"Down!" he barked.
"Sean's gone! He disappeared!"
"He's over there," Reed said, "trying to buy us some time and to slow them down."
Reed was shooting, too. It seemed everyone was shooting. She got to her hands and knees, then her knees alone, and peered over the side of the rocking boat. She could see him, barely, between two boats.
Why didn't he come? she wondered. All they had to do now was leave.
But obviously, Milero's men weren't going to let them go easily. She heard the rat-a-tat of weapons spraying bullets everywhere.
"Grace," Reed yelled. "Down on the deck!"
She couldn't. There was nothing reckless about it. She simply had to know where Sean was.
She stared through the blinding storm. There he was.
She was watching.
One minute he was there.
The next minute something exploded.
It seemed to move right through her. The fire, the heat, the rush of wind. She remembered it so well. The world turned to orange fire and billowing black smoke for a moment. Grace recoiled in shock, in horror.
One minute he'd been there. The next, he was simply gone.
She screamed. Not like the first time, when she was eleven. She didn't think she'd made a sound then. It had happened too fast, and she'd been right in the middle of it. Just inside the building, actually. She'd scarcely been aware of the blast before she'd been knocked down by it, mercifully knocked out.
The next thing she remembered was being carried out of there. More smoke. Her chest hurting. Her head. All the noise. The crying. The chaos.
This time … this time she just screamed.
He was gone, and all she could do was scream his name.
* * *
She must have fainted.
The next thing she knew, she was on the boat, which was racing along, rocking sickeningly from side to side.
She was lying down, out of the wind and the rain. There were no more gunshots, but her throat felt raw, and she knew why.
Grace closed her eyes, a fresh rush of tears coming on. Sean. Oh, God. Sean.
And when she opened her eyes, he was there.
She whimpered. He looked so real, standing there dripping wet, a smudge of soot on his jaw, a reddish spot on his forehead, a bit of blood on the arm he had extended to the right, bracing himself against the cabin wall.
It was such an odd kind of vision, she thought. Soot, blood, abraded skin, him fighting to keep his balance.
Tears poured down her cheeks, and she curled her lip over her bottom teeth and bit down hard. He was not real.
Still, he kept coming toward her, slowly and carefully. His gaze locked on hers, a tightly controlled expression on his face. He looked as if he was scared to get too close. Just as she was scared to have him here.
Because when she touched him, she'd know.
He carefully eased himself down on the bench seat she was lying upon. She could swear she felt his hip pressed against her side, and he looked so sad.
He never looked sad in her dreams. She'd imagined him all sorts of ways, tall and strong. Invincible. Magical. All-powerful. He'd suffered from none of those nasty human frailties of regular men. Cut them and they'll bleed. Blow them up and they'll die. Not him. Not her mysterious savior.
"I know you're not real," she whispered, her throat painfully strained.
And then he put his hand against the side of her face. His big, warm, slightly roughened palm.
"We've had this conversation before, Grace. Nothing magical about me at all. I'm just a man."
"I saw you die," she sobbed. "I saw you standing there, and then the explosion, and then you were gone."
He shook his head back and forth, and she thought she saw the faint sheen of tears in his eyes. She put both her hands on his face. The rock-hard line of his jaw, the shadowy stubble on his cheeks, his nose, his mouth.
"Grace. I'm so sorry. I didn't even think of it until I threw the grenade."
"What?"
"You and explosions. I didn't even think. I just … reacted. I needed to slow down Milero's men and make sure they couldn't follow us. I blew up the boats. I threw a couple of grenades and jumped into the water."
Grace listened to him. She watched his lips move to form he words, but she still had trouble comprehending the meaning.
He'd done it? He'd set off the explosion?
