Warrior's Second Chance

by Nancy Gideon

  For a moment, he was afraid to touch her, wary of stirring her from the languorous state of fulfillment to pursue the increasing necessity of his own release. She was so beautiful, so suddenly fragile with the sheen of satisfaction on her skin, her breaths faint and fast, her features dreamily soft. Then her eyes opened and she looked up at him with the offer of heaven and hell reflecting deep in those emotion-drenched depths. He feared to move lest he break that spell of contentment he saw glowing in her face.

  Then she reached up to touch his cheek.

  “Oh, McGee, I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you.”

  Could he deny he felt the same?

  She guided him back down to the delicious part of her lips, where her tongue lolled about his with a languid sensuality, sucking, swirling his senses into a frenzied state of near madness as she pulled his shirt free from the waistband of his jeans. Her palms pushed the fabric up under his armpits so she could explore the rippled firmness of his abs. Better than she remembered.

  While sanity still had a hold on him, he murmured with regret, “I don’t have any protection with me, Barb.” He hadn’t thought…hadn’t dared hope… He remembered passing a gas station a block up. He could make a quick dash—

  She smoothed his slight frown with the stroke of her forefinger. “Don’t worry. I’m out of the reproduction business.”

  “Oh.”

  Had it been that long? A sudden, bittersweet remorse came with burying one cherished dream. Having children with Barbara.

  Because of his hesitation, she asked, “Are there any other issues we need to concern ourselves with?”

  He shook his head, then slowly lowered back onto her tender lips.

  She’d been with two men in her life. She’d shared her adulthood and a bed with Robert D’Angelo for thirty years and she’d accepted that both those things would never hold the magical excitement she’d discovered with Taggert McGee. Perhaps because he’d been her first and she was remembering what they’d had through the fanciful impressions of youth. Or so she’d thought until she’d come alive at his reacquainting touch. Tag McGee was, and remained, her one great passion, and now that she’d experienced it again, selfishly, greedily, she didn’t want to let go. Not now. Other worries, other fears could wait while she enjoyed this one respite. For this moment, it was about her wants, her needs, her desires.

  As a young man, he’d been all sinew and grace. She’d marveled at the sight, at the feel of his hard body. She was no less amazed by what she rediscovered. What he’d gained in body mass had converted quite enticingly into muscle, swells and hollows that she traced in eager exploration as she peeled off his T-shirt. As he leaned back to pull free of the sleeves, she noticed the wink of precious metal against the smooth plane of his chest. Her own seized up with emotion when she recognized the medallion.

  He’d kept it. He still wore it.

  An aphrodisiac to her thirsting soul.

  His clothing tossed carelessly to the floor, he returned to her. The heat and friction of flesh on flesh. Indescribable. Everywhere he touched her, she throbbed and burned. Unbearable. He didn’t speak. His touch did the talking. Telling her she was desirable, how much he wanted her, needed this connection as much as she did. Everything she had to hear without saying a word. His hands, his mouth on her breasts, his weight, his hardness upon her body. So familiar and yet so exhilaratingly new. He was, yet he wasn’t, the lover she held so close in her memory. The taste, the scent, the feel, all the same. The emotions were different, matured by time, ripened by neglect, ready to explode with the slightest attention.

  He seated himself deep inside her and she went off like a Fourth of July extravaganza. Big, shattering, sky-filling bursts followed by the pops and sparks of low-to-the-ground dazzlers. Her body oohed and aahed in spirit-quaking pleasure. Still, his movements provoked her senses to even greater heights, something about rockets’ glare and bombs in midair and just as she was sure she could reach that star-spangled high note, his climax carried her with him for a dramatic crescendo.

  And then there was silence. Just the sounds of their breathing and the thunder of heartbeats. So beautiful, she wept.

  He held her then, gathered close against him, her head on his shoulder, her sated body draped along the length of his with all the animation of the abandoned towel from her hair. Gloriously replete. Thoroughly satisfied. And completely content as she shut her eyes to fall unwittingly to sleep.

