Craig draped the smaller towel around his shoulders and picked up one of the gold-framed photos. “This is my older brother, Dan, and his new wife, Libby.”
He handed the picture to Sabra, and as their fingers touched, she inhaled sharply. If Craig noticed her reaction, he didn’t show it. Holding the photo, she tried to concentrate on it. Dan Talbot wore his Marine Corps dress summer uniform; his beautiful bride was dressed in a pale blue suit. “They look very happy,” she murmured.
Craig managed a nod of his head, wildly aware of her closeness. He picked up the faint, lingering scent of her perfume—spicy and tantalizing, like her. “Dan deserves some happiness. He went through hell with his first wife, who turned out to be a closet cocaine user for seven years of their marriage.”
“Oh, no…” Sabra spun toward him and was caught by his blue eyes, which were banked with some unknown emotion as he studied her. A wild sensation bolted through her and she momentarily lost her train of thought at his smoldering inspection. How close she was to him. She merely had to lift her hand and reach out a few scant inches to tangle her fingertips in the dark mat of hair on his chest. She exhaled shakily. This man was virile in a way she’d rarely encountered.
Craig forced himself to talk. If he didn’t, he was going to reach out and stroke that wonderfully rich black hair tumbling across Sabra’s proud shoulders. Would it feel silky? Warm, like her? “Dan didn’t know it when he married her,” he said stiffly instead. “He discovered it after they’d been married a year. He went through hell and back for her. I told him there was nothing he could do to change her if she didn’t want to quit. He got pretty angry with me when I advised him that the only recourse was to divorce her. But eventually he was forced to see I was right.”
Sabra fingered the gold frame, trying to concentrate on the photo. She could smell the fresh pine fragrance of the soap he’d used and feel the natural warmth of his body because he was standing so close. Her voice went unintentially husky as she said, “A dose of your usual blunt realism?”
He slid his fingers through several damp strands of hair plastered to his brow. “You could say that, I guess.” Craig saw unexpected panic in her eyes. Over him? Was he too close? Consciously, he stepped back, creating a safer distance between them. He longed to study her face as minutely as a scientist looking through a microscope, but didn’t dare.
“Have you always had this hard sort of realistic take on life?”
“Yes.” He stared down at her clean profile. Sabra had the most beautiful lips he’d ever seen. They were soft, slightly full and gently curved at the corners—and he had this wild desire to touch them with his own, to explore and savor the taste of them. Would she be pliable and as hot as he suspected? The insane urge to find out nearly unstrung him. Craig took another step back, pretending to dry his hair some more, desperate to keep his hands busy—and away from Sabra.
He cleared his throat. “My brothers are idealists, like you,” he said dryly. When Sabra snapped a look in his direction, he smiled a little. “It’s only a comment.”
“You make it sound like a disease.”
Shrugging, he said, “Sometimes it is.”
She turned, holding his still-amused gaze. “I couldn’t live the way you do,” she said honestly. “If I didn’t have some hope, some idealism, I don’t think I’d survive.”
“The world is made up of realists and idealists.” He poked a finger at the photo. “My brother’s idealism made him hang on to that marriage and suffer for nearly seven years before he got a reality check.”
“He must have loved her,” Sabra said simply. “That’s different from idealism. You don’t just bolt and run when your partner has a problem.”
“I won’t argue with that. But Dan’s idealism prevented him from forcing her to get help or do something that could have saved the marriage. He dragged his feet, hoping that talking with her would help. It didn’t, of course.”
“It sounds as if, in his place, you’d have dropped the marriage in a heartbeat.”
With a shrug, Craig said, “I don’t believe in wasting time where I’m not wanted. His ex-wife wanted her habit more than she did him. Dan didn’t want to believe that. His idealism got in the way of reality.”
Sabra set the photo down and picked up the other one. “So who’s this? Your younger brother?”
“Yeah, that’s Joe. Our folks retired to a small place called Cottonwood, Arizona, and he stayed on to run the family trading post and grocery store at FortWingate. It’s on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico.”
