Star-Spangled Bride Read online

Fifty yards.

  She cast an anxious glance at the second-story window across the street. Mohammed had better be as good a shot as Evan had said. He would have to pick off both guards within a matter of seconds to keep them from turning on Falkner.

  Five yards.

  She pulled the pin from the smoke grenade with her teeth.

  The first shot!

  The guard on the far side of Falkner fell to the ground.

  She hurled the smoke bomb down the street.

  The sickening thunk of a bullet hitting flesh as Mohammed's second bullet struck the remaining guard.

  Billows of smoke suddenly obscured everything in the narrow street.

  She darted out of the alcove. Her hand grasped Falkner's arm. "Hurry!"

  He didn't question her. "Right." He let her pull him into the alcove and through the open doorway.

  She slammed the door, shot the bolt, and then moved down the corridor. "Follow me. We have two minutes before the men from the house will get here and another two minutes before the smoke clears enough for them to start a search. There's a trapdoor in the basement that leads to a fruit cellar. I've cut an exit out of the cellar that leads to a storm drain." She fired the words as she hurried down a curving staircase, then into the basement. "Can you manage a ladder in those chains?"

  "I could manage to climb Mount Everest if it meant getting away from these bastards," he said grimly, his gaze searching her blackened face. "Who are you? CIA?"

  They had reached the fruit cellar, and she led him to the cut-out exit. She shook her head as she started down the ladder. "Later."

  "What's your name?" he persisted.

  "Ronnie. Ronnie Dalton." She waited for him at the bottom of the ladder and then played die flashlight on the drainage pipe. "You first."

  He looked at the opening skeptically. "It looks pretty small."

  "You'll fit. I measured it."

  "Very efficient." He got down on his hands and knees and began to crawl through the pipe.

  She waited until he was several yards ahead and then went in, shutting the camouflaged door behind her. "Hurry!" she whispered. "We have to be at the end of the pipe in four minutes."

  "And where does it exit?"

  "Two blocks north."

  "You have a car waiting?"

  "No."

  "Why the hell not?"

  "Stop questioning me and move!"

  "I'll move, but I'll be damned if I'll stop questioning you. This is my life and I'm not risking it for any half-baked plan that—"

  "It's the only hope you've got," she said in exasperation. "I've got it covered. Trust me."

  "Under these kind of circumstances I don't trust anyone but myself."

  "Well, maybe it's time you changed. You didn't do so well getting away from them on your own. It's not— Why are you stopping?"

  "I've reached the end of the pipe." He moved cautiously out onto the street. "No one in sight."

  "There will be soon. This entire area will be crawling with those scum once they radio for reinforcements."

  He stood up and reached out a hand to pull her to her feet. "Then let's get out of here."

  She moved quickly ahead of him down the street, turned left and then right. She heard the jangle of his chains as he shuffled behind her. After the third block he muttered testily, "Are we supposed to walk all the way to die border?"

  "If I say so." She turned left again, moved swiftly down the alley, threw open a door, and gestured for him to enter. "In here."

  Fatima waited in the hall just inside the door. "You're late," she said sourly. "If you'd arrived two minutes later, you would have found the door locked. I told Evan I would take no unnecessary chances." She locked the door, then turned on her heel and walked quickly down the dimly lit corridor. "Come with me."

  "What is this place?" Falkner asked.

  "It's a bordello," Ronnie said. "We thought it would be safer for you to hide in plain sight. Here's the scenario. You're a customer and I'm one of Fatima's women."

  Fatima threw open a door. "You'd better do it right," she told Ronnie grimly. "Or we'll all end up corpses."

  "And that charming lady is the madam?" Falkner asked as the door closed behind Fatima.

  Ronnie nodded. "Fatima al-Radir." She gestured toward the bed. "Sit down, I have to get those chains off."

  "Gladly." He sat down, studying his rescuer. Not that there was much to study. Except for glittering wide-set hazel eyes and a slightly turned-up nose, he could discern little of her blackened face. Her thin body was dressed in black trousers and shirt and a sock cap that completely covered her hair. "And how do you intend to get rid of these chains? Do you have a file tucked in your bag?"

