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“Breakfast is served,” he announced, and made a show out of pulling out a chair for her at the tiny table in the corner.
The combined scents of soap, toothpaste and floral shampoo wafted to Jack’s nose as Kate stepped around him and sat down. Standing behind the chair, he bent to scoot the chair in beneath her and inhaled a deep breath. Instantly desire surged through him again.
He gave a mental curse and gritted his teeth. Nothing, it seemed, not even anger, could override his attraction to this irresistible, maddening woman.
She smelled heavenly and she looked fresh and wholesome and so damned cute with her little nose in the air and that pouty mouth that he ached to toss her onto the nearest bed and ravish her.
Instead he sat down in the other chair. As though he hadn’t a care in the world, he helped himself to a muffin and a heap of scrambled eggs.
Neither Jack nor Kate spoke. She did not so much as look at him throughout the meal. Though set, her expression was calm, but he knew that her quick mind was busy searching for a way to avoid the discussion they were about to have.
Jack took his time, but when he finished eating he poured them both a third cup of coffee, then leaned back and eyed Kate.
“Well?”
“I’m not in the mood, Jack.”
“Too bad. We’re not leaving this room until we have a talk. I had hoped to get this over with last night, but you were sound asleep by the time I got out of the shower.
“I came here to help you, Kate and I promise you, I will do everything I can to find out what’s going on and to protect you. Colleen, too, when we find her. But the price you have to pay is an explanation. Which is long overdue.
“C’mon, Kate,” he prodded when she remained silent. “You’re a fair person. You owe me that much, and you know it.
“Actually, that whole affair wasn’t like you. You’re not cruel or self-serving, but hitting me with a divorce when you knew I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it was both. So what possessed you to blindside me that way, Kate?”
Her chin snapped up. “Would you have given me a divorce if I had waited until you came home and asked you for one?”
“Of course not.”
“There’s your answer. I was trying to avoid a big fight.”
“I don’t get it. Why did you want a divorce? We had a great marriage. We enjoyed each other’s company. Our sex life was terrific. We got along well. Hell, we’ve never so much as had a serious disagreement. So what was the problem?”
“What do you think the problem was, Jack?” Kate challenged.
He could see that she was striving to hold on to her composure and keep the discussion civilized. That in itself told him that her temper was on the rise, but he’d be damned if he could figure out what she had to be angry about. He was the injured party here.
“You’re going to have to enlighten me because I don’t have a clue,” he said with a nonchalant shrug that hid his pain. How could she have done this to him? To them? “Our marriage was fine when I left the last time.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, Jack. It wasn’t fine. And the fact that you are unaware of that should tell you something. I didn’t just wake up one morning and say to myself, ‘Gee, I think I’ll divorce Jack.’ The problem had been building for years, almost from the beginning. I was unhappy! No. Not just unhappy. I was miserable.”
“Miserable how?”
“I was always alone. And lonely.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “That’s it? That was your big problem?” Jack shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”
“Whether you believe it or not, it’s true.”
“Okay, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You missed me, so you divorced me. That doesn’t make any sense, Kate.”
“Jack, you were hardly ever home. You’d be gone for weeks, sometimes months at a time, then show up out of the blue, stay a few days. If I was really lucky, a week or two. But then you’d be off again. I never knew where you were or what kind of dangerous mission you were on. I couldn’t even call you or write to you except through channels, and I was always aware that every word was monitored. And you’d go long periods of time without bothering to get in touch with me.”
“I called when I could, Kate. You know that. I also came home when I could. If my long absences were a problem why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s not as though I didn’t try, Jack. But every time I brought up the subject you would cajole and tease me and turn my concerns into a joke. Either that or you’d distract me by seducing me. After a while I realized that you didn’t want to hear that there was a problem. Because if you knew you might have to make some changes.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I? I don’t think so. I used to tell myself that eventually things would get better. That either you’d get tired of the constant stress and danger or that you’d get too old for field work and the agency would reassign you.
“Then September eleventh happened.
“Of course, I knew immediately that things were only going to get worse, and they did.”
“I’m sorry, Kate, but it couldn’t be helped,” he murmured, watching her. “We were scrambling after that attack.”
“I know. I know. That’s why I kept quiet for so long. But then months turned into years. Finally I realized that I couldn’t wait forever. As much as I loved you, I simply couldn’t live in limbo any longer.”
Her use of past tense made Jack’s stomach knot. Despite the divorce, he’d believed that, deep down, Kate still loved him. What they’d had together had been too deep and powerful to just disappear. Ever since he’d received her message, he’d been certain that, on some level, perhaps even a subconscious one, she regretted whatever impulse had driven her to end their marriage and wanted him back.
Fear gave his voice a harsher edge than he intended. “So you just threw away an eight-year marriage?”
