Return of a Hero (10 page)

“But it is.”

“He’s not a convict, Jim!”

“Look, I didn’t mean to upset you, Laura. It’s just that this guy is hiding something. I don’t like the fact that he’s there with you all the time.”

She gripped the phone. “That’s really the reason, isn’t it, Jim?”

“What?”

“Don’t play games with me. I think you’re being protective. I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Jim.”

“I’ve liked you for a long time, Laura—you know that.”

Keeping the anger from her voice, she pleaded with him, “Jim, leave Morgan’s past alone. Please. He’s not a threat to me in any way. The man is simply trying to repay me for saving his life. That’s all.”

Jim’s voice grew dark. “Not from what I could see. You’re blind right now, Laura. You don’t see how he looks at you. It’s as if he’s staked his claim, and I don’t like it.”

“Jim, you’re way out of line. My private life is my own, not yours. And he’s certainly hasn’t ‘staked a claim’ on me. How can you be so distrusting when the man hasn’t done anything to deserve it?”

“Laura, you’re angry, and I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”

“You’re darned right I am. What if someone started snooping into your past?”

“I don’t have anything to hide,” Jim said tightly. “When I get anything more on him, I’ll call you.”

Her voice shook with anger. “No, Jim, don’t call. You’re invading my privacy. You see, I trust Morgan. I don’t
care
what his past is. I judge people on how they treat me, not by their names, their pasts or whatever else. Goodbye!” She groped until she found the phone cradle, then dropped the receiver into it. The day wasn’t starting off on the right foot at all. Jim Woodward was jealous and protective of her in a way she’d never fathom.

“Men and their games!” she grumped, throwing off the covers. As she placed her feet on the floor, she gasped. The world was no longer black in front of her eyes. It was a dark gray, instead. She placed her hand in front of her face; she could barely make out the outline of it.

She sat for several minutes, assimilating her discovery. Her vision was returning! She was able to discern shadow from light. If she held something close to her eyes, placing it in the sunlight cascading through the ruffled pink curtains, she could make out its general shape, but not the color. Tears streamed from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She was going to see again!
Oh, God, thank you!

But her happiness eroded as Jim’s phone call came back to haunt her. She sat on the edge of the bed, scuffing her toe into the carpet. She couldn’t believe Morgan was lying to her about his family or Vietnam because of the emotion in his voice when he spoke about them.

After getting her morning bath and washing her hair, she put on the clothes Morgan had laid out for her to wear the night before. Troubled, she made her way to the kitchen. She stopped at the entrance, narrowing her eyes, straining to discover if she could see anything. Something moved near the counter—a dark shape against the sunlight pouring in through the windows.

“Morgan?”

Morgan turned, still immersed in thought. “Good morning.” Laura looked pretty in the lavender dolman-sleeved blouse and threadbare jeans. Today she wanted to plant begonias and had asked for her worst clothes to wear. Somehow, Morgan thought, feeling his heart squeeze with fresh feelings of happiness, she looked pretty despite her disheveled clothes. Her smile was uncertain, and he noticed she was pale.

“That phone call woke you, didn’t it?” he asked, walking over and leading her to the chair at the table.

“Yes.”

“Woodward?” he guessed, putting slices of bread into the toaster.

She heard the edge to his tone. “How did you know?”

“A gut feeling.” Bad news always traveled fast. “What did he have to say?”

If only she could see the expression on Morgan’s face! It would tell her so much. Laura chewed on her lower lip. “Not much. Just that he swore he recognized you and was now going through photo files at the Pentagon to see if he could find something on you.”

Morgan’s hands froze over the toast he was buttering. According to what he could find out last year when his full memory had returned, there had been plenty of press and photos on the loss of his men on Hill 164. Sooner or later Jim Woodward would stumble onto the truth. He set the toast aside and divided the scrambled eggs between the two plates. Bringing them over to the table, he set them down.

“Let it pass, Laura. Woodward is chasing up blind alleys for no reason. Come on, let’s eat a hearty breakfast and get to planting those begonia bulbs.”

Laura hesitated. Should she tell Morgan that her sight was returning? And that she knew Ramsey wasn’t his last name? She sensed his nervousness. Something told her that he’d disappear if she admitted either thing. Picking up the fork, she forced herself to eat. The last thing she wanted was for him to walk out of her life.

