He holds it firmly. “Are you sure, love? You oughtn’t be wandering alone outside.”
“I’m sure—”
“Let go of her,” Eric says, appearing out of nowhere. The command is growled.
“Well now, I don’t believe this is any of your business,” Jonas says.
“I said let her go.” It’s a tone that brooks no argument—except from me.
“I don’t need your help,” I say, looking at Eric in defiance.
I turn to Jonas. “Let go of me.”
“Of course, love,” he says, releasing his hand. “Anything you ask.”
“Sara—” Eric says.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
I turn, needing a quick exit. Through the horde on the dance floor, I spy the lobby doors and hurry toward them, dodging, pushing and shoving partygoers en route.
Once outside, I stare up at the large, concrete barrier that surrounds the hotel, creating a buffer between it and the bustling streets that form the heart of Dubai’s shopping district. Within the barrier, large potted palms provide the only texture and relief to the otherwise stark masonry that forms the hotel’s outer facade.
I decide to stay within the hotel borders, moving hastily around the oblong-shaped high rise. As I do, I adjust to the relative silence, the concrete walls muting the sound of the city just beyond. I pass no one as I walk, the path eerily deserted, and Jonas’s comment about wandering outside alone begins to gain a bit of leverage.
Reaching the rear of the hotel, I dismiss the thought, pacing in frustration, stomping on shadows. And then … a recognizable shadow. Eric’s crosses mine as he moves toward me.
“Go away,” I say.
“Please, let me—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
I turn away, trapped. Hemmed in by the high walls.
“Let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain!” I say, rounding on him. “You’ve lied to me from the beginning!”
“I haven’t—”
“Tell me, how did I fare in your evaluation after we made love? What were the metrics for that!”
He steps forward, but I raise my hands in warning. “Don’t … just … don’t.”
“I haven’t lied,” he says calmly.
“How can you possibly say that? Shall I make a list? You aren’t a pilot—”
“I am a pilot. I went through flight training just like you. I belong to the Shadow Hunter squadron. I do their mission. All of it.”
“And you never told me you were a SEAL, which is the same as lying in my book.”
“I wanted to tell you. I did. I just wasn’t ready.”
“Not ready? Why not? It’s part of who you are. A big part. Why wouldn’t you tell me something like that?”
“Because there’s so much. There’s so much about me…” He stops, pressing his lips together. “Look, I thought I’d have more time because I didn’t think they were going to call you into that meeting. I didn’t think they were going to pick you, which means you wouldn’t have found out about me, and I could have waited for the right time to tell you everything.”
“Why didn’t you think they’d pick me?”
“Because I argued against it. I argued against it and I can usually get people to see my way.”
“Using information I gave you in confidence!” My hands go to my hips, furious. “Eric, I trusted you! I’d never told anyone what happened with Ian and you just—”
“They knew Ian had drowned; I only confirmed that you’d come close.”
“But why bring it up in the first place?
“Because I needed something concrete. I was grasping—”
“For a reason to keep me off the mission? But I can do this!”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t do it.”
“Well then what? You think I might panic? Is that it?”
“No. I know you can keep your head. That was never a problem.”
“But you tried to keep me off! Why?”
He looks to the heavens before returning his gaze to me. “There’s so much about this mission … so much you can’t see.”
“Then enlighten me,” I say, crossing my arms.
He sets his mouth and his eyes close briefly. But when he opens them, it’s clear he’s not going to give me an answer.
“Then what? My flying?”
“No.”
“My systems knowledge?”
“No.”
He wipes his face, looking to the sky again.
“My pub knowledge? What?”
“None of the above. You were by far and away the best candidate.”
“But then—”
“In fact,” he says, “I spent so long arguing in your favor that when I changed my mind, they’d already been convinced. There was no going back.”
“But why wouldn’t you support me?” I say, moving my hands emphatically. “Why would you change your mind?”
My voice has risen and I’m not sure how it got so loud.
“Why would the others agree and you not? And—”
“Because they’re not sending the woman they’ve fallen in love with on a mission that could get her killed!” Eric has to raise his voice to be heard over me.
I step back, my ranting stopped cold.
“What did you say?” I whisper.
His arms drop to his sides, his palms outturned. “Sara, I love you.”
I stand, dazed, like a boxer on the receiving end of a swift uppercut. My brain churns, processing the words. But it’s not the words themselves that have rendered me mute. It’s the incredulity at my reaction—I want to believe him.
No, you can’t, Sara. Fool me once … Fool me twice … You know the saying.
But time-tested adage or not, I want to believe him so badly, it hurts. With effort, I move my head side to side, but he stands unmoving, his gaze steady.
“Are you trying to shred my heart now for good measure?” I say, my voice strained. “Well, congratulations. Well done.”
“No, I—”
“Please go.” I pull my eyes from his and stare at the ground. It’s a struggle to keep my head down, not to look. The wait is agonizing.
