White Lies (11 page)

           
 
Curious, she did as he said, sitting facing
him. The head of his bed had been raised to an upright position, so he was
sitting erect and they were on the same level. Abruptly she noticed how much
she had to look up at him. His bare shoulders and chest, despite the weight he
had lost, still dwarfed her, and again she wondered what sort of work he had
done that had developed his torso to that degree.

           
 
Tentatively he reached out, and his hand
touched her hair. Realizing why he had wanted her to sit there, she remained
still while his fingers sifted through the strands. He didn't say anything. He
lifted his other hand, and his palms cupped her face, his fingers gliding
lightly over her forehead and brow, down the bridge of her nose, over her lips
and jaw and chin before sliding down the length of her throat.

           
 
Her breath had stopped, but she hadn't
noticed. Slowly he laced his fingers around her neck as if measuring it, then
traced the hollows of her collarbones out to her shoulders. "You're too
thin," he murmured, cupping the balls of her shoulders in his palms.
"Don't you eat enough?"

           
 
"Actually, I've gained a little
weight," she whispered, beginning to shake at his warm touch.

           
 
Calmly, deliberately, he moved his hands down
to her breasts and molded his fingers over them. Jay inhaled sharply, and he
said, "Easy, easy," as he stroked the soft mounds.

           
 
"Steve, no." But her eyes were
closing as warm pleasure built in her, her blood beating slowly and powerfully
through her veins. His thumbs rubbed over her nipples and she quivered, her
breasts beginning to tighten.

           
 
"You're so soft." His voice
roughened even more. "God, how I've wanted to touch you. Come here,
sweetheart."

           
 
He ignored the pain in his hands as he pulled
her against him, and he wrapped his arms around her as he had dreamed of doing
so many times since her voice had charmed him out of the darkness. He felt her
slender-ness, her softness, her warmth, and the gut-wrenching pleasure of her
breasts flattening against the hard planes of his chest. He smelled the
sweetness of her skin, felt the thick silk of her hair, and with a harsh,
muffled sound of want, of need, he sought her mouth.

           
 
He already knew her mouth. He would beg,
cajole, insist until she would give him a kiss in the morning and again at
night before she left. He knew it was wide and full and soft, and that her lips
trembled each time she kissed him. Now he slanted his mouth to cover hers,
pressing hard until her lips parted and gave him the entrance he sought. He
could feel her shaking in his arms as he moved his tongue into her mouth and
tasted her sweetness. Damn, how had he been fool enough to let her get away
from him five years before? Not being able to remember making love to her made
him furious because he wanted to know what she liked, how it felt to be inside
her, if they had been as good together as every instinct he possessed told them
they would be. She belonged to him; he knew it, felt it, as if they were tied
together. He deepened the kiss, forcing her to respond to him the way he knew
she could, the way he knew she wanted to. Finally she shivered convulsively,
and her tongue met his as her arms crept up around his neck.

           
 
He shouldn't be this strong, Jay thought
dimly, not after all he's been through. But his arms were hard, and so tight
around her that her ribs were being squeezed. Steve had never been this
aggressive before; he certainly hadn't been a passive man, but now he was
kissing her with naked demand, forcing their relationship into an intimacy that
frightened her. He wanted her more than he ever had during their marriage, but
now his attention was intensely focused on her because of the circumstances.

           
 
"We shouldn't do this," she managed
to say, turning her head aside to free her mouth from the hungry pressure of
his. She brought her hands down and pushed lightly at his shoulders.

           
 
"Why not?" he murmured, taking
advantage of the vulnerability of her throat with slow kisses. His tongue
touched the sensitive hollow below her ear, and her hands tightened on his
shoulders as wonderful little ripples of pleasure radiated over her skin. His
lack of sight didn't hinder him; he knew his way around a woman's body.
Instinct went deeper than memory.

           
 
Both conscience and her sense of
self-protection made Jay push at his shoulders again, and this time he slowly
released her. "We can't let ourselves get involved again," she said
in a low voice.

           
 
"We're both free," he pointed out.

           
 
"As far as we know. Steve, you could have
met someone in the past five years who you really care about. Someone could be
waiting for you to come home. Until you get your memory back, you can't be
certain that you're free. And... and I think we should be cautious about
jumping back into a relationship without knowing more than we do."

