She looked to the chair, then back at his face, wavering on the urge just to turn and leave him. After all, it wasn’t like he could come after her. She was still in control.
“Please.”
The single word hadn’t been phrased as a question, but the fact that he’d said it at all stunned her. It also told her more than she wanted to know about the seriousness of his predicament.
Somewhere she found the strength to turn toward the door. She had to get away from him for a while. “No.”
She made it all of two steps when his hoarse shout halted her in her tracks. “Dammit, I don’t want clothes, I don’t want more bandages, and I don’t want you running around out there! Now sit down and talk to me or I swear I’ll drag myself out of this bed and crawl down the mountain after you!”
Rae slowly turned back to face him. He hadn’t moved an inch, his body was still sprawled under her sheet, looking deceptively relaxed. But his jaw was rock hard, the muscles rigid. The glittering depths of his gray eyes ran chills up her spine, making her feel as if she were staring down an adult version of the puppy in her garage, instead of the flesh-and-blood man she knew him to be.
She didn’t move. “Don’t ever threaten me,” she said evenly. “Hard as it is for you to believe, I’m in control of my own life now. I don’t want to talk to you about what you’re involved in. Not now, not later, not ever. I don’t care if there’s a terrorist hit squad camped at the foot of my driveway waiting to ambush me. You got yourself into this, you get yourself out. I’ll take care of myself.”
“You are my way out,” he said roughly. “The one and only way.”
Cold dread crawled over Rae’s skin. She knew then that leaving for the afternoon wouldn’t solve a thing. She couldn’t avoid him until he was well, and she couldn’t toss him out.
He’d just come back.
He’d come back and make her listen. One way or the other, he’d make her listen. Don’t do this to me, she suddenly wanted to beg him. Not again. You can’t. She visualized herself on her knees, begging him, and knew she’d do it if she thought it meant he’d leave her alone. She’d learned the hardest way imaginable that pride wasn’t worth hanging on to when your soul was at stake.
Her body stayed in place, though, her mouth remained shut. Not knowing what other course she could take, she simply stood there and braced herself for what was about to happen.
“There is no other way,” he said, the quiet of his tone making her flinch as if he’d punctuated each word with the lash of a whip.
“I won’t do it,” she said, her own voice nothing more than a whisper, the protest sounding feeble even to her. “I don’t care if millions of lives are at stake, McCullough. You can’t ask me to do this.” To her horror, her voice broke. “You just can’t.”
From a place deep inside her that she didn’t know she still had, she found the strength to turn and walk silently to the door. What she wanted to do was run screaming from the room, out of her house, down the mountain—away from McCullough, away from his endless missions, away from herself.
“It isn’t millions,” he said, “but it is thousands. Tens of thousands.” Each word was like a bullet in her back, but she kept going, even as she mentally staggered under the brutality of what he was doing to her. “Most of them innocent civilians. Women and children.” She did stumble, her stomach churning, her throat clogged with a burning panic, her eyes so dry that they hurt. “And they won’t die swiftly.”
Bull’s-eye.
Rae gripped the doorway, her knuckles white with the strength it took to remain upright. He’d been back in her life less than one week and she was already physically exhausted, mentally battered, and emotionally wrecked.
In a sudden move, she swung violently around and stormed to his bedside. She wanted to kill him with her bare hands for what he was doing, and his expression told her he knew it, believed it. And damn his eternal hide, he even understood it.
Yet he didn’t so much as flinch when she leaned over him, balled the pillowcase on either side of his head in her fists, and shoved her face into his.
“Then I’ll say prayers I no longer believe in for them,” she said raggedly. “Cry tears I don’t have left to spare for them, and relive, in sympathy for them, every moment of the torture I want only to forget.” She tugged at his pillow in silent fury, then flung it away at the same moment she pulled back and straightened. Her chest heaved with the effort it took to keep from screaming. “But I won’t give up my soul for them, McCullough. Or for you. Do you hear me?” Her voice had risen until even she heard the note of desperation, the edge of hysteria that threatened her last shred of control. “I just got it back.”
