The Stealth Commandos Trilogy

by Suzanne Forster

  “What is it?” he demanded, obviously surprised and reluctant. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “I thought you might refuse to see us.” Honor searched the lines and furrows of her father’s craggy face for any indication of his feelings. She knew he’d turned things around in his mind when she left. He’d made her the guilty party, the thankless child abandoning a well-meaning parent. Her father had always been a master at revising life to suit his purposes, and yet she wanted to believe her leaving had affected him in some way.

  She felt her resolve collapsing under his silent scrutiny. After so many years of trying to win his love and approval, she would have thought herself immune, but clearly she wasn’t. She searched his slate-gray eyes for any signs of acceptance. Was he at all glad to see her?

  “Who’s this with you?” he asked, turning his attention to Johnny.

  “You remember Johnny Starhawk,” Honor said tentatively.

  Her father’s face went slack with surprise, but Johnny nodded to the older man as if he hadn’t noticed. He didn’t seem the slightest bit ruffled by her formidable father. On the contrary, he looked as though he might even be relishing the oncoming battle.

  “Johnny’s going to be representing the Apache teenager who’s been charged with sabotaging the mine,” Honor explained.

  Hale’s eyes glittered with anger. “Honor, this is outrageous! I’m not going to jeopardize the state’s case by talking to the boy’s attorney, I don’t care who he is!”

  He turned his wrath on Johnny next. “I think you’d better get out of here, young man. Immediately!”

  “Father—”

  “It’s all right. Honor,” Johnny said. “I’ve grown up a little since the last time your father kicked my butt out of town. He’s not going to do it again.” He turned to her father. “If you don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say, Mr. Bartholomew, there are plenty of people who do, including the media.”

  “Are you threatening me?” Hale blustered.

  “Don’t think of it as a threat,” Johnny said calmly. “Think of it as an ironclad contract. I’ve got all the evidence I need to close your operation down indefinitely—fraudulent chemical analyses, falsified reports, numbers doctored to meet government standards.” He drew the photocopied reports from his briefcase and handed them to Hale.

  Honor watched with alarm as her father read the reports. His face was blotched with angry color, and when he glanced up, his voice was raspy. “Where did you get these?” he demanded to know. “From someone on my office staff?”

  Johnny closed his briefcase quietly. “I don’t reveal my sources. But if I were you, I’d think twice about letting this fight go public.”

  “I didn’t falsify those reports,” Bartholomew said harshly. “And I don’t know who did.”

  “Of course, you didn’t,” Johnny cut back. “We know how that works, don’t we? You guys at the top never get your hands dirty. You have some minion to take care of the problem, and you let him know you don’t care how he gets it done. Right?”

  As if declaring war, the older man crushed the reports in his hand and threw them in his wastebasket. “Don’t underestimate me, young man,” he warned. “That would be a serious mistake.”

  Johnny lifted his head, his eyes catching the glare from the window. “The mistake has already been made, Mr. Bartholomew, and it’s going to cost you dearly. The toxins seeping from your holding pool are poisoning the reservation’s pasturelands. The tribe’s livelihood is being destroyed, and it’s just a matter of time before human health is affected, if it hasn’t been already. The personal damage suits alone will bankrupt you.”

  “It would take an act of God to bankrupt me, Starhawk.”

  “Maybe that can be arranged.”

  The two men locked eyes for a moment, and Johnny knew he was dealing with a worthy adversary. Hale Bartholomew might be past his physical prime, but he was as mentally sharp and cunning as ever. The man was a gut-fighter.

  “There’s more than just the dollar cost,” Johnny said. “The tribe will be perceived as victims, and the media blitz will turn public opinion in their favor. Activists from all over the country will haunt you, Mr. Bartholomew. They’ll picket your home and all your other business interests, not just the mine. They’ll turn your life into one long protest rally from hell.”

  “Are you done?” Bartholomew asked.

  “No,” Johnny said, “I’m just getting started. If you don’t clean up your act where the mine’s concerned, compensate the tribe for their losses, and arrange to have the charges dismissed against the boy, I’m going to have plenty more to say, in court.”

