by Diana Palmer
She bit her lip.
“Why do I hurt you?” he asked in a husky whisper. “I don’t mean to. I don’t want to…”
She averted her gaze to his chest. “Don’t be silly. You haven’t hurt me,” she lied with a smile. “We’ve known each other since I was a child, that’s all. I’m familiar to you.”
His hand contracted around hers as the dance wound to a close. “Familiar…”
Her heart was racing when he turned her across his tall, powerful body and leaned her down against his arm for a finish. He drew her back up, very gently, so that he didn’t cause her any pain with the stitches she was still carrying from the C-section.
Applause shocked them apart. Rourke chuckled. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t realize we were on show.”
“It’s all right.”
Cash and Tippy came up to them as the music started again, a modern rhythm this time that the younger set danced to.
“I thought I knew how to dance, until I watched you do it,” Cash chuckled.
Rourke shrugged. “I used to teach the tango,” he said simply. “I lived in Buenos Aires for a few years, doing covert work. I needed a cover. That was it.”
“You dance very well,” Tippy said with reluctant admiration.
He pursed his lips and his pale eye twinkled at her. “Thanks.”
“You never told me you could do the tango,” Tippy said, smiling at Clarisse.
“My father was an ambassador. He thought I should have all the usual social graces, so he hired a dance instructor to tutor me.”
“There was a club in Manaus,” Rourke said suddenly, frowning. “A Latin club. They had waitresses wearing red flamenco dresses…” He put a hand to his head and grimaced.
Clarisse winced. “Are you all right?”
He drew in an uneasy breath. “Strobe lights,” he murmured. “I don’t know where that memory came from. I was only in Manaus once or twice. When your mother died. When your father and sister were buried…”
“Yes.” She averted her gaze. She’d hoped for an instant, just for an instant, that he might remember another time he’d been there.
The tall cowboy, Jack Lopez, came up to them. “You sure can dance, Mrs. Carvajal,” he said, grinning. “How about letting me stomp on your feet again? If you’ll excuse us?” He drew Clarisse onto the dance floor.
Rourke’s eye flashed murder.
Tippy and Cash saw it and Cash ground his teeth together.
The housekeeper, Mariel, was cuddling the baby at the table. He was fussing.
Rourke paused beside Mariel with Cash and Tippy.
“What’s wrong with the little fellow?” he asked.
“The colic,” she said, smiling. “Something that babies get.”
“Oh, yes,” Tippy agreed. “We had our sleepless nights with Tris when she was that age.”
Rourke stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at the child intently. There was something about kids. He wished he could remember why he had a sudden hunger for one of his own. That child was the product of Tat’s passion for a man old enough to be her father. He grimaced, excused himself and left the dance.
* * *
ROURKE AND JAKE BLAIR were playing chess Friday evening a week later. It was an old pastime for the two men, who used it to work out strategies in the old days. Now it was just fun.
In the middle of the game, the phone rang. Jake picked it up and grinned. It was his daughter.
“Yes, I thought you might call. How did the exam go? Really?” He chuckled. “You’re sure you don’t want to know if it’s a boy or a girl? No. I don’t blame you.” He paused. He glanced at his companion. “Rourke and I are playing chess. I’m beating him.”
“Like hell you are,” Rourke said with a grin.
“You wash your mouth out with soap,” Jake said, pointing a finger at him. “What was that?” he said into the phone. “No, I don’t have the radio on.” He frowned. “AB Negative? No, I don’t remember anyone in our congregation mentioning that they have it. They’ll have a time finding that. They’ll probably have to relay some down from San Antonio…”
“AB Negative blood?” Rourke interrupted, frowning.
“Yes. There’s a patient who needs emergency surgery at the hospital. Carson says they don’t have any blood on hand and the patient’s AB Negative.”
Rourke got up. “My blood type is AB Negative. I’ll drive over to the hospital and donate some.”
Jake told Carlie. He smiled. “She says to tell you that they’ll be very grateful. It’s Micah Steele’s case. He’s operating.”
“Tell her I’ll be right there. And don’t move those chess pieces until I get back,” Rourke cautioned facetiously.
Jake just made a face at him.
* * *
ROURKE WAS USHERED back into a treatment room where blood was drawn for a transfusion. He waved at Micah Steele as they asked questions and filled out paperwork. He and Micah had often done covert work together in the old days.
Fortunately for the patient, whoever it was, Rourke hadn’t had malaria in the past three years or they wouldn’t have allowed him to donate blood at all. It had been longer than that since he’d had a bout of it. He didn’t have the recurring sort, and that was pure luck.
“Damned decent of you to do this,” Micah Steele told him when they’d taken the blood and he was sitting up and drinking orange juice. “I can operate at once.”
“No problem,” Rourke said. “It really is a rare blood type. K.C. and I share it,” he added with a grin.
“I heard.”
Rourke clapped him on the shoulder. “Go to work. I have to finish beating Jake at chess.”
“You’ll have your work cut out for you,” Micah chuckled as he left the cubicle.
* * *
ROURKE WAS ON his way out of the hospital past the emergency room waiting area when he spotted Tat sitting with Tippy Grier.
