Secret Agent Sam

Chapter 13

The DC-3 loomed ahead in the rain, its nose in the air and its tail dragging on the grassy landing strip…the great gray Gooneybird, relic from another time, a different war. Sam’s spirits lifted with relief and thanksgiving at the sight, almost as if she were already at the controls of the aircraft and soaring toward the sky.

She let go of Cory and scrambled up the short grassy bank ahead of the others, then turned to offer a hand. Hal slipped once, but never lost his dogged grip on Esther, and then Sam was there on one side of him and Tony on the other, holding him up, and together they all made it to the relative shelter of the plane’s big wing.

“Get everybody inside,” Sam yelled to Tony. “I’m gonna go check out the runway.”

She slipped under the wing and ran past the plane’s upswept nose…down the grass-covered strip that stretched ahead of her arrow-straight until it disappeared into the curtain of rain. She ran for nearly a hundred yards, and her heart lifted with such relief and hope she felt as if she could have run forever…turned cartwheels…shouted for joy. Under her feet, rather than the squelch of sucking mud or the give of saturated soil, she felt only a beautiful, unyielding…crunch.

She turned, finally, and jogged back to the plane, and Tony came hesitantly to meet her, his face tight with suspense. He looked slightly stunned-though pleased-when she threw her arms around him and kissed him resoundingly on his broad wet cheek.

“That’s for your grandaddy,” she yelled. “Those navy Cee Bees knew their stuff. Must’ve built this thing out of crushed volcanic rock. It’s solid as the runways at JFK!”

“Go Cee Bees!” Tony pumped an arm in the air and grinned. “So, we’re good to go?”

“Good to go! I just need to check out the plane. Everybody inside and buckled in?”

“Almost,” Tony said dryly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “He wouldn’t get in until you got back.”

She looked past him and her heart lurched when she saw Cory standing beside the plane, leaning heavily on the steps. “Typical…” she muttered, but couldn’t deny the sweet warmth-Lord, what could she call it-tenderness?-that flooded her. Though she did try, adding a sardonic, “My God, what’s holding him up?”

Tony shrugged and gave her a sly look. “What’d I tell you? It’s love-what else?”

Having no answer for that, Sam made a halfhearted scoffing noise. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer as she left Tony and walked over to Cory, and inexplicably, she felt awkward and shy. Her face ached and the best smile she could come up with was small and crooked as she spread her hands wide and said, “Hey, Pearse, it’s okay…the runway’s okay. Rock solid. We’re getting out of here. We’re gonna get everybody home.”

He looked at her. Just looked…his eyes sunk so deep in their sockets they seemed almost black…his face chalk-white beneath a dark growth of beard. Then he lifted his hand and curved it around the back of her neck. She felt his arm tremble as he pulled her close, but his lips were warm and firm when he kissed her. Then he folded her one-armed against him…let go of the steps and wrapped both arms around her. And though she could feel him swaying with weakness, she closed her eyes and let herself hold him for a long, sweet moment.

One that lasted not nearly long enough. It was shattered by the thump of a distant explosion, and then, closer by, the all-too-familiar rattle of gunfire.

Tony lurched past her up the steps yelling, “Here they come! Let’s get the hell outa here.”

New adrenaline spurted into her bloodstream as she hooked an arm around Cory, who was struggling to pull himself up the steps, dragging his injured leg.

“Get him inside and buckled in,” she yelled to Tony, and then she was ducking under the end of the wing, trying not to cringe as the sounds of battle rumbled closer, knowing she had only minutes to get the plane off the ground, knowing, too, that if she overlooked something vital in the preflight prep it could mean disaster for everyone on board.

So, she forced herself to shut out the gunfire and concentrate on the checklist in her mind…checked the props, looking for bird nests in the cylinders and hinges…checked the cowls and gear pins. Satisfied, finally, she pulled the chocks from the wheels and sprinted for the door of the plane.

She pulled up the steps and secured the door, then paused to catch her breath. So far so good, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. A DC-3 aircraft wasn’t a car, she couldn’t just jump in and start it up and go shooting off into the wild blue yonder. It was going to take a while to run through even the most basic cockpit check, and then the warm-up…the takeoff…Thank God, at least she’d had the foresight to turn the plane around before she’d shut it down!

On her way up the aisle she paused to make sure everyone was belted securely, and had to resist the impulse to put her hand on Cory’s shoulder…just to touch him one more time.

