Escape from Cabriz

by Linda Lael Miller

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I wish I had the knowledge of herbs some of the villagers have. They can sometimes accomplish remarkable things.”

  “Where did you go to school?” Kristin asked cordially as he listened to her chest through his stethoscope.

  His smile broadened into a grin. “Harvard,” he replied. “If we covered ancient herbal remedies, I must not have been paying attention.”

  Kristin might have chuckled another time; as it was, she couldn’t manage. “Have you seen my friend—Mr. Harmon?”

  The doctor took a tongue depressor from his bag, unwrapped it and gestured for Kristin to open her mouth. “He’s next on my list.”

  “Where is he?” Kristin asked, speaking around the wooden stick.

  “A few doors down, I think.” Dr. Chong tossed the depressor into the wastebasket and took out a little vial of pills. “You are suffering from severe exhaustion, Ms. Meyers. I would like you to take one of these tablets and get some sleep.”

  “I just want to see Zachary for a minute—”

  He handed her one of the pills, along with a glass of water from the carafe on the nightstand. “I will tell him,” he said. “In the meantime, please take this.”

  Kristin threw the pill to the back of her throat and swallowed a gulp of water. “He can be sort of stubborn.”

  The doctor nodded. “It would require a certain intractability of spirit to effect such a daring escape.”

  Kristin yawned and sank back against her pillows. “It’s not as though he did it all by himself, you know,” she pointed out. “He had me to help him.”

  Chong smiled again. “He is a very fortunate man.” With that, he took his bag and left the room.

  Eyelids growing heavier with every passing moment, Kristin gazed fixedly at the door. When Zachary came in, she would tell him—well, she didn’t know what. There had to be some way to persuade him not to give up on their alliance so easily.

  Presently Kristin glanced at the clock on the bedside stand. The doctor had had plenty of time to check Zachary over. So where was that boneheaded ex-spy, anyway?

  She tossed back her covers and started to sit up, only to find that the pill and her own fatigue had left her too weak. She sagged back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

  Zachary drew up a chair beside the bed and sat down. Taking the note from his shirt pocket, he tucked it into Kristin’s journal, which had been lying on the nightstand, and then turned his attention back to her.

  Even with her long eyelashes resting on her cheeks, the shadows under Kristin’s eyes were evident. Her soft brown hair framed her face, and Zachary could catch the scent of it even from a distance.

  He pulled the chair closer, reached out to awaken her, drew back his hand.

  God knew, he should have trusted Kristin; he should have been there for her when she was hurting so badly. Instead, just when she’d needed him most, he’d flown into a rage and accused her of something she would never have done.

  “Kristin.” Her name came out as a raw whisper; she stirred slightly, but didn’t open her eyes.

  Zachary leaned over and kissed her ever so lightly on the forehead. Her father was a bastard, but he’d probably been right, too. Kristin needed glamour and excitement; she wouldn’t be happy in Silver Shores, with a teacher for a husband. She belonged with the jet set.

  He couldn’t resist touching her mouth with his, and she gave a soft whimper that made his heart turn over.

  In the doorway he paused, memorizing her face, her shape, her hair. As if he could ever have forgotten.

  “I’m sorry I’m not your prince,” he said gruffly. And then he went out.

  Kristin awakened feeling physically restored, ate a huge meal, took a shower and dressed in her jeans and T-shirt, which had been laundered for her. “I want to see Mr. Harmon immediately,” she told the maid when the woman came in to pick up her tray.

  The response was a blank stare and a spate of chatter Kristin didn’t understand. All the same, she grasped the fact that the maid didn’t speak English and would send someone who did.

  The ambassador’s wife, Kitty, came in shortly.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Kristin told the pretty, middle-aged woman, who had been a college classmate of her mother. “All I really wanted was the precise location of Zachary’s room.”

  Kitty clasped beautifully manicured hands in front of her blue silk sheath, and her brown eyes showed bewilderment. Once, nervously, she touched her fluffy gray hairdo. “You mean Mr. Harmon, of course. Well, Kristin, he’s—gone.”

