She’d been at the cabin over two weeks and she could see why Zach kept it. There was something cleansing and healing about the location. Maybe it was ancient sacred ground. Or a secret spot for lovers.
She quickly pushed away that last thought. Under present circumstances, being Zach’s lover was impossible. He wasn’t going to ask, and she wasn’t going to offer. Even if he did ask—
She broke into a run and headed up an incline between a row of trees. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he asked. She liked to think she would be strong and say no, but it was unlikely.
Her breathing deepened as she broke out into a sweat. Her heart picked up its rhythm. She could feel the energy filling her. Up here, among the trees and the clear sky, all things were possible. If she could feel one with nature, surely she could find a way to be one with herself. She could remember what it felt to be human, and to be a woman.
Easier said than done, she thought. Although she had all the working parts, she wasn’t sure what to do with them. She couldn’t imagine herself hosting teas for the Junior League. She didn’t even know what the Junior League was or why it existed in the first place. But there had to be some kind of middle ground between a cliched female existence and what she’d become.
Another half hour of running didn’t bring her closer to an answer. She turned around and headed back to the house, slowing to a jog. When she spotted a tree with a thick branch about a foot above her head, she stopped and jumped up to grab it.
When her grip was secure, she started doing pull-ups. She worked slowly, thoughtfully, exercising her muscles, keeping them strong.
Her body was still as she slowly raised and lowered herself, her feet together, her legs straight. “Not the most feminine exercise,” Jamie said as perspiration dampened her back and face. But she couldn’t imagine not being strong. Strength was a part of her now. Her strength made her feel safe.
“Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty.” She released the tree branch and jumped to the ground. Once there, she shook out her arms and continued walking toward the cabin.
Was she hiding behind her need to be strong? Did she use that part of herself to keep people away, emotionally, as well as physically?
She didn’t want to think about that. As she tried to ignore the thought, she reminded herself she’d quit the agency so she would have time to answer all those questions. She wasn’t here just to help Zach, but also to explore and discover. To find balance. She was going to have to stare down the scary questions and figure out the answers.
When she got back to the cabin, Zach wasn’t there. She wondered how far he’d gone and if he’d hurt himself. She checked the clock. If he wasn’t back in an hour, she was going after him.
Forty-eight minutes later, he came into view. He was covered in sweat and barely able to walk. She moved out to the porch and waited for him to approach. Although her nerves were stretched tight, she struck a casual pose and tried to act unconcerned.
When he reached the three stairs leading up to the house, he raised his head and looked her straight in the eye. “I made it to the road,” he said. “It’s time for you to go.”
She’d expected a lot of lines, but not that one. Without meaning to, she burst out laughing.
Zach surprised her by turning his lips up in a grudging smile. “I didn’t think you’d buy it.”
She was too stunned by the way the smile had affected her to bother responding to his words. The tingling started at her toes and worked its way up. Her breathing increased, as it had while she’d been running, but this time it wasn’t from physical exertion. Looked as though he still got to her. A dangerous concept.
He sank down on the steps. “I barely made it past the bend.” He pointed to the curve in the driveway. “Then I puked my guts out and just about collapsed. I had to rest all this time just to make it back.”
So he still needed her. The thought should have pleased her, but it didn’t. She knew the truth. He might not make it down to the highway today, or tomorrow, but he would keep trying. And one day he would make it. Then it would be time for her to go.
Zach stepped into the cabin. He preferred spending time outdoors, but an unexpected cold front had arrived and the snow had driven him inside.
He was restless. A good sign. It meant he was healing. He’d been running a little every day for nearly a week. His strength was returning, although it would be another six or eight weeks before he was back to a hundred percent.
As he walked into the kitchen, he saw Jamie had made a fresh pot of coffee. He glanced toward the bedrooms. Her door was closed. They both tried to sleep in the afternoon because neither of them slept at night. As she’d said, insomnia was a hazard of the job.
He poured himself some coffee, then headed for the bathroom. He needed a hot shower to get the chill out of his bones. Before he opened the door, he moved close to Jamie’s room. He imagined her sleeping there and hated himself for the pleasure the image brought. He didn’t want to be connected to her. He couldn’t allow himself to feel anything. The price was too high.
The only way to endure the horrors of the world was to let go of them. Early in his career, he’d wrestled with injustice and hatred. He’d seen the suffering and not known how to ease it. Gradually he’d learned not to feel any of it. Once he let the feelings disappear, he could do his job. After all these years, it was all he knew.
If he allowed himself one strong emotion, if he cracked the door a little, everything would rush out and overwhelm him. He had a bad feeling Jamie was hoping for a miracle, but she wasn’t going to get one from him.
She wanted to know if he was looking for a way out. He shook his head. He couldn’t leave. This was all he knew.
Still carrying his coffee, he pushed open the bathroom door. Jamie wasn’t in her bedroom sleeping. She was in the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel.
