Warrior's Second Chance

by Nancy Gideon

  He’d never known about her situation, about Tessa. The shock of that turned her entire life upside down with a plague of what-ifs. What if she’d trusted him more and Robert less? What if she’d gone that extra mile to contact him, to see for herself that he didn’t want the future her pregnancy created? But she’d had no reason not to trust those around her, no resources to check what they said against what she felt in her heart. Not then. Not after the pain of abandonment had eased to an almost tolerable ache. She had loved him so much; knowing his child was inside her had been the only thing that had kept her going. Could they have made it, the three of them, if she’d stood firm upon her promises those thirty years ago?

  Could they make it now with the scars of misunderstanding disfiguring the truth for so long?

  Tag didn’t think so. He had no reason to have faith in what she felt for him, in what they’d felt for one another. But if that was true, if he didn’t care enough to risk his heart, why was he here, risking his life? Not to save his own. He was too good at what he did. He could have faded from sight for another thirty years without anyone ever finding him. He’d only become visible because of her.

  She paced back into the front of the station to wait for his return. As the hour grew later, her anxiousness increased with the surrounding darkness.

  Where was he? Why did he stay away for so long? Was it his intention to deny her the chance to explain herself, to explore the ramifications of the truth now told? Or didn’t it matter?

  What if Chet Allen had already found him? What if she’d led him directly to his death? Was Allen out there even now, plotting, taking pleasure in planning her demise? Hers and Tessa’s. Tension gripped her, twisting, knotting her insides until she was a coil of apprehension. When a scuffle of noise on the front porch sounded, it was enough to send her into a panic.

  Who was out there? Friend or deadly foe?

  She waited, breath panting from her. More scratching. The scraping of chairs on the wood flooring. The crash of a clay pot. She caught back a scream. Then reason took over. She wouldn’t have heard Tag or Chet coming for her. They were professionals, used to silent stalking. This was…what exactly?

  Cautiously, she moved to the door, snapping on the porch light. The sound stopped then was followed by a snuffling cry of distress. Peering out from a modest crack, she saw the cause of her concern. A black bear cub, no bigger than a pup, was rooting through the spilled dirt from the planter, looking for food.

  “You’re just a baby,” Barbara cooed, then glanced around the shadowed perimeter. “Where’s your mama?”

  The cub stopped to regard her through bright button eyes, then gave a pitiful bawl of hunger. The universal tone of a young one in discomfort melted her heart.

  “Are you out here all alone?” Still no sign of Mama Bear. Knowing she should wait for Tag’s return, she started to close the door when the cub came ambling toward her without fear. It clawed at the door, making more of the pathetic wails for attention. It was hungry, alone and looking for care anywhere it could find it.

  It had come to the right place.

  Tag found the two of them in front of the fireplace. Barbara was feeding the cub oatmeal and honey from her fingers. The sight of her sitting cross-legged on the floor, swaddled in one of his wool flannel shirts, nursing a greedy baby, caused the last of his reserve to collapse. An image of Barbara caring for the child they had created burned in his hopes and dreams. And the pain of missing that sight and others like it welled up inside, filling all the empty niches in his aching soul with longing. He should have been there. For her. For Tessa. But there was no going back to claim those memories enjoyed by another.

  “That’s probably not a good idea.”

  She looked up, startled, then offered a small, slightly defiant smile. “He was hungry.”

  “He is a wild animal, not a pet.”

  “He’s a baby who got separated from his mother.”

  Tag closed the door behind him and sighed morosely. “His mother is dead. A poacher got her. I found the other cub last week. It got attacked by some other predator. I didn’t know what had happened to this little guy.”

  Her gaze glimmered with upset. She stroked the bristly coat as the cub, its belly full and rounded, curled up at her feet to fall fast asleep. “Will he make it without her?”

  Tag shrugged. “Maybe. He seems to take to you. That’s a good sign. I’ve got some contacts with animal rescue groups. They might be able to take him in. He’s too little to be out there alone.”

