Red Midnight (7 page)

“Get your coat and come along, Miss McCabe,” he said with a spurt of velvet patience. “You already look sadly undernourished. I would be shirking my duty to allow an American tourist to starve, even if we’re not quite in my realm of jurisdiction as of yet.”

Startled, Erin ignored his less than complimentary appraisal and quizzically met his amused stare. “Jurisdiction?” she murmured. “Just what are you, Mr. Steele?”

“A troubleshooter,” he said briefly, escorting her quickly to her couchette for her coat, then off the train with a proprietary expertise.

Erin frowned. She would not be answered so briefly when her confusion was so vast. “A troubleshooter? Are you with the U.S. government? With the American embassy in Moscow?”

He hesitated only slightly and shrugged. “Well, I’m an American, and I’m assigned to the United States embassy. Actually though, I work for the United Nations.”

Incongruously, Erin took one look at her escort’s steel and granite features and began to laugh.

“What’s so amusing, Miss McCabe?” he demanded sharply.

“Nothing!” she murmured, then felt a tensing of the strong fingers that held her and the relentless demand of his stare. She attempted to sober herself and stuttered an explanation. “I mean … I mean … you! United Nations! Peace and harmony and diplomacy …” Her voice trailed away. Apparently he didn’t appreciate the ironic humor of the situation. Erin cleared her throat uneasily and escaped his hold to descend the coach steps to the steam-fogged platform. The shock of the frigid night air set her shivering, and she suddenly discovered a warm arm around her shoulder, enveloping her against the heat of her accidental companion.

She was warmed, but her shivers didn’t cease. She had the strange feeling she had been offered the dangerously explosive heat of a deceptively dormant volcano.

I
T COULDN’T HAVE BEEN
more than fifteen degrees Fahrenheit on the platform, but the frigid weather didn’t seem to bother Jarod Steele as he quickly led Erin to the restaurant’s door.

The restaurant itself was cozy and warm. It was also loud and smoky, but the boisterousness was encouraging to Erin. She glanced around in fascination, glad she had chosen to enter Russia by train. The people and scenery of this Finnish border stop offered the kind of experience she would have missed on a route tour.

“Miss McCabe?”

Erin noted a resurgence of impatience in her unwilling escort’s tone. A none-too-gentle tug on the arm informed her that he was not as fascinated as she and in a hurry to secure a table. Propelled would be the only way to describe his leading her as he chose a table, curtly seated her, and sat across from her.

“What would you like?” he inquired. “I’m afraid you’ll find little to resemble alfalfa or bean sprouts.”

“What?”

He grinned. “Aren’t you continually dieting, Miss McCabe?”

Erin sighed, determined to be patient. “No, Mr. Steele, I hate to disillusion you, but I never diet. I’m afraid my appetite somewhat resembles that of a trucker.”

He hiked up a rather dubious brow, but dropped that particular vein of discussion. “What would you like?” he inquired.

He knew damned well she couldn’t read the menu. It was written in three languages, but English was not one of them. Her recognition of Russian characters was nonexistent, her Finnish was little better, and she could make out about approximately three of the words that were in French.

“What do you suggest?” she inquired lightly.

“The lamb stew is good.”

“Lamb stew sounds fine.”

Bread and butter appeared on the table quickly; a harried waitress hastily took their order. Only moments later their food arrived in deep steaming bowls along with two glasses of curiously dark liquid.

“It’s a native Finnish beer, served warm, Miss McCabe. You seemed willing to sample all that was native, so I took the liberty of ordering two.”

Erin smiled with very dry sweetness. “Thank you.”

The warm beer wasn’t bad, and the stew was delicious. She didn’t realize just how ravenous she was until she glanced up to find Jarod Steele staring at her, the amusement in his eyes warm and genuine for once rather than cynical. “You do have the appetite of a trucker—a small one at least.”

Erin flushed slightly and sipped at her beer. “I warned you,” she murmured.

“It just seems rather incredible. You’re little more than skin and bones.”

“High metabolism,” Erin shrugged.

Jarod leaned back in his chair, pushing his plate aside as he reached into his breast pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Erin, which she accepted, and he politely lit them both. Then he continued with his nerve-tingling stare through the cloud of smoke.

