Shades of Gray

by Kay Hooper

  “Enough about the past,” Andres said roughly. He pressed a trail of heated kisses from her trembling lips down her throat, over her breastbone. His hands caressed slowly. “It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters but this.”

  And for a while nothing did.

  It was Andres who went down to the kitchen sometime after midnight and brought up a tray of food for them. And Sara discovered a new Andres in the lamp-lit quiet of the bedroom, a man of teasing humor, a man who seemed determined to close out the world, the past, the future. They were alone and in love.

  And it wasn’t until the dark hours before dawn, when she woke to the building fire of his renewed need, that Sara sensed a kind of desperation in him. He was silent except for words of love murmured in a strained voice. His face was fixed, his eyes intense. He seemed driven to love her, as if some terrible premonition had warned him he would never again have the chance. And Sara, her own desire ignited, caught his urgent mood, responding with a half-bewildered intensity, a frantic need to soothe the hunger in his soul.

  When it was over, there were no words. But Sara held on to him even as his arms cradled her, a nameless fear shadowing her mind and heart as her sated body relaxed in sleep.

  Sara woke alone. The room was darkened; it wasn’t yet dawn. Cold, she slipped from the bed, donned her shorts, and with no hesitation, one of Andres’s shirts. She went out into the dimly lit hallway and then downstairs, drawn to the half-closed door of his office, where light spilled out.

  She got as far as the door when the conversation between Andres and Colonel Durant stopped her. Listening, she went cold, colder than ever before in her life, and only her gritted teeth kept back the cry of protest screaming shrilly in her mind.

  No! Not yet! I’m not ready to face this yet.…

  “The men?” Andres asked, his voice remote.

  “Waiting out front,” the colonel answered, sounding worried. “Andres, I should be with you—”

  “No. If something happens, I want you here, to take care of Sara.”

  Durant swore explosively. “Wait another day, then. To be certain, Andres. We can send in scouts, use their information to pinpoint Lucio’s camp more precisely. We can throw every man we’ve got against—”

  “And watch him fade away into the jungle the moment his own scouts hear us coming and report to him? Vincente, you know as well as I do that there’s no possibility of approaching Lucio in that way. We’ve tried before. Our best chance is with this small group of our best jungle fighters attacking his camp before dawn.”

  “You’ll be outnumbered by at least four to one,” Durant reminded him grimly.

  “I’ll take those odds.” Andre’s voice held the sound of absolute finality.

  Durant wouldn’t give it up. “And if we’re wrong? If Lucio has shifted his camp again? And if he’s expecting you to come? If he has left his men scattered through the jungle waiting for you? You won’t have a chance!”

  Andres sighed. “Vincente, I don’t have a choice. You know that as well as I do. Sara is in greater danger with every passing day.”

  “You can protect her here—”

  “Can I? They took her from me once.”

  “A mischance! It couldn’t happen again.”

  “Give me a guarantee!”

  There was a moment of silence, thick and tense.

  “I won’t gamble her life on less than a guarantee,” Andres said more quietly. “I must be sure. Go out and see to the men, Colonel; make certain they have everything we’ll need.”

  After a moment Durant strode from the room, his jaw hard. He hesitated when he saw Sara outside the door, seemed about to speak, and then continued purposefully toward the front door without saying anything to her.

  Sara remained where she was for long minutes. It hurt to breathe, and her throat ached. She was cold, so cold, and the thought of her life without Andres in it was an icy, black emptiness.

  He was a target; she’d known that. But she hadn’t expected him to stride willingly and determinedly into terrible danger. He had an army; why couldn’t he send them instead of—But she knew. He’d never send his men where he refused to go himself. He would lead the way, just as he’d been born to do, just as his life had shaped him to do.

  And she had to live with that.

  He looked up, warned of her presence by instinct or the peculiar affinity between them rather than sound, for she made no noise. Slowly he slipped the big automatic into the webbed holster on his hip, half turning from the desk to face her. She looked so fragile, one of his shirts enveloping her, her long legs appearing to be bare. Her glorious hair was mussed, her eyes huge and unbelievably green.

