Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set (39 page)

She watched as he opened the trunk and rummaged in the tool-box, where the jewels he'd stolen blazed with cold fire. He barely looked at them. Instead, he pulled out a piece of wire and a screwdriver, hurried to the door of the Blazer and within seconds, the door was open.

What kind of man could steal five million dollars' worth of gems and then treat them with such cool disinterest? They had been together for hours now and the more the time passed, the less she understood him.

He went to the rear of the rental car, unscrewed the license plate, did the same with the front plate. His hands were sure and steady. Sara's glance moved slowly over his face. His eyes were narrowed with concentration; his mouth was drawn into a hard, cold line.

But his mouth wasn't hard and cold, she thought crazily. It was warm and exciting.

He rose to his feet and their eyes met. Sara flushed and tore her gaze from his.

Yes, she thought, yes, she would make her break for freedom soon, and damn the consequences. More than anything, she wanted to be back in her own world, where life was safe.

"Hold this."

He handed her the closed box of jewels. It felt surprisingly light, considering the fortune it held. Peter blew on his hands, went back to work. Seconds later, he had attached the car's plates to the Bronco.

"Any policeman who checks will know those plates are registered to a different vehicle," Sara said, and then could have bitten her tongue off for having said it.

He smiled unpleasantly. "I keep forgetting about your police background, Sara. You're right, of course. But the cops will be looking for a late model black Ford, not this. And," he added, pulling a small folding-knife from his pocket, "we'll make it just a bit difficult for them." Quickly, he cut the wires to the light that illuminated the plate.

"Remarkable, the things one learns in jail," Sara said coolly.

He looked at her and laughed softly. "Yes, isn't it?" She watched as he used a length of clear plastic tubing to siphon gas from one vehicle to the other. Finally, he took the box of jewels  from her and tossed it inside the Bronco. "All right, get in."

She climbed in stiffly, wincing as she put weight on her injured ankle. Peter Saxon didn't notice; he slammed the door after her, then hurried around to the driver's side.

"OK," he murmured as he got in, "here comes the hard part."

He leaned towards the dashboard, shoulders blocking Sara's view. "I've never tried this before, but I had a cellmate who swore it was child's play. Chico said all you had to do was..." he grunted as the lock snapped and fell away from the steering column "...then find the right wires and..." His breath hissed between his teeth as the Bronco's engine sputtered, then turned over. "Another lesson learned, courtesy of the New York State penal system," he said, and he shifted into gear and looked over at Sara. "Ready?"

She stared at him. "Have I a choice?"

Something sprang to life deep in his eyes. "What if I decided to give you one, sweet Sara? Would you really leave me now?"

Her breathing quickened. "I...
I...
yes," she said, "yes, of course."

Their eyes met and held, and then he laughed. "Then it's a damned good thing I'm not giving you one," he said, and he stepped on the accelerator.

The Bronco rolled across the lot and on to the road. At first, Sara waited for the engine to cough and die. But, as the miles rolled away, she began to think "
Carroll's Clean Cars
" had put the lie to all the jokes she'd ever heard about used-car dealers. Either that, or her captor had made a good choice.

They were moving swiftly north-west, leaving Central Falls, and rescue, behind.

Within an hour, the road was almost impassable. Certainly, the car they had ditched would never have made it through all this snow and ice. It was hard going, even for the Bronco.

The further they travelled, the more desolate the wilderness outside became.

"Do you know where you're going?" Sara asked finally. "I haven't seen a light or a house."

"There's a town just ahead." Peter Saxon glanced at the dashboard, and then at the road. "At least, I hope there is. We're almost out of gas."

Her gaze followed his. The gas-gauge needle hovered just near empty.

"What makes you think there's a town?" A shudder ran through her. "It doesn't look as if anything's out there except forest."

"There's a town," he said positively. "I remember it."

She looked at him in surprise. "You mean, you've been here before?"

He nodded. "Many times. There's not only a town, there's a gas station and cafe that stays open all night for the truckers. Thompson took us there a couple of times, when he had to have the car fixed."

