A basin materialized near his chin, the hands lifted his shoulder and rolled him, and he retched feebly and fruitlessly before subsiding, exhausted, shaking with the most appalling weakness he’d ever known. No wonder he’d dreamed of his childhood, he thought. It was the way he felt-weak as a child…an infant.

“What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

The familiar voice, husky and belligerent, jolted him into full awareness. “Sam?” he croaked, struggling to lift his head.

“Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal,” a heavily accented voice said. He felt the upper half of the bed rise under him and a head crowned with sleek black hair moved out of his line of vision. A blond one came to take its place. Blond hair standing up in tufts as if it had been combed with fingers, surrounding a frowning face with honey-gold skin, a sprinkling of freckles, and fierce dark brown eyes.

In spite of how desperately awful he felt-worse than he could ever remember feeling before in his life-he could feel a smile shivering through his whole body, warming him the way the sun does when it slices through the frost on a cold morning.

“Hey, Sam,” he croaked.

Her eyes flickered, but didn’t lose their fierceness. “Hey, Pearse.”

“My God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured before he thought, then wanted to laugh out loud when she snorted. It was so typically, beautifully Sam.

“Boy, that’s a good one,” she said tartly, folding her arms on her chest in a defensive way, as if he’d said something insulting. “I’m so far from beautiful right now, it isn’t even funny.”

“That’s not the way I see it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, yeah, but you’ve been under anesthesia. You’re probably hallucinating.”

“Anesthesia?” His mind clicked into gear, kaleidoscopic memories zapped into focus. Fear stabbed through him and turned his blood to ice. He struggled to sit, to lift his head. To see. “Did I-my leg-is it-”

“Still there? Yeah, it’s fine. Well, not fine, exactly, the bullet did a whole lot of soft tissue damage-your career as an underwear model is probably history-but at least you get to keep it awhile longer.”

He was laughing helplessly, partly with relief, partly delight in her and sheer giddy wonderment that he’d managed to survive the last four years without her.

Then other memories faded in and took on sharpness, and the laughter died. “How’s Esther?” he asked half-fearfully.

Sam’s smile faltered as she drew a hitching breath. “She’s in intensive care. Hangin’ in there. As soon as she’s strong enough, I guess she’ll be flying back to Canada for bypass surgery. Her family wants her closer to home…”

“And Hal?”

She gave another of her dry little snorts. “He won’t leave her side. They had to put a bed in the ICU for him.” And she was fidgeting, suddenly, as if the subject made her uncomfortable, though he couldn’t imagine why.

“Where are we, Zamboanga?” he asked, still groggy.

She shook her head. “I only put down there long enough to pick up a med tech and some supplies. Then it was straight to Davao City. I’d have opted for Manila if I’d thought you two would make it that far.”

Cory was silent for a long time, letting the reality of that sink in to his mind and body…taking in the hospital room and the IV tubes pumping various fluids into his arms, no doubt laced with massive doses of antibiotics and painkillers…remembering everything that had happened over the last few incredible days, including things that were already beginning to seem more like a dream to him than reality. Except for the woman standing before him with her arms folded and one hip canted in that familiar, pugnacious way…

He closed his eyes and whispered on an exhalation, “God, Sam…you did it. I don’t know how, but you did. You got us all out of there alive. I can’t…” And for one of the very few times in his life, words failed him.

When he opened his eyes again, Sam was shaking her head emphatically, making her short hair fan out like ruffled fur. “It was a team effort, Pearse.” He opened his mouth to deny it, but she cut him off, sounding half-angry. “Hal and Esther wouldn’t be here at all right now if it wasn’t for you.” Then she caught a gulp of breath and added in a grudging tone, “Well, and Tony, of course.”

Tony. For the first time Cory thought about the interview tapes he’d entrusted to his best friend’s care…the cameras and rolls of film Tony had shlepped through miles of jungle and monsoon rains, even after he’d sacrificed two of his neck straps to save Cory’s life. “Good old Tony…where is he, by the way?” he asked in a careful voice.

For the first time in a while, Sam grinned. “I expect he’ll be up here shortly. Last time I saw him he was on a live videophone to CNN in New York. Looks like you’d better get yourself out of that bed in a hurry, Pearse. The whole world’s a-waitin’ for your side of the story.”

He laughed, then let his eyes drift closed again, and for a few moments allowed himself to float on the sweet euphoria of being alive, all too aware the world was out there “a-waitin’” for him, aware of all the things that needed to be done, but content for the moment to let it all drift along without his participation, like flotsam on the same river flow.