  His love for her swept over him, almost numbing in its intensity. It caught in his throat, knotted his stomach, dizzied his mind. He needed her with everything inside him—and with everything inside him, he needed the certainty of her safety. It was a knife in his heart.

  “You should be sleeping,” he murmured huskily. “The sun won’t be up for hours yet.”

  She came toward him slowly, with the grace of music, stopping a bare step away. “I woke up alone,” she said very softly. “I don’t ever want to do that again.”

  Andres didn’t touch her. He was afraid to touch her, afraid he’d never be able to leave her in order to do what had to be done. He felt his jaw aching and knew his teeth were clamped together to hold back what he felt, as if there were a dam somewhere inside him and it was a treacherously unsteady thing. “I’ll be back within a few hours,” he said evenly.

  “You’re going after Lucio.” It wasn’t a question.

  “We’ll have no peace until he’s defeated, Sara. You know that.”

  She lifted her chin a little, something like resolution flashing in her splendid eyes. “It has to be today?”

  “We have a good idea where his camp is. If we delay, he could move again.”

  “I’m … a danger to you.” She said it softly.

  He reached out then, gathering her into his arms and holding her tightly. She felt so fragile against him, yet he knew the strength in her, the passion. And he held on fiercely to the finest thing in his life. “My love,” he murmured into her silky hair. “Without you, I don’t think I could go on.”

  She drew back just far enough to look up at him, her delicate face strained, her eyes wondering. “Your dream.”

  He smiled a little. “Even dreams wear out. Year after year they seem farther beyond our reach. I’m not a cat or a king, Sara; I can’t walk alone. Not any longer. I love you. And I need you beside me.”

  Their voices were low, words spoken with the steady calm of something desperately important. They could both hear, were painfully aware of the merciless ticking of his wristwatch, loud in the stillness of predawn, in the quiet of the room. They both knew he had to leave, and soon.

  Sara reached up to touch his cheek gently, feeling the tension in him. She didn’t look down at the gun he wore, or at the military starkness of his dark uniform. She just looked at his face, even though it had been fixed in her mind and heart long ago. “I’ll be waiting when you get back,” she said. “I love you, Andres.”

  He bent his head to kiss her, a deep, melding lover’s kiss, then forced himself to release her. At the door he looked back for a long moment. She was leaning against the desk, watching him gravely. If he could keep her safe … if only he could keep her safe.

  He left to join his men.

  “I thought you might like coffee,” Colonel Durant said.

  “Thank you.” Sara accepted the cup, sipped gratefully. She had gone upstairs to shower and dress after Andres had left, returning to the office minutes ago. Now she stood by the window, staring out at the slowly lightening sky.

  Aware that Durant had settled into a chair near the desk behind her, she realized she needed badly to talk, to listen, to pass the time. She said suddenly, “It’s odd. I always forget I’m a foreigner here. Andres makes me forget this isn’t my country. As if it doesn’t
matter.”

  “Does it matter?”

  She half turned to look at him, leaning back against the window frame. “To me? No. To him?”

  “No,” the colonel said, “not to him.” And then, a little roughly, he added, “He’ll be back, Sara. He has more lives than a cat.”

  “Does he?” Her voice was soft. “How many of those lives has he used up during the last twenty years or so?”

  The question had no answer, and Durant didn’t offer one. After a moment he asked bluntly, “Can you handle this?”

  “I’ll have to, won’t I?”

  He studied her face. She was a little pale, her eyes darkened with shadows. But those eyes were direct and level, and her delicate mouth was held firmly. He never had been able to guess her thoughts, not like Andres did. Slowly he said, “This is Andres’s life. It may get better; it will likely get worse at times. If you can’t handle it, Sara, it would be a kindness to you both to end your relationship.”

  She smiled, not offended or angry but calmly reflective. “No. You see, Vincente, that’s what I finally realized. This bond between us exists. We can’t change it; we can’t break it. It’s stronger than we are. All we can do is fight to live with it.” She drew a deep breath. “And that’s why I’ll handle this. Because I don’t have a choice. I love him.”

