by Rebecca York
“Kathryn, it’s all right. My name is Jonah Raider. I’m here to help.”
“Thank God,” she wheezed, the effort to speak making her throat ache.
“I saw your headlights. Then you stopped, and I heard the horn. “What happened?” he asked.
“Hunter threw himself out of the car. Back there.” She pointed in the direction from which she’d come.
“Why?”
She hesitated, wondering what kind of explanation she could give that wouldn’t sound like she’d lost her mind. But maybe Decorah Security was used to dealing with crazy situations. “They were experimenting on him at Stratford Creek. They put a—a compulsion in his mind that made him want to kill me. He was trying to stop himself. The only thing he could do was throw himself out of the car.”
“Then he still could be dangerous. You stay here.”
“No.”
The man named Jonah Raider started off, training his own light along the shoulder and into the underbrush.
She hurried to catch up.
About twenty-five feet down the road, they found Hunter lying in a tangle of vines that looked like they’d cushioned his fall.
She ran toward his limp body. “Hunter!”
His head moved, and he stared at her.
“Are you all right?” she asked urgently, coming down beside him on the leaves.
“Get . . . away . . . from me,” he gasped in a broken, desperate voice.
She reached to grip his arm as she gazed down into his anguished face. “I know what happened. I understand what you were trying to tell me—what Anderson did to you. I figured it out,” she said. “He didn’t believe Reid. He thought I was still alive—and that you would finish the job. But it’s all right. We can help you. It’s going to be all right.”
“No.” He tried to shake his head and grimaced.
Jonah was beside her, kneeling. He pulled a phone out of his back pocket and spoke in a low voice. “Get the van up here immediately. And be prepared to—”
Before he could finish the sentence, Hunter reached out and yanked the pistol from the holster riding at Jonah’s hip. With no hesitation, he turned the barrel toward his own head.
“God, no,” Kathryn sobbed and lunged at him yanking his hand up as she braced for the impact of the bullet.
“Kathryn!” Hunter screamed.
Instead of a shot from the gun, the sound of a distant explosion tore the air and a ball of fire erupted, turning the night sky an eerie orange over Stratford Creek.
Hunter stared at the fire leaping into the blackness. Raider pushed past Kathryn, wrestled the gun hand to the ground, and landed a solid blow to Hunter’s chin. He went limp.
###
With eyes dark-rimmed from lack of sleep, Kathryn sat in an armchair that someone had been thoughtful enough to put beside Hunter’s hospital bed. Her hands were clenched in her lap. Sometimes she prayed. Sometimes she simply watched Hunter’s face for any sign of change.
They were at a Decorah Security safe house, where they had been flown by helicopter two days ago. Two days during which Hunter had been unconscious, and she had been in turmoil.
First, he’d been sedated because she knew that if he were awake, he’d either try to kill himself or her. Then they’d stopped the medication, but Hunter hadn’t regained consciousness. Instead, he sunk into a coma.
With a sharp pang, she watched him lying on the bed, his strong body clad only in a hospital gown, his arms strapped to the sides of the bed. The head of Decorah Security had insisted on the straps for her safety—if she was going to stay alone with Hunter. If he woke and the drugs had damaged his brain, he might go after her again.
She touched one of the thick restraints, then glanced toward the door. If Hunter wasn’t all right, it didn’t really matter what else happened, she thought. With fingers that were amazingly steady, she unbuckled the straps, lowered the rail on the side of the bed, and clasped one of his large hands in her smaller ones. Turning his palm up, she saw the half-moon gouges where his nails had dug into his flesh as he’d tried to keep from attacking her. Softly, she kissed the healing wounds, thinking about the tortures he’d put himself through to save her.
She had never met a man like him before. She knew she would never meet another. He hadn’t grown up with all the cultural cues and restraints that hemmed most people in. For better or worse, that made him unique. Although Emerson and the other devils at Stratford Creek could have broken his spirit or turned him into a monster, she was betting that she’d gotten him out of there in time—and that they hadn’t had him long enough to do permanent damage. Her heart told her that must be true. So had her own observations, because every time he’d had real choices, he’d proved his goodness—his moral superiority.
But now she was faced with something she didn’t know how to handle.
Her fingers clenched around his strong hand. “Hunter, I love you. Please, come back to me,” she whispered.
But he lay without moving. And she felt the knot of fear in her stomach tighten. She’d been in a kind of limbo since they’d brought him here. Mostly, she’d sat in the chair beside the bed. Sometimes, she’d talked to the Decorah staff, filling them in on the horrors of Stratford Creek. When she couldn’t sit up anymore, she’d flopped onto a nearby cot. Most of the time, she’d watched Hunter’s pale face, touched him, talked to him. But he’d remained unresponsive, except for the flashes of pain that crossed his features. And from the expression on the face of Dr. Wardman when she came in to check him, she knew that his failure to awaken was a bad sign.
Lifting his hand, she pressed his fingers against her cheek. They were strong and warm. Like the man who lay there unconscious, she thought.
