“It’s good and cold,” he said, bracing open the door to the stairs for her with his shoulder. He held both bottles of water in one hand. He had big hands with long, graceful fingers. Strong hands that always bore some kind of cut or bruise—a fingernail turning colors from getting jammed, or a scraped knuckle. She tried not to look at his hands, tried not to think about the way he’d touched her with those beautiful hands just last night.
“You might want to drink one now,” he continued. “Two minutes out of the ice and it’ll be tepid, like everything else around here. This f—” He stopped himself, cleared his throat. “This, uh, damned heat, you know?”
She looked at him. “Are we actually talking about the weather?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, we are. I thought I’d start with the fucking weather, maybe touch on what you’ve been up to the past six months, and, shit, work my way up to the conversation I just had with Jules over lunch. See, I had it all figured out that we’d talk for a while, and then I’d bring up your partner. And I’d tell you that I got a chance to talk to him a little and he’s an okay guy, and you’d be like ‘Jules and you? Wow, Roger, there’s a friendship I never dreamed would happen in a million years.’ ”
Alyssa had to laugh at his imitation of her. It was pretty accurate, down to her habit of using his given name.
“And I’d say,” he continued, “kind of casually, that Jules and I actually have a whole hell of a lot in common because, you know, we’re, um . . .” He took a deep breath. “See, we’re both in love with you.”
Alyssa bounced her sandwich on the landing and scrambled to pick it up again. She looked at Sam, and she knew that he’d said exactly what she thought she’d heard him say.
“Of course, you had to go and ask why I was sitting with Jules, which made me have to deliver the . . . the . . . punchline, I guess you’d call it, earlier than I wanted to.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, hardly able to breathe.
“You’re sorry that I’m in love with you, or—”
“I’m sorry I blew your timing,” she said.
She could see hope in Sam’s eyes. It was growing with each second that went past.
“So you’re not sorry that I’m in love with you?” he asked. “Sorry if I’m getting obnoxious about this, but I want to make sure I understand what you—”
“How could you love me?” Alyssa asked. “You barely know me.”
Sam shook his head. “No,” he said. “I know you. I know enough. And I want to know more. I want you to get to know me, too. And I know what you’re thinking—this is just me wanting you back in my bed tonight, but it’s not that. I want to spend the night with you, but I want to spend it talking.” He cut himself off. “Okay. Right. That’s a fucking lie. I’m dying to make love to you again, but I want to do it when you’re sober. When you know exactly what you’re doing. And if it’s a choice between spending an hour talking or spending an hour making love, I’d pick the talking. Of course, I’d rather spend two hours with you and—”
Someone was coming. Sam must’ve heard the door open. It was Gilligan and Izzy coming up from the restaurant, arguing about baseball.
He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs with him, careful to stay ahead of the two SEALs and out of their line of sight.
He let go of her as he opened the door to the lobby, as he led her across to the stairs heading up to her room. His room, too. They were in the same tower.
He took her hand again as he took the stairs at a pace that was extremely aerobic. But she was damned if she was going to let him see she was struggling to keep up. And he knew it, too, the jerk.
He loved her. Alyssa didn’t know what to think, what to say, what to do. She wasn’t quite sure how to feel—if she even wanted Sam Starrett to love her.
If she even believed him.
“Sam,” she said as he pulled her out into her hallway. Her room was three doors down, and he stopped in front of it.
He didn’t let her speak. He kissed her. But it was completely different from the Sam plus Alyssa equals nuclear meltdown type kisses he’d given her in the past.
It was the sweetest, most devastatingly gentle kiss she’d ever shared with anyone. He brushed his lips across hers in a way that could only be described as tender. He coaxed her mouth open, and . . .
It was over much too soon.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I want as much from you as you’re willing to give. So if you have any desire at all to turn this thing—I don’t know, what do you call it, this get trashed and go slumming thing you do with me every six months?—into something more regular, I’m right here. I’m ready. I want to have dinner with you after this is over. I think the situation here is coming to a boil within the next twenty-four hours. And by the way, I could use your help with the practice—we’re going to be back at it in three hours.”
She nodded. “I’ll be there.” That was the easiest of his questions to answer.
He smiled ruefully as if he could read her mind. “I’ll let you think about dinner,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be in public, if you don’t want anyone to know you’re seeing me—I don’t give a damn about that. We can keep it completely backdoor. We could get room service. You just have to promise to dress for dinner. And promise not to let me take your clothes off—at least not until the second course.”
Sam kissed her again, deeper this time, but just as slowly and thoroughly.
“Thanks for hearing me out,” he said, handing her one of the bottles of water.
And he turned and walked away.
Alyssa couldn’t believe it as the door to the stairs closed behind him with a very solid thunk.
He had three hours before he had to report, and he’d just walked away?
She stood there for a moment, waiting. Certain he was going to come back.
But he didn’t.
She went as far as the stairs and even opened the door, but he was definitely gone.
Alyssa laughed in disbelief. One more kiss like that, and she would’ve invited him into her room.
She’d all but decided that this was just another ploy to get back into bed with her. I love you. Yeah, right.
Except it was working. He had to know it was working. He was on the other end of those kisses. There was no way he couldn’t have known that by kissing her that way he’d made her melt.
But he’d walked away.
I love you.
Oh, my God.
“He’s getting impatient,” Bob told her apologetically.
Gina wiped her face. Jeez, she hadn’t even realized she’d started crying. Her heart was pounding, drumming in her ears. “It scares me to death when he does that.”
