Undercover Mistress

Chapter 7

The kiss tasted like pot roast and hot, hungry man, and all Celia could think about was how delicious it was, and how long it had been since she’d indulged herself with either of those, and how sorry she was about that now, and…what had she been thinking, anyway? Because this-the hungry-man part-was as good as anything in life ever gets, and she kissed him back with blissful abandon, unhurried, aching with the unbearable sweetness of it, like someone savoring a bite of chocolate cake after a long, wretched denial.

When he pulled away from her-though not far-she licked her lips and let go a careful breath, vibrant with regret.

“Wow.” His voice was muffled, the word soft on her face.

“Yeah,” she said, eyes still closed, still smiling-before she remembered she was Celia Cross, a TV star, for God’s sake, and she ought to have some pride, dammit.

She opened her eyes and got them focused on the face so unnervingly near to hers, and was faintly surprised at the expression she saw there. Puzzled, she thought. Or maybe the word was…bemused.

“Tell me something…Roy,” she said, trying his name out loud for the first time-and again was surprised, this time by the queer little tremor that went through her when she said it. As when she’d seen his face in the light for the first time, it made him seem more real…brought her one step closer to knowing him…and did she really want that? She couldn’t think-didn’t want to. “Why on earth did you do that?”

His breath was warm on her face. “Tell you the truth, I’m not sure.” He was frowning; his fingers moved in her hair as if testing the texture of some fine, rare fabric.

Shivers cascaded through her; goose bumps prickled her scalp and poured over her body. Her nipples hardened. Solemn as a doctor delivering bad news, she said, “You’re badly injured, you know. You must’ve lost an awful lot of blood. You can’t stand up without fainting.” And then, sternly, “What were you thinking?”

“I dunno…something about…proving I’m still alive, I guess.” His lips tilted in a smile of charming irony that affected her the way the smell of baking bread would a starving man. She swallowed as he went on, “You know-the drive to survive…something primitive like that.”

She made a disparaging sound, but her heart wasn’t in it. Maybe because his hand had found its way under her shirt, and his fingers were brushing her back in that exploring way…as if acquainting himself with the feel, the unique texture of her.

“But…doesn’t it…hurt?” Her voice had grown breathless and hushed. His hand felt so good. “Your wound, I mean. I’d think-”

“Oh, hell yeah. But who-”

“Oh God-I’m sorry-you should’ve said-”

She was trying to shift her weight when his arms tightened around her with surprising strength. “Like I started to say, who cares?” His eyes seemed to smoulder as they looked at her. “Tell you what, though,” he growled. “You really want to make me feel better, you can kiss me again. And this time, come here to me. I’m an injured man-don’t make me come up there and get you.”

He is a pirate, she thought, quaking with laughter and a strange and delicious fear. At this moment, he could have just about anything he wanted from me, and I wouldn’t know how to defend myself against him.

And from somewhere far away, as she slowly dipped her smile to touch his, came the thought: Why on earth would I want to?

A pleased little chuckle bubbled up from her chest, and he answered it with one so fat with masculine smugness it should have enraged her-but didn’t. Then the pressure of his hand cupping the back of her head closed the last of the distance between her mouth and his, and she gave up thinking entirely. She plunged into the kiss, the moment, the fantasy like a giddy child into a vat of ping-pong balls, fully aware that what she was doing bore about as much resemblance to real life as that.

But, oh, how good it felt! And what marvelous, wonderful fun it was…

And then, suddenly, it wasn’t fun anymore. Oh, the desire still sizzled along her nerves and thumped in her body’s secret places, but now, instead of joy, it was tears stinging behind her eyelids, and pain cramped her belly just beneath the places where the newly healed scars puckered her skin. Somewhere inside her, an anguished child was crying, This is good-but it’s not enough! I want more!

She wanted him to make love to her, yes-so badly her whole body ached with it-and that in itself was astonishing. But at the same time she felt grief-stricken, because she knew if he did, it would never be enough.