           
 
"No one's waiting for me," he said
with harsh certainty. Her movements were jerky with agitation as she slid off
the bed and walked to the window. The morning sky was a leaden color, and snow
flurries were drifting aimlessly on the light wind. "You can't know
that," she insisted, and turned back to look at him.

           
 
His face was turned toward her even though he
couldn't see her, and the hard line of his mouth told her he was angry. The
sheet was around his waist, baring his broad shoulders and chest, as he had
disdained both pajamas and a hospital gown, though he had finally consented to
wear the pajama bottoms with the legs cut off and the seams slit so they would
fit over the casts on his legs. He was thin, pale and weak from what he'd been
through, but somehow the impression he gave was one of power. Nor was he all
that weak, not if the strength she had just felt in him was any measure. He
must have been incredibly strong before the accident. Those five years when she
hadn't seen him were becoming even more of a mystery.

           
 
"So you've stayed here with me all this
time just because you have a Florence Nightingale complex?" he asked
sharply. It was the first time she had refused him anything, and he didn't like
it at all. If he could have walked, he would have come after her, sightless or
not, weak or not, even though he was still in pain most of the time. None of
that would have stopped him, and for the first time she was grateful for his
broken legs.

           
 
"I never hated you," she tried to
explain, knowing that she owed him at least the effort. "I don't think we
were all that deeply in love, certainly not enough to make our marriage work.
Frank asked me to stay because he thought you would need me, given your
condition. Even Major Lunning said it would help if you were around someone
familiar, someone you knew before the accident. So... I stayed."

           
 
"Don't give me that crap." Her
attempt to explain had made him even more furious, and it was a type of anger
she hadn't seen before. He was very still and controlled, his guttural voice
little more than a whisper. Chills ran up her spine because she could feel his
temper like both ice and fire, lashing out at her even though he hadn't moved.
"Do you think that because I can't see, I couldn't tell you were turned on
just now? Try again, sweetheart."

           
 
Jay began to get angry at the harsh demand in
his voice. "All right, if you want the truth, here it is. I don't trust
you. You were always too restless to settle down and try to build a life
together. You were always leaving on another of your

           
 
'adventures,' looking for something I couldn't
give you. Well, I don't want to go through that again. I don't want to get
involved with you again. You want me now, and you may need me a little, but
what happens when you're well? Another pat on the head and a kiss on the cheek while
I get to watch you ride off into the sunset? Thanks, but no thanks. I have more
sense now than I did before."

           
 
"Is that why you start shaking every time
I touch you? You want to get involved again, all right, but you're
afraid."

           
 
"I said I don't trust you. I didn't say I
was afraid of you. Why should I trust you? You were still looking for trouble
when that explosion almost killed you!" Abruptly she realized that she was
all but yelling at him, while his voice hadn't risen at all. She turned and walked
out, then leaned against the wall outside his door until both the temper and
the shaking subsided. She felt sick, not because of their argument, but because
he was right. She was afraid. She was terrified. And it was too late to do
anything about it, because she was in love with him again, despite all her
warnings and lectures to herself against it. She didn't know him anymore. He
had changed; he was harder, rougher; far more dangerous. He was still a leaver,
probably far more involved in the situation than Frank had wanted her to know.

           
 
But it didn't make any difference. She had
loved him before when it had gone against her better judgement, and she loved
him now when it made even less sense. God help her, she had left herself wide
open for a lot of pain, and there was nothing she could do.

           
 
Steve lay quietly, forcing the lingering
cloudiness of anesthesia from his mind. He was instinctively still, like an
animal in the jungle, until he was aware enough to know what was going on. A
man could lose his life by moving before he knew where his enemies were. If
they thought he was dead, he gained the advantage of surprise by lying still
and not letting them know he was still alive until he could recover enough to
make his move. He tried to open his eyes, but something covered them. They had
him blindfolded. But that didn't make sense; why blindfold someone they thought
was dead?

           
 
He listened, trying to locate his captors. The
usual jungle sounds were absent, and gradually he realized that he was too cold
to be in a jungle. The smell was all wrong, too; it was a sharp, medicinal
odor, like disinfectant. This place smelted like a hospital.

           
 
The realization was like a curtain going up,
and abruptly he knew where he was and what had happened, and at the same time
the hazy recollection of the steamy jungle swiftly faded. The final surgery on
his eyes was over, and he was in Recovery. "Jay!" It took an
incredible amount of effort to call for her, and his voice sounded strange,
even worse than usual, so deep and hoarse it was almost like an animal's cry.
" Jay!"