“What are you two doing in here?” he asked. “Somebody hurt?”
“It’s the baby,” Tippy said, glancing worriedly at Clarisse, whose face was contorted. “A hernia. They have to operate, but they don’t have any AB Negative blood…”
“I just donated it,” Rourke said. “Micah’s getting ready to operate. It’s the boy?” he asked Tat, scowling.
She looked up with red, wet eyes. “Yes. Thank you…!” Her voice broke.
“God!” He scooped Tat up and sat down in the chair with her in his lap, cradling her against his chest. He kissed her disheveled blond hair. “Now, now, it’s all right. Micah’s damned good at what he does. The baby will be fine.”
A sob shook her. “Oh, damn,” she choked. “Damn! Why this? Why now? There’s been so much…!” She collapsed in tears.
Rourke’s face contorted as he held her closer, rocking her in his arms, his face in her throat. “I don’t know, baby,” he whispered. “I don’t know why.”
Tippy was fascinated by the look on his face. The man who’d verbally flayed Clarisse in the pharmacy bore no resemblance to this man, whose expression told her things he never would have.
“He can’t die,” she choked. “He just can’t! I’ve lost everything else, my family, my husband, I can’t lose my child, too!”
Rourke’s arms contracted. The mention of her husband was like a knife in his ribs, but he didn’t let it show. He just comforted her, his big hand lying against her wet cheek, his lips on her forehead, her eyelids, her nose.
“You’ll get through it,” he said quietly. “We all have storms, Tat. They pass.”
Her hands clung to him. She hadn’t had comfort, real comfort, in so long. The feel of his powerful body, the scent of him, were so familiar. She’d loved him most of her life. And he’d always been there, during the most traumatic time
s she’d experienced.
“That’s what you said when my father and sister died,” she managed weakly.
He drew in a breath. “Ya. I guess I did.”
“I got through it. I always seem to live in spite of the odds. Like when the viper got me…”
He drew in a breath. “My God, I thought you were a goner that time. I ran with you in my arms to the clinic. It must have been half a mile. I never thought I’d get you to a doctor in time. And you were busy comforting me,” he added, lifting his head to smile at her. “Me, a tough kid of fifteen, being comforted by a little tomboy ten years old.”
“You’ve known each other a long time,” Tippy said.
“A very long time,” Rourke said. He dug in his pocket for a handkerchief and dabbed at Tat’s eyes with it. “She was eight and I was thirteen when her parents moved next door to K.C.” He chuckled. “I’d been fighting in militias since I was orphaned at ten. K.C. had himself appointed my legal guardian, but he was off on missions all over the world, so I did pretty much what I pleased. Then he came home and Tat here told him that I’d gone out with a group of mercs to liberate prisoners from an enemy camp in the bush.” He glared down at her.
“After that, he had you watched,” Clarisse agreed, nodding. “You’d have been blown to pieces on one of those wild-eyed exploits if I hadn’t.”
“Landed you with a nickname, too, didn’t it, little Tattletale?” he teased softly. He glanced at Tippy. “She’s been ‘Tat’ ever since.”
Tippy was watching them curiously. “Eighteen years,” she said quietly. “That’s quite a history.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Rourke replied.
Micah Steele came out to the waiting room. “We’ve got Joshua prepped. We’re going to fix that hernia. He’ll be fine.” He smiled at Clarisse. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
“Saved Colby Lane’s life,” Rourke added with a smile for the big blond man. “Did an amputation under fire, in Africa, after we walked into an ambush.”
“Lucky for us that Colby was garden variety type O Positive,” he chuckled. “And very lucky for us tonight that you and the baby share a blood type,” he added.
“Jake would call that an act of God,” Rourke said with a grin.
“How long will it take?” Clarisse asked.
“Not long. I’ll come out and talk to you when it’s done.”
“Thanks,” she said softly.
He nodded, faintly amused at the easy way Clarisse was lying in Rourke’s arms without a single protest. In fact, Rourke showed no sign of being willing to let her go. Micah went back though the swinging doors.
* * *
ENDLESS CUPS OF coffee later, Micah came out smiling. “He’ll be fine,” he assured Clarisse. “We’ll keep him for a few days, just to make sure, and we’ll have a rollaway bed put in the room for you, so you can stay with him.”
“Thank you so much!” Clarisse said huskily.
“I love my job,” he replied, grinning.
Rourke touched Clarisse’s cheek gently. “If you need me, call Jake’s number. If I’m not there, he’ll know where to find me. For a few more days at least.” He sighed. “Then I have to go back to Nairobi. My case is almost wrapped up.”
Clarisse was good at hiding her feelings. She smiled at him. “Thanks for everything,” she said.
He searched her blue eyes quietly. It hurt him to look at her, to see the pain in her face. “He’s a sweet child,” he said.
“Yes. He’s my whole life.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“You, too, Stanton,” she replied. “Tell K.C. I said hello. Is he all right?”
“He’s dealing with it,” he replied. “Not very well, I’m afraid. He keeps trying to sneak off with his men, but so far I’ve managed to talk him out of it with veiled threats.”
“He loved her.”
