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“Don’t rush off.” She said it automatically, in the time-honored Southern way, and Cory echoed, “Don’t you want to eat something?”
Already in the process of taking his wallet from a back pocket, Tony took out some bills and put them on the table, saying as he did so, “Naw, I’ll just order something from room service. I’ve got things to see to—want to sort out my equipment, make sure I’ve got everything I’m gonna need—you know.” His settling-up completed, he flicked her a smile. “What time we figuring on taking off in the morning, Cap’n?”
Sam dipped a nod at Cory. “That’s up to you guys. You’re the paying customers.”
Cory coughed and shifted forward in his chair. “My instructions are to go to the rendezvous point and wait to be contacted.” His lips tilted without smiling. “I’m not sure what that means, but I’m envisioning unknown numbers of heavily armed men wearing black hoods emerging from the bushes. So I doubt the timing is all that critical. That said, I’d like to get to the spot with as much daylight ahead of us as possible.”
Sam dipped her head again. “No problem. We take off at daybreak, then.” She looked at Cory. “You got maps, I assume?”
“In my room.”
“I’ll need to see those. I’ll be filing my flight plan before we leave in the morning.”
Cory nodded. “Of course.”
“Okay, I’ll be sayin’ good night, then.” Tony winked at Sam, gave Cory a little one-finger salute and left, dodging around the waiter who was just arriving with Sam’s drink.
“You having another?” she asked Cory. He glanced up at the hovering waiter, shook his head and politely lifted a declining hand.
The waiter went away. Sam took a sip of her rum and Coke. Through a strange buzzing in her ears she heard Cory’s quiet voice say, “What about you? Want something to eat?”
Are you kidding? The way my stomach feels, if I ate anything it’d probably erupt like Mount Vesuvius. That’s what she wanted to say. What she did say was, “No, thanks. I’m not all that hungry.”
She took another sip of her drink. Not looking at him. Not wanting to look at him. Knowing she had to. Not to look at him was stupid. Childish. Sooner or later, with Cory it always seemed to come down to that, didn’t it?
So, she shook back her hair and lifted her head and looked straight at him. And found him looking back at her—of course he was, what had she expected? They looked at each other, neither saying anything, and Sam felt her face grow achy and stiff, and a horrible and unexpected desire to cry begin to gather behind her eyes.
To head it off, she gave up a bubble of husky laughter. “Okay, this is awkward.”
Without smiling, Cory said mildly, “Did you think it wouldn’t be? You saw my name on the charter, you knew who the customer was. You had to know this moment was coming. You must have had…I don’t know, days to think of something bright and clever to say.”
Cruel, she thought. That isn’t like you.
But then, what did she know? Really?
“Well, I’d have thought you’d have more to say,” she shot back at him. “I’ve never known you to be so stingy with words.”
He sat back in his chair. “What is there to say? You told me never to call you or speak to you again.”
“Jeez! You got married!” There. Yes! Anger felt so much better.
“And divorced.”
She stared at him through a shimmering haze. “And that was supposed to make it all okay? We could…what, pretend it never happened?”
His jaw looked tense; she could see the small muscles working. “We can’t talk about this here,” he said stiffly. “I need to give you those maps, anyway. Let’s take this back to my room.” He sat forward in his chair.
She leaned back in hers, cringing away from him. “Uh-uh—no way.”
He paused then, and a smile broke wryly across his face. “Don’t tell me you’re chicken? Afraid to be alone with me? Doesn’t sound like the Sam I knew.”
She bristled, then, as he’d known she would. The one sure way he knew to get to Sam was to question her courage.
“I’m no chicken, which you know damn well.” Though she glared at him still, he could see a faint blush creep beneath her tan. Her lips twitched, and she pressed them together to stop them from softening into a smile. She drew a quick, faint breath. “But if you think I’m going anywhere near a hotel room with you…”
He gazed at her, letting his compassion for her warm his eyes and his smile. His wanting, his hunger for her, he kept hidden, a secret thumping heat in his groin, a bitter ache in his heart. “Still there, isn’t it?” he said softly, for the sheer pleasure of seeing her eyes flare hot.