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to regain control in front of him, forcing him to watch. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse with emotion, but even. “There was a time when I would have done anything for you. J.M. Incorporated was where I worked, but it was also my home. One like I’d never had. It had rules, regulations, rewards for good behavior, punishment for bad. I understood those rules. Played by them. Reveled in them, dammit.” She forced her fingers to uncurl. He said nothing, his expression still damnably closed. “I was the best courier you ever had. And as much as I hated you and the screwed-up mission that had put me there, I even understood why you left me to rot inside that stinking cell. I knew those rules too. A captured courier becomes persona non grata. I knew that and still I never broke. Never told them a thing.”
“Rae—”
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered furiously. “I got past the hate and despair and focused my energy on what had gone wrong. On why. And when I figured out I’d been set up and that you and JMI were still at risk, I did everything in my power to escape. And I did it. The whole time I thought only of getting back to JMI, to warn you, but also to come back to the only thing I knew. I wanted to come home. I visualized how stunned and surprised everyone would be. I even fantasized that my miraculous survival and the information I had to deliver might even get a response from my cold-as-steel boss.”
She stepped back and hugged herself tightly. “So imagine my surprise when I tried to make contact and found out that JMI—that you—considered me the enemy. That you hadn’t just given me up for a loss because the mission fell apart and I got caught, but you actually believed the bastard who’d set me up. You thought I’d gone over to the other side.”
She took another step back, clutching at her sweater even as her control slipped through her hands. The words she’d been unable to say that day in his office, when he’d silently read the report she’d flung in his face and then said he’d reinstate her, the words she’d buried deep inside her for two long years for fear they’d eat her alive if she let them surface—those words spewed forth and she didn’t even try to stop them.
“I handled everything else, McCullough. The torture, the mind games, the deprivation. Everything. Because never, not once, did I honestly think you would believe that I could betray my country, betray JMI, betray you. But you did. And only then did I break.” She walked to the door, feeling almost as if she were standing outside of herself, watching this happen. “And you. You just sat there and calmly offered it all back to me. No apology, no excuses, just another ugly day in the dirty business of transferring sensitive information.” She shrugged in mock nonchalance. “You win some, you lose some, and occasionally you make a mistake. Can’t take any chances, don’t trust anyone. It’s all part of the game, right? Here’s your job back, no hard feelings.”
She stopped to pull in some air. “You didn’t even ask me if I was all right.” Exhausted and feeling colder than she had in a long, long time, Rae let her arms drop limply to her sides. “I was so stupid. Incredibly, magnificently stupid. But you taught me the final lesson real well, McCullough. There is no such thing as home. No such thing as trust, or loyalty. It all has its limits, its boundaries. Well, I couldn’t spend another minute guessing where the line is drawn. So I came here and made my own bo
undaries, drew my own lines.”
She was nothing but a hollow shell, yet she kept her gaze fixed on his. “You’re the one crossing them now, Jarrett McCullough. And you can’t have me back, because I don’t exist for you anymore.” She turned and walked out the door.
Jarrett felt battered and beaten in ways that had nothing to do with his recent injuries. He knew he deserved far worse. In that moment he hated himself. Even more, he hated his job. That hatred went deeper than the consuming anger that had festered in his conscience like an untreated sore as year after year passed and the need for a man with his skills never seemed to diminish. No matter how good he got, how hard he worked, no matter how many lives he put at risk, no matter how many he kept safe, there was always more to do. There was always another war being fought somewhere. Always more lives on the line. Endlessly. Forever.
Jarrett actually thought he might be sick. And it would serve him right if he was left there to choke in his own vomit. When had he become the monster she’d just described? There was no question that he was one. She hadn’t uttered a single untrue word. When had he gotten so caught up in working for the betterment of the many that he’d lost complete sight of the spirit and integrity of the few? Especially the few who worked for him.