  He nodded faintly, compassion and wonder stirring in his eyes. “Yes. I understand.”

  “Do you approve?” she asked.

  “Do you need my approval?”

  “No. Just curious.”

  “Then, yes, I approve. You brought something to Andres, gave back something he had lost. No man should be … too alone. He needs you.” Durant hesitated, then said carefully, “He also needs to know you’ll be safe. And you will never be as safe as he wants you to be on Kadeira.”

  “I know.” Her voice was steady. “And he’ll probably try to send me away. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t ask what she would do if Andres did indeed attempt to send her away to safety. He didn’t have to ask now. Not any longer. He thought fleetingly and with rueful amusement that Andres just might, for the first time in his life, come up against someone who was more determined than he.

  It was about time.

  Lucio hadn’t led his own soldiers into battle. He had expected Andres to move soon, and so had left only the shell of his most recent camp behind—along with a small number of his men. He was accustomed to moving, having learned bitterly that his old friend wouldn’t allow him to grow complacent. He had survived all these years, had survived to fight steadily, but he found no comfort in the thought.

  He was tired of it, tired of feeling like a hunted animal. He hated the constant stinking damp of the jungle, hated the years-old game of cat and mouse. And, most of all, he hated with all his soul the inescapable knowledge that Andres was the better general.

  It galled him, feeding his hatred. Andres had not won—but neither had he lost. With the tenacity of apparently limitless strength, he kept coming, ignoring his enemy’s elusiveness. Again and again, just as Lucio was pondering some lightning strike at his enemy, Andres would strike instead. And even though the battles were rarely conclusive, gaining Andres nothing, they served to keep Lucio off balance and on the run.

  Just as it was now. Lucio knew that Andres’s efforts would increase in intensity, since his woman was on Kadeira. Lucio knew Andres. So he had gathered the majority of his men and moved once more, fading into the jungle. He left some men at the camp, and some stationed in a loose perimeter around the almost deserted site.

  What shook Lucio, and badly, though he didn’t show it, was the fact that his men had traveled barely a mile from the old camp when they heard the gunfire behind them. A dawn attack. He didn’t know if his own instincts were weakening, or if Andres’s were getting stronger. He knew only that it was past time for a final, decisive battle.

  His hatred washed over him then in a bitter, curdling wave. He had once wanted only victory, only himself in Andres’s place as president of Kadeira; but that was no longer his true ambition. With every day that passed, his desire to break his old friend grew stronger. Break him in body, certainly. Even more, break his mind and his spirit. And for that Lucio needed Sara Marsh.

  With the chattering of guns still echoing in the jungle a mile away, Lucio called several of his best men together and, by the light of a small fire, gave them the details of his plan.

  Sara heard the gunfire. She tensed but said nothing to Colonel Durant. They were still in the office, both silent, waiting, because there was nothing else they could do. Durant was smoking cigarettes, the first time she’d seen him do that; she didn’t comment. She almost asked for one herself but instead stood gazing out the window.

  “How many men does he have?” she asked suddenly.

  “Lucio?” Durant sounded tense. “In his camp at any one time, he usually has fifty or so. In his army, only God knows. We estimate from a hundred to two hundred.”

  “And Andres?”

  “With him right now he has a dozen men,” Durant answered flatly.

  Sara leaned her forehead against the glass of the windowpane. Childhood prayers rose in her mind, as they had from the moment Andres had left, and she repeated them silently. She also added a few in her own words.

  The sleek Learjet was descending toward a predawn Miami. The interior, efficiently soundproofed, was relatively quiet. None of those aboard were sleeping, though all were peaceful.

  Raven studied them almost absently. Zach and Teddy were having a murmured discussion, and Raven didn’t have to listen to know that he was doing his best to convince her to journey to Kadeira on the Corsair rather than the jet helicopter that had been sent ahead to Trinidad. He could command most people when he set his mind to it, even Josh on occasion, but Zach fought a losing battle when it came to his petite and hotly intrepid wife, Raven thought with amusement.

