Two Alone

by Sandra Brown

  “Kill?” Cooper asked with ruthless candor. “Yes. I killed a lot of them on my way out of there. And I’d do it again.”

  Telling looks were exchanged. Someone coughed uncomfortably.

  “He’s leaving out a vital point,” Rusty said abruptly. Every eye in the room turned to her.

  “Rusty, no,” he said. His eyes speared into hers in a silent plea for caution and discretion. “You don’t have to.”

  She looked back at him lovingly. “Yes, I do. You’re trying to spare me. I appreciate it. But I can’t let them think you killed those two men without strong motivation.” She faced her listeners. “They, the Gawrylows, were going to kill Cooper and...and keep me.”

  Shock registered on the faces encircling the table where she was seated with Cooper. “How do you know that, Ms. Carlson?”

  “She just knows it, okay? You might suspect me of lying, but you have no reason to think she is.”

  Rusty laid a restraining hand on Cooper’s arm. “The older one, Quinn, attacked me.” In plain language, she told them what Gawrylow had done to her that morning in the cabin. “My leg was still seriously injured. I was virtually helpless. Cooper returned just in time to prevent a rape. Gawrylow reached for a gun. If Cooper hadn’t acted when and how he did, he would have been killed instead of Gawrylow. And I would still be at the old man’s mercy.”

  She exchanged a long stare of understanding with Cooper. She had never deliberately inflamed the hermits. He had known that all along. He silently asked her to forgive him his insults and she silently asked him to forgive her for ever being afraid of him.

  Cooper’s hand splayed wide over the top of her head and moved it to his chest. His arms wrapped around her. Ignoring everybody else in the room, they held each other tight, rocking slightly back and forth.

  Half an hour later, Cooper was relieved of all legal responsibility for the deaths of the Gawrylows. Facing them now was their meeting with the victims’ families. The weeping, somber group was led into the office. For nearly an hour Rusty and Cooper spoke with them and provided what information they could. The bereaved derived some comfort from the fact that their loved ones had died immediately and without having suffered. They tearfully thanked the survivors for sharing their knowledge about the crash. It was a moving experience for everyone involved.

  The meeting with the media was something altogether different. When Rusty and Cooper were escorted into the large room that had been set up for the press conference, they were greeted by a restless crowd. A pall of tobacco smoke obscured the ceiling.

  Seated behind a table with microphones, they answered the barrage of questions as thoroughly, but as concisely, as possible. Some of the questions were silly, some were intelligent, and some were painfully personal. When one gauche reporter asked what it was like to share a cabin with a total stranger, Cooper turned to one of the officials and said, “That’s it. Get Rusty out of here.”

  The bureaucrat didn’t move fast enough to suit him. Taking it upon himself to remove Rusty from the carnival atmosphere, he slipped his arm beneath hers and assisted her out of her chair. As they made their way toward the exit, a man came rushing up and shoved a business card into Cooper’s face. It identified him as a reporter for a newsmagazine. He offered them an enormous sum of money for exclusive rights to their story.

  “But if that’s not enough,” he stammered hastily when Cooper glared at him with icy malevolence, “we’ll up the ante. I don’t suppose you took any pictures, did you?”

  Emitting a feral growl, Cooper pushed the reporter aside and told him what he could do with his magazine, using descriptive words that couldn’t be misunderstood.

  By the time they were boarded onto the L.A.-bound jet, Rusty was so exhausted she could barely walk. Her right leg was aching. Cooper had to practically carry her aboard. He buckled her into her first-class seat next to the window and took the aisle seat beside her. He asked the flight attendant to bring a snifter of brandy immediately.

  “Aren’t you having any?” Rusty asked after taking a few fiery and restorative sips.

  He shook his head. “I’ve sworn off the booze for a while.” The corner of his mouth lifted into a slight smile.

  “You’re very handsome, Mr. Landry,” she remarked softly, gazing up at him as though seeing him for the first time.

  He removed the snifter from her listless fingers. “That’s the brandy talking.”

