Guarding the Soldier's Secret (16 page)

Sam spends most of his time in the high country, these summer days. Or the tower.

She remembered Sage’s words. That would be Sam’s room, of course, though how the old man managed to get up there she couldn’t imagine. Unless there was an elevator. Of course, there must be an elevator.

Her curiosity roused, she crossed the courtyard to the heavy iron-studded wooden door at the far end. This was the door to the chapel, she’d learned during her initial tour of the villa, and was never locked. It opened silently for her now, then closed her into darkness so heavy it felt like a cool cloth over her face. She wondered whether there was a light switch but didn’t look for one. She would have hated to turn it on even if she’d found it. A candle seemed more appropriate, she thought. Or a lantern.

Having neither, her cell phone would do—she’d carried it with her into the courtyard out of long habit. She thumbed it on and, in its dim silvery glow, made her way down the center aisle of the chapel to the altar, which was pulled out from the wall to reveal an open doorway. Stepping through the doorway, she found a spiral wrought-iron staircase leading to the bell tower. There was a metal track mounted on the stone wall of the tower. So, not an elevator, but a chairlift. And since the chair was nowhere in sight, that must mean Sam was up there in his room now. With the light on. So there was a good chance he was still up.

The cell phone’s glow faded to black while Yancy stood wondering whether she should take a chance on maybe finding her elusive grandfather awake. Maybe, like her, he was finding sleep elusive, as well. Since that day at the creek, she hadn’t had a chance to exchange more than a few words with him. What little talking he did during their daily riding lesson was to give instructions and an occasional grunt of encouragement to Laila. She’d been hungry for more information about the parents she’d lost so young and the grandmother she didn’t remember.

She was a classy dame, your grandma.

She blamed me, you know—your grandma—for what happened to your folks. Them goin’ off like that...the plane crash that killed ’em.

Her stomach knotted and her chest tightened, but she drew in a resolute breath and began to climb the stairs. She’d knock—softly—she told herself. If there was no answer, she would simply go away.

She had barely set her foot on the landing when a raspy voice called out, “That you, Josie?”

With hammering heart she cleared her throat and replied, “No, Gr—uh, Sam, it’s me. Yancy.”

There was a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort, and then he said, “Well, you might as well come in.”

The room was small and square; clearly it had once housed bells, the openings now fitted with windows on three sides. It was warm, with an electric fan the only source of cooling. The only light came from an old-fashioned gooseneck lamp that stood on a battered wooden desk. Sam Malone was sitting at the desk, in a straight-backed wooden chair, although he’d hitched himself around to watch her, one forearm resting on the pile of papers on the desktop. The pen he’d evidently just put down lay on the papers near his hand. The only other furnishings in the room were a rocking chair, a chest of drawers and a single-size bed, neatly made and covered with a faded patchwork quilt. A row of hooks on the wall to the right of the door held an assortment of clothing and hats, with several pairs of boots lined up neatly below them. The only adornment on the walls, in the space not taken up by windows, were photographs, mostly black-and-white.

So simple a room for one of the world’s richest men, she thought. Almost monastic. And then she thought, no, except for the electricity, what it reminded her of more than anything was a little room in a log cabin, maybe somewhere in the Ozarks. Or the Appalachians.

That’s where his roots are—and mine, too.

He was waiting, in the patient way of the very old, for her to speak.

“I saw your light was on.” She nodded toward the bed. “So you don’t sleep at night, either?”

He made the creaky sound that was his laughter. “Not much. Old as I am, don’t like to waste what time I’ve got left sleeping.”

She strolled slowly toward him where he sat at the desk, tugging the short beach cover-up down as far as it would go. “I’m sorry to interrupt you. I can see you were writing. If you’d like for me to go—”

The gnarled hand that lay on the desktop jerked, and he turned his head to look at it for a moment before lifting it and nudging the stack of papers with it. “Nah—you just as well stay. It’s for you, anyway.”

“For me?”

