Shades of Gray

by Kay Hooper

  Her body was cold, her throat tight. “No. I won’t.”

  “Yes, you will. It’s amazing what a human being will do just to live for a few more minutes. You’ll be surprised.” He said it as if he were offering an interesting experience. “You’ll find yourself doing just as I demand. You’ll hear yourself beg for more time. For life. You will actually be aware of the disintegration of your mind, and you’ll feel the tears come from a place you never knew existed inside you.”

  If there had been anything in Sara’s stomach, she would have thrown up; as it was, she had to choke back the bitter bile rising in her throat. Evil. Only a mind of pure evil could conceive of, and casually discuss with an intended victim, the utter destruction of a fellow human being.

  “You’ve gone white, my dear.” His voice was solicitous, just as a hangman’s would be when he asked politely if the rope was too tight. Not to worry; you won’t feel a thing in a moment. Not a thing.

  Sara swallowed hard.

  “It isn’t so easy to be strong, is it?” He was mocking her, speaking in a gentle tone and with spurious sympathy. “Theory is one thing, reality is something else again. Just think of it. After I’ve had you, Sabin over there will fetch his whip. He hasn’t had a lovely female body to mark in a long time; he’ll enjoy it very much. He won’t beat you to death, of course; that would be too quick. He’ll beat you until you scream without stopping for breath.”

  That wouldn’t, Sara thought, be very far off. The screams were, even now, crawling around in her mind, her throat, behind locked teeth. But she kept them trapped there. She didn’t feel brave or strong; she felt sick and terrified. But her voice, to her dim astonishment, emerged calmly. “You think you know Andres, think you know what he’ll do. But you’re wrong. You might use me to beat him—but you won’t break him. He’s worth a hundred of you, and you won’t break him.”

  Lucio sneered. “The voice of love.”

  Sara leaned her head back against the tree and conjured a smile full of all the mockery she could muster. “You think you know that, too, but you’re wrong. It isn’t love—it’s fact. Men like Andres don’t break. It’s men like you who do, hollow men with nothing but hate holding them together.”

  Lucio smiled, but it was a tight, dangerous smile. “We shall see, my dear.”

  Sara was afraid he was right about that. Very afraid.

  “A reconnaissance plane took this yesterday afternoon,” Zach said tersely, placing a large photograph on Andres Sereno’s desk. “It shows a fair-sized concentration of people in the jungle—here.”

  Andres leaned over to study the photo, frowning. “Lucio’s abandoned camp was farther to the east.”

  “Could they have been your men?” Josh asked him.

  “No. I was concerned with protecting the town and this house—for all the good it did.” Andres’s mouth twisted a bit.

  Zach, the only one other than Andres with military experience, could have pointed out that—barring Sara—it had actually been a good tactical idea. Lucio had been forced to throw his entire army against the town and consequently had been defeated. Except, of course, that there was Sara; by snatching her, Lucio had also snatched victory.

  Unless they could stop him.

  “Then it must have been Lucio’s men,” Derek said. “There’s a good chance that’s where he’s taken Sara.”

  Almost idly Kelsey said, “He won’t expect you to come after her, will he?”

  Andres looked surprised, then thoughtful. “No,” he said slowly. “I suppose not. He would know I’d be cautious. Too great a chance of getting Sara … killed.”

  Raven kept her voice brisk, knowing what this waiting was doing to him. “All right. We have the advantage of surprise. We’ll slip through the jungle and catch him off guard. Just us—none of your men.”

  “I can’t ask—” Andres began.

  “You aren’t,” she told him calmly. She met his steady gaze and smiled. “But we’re going, all the same. Why else do you think we’re here?”

  His smile was crooked. “To help Sara.”

  “So? We’re helping.”

  Mildly Zach said, “We even brought our own guns.”

  Lucio had gone to get the tape recorder. Sara took advantage of his absence and his man’s still turned back. Flexing fingers that felt a little numb from loss of circulation, she leaned forward slowly, her eyes on that broad back, and reached into her right boot. The rope around her ankles wasn’t very tight, which was a good thing; the short barrel of the derringer was wedged underneath it. She managed to get hold of it and ease it out.

