More Than Gold (Capitol Chronicles Book 3)

by Shirley Hailstock

  Morgan raised defiant eyes to him. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn't. She was scared, yet her eyes were dry. She hadn't been this scared since she was in Seoul, hanging from the top of a prison wall with one hand, nothing beneath her but useless air.

  Jack looked back at her, giving nothing away. He was as hard as the bark digging into her back and she knew he was right. She had been clawing at him. Ever since he'd shown up in her house, she'd been trying to hide how she felt, falling into old habits, attacking before she could be attacked.

  She held his gaze, knowing he wouldn't back down. She understood this was a crossroad. This was the moment when she either trusted him or she would have to survive alone.

  She stared into the phantom depths of his eyes, looking for a sign, something to guide her, but with Jack there was nothing. He only gave away what he wanted other people to see, and he wanted her to see nothing. She dropped her head. She lifted her hands, placed them at his waist and stepped into his space. Her forehead touched his chest and rested there. She felt him stiffen. She knew her action surprised him. It was uncharacteristic for her too, but she needed the contact and somehow with Jack it seemed all right. Her arms circled his body as she took comfort from the liaison. Jack held himself still while she lay against him. After a while his arms came around her and he cradled her closer. She held onto him, trying not to think, not to read anything more into his arms than comfort.

  He was a cold man. The one who had kissed her so passionately and then walked away as if she were just another part of the water and he was a rock over which she passed, had his arms around her. Her impact on him was the same as a single drop of water passing over the sheer cliffs of a stone mountain.

  Yet Morgan heard his heart beating. The rhythm was fast, faster than she thought it ought to be for a man of stone.

  ***

  Jack should let her go. His arms shouldn't be around her. She felt too good and she smelled like soap, a lemon concoction of some type. He didn't like flavored scents. They gave away too much. He was used to finding people by scent as well as cunning. He never wore cologne, used only basic soap, unscented deodorants, detergents and shaving creams. You could hide a body, suspend yourself on closet shelves or in the branches of trees, but you couldn't prevent fragrance from giving away position. Yet he didn't mind it on her. He liked knowing her scent, knowing how the perfume touched her skin, mixed with her special chemistry to produce that combination that was favorable to his taste. He wanted to move his nose closer to her, inhale the fragrance, feel the warmth of her skin against his mouth.

  He didn't dare. What he was doing was already too close for comfort. His body knew it and soon she would too. With an effort greater than any man should be asked to put forth, Jack pushed her away and stepped back.

  "Thanks, Jack," Morgan said. She looked him straight in the eye. "I didn't mean to make you the object of my anger. I'm not used to having anyone. . ." She trailed off. She wasn't used to having people help her, having people looking out for her. Jack knew her history. She was a loner. In that they were alike. He didn't often have anyone at his back either.

  "We're in this together," he told her. "I'm here to help you. I'll keep you safe."

  At least he'd try. He looked in her eyes, hoping for trust, or to find the worry he'd seen since their reunion two days ago gone, but it was there. She trusted him, he could tell that, but she was still worried. The look nearly undid him. He turned away. It was that or kiss her.

  "We need a plan," he said a moment later when he felt in control enough that he wouldn't act on his instincts.

  "I agree," she said.

  "First I need to know what we're up against."

  Jack looked at Morgan carefully. He wanted to see her reaction to the request. Each time he'd mentioned her running she'd evaded the question. He wanted to see what she did now. He wanted to know if she was about to tell him the truth or if she was about to lie.

  It was textbook. He'd learned the technique early during his days of training. Eyes to the right, accessing the creative. A quick intake of breath. All she had to do was begin with "to tell you the truth," to complete the total picture. She was going to lie.

  "I honestly don't know," she told him. Not the first-order phrase, but the second. She knew something, but she wasn't about to give him the benefit of her knowledge. Now he wished he had kissed her. He knew how to seduce a woman, use his own sexuality to get her to tell him what he wanted to know. He'd done it before, not often, but when necessary he'd used whatever methods were at hand.

