Water From the Moon

by Terese Ramin

  "Leave it, Smith," Paolo advised him. "We’ve got to get moving."

  Cameron’s jaw clenched, but he nodded, his eyes on Acasia, "When you’re done, call me. Just so I know."

  "You’re sure you want me to?"

  "Yes."

  Acasia removed her sunglasses and lifted liquid purple eyes to him. "I’ll call."

  Cameron bridged the distance between them to catch her roughly in his arms. She folded hers around him, rubbing her cheek over the side of his face, kissing his left ear. Paolo and Julianna moved away to give them a moment’s privacy.

  "I’ll think about you," Acasia said.

  He cradled her head in his palm, his cheek rubbing her hair. "You’d better believe I’ll think about you, too, lady. Let’s not leave it at that, huh?" He took hold of her upper arms to push her away. "Be care—" he began, but Acasia kissed him quickly, putting a stop to the word.

  "Don’t say it, or I might be," she said, and left him.

  And Cameron understood. Being careful could get her killed. "Then I guess you’d best be good." He brushed her cheek with a fleeting kiss. "See ya, lady."

  Julianna shoved the door open and let in a blast of heat–drenched air and voices. Acasia caught Paolo’s lapel and pulled him aside before he could go.

  "You’ll take care of him?"

  "You wrote the procedure, Casie," Paolo reminded her quietly. He tried to turn, but again Acasia stopped him.

  "Dominic is alive," she said softly, "and he’s not very happy that I am, too."

  Paolo jerked his coat out of her hand. "Is there anyone you know who you didn’t run into in Zaragoza?"

  "I exchanged threats with Angelo, but I missed saying hi to Sanchez."

  A single blistering obscenity hit the air. Paolo spun on his heel and headed for the door.

  "Paolo."

  "It’s already done," he said without looking at her. He stepped into a streak of sunlight and took a deep breath. Behind him, Cameron stood, not quite ready, but waiting. Again the reporters took up the cry.

  "Mr. Smith, tell us…"

  "…who drove the car…"

  "What do you plan…"

  "Did your rescuer come…"

  "Back off, back off, let him out," Paolo told them.

  Acasia slid her sunglasses on. "See ya, Cam," she whispered.

  He quirked an eyebrow, winked at her and then was gone into the excited babble, surrounded by watchful men in dark suits and white shirts, followed by microphones, cameras and newsmen. The entire entourage shimmered away into the blazing sun, leaving behind the dregs of sound and a lone reporter in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, festooned with cameras. Acasia kept to the shadows, watching Cameron grow smaller, and felt chilled to the bone.

  Julianna coiled her long red braid under a baseball cap, following the path of Acasia’s gaze. "Nice guy." She reached into her breast pocket for some gum and handed a piece to her friend.

  "Yeah."

  Well, she’d really done it this time, Acasia thought. Everything she’d ever vowed not to do, and then some. How could she have said all that to Cameron, convinced herself it was all right as long as she didn’t make promises? How could she have been so stupidly, childishly, blindly hopeful? She’d been a cynic for such a long time. How could she have let it happen? Falling in love, being in love, loving… There was no way she could have prevented it, no way she would have, even knowing that emptiness would follow.

  This is what I do. This is who I am.

  For years she’d used the words as explanation, excuse, reason, apology, not because she always believed they were the truth. Here was where you drifted if you had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, no one else who waited. Here was the place you left when something better came along. Here was the ever–changing sameness of hotel rooms and waiting games, boredom and intrigue, life and death and stupidity.

  Here was her choice.

  She jumped out of the plane after Julianna, automatically readjusting her cap and blowing a bubble with her gum when the leftover reporter raised a camera to snap a picture.

  "Hey! You two know anything about the guy who pulled the rescue stunt on Smith? I’d like an interview. Give you fifty if you can tell me where he is."

  "Sorry, mate," Julianna said around a huge pink bubble. "We’re just the postal crew. Pickup and delivery, that’s it."

