Deadly Memories Page 16

  She had no idea.

  A few minutes later Jack entered the kitchen and lounged, one hip against the counter, not close enough to touch her but close enough to snag some peas.

  Today he’d backed off and kept his distance. He touched her only by accident. He talked to her only when necessary. A professional mask kept his emotions hidden.

  Romantic and magical had vanished with the dawn.

  Were his worries about being a pariah occupying his thoughts? Was it his focus on killing his enemy?

  Or was their lovemaking, the attraction between them, a one-night fling? Had he gotten from her what he wanted and now it was over? The suspicion cut deep, piercing her heart with a blade sharper than the one she stabbed into the peppers.

  “Smells good already,” he said. His gaze focused on the vegetables, not on her, as he stripped the purloined peas from their shells.

  “Thanks. What did you find out?” She hoped her voice didn’t betray her hurt. She grabbed a pepper and whacked at it with enough force to sever the cutting board.

  A barely perceptible tightening of his mouth was the only indication he’d noticed. “No news on the leak. Byrne has a contact on the inside who’s working on the problem.”

  “Someone in the Venice polizia?”

  “Interpol. And he shook loose some agents from Interpol to round up the hit men. I should know more in a day or two. Then maybe De Carlo’ll clear me.”

  He bared his teeth in a thin-lipped grimace no one would call a smile, then popped the tiny green pearls in his mouth.

  She set down the knife before she did real damage. “But it’s hard to wait and do nothing.”

  “I’m treading water and sinking lower all the time.” Pain clouded his eyes before he shuttered them. He cleared his throat, apparently chagrined at revealing his frustration. “I have work to do.”

  He turned and marched into the dining room.

  Sophie noted his masked expression as he seated himself at the table with his laptop. Earlier he’d installed its small satellite dish on the roof.

  She returned to her dinner preparations and turned on the faucet. Through the window she observed a flock of birds streaking over the undulating green hills terraced with vines and olive trees. She couldn’t see Florence but knew the city was tucked into a valley not far away.

  Farther away dangled the solution to helping Jack. Whatever the reason, his torment roadblocked the bridges they’d gradually built between them. Persuading him to abandon revenge meant an upward slog steeper than these Tuscan hills.

  Jack booted up the computer. Simon Byrne had given him the codes to enter the task-force site. Maybe he could find the damned leak and clear himself so he wasn’t shut out of the endgame. He logged onto Internet 2, the secure high-speed pathway only academics and government agencies could use.

  He stared but saw nothing on the screen.

  Saw only the hurt in Sophie’s eyes when he’d walked away from her in the kitchen.

  Damn it, last night had been fantastic, the best sex of his life. The best…hell, it had been more than sex. Sensual and soft, she’d given herself to him with total abandon. Her scent, the incredible feel of her smooth, glowing skin and her giving passion were imprinted on his DNA.

  He’d never lost it like that—and he wanted more. Much more. He desired her still. More than before. If that was possible. He wanted to rip off that sexy sundress Vadim had bought for her, damn him, and drag her down on the kitchen floor and drive into her right now.

  And if he did, the release he found in her arms, like last night, would give him only brief respite from the fire in his blood. There was no forgetting what he had to do.

  He cared for her, sure.

  A lot.

  Forced closeness and his protective instincts. Natural enough, even the tenderness and warmth. That was all it must be, all it could be. He had no right to involve someone else in his life or in his cause.

  Besides, he couldn’t give Sophie what she needed. Showing every emotion—joy or sadness or passion—was alien to him. Talking about it scraped at his nerves with hundred-grit sandpaper. She crowded him too much about the maelstrom of feelings he couldn’t begin to sort through.

  No, he ought to leave her alone. She was safe here at this farmhouse. She was better rid of him.

  He was better off concentrating on finding Vadim and killing him. If Byrne couldn’t clear Jack, if the task force kept him shut out, he’d have no choice.

  And there was something he was missing, a connection he ought to make, an anomaly. Emotion always interfered with analytical thinking. That’s why he was missing a vital clue.

