Silver Linings

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Hugh glowered at Mattie. “Promise me you won't cry under any circumstances,” he ordered. “I can't stand the idea of having to explain myself to these two and Emery Blackwell and Charlotte Vailcourt and your parents and God knows who else happens to think you need protection from me.”

  Mattie grinned wickedly, feeling suddenly light-hearted. “Looks like you'll have to watch your step, won't you, Abbott?”

  “The stress is definitely beginning to take its toll on my good nature.” He drank the remainder of the mineral water in one gulp and made a face. “Christ, this stuff is awful.”

  “Why drink it?” Flynn asked curiously.

  “Mattie thinks it's better for me than soda pop.”

  “What you need is a good cup of espresso,” Flynn said. “Come on, I'll buy you one. I'm celebrating.”

  He had been joking back in Mattie's office, Hugh told himself later as he stood watching her choose fresh broccoli at a stall in the Pike Place Market. But the truth was, he was getting a bit stressed out.

  Maybe stressed out was not quite the right phrase. Maybe what he was feeling was a little old-fashioned guilt.

  Hugh did not like guilt. For most of his life it had been an alien emotion. Usually he was sure enough of himself and of his own personal code of honor that he did not experience guilt. Regrets, yes, but not guilt.

  He knew his present uneasiness had not been caused by the rash of folks, such as Emery Blackwell and Ariel, who had felt compelled to warn him to treat Mattie well. Hugh already knew he was going to treat her well. Hell, he would protect her with his life, if necessary, and he would see to it she never went without. When it came to the basics, he was sure he would make a good husband for her in the old-fashioned sense.

  The problem was that while parts of Mattie were delightfully old-fashioned, there were other parts of her that were very modern. Very sophisticated. Very New Woman.

  Hugh wondered again, as he did more and more frequently these days, if his long-range goal of dragging Mattie away to the islands was really the right thing to do. She looked so at home here in Seattle, he thought as he watched her move from the broccoli to the piles of red, orange, yellow, and purple peppers.

  Damn it, she was happy here. He could hardly deny it. She was also financially established here. And independent. She had friends, family, a career, and a lifestyle. She mingled with artists, writers, and businesspeople, all of whom accorded her a lot of professional respect.

  Compared to all that, Hugh knew he did not have a lot to offer out on St. Gabriel. Silk was right. The days of dragging intelligent, accomplished women off to the frontiers were over.

  It had all been a lot easier in the old days. Hell, it would have been a lot easier last year if he'd had the sense to take Mattie up on her offer the first time around.

  “Wait until you taste these peppers sautéed in a little olive oil and with some olives and capers,” Mattie said in a confidential tone as she paid the produce dealer. “Fantastic. It'll be great served with focaccia or this great potato and cabbage soup I make.”

  “Mattie?” Hugh took the sack of broccoli and peppers from her as they started toward another stall.

  “Hmmm?” Her attention was clearly on dinner.

  He did not know what to ask or how to ask it. He had been so sure of himself until now. So sure she would come with him when the time arrived. He smiled crookedly. “I should have taken you out to the islands with me last year.”

  “Who knows?” she said quietly. “Maybe things turned out for the best after all.”

  “No,” he stated categorically. “They did not. We wasted one goddamned entire year.”

  She did not respond to that.

  Mattie sensed that something had changed in Hugh's attitude toward her. She could not put her finger on it, but it made her uneasy. She wondered if his limited patience was finally at an end. He was probably getting ready to give her an ultimatum, she thought as she watched him pour her a glass of wine.

  “How's the job going?” she asked as she sliced the multihued peppers in lacy circles.

  “It's okay.” Hugh sat on a stool at the counter hunched over his glass of wine and watched her prepare dinner.

  “You don't sound exactly fired up with enthusiasm.”

  “Like I said. It's okay.”

