by Kay Hooper
Rafferty got up and said matter-of-factly, “I’ll call for reservations while you get ready, all right?”
“Fine.” Avoiding his eyes, she went into the bedroom and closed the door. Leaning back against it, Sarah swore very softly.
At least her make-believe husband had some experience in sharing bed and bath with a partner; she felt distinctly uncomfortable and embarrassed about the entire situation. What was the protocol, for heaven’s sake? Did they draw straws or flip a coin to decide who used the shower first? And what about the bed?
What, indeed. She doubted that Hagen would approve of a call to housekeeping for an extra pillow and blanket so that one member of the happily married couple could bunk down on the couch.
Uncertain as to how long it was supposed to take for her to change, Sarah hastily unpacked toilet articles and a dress suitable for evening dining, then went into the bathroom and stepped into the shower.
On top of the practical worries inherent in the situation were other concerns. Under orders from Hagen, she had kept certain information to herself, and she wasn’t happy about doing that. It was alien to her nature to deceive anyone, and secrecy placed an added strain on nerves that were already stretched taut.
Sarah was still a bit bewildered at being in the middle of this; she couldn’t recall exactly how it had all come about. Somehow or other, Hagen had made it seem utterly natural that she should be the “operative” involved.
Her unusual life had made her somewhat introverted, shy, and unsure of herself in many ways. She spent too much time alone. There hadn’t been a lack of masculine offers in her past, but her natural reserve had nipped many overtures in the bud, and her lack of self-confidence had prevented her from opening up with others.
This situation was totally foreign to her from beginning to end. She had no idea how to play the part assigned to her, and was half frightened at the thought of living in such intimacy with a stranger, even if that stranger did attract her. Especially because that stranger attracted her.
There was something about Rafferty Lewis, something … leashed. His features were handsome, set off by those extraordinary gold eyes. Like herself, he apparently tanned instead of freckled, despite being a redhead. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and moved gracefully. He was quite obviously intelligent, and his voice was deep and warm.
But none of that quite explained what Sarah felt, what she sensed, when she looked at him. For all his cool intelligence and relaxed physical movements, what Sarah sensed was power. Not the power of sheer muscle, but something else, something far more understated, and therefore much more dangerous. It was the power of an iron will and a dynamic personality.
Some men, she thought shrewdly, would underrate him because of that, failing to glimpse what lay beneath his almost lazy surface. But she doubted that many women would make that mistake. More intuitive than men, most women would sense something powerful within Rafferty. She made a mental note to ask him if he had tangled with women attorneys in his work and, if so, who had won. She was curious to discover if her assessment of him was close to the mark. She thought it was. And, believing that, she had to wonder about the next few weeks even more. How would Rafferty react to the deceptions and the dangers?
Troubled and nervous, Sarah quickly dried off after her shower and dressed in the coral silk dress she had chosen. She piled her long hair loosely atop her head and secured it with a few pins, then hastily applied makeup with an unsteady hand. Perfume was an afterthought, as were the diamond studs in her ears. Then she studied herself in the long mirror on the bedroom closet door. What she saw gave her no courage at all.
She looked scared to death, she decided. She drew several deep breaths, trying to vanquish the fright in her green eyes, trying to square her shoulders and straighten her spine.
Then she turned and headed for the other room.
What was she doing here?
TWO
WHAT WAS HE doing here?
Rafferty fixed himself another drink and went over to the window, no more pleased than before to confront the sparkling white expanse of beach outside. He wasn’t happy. What was he doing here pretending to be married to a woman he’d just met, and about to stroll casually into a hostile country to retrieve stolen information?
Damn Hagen.
He could admit the truth to himself. And the truth was that he was less bothered by the coming foray into Kadeira than he was by his pretended marriage to Sarah. Only a fool, of course, would have discounted the dangers of going into Kadeira, and Rafferty wasn’t a fool. He had found himself in physical danger before and knew that his instincts and reactions were good, reliable. And that was all a man could depend on.
But the minefields laid all around this make-believe marriage promised a more thorough danger to his peace of mind.
How on earth could he pretend an intimacy he wanted to be real? How could he force himself to consider this a necessary arrangement with no personal feelings involved, when it wasn’t?
He could, he thought, make a decent stab at being a husband, and his own feelings would look convincing because they were based on a strong reality. But what would his performance and her own do to Sarah? And what about all the practical little problems?
Half turning, Rafferty measured the couch with his eyes and sighed. Great. He’d end up permanently crippled if he slept there. And what about aboard the Thespian? Luxurious though it could prove to be, he doubted the yacht would boast a couch of any size, and the possibility of two beds in one cabin was doubtful. And they were supposed to be married, dammit. Happily married. Which meant they should share a bed.
He turned back to the window and lifted a hand to drum his fingers absently against the pane. How did Sarah really feel about the situation? She seemed to consider it merely a part of her job, yet he had seen uncertainty—and perhaps fear—in her vivid eyes. And tears. Rafferty felt a stirring inside him then as he remembered her tears, and he absorbed the sensation with something near wonder.