I hear shuffling. In my peripheral vision, his shadow recedes. And with it, he takes my heart, pulling it like the loose end on a skein of yarn, while I watch it unravel.
“Just one thing,” he says, turning.
I look up to see him removing his hand from his pocket. “Please do this one thing for me.” He extends his arm, something clutched in his fist. “You can hate me all you want, but—”
“Hate you?” My head moves of its own accord this time, shaking side to side. “I don’t hate you.” And then, the words pour out. The ones I never intended to say, but have felt all along. “Eric, I love you. I know it like I know to breathe. That’s why this hurts so much.”
His hand moves back to his pocket. “What?” he says.
He walks toward me and I have nowhere to go, my back pressed to the wall. I look down at my feet, his legs moving into my field of view.
“You love me?” he asks.
My eyes rise to meet his and I lift my hand. “Ever since you gave me this,” I say, indicating the rubber band I’ve worn on my wrist, the one I haven’t taken off since I left the Lake Champlain.
He moves closer still, his breath whispering across my cheeks, his body radiating a welcoming warmth. For a long time we stand, our eyes fixed, while my defenses melt into an ignominious puddle at my feet. That mythical magnetic force swells between us, the pull indescribable … and inescapable. And then, my lips are on his. Our mouths move together and I breathe him in. Strong hands slide across my back, pulling me toward him, and I wrap my arms tightly around his neck.
I revel in the exquisite pressure of his chest pressed solidly against mine and delight in the hands that move firmly around my waist. I savor his taste, his touch, his kiss. His kiss … something so achingly poignant about his kiss.
<
br /> He leans back just slightly, looking directly into my watering eyes. “I love you so much,” he whispers. “Please know this.”
I swallow. Fool me once … Fool me twice …
Well, call me a fool, then, because if this isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.
“I know,” I say.
I really do.
40
A steady cricket hum, the soft rustling of palms in the mild evening breeze—the perfect accompaniment to a long, languorous kiss. A kiss of reacquaintance. A sensual exploration of our lips and mouths, his fingers gently skimming my cheek, and slipping through my hair.
Because of the length of this silent interplay, his voice, though soft, startles.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, drawing back. “For everything.”
He wraps his arms loosely around my shoulders, but keeps me close.
“I acted out of turn,” he continues. “I hope you can forgive me.”
I reach up, taking both of his hands in mine, and pull them low between us, lacing my fingers through his.
“I forgive you,” I say with a squeeze to his hands.
His lips turn upward ever so slightly.
“But will you promise me something?” I ask.
I step back just a bit so I can better look him in the eyes, which are well dilated in the low light. “You have to let me do my job,” I say.
He remains utterly still, but for the movement of his eyes, which rapidly search mine. I know something bothers him, something about this mission in particular. But I see it in his expression when he closes the door on whatever reservation it was he carried.
“I promise,” he says.
I exhale.
“Actually, I owe you more than just one apology,” he says. “I wasn’t allowed to say anything about the evaluation, but I should have told you the rest. My job…”
He looks down at our hands, lacing and relacing his fingers through mine, and in the background, I’m putting the pieces together. “The languages,” I say. “Arabic, Pashto, Farsi…”
“I was sent to language school. Several, actually.”
“The scars…”
He nods.
“I still don’t understand, though. Why not tell me?”
He looks down at our hands for some time before raising his head again.
“Tell me honestly,” he says. “That night with Commander Egan, did I frighten you?”
I hesitate, which tells him all he needs to know.
“And the run-in with Jonas on Nimitz?”
I nod this time.
“I hated that you had to see that. It’s a side of me that … well, I’m struggling with that side. It helps me do my job as a SEAL, do it very well in fact, but…”
“But what?”
“I was worried”—and the worry is absolutely there in his expression—“that this part of me would drive you away.” He pauses, looking away, as if seeking the solace of the shadows. “Sara, when I do my job, it doesn’t take me to a good place.”
“But—”
“No, just hear me out. On my last mission … eleven people … we entered a room with eleven people … and when we left, they were dead. They were dead … all of them. And I don’t remember how it happened. I can’t let myself remember. And then I get awards for this and I’m praised for it. And no one understands that it wasn’t me. Ask Mike. Ask Pete. They have to do the debriefs because I can’t recall it. I can’t recall anything. I read the after-action reports and I don’t know who they’re talking about. I become … I don’t know … someone else … something else. I don’t know.”
He releases my hands, wiping his face, perspiration running down his hairline.
“I’ve worked so hard to control this person … this thing … whatever it is … and I was just barely getting a handle on it. Barely. So when I was offered the flying job, I jumped at it. I needed to get away, to bring myself back to … well, me. And I was finally finding that with Brian and Rob and the guys. I could just let go and be easy. Be me. And when I met you, I was in that place. A good place.”
He scans my eyes, and I imagine him cataloging every fleck of color in them, ordering them just so.
