Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance (5 page)

John let her have the moment to collect herself, not at all sure what he would—or should—do anyway.

He hated indecision. His intellect was at war with his emotions—a common problem when dealing with Cali Ellis. He could almost sympathize with her father.

“My father trusted Nathan. It was the perfect compromise. I would marry a man I loved, one who’d already proven he could protect an ambassador’s daughter. I was able to get out again, live like a normal person.” Her voice faltered. “For six whole months.”

“I’m sorry, Cali.” And he was. As much as he’d
wanted her, still wanted her, he’d never wished her to be in pain.

“It was a tough time. With Nathan gone and my difficulty with my miscarriage, I knew my father would demand that I come back and stay with him as he had after the kidnapping. I couldn’t, John. I know he loves me, but I just couldn’t. I think that’s partly why I called you that night.”

She looked across the room at him, her expression almost begging him to understand. He had to force himself to stay put. “Cali—”

“No, let me say it. I knew that when push came to shove, you wouldn’t make me do anything I didn’t really want to do. I also knew you wouldn’t let me wallow in my grief either. I’m sorry I put you in such a tough position—”

“Cali, stop.” John closed the distance between them before he’d consciously decided to move. He stopped just in front of her. When she wouldn’t look at him, he cupped her cheek. Once their eyes met he let his hand fall away.

“I shouldn’t have left you when I did. I should have stayed. Helped you somehow.”

“No, that’s not true. I’d already asked more from you than I had a right to. He was your friend, too, and I wasn’t letting you grieve the way you wanted to, needed to.”

He traced the smooth line of her jaw, fully aware of the fine trembling sensation that radiated to his fingertips. “I’m not going to tell your father anything about this.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll help you, Cali. But we have to work as a team. You’re going to have to trust me at some point.”

“I’m trying. I do. Just don’t ask me to step aside and let someone else fix my life. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”

A knock on the front door made them both jump.

Cali turned away first. “Coming.”

John grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Are you expecting anyone?”

“It’s probably Eudora. She was supposed to come and get some flowers to take to a sick friend of hers in the village. She’s owned this property for decades.” She smiled. “I’d guess you’d say she’s my landlady.”

He knew Cali needed some relief from the tension. But if she really wanted to be in control of her life, she needed to understand right now what that entailed. “Humor me,” he said.

He started toward the door, intending to peek into the front room, when Cali called out, “Who’s there?”

“I came for the flowers,” came a strong, heavily accented voice.

Cali shot him a smug look. “You’ve been playing super-secret spy for too long, McShane. No one knows I’m down here. I didn’t tell anyone but you about the picture.”

She slipped past him before he could react. He was on her heels as she entered the front room.

The strident, French-accented voice was at odds with the woman standing on the other side of the
screen. Eudora was tiny, her skin weathered and dark, her gray hair, what was left of it, scraped tightly to her head in a thin twist. But even her stooped posture couldn’t disguise the energy that fairly vibrated from her.

She held a large, shirt-sized box that she lifted slightly as Cali entered the empty front room.

“This came for you,
chérie
. In today’s mail.”

THREE

“Finally! I wondered when it would get here.”

John snagged her arm before she could open the door. He tugged her back. “I thought you said no one knew you were here?” His fierce whisper was hot in her ear.

Cali frowned at him. “Hush, I’ll explain later. I don’t want Eudora in this. The woman doesn’t miss a trick.”

“She owned this place when you were here with Nathan. Surely you’ve questioned her.”

“Yes,” she all but hissed under breath. “But there are ways to do it that don’t involve a single, bare lightbulb and bamboo shoots.”

“I’ve never used bamboo shoots.”

She stilled, then shot him an approving look. “I didn’t think you were capable.”

He lifted a brow. “Of torture?”

She smiled dryly. “Of humor. I know firsthand
about your ability to torture.” She patted him on the arm. “You don’t need anything as crude as bamboo.”

She eased her arm from his grip and turned back to Eudora. The old woman’s attention was focused intently on both of them. “I’m sorry, let me introduce you.” Opening the door, she relieved her landlady of her burden. “Eudora, this is an old acquaintance, John McShane. John, this is Eudora Magdelane. She was kind enough to open this place back up for me.”

Eudora squinted, adding wrinkles to a face Cali had thought already filled to capacity. Sharp black eyes scanned John from head to toe and back before she finally extended a hand.

Cali watched in amused silence as John stepped closer and took the gnarled, tanned fingers in his own much larger hand. Her mouth dropped open in shock when he smiled and lifted Eudora’s hand to his mouth, dropping a polite kiss before tucking her hand in his.

“My pleasure, mademoiselle,” he said smoothly.

Cali’s gaze drifted from John to Eudora. She was beaming as if courted by a royal suitor. John McShane, charming? Cali shook her head. It must be the heat.

She turned and walked back to the kitchen. “I’ll be right back with your flowers.”

“Oh, take your time,
chérie
,” the old woman trilled. Eudora never trilled. “I’m in no hurry.”

“I’ll bet you aren’t,” Cali muttered. She sat the package on the table, wondering how rude it would be just to open it now. Not that they’d notice, she
thought, listening to Eudora’s uncharacteristic chatter and John’s attentive responses. But the contents were too important to risk being seen by anyone but her or John.

She was surprised Eudora had taken it upon herself to deliver the package. Probably hoping to discover what was inside, Cali thought. The old snoop.

She slid the poinsettias from the vase and carefully wrapped the stems in a wet towel, then plastic bagged them, before returning to the front room. Eudora and John were still standing just inside the door.

Cali had been on Martinique for almost two weeks. In that time she’d engaged Eudora in conversation any number of times. If you could call their brief exchanges that. She’d discovered Eudora could rival the sneakiest interrogator when she wanted to know something, but was notoriously closemouthed when the tables were turned.