  He deliberately shut out his hatred for Vadim and his scrambled feelings for Sophie and keyed in the task-force password.

  “Dinner was great,” Jack said. His chair scraped against the brick-colored tiles as he pushed away from the table. “Five-star rating. Leave the dishes. I’ll clean up later.”

  Leaving an openmouthed Sophie behind him, he strode through the French doors. He inhaled deeply, but the scents of white and yellow blossoms edging the brick terrace, whatever the hell they were, didn’t settle his Mexican-jumping-bean nerves. Neither did the wind’s racket in the palm fronds.

  He’d hurt Sophie again, damn it. She’d tried to start conversation during dinner. She’d asked about his work, about the computer search that had found zip.

  God, she’d even wanted to know more about David. He’d cut her off every time.

  She’d gone to such trouble to prepare a gourmet dinner, and he’d barely tasted a blasted thing. He’d just shoveled in food until he could get away.

  Damn it, he couldn’t hear the gentle sound of her voice without feeling sparks ignite in his chest. And lower. He couldn’t stand being around her without touching her, without craving her.

  Hell, he had to stop. He had more important things to think about than a woman who made him wish for a future that didn’t exist.

  Light from the dining room illuminated rectangles across the terrace. Sophie’s shadow crossed back and forth in front of the windows as she ferried dishes to the kitchen. Maybe she would stay there and leave him the hell alone.

  Fat chance.

  When she opened the terrace door, he turned his back so she wouldn’t see the hunger in his eyes.

  “Jack.” Sophie’s soft hand warmed the skin of his forearm. The sound of his name on her lips soothed what he didn’t want soothed.

  “Look, I apologize. I’m not very good company tonight.”

  Her arms slipped around him. “The task force, finding Vadim, it’ll all work out. I’m not foolish enough to tell you not to worry. I understand. But it’s a beautiful night, and there’s a big, soft bed upstairs. I’ll be waiting for you.” She rose on tiptoe to brush a kiss on his mouth.

  Even that light touch of lips zinged heat downward, and he ached to pull her close. Instead he hardened his resolve and stiff-armed her from him.

  “You understand? You couldn’t possibly understand what I’m feeling.” He shot his gaze upward to the star-filled night so he couldn’t see the shock in her cappuccino-dark eyes.

  “Then why don’t you tell me instead of keeping that fuse burning?” Her voice went from soft to a razor edge.

  Ignoring the warning bells in his head, he glared at her with the same ferocity that had cowed captured terrorists and made scumbag witnesses wet themselves.

  She didn’t back down. Only inches away, she smelled of flowers and spices and she gazed at him not with fear but purpose. No more amenable Sophie who gave in when pushed. Cool compliance gone, she glowed with defiance and challenge, with such intensity of emotion that he felt the heat.

  Instantly his body responded. Blood pooled in his groin, and he ached to possess her. To have her elegant legs wrapped around him, to bury himself inside her, to—

  He sucked in a deep breath to clear away the unwanted needs. It didn’t work, but he couldn’t take his eyes from her.

  In the depths
of her eyes he saw sympathy.

  Sympathy he didn’t need, didn’t want. He wanted her. “Tell you? I can’t, I—” How could he express the war waging within him?

  Not in words, for damn sure.

  He yanked her hard against his chest and crushed his mouth to hers. Instead of fighting, she molded herself against him and encircled his waist with her arms. Lust jolted through him. He went from fury to fevered urgency in a sizzling flash.

  The lightning-bolt impact of Jack’s kiss slammed Sophie’s pulse to a violent pace and struck wildfire in her very core. His kiss was untamed, harsh, full of demand and desperation, and her heart sang with joy. Not a simple fling.

  All at once Jack shoved her away.

  “Don’t think you can distract me with sex.” He fired each word from between clenched teeth.

  She reeled, breathless from the onslaught, tossed asea by his senseless accusation. “Distract you?”

