The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (38 page)

On this particular night he waited even longer than usual, but Honor was still awake when he entered. She was holding something in her hand when she glanced up and saw him. Quickly she slipped it into the pocket of her dress.

“What are you doing?” Johnny asked. He’d got a glimpse of what looked like a small blue stone, similar to one of the charms in his medicine bag.

“Nothing, really. A good-luck piece I brought with me.”

Her vague smile made him suspicious. Still, he couldn’t imagine that she would have gone through his medicine bag. “What is it, Honor?”

“Nothing,” she said, a note of urgency in her voice. “Let it go, okay?”

Distrust was seeping into his blood, threatening the tentative bond that was developing between them. “Honor, don’t do this,” he said softly. “Talk to me. We have a bargain, remember? You agreed to do whatever I asked.”

She shook her head and rolled away from him, assuming the position she slept in. “I don’t care what I agreed to,” she said. “It’s late, and I’m tired.”

He put a hand on her shoulder, and she jerked away from him. “Johnny, don’t!”

Sensing the depth of her turmoil, he backed off.

Gradually she turned to face him, and with great reluctance drew the stone from her pocket. Johnny struggled to breathe as he stared at the triangular piece of turquoise, one of the strongest of the Apache medicine charms.

“You gave it to me,” she said, “a long time ago.”

“I know.” He had given her the charm before going to trial on the assault-and-battery charges. He’d had no idea then how things would turn out, that she would testify against him. But perhaps he’d had a premonition that he might never see her again.

She sat up and brought the stone to her mouth, pressing it against the softness of her lower lip, unaware of how penitent the gesture looked. Finally, with great difficulty, she spoke. ‘“No matter what happens, Honor, keep this. Remember me.’”

She looked up at him, tears sparkling in her eyes. “That’s what you said to me.”

The pain Johnny felt was so razor-sharp, he had to suck in air to control it. He turned away from her, his eyes unfocused, his mind riveted on the past. He remembered the words, and every ragged breath he’d had to take to find the control to say them.

“I kept it,” she whispered. “I didn’t forget.”

“Honor, don’t—” Even her voice stabbed at him. He couldn’t let her resurrect that memory. It was the pocket where all his pain resided. He couldn’t even let her express her anguish about that day, because it touched his own. He would never forget the awkwardness, the naked misery, with which he tried to say “Remember me” and ended up saying good-bye. His sixteen-year-old heart had felt as though it were bursting.

“Johnny, please . . . ? Can we talk?”

“No,” he said harshly. In her desperation to make things right, she kept blundering into his wounds. “You said you were tired. Get some sleep.”

He heard her sink down on the bed of leaves that made up the floor of the lean-to. Rigid with the need to gain control of his emotions, he sat with his back to her. He couldn’t move. He felt as if he’d been opened up and gutted, but left alive. If he thrashed like a mortally wounded animal, if he tried to get away, he might bleed to death.

It seemed that hours had passed before he finally lay down, his back to hers, bare skin against blue chintz. Rigidly still, he was aware of the movement of her shoulders against his as she breathed. He could feel the place where her lower back sloped away from his and then returned in the yielding warmth of her buttocks. The experience of his own grief had heightened all his senses. He was as exquisitely tuned in to her as if their nervous systems were linked at the places where their spines touched. He could hear the shallow rasp of her breath, and he knew somehow that she was trying not to cry. He could feel her hopelessness, her sadness.

Honor, he thought, what happened?

She shifted, and he felt her moving, turning toward him.

His heart pounding, he waited until she was facing his back. And then he turned too.

If there was any resistance left in him at all, it was gone the instant he caught a glimpse of her beautiful, tear-streaked face. He dragged her into his arms.

“Johnny—”

“Hush,” he said, “hush.” Pain ripped a piece from his heart as he clutched her close. The torment he’d been fighting for so long, for years, poured over the wound like a river of fire. It was the fiercest, sweetest agony he’d ever known. Vaguely aware that he was crushing her in his arms, and that he didn’t want to hurt her, he understood only that he had to survive the assault somehow. He couldn’t let her speak, not even to comfort him. He couldn’t let her do anything that might unleash the horrible wonder of what was happening inside him.

