Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

“And they’re all rufous?” she asked, trying to imagine what it would be like to see clouds of flying bronze jewels feeding at once, flashing their crimson gorgets to warn off others.

“Nearly all my birds are rufous. Nasty little heathens,” he said, smiling slightly, “but damn beautiful. They remind me that no matter how pretty, life is always a battle.”

Kayla waited until Rand had topped off the last feeder with cool syrup before she asked, “Are you going to answer my question about why you’re helping me?”

“Like you, not everything I know is mine to tell.” Rand screwed the feeding platform in place. “You already know the most important things.”

“Which are?”

“I want you alive and Bertone dead.”

Dry Valley

Saturday

8:20 P.M. MST

While they hung the feeders in the shelter of the ranch house porch, Kayla was silent, thinking about what Rand had said. Even before she stepped back from the first feeder, a hummingbird appeared on it. Ignoring the humans, he drank and drank and drank. After a few minutes of resting, the bird shook himself, fluffed his feathers, but stayed clamped to the perch.

“He’ll drink at least once more,” Rand said quietly, “then he’ll head on out into the desert and bed down in a safer place.”

“I’ve never seen a hummer come in at night like that.”

“He’d have taken on a bobcat for that nectar. Being desperate does that to you.” He glanced at his watch. “Time to go.”

“You’re sure I can’t go to my apartment?” Kayla asked. “The only packing boxes of clothes I left at the ranch are full of jeans and such.”

“Jeans are good.”

She followed him back into the bedroom, where she’d stacked full boxes for her next trip to the new apartment.

“Which one?” he asked.

“One? But-”

“One.”

“Hell.”

“Don’t worry. There are a lot of Wal-Marts in Phoenix.”

She rolled her eyes and picked up the box she’d marked ranch clothes. “Oh, well, this is Arizona, famous for casual wear.” She gave him a sidelong look. “Isn’t it?”

“Are you asking me where you’re going from here?” Rand said, taking the box from her.

“Clever of you to notice.”

“Phoenix,” Rand said.

“Royal Palms?”

“Yes.”

“Joe Faroe?” she asked.

“Among others.”

She followed Rand out to the car, then confronted him before he loaded the box into the SUV. “And I’m supposed to take all this on faith.”

“I wasn’t the dude waiting for you with handcuffs and duct tape.”

Kayla closed her eyes. All she saw was the handcuffs, scuffed from horrible use, and thick duct tape to force back her screams. “Point taken. But that still doesn’t tell me why you helped me.”

“I want you.”

Her eyes snapped open. “Well, that’s blunt.”

“You wanted honesty. You got it.” Half the truth, anyway. The rest isn’t mine to tell.

She stepped aside. “Be careful what you ask for, is that it?”

“Pretty much.” He tossed the box in back and started to get in the driver’s seat.

“McCree, this is my car. It says so down at the DMV.”

“Your point?”

“I drive.”

“Have you been trained in high-speed evasion?”

She stared at him, then turned and got into the passenger side. The door slammed behind her. Hard.

“The thing about choices,” Rand said as he drove out of the ranch yard, “is that they’re never as clear as they seem when you make them.”

It didn’t take Kayla long to get to the bottom line. “What do you know that I should and don’t?”

“Nobody’s motives are pure. Nobody’s.”

“Including you?”

“Yes.”

“St. Kilda Consulting?” Kayla pressed.

“It’s a human organization made up of people whose motives aren’t one-hundred-percent angelic.”

“Joe Faroe?”

“He’s nobody’s angel.”

“Like Bertone,” Kayla said.

“No. Faroe is a hard son of a bitch, but he’s honorable. Bertone is slime on cesspool walls.”

“What if I don’t want to go to Royal Palms? Do I have a choice?”

“You have the same choice you had in the garden before I showed up.”

“Fight and die.” She made a low sound. “You really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”

“You’re a woman.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like sweet talk,” she retorted.

“Every time I call you beautiful, or touch you, you stiffen up like I burned you.”

She shrugged. “You did.”

In the dashboard lights, Rand’s expression shifted. “Talk about blunt.”

“Being hunted by a kidnapper does that to me.”