I want more! I want…I want…

But she couldn’t say it, not even in her mind. Because what she wanted was a fantasy not even she, who’d lived in a fantasy world all her life, could find a way to describe with words.

Roy knew the moment it went haywire. He felt a shudder go through her, which could have been good, but somehow wasn’t. Instead of a vibrant, passionate woman, what this reminded him of was the way it felt to hold a captured rabbit in his hands.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

She’d torn her mouth from his and tilted her face downward, so his words emerged, rasping and guttural, against the watermark frown in the middle of her forehead. Her skin felt moist on his lips, as if she were coming out of a fever.

Her head rolled from side to side. In a muffled voice, she mumbled, “We can’t do this. How can you, even? You’ve been shot…you almost died…”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” Hell, how did he know? Some kind of biological imperative, maybe? Survival of the species? All he knew for certain was, he’d never felt a more powerful hunger for a woman than he did for her at that moment.

“Doc could walk in. Your friend Max-you said he’d be here ‘in a minute.’”

“He’s not my friend, he’s my handler,” he muttered. Then he swore softly and vehemently. After that, for a long time he didn’t say anything, because he wanted in the worst way to deny the sense in what she’d said and was flashing back to a time in his youth when he’d tried hard to delude himself-and others-into believing it really was possible to die from unresolved arousal. But breathing in her scent, that light, sweet flower fragrance he couldn’t place, he felt her body grow still in his arms. Inevitably, a similar acceptance came like cool rain to dampen his own raging fires.

After a while, he said in an aggrieved tone, “Did I mention you’re a very exasperatin’ woman?”

“You did.” She said it without lifting her head, aiming the words at his chest, but he thought he could hear a smile come into her voice. “And if I recall, I took it as a compliment.”

“Exasperating…and weird. When I said you were beautiful, which I thought was a compliment, you took it as an insult.”

“Yeah, well…”

Regret sliced through him like physical pain as she eased herself off of him, careful to avoid his wounded side, and scooted to the edge of the bed. She sat there for several moments, hands braced beside her, rocking herself slightly, face turned away from him, letting the silence lengthen.

Consoling himself with the visual feast of her…the long, supple lines, the graceful curve of neck and shoulder, the rapturous tumble of sun-shot hair, it struck Roy once more how beautiful she really was-easily the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Holding her in his arms, kissing her, he’d managed to forget that-and pretty much everything else, too, of course, including how much every part of him really did still hurt, and the vital nature of the mission he’d failed to complete-but especially that. Now, though, with the truth of it staring him in the face, the thought smacked him upside the head: Man, what were you thinking?

“What’s up with that?” He pillowed his head on one folded arm and aimed the question at her back, his voice an abrasive intrusion in a silence that had been allowed to linger too long. “I thought women liked to be told they’re pretty.”

She threw him a fierce dark look over one shoulder, a look he couldn’t read. “It’s nothing. Except, just once, I’d like-”

“What?” he demanded when she broke it off with a frustrated exhalation. “Don’t do that. What would you like? Tell me.”

It was nervy of him to say that to her, he supposed, and for a while he was sure she wouldn’t answer him. She sat very still, gazing along her shoulder at nothing, her profile revealing the same sad look she’d worn before when he’d mentioned how beautiful she was. He couldn’t explain it, but he really wanted to know why. He felt a strange certainty the answer was going to provide an important key to what made this woman tick.

With an equally strange certainty, he knew he wanted that key. What he wasn’t sure about was what he might do with it once he had it.

“Just once,” Celia said softly, “I’d like to be admired for something I’m responsible for. Do you understand?”

She shifted around to look at him then, a frown rippling the center of her forehead, and he forgot about the fact that she was an actress and thought about all the expressions he’d seen her wear on that lovely face of hers, and how none of them had tugged at his heart the way this one did.

