by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
"If it was Chambers," Sam said, "then it means she not only has a boat but she has an ally."
"That's not good news."
"No. But this weather could be too much for that boat to handle unless the crew knew what they were doing."
"Possibly." Kate studied the clouds, her hair whipping around her face in the strengthening wind. "What do we know about Chambers's sailing experience?"
"Nothing. She and her sister grew up on a ranch in Colorado, but Ursula lived on the east coast for several years. She could be anything from an amateur to an expert. If she's hooked up with someone who knows these waters, they wouldn't be scared off by this weather."
"Then why hasn't anyone spotted them yet?"
"They might be staying close to shore, waiting for the weather to improve."
"Or maybe they've already slipped past us and reached Tamir."
"I have faith in our people," Sam said immediately. "If Chambers and the Penelope had made a run for it, she would have been caught."
"Not necessarily." She retrieved the life jacket she'd discarded in order to put on the slicker. "Not if one of our crews got distracted."
"Still ready to assume the worst about everyone, I see."
"Sam, this isn't about us."
He gritted his teeth. "Right. It's about our duty. That's all that matters to you. It's the only reason we're together. How could I forget?"
A thread of lightning flashed on the horizon. Kate let the life jacket dangle from her hand as she turned to face him. "All right, Sam. This has gone on long enough. I can understand that you're still upset about what I told you this morning, so if you've got something more to say to me, just say it."
Something more to say? Where should he start? There were so many conflicting emotions inside him he wasn't even close to sorting them out. "I think it's the other way around, Kate."
"What do you mean?"
"You have more to say. You haven't told me everything."
She flinched. Whether it was from what he said or from the thunder that rumbled over the noise of the wind, he couldn't tell. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You can call me an insensitive jerk if you want, but I know there has to be more to what happened than you've told me. Losing a baby is tragic, but it isn't that uncommon. Many women go through the heartache of a miscarriage but they eventually put it behind them. You haven't."
"Yes, I have. It's just the circumstances that stirred it all up."
"No, it's more. You claim you didn't tell me because it was wrong to get married for the sake of a child, and you didn't want us to end up miserable like your parents."
"That's right."
"So how much of your decision was because of me, and how much was because of you?"
The rigging creaked as the head sail snapped and billowed in the wind. Kate watched him, her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"You said I wasn't ready to settle down, and at the time that might have been true. But neither were you, Kate."
"No, you're wrong. I was willing to raise the baby—"
"To sacrifice your career for the baby. That's what you said. To turn your life upside-down. To give up your dreams."
"Yes, that's right."
"Are you sure? I wasn't there, so I was an easy target to focus your blame on. You've spent five years convincing yourself you made the choice because I wasn't suitable husband or father material, but if that's true, why does it still haunt you?"
She started to turn away.
"Don't you think it's time to stop running, Kate?" He raised his voice over the noise of the wind. "Isn't it about time you were honest?"
She caught the railing, her knuckles white. She wouldn't meet his gaze.
Sam braced his weight against the wheel so he could keep it steady. "I told you I've seen men who came back from combat with nightmares. Do you know what most of those nightmares were about? They were about failure. They were about guilt. What do you feel guilty about, Kate?"
Lightning cracked between the clouds, flickering over her stark expression. Sam told himself to stop, but they'd come this far, why not get it all out in the open? "Do you blame yourself for losing the baby?"
"Of course, I blame myself," she shouted. "I should have tried harder to get to the hospital. I shouldn't have walked so far alone, I should have gotten more rest, I should have been more careful."
"Would that really have made a difference?"
"The doctor said it wouldn't have, but—"
"You weren't to blame. I know you. You would have done everything humanly possible to save that child."
"And I did."
"But you still feel guilty."
"Yes!"
"Do you feel guilty because you think things might have gone differently if you'd given me a chance?"
"It was the right choice. The only choice. You weren't—"
"Is that what you feel guilty about, Kate? Or do you have nightmares because you're terrified that somewhere deep down inside you were relieved you lost the baby?"
Thunder crashed. There was a sudden lull in the wind. Sam's statement hung in the air between them like the sound of a slap.
He had gone too far. His anger had deflated the instant he'd uttered the words. He wanted to take them back. He wanted to beg her to forgive him for the cruel accusation. "Kate..."
"You bastard." She released her grip on the railing and curled her hands into fists. "You bast—"
Her curse ended on a shriek as the boat pitched nose first into a wave. Kate lost her footing on the slick deck and disappeared over the side.
Chapter 12
Kate didn't know which way was up. Everything was gray. The water pressed in on her from all sides, making her weightless and disoriented. She had to clamp her jaw shut against the compulsion to inhale as her lungs screamed for air.
It had happened so fast. She hadn't had a chance to take a breath before she'd gone overboard. All her attention had been focused on Sam... and on what he'd said.
Relieved. Relieved.
It was horrible. It was unthinkable. She'd wanted that child. She'd felt him move. She'd yearned to hold him in her arms....
