by Diana Palmer
He whistled softly.
“Life is full of surprises,” she concluded.
“Indeed.”
She looked at him with eyes that were quickly averted. “You came all this way because you thought I’d been kidnapped?”
He shook his head curtly. “I didn’t know that until I got here.”
“Then why did you come?” she asked.
He drew in a long breath. He watched her cradle the child and he smiled, without sarcasm for once. “You look very comfortable with a child in your arms, Tat.”
“He’s a sweet boy,” she said.
His mother came back and held out her arms, smiling shyly at Rourke before she went back to the others.
“Why did you come?” she asked him again.
He stood up, jamming his hands into his khaki slacks. “To get you out of here,” he said simply. His face was taut.
“I can’t leave,” she said. “There isn’t another journalist in this part of the country. Someone has to make sure the world knows what’s going on here.”
“You’ve done that,” he said shortly. He searched her eyes. “You have to get out. Today.”
She frowned. She stood up, too, careful not to go close to him. He didn’t like her close. He backed away if she even moved toward him. He had for years, as if he found her distasteful. Probably he did. He thought she had the morals of an alley cat, which would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so tragic. She’d never let anyone touch her, after Rourke. She couldn’t.
“What do you know, Stanton?” she asked softly.
His taut expression didn’t relent. “Things I’m not permitted to discuss.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Something’s about to happen...?”
“Yes. Don’t argue. Don’t hesitate. Get your kit and come with me.”
“But...”
He put his finger over her lips, and then jerked it back as if he’d been stung. “We don’t even have time for discussion.”
She realized that he knew about an offensive, and he couldn’t say anything for fear of being overheard.
“I’m taking you home,” he said, loudly enough for people nearby to hear him. “And no more argument. You’ve played at being a photojournalist long enough. You’re leaving. Right now. Or so help me God, I’ll pick you up and carry you out of here.”
She gave him a shocked look. But she didn’t argue. She got her things together, said goodbye to the friends she’d made and climbed into the backseat of the car he and Robert had arrived in. She didn’t say another word until they were back at the airport.
* * *
He seated her beside him in business class, picked up a newspaper in Spanish, and didn’t say another word until they landed in Johannesburg. He bought her dinner, and then she got ready to board a plane for Atlanta. Rourke had connections back to Nairobi, far to the northeast. They got through passport control, and Clarisse stopped at the gate that led to the international concourse. “I’ll get on the next flight to DC from Atlanta and file my copy,” she told him as they stood together.
He nodded. He looked at her quietly, almost with anguish.
“Why?” she asked, as if the word was dragged out of her.
“Because I can’t let you die,” he bit off. “Regardless of my inclinations.” He smiled sarcastically. “So many men would grieve, wouldn’t they, Tat?”
The hopeful look on her face disappeared. “I assume that I’ll read about the reason I had to leave Ngawa?” she asked instead of returning fire.
“You will.”
She drew in a resigned breath. “Okay. Thanks,” she added without meeting his eye.
“Go home and give parties,” he muttered. “Stay out of war zones.”
“Look who’s talking,” she returned.
He didn’t answer her. He was looking. Aching. The expression on his face was so tormented that she reached up a hand to touch his cheek.
He jerked her wrist down and stepped back. “Don’t touch me,” he said icily. “Ever.”
She swallowed down the hurt. “Nothing ever changes, does it?” she asked.
“You can bet your life on it,” he shot back. “Just for the record, even if half the men on earth would die to have you, I never will. I do what I can for you, for old time’s sake. But make no mistake, I find you physically repulsive. You’re not much better than a call girl, are you, Tat? The only difference is you don’t have to take money for it. You just give it away.”
She turned while he was in full spiel and walked slowly from him. She didn’t look back. She didn’t want him to see the tears.
He watched her go with an expression so full of rage that a man passing by actually walked out of his way to avoid meeting him. He turned and went to catch his own flight back to Nairobi, nursing the same old anguish that he always had to deal with when he saw her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He had to. He couldn’t let her get close, touch him, warm to him. He didn’t dare.
* * *
He flew back to Nairobi. He’d meant to go to Texas, to finalize a project he was working on. But after he had to hurt Tat, his heart wasn’t in it. His unit leader could handle things until he got himself back together.
He drove out to the game ranch with his foreman from the airport in Nairobi, drooping from jet lag, somber from dealing with Tat.
K. C. Kantor was in his living room, looking every day of his age. He got to his feet when Rourke walked in.
Not for the first time, Rourke saw himself in those odd, pale brown eyes, the frosty blond hair—streaked with gray, now—so thick on the other man’s head. They were of the same height and build, as well. But neither of them knew for sure. Rourke wasn’t certain that he really wanted to know. It wasn’t pleasant to believe that his mother cheated on his father. Or that the man he’d called his father for so many years wasn’t really his dad...
He clamped down on it. “Cheers,” Rourke said. “How’re things?”
“Rocky.” The pale brown eyes narrowed. “You’ve been traveling.”
“How gossip flies !” Rourke exclaimed.
“You’ve been to Ngawa,” he continued.