  She leaned back again, hiding the tiny gun as well as she could by raising her knees and by holding the gun against her thigh and covering it with her palm and fingers. And just in time, because Sabin turned around to leer at her. With an effort she ignored him.

  The dizziness from the blow that had knocked her out and the later slap had faded somewhat, but she felt horribly shaky and sick. On the whole it was a good thing she was sitting with her back braced against the tree; she doubted she could have gotten to her feet, even if her ankles hadn’t been tied.

  With a detachment that came of having looked death in the face, Sara wondered if she could shoot both Lucio and Sabin without either returning the favor. It seemed doubtful. Lucio would likely be near enough for the derringer to have some effect, but Sabin, she thought, could probably withstand both barrels from a shotgun and keep coming.

  Not a pleasant thought.

  She looked up as Lucio approached, holding her face still with all her will. He was carrying a small portable tape recorder, and he set it on the table with the radio. Then he looked at Sabin and barked a short command, and Sara was so relieved that she almost sobbed aloud. He was sending the soldier away.

  Probably to get the whip, she realized, relief vanishing in an instant. But the burly man disappeared into the thick undergrowth of the jungle.

  “Where did you send him?” she asked.

  Indifferently, clearly expecting nothing to come of it, Lucio said, “A short patrol around the perimeter.”

  “You don’t think Andres will come after me,” she noted.

  Lucio smiled at her. “Certainly not. He knows that I would kill you instantly if he approached.”

  “Then he’d kill you.”

  With a shrug Lucio said, “I would have won.”

  His logic baffled her, and she stopped trying to make sense of it. She watched him adjust the recorder and move toward her. When he was still a few feet away, she got a good grip on the gun and raised her bound hands, the derringer pointed at him squarely. “Stop.”

  He did, but after a single incredulous glance at the tiny gun he laughed. “A child’s toy!”

  Evenly she said, “Deadly at close range. You’re close enough. And I’m a good shot.”

  Lucio was still highly amused. “And assuming you managed to wound me with that little popgun? I’d still be able to draw my own gun.”

  “Not if I shoot you in the right place,” she said grimly. “And I will.”

  “And then you will also shoot Sabin in the right place?”

  “I’ll worry about him when I have to.” It occurred to her then that what she had ended up with was something of a standoff. She wanted the ropes untied but wasn’t about to invite him close enough to do it. She couldn’t get to her feet. Damn … damn … damn …

  He took a half step toward her.

  “Don’t.” Her gun was rock-steady. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

  His unnaturally brilliant eyes were laughing at her. “You couldn’t shoot a man,” he said flatly and with utter certainty. “You won’t. Nothing in your entire privileged life has prepared you to kill.”

  She thought of her parents lying in a pool of blood, thought of the last two years and her grim flight. She thought of the man she loved, his dream being choked to death by this evil man. She thought of Kadeira dying slowly.

  “I can,” she said. “I will.”

/>   Lucio laughed, took another half step.

  “Don’t—”

  There was a sudden crash off to the right, the beginning of a warning shout cut off with chilling abruptness. Lucio’s head turned, then turned back toward her in almost the same instant. With fury in his eyes he reached for his gun.

  Sara pulled the trigger of the little derringer twice, instinctively rolling aside as he fell. She saw his face for an instant, saw the realization there. And she saw something else, though not what she’d expected to see. There was no snarl at death, no fury at having been beaten by the tool he’d meant to use against Andres. There was no grief or regret. What she saw on his face was …

  Infinite surprise.

  There was, Sara thought vaguely, a great deal of activity suddenly. And lots of people. She saw Josh Long and his wife, Raven, as well as their friend Zach Steele. There was a big blond man with a hard face and strangely comforting eyes. There was another man, also big, with a pleasant face and rusty-colored hair. They all carried guns.

  And there was Andres. He was just there, beside her, murmuring thickly in Spanish as he cut the ropes away and gathered her into his arms.

