"Anyway, they didn't just leave drugs like that around, and I never seemed to find myself alone. Not the whole time I was there. I wonder if they knew somehow what I wanted to do. If someone was watching over me, even then," she said. "I always felt like someone was. Isn't that silly?"
"No. I don't. I'm glad you felt that way."
"So when you came along, when I started to suspect the man who kept coming to my rescue was the same person, it all seemed to fit. I thought you'd been there all along, just keeping your distance more at first."
She let go of him long enough to wipe her tears away, then bury her face against his chest once again.
"You've always been a magical man to me," she said, smiling through her tears. "You've always seemed like the person I always knew was there."
He backed up an inch or so. Took her face in one of his hands. Brushed away her tears, and kissed her once more, a world full of sadness in that kiss.
"If I had any magical powers at all," he whispered against her mouth, "you would lead a truly charmed life. I would take every bit of sadness away. Every hurt. Every fear. I would give everything I had to you, Grace. Everything in this world."
"But you don't think you could? You don't think you could do that for me?"
"I know I couldn't. Dammit, if there was any way I could… But I can't. I'm so sorry. I just can't."
* * *
Chapter 10
« ^ »
Sean thought he might have to pry his own hands off her in order to let her go. She just didn't understand. He was not a hero, especially not to her, and he used to be amused by her whimsical idea that there was something magical about him. Not any longer. He'd never felt more simply a man than he did with her, never felt so horribly inadequate.
His whole life, he'd gotten things done, fixed things, made them right, and in typically arrogant fashion, he'd thought he could make things better for her. Not fix them. No one could do that. But make them better. He was starting to worry he'd make things worse instead. Getting her out of here was one thing. Leaving her better off than she was before Milero grabbed her was another thing altogether.
Sean was a man who'd always found a way to get what he wanted. Always. And he wanted her to be happy, wanted that desperately. But he couldn't give it to her. There'd been so many things he simply didn't have to give over the years. The power to erase the past. To bring her family back to her. To make her happy. None of it was within his reach.
Unfortunately, she was. He held her even more tightly, his mouth brushing light kisses along the side of her face. She was trembling, as he was, and he thought she was still crying. He hated seeing her cry. It had always torn him apart. And she was starting to care for him, more than he could ever let her. He was scaring her now, because she was afraid of falling for him.
"Aah, Grace," he groaned. If only you knew… He supposed he'd been half in love with her from the very beginning, impossible as it always had been.
And he didn't think he had the courage to tell her the whole truth about why he had spent the better part of his life watching over her, why he always would, or why he couldn't let himself love her and wouldn't let her love him. It wasn't an easy admission for him to make – that he was too much a coward to tell her. He liked to think he wasn't afraid of anything, but there it was. He couldn't hide from it any longer, either. He couldn't stand the look he feared he'd bring to her eyes by telling her the truth.
So he just stood there and held her, in the most bittersweet moment of his life. He wanted her desperately. Not just sexually. On every level imaginable.
He'd lost a lot of people, too, over the years. Not the kind of loss she'd experienced. But he knew what it was like for someone to be there one minute, gone the next. He'd always found it so hard when there'd been no time for goodbyes. No time to say all the things he wanted to say.
But this … having her here in his arms and knowing he had to let her go, that there was nothing he could say that wouldn't make it even worse… This seemed to be the hardest thing of all.
With what had to be superhuman effort, he loosened his hold on her.
"Don't," she cried. "Don't let me go."
"Oh, baby. It's the last thing in the world I want to do."
* * *
Grace thought it was something of a miracle when the wind just died, as did the rain. One minute it was roaring, and the next, she could look up and see stars. She'd forgotten what it was like to live in a world that wasn't battered by howling winds. Her ears had forgotten how quiet silence could be.
It was eerily quiet now. She couldn't quite get used to it. It unnerved her, as did the whole situation.
She'd cried her eyes out earlier. Over him and the whole situation. Over knowing she had to pull away from him, as quickly as she could, even though she couldn't seem to let go or stop crying.
Finally, they'd done it somehow. It had felt horrible to back away, to lose the feel of his strong, reassuring arms around her.
He'd been all business after that. A bit brusque, working quickly and efficiently, ordering her around. She hadn't argued, had simply done what he'd asked and found herself traipsing behind him through the dense, jungle-like foliage.
There were downed trees here and there, tons of branches and leaves and debris. She jumped at every little noise that interrupted the odd stillness, kept waiting for the wind and the rain to attack them once more.
She didn't see how he could possibly know where they were or where they were going. There was no discernible trail at all, but be kept right on moving like a man who knew his direction in life instinctively, unmistakably.
He was in his warrior gear, armed to the teeth and looking like he was ready for anything, and she remembered once more that he'd killed a man for her. To save her.
How could he be so gentle with her, she wondered, and be so deadly at the same time? How did the two sides coexist inside the same man? There had to be depths to him she'd never understand. She'd likely always find herself fascinated with him, and she feared after another day or so, she might not see him again. Or that maybe it would only be those quick, tantalizing glimpses he'd allowed over the years. That he'd always be slipping in and out of her life that quickly, and she'd spend years just hoping for a glimpse of him. That she'd always be wishing, maybe even begging him to stay.