“Listen. I look the way I do because I got good genes-big deal. My looks…and my acting ability…they were a gift. An inheritance.” Her gaze shifted again, this time to the pictures on the wall. “I’ve been beautiful and famous since the day I was born. And don’t get me wrong-” her smile was wry, now, but it didn’t entirely erase the wistfulness “-I’m very grateful to my parents. But I’m thirty-two years old, and I’d like to think I’ve done something with my life that I could be proud of.”

“Looks to me like you’ve done okay,” Roy said gruffly, nodding toward the row of golden statuettes on the top shelf.

She followed his gaze and made a disparaging sound. “Those? Well, the Oscars are my parents’, of course. As for the Emmys, let me tell you-”

But before she could, the doorbell rang. “That will be your friend, I’m sure,” Celia said lightly, as she rose to answer it. And Roy, who not so long ago would have given just about anything to hear that sound, now found himself silently cursing Max for being so damn prompt.

Halfway across the room, she paused, turned, then nodded toward the row of Emmys. “You want to know how much those are worth?” she said in an amused, conversational tone. “I haven’t appeared on the show I won them for in over a year. You want to know how much they miss me? To accommodate my ‘indefinite’ leave of absence, ‘Nurse Suzanne’ has been presumed to be dead after her plane went down somewhere in the Amazon jungle. Now-my contract comes up for renewal next spring, at which time one of three things will happen: If my contract is renewed and I decide to return to the show, Nurse Suzanne will be miraculously discovered tending the natives in some remote village. If it isn’t, either someone new will be cast in the role, and Nurse Suzanne will be miraculously resurrected following extensive plastic surgery to heal her terrible wounds, or no one will be cast in the role, and poor Nurse Suzanne will remain dead-‘dead’ being, of course, a tentative condition in daytime drama. Either way, with or without me the show goes on.”

The doorbell pealed again, more insistently. Celia threw Roy a dazzling, movie-star smile and went out, leaving him dazed and wondering whether any of the emotions he’d just witnessed were for real, or if he’d just been treated to an Emmy-worthy performance by one of the best actresses he’d ever seen.

In the living room, Celia paused to rake her fingers through her hair and draw several deep, cleansing breaths. It’s like being in a play, she told herself. All this adrenaline churning…butterflies rampaging… Exit, stage left. New Scene-a few minutes later-Celia enters, stage right.

Blowing out the last of the breaths in an explosive whoosh, she affixed a charming hostess’s smile to her lips, marched to the front door and threw it open.

“Hel-lo,” she said warmly to the man who stood there looking edgy, hand upraised to press the doorbell for the third time. “You must be Max. Won’t you come in?”

The man appeared to be around fifty, about her height and wiry in build. Even though his nose was rather large and his grayish brown hair was thinning, he was attractive in a way, possibly because he had a very nice smile. He was wearing jeans and a Hawaiian print shirt and sunglasses, the last of which he peeled off to reveal an astonished stare.

He muttered a profane exclamation, for which he immediately apologized. “Sorry. You really are Celia Cross. I thought-hell, I don’t know what I thought. My wife is never going to believe this…” He shook his head and his voice trailed off as he moved past her into the house, tucking the sunglasses into the pocket of his shirt and looking about him with undisguised interest.

In the living room, he halted, apparently transfixed by the view. When Celia joined him, he turned to her with a gleam of amusement in his keen gray eyes and said dryly, “Nice place.”

“Thank you.” She smiled back and decided she definitely liked him.

“So.” Deliberately turning away from the vast Pacific beyond the glass, Max took in a breath and lifted his eyebrows. “Where’s my boy?”

My boy? Liking the man more by the minute, Celia hid her delight and murmured, “This way,” as she made a graceful gesture for him to follow her. She was rather enjoying the role of gracious hostess as she led him to the room behind the stairs, knocked lightly as she pushed the door open, then stood aside like a well-trained housemaid for him to enter.

