“I don't want to relax when my daughter and I are about to become hostages and my fiancй is about to go out and trade gunshots with some goddamn troop of terrorists. You know my life was peaceful before you came back into it. Prosaic and dull and peaceful!”
“I'm sorry. I wish I could explain what Egon means to me.” His relationship with Egon eluded simple explanation, though even that would be useless considering Molly's current frame of mind.
“Does he mean more than Carrie and me?” It wasn't a fair question. It was one of those bitchy questions, the kind lawyers asked in criminal trials when they wanted only one answer. But even while she logically understood, emotionally she required one, single do-or-die answer.
“No, he doesn't,” Carey said. His hands tightly clasped, he crossed his legs to ease the stiffness in his spine and leaned back against the dark leather seat. The planes of his sculptured face were vivid in the shadows. “But he's very alone in the world,” he added, his voice soft, trying to explain and appease at the same time. “And if I can help him elude Rifat, I have to. Rifat's… methods,” he omitted the word torture, “would create an uncomfortable situation.”
“Why don't you just say torture,” Molly rebuked. “That's what you mean, isn't it?”
Carey sighed and ran a hand over his brow. “I don't want to argue with you. If I could let Egon go down the tube and live with myself afterward, I would.” He'd kicked off his sandals and was barefoot, looking very young and wholesome in his khaki shorts and T-shirt. His pale hair was highlighted by the sunshine streaming in through the back window. “Could we work out some compromise on this so we don't have a knock-down-drag-out fight over something I don't have a lot of control over?”
“Why can't Sylvie hire someone to find her brother? She could sell her damn earrings and hire a battalion.”
“No one knows him as well as I do.”
“Surely she must.”
“Not really.”
“So you were his father confessor?”
“No,” Carey said very softly, “I was his friend.”
Retreating into the opposite corner of the large backseat, Molly pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Dammit, Carey, you're disrupting our whole life,” she said. “Taking us away from my work and home, bringing us in contact with killers I thought only existed in books and movies.” Her voice wasn't angry anymore, but a tightly leashed tension imbued her low tone. “It isn't fair. I'm afraid for Carrie's future, and I don't want to feel sorry for Egon.”
“But you do.” Carey's dark eyes were as tender as the quiet resonance of his voice. She looked very small in the corner of the enormous backseat, and even in a strapless sundress that should have made her look sophisticated, she looked sixteen. Maybe it was the green papier-mвchй frog earrings dangling halfway down to her shoulders, or the silky blond hair draped across the curve of her collarbone, or maybe it was her beautiful, pouty bottom lip. He couldn't resist her. Leaning across the expanse of black leather separating them, he reached over and brushed her pink lips with his fingertip. “And I love you for it.”
“We could lose everything after only finding each other again,” Molly whispered, still not looking at him. “I guess I'm feeling sorry for myself, and angry that it's happening. But you can't let him die, can you?”
He stroked her shoulder, his hand drifting slowly down her arm to cover her interlocked fingers. “I think I know where he's headed, so I've an advantage over Rifat,” he said. “And if I'm lucky, I'll beat him there.” He smiled a little then, feeling a twinge of his old, familiar luck. “I could be back here in two days.”
“And safe?”
Guardedly he said, “And safe.”
“What would you say if I asked to come along?” She turned toward him suddenly and quickly added, “Just listen first.”
He swallowed the refusal he was about to utter.
“I know you want Carrie and me to stay at your father's while you go off to find Egon. I also know there's danger involved. But don't you see, it's infinitely worse waiting for you, not knowing where you are or what's going on. After all these years of not having you, at least if I'm with you, I'm with you. And if you know where Egon's going,” her face had brightened, “we might be back before the men after him even pick up his trail.”
If he revealed to her the danger in finding Egon, she'd freak. But if it wasn't dangerous, he had no excuse for leaving her behind. “You have to think of Carrie,” he said. “She and Lucy need you.”
“Not for only two days, certainly not after she sees her horse. Carrie's been horse-mad for years. She won't mind, really. She'll push me out the door, I know, because she's always telling me I'm too protective, and she knows I'll be biting my fingernails and saying, ‘Be careful,' the entire time she's riding.” Her rush of words came to a halt. With the tiniest lift of her chin, she added, “She's strong like you. She'll be fine, so I'm coming with you.”
“Egon doesn't frequent the same spots a church group would.”
“Pul-eese… it might be different vices, but after Bart, my eyeballs are not virgin, believe me.”
He wasn't going to touch that one. Bending close, his lips brushed her cheek. “I'll bring you a present.”
Her blue eyes took on a stormy cast. “Do I look like I'm ten?”
“Yes,” he said with a grin. He'd relaxed.
“Let me reword that. Do I look stupid?”
His smile was rueful now. “No,” he murmured, “but you can't come along.”
“Oh, well, it was worth a try,” she said, a shade too readily for comfort.
“I mean it,” he said, assessing her with mild distrust.
“Of course, dear, you're right,” Molly agreed with a smile, aware futher argument was useless. And yet, fully intent on accompanying him, she felt very brave, like Wonder Woman in full regalia. Maybe proximity to Carey Fersten promoted bravery. She'd jettisoned her prudence that summer she'd spent with him before her wedding, too. “I'm sure I'd only be in the way.” Unclasping her hands, she laced them on top of her head, immediately distracting Carey from his apprehension over her abrupt capitulation. Her breasts swelled in lush provocation above the bodice of the green flower print dress.
“I don't suppose,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing against an invisible wind, “we could close off the front with the girls up there. What would they think?”
“They might think we wanted some privacy. I don't suppose they'll die of shock.”
“In that case, some privacy would be real high on my list of priorities, Ms. Darian.” His gaze traveled slowly up her slender body, lingering gently on the rise of her breasts, then languorously lifting to meet her eyes.
“Let me take care of this, Mr. Fersten,” Molly said, delight in her voice. “How long do we have before we reach your father's?”
Glancing out the window, Carey replied with a heated glance, “Three and a half hours.”
“How nice, since I feel a sudden fatigue. I think I'll tell the girls to keep down the giggles; we're going to take a nap.”
And when she did, Carrie turned around, pressed her nose against the glass divider, and said, “Sure, Mom, I know what you guys are going to do. You're going to kiss.”
Under his tan, Carey flushed to the roots of his hair.
“You're blushing,” Molly whispered.
“She's my daughter,” he whispered back. “I'm embarrassed.”
“She's only teasing. Relax.”
“Sure?”
“I'm s-o-o-o tired,” she breathed, running her fingers down his muscled arm.
“See that we're not disturbed, Jess,” he said crisply. Shutting off the intercom, he pushed the control that slid solid divider panels over the glass partition. Turning back to Molly, he murmured, “Have I told you how sexy you look when you lift your arms in that dress?”