“I don’t know what happens next,” she finally answered him. Darn it, she was shivering again. This time it wasn’t shock or cold. It was something else altogether. And she had no intention of putting a name to it.
“Come here.” He looped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close to his side.
Her arm naturally fell across his hard waist and her head landed on his equally powerful shoulder. They sat there like that for a long time. Finally she raised her head and looked up at his lean profile. “How about we just take this one step at a time and see where it leads? In another week you won’t be my boss anymore. We’ll both go back to Fort Bragg and we can figure it out from there.”
He gazed down at her, and his eyes were pools of black shadow. “I can’t promise you a wedding ring. I don’t know where this will go.”
She shrugged. “I can’t wear rings in the field anyway. Safety hazard, you know.”
His arm tightened around her shoulders.
“No strings, Dex. For either one of us. I just don’t want whatever’s meant to be between us to pass us by. Life’s too short to wait for the next time around.”
He grunted. “No kidding. Have you lost any friends in the field yet?”
She leaned forward to knock on the wood coffee table. “Not yet.”
He sighed. “You will.”
She knew it to be true. She only prayed when the time came it wasn’t one of the Medusas—or him. She watched the hell Vanessa went through every time Jack went out on a mission. Viper was quietly a wreck until he got home. Of course, Scat wasn’t worth a hill of beans when Vanessa was out in the field either, according to his teammates.
Did she really want to set herself up for that kind of misery? Thing was, she’d seen the way Jack and Vanessa looked at each other when they thought no one was watching. They practically breathed each other in. What they had wasn’t love. It was Love. Capital L. She could do with a little misery to get a whole lot of that, she supposed.
She said slowly, “Tonight, when those guys were on top of me, pounding on me, and I thought I might die,” he drew her closer against his chest and he seemed to surround her even more completely, “I had a weird thought.”
“How weird?” he murmured into her hair.
Oh, my, that felt good. Yup, he’d be an incredible lover. He’d take his time and do it oh so right. She hesitated and then plunged ahead. “I thought I didn’t want to die without kissing you first.”
Nope, the man was not the slightest bit slow on the uptake. His hands speared into her hair and he shifted until she was lying back against the end cushions.
“I would never deny a dying woman her last wish,” he said just before his lips touched hers.
It was better than death. This was the fast train straight to heaven. She arched into him, into the haze of heat and wet and lust that exploded around her. His mouth tore away from hers, almost as if he were startled.
“Again,” she demanded.
He came back for more, lifting her to him, sucking lightly at her lower lip, pressing into her until her mouth opened for him and it felt like her heart was going to fly out of her ribs. Okay, this was not lust. This was whatever came beyond lust. Instant obsession, maybe.
She looped her hands around his neck and ran her tongue around the edges of his mouth experimentally.
“Holy cow,” he breathed.
She laughed, that is, until he stopped it with his own mouth, drinking in her joy and turning it into fire. His body felt like fresh steel beneath her hands, hot and eager. She tugged at his hair until he lifted his head. She laughed again and leaned forward to kiss the column of his neck. The muscles jumped beneath her tongue. “You taste like whiskey. Single malt. The good stuff, of course,” she added.
“Of course,” he replied. “Twelve-year-old Glenfiddich Reserve.”
“Honey, you’re a Glenlivet 1964 Cellar Collection.”
He pulled back to stare down at her. “Where did you hear of that? I’ve only seen it in Dublin. Ran about a thousand bucks a bottle.”
She smiled up at him. “I’m a woman of many passions. And I happen to like a fine whiskey.”
Keeping eye contact with her, he lowered his mouth to hers once more. This time he sipped at her delicately, licking and plucking at her lips, tantalizing her until she felt on the verge of shattering. His gaze bored into her all the while, raising the level of the kiss from sexy to incendiary. Women were not supposed to have orgasms from kissing. This was nuts. A little voice in the back of her head taunted, Yeah, but this is Dex. ’Nuff said. She sighed and let the zinging pleasure tingle through her.
“Armagnac. 1900 Gelas et Fils. That’s what you taste like.”
She mumbled against his mouth, “I don’t know that one.”
“When we get home I’ll pour you a glass.”
“And what does a bottle of this stuff run?”
He laughed against her mouth. “About two thousand dollars a bottle.”
