Summer Games (36 page)

He could have left his work at any time in the past. He hadn’t. She had been a fool to misunderstand what he was offering, to give far more of herself than was required by their private summer games. But that was the way she was. All or nothing at all.

With cold fingers, she reached into her pocket and drew out the gold coin Cord had given her. The irony of two gold medals for two different kinds of games made her lips flatten and turn down at the corners. She wondered if Cord had meant to be so cold. Maybe he simply had been trying to tell her that their lovers’ games, though over, had been world-class.

“Find him,” Raine said, looking at her father with eyes as blind as the gold coin gleaming on her outstretched palm. “Give this to him. He needs it more than I do.” She turned away, hiding her tears. “When you’re finished, I’ll be here.”

Chandler-Smith made two telephone calls from his car. The first told him that Johnstone’s cover name for the Olympics had been Cord Elliot.

The second call was to the woman who was technically Robert Johnstone’s boss.

“Where is Johnstone?” he asked.

“According to our records, he’s dead.”

An icy weariness settled over Chandler-Smith. He closed his eyes and bit back a futile protest.

“Tell me.”

“Are you on a secure line?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Barracuda cut and ran toward the desert. Bonner followed. So did the Delta boys. Johnstone, only he was called Cord Elliot for this operation, caught a ride with them. Bonner went after Barracuda and got shot. Johnstone waited almost until dark and went in to pull Bonner out. Barracuda killed Bonner, only we’re calling him Johnstone now, and then Johnstone killed Barracuda, but—”

“Wait,” Chandler-Smith interrupted curtly. “Who died?”

“Barracuda killed Bonner. Johnstone killed Barracuda. But he damn near died doing it.”

“Is Johnstone alive?”

“Didn’t I just say so?”

“You told me he was dead!”

“No, I said our records indicated that Johnstone is dead. You asked me to find a graceful exit from government service for Johnstone if and when he succeeded in taking out Barracuda. Bonner had no family. We tagged his body bag with Johnstone’s ID. Good-bye, Robert Johnstone. Rest in Peace, and all that.”

“Christ,” Chandler-Smith muttered, breathing out a hard sigh. “You took a decade off my life. Where is Johnstone?”

“Air-lifted to the San Diego Naval hospital.”

“What’s his status?”

“Fucking lucky to be alive, sir. A medic kept his thumb on the femoral artery all the way to the hospital. Took three hours, but the surgeons got everything sewed back together again.”

“I have to see him. What name is he under?”

“None. Brought in unconscious, no ID. They call him Patient X.”

The hospital smelled like hospitals always do: disinfectant, bad coffee, and fear. Accompanied by a harried doctor, Chandler-Smith strode toward the end of the corridor where Patient X lay semi-conscious.

“We have to drug him to keep him down,” she said irritably. Being forced to permit a visitor to a patient in the
ICU
made her angry. On the other hand, in addition to being a doctor she was a naval officer. She understood all about rank and privileges. Chandler-Smith had both, in abundance. “He won’t make much sense if you’re planning on questioning him. Ninety seconds, sir. No more. And you shouldn’t have even that.”

Patient X was barely conscious. Tubes sprouted from him like fungus. Beneath the tan his skin had a shocking pallor. Slowly his eyes focused.

“Blue?” The voice was hoarse.

“Yeah. Helluva mess you got yourself into.”

“Raine . . .” But the effort to talk defeated him.

Chandler-Smith took one of Johnstone’s hot, restless hands and pressed the gold coin into it. “Here. Raine said you need this more than she does.”

The texture and weight and shape of the coin was as familiar as Johnstone’s own skin. Lady Luck. Lady Death. His fingers closed around the gold in a grip that even drugs couldn’t ease. He tried to asked why Raine hadn’t come herself. He needed her as much as life. More than life.

“She . . . here?”

“No.”

Disappointment was another kind of pain breaking over him, giving him back to the darkness and the drugs. He never heard Blue leave.

Raine waited, hardly noticing the hours heaping silently around her. The darkness of night finally gave way to another perfect Southern California dawn.

