Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) (9 page)

And this time, winning was all
that mattered. He had to get her back. All that time wasted. All that time
caught up with one fucking Peace Corps volunteer who didn't know his ass from
his elbow, much less a good woman when he had one. All that time since that
faraway night at the beach house when Joe should have given her what she
deserved and made things real.

Joe loosened his seat belt. It
had been a long three nights the jungle without sleep. Long three nights of
patching his wounds with shredded khaki slacks, calling on every ounce of
battle strength he owned to make it the hell out of there. He was reluctantly
dozing off, the murky memories starting to crystallize...

What a crazy
party it was that early October night at his Uncle Tom’s beach house.
That afternoon Ana had conned Joe into a $50,000 amendment to her contract, and
now the whole project office was celebrating.

'What the hell,' Joe thought,
taking another swig of beer. 'It's only money and, hey, the hospital's a good
cause.'

Joe wondered what was up with
Ana
when she brushed by him – just a little too
closely – on her way to the bar. She had consumed quite a bit of gin and
her tropical print bikini, which left little to the imagination to begin with,
was gaping in some pretty revealing places. Not that he was looking and not
that he was enticed by that splash of pink nipple on her alabaster breast.
Hell, no. This was just business and she’d just had a little too much. That was
all.

The boisterous party guests
left in small groups, escorted by sober Embassy drivers in bulletproof jeeps.
Joe stood in the doorway watching the last of the revelers depart. He shook his
head with lingering amazement.
Only in Costa
Negra
.
How the hell did he get picked for this plum
assignment anyway?

Suddenly, he remembered Ana. Had
she gone? Surely he would have noticed her cascade of long, dark hair boarding
among the others.

He quickly made his way across
the open living area and out through the patio doors where he stopped short.

From the arch of the doorway,
he could see her pale silhouette framed by her own reflection in the pool. She
sat facing the ocean, her legs dangling freely in the water. A sheet of black
hair lay in a sleek line down her moistened back.

She spoke without turning to
acknowledge him. 'I suppose you'll have to drive me back to town.'

'Ana,' he said, flustered by a
compromising situation he’d not arranged. 'I thought you’d gone.'

Still facing the water, she
lifted her arms and coiled her wet mass of hair into a loose knot at the nape
of her neck. Her bare shoulders were smooth and inviting.

'Were you hoping I'd gone?'

'Of course not,' he said,
regaining composure. 'In fact, beautiful, I'm awfully glad you stayed.'

He strode across the patio and
settled himself down at the water's edge, plopping his legs into the pool next
to hers.

They both sat staring at the
roll and crash of the magnificent Pacific against the black, sandy shore.
Neither one spoke. As Joe swung his legs in the water he, quite by accident he
was sure, brushed against the cool, bare silk of her calf. Their eyes met.

'I feel pretty foolish,' she
said, seeming to lose her nerve. 'Maybe you should take me back to my hotel.'

He’d waited twenty-four months
for this opportunity.

'I will –' Joe said,
dropping into the water and pulling her soaking body to meet his own, 'in the
morning.'

Isabel sat watching small
bouquets of cherry blossoms parachute from wide, spindly trees. In contrast to
the blustery winds outside, Albert's office hung with the weight of dead air.
Stale memories, she thought, sipping from her afternoon sherry.

She turned his sagging mahogany
chair toward his desk, catching her reflection in the ornate, gold-framed
mirror in the hall. Even at seventy-two, her form cut a certain elegance
against the backdrop of the window. The curls that spun freely from her piled
mane framed a flawless complexion. Her eyes, dark and troubled, revealed the
shadows of a full life.

She smiled slightly as her lips
met the narrow rim of the glass.

Oh Albert, if only you had
lived to see this.
Your daughters now women.
Emalita
a
mother.
And Ana, so proud, just like you.

Isabel straightened. No, today
she would not lament. Past was past and he was gone. But the memories, at
least, were hers to cling to.

