CROSSFIRE (14 page)

"It wasn't your fault, either," he said. "Bad things happen. The weak crumble. The strong keep moving forward." Because his thumbs itched to stroke the length of her cheekbones, he pulled his hands from her face. "No one asks us what road we want to walk." God knew no one had asked him. "All we can do is choose
how
we walk it."

A stubborn light flashed in her eyes, telling him he'd hit pay dirt. Elizabeth Carrington was many things, but weak was not one of them. "All my life I've tried to fix things," she said in an oddly remote voice. "Ethan's piggy bank that broke during a game of hide-and-seek, the wing of a baby blue jay Mira found in the backyard." She hesitated. "But this…
"
she said raggedly. "I can't
fix
this."

And slowly but surely that truth was killing her.

The urge to yank her back into his arms almost knocked him over. Instead he sat there, very quiet, very still, while the truth nudged at him with surprising force.
Elizabeth
couldn't fix the past, so instead she'd fixed the future. She'd drawn her life into such a rigid box, maintained such incredible control, that there would never be anything to fix, because there was no room for anything to break. Certainly not her heart.

"Some things can't be fixed," he said more roughly than he'd intended. Promises were broken. Dreams shattered. People died. That was just life. "All you can do is accept. You can't spend the rest of your life beating yourself up."

Her chin came up. "I know that," she said. "But that doesn't mean I wouldn't give anything to take away the pain. My father…" Her voice trailed off. "My God. I never knew a grown man could fall apart like that. And Nicholas…"

Nicholas.
The name slammed in like a rockslide, blocking the light and preventing exit. He felt himself stiffen, felt himself pull away, physically, mentally and every other way possible. All that stupid tenderness he'd felt hardened into the jagged edges he'd never learned to live with.

Nicholas. The man Elizabeth had turned to after rolling from Hawk's bed. He wondered if she realized this was the first time she'd brought up his name since the plane went down. She kept right on talking, though, as though the Nicholas of eleven years ago, the one who'd dated her sister, was not the same man whose marriage proposal she'd accepted while she still had marks of passion on her body from another man.

"They'd broken up before Christmas, but just because he'd realized he wasn't in love with her didn't mean he didn't care."

Yeah, right. Automatically Hawk's hands curled into fists. He knew damn good and well what Nicholas Ferreday cared about, and it wasn't a woman's feelings.

"How long did they date?" A bitter taste swarmed his mouth.

"Off and on for years. Our dads were best friends. From the time we were little, they talked about how wonderful it would be if their children married."

Deep inside, those hard edges splintered. He'd picked up enough to know Elizabeth had harbored a crush on the older, sophisticated Nicholas, as though he was some dashing prince in a fairy tale, dreaming he would some day see beyond her perfect sister to her, sweep her off her feet, and together they would live happily ever after.

Personally, he'd never understood the appeal of the Cinderella fantasy.

Tragedy made strange bedfellows, he'd once heard. Lines blurred, vanished altogether. People turned to each other in grief as they wouldn't have in joy or passion, he knew that, but Elizabeth and Nicholas's relationship had always made him uneasy.

"It's better not to look too far into the future." If you didn't have plans, hopes, they couldn't be broken. The thrill of the moment offered far more satisfaction.

And in this moment he didn't want to waste one breath on Nicholas Ferreday.

The urge to stand, to pace, to move, to do something,
anything
physical, grated at him. The walls of the cave kept pushing closer, closer, hemming him in like a foxhole.

"Don't worry so much about your father, Elizabeth. He sent me to you for a reason." He'd go outside soon, he told himself. Survey the perimeter. Make sure he saw no signs of campfire in the distance.

"And contrary to what you might think," he added as lightly as he could, "it's not to torture us both." Even if every second he spent with her, looked into her smoky eyes or breathed of her, felt like just that. "Until he has proof otherwise, he's not going to let himself believe the worst. I have a knack for defying the odds. Your father knows that."

For a long moment she said nothing, did nothing, just sat there dwarfed by his bomber jacket and tracing circles against the floor of the cave, as though she'd not heard a word he said. Then she looked up and blew his mind. "You're right."

That was the only warning he got. He tried to retreat, reached for his Glock, realized too late he'd turned the conversation to himself. "I'd better do a quick check outside," he said, turning toward the mouth of the cave. A welcome blast of frigid air swirled toward him like open arms. "Holler f—"

"Wesley."

Just his name, that was all she said. But the way she said it, in that slow, honeyed, Southern drawl, stopped him cold. He didn't turn to her, though. Didn't want to see the shadows playing across her face.

"I never thanked you for helping rescue Miranda."

For
a
frozen second he did nothing, said nothing. He didn't
trust himself to react. Instead he just hung there, crouched between the aftermath of her words and the invitation of the cold night beyond. Instinct demanded he keep right on going, out of the cave and into the darkness, but something else, something he didn't want to name, wouldn't let him leave.

Slowly he turned toward her, kept his face as hard and unyielding as the rock surrounding them. "I was just doing my job."

No longer did Elizabeth draw stick figures in the dirt. No longer did she look away, anywhere but into his eyes. She sat straight, toward the far wall of the dimly lit cave, with her shoulders straight and her chin high. The oddest light glowed in her gaze.

"You helped save my sister's life," she said with the same cadence she'd used the night before when praising the medical professionals dedicated to cancer research. "You were shot in the process. You could have died."

He stiffened, much as he had when the bullet had slammed into him, ripping flesh and tearing muscle. His jaw tightened against the blast of shock. He didn't want her gratitude, damn it. No matter how many nights he'd lain awake in his hospital bed, cursing her for not bothering to contact him, he didn't want the meaningless sentiment now.

