Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

“Not well enough to fool a pro. Lose it. It’s a death sentence. For me, certainly, given the likely lethal hypo meant for me. And, now, because you’re with me, for you too.”

“We’ll be helpless without it.”

“But alive. Trust me. It’s totally compromised. By now they know you’ve vanished too. If the hypo people aren’t after us, the authorities are.”

And Garry Randolph, maybe. He hoped. His talks with Randolph had given him the confidence to see past his injuries and memory loss, to see himself as wily and competent and apparently well trained for this rough flight down the mountains.

Was there anywhere he could head where Garry would find them? Probably, but he didn’t remember it. Yet. There was muscle memory, which would help his damaged legs work better and better as they got stronger and stronger; there was also mental recuperation, which would slowly repair the severed pathways of his memory. Hopefully. And there was gut instinct. He guessed that was his best ally at the moment.

“Get some suitable walking clothes for us at the next farmhouse. We need to clean up and dress the part before we actually bum a ride from anyone.”

“‘Bum’ a ride?”

“Beg.” He cocked his thumb. “Hitchhike.”

She nodded at the gesture. Narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “ ‘Clean up.’ Does that mean we’ll have the cliched mountain stream bath of unacquainted couples on the run?”

He nodded. “Excellent therapy. Might motivate my legs to do a better job at moving me around. Fighting the running water, that is.”

“You may not remember much, Mr. Randolph, but what you do remember is choice.”

With that she tossed her freshly loosened hair and moved through the long grasses to the steep wooden roof of a farmhouse in the distance, one with a ramp that allowed cattle and other stock into the warmer living area during the long, snow-deep winters. It had been done that way here for centuries. Despite the three days’ struggle down the mountain meadows, Revienne Schneider looked cool and very hot at the same time.

She was either an über-competent woman with unflinching devotion to a patient, a doctor with a passion to save and rehabilitate broken lives and minds, one repelled to her soul by an attempt to kill a helpless man . . . or she was his worst enemy: an agent who saw the death plan had failed and had accompanied him to gain his trust so they, or she, could try again.

Either way, they both seemed to thrive on challenge.

Sanctuary

The farmer’s horse-drawn cart had seemed like a tumbrel in the French Revolution to Max, hauling him to the guillotine. He was tired of lying on a bed of straw, no matter how fresh.

Revienne, however, relished being off her aching feet. They hung, bare, over the cart edge, swinging with the bumpy motion. Naked, rather. With pink painted toenails. A pretty sight, except for the angry red places on heels and toes where her shoes had rubbed them raw. She’d never complained.

Revienne was able to ignore him completely for the first time during their flight. He studied her exhausted profile. Brow, nose, and chin were feminine, but strong, determined. If secret assassin she was, who would she work for? Not for money, he decided. Principle. Which might seem comforting at first, but fanatic principle had proved itself a far worse influence on the modern world than mere personal gain.

He hadn’t realized he was whistling until her profile lifted and she glanced his way. She smiled. “That tune is familiar.”

He thought about it. “Not to me.”

“Ah, a secret message from your subconscious. Whistle a bit more.”

“I’ve forgotten it now.” His subconscious would not perform for free.

She shook out her hair. “It doesn’t matter. It was something Irish. Their tunes are both lilting and somber. Come now, less somber and more lilt. Admit it, you’re as happy as I am to be off your feet.”

“I didn’t know you were on my feet.”

A frown in that alabaster forehead. “I am not perfect at the English language.”

“It was a joke. I agree. Laughing is better than moaning.”

She nodded, looking away again to the deserted sweeps of green. “They say the nearest village is Zuoz. Small, but a tourist attraction when the big German buses come through.”

“Good.” He eyed a pile of fabric beside him. “Clothes?”

“At the last farm a son had left for vocational school in Zurich. It’s hard to keep the young ones in the mountain villages these days.”

He shook out a pants and shirt, and shuddered at the heavy, narrow denim pant legs. They were a new kind of cast, ones he’d have to force his long-sheltered legs into. Painfully.

“I’ll get them on to the knees.” She’d read his mind. He’d have to watch that.

He nodded.

She glanced at the hospital pajama bottoms. “These off?”

His only underwear? No way. “The pants can go on over these.”

“It’ll be bulkier, harder.”

“Just get the two legs up to my knees. When the cart stops, I’ll lower my feet to the road and . . . shimmy into the damn things.”

“Shimmy?”