Except for one thing. Only one thing in his life was compelling enough, right now, to coax him out of that lovely lethargy. He opened his eyes and let them rest on her with gratitude, like rafters on a turbulent river finding a quiet cove.

She gazed back at him with that poignant mix of toughness and vulnerability that had captivated him the first time he’d laid eyes on her-toughness in the thrust of her chin belied by the soft vulnerability of her mouth…her dark and troubled eyes…

He smiled and said in a raspy murmur, “Do you have to stand clear over there? I can’t very well come to you, and I sure would like to kiss you.”

She jerked as if he’d startled her, and he saw a shadow cross her face…something that looked like pain. She hesitated, then stepped close to his bed, leaned down, and he heard the small in-take of her breath just before she kissed him. It sounded very much like a sob. The kiss was brief and light, and with the taste of her only a tantalizing promise on his lips, before he could bring up his hand to hold her there, she straightened up and looked away, and he saw her throat ripple several times with swallows. An ache formed in his own throat as he realized she was fighting tears.

Tears? But this was Sam, who never cried.

“What is it?” His voice was harsh and rasping. “What’s wrong?” He groped for her hand. “Come here-sit.”

She shook her head rapidly and gave a high little laugh, though when she spoke, her words sounded thick and slurred. “Uh-uh-I’m too dirty. The nurse would probably kick my butt right on outa here if I got mud all over you. Besides-” she caught a quick breath and didn’t seem to know what to do with her eyes “-I have to go, anyway.”

“Do you have to?” Fighting irrational panic at the thought of her leaving, he took care to make his voice calm…light…gentle. “Where are you off to?”

Fidgeting, she ran a hand through her hair, still not meeting his eyes. “Right now, to find a shower and some clothes. And, if there’s a God, a toothbrush. Then…” She reached again for a breath. “I guess I’ll be flying to Washington.”

His heart did a violent skip, but he only lifted his eyebrows. “Flying?”

She gave him a tight little smile. “Commercial flight, Pearse. I have to check in with my…uh, you know. Debriefing, and so on.”

He studied her, ruthlessly squelching the part of him that wanted to grab her and hold on to her and wail like an abandoned child. He was well aware that he was treading a narrow and unstable path, and doing it pretty much blindfolded. You wanted a chance to do it right? Well, here’s where it begins. Don’t blow this, Pearse.

The only problem: he had no idea what the right thing was. Should he back off and let her go with his cheerful blessing, show her he was capable of dealing with the demands of her career? Or tell her the truth, hold nothing back?

He still didn’t know what he was about to say, not until the words came out of his mouth. “Wow. I hate to let you go.” He took a breath, let it out, shook his head, and managed to produce a smile that made his face ache. “I think…we need to talk, Sam. Tony says we do, anyway.”

She gave a small laugh like a whimper of pain…looked away, then down at her feet.

“I can’t believe all this-meeting again after so long, being together-I can’t believe it didn’t happen for a reason,” he said softly. “We had something…maybe it sounds like a cliché, but we had something special, Sam. We did. We let it get away-my fault, I know-but here we have a chance to fix it.” He paused, then took another breath and plunged. “I love you. I never stopped…loving you. If you love me…if you do…then I don’t see how we can walk away from that without trying to make it work this time. I want to make it work, Sam.”

She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Had vowed on her CIA oath she wouldn’t. She was going to damn Cory Pearson to hell if he made her break that vow. But, oh, how she wanted to cry. Her throat felt as though a giant hand was squeezing it. Her face was a thousand burning knots.

“How can it, Pearse?” she said in a broken voice, barely audible. “How can it possibly work? I love you, but-”

“But-?” he interrupted with a small crooked smile. “That’s the first time you’ve ever told me that, by the way.”

“It is not!” she shot back, her pain replaced by anger.

Maddeningly-and true to his nature-he only said gently, “It’s true-but never mind. I’ll take it. So, why won’t it work?”

“For the same reason it didn’t work for us before, dammit. I have a career you can’t deal with. And if you couldn’t handle me being a pilot, what are you going to do with a CIA operative, for God’s sake? And-” her voice broke unexpectedly; she drew herself in, fighting desperately to hold fast against the breech “-I love my job, Pearse. Like I started to say, I love you, but I don’t want to give it up. Maybe someday. Okay, someday, but not yet, not now, when I’ve just barely started. I want to make a difference; it’s important to me. I’ve worked all my life for this. It’s who I am. Why should I have to sacrifice that in order to be with you?”