  “You’ve been wounded,” she said, worried.

  He laughed, an odd sound. “A scratch,” he said. “Nothing. Sara, my love, did he—”

  “Didn’t get the chance,” she murmured, wincing as the circulation returned to her hands. She looked at the derringer she still held, wondering how she’d been able to fire it. Remarkable thing, the human will. Just remarkable. “I shot him, you know,” she said.

  “Yes,” Andres said quietly. “You had no choice.”

  In an instant of clarity brought on by shock and exhaustion, Sara thought that she probably would have shot him, choice or no choice, but she didn’t say it. Instead she rested her head on Andres’s shoulder as he rose to his feet, holding her easily in his arms. “I hope you brought a jeep,” she said idly. “It’s a long way back to the house.”

  There was a husky feminine laugh nearby, and Sara saw Raven Long grin at Andres and say, “She’ll do.”

  Sara smiled at her absently, then went to sleep.

  She dreamed that Teo had kidnapped her again, because the same officious voice as before was saying such things as, “No concussion this time” and “Just bruises and shock.”

  She told the voice to go away and turned on her side without waking up.

  Sara woke up finally, aware that hours had passed and that she was in Andres’s bed—their bed, she amended. She woke up saying, “Ouch.”

  “That’s the lip,” Raven Long said sympathetically from her chair beside the bed. “Bruised and swollen, I’m afraid. Your cheek too.”

  Sara sat up, yawning carefully. She looked at the other woman. “Where’s—”

  “Andres? Downstairs talking to the guys. Josh and Derek have a business proposal for him, and since the doctor said you just needed sleep, I offered to take the vigil.”

  Sara blinked. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Pushing the covers back, Sara saw that she was in her green nightgown. She looked at Raven.

  “Andres,” Raven said solemnly.

  With equal gravity Sara said, “He always puts me in this gown when I’m unconscious.” She sighed, then said, “Derek who?”

  Raven didn’t appear to find the question baffling. “Ross. The big blond man.”

  “Who’s the other? Reddish hair. Interesting smile?”

  “Kelsey. You remember Zach, of course.”

  “Oh, of course. Um … who got Sabin?”

  Raven lifted an inquiring brow.

  “The soldier at Lucio’s camp.”

  “Ah. Andres got him.” Raven looked completely calm, but her eyes were watchful. “Unfortunately for Sabin.”

  Sara smiled a little. “Don’t worry, I won’t fall to pieces. If I hadn’t killed Lucio, Andres would have. And Lucio was … was not a nice man.” She half laughed at the understatement.

  “If it helps, you did the world a service,” Raven told her. “And you’ve walked through the fire. It didn’t destroy you; it made you stronger. If, God forbid, you’re faced with a similar situation, threats like his will never again have quite the power over you that they did the first time.”

  Sara thought about it. “I hope you’re right. I don’t ever want to feel that again.”

  “We came here partly to offer you a ride back to the States, you know,” Raven said, perhaps changing the subject.

  Or perhaps not. Sara smiled. “No. I belong here with Andres. But thank you.”

  Raven didn’t try to dissuade her. Reflectively she said, “It won’t be easy. It’s a gamble living with such a man.”

  “You took the gamble.”

  “So I did. And do. Sometimes there just isn’t a choice.”

  “Men of power,” Sara said, thinking about it. “All of them downstairs—you could see it in their faces, their eyes. Maybe in different ways, but … men of power.”

  “Yes.” Raven studied her. How different she was from their Sarah! Alike only in appearance. There was no serenity in this one, but there was a kind of calm—quiet and steely, like the eye of a hurricane. And better for her that way, Raven thought. She hadn’t chosen a tame man or a tame life; her hard-won calm would serve them both well.

  “I,” Sara said suddenly, “am starving. I missed breakfast and lunch.”

  “Another hour,” Raven said, “and you would have missed dinner too. Why don’t you get changed while I go downstairs and interrupt affairs of state? The men also should be starving by now, and Maria said dinner would be ready at about this time.”