She ran her fingers through his hair, feeling the soft texture of it, the wetness. It curled a bit when it was wet, and it was a deep, rich black. Thick with the slightest bit of gray at his temples. A person had to get very, very close to him, to even see it. This was the clearest look she'd ever had at him, and she saw tiny lines at the corners of his eyes and his mouth. A scar or two on his forehead and at the corner of his cheek. She was sure his nose had been broken at one point or another. His eyes were a deep, warm, chocolaty brown, and his mouth… She pressed her mouth to his, and then pulled away just as quickly, staring at him and rendered mute by the shock.
"I'm real, Grace. I've always been real."
"I thought you were dead," she cried, sobs coming now. "I was so sure you were dead. Just like … just like everyone else."
He hauled her into his arms, his glorious strong, sure arms, and crushed her to him. "I know, baby. I know. I'm so sorry."
* * *
Sean held her for a long, long time, soothing her as best he could, knowing it simply wasn't enough. With her, it seemed nothing he did was ever enough.
He'd told her the truth. He simply hadn't thought about what being that close to another explosion might do to her. He'd certainly never imagined she might be staring over the railing of the boat, with bullets flying, seeing what looked like him disappearing into a ball of flames and black smoke.
He'd heard her scream his name over and over again, once he surfaced and the noise from the blast quieted down, and he'd imagined the worst. He'd forgotten everything else, just gone tearing through the water to get to her. But long before he reached her side, she'd fallen silent, and then he'd imagined something even worse.
She slid into a dead faint before he got to her, and he was surprised she wasn't hysterical when she finally came to Even though she wasn't, she'd been so confused, so dazed
She'd never had any counseling at all, as far as he knew, after the explosion that killed her family and nearly killed her as well. He was afraid all the grief, fear and pain she'd buried inside of her for twenty years might come tumbling out after that little stunt he'd pulled to get them off the island.
He'd known it was possible there might be some kind of explosion during their getaway, and he'd had grenades. They were standard equipment for him. And he hadn't said a word to her, had worried about frightening her so badly with just the prospect of explosions that she wouldn't be able to function at all while they tried to get away. He knew her scan went deep.
When the time came, he'd just tossed a few grenades, thinking to put a lot of smoke and fire between them and Milero's men. And to keep anyone from following them by boat. No big deal. It wasn't until he hit the water and the explosion sent him rolling that he'd thought of her. What would she be thinking in that moment? What kind of demons would he bring back to her?
Sean grimaced. How much was he going to hurt this woman before he was through? It seemed there was no end to the pain he might inflict upon her.
He'd lowered her back down onto the cushions and was rubbing her cold hands between his when Duncan came into the cabin.
"How is she?"
"Exhausted. Scared to death."
"She thought you'd bought it, buddy."
He nodded, hating himself. Absolutely hating himself.
"Hey. Come on," Duncan said. "It's over. We got off the damned island, and we're all alive. She'll have a few nightmares, but—"
"It's more than that. Her entire family got blown to bits right in front of her when she was eleven," he said grimly. "Remember James Evans Porter? Nobel Peace Prize?
Awarded posthumously? The bomb in Rome? Grace is his daughter."
"Damn. I remember the picture of a solider carrying her out of the building. She was so little, so thin. I looked at her and thought, that girl is dead."
Sean nodded. He remembered that day all too clearly. He'd looked down at her as he carried her in his arms and thought the exact same thing.
* * *
Grace woke up again, and he was still there. Still by her side. Still gloriously alive. She didn't feel like she was. She was numb, wrapped in a nothingness that was both very attractive and much worse, all at the same time.
So many times, she wanted to be numb, to simply not hurt anymore. Now that she was, she found it left her feeling empty and disconcertingly disconnected. He sat beside her, touched her, held her, even kissed her softly, gently, and she felt nothing. Except the need to draw away from him and deeper inside herself.
She knew it hurt him. No matter how quickly he covered the reaction, she could see it in him, in the way he held himself so carefully, the way he was so careful with her, tiptoeing all around her, as they all were. But she'd reached her limit. Gone beyond it, even. She couldn't do anything except lie there and breathe, and sometimes even that seemed like too much effort to make.