The knock on her door sent her heart racing. When she heard her father’s voice, she opened it. The same two men came in first, searched the room, and then stood aside until Chandler-Smith entered. A single gesture sent the men outside, leaving Raine alone with her father and the dizzying feeling that minutes rather than hours had passed.

“Tell me about Cord Elliot,” her father said the instant the door closed behind his men.

Raine thought of the ways to explain—bodyguard and escort, horseman and companion—but there was only one truth that mattered. “He’s my lover.”

Chandler-Smith held out his hand to her. “Baby Raine, when did you grow up on me?”

“Years ago, Daddy. Long years.”

“I hope so,” he said beneath his breath. She would need every bit of her poise and nerve.

“Did you find him?” she asked tightly.

“The man you call Cord Elliot is one of my best men. One of the best, period, if that means anything to you. Officially he works for the Defense Intelligence Agency. He’s assigned to a part of the agency that has no name, no budget, and no forwarding address.”

“You didn’t find him?”

“I didn’t find a man called Cord Elliot.”

She noted the evasion and understood that was all she would get from her father. He had broken more rules for her in the past night than he had in a lifetime. He would break no more.

“I understand,” she said. Her voice was so controlled that it sounded like a stranger’s. “Thank you.” She held out her hand. “I’d like the good-luck piece back.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed into hazel slits. “I don’t have it. I gave it to Robert Johnstone. Didn’t Cord mention him?”

Numbly she shook her head. “He was like you, Daddy. No names, no facts, nothing . . .”

Her voice trailed off as the implication sank in: her father had been in touch with someone who knew not only who Cord really was, but where he was. The good-luck piece had been returned to Cord, but there was no message for her.

Or perhaps there was. Silence is more effective than good-bye, and less awkward.

Had those been the three syllables Cord had said? Not Good luck, Raine, or I love you, but Good-bye, Raine? And then had he faded back into the crowd, going on to another job, another challenge, another danger . . . another chance to die?

“Baby.” Chandler-Smith held his daughter and stroked her hair. “Don’t look like that. Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”

She laughed, but there was nothing happy in the sound. “No, things aren’t always as bad as they seem. Sometimes they’re worse.” She gave her father a quick, hard hug and stepped away. “Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking very well. I never should have sent you chasing my former lover through Most Secret files.”

Chandler-Smith started to speak, but years of ingrained silence won out. If Johnstone had wanted her to know his true identity, he would have told her. Caught between duty and a father’s desire to ease his daughter’s pain, Chandler-Smith watched Raine begin throwing her few things into a suitcase.

“Where are you going?” he asked finally.

She shrugged. “I’m taking a vacation. I’ve earned one.”

“But where?”

“I’ll think of somewhere,” she said indifferently.

She swept up the contents of the bathroom shelf and dumped everything into her suitcase.

“Where will you be two weeks from now?” her father asked.

“Somewhere.”

“How about in three weeks, or four?”

“Somewhere else.” She shut the suitcase with a snap.

“Baby? Why don’t you come home?”

“No.” Her voice was soft, final. “I have a life to make for myself. It’s time I grew up and quit playing games.”

“What about Dev?”

With two quick motions she locked the suitcase. “Captain Jon will make arrangements to have him trailered home.”

“Who will take care of Dev if you’re not there?”

Her hands clenched. She didn’t want to go home again. She couldn’t. The past would reach up and smother her.

“Hire a groom,” she said curtly, then remembered that Dev’s temperament would make it impossible. “Damn it!”

“A man I know has a ranch in Arizona,” Chandler-Smith said. “He’s been overseas so much that he’s thinking of selling it. I could arrange for you to trailer Dev there. It’s a new place, Raine. All new. Up in the mountains. Clean water and grass and pine trees.”

She blinked back sudden tears. She had never cried when her father had let her down, so why did she want to cry simply because he understood her need to put something new between herself and the past?

“Thanks.” She hugged her father quickly. “And don’t worry. I will never ask you to break the rules again.”

Raine stood in the doorway of the guest cabin and watched the granite peaks massed against Arizona’s cobalt sky. The air was cool, sweet with the scents of pine and water and grass bending gracefully beneath the wind.

