“Hey, Sam,” he croaked.
Her eyes flickered, but didn’t lose their fierceness. “Hey, Pearse.”
“My God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured before he thought, then wanted to laugh out loud when she snorted. It was so typically, beautifully Sam.
“Boy, that’s a good one,” she said tartly, folding her arms on her chest in a defensive way, as if he’d said something insulting. “I’m so far from beautiful right now, it isn’t even funny.”
“That’s not the way I see it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, yeah, but you’ve been under anesthesia. You’re probably hallucinating.”
“Anesthesia?” His mind clicked into gear, kaleidoscopic memories zapped into focus. Fear stabbed through him and turned his blood to ice. He struggled to sit, to lift his head. To see. “Did I-my leg-is it-”
“Still there? Yeah, it’s fine. Well, not fine, exactly, the bullet did a whole lot of soft tissue damage-your career as an underwear model is probably history-but at least you get to keep it awhile longer.”
He was laughing helplessly, partly with relief, partly delight in her and sheer giddy wonderment that he’d managed to survive the last four years without her.
Then other memories faded in and took on sharpness, and the laughter died. “How’s Esther?” he asked half-fearfully.
Sam’s smile faltered as she drew a hitching breath. “She’s in intensive care. Hangin’ in there. As soon as she’s strong enough, I guess she’ll be flying back to Canada for bypass surgery. Her family wants her closer to home…”
“And Hal?”
She gave another of her dry little snorts. “He won’t leave her side. They had to put a bed in the ICU for him.” And she was fidgeting, suddenly, as if the subject made her uncomfortable, though he couldn’t imagine why.
“Where are we, Zamboanga?” he asked, still groggy.
She shook her head. “I only put down there long enough to pick up a med tech and some supplies. Then it was straight to Davao City. I’d have opted for Manila if I’d thought you two would make it that far.”
Cory was silent for a long time, letting the reality of that sink in to his mind and body…taking in the hospital room and the IV tubes pumping various fluids into his arms, no doubt laced with massive doses of antibiotics and painkillers…remembering everything that had happened over the last few incredible days, including things that were already beginning to seem more like a dream to him than reality. Except for the woman standing before him with her arms folded and one hip canted in that familiar, pugnacious way…
He closed his eyes and whispered on an exhalation, “God, Sam…you did it. I don’t know how, but you did. You got us all out of there alive. I can’t…” And for one of the very few times in his life, words failed him.
When he opened his eyes again, Sam was shaking her head emphatically, making her short hair fan out like ruffled fur. “It was a team effort, Pearse.” He opened his mouth to deny it, but she cut him off, sounding half-angry. “Hal and Esther wouldn’t be here at all right now if it wasn’t for you.” Then she caught a gulp of breath and added in a grudging tone, “Well, and Tony, of course.”
Tony. For the first time Cory thought about the interview tapes he’d entrusted to his best friend’s care…the cameras and rolls of film Tony had shlepped through miles of jungle and monsoon rains, even after he’d sacrificed two of his neck straps to save Cory’s life. “Good old Tony…where is he, by the way?” he asked in a careful voice.
For the first time in a while, Sam grinned. “I expect he’ll be up here shortly. Last time I saw him he was on a live videophone to CNN in New York. Looks like you’d better get yourself out of that bed in a hurry, Pearse. The whole world’s a-waitin’ for your side of the story.”
He laughed, then let his eyes drift closed again, and for a few moments allowed himself to float on the sweet euphoria of being alive, all too aware the world was out there “a-waitin’” for him, aware of all the things that needed to be done, but content for the moment to let it all drift along without his participation, like flotsam on the same river flow.
Except for one thing. Only one thing in his life was compelling enough, right now, to coax him out of that lovely lethargy. He opened his eyes and let them rest on her with gratitude, like rafters on a turbulent river finding a quiet cove.