"Comes with the territory." No way would he let his hand drift to his shoulder, which picked the worst times to throb.

A soft smile curved her mouth. "I'll bet your mother just loves hearing you talk like that."

The zingers just kept coming, one after the other. The second she'd spoken his name he should have liberated himself to the night.

"She doesn't hear me," he said with a gruffness he didn't try to polish. "She's dead."

Elizabeth
's perfect mouth tumbled open, simultaneous with a flare to her eyes. "I'm so sorry," she said, and true to her impeccable breeding, sounded like she meant it. "I didn't know."

No, she hadn't, because she'd never asked for personal information and he'd never volunteered. He knew better than to hand a loaded gun to someone who wanted to use it. He'd learned to keep his private life private, and while he and Elizabeth had shared one night of mind-blowing sex, they'd never traded secrets.

Compassion welled in her eyes, but before she could voice it, he did his best to disarm. "She'd been sick for a while," he said. "I like knowing she's not in pain anymore."

"And you?"

Cold night air seduced from just beyond the cave. "And me what?"

"Are you still in pain?"

He lifted a hand and rubbed beneath his left shoulder. "Life goes on," he said. "There's really no choice."

"Pain or no pain," she whispered.

A hard sound broke from his throat. "Pain or no pain."

* * *

For a long moment
Elizabeth
said nothing. For a long moment there was nothing to say.

Hawk had been on his way out, she knew. The second he'd sensed the tide turning, he'd tried to jump ship. Now he stared at her from his encampment by the misshapen rock that led to the world beyond, his eyes narrow, his face a study of hard lines and soft shadows. Dark blond hair fell against his cheekbones in that slightly messy, wholly reckless manner that made her fingers itch to brush the strands back.

Fascination and curiosity did a dangerous dance inside her.

During their time together, Hawk had sidestepped any kind of meaningful conversation with the same reliability that Miranda avoided protocol and Ethan demanded facts. Now, though, now they were alone in the middle of nowhere and the wounded-animal look in his eyes wouldn't let her back down.

"What about your father?" she asked.

His mouth flattened into a hard line. "It's late," he clipped, turning toward the darkness gaping beyond the cave. "You get some sleep and I'll make sure everything's secure."

Elizabeth
bit back the smile that wanted to form. "Now who's uncomfortable?"

He swung toward her. "Come again?"

"Last night you accused me of being uncomfortable sharing a room with you." She paused, met his eyes with her own. No way was she letting him off the hook. "But I'm not the one trying to run away now, am I?"

He shoved the hair back off his face. "You think I'm running?"

She settled against the wall of the cave, grateful the thickness of his leather jacket absorbed the sting of the cold. "Looks that way to me."

He swore softly. "I'm trying to do my job."

"You're avoiding my questions," she corrected. She'd always thought of Hawk Monroe as tough and invincible, unaffected by the world, the people, around him. Now she had to wonder.

Curious, she pushed harder. "You only want to play when it's by your rules."

His scowl was almost comical. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

It was like fishing, she decided. Bait the hook, reel them in. Her grandpappy had taught her that.

Of course, Grandfather Carrington, esteemed
United States
senator, had fished for far more tricky prey than the occasional bass or trout.

"As long as you were the one doling out the questions," she said slowly, pointedly, letting the words roll off her tongue for full effect, "all was fine and you were in control. Now it doesn't feel so good, though, does it?"

"I'm not afraid to answer your questions." With a pointed smile, she simply lifted a brow, and waited. His glare turned lethal. Seconds dragged into minutes, minutes into the inevitable. This was one challenge she was not going to lose.

On a particularly brutal blast of cold from beyond the rocky opening, Hawk edged closer and leaned against the wall. She could tell he wanted to pace, was going stir-crazy because the cave hemmed him in. He was a man of wide-open spaces. He never stood still. She could practically see the energy buzzing around him.

He picked up a handful of rocks. "Okay, you win, dear heart. I'm all yours. What juicy secrets would you like to know?"

She just barely managed not to laugh, and that surprised her. Last night someone had tried to kill her. Today, her plane had been sabotaged. They were stranded, maybe presumed dead. A damp chill permeated the cave, but for the moment none of that mattered. She had Hawk's back against the wall, and for a change, it felt good.

"Your father?" she asked.

"Died in
Vietnam
," he answered like a game-show contestant. "Never met him."

She absorbed the revelation, noted the complete lack of emotion in his voice. "That's got to have been hard."

He tossed a pebble to the ground. "Mom and I did okay."

"Brothers or sisters?" Somehow she didn't think so. Hawk had always struck her as a loner.

"Not that I ever knew."

"Not that you knew?" The answer struck her as odd. "Did your mom give up a child for adoption?"

He winced. "God, no."

Finally, she thought. Emotion.

"Mom was born to be a mother," he added after a hard silence. "She had a difficult time staying pregnant. I was her third pregnancy, discovered a month after Dad left for '
Nam
. After she died, I—" He paused, turned inward. "I found a birth certificate for a brother I never knew. Born the same day as me."

Be careful what you fish for, her grandfather had warned. If you explore unfamiliar waters, you might find something you don't know how to handle.

"A twin?" The word scraped against emotion on the way out.

Hawk tossed another rock, this one against the far wall. Of course, it wasn't that far. "Also found his death certificate."

Elizabeth
cringed. "Oh, my God." No wonder Hawk had struck her as a man alone. "She never told you?"

"Not a word."