  Sara slid out of bed, noting that Raven remained unobtrusively close for those first shaky seconds, ready to lend a hand. The dizziness faded quickly, however. “I’m fine,” Sara told her, cheerful to find that it was true.

  Having come to the same conclusion herself, Raven said, “Great. Meet you downstairs, then.”

  Sara went along to her former room, where her clothing remained, and took a quick shower. She washed away the dirt and lingering stickiness of the jungle, and she washed away the regrets of having been forced to kill. It surprised her somewhat that those regrets should be so faint, and she considered it thoughtfully, realizing that she hadn’t pulled the trigger in hate; she had done so with no other option available.

  No choice. Her survival or his. And it wasn’t important that she had hated and feared him, because those emotions hadn’t prompted her to kill.

  She accepted the facts, then promptly dismissed them.

  Her reflection in the bathroom mirror had told her that Lucio’s slap had done less damage than she’d expected. Half her face was sore and a bit puffy, and her lip was certainly swollen, but it didn’t look too bad. She shrugged philosophically, wrapped her wet hair in a towel, and returned to the bedroom wearing a terry-cloth robe.

  Andres was waiting for her. His expression eased when he saw her, his eyes brightening when she smiled and came to slide her arms around his waist. He had found time, she noted, to get cleaned up and changed, and the wound in his left arm seemed not to bother him at all, since he didn’t hesitate to use the arm.

  “I’m sorry,” he said huskily after he kissed her.

  Sara was surprised. “For what? It was my own stupid fault, going out into the garden like that. And I should have been able to speak Spanish so I could have just called one of the men and told him about that gap in the fence.”

  “Still.” He sighed, shook his head. “If it hadn’t been for Josh and the others, I wouldn’t even have dared to come after you.”

  Sara decided to change the subject. “What about the town, Andres?”

  “Surprisingly little damage,” he told her, watching with intent eyes as she went to the dresser and began dealing with her wet hair. “The people in the town joined my men, fighting Lucio’s army. It was remarkable.”

  She smiled. “Expected, I would have thought.” And before
he could respond, she asked, “What about Lucio’s army?”

  “Most were captured. They’re being held in the barracks.”

  “Not the prison?”

  “No. I’ll talk to them in a few days. Few are likely to be rabid revolutionaries. Most of them, I think, will choose to get on with their lives.

  We’ll see.”

  Sara began changing into jeans and a knit top, very aware of Andres’s steady gaze but disturbed only in the sensual sense. She wondered how early they could go to bed. “What about our guests?” she asked him.

  “Josh’s yacht is arriving here tomorrow,” Andres said, his slightly rough voice indicating she wasn’t the only one disturbed. “I’ve invited them to stay as long as they like.”

  “Good.” She fastened her jeans and looked at him with unknowingly darkened eyes. “Um … what about this business proposal of theirs? A good one?”

  “Very good.” He cleared his throat. “Josh and Derek want to invest in the island. They’ve worked out a plan, a schedule, so that the economy will benefit as soon as possible.”

  “A strong beginning,” she noted with a smile.

  “With luck.”

  “Luck is something you make. And you will.”

  Andres reached for her suddenly, pulling her into his arms. “I’m selfish,” he murmured against her lips. “I want to make love to you right now, even after all you’ve been through.…”

  “I slept for hours,” she told him huskily, wreathing her arms around his neck, twining her fingers in the thick silk of his hair. “And I want you too. Now, right now.”

  “Our guests …”

  “I think they’ll understand,” she said, coping with the buttons of his shirt. “I love you, darling. So much.”

  Andres lifted her, carried her to the bed. “If I lost you … Dios, I—”

  “Never,” she murmured, pulling his head down.

  NINE

  THE HOUSE WAS quiet. Josh Long, his wife, and their friends had gone down to the harbor to meet the yacht that was due to arrive anytime. Then they would all return to the house, where further plans would be made. The revolution—this one, at least—was over. It was time to begin rebuilding.