Wade by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online Page B

vicious edge but that he’d found the perfect position for expressing it.
    How much Chloe Madison knew or suspected about these things, Wade couldn’t tell. She was uptight beyond belief, giving nothing away, letting no one get close. She understood the risks in what she was doing well enough, he thought, but had grown so used to them that they no longer had the power toscare her. She’d always been a gutsy little thing, according to John. Apparently she hadn’t changed. The Benedict in him saluted that courage as well as her loyalty to her friends and attempt to better the situation around her. Still, her refusal to listen to reason made him nuts.
    He didn’t like this delay, not one little bit. It was too much of a reminder of another wait, another hostage situation, another woman. The sooner this was over, the better. Besides, other people were involved in the operation, and some of them had more important things to do than stand around while Chloe made up her mind.
    Wade was almost abreast of the shop doorway when he saw the woman. She eased toward him like a sheeted ghost with one hand held out in traditional begging posture. She didn’t stop as she came nearer, but brushed against him, reaching with her other hand under the cover of her burqa to brush across his groin. It wasn’t the first time he’d been approached by a prostitute in a foreign city, but it was maybe the weirdest. Even if paying for sex was his style, he couldn’t imagine taking up an offer from a woman whose face he couldn’t see and whose body was covered from head to toe.
    â€œNo,” he said with precision.
    The woman gasped and instantly effaced herself. The movement was so swift that Wade felt a wrench of guilt. He hadn’t meant to seem threatening. Prostitution was forbidden, he knew, but if the fear ofbeing too forward could bring that kind of terror, then he didn’t like to think what the penalty for being caught must be or how great the desperation that would force a woman out into the night.
    The incident was a potent reminder of Chloe’s reaction to his visit. She was probably right about the danger of contact from him. It couldn’t be helped. There were precious few ways for a man to talk to a woman here, which meant that he was forced to take chances. He’d been rough on her, too, suggesting that she liked her virtual captivity. He’d hoped to jar her into commitment, or at least an admission that she wanted to go home. The trick hadn’t come close to working, and for that she also had his grudging admiration.
    It had been worth the chance of getting caught sneaking over the garden wall just to see her without that ridiculous getup. The proud way she walked within her flowing folds of cloth, as if refusing to acknowledge the handicap, intrigued him, but it wasn’t easy to talk to a woman when you couldn’t see her face. Of course, he still didn’t really know what she looked like. She’d seen to that, as if covering her face had become some sort of protective instinct instead of one of the thousand and one rules she had to follow.
    He’d give a lot to know exactly how the bright-eyed preteen with the million-dollar smile that he remembered from John’s photographs had turned out. He wasn’t like one of those hopeless guys in romanticmovies who fell in love with a picture, but she’d always looked to him like a great kid who would grow up to be quite a package. The need to find out if he was right was beginning to nag at him. Just curiosity, brought on by the whole veil thing, the lure of the forbidden, the mystery and all that.
    Not that he had much use for the exotic East, particularly this corner of it. Oh, he was impressed as all get-out by the wide deserts and mountain peaks so tall they punched holes in the sky. The endurance and fighting spirit of the people amazed him, too. But it was impossible to take a real liking to a place