So she let him fuss over her, let all of them, and sometimes she tried to smile. But that was it.
They were taken aboard a container ship of some kind. Once they reached land, they boarded a plane. She was unaware of much of the journey until she was sitting beside Sean in the first-class cabin of a plane. He held her hand in his, and when the lights were dimmed in the cabin, he wrapped a blanket around her. Then he pushed the armrest between them out of the way and tucked her against his side.
She finally thought to ask, "Where are we going?"
"D.C.," he said.
Grace felt the breath he took, practically felt the words coming from deep inside of him. They'd done this before, she remembered. She lay with her head against his chest, feeling the words form there, then hearing them come out. Back when she wasn't even sure if he was real.
In many ways, she still wasn't sure. Odd, how little she knew about him, and how important he'd become to her. Or how important he might have been. Before he'd exploded before her eyes. Before she'd been shown so viciously what it would be like to lose him and how easily it could happen again.
"Is that where you live?" she asked, so she wouldn't have to think about the other part, so maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. "In D.C.?"
"Yes."
She coughed a bit, her throat still scratchy. Because she'd screamed too much, thinking he was dead.
"Does your throat still hurt?"
"Yes," she said. Now that she let herself think about it, her throat did hurt. Somewhere deep inside her was a world of hurt hidden away, waiting for the walls to come tumbling down and for it to come spilling out.
He got her some juice for her throat, drew her back down to his chest and urged her to sleep while she could, and she tried to do that. He brushed his hand lightly up and down her back, through her hair, sometimes touched his lips so softly against the side of her face, and she let him do that, too.
But for the moment, she didn't feel anything at all. She was safe from everything and everyone in this cocoon of hers, and she was never, ever going to love anyone. Especially not him.
* * *
A tall, dark, imposing-looking man leaning a bit on a cane met them at the gate. He reminded her of Sean and turned out to be his brother-in-law, Dan Reese. She was absently trying to figure out what he might have done to himself to have that kind of a limp while Dan got them through Customs, despite the fact that they had no passports and no ID. It wasn't until then, as they made their way through Customs, that she finally knew Sean's full name.
Sean Patrick Douglass.
She'd come so close to loving him and hadn't even known his full name.
Grace found the airport crowded and noisy, overwhelming, even. They were hustling her out when she could have sworn she heard her name…
She turned and stared in the direction of the voice, saw an anchorwoman on the TV mounted on the wall.
"Manuel Milero," the anchorwoman said, "one of San Reino's most notorious military dictators, claims to be holding the daughter of slain civil rights activist and Nobel Prize-winner James Evans Porter, and is demanding three million dollars for her release.
"Porter's daughter, who hasn't been seen in public in years, would now be thirty-one years old. The sole survivor of the blast that killed her father, mother and brother, at an international peace conference in Rome twenty years ago, she was the subject of this now famous Pulitzer prize-winning photograph shot only moments after the blast."
And then there she was on the screen, eleven years old and lying limply in the arms of a soldier who was carrying her out of the smoldering wreckage.
Grace stumbled. Sean caught her. His gaze went from the image on the screen, to her face, and his expression seemed to reach right down inside her, shoving aside all the barriers she'd so carefully erected.
He looked every bit as tormented as she did. She fought against seeing the compassion in his eyes, the tight hold he seemed to have on his own emotions. He hated this, maybe as much as she did, and whatever feelings he had for her were very strong indeed. Even if it would never work out – even if she didn't want it to anymore – obviously he felt so much for her.
For a moment, Grace felt it all herself. Every bit of fear and dread and hope and need, and then she put up the wall once again. That protective shell she'd woven together after the blast on Milero's island.
Sean swore softly, and Grace sensed his tension – he was holding her arm so tightly it hurt.
"Sean?"
"Yes."
"My arm. You're hurting me."
He looked down at his hand on her arm and swore yet again as he unwrapped his fingers. Looking as dazed as she felt, he said, "I'm sorry."
