He wanted to stroke her…explore every inch of her body with his hands…worship her with his mouth…feast on her with his eyes. But she was already moving beneath him, shifting in the small adjusting ways that would bring her body into perfect and intimate alignment with his, and who was he to resist? There would be time enough…a lifetime, he hoped…for the feasting.
And so her body welcomed his, and their coming together was different than at any time before…quieter, perhaps, but at the same time infinitely more intense. Though his jaws ached and his body shivered with the pressure of building emotions and passion thundered in his blood, he felt no sense of masculine triumph, no sense of coming into, of entering her body, nor even of a mutual giving and taking. Instead it seemed to him a gentle merging of mind and body, complete and irreversible…like two quiet rivers coming together, then flowing on as one…
And flow on they did, faster and faster, navigating giddily over rocks and rills, clinging together through wild rapids and crying out in terror and exhilaration as they tumbled over thundering falls…to drift at last into quiet pools, all their turbulence, for the moment, spent.
Afterward, it was Sam who spoke first. “Okay, Pearse,” she said in a gruff and crusty voice that was classically, typically Sam, as if trying to deny the emotional white water they’d just come safely through. “What the heck was that?”
He smiled down at her, framing her face with his hand, wiping the sheen of sweat and tears from her flushed cheeks. “Don’t you know?” he asked, amused and tender.
She gazed at him in silence for a moment, her eyes growing bright again, like stars. “Yeah,” she finally whispered, “I think I do. This is us from now on, isn’t it, Pearse?”
“You bet it is,” he said softly, lying back and drawing her against him, dazed, still, at this happiness that had somehow found him when he’d never expected it to happen at all.
She popped up again almost at once, restless as a child fighting nap time, to place a hand on his chest and gaze down at him, her face earnest and grave. “I meant what I said, though. You don’t have to talk about your past if you don’t want to. It was a dumb thing to do, giving you an ultimatum like that. I’m really sorry-”
“Shh…” He laid a finger gently across her lips. “It was an ultimatum I needed to hear, I think. It made me realize-something did, anyway-that I’ve spent my whole life being afraid of something that can’t possibly harm me. Memories, Sam. Just memories. How can those change who I am, or where my life is now? The answer is, they can’t. I’ve survived a lot, and by some miracle I have you…”
She kissed him, then asked carefully, “Have you remembered, then? What happened when your parents died?”
He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I’ve tried, Sam. I truly have. All I get are bits and pieces.”
“What kind of pieces? Maybe if you told me about them, it would help you remember.”
He opened his eyes and gazed up at her, memorizing the shape of her forehead as he lifted his hand and idly stroked back her hair. “Sounds, mostly,” he said, smiling a little. “Just sounds. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get any pictures. I don’t know why, but there just aren’t any.”
“Maybe that’s why,” she said, blinking at him in a solemn way that made him think of owls. “Maybe you can’t remember pictures because there aren’t any.”
He stared at her, a faint little buzz of wonderment beginning deep in his chest. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “What time of day did it happen? Probably night, right? Maybe you were hiding. Maybe it was dark where you were. So, the only thing you would remember is sounds.”
“My God.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes and began to laugh, weakly and helplessly. “My God, Sam…trust you to cut through all the crap and solve the mystery of my life in one fell swoop.”
She snuggled down beside him with a pleased, almost smug little smile. “So-what noises do you remember? Tell me.”
Any urge to laugh vanished. He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Pounding,” he said thickly. “That’s always the first thing. Someone-my father-banging on the door. Banging…pounding…with his fists, feet, I don’t know. Trying to break it down.”
“And…where are you?”
