Challenging Andie (4 page)

“Yes.”

“And when she died…” There was a telling choke in her voice. “Were you there?” She stared down at her plate again, and continued eating.

“No.” There was tension in his jawbone from biting down so hard, and Ryan concentrated on releasing it. He should have been there. If he had, he would have been the one pulled from the taxi. Unfortunately Emily had seized the opportunity in his absence. “I was covering a different story when your mother went to interview Arnat, the rebel leader.”

“I never really heard what happened.” Andie set the fork down and pushed the unfinished plateful of food away as though her appetite had deserted her. “The news agency just told me there were reports that she’d been pulled out of her car and—”

“—and killed. Yes.” Ryan battled an unfamiliar urge to envelop her hand with his. She needed human contact, especially now. Her mouth trembled. She looked as though she was holding herself together by an effort of will, but doubtless if she wanted someone’s touch it wouldn’t be his. “I was on the streets, returning to the hotel, and heard about it minutes after it happened. We got into a car and drove to the house in the middle of Rexa that had been designated as the meeting place. Somehow the military junta discovered the rebel leader was going to talk to the press.”

Andie squeezed a napkin between her fingers. “Keep talking,” she whispered.

“The car was riddled with bullets. Her driver was dead and the doors were open. There was no sign of Emily.” Just a river of her blood staining the seat red and flowing into the street. Details no daughter needed to hear.

“Why didn’t they leave her body?” Andie’s voice was laced with agony. “Why didn’t they leave me at least something to bury?” Her clear blue gaze fixed to his. “Her coffin was empty, Ryan. I couldn’t even feel…” She broke off and buried her face in her hands. Her body shook as she cried silently.

“The deniability factor. Without a body the international community can consider her missing. What they hadn’t expected was the photograph.”

A photograph had been smuggled into the hotel where all the news agencies were staying. It showed Emily Harte’s body laid out on the dry dirt before some sort of a rough dwelling made of blood or paint-stained corrugated iron. The photographer had never been identified, but the general consensus was that it was probably a rebel sympathizer who understood how important confirmation of her death would be to the rebel cause.

“I saw the picture in the papers—but you know, with Photoshop…” Hope lit in her eyes suddenly.

Ryan shook his head. “I saw the original. There’s no question that the picture was faked, Andie. I’m sorry.”

She gasped, then her body shuddered and tears ran unchecked down her face.

A gust of wind lifted the bottom of Andie’s hair, and a strand brushed against her cheek.

The door to the pub opened, and a crowd of laughing students crowded into the quiet space, disrupting the ambience.

Feeling eyes on him, Ryan glanced over to the bar to see the barmaid staring over, a frown marring her pretty face. “We should go.” Ryan stood, walked to the bar to settle the bill, and returned to the table. “Come on, we can talk in my car.”

She came with him as quietly as a sleepwalker. Shock must have robbed the fight from her. He knew all about how grief could affect people. Had seen it firsthand more times than most people in the aftermath of conflict. Sometimes anger was uppermost, sometimes the eviscerating rawness of grief as a loved one was wrenched away. Sometimes, facing the truth left the victim numb and pliant. As Andie was now. Sadness settled on Ryan’s shoulders, weighing him down like a heavy cloak. Her solitary journey into pain was inevitable. Nothing he could say or do would bring relief. Frustration bloomed, expanding to a cavern of powerlessness.

He opened the door and helped her inside.

The hotel management had asked him to return Emily’s things to the news agency where no doubt they’d be boxed up and forwarded, perhaps with a brief note.

He’d only learned Emily was a mother when he arrived at the station with the little package under his arm. The news had shocked him to the core. The thought of someone being handed a loved one’s effects by a stranger, as he had, was unthinkable.

Then and there, he’d decided that someone needed to make sure Emily’s daughter was okay. He was that someone. “I need to...”

“I can’t face talking about my mother’s death,” Andie muttered. Her head was bent and her hands lay still in her lap.

“I don’t expect you to.”

A sweep of damp eyelashes, then her red-rimmed eyes stared into his.

“It’s too soon,” he said, wondering at the echoing ache inside as he gazed at her tear-stained face. “Let’s go to your house. We can talk for a while. Are you able to drive?”

Andie nodded mutely and swept her tongue over her bottom lip. She reached for the door handle. “Follow me home.”

*****

The first indication that something was definitely up was the cars lining the street as Andie drove down it. By the time she arrived at her house, the full horror of the situation became clear. Cars were everywhere. A small crowd of people all started shouting and running her direction as she pulled into the only available parking spot. She blinked at the rapid fire of camera flashes as she climbed out of the car, and stopped dead as a woman stepped into her path, thrusting a microphone under her nose.

“Miss Harte, what do you think of the news?” the poised brunette she recognized from the evening news asked. “Can you talk to our listeners for a moment?”