The sensation of his stomach contracting against hers with that laugh galvanized her. Oh, yes. She wanted a lot more than a couple of kisses out of this man. But not now. Not when they were working together and had to get up in the morning and make a police report. Not when she had to act professional and call him sir.
As if he’d plucked the very thought out of her brain, he said quietly, “When the Olympics are over, I’m taking you on vacation. Someplace where we’ll be alone. My family owns a beach house.”
“Where is it?”
“On a private island.” He winced and continued, “That we own.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Dang, you really did want to make a difference if you walked away from all that.”
He dropped a kiss on the end of her nose and sat up, dragging her with him. “I won’t be inheriting a dime of it, so don’t get your hopes up. My old man cut me out of his will the day I joined the army.”
“Believe me, Dex. I wouldn’t put up with you for the money.”
“Gee thanks,” he growled as he tackled her and tickled her backward once more. Or at least he tried to. She put a nifty thumb lock on him and forced him to twist his whole body into it to keep his thumb from popping out of joint. With a shove of her shoulder he fell over onto his back. She pounced on top of him.
“Uncle,” he laughed. He added threateningly, “This time.”
She laughed down at him. “This is going to be an interesting relationship.”
She savored having this man on his back between her knees, and only reluctantly swung her leg off of him and stood up. “And you may walk me home this time.”
He rolled to his feet in a single easy, powerful movement and looked down at her in the dark. “It wasn’t like you had any choice in the matter.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Chauvinist.”
“Bra burner,” he retorted.
She shook her head in horror. “Not me. Clearly all those feminists in the sixties were A-cuppers who never jogged. I like my bras, thank you very much.”
He grinned. “Let me get us coats.”
He walked her home in the deep quiet of the snowstorm, and a blanket of white accumulated quickly in their hair and on their eyelashes. There was no wind and the snow fell like petals of cherry blossoms in the spring. Even a simple parking lot was breathtakingly beautiful. A few inches of snow already covered every horizontal surface. Dex took her keys, opened the front door and spun inside in a combat crouch. Even though the police had obviously come and gone, he flipped on the light switches and searched her place from top to bottom. Not a mouse could’ve escaped his scrutiny.
Finally, he declared, “All clear. When I leave, I want to hear those locks turning.”
“Yes, sir,” she responded crisply and completely irreverently.
He glared at her. “Get used to it. I care about you.”
She glared back at him. “All right. I will.”
Their scowls dissolved into grins and Dex said, “I gather you’re not going to take well to me ordering you around after we leave New York?”
She patted his cheek as he stepped close to leave. “Bright boy, Thorpe. There’s hope for you yet.”
He snagged her around the waist and planted a fast, hard kiss on her mouth before turning her loose. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Nearly a foot of snow was on the ground by the time she got out of the police station the next morning. Detective Picconi was a nice guy in a nerdy sort of way, and he assured her they’d do all they could to apprehend her intruders. She assured him equally sincerely that she had no expectation that they’d catch the guys.
She was on her way back to the Olympic village, driving down a narrow, one-way street that could barely accommodate her subcompact little car when, out of nowhere, a dark sedan came barreling at her head-on. The guy was going the wrong way!
She looked around fast. Nowhere to go. The street was narrow, clogged with vehicles parked down both sides. Quickly, she jammed on the breaks and yanked hard on the steering wheel. The little car squealed its protest and whipped around in a one-eighty J-turn. She stepped on the accelerator. The tires spun, then caught in the snow, and the car leaped forward. It fishtailed wildly and she fought the wheel until she brought the vehicle under control. The sedan turned a corner behind her fast and disappeared.
She pulled into the first available parking space and sat there, breathing hard. That was not an accident. That car had been gunning for her. Not the action of an innocent driver going the wrong way down a one-way street. What the hell was going on? First last night, and now this! Very carefully, she drove the rest of the way to the Olympic complex. She walked into the ops center, and her knees still felt wobbly.
Dex took one look at her and steered her into his office. He shut the door behind him. “Sit,” he ordered. She took his desk chair and he perched on the edge of his desk.
She was acutely aware of the window in his door that the men outside could look through. “Someone just tried to ram my car.” Quickly, she relayed the details of what happened.
He swore under his breath. “I suppose I can’t talk you into locking yourself in a nice, safe, padded vault until this whole thing blows over, can I?”
