“Mitch…”
“What we did just now was great, Chantal, but I’m greedy enough to want more. I need to know more about you than the smell of your skin and the feel of your body. Is that bullet wound the reason you don’t like guns?”
If only it was that simple. “In a way.”
“It looked old. You must have been a kid when you got it.”
“I was six.”
“Six? That’s how old you were when your mother had the accident with one of the general’s guns.”
She’d told him about that incident two days ago. Was this why? Had she
wanted
him to guess, to put it together himself so that she didn’t need to go back on her word? “Your memory is phenomenal.”
“What happened?”
This was the point where she should lie. She’d done it for twenty-nine years. She’d kept the secret and had been a good daughter. She’d never told a soul, no matter how the sadness and anger had overwhelmed her. Even that final night, when she’d bared everything to Mitch, she wasn’t sure if she would have shared this particular truth.
Would it have made a difference if she had? Would he have stayed? If he had, it would have been out of pity.
She raked her hand through her hair. A dusting of charcoal came off on her fingers. Her mother would have been appalled at her lack of grooming. Never mind having sex on a table, being slovenly was the bigger crime. Appearances must be maintained at all costs. She rubbed her hand hard against her sweater. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”
“I might feel sorry for the kid you once were, but not for the woman you are now.” He drew her a few steps away from the window so he could brace one hand against the back of a chair. “I respect your strength too much for that.”
He’d said precisely the right thing. She sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Tell me about it. You said no one was hurt.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d promised never to tell.” She stopped. That had sounded like something a child would say. Her mother had had no right to extract that promise from her. She’d understood that years ago. She’d been cheated out of her childhood because of her loyalty and her eagerness to be loved. She couldn’t be expected to carry the secret to her grave.
Yes, her grave. She could die tonight. So could Mitch. In light of that, her hesitation over this was as absurd as her modesty. She placed her hand on Mitch’s chest, took a deep breath and said the words she’d kept inside her entire life. “My mother was an alcoholic.”
It likely wasn’t the secret he’d expected. His eyebrows lifted. “I’m sorry, Chantal. I had no idea.”
“You couldn’t have. No one did. She was terrified of creating a scandal. All she cared about was being the perfect officer’s wife.”
“She’d seemed happy.”
“She tried hard to be, but she couldn’t take the loneliness. My father was the center of her world. She was lost when he went away. When he was home, she threw all her energy into organizing dinners and cocktail parties that would help him advance his career. She cultivated political contacts as much as military ones. She wanted so badly to please the general that she made herself a nervous wreck each time she entertained.”
Mitch laid his hand gently over hers. “Is that when she drank?”
It was surprising how easily the words were coming. They had been festering a long time. Like her memories of Mitch, maybe it was a good thing they were being purged, too. “There was seldom a time when she didn’t drink. She used alcohol to take the edge off her nerves when he was home. She used it as a comfort when he was gone. Her manners were so ingrained, no one could tell when she was drunk. No one guessed. She hid it well.”
“Not from you, though.”
“No, not from me. I was what the current jargon calls an enabler. I loved her, and I wanted her to love me, so I helped her keep her secret. I cleaned up the messes she made. She trained me how to host parties so I could take her place when she was too inebriated to hide her condition.”
“She was drunk when she shot you, wasn’t she?”
Chantal nodded. He’d pieced some of it together. She hesitated, then decided to tell him the rest. “I was late coming home from school that day because I’d made friends with a girl whose father had just moved to the base. My mother didn’t like being alone. She counted on me to keep her company when my father was away, and she was upset. She’d had more to drink than usual. She’d spilled half the box of ammunition before she’d managed to load his favorite Webley.”
Mitch’s hand tightened. “Wasn’t it an accident?”
“Oh, she’d never meant to shoot me. That
was
accidental. She’d been trying to shoot herself. The gun went off when I pulled it away from her head.”
“My God,” he murmured. “You were only six.”
