Protect Me, Love Part 10

What they did find was another unlocked door with a yellow note stuck to it. "Penelopea"Come on in," the note said in a scrawl that could have been Samuel's.

Delia had her hand on the doork.n.o.b when Nick reached out and took her arm.

"Let me go first," he said. He already had his gun out.

"I guess that's necessary?" she asked, looking at the weapon.

"Yes, it is."

She gazed up at him for a moment, then took her hand off the k.n.o.b and stepped aside with a resigned sigh. She had to know that even if there was only Samuel on the other side of this door, and even if Nick was fight about her brother posing no real danger to anybody, erring on the side of caution was always best. St'dl, Nick could understand why she might not want her first meeting with her brother in many, "many years to begin at gunpoint. Nick had his weapon at. the ready all the same as he turned the doork.n.o.b slowly, then eased the door open inch by inch, just as he had at Penelope's place.

What greeted them inside could hardly have been more disarming. The splas.h.i.+ng shower was clearly audible from down the hall into the interior of the apartment, and above that, the sound of singing. A tuneless ditty it was, unrecognizable and quite loud, the kind of thing a non singer belts out in the shower for the fun of it when n.o.body is around to hear. Nick looked back over his shoulder at Delia, and she returned his glance. Some release of tension was obvious from her expression. Nick, on the other hand, wasn't ready to relax just yet.

The apartment was the kind he'd like to live in himself if he were a permanent New Yorker. The ceilings were high, probably ten feet, and the living room was large with an archway into an only slightly smaller dining area. The walls of the living room were covered with paintings from waist height up. Delia was studying the paintings with a curious expression on her face. "Quite a collection," Nick remarked.

"Yes." She sounded lost in thought as she Wandered along one side of the room and examined the pieces above an artfully faded burgundy velvet sofa. "What do you think?"

She turned to look at him. The curiosity in her eyes had turned to something deeper, as if she might be trying to figure out a perturbing problem.

"I think I'm impressed," she said.

"I get the feeling that I've seen paintings like these before. Not the same ones, but something like them. I just can't remember where it was."

"My father's study," she said. Her voice seemed to come from somewhere far off. "You saw a collection very much like this one in my father's study."

She was right. Her father did have his study walls crammed with paintings, just like these were, paintings of a similar style, as well.

"Do you see any of your father's paintings here?" Nick asked. "Would you remember if you did?"

"I'd remember all right. That study was my favorite room in the house.

I spent a lot of time there looking at those walls."

Now that she mentioned it, Nick did member her disappearing into her father's study for hours at a time. She probably would recognize if these were the same pictures. Nick was relieved to hear that they weren't. There were already more than enough mysteries to deal with in this situation.

"So, what do you think?" she asked him, as he had asked her moments before.

"I'm not Sure I know what to think." "Don't tell me you're not asking yourself the same question I'm asking myself." "What question is that?" She turned and walked toward him across the Oriental carpet that covered the center of the floor. "The question I'm asking myself," she said, "is whether I actually believe this art collection could long to my brother Samuel." Nick thought about that for a moment. "Well, Samuel and your father spent a lot of time together: Maybe they talked about art some of that time. Maybe your father taught him things." "Everything I ever heard about Samuel's mental condition would suggest he'd have a lot of trouble taking in anything so complex as the principles of creating an art collection." "But that was back then. We don't know what could have happened to Samuel in between." She was standing in front of Nick now, studying his face much like she'd just been studying the paintings on the walls of this graciously sedate room. "That's right," she said. "We don't know what's happened to him in between." She sighed and looked away from Nick's face, toward the tall windows overlooking the Hudson River. Nick couldn't see her face, but he could hear the wistful sadness in her voice. Nick felt a pang in his heart for her. Still, he couldn't help wondering yet again how much of what he Saw in Delia now was really and truly her and how much was the person she'd made up to show the world. "Maybe Samuel found a miracle." Nick spoke tenderly despite his doubts about her.

"Maybe."

She cleared her throat and turned abruptly back toward him. He could see her recomposing herself, snapping herself back into the carefully controlled woman she was anytime other than when they were making love.

"Let's have a look at the other rooms," she said. She swept past him before he could take hold of her and maybe even pull her into his arms. Nick was the one to sigh this time. Then he remembered what he should have been thinking about all along. He was supposed to be in the lead. They had no idea what they were going to run into here. He could still hear the shower, more loudly now that they were back out in the hallway again. The enthusiastic singing had stopped. Even so, Nick had to admit this didn't seem like a very dangerous place. Probably the guy's voice gave out. How long can anybody sing at the top of their lungs, anyway?

