HER SECRET GUARDIAN

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  He grinned. "What do you know about hurricanes?"

  "That it's damned hard to clean up after one."

  "We won't have to clean up after this one. We just have to use it to our best advantage."

  "How can you possibly take advantage of something like a hurricane?"

  "It's worked in our favor so far, Grace. It kept Milero's men pinned down enough that no one came looking for us for the last four days."

  "It's what kept us on this island," she reminded him.

  "True. But we would have had trouble getting off even without the storm."

  "How are we going to get off?"

  "Stealing one of Milero's supply boats would be my first choice. He has boats going back and forth from here to the mainland regularly. We'll grab one and take off."

  "Which the storm kept you from doing before now," she reminded him. It had caused some trouble.

  "Only partially, the storm. You were a mess, and Duncan has a bullet in his shoulder and a very whiny, wimpy hostage who's making their lives miserable. I don't think we would have been able to move fast enough to steal the boat and get away before now."

  "There's a colleague of yours on this island who got shot four days ago?"

  "Yes."

  "And you didn't tell me?"

  "I knew if I did you'd want to get to him, and you weren't strong enough to make the trip, and we were all better off – Duncan included – by staying where we were and remaining undetected. I also didn't want to argue with you about it. Duncan's in good hands."

  "Whose?"

  "Reed's."

  "He's a doctor?"

  "No, but be knows what to do. It's a flesh wound, Grace. They're handling it. We're trained in what to do in cases like this."

  "This is my area of expertise," she argued. "Maybe you could let me be the judge of that?"

  "Okay. When we get there, you're in charge of Duncan and his bullet wound."

  "Thank you," she said.

  Sean laughed at her again.

  "You must be worried about him if we're going out in the middle of the hurricane," she said.

  "No. I'm thinking of getting us off this island. As soon as the storm lessens enough, Milero's men are going to be out gunning for us. We need to get the boat and go at the first possible moment. The others are a lot closer to Milero's compound than we are. It makes sense to leave from there, and I want to see what kind of shape Duncan's in for myself before we make our final plans."

  "Okay. If you say we can travel in the middle of a hurricane…"

  "You know how one works? As long as it has forward motion, you see a slow, steady buildup of the winds and rain as the front side of the hurricane comes ashore. Same thing on the back end in reverse. It starts out howling and gradually lessens until the storm is gone. In the middle, in the eye, it's dead calm. No winds. No rain. If it came during the day, we'd see sunshine. This is a big storm. The eye's wide enough and the storm's forward motion is slow enough that we should have about forty-five minutes to travel. We'll have to push, but we can make it." He frowned. "Do you trust me, Grace?"

  "Of course I do," she said. She didn't even have to think about it. She trusted him.

  "We'll have to watch for downed trees and debris on the ground. For flooding and for snakes. But that's about it. No wind. No rain. Probably not any of Milero's men, either."

  "Okay. We'll do whatever you say."

  "Good."

  "When is this all going to happen?"

  "I'll have to listen to the radio. Right now, it looks like about six hours from now."

  Six hours, she thought. And then they would no longer be alone. Surely she could resist him for six hours.

  * * *

  Grace cleaned up a bit, then put on a pair of his camouflage pants, tied at her waist with a string and rolled up about six times on each leg, in preparation of hiking through the jungle-like terrain of the island.

  Sean put their things into a single pack he intended to wear on his back. She offered to help carry them. She was a woman used to lugging her own supplies, after all. But he gave her a look that said he thought it was ridiculous and insulting to even suggest he'd have any trouble with the pack at all. It only weighed about seventy-five pounds, he claimed.

  So he was in full tough-guy mode.

  It would be nearly midnight before they made their move, and he intended to blacken her face and his when the time came.

  She was beginning to think she truly would never see his face in broad daylight, might never actually have that kind of picture of him to carry in her memory. Which made her think there were still so many things she didn't know about him. So later, when they had nothing to do but sit and wait, she asked, "Where were you born?"

  "Italy, but my family's originally from Virginia."

  She nodded. That's what she heard in his voice. "So why all the different languages? The accents? With me?"

  "Not just with you. In this line of work, you have to learn to blend into different places, different cultures, not to call attention to yourself. It's second nature to me, to protect my identity when I'm in the field. My face, my voice, even the languages I speak and the accents I use."

  Grace considered that. CIA? Naval Intelligence? Or another of the military's special ops units?

  Oh, yes, she realized. He was a real tough guy.

  "My father was career army. A general, before he retired. It took him all over the world. If we could go with him, we did. If not, we were in Virginia."

  "So you grew up all over the place? Like me?"

  He nodded.

  "Brothers or sisters?"

  "I told you about Rich."

  She remembered. The brother he lost.

  "I have another brother who's in the air force. A test pilot. My baby sister is a Naval Academy graduate, like me. She did some time in the navy and then in … other things."

  "Other things?" Now Grace was curious. Even his baby sister was tough.

  "I don't suppose it would tell you anything, since I'm not going to tell you any more about Duncan and Reed, but my sister used to work with them."