Snarly Al had been kicked out of the cockpit and into the main cabin of the plane. She could hear him still shouting, hear the babies and some of the passengers start to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Bob said as if he really meant it.
“His shouting at me isn’t going to help,” Gina said. “I have no clue what he’s saying. I mean, I don’t even speak his language.”
“Of course you don’t,” Bob said. “You’re American.”
He was smiling despite the accusation in his words. But his voice wasn’t even slightly hostile. Or maybe it was. Maybe everything he said was hostile, and she just couldn’t see it that way.
She’d been so convinced he was kind. Gentle. Her friend, even.
The way they’d talked . . .
But the look in his eyes when he threatened to kill Max and then kill her . . .
Maybe he was only bluffing. Maybe not.
Gina didn’t know anything anymore. She was losing it, big time.
“Do you want me to get on the radio and see if there’s any news?” she asked, praying that he’d say yes. Al had taken his gun and stuck the barrel right up to her head during his latest rant. She’d been certain this was it, that even if he didn’t mean to kill her that his finger would slip in his rage, and her brains would be sprayed across the cabin.
In the aftermath of her fear, she desperately wanted to hear Max’s soothing voice.
She knew he was listening in all the time. He’d dropped hints to let her know they’d managed to plant cameras and microphones on the plane. He could see and hear what was going on. Even right now when the microphone switch wasn’t pressed down.
She could feel Max watching her. She knew with a certainty that he never left that room over in the terminal. He was with her 24/7, and would be until this ended. Or until Al pulled that trigger, whichever came first.
Bob shrugged, so she keyed the microphone. “This is flight 232. Is there any news? Over.”
Max’s voice came back, warm and thick and easygoing, like a security blanket. “This is Max, 232. We’re checking the status of that.” It was his usual I’m-stalling response, designed to keep the channel open and the conversation going. “I don’t suppose our friend Bob is willing to talk to me directly yet. How ’bout it, Bob? Over.”
Bob shook his head. He stood up and went out of the cockpit and into the cabin, no doubt to try to rein Al in.
“Please, God, don’t bring him back in here with you,” Gina said, under her breath. “Al’s strung pretty tightly,” she said into the microphone. “You might want to give them that guy they want released from jail—Razeen. Or something. Soon. Over.”
“Or something,” Max repeated. “Roger that, 232. We’re working as quickly as we can, but it still might take some time.” There was an edge to his voice. Yes, he definitely knew Bob had left the cockpit. Still, he was being careful, in case they were being overheard. “I bet you’re tired, huh, Karen? I bet you’re glad you’re sitting down on the floor. Over.”
“Yeah,” Gina said, her heart pounding for an entirely different reason now. “I’ll just stay right down here, as long as they let me. Go ahead.”
Please, please go ahead.
“It was two weeks to the day after we went into hiding at the Gunvalds,” Helga said as she stirred sugar into her coffee. “I remember it as if it were yesterday. We were just sitting down to breakfast and Annebet burst in.”
Helga’s whole amazing story had been leading to this. But Stan wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more. He took a sip of his own coffee. Bracing himself.
“Hershel had been shot,” she told him, just as he’d expected. “In his and Annebet’s search to find passage for us on a boat to Sweden, he’d found a fisherman willing to take the risk. But he’d needed a crew, and they made a trade—they’d be his crew for a fortnight in return for passage for the five of us to Sweden.”
She fell silent for a moment, just gazing into her coffee, momentarily transported back to that day all those years ago.
Stan had been surprised when Desmond Nyland had called him, even more surprised when the man had taken him into his confidence, telling him that he believed Helga Shuler was suffering from some kind of age-related mental deterioration, perhaps even Alzheimer’s.
She had no problem at all keeping track of this story she was telling him. She seemed clear about the details and didn’t repeat anything. She was actually a very good storyteller. Stan was intrigued by her description of his mother and aunt as young girls, by this glimpse into the lives of the grandparents he’d never known.
It was almost enough to keep him from thinking about Teri.
About the way it had felt to be inside of her.
About the scratches from her fingernails that she’d left on his back. She’d wanted him, needed him so badly that she’d marked him.
But possibly not as permanently as he’d marked her.
Christ, how could he have let himself get so out of control that he’d forgotten to put on a condom?
And what the hell was wrong with him that despite the fact that he should be worried about whether or not he’d gotten Teri pregnant, what he really couldn’t stop thinking about was when he’d get to see her again. When he’d get another chance to drive himself inside of her, to feel her clinging to him so desperately and gasping his name and—holy fuck, it made him so hot just to think about it—making more of those welts on his back.
The sweet little old lady sitting across the table smiled at him.
“Where was I?” she asked.
Um . . . “Annebet,” he said, struggling to remember. “She and Hershel had been working as crew in trade for passage for your family.”
“Ah, yes. Hershel and Annebet both had been spending their nights making the crossing with this fisherman and another student, Johan, that they knew from the resistance. It was very dangerous.
“That night they’d arrived safely back in port and were making their way to shelter when they were stopped by the Germans. Hershel heard them coming, and he pushed Annebet into the brush by the side of the path. He knew the Germans had seen them, but it was dark—they couldn’t know how many of them there were.
“It was probably just a regular patrol, stopping them for breaking curfew, but Johan panicked. He had a gun and he opened fire.” Helga smiled sadly. “Of course, the Germans fired back. Johan was killed, Hershel badly wounded.