Whirlwind (14 page)

“Besides you and me?” Liza prodded, starting to look doubtful. The towel lay forgotten in her lap.

“I've felt it from the start. Sometimes I think it's why I liked the lodge in the first place. She was welcoming me, you see, and—”

“She?”

Liza obviously didn't understand. Cliff wasn't sure he did, either. He tried to put his impressions into better terms. “I always thought there was a woman here. A female presence to help me with the dreams.”

“Cliff, ghosts don't exist, female or otherwise.”

“I know that, but I—I was never sure. About myself, I mean.”

Liza considered his words solemnly. But she didn't run laughing from the room, and for that, Cliff felt infinitely grateful. She believed him—or at least parts of his story. She chewed on her thumbnail, frowning at him, and in that moment Cliff saw the qualities that made Liza Baron the most unique woman he'd ever met. She wasn't as tough as she pretended. She wore that rough-talking, streetwise disguise like her own skin, but it wasn't the real Liza.

The real Liza was the sensitive young woman who sat close beside another human being when she was needed. Her slender hand curled inside his, comforting and firm. She devoted her incredible energy to him, and Cliff felt warmed by the burning embers of her concern.

At last, she said, “I think you need to see a doctor.”

“No.”

“Cliff, it's obvious you need some help! If you've been living here for years believing that sound is your own imagination—well, it's a wonder you haven't gone completely around the bend. You just
think
you've gone around the bend.”

“I don't need a doctor. I've heard everything I need to hear from doctors. I can't afford one, anyway.”

“Oh, every veteran's hospital in the country would provide the kind of help you—”

“I'm not a veteran.”

Liza's lovely mouth stayed open several seconds. Then she said, “But I thought you were in the war.”

Cliff shook his head. “Nope. My father was.”

“Your father?”

“He was a career man and served in Vietnam. That's why I went.”

Liza frowned deeply. “I don't understand.”

“Look,” he said, drawing a long breath. “I don't want to talk about this.”

“You think you can scare the hell out of me tonight and not explain?”

“It's none of your business—”

“So sue me!”

“I don't owe you any explanations!”

“The hell you don't! You've been acting like a monster ready to break his chain any minute, and it's high time you spilled your guts, Forrester. I want some answers, and I want them now!”

For good measure, she punched him on the shoulder. Hard.

Instinctively, Cliff seized her hand. “Stop it!”

“No,
you
stop it!” She threw up her head and said, “You can't say anything that's going to shock me. I know you've been through something terrible. That's obvious. Tell me, for crying out loud. Maybe we
both
need to hear it.”

Cliff fought the urge to push her away. It had been years since he'd told his life story, but even when he had, he'd never felt as if his audience truly cared what had happened over there. Liza's intent face bespoke more than a clinical interest, however. Her beauty had never seemed more radiant than in that moment. Beneath her show of anger lay a concern that felt genuine.

Slowly Cliff released her. He pulled the towel from her hand and finished wiping some of the drying perspiration from his forehead. “My father disappeared in Nam,” he said.

“Disappeared?”

“We were told he'd been taken prisoner.”

“Who's we?”

“My family. My brother and my mother and I.” Liza nodded.

“Go on.”

Cliff cleared his throat, uncomfortable telling the story, but compelled to do so by Liza's palpable interest. The trust that showed in her gaze gave him the courage to speak.

“My father disappeared just as the American forces were pulling out completely. We weren't told what had happened
to him. The government declared him missing and presumed dead. But I couldn't let that stand. Losing my father that way—not knowing what became of him...it almost killed my mother. I had to know what happened.”

“So you went to Vietnam to look for him.”

“Yes. He—he disappeared over Cambodia,” Cliff said haltingly. “So that's where I went.”

“And?” Liza cocked her head. “Did you find him?”

“I found the people who had helped him after he crashed—the people who were with him when he died.”

“Oh, Cliff.”

She was quick to empathize. Liza wore her emotions very close to the surface. She wasn't afraid to let the turmoil of her feelings show.

He shook his head, unable to react in kind for fear of letting down a floodgate that held back emotions he'd been trying to control for years. He was able to say calmly, “By the time I learned what really happened, I was ready to hear the truth. I grieved for him, but I—I needed to stay. To help his friends.”

“What do you mean?”

Cliff found himself explaining, “Cambodia was in trouble then. The people were being overrun by the Khmer Rouge. Women and children were being slaughtered by the tens of thousands, so I stayed to help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Guiding families over the mountains, mostly. Protecting them as they traveled. We smuggled whole villages to boats that could take them out of the country.”

“How long did you do that?”

“Two years. Then I was wounded and—”

“Wounded?” Liza looked shocked.

“It was a war, Liza.”

“But not your war,” she murmured, watching his face. “How badly were you hurt?”

“Not too badly.” His hand crept unbidden to the back
of his head, where he'd been hit by a piece of shrapnel. Hardly a scar remained—just a jagged ridge of tissue on his scalp. The memory of the pain was still very real, however, and the anguish of leaving his friends before the work had been finished was a wound that had never healed.

Without an invitation, Liza covered his fingers with her own and found the evidence beneath his hair. Her touch was very gentle, but not tentative. It felt like a caress.

Softly, she murmured, “You stayed to fight someone else's war to help people you didn't know.”

“I did know them. They were my father's friends. Besides, if you'd been there, seen those children...”

His voice shook, and Liza sat very still, listening.

When he could speak without trembling, Cliff said, “I spent a couple of months in a hospital in the Philippines. After that, I couldn't get back into Cambodia, so I came home. Not home to Rhode Island, exactly, but back to the States.”

“Why not home?” Liza asked, quick to catch his slip.

“I couldn't,” Cliff said simply. “I wasn't the same person who'd left.”