She gazed back at him with that poignant mix of toughness and vulnerability that had captivated him the first time he’d laid eyes on her-toughness in the thrust of her chin belied by the soft vulnerability of her mouth…her dark and troubled eyes…
He smiled and said in a raspy murmur, “Do you have to stand clear over there? I can’t very well come to you, and I sure would like to kiss you.”
She jerked as if he’d startled her, and he saw a shadow cross her face…something that looked like pain. She hesitated, then stepped close to his bed, leaned down, and he heard the small in-take of her breath just before she kissed him. It sounded very much like a sob. The kiss was brief and light, and with the taste of her only a tantalizing promise on his lips, before he could bring up his hand to hold her there, she straightened up and looked away, and he saw her throat ripple several times with swallows. An ache formed in his own throat as he realized she was fighting tears.
Tears? But this was Sam, who never cried.
“What is it?” His voice was harsh and rasping. “What’s wrong?” He groped for her hand. “Come here-sit.”
She shook her head rapidly and gave a high little laugh, though when she spoke, her words sounded thick and slurred. “Uh-uh-I’m too dirty. The nurse would probably kick my butt right on outa here if I got mud all over you. Besides-” she caught a quick breath and didn’t seem to know what to do with her eyes “-I have to go, anyway.”
“Do you have to?” Fighting irrational panic at the thought of her leaving, he took care to make his voice calm…light…gentle. “Where are you off to?”
Fidgeting, she ran a hand through her hair, still not meeting his eyes. “Right now, to find a shower and some clothes. And, if there’s a God, a toothbrush. Then…” She reached again for a breath. “I guess I’ll be flying to Washington.”
His heart did a violent skip, but he only lifted his eyebrows. “Flying?”
She gave him a tight little smile. “Commercial flight, Pearse. I have to check in with my…uh, you know. Debriefing, and so on.”
He studied her, ruthlessly squelching the part of him that wanted to grab her and hold on to her and wail like an abandoned child. He was well aware that he was treading a narrow and unstable path, and doing it pretty much blindfolded. You wanted a chance to do it right? Well, here’s where it begins. Don’t blow this, Pearse.
The only problem: he had no idea what the right thing was. Should he back off and let her go with his cheerful blessing, show her he was capable of dealing with the demands of her career? Or tell her the truth, hold nothing back?
He still didn’t know what he was about to say, not until the words came out of his mouth. “Wow. I hate to let you go.” He took a breath, let it out, shook his head, and managed to produce a smile that made his face ache. “I think…we need to talk, Sam. Tony says we do, anyway.”
She gave a small laugh like a whimper of pain…looked away, then down at her feet.
“I can’t believe all this-meeting again after so long, being together-I can’t believe it didn’t happen for a reason,” he said softly. “We had something…maybe it sounds like a cliché, but we had something special, Sam. We did. We let it get away-my fault, I know-but here we have a chance to fix it.” He paused, then took another breath and plunged. “I love you. I never stopped…loving you. If you love me…if you do…then I don’t see how we can walk away from that without trying to make it work this time. I want to make it work, Sam.”
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Had vowed on her CIA oath she wouldn’t. She was going to damn Cory Pearson to hell if he made her break that vow. But, oh, how she wa
nted to cry. Her throat felt as though a giant hand was squeezing it. Her face was a thousand burning knots.
“How can it, Pearse?” she said in a broken voice, barely audible. “How can it possibly work? I love you, but-”
“But-?” he interrupted with a small crooked smile. “That’s the first time you’ve ever told me that, by the way.”
“It is not!” she shot back, her pain replaced by anger.
Maddeningly-and true to his nature-he only said gently, “It’s true-but never mind. I’ll take it. So, why won’t it work?”
“For the same reason it didn’t work for us before, dammit. I have a career you can’t deal with. And if you couldn’t handle me being a pilot, what are you going to do with a CIA operative, for God’s sake? And-” her voice broke unexpectedly; she drew herself in, fighting desperately to hold fast against the breech “-I love my job, Pearse. Like I started to say, I love you, but I don’t want to give it up. Maybe someday. Okay, someday, but not yet, not now, when I’ve just barely started. I want to make a difference; it’s important to me. I’ve worked all my life for this. It’s who I am. Why should I have to sacrifice that in order to be with you?”
