Kathleen Creighton - Secret Agent Sam

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.

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.