"Channie, listen to me. You keep saying you 'didn't know what to do,' so you ran, or you jumped, or you drove the car through a wall. Don't you realize that those were hard decisions, that you made them, and that they were right? Even when Lansing made a concerted effort to convince you that you were losing your mind, you knew you weren't. Don't you realize what kind of strength that takes?"
Chandra took in a long shuddering breath. When she lifted her head again, the only thing Linc saw in her eyes was the love, pure, sweet, and utterly devastating.
"I'll try. I'll really try, Linc. For you. As long as you're there, I'll get through it. Somehow."
Pain welled up inside him, fierce and searing, like an eagle's talons ripping into his vitals. For an instant he wanting nothing more than to agree with the words it had taken so much courage for her to say. He knew what this would do to his mermaid. And to her love for him. But he also knew that Shiloh was right.
He straightened up, his arms crossed over his stomach almost protectively, as if the blow he was about to deliver would hurt him more than it would her. He looked down into her wide, trusting, blue eyes. He made himself face her, when all he wanted to do was run. And he said the words that would crush her soul as thoroughly as they would his own.
"I won't be there, Chandra."
* * *
Chapter 14
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Linc had seen many horrible things, in many horrible places, but nothing in his life had ever prepared him for the look of betrayal in Chandra's eyes.
He'd tried to explain, to make her see that she would never believe in herself as long as she was leaning on him, but all Chandra saw was his desertion. All she saw was that the one man she had thought was different, the one man she had learned to trust had failed her.
He wasn't even sure he'd managed to explain it to himself. True, it was a practical matter; a man who spent a great deal of his life working undercover couldn't exactly appear at a nationally televised trial—and thankfully, with a little prodding from the navy, the Feds realized this, and had grudgingly agreed to keep him out of it—but somehow the old explanation that it was best for his work didn't matter much. What mattered was Chandra, and though his mind might be telling him that the best thing he could do for her was to show her she didn't need him, but his heart, soul and body weren't buying it.
And now, ironically, it was he who'd turned into the coward, running home to Daddy.
That last thought had come to him at the sound of the smooth whoosh of the wheels of his father's chair over the boards of the porch. From where he sat on the steps, he glanced over his shoulder just as the chair came to a stop beside him.
"She looks peaceful today," Robert Reese said.
There was no need to explain; between father and son they'd given fifty years to the navy, and the sea was the cornerstone on which their lives revolved.
"Yes," Linc agreed, looking back out at the calm expanse in the distance, gilded by the pink, orange and purple of sunset.
"But she's failed you, hasn't she?"
Linc's gaze snapped up to his father's face, wondering if there was some kind of double meaning to his words. But he saw only gentle concern in the bright green eyes that were so like Shiloh's. Those eyes stood out vividly, alertly in the sea-weathered face beneath the thick mane of silver hair.
When Linc had arrived here, his tail between his legs, he'd found his father in one of those vague, mentally detached moods that, fortunately, had greatly lessened of late, especially since Shy and Con's wedding. He'd groaned inwardly, even knowing he was acting like a child, wanting his father to take care of him, not the other way around.
But he'd felt like a child, wounded, hurt, uncertain … and scared. And his father, through the haze of wherever it was his mind sometimes went to deal with the life that had been left to him, had somehow seen that. And he'd come charging back to reality with all the ferocity of a tiger defending its cub.
Linc turned his gaze back to the sea. "She can't heal everything."
"No. She can't. She can heal the body, the soul, and to a great extent the mind, but she's lousy at healing a heart. Only time can do that."
Linc sighed. He'd been here three days before, fortified with a bottle of his father's finest Scotch, he'd poured out the story. Robert Reese had listened, contemplated—speculating, no doubt, on the parts I purposely left out, Linc thought—and pronounced his verdict: "You did what you thought you had to do, son. That's all a man can ask of himself."
