My Spy (35 page)

“More secret documents?”

Neither man spoke, and their silence was an eloquent reminder that Annie's world would never be Sam's world. There were secrets she could never know. But she had accepted that already, hadn't she?

She crooked her finger at Sam. “Come on, ace. Let's go see how good you really are.”

A
FTER
AN
HOUR
OF
EXERCISE, SAM
WAS
COVERED
WITH
SWEAT, his muscles pumped and zinging. He could have gone on for another hour, but Annie called a halt when she saw him wince after a sudden move.

“So what's your diagnosis?”

She ticked off words on her fingers. “Arrogant. Pushy. Manipulative—”

His brow rose. “Medically speaking.”

“I'm pretty sure you'll live.” She shifted a barbell back and forth between her hands. “In another week I probably won't be able to do much more for you. You know the drills and the proper form. The rest of the work will be up to you.”

“So you'll be glad to get rid of me?”

Annie stacked the barbell neatly in its holder, avoiding his eyes. “Did I say that?”

“Not quite, but it feels pretty close.”

She took a step away, feeling a sudden need for distance. With Sam solidly on his way to recovery, it was time for her to make some decisions about their future. For that, Annie needed a clear head. “I'm going outside.”

“Not alone, you aren't.”

“Don't growl, McKade. I'm only going to my patio.”

Sam started to stand up, but Annie stopped him. “I'd rather you didn't come with me. I—I need to be alone.”

“Taylor told me you could be like this. She said you shut people out and refused to ask for help. It makes her furious, and I'm starting to understand how she feels.”

“Let's leave Taylor out of this,” Annie said stiffly.

“Granted, what she did was crazy and thoughtless, but she did it out of raw instinct to get back at someone who hurt you, and I know
exactly
how she feels.”

Because his words chipped at her thin veneer of control, Annie turned away. She was exhausted from the emotional storms of the last two days and she had no strength for an argument. “Don't, Sam. I can't talk about this now.”

“When?” He touched her shoulder.

“I don't know.” She stiffened.

“Why do you pull away like that? Why are you so afraid to ask for help? Let me
in,
Annie. Is that so hard?”

Annie's fingers locked. Hard? No, it was far too easy.

She was white-knuckle terrified of how easy it would be to rely on this strong, decent man for support. In a matter of days or weeks, he would be gone without an explanation, exactly like last time. It came with the job he did, and nothing Annie said could change that.

He's the one,
she thought. Exactly the kind of man she'd never hoped to find.

And he was the one man with no future to offer any woman, not as long as the job came first.

For Sam it always would, macho idiot hero that he was. There would always be another busload of children to rescue or a kidnapped American to free. Sam was too highly trained to be wasted on average, everyday Navy duties, that much was clear.

Real-life heroes didn't work eight to five, then head home to the wife and kids for a quiet night of touch football and barbecuing on the patio. For Sam, risking his life in dangerous places was standard operating procedure.

Annie had no place in that dangerous, unpredictable life. The sooner she accepted that, the less she would be hurt. She had bled inside when he'd left. Day after day she had hoped for a call or a fax or a letter, even though he'd made no promises.

She couldn't go through that again.

“You've already helped me,” she said, cool and distant in the face of his anger. “I thought I'd thanked you.”

“Thanked me? You mean shake hands and exchange air kisses?”

“Sam, don't.”

“Don't
what
? Don't be furious that your face is white and you act like I'm a damned stranger? Maybe I should introduce myself, Annie. I'm the man you bit and clawed through sweaty, moaning sex. Want to see your nail marks?” He yanked up his gray T-shirt. “They're right here where you put them.”

Annie saw the pale red marks, just as he'd said. But now she saw that they framed darker wounds, along with the faint silver traces of much older scars from bullets, knives, and ropes.

Because Sam McKade was a warrior. Fighting was his life, just as healing was hers. How could she have forgotten something so important and so irrevocable?

Annie closed her eyes. She hadn't expected him to fight dirty, which was almost funny, considering that fighting dirty was what he was trained to do best. She'd seen his performance aboard that skidding bus. He was tough and focused, and he'd been taught to survey hostile terrain, assess the enemy precisely, then fight hard, using every dirty trick and tool at his disposal.

Annie didn't have a hope of standing up to that.

So she wouldn't try.

She stared at his chest. “I'm sorry I hurt you like that.”

“It's not the marks that hurt, Annie.” His jaw moved once. “It's being shut out this way like a stranger.”

“It was just sex, Sam.”

“Like
hell
it was.” He pulled a towel from the table and tossed it over her shoulder. “It was a whole lot more. We both know that.”

“No.” Somehow Annie kept her voice very calm. “What we did changed nothing.”

