?”

She looked a little puzzled. “What difference does it make? What am I missing?”

“They'll need a little something to keep them from sticking. If you boil them, you'll need salted water. If you fry them, you'll need a skillet and some hot oil in the bottom first.”

She frowned. “Oh. Well…what's your favorite?”

“I'm a big fan of fried anything.”

“Then fried it is,” she said, and took the pan off the stove, then looked up at the pot rack above the stove. “John?”

“Yeah?”

“Which one should I use?”

He reached up and took one down for her without moving a facial muscle. “Oil is in the pantry.”

“Pantry. Right,” she said, and turned in a circle without going anywhere.

“Want some help?” he asked.

“No…no…I've got it,” she said.

“Then I'll leave you to it,” he said, and started backing out when all he wanted to do was pick her up,
put her gorgeous backside up on that counter and lose himself in the V between those long shapely legs.

“One last thing,” Alicia said.

“Yeah?”

“Where's the pantry?”

He pointed to a door on the other side of the room.

“Right,” she said, and waved him away with her bandaged fingers.

He couldn't watch any longer without giving himself away. All the way back to his office, he knew he was getting in trouble. Something had changed when he thought she was dying. The thought of never hearing her give him hell again had scared him. She was as aggravating as a woman could be, but she was beginning to grow on him. Even worse, he was starting to want more from her than her father's present location.

He bypassed his office and went outside, needing to put more than a few yards between them. He hadn't been outside for more than a few minutes when he began hearing a familiar sound. His house was in the direct flight line to Sedona, so planes often flew over, although usually high enough that he was only peripherally aware of them. This one sounded lower. He turned in a slow circle, searching the sky until he located it. It looked like an old crop duster, only there were no crops out here needing dusting. There was also the fact that it was too low to be following a normal flight plan. This felt like a scouting expedition.

John spun on one heel and ran for the house. He'd left the front door slightly ajar, and he hit it with the flat of his hand as he ran. It flew inward, hitting the wall with
a thud as he ran to get his binoculars. He wanted a good look at that plane, and maybe even who was in it.

Alicia heard the commotion and came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“Maybe nothing,” John said. “But don't go outside, and stay away from the windows.”

He hated putting fear back on her face, but staying alive often involved a whole lot of fear. He grabbed the binoculars from a hook on the inside of a closet door and then ran for the kitchen. The windows were smaller there, affording whoever was up there less of a view, but still large enough for his purpose.

Alicia had crouched down inside the hall with her hands over her head. He could hear her praying as he ran past but didn't have time to reassure her. He got to the window, lifted the binoculars and waited for the plane to go over. If it didn't mean anything, they would keep flying. But if they were looking for something—or someone—special, they would turn and circle back.