  The older man hit an ornate brass humidor on his desk, banging the lid with a loud crack. “My daughter should have warned you that I don’t respond well to intimidation tactics, Mr. Starhawk. If you think you can beat me in court, then why are you here now? Tipping your hand, I might add.”

  “I’m here to save us all some grief, Mr. Bartholomew. A court fight will be time-consuming and costly.”

  “I have plenty of time and money,” the older man snapped. “Do your clients?”

  Honor stepped forward, appalled at what was happening. They were going at each other verbally like two pit bulls. “Father, for heaven’s sake, accept his terms,” she urged. “I’ve seen the reports. Whether or not you had anything to do with them, your company did, and you’re responsible. The mine is polluting reservation land. Why can’t you just admit it?”

  She drew in a breath as she met his stony gaze, and her voice began to tremble. “Why can’t you do the right thing for once?”

  He leaned forward on his desk, his arms unsteady. “You walked out of my life a long time ago, Honor. That act stripped you of any right to preach to me about ethics. I won’t have you marching into my office haranguing me about my responsibilities, do you hear me?”

  “Yes, I hear you.” Honor felt a surge of hurt and fury. How many times had she answered him with exactly those words? How many times had she swallowed whatever she’d needed to say because he wouldn’t allow her to speak?

  Johnny touched her arm, but she waved him off.

  “Yes, I did hear you,” she repeated with quiet force as she approached her father’s desk. “Now you hear me, dammit. If you don’t accept Johnny’s terms, and this case goes to court, I will be up there on the stand, testifying against you.”

  “Honor, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t—”

  “Yes!” she said, “I can, and I will.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “I know how you make deals. Father. Did you forget that I was there when you invited the judge to dinner after Johnny’d been sent away? I heard the two of you congratulating each other on your cleverness at having Johnny’s sentence dismissed on the condition that he leave town. The judge received an important appointment that same year, didn’t he?”

  Her father stared at her in shock, the color slowly draining from his face. He slumped into his chair, and for a moment Honor was frightened for his health.

  “How could you do this?” he asked her, indicating Johnny. “How could you align yourself with him?”

  Honor heard the prejudice in his tone, but instead of anger, she felt pity. Her father’s world was so narrow. Her twin brother was the only one who had ever been able to please him, and that was because he’d made Hale, Jr., into a replica of himself. Perhaps she was fortunate to have escaped her father’s love.

  “Good God, child,” Hale Bartholomew said. “All these years and you still haven’t come to your senses?”

  “No, you’re quite wrong, Father,” she said, all the anger gone out of her. “I have come to my senses, just this moment.” It was true, she realized. Several insights had come upon her in the last few moments, stunning insights about herself, her father, and Johnny.

  Summoning courage, she prepared herself to deal with the two most difficult and intimidating men in her life. “I’m in love with Johnny,” she said w
ith uncharacteristic bluntness. “I’ve always loved him. I’m even thinking of asking him to marry me.”

  Honor hazarded a glance at Johnny and saw that he’d gone nearly as pale as her father. Neither man said a word. She seemed to have rendered them both speechless. It was Honor’s first real taste of her own power, and it hit her in such a dizzying rush, she almost smiled.

  Aware of her father’s stricken expression, she felt a welling sympathy. “I know you can’t understand this, but it’s what I truly want, and it’s taken me a long time to find the courage to say it.” There was something else she needed to say. “I love you. Father,” she told him softly. “In spite of everything, I always have. All I ever wanted was your love and approval when I was a child, but I realize now that I don’t need either to survive. Still, I hope someday we’ll learn to understand and accept our differences, and perhaps even build a bridge back to each other.”

  She hesitated, saddened when her father couldn’t seem to bring himself to look up at her. She stepped back from both men and saw that Johnny couldn’t look at her either. He seemed completely preoccupied, as if he’d vanished into some inner world. Either he was still thunderstruck, or he simply hadn’t wanted to hear what she had to say. Suddenly her father’s spacious office seemed small and claustrophobic.