  Kristin’s heart came to a screeching stop, then limped back into its regular beat. “Gone?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean dead,” Kitty said with an endearing smile. “He left yesterday. He said he’d been away from his classes too long.”

  A hard knot was forming in Kristin’s throat. She didn’t know Kitty well enough to cry in front of her, so she held on to her dignity with all her strength. “I don’t suppose he left a note or anything?”

  “Mr. Harmon did ask me to have you look in your journal,” she said. “Oh. And you do have a press conference scheduled for this afternoon, if you feel up to it.”

  Kristin practically dove for the nightstand where she’d left her diary, and flipped it open. Sure enough, there was a folded note tucked between the pages.

  “Kris,” Zachary had written in his bold, clear hand, “You were right, princess. It will never work. Thanks for all the things we shared. Love, Z.”

  “Coward,” Kristin whispered. And because there were tears in her eyes, she didn’t turn to face Kitty. She drew a deep breath and spoke bravely. “I’ll take care of the press conference, and then I’d like to leave for the United States as soon after that as possible.”

  “Caroline will make the arrangements,” Kitty promised, and the door closed gently behind her when she went out.

  Kristin dried her face with the backs of her hands. Zachary didn’t want her and, since that was something she couldn’t change, she would have to accept it.

  She used the makeup either Kitty or Caroline had so kindly lent her, and then she took her journal, went out into the courtyard and wrote until her fingers were too numb to hold the pen. After that she marched stoically into the embassy, met with eager representatives of the press from all over the world and told them her story.

  Except for the parts she regarded as personal, Kristin told the complete, unvarnished truth. And she didn’t cry once, the whole time.

  “Your rescuer was Zachary Harmon,” called out one American reporter, an attractive woman smiling thoughtfully. “Weren’t you and he romantically involved at one time?”

  Kristin swallowed, but her gaze snapped with anger. “I hardly see what that has to do with anything,” she said curtly.

  The reporter was undaunted. In fact, her smile widened. “Well, it might make this into quite a different story. Didn’t you and Mr. Harmon live together once?”

  There was a general buzz among the others while Kristin frantically formulated an answer.

  “Zachary—Mr. Harmon and I were involved some time ago,” she said, keeping her tones even. “But that’s all over now. There’s nothing between us.”

  With that, Kristin pushed back her chair and stood. Flashbulbs went off all over the room, blinding her, and she went out gripping Ambassador Binchly’s arm.

  Early the next morning she boarded an airplane. It touched down in Singapore, then Honolulu. Kristin would have a four-hour layover there before flying on to the mainland.

  Since her passport was still in Cabriz, Kristin had special papers from the ambassador to show at customs.

  Her mother was there when she finished, however, and the surprise was a welcome one. Kristin flung herself into Alice Meyers’s arms with abandon.

  Alice embraced her daughter, one gracious hand pressing the back of Kristin’s head. “Dear heaven,” she said with tears in her voice. “We thought we’d lost you.”

  Kristi
n stiffened. “You haven’t,” she said, putting only the slightest emphasis on the word you. She would discuss her father’s part in her initial breakup with Zachary when they reached Virginia.

  Crystal-blue eyes swept over Kristin’s clothes. “Just as I thought. You need to do some shopping before we go home.” Alice linked her arm with Kristin’s, and they started toward the door. There was no point in going to baggage claim, since Kristin had nothing but the clothes she was wearing and her journal. “I have a lovely room at the Hilton. We could swim and sunbathe and shop and talk—”

  “Not all at once, I hope,” Kristin said with a faltering smile. It was the closest thing to a joke she’d be able to manage for a long time, she suspected.

  “It was Zachary who came and got you, wasn’t it?” Alice pressed when they were settled in the back of a cab and heading toward the hotel.

  Kristin nodded, biting her lower lip.