She smiled up at him. “Sorry. I’ve got a job to do.”
“Who was it?” he asked. “What’s your gut saying?”
“Probably the same thing your gut is. It was the guys from last night.”
“Why do you think they’re coming after you?”
“Because I’m Anya Khalid’s bodyguard. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to get at me than it is at her. She’s tucked away in the Olympic village with all its high-tech security measures.”
“Which is where you’re about to be, too,” he said grimly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want you on Anya around the clock from here on out. These people are getting too damned aggressive for my taste.”
“For mine, too,” she replied dryly.
Startled, he smiled down at her. “You can sleep on the pull-out bed in Anya’s room.”
“She’s not going to like it.”
He shrugged. “Tough. It’s not her call.” He leaned over and stabbed at the intercom on his desk. “Hobo, get all the Medusas who aren’t guarding Ms. Khalid in here, will you?”
In a few minutes Aleesha, Misty and Karen walked into the ops center. Aleesha drawled, “What ’choo be needin’ mon?”
Dex said tersely, “Two of Lazlo’s Chechnyan pals were inside Isabella’s apartment when she got home last night and jumped her.”
Her teammates looked equal parts appalled and furious.
Dex continued, “And they just tried to run her off the road. I need something on these guys. Follow them. Catch them jay-walking for all I care. But give me a reason to bring them in and hold them.”
Misty said regretfully, “First, we’re going to have to find them. They’ve moved out of the house they were staying in.”
Dex stared. “When?”
“They left sometime early this morning. All their cars are gone, and their razors aren’t sitting in the bathrooms anymore. The FBI crew on watch last night wasn’t equipped for the snow and left about 5:30 a.m. They went down to the corner and sat in their car to watch from there. The next shift came on at 8:00 and reported that the Chechnyans had left. We just got back. There’s no sign of life at the house.”
“How the hell did they get out?”
“Apparently there’s a back way. We’re guessing it was a lane of some kind that was covered with snow. You’d have to know it was there to find it. And, at the rate it’s snowing right now, it got snowed over again before we went looking for it.”
Dex was silent for a minute. “Pick up surveillance on Lazlo and see if he leads you to them. Surely he’ll get in touch with his family.”
The three women left and Isabella looked up at Dex. “Whatever’s going to happen is picking up speed. I can feel it.”
He nodded grimly. “Me, too.”
Isabella spent the next twenty-four hours following Anya from her room to the skating rink, back to her room, to the cafeteria and back to her room. And, for variety, they went to the gym and then back to her room. The girl was meek and obedient. Probably figured the 24/7 Isabella leech was some sort of punishment for her little excursion to New York City. Which was just as well. There was no need to scare the girl with how aggressive her would-be attackers were becoming.
The day of the ladies’ short program competition dawned. Thirty girls would skate tonight, and only twelve would advance to the finals in two days. In the late morning, there was a knock on Anya’s door, and Isabella opened it to reveal Judy Levinson, the wonder seamstress.
“Is Anya here?” the woman asked. “Her coach said she had time for a fitting.”
Isabella frowned. She thought the white costume was finished and delivered yesterday. It should be hanging in Liz’s closet right now, hidden under a warm-up suit. She stepped back to let the woman enter.
“Anya, dear,” the seamstress said, “I watched a recording of your long program, and I couldn’t resist working up a little something for you for the finals. You don’t have to wear it, of course, but I thought I’d show it to you.”
She unzipped the garment bag and pulled out an absolutely stunning costume. It was a flesh colored bodysuit with long sleeves, long legs, and a high neck, covered in crystals in every shade of yellow, orange, and red. It shimmered like a fiery sunset as the fabric moved in the woman’s hands.
Anya drew in a sharp breath. “Oh my gosh. It’s gorgeous.” She disappeared eagerly into the bathroom and emerged, smiling widely.
The skirt was made of asymmetrical wisps of silk attached at random points all around the hips. Strands of faceted crystal beads were attached among the strips, giving the effect of a belly dancing belt. The crystal flames rose strategically on the chest, covering Anya’s breasts, and flickered to an end just below her chin. It hinted at the all-over henna body tattoos of harem women, but with sinuous, flashing movement, twining all over Anya’s body.
Judy said to the girl, “It covers all of you from your neck to your wrists to your ankles. The conservatives can’t complain about that, right?”
