Wade

by Jennifer Blake

  Frowning a little, Chloe rinsed her face, then picked up a hairbrush and dragged it through the unruly mass of her hair that seemed, unexpectedly, to be trying to curl into ringlets in the Louisiana humidity. Feeling unsettled, and confined by events and personalities as well as the walls around her, she dragged on the caftan that Wade’s mother had left her as a robe and crossed back through the front room where Wade lay sprawled in sleep. Easing open the door, she went through and pulled it closed behind her.

  Sunlight lay in a golden dazzle beyond the front parlor windows. She turned in the opposite direction, emerging onto the back veranda. It was protected from the morning sun by the bulk of the house, so reasonably cool once her body adjusted to the change from the frigid air-conditioning of the bedroom.

  The long, railed space of the veranda was set with white rocking chairs that were flanked by small tables. It was empty of other guests at this hour. Settling into one of the rockers, she set it in motion while gazing out over the expanse of lawn and the small lagoon that lay beyond. Birds called, and a squirrel scampered from branch to branch in the great live oak that stood near the lattice fence. From somewhere in one of the other buildings, she could hear the whine of a vacuum cleaner. It was comforting to know that other people were up and stirring somewhere, even if she did seem to be alone for the moment.

  It was then that she heard the whistling. She thought it came from the front of the cottage, made perhaps by another guest or custodian. Still, the melody was disturbing since it was in a minor key with an odd, foreboding flavor.

  Chloe got to her feet and walked to the end of the porch. Bracing her hands on the railing, she leaned over to look around the end of the building. A man was approaching along the sidewalk. In his hands was a tray that he balanced carefully as he walked. He didn’t look up until he’d rounded the two-story building and paused at the foot of the stairs.

  “Good morning, Nat,” she said, her voice dry.

  “Morning, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “Could I interest you in coffee and sweet potato biscuits?”

  The coffee smelled heavenly, but she shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your breakfast.”

  “I’ve had mine with the manager. Since I was heading this way anyhow, I brought the wake-up tray that comes with the room, a fine old Southern tradition.”

  “Wade is still asleep, I’m afraid.”

  “But you’re not,” he returned as he mounted toward her. “Have a seat, will you, so I can tell where to put this thing down?”

  Chloe moved back to the rocker where she’d been sitting earlier. Nat put the tray on the table next to it then took the chair on the other side. Chloe lifted a corner of the rose-colored napkin that covered the silver tray. Beneath it was a plate of golden orange biscuits along with butter and jam, also a carafe of coffee with three cups.

  She set a cup on the table at Nat’s elbow, then lifted the carafe. Since he didn’t object, she poured the coffee for him. “What was that you were whistling just now?”

  “Little ditty called ‘House of the Rising Sun.’ Guess being this close to the Big Easy brought it to mind.” He paused, then added as she only stared at him. “New Orleans, home of jazz and all that?”

  “Oh, yes.” Jazz hadn’t been high on her list of favorite music as a teen, though she might have to look into it now. “You’re not from this area then?”

  “Born in North Carolina but from everywhere, you might say, since my daddy was military. Virginia is my home base these days.”

  It was a reminder of how far from home she was, and why. “No trouble during the night?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “I know Wade slept easier for knowing you were out there.”

  A flush darkened the face of the man across from her to the color of espresso. “Wade would do the same for me. Besides, he saved my bacon one night, snatched me out of a truck about two seconds before a shell hit it. I owe him.”

  “He called in a favor.”

  “Doesn’t work that way. Guy like him doesn’t ask for help, it just goes against the grain. He said he had a little problem, so here I am. That easy.”

  “You must have worked together a long time.” She reached to take a biscuit almost without thinking, breaking off a corner and nibbling on it. It was delicious, an odd mixture of cake and bread that was better than either.