“I’m in a bedroom, I think. I don’t remember which one. I have the little ones with me. It’s my job to look after them when my father is having one of his…spells. I have to keep them out of his way. Keep them safe. I’ve taken them into the bedroom and I’ve locked the door, except…I don’t trust the lock, so I’ve wedged a chair under the handle, like my mom showed me. Only…now I’m afraid…terrified even that won’t be enough. I can hear the wood splintering…breaking. I know it will only take a few more blows and he’ll be through. My mother is screaming…crying. I hold on to the little ones…I have my arms around them, and they’re all trembling. The twins, the little girls are sobbing and crying, ‘Mama, Mama…’ but the boys just cry quietly.
“I hear sirens…more sirens, getting louder and louder until it seems they’re coming right into the room, and there’s lots of people shouting…and all of a sudden the pounding stops. There’s a moment…several minutes…when all I hear is the little ones whimpering…and then, there’s a loud bang-so loud we-the children and I-all jump. We hold each other even tighter, and there’s another bang, and we flinch again, and then there’s just confusion…voices shouting…footsteps running…glass breaking…the little ones crying…and I think I might be crying too…”
“Oh, God…Cory-it’s all right…it’s all right…I love you…I’ve got you…”
He discovered he was crying, but he knew that was all right. He was all right. Sam was holding him tightly, cradling his head against her, and her hands were gentle as they wiped the tears from his face.
Lizzy-Beth’s crying woke them. Cory groaned in protest when Sam slipped away from his side. She threw him a dark look as she tugged on her underpants. “Better get used to it. That’s what you’re asking for, you know.”
“I can’t wait,” he murmured. She felt his eyes following her as she moved around the room mostly naked, gathering up her scattered clothes.
“Yeah? That’s definitely one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ things, Pearse.” But she was smiling as she left him and went to pick up the howling baby, liking the look of him all relaxed and tousled and sleepy in her bed. Liking the way she felt, too-feminine and powerful, gentle and strong, proud to have been gifted with the wisdom of women, passed down from the caves and campfires through uncounted ages.
Later, after Lizzy-Beth had been fed and changed, they put her in the infant carrier-which Cory insisted on strapping on himself-and went for a walk down the lane that arrowed past the house, through the hay fields and down to the woods and the creek beyond.
“My father wasn’t a monster,” he said quietly as they strolled slowly, the uneven crunch of their footsteps and the scrape of Cory’s cane the only other sounds. “I have good memories of him, from before he went to Vietnam. He was a kind and gentle man, he liked to read books, and he told the best stories, stories he’d make up himself. But…” He hitched in a breath and looked away, across the fields. “He went to Vietnam, and he died over there. As surely as if they’d sent him home in a body bag. The person that came home to my mother and me was someone else…a stranger.
“I’ve often thought that’s why I became interested in covering wars…because I wanted to find out what happened to my dad, wanted to understand what it was that destroyed him.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “My only question now is, why wars don’t destroy more of the people who fight in them. Funny thing is, you know-they screen people before they let them become policemen…firemen, but they take ordinary people out of their everyday lives-family men, loving husbands, fathers-put them through a little bit of training, then send them out to kill. Some people can handle it, I guess. Others-like my father-can’t. He had
too much empathy, I think.”
“Like you,” Sam said softly.
It was a hot and muggy Fourth of July evening, but she was remembering a day of soft May sunshine, and Cory’s very first visit here, and walking with him down this very lane, side by side but not quite touching…knowing she was probably about to fall in love.
It was harder to recall the girl she’d been back then. The woman she was now couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit ashamed of her arrogance and carelessness, the giddy and selfish way she’d plunged into Cory’s life, too full of herself to really see him, too naive to recognize the shadows behind his quiet, compassionate eyes.
Still…she could forgive herself for being young, she supposed, and there had been a kind of innocence about that time: the newness of the feelings, delicious excitement, the roller-coaster ride between euphoria and despair, the awe and the fear. And she knew it didn’t begin to compare with what she felt now for the man walking beside her…the love she felt for him, and the awesome challenge and responsibility of having his heart and soul entrusted to her keeping. Forever after. It was humbling…thrilling. And terrifying, too.
