“It’ll take Hyland’s goons a while to put all that together, no matter what resources they have.”
She swallowed. “They have access to all the resources, according to Tess. Has something gone wrong, I mean, apart from the arrest? Charlotte...?”
“Is that your London contact? I don’t know.” He moved to the straps on her feet and began releasing them. Deciphering his thick accent was taking concentration, though just the timbre of it rolled through her chest and eased her breathing. “All I know is that I was the only one who could get here this quickly, so I was it.” It sounded like an apology, like he assumed he was the last man she’d want to see again. How wrong he was. “Flynn was sparing on details and obviously we’re needing to keep this operation contained, so...”
“This operation?” she said. “You’re making it sound even more terrifying.”
“Oh no, this is commonplace. We’re just couriers, yeah? Here to collect and deliver. Operation UPS. Angelito and Holly are trying to get away from some unpronounceable town in Eastern Europe but that’ll take a while. And Texas is waiting for a seat to come free on the Eurostar.”
Angelito. Flynn and Jamie’s capitaine, who’d helped her escape Ethiopia. “Holly...?”
“Angelito’s girlfriend.”
“She can be trusted?”
“She could come in pretty handy.” His brow creased. “I’ve been wondering how you were, where you were. Tess and Flynn assured me you were safe but wouldn’t say more.”
She inwardly winced. Was that censure in his voice? He’d made her promise to keep in touch. She’d crossed her fingers behind her back.
Call if you need me, he’d said, scrawling down his number as he’d stepped onto his train in a French town she could no longer name, to return to his base on Corsica. If you want me. I’ll come straightaway.
So many times she’d nearly relented, even once picking up a pay phone and dialing all but the last digit.
“They didn’t know where I was—it was safer for everyone that way,” she said. “I moved around a lot. And Hyland still caught up with me.” More than a year of being careful and it had very nearly been for nothing. “At least I assume the ambush in Tuscany was his doing?”
“Yes. You did well to get away.”
She sat up, blinking rapidly. “Does Hyland know why I’m in London, where I’m headed?”
“We’re certainly hoping not. But then, until a few hours ago we hadn’t expected all this, either. You might need to fill me in on the details of what we’re going to be doing. We’re picking up something?”
She liked the sound of “we.” But if Hyland’s thugs had her in their sights, what about Charlotte? “Awo, from Putney. I mean, yes. You might as well know everything.” She gave him a breathless rundown. God, there was a lot to explain—Tuscany, Charlotte, the postcard...
“Wow,” Jamie said, when she’d finished. “I hope this ‘gift’ will exonerate Tess and bring down Hyland.”
“So do I, but I honestly don’t know. This could all be for nothing.”
“Flynn seems to think it’s the only chance we have.”
“Dear God, don’t say that.”
The ambulance swerved. She grabbed the sides of the gurney. Jamie caught a yellow metal handhold.
“The ambulance,” she said. “How did you—?”
“Called in a...favor from a...friend.” He glanced at the driver, who was still on the radio. One hell of a favor. She caught the words assessing, respiratory and SOB.
“Did he just call you a son of a bitch?” she said.
A grin flickered across Jamie’s face. “SOB. Shortness of breath. But probably the other thing, too.”
“This is a real ambulance?”
“On a real callout. I used to be a paramedic in London, in another lifetime. Somebody—” His voice deepened with mock conspiracy, his pupils melodramatically shifting left and right. “Somebody called nine-nine-nine on a burner phone to report that a woman had stopped breathing at St Pancras. By...chance, this was the closest ambulance. A lone officer, as far as Ambulance Control was concerned, returning the vehicle to his station after a repair.” The ambulance slowed. “A happy coincidence all around, wouldn’t you say?”
“We’re going to a hospital? Jamie, that’s not a good idea. If anyone saw paramedics take me from the station, they’ll assume that’s where we’re headed. And there’ll be security cameras. My photo is—”
“Everywhere, I know. You’re an overnight sensation. But that photo does you no justice. And don’t worry—the patient is about to have a remarkable recovery and refuse transportation.” Jamie grinned, wrinkling the suntanned skin beside his eyes. God, that was a beautiful sight.
The siren bleeped and the driver accelerated.
“Recovery?” She rested a hand on her chest and swiveled, her legs dangling over the side of the gurney. Her backpack was by her feet. “I don’t know if we can be sure of that yet.”
“Happy to perform any medical procedure you need. Cutting people open is my favorite pastime.”
She smiled up at him. It was a relief to smile for real. To talk to someone. To not be alone. To be with...him. “You are joking, yes?”
He shrugged, his eyes not leaving hers.
Of course he was joking. He was ninety-five percent tease and flirt. It was the five percent that intrigued her, those flashes of frustration or concern that broke through the facade, like a solitary boom of thunder from a clear sky that left you wondering if you’d imagined it. “I didn’t know you were a paramedic.”
His eyebrows angled up. “To be fair, you don’t really know me at all.”
Ouch. “I...guess not.”
She did know for sure that he’d hold eye contact as long as she was game, like it was a challenge—or he was drilling into her mind and amused by what he found.
Deliberately, she turned toward the windscreen. You don’t really know me at all. The exact words she’d thrown at him that fall morning after he’d offered to stay. I know you want me to, he’d said. Coincidence, or did he remember that hideous conversation as clearly as she did?
The driver navigated onto a narrow street flanked by stone-and-brick buildings with sash windows and brave balcony gardens, all shrouded in a gaseous gray light. Near-leafless trees stretched up like clawed skeleton hands. Her breath had shallowed out. With everything that was going on, with everything she was processing, she didn’t need the kind of confusion that came from looking a charming, magnetic man in the eye for too long.
A branch scraped the ambulance roof. She shivered. Winter had set in prematurely here. Even after all her years living in North America and
