Linda Howard - Death Angel

He smiled when he saw her, actually honest-to-God smiled. “You’re so damn pretty,” he said.

The compliment was so unexpected, so at odds with what she’d just been thinking, that she skidded to a stop, her mouth falling open in shock. “I, uh, thank you. But… are you blind? ”

“No, I’m not,” he answered as seriously as if the question hadn’t been rhetorical. He reached out and touched her hair. “I kind of miss the curls, but I like the color. You’re not as flashy now, not as brittle. That’s good. Your mouth still…never mind.”

“Never mind, what?” He was playing her like a hooked fish. She knew it, but that didn’t make any difference. What about her mouth? She shouldn’t ask because the answer had to be sexual and she didn’t want to go there, but… what about her mouth?

“I’ll tell you over food,” he said.

It wasn’t until they were sitting in a booth in one of the area IHOPs, menus in hand and coffee steaming in front of them, that she realized he’d said he would answer any question, but not that he’d answer honestly. Annoyed with herself for not thinking of that catch earlier, she slapped the menu down on the table and gave him a frustrated glare. “Answering any question is one thing, but will you tell the truth?”

“Of course,” he said easily, so easily that she knew she’d been had.

“You’re lying.”

He put his own menu down. “Andie, think about it. What do I have to hide from you? Or you from me?”

“How would I know? If I knew everything about you, then I wouldn’t need to ask any questions, now would I?”

“Good point.”

He smiled at her. She wished he would stop doing that. When he smiled, she forgot he was a hired killer, forgot that ice water ran in his veins, and that by walking away from her he’d hurt her more than any man ever did. But thinking about him walking away also made her think about the tattoo on his ass, and how she could possibly have missed it.

“So, what does the design of your tattoo mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s a temporary kid’s tattoo. I put it on this morning.”

She was in the middle of taking a sip of coffee and she choked, clapping her hand over her mouth and nose and trying not to spray coffee all over the table. As soon as she managed to swallow, she began laughing at how adroitly he’d baited her into doing what he wanted. “That’s cheating, and I fell for it. I knew you didn’t have a tattoo.”

The waitress sailed up, pad and pen ready. “You guys decide what you want?”

Andie ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, and Simon went for the same thing except with added hash browns. As soon as they were alone again, she set her cup down so she wouldn’t embarrass herself by snorting coffee if he had any other surprises tucked up his sleeve, or in his pants.

There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask him, but some she didn’t dare because she wasn’t certain she wanted to hear the answers. Now that she thought about it, being given the power to ask any question she wanted, and get an answer, was a bit daunting. It would be daunting with anyone, but with this man she felt as if she were poking a tiger with a stick, which, even with the tiger’s permission, could be a dangerous activity.

She started with the easy stuff, for her own sake. “How old are you?”

His brows lifted a little in surprise at her choice of question. “Thirty-five.”

“Your birthday?”

“November first.”

She fell silent. She wanted to know his real last name, but maybe that was something she was better off leaving alone. His secrets were darker than hers, the boundaries that defined him more violent and starkly drawn.

“That’s it?” he asked, when no further questions came at him. “You wanted to know how old I am and when I was born?”

“No, that isn’t it. This is harder than I expected.”

“Do you want to know how old I was the first time I killed someone?”

“No.” She hastily looked around to see if anyone had overheard him, but his voice was too low to carry and no one was giving them horrified looks.

“Seventeen,” he continued relentlessly. “I discovered I have a natural talent for wet work. I gave it up last year, though, after sitting in a hospital chapel and crying because I had just stood outside your hospital room and listened to you talking to your nurse, and I knew you were not only alive but somehow whole. I haven’t taken a job since.”

DAMN HIM, DAMN HIM, DAMN HIM.

Andie cursed him for the next two days, not only because she didn’t see him at all even though somehow she knew he was still there, keeping watch, but because, sitting in that booth at the IHOP and listening to him expose his soul, she’d fallen in love with him. Of all the ill-advised things she’d done in her life, falling in love with a hit man, even a retired one, had to top the scale. If she had ever needed verification that she should stay far, far away from any romantic relationship because she was incapable of making a good decision when it came to picking out a man, there it was, proof positive.

She hadn’t cried, though she’d wanted to. He’d made his heartbreaking confession so calmly, in such a matter-of-fact tone, that he’d enabled her to keep her composure, and after a while she’d been able to ask more questions, such as where he was from (he was born on an army base in Germany) and if he had any family (he was an only child, and both his parents were dead). Even if he’d had any close family, she thought, he would still have chosen to be alone. She’d sailed alone herself, so she knew what it was to confide in no one, to trust no one. She still didn’t trust, at least not very much. She had made no close friends since settling here in K.C., which was really pitiful, but on this level she completely understood him.

He was atypical in a lot of ways. He didn’t care for professional sports of any kind, which also made sense; team sports wouldn’t appeal to a loner. He didn’t have a favorite color, and he didn’t like pie. Maybe he saw preferences as weaknesses that could be used against him and he’d deliberately disassociated himself from many of the likes and dislikes that people used to define themselves and their boundaries; maybe he had always had that distance between himself and everyone else.

Yet he had reached out to her, more than once. On the afternoon they’d shared, he’d seen how frightened she was, and he’d reassured her with tenderness, seduced her with pleasure. He’d made love to her, though at the time neither of them had seen it that way. When she’d had the accident, he had stayed with her as she died, watched over her until someone else could come.

She never dreamed about the accident, seldom visited her vague memories of dying. First came that incredible light, somehow both pure and vivid, and then she’d been in that wonderful place. Her recall of both was detailed down to scents and textures, but what came between those two happenings was sketchy and out of focus. Maybe it was because she was sitting across from him, staring at his face and making memories, that abruptly she saw the scene as clearly as if it were taking place in front of her eyes. In her mind she heard him whisper “God, sweetheart,” and saw him touch her hair. She watched him wait with her. Looking directly at her own body was nearly impossible, as if there were some sort of shield around her, but she could see him oh so clearly. She could see the anguish he struggled to control, the pain he could barely acknowledge.

Like a bolt once more going through her chest, she knew why he’d looked up the newspaper accounts of her accident. He had wanted to find out where she was buried, so he could put flowers on her grave.