“My memoirs—guess you could call it that.” He gave the papers another nudge, this time in her direction. “Figured you might be interested in knowing something about where you came from. About your grandma.”

“My grandmother?” Yancy frowned. “You mean—”

“Your grandma Kate. I don’t suppose you remember her much.”

“I do remember her. But not very well. We didn’t see her very often after...” She drew a shaky breath and picked up the handwritten pages. “I remember she was a little scary. We only called her ‘Grandmother.’ Never ‘Grandma.’”

His laughter came again, and he rubbed the back of one hand across his nose. “Yeah, she could be a little bit scary, Kate could. Tough as nails, too. But just on the outside. Like I said, you remind me of her, some.” He waved a hand toward the rocking chair. “Go on—sit. It’ll be slow goin’, to read my handwriting, I reckon. Alex, he gets the pages typed up for me, but those I hadn’t got around to giving him yet. Take your time. And don’t be alarmed if I doze off for a spell. I’m pretty sure I’m not goin’ to be dying just yet.”

While the old man was chuckling to himself in his wheezy cackle, Yancy lowered herself into the rocker and began to read. After the first couple of lines she looked up. “This is about—”

Sam Malone nodded, and his blue eyes dimmed. “Your daddy—yep. The night he was born.”

From the Memoirs of Sierra Sam Malone:

Katie did have a mind of her own, and guts, too, which came as no surprise to me considering the way she laid out her partnership proposal to me.

We made a deal that night, and I had every intention of holding up my end of the bargain. She held up her end, too, giving me all the respectability I could ask for, even if I did decide early on that politics was not for me. For my part I paid off her family’s debts and saved their home, and a draftier pile of bricks and timber I hope I never have to see the inside of in my lifetime. But there was the second thing Katherine had asked me for, and that turned out to be a lot harder to supply than the first.

Though it wasn’t for lack of trying. And I will not go into the details of that, which was just between Katie and me and that’s where I mean to leave it.

For a while it looked like maybe motherhood wasn’t going to happen for her. Katherine wasn’t a young woman when we married, and the two miscarriages that followed were just two more strikes against her. But the third time was the charm, and if there was ever a happier woman to be in the family way, I can’t imagine it. I was glad, too, and not just for her, though I had grown fond of Katherine. Maybe I even loved her, in my own miserable way. No, I was thinking I might not be opposed to another shot at being a father myself, even if I didn’t deserve it, not after the way I’d squandered my first two chances.

Somewhere along the line, Kate got it in her head she wanted to do this new thing called “natural childbirth.” Said it was the way it was meant to be, something beautiful, not with all the drugs and the mom being put to sleep and whatnot. Well, now, I could have told her I’d been present during the birthin’ of my first son, which was about as natural as it could be, and there wasn’t much about it that was beautiful, as far as I was concerned. Just a lot more screamin’ and hollerin’ and mess than I could stand to witness and I had no desire to go through all that again. My second child, my daughter, she was born when I wasn’t even in the same state, and that was entirely fine with me. But I didn’t say anything, just let Katie go ahead with her plans, and all the exercises and breathing they made her do to get prepared for the blessed event, while I made my own plans to be nowhere in the vicinity when the big day came.

Which was the way it happened, for me, anyway. As far as Katie’s plans went...

I was out in California to watch the testing of a new engine I’d been planning to sell to Uncle Sam for the rockets they were about to send up to orbit the earth, when I got a telephone call from my housekeeper. Said that they’d had to take Kate to the hospital in an ambulance. That there’d been complications and they’d had to do an emergency C-section, and that my son was fine, and Kate was okay, but there wouldn’t be any more babies for her. Ever.

* * *

It ended there. Yancy turned the last sheet of paper over, looking for more, then carefully placed it on top of the others. After a moment, she looked up to find the old man watching her, his eyes still faded and sad. She cleared her throat and said, “That must have been hard. For her, I mean.”

