“Come with me.” He gestured for her to follow, but Annja remained where she was.

His back view was spectacular. Scars in plenty, but also wide shoulders capable of balancing a desperate heroine across each side. Not that she was desperate. She didn’t need any man to rescue her. Not even from a grave.

“I was almost out,” she muttered under her breath. “Didn’t need his help.”

Garin gestured down the hallway. “No tricks. Promise. At least let me dab on some alcohol and bandage it. You wouldn’t want it to get infected. Come, Annja, comic-book heroines need medical attention every once in a while, too.”

She resisted with forced stoicism. “Do we have to?”

“Judging from the blood staining your sleeve…” He rubbed a palm thoughtfully over his tight abs. “I think we do.”

The bathroom off Garin’s bedroom was the size of Annja’s entire loft. Marble floors, walls and a huge walk-in glass-tiled shower gleamed. The tub and toilet were black. Very macho. Doorknobs, drawer handles and faucets glittered, and she wasn’t sure, but they could be real gold. It was an embarrassment of wealth. But it fit Garin Braden to a T.

“You going to take off your shirt?” he asked with a grin.

She sneered as he sorted through the closet for supplies. “Not in your lifetime.”

Sitting the edge of the black claw-foot bathtub, Annja rolled up her sleeve.

“That’s a hell of a long time.” Garin dabbed the knife wound with a moist cloth.

“As far as you know,” she said. “Do you have any proof your immortality wasn’t stolen when the sword was put back together? You could be dead tomorrow.”

“Come now, Annja, would you wish that on me?”

She wasn’t sure. After yesterday he deserved it. No, probably not. Maybe. “No. Ouch!”

“It’s more than a skim. You should have stitches.”

“No emergency room. I’m a big girl.”

“Yeah? But do you possess the comic-book powers of instant healing?”

“Do you?”

“Not instant by a long shot. But faster than the average man. I’ve got some medical tape in the cabinet. Don’t move.”

She hung her head and stared at her dirty boots. It seemed sacrilege sitting in this pristine room in her dirty clothes. It was also wrong to be sitting in the enemy’s lair. Garin was the enemy. He’d proved that time and again.

And yet, she couldn’t resist the offer of kindness, no matter how forced she suspected it must be. What girl could? It annoyed her she wasn’t able to just up and leave.

Because when he wasn’t backstabbing her, he was romancing her in a weird kind of friendly come-on that intrigued her immensely.

“So what did you find on me when you were snooping yesterday?”

To deny it would just be wrong. “Nothing of interest. I was looking for clues to why you’d want the skull.”

“Why not just ask?”

“I did. You gave me the runaround.”

Garin bent before her. “Think we’ll ever come to accord?”

His heavy male sigh sifted over her hands. Something about a man and his innate scent and just… beingalways made Annja marvel. Men were so…male. No matter their shape, height or penchant toward fisticuffs or bookish avoidance, she did like them.

She needed to consider making time for dating once in a while. Just so she didn’t forget the easy comfort of a man’s presence. And sex. Nothing wrong with sex.

But not with this man.

Garin’s muscled body blocked the light, and Annja did not look up because that would put her eye level to his bare pecs.

“Do you want that?” she asked. “Peace between us?”

“Not sure. It’s amusing, the clash of wills and the quest for things we don’t have and perhaps never will have, don’t you think?”

“Depends on who’s getting hurt in the process.”

Now she did allow a look over his stomach. Her gaze landed on his hip. “That one’s huge,” she said.

“Why, thank you.”

She chuffed. “You know I’m not looking that low. That scar. How’d you get it?”

He tilted his torso, which tugged at the white flesh as thick as a night crawler that crossed from his side and to the center of his chest. “Almost lost my spleen that time. Not that I knew what a spleen was back then. It was one of many adventures Roux and I barely escaped by the skin of our teeth. Good times.”

Resisting the urge to touch the scar, Annja nodded. The man might like to extol the many ways he despised Roux, but when he spoke of their adventures reverence and respect tainted his voice. They were alike. In fact, the only two of their kind in this world. They needed each other more than they would ever admit.

“You must have been laid out a while from the wound,” she said.

“A couple of days. You can’t imagine my wonder, in those early days after Joan’s death, over my own ability to survive what should have been fatal wounds. Roux and I hadn’t yet figured out we were immortal. That would take surviving the entire fifteenth century before we finally wrapped our brains around that reality.”

“I suppose when one gains immortality—unless they’re specifically told, and given the instruction manual—it is a wacky surprise.”

“Exactly. Wacky. But good, you know?”

“I don’t know. Don’t think I would ever take immortality if it was offered.”

“Oh, you would, Annja.”

No, she was sure she wouldn’t. But she’d allow Garin the fantasy of being right this time. Skeptic that she was, she still found it hard to wrap her head around the living five hundred years thing. It would be a gift. It would be a nightmare. She was perfectly happy with eight or nine decades, thank you very much.

“You really don’t want it for yourself?” she tried. “The skull.”

“Nope.”

“Then you intend to sell it.”

“Assumption.”

“But correct.”

“Annja, would you believe I think the thing needs to be dropped down another well, and this time covered over with thirty feet of cement?”

“Not sure. Gotta think that one over.”

“You do that.”

His fingers tugged at the wound as he placed the tape over it. The smell of antiseptic cut through her brain and in its wake Garin’s aftershave wavered. The spicy scent curled her toes.

“You can touch,” he commented.

“Wh-what?”

“You’ve been eyeing my abs since you walked in, sweetheart. Go ahead, touch. I won’t break.”

“That’s it.” Annja paced over to the vanity, hand to her hip.

The nerve of him to suggest she wanted—whatever. So she was getting a little soft and melty around the guy. Time to get back to business.

“You said Roux has it? Where’s he staying?”

“Haven’t a clue.” Garin dropped a wad of bloodied gauze into the sink. “Would you like to join me for lunch? Griggs is preparing haddock and asparagus.”

Food sounded divine. And Annja knew Griggs was an amazing chef from previous meals. But she’d had breakfast. And she’d had enough of Mr. Poser here.

“No, I’m finished with you.”

She marched from the room, making damn sure she didn’t call out any apologies for her abrupt departure, or thank him for the medical attention.

Women could be like that sometimes. Worried about offending someone or acting aggressively. She wasn’t like most women. Garin knew that. He probably enjoyed their little tête-à-têtes.

Just as much as she did.

31

“You say the skull isn’t in hand? How can I trust you even know where it is?” Ben tapped the corner of his phone on his thigh. How the caller had gotten his number disturbed him, but he wasn’t about to admit that.

“My associate has it,” the gruff male voice said. He’d said his name was Braden. That’s all. Ben didn’t know if that was a first or last name. “She’s a professional when it comes to handling artifacts.”