He stopped suddenly. Hot coffee sloshed over his hand, but he didn’t feel the burning. He stared at her, realized she was practically naked and started to back up.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
The bathroom was small, with a single sink in a narrow vanity. The metal-mirrored medicine chest was about twenty-five years old. The only indulgence was the claw-footed tub that ran the length of the room. When he’d first bought the cabin, he’d put in a shower head over the tub.
“It’s all right,” she said, and smiled up at him. “I’m just finishing up.”
The room was steamy, the mirror fogged. He didn’t notice any of that. Instead, he stared at the woman in front of him.
She’d piled her long hair on top of her head. A few strands escaped and clung to her damp shoulders. Dark smudges under her eyes told him of her battles with restlessness and changed her hazel eyes to green.
Her face was a perfect oval, with high cheekbones and a wide mouth. She never wore makeup and rarely needed it. Now her skin was flushed and luminous. His gaze moved down her body. He could see the lean lines of her muscles. She was strong but not bulky. She amazed him.
She’d become a hell of a woman. He almost told her, too. But at the last minute, he held the words inside. Why would his opinion matter to her? She knew what she’d accomplished.
“Just let me get my things,” she said, and reached for a pile of clothing. “I know I used all the hot water, but I soaked in the tub for nearly forty minutes, so it should be heated again.”
She moved with the easy grace of a wild creature. He wanted to tug on the corner of the towel tucked near her arm and let it fall to the floor. He wanted to go to her and hold her. He wanted to taste her and make love to her over and over, as they had seven years ago.
He wanted to tell her he’d never forgotten her. That she was the closest he’d ever come to loving someone.
Instead, he watched as she collected her belongings and slipped past him. One hand clutched her clothes; the other tugged a clip from her hair. The long, shimmering strands tumbled down her back. His body clenched reflexively as desire poured th
rough him.
Then she was gone. He closed the door and set the coffee mug on the vanity. When he moved to the tub, he stared at the few bubbles still twinkling against the white porcelain.
How she tempted him with her soft smiles and gentle ways. But he would never act on his desires. It was too risky. Her smiles brought him more joy than he’d ever felt. They also brought him more pain than the beatings ever had. She was here now, but eventually she would find what she’d come looking for and she would leave. Then what? He could heal from the beatings, but the wounds Jamie inflicted would be with him always.
Chapter 8
Jamie woke as she did each night. After listening to the silence for a few minutes, she rolled over and glanced at the clock. Nearly two. It had been over three weeks since she’d quit the agency, but she still couldn’t sleep through the night. She wondered if she ever would.
After staring at the ceiling for nearly a half hour, she gave up trying to pretend she could relax. She rose, collected jeans, socks and a thick sweater, then put them on. She walked silently to her bedroom door and listened. Nothing. She hadn’t heard Zach’s door open or him moving about the cabin, but she knew he was awake and outside. She sensed it.
Sometimes she felt as if they’d been fused together in some mysterious way, joined on a cellular level. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. The past and present blurred in her mind until she forgot what was from today and what remained of their long-ago week together. She wondered about his hopes and dreams, his plans for the future, as if his goals had something to do with hers. She sensed when he was pushing himself too hard, when he was in pain, when he was tired. She had no feeling that their bond was of another world, just that the connection was earth-shatteringly strong.
Yesterday he’d walked into the bathroom before she’d had a chance to dress after bathing. She’d been wearing a towel, and he’d certainly seen her in less. So she hadn’t been embarrassed. If anything, the intimacy had pleased her. She’d wanted him to want her at least as much as she wanted him. But their connection wasn’t perfect, and she couldn’t always read his mind. At that moment, his dark eyes had remained impenetrable barriers, protecting both his thoughts and his soul. She’d been left to wonder…and to want.
Slowly she eased her door open and stepped into the living room. A single light shone from the kitchen—the one over the stove. By mutual consent, they left it on all night. The scent of coffee drifted to her. In the kitchen, she found a fresh pot, minus one cup. She poured herself some, then picked up a blanket from the back of the sofa and headed for the front door.
Once there, she paused. She wanted to go outside. Being in the cold night air would soothe her restless spirit, but there was danger in the darkness. Zach.
The last time they’d shared the porch had been the first week he’d arrived. It had started out well enough, then had ended with him saying he wasn’t interested in giving lessons to rookies.
His words still had the power to wound. Even knowing what he was trying to do—that he wanted to hurt her enough to drive her away—hadn’t been protection against the pain. She knew their time together had been more than that. If he’d only been interested in bedding a virgin, he wouldn’t have invited her to his cabin. Her mind was sure, but her heart still questioned. Had she really been the only one to feel anything? Had she been the only one to fall in love?
She opened the front door. Chilly air swept around her. She paused, waiting for her eyes to become adjusted.
“You coming out or are you just going to stand there?” Zach asked.
Instead of answering, she stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her.
He sat in the chair next to the swing. A thick quilt covered him. He was slouched down with his head resting against the wooden slats as he stared at the sky.
