“Told you I would.” With a defiant little toss of her head, she snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to him.

He took it, clinked it gently against hers. “Done good.”

“Yes, I did.” She held his eyes while she said it, then tipped back her head and drank, nearly draining the glass in a few thirsty gulps. Afterward, her gaze slid away from his, as if she felt awkward with him, suddenly. He thought her face seemed pale, too. As if she was feeling ill…or scared.

If she was, he pretty much knew how she felt. He had a sudden impulse-a need-to draw her close and hold on to her-to gather close to everyone he cared about, the way primitive people once huddled together against the terrors of the night.

The limousine rolled through holiday traffic like a migrating whale, unhurried and unfazed. Inside, isolated and insulated behind tinted windows and an aura of privilege and mystery, Celia sat and watched Christmas lights and crowds of last-minute shoppers flash by in a kaleidoscope of gaudy color and frantic motion. And music. In her mind a song was playing over and over, one line in particular, from “Silver Bells”-the one about city sidewalks decked out in holiday style…

But where, she wondered, was the “feeling of Christmas” that was supposed to be in the air?

Her mind felt as disconnected from the emotions and sentiments of the season as her body was separated from the busyness and bustle of it by the limousine’s steel-and-glass shell. She had no room in her head for Christmas! Her thoughts, her whole being felt crowded, stuffed full, overfilled, like a balloon in danger of bursting, and all the more in chaos because so many of the thoughts and emotions filling it seemed to be in conflict with each other.

And her fertile and imaginative mind, being perhaps overly fond of allegories, reminded her that it was conflicting forces in nature that created tornadoes and hurricanes.

Her life forces were pounding inside her head and chest, loud, distracting, unsettling, like storm winds or heavy surf. Nerves pricked her skin like wind-driven rain. Her scalp tightened, as if warning of some unseen danger. Her breathing was shallow and her muscles tense, as if preparing her for imminent flight.

She felt exhilarated…and at the same time, in despair.

She wanted to run as fast as she could on a wide-open beach, put back her head and scream at the empty sky.

She’d never felt so alone, or wanted less to be.

Beside her, inches away, Roy sat in infuriating, and typically masculine, oblivion. How, she wondered, could he not be aware of the turmoil that was in her? How could he not understand what she must be feeling? How can he not know how much I want him?

Done good.

That much at least he must know-how much she’d wanted to do this thing…how much it meant to her to have succeeded. And then… “Done good,” he’d told her-like a grudging pat on the head.

That’s not enough, damn you! I want more! Though how much more, she couldn’t bear to say, even in the privacy of her mind.

Then, assailed by that actor’s familiar malady, insecurity, she decided if Roy somehow “didn’t get it,” it must be her fault. She was an actress, after all; it was her job to communicate thoughts, feelings and emotions to her audience. If her audience-Roy-didn’t understand, it was because she’d failed. She was a lousy actress.

No! Stomach flip-flopping, she quickly rejected that. She’d won Emmys, after all. She only had to try harder.

Sunk deep in ivory plush and the darkness of his own thoughts, Roy gave a start when Celia suddenly unbuckled her seat belt. “Hey, where y’goin’?” he asked, reaching for her.

She threw him an enigmatic smile over her shoulder. She murmured, “I know this limo must have some champagne…” as she opened the bar.

“I’d have thought you’d had enough of that stuff already,” he muttered, but she ignored that. Naturally.

She slid back into the seat beside him, triumphantly holding up two glasses and a champagne bottle. “I feel a need to celebrate,” she announced, smiling the way she sometimes did, with her teeth pressed down on her lower lip, like a little girl doing mischief.

Well, damn. He hated when she did that. Because no matter how much was on his mind, that look, so at odds with the elegant clothes and hairstyle she wore, her sultry beauty and probably a queen’s ransom in jewelry, made something twinge in the back of his jaws, as if he wanted to smile, too, and maybe do the same mischief right along with her.

Not trusting himself to come up with anything intelligent to say, he snorted and accepted the glasses she gave him to hold while she expertly opened the bottle. Naturally, she had to give a little squawk when the cork popped and laugh as she licked the spillage from the back of her hand.

