Patricia Potter (18 page)

She looked up and his eyes were dark and depthless, the muscles in his jaw working furiously. “I need you,” she said simply, and she saw something like agony flash across his face before his lips met hers in angry, urgent yearning. Now there was no stopping. She knew it as she looked up at the almost hopeless anguish in his face.

The sun played over them as they loved. Quietly and intensely. Because of her inexperience, he’d moved slowly, slow and tender and gentle, his hands guiding and soothing and resassuring. He saw the flicker of fear in her eyes, but almost immediately it disappeared in her growing passion as her body arched against his own with a need to give. He felt her moment of pain as if it were his, and he hesitated before continuing, urged on by her legs which had instinctively wrapped around him, seeking to bring him even further into her despite the hurt.

He felt sensations new and poignant and aching and glorious as he moved, teaching pleasure, learning giving, and he knew he had never really made, or given, love before. He was seized by elation and a wondering happiness. But it faded quickly as he looked into her eyes, trusting and rhapsodic, and knew where this would end.

But still he held her against him, not wanting to let her go. Her body was soft and yielding against his, and he wondered how they’d divested themselves of clothes. He didn’t even remember now. He was only aware of the reality of her closeness, of the pleasure it gave him, of the feeling of well-being that he knew was temporary.

In less than a week now, she would know him for what he was. A spy. A seducer. She would think he’d made love to her in furtherance of his own aims. To help him destory her country. She would never believe it was for herself. But he had to make her believe that. He had to leave her that.

So little time. The fragility of the moment made every sensation more prolonged, more precious. Raw physical need was still there, on both their parts, yet he had a fierce desire to give rather than receive, and the moments stretched into blissful infinity as he savored the sound of her heartbeat, the taste of her, the feel of their bodies together, the gentle friction of skin against skin. Feelings were exquisitely intense as they built, one upon another, until the world was a spinning top full of swirling colors and uncontrolled motion.

When they finally parted, the sun was setting and they sat silently, watching it, their hands entwined. Splashes of crimson spread across the sky, blending into incredibly soft shades of pink and gold. The sea was swept by the last glimmering golden glaze of a lazily descending sun, and the first star was already visible overhead as a partial moon emerged in the fading daylight. Meara thought the earth resembled a velvet-lined box of jewels, some bright, some muted, but each beloved for its own special qualities.

Her own body felt like a jewel, cherished and polished and glowing. Her face flamed where his mouth had trailed kisses, and her core still trembled and throbbed with the warmth of him. His hand held hers tightly although the lines of his face were stiff. With what, she didn’t know. She hoped it wasn’t regret, for she could regret nothing.

He finally turned to her, an odd bafflement in his face. “I’m sorry, Meara. This should never have happened.”

Her eyes, deep and green, searched his. “I’m not.”

He smiled slightly as his gaze met hers directly. “You’re the most honest woman I’ve ever known. And the most special.” She wanted something else, and he knew it. She wanted words of love, but he couldn’t give them. He couldn’t compound his crime that much.

When they arrived at the Connor cottage, dusk had turned into darkness and he accompanied her to the door silently. His hand touched her face, and then he leaned down and kissed her lightly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“You were trying to be noble again. I’m glad you didn’t succeed.”

That enchanting honesty again. Enchanting and damning.

“God, you
are
a witch!”

She looked up at him, a quick mischievous smile on her lips. “I’m beginning to find all sorts of benefits in being one.

He couldn’t help but smile back. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I know,” she replied with satisfaction, her eyes laughing at her own daring.

The smile disappeared from his face. “I care about you, Meara. Never doubt that.”

He had said the same words before, and now she felt the same sudden apprehension as she had then, the peculiar knowledge that he was trying to tell her something, something she should know. A momentary fear ran through her.

“Tomorrow?” she asked hesitantly. She had never before asked a man that question, but she had to know. She had to.

“Perhaps,” he said shortly. Then, watching her stricken face and knowing he couldn’t leave things that way, not now, he amended the one cruel word. “I’ll see you on the beach tomorrow. I promise.”

Her hand touched his briefly. She opened the door, and she heard the Connors listening to the war news on the radio in the parlor. She heard snatches as she stood there, reluctant to move. She heard something about bombs and Berlin, and she saw his face tighten.

“Good night,” he said abruptly, and then he was gone, only the clean spicy scent of him remaining. She heard Peter’s voice and the rush of footsteps and she closed the door. Slowly and reluctantly.

Offshore in U-275, Klaus Hasser looked through the periscope at a convoy of American ships. Perfect targets. Three tankers and four additional merchant ships guarded by only two escorts. He could destroy one of the tankers, and the escorts could do nothing. They wouldn’t dare leave the other ships to chase him.

But his orders were clear. He was to take no chances, none at all. He was to avoid all contact with enemy ships.

Frustration filled him. This trip had been anything but pleasant. The already crowded U-boat was filled to capacity, past capacity, with twenty German marines on board. He understood they were also to take on additional men, women, and children in a few days, and he had spent hours trying to work out the logistics. Already bunks were used by turns, and it was difficult to move from one area to another.

He had been assured that he would not have the unwanted passengers long. Another submarine was on its way, scheduled to meet with him Easter Sunday to take aboard the human cargo. But still, he didn’t like it. He didn’t like anything about this mission. The waterway to the planned landing was extremely difficult, shallow with unpredictable currents. And his submarine had never been intended as a passenger ship.

It was dangerous, and he was damned if he liked being commandeered by German Intelligence. A destroyed ship was tangible proof of success. It was his reason for being, not this cloak-and-dagger stuff.