Linc stared downward at the steps beneath his feet. They needed painting, he thought. So did the wheelchair ramp. He'd do it tomorrow. Maybe go get the paint today.
"I just wish I was sure it was the right thing." The words came without thought, and he knew it had been building inside him for too long to hold back anymore.
It was a moment before his father spoke. "Your sister is very wise, for one so young. I think she was wise in this case, as well." He paused; then, as he went on, his voice sounded oddly tight. "If it means anything to you, I admire you for what you did."
Linc's head came up sharply. He stared at his father, a man whose praise had always been the more precious for being hard to earn. Linc's greatest goal in life had been to become at least half the man his father was, and hearing him say this now was balm to a savage wound.
"I … it means a lot, Dad. A lot."
Robert's hand came out, reaching for his son. In the same moment Linc raised his own, and they met in a strong, warm clasp that did as much for father as son.
"I wish," Robert said after a moment, "that I'd had the courage to do with your mother what you've done. Perhaps if I'd helped her to stand alone instead of making sure she never had to—"
He ended with a shrug, and Linc said nothing, knowing they would never know if things would have turned out differently. His father's fingers tightened around his.
"You know, I once thought the worst thing that could ever happen to me had, when they told me my legs couldn't be repaired. Then I thought it again when your mother left. But when I heard that you had been captured by the VC, I knew what I'd felt before was nothing compared to what a parent can feel when a child is in danger."
"I know," Linc said quietly. "I knew, sitting there in that damn cage, what you'd be going through."
Robert shrugged. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is, I've learned something else. I learned it when Shy woke up that morning to find Con had left her. As bad as it is, knowing your child is in danger and that you can't do a thing about it, it's worse knowing that your child is in such horrible pain, and you can't help."
Linc had to look away quickly, blinking rapidly against the sudden stinging of moisture in his eyes. "You're wrong, Dad," he said, his voice tight. "You can help. You are helping."
"Thank you," Robert said simply.
They sat, watching the fiery disc of the sun plunge into the Pacific. When the last bit of pink light in the sky disappeared, Robert cleared his throat.
"I'm as hungry as Admiral Wallingford," he said, referring to the old man with the prodigious appetite who had been, twenty years apart, an academy instructor to both of them. "How about a pizza? On me?"
"Sure," Linc said, feeling, if not better, at least not so utterly devastated for the first time since Chandra had turned that awful look on him. "Beer's on me."
An hour later, as they sat among the remnants of the pizza and the last sips of beer, that slight gain vanished. His father had turned on the television news while awaiting a program on his pet subject, the Civil War. And there, unavoidably, was a report on the arraignment of Daniel Lansing.
He barely caught a glimpse of Lansing; the man was rushed past the news cameras, buried in a contingent of three-piece suits. The reporter didn't seem to mind, all her attention seemed fixed on the "surprise star witness" that had, she said, made the prosecutor's case. The reappearance of Lansing's supposedly dead, estranged wife had shocked everyone, the reporter was saying while the camera panned the hallwa
y outside the courtroom. The accusations she'd leveled against her husband were even more shocking.
And then the reporter's voice seemed to fade away as a poised, elegant woman, looking fragile in a slender, simple black dress, crossed the camera's field of vision. Her hair and skin looked even paler, and he wondered if it was because of the color of the dress.
Then she glanced at the camera, and his heart quailed. Not only did she look calm, collected and elegant, she looked utterly, completely cold. She was the woman he'd seen in a newspaper photograph, what seemed like a lifetime ago. There was no warmth in those wide blue eyes. There was no trace of the woman he'd come to know. His mermaid was gone, and Linc wondered with a sinking heart if Chandra's love for him had died with her.
He felt his father's hand on his shoulder, and looked up into green eyes full of sympathy, support, and now, understanding.
The hours seemed to stretch out into endless days. He tried to fill them with chores, and his father's house had never looked so good, but his heart was in tatters. He also tried to keep from following the news avidly, but to no avail. When the report came that Lansing would be bound over for trial, with Chandra Lansing's positive, unshakable testimony the deciding factor, his father made him stop his work.