  “How much longer will it take you to get a security plan worked up for Aunt Charlotte?” She was fishing for an answer to the question of how much time she had left, Mattie realized. But she was afraid to ask Hugh directly.

  Hugh turned the glass of wine between his palms. “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Lots of things. You want me to do anything?”

  Mattie sighed. She wasn't going to get any answers tonight. “You can rinse the broccoli.”

  “Sure.”

  The phone rang just as Hugh dumped the broccoli into a colander, and Mattie went across the room to answer it. The sultry voice on the other end of the line took her by surprise.

  “Evangeline? Is that you? I can't believe it. Where are you?”

  “Right where I was when you left Brimstone. Look, Mattie, this isn't exactly what you'd call a social call.”

  “Is something wrong?” Mattie glanced over at the kitchen and saw that Hugh was watching her curiously from the sink.

  “No, not exactly. At least I don't think so. But I'm not real sure. Does the name Rainbird mean anything to you?”

  “No.” Mattie frowned. “Nothing at all. Why?”

  “'Cause I had a trick last night who was stoned out of his gourd, and he kept talking about this guy named Rainbird. Said he was looking for someone who had slipped off Purgatory during the coup. A man. Said it was worth a lot of money to find him. I remembered that man you had with you.”

  Mattie's eyes widened in shock. “Good grief.”

  “You sure the name doesn't ring any bells?”

  “No. But I'll ask Hugh.”

  “He's still around, then?”

  “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I still see a lot of him.”

  “I was afraid of that. Look, I know it's none of my business, but isn't that kind of risky, honey? I mean, you know how it is. Get close to a John, and the first thing you know, he wants a cut of the profits. Then he starts telling you that you need him for protection. Then he starts giving orders. Next thing you know, you've got a lousy pimp.”

  “I'll keep that in mind,” Mattie promised.

  “You do that. Besides, if this jerk Rainbird is after him, you don't want to be standing nearby. Innocent bystanders have a way of getting hurt, if you know what I mean. What do you want with a man, anyway?”

  “Well…”

  “Face it, honey. Men aren't any good for women like us. We're too independent by nature. Look, I've got to run. I can hear someone coming down the hall. Probably a customer. You take care of yourself, now, you hear? And watch out for this guy named Rainbird.”

  “I will. Oh, and Evangeline?”

  “Yeah, honey?”

  “Thanks for calling. It was good to talk to you again.” Mattie slowly replaced the phone and looked thoughtfully at Hugh.

  “Evangeline Dangerfield? What the hell did she want?”

  “For one thing, she was rather alarmed that I'm still seeing you. She says men aren't any good for a working woman such as myself.”

  Hugh swore. “This is why a man has to keep tabs on his woman's friends. You start hanging out with females like Evangeline, and you pick up idiotic notions. That the only reason she was calling?”

  “No. Hugh, does the name Rainbird mean anything to you?”

  “Shit.” Hugh dropped the pan of broccoli into the sink as if it had suddenly become red hot. “Rainbird? Did you say Rainbird?”

  “I think that was the name.” Mattie was alarmed by Hugh's reaction.

  Hugh came around the edge of the counter. He was across the room in a matter of seconds, reaching for her. His eyes had gone the color of cold crystal.

&
nbsp; Mattie instinctively tried to take a step backward, but she was too late. He seized her and held her still in front of him.

  “Where did you get that name?” Hugh demanded.

  “Evangeline.” Mattie swallowed.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “She said one of her customers had gotten drunk and talked about a man named Rainbird looking for someone who had slipped off Purgatory during the coup. Do you think it was Rosey? Or Gibbs?”

  Hugh ignored that question. “Why did Evangeline call you?”

  “Because she knew I had just come off Purgatory with you, and she wondered if you were the person this Rainbird was after. But that's impossible, isn't it? Hugh, what is this all about? Why are you acting like this?”

  “Rainbird. So that's what Rosey was trying to say.”

  “Hugh?”