  “We were together in the DSS for a while. Best damn agent I ever saw, had what you might call a sixth sense about trouble. I tried to get him to come to work for me after I set up my operation, but it wasn’t really for him. Never did care for the undercover stuff, you know, likes things clear and out in the open. And he’d just as soon not be responsible for other people’s lives.”

  She frowned. “Yet he came for me. Why would he do that if it goes so against the grain?”

  “The Benedicts stand by their friends, and your dad was a good one. More than that, Wade’s an idealist. Good is good and bad is bad, as far as he’s concerned. He’s for one and purely against the other.”

  “No shades of gray?”

  “Don’t know that I’d put it that way. He’s more than capable of looking at all sides of a situation. It’s just that he has no use for the kind of sophistry that says it’s okay to bend laws in the name of the greater good, or write off human beings, human pain for the sake of an idea. Way I understand it, the Benedicts have this code. They do what’s right to the best of their ability, no exceptions and no excuses, and expect everyone else to do likewise. That’s all there is to it.”

  She reached for cream and poured it into her coffee, then took a sip. “Seems like a good way to live.”

  “It is, if you’ve got the guts for it. Of course it means giving up what you might want a lot of the time for the sake of what somebody else needs.”

  “Or putting what you value in danger?” The coffee, so ambrosial just seconds before, tasted suddenly bitter. She set it back on the tray.

  “You mean Wade’s family, I guess.”

  “He wouldn’t have to worry about them if it weren’t for me.”

  “That doesn’t make it your fault. Some things just can’t be helped.”

  Her smile was wan. “Thanks for the thought, but it doesn’t do a lot to make me feel better.”

  Nat returned her smile. “I do have to say that I’m surprised Wade is still here. I figured he’d head for Turn-Coupe and that old home place of his by daybreak at the latest.”

  “He’s been through a lot these past few days,” she said, and was disturbed by that instant impulse to defend him.

  “Been through a lot, period.” Nat studied the liquid in his cup for a second. “Don’t suppose he could have mentioned that business in Saudi?”

  “The oilman’s wife?”

  He nodded. “She did a number on him, not that she meant to, I guess. It’s that damn code I was telling you about, makes a man responsible for just about anything that goes wrong. Doesn’t allow a lot of room for failure, you know?”

  “Or forgiveness?”

  “You got it, if you mean he can’t forgive himself.”

  He watched her with steady intent, though Chloe couldn’t decide exactly what might be in his mind. It could have been anything, from uncertainty over how much she really understood on such short acquaintance with Wade, to doubt about the wisdom of discussing him with her at all. “He can hardly be blamed for not realizing the man intended to kill his wife.”

  “That’s just it. Wade thinks he should have seen it, that the signs were there if he’d just read them. Problem was, he was brought up in a family where hurting people you were supposed to love was unthinkable, much less killing them. Hell, lying was a crime in their code. It never occurred to him that a guy with all the money and lawyers in the world would rather whack an unfaithful wife than divorce her.”

  “You’re suggesting he was naive?”

  “Was is the operative word. He grew up fast. But the standards are still there and still apply, especi
ally when it comes to women.”

  “I could be wrong, but from things Wade said while in a high fever, this business seems mixed up somehow with what happened between his father and mother.”

  “Well, now, yes and no. Divorce doesn’t happen that often among the Benedicts, apparently. When it does, it’s a big deal. Wade’s old man was pretty broken up when his wife left—so were Wade and his brothers, come to that. Best I can tell, Wade sided with his mother and hard words passed between him and the old man about why she’d left. Family like that where few words are spoken in anger, such things aren’t forgotten or forgiven.”

  “By his father, you mean?”

  “Either one of them. Stubborn as they come, that whole clan, when they think they’re right.”

  “I can see that,” she said, her voice dry. It didn’t take a lot to extrapolate Wade’s attitudes about what she should and shouldn’t do in small matters into something more serious over large ones.