“You two look a lot alike,” Sabra said, studying the man dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and a blue-and-white-checked cowboy shirt, a black felt cowboy hat pushed back on his dark brown hair. He stood by the store, smiling broadly, a border collie at his feet. But despite his similar features and coloring, Sabra realized Joe actually looked very different from Craig—both brothers did. What was the difference?
It took her a moment to realize that Craig looked battered in comparison to his siblings, as if he’d been beaten down by life more brutally. It was only conjecture, but Sabra instinctively felt she’d hit upon the truth.
“Joe’s the joker of us,” Craig said as she placed the photo back on the top of the television. “He’s the wild cowboy from New Mexico.”
“And he never went into the military?”
“No, not him. He doesn’t do well with too much discipline and organization around him. I think he inherited our mother’s love of the land and earth. The Navajo people love him, and he’s worked hard to see they have a better quality of life.”
“He sounds very humanitarian.”
“As opposed to me?” He saw her flush at his insight.
“Well…I meant—’
“It’s okay,” he told her, turning away. “I’m used to being the heavy in the family. Once, Joe was engaged to an Anglo.” He stopped and twisted to look at her. “Anglo is how the Navajo describe a white person. Anyway, Joe fell head over heels with this Anglo teacher, Rebecca, on the res. He fell for her hook, line and sinker. When she told him she was pregnant, I laughed.”
“Why?”
“Because the woman was pregnant when she met him, just looking for some idealistic jerk to marry her so she could have security and money. I happened to be home on leave, and I saw her coming a country mile away.”
“Did Joe?”
“No.” His mouth twisted. “She turned on her arsenal of charm, and he fell for it. I asked him if it was possible to really fall in love that fast. He said he thought so, but I warned him she wanted something from him. Something she wasn’t telling him.”
“So what happened?”
“I was around for thirty days, so I did a little investigating. I knew all the locals, since I’d been born and raised there. Old Doc Conner, an obstetrician from Gallup, came out to the res to see someone. On a hunch, I asked him if Rebecca was one of his patients. He said he’d been seeing her for three months, so I told Joe. He might be blind when he’s in love, but he’s not stupid.”
“How did he take it?”
“At first he was angry with me for suggesting she was pregnant with some other man’s child. We got in a fist-fight over it and both ended up with broken noses. But eventually, he went to her and she spilled the truth. He broke their engagement.”
“He must have been devastated,” Sabra murmured.
“Yeah, he was. He really thought he was in love with Rebecca.” Shaking his head, Craig said, “Love doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.”
“Not always,” Sabra challenged.
His eyes glittered. “There you go again—your idealism is showing. You think love is that easy?”
“I didn’t say it was easy,” Sabra retorted. “But my folks fell in love the moment they set eyes on each other. They’ve been married over forty years now, and they’re still happy.”
His smile was cutting. “Don’t pitch one experience against the statistics, Ms. Jacobs. One out o
f every two marriages fails within a couple of years of tying the knot.”
“Well,” she said tightly, “that doesn’t mean people can’t fall in love quickly.”
“That’s romantic love, not the real thing,” he drawled. Stopping in the doorway, he said, “As soon as I shave, I’ll pack some clothes and we’ll leave.”
Sabra stood in the middle of the room feeling angry and cheated. Craig was so sure of himself when it came to love. Well, what the hell did he know about it? Very little, she was sure. With his kind of attitude, he’d probably never been involved with a woman beyond an occasional one-night stand when it suited his needs.
Sabra shook her head. That wasn’t fair of her and she knew it. Wandering around the living room, she finally sat on the overstuffed couch and crossed her legs. She felt bothered by Craig’s harsh view of the world. Yet his vision had helped his younger brother avoid entering a marriage based on a lie—and helped his older brother get out of one.
