Читать книгу: «Can You Forget?», страница 3

He flushed again, stuffing balled fists into his pockets. “The guys are exaggerating again.” And he hadn’t saved them all.

“Why, Tal?” she insisted, her face vivid, alive with her lifelong passion to help others. “Why don’t you care now?”

He turned away, fighting the old longing again. “You tend to get less emotional when you’ve become a statistic, too.”

“I don’t believe it!” she cried. “You know how many people died the night the grenade hit you—but do you know how many innocent Tumah-ra people lost their homes and families? They’re not statistics any more than you are. I was there before the war, gathering information—I knew their names, I’d been to their homes, ate and drank with them, cuddled their kids…and now they’re gone! I—” She choked and wheeled away, dashing at her face—and she gave a wobbly little hiccup of distress, one that melted his heart, that made him care, made him want to be something better. For her. And, if he was honest, for them: the faceless sufferers that his girl took into her heart and soul and made real to him.

He couldn’t stand there as she ached and cried for the fate of people she didn’t know. The statistics she made so real by her vividly stark words. “Mary-Anne?” He touched her shoulder.

“Linebacker died last week,” she muttered, scrubbing at her face. “Shot through the head at close range.”

He staggered back until he found something to lean on: a rough-hewn post on the beach path. “My God. Linebacker was twenty-two, twenty-three at the most. He was a real nice kid—”

“He was such a sweet boy. He wanted to save the world.” Tal watched her tears well up and overflow without shame: a purity of grief he’d always associated with her. “I don’t want anyone else to die, Tal—not if I can do anything to stop it. I know what these people are feeling—and I’d do anything to stop it. Anything.” Without warning she turned into his body, burrowing against him, gulping so hard he could almost feel it hurting her throat. “I’ve lost someone I loved so much I wanted to die…”

The unforgettable Gilbert West. She’d met the pathologist at her last teaching hospital before graduation. Gil had adored her from first sight, married her within six months and created the legendary singer-songwriter Verity West from the cripplingly shy Mary-Anne Poole, by the simple act of believing in her. He’d entered her in a contest where she’d sung the haunting “Farewell Innocence.” Within weeks a major recording label picked her up, and when her first album, Nobody’s Lolita, went triple platinum, Gil gave up his career to manage his wife, to be beside her through good times and bad. And he was, until the day he died.

No wonder she’d written the poignant hit, “Making Memories,” when they’d got the shocking diagnosis of Gil’s impending death from multiple, inoperable brain tumors. Gilbert West had made all her dreams come true.

And this was totally the wrong time to be reacting, burning with the feel of her breasts pushing against his chest, the soft mound of her femininity pushing against him as she cried. Can it, O’Rierdan. She wants comfort from an old friend, that’s all.

But his rock-hard mate inside his jeans didn’t have a conscience, just one hell of a long-denied need for her—and an intense instinct that he’d finally find his way home in her soft warmth, so close beneath those flimsy layers of clothes.

A couple of tourists emerged from their huts. Turning the scarred side of his face away, he watched from under the protection of his hat. Did they recognize the famous trademark hair and statuesque beauty of Verity West? Was that the Iceberg, burrowed into the body of some island hick?

He could see the headline: The Iceberg Melts On The Cripple.

The reality of their situation cooled his libido in an instant. He’d be damned if she’d have to face another sleazy tabloid headline because of him. “Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded as he snatched up the bag beside her towel, grabbed the tape deck and towel with it. “We don’t want tourists grabbing free Verity West souvenirs,” he said dryly.

He took her along the path to his plane’s steel hangar and, once inside, slammed the roller door behind them. “So you’d do anything to help those people—even marry me?”

Had she flushed again, or was the color rising in her cheeks because of the heat of the day? “If that’s what it takes, yes.” The huskiness in her voice lingered. With the gentle flush in the valley of her cleavage, it made a lethal chemical catalyst for his libido, sending it right back into hyperdrive.