"Us?"

"My brother and me. Thompson let us tag along with him."

Sara looked at him. "And who was Thompson?"

"Our grandfather's chauffeur. We spent most of one winter traipsing around after him." He laughed. "Poor guy. We probably drove him crazy."

Sara had a sudden vision of a pair of spoiled teenagers tormenting the beleaguered family chauffeur with demands for driving lessons.

"The poor-little-rich-kid syndrome," she said coldly. "And so, forlorn and misunderstood, you turned to a life of crime."

He laughed, but it was a sharp, humorless sound. "I was seven years old—a long way from what you so graciously called "a life of crime". And I had no idea I was rich. Neither did Johnny—he was only a year older than me. All we knew was that we had suddenly been taken from the only home we'd ever known and plunked down in a place so alien it might as well have been Mars."

Sara looked at him curiously. "Here, you mean? Well, I admit, it's pretty isolated in these mountains. But—"

"We grew up in a place called
Chahulamec. It's six thousand miles and a thousand years from Indian Lake Lodge."

"Indian Lake Lodge? That's where we're going, isn't it?"

Peter nodded. "It belongs to my grandfather." He flashed her a quick, almost boyish grin. "Just listen to me," he said. "The old man's been dead four years, and I talk about him as if he were still sitting behind his desk." Suddenly, he leaned forward and wiped his hand across the windshield. "Did you see that?"

Sara stared out the window. "What?"

"A light. I thought I saw a light ahead. It might be that gas station." He sighed, and settled back in the seat. "It sure as hell better be. If we don't find it soon... "

But Sara's thoughts were far from the narrow road and the winter night. "What did you mean about that town—
Chahutamec—being a thousand years from here?"

"
Cha
hul
amec," he said, changing gear as the hill they were climbing became steeper. "It's in Brazil, on the Amazon River."

"The Amazon?"

"Yeah. Headhunter country."

Sara stared at him. "Is that where you were born?"

"No, my parents made sure each of us was born in the good old US of A. But they took us to the Amazon when we were babies. It was the only home we'd ever known until they died. And then—"

His tone was so matter of fact that she almost missed what he had said.

"They died? Both your parents?"

He nodded. "They were lost in an accident on the river. Their dugout was overturned, and..."

She wondered, for a moment, if he were making the story up as he went along. But some instinct told her he wasn't. There was a curious flatness in his voice, in his eyes, that told her Peter Saxon was telling her more about himself than he'd intended. He paused, then cleared his throat.

"Keep an eye out for that gas station, will you? I'd hate to try to run on fumes on a night like this."

"That must have been hard for you and your brother, '' Sara said softly. Losing your folks when you were so young."

“Yeah, well…'' The note of bravado slipped from his voice
. "It was bad—but at least we had each other. We were so close then..."His words drifted away.

"Aren't you still?" She looked at him curiously. "Close, I mean. You said—"

"My brother's dead." His voice was hard and flat. "And all this is ancient history."

Something stirred within Sara's breast.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

Peter shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I haven't thought of any of it in years." He gave her a quick smile. "Not until today, when I remembered Indian Lake Lodge."

"And Thompson."

Peter laughed, and the almost palpable tension in the car eased. "And Thompson—who has my everlasting gratitude because there, ye of little faith, is the gas station I promised!"

Sara watched him from beneath her lashes as he drove across the road and pulled to a stop beside a gasoline pump. What must it have been like, she wondered, to be seven years old and to lose both your parents? What must it have been like to find yourself taken from the only home you had known, a place of color and sun, and brought here to this harsh world of cold and wind? And when had he lost his brother? Now that she thought about it, hadn't there been some mention of it in the newspaper accounts of Peter's capture?

Suddenly, something he'd said flashed into her mind. She looked at him in the darkness and cleared her throat.

"Peter?" He turned to her, and she gave him a hesitant smile. "What you said about the chauffeur, that you traipsed after him... Why was that? I mean, where was your grandfather?"

"I told you, Sara, it's ancient history. It's not important."