The accusation snapped Kate’s tenuous control over her temper. She shot to her feet and began to pace and wave her arms. “Don’t you get it, Jack? What we had wasn’t a marriage.”
“What? That’s crazy. Of course we were married.”
“Oh, no. Marriage is about a couple building a life together, being there for each other through all the pains and joys and all the everyday, mundane minutiae that is part of living. Most of the time you were halfway around the world and I was alone in Houston. I didn’t feel as though I had a husband. Just a part-time sex partner. Yet I wasn’t single, either. I was just a toy that you kept on a shelf and took down now and then when you had time to play.”
“That’s not fair, Kate. You knew what my job was when you married me.”
She stopped pacing and glowered at him with her fists planted on her hips. “Oh, don’t give me that! You weren’t entirely forthcoming, and you know it.
“When we first met all you said was that you worked for the federal government. Silly me, I assumed you meant in some sort of legal or advisory capacity, or maybe you were with the diplomatic corps. Whenever I asked questions I got half truths and evasions. It wasn’t until we were engaged that you finally revealed that you were CIA, and that sometimes you would have to make trips out of the country. What you failed to explain was that was spook speak for ‘I’ll be gone more than I’ll be home.’”
“C’mon, Kate, you’re exaggerating. I was not away that much.”
That impudent little chin lifted again. “Oh really? Do you have any idea how many days you spent at home during the last year of our marriage?”
Jack shrugged. “Off the top of my head, no, I don’t know the exact number.”
“Well, I do. I kept track. It was exactly forty-seven days.”
“What? That can’t be right,” he protested, but uneasiness began to creep in.
“Oh, it’s right, Jack. Trust me.
“I’m thirty-four years old. By this stage of my life I expected to have a couple of children. But you weren’t home enough to get me pregnant.”
“Ah, so that’s it. That biological clock thing.” The pressure in Jack’s chest eased, and he looked her over with a lecherous gleam in his eyes. “If it’s babies you want, I can help you with that, Mick. We can get started right now.”
He made a move to stand up, but she stopped him with a raised hand and a searing glare.
“Forget it, Jack. That ship has sailed. And don’t you dare trivialize my feelings by turning them into a joke. Not this time. Not ever again.”
“Sorry.” He sat back in the chair, his expression rueful. “I guess I never realized how serious you were about having kids. I always thought you were talking in general terms. You know…something we’d get around to someday.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The blunt statement took him by surprise. There was so much anger burning in her green eyes that Jack experienced a sudden fear stronger than any he’d ever encountered on his job, even in the diciest of situations.
“I think you deliberately tuned me out,” she continued, lifting her chin a notch higher. “The same way you tuned out every attempt I made to talk to you about the excessive time we spent apart, the way you always tune out when you don’t want to talk about something.
“I don’t think you want children at all, Jack. When I made it clear that I wanted to start a family your agreement was nothing more than lip-service to pacify me and shut me up.”
She took up her agitated prowl again. “You didn’t want anything to interfere with the convenient arrangement you had going for you. You had a nice little wife at home to take care of any domestic responsibilities and duties that came up and to provide sex and companionship when you could find time to come home. The rest of the time you were free to have your adventures and traipse all over the globe.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? Don’t you find it odd that a man who has been trained by the best information-gathering organization on the planet to take note of every single thing, right down to the tiniest detail, to decipher hidden meanings behind every word, to read every subtlety and nuance of human behavior, failed to notice that his own wife was unhappy?”
Jack stared at her, an uncomfortable sensation that he couldn’t quite identify squeezing his chest. As usual when he found himself cornered he assumed an unworried demeanor and responded with glib reason.
“Hey, when I’m home I’m not on duty.”
“Tell me another one, Jack. That training is so ingrained that it’s second nature to you to read people and situations.”
His inability to come up with an adequate response deepened his discomfort and gave his voice a rough edge. “Maybe I’m not as perceptive as you seem to think I am. But regardless, before taking a step like getting a divorce, you should have tried harder to make me understand that you were unhappy. If you had we could have worked out something and avoided all this pain and heartache. On both sides.”
“Worked out what, Jack? Was I supposed to demand that you cut your assignments short? We both know that’s not possible. Or should I have asked you to give up field work? Or quit the agency altogether?”
She gave a derisive snort. “Please. I may not know exactly what it is that you do—nor do I want to know. Imagining was bad enough. But I am aware of how important your job is to national security. And I know that you’re good at what you do and that you think of it as your duty. For you, quitting the agency would be tantamount to treason. I couldn’t put you in that position.”
“Even so, I would have quit to save our marriage.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she shot back. “But if I had pressured you into giving up field work and you’d settled into a desk job you would’ve hated every minute of it. Even if you could have stuck with it, which I seriously doubt, eventually you would’ve grown to hate me, as well.”