Rourke knew when the jig was up. He filled a glass with ice and poured whiskey into it. He took a sip before he turned. “Tat was in one of the refugee camps,” he said solemnly. “I went to get her out.”
K.C. looked troubled. “You knew about the offensive?”
“Ya. I couldn’t tell her. But I made her leave.” He looked at the floor. “She was rocking a baby.” His eyes closed on the pain.
“You’re crazy for her, but you won’t go near her,” K.C. remarked tersely. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Maybe it’s what the hell’s wrong with you, mate,” Rourke shot back with real venom.
“Excuse me?”
The pain was monstrous. He turned away and took a big swallow of his drink. “Sorry. My nerves are playing tricks on me. I’ve got jet lag.”
“You make these damned smart remarks and then pretend you were joking, or you didn’t think, or you’ve got damned jet lag!” the older man ground out. “If you want to say something to me, damn it, say it!”
Rourke turned around. “Why?” he asked in a hunted tone. “Why did you do it?”
K.C. was momentarily taken aback. “Why did I do what, exactly?”
“Why did you sleep with Tat’s mother?” he raged.
K.C.’s eyes flashed like brown lightning. K.C. knocked him clean over the sofa and was coming around it to add another punch to the one he’d already given him when Rourke got to his feet and backed away. The man was downright damned scary in a temper. Rourke had rarely seen him mad. There was no trace of the financial giant in the man stalking him now. This was the face of the mercenary he’d been, the cold-eyed
man who’d wrested a fortune from small wars and risk.
“Okay!” Rourke said, holding up a hand. “Talk. Don’t hit!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” K.C. demanded icily. “Tat’s mother was a little saint! Maria Carrington never put a foot wrong in her whole life. She loved her husband. Even drunk as a sailor, she’d never have let me touch her!”
Rourke’s eyes were so wide with shock and pain that K.C. stopped in his tracks.
“Let’s have it,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Rourke could barely manage words. “She told me.”
“She who? Told you what?”
Rourke had to sit down. He picked up the glass of whiskey and downed half of it. This was a nightmare. He was never going to wake up.
“Rourke?”
Rourke took another sip. “Tat was seventeen. I’d gone to Manaus on a job.” Rourke’s deep voice was husky with feeling. “It was Christmas. I stopped by to see them, against my better judgment. Tat was wearing a green silk dress, a slinky thing that showed off that perfect body. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her parents left the room.” His eyes closed. “I picked her up and carried her to the sofa. She didn’t protest. She just looked at me with those eyes, full of... I don’t even know what. I touched her and she moaned and lifted up to me.” He drew in a shaky breath. “We were so involved that I only just heard her mother coming in time to spare us some real embarrassment. But her mother knew what was going on.”
“That would have upset her,” K.C. said. “She was deeply religious. Having you play around with her teenage daughter wasn’t going to endear you to her, especially with the reputation you had in those days for discarding women right and left.”
“I know.” Rourke looked down at the floor. “That one taste of Tat was like finding myself in paradise. I wanted her. Not for just a night. I couldn’t think straight, but my mind was running toward a future, not relief.”
He hesitated. “But her mother didn’t realize that. I can’t really blame her. She knew I was a rake. She probably thought I’d seduce Tat and leave her in tears.”
“That could have happened,” K.C. said.
“Not a chance.” Rourke’s one eye pinned him. “A girl like that, beautiful and kind...” He turned away. He drew in a long breath. “Her mother took me to one side, later. She was crying. She said that she’d seen you one night at your house, upset and sick at heart because a woman you loved was becoming a nun. She said she had a drink with you, and another drink, and then, something happened. She said Tat was the result.”
“She actually told you that Tat was your half sister? Damn the woman!”
Rourke felt the same way, but he was too drained to say it. He stared at his drink. “She told me that. So I turned against Tat, taunted her, pushed her away. I made her into something little better than a prostitute by being cruel to her. And now I learn, eight years too late, that it was all for a lie. That I was protecting her from something that wasn’t even real.”
He fought tears. They played hell with the wounded eye, because it still had some tear ducts. He turned away from the older man, embarrassed.
K.C. bit his lip. He put a rough hand on Rourke’s shoulder and patted it. “I’m sorry.”
Rourke swallowed. He tipped the last of the whiskey into his mouth. “Ya,” he said in a choked tone. “I’m sorry, too. Because there’s no way in hell I can tell her I believed that about her mother. Or that I can undo eight years of torment that I gave her.”
“You’ve had a shock,” K.C. said. “And you really are jet-lagged. It would be a good idea if you just let things lie for a few days.”
“You think?”
“Rourke,” he said hesitantly. “The story she told you was true,” he began.
“What! You just said it wasn’t...!”
K.C. pushed him back down on the sofa. “It was true, but it wasn’t Tat’s mother.” He turned away. “It was your mother.”
There was a terrible stillness in the room.
K.C. moved to the window and stared out at the African darkness with his hands in his pockets.
“I got drunk because Mary Luke Bernadette chose a veil instead of me. I loved her, deathlessly. It’s why I never married. She’s still alive and, God help me, I still love her. She lives near my godchild, her late sister’s only living child. I told you about Kasie, she married into the Callister family in Montana. Mary Luke lives in Billings.”
