He held her close until she slept.
"Sam?"
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She didn't answer. Her breathing was slow and regular.
"I think I love you," he whispered, shocked at his own words, grateful that she hadn't been awake to hear them.
Her mouth curved into a smile.
"You faker!" he muttered, pushing her away. He could feel himself blushing.
She entwined herself around him and found his lips again. "Bulldookey," she said.
Chapter Fourteen
He shook her awake. "Sam. I've got to go."
She squinted, turning toward the window. The first red streaks of dawn showed. "Where?"
"Wales," he said.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was still in its knot, dangling down the side of her neck. She was so pretty that Remo was half afraid to look at her. He knew that the more time he spent with her, the more he would want to stay. He got up and dressed quickly.
"Can I go with you?"
"No." .
"Why not?"
"Because I say so."
"Oh." She sounded hurt
"Hah. It hurts when the shoe's on the other foot, doesn't it?"
"What shoe?"
"It's just an American expression. What country are you from, anyway? Ah-ah-ah, just testing. I know you aren't going to tell me."
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She stretched herself like a cat. The sight of her naked body in daylight gave Remo a pang of sadness. He dropped his shoe and stood for a few moments, watching her, wondering if he would ever see her again.
"Let's quit this," he said, disgusted.
"What?"
"This secrecy crap. I want us to see each other again. Tell me how I can reach you."
"I'll follow you," she said.
He shook his head. He didn't trust himself to talk.
"Why not?" she asked.
"You can't, that's all. Not where I'm going."
"Oh, I see. You think I'm too frail and delicate for your rowdy life."
"You're about as frail as a Sherman tank." He slipped on his T-shirt. It smelled of her.
She walked over to him and took his hands.
"Don't, okay?" He broke away from her, suddenly angry. "You can't go, and I can't tell you why, and this is the last time I'm going to see your funny face because, for some reason, you want us to keep on being strangers. So don't make it any harder than it already is." He walked to the door.
"Remo ..." She came to him and kissed him. And again, it felt as if she had been with him all his life.
"Tell me who you are," he whispered. "I don't care if you're on the run from somebody, or married, or whatever. I don't even care how you know about me. I just want to be able to find you when I get back."
She gazed at him for a long time. Then, frowning, she lowered her eyes.
He waited in silence for what seemed an eternity. Finally he spoke, burning with shame. "Just asking," he said bitterly.
"Please-"
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"Hey. No need to make excuses. Believe me, I don't want any strings, either. It was a swell one-night stand."
He ran down the hotel steps, hot-wired the first unguarded car he saw, and laid a strip of rubber a mile long.
"Bitch," he muttered, speeding out of the city. He was never going to get mixed up with women again. He would limit himself to tarts and dumbbells. If no tarts or dumbbells were available, he'd settle for cold showers.
What was so special about what's-her-name, anyway, he asked himself. He'd just been lonesome and horny. As a matter of fact, she was as ordinary as they came. Couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. And her nose was crooked. Didn't even know how to use a fork.
She was freaking weird, when it came right down to it. Eyes that kept changing colors, like a kaleidoscope. Muscles like a damned stevedore under that silky skin. Probably lifted weights on her lunch hour. He wouldn't be surprised if she was a dyke. Or worse. One of those Scandinavian sex-change jobs. By God, that was why she wouldn't give him her name! Call me Harry, darling. Hell, he was glad to be rid of her.
But oh, the taste of her lips.
Forget it. What was done was done. Even if it never started.
He made it to Wales in record time. Stopping at a village to buy some gas with all the money he had left, he considered buying a map of the area, but discarded the idea. Michelin didn't include places like the Valley of the Forest Primeval on its maps. He was too embarrassed even to ask directions to such a ridiculous-sounding place, even if Chiun did insist that it was the correct address.
He headed north. It seemed like the more primeval route. By the time the roads changed from stone to earth, and the rickety wooden signposts touted places like Llanfairfechan and Caernarfon as major metropolises hun-
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dreds of kilometers distant, the late afternoon mist was beginning to settle along the mossy banks where he drove. The trees were huge here, lush pines stretching to the clouds. Insects and hidden forest animals seemed to be everywhere, chattering endlessly. The air was thick and sweet.
Remo drove the car down the narrowing road, overgrown almost to invisibility by grass, until the road petered off into a footpath and then, in the distance, disappeared altogether.
"Great," Remo said out loud. "Just freaking great." He must have come fifty miles on that road. "Valley of the Forest Primeval. I've got to be out of my gourd."
He slammed the gears into reverse and backed up. "Look on the bright side," he explained to the steering wheel. "The one good thing about having a rotten day is that after a certain point it doesn't get any worse, right?"
He was looking over his shoulder when the rock smashed his windscreen.
"Wrong," he muttered, getting out of the car.
There was a rustling somewhere in the forest. He ran toward it.
Nothing. Everything was still once he reached the shadows of the pines. The chipmunks and squirrels kept up their angry chatter.
Must have been a freak accident, he decided, coming back to the road. A rock that got spun up by the tires . . .
He closed his eyes, hoping it was all a bad dream, then opened them again. No dream. All four tires were flat.
He examined one. A puncture. A very neat puncture, executed by a sharp metal instrument. The others were the same.
"I can't believe it," he said. He'd always thought of vandalism as an urban problem. But there wasn't even a
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road here, and his tires had been slashed by a knife. He looked around. Not a footprint.
Where did they come from? Maybe the people out here imported hoodlums, like oranges. Maybe somewhere in Llanfairfechan there was a company that brought gang members from Chicago or New York by the truckload, snarling and slashing at travelers to make sure the area didn't get overrun by tourists.
He leaned against the car and slid down to a sitting position. He hadn't seen a house for thirty miles, and he'd passed the last garage four hours ago.
Hell, what was he thinking about? He didn't have any money to pay for tires even if he found them. There was nothing he could do now except wait it out till morning and then carry on on foot.
Maybe it was for the best, he thought sleepily. He hadn't gotten much rest the night before, what with squandering his one evening of relaxation on a girl. It wouldn't hurt to catch forty winks. He closed his eyes.
Ping.
"Wazzat," he said, leaping to his feet. On the car's fender, just beside the place where his head had been, was a small dent. From the angle of the mark, its trajectory had been from above.
He looked up at the trees. "Okay, you little bastards," he yelled.
Ping.
He caught it with a slap of his hand. A pebble. And another, whizzing through his hair.
He stalked through the forest, crouching, moving so that his feet didn't disturb the leaves beneath them. About fifty yards away, he caught sight of a pair of short, skinny legs in ragged pants shinnying down the trunk of a tree. A little torso covered by a leather jerkin followed, and two arms, one of them clutching a homemade slingshot. The last part