HER SECRET GUARDIAN

by Sally Tyler Hayes

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

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  Chapter 1

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  Dr. Grace Evans was bent over her supply cabinet – a beautiful antique that once held hymnals – when an odd shiver snaked down her spine.

  She dismissed it as a minor annoyance. After all, she had real problems to worry about. The hymnals were long gone, riddled with bullets and burned for what little heat they generated. Most of her supplies were gone, too, but with snipers lining the hills on three sides of town, she was unlikely to get more anytime soon. Unfortunately, she had no shortage of patients.

  And then she felt it again – that distinctive, tingling sensation. As if she were being watched.

  No … more than that.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Excitement, dread, intense curiosity rushed through her.

  He was back!

  She straightened, her gaze sweeping the remains of the bombed-out church they'd been using as a makeshift clinic for the past seven weeks. Since the Red Cross had pulled its people out of this troubled corner of Eastern Europe and an International Relief Council's medical corps team – consisting chiefly of Grace and her friends Jane and Allison – had moved in.

  There was hardly any electricity in the city, hadn't been for the entire time they'd been in residence at the church. Even if they had electricity, much of the ceiling was gone. There were no light fixtures left, no bulbs. Not much of anything, except sick, injured, tired, hungry people with no place to go.

  It was dusk now, the city bathed in shadows, quiet save for the occasional burst of gunfire.

  Grace had wished for a lot of things since she came here. An extra pair of hands. More antibiotics. More pain medication. A world where no one ever shot at anyone else.

  Now she added one more thing to her list. Light.

  She wished for just a bit of it. So she could see him.

  Grace worked up her courage and turned around. There he was, just as she'd imagined, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, long-legged. Dressed all in black, he blended perfectly with the night, an air of mystery surrounding him, a slight smile Grace sensed more than saw on his lips.

  It was him.

  Oh, there was no way she could be sure. Because he always came to her in the dark. That part had puzzled her as much as anything else about him. Surely, if he were an angel, he'd come in the light.

  He never stayed for long, never even let her get a good look at his face, and truly, he seemed to be a different man each time he came to save them. Although, the fanciful part of her that still wanted to believe in some bit of magic liked the idea that he was indeed one entity.

  She'd tried to convince herself it was something in his voice or maybe the faint but familiar scent that clung to his skin or maybe the way he walked, but in truth it was nothing as concrete as that. It was a feeling. More than that – an unshakable certainty deep in her soul that recognized something in him, something that was so much more than any of the physical characteristics he'd been so stingy in revealing. She knew him somehow, in a way that made absolutely no sense, but there it was. She knew him.

  She also sensed that he didn't want her to recognize him, that he was deliberately trying to confuse her.

  The first time she'd seen him, he spoke in an impeccably proper British accent, his tone clipped and a bit frosty, with the bite of authority that would not be denied. He seemed quite unassuming for a man of his size, until he opened his mouth and started issuing orders.

  Grace had been a medical student at the time and she hadn't cared for taking orders from someone she didn't know, someone who had no authority over her. But she had to admit he got them out of Kuwait in the nick of time. Conditions had worsened dramatically within hours of their departure, had become impossible within days.

  Two years went by before she saw him again. She was in Afghanistan, and he was little more than a voice in the darkness, speaking with a decidedly Irish brogue. Through the shadows, she saw that his hair was likely down to his shoulders when it wasn't tied back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and that he had a full beard – convenient for shielding his face. He wore a black cape that time, or maybe just a plain overcoat. The cape better suited the stories that had grown up around him, so a cape it had become in her own mind. And again, he'd warned them that it was time to go. Right before the fighting began in earnest.

  And then came her first visit to the former Yugoslavia. He'd sounded American, seemed even more imposing, as if he'd grown more powerful and more certain of himself in the intervening years. Of course, he was the stuff of legend by then.

  Grace's guardian angel.

  Her friend Jane dubbed him that long ago, and it had stuck. Late at night, when they had no more patients to see and there was nothing to do but talk, Jane – the medical corps' unofficial historian and best storyteller – launched into her tale of the mysterious man who watched over Grace and her team. The man who always appeared out of the shadows with a timely warning.

  Grace had no idea who he was or where he came from. But it was as if he had a sixth sense about her. As if he watched over her and her staff day and night, intent on keeping them safe.

  Lots of people had made her promises they hadn't kept. He'd never promised her anything, and yet she trusted him completely. She'd come to rely on him in ways that made no sense. Things got scary in the field, and Grace would start looking for him. She always figured if he wasn't around, she and her staff were okay.

  She knew it was sheer folly, believing in anything she couldn't quite see and didn't understand. But everyone she knew believed in something. People around her wore crucifixes and Stars of David on little gold chains around their necks. Allison had the dog tags her father had worn in Korea, where he died. Jane had a rosary. Grace had him, her mystery man.

  As he moved smoothly and silently down the hallway, an unfamiliar rush of heat flooded her cheeks. She spent a lot of time in war zones, in the villages, with the people left behind and caught in the middle with no place to go. Most of the men were either old or sick or injured, and she saw them as patients, not as members of the opposite sex.

