HER SECRET GUARDIAN

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  Grace's mouth was painfully dry. Her head hurt, and she felt nauseous. She was scared to open her eyes, to see where they'd brought her, to imagine what they were going to do to her.

  The odd, insistent sound of the wind made her curious. She wasn't even sure it was the wind. Opening her eyes, she found that they'd taken her to the coast. The sound she heard was a combination of the wind and waves, and she was being taken down a dock. Not deep into the mountains of Central America, mountains that swallowed people up so completely at times.

  Grace shuddered. She was honestly and truly scared. She'd been so very foolish to think she was safe, protected, that someone was magically watching over her. She laughed a bit, or maybe the sound was a cry, a sob.

  The whole situation held an air of unreality. She was on a beach. Normally, she loved the beach. And she wasn't supposed to be afraid. Not ever. They could kill her, and she would just be dead. It wasn't as if she hadn't been in situations dozens of times before where death was a distinct possibility.

  Honestly, the only real difference between death someplace else and death here was the time frame involved. In a war zone, it was often fast. She knew, by the expressions on the faces of the dead bodies she saw, that sometimes people weren't even aware of what was happening. They didn't look surprised. They must have been alive one second, gone the next.

  How frightening could that be? There would be no time to be afraid, no time for regrets or pain.

  But these people who had her now … she could imagine them toying with her, dragging things out. She might have days to anticipate all of the bad things.

  Grace deliberately closed her mind to the idea. She let her body go limp, blacked out again.

  She came to as she was being carried into what looked like a fortress, complete with a thick rock wall.

  She'd feared they'd dump her in a tent in the mountains or maybe a hole in the ground. She'd heard stories of another kidnapping victim, held for weeks in a hole in the ground.

  But she was in a stone fortress, saw the thickness of the walls.

  They went down a narrow stone stairway for a long time. She was in a castle – one complete with a dungeon, she feared.

  It was dark here and amazingly cool. She hadn't been cool the entire time she'd been in San Reino, but she was now. Cold, even.

  Grace shivered, unable to steady herself or to calm her fears.

  She heard her captor grunt as he unceremoniously dumped her onto the stone floor. Her head slammed against it. She exhaled raggedly, instinctively curling into a ball to preserve what little warmth her body possessed.

  There was a conversation going on above her in rapid-fire Spanish. Normally, it wouldn't be any problem for her to follow. Now it was simply beyond her. She gave up, gave in. Fatigue overcame everything else – thirst, hunger, pain, cold, arms that had gone numb, even the fear. And Grace slept.

  * * *

  She dreamed about him, dreamed that he came for her. An avenging angel, roaring into her tomb, flinging off attackers left and right as if they were nothing but the most minor of annoyances, their power no match for his. He was big and strong and furious, and they cowered in the face of his superior strength.

  Grace smiled as she watched him come, knowing he would succeed. He could do anything, after all. She wasn't even mad at him for messing up earlier and letting them grab her.

  "Grace."

  She could hear him call her name in that deep, smooth-as-silk voice of his that seemed to warm her from the inside out. He was so close now. It was almost over. Everything would be all right.

  "Grace."

  "Hmm?" she murmured.

  "That's it. Come back to me, sweetheart."

  She sighed, not nearly as cold anymore. She'd found a source of heat, of strength. He was going to save her.

  "Grace."

  Her eyes slid open, fatigue still dogging her. Lethargy. Weakness. Drugs, she supposed, feeling as if her head were stuffed with cotton balls. She couldn't think through all the fluffy white stuff.

  "Don't scream," said a barely there voice near her right ear. "Don't move. Don't make a sound. The guard's coming back. Grace?"

  She said nothing, didn't even think the voice was real. But a hand slid across her mouth. A real one? She panicked for a moment, thinking he was going to smother her, and started to struggle, but she was indeed pathetically weak at the moment, and her hands and feet were still tightly bound. He controlled her easily, his hand firmly over her mouth, his own lips next to her right ear, and when her confusion subsided a bit, she grew still.