Sam nodded. “I expect it was, though I wasn’t there to see it. She was a proud woman, Katie was, and by the time I got there she had herself in hand, and if it hurt her she never let it show.” He shook his head slowly. “She even forgave me, you know. For not being there for her. That time and a thousand times more. Then...” His voice faded as he gazed at something only he could see. Yancy had begun to wonder if he would continue, when he straightened, placed his hands on his knees and lifted his head to look at her, eyes now bright and sharp as ever. “It was the day your mama and daddy died. She couldn’t forgive me for that.”

“But,” Yancy protested, “that wasn’t your fault.”

He shook his head. “No, but she needed me then. And when she needed me the most, I let her down. I’d let her down before, but I guess that was just one time too many.”

* * *

Thunder was still rumbling, though way off in the distance now, when Yancy crossed the shadowy courtyard to return to her room. It made a bass accompaniment to the echoes of Sam’s voice that were playing over and over in her mind.

I let her down...one time too many.

But not
me.
Hunt didn’t let
me
down
, the voice of reason in her head insisted. How could he, when she’d expected nothing from him? She’d accepted him on his terms, hadn’t she?

It was Laila he’d let down. Of course it was. So why did Hunt’s abandonment weigh so heavily on her own heart?

Because Laila was her child, and it hurt to see her disappointed; that was why. That was all it was.

At the door to the room she shared with Laila, she paused, listening to the ominous grumbles of the distant storm. The restlessness was still with her, along with a feeling of vague disquiet. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, that her wakefulness might disturb Laila, so once again she turned away from her room and this time made her way silently along the veranda to the double French doors that opened into the living room.

She’d decided early on that the living room was one of her favorite places in the villa. In spite of its size it was a cozy room, with clusters of comfortable sofas and chairs at opposite ends of the long space, one gathered around the huge fireplace, the other in front of an equally huge flat-panel television set mounted on the wall. There was a game table in one corner, shelves filled with books on either side of both fireplace and TV, and chairs with reading lamps set apart from the communal areas for quiet and privacy. Two of the reading lamps had been left on, turned low.

She was much too restless for reading, so she picked up the TV remote and thumbed it on. Standing in front of the giant screen, she muted it and began to surf through the late-night offerings. None of the movies on the basic cable channels interested her; nor did sports commentary and rehashing of old contests. Twenty-four-hour news channels would be nothing but commentary, too, most likely, but she clicked onto WNN, her own network, because she missed it and wanted to feel a sense of familiarity. Of home. Of the world she’d been a part of for so long. Of friends. Of familiar faces.

But the face that filled the screen, though familiar, was not a friend’s. It was there for only an instant before it vanished, replaced by stock footage of men in Afghan costumes and rumbling vehicles and mud-brick buildings, and the banner across the top that flashed, BREAKING NEWS!

Icy cold clutched at her. Her hand shook so that it was long seconds before she could find the button to turn on the sound.

“...the crash of a US Navy helicopter that was returning to the capital city following a meeting of Afghan tribal elders. Arman, whose name ironically means ‘hope,’ had worked tirelessly behind the scenes for years to bring about the coalition of Afghan tribes that many believe will provide the basis for a united Afghanistan. The historic agreement reached during yesterday’s meeting is thought to be this war-ravaged country’s best hope for stability in the wake of the withdrawal of US troops.”

The face that had turned her to stone reappeared on the screen. The face of a man wearing the headdress of an Afghan tribal elder. A dark face half-hidden by a full dark beard. But there was no hiding the eyes that blazed out of that darkness. Eyes like golden flame.

“Arman had often been spoken of as a possible future president of Afghanistan, but had resisted all efforts to draw him into national politics. He preferred to work in the background, convincing the often contentious factions to unite for the good of all. Sadly, he didn’t live to see his work bear fruit. Arman Haziz—dead in a helicopter crash. The world has lost one of its most dedicated fighters for peace. He will be sorely missed. Back to you in Washington...”