“We’d have to make the marriage look like a real one in case any paparazzi break in,” he said bluntly, struggling to keep focused on the mission. “We can’t use two beds.”

“I know.” It might have been a trick of the light, but the rose in her face and throat seemed to deepen as she looked anywhere but at him. “It doesn’t have to be awkward, does it? We…we’ve slept together before.”

He chuckled. “Slept being the operative word, Mary-Anne. We were kids. We haven’t slept together since that night we camped by the billabong when I was sixteen—and I never touched you.”

“I know that,” she said—too quiet—and he wondered what was going on beneath the surface. Gentle, smiling, cool and calm one minute—erupting with mini explosions of passionate emotion the next. It was like playing Blind Man’s Bluff or Murder in the Dark. “We didn’t touch then, we won’t now.”

He wheeled around to look at the half-dark hangar wall, watching shadows of waving palms chasing each other through the window’s early morning light. “You might be able to control your passion for me, sweetness, but you’d better ask before you assume the same for me. I’m a man now, even if I don’t look like much of one—and I’ve still got a man’s needs.”

“I heard about your needs.” He jerked his head around to look at her. A flash of ancient pain, the sense of a wound too deep and raw to touch, crossed the banked fire in her eyes. Yet she met his gaze without flinching or apology. “Ginny made sure I knew all about those needs of yours. She gave me every detail.”

A helpless curse ripped from his throat, strangled fury that had nowhere to release. “Mary-Anne—”

“There’s no need.” Another careless shrug: a flimsy defense against this too intense conversation in a hangar that was way too hot, humid with diesel fuel, morning mist and late summer sun. She was all rosy now, flushed and damp, as if they’d spent the past hour— Oh, man, was he trying to kill himself? Why keep fantasizing about what he’d never have?

“What matters is stopping Darren Burstall and his rogue from taking down the Nighthawks one by one.”

He went totally still. Something cold and slimy touched him, slithering into his soul like hideous poison. “Burstall?”

She licked her upper lip, taking the sweat beading it, he noted absently. “Yes.”

“You’re telling me he’s not dead?” he muttered through stiff lips. “Anson left Burstall alive—and he didn’t tell me?”

“They chased him, but they had to save you, then he shot some villagers. They couldn’t leave innocent people there to die. Then Burstall hooked up with the rebels in Tumah-ra,” she sighed. “It seems he’s made interesting connections, rendering him useful to people Interpol would like to take down—people with billions in offshore accounts and vested interests in the oil off Tumah-ra’s shore. Too many reasons to keep those dumb rebel kids on the island rigged with weapons and stop the UN taking control.”

He barely heard her. Burstall was alive. Anson didn’t get him! Burstall was alive—the insane bastard lived and breathed, killing and maiming innocent people to feed his mania—and Tal’s rage, cold and flippant for so long, boiled over.

“Anson’s a noble, interfering, self-righteous jerk!” His fists slammed into the hot steel wall so hard it buckled outward and his knuckles scraped raw and bleeding. “Why the hell didn’t Anson tell me all this? Didn’t he know I’d want to go after him myself—and not just for me, but for what he did to Skydancer, Countrygirl and all the poor villagers he shot in Tumah-ra?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.” With folded arms, she watched him destroy the hangar wall, her high-lipped rose mouth rimmed with a touch of fastidious distaste.

“So the Iceberg’s wondering what sort of husband she’s got after the sainted Gilbert?” he sneered, baiting her. “Well, look on the bright side, sweetness—it’s all a game of pretend. You can dump me at the end of the mission, guilt-free.”

She didn’t bother to answer his taunts. Instead her lips curved in a slow smile. “I’ve got something more constructive for you to do than breaking walls, Tal,” she breathed, “and I think you’ll agree that it’s a lot more fun.”

She moved a step closer, her eyes dark and slumberous, her body radiant, as if in the afterglow of hours of scorching-hot lovemaking. “It’s something I want—something I wanted so badly for years—but I never found the courage to go after.”