“Laura?” Morgan reached over, sliding his hand along her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Just the concerned tenor of his voice unstrung her. Tears welled up in her eyes and she quickly shut them. Morgan must not know how much he’d come to mean to her in such a short time. “N-nothing.”

“It’s Woodward’s phone call that’s bothering you, isn’t it?”

She put her fork down on her plate. “Yes.”

Morgan sat very still. If he told her the truth, she’d want him out of her life. And that shook him like nothing else had in the past year. He absorbed her concerned features. How could someone so small and delicate have captured his heart so thoroughly in one week’s time? Suddenly the thought of losing Laura was almost too much to bear.

Miserably Morgan moved the plates aside. He moved his chair next to Laura’s and took her hands. “We have to talk,” he whispered hoarsely.

Laura gripped his hands. They were cold, almost icy. Morgan’s face was heavily lined, and his gray eyes were desolate-looking as he held her gaze. She stilled her joy over her steadily improving eyesight. Morgan’s plight was far more important to her heart. “Tell me,” she urged softly.

“You won’t want me to stay after I tell you, Laura,” he warned.

She shook her head, tightening her hands on his. “Let me be the judge of that, Morgan. What happened in your past that still haunts you?”

Taking a deep breath, he let the pain-filled words flow from his conscience and heart. “In January of 1970 I was commanding a company of marines in the I Corps area of Vietnam. My assistant company commander, Lieutenant Stephen Cantrell, was my best friend. Both of us questioned the orders to put our company on Hill 164, which was deep within enemy territory. When I called Colonel Jack Armstrong, he told me the tactical plan had been approved by his superiors, right up the line. He promised we’d have air and artillery support just in case the NVA got aggressive and started testing our defenses.”

Morgan shut his eyes, reliving the nightmare. “We were up on that lousy hill for two days, getting the hell rocketed out of us. I was losing men fast. A lot of the time we couldn’t even get medevac in to take out the wounded, because the NVA had us pinned down. Every time I requested permission to withdraw, Armstrong insisted we stay.” His voice grew husky. “And then they hit us with at least a battalion of NVA. We fought all night. I called for air and artillery, but they weren’t available. By dawn there were fifteen of us left. Then came the final attack. It was hand-to-hand combat. The last thing I remember was Stephen getting shot and falling beside me. I saw an NVA officer charge me with his bayonet.” He pointed to the scar on his face. “I remember getting cut. And then I blanked out.”

“My God,” Laura said, her voice quavering, “I remember now…you’re Captain Morgan Trayhern.”

He studied her in silence, watching the myriad emotions play across her face. Morgan expected her to withdraw her hands from his. “Yeah, that’s me.”

Tears stung Laura’s eyes, and she sniffed. “But the press and Pentagon accused you of being a traitor, of leaving your post before your men died.” She lifted her hand, sliding it across his shoulder, seeing his eyes bleak with pain. “I can’t believe you ran, not after the way you’ve taken care of me. Morgan, you aren’t capable of that.”

A corner of his mouth lifted and he glanced over at her. “I didn’t run, Laura. It was all a fabrication.”

“How?”

He bowed his head, and his words were harsh. “Twenty-four hours later, according to Colonel Armstrong, they managed to get a relief column to Hill 164. They found two of us alive—me and Private Lenny Miles. The doctors sent me to Japan, to a hospital controlled by the CIA. The surgeons told Armstrong I was going to die. I had a fractured skull and two bayonet wounds in my chest.

Laura cringed. “Oh, Morgan…”

“That isn’t the worst of it,” he growled. “After all the surgery and a week in a coma, I survived. Armstrong flew over to Japan and paid me a visit. When I became conscious, I found I’d lost my memory. I didn’t know who I was, where I was or anything else. Because of the damage to my brain, the doctors felt I’d never regain my memory or my sense of smell. Armstrong knew it and fabricated a new identity and personal history for me. My name was Morgan Ramsey and I was a CIA operative. I had been wounded in Laos on assignment and was in Japan to recuperate. He said that my next assignment would be to join the French Foreign Legion and act as a mole in that outfit, giving the CIA information as they needed it. Before Armstrong left, he gave me a file covering my life history. I didn’t know any differently, so I swallowed my ‘past,’ never dreaming I’d been lied to.”