Isabella made a skeptical sound. “She looks like a belly dancer made of fire.”
“That’s exactly the look I was going for!” Judy exclaimed.
“Well, you achieved it,” Isabella said grimly. The costume was beyond sexy. Beyond daring. It was dramatic. Stylized. Avant garde. Shocking. Absolutely stunning. And there wasn’t the slightest doubt in her mind that Anya would want to wear it, and furthermore that she ought to wear it. It was the exclamation point to her fashion statements so far.
“I’m not even going to try to talk you out of wearing it.” Isabella sighed.
Anya laughed. “Oh, Judy. It’s spectacular. How can I ever repay you?”
The older woman staggered under the girl’s enthusiastic hug. “Never fear. I charged the ISU an arm and a leg for it.”
Anya peeled out of the costume carefully. “Now all I have to do is skate well enough tonight so I get a chance to wear it.”
Judy made a face. “You’re in fifth place. All you have to do is stand up through your program and you’ll make the finals. Go out and enjoy yourself and you’ll do fine.”
As the afternoon progressed, Anya focused more and more tightly on her short program. She walked through it in her room, hopping around in circles and going through arm movements, head turns and poses. She listened to the music, humming along with it, her eyes closed, visualizing the program. And same as before, Liz talked her through every excruciating detail over and over, until even Isabella knew every last nuance.
About fifteen minutes before they were due to leave, there was another knock on Anya’s door. This time it was the American figure skater, Ashley Caldwell.
“Hi, Anya. I just stopped by to wish you luck and to see if you’d like me to take your skates to the arena for you. You know. Just in case.”
Anya nodded and gave the American a rueful smile. “That would be awesome. You’re sure you don’t mind?”
Ashley laughed. “Nah. My coach carries my bag for me anyway. He gets to deal with the extra weight.”
The two girls chatted for a couple of minutes, then Ashley said, “Well, I’d better get going. My coach will wonder where I am.” She took Anya’s skates by the blades and carried them out of the room.
“You know, I could protect your skates, too,” Isabella commented as the door closed behind the American.
Anya grinned. “I wouldn’t want you to have to choose between the two. In a crisis, I’d yell at you to save the skates first.”
She probably would at that. Isabella had learned it took about 60 hours of excruciatingly painful skating to break in a new pair of boots, and all skaters guarded their broken-in boots like gold. It would be a nightmare for a skater to have to skate in new boots. They’d be too stiff, too tight, and would rub their feet raw in a matter of minutes.
Liz came in, carrying Anya’s glorious white costume in a garment bag. “Let’s go get ’em, kiddo.”
They rode over to the Hamilton arena in a minivan Karen drove, parking in the official lot beside the stadium. Tall piles of freshly plowed snow lined the edges of the parking lot, which was gritty with little green pellets that looked like kitty litter. It acted like salt to melt the ice and snow but was friendlier to the environment.
A set of metal barricades held back a small crowd of fans waiting near the entrance. A cheer went up as Anya drew near, and voices called out good luck and encouragement. Karen opened the door to the building and something came flying out of the crowd.
Acting purely on reflex, Isabella jumped lightning-fast and knocked Anya to the ground, covering the girl with her body. “Incoming!” she shouted as the projectile flew past and connected squarely with the back of Liz Cartwright’s head.
The Aussie dropped to the ground, out cold. Karen jumped over the coach to help protect Anya as chaos erupted in the crowd, with screaming and shouting.
The metal barricade beside Isabella rocked as the crowd surged forward. “We’ve got to get them out of here!” she called to her teammate.
Karen bent over quickly, grabbed the injured coach under the armpits, and dragged her into the building. Isabella yanked Anya to her feet and hustled her inside, her arms around Anya’s head and her body crowded against the girl. The door closed behind them as the sound of sirens filled the air outside. Isabella dropped to her knees beside Karen who was checking over Anya’s coach.
“She got hit in the back of the head. She’s unconscious and unresponsive.” Louder, Karen said, “Somebody call an ambulance.”
A frantic voice from nearby said they’d do it.
“Pupils?” Isabella asked.
“Dilated and fixed.”