Still, he had no choice, so he ordered periscope down and swore. He hated this waiting. The crew was already quarrelsome and would be more so, given the inactivity and crowding.

Six more days. He shook his head as he saw, in his mind, the convoy disappearing out of range.

Chapter Nine

I
T WAS ALMOST
as if he were two different people, one of whom he didn’t recognize.

Michael hesitated on the beach. He had started out before sunrise, watching the pale glow wash and color the water and earth with silvery brilliance. He had needed this time alone, a time when no one else was around. He’d needed the time to think.

The plan had been proceeding far more successfully than even the greatest expectations. He had played whist, poker, and billiards with members of the club. He was welcomed at every table, in every room. He was listened to respectfully and included in invitations. He had been asked to play golf but had demurred regretfully because of his leg.

He had already mentioned hosting a party before he left, a thank-you, he said, that had been impossible for the club members to decline. It was to be, he said, a revival of an old custom at the club, a men’s after-dinner get-together. He had been regaled with tales of the club, and how private meetings and discussions there had had profound effects on the country, how in 1910 members secretly drafted a plan for sweeping bank reforms, how the first continental phone call originated from Jekyll Island by member Thomas Vail, who was president of AT&T, how Joseph Pulitzer discussed events of the day with other members.

The enthusiasm with which his invitation was met did not fill Michael with triumph. Instead, he was being consumed alive by a steadily growing despair, a despair he had to hide. The lives of his family depended on his acting ability, on his skill in pulling off what could be the espionage coup of the war.

Christ, he wished he could run away. Now. Run from the conflicting needs that were ripping him apart. And that wasn’t all. He wanted desperately to take Meara with him, to be young and carefree and happy with her. He wanted, God help him, to protect and preserve those short idyllic periods of time when he had closed out the rest of the world.

Michael had never really been young. Or carefree. Or open. Growing up in a home racked with violence, he had created a distance between himself and others, becoming an observer rather than a participant in and of life. It had been the only way he could survive.

That ability to distance himself had served him well when he went to sea. He could divorce himself from the stifling, cramped curse-filled quarters, from the exhaustion of a boy’s doing a man’s work, of laboring around the clock at times, of tolerating the violent roughhousing and often malicious teasing. None of it had been easy for a boy raised in physical, if not emotional, luxury.

But survive he had, and the protective covering had grown more insular over the years. He knew he had been a damned good officer because he never allowed emotions to interfere in a decision. Although he cultivated an easy manner on the surface, a facile charm he had known and despised in his father, he’d never had any close friends of his own, had always steered clear of any emotional attachments.

Michael had feared he might have inherited his father’s violence, the twisted strain that had ruined his childhood and reduced his mother to a weak, totally dependent woman. He had been conscious, all his life, of restraining his own temper, particularly after the one instance as a boy when he knew he was capable of killing his own father. That had frightened him more than any thought of retribution from the man who had sired him.

He’d had to fight. A freighter in the twenties and thirties was a hard school. Michael had learned early to protect himself. But he only did so when absolutely necessary and then with restraint. He perfected a discipline that ruled every facet of his life.

But something had happened to that discipline here. It lay in tattered rags around him. Hunger, raw hurting hunger, had chewed through every defense he had. He had tasted youth and laughter and hope, and he wanted more. He wanted to hear Meara’s voice, to feel the spontaneous joy swelling up inside, to realize again the sense of belonging and warmth and pleasure of joining his body with hers. Not using it, as he had used women’s bodies in the past, but becoming one with her. To give as he had never given before. He’d never felt that kind of desire until now, and he knew it was because he had never been truly alive until he came to this island.

Michael stared out the window of his room. Three more days until the submarine came, before Hans would lead a group of German marines to the clubhouse where, according to plan, most of the intended targets would be gathered at a party hosted by him. Only Sanders Evans was a threat; there were no armed guards as such on the island, only two watchmen who had probably never fired a gun in their lives.

Evans would have to be taken care of in some way, and prior to the submarine’s arrival. A harmless but potent drug, perhaps. Michael didn’t want to kill him, but if Hans suspected the man’s identity, there would be no question of Evans’s fate. For some reason he didn’t understand, Michael did not intend for that to happen. Evans was an enemy, but there was something about the FBI agent that Michael liked and admired. And envied.

Perhaps he would invite Evans to his room for a drink the evening of the raid. Evans would come, he knew. Michael fully realized that Sanders Evans was, at the very least, more than a little curious about him.

His reluctance to kill Evans was quixotic, he knew. He had, without emotion or guilt, directed gunfire that had surely killed dozens if not hundreds of men. Now he wondered if his suddenly strong aversion to killing—no, murder—derived from the fact that he actually knew Evans or because he now had a new appreciation of life.

An appreciation, he knew, that had a very short time to exist. Minutes. Hours.

Two days had passed since the picnic, two confusing days of sliding from one persona to another, from a man finding love for the first time to a soldier whose duty was abhorrent but essential.

Sometimes he thought he was going mad.

Despite his best intentions, he had not been able to keep away from Meara and the Connor children, although he made sure such meetings were always on the beach, far away from Hans’s probing eyes. He knew her routine now, knew where she would be at nearly every hour. If he were within sight of Hans, he would pass them by, if not, he would stop and take forbidden pleasure in a few stolen moments.

Part of him hoped that Meara would never discover his role. That the plan would proceed so smoothly that he would simply be part of a group which disappeared. But he knew that scenario was too much to hope for. There could easily be resistance, even bitter fighting, death, violence on this island that was so special to Meara. Her island of dreams could become her island of nightmares.