Can You Forget?

by Melissa James

  The stunned silence that followed physically hurt her. She leaned against the rail and closed her eyes, had to restrain herself from whacking her forehead. Oh, heaven help her, she’d gone too far. She should have kept her mouth closed, even if it meant letting him walk…losing him with pride intact was better than making him want to run from her and her stupid emotional outbursts, like the one ten years ago…

  Then, tender as an unexpected miracle, he lifted her face and caressed her cheek and down her jaw with his knuckles, the backs of his fingers. She drank in the touch in a dazed kind of wonder and whisper-soft gasps. Her eyes fluttered shut, feeling the essence of him seep in through her pores, loving it—loving him as much as she always had. He roamed her face with his lips over and over, caressing her arms and hands with butterfly touches, a memory walking inside her soul unseen.

  “Come on, honey,” he whispered into her ear, holding her in his arms like delicate porcelain that could shatter any moment. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “Bed?” she whispered, feeling dazed and wonderful and loved.

  “Yeah,” he murmured between kisses. “And if you want to make love, we will. If you need to sleep, that’s fine. We’ll sneak to the galley and make hot chocolate and snacks and eat them in bed. We have twelve hours before Anson descends on us again. I’m going to look after you, like you did for me when Kathy died.”

  Her eyes opened, knowing her tears shimmered like the night water below them—because his looked the same. “Oh, Tal,” she choked, and clung to him.

  “It’s okay,” he said gruffly. “It’s just you and me. You can be scared of being alone. You can cry all you want.” He grinned. “Hell, I’m so used to you crying I’ve even missed it. You haven’t cried all over me since you were seventeen and Flopsy gave birth to that dead kitten.”

  “Well, one more time after that,” she whispered, sniffling, rubbing her nose on his chest.

  He lifted her face again, smiling down at her: her own personal hero, her guardian angel standing before her, holding back the force of the night. “Yeah, but we’re going to forget about that one, right?”

  Light and warmth filled her, the poignant joy of being with the man she loved. “Right.” She smiled up at him.

  With another tender smile and gentle kiss, he took her hand and walked her back into the stateroom. He made love to her all night, tender and wild by turns, and she fell just a bit deeper in love with him every time.

  From a distance, standing on the deck of the yacht floating fifty feet off, Nick Anson, taking his turn at the watch, saw his operatives walk slowly back to their temporary refuge.

  He couldn’t hear the words, but he didn’t have to. Their faces said it all. No matter how hard he’d tried to keep them emotionally apart—and he had no choice with that, it was orders, and for their safety—they just kept on connecting.

  Now he understood why no other man had broken through Verity West’s icy barriers, and he no longer felt stunned by the pair of them acting like frolicking kids in that untamed, trusting sexuality that had left him near speechless on their wedding night.

  Not after seeing them just now.

  Something in Verity West and Tal O’Rierdan created a luminous wild beauty beyond magic, deeper than perfection. Like her words and music, the two of them were harmony and symphony, heart and soul and fiery, joyous life…and they were young, so young.

  Was he ever that young? Would he ever know a healing like he’d just witnessed? Or would he forever remain the unwanted lurker in the dark, the nameless face watching others as they intertwined their souls?

  He sighed and turned away. God, he felt a hundred tonight, and he couldn’t remember the time when he’d looked or felt like those kids had tonight. Probably during the only time since early childhood he hadn’t been alone.

  This night, he’d give back all his years of service for one moment like the rare sweetness he’d just seen…to see that one beautiful smile from the girl who’d given his life warmth and joy since the moment he’d first seen her.

  He couldn’t have it, but he still recognized the miracle in others. No other operative or criminal could have brought Irish back into the fold. He sure couldn’t, under any request, order or threat. Irish had resented him like hell since he’d caught him in Songbird’s files, and he’d gagged his questions, and his injuries left him feeling unworthy. Small blame to him, for Irish had been the best damn operative he’d ever had, the finest, most caring doctor, and a man who would risk his life and soul to help others.