  "She used to do things like this?"

  "God." He shook his head at the thought. "Probably."

  "Wow." Grace wondered if he was as protective of his sister as he seemed to be of her. "What did you think of that?"

  "What do you think I thought about it?"

  "I think you didn't like it very much."

  "I didn't. But she's stubborn as hell, and she didn't bother to ask what I thought, and she doesn't take kindly to being ordered around. I told her not to, but she did it, anyway."

  "And now?"

  "She's home in Virginia making babies with a guy who used to try to boss her around at the agency. I'm still not sure who's winning that little battle, but I'm a lot happier that she's not sticking her neck out anymore. Although she tells me raising little boys is proving as potentially hazardous as any duty assignment she ever had."

  Grace laughed and fought off the odd pangs of envy. She'd quickly dismissed any thoughts she ever had of having children. To do that, she really should have a man, and she really ought to love him. No doubt, she would love her children a great deal, and with loving there was always that potential for loss. Which she'd sworn off totally. But for the last year or so, every time she delivered a baby, every time she held a newborn baby in her arms, it got a little harder to slam the door so tightly on the whole idea. No children. Not ever.

  Lately, it hurt too much to think about it, left her with that annoying unsettled feeling that seemed to eat away at her at times.

  Questions like, what did she really want? Like … was this it? Was this all life had to offer? As much as she did for the people who showed up at her clinics throughout the world, at times it seemed there just had to be more to a woman's life.

  "Do you think your sister's happy?" she asked.

  "I know she is," he said.

  "And you? Are you happy?"

  "I don't know
, Grace." He stared at her for a long moment. "My life is different now. I'm in Washington most of the time. I sit behind a desk a whole lot more than I'd like. If I wanted to, I have enough years in to retire, but I'm not sure what else I'd like to do. What about you?"

  She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, rested her chin on her knees. "Before this, I would have said I was content. Which is not such a bad thing."

  A lot of people didn't even have an element of contentment.

  "You could have so much more, Grace. You deserve it."

  "I'm thinking about it," she admitted.

  It was an odd idea after all this time of simply not thinking. She'd wanted to be a doctor for as long as she could remember, probably from watching her mother with her own patients and helping out in the clinics. She'd grown up telling her mother and her father what she was going to be, and she'd never questioned that later when the time came to start her training.

  For years after that, she'd gone where the IRC sent her, much like he must have as a soldier. It had given order to her life when she craved it, when she'd have been lost without it.

  But now … it seemed odd to think about having so much of her life still ahead of her. To think that she could do anything she wanted, make anything of herself that suited her. She had no idea what she wanted to do.

  "If you could do anything with the rest of your life," she asked, "anything at all, what would it be?"

  He frowned, then got the oddest look on his face. He was watching her so intently for so long. She thought she sensed longing in his expression and frustration and something else. Regrets, maybe?

  Which was ridiculous. She could hardly see him, although she felt as if she'd gotten adept at reading his moods without actually seeing the expression on his face.

  Right now, his emotions seemed to radiate from him. Agitation, anger and then a deep, deep sadness.

  "Sometimes I think your life has been as full of regrets as mine has," she told him.

  He didn't say anything. Pushed to his feet and walked toward the mouth of the cave. Grace scrambled after him, found him, seeming as immovable as any mountain she'd ever scaled, standing right at the edge, staring out into the fierce rain and wind.

  She put her hand against his arm and stood beside him, wishing he'd pull her close. He didn't.

  "What do you regret?" she said.

  "I could make you a list, but I don't think we have time for that. We have to get moving soon."

  She panicked a bit then, thinking her time with him was almost up. From here, they might not be alone again, between the other two agents and the other hostage. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, so many things she still wanted to know about him.

  He turned to go back, and she grabbed him by his arms and stopped him. She begged, "Just a minute. I can't let you go like this. Things are going to get crazy from here on out, right? It won't be just you and me."

  "No," he admitted. "It won't."

  "Believe it or not, I'm going to miss that."

  "So am I."

  "I'm not sure I thanked you—"

  "You did."

  "For the other things, too. Before this."

  "It's my job, Grace."

  "Is that all this is to you?" She had to ask. "Because I can't help but think there's something I'm missing about you and me. Something you haven't told me."

  He hesitated.

  "Please," she said. "I need to understand."

  "My father knew your father."

  "Oh." That certainly came out of the blue. "They were friends?"

  "Not what I'd call close friends. They ran into each other from time to time. My father did a stint with the UN at the time your father was involved with the group. He even remembers you, from when you were a little girl."

  "Oh." So when Sean ran across her, later, when she'd started with the IRC… "You felt an obligation, of sorts."

  "Of sorts," he admitted.

  "Oh." It was all she could say. She felt as if someone had forced all the air from her lungs. From the mention of her father, she supposed. No one else mentioned him even casually to her, because no one knew.

  "Grace?" He finally turned to her, pulled her into a loose embrace, tantalizingly close but not nearly close enough.

