Forever and a Day (8 page)

He nodded approvingly. “Excellent. I will be back in just a few minutes. Do not open the door under any circumstances.”

He strode into the hall, annoyed he’d forgotten such a critical detail as her phone. Lars deployed shifter magic to scan for threats. “Thank God,” he muttered when he didn’t sense anyone anywhere close. He loped down the hall until he located a garbage chute. For good measure, he pulled everything electronic he could see out of the phone before he jettisoned the mess. Lars stared at the sim card. He started to chuck it after the rest of the phone, but had second thoughts. Best to destroy the damned thing. He reduced it to shards beneath his heel and tucked the pieces in a variety of spots between the garbage chute and his suite.

Reassured at least one problem wouldn’t come back to bite them in the ass, he let himself back into the room. It would be a long eight hours. He wouldn’t feel truly safe until they were airborne again.

Tamara made a full transit of the suite while Lars was gone. The bedroom contained an enormous bed. The bathroom was small, but did have a full-sized tub. A bath would be perfect, but she’d wait until Lars was done with his shower. A closet contained pillows and blankets. She’d just brought an armful of both items to the couch when Lars let himself back inside.

“You should take the bedroom,” he said brusquely. “If there is trouble, it is better if I am close to the door.”

Panic tightened her throat. She had to swallow before she could get any words out. “Do you think Jaret’s men would try something here?”

Lars took a deep breath and smoothed the worry lines from his face. Tamara sensed he was about to whitewash things; she moved until she was only a few inches from him. “Sure and you won’t be needing to sugarcoat anything for me.”

Grudging admiration darkened his eyes until they looked like a cloudy sky. “Jaret was highly placed in his organization, one of the leaders. These types of operations take retribution seriously. It is how they sustain so few casualties. They rule by fear.”

“Will I ever be safe?” Her voice caught on the last word. A shudder ran down her back.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Not in the way you currently define the word, no.” One corner of his mouth turned downward. “I have not been
safe
for years,
fraulein
. One learns to live with such things. Besides, safety is a carefully constructed illusion. None of us are truly safe—ever. An incompetent surgeon, a car with faulty brakes… Many things can cut a life short.” He shrugged.

She clamped her jaws together to keep her mouth from trembling. It was obviously past time for her to grow up. “I guess I made my choice when I set my sights on Jaret.”

“That you did,
fraulein
. There is no retreat from certain paths.”

She felt the heat of him across the few inches that separated them. Her pulse quickened, but she resisted an impulse to close the distance and wrap her arms around his lithe, hard-muscled body. He didn’t move; neither did she. He caressed her shoulder before turning abruptly.

Tamara pressed her lips together, lips that had been hoping for the press of his mouth against them. If he had a wife, as she suspected, it was better to keep things clean and above-board.

“Open your eyes.”

She snapped them open, not realizing she’d closed them, and gaped at a gun in the palm of his hand. “Have you ever shot one of these?”

She nodded. “Of course. In case you missed it, Northern Ireland has been a hotbed of terrorism for quite some time. The newspaper sent me there more often than I wanted.” She plucked the small caliber revolver from his hand and examined it.

“Sit there.” He pointed to a couch facing the suite’s door. “If anyone enters the room, shoot them.”

“But—”

“No buts. If it is housekeeping, they will knock and you will tell them to return later.”

She swallowed hard and tried to establish détente with an altered world, one in which she was either a hunter or one of the hunted. “I understand.”
And I surely wish I didn’t.
She sat where he’d indicated and checked where the gun’s safety catch was.

“I will not be long,
fraulein
. Once I have cleaned up, I will take over.”

Nerves soured her stomach once he left her side. She heard water running in the bathroom, and the enormity of her situation set her teeth on edge.

Sure and what was I thinking?
she lectured herself.
That I’d just do away with Jaret, fly back to Dublin, big as I please, and pick up the threads of my old life?

She gripped the gun so tightly its plastic case left marks in her hand, and dunned herself for being a right fool. Blinded by outrage over Moira, she hadn’t thought through things very carefully at all.

And now the chickens have come home to roost. All of them.

