Rachel continued to look at Max. “Commander Max de Milles. Christie Benedict.”

Max nodded to the blonde. “Ms. Benedict.”

“Oh. You’re the soldier Tommy wrote about.”

“Sailor.”

Christie frowned, her perfectly arched blond brows flattening in consternation. “I’m sorry. I thought that you were the one who rescued our Rachel in the jungle.”

“I was one of the team. Most of us were Navy and Marines.” Max spoke into Rachel’s eyes. “Rachel, however, pretty much rescued herself. I’ve never met anyone less in need of saving. In fact, I’m pretty sure she saved me.”

Christie’s full red lips made an O shape. “How interesting.” She tugged Rachel’s hand from Max’s. “Really, darling, you’ve been keeping secrets.”

“No, Christie, I haven’t. You just haven’t been listening.” Rachel spared Christie a fleeting glance. Max was so close, so very close and all she wanted to do was keep touching her. No, not just touch her, keep her, and the way Max was devouring her with her eyes said she wanted something similar. But then they’d always had heat. Always had passion. What she needed, what she wanted, was more now.

“I know how stressful—how awful it was for you over…there,” Christie went on as if Rachel hadn’t spoken, her tone solicitous. “I’m sure when you’ve had time to recover, you’ll feel differently about a lot of things. Including us.”

“I appreciate your support, but I don’t need to recover or forget.” Rachel carefully let go of Max’s hand. “And I won’t change my mind.”

Max caught Christie’s expression before she covered it with a fake smile. For a second, her face had twisted into a grimace of annoyance, insult, and suspicion. More than a few people nearby were watching them. Rachel hadn’t exaggerated when she’d said she was often the object of unwanted attention. She’d almost rather be back in the jungle—at least then she could be alone with Rachel. Her breath caught. That’s what she wanted. To be with Rachel. Nothing else mattered. “I take it there will be another meeting with the press?”

“Yes, tomorrow.” Rachel’s voice had grown husky, her eyes more intense. “I’ll see you then.”

Shelley Carpenter magically appeared at Max’s side. The woman had some kind of radar. “Commander, the Secretary of the Navy is here. If you’ll come with me.”

“Yes.” Max couldn’t find any other words, at least none she could say here. She bowed slightly, unable to look away from Rachel. “Good night, Rachel. Ms. Benedict.”

Chapter Thirty-two

Rachel slid her arm through Christie’s and guided her into the cab line. When their turn came, she opened the rear door of the yellow cab and helped Christie in. “I’ll call Sara to let her know you’re on the way. She’ll answer if I call the house, won’t she?”

“I’m really fine,” Christie said, enunciating each word very carefully. “You can take me to the hotel. Come up with me.”

“No, I can’t. I’m sending you to your parents. Then I’ll know you’re home safely.”

“You can still come with me. Sara is very discreet—she always covered for Tommy and me when we got home late.”

“I remember.” Rachel smiled and shook her head. “But I meant it earlier—I care for you, but that part is over.”

“All right, for now.” Christie leaned back and closed her eyes. “But I’m not giving up.”

“I’ll call you soon.” Rachel closed the door, gave the cabbie the Benedicts’ address, and paid him the fare along with a generous tip. Back on the sidewalk, she moved away from the surging crowds and dialed Christie’s parents’ home. Their longtime housekeeper answered, sounding perfectly awake and composed at almost two a.m.

“Sara, it’s Rachel Winslow,” she said. “Christie’s on her way home in a cab. Watch out for her, will you, and make sure she gets up to bed all right?…Considering the traffic, half an hour or so. Thanks, Sara.”

She ended the call and was about to dial for the car service to pick her up when she sensed eyes on her. Pausing, she studied the shadows beyond the brightly lit entrance of the building. She’d gotten very good at looking into shadows and discerning what was hidden there. Tonight, she had no trouble at all, and her pulse quickened. Max. An instant later, Max stepped to her side. She had traded her dress uniform for a dark shirt worn outside dark jeans. She looked every inch as good as she had earlier. Rachel tried hard not to think about just how damn sexy she was.

“Hi,” Max said. “All done for the evening?”

“Yes, finally. I noticed you disappeared quite a long time ago.”

“Guilty,” Max said, laughing softly. “I escaped as soon as I could politely manage it.”

“I bet you gave Shelley fits.”

Max slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans and lifted one shoulder, a gesture so Max that Rachel nearly groaned. She had about sixty seconds of control left before she would have to touch her.

“She’s very passionate about her job, you know,” Rachel said, thinking passion was a tame term for what she felt for Max. Hunger, need, want. For starters.