The screen switched to in-studio commentators and voices droned on. The remote control slipped unnoticed from Yancy’s hand and clattered onto the hardwood floor.

Chapter 12

S
he had no idea how long she stood before the TV screen, paralyzed with shock. She heard nothing but a humming sound inside her own head, saw nothing but unrecognizable shapes, splotches of light and dark arranged in random patterns. It was only when the splotches became darkness and the sound in her head a deafening whine that she realized she had forgotten to breathe and was on the verge of fainting.

She’d never fainted in her life and fought against it now with all her strength and will. Somehow, she was sitting down, then leaning forward with her head between her knees. She concentrated on breathing slowly in...then out. In...then out. Slowly the darkness receded, the whine diminished. She began to feel her own body again, clammy and shaking. Nausea clutched at her and she fought that, too.

No. No. No.

It was the only coherent thought in her head.

No. Not again. It’s not true.

Slowly she rose and made her way to the double French doors, opened them and stepped out into the warm muggy night.

It shouldn’t hit her this hard. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought him dead. It had never affected her like this before.

But this... This was different. She’d seen him only... When? A few weeks ago. She’d been in his arms, kissed him, felt the vibrant warmth of his neck with her hands, measured his pulse with her palms. He had a mission to complete, he’d told her, and then he would return. She’d been afraid of what his returning might mean for her, for Laila. Now it seemed he wouldn’t be returning, not ever.

Killed...in a helicopter crash.

What was she supposed to do with that?

She found herself once more before the doors to her own room, one hand gripping the door handle. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass and closed her eyes.

How am I going to tell Laila?
What
am I going to tell her? That her beloved Akaa Hunt isn’t going to come to see her ever again? Do I tell her he wasn’t her uncle, that he was really her father? When do I tell her that? Now? Years from now? How old is old enough to understand?

She opened the door and stepped into the room, listening for the deep, even breathing of a sleeping child. The room was shadowed, not fully dark. She stood for a while, gazing down at her daughter, sleeping as she usually did, on her side with one hand under her cheek, the other clutching to her chest a corner of the sheet that covered her to just below her arms. Sleeping soundly. Peacefully. Happily.

Not now, she thought.
I don’t have to tell her now. Or even tomorrow. It can wait until...when?

When she’s ready. No—when I’m ready.

I will never be ready.

Silently she untied the sash of her beach cover-up and let it slip to the floor. She lay down on the rumpled bed she’d left—oh, a lifetime ago—and, staring up into the shadows, waited for the pain.

* * *

She woke up, surprised to realize she’d actually slept. How long she’d slept she didn’t know, but she had the feeling the day was well under way. Laila’s bed was empty and unmade, and her nightgown lay in a pile on the floor. The baseball cap she always wore when riding with Sam wasn’t on the desk where she usually left it, so she’d be long gone, off to the barn to feed her goats and spend the morning with Sam. Strange, Yancy thought, that a little girl and a very old man had become such good friends.

All of that flashed through her mind in a second or two. And for those brief moments, she forgot.

Memory returned in a flood, like a cold ocean wave, making her gasp. For a few moments she only wanted to roll over, curl herself into a ball and stay there.

Why did it hurt so much? She didn’t remember so much pain, pain that was physical, like the worst stomachache she’d ever known, but in her chest and throat and face, too. Why this time? Why now?

Because things have changed? Because now there’s Laila?

And from the deepest reaches of her mind came a whisper.
No. Because you’ve changed. Because—

No. She slammed the lid on that thought before it could even form.

She had to get up. She had to put on her mask and face everyone as if nothing had happened. Because if she didn’t, everyone would want to know what was wrong and she would have to lie, and nobody would buy her lie, and sooner or later Laila would know something was wrong, and then she would have to tell her. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

But, to her relief, there was no one in the kitchen when she went out, freshly showered and dressed. No one to smile for, no one from whom to hide the fact that she felt as though she’d been dragged out of the wreckage of a collapsed building. Breakfast had been laid out for her, who knew how long before, but she couldn’t have choked down a bite if her life had depended on it. Even the thought of coffee made her throat close. She left the silent, empty house without knowing or caring where everyone had gone off to and walked down the long drive, past the rose gardens, the poplar trees, the horse pasture and pines. Down the lane to the big old barn she went, trying not to break into a run. If she started to run she was afraid she might not be able to stop.

