“I’ll tell you where to stop.”
The driver shrugged. As they pulled away from the curb there seemed to be a lot of people spilling out of the terminal, but Jane didn’t look back. She was still shaking. “It can’t be Turego again, can it?”
Grant shrugged. “It’s possible, if he has enough money. I’m going to make a phone call.”
She’d thought she was safe, that they were both safe. After the two peaceful days spent in Mexico, the sudden fear seemed that much sharper and more acrid. She couldn’t stop trembling.
They didn’t go all the way into Dallas. Grant instructed the driver to drop them at a shopping mall. “Why a shopping mall?” Jane asked, looking around.
“There are telephones here, and it’s safer than standing in a phone booth on the side of a street.” He put his arm around her and hugged her briefly to him. “Don’t look so worried, honey.”
They went inside and found a bank of pay telephones, but it was a busy day and all the lines were in use. They waited while a teenager argued extensively with her mother about how late she could stay out that night, but at last she hung up and stormed away, evidently having lost the argument. Grant stepped in and commandeered the telephone before anyone else could reach it. Standing close by him, Jane watched as he dropped in the coins, punched in a number, then dropped in more coins. He leaned casually against the fieldstone nook that housed the telephone, listening to the rings on the other end.
“Sullivan,” he finally drawled when the phone was answered. “She was nearly grabbed in DFW.” He listened a moment; then his eyes flicked to Jane. “Okay, I got it. We’ll be there. By the way, that was a dumb move. She could’ve killed the guy.” He hung up, and his lips twitched.
“Well?” Jane demanded.
“You just belted an agent.”
“An agent? You mean, one of your friend’s men?”
“Yeah. We’re taking a little detour. You’re going to be debriefed. It was left up to some other people to pick you up, and they decided to pick you up after we’d parted company, since I’m no longer in the business and this doesn’t officially concern me. Sabin will pin their ears back.”
“Sabin? Is he your friend?”
He was smiling down at her. “He’s the one.” He stroked her cheekbone very gently with the backs of his fingers. “And that’s a name you’re going to forget, honey. Why don’t you call your parents and let them know that you won’t be in tonight? It’ll be tomorrow; you can call them again when we know something definite.”
“Are you going, too?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” He grinned a little wolfishly, already anticipating Kell’s reaction to Jane.
“But where are we going?”
“Virginia, but don’t tell your parents that. Just tell them that you missed your flight.”
She reached for the phone, then stopped. “Your friend must be pretty important.”
“He’s got some power,” Grant understated.
So, they must know about the microfilm. Jane punched in her credit card number. She’d be glad to get the whole thing over with, and at least Grant was going to be with her one more day. Just one more day! It was a reprieve, but she didn’t know if she’d have the strength for another good-bye.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE around the place was quiet and serene, the trees green, the flowering shrubs well-tended. It looked rather like her father’s Connecticut estate. Everyone was polite, and several people greeted Grant, but Jane noticed that even the ones who spoke to him did so hesitantly, as if they were a little wary of him.
Kell’s office was right where it had always been, and the door still had no name on it. The agent who had escorted them knocked quietly. “Sullivan is here, sir.”
“Send them in.”
The first thing Jane noticed was the old-fashioned charm of the room. The ceilings were high; the mantel was surely the original one that had been built with the house over a hundred years before. Tall glass doors behind the big desk let in the late afternoon sun. They also placed the man behind the desk in silhouette, while anyone who came in the door was spotlighted by the blazing sun, something George had told her about. He rose to his feet as they entered, a tall man, maybe not quite as tall as Grant, but lean and hard with a whipcord toughness that wasn’t maintained by sitting behind a desk.
He stepped forward to greet them. “You look like hell, Sullivan,” he said, and the two men shook hands; then he turned his eyes on her, and for the first time Jane felt his power. His eyes were so black that there was no light in them at all; they absorbed light, drawing it into the depths of the irises. His hair was thick and black, his complexion dark, and there was an intense energy about him that seared her.
