THE PERFECT TARGET (11 page)

He followed the direction of her gaze, abruptly lowered his weapon. "Just a precaution."

"Oh. Good." Again, she shivered. "Is there any way to heat things up?" she asked. "I mean, it's okay if we can't, I'm not complaining, but I just thought I'd ask."

"You mean the heater," he said.

"Yes. What else?" she asked, then her imagination took over.

He abandoned his post at the window and crossed to the rinky-looking unit. He moved with surprising grace for such a big man, not making a sound, barely disturbing air currents.

"This should help," he muttered, then fiddled with a knob. "You might want to try some socks, too."

She looked down at her bare feet. Little remained of the glitter polish she'd run across her nails the week before. "Good idea."

"I fixed up the bed for you," he said as she sat on the mattress and pulled on a pair of plain white socks. "It's not much, but at least it's clean."

"Thanks," she said, looking up with a smile of gratitude. But the hard look on his face warned he wanted no gratitude from her. He wanted nothing.

Silence then, broken only by the soccer match blaring from the black-and-white TV.
Goallll!

Sandro dragged a chair to the door, and for some crazy reason Miranda felt even colder than before. Soon they would turn out the lights and she would crawl between the blankets he'd purchased so she didn't have to sleep on dirty sheets.

But before then, there was something she had to know.

"Sandro?" she asked, leaning forward to remove the towel from her hair. Then she worked at combing out the newly shoulder-length, cinnamon-brown locks.

Across the room, Sandro inspected the lock on the door for the umpteenth time. "Yeah?"

"How did you know about my tattoo?" The question spilled out in one breathless rush.

He stilled. Straightened. Turned to face her. "The tattoo?"

She nodded, forced a nonchalant smile. The tattoo wasn't a secret, had caused quite a scandal in her family. Her father had been furious, her mother distraught. Why, her mother said, didn't Miranda realize she'd never be able to wear a sleeveless gown without the whole world seeing the small dragonfly?

But she wasn't talking about the whole world here. She was talking about Sandro, a man she'd never met, never heard of. A man who knew something very personal.

"It doesn't matter," he said brusquely.

"It does to me." More than it should.

He resumed fiddling with the door. "I saw it in a picture," he said noncommittally.

"What
picture?"

Again he stilled, again he glanced at her. But this time he lifted his fingers to his mouth, drawing her attention to the stubble on his jaw, those lips far too sensuous for a man of such hard lines and stark angles. "Just a picture."

And she had her answer. Along with it came the same cold fingers of exposure she'd come to Europe hoping to escape.

He'd seen the tabloids.

* * *

Darkness still covered the land, but soon the sun would nudge against the eastern sky, lighting the land and stealing their cover. Sandro watched Miranda sleeping, envied her that ability to drop off so completely that not even the constant drone of sirens disturbed her. When was the last time he'd slept through the night without the aid of whiskey? When was the last time he'd awoken with his heart rate steady, his body dry?

When was the last time he'd watched the rhythmic rise and fall of a woman's chest while she slept, listened to the soft little sound of her breathing?

He hated to wake her. Hated to disturb her. Sometime during the night the blanket had slipped down over her shoulder, riding low along her waist. She slept on her side, with one leg stretched out, the other crooked up at an angle. She looked peaceful, her newly brown hair spilling across the pillow. Even the shoulder length looked provocative. He was tempted to lift a hand, to touch, to smooth the strands back from her cheek.

He really was a son of a bitch.

They weren't here for a lover's tryst. They were here because his plan had backfired and her life lay on the line. They were here because the general wanted her every bit as badly as Sandro did.

But for very different reasons.

"Miranda," he whispered, putting a hand to her shoulder. The sleeve had fallen back, allowing his fingers to skim the small dragonfly. "Time to wake up."

She moaned softly, then shifted against the mattress as her eyes drifted open. They were heavy with sleep, unfocused, hazy like that mind-blowing moment when a man pushed inside a woman. A dreamy little smile curved her lips, as though waking in a strange bed with a strange man was a common occurrence for her.