In the five weeks she had stayed there, she had felt a sense of homecoming that blended strangely with the desolation of losing a man called Cord Elliot. Each day the loss was new, agonizing, for she woke up with his name on her lips and his dream-presence warm around her.

And each day she rose alone to put the past behind her as she stood in the cabin doorway and looked out over the huge fenced meadow where Devlin’s Waterloo reigned supreme.

After a last sip of coffee, she set the thick mug aside and walked down the short dusty path to the meadow. The cabin had come equipped with all the creature comforts, including a surprisingly modern kitchen and bathroom. It also had the one thing she required: privacy.

The main ranch house had the only phone on the ranch. The house was a half mile away, across the pasture. The retired couple who took care of the ranch in the owner’s absence were careful not to interrupt Raine’s solitude, though they had made it clear that she was welcome anytime she wanted to visit them.

The meadow’s split-rail fence was new enough not to have been bleached by summer heat. Though it was only a few hours after dawn, sunlight had already warmed the air and the land. Dry heat seeped through the short-sleeved cotton sweater she wore. The sweater’s deep jade color caught and held sunlight. Her riding pants were the same black as Dev’s mane. Her hair fell in soft disarray around her shoulders and tickled her where the pullover’s deep V revealed her neck and the gentle swell of her breasts.

Dev’s head came up as he scented Raine. He cantered toward the fence, nickering a welcome. She watched closely while he swept across the pasture, coat gleaming like fire, muscles rippling with power. He had come back from the three-day event stronger than ever. She would have to begin riding him soon, working him, jumping him. Not for any goal or competition, but simply because they both enjoyed it.

Like her, the stallion had settled into the mountains as though born there. Getting him to go back to stalls and barns would be a problem. But there was no rush. Her father had assured her that the ranch’s owner was engaged elsewhere. She and Dev could stay as long as they liked.

But the longer she stayed, the less she could bear to think about leaving.

A velvet muzzle pushed impatiently at her shoulder.

“You’re after a carrot, aren’t you?” she muttered, pushing back.

Dev snorted and waited, ears pricked, every inch of him vibrating with health.

“You win.” She reached into her back pocket. “You always do, you red beggar.”

While Dev ate the carrot, she stroked his neck and enjoyed the sleek, solid feel of him.

“Would you like to live here, Devlin’s Waterloo?” she asked. “I’ve never touched the money G’mom gave me when I turned twenty-three. I could buy this lovely mountain meadow for you, and some lively, leggy mares to go with it. I could spend my life here, raising blood-bay hellions and training them to fly over fences and streams.”

Raine didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the tears sliding down her cheeks. It was Cord who had talked about putting Dev out to stud and raising red hellions. She had laughed then, not believing in tomorrow.

Tomorrow had come. It was here. Now.

And it was lonely.

She forced her grief back down beneath her consciousness. Tears had done no good. Getting on with life might. Just because tomorrow had come without Cord was no reason to abandon all of the dream. She could breed and train event horses in Arizona as well as in Virginia. Better. She would be more at peace here. With her reputation and Dev’s foals, people would come to the remote mountains to look and to buy.

Someday, maybe even Cord would come. Maybe he’ll remember summer as deeply as I do.

The thought made it all too fresh, too new, as if it had just happened. Silently she raged at the stubborn, merciless hope she couldn’t kill.

Each time she believed that she finally had accepted the fact that she loved a man who didn’t love her, her mind would turn on her with claws of hope and memory, ripping apart her fragile peace. Then she had to begin over again, rebuilding herself one second at a time, one minute, one hour.

Raine heard the helicopter long before she spotted it flying low, sunlight flashing off its white body. No numbers, no name. The kind of helicopter her father always used. With a fury of sound and wind, the machine landed.

She squinted against the sun. Though the helicopter was only a few hundred feet away, she couldn’t see the passenger through the blinding glare of sunlight. Trying not to think of all the bad news that her father could be bringing with him, she slipped between fence rails and ran toward the machine.

“Dad, what are you—” The words shattered into silence when she recognized the man silhouetted against the burning sun. “Cord.”