“Everybody makes sacrifices,” he said softly.
“You wouldn’t give up your career. Nobody would ever expect you to.”
“Maybe not…but I’d definitely make some adjustments, in a heartbeat.” His eyes narrowed as though she’d become a light too bright to look at. “But that’s beside the point. What if I told you I’d be willing to accept your career? That I wouldn’t ask you to give up a thing?”
She stared at him, devastated, wanting to scream at him, curse him for taking away her anger, the only defense she had. She turned her face away from him and rubbed a hand over her burning eyes. “It wouldn’t work,” she mumbled. “I know you mean it. You’d try your best, but…I know what you want, Pearse. I know exactly the kind of life, the kind of home and family you want. Because it’s what I had, growing up. It was great. No doubt about it. It was…wonderful. And I can’t rob you of that. I can’t.”
“Don’t you think you should let me decide what I’m willing to give up?” He punched down on the mattress beside his hips, trying to push himself upright, and she saw anger awaken, now, in his eyes.
She shook her head…closed her eyes…took a breath. “Okay, but…it’s not the only thing-”
“For God’s sake, Sam,” he exploded in a torn voice, “what else is there? If you don’t want to be with me, just say so.”
She jerked around, trembling violently. “That’s just it, dammit-I do want to be with you. I want to be with you. I want to share myself with you, and I want you to do the same with me. I don’t want this…I can’t stand this one-way street. It’s too damn lonely, Pearse. It’s too damn lonely…” She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the tears or the sob that ripped through her throat. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in love with a ghost. A really kind, loving, benevolent ghost. Because…the truth is, I don’t have a clue who you are. I can’t touch you.” She clutched air with her fingers, then gathered the fistful to her chest. “I can’t touch you here. I can’t get past your barricades. Your secrets…”
“Secrets?” She could almost see him cringe away from her as he said it, and his eyes blazed at her, with anger, yes, but with something else, too. Something that looked very much like fear. “What are you talking about?”
She dashed away tears, grateful at least to have the anger-baton passed back to her. It was much more comfortable than the tears. “Your family, Pearse. Your childhood. Those brothers and sisters you never told me about. Your parents.”
And now she could see him withdrawing behind his defenses, like a turtle into its shell. “They died,” he said stiffly. “I told you that. It’s no secret.”
Make him tell you, Sam.
She leaned toward him, shaking inside, knuckles white as she gripped the safety bar on the side of the bed. “Yeah? How did they die, Pearse?”
He made a small violent gesture of denial. “God-I was a kid, I don’t remember-”
She held up a not-quite-steady hand. “Don’t-I mean it. Don’t give me that. It was in the papers. It’s in the record. Tony looked it up. If he knows, you sure as hell do.”
He glared at her, and he’d never looked at her that way before…with his face a mask of anger and fear. In a voice so icy it made her shudder, he said, “If Tony knows, then why don’t you ask him?”
She almost gave it up, then. She’d never felt such anger before, not from her Cory, gentle, empathetic Cory, not directed at her. It devastated her; she wanted to turn and flee, run away from it as fast as she could. But somehow she stayed. She stayed because somehow she knew that for a man like Cory, such anger could only mean wounds too deep and raw to deal with any other way. Wounds beyond the scope of her experience, or her power to heal.
You have to make him tell you.
Yes, and she’d started this. She’d gone this far, opened the door, grabbed the tiger’s tail. She couldn’t let go now.
Pulling back a little and drawing in a calming breath, she said, “I did ask him, actually. He wouldn’t tell me. He said it has to come from you-whatever it is-this terrible, deep dark secret. He said you need to tell me.”
Cory jerked and made a scoffing noise. “Since when did Tony become a shrink?”
“You know what?” said Sam, ignoring the sarcasm. “I think he’s right. I think you need to tell me. Because if you can’t, if you can’t bring yourself to share even that much of your past with me, then I don’t see how there’s anything more for us to talk about.”