  The skin drew taut with tension across his cheeks, and his eyes flared with blue fire. “You can’t soothe away my flipping problems by luring me to bed. It won’t work. I’m no crying child to appease with origami.”

  “No, Jack, I didn’t—”

  “Honey, you can’t help trying to kiss and make it all better. Those maternal instincts are too strong. You’re a natural.” He raked his scarred fingers through his hair.

  Where had this idea come from? She shook her head to jar his off-the-wall assumption into some sense. Anger at his arrogance heated to a boil.

  She poked his chest with her index finger. “Jack, you are so wrong. About me. About everything. If you think I’m offering myself to you to soothe your wounded soul, you’re pazzo da legare!” She folded her arms and glared back at him with matching heat. “Pazzo means—”

  “I don’t need a damn translation for that one, thank you very much.” He turned on his heel and stalked away. “I’m going for a walk. Alone.”

  Hugging herself, she shivered in spite of the warm night air. Tears burned the backs of her eyes.

  “Gee, that went well.”

  She watched his long-legged stride carry him into the gloom. A natural? Was she fighting her own nature? He couldn’t be right about her. Could he?

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” she whispered.

  Chapter 13

  Sophie stayed up as late as she could, trying to occupy herself productively but mostly pacing and watching for Jack. Then she lay awake in the master bedroom’s king-size bed. He hadn’t returned when she finally fell asleep.

  The next morning she came downstairs to find the dishes done, as promised, and the man hunched over his laptop and his coffee. He looked as though he hadn’t slept at all.

  He’d dumped his duffel bag in another bedroom, but that bed hadn’t been mussed. She’d looked.

  She started to ask if he was all right, but the rigid set of his shoulders warned her to leave him alone. He needed to work things out in his mind and heart.

  In the kitchen she poured herself some coffee and popped slices of the wonderful crusty bread she’d bought into the toaster. Humming, she pulled eggs from the fridge and began to organize an omelet.

  Outside, a small engine coughed to life as Silvio started mowing the grass. Sophie waved and the portly man waved back. The mower’s path resembled the curvy hill roads.

  A little morning libation before work. Unusual. Although Italians enjoyed their wine, they frowned on intoxication.

  Turning, she peeked at Jack over her coffee mug. He was bent even lower over the keyboard.

  Trying not to notice her.

  She’d figured out last night that he walled himself off from her because he cared for her but didn’t want to. Ah, well, she had the same problem and her own issues, but without the torment raging inside her that he had.

  During those hours she’d waited for Jack, she’d found a direction for self-discovery. He’d set her up on his laptop with a guest password, so she conducted a search for Santa Elisabetta Rinaldi.

  On three different Web sites she’d found two dozen Saint Elizabeths from everywhere—Saint Elizabeth of Prague and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and Saint Elizabeth the Recluse among them. Only three had been Italian. None a Rinaldi.

  She wasn’t giving up. There were other Web sites and more lists. She’d search again today. The next day if necessary.

  Jack’s gibes about her natural bent picked at her brain. Was he right? Or did she nurture and teach because there was no other choice?

  The talents of her mom and her sister—the ambitious ad exec and the teenage artistic slacker—shone no light on her soul. Searching her roots brought her to Italy. Santa Elisabetta would guide her, would give her a sign. She hoped. Anyway, Mom would want the history of the family saint.

  Her brain strain hadn’t filled the remaining gaps in her memory either. Even if she remembered that last day, there was no guarantee she knew where Vadim might be or what he’d told her or anything helpful. And she was no closer to stopping Jack from ruining his life.

  There was nothing she could do for now.

  All she could do was give Jack space.

  She managed to tempt him with her cheese-and-vegetable omelet, but he barely spoke to her. He spent the day working on the computer or talking to his contact on the sat phone or walking the hills, his gait restless and charged with turmoil.

  When Jack wasn’t using the computer, Sophie returned to her search for her family saint. Later, she sat in the sun with a Donna Leon mystery from the house’s extensive library, but she couldn’t concentrate, so she relived her recovered memories of Italy and hoped for a breakthrough on the memories still hiding somewhere in her brain.