“But your family? You told them about your father?”

“Oh, yes. I went to see them, but I...well, I couldn't stay. I needed to be alone. I still do.”

“Why?”

“Because I can't be around people!”

“But why? Are you embarrassed by the flashbacks?”

“My dreams are my own problem. It's...I don't want to hurt anybody, that's all.”

“Why would you hurt people?”

“I can't control it. It's...I'm—”

“You're not exactly a murderer, for Pete's sake!”

“I have been,” Cliff said quietly.

Liza watched him for a long time.

“No,” she said, shaking her head at last. “I don't think so.”

“You know nothing about me!”

“I know enough,” she replied, her expression turning furious again. “You're a good man, Cliff Forrester. Any fool can see that. If you used a gun, it was for a good reason—the only good reason! To help innocent people.”

“Is that an excuse for killing?”

Liza broke out of his grasp and stood up, agitated. “Now I understand what's going on here.”

“What?”

“You're punishing yourself, aren't you?”

“I'm staying away, that's all. I know what I'm capable of doing. And I can't always control myself.”

It was too hard to explain. Control was what mattered most. Out in the world, there were too many unknowns. Something simple might set him off, make him crazy. But trying to explain that to Liza—Liza, who was stronger than anyone else on the face of the earth—felt like an impossible task.

She said, “You're not one of those guys who climbs a tower with a high-powered rifle and starts shooting.”

“I
could
be. I know what those men are going through. I dream their dreams, I've seen the same darkness—”

“You haven't hurt me.”

“Not yet,” Cliff said.

Liza laughed harshly. “You're not
that
crazy. Anybody who'd try to hurt me is going to end up with his butt in a sling. I doubt there's anything wrong with you at all. You've had a little too much solitude, that's all.”

“Liza...”

“Get dressed,” she commanded.

“What?”

“Put on a shirt and some shoes. You're coming with me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“We're going to prove you're not crazy. We're going up to the attic to find out what's been haunting you.”

“I've already searched the lodge—every corner!”

“Not with me, you haven't.”

She hauled Cliff to his feet and slid her arms around him as naturally as if they'd been lovers. It felt strange to be held by a woman. The sensations her embrace evoked felt stranger still. Bewildered by the barrage of conflicting emotions that swept over him, Cliff automatically let his arms enfold Liza's slim body. Her curves stirred him and befuddled him at the same time.

She was speaking, and it took Cliff several seconds to catch up with her conversation.

“We'll have to get into the attic,” she said, her words tumbling over themselves. “Ever since Joe was here today, I've been trying to remember how we used to get up there to play. As I was drifting off to sleep tonight, I started remembering....”

Dazedly, Cliff wondered what Liza looked like as she drifted off to sleep. The thought struck him like an arrow between his shoulder blades.

She chattered on, breathlessly unaware of the nosedive his thoughts had taken, saying, “My grandmother used to sleep downstairs in her own bedroom. You know that little room off the veranda? It was her boudoir—near the French windows so she could run out to meet her lover, I suppose....”

While she talked, Cliff wondered if Liza had lovers. Real lovers, or just boys.

“And there was a staircase from her room,” Liza continued. “A narrow set of stairs that ran up to the attic. It's behind a panel, and I'm sure I can find it. Shall we try? Cliff? Are you okay? Cliff?”

He'd become aware that Liza was wearing nothing but the sweater he'd lent her the moment she'd arrived at the lodge. Did she wear that old rag all the time? he wondered. The lines of her body—so lean and taut in appearance—
felt soft and feminine against his harder frame. Would her skin feel soft beneath the sweater?

Without thinking, he filled his hands with the knitted fabric and crushed it in his grip.

Maybe he wasn't crazy. Maybe there was a chance to be normal. To be a whole man again.

Liza tilted her head up to his and watched his face as he did it. There was no fear in her expression, however. Questioningly, she said, “Cliff?”

“Liza,” he said. “Liza, you should go.”

“Let's not start that again.”

“There's no need for you to stay. Go home to your grandfather.”

“I don't want to leave.” She touched his face with her fingertips.

Cliff shuddered under her touch. It was a tender gesture. One that battered at the wall of his self-control.

Softly she said, “I want to stay.”

“Why?”

She answered his question with a rhetorical one of her own. “Why did you take care of those children in Cambodia?”

“But I'm not a child.”

“No, but you need me just the same.”

Cliff said, “Maybe I need you in ways that are far from childlike.”

Her blue eyes began to flicker, and her saucy mouth curled up at the edges. “What are you saying, Forrester? Do you think I'm sexy after all?”

He let out his pent-up breath. “God, you're trouble!”

“Don't change the subject. Do I turn you on or not? Yes or no?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good,” said Liza, firmly pushing herself out of his embrace while smiling provocatively at him. “That's the best sign I've seen so far.”

She found a shirt for him and shoved it into his hands. “Get dressed,” she commanded. “Then we'll play ghost-busters.”

To punctuate her command, she kissed him on the mouth, wrapping one hand neatly around the back of his neck and letting her long fingers play into the strands of his hair. Her lips tasted warm and delicious, and her tongue swiped across Cliff's mouth languorously before she broke contact completely. She looked deeply into his eyes and smiled.

Gazing into her face, Cliff felt the stirrings of desire. Maybe he
could
be a man again.

L
IZA KNEW
she was being rash. Plunging into a ghost hunt at midnight wasn't exactly the most sensible act she'd ever proposed. But she had to do it. Seeing the pain that dilated Cliff's black eyes when he talked about his sanity was motivation enough. He wasn't crazy. And she intended to prove it to him.

“Let me get dressed,” she said, and slipped into her room to pull on jeans. Then, barefoot, she scampered back into the hall, only to discover that Cliff had gone downstairs alone.