Maybe coffee would save her.
Alyssa headed through the lobby, careful not to jar her head. She’d showered and changed and tried to lie down for a while, but failed to sleep.
Her head was pounding and she couldn’t shake free from that image of Sam Starrett with his head bowed as he cried. It was haunting her even more than this infernal headache.
“Hey, Alyssa!”
The dead last person she wanted to see was heading toward her across the lobby. Well, okay, maybe the second to the dead last person.
“Are you okay?” Jules asked. “Where were you last night?”
Resolutely she turned to face her partner.
“Whoa,” he said, taking in the bags she knew were under her eyes, the death-warmed-over color of her skin. “You look like hell.”
He, on the other hand, looked adorable with his perfect hair and his perfect face and his trim little body clad in impeccable army wear—a very clean T-shirt and neatly creased camouflage pants. He looked like GI Joe’s gay little brother.
“At least I’m consistent,” she told him. “Because I feel like hell.”
His concern was immediate and genuine. “Oh, no, did you eat or drink something you shouldn’t have? One of the SAS guys ate some kind of stew and—”
“I had too much to drink last night.”
Jules closed his mouth. And looked at her closely. And just like that, he knew where she’d gone, who she’d been with. “Oh, shit,” he said.
To her horror, tears welled in her eyes.
Jules hugged her. “Okay, sweetie. No recriminations. No blame. You did it. Let’s deal with it. Let’s get you to your room. The last thing you need is for him—or anyone—to see you crying in the lobby.”
Stan was too quiet.
Teri lifted her head to look up at him, and even though he smiled at her, she knew.
He was having regrets.
Her heart sank and all of her newfound self-confidence shrank to a little shriveled ball of lead in her stomach. Maybe he’d never really wanted her in the first place. After all, she’d made it impossible for him to turn her down, coming in here the way she had and taking off her clothes like that. Oh, God.
She sat up, her back to him, wanting nothing more than to find her clothes and leave.
“You all right?” He touched her on the arm as he sat up, too, his hand as warm as his voice.
“I don’t know,” Teri admitted.
He sighed. “We need to talk about this.”
The last of her hope died.
God, she was so stupid. She had been actually lying there mere seconds ago, completely content, thinking what they’d just shared was more than a morning of casual sex. She’d done it again. She’d jumped to the conclusion that this was the start of something big, of a relationship that would build and grow and last, maybe even forever.
But it wasn’t.
It was just what she’d claimed it would be when she first stormed into the room.
A pity fuck. She’d felt bad, so he made her feel better. The end.
And now that it was over, Stan was sitting there, trying to figure out the best way to repair their friendship. He was in mop-up mode. Mr. Fix-It to the rescue.
“Where are you in your cycle?” he asked, and his words didn’t make any sense.
She looked at him. “What?”
“Do you know when you’re due to get your period?”
Oh, damn, he actually thought he might’ve gotten her pregnant. Well, if he had, that was going to be a hard one to fix, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know exactly,” she told him. “Maybe a couple of weeks?”
He nodded. Exhaled a laugh that had nothing to do with humor. “That couldn’t be more perfectly worse, could it? Christ. Okay.” He took a deep breath. Mr. Calm-and-in-Control. “All right. We’re just going to have to wait it out. And if you are pregnant—”
“Don’t worry, I won’t make you marry me.” Teri said it more sharply than she’d intended as she crossed the room. Her underwear was right in the middle of the floor, right where she’d dropped it.
Stan didn’t move. “That’s just one option,” he said evenly as she pulled up her panties, wrestled herself into her bra. “But, you know, if you don’t want to consider—”
“I don’t. Why are we even talking about this?” She pulled on her shirt.
“I thought it might be reassuring for you to know—”
“That you’d ruin your life over an hour of sex? Great sex, but still ...”
“That I take responsibility for my mistakes,” he countered quietly.
Teri was glad her back was to him as she pulled on her pants, glad he couldn’t see the effect that word had on her.
Mistake.