"Maybe it's important to me."

The words tumbled into the silence. He looked into her eyes and then he shrugged.

"Grandfather was not partial to small children." He smiled, but his eyes were empty. "His phrase, not mine."

There was a knock on the door. Both Peter and Sara looked up, startled. A kid in a parka stood beside the Bronco, eyebrows raised.

"Fill it up?" he mouthed.

Peter nodded. "Yes." He opened the door and stepped out into the cold. "Check the oil, too. And I need some windshield  washer fluid. And an ice scraper. A good one. And..."

His voice faded as he closed the door after him and followed the attendant to the office. Sara watched them, then drew Peter's coat more closely around her, and settled into her seat to wait for him to return.

It was only when he came back to the Bronco long moments later that she realized he'd left her alone. She could have got away easily.

All she'd had to do was open the door and step out.

But she hadn't.

They reached the lodge just before dawn—at least, Peter said they'd reached it. Sara could see only the icy ribbon of road stretching ahead. It looked the same as it had for the past endless miles.

She sat forward and stared out of the window. "I don't see anything."

She felt strange—apprehensive and excited all at once, and she wondered if he could hear it in her voice. But all his concentration was on the road, just as it had been ever since they'd left the gas station, and she thought, not for the first time, that his tension had as much to do with where they were headed as with the icy roads.

"You will, in a few minutes. It's hidden by the trees now, but just as soon as we get to the top of this rise—" An ominous metallic clatter rose from under the Bronco's hood. Peter groaned. "Come on," he whispered, "don't fail me now, not when we're this close."

Sara sank back in the seat. The road was relatively clear of snow. The trees on either side of it were tall, and their branches met overhead in a protective canopy. Still, it was a miracle the stolen vehicle had got them as far as it had. It had begun wheezing and clanking several miles back. Somehow, Peter had coaxed and cursed it up the dark, winding road.

"Maybe you should turn back," Sara had suggested, but he'd shaken his head.

"We'll make it."

One look at his face told her that they would, indeed, make it, if grim determination had anything to do with it. After that, all his energies had been focused on the icy road and the dying Bronco.

He had never realized that she'd let her chance to escape slip away.

And she didn’t want to think about it.

She could have raced for freedom.

The station had been brightly lit, as had the cafe beside it. There had been a couple of big trucks parked in front, which meant people inside. And waitresses. And telephones. And...

And, she hadn't done a thing. Why? No matter how she tried, she couldn't come up with an answer. After a while, she'd pushed the whole incident to the back of her mind.

There were more urgent things to worry about, she told herself. The strange sounds coming from the Bronco, for example, and the road that had become a glittering strand of ice. And overriding everything was the almost palpable tension of the man beside her.

It seemed as if, the closer they got to the lodge, the more silent he became. By now, Sara's nerves were at breaking point.

"I still don’t see the lodge, '' she said. ''Are you sure you didn’t take a wrong turn?"

''I'm positive.''

''How can you be so sure?''

"Because we're on Saxon land now. My grandfather owned half this mountain, Sara. He built the house where he could be sure of his privacy." The Bronco groaned as he shifted. "When you see the top of the mountain, you'll see the house."

But there was still no sign of a house, or a cabin, or whatever it was that lay ahead. A few minutes ago, he had said the house was just ahead, at the top of the rise. But they were almost at the top now; the road was, in fact, widening, and...

Sara drew in her breath. Ahead, in a clearing, shimmering ghostly grey in the light of the winter dawn, a massive structure of dark stone and darker wood stood brooding, indifferent to man and weather. A frozen lake, pristine and glistening, lay behind it. Beyond, mountains raised their shoulders against the milky sky, their peaks lost in the clouds that warned of yet more snow.

Peter jammed on the brakes and the Bronco lurched to a stop.

"There it is," he said softly.

Sara swallowed drily. "I didn't expect—I thought it would be a summer cottage," she said. "A cabin—"

He laughed but the sound was joyless.

"Twenty-two rooms and fifteen baths, Sara. A private lake, a small fleet of boats." The Bronco rolled forward. "Welcome to Indian Lake Lodge."