“Hunter,” she whispered softly as she looked at his still face and began to repeat things she’d told him many times since they’d brought him back to her. “Hunter, everything’s all right. You didn’t break any bones when you . . . fell out of the car. You’re only a little banged up. You’re going to be fine.” She gulped, then, and quickly went on with her periodic news bulletins. “Dr. Kolb blew up the lab to stop the Stratford Creek Project. The media swarmed up here like bees to a honeypot. It’s the latest government scandal. The reporters got the whole story—except the part about you.” She paused to draw a shaky breath. Emerson let them think that you were in the lab. Swinton and Anderson are in custody for conducting illegal experiments. Emerson is saying he only followed orders. I think he’s going to end up testifying on Capitol Hill—like Oliver North after the Iran-Contra scandal.”
Hunter didn’t answer. The small, comfortable room at the end of the hall was quiet except for his breathing. Leaning down, she laid her head on his shoulder, watching the rise and fall of his chest, refusing to give in to despair.
Perhaps exhaustion made her doze for a while. But she knew the moment his breathing changed, knew that something was different.
Suspended between heaven and hell, she raised her head and watched his eyes flutter open. For several seconds they were unfocused. Then they found her and filled with panic.
“No!” His whole body jerked as he tried to push himself away from her.
Anguish rose in her throat.
Even as a terrible sense of loss threatened to swamp her, she reached for him, held on for dear life. His fingers squeezed her arm painfully, spasmodically.
“Hunter, it’s all right. Everything’s all right,” she repeated over and over, praying that she spoke the truth.
He went very still as if listening intently for some sound that he couldn’t catch. “It’s gone,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“What’s gone?”
He turned his head, focused on her face, really seeing her. “I—” He sank back against the pillows, sweat glistening on his pale skin.
“Talk to me,” she begged, her heart pounding.
After a long, long time, he raised his hand to his forehead, pressed his fingers against his flesh. “The pain is gone. From the drug
s.”
“Was it very bad?” she whispered.
“Yes. I felt like my head was splitting in two, and it got worse when I tried to tell you what Anderson had done.”
“I’m so sorry. Sorry he did that to you.” She wrapped her arms around him, held tight as she dared to hope that he had come through the worst.
“They used to use the drugs when they first started my training. Then Dr. Kolb made them stop. He said they were going to fry my brains. I hadn’t had them in a long time—until Reid brought me to Anderson.”
“They’re out of your system now. Nobody will ever do that to you again.”
He nodded, then looked thoughtful. “Dr. Kolb blew up the lab to end the Stratford Creek project. It’s finished.”
She raised her head, stared at him. “How do you know all that?”
“You told me. Over and over.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think you heard” she managed.
“I heard,” he said with a deep sigh. “I thought it was a dream. I thought if I woke up, I would try to. . .” He gulped. “I tried to stay asleep.”
“You shouldn’t have done that! We were all worried. I was so worried.”
She saw a shadow cross his features.
“What’s wrong?”
“I tried to kill you,” he said brokenly.
“It wasn’t your fault! Anderson pumped you full of drugs and instructions.”
“I should have—.”
“You did everything you could. You tried to tell me what he did to you. Then you threw yourself out of the car. You grabbed Jonah Raider’s gun.”
“I had to.” There was still uncertainty in his eyes. She couldn’t stand his self-reproach. Leaning toward him, she brushed her lips softly to his. She meant it to be a light kiss because she knew he should rest after the ordeal he’d been through. But he demanded more, reaching up to pull her into his arms.
“Kathryn.” Her name was a shaky sound as he settled her onto the bed with him. She forgot about restraint as he slid his hands up and down her back, over her hips, pressing her to him with the uncensored abandon that she had come to expect from him. When his hand worked its way under her loose knit shirt and found her breast, she exhaled in a low, pleading sigh that matched his deep exclamation.
“I want to feel your skin. All of your skin next to mine,” he gasped.
“Yes.” She helped him pull the shirt over her head. Standing, she kicked away her sweatpants and panties, then remembered with a strangled laugh that she’d better lock the door. When she turned back to Hunter, she saw he’d torn off the hospital gown.
She returned to the bed, kissing him, touching him, showing him what he meant to her, even as he did the same.
“I love you,” she told him. “So much.”
“Yes. So much.”
Caught in a spiral of passion, they drove each other to a high plane where the air was almost too thin to breathe.
“Do it the way you did the first time,” he gasped. “So I can see you. See your beautiful body above me when I’m inside you.”
The request seemed to vibrate through her. She shifted her position so that she was straddling him, her legs clasping his hips as she came down on him. She liked it this way, too, because she could see the pleasure on his face as their bodies joined, as she began to move above him.
She wanted to make the sheer euphoria of it last. But the joy of being with him like this again was too intense. Urgency overtook her, and she drove for her satisfaction, her breath coming in gasps. He shuddered beneath her, cried out, and she followed him over the edge into a place of rapture.
For long moments, she lay limply on top of him. His hands stroked through her hair, then stilled.
Rolling to the side, she reached down to pull the covers over them, then nestled beside him. But his silence and his stillness worried her, and when she raised her head so she could look into his eyes, she saw that his expression was sad.
“Didn’t you like that as much as I did?” she asked softly.
