Shades of Gray (10 page)

“The last thing I needed,” Andres said, his voice still hard, “was the United States as an active enemy. The terrorists wanted Kelsey; they would have killed him. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the U.S. wouldn’t have liked that. It was all to the good, as far as I was concerned, to get Kelsey out of here as soon as possible. Without, I need hardly say, angering the Final Legion any more than necessary.”

The last statement was, she thought, uttered with deliberation; Andres still wasn’t prepared to “apologize” for having allowed the terrorist group a base on Kadeira. She nodded slowly but made no comment.

Abruptly the darkness was gone; having allowed her to hear motives that he had flatly maintained were largely selfish and self-serving ones, Andres veered to another subject.

“At any rate, you were going to tell me what contact you’ve had with Long and his friends.” His voice was quiet and calm again, his face less masklike, curiously relieved-looking.

“It wasn’t much. I talked to Sarah, of course, before they came here. And a few days after. It
was—oh, I guess it was a couple of months later when they found me.” She smiled suddenly, ruefully. “Your people and, for that matter, Lucio’s, could take lessons from Josh Long on how to find people who don’t want to be found. I was feeling pretty safe at that point and was staying in a small hotel on the West Coast. I never even sensed I was being watched, but I must have been, because Sarah Cavell—Sarah Lewis by then—just appeared at my door one day.”

“And?” Andres prompted when she fell silent.

“She was very kind.” Sara cleared her throat. “She said they were concerned about me. That Josh and Raven Long, and their security expert Zach Steele, wanted to talk to me. She took me to another hotel, a big one, and that’s when I met the others. Rafferty was there too. They offered to help me. Josh said it was possible to build a new identity for me so nobody would ever be able to find me, if that was what I wanted.”

After a moment Andres said, “You would have been safe.” His mouth twisted suddenly. “I thought I could keep you safe here, and within
twenty-four hours you were taken from me. You should have accepted Long’s offer, Sara.”

She felt an abrupt surge of anger. “I should have? And just become someone else, like changing clothing? It was
my
life, Andres!
My
name. I might have run, but I always knew who I was. And I won’t let anybody take that away from me!”

Her outburst seemed to have shaken him; his eyes were shuttered again, his face expressionless. And his voice was quiet when he said, “Of course not. And I’m sure they knew that, understood that.”

Sara snatched at calmness, held on to it. Careful, she had to be careful. But she felt unsettled, and from more than the burst of anger. “They knew. Especially Raven, I think. Raven is Josh’s wife. I thanked them but told them I didn’t want that. They weren’t surprised. They asked me to keep in touch, let them know how I was from time to time. And for a while I was in touch with Sarah. But not recently. Not since somebody—I don’t even know who it was now, your men or
Lucio’s or Hagen’s—almost caught me. I just ran after that.”

“I see.”

She looked at him, feeling puzzled again. “Why did you ask? Is it important?”

“Perhaps. I was alerted yesterday that Long and his friends are troubled over your disappearance and may take it upon themselves to act.”

“Come here, you mean?” Sara frowned. “It doesn’t seem likely. They hardly know me, Andres.”

He smiled a little, the mask easing because they were being careful again. “I met Long years ago, talked to him. And I talked to him just before Rafferty and Sarah arrived. He is the kind of man who will always intercede when wrong things happen. As far as any of them know, you’re being kept here totally against your will, possibly behind bars. He would care about that, I think, and wish to help you.”

Sara dropped her gaze to the hands folded in her lap. But they knew something Andres didn’t know, couldn’t be sure of, she thought,
something that might make them hesitate in any attempt to “rescue” her. They all knew she loved Andres, she was sure of that. Softly, without looking up, she asked, “What will you do if they come here?”

“If they come openly,” he said in an even tone, “my ships will warn them off, just as they would any casual visitors.”

“Warn them off—forcefully?” She looked up then, seeing his face change as they once again approached that darkness.

