Billie has a theory that every life has a soundtrack. Some people are big band people or smooth jazz. Others are pure Baroque opera theatricality. Her soundtrack is not that glamorous. “Delta Dawn” was on the jukebox when her mother left her—age twelve, sitting in a strip mall pizza joint—and never came back.
And “If You Could Read My Mind” is being played by a soft-rock combo in a hotel bar in Chicago when she is passing time, waiting to meet up with her partner for the first job after a debacle in Zanzibar. Vance Gilchrist, her mission leader for the assignment, has been unstinting in his report and she realizes she will be watched to see if she makes a habit of going off piste. This is a chance to redeem herself and she means to make the most of it.
She sits at the bar, nursing a glass of tepid Chablis while the singer invokes ghosts and wishing wells, and feeling faintly sick to her stomach with anticipation as she goes over the coded exchange they are supposed to use to establish contact.
“Is anyone sitting here?”
She glances up and falls—at least that’s how it feels. It is a second, maybe two, before she answers. But two seconds is a long time when your life cracks open.
He isn’t handsome, not like the polished-up pretty boys Natalie favors. This one needs a second look, but that look is a killer. He has maybe five inches on her, and an easy, loose-limbed way of holding himself that only comes with the bone-deep confidence of knowing there is nothing on earth you’re afraid of. He wears a washed-out Henley and faded jeans with a battered leather jacket and a pair of Frye boots that have seen a dozen years of hard wear. A narrow silver bracelet circles one wrist and a knotted cotton braid wraps around the other. He has the sort of light brown hair that goes gold with too much sun, just unruly and wavy enough to bury your fists in when you’re kissing hard. His beard and mustache are about two days past needing a trim if you mind about that sort of thing. Billie doesn’t.
He has been looking down the bar to signal the bartender, but he turns to her and gives an almost imperceptible start, a brief widening of deep brown eyes and the slightest parting of the lips.
“Oh.” It isn’t a whisper; it is an exhalation, a statement. He gives her a long look that seems to say, It’s you. Finally.
“Yeah,” she answers. He turns back to the bartender and lifts his hand as he levers himself onto the stool beside her. A minute later the bartender sets a beer in front of him, the liquid in the bottle fizzing gently. He swings it to his mouth and takes a long swallow, looks hard at her, then takes another.
“I don’t think I have it in me to play this cool,” he says finally. He takes another deep drink.
“Me either. Or maybe I’ve just seen too many Streisand movies. I mean, the way she looks at Robert Redford and he looks back . . .” She lets her voice trail off. She isn’t wrong about what is happening, and the fact that he feels it too seems like a very small miracle. But she doesn’t believe in miracles. She reminds herself they are strangers. Perfect, combustible strangers.
“Shit,” he says, putting the beer carefully onto the bar. “As much as I’d like to forget about the job right now, there’s no way we can—”
“I know that,” she tells him.
“It’s my first time leading a mission and there are rules about fraternization,” he says more to himself than to her. “I can’t screw this up.” In spite of the rugged American clothes, there is the slightest lilt of an English accent.
“You won’t.”
He takes another drink of his beer, pulling down half the bottle while she swallows the lukewarm Chablis. He turns to her. “I already have. We’ve forgotten the protocol. Do you like baseball?”
She struggles for a minute with the non sequitur, then remembers the code. “Yes, but I’m afraid I’m a Cubs fan. No chance of making the Series this year.”
“Not since they traded Burris.” He finishes the exchange.
They spend the next few minutes drinking silently. “Christopher Taverner,” he says finally. “Kit.”
“Billie Webster.”
“I know.” He lifts one brow and her cheeks go hot. Of course he knows. As leader of the mission, he’d have been given her dossier complete with photos. “They don’t do you justice, by the way,” he tells her, intuiting her thoughts.
“Well, they didn’t get my best side,” she says.
He laughs, sharp and sudden, and there is a roughness to the sound that makes her want to drown in it.
“So, what now, English?” she asks.
The brow is back. She will get to know that brow well, always cocked at the same angle as his mouth when he is amused. “English?”
“The accent. I’m very observant.”
“I can see that. Well, ordinarily, this conversation would move to a more private place, like my room,” he says softly, nodding upwards. “But in the circumstances, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Probably not,” she agrees.
He smiles, a crooked, lopsided smile that carries just enough sadness to break what is left of her heart. His gaze drops to her mouth, to the tiny scar just above her lip.
“What happened there?”
“I got in a fight with a raccoon.” The smile flickers up, then his eyes grow serious.
“Do I need to kick someone’s ass?” He puffs his chest just enough to shift a pendant loose from the neck of his shirt. It is a small medallion of some sort, but she can’t make it out. She drags her eyes away from the golden hair on his chest as she answers him.
“I already did.”
“Good. You can be the muscle in this relationship.”
“Relationship?”
“Oh yeah. I figure we’ll last a few weeks trying to pretend this isn’t happening and then jack it all in to run away together and spend the rest of our lives having lots of sex and babies.”
She laughs. “You’re ridiculous.”
“That’s no way to talk to the future father of your children.”
“I’m not giving up my job,” she says.
“Christ, I hope not. Somebody has to make the money. I’ll stay home and do the cooking. I look damned good in an apron.”
“I bet you do, English.”
They smile like conspirators and finish their drinks.
He takes a deep breath. “That was fun, Webster. But we both know this is as far as it goes. I can’t risk it.”
She rolls her eyes. “You can’t risk it? If we broke the rules, which one of us do you think they’d bounce out on her pretty ass? I haven’t proven myself yet. I’m expendable and I know it.” She pauses. “You’ve never had this problem on a job before?”
“My last job was with a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Irishman with halitosis and a fondness for milkshakes, which do terrible things to his digestive system.”
“He sounds dreamy.”
“I’ll give you his number when this is finished.”
He drops a few bills next to his empty bottle and pushes away from the bar as he tucks his wallet into his hip pocket. “I’ll knock when I stick the file under your door. Don’t answer it, whatever you do, and destroy the file after you’ve read it. We’ll meet up again tomorrow morning.”
He hesitates, then puts out his hand. She takes it and it feels exactly like she knew it would, warm and strong. Lifeline hands, the kind you hold on to when everything else in the world is spinning away. The only surprise is the calluses on the tips of his fingers.
“Garrote wire?” she asks quietly.
“Guitar,” he says. “I play a little.”
“Of course you do. Now tell me you have a motorcycle so I can eat my heart out completely.”
He holds her hand a minute too long, giving her that lopsided grin that makes her heart do calisthenics in her chest. “Tomorrow. Nine am sharp in the coffee shop across the street. Sleep tight, Webster.”
“Good night, English.”
He moves behind her, stopping just long enough to bend near, his mouth grazing the curve of her ear. “And I ride a Norton 850 Commando.”