  “Of course, his old man seems to have had all the worst traits of your everyday redneck, pigheaded, arrogant, strong ideas on work and women, positive that God put him on this green earth to tell other folks what to do. Wonder is more of that didn’t rub off on Wade and his brothers. His mom deserves the credit there, I think. She seems to have gone overboard with the tolerance bit, so things more or less balanced out.”

  “Yet Wade loved his father, or I suppose he must have since he regrets so much that he wasn’t there when he died.”

  Nat’s gaze was keen. “He told you that?”

  “Not really. I just assumed it from a few things he said.”

  “Yeah. I think guilt’s the problem. Seems they had words over a lot of things, including whether Wade should stay in Louisiana like most of the clan, or see something of the world. There was a long spell in there when Wade didn’t speak to his dad, didn’t see his brothers for years. Wade didn’t go home right off when he heard his dad had cancer. Then he got shot up in the deal with the oilman’s wife and couldn’t go. His dad died without them ever having a chance to talk, straighten things out. Could be that’s the tie. Wade thinks, somewhere in that hard head of his, that he could, and should, have been able to save them both.”

  It made sense in an odd sort of way. It also fed into Wade’s determination to get her away from Ahmad and out of Hazaristan. He needed to rescue her to live up to his expectations for himself and remedy past failures. What did that say about his feelings for her? Was watching over her, and even his half-reluctant agreement to make love to her, something he accepted in order to meet his own standard?

  “Of course, if Wade ever mentions the subject, I never said a word. Fact is, I’ve probably talked too much as it is.”

  “You got at least one thing right, old friend.” That comment, deep-voiced and edged with anger, came from behind them.

  Nat shot out of his rocker as if it had caught fire.

  “Jesus H., man, don’t do that! You nearly made me dump my cup in my lap.”

  “Watch your back as well as what you’re saying next time,” Wade said without noticeable remorse. He glanced at Chloe. “Any coffee left?”

  She filled the third cup and passed it to him with only the briefest of glances. His gaze was cool, giving nothing away. Taking it by the rim, he moved to stand with his back to the railing, half sitting, half leaning against it. He crossed one arm over his chest before he sipped the strong brew.

  Nat sent Chloe a quick, almost helpless look, though he spoke to Wade. “Didn’t mean to get into your business. We were just talking.”

  “Pick another subject next time.”

  “May not be a next time. Unless I tag along when you two set out for Grand Point?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Wade’s voice was hard and he appeared more intimidating than Chloe had seen him to this point. He was also devastatingly attractive in a rumpled pair of jeans with no shoes or shirt, and the morning light molding the musculature of his shoulders in light and shadow and gleaming white on the bandage that padded his side. His beard stubble was more pronounced than the night before, and his hair lay in dark windrows, as if he’d raked his a hand through it instead of combing it.

  “Think I’ll do that, since you’ve so kindly invited me, and since I’m damn sure you can use all the help you can get. Problem is, nobody can say when these guys might show up.”

  Wade didn’t look up from his coffee cup. “Don’t change your schedule or our account.”

  “Schedule, be damned. But I expect Maggie might be a little harder to put off. She kind of likes to keep tabs on me, you know.” Nat sent Chloe a quick look. “That’s my wife, Maggie.”

  “I thought it might be,” she said with a slight smile that faded as she looked at Wade. “Don’t blame, Nat, please. He was only answering my questions.”

  “If you think he doesn’t know how to avoid that, then you don’t know him, particularly not well enough for early-morning chats.”

  The look he gave her was a potent reminder that she was naked under the caftan. It was something he must know very well, too, since her discarded clothes were probably strewn over the floor of their room. She was trying to decide exactly what that meant when Nat spoke again.

  “He’s jealous, you know,” he said, his manner confiding, as if Wade wasn’t standing less than four feet away. “Not that I blame him.”

  “Thank you,” Wade said. “I’m sure she needed your opinion.”