Finally he released her, and she buried her face in his hair and heaved a trembling sigh. They held each other that way for a long time, enemies of the heart thrown together by some mysterious design, brought to their knees by the truth of their shared humanity.

“Johnny,” she whispered, “is it all right between us now?”

He knew what she was asking, and he had so many reasons not to answer her. It was a dangerous question, badly timed. But he was vulnerable now, opened, and he couldn’t resist it. Feelings were flowing that he’d held in check for so long. There were things he didn’t understand. Questions that needed answers.

He drew back from her, deliberating. Her grave blue eyes and tear-streaked smile broke his heart.

“What is it?” she asked.

He followed the path of her tears with his forefinger, surprised at his own need to be tender. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to testify?” he asked. “Even if you believed you were doing the right thing, why didn’t you warn me? We were friends, Honor. Friends watch out for each other; they protect each other.”

“They told me I couldn’t talk to you, Johnny, not once I’d agreed to be a witness for the prosecution. My father said there would be a mistrial—”

“Your father hated me. How could you have believed anything he said?”

Tears glittered. “I had to, Johnny. I didn’t know what else to do!”

He stared down at her, regret flaring through him. Why was he doing this? Why was he putting her to a test he knew she couldn’t pass? The bond he’d felt went beyond friendship. He would have done anything for her, sacrificed his life. And yet she’d been afraid to stand up to her father. God, it destroyed him to think that she hadn’t even found a way to warn him.

“Johnny, please. I was frightened for you!”

“Frightened for me? When the prosecutor asked you if I had violent tendencies, you told him yes. When he asked if I’d threatened to kill those boys, you said yes—” He broke off as the pain resurged.

“But, Johnny, what else could I do? What else could I say? I couldn’t lie on the witness stand.”

Her desperation was heartbreaking. It tugged at him, but he couldn’t let himself respond. There was too much misery, too much grief. He was already shutting down, he realized, moving away from her emotionally. His heart was growing cold again, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He could almost forgive her the testimony because she’d been tricked. But whether it came out of his Apache heritage or out of the terrible isolation of his childhood, he couldn’t forgive her for not being the friend he’d needed, the friend he would have been to her.

“I can’t stay here tonight,” he said.

“Why? Where are you going?”

“I don’t know—anywhere but here.” He pushed to his feet, brushing the leaves from his legs. His food pouch and knife were by the campfire. As he started to get them, she came out of the lean-to and called his name. He didn’t stop.

“Johnny, I won’t let you do this to me again! If you go, I’ll—”

She was shaking with anger. He could hear it in her voice.

“You’ll what?” he said, turning to her.

She dragged in a breath, as though preparing to blast him. Instead she shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know . . . just don’t do it.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Don’t go.”

Johnny breathed a harsh word, but it wasn’t anger burning inside him now; it was sadness. His heart was a fiery hole in his chest as he turned and walked away from her, into the dark soul of the forest.

H
ONOR WOKE UP HALF-FROZEN
and barely able to uncoil from the ball she’d curled into. Her first awareness was of the warm spot on her back, apparently from a ray of sunshine poking through a hole in the lean-to roof. Her second awareness was that she had spent the night alone. Johnny hadn’t come back, she realized, as she glanced out at the dead ashes of the campfire.

She quickly gathered kindling and got the fire going again, huddling next to it until she was warm enough to consider her next most pressing concern, hunger. Johnny had dug a pit and lined it with rocks to store the food they foraged. Her mouth actually watered at the thought of a meal of nuts, seeds, and unripe berries.

Once she’d eaten, and the day loomed ahead, she dealt with her third concern, Johnny. It rather pleased her that he’d come in a poor third among her priorities. Beyond the simmering hurt and anger she felt, it gave her hope that she might be getting her emotional house in order where he was concerned. If there was anything more she could have done to gain his understanding and forgiveness, she didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t change what had happened, and she was beginning to think that enduring eighteen years of guilt was enough atonement for any sinner, no matter what the poor wretch had done.

