Familiar Stranger (2 page)

Daybreak was hovering on the horizon by the time he reached the edge of the cliff. His heart was still pounding from the run, his clothes dripping with sweat as he lowered himself down into a sitting position on the lip of a rock, as he had so many, many times before.

The air was beginning to stir, promising a stiff breeze before the day was out. He sat with back straight and legs folded, his hands resting lightly on his knees, staring at the crack of light appearing over the mountain. The sky was changing now, wrapping itself in pale, dusty blues intermingled with threads of hot pink and gold.

As he watched, the anger in him slowly stilled. He'd seen just such a sunrise many times since he'd come to this place, but it never failed to instill in him a feeling of awe—a gentle and vibrant reminder of who was really in charge. The vista blurred and he told himself it was nothing but sweat in his eyes.

Moments later, the sun made itself known—the first rays catching and then holding in the silver wings of hair at his temples. With a deep, heartfelt sigh, he stood. It was time to go home. But not just to the cabin. Thanks to the chaos Frank Wilson had created, his days as Jonah had to be over. His guess was, the President was probably already in the process of choosing his successor, but would wait until his formal request for retirement And before that came, he had the final showdown with Frank. The way he saw it, he owed it to himself to make peace with his past, and to do that, he had to become David Wilson one last time and see Cara—the girl he had left behind.

* * *

Finger Lakes Region, New York State

Cara Justice swatted at a bee that kept pilfering about her flowers as she knelt at the side of the flower bed.

"Get back, you little beggar. Just let me get these weeds out of the bed and then you can have at the blossoms."

The bee, of course, didn't answer, and Cara, of course, expected none. But it felt good to be talking aloud, even if there was no one to hear. She tossed aside the last handful of weeds and then stood, brushing off the knees of her slacks and straightening the collar of her shirt. The day was warm, but not unbearably so. She stood for a moment, surveying the landscape of her backyard, and smiled. She loved this time of year. Everything was new and green, flowers in varying stages of buds and blooms, birds nesting.

Renewal.

That's what it was. Everything was new all over again.
Except me
, she thought, and then thought of her youth and sighed. Those had been sad times and nothing she would ever want to relive. She'd suffered, endured and prevailed. After that, she'd made herself always look forward, never dwelling on the past. Truth be told, she didn't want to be young again. It had hurt too much the first time around.

Turning fifty had been a plateau she'd welcomed. Her oldest daughter, Bethany, who lived just down the road, was grown and married, as were her two youngest children, Tyler and Valerie, although they lived out of state.

She bent to pick up her hoe, and as she did, her blond chin-length hair brushed the sides or her face. She straightened, tossing her head to get it out of her eyes, and made a mental note next time she came out to tie it all back. As she started toward the gardening shed, a stiff breeze came out of nowhere, molding her clothes to her body and momentarily outlining her slender, willowy build. From a distance, she could easily have passed for a young, thirty-something woman. It wasn't until one looked closer that the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the small laugh lines framing her mouth were evident. Her stomach growled as she put up the hoe and tossed her gloves in the basket. She glanced at her watch, surprised that noontime had come and gone.

As she started toward the back door, she heard the sounds of an approaching car. It couldn't be Bethany. She and her family were on vacation and weren't due back for several days. Maybe it was the mailman with a package, she thought, and hurried toward the front of the house, anxious to catch him before he left.

It wasn't until she rounded the corner of the house and saw the tail end of a dark sedan that she knew it wasn't the mailman. She paused in the shade beneath the cluster of maple trees and watched as a tall, middle-aged man emerged from the driver's side of the car. His shoulders were broad, his belly flat beneath his white polo shirt. He walked with a military bearing—head back, chin up. His hair was short and dark, but winged with silver above his ears. In reflex, she touched her own hair, aware that the same silver threads lay there among the taffy-colored strands, only not as evident as those on the man.

He didn't see her at first, and so she allowed herself to stare, trying to think why he seemed so familiar. She was certain she'd never seen him before. She would definitely have remembered. And then the stranger suddenly stopped and turned, as if sensing her scrutiny. She waited for him to speak.

* * *

David didn't have to look at the map to Cara's home that he'd downloaded from the Internet. It was burned into his memory. Even though he knew how to get to her house, he felt lost. As Jonah, he'd done something unheard of by seeking out any part of his past.

But it wasn't as if he'd just walked off the job. There was enough equipment in the trunk of his car to connect him with everything from spy satellites to the President of the United States, should the need arise. For all intents and purposes, he was still in charge of SPEAR, but in his heart, he was already pulling away.

Frank had set the ball rolling in this direction the day he'd kidnapped Easton Kirby's son. After the last incident with Maggie and her baby, David had mentally called it quits. There would he no more people assigned to risk their lives on his behalf. Not for an issue that was technically personal. The President knew David's feelings on this, and although David had not said a word about looking for Cara, he made sure the President knew things were going to change.

As he came around a curve, his heart started to pound. He was almost there. He began slowing down, then turned the steering wheel, guided the car into a long, graveled drive and pulled up to the house. He killed the engine and then sat for a moment, absorbing the structure.

It was a long, rambling two-story brick home with a porch that ran half the length of the house. A chimney rose from the center of the roof, evidence of warm fires on cold winter nights. Ancient trees threw large patterns of shade upon the lawn while flowers in bloom abounded everywhere.

He sighed. It looked so beautifully ordinary. Would a woman who lived in a home like this be able to accept what he was going to say? Then he took a deep breath and got out of the car. Hesitation would gain him nothing. Centering his sunglasses comfortably on the bridge of his nose, he started toward the house.

More than halfway up the walk, he caught a movement from the corner of his eye and paused, then turned.

