"You surprised me all right. I'm so sorry, baby." Tessa kissed the top of Casey's head.

It was as if the estrangement of the past few days didn't exist.

Once the two women were locked in an embrace, all the rules of proper behavior seemed to fly out the window. They held tightly to each other, Casey running her hands up Tessa's muscular back.

"Casey?" Tessa asked.

"Hmm?" Casey murmured, enjoying the feel of Tessa's arms around her again.

"What is that sticking me in the ribs?"

"Oh, G.o.d." Casey pulled away, and she held out a mashed bouquet of roses. She tried to straighten a few broken stems, but they promptly fell back over. Tessa, in the meantime, was trying hard not to laugh at the expression on Casey's face. "They're...

for you."

Suddenly, Casey looked indignant. She slapped Tessa across the arm with the rumpled flowers. "Why did you turn the lights out on me?"

*"Hey," Tessa exclaimed, rubbing her arm, "in case you're not wearing a watch, it's after eleven o'clock. Frankly, I thought you blew me off."

"I just woke up," Casey admitted sheepishly.

Tessa smiled at the contrite woman. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I've never had a woman give me flowers before...thank you." Tessa accepted the crumpled bouquet and wondered what it all meant. "Do you...want to come inside?" she asked tentatively.

"That was kind of my plan." Casey slipped her hand into Tessa's grasp, and they went in through the patio door.

Tessa walked out of the kitchen with the roses in a pale blue vase. "I think they came through all right." She placed the vase on the coffee table.

She had to admit she was nervous. She wasn't sure how Casey wanted to play this. Were they just friends...ex-lovers...what?

Tessa sat on the arm of the sofa, bringing herself down to Casey's level."Casey..."

Casey stepped in and slipped her arms around Tessa's neck, firmly kissing the stunned Tessa . It was an involuntary reaction for Tessa to pull Casey closer and moan into the kiss, but it was all the encouragement Casey needed. In seconds, Tessa was being kissed in a way that caused all her other senses to nearly shut down. When they pulled apart to catch their breaths, tears filled Tessa's eyes, and she stroked Casey's cheek.

"Oh, Casey, I'm so sorry...I never meant to hurt you."

"I love you, Niko." Casey brushed her lips lightly against Tessa's. "I don't care what's gone on in the past or what will happen in the future. I only know that I love you too much to give you up...I can't...I won't."

"Honey, do you know what you're saying? I haven't changed my mind about what I'm going to do."

"Do you mean, do I know that I'm choosing you over my father? Then the answer is yes. I won't live the rest of my life without you. I feel like I've been living in some sort of limbo for the last twenty years, stuck halfway between being alive and actually living. I know you're afraid I'll get hurt or worse, in all of *this mess, but I have to do it this way, can't you see? If something happened to you, I wouldn't be able to go on. My body might keep going, but my heart would die along with you. I don't want to have to live the rest of my life that way. If anything should happen, I want to be with you. Where you go, I go." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I guess the last question is...do you still want me?" Casey asked, not looking up.

Tessa clutched Casey and held her tightly. She breathed in the scent of her and reveled in the texture of the soft hair against her cheek.

"I should tell you no," Tessa rasped. "I should tell you I don't love you, that I've just been using you. I should break your heart.

Maybe that way you'd pack your things and go back to America.

It would kill me to be without you, but at least I'd know you were safe," Tessa said, placing gentle kisses along the side of Casey's neck and face. "Forgive me, Casey, but I do want you," Tessa whispered tearfully. "I want you and I need you."

"Then it's settled. Let's go to bed," Casey whispered into Tessa's ear.

"You've been sleeping all day," Tessa said, wiping away Casey's tears.

"Sleeping wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Casey smiled up at Tessa with a mischievous grin.

Tessa turned out the remaining lights, and the two women walked up the stairs arm in arm.

It was an early start for both women the next day. Casey felt like she'd just gone to sleep, but she was trying hard to concentrate on everything Jack Armstrong was telling her. He told her what things to look for-memos, invoices, anything with a contact name or country. If it was handwritten, all the better. They already suspected the main suppliers were the Libyans, but until they had the physical proof, Interpol refused to act. By the time they took a break for lunch, Casey's head was swimming.

She and Tessa rode back to the estate to have lunch. Tessa called Olympia to confirm that Meridio was still doing business in Turkey and would probably be gone through the weekend.

*He didn't seem distressed that Casey went back to Athens once Olympia told him that Tessa accompanied her.

Tessa scooped up their plates and came back with a wooden box in one hand and a tray of frappes in another. Casey took a sip of the iced coffee as Tessa pushed the wooden box toward her.

"I picked this up this morning while you were with Jack."

