Chapter 18
There was nothing left of the sandwiches but the crumbs, and the last laborer had been paid and his hand shaken.
“Sorry again about tonight,” Sam said to Red. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“No apology needed. These things happen. As long as you don’t let work take precedence over your personal life too often.”
Sam halted. “This isn’t just work. It’s my life. I’m dedicated to bring this community together for a common good.”
“Why are you yelling? It’s not a contest of wills.”
“I’m not yelling!”
Red raised an eyebrow.
“Look, Doc,” he said, continuing on his way. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m on a mission.”
“To do what? What’s so urgent that it drives you day and night? You’ve built your new consortium. You’re positioning yourself as a leader of the wine community. What else do you want?”
What he wanted was nothing less than to discover his true identity.
He’d been a sniper, a student, and then a Special Ops agent. It had taken all of that to bring him to the conclusion that the only way he could be the man he wanted to be was by stamping out his childhood once and for all. Only then would he be ready for a real relationship with the woman he had come to love.
Red took his elbow and laid her head on his shoulder as they walked. “Whatever happened to make you see the world as such a contentious place?” she asked guilelessly, peering up at him.
He wasn’t about to get into that now.
His arm snaked around her waist. “What do you want to do?”
She shrugged. “I’m happy to just hang out. If you’re not too tired, that is.”
“Give me a shower and I’m good to go.”
They strolled arm in arm the short distance to his place.
Red stopped inside the threshold. “I almost forgot what this looked like. This is the first I’ve been back here since the new consortium was built.”
Sam had converted the old house’s parlor to a reception area when he started the original consortium. It had worked well enough until the business grew big enough to warrant its own building. With the colorful Red standing in it, it looked drabber than ever.
“The only thing I do here is sleep and shower. I eat practically every meal out. You remember what the kitchen looks like.”
Red smiled ruefully. “Avocado appliances. Linoleum floor.”
At least it was clean. He stooped to pick a piece of lint from the carpet. “What do I need a kitchen for? I don’t cook.”
Red gave him a gentle shove. “Go, shower. I’ll find something to do.”
Amazing what a cake of pine tar soap and some half-decent water pressure could do. Sam took longer than usual to wash off his day.
By the time he strode from the bathroom to his bedroom with a towel cinched around his waist, he was whistling—until he saw The Silver Star dangling from Red’s fingertips.
“I promise I wasn’t snooping. There wasn’t anything to do in the living room.”
She was generous, referring to the reception area that way. There were no magazines, no TV. Just a motley collection of mismatched office furniture. Who wouldn’t be bored?
As for his stuff lying openly on the dresser, he had no one to blame but himself.
He forced his feet forward to confront the inevitable.
“I remember this,” she said, fingering the medal. “It was on your uniform at your homecoming. Tell me what it’s for.”
“The Silver Star.”
“I can see that.”
He swallowed. “Awarded by order of the Secretary of Homeland Security for ‘gallantry while in action against an enemy.’”
“What does that mean, exactly?” she asked cautiously.
He lowered himself to the edge of the bed, propped his elbows on his spread knees, and hung his head, thinking of how much he could tell her.
Red sat down beside him and rested her hand on the towel covering his thigh. “Sam, I’m a doctor. Nothing you could say is going to have me clutching my pearls.”
He snorted. If she knew half the things he’d done, she’d do more than that. Pearls would be flying off in all directions of the compass.
“Whatever it was, it’s over now. You don’t have to carry it around anymore.”
Some things were impossible to forget.
In the service of his country, nothing was more important than maintaining his cover. Even if it had left his heart shriveled up and pockmarked like an old potato.
“Trust me, Doc, you don’t want me. You don’t want anything to do with me. I’ve done a lot of bad things, most of which I wouldn’t tell you, even if I could.”
“Can you tell me why you crashed your motorcycle into a window?”
He had mentioned that, hadn’t he?
The room started closing in. He couldn’t breathe. He got up and opened the window.
“Sam,” she pleaded to his back. “Talk to me.”
She wanted him to talk?
He’d talk.
He spun around. “Do you know what it’s like to sit in the same room day after day, month after month with the personification of evil, and pretend to share their values?” he bellowed, spittle flying. “That no matter how revolted I was with myself for playing along, my life—the lives of thousands of my fellow citizens—depended on convincing them that I was one of them?”
Rapidly he strode across the small room, unable to bear her inevitable disgust. He slung a forearm along the dresser top and hid his face in it.
“They wouldn’t stop watching.”
He heard her approaching footsteps, felt her comforting hand on his back.
“Watching what?” she asked softly.
“The carnage. Over and over again. Innocent people, begging for mercy. They never got tired of it. Clapping and cheering.”
There was a long pause.
“And then what?” prodded Red. “How did it end?”
Sam returned to the window and gazed unseeing at the distant mountains. “There was a glitch. They heard a rumor I wasn’t who I said I was.”
Another long pause.
“What made you do it?”
He sniffed derisively. “Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself that very question?”
“And how do you answer it?”