Still, Delia shouldn't be out front like she was with Nick tagging along. He'd let his distractions into the way he felt about her make him forget his job again. He hurried after her, but she'd already turned into a doorway to the left just past the dining room. She didn't even hesitate so much as an instant to check the interior of the room before walking in. That was a surefire way to get caught in an ambush. Nick cursed under his breath and brought his gun to ready position once more. When he got to the doorway she'd entered, he held himself back from das.h.i.+ng in there even though he wanted to. If she was in trouble, he wouldn't be much help if he went barreling into danger right along with her.

Nick backed himself against the wall and took a deep breath to focus himself. He edged closer to the door way and very gradually peeked around into the room. Delia was alone in what looked to be somebody's study. She was in the midst of a slow, visual sweep of the walls. She turned gradually as she looked, appearing to examine each new angle in great detail until finally she was facing the doorway and Nick standing there watching her. He'd lowered the gun to his side, but her eyes found it there immediately.

"Please, put that away," she said.

He might have protested that they were in unfamiliar territory here, but what he saw in her eyes kept him from doing that. He tucked the gun into the back of his belt instead and took a step toward her. He hadn't entirely understood that he was about to take her into his arms until she spoke again. She waved her hand in front of her first, as if to draw a line in front of her. "Don't" was all she said, but he could see instantly what she meant. She needed not to be touched right now. What he didn't comprehend was why. The bewilderment in her eyes told him he had to find out.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"That's what I want to know." Her voice was trembling. "That's what I have to know."

"About what?" He could barely stand to see her this way without being close enough to comfort her.

She swept her arm around in a circle to indicate the room without looking back at it.

"About this?"

Nick followed the direction of her gesture. It took a minute to sink in, but then he saw what she was talking about. The imprint of her father's taste was everywhere. Nick could see that more readily here because of the hours he'd spent in Edward Lester's study all those years ago in Colorado. Suddenly, Nick understood what was feeling. He felt some of it himself, as if he'd been transported back to a better, happier time only to be slapped in the face with the reminder that this better time was gone forever.

Nick moved into the room then, despite her having asked him not to. She was moving, too, turned away from him and walking toward the desk at the opposite end of the room in front of a window onto Riverside Park and the morning. Nick followed, reaching out toward her. He wanted to hold her, however hard she might resist, until she was quiet in his arms. He wanted to make her feel safe there, from the sadness of the past and the uncertainty of the present. At the moment nothing could matter to him morea"which would explain why he didn't see what else was happening in that room till it was too late to be prepared for it.

Chapter Nineteen.

For a wonderful and terrible, moment Delia thought it was her father bursting through the gla.s.s doors from the dining area into the study. His presence was so much with her in this room filled with books le those he'd read, furniture in his particular taste, objects he would love, that she'd half expected him to walk in even before the rattle of gla.s.s and slamming open of the double doors announced an arrival. Then she saw those eyes, in a flash only, as they glinted at her on the way to their true target. It was the man who'd stalked her from her office and tried to a.s.sault her at the Waldorf Hotel, but she wasn't his intended victim this morning, at least not his first intended victim. He was after Nick.

The initial onslaught happened so fast she could barely register what was going on. The man with the burning eyes crashed into the room and was on top of Nick in an instant. She saw the attacker reach behind Nick. In seconds, he was brandis.h.i.+ng the gun Nick had had in the waistband of his jeans. In another flash, both men had their hands on the weapon as they each struggled for possession. All Delia could think of was how she'd told Nick to put the gun away, and if she hadn't done that he wouldn't be in so much danger now. The pain of that thought thudded into the pit of her stomach. Then she heard a loud clatter and her prayers were answered. The gun was out of the attacker's hand and sliding across the floor.

Of course, that meant the gun was out f Nick's hands as well. They were fighting unarmed, grabbing at each other and trying to land punches that mostly half connected as they shoved from one side of the room to the other, toppling a chair and jarring books from the shelves.

Delia was struck by how different the smoothly ch.o.r.eographed fight scenes in movies were from the real thing. She also didn't intend to be like the women in some of those films who stood around and shrieked while a man battled on her behalf. Delia would do her part, too. She had a weapon of her own. Or so she thought. She felt in her coat pocket for the Beretta, but it wasn't there. Maybe it had dropped from her pocket during their ride in the cab. Whatever might have happened, the gun was gone, and she needed to find the one Nick and his attacker had just let go of.

