Eye of the Beholder (16 page)

Evidently, Dr. Colbert had done her job well.

This had been inevitable. Rafe knew that. But that didn’t stop him from hating it.

And for a crazy instant, he wanted to rip out her hairpins and plunge his fingers into her curls until her hair was an untamed halo around her head. He ached to press himself to her body and feel her mouth tremble under his. To hell with the shrinks and the psych manuals and doing what was right. He wanted to turn her back into
his
Glenna.

Damn, he’d known this was going to be painful. He hadn’t realized how much. He should have scheduled a few sessions with Dr. Colbert for himself. He dried his palms on his pant legs. “Hello, Glenna.”

His voice brought it all back. Glenna had believed she was making progress. She had only cried twice today. She’d even been able to control the shaking of her hands enough to do her nails.

But all she had to do was hear his voice and she wanted to throw herself into his arms and weep.

The books she’d borrowed from Dr. Colbert had explained all of this. The psychological effects of captivity were well documented. She had been dependent on Rafe for the necessities of life, and he had taken on a heroic stature in her mind. In her exhausted state, her gratitude had become infatuation. Her desperation had been channeled into passion. And she’d mistaken that passion for love.

All in all, she was a textbook case.

It was humiliating. It was pathetic.

But oh, God, she wanted to hold him. One last time. It didn’t matter to her that he’d just stated flat out she’d meant nothing to him. If he so much as crooked his finger at her, she’d be all over him in a heartbeat.

“Miss Hastings?”

Glenna looked at the uniformed woman who stood beside Rafe. “Yes?”

“I’m Captain Fox. I work with Master Sergeant Marek and Eagle Squadron. We’re all pleased the mission ended successfully.” She smiled pleasantly, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She extended her hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better, thanks.” Glenna took a closer look at her as she shook her hand. The trim, blond woman seemed familiar somehow. Suddenly it struck her why. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Last week you drove that ambulance to the plane. You wanted to help the pilot.”

“I did, but I’m not a doctor. I was a distraction who went along for the ride since I happened to speak the local Rocaman dialect.” She held Glenna’s gaze, as if she were studying her in turn. “I’m surprised you remember. Many people in your situation prefer to block out traumatic events.”

“Yes, I read about that.”

“Oh?”

“has been very helpful. I’ve learned quite a bit about trauma psychology.”

Captain Fox glanced at Rafe. “That’s good, isn’t it, Sergeant Marek? We were just discussing that.”

A muscle in the side of his jaw twitched. “How’s your ankle, Glenna?”

If she told him it hurt, would he sweep her into his arms? “Almost as good as new.”

“And the abrasions?”

If she told him her shoulders were still sore from the bark of the tree he’d held her against before the helicopter had showed up, would he want to finish what they’d started? “Healing well, thank you.”

“Good.”

“How’s your leg?” Did he remember how she had wiped his tears while he’d dreamed about John? Did he think about how well their bodies had fit together?

“Fine.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“I imagine you must be eager to go home, Miss Hastings,” Captain Fox said. “Your life in Manhattan must be very different from what you’ve experienced this past week. When will you be discharged?”

“I just was,” Glenna replied, keeping her gaze on Rafe. “I’ll be taking the Amtrak to New York in forty minutes.”

He rubbed his palms against his legs again and nodded to the room behind her. “Before you go, Glenna, I’d like to speak with you. In private, if you don’t mind, Captain,” he added to the blond woman beside him.

Captain Fox nodded curtly. “Nice meeting you, Miss Hastings. I’ll speak with you later, Sergeant Marek.”

The moment she and Rafe were alone in the hospital room, Glenna felt her pulse go wild. Adrenaline rushed through her body.
Oh, Rafe, please tell me it was real. Tell me that you and the books and the doctors were wrong. Take me in your arms and ask me to stay….

He stood with his feet shoulder-width apart and clasped his hands behind his back. “Glenna, I would like to apologize once more for my conduct.”

Oh, damn. Why didn’t he just slap her? She moved to one of the chairs that flanked the table under the room’s window and grasped the chair back so that he wouldn’t see her hands shake. “You have nothing to apologize for, Rafe. I understand now that you were honest with me. I simply didn’t listen.”

