Secret Agent Sam

Fidgeting, she ran a hand through her hair, still not meeting his eyes. “Right now, to find a shower and some clothes. And, if there’s a God, a toothbrush. Then…” She reached again for a breath. “I guess I’ll be flying to Washington.”

His heart did a violent skip, but he only lifted his eyebrows. “Flying?”

She gave him a tight little smile. “Commercial flight, Pearse. I have to check in with my…uh, you know. Debriefing, and so on.”

He studied her, ruthlessly squelching the part of him that wanted to grab her and hold on to her and wail like an abandoned child. He was well aware that he was treading a narrow and unstable path, and doing it pretty much blindfolded. You wanted a chance to do it right? Well, here’s where it begins. Don’t blow this, Pearse.

The only problem: he had no idea what the right thing was. Should he back off and let her go with his cheerful blessing, show her he was capable of dealing with the demands of her career? Or tell her the truth, hold nothing back?

He still didn’t know what he was about to say, not until the words came out of his mouth. “Wow. I hate to let you go.” He took a breath, let it out, shook his head, and managed to produce a smile that made his face ache. “I think…we need to talk, Sam. Tony says we do, anyway.”

She gave a small laugh like a whimper of pain…looked away, then down at her feet.

“I can’t believe all this-meeting again after so long, being together-I can’t believe it didn’t happen for a reason,” he said softly. “We had something…maybe it sounds like a cliche, but we had something special, Sam. We did. We let it get away-my fault, I know-but here we have a chance to fix it.” He paused, then took another breath and plunged. “I love you. I never stopped…loving you. If you love me…if you do…then I don’t see how we can walk away from that without trying to make it work this time. I want to make it work, Sam.”

She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Had vowed on her CIA oath she wouldn’t. She was going to damn Cory Pearson to hell if he made her break that vow. But, oh, how she wanted to cry. Her throat felt as though a giant hand was squeezing it. Her face was a thousand burning knots.

“How can it, Pearse?” she said in a broken voice, barely audible. “How can it possibly work? I love you, but-”

“But-?” he interrupted with a small crooked smile. “That’s the first time you’ve ever told me that, by the way.”

“It is not!” she shot back, her pain replaced by anger.

Maddeningly-and true to his nature-he only said gently, “It’s true-but never mind. I’ll take it. So, why won’t it work?”

“For the same reason it didn’t work for us before, dammit. I have a career you can’t deal with. And if you couldn’t handle me being a pilot, what are you going to do with a CIA operative, for God’s sake? And-” her voice broke unexpectedly; she drew herself in, fighting desperately to hold fast against the breech “-I love my job, Pearse. Like I started to say, I love you, but I don’t want to give it up. Maybe someday. Okay, someday, but not yet, not now, when I’ve just barely started. I want to make a difference; it’s important to me. I’ve worked all my life for this. It’s who I am. Why should I have to sacrifice that in order to be with you?”

“Everybody makes sacrifices,” he said softly.

“You wouldn’t give up your career. Nobody would ever expect you to.”

“Maybe not…but I’d definitely make some adjustments, in a heartbeat.” His eyes narrowed as though she’d become a light too bright to look at. “But that’s beside the point. What if I told you I’d be willing to accept your career? That I wouldn’t ask you to give up a thing?”

She stared at him, devastated, wanting to scream at him, curse him for taking away her anger, the only defense she had. She turned her face away from him and rubbed a hand over her burning eyes. “It wouldn’t work,” she mumbled. “I know you mean it. You’d try your best, but…I know what you want, Pearse. I know exactly the kind of life, the kind of home and family you want. Because it’s what I had, growing up. It was great. No doubt about it. It was…wonderful. And I can’t rob you of that. I can’t.”

“Don’t you think you should let me decide what I’m willing to give up?” He punched down on the mattress beside his hips, trying to push himself upright, and she saw anger awaken, now, in his eyes.

She shook her head…closed her eyes…took a breath. “Okay, but…it’s not the only thing-”

“For God’s sake, Sam,” he exploded in a torn voice, “what else is there? If you don’t want to be with me, just say so.”

She jerked around, trembling violently. “That’s just it, dammit-I do want to be with you. I want to be with you. I want to share myself with you, and I want you to do the same with me. I don’t want this…I can’t stand this one-way street. It’s too damn lonely, Pearse. It’s too damn lonely…” She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the tears or the sob that ripped through her throat. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in love with a ghost. A really kind, loving, benevolent ghost. Because…the truth is, I don’t have a clue who you are. I can’t touch you.” She clutched air with her fingers, then gathered the fistful to her chest. “I can’t touch you here. I can’t get past your barricades. Your secrets…”

“Secrets?” She could almost see him cringe away from her as he said it, and his eyes blazed at her, with anger, yes, but with something else, too. Something that looked very much like fear. “What are you talking about?”

She dashed away tears, grateful at least to have the anger-baton passed back to her. It was much more comfortable than the tears. “Your family, Pearse. Your childhood. Those brothers and sisters you never told me about. Your parents.”

And now she could see him withdrawing behind his defenses, like a turtle into its shell. “They died,” he said stiffly. “I told you that. It’s no secret.”

Make him tell you, Sam.

She leaned toward him, shaking inside, knuckles white as she gripped the safety bar on the side of the bed. “Yeah? How did they die, Pearse?”

He made a small violent gesture of denial. “God-I was a kid, I don’t remember-”

She held up a not-quite-steady hand. “Don’t-I mean it. Don’t give me that. It was in the papers. It’s in the record. Tony looked it up. If he knows, you sure as hell do.”

He glared at her, and he’d never looked at her that way before…with his face a mask of anger and fear. In a voice so icy it made her shudder, he said, “If Tony knows, then why don’t you ask him?”

She almost gave it up, then. She’d never felt such anger before, not from her Cory, gentle, empathetic Cory, not directed at her. It devastated her; she wanted to turn and flee, run away from it as fast as she could. But somehow she stayed. She stayed because somehow she knew that for a man like Cory, such anger could only mean wounds too deep and raw to deal with any other way. Wounds beyond the scope of her experience, or her power to heal.

You have to make him tell you.

Yes, and she’d started this. She’d gone this far, opened the door, grabbed the tiger’s tail. She couldn’t let go now.

Pulling back a little and drawing in a calming breath, she said, “I did ask him, actually. He wouldn’t tell me. He said it has to come from you-whatever it is-this terrible, deep dark secret. He said you need to tell me.”

Cory jerked and made a scoffing noise. “Since when did Tony become a shrink?”

“You know what?” said Sam, ignoring the sarcasm. “I think he’s right. I think you need to tell me. Because if you can’t, if you can’t bring yourself to share even that much of your past with me, then I don’t see how there’s anything more for us to talk about.”

She saw the anger drain from his face, leaving only fear. Fear that bleached his skin to a muddy gray, and misted his forehead with sweat. Fear that lurked behind his eyes like the monster in a child’s closet. “You’re not being fair, Sam,” he said, in a gritty voice, barely above a whisper.

It seemed a very long time that she went on gazing at him, while her heart thundered and her body trembled, while voices of protest and rejection and denial screamed and echoed inside her head. She closed her ears to them all and said softly, “Goodbye, Pearse.” Then turned and walked away on legs of glass.