Cullen drove to a stop behind her bookstore, and her nerves turned her stomach. This was it. Time for goodbye. She resigned herself to letting Cullen go. It was all or nothing for her. She wanted all of him or nothing.
He left the car running and neither of them moved for a while. They’d escaped the media for now. Not even Minivan Man was here yet.
Finally, Sabine opened the car door and got out, hearing him do the same. At the foot of the stairs leading to her office door, she faced him. He came to a stop before her, and all she could do was look at his face. She couldn’t imagine never seeing him again.
Those gray eyes found hers and they stared at each other. She felt his struggle, the difficulty he was having saying goodbye. So she put her hands on his chest and rose onto the balls of her feet. She pressed her lips to his. His hands went to her waist.
“Sabine…”
She stopped him by moving her hand to place a finger over his mouth. That mouth she loved kissing so much. “Don’t,” she said. Finding his eyes with hers, those gray eyes that were always so full of strength and vitality, she told him silently of her love. “Do what you need to do, Cullen. Don’t worry about me. I’m where I belong.” She forced herself to smile, seeing his wary look. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here right now. I wouldn’t be looking forward to opening my bookstore and living a quiet life in a town I love. I’m safe and I have you to thank for that. I’ve got my bookstore and I’m going to be happy.” Someday, she thought.
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not,” she whispered. And she wasn’t. This wasn’t the same as her parents. Sabine wouldn’t let Cullen keep reappearing in her life if he chose to turn away from his feelings. She also would never regret believing they had a chance, because it was true. They had a chance. Cullen was just blowing it.
A moment passed. Two. Then he stepped back.
Sabine willed the sadness that numbed her to a manageable level. He was leaving. Turning his back on her, on what he felt for her, and what she felt for him. The risk to his heart was too great for him.
This was the way it had to be. He had to go and she had to let him. She didn’t want a man whose heart wasn’t totally hers. He had to be sure of his choices. And she couldn’t help him decide.
“Goodbye, Cullen,” she said, feeling tears brim her eyes. She turned so he wouldn’t see them and climbed the stairs, opening her back door.
“Sabine…”
She closed the door and leaned her forehead against it. This was it. Cullen was out of her life.
She heard the rental car drive away.
Oh, God. It tore her from the inside out to hear him leave. Despite her best efforts, more tears filled her eyes and a few spilled free.
Cullen sat at his desk with his fingers in his hair, leaning over a pad of paper full of his scribbles. His attempt at starting over with a new business strategy.
The phone rang. At least the number still hadn’t gotten out to the press, so he knew it wasn’t a reporter.
“McQueen.” There was no point in hiding his identity.
“You have very powerful friends.”
The shock of surprise rendered him mute for a second. “Commander Birch.”
“As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with Colonel Roth.”
Hope singed his nerves. Roth had gone to see his commander?
“I’m not stupid, McQueen. I know there’s more to that company of yours than the press is going on about. I knew you were good, but I never would have guessed you were that good.”
“I’m sure you didn’t call just to tell me that.” If Birch was trying to pry information out of him, it wasn’t going to work. He was still willing to sacrifice the army reserves to protect those who helped make a company like SCS possible.
“Colonel Roth explained to me how valuable you were to the Special Forces community. He also explained he wasn’t going to allow a discharge. The only kind of action I can take…is no action at all.”
Cullen leaned back in his chair, exultation and relief and gratitude so great it thrilled him for a few seconds.
“So you’re still a part of this group,” Birch continued. “Your reserve status remains what it was. However, I do recommend you work in intelligence from now on, rather than Ops. But as Colonel Roth put it in no uncertain terms, the choice is yours.”
“Done. I’ll move over to intelligence.”
Birch’s silence told him he’d gained back a little ground with his commander.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I had to go behind your back.”
“I don’t ever want to hear you mention this again, McQueen. If you have to run a private company, make sure it stays private from now on. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” In his head he roared another yes! And ended the call.
He hadn’t lost his position with the army. And from the looks of it, he had backing for a new company.
Sabine’s face pushed his elation down. Reporters still hung around the building, hoping to get him to talk about her. But his answer was always the same.
Sorry, no comment.
Did you go somewhere to be alone with her?
Sorry, no comment.
Why was someone trying to kill her? Are Aden Archer’s and Casey Lowe’s deaths related to her kidnapping?
Sorry, no comment.
Are you two still having an affair? Did she call things off or did you?
No comment, no comment.
Are you going to marry her?
That one always tripped him up.
All he had to do was recall how he’d felt after discovering Sabine missing, and it drove away any doubt he harbored over leaving her. He truly, absolutely, never wanted to feel like that again. He’d self-destruct.