Rage took wings as he watched her move toward him, her eyes alight, her mouth curved in promise. His heart slammed against his ribs. His head spun with the hope his body wouldn’t let him ignore. What was she saying—that for all those years, she wanted him…that even now, looking like he did, she’d—

Uh-huh. He got real turned on looking at himself in the mirror every day. Why wouldn’t she?

But the cynicism wouldn’t take hold. His man’s need, hot and hard and urgent, kept hammering at him, Do it, do it, do it. Ask her. Touch her. Take her. So many years wanting her, needing her, and she’s so close…so damn beautiful it hurts. Do it!

It almost killed him to speak, but he managed to say, “Well?” in a strangled croak.

She moved to him, step by slow, sultry step. She lifted her mouth to his ear and whispered, in the gentlest, most seductive of tones, “Revenge…”

Chapter 3

“I’m on. I’ll take Burstall down—for Linebacker’s sake, if nothing else.”

Mary-Anne—for though the rest of the world saw her as icy Verity West, she never had, could never think of herself as anything but plain old farm girl Mary-Anne—sighed in quiet relief at his words. She’d been pretty sure he was hooked even before she spoke Darren Burstall’s name—but it was hard, so hard, proposing this mission to Tal.

She couldn’t show him how she ached for him, that she had all the empathy in the world for his suffering. Growing up different, plain and overweight but with extraordinary talent, gave her some insight into how he must feel about his injuries. Golden-haired, olive-skinned Tal, handsome, athletic and brilliant, Cowinda’s pride and joy, must be chafing so hard against the physical restrictions he couldn’t change.

But the harsh, dark-souled man in front of her, so unlike the sweet, caring, tongue-tied boy he’d been, could still fire her rebellious body’s response to him like fast-melting honey…

With the exception of her poignant four years with Gil, she’d only ever wanted one man to be her lover—and if anything, his scars made her want Tal more. If he was less of an angel now, he was all male—all strong, dark, tense man. The brooding depth gave him a raw, pulsing sexuality that left her screaming for fulfillment. Tal was her sweetest taboo, the forbidden fruit: her best friend, confidant and rescuer too many times to count, pain and rejection and dark, hot temptation rolled into one man. Fantasy and reality in blue jeans and black T-shirt, his muscles bunching in riveting, superb maleness as he buckled the hangar walls with a punch.

How could she tame her heart or stop the midnight call of her body? Within a year of Gil’s death, the dreams she’d had of Tal all through her teen years started again—and all the guilt in the world couldn’t kill off the wanting. And five years later, Gil was a faint, sweet memory…and she called another name when she woke up at night in a sweat of fevered, aching need, after white-hot erotic dreams of the man she could never have.

“Okay, let’s get out of this sauna and make arrangements. I have the license. Nick faxed it to me last night,” she said crisply to hide her pounding heart and sweating palms.

“He always counts on getting his way,” was all he said. Then he gave her a curious look. “Nick? That’s…unusual. He’s always Ghost or Boss to the rest of us—or sir.”

She shrugged. “We have an unusual relationship, because of my fame. I call him Ghost or sir on missions, of course.”

But he merely shrugged. “Who’s our backup?”

“Ghost is taking this one. It’s been ranked top secret, and apart from Braveheart and Wildman, all the other operatives are coming in from Virginia, hand-picked by the brass and absolutely trustworthy,” she answered, lost between relief and a kind of sick despair. Once upon a time, Tal had always known when she went into hiding and he’d always come to her, made her talk out her fears or pain. He’d made her love him more every time, just by caring so much. But it seemed he’d lost his radar with her. They were drifting further apart every moment, and she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it, unless she wanted more operatives to die.

He frowned. “I’d have thought Skydancer would want to be in on this. This whole thing started because of a private show between Burstall and Skydancer, right?”