  “No one should have to be that alone.” She said it softly, with shades of meaning deep enough for him to drown in.

  As she tucked her expensive cashmere sweater about the slumbering creature and placed him in the safe surround of the empty fire box, he got a glimpse of what he might have had and held dear. Not Barbara Calvin, the sweetly naive teen, but this woman, bereft of makeup and designer clothing, clad in his flannel shirt, fitting into the life he’d made for himself with an un-complaining aplomb. She’d always had a tender spot for strays, so patient, so overflowing with compassion for the most unfortunate. She’d looked right past his family flaws, ignoring his deficits to find and encourage the strengths of the boy he’d been. Perhaps she could work that same magic on the lonely man he’d become. This was the tender woman who’d won his heart.

  She looked up then, her soft gaze warm with care and optimism, and his words just burst out from his unguarded heart.

  “I never stopped thinking about you, dreaming about you. Loving you.”

  For a moment, she didn’t react and he experienced a terrible anguished panic. He was too late.

  Then, she rose up from her cross-legged position on his floor and came to him without a word. He stood there, frozen in place, afraid to hope, afraid to breathe. Her palms skimmed up either side of his immobile face, cradling him in that gentle vee while she spoke the answer that fed his soul.

  “Neither did I.”

  Their kisses started slow, with a poignant reacquainting heat that quickly took flame, engulfing them and forging them into one. One heart, one need, one goal. To span those missing years, to fill those lonely spots left achingly empty while they had been apart.

  The feel of him, so hard, so lean, so…hers, fed the fantasies Barbara had harbored. Her mouth opened to their deepening passions, her heart opened to long dormant joy. She learned the angles of his face made harsh by the years, first with her fingertips and then with the sweep of her lips. And because she wasn’t that young, inexperienced girl who’d last known him, she savored each sensation to the fullest. The rough burr of his cheek, the soft swell of his lower lip, the encouraging caress of his hurried breaths upon her neck until she swallowed them again with a needy urgency. The taste of him, remembered and renewed, hot, spicy, intoxicatingly delicious. Finally, out of breath, she simply leaned into him, upon those long, tough planes that had always surrendered such a sense of security.

  “We’ve got until daybreak before we have to deal with Chet,” he whispered, the enticement of that claim stirring her heart and her hopes.

  “We’ve wasted enough time, don’t you think, to let even a minute get away.”

  Because they both knew these hours until dawn might be their last.

  He took her by the hand, leading her from the office area into his private quarters. With the lights off, with the overwhelming heat of him beside her, she didn’t notice the starkness that had so disturbed her before. He tugged the covers off his bed and then they undressed each other, their actions becoming more and more frantic with the shedding of each layer until they were skin to skin, soul to soul.

  And it was wonderful.

  He took her down to the mattress, to the cozy flannel of his bottom sheet, leveling over her to form a warm, enveloping cover. This was what she’d yearned for in her marriage bed, this intensity of feeling that just kept getting bigger until she was filled to bursting. Her nerve endings were alive and tingling. Her blood sang through her vein
s with each anticipating beat of her heart. She couldn’t keep her hands still, desperate to chart the rugged contours of his shoulders, his arms, his back, his flanks beneath her restless palms. He felt so good. He returned touch for touch, joy for joy, until she panted for fulfillment.

  Then, with him filling her body, her spirit, her heart so completely, they moved together, creating a sweet, hot friction.

  Building, sharpening, to a sudden explosive reward that left them both breathless and unable to guard against the wealth of emotions freed upon that spectacular release.

  They lay quietly curled together in the darkness, sharing their heat, their sated happiness, and would have done so contentedly for the remainder of the night if they had had that luxury.

  “Chet gave me until morning.”