It should be so clear to him. Get his company back on its feet. Move on. He could regroup. Start over. All he needed was a new plan.
“You look like hell.”
Cullen slid his hand from his hair and looked up at Odie. She looked smart in her oval, black-rimmed glasses and dull gray suit with her long, thick black hair piled in a sexy mess on top of her head—deceptive cover for the strength that lay beneath the shell of a powerful woman.
“Thanks. Glad to see you, too.”
She humphed and moved into the office. “When are you going to admit defeat and get on with your life?”
“Right now. I’m going to sell the building and start another company somewhere else. Hire a few more operatives.”
“In Roaring Creek?” Her dark eyes slanted at him skeptically.
Odie wasn’t stupid and he resented her audacity. “I don’t know where.”
With a roll of her hips, she planted her rear on his desk, right on top of the documents he’d been studying. “Look at yourself, Cullen.” She used her forefinger to flick his uncombed hair. “When’s the last time you showered?”
“This morning,” he said, meeting her indomitable gaze.
“You didn’t go home last night.”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, caught in the lie. “Yesterday morning then.”
Every time he went home, he was suffocated by the emptiness that surrounded him. He couldn’t believe he’d lived like that for so long. So alone and in such a sterile environment. He didn’t even have any pictures of his family anywhere. Not that he wanted any of his dad.
“You’re pathetic. You know that, don’t you?”
“Just say what’s on your mind, Odie.” He leaned back in his chair and waited.
She didn’t waste a beat. “It’s painfully obvious you love her.”
“No, I don’t.” He refused to believe it.
He didn’t want to love a woman that much. It was precisely what he’d struggled to avoid all these years. That kind of love. The kind his father felt for his mother. The deepest kind. The kind a man could never walk away from. Even if death forced it upon him.
Odie’s eyes narro
wed in a shrewd study of him, then relaxed as she came to a conclusion. “You’re running scared.”
He felt his brow shoot low. “Now wait just a minute—”
“You’re afraid to love her.”
“I am not.”
“You’re scared to death, McQueen.” She laughed with her realization. “That is so priceless. You. Afraid of a little ole thing like love.”
Lifting her weight off the desk, she stood. “You know what? I’m going to do you a favor.” She walked toward his office door with all the brass of a woman who could bring politicians to their knees.
What was she up to? When Odelia Frank started to use her brain, frightening things happened.
“What are you going to do?” It wasn’t a question. He’d seen her like this before. When she took down the barriers standing in her way of ferreting out terrorists.
“First—” she turned in the doorway “—I’m going to put a For Sale sign up.” She turned her back and headed for the front door. “Then I’m going to give you a little…push.”
He looked out the window and inwardly kicked himself for not predicting this. A reporter sat in his car, a tan Malibu.
Cullen stood up from his chair so fast that it crashed to the floor. By the time he made it to the front door of SCS, Odie had a handwritten sign taped there and was sauntering toward the reporter.
Cullen shoved the door wider and approached. His steps slowed when he heard her talking.
“It’s true he went somewhere to be alone with Sabine O’Clery,” she was saying. “They stayed at Hotel Teatro in downtown Denver. Just the two of them…for days. They couldn’t get enough of each other.”
He hissed an expletive.
“Are they still having an affair?” The reporter wrote with a frenzy on his little note pad while the cameraman at his side filmed Odie’s smug face.
“Oh, yeah. Things are steamier than ever between them. He just needs to tie up a few loose ends before he goes back to Roaring Creek.”
“So, he’s in love with her?”
Odie glanced at him with a wicked smile. “Why don’t you ask him that.”
The camera moved to Cullen and he froze on the sidewalk a few feet away.
The reporter and cameraman bustled closer to him.
“Are you in love with Sabine O’Clery, Mr. McQueen?” the reporter asked.
Envisioning millions of Americans watching this on the next newscast, the only face that really stood out was Sabine’s. If he answered no, what would that say to her? If he answered yes, what would that mean for him?
The reporter smiled.
Cullen swallowed the dry lump in his throat.
Beside him, Odie smothered a giggle. She was enjoying the sight of his squirming on national television, that was for sure.
“Are you in love with the woman you rescued from Afghanistan, Mr. McQueen?”
All of the sudden it was so clear to him. Odie was right. He was scared and he’d run from something for the first time in his life. But running from Sabine wasn’t going to save him the way his career had from the grief and anger he’d felt watching his father dwindle away and give up on everything. Cullen didn’t want to run anymore. He wanted to take his greatest risk yet and go back to Sabine.
He looked right into the camera and said, “Yes.”
“Yes.”
Sabine’s knees stopped supporting her. She plopped down onto her mother’s couch, staring at the television with a slack jaw. Cullen had just said the word.