When she first met him, he was
a lean, former army officer coming out of service in the Caribbean. They met on
a double date arranged by her roommate Peggy.

Peggy had been seeing a fine
ex-lieutenant who was prepping himself for the Foreign Service exam. Peggy's
Tom was tall and refined. Well-bred, they called it in those days. He had such
manners, and those deep-set emerald eyes that sparkled with a mischief in
defiance of his outward reserve.

One day, Peggy had come back to
the dorm
all alive
with excitement.

'Isabel,' she said, her
freckled face aglow with inspiration, 'have I got the fellow for you!'

In an instant, redheaded Peggy
had filled their small quarters with stomach-twirling animation.

'But you must come, Isa. You
know my Tommy thinks the world of you. He'll
be
so
disappointed if you at least don't give it a go.'

It was hard to resist her in
these moods. So, despite her reservations, Isabel agreed to join Peggy, Tom and
Tom's mysterious friend, Albert Kane, for a drink at a side-street piano bar
later that evening.

She never really liked
venturing into the bustle and hullabaloo of Georgetown after dark. It was all
so – hedonistic. Young men and girls, dancing, smoking, tying one on,
when they really would have been better off back in the library accomplishing
what their parents had sent them to school for.

Oh well, she thought, painting
her lips fire engine red, maybe Peggy's right. Maybe I do spend too much time
with my nose in a book.

With that, she and Peggy had
stepped into their nylons and A- line skirts and set out to meet two frisky
young men in want of company.

Albert Kane had taken Isabel by
surprise. He wasn't a tall man, but at five foot nine, he stood a good five
inches above his inquisitive Spanish date. Though she hated to admit it, she
found herself intrigued by his ambiguous hazel eyes. Somehow his look seemed
humble, as if he assumed nothing of anyone, least of all himself. Yet, deep
within those gold-encrusted irises, there was a hint of something valiant, a
silent sense of command.

They had been in the bar a
while but the conversation was having trouble getting off the ground. She asked
him endlessly about himself, in part because she was interested, in part
because her mother had taught her it was the best way to flatter a man. He
answered her politely, but the connection she felt between them couldn’t seem to
work its way into words.

'So, Lieutenant,' she began
anew.

He interrupted her with a
smile. 'Please, Miss Delgado. I’m no longer in uniform. I’d be very happy if
you’d call me Albert.'

She felt the warmth in her
cheeks. There was something in the way he looked at her. 'Only if you’ll call
me Isabel.'

'I’d be honored,' he said,
taking her hand and giving it a light kiss.

Peggy and Tom were nursing
their drinks across the table, pretending to listen to the music, but Isabel
knew otherwise.

Suddenly the room was stifling.
'I think I’d like to get some air.'

'Of course,' Albert said,
getting up and helping her with her chair.

'We’re game!' Peggy shouted
over the tumbling play of the piano.

This wasn’t exactly what Isabel
had in mind, but perhaps it was for the best. There was safety in numbers.
Albert was practically a stranger. Oddly, though, she trusted him.

She liked the way he held the
door and linked his arm through hers when they stepped onto the street. He
walked appropriately to her left, defending her Saturday
night
clothes
from the unseemly splatter of automobiles. It occurred to her
they looked like a couple, not much different from Tom and Peggy up ahead. Any
number of passersby would assume...

He was taking her down a side
street, to a back-alley crossing of the C&O Canal. He led her to the crest
of a little bridge overlooking the water and gave some sort of signal to Tom.
She suddenly realized the two of them were being left alone. She knew she
should be afraid. And she was, but not
of
Albert Kane.

'Isabel,' he said, stopping and
taking her in his arms. 'I have traveled the world over, yet never met anyone
quite like you.'

He was looking deep into her
eyes, searching for something. Her heart was pounding in her throat. She felt
as transparent as the image of the moon gliding with the waters below them.

He pulled her to him and
pressed the warmth of his mouth to hers.

She pushed back. 'Albert!'