She'd heard it bounce along the floor in the general direction of the doorway to the hall. She'd have to make her way past the two grappling men to get there. She waited what seemed like forever for them to move out of her path. She had begun to brush past them when a hand snaked out of nowhere and clamped onto her forearm. She knew instantly that this hand didn't belong to Nick. He would never touch her so roughly or growl at her as his opponent in combat was doing now. Her reaction was instantaneous.

"Take your hands off me," she shouted, and there was a growl in her voice, too.

She balled her free hand into a fist and began pounding at his wrist. Instinctively she knew that would be the weakest area of his grip. She pounded with all her strength and all her anger, and none of her blows failed to connect with their mark. He gripped tighter at first. Then, as she continued to punish his wrist, she could feel that grip slacken. In the meantime he also had only one arm and fist free with which to fight off Nick. It occurred to Delia, in one of those flashes of understanding that can come at the most unlikely times, that whoever this guy was he must have thought she was making an escape out the door when he grabbed her. He had to want to keep her from leaving in the worst way or he wouldn't have made himself so vulnerable to Nick.

The consequences of that action were swift and certain. Delia felt as much as saw the fast-rising arc of Nick's right arm. That arm then descended in a flash of motion and didn't miss its target this time. Nick socked his opponent so hard that the shock of the impact shook Delia, as well. Suddenly the grasp on her was gone. Instantly she was at the doorway, crouched over and searching the floor for Nick's gun. She didn't see it anywhere. Could it have slid far enough to travel through the doorway into the hall?

She was about to dash out there for a look when she noticed the chair that had been shoved askew in the struggle that was still going on despite the punch she'd hoped would be decisive in Nick's favor. The chair rested against the bookcase with one leg knocked up onto the bottom shelf. It was that kiltered angle that had kept Delia from noticing the gun. She dove for the chair so fast she almost struck her head on the lamp table next to it. She did manage to knock the lamp to the floor with a crash.

The two men at the other side of the room both glanced in her direction for an instant. Nick's attacker must have figured out what she had in mind to do he-cause he tried to get away from Nick in a hard lunge, probably to grab her again. She could see Nick straining not to break his hold. This guy with the crazy eyes was a fierce fighter even against somebody as powerful as Nick. She was sure Nick would win out in the end, but it looked like he'd have to take a painful heating on the way to that victory. Delia wasn't going to let that happen. She reached under the chair and felt for the gun. She all but cried out with joy when her fingers touched it. She was back on her feet in a flash with the gun gripped in both hands and pointed just as she'd seen Nick do.

"You can take your hands off him now," she shouted.

Once again the men halted their fevered wrestling to look in her direction. In that instant she saw those crazy eyes more clearly than ever. Their maniacal gleam blazed into her as if they had the power to send her into flames and their owner was willing them to do just that. A shudder of fear rocketed through her. Suddenly she understood that she was gazing into the face of not just craziness but evil, as well. Her breath caught in her throat so hard she couldn't exhale. For the second time that day, all she wanted to do was run. She'd run out of this study that reminded her of her father. She'd run out of this building she wished she had never come to. Most of all, she would run away from these eyes that were telling her as clearly as if they had voice how much she was in danger of harm.

Nick, still straining to hold on to his enemy, managed a nod in her direction. She knew that was a signal for her to act. He needed her help, and he needed it now. Five years of relentlessly tuned escape instincts struggled with that need and her response to it as violently as these two men were struggling. Then she saw Nick's eyes, so different from that other pair. Nick's eyes were dark and fathoms deep. They beckoned her, and that beckoning reached through her fear. In the shadowed light of her lover's eyes, she found her courage once again.

"I said let go of him," she shouted. "Let go of him or I'll shoot you."

She meant that, even though she'd never physically harmed another human being in her life aad could not have imagined herself doing so before this moment. She knew she could shoot this man now and deal with how she'd feel about it later. He must have known that, too, because he backed away from Nick, only a step at first, then farther as she motioned with the barrel of the gun for him to do so. The man let go of Nick. Delia had to force herself to look into the attacker's disturbing eyes. Otherwise he might doubt her resolve to do him as much damage, if necessary, as he longed to do her.

Nick was at her side the instant he was released. He put his hand over hers with the gun in it. She didn't let go. An impulse more basic than reason had clamped this weapon into her grip and refused to give ground now for anyone. If she'd stopped to describe what that steel-hard resolve felt like, she would have called it primitive. This was about survival, as surely as all combat against a sworn enemy had ever been, and she was determined to prevail. Nick tugged at her grip on the gun once more.