  “No, you are.” She raised her hand and touched his hair. It slid through her fingers silkily.

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Dinner, Ms. Carlson, Mr. Landry?”

  They were surprised to realize that the airplane was already airborne. They’d been so preoccupied with each other that they hadn’t even noticed the takeoff. Which was just as well. The helicopter ride hadn’t been so bad for her because she hadn’t had time to anticipate it. But as the day stretched out, the thought of flying to Los Angeles had filled Rusty with apprehension. It would be a while, if ever, before she was a completely comfortable flyer.

  “Dinner, Rusty?” Cooper asked. She shook her head. To the flight attendant he said, “No, thanks. They fed us several times today.”

  “Buzz me if you need anything,” she said graciously before moving down the aisle. They were the only passengers in the first-class cabin. When the flight attendant returned to the galley, they were left alone for the first time since being rescued.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Rusty said musingly, “we were together so much that I thought I’d welcome the time when we could be apart. I thought I missed being with other people—” she fingered the pocket of his shirt “—but I hated the crowds today. All that pushing and shoving. And every time I lost sight of you, I panicked.”

  “Natural,” he whispered as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’ve been dependent on me for so long, you’re in the habit. That’ll go away.”

  She angled her head back, “Will it, Cooper?”

  “Won’t it?”

  “I’m not sure I want it to.”

  He said her name softly before his lips settled against hers. He kissed her ardently, as though this might be his last chance. There was a desperation behind his kiss. It persisted when Rusty looped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder.

  “You saved my life. Have I thanked you? Have I told you that I would have died without you?”

  Cooper was frantically kissing her neck, her ears, her hair. “You don’t need to thank me. I wanted to protect you, to take care of you.”

  “You did. Well. Very well.” They kissed again until they were forced to break apart breathlessly. “Touch me.”

  He watched her lips whisper the words. They were still glistening from their kiss. “Touch you? Here? Now?”

  She nodded rapidly. “Please, Cooper. I’m frightened. I need to know you’re here—really and truly here.”

  He opened the coat that the Canadian government had supplied and slipped his hand inside. He covered her breast. It felt womanly and warm and full beneath her sweater.

  He laid his cheek against hers and whispered, “Your nipple is already hard.”

  “Hmm.”

  His fingers played with the tight little bead through the knit. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are they always like this? Where were you when I was fourteen?”

  She laughed softly. “No, they’re not always like this. I was thinking about last night.”

  “Last night lasted a lifetime. Be specific.”

  “Remember when...” She whispered a sultry reminder.

  “Lord, yes,” he groaned, “but don’t talk about that now.”

  “Why?”

  “If you do, you’ll have to sit on my lap.”

  She touched him. “To cover this?”

  “No, Rusty,” he said through gritted teeth. And when he told her what they would be doing if she sat on his lap, she chastely remo
ved her hand.

  “I don’t think that would be proper at all. For that matter, neither is what you’re doing. Maybe you’d better stop.” He withdrew his hand from her sweater. By now both her breasts were showing up hard and pointed beneath it. They gazed at each other, their eyes reflecting a sense of loss. “I wish we hadn’t been so stubborn. I wish we’d made love before last night.”

  He sighed deeply. “I’ve thought about that, too.”

  A sob rose in her throat. “Hold me, Cooper.” He clasped her tightly and burrowed his face in her hair. “Don’t let me go.”

  “I won’t. Not now.”

  “Not ever. Promise.”

  Sleep claimed her before she got his promise. It also spared her from seeing the bleak expression on his face.

  It seemed that the entire population of the city was waiting for their arrival at LAX. They had landed only briefly in Seattle and hadn’t had to deplane. None of the boarding passengers had joined them in first class. That takeoff had been uneventful.

  Now, anticipating a mob scene, the senior flight attendant advised them to let all the other passengers disembark first. Rusty welcomed the delay. She was terribly nervous. Her palms were wet with perspiration. Jitters like this were foreign to her. At ease on every social occasion, she couldn’t imagine why she was sick with anxiety now. She didn’t want to release her grip on Cooper’s arm, although she kept flashing insincere, confident smiles up at him. If only she could slip back into her regular life without a lot of fuss.