"A present ...for me?" Casey lifted the lid.

"It's not really that kind of gift," Tessa said, catching the expression on Casey's face as she peered inside the box.

"Gee..." Casey hesitated. "A pistol...how romantic."

Tessa smirked at the comment. "I told you it wasn't that kind of a gift. It's a nine-millimeter Beretta Cougar. I want you to carry this from now on. Do you understand?" Tessa asked, noticing the distant look in Casey's eyes.

"It's...I guess I was just thinking that this is the kind of thing we're fighting against." Casey sat staring at the barrel that wasn't much longer than her hand.

"Well, this one may just save your life someday, so don't knock it. I want you to carry it with you all the time. Keep it loaded, but keep the safety on till you're used to carrying it around."

"I know this is a small pistol as guns go, but where am I going to carry it?"

"In your purse," Tessa said without thinking.

"In case you haven't noticed, I hardly ever carry a purse."

Tessa thought for a moment. "Yeah. You have a laptop. Is there any room inside the case for it?"

"Yeah, that'll do," Casey said.

Tessa spent the rest of their lunch break showing Casey how to load and care for the pistol. It fit perfectly in the inside pocket of the laptop case and Casey tucked it away as they prepared to head back over to the center.

Casey drove the BMW as Tessa played pa.s.senger, listening to Casey's tales of her morning with Jack Armstrong and all that he expected her to remember. Tessa tried to concentrate on everything Casey was saying, but her thoughts wandered. She hated the idea of Casey wearing a gun. Tessa knew that if she couldn't find a way to reconcile what Meridio did to her father, *by the time they found enough evidence for Jack to move in, she would end up doing something that might destroy her relationship with Casey. No matter what Casey said she felt, Tessa knew in her heart that murdering Meridio might eventually be the wedge that would drive them apart.

Armstrong spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening drilling Casey on what she'd learned so far. He knew he was being hard on her, but he only had a short amount of time to get Casey to start thinking like an agent. Tessa helped and, much to Armstrong's amazement, showed a remarkable amount of patience with Casey. They went over exactly what they expected Casey to do and what things, under no circ.u.mstances, did they not want her to attempt. Armstrong explained carefully, mostly for Tessa's benefit, that they weren't working alone now. They were to keep each other informed, no surprises. Jack looked especially long at Tessa after he said that. He knew what a rogue player she was. He was reminded of the beauty and the beast as Tessa sat, nodding and agreeing with everything Jack said. Casey obviously held the power to tame the beast.

The last thing Jack did was to confiscate Casey's laptop. He grinned wryly as he handed Casey her Beretta before turning the computer over to one of the techs from downstairs. He was having an encryption program loaded on Casey's machine. She could use her regular electronic mail program for all her normal correspondence, but she was to use the special program for conversing with anyone from the center.

Jack also explained that it wasn't safe for Tessa or Casey to come to the center any longer. Their communication was to go solely through the e-mail program. Jack handed a plane ticket and a bag of brochures to Casey.

"A ticket to France." Casey fixed a seductive expression on her face and leered up at him. "Jack, I thought you were married."

She smiled.

"Oh, that's very funny. Geez, you've been hanging around this one too long." He jerked a thumb in Tessa's direction. "You're getting to be just as much of a wise-a.s.s as she is."

That made Tessa smile. She remembered her first few *encounters with Casey, during the last couple of weeks. "Hey, I didn't have anything to do with it...she came that way," Tessa said."That is a ticket and some travel brochures. Leave them lying in plain sight in your room on Mkonos. That way, if it ever comes back that you were here a couple of times, simply say you were planning on a little R&R for yourself, and someone at the museum mentioned this travel agency."

"You people think of everything," Casey joked as she accepted her returned laptop from a woman from the computer department.

Jack leaned down, and with an expression that was heartbreakingly serious, he said, "Just remember, Casey, now you are one of us people."

Chapter 19.

The next two weeks sped by at an alarming pace. Casey's work at the museum demanded more and more time, while Tessa was deeply involved with Meridio's everyday matters. Casey was spending about every other day in Athens. Of course, Meridio was less than enthusiastic about Casey being out from under his protection, which Tessa interpreted to mean out from under his control. Therefore, Meridio occasionally sent his Kare on errands to the mainland as a pretense to look out for Casey. Tessa smiled when Meridio wasn't looking. Who was she to turn down a direct order? She had to wonder what the man was using for brains, but she enjoyed the fact that he was gullible enough to send the fox into the hen house...with his blessing no less.

From the computer in her home in Athens, in which Jack's boys installed all the necessary encryption software, Tessa would e-mail Casey when she arrived in town. Casey became very good at watching the world around her, and making sure there was no one following, she would go to Tessa's estate.