“What happened here was my fault,” she said just as quietly. She turned to face him and even managed to smile. “You kept saying it was a bad idea. I guess you were right.”
“Teri, don’t run away,” he said, but it was too late.
She’d grabbed her jacket and was already out the door.
Jules Cassidy was walking toward Sam Starrett like a man on a mission.
Okay. Perfect. Here we fucking go. The shittiest day in the world—round two.
Sam didn’t stop eating. He just sat there, at his special table. In his special seat. Shoveling pasta that tasted like crap into his mouth. Giving the world a great big go away message with his glower and his body language.
But Jules didn’t go anywhere. He stood there, obviously waiting for Sam to look up at him. Well, fuck it. Sam wasn’t going to.
So Jules sat down. Sam had to give him credit—the little fruit had balls.
“This has got to stop,” Jules said quietly. “Wasn’t Washington enough for you?”
Well now, wasn’t that the ultimate in irony? Alyssa Locke had warned Sam not to tell anyone about the night they’d spent together in Washington, DC. She’d nearly threatened him with bodily harm over it. And he hadn’t told a soul.
But apparently she’d turned around and spilled the whole sorry-assed tale to her swishy little partner.
“Starrett, you can’t play Neanderthal with me. I know that you care about her,” Jules continued.
Sam finally looked up. Two weeks after he’d seen Alyssa last, after Washington, DC, he’d called Jules. Just to make sure she was really all right. He’d made up some stupid reason why he was calling, but he knew that Jules had seen right through it. He hadn’t asked him any questions then, not even when Sam had asked him not to tell Alyssa.
“I never told her you called,” Jules said softly.
Sam couldn’t hold his gaze. But he managed a nod, a gruff “Thanks.”
“You can’t take advantage of her whenever you feel the urge,” Jules told him gently. “She doesn’t need this. She needs someone who’s going to be there for her, someone willing to commit.” He paused. “Someone who loves her.”
Sam laughed at that—a burst of disparaging air. “Who? You?”
Jules just smiled. “Well, I do love her, but Adam might get a little upset if I tried to bring her home.”
Jules had a live-in lover named Adam. Now, that was more information than Sam had wanted to know. Ever.
Jules sighed. “I know you probably think I’m the last person to judge anyone in terms of what turns them on, but this sadomasochistic thing you’ve got going with Alyssa is killing her. Now, maybe that’s part of the game to you, but—”
Sam put down his fork. “You think I like it? Hooking up with her once every six months? Only to have her hate me again in the morning? Fuck you—she’s the fucking masochist!”
Jules was startled. “But she said ...”
Sam lowered his voice. “She gets drunk so she’s got an excuse to get down with me. Then she comes to my door and it’s my fault when I don’t turn her away? Fuck you twice.”
Jules narrowed his eyes. “You know, the bad language might be part of the problem. I can see how that might be off-putting for someone like—”
“Yeah, how well do you know her anyway?” Sam said. “It makes her laugh, if you want to know the truth. Jesus, when she’s drunk, she relaxes enough to let herself like me. It’s the rest of the time that ...” He shook his head. “Fuck.”
“What?” Jules persisted.
“Just leave me the fuck alone.”
“It’s the rest of the time that what?” Jules asked.
Sam tried to eat. Now it tasted like cold crap.
“She likes you when she’s drunk, but it’s the rest of the time that what?” Jules would not let go of it. “The rest of the time, as in when she’s sober?”
Sam set down the fork very carefully, instead of throwing it across the room. Or at Jules, who simply would not let this rest. “Look, she sobers up, and it’s like she ... she ... fuck! She instantly forgets who I am. Sobered up, she can’t see past her own fucking expectations, all right? She thinks I’m some rednecked asshole, so, yeah, okay, I play the part. Jesus.” He glared at Jules. “She thinks she knows me, but she doesn’t have a clue. She’s prejudged, prelabeled, and prerejected me. How the fuck do you fight that?”
Jules laughed. “Well, gee, I couldn’t possibly know what that’s like.”