  "Shh," he whispered. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

  The voice was different now. So quiet. More an impression inside her head than real. So different from the rich, full voice in her dreams.

  "Shh."

  It was his voice. Her absent savior.

  There was only one problem. Grace didn't think she was asleep anymore.

  Still, she heard someone, felt someone in the darkness beside her. Which probably meant she was hallucinating.

  He soothed her with his almost-hypnotic voice, and unless Grace was mistaken, he was lying on the floor behind her. Either that or someone had turned on a furnace aimed directly at Grace's back. It felt so good. He left one hand over her mouth, firm but unthreatening now, and with the other, he pulled her hair back from her face, tucking the strands gently behind her right ear. Then he ran his hand down her arm.

  She felt only the vaguest impression of his touch. But she liked it. It helped, having him touch her this way. Having him talk to her.

  Grace blinked three times to convince herself her eyes were actually open. It was pitch black inside the room, except for a sliver of light coming from under the door. To her cell. In the dungeon. In the fortress by the sea.

  Surely she was dreaming. There was no man whispering soothingly to her and stroking her hair. It was sheer illusion, fleeting comfort, although she'd take all she could get. But she couldn't let herself trust in it. She couldn't fool herself anymore.

  "He's gone," the voice said, still nothing but the faintest of whispers but sounding disconcertingly real.

  How did a woman ever really know, Grace wondered, what was real and what she merely imagined? Which demons lived and breathed and which existed only in her mind? She'd been through so many things, seen so many horrors, and she'd never had a reaction quite like this to stress.

  Tentatively, she tried to flex her bound hands. Because if he was real and here behind her, she should be able to touch him, if he was flesh and blood.

  She couldn't be sure exactly what she managed to do with her hands. It hurt simply to try to move them. But then her hand was enveloped in warmth.

  "Grace?" There was heated breath at her right ear. "I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth. Don't scream."

  The hand slid away. He rose up, leaning over her, until his face was next to hers. His cheek was rough, and there was something faintly familiar about the smell of his skin. He leaned over her, one arm on the ground above her head, the other around her side, his hand turning her face up towards his.

  She was enclosed in luxurious warmth. She itched to move closer, to climb on top of him, let him take her body into his, until she was a part of him and she wasn't alone or scared anymore.

  "I'm dreaming," she whispered.

  "I'm still the stuff of your dreams?" He was close enough that she would have sworn she felt his answering smile. "And here I thought you'd be mad at me."

  Grace went still. Blinking up at him through the thick, oppressive darkness, her mouth desperately dry, her throat tight, she whispered, "Who are you?"

  "Just a man, Grace. Did you forget?"

  It was too bizarre, his words an eerie echo of those used by the last man who'd come to save her. That man had been real. She remembered. She hadn't been the only one to see him. But this one … this time…

  "Tell me who you are," she cried, sick of all the games. His arms tightened around her. "You know
who I am, Grace."

  "I don't. I've never known. Never understood."

  "But you know who I am. The one who watches out for you. You know that, even if you've never known my name."

  Tears seeped out of the corners of her eyes. She'd even entertained the idea that he might truly know who she was, although she'd successfully hidden that truth for years. But no one knew…

  "Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Why are you here, and why can't I ever see you? What kind of game are you playing?"

  "Shh," he said, the sound falling over her like a balm. "I can't explain now, Grace. I don't have time. It's almost morning."

  "And you don't appear in the light," she said, near hysteria now. Her savior, thwarted by a little fact of life called the sun.

  "Grace?" He whispered urgently now. "I'm doing the best I can. I'm sorry. It's so much less than you deserve, but it's the best I can do under the circumstances."

  "I don't understand," she said, weeping. Her head was throbbing, her arms numb, half of her body freezing to death, and she was obviously hallucinating. But the power of the hallucinations frightened her. She was lucid enough to know she'd been drugged but had no idea what they'd used, and there were things on the black market that could fry someone's brain in seconds.