“Never.”
“So you say now, but I think it would have come to that. Ours was a lose/lose situation, Jack. If we stayed together one of us was guaranteed to be miserable.”
“Ah, I see. So your answer was to get a divorce and make both of us miserable?”
“I can do without your sarcasm,” she snapped back. “And yes, divorce is heartbreaking. But eventually time erases that pain.
“Jack, listen to me. No matter how it may appear, my decision was not an easy one. I thought about it long and hard. Finally I accepted that it was time to cut my losses and get on with my life. You need to do the same.”
“Just tell me one thing. Is there someone else?” Somehow he managed to keep his tone conversational, but merely asking the question made him feel murderous.
She shook her head. “No. Not yet. But I won’t lie to you, Jack. I have been dating. Nothing serious yet, but I’m looking. I’m hoping that someday soon I’ll meet a nice man who wants a home and a family.”
“I see.” He looked at her in silence for an interminable time. On the surface he knew that he appeared calm, but his jaw was clenched so tight his teeth hurt.
He had intended to play his cards close and not tip his hand, but the thought of Kate making a life with someone else, loving another man, having children that weren’t his, was so unbearable he blurted out, “I want you back, Mick. I’m willing to accept a transfer. I can place a call right now and make it happen. My decision. Not yours. We’ll go through another wedding ceremony and start over.”
“Oh, please. Who’re you trying to kid, Jack? You nearly choked just getting that out. Had it been any more difficult you would have had to ram your hand down your throat and pull the words out. So don’t tell me it’s your decision. We both know that you would never have made that offer if it weren’t for me.”
“I still mean it.”
“Maybe right now you do. But I know you, Jack. You’ll grit your teeth and dutifully put on a suit and tie every day and go in to the office. But within six months you’ll either go stark, staring mad or come up with an excuse to return to undercover work. You’re addicted to the danger and the intrigue. And the agency will back you up. You’re a valuable asset to them in the field.”
Kate stopped pacing, and the vice around Jack’s heart tightened as he watched her anger fade into sadness. She held his gaze and shook her head slowly. “It took me years to gather the strength to end our marriage. I won’t be drawn back into that unhappiness again.”
Turning away, she walked to the room’s only window and looked out, her arms folded over her middle.
He stared at her back, her unyielding posture, struggling to breathe. “So that’s it? We’re through?”
“Jack, we’ve been through for over a year. Ever since the divorce,” she said so gently that he could have shaken her.
He had an almost irresistible urge to rant and rave and declare that this whole thing was crazy, that when two people loved each other the way they did there had to be a way to work things out. But even stronger was the worry that if he pushed her she might give voice to his worst fear—that she no longer loved him.
Taking risks, international cat-and-mouse games, even life-and-death situations—he could handle all those. But hearing Kate utter those words was something he didn’t think he could take.
“I see. Well then, I guess our conversation is over,” he managed with what he thought was admirable aplomb. He stood up. “I guess we’d better get our things together and head for Houston.”
“Jack.” Turning back from the window, Kate gazed at him with a mixture of regret and sadness. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Hey. Don’t worry about it. You did what you had to do to protect yourself.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a wan smile. “Yes, I did.”
She paused, and seemed to be waiting for him to say something more. Keeping his head down, he continued to stuff his dirty clothes into an outside pocket on his hangup bag, and after a moment she added, “For what it’s worth…I’m glad we had this talk.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“It not only cleared the air between us, it made me realize how unfair I’m being to you. I shouldn’t have asked for your help. I’m sorry. I was in a panic and not thinking clearly when I sent you that message. My safety and well-being are no longer your responsibility. I can’t ask you to risk your life to protect me, Jack. So…if you’ll just…well…maybe give me a few pointers on how I can go about finding Colleen you can go back to your assignment and—”
“Forget it, Kate,” he snapped, his nonchalant mask crumbling. “Hell, you won’t last another twenty-four hours on your own. And if I went back now I’d be useless. No, strike that. I’d be worse than useless. I’d be a liability to the other agents on the project. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the mission for imagining you zipped up in a body bag.
“So do me a favor and shut up about handling this situation on your own. Just save your breath and pack your things and let’s get on with it.”
Five
Kate flipped her cell phone closed. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she turned her gaze out the passenger window. Absently she noticed that they’d reached the northern edge of Houston.
Dammit, she felt so…so frustrated. So helpless. Since leaving Palestine almost two and a half hours ago she’d called her sister eight times. Eight! All with the same result. Nothing. She wanted to scream.
Dammit, Colleen. Where are you? And what have you gotten us into? And why the devil won’t you turn on your phone?