She had no idea why he wouldn't, why he felt he couldn't. Her gut said he cared, that he could love her. He said it as if it made him ache, as it did her, thinking she could love him completely, without a hint of reservation, of self-preservation.
Why would that scare him as much as it scared her?
They walked for what seemed like hours, though she knew it couldn't have been that long. He'd told her when they left the cave that they only had forty-five minutes or so to get to the other agents' location. Otherwise they'd get caught in the back side of the hurricane. He'd asked her to trust him to get her there safely, asked her not to be afraid.
She marveled at the fact that he even had to ask. How could he not know that? She'd follow him to the ends of the earth, if he said that's where he thought they needed to go.
As it was, the storm was closing in on them before he pulled out his flashlight and gave three short bursts of light into what seemed like absolute nothingness to her. But she saw the answering signal come back.
The next thing she knew, they were entering yet another cave. There was a man standing just inside the entrance, a tall man with dark blond hair and a ready smile. He and Sean greeted each other, and then Sean introduced her.
"Reed, this is Dr. Grace Evans."
The man shook her hand and looked her over from head to toe. "Doctor. I'm glad to see you. My hostage has been getting nastier every minute, and I'd pay you any sum of money you name if you have some kind of drug to knock him unconscious. Or maybe just to render him mute."
"What?"
"If he doesn't stop whining soon, Duncan and I are going to put him back in his cell in Milero's compou
nd."
"You wouldn't do that," she said, smiling up at him.
"We got him out – barely. We could put him back," Reed claimed.
"I think I should check on your patient," Grace said, because Sean had her by the arm, drawing her deeper into the cave, and he didn't look happy. "Something wrong?"
"Not a thing," he claimed.
She found a very frightened, very unhappy-looking man sitting on the floor about fifteen feet back. He had his knees drawn up against his chest, his arms wrapped around them, and he looked at Sean as if he expected Sean to blow him away at any second.
"This is George Roberts," Reed said, coming up behind them. "He's not happy to be here."
George merely lifted his eyes and frowned.
"We've never rescued such an ungrateful little prick," Reed whispered into her ear as he directed them to the other passageway, where Grace would see another man sitting against the cave wall. "Duncan," Reed said. "We've got company."
The third man was pale and perspiring, smiling up at her but leaning weakly against the cave wall. Grace knelt beside him and put the back of her fingers against his cheek, his forehead, then felt for a pulse in his wrist.
"Dr. Evans, I presume," he said. "Good to see you."
"Call me Grace, please."
"Movin' a little slowly these days, Duncan?" asked Sean, who was somewhere behind her.
Duncan made a face that said he didn't appreciate that at all. "I'm moving just fine. It's my friend George who's a little slow. Silly me, I decided to do my job and save his sorry ass. But if I'd known him a little better, I doubt I'd have made the sacrifice."
Grace heard it all, but she was concentrating on her patient's condition. Someone – Reed, she presumed – had tucked Duncan's right arm against his chest and rigged up a sling. There was a pad of gauze beneath it, blood that had seeped through.
"The bullet's in your shoulder?" she asked.
"Yeah."
Duncan barely winced as she freed his arm and started peeling back the gauze. "Sean?" he said. "Next time, Reed and I get to go after the woman."
He gave her an unabashedly appreciative look. Grace couldn't believe he was flirting with her at a time like this. He was feverish, his skin clammy, and he'd had a bullet in his shoulder for four days.
"You must not feel that bad," Grace said.
"I've had worse," he said, still grinning. She thought about telling him she'd seen the tough-guy routine before. If his aim was to impress her, it wasn't necessary. But she saved her breath. Men like him seldom listened, she'd found. If at all possible, their ego would stop them from ever admitting they were in pain.
She was just uncovering the wound, and he was still talking, still making her laugh, when Sean brought her two small packs of supplies.
"I'm afraid that's all we've got," he said.
"Thanks."
Duncan looked up at Sean. "You two heading out?" Grace turned, found him nodding and handing Duncan his pistol. "Grace tells me she knows how to use it," he said.
"I do," she said, trying to fight off a flare of panic. "Where are you going?"
"To check out the boats."
"Reed's going, too?" Duncan asked.
Sean frowned, looked to Grace. She didn't want to be separated from him.
"We don't have much time," he said. "We need to know the situation at the dock. The condition of the boats. The best path to take. I think we both need to go, but…"
"Go ahead. We'll be fine," Duncan claimed. "We haven't seen any movement at all from them in more than twenty-four hours. They've got to know we'd be stupid to move during this storm. No reason for them not to wait us out."
"Still … the eye," Sean said.
"If they were coming, they'd have been here by now. Or you'll run into them on your way to the dock. If that happens, you'll stop them before they ever get to us, and you don't need to do that alone. Take Reed."
Another few moments, and they'd all agreed. Sean and Reed were both going. Over her own protests, they helped Duncan to the mouth of the cave and sat him down there. George scrambled to the back, looking scared even of Grace and muttering under his breath some things that sounded ungrateful indeed. They all ignored him when he kept asking questions about where they were going and when they'd be back.