“You're wrong. You don't just walk away from an experience like that.”

“Why? Men do it all the time.” She was tired and frightened and confused, and she needed to get away before she unraveled. It was too easy to lean, too easy to hide from making hard choices. “I'm going outside.”

“Fine. Just remember this isn't finished between us.”

“I'm tired, Sam.”

“Of course you are.” He looked as if he would touch her, but his hand fell. “You've been through hell. Maybe we both have.” He smoothed the towel over her shoulder, then took a step back. “I'm not running away from this. I'm not letting you run either.”

“Maybe the decision has already been made.”

“What do you mean?”

Annie straightened her shoulders. If he wanted to fight dirty, she'd match him now. It was actually a relief to stop pretending she didn't know what was coming. “I know you'll have to leave soon, Sam. When the orders come, you'll vanish. You probably won't even be able to say good-bye.”

He didn't move, didn't speak.

“That's what I thought you'd have to say.”

“Annie, I—”

“You
are
leaving soon, right?”

His jaw worked hard. Then he nodded.

“And you won't be able to tell me when or where, because that's standard operating procedure. One day I'll wake up and you'll be gone.”

He took a hard breath. “I can't apologize for doing my job.”

“And I can't apologize for doing mine. Which brings us to good-bye, no matter how you look at it.”

Annie closed her eyes. When they opened, she was more tired than before. Maybe some part of her had hoped she was wrong. “That leaves us right back where we ended last time. But I'm tired, Sam. I'm tired of painting pretty pictures and pretending I don't care. Since it's going to be over, I'd rather we start now.” She gripped the towel tightly before her chest, almost like a shield. “Now I'm going outside. I'd appreciate it if you didn't follow me.”

S
HE
MANAGED
A
PASSABLE
EXIT.
LATER, ANNIE
WOULD
BE
PROUD of that.

There had been no spilled tears, no wobbly knees. No panic and no second thoughts.

But it had been harder than she'd dreamed possible, because the tears had threatened, blocking off her throat. Down the hill she heard the sharp slam of a car door. Probably another guest leaving in haste.

She winced at the thought, hit by a crushing sense of failure. She'd mishandled Marsh, misreading his intentions completely. She'd been too slow to take precautions and now everything she valued was in jeopardy, and she was to blame.

The buck stops here.

The simple truth was that she should have seen where things were heading and tossed Marsh out at the first sign of trouble. Being frightened of litigation and distracted by Sam was no excuse, she told herself bitterly.

Down the hill another car door slammed. Annie did some quick math and sighed. At this rate, she'd have only five guests left by morning.

Maybe she'd have none.

Mist curled around her as she cranked up the whirlpool heater, then switched the motor to high. With a sigh she sank into the hot, churning water and closed her eyes. Her head hurt and her ribs were bruised. But what hurt most was the knowledge that she'd failed. A good reputation was hard to achieve and even harder to maintain. Surrounded by luxury hotel chains bankrolled by international resources, she had to rely on impeccable service, discretion, and word-of-mouth recommendations to survive. Customer satisfaction had always been her hallmark, and her clientele demanded privacy and peace.

Now that sense of peace and privacy was threatened by the media zoo in progress and rumors of sabotage at the resort. Two huge hotel chains had already phoned, offering to buy the resort, and even Annie's local bank had expressed concerns about how the publicity would affect her future bookings.

If the attention continued, she would lose most of her clientele, people with hectic, high-power lives who came to the beautiful, isolated beach to escape from the rat race, instead of finding it right on their doorstep.

Marsh might have the last laugh after all.

She kept her eyes from the windows, from the shadowed
figure pacing inside. In the midst of this chaos, there was Sam, distracting her, confusing her, making her want things she'd never wanted before.

But he would be leaving soon. They both knew his job demanded it. Why did he have this ridiculous idea that they had a future, something that could outlast a few torrid encounters?

Forget about the sex,
Annie told herself.

Forget about Sam, too.

She traced the churning water with her hand, watching steam rise in slow spirals. At least she would always have Summerwind.

S
HE
WAS
WALKING
RIGHT
AT
THE
EDGE, SAM
THOUGHT.

She was pale and strained. Even then, she wouldn't give an inch.

He stared out the window, hating the slump to her shoulders and the weary way she sank onto the deck. Tucker Marsh was to blame for some of it, but Sam knew a major part of the blame was his. It was his arrival that had thrown her life into chaos, eating into her work time and distracting her from the heavy demands of running the resort.

Taylor had told him glumly that guests were checking out at a record clip. Though they'd kept the details from Annie, she was too smart not to guess how bad things were.

He looked up as Izzy emerged from the courtyard. “How is it out there?”