  "I know you're not real," she insisted. The worst part was how very much she wanted to believe the whole illusion.

  "Aren't I?" he said.

  "No." She went to shake her head back and forth, but it hurt too much, and she started to cry even harder, her sobs coming out as long, shuddering breaths that shook her to the core.

  "Oh, sweetheart. What can I do?"

  "Nothing," she said. He couldn't do anything, because he wasn't real.

  "You're freezing." His hands were back, running up and down the front of her body. "Does anything hurt? Can I roll you over? Get you off this cold floor? Would that help?"

  Anything would help, she thought. Anything at all. Light. She'd wished so hard for light the last time he'd been with her. She'd wished for so much over the years, and seldom gotten any of it.

  "Tell me if I hurt you," he said. "Tell me if I need to stop."

  He rolled her in one smooth motion until she was lying on top of him. Her head fell to his chest, and her arms were still tied behind her back, but one entire side of her body was pressed against the length of his. His arms tightened around her, and somehow her cold toes became wedged between his calves. His body was muscular and firm, not at all soft but more yielding than the stone floor, and he was so warm.

  She wept from relief and fear. He let her, telling her how sorry he was and urging her to be quiet.

  Grace was still so confused, but better. Everything was better with him. Finally, she said, "I'm going to wake up, and you'll be gone."

  "Not gone. Just hiding. Until tonight."

  "I was right. You are afraid of the light."

  He swore softly. "Grace, I can't let anyone see me. It has to be a secret that I'm here. Do you understand?"

  "But you're not real."

  "Ah, Grace." He sighed. "They hit you on the head. You know that, don't you, sweetheart? I felt the bump."

  "Yes."

  "And they drugged you?"

  "Yes."

  "You're confused—"

  "Yes."

  He dropped a light kiss on the top of her poor, bruised head, taking such tender care of her.

  "I'm no illusion, Grace. No angel, remember?"

  "I still don't know what you are," she whispered.

  "I'm the man who's going to get you out of here," he said unequivocally, as if he had no doubts, as if he'd tolerate nothing less than the universe bending to his will.

  "Promise?" she said, feeling like a child in need of the illusion of reassurance that came from nothing but someone's word.

  "I'll do it or die trying," he said.

  It seemed too truthful a response, too starkly real, for a man who was sheer fantasy. But she couldn't ponder the inconsistencies of that now. Utterly weary, she snuggled closer, her cheek pressed against the soft cloth of his shirt.

  "I'm so tired."

  "I know, sweetheart. Go to sleep. It's the best thing for you now."

  "You'll be gone, won't you? When I wake up?"

  "Hiding. Just hiding."

  "Gone," she said forlornly. He'd dissolve into the darkness, just like before. If she could have gotten her hands free, she would have clung to him and never let him go. "Just take me. Take me now."

  "I can't, sweetheart. It took me too long to get here. Too long to find you. It's almost dawn. I can't get you out of here in the daylight. It's a fortress. On an island. It's going to take time for us to get away. We'll need all night to do it. Tonight, I promise. As soon as it's dark."

  "Now," she insisted.

  "Grace—"

  "Do you know how long a day is? How many minutes? How many seconds of light?" They could do anything to her in the space of a day.

  "It's a risk, I know. But it's our best chance. It would be suicide to try it now. I'd give my life for yours, but I'm no good to you dead, Grace. Do you understand that? Your best chance of getting off this island alive is with me, which means I have to stay alive, too. So I have to play the odds. I've looked at this every way I know, and believe me, I don't like it. I don't want to leave you. But I don't know what else to do, and I honestly don't think you're in any shape to argue with me right now. I don't believe you're thinking clearly. So you just let me to do the thinking, all right? You just do what I say and try to trust me. Because I can fix this. I can get you out of this mess."

