She didn"t bother responding to his denial. "You owe me," she repeated. "You owe Zane."
He flinched at the condemnation in her eyes. "I don"t see it that way at all."
"You"re the reason I was kidnapped."
"You know there are things I can"t tell you," he said, releasing her hands and walking around the desk to resume his seat, symbolically leaving the role of father and entering that of amba.s.sador. "But your supposition is wrong, and, of course, an indication of how off-balance you still are."
She started to ask if Art Sandefer would think her supposition was so wrong, but she couldn"t bring herself to threaten her father. Feeling sick, she wondered if that made her a traitor, too. She loved her country; living in Europe as much as she had, she had seen and appreciated the dramatic differences between the United States and every other country on earth. Though she liked Europe and had a fondness for French wine, German architecture, English orderliness, Spanish music and Italy in general, whenever she set foot in the States she was struck by the energy, the richness of life where even people who were considered poor lived well compared to everywhere else. The United States wasn"t perfect, far from it, but it had something special, and she loved it.
By her silence, she could be betraying it.
By staying here, she remained in danger. Kidnapping her had failed once, but that didn"t mean he, the unknown, faceless enemy, wouldn"t try again. Her father knew who he was, she was certain of it. Immediately she saw how it would be. She would be confined to the emba.s.sy grounds, or allowed out only with an armed escort. She would be a prisoner of her father"s fear.
There was really no place she would be entirely safe, but remaining here only made the danger more acute. And once she was away from the enclave of the emba.s.sy, she would have a better chance of locating Zane, because Admiral Lindley"s influence couldn"t cover every nook and cranny of the globe. The farther away from Athens she was, the thinner that influence would be.
She faced her father, knowing that she was deliberately breaking the close ties that had bound them together for the past fifteen years. "I"m going home," she said calmly. "To Virginia."
Two weeks later, Zane sat on the front porch of his parents" house, perched on top of Mackenzie"s Mountain, just outside Ruth, Wyoming. The view was breathtaking, an endless vista of majestic mountains and green valleys. Everything here was as familiar to him as his own hands. Saddles, boots, some cattle but mostly horses. Books in every room of the sprawling house, cats prowling through the barns and stables, his mother"s sweet, bossy coddling, his father"s concern and understanding.
He"d been shot before; he"d been sliced up in a knife fight. He"d had his collarbone broken, ribs cracked, a lung punctured. He had been seriously injured before, but this was the closest he"d ever come to dying. He"d been bleeding to death, lying there in the bottom of the raft with Barrie crouched over him, pressing the chador over the wound with every ounce of her weight. Her quickness, her determination, had made the difference. Santos squeezing the plasma from the bags into his veins had made the difference. He had been so close that he could pick out a dozen details that had made the difference; if any one of them hadn"t happened, he would have died.
He"d been unusually quiet since leaving the naval hospital and returning home for convalescence. It wasn"t that he was in low spirits, but rather that he had a lot of thinking to do, something that hadn"t been easy when practically the entire family had felt compelled to visit and rea.s.sure themselves of his relative well-being. Joe had flown in from Was.h.i.+ngton for a quick check on his baby brother; Michael and Shea had visited several times, bringing their two rapscallion sons with them; Josh and Loren and their three had descended for a weekend visit, which was all the time Loren"s job at the hospital in Seattle had allowed. Mans had driven all night to be there when he was brought home. At least he"d been able to walk on his own by then, even if very slowly, or likely she would still be here. She had pulled up a chair directly in front of him and sat for hours, her black eyes locked on his face as if she was willing vitality from her body into his. Maybe she had been. His little sister was fey, magical; she operated on a different level than other people did.
h.e.l.l, even Chance had shown up. He"d done so warily, eyeing their mother and sister as if they were bombs that might go off in his face, but he was here, sitting beside Zane on the porch.
"You"re thinking of resigning."
Zane didn"t have to wonder how Chance had known what was on his mind. After nearly battering each other to death when they were fourteen, they had reached an unusual communion. Maybe it was because they"d shared so much, from cla.s.ses to girls to military training. Even after all this time, Chance was as wary as a wounded wolf and didn"t like people to get close to him, but even though he resisted, he was helpless against family. Chance had never in his life been loved until Mary had brought him home with her and the sprawling, brawling Mackenzies had knocked him flat. It was fun to watch him still struggle against the family intimacy each time he was drawn into the circle, because within an hour he always surrendered. Mary wouldn"t let him do anything else; nor would Maris. After accepting him as a brother, Zane had never even acknowledged Chance"s wariness. Only Wolf was willing to give his adopted son time to adjust-but there was still a limit on how much time he would allow.