  Alice reached out, took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “I don’t imagine Jascha was happy to see you leave,” she said, probably sensing that the subject of Zachary was painful for Kristin.

  She shook her head and said nothing, hoping her mother would guess that she didn’t want to talk about Jascha, either. Not just yet.

  “Well, you’ll be almost as good as new by the time you’ve had a few days in the sunshine and restocked your wardrobe,” Alice stated, still valiantly searching for a safe topic. “I think we ought to spend a great deal of your father’s money.”

  Kristin nodded, watching the familiar beach and dazzling blue ocean slip past the cab window. “How’s the weather back in Virginia?” she asked, mostly to rescue Alice.

  The older woman shivered. “Chilly. After all, dear, it’s nearly Thanksgiving. It won’t be long until we have snow. Perhaps if your father can get away we’ll all fly down to Bermuda and have our turkey dinner there.”

  “No,” Kristin said. “I mean, I just want to have a few words with Dad, then I’ll be going back to L.A. Or maybe to New York.”

  Wisely, Alice didn’t push. She was no slouch when it came to diplomacy herself, having spent all those years in Cabriz.

  When they reached the hotel, Kristin bought a swimsuit in one of the shops. After putting the garment on in the suite Alice had rented, she went out to the pool and swam rapid laps, moving with such determination that the other tourists got out of her way.

  Only when her arms refused to make another stroke did she grasp the tiled side of the pool and whisk the hair back from her face.

  Alice was sitting comfortably in a lounge chair, sipping a colorful tropical drink. Her stylish dark hair was neatly covered by a white bathing cap. “I’m exhausted just from watching you, dear,” she said, taking a maraschino cherry from her cocktail and popping it into her mouth.

  Kristin was studying her mother, seeing signs of strain around her eyes and mouth. Although no one else was nearby, she lowered her voice. “You were frightened for me, weren’t you, Mother?” she asked gently.

  “Yes,” Alice answered. “Fortunately, we didn’t know what had really gone on until after you reached the embassy in Rhaos. Mr. Binchly called your father right away, of course, and told him the whole story.”

  Not the whole story, Kristin thought sadly, remembering how Zachary had held her, caressed her, made her cry out in the night because the pleasure was too keen to be endured in silence. “I’m sorry you were worried. I should have known better than to think a marriage between Jascha and I could work, especially when the Cabrizian government was toppling.”

  Alice set her drink on a table, approached the pool and lowered herself into the water beside Kristin. “Jascha seemed like such a charming young man when you used to bring him home from school,” she said fretfully. “What happened?”

  Kristin shrugged. “He was putting on a facade for all of us back in the States, I think,” she speculated. “But in Cabriz, he was surrounded by his own culture. And that required that he have more than one wife, among other things.”

  A sigh escaped Alice. “Don’t think your father and I don’t blame ourselves for what’s happened. We lived in Cabriz for years. We knew the culture permitted a man of Jascha’s status to marry more than once. It’s just that he seemed so westernized, and he promised us he loved only you.”

  Gently, Kristin laid a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault. I was chasing fairy tales long after I should have grown up.”

  Alice reached out, smoothed a tendril of wet hair away from Kristin’s cheek. “That hollow look I see in your eyes—it’s there because of Zachary, isn’t it? Kristin, what really happened in Cabriz?”

  Kristin swallowed and averted her eyes for a moment. She wasn’t sure she could keep the truth from her mother, wasn’t sure she even wanted to. “I think I was on the verge of getting Zachary back. But I lost him, Mother. I lost him all over again, and it’s tearing me apart.”

  “This calls for a drink,” Alice replied, and held up one hand to call over a waiter.

  Kristin asked for white wine and stood at the side of the pool sipping it as she told her mother how deeply she’d cared for Zachary.

  “What are you going to do now?” Alice asked when her daughter had finished.

  Kristin sighed, studying the blue Hawaiian sky. “I want to have a few words with Dad—in person—and then I’m going to hole up in an apartment somewhere—pick a city, any city—and write. Zachary aside, I have one hell of a story to tell.”