Maybe she was too used to Terry’s easygoing ways. Terry was a realist, too, but he didn’t rub his viewpoint like salt into an open wound. Talbot had so many hard edges to him. She wondered if they were edges life had placed there through experience, or ones that life hadn’t yet knocked off. Either way, she felt under fire from his unyielding view. But somehow she was going to have to deal with it—and him. She rested her head in her hands. On a purely physical level, Talbot was incredibly male, a teasing masculine to her feminine desires. Yet on an emotional level, he was abrasive. Complex. Craig Talbot was highly complex, and she hadn’t a clue how to handle him—or how to adequately defend her vulnerable emotions against him. What was she going to do?
Chapter Four
Sabra got up and wandered nervously around Craig’s apartment. Shaken by the masculine power he exuded, she wondered if she’d assessed him correctly. Even nearly naked, he was a man no one would trifle with willingly. She shook her head, mystified by his many contradictions.
The apartment was pitifully decorated, if you could even use that word for this starkly utilitarian place. The living room held one sofa and one overstuffed chair, in an early American style, while the glass-topped table and chrome-legged chairs in the kitchen were strictly contemporary. Worse, the kitchen windows had no curtains. Barren. That was how the apartment struck her. The only evidence of life were those two photos on his television set.
Forcing her thoughts back to the essential business at hand, she walked back into the living room. Marie had given her a large manila envelope containing a great deal of information. The airline tickets were in there, and their hotel confirmation. Two passports gave their own first names with “Thomas” as a last name. Even driver’s licenses in the new names, issued from the State of New York, were there. Automatically, she began organizing the credentials into her purse. Then, digging to the bottom of the big envelope, her hand touched something else, and she pulled out a small, white envelope.
What was in it? As Sabra carefully opened it, her heart dropped. Inside were two plain gold wedding bands—sized for a man and a woman. What would it be like to be married to Craig? The unbidden thought sent a spasm of panic through her, coupled with an unwanted surge of heat and desire. No question, the man appealed to her on a strictly physical level. But in every other way, he was enough to confound the wisest of women.
“Those the wedding rings?”
Sabra jumped. She’d been so intent on the rings in her palm that she didn’t hear Craig approach. Angrily, she turned, upset at allowing herself for allowing her to lose the outer awareness she took pride in—and depended on. If she continued in this unaware mode, she could easily get one or both of them killed.
“I—uh, yes, they’re wedding rings.” Swallowing, Sabra tried not to stare as Craig came around the end of the couch. He wore a casual, short-sleeved navy shirt with white chinos, the blue of the shirt emphasizing his dark looks. Shaven, he looked less threatening, but that potent animal power still swirled around him. He even walks like a cougar, a little voice inside her whispered.
Craig saw shock and anger ignite briefly in Sabra’s eyes. He took a seat on the couch about a foot away from her. “Well, like it or not, we’re married,” he said, taking up the larger, thicker gold band from her palm and slipping it onto his left ring finger. “Hmm, Marie did a good job of picking the size.” The ring fit snugly, but moved onto his finger easily. Looking up, he saw that Sabra still held her ring, betraying emotions flickering in her shadowed gray eyes. He gave her a cutting, one-sided smile. “Don’t worry, this isn’t for real. Go ahead, put it on. It won’t bite.”
Sabra’s palms were damp. Grimacing, she slipped the ring on. It fit perfectly.
“Not bad,” Craig murmured, reaching out for the long, slender hand sporting the shiny new band. Her skin felt warm and slightly damp as he captured her fingers, admiring the ring. Her gaze snapped to his. What lovely eyes she had. Suddenly he wanted to tell her that—wanted to express her the pleasure that touching her, even briefly, brought to him. Did Sabra realize the island of calm she offered in his chaotic life? Probably not, judging from the panic in her eyes.
“You look like a woman who just walked in front of an oncoming car,” he noted wryly, releasing her hand. She snatched it back and quickly got to her feet.
“It’s not that,” she whispered nervously, smoothing her silk skirt.