  Why hadn't he done it with her? Why hadn't he seduced her to gain her trust, her will to give him everything he wanted? He knew why. She wasn't the usual victim. He had feelings for her. And he'd kissed her once. He knew what that had done to him then, and if he tried it again he wasn't sure if he could remember his purpose or if the same thing would happen to him now that had happened before. He'd lost himself in his need for her. Lost so much of himself that he had to walk away without an explanation, stay away for years, lying to himself that she was only a job and he didn't want her in his life. Yet at the first mention of her name he was on a plane, breaking into her house and holding her in his arms.

  "Do you have a plan?" She interrupted his thoughts.

  "Twelve years ago we were in Seoul together." Jack had to play a card she didn't know he held. He needed her to tell him the truth. This time he'd get it by giving her a bit of himself. Hopefully, she would do the same.

  "Yes," she replied.

  "You broke a man out of prison."

  "Excuse me," she said with only a slight hesitation. She was better than he thought she'd be. He'd seen her in action before, but he thought he could surprise her. Instead she played her own hand. "I was in Seoul for one reason."

  "To break Hart Lewiston out of jail, steal some vital documents and turn them both over to CIA agents who would get him out of Korea." This time he did see the surprise on her face. "Then you were to compete in the Olympics. You weren't expected to win the gold medal."

  Morgan turned away from him. She grabbed hold of the tree he'd pushed her against for support. He could see by her head and shoulders she was putting his presence in Korea twelve years ago together. He hadn't been a mere coach of the swim team. He'd been a CIA operative there to make sure she succeeded. Or what? What if she hadn't succeeded? Was he there to also make sure she wasn't captured? That she wasn't left behind in a condition to talk, to tell anyone what she knew, what her mission had been?

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm your protector.''

  "In Seoul. . ."

  "There and then."

  "Now?"

  "Now I'm here to find out who is trying to kill you," he paused. "And why."

  Morgan looked up at him, her heart in her eyes. She didn't try to conceal her feelings or her doubt.

  "Protector, Morgan." His voice was low, sensual and inviting. She felt it almost with a tangible quality as if he'd woven the words and draped them over her shoulders. "I never had a wish or an order for anything other than that. I would never do anything but keep you safe."

  He took her arm and led her to the picnic table. She sat on the top with her feet on the bench. For a while, neither of them spoke. Then Morgan linked her hands and looked at the trees along the back of the picnic area.

  "I didn't intend to sing," she began. "There was so much going on, in my head and in the arena. The arena looked like a wave of color, people screaming and cheering. I tried to find someone I knew in the crowd, but there was no one and everyone. People smiled at me, shouted my name, waved American flags." She paused. "I was so glad I was an American. I could go home, back to a place where life on the streets was better than life in that hole. I could return to a place where I'd never have to remember the prison I'd seen, the horribly emaciated men with things growing off their bodies that shouldn't be there, people without teeth and with blood crusted in places where they should have faces. When the music began I don't know what happe
ned. My chest filled with a fear I'd never known, not when I was on the prison ledge and not when I was running through the streets. I didn't understand any of it. Then I heard the music. I remembered insignificant things like being in grammar school in a play we did. It taught us to learn the anthem. And the voice came. At first I didn't even know it was mine. I thought it was all inside my head until the crowd went wild. Everyone was on their feet and I didn't know why. I thought the prison guards had come or the police and they were heading for me. I thought of running, hiding, doing anything to get out of the limelight, but it wasn't to be. Coming down from that center block threw me into a horde of reporters, coaches, well-wishers. They herded me away to an interview room. Everyone wanted to know how I felt. What made me sing. I was used to thinking fast, coming up with lies to get out of any situation, but I was in over my head and I had no place to go."

