The Phoenix Encounter (3 page)

The other man didn't blink. “ARIES, sir.”

“If you're an ARIES, what does that make me?”

“PHOENIX.”

The code words confirmed that this young man with the engaging smile and vivid blue eyes was, indeed, his contact. Robert extended his hand. “I was starting to think you weren't going to show.”

“The soldiers set up a roadblock, sir. They're angry at the rebels again. I had to wait them out.”

“Hopefully, they're not feeling trigger-happy this evening. I don't feel like getting shot at.” Robert rubbed the dull ache in his thigh.

“Yes, sir.”

“And cut out the sir crap.”

“Yes, s—” Jacques flushed. “What do I call you?”

“My close friends call me PHOENIX.” Rising, Robert dug five Rebelian dollars out of his pocket and left them on the table. “Let's go.”

The young man glanced toward a narrow door at the rear of the bar. “This way.”

Looking once over his shoulder, Robert followed Jacques past the bar and out the back door into a narrow alley. Two men clad in ragged coats and dangerous scowls stood against the crumbling brick building smoking Rebelian cigarettes. They eyed Robert with a combination of hostility and suspicion. Robert stared back, keenly aware that if something went wrong he was on his own, outnumbered three to one and without a sidearm to boot.

“Hey, you the American?”

Robert glanced at the tall man with a bald head and full beard and mustache. His nerves jumped when the man reached into his coat pocket. A dozen scenarios rushed through his mind. For an instant he considered reaching for the switchblade strapped to his calf, but he knew if the other man had a gun there was no way he'd get to it in time. Adrenaline cut a path through his gut when the man produced a small, lethal-looking pistol.

Never taking his eyes from the pistol, he raised his hands and took a step back. “What the hell is this?” he growled.

Turning the pistol so the butt faced Robert, the bald man
laughed outright, then passed the pistol to him. “You Americans are so jumpy.”

The three men broke into hearty laughter. Robert wasn't amused and snarled a very American profanity as he accepted the pistol and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans.

“You're a real comedian,” he said.

“Thank you.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Robert said, “If you're finished joking around, how about if you take me to my contact?”

The bald man scratched the top of his head and glanced at the other two men. He spoke in rapid Rebelian. Robert was only able to catch every other word or so, but what he was able to decipher gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Your contact is a very important person within the rebel movement,” said Jacques.

“Somehow I already figured that out.” Robert stared at him, waiting, wondering what the hell these three men were up to. “Take me to him.”

“The only way I can do that is to blindfold you.”

“Look, either you trust me or you don't,” Robert snapped.

The three men exchanged looks again. The bald man spoke first. “This has nothing to do with trust.”

“Then why the blindfold?”

“Because if the soldiers capture you, they will torture you until you reveal the location of our headquarters. We can't risk that. The blindfold is for your own protection, my friend.”

 

Because of the threat of hostile soldiers, the journey to the rebel stronghold was made on foot. Blindfolded, Robert
walked behind Jacques with the bald man and his cohort bringing up the rear. A mile into the walk, his left thigh began to throb. Robert had learned to deal with the pain, mostly by directing his thoughts elsewhere. He was a firm believer in the mind-over-matter philosophy and had decided a long time ago that the injury was not going to limit his physical capabilities. Of course, the injury didn't always cooperate.

The cold rain wasn't helping matters. But Robert used the cold and wet to keep his mind off the pain. Still, after three miles, his limp became so pronounced that the bald man paused and touched him on the shoulder. “Do you need to stop and rest, American?”

The blindfold pressed soggily against his eyes. Robert smelled wet foliage and damp earth and guessed they were probably deep in the forests to the north of Rajalla. Cold rain dripped down the collar of his jacket, and the material pressed wetly against his back. His leg ached with every beat of his heart. But because stopping wasn't going to help any of those things, he shook his head. “Let's keep moving.”

“It's not much farther.”

He concentrated on his mission objectives as he walked, formulating questions for his Rebelian contact. He wanted a run down on DeBruzkya. Rumors about an American who had been captured. Or gems. He tried hard to keep his mind on the business at hand, but his thoughts went repeatedly to a woman with iridescent hazel eyes.

“You can take off the blindfold.”

Thankful to be rid of the soggy material, Robert stopped and stripped it off. They were in the midst of a forest thick with tall trees and low-growing brush. Ahead, he could just make out the jagged peaks of the mountains and knew they were heading north. Blinking to clear his eyes, he spotted
a faint path that wove between the trees to a small cottage nestled beneath the thick canopy of Rebelian pines. Yellow light shone in the windows. Smoke chugged from a stone chimney, and the smell of wood smoke hung in the air.