Then she was slipping into the pilot’s seat, running through the preflight check, once again forcing herself not to rush, to concentrate on the task at hand. Flight instruments checked…gyros…airspeed selector…trims…pitch…throttles…mixture…tail lock…hydraulics…

Satisfied at last, she cleared the props and put her hand on the engine-selector switch, just as Tony slid into the right-hand seat beside her.

“We ’bout ready to get this thing airborne?” he asked, his voice breathless and light, trying to hide the urgency in it. “Those bullets are getting a little too close for comfort.”

“Starting the engines now,” Sam replied, tight-lipped, as her fingers manipulated the switches and first one engine, then the other coughed and fired, shaking the plane with their powerful vibrations. Still going through preparations for takeoff, she spared Tony a brief glance. “Buckle up if you’re staying, pal.”

“Right…” He pulled his harness tight and squirmed himself into the seat, then looked up and through the windshield. “Uh…Captain?”

“Yeah?” Sam said absently, her eyes on the oil pressure gauge. Then, something in Tony’s voice got through to her and she looked up, too. Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest.

The rain had stopped, as if someone had turned off a faucet. And she could see, far down the landing strip, a dozen or so men wearing camouflage pants, running, zigzagging toward the plane, firing automatic rifles as they came.

She swore, one sharp, succinct word, as something-a mortar shell or grenade-exploded in the flooded field near the men, sending geysers of muddy water into the air.

“Uh…might want to get this thing in the air while we’ve still got a runway,” Tony muttered, sounding strangled.

“Can’t get the rpm’s up ’til I’ve got oil pressure,” she said grimly, as her heart pounded and her eyes flicked between the gauges and the advancing gunmen. Al-Rami’s men, she assumed, and those incoming shells must be the government’s troops. If even one of them hit its target, the runway would be cut in two. She needed a thousand meters of it for takeoff.

“Come on…come on…” With agonizing slowness, the oil and fuel pressure and temperature readings came into line. Sam’s eyes burned in their sockets as she watched them. Her neck muscles felt like wire. The plane shook and bucked like a tethered bronc as the rpm’s rose…

Then… “Okay!” The word gusted from her on an exhalation. “Here we go…”

With her teeth tightly clenched and her right hand light and steady on the controls, she sent the plane forward, straight toward the oncoming gunmen. She didn’t even wince when she heard bullets clang into the plane’s metal skin, just tightened her jaw, held the plane steady on course and increased speed…and knew a moment’s sheer jubilation as the men on the runway in front of her broke and scattered like chickens, some diving head-first into the muddy water alongside the strip.

“Yee-haw!” Tony crowed, but Sam was too busy, now, for celebrations. Her eyes were on the approaching jungle…coming up fast…coming closer…closer. Her hand was on the throttle…in-creasing speed…faster…faster. And then…at last…Lift off!

She felt her body press into her seat and her heart shoot through the roof of her mouth as the DC-3’s nose swept up and over the treetops. It climbed steadily toward the lowering gray clouds, and the growl of the two big engines was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. Then they were in the clouds, swathed in filmy gray-white mist…bucking with the turbulence…then above them, where the air was smooth and the sun was shining.

As the warmth and brilliance of it sliced through the windshield, nearly blinding her, Sam eased back in her seat and drew a careful breath. She allowed herself, now, to look over at Tony, and saw that he’d put his head back against his seat, too, and that his eyes were closed. His bulldog face looked bunched and tense, as if his skin held in emotions almost too turbulent to contain.

“Hey-you can go tell Cory we made it,” she said softly, and a smile burst across her face like a sunrise.

She was drifting with the drone of the DC-3’s engines, allowing her mind the luxury of numbness, although her body was still chilled and quivering with adrenaline hangover, when Tony slipped back into the copilot’s seat a short time later.

Pulling herself together reluctantly, she shifted and threw him a glance, and though she cleared her throat, her voice was gruff when she asked, “How’s everybody doin’ back there?”

“Hangin’ in,” Tony said, remembering without being told to fasten his seat belt. “Esther’s asleep. Hal looks like he is, and somebody just forgot to tell him to close his eyes.”

“Cory?” The word came with a little hitch in her breathing she couldn’t control.

He shrugged and lowered his voice just a bit. “Hard to say. I know he’s gotta be hurting. Lost an awful lot of blood. That tourniquet’s been on there a long time, too-that can’t be good, but he’d probably bleed to death if we loosen it up.” He let out a breath. “He says he’s doin’ okay, but…you can’t always tell what’s goin’ on with him.”