“I assured her I would keep to the schedule and appear promptly at the appointed hour tomorrow to meet with the press.” Max stepped close. “But tonight is off the clock.”

“Is it?” Rachel searched behind the intensity in Max’s gaze, afraid to hope too much. When she’d left Max’s apartment all she’d known was that she couldn’t stay, not feeling the way she did and Max being somewhere else altogether. She was afraid she might give in all over again tonight, but then, would that be so bad? Maybe Max couldn’t give her everything she wanted, maybe she wanted too much, maybe she could be happy with just… No. She couldn’t. “So what are you still doing here?”

“Taking the night watch.”

“Really? And who are you watching out for?”

“You.”

Rachel’s insides were already smoldering. Now heat like a living thing poured through her, desire so potent she ached. “Max. I—”

“I told you we should talk.” Max took her hand. “I got that wrong, and you were right to go. I should talk.”

“You want to talk.” Rachel repeated the words like a ventriloquist’s dummy and with about as much comprehension. Her brain had checked out and her libido was driving the train. “God, Max. It’s the middle of the night.”

“Will you come back to my hotel with me?”

“Now?”

“Yes.” Max tugged her hand. Started to walk. “I’ll buy you a drink. Give me half an hour.”

Rachel would’ve said yes to anything at this point, and given her a hell of a lot more than half an hour. The walk would give her a chance to collect herself, and she’d be safe in the hotel lounge. She wouldn’t be able to give in to the clawing need that scored her heart. “All right.”

Max’s smile blazed as she offered her arm. Rachel linked her arm through Max’s and Max pulled her to her side. Their bodies fell into step, the connection instantaneous. The discordance that had plagued Rachel for days—an uneasy niggling in the back of her mind that was something was very wrong—fell away like a discarded cloak. Being with Max, touching Max, was right. With Max, she was herself, all of herself, in a way she’d never been with anyone else. She sighed.

“What?”

“I wasn’t sure I’d hear from you again.”

“I’m an idiot,” Max said. “I missed you. More than that—I couldn’t stop thinking about you. No matter what I was doing, you were always on my mind.” Max stopped—took both Rachel’s hands. A streetlight lit her face, stark and strong and beautiful. “I shouldn’t have waited until now to tell you that. To tell you a lot of things. When you walked away I felt like part of me was gone.”

Rachel gasped and pressed her fingers to Max’s mouth. Her head was whirling, hope and desire and wanting making her weak. “Don’t. Not out here. Not until we’re alone.”

“I can’t let you go again,” Max said vehemently. She stopped in front of the hotel. “Would you…will you come up to my room? Just to talk?”

“To talk,” Rachel said, echoing again. She nodded, a heavy thrumming in her belly warning her she was in trouble.

Max hurried them through a lobby Rachel scarcely noticed, up an elevator, and into a room with a king-sized bed and the usual hotel furnishings, including a small sofa and coffee table in one corner. She took off her coat and sat while Max rummaged in the wet bar. Max’s shirt stretched across her back and she remembered clinging to Max’s back while she’d come. She bit her lip and tried to focus.

Max handed her a plastic cup of white wine and sat down so close their knees touched. “The vintage is good. Sorry about the glass.”

“It’s fine.”

Max sipped an inch of dark whiskey without ice and set her cup aside.

“I wanted to call,” Max said in her right-to-the-point way. “But mostly I was running scared.”

Rachel smiled wryly and set her drink down too. “Yes, I’m sorry, I did dump a lot on you, didn’t I.”

“No, it wasn’t you. It was me. Is me.” Max clasped Rachel’s hand in both of hers. “You’re an amazing woman—determined, dedicated, willing to do whatever you need to do. You’re brave, Rachel, the way it counts. You deserve someone a lot stronger than me, someone who isn’t carrying around a lot of broken places.”

“I’ve never met anyone as strong or as brave or as giving.” Rachel couldn’t not touch her, not when she suffered so much. She stroked Max’s face. “I saw what it was like out there, just a little bit of what you’ve seen, but enough to understand there’s no reason, no logic, to who lives and who dies. Only skill and determination and maybe luck. And you, Max. You made a difference.”

“I’m not strong,” Max said. “What you saw back at the camp was me trying to make up for never being quite brave or strong enough. Every one I didn’t save and every one I knew I’d fail the next day or the next haunted me. Still haunts me.” She nodded to the drinks on the table. “I spent a lot of time trying to drink away the nightmares. I’m not drinking much these days, but I’ll probably always have the nightmares. And the dark places inside me.”