As he slipped past her, Max gave an explosive exclamation, the same one with which he’d greeted Celia at the front door. That was followed by, “Man, what the hell happened?”

“He was shot,” Celia offered. “Among other things.”

She thought Roy looked rather comical, actually, standing beside the bed with his head and one arm through the appropriate openings of the sweatshirt she’d given him to wear. The rest of the shirt was rolled up around his neck, leaving his chest and torso, complete with its Technicolor assortment of bandages, bruises and abrasions, mostly bare.

The look on Max’s face as he walked slowly toward him was like someone coming upon a tethered leopard-equal parts dismay and awe, with a healthy amount of caution.

Celia’s, as she gazed at the long, tapering lines of body disappearing into the sweats she’d once worn herself…sweats that now rode perilously low on narrow masculine flanks…must have reflected something very different. Remembering how that body had felt under hers, she had a sudden and terrible need to swallow-except she couldn’t, because her mouth had gone dry.

“I can’t lift my damn arm,” Roy muttered, throwing her a furious glare, as though it was somehow her fault. Transferring the glare to Max, he immediately contradicted his first statement with a growled, “I’m okay-I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Like a patient father helping a child dress for kindergarten, Max calmly lifted Roy’s arm and directed it into the proper sleeve opening.

Celia diverted herself to the easy chair where she perched on the arm and folded her arms across her waist. From there, she watched jealously as Max guided Roy to the edge of the bed and gently sat him down.

“Okay,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and frowning down at Roy’s glowering face, “let’s hear it. What the hell happened?”

Instead of answering, Roy stared meaningfully at Max and jerked his head toward Celia. Then, switching to her and showing his teeth in what he no doubt thought was a winning smile, he said jovially, “Hey…Celia…could I maybe get a glass of water? Or better yet, how about a cuppa coffee? What about you, Max? You want something to drink?”

“Uh, sure,” said Max, “that’d be great. Whatever you have.” But he flicked her a look of apology that made her inclined to forgive him.

Roy, however… What did he think she was-five?

Max’s eyes followed Celia as she rose with dignity, dipped her head in acquiescence and floated from the room.

“I can’t believe you,” he said in a low voice, after a long enough pause to make sure she’d really gone. “That’s Celia Cross you just treated like the hired help. Celia Cross.”

Roy shifted around and scowled, trying to pretend he wasn’t feeling uncomfortable about that himself. “So she’s an actress,” he muttered. “In a soap opera. Big deal. Anyway, she’s been trying to get me to eat and drink stuff ever since she hauled me in here. She’s probably thrilled I asked her for something.”

“I can’t believe you,” Max said again. “Where’ve you been living, under a rock? Or are you just too young to remember?” he paused to shake his head dolefully. “God, I feel old…”

“You are old,” said Roy, secure in the knowledge that Max had at least fifteen years on him. “Remember what?”

“Not what-who.” He jerked his head toward the biggest of the pictures on the wall, a framed movie poster. “Frederick Cross and Alice Merryhill-just about the greatest husband-and-wife team ever to grace the silver screen. They were…Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers without the music. Unforgettable.” He sighed, shaking his head. “When they died-”

Sympathy kicked Roy under his ribs. Or maybe old memories of the daddy he’d lost too young. “What happened to them?”

“Plane crash-small plane, in Africa, I think it was the early Eighties. Celia would’ve been just a kid. Oh-yeah-” he paused to throw Roy an accusing look “-that woman you’ve been ordering around like the maid? She’s their daughter-their only child. True Hollywood royalty, man.”

“Well, hell,” Roy said moodily, gazing at the poster, “I thought she looked sorta familiar.”

Celia was pacing in the kitchen like a caged lioness. She was about as angry as she could ever remember being.

How dare he? I found him. Washed up on the beach like a chunk of driftwood. I saved his life. He talked to me-okay, he was out of his head, but still…I was there. He talked to me. How dare he shut me out now? Banish me like a child? I deserve a part in this, dammit! I earned it.