“Skydancer does want in on this—so does Countrygirl—but she’s pregnant and they have kids. Ghost won’t bring them in because Burstall’s primary target’s still Skydancer. Skydancer’s also worked with Jack and Angel in the past. And Burstall has an obsession with Countrygirl. We traced a call he made to her through four computers and two different satellites.”

“Nice complication,” he remarked, frowning in concern. “If Burstall ends up taking one of us, he’s likely to demand hostage exchange to get Countrygirl.”

“You’re right.” She looked in his eyes, willing hers not to show the aching hammer of desire hitting her. She could die and not care, when she looked into his eyes… “This whole assignment will be dangerous, without the complication of being conducted in the public eye. My fame is the only ticket we have to get into where Burstall’s hiding—but it’s a flimsy cover at best. We’ll be lucky if they don’t suspect us from the get-go.”

Tal frowned. “Where is he? Where are we going?”

She grinned at him. “That’s one advantage to this—we’ve hit the jackpot. He’s in Amalza. One of the smallest Mediterranean islands outside the Mallorca group off the coast of Spain—”

“Where famous honeymooners hide out, and tax cheats, illegal arms dealers and financial wizards from the wrong side of Wall Street abound,” he filled in with his own special blend of unique grinning irony. He leaned against the hot wall, folding his arms across his tight, muscled chest as he smiled still, making her gulp. “So are we going to an ‘Embassy’ do?”

Grateful for the distraction, she laughed. The “Embassy” was infamous among those in the know. The Embassy was an enormous white castillo of indecent luxury owned by Robert Falcone, an illegal arms dealer who absconded with billions of dollars when his British financial empire collapsed. Anyone who was someone on the international black market partied there—and any spy worth their salt longed to infiltrate it. Every Interpol operative or connected agent dreamed of being the one to take the slippery-smooth Falcone down. A party there was a potential gold mine for the arrest of the century.

“That’s the point of us going, Irish,” she shot back with a lifted brow and a quirky grin. “Why do you think Nick wants me in on this? Burstall’s in Amalza. We’ve heard rumors he’s in hiding out at the Embassy. Falcone has made it obvious he’d love to get up close and personal with me. Falcone’s castillo has tighter security than the White House, but if I go to Amalza—even on my honeymoon—you think he won’t send me an invite?”

“Oh, he will,” Tal retorted dryly. “The question is, will I get an invitation to come with my lovely wife?” He limped to the roller doors and with a bunching heave he let fresh air in, tropical-warm and sweet-scented. “It’s too hot in here.”

Oh, yeah, baby, it was hot all right…she was so hot she could barely think. Those well-worn jeans molded his butt like a loving glove… “Doesn’t matter,” she made herself say through a lump in her throat that felt like sticky tar in summer. She’d had a love affair with that butt for more years than she wanted to remember. “I can’t afford to go without backup.”

He turned back to her and frowned. “Mary-Anne, this is your venue. What use will I be in this beyond window-dressing? I am—was—Search And Rescue. A field operative and medical officer. I might be a doctor, but I’m a bush kid. Tact and subtlety, or sophisticated man-about-town, I don’t think I’ll handle well.”

“Maybe it’s time to stretch your skills.” She hoped her lifted brow, her cynical smile, would stop the unwanted question forming, unbidden, on her rebel lips. “I learned to play the game quick enough. I’m sure you’ll pick it up.”

He gave her a strange, intent look. “Are you willing to risk your life on me being able to do that?”

“As much as you are, I guess.” Could she handle a fake marriage with Tal, when it could all end in a week and she’d never see him again, except on trips home to see the family—

The thought slammed into her like a truck hitting a kangaroo on a dark Outback road. She felt the blood drain from her face. “Tal,” she whispered, “our parents—”

He jerked around to her, taking her words and running with them. “Not just them. Your brother. My grandparents. Bloody hell, the whole town of Cowinda.”

“My mum and dad and Greg always wanted us to get married,” she whispered, her mind racing along with the horror of the scenario unfolding in her mind.