  “I asked him who had attacked him.” His mouth was a grim line. “He opened his eyes for a second, looked up, and said Rain. I thought he was talking about the rain that night. But he was trying to say Rainbird. He never finished the word.”

  Mattie took a deep breath, remembering Paul Cormier's last words. “Reign in hell.”

  Hugh stared down at her. “Rainbird in hell. Paul was trying to leave a message for me that Rainbird was there on Purgatory. Shit.”

  “Who is he?” The repressed violence in Hugh was making Mattie tense. She could feel his fingers clenching into the flesh of her upper arms. “What do you know about him?”

  “He's supposed to be dead, for one thing.” Hugh looked at the phone. “Damn, I should have talked to Dangerfield myself. Where was she calling from? Her room in that inn?”

  “Yes. She said a customer was on his way down the hall.”

  “The customer can damn well keep his pants zipped for a while longer.” Hugh dug out his wallet and fished through some bits and pieces of paper. “Here it is.”

  “What?”

  “The receipt for our room. The phone number is on it.” He was already punching out the number.

  Mattie could feel Hugh's tension radiating from him in cold waves. It was a battle-ready sort of tension, a terrifyingly masculine thing that assaulted her on all fronts. She waited in silence while Hugh put through the call. A moment later he had the inn clerk on the line.

  “She can't be gone,” Hugh said into the receiver. “She just called us from there. She's with a customer and not answering the phone, that's all. Go upstairs and get her. Do it now.”

  Mattie shivered a little at the savage tone in Hugh's voice. She looked around, thinking that the temperature in the apartment seemed to have dropped several degrees in the past few minutes. Hugh spoke again after a couple of minutes. “Goddamn it.” He tossed down the phone.

  “She's gone?”

  He nodded brusquely. “Left right after she called you. Walked out the front door. With a suitcase.”

  “Alone? Or with whoever was coming down the hall to her room? Hugh, do you think she's in any danger?”

  “I don't know.” Hugh was already punching out numbers on the phone.

  “Who are you calling now?”

  “Silk.”

  There was another tense pause before Hugh gave up in frustration and dropped the receiver back into the cradle. “Shit,” he said again. “Goddamn it to hell. Rainbird. After all these years.”

  Mattie sat down on the edge of the couch, her arms crossed under her breasts. “Don't you think you'd better tell me what this is all about?”

  He looked at her as if surprised to see her still there. She could tell he was a million miles away in his mind. “No.”

  She stared at him, nonplussed. “No? Hugh, you can't just say no like that. You have to tell me what's going on here. I'm involved in this, too.”

  “No, you're not involved and you're not going to get involved. Silk and I will take care of Rainbird, and then it will all be over. For good this time.”

  “You can't shut me out like this.”

  “I'm not shutting you out. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “The hell it doesn't,” Mattie said, gritting her teeth.

  “Let it be, Mattie. I'll deal with it.”

  Something snapped inside Mattie. She jumped up in front of Hugh, clenching her small fists at her sides. “Now, you listen to me, Hugh Abbott. I've had about enough of taking orders from you, and I've had enough of your refusal to talk about your past. You've got some nerve, you know that? You won't tell me anything about yourself, but you expect me to give up everything and move out to that stupid island with you.”

  “Now, babe, I never said that.”

  “You didn't have to say it,” she stormed. “It's been perfectly obvious from the beginning. Why do you thing I've been so tense lately? I knew that sooner or later you'd pin me down and force me to make a decision. But how can I do that when you won't even tell me who you really are or where you've been most of your life? It's obvious your past has come back to haunt you. That means it affects our future. I demand to know the truth.”

  “My past does not affect you,” he said, spacing each word out carefully, as if by stating the concept forcefully enough he could make it reality.

  “Everything that affects you affects me.” Mattie was near tears. “Don't you understand? I love you, Hugh. I love you. I have to know what's going on here.”