But Sammi June Bauer’s mama hadn’t raised her to be a coward.
“Pearse,” she said without looking at him, watching her feet as they strolled along. “That question you asked me four years ago…is it still on the table?”
She felt his fingers tighten around hers, though he didn’t reply right away, and in his silence she could feel him weighing her words, making sure he understood. Then he said softly, “You know it is.”
“Well then,” she said, “the answer is yes.”
He stopped walking and turned toward her, taking both of her hands in his. His shadowed eyes gazed at her solemnly over the baby’s bright, uncurious eyes and bobbing head, as he uttered one word: “When?”
Her breathing hitched, and she tried to smile. “As soon as possible, I think.”
He leaned carefully past the baby and kissed her. “I want that, too,” he said in a husky, breaking voice. “But there’s something I have to do first.”
She closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against his shoulder and said with a tremulous sigh, “I know.”
“I’m going to find them, Sam. My brothers and sisters. I have to find them.”
She felt warm moisture seep between her lashes. “Of course you do.” She lifted her head and took his face between her hands and smiled fiercely at him through her tears. “But not first-after. Marry me, and we’ll find them together.”
Wordless for once, he hooked his arm around her shoulders and buried his face in her hair.
Slipping her arm around his waist, she turned her face against his neck, breathing in his scent, his warmth, his goodness. “We’ll find them, Pearse,” she whispered. “I promise you we will.”
Epilogue
He married Samantha in the garden of her grandmother’s house on a hot July day, with grass underfoot and the scent of roses in the air. There were children running unauthorized between the folding chairs borrowed from the Baptist church down the road, and birds singing and babies crying and old ladies rocking and fanning on the front porch.
In spite of the short notice, everyone was there, all the aunts and uncles and cousins-Jimmy Joe and Mirabella, Al and Tracy, Troy and Charly, C.J. and Caitlyn, Joy and Scott, Roy and Celia-and their kith, kin and kids. It made quite a crowd, this new family of his. A lot to take in all at once.
Sam’s cousin Amy Jo was her maid of honor, and her dad, Tristan, walked her down the aisle, then came to stand with him as his best man. She wore a dress her mom, Jessie, had made for her in a hurry-a simple white sheath that showed her long, slender legs, and her Grandma Betty’s wedding veil. Her bridal bouquet was roses, picked from the bush that rambled over the front-porch roof.
Standing there under the big oak trees, he watched her come through the front door of the old family home and start down the porch steps. And then, at the bottom, just before she slipped her hand through Tristan’s arm, she paused…lifted her head and stuck out her chin and looked straight at him. And he saw her again, as he had on that first day in the White House rose garden…vulnerable and scared…fierce and proud and brave.
She came toward him, and he felt…
Cory sat for a long time, staring at the blinking cursor. Then he shook his head, moved it to the Save icon and with a sigh, hit the mouse button.
There were no words on earth powerful enough, it seemed, to describe the joy of loving Samantha.
She came to the door of the bedroom, and he felt her there, even before she spoke.
“Pearse? You ’bout ready? Everybody’s waitin’ for us, fixin’ to pelt us with rice and old shoes.”
He smiled at her over his shoulder. “Just about. Let me shut this down.”
She came toward him with her tomboy’s stride, wearing her honeymoon outfit, a short skirt and sleeveless top in the sunshine colors he loved. “What’s that you’re workin’ on, on this, your weddin’ day? Don’t tell me you’re on a deadline.”
He shook his head. “Just something I’ve been working on for a while. A book, actually.”
“Really? Cool.” She wrapped her slim, strong arms around his neck and leaned over his shoulder, trying to peek. “Can I read it? Is it finished?”
“Oh, no,” he said, laughing huskily as he closed the laptop and pulled his brand-new wife into his lap. “Just barely begun.”
KATHLEEN CREIGHTON
has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.
***
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Secret Agent Sam Page 24