Page 8 of Steinbeck
Don’t cry.
Black Swans didn’t cry.Didn’t?—
“Took you long enough, Phoenix,” said a male voice, soft, almost gentle, a bit of laughter on the end, as if...
And her heart jolted, jump-started, exploded inside her.
“Steinbeck?”
“Who else do you think?Wanna get out of here?”
TWO
It worked.
Steinbeck’s crazy, thrown-together, call-it-chance, good-luck, not-to-mention-decent-intel plan had actuallyworked.
The tremor in her voice in the pitch darkness, the way Phoenix’s breath caught at his words...Clearly she hadn’t believed he’d actually show up.
“Seriously?”The voice on the other side of the wall seemed almost frail, nothing of the woman he’d met three years ago while on an op in Poland—tough, in control.Although, when she added a snarky “I hate to mention this, but you’re locked in here with me.”Yeah, it sounded like Phoenix.
He gave a laugh, a spark, the heat of it a warm flame igniting inside.“Please.”Then he reached into the pocket of the ratty pants he couldn’t wait to get out of and pulled out a key.
A helpful souvenir from the guard outside the tunnel door, currently snoozing in Stein’s rented Fiat Panda.
He moved over to the lock, inserted the key.The door whined open.Then he pulled on a headlamp and flicked it on.The beam cast over her cell, over her.
She stood at the ready, her hands clutching the bars.She wore the same baggy green cargo pants and a grimier version of the same white T-shirt as a month ago.Bare feet, so clearly she’d lost her flip-flops along the way.Her hair glowed, copper red under his light, and her green eyes settled on him, wide.“It really is you.”Her voice had cut to almost a whisper, as if he were an apparition, or maybe just a dream, losing all sense of her earlier bravado.
He swallowed back the same ethereal feeling, found words as he approached her lock.“Who else would deliberately sneak into a dark tunnel, get trapped in a cell, and show up smelly and dog tired to rescue a woman who might only get him into trouble?”
She cocked her head.“So many feelings for a guy whose biggest response is usually a grunt.”
And she was back.
He grunted and opened her cell.
And then she stood there, in the opening, three feet from him, just...staring.As if?—
“Phoenix?”
She launched herself at him.A full-on, legs-around-his-waist, arms-around-his-neck embrace, holding on as if he were a pillar in a flood, her only hope.
His arms went around her, and he had to take a step back to keep from falling, his knees hurting just a little from all the ruckus a few hours earlier, but he held her.
Heldon toher.He’d never realized, really, how petite her frame felt against his.Small, strong, a bobcat more than a tiger, but also broken maybe—because her body shook a little, belying her tough demeanor.
“You okay?”
She leaned her forehead into his shoulder; then her entire body exhaled and she let go, first her legs, then her arms releasing.
He lowered her to her feet and met her eyes.They seemed to be—“Phoenix, are you crying?”
“What?No.Just...I’m cold.”She wrapped her arms around herself, then looked away.“Let’s get out of here.”
Mm-hmm.“Good idea.I don’t know how long we have until the Russians figure out that their guy at the door isn’t on a chai break.”
She frowned, and he resisted the urge to pull her back into his arms.
