Dark Watch

“Well, when the Russians rescued the Chinese off the Selandria, there weren’t enough beds around Petropavlovsk to house them, so they put about a thousand men into a hangar at the airport until they figured out what to do with them. So after Savich told me the name, I went into the hangar with him, explained to a few of the men there that Savich was responsible for what had happened to them, and, well, let nature take its course.”

Juan glanced at Linc.

“Like the man said, we promised not to kill him. Never said anything about turning him over to his victims. Guy had already stopped screaming by the time we were out of earshot.”

That was what had sent Juan back to Switzerland for a meeting with Bernhard Volkmann, which, as Juan recalled while sipping at his brandy, had gone as well as he’d expected.

Volkmann had agreed to buy the sixty tons of gold that had followed Juan to Switzerland in a couple of airfreight containers. He agreed to establish a trust with half the proceeds on behalf of the Chinese workers who’d mined the gold, and he agreed that he would then sell his bank and retire to the slums of Calcutta, where he would devote the rest of his life to charity.

For his part, Juan agreed not to put a bullet through the greedy bastard’s head.

A light knock on his door jerked Juan back to the present. The press interest in the explosion and kidnapping of Rudolph Isphording had long faded, and he looked nothing like the dark-haired, dark-eyed, and mustached Spaniard he’d pretended to be when he’d rented the safe house, so he walked calmly across the living room and swung open the door.

“Hi, sailor, remember me?” Tory wore her hair up, accenting the long line of her neck, and her blue eyes captured the glow of the fireplace and reflected it back at Juan. She wore a loose gray suit over a white oxford shirt buttoned low enough to catch his attention. Her lips were brushed with gloss and were poised in an unsure smile.

“I never expected to see you again,” Juan finally stammered. She’d disappeared soon after the Oregon docked in Vladivostok without so much as a word of good-bye.

Her smile faded slightly. “Are you going to invite me in?”

“Sure, sure.”

He fixed her a drink and was careful to sit opposite her in a chair rather than next to her on the couch facing the fire.

“I didn’t think you were going to see me again,” she began, “but Max called me in London and dispelled some of my preconceived notions. I saw you as the rakish sea captain with your merry band of swashbucklers and figured you would have a girl in every port. I realized that I didn’t want to be another notch on your sword belt, so rather than let myself get hurt for falling for the wrong kind of man — again — I decided to go home and spare myself a touch of heartache.

“Then Max called me. He told me that you don’t keep a woman in every port, and in fact in all the years he’s known you, he’s never seen you even go on a date. He told me you were widowed and that your wife was killed by a drunk driver. He says you don’t have a single picture of her and only told him about her one night years ago, but that since her death you’ve cut yourself off from relationships.”

Juan made to speak, but Tory silenced him by crossing to the chair and placing one delicate finger across his lips.

“Max also told me that since I left, you’ve been an insufferable sod, which is why he called me. He seems to think you might like me, and was pretty certain I liked you. So here I am, flying in on a wing and a prayer. How about it? Remember what you told me. Only big risks can bring you big rewards.”

“Only Max ever knew I was married, and I didn’t tell him the whole truth,” Juan said softly. “She was killed by a drunk driver, but what I didn’t say is that she was the drunk. It was ten, no, eleven years ago. She had been to rehab twice already, but it never really stuck. I didn’t know she’d relapsed this time. When I saw the cop standing outside my door that night, I knew immediately what had happened.”

“I’m sorry.” Tory’s hand rested on Juan’s chest. “And you still carry a torch.”

He stared into her eyes. “I still carry the anger.”

The silence stretched for several seconds. “You’re not angry at her, are you.” It wasn’t a question. “It’s yourself you blame.”

“Who else can I?”

“Her, for one.” Tory shrugged out of her jacket. “Listen, Juan. Max told me you’ve already have another job lined up, and I’ve only a week’s leave from Lloyd’s. I’m not asking that you drop everything and marry me. I’m not even asking that you love me. I’m asking that for once you stop taking the blame for everything bad in the world and let yourself enjoy some of the good. When was the last time you were intimate with a woman?”

The frankness of the question sent a stirring jolt through his lower body and inside him a dam he’d spent half a lifetime erecting crashed down in a swirl of emotion. His hand wrapped around the back of her head of its own volition, his fingers entwined in her hair. “Since…”