"It was the right decision, Linc," he said. "You must see that now."
"I know. It was the best thing I could do for her. Even if she … hates me for it." He slammed the lid back on the can of paint he'd just finished the ramp with. "Fine thing, huh? When the best thing I can do for the woman I love is abandon her?"
"Sometimes," his father said gently, "that's what love is. Doing what's best for the one you love, even when it isn't the best for you. Even when it hurts."
"Then this must be love," Linc quipped miserably, "because it sure as hell hurts."
And it was still hurting when, unable to bear even his father's quiet sympathy anymore, he packed himself off to the Shiloh II's home slip in Santa Barbara Harbor. Again he tried to fill the endless hours with work; the boat's chrome and brass glistened, the teak was scrubbed and freshly oiled, and the decks swabbed to sparkling perfection.
The stern looked different now, after a couple of days Linc had spent once again with a paint brush. Only the amount of time he'd spent on the precision design kept him from painting over it the moment he was done. That, and the miserable thought that it could serve as a reminder of his own stupidity; he'd left the sloop backed into the slip for just that reason. He'd felt guilty about the change for a while, but then realized that of all people, Shiloh would understand why he'd done it.
The interior was as spotless as the exterior, scrubbed and tidied until there was barely a sign that anyone had ever been aboard. It hadn't worked. No amount of scrubbing could erase the sense he had of Chandra's presence. And he'd taken to sleeping up on deck; the bunk was a place too full of memories.
On a crystal clear morning, with the sunlight dancing over the water in the way that used to give him such peace, Linc found himself out of things to busy himself with. There was nothing left to polish, oil or scrub. He'd repaired the dock box, and even the dock itself, much to the appreciation of the dockmaster. Even the steps up to the boat had fallen victim to his desperate zeal; they had been sanded and repainted to match the new look of the sloop's stern. So he sat in the cockpit, tossing stale bread to the gathering seabirds.
As he looked out across the marina from his end slip, Linc ran a hand over his hair, his mouth quirking slightly at the feel of it; he hadn't had his hair this long since he'd left high school for Annapolis. His hand slid down to his stubbled jaw; shaving hadn't been on the agenda for a few days, either.
Maybe he should call Captain Powell, he thought, tossing out a piece of crust a gull caught gracefully on the wing. Tell him he wanted to come back to work. It was only a couple of weeks early, he thought. Then he remembered Clark Powell's vehemence when he had ordered Linc not to show his face anywhere near a navy facility for a full three months. And Linc knew that, even if he could find the energy to make the call, he didn't have the energy to try to change his CO's mind.
He heard the sound of footsteps on the dock, but didn't look around. He concentrated on the raucous cries of the gulls instead. He'd given up hoping, given up turning eagerly every time someone came down the gangway. It had been two months since he'd seen Channie on that news broadcast. It had been forever since he'd touched her.
Never let it be said that you don't do your work well, Linc told himself sourly. You did it so well this time that she truly doesn't need you anymore. There was an irony in that, he thought as he watched another gull dip and wheel before diving for a floating chunk of bread. If I had the energy, I might appreciate it.
The footsteps came closer, each one narrowing the number of destinations the person could have. And there was no one aboard the last few boats. Except him.
The dockmaster, he thought. The man had been bantering with him for days, saying Linc might as well fix everything in the marina while he was at it. You're making the rest of us look bad, was his favorite line. Linc stood up, stretching slowly. It was nearly lunchtime anyway, and the man made a habit of showing up—
A shocked, undeniably feminine gasp whirled him around so fast he staggered. He forgot to breathe as he stood there, staring. She was standing on the dock, wearing a short, white knit dress that bared only her shoulders, yet managed to look, to him at least, sexy as hell. A pair of strappy white sandals dangled from her fingers as she stood there, barefoot, staring at the newly painted transom of the boat.
