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Going to the meat department, located at the rear of the store, she saw the butcher. He was a Quechua Indian, if she guessed correctly, and she hoped he knew a little English. Her Spanish wasn’t great. Unlike U.S. grocery stores, meat was cut from a side of beef hanging off a huge hook. She smiled, and greeted the butcher in English. He gave her a blank look and shrugged his shoulders.Damn.Gesturing across the counter, she pointed at what she wanted: meat cut fresh from the dangling side of beef.
He shrugged and gave her a pleading look, speaking in his language. Probably Quechua. She wished Alex was here.Okay, plan C.She set the basket at her feet, and pulled open her right cargo pants’ pocket, hauling out her English-Spanish dictionary.
“Perhaps, Señorita,” a voice rasped from behind her, near her ear, “I can translate for you?”
Lauren gasped, whirling around. Her eyes went wide as she recognized the blond-haired, blue-eyed Tamryn Volkov. He grinned and bowed his head. He smelled of beer, cigarette smoke and sour sweat. He was unshaven. His pale-blue eyes narrowed on her. “You scared the hell out of me!” she snapped, backing away from him.
Volkov’s smile remained. His eyes flickered as he moved his gaze slowly from her head down to her feet, and then came back up to rest on her breasts, hidden beneath her white cotton blouse. “Today is my lucky day,” he murmured in thick English, rubbing his chin, holding her furious stare. “I am always drawn to women with red hair.”
Panic coursed through Lauren.Oh hell!The Russian was six foot two inches tall and muscular. He wore a blue chambray shirt with the sleeves missing. The muscles in his upper-arms were thick, and told her he was in top condition and probably worked out with heavy weights at a gym. The black tattoos around his biceps were snakes. She hated snakes. He wore a pair of very old Levi’s that were dirty and threadbare. Lauren saw that he had an erection under the denim, and it disgusted her. Shoving her own personal reactions down deep inside her, she knew she’d better get the upper hand here, or this drunk bastard would try something stupid.
“Thank you,” she gritted out, moving closer to him, leaning down and picking up her basket. “I’ll figure this out on my own. I don’t need a translator.”
As she straightened back up, Volkov’s hand shot out. His fingers wrapped around her upper arm, efficiently stopping her from pulling away. “I’m VERY good at translating. You look new to this place. Are you American?” His eyes became hooded as he looked back down at her breasts.
Lauren felt stripped. Panic rose in her again. His fingers were hurting her. She saw the coldness in Volkov’s eyes, that fixed smile of a snake. She hated that he was looking at her like she was a piece of meat. “Let go of me,” she growled, glaring up at him.
“Surely, you have a name? And yes, you are American. I hear it in your accent.”
The smell of beer and sweat assailed her flaring nostrils. Nausea churned through her tightened gut.
“Señor…,” a man called, hurrying down the aisle toward them.
“Get lost, Enrique,” the Russian snarled, his gaze not leaving hers.
“B-but… she is a customer, Señor Volkov. She is merely buying food. Please, can you leave her alone?”
Lauren saw Enrique, the fat proprietor in black slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt that stuck to his sweaty body. He was balding, wore glasses, and was wringing his hands, his expression pleading.
“Leave us,” Volkov whispered to him. “Before it’s too late…”
It WAS too late for this smug, arrogant Russian bastard. Lauren grabbed the Russian’s thumb from the hand he had on her arm, rotating her hand above its knuckle. In a swift move, she locked his thumb down with her own. And then she turned and pushed his hand upward. The move was so swift that the Russian couldn’t react fast enough. Lauren saw the sudden surprise in his eyes, and heard his grunt of pain. Before Volkov could do anything else, she swept out her booted foot, smashing it into his right knee.
Volkov went down like a roaring bull, rolling across the red-tiled floor, grabbing at his knee, grimacing and cursing in Russian.
Lauren spun around, running down the aisle, dropping the basket at the door, pushing out into fresh air, and losing herself quickly in the thick crowds. Breathing hard, she slowed down, taking on the pace of the tourists around her. Heart pounding in her chest, she ducked in between two stores and flattened herself against one wall, taking a quick glance back toward the grocery store. Volkov limped out of the store, cursing and screaming in Russian, his face twisted in rage, looking around for her. Lauren waited to see which way he was going to go. He limped badly across the plaza and disappeared inside the flea-bitten hotel.
Trying to slow her breathing, she closed her eyes and forced herself to relax. That had been close. Alex was going to be pissed. And they still had no food on top of all that. Lauren opened her eyes, deciding to remain on this side of the street. Sweat was trickling down her temples and between her breasts. She shakily wiped her brow and pulled her hat a little lower. Slipping back into the crowd, she quickly became a part of the great tourist mass.
Alex heard theapartment door being opened. He left the kitchen table, and swiftly met Lauren as she came in with several brown bags of food in her arms. “You took a long time,” he said worriedly, closing the door and locking it behind her. Something was wrong. He saw it in her eyes. Her hair looked mussed. More than it should be. He reached out for the sacks of food, taking them from her arms.
“What happened?” he ground out.
Lauren threw off the hat, took off her sunglasses, and shrugged out of her knapsack, dropping it on the rattan couch. “Don’t get pissed, but Volkov trapped me at the meat counter of the grocery store.”
Freezing, Alex stared at her. “What?”
She shrugged, feeling dirty and in need of a shower to remove the sour, stinking smell of her assailant from her skin. “He surprised me from behind. I was trying to get the butcher to cut a certain piece of beef off the side. He didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Quechua. I got my English-Spanish book out and the bastard came up behind me, whispered in my ear he’d like to be my translator.” Lauren grimaced. “It all went downhill after that.” She quickly told him what she did to escape and then added, “I hope I broke the bastard’s thumb. Or his kneecap.”
Alex felt terror rip through him. He walked to the kitchen and placed the sacks on the counter. “Where is he now?”
“He limped back to that fleabag hotel,” Lauren muttered, pulling off her blouse. It reeked of the Russian’s sweat, and the beer he’d been drinking. She would wash the blouse out in the shower she was about to take.
“No one followed you?” He saw Lauren was pale. Her eyes were dark, and he sensed the terror within her, no matter how good she was at hiding it from him.
“I made sure of that. I loitered between two buildings opposite their hotel for ten minutes to make sure. Then, I faded into the crowd, stopped at a restaurant up near the top of the hill and got us some take-out dinners.” Lauren saw the anger in his expression. “I’m all right.” She held up her hands. “I damn well know how to defend myself, Alex. So don’t even go there. I’m upset enough. I don’t need your anger aimed at me, too.”
Cursing to himself, Alex advanced upon her. Lauren lifted her chin, jutted it out, up into Alex’s face, and refused to step back away from him. The fire in her eyes, the glittering quality of her gray, ice-like gaze was something he’d never encountered before. Now, she was behaving like an operator. And he felt the steel in her spine as he slowed and halted in front of her.