She stared down at the tray on the countertop in front of her, not seeing it, seeing instead images from the past thirty-six hours…a gaunt face, gray-frosted with sand…a bruised and battered body, dark against her flowered sheets…a naked body, lean and spare, coiled and tense, like a painting of some martyred saint. Remembering the way that same body had felt when she’d held it wrapped in her arms, sand-gritty and cold against her nakedness, and the strange, intense sense of ownership.

Okay…it was impossible to stay mad at him, remembering what it had felt like to be lying on top of that body, hot and vital and strong…wrapped in his arms. Remembering his mouth…the heat… the taste of it…

You’re pathetic, you know that? You’ve fallen for him. You have-admit it!

Impossible. I’ve known him what, two days? And most of that time, he’s been unconscious. I’d have to be crazy.

Yeah, but we’re not talking love, here. How long does it take to fall in lust? Face it, Celia. You’re not mad because you’re being excluded-you’re scared you’re going to lose him before you even have a chance to take him to bed. He’s going to leave and go back to his life, as exciting and dangerous as that may be, and you’re never going to see him again.

Celia found that she was shaking her head in silent denial. But even as she whispered, “No, uh-uh,” she knew it was true.

You’re like a little kid-“I found him, he’s mine!” Finders keepers, right?

All right, she thought, maybe I have fallen for him. Maybe I do want him. But it’s not just him I want. It’s the life he leads-a life that means something. Dammit, I want that, too.

This…thing-whatever it is-he’s involved in…there’s a part for me in it, too. I know there is. I’m not going to be shut out. I won’t let them shut…me…out.

She blinked the tray into focus and was surprised to find it laden with coffee cups and spoons and napkins. She had no recollection of having put them there. “Great,” she muttered aloud, “all I’ve done the past couple of days is fetch trays from the kitchen-now I’m doing it in my sleep.”

With that, she turned her back on the counter and the tray, opened the refrigerator, snatched up two bottles of gourmet iced tea-mango-flavored-and marched out of the kitchen.

Both men broke off talking when she entered the bedroom.

Ignoring their pointed silence and polite, waiting stares, Celia swept across the room and, like a grande duchess bestowing favors, handed each of them a sweating bottle of tea. Then she plunked herself down on the arm of the chair across from the two of them and folded her arms on her chest.

“You might as well let me stay,” she said, with an airy toss of her head to disguise the way her heart was pounding. “I know everything anyway.”

Max and Roy looked at each other. After a long and profound silence, Max said in an ominous tone, “Does she?”

Roy opened his mouth.

“Don’t blame him,” Celia said. “He was out of his head. He didn’t even know I was there. Well-actually, I think he thought I was you. He made a very good report-very complete. At least, it seemed like it to me. Lots of detail.”

Max tore his fascinated gaze from Celia and swiveled back to Roy. “Is that true?”

Roy cleared his throat. His eyes flicked toward Celia, and she felt an odd little thrill ripple through her. “I haven’t heard it all,” he said in a glum and resigned tone, “but from the part she’s told me, I’d have to say…yeah, it probably is.”

“Wow.” Max ran a hand back across his thinning hair, then left it clutching the back of his neck, which he began to rub as if he’d just developed an ache there. “This…could be a problem.”

“Tell me about it.”

Celia slid from the arm of the chair into the seat and leaned eagerly forward. “Actually…I think I can help you with your problem.” No stranger to the effectiveness of good timing, she paused, teeth clamped down on her lower lip, to let the suspense build.

Across from her, seated side by side on the bed, the two men exchanged “Is she for real?” looks.

It was Max who spoke, in a polite and wary tone. “And…what problem is it you think you can help us with?”

Celia delivered her money line, shivery with triumph. “You need to get someone onto Abby’s yacht, right? Well…it just so happens…I can do that for you. I can get on board that boat.”