  “Hell, Wade, don’t be so all-fired stiff-necked,” Nat said, frowning as he turned back to him. “You Benedicts may think you’re off-limits as subjects of discussion, but the rest of the world isn’t quite so nice in its ideas. It’s no crime for a person to be concerned about you.”

  “No compliment, either.”

  “Didn’t know you needed one, buddy.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Fine. Great. Now if you’d just quit acting like a ten-year-old with a new bag of marbles, or an idiot with a fishing pole up the wahzoo, we might get somewhere.”

  The look Wade turned on his friend might have annihilated a lesser man. Nat only returned it with steady regard.

  Abruptly Wade’s mouth twitched. He looked away, rubbing a hand over his face as if to erase a grin. Finally he turned back again. “So what’s on your mind?”

  “Couple of things, like when you intend to light a shuck out of here. And how you want to go?”

  “Now,” Wade said with an intent glance in Chloe’s direction. “We’re leaving immediately, or as soon as we can get ready. And you can drive us, since you have a rental and seem determined to transfer to Grand Point.”

  “Good. I’ll call Maggie while you’re packing.”

  “Tell her I’ve got my eye on you,” Wade said, his gaze steady.

  Nat gave a nod before his mouth curved in a rich grin. “I’ll do that,” he said. “Yes, indeed. She’ll get a real hoot out of it.”

  15

  Chloe would have willingly undergone torture before she admitted any interest in Wade’s home. She tried to act unconcerned and a little tired as they turned off onto the winding drive that led through woodland fronted by dense undergrowth. The last thing she wanted was to give him reason to think she might have hopes of any kind of permanent relationship.

  She had not expected Wade Benedict to be a part of her life once she reached the States. She’d thought to contact other Islamic women’s groups, become a member of their network and continue with her efforts to help their cause. There had been no place in her plans for a man, still wasn’t. Why, then, did the idea of saying goodbye to him seem so terrible?

  He was the only American she really knew, other than her mother’s parents who hardly counted, the only person who really knew what she’d left behind so the only connection she had between that life and an uncertain future. That was probably the reason she had such an impulse to cling to him now.

  She couldn’t do it. He owed her nothing, regardless of the transports of the night before. That ha
d been the agreement, and she would stick to it. He would as well, she had no doubt. He might have agreed to rescue her, could feel some responsibility for seeing that she was safe, but he had not signed on to take care of her the rest of her life.

  She’d forgotten the fecundity of the landscape, the sheer mass of the vegetation of all shapes and sizes that filled the ditches, skirted the tree trunks and dangled from their branches in long vines. She wished she knew the plant names, particularly for the wildflowers in pink, lavender and multiple shades of yellow that sprawled among the waving grass.

  She’d had plenty of time to notice such things. It had been a quiet trip with desultory comment between the two men, mostly about local politics, sports, or national events over the past few weeks. Since she knew nothing about the first two and little about the third, she spent most of the time staring out the window and trying not to think.

  The car rounded a curve. Ahead of them, a man stepped into the road, squarely in their path. Dressed in jeans and a camouflage shirt and with a camouflage cap pulled down over his eyes, he held a rifle like a natural extension of his hand.

  “Whoa,” Nat said as he braked to a crawl. “Looks like we’ve got us a sentry.”

  “My cousin Luke,” Wade said. “You remember me mentioning him.”

  “Looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

  He did indeed, Chloe thought. The tall dark-haired man could as easily have been Wade’s brother, however. The resemblance was that striking.

  As they pulled to a stop, Nat lowered the driver’s side window. Wade leaned over from where he sat in the passenger seat. “Hey there, cuz,” he called. “How come you got stuck with guard duty?”

  “Just lucky, I guess. Could be nailing up windows and carting in groceries.” Luke relaxed his rigid stance and sauntered forward. Nodding a greeting to Nat, he leaned to peer into the car in a fast, comprehensive inspection. “Ma’am,” he said, touching the brim of his cap as he caught sight of Chloe in the back seat.