"I'll take it now," he said, dose to her ear and still a little out of breath.

"No," she said. She'd been breathless, too, a moment ago. Now she was as calm and steady as the rock hardness of her resolve. "Find something to' tie him up with, then we'll get out of here."

Nick kept his hand on hers a moment longer.

"I can handle this," she said, and she knew she could. "Please, just tie him up now."

Nick must have heard both the determination and the pleading in those words because he let go of her hand and reached for the lamp she'd knocked to the floor when she was going for the gun. The lamp cord had been pulled out of the wall socket. He picked up the lamp in one hand and wrapped the cord around the fist of the other. He gave the cord a mighty yank and snapped it free of the lamp base. He hurried to the other man's side and forced his hands behind his back. Minutes later Nick had his attacker trussed up tight.

Delia waited till Nick had preceded her out of the study door. Then she backed out of the room still pointing the gun at the "man who lay so supposedly helpless on the floor. Craziness and evil had been subdued, but only for the moment. He would be back after her again probably very soon. She was sure of that. Still, she couldn't bring herself to put the pressure on her trigger finger that would have put an end to that probability. Instead she turned and run after Nick down the hallway toward at least momentary escape.

NICK DIDN'T TRY to talk to Delia right away. He could tell by her eyes that he shouldn't. They were set and staring, almost as if she might be walking in her sleep. She'd been through so much these past few days and even more this morning. He would have liked to take her in his arms and hold her tight so she'd know she was safe, but gently so she'd know he cared. He did care, more than he could remember ever caring. At least for right now he wouldn't let himself think about how many doubts and problems came with allowing this particular woman inside his heart. He only let himself think about how much she needed him and how much he wanted to fill those needs.

All the same, he didn't take her in his arms or even stand very close to her in the elevator ride back to street level. She was giving off clearly discernible signals that she'd gone off into an isolated part of herself and didn't want anyone to follow. He understood that she needed this solitude for her mind to adjust to the shattering blows of just these past few hoursa"discovery of a body on a bathroom floor, attack by a crazed mana"not to mention five years of constant tension and uncertainty. That could put anybody in the way of needing some downtime. He left her alone because of that. Besides, she still had the gun.

They were by themselves in the elevator. Nick didn't say anything about the drawn weapon she held in the hand hanging at her side. When they walked through the lobby, he edged close enough to block any view of what she was carrying. He cast what he suspected might look like a nervous smile in the doorman's direction. If the man noticed anything at all peculiar in that, he was too well trained in discretion to let it show. When Nick and Delia were finally outside, he breathed a sigh that sent a cloud of vapor into the cold, crisp air.

He turned left and, fortunately, she followed, out from under the building's awning and away from that area of visibility through the gla.s.s front doors. He waited till they were well away from that entrance be-foe moving off from the center of the sidewalk into the Ice of another building where they'd be less conspicuous. He mentally crossed his fingers that she'd follow. He breathed another cloud of vapor when she did. She turned with him as if there were a string attached from his shoulder to hers and she'd been programmed to take her cues from any tug on that connection.

*-"You can give me the gun now," he said in a carefully even tone.

She looked up at him, raising her eyes slowly from their straight ahead stare to his face. He didn't detect any of what he would call recognition there at first. She'd merely transferred her blank stare to a new target.

"I'd like you to give the gun to me now," he said. He continued to betray no hint of urgency though he knew exactly how urgent it in fact was to get that gun away from her in her present, unpredictable state. Meanwhile he thought he might have seen a flicker of something in her eyes, but maybe he only wished it would be there.

"Delia, it's me. Nick."

"I know who you are."

Her answer was so unexpected he almost jumped at the sound. He had to remind himself not to make any startling moves.

"I thought you wanted this," she said.

She was holding the gun in front of her and toward him. He reached carefully across the s.p.a.ce between them, still taking extra care not to do anything alarming, especially while the gun was pointed at his midsection. He touched the gun barrel first and eased its aim gradually outward toward the currently empty street. He slipped his fingers over hers on the grip and was about to say something he hoped would coax her to let go. She did so all of a sudden then, without being asked. Fortunately, Nick's instincts were keener than he might have expected after so much stress and strain. He clamped his fingers around the gun before it could clatter down onto the sidewalk.

"I'm hungry," she said as matter-of-factly as if they were out for nothing more than a morning, or actually by now midday, stroll "There's a diner not far from here on Broadway."

