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“I can find out for you.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it.”
Trace had jumped up and was heading for the door when Walker stopped him with a question. “You still want off the assignment, right?”
Trace turned, his hand on the doorknob. “That hasn’t changed. Besides, the State Department has already lined up my replacement. Didn’t you know?”
“Yeah, but this is still your assignment until he comes on board in January. I wasn’t sure if this incident had changed your mind or not.”
Trace shook his head. The self-recriminations he’d submerged during his conversation with his boss came roaring back as he remembered how he’d failed to protect the princess. As he remembered the blood staining her nightgown. As he remembered the seventeen stitches that had been required to close the wound she’d received trying to protect him.
“It’s possible the tail on you isn’t related to Vishenko or the New World Militia after all,” Walker said. “I spoke with Callahan yesterday, and he’s sure no one’s following him or his family. And if he says he’s sure, I believe him. So maybe it’s related to the kidnapping attempt. Have you considered that?”
“I thought about it,” Trace said grimly. “I’ve done nothing but think about it. I even wondered if someone was trying to maneuver me into thinking I was putting the princess in danger so I’d withdraw from the team. They might be gambling it would be easier to get to her if I’m not around. Anything’s possible. But no matter what, I still need off.”
“Because of that personal involvement you’re not having with the princess?” Walker shot at him. A question for which Trace had no answer.
Chapter 14
Finals week was almost over, and since Mara had no finals to give on Friday, she gathered up all the books and personal items she wanted to take with her to Zakhar and packed them in her briefcase on Thursday afternoon. The next week was Christmas, but she had delayed her scheduled departure until the morning of Christmas Eve, wanting as much time with Trace as she could possibly manage before she left. Andre had been understanding—he had assured her one of Zakhar’s royal air force planes would be available to her whenever she was ready.
She hadn’t asked Trace to reconsider his decision not to go with her to Zakhar. She’d thought about it after the last time at his cabin, but ever since the kidnapping attempt last week he’d been...unapproachable. Distant. And for much of the time he simply hadn’t been around to ask. He’d gone with her to the hospital after the attack, then had accompanied her home and watched over her in silence, pulling a chair up beside her bed and sitting in it until she fell asleep.
He’d still been there when she’d awakened two hours later. He hadn’t argued with her when she’d insisted on going to school—it was the last day of classes before finals, she’d told him, and she couldn’t possibly be absent. He’d just looked at her with shadowed eyes, red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and said three words in a tone of voice that brooked no defiance, “You’re not driving.”
Her chauffeur had driven Trace and her to and from the university that Friday. Mara refused to admit it to Trace, but she was completely exhausted by dinnertime, and fell asleep right afterward. When she woke Saturday morning Alec was there and Trace had disappeared. He hadn’t returned until late Tuesday night, long after she’d gone to bed. He’d shown up for duty right on time yesterday morning and did his job with his usual thoroughness and efficiency, but the man she’d come to know, the man hidden inside the one the rest of the world saw, was gone.
He wouldn’t even talk to her. She’d tried to initiate a conversation with him yesterday, but after several monosyllabic answers she’d given up. And today was no better. He hadn’t uttered a single word other than what was absolutely necessary. Now he sat in a chair by the door, ostensibly reading one of the three newspapers he always carried with him, but he hadn’t turned a page for the past hour.
Mara sighed and double-checked the grades she’d already posted via computer. No mistakes there. She felt a little thrill of pride that every one of her students had done no worse than pass. She had her share of weak students in her calculus class, not to mention her share of malingerers, but somehow she’d pulled it off. Her tests weren’t easy, and she had a reputation as a tough but fair grader. Mathematics wasn’t a “fuzzy” subject, after all—the answers were what the answers were, and that was that. But she’d patiently tutored the weak students, and somehow had managed to either inspire the malingerers or put the fear of God into them—not a single student had failed. And she had a handful of incredibly gifted students in her graduate classes who were her pride and joy as a professor.
