The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (20 page)

He shuddered, hoping it was the cold and knowing it wasn’t. He hated platitudes. It was cruel the way they kept a person holding out hope. They promised rainbows ... and never delivered.

“Chase? What are you doing?”

Chase didn’t turn around immediately. He didn’t want her to see what he knew was written in his face—that what she wanted from him was impossible. Whatever there was between them, or might have been, was impossible. ...

A muscle in his jaw tightened, aching hotly as he stared out at the hills, trying to figure out how he was going to tell her, but before he could find the words, she was next to him, pulling on her jeans and rushing to button up her sweater.

“What is it, Chase? The rustler?”

He shook his head without looking at her.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“A lot, Annie. There’s a whole lot wrong.” He turned and gave her a taste of the kind of hurt he could inflict. Acid seemed to be pumping through the valves of his heart as he watched her concerned expression transform into something softer, sadder. The light was going out of her eyes. Hope was being extinguished by another emotion that had no discernible color. The irises of her eyes had shone robin’s egg blue in the pale light, but now they were taking on an ashen dullness. Despair, he thought, that was the color of Annie’s eyes. It made her heartbreakingly beautiful.

“You’re sorry you made love to me, aren’t you?”

“Annie ... ” Words rushed out of him, words that couldn’t possibly bring back the vibrance to her eyes, but he said them anyway. “I’ll do everything I can to help you regain your citizenship, if that’s what you want. I’ve got some connections. I’ll even swear out an affidavit that you’re an American, or whatever it takes.”

“Affidavit?”

“Yes, I’ll get my partners to swear too—”

“But we’re married, Chase. Why do we need affidavits?”

He turned away from her, trying to block out the naked hurt in her eyes. It ripped through his chest, it clawed at him, tearing out hunks of flesh. “Dammit, Annie, it’s not going to work.”

“What isn’t going to work? Us?” Her voice softened, dropping off to a raspy whisper. “Anything can work if you’re willing to fight for it. If you want it badly enough.”

“For God’s sake, would you try to understand?” He swung around to confront her, aware of his own impotent rage, his own searing sadness. There was only one way to deal with this hopeless mess. It was another bandage that had to be ripped off as quickly and painlessly as possible. “I don’t want to be married, Annie. Not to you, not to anyone. I don’t want a wife and yellow kitchen curtains and a pack of screaming brats underfoot.”

The tears he’d expected to see sparkling in her eyes weren’t there. Instead, she was looking at him with stunned disbelief, as if he were some kind of monster.

“It makes no difference to you that I’m in love with you?” she said. “That I always have been? None of that matters?”

“It all matters, Annie. It matters like hell. That’s why we’ve got to resolve this thing now. I can’t let you go on thinking there’s a future for us. We can’t let this drag on any longer.”

“We wouldn’t have to stay married,” she said, her voice growing distant, as if she was talking to herself more than to him. “We could be divorced as soon as my citizenship is a proven thing.”

He turned away, raking a hand through his hair as he walked to the edge of the bluff. “Annie, the marriage in Costa Brava was a means to an end. It was a desperate measure, and we both know that. It may not even be valid, and if it is ... it has to be dissolved.”

Annie stepped back, staggering as a jagged rock cut into the sole of her bare foot. The pain was nothing compared to the brutal truth he was asking her to face. He didn’t love her. He’d risked his life to rescue her, he’d even married her, but he hadn’t loved her, then or now.
And he never would.
The fiery ache she’d felt earlier returned full force. It slashed a path up her throat and stung the lining of her mouth. The heat of it felt as much like anger as pain. And then she realized she
was
angry.

Arguments raged through her mind. She could think of a million ways to tell him what a selfish bastard he was, and how he was cutting himself off from everything good in life—from love, life’s greatest happiness. But what would it accomplish? She would never be able to convince him he was wrong. His flinty gaze told her nothing she could say or do would make any difference. The door was closed.

Perhaps she’d been right about him—he wasn’t capable of returning love. At the moment she didn’t care. She just wanted to get away from him. Being in his presence was too painful. She hated the thought that she might have to accept his help with the immigration service, but she would deal with that later. For now, at least, she had to find a way to put some distance between them. “Chase, I’m—”

His hand whipped up, silencing her. The words backed up in her throat until she realized his harsh gesture was not meant to castigate her. He was staring down at the mine shack.

