by Lori Wilde
Dammit!
The doorknob jiggled.
He was stuck. No way out of it. He was going to have to admit to Marlie that she had bested him. He raised his head, strapped his most charismatic grin on his face, and prepared a glib line.
But when the door opened, it wasn’t Marlie he saw standing there.
Rather, it was his ex-wife.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Penelope dreamed of Daniel.
They were both young again and in the heated throes of lovemaking. His kisses were hot on her face, his thick strong arms tight around her waist. The delicious Daniel smell of him was all over her.
In her nose, in her hair, on her hands.
What sweetness. What heaven.
And then the dream was gone, and she opened her eyes to darkness.
A deep, abject loneliness filled her soul and her head ached from an awful throbbing in her temples. How many times had she dreamed wonderful dreams, only to have reality thrust rudely upon her when she awoke?
Closing her eyes, she willed herself back to sleep, back to the lovely, impossible dream.
But the sound of a lamp clicking on snagged her attention, causing her to remember where she was and how she’d gotten here. Her eyelids flew open and she sat bolt upright on the narrow metal cot. Penelope’s gaze swung to the broad-shouldered man in the ski mask looming in the doorway of the cramped, damp underground room.
He carried a tray of food in his hands.
Her stomach rumbled, betraying her stoic desire to refuse any and all physical comfort from her captor. “Take it away. I don’t want your food.”
He set the tray on a small dressing table across the room from her cot and moved toward her, his boots clomping loudly against the cement floor.
Penelope gulped but did not shrink back, even though she was terrified. “What do you want from me?”
Slowly, he raised his hand and she braced herself, expecting to be struck, but to her surprise, he reached up and tugged off the ski mask.
She blinked in the dimness, so shocked she could not believe what she was seeing. On the man’s right cheek was a disfiguring scar. It was the first thing that captured her attention. Her gaze fixed on the scar silvered with age even as a tremendous, gripping dread twisted her stomach.
No, no, it simply could not be.
Over the years, her psyche had been numbed by the presence of emotional pain too strong to bear. Her ability to believe in miracles had been shattered long ago. If she was really seeing what she thought she was seeing, then she must be either dead or mad.
“Daniel,” she whispered, staggering to her feet. Alive after all these years. “Is it really you?”
The air flew from her lungs. There was no breath left inside her. She gasped, hung on the impossibility that her husband was not dead.
“It’s me, Pen.” His voice was a gravelly rasp, his jaw clenched as tight as her fists.
He needed a shave, she noticed inanely. He’d always had a heavy beard.
She wobbled as if he’d cut her off at the knees. Part of her wanted to fling herself into his arms and press wild kisses all over his beautiful, scarred face, but another, less noble part of her wanted to pummel his chest with her fists and demand to know why he’d let her believe that he was dead. Why had he let her grieve so fiercely for so long?
Delicate tremors shook her body and she could see Daniel was shaking too, his hands trembling, his eyes glued to her face.
“I know I have so much to explain, and I will,” her husband said. “But the important thing for you to know is that I did what I had to do in order to protect you and Marlie. I never meant to cause you pain. It was like ripping my heart out, being away from you.”
Penelope could not speak. The words weren’t there. The emotions, the tension, the dark sorrow in them both charged the stale air like lightning on a hot day in tornado season. She turned away, unable to look at him any longer.
He took her by the shoulders and turned her back around to face him.
She shrank away. She hadn’t meant to react so panicky, but she’d just been touched by a ghost.
Immediately he released her and stepped back, anguish in his eyes.
Shivering, she hugged herself, running her palms up and down the outer side of her upper arms.
“Pen,” Daniel beseeched, “speak to me, say something. Yell. Slap me, curse my soul to eternal damnation for leaving you to raise our daughter alone.”
“Why would I do that?” she said, feeling strangely calm now. “You’ve suffered enough.”