  No luck. With the saint or with the memories.

  In the evening, he wouldn’t let her cook but insisted they walk to the village trattoria for dinner.

  As usual, Sophie translated and chatted with the villagers while Jack observed.

  Boh, she got it. Surrounded by strangers, he didn’t have to talk to her over a meal.

  On the return to the house she noticed that the day’s puffy cotton-ball clouds had left, driven out by charcoal-rimmed monsters. The air pulsed, alive with electricity. Maybe Jack wouldn’t go out.

  She was wrong. He left her at the door.

  The wind fretted and tossed, rattling the palm fronds like dry bones. It shrieked under the stone house’s eaves.

  Around midnight, raindrops as fat as ripe plums splatted against the windows in a syncopated rat-a-tat. Lightning forked and cannon volleys rolled over the hills.

  Sleepless and tense with worry, Sophie curled up on the chaise by the bedroom window to watch for Jack’s safe return.

  Jack stared at Sophie with aching eyes and a leaden heart, imprinted the image on his brain so he would have her goodness to sustain him.

  She slept with her head propped on the chair arm, a light blanket across her legs. The bedside lamp haloed her dark hair in gold, but her face was in shadow. Beside her on a tiny round table stood her saint statuette, keeping watch over her while she watched for him.

  Warmth curled in his chest and spread outward, leaching the chill from his wet skin.

  How late did she sit there until even the lightning and thunder couldn’t keep her awake? He was a thoughtless jerk who didn’t deserve her worry. Half the night he’d spent in the shed garage talking to Byrne on the sat phone.

  She’d left towels by the kitchen door for him. He didn’t deserve that kindness either, but he’d sure been glad to see them when he’d dragged in. He’d left his sopping T-shirt and sneakers in the utility tub and dried himself with one.

  He rubbed his dripping hair with another now and stared out the window at the storm. Jagged bolts speared the ground right outside the house. He’d made it to the house just in time to miss being fried. The exploding thunder shook the house and vibrated Jack’s bones.

  Italy sure as hell knew how to stage a sound-and-light show. Emotional and extravagant, like the Italian character.


  Like Sophie.

  Looping the terry length around his neck, he stared at her, ached to hold her, to spend his passion inside her welcoming body.

  Hell.

  He should head down the hall before he woke her.

  During his solitary treks he’d made some connections he hadn’t before. Byrne had told him a snitch had a line on Saqr’s plans for the uranium. His other news set up his next steps to get to Vadim. And they didn’t involve Sophie.

  She was safe here. He should leave her the hell alone. He turned to go.

  “Are you all right?”

  Her soft voice glued his bare feet to the wood floor. “No lightning strikes.”

  She tossed aside her cover, and he recognized the yellow pj’s he’d helped her into their first night on the road. The cropped top and low boxers revealed her warm-honey skin and killer legs. Her hair fell in sensuous waves across her shoulders. His Venus.

  No, not mine. He couldn’t let himself even think it.

  She left the chaise and padded barefoot over to stand at the foot of her bed. “The gods wouldn’t dare. You’d probably heave lightning bolts back into the sky.”

  He winced at the truth of her assessment. The concern and tenderness in her eyes shattered his good intentions.

  His treks had cured his indecision, but they hadn’t cured him of Sophie. He’d tried to concentrate on his enemy, but inevitably thoughts of her had shoved the others aside. Soon he would have to leave her, but now…

  A scalding sea of fury and desire swirled in the vicinity of his heart. Every muscle in his body strained with tension. What if she refused him? “I said some things….”

  “So did I. It doesn’t matter.” Arms inviting, she took a step toward him.

  In two strides he reached her and held her close, breathed her unique woman scent, the fragrance of her skin, of her hair.

  God, she felt good. Fantastic.

  He tunneled his fingers through the dark luxury of her hair and drank from her lips. He could never get enough of this woman. “I tried, but I couldn’t stay away from you.”