  Barbara sat up with a gasp. “What? You spoke to him? He’s here? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Because selfishly, greedily, he’d wanted this moment alone with her. But he couldn’t tell her that. Instead, he said, “While I keep him busy, I want you to head for the boat landing. I want you to hide there, stay out of sight until the first ferry comes across. Then I want you to go straight to the first phone and call Jack.”

  She just stared at him, her gaze incomprehensive. “You want me to leave you here alone with Chet?”

  “Yes.”

  “He could kill you.”

  It didn’t matter, as long as she was safe. But he didn’t tell her that, either.

  “Promise you’ll go and won’t look back.”

  He’d asked her to do pretty much the same thing thirty years ago. To let him go and go about her own life. Only, what kind of life would she have without him in it? She’d already lived a shallow existence, living her lonely days and nights for others. With nothing for herself. She couldn’t…wouldn’t go back to that.

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “No. We’re in this together, McGee. I’m not going to let you walk away from me again.”

  “Barb, you don’t—”

  “I understand just fine. If Chet is waiting for some shoot-’em-up at dawn, then we’ll have to slip away when he doesn’t expect it. I was wrong to listen to Colonel Kelly. Chet is their problem, not yours.”

  “Kelly? When did you talk to Kelly?” Tag sat up, clutching her soft shoulders. She couldn’t see the seriousness of his expression but felt the intensity in his firm grip.

  “He encouraged me to come here. So you and Chet could face off. So you could—”

  “Cover up his involvement.”

  She went very still. “You remember?”

  She sounded so aghast that he was instantly suspicious. “What do I know, Barb? What did he tell you?”

  When she didn’t answer, he touched her face with questing fingertips. Her features worked with anguish. He felt the dampness of her tears.

  “Barbara, what aren’t you telling me?”

  “I met his wife, his Vietnamese wife. She knew you and Chet. She recognized you both as the soldiers who…”

  “Who what?” he prompted fiercely.

  “As the men who killed her family.”

  The sound of a shot thundered through his head. He squeezed his eyes shut to contain the harsh reverberations.

  Finish them.

  He could hear Chet’s cold command, could see the youthful face lifted up to him in fearful supplication. The horror of it chilled his soul. But what was worse was telling the woman he loved what he’d become.

  “I killed them, Barb. I think I killed them.”

  Chapter 13

  She didn’t recoil from his torturous confession. She should have. She should have pulled away with the same disgust and outrage he felt inside. But instead, she fit one tender palm to his cheek.

  “It wasn’t you.”

  How could she say such a thing?

  “Barbara, I’ve killed people. Innocent people.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Aren’t you listening to me?” He was wildly angry, at her for the compassion shimmering in her stare, at himself for wanting to get lost in her absolving care. Both were wrong. And he’d been caught up in too many wrong things to let this one go. “I killed that woman’s husband and her kids. I did.”

  A terrible truth wrenched from the heart of her as she cried, “I don’t care. I don’t care what you may have done. You can’t change what’s happened. I’m not going to lose you again. I won’t.” Her voice broke. She swallowed her fear and panic before continuing in a more reasonable tone. “Facing Chet won’t bring those people back.”

  “But it will return my honor.”

  She laughed harshly at his somber declaration. “What’s honor compared to your life?”

  “Everything.”

  “Not to me.”

  He touched her damp cheek, soothing away the tears the way he’d like to ease her anguish.

  “Barb, I have to do the right thing. You don’t understand what it’s like to live all those years with the fear that what’s just beyond what you recall is a horror too big to be imagined. Like an empty shell, with no heart, no soul, only the ghost of your past.”

  She covered his hand with hers. “Yes, I do. I’ve waited thirty years to have you back, thirty years to come alive again, to feel, to love, to know happiness. I am not going to throw that away because you feel responsible for what was done to you without your knowledge and against your will.”

  He sighed wretchedly. “I’m not the hero you want me to be.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  And there, shining in her eyes, was the uncompromising belief he’d craved for so long. That simple claim eased a spirit tormented by doubts, by fears, by half-remembered demons. He let her continue without protest or objection, needing the healing balm of her support.

