He remembered how she’d returned from the woods, boldly firing to frighten off their attackers. Calan had been half blind, struggling against the numbing effect of the drug at the time. Without her diversion, his fight might have been far more harrowing.
What kind of woman would come back to save a wild creature?
He rubbed his burning shoulder, frowning. He did not take any gift lightly, and hers demanded a grave weight of repayment. He had no choice but to track the mystery woman down. At the very least he had to be certain she was safe.
In the distance a truck motor raced, and he drew back into the shadows of the trees, following a path to the small glade where he had left his clothes and belongings the night before. He had two hours to scan the road and the attack scene. From there he would pick up her trail, which should lead him to her car. At the least he would note the direction she had traveled. Then he’d put all the details in Nicholas’s hands.
One thing he knew without question. He would see her again. She had saved his life and he must offer her an equal service in repayment.
But Calan had a grim suspicion that he would see their attackers again, too.
This time he would be ready for them.
THE DUSTY OLD TRIUMPH ARRIVED twenty-two minutes early. The tall English driver looked distracted as he strode across the abbey’s cobblestone courtyard. Then his handsome face curved into a broad grin.
Calan was sitting on the abbey’s bottom step, waiting for Nicholas Draycott’s arrival. He had washed away all traces of mud and dried blood in the stream beyond the meadow and the long welts on his arm were now hidden beneath his jacket.
As Calan’s oldest and closest friend, Nicholas was aware of Calan’s chaotic boyhood and strange talents though Calan had never revealed all the details. Nicholas had respected that reserve, never prying further.
“Just look what the tide has washed in. Are you flotsam or jetsam?”
“According to maritime law, am I goods floating after a wreck versus goods intentionally thrown overboard? I don’t recall jumping from any nearby ships, so that must make me flotsam. Floating debris—probably from the wreckage of my life.” Calan smiled with a trace of bitterness. “As for you, rules of salvage are in effect. You must return me in the event of any official claim from contending parties.”
Nicholas shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere. It’s far too hard to track you down. You never leave contact numbers or an e-mail address. It’s as if you vanish from the face of the earth between visits.”
“Call me a throwback that way. When I’m gone, I’m gone. Since I usually end up in remote places, neither type of message would do much good anyway.” Calan stretched, eyeing the viscount. “For a bureaucrat and landowner you look remarkably fit.”
“I’ve been outside a good deal in the last month.” Something passed over Nicholas Draycott’s face, though he tried to cover it with a laugh and a handshake. “All that can wait. I’m afraid Marston is in London, but I can round up scones and some lapsang souchong tea for you.”
“You remember all my dark vices, I see.”
“Only the ones fit for mixed company.” Nicholas opened the front door and moved to punch in an alarm code. Then he turned, shooting his friend a knowing look. “There are other vices, as I recall. And given that lean, tanned look, I see that you’ve been keeping yourself extremely active in those exotic places you favor. Where was it this month? Tanzania? Kashmir?”
“Sri Lanka and Morocco, if you must know.” Calan looked at the sunny entrance and giant spiral staircase. The abbey was as beautiful as he remembered, rich with the smell of freshly cut flowers. Every inch of wood and marble gleamed with polish and care. “So Kacey isn’t with you?”
“No, the family is in London at the moment.” Once again, tension crossed Nicholas’s face. “Let’s go up to the library. I’ve got some new wiring plans I’d like you to look at, if you wouldn’t mind. While you do that, I’ll track down that food and tea.”
“Sounds like a fair trade to me. Marston’s scones were always worth a king’s ransom.” Calan kept his tone casual, but he was considering how best to bring up the attack of the prior night and the woman whose rich, seductive scent kept drifting through his thoughts.
“Something wrong?”
Calan realized that Nicholas had turned to stare at him. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I know you damned well by now, MacKay. Nothing troubles you or frightens you. Yet right now you’re distracted—and you don’t want me to know it.”
“I forget you were our government’s best field agent, with a reputation for missing no detail.”
“Don’t change the subject. What’s wrong? Not your…health, I hope?”
“I’m in excellent shape. As shapes come and go,” the Scotsman said drily. “As for the rest, I think I’ll have that tea first.”
“SO ARE YOU EVER going to stop?” Nicholas frowned at his friend over the silver tea set.
Even with Nicholas, Calan’s habitual distance was firmly in place. That reserve never left him, even around his few friends.
Calan sank into a thick leather chair beside the open French doors. “By that, you mean I should stop dropping in on you with no notice? I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said stiffly.
“Rubbish. I’m delighted to see you, notice or not.” Nicholas turned to fill their teacups. “I’m talking about this damnable travel obsession you have. I’ve barely seen you in the last four years.” Nicholas Draycott put down his scone, untouched. His eyes narrowed. “You never stay here in England. You’re constantly on the move.”
Exactly. And he would stay that way, Calan thought. Right up to the day he died. Ancient clan prophecies could not be changed, though Nicholas knew nothing of that.
Calan gave a casual shrug. “I enjoy new languages and new people. I wasn’t aware that travel was a crime.” He inhaled the smoky scent of the dark tea and smiled. “I’d forgotten how much I miss England. I’d also forgotten how beautiful this old abbey of yours can be.”
Especially by moonlight, with the clouds drifting like silver froth and rose petals carried on the wind. Such a night could make a man forget every promise, every duty.
But Nicholas didn’t know about his earlier visit or the attack that followed, and Calan wasn’t giving him the details yet. First he wanted to know why someone would be staking out the road at the abbey’s edge.
And who the woman was.
“Don’t change the subject, Calan. It’s time you turned in your frequent flyer cards. Settle down. Open another six software design studios, or whatever it is you do to make such obscene amounts of money.”
“Satellite mapping technology,” Calan said. “And I would hardly call my fees obscene.”
“More than anyone needs. I know you give away a large part of it to charities. I also know about your dangerous sideline.”
“Windsurfing?” Calan tried to keep his tone cool and just a little flippant. He hadn’t expected his old friend to turn their first conversation in months into an interrogation of this sort.
“Hardly. I am referring to your land mine and ordnance disposal work.” Nicholas drummed his fingers on a gleaming Georgian side table. “I found out last week from a Red Cross colleague in Switzerland. He filled me in about your work in developing countries without the equipment or expertise to clear their old fields. In all these years you never mentioned it to me.”
He sounded especially irritated, Calan thought, as if this secrecy had betrayed their friendship. “It didn’t seem relevant.”
“You nearly get yourself killed every six months