An impossible situation? Dear heaven …
He had, in some vague part of his mind, always assumed that he would one day fall in love. That some positive fate would grab him by the shoulder and point, saying, “That’s the one.” Yet he had watched a close friend lose the control built over a lifetime and flounder in a desperate emotional turmoil when fate had grabbed him, and Rafferty had assured himself that his own way would be easier.
So much for certainty.
Fate had grabbed him and pointed, gleefully, to a woman who had recently and tragically lost a cherished husband. To a woman whose job it was to pretend Rafferty was her beloved husband for a few weeks, so that they could slip into a dangerous place to retrieve dangerous secrets.
Blindly, Rafferty stared out the window. Weeks.
He felt an impulse to turn and walk away from both the situation and the woman, but knew that the action would solve little, even if it were possible. And it wasn’t possible. Not now. He was trapped, not by patriotism, not because he had given his word, not even because he hated terrorism with a vengeance. He was trapped because there was nothing in him that would allow him to walk away from her.
A rational man, whose profession had instilled in him strong emotional control and taught him the benefits of cultivating an easy and unthreatening body language, Rafferty wasn’t prone to letting his emotions dictate his actions. But now, even though reason told him to walk away, emotions refused to grant him that logical solution.
“Did you make reservations?”
Rafferty turned slowly to look at her, wondering if his face looked as stiff as it felt. He thought it probably did. He gazed at the slender, curved body caressed by coral silk, at shimmering hair arranged in a curiously seductive, yet innocent style. He looked at the delicate face, lovely and poignant, into pale green eyes shadowed with nervousness.
He remembered reading somewhere that men made their own hells, and now he agreed with that. Hagen might have shaped this one and cannily tem
pted him to enter, but Rafferty had made it his own. Finishing his drink, he set the glass aside and headed for the bedroom door. “Reservations for seven. I’ll get ready.” He wondered if his voice sounded as hoarse to her as it did to him.
Sarah stood very still in the center of the room, looking at nothing, hearing the door close quietly behind him. They couldn’t go on like this, she thought wildly. She was no actress, and it was clear that Rafferty was disturbed by the pretense surrounding them. They were strangers, and she was very conscious of her reaction to him, very aware of its futility.
Pretense … they were surrounded by it. Pretending they were newlyweds, pretending this trip was an innocent one. How were they supposed to do their job with so many tensions straining between them?
During dinner in an elegant restaurant, it became obvious to her that Rafferty had come to the same conclusions. He began talking quietly, looking at everything but her, clearly trying to ease the tension between them.
“Hagen threw us into this,” he said, “and he obviously felt we could be successful; if nothing else, I’ve learned to respect the man’s judgment. So it’s up to us to work out some way of playing our parts effectively. Agreed?”
She toyed with her wine glass. “Agreed.”
When Rafferty continued it was in a cautious tone. “I’m sure we both realize that it’s … needless under the circumstances to venture too far into each other’s pasts. What we have to concern ourselves with is the present. That’s all that matters.”
Sarah nodded.
“We’re in an awkward situation, forced to pretend, and all we really know about each other is what we’ve been told by Hagen.” Rafferty frowned suddenly.
Seeing only the frown, Sarah spoke hurriedly. “I’m sure we can work out something agreeable to both of us.”
Rafferty stared at her then, and she saw a puzzled, hesitant look in his eyes. “Yes.” He spoke slowly. “Yes, I’m sure we can, Sarah. My name, by the way, is Rafferty.”
A little startled, Sarah realized that she had yet to call him by name. “I—I know. It’s an unusual name.”
He was silent, waiting.
After a moment, she repeated, “Rafferty.”
He nodded, but still seemed to hesitate, watching her. Then he spoke in the same slow tone as before. “We have to maintain the illusion of a happily married couple, which will place certain demands on us. We’ll be expected to be relaxed and at ease with each other at the very least. Be expected to—touch each other. Expected to share a bed.”
Rafferty noted that her eyes skittered away from his and that a faint flush lightly colored her cheeks. But what he had expected to see in her eyes was absent. He began to wonder, with a surge of hope that made him dizzy and threatened to block his throat.
“Yes. I understand that,”
“It’ll be harder on the boat,” he said softly. “Closer quarters, more intimate surroundings.”
“Yes, I—I know.”
“Are you afraid of me, Sarah?”
She started. Her eyes lifted to his and widened. “It isn’t that. I just—I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know how to pretend, what to say or do …”
“No—experience of being married?”
Puzzled by something in his voice, Sarah shook her head. “No, of course not.” To her astonishment, Rafferty suddenly grinned, and it was an expression of heartfelt relief.
“That’s what I thought. Damn Hagen. I’ll strangle him if I ever get my hands on him. Now I know how Josh felt.”
Sarah stared at him, then felt a peculiar uncertainty. “You mean he told you I was married?”
“Widowed,” Rafferty confirmed dryly. “And recently.”
She began to feel less uncertain, definitely used, and ridiculously happy. If Hagen had told Rafferty that she was widowed … “Have—have you ever been—?”
“Married? No. Let me guess. He told you I had been? A tragic story, and you weren’t supposed to mention it to me?”