When Cali had first arrived, she’d been relieved to find the cottage still standing, though obviously unoccupied for some time. Ten years earlier, Nathan had rented the cottage from Eudora’s son, Adrian. But at some point during the interim, he had left the property in his mother’s inimitable care. Eudora was every bit as shrewd as her son. Cali had thought to play on the woman’s sympathies by concocting a sad story about revisiting the site of her honeymoon ten years after the death of her poor young husband. She knew Nathan would have forgiven her the subterfuge. But when Eudora had taken Cali’s request under consideration like a woman with a waiting list of dozens,
Cali had changed tactics, appealing to the woman’s more mercenary side.

Eudora was typical of some of the French-descended population on the island in that she was cordial and hospitable, but only to a point. As had been Cali’s experience a decade before, those particular inhabitants operated with the understanding that while tourism played an important role in their economy, they didn’t have to like it. Especially when said tourists were Americans. She’d felt more tolerated than welcomed.

Cali had spent long, frustrating, mostly unsuccessful hours trying to pry information out of the woman. Time she didn’t have. But Eudora was not a woman to be rushed.

“Here you go,” she said, holding the cut plants out.

The woman was beaming up at John. Not rushed perhaps, Cali thought, but courted … Well, that was one angle that had been unavailable to her. Until now.

Without meeting her eyes, John smoothly relieved her of the heavy bouquet then turned back to Eudora. Cali reined in the urge to kick him. She knew he was trying to help. But who knew the man could smile convincingly, much less be charming? Where had all that charm been when she’d been bleeding to death and had needed soft words?

All she’d gotten was ill-tempered orders to stop whining and get off her duff and get back to her life.
She ignored the fact that his tactics had worked, where her doctor’s gentle care had not.

“Quite an exotic bouquet.” John laid the flowers gently in Eudora’s waiting arms. “Your garden is—”

“A mess,” Eudora finished bluntly. She turned, finally acknowledging Cali’s presence. “Cali here is slowly taming it. My son …” She purposely drifted off, lifting her shoulders in that world-weary way Cali imagined Gallic women had perfected centuries ago. “He lives all his life here, then three months ago—
poof!
He tells me his destiny is not on the island of his birth, where centuries of Magdelanes have resided, but in America.” She all but spat the last word, all the while holding their gazes with an arrogance that didn’t give the least indication she thought she might have offended them.

Cali stilled. She’d wondered about Adrian, but the old woman had been characteristically silent on that subject. She turned to John, counting on him to charm more information out of his latest suspect.

She frowned. John’s congenial smile was gone, replaced by the alert expression with which Cali was all too familiar.

“Where did he move to?” he asked without preamble.

Eudora’s dark eyes narrowed, her expression grew distant. “What is the difference?” She favored John with a brief once-over, her small sniff making it clear he was no longer in her favor. “Gone is gone.” She turned to Cali. “These will do,
chérie
. You will have the bird of paradise ready for tomorrow, no?”

Cali stifled a sigh of disappointment and pulled out a smile. “No later than early afternoon, if that’s okay.”

The woman nodded and stepped to the door. She paused briefly. She didn’t have to look at John to make her expectations understood.

John felt Cali’s stare drilling him in the back. But he knew better than to push the old woman. He’d blown it big time. But he could grill Eudora on her absent son another time. Right now he wanted to know what was in that box. He opened the screen. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said, not expecting a response. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Thank you for delivering the package,” Cali called out from just behind his shoulder. Eudora merely lifted her flower-laden arms in response and continued to trudge along the cobblestone path that led back to the nearby village of Aleria.

“Quite a character,” John commented.

He turned in time to catch Cali’s somewhat smug smile. “She’s a nosy old busybody with too much on the ball and just enough savvy to be dangerous with it.” She led the way to the kitchen. “She was rather taken with you, though. So obviously senility is finally creeping in.”

“Hey,” he protested. “What did I do to deserve that?” He followed her into the kitchen. “If she’s been here all this time, she might know something that would help. And it might be coincidence, but her son disappearing just about the time your troubles began is worth looking into.”

Cali sighed in exasperation. “Give me some credit, McShane. I’ve spent hours with the woman, none of them remotely relaxed. She could write manuals on interrogation techniques. I spent more time trying to make sure I wouldn’t give anything away than finagling any worthwhile information out of her.” She smiled. “You were going gangbusters there for a while. A sense of humor
and
charm. Who’d have thought it? What other attributes have you hidden from me?”

“I have nothing to hide.” That particular lie tasted quite bitter. But there were some truths that should never be revealed. “And I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I can be quite charming.”

“So it’s just me who is favored with this side of your lovely personality. Thanks.” She beat him to the counter and the package. She carried it to the table.

He nodded to the box. “You ask me to give you credit, yet you do something as foolish as give someone—anyone—your forwarding address. Why didn’t you just leave a trail of bread crumbs?” He jerked his thumb toward the front door. “There won’t be a soul within fifteen miles of here who won’t know you got a package today.”

“It never occurred to me she’d deliver it. In fact, I’d have bet money she’d be the last one to do it.”

“Why did she, then?”

“Curiosity. The woman is an incurable gossip. About everyone except herself, that is.”

“That could be useful to us, too, if she knows
enough people. Played right, she could be a valuable source without her knowing it.”

“Well, don’t look at me. I tried. You’re the one with the killer smile and Casanova charm. Of course, you may have to butter her up all over again. I can’t believe a seasoned veteran like you blew it so badly. I also can’t believe I just described you as charming either. For all I know, that was a fluke and this”—she gestured at his frowning, stiff countenance—“is the real you after all.”