“You forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
She met his eyes, and every bit of love they’d ever shared drew them into each other’s arms. One minute they were like strangers, awkward and hesitant, and the next they were kissing with the hungry, gleeful passion only true soul mates can know.
They kissed until their lips were raw and their arms achy.
They pressed their bodies together, their hearts pounding in tandem beats. They couldn’t get enough of each other, trying desperately to cram fifteen lost years into one prolonged embrace.
Finally, panting for air, they broke their kiss, but they did not stop touching. Daniel trailed his fingers through Penelope’s hair. Penelope traced the ragged outline of Daniel’s scar.
“When you abducted me, why didn’t you tell me who you were?” she whispered. “Why did you hide from me?”
He ducked his head. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore. I’m not much to look at.”
“Oh, Daniel.” Her heart caught in her throat.
“Why didn’t you realize who I was?” he asked. “Who else would call and whisper our secret code? Who else would say ‘rendezvous’?”
“I suppose I did know,” she confessed. “But I was too afraid to believe. Too afraid of getting my hopes up and having them dashed. Too afraid of losing you all over again.”
“Pen, Pen.” He took her hand, drew her closer.
The air between them crackled, high voltage, but the look Daniel sent her was tender and soft.
“You still wear the wedding ring I gave you,” he said, gently taking her left hand in his right.
“Daniel, in fifteen years there hasn’t been a moment when I haven’t felt married to you. Why would I take off your ring?”
“There hasn’t been anyone else?”
His insecurity was touching. “There’s never been anyone else for me from the moment I first laid eyes on you at the spring cotillion, Daniel Montague, and there never will be.”
He kissed her again, and the second contact was even sweeter than the first and sent them down onto the cot, arms entwined.
Their reunion was everything Penelope could have hoped for and more. At first, she was worried; what would Daniel think of her body as he undressed her? The passage of time and gravity had done things to her figure.
But she needn’t have fretted. The joy on his face when he unbuttoned her shirt and touched her bare skin with reverence convinced her that he still saw her as the young woman she’d once been.
Gently, he finished undressing her before taking off his own clothes and then lowered his head and deferentially kissed her breasts. Penelope gasped with wonder and angled her legs around his hips as her husband pressed her back into the thin mattress. He levered himself over her, the hard tip of his shaft lying hard against her belly.
Nothing had ever felt so miraculous.
They tore into each other, stunned, amazed, awed to be merging their bodies together once more. They held on for dear life.
“Pen,” he whispered.
“Daniel,” she murmured right back.
Magic lifted them up, carried them over the wall of exaltation. They rose together as one once more. Up, up, up, they flew until they were consumed by the exquisiteness of it all.
After fifteen long years, the impossible dream had come true.
“Joel?”
“Treeni? What are you doing
here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, raking her eyes over him and then waggling a finger at him. “Looks like you’ve been learning a few new tricks.”
Joel rattled the handcuff against the bedstead and did his best to act as if the situation were nothing out of the ordinary. “What? Don’t try to tell me you’ve never seen a guy chained to a bed before, because I’m not buying it.”
“But not you. I never would have thought you’d let down your machismo enough to allow someone to chain you to a bed. Although since it appears you’re partnerless at the moment, perhaps your trust was a bit misplaced. Darn it, where’s my camera phone when I need it most?” Treeni was enjoying the moment way too much.
There was a noise behind Treeni and then a studious-looking dark-haired man appeared behind her. He was carrying a laptop and looking down at the computer printout in his hand.
“Treeni . . . I—” He stopped short when he spied Joel.
“Hi,” Joel said, going for debonair, with a little devil-may-care thrown in for good measure.
“Who the hell are you?” The guy scowled darkly. “And what are you doing handcuffed naked to the bed in my parents’ warehouse? Did you break in to do kinky things on the floats? This ain’t a bordello, buddy.”