She saw the anger drain from his face, leaving only fear. Fear that bleached his skin to a muddy gray, and misted his forehead with sweat. Fear that lurked behind his eyes like the monster in a child’s closet. “You’re not being fair, Sam,” he said, in a gritty voice, barely above a whisper.
It seemed a very long time that she went on gazing at him, while her heart thundered and her body trembled, while voices of protest and rejection and denial screamed and echoed inside her head. She closed her ears to them all and said softly, “Goodbye, Pearse.” Then turned and walked away on legs of glass.
Chapter 14
He was losing her.
What she was asking of him was too much. He couldn’t do it. If he talked about it, he’d have to remember. And if he did, the memories would overtake him like an oncoming freight train. They would surely crush him. He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t.
If he didn’t, he was going to lose her.
The pounding is only in your head, Pearse. You know that. It’s a nightmare. Nightmares can’t kill you.
Except…he knew they could. Nightmares could kill, and they could destroy.
And by God, he wasn’t going to let it happen to him.
Sweating, teeth clenched, Cory lifted a shaking hand and drove his fingers into his hair, pressed them against his skull as if doing so could keep it from cracking under the pressure of the din inside. A din so loud he couldn’t hear his own voice call out her name.
But he did call, and she heard. He saw her pause. The noise in his head subsided to a muted thumping, and this time he heard himself hoarsely croak, “Sam-wait.”
She turned halfway, one hand still on the doorknob. Waiting.
“My father killed my mother,” he heard himself say in a voice carefully stripped of all emotion. “He shot her. Then he turned the gun on himself.”
At the first words her head jerked the rest of the way around, and she stared at him, her eyes nearly black in a face bleached white with shock.
He went on in the same relentless, expressionless voice. “That’s what happened. That’s what I was told.” And then, gently, cruelly, “Are you happy now?”
“My God…” And he could hear the soft, sticky sound of her swallow.
He couldn’t take pleasure in how shaken she was. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, contrite and emotionally drained, and put an arm across his e
yes. “You wanted to know.”
He felt her come closer, creeping uncertainly toward him as if he were a wounded animal, or some unknown and possibly unstable substance. Both of which he supposed he was, at the moment.
She cleared her throat. “Where were you when it happened? Were you there? Did you see it?”
“I don’t remember.” He moved his arm and looked at her, eyes aching with exhaustion, and the unaccustomed strain of functioning without glasses. “Really, Sam. I don’t remember. The newspaper accounts said the children-the little ones and I-were in the house at the time. But I have no memory of it. Sorry.”
“Do they know why it happened?” She was frowning intently at him and trying to sound totally unemotional, the way she did when she was trying to hide how emotionally touched…shaken…hurt she really was.
Encased in his own shell of numbness, and thoroughly regretting, now, that he’d done this to her, he shrugged and said gently, “Classic posttraumatic stress, probably. He’d been in Vietnam. I’m guessing he had a violent flashback, attacked my mother, someone called the police and when they arrived, he shot her, then himself.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “But…he didn’t hurt you or the other children?”
“No.” The pounding had started up again. He wanted to put his hands over his ears to block it out, but he knew it wouldn’t help. Nothing did. He rubbed his eyes instead. “Evidently not.”
“You were there…and you were how old? Ten? Twelve?”
“Eleven,” he said woodenly. He could feel the fear creeping up on him, like icy fog.
Her voice was disbelieving. “Pearse…Cory. Surely, you must remember something.”
He felt the bed dip with her weight, and then a soothing coolness with a little bit of sandpaper roughness to it touched his face, stroked his hair back from his forehead. He’d never known Sam’s hands could be so gentle.
Emotion, a devastating mix of love and despair, shivered through him. He caught her wrist and heard her gasp as he said in a voice tight with pain, “Maybe I don’t want to remember. Did you ever think of that?”
Secret Agent Sam Page 22
