Falco: The Dark Guardian

“Thank you,” she said, and she knotted the belt of the robe, slid into the rubber thongs the gofer dropped at her feet and made her way quickly to the half-dozen Airstream trailers clustered like Conestoga wagons awaiting an Indian attack a couple of hundred yards away.

Chad Scott was right, she thought as she went up the two steps to the door of her trailer. Cool air, cool water, some time alone and she’d be fine.

“Absolutely fine,” she said as the door swung shut…

A man was standing against the wall just beyond the closed door. Tall. Dark-haired. Wraparound sunglasses. Her brain took quick inventory…and then her heart leaped like a startled cat and she opened her mouth to scream.

But the man was fast. He was on her, turning the locking bolt, one hand over her mouth before the scream erupted. He gripped her by the shoulder with his free hand, spun her around and hauled her back against him.

She could feel every hard inch of his leanly muscled body.

“Screaming isn’t going to help,” he said sharply.

A waste of time.

Falco could damned near feel the scream struggling to burst from her lips.

To say this wasn’t exactly the reception he’d expected was an understatement. He’d spoken with the director, Farinelli, on his cell from the plane. He’d told him when he’d be arriving, more or less, and the director had said that was fine, it gave him lots of time to brief the Bissette woman and that it would be best if he, Falco, met with her in private because she’d probably want his presence on the set kept quiet, so—

“Hey!”

She had kicked him. Useless, as kicks went, because she was kicking backward and wearing ugly rubber beach thongs, but it told him what he needed to know about whether or not she’d calmed down.

Okay. He’d try again.

“Ms. Bissette. I’m sorry if I startled you but—”

She grunted. Struggled. Her backside dug into his groin. It was a small, rounded backside and under different circumstances, he’d have enjoyed the feel of it—but not when the backside might as well have belonged to a wildcat.

“Dammit,” Falco said. He swung her toward him, one hand still clasping her shoulder, the other still clamped over her mouth. “Pay attention, okay? I. Am. Not. Going. To. Hurt. You.”

Mistake.

She slugged him. Two quick blows, one to the chest, one to the jaw. He was damned if he knew what to do with her now. He had only two hands and she was already keeping both of them occupied.

“Okay,” he said grimly. “You want to play rough? That’s fine.”

He shoved her, hard. She stumbled back against the door and he went with her, pinned her there with his body. Her hands were trapped against his chest; her legs blocked by his. She was tall but he was a lot taller; her head was tilted back so that she was staring up at him with eyes even more tawny than they’d seemed in the defaced magazine ad.

Eyes filled with terror. And with what he’d seen in the candid photo that had brought him out here.

Defiance.

Okay. Instead of saying to hell with this and walking out the door, he’d try and get through to her one last time.

“Ms. Bissette. My name is Falco Orsini.”

Nothing. Still the hot blend of fear and defiance shining in those eyes.

“I’m here to help you.”

Fear, defiance and now disbelief.

“Trust me, lady. This isn’t my idea of a good time, either. I’m here as a favor. And if you don’t calm down and talk to me, I’m gonna walk straight out that door and leave you to handle this thing on your own.”

She blinked and he saw confusion sweep across her face. Yeah, but she couldn’t be any more confused than he was, unless—unless—

Oh, hell.

“Didn’t Farinelli tell you I was coming?”

Another blink. A delicate vertical furrow appeared between her dark eyebrows.

“He said he would. He said you’d want to keep this private and that I should wait for you here, in your trailer.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

It sounded more like “wmf” because his hand was over her lips but there was no mistaking her surprise. Everything was starting to come together. She, a woman who’d been sent a picture defaced by a madman, walks into her trailer and finds a stranger waiting for her…

Merda! That fool, Antonio Farinelli, had never told her he was coming.

“Okay,” Falco said, “here’s the deal. Somebody sent you a picture.” She began to struggle again. He shook his head. “Just listen. You got a picture. A bad one. Your boss wanted to call the cops. You refused. Am I right?”

He could see he was. So far, so good.

“So your boss contacted someone I—someone I know, and that someone contacted me. I agreed to talk to you, check things out, see if there were a way to deal with this so it all goes away quietly. No muss, no fuss. Yes?”

She exhaled sharply. He felt the warmth of her breath flow over his hand, just as he could feel a fraction of the tension ease from her body. Her eyes were still locked to his, bright and distrustful, but now, at least, curious.

“My name,” Falco said, “is Falco Orsini. I, ah, I sometimes do what you might call security consulting. That’s why I’m here. I know about the picture, I know that you’re worried about it, I know you don’t want the authorities involved. I’m here to discuss the situation and offer some advice. That’s the only reason I’m here—and the only reason I scared you is because your boss was too stupid to tell you about me.” He tried for what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. And maybe we can have that talk. Does that work for you?”

She blinked. Nodded. Now she was wary—but she was ready to listen.

He took his hand from her mouth.

She didn’t scream.

Instead, the tip of her tongue came out and slid lightly over her bottom lip. Falco watched its progress. His gaze fell lower, to the rise of her breasts in the vee of her bulky terrycloth robe. He knew what she had under it; he’d watched the scene Farinelli had been filming at a safe distance before he’d slipped into the trailer. What she had on was a slip. Plain. Unadorned. Not like what she’d worn in that ad.

This slip was plain. Sexless.

Not that she was.

She was gorgeous. That hair. Those eyes. That mouth. Still, even with theatrical makeup on, there was another quality to her that he had not seen in the ad. A kind of innocence.

Which was, of course, ridiculous.

She was an actress. She played to the camera. To men. She could be whatever a particular part called for. Maybe she’d decided this part called for wide-eyed and innocent. Not that he gave a damn. He was only interested in her problem, and every problem had a solution.