  "Better." She knelt at his feet, fumbled in her camera bag, and pulled out a tiny key. "You'll be out of these in a minute."

  "How well prepared you are." His gaze narrowed on her blackened face. "How do you happen to have—"

  "There!" she interrupted as the lock opened on his ankle manacles. "Now give me your wrists."

  He extended his hands. "And how did you know where I'd be tonight?"

  "I never reveal my sources," she said lightly. "Deepthroat would never forgive me."

  "You're a reporter?"

  She nodded as she took the manacles off his hands. "Photojournalist."

  "One of my people?"

  "My people," she repeated. "I heard you were possessive about your employees."

  "Well, are you?"

  She shook her head. "Free-lance."

  "You're taking a hell of a risk to get a story."

  "I'm after an Emmy," she said flippantly. "Go get in the shower. I'll have Fatima get rid of these manacles. Throw out your clothes and I'll get rid of those too." She reached into the bag and handed him a small case. "False beard and eyebrows, brown contact lenses. Those blue eyes are a dead giveaway." She grimaced. "Oops, wrong word."

  "I find it very apt under the circumstances," he told her as he took the case. "Am I on a schedule for this too?"

  She picked up the manacles and headed to the door. "Seven minutes. Your old friends should be here within ten to search the house."

  "Let's hope they keep to your agenda and not their own." He moved toward the bathroom. "I trust you're going to wash off that black stuff and get into something more appropriate?"

  "Of course. Don't be stupid."

  "I'm not known to be stupid." He slammed the door and began peeling off his clothes. Dammit, he knew he should be grateful since the woman had saved his neck, but there was something about Ronnie Dalton that rubbed his nerves like high-grade sandpaper. Her air of crisp decisiveness and aggressiveness made him want to reach out and shake her.

  He stepped beneath the shower and let the lukewarm water run over him. He wasn't usually so unfair. Women had the right to be just as aggressive as men in this world. Face it, he probably would have been antagonistic toward anyone whose hands held his life. He liked to be in control and he'd had a bellyful of pent-up frustration and helplessness during this last year. But that wasn't Ronnie Dalton's fault, and he would have to submerge his natural instincts and work with her if they were going to get out of this alive.

  "Geez, can't you hurry up?" she called through the door.

  He gritted his teeth. "You gave me seven minutes. It's only been five." Gratitude, he reminded himself as he turned off the shower. After donning his disguise and wrapping a towel around his waist, he stepped out of the bathroom.

  He saw she was in bed, leaning back against a high oak headboard that was as scarred and chipped as the other meager furniture in the room.

  He stopped in shock.

  She looked not a day over sixteen. Her skin glowed with fresh scrubbing and seemed as rose-petal soft as a baby's. Her golden hair was short and curled riotously about her face. The sheet was pulled up to her shoulders, but she was obviously nude beneath the thin cover.

  "You look—"

  "I know, I know," she said impatiently. Like something f
rom one of the old-time Gibson girl ads. I can't help it. Get into bed."

  "I'm not sure I should," he said even as he slipped under the sheet and threw the towel aside. "How the hell old are you?"

  "Twenty-four." She reached over to the bedside table and plucked a dark shining object from its surface, which proved to be a long black wig. After putting it on, she commenced to tuck her short blond curls underneath it. "This should make me look older."

  "Wrong," he corrected. "Instead of looking like a Christmas-card angel, you've only turned into a nursery-school dropout."

  "Really?" She frowned. "Well, it will have to do. Maybe they'll think you're one of those men who like young girls." She lifted the pillow to reveal a revolver. "A Magnum .357. We don't want to use it unless we have to, but it will blow a good-sized hole."

  "Quite a good-sized hole. You're familiar with guns?"

  "I grew up with them. When most kids were going to school, I was learning how to assemble an Uzi."

  "Interesting."

  "If I have to blow anyone away, head for the bathroom. That window opens onto the alley."

  "You appear to have everything researched."

  "I told you I wasn't stupid. I want to live as much as you do."