“I felt it was my fault because I was late coming home. I told the doctor I was playing with the gun. He was a friend of my mother’s and went along with her pleas to hush it up. She didn’t want anyone criticizing the general about his gun collection, you see. No one knew the truth, not even my father. After that, I never stayed after school to play with my friends. I made sure I was there to take care of my mother.”
“You were only six,” he repeated, his voice hoarse.
“It was the pattern of my childhood. Wherever we moved, everyone believed my mother and I were inseparable. You thought I had led a sheltered life. In a way, I did. I didn’t dare make my own friends or join clubs or play sports because I was so afraid I wouldn’t be there the next time she decided to load one of my father’s guns.” She slid her hand from his grip and moved to put the table between them. Now that she’d begun, she wanted to finish. It would be easier to do that if she weren’t touching him. Things got confused when she touched him. “When I got older, I didn’t date either, for the same reason. My only escape was my imagination.”
As if he understood her need for space, he didn’t follow her this time. “Someone should have helped you. Or gotten your mother into a rehab program. You never should have had to bear that burden on your own. Didn’t the general notice something was wrong?”
“He was too wrapped up in his career. Like a lot of soldiers, he didn’t show his emotions, and he was uncomfortable when anyone else did. If we hadn’t moved so often, one of our friends might have seen through my mother’s act, but transfers are part of the army life. We never stayed in any one place long enough to develop close ties. I was brought up not to complain. My father called me his good little soldier. Being my mother’s keeper was my duty, and I did the best I could. I…kept her alive.”
“You blame the army for the situation with your mother, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you said you hate it.”
“You’re a perceptive man, Mitch. Yes, I blame it for what it does to people and what it turns them into. It started killing my mother long before that aneurism finally did.”
“Chantal—”
“Don’t,” she said, holding up her palm. “I know how important the army is to you, and you’re probably going to point out how illogical it is for me to condemn the entire organization because of my personal experience.”
“No, I wasn’t going to do that. Emotions aren’t logical or reasonable. Once you feel something, it can’t be explained away, no matter how much you might try. Or how inconvenient it might be.”
She could tell by his tone that he was talking about more than her feelings for the army. He was referring to what he’d said earlier about the two of them.
A lump came to her throat. Maybe it was best to get all of this out in the open, too. “You’re right. Emotions aren’t logical. Because in spite of the unhappiness I went through in my childhood, in spite of what the military life had done to my mother, I once made a complete fool of myself over a soldier who turned out to be just as obsessed with his honor and his career as my father.”
He shoved himself away from the chair. “How many times do you want me to apologize for failing you? I am sorry. If I’d known the truth about how deep your problems were—”
“Would it have made a difference if you’d known? Would you have stayed with me? Taken what I’d offered you?”
He fisted his hands. He didn’t reply.
“Of course not. You had your code of honor. You wouldn’t have taken my virginity. You probably would have gotten me into counseling instead.”
“I sure as hell wouldn’t have left you to be a sitting duck for a jerk like Darren.”
“Daryl.”
“But the first thing I would have done is to have found your father and given him a good, swift kick for being so oblivious to the needs of his family. I would have told him that being an officer means nothing if he isn’t a man first. That would have ended my career faster than if I
had
slept with his eighteen-year-old daughter.”
The sudden vehemence in his voice startled her. “Then it’s just as well you hadn’t known.”
“For me, yes. But you haven’t healed. You’re still carrying around the scars of what you went through in your childhood as surely as that one on your thigh.”
“We all carry scars of one kind or another, Mitch. I told you about mine because…”
“Because you trust me. Because you realize we have a bond between us.”
“No, because I wanted you to understand why there
can’t
be anything between us.”
“There already is. We made love, Chantal.” He smacked his palm on the table. Charcoal dust puffed into the air. “Right here.”
“No, we had sex.”
“Why are you determined to make that distinction?”
“I’m trying to be realistic.”
“You claimed I was the last man in the world that you’d want. It sure didn’t seem that way a few minutes ago. You’re holding the past against me when you know damn well I can’t change it.”