  Grace lay with her body draped over his. She tried to breathe deeply, steadily, tried to calm down and think clearly, and he was right. She couldn't. She didn't even have a way of knowing if he was real or not. As to whether he'd come back for her … that was even more impossible to say.

  So she lay there against him, soaking up his warmth and the reassurance of his presence.

  There was really nothing for her to decide, anyway. Even if she'd conjured him up inside her own head, he'd made her feel better for now. He'd beaten back the panic that threatened to engulf her and taken away the worst of the chill. He'd soothed her with those amazingly big, warm, gentle hands of his, and he'd given her reason to hope.

  He would get her out. Or die trying.

  She puzzled over that, nearly asleep by the time she muttered, "Angels can't die, can they?"

  "Ah, Grace," he said, sad and so weary-sounding. "I've messed it all up, haven't I?"

  "Messed up what?"

  "You and me."

  "Have you?"

  "I just didn't know how to go about it. Watching out for you was fine, as long as I didn't have to get too close. But then I did. You needed me, and … I'm afraid I messed up."

  "I believed in you," she said, even if it was silly. "I thought you were coming to save me."

  "I am. I'm here."

  "I looked for you as they were shoving me into the car." She laughed weakly. "It was so stupid. I feel so foolish. But I kept thinking you were going to come charging out of the crowd and save me."

  His arms tightened around her. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I should have been there. But I'm here now."

  "Just like all those times before?"

  "Just like that," he promised.

  "You kissed me," she said drowsily, sinking toward oblivion. "Before—"

  "I shouldn't have done that, either, Grace."

  "Why not? I liked it."

  "So did I."

  Grace sighed, sinking deeper. "I'm so tired."

  "I know. Go to sleep, sweetheart. Try not to be too afraid when you wake up. Even if you can't see me, I'll be here. I'll be watching over you, Grace, and I'll be back."

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Of course, it had been a dream.

  Grace knew the minute she woke up. She hurt too badly to be hallucinating anymore.

  The reality was that she'd been dr
ugged, hit over the head, was weak, thirsty, hungry and scared. None of those things led to particularly clear thinking. Obviously, she'd had a dream. A fear-induced dream, where she felt safe and protected. It was merely her mind's way of coping with a bad situation. She'd conjured up a hero, a savior, to get her out of this mess. If it wasn't a dream, it was pure hallucination.

  Still, when she'd awakened moments ago, alone on the cold stone floor, shivering, her head pounding, her mouth painfully dry, she'd looked for him. She couldn't call out to him, because she still didn't know his name. But she looked for him. She remembered so clearly him urging her not to be afraid, not to think he was gone just because she couldn't see him.

  Not that it helped at the moment.

  Her eyes tried to cut through the oppressive darkness to find some sign that she might not be alone. But there was none. He'd been nothing but a way for her to get through long, frightening hours without falling into a blinding panic, and he'd served his purpose. She'd survived. She wasn't screaming or crying or climbing the walls.

  Now she had to face the unknown all by herself. She didn't want to think about what might happen.

  Looking around, she noted the walls must be thick, because she could hardly hear a thing, save for the occasional footsteps of the guard. He paced past the door to her room every fifteen minutes or so. Sometimes she thought she could feel his eyes staring at her through the narrow window on the door. As the day wore on, she pivoted around in a circle, inch by inch, using her bound feet to propel her, saw that the room held a cot in the corner, some blankets stacked neatly on top. She would have killed for one of those the previous night. There was what looked like a utilitarian bathroom through a doorway in the back corner of the room. Boxes of supplies stacked along the back wall. Not much else.

  It appeared a place where someone might hole up in times of trouble. From an attack, maybe? A shelter, in case of bombing?

  She could understand a man like Milero – the one she believed was responsible for her kidnapping – having his own private bomb shelter. He'd likely have a fortress, as well. Maybe she hadn't been hallucinating about that part. Maybe that was real.