It was funny in an odd sort of way. Casey and Tessa talked about anything and everything during these times together, everything but the subject at hand. They agreed it was almost like talking business in bed, and neither seemed eager to bring that part of their lives into their bedroom. So they would wait until they were lunching or out for a drive to discuss particulars.

Late one afternoon, Andreas Meridio caught Casey in the pool, relaxing by doing laps.

*"Well, don't tell me I actually caught the eminent archaeologist at home," he joked.

"Very funny, Pappa." The bile rose in Casey's throat each time she had to use that term of endearment on her father, but Jack said not to change anything about herself or her habits. Because of this, she plastered a smile on her face and acted like nothing was amiss.

"I wanted to tell you that we're going to do some entertaining for the weekend. Some business a.s.sociates will be flying in, and I thought I would have a party on Friday night. There'll be around a dozen in their party, and they'll be staying in the guest rooms for the weekend."

Casey was dying to know who the business a.s.sociates were.

Could they be the arms sellers?

"Are they your Libyan a.s.sociates?" Casey casually asked, walking from the pool and tying a towel around her hips.

"No, they're gentlemen from Turkey," Meridio said flatly.

Casey raised an eyebrow and didn't hide her surprise very well.Meridio caught the expression and called her on it. "Don't tell me that a modern woman such as yourself harbors ill will toward our neighbors?"

"No, no, of course not. I guess I'm just a little surprised that you're so open to it," Casey said.

Old World Greeks like her father had a habit, it seemed, of detesting Albanians and Turks. It was a feud as old as the Catholics and the Protestants. Few Greeks ever forgot that centuries ago, the Turks, or the Ottomans as they were known according to ancient history, captured Constantinople, renamed it Istanbul, and made it the capital of the Ottoman empire. The Turkish military partially destroyed the Parthenon in the late 1600s, an unforgivable sin to historians. For 150 years, the Greeks lived under Turkish rule until their domination ended in the 1800s. Most of modern-day Turkey belonged to Greece at one time.

"These gentlemen are different. We've been a.s.sociates for a very long time, and we have developed an excellent working relationship. I would like you to do me a favor, Mahtia Mou. "

0.

*"Look pretty and charming at your party?" Casey asked, trying hard to disguise the contempt in her voice.

"Well, there is that, yes, but I was thinking of something else.

I would like it if you would stay in the guesthouse with Tessa for the weekend. The guests here will be all men, and I don't want anyone making free with my daughter. I'll speak to Tessa."

"Sure, I have no problem with that arrangement." Secretly, Casey was jumping up and down with joy. "Like your Turkish a.s.sociates, the Kare and I have also developed a comfortable working relationship."

Casey smiled sweetly as her father reiterated his thanks and walked off. Inside, she had a grin on her face that would have made the Cheshire cat look like the Mona Lisa.

"Are you sure he said Turks?" Tessa asked Casey for the third time."Okay, is it that you don't believe me or is there another reason you keep asking me that?" Casey said.

"Oh, I'm sorry, hon," Tessa said, slightly distracted.

They were having a late lunch on the patio of a local taverna on Mkonos. Casey told Tessa the conversation with her father, but she hadn't yet told Tessa who her roommate for the weekend would be.

"What's the deal, Niko?"

"The deal, as you put it, is that I was unaware that your father did business with anyone from Turkey anymore."

"I know you're the Meridio Kare, but surely my father doesn't tell you everything that goes on in his dealings?"

"No, but up to this point, I didn't know that. Frankly, I didn't think your father was that smart. You see a good mangas never tells those underneath them everything that goes on in their business. Even when I ran my own racket, I never told any one person everything. Meridio's a little smarter than I thought."

"You said anymore," Casey paused as the waitress brought their food out and placed it on the table, resuming her conversation when the waitress walked away. "Did he do business with the Turks at one time?"

*"Yeah." Tessa tried to remember the details. "About two years ago, we stopped getting any kind of sales from one of our major clients in Turkey. Rumors went around, and I happened to catch a few of them. I told Meridio, but at the time, we blew them off."

"What kind of rumors?"

"That our friends in Turkey decided to move up in the world.

They supposedly had connections and were going to start selling, and not just handguns, either...big ticket items like-"

"Nuclear weapons," Casey finished softly.

Tessa touched the tip of her index finger to her nose. "Correct.

I reported it to Jack, but at the time, everyone just laughed. The Turks didn't have the money, power, or contacts to pull it off.

Most folks in the business thought they were p.i.s.sing in the wind.

Funny thing about that, though, if the rumors were false, then who do the Turks buy from?"

"You think they could be father's suppliers instead of buyers?"