  But her mystery man made her remember man-to-woman stuff. How interesting it could be, how it could tug at a woman so and leave her feeling empty deep inside and needing things she thought she'd long ago forgotten and maybe never really understood at all.

  Grace found that she very much liked watching him walk down the hallway of the ruined church. There was something about the way he moved, the sense of control, of purpose, of power and direction. He was a man who seemed absolutely certain of where he was going, and she thought she could have stood there, watching him put one foot in front of the other, for days. She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a minute to admire a good-looking man.

  Her would-be angel paused in an arched doorway five feet away, his face still in shadows. He gave a formal nod of his head and greeted her and Allison and Jane, who'd come up behind her, in perfectly accented French. "Mesdemoiselles."

  Grace was good with languages, but she'd never been able to distinguish the accents he adopted from a native's speech. She figured he must have been raised in a bilingual household, learning from the cradle to straddle two cultures and blend seamlessly into either one. Of course, that still didn't explain how she could have alternately sworn he was English, Irish, American and now French.

  But it was him. Definitely him.

  He nodded his head at her, then off to the right. "A moment of your time, Doctor? Please?"

  Behind her, two middle-aged, no-nonsense nurses giggled. Honestly, for a moment it was as if they were all fifteen and he'd come
to ask her to the school dance. Grace had to remind herself they were in the middle of a war zone, and she was cold and tired and no doubt ragged-looking. He was no boy with a crush on her, and this was not a social occasion.

  None of which did anything to lessen the nervous little flutters in her stomach.

  She heard fevered whispers behind her. Jane, who'd been with her for years, explained to Allison, "Grace's guardian angel."

  Allison, whom they'd known only for a few months, added in her sultry Southern drawl, "That man is no angel."

  He heard them, too. Grace could have sworn she saw a hint of a smile cross his lips as he turned and walked past a thick pillar candle that served as the only light in the dim hallway.

  She followed him. It never occurred to her not to. She would have followed him anywhere.

  He led her to the back of the church and outside. There was a little stone terrace, surrounded by a low fieldstone wall, still lined with plants and shrubs. The stars were out overhead, the night air chilly and stinging her cheeks. He kept to the back wall, staying in the shadows even then, leaving frustratingly little of himself for her to see.

  Until tonight, no one but Grace had ever seen him, and there were times when she honestly thought she had made him up, that he was nothing but a figment of her imagination, a kind of sixth sense. She was tempted to reach out to him, just to make sure he was flesh and blood, and not sheer illusion. But she settled for asking, in French not nearly as polished as his and a voice weakened by awe and wonder, "Who are you?"

  A faint smile stretched across his lips. "I'm just a man."

  "Of course." She sighed. He would be as evasive as he was illusive.

  Still smiling, he asked, "You're disappointed?"

  "No." She was glad he was here. There was so much she wanted to ask him. But she doubted he was going to satisfy her curiosity.

  "I'm afraid it's time to go, Grace."

  Her eyes narrowed, surprise and a deep rush of pleasure overriding everything else. He'd never called her by name before. She blinked up at him, ridiculously happy over this one, little thing. He knew her name.

  "Grace?" he repeated. "I said you have to go."

  "Oh… Tomorrow?" she stammered like a school girl, so eager to please.

  "At first light," he insisted. "Take the coast road, then veer south. Don't stop until you cross the border, and don't come back."

  "All right."

  "You went back into Afghanistan six weeks after I told you to clear out."

  "Yes." He'd known that, too? And it had annoyed him? Her chin came up. "I have a lot to do."

  "Which you can't do unless we manage to keep you alive, now, can you?" he said evenly. "You have vehicles? Gasoline?"

  She nodded. They stockpiled gas for this very reason. Her heart broke just a little for every one of the people they would leave behind. She'd never be able to do enough. And why, she wondered, looking away, could he save her and not them all?

  By the time Grace turned back to him, he was leaving. She called out desperately, "Wait."

  He faced her once again. She saw his shoulders rise and fall in one long, smooth breath. Hers wasn't nearly as steady.

  "It was you in Kuwait, wasn't it?"

  Still, he said nothing.

  "And when Yugoslavia was falling apart the first time? You got us out?"

  Again, nothing.

  "How do you always know what's going to happen?" she tried.

  "It's my job to know," he said simply.

  "Know what?" When trouble was about to erupt? Or when she was in trouble?

  "Everything," he claimed, not trying to hide his amusement any longer.

  Grace frowned. In her wildest, most fanciful of dreams, she had decided he was a savior of her very own, his skills and attentions honed in on her and her alone. Which was silly. She was just a woman. A doctor. One of many trying to make a difference.

  "But … your job? What is it?"

  He shrugged elegantly, carelessly, mysteriously. "I do all kinds of things."

  "For whom?"

  "All kinds of people."

  "But—" she began.

  He came in close, closer then he'd ever been. In the space of one wild heartbeat, his knuckles brushed across her cheek. Then his hand curled against the side of her face. Obviously he was no illusion.