           
 
"Everything's all right, Mr.
Crossfield," a calm voice said soothingly.

           
 
"You've had your surgery, and everything
is just fine. Lie still, and we'll have you back in your room in a few
minutes."

           
 
It wasn't Jay's voice. It was a nice voice,
but it wasn't what he wanted. His throat was dry; he swallowed, and winced a
little because his throat was so raw and sore. That's right; they'd had a tube
down it. "Where's Jay?" he croaked, like a frog.

           
 
"Is Jay your wife, Mr. Crossfield?"

           
 
"Yes." Ex-wife, if they wanted to
get technical. He didn't care about the labels. Jay was his.

           
 
"She's probably waiting for you in your
room."

           
 
"Take me there."

           
 
"Let's wait a few more minutes—"

           
 
"Now." The single word was guttural,
the steely command naked. He didn't try to dress it up in polite phrases,
because it was all he could do to say a few words at a time. He was still
groggy, but he fixed his thoughts on Jay with singleminded determination. He
began groping for the rail on the side of the bed.

           
 
"Mr. Crossfield, wait! You're going to
pull the IV out of your arm!"

           
 
"Good," he muttered.

           
 
"Calm down, we're going to take you to
your room. Just lie still while I get an orderly."

           
 
A minute later he felt the bed begin to move.
It was a curiously relaxing movement, and he began to go to sleep again but
forced himself to stay alert. He couldn't afford to relax until Jay was with
him; there was damned little he knew about who he was or what was going on, but
Jay was the one constant in his life, the one person he trusted. She had been
there from the beginning, as far back as his memory reached, and further.

           
 
"Here we are," the nurse said
cheerfully. "He couldn't wait to get back to his room, Mrs. Crossfield. He
was asking for you and kicking up a fuss."

           
 
"I'm here, Steve," Jay said, and he
thought she sounded anxious. He noticed that she didn't correct the nurse about
her name, and fierce satisfaction filled him. The name didn't mean much to him,
but it was a name he'd once shared with Jay, one of the links that bound her to
him.

           
 
He was lifted onto his bed, and he could feel
them fussing around him for a few more minutes. It was getting harder to stay
awake. "Jay!"

           
 
"I'm here."

           
 
He reached out with his left hand toward her
voice, and her slim, cool fingers touched him. Her hand felt so small and
fragile in his.

           
 
"The doctor said everything went
perfectly," she said, her voice somewhere above him in the darkness.
"You'll get the bandages off for good in about two weeks."

           
 
"Then I'm outta here," he murmured.
His hand tightened around hers, and he gave in to the lingering effects of the
anesthesia.

           
 
When he woke again, it was without the initial
confusion, but he was still groggy. Impatiently he forced his mind out of
lethargy, and it was so habitual now to ignore the pain in his mending body
that he truthfully didn't even notice it. At some unknown point in his life he
had learned that the human body could be forced to superhuman feats if the
brain knew how to ignore pain. Evidently he had learned that lesson so well
that it was second nature to him now. Now that he was more awake, he didn't
have to call for Jay to know she was in the room. He could hear her breathing,
hear the pages of a magazine turning as she sat by the bed. He could smell the
faint, sweet scent of her skin, a scent that identified her immediately to him
whenever she entered the room. Then there was that other awareness, the
physical awareness that was like an electrical charge, making his skin tingle
with pleasure and excitement at her closeness, or even at the mere thought of
her.

           
 
He hadn't kissed her since their argument the
week before, but he was only biding his time. She had been upset, and he didn't
want that, didn't want to push her. Maybe he hadn't been much of a prize
before, but she still felt something for him, or she wouldn't be here now, and
when the time came he would capitalize on those feelings. She was his; he knew
it with a bone-deep sense of possession that overrode everything else.

           
 
He wanted her. The strength of his sexual need
for her surprised him, given his current physical condition, but the stirring
in his loins every time she touched him was proof that certain instincts were
stronger than pain. Every day the pain was a little less, and every day he
wanted her a little more. It was basic. Whenever two people were attracted to
each other, the urge to mate became overwhelming; it was nature's way of
propagating the species. Intense physical desire and hot, frequent lovemaking
reinforced the bond between two people. They became a couple, because back in
the human species' first primitive days, it took two people to provide care for
their helpless young. In current times one parent could raise a child quite
well, and modern medicine had made it possible for a woman not to become
pregnant if she didn't want to, but the old instincts were still there. The
sexual drive was still there, a man's need to make love to his woman and make
certain she knew she was his. He understood the basis of the biological need
programmed into his genes, but understanding didn't lessen its power.