“You’ve gone undercover before, I’m sure. You said ‘Terry’ was your partner’s name?”
Sabra stood a good distance away from Craig, still feeling like a target beneath his hooded gaze. She felt stripped before him, as if he could look inside her heart and read her fear—and her crazy longing for him. “Yes,” she said, her voice clipped with wariness.
“I’m sure you posed as man and wife many times.”
“We did.”
“This won’t be any different, Sabra. Quit looking at me like I’m some kind of monster who’ll make you come to bed with me.”
She stared at him, openmouthed. “I—I didn’t think any such thing!”
His smile was sad as he rose. “Really?” he taunted softly. “I know you don’t like me, Sabra. That’s all right. A lot of people hate my guts. So what’s new? You can add your name to a very long list.” He held out his hand. “Where’s our dossier?”
Hurt by his remarks, Sabra pointed to the envelope on the couch. “In there.”
“Okay,” Craig murmured. He pulled some papers out and studied them intently. “I suppose you’ve got your part memorized already.”
“I’m Sabra Thomas, wife to Craig Thomas,” she recited. “We’re professional photographers on assignment from Parker Publishing out of New York City. They want a book on the flora and fauna of Haleakala, Maui’s inactive volcano.” She pointed to the envelope next to him. “Your driver’s license, passport and credit cards are in there.”
“This is new to me,” he admitted, looking over the information. “On my assignments, we’ve always kept our own identities.”
“In high-risk,” Sabra murmured, “we never put our real identities in jeopardy.”
“No doubt,” he agreed, sliding the new driver’s license into his wallet and taking out his own.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Our cameras and other equipment will be waiting for us at the airline desk.”
He looked up. “Do you know much about photography?”
“Not really.”
“I’m surprised. You strike me as a woman who could do anything.”
Sabra glared at him. “And I suppose you’re a camera expert?”
“Only with your basic, all-American snapshots.” He saw the pain in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, so stop looking at me like that.”
Sabra stood very still. Was she that readable? Scrambling internally, she muttered defiantly, “I’m not hurt.”
But she was, Craig knew and he tried to modulate his tone of voice. “I’m exhausted, Sabra. I’ve been two nights without sleep, and I’m a
little raw around the edges. Sometimes I say things that wound other people.”
His apology—as close to one as he probably ever got—soothed her. “I—it’s okay. I understand.”
He glanced at her. “You’re awfully forgiving. Are you always like this, or is it part of your wifely act for the mission?”
Tempering her sudden anger, Sabra moved to the couch and picked up her shoulder bag. “It’s me. Like it or not.”
He caught and held her mutinous look. His mouth pulled into what he hoped was a smile. “I like it.” He liked her—way too much. Taking his various papers from the folder, he wadded up the empty envelope. “Let’s saddle up. I’ve packed a bag. We need to get going.”
Sabra walked to the door. “I’m ready.” But was she? Keeping Jason’s plight in front of her, she tried to ignore the reality of her situation. Once they left the safety of his apartment, they would assume the demeanor of husband and wife. She watched Craig walk down the hall to his bedroom to retrieve his single piece of luggage, tucking his ticket and passport in an outer pocket. When he returned and met her at the door, she said, “I need to understand our married relationship.”
He set his bag down. “In what way?”
“Well…” Sabra hesitated. “Are we a couple that’s close or distant? In the dossier, it says we’ve been married five years.” She cleared her throat and had a tough time holding his amused gaze.
“What’s comfortable for you?”
“Uh, maybe holding hands in public from time to time?”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“What about you?”
Craig placed his hand on the brass doorknob. He could see the depth of wariness in Sabra’s eyes. “My parents held hands in public, kissed a little here and there and made no apology for the fact that they loved each other very much.” The panic in her eyes mounted. “But,” he said, “judging from your reaction, I might as well be the Hunchback of Notre Dame, so I’ll keep my distance. Occasional hand-holding it will be, Ms. Jacobs.”
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