Not good. This wasn’t a faint. The woman was out cold. Isabella reached down for Liz’s boot and pulled it off the woman’s limp foot. She tore off Liz’s sock and ran her fingernail up the length of the woman’s foot. There was the faintest of jerks. Isabella took an Olympic pin off her jacket and used the pointed tip to poke Liz’s ankle. A slight jerk. She poked Liz’s hands and her other leg. All four limbs responded. Thank God.
“She’s got reflexes and movement,” she announced. Karen traded relieved looks with her over Liz’s still form.
“What does that mean?” Anya demanded.
“It means the blow to her head didn’t paralyze her,” Isabella replied as she stripped off her coat and took off her sweater. She wadded it up on one side of Liz’s head while Karen did the same with her sweater on the other side.
“Now what are you two doing?” Anya asked. The girl sounded scared stiff.
“Immobilizing her neck and head. It’s just a precaution,” Isabella explained.
The paramedics were fast getting there. Two, maybe three minutes. They took over quickly, immobilizing the still unconscious coach’s head and neck with a backboard and foam neck brace. As the team of two men and a woman prepared to transport her to the hospital, Karen and Isabella stood back.
“Python, did you see what hit her?”
“It looked like a snowball.”
“A snowball wouldn’t do that kind of damage.”
Python looked down at the floor inside the door. “It would if it had a rock in it.”
Isabella looked down at where her teammate was staring. There lay a round rock almost the size of her fist with a puddle of water around it. She swore under her breath. “Python, tell ops what happened. I’ve got to get Anya down to the locker room. She’s still got to skate if she can pull herself together.”
“Take care of our girl,” Karen muttered.
Isabella nodded grimly. She hurried to the crowd of people surrounding Anya. All the fussing probably wasn’t helping her. She looked pale and shaken. Isabella waded through the crowd to the girl’s side. “Let’s go, sweetie.”
Anya nodded numbly and followed her to the relative quiet of the dressing room.
Isabella led the girl to a bench and sat down beside her, taking the skater’s hands in hers. “Liz is going to be okay. She got hit in the back of the head by a snowball and it knocked her out. All that stuff we did upstairs was purely precautionary. She’ll be calling you on her cell phone and nagging you with last-minute instructions in no time. Okay?”
“You’re not just saying that? You’re telling me the truth?”
It was only part of the truth and completely glossed over the potential seriousness of Liz’s injury, but Isabella looked the girl squarely in the eye and lied through her teeth. “I’m telling you the God’s honest truth. Liz will be fine. Now, do you feel up to skating?”
Anya took a deep breath. “I have to be up to it. Liz will kill me if I don’t.”
Isabella laughed. “She will at that. For a little thing, she’s pretty tough.”
“Did you know she was an Olympic pairs skater? Her brother is the head American coach.”
“Peter What’s-his-name?”
Anya nodded, mustering up a weak little smile.
Isabella looked at her watch and tried to remember what Liz had done with Anya before the qualifying round of competition. “It’s about time for you to get dressed.”
She stayed with Anya, hooking the neck of her white costume for her. “Do you need help with your hair?” she asked.
Anya eyed her askance. “Liz usually does the hot rollers for me. Are you sure you won’t mess it up?”
Isabella laughed. “I have three little sisters. I used to do their hair all the time.” It was another bald-faced lie, but she wasn’t about to rattle Anya any more than she already was. If the girl needed her hair set, then by God, her hair was going to get set. The rolling part went well. Isabella remembered how Liz had done it before and managed to get all the rollers lined up pretty much the same way the coach had. But when the rollers came out and Anya’s head exploded into a mass of uncontrolled curls, Isabella looked at it in minor panic.
“Can I help?” one of the Russian coaches said from the next makeup table over.
Isabella threw the woman a look of abject gratitude and stepped back. In minutes, Anya’s hair was pulled up and back into a rhinestone clasp and fell in graceful waves to her shoulders. The Russian finished it off with several extra bobby pins she said were for luck, and then she lacquered the living heck out of it with hairspray.
Thankfully, Anya did her own makeup, and in a few minutes had drawn out the shape of her eyes with eyeliner into exotic points. Her high cheekbones looked smashing, and her mouth shone with just the right amount of gloss.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Isabella asked. She rarely used makeup herself.
Anya smiled, and for a moment returned from exotic creature back to bubbly nineteen-year-old kid. “My cousin is a makeup artist for the Sydney Opera Company.”