  "Some crew." His eyes wandered appreciatively up and down the curves their coveralls only alluded to. "Buy you both a drink? You must’ve spent some time talking with Smith. Man’s bound to’ve said something… anything."

  "Yeah, he did. Asked us what we normally carry. We told him horses ’n’ grooms. That’s it. He slept the whole way."

  Hard at work, the journalist’s innate skepticism wouldn’t let him accept Julianna’s word. "That so? Mind if I look inside your plane?"

  Julianna shrugged. "Just keep your fingerprints to yourself."

  They waited, leaning against the aircraft, while the reporter went inside to satisfy his curiosity. Acasia flicked perspiration off her neck and scrubbed a hand over her face, trying to wipe away the dread that accompanied letting Cameron out of her sight.

  She backed into the shade of the wing, leaned against the plane and pressed her forehead to her arm. A pitiless, if somewhat angst–ridden, self–examination of her character and its weaknesses filled her mind. She’d left a huge amount of unfinished business behind her on this trip, business that was likely to haunt her in the future. And it didn’t thrill her to look back and realize how much she’d left undone in her life. She’d never thought of herself as a woman who didn’t follow through and complete a project once she’d started it. Now she saw tattered edges everywhere she looked.

  Everything she did—retrieval, security consultations, negotiating—was centered on someone else’s existence, on someone else’s demands. In essence, what she did was come in and clean up little chunks of people’s lives, then turn the aftermath over to someone else for polishing. In, out, gone. She acted as a crutch, entering other lives at their lowest point, seeing too many people at their weakest and most vulnerable, never staying long enough to see how what was broken mended—or if it did. She had little experience with follow–through in anyone’s life, least of all her own. If it weren’t for the course she’d chosen…

  But she hadn’t chosen her life; it had chosen her. And somehow she’d gotten used to it, and it had become a habit. An obsession.

  She turned and punched the plane’s fuselage, but the ensuing pain in her knuckles didn’t alleviate the turmoil inside her. How did two people build a life together when they’d each already built separate, and completely incompatible, ones?

  "Damn," she muttered.

  Julianna walked over and peered at her shrewdly, but the reporter reappeared before she could say anything.

  "Thanks," he said. "That was real interesting. Horses, huh? Sure I can’t buy you a drink—or two?"

  "Sorry. Rules. No drinking with reporters after flying."

  "Too bad." He aimed a finger at them and made a snapping noise with his tongue. "See ya."

  They watched him lope away, holding his equipment so that it wouldn’t bounce. Acasia chewed her cheek thoughtfully, swung into the plane for a quick look around and jumped down again beside Julianna.

  "Sod," the latter proclaimed succinctly, and cracked a pocket of air out of her gum.

  "Just doing his job." Acasia shrugged. "What would you have done?"

  "For a story or a bleeding heart?"

  Acasia made a noise that verged on laughter. Trust Julianna’s bluntness to cut straight to the heart of the matter. "Either one."

  Julianna slammed the plane door and checked it. "Stick with it."

  "That sounds easy."

  "Yeah? Well, sounds can fool you." She gave herself a shake to ward off her own demons and joined Acasia. Hands in their pockets, they strolled across the tarmac beneath the sweltering sun.

  * * *

  "What did she tell you that
she didn’t tell me?" Cameron asked. He couldn’t see much; the wall of dark jackets around him cut him off from the outside world as effectively as the outside world was cut off from him. Acasia had been right when she’d said his sojourn would bring him nothing but more of what he’d sought to avoid. "Or didn’t she tell you everything, either?" There was a hope, somewhere in the query, that she would go against type and surprise him.

  Paolo snorted, and Cameron’s moment of optimism blew away. "Simon Jones’ daughter? I’ve known her a long time. She’s always had a habit of keeping her own counsel. You know how it is—the good con, like the good negotiator, doesn’t lie. But that doesn’t mean they actually tell you anything, either."

  "I hear—" Cameron began, but got no further. There was a shout and a sudden jostling, and Paolo pushed Cameron’s head down and crouched over it, a human bulletproof vest.