  There’d been only one way to bring him back: to work with Songbird to bring Burstall down. Irresistible bait.

  If the two of them could bring each other back to the joy in life they’d shared together once upon a time, it was more than he’d been able to do. Despite his best efforts, the glamour and excitement, and even the life-saving work the Nighthawk life gave to her, Songbird hadn’t derived any personal happiness, and he’d been too late to save Irish from his horrific injuries.

  Just as he’d been too late to save Annie.

  Chapter 15

  Another chopper flew over where they’d been frolicking in the water. The guy took reel after reel of film, shouting to them to kiss or touch. The Nighthawks had just come back from chasing off the tenth speedboat with a journo since their first night here when some clever guy found their secluded spot.

  “I’m glad I married Gil before I was famous,” she sighed as she climbed back into the yacht. “This is a nightmare.”

  Despite his body’s utter satisfaction—they’d made love so many times in the past forty hours, he’d lost count—Tal had to agree with her. They couldn’t eat on the upper deck, sun-bathe, swim or dangle a fishing line off the back of the boat without some tabloid Johnny trying to record the event for posterity. He was just grateful his long-board shorts covered his scars on his thigh. “You wouldn’t think there’d be so many journos wasting time here, with so much real news around the world to cover.”

  “Real news?” She paused halfway up the ladder, grinning at him over her shoulder. “I’ll have you know, mate, that I am a very newsworthy item.”

  With a world-class butt like the one right above him, so perfectly toned, she’d sure as hell make his top story any day. His hands itched to explore it again, to plant soft, nibbling kisses all over the sweet roundness, making her purr, writhe, demanding to flip over and take him inside her…

  A lifetime wasn’t going to be enough—he was completely insatiable, totally addicted to the way she made him feel—and he was tired of his pitiful attempts to fight it. He’d take what he could get of her while she was with him.

  “Yeah? You rank yourself with real news items like wars, invasions, murders, prison escapes, archeological and scientific discoveries that change the world?” As he reached the top of the ladder, keeping his head down in case his disguise had smudged, sliding his feet into espadrilles with an insert, he added, deadpan, “Pop princesses like you are more like surreal news.”

  She gave him a playful shove backward. “A pop princess? A pop princess! I’ll give you a—”

  “Sorry, guys, but there’s a desperado alert at five o’clock. They’re even coming here on leaky canoes now.”

  Braveheart’s quiet voice spoke from above them. He sat on the upper deck cross-legged, half hidden by a canopy—staying out of their sight most of the time, but watching out for them. The lens of his binoculars glinted in the bright reflections of the shimmering, warm turquoise waters.

  Mary-Anne peered over his shoulder as he spun around one-sixty to check it out. He let out a short, humorless laugh and shook his head. “This is pitiful. That canoe’s so deep in the water it will barely make it back, and—” His eyes narrowed, and he swore. “That’s a bloody kid out there!”

  “A kid—yeah, right,” Braveheart retorted, but he lifted the binoculars again. “You’re right—he’s got a fishing pole. The canoe’s taking water in pretty fast, and he’s jumping around trying to bail out. He’
s not going to make it—”

  Before he’d finished the words, Tal was down the ladder and into the speedboat moored to the yacht. “Mary-Anne!” he yelled as he frantically untied the ropes.

  “Drive the boat,” he told her when she jumped in beside him. Within seconds she was revving the engine as Flipper taught her yesterday before the paparazzi found them. “Call the others in, in case it’s a trick,” he called to Braveheart. “Bring all medical equipment, including splints, bandages and a stretcher.”

  “You two shouldn’t be going together—” Braveheart yelled, scaling the ladder to the main deck.

  “We’re the trained medical professionals. Just follow us when the others get here,” Tal snapped, and Braveheart bolted to the communications room without further argument.

  Mary-Anne released the throttle. The boat took off flying, skimming over semicalm waters toward the floundering boy in the canoe. “I’m not very good at this,” she yelled over the screaming sounds of the abused engine.