But she'd also yearned for freedom and a career that would take her far away from the snare of a family and a soulless house in the suburbs.
She wriggled out of the heavy slicker and kicked, propelling herself toward what she thought was the surface. The gray mass around her remained the same. Her heart contracted as it vainly tried to pump oxygen to her muscles. She changed direction and kicked again but she couldn't escape the water or her thoughts.
Sam had to be wrong. She couldn't have been relieved. She couldn't have been thankful that she wouldn't have to turn her life upside-down or give up her dreams. The guilt she ran from was because of her choice, that's all.
If she'd told Sam about her pregnancy, she knew he would have taken care of her. That's the way he was. He would have swooped in like a knight on a white charger. He would have made sure that she had no need to exert herself. She would have been coddled and protected, and she might not have been too late. Sam might have gotten her to the hospital sooner. She might have been a mother now.
That's where the guilt came from. That's what she ran from.
But there was nowhere to run now.
Spots flickered in front of her. Her toes and fingertips tingled with a creeping numbness. Her chest spasmed with the need to inhale. She was drowning.
She was terrified.
You're terrified that somewhere deep down inside you were relieved....
No!
You were relieved....
No, it was Sam's fault. If he hadn't been so adamant about having his freedom, if he hadn't craved adventure, if he'd loved her, then her choice would have been different. She would have told him about the pregnancy, and the baby might have lived. It was because of Sam, not her.
Relieved you lost the baby...
The thought wouldn't go away. It taunted just
out of reach like the bursts of light on the edge of her vision.
For one cowardly moment she wondered what would happen if she stopped struggling and let herself drift. It would be so much simpler if she let the water take her. That would be the ultimate escape, wouldn't it? Then she'd never have to face the truth.
Since she'd walked out of the hospital she'd only been half-alive, anyway. Sam was right. She didn't smile, she didn't play. She'd buried her passion so that she wasn't the woman she'd been before. She'd been punishing herself.
When would it be enough?
She could die here. Then the struggle would be over.
But if she lived, she would never be the same. Sam had seen to that. She would have to face the rest of the truth. She would really have to live.
Light flickered again. She fought to turn her head toward it and felt a rumble of thunder envelope her body.
Thunder. Light. The realization of what she was seeing finally blossomed in her oxygen-starved brain. It was lightning. With the last dregs of her strength, she propelled herself toward it.
"Kate!" Sam's voice was hoarse from shouting. His throat stung from the spray he'd swallowed. He shouted again. "Kate, where are you!"
The sloop shuddered as it took a wave broadside. Sam checked his heading, then wiped the water drops from the lenses of the binoculars and raised them to his eyes.
He was surrounded by a writhing mass of gray swells and white foam. With each second that crept by, the sky grew darker. The storm was about to break. Sam could feel it in the stiffening wind and the charged air. Once the rain started, the visibility would be reduced to nil. He'd have no hope of spotting Kate.
The panic that had been hovering since he'd seen Kate go overboard was tough to control. But he knew he had to. He needed to keep a clear head. With the iron discipline that he'd learned on countless missions where one wrong move could mean disaster, he struggled to focus his thoughts.
It had happened so quickly. One instant she had been there, cursing him, the next she was gone. He'd lunged for the rail, but she'd been nowhere in sight. The forward momentum of the boat had already left the place where she'd gone into the water far behind, beyond reach. Every instinct inside him had urged him to jump overboard and swim after her, but without the boat, without notifying anyone where they were, neither of them would have had much chance of survival.
Kate was an expert swimmer and an intelligent woman. She would know he would be back for her, wouldn't she?
He'd used up precious minutes to swing the boat around and reverse course. That was seventeen minutes ago. He should have spotted her by now, but the waves had remained empty. He'd furled the mainsail and started the auxiliary motor to better control his position, but still each sweep of his binoculars found nothing, each shout was unanswered.
And as seventeen minutes became twenty and then twenty-five and the daylight faded, Sam felt the hovering panic inch its way to despair.
"Kate! Answer me!"
Nothing, only a roll of thunder.
"Go ahead and call me a bastard," he shouted. "You're right. I am a bastard."
The motor chugged. The boat shuddered through another wave.
"Kate, I'm sorry!"
The wind snatched the words away.
He wished it could have taken away those other words, the last ones he'd spoken to her.
Remorse was a cold lump in his stomach. She hadn't deserved his anger. When had everything become so complicated? Things used to be so simple, as simple as a relationship could be between a man and a woman.
At least, that's what he'd always told himself.
Yet had their relationship ever been that simple? Was Kate the only one who had been running all these years? Sam knew he could have tried harder to contact her after she had returned his letters. Had he been using their promise as an excuse to cover up his fear? Was that why he had lashed out at her?
He had to find her. Even if she never forgave him, even if she hated him for the rest of her life, it wouldn't matter, as long as she was alive.
No, that wasn't right. It did matter. He didn't want her to hate him. He wanted another chance. He'd already thrown one chance away because he hadn't had the courage to recognize it. If he found her—
Not if. When. He would find her. He would hold her. The alternative was unthinkable.