  “We’ve already lost so much time, time we could have shared watching our daughter grow into a truly wonderful woman. You’ll like her, Tag. She’s so much like you.”

  He tucked his head so she wouldn’t see the pain of that loss in his eyes, the desperate wanting to have that stolen time back. She went on in a soft, regretful voice that amazingly held none of the bitterness burning like acid in the back of his throat, in his belly, in his heart.

  “I’ve spent those years living up to a bargain made under false pretenses, because of a lie, because of Robert’s competitive greed to have anything he coveted. I was a symbol, not a person, to him. I was a means to what he wanted for himself and he was willing to compromise friendship and loyalty and truth to have me. And I don’t think he ever forgave himself for it. I thought it was me, that it was his shame over what I’d done with you that made him so distant toward me and Tessa. But it was his own guilt. It was the lie he’d made us live.

  “He was a good provider, Tag. He gave us everything we could want or need. Everything but love. He never knew how to do that where Tessa and I were concerned. Our boys, yes, but he couldn’t breach that gulf with us. Tessa blamed me for it, and I’d promised Robert I would never tell her the truth. So, you see, our pasts aren’t so very different. What you don’t remember and what I couldn’t have made us two lonely people living half a life. Because we weren’t strong enough then to believe in the goodness, the rightness, of what we had, we couldn’t take a risk.”

  “What risk?” he whispered.

  “The risk it would take to fulfill that promise we made to each another the night before you left. It frightened me then. But it doesn’t now. I don’t care where you came from. I don’t care what you did. I only know who you are. You are the father of my child. You are the man who’s held my heart forever. And I want you. I want you to make good on that promise.”

  Then came his tortured reply. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You mean, if you want to.” Pain saturated those words, hanging heavy on his conscience.

  “No,” he corrected quietly. His hand framed her lovely face. His thumb rode its delicate angles, now taut with misery. “I don’t know if Che
t will let me. I can’t let him hurt you or your family.”

  “Your family, Tag. Your family, too.”

  He swallowed that truth, suffering for the way it seemed to wedge in sideways to dam all his emotions behind it.

  “Barb—”

  “Don’t give him that kind of power over us. You don’t have to play his game any more. Tessa and Rose are safe. I’m here with you. He’s on an island, your island. He can’t escape. Let the law or his own people have him. We can go somewhere, start over.”

  “Barb—”

  She shook her head, not wanting to hear the somber facts he was about to speak. She was crying without being aware of it.

  “Barb,” he repeated gently. “We can’t walk away from this. I’m wanted for murdering Frye. We can’t just start over. I won’t live another lie with you. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. If we start over together, it’s got to be with a clean slate. You know that. You couldn’t go on the run with me, leaving your daughter, your sons, your grandchildren behind. It’s no kind of life for you.”

  “No kind of life is posing for cameras, smiling at guests you don’t even know, watching every word you say because it will be in the papers the next day. It’s tailored clothes and uncomfortable shoes, and a day planner that’s on overdrive so you have no time to think or relax or enjoy what you have. But what you have gives you no joy. I want that joy, McGee. I haven’t had it since you went away. Don’t take it from me again.”

  He kissed her softly, slowly, with infinite care. She tasted of tears and poignant longing. And love.

  And that’s what he’d been missing.

  He leaned back to murmur, “We have to get this behind us before we go on. You know that, don’t you?”

  She gave a jerky nod.

  “I can’t share my life with you until it’s my own.”

  Again the reluctant nod, followed by the quiet hitch of a sob.

  He drew her up to him, lying back so she was pillowed on his shoulder, cradled in the circle of his arms. He could feel the shivers of her weeping but was powerless to give them ease. So he simply held her, absorbing the glorious sensation of her against him while his mind spun agilely ahead in search of a solution. After a time, her crying ended. She stayed within the curl of his embrace, but there was no relaxation in the luxurious line of her. His woman. The mother of his child.