“Your contact is inside.” Smiling, Jacques reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “We're glad to have you here, American.”

Meeting his gaze, Robert saw the sincerity behind the words, the truth in the other man's eyes, and nodded. “We believe in freedom in America,” he said.

Bowing slightly, Jacques backed away. “Your contact knows how to reach me if you need anything.”

Robert stood in the rain and watched the three men disappear down the trail, then looked through the trees at the cottage. The sight was surreal in the utter darkness, like something out of an old fairy tale. A pretty cottage surrounded by a beautiful forest and the backdrop of breathtaking mountains. He wasn't sure why, but the sight made him think about Lily. She would have liked it here.

“Don't go there, buddy,” he said, cursing the ghosts that refused to give him peace even after so many months.

He pulled the old revolver from the waistband of his jeans, checked the cylinder and found it loaded. Hoping his contact knew English, he shoved the revolver into the waistband of his jeans, and started toward the cottage.

His heart pounded hard and fast as he stepped onto the stone porch and knocked on the door. Instinctively, he stood to one side, just in case whomever was on the inside had a nervous trigger finger and decided to shoot first and ask questions later. He saw a shadow move inside the window, and his nerves zinged. Resting his right hand lightly on the butt of the pistol, he knocked again.

The door swung open. Recognition sparked like a hot wire and sent a surge of shock to his brain. Robert stumbled
back. His first fleeting thought was that he was seeing his first ghost.

Lily.

He stared at her, aware of his heart pounding in his chest. He tried to utter her name, but his brain was so overwhelmed, he couldn't speak. All he could think was that he'd seen her die. That it was an absolute impossibility for Lillian Scott to be standing there in a thick cotton sweater and faded blue jeans staring at him as if he were the one who'd come back from the dead instead of her.

A thousand words tangled inside Robert, but he choked on every one of them as if they were shards of glass. Emotions snapped through him like thunderbolts, shocking his body with their awesome power. He stared at the woman standing in the doorway, aware of his heart raging in his chest, the dull roar of blood rushing through his veins.

He couldn't believe Lily was alive. But it was her; he knew it as surely as he saw the flash of recognition in her hazel eyes. There was no other woman like her. No other who could affect him like this. He would know her anywhere and under any circumstance. He would know her in the dark, just by the feel of her, the scent of her. The energy surrounding her.

Robert stared, speechless and shocked to his bones. Her hair was longer, but still as radiant as burnished copper. She had the same flawless skin, as fragile as fine German porcelain. Only now there was a tiny scar that ran from her left eyebrow to the hairline at her temple.

“Lily,” he whispered after an infinite moment.

“Robert. My God. I didn't…” She blinked, as if trying to wake herself from a dream. “How did you…”

Neither of them seemed capable of completing a sentence. Slowly, he once again became aware of his surroundings. The ping of rain against the tin roof. The crackle of
a fire in the hearth. The smell of bread and wood smoke and woman. His leg ached dully, the way it always did when he overexerted himself, but he barely noticed the pain. And for the first time since receiving the injury, he was glad for the distraction.

“C-come in,” she said.

When he only continued to stare at her, she stepped back. “You're getting wet.”

“I'm already wet.” But Robert knew the weather no longer rated on his list of concerns.

His heart raced with his pulse as he stepped into the cottage. Warmth and a startling sense of comfort he didn't quite trust embraced him. He looked around, seeing immediately that whomever lived here had somehow managed to turn a ramshackle hovel into a home.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Robert watched as she crossed to the fire and tossed another log into the flames. Before he even realized he was watching her, his eyes swept over her, taking in every detail. She'd lost weight, but the curves he'd once known intimately still defined her shape. Even through the thick cotton sweater she wore, he could see the outline of her full breasts. Her jeans were snug enough so that he could see the gentle roundness of her hips. And in those fleeting seconds her beauty made him remember all the things he'd tried so desperately to forget in the twenty-one months since he'd last seen her.

Robert cut the thought short with practiced precision. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on but knew he couldn't dwell on it. He couldn't let himself think of her in those terms. Not when he'd worked so hard to get her out of his system.

“I could ask you the same question,” he said.

“I—I live here.” She glanced at him over her shoulder
as she walked into a small kitchen area. “Were you looking for me?”

“No,” he said quickly and held his ground at the door. “I was supposed to meet someone here.”