Because the thought twisted his gut, he pushed it aside.

"Miranda?"

"Hmm." She stretched, sighed. "Sleepy."

"I know,
bella,
but it's almost sunrise. We've got to go."

The haze shattered immediately, and her eyes came fully open. No longer glazed, but alert. Sharp. Heartbreakingly courageous. "Go where?"

"North."

She pushed the hair from her face. "North?"

"It's never a good idea to stay in one place for long. Until I receive word on how we're getting you out of the country, we keep moving." He'd hoped that information would have come by now, had tried to call Javier during the night. Nothing.

"Hawaii?" Miranda asked sleepily.

"Afraid not," he answered with a smile, then realized she was staring at his shirt. An array of retro surfboards floated against a melon-green background. "We're traveling as tacky tourists, remember? I'm Fred. You're Ethel."

She pushed up against her elbow. "You hardly strike me as a Hawaiian-shirt kind of guy."

But he had been. Once. In another lifetime. They'd all been. He and Roger and Gus. They'd had a contest to see who could procure the loudest, tackiest, most outrageous Hawaiian shirt. Some sported hula girls, others grass-skirt-clad Elvis Presleys, one boasted flamingos, another showcased woodies. They'd worn them all the time, everywhere.

Even when they died.

And now Sandro had them all.

Because even in death, he'd managed to live.

"I'm full of surprises," he muttered, then stood and crossed the room. "Thirty minutes to sunrise," he said. "We need to be on the road before then."

* * *

The morning sun burned off the gray, bathing the land in shimmery strokes of yellow and peach. A heavy mist clung to the vegetation that tangled along the right side of the road, while off to the left, the Atlantic crashed mightily against ancient sea cliffs. No tourists yet, just an occasional bicyclist enjoying the last minutes of quiet before day seared away night.

They'd been driving for over an hour in the same car Sandro had used the night before. They'd hugged the shoreline, rather than taking one of the major roads, and gradually they'd left behind the sprawl of resort communities, hotels and restaurants, even a casino. Now as Miranda looked from side to side, she saw nothing but the wild beauty of land untamed.

"Are you okay?"

The question pierced the silence and had her glancing toward Sandro. He looked deceptively casual sitting there in the loud Hawaiian shirt, one hand draped over the wheel, the other in his lap, but the hard look in his eyes gave away his alertness. As did the gun resting between them.

"I'm fine," she said. "'Why?"

He glanced at her. "You look a little … green."

She forced a smile, pressed a hand to her mouth. She hadn't realized her discomfort had been obvious. "Curvy roads always get me."

"Do you need me to pull over?"

She heard what he didn't ask. "I'm not going to be sick, no."

"Would fresh air help you feel better?"

She didn't understand his sudden concern. Since leaving Lisbon behind, he hadn't spoken, hadn't looked at her. A tension had settled between them, one she didn't understand. It was as though something had changed while she slept.

"Is it safe?"

He checked the rearview mirror. "I haven't seen another car in over half an hour. A brief stop shouldn't hurt."

She swallowed against the nausea. "That would be nice, then. Thanks."

He veered left and pulled the car onto the rocky area leading down to the ocean, easing to a stop behind a clump of overgrown oleander. He killed the engine then reached into the back seat, came back with a bottle of water. "This might help."

After he unscrewed the cap, she took the bottle from his battered hands and put it to her mouth. The liquid felt cool sliding down her throat, refreshing. "Thanks."

"You should have told me you get car sick. I could have taken another route." He looked toward the west, where huge swells gathered and crashed against the shore. "There's less traffic on this road—I thought you might like the view better."

An unfamiliar warmth flowed through her. "The road less traveled," she murmured.

Sandro turned toward her. "What?"

"'Two roads diverged in a wood,'" she said with a smile, "'and I took the one less traveled by.'"

"'And that has made all the difference,'" he surprised her by concluding.

She looked at him sitting there, eyes intent, jaw unshaven. He was in commando mode again, but the words of a poet fell from his mouth. She remembered thinking the same thing the day before, that though his dark hair and unshaven face lent him a look of danger, he had the mouth of a poet.