But the darkness didn’t quite arrive, because Andres shook his head with a faint smile, with that same odd relief. “That wouldn’t be wise of me, would it? I can only warn politely where men such as Joshua Long are concerned. If he chooses to ignore my warning, there is little I can do about it. I could protest to his government, I suppose, but even they tend to tread warily around such men.”

After a moment Sara said, “If I could talk to them—”

“I don’t dare attempt radio communication. Lucio is able to intercept the transmissions, and
above all else, he must not know that one of the richest men in the world may be en route here.”

“Damn,” she said softly. Then, realizing, she said, “You really respect Josh Long, don’t you? Not just what he is—but the man he is.”

Andres nodded. “He wields great power, Sara—far more than most people realize. And he does it with grace. He has strength and commands absolute loyalty, but never through fear. His word is known throughout the world to be his bond—no exceptions. And he is, above all, an honest man.” Andres’s smile was crooked. “Not one man in a million possesses that unique melding of positive traits. I wish …”

“What do you wish?” she asked.

In a light, faintly self-mocking tone he replied, “I wish he could teach me just one of those traits.”

“Which one?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“To wield power gracefully.” Abruptly he got to his feet, and his voice had gone flat when he added, “You’re right to fear the darkness in me, Sara. Power is a dangerous thing.” He left the room before she could respond.

After a moment she picked up her book and opened it, gazing down on the pages blindly. Something, she realized, had happened. Something had changed.

“It was for my benefit as well.”

“Power is a dangerous thing.”

Careful; they had been careful. And yet … She had the odd feeling now that Andres had decided something the night before, had made up his mind, and was acting on that private decision. He had shown her a glimpse of the darkness in him, had spoken flatly of self-serving motives without apology. He had told her she was right to be afraid. He had never once spoken of love, had not used endearments.

“He’s pushing me away.” She heard her blank voice speaking aloud, startling her. But that was it, of course; that was what he had decided.

He was convinced she could never love the dark part of him, had been convinced all along, or else why hide it? Even now he was convinced. That was why there had been no endearments, no words of love. He was, with deliberation,
with stony determination, pushing her away. And he was tearing himself up inside to do it.

Sara didn’t doubt that Andres loved her. She wondered now if she had ever doubted it. Probably not. She hadn’t wanted to face it, hadn’t wanted to accept it, but she had never doubted it. Andres loved her.

And he was trying to make it easier for her to leave him. Sometime during or after their strained discussion the previous night, he had simply decided that she would be better off without him, had perhaps come to the conclusion that she would leave, anyway, whether she came to understand him or not. And he had doubtless realized that neither of them would be able to cope with a slow, agonizing interlude before she finally left him. And this time the leaving would be final. There hadn’t been an ending between them before; Andres was going to end it this time. He would end it with absolute finality, driving her away from him so completely that no shadow of love would remain to haunt her.

That was what he thought would happen.

The question was: Was he right?

Could she love the worst of him, whatever that might prove to be? She had run before, in fear. In fear that she could love a man who could do so monstrous a thing as house terrorists and take blood money from them. The voice in her mind was clear and firm, and she listened to it in dawning realization.

She knew the worst of him.

And the rest? Her wariness, her uneasy awareness of the dark strength in him, the ruthlessness? Was she truly afraid of these qualities, or was she simply afraid she loved even that about the man? No. It was something else. And she thought she knew now what she was afraid of.

She accepted, fully and for the first time, that she loved Andres. She had awakened to find him kneeling by her bed, had seen, just minutes ago, what might have been his soul. Nothing would ever be the same again. Her driven need to tear at him was gone, and she couldn’t sit silently by and watch him tear at himself, convinced he was destroying whatever she felt for him, certain he was helping to end things for her with a minimum of pain.

Sara laid her book aside with unnatural care and got up from the couch. She left the library and went down the hall to Andres’s study, knocking briefly before opening the door and going in. And she totally ignored the startled presence of Colonel Durant when she asked a stark question.

“Do you know that I love you?”