Ashley Caldwell, already in her skates, clumped over to Anya. “Here are your skates. We have thirty minutes until the warm-up.”
Anya laced up her boots then went to the well-heated room lined with mirrors and waist-high ballet bars. While she stretched, she listened to her music on a portable radio and headphones. Isabella tried to remember what came next. Last time, Liz had talked through the program with Anya.
The girl finished loosening up her muscles and Isabella said, “Okay. Now how does that go again? Two ballet hops, three-turn, four back crossovers into a glide. Waltz jump, big step, camel spin…”
Anya nodded and walked a dry run of the program as Isabella recited what she’d heard Liz going over all afternoon. After the second run through, Isabella said, “Again?”
Anya shook her head. “Now’s the part where you leave me alone for a few minutes to gather my thoughts. Although what really happens is we all stand around trying to psych each other out by pretending to be totally absorbed in our own programs.”
“Right. How long does that part last?”
“Until the last skater before my warm-up session steps onto the ice. Then we head out to the ice.”
Isabella nodded. “Got it. Are you okay? You feel steady? Breathing calmly and deeply?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.
“Besides,” came a German voice from behind Isabella, “today we’re not going to psych each other out. She’s had a scare, and we’re going to talk about happy things until it’s time to skate.”
Isabella turned around in surprise. The skater currently in first place, Karis Neidermeier, stood there, along with the Takamura sisters, Alyssa Walcheka, and Sara Dormonkova.
“Is there any word yet on her coach?” asked Sara in a surprisingly slight Ukranian accent.
“Not yet,” Isabella answered. “But she’ll be fine. She just got hit by a snowball and it knocked her out temporarily.”
“You’re lucky it didn’t hit you,” one of the other skaters said to Anya.
Isabella looked at her charge quickly. Her eyes clouded over with awareness of that fact, but determination rapidly replaced the look and not fear. Good girl.
An ISU official came in to announce, “Five minutes, ladies.”
The girls went their separate ways at that point, and Anya talked through her program one more time with Isabella. Then it was time to go. Anya stepped out onto the ice with the other five women who comprised the top six placed skaters. They would skate in reverse order of their current placement, which meant Anya would skate second after the warm-up.
Isabella stood on the rail with the other coaches and watched Anya zip around the ice. She didn’t have the faintest idea what to say to her by way of coaching. She would just have to hope Anya knew what to do from here on out. The girls started jumping, and Anya threw her troublesome triple salchow. She fell, landing on her bottom.
She got up and skated over to the rail in front of Isabella. “I need a tissue,” the girl said.
The American coach, Peter Something, leaned over and said to Anya, “You’re gliding too long going into that jump. Pull your arms in harder and start the rotation earlier. Then you’ll have time to finish it before you land.”
Anya looked startled, but went back out and tried the jump again. She landed it flawlessly.
Isabella looked over at the American, who said merely, “She’s my sister’s student. Of course, I’m going to help her.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded. “Just before she goes on the ice to perform, tell her to focus and go out and do what she knows how to do. Then tell her she’s beautiful.”
“Is that what Liz tells her?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. But it’s roughly what all the coaches say to their skaters when they put them on the ice.”
Isabella nodded. “I’ll remember that.”
The warm-up period ended and Anya dried off her rear end with a blow dryer. She did a couple of stretches and jumped up and down a few times, and then an ISU official was in the door. “We need you by the gate, Ms. Khalid.”
Isabella and Anya’s gazes met.
Isabella said, “Are you okay?”
Anya nodded. “This one isn’t for me. It’s for Liz. And for all the women who wish they could do this but can’t, either because of culture or lack of opportunity. How can I mess up if all of them are out there with me in their hearts, supporting me and cheering me on?”
Isabella blinked. Anya had done a lot of growing up in the past week. She would, indeed, be just fine. They walked down the tunnel. The sixth-place skater, the elder Takamura girl, came off the ice and headed for the kiss-and-cry area.
Isabella took Anya’s skate guards and said, “Focus. Go out and do what you know how to do.”
Anya recited along with her, “And you look beautiful. I know, I know.”
Isabella added with quiet sincerity, “You do look beautiful. You’re amazing. Now go show all of them that.”