“There’s someone down there,” he said under his breath. He ducked behind the ledge, grabbing Annie by the hand and dragging her with him.

The sound of rotted boards being ripped loose with a crowbar drifted up to them. Chase ventured out from behind the cover of the ledge for a look. “I can’t see who it is,” he said, “but he’s inside the shack. It’s got to be Jack.”

“Chase, I—”

Chase muffled her voice with his hand, pulling her close. “Not now,” he whispered roughly. “It’s not safe. He’s probably armed.”

Annie closed her eyes, hardly able to believe that she was enveloped in the warmth of Chase’s strong arms, that her face was nestled in his soft, thick chest hair. His sheltering embrace gave her such terrible pleasure, such cruel pain. She broke away from him, refusing to let herself feel such things.

“Annie, please don’t do anything stupid. Stay here while I check this out. Neither one of us is safe until I find out who’s down there.”

Annie watched silently as Chase pulled on his boots and shirt. Once he was dressed, he crept over to where the horses were staked out and lifted his bullwhip off the saddle horn. He also took a handgun from one of the saddlebags and tucked it into his leather belt. Then, motioning again for her to stay put, he started around the ridge toward a heavily treed section of the hill behind the shack.

As soon as he’d disappeared from Annie’s sight, she felt a tug of fear and indecision. What if something happened to him? He could be hurt, or killed. A sense of dread overwhelmed her as she realized how helpless she was to do anything. What would she do if he died? No matter what had happened between them, he was still everything, her whole life.

And then, in the wake of her rising horror, the anger came tumbling back. And the tears. Caustic, burning tears. Damn Chase Beaudine anyway, she thought, knuckling the wetness away from her eyes. Damn him straight to the hinges of hell. He’d tossed her out of his life like damaged goods, and now he expected her to stand here and passively wait for him, wondering if he was going to live or die? No, she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t. No woman could be expected to worry herself sick over a man who had just torn her heart from her body. That was too much. That was torture.

She found her tennis shoes underneath the sleeping bag and slipped them on as she tried to think what to do. More than anything she needed distance. She just wanted to get away from this place where heartache burned in the very air she breathed.

The horses nickered softly as she approached them, and Shadow roused from where he was sleeping. Annie knelt next to the dog, explaining to him that he couldn’t come with her as she studied the saddles that Chase had thrown over a fallen birch tree the previous night. They looked as if they weighed almost as much as she did, and though Annie had never ridden bareback, it appeared that she had no other choice.

Untying the mare, she led her to the birch tree and used it as a step to climb aboard. Moments later, after several awkward tries, she was on the horse’s wide, warm back, clinging to her halter and praying the animal knew the way back to the cabin.

The sun was breaking over the hills as Annie’s mount veered from the path and set off across a meadow that looked vaguely familiar to her. She gave the horse its head, hoping the detour they were taking meant they were nearing the cabin.

Her legs ached from gripping the animal’s ample girth, and her hands and arms were stiff from hanging on for dear life. There were other parts of her aching, too, but they had nothing to do with horseback riding. Her throat muscles felt bruised and sore from locking off wave after wave of sadness. And in another, deeper part of her body, she felt pried open and vulnerable in an entirely new way.

The twinges of tenderness reminded her of what she and Chase had done last night. And of how much she had loved the deep thrill of having him inside her. She had loved it so much, she was sure another man could never satisfy her now, and not simply because of physical proportions. Chase had been determined to give her more pleasure than pain, even if it meant sacrificing his own needs. He’d held back when she’d begged him not to because he’d known it wasn’t time. Only when she was ready for the fullness of the act had he given in to her pleas.

He had ruined her for any other man, she thought, closing her eyes at the sharp spasm of pleasure. She would ache for him the rest of her life.

A low whirring of sound pulled her out of her troubled reflections. The mare’s ears pricked, and suddenly she was moving faster, as though she’d heard the noise, too, and recognized it. As they crashed through a thicket of thimbleberries, Chase’s small cabin appeared in the clearing ahead. The windmill that powered the water pump and generator was cranking around in the breeze.