"Yeah," he finally said.
"Because you nearly bought it this time?"
Zane snorted. "When has that ever made any difference to either of us?" He alone of the family knew the exact details of Chance"s work. It was a toss-up which of them was in the most danger.
"Then it"s this last promotion that did it."
"It took me out of the field," Zane said quietly. Carefully he leaned back in the chair and propped his booted feet on the porch railing. Though he was a fast healer, two and a half weeks wasn"t quite long enough to let him ignore the wound. "If two of my men hadn"t been wounded in that screwup on the Montgomery, I wouldn"t have been able to go on this last mission."
Chance knew about the screwup. Zane had told him about it, and screwup was the most polite description he"d used. As soon as he"d regained consciousness in the naval hospital, he"d been on the phone, starting and directing the investigation. Though Odessa would fully recover, it was likely Higgins would have to retire on disability. The guards who had shot the two SEALs might escape court-martial if their counsel was really slick, but at the very least they would be cas.h.i.+ered out of the service. The extent of the damage to the careers of Captain Udaka and Executive Officer Boyd remained to be seen; Zane had targeted the shooters, but the ripple effect would go all the way up to the captain.
"I"m thirty-one," Zane said. "That"s just about the upper limit for active missions. I"m too d.a.m.n good at my job, too. The Navy keeps promoting me for it, then they say I"m too highly ranked to go on missions."
"You want to throw in with me?" Chance asked casually.
He"d considered it. Very seriously. But something kept nagging at him, something he couldn"t quite bring into focus.
"I want to. If things were different, I would, but..."
"What things?"
Zane shrugged. At least part of his uneasy feeling could be nailed down. "A woman," he said.
"Oh, h.e.l.l." Chance kicked back and surveyed the world over the toes of his boots. "If it"s a woman, you won"t be able to concentrate on anything until you"ve gotten her out of your system. d.a.m.n their sweet little hides," he said fondly. Chance generally had women crawling all over him. It didn"t hurt that he was drop-dead handsome, but he had a raffish, daredevil quality to him that brought them out of the woodwork.
Zane wasn"t certain he could get Barrie out of his system. He wasn"t certain he wanted to. He didn"t wonder why she had disappeared without even saying goodbye, hope you"re feeling better. Bunny and Spook had told him how she"d been dragged, kicking and yelling and swearing, aboard a plane and taken back to Athens. He figured her father, combined with the Navy"s policy of secrecy concerning the SEALs, had prevented her from finding out to which hospital they"d taken him.
He missed her. He missed her courage, her st.u.r.dy willingness to do whatever needed doing. He missed the serenity of her expression, and the heat of her lovemaking.
G.o.d, yes.
The one memory, more than any of the others, that was branded in his brain was the moment when she had reached for his belt and said in that fierce whisper, "I"ll do it!"
He"d understood. Not just why she needed to be in control, but the courage it took her to wipe out the bad memories and replace them with good ones. She"d been a virgin; she had told the truth about that. She hadn"t known what to do, and she hadn"t expected the pain. But she had taken him anyway, sweetly, hotly, sliding her tight little body down on him and shattering his control the way no other woman had ever done.
She could have been a spoiled, helpless little socialite; she should have been exactly that. Instead she had made the best of a tense, dangerous situation, done what she could to help and hadn"t voiced a single complaint.
He liked being with her, Weed talking to her. He was too much of a loner to easily accept the word love in connection with anyone other than family, but with Bar-rie...maybe. He wanted to spend more time with her, get to know her better, let whatever would develop get to developing.
He wanted her.
First things first, though. He had to get his strength back; right now he could walk from room to room without aid, but he would think twice about heading down to the stables by himself. He had to decide whether or not he was going to stay in the Navy; it felt like time to be moving on, since the reason he"d joined in the first place was being taken away from him as he moved up the ranks. If he wasn"t going to remain a SEAL, then what would he do for a living? He had to decide, had to get his life settled.
Barrie might not be interested in any kind of relations.h.i.+p with him, though from the way Spook and Bunny had described her departure, he didn"t think that was the case. The day of lovemaking they had shared had been more than propinquity for both of them.
Getting in touch with her could take some doing, though. That morning he had placed a call to the emba.s.sy in Athens. He"d given his name and asked to speak to Barrie Lovejoy. It had been Amba.s.sador William Lovejoy who had come on the line, however, and the conversation hadn"t been cordial.