  Grace forgot to breathe. His thumb stretched out to brush across her bottom lip, which was suddenly trembling. She felt a twinge of awareness all the way down to her toes, a flash of heat deep in her belly.

  If she hadn't felt it herself, she would have sworn it was impossible for something as insubstantial as one touch, one brush of a man's thumb, to cause such upheaval in a woman's body, but there it was. She could no more deny it than she could deny the fact that he was standing here beside her in the darkness. The aloofness dissipated, and almost reluctantly, he smiled, his teeth a flash of white in the otherwise darkened night, and there was power in his smile, she found.

  "You've grown into a real beauty, Grace," he said, in English this time, with the faintest hint of a Southern drawl.

  "What?" she said breathlessly.

  "You," he said soberly, still touching her. "You're beautiful."

  No, she thought, I'm not. But he made her feel just that. The sound of his voice, the touch of his hands, as much as his words, made her feel utterly appealing.

  Grace wanted to hold on to the moment, to stop time, to make the world dance to her tune for just a second. Hers and his. She wanted to memorize all his nearly indistinguishable features, the hard line of his jaw, the faint curve of his mouth, those smoldering dark eyes. She wanted to remember the enticing scent of his skin, the firm touch of his hand, that silly jolt of anticipation humming through her veins.

  And she didn't want him to go.

  "Who are you?" she said again, desperately needing an answer.

  "I thought you knew, Doc." Amusement was rife in his voice then. "Someone appointed me the guardian of all the beautiful, stubborn, redheaded, do-gooder lady doctors who don't have the sense to stay out of war zones."

  Mesmerized, Grace just stood there, frustration and a pervasive, near-paralyzing sense of awe preventing her from doing anything else.

  "Couldn't you find a nice, simple natural disaster?" he suggested. "A flood, an earthquake, maybe a plague to contend with? I'd sleep better at night knowing no one was shooting at you, Grace."

  She colored a bit, imagining him lying down at night, rumpled white sheets in stark contrast to what she thought must be sun-browned skin, miles of it. She imagined him tossing and turning, thinking of her as she often thought of him. Worrying over her, and her, Grace Evans, being the last thing he thought about before he fell asleep.

  "I can't stop doing what I do. People need me. They depend on me. Besides," she mused, "I've got you. To look out for me."

  "I might not always be here when you need me. I worry that one day, I'll be too late." He frowned, all teasing aside. "Let's not have any misunderstandings about this, Grace. There's nothing magical about me or what I do."

  She sighed. She believed there was something decidedly magical about him, as would any woman alive, she imagined.

  "I told you, I'm just a man," he said, smiling faintly again, the charm back full force. "And I have to warn you, your friend was definitely right about one thing."

  "What?" she asked.

  Amazingly, he came closer still. She never even thought to protest as he touched his lips to hers, too briefly. Yet nothing could have lessened the searing heat or the power of his touch. She made a helpless little moaning sound, deep in her throat. A hungry, happy, needy, surprised sound, and she reached for him, trying to get closer, trying to hang on to him, to the moment.

  He lifted his head briefly, his eyes so big and so dark, and then he bent toward her again, his breath brushing across the side of her face. His mouth ended up near her right ear.

  "Ah, Grace," he whispered. "I'm no angel. No saint, either."

 
And then he was gone.

  Grace grabbed for him, but he slipped away, right through her fingertips. Like a puff of air, he seemed to dissolve into the night, swallowed up in the darkness and the cold.

  She just stood there, her hands trembling, her shoulders heaving as she worked hard to take it all in. She told herself she couldn't have imagined anything so vividly. Nobody kissed her in her dreams. Nobody whispered seductively sweet, teasing words into her ear. Nobody felt so wonderfully big and warm and safe, in her dreams.

  He was real. She could go back inside and Jane and Allison would pester her questions, because they'd seen him, too. Because he was real.

  Just a man, he'd said.

  No way, she thought.

  And he was watching over her? Why? That part absolutely fascinated her. As far as she knew, there was no mysterious corps of men hired to look after anybody, no mythical beings at all.

  She laughed at the thought, and she desperately wanted him back. She wanted to know his name, to see him one time when no one's life was on the line. Putting a trembling hand against her lips, she realized how very much she wanted him to kiss her again.

  He'd said she was beautiful. No, that she'd grown into a beautiful woman. Which meant what? That he'd been watching over her? Ever since she was a little girl?

  Grace laughed. The sound bubbled up out of her. A soft chuckling that went on and on, until she had to sit down, weak and spent and trembling.

  If she'd been anyone else, she'd have worried that the stress and fear of living in the middle of what would soon become all-out war was getting to her. But Grace didn't get scared, and work like this was all she'd known from the time she was a little girl. She'd grown up just like this.

  And he'd been watching, even then?

  She rubbed her hands against her arms, the chill getting to her now, and looked out across the top of the trees to the sky, wondering where he was right now and if he was still watching. Somehow she thought he was.

  Suddenly, she heard footsteps and excited whispers behind her.

  "Well?" Jane asked. "It was him?"