Sam realized what he’d just said and who he’d just said it to.
As a gay man, Jules had spent most of his life prejudged, prelabeled, and prerejected by most of society.
Including Sam.
“Ah, fuck.” He couldn’t hold the other man’s gaze.
“Fuck is kind of like your aloha, right?” Jules said. “It means hello and good-bye and thank you and—in this case—I’m sorry?”
Sam had to laugh at that. “I am sorry,” he managed to say. “You’re ... okay.”
“Whew,” Jules said. “I was worried about myself for a minute there.”
“Just don’t get too close.”
Jules grinned. “Sweetie, you’re hot, but my heart belongs to Adam.” His smile faded. “And something tells me your heart belongs to Alyssa.”
Sam looked at him. “Does she ...” God, he couldn’t believe he was actually asking this. “Ever say anything about me?”
Jules looked uncomfortable.
“Forget it,” Sam said. “Don’t answer that. That’s not fair. Whatever she said, she probably said it in confidence.”
“She thinks you’re great in bed.”
Sam laughed. “She told you that?”
“Well, sure. We compare notes. Kidding! No, the past few days, she’s been doing this kind of hold me back, you know, keep me away from him thing.” Jules sighed and shifted in his seat, as if deciding how much to tell him. “Between you and me, Alyssa doesn’t get out much. I’m pretty much a hundred percent certain that she hasn’t been with anyone between you and you. No, I’m a hundred and ten percent certain. She would’ve told me if she had.”
“She talks to you about private stuff, huh?” Sam asked. He shook his head and had to laugh. “You and me, together we’re the perfect man for Alyssa Locke. She tells you her secrets, and you love her unconditionally—and you’ve got no problem telling her that. And me ...”
Jules nodded. He knew what Sam gave her. There was no need to say it aloud.
Sam made her come.
“I think she’s the one who’s been using me,” he told Jules.
Jules nodded again. “Maybe you should tell her it’s not enough.”
Sam nodded, too. He closed his eyes, remembering the way she’d walked in on him crying. Jesus. It was possible that she already knew.
“Mrs. Shuler, remember me? I’m Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok. Marte Gunvald’s son.”
Helga peered out from behind the chain lock on her hotel room door at the large man standing there. Marte’s son. “Of course,” she said with a smile to hide her lie. Had they met? Yes, obviously they had.
“Desmond Nyland called me, ma’am. He thought you might appreciate some company for lunch.”
“Oh, is it that time already?”
“Yes, ma’am. If you’re not ready, I don’t mind waiting out here.”
Don’t leave without your room key, notepad, and purse. The note was right there, right in front of Helga’s nose. “Let me just get my purse,” she told him. Stanley. Stanley, Stanley, Stanley.
She closed the door and went to the dresser, quickly leafing to a fresh page in her notebook. “Stanley,” she wrote, and stuffed her pad into her purse, along with the room key. On second thought, she took the pen and wrote the name on the palm of her left hand. “Stanley.”
She checked her hair and her lipstick in the mirror and went out the door.
“Got your key?” Stanley asked, holding the door open a crack.
Helga opened her purse. There it was. Good. She held it up for him to see and he closed the door tightly.
“Don’t you have better things to do with your afternoon?” she asked.
“Actually, ma’am, I do have to eat and ...” He smiled tightly. “Let’s just say I welcome the distraction.”
Hmmm. “Do I know you well enough to comment that that sounds as if you’ve got woman trouble?”
He laughed. “I don’t think anyone knows me well enough to say that to me.”
“Not even your mother?”
“With the sole exception of my mother. You’re right. But she’s been gone a long time.”
“She helped save my life,” Helga told him. “Did I already tell you that? She and Annebet and your grandparents, too. When the Nazis began rounding up the Danish Jews, they took us in. Hid us. For weeks. It was doubly dangerous because Hershel—my brother—and Annebet were working for the resistance.” She pushed the down button for the elevator. “Did your mother ever tell you about that time?”