Yes.
He loved her. He looked terrified, but he loved her.
A smile flickered and died with her disbelief.
“Are you going to marry her?” the reporter asked.
Sabine watched Cullen say, “Yes. If she’ll have me.” And her heart melted all over itself. He sounded so certain. She put her hand over her gaping mouth.
“Oh my Lord, listen to him,” Mae said from behind her, incredulous. She sat down beside Sabine and together they watched Cullen pledge his love to Sabine O’Clery, the woman he’d rescued from Afghanistan.
“Did you fall in love when you were in Greece?”
Cullen looked dazed. “I didn’t realize how much I love her until now.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Now. Just a few minutes ago. Right now.”
The reporter chuckled, clearly amused. “What about her? Does she feel the same about you?”
Cullen turned toward the camera. Sabine felt his unease. He didn’t like the publicity but he was using the camera to communicate with her. The realization made her weak with love for him.
“That’s exactly what I plan to find out,” he said, turning.
Much later that day, Roaring Creek was teeming with media. Sabine paced inside her mother’s cabin, biting her fingernails until there was nothing left.
She knew Cullen was in town, because a breaking news update showed him entering the building across from her bookstore, a fact the media exploited with relish.
“You should go down there,” Mae said from beside her. “This town will never be able to rest until you tell him you love him.”
Sabine looked at her mother, nervous and excited at the same time.
“Go,” her mother urged. “He’s expecting you.” Stepping closer, she handed Sabine the keys to the Jeep and gave her a push toward the door.
Knowing there was no arguing with her, Sabine left and drove into town. The throng of media sent her heart skipping anew. It looked different on television. Much more intimidating in person.
She parked behind her bookstore and wormed her way through the crowd of people asking questions, all with big smiles on their faces, loving the hype of her romance with the man who’d saved her life. It would take too long to explain it was more than that to her. She’d fallen in love with more than a hero.
Locking the door, she went to the front of her bookstore and opened the blinds. Cullen stood outside his building, squinting his eyes in the sunlight, made brighter by the reflection off the fresh layer of snow that had fallen. The sight of him sent a wave of anticipation through her.
He stepped off the sidewalk and strode across the street. His long, powerful legs moved with heavy grace in a pair of faded blue jeans. His arms swung at his sides, corded muscle beneath the soft material of his black henley. His black hair waved in a slight breeze. He looked good. All man walking toward her. An American hero. And he was all hers.
Reporters scurried like cockroaches from the back of her bookstore to the front. They swarmed around Cullen, shoving microphones in front of his face. His sure strides never faltered. He looked straight ahead, a man on a mission. She couldn’t hear the reporters’ questions, but the sound of their voices traveled through the window.
Unlocking the front door, she pulled it open and felt a rush seeing him standing, flesh and bone, in front of her. His eyes were intense and began to smolder. Clicks from the cameras went off behind him.
She stepped back as he entered. He closed the door without taking his gaze off her.
“How are you?” Cullen asked, love in his eyes and voice.
She smiled in answer. “Fine.”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Yeah.” Were they really having this ridiculous conversation while a horde of reporters waited outside to learn whether Sabine was going to marry him or not?
“I’m sorry I left you the way I did,” he said.
A reporter shot their picture through the glass.
“Are you going to move in across the street?” she asked.
He nodded and shifted on his feet, rolling from his heels to his toes. “For now.”
His nervousness was uncharacteristic but endearing. They were getting close to The Question. “What are you going to do? I mean, for a living?”
“I thought I’d open a mountaineering shop.”
“Across the street?”
“Yeah.”
She wasn’t fooled. “That would give you good cover.” He could never
remove himself from Special Ops completely. It was in his blood. “I mean, when all the publicity dies down.”
He glanced back at the window to another camera-clicking flurry. When he faced forward, a slight grin creased the side of his mouth. “You think it’ll die down?”
She laughed softly and he stepped closer. With one arm, he hooked her waist and pulled her against him. She didn’t have to look to know the cameras were going wild on the other side of the window. She put her hands on his chest.
“Might as well make it worth their while,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His husky voice made her heart pound faster.
He closed the space between their lips. She couldn’t hear the camera pings but knew they were going off outside the window. Her ears were humming too much from the impassioned rate of her heartbeat.
He lifted his head and looked down at her.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.
“Does that mean you’re going to marry me?”
“I’ll marry you a thousand times.”
He grinned wider than before. “Really? A thousand?”
“Ten thousand.”
“In that case, wait here.”
Stepping back, he turned to the door. Swinging it open, the click and ping of cameras went off again.
“She said yes!” he shouted, and the crowd cheered.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2072-4
THE SECRET SOLDIER
Copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Morey
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
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