Winnie, the pretty chestnut mare she’d been given to ride, was waiting for her in one of the small holding corrals. The mare whickered a greeting to her, but this morning Yancy had no treats, no soft words to give her. In silence she led the mare into the barn, brushed and saddled her, then lifted herself into the unfamiliar Western-style saddle and in minutes was riding out across the meadow, heading for the distant mountains where the thunderheads were already building, mounds and billows of gray and white against a sky of vivid blue. Once again she had to use all her willpower to hold the mare to a sedate trot, when she wanted nothing more than to let her have her head, let her run flat out until there was nowhere else to run.

She followed the meadow until it narrowed down to nothing, then the trail that followed the creek until its course became too steep and rocky and the trail angled away to wind up through the foothills to the high country. Sam had a cabin somewhere up there, she knew, but since she didn’t know the way or how far it was, she stopped there beside the creek and dismounted. Winnie was a seasoned working cow horse and trained to stand when her reins were dropped to the ground, so Yancy felt safe in leaving her there in the shade of some pines, where there was water to drink and a few blades of grass on the creek bank to nibble on. The air was warm and smelled of sunbaked pine needles. The nearby creek made happy chuckling sounds as it trickled over rapids and little falls. In a patch of sunshine thickly carpeted with pine needles, Yancy dropped to her knees, then doubled up with her head in her hands, with her face almost touching the warm earth, and let the sobs come.

* * *

The thunderclouds no longer resembled piled-up mounds of meringue when Yancy rode back down through the meadow, but had lowered and spread out in a ceiling of ominous gray that blocked out the sun. Knowing an open meadow was no place to be during a thunderstorm, she allowed Winnie, who was also eager to get back to the barn, to quicken her gait to a gallop.

After her sleepless night and recent bout of weeping, she was exhausted and headachy, drained but calm. There would be no more tears, she promised herself. Hunt Grainger would take up no more of her emotional energy. She would save that for the support and comfort her daughter was going to need—and the strength she herself was going to need when she had to break the news to Laila that her beloved Akaa Hunt was gone. And not coming back. She didn’t know, yet, how she was going to do that. She hoped she would know when the right time came.

In the dim and quiet barn she unsaddled and brushed the chestnut mare while the kittens came to climb her pant legs and cry for attention and food. As she turned the mare out to pasture, she noticed that both Sam’s and Laila’s horses had been turned out, as well. She felt pangs of guilt about leaving her child to the care of others for the afternoon, until she remembered this was the day Laila would go with Josie to the Native American Center.

Two days a week during the summer, Josie taught a children’s class there in Pakanapul, the language of the Tubatulabal, and had invited Laila to go along. There would be other children around her age, Josie had said, but Laila had been enjoying the classes themselves as much as the chance to play. Like most bilingual children, she picked up languages easily and had been going around happily practicing the names of the farm animals and the birds and trees and mountains she saw all around her and singing the native songs she’d learned. Sage was even going to make her a flute, she’d told Yancy proudly. And teach her to play it, too.

So Laila was happy and occupied for the afternoon.
Maybe I’ll take a nap
, Yancy thought.
Maybe if I sleep I won’t have to think. Maybe if I take a nap I’ll be able to smile and face everyone at dinner. Maybe.

She paused to unhook a kitten from her jeans and cuddled it under her chin. But for only a moment, because she could feel the ache building in her throat again, and she’d vowed there would be no more of that.

No more. I’m done.

Sam’s words whispered in her mind.

“One time too many...”