He turned and faced her. “I learned early on that things aren’t right in this world. And that it would take people like me, who’d been wronged, to make it right.”
“My God,” she whispered. “I thought all the talk about spying was just that—talk.”
“I learned to further my cause any way I could. Stringing people along. Blackmail. Bribery. Whatever it took.”
Red was at his side. “Shhhhh. It’s all right. You’re safe now. I’m here with you.”
“I never caved under interrogation. They never knew for sure. But…” He cleared his throat. Quietly, he said, “Let’s just say they weren’t happy with me.”
He swiped a forearm across his cheek.
She tugged on his other arm. “Come sit next to me.”
“It was two days till the good guys found me in that slum outside Firebase Lilley. Alive—but barely. Guess you could say I was a little gorked out after that.” He chuckled ironically. “Spent a few weeks at Landstuhl.”
“Landstuhl?”
“Germany. Biggest American hospital outside of the states. That’s when the bike took a wrong turn into the Sofitel.”
“I thought you said that was Luxembourg.”
“That’s where everyone goes to unwind, soak up the culture. Europe’s not like the states—especially the western states. Everything’s closer together.”
“You wrecked your bike because of post-traumatic stress.” She shook her head. “Bastards.”
“The Army? Don’t blame them. They were just doing their job. Exploiting their personnel’s highest potential to defend our country. I was a mess long before the Army got ahold of me. All they’re guilty of is making the most of raw material.
“No. I wrecked my bike because of two liters of vin rouge and a half a bottle of vanilla absinthe.” He grinned in self-deprecation, despite the painful memory.
Red squeezed his hand and looked him in the eye. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share. I’m very sorry you had to go through that.” She brushed his hair off his forehead. “Take a deep breath. You’ll feel better.”
Closing his eyes, he did as she said.
To his surprise, the hard ball in his chest where a heart should be softened a little. From out the window he heard the steady rumble of a distant tractor…smelled the green sweetness of new-mown hay.
When he opened his eyes, it was as if a cloud had been lifted. He felt a tightening as his pupils contracted in the slanted rays of the setting sun, gilding Red’s translucent skin.
Her eyes were a siren song he couldn’t resist, drawing him in.
He leaned in to kiss her, lips slipping over satin lips.
Gradually she leaned back, taking him with her. The bed could barely accommodate Sam alone. The screech of springs stretched to their limit was accompanied by the scent of Red’s perfume. She smelled like hope and consolation.
He’d lost his towel somewhere. Naked and vulnerable, he raised himself up on his elbows and gazed down reverently at Red, fully dressed. There had always been heat between them. But now there was so much more. His chest swelled with a feeling too big to contain.
Red’s hips shifted until they were beneath his.
His entire body throbbed with pent up need. He was hers now. He knew it with the certainty that the Earth spun around the sun. She made the rules. He was simply a player in her game.
The instant he accepted that fact, he felt exhilarated. The truth really did set you free.
Their chests rose and fell in ragged breaths. Red’s cheeks grew rosy, her pupils expanded to black disks, entreating him to lose himself in their depths.
Sam was almost rabid with desire. His hands itched to touch her. He searched her face for answers. “You said we can’t. You said not tonight.”
Her brow furrowed with her own clashing needs.
He swallowed hard. “Tell me now,” he growled, his hand sliding up her ribcage. “Tell me to stop. If you don’t…”
* * * *
Red fought to keep a clear head. This was what she had wanted all along, wasn’t it? For Sam to open up to her? She’d just never dreamed it would happen like this—in a twin bed atop an old Army blanket. Until this moment they’d never shared a bed of any size. Isn’t that what she wanted, too? To stop having sex along the side of the road and move it into the bedroom, where it belonged? Or at least, where it would be more comfortable?
But far from solving anything, Sam’s admissions had only complicated matters.
She needed to set her emotions aside and think like a scientist. What were the facts?
She wanted him. Oh, she wanted him. Their chemistry was the one thing that had never been in doubt.
This exercise in chastity had been no picnic for her, either. She wanted him inside her. She needed his touch to send her soaring as only he could.
His eyes pleaded. He was waiting for her to go back on her rules, to give her the green light.
Sam had had a breakthrough of sorts, telling her things he’d kept buried for years.
But there was still so much left unsaid.
She had to decide—now. But how could she make a rational decision when his warm, naked body smelling of piney soap lay atop hers, the force of his need fully apparent through her skirt?
Sam cupped her breast, his thumbing brushing lightly across her erect nipple.
His eyes glazed with desire. “You want me as much as I want you.”
Her tongue darted out to lick dry lips.
“Say something,” he ground out, tightening his grip.
She was molten hot. It took all the strength she had not to arch against him.
Their breaths filled the space between them as seconds ticked by.
Sam’s jaw tensed. “You’re killing me, Doc,” he rasped breathlessly. “Say yes or no, but say something.”
“Yes,” she said helplessly.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Moments later, a deep, thumping wave of pleasure rolled through Red.
No doubt the farmer cutting hay in the distance heard her call Sam’s name over the rumble of his tractor.