He tried to tell himself that he’d just assumed they were all in it together, that they must feel the same as he did or they wouldn’t be risking their lives. It didn’t wash, though.
Dear God, what had he done to her? Jarrett grabbed big handfuls of the blanket covering him, the rage growing inside him until the urge to thrash and yell and scream, to hurl things against the wall and shout down the house, was almost uncontrollable. And just as suddenly he wanted to roll onto his side and curl up into a ball and hide within himself until this new awareness went away.
He could do neither. His crippling limitations clawed at him. He’d never needed to control a situation more, never needed to take action as he did right that instant, and he was forced to do nothing.
He raged against that truth until he could no longer contain it. Reaching out, he grabbed the first thing he touched, the water pitcher. He hurled it against the far wall, but the resulting crash and spray of water did little to quell the fury rising in him.
“Rae!” he roared, even as he knew she’d never come. “Rae!” He yelled her name as loud as he could; it felt as though it were being ripped from his aching throat. He called over and over, the command eventually turning into a hoarse plea as it echoed throughout her house. He couldn’t stop. Even when his voice was nothing more than a raw whisper, he kept repeating her name until, exhausted, he slipped into a restless, tormented sleep.
Rae made it as far as the hallway before the loud crash and first shout of her name had her collapsing against the wall. Like a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from, she forced herself to endure his repeated shouts, unable not to. She slowly sank into a huddled ball as his voice grew more ragged and finally, mercifully, faded to silence.
Still she couldn’t move. The quiet was like a yawning chasm she didn’t have the strength to leap past. Then pain rushed in to fill it, threatening to swallow her up, eat her alive. She hated him, hated him, hated him. Tears came. Hot, heavy, silent.
Crumpled in her own hallway, paralyzed by an exhaustion she couldn’t imagine recovering from, she gave in to sobs as uncontrollable as her inability to walk away from him. The last thought she had before allowing fatigue to drift her into sleep was that she knew her tears weren’t just for herself.
The howl woke him. Jarrett opened his eyes slowly to the predawn shadows. The fog of waking up and his body’s aches did nothing to haze over what had happened just before he’d fallen asleep. The memory was every bit as stark and clear and ugly as if it had happened minutes ago, instead of hours.
He listened to the plaintive cries of the wolf pup and felt an answering tug inside his own chest. He wondered where Rae was. Had she left him? Gone into town? Gone for good?
He wouldn’t blame her if she had, he thought, then automatically chastised himself. That sort of thinking was not going to get the job done. But he was too damn tired to do battle with his emotions or his conscience.
“Damn animal. Shut up already,” he grumbled, the pup’s howl suddenly grating on his nerves. He lifted a hand to his forehead, pleased as much by the cool dry skin there as the steadiness in his fingers. He slowly flexed and relaxed various muscle groups. Minor improvements, but it was progress. Slow progress. God, he was so damn weak.
Curbing the useless frustration, he rolled carefully to his side. Five long minutes later he was standing beside the bed. The trip to the bathroom was slow, but he accomplished it on his own. He even managed to wash his face and rinse his mouth before the fatigue and dizziness set in again.
He flipped off the light and started to head back to the bedroom. He knew he shouldn’t push too far or he’d lose what little ground he’d gained, but he found himself turning to the hallway door instead.
He wasn’t going anywhere, he promised himself. He just wanted to open it and listen for any signs that Rae was still in the house. Maybe the pup had woken her too.
What he found when he opened the door made bile rise in his throat as swiftly as adrenaline pumped into his bloodstream. Despite the shadows, he knew immediately that the woman slumped over in the hallway was Rae, but it took five or six mind-numbing seconds before he realized she was still alive. From the soft sounds coming from her mouth, she was apparently sleeping.