“Tell me about it,” Sam said softly. She felt weighed down, suddenly: exhausted, worn-out, depressed. Where only a short while ago she’d been soaring on waves of euphoria, now she wallowed in troughs of futility and despair. And there was frustration with herself and anger, too, because depressed and weighed down wasn’t who Samantha June Bauer was, and for sure not the way she ever wanted to be.

After a long silence, during which her pride wrestled with an unaccustomed and overwhelming need to talk to someone, she drew a deep breath and said, “Tony?” And then, in a voice edgy and tense with all she was feeling, including the anger: “What am I gonna do?”

“You’re doin’ it, all you can do, anyway. Getting him to a hospital the fastest-”

She shook that off with an impatient gesture. “I mean about us. Cory and me.”

After a cautious pause and an uneasy glance, Tony shrugged. “You love him. He loves you. I don’t see the problem.”

“Yeah, but…” She let out a short, sharp breath, fighting to keep her voice steady. “All of this-none of this is real. All our problems-everything that was wrong before-it’s all still there. Nothing’s changed, not really.”

There was another pause while Tony appeared to be thinking it over. Then he said, “Well, I know one thing you can’t do.”

Sam threw him a hopeful look. “What’s that?”

“Live without each other.”

Damn. In spite of all her efforts, the tears she’d been fighting so hard welled up anyway. She blinked them furiously away before they could fall. “Yeah, but unfortunately I still have a career and a…a lifestyle I really love, and that isn’t what he wants. And he still won’t share himself with me emotionally, and that’s not the kind of relationship I want. Okay? So…I’m asking you-his best friend. What do I do?”

He shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with the role of counselor she’d thrust upon him. “Like I said. I think you guys need to talk.”

Too upset to let him off the hook, frustrated almost beyond her ability to control it, Sam growled, “Yeah, but he won’t. Don’t you understand? Not about himself, not the things that matter. And I don’t know how to make him, Tony.”

He was quiet for a long time. Then, looking straight ahead at the hazy horizon, he said slowly, “Yeah, but…I think you’re gonna have to.”

“What if I can’t?” she whispered, wretched and in despair.

“You need to get him to tell you about his parents.”

Something in his voice made her look over at him. “He told me they died.”

He turned his head, and his exotic whiskey-gold eyes looked straight into hers-briefly, before he turned back to the horizon again. “Get him to tell you how they died. Make him.”

She stared at his profile, and it was like something carved in the side of a mountain. Quivering with frustration and dawning realization, she said slowly, “You know, don’t you? You told me you didn’t, but that’s not true. You did look it up. You know what happened. Oh, God. Tony-” she clutched his arm and it came in a rush “-please tell me, please, it’s important, I have to know, please.”

He shook his head, his jaw implacable, unyielding as stone. “Yeah, you do, but like I told you-it’s his story. He’s the one who needs to tell it.” He unbuckled himself and eased out of the seat, looming over her briefly as he stood, and again, for one moment his eyes arrowed straight into hers. “You have to make him tell it, Sam.”

The dream came gently, like a parent creeping in to kiss a sleeping child good-night.

It’s my mother’s face bending over me, laughing and beautiful…her hands are cool as she brushes my cheek…then she hugs me, and her cheek is smooth and soft, and she smells like flowers and sunshine.

I feel my father’s shoulder, hard and bony under my head…his breath tickles my forehead and I giggle as his voice growls deep inside his chest: “And I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down!”

Then, as it always did, in his dream everything turned dark. All around him was darkness, and his mother’s face swam toward him and then retreated…drifted around and came back, then floated away again, always out of reach, bobbing like a cork on the ocean.

She’s not laughing now, but she’s speaking, saying something to me, and her eyes look scared so I know it’s something important, something urgent, but I can’t hear what it is because of the noise…

There’s a loud and terrible noise, a howling sound and a banging, banging, banging…someone’s pounding on the door, and I hear a roaring, growling voice saying, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down!” And I don’t want to open the door, because I know something terrible is on the other side. It’s the Big Bad Wolf, and he’s pounding, pounding, pounding on the door and yelling at me to open it, and I know I must not open it, but I do anyway.

And the Big Bad Wolf has my father’s face.

Cory fought his way free of the dream, clawing his way toward consciousness by sheer will, and woke chilled, sweating, and desperately nauseated. He felt hands on his shoulders, and clutching at one of them, managed to utter one word: “Sick…”

A basin materialized near his chin, the hands lifted his shoulder and rolled him, and he retched feebly and fruitlessly before subsiding, exhausted, shaking with the most appalling weakness he’d ever known. No wonder he’d dreamed of his childhood, he thought. It was the way he felt-weak as a child…an infant.