"It isn"t that Barrie doesn"t appreciate what you did, but I"m sure you understand that she wants to put all of that behind her. Talking with you would bring it all back and needlessly upset her," the amba.s.sador bad said in a cool, well-bred voice, his diction the best money could buy.
"Is that her opinion, or yours?" Zane had asked, his tone arctic.
"I don"t see that it matters," the amba.s.sador had replied, and hung up.
Zane decided he would let it rest for now. He wasn"t in any shape to do much about it, so he would wait. When he had his mind made up about what he was going to do, there would be plenty of time to get in touch with Barrie, and now that he knew the amba.s.sador had given orders for his calls not to be routed to her, the next time he would be prepared to do an end run around her father.
"Zane," his mother called from inside the house, pulling his thoughts to the present. "Are you getting tired?"
"I feel fine," he called back. It was an exaggeration, but he wasn"t unduly tired. He glanced at Chance and saw the smirk on his brother"s face.
"With all the worry about you, she forgot about my cracked ribs," Chance whispered.
"Glad to be of service," Zane drawled. "Just don"t expect me to get shot every time you bang yourself up a little." The entire family thought it was hilarious the way Chance reacted to Mary"s coddling and fussing, as if the attention terrified him, even though he was never able to resist her. Chance was putty in Mary"s hands, but then, they all were. They"d grown up with the fine example of their father to emulate, and Wolf Mackenzie might growl and stomp, but Mary usually got her way.
"Chance?"
Zane controlled a grin as Chance stiffened, the smirk disappearing from his face as if it had never been.
"Ma"am?" he answered cautiously.
"Are you still keeping a pressure wrap on your ribs?"
That familiar panicked expression was in his eyes now. "Ah...no, ma"am." He could have lied; Mary would have believed him. But none of them ever lied to her, even when it was in their best interests. It would hurt the little tyrant s feelings too much if she ever discovered any of her kids had lied to her.
"You know you"re supposed to wrap them for another week," said the voice from inside the house. It was almost like hearing G.o.d speak, except this voice was light and sweet and liquidly Southern.
"Yes, ma"am."
"Come inside and let me take care of that.""
"Yes, ma"am," Chance said again, resignation in his voice. He got up from his rocking chair and went into the house. As he pa.s.sed Zane, he muttered, "Getting shot didn"t work. Try something else."
Chapters.
Two months later, Sheriff Zane Mackenzie stood naked at the window of the pleasant two-bedroom Spanish-style house he had bought in southern Arizona. He was staring out over the moonlit desert, something wild and hot running through him at the sight. His SEAL training had taught him how to adapt to any environment, and the hot, dry climate didn"t bother him.
Once he"d made up his mind to resign his commission, things had rapidly fallen into place. Upon hearing that he was leaving the Navy, a former SEAL team member who was now on the governor"s staff in Phoenix had called and asked if he would be interested in serving the remaining two years of the term of a sheriff who had died in office.
At first Zane had been taken aback; he"d never considered going into law enforcement. Moreover, he didn"t know anything about Arizona state laws.
"Don"t worry about it," his friend had said breezily. "Sheriff is a political position, and most of the time it"s more administrative than anything else. The situation you"d be going into is more hands-on, though. A couple of the deputies have quit, so you"d be shorthanded until some more can be hired, and the ones still there will resent the h.e.l.l out of you because one of them wasn"t appointed to finish out the sheriff"s term."
"Why not?" Zane asked bluntly. "What"s wrong with the chief deputy?"
"She"s one of the ones who quit. She left a couple of months before the sheriff died, took a job on the force in Prescott."
"None of the others are qualified?"
"I wouldn"t say that."
"Then what would you say?"
"You gotta understand, there"s not a lot of selection here. A couple of the young deputies are good, real good, but they"re too young, not enough experience. The one twenty-year guy isn"t interested. A fifteen-year guy is a jerk, and the rest of the deputies hate his guts."
Sheriff. Zane thought about it, growing more intrigued with the idea. He had no illusions about it being a Cakewalk. He would have difficulties with the fifteen-year veteran, at least, and likely all the other deputies would have some reservations and resistance about someone from the outside being brought in. h.e.l.l, he liked it better that way. Cakewalks didn"t interest him. He"d rather have a challenging job any day. "Okay, I"m interested. What does it involve?"
"A lot of headache, mostly. The pay"s decent, the hours are lousy. A reservation sits on part of the county, so you"ll have to deal with the BIA. There"s a big problem with illegal immigrants, but that"s for the INS to worry about. Generally, this isn"t a high crime area. Not enough people."
