Claimed by the Secret Agent

She worked best on her own and resented the fact that she needed him. She didn’t like needing anyone for anything. Surviving on her own was a way of life for her. Lonely at times, but that was no excuse for abandoning what worked best. But partnering on this mission was necessary.

Grant cast sideways glances at the sketchbook as he drove. She was damn good. “We have another artist on the team, Renee Alexander. You’ll like her.”

“Assuming I ever meet her. Is this all she does?”

“No,” he said. “She’s an agent.”

“That’s not what I meant. Can she do what you said you could do? You know, psychic stuff?”

“Some.” He didn’t expound on it, since Marie wasn’t on board with the team yet. He’d probably volunteered more than he ought to already.

She got the message and didn’t ask anything else about it. Grant liked that she sensed when to drop things without being told.

Her drawing looked almost finished when he pulled off the autobahn an hour later to fill the gas tank and get some food. She hadn’t eaten a decent meal yet and it was already three o’clock.

“You must be starved,” he commented. “What would you like?”

“Fast food. Hamburger,” she muttered, still intent on her drawing.

“C’mon. That stuff will kill you. Let’s get a schnitzel.”

“Oh, yeah, like that will keep your arteries clear. Humor me and find some Golden Arches, will you? And a beer. I want beer and a burger.” She rubbed the picture with one finger, smudging in a shadow. “Make that two. Two burgers. One beer, unless you’re driving all the way. Then I’ll have two of each.”

Grant clicked his tongue, exasperated. “How do you keep that figure?”

“I only indulge when I’ve been kidnapped,” she said with a smile that looked forced. “Buy me some comfort?”

He bought her some comfort, watching her with no little fascination as she consumed two quarter-pounders with cheese, fries with mayonnaise and two cups of draft.

“Isn’t it wild that you can buy beer everywhere? Even here?” she asked.

“I see you’re still going through culture shock. Do you even like beer?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Unfortunately, I do. German beer anyway.”

“Apple pie?” he asked, nudging one toward her side of the table and wondering just how much she could hold in that tiny frame before exploding.

She took the pie and simply looked at the cardboard container longingly. “Maybe later.”

“Maybe? No maybe about it, you eat like a lumberjack,” he said with a laugh.

“I haven’t had a hamburger or pie since I was a kid,” she admitted. “I had to give ’em up.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just eaten. Her gaze met his. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“Okay, why?”

“I was a fat kid.” Her blue eyes widened in that engaging way she had, and she nodded for emphasis. “Really, really fat.”

And now she was really, really tipsy. “Yeah? How long since you had beer?”

“Month or so. I love the taste of it but don’t indulge a lot. I’m not much of a drinker.”

Obviously. Her eyelids were drooping.

The stress was catching up with her, adrenalin crashing right on top of those two little cups of beer. “I think you need a nap. Let’s go and you can sleep on the way.”

“Wait! You have to get the picture to Interpol!”

“Is it finished? Let’s have a look.” He pulled the sketchbook to his side of the table and opened the cover.

The profile was detailed, right down to the mole near the eye and stubble on the jaw and neck. Off in one corner was a man’s left hand with a scar delineated on the wrist. “Man, it’s so realistic! You are good.”

“Photographic. That’s what I do best,” she replied.

He pulled out his cell phone, caught the images on his screen, then e-mailed them along with a short message to Mercier, who would do the proper distribution. “There. All done.”

Grant smoothed the page down with his hand and almost gasped. The energy radiating from the drawing virtually leaped up his arm. Rage. Determination. And suppressed fear.

Damn. He couldn’t let her go into this with that much emotion. It would wreck the whole mission, not to mention what it might do to her if she ever actually confronted her captor. But now was not the time to discuss it.

She wouldn’t voluntarily rescue herself, not easily anyway. Maybe he could somehow make her see reason before they reached Holland.

He led her to the car and settled her in the backseat, stuffing his folded jacket under her head as a pillow.

Grant had noticed how she shied away from him, but now she accepted his help easily enough. Either she trusted him a bit more or the beer had lowered her defenses. Any woman who had undergone all that she had in the last twenty-four hours probably couldn’t stand any man getting too close. From now on, he’d keep contact to a minimum whenever possible.

A shame, he thought, as his fingers brushed against her braid. She needed hugging in the worst way and didn’t even know it.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, cradling her face in one hand and closing her eyes.

“Fat little kid, huh?” he muttered to himself as he closed the door and went around to the driver’s side and got in. “You sure fixed that problem.”

She was as slender as she could be without looking skinny now, and he suspected the curves she did have were mostly muscle. No doubt she worked out regularly. Excellent shape. His admiration for her kicked up another notch now that he knew she wasn’t just born with lucky genes.

“I was skinny,” he said, his voice hushed in pretend conversation with his sleeping passenger. “Tall and a beanpole. Geeky, to boot. I know what it takes to shape up and how miserable it can be doing it. Good for you, babe.”

He thought he heard a sleepy chuckle from the backseat but decided he must have imagined it. She was dead to the world back there.

Grant smiled to himself, trying to picture Marie as a roly-poly adolescent. All he could see in his mind were those remarkably expressive delft-blue eyes, bright with enthusiasm, intelligence and all-consuming energy.

He hated to disappoint her by sending her home. Maybe Mercier would know what to do with her, because he sure as hell didn’t.

They were already halfway to Holland from Munich, and Frankfurt was out of the way. He’d take her on to Amsterdam and put her on a plane. Then he could get down to business with no distractions.

Marie sensed that in her temporarily vulnerable state she’d given away too much about herself in her effort to befriend Tyndal. He had identified with her childhood problem. She’d figured he would do that. Didn’t all kids have socialization problems of one kind or another? But she had laid it out all wrong, and now he probably saw her as defensive, compensatory and a little out of control. He would dump her if she gave him the chance.

She wasn’t drunk on two beers—not by a long stretch—but the beer had loosened her up while she was winding down from the high of all the excitement and exhaustion.

No use regretting her dietary lapse or trying to get too close to him too soon. She made it a point never to second-guess her decisions or actions. Counterproductive.