Death Angel

Once she was in the FBI’s hands, she would be beyond Simon’s reach.

Chapter Twenty-eight

WHEN HE GOT TO HIS HOTEL ROOM, SIMON BOOTED UP HIS laptop and checked her location, just to be certain he’d convinced her she was safe and she wasn’t already on the road running for what she thought was her life. Good-both the Explorer and her cell phone were where they were supposed to be, and stationary, so the odds were she was in bed. He set the program to send a message to his cell phone if the locators began moving, just in case she tried to pull a fast one.

He’d like to be there with her, but when he kissed her he’d felt a reserve on her part that said she wasn’t going down that road with him again, at least not yet. He didn’t like waiting, but he would-for a while, anyway. He’d raised patience to an art, honing it into a form of weapon as he outwaited both man and nature in the hunt for each target, but now that the veil of secrecy between him and Andie was down, his instincts told him to move fast and hard. She had gotten by in life by making herself pleasing to men, by submerging her own needs, her likes and dislikes, and mirroring back only what the man wanted to see. She needed time, yes, but she also needed to be wanted for herself. She needed to be courted, pursued, the tables turned; she needed a man to curry her favor.

Patience was just another form of persistence. Maybe that meant he was a bastard for not getting out of her life and leaving her alone, after all he’d done and all the pain he’d caused her. So what? He’d rather be a bastard and have her, than be a gentleman and let her get away.

If she hadn’t responded to him at all he’d have dealt with the loss and left her alone, but she’d been all but squirming in her chair, and he knew enough about women to know she’d been remembering how it had been between them. He knew enough about her, gleaned from the afternoon they’d spent together, to know how she looked when she was turned on. She wanted to be indifferent, but she wasn’t, any more than he was indifferent to her. He’d wanted to be; he’d wanted to forget her as soon as he walked away from her. For the first time in his life, that hadn’t happened. He dealt in reality, not in roses and wishes, and what was between them was real-unexplored, undeveloped, but real.

Reassured that she was staying put, at least for the time being, he got out his first-aid kit and carefully disinfected the bite wounds in his arm, then sprayed the area to numb it. The analgesic was only topical, but it took enough of the edge off the pain that putting in the stitches didn’t bother him. He’d had splinters that hurt worse. After he dabbed an antibiotic on top of the stitches, he slapped a couple of adhesive bandages over them, then carefully repacked the small kit, taking note of which supplies needed to be replenished. The first-aid kit went everywhere with him, and had possibly saved his life a couple of times. In the tropics, an open wound, no matter how minor, could fast become life-threatening.

Then, yawning, he popped a couple of ibuprofen before stripping off his clothes. Turning out the light, he sprawled across the bed. His phone would signal the arrival of a message, and wake him, if she decided to make a run for it, but he was fairly certain she wasn’t going anywhere tonight. If she had anything in mind, she’d probably try to fake him off by staying put for a few days. She was sneaky, but he was sneakier. He went to sleep knowing that, for now, things were under control.

ANDIE SLEPT LATE-big surprise there-and finally stumbled to the kitchen for coffee at half past eleven. She had a headache, maybe from the adrenaline crash, or maybe she just needed a dose of caffeine. She was usually out of bed around eight, giving her time to do her chores or errands before going to work, so she was about three hours past the time she usually had her first cup of coffee.

She took two aspirin, then took her coffee into the living room. Turning on the secondhand television she’d bought, she curled up in the corner of the sofa, at the moment not wanting to do anything more than sip her coffee and wait for the aspirin to start working on her headache. She watched a little of the noon news, enough to learn that more thunderstorms were expected that afternoon, then, despite the coffee, she nodded off again.

Two sharp raps on her front door woke her. Maybe it was the neighbors, she thought sourly, belatedly concerned enough by all the banging around last night to find out if she was all right. She could certainly hear them thumping around, so she knew they should have at least heard when she knocked the chair over. But had anyone checked to see if a burglar had broken in, or anything? If she’d heard the same noises from their side, she’d have at least beat on the wall and yelled to ask if everything was all right.

She paused before unlocking the door, raising a slat of the blinds and looking out. She found herself staring straight at Simon, because he stood square in front of the door. Her breath wooshed out of her lungs at the impact of his physical presence, sort of like looking out and finding a large wolf standing there. His gaze met hers through the glass, and he lifted his brows as if to say, Well?

Dismayed, she let the slat drop and stood there for a minute, trying to decide whether or not to open the door. She’d hoped he had already left town. What was he hanging around for? What else was there to say?

"You might as well open the door," he said through the wood. "I’m not leaving."

"So what else is new?" she grumbled, turning the lock and pulling the door open. He came in, a smile ghosting around his mouth. "What?" she demanded, pushing her sleep-mussed hair out of her face. She hadn’t even dragged a brush through it yet, and she didn’t care.

"I came to see if you wanted to go out for lunch. I guess not," he said with a faint undertone of amusement.

Andie yawned and turned back to the sofa, pulling her legs up and tucking her bare feet under the cushions. She was still wearing her pajama bottoms and T-shirt, so, no, she wasn’t going out, for lunch or anything else. "I guess not," she echoed, frowning at him. "I haven’t had breakfast yet. Thank you for asking. What do you want?"