“I love you.”
Sabine burst into tears. She loved him, too, but she was going to walk away. There was no doubt in her mind that, despite the fact they loved each other, she wasn’t the woman for him. The woman he married would support him, not get him shot and tear his life apart. It was better to cut the ties as soon as he was recovered, instead of getting in any deeper than she already was.
Sabine sucked in a breath. The CIA might have let her go, but it wouldn’t be long before they considered her too much of a risk to be walking around. And there was no way she would let Doug get caught up in that.
She pulled away, wiped her cheeks and forced herself to let go of him. “You should be resting.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything about the distance she put between them. “Don’t start. I have enough babysitters. I don’t need one more.”
“Too bad, because that’s exactly what you’ve got.” Sabine linked her arm with his and turned them to the door, but Doug held still.
She looked at him. “What is it?”
He studied her for a moment and then shook his head. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“Doug—” She hated that she was playing this game. “I’ve had enough interrogation to last me the next ten years.”
“So I’m not allowed to ask you anything?”
She let go of him. “I don’t want to fight with you. That’s not why I came here.”
He looked at his sneakers for a moment and then back up at her. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment since I woke up in the hospital. I have to admit, I had a different picture of what our reunion was going to be like.”
“Sorry I disappointed you.”
“Are you really? I just told you that I loved you. Is there anything you’d like to say to me?”
Sabine swallowed. Apparently when she thought she could do this, she hadn’t realized it would be the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life.
It’s just another mission.
That didn’t help. It was impossible to convince her heart not to break a little more every time she looked at him. They could never be together.
“I do love you.”
It took everything she had to admit that out loud.
“Then why do you look so sad about it? What happened to you, Sabine? What did they do to you?”
He was right. Something had happened to her. Sitting in that interrogation room recounting everything she’d ever done as a spy, Sabine had realized that nothing about her was real.
For too long she’d played a part, never genuinely opening up and certainly not living life to the fullest. The missions she went on amounted to lying to get what she wanted. When she came home, there was little that was different. She’d lived a role with Maxwell, too, trying to be the perfect wife…at least until it all fell apart.
She kept herself removed from everything and everyone, got lost in books because it was a way to escape the pressure of trying to be…normal. Which was something she wanted more than anything else.
The only person who’d ever seen the truth was her brother, and he was gone. She hadn’t thought it possible, but this man in front of her made her want to be real—to live.
God, give me the strength to do the right thing.
Doug touched her cheek, his hand sliding back into her hair. Sabine closed her eyes, felt the tickle on her cheek and realized she was crying again.
His lips touched one cheek and then the other, but the tears kept coming.
“Sabine—”
She shook her head. “Don’t.”
He kissed her—so softly—on the lips. “Tell me.” His forehead touched hers. “Tell me.”
She should have known he would never let her get away with it. Doug was the last person in the world she wanted to know how she really felt, the one person she wanted to guard herself from. He was the only person who could see the truth she hid behind her eyes.
She sucked in a breath. “Please don’t make me do this.”
She knew how he would feel when she walked away, because it was the same way she would feel—completely and utterly torn apart. They both needed to be strong.
Doug stepped back, and Sabine opened her eyes to the disappointment on his face. That hurt, too, but the only thing that was important was his recovery.
“I’ll give you time. You can tell me when you’re ready, but you will tell me.”
She nodded.
Doug turned away and walked inside, taking her heart with him.
*
The movie credits rolled, and Doug looked over at Sabine, beside him on the couch. Lamplight illuminated the lines of her face, her closed eyes, the slow rise and fall of her breath as she slept. He stretched; the pain in his chest was a sharp ache but he didn’t want a cloudy head from the medication.
Why was she was so hesitant to accept what was happening between them? What had the CIA told her? She was holding back everything, but why? Doug ached to make her tell him what the problem was, but she had to work it through in her mind before she could come back to him.
Her eyes flickered open. “I honestly thought you were dead, you know.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Not half as sorry as I am. This was all my fault. If it wasn’t for me, you’d never have been shot.”
The look in her eyes broke his heart. “Like you could get rid of me that easily?”
She got up. Doug followed her into the kitchen. “Sabine—”
“Don’t.” She filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove. “It doesn’t matter.”
He laughed. She didn’t mean that. Not when everything in her stance said she wanted to touch him, have him hold her again. “Because I’m not dead?”
“Yes.”
Doug put his hands on her waist and turned her to him. “I’m sorry I joked about dying. You said you love me. You’ll have to forgive me, because I’m going to be very happy about that.”
“I said it doesn’t matter.”
“You can try to convince yourself of that all you want, Sabine, but it matters to me. It matters a lot.”
“Why? There’s no point. This can’t go anywhere.”