  Tal, pulling on fins to help balance his legs’ inequality in power, and strapping on a small high-oxygen air tank with breathing equipment, said briefly, “It doesn’t matter. Just go!” He watched the kid scrabbling around as the little boat took on more and more water. “Hang on, matey, we’re on our way!”

  “He’s a native, Tal. This part of Amalza has few tourists. He probably can’t speak English,” Mary-Anne screamed over the start-stop whine of the engine as the boat leaped over waves.

  The kid, grasping the sides too hard with shaking arms, rocked the one-man canoe back and forward—and under the weight of water rushing in from all sides, it sank deeper.

  Adrenaline shot through Tal as his heart pounded a sickening rhythm, like the rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Oh, God help him, this was East Timor all over again—a panicking kid facing death, and he couldn’t speak the language…

  Mary-Anne slowed the speedboat as they neared the canoe. “I can’t go any closer. The waves will—”

  A helpless scream tore from the kid’s throat as the canoe toppled, the boy fell in the water, wild and churning from the boat’s sudden skidding halt too close by.

  Mary-Anne touched his hand as he wound rope around his waist, ready to tie the kid to him if necessary. “I’ll get the preserver and the first-aid kit. Just go!”

  He dived over the side of the boat, using sure, swift strokes, kicking as hard as he could. The fins helped. Within seconds he was at the capsized canoe bobbing above the waterline, floating better now than it had right side up.

  The kid was gone.

  Tal plunged down under the canoe, blessing the diving equipment on the speedboat. He could see a pair of legs kicking less madly than they ought to be, beneath the canoe—too far down for him to have air to breathe. A rivulet of something dark wound itself around the boy’s body like an aura of evil.

  Blood. The kid was bleeding…God help us both if there are sharks here! He dived down, knowing if he came straight at the boy he’d drag them both down trying to use his body to reach the surface. Floating up from beneath the boy, who wasn’t thrashing in the instinctive fight-or-flight response, as he ought to be—Please, God, let it be because the kid’s smart—he dragged in a deep breath and spread his body star-shaped, turning light-headed with oxygen saturation as they lifted steadily higher.

  The lack of movement above him told Tal the poor kid hadn’t been playing smart.

  By the time they broke surface, the boy wasn’t breathing or conscious. Tal ripped off his mask and yelled, “Mary-Anne! Head wound! Unconscious and nil expiration!” There wasn’t enough he could do here, and panicking now would ensure the kid lost brain function while he floundered around administering awkward CPR and hoping like hell the sharks didn’t come for dinner.

  He tipped up the kid’s chin and towed him toward the slow-approaching boat, swimming as hard as he could—but going backward and upside down, it felt as if he was flailing through cold molasses. Up and down, up and down, and still the kid wasn’t coughing, barfing up water or breathing, and for the life of him Tal couldn’t find a pulse…

  “Tal!”

  He grunted as a sudden weight thudded onto the back of his shoulder. He twisted and threaded his arm through it, holding tight. “Go!”

  She wound in the preserver until they reached the tiny ladder at the boat’s side. He tossed the ring on deck. “Take him!”

  With an enormous heave he handed the boy’s limp body up to her, holding his feet until she’d dragged him aboard. “No pulse or respiration. Full CPR,” he gasped.

  Her nonanswer indicated she was already on the job.

  He slithered on board while she was on cardiac compressions. “One to five!” he barked. She nodded and stopped pushing at the boy’s sternum with the heels of her palms.

  He tilted the kid’s head back, pinched his nostrils and breathed—Come on, mate, come on, mate—one—

  Mary-Anne was on compressions almost before he’d lifted his mouth. One, two three, four—Come on, mate, breathe!—five—

  Tal took a lungful of sea water on his next breath in, and he’d never been so happy to choke in his life. The kid spluttered and vomited whatever he’d had for lunch all over himself. He cleaned the boy’s face and covered it with the mask, letting him breathe in the fifty-percent oxygen. Tal noted that, despite breathing and tossing his gut, he hadn’t woken up. His pulse was steady, though, and his respirations unlabored: all good signs. No other spot on his body showed evidence of injury.