  Though his physical self was reading Empty on the energy meter, Tag’s mind continued to work, evading rest and the healing happiness Barbara enjoyed.

  He still loved her. That was no great surprise. That hadn’t changed. Neither had the unpleasant fact that he hadn’t been then, and wasn’t now, good enough to claim her devotion. This blissful moment, this stolen idyll in a lousy hotel room on the run from the law was all he could have of her.

  What he could give her in return held the far greater value. Her safety. He had to make that his priority. It no longer mattered that she’d chosen Robert’s security over his affection. That bitter truth had finally burned itself out. They weren’t those same kids any more. What mattered was keeping her alive, just as his goal in Vietnam had been protecting his friend so Rob could return to her and see to her happiness in a way he couldn’t. His own wants weren’t in the equation.

  He held her, savoring the feel of her, the softness, the heat, the joy of her total trust and surrender, knowing he had no right to any of it. Her trust was un-warranted. He had no proof that he wasn’t everything Frye said. And perhaps more.

  When he closed his eyes, he saw bodies of those he’d killed. Not in warfare, not in the jungle. But in hotel rooms like this one, in office suites, in diplomatic cars. Victims he couldn’t remember being ordered to take out. Victims who cried out, as Patrick Kelly’s wife had done, in blameless terror. He’d lied to Claudia Calvin when he said he had no recall at all after her attempt to unlock his mind. She’d managed to rip a small corner in his psyche and the horror it held just kept trickling out.

  What the hell had Frye turned him into?

  And now, who was trying to hide what the doctor had done?

  The ache in his temples began, a dull, prodding throb. Tension knotted in his belly, building to a pain that rivaled the pleasure Barbara had just given him. Symptoms of a guilt even Claudia Calvin’s hypnotic voice couldn’t release. Because it would be too much for his soul to bear. He had to know how much more there was behind the void Frye placed in his head and the only one who could tell him now was Chet Allen.

  Dawn slipped in quietly and with equal softness, he woke Barbara with a kiss. She murmured sleepily as her eyes opened. Recognition came with a happiness so pure and simple it crushed his heart like an aluminum can.

  “I’ve called a cab to take you back to your parents. Where I’m going, you can’t follow.”

  She was awake then, fully and full of objection. “You can’t just run away. What about my daughter? You promised to keep her safe.”

  Was that it? Was that what was behind her sweet compliance? It wasn’t love or even the memory of it that brought Barbara into his arms. It was, as it always had been, her blind devotion to her family above all else. The family that took everything she had to give, leaving nothing left for him.

  Fine.

  He was off the bed, already dressed in his rumpled clothes.

  “I’ll keep my promise, Barb. Don’t worry. Before I clear my name, I’ll play Chet’s game and make sure your daughter is safe.”

  Our daughter, she was about to protest. But the cold set of his features, of his tone, caught her off guard, leaving her mentally scrambling from the luxurious contentment she’d found in his arms. What was going on? Why was he so angry? So anxious to get away?

  Before she could grab her own clothes from her opened bag to confront him with what remaining dignity she could salvage, he was gone.

  She heard the roar of the motor outside their room and knew there was no use in running
after him to plead her case. Or confess her sins. Those would have to wait. For what she’d discovered upon waking was a truth much more galvanizing. Knowledge that the pain of perhaps losing him again was almost as agonizing as it had been half a lifetime ago.

  She glanced at her left hand where a simple circle of gold remained to remind her of the empty life she’d been bound to. Slowly, meaningfully, she slipped it free of her finger and set it on the nightstand.

  Taggert McGee wasn’t walking out on her a second time, not without knowing another truth she’d held on to too long.

  A truth that might drive a wedge between them forever.

  Chapter 10

  He followed her after she and her daughter left the others in their school parking lot and headed north in their SUV. He tracked her down using the numbers in the memory of Barbara’s cell phone. She was cautious, so he had to be extra careful to maintain his distance. Someone had trained her well.