Tamara jolted upright at a sound from the hallway. She deployed her sensitive shifter hearing and listened intently. Silence, but it held an odd quality. As if someone was outside, trying to be quiet. She got to her feet and walked toward the door, gun at the ready.

There it was again. A muted scratching. Was someone trying to jimmy the lock mechanism?

What should I do?

Part of her wanted to open the door, shoot whoever was out there, and be done with things, but Lars had said not to open the door. She started toward the bathroom to talk with him. The scratchy noise intensified and she froze in her tracks. To her horror, the deadbolt snicked aside. Fighting her way past a sick sensation turning her gut to jelly, Tamara planted herself in a shooter’s stance, feet apart, gun pointed dead at the door. Could she shoot someone point-blank that she’d never even met before?

“Sure and I guess I’m about to find out,” she muttered.

The door blew inward. A woman stood in the doorway and Tamara’s finger turned clumsy on the trigger, feeling like a stick of wood that wasn’t connected to her body. Young, attractive, dressed in blue jeans and a baggy sweater, with an oversized shoulder bag, the brown-haired woman stared at Tamara out of dark eyes. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded in a slightly accented voice. “This is my room. They just gave it to me downstairs.”

“If that’s the truth of things, show me your keycard.” Tamara was proud her voice didn’t quiver.

The woman dipped a hand into her shoulder bag. Tamara tensed, waiting. She instructed her finger to tighten around the trigger, but it refused to cooperate. Her brain shrieked at her to shoot the bitch, get it over with.

What if I’m wrong?

The woman had been fishing about in her bag for too long. Tamara bit her lip so hard she tasted blood and forced herself to fire. The woman must have sensed what was coming because she spun out of the way. Tamara fired again. The woman fired back. Hot pain lanced through Tamara’s shoulder.

The bathroom door slammed against its stops. Lars leaped through the air, tackled the woman, and drove her to the floor. Tamara raced to where they grappled with one another and stomped down hard on the woman’s gun hand. With a muffled string of expletives in an Eastern European language Tamara didn’t recognize, the woman’s hand opened and Tamara snatched her gun.

Her shoulder was on fire. She bent to hold the gun to some part of the woman, any part, but Lars had his hands around her neck, choking her. “Shut the door,” he gritted through clenched teeth.

When she got back to him, the woman lay in a limp heap. “Ach, Christ! Is she…”

“No. I could have killed her, but I did not. I do not wish problems with the authorities here. Nor do I want to be troubled with lengthy explanations that would oblige us to remain in New York.”

Tamara rocked back on her heels and clamped a hand over her shoulder. In that moment, she realized Lars was naked and averted her gaze. “You are injured.” He jumped to his feet, strode to the bathroom, and dragged clothes and a towel into the living room. “Why did you not do as I instructed?” he growled as he dried himself and dressed quickly.

“I was going to, but it was a woman.” Tamara cringed. Her words sounded lame.

“Since when are women exempt from being assassins?” His tone dripped sarcasm. “How bad is your shoulder?”

“I have no idea.” She tried for a dignity she was far from feeling. “It isn’t like I get shot every day.” She lurched upright, still holding her shoulder that burned with a life of its own.

He ran his sharp gaze over her, stepped to her side, and pried her hands off the wound. “Mmph. Looks like the bullet went through. You got lucky,
fraulein
. Let me take care of our guest here, and then I will do what I can for you.”

“Won’t I need a hospital?”

“Absolutely not. Too many questions for gunshot wounds. If we must, there are private doctors here in New York who will come to us.”

“What are you going to do with her?” Tamara jerked her chin toward the comatose woman. Long brown hair spread around her where she lay on the floor.

“Better if you do not know.” He thumped her chest with a finger. “If that fucking door opens again, I do not care if a ten-year-old is there, shoot to kill. Do you understand me?”

“Stop yelling at me.”

He took a deep breath. “Sorry. I am angry at myself. I should have known better than to leave you alone.”

She caught hold of her temper. It had always flared hot. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t do what you said, but I promise I’ve learned my lesson.”

His hard, flat gaze softened fractionally. He hefted the woman over one shoulder and let himself out the door. Tamara didn’t need his instructions to lock it behind him.