Horror engulfed Laura, and she placed a hand across her mouth. Morgan’s face mirrored his anguish. “What they’ve done is illegal,” she whispered angrily. “They’ve framed you! Your name and face were splashed across every major television network and newspaper for at least a month. Your poor family…”

“Yeah, they’ve suffered more than anyone,” Morgan ground out. “A year ago I was climbing a cliff face with my company when the rope broke. I fell thirty feet to the ground and struck my head. Luckily I had a helmet on, or I’m sure it would have split open my skull,” he said ruefully. “But what the accident did was slowly start to bring my memory back. I’d been seeing the faces of certain people in my dreams for the six previous years, and never knew who they were. Now I knew. They were my parents, my brother, Noah, and my sister, Aly.”

“And did you contact General Armstrong once you knew the truth?”

“I did. The CIA operative I’d been working with in Marseilles from time to time suddenly disappeared. I called the Pentagon to talk with General Kip Young, who had been my battalion commander back in 1970, but no one would talk to me.” Morgan got up and paced the kitchen. “For the rest of the year, I wondered what the hell to do. I knew from what little I’d investigated about myself that I’d been branded the consummate traitor to this country. And then two weeks ago I got a phone call from the commandant of the Legion. He ordered me to fly to D.C., and wouldn’t say why. Of course I had to follow orders. When I got stateside, I found out that Armstrong was dying. He wanted to see me to tell me that sometimes one good man had to be sacrificed for a dedicated group of military officers.”

Her heart squeezed with anguish at the hardness and tension in Morgan’s face. “Was Armstrong going to clear you?”

“Hell, no!” Morgan exploded, halting in the center of the kitchen. “The bastard just wanted to get things off his chest and make everything right with his Maker. Young warned me that if I tried to stay in D.C. or expose the snafu I wouldn’t get anywhere.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I wanted to see my family, but I knew that under the circumstances it was impossible. They’ve gone through enough pain and hardship for my sake. When you saw me at the airport that morning, I was tied in knots. That’s why I stepped in front of that limo without looking. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was all wrapped up in my emotions.”

Laura sat there, the shock and silence settling over her. Her mind spun with questions and possible answers. She saw him staring at her, doubt in his eyes. “I believe you, Morgan,” she hurried to assure him.

The words fell softly against his throttled anger and fear. The three words offered him hope for once, instead of despair. Laura looked diminutive sitting there, her hands tense in her lap as she gazed up in his direction. “Besides my family, you’re the only other person who ever would,” Morgan responded bitterly.

Laura got to her feet and walked slowly in his direction, pretending she was still blind by holding out her hand. She lifted her arms once she made contact with Morgan, placing them around his sagging shoulders. There was incredible tension in him as she pressed herself against him. “You’re the bravest man I’ve ever met,” she whispered against his ear. “And you’re so tired….”

Just Laura’s sweet contact broke Morgan. With a groan he swept his arms around her, nearly crushing her. He buried his face in her hair, a sob trying to wrench from deep within him. But he held it back as he always did. He felt her belief in him shatter all his bitterness.

“Just let me hold you,” Laura crooned, beginning to stroke his short, black hair with her trembling fingers.

Morgan’s world spun around Laura, the strength of her slight form against him giving him sustenance, when he’d had so little the past seven years. He felt her slender arms holding him more firmly, offering solace. The pain in his heart was transformed, and a ragged sigh broke from the tortured line of his mouth.

“You’re so damn giving,” Morgan rasped, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I couldn’t believe you’d stepped out in front of that limo for me. It just exploded my world.” He nuzzled into the thick strands of her hair. “You’re so small and yet so strong. Strong in ways I’m not, Laura….”

His mouth hungrily trailed a path of fire from her temple to her cheek. “Morgan,” she breathed, lifting her lips to his assault, and felt his mouth claim hers with fiery urgency, drinking her into his soul. Surrendering to him, she relaxed within his powerful grip, spiraling into a cauldron of simmering desire. Eagerly she returned his kiss, matching his hunger with her own. He was at once demanding, claiming her, stealing her breath—her heart—as his sweet assault continued. Her senses reeled until her limbs felt weak beneath his onslaught.