Resigned, he offered the glasses, and she put her hand on his to steady them while she poured. She tucked the bottle into the corner of the seat behind her, then turned back and took one of the glasses from him. She held it up and faced him across it, the champagne’s liquid effervescence washing sparkling golden light over her smile.

“A toast,” she said.

Roy said, “Humph,” and added an unwilling, “Okay-what to?”

She opened her mouth, then paused, looking uncertain, and instead gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know-to us. To the mission. To success!” She clinked her glass half-defiantly against his and drank.

He felt a spurt of anger and tasted bitterness at the back of his throat at the thought of what might still lie ahead of him. He lowered the glass without drinking. “The job’s not done,” he said harshly.

She waved her glass, lips glistening with champagne. “My part is-” her eyes flew wide “-No-wait-I didn’t mean-”

“Well, I’m sure as hell glad to hear you say that,” he said, smiling darkly at her.

She leaned toward him, earnest and dismayed. “I didn’t mean that. It’s not done-just this part of it is. You still need me-you know you do. He invited both of us.”

Furious with her, he said, “Why do you insist on being in on this? You’re like a little kid trying to get into the big boys’ game. Dammit, Celia, this isn’t a game.”

“I know it’s not.” She burped softly and looked away. After a moment she brought her eyes back to him, and he saw in them something he’d seen before-he couldn’t remember, now, exactly when it had been. Pain and wariness, and maybe even fear.

She licked her lips, then said in a hard, quiet voice, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

He jerked and spilled champagne on his hand. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“It’s a question. Have you?”

He took a drink of champagne, shifted his shoulders. “No. Of course not. I’m in the information-gathering business. We don’t kill people.”

Her gaze was dark and steady. “I have.”

Again he jerked, irritably, as if she’d poked him with a stick. “Come on.”

“No, it’s true-I told you.”

“For God’s sake, Celia, that was an accident!” Clumsily, he polished off the rest of the champagne and set the glass on the floor. “That’s pretty melodramatic,” he muttered angrily, “even for you.”

“Maybe…” She exhaled softly and once again her gaze slid away. This time, when she brought it back to him, there was something in her eyes that tugged at his heart in new and uncomfortable ways. His anger with her drained away like waves in the sand.

“Do you believe in fate? Destiny, I mean.”

“Jeez, Celia…” He ran a hand over his hair as he sat back against the seat, then let out a hissing breath. “I don’t know…I guess so…maybe. Tell you the truth, I never thought about it.”

“Think about it.” She sat forward, hunched and intense, the champagne forgotten, one hand resting on his knee. “Two women…driving alone along a highway…one crosses over the line-never mind whose fault it is-and the two cars collide head-on. One woman lives, one dies.”

She looked down at the glass in her hand but found it empty. She said softly, “She had a husband and three grown children, do you know that? The woman who died. She was about to become a grandmother for the first time.” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat.

She lifted the gaze once again, and Roy’s heart stumbled. Her eyes…dammit…they reminded him of a lost dog confronting a possible rescuer…full of confusion and fear, and maybe a glimmer of hope. He tried to think of something to say to her that might help, but he was no healer. Her pain was beyond him. He felt helpless, frustrated, useless-ways no man wants to feel.

After a moment, she cleared her throat again and, in a low, husky voice, went on. “I used to wonder about it…why I lived and she didn’t. I felt so awful…”

“Survivors’ guilt,” said Roy, nodding, pleased with himself now, like a kid in school who finally gets a question he knows the answer to. “I guess that’s normal.”

She nodded. “That’s what I was told. I don’t know that it helped much.” She drew a deep breath. A smile flickered, then grew brave. “Then…I found you. And I thought, That’s why! I thought, it’s all a matter of destiny. I lived because I was needed to be there, on that particular beach, on that particular night, so I could save your life. You see? But then-” she held up a hand as if to keep him from interrupting her, though he couldn’t have spoken if his life had depended on it “-later on, when I heard you talking, and I knew what was at stake, and I figured out it was Abby’s boat you were investigating… Then I thought, This is why I lived! Because anybody walking on that beach that night could have saved your life, right? But only I could get you onto Abby’s yacht.”