“Not a lot. And I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “We can’t take the elevator. If the power goes out ...”
“Of course,” she said. “What was I thinking?” She followed him to the stairs.
He held the door for her. “Did you say your brother’s name was Hershel?”
“Yes.” She held tightly to the bannister as she started down the stairs.
“Hershel Rosen?”
“Yes.”
“My aunt Anna told me about him,” Stanley said.
“Really?” Helga stopped on the landing between flights of stairs, and Stanley courteously let her pretend that it wasn’t because she was out of breath. “Did she tell you they had been married?”
“Well, considering she called herself Anna Rosen, I guess I’d always just known—”
“Anna? Not Annebet?”
“My mother sometimes called her by her full name, you know, when they were arguing, but her prescription pad said Dr. Anna Rosen.”
Helga wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Anna had been Hershel’s sweet name for her. She started down the stairs again. “No wonder I could never find her. I searched for a Dr. Annebet Gunvald.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I should have known,” Helga said. “Anna Rosen. What did she tell you? About Hershel.”
“That she’d married him when they were both pretty young,” Stanley told her. “That they didn’t have your parents’ approval. That he was Jewish. When I was a kid I used to go with her to synagogue. She claimed she was an atheist, but ... She liked to go. She told me she and Hershel worked for the resistance, that it was pretty unorganized, even after the Germans came looking for the Jews, but that everyone in town stepped forward to hide their neighbors.”
“Seventy-eight hundred Jews in Denmark,” Helga told him, “and all but four hundred seventy-four escaped to Sweden, thanks to people like your mother and her family.” She smiled. “Do you know when your father—no, your grandfather—came to warn us that the order had come to remove the Jews from Denmark, my father and mother didn’t believe him. They argued for so long that your grandfather was still there when the Germans came pounding on the door. We hid in the basement, and Herr Gunvald went out the back. He came around the front of the house and told the Germans that we weren’t home, that we were vacationing up north. He told them to go away, that he’d been asked to keep the property safe, and he was determined to do so. He threatened to call the police. And do you know, they actually left?”
“I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like to live through,” he told her as he ushered her into the dank restaurant in the basement. She snuck a look at her left palm. Stanley.
“We stayed with Marte’s family for weeks while Annebet and Hershel used their contacts to try to arrange passage to Sweden,” she told him, thanking him as he held out a chair for her at a nearby table.
He glanced around the room as if he were looking for someone before he sat down, too. He was trying not to let it show, but she could read frustration in his body language.
“She’s not here, is she?” Helga said.
He looked startled for a moment, but then he laughed. “No, she’s not.”
“You want to talk about it?”
His smile was beautiful. “The situation is a little, um ... Well, let’s just say it’s not something I’d share even with my mother.”
“Ah,” Helga said. “You slept with her. That pretty pilot, right? What happened? Didn’t you tell her you’re in love with her? Of course not. Men always leave out the most important details.”
Stanley didn’t blink. “Might I recommend the curried vegetables over noodles? There’s a buffet line, I can get us both plates. It’s quicker than ordering.”
“Don’t worry,” Helga said. “I won’t tell.”
She probably wouldn’t even remember by the time he came back with their lunch.
By 1220, Alyssa was feeling solid enough to give lunch a try.
But the sight of Sam Starrett and Jules Cassidy sitting together in the hotel restaurant, deep in discussion, made her blood run cold.
What was Starrett up to? God, he was probably setting Jules up for something. This had to be some kind of cruel con, some kind of payback or revenge trick—all because she’d seen him cry.
Didn’t it?
Except she was watching Starrett’s eyes as she walked toward him. She saw when he first noticed her. He looked up and a myriad of emotions crossed his face. Apprehension and embarrassment, anger and even fear—she saw it all before he quickly looked away.
He actually thought she was going to walk up to him and rub in his face the fact that she’d seen him crying.
She knew better than to do something like that.
Didn’t she?
Confused, she made a sharp detour and went to the table where piles of wrapped sandwiches were on ice.