  Terse orders split the air, and Cameron was pulled and shoved, running, out of harm’s way, behind solid walls.

  He flattened himself against painted brick and felt the jittery shimmy of shocked blood through his system. Now he remembered why he’d originally tucked himself away inside Rhiannon, conducting business outside the institute as infrequently as possible. Too many people took chances for him. Who he was placed too many people at risk. Too many people—and Acasia.

  The vile taste of self–disgust filled his throat.

  The security agent in front of Cameron cocked his head and touched a finger to his ear, listening a moment before activating the mic at his throat. "Right. No problem." He looked at Paolo. "That’s the all–clear. Just an unrelated domestic. We can move."

  Relief mixed with adrenaline, chilled Cameron’s blood. He looked at Paolo. "You jumped at a shadow," he said. "Someone could have been hurt because of it."

  Paolo’s shrug was faint, void of apology. "We don’t play percentages," he returned. "I’d rather run the routine for nothing than get caught being careless. Our opponents only have to be lucky once. We have to be lucky always." He straightened away from the wall. "Come on. Time for you to meet your press."

  * * *

  Acasia and Julianna rounded a corner of the terminal in time to catch the tail end of the commotion, the scattering of dark suits, the burst of sounds, the minor scuffle of resolution, the resurgence of calm and control. Reflex propelled Acasia toward the disruption, but instinct prompted her away after a swift visual search for Cameron. She found him tucked securely in the center of a moving huddle and gulped hard.

  He found her, too, saw her standing and watching. Their eyes caught and held momentarily. There was a jolt of electricity; a touch could not have been more potent.

  Fear and need pumped through her veins, hammered in her ears. How could anything so hot and fast and brilliant possibly last beyond a few stolen moments, a few idle trysts?

  A step behind her, Julianna tracked Acasia’s concern and gave her friend’s shoulder a squeeze. "You all right?"

  Acasia hunched her shoulders, pulling herself tight, and stared after Cameron. Julianna tugged at her, and Acasia made herself come aware. "What?"

  "Case. You all right?"

  Responsibility burned a hole in her thoughts. She had a job. She turned her back on Cameron and gave Julianna a lopsided smile. "I don’t think so," she said.

  Chapter 11

  FOR CAMERON, THE next two days were an interminable round of repeated questions.

  Under Paolo’s omnipresent security blanket, he was shuttled through the airport from a cursory preliminary debriefing to a quick let–’em–take–your–picture–but–say–nothing press conference to a private hospital where his health was checked and approved before he was returned to the airport to board the private jet that waited to fly them to Washington.

  In Washington, the questions didn’t vary, and neither did the answers. The media enjoyed a field day at his expense, turning hearsay and wire photos from his meeting with Sanchez into "fact."

  At his official debriefing, time was unending, the questions repetitious. He told his story from every conceivable angle, beginning with the day six months earlier when the proposal for Smith Industries’ involvement in Zaragozan mining development had first reached his desk. He named every person he remembered who’d researched or advised him on the project, including two of his present examiners.

  The State Department’s files on him were too thorough. They quizzed him about Acasia and his past relationship with her, then wondered about its current state. They asked about Fred and the clinic, tried to refute the existence of the mercenary Dominic Mansour. Cameron got the distinct impression that his examiners’ interest turned keener, their questions sharpened, at Mansour’s name.

  After his fifth trip through the details, an aide was suddenly dispatched on a high–speed errand. When he returned an hour later for a whispered consultation with his superiors, the atmosphere went grim. Questions zeroed in on Acasia, leaving Cameron with clear intimations of the level of her professional status and blurred implications of the personal mistakes cluttering her past. Then, in an abrupt effort to catch him off guard, his questioners changed tack and asked him where Smith Industries’ negotiations over strategic metals mining in Zaragoza stood now.

  By the time they finally dismissed him, Cameron had a too–clear impression of what Acasia had gone through after she’d been dumped, alone, by Lisetta’s kidnappers. He also had a pretty clear impression of what the State Department thought was going on.