All too soon, Grace found herself standing in front of Sean, as he was ready to leave, standing in the front of the cave with two men hovering nearby.
"Don't worry," he said. "It's not far. I've got a radio. I can be back in minutes. And Duncan … he's a good shot. He's alert enough to keep watch."
"Okay," she said, a bit dizzy at the notion of Sean heading into Milero's territory. At letting him go already. "Be careful."
He nodded, drawing himself up even straighter, looking even more warriorlike.
"Remember," she whispered. "You're just a man."
Cut him, and he'd bleed. Shoot him, and… Grace shuddered at the thought.
He pulled her close for a moment. The two men behind them fell silent, and she knew they were watching, found she didn't care.
He kissed her quickly, fiercely. "I'll be right back."
And then she had to stand and watch him go into the blackness once again.
* * *
She forgot all about the fact that she wasn't alone until Duncan said, "So that's the way it is with you and him."
"What?"
"You and Sean."
He must think they were lovers, Grace decided. She started to deny it, but didn't see the point. She couldn't begin to explain exactly what they were. More than they should be, as two people who were practically strangers in so many ways, but much, much less than she wanted them to be.
"That … that was nothing," she said.
"Sean practically growls at me every time I look at you. He's jealous, and that kiss was a blatant hands-off-she's-mine warning."
Was he jealous? True, in the brief time they'd been here, Sean had seemed even more stern than ever. But she'd taken that for concentration on the job at hand, at him maybe being a bit worried, something she didn't think he let people see too often.
"It's not like that with us," she said.
"If that's what you say, Doc."
She did what she could for his wounded shoulder, which was not as bad as she feared for someone who'd had a bullet inside of him for so long.
"So," he teased. "Am I going to live?"
"Get me something that passes for an operating room and some instruments, and I could fix you up in no time," she said. "But you'll keep for another day or so."
He just grinned at her. He was handsome, she supposed, with dark hair and pretty blue eyes. She guessed he must be close to her own age of thirty-one, and he didn't seem worried at all at the predicament in which they found themselves.
"I suppose this is just another day at the office for you?" she suggested.
"Well, we wouldn't normally head out in the face of a hurricane, but it's going to work out. We'll be fine," he said. "And now that I've seen you … now that I've seen Sean with you, I can't blame him for insisting that we move when we did."
"He said your … agency was already coming. To get George."
"We were. But George had been here for weeks, and if they'd put up with him without killing him in that amount of time, we could have left him a few more days, for the storm to pass. Sean wasn't going to leave you here for another minute."
"Oh."
"It's none of my business, but I'm dying to know who you are."
"He didn't tell you?"
"Just that you were a doctor with the IRC and that this was personal. We didn't exactly have time to chitchat."
"Oh," she said, feeling a blush rising in her cheeks. That's how it had always felt to her. Highly personal.
"I've known the man for years, and I've never seen him even close to losing control. But he almost did over you. And I have to say, I find that and you fascinating, Doctor."
She ignored that and gave into her own
curiosity once more. "Who is he?"
Duncan laughed. "You don't know?"
"Not really." She saw the doubt on his face. "It's … complicated."
"He's a complicated man."
"Secretive," she said.
"Definitely."
"He told me you're … well, that you're with the U.S. government. That the agency's top secret, that his sister used to work with you and Reed, and that he used to be a soldier. A pilot."
"That's right."
"I won't ask you anything about who you work for, but Sean…"
"I really don't know, Grace. He's tight-lipped about everything. I know he's one hell of a chopper pilot, because he pulled a friend of mine out of a tight spot with one not long ago. I heard he used to be a jet jockey. That's how he messed up his knee. And I think at one time he was a Navy Seal and that he did a stint with Naval Intelligence. I've seen people salute him and call him Captain, but not even that all the time. Which makes me think he's no longer a part of the navy. At least not in any capacity that would be acknowledged publicly. If you ask him, he'll tell you he sits behind a desk most every day. At the Pentagon, I've heard. But I have trouble believing the desk bit. At least, not on a regular basis."
"He told me that. About the desk." Grace had trouble imagining him being so still. She saw him as pure energy and power, couldn't imagine him doing anything so tame.
"But he's a great guy to know. Somebody you can count on when you're in trouble. He and his guys have helped us out of jams more than once in the past few years."
"His guys?"
"Soldiers of some kind. He seems to have teams at his disposal, whenever he needs them. But I don't even know exactly who they are or where he gets them."
"How odd," she said.
"We help each other when we need it. Sorry I can't tell you more than that. I really don't know."
He'd told her enough. Sean was every bit as mysterious as she imagined, as closemouthed with this man as he'd been with her. And Duncan said he'd known him for years.
Why would a man keep so many secrets? What drove him on? What kept him a part of her life, year after year, when he'd drawn a line with their involvement that he didn't intend to cross? He could love her, he'd said, as if it just about ripped his heart in two to admit it. But he wasn't going to let himself.
HER SECRET GUARDIAN Page 13