“To what, Miss McCabe,” he finally queried, “does the U.S.S.R. owe the honor of your presence?”

Exposed nerve endings seemed to grate throughout Erin’s body. If she were ever lulled into believing he considered her human, she would be an idiot.

Erin returned his stare with no change of countenance. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I thought you said you were with the United Nations, Mr. Steele,” she murmured softly, arching a slender brow with innocence. “Not the KGB.”

“Clever, Miss McCabe,” he acknowledged with a slight inclination of his head, “but hardly an answer.”

“I didn’t care for the phrasing of the question.”

“Do forgive me. I’ll start over. What is one of America’s favorite faces doing wandering around eastern Europe alone? Moscow by train from Finland is not one of the leading advertisements in your general tourist office. One would have thought Erin McCabe would opt for Paris or Monte Carlo—Morocco, perhaps—but the Soviet Union? In late winter?”

Erin patiently inhaled on her cigarette once more. “I’m fascinated by history, Mr. Steele, pure and simple. Russia has always intrigued me. A friend of mine owns a tourist agency and she helped me plan this trip.”

“Oh,” was his reply, short, apparently innocent. Yet it was the most irritating use of the word Erin had ever heard. It implied a multitude of things, among them blatant cynicism. She was about to snap out her annoyance, but their waitress seemed to have timed her return trip to collect their check as if attuned to Jarod Steele’s convenience. Erin felt her annoyance with him fade as she belatedly winced with a more strident annoyance directed at herself. She had nothing with her, and she didn’t want a man tike Steele paying her way even for a phone call.

“I’m sorry,” she said crisply as the waitress disappeared with Jarod’s money. “I left my bag on the train. I’ll reimburse you as soon as we’re aboard.”

“I don’t wish to be reimbursed,” he practically snapped as he stood, moving behind her to assist her up with such smooth agility that she had no choice but to politely accept his overture. His hand was upon her elbow once more—was the touch even more proprietary now?—and once more she felt herself propelled along, stormed by command, but so dazed by the electricity that never failed to spark that she couldn’t think to protest his natural assumption of authority and assert herself.

“Russian trains leave on time,” he said curtly as her glance at the restaurant’s door must have nakedly displayed a rebellion against his rough haste. Then the door was open and they were hit with a blast of excruciating cold.

Even if he disliked her, Erin mused between the painful and almost deafening chattering of her teeth, there was something simply too basically male about Jarod Steele for him not to immediately assume the role of protector. She suddenly found herself no longer escorted but swept into a secure hold against the strength and heat of his body as he carried her the several feet to the train.

“That—that wa—wasn’t necessary,” she stuttered, still shivering in uncontrollable spasms as he brought her back into the relative warmth of the train’s hallway. He merely lifted a brow, and Erin fell silent. It hadn’t been necessary, but it had been damned convenient. He had saved them an eternity of seconds with his swift action.

“You’re easier to carry than drag along,” he replied, setting her down before the door to her couchette. Blue icefire eyes met her rather wide ones. “Good-night, Miss McCabe.”

“Good-night,” she replied, thoroughly irritated by the tremor in her voice. “Thank you for dinner,” she managed more nonchalantly.

“The pleasure was mine.”

Somehow, Erin didn’t think so. Her eyes met his with that cryptic challenge, but he merely smiled and turned, disappearing into the door of his own couchette. Erin stepped inside and closed her door, leaning against it as he had earlier. She felt breathless and weak and disoriented—and all because a man who evidently disliked her had held her in his arms.

“This is certainly a little ridiculous,” she chastised herself aloud in a soft murmur. But she couldn’t shake her strange feelings. Where his arms had touched she could still feel the heat; the alluring scent that was after-shave and all male lingered around her.

She suddenly realized she was quivering from head to toe. She felt as if there were a glittering prize sitting before her, and if she just reached out it could be hers. But she couldn’t reach out because she was scared to death.

How absurd, she thought, shaking herself. There was nothing to reach out and grab. She was going to get some sleep, and she wasn’t going to think about the strange Mr. Steele.

