Secret Agent Sam

far as Cory could tell, produced no changes whatsoever in the plane’s behavior.

“We’ve got time.”

Sam felt herself tensing up; she couldn’t help it. It was the calm, almost gentle way he said it that got to her- hadn’t it always?

As the old resentment flared, she fought the urge to glare at him, kept her eyes fixed on the horizon and said sweetly, “I don’t know, I guess it must have been my ‘childish lust for adventure.’ Isn’t that what you called it?”

And she couldn’t help the little glow of satisfaction she got from the silence that followed, even though voices were hissing and moaning in dismay in the back of her mind. Ooh, what did you wanna go and say that for, Samantha June? You don’t wanna dredge up all that old stuff again. That’s water under the bridge, honey- child…you should just leave it be.

She could feel his eyes on her again, that quiet, steady gaze that made her squirm because it seemed it must see right inside her.

“You could have warned me,” he said mildly.

Now she looked at him, her lips curving in an evil grin. “Deprive myself of the look on your face when you saw who your pilot was? No way.”

He chuckled and shook his head, and his eyes found hers even through the shielding lenses of her sunglasses. “Same old Sammi June. Always got to be on top.”

Something thumped hard in her belly. She kept the smile, but it no longer felt like part of her face. More like the clay mask again. “You used to like that about me.”

He held her eyes for a long, intense, awful moment, then eased his shoulders back in the copilot’s seat and exhaled, sounding weary. “I used to like a lot of things about you, Sam.”

Damn you, Pearse. Damn Will, too, for requesting me for this assignment. And damn me for being stupid-no, arrogant-enough to think I could handle it. What was I thinking?

What were you thinking, Sam? How about that you’re a highly trained professional, with the skills and guts it takes to do this job?

So, do it already. Focus, Sam. Do your job. So you had an affair with the man once upon a time. Forget it.

An affair. She cringed at the word. It made the whole thing with Cory sound… frivolous. Fleeting. Bittersweet and nostalgic-rather old-fashioned, really. Like something you’d read about in an old diary.

But it wasn’t just an “affair,” dammit. I loved you, Cory Pearson. You were the love of my life. And you broke my heart. No-you tore out my heart, tore it into itty-bitty pieces and stomped them in the dirt! God, how I hate you for that.

She did-oh, she did. But most of all she hated that she’d never known if she’d succeeded in hurting him back. She’d tried-you’d better believe she’d tried-but if she had managed to hurt him, he’d never let her see it. Not once.

And for that, more than anything, I swear I am never gonna forgive you.

She cleared her throat, took a deep breath. “Look, Pearse…I know this is probably awkward for you-”

“Awkward?” She heard the smile in his voice, and irony that was gentle, not bitter. “Like… hell is awkward, you mean?”

So, he thinks seeing me again after two solid years is hell? Well, good. I’m glad.

She was glad. So why did she feel a need to grit her teeth and swallow hard before she could answer him?

“Yeah, well…I’m gonna need to know if you’re okay with it. If you’re not, just say the word. When we get to Zamboanga-”

“Of course I can handle it,” he said softly.

Of course he can handle it, she thought, sarcastically. He’d handle it the way he handled everything. Like a journalist, clear-eyed and objective, but careful to keep himself one step removed from the messy stuff. Stuff like…emotional turmoil. And pain. It was the way he’d handled Iraq and its aftermath, wasn’t it? And probably all sorts of stuff that had happened to him in his distant past he’d never been willing to talk about to anyone, not even her.

Seconds ticked by in silence, while the farmlands and forests of Mindanao unfolded slowly below them.

“So, tell me,” Sam said in a falsely bright, conversational voice, shaking off the strangling sense of futility that had coiled around her, “how’s Karen these days?”

She heard his sharp hiss of exasperation and felt her cheeks heat with a weird mixture of triumph and shame. What was it that made her want to needle him? The forlorn hope he might lose his cool? That was never going to happen. And even if it did, what would that accomplish?

At least I’d know he cared. That I’d hurt him, maybe a fraction as badly as he hurt me.

Okay, the devil made me do it…

“For God’s sake, Samantha,” he said in a weary voice.

“What?” She threw him a wounded look. “She was your wife for…what was it, a whole year? Knowing you, I’m sure the divorce was amicable. You probably keep in touch, exchange Christmas cards…all that stuff, right?” She lifted a shoulder and turned her eyes back to the horizon. “I was just wondering how she was doing. She looked like a nice person. I wish her well.” Sure you do. You wish her in hell, is what you mean.

“How do you know what she looks like?” Cory’s voice sounded idly curious, remote and far away.

“I saw the wedding pictures you guys sent Mom and Dad. She looked…happy. So did you.” She looked over at him, chin lifted in defense against the suffocating pain in her throat and chest. “So, what happened, anyway?”

He was maneuvering himself carefully around the controls and out of the copilot’s seat and didn’t reply.

“Hey,” she said in mock dismay, “we’re still a half hour out. You don’t have to go back to your seat yet.”

“Yeah, I do,” he said flatly. “If you think I’m going to discuss my failed marriage with you, you’re crazy.” With one hand on the back of the right-hand seat, the other on hers, he paused as if listening to a replay of what he’d said inside his own head. Then he added in a softer tone, “Not now, anyway. I guess we are going to have to talk, but this isn’t the time or the place.”

It wasn’t until he’d left the cockpit and was on his way back to his seat that Sam realized her heart was pounding. And that she felt shivery inside-a purely feminine kind of weakness she hadn’t felt in…oh, years and years. Well, two, to be exact. Which happened to be the last time she’d spoken face-to-face with Cory Pearson.

Feminine weaknesses-or any other kind, for that matter-she surely did not need. Lord help her, especially not now.

Well, hellfire and damnation-as Great-Grannie Calhoun might have said-what was she supposed to do? She hadn’t expected to feel so much, not after all this time.

Tony’s stare followed Cory down the aisle and into his seat.

“Don’t even think about asking,” Cory warned in a hard, flat voice that carried over the loud click of his seat belt.

Tony promptly closed his mouth. A moment later, though, he opened it again to say, jabbing a finger at Cory for emphasis, “Okay, but just so you know, the minute we get to Zamboanga, it’s the brews first, then the buzz. I mean it, man. The whole story. Or you can find yourself another cameraman. Swear to God.”

Cory put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t worried about losing his photographer. In addition to being a close personal friend, Tony’d have to be comatose and chained to a bunker before he’d miss this assignment. But he was right-the three of them were going to be depending on each other for a lot during the next week or so, including, possibly, their lives. They were a team, for better or worse. Tony deserved to know about his history with the third member of the team-some of it, anyway.

Definitely not everything.

God, how it all came back to him, the way things had been with Sam and him. Every laugh, every tear, every heart-thumping, gut-twisting, sweaty detail. The chemistry-the fireworks-had been there from the first moment for both of them, although he’d done a pretty good job-heroic, he thought, considering what he was up against-of