Durant melted away without a word, and Andres stood at his desk where they’d been working, studying a map of the island. He was looking at her, his face a hard mask and his eyes blank. He didn’t go to her as he would have the day before, didn’t move to touch her.

“Do you know that?” she asked again.

“Sara—” His voice was harsh with strain, giving him away as it always would.

“Do you know that I didn’t run away from this island because you let terrorists stay here?” Every word emerged clear and calm, and she walked toward him slowly. “I ran because I loved you
despite
that, and it scared the hell out of me. It didn’t seem possible that I could love a man who could shelter the very terrorists who
had killed my parents and so many other innocent people. But I did, and I knew it. So I ran. It was too much, too strong, and it still is.”

She stopped an arm’s length away, looking up into the handsome face that was losing its mask, into eyes with no shutters hiding them. “I don’t know if I can handle something that strong,” she went on steadily. “I don’t know if
I’m
strong enough. But I do know one thing. I can’t let you tear yourself apart thinking that something inside you could destroy my love. I love you, Andres. And nothing could change that.”

Sara wasn’t surprised that he still didn’t touch her, didn’t move toward her. She could feel the tension in him, the battle to hold himself away from her. She knew why. Because the feelings were so violent. Because there weren’t, couldn’t be, any half measures between them; there were only complicated questions with complex answers.

“You’re still afraid,” he said finally, roughly. “Why do you come to me when you’re still afraid? Is it pity, Sara?”

She knew he was remembering the night
before and the broken, uncertain prayers by her bed. Knew he was wondering if that memory had brought her here. “You’re too strong to be pitied,” she told him quietly, honestly. “And, yes, I’m still afraid. The difference is that now I know why. Not of anything in you but of how I might react to it. I’ve never felt so strongly before, Andres. How you make me feel is so frightening—the power of it, our ability to hurt each other. It’s a—a kind of bond, and there’s no escaping it.”

“Is that what you want? To escape it?”

Sara shook her head a little. “I tried before, Andres, and I couldn’t. Even if you hadn’t brought me back here, I wouldn’t have escaped it. I would have kept running, but I wouldn’t have gotten away from it. From you.”

“But is it what you
want
?” he asked harshly, demanding an answer to that torturous question. “To escape?”

“No, not anymore.” Her voice was very soft. “I’ve realized I love you too much to want that now. But I have to know that I can give you everything you need without losing myself.
Don’t you see? I have to match you, balance you, or I’ll be overwhelmed by you. You’re stronger than you know, Andres. And much of that strength comes from the intensity in you, the ability to be ruthless when you have to. I have to face it, find out if I can understand and cope with it, or it’s no good—it’ll never be any good. If I’m not strong enough to love you, we’d be better off apart.
That’s
what I’m afraid of.”

She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “And that’s why I won’t let you push me away, Andres. I won’t let you hurt yourself, or me, by trying to end it. You can’t end it.”

His hands rose, as though they had minds of their own, and rested very carefully on her shoulders. “You said you had to see the worst of me,” he reminded her, his voice still rough.

Sara hesitated, shaking her head a little and thinking of the clumsy uselessness of words when feelings were so powerful. “I do. But, Andres, I’ll never see anything in you to make me hate you, or be afraid of you. I know that. I think I always knew it. I just have to find out if I’m strong enough. Do you remember in the
garden when I said I didn’t have the strength for this? You said I had to have it, and you told me—”

“That the love I have for you is the best of me?” he said, finishing for her.

She nodded jerkily. “Yes. To feel so much takes strength, Andres. It isn’t a tame thing between us, a gentle thing. Nothing in my life prepared me for you.”

“Sara!” his hands tightened on her shoulders, and she could feel a tremor in them. “My love, you have strength, great strength. I know it. I feel it.”

She half closed her eyes in relief at the endearment, knowing only then that he wouldn’t go on trying to push her away. Until that moment she hadn’t been sure she would win. “I have to be certain,” she whispered. “I have to know that I’m strong enough to handle this, strong enough to give you everything you need. Just give me a little time?”