“What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

The familiar voice, husky and belligerent, jolted him into full awareness. “Sam?” he croaked, struggling to lift his head.

“Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal,” a heavily accented voice said. He felt the upper half of the bed rise under him and a head crowned with sleek black hair moved out of his line of vision. A blond one came to take its place. Blond hair standing up in tufts as if it had been combed with fingers, surrounding a frowning face with honey-gold skin, a sprinkling of freckles, and fierce dark brown eyes.

In spite of how desperately awful he felt-worse than he could ever remember feeling before in his life-he could feel a smile shivering through his whole body, warming him the way the sun does when it slices through the frost on a cold morning.

“Hey, Sam,” he croaked.

Her eyes flickered, but didn’t lose their fierceness. “Hey, Pearse.”

“My God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured before he thought, then wanted to laugh out loud when she snorted. It was so typically, beautifully Sam.

“Boy, that’s a good one,” she said tartly, folding her arms on her chest in a defensive way, as if he’d said something insulting. “I’m so far from beautiful right now, it isn’t even funny.”

“That’s not the way I see it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, yeah, but you’ve been under anesthesia. You’re probably hallucinating.”

“Anesthesia?” His mind clicked into gear, kaleidoscopic memories zapped into focus. Fear stabbed through him and turned his blood to ice. He struggled to sit, to lift his head. To see. “Did I-my leg-is it-”

“Still there? Yeah, it’s fine. Well, not fine, exactly, the bullet did a whole lot of soft tissue damage-your career as an underwear model is probably history-but at least you get to keep it awhile longer.”

He was laughing helplessly, partly with relief, partly delight in her and sheer giddy wonderment that he’d managed to survive the last four years without her.

Then other memories faded in and took on sharpness, and the laughter died. “How’s Esther?” he asked half-fearfully.

Sam’s smile faltered as she drew a hitching breath. “She’s in intensive care. Hangin’ in there. As soon as she’s strong enough, I guess she’ll be flying back to Canada for bypass surgery. Her family wants her closer to home…”

“And Hal?”

She gave another of her dry little snorts. “He won’t leave her side. They had to put a bed in the ICU for him.” And she was fidgeting, suddenly, as if the subject made her uncomfortable, though he couldn’t imagine why.

“Where are we, Zamboanga?” he asked, still groggy.

She shook her head. “I only put down there long enough to pick up a med tech and some supplies. Then it was straight to Davao City. I’d have opted for Manila if I’d thought you two would make it that far.”

Cory was silent for a long time, letting the reality of that sink in to his mind and body…taking in the hospital room and the IV tubes pumping various fluids into his arms, no doubt laced with massive doses of antibiotics and painkillers…remembering everything that had happened over the last few incredible days, including things that were already beginning to seem more like a dream to him than reality. Except for the woman standing before him with her arms folded and one hip canted in that familiar, pugnacious way…

He closed his eyes and whispered on an exhalation, “God, Sam…you did it. I don’t know how, but you did. You got us all out of there alive. I can’t…” And for one of the very few times in his life, words failed him.

When he opened his eyes again, Sam was shaking her head emphatically, making her short hair fan out like ruffled fur. “It was a team effort, Pearse.” He opened his mouth to deny it, but she cut him off, sounding half-angry. “Hal and Esther wouldn’t be here at all right now if it wasn’t for you.” Then she caught a gulp of breath and added in a grudging tone, “Well, and Tony, of course.”

Tony. For the first time Cory thought about the interview tapes he’d entrusted to his best friend’s care…the cameras and rolls of film Tony had shlepped through miles of jungle and monsoon rains, even after he’d sacrificed two of his neck straps to save Cory’s life. “Good old Tony…where is he, by the way?” he asked in a careful voice.

For the first time in a while, Sam grinned. “I expect he’ll be up here shortly. Last time I saw him he was on a live videophone to CNN in New York. Looks like you’d better get yourself out of that bed in a hurry, Pearse. The whole world’s a-waitin’ for your side of the story.”

He laughed, then let his eyes drift closed again, and for a few moments allowed himself to float on the sweet euphoria of being alive, all too aware the world was out there “a-waitin’” for him, aware of all the things that needed to be done, but content for the moment to let it all drift along without his participation, like flotsam on the same river flow.