They drove past the house to the attached garage. It was, Sara thought, almost as large as her house in Brookville. She looked back at the dark forest and shuddered.

"I don't like it here," she whispered.

Peter brushed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. "No," he said softly, "neither do I. But it's safe. No one knows about this place—it was Grandfather's private refuge from the city, and he never brought anyone up here with him." His eyes grew clouded. "I should have sold it after he died."

Sara looked at him. "Why didn't you?"

"That's a good question. I don't know—the ghosts, maybe." He smiled at the expression that came over her face. "Good ones."

"I don't understand, Peter. How can—?"

A sudden frigid wind swept across the lake, rattling the Bronco and throwing up a screen of drifting snow. Peter turned up his collar and reached for the door
handle.

"We're wasting time. It's going to take me a couple of minutes to break in—"

"Break in? But you said the place was yours."

"I didn't plan on ever coming here again." He opened the door, then looked at her. "Can you drive one of these things?" When she nodded, he flashed her a smile. "OK. Just see that the engine doesn't die."

He took a screwdriver from the dashboard, then stepped out into the cold morning. Sara slipped behind the steering wheel, watching as he bent over the padlock on the door. The engine coughed, and she tapped her foot gently on the accelerator.

Shift into reverse, Sara. Shift into reverse and leave him here.

"Sara?" She blinked and looked up. The outbuilding door was open. Peter was waving her forward. She put the Bronco into gear, let it roll forward, and the door fell shut behind her.

He stepped into the cab and reached past her to the wires he had joined together hours before.

"Done," he said, and pulled the wires apart.

The Bronco's engine shuddered into silence.

The garage was cavernous. The light was poor—it came from the only unboarded window—but there was enough for Sara to see the strange assortment of cars around them. There was a vintage something or other, expensive-looking even with dust lying on it in thick layers. There was a jeep, with the words "Indian Lake Lodge" discreetly etched in gold leaf on the door. There was even a vehicle that, except for its wide, deeply cleated tires, was a near-cousin of the Bronco. Peter patted it fondly as he walked past it.

"There you are, pal," he said, and he smiled at Sara. "Our ticket out."

She wanted to ask him what that was supposed to mean but he was already standing beside a padlocked door she assumed connected the garage to the house, a look of rapt concentration on his face. His fingers danced across the lock and the door swung open.

"Welcome to Indian Lake Lodge,
madame,
" Peter said, giving her a deep, mocking bow. "All the comforts of the finest hotels—and the charm of the most expensive mausoleums. Would you like the grand tour now, or after I've shown you to your accommodation?"

Sara ran her tongue over her lips. "What's that sound?"

He cocked his head and listened for a few seconds. "Sounds like the demons of hell, doesn't it?" He smiled and held out his hand. "It's only the wind cutting across the lake. Come on, Sara. It's not as bad as it looks."

She stepped down from the Bronco. It was the first time she'd put any weight on her ankle in hours and the sudden pressure was painful. She cried out and grabbed for the car door, but before she reached it Peter's  arms closed tightly around her.

"Sara? What is it?"

"My ankle." Her breath hissed between her teeth. "I sprained it when I fell in the bank parking lot."

He swung her into his arms and strode through the open door and into the house.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" he demanded, kicking the door closed behind him. "For all you know, it's broken."

Sara shook her head. "It isn't," she said, "it's just a sprain. Please, Peter, put me down."

His only answer was to draw her more closely against him as he carried her through the house.

The rooms were enormous, filled with massive pieces of sheet-draped furniture. Shutters closed out most of the light, the artificial darkness adding to the gloom. The walls were hung with unsmiling portraits of what Sara assumed were Saxon ancestors. It was hard to imagine a child spending his summers in a house like this, she thought, as Peter shouldered open a door at the far end of the downstairs hall.

This room was smaller than the others, although it still seemed the size of a tennis court. There was a stone fireplace at one end, logs still neatly stacked beside it, a couch drawn up before it. Peter set her down gently on her feet, holding her in the curve of one arm while he whisked the dust-cover from the couch. Then he lifted her again and lay her down on it.