He watched her pour Rebelian black tea into two mismatched cups. She looked cool on the outside, maybe even a little tough, but her hands were shaking, and for the first time he realized she was merely hiding her shock better than he was.

She carried both cups to the wooden chairs in front of the hearth. “Your contact?”

That she knew about his contact shocked him all over again. Lily didn't know he was an ARIES operative. No one did, aside from his counterparts and other ARIES personnel. There was no way in hell he would ever tell her. The less she knew about him, the safer she would be.

Because he wasn't quite sure how to respond, he didn't answer. Instead, he followed her to the hearth, keenly aware of her scent, that her essence filled not only the room, but the entire house. “I'm doing some missionary work for the French government.”

She looked at him oddly, a student perplexed by a particularly difficult math equation. “I was supposed to meet someone here tonight, as well.”

A sinking sensation swamped his gut. And suddenly he knew this was no coincidence. “Jacques brought me here.”

Her knowing eyes met his. “Jacques is…with me. He's part of the movement.”

With me.
Of all the words that stuck in his brain, he hated it that it was those two. He stared at her, torn between turning around and walking out and forgetting this had ever happened, and shaking her until she told him how it was that she was alive and he'd spent the last twenty-one months dying a slow death because he'd thought her gone.

“There's got to be some kind of mistake,” he said.

“There's no mistake.” She handed him one of the cups. “I don't have any sugar. That's one of the many things we no longer have in Rebelia.”

Amazed that she could be thinking about sugar when his world had just been rocked off its foundation, he took the cup and sipped the strong, dark tea, trying desperately to rally his brain into a functioning mode.

“I just can't believe it's you,” she said, sipping her tea. “This has been planned for months. We need your help.”

“I'm here for information,” he said. “Not to help you.”

Holding her cup between her slender hands, she looked at him through the rising steam. “I'm your contact. And if you want information from me, you're going to have to earn it.”

H
aving spent the last two years in a country decimated by civil war, hunger and indiscriminate violence, Lily thought she had endured every kind of shock a human being could endure. She'd seen things she couldn't fathom. Things she refused to think of once the lights were out and she was alone in her bed. A few minutes earlier, she'd thought she could handle just about anything fate saw fit to throw her way.

She'd been wrong.

Not even the horrors of war had prepared her for seeing Robert again. She simply couldn't believe he was standing in her living room, as warm and alive as the last time she'd seen him. The night she'd hurt him terribly and then watched as he'd been cut down by shrapnel.

God in heaven, how was she going to handle this? How was she going to tell him everything that had happened since he'd left? Things that would change both their lives forever. The questions gnawed at her like voracious little beasts. Questions that terrified her more than the threat of
any bomb or soldier's bayonet or stray bullet. Questions she had absolutely no idea how to answer.

Standing next to the hearth, Robert regarded her with hard, suspicious eyes. He may look the same, she mused, but the last months had changed him. Made him hard. Maybe even bitter. She considered the bitterness in her own heart and wondered if the last months had been as hard for him as they had been for her. She didn't see how.

Still, the steely gaze that swept the length of her remained starkly familiar. The pull was still there, too, she realized, and a shiver rippled through her hard enough to make her hands shake. She endured his scrutiny with stoic silence, hoping he couldn't hear the deafening rush of blood through her veins or see her shake.

Refusing to be cowed, Lily stared at him, trying to keep her thoughts on the business at hand and failing miserably. He offered a commanding presence that unnerved her as much as the sight of any enemy soldier. Broad shoulders. Lean hips. Legs slightly bowed with muscle. He seemed taller than she remembered even though she knew that was an impossibility. He had the most fascinating face of any man she'd ever seen. Intelligence and a subtle cunning burned bright and hot behind piercing blue eyes. Laugh lines cupped a mouth that was much more harsh than it had been when she'd known him. A five-o'clock shadow darkened a square jaw that lent him a hostile countenance. Even from three feet away she could smell him, an out-of-doors scent that reminded her of mountains and rain—and a time when he'd ruled her senses as surely as he'd held her heart in the palm of his hand.

Lily cut the thought short with brutal precision. Now wasn't the time to remember how well she'd once known this man.

“You can't possibly be my contact,” he said after an excruciating minute.

“I am.” Having lost her appetite for the tea, she took it to the sink and dumped it.

“Lily, for God's sake, I thought you were dead.”