She turned away from him without another word and began walking east on Ninety-first Street.

Chapter Twenty.

They were seated in a booth at the Argo Restaurant before Delia came fully back to herself. She'd ordered a hearty breakfast though it was well past breakfast time. She wanted the comfort a steaming plate of eggs scrambled soft and home fries would give her. Being in this diner also helped. Greek-owned diners were a neighborhood staple just about everywhere in Manhattan. There was a uniformity about them, especially in the way they smelled, as if they all brewed their soup in the same communal pot each morning. That kind of reliability felt good to Delia right now. The only thing out of the ordinary were the signs of the season, carols playing in the background and colored lights strung along the wall shelf behind the counter. Unfortunately, their off and on twinkle reminded her of Penelope Wren's living room.

Delia turned away from that reminder. Nick sat watching her from across the table while his coffee cooled in front of him. His expression was very perplexed, as if he might be watching a bomb that might or might not explode. His bewilderment struck her as very funny somehow. Despite all the horrendous things that had been happening to her and around her, maybe in defiance of them, she began to laugh. The sound was almost foreign to her at first. She hadn't heard herself laugh in what felt like an extremely long time. She hadn't thought about it till this minute, but she really hadn't laughed much in general over the past five years. That realization made part of her want to stop laughing and start crying, but she didn't.

"Are you all right?"

The very tentative way he asked that, as though he saw her as an eggsh.e.l.l so fragile even a raise in his voice could collapse her sh.e.l.l, sent her into another gale of laughter more irrepressible than the first. She tried to choke it back, but there was no stopping the peals of what sounded like merriment trilling through her and out of her. The other patrons of the diner looked quizzically her way. She took a deep breath and clamped her mouth shut. Several more small eruptions burst through the bulwark, but they were considerably reserved compared to the uncontrolled guffawing of a moment ago. She kept herself staring at the Formica table in front of her. She wasn't ready to look at Nick just yet. She was certain she'd be set off into further paroxysms if she did.

"Delia, are you all right? Can you talk to me?" Two questions at once. Oh, no! She nodded yes to the first and shook her head no to the second. The absurdity of that was more than she could stand. She burst out giggling this time, like she couldn't remember herself doing since her teenage pajama party days. She knew she had to stop this and get back under control. She was close to gasping for breath. She bent over, put her forehead on the table and tried to focus on the coolness of the Formica-topped surface while sporadic spasms continued to escape then began gradually to subside.

She said a small, silent prayer that she would be able to pull herself together and stay that way. When she finally thought it was safe to lift her head, she found the waiter standing by the table with a full plate of food held just a few inches above where her head had been on the table. She clamped her teeth down hard on her lower lip.

"She's remembering something funny," Nick said, and Delia had to bite her lip even harder.

The waiter looked at her, shrugged, then set the plate down in front of her. "No matter," he said. "In New York I see everything."

Fortunately for Delia's struggle toward decorum, he" walked away after that. She gulped in another deep breath, then another.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear," she chanted as she resolved to compose herself right this very minute. Nick was still watching her and still perplexed. She could feel that without looking at him. "I'm all right," she managed in a voice quavering on the edge of her hard-fought-for control. "Just a little tension release, I guess."

She inhaled deeply and let her breath out slowly each time. The yoga cla.s.s she'd taken a couple of years ago was coming in handy now.

"I can think of worse ways of getting rid of stress," he said, sounding relieved.

She looked up at him then, at his dark, shadowed eyes and the tumble of thick hair blown thicker still by the winter wind. Suddenly the impulse to laugh had disappeared.

"I can think of a better way," she said.

Her near whisper carried with it a charge of s.e.xual energy that crackled across the table. She saw Nick suck in his breath fast and knew the charge had connected.

"I think we'd better stick to the business at hand for the moment," he said after a few deep breaths of his own.

An image of the two of them together on top of this table flashed across Delia's mind. They were tearing each other's clothes off while plates and cuff cry crashed to the floor around them. She felt her pulse race and had to gasp again. First a spastic fit of laughter, now vivid turn-on fantasies. She absolutely had to get a grip on herself.

"And what is the business at hand?" she forced herself to ask. She was still shaky.

"Well, to start with, I don't believe Samuel lives in that apartment we were just in," Nick said as he continued to eye her warily.

"What makes you say that?"

Nick leaned so close across the table she could smell his clean, masculine scent. Delia had to will herself to concentrate on what he was saying.