The Silver Fox and the Red-Hot Dove Read Online Free PDF

brightly flowered seed sack is accusing me of lecherous intentions.” His gaze shifted to her again. “I assure you, madame, I prefer my women well-groomed, unarmed, and wearing something that doesn’t have ‘Dutch Girl Alfalfa’ stenciled across the bottom.”
    His teasing made her burn with humiliation. “So you were not telling the truth the other night. I
am
ugly to you. Good. Then you don’t have any reason to want me. Go away. I’ve never done anything bad to you.”
    “Except refuse my help.” The kindness returned to his voice. “Look, I’m in the import/export business. I consider helping you a work-related challenge. You might say you’re the most interesting import I’ve run across in a long time.”
    “I can’t trust you or anyone else! I’ve waited too long for this chance. All I’m asking you to do is leave and not tell anyone that you know where I am. Please.
Please
. It means my whole future, my life, because I
will die
rather than return home with Kriloff.”
    “What has he done to you?” Audubon asked in a grim, low tone.
    “I don’t want to discuss my life with you.”
    “A person as desperate as you are has been tortured in some way—if not physically, then emotionally. Come with me, Elena. I’ll never let that bastard hurt you again. I swear it.”
    The edge in his voice was so new and so lethal, it frightened rather than reassured her. Americans were barbaric and bloodthirsty, Sergei said. The richest among them lived like mobsters, ordering terrible revenges on people who displeased them. What if she did something that upset this supremely powerful and authoritative man?
    Her knees were weak, but she forced herself to move. Backing up by slow degrees, she kept the harpoon gun pointed at the spot where his chest flowed into an athlete’s waist. His shirt hung open down the center, giving her a bold target of masculine hair and muscle.
    Once, as part of her performances for Kriloff’s important friends, she’d healed a famous Lithuanian weight lifter who suffered from liver trouble. His stomach had felt like T. S. Audubon’s looked. She couldn’t picture that wall of hard flesh letting even a harpoon arrow through … and the mere thought of hurting him made her nauseous.
    “Put down the gun,” he coaxed. “I won’t make a move. I promise.”
    “I
want
you to move. Go back where you came from.”
    “My family came over from France about two hundred and twenty years ago. I think it’s too late to go back. I know you’ll trust me as soon as we have a chance to talk. I have a boat waiting just offshore. Time is precious. I’m very good at what I do, but it’s quite possible your belligerent comrades have managed to follow me.”
    “So
that’s
your plan. We’ll reach the mainland, and they’ll be there, waiting, and you can say it wasn’t your fault!
No
!” She started to pivot and run, but she’d backed too close to the side of the hallway, and her elbow slammed into the wall.
    The harpoon gun jerked, recoiled, and released its arrow with an ominous hissing sound. The arrow hit Audubon in the right side, sinking deeply into a spot under his rib cage.
    Elena dropped the gun and covered her horrifiedscream with both hands. He staggered, clasped a hand around the arrow’s steel shaft, and groaned with pain as he worked it loose. He dropped the arrow and pressed his hand over the wound. Blood poured through his fingers.
    “Wouldn’t happen to have a Band-Aid, would you?” he said with an amazing attempt at a smile through clenched teeth. She took several numb steps forward, gazing at him in anguish. He squinted at her in obvious agony.
    “I didn’t mean to do it,” she whispered.
    “Is there a radio here?”
    “It’s broken. Mrs. Nilly was supposed to pick up a new transistor today.”
    He looked down at the cascade of blood that now stained the bottom half of his shirt. Then he left the hall and walked swiftly through the kitchen, taking a hand towel