For a while, Lily had thought she'd been dead, too, only to realize that sometimes it was much more painful to be alive. The old pain roiled inside her as the memories shifted restlessly. Memories she'd refused to think of because the pain was too great. Memories that had eaten at her from the inside out for nearly two years. If it hadn't been for Jack, she wasn't sure she would have survived. Sweet, precious Jack had given her hope when the last of her hope had been all but ripped from her heart.

Gathering her frazzled nerves and the tangled remnants of her composure, she turned to face him. “As you can see, I'm very much alive.”

“I can see that. But…my God, how—”

“I was injured.” Self-conscious, she touched the scar at her temple and tried not to remember that her physical injuries had not been the worst of what she'd endured.

He stared at her with those hard eyes, and she knew the shock of seeing her was giving way to the need for an explanation. A explanation she had absolutely no idea how to relay. She'd consoled herself with anger in the weeks she'd been held captive, tried hard to convince herself that Robert had abandoned her. Some days she'd even believed it. Days when it was easier to be angry than it was to hurt.

“Why didn't you contact me?” he asked incredulously. “Why didn't you let me know you were alive?”

Because she hadn't the slightest clue how to answer him without opening a Pandora's box of pain that would change both of their lives irrevocably, she turned to rinse the cup. Stacking it neatly on the rack, she crossed to the fire to warm her hands, aware that Robert had trailed her.

“I can't discuss that right now,” she said.

He stared at her, his expression incredulous and angry. “I deserve an explanation, damn it. We were…together.”

Pulse pounding like a jackhammer, she stared at him. “It's in the past, Robert. Let it go. I've moved on. Maybe you should have, too.”

Robert felt as if he'd been slapped. “I want to know what happened.”

“No, you don't.” Because she couldn't bear to look at him and think of those terrible days, she walked into the small living area and motioned for him to take one of two chairs in front of the hearth.

Never taking his eyes from her, he started for the farthest chair, but had to cross in front of her to reach it. Feeling as if she'd suddenly strayed too close to a rogue tiger in a flimsy cage, she backed up a step, trying not to notice the way he winced when he sat down.

“You're limping,” she said, watching him closely.

“It's an old injury.”

She wondered which were worse, the injuries that left scars on flesh or the ones that left an indelible mark on the psyche and shattered the heart. “If you want to get into some dry clothes, I can hang yours near the fire.”

He looked at the sweater and jeans that clung damply to his frame. “I've got a change of clothes in the duffel.”

“You can change in the back. There's a room for you.”

Robert grabbed his duffel and slung it over his shoulder. Lily rose and walked through the kitchen to the small room that had been added to the cottage as a pantry many years ago, back when people had had food. With wood plank floors and shelves holding a meager supply of canned vegetables and fruits, it was barely large enough for the cot, let alone a man of Robert's size. But it was all she had and it was going to have to do.

He stepped into the room and set his duffel on the narrow cot. The mirror above the sink caught his stare, and their eyes met, held.

Lily felt the contact like the blast of a mortar. Looking quickly away, she stepped back. “There's no door, but Jacques put up this curtain to give you some privacy.”

“This is fine.”

“I'll just…be in the living room.”

“I'll be there in a minute.”

She wasn't sure why she hesitated. Maybe because there was so much more she needed to say. Maybe because she wasn't quite sure if he was a figment of her imagination. But she couldn't stop looking at him. By the time she realized what she was doing, it was too late for her to escape.

Never taking his eyes from hers, Robert reached for the hem of his sweater and pulled it over his head. Lily's breath stalled in her lungs as his magnificent chest loomed into view. She saw a thatch of dark hair. The ripple of muscle beneath taut flesh. Vivid blue eyes that discerned a hell of a lot more than they revealed. The sight of him shook her, and for a moment she couldn't move. She'd faced a lot of terrible things in the years she'd been in Rebelia, but oddly none of those things had unnerved her as much as the sight of Dr. Robert Davidson taking off his shirt.

“Maybe you want to stay while I change pants, too,” he said.

Feeling a hot blush burn her cheeks, she yanked the muslin curtain closed and fled.

 

Lily's heart was still beating heavily against her breast a few minutes later when Robert walked into the living area and found her at the hearth.

“Where do you want me to put my clothes?” he asked.

She turned to find him standing right behind her, his wet clothes in a bundle. He'd put on a flannel shirt over a black T-shirt. The faded jeans he wore fit him loosely, but there was no denying the sinew of his legs or the bulge of his manhood beneath.

Barely sparing him a glance, she took the clothes from him. Pulling a ring set into the wall over the hearth, she stretched the thin cord to the opposite wall and secured it to a small hook. Once the line was taut, she set about draping his jeans, shirt and jacket over the cord. She could feel his eyes on her as she worked, but she didn't dare turn to face him. She had to get herself calmed down first.

