Betrayed by Trust (9 page)

Dan’s expression shifted to amused, and my temper flared. I didn’t like not knowing where we stood with each other. Sex, even great sex, wasn’t the same as making love, and Dan was acting like this was more than a job to him.

“What’s so funny? I’m trying to be honest here. If you really are in for the duration, we ought be straight with each other.”

Dan stiffened, and sat up. “
If
I’m in? Good grief, woman! What’s it going to take to convince you?” He got out of bed and stalked over to where he’d flung his boxers.

I hated that Dan had pulled his warmth away from me. “That’s not what I meant!” I jumped out of bed, reaching for him.

The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, my head in Dan’s lap, looking up at his exasperated face.

“Will you
please
stop doing that? I almost didn’t catch you.”

“Will do.” I got up cautiously, took the robe he held out, and crawled up on the bed to sit cross-legged. Amazingly, I remembered what we’d been arguing about. Maybe I should have let it go, but I couldn’t. “I didn’t mean that I didn’t believe you. It’s just …” I stopped. Guys didn’t like to be reminded that someone else had been there first, but if I wanted him to be straight with me, I had to be honest with him too. “Barry was really romantic at first, too.” I didn’t meet his eyes. I didn’t want to see the annoyance that was sure to be there.

“I thought you knew by now that I’m not like that asshole.” Dan’s voice was tight.

“I do. But you got into this because Kincaid asked you to. Just like Barry did. We all did.”

He stood there silent, staring at me, propped against the bedpost with his arms crossed over his chest, jaw tight. Then he looked away, staring out the French doors at the tops of the palm trees, fronds waving in the ever-present breeze.

I looked down at my fingers, twisted together in my lap. I liked what Dan had done so much to make our first night together special. I wanted to believe it was because he felt something for me, but I’d thought Barry had meant everything he’d said, too. I hadn’t meant to throw Dan’s generosity back in his face, but I didn’t want to start our life together pretending our relationship was something it wasn’t. We could make our marriage work and save ourselves a lot of heartache, but only if we went into this with eyes open.

He’d been quiet so long that I jumped a little when he spoke. “Not many people know what I’m going to tell you. I haven’t even told my sister.”

He paced across the room and then back to stand beside the bed. “Parts of what happened are confidential, so I can’t talk about it. The rest, no one would believe. I’m telling you, so you’ll know I didn’t marry you because the Trust told me to.”

I held my breath.

P
art of what my squad did in Southeast Asia was go where no one expected us to be, and find out what the enemy didn’t want us to know.” Dan spoke in the same tightly controlled tone he would have used to debrief after a mission. “That’s what we were doing the day most of us were killed.”

Dan’s stomach tightened. He didn’t talk about his time in the service, except with Ringo, and not that often even with him. The one time Marianne had asked, Dan had changed the subject. Now he was opening up an old wound for her, so she would understand. He sat down on the bed beside her and took her hand between both of his. It was soft and warm and real, a tether to the here and now, even as his memories pulled him into the past.

“Don’t. You don’t have to talk about it.”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. Ringo was right. She needed to know. “There were eight of us. My lieutenant, me, and six others, including Ringo. We were deep in-country. We’d just entered a valley between two hills, massive walls of rock covered with vines, when we were ambushed.”

He fell silent, staring into the middle distance, remembering how the jungle had grasped at their every step and the smothering humidity weighed down on them even in the misty dawn.

“Going into the valley was risky, but we were following signs of enemy troop movements and Command needed the intel. They took down the lieutenant first; then our point man, Johnson; Kailani; Frampton; and Davis. A grenade dropped a branch on Ringo’s head, and shrapnel ripped through my side.”

“But you don’t have any scars.”

Dan barely registered that she’d spoken. “We were all down, dead or dying, and no one would ever know what had happened to us. We’d done our best, but we were so outnumbered … A Khmer soldier was standing over me, about to hack my head off with his machete, when the jungle erupted.”

Marianne squeezed his hand. “Erupted?”