'You’re absolutely right,' he
said. 'I should never have let my emotions run away with me. I beg your pardon...can’t
believe I’d...'

He was adorable standing there
in the moonlight, his composure
ashambles
. There was
something about this American she could fall in love with.

He was still apologizing in
spite of himself, '
..any
way to forgive me.'

She would never forgive him, if
he did not give her another kiss.
Or herself, if she didn’t
beat him to it.

He wrapped his arms around her
and she fell into his embrace, reaching her mouth to his, falling into the
dizzying pleasure of his kiss. She’d never tasted such fire, wasn’t even aware
an American could possess it.

He leaned back to stroke her
forehead, pushing an errant strand of hair out of her face. There was a truth
in his eyes that denied the fact they were strangers.

'Isabel,' he said with a smile
that wrapped its way around her like the warmest
Andalusian
wind. 'When I heard the War was ended, I knew I’d be going home, but I really
had nowhere to go… or no one to come home to. But now, being here, seeing you,
I know in my heart my journeys will never be so undirected again.'

She felt herself blush as she
took in the implausibility of the statement. But then he pressed his mouth to
hers and all doubt melted away in the butter of his kiss.

He’d stayed true to his word.
And though his work came to involve substantial travel – much of it apart
from the family, he never once failed to come home. She, in turn, had always
readied a place for him. Made the meals inviting, the house his refuge. He had
rescued her from the mundane responsibility of returning to Spain to marry a
wealthy yet much older financier. Albert had freed her from her own
insecurities and taught her that love can transcend
continents,
that
two distinct heritages could meld together in the fiercest alloyed
bond. They were stronger, the two of them, for having each other. Both of them
knew it and had sensed it from that very first night in Georgetown.

Tom and Peggy's marriage was
unexpectedly sudden. Tom was accepted into the Foreign Service and assigned
immediately to Haiti. He proposed the afternoon of his posting and Peggy,
always game for adventure, had accepted. Albert and Isabel witnessed the small,
private ceremony at the Gothic cathedral in Northwest Washington. Isabel always
believed it was their participation in this romantic coupling that had inspired
Albert's desire for commitment. He’d asked her to be his wife just four weeks
later...

Isabel turned to face his
paper-strewn desk. She had never gathered the courage to go finally through his
things. Packing up Albert's office would lend some kind of finality to his
death that she was not yet ready to face. She thought of the intruders, those
bestial men who had invaded her home and upended the files in his private room.
It didn't make any sense, and it pained her to think what her husband's reaction
might have been to seeing his 'perfectly ordered disorder,' as he called it,
destroyed.

Isabel reflected for a moment
on Tom. Steady, reliable Tom, now widowed, now in service in Costa
Negra
. Tom had been so good to her when Albert died. She
really didn't know how she would have faced it without him. Poor Tom had lost
everything. First Charles Joseph, his only child, had been swept out to sea at
Myrtle Beach, the body never recovered. No finality to it. No way for Tom and
Peggy ever to find peace. Peggy had her first stroke the year that Chuck
vanished. She was only fifty-four.

What a
blessing it was for them Tom just happened to be visiting between postings when
Albert suffered his heart attack.
Right here in this very room, she
thought, feeling a chill creep down her spine.

She hadn't been there; she’d
been out with
Emalita
shopping for the grandchildren.
Ana was working out of Washington at the time. So it was only Tom who could
answer Albert's cry when he felt that first rush of pain coming on.

If it couldn't have been me,
Isabel found herself thinking many times since, thank God, it was Tom here with
him at the end.

Isabel knew Albert, an only
child who thought of Tom as a brother, would have wanted it that way. Though
their paths had diverged, they had somehow managed to stay close. The times
they had actually seen each other over the years had been few and far between,
but the two of them shared the kind of bond that could be rekindled immediately
upon reunion. Theirs was a spontaneous sort of friendship, an effortless
liaison of spirit that had managed to endure both time and separation.