“Yes.” Love, he was thinking, seemed very painful, if K.C.’s response to his loss was any indication.
He was certain that he’d never felt that sort of obsessive love. Except sometimes at night, when he was alone, and he had flashes of memory accompanied by excruciating emotional pain. A shadowy woman, anguish at leaving her, almost a physical pain, loss, because he couldn’t find his way back to her.
When he looked at Tat, he felt something tugging at him, some violent emotion that made him want to run. How very odd.
He managed a smile. “Get some rest. You’ve had a hard night.”
“Thanks for staying with me,” Clarisse said quietly.
“I’ve always been around when you needed me,” he returned without realizing what he’d said. He drew in a breath. “Well, I’d better go. Jake is probably hiding my chess pieces as we speak. He hates to lose.”
Clarisse smiled sadly. Tippy was watching him with curiosity and a lack of antagonism. She smiled, too, as she followed Clarisse back toward the intensive care unit.
Rourke climbed into his rented car and drove back to Jake’s house.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ROURKE GOT OFF the airplane at the Nairobi airport with a feeling of utter loss. He couldn’t imagine why it had hurt so much to leave Texas. Tat was fine. She had friends and her child. She didn’t need him. In fact, nobody needed him.
He thought of Charlene with vague distaste. He didn’t understand why he’d decided to get engaged to her. Then he remembered. K.C. had told him that Tat was coming over to see him when he was wounded. He’d got engaged to show Tat that he didn’t want her.
His eye closed in torment as he recalled what Cash Grier had said to him, about the miserable sort of life that could see tormenting a young woman as a form of entertainment. He’d hurt Tat deliberately. And it hadn’t been for the first time. He couldn’t remember everything, but he certainly remembered enough to put his conscience on the rack.
Charlene was the last person on earth he’d marry if he was in his right mind. She was flighty and unsettled and all she thought about was clothes and more clothes. Well, that and her father’s attractive business partner.
* * *
K.C. MET HIM at the airport. The other man seemed older, but less anguished than he had been when Rourke left for Texas.
“Pain getting better?” Rourke asked when they were on their way back to the compound.
“A little.” K.C. sighed. “It’s just…you know, we live on hope. It’s the last thing we ever give up. I had thought that one day, maybe, Mary Luke would throw it all up and marry me.” He smiled wistfully. “That wasn’t realistic. She did a job that made her feel useful, that gave her life purpose. I’ve spent my life taking other lives—she spent hers saving them. It was never a good match, but I was obsessed with her.” His face tautened. “It’s hard to adjust to a world without her, just the same.”
“I’ve never been obsessed with a woman,” Rourke said involuntarily.
There was a quick glance from K.C., and stark silence from the other side of the Land Rover.
Rourke was quick. He scowled, glancing at his father. “Okay, what was that look about?”
“What look?” K.C. asked innocently.
Rourke glared at him. “You know things that you aren’t telling me.”
“Things you don’t remember. Reciting them does no good—the neurologist said so.”
“It’s so damned frustrating!” Rourke ran a hand through his blond hair. “I was dancing a tango with Tat, in Jacobsville. And I remembered a Latin club in Manaus, of all the places. I’ve never gone dancing in Manaus!”
The silence grew.
“Or have I?” Rourke’s eye narrowed.
“How is Clarisse?” K.C. asked.
“She’s a survivor. She’s doing fine. Well, there was an emergency with the baby…watch it, mate!” he exclaimed when K.C. jerked t
he wheel.
K.C. stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road. “What emergency? Is he all right?”
Odd bit of concern there, Rourke thought absently. “It was a hernia. Micah Steele operated. He’s going to be fine. They were lucky I was close by, though, I had to donate blood. Amazing, how hard it is to get our blood type, isn’t it?” he added with a smile.
“Yes. Acts of fate,” K.C. replied, relieved. “God, poor Clarisse! It’s one thing after another!”
Rourke nodded. Something was nudging his mind. He didn’t know why.
“Heard from Charlene?” Rourke asked.
K.C. made a face. “She flew back in this morning.”
Rourke let out a breath. “I’m going to break the engagement,” he said absently. “She’s not ready to get married and neither am I.”
“She might be relieved,” K.C. mused. “She’s crazy about her father’s business partner.”
“I noticed.”
* * *
CHARLENE WAS OVERJOYED when Rourke told her. It was hardly flattering.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and smiled at him. “But you’re just too much for me, Rourke. I can’t live with the work you do. If I cared at all, I’d be a basket case!”
He’d never considered that his job might be a point of contention in a relationship. He did seem to enjoy it a little too much for comfort.
“I suppose so. Well, I hope you’ll find someone good enough for you, kid,” Rourke added with a grin.
Charlene’s eyes went covertly to the tall, handsome man talking to her father and K.C. near the patio doors. “Oh, I might have done that already.”
“So that’s how the land lies, hmm?” Rourke chuckled. “Good luck, then.”
Charlene hesitated. “That poor woman who was here when you got wounded, is she all right?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anyone so tormented…” She bit her lip because Rourke’s one good eye started flashing fire at her. “Sorry.”
He forced the anger away. No need to frighten the kid. “No sweat. I think I’ll get some coffee.”