She paced from one end of the suite to the other, gun gripped in her hand. It was the woman’s gun, but since it was a 9mm, and had more stopping power than Lars’ revolver, she clung to it. Adrenaline left an acrid taste in her mouth and she felt light-headed. She told herself she wasn’t badly wounded. Hadn’t Lars said so? Despite efforts to soothe her frazzled nerves, her shifter side was frantic to heal the damage. If she changed to her cat form, the injury would repair itself quickly.

Why didn’t I think of that the moment he left?
Tamara glanced nervously at the door, and then at the microwave oven’s clock. She’d almost decided to shift and take care of herself when she caught her breath and slammed her palm against her forehead. How the hell would she explain her sudden recurrence of health? It wasn’t as if she could tell Lars she’d found a faith healer lurking in the hall.

She licked at dry lips and sank onto one of the sofas. She only stayed for a moment before she got to her feet again, worried she’d bleed on the light beige upholstery. Stumbling slightly, she made her way to the kitchen sink, ran cold water, and drank from her cupped hands after she’d rinsed blood from them.

Panic swamped her when she understood she’d laid the gun on the kitchen counter. She gripped it again, water dribbling down her chin, and turned to face the door. It opened. Her hand tensed. “It is me,
fraulein
,” Lars called before opening the door far enough for him to enter their suite.

Tamara dropped the gun back onto the ledge, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears. She felt horrified by her lack of self-control, but couldn’t stop sobbing. The harder she tried for composure, the worse things got.

Lars closed his arms around her. “There, there,
liebchen
. It will be all right. The woman will not bother us further. She will not wish to be found out, so when she regains consciousness, she will merely report back to her superiors. It will take her a while, though, since I removed her communications devices from her bag, along with her money, keys, and identification.”

Tamara gulped air. “Who was she?”

“I have no idea. Her identification had to be falsified. No one in this business carries their true identity documents.”

“Oh my God, sure and I was such a fool to let Jaret know who I was.” Another sob pushed its way out, obliterating further speech.

Lars smoothed her hair back from her sweaty forehead. “Let me take a look at your shoulder.” He let go of her and pushed her loose-necked sweater down. She grunted in pain while he probed from both sides with knowing fingers. “It is clean. The bullet went through muscle tissue. No vessels are torn, or you would be bleeding much more than you are.”

She opened her mouth, and then shut it with a snap.

“What is it,
liebchen
? Do you wish a physician? He could disinfect and wrap it, plus antibiotics might be a good call. There is nothing magic about us leaving here at a set time.”

Should I tell him?
She drew away and focused her gaze on the carpet. “I, er, um, that is, I can fix it myself, but I need privacy.” She risked a glance his way, expecting to see horror—or pity—that she’d lost her mind. He just looked at her, his cool, gray gaze appraising.

“Would the bedroom do?”

She nodded. “This will sound odd, but no matter what you hear, don’t come in.” She offered a weak smile, but it faltered. “I have a feeling the lock wouldn’t keep you out.”

He did something curious then. He smiled. Really smiled, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It lightened his normally severe expression and turned him into rock star gorgeous. Lars half-bowed in her direction. “Take whatever time you need. I will watch over you—and honor your request for privacy.”

“Don’t, I mean aren’t you going to ask me anything?” Tamara had prepared a half-baked tale about Irish witchcraft, but it didn’t appear she’d need it.

“No. I am going to turn on the television and see if I can find a sporting match to watch.”

It’s almost like he knows.

He couldn’t possibly. He’s just being kind.

She wanted to ask a hundred questions, but there wasn’t even one of them that wouldn’t totally blow her secret side. Tamara walked across the room, her back very straight. She went into the bedroom and shut the door, taking care to engage the lock.

•●•

Lars wanted to whoop and dance around the room, but he forced himself to turn on the television and flip through channels. Garen’s intel had been right on. Tamara must be a shifter. If she summoned her animal form, she’d heal quickly. He pumped his fist in the air, and then jammed it over his mouth to stifle a triumphant laugh. Her hearing would be acute in her animal form; he turned up the television’s volume.