She opened her mouth to deny it, and he watched the struggle play itself out in the changing expressions on her face. It was a familiar battle, one he’d seen waged there many times before. Pride versus honesty. With Sam, though, the victor was never in doubt. After a long, anguished moment, she closed her mouth and, chin elevated, turned her head away.
Cory said gently, “If I promise not to touch you, will you let me explain?”
What could she do? True, his gentleness had driven her mad sometimes, possibly because it was impossible to resist. She could feel herself growing shaky inside; the protective walls she’d thrown up so hurriedly were beginning to crumble already. How much longer would they hold? What would happen to her when they fell?
In a desperate effort to shore them up, she stiffened her back and said tartly, “What is there to explain? I came back from training and they told me you were married. I had to hear it from Mom and Dad.” And her whole body vibrated with the tension, the sheer willpower it took to keep him from seeing how much that had hurt.
“Sam,” Cory said, gentle still, “we’d cut each other loose. We’d agreed…”
Yes, but I never thought…I didn’t believe…I didn’t know you meant it! I thought…I thought you’d always be there. I thought you’d always love me, and wait for me….
Childish of me, probably, to think so.
“Yeah, right,” she said abruptly, then caught a breath. “I know. It was…just a shock, I guess.” She gave her head a toss and pasted on a smile. “You should have told me. I’da sent you guys a toaster, or something.”
“Sam…” He shook his head, and she caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes before he veiled them from her with a downward sweep of his lashes and rose to his feet. “Come on—let’s get out of here.”
Hollow and shaken, Sam didn’t wait for him to settle with the waiter. She made her way to the lobby, where she fidgeted restlessly, surreptitiously checking herself out in the mirror above the check-in desk. Satisfied with what she saw, reassured that none of her inner turmoil showed on the outside, she was able to flash Cory a confident smile when he joined her there a few minutes later.
He gave her a nod and they walked outside together. Together, but not touching. As they strolled unhurried along the bamboo breezeway that led to their rooms she thought how odd it was to be doing that, while a memory tumbled out of the past and threatened to inundate her with sadness…a memory of walking like this, the two of them side by side but not touching, down the lane at Grandma’s house in Georgia, she with her insides all aquiver with the strange joyous awareness that she was falling in love. How scary that had been, and how beautiful and sweet at the same time. Remembering made her ache with yearning, and she wasn’t even sure what for.
It’s the air, she thought. That’s what brings it all back. Reminds me of those early-summer Georgia evenings—soft and humid, still warm even this late at night. Except here, instead of cicadas and frogs backing up a giddy whippoorwill, I hear surf sounds and the chirp of night birds I don’t recognize making a different kind of harmony with the music from the bar.
They walked in silence until Sam, feeling easier, maybe, with the cloak of semidarkness around her—not having to see his face—spoke softly…carefully.
“Look—I’m sorry, okay? Divorce is sad and awful. I have friends who’ve gone through it. So I’m sorry you had to.” She paused, waiting for his reply. When none came she ventured on, still focusing on the path ahead. “So…what happened? I mean, it only…you were married for such a short time. Did something…” Her voice trailed miserably off.
Please, she thought, say the words. Say it, even if it doesn’t fix anything: My marriage failed because…she wasn’t you.
After a long suspenseful moment he said in the same slow and careful way, “I think…let’s just say we both had expectations the other wasn’t able to meet. Leave it at that.”
Leave it at that? Why did I dare to hope for more?
“At least,” she said lightly, with a soft breath to hide how disappointed she was, “you didn’t have kids. That’s a good thing. I guess.”
“Yes.”
She waited, but again there was nothing more. Never known for her patience at the best of times, she felt her frustration level rising with every pulse beat. Inevitably, in spite of every promise she’d made to herself, it boiled over.
“Is that all you have to say? That’s what drives me crazy about you. You know what, Pearse? You never let anybody know what’s going on inside you. What you’re feeling. I know you’ve got feelings. Nobody could write the way you do and not have feelings. Huge, deep feelings. But you never let anybody see them, me included. In all the years we were together—”
“Don’t try to tell me I never told you how I felt about you,” Cory said on a surprising note of anger. “Because I did. You know I did. You knew how I felt about you.”