  “Make the right decision about the mine, Father,” she said, brushing past Johnny as she left.

  Moments later she was across the street from the Bartholomew Building, walking in the same park she and Hale, Jr., had played in as children. The sky was a sharp cerulean blue, and the breezes rustling through the trees overhead made it an unusually mild day for midsummer.

  Honor stopped at the edge of a small fountain, remembering how Hale had gone wading there once and been caught by their father. Hale had cried and immediately been forgiven. Honor, of course, wouldn’t have thought to disobey in the first place. Things had changed drastically, she realized. She didn’t regret a word of what she’d said in her father’s office. It had been imperative that she tell him how she felt. She’d had to open her heart where both men were concerned, even if it meant losing them.

  “Honor?”

  It was Johnny’s voice, but she didn’t turn, afraid to face him. She felt almost clairvoyant where he was concerned, as if she were able to read the future in his eyes. One look and she would know everything.

  “The lady seems a little tense,” he said, coming up behind her. “I’ll bet she could use a massage?”

  “Massage?” Had she heard him correctly? He actually sounded as if he might be smiling, having fun with her. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry. “If the lady were any more tense, she’d be one of the park’s statues. I think it’s going to take more than a massage, thank you.”

  “What is it going to take?”

  His voice stirred her senses like the wind rifling through the trees overhead. His hand stroked down her arm and caught hold of the fist she’d clasped against her stomach. He covered it and brought her up against him, holding her gently, breathing warmth into her hair.

  “This could work,” she allowed.

  He felt wonderful, as warm and enveloping as the night he’d held her on the mountain. She closed her eyes, wishing as she had then that she could be absorbed into his heat, drawn into his sheltering male strength like a kitten tucked away in a pocket. She didn’t want to move, to think, or even to breathe, for fear that she might lose the beautiful feelings he brought her.

  “Honor, you said some things in there, and I—” He hesitated, clearing the graininess from his throat. “I know you were angry at your father, but I wondered if you meant all of that . . . or any of it?”

  Was he stumbling over the words? She thanked God at that moment that she wasn’t looking a him. Surely he would have seen the astonishment in her eyes. She never thought she would live long enough to hear Johnny Starhawk fumble his lines. She must really have blown some circuits with her proposal.

  “Honor?” he pressed, his arm tightening around her middle. “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Did you mean it?”

  A terrible impulse came over her. She wanted to do something she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of. She wanted to keep him dangling. “That I loved my father?” she said softly, wickedly. “Of course I meant it.”

  The muscles of his arm tautened. She could feel the heat of his body burning through her clothing. She could hear his impatient exhalation and knew she was in trouble. Wonderful trouble!

  He turned her in his arms, whirling her so possessively, she was breathless and dizzy as he caught her up against him. The dark flames leaped in his eyes. His gaze burned as hotly as ever, but there was love in its heat, tenderness.

  “Didn’t anybody ever teach you not to tease the animals in the zoo?” he warned. A sexy growl rumbled in his throat as he curved his hand to her throat. “Despite your efforts, this one isn’t quite tamed or domesticated yet.”

  “And never will be,” she conceded, a thrill spiraling up from the depths of her. “Despite my efforts.” She touched his mouth, her fingers trembling over its fine sensuality. “Yes, I meant it, every word. I love you, Johnny. I always have.”

  He smiled with effort, as if his jaw had suddenly locked. “Forgive me if I’m having some trouble with this,” he said. “I never thought it could happen.” His laughter had an aching sound. “Are you sure? You actually want to marry me? A crazy Irish-Apache lawyer?”

  “It’s the lawyer part I’m worried about.”

  He shook his head, disbelieving. “As long as you know what you’re getting into. I’m not an easy man to live with. I’m prone to jealous rages, and I’ll probably do terrible things to you, just like in the mountains.”

  “Oh! I’m looking forward to it!”

  His jaw locked again, and his dark eyes flared with pain and passion. “I love you, baby.”