She couldn’t deal with this. She couldn’t deal with Starrett looking that nervous at the sight of her, couldn’t deal with not knowing for certain if she had been about to fling his tears right back in his face.
Dear God, she could actually imagine herself doing it. All Starrett would have had to do was greet her with some stupid-ass comment about the clothes she was wearing, and she would’ve lashed out without thinking. “Poor baby, are you going to cry over that now, too?”
When had she become such an insensitive monster?
Whatever had made Sam cry, that was none of her business. It was off-limits. Using it to try to hurt him was going too far. He didn’t seem to know where to draw the line in the war they had going between them, but damn it, that didn’t mean she had to sink to new depths.
Yes, his tears were none of her business.
Unless, of course, he’d been crying over her.
Kind of the way she’d cried over him just this morning.
“You, um, getting that to go?”
He was standing right behind her.
Alyssa braced herself before she turned to face him.
“I, uh, wanted to apologize for, um, shouting at you that way in my room,” he said, not quite able to meet her eyes. “You caught me at, um, you know, a disadvantage there, and I, uh, I kind of freaked out.” He cleared his throat. “I know you thought I was going to hit you, but, Jesus, I would never do that, Lys.” He looked directly into her eyes. “I would never hit you. Never.”
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “No, I didn’t think that. Not at all. I didn’t ...”
He nodded. Forced a smile. “Well, good.”
“Why were you sitting with Jules?” She wanted to know, and she figured what the hell, she might as well ask. Especially when he was standing right in front of her, completely stripped of his arrogance and his cock-of-the-walk attitude.
Well, maybe not completely stripped. He had enough in him to bristle slightly. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m not crossing over to the other side or anything.”
She tried to swallow a laugh and failed. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “It’s just, out of all the men I’ve met in my life, you’re about the most unflinchingly heterosexual.”
He laughed softly. “Thank you. I know you don’t mean that as a compliment, but thank you anyway.” He looked down at the sandwich she was holding, gestured toward it with his chin. “Are you taking that with you? Do you mind if I, uh, walk with you?”
Alyssa nodded, unable to trust her voice.
“You want a soda to go with that?”
“Water,” she said, and he grabbed two bottles from a bin of ice as they headed out of the restaurant.
“It’s good and cold,” he said, bracing open the door to the stairs for her with his shoulder. He held both bottles of water in one hand. He had big hands with long, graceful fingers. Strong hands that always bore some kind of cut or bruise—a fingernail turning colors from getting jammed, or a scraped knuckle. She tried not to look at his hands, tried not to think about the way he’d touched her with those beautiful hands just last night.
“You might want to drink one now,” he continued. “Two minutes out of the ice and it’ll be tepid, like everything else around here. This f—” He stopped himself, cleared his throat. “This, uh, damned heat, you know?”
She looked at him. “Are we actually talking about the weather?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, we are. I thought I’d start with the fucking weather, maybe touch on what you’ve been up to the past six months, and, shit, work my way up to the conversation I just had with Jules over lunch. See, I had it all figured out that we’d talk for a while, and then I’d bring up your partner. And I’d tell you that I got a chance to talk to him a little and he’s an okay guy, and you’d be like ‘Jules and you? Wow, Roger, there’s a friendship I never dreamed would happen in a million years.’ ”
Alyssa had to laugh at his imitation of her. It was pretty accurate, down to her habit of using his given name.
“And I’d say,” he continued, “kind of casually, that Jules and I actually have a whole hell of a lot in common because, you know, we’re, um ...” He took a deep breath. “See, we’re both in love with you.”
Alyssa bounced her sandwich on the landing and scrambled to pick it up again. She looked at Sam, and she knew that he’d said exactly what she thought she’d heard him say.
“Of course, you had to go and ask why I was sitting with Jules, which made me have to deliver the ... the ... punchline, I guess you’d call it, earlier than I wanted to.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, hardly able to breathe.