Carrying out her resolution didn’t prove to be at all difficult. She followed her mechanical night-time routine, brushing her teeth, washing her face, and industriously combing out her hair, then slid into a warm emerald flannel gown and hurriedly brought her cold toes beneath the crisp sheets and heavy blanket on the bunk. The feeling was wonderfully warm and cozy. She might have been thinking about Jarod Steele, but she didn’t do so for long.

Her sleep was very deep; it took some time to interrupt. Erin began to frown from the hazy depths of oblivion, to open her eyes with a start. Above her stood a man, an extremely poker-faced man, in an immaculate and tight-fitting uniform of red and gray. He was impatiently rattling off words in what she was beginning to recognize as Russian. Apparently he had been attempting to wake her for several minutes. His irritation was becoming evident.

Erin bolted to a sitting position in the bunk. The border, she thought, we’ve come to the border. He wants my papers.

Erin smiled, but the man’s face didn’t lose its severity. Her smile turning to an inward grimace, Erin slid her bare feet from the bunk, remembering ruefully that Mary had warned her that crossing the Soviet border would be a no-nonsense affair.

“Please!” she murmured, padding quickly to her purse and extracting the, papers she assumed he wanted. He accepted them, glanced over them quickly with an astute eye, and pocketed them, shaking his head as Erin reached to retrieve them, halting with surprise. The slate-eyed man motioned for her to sit, and Erin numbly did so.

She watched the man as he began to comb through her couchette. He appeared to be about thirty, in the peak of fitness and health, and his manner was a strange combination of civility and determination.

Wonderful, Erin thought. He is most courteously scaring the hell out of me.

He emptied the contents of her purse and neatly replaced them. Her luggage was next. To give the man credit, he was careful to see that her neatly arranged stacks of lingerie, sweaters, dresses, skirts, shirts, and jeans were just as neat as when he had begun his search. Erin folded her hands and stared blankly at her fingers to hide her nervousness, only to glance back up and find the guard staring at her with chilling reproach and accusation—the bananas she had craved in Helsinki and then summarily forgotten, held high in his hands.

Oh, hell! Erin thought sickly, berating herself for such sound stupidity. Bananas. I’m about to be in some kind of trouble over a stupid yellow fruit I don’t even like. Did they put you in jail for bananas? she wondered, fighting a wave of panic. Surely not….

“I’m sorry,” she began to murmur, lacing her fingers together and clenching them, tightly. “I knew—I was aware I couldn’t bring fruit into the country. I meant to eat them, you see, and then I forgot all about them. Couldn’t we just put them in the garbage?”

The slate stare of the young guard didn’t change. He began to approach Erin and it was all she could do to keep from screaming. But he meant her no harm—of the physical variety at least! He merely reached for her hand and brought her to her feet, positioning her near the cabin door. “Please,” he said as he motioned her to remain there. She had the feeling it was the one word he knew in English.

The man was more than thorough. Her bedding was ransacked, the closets and cabinets. Nothing was left unturned. Even the window shade was checked; it rattled as he spun it carefully, filling the night with a sharp, discordant sound.

Had the discovery of the bananas initiated further search, she wondered, or was this customary? Mary, she thought belatedly, you were right, I should have come with a tour….

Her heart seemed to catch in her throat as he turned back to her. She didn’t need a translator to tell her he was still, for some enigmatic reason, dissatisfied. He caught her arm—once more his grip polite but very, very professionally cold, and proceeded to open her couchette door. Where is he taking me? Erin wondered desperately. She felt as if she would fall in another second, she was so damned scared. If only she knew what was going on.

Clad only in her flannel gown, her hair mussed and wild from sleep, she felt the beginnings of panic settle in, and she automatically began to work a bracelet around her left wrist. The harsh, alien man beside her, now barking orders in a glacial voice she couldn’t begin to comprehend, became a terrifying entity.

No, she told herself, don’t give way to fear. This is probably customary. He is not being cruel, merely professional. I have done nothing. I am guilty of nothing but stupidity, and buying bananas. She would laugh about it one day. It would be an adventure to tell. But right now she was about to lose control and fall to the floor in panic-stricken tears.

“Spasee’ ba! Ne noo’ zhna!”