  The compound she entered provided another degree of difficulty. The security system was state-of-the-art and he was a bit out of practice. Still, he had breached the perimeter without setting off any of the various alarms and had established himself on a high point of ground to observe without contact.

  He would have known her by the blond hair. Barbara’s daughter. An unidentifiable ache crowded his throat as he watched her move around the vehicle to the passenger door. A preteen girl hopped out. The granddaughter. He couldn’t tell much. He didn’t have the proper surveillance equipment. But then he’d planned to get up close and personal, not use intel from afar.

  Before the two of them had reached the porch of the truly impressive main house, a man met them, scooping them up with an unabashed affection. The son-in-law. Ex-military. No mistaking the way he moved as he swept the surroundings before leading them to up to the house. They went inside.

  He had to get closer to find the best point of entry. It was easy to follow their movements through the huge walls of glass. They weren’t expecting to be observed. He waited in the deepest part of the night until they had put the little girl to bed. No need to involve her.

  He moved on the house, quick, silent, purposeful. He was across a side porch and inside in a heartbeat. He could hear their voices a room away.

  “When were you planning to tell me this need-to-know bit of information?” Jack Chaney’s tone was brusque but not angry.

  “I just found out myself. When they were doing the tests at the hospital.” Tessa D’Angelo Chaney sounded defensive, then more emotional. “You’re not happy, I take it.”

  “Happy? I come home from weeks in the field, filthy, tired and looking for nothing beyond a few days of mind-blowing sex and you drop the bomb that I’m going to be a daddy. Happy? Ecstatic is my new middle name.”

  There was a squeal of delight from her, followed by a long moment of silent communication. He took advantage of it to move stealthily into the hall. A sudden fearful cry from the direction of the girl’s bedroom had him fading back into the shadows.

  “I’ll go,” Chaney murmured.

  “Don’t be gone long. We have lots to discuss.”

  “On a more horizontal plane, I’m hoping.”

  “Chaney, you dog.”

  “No longer the lone wolf. I’m a pack animal now. And I’ll be howling at the moon tonight.”

  Her chuckle was low and husky with expectation.

  He heard Chaney move away. Then before he had a chance to take evasive action, Tessa came down the hall. He stood frozen, hoping she’d miss him in the darkness as she walked toward the kitchen. She was almost past him when she whirled, taking him completely by surprise with the pistol in her hand. He had no choice but to catch her wrist, spinning her back to front against him and clamping the other hand over her mouth to seal in any cry of warning. He wasn’t fooled by her sudden capitulation, so he wasted no time with introductions. She was busy contemplating her next offensive move and the last thing he wanted was to hurt her.

  “I’m not going to harm you or your family. I’m here to speak to your husband.”

  A low deadly drawl came from right behind him.

  “Then you’d better talk fast and consider them your last words.”

  “I’m here on Barbara’s behalf.”

  Apparently those were the magic words because Tessa relaxed in his grasp and Chaney removed the unmistakable bore of a semiautomatic pistol from the base of his skull. The hall lights snapped on, blinding them all for an instant. Chaney stepped around into view to regard him narrowly.

  “You must be McGee. I recognize you from photos.” His hard dark glare fixed upon the placement of Tag’s hands. “But if you don’t let my wife go right now, that’s all the pleasantries you’re going to get from me.”

  Tag released her. She bolted away and Jack had her immediately stashed behind his back.

  “To what do we owe this unexpected B and E?” Jack demanded in only a slightly more friendly tone.

  “Sorry I couldn’t wait for the formal invite. Chet Allen is out. He’s behind the mysterious illness the children contracted in Chicago that by now, I’m sure, has been traced to some little-known drug out of Southeast Asia. He’s been using threats against Tessa to intimidate Barbara. To get him to stop, I need to use some of your government connections.”

  “He’s not going to scare me out of testifying.” To prove her point, Tessa pushed free of her husband’s sheltering arm to stand her ground. As she confronted him boldly, Tag was aware of one heart-stopping fact.