When at last he was able to move, to jump down to the dock beside her, she lifted her head, the smooth, gleaming sweep of her hair brushing her cheek as it fell back. His body tightened with the memory of the feel of that pale hair beneath his hands, beneath his lips, brushing over his chest, his belly…
Then their eyes met, and locked. He saw understanding in the blue depths, and knew she was remembering that day, so long ago it seemed, when she'd told him that Chandra had come from the old Sanskrit for moon. She glanced downward again, to where the carefully lettered name Moonchaser now graced the sloop's stern.
When she raised her head again, her gaze was shuttered, her expression for the first time completely unreadable to him. Irony again, he thought, for his face, he knew, was for once baring all.
"I hated you," Chandra said abruptly, bluntly. Linc winced, feeling like he'd taken a loose boom to the ribs. He'd expected no less, had known that doing what he thought he'd had to might cost him everything, but knowing it didn't lessen the pain now.
Something flickered in Chandra's eyes as she looked at him, some acknowledgment of his pain, as if she'd realized in that moment just how hard it had been for Linc to walk away from her. And the shutter lifted a little.
"It had to be that way," she said quietly, unexpectedly. "I can see that, now. I couldn't give to someone … something I didn't own. And I hadn't truly owned myself for a very long time."
"Channie," Linc whispered, unable to get anything else past the painful tightness of his throat.
"You gave me that. And I thank you. I've faced my demons, Linc. Daniel … my father … and the biggest one of all. Myself. And I've learned what you were trying to tell me was true. That what I said—that if you don't believe it yourself, what does it matter what anyone else believes?—goes both ways. If you do believe it, then nothing anyone else says matters."
So he'd accomplished that, at least, he thought. She'd learned to really see herself, not the poor, faulty image she'd carried for so long. This wasn't the shattered, miserable woman he'd pulled from the sea. He was certain now that he'd done the right thing. He only wished he hadn't had to lose her to help her see she had the strength she needed.
"I'm not," she said, as if she'd known his thoughts, "the same woman I was when you found me."
It's all right, mermaid, he whispered silently, unable to speak the words. You don't have to say it. I already know. You're not the woman who thought s
he was in love with me.
Pain welled up inside him as the last flicker of hope died. He swallowed tightly, tried to speak, tried to find the words that would tell her he understood, the words that would let her go with some kind of grace, but they wouldn't come. He stared down at the dock beneath his feet, afraid that she would see the wetness in his eyes.
"The only thing that woman and I have in common," Chandra said quietly, "is loving you."
His head snapped up. He stared at her, forgetting all about the moisture he'd been trying to blink away. She bit her lip, anguish at his pain glowing in her eyes. And suddenly, Linc knew his mermaid hadn't died at all.
"I stayed away," she whispered huskily, "but not because I wanted to. I knew, the moment I faced Daniel, what you'd done for me. And I see now what it cost you."
She reached out then, and took his hand, cradling it with slender fingers that meant to comfort. And succeeded.
"I waited, not because I wasn't sure, but because I knew you wouldn't believe me, that I was coming to you a whole woman. A free woman, not from Daniel, but from myself. If I can face him, I can face anything. I'm not running to you for shelter, Linc. I don't need it anymore. I'm running to you because I love you."
Linc stared at her, at this new, strong woman who was everything he'd known she could be. "Channie … I … you…"
"I can face anything," she repeated. "Even the man I love doing work I hate to even think about."
He couldn't quite believe what she was saying. His mind was numbed, not able to take in that he had risked it all … and won.
"Well, Commander? Permission to come aboard?"
"I … oh, God, Channie … mermaid…"
Words failed him, so he pulled her into his arms to tell her the only way he could. He kissed her fiercely, pouring all the needs, fears and hopes of the past two months into it, until they were both shaking under the intensity.
TO HOLD AN EAGLE Page 23