  She stopped, remembering what came next. She was coming apart. Every question someone asked took a huge effort to answer. She looked for help. He was in the room, against the back wall. Jack stared directly at her. Her eyes darted toward him. He nodded only slightly, but it was enough to give her an anchor. She took a deep breath and got back on track. She answered questions, coming up with lies to support her when needed. Thankfully most of the time she could answer with the truth. She called on her teammates, sitting next to her, giving them most of the credit, saying she only did what they had all come to Seoul to do—win! It was the truth for her team, but for her it was a lie.

  She smiled at the cameras, held her hands up clasped in the hands of other team members, but she was crumbling inside. Her eyes were bright and she blinked rapidly to hold back the tears. She needed to get out of the room. The air was heavy and she felt it pressing against her. When her coach finally called an end to the interview, she left at the back of the line. Midway down the hall a hand came out and clapped over her mouth. Another went around her waist and she was dragged backward into a dark closet.

  "It's me. Jack." He spoke in the darkness and her struggles stopped. She recognized his voice although they'd exchanged no more than a dozen words in their entire time together. He turned her into his arms. "Let it out," he whispered. "We're alone." Morgan clung to him as if he were her lifeline. Tears she couldn't stop poured from her eyes, wetting his shirt and soaking through to the dark skin beneath it. She cried for everything in her life, her mother, her adoptive mother, the man in the prison, her team, her lies, even the bullies she'd fought on the streets. She didn't know how long she stood there, enfolded in Jack's arms, drawing his strength or why no one came looking for her. She only remembered cradling herself against his strong body, feeling his soft kiss on her hair and forgetting everything and everyone else in the world.

  ***

  For a while, after she stopped speaking, Jack didn't say anything. They sat in silence looking at the trees. The answers weren't out there. Only the two people sitting here, not looking at each other, had the answers. He noticed she stopped without mentioning the two of them. He wondered if she was thinking about it. He wondered what she felt in that closet when she cried on his shoulder. He thought of it more often than he cared to admit. Holding her, letting her cry against him, being there when she needed someone. He often wondered in the intervening years who it was she needed, who was the man whose shoulder she used to tell her joys and sorrows. But he'd always cut the thought and think of something else. It made him angry to think of her with another man. He knew there had been others.

  It was an irrational anger. She wasn't his. They weren't lovers. They were barely friends. More like two people who'd met due to circumstance. It bothered him that she thought he'd returned as her assassin. He'd never hurt her. He couldn't.

  "Tell me about the escape." Jack pulled his thoughts away from the past, his voice gruffer than he intended. She tied him in knots and it showed.

  "It was supposed to be easy. I'd studied the floor plans, knew every detail down to the last window."

  "I don't mean that part."

  "You already know that part, right?"

  He nodded. He knew the details of what went down. He wanted to know what else she had taken or what she knew, what would cause someone to try to kill her twelve years later.

  "What did you leave Seoul with?"

  "The clothes on my back and a gold medal."

  "And that's all?"

  "That's all."

  She didn't hesitate. This was a sign of the truth, but she was lying. She was good. She'd had plenty of practice at survival training on the streets and he'd seen it firsthand.

  "What about information?"

  "The clothes on my back," she repeated succinctly as if she were speaking to a retarded child.

  Jack stood up and faced her. Morgan stared at her hands. He said nothing until she looked at him. When she did he placed his hands on the tabletop on either side of her, trapping her within his space.

  "If you only left with the items you mentioned, why was your house rigged with explosives? Why did you have an escape plan in place? Why were you so prepared for something to happen, so much so that you'd practiced it until you could do it in your sleep? You had a car waiting, one that could hold its own against a military Humvee. And I'm not going to even mention the access to a closed military base. Why had every contingency been planned with unerring detail if all you left Korea with were the clothes on your back and a gold medal?"

  Jack's face was close enough to hers for him to see the pores in her skin and the tiny dark specks across her nose, but her eyes were steady and calm, cold even.

  "I was a girl scout," she answered, her voice holding as much ice as the coldness in her eyes. "Always be prepared."