“That’s the only way I can describe it.” The jungle had peeled back like the skin shed by a snake. The landscape had transformed from oppressive and overgrown to awe inspiring. “We were no longer between two hills. We were in a courtyard between two stone temples, and the Na-gá who lived there were pissed.”

“Na-gá?”

Dan rubbed a hand over his mouth. Should he tell her?

If anyone would believe him, she would.

“The locals call them gods. They’re Earth Elementals. Gaians. I didn’t know that’s what they were then. What I thought
then
, was that I must be hallucinating from the pain and adrenaline. What I saw was two giant cobras, with huge, flaring hoods.”

Marianne leaned back as he extended his arms. “I couldn’t believe something that big could move so quickly. The Khmer who didn’t run fast enough were toast. Some, the snakes spit venom at, others they bit with fangs the length of scimitars. That’s what happened to the guy with the machete, and I was sure I was going to be next.” The memories pulled him under. His heart thrashed as if trying to escape the cage of his chest. The Na-gá had terrified him on a visceral level, far more than the Khmer.

Marianne gaped, her expression horrified. But instead of telling him he was nuts, she asked, “What happened?”

Her question jerked him back to the present. He wasn’t in the jungle. He wasn’t about to die. His bride was staring at him, concern filling her eyes. Dan took a deep breath and found he could go on. “I must have blacked out, because when I woke up the cobras were gone, and the most beautiful Asian woman I’d ever seen had her hand inside my fatigues.”

Marianne lifted a brow in a perfect imitation of Spock. He knew what she was thinking. A beautiful woman with her hand in his pants sounded like a dream—or a fantasy.

“She had her fingers over my wound—or the place where my wound had been. The pain was gone, my skin as smooth as the day I was born, but my cammies were still torn and soaked with blood.”

“What happened then?”

“She said, ‘You are restored.’” He laughed, but it had no humor in it. “I was a damn sight better than restored. I felt great. There were two men there, one fair, one Asian, standing behind her at the edge of the courtyard.”

For a second alarm had flared with the thought they might be enemy. The blond guy could have been a Soviet military advisor, except he was wearing the same kind of richly colored silk
sampot
as the Asians were wearing, and he was unarmed as far Dan could tell. Dan had reached for his weapon, but the woman stopped him with just a touch. “The Asian man came over to us and said in perfect English, ‘We have punished the
Kambhoj
who spilled unsanctified blood in the temple. Leave Kambhuja, and do not return. Take the unsanctified with you.’”

Dan looked over at a pensive Marianne. “He didn’t have to tell me twice.”

“What did he mean, unsanctified?”

“My squad-mates. He wanted their bodies out of there.”

“What about the other man? What did he say?”

Dan searched Marianne’s expression. She didn’t look like she thought he was nuts. “Nothing. He stayed on the far side of the courtyard. Maybe he was a Russian advisor. Maybe he was something else entirely. At that point, I wasn’t going to ask any questions. My only interest was in getting the hell out of there.”

“Did she heal Ringo, too?”

“I think she must have done something, because he was able to move under his own power even if he was still pretty out of it. I don’t know what that woman did, but somehow we had the energy to carry the bodies of our team-mates out of that valley. We buried them in a cave in the next valley, and brought their tags home.” The muscles in his jaw jumped. “We didn’t rest until we were ten klicks away.”

Dan stood and walked over to the French doors, staring out at the gardens below for several minutes. He knew what his story sounded like. He hadn’t even told his sister. He wouldn’t blame Marianne if she thought he qualified for a Section 8. She wouldn’t be the first to doubt his sanity, but if anyone would believe him, it would be her, considering what she’d pledged herself to do. He hoped so. It mattered more to him that she believe than it ever had before.

“Thank you for sharing that with me.”