"Can we get out?"

He checked the phone clipped to his belt, then reached for his gun and curled his fingers around the butt. "For a few minutes."

A blast of cool ocean air hit her the second she opened the door. The wind was sharp, damp, chilling, and instantly she shivered. But it was better than being in that cramped front seat that seemed to shrink with each breath she drew.

Sandro came up beside her and put a hand to the small of her back, guided her away from the road, toward an outcropping overlooking the ocean. They made their way down a rocky path until they stood out of view from the road. Waves crashed below, relentless. Beautiful. The spray shot up like a mist to tease them, driving home that this was real and not some bizarre dream.

Miranda pulled in a deep breath, felt the cool air spread through her. Behind them the sun climbed the sky, leaving a blue so vivid, so sharp, Miranda longed to run back to the car and grab her camera, snap a picture. A photographer's sky, she called it, the kind of stunning backdrop that lent pictures a crispness rarely found.

They stood in silence, the only sound that of the waves battering the sea cliff, a few gulls dipping and diving for breakfast. Hard to believe just the day before she'd been running for her life.

"How long have you worked for my father?" she asked, glancing up at Sandro.

The sharp wind ruffled hair that looked a few weeks past due for a cut, but other than that he stood completely still. His gaze was fixed somewhere on the horizon.

"Five years," he said, then looked directly into her eyes. A ghost of a smile fought with the scowl of seconds before. "Five years since I took the road less traveled."

Miranda blinked. There was something in his voice she didn't understand, a note of regret, a tinge of sorrow.

"And you?" he asked.

Her heart started to pound. Hard. She didn't like talking about herself, had long since learned the consequence of revealing too much, only to read a distorted version in some magazine or newspaper article at some point down the road.

"What about me?" she asked cautiously.

"How long have you taken your own path?"

She thought about not answering him. She thought about lying. But the way he was looking at her, those midnight eyes all narrow and concentrated, his unshaven jaw set and his lips slightly parted, turned her defenses useless. When he put his mind to it, the man could probably coerce a nun to give up her habit.

"For as long as I can remember," she answered honestly.

"I can't imagine that going over well in your family."

Her breath caught. Never before had one of her father's men made a comment that could in any way be construed as passing judgment on Peter Carrington. She looked at Sandro standing there with the vivid blue ocean at his back and the sun at his face, and wondered how it was possible to still see shadows. The incongruity nagged at her, like working a puzzle and finding two pieces that at first seemed to fit … but didn't.

"People don't choose who they are," she said, watching a seagull dive toward the churning water. "Lots of people try to pretend, to fit into tidy preconceived notions of how they're supposed to act, how they fit into the world." After Kristina's death, her sister Elizabeth had retreated into that category. "But to me, that's like selling yourself out. You are who you are."

Sandro lifted a hand to ease a tangle of newly brown hair from her face. "And who are
you,
Miranda Carrington?"

Her throat tightened. For a crazy moment she wanted to close her eyes and savor the feel of his fingers against her cheek. Standing there on the edge of the world it was tempting to believe that she was just a woman, and he was just a man. That's why she'd become Astrid Van Dyke, after all. To be just a woman and, perhaps, to meet just a man. A man who didn't want anything from her. Who didn't care about her family or her name. A man who wanted only to be with her, and she with him.

Sandro was not that man. He held a semiautomatic in his hand. He worked for her father. He wouldn't even tell her his last name.

"I'm just a woman," she said, startled by the thickness to her voice. "Just a woman trying to live her life." A woman whose heart had no business hammering so crazily, a woman who knew better than being attracted to the yes-man her father had sent to protect her.

But was.

"Who are you?" she asked, lifting her chin. "Who are you
really?"

His smile faded, his hand fell away. "I'm just a man trying to do the right thing."

He made it sound simple, but in his muttered words she heard a struggle she didn't understand. And maybe that was it. She was used to her father's men being like robots, displaying no personality, no emotion.