Wed in Wyoming

скачать книгу бесплатно


She huffed again and threw herself down on the pillow. “Blow out the candles.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” He got up and did so, turning the small, cozily lit room into one that was dark as pitch.

She was silent. So silent he couldn’t even hear her breathe.

“You all right?”

“It’s really dark.”

He wondered how hard it had been for Angeline to admit that. She damn sure wouldn’t appreciate him noticing the hint of vulnerability in her smooth, cool voice.

Two steps to his right and he reached the dresser. The small tin of matches was next to the pitcher and bowl and he found that easily, too. A scrape of the match against the wall, a spit of a spark, the flare of sulfur, and the tiny flame seemed to light up the place again. “I can leave one of the candles lit.”

“You said you weren’t a gentleman.”

He set the flame to one of the candles and shook out the match. “I’m not,” he assured.

“Then stop acting like one, because now I have to give you room on this bed, too.” She moved on the mattress, and the iron frame squeaked softly. She groaned and covered her face with her hand.

He laughed softly. “It’s just a few squeaky springs. I doubt any of the good sisters are holding glasses against these thick walls hoping for a listen. You act like you’ve never shared a bed with a guy before.”

She didn’t move. Not just that she was still, but that she really didn’t move.

And for a guy who’d generally considered himself quick on the uptake, he realized that this time he’d been mighty damn slow. “Ah. I…see.” Though he didn’t. Not really. She was twenty-nine years old. How did a woman—a woman who looked like her, yet, with her intelligence, her caring, her…everything—how the hell did she get to be that age and never sleep with a guy?

“Why are you still—why haven’t you ever—oh, hell.” Disgruntled more at himself than at her, he scraped his hand down his face. “Forget it. It’s none of my business.”

“No,” she agreed. “It’s not. Now, are you going to sleep on the bed or not?”

He snatched up the pillow from the floor and tossed it beside her.

She’s a virgin. The thought—more like a taunt—kept circling inside his head. Probably what he got for catching a glimpse of that sexy underwear of hers when he’d promised not to look.

He lay down next to her, and the iron bed gave a raucous groan.

“Not one word,” she whispered fiercely.

That worked just fine for him.

Chapter Four

Angeline didn’t expect to sleep well.

She knew she’d sleep, simply because she’d learned long ago to sleep when the opportunity presented itself. And even though Brody’s long body was lying next to hers, his weight indenting the mattress just enough that the only way she could keep from rolling toward him was to hang on to the opposite edge of the mattress, she figured she would still manage to catch some z’s.

What she didn’t expect, however, was to sleep soundly enough, deeply enough, to miss Brody leaving the bed.

Or to find that someone had filled the pitcher on the dresser and laid out a freshly folded hand towel on the dresser top.

Okay. So she’d really slept soundly.

Not so unusual, she reasoned, as she dashed chilly water over her face and pressed the towel to her cheeks. Making that climb in the storm had been exhausting.

Or maybe you’re more comfortable with Brody than you’d like to admit.

She turned and went out of the room, leaving that annoying voice behind.

As before, the corridor was empty, still lit by candles in the sconces. She went down the stairs, visited the long, vaguely industrial-like restroom and then went searching.

But when she reached the ground floor without encountering the impossible-to-miss dining hall, she knew she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

Annoyed with herself, she turned on her heel, intending to head back and make another pass at it, but a muffled sound stopped her in her tracks.

Footsteps?

Nervousness charged through her veins and she tried to shake it off. She was in a convent, for pity’s sake. What harm could come to them there?

Even if the nuns realized the identity fraud they were perpetrating, what would they be likely to do about it, other than call the authorities, or kick them out into the storm? It wasn’t as if they’d put them in chains in a dungeon.

Nevertheless, Angeline still looked around warily, trying to get her bearings. She went over to the nearest window, but it was too far above her head. She couldn’t see out even when she tried to jump up and catch the narrow sill with her fingers. So she stood still, pressing a hand to her thumping heart, willing it to quiet as she listened for another sound, another brush of feet, a swish of long black robes.

But all she heard now was silence. She was listening so hard that when melodious bells began chiming, she very nearly jumped out of her skin.

She leaned back against the roughly textured wall and waited for the chiming to end.

“If you’re praying, there’s a chapel within spitting distance.”

Her heart seemed to seize up for the eternal moment it took to recognize the deep, male voice.

She opened her eyes and looked at Brody. She came from a family of tall, generally oversized men, much like Brody. And she was used to the odd quietness with which most of them moved. But Brody seemed to take that particular skill to an entirely new level. “It’s a good thing my heart is healthy,” she told him tartly, “because you could give a person a heart attack the way you sneak around!”

“Who needs to sneak?”

“Evidently you do,” she returned in the same quiet whisper he was using.

Despite the wrinkles in his gender-neutral tunic and pants, he looked revoltingly fresh, particularly compared to the rode-hard-and-put-up-wet way that she felt.

