“Driving Kirk Ryan, lalalalala. I think we should make a movie of that, with you gripping onto the dashboard with eyes as big as saucers while your female driver points out the beautiful sights in Bali. Look, to your left is—”
“Keep your eyes on the road!” Kirk gritted out.
“But I’m supposed to be showing you around,” she protested. “You’re missing the sights, with your face pressed against the windshield like that.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you drive,” he muttered. He glanced over at her quickly. “I was listening to the instructions given by the concierge. All he said was “pooka” this and “poosing” that. There were no road names mentioned. How do you know you’re going the right way?”
She shrugged. “I’m used to it here. It’s spelled with a ‘u’. ‘Pusing’ means ‘turn’. He was saying ‘puka’, which is short for ‘pusing kanan’, to turn right. ‘Pusing kiri’ means to ‘turn left’. He was quite clear.”
“So he was just going ‘go right’ and ‘go left’? That’s ridiculous. We’ll never get to the meeting place in the village this way.” He could just see it now, reporting back to HQ and Declan he’d gotten lost and didn’t have any information at all. “Surya—”
“Relax,” she said in a soothing voice, which irritated him even more. “I got this.”
“Surya!”
Kirk could only point at the car backing out of the driveway without stopping. He expelled a long string of expletives as he wiped the bead of sweat off his brow when Surya braked in time. It’d been a while since he’d used such language in front of anyone, especially a woman. After the offending car backed out and went its merry way, with the fucking driver waving at Surya, who waved back, he spat out a few more choice words, which earned him a laugh from the crazy woman beside him.
“You’re turning me on, babe, with all those promises of fucking,” she said. “Promise you’ll give me some of that?”
She was such a tease. “How do you say turn around? ‘Pusing’…what?”
Her forehead creased. “Why? Do you want me to turn the car around? Come on, we’re almost there!”
“No, I want to say that in bed when we’re fucking,” he told her and smiled in satisfaction at her reaction. Two could play at teasing. “Well?”
“Just ‘pusing’ will do.” She slanted him a look. “There’s a small dialogue book in the door. Why don’t you try learning a few phrases?”
He’d heard that GEM agents had a unique way of distracting their targets and getting them to do what they wanted. Just like that, Surya had provided him with a diversion from the madness on the road. For the next ten miles, he amused himself and her by reading phrases out loud, with her correcting his pronunciation. He knew she’d deliberately suggested the book to put him back on track. He liked to focus on something, to be in control of a situation by paying attention. She understood this about him, that being a troubleshooter, he didn’t like not being able to fix a situation. Like watching people trying to kill each other on a road. Like feeling helpless a few days ago about the grief and anger enveloping the MacKenzies until this assignment offered him a way to put things right.
He liked that she understood this about him. It meant she’d been watching and had cared enough to notice. He made a note to monitor her closely, so he too would understand the stuff that made her tick. And oh, so she couldn’t run off on him again as well.
* * * *
Surya snuck a peek at Kirk. He had that look on his face again. Total concentration, deep in thought. That look had both intrigued and frustrated her. She wanted that concentration onher,not some stupid problem he was trying to solve. On the other hand, she was afraid of that kind of attention because a man like that would take her apart and look too deeply. She could see it in the way he tackled a problem, in the care he took to get things done. He might be a CIA troubleshooter, but after reading up on the GEM files on him, she’d concluded Kirk Ryan was more just a CIA troubleshooter. He liked to fix problems to make people happy.
Like this assignment. She was sure he wasn’t in it for money or for duty to the MacKenzies. Yes, he probably was after the bad guys with some revenge in mind, because this was a family tragedy, after all. However, there was a part of him—that deep focus—which was more interested in justice than the violence of revenge. Kirk liked to right a wrong. A fixer indeed.
Mary MacKenzie, from all accounts, sounded like someone well loved by all who entered her world. Kirk had given little snatches of details, enough for her to see how much he cared for his aunt-in-law. A beloved mother figure. That was such a strange notion inherworld. Her family of sister-operatives was composed of independent creatures like her, brought together through the bond of being orphans, vagabonds and abandoned kids.
To have Kirk see and know her well meant exposing all her vulnerable parts. Surya shivered at the idea. She wasn’t sure she wanted to share that much of herself. Yet, all that determined focus on her, giving her what she needed, just like that kiss earlier… Oh, boy, she really had it bad. She was thinking too much about the man.
“Toonju kan sayer mana?” Kirk interrupted her reverie. “Point where? Map ispeter?”
“It’stunjukan. Show me where.Tunjukan saya mana?” she corrected. He was learning directions to get ready for his meeting with Gasi. She grinned. Yeah, total focus. “Peta, not peter. You’re doing okay. How about a sentence?”
“Okay,” he said, not looking up from his phrase book. “How much longer to the village?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Lima belas,” he said in Malay.
“Not like lima beans. It’s pronouncedlee-ma.Limabelas minit.”
“Toonju-kan saya peter dimana lima belas minit.You’re laughing. What’s so funny? I asked you to show me on the map where we are in fifteen minutes.”
Surya laughed so hard, she had to slow down to wipe the tears from her eyes. Fortunately, the road had very few cars at the moment.
“No, you asked me to show you where your peter is going in fifteen minutes,” she told him, then broke out in merriment again.