“You’re sorry that I’m in love with you, or—”
“I’m sorry I blew your timing,” she said.
She could see hope in Sam’s eyes. It was growing with each second that went past.
“So you’re not sorry that I’m in love with you?” he asked. “Sorry if I’m getting obnoxious about this, but I want to make sure I understand what you—”
“How could you love me?” Alyssa asked. “You barely know me.”
Sam shook his head. “No,” he said. “I know you. I know enough. And I want to know more. I want you to get to know me, too. And I know what you’re thinking—this is just me wanting you back in my bed tonight, but it’s not that. I want to spend the night with you, but I want to spend it talking.” He cut himself off. “Okay. Right. That’s a fucking lie. I’m dying to make love to you again, but I want to do it when you’re sober. When you know exactly what you’re doing. And if it’s a choice between spending an hour talking or spending an hour making love, I’d pick the talking. Of course, I’d rather spend two hours with you and—”
Someone was coming. Sam must’ve heard the door open. It was Gilligan and Izzy coming up from the restaurant, arguing about baseball.
He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs with him, careful to stay ahead of the two SEALs and out of their line of sight.
He let go of her as he opened the door to the lobby, as he led her across to the stairs heading up to her room. His room, too. They were in the same tower.
He took her hand again as he took the stairs at a pace that was extremely aerobic. But she was damned if she was going to let him see she was struggling to keep up. And he knew it, too, the jerk.
He loved her. Alyssa didn’t know what to think, what to say, what to do. She wasn’t quite sure how to feel—if she even wanted Sam Starrett to love her.
If she even believed him.
“Sam,” she said as he pulled her out into her hallway. Her room was three doors down, and he stopped in front of it.
He didn’t let her speak. He kissed her. But it was completely different from the Sam plus Alyssa equals nuclear meltdown type kisses he’d given her in the past.
It was the sweetest, most devastatingly gentle kiss she’d ever shared with anyone. He brushed his lips across hers in a way that could only be described as tender. He coaxed her mouth open, and ...
It was over much too soon.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I want as much from you as you’re willing to give. So if you have any desire at all to turn this thing—I don’t know, what do you call it, this get trashed and go slumming thing you do with me every six months?—into something more regular, I’m right here. I’m ready. I want to have dinner with you after this is over. I think the situation here is coming to a boil within the next twenty-four hours. And by the way, I could use your help with the practice—we’re going to be back at it in three hours.”
She nodded. “I’ll be there.” That was the easiest of his questions to answer.
He smiled ruefully as if he could read her mind. “I’ll let you think about dinner,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be in public, if you don’t want anyone to know you’re seeing me—I don’t give a damn about that. We can keep it completely backdoor. We could get room service. You just have to promise to dress for dinner. And promise not to let me take your clothes off—at least not until the second course.”
Sam kissed her again, deeper this time, but just as slowly and thoroughly.
“Thanks for hearing me out,” he said, handing her one of the bottles of water.
And he turned and walked away.
Alyssa couldn’t believe it as the door to the stairs closed behind him with a very solid thunk.
He had three hours before he had to report, and he’d just walked away?
She stood there for a moment, waiting. Certain he was going to come back.
But he didn’t.
She went as far as the stairs and even opened the door, but he was definitely gone.
Alyssa laughed in disbelief. One more kiss like that, and she would’ve invited him into her room.
She’d all but decided that this was just another ploy to get back into bed with her. I love you. Yeah, right.
Except it was working. He had to know it was working. He was on the other end of those kisses. There was no way he couldn’t have known that by kissing her that way he’d made her melt.
But he’d walked away.
I love you.
Oh, my God.
“He’s getting impatient,” Bob told her apologetically.
Gina wiped her face. Jeez, she hadn’t even realized she’d started crying. Her heart was pounding, drumming in her ears. “It scares me to death when he does that.”
Snarly Al had been kicked out of the cockpit and into the main cabin of the plane. She could hear him still shouting, hear the babies and some of the passengers start to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Bob said as if he really meant it.