Anya met her gaze warmly and nodded. “For Liz,” she murmured, and then she was off, sailing on one foot out toward the middle of the ice. An appreciative “ahh” went up from the audience as they got their first look at her swanlike costume.
One good thing about that snowball. Isabella had the sense that lightning had already struck. Nothing bad would happen inside the arena now that today’s attack was over with. It was completely illogical, of course. Anya was still in danger out there all alone on the ice. But there wasn’t a blessed thing anyone could do about it now, so she might as well not worry and enjoy Anya’s skate.
The music started, its graceful, waltzing strains carrying Anya lightly around the ice. It built in speed and power, and she soared around the rink effortlessly, nailing all of her required elements. Then it was time for the triple salchow. It was the hardest jump for Anya except the triple axel. But, it earned big points, especially when performed at the end of a program like this when the skater was getting tired.
The music crashed to a mighty crescendo, and Anya leaped into the air. Whether she glided less or pulled her arms in faster and sooner, Isabella had no idea. But Anya went up, up, up, twirling almost too fast to see. And then down she came, landing cleanly, her free leg checking out perfectly, stopping the rotation and leading her glide out of the jump.
Isabella started as the American coach beside her said, “Yes!” and pumped a fist. She knew the feeling. The music ended with Anya bent over from the hips, her arms extended out and back behind her shoulders, slender and graceful, evocative of a swan finally at rest after a glorious flight of fancy.
Yet again, the crowd went wild. Resigned to the necessity of a lengthy ovation, Isabella looked around the giant arena. The place was nearly full, with only the seats up in the rafters unoccupied. She’d put the crowd at a solid twenty-five thousand. They all were screaming for Anya. How must that feel? She had only to look at her charge to know. The girl glowed from the inside out.
Finally, the ice was cleared of flowers and stuffed toys, most of which would be donated to hospitals around the state.
Anya stepped off the ice and flung herself at Isabella in an exuberant hug. “Come sit with me.”
“Who me?” Isabella squeaked. “I don’t want to be on TV.”
Anya threw her a soulful, puppy dog look. “I don’t want to sit there all alone, and Liz isn’t here. Pleeeease?”
“Oh, all right. But Manfred Schmidt is going to have my head for this.”
“Who’s he?”
“Nobody you need to worry about,” Isabella replied.
The bright camera lights turned on the two of them, and she could hear the commentary from the broadcasting booth above. The commentators were still transported by ecstasy from Anya’s skating, describing it in superlative terms. Here’s hoping the judges felt the same way.
The scores came up, and Anya squealed with delight. Isabella didn’t have the foggiest idea if the numbers were good or bad, but given her charge’s reaction, she probably ought to act pleased. “Way to go!” she congratulated Anya.
They stepped out of the glare of the stage lights and were waylaid immediately by a smaller, but no less intense, set of lights from a shoulder held TV camera. “May I have an interview, Anya?” a well-known skating journalist called out.
“Sure!” the girl answered.
“About twenty feet farther back into the tunnel, you can have it,” Isabella said. It was high time to get her girl out of the line of fire.
The reporter and her cameraman moved, and Anya was her usual charming self as she described how great it had felt to be out there and how she was just glad she’d done her best. Interview over, they headed back into the waiting area, which was outfitted with monitors showing the action on the ice.
But instead of watching her competitors, Anya turned on Isabella as soon as they entered the room. “How come Liz hasn’t called me yet?”
Isabella laughed lightly. “Are you kidding? She’s probably got tubes up her nose and down her throat. You know how hospitals are. How ’bout I make a quick call and get an update for you?”
“That would be great, mate.”
Isabella pulled out her new cell phone and dialed in the ops center number. Sleepy McCoy answered the phone. “Hey, it’s Adder. Any word on Anya’s coach yet?”
“Lemme check.” He came back in a moment. “Still unconscious. They just finished an MRI. There’s some swelling at the base of her brain, and that’s probably what’s keeping her knocked out. They’re going to give her anti-inflammatories and see if that brings her around.” He left unsaid the part about how, if the drugs didn’t work, the Australian woman could be in serious trouble.
“Good thing it wasn’t your girl who got hit,” McCoy commented. “Nice tackle, by the way. We saw it on tape.”
“I heard there was a rock in that snowball. What asshole would do that?”
She had a sneaking feeling she knew exactly which assholes would do something like that. They were called the Red Jihad.