Sweat popped out on his face and chest as the rush subsided. He leaned heavily in the doorway, cursing his reaction under his breath. He’d frozen, like a green recruit, smack in the center of the doorway.
If she really had been attacked … Well, he’d probably be dead in his bed right now. Still, that didn’t excuse his immediate response. He hadn’t moved for cover, or changed his focus to his surroundings and the possible dangers that awaited him.
No, he’d stood there without a thought for his personal safety, much less for the danger to the mission. A literal naked target, big as life, and he’d just stood there, staring at her. His heart in his throat, his only thought had been that she’d been taken from him while he slept. Taken from him before he had a chance to explain—
That thought brought him up cold. Explain what?
Biting back another curse, Jarrett closed off the chaos in his mind. He listened intently, but heard only the wolf pup, whose howls had turned to the whimpers of the lonesome. That struck a chord deep in Jarrett as well, and he ignored it this time too. He knew he didn’t have the energy or the strength to check out the rest of the house. If there had been an intruder, the pup would either have been barking his fool head off, or permanently silenced. There was no immediate danger.
Unless he counted the woman asleep at his feet.
He couldn’t just turn away and leave her there. He told himself he should at least make sure she really was okay. His thigh and taped ribs made kneeling or bending down impossible, and once again he was forced to swallow his frustration. He didn’t want to wake her, even if it was the simplest solution.
Waking her meant talking to her, watching her face, wondering what she was thinking, wondering what in the ever-living hell he was going to say to her. He didn’t want to deal with that right now. To be honest, he’d be perfectly happy not to deal with it at all, ever.
With a deep sigh and a grunt at the ache in his leg and ribs, Jarrett moved back into the bathroom and anchored his hip against the sink. Leaving the light off, he searched with his fingers until he found an endpiece of tape. He’d get the tape off his ribs, check on Rae, hopefully without waking her, then he’d go back to bed. And stay there. At least until he figured out what to do next.
He tugged hard, the tape pulling and tearing the hair from his skin. Jarrett clenched his teeth to keep the hiss of pain locked in his throat. He was starting to lose his balance on his good leg and knew he should sit down for a few minutes. But it was as if a demon were drivi
ng him to get this done and done fast. The longer he took, the longer his mind had a chance to think about Rae, to mull over the possible reasons why he’d found her as he had, to wonder if she’d been there all night long, and if so—
The light suddenly blinked on. “What in the hell are you doing?”
Jarrett spun around, too fast. He lost his balance and flung an arm out for support. He missed the shower curtain rod and barreled forward, directly into Rae, who was standing in the middle of the open doorway.
The force of his motion landed them both in a heap in the hallway. His grunt of pain underscored her curses. Seconds later they both stilled. Except for the heavy panting breaths they were exhaling, there was no sound. Jarrett thought absently that even the wolf pup had finally shut up.
He wasn’t sure who was the first to become aware of their landing position, but within a moment there was no doubt that they were both vitally aware of it.
Rae was on her back, one shoulder pressed up against the wall. Jarrett was simply pressed on her. All of her.
Wincing, he shifted his bandaged thigh off her leg. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She looked up at him and blinked.
Her lips were parted. Her eyes were heavy-lidded from sleep, dark and unfocused, still reflecting her surprise at the sudden impact. Her hair was tousled. She looked warm, and soft, and vulnerable. He wanted to touch her skin, feel its heat. But even more he wanted to drop his head down an inch or so and claim her mouth, to drink from the solace he somehow knew he would find there.
Struggling to ignore the poorly timed demands that his body was making on his mind—not that there would ever be a good time to act on them—Jarrett shifted slightly to free his hand. Rae gasped. He went completely still, then quickly pulled his bandaged hand free from where it had been pinned between them.
“Did you hit your head on the wall?” he asked, her gasp bringing him at least partially back to his senses. When she still didn’t answer, he lifted his hand to her forehead, intending to brush back the snarled curls. “Rae?”
Surrender the Dark Page 5