“Cosmo”—Treeni rested her hand on the guy’s shoulder, and Joel was happy to report he didn’t feel even a twinge of possessiveness—“meet my ex-husband, Joel Hunter. Joel, this is Cosmo Villereal. He’s a cryptographer with ONI.”
Cosmo glared. Joel might not be jealous, but the guy clearly was.
“You’re Marlie’s friend. She’s said a lot of nice things about you,” Joel said, this time shooting for charming and disarming.
“You know Marlie?”
Joel’s smile was starting to get a little forced, but he was determined to keep it up. “She’s the one who handcuffed me to the bed.”
Cosmo straightened and glared, offended. “I don’t believe you.”
“Hey, it’s true. She’s a lot feistier than she looks.” He couldn’t help throwing in the last comment.
“Where is Marlie?” Cosmo demanded.
“Do I look like I have a clue?”
“Boys, boys. Let’s ignore the petty jealousy for a moment. While this situation is a lot embarrassing—mostly for you, Joel—and a little humorous, we have more important things on the agenda.”
“Yeah, like letting me loose so I can get dressed.”
Treeni took pity on him and at his direction retrieved the key out from underneath the refrigerator. She unlocked the handcuffs without an excessive amount of snickering, but as she did so she muttered under her breath, “I think you’ve finally met your match, Hunter.”
Ignoring Treeni’s comment, he zipped up his jeans, thankful to be covered again, and tugged his black T-shirt down over his head. But she was right. He had met his match.
Joel thought of Marlie, how fierce she’d looked when she’d snapped the cuff around his wrist and then manacled him to the bedstead. Eyes blazing, her chin hardened with determination, she hadn’t in the least resembled an angel on old ladies’ Christmas dishes. She’d looked like three kinds of dangerous.
“So what brings you to Corpus?” Joel plunked down on the edge of the bed, shoved his feet into his black boots, and laced them up.
“I’ll let Cosmo do the honors. He’s the one who broke my father’s coded diaries.”
“Code? What code?”
Cosmo set his laptop on the table, turned it on, and while it booted up, he leveled a serious look at Joel. “There’s something I have to get off my chest before we get started.”
“Shoot.” Joel snapped the hem of his pants down over his ankle holster and met the other man’s gaze.
Cosmo held Joel’s stare and never blinked. “I’d like to date your ex-wife.”
“Uh, okay.” Joel didn’t know what he was expected to do with that information.
“I just thought you should know.” Cosmo nodded curtly. “In case you still have feelings for her, you’ve got me to contend with.”
As if that would have been a contest. From the looks of his wimpy arms, the guy was lucky to bench-press a hundred. But Cosmo needn’t have worried. Things between Joel and Treeni had been over a long time ago. While Joel felt a certain sadness that they’d really put each other through the wringer, he was actually quite happy for Treeni.
The incident in Iraq seemed to have changed her for the better. She seemed softer, less pushy, more willing to consider someone else’s opinion. Or maybe this Cosmo character was the one responsible for the changes in her.
“Thanks for telling me, Cosmo,” Joel said. “I appreciate the man-to-man, but Treeni is a free agent. You should probably be discussing this with her, not me.”
Cosmo turned to Treeni, but before he could get the words out of his mouth, she was in his arms and branding him with a red-hot kiss.
“Um. Do you two need a moment?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I could just go wait out in the float warehouse with the fiberglass mermaids.”
Treeni broke off the kiss and sat down at the table beside Cosmo, crossed her legs at the knee, and put her hand on his arm.
“Do you remember the Mohawks that you and I found in Iraq?” Treeni asked Joel.
“Ended my career as a SEAL, not something I’m likely to forget soon.”
“In the midst of the ensuing chaos, no one bothered to ask how U.S.-made Mohawks from Desert Storm got into an underground bunker in Basra.”
“I heard they were stolen and part of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction package.”
“Who’d you hear it from?”
Joel frowned. “Your father.”
“Ever think he could be lying?”
“Lying?”