The crowd pushed closer, buffeting Andie. Thoughts tumbled chaotically. What were they talking about? “Uh…”

“Leave her alone.” A tall figure pushed through the throng of photographers. “Miss Harte has no comment at this time.” Reaching her side, Ryan clasped her arm tightly. “Say nothing,” he warned quietly. “We’re getting out of here. Follow me.”

“Miss Harte, please. Your reaction…”

Andie grabbed her bag from the passenger seat, slammed the car door and locked it with the key fob. Ryan’s arm slipped around her shoulders, effectively shielding her from view as the flashes reached a crescendo like a fireworks display. He walked her to the car he’d abandoned in the street and helped her quickly inside.

“Buckle up,” he ordered, revving the engine.

Andie took one brief last look at her home, before they left the circus behind, and made for the motorway. “What were they talking about? What news?”

Ryan’s jaw clenched. “Let’s not worry about that now. We need to ensure we’re not followed.” He glanced into the rearview mirror. “I don’t want to go to London. They’ll identify me soon enough, and then the whole crowd will turn up at my apartment.”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, located a number, and called it. “Brianne? Hi, it’s Ryan. I’m in England. Is the key for the cottage in the usual place? I need to lie low for a while.” He listened for a moment, then his shoulders relaxed. “Okay, under the third plant-pot, got it. Yeah, I’m fine, I’ll call you later. Thanks, honey.”

He disconnected the call and glanced at Andie. “We’re going where they won’t find us. It’s about half an hour down the coast. Why don’t you close your eyes and have a sleep for a while?”

It was the most ridiculous advice Andie’d ever heard. She’d been flirted with, shocked out of her skin, thrown right into the bowels of despair reliving her mother’s death, then pushed around by a greedy bunch of vultures waiting outside her house. How could she possibly just close her eyes and fall asleep? She closed them anyway.

When Andie floated back to consciousness, she was surrounded in warmth. She breathed in the scent of sandalwood and warm man and snuggled closer. She seemed to be floating in the air. It was like being in the middle of a cloud. Except for the hardness underneath her cheek, and the heartbeat that thudded in her ear as it rested on that warm, firm surface. “Mmm,” she murmured.

“We’re here.”

Andie heard the words, and felt them rumble through the surface beneath her cheek. Her eyes flicked open, and the soft, dreamy state she’d been in evaporated in a heartbeat. “What… Put me down.”

Her body tilted, the warmth disappeared from behind her legs, and then she felt solid ground under her feet.

“I’ll just find the key.”

Ryan left her standing on the doorstep of a cottage smothered in some sort of red-leaved creeper. He picked up flowerpots and looked under them, apparently without any luck, if the curse words he muttered were any indication.

“She said third.”

Ryan darted her a glance. “Right.”

As he stooped, the denim of Ryan’s jeans pulled tight against his rear. Andie felt her cheeks heat in a flush. It was hardly polite to be checking him out. She glanced away. It wasn’t anything personal, it was just
reflex
.

She bit her lip as a little voice inside disagreed.
Right
. It might be reflex to check out a man surreptitiously, but it
wasn’t
reflex to have your heart bounce around like a tennis ball in your chest in response. There was nothing reflex about that.

He scrabbled under a large blue glazed pot. “Got it.”

Straightening, he looked at her strangely. No doubt because of the flush that she could feel painting her firehouse red again. “You okay?”

“Of course.” What was it they said? Something about the best form of defense being a good offence? She lifted her chin, and strode in through the door he swung open.

Dust motes danced in the air. The front door opened straight into a bright sitting room. Andie breathed in the musty scent. It had obviously been closed up for a while.

Ryan strode to the window and jerked it open. “There’ll be nothing in the fridge, but Brianne always has coffee and whitener. She can’t function without it.” He grinned and walked into a small room leading off the sitting room. “Found it. Do you want a cup?”

“Yes.” Andie glanced around the room, building a mental picture of the elusive Brianne with every glance.
Color
. The woman was obviously all about color. The walls were painted a warm yellow, and a large portrait of a pre-Raphaelite beauty hung over the fireplace. A basket of logs sat next to the grate, and a brightly patterned rag rug covered the polished floorboards.

“She only uses this place at weekends.” Ryan walked through with two mugs of coffee. “It’s her bolt hole.”

“Must be nice to have friends like her,” Andie said. She had plenty of friends she could call on in a crisis. They’d all been there for her since her mother’s death, and she knew they wouldn’t hesitate to offer their homes to her if she asked.

Somehow the thought of Ryan having a female friend he was so close to set a niggle of disquiet in her stomach. Maybe this stranger was the one he’d meant when he’d joked he was frightened of marriage.

Ryan set the mugs on the coffee table.

Andie picked up a framed photograph from the mantelpiece.

A couple stood smiling into the camera. Ryan, with his arm around a smaller woman whose hair was cut in a smooth, pixie-like cap, rather like Audrey Hepburn’s. Her wide smile lit up the photograph.