“No, Mitch. The problem isn’t the past. It’s what the past made us. It’s who we are now. I’ll never again be that child who waited to be rescued, or that needy girl who was so desperate to be loved. I won’t be dependent on any man for my happiness the way my mother was. I like my life the way it is.”
“You’re afraid of love.”
“Can you blame me?” she cried. “From what I’ve seen of it, it brings nothing but misery.”
“And so you hide yourself away in the North Woods and dedicate your life to people who won’t stay with you any longer than a few weeks. That’s why you love the Aerie. It’s safe, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s safe. It’s my sanctuary, just as the army is yours. You hide yourself in your duty and in dedicating your life to the men of Eagle Squadron, men you have to keep your emotional distance from and can’t call your brothers or your friends.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it? It seems to me we both have chosen to live our lives alone. You might talk about connections or bonds or having something special between us, but you don’t want it to be love any more than I do. You know how painful love can be. Otherwise you wouldn’t still be wearing your wedding ring.”
He glanced at his hand. His jaw tightened. “You’re wrong.”
“I’ve seen you rub that the same way that I rub my old bullet wound,” she said. “Don’t point at my scars. You’ve got some of your own.”
He braced his knuckles on the edge of the table and leaned toward her. “So where does that leave us?”
Her heart pounded. Her feelings were too jumbled to single out one. Except for a sadness that threatened to drown her.
She focused on the floor plan she’d drawn. The lines were blurred.
Other
lines were becoming blurred, too. She crossed her arms, reverting to the defensive posture she’d assumed on the dock the morning after he’d arrived. How could it possibly have been less than three days ago? “It leaves us where we started, Mitch. We need to work together to save the hostages.”
The weather conditions couldn’t have been better. The breeze that had come up at sunset had strengthened enough to move small branches and rustle the leaves on the ground, providing background noise that would mask the sound of footsteps. The clouds were thick enough to douse the moon when they drifted across it, yet not solid enough to leave Mitch blind. He was grateful for the break. They needed every advantage they could get.
A pinpoint of light bobbed through the trees. Right on schedule. Mitch tapped Chantal’s arm to get her attention then pulled her against the open-sided shed that served as the resort’s garage. She waited motionless beside him as the guard went past. When the light disappeared, she turned and led the way inside.
“There’s a toolbox on the shelf at the back,” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure there’s a small flashlight in it.”
His arm brushed her shoulder as he moved beside her. She stepped to her right to give him more space. The move was subtle. Under other circumstances he wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
But now, it made him grind his teeth. She was avoiding his touch unless it was absolutely necessary. A few hours ago she hadn’t been able to get enough of it.
This was why he always warned his men not to get emotionally involved with a woman while they were on a mission. It split a man’s concentration. It messed with his head.
Yet it also gave him a hell of a good incentive to make sure nothing went wrong. This was one of the reasons why some ancient tribes went into battle naked. Being vulnerable raised the stakes. There was no protection against even the smallest error. One instant of inattention would bring unimaginable—and very personal—pain. That awareness took the issue of survival to a whole different level.
He reached for Chantal’s hand as they entered the deep shadows at the rear of the garage. Not because her guidance was necessary, but because he wanted—no, needed—to touch her. There was a fine tremor in her fingers. It could be from nerves or it could a reaction to him. Either way, she was holding up well so far. “Show me where the toolbox is.”
Her hesitation was brief. She led him as far as the back wall and moved his hand to the left until his fingertips encountered smooth metal. She opened the clasp on the front of the box herself. The lid squeaked softly. “Try the top tray.”
He found the cylinder of the flashlight immediately. It was much smaller than the one from the boathouse. The beam was narrow and weak but more than sufficient for his purpose. He played the light over the tools, pocketed a few screwdrivers and a roll of duct tape that might come in useful, then turned the beam toward the vehicles in the center of the building. They had settled crookedly on their flattened tires.