He knew she believed that, but he also didn’t care anymore. “The fact that you think it can’t go anywhere means you’re acknowledging that there is something between us. I can work with that. All I have to do is convince you it’ll be worth it.”
Sabine didn’t speak, so Doug gave her a small smile. “When you know what I see when I look at you, and what I feel when I touch you—” he took her hand “—then you’ll be as convinced as I am that, while this might not be easy, it can be great. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, Sabine. I’ve got all the time in the world to wait for you.” He waited a beat. “What do you say?”
“I say okay.”
His smile stretched. “Okay?”
She nodded. “I’m willing to let you convince me.”
He leaned in to kiss her, but she sidestepped him and smiled. “Not like that.”
“Why not?”
She dropped her hand, but he held it, not ready to let her go. She had the cutest look on her face, like she was trying hard to be serious.
“A kiss is not convincing me, it’s swaying me to your way of thinking.” She frowned. “When you kiss me I can’t think straight. It’s too easy to forget—why are you smiling?”
“Because I like hearing you say that.” He squeezed her hand. “You make me happy. I like knowing I have an effect on you, too.”
“There’s a lot we have to work through, but I don’t think there will ever be a lack of feeling between us.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Sabine.”
Doug settled for a kiss on her cheek. He didn’t want to push her but still felt like he needed to stake a claim—a claim that would hopefully pay off with a relationship. The more time they spent getting to know each other, the stronger the foundation of their relationship would be later.
Her shoulders slumped and she frowned over the tea pot. When she yawned, his heart felt like it would burst. The woman was wrung out, physically and emotionally.
“Where’d your dad go?”
Doug leaned against the counter. “He took Jean to dinner. He wanted to give us some space—”
There was a short hum, and the power went out.
Sabine gasped. He reached out, found her shoulder and gave it a pat. “There’s a flashlight in the cupboard beside the trash. Stay here, I’m going to go check the breaker.”
*
Sabine found the flashlight where he said it would be and scanned the kitchen. The light illuminated a figure clad all in black, wearing a matching balaclava, who must have breached the general’s security system. He was across the room by the back door. He looked like the same tall, wiry guy who’d been searching through Ben’s room.
He raised a handgun and pointed it straight at her.
Of course the CIA would send someone to silence her. She just hadn’t thought it would be this fast.
Before he fired, Sabine clicked off the flashlight and dropped to the floor. The gunshot illuminated the room around her. Surrounded by dark again, she crossed to the intruder. Retreat might be the gut reaction of the average civilian, but she had been trained to go toward danger instead of away from it—however unwise that might be.
She followed the sound of his footsteps and came up behind him. This needed to be finished before Doug came back from wherever the breaker switches were located.
She went for his head. An elbow flew back and connected with her temple. The pain was blinding, but she forced it away and kept a lock on the senses that told her where he was.
He slammed into her.
Sabine deflected blow after blow and managed to knock the gun to the floor, but this man was well trained and stronger than her. A brutal punch made her fall to her knees, and she fought away the instinct to panic. How had she ever managed to convince herself that dying was no big deal?
The intruder tackled her. Sabine shoved at him, but his hands grasped her neck and squeezed her throat shut. She groped for anything to use to defend herself…her fingers closed around the warm metal of the gun. She whipped it around and aimed dead center, but he knocked her arms away.
Then he was pulled off her.
Doug kicked and punched the man, his face bathed in rage.
Sabine grabbed his arm. “Stop!”
Doug froze.
“He’s out cold.”
The intruder was slumped at the bottom of the wall, unconscious.
“I’m okay.” Sabine touched the sides of Doug’s neck. His pulse was racing. “I’m okay.”
Doug touched his forehead to hers and blew out a long breath. “This time we’re calling the cops.”
Sabine smiled.
*
“I’ll give you some time.” Colonel Hiller stood with his back to the railing, facing Doug. “You shouldn’t rush into a decision like this. Retirement isn’t easy. I’ve seen guys make that mistake. They wind up wasting time, and then they sign up again, but it’s never the same.”
Doug shifted on his seat and winced at the shard of pain but tried not to be obvious about it. He was saved when Sabine came out and laid a tray on the table with two steaming cups of coffee and a plate of cookies.
She didn’t meet his eyes, just set it down and walked away.
Colonel Hiller said, “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Sabine hadn’t spoken a word to him in the two days since he subdued the intruder in his dad’s kitchen. That had been a fun conversation with the police. This whole thing was driving him crazy. Right when they were getting somewhere, some guy had broken in, and she had withdrawn into herself again.
Doug sighed. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Was he?
Despite the distance she’d established between them, he was still certain she was the one for him. More certain than ever, even when he saw the conflict in her eyes. Beside him every minute, she was there to help with whatever he needed—except when what he needed was her. Then Sabine shuttered herself behind defenses he couldn’t penetrate.
