“You don’t owe me anything, Niall,” Savannah said in that same reasonable tone, which conversely bugged the hell out of him for some reason. “I certainly don’t expect you to risk your life for mine. Someone tried to injure you tonight, maybe even kill you, in order to get you out of the way. I’d understand if you were having second thoughts about being my lover for the rest of this cruise.”
Fury bubbled through him, and he threw off the covers, stomping to the chair over which he’d thrown his clothes before climbing into bed with Savannah. “That is total BS,” he said between clenched teeth as he jerked his jeans on commando.
“Is it?” She raised her chin. “Then explain why you want me to go home.”
That question stopped him in his tracks, with his shirt in his hands. She has you there, hotshot, a voice in the back of his head jeered. And though it was an effort, he tried to look at things from her perspective. “You’re right,” he said finally. “You’re safer here than you are in the US, because I’m here with you. But you’re wrong about me changing my mind. Anyone who tries to get to you has to go through me. Period. End of discussion. You got that?”
A slow smile spread over her face. “I hear you loud and clear. I just hope our neighbors on that side didn’t hear you, too,” she said, gesturing to the other side of the stateroom from Niall’s cabin.
Well, crap. He glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which glowed two eleven in bright red numerals. He waited a minute in silence, holding his breath. And when no one rapped on the wall between the staterooms, he let his breath out slowly. “Looks like we skated on that one.”
Savannah walked over and took the shirt from his hands. She smoothed out the wrinkles from where he’d clutched it tightly in his anger, then laid it over the back of the chair. When she looked up into his face, she was still smiling. “I think you care about me,” she said softly.
He snorted. “You think?”
She moved her head in an infinitesimal nod. “I do. If I were a betting woman, I’d make book on it.”
Busted. But he wasn’t going to admit it. “I just don’t like being thought a coward, that’s all.”
“I never, ever thought you were a coward.”
Baffled, he asked, “Then why did you say what you said?”
“Because I was angry. And when I’m angry, I say things I don’t mean.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t sound angry.”
She laughed softly. “I know. I’m not like most people. I don’t yell and curse and stomp around when I’m angry.” By which she meant him, obviously. “I get... I don’t know...super calm and super reasonable. I take after my dad that way. My mom was the emotional one. She’d get mad at my dad for something or other, and he’d calmly reason her out of it.”
“Sounds like they were a good match.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “They were.” Then she shook her head as if she were shaking off the memories, good and bad. “So...” She stepped into his personal space and placed her hands on his bare chest, stroking lightly. “Want to kiss and make up? I’ve heard make-up sex is incredible.”
* * *
Make-up sex was incredible, Savannah thought as she and Niall strolled the decks after breakfast. She stifled a yawn, telling herself that in a contest between sex with Niall and sleeping, sleeping came in a far distant second.
They’d risen early, mainly because he wanted to get down to breakfast when the dining room opened, so he could pick out the couples from their tour group he wanted to breakfast with this morning. And when everyone had finally left, Niall had somehow made off with half a dozen juice glasses...stashed in her carry-on bag, which he’d had her bring down to breakfast instead of her purse. A quick trip to her stateroom later, she’d been fascinated at how efficiently he dusted, lifted and catalogued the prints, before bundling the juice glasses back into her bag for a return trip to the dining room.
It wasn’t until they were walking out again that a thought occurred to her. That’s odd. Why does Niall have a fingerprint kit with him...on vacation?
She started to ask him about it, then changed her mind. Asking him implied she suspected him of something, and she didn’t want to give that impression. Besides, the concept of “need to know” had been deeply engrained in her from the day she’d gone to work for her previous employer. If Niall thought she needed that info, he’d tell her. Until then...
They took the elevator to the top deck, which Savannah hadn’t visited yet, and she was delighted with the swings. “Oh look! My grandparents had one of these on their front porch when my mom was little—I have pictures.”
She dragged Niall to the closest swing and pulled him down beside her, then fished her camera out of her jacket pocket. “Smile,” she pleaded, leaning in close as she took a selfie of them, then two more for insurance. She scrolled through them quickly, pausing on the last one, then returning to the first to show Niall.
“It’s not fair,” she said, turning off her camera and stowing it in her pocket.
“What’s not fair?”
He pushed off with his foot, setting the swing in motion, and she waited a moment to enjoy the sensation before answering him. “I’ve taken...umm...” She cleared her throat. “A few pictures of you, and in every one you’re gorgeous. I don’t think it’s possible for you to take a bad photograph.”