  But it wasn’t going to be that easy. The moment she stepped through the opening of the Jetway and entered the terminal, her worst expectations were realized. She was momentarily blinded by television lights. Microphones were poked into her face. Someone inadvertently bumped her sore shin with a camera bag. The noise was deafening. But out of that cacophony, a familiar voice beckoned her. She turned toward it.

  “Father?”

  Within seconds she was smothered in his embrace. Her arm was jostled away from Cooper’s. Even as she returned her father’s hug, she groped for Cooper’s hand, but she couldn’t find it. The separation left her panicked.

  “Let me review the damage,” Bill Carlson said, pushing his daughter away and holding her at arm’s length. The reporters widened the circle around them, but cameras snapped pictures of this moving reunion. “Not too bad, under the circumstances.” He whipped the coat from around her shoulders. “As grateful as I am to the charitable Canadian government for taking such good care of you today, I think you’ll feel much better in this.”

  One of his lackeys materialized and produced a huge box, from which Carlson shook out a full-length red fox coat exactly like the one she’d been wearing when the plane crashed. “I heard about your coat, darling,” he said as he proudly draped the fur around her shoulders, “so I wanted to replace it.”

  Oohs and aahs rose out of the crowd. Reporters pressed closer to take pictures. The coat was gorgeous but far too heavy for the balmy southern California evening. It felt like chain mail weighting her down. But Rusty was oblivious to it, to everything, as her eyes frantically probed the circle of light surrounding her in search of Cooper. “Father, I want you to meet—”

  “Don’t worry about your leg. It will be seen to by expert doctors. I’ve arranged a room for you at the hospital. We’re going there immediately.”

  “But Cooper—”

  “Oh, yes, Cooper Landry, isn’t it? The man who also survived the crash. I’m grateful to him, of course. He saved your life. I’ll never forget that.” Carlson spoke in a booming voice that was guaranteed to be overhead by the newspaper reporters and picked up by microphones.

  Diplomatically his assistant wielded the long coat box to clear a path for them through the throng of media people. “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll be notified if anything else comes out about the story,” Carlson told them as he ushered Rusty toward a golf cart that was waiting to transport them through the terminal.

  Rusty looked everywhere, but she didn’t see Cooper. Finally she spotted his broad-shouldered form walking away from the scene. A couple of reporters were in hot pursuit. “Cooper!” The cart lurched forward and she grabbed the seat beneath her for balance. “Cooper!” she called again. He couldn’t hear her above the din.

  She wanted to leap off the cart and chase after him, but it was already in motion and her father was speaking to her. She tried to assimilate his words and make sense of them, but it seemed that he was speaking gibberish.

  She fought down her rising panic as the cart rolled down the concourse, beeping pedestrians out of the way. Finally Cooper was swallowed up by the crowd and she lost sight of him altogether.

  Once they were inside the limousine and cruising toward the private hospital where Carlson had arranged for a room, he clasped Rusty’s clammy hand. “I was very afraid for you, Rusty. I thought I’d lost you, too.”

  She rested her head on her father’s shoulder and squeezed his arm. “I know. I was as worried about how you’d take the news of the crash as I was about my own safety.”

  “About our tiff that day you left—”

  “Please, Father, don’t let’s even think about that now.” She lifted her head and smiled up at him. “I might not have survived the gutting of that ram, but I survived a plane crash.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t know if you remember this— you were very young—but Jeff sneaked out of his cabin at Boy Scout camp one summer. He spent the entire night in the woods. He got lost and wasn’t found until well into the next day. But that little scrapper wasn’t the least bit scared. When we found him, he had made camp and was calmly fishing for his dinner.”

  Rusty returned her head to his shoulder, her smile gradually fading. “Cooper did all that for me.”