Except for one thing. Only one thing in his life was compelling enough, right now, to coax him out of that lovely lethargy. He opened his eyes and let them rest on her with gratitude, like rafters on a turbulent river finding a quiet cove.

She gazed back at him with that poignant mix of toughness and vulnerability that had captivated him the first time he’d laid eyes on her-toughness in the thrust of her chin belied by the soft vulnerability of her mouth…her dark and troubled eyes…

He smiled and said in a raspy murmur, “Do you have to stand clear over there? I can’t very well come to you, and I sure would like to kiss you.”

She jerked as if he’d startled her, and he saw a shadow cross her face…something that looked like pain. She hesitated, then stepped close to his bed, leaned down, and he heard the small in-take of her breath just before she kissed him. It sounded very much like a sob. The kiss was brief and light, and with the taste of her only a tantalizing promise on his lips, before he could bring up his hand to hold her there, she straightened up and looked away, and he saw her throat ripple several times with swallows. An ache formed in his own throat as he realized she was fighting tears.

Tears? But this was Sam, who never cried.

“What is it?” His voice was harsh and rasping. “What’s wrong?” He groped for her hand. “Come here-sit.”

She shook her head rapidly and gave a high little laugh, though when she spoke, her words sounded thick and slurred. “Uh-uh-I’m too dirty. The nurse would probably kick my butt right on outa here if I got mud all over you. Besides-” she caught a quick breath and didn’t seem to know what to do with her eyes “-I have to go, anyway.”

“Do you have to?” Fighting irrational panic at the thought of her leaving, he took care to make his voice calm…light…gentle. “Where are you off to?”

Fidgeting, she ran a hand through her hair, still not meeting his eyes. “Right now, to find a shower and some clothes. And, if there’s a God, a toothbrush. Then…” She reached again for a breath. “I guess I’ll be flying to Washington.”

His heart did a violent skip, but he only lifted his eyebrows. “Flying?”

She gave him a tight little smile. “Commercial flight, Pearse. I have to check in with my…uh, you know. Debriefing, and so on.”

He studied her, ruthlessly squelching the part of him that wanted to grab her and hold on to her and wail like an abandoned child. He was well aware that he was treading a narrow and unstable path, and doing it pretty much blindfolded. You wanted a chance to do it right? Well, here’s where it begins. Don’t blow this, Pearse.

The only problem: he had no idea what the right thing was. Should he back off and let her go with his cheerful blessing, show her he was capable of dealing with the demands of her career? Or tell her the truth, hold nothing back?

He still didn’t know what he was about to say, not until the words came out of his mouth. “Wow. I hate to let you go.” He took a breath, let it out, shook his head, and managed to produce a smile that made his face ache. “I think…we need to talk, Sam. Tony says we do, anyway.”

She gave a small laugh like a whimper of pain…looked away, then down at her feet.

“I can’t believe all this-meeting again after so long, being together-I can’t believe it didn’t happen for a reason,” he said softly. “We had something…maybe it sounds like a cliché, but we had something special, Sam. We did. We let it get away-my fault, I know-but here we have a chance to fix it.” He paused, then took another breath and plunged. “I love you. I never stopped…loving you. If you love me…if you do…then I don’t see how we can walk away from that without trying to make it work this time. I want to make it work, Sam.”

She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Had vowed on her CIA oath she wouldn’t. She was going to damn Cory Pearson to hell if he made her break that vow. But, oh, how she wanted to cry. Her throat felt as though a giant hand was squeezing it. Her face was a thousand burning knots.

“How can it, Pearse?” she said in a broken voice, barely audible. “How can it possibly work? I love you, but-”

“But-?” he interrupted with a small crooked smile. “That’s the first time you’ve ever told me that, by the way.”

“It is not!” she shot back, her pain replaced by anger.

Maddeningly-and true to his nature-he only said gently, “It’s true-but never mind. I’ll take it. So, why won’t it work?”

“For the same reason it didn’t work for us before, dammit. I have a career you can’t deal with. And if you couldn’t handle me being a pilot, what are you going to do with a CIA operative, for God’s sake? And-” her voice broke unexpectedly; she drew herself in, fighting desperately to hold fast against the breech “-I love my job, Pearse. Like I started to say, I love you, but I don’t want to give it up. Maybe someday. Okay, someday, but not yet, not now, when I’ve just barely started. I want to make a difference; it’s important to me. I’ve worked all my life for this. It’s who I am. Why should I have to sacrifice that in order to be with you?”

