He laughed, and she realized how indelicate that sounded. “You have the mind of an adolescent boy,” she grumbled, putting on another bandage. “And don’t give me any more crap about three years. I don’t imagine you were ever restrained.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Miss Pennington.” It was the voice of a stranger, clipped, cool, polite, and she looked up, startled. Even past the familiar beard he looked completely different, an upper class Brit in a distasteful situation. And then, just as swiftly, the mask fell away, and it was MacGowan again, with a slow, lazy grin on his face.
She bent back to her work. “What was that?”
“You don’t know what I do for a living. There’s a reason I survived up there for so long, a reason why they took me in the first place, a reason I was able to get the two of you down safely. I’ve been trained by the best, and I know how to get a job done without looking back. I also know how to be anyone I want to be. A year from now if you passed me in the street you wouldn’t even know me.” His voice was cool, dispassionate, almost bleak, and she wanted to break through that sudden wall.
“Especially if you shave,” she said caustically. “All done.” She gave him a little shove, but instead he moved closer, pushing between her legs so that he was too close, and he caught her hand as she started to put the bandages away.
She looked up, into his eyes, and her breath caught. He was looking down at her with the oddest expression on his face, something she’d never seen before, something she couldn’t understand.
“Where the fuck have you guys been?” Dylan appeared in the doorway, breaking the tenuous thread that had stretched between them.
MacGowan stepped back, and Beth felt her breath return. “Sister Beth’s been patching me up,” he said. “Where have you been?”
“Exploring. Whoever was living here sure left in a hurry. I found . . .”
MacGowan already had him by the arm, manhandling him out of the room. “Beth was living here,” he said. “And I don’t think she wants to talk about it. You can take care of dinner. She needs a bath and a rest, I need the same.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t like a bath?” Dylan shot back.
“You’ve got a choice between food or a bath and you’re a teenage boy. I figure the answer is simple. You can take a bath after I’ve finished.”
“She stab you?” Dylan surveyed him with great interest.
“No. Not that she wouldn’t have liked to, but Sister Beth is a woman of infinite resources. Unlike you and me. Come along, hermano, and I’ll let you raid the kitchen.”
Their voices trailed off, and she was alone once more, sitting on her bed, unmoving. They were gone, and she’d already indulged herself in the luxury of grief. For now she could put it away, deal with it more properly once she was home. In the meantime, if she could trust MacGowan, there would be a hot bath available for the taking. Grabbing clean clothes from the trunk by her bed, she went out into the familiar hallway, heading for the bathing room that had once served the nuns.
The old bath was huge, and she filled it only half-full, with lukewarm water. MacGowan and Dylan needed baths or showers themselves and she wasn’t going to hog all the hot water. Besides, room temperature water was almost warm enough.
She was completely filthy, and the tub would be muddy in two seconds if she got in like this. She stripped off her clothes and stood under the shower, unbraiding her long hair as the top layer of mud and dirt came off her. Turning it off, she slid into the old porcelain tub, sinking down. She tilted her head back, letting her hair flow about her in the warm water, and felt the last bits of tension drain away. For now, for this moment, she was safe and happy. In an hour they’d begin the fight to survive once more, but right now she could simply lie back in the tub, rub herself with the rose-scented soap Tia Maria had brought her, and be glad to be alive.
It was no wonder she fell asleep. No wonder that getting a mouthful of water woke her with a start, and she climbed out of the now-cold water, wrapping herself in the threadbare towel. Her skin was burned by the sun, and bruises covered half of her body. There were no mirrors at the mission – the nuns had been denied them and Beth hadn’t cared, but now she wished she could see just how bad she looked. She pulled on a clean pair of cargo shorts and a tank top, covering her lack of a bra with an oversized cotton shirt. Her feet were a pathetic mess, but she had an old pair of flip-flops she could wear that would give her soles some protection, and she could smell food coming from the kitchen. Something spicy and good, and she realized with relief that Dylan was a better cook than she would have thought. The electric lights were on, the overhead fan spinning lazily when she walked inside the kitchen, and she opened her mouth to speak, then stopped in shock at the sight of the stranger standing by the stove. Not Dylan after all, and she should have run, but she was too petrified to move. It was one shock too many, and she stared at the man, trying to assess whether he was going to kill her, rape her, or feed her.
The stranger looked up at her out of cool gray eyes. He had long, blonde-streaked brown hair, a strong nose, and a mouth that curved in the trace of a smile. He wasn’t Hispanic, and therefore unlikely to be a threat, but she wasn’t going to let down her guard just because a ridiculously handsome man appeared in her kitchen.
“Where’s MacGowan?” she demanded fiercely, determined not to show fear. “What have you done with him? And where is Dylan?”
The man gave her a lazy smile, the kind that would charm most women, and the suspicion blossomed before he even opened his mouth. “I didn’t do a damned thing to MacGowan except give him a shower and shave him, Sister Beth. What do you think . . . do I clean up well?”
That was the understatement of the year, and for some reason Beth was suddenly annoyed. Almost betrayed. What the hell was someone that good-looking doing hiding under all that hair and dirt. Granted, he’d had no choice in the matter, but it was unfair of fate to have suddenly presented her with someone that gorgeous.
“Well enough,” she said in an unpromising voice. She limped over to one of the long tables where they’d fed the children, Carlos included, and sat. “Dylan’s in the shower?”
“Let’s hope so. He was making a fair mess of things here so I kicked him out. How are your feet?”
“They’ll heal. Did you get your dressing wet? I don’t have an unlimited supply of butterfly bandages, you know.”
“I know how to take a shower without ruining a field dressing, darlin’.” He started dishing up a plate of something, then dumped it in front of her. “Eat up. Tons more where that came from.”
It looked like canned dog food and smelled like heaven, and she took the fork he handed her and dug in, burning her mouth on the first bite and not caring. “What is it?”
“A bit of this and a bit of that. Flavored with a lot of chili.” He filled another plate and sat down opposite her, and his leg knocked against hers under the table. She jumped back, nervous, but either he didn’t notice or pretended not to. She kept her eyes lowered, staring into the mystery food in front of her, suddenly tongue-tied. As if things weren’t bad enough.
She needed to say something. He was watching her, she could feel those hard gray eyes assessing her, and she swallowed too large a mouthful of the dinner, then had to wait while she chewed. “How did you manage to shave?” she said finally. “There aren’t any mirrors here, and I gather scraping that much hair off a face is a complicated matter.”
“I can make do with most of the basic necessities of life. Look – not even a nick.”