She busied herself with gathering fresh bedding for the lean-to and with replenishing their food stores, but as the morning wore on and Johnny didn’t return, she couldn’t deny that she was worried. She told herself that her concerns about him were pointless, that he’d probably gone back up the mountain to the cave. He was a big boy, after all, and he had survived several days alone before she arrived.

As she packed the last of the supplies she’d gathered into the pit, she became aware of the grime caked on her arms. She scrubbed away at it with her fingers, knowing it was hopeless. She was as ripe as a bag lady, covered with pungent layers of sweat and Mother Nature’s plenitude. Even her hair was matted and tangled with leaves and twigs. She needed a bath, a shampoo. “A manicure,” she murmured, smiling at how absurd a prospect that was.

The river where Johnny had found her was the nearest source of fresh water, and she and Johnny had traveled back to it several times to fill the small barrel he’d made from the bark of a birch tree. Now the thought of all that fresh running water on her hot, sweat-coated skin was enough to make her shiver with anticipation.

A short time later she stood on the river’s turbulent banks, watching the churning white water and savoring the shade of the trees that bordered its shores. The rich scent of pine pierced her senses. The river was exhilarating and calming at the same time, she realized, exactly the sort of place where a soiled woman could cleanse body and spirit. Perhaps that sense of redemption and renewal was what she’d always loved about rushing water, even the stream where she and Johnny used to meet.

Once she’d found a calm spot in the turbulence, she knelt on the river’s rocky shore to crush the aloe root she’d brought with her. Johnny had told her how to work the pulp into a foamy froth that would serve as soap.

Moments later, naked as the day she came into the world, she crouched calf-deep in the icy mountain stream, washing out her camp dress and her underwear. When she was done, she laid the clothing out on the rocks to dry. Finally, freeing her braided hair—and her modest soul—she waded into the river and dived.

The water was bracingly cold and heavenly wet, the answer to her dreams. Once the shock of its icy temperature had worn off, Honor swam and cavorted with a freedom she hadn’t felt since childhood, and perhaps not even then. The pressure of the water surging against her skin felt delicious, as did the bubbles that churned from the turbulence upstream.

She dived deep and resurfaced again and again, letting the water stream over her body and flinging her head back to toss her hair off her face. Being naked was wonderful, liberating, and Honor was delighted at her own lack of inhibitions. Refreshed, she finally waded toward shore to get the aloe root and wash herself.

Standing thigh-deep in the swirling currents, she soaped down her shoulders and arms with great satisfaction. She was getting ready to wash her hair when her pulse quickened in response to something she sensed more than heard. Above the rush of the water, a crackling sound caught her attention. She glanced up, scanning the trees, and spotted a sight that paralyzed her.

A man was watching her, standing in the shadows.

She couldn’t make out his features because of the light at his back, but she recognized his broad shoulders and his long hair. It must be Johnny, she realized. He’d been watching her bathe. Honor resisted the impulse to dive in the water and escape his eyes. Something held her there, barely breathing.

She was sharply aware of her own nakedness, and of the effect it might have on him. She knew he must have fantasized about her; she had about him often enough. But she’d never imagined him watching her this way. Did she look the way he’d expected? She’d always thought of herself as too thin and pale. The kids had teased her about being all bones in high school. Did Johnny find her pretty? A desirable woman?

All of those questions rushed through her mind as she glanced down at her own body and saw the beads of moisture clinging to her skin. Her breasts were full and flushed with color, perhaps from the invigorating swim. Whatever the reason, they looked larger than she remembered, and heavier. Her nipples were hardened and tingling.

She felt a stirring of excitement as she surveyed her own jutting hipbones and the golden delta of hair that crowned her womanhood. The rise and fall of her belly as she breathed made her realize how sleek and sensual a woman’s body could look when sheened with water. She was seeing herself through a man’s eyes, through his eyes.

She began to wash herself, drawing the foamy material across the rise of her chest. Bubbles streamed over her breasts and down her torso, clinging to the sensitive crests of her nipples and hiding in the crevice of her belly button. Her stomach muscles tightened as she imagined his finger tracing the same path.