“I should have tried harder.”

“There really isn’t any need to discuss this. As you said, it’s over.”

“Not completely.”

The eagerness that burst through her took her off guard. Oh, God. She was pathetic. He had never spoken about a future for them. It was absurd to hope that he would now. “You made yourself very clear on several occasions, Rafe. I don’t know what more there is to say.”

“I take responsibility for what happened between us.”

“We both know that I was the one who…initiated the…things we did.” Her eyes heated with tears. She lifted her chin. “Please, don’t embarrass me more than you need to, Rafe.”

“Hell, Glenna. That’s not why I came here.” He took a step toward her, then clenched his jaw and resumed his stiff posture. “I wanted you to know that if there are any consequences as a result of my actions, I intend to take full responsibility. Legal and financial.”

“Consequences?”

“I mean if you’re pregnant.”

Her knees gave out. She yanked the chair around and sat down before she could fall. “Pregnant?”

He swore under his breath and moved to her side. “We had unprotected sex, Glenna. I realize the odds are slim that you would have conceived, but—”

“Oh, my God. I hadn’t even thought about that.”

He dropped to one knee to catch her gaze. “I’m sorry, Glenna. I hadn’t wanted to upset you, but we had to get this straight before you left.”

She looked at him, her head reeling. Pregnant? With Rafe’s baby? A child with his blond hair and his beautiful blue eyes? Oh, yes. She could imagine it so easily. If she was pregnant, then her relationship with Rafe wouldn’t have to end. They could get married. They could raise a whole family of blond-haired, blue-eyed angels and they could lay the ghosts of their pasts to rest. She could show him that he was a good man inside, that he didn’t have to be afraid of loving someone…

“I don’t like the idea of abortion,” he said, “but it’s your body so you have the right to decide. Whatever your choice, I’ll support you, Glenna.”

Oh, God, she was doing it again. He didn’t want a relationship. There
was
no relationship. He was merely trying to be honorable.

Yes, that was Rafe, all right. Willing to go beyond the call of duty. Riding to her rescue like some fairy-tale knight.

But this was reality. And she was a fool. An utter fool. When it came to her emotions, it appeared that her judgment was no better than her father’s. She’d had good reasons for living the kind of life she did before the hijacking. She’d been wrong to believe she should change.

Dr. Colbert had explained all of that, too. Decisions made under extreme stress were never reliable. Glenna had believed she’d been about to die—stress didn’t get much more extreme than that. She’d thought Rafe had been her last chance for living and loving.

But life went on. And that was the hard part.

Damn him. Rafe had been right about that, too.

“Glenna?”

She gestured toward the suitcase that sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. “Would you bring that over here, please?”

He did as she asked, setting the suitcase down on the table in front of her.

She turned it around so that she could unzip a pocket on the , then took out her gold-embossed leather-covered day planner. She held it so tightly her freshly polished nails scored the cover.

“What’s that?” he asked.

It was her anchor, she thought. The structure of her life before he came into it. Her road map home. She handed the book to Rafe. “There’s a section for addresses in the back,” she said. “Write down your number. I’ll be in touch.”

Rain drizzled through the boughs overhead in a shimmering gray mist. The smell of pines mingled with the scent of mud and wet leaves. The light was fading fast, turning the forest into a maze of dark trunks and eyeball-poking brush. It was an old National Guard post in West Virginia instead of a tropical rain forest, a selection exercise for the latest class of applicants to Delta Force, not a rescue mission, yet somehow Rafe’s mind kept straying to those five days in Rocama.

It had been more than three weeks ago. It had been only one mission in hundreds. Why couldn’t he get that one out of his mind?

Simple. It wasn’t the mission, it was Glenna.

He leaned against an oak tree and rested his head against the trunk. Water fell from his hood and trickled down his neck into his collar. He was tired, and despite his poncho, he was wet. He should be able to ignore the discomfort. He usually could. That’s what he’d been trained to do. But lately he’d had a hard time focusing. Everything he did seemed to remind him of her.