  Her hand was opening and closing nervously on the sheet. "Now, when we hear them, you move over me and pretend we're doing it. Don't turn fully around, but it would be smart to let them get a glimpse of your beard."

  "Misdirection." He stretched out and willed himself to relax. "I'll handle it."

  "Do you speak Said Ababan? You should—"

  "I said I'll handle it." He tried to keep the edge from his tone. "I assure you I learned to be very fluent in Said Ababan obscenities over the last year."

  "You'll have to disguise your voice. They must be able to recognize it after all these months."

  "For Lord's sake, I'm fully aware of—" He stopped as he noticed the rapid pounding of the pulse in her throat. She was frightened, he realized suddenly. Scared as hell and talking feverishly to keep from admitting it to him and to herself. The knowledge completely disarmed him. Why, she was only a kid and about as tough as his six-year-old niece, Daisy. He felt a rush of protectiveness ripple through him. "I'll watch it," he said quietly. "Now relax. There's nothing to do but wait."

  She drew a deep breath. "I hate waiting."

  "So do I, but I've learned to cope with it." Her skin had a silky sheen like that usually seen only in very young children, and he suddenly felt an urge to reach out and touch her. He found an excuse. His index finger tapped a small scar on her right shoulder. "What's this?"

  "Bullet wound." She moistened her lips. "El Salvador."

  He felt an odd surge of anger. "Who the hell sent you into that hellhole?"

  "I sent myself," she said absently, her gaze fixed on the door. "And I got the footage."

  "Wonderful," he said, his voice caustic. "And you also got a bullet."

  The rough edge to his words must have startled her, for she turned to look at him in bewilderment. "Why are you so angry? There were plenty of your reporters in El Salvador."

  "But they weren't—" He stopped. He didn't know why he was so angry. She was right; he had sent many of his people into danger. Risk was accepted as part of a reporter's life. Yet there was something so fragile and vulnerable about Ronnie Dalton despite her air of tough bravado that the thought of her in danger made him—

  "It's my face, isn't it?" She grimaced. "I've had to fight this cherub's mug all my life. No one wants to take me seriously."

  "You're still pretty young. It's not been a very long battle." He touched the scar again, his finger rubbing gently. "This isn't a fresh wound. How old were you when you got the scar?"

  "Eighteen." She looked down at his finger. "I wish you wouldn't do that; it makes me feel... funny."

  Touching her didn't make him feel funny, it made him horny as hell. He could feel himself hardening and was abruptly conscious of a lemony scent clinging to her, of her slight breasts thrusting beneath the thin sheet.

  Crazy. He was probably only minutes away from another encounter with those Middle Eastern thugs and he wanted only to mount the woman and drive into her like a rutting stallion. Hell, maybe not so crazy. It was instinct for every species, when faced with death, to want to procreate. At least there was no doubt he wanted to.

  "You're not—" She stopped when she heard the sound of raised voices in the hall. "They're here!"

  He moved swiftly over her.

  TWO

  Warm hard flesh against her own.

  Shock. Fear.

  Ronnie was conscious her heart was pounding so hard it made her breath come in short, painful pants.

  "You're shaking," he whispered. "Take it easy, everything will be all right."

  "I know that." She swallowed and added, "Maybe."

  His head lifted. "They're opening all the doors." He parted her thighs and moved between them. "Wrap your legs around me. Quick!"

  She obeyed him without thinking, her thighs closing around his hips. Shocking hardness. Her eyes widened and her gaze flew to his face. "Why, you're-—"

  "Adrenaline has that effect on me. It doesn't mean anything," he muttered.

  "It feels like it means something very—"

  The door of their room flew open.

  She couldn't see anything beyond his shoulder.

  He turned his head so that only his bearded cheek would be revealed and shouted something in Said Ababan in a guttural tone.

  There was an answering curse from the intruders and then the door slammed shut.

  She went limp with relief. She whispered, "You'd better not move until we're sure they're gone."

  "I'm not going anywhere," he said, his voice still thick and guttural. Then his hands fastened on her shoulders and he added, "We could make it even more believable." His palms began to move in a caressing, yearning movement. "Lord, you're soft. ..."