“Yes. Exactly.” Sarah let out pent-up breath in a long sigh. “Take a number. I’m going to strangle him first.”
Laughing, Rafferty shook his head. “I should have guessed sooner. I have it on the best authority that Hagen is as devious as a barrel of snakes.”
“But why would he do such a thing? I don’t understand his motives.”
“I think I do.” Rafferty explained how he had come to meet the government agent, and how Hagen had nearly gotten himself throttled by a furious Josh Long because he had neglected to share certain information. “Maybe it was just his mania for secrecy, but whatever the reason he kept us all in the dark about too many facts, and in so doing, put the woman Josh loved in danger—unsuspecting danger. When Hagen finally told us all the truth, Josh went berserk. It was understandable, but Hagen hadn’t thought of that.
“It was the personal factor that threw him,” he finished. “He’d forgotten—or maybe just didn’t think—that people deeply involved with one another don’t always react predictably. I’ll bet he decided to prevent that possibility this time by making each of us believe there was no chance of personal involvement. He intended us to be totally professional about this assignment, and told both of us things he believed would achieve that end.”
It made sense in a roundabout way, Sarah decided. Finding Rafferty’s gaze fixed intently on her, she concentrated on her wine glass. “I suppose,” she said, “he meant it for the best. I mean … we have to get that information. And there isn’t much time. I’ve heard that—that getting involved with someone undercover is like a shipboard romance. It only lasts until you return to your home port.”
“Unless you want it to last longer.”
She stirred in her chair, restless and uneasy. “I suppose. But undercover operations, like trips on board ships, tend to intensify time spent together. It isn’t natural time. The circumstances tend to make people feel things they wouldn’t otherwise have felt. That’s dangerous. And—and painful when the trip comes to an end.”
“Josh and Raven are on their honeymoon,” he told her.
“There’s always an exception to the rule. But rarely more than one.”
“Warning me?” he asked gently.
Sarah didn’t want to meet his gaze, but something compelled her to. She wondered, vaguely, how it was possible for a man to have such golden eyes. “Maybe I’m warning myself,” she confessed almost inaudibly. “I’m out of my element on this assignment, Rafferty. It’ll be hard enough to cope with that.”
He drew a deep breath. “I understand. At least something in me understands. But I don’t think I can be professionally detached about this, Sarah.” He hesitated, then said, “I want you.”
Swallowing hard, she felt heat uncurl within her, spreading outward from some previously undiscovered core deep inside and sending warm ripples all the way through her. She could suddenly feel her heart beating in her throat, each throb an echo of his blunt statement.
“Sarah?”
She glanced around at the dim restaurant, bewildered by her own feelings, by the temptation to follow impulse for the first time in her life. “What—what am I supposed to say to that?” she asked, and the confusion in her voice was real.
His soft laugh was a little unsteady. “Say that I’m not the only one feeling more than a professional interest in my partner.”
She met his gaze, her own disturbed. She wondered if she was prepared for this, and knew she wasn’t. There was no distinction in her mind between heart and body; they were two halves of one in her experience. What her body felt was an echo of her heart’s yearning and … dear heaven, that was hazardous.
And shocking in its unexpectedness.
Her voice, soft and stark, emerged without her conscious control. “I had a friend who was a field agent. And she was good. Very, very good. She had years of experience, lightning reflexes, and wonderful instincts. For a special assignment, she was paired with someone from outside the agency.”
Sh
e hesitated, then went on. “Our agency … well, what we do isn’t written down anywhere. Reports are verbal, not taped or put on paper. Certain necessary messages are sent to base in code, then decoded. As soon as they reach the proper level, they’re destroyed. If—if I hadn’t been decoding that day, I would never have known exactly what had happened.”
Rafferty thought he knew. “What happened?”
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered. “It wasn’t her partner’s fault. It wasn’t her fault. Except that … she had gotten emotionally involved with him. Walked into a trap because her mind wasn’t on her work. She was able to send a last message, taking the blame. She was the pro; she should have known. But she hadn’t been careful. And neither of them came home.”
Reaching across the table, Rafferty covered her restless hand with his own. Gently, he said, “Answer something honestly for me, Sarah.” He waited for her hesitant nod, then said, “I’m not the only one feeling more than a professional interest in my partner, am I?”
Sarah looked down at their hands, seeing her fingers twine with his without her conscious volition. She wanted desperately to lie to him, but she just couldn’t somehow. Almost whispering, she said, “No.”
His fingers tightened, but his voice remained quiet and gentle. “Then that’s something we have to deal with. The human element, Sarah. We didn’t ask for it. Given a choice, I doubt that either of us would pick now, this situation, to become involved with each other. But it’s happening.”
“Rafferty—”
“It’s happening, Sarah. And in our particular situation, we can’t ignore it. Given our cover, fighting this would be the worst possible thing we could do. We’re supposed to be a happily married couple.”
She saw his point, but remained unconvinced. He didn’t know, didn’t know it all. What they had to do. “And if things get bad? Either between us or—or with the assignment? Don’t you see that one or both of us could get killed if at all times we aren’t keeping our minds on what we’re supposed to be doing?”