           
 
Amnesia was a curious thing. When he examined
it unemotionally, he was interested in its oddities. He had lost all conscious
knowledge of whatever had happened to him before he'd come out of the coma, but
a lot of unconscious knowledge evidently hadn't been affected. He could
remember different World Series and Super Bowls, and how
Niagara Falls
looked. That wasn't important. Interesting,
but not important.

           
 
Equally interesting, and far more important,
were the things he knew about both obscure
Third World
nations and major powers without
remembering how he came by the knowledge. He couldn't bring his own face to
mind, but somehow that didn't negate what he knew was fact. He knew the desert,
the hot, dry heat and blood-sizzling sun. He also knew the jungle, the stifling
heat and humidity, the insects and reptiles, the leeches, the shrieking birds, the
stench of rotting vegetation.

           
 
Taking those bits and pieces of himself that
he could recognize, he was able to piece together part of the puzzle. The
jungle part was easy. Jay had told him that he was thirty-seven; he was just
the right age to have been in
Vietnam
during the height of the war in the late
sixties. The rest of it, all added together, could have only one logical
explanation: he was far more involved in the situation than Jay had been told.

           
 
He had wondered if scopolamine or Pentothal
would be successful on an amnesia victim, or if the amnesia effectively sealed
off his memories even from the powerful drugs available today. If what he might
know was important enough for him to warrant this kind of red-carpet treatment,
then it would have been worth Frank Payne's effort to at least have tried the
drugs. They hadn't tried, and that told him something else: Payne knew Steve
had been indoctrinated to resist any chemical prying into his brain. Therefore
he must be a trained field operative. Jay didn't know. She really thought he
had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had said that when
they had been married, he had constantly been taking off on one
"adventure" after another, so he must have kept her in the dark and just
let her think that he was footloose, rather than worrying her with the
knowledge of just how dangerous his work was, and that the odds were even he
wouldn't return from any given trip.

           
 
He had fitted that many pieces of the puzzle
together, but there were still a lot of little things that didn't make sense to
him. He had noticed, as soon as the bandages were taken off his hands, that his
fingertips were oddly smooth. It wasn't the smoothness of scar tissue; his
hands were so sensitive, with their new, healing skin, that he could tell the
difference between the burned areas and his fingertips. He was positive his
fingertips hadn't been burned; rather, his fingerprints had been altered or
removed altogether, probably the latter. Recently, too, most likely here in this
hospital. The question was: Why? Who were they hiding his identity from? They
knew who he was, and he was evidently on good terms with them, or they wouldn't
have gone to such extraordinary lengths to save his life. Jay knew who he was.
Was someone out there hunting for him? And, if so, was Jay in danger simply
because she was with him?

           
 
Too many questions, and he didn't know the
answers to any of them. He could ask Payne, but he wasn't certain he'd get a
straight answer from the man. Payne was hiding something. Steve didn't know
what it was, but he could hear a fault note of guilt in the man's voice,
especially when he spoke to Jay. What had they gotten Jay involved in?

           
 
He heard the door to his room open and he lay
motionless, wanting to know the identity of his visitor without them knowing he
was awake. He had noticed that cautiousness in himself before; it fit in with
what he had deduced.

           
 
"Is he awake yet?"

           
 
It was Frank Payne's quiet voice, and that
special note was there again, the guilt and the... affection. Yeah, that's what
it was. Payne liked Jay and worried about her, but he was still using her. It
made Steve feel even less inclined to cooperate. It made him mad, to think they
could be putting Jay in any danger.

           
 
"He went to sleep as soon as they got him
in bed, and he hasn't stirred since. Have you talked to the doctor?"

           
 
"No, not yet. How did it go?"

           
 
"Wonderfully. The doctor doesn't think
there's any permanent damage. He has to lie as quietly as possible for a few
days, and his eyes may be sensitive to bright light after the bandages come
off, but he probably won't even need glasses."

           
 
"That's good. He should be leaving here
in another couple of weeks, if everything goes all right."

           
 
"It's hard to think of not coming here
every day," Jay mused. "It won't seem normal. What happens when he's
released?"

           
 
"I need to talk to him about that,"
Payne answered. "It can wait a few days, until he's more active."