Roy snorted and threw up his head like a startled horse. Max frowned and said, “Abby?”

“Yes-the Arab prince? Abdul Fayed Amir Abbas-or whatever… anyway, it’s Abby, to his friends.”

“Friends…” Max said faintly.

“Good Lord,” Roy exclaimed, staring at her, “you mean to tell me you know him?”

Celia flicked a gaze toward him, but it was like touching hot coals and she quickly brought it back to Max where she felt much safer. She wasn’t used to having men look at her the way Roy did-unless, of course, such a fierce and smoky look happened to be called for in the script.

But this-this wasn’t anything like having some actor standing in front of her, reading lines, feeding her cues. And she had no lines to give back to him, lines cleverly written by someone else. She was on her own. This was real. She could almost feel the heat radiating from those eyes…hear the tension singing in that taut body. And she knew when she continued, whatever she came up with, her voice wasn’t going to be as steady as she wanted it to be.

But I still…somehow…have to make them believe in me. I have to make them believe I can do this.

“I don’t know him well,” she said, locking eyes with Max and finding it was much easier if she pretended Roy wasn’t in the room. “But I have met him. Several times. At parties, and things. Look-” she lifted a hand and gestured toward the pictures on the walls “-you have to understand-the house my parents left me is right up there in the part of Bel Air where Abby’s is. It’s like a small town. If I hadn’t sold the house when I did-it was about the first thing I did when I turned twenty-five and came into my inheritance-too many memories…” She gave Max a shrug and a sad little smile. “Anyway…if I hadn’t sold that house, Abby would be my neighbor now. But then,” she added, turning up the wattage on the smile, “I wouldn’t have had this place, and I wouldn’t have been here to discover Roy washed up on the beach and saved his life. It’s like…kismet…isn’t it?”

“Did she do that?” Max asked Roy in an awed tone. “Find you on the beach?”

“’Fraid so,” Roy said. It was the sound a dangerous animal makes, low in its throat…just before it springs. “I was about to tell you.”

“Good God. How the hell did she get you in here?”

“Carried me.”

“Not…by herself.” Max’s tone was flatly disbelieving.

“Well, of course not,” Celia interjected, “I had help. But even with Doc, it wasn’t easy.”

Max’s glare snapped back to her. “Doc? Who the hell is this we’re talking about?”

“Yeah, that’s another thing,” Roy said ominously.

“Oh, never mind that now.” She switched her focus to Roy, bracing herself, willing him to look at her. Then he did, and it was worse than she’d expected. Her heart stumbled and began to beat even harder and faster.

She said breathlessly, “I saved your life. Dammit, you-”

“Don’t…say it-” His face squinched up in a grimace of extreme pain.

“-you owe me.”

Roy clamped a hand over his eyes and let out a gust of breath. “She had to say it.”

Max sat forward and clasped his hands together, elbows on his knees. “Miss Cross-”

“Oh-Celia, please.” She flashed him her most radiant smile.

He coughed, looked at his hands, then back at her. She thought his eyes seemed intelligent…measuring. Unlike Roy’s, which looked like something that could set off explosives. “Celia. What is it, exactly, that you want?”

She sat up straight and widened her eyes. “What do I want? Why…nothing, except what I said. I want to help, that’s all. We’re all fighting a war, right? I just want to do my part.” She felt an odd little thrill go through her as she realized she meant it-absolutely-and she finished in a quieter voice, keeping her eyes locked on Max’s, even though the words were meant for the person who was sitting next to him, simmering like an active volcano. “I can’t do much, but I can do this. You suspect Abby’s yacht is being used by terrorists, and you need to get someone on board to find out for sure. Well, I can get you there.” She paused. “Are you telling me you’re willing to pass up a chance like that?”

While Max studied her in thoughtful silence, Roy cleared his throat loudly. “You’re forgetting something,” he said, raspy anyway. “The prince’s thugs got a real good look at me. By this time, they’ve probably got me ID’d, as well.” Max looked at him. He lifted a shoulder. “I was about to tell you.”