"Kate!"
Was that a flash of movement on the crest of a wave? Holding the wheel steady with one hand, he swept the area with his binoculars, waiting for the boat to ride up the next swell.
There! Something pale lifted from the water. A hand, an arm.
"Kate!"
The reply was faint, so faint it might have been his imagination, but Sam didn't hesitate. He cut the engine, spared only enough time to strip off his slicker and his shoes and fasten an extra length of rope to his safety line, then dove into the water. In spite of the rest of his clothes weighing him down and the waves tossing him everywhere but straight ahead, he covered the distance in what would have been world record time if anyone had been there to witness it.
She was pale and weak but she was swimming toward him when he reached her. That seemed right somehow. His strong, independent Kate wouldn't wait for anyone to rescue her.
Sam didn't have words for how he felt. Instead, he caught her hand and pressed it hard to his mouth.
She was alive. She would be fine. Thank God, thank God.
A wave broke over them. Kate coughed and drew her hand away to stay afloat. "Sam, where's the boat?"
He nodded behind them. "I've got a line. Hang on, I'll pull you with me."
Rain started falling as they hauled themselves on board. Sam looked at Kate's red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks and knew that more than the weather and the sea were responsible.
But there was no time for the soft words or apologies that pushed to get past the lump in his throat. Lightning snaked overhead, and the deck vibrated with a blast of thunder. "Get below and dry off!" he shouted. "I'll take us back to port."
"No!"
"Kate—"
"Chambers could be out here."
"We won't be able to spot her in this."
"We have to try."
He didn't waste his breath arguing. He threw out the sea anchors to give them some stability, then tossed Kate over his shoulder and carried her down the companionway to the cabin. He set her on her feet beside the bunk and turned to fasten the hatch closed.
She swayed, her legs unsteady. In the dim light that came from the fixture in the cabin ceiling, the water that streamed from her sodden clothes glistened like silver. "Have you radioed our position?" she demanded.
He didn't know where they were, where they stood, where they'd go from here. After what he'd said, he didn't know how to ask.
But she wasn't talking about them, she was still talking about the mission. That's what a good naval officer would do. He didn't resent it, he understood and respected it. That's what he would have done if their circumstances had been reversed. "Yes," he replied. "Ten minutes ago."
"What's the condition of the fleet?"
"More than half the small vessels were already on their way back to Montebello when I requested assistance to search for you. The two that were still in this sector will be on their way here." He yanked off his dripping shirt and moved to the radio. With a few curt words he informed the other boats that Kate was safely on board, then abruptly terminated the transmission and moved to stand in front of her. "Were there any extra clothes in the locker where you found the raincoats?"
"A few T-shirts. Some jogging pants. Sam, we have to make sure the fleet moves into position as soon as the storm—"
"We will." He lifted his hands to the front of her blouse.
"Sam, what are you doing?"
"There's nothing we can do about Chambers right now. The first priority is to get you into something dry." He struggled to push her buttons through the wet fabric, but between the rocking of the boat and the adrenaline that still sped through hi
s veins he couldn't manage the task. He inhaled, trying to steady his shaking hands... and his senses filled with the scent of the sea and of Kate.
His Kate.
And he knew in that instant that no matter what she did, what she told him, where she went or who she became, she would forever be his.
He started to tremble.
"Sam?"
The control he'd clutched while he'd searched for her was finally crumbling. He felt it drop away, piece by piece. The panic he'd thought he'd suppressed surged over him. His hands fisted in her blouse front. He couldn't breathe.
She caught his wrists. "Sam..."
He pressed his forehead to hers. "I'm sorry for leaving you, Kate. God, I'm sorry."
"You had to. You must have been doing thirty knots and couldn't reverse—"
"No." He rolled his head in a quick negative. Drops of water from their hair trickled down his temples. "I don't mean now. I mean then. Five years ago. I hadn't known. And I'm sorry for what I said before... before you fell...." He couldn't go on. He swallowed.
Her fingers tightened, her nails pressing into his wrists. "It's over, Sam."
No, it can't be over, he thought. Please, don't let it be over.
He brushed his lips across her cheek. He tasted cold rain and hot tears. His heart swelled. He pressed a line of kisses along her jaw to her chin. Her stubborn, wonderful chin.
He didn't hate the way she lifted her chin, he loved it. He loved her strength. Another woman might have collapsed after the ordeal she'd just been through, but not his Kate.
He could have lost her.
Everything else faded to insignificance, leaving that one thought. He kissed her mouth.
Her lips were cool. He tilted his head and continued to kiss her until they started to warm.
She released his wrists and caught his head between her hands, parting her lips. At the feel of her tongue probing his the last piece of his control shattered. He tightened his fists on her blouse and ripped it apart.
Thunder roared overhead. Waves crashed against the hull. The storm didn't check Sam's need, it intensified it. The desire he felt was as primitive as the elements. He knew that what lay between him and Kate wasn't this simple, but their physical bond was how it had all begun. They could deal with the rest later.