Iris Johansen - Always

"No.

"I take it that's a protest, not disagreement. We both know he'll come, Lisa. He has a history of psychotic jealousy where you're concerned."

She was having trouble keeping her lids from closing. "I won't let you do this," she murmured. "I'm going to get away." Her eyes closed in spite of her struggle to keep them open. "I'm going to get away from you, Donahue."

Was it her imagination or did she feel a whisper-soft caress as he brushed a curl away from her temple? "It's too late, Lisa." The words came out of the hovering darkness, blurred but unmistakable. "You'll never get away from me."

When she opened her eyes again it wasn't Donahue's face she saw, but one that was far less intimidating. The man who was grinning appealingly down at her was much younger and as ail-American as apple pie. He was dressed casually in jeans, a wildly flowered Hawaiian shirt, and tennis shoes.

"Hi, I'm John Galbraith, Miss Landon. I hope to hell you're feeling better. Clancy has been spitting like a cat for the last hour or so. He's telephoning the lab now to yell at them for not calling the shots more accurately about your reaction to the drug." He made a face. "Better them than me. I nearly got myself mutilated when I brought you in here in that comatose state."

The breezily casual statement issuing out of that boyishly appealing face shocked her into full consciousness. "You brought me here?"

"I get all the really quality assignments," he said sarcastically. "Kidnapping an American citizen was a natural for me."

She sat up in bed. Her dizziness was gene now, though there was still the trace of a headache. "A criminal assignment," she said. "You're going to go to prison for a long time, Mr. Galbraith."

"I won't, you know," he said softly. "Clancy wouldn't have sent me on the job if he hadn't had me covered. He protects his men."

"He'll have trouble protecting himself this time."

A tiny frown wrinkled his brow. "Look, Miss Landon, I know you're upset, but don't make the mistake of going against Clancy. He has no intention of hurting you, but he's not about to let you gountil Baldwin surfaces. It will be a good deal pleasanter for you if you'll accept that. Clancy is the toughest bastard I've ever run across. You don't want to cross him."

"The hell I don't." Lisa could feel her anger igniting once again as she remembered the sheer arrogance, the outrageous illegality of Donahue's actions. "At the moment, I not only want to cross him-I damn well want to draw and quarter him." Her voice dropped to an ominously low pitch. "After I finish with you."

Galbraith flinched. "I'm easier meat than Clancy, but I don't think I'd like that. You seem to be a little bloodthirsty at present. I think I'd better feed you." He rose to his feet. "You haven't had anything to eat for nearly twenty-four hours. I'll go to the kitchen and see what I can whip up. You'llTind all your clothes in the closet and in the drawers of the bureau." He gestured to a door to the right of the bed. "The bathroom's right there. I'll tell Clancy you're feeling much better… well, better enough to create a little mayhem." He was strolling toward the door across the room. "I'll be right back with your dinner."

Dinner? Her gaze flew to the French doors across-the room. The sky was flushed with the scarlet and pink of sunset. She must have been unconscious almost an entire day. No wonder Clancy Donahue had been concerned, she thought grimly. He'd probably thought he was going to have to face a murder charge as well as the one for kidnapping. He would face those charges as soon as she found a way out of here. There was no way he was going to get by with this!

The French doors. Lisa acted without thinking, tossing the covers aside, slipping out of bed, and running toward the doors. They were unlocked! The tiles still held the afternoon heat and were hot beneath her bare feet as she dashed across the courtyard. There was a brass-bracketed mahogany door in the stone wall surrounding the yard, but she ignored it. Donahue had said there would be guards at all the entrances, but they wouldn't expect her to go over that seven-foot wall. The wall was covered with a thick blanket of fragrant honeysuckle that just might give her enough purchase to climb to the top. She scrambled recklessly up the vines, ignoring the fact that her slight weight was tearing them off the wall. Let Donahue get a gardener to repair the damage. She hoped it cost him a bundle.

When she had reached the top of the wall, she paused a moment to catch her breath-and then lost it again. There were two men below, only a scant ten feet from where she crouched! Their backs were turned to her, thank goodness. If she was lucky… The wall bordered a stretch of private beach, and the surf was a hushed roar only a few yards from where the guards were standing. She'd be leaping down onto a soft cushion of sand and they might not hear her. Lisa murmured a fervent prayer, jumped to the ground, and set off running without looking around to see if she'd been heard by the guards.

The familiar skyscraper of the hotel casino towered on the horizon. If she could make it there, surely she could appeal to one of the guests for help, even if most of the staff were under Donahue's control. She felt a sharp pain in the arch of her right foot as a shell cut into it, but she didn't have time to stop and worry about it.

"Lisa, stop, dammit!"

Donahue! Her heart jerked and then started pounding wildly. Her pace increased, her bare feet flying over the sand.

"Blast it, Lisa, stop! I don't want to hurt you."

Oh, Lord, he sounded as if he were right on top of her. She couldn't go any faster. Her lungs were aching now, and there was an agonizing stitch in her side. The hotel seemed closer. If she could just block out the pain and keep runn-

She pitched forward into the sand, felled by a neat tackle behind her knees. The little breath she had remaining was knocked out of her, and for a moment she struggled wildly to regain it. She was vaguely aware of being flipped over and of powerful thighs straddling her own. Instinctively she started struggling and was immediately punished by having her wrists pinned above her head.

"Give it up!" Donahue's voice was rough. "Don't you know when you're beaten? I realized the second John told me you were awake that I'd better get back to you. I came just in time to see you perched on the wall like a sea gull."

"I'm not beaten." She'd gained enough breath back to gasp that out, at least. She tried to lift her leg to knee him, but his weight was too great to budge. "I'm never going to let you beat me, Donahue."

"And to think I was worrying about how fragile you were a few hours ago," Clancy muttered.

"You'd think I would have learned by now how deadly the female of the species can be."

"Let me go!" Lisa tugged desperately, but his grip was manacle hard about her wrists. "I'll show you how deadly I can be. I'm going to murder you, Donahue." "So John informed me."

"Your baby-faced hoodlum friend?" Her eyes blazed into his. "He at least had the intelligence to believe I meant it."

"If he'd had any intelligence, he wouldn't have left you alone. I told him to stay with you until I came back. I was afraid you'd do something stupid like this when you regained consciousness." "Stupid? You think trying to escape is stupid?" "I think fighting any lost cause is stupid," he said harshly. "And this is a lost cause, Lisa. I'm not letting you go."

She had a vague memory of hearing him say something similar before… but it had sounded different somehow. Impatiently she dismissed the thought. It had probably been her imagination or that damn drug Donahue had given her. "I'll get away. If not now, then later. Lwon't let you do this tome."

"Lisa…" His blue eyes gazed into her own, and she inhaled sharply as a wave of heat washed over her, drowning her anger with an entirely new emotion. She was suddenly conscious of the power of his muscled thighs as they effortlessly held her own limbs still. He was so big, so powerful; she was so weak and ineffectual by comparison. Her heart started to beat wildly again as if with fear, but it wasn't fear she was experiencing.