  He stared down at her for a long while. Then, without a word, he opened his arms and she stepped into them. He buried his lips in her hair and held her so tight Mattie thought her ribs might crack.

  “Babe,” he muttered, his voice husky. “I never wanted you to know. I didn't want you to find out about any of it. Not ever.”

  CHAPTER

  Sixteen

  “Once upon a time,” Hugh said slowly, “I worked for Jack Rainbird.” Hugh let his arms fall away from Mattie, and he moved over to the window to stare out through the rain-streaked glass. “It was not one of my more rewarding enterprises.”

  “What did you do for him?” Mattie's voice was soft and laced with deep concern.

  Hugh wondered how long it would be before the concern turned to disgust. “A lot of things.”

  “Hugh, this is no time to be evasive. I have to know what's going on here.”

  He exhaled heavily. “Yeah, I guess you've got a right. Okay, here's how it went down. When I got out of the Army, I got a job with a fly-by-night air charter outfit that operated down in South America. The guy who ran it would take any cargo, fly in any weather, and not ask any questions. The pay wasn't bad. And I learned almost everything I know about running a charter service from the wild man who ran that one. That's where I met Silk, by the way.”

  “He was working for the same outfit?”

  Hugh nodded. “Silk and I became a team. What one of us couldn't handle in the air or on the ground, the other usually could. Sometimes getting the plane back into the sky after making a delivery was a real challenge.”

  “Because the planes were not properly maintained?” Mattie asked.

  He studied the reflection of her frowning face in the window. “No, the planes were kept in great shape. That was one of the boss's two rules. The planes got properly serviced even if everyone in the operation went hungry for a while.”

  “Then what was the problem?”

  “The problem,” Hugh said quietly, “was that sometimes the clients did not want witnesses who might have snooped around the cargo. Sometimes the clients had enemies who did not want the cargo transported in the first place.”

  “I see. It was dangerous.”

  Hugh shrugged. “Sometimes. On the whole it wasn't bad work. Silk and I, we sort of liked it. There was hardly any paperwork, no dress code, and like I said, the boss only had two rules. I told you the first one: take care of the planes.”

  “And the second?”

  “Don't come back without one of the planes. Planes are expensive, you see. A lot more expensive than pilots.”

  “That sounds a little cold-blooded.”

  “J
ust good business.”

  “Planes are more expensive than pilots. I heard you say something like that to Ray and Derek.” Mattie smiled faintly. “But you didn't really mean it. You were just emphasizing the importance of maintenance.”

  Hugh's brows climbed at her naive faith in his basic good nature. “Well, my boss meant it. Every word. At any rate, things went fairly well for me and Silk for quite a while. We made a little money, did a lot of flying, and got the planes back in one piece. And then one day we broke the rules.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were flying a cargo into a very remote location in South America. It was supposed to be supplies for some fancy scientific research team, but Silk and I knew it was probably something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like guns. But, as usual, we didn't ask any questions. We just tried to do the job and get out. But this time we almost didn't make it. The plane got shot up. I got it back in the air but not for long, and we went down in some bad country.”

  “My God,” Mattie whispered.

  Hugh smiled in spite of his mood. “Hey, don't look so horrified. Obviously we made it out.”

  “Obviously. But you lost the plane.”

  “And our jobs. Silk and I were not in the best of shape when we finally walked out of that damned jungle. The jungles in South America are different from the ones out on the islands. They're a lot more dangerous. A lot can go wrong. And it seemed like just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong, from Silk picking up a fever to us meeting up with some folks who wanted to use us for target practice. But the worst thing that went wrong was that we had no cash left by the time we paid Silk's medical bills.”

  “But you got another job?”

  “Yeah. Working for Jack Rainbird.”

  Mattie chewed on her lower lip. Her expression as reflected in the window was very determined looking. “Doing what?” she finally asked.

  “Rainbird was the head of a group of professional mercenaries,” Hugh said bluntly. “He sold his team's services all over the world.”