  She and Alice left the pool behind after that, along with the subject of Kristin’s adventure. They spent the coming days just as they’d planned to—shopping, sunning, relaxing.

  When Kristin flew on to the mainland, she was tanned, rested and ready to do battle, first with her father, then with the world.

  On her first night back, network newscasters announced to the world that the Cabrizian government had fallen. Jascha had escaped with his life and was living in exile in Singapore.

  11

  Kristin’s father rose from behind his desk and came toward her, arms extended for a hug. She drew back against the towering study doors, her manner wary, and his delighted expression faded.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Sit down—please,” she said woodenly.

  When Kenyan had returned, albeit reluctantly, to his leather swivel chair, his daughter took a seat facing his desk.

  “A year and a half ago, when I miscarried, you called Zachary and told him I’d had an abortion instead. I’d like to know why.”

  Kenyan’s gray hair glinted in the light of his desk lamp, and his face was in shadows. “I think you know, Kristin,” he said reasonably. “Harmon was a government agent. The things he’s done, independently and by order of his superiors, would horrify you. And his background couldn’t have been more dissimilar to yours—”

  Kristin’s hands tightened on the arms of her chair and, for virtually the first time in her life, she interrupted her father. “My God, Dad, I loved the man—I was living with him, expecting his baby. How could you interfere like that? What gave you the right?”

  His voice rose slightly as he replied, “You had already left Harmon, remember? I merely wanted your decision to stand. And the fact that you’re my daughter gave me the right, damn it!”

  The reminder that she had been the one to instigate the whole problem in the first place brought pulsing color to Kristin’s cheeks. “I was wrong, Dad,” she said brokenly. “I should have stayed and tried to work things out with Zachary. But that doesn’t change the fact that you had no business messing with my life.”

  Kenyan sighed heavily. “Harmon would never make a good husband or father,” he said. “The man has no conception of what family life means.”

  “And you do, I suppose?” Kristin demanded, leaning forward in her chair. “Are lying and meddling things a father should do?”

  The ambassador-turned-cabinet-member held up one hand in a bid for silence. “I’m willing to concede that what I did was wrong
, Kristin. But I still maintain that Harmon wouldn’t be able to give you what you need.”

  Kristin’s tone was cordially acid. “Which is?”

  “A regular home.”

  “Come on, Dad. What did you find out about Zachary that worried you so much? That he cheated on a third-grade history test? That he was raised by his grandfather?”

  “Damn it,” Kenyan blurted, slamming one fist down on the desktop, “both his parents were alcoholics. There was an automobile accident and not only were the Harmons killed outright, so were a young mother and her two children, on their way home from the supermarket!”

  Sickness rushed into Kristin’s throat as she thought of what Zachary and his grandfather must have suffered, along with the family of the mother and children. “That wasn’t Zachary’s fault,” she said softly.

  “I’m not saying it was,” Kenyan insisted, his face flushed with conviction and, probably, the desire to redeem himself. “But things like that tend to run in families. Forgive me, Kristin, but I didn’t want it running in ours!”

  At last she stood. “That wasn’t your decision to make,” she said calmly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some packing to do.”

  Outside, a light snow was drifting down from gray afternoon skies. The view framed Kenyan’s impressive physique as he stood to protest. “You’re leaving? But it’s almost Thanksgiving. Your mother—”

  Kristin paused at the doors and turned to face him again. “I suppose I’ll forgive you, in time. After all, I love you very much, God help me. But right now I don’t want to be in the same state with you, Dad, let alone the same house. Goodbye.”

  “Kristin, I’ve apologized!”

  She hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. “To me, yes,” she conceded. “But not to Zachary.” With that, she walked out of the study and climbed the stairs. In her room, she cried as she packed.

  Five hours later she landed in New York, a destination chosen for its proximity to the publishing world, checked into a hotel room and set up her computer. Writing about her experiences in Cabriz would be her salvation; it would give her life focus and meaning.