  "You were never a girl scout. You were a streetwise kid on the fast track to jail or a nameless bullet from a drive-by shooting until your social worker adopted you and channeled that idle energy onto a beam and a bar."

  Morgan pushed his hands away from her sides. Jack took a step back. "You think you know me, don't you? You don't know the half of it. Where did you grow up, in some pretty little house with a picket fence, or in a shore town where the tourists come each summer and where you can always find a girl on the beach?" She took a long breath. "Well life isn't like that for all of us."

  "No, it's not. And you don't have to tell me I don't know you. I know everything."

  "You wish you did."

  "I know everything about you. I probably know more about you than your own parents. After you left Seoul you spent a brief time in D.C., being debriefed I'd guess. Then you moved to St. Charles and virtually disappeared. You never changed your name, but it's not that unusual. There's no man in your life now. You have plenty of friends, women friends, but you're not gay. The last man you had a sexual relationship with was named Orren Sheridan. You went out with him for six months, had sex two to three times a week and always ate ice cream afterward. You gained eight pounds during that interlude. Lost ten when it was over. Would you like me to tell you the color and flavor condom he preferred?"

  ***

  Morgan leapt off the table and turned her back to Jack. Rage boiled inside her like a nuclear reactor on full, gathering strength as its core went from superheated to rocketing meltdown. A dark river of fury hidden in her core, down under her soul, a muddy bed of anger that ran red and flashed through layers of logic and restraint, erupted with orgasmic force. Morgan found this mountain inside herself. A deep, wide vessel, molten, bubbly, white-hot with a hunger that fed through her organs as it fought with little or no resistance to get to the surface.

  Her eyes burned and blood poured into her face, searing her with its heat. She knew it had to be a dark countenance of horror displayed there. She felt invaded, exposed, naked. Jack had ripped away everything she held closed up in her heart, stripping her of the carefully constructed camouflage, leaving her bare for the world to see and gawk at, held up to the multitudes to be criticized and stoned. She hated him for it, but she couldn't deny it.

  The
re was something she could do, however. She turned back to face Jack. She could prove to him and to herself that she wasn't that streetwise nobody, because that nobody would have retaliated with her fists, that nobody would have extracted a pound of flesh for the insult. And Jack deserved to be hit, flattened, but she had choices. Her adoptive mother had told her that. Whatever she was, whatever decisions she made, were one of a set of choices. She wouldn't deny that it would feel especially good to ram her fist down Jack's throat, but she would make the civilized choice.

  She turned and walked away.

  ***

  "Damn!" Jack kicked the ground. What was it about her that got his juices working? They couldn't have a decent conversation without it escalating to the ground zero point of a nuclear explosion. Jack sat on the table, his feet in the same position as Morgan's had been. He needed to calm down before returning to the car. He rested his elbows on his knees and closed his eyes.

  Morgan's face rose in his mind, not the face of the woman in the car, the one who hated him, but the nineteen-year-old in Korea. The woman who had come to the practice pool and knotted his stomach into Gordian knots. He'd created this monster and he had to get it under control, but first he had to get himself under control. He had emotions. He'd tried to hide them, had done so successfully for the past twelve years, but Morgan had the ability to unravel him with no more than a look. He couldn't blame her if she hated him for the rest of his life. He hadn't intended to blurt that part out about Orren Sheridan. He hadn't intended to betray anything he knew, but he couldn't keep it in. She got to the core of him, made him angry. She didn't do what he expected and while one part of him admired her for it, the other wanted her to conform. But if she conformed, she wouldn't be the same person.

  This had to be the contradiction his father had told him about. He could use some advice now. Since he'd set foot on U.S. soil, nothing had worked as he expected it would. He hadn't resigned. He was in the middle of nowhere with a woman he couldn't get a straight answer out of and he still didn't know what was going on. Each time he asked her a question his mind either went south or he stumbled over their past. If only he could tell her the truth.