And besides, thunder was beginning to rumble, sounding much closer than it had on previous afternoons. As she left the barn a gust of wind tugged at her hair and sent a small flurry of dust across the yard in front of her. Any minute now, surely, the clouds would open up. The drought-stricken earth seemed to hold its breath.

She started walking down the lane, heading back to the villa. And paused when she saw a car parked along the lane, just past Sage’s gate. It was a black SUV, not one she’d seen before. A visitor, maybe? Another family member she hadn’t met yet? Or someone lost and in need of directions?

Yes, that was probably it, she thought, because as she came closer, the driver’s-side door opened as someone prepared to get out of the car. At just that moment a stronger gust of wind rocked her and blew stinging dust into her eyes, and she turned her head and put one hand up to hold her hair back from her face. When she turned again to look at the SUV, the driver had emerged and was standing beside the car, waiting for her to approach.

She had no warning. No premonition. For a moment, as she watched the man come around the rear of the car and start toward her, she didn’t recognize him. A tall man, powerfully built, clean shaven, with dark hair a little too long for a military cut, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt.

She halted, not aware that she did.

He moved forward, smiling, and said her name, although she didn’t hear it. She heard nothing but a strange wild humming in her head. He came closer, until he was standing right in front of her, and all she could see were his eyes. Golden even in the stormy twilight.

She didn’t know she was going to do it. She’d never struck another person in her life, except for self-defense classes. She didn’t know she
had
done it, until she felt the sting of it on her palm, felt the jolt of it all the way to her shoulder. The force of the blow rocked her backward, and she stumbled a little before she regained her balance. For a moment she stared at him, seeing her own shock mirrored in his face, seeing his hand come up to touch the place where she’d hit him. Then she turned and ran for the barn as if all the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.

* * *

In planning for a mission, it had always been Hunt’s practice to consider every imaginable scenario, in order to avoid unpleasant surprises. Now as he rubbed his stinging jaw, it occurred to him that women might be considerably less predictable than the Taliban.

Hopscotching his way on military flights across the Middle East, Europe and the United States, he’d had plenty of time to think about what he would say to Yancy when he saw her again and to try to imagine what her response might be. But he could honestly say having her clock him in the jaw was one scenario he hadn’t foreseen.

Damn
but the woman did pack a wallop.

He stood for a long moment, considering his next move and watching the woman in question hightailing it down the lane in the direction of the big old barn. Obviously, his handling of the situation up to now had left a lot to be desired and, he realized now, probably hadn’t involved a whole lot of clear thinking.

What
had
he been thinking? That he would show up in the dark of night, climb into her bed stinking of sweat and blood and guns and expect her to open her arms and her body to him, the way she had always done before?

Good God, he hoped he wasn’t that stupid. That unfeeling. Obviously, seeing him had come as something of a shock to her. To put it mildly. Right now, good sense suggested he ought to get back in his rented SUV and continue on up to the villa, give her some time to cool off. But his gut was telling him— Well, hell, he didn’t know what it was telling him, except he needed to go after her. Right now.

Plus, he was no expert on local weather conditions, but it looked to him like the sky was about to open up, and whatever he was going to do, he’d better do it fast.

The first big raindrops hit him in the face as he was jogging down the lane. He increased his pace and was glad to see the barn door was standing wide open, which meant she hadn’t barred it against him. That seemed to him like a good sign.

Dark as it was outside with the thunderstorm about to hit, inside the barn it was even darker. He stood just inside the door for a few moments to let his eyes adjust to the gloom, then called softly, “Yankee?”

She didn’t reply, but some mewing sounds drew his eyes to a tall stack of hay bales, unevenly stepped back like a crumbling pyramid. Yancy was sitting on a ledge a few feet above the level of his head, her lap, shoulders and arms full of... Kittens?

She seemed calm enough, so he ventured closer to the stack. When he did, all but the kitten she was holding in her hands scampered up to a higher ledge from which vantage point they observed him cautiously, a row of little triangular heads with great big eyes peering down over the edge of the bale.