Take the rain. It reminded him of how wet they’d both been when the stream had carried them into that pool. And his boots. He couldn’t lace them up without remembering how bravely she’d tried to walk in her borrowed boots, and how her bare foot had felt so good when she’d rubbed the sole on the back of his leg. Even the damn orange juice he’d had before heading out this morning had reminded him of her perfume. All he had to do was think of her lips on his skin and his body got hard.

He didn’t have as active a sex life as Flynn had, but he was no monk. He knew he didn’t have a face a woman would want to see across a breakfast table, but no one had complained about his body. He understood what women wanted from him and he enjoyed providing it. He’d provided it for Glenna.

Granted, his behavior had been inappropriate. Worse, it had been irresponsible. He’d never had sex without using a condom before.

Was that why she haunted him? Because there had been no barrier between his body and hers to dull the pleasure? Was it as simple as that?

Maybe. Or maybe it was a matter of male pride. He wanted the chance to do it right. On a bed. While he was fully awake. He would make sure she knew it was him she was holding and not simply a warm body in the dark.

Then again, the sex wasn’t the only thing that haunted him. He missed her touch and her smile and the way she used to look at him. He missed the brave little tilt of her chin when she had told him she loved him. Had it really been just an illusion, a side effect of their circumstances? At times he almost hoped there would be a baby, just to make it real. Then he’d have an excuse to keep her.

Keep her? No, that’s not what he wanted. His life was fine the way it was. Permanence was forother people, not him. And as for love, well, that wasn’t for him, either. He’d had no right to listen to Glenna say those words. He had no right to hear them from anyone.

He scowled and wiped his face. It had been twenty-six days since she’d gone home. Was it too early for her to know for sure whether she was pregnant? And would she call him if she did know?

She’d said she’d be in touch. But she’d sounded as sincere as if she’d been promising to do lunch. She’d been eager to leave. She hadn’t stayed at the base one more minute than necessary. Everything he’d predicted had come true.

He’d done the right thing. A quick, clean break and they could get on with their separate lives.

Except he kept thinking about her. He kept wanting her. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He didn’t want the woman who had looked at him so coolly and handed him that swanky address book. He wanted
his
Glenna.

He’d give her another week. If she didn’t call him by then—

A slight change in the texture of the grayness in front of him was the only sign that Rafe was no longer alone. He dragged his mind back to his duty. The flat surface of another poncho slowly materialized out of the gloom.

The recruit was good at moving undetected, Rafe thought. The rain would have masked his footsteps to some degree, and the leaves on the ground were too wet to crackle, yet he’d also had the good sense to move a few hundred meters out of his way rather than crashing through the brush. It had taken him longer, but he would reach the objective within the allowed time.

Of course, none of the applicants were told how much time they had. It was up to them to decide whether they would go for speed or concentrate on stealth. Apart from the particular destination that had been marked on each individual map, everything about this exercise was up to the recruits, from getting themselves up in the morning to deciding how much of their rations they should consume in one day. This exercise wasn’t about being a team player, it was about showing that they could be relied on to make the right decisions on their own.

Rafe stepped away from the relative concealment of the oak tree. “Orange Five?”

The man spun around, his hands and body moving reflexively into a classic defensive stance. There was an instant of tension when he caught sight of Rafe’s face—given the rain and the eerie gloom of the forest, Rafe knew his appearance could spook even a seasoned solider. To his credit, the man recovered quickly and snapped a salute. “Yes, sir.”

Sergeant Beliveau was an Army Ranger, one of the best of an elite unit. He’d been invited to apply to Delta because of his outstanding marksmanship and his skill with explosives. Yet his qualifications didn’t carry any weight here. Today he was simply Orange Five. Tomorrow he would be Blue Three. Whether he’d ever be part of Delta wasn’t yet certain.

Rafe extended his hand. “Give me your rucksack.”

Beliveau did as he was asked. Rafe took a small spring-operated hand scale from under his poncho and attached the strap of the soldier’s rucksack to the scale’s hook. All the men had been told to maintain thirty pounds in their packs. That meant whatever water or foonsumed during the day had to be compensated for by adding extra weight.