  Derek and Shannon were aft; he was familiarizing himself with a large map of Kadeira while she sat close by and divided her attention between the map and her husband. Raven reflected happily on the fact that Shannon had lost the wounded look in her eyes since her marriage to Derek. She was still shy, still quiet, but she was gaining confidence every day. As for Derek, Raven had noticed that his hard, handsome face had softened somewhat, and he was quicker to smile.

  Kelsey appeared to be dozing, although Raven knew he was awake and alert. Old habits die hard, and Kelsey had learned years ago to preserve his energy for future need. Probably he was thinking of Elizabeth, back home in Pinnacle and six weeks into a healthy pregnancy.

  Thinking of Kelsey’s happiness about that, Raven felt a pang. She and Josh were hoping; for months now they’d been trying. The doctor said everything was fine, not to worry, to be patient, but … They both wanted children. And they had seen both the joy and the heartache: Rafferty and Sarah had a healthy son, and Zach and Teddy had lost their unborn child.

  Don’t think past the assignment, she thought, scolding herself, as she’d often done in the past during difficult situations. This “assignment,” of course, was of her own doing. Still … They would set down in Miami to await the photos scheduled to be taken later that day, thanks to General Ramsey’s willing cooperation, and which would be delivered to them from the air force base. Then they’d lift off again, heading for Trinidad—assuming, of course, that the surveillance photos convinced them there were no antiaircraft guns on Kadeira.

  Both the jet helicopter and the Corsair were waiting in Trinidad. It had been more or less decided that Zach, Josh, Derek, Kelsey, and she would go into Kadeira on the helicopter. Teddy was in the process of perhaps being persuaded by Zach to join Shannon on the Corsair, which would make a more leisurely—and probably safer—trip to the island. If Lucas and Kyle, delayed in Washington, could reach Trinidad in time, they, too, would be on the yacht.

  They planned to contact President Sereno via radio just minutes before the helicopter reached Kadeira
; visitors arriving by air on Kadeira were distinctly rare, and all of them had agreed it would be best to give Sereno time to alert his soldiers they weren’t being attacked.

  Raven heard a click beside her and turned to look at her husband as Josh closed his briefcase. She lifted a brow questioningly.

  Josh laid the case aside. “Possible,” he told his wife quietly, in answer to the silent question. “It’ll mean a hell of a lot of legal maneuvering, possible flak from the U.S. government, and it’ll take time.”

  “What did Derek say?” she asked.

  “He wants in—if we can minimize the risk. And that’s the question, of course. We could put together a group of investors within a matter of days, but they’d want safety guarantees, and that just isn’t possible.” He sighed, then smiled at his wife, his hard blue eyes softening. “Hell, I can call in a few favors and avoid government hassles; on our end the rest will be easy. Derek and I’ve agreed to put the proposal to Sereno. If we can make progress, then we can nose around and find some other investors.”

  “If Sereno can keep Kadeira stable,” Raven said.

  Josh nodded. “And that’s the rub. Assuming Sereno agrees, and assuming Lucio can be put out of action, our best chance is to move as quickly as possible. And there are risks with that. Sereno will have to hold his government with an iron fist when money starts to pour into the economy; too much will be as bad as too little, unless he handles it just right.”

  Softly Raven said, “You’re putting a lot of faith in him.”

  Smiling, Josh said, “I believe it’s justified.” He took his wife’s hand in his. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  Raven was silent for a moment, then said, “This began as a mission to rescue a kidnapped woman; now we’re going in to try to patch the wounds of an injured country. You don’t believe Sara will want to leave, do you?”

  Josh shook his head slightly. “No. I met the man, and I can tell you, he’s plenty persuasive. Lord knows it’s no secret he loves her; there’s a better than even chance she loves him. But it’s like Shannon said. Whether or not they stay together, they should at least be able to settle it without a sword hanging over their heads.”