He could get past any obstacle he was faced with. Why not this? His training should count for something. Yet when he needed some hint of what she was feeling, she refused to give anything away.
Doug looked out over the lawns of his father’s expansive yard. Doug had wanted to believe he could have his current way of life…and Sabine. The dream had to be possible, or else what had he been fighting for all these years? But something told him that his tenure with the army had come to an end.
What if God had a whole other plan for Doug?
TWENTY
He was going back to work.
Sabine tried to listen to the sermon, surrounded by a crowd of people all dressed in their Sunday clothes. Doug sat beside her, his focus on the open pages of his Bible. He glanced over at her, so she shot him a small smile and then looked back at the pastor. She would have trouble recounting what the man was talking about. Her Bible was flipped to the middle of Deuteronomy, but she couldn’t focus.
She had to face the fact that Doug was going back to work. Soon he’d be flying off to his base in Texas, back to missions and a life that she wasn’t meant to be a part of. It was time for Sabine to leave. She’d known it for three days now, since Colonel Hiller paid Doug a visit and she heard them talking.
Time to go. So why was she still here?
She had tried to guard her heart. It wasn’t working. If she left now, it would hurt worse than ever, but eventually she would heal.
He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him. Okay? Of course she wasn’t okay. Doug wanted forever with her; he’d told her as much. Told her that he would wait until she sorted out…whatever it was that he thought was wrong with her.
Leaving was going to break both their hearts. She should just get it over with, like ripping off a Band-Aid, because being here was slow and painful torture. She saw it every time she looked in his eyes. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her every dream he was hiding in his heart.
Like the ones she hid in hers.
Sabine grabbed her purse and coat and stumbled to the aisle, past rows of congregants. People stared at her, but she ignored them and kept going. She pushed open the heavy double doors. The sky was low and gray and steady rain streamed down.
She trudged across the parking lot in the direction of Doug’s truck and heard the sound of his shoes following behind her.
She turned…and squeezed her eyes shut. This was hard enough without seeing the pain of heartbreak in his eyes, too. “I have to go.”
“I’ll drive you. Wherever it is, we can go together.”
Sabine shook her head. She felt his touch on her elbow. Her eyes flew open, and she stepped back. “I mean I have to go.”
His eyes hardened. “Don’t do this, Sabine. Don’t walk out on us without even giving it a chance.”
Sabine blinked against the sting of tears. She shouldn’t have stayed for so long just because she couldn’t find it in her to leave him. This was smart; it was the right thing. And it was going to be worse because she’d drawn it out.
“You were going to do this all along, weren’t you? Ever since you showed up at the estate, this was your plan.”
She winced as the roar built in his voice. “I—”
“Taking care of me but not really ‘being’ here. What was the point, if you weren’t going to stick around?”
“Doug—”
“Don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth. You were always going to walk away, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
His face was damp. Rain soaked both of them, but she didn’t know if he might be crying, too. “Why?”
“It’s never going to work between us. I’m not the woman for you—”
“So you get to decide for both of us that this isn’t going to work? I don’t
get a say at all?”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that. This is for the best. You need to get on with your life without me…”
“Without you, what? Tell me why you’re not the one when all I can think about is how right it feels having you here with me. Tell me. What?”
“You deserve better than me.”
He blinked. “How can you say—”
“Because it’s true.” Sabine’s world was crumbling, but she had to do this. “You need to be with someone who doesn’t have a cloud of doubt over her head. I might have been officially cleared, but plenty of people still think I killed my team and betrayed this country. What would the army think if we got married? They’ll be forever suspicious that you’re feeding me information, or that I might turn you against this country.”
She sniffed. “No one in charge is ever going to trust me. And if us being together means they won’t trust you, either, then what’s the point? I can’t even ping on their radar or they’ll haul me in for another round of interrogation—”
His eyes shut. “You should have told me.”
“That you’ll lose your job because you’re too close to me? That everything you’ve worked for will be over because of me? Yeah, what a fun conversation that was going to be. So now you know. I won’t be the one who ruins your life, okay? That’s not what love is.”
“God brought us together for a reason, Sabine.”
“I know that. I believe that. I do. And it’s been wonderful. I’ve never known anyone like you, Doug. But this is it. It has to be. God has someone for you, someone honorable who doesn’t come with a classified past. Someone with a good life who comes from a good family. Someone who isn’t me.”
She turned away and ran. Her feet pounded the cement, splashed puddles and soaked the legs of her dress pants. Never look back. She ran until she couldn’t run anymore, and then collapsed on a bus bench and sobbed.
*
Two days later Sabine parked the rental car she’d picked up at the airport in the driveway of a ranch-style house at the north end of Boise, where the oldest houses were. To get there she’d driven by the alley where the police had found her and Ben huddled behind the Dumpster all those years ago.
Double Agent Page 17