  And he was iron hard; the muscles of his chest and abdomen felt like steel pressed against her. Evan had said Falkner had exercised for hours every day in captivity and she could believe it as she felt the tough corded textures of him. She gazed up at him in fascination. The brown beard and contact lenses disguised him and yet they were not the cause of the sense of strangeness she felt. It came from Gabe Falkner himself, who was turning out to be a different, more vulnerable man than any she had imagined. His chest was moving rapidly, lifting and falling with each breath; his cheeks were flushed and hollowed with hunger.

  His hips moved with the same yearning movement as his hands on her shoulders, and she felt a tingle of heat start between her thighs when he nestled even closer into that most intimate part of her. "Lord, I want in!" he said through his teeth. "Let me—"

  She felt dazed, chained, unable to stir. She shook her head as much to clear it as to refuse him. "No, it's not—"

  "No?" He froze in place. "Okay." He drew a deep ragged breath. "I hear you. My body isn't paying much attention, but I'm not going to rape vou." His teeth sank into his lower lip. "Just lie perfectly still and I'll be all right."

  Dimly she heard the uproar continuing on in the hall; the beating of his heart sounded louder, stronger, filling the room.

  "Talk to me," he said.

  She didn't know if she was capable of speech. "What do you want me to say?" she asked breathlessly.

  "I couldn't care less. What is Ronnie short for? Veronica?"

  "It's just Ronnie. My father wanted a boy."

  "Why?"

  "He thought a girl would be inconvenient. I was a big disappointment until he found out he could treat me like a boy anyway. Are they gone yet?"

  "Not yet," he said in a hoarse voice. "I can still hear them at the other end of the hall. What about your mother?"

  "She divorced my father when I was three."

  "And left you?"

  "For her a baby was an inconvenience, period. No matter what the sex."

  "Sex. . ." he repeated. "I believe it's a
mistake to mention that word under the present circumstances."

  She laughed shakily. "Jed always did say I had a talent for blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong time."

  He stiffened. "Who the hell is Jed?"

  "They're gone," Fatima declared as she opened the door and marched into the room.

  "Thank God!" Gabe pushed the sheet down and moved off Ronnie, stopping at her side.

  Fatima raised her brows. "Your time with her shouldn't have proved that unpleasant. She is skinny but not that bad." Her gaze went to his lower body and she grinned. "No, you do not find her too ugly."

  Ronnie reached down to pull the sheet back over her naked body. "You've posted a lookout?"

  Fatima nodded. "But I don't think they will be back. They've gone to search the house next door. I will send you food and wine."

  "Will we be safe here?" Gabe asked.

  Ronnie shrugged. "Safer than on the streets. They'll be stopping everyone for the next few hours. Evan has arranged for a Jeep to meet us at the edge of the bazaar at seven in the morning. It will be so busy there that we'll hardly be noticed."

  "Evan?"

  "My father." Ronnie wound the sheet around her and stood up. "I'll go get dressed."

  "Stay here." Fatima turned. "Someone might see you and I don't need word of any strangers wandering around the place. I'll get the clothes Evan brought for both of you."

  Ronnie stood uncertainly as the door closed behind Fatima before forcing herself to turn back to Gabe. He was lying there totally nude, she realized with shock. Big, brawny, unashamed, and completely male. Very male. She could feel the heat in her cheeks as she glanced away from him and said with bravado, "It's too bad the circumstances aren't different. Evan says Fatima's women are the best in the Middle East. You could take the edge off before—"

  "Take the edge off?" Gabe repeated.

  "That's what Evan calls it." Blast it, she wished Fatima would hurry with those clothes. She didn't look at him as she plopped down on the bed and retrieved her camera bag from under it. "I think it's one of his more apt phrases. It pretty much says it all, doesn't it? Sex gets rid of all the tension and lets a person get on with the important things."

  "If you view sex so casually, why the hell didn't you let me—" He stopped and then, spacing each word carefully, said, "I believe we'd better talk about something else."