“My family, too. Dad dreamed of Poole’s Rest and Eden being one property, after Greg chose vet science instead of farming. And you know how much they love you.” He looked at her, his face dark as a sudden Outback storm. “We can’t do this to them.”

“Ghost wants our families as part of the thing, to make it authentic. They’re to come to the wedding, but they can’t know the truth about us being Nighthawks, or our marriage being for the mission…” Her mind went blank. “It would put them at risk.”

“The media will hound ’em as soon as the mock-up starts. Our mothers would give the lot of ’em the scoop on us, along with a bang-up dinner to celebrate.” His muscles bunched again as he leaned both hands on the metal wall. “They won’t just be heartbroken when we break up—they’ll be publicly humiliated.”

Tal always called a spade a spade. A hand lifted to her mouth. “When we break up after the mission…if it leaks out later that our wedding was a fake, I don’t think they’d get over it…”

Still leaning on the wall, he turned his face to her, his eyes burning. “It’s crunch time, Mary-Anne—regional stability or the people we love. We either let someone else handle the assignment or we break our parents’ hearts and shatter the illusions of everyone in Cowinda.”

More ramifications Nick couldn’t possibly have taken into account, because he wasn’t born and raised in a tiny, close-knit Outback town of less than eight hundred people. “We’re the shining kids of Cowinda. We put the place on the map.”

“I was just a doctor. You’re the one who put Cowinda on any maps that matter, sweetness,” he interjected dryly.

She waved that off. “Our marriage would be a fairy tale come true for everyone in town—well, except your ex-wife, her daddy and a few of their followers,” she added, just as dry. “There’s no way everybody wouldn’t know, or find out. The wedding being leaked to the papers is a vital part of the assignment. The paparazzi would bolt to Cowinda to get the scoop. Everyone’s going to have a point of view, want their moment of fame. And when we break up, it’ll make them all look like fools.”

Still slow and thoughtful, he said, “I don’t know about you, but I can’t do this to Mum and Dad. Not since Kathy died. I’m all they’ve got left—and they want me to remarry and have kids.” His mouth twisted in a cynical slash as he finished.

Mary-Anne almost gaped at him. “You haven’t told them about the accident, have you?”

He shook his head. “Anson wanted it kept secret until my contract runs out. I wanted to wait until after the final operation, anyway. After Kathy’s death…I couldn’t scare them like that, or wreck their dreams of me finding another wife.”

She clenched her jaw shut. The man was stone blind, deaf and stupid…he had to be. A woman stood right in front of him, almost dying with the pain of wanting him, and he couldn’t even see it…

Don’t make a fool of yourself over him again. Once is enough.

“Tal, people have died.” Though a tad croaky, her voice was calm, a thin cloak hiding her anguished desire. “The Virginia office is right—only you and I have any chance at all of pulling this mission off. My fame will give us bona fides. Falcone’s interest in me guarantees us an invitation into the Embassy. Ginny’s lies about us will help make our marriage look above suspicion. Any other newcomers to the island would be too heavily scrutinized.” She couldn’t stop the words tumbling from her mouth like falling dominoes. “It’s not only the Nighthawks that will be destroyed with this, Tal. Falcone’s latest arms cache is big enough to start a war or three. The rumor mill inside Interpol has it that he’s not just sending guns to Tumah-ra, but bombs. He’s got caches ready to send to rebel militia and fractious religious groups in volatile countries in Africa and Eastern Europe.”

Tal bit out a gritty epithet. “Then what the hell do we do? I won’t sacrifice our families, but I can’t risk innocent lives for them, either.”

She bit her lip and held on to the too warm wall, feeling the discomfort vaguely as she took on possibilities and discarded them. “I don’t know.”

“There’s only one thing to do.” The note in his voice made her heart hammer. He tipped up her chin, and looked deep into her eyes. “We sacrifice our feelings, and get married for real.”