  She gazed up at him, her chin trembling, her heart so full she couldn’t speak a word.

  Johnny knew the sweetest kind of agony as he pulled her into his arms and rocked her. She felt like heaven, or all he would ever know of that perfect place. She was the girl of his dreams, the woman of his heart. Maybe this was destiny playing itself out in his life in some inexplicable way. He didn’t know. But whatever was happening, it was bigger than his puny doubts and fears. He knew legal procedure like the back of his hand, but there was so much he didn’t understand about life, things like forgiveness, tolerance, and humility. Maybe he was supposed to learn those things . . . from her.

  “Let’s have kids,” he said, holding her back.

  “Oh, yes! Beautiful Irish-Apache babies with dark eyes.”

  “No way,” he countered, laughing huskily. “Dimpled cherubs with golden hair and misty blue eyes.” He loved her. Nothing could alter that irrefutable fact. He loved her like nothing else in this world, with every cell of his heart and mind.

  A leaf spiraled down from one of the trees above them and landed in Honor’s hair. Johnny picked it out of her blond tresses and was about to toss it aside when Honor gasped.

  “No, let me,” she said, taking it from him. She waited for a gust of wind and released the leaf, watching it catch the currents and soar, free and trembling, off on a great adventure.

  Tears sparkled in her eyes as she turned back to Johnny. “That was your grandfather wishing us good luck.”

  Epilogue

  Six Months Later . . .

  JOHNNY HAD NEVER seen the river look like that. Even in his youth, when the sunsets had often been spectacular, he’d never seen the twilight sky open up and pour out its fire, turning the water’s surface to a necklace of dark jewels set in gold.

  The crowd that had gathered for the ceremony alongside the riverbanks seemed silenced by its beauty. Or perhaps it was the woman walking among them who created the hush. The water’s jeweled surface was Honor’s backdrop as she approached the canopy of cottonwoods where Johnny stood with Chy Starhawk. In her fr
inged and beaded buckskin dress and with her hair around her shoulders, she looked as if she’d risen from the river’s golden radiance.

  “Johnny,” she said, his name on her lips even before she’d reached him. Tears sparkled in her eyes as if she were reliving some tender moment of their adolescence. She came to stand beside him and took his dusky hand, reminding him how different they were, and how much the same.

  Johnny thought about the gamut of emotion he’d experienced in their relationship—the young love and reverence, the hurt, the hatred, the grief—and realized he’d come full circle. Perhaps he could never love her with the same fierce purity of youth, perhaps their innocence was gone forever, but the reverence was there, the sweetness that ripped through his heart and seared his soul like fire. His feelings for her were as deep and spiritual as they were animal. They’d taken on a unifying force that seemed as elemental as the earth itself.

  Their hands joined, they turned to face Chy Starhawk and to silently receive his blessings. In the ancient language of the Apache, the shaman said a traditional prayer for the woman first, and then for the man, after which he turned in each direction of the compass, offering sacred pollen to the four winds.

  When he was finished, Chy Starhawk stepped aside, and the minister of the church Honor had attended as a child stepped forward. “We are gathered here today to unite this man and this woman in holy matrimony,” he said to the crowd.

  Blood roared through Johnny’s heart, blocking out everything else the clergyman said. Johnny heard nothing but the low thunder of the river behind them, the answering thunder of his pulse. He was aware that Honor had released his hand, that she was standing beside him, but nothing else reached his consciousness until the minister repeated the phrase, “Who gives this woman . . . ?”

  In the silence that followed, Johnny turned to the crowd and saw Hale Bartholomew rise. The older man’s blue eyes were lit like torches in the frail bones of his face. They burned with the pride of his bearing and the last vestiges of his indomitable will to win. Honor’s father was reluctant in his surrender, but Johnny accepted the grace with which the older man met his gaze, the wisdom with which he acknowledged what was inevitable. They might never be friends, Johnny realized, but they both loved the same woman, and that would keep them from being enemies, from meeting in the battleground of the courtroom.