“It was wonderful. But I am very selfish. I wanted to be close to you like that one more time,” he answered, his fingers playing with the edge of the sheet.
“Hunter, you’re the most unselfish man I ever met!” The tears that had been threatening her earlier gathered in her eyes and began to leak down her cheeks. “Every time you’ve had a choice between my welfare and yours, you’ve done what was best for me,” she said with a hitching little breath. “You tried everything you could to protect me. You tried to kill yourself!”
As she said the last part, the sobs came in earnest. His arm came up to cradle her as she wept, her face against the warm skin of his shoulder. She had been under such terrible tension. Finally, her control had broken, and it was several minutes before she felt any sort of composure returning.
He stroked her as she cried, murmured soft words. When the storm spent itself, he reached for a wad of tissues from the box beside the bed and pressed them into her hand.
She thanked him, then blew her nose.
“I am not good for you, Kathryn,” he said in a raspy voice. “You must leave me.”
She couldn’t believe she had heard him correctly. “I wasn’t planning to leave you.”
“You have your life to live.”
“So do you! I thought we would do that together.”
“I—”
“You said you loved me,” she reminded him, hearing the quaver in her voice. “Did you stop?”
His face contorted. “Of course, I didn’t stop.” He sucked in a quick breath and let it out. “But . . .”
Behind her, she heard the doorknob jiggle.
Both she and Hunter tensed, and she laid a hand on his arm.
When the knob didn’t turn, the door rattled. “Kathryn, are you all right in there?” an anxious voice called. It was Doctor Wardman.
“We. . . we’re fine. Hunter’s awake.”
“He’s all right?” the doctor asked.
“Yes.”
“I have to check him out.”
“In a while. We’re talking,” she said, hearing the thickness of her voice and flushing as she imagined anyone checking on them a few minutes earlier.
“They were going to send me on a mission to Gravan to assassinate General Kassan. Whether I succeeded or not, I knew I wasn’t coming back.”
When she made a sound of protest, his hand stroked gently through her hair. “I accepted that, and I knew the time with you was precious, that it was only for a little while.”
She reached for his hand and knitted her fingers with his. “I didn’t know which country you were going to, but I figured out what Emerson had planned for you.”
“You did?” he asked, incredulous.
She nodded gravely. “Yes. That morning, after you moved out of the guest cottage. I was thinking about you, wanting to tell you I was sorry about the way I behaved when I came back from the lab. Then I thought about the whole Stratford Creek Project—and it made a kind of awful sense. If you had a man who didn’t exist, you wouldn’t have to bring him back from his dangerous mission. But I didn’t accept it. I realized that somehow I had to get you out of there.”
His head turned toward her, and his fingers stroked her lips. “You are a remarkable woman. And you deserve everything good in life.”
“Damn right! And I think I’ve found the thing that makes me happiest,” she told him.
“What about—” He stopped, started again. “I think a man is supposed to support his mate. Take care of her. I can’t do any of that. I have no skills to earn a living. I don’t know the right things to do and say. I have no place in your world.”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Where did you get your view of domestic life? Father Knows Best reruns?”
He shrugged. “Is Ozzie and Harriet better?”
She gave a little laugh. “They’re both a little out of date. Women today aren’t looking for men to support them,” she told him vehemently. “They can
do that themselves. What every woman dreams of is a man who will love her as an equal, a man with the same values as hers. A man who will share the joys and the responsibilities of life with her. A man who’s strong but not afraid or embarrassed to show his tender side. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it while you were sleeping. You fit that description better than any other man I ever met.”
He looked overwhelmed as she continued, “Most of the time I was in here with you. But I’ve been talking to the Decorah Security men. You have skills they value, and Frank Decorah said he’s prepared to ask you to join them.”
“What is Decorah . . . Security?”
“It’s a private agency that does investigations and takes on dangerous jobs. They had sent men up to Stratford Creek to help. They called Dr. Kolb’s phone, which was how I knew they were down the road.”
“They value killing?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Well, only bad people, but basically undercover operations. Jonah Raider, the man who decked you when you grabbed his gun, isn’t so different from you. And many of them have a similar background, too. They’re secret agents with training like yours. And when you meet some of them, you’ll find out a lot of them have even stranger backgrounds than you. You’ll be surprised at how well you’ll fit in.”
“I could . . . work with them?” he asked, unable to conceal his astonishment.
“Yes.”
His eyes told her that he still wasn’t convinced. “You told them where I come from? You told them everything about the Stratford Creek Project?” he asked carefully.
She gave him a little nod.”
“They don’t think that makes me . . .?” He turned his head away, and she saw him swallow painfully. “A copy of a man? Not a real person?”
Her expression was fierce as she caught his chin in her hand and guided his dark eyes back to hers. “They’ll accept you on your merits. Just the way I have. None of them is ordinary. All of them have had to cope with being different.”
“Different how?”
“I’ll have to let them tell you their secrets.” She laughed. “You may not believe some of what you hear. But they are a perfect group for you. All of them have unusual backgrounds and talents. And they’ll help you learn about the world, just the way I have. We can do things gradually. Each thing when you’re ready.”