“I kept telling myself one day I would learn the names of the constellations,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “All those nights I spent staring up, never sure what I was staring at. I can find the Big and Little Dippers. But that’s about it. You know any of the stars?”
Jamie slipped onto the swing and drew her blanket around her. She took a sip of coffee. “Just the ones you named. And the Southern Cross when I’m in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh, there’s the North Star.”
“Yeah, I can find that one, too.”
Silence settled around them, but it wasn’t an awkward pause. It was the comfortable quiet of two people who don’t always have to talk. Tension eased in her body, and she found herself relaxing. They were going to be all right, at least for tonight.
Gradually the noises of the night creatures returned. The air was scented with spring. Flowers, trees, grass. Her breath came out in puffy clouds of steam.
“My father would like it here,” Jamie said. “At least I think he would. He always talked about the outdoors.”
“Where’s he now?”
She held her coffee mug in both hands. “He died when I was eight. I don’t remember very much about him. My mother remarried a couple of years later, but my stepfather and I were never close.”
“Losing your father must have been hard on you.”
She glanced at him. He was looking at her. The light was too dim for her to read his expression, but his words were kind. “It was. I adored my dad. I wanted to be just like him. He was a cop.”
“Why’d you choose the agency over law enforcement?”
She shrugged. “I respected what he did, but as I grew up, I thought it would be too confining. I wanted to be going and doing, not just writing tickets and filling out forms. I’ve since realized there’s a lot more to being a cop than that, but at eighteen I needed to see the world.”
“And you saw it. Was it what you expected?”
“The world?” She shook her head. “Not really. But going on assignment with the agency isn’t the same as being a tourist or even living somewhere. Just like cops have a hard time believing the good in people, I have a hard time thinking about the rest of the world as a glamorous, exciting place. It’s too easy to remember the bad stuff.”
“Weren’t there good things, too?” he asked.
“Sure. Lots of them. I guess I have to remind myself to remember them, too. What about you? How did you end up as a spy? Or is that something you don’t like to talk about?”
He returned his attention to the sky. “I can talk about it, although it’s not a very interesting story. I was a street kid. I started getting in trouble when I was about eight. By the time I was twelve, I’d already stolen a car. I spent high school in a juvenile facility. When I turned eighteen, they sealed my records. I’d been around long enough to realize I’d been given a second chance, so I took it. I went into the military to save money for college. I never got that far. The agency recruited me before I was discharged.”
Jamie stared at him. He’d just told her more about himself in less than a minute than everything she’d learned in the past seven years. Just like that. Personal information. She wasn’t sure what stunned her more. The story of his life or the fact that he’d shared it with her.
“So you’re a bad kid who turned out good,” she said.
“Let’s just say I saw the error of my ways.”
His story didn’t surprise her. Most good field agents came from troubled backgrounds. Normal people usually didn’t choose to put their futures on hold so they could run around the world risking their lives.
“What about your parents?” she asked. “Are they dead?”
“Not to the best of my knowledge.”
“Are you still in touch with them?”
He laughed, but the sound wasn’t humorous. “I haven’t seen them since I was fourteen. My dad was a small-time criminal. He fancied himself on the fringes of the Mafia, but he was just a joke. The old lady—” He paused. “She wasn’t much into children.”
He spoke the words matter-of-factly. As if they had no personal meaning. As if they had never had the power to hurt him. She’d grown up in unh
appy circumstances, but at least her mother had continued to acknowledge her existence. It sounded as if he’d been abandoned.
“Once you went into the juvenile facility, your parents never came to visit you?” she asked.
“I preferred it that way.”
He said the words with the confidence of an adult, but as the connection between them strengthened, she felt the pain of the fourteen-year-old boy he’d been. She wasn’t surprised that he’d lived his early years outside of the law. The fact that he’d chosen to take a chance when one was offered was a testament to the kind of man he’d become. He was strong, capable. He didn’t need anyone. But the boy inside still did.
She wondered what it must have been like, growing up in his world. Hers had been lonely, but she’d never had to be afraid. Zach had been locked up for four long years. How had he spent Christmas? His birthday? She knew instinctively that no one had remembered. No one had sent a card or visited. No one had ever cared.
“Do you ever see your mom?” he asked.
“Not really. I call her a couple of times a year. She’s still married to my stepfather and, well, we still don’t get along.”
She didn’t want to think about the hideous things the man had said to her. All these years later, the memories of his verbal abuse still had the power to make her feel small and vulnerable.
Zach was at her side in an instant. He took the mug from her fingers and set it on the ground, then he grabbed her arms and shook her slightly.
“What did that bastard do to you?” he asked, his voice low and furious. “Did he hurt you?”
She stared at him. She could make out the shape of his face and the fury in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Did he touch you?”
She realized what he was asking. Color heated her cheeks. She shook her head. “No.”
“Jamie!”
“Zach, I swear, he never touched me. He didn’t hurt me that way. He was smarter than that.”
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