"It's all right," she said, knowing he must not have even been aware of it. He would never deliberately hurt her.
"God, Grace." He went to touch her again, his hand hovering near the spot on her arm, then falling to his side.
"It's nothing."
But she reached for him, taking his hand and holding it between both of hers. Needing to reassure him as he'd done for her so many times, wishing she could ease his pain. What in the world was wrong with him? He was hurting, too. She hated that, hated the look on his face.
Maybe he pitied her, she thought. Maybe he looked at that girl on the screen and felt sorry for her. Maybe it hurt him just to look at her, and he'd been so kind out of sheer pity.
Grace didn't want anyone's pity. She didn't want anyone looking at her that way. That I-know-what-you've-been-through-and-I'm-so-sorry look. She'd seen it enough over the years, from friends of her parents who'd tracked her down at boarding school or who she ran into in her relief work, and she'd come to hate it.
She did not want this man's pity.
She dropped his hand and took a step back, the wall firmly in place. He stayed there, grim-faced and frozen to the spot. She didn't think she'd ever seen him hesitate in the least, never seen him look unsure of himself. But he did now.
It made her mildly curious. She stamped out that feeling as well. She'd stamp out them all. She'd stop wanting just to look at him, now that she could finally see him clearly and in perfectly pristine light. She'd stop needing his touch and could forget how reassuring it was, merely to be in his presence.
She could forget it all, and maybe, just maybe, she would survive.
"Let's go," he said. He didn't take her arm, didn't touch her in any way, though he stayed close to her side in the crowd, leading her out of the mass of bodies and into the bright October sunshine.
His brother-in-law stood beside a big four-wheeler at the curb. Sean opened the back door for her, and she climbed in. He sat beside her. Dan drove.
"Where are we going?"
"It's going to ta
ke a few days to get you a new passport and ID," Sean said. "Before you can travel again, if that's what you want."
She nodded, wanting to go home. To put this all behind her.
"You saw the TV at the airport. You're all over the news, I'm afraid. Milero couldn't resist bragging. Or the publicity, I suppose. It would probably be good to lay low for a while, Grace. If the media people find you…"
She shuddered at the thought, had no desire to be news.
"I told you about my sister, Jamie. She and Dan live in Maryland. On the bay. Practically in the middle of nowhere. Easy to stay out of sight there."
"We have plenty of room," Dan said. "We'd be happy to have you."
"Just for a few days," Sean said. "Let everything die down."
She supposed it didn't matter where she was, who was with her, who wasn't… She could let him go right now. She'd have to very soon, anyway.
He took her hand, held it very gently in his, making it even harder.
"It's going to be all right," he said.
She didn't believe him anymore, but then again, she didn't really care, either. Nothing mattered. There was nothing that had happened that she could change. Her life was her own, her past simply her past. She'd accepted that long ago, had given up on railing against the universe for the cards it had dealt her. She'd deal with this, too. With everything. With him and explosions and all those nasty memories. She'd bury it all deep inside, as well, and go on. Like she had before she'd ever known his name or seen his face.
* * *
Chapter 12
« ^ »
Sean held her hand until he was sure she was asleep. Glancing to the front of the vehicle, he caught his brother-in-law's gaze in the rearview mirror. He'd barged into Dan's office a week ago like a madman and literally demanded to be in on the mission to free George Roberts from Milero, so he could get Grace at the same time.
He'd started by simply demanding to go. He'd refused to wait another day, even in the face of a hurricane, trading on friendship and family ties. His brother-in-law happened to run Division One, the highly secretive counterterrorist organization for which his sister once worked. Sean had called in every favor he'd done for the organization over the years. When that hadn't worked, when it was down to just him and Dan, he'd simply said it was personal and asked what Dan would have done if Jamie was the one in trouble. Which had worked, because it hadn't been that long ago that his sister had been in a too-similar situation, and Dan Reese was the one who'd gone after her.
HER SECRET GUARDIAN Page 15