Her soft words unwound the tension that had been twisting in his gut. He turned back to her wide blue eyes.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

He nodded. “I tried to skirt what happened at my debriefing. I knew that telling the brass that Ringo and I were saved by giant cobras wasn’t going to fly, but when you lose your commanding officer and three-fourths of your squad, the Army wants details. They saw I was being evasive, and kept after me until I finally told them everything. Then they asked me what kind of drugs I’d been taking. They wanted to know if I’d been so high that I’d shot my own men.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yeah.” Ringo couldn’t back him up; his buddy had been concussed and didn’t remember a damn thing. Not that the brass would have believed him either. “I knew I was screwed. At best my military career was over, so when the
CIA
took their turn with me, I didn’t hold anything back. I no longer had anything to lose, so I just laid it all out. That’s when things got interesting. The spooks listened to what I had to say, took some notes, and said, ‘thank you very much.’ Two days later they shipped us back to the States. No charges. No reprimand. An early and honorable discharge. That’s when the Trust contacted me, told me that Gaians, in the form of Southeast Asian gods, had saved my life, and asked me if I wanted a job.”

“No way! The
CIA
is sharing information with the Trust? Foxworth is better connected than I thought.”

“
That’s
what surprises you?”

Marianne blushed and lifted a shoulder. “Well, I already knew about Gaians.”

Dan hung his head and chuckled softly at her unassailable logic. They were in this room, married and expecting a baby, because she was trying to rescue a Gaian, after all.

“Fair enough. But here’s the reason I laid all this on you. I work for the Trust because I know the world is a stranger place than most people suspect. Foxworth gave me the opportunity to learn more about what’s going on, and to help others deal with it. I’m grateful for that. But I’ve seen the earth change under my feet. I’ve been face to face with an Elemental. That kind of thing tends to change your priorities.”

Marianne’s lips curved in wry acknowledgement. “Meeting Aldwyn was nothing compared to what you went through, but having a Gaian wolf-spirit look me in the eye as if he was reading my mind made an impression.”

Dan nodded. “Then you should understand. The Trust hasn’t bought me. I choose my own path. I briefed you because it was my job. I chose to help you with your assignment because I could see you were in over your head. But I
married
you because the first time I saw you, that day you came into my office for your first briefing, I felt a different kind of magic than I’d felt before, but just as powerful. It was kind of like recognition, or finding a missing piece. Something about you fits into me like a key into a lock. I needed you to be mine from the moment I saw you, and the more time we spent together, the more I wanted you.”

Dan watched Marianne, trying to read her response. He’d never stated his feelings so baldly to a woman. He’d never had these feelings before to say.

She didn’t look horrified, at least. Or scornful. Marianne nibbled the corner of her lower lip, then said, “That didn’t stop you from helping me seduce Conrad.”

Dan winced and ran a hand back through his already rumpled hair. “Letting you go out with him that night was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I wanted to talk you out of it, but it was your choice. I didn’t have any right to tell you what to do. Whether I like it or not, what you’re doing is important. We can’t leave the power of a Gaian in the hands of the Path. The best I could do was help prepare you, so you’d be as safe as possible, and ready to do what you had to. And wait.”

Marianne’s eyes narrowed.
She probably thinks I’m handing her a line, like Mackson did.

“I believe you.”

Three short words, but they relaxed the tight knot of worry twisting under his breast bone. “You do? I mean, good. But … why? After the way Mackson jerked you around, I can see why you might be slow to trust.”

“I am. I was. But there were signs that Barry was a self-absorbed little prick. I just didn’t want to see. But with you …” She stopped and looked away.

“With me?”

Marianne brought her gaze back to his. “I don’t get that from you.”

Dan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. As a vote of confidence, it was pretty weak, but he’d take it. Even more than her words, he’d take the softening expression on Marianne’s face. She’d stopped twisting her fingers, too, and she turned a smile on him that reached all the way to her eyes.

She stood carefully, testing her balance, then came to him by the French doors. Outside, it was another beautiful San Diego afternoon, with sunlight streaming through a cloudless blue sky. Below them, a riot of white, pink, and fuchsia flowers bloomed in planters lining the walkways between buildings, but Dan only had eyes for her.

Marianne slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest. Under her ear, his heart beat in a quick rhythm as he pulled her close.

“We’re together now,” she said. “Let’s not waste it.”

Dan swept her up in his arms and she squeaked in surprise. “Let’s not,” he said, and carried her back to bed.