  She felt the sudden tension in her father’s body. He usually bristled like that when something didn’t meet with his approval. “What kind of man is this Cooper Landry, Rusty?”

  “What kind?”

  “A Vietnam veteran, I understand.”

  “Yes. He was a POW, too, but managed to escape.”

  “Did he...handle you well?”

  Ah, yes, she was thinking. But she capped the fountain of passionate memories that bubbled inside her like uncorked champagne. “Yes, Father. Very well. I wouldn’t have survived without him.”

  She didn’t want to tell him about her personal involvement with Cooper so soon after her return. Her father would have to be apprised of her feelings gradually. They might be met with resistance, because Bill Carlson was an opinionated man.

  He was also intuitive. One didn’t easily pull the wool over his eyes. Keeping her tone as casual as possible, Rusty said, “Will you try to locate him for me tonight?” It wasn’t an unusual request. Her father had contacts all over the city. “Let him know where I am. We got separated at the airport.”

  “Why is it even necessary for you to see this man again?”

  He might just as well have asked her why it was necessary for her to go on breathing. “I want to thank him properly for saving my life,” she said as a diversion.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Carlson told her just as the chauffeur wheeled under the porte cochere of the private clinic.

  Even though her father had paved the way, it was two hours later before Rusty was left alone in her plush room. Decorated with original works of art and contemporary furniture, it resembled a chic apartment more than it did a hospital room. She lay in a firm, comfortable, mechanized bed with soft pillows beneath her head. She was wearing a new designer nightgown, one of several her father had packed in the suitcase that had been waiting for her when she checked in. All her favorite cosmetics and toiletries had been placed in the bathroom. She had the staff at her beck and call. All she had to do was pick up the phone on her nightstand.

  She was miserable.

  For one thing, her leg was sore as a result of the surgeon’s examination. As a safety precaution X-rays had been taken, but they revealed no broken bones.
“Cooper said nothing was broken,” she quietly informed the doctor. He had frowned over the jagged scar. When he lamented the crude stitching that had been done, Rusty jumped to Cooper’s defense. “He was trying to save my leg,” she snapped.

  Suddenly she was fiercely proud of that scar and not all that excited about seeing it erased, which, she was told, would require at least three reconstructive operations—maybe more. To her, the scar was like a badge of courage.

  Besides, Cooper had spent a great deal of time with it the night before, kissing the raised, puckered skin and telling her that it didn’t turn him off in the slightest and, in fact, made him “horny as hell” every time he looked at it. She had contemplated telling that to the pompous plastic surgeon.

  She hadn’t. Indeed, she hadn’t said much of anything. She simply didn’t have the energy. All she could think about was how blessed it was going to be when she was left alone to go to sleep.

  But now that she had the opportunity, she couldn’t. Doubts and fears and unhappiness were keeping her awake. Where was Cooper? Why hadn’t he followed her? It had been a circus at the airport, but surely he could have stayed with her if he’d really wanted to.

  When the nurse came in offering her a sedative, she gladly swallowed the pill. Otherwise she knew she’d never fall asleep without Cooper’s hard, warm presence embracing her.

  Chapter Eleven

  I mean, my God! We couldn’t believe it! Our Rusty in a plane crash!”

  “It must have been dreadful.”

  Rusty looked up from the pillows of her hospital bed at the two well-dressed women and wished they would vanish in a puff of smoke. As soon as her breakfast tray had been carried out by an efficient and ebullient nurse, her two friends had breezed into her room.

  Reeking of exotic perfume and avid curiosity, they said they wanted to be the first to commiserate. Rusty suspected that what they really wanted was to be the first to hear the delicious details of her “Canadian caper,” as one had called it.

  “No, I couldn’t say it was much fun,” Rusty said tiredly. She had awakened long before breakfast was served. She was accustomed to waking up with the sun now. Thanks to the tranquilizing pill she’d been given the night before, she had slept soundly. Her lack of animation stemmed from dejection more than fatigue. Her spirits were at an extremely low ebb, and her friends’ efforts to raise them were having the opposite effect.