“His shouting at me isn’t going to help,” Gina said. “I have no clue what he’s saying. I mean, I don’t even speak his language.”
“Of course you don’t,” Bob said. “You’re American.”
He was smiling despite the accusation in his words. But his voice wasn’t even slightly hostile. Or maybe it was. Maybe everything he said was hostile, and she just couldn’t see it that way.
She’d been so convinced he was kind. Gentle. Her friend, even.
The way they’d talked ...
But the look in his eyes when he threatened to kill Max and then kill her ...
Maybe he was only bluffing. Maybe not.
Gina didn’t know anything anymore. She was losing it, big time.
“Do you want me to get on the radio and see if there’s any news?” she asked, praying that he’d say yes. Al had taken his gun and stuck the barrel right up to her head during his latest rant. She’d been certain this was it, that even if he didn’t mean to kill her that his finger would slip in his rage, and her brains would be sprayed across the cabin.
In the aftermath of her fear, she desperately wanted to hear Max’s soothing voice.
She knew he was listening in all the time. He’d dropped hints to let her know they’d managed to plant cameras and microphones on the plane. He could see and hear what was going on. Even right now when the microphone switch wasn’t pressed down.
She could feel Max watching her. She knew with a certainty that he never left that room over in the terminal. He was with her 24/7, and would be until this ended. Or until Al pulled that trigger, whichever came first.
Bob shrugged, so she keyed the microphone. “This is flight 232. Is there any news? Over.”
Max’s voice came back, warm and thick and easygoing, like a security blanket. “This is Max, 232. We’re checking the status of that.” It was his usual I’m-stalling response, designed to keep the channel open and the conversation going. “I don’t suppose our friend Bob is willing to talk to me directly yet. How ’bout it, Bob? Over.”
Bob shook his head. He stood up and went out of the cockpit and into the cabin, no doubt to try to rein Al in.
“Please, God, don’t bring him back in here with you,” Gina said, under her breath. “Al’s strung pretty tightly,” she said into the microphone. “You might want to give them that guy they want released from jail—Razeen. Or something. Soon. Over.”
“Or something,” Max repeated. “Roger that, 232. We’re working as quickly as we can, but it still might take some time.” There was an edge to his voice. Yes, he definitely knew Bob had left the cockpit. Still, he was being careful, in case they were being overheard. “I bet you’re tired, huh, Karen? I bet you’re glad you’re sitting down on the floor. Over.”
“Yeah,” Gina said, her heart pounding for an entirely different reason now. “I’ll just stay right down here, as long as they let me. Go ahead.”
Please, please go ahead.
“It was two weeks to the day after we went into hiding at the Gunvalds,” Helga said as she stirred sugar into her coffee. “I remember it as if it were yesterday. We were just sitting down to breakfast and Annebet burst in.”
Helga’s whole amazing story had been leading to this. But Stan wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more. He took a sip of his own coffee. Bracing himself.
“Hershel had been shot,” she told him, just as he’d expected. “In his and Annebet’s search to find passage for us on a boat to Sweden, he’d found a fisherman willing to take the risk. But he’d needed a crew, and they made a trade—they’d be his crew for a fortnight in return for passage for the five of us to Sweden.”
She fell silent for a moment, just gazing into her coffee, momentarily transported back to that day all those years ago.
Stan had been surprised when Desmond Nyland had called him, even more surprised when the man had taken him into his confidence, telling him that he believed Helga Shuler was suffering from some kind of age-related mental deterioration, perhaps even Alzheimer’s.
She had no problem at all keeping track of this story she was telling him. She seemed clear about the details and didn’t repeat anything. She was actually a very good storyteller. Stan was intrigued by her description of his mother and aunt as young girls, by this glimpse into the lives of the grandparents he’d never known.
It was almost enough to keep him from thinking about Teri.
About the way it had felt to be inside of her.
About the scratches from her fingernails that she’d left on his back. She’d wanted him, needed him so badly that she’d marked him.