So here he was, his strength back, the owner of a house and a hundred acres of land, newly sworn in as sheriff. He"d brought in a few of his horses from his parents" place in Wyoming. It was a h.e.l.l of a change from the Navy.
It was time to see about Barrie. He"d thought about her a lot over the past few months, but lately he couldn"t think about anything else. The uneasy feeling was persisting, growing stronger. He"d put his resources to work, and to his surprise found that she"d left Athens within a week of being returned there. She was currently living at the Lovejoy private residence in Arlington, Virginia. Moreover, last month the amba.s.sador had abruptly asked to be replaced, and he, too, had returned to Virginia. Zane wished Mr. Lovejoy had remained in Athens, but his presence was a problem that could be handled.
No matter what her father did or said, Zane was determined to see Barrie. There was unfinished business between them, a connection that had been abruptly cut when he"d been shot and she had been forced aboard a flight to Athens. He knew the hot intimacy of those long hours together could have been a product of stress and propinquity, but at this point, he didn"t give a d.a.m.n. There were other considerations, ones he couldn"t ignore. That was why he had a flight out of Tucson to Was.h.i.+ngton in the morning. He needed to be sleeping, but one thought kept going around and around in his head. She was pregnant. He couldn"t say why he was so convinced of it. It was a gut feeling, an intuition, even a logical conclusion. There hadn"t been any means of birth control available; they had made love several times. Put the two facts together, and the possibility of pregnancy existed. He didn"t think it was a mere possibility, though; he thought it was a fact.
Barrie was going to have his baby.
The rush of fierce possessiveness he felt was like a tidal wave, sweeping away all his cautious plans. There wouldn"t be any gradual getting-to-know-each-other stage, no easing into the idea of a serious relations.h.i.+p. If she was pregnant, they would get married immediately. If she didn"t like the idea, he would convince her. It was as simple as that.
She was pregnant. Barrie hugged the precious knowledge to herself, not ready yet to let anyone else know, certainly not her father. The kidnapping and the aftermath had driven a wedge between them that neither of them could remove. He was desperate to restore their former relations.h.i.+p; nothing else could have induced him to resign from a post, an action that could have had serious repercussions for his career if it hadn"t generally been thought that he had resigned because she had been so traumatized by the kidnapping that she couldn"t remain in Athens and he wanted to be with her.
She tried not to think about whatever he might be involved in, because it hurt. It hurt horribly that he might be a traitor. Part of her simply couldn"t believe it; he was an old-fas.h.i.+oned man, a man to whom honor wasn"t just a word but a way of life. She had no proof, only logic and her own deductions... that, and the expression he hadn"t quite been able to hide when she had asked him directly if he was involved in anything that might have resulted in her being kidnapped.
It also hurt horribly that he had kept her from Zane. She had made inquiries once she reached Virginia, but once again she had collided with a stone wall. No one would give her any information at all about him. She had even contacted SEAL headquarters and been politely stonewalled again. At least with the SEALs it was probably policy to safeguard the team members" ident.i.ties and location, given the sensitive nature of the ant.i.terrorism unit.
She was having his baby. She wanted him to know about it. She wouldn"t expect anything of him that he didn"t want to give, but she wanted him to know about his child. And she desperately wanted to see him again. She was adrift and lonely and frightened, her emotions in turmoil, and she needed some security in that part of her life, at least. He wasn"t the kind of man who would blithely walk away from his offspring and ignore their existence. This baby would be a permanent link between them, something she could count on.
She doubted her father would relent concerning Zane even if he knew about the baby; his possessiveness would probably extend to a grandchild, even an illegitimate one. He would take steps to keep her pregnancy quiet, and even when the news got around, as it inevitably would, people would a.s.sume it was a child of rape, and they would look at her pityingly and talk about how brave she was.
She thought she would go mad. She had escaped to Virginia only to have her father follow. He panicked if she went anywhere unescorted. She had her own car, but he didn"t want her driving it; he wanted his driver to take her wherever she wanted to go. She had had to sneak to a pharmacy to buy a home pregnancy test, though she had been sure fairly early on that she was pregnant. The test had merely confirmed what her body had already told her. Barrie knew she should be worried and upset about this unplanned pregnancy, but it was the only thing in her life right now that made her happy. She was intensely lonely; the kidnapping and the long hours alone with Zane had set her apart from the other people in her life. She had memories they couldn"t share, thoughts and needs no one could understand. Zane had been there with her; he would have understood her occasional pensiveness, her reticence in talking about it. It wasn"t that she was secretive, for she would have liked to talk to someone who understood. But what she had shared with Zane was like a combat experience, forming a unique bond between the people who had lived it.