God in heaven, it was her—standing beneath a cluster of maples with a curious look on her face. Once he'd seen her, his feet moved of their own accord. When he was only yards away, he said her name, and as he did, he saw confusion and then panic as it registered on her face.

"Cara."

She gasped, then in spite of the heat, shivered.

He took a step toward her, and then another. Cara started to shake.

"Cara, don't be afraid."

"No," Cara moaned, and covered her face. "No ghosts. No ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts."

Suddenly his voice was right beside her. She opened her eyes.

"I'm not a ghost."

"David?"

His stomach knotted. After all these years, hearing his name from her lips was more painful than he would have believed.

Before be could answer her, she shook her head in vehement denial.

"You're not David. David is dead."

This was harder than he'd imagined. "Cara … I'm sorry … so sorry."

He reached for her hand. When he touched her, she shuddered once, then her eyes rolled back in her head.

He caught her before she fell.

"Damn, damn, damn," he muttered, as he carried her unconscious body to the shade of the porch.

Choosing the nearest chair, he sat down, cradling her carefully as he looked at her face, trying to find the girl that he'd known in the woman he held in his lap, but she was gone.

It wasn't until her eyelids began to flutter and he saw the clear, pure blue of her eyes that he found the girl he'd left behind.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Her hands cupped his face—her eyes wide with disbelief.

 "David? Is it really you?"

A car drove past on the road beyond the house, and David looked up, suddenly aware of how public their reunion had become.

"Let's go inside. We need to talk," he said, and started to carry her inside when she slid out of his lap and threw her arms around his neck.

"How? Why? Did you—"

He put a finger across her lips, momentarily silencing her next question.

"Inside … please?"

Cara grabbed him by the hand and led him inside the house. The moment they entered the hallway, she shut the door behind them then stood, staring at his face with her hands pressed to her mouth to keep from crying.

David ran a shaky hand through his hair, then gave her a tentative smile.

"I don't know quite where to start," he said. "Do you want to—"

Tears rolled down her face, silencing whatever he'd been about to say.

"Oh, honey, don't. You know I never could stand to see you cry."

And then her hands were on his shirt, moving frantically across the breadth of his chest, then up the muscular column of his throat, then tracing the outline of his features. He grabbed her fingers, trying to put some distance between them so he could think. But there had already been forty years of distance, and for Cara, it was forty years too much.

His name was just a whisper on her lips as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Before he could think, she'd kissed him—a tentative foray that went from testing ground status to an all-out explosion. It was instinct that made him pull her against his body, but it was need that kept her there.

"If this is a dream, I don't want to wake," Cara muttered, and then pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his slacks.

His stomach flattened as he inhaled sharply. The feel of her fingernails against his skin was an aphrodisiac he wouldn't have expected. Then her arms were around his waist as she lifted her lips for his kiss. David was broad-sided by the sexual tension erupting between them. He'd planned for everything—except this.

"Cara … God, Cara, we shouldn't be—"

"Since when did shouldn't become part of your vocabulary?" she asked.

She caught him off guard, and he laughed. And the moment the sound came out of his throat, he wanted to cry. He couldn't remember the last time he'd known joy. His eyes narrowed hungrily as he began pulling at her clothes, undoing buttons and shoving aside fabric. Her hands were on him, as well. Somewhere between one moment and the next, his shirt was on the floor and his slacks were undone. He lifted her off her feet and then spun around, pinning her between his body and the wall. Her arms were around his neck, her legs around his waist and she threw back her head and laughed when he slammed into her.

One hard, desperate thrust followed another and another, as if they were trying to destroy all the bad memories with this sexual act. Somewhere between one breath and the next, it began to change—turning into a dance between lovers.

Cara's eyes were closed, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she followed the rhythm of his body and was taken by surprise by the force of her climax. While she was still riding the high, David spilled himself within her in what seemed like endless, shuddering thrusts.

The silence that came after was as abrupt as their mating had been. David's hands were slick with sweat as he eased her down, and when she moved away and started rearranging her clothes, David followed suit. He could tell that she was as shaken by what they'd done as he, and was afraid she'd withdraw in embarrassment before he had a chance to explain. He touched her shoulder, and when she turned, he cupped her face in his hands.

"Look at me," he said.

Cara hesitated, then lifted her head, meeting his gaze straight on. Again, disbelief came and went as she stared at him. Then she touched the swollen edges of her mouth, as if needing the reminder of pain to assure her what had happened was real.

"I see you," she said. "Oh, David, there are so many things I have to tell you. After you left, I found out I was pregnant. We have a—"

"I know," he said. "Bethany."

A look of shock came and went on her face and then her eyes narrowed sharply.

"You knew we had a daughter?"

He nodded.

The timbre of her voice rose a notch. "You knew and you still didn't come back?"

David felt as if he'd been sucker punched. He should have seen this coming, and yet after what they'd just done…

"It wasn't like—"

"No. Wait. Let's start this meeting all over again."

The anger in her voice was blatantly apparent now, and he knew there was no going back.

"David Lee Wilson, just where the hell have you been?"

Chapter 2

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"
C
ara, please … can we do this somewhere else?"

She made no attempt to hide her pain. "Maybe we should adjourn to the bedroom to talk, since we just had sex in my hall."

David inhaled slowly, using every mental skill he had to remain calm.

For Cara, his silence was stronger than any denial he might have made. Courtesy demanded she apologize. She lifted her chin.

"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. What happened just now was more my fault than yours. If you don't mind, I'd like to change my clothes. The guest bathroom is just down the hall if you'd like to … uh … I'm just going upstairs now and…"

"Ssh," he said softly, and lifted a lock of her hair with one finger, gently pushing it into place. "Go do what you have to do. I'll be here when you get back."