“I’m sorry, Daniel.” Her tears slipped down without check. “I know you wanted this job. I’m sorry I took that away from you.”
He kissed her hair. “I know you are.”
“I’d do it again.”
“I know that, too.”
She met his eyes, let her fingers trace the scar on his cheek. “The worst of it is, I still want you.”
His dark eyes held a million colors, each holding a different emotion, but the light in them was what she needed to see.
“That’s the best of it, Kendra.”
They made love. Kendra couldn’t explain it, couldn’t rationalize it, but she accepted that in the long, hot kisses, in the slide of his skin against hers, in the building sensations, there was a certainty, a clarity that she had known only in making love with this man. Their joined bodies, like cupped hands, enclosed a space, a moment, where they could love.
Afterwards, she lay wrapped in the quilt from his bed, listening to him in the bathroom, knowing that beyond them the problems remained. But content for now to allow only what was between them to exist.
He came back into the room. Naked and so right that her throat and eyes burned just looking at him. At the edge of the bed he stopped and looked down at her, his body changing, reacting.
“Do you have to go soon?”
“I have to pick Matthew up at the co-op at four-thirty, but I need to get something from the market for dinner before that.”
He glanced at the clock, then grinned. “Tell you what, while you pick up Matthew, I’ll get the fixings for that steak dinner I owe you. That gives us time.”
His knee on the mattress shifted her toward him. Using the damp cloth he’d brought from the bathroom, he slowly stroked from her throat down the center of her body, pushing away the quilt, until he reached the juncture of her thighs. Leaving his hand there, he settled onto the mattress beside her, each of them on their side, facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes. He tossed the cloth aside, and ran his palm across her buttocks, then down the back of her thigh, drawing her top leg up, over his hip.
“Daniel . . .”
“I know.” He twisted around to the nightstand behind him, grabbing another condom, and putting it on without changing their positions, the brushing movements of his hands and body against her vulnerable core producing a nearly unbearable tension.
Finished, he paused an instant. An eternity. And both threatened her–her resolve, her need, her belief, her desire.
“This doesn’t change things,” she said because she had to.
He kissed under her chin, arching her head back, as he entered her, and she climaxed with that long, deep stroke.
“It doesn’t need to.”
And then he began again.
*
This time, he’d had no idea he was being tracked, not until he came out of the Far Hills Market with a loaded bag of groceries tucked against his side, and heard: “Hello, Daniel.”
Daniel knew the voice. But it couldn’t be. Here?
He turned slowly. Robert Delligatti Junior. In his three-piece suit, white shirt, discreet tie, regulation briefcase, thinning hair and thick glasses. As much as his bland appearance blended in in Washington, it stood out against the jeans, boots and cowboy tans of Far Hills. But Robert Delligatti’s mild expression revealed no indication of feeling out of place or uncomfortable.
“Hello, Robert. This is a surprise.” He let the full measure of his bemusement come through in that understatement. Robert in Far Hills was more than a surprise, it damned near reversed the laws of nature. Then he frowned. “Mother and Father–?”
“Are in excellent health. I’m here–shall we sit?” Robert took a seat on the bench in front of the Far Hills Market as if he’d done it every day of his life. Daniel followed, still holding the grocery bag. “I’m here on your behalf.”
“On my behalf?”
Robert put his briefcase across his knees, twirled the combination lock then flipped up the lid.
“Yes, I thought you would like a copy of these.”
He held out crisp official papers folded in thirds.
“What are they?”
“They are copies of your work record, which indicates your expertise at search and rescue missions, as well as your experience in a training and supervisory role, and of course an official log of your extensive pilot experience. These should make you an ideal candidate for the search and rescue operation, and should satisfy those who were inquiring about your credentials and were turned away without answers. In future, these records will be available to anyone who should inquire about your suitability for such jobs.”
“But–”
“It doesn’t list your true experience. But neither would it mislead a prospective employer. Comparable experience, I would call it,” he finished judiciously.
Daniel looked at the papers in his hand. “Why, Robert?”
“I felt an obligation. After your fine work in Santa Estella, and the sacrifice involved, especially the last years of Taumaturgio’s existence, it seemed the least I could do.”
“What did you have to do with Santa Estella and Taumaturgio?”
“My office reviews certain reports from the various embassies and consulates.”
“Yeah?” Daniel slid the papers into his shirt pocket. They’d do the trick, all right. Robert did thorough work. “What kind of reports?”
“The reports my section reviews are those that someone along the line has felt required a particular kind of attention.”
“Such as?”
“Such as aid to the children of Santa Estella.”
“The section where you work decided on that?”
“Ah, well, actually the section I head. I received the promotion because my superiors appreciated my particular brand of creativity. They felt it gives me an ability to find the unorthodox solution to unorthodox situations. As on Santa Estella.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Daniel wasn’t sure which surprised him more–Robert being the one behind the operation, or his being considered unorthodox.
“So you felt a professional obligation because I was an operative on one of your missions.”
“I
