Page 31 of The Witness

“Ms. Dalton, pleasure to meet you. I’m Gunter Saxon.”

When a man like Gunter Saxon saidpleasure,it resonated all the way to your toes. He was a debonaire silver fox with an exotic accent I couldn’t place other than to say European. His linenshirt flapped in the breeze, offering a glimpse of tan chest and lean muscles.

He extended his palm, caught my fingers, and lifted my hand to his lips. The chaste kiss he placed on my knuckles was straight out of a fairy tale.

“Nice to meet you.” I sounded breathless and hated it. Yes, Saxon could play 007 in the next movie, but I wasn’t one to melt for any man. Not even Bond, James Bond. I rolled my eyes at my reaction behind Gigi’s dark glasses.

Steel thrust his hand between me and Saxon and practically growled his name.

“Gunter Saxon.” He clutched Steel’s hand, and the men locked eyes, taking each other’s measure for an excruciatingly long time.

Men are exasperating. The handshake looked downright painful. If I could have slipped a lump of charcoal between their clasped hands, I’d have had a diamond after the two got finished penis measuring. Their unbridled display of testosterone didn’t make me feel any safer.

“We need to get moving. I have a contact waiting at the hotel. She’s drinking on my bar tab, and after too much rum, she’s a handful.” Saxon used his left, non-crushed hand to pick up one of the bags and started the long walk up the dock.

Michael, who surreptitiously flexed his abused hand, grabbed the other bag, and we followed our new friend. At the end of the dock, a cherry red 1950s convertible with its top down glistened in the sun.

Michael whistled in appreciation. “That is one hell of a Cadi.”

“Yeah, she’s a 1959 Cadillac Series 62. One glorious mountain of Detroit steel.”

“Incredible.” Michael caressed the car’s outrageous tailfin.

I watched his long, blunt fingers trace the chrome. A longing to let him stroke me like that bloomed, but I forced it out ofmy mind. I plucked at the front of Gigi’s flowery sundress and turned away. No sexy thoughts about Michael Steel, I sternly reminded myself. The tropical air I fanned over my chest was doing little to dampen the spark of attraction heating my skin.

Gunter slammed the trunk with a loud thunk. I jumped, startled out of my wayward thoughts by the clunk of Detroit steel. Our bags stowed, we got on the road.

“How do you know Smith?” I asked before they got too comfortable with the silence. Men can just drive for hours not saying a word. The questions rattling around in my head would never allow me to accept that. I’d go crazy before we reached Havana.

“John Smith and I go way back. I’ve known that son of a bitch for about twenty years. If not for Kira, he’d be tending bar at my club in St. Moritz dreaming about his glory days.”

“You own a bar in Switzerland.” I rubbed a growing knot of tension in my right shoulder.

“But of course, that’s where the best skiing is.” Gunter smiled a playboy’s smile at me in the rear-view mirror that made me want to scream with frustration.

I leaned forward from the backseat to talk into Michael’s ear, the wind whipping through the open car forcing me to speak louder than discretion warranted. “My savior is a forty-something playboy bartender?”

Gunter’s harsh bark of laughter let me know my words had carried to him. Embarrassed, I slumped back in my seat.

“I like you; you’ve got balls. You’re going to need them.” He shot me another smile in the rearview mirror.

“Welcome to our world, where no one is what they seem.” Steel turned around in his seat, unencumbered by a seatbelt because the car pre-dated them by decades.

“I don’t understand.”

“Take me, for example. I look, er looked, like a biker. Can fight like a soldier. Speak four languages, can drive a big rig, and earned a master’s degree in sociology. Among other things.”

I shrugged.

“Okay, how about Quinn? Mild-mannered office manager, right?”

I nodded. Quinn was the kind of indispensable employee that kept a company organized with a smile and determination.

“She’s a demolitions expert. As good at blowing stuff up as any Navy SEAL or IRA terrorist.”

This time, my jaw dropped. “No way.”

“Yes. And Sydney, besides being a lawyer and married to a billionaire, is a full-on commando. She has led extraction teams on rescue missions all over South and Central America.”

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