She wouldn"t be able to keep her pregnancy secret much longer; she had to arrange prenatal care, and all telephone calls were now recorded. She supposed she could sneak out again and set up a doctor"s appointment from a pay phone, but she would be d.a.m.ned if she would.
Enough was enough. She was an adult, and soon to be a mother. She hated the fact that her relations.h.i.+p with her father had deteriorated to the point where they barely spoke, but she couldn"t find a way to mend it. As long as the possibility of his involvement in treasonous activities remained, she was helpless. She wanted him to explain, to give her a plausible reason why she had been kidnapped. She wanted to stop looking over her shoulder every time she went out; she didn"t want to feel as if she truly needed to be guarded. She wanted to live a normal life. She didn"t want to raise her baby in an atmosphere of fear.
But that was exactly the atmosphere that permeated the house. It was stifling her. She had to get away, had to remove herself from the haunting fear that, as long as her father was involved in whatever had given him such a guilty expression, she could be kidnapped again. The very thought made her want to vomit, and she didn"t have just herself to worry about now. She had her baby to protect.
The fatigue of early pregnancy had gotten her into the habit of sleeping late, but one morning she woke early, disturbed by a pair of raucous birds fighting for territory in the tree outside her window. Once she was awake, nausea soon followed, and she made her usual morning dash to the bathroom. Also as usual, when the bout of morning sickness had pa.s.sed, she felt fine. She looked out the window at the bright morning and realized she was inordinately hungry, the first time in weeks that the idea of food was appealing.
It was barely six o"clock, too early for Adele, the cook, to have arrived. Breakfast was normally at eight, and she had been sleeping past that. Her stomach growled. She couldn"t wait another two hours for something to eat.
She put on her robe and slippers and quietly left her room; her father"s bedroom was at the top of the stairs, and she didn"t want to disturb him. Even more, she didn"t want him to join her for an awkward tete-a-tete. He tried so hard to carry on as if nothing had happened, and she couldn"t respond as she had before.
He should still be asleep, she thought, but when she reached the top of the stairs she heard him saying something she couldn"t understand. She paused, wondering if he"d heard her after all and had been calling out to her. Then she heard him say Mack in a sharp tone, and she froze.
A chill roughened her entire body, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. The only Mack she knew was Mack Prewett, but why would her father be talking to him? Mack Prewett was still stationed in Athens, as far as she knew, and since her father had resigned, he shouldn"t have had any reason to be talking to him.
Then her heart leaped wildly as another possibility occurred to her. Perhaps he had been saying Mackenzie and she"d heard only the first syllable. Maybe he was talking about Zane. If she listened, she might find out where he was, or at least how he was. With no additional information about his condition, it had been hard to believe Admiral Lindley"s a.s.surance that he would fully recover. Belief required trust, and she no longer trusted the admiral, or her father.
She crept closer to his door and put her ear against it.
"-finished soon," he was saying sharply, then he was silent for a moment. "I didn"t bargain on this. Barrie wasn"t supposed to be involved. Get it wrapped up, Mack."
Barrie closed her eyes in despair. The chill was back, even colder than before. She shook with it, and swallowed hard against the return of nausea. So he was involved, he and Mack Prewett both. Mack was CIA. Was he a double agent, and if so, for whom? The world situation wasn"t like it had been back in the old days of the Cold War, when the lines had been clearly drawn. Nations had died since then, and new ones taken their place. Religion or money seemed to be the driving force behind most differences these days; how would her father and Mack Prewett fit into that? What information would her father have that Mack wouldn"t?
The answer eluded her. It could be anything. Her father had friends in every country in Europe, and any variety of confidential information could come his way. What didn"t make sense was why he would sell that information; he was already a wealthy man. But money, to some people, was as addictive as a narcotic. No amount was ever enough; they had to have more, then still more, always looking for the next hit in the form of cash and the power that went with it.
Could she have been so wrong in her judgment of him? Had she still been looking at him with a child"s eyes, seeing only her father, the man who had been the security in her life, instead of a man whose ambitions had tainted his honor?
Blindly she stumbled to her bedroom, not caring if he heard her. He must still have been engrossed in his conversation, though, or she didn"t make as much noise as she thought she had, because his door remained closed.
She curled up on the bed, protectively folding herself around the tiny embryo in her womb.
What was it he hadn"t bargained on? The kidnapping? That was over two months in the past. Had there been a new threat to use her as a means of ensuring he did something?