  The roaring of the other two speedboats came to their ears, a moment before the boat rocked hard. “Dr. O’Rierdan, Miss West, are you both all right?” Anson yelled.

  “We’re fine,” Mary-Anne called back, cleaning the boy’s head wound with gentle efficiency while Tal prepared the suture kit. “How’s your leg?” she asked, her tone saturated with concern. “That can’t have been easy on you.”

  He shrugged. “I just hope I got to him in time to prevent permanent damage.”

  If she noticed his brush-off—principally because he could feel the stress starting, just by kneeling—she didn’t say anything. “Wound site clean.”

  “Thanks,” he said briefly, and, using the bottle of drinking water on board and a tiny bottle of antiseptic to clean his hands of salt, he stitched up the boy’s wound.

  The boat rocked again and Flipper came aboard, his dark, moody face like thunder. “With all due respect, sir, why didn’t you ask me to take the dive?” His darting gaze to the kid and back showed that his mind was still on the job. “I’ve got combat swimming training and full rescue under my belt. I could have saved you the exertion—sir!”

  Tal sighed. All this concern for his health made his jaw clench. “I’m fine—and I didn’t know if you could dive or not.”

  “With a co—nickname of Flipper, you didn’t know?”

  Flipper sounded really ticked by missing out on the rescue. Yep, Flipper was as bad a rush junkie and control freak as he was, and Anson. Came with the Nighthawk territory—and if he hadn’t suspected before that Flipper was ex-SEAL, he knew now.

  He finished the final close on the sutures, and twisted his face around to grin at the other man. “You could make funny noises when you see your master, for all I know.”

  Mary-Anne choked on laughter, and even Flipper gave a reluctant chuckle. “Don’t leave me out next time. I’m not a Team Commander for nothing.”

  “I’m the doctor,” Tal retorted blandly. “Or was. Since you’re here, make yourself useful and head to the beach. He needs to lay down somewhere calm and stable where we can check him out thoroughly. His parents are probably worried about him, too. Take it easy—he’s got possible head trauma. Go slow.”

  They were on the beach five minutes later, lifting the boy out on a stretcher. He and Flipper laid him down on the sand at the back of the beach, under some trees. “Let’s rig up a cover, as well. Keep the heat off him until we can find his family.”

  Anson said quietly to the others, “Sp
read out, and find the home or village this kid’s from. Flipper, you speak Spanish—you lead. Go in teams of two each.”

  The men checked their weapons, hid them well, and scattered.

  Tal checked the boy over again, with gentle, probing fingers. “He’ll be fine, I think, after a long sleep. No evidence of internal injury—but he’s been out a long while.”

  Mary-Anne touched the boy’s face, so pale and peaceful it worried Tal. “He could just be in a deep sleep to recover.”

  He smiled at her. “Yeah, you’re right, that happens a lot. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  She smiled at him. “Because you’re too busy guilt-tripping yourself. You did all you could, Tal. You saved his life.”

  “You played your part in that, Sister,” he said quietly.

  A small smile crossed her face. “I haven’t heard that in years—Sister Poole. Sister West. It feels good.”

  A light tap on his shoulder made Tal turn. Anson stood behind him, his hands full. “Sorry to do this to you now, but somebody could fly over any minute, or be waiting for us at the village.”

  With a short nod, Tal took the mirror and makeup from Anson’s hands and sat against a tree to reapply his disguise, flicking occasional glances at his boss. He saw no change on his face—but it was obvious to him now that Anson’s interruptions to their emotional connections were deliberate, done to keep their minds on the job at hand and off each other.

  And damn Anson’s single-mindedness and his own hot-blooded blindness, the Boss was right. If their feelings for each other got in the way at the wrong moment, they could die. They had to reach some kind of emotional distance to survive.