She considered that, head tilted to one side, ignoring the little thrill she felt at his unexpected display of emotion, however brief. “Did I? See, the thing is, I thought I knew, but then it turned out I was wrong. So either you didn’t tell me, or I missed something, or maybe you lied—”
“Come on, Samantha. I’ve never lied to you and you know it.”
“No—that’s right. You don’t lie. You just leave blank spaces.”
“Blank spaces? What are you talking about?”
“You, dammit. You’re one big blank space.”
“Sam, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Don’t you dare go all tight and reasonable on me,” she fumed. “Do you realize I don’t know anything about your past? Your childhood? How long were we together, and yet, I don’t know what kind of child you were—what kind of books you read, what games you played, what songs you sang. Nothing. I’ve told you every little thing about mine—I even taught you the Wishing Star poem, remember? Almost the first time I met you. But you’ve never told me…anything.”
“You’re talking about facts, not feelings. I told you I grew up in foster care,” he said quietly. “Okay, you want feelings? It wasn’t fun. What else is there to say?”
“You see?” She gazed at him for a long moment, then shook her head and said in a voice tight with frustration, “Maybe it’s because I don’t know the right questions to ask. That’s your talent, not mine. You have that gift, you know? You can get inside people’s heads. Before they even know it, they’re telling you their life history. I wish I could do that, but I don’t know how. Which probably explains why, even after all the years we were together, I don’t really know you at all, Pearse. What does that tell you?”
He’d never seen her look at him that way before. The bewildered anger in her face tugged at his heart, but it was the bleakness he saw there that shocked him. She looked…defeated. Sammi June, his Sam, who he’d never known to be any way but upbeat, determined, confident…who went gung ho after what she wanted with chin held high and never even considered the possibility of failure. How he’d loved her arrogance, her self-confidence, and at times, drawn strength himself from her courage. Now, the sadness and defeat in her eyes was more than he could bear. He reached for her, then remembered his promise….
But almost at the same moment, she jerked away from him with a small cry that pierced him like a dart. “No. I’m not going through this again, Pearse. I’m not.”
He snatched his hands back, held them up and away from her, then folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the breezeway’s rattan railing. The door to his room was only a few feet away, with Tony’s next to it and Sam’s a little farther on. He glanced at his door, then away, while words, thoughts and emotions pounded like thunder in his head. Knowing any attempt to voice them would be futile, he simply shook his head.
“Why did you do it? Why did you call me…after the divorce?” Her voice sounded so small, but still it managed to hold all the anger and bewilderment, the sadness and defeat he’d just seen in her face. She didn’t wait for him to answer, but plunged on in the tiny, wounded voice that was so not Sam. “I mean, what did you think was going to happen? What did you expect me to do? Or say?” He looked at her then, opened his mouth to reply, but again she rushed on.
“Like—you getting divorced just…erased everything? Hey—maybe getting a divorce erased your marriage, but it didn’t erase anything else, you understand?”
She was gazing fiercely at him but tapping her own chest with an angry finger; that, and the stark anguish in her eyes told him what he knew she’d never say: You hurt me, Pearce. Nothing can fix that or take it away.
“No, you’re right,” he said stiffly. He wanted to swallow, to cough, do something to relieve the tight, raw feeling in his throat. “That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done it. What you said to me—I deserved that.”
She didn’t answer. He heard a faint creak as she, too, leaned her hip against the railing. Beyond it—and utterly wasted on the two of them, Cory thought—the sea shimmered in the light of an almost-full moon like a tropical hideaway ad in a honeymoon brochure.
After what seemed like a very long time, he heard her say in a soft, bleak voice, “Anyway, it wouldn’t have worked, because nothing had changed. That was the thing, you know. It still hasn’t. I still am a…pilot. I have a career that…well, you know. And you want…”
“Yeah,” he said, straightening abruptly. What in the hell did he want? He wasn’t sure he knew himself, anymore. He’d once thought he did, and look how wrong he’d been.
Right now, all he knew was what he didn’t want, which was to stand here talking about it with the one thing he wanted and couldn’t have—a woman he’d been craving like an addict and hadn’t even known it…a woman he wasn’t allowed to touch. His whole body, every muscle and nerve and sinew in it, quivered with the strain of denial.