Annie had to fight back tears of relief. She hadn’t felt so grateful in a long time as she was to see that small, forlorn cabin nestled up against the hills. It looked and felt like home, though she knew she couldn’t let herself think in those terms any longer.

After leaving the mare in her stall with fresh water and a bucket of oats, Annie headed for the house. The first thing she wanted was a long shower, as piping hot as she could get the water. Then maybe she could figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

Her spirits lifted a little as she bounded up the front steps, but the minute she opened the door and walked in, she knew something was wrong. There was a stillness in the room, a pulsing presence that told her she wasn’t alone.

“Is someone here?” she said, halting midstride as a shadow loomed behind her. “Who is it?”

“I was about to ask you the same question.”

The man’s voice had a harsh resonance that brought gooseflesh to Annie’s forearms. She whirled, and caught a quick impression of the intruder in the shadows thrown by the open door. She couldn’t see him clearly, but he looked to be at least as tall as Chase. Darkness, that was the word that struck her as she tried to discern his features. The image of a black jungle cat flashed into her mind as she caught the glint of his obsidian eyes, and the long, dark hair flowing down his back.

“Where’s Chase Beaudine?” he asked. “And what are you doing in his place?”

It hit Annie all at once who he was. Who he had to be! The rustler everyone was stalking. Bad Luck Jack.

“Chase isn’t here,” she said, stalling for time. She was already envisioning herself being taken as a hostage if she didn’t come up with some way out of the situation. There wasn’t any point in trying to get past him and out the door, but there might be a way to outsmart him.

“Where is he?” the man asked.

She let her eyes dart nervously toward the bedroom door. “I don’t know,” she said, sharpening her voice. “He’s gone, that’s all. I don’t expect him back for some time. Days maybe.”

She glanced again at the bedroom.

“Somebody in there?” He nodded toward the doorway.

“No,” Annie said emphatically.

The man looked from the door to her and back again, then motioned her toward the room. “Let’s check it out. You first.”

Annie’s pulse was throbbing in her forehead as she halted in the bedroom doorway. “There’s no one in there,” she insisted. “He’s gone.”

The intruder pushed her over the threshold none too gently and entered the room behind her. “What’s that?” he asked, spotting the vault door immediately.

“Nothing, a back entrance—”

“Open it.”

Moments later they were in the tunnel, Annie leading the way after lighting one of the rusty kerosene lanterns that had hung on the kitchen wall. The man behind her said nothing as they cut through the musky darkness; he just kept prodding her forward.

Once they’d entered the small open cavern, Annie hesitated to let him check out the area. As his eyes roamed the walls, she began to inch away from him, trying to hold the lantern steady so he wouldn’t notice. “Look out!” she cried, hoping it would throw him off-balance as she ducked into the nearest tunnel and snuffed out the lantern.

She heard him stumble forward, and then came the sound she’d been waiting for: a harsh shout of surprise and the teeth-rattling thud of a large body colliding against hard clay. He’d fallen into the pit. Annie fumbled to find her matches and relight the lantern in the pitch-blackness. Once she had the wick glowing again, she approached the pit with great caution.

Her victim was sitting on the clay floor, rubbing the knee of his jeans, which was ripped out. She thought he seemed rather subdued until he glanced up. The luminous glare of his eyes froze her like a blinded animal. Lord, he did look like a jungle cat. “Who are you?” she asked. “Bad Luck Jack?”

His eyes narrowed as he stared up at her, and then a faint smile transformed his features into something a little less terrifying. “I have had better luck,” he said. “But no, that’s not my name. I’m Johnny Starhawk, an old friend of Chase’s.”

“You’re
who
?” Shock crashed through Annie. He couldn’t be Johnny Starhawk. She’d met the man in Costa Brava. He’d worn fatigues, aviator sunglasses, and the short-cropped hair of a marine. This man’s hair was a flying mane that fell below his shoulder blades, and now that she could see him clearly, she realized he had a strip of rawhide tied around his forehead. He looked like a renegade Indian. But hadn’t Chase said Johnny was a prominent lawyer?