“I remember,” Rourke said quietly.
He closed his eyes. “Your mother saw what I was doing to myself. She tried to comfort me. She had a few drinks with me and things...happened. She was ashamed, I was ashamed...her husband was the best friend I ever had. How could we tell him what we’d done? So we kept our secret, tormented ourselves with what happened in a minute of insanity. Nine months later, to the day, you were born.”
“You said...you weren’t sure,” Rourke bit off.
“I wasn’t. I’m not. I don’t have the guts to have the test done.” He turned, a tiger, bristling. “Go ahead. Laugh!”
Rourke got up, a little shakily. It had been a shocking night. “Why don’t you have the guts?” he asked.
“Because I want it to be true,” he said through his teeth. He looked at Rourke with pain in his light eyes, terrible pain. “I betrayed my best friend, seduced your mother. I deserve every damned terrible thing that ever happens to me. But more than anything in the world, I want to be your father.”
Rourke felt the wetness in his eyes, but this time he didn’t hide it.
K.C. jerked him into his arms and hugged him, and hugged him. His eyes were wet, too. Rourke clung to him. All the long years, all the companionship, the shared moments. He’d wanted it, too. There wasn’t a man alive who compared to the one holding him. He respected him. But, more, he loved him.
K.C. pulled back abruptly and turned away, shaking his head to get rid of the moisture in his eyes. He shoved his hands back into his slacks.
“Don’t we have a doctor on staff?” Rourke asked after a minute.
“Ya.”
“Then let’s find out for sure,” Rourke said.
K.C. turned after a minute, looking at the face that was his face, the elegant carriage that he knew from his own mirror.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Rourke said. “And so are you.”
K.C. cocked his head and grimaced as he looked at Rourke’s face.
“What?”
“You’re going to have a hell of a bruise,” K.C. said with obvious regret.
Rourke just smiled sheepishly. “No problem. It’s not a bad thing to discover that your old man can still handle himself,” he chuckled.
K.C. glowed.
2
Rourke spent the night getting drunk. He was out of his mind from his father’s revelations. Tat had loved him. He’d pushed her away, for her own good, but in doing so, he’d damaged her so badly that he’d turned her into little better than a call girl.
He remembered her in Barrera, her blouse soaked in blood that even a washing hadn’t removed, the stitches just above one of her perfect small breasts where that animal, Miguel, had cut her trying to extract information about General Emilio Machado’s invasion of the country.
Rourke had killed Miguel. He’d done it coldly, efficiently. Then he and Carson, a fellow merc in the group that helped Machado liberate Barrera, had carried the body to a river filled with crocodiles and tossed it in. He hadn’t felt a twinge of remorse. The man had tortured Tat. He would probably have raped her if another of Arturo Sapara’s men hadn’t intervened. Tat, with scars like the ones he carried, with memories of torture. He closed his eyes and shuddered. He’d protected her most of her life. But he’d let that happen to her. It was almost beyond bearing.
He got up, nude, and poured himself another whiskey. He almost never drank hard liquor, but it wasn’t every day that a man faced the ruin of his own life. He’d been protecting Tat from a relationship that was impossible, because he’d been told that there was blood between them, that Tat was really his half sister. And it was a lie.
He’d never even questioned her mother’s revelation. He’d never dreamed that the religious, upright Mrs. Maria Carrington would lie to him. She loved Tat, though. Loved her dearly, deeply, possibly even more than she loved Matilda, her second child. The woman had been a pillar of the local church, never missing Mass, always there when anyone needed help, quick with a check when charity was required. She was almost a saint.
So when she told him that K.C. had seduced her in a drunken stupor, he’d believed her. Because he believed her, he pushed Tat away, taunted her, humiliated her, made her hate him. Or tried to.
But she wouldn’t hate him. Perhaps she couldn’t. He put the whiskey glass against his forehead, the cold ice comforting somehow. When he’d gone with the others to invade the capital in Barrera, Tat had pulled him to one side and linked the cross she always wore around his neck, asking him to wear it for luck. The gesture had hurt him. He wanted to pull her against him, bury his hard mouth in hers, let her feel the anguish of his arousal, show her how much he wanted her, needed her, cared for her. But that was impossible. They were too closely related. So he’d worn the necklace, but when he’d given it back, he was deliberately cold, impersonal.
When he’d left Barrera, what he’d said to her had shuttered her face, made her turn away, hurting. He’d hurt her more with his venomous comments at the airport in Johannesburg after he’d taken her out of Ngawa.
And that, all that, was for nothing. Because there was no blood between them. Because her mother had lied. Damn her mother!
He barely resisted the urge to slam the glass of whiskey through his bedroom window. That would arouse all the animals in the park, terrify the workers. It would bring back memories of another night when he got drunk, the night after Maria Carrington’s revelation. He’d gone on a week-long bender. He’d trashed bars, been in fights, outraged the small community near Nairobi where he lived. Even K.C. hadn’t been able to calm him, or get near him. Rourke in a temper was even worse than K.C. They’d stood back and let him get it out of his system.