“Frees your inner bitch?”

“That, too,” Kayla said, smiling. “But mostly it reminds me that my next breath is a gift, not a guarantee.”

Rand’s mouth thinned as he thought of Reed. “Amen. Amazing how knowing, really knowing, the fragility of life makes choices easier. ‘If I don’t do this, will I go to my grave regretting it?’ is the only question that matters.”

The first thing Kayla thought was how she would feel if she didn’t pursue the heat she felt between herself and Rand.

It’s been too long since a man made me curious, edgy, aware of every difference between male and female.

Girl, your timing sucks.

“So you count regrets in terms of things you haven’t done,” she said.

“Always.”

“Is that why you work for St. Kilda instead of painting fulltime?”

“My time at St. Kilda could be real short,” was all Rand said.

“Why do I get the feeling that you aren’t entirely happy working for St. Kilda?”

“Because I’m not.” His voice didn’t encourage more questions.

She asked anyway. “Then why are you with them?”

“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“They threatened you?” she asked, startled.

Rand’s fingers tightened around the wheel as the SUV sped through the darkness, pushing a cone of light ahead. A desert night and sweeping light that Reed would never see.

“My reasons for being with St. Kilda are personal, private, and have no bearing on your decision,” he said.

“Which decision?”

“To go or not to go to Royal Palms,” he said sardonically.

“Whither thou goest,” she said, her tone equally biting.

He gave a crack of laughter. Then he realized how long it had been since he had laughed. “I like you, Kayla Shaw.”

“Same back, Rand McCree. Well, most of the time.”

He was tempted to ask about the rest of the time, but he didn’t. “Liking you wasn’t part of the plan.”

“What plan?”

“Despite its lack of perfection, St. Kilda Consulting is a necessary organization in today’s world of transnational crime, failed and failing states, feral cities, and the just plain savage places in between. All the places where duly appointed and lawful governments are just short of useless, and corrupt governments thrive.”

She turned and looked at him. “Is that an answer or an evasion?”

“Yes. If you go to Royal Palms, and if Grace and Joe like what they see of you, they’ll want you to sign up with St. Kilda Consulting. If you don’t feel that grateful, you can leave.”

“And if I don’t go with St. Kilda, I get to choose between Bertone and the feds.” Or trust my boss, Steve Foley, to bail me out. She grimaced. Not in this lifetime. “All in all, I’d rather see what St. Kilda has to offer. Assuming that they’ll let me walk away if I don’t like what I see?”

“No handcuffs or duct tape, guaranteed,” Rand said. “All they’ll ask is that you don’t mention anything about St. Kilda to Bertone or to your bank.”

“I won’t. What about the feds?”

“Let’s just hope the question never comes up.”

“St. Kilda is publicity-shy?” Kayla asked.

“That, too. Mostly it’s the fact that we work where U.S. agencies can’t or won’t work. All the shades of gray that don’t fit into ten-second sound bites and political slogans. We’ve made friends. We’ve made enemies. Working for St. Kilda carries baggage. Some of it is dangerous. Most of it is just irritating.”

When he looked at Kayla to see how she was taking his words, she surprised him.

She smiled.

“You make St. Kilda Consulting sound like hummingbirds,” she said, “at war with one another and the rest of the world.”

“Close enough,” Rand said, and he smiled in return.

“What would you do if you were me?”

“Run like hell for the nearest exit.”

The light from the dashboard made his eyes look hard, almost silver.

“Interesting,” Kayla said. “Why haven’t you?”

“My motives have no bearing on your decision, remember?”

“Whew. Talk about honest.” Her voice said brutally honest.

Silence grew.

Rand hissed a word under his breath. “Look, I can’t make the decision for you. You have to make it because you’re the one who has to live with the results.”

“Like you.”

“Just like me. Your own devils, your own hell.” Chosen very carefully by you.

“What about angels and heaven?” she asked.

“Hasn’t come up on my radar.”

“Never?”

“I only knew it when it was gone.”

Too late.

Phoenix

Saturday

9:10 P.M. MST

Is this car registered in your name?” Rand asked.

Kayla blinked. It had been a long time since he’d spoken.

“Yes.”