He turned and lurched for his door, at the same time plunging a hand into his pocket and pulling out his room key. It was the old-fashioned kind, the metal fit-into-a-lock-and-turn kind, and while he was struggling with it, he felt Sam come up beside him. Felt her warmth like a tropical breeze on his skin…her womanly scent like an intoxicating drug. His head swam.
The key turned and he shoved the door inward. It was all he could do to say thickly, “Look, I’ll see you in the morning, okay? Shall we say…whoever gets up first, rouses the others?”
“Fine with me.”
He stepped into the room and turned toward her. Instead of backing away, saying good-night, she followed him in.
Hell. He’d forgotten the maps.
His overnighter was on the floor beside the door. He unzipped the outside pocket, took out the folded maps and handed them over without looking at her. “I’ve marked the rendezvous point and the location of the airstrip.” His breath felt meager, his chest tight.
She nodded—he could see that much as he flattened his back against the open door, making room for her to slip past him. Then she moved, and he had time for one surprised breath before she stepped close, slipped her arms around his neck, lifted herself and pressed her mouth against his.
Oh, no, she’s still the same. Still Sam. The confidence, the certainty, the sheer possession in the way she kisses me.
She knew him so well…knew just how and where to touch him…how to slide her body against his…melt her mouth into his. Fire squirted through all his veins; his thoughts turned to vapor, his bones to water.
Oh, God, she’s still the same.
“Sam,” he said feebly when at last she pulled away, “I promised I wouldn’t—”
“You promised,” she said in her old, familiar, arrogant way. “I didn’t.”
She patted his chest once with the folded maps, then went away and left him standing there.
Chapter 4
As the plane droned steadily eastward, the sun rose like an angry red sentinel and rushed to meet it. Sam blinked as its heat struck her face and its light assaulted her eyes even through the dark lenses of her sunglasses, and she drew a long exhilarated breath. It seemed like a personal challenge to her, that sun, a gauntlet thrown down in her path. Confidence swelled inside her, warm and red as the sun.
Yes! Whatever this day brings, I can handle it.
She glanced over when Cory eased into the copilot’s seat beside her. Something fluttered in her stomach, up high near her heart, then eased, leaving only the quickened tap-tap-tap of her pulse.
“Hey,” she greeted him, not trusting herself with more, for fear the gladness, the exhilaration inside her should leak into her voice. She hadn’t expected it, waking up this morning with this happiness, this almost giddy sense of triumph and well-being.
Last night had been a test of her strength and will, and she’d passed it with flying colors. Yeah, sure, the hunger, the lust, the craving for him were still there, and as powerful as ever. But it wasn’t an addiction. I can control this. I can handle it. I won’t let myself be hurt again.
“Hey, yourself,” he answered in his neutral way, and she could feel him studying her with his probing, inquisitive reporter’s eyes.
“Sleep well?” he inquired.
What with the hurry and hustle of getting everyone up, breakfasting, gathering belongings and equipment, getting to the airport, filing flight plans, prepping the plane and getting underway, it was the first moment they’d had alone together since she’d left him the night before.
“Yes, I did.” She didn’t try to keep the satisfaction—maybe even smugness—out of her voice. “How ’bout yourself?”
He made a soft dry sound, then muttered something under his breath. Something along the lines of, “Same old Sam…”
The urge to grin made the muscles in her face cramp, and she bit down hard on her lower lip to quell it.
Cory clasped his hands together, then leaned forward to gaze through the windshield at the low, cloud-shrouded smudge on the horizon. Fidgeting. The thought flashed into her mind: That’s not like him.
She said, “That’s the island you’re looking at out there. We’ll be landing in about…forty-five minutes.” He nodded but didn’t reply.
After listening to the droning of the aircraft’s engines for several minutes, she said, “Mind if I ask you something?” The look he threw her was both surprised and wary—she didn’t usually ask permission. “I’m curious—Will and I both were, actually. Why charter a plane for this? Why didn’t you just hire a boat? Woulda been a lot simpler—cheaper, too.”
He gave her a look and said mildly, “I’m going into a terrorist’s hideout to interview one of the most wanted and dangerous men in the world. When I’m done with that, I’d rather not have to get through forty miles of jungle before I’m home free.”