He chuckled and continued pushing with his foot. “My mother wouldn’t agree with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hated having to hold still for pictures when I was a kid. And I especially hated those formal family portraits—you know the ones I mean. Five kids, and my mother wanted a family portrait taken every year. My dad in his USMC dress blues. That was the one given. Everything else was stage-managed by my mother, including the identical little monkey suits she wanted her four boys to wear, and the girly-girl dress she’d picked out for Keira. Hoo boy, that was a fight every year, let me tell you.”
“In what way?”
“Not so much for us boys. All it took was a stern word from my dad, and we’d dutifully don our duds. But not Keira. She was his baby girl, and he never put his foot down with her. I even heard him plead her case with my mom one year.”
“Plead her case?”
“Keira did not want to wear anything that looked too feminine. She wasn’t ‘sugar and spice and everything nice,’ she wanted to be ‘snips and snails and puppy dog tails’ like us.”
“Tomboy?”
Niall grimaced. “Not that, really. More like she wanted to be taken seriously, which my dad, I’m ashamed to say, never did until shortly before he died. She wanted the respect the boys in the family got automatically.”
“Oh.” Savannah suddenly felt a sense of kinship with a woman she’d never met. Although she’d always had the support and respect of both her parents, she’d chosen a male-dominated field and was constantly having to prove herself. So much so that she’d resigned in writing, then had been tightlipped when her male superiors tried to talk her out of it rather than risk crying in front of them.
“So what happened with Keira? How did she manage to change your dad’s mind?”
He smiled as if at a particularly fond memory. “She followed every one of her brothers into the Marine Corps.”
“I think you mentioned that before, but wow. More power to her.”
“Yeah. She served four years, like all of us except my older brother, who’d intended to make it his career. Most of her service was in the military police.”
“Good for her. What about you? You told me you weren’t an officer, but what did you do in the Corps?”
“Sniper.”
She blinked because she never would have guessed. Not that Niall didn’t come across as a complete professional where his job was concerned, but he seemed too...too kind. Too considerate. And though he tried to hide it, too emotional, something that was especially obvious when he talked about his family. When she thought of snipers—not that she thought of them often, but when she did—she imagined steely eyed loners with no emotion. Killers.
* * *
The riverboat docked at the Shibaozhai Pagoda after lunch for the first of their side tours. You could see the pagoda from the boat, and Niall would have been just as happy to stay on board as roughly half of the passengers chose to do. But Savannah was gung ho to experience everything, so Niall would climb to the top of the twelve-story pavilion with her.
He followed her up the hundreds of wooden stairs, thankful he was in shape, pausing on every landing for Savannah to gaze out the window and marvel at the world below. A few of the climbers with them stopped when they reached the wooden ladders that would take them to the very top, but not Savannah.
He tested the strength of the ladder before he would let her proceed, then told her, “You go first. I’ll make sure no one gets too close.”
They finally reached the small summit, which wasn’t that high as far as buildings went, but was rather up there when you realized you’d climbed the entire way to the top. Savannah peered out through the round window, exclaiming, “Look, Niall. You can see all the way to the bend in the river!”
Her enthusiasm for just about everything amused him, but it also made him wonder how he’d allowed himself to become so jaded over the years. You used to have enthusiasm. What happened? When did you lose it?
His introspection hadn’t started when he’d met Savannah, he acknowledged. It had begun when he’d met the woman who was now his older brother’s wife, and realized that—incredibly—Shane had fallen in love again after umpteen years.
He’d watched Shane and Carly together and had been filled with a sense of longing for what they had. Niall had listened to Carly’s voice and had known she was frantic with fear for Shane when he decided to set himself up as a target to catch the hitman who had both Shane and Carly in his sights. Yet she’d been brave enough to let him risk his life without trying to stop him, and he’d wanted that for himself. Not that he’d wanted Carly—he’d just wanted a woman like her. Soft and gentle, yet fierce and protective. One who would love him through the good times and bad, one he could love the way Shane loved Carly, with a totality he’d never known.
Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.
Too late to listen to the warning, because he’d already found the perfect woman for him, and she was standing in the protective curve of his arms. He just couldn’t keep her.
He’d been skeptical of his brothers and the swiftness with which they’d fallen in love with the women who were now their wives. Especially his youngest brother, Liam, who’d fallen for Cate in a day. But now he realized time had absolutely nothing to do with it. When a man realized he’d found the other half of his soul, he couldn’t do anything but fall.
He loved Savannah with that totality he’d wished for, and he knew in his heart she was trembling on the brink of loving him if she hadn’t already fallen. Problem was, he’d put himself beyond the pale before he’d even had the chance to know her. Love her.
And therein lay the tragedy.
She turned in his embrace to move aside and let someone else have a chance at the window, but before she could he kissed her. She melted into him the way she always did, but then she tore her mouth away.