  Barbara D’Angelo wasn’t the only one her daughter resembled.

  She looked like her father, too.

  The ice-blue eyes glaring at him were his own.

  Why hadn’t Barbara told him?

  Tessa frowned, perplexed by the intensity of his stare. Jack cut in to curtail her curiosity.

  “What kind of help do you need? I’d kind of hoped we’d heard the last of Allen once we got him behind bars.”

  Tag tore his gaze away from Tessa’s to concentrate on Jack’s question. “Not yet. Maybe never if I can’t figure out what he’s up to.”

  “Where’s Barbara?”

  “With her parents in Florida. I called in a favor from a friend who owns a private plane. He flew me up on the QT. Barbara said you were a capable guy with a lot of connections.”

  Jack shrugged. “I know people who know people. I can make some calls if you tell me what you need to know.”

  “For starters, who sprang Chet from jail. Then I need behind-the-scenes intel on a Dr. Phillip Frye and retired Colonel Patrick Kelly. And whatever you can find out about the murder of a South Vietnamese colonel by the name of Tam Quan. And any details on the assassinations of Viet friendlies. I have a list.” He provided the scribbled names that Claudia Calvin had taken down during his rambling recollections. Names that even now he couldn’t associate with any faces or misdeeds. But he knew what they were. They were the names of the innocent people he’d killed.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A link.”

  “To what? Or whom?”

  “To me. And to whoever stood to profit from their deaths.”

  “I’ll put on coffee,” Tessa offered, more for practical purposes than to be a good hostess.

  McGee watched her go, his thoughts in a tangle. His daughter. His and Barbara’s. How had that happened? Well, he knew how it happened and probably when but not why she’d chosen to say nothing about it. She had to have known that he would have come running back to embrace the responsibility. She had to have known—

  She had to have known, which was why she’d said nothing. Because it was never her intention for him to be the father of her child. That honor had gone to Robert D’Angelo, who had the potential to soar on the success meter.

  Damn her.

  Chaney sat him down in one of the posh interior rooms to wait while he made his overseas calls. Purposefully, Tag blanked his mind, forbidding himself to think or feel. His head pounded. Nausea built in his midd
le until his senses were swimming with it. He started to lower his head between his knees when he heard a low sniffling sound. He straightened, the movement waking huge swells of hot sickness. Through blurred vision, he saw a girl standing in the doorway. She clutched her pillow in front of her, her eyes still unfocused and dazed by the bad dream that had woken her and sent her looking for comfort from family. Vaguely, he registered the fact that this dark-hued South American child was somehow Tessa’s daughter but his main focus was already rapidly slipping away, keyed by the plaintive sound of her weeping.

  He heard sobbing, pleading, the words not in English but in Vietnamese.

  The pain in his head was blinding. He squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them, he saw great pools of blood surrounding the figure of a man. Over that prone and motionless body were two wailing children, their faces tear-streaked and twisted horribly by fear and grief as they begged for the return of their father. And for their lives. From him. The weight of his pistol hung heavy in his hand.

  “Finish them.” Chet Allen’s command was cold and concise. “I’ll see to the woman.”

  Helpless rage. Resistance. Spears of agony lancing through his head. He saw the pistol coming up in his hand as if held by another. Someone not controlled by his thoughts, his wants, his horror. The children sobbed all the louder, the noise echoing in his brain. Don’t look at them. Don’t hear them. Follow the rules. The rules. Enemies must be neutralized.

  The boy, maybe all of six or seven, looked straight into his eyes, into his soul, as the pistol was leveled at his head. The recoil jerked in his hand. The sound of the shot recoiled in his mind.

  “McGee? Can you hear me? Deep breath. Come on, man. Pull it together. I’m not in the mood to clean up puke on my floor at this time of night.”

  He dropped back into the yielding cushions of the couch as dry heaving spasms clenched through his belly. Dots of bright color swirled across the black veil of memory, intensifying, making him blink against the sear of truth.