“Did you know you pretty much sleep like the dead?”

She wasn’t going to argue the point with him when ordinarily, as a result of her paramedic training, she was quite a light sleeper. “What are you doing sneaking around? Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s almost 3:00 a.m. And what are you doing sneaking around? I’ve been trying to find you for ten minutes.”

“I needed the restroom,” she whispered. A portion of the truth at least.

He cocked his head. “You got your boots on. Good.” He closed his long fingers around her wrist and started walking along the hallway, sticking his head through doorways as he went. “While you were dreaming of handsome princes, I was scoping out this place. Hard to believe, but the fine sisters have an interesting collection of vehicles.”

Her stomach clenched. “You’ll ask to borrow one?”

Despite the dim lighting, she could tell that his expression didn’t change one iota.

She swallowed a groan. “We can’t steal one of their cars,” she said under her breath.

“Babe.” He sounded wounded. “Steal is a harsh word.” He stopped short and she nearly bumped into him. “I like borrow better.”

“That only works when you intend to ask permission to do so,” she pointed out the obvious.

“Details. You’re always getting hung up on details.” He reached up and plucked a candle out of one of the sconces, then pulled open the door beside him and nudged her through. “I wanna move fast, but we’ve gotta stay quiet. Think you can manage that?”

Her lips parted. “Yes, I can be quiet,” she assured, a little more loudly than she ought.

He raised his eyebrows and she pressed her lips together, miming the turning of a key next to them.

His lips quirked. “Good girl.”

The spurt of nervousness she’d felt before was nothing compared to the way she felt now as Brody drew her through the doorway. He stopped long enough to hold the door as it closed without a sound.

After tramping down a warren of alarmingly narrow halls, the tile floor gave way to hard-packed dirt.

She swallowed again, feeling like they were heading down into the bowels of the mountain. “Did you sleep at all? How long did it take you to discover this rat maze? Do you even know where we’re going?”

He paused again, letting her catch up and the candle flame stopped the wild dance of light it cast on the walls. “Yeah, I slept enough. And yeah, I know where we’re going. Don’t you trust me? We’re going to get the kids and get the hell outta Dodge while the going’s good.”

“But what about your big first-things-first speech?”

“You slept some, didn’t you?” His voice was light. “And ate.”

She pressed her lips together, determined not to argue. “Your sudden rush just surprised me,” she finally managed stiffly.

“Well, along with their various vehicles,” he said in such a reasonable tone that she felt like smacking him, “the fine sisters here have a satellite phone system. Hardly the kind of thing one would expect, but hey. Maybe one of the local politicians figures he’s buying his way into heaven or something. Anyway, I checked with my handler. The Stanleys have been moved again. And despite the weather, the Mother Superior has found a guide to get her back to her flock. She’s supposed to be here shortly after sunup.”

“A guide,” Angeline echoed. Her irritation dissolved. “What kind of guide?”

“The kind who won’t let a washed-out road get in his way.”

“You don’t think it’s that Rico person who searched Sophia and Hewitt’s place?”

His gaze didn’t waver.

Dismay congealed inside her stomach. “This is a nightmare.”

“Nah. Could be worse. Way worse,” he assured.

She looked over her shoulder in the direction from which they’d come. What was worse? Going forward or going back? Either way, she really, really wanted to get out of this narrow, closed-in tunnel. She looked back at him only to encounter the look he was giving her—sharp eyed despite the gloom. “What?”

“You tell me. What’s bothering you?”

Aside from the entire situation? She moistened her lips. “I, um, I just don’t much care for tunnels.”

He held the candle above his head, looking up. Then he moved the candle to one side. And the other.

She knew what he was looking at. The ceiling overhead was stucco. The walls on either side of them were stuccoed, as well. And though the floor was dirt, it wasn’t as if it were the kind of dirt that had been on the road where the Jeep had gotten stuck. Her boots had encountered no ruts. It seemed perfectly smooth, perfectly compacted.

Not exactly a tunnel.

She knew that’s what Brody was thinking.

But “We’re almost there,” was all he said. “Think you can stand it for another couple minutes?”

Pride lifted her chin if nothing else would. This was part of St. Agnes, not a culvert running beneath the city of Atlanta. “Of course.”

He didn’t smile. Just gave a single nod and turned forward again.

His simple acceptance of her assurance went considerably further than if he’d taken her hand and drawn her along with him like some frightened child. She focused on watching him, rather than the confining space, as they continued their brisk pace.

As he’d promised, it was only a few minutes—if that—before she followed Brody around another corner, up several iron stairs and out into the dark, wet air. A vine-twined trellis overhead kept the drizzling rain from hitting them, though Angeline shivered as the air penetrated her clothes.

Thunder was a steady roll, punctuated by the brilliant flicker of lightning.

She got a quick impression of hedges and rows of plants. The convent’s garden? Surely there would have been an easier route to take.