“But that’s the thing,” he says. “Just when I was getting a handle on it, learning how to control this, along you come—the catalyst for everything that wants to explode inside me. You’ve only seen a glimpse.”
He takes my hands again. “I’ve put off this talk with you because for you to really know me, I’m going to have to open that side to you. So you know what you’re getting into. So you know what I’m capable of. And I’m terrified that once you see it—”
“Stop,” I say, putting a finger over his lips. “Don’t say any more.”
I lower my hand, placing it over his heart, the beat so very strong. “Eric, when I said I loved you, I meant all of you.”
His hands curl around mine, pulling them close to his chest, his eyes glistening. He leans in, a delicate kiss, sending an exhilarating charge surging through me. And this feeling of “electricity” causes me to laugh—something I couldn’t have imagined just twenty minutes ago.
“What is it?” he asks.
I look up to him, raising my eyebrows. “Lightning?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I got that in BUD/S.”
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. School for SEALs. Now his comment about Mike makes sense. “You said you went to school with Mike. I didn’t understand it at the time.”
“Oh, you caught that. Impressive.”
“So why Lightning?”
“Well, like I mentioned earlier, I tend to go to the extreme a lot of the time. I guess I should say there’s a lot of energy inside for me to control. It was the guys’ not-so-subtle way of telling me I need to lighten up.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, why?”
“That’s why I was christened with my name.”
“Lace?”
“Yeah. Em is always on me about lightening up. She thought if I wore lace underwear, that would do the trick.”
He laughs, the sound ringing preciously sweet.
“So she started calling me Lace and when she figured out I hated it, well, it was game over. She told the other pilots, who told the aircrew, and the rest is history.”
“So we make quite the intense pair, I guess,” he says, reaching his hand to my face, holding it there.
But then something flits through my memory. We’re standing here, breaking down walls, but a brick remains, probably a stupid, irrational brick, but it weighs just the same.
“What is it?” he asks.
So perceptive …
“I just … this is so stupid.”
“Please, I want to hear it, whatever it is. I don’t want anything between us.”
I clear my throat, already embarrassed about what I’m about to say. “Well, I saw you at the Hail and Farewell—”
“You were there?”
I nod.
“I was hoping to see you there,” he says. “I was looking for you.”
“Really?” My question is delivered with a frown as I remember who I saw him with.
“What’s this?” he says, touching my lips.
“Well, to be honest, I was looking for you, too. But when I found you … well, you were busy.” My attempt at keeping the hurt out of my voice fails miserably.
“I don’t recall being busy.”
And then it all tumbles out. “You were standing with these women, three of them, and they were gorgeous, and you were talking and laughing and taking pictures and—”
“Hold on. Hold on,” he says, raising his hands. “Wait a second. Three women…” He searches for it and then the light clicks. “Okay, I remember. But did you see Stuart, Rob, and Ken there, too?”
“I did.”
“And yet you assumed I was the interested party in all of this?”
“Well … I … weren’t you?”
“Sara,” he s
ays, his tone sounding like my mother when she would scold me. “Those women were Stuart, Rob, and Ken’s wives. They flew in from California. It was planned months ago.”
I blink, startled with the pronouncement.
“Remember how I had to leave to stand Ben’s duty? His wife came, too. The four of the them.”
“Their wives?” Sheepishly, I slink back against the wall, wallowing in embarrassment.
And he lets me, too.
“I just thought…”
“You thought wrong,” he says with a forgiving smile. “I gather you were a little jealous?”
“A lot jealous, if you must know.”
He smiles, taking my hands in his, and then it’s my turn to notice something, a twitch in his expression.
“What is it?” I ask.
“You’re fast surpassing me on the perceptive bit.”
“What is it?” I say.
“I have to confess, you aren’t the only one who’s felt jealous.”
“You felt jealous? Who—”
“Jonas.” He almost chokes on the name. “I saw you on the ship with him that day and then tonight…”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing.”
He sounds relieved at first, but it doesn’t last long.
“I didn’t know if … or what that was or…”
“It was nothing. I think the attention I’ve been getting from him has more to do with you than me.”
He nods in rigid acknowledgment. “We have a history, one I haven’t told you about yet. And if he was looking for a way to get to me, he certainly found it. I kept trying to convince myself that that was the reason, but the way you looked at him that first time during the brief … you just stared.”
“Oh, that,” I say, remembering. “I hadn’t had the chance to talk with you about Ian yet. Jonas’s eyes remind me of Ian’s. That’s all. And when I was looking at him, all I could see was Ian’s face. I just sort of forgot myself.”
“But just the fact that he was alone with you. I was so worried. You have no idea.”
“Why does he make you so nervous?”
I jump as a voice emerges from the shadows. “Why does who make you so nervous?” Jonas says.
I whip my head around to see him approaching with a swagger.
With two quick strides, Eric stands in front of me.
“This is a private conversation,” Eric says.
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