  "Before we go our separate ways, I'm going to tell you how to contact me. Anytime, anywhere. Day or night. Someone can always reach me. I want you to know that if you ever need me, for anything, all you have to do is call."

  Which was an awfully big promise to make. Even more significant was the fact that she had no doubt he meant it. That he would drop everything and come to her, anywhere, anytime.

  She'd already known that about him, before she even knew his name, before they'd ever come to this island. From the start, somehow, she'd believed that about him.

  "Promise me you'll do that if you ever get in trouble. If you even think you're in trouble, Grace."

  She shook her head, felt a bit dizzy.

  So, she had to be in trouble, did she? His words told her that, but his body said something else all together.

  She remembered again the moments after he dragged her back into the cave, after she'd scared him so badly and made him so angry he was shaking. The time she'd sensed he had deep, dark scars on his soul, as well.

  He'd uncovered all of hers, but she hadn't found any of his.

  And there was that little sting that came from the fact that he wouldn't make love to her. She knew it was for the best, and she had her reasons for believing it, but no idea what his reasons were.

  His hands cupped her elbows. He bent his forehead until it was against hers, and she felt his warm breath pass over her face. She wanted to kiss him so badly, she was shaking.

  "Are you afraid?" he asked.

  "No."

  "You don't think I can get you out of here safely?"

  "No. It's not that at all," she admitted. "I'm afraid I'm going to miss you. And I know I'm not supposed to do that."

  He dipped his head and kissed her, so softly, so gently. Giving her nothing but an elusive taste of him.

  "We agreed," he said, pulling back to the spot he had before, their bodies barely brushing.

  "I know."

  "It's for the best, Grace."

  "Why?" she asked. "I mean, I know it is. I know why. At least as far as I'm concerned. But I don't know what's holding you back. Do you think I might be making a mistake? Circumstances and adrenaline and fear, and all that stuff? Are you trying to protect me even now?"

  "I think that has to be taken into consideration."

  "But what about you? Can't you tell me a little bit of what's inside you?"

  Very slowly, he pulled her fully against him. Didn't even hold her tightly, although she found it was the most powerful embrace of all. That same luxurious warmth and strength, but an incredible sense of homecoming, too. As if someone had made a place on this earth for her, and it might just be in his arms. Where he seemed so reluctant to have her stay for any length of time.

  How could that be? If this was her place? Made for her? How could he not want her here?

  Grace buried her face against his chest, afraid she would start to cry. Until he came along, she'd never cried. But there was something about this feeling, the sweet yearning, the kindness, the caring. His hands stroked gently up and down her back, and she nuzzled the tip of her nose against his shirt, wishing it was his skin. Wishing they were skin to skin.

  Her arms wrapped around his shoulders so tightly, and she felt once again the sheer might of the man. It was because he made her feel so safe. That's why she thought she needed him so badly, why she found the whole idea of him so attractive.

  "I'm not a man to fall in love with, Grace," he said sadly.

  "Why not? You wouldn't love me back?"

  "I don't think I've ever been in love with any woman."

  "You don't believe in it?"

  "No. It's not that."

  "You couldn't love
me?"

  "Oh, sweetheart. I could love you." He kissed her again, deeper this time, with more hunger, more urgency. "I don't think I could do it very well. I don't think it would be the best thing for you or that I could make you happy in the end. But I could love you. And I'm not talking about making love to you, either. Although I could very easily do that, as well."

  "But you'd regret it," she said, cursed tears falling down her cheeks.

  "Yes, I would. And I know you would."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because I know you, Grace. Wouldn't you regret it?"

  "Yes," she said, growing more miserable with every passing moment and just wishing she never had to stray from his arms. "And I want to tell you why. I need to."

  He cradled her closer. "Okay."

  "I've lost too many people," she said. "You know that. Everyone who ever mattered to me, and you were right. I push people away. I keep them at a distance. I'm always trying to protect myself, and maybe I've taken that too far. Because I don't want to get hurt again. And the easiest way to make sure that doesn't happen is to never let anyone get too close. Never let anyone be important to me. Which is why you scare me to death."

  "Oh, baby. I'm sorry."

  "Because you make me want to take every risk. Every one I swore I'd never take again. To me, it's the same thing as jumping off a cliff. It would be that hard. I'd be so sure I'd fall."

  "Don't do it, Grace. Don't jump. Not with me."

  Which was the same as him saying, don't love me. Don't.

  She still didn't know why. And she supposed it really didn't matter.

  "I didn't want to live after they died," she told him. "You were right about that. I was in the hospital for a while, and I kept thinking there had to be all sorts of things I could do to myself. To make me die. I didn't realize they didn't leave helpful little drugs around like that for people to pick up. I thought if I stayed in that hospital long enough, I'd slip away from everybody and find what I needed and just do it. Just be gone. I thought I'd be happy again, that I'd be with my family again. I closed my eyes and saw them, pictured them calling my name. Waiting for me, so we could all go off together."

  His hold was fierce then. Absolutely fierce. She held him back just as tightly, because she sensed he needed it, too.