"Now," he said briskly, "let's see that ankle."

"It's fine. Really. I—"

But he was already squatting at her feet, his hands gentle as he eased off her ruined shoes.

"Your feet are like ice, baby."

He'd called her that before. She wanted to tell him not to address her like that, that the word was rough and rude…

And sexy.

Oh God, so sexy…

He rubbed her feet gently, then drew her tattered skirt to mid-calf. "Dammit,'' he said gruffly, ''your ankle's swollen."

"Please, Peter, it'll be all right. I—"

His hand closed lightly around her foot and he tilted it up. "Does that hurt?" She shook her head. "That?"

"A little. But—"

"Move your foot, Sara. Does it hurt there? OK, now from side to side."

He knelt beside her, moving her foot through a simple series of motions, his touch firm yet gentle. Sara watched his bent head. His hair was dark and thick and a little too long; it curled lightly against the nape of his neck and behind his ears. He needed a haircut, she thought absently, and her hand lifted slowly towards him.

What would happen if she put her palm against the back of his neck? Would his hair feel soft and alive beneath her fingers? Would it feel silken against her lips?

Sara snatched back her hand and buried it in her lap.

''Really,'' she said briskly, ''I'm fine. ''

"Maybe. For now, let me find something to strap it with and—"

"It doesn't need strapping," she said, pulling her foot from his hands and swinging it to the floor. "I told you, I'm all right."

He rose slowly to his feet and looked down at her. "Yes," he said softly, "you are."

Their eyes met and held, and then Sara wrenched her gaze away. "You—you promised me a tour of this place, didn't you?"

It seemed a long time before he nodded. "That's right, I did." He smiled at her. "But that was before I realized it was almost as cold in the house as it is outside." He rubbed his hands together, then bent to the fireplace. "Let me build a fire to take the chill off the room. Then I'll find us some warm clothing and take you on a guided tour of the Saxon mausoleum, with a first stop in the kitchen. You must be starved."

''I'm not, '' she said, but her stomach gave a soft growl. Peter grinned. So did she. "Okay, I am—but first things first. A fire would be wonderful." She paused, watching as he began to lay the fire. "That's a terrible thing to call a house, you know."

"A mausoleum?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, I suppose it is. But it's appropriate." He bent and blew softly on the kindling he had lit. "There was never any life in this place. Cook told me it had always been that way, even when my father was growing up."

"Cook?"

"She was my other ally. She used to hide chocolate cookies behind the oatmeal boxes in the pantry so I could have some with my bedtime cocoa." He grinned. "Johnny preferred vanilla wafers. Grandfather didn't approve, of course."

"Your grandfather must have been a hard man," Sara said slowly.

"He was like steel. Unbending, unyielding, cold—"

"Was your father like that?"

Peter smiled. "No, he was nothing like that. I can remember him riding me on his shoulders in the rain forest so I could see the wild orchids and the blue butterflies."

"And your mother?" Sara prompted gently. "What was she like?"

He looked at her. "She was tall, with smiling eyes and a quick laugh." His face grew clouded. "It was so long ago, Sara. I wish to hell I could remember them more clearly."

"It must have been terrible to lose them. You were so young..."

Peter nodded. "It was hell," he said quietly. "For a long time after they died, I hated them."

"Oh, Peter." Her voice was low and filled with compassion. "I'm sure that's not unusual. You were just a child—you probably felt abandoned. You didn't understand death."

His head lifted sharply, and she saw a terrible coldness in his face. "Maybe. But part of it was my grandfather's doing. He told me things—"

Sara stared at him. "I don't—I don't understand."

He put his foot on the raised hearth, bent his head and stared into the flames.

"I was here, in this house, when they died, Sara. You see, my grandfather had fallen ill and my parents flew back to see him. My father was still trying to mend old quarrels, I guess. I don't remember much about the visit—except that I hated it here. I couldn't wait to go back to Brazil..."