But possibly not as permanently as he’d marked her.
Christ, how could he have let himself get so out of control that he’d forgotten to put on a condom?
And what the hell was wrong with him that despite the fact that he should be worried about whether or not he’d gotten Teri pregnant, what he really couldn’t stop thinking about was when he’d get to see her again. When he’d get another chance to drive himself inside of her, to feel her clinging to him so desperately and gasping his name and—holy fuck, it made him so hot just to think about it—making more of those welts on his back.
The sweet little old lady sitting across the table smiled at him.
“Where was I?” she asked.
Um ... “Annebet,” he said, struggling to remember. “She and Hershel had been working as crew in trade for passage for your family.”
“Ah, yes. Hershel and Annebet both had been spending their nights making the crossing with this fisherman and another student, Johan, that they knew from the resistance. It was very dangerous.
“That night they’d arrived safely back in port and were making their way to shelter when they were stopped by the Germans. Hershel heard them coming, and he pushed Annebet into the brush by the side of the path. He knew the Germans had seen them, but it was dark—they couldn’t know how many of them there were.
“It was probably just a regular patrol, stopping them for breaking curfew, but Johan panicked. He had a gun and he opened fire.” Helga smiled sadly. “Of course, the Germans fired back. Johan was killed, Hershel badly wounded.
“The Germans took him to the hospital in Copenhagen. They didn’t know it, but by doing that, they handed him right back to the resistance. The hospital was being used to hide hundreds of Jews. Everyone who worked there either did their part or looked the other way. Hershel was instantly declared dead on arrival—oh, he was still alive. But he was put into a bed under the name Olaf Svensen. A nice, non-Jewish name.
“Annebet told us she had seen him, spoken to him at the hospital,” Helga told him. “His biggest concern was to get us—my parents and myself—to safety in Sweden. One of the nurses at the hospital knew of a ship that was leaving that night. But Poppi wouldn’t leave Denmark without Hershel.
“Annebet begged and argued and cajoled and even cried. She finally ordered me and Marte to the barn to play, and I knew then that Hershel was dying. I wouldn’t stay and eavesdrop even though Marte wanted me to—I didn’t want to hear it. I remember sitting in the barn and Marte telling me that it was going to be all right, but knowing that it wasn’t. Not for me, not for Mother and Poppi, and especially not for Annebet. It was never going to be all right again.”
Helga sighed heavily. “Poor Annebet. She felt to blame. It was her gun—she’d sold it to Johan just that evening. Hershel had been bugging her to get rid of it, for fear something just like that would happen. If she’d never had the gun in the first place ...”
“Johan probably would’ve gotten one from someone else,” Stan pointed out.
“Yes, that’s what Hershel told her. Still, she felt to blame.”
“Excuse me, Senior Chief.”
Stan glanced up to see Jenk making a beeline for him. “Excuse me,” he said to Helga as he got to his feet. “Trouble?”
“Lieutenant Paoletti wants us to do a few more rounds of practice runs a little earlier than scheduled,” Jenk reported. He lowered his voice, leaned closer. “Apparently things are getting tense aboard the aircraft. They want us together and ready to go.”
“Mrs. Shuler, I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me the rest of this story at another time,” Stan said.
“Of course,” she said. She glanced at her hand—she had his name written there. “Stanley.”
Damn. He couldn’t just leave her here. He looked around the room. “Yo, Gilligan!” The petty officer had just finished lunch.
“Yes, Senior Chief?”
“I need you to escort Mrs. Shuler to her room. 808. Don’t let her take the elevator. Take her all the way to her door, see that she gets inside. Do I make myself clear?”
“Aye aye, Senior Chief.”
“Mrs. Shuler, this is Petty Officer Third Class Daniel Gillman. He’ll take you back to your room, ma’am.”
“That’s really not necessary,” she said.
“Ma’am,” Stan said as politely and as respectfully as he could manage, considering he had to stop at his room and change his clothes before heading up to the helo on the double, “I think you know that it is.”