“Ms. Greer,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Mr. Sabin,” she returned, calmly shaking his hand.
“I have a very embarrassed agent in Dallas.”
“He shouldn’t be,” Grant drawled behind her. “She let him off easy.”
“Grant’s boots were in the pack,” Jane explained. “That’s what stunned him so badly when I hit him in the head.”
There was the first hint in Sabin’s eyes that Jane wasn’t quite what he’d expected. Grant stood behind her, his arms calmly folded, and waited.
Sabin examined her open expression, the catlike slant of her dark eyes, the light dusting of freckles across her cheekbones. Then he quickly glanced at Grant, who was planted like the Rock of Gibraltar behind her. He could question her, but he had the feeling that Grant wouldn’t let her be harrassed in any way. It wasn’t like Sullivan to get involved, but he was out of the business now, so the old rules didn’t apply. She wasn’t a great beauty, but there was a lively charm about her that almost made Sabin want to smile. Maybe she’d gotten close to Sullivan. Sabin didn’t trust that openness, however, because he knew more about her now than he had in the beginning.
“Ms. Greer,” he began slowly, “did you know that George Persall was—”
“Yes, I did,” Jane interrupted cheerfully. “I helped him sometimes, but not often, because he liked to use different methods every time. I believe this is what you want.” She opened the backpack and began digging in it. “I know it’s in here. There!” She produced the small roll of film, placing it on his desk.
Both men looked thunderstruck. “You’ve just been carrying it around?” Sabin asked in disbelief.
“Well, I didn’t have a chance to hide it. Sometimes I put it in my pocket. That way Turego could search my room all he wanted and he’d never find anything. All of you spy types try to make everything too complicated. George always told me to keep it simple.”
Grant began to chuckle. He couldn’t help it; it was funny. “Jane, why didn’t you tell me you had the microfilm?”
“I thought it would be safer for you if you didn’t know about it.”
Again Sabin looked thunderstruck, as if he couldn’t believe anyone would actually feel the need to protect Grant Sullivan. As Kell was normally the most impassive of men, Grant knew that Jane had tilted him off balance, just as she did everyone she met. Sabin coughed to cover his reaction.
“Ms. Greer,” he asked cautiously, “do you know what’s on the film?”
“No. Neither did George.”
Grant was laughing again. “Go ahead,” he told Sabin. “Tell her about the film. Or, better yet, show her. She’ll enjoy it.”
Sabin shook his head, then picked up the film and pulled it out, unwinding it. Grant produced his cigarette lighter, leaned forward, and set the end of the film on fire. The three watched as the flames slowly ate up the length of celluloid until it burned close to Sabin’s fingers and he dropped it into a large ashtray. “The film,” Sabin explained, “was a copy of something we don’t want anyone else to know. All we wanted was for it to be destroyed before anyone saw it.”
With the stench of burning plastic in her nostrils, Jane silently watched the last of the film curl and crumble. All they’d wa
nted was for it to be destroyed, and she’d hauled it through a jungle and across half a continent—just to hand it over and watch it burn. Her lips twitched; she was afraid of making a scene, so she tried to control the urge. But it was irresistible; it rolled upward, and a giggle escaped. She turned, looking at Grant, and between them flashed the memory of everything they’d been through. She giggled again, then they were both laughing, Jane hanging on to his shirt because she was laughing so hard her knees had gone limp.
“I fell down a cliff,” she gasped. “We stole a truck…shot another truck…I broke Turego’s nose…all to watch it burn!”
Grant went into another spasm of laughter, holding his sore ribs and bending double. Sabin watched them clinging to each other and laughing uproariously. Curiosity seized him. “Why did you shoot a truck?” he asked; then suddenly he was laughing, too.
An agent paused outside the door, his head tilted, listening. No, it was impossible. Sabin never laughed.