“Everybody makes sacrifices,” he said softly.

“You wouldn’t give up your career. Nobody would ever expect you to.”

“Maybe not…but I’d definitely make some adjustments, in a heartbeat.” His eyes narrowed as though she’d become a light too bright to look at. “But that’s beside the point. What if I told you I’d be willing to accept your career? That I wouldn’t ask you to give up a thing?”

She stared at him, devastated, wanting to scream at him, curse him for taking away her anger, the only defense she had. She turned her face away from him and rubbed a hand over her burning eyes. “It wouldn’t work,” she mumbled. “I know you mean it. You’d try your best, but…I know what you want, Pearse. I know exactly the kind of life, the kind of home and family you want. Because it’s what I had, growing up. It was great. No doubt about it. It was…wonderful. And I can’t rob you of that. I can’t.”

“Don’t you think you should let me decide what I’m willing to give up?” He punched down on the mattress beside his hips, trying to push himself upright, and she saw anger awaken, now, in his eyes.

She shook her head…closed her eyes…took a breath. “Okay, but…it’s not the only thing-”

“For God’s sake, Sam,” he exploded in a torn voice, “what else is there? If you don’t want to be with me, just say so.”

She jerked around, trembling violently. “That’s just it, dammit-I do want to be with you. I want to be with you. I want to share myself with you, and I want you to do the same with me. I don’t want this…I can’t stand this one-way street. It’s too damn lonely, Pearse. It’s too damn lonely…” She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the tears or the sob that ripped through her throat. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in love with a ghost. A really kind, loving, benevolent ghost. Because…the truth is, I don’t have a clue who you are. I can’t touch you.” She clutched air with her fingers, then gathered the fistful to her chest. “I can’t touch you here. I can’t get past your barricades. Your secrets…”

“Secrets?” She could almost see him cringe away from her as he said it, and his eyes blazed at her, with anger, yes, but with something else, too. Something that looked very much like fear. “What are you talking about?”

She dashed away tears, grateful at least to have the anger-baton passed back to her. It was much more comfortable than the tears. “Your family, Pearse. Your childhood. Those brothers and sisters you never told me about. Your parents.”

And now she could see him withdrawing behind his defenses, like a turtle into its shell. “They died,” he said stiffly. “I told you that. It’s no secret.”

Make him tell you, Sam.

She leaned toward him, shaking inside, knuckles white as she gripped the safety bar on the side of the bed. “Yeah? How did they die, Pearse?”

He made a small violent gesture of denial. “God-I was a kid, I don’t remember-”

She held up a not-quite-steady hand. “Don’t-I mean it. Don’t give me that. It was in the papers. It’s in the record. Tony looked it up. If he knows, you sure as hell do.”

He glared at her, and he’d never looked at her that way before…with his face a mask of anger and fear. In a voice so icy it made her shudder, he said, “If Tony knows, then why don’t you ask him?”

She almost gave it up, then. She’d never felt such anger before, not from her Cory, gentle, empathetic Cory, not directed at her. It devastated her; she wanted to turn and flee, run away from it as fast as she could. But somehow she stayed. She stayed because somehow she knew that for a man like Cory, such anger could only mean wounds too deep and raw to deal with any other way. Wounds beyond the scope of her experience, or her power to heal.

You have to make him tell you.

Yes, and she’d started this. She’d gone this far, opened the door, grabbed the tiger’s tail. She couldn’t let go now.

Pulling back a little and drawing in a calming breath, she said, “I did ask him, actually. He wouldn’t tell me. He said it has to come from you-whatever it is-this terrible, deep dark secret. He said you need to tell me.”

Cory jerked and made a scoffing noise. “Since when did Tony become a shrink?”

“You know what?” said Sam, ignoring the sarcasm. “I think he’s right. I think you need to tell me. Because if you can’t, if you can’t bring yourself to share even that much of your past with me, then I don’t see how there’s anything more for us to talk about.”

She saw the anger drain from his face, leaving only fear. Fear that bleached his skin to a muddy gray, and misted his forehead with sweat. Fear that lurked behind his eyes like the monster in a child’s closet. “You’re not being fair, Sam,” he said, in a gritty voice, barely above a whisper.

It seemed a very long time that she went on gazing at him, while her heart thundered and her body trembled, while voices of protest and rejection and denial screamed and echoed inside her head. She closed her ears to them all and said softly, “Goodbye, Pearse.” Then turned and walked away on legs of glass.