“Not here,” she breathed, and he knew she was right; they didn’t need an audience. But it nearly killed him to let her go.
* * *
Once more on the ground, they strolled leisurely along the walkway, stopping frequently so Savannah could photograph the marble carvings adorning the sides of the hill upon which the pagoda had been constructed.
“Stand right there,” she instructed in front of a panel displaying an ancient Chinese warrior, sword in hand. She adjusted his position slightly, then snapped off several shots. “That’s you.”
“I don’t carry a sword,” he disagreed.
“No, but the expression on his face. You can just tell he’s protecting someone or something, and that’s you. You’re a protector.”
True, he thought, thinking back over his years in the Marine Corps and the job he had now. But how had Savannah picked up on it? “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, Niall,” was her amused reply. “Just how clueless do you think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re clueless,” he protested. “Far from it.”
“I knew you were a protector from the moment I met you on the Great Wall.”
Back when she’d still been his target. Back when he was using her fear as an excuse to get close to her, to worm his way into her confidence. Guilt made his voice harsher than he intended. “Did it ever occur to you I might have had an ulterior motive?”
Her smile faded. “I considered it,” she admitted, her face solemn and still. “For all of about ten seconds.”
“You’re too trusting. Didn’t your parents ever warn you about strangers? And what about the job you used to do?” he added, warming to his theme. “Haven’t you ever heard of social engineering? I could have been anybody for all you knew.”
If anything, her expression turned even more solemn. “I’ve heard of it, of course. I know what it is, and what it isn’t. You never asked me a single question that raised a red flag. You never pushed me to tell you anything related to my work. You were just...kind. Caring. And so understanding of a fear that has plagued me nearly my whole life that I instinctively trusted you. I knew you’d never hurt me.”
That last sentence was a lash against his conscience, because she was wrong, wrong, wrong! And he desperately wanted to tell her the truth. To lift the weight off his conscience. Confession is good for the soul, he remembered advising her in a lighthearted exchange the other day. But he couldn’t do that, and not just because he wasn’t authorized to tell her. As long as she needed his protection, he needed to keep his secret.
But you don’t need to continue taking advantage of her, his conscience retorted in brutal fashion. You don’t need to keep sharing her bed.
His conscience was right. Savannah had finally accepted early this morning she was a target, which meant she’d be on her guard and didn’t need him 24/7. He could move into his own cabin and watch over her from there for the rest of the trip.
His conscience lightened up on him once he’d reached that resolution, allowing him to clasp her hand and accompany her back to the boat as if nothing substantial had changed between them.
But he dreaded telling her. He had a strong suspicion she wouldn’t take it well. Not at all.
* * *
“I see.” The calmness with which Savannah received his announcement told him she was blazingly angry.
“You don’t need me day and night anymore,” he explained, hefting his backpack over one shoulder and picking up his suitcases.
“I see,” she repeated. “So...all the times we wore each other out in bed, that was just...what? A form of protection?”
He dropped the suitcases with a thud. “No! God, no.”
“Then why?”
“I have reasons,” he insisted stubbornly. “Valid reasons.”
“Those reasons you said before you can’t share with me.”
“Exactly.”
She folded her lips into a tight line. “Okay. Go then. I’ll look after myself.”
The backpack joined the suitcases on the floor. “I’ll still be protecting you,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “Just not...”
“Right. You just won’t be sleeping with me. Okay. I get it. You may leave now,” she said, oh-so-politely.
“Not until you promise you won’t leave this room without me.”
“Oh, I see it now.” She nodded to herself. “Not only am I not good enough to share a bed with, but you think I’m stupid, as well.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.” He frowned in puzzlement. “You’re probably the smartest woman I know.”
“You must think I’m stupid if you think you have to secure that promise from me. Well let me tell you something, Mr. Johnson. I’m not stupid. You’ve convinced me I’m in danger, so I won’t do anything to jeopardize my safety or my freedom.” Her lips thinned. “And now you may take your belongings and leave. I have things to do. I was planning to attend the Welcome Reception before dinner. You know, the one celebrating our first day of sailing? So I’ll call your room when I’m ready. Is that sufficient?”
* * *
Savannah managed to hold on until after Niall left and she bolted the door behind him before she broke down. She threw herself on the other bed, the one they hadn’t shared last night, pulled the pillow over her head and sobbed. Just sobbed. Her heart was breaking, but that wasn’t why she was crying. She was crying because the expression on Niall’s face at the very end betrayed he was suffering just as much as she was by his inexplicable decision to sleep apart from her.
Which meant he cared. A lot more than he wanted her to know. Which also meant the secret he was keeping from her was so important his conscience wouldn’t let him stay. She couldn’t imagine what it could be. But it had to be earth-shattering.