Celia laughed, a light ripple of sound. “You’re forgetting where you are. I know people who can change your appearance so your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.”

“So do I,” Max said, studying her thoughtfully.

Roy looked at him and made a disgusted sound. “I can’t believe it. You’re actually considering this ridiculous notion of hers. It’s crazy, you know that. Lunacy. These people are dangerous. Trust me,” he added darkly, “I know.”

Max was gazing at Celia with narrowed eyes. “It’s not like she’s planning on joining special ops. Hell, during World War II, movie stars flew bombers. All she’s wanting to do is what she does anyway.” He gave her his very nice smile. “And very well, I might add. I don’t see how there’d be any danger…”

“Yeah, well, you can’t guarantee that. I’m not having any part of it.”

“It’s completely understandable you wouldn’t want to go back there again,” Celia said sweetly. “I’m sure Max can find someone else to go with me.” Her gaze followed Roy as he pushed himself awkwardly to his feet-she just couldn’t help it.

He stood glowering down at her, jaws black with beard, eyes black with fury, radiating heat and energy and danger…although…he did look a little silly, she thought fondly, with his hair all shower-rumpled, wearing baby blue sweats that were miles too short. But…with a shave and a good haircut, dressed in something…really classy…something elegant…say…Armani?

Oh, my. A wave of heat nearly knocked her over. She caught her breath audibly, and Roy instantly rounded on her with a suspicious, “What?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Nothing,” she lied. She couldn’t very well tell him she’d just gotten incredibly turned on from imagining him in clothes, could she?

Well, it’s because I’ve already seen him naked, she told herself. No imagination needed there at all.

With a supreme effort of will, she tore her gaze away from images of Roy-both real and fantasy-and turned back to Max, who was also getting to his feet, though with considerably less devastating effect on her senses.

“Fact of the matter is, if she’s right-” he nodded at Celia as he pulled his sunglasses out of the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt “-she can save us a whole lot of the one thing we don’t have enough of, and that’s time. We might not have a choice.”

He jabbed a finger at the yellow UCLA scrawled across Roy’s chest. “You-sit tight for the moment. Nobody knows you’re here-it’s a good safe house for you, until we know how badly your cover’s blown. I’m gonna send a company doctor to look you over, make sure you’re okay…get you some antibiotics. Meanwhile, I’ll run this idea of hers-” he nodded at Celia “-by the director, see what he says. And, I’m gonna need to talk to this Doc character, too. Where’d you say-”

“Next door,” said Celia, trying not to sound too eager. “Doc’s okay-really. His name is Peter Cavendish. He’s a real doctor, just…well-” she bit down on her lower lip and gave him a winsome smile “-not currently licensed to practice. But that’s good,” she added quickly when she saw Max and Roy exchange glances, “because it means the last thing he’s going to do is tell anyone about this. Right?” She beamed at Max as she took his arm.

Roy thought he could actually hear his teeth grinding together. His knew his stomach was in knots, and the phrase over my dead body kept running through his brain. He really wanted to kick someone’s butt-Max’s, for instance-but was pretty sure if he tried it, he’d only fall flat on his own.

“I don’t suppose you remembered to bring me some clothes,” he called plaintively.

In the doorway, Max snapped his fingers and half turned to give him a shrug of apology. “You know…I didn’t. Sorry-I was kind of in a hurry to get here.” His grin went crooked and all the humor went out of it. “Hey, I thought for sure you were dead. When I didn’t hear…” He cleared his throat, then tilted his head toward Celia. “She’s right, you know.” He smiled at her along his shoulder. “You do owe her. Big-time.”

The two of them walked out of the room together, arm in arm, cozy as two kids heading off to the prom. Just as they disappeared from view, Roy heard Max say, “Could I get your autograph? It’s for my wife-she’s a big, huge soap opera fan…”