Treeni looked to Cosmo and he answered for her, “According to Chet Delaney’s private journal entries, he had Robert Herkle hide Mohawks all over Iraq in 1990. And, he also stored a half-dozen of those missiles in an abandoned World War II naval bunker on North Padre Island.”
“But why?”
“They were defective. My father planned all along to use those defective missiles to his advantage. He knew that one day he was going to run for president, and he was determined to win. During the first Gulf War he actually gave a shipment of the defective Mohawks to Iraqis, but made it look as if they’d been stolen. And he kept six of those missiles in reserve for his own use.”
Treeni paused to let it sink in and then continued. “His scheme was to detonate the missiles just before the election, knowing that Iraqi terrorists would be blamed for setting them off. Since he has a reputation for being tough on terrorism, he figured he’d be a shoe-in for president. But he was careful to choose that stretch of Padre Island in the national preserve where no one lives. He didn’t want to kill anyone. Just cause enough of a commotion to get the desired results. The missiles aren’t particularly powerful as far as missiles go. Even when all six are detonated together with the warhead that my father attached to cause them to explode simultaneously. There would be plenty of damage to the island itself and anyone that was in the immediate vicinity. But no one in Corpus or in Port Aransas or on Mustang Island or any of the surrounding populated areas would be affected,” Treeni said, looking as cool as if announcing she’d chipped a nail and was off for a manicure.
“Holy crap.” Joel exhaled.
“But here’s the kicker. Your father just found out about the missiles on North Padre. Gus stole the remote-detonation code from my father, and now he’s gone missing.”
Penelope lay beside Daniel on the cot, inhaling his breath, drawing in the essence of this stalwart man who’d sacrificed his very existence for her. Even in slumber, he held her in his arms, the fingers of his right hand entwined with the fingers of her left. One of her ankles was crossed over his. They couldn’t stop touching each other. They had so much touching to catch up on.
For the first time since the blindfold had come off, she re
ally noticed the small room. The accommodations consisted of the Navy-issue rusty cot and saggy mattress they were sleeping on, the dressing table near the door where Daniel had set her tray of food the night before, the floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining the wall at the end of the cot.
Penelope squinted to see the titles, noticed they were mostly law tomes or books on ocean biology. There was a ham radio on a spindly legged nightstand beside the bed and framed pictures of her and Marlie. Her heart wrenched.
She shifted in his arms, turning to study Daniel’s face in the muted lamplight, tracing her eyes over the weathered skin, the cruel ravages of the scar, the thick swath of salt-and-pepper hair falling over his forehead.
Over the course of the past few hours she’d seen him in vulnerable moments, glimpses of sadness, devotion, hunger, grief. Watching him made her bite back a moan of unbelievable happiness. He was hers again. She was a widow no more.
He made her feel warm and tender and cherished. The lingering effects of their lovemaking burned inside her, a hot, sweet candle, melting over fear, temporarily sealing her in this bliss.
His eyelids opened and she smiled at him, timid and tentative.
“We have to talk,” he said.
She knew he was right, but she yearned to stopper her ears so she could bask in the glow of reunion and not hear the ugliness of what he had to tell her. She curled against his chest, kissed one of his nipples while gently plucking at a thatch of chest hair.
He caressed her hair with a palm. “Are you listening?”
Penelope sighed and snuggled deeper against the pillow. “I’m listening.”
“Let’s go back to the beginning of the first Gulf War,” he said. “When I was second in command of the USS Gilcrest and Gus was my superior officer.”
Penelope wished she didn’t have to follow him there, but she owed it to Daniel to hear every last horrible detail. He deserved to speak his peace. She thought of how lonely he must have been, living in this cold, damp bunker for fifteen years, forced by circumstances to hide. Away from his wife and the daughter he loved. She’d thought she’d been lonely without him, but her loneliness was incomparable to what Daniel had endured. She’d had Marlie. He’d had nothing.
