Eve’s Wedding Knight

access to the rear of the apartment. And Jake’s was on the end, so he was able to park close to the door.

After glancing at his still-unconscious passenger, he felt reasonably safe in leaving the van unlocked while he let himself into the apartment. There he gave the ground floor a habitual and cursory once-over, then went upstairs and into the only one of the two bedrooms that had furniture in it. He was trying to decide which would be the least conspicuous method of transporting a body: rolling it into a rug, zipping it into a garment bag or just draping a sheet over it, when he heard something that made alarm impulses go whistling through his nerves, lifting the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck.

Stealthy movements… swishing noises.

One hand on his weapon, he crept down the carpeted stairs, bending nearly double in order to peek around the corner into the living room while still out of the intruder’s range of vision. An instant later he hissed out an exasperated breath and proceeded down the remaining steps at a more sedate pace while his heart banged without apology against his ribs.

The “intruder” was standing in the middle of the room, looking around her with a small, confused frown on her face, the champagne bottle clasped to her bosom.

When she saw Jake, she said, “Oh, hi…” in a vague, breathy voice. Then, as the frown deepened into distress, “Would you mind if I used your rest room?”

Jake muttered, “Upstairs,” as he dodged past her to the door she’d left standing wide open.

After satisfying himself with a quick look around that his mystery guest’s arrival had gone unnoticed in the neighborhood in spite of his dangerous lapse, he went out to the van to button down and lock up. Though that only took him a few minutes, by the time he got back inside, the bride had vanished. The apartment seemed empty and silent. Way too silent. There wasn’t a sound-no footsteps, no running water… nothing.

Jake took the stairs two at a time, swearing under his breath. Too late. As he’d feared, the bride in all her bloodstained finery, still reeking of garbage, still cradling the champagne bottle, lay sprawled facedown across his bed, the black-grimed soles of her lace-stockinged feet peeking out of the froth of her skirts like the tar baby’s footprints.

Muttering a disgusted “Aw, man…” he went over to her and gingerly touched her shoulder. He really had hoped to get the woman cleaned up a little bit before she conked out in his bed. “Hey-Miss Waskowitz…Eve…ma‘am?” But the only answer he got was a determined snore. “Come on now, ma’am,” he said firmly, “at least let’s get you out of those clothes. Upsy-daisy…”

No dice.

With an exhalation that was more groan than sigh, he sat down on the bed beside her. Damn… All those buttons. She was right; they went all the way down her back. All the way.

Given a choice between peeling an unconscious women out of her wedding dress and having that smell all over his bed, plus the remains of whatever it was she’d been wallowing in, Jake had no trouble coming up with the answer to that question.

“O-kay,” he muttered, “if that’s the way it’s gonna be…” He leaned across her and gently eased the champagne bottle out from under her arm. When he got a good look at the label he did a double take, then whistled softly. No wonder she’d been cradling the thing like it was the crown jewels. Probably cost almost as much. He set the bottle carefully on the floor and went back to the problem of the buttons. No sweat, he thought. Just start at the top and work your way down…

It was nowhere near that easy. The neckline began high on the back of her neck, then looped across her shoulders and breasts in a series of scallops designed to show off a triple-strand pearl choker of what sure did look to Jake like the real deal. He decided to leave the pearls where they were and just concentrate on the buttons- concentrate being the operative word. It was hard, damned hard not to think about the intimacy of what he was doing. Hard not to let his fingertips feel the cool, wet kiss of her sweat-damp hair… Hard to avoid the velvety warm brush of her skin. Hard to hold himself aloof from the beckoning warmth of her body, and to keep his head clear with her sweet woman’s scent enveloping him like an opium cloud…

By the time he’d gotten as far as her waist, he’d worked up a good sweat. The problem was, he couldn’t seem to convince himself that what he was doing was just a routine procedure for a highly trained federal law- enforcement agent. In his Special Forces training he’d learned how to kill a man with his bare hands inside three seconds and in total silence, and was confident he could do so with ice water in his veins. As a hostage negotiator he’d talked down men wired with enough explosives to demolish a high-rise, without breaking a sweat. So why couldn’t he undress a woman without his heart pounding like a runaway freight train?

It didn’t help that she had the most beautiful back he’d ever seen. And so far, he’d gotten the dress apart almost to her waist, and that was all he’d uncovered-lots and lots of that smooth-as-satin skin, sweet little bumps and ripples of spine, muscles delicately hinted at rather than bluntly defined. What was she wearing under that dress? Nothing?

He was relieved when he encountered lace a couple of buttons farther on. Well, he was. After all, he reminded himself, he was going to want to interrogate the lady. It would be nice if he could look her in the eye while he was doing it.

Once he had the buttons dealt with, he rolled her carefully onto her back. He was breathing easier now, figuring the worst was over. There were a few more buttons on each sleeve at the wrists, but once those were taken care of, all he had to do was peel the top over her shoulders and ease it on down… down her arms, carefully over her breasts… And all the while she went on sleeping soundly as a child, lips slightly parted, a fine dew of moisture clumping the hair on her forehead-

He avoided looking at her battered face, concentrating instead on getting the tight sleeves over her limp hands. And then it was easy to pull the dress past her hips and-

His heart stopped. He felt like a Chinese gong, and he’d just been rung.

What the hell was she wearing? He wasn’t much of an expert on feminine undergarments, so he wasn’t absolutely certain that what he was looking at was a teddy. Whatever it was, it seemed to consist entirely of some kind of stretchy lace that hugged her body like a second skin, only to end abruptly at the top of the curve of her hips. Below that, elastic garters snaked down over a tiny lace triangle, arrowed the length of smooth golden thighs to connect with the tops of the lacy white stockings.

All Jake could think, when his mind started working again, was, All this for a creep like Cisneros? What a waste.

He’d peeled back the covers and was just about to roll her between the sheets when he remembered those grimy black feet. So instead of tucking her in, he went to the closet and got the blanket he’d taken off his bed and stowed there, being a warm-blooded sleeper himself. When he got back with it, he found that his sleeping beauty had rolled away from him onto her side and pulled her knees up, the way little kids do when they sleep. Except she sure didn’t look anything like a kid, especially from where he was standing. He got that blanket over her just as fast as he could.

Once he’d done that, the cop part of him was able to resume functioning. He stood there looking down at the woman asleep on his bed, snoring softly with her ungrazed cheek pillowed on one hand like a child. Eve Waskowitz…who by this time should have been married to the man Jake hated most in this world.

Lady, he thought, what happened to you in that church garden today? What in the hell happened?

He sat down on the edge of the bed and carefully lifted the bottom edge of the blanket, then put his hand under one slender, lace-stockinged ankle and tilted the bottom of her foot toward the light. The stocking was torn and worn through, almost nonexistent in places. And under all the dirt and grime, he could see that the ball of her foot and the delicate pads of her toes were scraped and bruised.

And he thought, Lady, where in the world have you been? What happened to make you run in fear for your life from the man you were about to pledge to love, honor and obey until death do you part? What happened to your face? Did he do that to you?

His belly burned at the thought. But the lady’s only response was an inarticulate murmur, and Jake knew that was all the answer he was going to get, for a while, anyway. With a silent sigh, willing himself to patience, willing the triphammer beat of his heart to resume its normal rhythms, he lowered the foot into place beside its mate and tucked the blanket around them both.

He rose and walked out of his bedroom, and was about to start down the stairs when he changed his mind.