* * *
THEY LAY IN BED in a hotel in the middle of Washington, D.C., pleasantly tired. They had made love as soon as the door was locked behind them, falling on the bed and removing only the necessary clothing. But that had been hours before, and now they were completely nude, slipping gradually into sleep.
Grant’s hand moved up and down her back in a lazy pattern. “Just how involved were you in Persall’s activities?”
“Not very,” she murmured. “Oh, I knew about them. I had to know, so I could cover for him if I had to. And he sometimes used me as a courier, but not very often. Still, he talked to me a lot, telling me things. He was a strange, lonely man.”
“Was he your lover?”
She lifted her head from his chest, surprised. “George? Of course not!”
“Why ‘of course not’? He was a man, wasn’t he? And he was in your bedroom when he died.”
She paused. “George had a problem, a medical one. He wasn’t capable of being anyone’s lover.”
“So that part of the report was wrong, too.”
“Deliberately. He used me as a sort of shield.”
He put his hand in her hair and held her for his kiss. “I’m glad. He was too old for you.”
Jane watched him with wise, dark eyes. “Even if he hadn’t been, I wasn’t interested. You might as well know, you’re the only lover I’ve ever had. Until I met you, I’d never…wanted anyone.”
“And when you met me…?” he murmured.
“I wanted.” She lowered her head and kissed him, wrapping her arms around him, slithering her body over his until she felt his hardening response.
“I wanted, too,” he said, his words a mere breath over her skin.
“I love you.” The words were a cry of pain, launched by desperation, because she knew this was definitely the last time unless she took the chance. “Will you marry me?”
“Jane, don’t.”
“Don’t what? Tell you that I love you? Or ask you to marry me?” She sat up, moving her legs astride him, and shook her dark hair back behind her shoulders.
“We can’t live together,” he explained, his eyes turning dark gold. “I can’t give you what you need, and you’d be miserable.”
“I’ll be miserable anyway,” she said reasonably, striving for a light tone. “I’d rather be miserable with you than miserable without you.”
“I’m a loner. Marriage is a partnership, and I’d rather go it alone. Face it, honey. We’re good together in bed, but that’s all there is.”
“Maybe for you. I love you.” Despite herself, she couldn’t keep the echo of pain out of her voice.
“Do you? We were under a lot of stress. It’s human nature to turn to each other. I’d have been surprised if we hadn’t made love.”
“Please, spare me your combat psychology! I’m not a child, or stupid! I know when I love someone, and damn it, I love you! You don’t have to like it, but don’t try to talk me out of it!”
“All right.” He lay on his back, looking up into her angry eyes. “Do you want me to get another room?”
“No. This is our last night together, and we’re going to spend it together.”
“Even if we’re fighting?”
“Why not?” she dared.
“I don’t want to fight,” he said, lunging up and twisting. Jane found herself on her back, blinking up at him in astonishment. Slowly he entered her, pushing her legs high. She closed her eyes, excitement spiraling through her. He was right; the time was far better spent making love.
She didn’t try again to convince him that they had a future together. She knew from experience just how hardheaded he was; he’d have to figure it out for himself. So she spent her time loving him, trying to make certain that he never forgot her, that no other woman could begin to give him the pleasure that she did. This would be her goodbye.
Late in the night she leaned over him. “You’re afraid,” she accused softly. “You’ve seen so much that you’re afraid to let yourself love anyone, because you know how easily a world can be wrecked.”
His voice was tired. “Jane, let it be.”
“All right. That’s my last word, except for this: if you decide to take a chance, come get me.”
She crept out of bed early the next morning and left him sleeping. She knew that he was too light a sleeper not to have awakened sometime during the shower she took, or while she was dressing, but he didn’t roll over or in any way indicate that he was awake, so she preserved the pretence between them. Without even kissing him, she slipped out the door. After all, they’d already said their goodbyes.
At the sound of the door closing Grant rolled over in the bed, his eyes bleak as he stared at the empty room.
