Secret Agent Sam

there, like a buried coal, warm, glowing…alive. She hadn’t realized it was there until she’d felt it die, but now she grieved for the loss of it as she would for the death of a loved one.

“Sam…”

She felt his hands on her shoulders, the familiar and beloved fingers…so strong and yet so gentle…kneading the rock-hard muscles there in the way only he knew. She endured it for a long, aching moment, holding herself stiffly, jaws rigid, the pain in her throat so terrible she couldn’t even swallow, then jerked her shoulders in a futile attempt to shake him off. “That’s not gonna solve anything,” she said in a slurred voice.

“Maybe not,” he murmured, “but it doesn’t hurt, does it?”

Doesn’t hurt? Oh, God, you have no idea.

And she was being carried on the waves of that pain to a place, a time in her distant past…so long ago-ten years!-but it seemed like yesterday. Or…now, as if it was happening to her all over again, this very minute.

I’m standing in the middle of the tarmac, watching the plane that’s bringing my dad home taxi toward me through the heat shimmer. To me, the plane seems to be floating, disconnected from the ground. And all around me are crowds of people, flags waving, a band playing, little children holding up signs that say Welcome Home Lt. Bauer and We Love You, Tristan.

They’ve put down a red carpet leading out to the plane, and people in dress uniforms plastered with medals, and others in business suits, famous people whose names I can’t think of right now, are all out there shaking hands with someone I can’t quite see because of all the people. Then-suddenly, Grampa Max is there, too, strong, proud, unshakeable Grampa Max-and he’s grabbing hold of this tall, thin man in an aviator’s flight suit, wrapping him in his arms and hugging him, and there are tears running down his face.

Watching, I feel a bubble of laughter welling up inside me, and I know a sob is coming with it, and I press my hands against my mouth and I think-pray-Oh please, oh please, God, don’t let me cry. I don’t want all these people to see me cry. Especially my dad. Please…

Then, just when I think for sure I’m not going to be able to keep myself from falling apart, I feel someone’s arms around me. It’s my mom, and I think how long it’s been since I’ve felt her arms around me-I’m eighteen, after all, and in college; I’m not a little girl anymore. But, oh, how good it feels to have her hold me like this. She says my name…

“Sam…”

Sam. Not Sammi June. Because of course it was Cory’s arms she felt around her now, not her mother’s. The rest, though, was pretty much the same-the awful pressure of tears her pride wouldn’t allow her to shed, and thinking how long it had been since she’d felt these arms around her, holding her like this… and how good, how unbearably good they felt. And just as she had on that day of her dad’s homecoming, she allowed herself, just this once, to give in and accept the comfort offered.

Just this once, she told herself. After all, what does it matter now?

She turned in his embrace and with a sigh, slipped her arms into their special place, low around his waist. She felt the supple strength in his body, a sturdiness unexpected in one so slender…except to her. To her his body was just as she remembered it…so perfect for her, and so right. She lifted her face into the hollow of his neck and jaw and inhaled the warm familiar Cory smell, and…oh, God, she thought, how I’ve missed this. The sense of homecoming, of belonging, was a sweet and terrible joy.

For another moment or two his hands went on stroking up and down her back, kneading her shoulders in that knowing way he had. Then his breath sighed across her hair, and his arms came around her, wrapped around her like sheltering wings, like fortress walls keeping the world and all its doubts and fears away. He held her close, so close she felt the thumping of his heart against her own chest, but with restraint, too, so that she also felt the minute tremors quivering through his muscles.

“This isn’t gonna solve anything,” she whispered again.

But this time, instead of answering with words, his hand came to curve around the side of her neck, just below her jaw. Gently, he tilted her head back…raised her face to his…and kissed her.

It had been inevitable, of course, from the moment she’d taken the hand he’d offered. She supposed she’d known that, and had let it happen anyway, for no other reason than that, in the very depths of her being, she’d wanted it, and in her arrogance, believed she could handle whatever might come of it. Now, she knew how foolish she’d been. Because all at once she was eighteen again, crazy in love and filling up with that same terrible wanting she’d remembered-or dreamed-such a short while ago. She’d always been so certain, in her likes and dislikes, her wanting and not wanting. Now she was discovering how wrong she could be, how wrong she had been, because what she’d been so certain she didn’t want, ever again, she now knew she’d been wanting with a deep-down yearning all along.

Tears squeezed between her eyelids as he kissed her; she tasted them on her lips, and knew he would, too, but suddenly she didn’t mind. The salty-sweet wetness was like rain to her thirsty soul. With a shuddering laugh she opened herself to it, and parts of her that had been parched and barren for years sprang to joyous, pulsing life. She rubbed her hands over the front of his shirt, her skin hungry for the feel of his, and felt his hands grow urgent on her back, gentleness giving way to the restless jerkiness of passion. One quick tug and her shirt was free of her belt, and her skin silvered under his touch. She shuddered again, but with a whimper this time.

“Sam…” He whispered it deep in the kiss, his mouth changing shape against hers, his lips sliding over and between and around hers, slick with that sweet essence that was like a drug she couldn’t ever get enough of. And it was both a question and a plea.

Hearing it, she felt something break apart inside her, the way the earth itself rips when the pressure of opposing forces inside it becomes too much to bear. With a wild little cry of anguish she tore her mouth from his and spun away from him, then stood stiffly with her back to him, shivering and hugging herself, trying desperately to hold the shattered pieces of herself together.

It seemed to her the room behind her had gone utterly still-though for all she could have heard above the storm within her, an army might have been marching through it. Her heartbeat was thunder in her ears, her breath like fitful gusts of wind. Tension seemed to crackle all around her as she braced herself, expecting, half dreading, half hoping for, the gentle weight of his hands on her shoulders.

But it didn’t come. Instead, when he spoke his voice seemed to drift from far away. “What happened to us, Sam? How did we lose this? How did we let this get away?”

She turned slowly, carefully, keeping her arms wrapped protectively around herself. Cory was leaning, half sitting, on the windowsill, the way she’d been doing herself not so long ago. He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were closed, and he’d taken off his glasses and was scrubbing his face with both hands. For the first time she noticed how exhausted he looked, his eye sockets more shadowed than ever, cheeks gaunt, with sharp grooves etched from his nose to the corners of his mouth. She caught a breath and ruthlessly quelled a fierce and terrible yearning to go to him and smooth those hollows away with her hands.

“‘This’…has never been our problem, Pearse,” she said bitterly.

He lifted his head. This time the silence was all too real…the tension profound. Breathing and even heartbeats seemed to wait while he looked at her a long suspenseful time. And then he said softly, “No.”

Sam let out a slow and weary breath. So, she thought. We’ve finally done it. Both of us. Admitted we have “a problem.” Wow.

But she felt a small surge of hope, too, because wasn’t recognizing the existence of a problem supposed to be the first step in solving it?

Then just as quickly she deflated, because she seriously doubted the “problem” she and Cory had in mind was the same one. He’d be thinking about her job, of course-her career. As far as he was concerned, that had always been the big thing between them, and according to Tony it was what had driven him to marry someone else. Okay, so fine. Just as well, she thought. At least reminding her of that fact had brought her mind back on course.

“What are we going to do about this, Sam?” It was his normal, quiet voice, and he was smiling at her now, his usual gentle smile.

She shrugged and unwrapped her arms from around her body, forcing rigid muscles to relax. She gave an offhand, one-shoulder shrug. “Nothing we can do, is there? Not right now. For sure not here. You-” and dear Lord, she’d almost said “we” “-have a job to do. Right?” Her lips