“How is it that you're here?” he asked when she'd finished.

Because she didn't feel capable of explaining something so complex at the moment, she hedged. “I could ask you the same question.”

“All right. I'm working with a group of French doctors on a humanitarian—”

She swung to face him. “That doesn't explain why you're here. In my house. I wasn't expecting an American.”

“Exactly who were you expecting?”

“Someone…who needed information. For the cause.”

“The freedom movement?”

“That's right.”

He shrugged. “You got me.”

A vague sense of uneasiness rippled through her. Robert Davidson might be a smart man, he might even be brilliant, but he'd never been a good liar. “I don't understand what part you're playing in this.”

“Maybe you don't need to know. Maybe I just want you to talk to me about what you know. About what you've been hearing.”

“Why are you here?”

“Let's just say I'm not here for the weather.” He rolled his shoulder. “I want information.”

“What kind of information?”

“You're involved with the freedom movement.” He shrugged. “Maybe you know something that could be useful.”

“Like what?”

He hit her with a direct stare. “What do you know about Bruno DeBruzkya?”

Another ripple of uneasiness went through her, only stronger this time and she fought a slow rise of panic.

When she didn't answer, he smiled, but it was a cold, hard smile. “Okay. If you don't want to talk about DeBruzkya, we can always go back to him.” He looked
around the room. “Maybe you could start by telling me what you're doing here. Why you're living here. Like this.”

The question shouldn't have startled her. She'd known he would eventually begin asking more personal questions. Risking a look at him, she found him watching her intently and felt his stare all the way to her bones.

“That's not a difficult question, is it?” he asked.

No, she thought. He wasn't asking the difficult questions yet. But she knew they were coming. And she had absolutely no idea how to answer any of them.

“I'm involved with the freedom movement. I get food and medical supplies to the sick children. The orphans. I raise money, collect food and toys and try to give them hope, let them know someone in the world cares.”

“You still working?”

“I wrote for the
Rebelian Times Press
for a while.”

“And now?”

“A few months ago DeBruzkya took control of the media, and I just couldn't do it any longer.”

“Censorship,” Robert said with distaste.

Lily nodded, feeling the same distaste all the way to her bones. “I kept writing. About the war. About the people. The children. They've all got stories to tell. Some of them are quite amazing.” She grimaced. “I didn't have an income, but by then the economy was so bad it didn't really matter. I sent pieces to the
Guardian
in London and the
New York Times.
One thing led to another, and before I knew it I had started a sort of underground newspaper.”

He cut her a sharp look. “Jesus, Lily…”

“The
Rebellion
is printed weekly. For some people, it's the only way they can find out what's going on in their own country that isn't fabricated by the government or part of DeBruzkya's propaganda.”

He stared at her intently. “DeBruzkya doesn't tolerate journalists who print the truth. He's murdered them in the past. Damn it, Lily, he's brutal—”

“He doesn't know about the
Rebellion.
”

“Lily, for God's sake, how can you be so naive?”

“I may be a lot of things,” she snapped, “but naive isn't one of them.”

Rising abruptly, Robert limped to the fire. Setting his hand against the mantel, he leaned and stared into the flames, the muscles in his jaws working angrily. “DeBruzkya is ruthless. If he wants to find you, he'll stop at nothing until he does.”

The words chilled her, but Lily didn't let herself react. She might be afraid on occasion, but she refused to live her life in fear. She refused to let it make her decisions for her. “I've been careful. I write under a pseudonym. He doesn't know I'm an American. He doesn't know where I live.”

“I don't understand how you can believe that, unless you're into denial.”

“I'm not denying anything.”

“He's a dangerous son of a bitch, Lily. Especially to the people who've crossed him.”

“I haven't crossed him.”

He cut her a hard look. “I'd say running an underground newspaper in the midst of his dirty little war qualifies as crossing him. Information in the wrong hands can be a dangerous thing to a dictator.”

“It would be a thousand times worse if I sat back and did nothing.”

For the first time the layers of anger thinned enough for her to see the raw pain beneath, and she knew his concern for her was real. The realization touched her, and she felt her emotions shift dangerously.

“Why do you do it?” he asked quietly.

For the lost ones,
she thought. “Because I have to.”

He contemplated her like an angry dog that had just been swiped by a unassuming feline. Lily stared back, wondering how he would react if he knew everything.