* * *
JANE AND HER PARENTS fell into each other’s arms, laughing and crying and hugging each other exuberantly. Her return called for a family celebration that lasted hours, so it was late that night before she and her father had any time alone. Jane had few secrets from her father; he was too shrewd, too realistic. By silent, instinctive agreement, they kept from her mother the things that would upset her, but Jane was like her father in that she had an inner toughness.
She told him how the entire situation in Costa Rica had come about, and even told him about the trek through the rain forest. Because he was shrewd, he picked up on the nuances in her voice when she mentioned Grant.
“You’re in love with Sullivan, aren’t you?”
She nodded, sipping her glass of wine. “You met him. What did you think about him?” The answer was important to her, because she trusted her father’s judgment of character.
“I thought him unusual. There’s something in his eyes that’s almost scary. But I trusted him with my daughter’s life, if that tells you what you want to know, and I’d do so again.”
“Would you mind having him in the family?”
“I’d welcome him with open arms. I think he could keep you in one place,” James said grumpily.
“Well, I asked him to marry me, but he turned me down. I’m going to give him a while to stew over it; then I’m going to fight dirty.”
Her father grinned, the quick, cheerful grin that his daughter had inherited. “What are you planning?”
“I’m going to chase that man like he’s never been chased before. I think I’ll stay here for a week or two; then I’m going to Europe.”
“But he’s not in Europe!”
“I know. I’ll chase him from a distance. The idea is for him to know how much he misses me, and he’ll miss me a lot more when he finds out how far away I am.”
“But how is he going to find out?”
“I’ll arrange that somehow. And even if it doesn’t work, a trip to Europe is never a waste!”
* * *
IT WAS ODD HOW MUCH he missed her. She’d never been to the farm, but sometimes it seemed haunted by her. He’d think he heard her say something and turn to find no one there. At night…God, the nights were awful! He couldn’t sleep, missing her soft weight spra
wled on top of him.
He tried to lose himself in hard physical work. Chores piled up fast on a farm, and he’d been gone for two weeks. With the money he’d been paid for finding Jane, he was able to free the farm from debt and still have plenty left over, so he could have hired someone to do the work for him. But the work had been therapy for him when he’d first come here, still weak from his wounds, and so tightly drawn that a pine cone dropping from a tree in the night had been enough to send him diving from the bed, reaching for his knife.
So he labored in the sun, doing the backbreaking work of digging new holes for the fence posts, putting up new sections of fencing, patching and painting the barn. He reroofed the house, worked on the old tractor that had come with the farm, and thought about doing more planting the next spring. All he’d planted so far was a few vegetables for himself, but if he was going to own a farm, he might as well farm it. A man wouldn’t get rich at it, not on this scale, but he knew how to do it. Working the earth gave him a measure of peace, as if it put him in contact with the boy he’d once been, before war had changed his life.
In the distance loomed the mountains, the great, misty mountains where the ghosts of the Cherokee still walked. The vast slopes were uninhabited now, but then, only a few hardy souls other than the Cherokee had ever called the mountains home. Jane would like the mountains. They were older, wreathed in silvery veils, once the mightiest mountain range on earth, but worn down by more years than people could imagine. There were places in those mountains where time stood still.
The mountains, and the earth, had healed him, and the process had been so gradual that he hadn’t realized he was healed until now. Perhaps the final healing had come when Jane had shown him how to laugh again.
He had told her to let it be, and she had. She had left in the quiet morning, without a word, because he’d told her to go. She loved him; he knew that. He’d pretended that it was something else, the pressure of stress that had brought them together, but even then he’d known better, and so had she.
Well, hell! He missed her so badly that he hurt, and if this wasn’t love, then he hoped he never loved anyone, because he didn’t think he could stand it. He couldn’t get her out of his mind, and her absence was an empty ache that he couldn’t fill, couldn’t ease.