  "Why do they seem to think she’s part of this whole thing, this… whatever the hell it is conspiracy with Mansour?" he asked finally, when he and Paolo reached their hotel, passed through the chintz lobby, took the elevator and were safely through the door of suite 338.

  "She doesn’t do much by the book, and they’re paid to be skeptical," Paolo returned without missing a beat.

  "They don’t give a damn about the danger she put herself in for me."

  "She’s paid to take her risks, same as they are."

  "She could have been—could be—killed."

  "So could you," Paolo said. "Mexican stand–off. It would be worse if you were together. Sanchez only wants you now because you’re a means to an end—and because you got away from him. Casie…" He made a small motion of regret. "This isn’t the first time she’s gotten between Sanchez and something—or someone—he wants. That she’s also a woman only adds to the insult. If he knew you two were…" a pause wrapped in a telling twist of Paolo’s lips "…involved with one another, and he could get to her through you…" He shrugged. "I wouldn’t give two cents for either one of you. And there are others out there like him. If she cares for you, you’re a danger to her, and she’s a danger to you. Apart, you both have a chance. It’s simple logic."

  Cameron turned his head, his patience fraying. "Go to hell, Gianini. I don’t need another lecture on the merits of staying home, pulling in the drawbridge and forgetting about Acasia. If I couldn’t do it before, it damn sure won’t happen now." He shoved a hand through his hair, spinning around as he did so, finding his in–house security guards in their shadowed corners, one a bulwark near the window, the other on alert near the door. Their presence set his teeth on edge. "I need some space." He glanced at Paolo. "Okay if I use the john by myself?"

  Paolo lifted his chin at the guard nearest the windows. "You guys check it out?"

  The man nodded. "It’s clean."

  "Good." Paolo waved a gracious hand at Cameron. "It’s all yours."

  With an oath entirely lacking in civility, Cameron cursed Paolo and slammed out of the room.

  * * *

  From there the day lengthened, giving Cameron a headache that started between his eyes and speared up and back to his temples, where it settled with relentless persistence to interfere with his concentration. He spent much of the time on the phone, waiting for connections, conducting snatches of business, waiting for the State Department to decide he could go home. Worrying about where Acasia was, who she was seeing, whether or not she w
as all right. From time to time violence tempted him. As patient a man as he was, this kind of waiting was not his forte. It left him feeling impotent and vulnerable—not only to anyone Paolo and his crew were here to guard him against, but also to his own internal doubts. He didn’t like doubts. He’d always chosen to keep his fate in his own hands, to have things happen because he made them happen, not because he waited to see if they would.

  Savagely he flung himself into the chair opposite Paolo and shifted his cell phone to his other hand.

  Paolo eyed him thoughtfully, recognizing the symptoms. "It’s not the ifs of waiting that get to you," he observed to the glass of cabernet he lifted to the light. "The ifs are livable. It’s the maybes. Maybe if I’d done this differently. Maybe it’ll be all right. Maybe she’ll be home when I get there. Maybe she’ll never get home. Maybe this will be the last time. Maybe. And it’s the absolute certainty that, no matter what she promises, there will always be a next time, because there’s always someone whose needs are greater than yours, whose reasons for her to go are better than yours for her to stay." He looked at Cameron directly. "It’s tough knowing you’ll always come second to some stranger with no face or name or story you’ll ever be privy to."

  "And maybe it’s the greatest act of trust," Cameron snapped irritably, covering the receiver with one hand, tired of Paolo’s incessant warnings. "Trusting someone to be there however many times you go away, maybe that’s the hardest thing to do."

  Paolo stared over his wine at Cameron, startled approbation in his eyes. Cameron stared back, ending his conversation with his New York office and shutting off his phone with extreme care.

  "Maybe," he said, "you underestimate me—and Acasia."

  "It’s possible," Paolo admitted slowly. "It might be nice to be wrong this time. It would have been nice to be wrong about one of my own two wives and Julianna’s ex–husband, though, too. And we had fewer strikes against us than you and Casie do. You’re dangerous—"