The Other Crowd. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ himself. She would never allow any man to push her around, to make assumptions regarding her willingness to please and/or serve him. Smart, sexy and adventurous, she also owned the one thing that kept Garin up some nights.

      The sword once wielded by Joan of Arc.

      It was a sword Garin had seen in use by the sainted young woman, for he had been apprentice to Roux when the man had been appointed to guard Jeanne d’Arc. For some reason, after the sword had been wrested away from the Maid of Orléans and shattered, Garin and Roux had become immortal. He didn’t know why, but he’d accepted the gift for what it was. Who wouldn’t accept immortality?

      But now that the sword had been put together and Annja wielded it as if a mystical extension of Jeanne’s will—what then?

      Garin couldn’t be sure if his immortality had been lost. He didn’t feel older. It had only been a few years since Annja had taken possession of the sword. And Lord knows he’d tried to take it from her, to smash it, and put things back the way they should be. But he couldn’t.

      Out of Annja’s hands the sword would not remain solid, unless she willed it so. She could hand it to him to look over, if she wished—and she had. But she did not trust him to do anything more than quickly inspect the thing. And she shouldn’t.

      But would he really break the thing should he again be given the opportunity? Some days he wasn’t so sure. Gaining Annja’s respect overwhelmed any desire to push her away as a result of stealing from her. He sincerely wanted to know her. To experience her in ways that not only included the flesh, but the mind and soul, as well. She fascinated him.

      Very few women did so.

      With a smile on his face, and his thoughts on the limber body of Annja Creed, Garin handed his passport to the customs official behind the counter.

      He’d romanced Annja. He’d attempted to seduce her with fine things. She played along, but only so far. She wasn’t stupid, rather leery at times, and then at other times he could almost believe she was as interested in him as he her.

      But to win her completely would end the wanting, the yearning, to learn more. And did he really want to spoil that anticipation?

      “Did you have your passport, Mr. Braden?”

      “Huh?” He steered his focus to the woman holding his wallet. He’d handed her his wallet by mistake? How one’s mind could get distracted when it was focused on a gorgeous woman. “Sorry.” He reached inside his inner suit coat pocket. “I have it…somewhere.”

      Where was the damned thing? He’d had it on the jet. Had he dropped it after disembarking? “I seem to have misplaced it. I’m sure it’s on my private jet. I’ll just give the pilot a call—”

      “If you’ll just step aside, Mr. Braden, we can work this out.”

      Garin stroked his fingers down the lapel of his Armani suit and delivered his best sexy grin to the woman, who looked like she was serving the end of a thirty-hour shift and desperately needed a kind word. “I’ve got an appointment. If we can make this quick? I know it’s in the jet.”

      The daggers in her look pricked his confidence. “Your jet just taxied for takeoff, Mr. Braden.”

      “What?” He looked aside, as if to search for the jet, but he was too far from any window overlooking the runway. “We’ve only been on the ground twenty minutes. He couldn’t have refueled so quickly. Where is the man headed?”

      “I have no idea, Mr. Braden. Please, if you’ll come with me.”

      Garin slammed a fist on the counter, but refrained from swearing.

      This was not going as smoothly as he’d anticipated.

      7

      Annja watched keenly as Michael Slater argued with Wesley over who would give Beth a ride to a hospital in Cork. Beth had disappeared from the good camp—as Annja had come to already consider Wesley’s camp—so why Slater cared was beyond her.

      They didn’t argue for long. One of the women caught Beth as she fainted, and barked at Wesley to start up the Jeep. Slater conceded with a shake of his head and a glance to Annja. He’d obviously decided to blame her for things that went wrong.

      “Quite the commotion, eh?” Daniel joined Annja as she turned to pace back to the tented area for a respite from the sudden mist. The saying was true: if you don’t like the weather in Ireland, just wait five minutes. She’d give it ten.

      “Beth’s been missing for almost two days,” she said. “I can’t imagine what she must be feeling right now. Or thinking. She must be out of her head. At the very least, hungry and in need of a shower.” And so mentally traumatized as to believe she had actually been taken by faeries. “Is the hospital far?”

      “It’s a bit over an hour’s drive into Cork.”

      She would have liked to ride along with Beth and Wesley, asking questions as they made their way to Cork, but Annja did have a sense of compassion. And she had promised Wesley she would respect the situation. She was not a paparazzo desperate to get a photo of a wide-eyed innocent. Yet she must talk to her. Whatever Beth had been through could lead Annja to discovering the other men who had disappeared, and who was behind it.

      “I might drive to Cork tomorrow, see if she’s coherent,” she said. “I don’t think she needs too much fuss right now. Wesley will ensure she gets the proper care. I suppose not much will get done on the dig now. I should head to my B and B. I’ve got some research to do.”

      On hospitals in Cork and Beth Gwillym, she thought.

      “You fancy that meal at my mother’s?” Daniel’s attention focused on the retreating vehicle, a strand of grass twitching at the corner of his mouth.

      “A home-cooked meal sounds great, but there’s Eric, too.”

      “He can come along. Mum always makes a feast on Fridays. She expects me to bring over friends. Girlfriends mostly, but I haven’t been a good son about that lately.”

      He cast her a wink and marched off.

      Had that been flirtation? The man had to be twenty years her senior. Not that he wasn’t attractive, albeit eccentric.

      MICHAEL SLATER MARCHED across the trampled grass to the edge of the excavation site where the dried peat cushion made his footsteps feel as though he were walking on a strange planet.

      The chief archaeologist, Maxwell Alexandre, was packing up his shovels, buckets and other equipment. He ran an efficient dig and was meticulous about putting things away at the end of the day. Slater appreciated anyone with a fastidious bone. Maxwell did what he was told, with little argument.

      Rain rolled down his temples. Slater did not like the weather in this country; it was much worse than his native London, and that was saying a lot.

      He gripped the handle of his Walther P99, still in its holster. It was something he did probably a dozen times a day. His training buddies had given him shit for his attachment to the thing. Bugger them. Some guys stroked their bollocks every now and then; he stroked his gun.

      Alexandre popped his head up from the area marked СКАЧАТЬ